MediaVidea

Yes, we need S.O.P.A.

2012-01-24T17:26:00.001+05:30

Oh, yes, we need S.O.P.A: Stop Outrageous Political Assholes.

From an interesting conversation on Hacker News

The man who wants Facebook censored doesn't use Facebook himself

2012-01-24T17:24:00.001+05:30

Vinay Rai, the censorship crusader India doesn't need, is a journalist (edits a Weekly Urdu publication Akbari) on his 'quest' to rid online websites of 'bad stuff':

WSJ: Why didn’t you notify the social networking Web sites of the content and ask them to remove it – many sites offer such functionality?
VR: I did not deem it appropriate to approach foreign companies myself. I put my point across to the government who, in my view, is the best body to pursue this with multinationals.

and,

WSJ: How often do you visit these sites? Do you have a Facebook account?VR: I’m not too active on social media. I registered on Facebook over 2 years ago but deactivated my account a few months later. This was because my inbox was flooded with external applications, requests and games sent by unknown users via the website. Since I wasn’t too familiar with the content, I deactivated my account.

WSJ: How did you collect information from Facebook pages and groups if you weren’t a registered user?VR: Several readers of our newspaper, Akbari, alerted us to defamatory and abusive content on these social networking sites. Being a journalist, I pursued the matter. Furthermore, you don’t necessarily need to register to browse content on groups and pages on Facebook.

Via

F. Scott Fitzgerald: Things to worry about

2012-01-24T17:19:00.002+05:30

F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) wrote this letter to his daughter in 1933:

Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about:
Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Things to think about:
What am I really aiming at? How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:
(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?
With dearest love,
Daddy

Via (Lists of Note)

Where is the counter culture in India?

2012-01-10T10:11:00.002+05:30

No, Dev-D, Candle March Marches, and Rock Fests don't quite cut it. Not even Anna Hazare, who seems more and more, a sad, old man, surrounded by a cabal. In an India of surging middle class and expanding surburbia, always copying and aspiring, you see hints of counterculture on the edges - in naxalism, Irom Sharmila...

Read this great post by Sam Smith titled, 'The Post empire survival guide'. If Indian is going to be like America, we Indians might also would want to know what happened to the great American Dream. Remember the cliche, 'what goes up must come down'. From the article:

Create a counterculture. It worked in the 1960s and it work again. You don't have to be a prisoner of the dominant culture. You can help create an alternative, just as the young did in the 1960s, without money or power. And without a counterculture there will be no significant change. The Occupiers are a great start. Take it from there.

Journalist Job Interviews Hall of Fame

2012-01-09T14:33:00.001+05:30

My favorites from an excellent ongoing post at Journalism.co.uk, which is crowdsourcing memorable journalism job questions:

...was once interviewed by an editor who took a piss in his office's en-suite toilet, door ajar, still asking questions.

and this one:

'what is your management style?' could not resist saying 'Genghis Khan' got the job.

and this one:

Write your own obit, 500 words or less.

There are just so many good ones there.

Read more

The world's greatest invention? Try writing

2012-01-09T14:23:00.001+05:30

In a delightful short post on The Economist's More Intelligent Life website, Tom Standage says that civilization's best invention is writing. And I agree. Writing makes you think better. Writing makes you question things. Writing...okay, okay, over to Tom:

It is not just one of the foundations of civilisation: it underpins the steady accumulation of intellectual achievement. By capturing ideas in physical form, it allows them to travel across space and time without distortion, and thus slip the bonds of human memory and oral transmission, not to mention the whims of tyrants and the vicissitudes of history.

Blogging reduces stress in teens

2012-01-09T14:19:00.001+05:30

The American Psychological Association reports that writing in a public blog can help teens tackle social anxiety better than keeping a private diary. It also says that offering commenting and discussion space on the blog brings in support and diverse (and often positive) statements from readers.

Study found at

Social Shower curtains: Next up, Social Work Curtains

2012-01-09T14:13:00.001+05:30

Yes, how about a social work curtain? Cue image of a man intently facing the screen at work, and instead of work it is just Facebook that he is gawking at.

Found at

Kopimism: Filesharing as a religion

2012-01-09T14:09:00.001+05:30

The Church of Kopimism, which is a faith and philosophy based on file-sharing, is now an 'official' religion in Sweden. Maybe meant as a Scandinavian send-off to all the organized religions of the world, Kopimism has a main document, in which you shall find the 100 tasks you need to do to attain #g_d. From the list:

001. Obtain the Internet.
002. Start using IRC.
003. Group and birth a site.
004. Experiment with research chemicals.
005. Design a three-step program.
006. Take a powerful stance for something positive and essential.
007. Regulate nothing.
008. Say that you have to move in two weeks, but stay for seven months. Come back a year later and do it all over again.
009. ROTFLOL.
010. Relax, you’re already halfway there.
011. Just kidding.
012. Don’t think outside the box. Build a box.
013. Support support.
014. Organize and go to parties and fairs.
015. Start 30–40 blogs about the same things.
016. Drain the private sector of coders, graphic artists and literati.
017. Create a prize that is awarded.
018. Express yourself often in the media, vaguely.
019. Spread all rumors.
020. Seek out and try carding, and travel by expensive trains. Don’t order sushi.
021. Start a radio station.
022. Everything you use, you can copy and give an arbitrary name, whether it’s a news portal, search engine or public service.
023. Buy a bus.
024. Install a MegaHAL.
025. Make sure that you are really good friends with people who can use Photoshop, HTML, databases, and the like.

Via

Foxnewsification: Everyone is a troll

2011-12-23T16:31:00.003+05:30

Everyone is a troll nowadays. Including all the glorified TV News anchors forcing down or throats their biased, belligerent opinions, believing their half-assed reasons (boosted by their right connections in positions of power) are the only ones that matter. Read this essential post on 'Foxnewsification of news'. It is about American news media, but it pretty much applies everywhere else. The part that I like most:

Fox News killed the internet trolls. All of them. Or, you know, Fox News gave jobs to a few of them and legitimized the rest creating what I like to call “The Foxnewsification of mainstream media”. These days, MatrixMansplainers really mean what they are saying. Their sexism, racism, hatred, bigotry, their anger are not just argumentative tactics, they are legitimate drivers for policy making.

A checklist to see if you really are a journalist

2011-12-23T16:25:00.001+05:30

Getting a degree in journalism isn't on it, it might be interesting.

Written a 15-inch story in 30 minutes
Corrected a loved one’s grammar in a greeting card
Replaced one of the major food groups with coffee
Own your own police scanner
Eat in your car more often than you do at a table
Gotten fired/laid off for no good reason
Forgotten what it’s like to have the weekend off
Can no longer read a newspaper without scanning for typos and errors
Learned that being told to “fuck off “ and “go to hell” is part of the job
Woke in a cold sweat thinking you forgot to change the date on A1
Spend your down time coming up with the perfect lede
Slept in your car and not because you were too drunk to drive home
Found that fine line between harassment and persistence
If you needed bail, the first person you would call would be your editor
You analyze city council meetings the way sportscasters break down Monday night football
You think it’s normal to work 16 hours a day for 8 hours pay
Have conducted a phone interview while completely naked
Can write an entire interview on a cocktail napkin
Threatened to quit over an editorial decision
You couldn’t imagine doing anything else

And from the comments

You’ve every gotten into a long or heated discussion over the use of punctuation, spelling or word definitions.

Via Stuff Journalists Like

Christopher Hitchens: The man who questioned

2011-12-16T15:33:00.002+05:30

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011), the man who was at war against delusion, the man who questioned religion, and other pathologies (he wrote the book 'God is not great', a book you will wish you had read as early as possible in life) has died of esophageal cancer.

Since Hitchens did not believe in a heaven so the usual platitudes of 'rest in heaven' or 'rest in peace' won't do.

But, Hitchens would have liked it very much that we continue to question things.

We are human. We can ask questions.

Why blogs are still more important than Twitter, Facebook and all that noise-making machines

2011-11-16T18:33:00.003+05:30

In a post about how blog search engines died, giving Google blogsearch an easily-won monopoly, Doc Searls writes about howThe Near-Death of Blog Search

I hope they keep it (Google Blogsearch) going, because it's an essential resource for finding the kind of news that's syndicated live, still curates itself, and isn't just about pushing or riding whatever happens to be buzzing at the moment.

And how Twitter and Facebook have changed news (for the worse)

(Twitter and Facebook)'ve buried real news — stuff worth keeping around — under a mountain of buzz, all of which melts away after minutes, weeks or, at the most, months.

We are all in showbiz, we are all selling, we are Generation Sell

2011-11-16T18:27:00.001+05:30

Probably the best description of a society in the age of social media marketing (Twitter, Facebook), search engine optimization (Google), where our likes, shares, tweets, et all, have to mean something, have to sell something. Read it in full here.

Best part #1 (sorry for over-aggregation, but can't help it)

....we’re all in showbiz now, walking on eggshells, relentlessly tending our customer base. We’re all selling something today, because even if we aren’t literally selling something (though thanks to the Internet as well as the entrepreneurial ideal, more and more of us are), we’re always selling ourselves. We use social media to create a product — to create a brand — and the product is us. We treat ourselves like little businesses, something to be managed and promoted.

And, the best part #2:

Bands are still bands, but now they’re little businesses, as well: self-produced, self-published, self-managed. When I hear from young people who want to get off the careerist treadmill and do something meaningful, they talk, most often, about opening a restaurant. Nonprofits are still hip, but students don’t dream about joining one, they dream about starting one. In any case, what’s really hip is social entrepreneurship — companies that try to make money responsibly, then give it all away.

What Success Really Looks Like

2011-11-16T18:16:00.000+05:30

Via

How long before we make our own phones and tablets?

2011-11-16T18:13:00.001+05:30

How long before we make our own phones and tablets, using material easily available in the market? How long before we go to places like Nehru Place (Delhi) and order our phones or Tablets? In India, we get people to assemble our PCs. We pick all materials a-la-carte from the shelf . We haven't yet reached the point where everyone opts for Ubuntu. Windows XP does just fine.

Like branded PCs, Branded phones come with crap of all variety - from expensive Walled Garden (Apple), and pre-loaded crap that you can't easily uninstall (battery-draining Android-based machines from Samsung etc.), to unnecessarily expensive Windows phones on Nokia (we just need someone to make an easily installable version of Windows for DIY phones).

Recent market developments may be pointing towards such possibilities - witness, for example, the glut of Tablet PCs in the market, so much so that the literature on these machines (online) shows us where each part inside was made and how much did each cost - LCD, touchscreen, the basic board, memory cards, Android 4.0...All you need is some opportunistic wholesale buyer to flood the market with these. This will give more jobs to those kids passing out from mobile repair schools.

But, will the governments aid such a move, which threatens the cause of big business? For example, how will we deal with the necessity of authorized IMEI numbers?

Related:

Will the US Mobile Industry please open up?
Notes on the ideal cellphone

A message to the jobless of the world: Life isn't fair, but you will get through it

2011-10-27T19:38:00.002+05:30

A Hallmark card for this age.

