Re: [silk] silklist Digest, Vol 45, Issue 9
Oh, great. Very well timed, Sir. VERY well timed. Indrajit Gupta On Aug 20, 2013, at 1:04 PM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: It's on Friday 30th, not Saturday 31st.
Re: [silk] Collateral damage
No right to privacy yet, anywhere, but it has been argued in India that it exists. The leagles would know, surely. Indrajit Gupta On Aug 21, 2013, at 9:22 AM, SS cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, 2013-08-21 at 07:47 +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote: Shades of if you aren't doing anything wrong, why do you object? in your response. I'll revisit this later. Yes, but I will explain below. First let me respond to this quote its currency in a society. The Haunted Land, a book that delineates how East German society was completely reforged around the authority of secretly collected personal data illustrates how caustic routinized surveillance can become. Spouses ratted each other out to the authorities, in ways resonant with the odd stories of kids turning in their parents for smoking dope in the back yard. No one could have a personal life worthy of the name. In an environment of permanent legitimized electronic surveillance, you could argue the establishment of an East German scenario here is only a matter of time None of this is new. George Orwell predicted it. It happened in Stalin's Russia, and China has been well into this for decades. Power and control have always meant control over what people say. The anger and indignation in my view comes from the idea that some free societies were somehow immune to this. To my mind the only way to counter this is by subversion from within the system, not by fighting the system. The system looks out for those who fight it. The system needs to be inundated with people who are doing no wrong. A world of sheeple who do not worry about surveillance makes it easier to look out for those who are avoiding surveillance. In my view the thing to do is to accept surveillance, embrace it, and set up the mechanism for subterfuge. Only that route can allow creative ways of spooking the system to emerge. If I were a criminal, this is exactly what I would do. Surveillance is designed to discourage criminals (specifically terrorists) from using the existing system and restricting their ability to communicate and plan. A useful side effect for the government is that everyone gets watched. The criminal would be the last person to complain about being watched - only honest people do - although criminals might add to the protests acting like Honest people who genuinely want privacy simply as a political ploy to pressurize governments who are high on their ability to control. I am not trying to criticize or mock anyone, but I have noticed that in America the constitution guarantees certain freedoms and those freedoms are being removed, leading to protests. If I extrapolate this I predict that there is an outside chance that Americans might win court battles that protect US citizens, but non US citizens will continue to face everything that can be thrown at them by way of control and monitoring. Under the circumstances, I see no option other than to simply cooperate with the system and discover my own ways of doing what I might want to do in private. Incidentally is there a right to privacy?. I have no idea. shiv
Re: [silk] The weirdest languages
Of course you are right. That is precisely why we speak Latin and Greek to this day. Indrajit Gupta On Jul 6, 2013, at 10:52 AM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 5:49 PM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: Much more, including the full spreadsheet with all 21 'weirdness features' for all the languages, at the URL below. Also, it amuses me that this list says the most 'normal' language is Hindi. :-) It depresses me a little to say this, but market share matters more than features in the end. The way we are headed in a hundred years or less we will all speak the same language out of practicality for the most part. It won't be the most technically efficient language, but the one geopolitics elects as the winner. English and Mandarin are the only two real contestants in this world view, and their present hegemony is thanks mainly to a violent imperial past, and has nothing to do with technical brilliance.
