0 Comments An Iconic Image for Indian Cricket

This was a common pose for Indian batsmen on bouncy pitches. A couple of days ago, it was one of the finest all-rounder of all time from South Africa. Indian cricket has indeed come a long way…


Jacques Kallis was the first batsman to fall on the fourth day as South Africa lost the Durban Test by 87 runs. The image is iconic especially if you view it in the context of the history of Indian defeats on foreign soil. Watch the video to get an even better idea…Well done Team India.

India Vs South Africa Test Series - 2nd Test. Kallis Wicket

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0 Comments IWMI-Tata Blog is now live!

The IWMI-Tata Program blog recently went online. Check it out here. The blog has been created with the objective of widely sharing the 2012 series of IWMI-Tata Highlights and Comments.

ITP Highlights and Comments pre-publications discussion papers developed primarily as the basis for discussion during the Annual Partners' Meet. In the run-up to the forthcoming Annual Partners’ Meet at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (28th-30th Nov), ITP will post more than 30 such discussion papers, 8 of which are already online.

Please visit the ITP blog for regular updates on new material posted. You can also subscribe to the blog by registering your email address on the blog or by sending an email to iwmitata@gmail.com.

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0 Comments Perils of Publishing…

This is so brilliant, I have nothing to add… Enjoy!

Journal Manuscript Resubmissions

by Roy F. Baumeister

Dear Sir, Madame, or Other:
Enclosed is our latest version of Ms # 85-02-22-RRRRR, that is, the re-re-re-revised revision of our paper. Choke on it. We have again rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish. We even changed the goddamn running head! Hopefully we have suffered enough by now to satisfy even you and your bloodthirsty reviewers.
I shall skip the usual point-by-point description of every single change we made in response to the critiques. After all, it is fairly clear that your reviewers are less interested in details of scientific procedure than in working out their personality problems and sexual frustrations by seeking some kind of demented glee in the sadistic and arbitrary exercise of tyrannical power over helpless authors like ourselves who happen to fall into their clutches. We do understand that, in view of the misanthropic psychopaths you have on your editorial board, you need to keep sending them papers, for if they weren't reviewing manuscripts they'd probably be out mugging old ladies or clubbing baby seals to death. Still, from this batch of reviewers, C was clearly the most hostile, and we request that you not ask him or her to review this revision. Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs to four or five people we suspected of being reviewer C, so if you send the manuscript back to them the review process could be unduly delayed.
Some of the reviewers' comments we couldn't do anything about. For example, if (as review C suggested) several of my recent ancestors were indeed drawn from other species, it is too late to change that. Other suggestions were implemented, however, and the paper has improved and benefited. Thus, you suggested that we shorten the manuscript by 5 pages, and we were able to accomplish this very effectively by altering the margins and printing the paper in a different font with a smaller typeface. We agree with you that the paper is much better this way.
One perplexing problem was dealing with suggestions #13-28 by Reviewer B. As you may recall (that is, if you even bother reading the reviews before doing your decision letter), that reviewer listed 16 works that he/she felt we should cite in this paper. These were on a variety of different topics, none of which had any relevance to our work that we could see. Indeed, one was an essay on the Spanish-American War from a high school literary magazine. The only common thread was that all 16 were by the same author, presumably someone whom Reviewer B greatly admires and feels should be more widely cited. To handle this, we have modified the Introduction and added, after the review of relevant literature, a subsection entitled "Review of Irrelevant Literature" that discusses these articles and also duly addresses some of the more asinine suggestions in the other reviews.
We hope that you will be pleased with this revision and will finally recognize how urgently deserving of publication this work is. If not, then you are an unscrupulous, depraved monster with no shred of human decency. You ought to be in a cage. May whatever heritage you come from be the butt of the next round of ethnic jokes. If you do accept it, however, we wish to thank you for your patience and wisdom throughout this process and to express our appreciation of your scholarly insights. To repay you, we would be happy to review some manuscripts for you; please send us the next manuscript that any of these reviewers submits to your journal.
Assuming you accept this paper, we would also like to add a footnote acknowledging your help with this manuscript and to point out that we liked the paper much better the way we originally wrote it but you held the editorial shotgun to our heads and forced us to chop, reshuffle, restate, hedge, expand, shorten, and in general convert a meaty paper into stir-fried vegetables. We couldn't, or wouldn't, have done it without your input.
Sincerely,

Source: http://astro.berkeley.edu/~mwhite/referee_funny.html

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0 Comments Google acquires BlindType

Touch typing on a small keyboard is a pain, period. This is one of the things I am afraid about. When I give up my HTC TouchDual and move to Desire, I will no longer be able to type with my Stylus (which is not easy, but easier than finger typing). But now, it seems, I might have reasons to be happy.

Google has recently acquired BlindType, an impressive new technology that recognizes the location of your fingers on the screen to accurately predict the text you want to type.

BlindType has been acquired by Google!

by BlindType team on 10/01/10

We are excited to announce that BlindType has been acquired by Google!