Found at

"You didn’t cause this.
You don’t deserve this.
You simply have to get through it.
And I know you will,
Because I know you!"

Amen.

What the internet begat, Redux: Information is cheap, but meaning is expensive

2011-10-27T19:35:00.001+05:30

The search for friends on the internet may be over, but it is meaning that is more and more difficult to find.

Scientific historian George Dyson says“We live in a world where information is potentially unlimited,” where “Information is cheap, but meaning is expensive."

And that
“it is always easier to find answers than to ask the right questions”

Read here

Who is the better sharer?: Assange vs. Zuckerberg

2011-10-27T19:30:00.001+05:30

Via Undernews

Charles Bukowski on book banning: We still have among us small, bitter people, the witch-hunters and the declaimers against reality

2011-10-19T19:07:00.001+05:30

Image of Charles Bukowski's (Ham on Rye) letter to a library that banned his books.

Via BoingBoing

Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Telcos, and the Credit card company: Who will free us from the six horsemen of the consumeropocalypse?

2011-10-19T14:23:00.002+05:30

The first four horsemen of our ultramodern 'consumeropocalypse' are:
1. Apple - gadget culture, cult of we-are-cool-you-aren't, Foxconn sweatshops/suicides, versions after versions, must buy newest version, walled garden)
2. Google - pseudo-organizing the world's information, more Google products listed in search results than ever before, precedence to spammy aggregators like Huffington Post, copying newer online successes all the time, Google+ social networking, Android - more people use mobile phones, more people search Google
3. Facebook - where all our time goes nowadays, oversharing by people, timewasters as Facebook's main product, copying newer online successes all the time, soylent green 2.0
4. Amazon - cloud data service, digital media, book publishing, kindle, superstore...

Farhad Manjoo writes about these big four.

Then, there are two more:

5. The telcos, the wireless companies, the ISPs - gatekeepers, anti-net neutrality
6. The credit-card company - damn, no one gets big by telling us not to buy, buy, buy, and we are drowning in the all the fine print

Between these extremes of consumerocracy, we are all fucked. And, the scariest part:

The best tech companies stay at their peak for a decade at most. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have the potential to be exceptions.

Whatever the future will look like (I like Clifford Stoll's idea that the future is not being about what tools we will be using, but to know the future, ask the kindergarten teacher), it increasingly looks like we will end our lives as serfs of these big four/six.

Medium Cool 2.0: Or, how much the world (don't really) needs Apple

2011-10-19T14:05:00.001+05:30

Found Via

A Journalism idea reconsidered: Nutrition labels for news

2011-10-12T18:44:00.001+05:30

Helping readers gauge trustworthiness of news articles is an idea often pursued by the idealist types whenever we reach a stage of 'this is too much'. Last year, I wrote about 'Digg for Journalism warning labels', where I mentioned some exciting news labelling projects - Tom Scott's Print labels and Newscrud project by Eric Donovan.

The idea is being explored again in 2011 by Clay Johnson.

Via What If We Had a Nutrition Label for the News?

Those were the days (The Jobs and Gates show)

2011-10-06T16:04:00.001+05:30

R.I.P. Steve Jobs. The world was a better place with you in it.

Also read this: Finding the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the web 2.0 era
Honestpage: 10 things Steve Jobs will be most famous for

The best way to get more people to read books

2011-09-30T11:22:00.001+05:30

This is the peerless John Waters on books.

Found Via

Elizabeth Warren: There is nobody who got rich on his own. Nobody

2011-09-23T18:46:00.002+05:30

Elizabeth Warren is the law professor who earned everyone's praise for her performance as the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the U.S. banking bailout (formally known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program). Now she is a United States Senate candidate.

Here's her socio-economic lesson for those who called Pres. Barack Obama’s proposed new tax increases for the rich (up from 35% to 39%) as “class warfare”.

I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.' No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.
You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.
Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

A good education for the 'cult of self-made' so popular nowadays.

R.I.P.: Michael Hart, Inventor of ebooks, Founder of Project Gutenberg

2011-09-08T19:06:00.001+05:30

Michael Hart, who invented the ebook (then called in full, as electronic books) and founded the Project Gutenberg has died at the age of 64. What Wikipedia is to the availability of free knowledge, Project Gutenberg is to the availability of free ebooks. It does so by digitizing all the books in the public domain and making them available for distribution. Project Gutenberg has 36000 books in its collection so far.

This is what Michael Hart said about ebooks in July this year:

One thing about eBooks that most people haven't thought much is that eBooks are the very first thing that we're all able to have as much as we want other than air. Think about that for a moment and you realize we are in the right job."

His obituary

Will the Arab Spring turn into an Arab Winter?

2011-09-06T14:22:00.001+05:30

I know most of the countries in the chart above are outside the immediate Arab world, but case for a similar reality in the lands that have seen the 'spring' this year still stands.
Chart via

How to lessen the load in Indian courts and speed up justice: the idea of neighboring courts

2011-05-10T15:09:00.001+05:30

San Francisco has introduced the concept of neighborhood courts to handle cases related to low-level, nonviolent crimes. Under the plan, the accused person will be given the option of going to "neighborhood court," where he/she could see his/her case dealt within two weeks of getting caught.

More on how it works:

...if someone is written up for graffiti, he or she can admit guilt and tell their story to a panel of people living in the community with the new artwork. The panel of volunteers would then give the violator a "restorative justice" assignment, such as cleaning up graffiti. After the walls have been cleared, so will the person's record of that particular offense. The entire process can take just two weeks, said a neighborhood prosecutor, and should cost $300 per crime—just a fifth of the price tag for putting someone through the criminal court system.

It is similar to what the Gram panchayats were supposed to do instead of handing out lucrative contracts. This can also be introduced in every colony in the cities. This can also be a useful crime-prevention idea if implemented honestly.

The world's most powerful brand is the least useful (and how useless most rankings really are)

2011-05-10T15:02:00.003+05:30

Most rankings are only guestimates based on favorites of a very small focus group. But when one such ranking, world's most powerful brands, ranked Google as the number 1, we sort of agreed. Because no other internet service/major brand today is as useful as Google. Whether you were a poor student in Patna or a fashion designer in Paris, Google was your guide to information and actionable intelligence.

Now Apple is at the top of the list Top 100 global brands. But what use is Apple to most of the world? It is the least useful globally.

And, what exactly does being powerful mean? Other than the fact that Apple is able to influence the influencers through various subliminal means, what other power are we talking about here?

In comparison, even evil Microsoft is better than Apple. Just ask all those users of Win XP Service Pack 2 (free, pirated editions) worldwide. What good is a piece of technology if it can't be copied? There, I said it.

So, what explains the rise of Apple? Is it only the rise of mobile devices and shiny tablets? In many ways, the state of the IT industry is similar to the early decades of automobiles, but the difference here is that everyoene is touting everyone else should buy the latest Mercedes Benz and not Model T (and drive only on roads approved by Mercedes).

Apple the brand is symptomatioc of today's Hyper-consumerism, where 'a son attacks his mom for drinking his starbucks'.

The "greatest of all Internet laws" turns 15 this year

2011-05-10T14:44:00.001+05:30

“Section 230”, or the Telecommunications Act of 1996: 47 U.S.C. §230, turns 15 this year. This is the obscure provision that protects internet computer services (websites, social sharing websites, etc.) from being sued for containing stuff that site users put in. Thus the praise, the "greatest of all Internet laws".

Seth Godin's High School Curriculum

2011-05-10T14:40:00.001+05:30

A list of things Seth Godin wants high schoolers to learn (my favorite is at the bottom of the list):

1. How to focus intently on a problem until it's solved.
2. The benefit of postponing short-term satisfaction in exchange for long-term success.
3. How to read critically.
4. The power of being able to lead groups of peers without receiving clear delegated authority.
5. An understanding of the extraordinary power of the scientific method, in just about any situation or endeavor.
6. How to persuasively present ideas in multiple forms, especially in writing and before a group.
7. Project management. Self-management and the management of ideas, projects and people.
8. Personal finance. Understanding the truth about money and debt and leverage.
9. An insatiable desire (and the ability) to learn more. Forever.
10. Most of all, the self-reliance that comes from understanding that relentless hard work can be applied to solve problems worth solving.

How young people can achieve true happiness: Every course you take should be about who you are going to marry

2011-05-10T14:35:00.001+05:30

New York Times columnist and author David Brooks has just written 'The Social Animal: A Story of How Success Happens', where he says that ' the path our lives take is for the most part decided by inner workings over which we have little control. Or little control until now.'

His advice for young people seeking happiness in life:

I tell university students that every course they take should be about who they are going to marry,...They should read novels about marriage. They should study the neuroscience and psychology of marriage. Universities should offer one course after another in marriage. But our institutions are structured based on this false view of human nature, so they emphasise the professional skills, which are important, but they underemphasise the things that seem soft and squishy and frankly unmanly.

Is Meritocracy a sham?: What happens after you get into an IIT/IIM or beyond

2011-05-10T14:31:00.001+05:30

So, you got "coached". Passed the entrance exams. Got yourself on the path to a secure life ahead. But, what do you actually contribute to society? Do you live up to the reputation of how "brainy" you are?

I often hear stories about arrogant IITians in companies who treat students from lesser institutes (as well as people with experience) with disdain, doing little work, bossing over others, and obsessing over EMIs and latest consumer aspirations. Same goes for IIM type people. I wonder how many of these stories are true.

Is this all what the IIT/IIM dream was about? Becoming rabid consumers? Is Meritocracy a sham? Nothing but fancy-word, poster art for the aspirational middle class?

Relevant Read: What becomes of Asian-American overachievers after the test-taking ends?

Who is Linkedin most useful to?: Not us, for sure

2011-05-10T14:19:00.001+05:30

I think LinkedIn.com is more useful to companies and recruiters than actual workers. I have been a member of this so-called 'focused' vertical social network for some time, and so far no benefit.

Random notes on what I think about LinkedIn:

1. Most of the LinkedIn updates I receive in my email concerns past colleagues who have moved into HR (whose bread and butter depends upon making connections) or people who do more socializing than actual work ('I have more attestations than you' kind of socializing). These people love to 'pass time.'

2. Like other focused social networks, your success with that network depends on the amount of time you are willing to spend on that network - attesting others, gathering friends, building groups, answering questions, and so on. Putting in more hours at work would have helped you better.

3. Isn't Linkedin a sort of glorifed Job portal with alleged social features, smartly getting users to all the heavy work? Imagine a normal job portal spamming you to do this and that on the site.

4. Like a good job portal, LinkedIn is now making money via listings etc., the same way that job portals do. But still, I can't understand how LinkedIn IPO shares are priced at 'tech bubble like' $32-$35 per share.

Think about it: When was the last time you receive a job offer via LinkedIn?

Is Facebook dying?: A prologue

2011-05-03T12:05:00.007+05:30

The truth of a Facebook news feed

We know old people send the young to war for their benefit. We should also know that as websites get older, they will use all kinds of tricks to make money from their traditionally young users. When Julian Assange calls Facebook a 'spying machine', he is simple stating the truth.