Re: [silk] The weirdest languages
I have a headache. I think I shall retire from the fray, preferably to a Sri Lankan beach free of nerds who know too much. Indrajit Gupta On Jul 6, 2013, at 12:09 PM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Of course you are right. That is precisely why we speak Latin and Greek to this day. [I claim that] Cheeni is right, but he oversimplified to exclude Black Swans [1] like the Mule [2]. Udhay, maniacally mixing and mangling metaphors [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule_%28Foundation%29 -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] The weirdest languages
Hmmm. Would out of India and Aryan invasion theory have anything to do with this attack of jaundice, Shiv? Anything at all? No, nothing? Oh, all right, then. Just asked. Indrajit Gupta On Jul 6, 2013, at 2:41 PM, SS cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, 2013-07-05 at 17:49 +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote: Thoughts? I would say watch out! Don't take this stuff too seriously. Linguists have done a lot of bullshitting in the past and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. University language departments don't get funding easily and they are quite capable of coming up with theories that attract the attention of some sucker who will fund them to come up with more crap. shiv
Re: [silk] The weirdest languages
Summary in five words: Linguistics earns less than Medicine. On Jul 6, 2013, at 7:08 PM, SS cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, 2013-07-06 at 15:23 +0530, Bonobashi wrote: Would out of India and Aryan invasion theory have anything to do with this attack of jaundice, Shiv? Anything at all? No, nothing? Oh, all right, then. Just asked. My late father, after acquiring the degrees BS, MS and PhD used to say that they stand for Bullshit, More of Same and Piled higher and deeper. I thought it was a joke until I started digging into the work of linguistics departments. The bullshitting started decades, if not over a century ago. What we see today is stuff that is built upon the original stuff - piled higher and deeper. The big take away lesson that I got from that is when it comes to new language theories 1. Be rigid 2. Be aggressive 3. Misquote, misinterpret and mislead to your heart's content because no one else will understand it and linguists are all doing the same thing anyway. 4. Accuse others of bigotry and less than honourable motives. Incidentally if you understood what was in that blog please post a summary in five words or less. shiv
Re: [silk] The weirdest languages
That was a five word summary of an existing text. I have been informed that a useful adage for the circumstances is GIGO. Indrajit Gupta On Jul 6, 2013, at 10:11 PM, Eugen Leitl eu...@leitl.org wrote: On Sat, Jul 06, 2013 at 07:54:53PM +0530, Bonobashi wrote: Summary in five words: Linguistics earns less than Medicine. Not so sure about that anymore.
Re: [silk] Intro!
And worshipped by that class of women who prefer men never to get married, so that they themselves are always needed. On Jul 2, 2013, at 7:46 AM, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 7:35 AM, Ashwin Kumar ashw...@live.in wrote: If you want real entertainment, watch the new Mahadev serial. They add their own spice into mythology. I had never heard of Ganesha being married (at least in South Indian temples I have never seen Ganesha with his wives), or Shiva/Parvathi having a daughter. There was an article (on silk?) which mentioned an increase in number of Vaishno Devi temples after the cult classic Jai Maa Vaishno Devi. Alas, I am Sitting (Baby-sitting, actually, for two more silk-listers) in St.Louis, and the last thing I would wish for is a cable connection that gives me these serials :) But Ashwin...it may not be their own addition...there may be such folklore. I have a friend who says that in his part of Andhra Pradesh, Hanuman is married. His wife (as, indeed, many of the girls from that town, and my friend's wife, too) is called Suvarchala. This was the first time I'd ever heard of Anjaneya being married. Karthikeya (Murugan) is twice-married in south Indian mythology, but is a celibate in Bengal.
Re: [silk] Intro!
I am surprised at your choice of Duryodhana, although so many have pointed to the large number who were loyal to him throughout as indicating his charisma. As far as the narration is concerned, he was a rich man's spoilt brat, used to having his own way, resentful and envious of his better endowed cousins, a thorough woman-hater, to a vindictive degree that bordered on the psychopathic, murderous and open to any ruse or strategy that would kill a hated opponent, manipulative and adept at using emotional blackmail on his elders - really find it difficult to understand your choice. On Jul 2, 2013, at 7:43 AM, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 7:35 AM, Ashwin Kumar ashw...@live.in wrote: Karna and Duryodhana are my favourite characters from the Mahabharata. Interesting choice of characters. Why them? Karna...made his way in life, through the worst odds possible. I liked both the Tamizh movie about him and R S Manohar's play about him (no matter how much the melodrama.) He lost to Arjuna, only because of his promise to a mother who never did, or could, publicly recognize him as her son. Now,to drift my own thread, I enjoyed the mythological plays of R S Manohar very much, with their lavish sets and loud declamationsI saw him, just before his death, in one of the re-staging of his plays, and it was very pathetic. Duryodhana...though he is so reviled, I think that some of the things that the angelic Pandavas did were much worse than any of his actions. And he recognized Karna and honoured him for his qualities,not for his birth, when everyone else talked only about his being the son of a charioteer. In our caste-ridden Indian society, that's an example to emulate :) I am a hopeless romantic at heart!
