Friday, February 03, 2006

Mumbai-Delhi airport modernization


According to this article, one airport will be modernized by the Fraport folks and another by the South African folks. Fraport is efficient and is managed very well (we did a project with them for RFID use), but it is very boring. Jo'burg airport is alright, but quite disorganized. So I'm not sure if either of these guys will make Mumbai/Delhi really cool. Why not get the folks from Seoul/Hong Kong/Singapore instead?


Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Deeper racism in Australian cricket


It's not just the S. Africans in Australia who are at it...


Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Beautifully put - why Google should not yield to China


All through the 80s, Doordarshan showed us what Indira Gandhi and her family wanted to see. Until StarTV opened up our minds to the world. Imagine if the Gandhis were allowed to censor StarTV and others too. Google shouldn't yield to China's demands. This article on Slate puts it very nicely:

Google and the others should remember that censorship runs counter to what brought them success. Without the free flow of information the Internet allows, each of them would be a fraction of the size they are today. Instead of rejiggering their products and mission for each country, they should apply one set of ethical standards across all borders. A global code of ethics might also make business sense. One standard always costs less than several different ones. If it's more efficient to build one camera for every market than 20 different cameras for 20 different markets, then wouldn't the same be true in information technology?


Monday, January 30, 2006

Kite-flying


It was a perfect day for kite-flying. The weather forecast had predicted a thick cloud cover for today, but all I could see were a few wisps. No complaints of course.

We had a lot of kites this year - like a couple of hundred - and so we even tied kinya on a few a couple of hours in advance. The best firki, according to Samip, was the one Pranav had brought from Ahmedabad - "Dragon: Made in China" with colorful Chinese writing on it. A huge firki, but with such little dori on it that we'd felt distinctly cheated in the beginning, until it proved worth the 150 rupees Pranav had paid for it.

30-40 people came, and it was the best Uttarayan we've had in the last few years, even without the music that Gaurav never quite managed to provide. He brought khaman instead, but then came an hour late because of that.

Manish was his usual self, refusing to fly a single kite or eat any chikkis, but enjoying himself nevertheless. Samip and Priyank worked pretty hard at their "khainch" but I suspect they could have cut as many kites through prudent "dheel" also. Bunch of my co-workers showed up too, and they all got pretty good at flying kites and taking paich's with the others. They didn't quite figure out how to scream when they won a fight though.

The kids who came to our party had a blast. The other kids on the field, flying kites with nylon lines, had a horrid time though. One mum even forced Samip to "say sorry" to her brat for cutting his line.


Last five wickets vs first five wickets


In the Faislabad test, the last five Indian wickets scored 100+ more runs than the first five wickets. In Karachi, it is 137 for the first five wickets and 101 for the last five wickets.


Bhupathi Slam


There is the Serena Slam - successive victories in all 4 majors, but not in the same calendar year. Soon we might even see the Roger Slam as Federer tries to win the French Open.

Turns out Bhupathi can have his own Bhupathi Slam too, if he wins the mixed doubles at the French Open this year - he's already won the Wimbledon and US Open last year, and the Australian Open this year. All 3 with different partners too. 10 Grand Slams in all.


Sunday, January 29, 2006

Australian Open PointTracker


A nifty Flash app built by IBM for the Australian Open. Wonder how they are able to keep track of the ball... Can't be all manual, can it? The story it tells is that Baghdatis is serving amazingly well, and Federer has a fight on his hands.


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