Ryan O'Connell writes, 'Is Facebook over?'. He explains:

Like Myspace and Friendster before it, Facebook might be approaching its social network sell-by date. The redesign is shitty, the photo albums are structured in such a way that makes lurking less fun, and the people who were the original users are growing up and feeling more mature on Twitter.

To paraphrase someone: "No one went bankrupt underestimating the stupidity of young people."

Ryan ends with this thought:

Who knows though? Maybe Facebook is going to last forever. Maybe a new generation of kids will always take solace in a website that allows you to “poke” people.

The above graphic is from a Tumblr blog, found via Ryan. Click on it for a larger view.

There is much truth in it. It says what I have been wanting to say about the activity on my Facebook news feed for a long time now - lots of people with lots of spare time, idling away in their boring jobs, trying to justify the banalities of modern life through shares, pokes and spam.

Boring lives lead to boring newsfeeds. And, when we have had enough of this boring shit, we will know Facebook is dying.

At last, Osama did something good

2011-05-03T11:50:00.001+05:30

Jon Stewart put it best: "...the targeted killing of another human being is a debatable thing." However, in an ironical twist of fate, Osama Bin Laden did a good thing while being dead. He put the despairingly disgusting noise over the Royal marriage in shade.

Read this Gawker post titled, Five News Stories That Osama bin Laden’s Death Ruined

Actually, we probably owe OBL a big thank you, because he closed the media scrap book on this one for good.

Book literacy in India

2011-04-26T14:54:00.001+05:30

We have plenty of colleges and universities in India. But, not enough, considering our population. A look at some numbers:

20 central universities.
215 state universities.
100 deemed universities.
5 institutions established and functioning under the State Act.
13 institutes of national importance.
16000 colleges (including 1800 exclusive women's colleges), affiliated to these universities and institutions.
1522+ degree-granting engineering colleges in India, who take in 582,000 new students each year.
1,244 polytechnics who take in 265,000 each year.

These educational institutions are churning graduates by the millions. But, how many of these people actually read books? Let's see what's happening in the U.S. Below are some facts about literacy in the U.S.:

42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

I think the corresponding Indian numbers would be more disheartening.

How Godmen Fail: They are not able to change the nature of their devotess, especially that of powerful people

2011-04-25T17:20:00.002+05:30

This is from the best analysis of Satya Sai Baba's legacy, where the writer argues and convinces me that Sai Baba’s teachings didn't touch his Trustees. You can take this idea forward and say that all these high and mighty people who go to see Godmen (and women) such as Sai Baba, do not change their. Or else, the world would have been a better place.

If a senior IAs officer stopped taking bribes after becoming a devotee, India gains. But this hasn't seemed to happen.

Samplings of what Satya Sai Baba's trustees have done:

Power-drunk trustee thinks Sai Baba is above the law: When six boys were shot dead in Sai Baba’s residential area, the statement made by Indulal Shah was, “The matter is purely internal and we do not wish to have any law enforcement agency investigating into it!!!”

Trustees want to censor information: There is so much distrust among the Trustees that electricity was cut off in Puttaparthi so people would not watch a particular programme on a particular channel relayed only by a particular cable operator as the programme being telecast was particularly critical of the Trustees.

Then the writer asks,

We also ask, why don’t godmen, who claim to have telepathic abilities, communicate or visit their political and bureaucratic devotees in their dreams and tell them that they have to stop being corrupt and sadistic? Is it because all these acts are not miracles but well-executed stage shows?

and

... However, they will win us over completely only when they can change the character of their devotees, especially the high and mighty ones.

The #1 problem with the Apple vs. Win and all other kinds of consumer fanboys and fangirls: The rise of consumer fascism

2011-04-25T17:05:00.003+05:30

There is indeed such as thing as a sane person. There is no such thing as a Mac person, or a PC person. Or a Facebook person or Twitter person. Doesn't it all sound fascist? I use an Apple computer. So, I must be a better person than others who don't use Apple computers.

Recently, Hunch.com, a site I don't know what it does, but it has been around for while, surveyed its users on the popular rant-generating topic of Apple vs.Windows users and somehow came to the conclusion that Apple users are more liberal than Windows users. It is 100%B.S. I guess someone inferred the results by analyzing the great people from all those "think different" ads.

Comparisons, especially concerning 'who buys what and what does that mean', are distasteful, waste sinks of time, and shallow as well.

What is wrong with cults? In brief:
1. Consumer cults such as Apple and followers of sports clubs exhibit illiberal tendencies.
Rephrasing Agent Smith: Cults are the disease of modern consumerist life. Self-importance is only a step away from fascism.

How? You ask. In his last book, Kingdom Come (2006), JG Ballard, wrote about consumerism being equal to fascism. This book review is from the Observer:

Ballard's central idea is that consumerism slides into fascism when politics simply gives the punters what they want, becoming a matter of consumer-style choices...

2. Being in an Apple cult is the heights of irony.

A Hacker News commenter said some time back about the Apple fanboys:

Mac fanboys are like the Goth kids of the adult world - they profess individual expression, but all act and dress the same.

It's amusing that a group that touts themselves as valuing individuality and creativity all use the same restrictive devices with very little choice.

Did Alexander have a written mission statement?

2011-04-22T18:05:00.000+05:30

Graph from Google's NGram Viewer shows the rise of the phrase 'mission statement'. Evil lurks among us. It is making us into latent fascists. It is called business buzzword.

Did Alexander, Abraham Lincoln or Gandhi have a mission statement?

Graph via Undernews

Unsuck it: Delivering us from the scourge of business buzzwords

2011-04-22T18:00:00.002+05:30

Unsuck It is the new website that translates lofty and deliberately obtuse words favored by the business types.

The above screenshot shows the translation for the word 'boilerplate', and gives a pithy summary of the total work output of genre/formula directors such as JJ Abrams.

Unsuck-it Link via

Swami Agnivesh to Barkha Dutt: Practice what you preach

2011-04-22T17:54:00.001+05:30

I have stopped watching NDTV 24*7 for quite a long time now. Like other English news channels in India, NDTV 24*7 is just a hangout place power brokers, lobbyists, and assorted self-important carnies. On the other hand, NDTV India Hindi channel is good. It has three good people - Abhigyan, Ravish and Pankaj, as well as the always-wonderful Vinod Dua, who focus on news and analysis, and not on martketing themselves.

So, this news item about when social activist Swami Agnivesh gets Barkha Dutt to shut up is from another source. When Barkha, the 'star anchor' ('star columnist' and 'star investigative reporter' I get, but 'star-anchor'?) tries to go preacher-mode about the presence of the father-son duo of Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan as the s civil society representatives on the Lokpal drafting committee, it goes like this:

Barkha Dutt asks,

“Swami Agnivesh… you will see that the number of people who had to resign from public office—and many people believe this is a good thing—just because of suspicion or allegations or accusations, I mean, from Shashi Tharoor to Ashok Chavan to Sharad Pawar, there are so many different examples where legally, the allegation has not been proven, but even before the trial has begun, these politicians have stepped aside. Now some people are making the argument that those drafting the Lokpal bill must do the same. How do you respond? Do you believe the same standard must be applied as they are applied to politicians?”

Swami Agnivesh replies,

“Well, Barkhaji, let me put it to you this way. Supposing there is an accusation of corruption on some mediaperson who is an anchor of a very famous TV channel, and if that person is initiating debate after debate on corruption and such [a] person is asked, first get yourself cleared of all these allegations and then only you will have a moral right to start or initiate a debate on corruption, should that person step down? What would be your answer?”?

Students to Apple-Hawking Journalism School: Don’t make us buy iPads (or any other Apple product)

2011-04-22T17:40:00.001+05:30

It is not only art directors for movies and TV shows that fall prey to Apple's subliminal selling push. Apple targets schools with a vengeance, adding further cost to the already expensive education, education which may or may not be fruitful in the long run. Now, students of the the Missouri School of Journalism have spoken against the school's directive to buy an iPad before they sit in a class.

The students write,

Leave it up to the student to decide if they’d rather record an interview on a new iPod touch or a simple tape recorder. Massive, general technological requirements do little for productivity, considering they are rarely utilized, if at all.

And,

We strongly urge the J school to stop requiring new technologies for their students, especially when they haven’t even found useful ways to utilize the current ones, like the iPod touch.

And, then this,

...They aren’t even friendly recommendations — they’re endorsements.

Considering the effect of the internet on religion (and the effect of religion on internet)

2011-04-19T14:49:00.005+05:30

Everybody asks, "What effect has the internet had on religion?", but nobody asks what effect has religion had on the internet.

The general explanation for the effect of the internet on religion is something like what Professor Heidi Campbell, author of 'When Religion Meets New Media' explains,

"The distinctions and differences (between religions) are amplified online."

That about sums it up. But, what about the effect of religion on the internet? For example, is religious conservatism linked to the Internet-Controlling measures such as Net Neutrality, Net Censorships, and such? Or, are we talking about a different kind of religion here? The religion of power?

Or, is the cult of Apple online affected by the cult of Scientology? The cult of Scientology, as you know, is a like a multi-level-marketing program where a member's worth is increased by the number of people he brings in to the fold. Similarly, having once purchased a needlessly expensive gadget, which puts limits to your extent of using it, the buyer is compelled to promote the cult of Apple, as there is no other way he could justify his excessive spending in today's times of economic turmoil.

The problem with this world: The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads

2011-04-18T13:59:00.003+05:30

Jeff Hammerbacher is one of the first 100 hires (he joined in 2006) at the Social media company of the moment, Facebook. He is now something called a research scientist over there. For a moment, you think, 'wow, a research scientist! He must be doing something to eradicate malnutrition among poor kids, creating highly nutritious Rs.1 protein bars, or something like that."

What Jeff actually does is to analyze behaviors of users. However, he is honest enough to acknowledge that he isn't doing any thing special.

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads" .

British street artist Banksy once said, 'The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people...'.

The most talented people are making us click on ads and buy stuff. That is all they do. That is their purpose in being talented. They are talented.
And you wonder why the world is as it is.

Jerry Seinfeld on the Royal Wedding: Let's pretend that these are special people

2011-04-17T13:14:00.002+05:30

Jerry Seinfeld, famous for the greatest TV comdey show of all time, "Seinfeld", says what many of us have been thinking: What makes the royals in England special? In this age of elected democracies, the royals are an aberration. The royals are not even famous (or semi-famous/15-seconds-famous) TV/movie celebrities.

The Daily Mail reports of a TV interview, in which Jerry spoke out against the 'circus act':

Seinfeld added about the royal event, "You know, it's a dress-up. It's a classic English thing of 'let's play dress-up. Let's pretend that these are special people.' OK, we'll all pretend that -- that's what theater is."

Annals of Internet Blocking, India Edition

2011-04-17T13:02:00.001+05:30

A list of links the Department of Information Technology (DIT) in India has had blocked, as published by CIS India. Please note that DIT denies having issued any such order.