Re: [silk] Intro!
Hey! What a coincidence! Ram makes me sick too! Oh, you meant Rama. Throw in Lakshman, that other back-stabbing four-flusher, and you have a deal. Indrajit On Jul 2, 2013, at 7:59 AM, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 7:49 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian sur...@hserus.netwrote: Much more understandable if you think of it in the terms of greek plays, with the concept of Hamartia, the fatal flaw. Duryodhana's was an overbearing pride and jealousy. Therefore I like the Mahabharata with the real people much more than the idealized namby-pambies of the Ramayana :D Rama always made me sick, and my saying this did not endear me to my relatives in the Tambram community. My parents were told that I was Not a Good Girl (with meaningful looks.) I'm afraid I have proved them Completely Correct.
Re: [silk] Intro!
Sneak. On Jul 4, 2013, at 10:24 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On 04-Jul-13 5:29 AM, Bonobashi wrote: Hey! What a coincidence! Ram makes me sick too! Oh, you meant Rama. Throw in Lakshman, that other back-stabbing four-flusher, and you have a deal. Indrajit For the benefit of those listmembers who missed it, allow me to point out that it is only when this particular epic gets discussed that IG uses his 'real' name on silklist. Udhay
Re: [silk] Fwd: Wine tasting is bullshit. Here's why.
One must share your well-founded fears. One might go so far as to say that one is apPauled. On May 29, 2013, at 10:59 PM, Ramakrishnan Sundaram r.sunda...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 May 2013 18:39, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: The closest approximation to infinite threads (at least on silk) are pun cascades. Yoko. Here we go again. Ram
Re: [silk] India Considers Banning Pornography as Reported Sexual Assault Rises - NYTimes.com
Not too bad an idea. Indrajit Gupta On Apr 26, 2013, at 12:24 PM, Ramakrishnan Sundaram r.sunda...@gmail.com wrote: On 26 April 2013 12:06, Ingrid Srinath ingrid.srin...@gmail.com wrote: The problem with this scenario is that porn, increasingly violent porn, is the only source of learning on the subject of sex for many boys/men. Young Indian men are taught from an early age, by movies, that sexual harassment and violence against women is the path to true love. Let's ban mainstream Indian cinema, then. Ram
Re: [silk] Intro
You spelt the poor bugger's name wrong. Bonobashi On Apr 4, 2013, at 2:47 AM, Anish Mohammed anish.moham...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Frozencemetry, Welcome to the gang, might possibly share some acquaintances, as i happen to be security researcher in the past and know a couple from CMU... Regards Anish Anish Mohammed Twitter: anishmohammed http://uk.linkedin.com/in/anishmohammed On 3 Apr 2013, at 15:54, frozencemetery rharw...@club.cc.cmu.edu wrote: I've been told it's good form to post an introduction, so: hello! I'm a computer scientist and security researcher currently at Carnegie Mellon University. I'm also a free speech, animal rights, and political activist, and am part of the Civic Counsel group (a not for profit that, when established, will promote free information, institutional transparency, personal privacy, and civic engagement through code, education, advocacy, and research.). I think the Debian project is wonderful, though currently I am a Red Hat employee (and I neither speak for nor represent either organization). If this introduction's presentation seems weak, that's because it is; Tomasz created too hard of an act to follow. Cheers, --frozencemetery
Re: [silk] What is happiness?
