Wikipedia Read Aloud

Shailesh Jha is a Wikipedia entry read aloud

-Karteek

Google Squared

Google squared is something I discovered a few minutes ago but am already amazed. Google squared is a service that lets you type in a keyword like Largest Airplanes and builds a table automatically of the top ten results. The columns are decided automatically and are usually relevant.

It is full of very cool and useful features. You can add columns to the table, remove columns, sort by columns, convert units of the entries in the column to a standard unit and so on (and with Google's characteristic ease). While adding columns, the suggestions are remarkably well suited.

You should definitely try Best Web Search Engine (Surprise Surprise! There's no Bing in the top 10).

Last Bastion Of Hope

Here's my favorite quote. Its apt to remember this when the last bastion has fallen and the slide (I hope) is complete.


कौन कहता है कि रस की निर्झरी तुम्हारे बहाए नहीं बह सकती? ज़िन्दगी के फल को दोनों हाथों से निचोड़ के तो देखो.
-रामधारी सिंह 'दिनकर' (राष्ट्रकवी)


@ Shailesh Jha / Pushp Saurav: Forgive me for typos.

Sanjeev T & Rainbow Bridge @ OASIS 2009

Sanjeev T & Rainbow Bridge had interesting costumes. Here's a shot of Sanjeev T with an extra large badge on his crotch. Need I say more?

OASIS 2009: Day 0

The Inauguration of OASIS has never appealed to me (except the year when Mr Sunit Rikhi had an amazing poem to share with us).

However, today was worse when our Chief Guest Mr Rahul Bose attempted to get away with a I Have A Dream speech.

What I liked about his speech was the idea that amidst all the extravaganza, celebration and conspicuous consumption, we need to spare a thought for the underprivileged. Earlier, even Dr Raghurama, Deputy Director, BITS Pilani brought it up in his speech albeit in a much better manner.

What I didn't like was the fact that Mr Bose tried too hard to please everyone. He sounded like the jhola chaap activist who wants to fix everything in the world. Right from India-Pakistan relations to bad soaps. Everything one could possibly think of. Pretentious as Saurya put it.

OASIS 2009:Flipped

I realized I need to pass out of BITS Pilani when a day before OASIS all I could say about the gaggle of pretty girls at ANC was Its so crowded. However, I still am looking forward to a few things. 

• Mr Anurag Dutta is representing BITS Pilani in Mr. and Ms. OASIS (MAMO). 
• Sanjeev T & Rainbow bridge (unfortunately, and apparently due to Messrs. Shankar Ehsan Loy, the only rock Prof Show)
• Sunil Pal (although he doesn't have the class of Ehsaan Qureshi
• Junna (with his girlfriend!), Lokesh, Rushi and hopefully Katiyar are coming to OASIS

Best wishes to Mr. Dutta!

The Ball of Guilt

I am tired enough not to get done with my Things to Do. But, I am not tired enough to recount a peculiar incident that happened to me on a bus journey. 

I was engrossed in my book Amritsar : The Last Battle of Mrs Gandhi. I was trying to create a mental time line of the events that led to the infamous Blue Star and subsequently the assassination of Mrs Gandhi. I was brought back to the cacophony that prevailed in the bus by a tug at my elbow. 


The tug didn't beg.The tug chided. 


A young man ( displaying obscenely conspicuous signs of being a Hindu) was motioning me to scrunch and let an elderly hunchbacked man sit. I obliged. The elderly man, before he slumped onto the seat in obvious relief, asked me twice if it would not cause me any discomfit. The question caused much more discomfort than having to share the seat.

The incident touched a chord somewhere. Are we too engrossed in our academic pursuits to pay any heed to the real problems that our world faces?

But, you know what made me smile? The elderly man was a Muslim. Notwithstanding all the rhetoric RSS or Maulvis might generate, in a mofussil town there is a(n apparently) devout Hindu who chides an urban boy for not letting an elderly Muslim sit on a crowded bus.

It might be unfashionable and politically incorrect to use Hindu/Muslim as adjectives in secular societies. However, a lot of us acknowledge religion and still manage to be secular.

Un-cool

Its better to be unwanted than unvalued.

K4rt33k