(a) www.zone.h.org (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(b) http://donotdial100.webs.com (IP 216.52.115.50) (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(c) www.bloggernews.net/124029 (ED: Criticising Zone-H. Looks like a censorship/Freedom of speech issue. Works on MTNL, Delhi)
(d) http://www.google.co.in/#h1=en&source=hp&biw=1276&bih=843&=dr+babasaheb+ambedkar+wallpaper&aq=4&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=dr+babas&gs_rfai=&fp=e791fe993fa412ba (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(e) http://www.cinemahd.net/desktop-enhancements/wallpaper/23945-wallpapers-beautiful-girl-wallpaper.html (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(f) http://www.chakpak.com/find/images/kamasutra-hindi-movie (is a Canaan Partners funded website; page blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(g) http://www.submitlink.khatana.net/2010/09/jennifer-stano-is-engaged-to.html (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(h) http://www.result.khatana.net/2010/11/im-no-panty-girl-yana-gupta-wardrobe.html (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(i) http://www.facebook.com/pages/l-Hate-Ambedkar/172025102828076 (ED: Redirects to Facebook homepage)
(j) www.indybay.org (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)
(k) www.arizona.indymedia.org (ED: Blocked by MTNL Delhi)

If you suspect any link is being blocked by your ISP, file in a Right to Information (RTI) application with DIT. Keep in mind that often some vested interest (most commonly, a business that does not like its criticism on another site - for example, Zone-H above) has moved ahead and put in a complaint, and the easiest thing the government can do is block the link.

Link thanks to Nikhil Pahwa

How Corrupt India's Higher Education System Really Is

2011-04-17T12:56:00.001+05:30

Notes from an excellent article on the state of India's corrupt Higher Education system, and from an overview at Nanopolitan:

1. 30% of all Indian students pay bribes to get into colleges after having failed entrance exams. (Figure may be higher at colleges with the so-called 'management quota'.
2. Fees at a typical tech institute are 3 times that of those at an IIT.
3. At many colleges, you can get test papers for a price.
4. At many colleges, you can bribe to get better marks in the internal exams.
5. At many colleges, you can bribe the lab people to meet your quota of lab attendance.
6. Most Indian institutes and universities have to pay bribes to get the desired accredition from AICTE, MCI, and others.
7. In 2010, some IIT Kharagpur Professors were found to be running their own private college on the side, called the Institution of Electrical Engineers (India).

Also read: Does India really need more colleges and universities?
Do we need more MBAs?
How to improve education in India: A proposal

Bob Woodward on the News bubble: There’s too much emphasis on speed and feeding the impatience people have

2011-04-17T12:39:00.001+05:30

Bob Woodward, of 'All the President's Men' fame, says to a gathering of journalism students that there is a severe “news bubble” developing in forms of Gawker.com-type page-view-led blogging or AOL-type mass profit-led newswriting, all of which make 'authentic journalism' difficult to support:

“I think there’s too much emphasis on speed and feeding the impatience people have. … In many ways, journalism is not often enough up to the task of dealing with the dangerous and fragile nature of the world, or the community, or anything you might try to understand. [The world requires] high quality, probing journalism. And there’s just not been enough of it.”

AOL way is not the only way. A writer explains the importance of great news stories, and of long-form journalism at a Rolling Stone/Long Reads panel:

A great story is a great story. The platform matters but it’s not the most important thing, ...The important thing is the story can’t be bland and it can’t suck. If something is great, people will want to read it, and they’ll read it whether it’s on the Web or in the magazine.

New Genre flourishes - Sucking up to Media Overlords such as Ariana Huffington

2011-04-17T11:14:00.001+05:30

A writer for the popular Cinematical blog writes about being fired, as part of the overhaul of HuffPost-AOL combine. He explains the main reason why AOL bought Huff Post:

As it turns out, not paying people is what had attracted AOL to Huffington in the first place. “Tell us more about this ‘not paying people’ system,” AOL said, intrigued.

Huff Post's PR Company-in-news-disguise is open to all. People question how long will Huff Post continue to attract writers for free. But still, some continue to frame this story as 'The war against aggregators' or 'People resent Ariana'. For example, one commentator's response to the above article about a writer of a popular blog being fired is:

New genre flourishes: Arianna resentment porn.

See, some people just won't accept criticism of Ariana.

Let's call this, ' New Genre flourishes - Sucking up to Media Overlords such as Ariana Huffington'. Actually, it is old genre, quite popular in the old media arena. But, old media or new media, as far as power games are concerned, it the same thing in a new bottle.

The Apocalypse Now Times: Handwritten Newspapers From Ravaged Japan

2011-04-15T14:15:00.002+05:30

Proof that newspapers will survive, even during apocalypses. Newseum has this story about reporters in Tsunami-hit Japan creating handwritten newspapers for 6 days, while the power was gone:

For six consecutive days after the twin disasters, reporters used flashlights and marker pens to write their stories on poster-size paper and posted the "newspapers" at the entrances of relief centers around the city. Six staff members collected stories, while three spent an hour and a half each day writing the newspapers by hand.

You used to find hand-drawn newspapers, created by poor kids, pasted on the pillars of Inner Circle in Connaught Place.

Getting students to create 4 - page handwritten newspapers, and spreading them with photocopies, can be an excellent way to teach news writing.

There will be no mobile towers in an apocalypse.

Another Reason Why Huff Post is Not the Kind of News Provider we Want

2011-04-15T14:09:00.002+05:30

That Huff Post is a mega-blog masquerading as an aggregator is well known. That it is glorified PR company pushing itself as a provider of 'original' news is another fact that Techmeme/Mediagzer-type bloggers routinely gloss over, using fancy analogies and cute terms.

Diana Ravitch recently wrote in the Washington Post about Michelle Rhee, who champions business interests in the education sector. Michelle Rhee also has a page on Huff Post, using which she pushes her agenda.

From Ravitch's story:

The most chilling episode in Richard Whitmire’s biography of Michelle Rhee occurs near the end, when Rhee says to a PBS camera crew, “I’m going to fire somebody in a little while. Do you want to see that?” Of course they did, and they taped the chancellor of the District of Columbia public schools firing a principal.

Think about it: Would the New York Times put out pages for every major personality, from Gaddafi to Kim Kardashain, all pushing their personal agendas?

What sort of News is this? This is almost like paid news in disguise.
You want conversation, go to Twitter.or, integrate Twitter, Facebook, or Disqus.

Ravitch story via Undernews

What are the changes you made in your life and never look back?

2011-04-14T14:47:00.001+05:30

From a great conversation on Hacker News about 'What are the changes you made in your life and never look back?": (headings in bold are mine)

Social Status:

Husband => No husband
Affluenza => Spartanism
Car => No car

Self Improvement:

Whining ---------------------------> Fixing
Asking for permission -------------> Asking for Forgiveness (Professionally)
Gaming as a hobby -----------------> Learning as a hobby
Working hard ----------------------> Working smart
Speculation -----------------------> Communication
Competition -----------------------> Cooperation

Dorothy Parker Quote of the Day

2011-04-14T14:44:00.003+05:30

“I prefer the company of younger men. Their stories are shorter.”

Via

The Ethics of Voting: Vote only for things you justifiably believe would promote the common good

2011-04-14T14:42:00.000+05:30

In his book "The Ethics of Voting", Jason Brennan says, "There is no duty to vote.". He explains:

There's no duty to vote, but if you do vote, you have a duty to vote "only for things [you] justifiably believe would promote the common good."

Moreover,

As a citizen, you do not owe it to others to provide them with the best possible governance. But if you take on the office of voter, you acquire additional moral responsibilities, just as you would were you to become the Federal Reserve chairperson, a physician, or a congressperson. The electorate decides who governs. Sometimes they decide policy directly. They owe it to the governed to provide what they justifiably believe or ought to believe is the best governance, just as others with political power owe it to the governed to do the same.

Read this in conjuntion with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's 'vote or face action' law. Modi says similar laws are being implemented in 32 countries.

Book summary via Bryan Caplan

Judge the judges

2011-04-13T19:13:00.001+05:30

Flickr users critique a photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson:

so small
so blurry
to better show a sense of movement SOMETHING has to be in sharp focus

A Yahoo Answers user posts the first page of Late David Foster Wallace's doorstopper "Infinite Jest". The work of one of the seminal writers of recent times doesn't impress any user.

No discernible voice/tone in this writing. Rambling descriptions. I, frankly, do not care where each and every person is seated. I don't care what shoe you're wearing. If you take out all the unnecessary details, you'd be left with about seven words.

Idea: Put up first pages of 100 most influential books online and see what users say.

Thanks to Jason Kottke

The Problem with Literature Today: Too Many Me-too, Style-Savvy Writers, and Too Few Experiences worth sharing

2011-04-09T15:46:00.003+05:30

Jessa Crispin explains why most books today 'disappear as quickly as they are released, unable to cut through all the noise': The whole system today is not merit-based. MFA programs produce the kind of writers, who are unable to sound any different from the other - all are going after the same style-rich, content-poor output.

Some who do manage to stand out may just be 'lucky', or 'well-connected'.

Jessa writes,

...Who gets in that rarefied space is still determined by the writer’s gender, connections, beauty, nepotism, youth, or “platform.” Not even the most idealistic among the cultural critics bother to argue that the system is merit-based.

Where are writers like Vaclav Havel or Milan Kundera?

...(these writers) put themselves at great risk, facing jail and exile, to break through the anonymity. They led revolutions and then nations. They faced their time’s great evil with humor and an unwavering stare, and through that created works of great beauty.

A Tale of Two Roads in India: Demographic Nightmare, Not Demographic Dividend

2011-04-08T14:35:00.002+05:30

What's an 'unskilled, underutilised, frustrated young population' to do? There are two roads for the young of India. The first road is is the one taken by Gandhi and Democracy. It is a long road. There are many false ends and mirages. On this road, the people who have had a head start, will reap the most benefits - rich people, powerful people and the dynasties.

The restless young is tiring of all this mess. All this inequality and hypocrisy is making them scream inside.They know the Anna Hazare fast has been hijacked by the Media, the opportunists and the pretentious. They have been to the Jantar Mantar and they have seen the circus.

They know it is impossible to make politicians and bureaucrats accountable and responsible. They know they don't have the means to win over money power in politics. They know their ashes will be down at the sea floor before any bureaucrat is actually sent to jail for his crimes.

Which brings us to the second road. This road is not pretty. We got to this road during the bloody French revolution. And the Russian revolution.

Blood flows on the streets. Sanity takes a holiday. Evil takes over. It is not a good time to be on anybody's hate list. It is a great time for future storytellers.

This second road will be the bloody, immortal epitaph for a generation that can have no other claim to history in these aspirational, consumerist age.

We will never have so many young Indians alive ever.

Also read:
Home Ministry Fears Young India: Bad governance and too many expectations will lead to violence

Is the Hasan Ali scam story a fake?: Rs. 3.25 crore, Not Rs. 36,000 crore

2011-04-08T14:12:00.000+05:30

Tehelka examines the Hasan Ali documents and finds that the whole story might just be a fake. A hoax, if you will.

Here is a man the nation believes is responsible for a black money and hawala racket worth a whopping Rs 36,000 crore. But a massive international inquiry has turned up nothing substantial on him except transactions totalling Rs 3.25 crore. A key UBS official says Swiss bankers have a phrase for Hasan Ali Khan type operations: they call it “hot air business”.