On Mar 17, 2013, at 11:13 AM, Shoba Narayan sh...@shobanarayan.com wrote: ing happiness possible. For decades I have insisted that happiness is inside the head, between one's ears. Over 20 years ago when I used to live in the UK I found Indians who had achieved their dream of leading a wealthy life abroad lamenting that they wanted to go back to India. There were whiny and unhappy. I was planning on going back to India anyway, but did not want to regret that I did not try something that I could have done. I had decided against the US simply because I had medical qualifications from India and the UK and had no intention of requalifying in the US at an age when I could be teaching my teachers something. I decided to check out Canada. For me the checking out route meant buying a practice and what was available was a practice in the town of Wadena (pop 1000), Saskatchewan.I visited Bangalore briefly before going to Canada. In Bangalore I happened to meet the mother of a young man living in Saskatoon who instantly (and very kindly) arranged for me to use his home as base while I checked out Wadena, 60 odd miles away. She spoke glowingly of her son and his wife. They had double of everything. Two cars. Two TVs. Two whatnots. Four bathrooms. This was 1989. In February 1989 I flew out to Toronto and thence to Saskatoon. I flew Wardair that served their food in Wedgwood crockery, and went out of business in a year or so. The temperature in Saskatoon was -20 centigrade. My breath was freezing on my moustache. People who parked cars at the airport did not turn off their engines. Cheap oil. The couple I stayed with were very warm and hospitable. But they lamented that they wanted to be back in India. Look outside they said. 5 feet of snow. Wadena had two hotels. One was called Hotel Motel where I got a room and spent a night. The mayor who had heard that a doctor was visiting came up in the morning and had breakfast with me. He was very friendly and genuinely welcoming. He drove me around that little town in his pick up truck. I asked him what there was to do in town, and he told me that I could go moose hunting on his estate and indicated that there were snow scooters I could use. I had visions of telling my wife to pick up the rifle and go moose hunting because I was held up at the clinic and that I would join her later. Canada was not the place for me. I returned to India the next year. People in India were amazed that I was idiot enough to return to India after having made it in the west. I told them that I had been living in the north of England and had suffered a nervous breakdown. The previous summer I had seen a bright light in the sky that scared me witless leading to the breakdown. When I recovered people told me that the light was actually the sun. I had not seen the sun for 2 years in the north of England and had forgotten about it. Scary innit? Happiness is in one's head. There is a digitized 8 mm home movie of me as a 4 year old child carrying a toy gun. I still love shooting. There is something compellingly satisfying about pulling a little lever attached to a pipe in front of you and seeing a Coke can explode dozens of yards away. I have received warning letters from the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Tin cans. But what do I care? Happiness is doing things that you feel like doing. Things that relax you and keep your mind empty like that recently perforated Coke can. shiv Lovely writing, Shiv. I agree, this needs - deserves public homage.
Re: [silk] Introductions
Indrajit Gupta On Mar 11, 2013, at 1:05 PM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote: I have a thesis that it depends is the correct answer to _any_ technical question. I do not have a formal proof but I'm yet to come across a counter example. There is a marvelous proof, but this mailing list is too small to contain it. Udhay -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] Introductions
On Mar 11, 2013, at 1:05 PM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote: I have a thesis that it depends is the correct answer to _any_ technical question. I do not have a formal proof but I'm yet to come across a counter example. There is a marvelous proof, but this mailing list is too small to contain it. Udhay -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) My understanding, based on rare and highly bewildering interactions with that tribe, is that IIM Ahmedabad discovered this and patented it thirty five years ago.
Re: [silk] Introductions
Indrajit Gupta On Mar 11, 2013, at 1:21 PM, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: My understanding, based on rare and highly bewildering interactions with that tribe, is that IIM Ahmedabad discovered this and patented it thirty five years ago. It depends. -- b In canonical form, It all depends..