We want to thank everyone for their overwhelming support and positive feedback. We know that typing on your mobile device can be a frustrating experience, which is why we've worked hard to make touch typing easier and faster than ever - the way it should be.

We're excited to join Google, and look forward to the great opportunities for mobile innovation that lie ahead.

The BlindType team

You no longer have to worry about hitting the exact keys on your small touch phone keyboard. You can type anywhere on the screen as if there was a keyboard underneath and the application will figure out what you mean. You don't even have to worry about the size (scale) of your keyboard, or its orientation (see picture).  We can expect this to be available on an Android phone soon.

View the video demo…

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0 Comments Quote of the Day…(Dalai Lama)

Someone once asked the Dalai Lama

What surprises you most about humanity?

He replied

Men....because:

• They loose their health to earn money, then they lose that money to stay healthy;
• They think anxiously about the future and forget the present...so they neither enjoy the present nor the future;
• They live as if they are never going to die and die realizing that they never really lived!
  

The last one really hits you, doesn't it?

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0 Comments Lose a bet, win a job!

Apparently, Feross Aboukhadijeh, a Stanford Computer Science student, made a bet with his roommate, after Google Instant was launched, that he could create YouTube Instant in less than an hour.

Well, he lost the bet but before we went to sleep that night, he did finish YouTube Instant and posted an update on Facebook. He is now a celebrity and has been offered a job by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley on Twitter!
Courtesy: http://www.feross.org/

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0 Comments HTC Desire vs. Samsung Galaxy S

I have finally decided to let go of my HTC Touch Dual after using it for 2 years. The experience has been mostly positive though I did have some problems with the touch screen and had to get a new one about 6 months ago. Anyway…

 

With so many new phones in the market, buying a phone can be laborious. For about 2 months now, I have been waiting for the launch of HTC Desire in India and now that it is finally available, I have a problem. At the Delhi airport recently, I could lay my hands on a Samsung Galaxy S and I have to say, I was impressed. More than anything else, by the 4-inch touch screen.
A difficult choice. I re-reviewed several reviews (!!) on Engadget, Gizmodo and numerous other TechLogs…you name it and I have probably been there. I laboriously scanned through thousands of comments from users and non-users on forums (e.g.. here). I even posted a status message on Facebook and tried to get more views. At the end, here is my summary for anyone who cares:

HTC Desire	Samsung Galaxy S
Pros Spandragon 1GHz 3.7” AMOLED Screen (Already updated to) FroYo (Android 2.2) Sturdy built quality 5 MP Camera, with Flash Excellent UI (HTC Sense)	Pros Hummingbird 1GHz 4” Super AMOLED Screen Swype 8GB/16GB + 512MB Dedicated Memory Superior Gaming Experience
Cons Inferior display in bright sunlight 576MB Shared Memory Poor battery life (expected to improve with FroYo)	Cons 5 MP Camera, No Flash Plastic body; low-cost iPhone feel TouchWiz UI, not even remotely as good as HTC Sense Eclair (Android 2.1), FroYo update expected Slightly more expensive

I was always leaning towards HTC Desire, given my positive experience with HTC over the last two years. And when they announced the FroYo update for Desire, the choice was made. What do you think?

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0 Comments iPads for Peace

I have a plan for the universe and it involves iPads, mobile phones and the new Almighty…the internet! There is a lot of talk of promoting religious tolerance in these times of crisis. Lets call this my little tribute to the anniversary of 9/11.

People say Muslims need to introspect and Islam needs to reform away from fundamentalism. Why only Islam, I think every religion needs a reform that will lead it in the direction of greater tolerance. Geert Wilders is not Muslim and hell he is unbearably intolerant. The same goes for Muthalik and his band of goons, Togadia et. al. But hey, I have a solution. Some might find it ridiculous, some might find it funny, but I am serious; I really think it can work!


So here is how you do it. Gift each and every religious leader in the world an iPad (or any other tablet); force them to install instant messengers of their choice and to add each other as friends; make them open an account on Facebook; have them join an online discussion forum. Simple? Well, that is almost all I am asking for. You do this and viola, in no time, you will find this world a better place to live.

Even if they just poke each other on FB, even if they just frequently buzz each other on messenger, even if they have serious and abusive fights on the discussion forums, I think it will help. 

Want to do it even better? Make all their interactions public and throw in a few infidels (non-believers) too. Let the world see what the Rabbi had to say to the Imam when they ran into each other online. Let the world know what was the first wall post from the Shankaracharya to the Pope. And of course, let the infidels comment on their actions…just for fun! :P

Give them cell phones too, it wont cost much. Let the world pay their internet and phone bills, as long as they talk to each other, not only amongst themselves. Let them preach, as long as they don't preach only to their blind followers but also to the non-believers; let them argue as long as they are also willing to listen and to answer any question from anyone.

Make them go out for a beer (oh well, at least a Chai) and force them to hang out at TGIF every Friday evening. No, stop laughing...I am serious! :)

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