How the trend of comic book superhero and fantasy films hurts literature

2011-04-08T14:08:00.001+05:30

In one way, Hollywood is becoming more and more like Bollywood. Bollywood's bad films are the dominant form of literature for most Indians. Similarly, Hollywood's incessant supply of comic book superheroes and fantasy films may be hurting the cause of good literature in America. You can call the first decade of 21st century the Comics/Fantasy decade.

Canadian actress Neve Campbell, of the "Scream" series and "Wild Things" fame, says in an interview with The Guardian:

There's not a whole lot of courage from the studios,...It's actually very sad where movies, and the studios, are at the moment. Every single comic, every book, is being made into a film. Do you know an author pitching a book nowadays is asked to consider whether there's a possibility of making a film from it? So films are even starting to limit the kinds of books we'll be able to read.

Tahrir Square, Part 2: Egyptians not happy with the harsh anti-people policies of the Post-Mubarak ilitary junta

2011-04-08T14:00:00.000+05:30

From a report about the protests against the harsh measures of the Military Junta headed by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, as well as Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, who are using military courts to punish demonstrators:

In recent weeks, the new regime has increasingly demonstrated that it is just as hostile to the Egyptian people’s democratic and social rights as was the ex-dictator, Hosni Mubarak, throughout his 30-year rule. Under Tantawi’s leadership, the military on March 23 banned all strikes and protests that interfere with the economy or public life, imposing draconian punishment for those who defy the law. The emergency laws—in force in Egypt since 1967 except for a short period prior to the assassination of Anwar Sadat—will remain in place.

Study says Facebook Pages Less Effective than Search Ads and Email Newsletters for Most Businesses

2011-04-08T13:52:00.000+05:30

Other than businesses which involve constant engagement with regular customers (cafes, restaurants, fashion items etc.), it seems most other businesses do not find Facebook Pages that useful to drum up business. A new study by Forrester says that Facebook Presence is less effective than search advertisements or email newsletters.

Basically, users did not expect to get that much amount of Spam in their newsfeed (and email) by 'Liking' the corporate pages on Facebook.

A New Age Beckons: Forget Google, Do Your Own Thing

2011-04-07T12:54:00.000+05:30

Time to find a new path. Time to forget what Google, Twitter, and Facebook have done. Time to forge a new age.

Poster via Hugh Mcloed

German Cows Can Jump

2011-04-07T12:50:00.000+05:30

The Guardian writes about a German teenager Regina Mayer who rides her cow like it was a horse.

The Satisfied Heart, Part2: Newspaper Front Pages After the Win

2011-04-07T12:47:00.000+05:30

Via Churimuri

The Satisfied Heart, Part1: Inside the Mind of the Aggressive Indian Cricket Fan

2011-04-07T12:45:00.000+05:30

Writing for ESPN.com, Wright Thompson explores the aggressive nature of the Indian cricket fan:

...It's now something which Indians see that this is what we have to do to assert our place in the world. We've been f---ed over for thousands of years. Everyone has conquered us. Now we're finding our voice. We're the fastest-growing economy in the world. We are going to buy your companies. Our cricket team is like going to f---ing abuse you back, and we're going to win and we're going to shout in your face after we win. People love that.

Via Kottke

Save the soul of online news: Don't let Huff Post kill it

2011-04-06T15:27:00.006+05:30

News aggregation and curation is important, it may be the future of online news, but the social news model of Reddit.com and others is much better than the wrongly championed Huffington Post.

Online news experts such as Jeff Jarvis, Felix Salmon, Robert Niles et all say aggregation is inevitable. They seem to suggest that online conversation centered on issues is the only thing that matters in online news.

And since The New York Times was late to the online news innovation stakes, these experts will let you believe that the NYT should just bow to the might of Huffington Post.

Acting as gatekeepers for what is good and what is bad with online journalism, these experts probably did not take kindly to the NYT editor Bill Keller's (who, like most good editors, is a behind-the-scenes kind of guy) outburst against Arianna Huffington, who is more in the news than the news itself. These guys look to be in awe of the promotional abilities of Arianna Huffington.

Should the NYT should just roll over and die? Who will fund good journalism? After all, if conversation is all that matters, then there is no need for reporters to go out out daily and covering their beats. Just sit at your computer and say 'whadup?'. You are a newsperson now.

Let us examine The Huff Post Kind of aggregation. Here, dedicated editors choose news stories, using a good chunk of other's work in block quotes, so that the user doesn't have to go to the original source. The editors follow it up with slideshows, tweets about the article, shallow articles based on Google trends, and the latest celebrity scandal. This is not aggregation. This is not online news. This is just blogging on a huge scale.

If it is 'aggregation + conversation' that is the holy grail for online news, then we already have shining examples in form of Social news/Discussion sites such as Reddit (and its excellent sub-reddits), Hacker News, Fark, and Slashdot. During its hey days, the conversation on Digg was also good.

In 2008, Jeff Jarvis write about the need for more explainers online. Jeff said, 'The building block of journalism is no longer the article'.

What Jeff meant was that an article isn't enough to cover an issue. You must aggregate and curate relevant links about the issue on a regular basis, using other online sources, some thing like Wikipedia, eventually creating a hugely resourceful page onb that issue.

How many such pages has Huffington Post created? I tried searching Huff Post. Used the Search box. Put in words like "explainer", "special", and "spotlight". All I got was a garbage collection of tweets and links to links.

Let us come back to aggregation and conversation. You do not hear publishers complaining about Reddit linking to their stories do you? The Huffington Post has murdered the great idea of social news, with all its razzmatazz of celebrity name throwing, in your face excerpting, and clever partnering (Facebook etc.). It used the simmering right-vs.-liberal divisions in America, beating established players like Daily Kos, and eventually getting bigger traffic (and market valuation) than The New York Times.

Apologists for the Huff Post, like Paul Carr of Techcrunch (a Huff Post/AOL property now) say that despite what many may think, thousands of writers try to submit articles for free, daily. Yes, if these writers were any good, they would have their own blog and a following of their own. You will not see Tyler Cowen (Marginal revolution) or Jason Kottke needing to submit to Huff Post to raise their profiles. The kind of writers who try to submit stories to Huff Post earlier tried to submit their articles to Digg.com or any other social news sites available. Huff Post is kind of like MillionDollarPixels for bad writers or special interest groups, or PR people. Quality aggregation and conversation this isn't.

What all these experts are hoping for is that enough momentum is generated for Huff Post so that it graduates from the mess of pseudo-curation/aggregation and becomes a hub where local news people go to submit and share their stories, without ever having to pay anyone. The circle of online news hell goes on and on.

Meanwhile, the New York Times can look into buying Reddit from Condenast and let it run free.

Notes: A quick look at the pro-huff-post experts:
1. Jeff Jarvis - He is so pro he reposted his defense of Huff Post on Huff Post itself.
2. Felix Salmon - On the rare occasion that NYT links to Huff Post without crediting the Huff Post writer in name, Felix chooses to use that example to run down the Times.
3. Robert Niles - He writes correctly that aggregation is important, but does not offer any concrete.
4. Paul Carr - Writes for Techcrunch. a Huff Post/AOL property. Paul is designated funny writer at Techcrunch, whose primary job profile is to prove that Techcrunch does quality writing too.

Also Read:
Huffington Post - Google's favorite News Content farm
Three Reasons why Web Journalism is a joke
How NYT is the main source for all major aggregators and social news sites

Update #1: Why I wrote this
I am a blogger. I link to articles. I put excerpts in blockquotes. I am not a big fan of traditional news organizations, who may be thick in the head, when it comes to online news.

But, in case of NYT vs. Huff Post, I see a certain bandwagoning happen, which is somewhat dishonest. I respect and admire NYT's content, and this is something worth standing up for.

James Ellroy says goodbye to Facebook

2011-04-05T20:25:00.001+05:30

James Ellroy, the author famous for crime novels such as "LA Confidential", "American Tabloid, and "Black Dahlia", among other well-known works, has stopped using Facebook.He would rather use his own website to promote his books.

Via: Timemachinego

Ronald Dworkin: 'We have a responsibility to live well'

2011-04-02T14:19:00.005+05:30

Ronald Dworkin, who wrote 'Justice for Hedgehogs', says that there are some absolute moral values in modern life, which we must integrate in our life in order to have lived really well.

These eternal modern values, all of which are based on concepts of dignity and self-respect, include:.

...democracy, justice, political obligation, morality, liberty, and equality.

The banality of the Indian Newspaper Columnists

2011-04-02T14:14:00.001+05:30

Akaar Patel writes a typically banal (warning: you will the word 'banal' quite a lot in this post today) column in the Mint newspaper. He basically says that everything about Indian cricket is banal and self-centered - the Indian cricketers play for records (will you leave Sachin alone for a moment?); Indian cricket commentators are banal & blathering morons (as if there was a school for sports commentary); and the Indian sports fans are ignorant/uncultured louts who cannot see their favorite stars fail (what about the football tragedies in Europe and those frequent clashes between club and ciuntry supporters?).

Patel comes across as one of those uppity Indian columnist who has read some more books than the rest of us, and whose contempt for fellow Indians often results in banal & wordy columns which seem to go nowhere.

I know I sound just as bad, but nobody messes with my favorite sport, that too on a wholesale basis.

To Reduce Bribery, Let's Have More Government Servants Competing for our Bribes

2011-04-01T17:14:00.003+05:30

India’s chief economic adviser Kaushik Basu, who also teaches at Cornell university, says that the best way to reduce bribery in India is to make bribery legal - giving immunity to bribe givers and punishing bribe takers. to reduce bribery we should make the paying of bribes (not the demanding!) legal.

All this is sure to generate conversation everywhere. I liked this comment on Marginal Revolution, where commenter M. Dutton says let's have government servants compete for your bribe. The idea being when more pigs play in the mud, some more muck is sure to come up for notice.

...Let’s back up – what’s the problem with bribes? If it’s to jump queue when the queue is full, aren’t bribes more efficient? If the bribes are happening when the queue isn’t full (e.g. to get around licensing requirements, as mentioned above) then it sounds like the bribe-takers just need more competition. Could you have multiple independent places issuing the same licenses?

It is classic Catch-22 type of humor.

Why the SEWA model of self-reliance is way better than Usury model of Microfinance

2011-04-01T17:05:00.000+05:30

Professor Jagdish Bhaghwati favors the SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association) model of helping poor people over the much-maligned Microfinance, which seems to be just another exorbitantly-paying employment scheme for MBA/Finance types. Professor Bhaghwati writes:

1. ...the true pioneer of microfinance is a remarkable woman from Ahmedabad, India (where Mahatma Gandhi had his ashram), Ela Bhatt, a follower of Gandhi who established SEWA (Self-Employed Women's Association) as a bank in April 1974, two years before Yunus founded his Grameen Bank Project in Jobra, Bangladesh.

2. Throughout its existence, SEWA has been regulated by India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, staying strictly within the law and seeking no special dispensations.