Re: [silk] What is happiness?
This is not funny. Cuts too close to the bone. You are hereby warned to cease and desist. Indrajit Gupta On Mar 11, 2013, at 9:40 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: We've discussed this here before (e.g. [1] [2]), but here's another worthwhile take, from a former colleague at Yahoo! and a recent silklister. Thoughts? Udhay [1] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/silk-list/message/4965 [2] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/silk-list/message/37925 http://blog.mizannethrope.com/post/45039337095/happiness-is-pine-sol-and-clorox-and-like-them-both Happiness is Pine Sol and Clorox and Like Them Both, Probably Toxic in Large Quantities Happiness. There are a lot of books written on this topic. I know because I’ve read them all. ALL of them. This is a matter that mankind has pursued throughout time. It’s fundamental to our very existence. It’s what separates us from the beasts of the wild. What is happiness? How do we get it? If we have it, how do we keep it? Or more precisely, how do we prevent ourselves from losing it? When we have it, how do we know we have it? I started seeing a therapist when my mother was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer. I probably should have started years earlier. Years. Maybe at birth. One of the first things she asked me was, “What makes you happy?” I kind of stumbled when she asked that so she rephrased the question. “Can you tell me a time, recently, when you felt really happy?” After sitting there for a moment, I said the first thing that popped into my head. That’s what you are supposed to do in therapy, right? Not over-think the question but rather, respond naturally so you reveal your true self. So I told the unedited, unvarnished, unmitigated truth. Or as Oprah would say, I told MY truth. So here it is. I am happiest when…. “The hour after the cleaning people leave my house. When everything is clean, orderly, and smells like Pine Sol. That’s when I am happiest.” You know you’ve achieved something when your therapist looks a little puzzled. I joke all the time about being OCD. In reality, I do not suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. At least not in a clinically diagnosable way. I really shouldn’t joke about it because plenty of people really do have debilitating issues associated with OCD. I am just a freak about tidiness and thus, my Twitter handle: @clean_freak. Many people apparently take me at face value. Ergo, some of my Twitter followers include: @scrubblingbubble, @cleanercleaning, @abhousekeeping, @goofoffpro (a cleaning agent, apparently), @acepressurewash, and @bugoffseatcover. I will readily admit that the smell of cleaning products makes me feel, well, happy. Those same products are probably going to give me brain cancer. Although to be clear, I’m not sniffing them in open containers like gasoline or airplane glue. The smell of cleaning products just gives me a weird feeling of comfort when I’m cleaning or otherwise at home. Like all things revealed in therapy, this too, can be traced back to my mother. My very Korean mother. Margaret Cho does a great routine about her Korean mother. After her mom suffered a heart attack, she came to live with Margaret. Her mother told her about her near-death experience. In broken English, she said to Margaret, “After I die, my spirit float out my body. I float far, far away. I go you house. I look down. Ay-gu! Why so messy?” And that folks, is probably what my mother is doing right now. Looking down at my house today and thinking, “Ay-gu! Why so messy?” (Because I was away on a business trip for 5 days, mom! Don’t judge me!) But to get back to my earlier point, what is happiness anyway? I think my initial response to my therapist hit the nail on the head. Happiness is not some big, grand destination. Or even some fanciful life-long journey. It’s the sum of all the little things. For me, it’s crystallized in that moment of peace and serenity when everything is just-so. In a house with 3 dogs and 3 kids, it’s rare. It’s the calm sense of accomplishment I feel when I am getting things done. Not huge things. Little things. I remember when I was in school, I’d get incredibly stressed during exams. I always thought I’d feel so relieved when they were over. But the moment I turned in my last test, the feeling of lightness I thought I’d have never materialized. Or if it did, it was never as uplifting as I imagined it would be. The quest for happiness seldom results in a sustainable sense of overwhelming joy. If it comes, it usually lasts only for a fleeting moment. And really, if you felt happy all the time, how would you know what it is to be happy? There is a beautiful passage in The Prophet - The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? I read that to mean that to truly experience
Re: [silk] Looking for Kolkata-Chinese who live in Singapore
On Jan 30, 2013, at 1:13 PM, Adrianna Tan skinnyla...@gmail.com wrote: Hey guys, A friend of mine is on the search for Kolkata-Chinese people who live in Singapore. Let me know if anyone knows anyone! Adrianna Tan +65 9221 2066 There is a lurking member of the list, who should respond. Or is he no longer a member?