3. Unlike the Grameen Bank, it has received no foreign money (such as the grant of $100 million from Norway, the handling of which led to the initial charges of malfeasance against Yunus), and it has distributed dividends of 9-12% annually each year since its founding.

In summary

... SEWA has demonstrated that poor, self-employed women can own and run a financial body in a self-sustained fashion without external largess.

Jay-Z, the Mayawati of Rap Music

2011-03-31T15:48:00.004+05:30

If Mayawati (Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh) uses her Dalit status to get rich, citing her wealth (and that of the party) to the anonymous and generous donations of well-wishers, then Rap Artist Jay-Z does something similar to make millions (soon billions) by pimping out all sorts of branded products centered around his carefully crafted image.

Both of these remarkable persons will point out to the dark state of their caste/race through speeches/slogans/rap songs/pliable media, and then going on to behave like 'The Man' and amass huge personal fortunes for themselves.

Recently, Jay-Z's minders got the respected Atlantic magazine to drop a story about Jay-Z making $4 million per year for endorsing a sparkling wine called Armand de Brignac. The wine costs about $13/bottle to produce, and it sells for upwards of $225/bottle.

It is nothing political or musical, only business.

The Trouble with Big Idea Books (and book writers such as Malcolm Gladwell): Bulldozers of Idealogical Generalization

2011-03-31T15:34:00.001+05:30

From a delicious rip of the current trend of big idea books - Outliers, World is Flat, Black Swan....

What troubles me about the Big Idea Book Club is the way ideas often slide toward ideologies—grand unifying theories of culture, cognition, happiness, talent, the Internet, the future, you name it. “The Hidden Side of Everything,” “The Story of Success”: the italics are mine, but the emphasis is theirs.

...I also detect the insidious influence of the Big Idea books, whose grand theories of humanity often wind up simplifying, ignoring, discounting, or occluding many of life’s complexities, including human individuality.

What Celebrity Culture Means: A World of Token Hurt

2011-03-31T15:22:00.001+05:30

Read this post

“Thanks for joining us tonight Mr. Bieber. What are your views on climate change? How do you feel about Iraq? And what do you think of the criticism levied against the parents of the Columbine shooters?”

...that like a celebrity, you must answer; it would be inhuman not to lament a tragedy, callous not to join in the universal support of a victimized people, immoral not to condemn the latest injustice; and like a celebrity, you have only a few words —perhaps 140 characters— and small tokens of your feelings: a ribbon on a tuxedo, an icon on an avatar;

Self-written death notice of a pioneering hyperlocal reporter

2011-03-28T17:40:00.002+05:30

For over 60 years, Harmer Joyce covered her village for the North Norfolk News. This was before the guys at now-defunct hyperlocal news startup Backfence.com had even coined the term 'hyperlocal' journalism.

Joyce died last week, aged 87. Before she died, she wrote her own death notice.

Via The Guardian

Why is everyone so worked up on NYT's paywall? Because NYT is the fuel of all aggregators and most bloggers

2011-03-25T17:14:00.001+05:30

The New York Times' decision to put up a $15-35/month paywall is generating buzz and consternation among bloggers and aggregators. That is understandable. The New York Times is perhaps the most important link source for much of online conversation. A sampling of NYT's standing on various leaderboards (most linked sources):

1. NYT is No.2 on the list of sites cited most for original reporting. [See image above]
2. NYT is No. 9 on the Techmeme Leaderboard (Technology stories aggregator)
3. NYT is No1 on the Memeorandum Leaderboard (Politics stories aggregator)
4. NYT is No.1 on the Mediagazer Leaderboard (Media stories aggregator)
5. NYT is No.2 on Hacker News Leaderboard (Social news site for technology entrepreneurs)

When was the last time Huffington Post was cited for original reporting?.

No one needs an ipad, but why are people buying them? Introducing the Cave man theory of gadgets

2011-03-25T16:56:00.002+05:30

In 1 year, Apple has sold more than 15 million iPads. The iPad cannot replace your PC, nor can it be carried in your pocket. But, why are people buying it? Wired magazine explains this, and I call it the Cave man theory of gadgets:

...the tablet’s main appeal lies in the approachable touchscreen interface that just about anybody at any age can pick up and figure out.

'Figure out'. This is the key. iPads are the Hermes scarves of gadgets. They have no fixed use. But they do look fancy. The fancy/rich people like them a lot. So, they must be useful. Let's try to browse the web. Let's look at some videos. Let's check out that cool new website. Wait! The Apple guys won't let you see that 'unauthorized' website.

The cave man has bumped into the outer walls of Apple's walled garden.

What all Gurus Do Not Want You To Know

2011-03-25T16:42:00.002+05:30

Evgeny Morozov, author of "The Net Delusion", who often writes about the political effects of the internet, does a review of a new book by 'technology guru' Kevin Kelly of Wired magazine, titled "What Technology Wants". He explains brilliantly why the gurus write books with cute, fancy names.

Morozov quotes from Kelly's explanation for why he wrote the book:

These “wants” of technology provide a long-horizon framework for business—your business. I’ll be doing as many talks at companies and organizations about “what technology wants” as I can in the coming months.

Morozov compares the current generation of gurus with that of other time:

Kelly is not the first technology guru to make a living by selling advice to corporations.

...But it is hard to imagine the previous generation of serious thinkers about technology—the likes of Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford and John Dewey—moonlighting as corporate advisers to Danone and Halliburton.

...In contrast, most of today’s technology gurus-from Kevin Kelly to Clay Shirky to Douglas Rushkoff—take special pride in publicizing how deeply embedded they are in the very industry that they are supposed to scrutinize.

Morozov says: 'Perhaps this is what technology wants'

In other words, Technology wants companies that can exploit them. Technology needs people that get exploited so that consumers can get access to that technology.

Morozov writes,

Kelly’s project, by contrast, seeks to deepen the moral void -— and to establish its normative character by claiming that it is propelled by the same forces as evolution. But can evolution really explain the plight of child laborers mining for cobalt—a key ingredient in batteries for mobile phones—in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Zambia? (According to a 2007 study by SwedWatch, a Swedish watchdog, there were some fifty thousand workers under the age of eighteen involved in this practice.) Is exploiting minors for cobalt mining something that technology wants, or is it something that certain businesses, here disguised under the innocent label of the “technium,” require? To claim that such processes follow the normal direction of evolution is to let the mining corporations off the hook far too easily.

In summary, technology needs people who can play with simple words, making simple things seem high concept, and convincing normally savvy business people to pay them millions. Technology needs these gurus to take the eternal story of 'human exploiting humans' forward. Technology needs gurus who are not really Gurus.

Also read:

The price of our gadget culture: Foxconn Suicide Nets

Does India Really Need More Colleges and Universities?

2011-03-25T16:03:00.002+05:30

While the rest of the world is considering the death/irrelevancy of colleges/universities, questioning their monopolies as Givers of Degrees, and while the rest of the world is benefiting from brilliant educational innovations such as the Khan Academy, MIT Open Courseware, http://schools-wikipedia.org/Wikipedia content in schools, among other great initiatives, India is stuck in web of greedy for-profit educational institutions and pliable governments, who are only too eager to please corporate education efforts (read this Business Standard story about government largesse towards corporate universities).

There is some innovation happening in the field of education in India: For example, IITs and IISc courses being converted into freely available videos. NGOs such as Pratham are doing some good work. But India is a country of 400+ million students, and Government plans such as Right to Education (RTE) and Sarvasiksha Abhiyan are simply not effective.

All the government wants to do in the name of promoting education in India is to privatize higher education, authorizing moneyed players to loot students, by claiming that they have teachers from abroad.

Yes, the same teachers that the West is discarding for being ineffective and irrelevant. India has always been a haven for discarded and outdated professionals.

At least, Kapil Sibal should put in an independent Education Regulatory Authority of India, which sees to it that our students aren't being defrauded in name of good education.

As far as Colleges and universities are concerned, why must we blindly copy concepts from the West? Things that they themselves are questioning?

Education cannot be a business: Think Campusless teaching. Think Apprenticeships. Think Continuous Learning.

Also read:
How to improve education in India: A proposal

What do you mean by 'Tech-savvy Indians? (or, why most Indians don't need Apple)

2011-03-23T13:59:00.006+05:30

What defines a technology-savvy Indian? It is the Indian that understands the value of hard-earned money. It is the Indian that gets a multi-functional mobile phone for Rs. 5000, a fully-functional personal computer at home for Rs.12000 and a Netbook for Rs. 15000.

All that costs just Rs. 32,000, the same as that of an iPad in India.

So, when the Economic Times writes that 'Tech-savvy Indians cry out for Apple's attention', does it point to the status-symbol-craving Indians, whose aspirations are being fed by the marketese masquerading as news in the newspaper supplements and silly gadget shows on NDTV?

Are We all Just 9-5 Facebook-Enabled Wage Animals?

2011-03-22T18:24:00.004+05:30

In the eyes of the business elites, humans are valuable because they are wage slaves, whose progress is only measured in terms of productivity - articles per day, calls per hour, time to answer questions..., and nothing else.

Hal Varian, who is some sort of a glorified philosopher at Google, says:

"If you look at the history of the world, up until 1700 nothing much happened."

Why? Because productivity statistics were not available then.

The Da Vincis, Thoreaus, and Shakespeares of the world do not matter in this Six-sigma-worshiping world.

Living to work, to pay the bills, is the only thing that matters.

We are all just Facebook-enabled animals.

This is what the business elites would like us to believe, rising inequality be damned.

All we got to do is be useful for the businessman around the corner.

In the 19th century, horses held the same position.

10 things we can we do when the government shuts down the internet

2011-03-21T15:09:00.001+05:30

First, the government moved ahead and made rules to shut our voice. Then, it went ahead and made rules to shut down our access to independent voices and information.

The Economic Times reports that our enlightened government (read a few top bureaucrats and assorted politicians) has made some changes to the already troublesome IT Act 2008, giving some government servants the power over all ISPs, blocking the internet for all practical purposes.

They have invoked the old 'National Security in Danger' scenario:

The shutdown can happen in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, its defense, security of its states, friendly relations with foreign states or for public order. Failure to comply will result in imprisonment of up to seven years.

Actually, most of these bureaucrats and politicians, who make such citizen-hating laws, are more dangerous to Indians, and to the idea of a India, than the fear-mongering reasons they cite for creating laws and bye-laws.

I would like to think that it is only pure coincidence that our current minster for Information and broadcasting, Ambika Soni, worked alongside Sanjay Gandhi, who made his name during emergency days in the 70s, when Indira Gandhi muzzled the press ( and did much more) in name of National security.

Consider our 'democratic' setup, if you will. Most of our lawmakers in the parliaments win by narrow margins. Only half the population votes (the average voting percentage is always around 50%). These elected representatives go on to 'rule' our country. And, you cannot recall them over any issue. Rules such as these (shutting the internet) call for immediate recall of our MPs. But we can't do that. I hear Switzerland has 1-year terms for its elected representatives.

It is even worse in case of our bureaucrats. Politicians can be recalled, or at least voted out of power. It is extremely hard to remove or punish a bureaucrat. They have created many rules just to save themselves from situations like these.

The proposed 'kill switch': Is it feasible?
The oft-quoted cyber law expert Pavan Duggal (Isn't it strange that we have so few cyber law experts?) says in the Economic Times story:

Although it may be technically possible to block the net in India, theoretically it may be very difficult given the dynamic nature of the constitution and the judiciary.

10 options do we have in case someone actually 'kills' the internet
1. Go to the courts (fight for your fundamental rights)
2. Use Right to Information (RTI)
3. Get some people and file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL)
4. Buy Ham Radio sets and learn to use them
5. Make international calls to foreign ISPs
6. Use expensive/unauthorized satellite internet
7. Establish rogue radio stations (Radio Raghav, Community FM)
8. Start something like Citizen Band (CB) radios in the United States (In India, it will be illegal to use these)
9. Make Voice Calls which get onto Twitter (Re: the Egypt Uprisings, where Google launched Voice Call-to-Twitter service)
10. Copy all kinds of available information and distribute freely: Keep Manual Printing Press handy. Download the full Wikipedia and re-purpose it in various formats
11. Prepare: Throughout human history, a group of people has tried to rule by force on others, by all means necessary, including obscure laws created by pseudo-democratic set ups. Start by making friends with people who believe in liberty for all.

Also read

If your government shuts down blogging, shut down your government

What is the real truth behind IIPM? What to do about it?

2011-03-21T14:27:00.002+05:30

What is the real truth behind Indian Institute of Planning & management? It is important that students and parents, who are spending expensive amounts for a degree (and education), learn about IIPM's suspect quality.

Recently, Career360.com examined each of IIPM's claims (superior course, global exposure, international faculty and dollar salaries), and found no evidence to support the claims. No institution or company Careers360 talked to, could verify IIPM's claims.

In fact, the IIPM controversy has its own Wikipedia entry. In 2005, blogger Gaurav Sabnis pointed out to an investigation by JAM college magazine. The ensuing bullying tactics cost Gaurav his job at IBM. IIPM forced a professor, professor Amit Kapoor to remove the 'offending' blog post (just Google it).

In this age of pervasive transparency (Wikileaks, Radia Tapes etc.) why is an anomaly like IIPM thriving in style? It puts up multi-page advertisements in the big papers and none of these respectable names are willing to investigate the tall claims made by IIPM.They want their advertising income.

The Media-(for profit)Educational nexus is something that is yet to be exposed in this country, where everybody is out to milk the demographic dividend for all that it's worth, proper education be damned. [See the above Graphic about the IIPM-Media Nexus - Via Careers360 website]

What other options do parents and students have? Going to consumer courts is an option. Complaining to the the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) is also a good idea.

Felix Salmon's 5 ways Blogging has changed Journalism for better

2011-03-17T18:12:00.000+05:30

Highlights from a interview of Felix Salmon, who is a journalist for Reuters, who explains the positive effect blogging has had on journalists:

1. I have a more conversational voice on the blog.

I think of any given post as being part of a much broader conversation between bloggers and between me and my readers. Nearly all of my posts are reactions to something elsewhere online, and I try to be as generous as I can with links.

2. The main impact I think is the way that blog reporting can iterate.

In traditional media, you report the story and then you publish it; with blogs, you can start with something much less fully formed and then come back at it over time in many ways and from many angles.

3. Blogs can also geek out in a way that traditional journalists can’t.

There’s no space constraint online, and so if I want to spend 5,000 words writing about vulture funds, or a reporter at HuffPo wants to spend 4,000 words getting into the weeds of regulatory reform, they can.

4. Blogging has clearly given readers a much wider range of news sources to choose from.

(and) it’s great that readers are no longer confined to getting their news from a handful of outlets.

5. How Blogging is better than Twitter.

Professional journalists should always be beholden to high standards of professionalism, ethics, and accuracy. Random people with a Twitter account, not so much.

Reason #1 behind rise of Social media: The fear of missing out

2011-03-17T18:04:00.001+05:30

Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and Hunch says that we are obsessed with Twitter updates and Facebook status messages (among other activities related to online obsessions) because 'Social media has made us even more aware of the things we are missing out on'.

FOMO -Fear of Missing Out- is a great motivator of human behavior, and I think a crucial key to understanding social software, and why it works the way it does. Many people have studied the game mechanics that keep people collecting things (points, trophies, check-ins, mayorships, kudos). Others have studied how the neurochemistry that keeps us checking Facebook every five minutes is similar to the neurochemistry fueling addiction.

And,

...You're home alone, but watching your friends status updates tell of a great party happening somewhere. You are aware of more parties than ever before. And, like gym memberships, adding Bergman movies to your Netflix queue and piling up unread copies of the New Yorker, watching these feeds gives you a sense that you're participating, not missing out, even when you are.

Well said.

But, a cynical person will say that we fear missing out because we lead hollow lives, where little we do is of any lasting substance. We work to pay the bills. We seek solace in things others are doing. Social media may be the food for the 'despairing' hordes.

Link Via Kottke.org

Why most iPad news apps are bad: They restrict you to an 'isolated, one-person web'

2011-03-17T17:54:00.000+05:30

At SXSW, Aron Pilhofer, the New York Times' interactive editor points out what is bad with most iPad news applications:

"I'm sceptical about apps generally. It takes you out of the web. You come in to this isolated, one-person web..."

Why The "killer app" on every handset is the good old browser
Aron says,

"There's so little you cannot do with offline storage in the browser environment that to me [the iPad] is almost not worth the investment.

Apps are so anti-community
Aron says,

"Community is a place where the web is your friend and the app is not. If you consider community to be part of the answer to the future of news then going into the partially-stilted environment of the application walks away from that."

iPad news apps are minor footnotes in digital publishing history
This is what Khoi Vinh, who once headed the digital publishing design unit at the the New York Times, thinks. Khoi says,

The future...is in the multiplatform browser - publishing's "natural home".

Related:
Are iPad news apps glorified CD ROMs?

If your government shuts down blogging, shut down your government

2011-03-15T15:40:00.001+05:30

The above graphic became popular during the uprisings in the Arab world, in Egypt and elsewhere. The image of Pharaoh is modified to look like the eponymous 'V' of the famous 'V for Vendetta' movie, which many see 'an allegory of oppression by government'. Others see as 'a statement against government intervention into the lives of the citizens'.

During the best of times, the concept of Free Speech in our country is a 'tolerated' idea rather than a fundamental right. The Government of India reportedly plans to bring in something called 'Blogger Control Act", which will enable the authorities to work with Internet Access providers, filtering the content and blocking your blog temporarily/permanently if they find it 'objectionable'.

Nickil Pehwa puts it the best. He asks about the government's plan to censor online content:

How can a few people decide what we view online?

This time, even big newspapers have come out in support of bloggers' right. The Hindu says this about forthcoming Blogger Control Act:

The blocking of a blogging website, even if only for a short period, raises the disturbing question of curbs imposed on free speech in India through executive fiat. There is a clear pattern of Internet censorship that is inconsistent with constitutional guarantees on freedom of expression. It is also at odds with citizen aspirations in the age of new media. [...]

In 2009, Namibia, and in Botswana passed laws making it mandatory for journalists and bloggers to register themselves with the government. I said:

In this mighty age of user-generated content, will they require the whole country to register themselves?

One positive thing I can think about this news is that Blogging is not dead. In fact, blogging has become so powerful that governments fear it. Take that, Twitter.

Essential Reading on the topic:

Medianama on the Draft Blogger Guidelines

Churumuri: Say No to Blogger Control Act

Kafila: Get Ready for Blogger Control Act

On This Blog:

The Indian Blogger as a Journalist: Legal Implications

A simple guide to Internet & Cyber laws in India

The State of Nuclear Power Industry Worldwide: Under-regulated, Untrustworthy, Unaccountable, Unproven Reactors, and ruled by Business-Politician Nexus

2011-03-15T15:09:00.001+05:30

The simple truth about Nuclear Power is this: Unlike other sources of power, failure is not an option. More lives are at risk from failures of nuclear reactors than from failures of other types of power-generation units.

When Nuclear energy is run as a business, chances of inferior technologies being used for cost concerns are high.

When a small group of people, politicians/bureaucrats, get the power to decide where big Nuclear power plants will be located, the case of Japan shows that they will choose localities 'judged weakest in local civil society as host communities for controversial projects.'

The Guardian writes about the state of 'untrustworthy' nuclear industry:

The question now is whether the industry can be trusted anywhere. If this industry were a company, its shareholders would have deserted it years ago. In just one generation it has killed, wounded or blighted the lives of many millions of people and laid waste to millions of square miles of land. In that time it has been subsidised to the tune of trillions of dollars and it will cost hundreds of billions more to clean up and store the messes it has caused and the waste it has created. It has had three catastrophic failures now in 25 years and dozens more close shaves. Its workings have been marked around the world by mendacity, cover-ups, secrecy and financial incompetence.

The article writes about the dangers from experiments being done in a constantly evolving industry:

Fukushima is supposedly one of the safest stations in one of the most safety-conscious countries in the world. Chernobyl blew up not because the reactor malfunctioned but because an ill-judged experiment to see how long safety equipment would function during shutdown went too far.

Read the whole article to learn more about the dangers facing the Nuclear Reactors in the future.

See, I am all for exploring other sources of power, decreasing our dependency on fossil fuels. But, using untested methods that are dangerous to millions of people, is perhaps not the way to go.

Huffington Post: Google's Favorite News Content Farm

2011-03-14T15:06:00.001+05:30

Aaron Wall has posted a screenshot of an Huffington Post article that is only tweet about a news link but is ranking on top of Google for that news topic.

Google has tried to clamp down on content farms full of 'thin content' with its Farmer Update. How about a clampdown on 'thin news rewriters' polluting much of Google News and others SERPs?

Churnalism: How to detect whether a journalist is just printing a Press Release

2011-03-14T14:59:00.000+05:30

Churnalism is a U.K.-based website that lets you paste content from a 'suspect' news article and then it will tell you whether the article is only a rehashed press release. Glorified printers of press releases, that is what most newspapers really. Indian newspapers do it on a wholesale basis, especially the business newspapers.

I covered Print Labels from Tom Scott and the Newscrud project in an earlier post. Both aim to bring out the truth behind most news articles, with help of succinct labels.

Also Read:
Can Journalism Warning Labels Create Better Journalism?

Rethinking Nuclear Power: The Bharat versus India problem

2011-03-14T13:59:00.006+05:30

If city-living planners and decision makers of India do not have the guts to have Nuclear power plants in the suburbs, it is time to rethink the Nuclear power policy, don't you think?

The devastating Tsunami in Japan has caused 10,000 deaths (and counting) so far. It damaged Nuclear power reactors (Like France, Japan is heavily dependent upon Nuclear power). The authorities have shut down four reactors. 45,000 people living in the 10-kilometers radius of the Fukushima Nuclear reactor have had to evacuate their houses. There is a nationwide Nuclear Alert..