Re: [silk] Looking for Kolkata-Chinese who live in Singapore
On Jan 31, 2013, at 7:49 AM, Adrianna Tan skinnyla...@gmail.com wrote: There is a lurking member of the list, who should respond. Or is he no longer a member? I don't know this person! Looks like he's left the list. Let me get in touch with Tony aka Yang Yen-Thaw, and ask him to contact you.
Re: [silk] Looking for Kolkata-Chinese who live in Singapore
On Jan 31, 2013, at 10:58 AM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: On Jan 31, 2013, at 7:49 AM, Adrianna Tan skinnyla...@gmail.com wrote: There is a lurking member of the list, who should respond. Or is he no longer a member? I don't know this person! Looks like he's left the list. Let me get in touch with Tony aka Yang Yen-Thaw, and ask him to contact you. I've just been informed that that person does not exist. In the case of the outrageous possibility that he does, anybody referring to him might cease to exist. I can take a hint. Bye, cruel list.
Re: [silk] Andy Deemer Does Bangalore Breakfast Joints
On Jan 30, 2013, at 11:57 AM, Chew Lin Kay chewlin@gmail.com wrote: Tangetially related to starting the day right: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/fighting-fat-at-india-inc-one-dosa-at-a-time/ Fighting Fat at India Inc., One Dosa at a TimeBy SARITHA RAIhttp://india.blogs.nytimes.com/author/saritha-rai/ [image: A screenshot of the]Courtesy of HealthifyMeA screenshot of the “HealthifyMe” application. LIFE AND LOVE IN THE NEW BANGALOREhttp://india.blogs.nytimes.com/category/life-and-love-in-the-new-bangalore/ Tales of ambition and youth from India’s outsourcing hub. Six-footer Sanjay Jain is at least 15 kilograms (33 pounds) overweight at 95 kilograms. Typical of many of his Bangalore peers, Mr. Jain puts on weight, loses weight and then starts the whole cycle anew. Like many professionals in Bangalore and urban Indians everywhere, Mr. Jain, 46, works late hours, trains in stops and bursts, and, until recently, paid scant attention to what, when and how much he ate. But a few months ago Mr. Jain, a software industry professional and a budding entrepreneur at the Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Labs in Bangalore, decided to lose weight and signed up as a tester for an app called HealthifyMe. http://healthifyme.com/ For the first time, the vegetarian began measuring what he ate, not just in calories but also in nutritional content. Mr. Jain, who said he considered himself well educated about dietary choices, was jolted when he found out that his carbohydrate-laden diet contained barely any proteins. “I was stunned to see that 70 percent or more of my intake consisted of carbs, and it was a high-fat and low-protein diet,” he said. Mr. Jain’s struggle parallels that of HealthifyMe’s co-founder Tushar Vashisht, a University of Pennsylvania graduate and former investment banker who gained 18 kilograms within a year of returning to India to work for the country’s Unique Identity project. “Corporate India happened to me,” said Mr. Vashisht, who confessed that he used to unthinkingly order entire vegetarian menus at fast food restaurants. Courtesy of Tushar VashishtTwo of the co-founders of HealthifyMe, Tushar Vashisht, left, and Mathew Cherian. Starting on a fitness regimen was hard enough, but when it came to his diet, Mr. Vashisht said he was flummoxed. In a country of a billion-plus people and a food heritage of thousands of years, there was no easy way to track nutrition and calories in common Indian dishes. Calorie counters developed in the West could not tally the calories of Mr. Vashisht’s beloved Indian food. Around him in Bangalore, entrepreneurs were starting to tackle uniquely Indian problems by devising their own innovative technology solutions. So Mr. Vashisht, 28, and Mathew Cherian, also 28, a computer science graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, set to work creating an application for the Indian diet. (Mr. Vashisht and Mr. Cherian once conducted a month-long experiment on the diet of poor Indians by living on 100 rupees a dayhttp://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/living-like-the-other-half/ .) The two were joined later by a third co-founder, Sachin Shenoy, a holder of five patents who helped build many consumer products at Google. “India Inc. is a one-way ticket to being obese, diabetic and hypertensive,” said Mr. Vashisht, who cited a study by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations that suggested that half of white-collar India is prone to lifestyle diseases and that 71 percent of the workforce and 82 percent of chief executives were overweight. “Living on salads is unworkable in India, so we need solutions that can work for our own food and eating culture,” he said. Mr. Vashisht and Mr. Cherian first digitized hundreds of pieces of data on Indian raw ingredients, with their micro- and macro-nutrient counts, from dusty files at the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad. They integrated them with records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration database of 10,000 raw ingredients. After stitching the two together, they built a comprehensive database of nutritional values for thousands of standardized Indian recipes. With expert help from endocrinologists, dieticians and gym trainers, HealthifyMe is set to become the country’s first comprehensive calorie tracker for everything from thepla (a western Indian flatbread with greens) to bisibele bath (a rice and lentil dish from the south) to sabudana khichdi (a savory pudding made from sago pearls and peanuts). In India, even diet experts, fitness professionals and hospitals struggle to provide their clients accurate calorific counts and nutritional data, said Sheela Krishnaswamy, a clinical dietician based in Bangalore. “Making a database of all Indian foods across cuisines and regions and enumerating their key nutrients and calories is a
Re: [silk] silklist Digest, Vol 38, Issue 9
On Jan 8, 2013, at 2:39 PM, Dave Long dave.l...@bluewin.ch wrote: Encrusted, port-swilling diehards dluohs lla uoy kniht I dna ,seY be grateful that some of our retfa neve tcatni niamer srennam having swilled too much port ... I taht stseggus netfo noercanA respond to something on silk-list ni ylikcul tub ,nodehportsuob ni almost all these instances, the etilop fo snoitatsurcni gniniamer behavior *usually* restrain. evaD- Boustrophedon yet. O tempora, o mores(I no longer have the energy to place an exclamation mark there, far less exclaim
Re: [silk] Why don't women write or reply more on Silk?
On Jan 8, 2013, at 4:21 PM, Caitlin Marinelli caitlin.marine...@gmail.com wrote: For me, I guess, it's because I can't always meaningfully contribute. Also the two or three times I have posted something - I've gotten no response. I sent an article about strong women this morning for example - and it didn't get a response. Someones post yesterday about wine in Chennai got much more. Even when I've responded to others I find little personal response. Not sure if I'm posting things that don't interest the group, or if I'm not asking the right questions to elicit responses. -- Caitlin Marinelli blog: http://caitlinmarinelli.wordpress.com/ cell (Mumbai): +91 9820207217 Happens. Nothing to worry about. Just that nobody has anything pithy and properly epigrammatic to say back, or suitably encyclopaedic to make a building on your argument.
Re: [silk] What's this word?