What the Indian Newspapers say about implications for India
The Mint Business Newspaper has a typical pro-business slant take about the implications for nuclear power in India. The paper abandons its normally sharp, to-the-point writing, and instead it writes a confusing piece that ends with this:

...There is always room for debate on the safety aspects of the subject and it has never ceased even when there have been no earthquakes around. What, however, is not evaluated dispassionately are the costs involved in giving up nuclear power in an age when hydrocarbon supplies are volatile and their prices even more so.

What the paper means is that big American or European companies are not interested in doing ground-breaking projects in renewable energy, where the margins may not be that rich (and that we are tired of lobbyists calling us up to put in a kind word about Nuclear energy).

The Indian Express does a quick FAQ about the safety of 20 Nuclear Power plants.
The plants here can withstand earthquakes up to 7 on the Richter scale (Japan quake measured 8.9 Richter).

So, no cause to worry? Actually, no.

The Japanese power plants were damaged by the surging Ocean waters.
How are our plants safe from terrorist attacks, sabotage, machine malfunction ...it is a pretty big list.

The Daily News Analysis message board has a great comment.
It sums up the situation about Nuclear Power in India pretty well:

... Our only job, our unavoidable responsibility, our duty, is to repeal the nuclear liability law. Let us have a level playing field. No subsidy, no exemption of responsibility. Whoever can produce electricity safely and at an acceptable rate, by whatever means, will just do it. But if the nuclear industry does not trust its own technology to the point that it can't take responsibility for any damage they can cause, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. It's not our job to solve their problem.

The Bharat vs. India problem
I think we will this issue becoming more important in the future as more Indians chooses to live in cities, and letting villages decay into the great Indian Wasteland, where all the effluent of the 'civilized' India goes to seed.

The villages don't get to enjoy the power produced by the polluting, land-hogging (forcefully bought/seized land) power plant in the neighborhood. The people of Kahalgaon in Bihar had to resort to street protests to get just a couple of hours of power from the huge NTPC Kehelgaon thermal power plant (2340 MW from 7 plants).

In India, they will drown towns so that the big cities get their electricity. Once there used to be a beautiful small town called Tehri that is under million of tons of water of the huge Tehri dam. Someone, somewhere always pays a price for your air-conditioner.

Who gets to face the aftermath case of a Nuclear fallout?

A list of things you should do when the rods start to melt: Shutting off air-conditioner fans, not going outside, covering the skin, wrapping wet towels around the face and buying some lead-lined clothing for those 'special' occasions. (This is from an advisory from the authorities in Japan)

How long does an average nuclear fallout last?

The Chernobyl area in Ukraine (the Chernobyl accident happened in 1986) is 'visitable' only now in 2011. Locals still debate the health-effects (E.g. more instances of thyroid, increased rates of cancer) from the 3-mile island reactor incident (United States) in 1979.

Soon, People from 'Bharat' will ask: If Cities want electricity, let them have Nuclear Reactors nearby.
Or, build any kind of 1000 megawatt Powerplant in your own locality. (A cynic will say that this will also solve our electricity transmission losses problem - we lose anything between 25-50% of electricity produced during transmission).

You want your power, Build it in your own backyard: This is what the people of Jaitapur Nuclear power plant want to tell the people (and the decision makers) of India.

Also read:
Government of India: The Biggest Real Estate Agent in the World

Don't buy Virtual Gifts: Gift a book to a poor kid instead

2011-03-03T19:00:00.000+05:30

Zynga, the company behind popular time and money wasting social games like Cityville and Farmville, has launched Game Cards in India, using which you can waste your money buying virtual items so that you can advance further in the game. The company made $80 million from selling virtual goods alone(total revenue $250 million, profit $80-150 million).

Why waste all that money making someone rich for nothing? Give money instead for books for our poor kids.

Gratitude from others is a much better payoff than advancing in FarmVille, FishVille, Cafe World, Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker or any other useless shit of that sort.

Also read:

What does India need most: $100 Computer or Rs. 1 lac car?

The Full Price of our Gadget culture: Foxconn Suicide Nets

2011-03-03T18:46:00.000+05:30

Pictured above are nets put up in Foxconn's plants in Shenzhen (China), to prevent workers from committing suicide. So far, 11 workers have jumped from factory buildings, seeking release from 'repetitive, exhausting, and alienating' work.

Foxconn’s output accounts for nearly 40 percent of $150 billion consumer-electronics industry - creating and assembling your iPhone, iPad, Digital cameras and everything else that is part of our gadget-loving culture.

How long before this happens in the Indian Outsourcing Industry, as rising competition and cutthroat work culture take their toll on the faceless workers (coders, phone operators, article re-writers, spammers)?

Faulkner's advice for writers: Reading is the best training for writers

2011-03-03T17:15:00.001+05:30

From an interview with the great William Faulkner:

Q: How do you find time to write?

WF: You can always find time to write. Anybody who says he can't is living under false pretenses. To that extent depend on inspiration. Don't wait. When you have an inspiration put it down. Don't wait until later and when you have more time and then try to recapture the mood and add flourishes. You can never recapture the mood with the vividness of its first impression.

Q: What is the best training for writing? Courses in writing? Or what?

WF: Read, read, read! Read everything - trash, classics, good and bad; see how they do it. When a carpenter learns his trade, he does so by observing. Read! You'll absorb it. Write. If it is good you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.

There is an anecdote about a famous writer giving a class in creative writing, where he says, "Just go home and start writing."

How to disrupt any industry, Version 2.0

2011-03-03T17:09:00.001+05:30

This post could be titled "How to disrupt list-type articles and really help the user". Jason Baptiste writes "9 Ways To Disrupt And "Hipmunk" An Industry". It is a good article. Jason always writes well. But it is in danger of being just another generic list article. So, I went ahead, rearranged the list, put in some categories, and now I can understand what I have to do with my next startup. The modified list in summary:

A. The Industry:
1. Find Something Tied To A Process That Consistently Sucks
2. Make Unsexy Businesses Sexy
3. Look For An Industry That Rarely Changes

B. The Service:
4. Simple And Clean Interfaces Come First
5. Deliver Great Support

C. The Users:
6. Focus On Power Users
7. Work Towards Building Fanatics

D. The Competition:
8. Call Out Your Competitor (and wage war)
9. Be Disruptive, But Respectful

Blogging lessons from Heather Armstrong: I am glad Facebook wasn't around when I started

2011-03-03T16:53:00.000+05:30

Heather Armstrong, who runs the famous (and highly profitable) Dooce blog, discusses about blogging and the impact of social sites such as Facebook on blogging, in this New York Times article :

...a lot of people don't blog even, they use Facebook. Facebook wasn't around when I launched my site. I'm kind of glad it wasn't or else I wouldn't be where I am today.

On whether Twitter and Facebook will replace blogging:

...people use Facebook to keep in touch and people use blogs to tell stories. There are times on Twitter when I find someone and I want to find what else they write, I'm looking around to see if they have a Tumblr or a blog.

On reasons for her huge success at blogging:

I think my success has been a combination of several factors: one of the big ones is that I've been around for a long time, I've stuck with it, I've had a lot of life events that made the trajectory interesting...My suggestion has always been that you should find an existing community who you would like to have reading your site and hang out with them.

On the challenges of blogging:

I'm not sure that what I've been doing is easily replicable...It's a lot of work. I think anybody who has started [blogging] and stopped in the last 10 years knows that; many people stopped because it was too much work. Curating and posting 140 characters is a lot easier.

Three reasons why “Web Journalism Is a Joke” (and what to do about it)

2011-02-25T17:16:00.001+05:30

Former Engadget and Mashable Editor Samuel Axon writes a must read long piece about the (sorry) state of web journalism. Samuel has written a timely post, and I have tried to summarize the post in three main points:

1. Web journalism has become a slave of search engine such as Google [The pagerank algorithm, Google trends, Google suggest...

... the rules Google uses to determine which websites gain strong rankings — and thus frequent traffic, high impressions and strong ad revenues — betray journalists and the people who need them at every turn.

And,

Google’s algorithms and the blog linking customs built around them favor those who write first, not those who write accurately.

Readability, accuracy and quality are not considerations. The only way to profit (apart from being a prophet or building a time machine) is to respond to what people are searching for.

2. Web journalism has become a slave of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

...so here we are writing 140-character posts (minus the link length) with Twitter trend words included before we’ve had time to come to terms with the information we’re reporting.

3. Most news sites/blogs are treating news as 'mass produced' commodities, tailored to demand [search trends, tweets etc.] Learn to distinguish between hypocrites and honest ones.

I am tired of seeing TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington and Huff Po’s Arianna Huffington claim otherwise in their crusades against “old media.”

For all the flak they get, at least AOL’s Tim Armstrong, Demand Media’s Richard Rosenblatt and Mahalo’s Jason Calacanis aren’t lying through their teeth.

The result: Web journalism has gone to the dogs:

We are incentivized to offer what people want to hear, not what they need to hear.

Is there any solution to the mess Web journalism is in?
I remember Francis Ford Copolla, the famous director, saying in an interview that artists creating wealth out of art is a relatively new thing.

Not long time ago, artists used to support themselves through patronage of rich people, doing other projects for sustenance (Copolla has a profitable wine business), or making do with little.

Web journalism/journalism needs to be somewhat like art.
See it not as means to riches but as a calling.

Because, no one else has any credible solution. Samuel says,

The responsibility lays with Google, Twitter, and other tech media companies that provide the infrastructure in which would-be journalists work. Mashable, AOL and The Huffington Post are all powerless to change anything.

Teaching blogging in schools

2011-02-25T17:12:00.000+05:30

Anyone can be a blogger. There are no significant barriers to entry and the software is free. You can host on Blogger.com/Wordpress.com/Posterous.com to avoid spending money on hosting.

Anyone can be a blogger. This is also the biggest obstacle to succeeding as a professional blogger.

Read this blog post on the difficulties facing an aspiring professional blogger. The main points:
1, Any career that has minimal barriers to entry is not going to be accepted by those that are more conservative.

Their belief is that you should have to go to school, receive training, and at least do something to earn the right or the experience/knowledge needed to become a blogger.

2. (Regular) Schools do not teach blogging
If they can teach creative writing and journalism, why not blogging, which incorporates both disciplines and does more.

Blogging is a relatively new field. School and colleges are usually ten years behind the real world in terms of determining what training is vital to the workforce. Many colleges only recently began offering degrees in Web Design. I work at a high school in New York. I have yet to see any teacher complete or attempt any lesson plans related to blogging.

3. What makes successful bloggers stand apart?
There are many guides on the topic online. Just Google it.
The short version: You must cover a niche like anything, like nobody has ever done ever before.

...most successful bloggers are far more sophisticated in their blogging activities than those that fail. While some folks are superb writers and luck into the right niche, the successful bloggers I know are constantly testing, reviewing, and planning how to best construct their blogs. The blog is treated as a business at all times. Anyone can start a business, not many are successful.

Three Indian bloggers who are doing okay as professional bloggers: Amit Agarwal (Digital Inspiration Blog), Aashish Sinha (Pluggd.in) and Nikhil Pahwa (Medianama)