The best of luck in your immortal quest. Indrajit Gupta On Jan 8, 2013, at 10:09 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: I am trying to recall a word for a figure of speech. It's a typical Brit thing where you deliberately make a really weak analogy (as slippery as a really slippery thing, or, as you can see below) Anyone? __ ZAPHODHey, this rock... FORDMarble... ZAPHODMarble... FORDIce-covered marble... ZAPHODRight... it's as slippery as... as... What's the slipperiest thing you can think of? FORDAt the moment? This marble. ZAPHODRight. This marble is as slippery as this marble. -- Zaphod and Ford trying to get a grip on things in Brontitall, Fit the Tenth.
Re: [silk] Why don't women write or reply more on Silk?
True. Indrajit Gupta On Jan 8, 2013, at 11:47 AM, thew...@gmail.com wrote: But why is top posting a problem? Its an archaic and arbitrary dictum that is largely meaningless today. Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone From: Radhika, Y. radhik...@gmail.com Sender: silklist-bounces+thewall=gmail@lists.hserus.net Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2013 21:57:05 -0800 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net ReplyTo: silklist@lists.hserus.net Subject: Re: [silk] Why don't women write or reply more on Silk? I thought I had better answer this - else it would be too ironic! I see you and Deepa most often on Silk whereas the other women do seem absent. Sometimes I don't reply because I am too afraid of top posting by mistake (have been guilty a number of times!) Radhika
Re: [silk] Top-posting
Encrusted, port-swilling diehards Indrajit Gupta On Jan 8, 2013, at 11:52 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 8, 2013 at 11:47 AM, thew...@gmail.com wrote: But why is top posting a problem? Its an archaic and arbitrary dictum that is largely meaningless today. Groan. Not this again. There are very good reasons for NOT top-posting, to do with the way humans process information, as well as having the courtesy to not append enormous amounts of cognitive junk to your postings. I recognise that many mail clients and platforms almost force people to top-post, which is why I don't usually make too much of a fuss. However, it continues to be a rule of the list. Your breaking the rule is being overlooked due to the fact that your mail client is poorly designed, but that doesn't make it a virtue. Udhay -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] Chennai Silk meet this week?
You should explain that Khader Nawaz Road is due west from Mylapore, whereas Adyar is due south. Indrajit Gupta On Jan 1, 2013, at 12:15 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian sur...@hserus.net wrote: Well, khader nawaz khan road is within half an hour of mylapore. And so am I, in Adyar. By taxi of course, I wouldn't recommend walking. --srs (iPad) On 01-Jan-2013, at 11:59, Chew Lin Kay chewlin@gmail.com wrote: Wait confused now. Which location for the 12 and which for the 19? Am doing a walk in Mylapore on the morning of the 19th, so will appreciate somewhere in that general vicinity (that being relative, for some for a country known euphemistically as the little red dot)
Re: [silk] Fifteen
Some more need to be in on this, Anil, as I am myself uncertain about that date and about Delhi later this month at all. Your best bet might be to be in Bangalore itself, chicken-hearted though that might sound. Indrajit Gupta On Dec 6, 2012, at 12:15 AM, Anil Kumar anilkumar.naga...@gmail.com wrote: On Dec 5, 2012, at 22:48, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Cal or Delhi, anyone? Indrajit Gupta I'm in if it's in Delhi. On Dec 5, 2012, at 2:28 PM, Nikhil Mehra nikhil.mehra...@gmail.com wrote: I'm in. Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel -Original Message- From: Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com Sender: silklist-bounces+nikhil.mehra773=gmail@lists.hserus.net Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2012 14:27:05 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Subject: Re: [silk] Fifteen On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Nikhil Mehra nikhil.mehra...@gmail.com wrote: Absolutely. So let's say 7pm Friday 21st December, at a place To Be Named Later. :) Works for all? Udhay -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] Fifteen
Cal or Delhi, anyone? Indrajit Gupta On Dec 5, 2012, at 2:28 PM, Nikhil Mehra nikhil.mehra...@gmail.com wrote: I'm in. Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel -Original Message- From: Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com Sender: silklist-bounces+nikhil.mehra773=gmail@lists.hserus.net Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2012 14:27:05 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Subject: Re: [silk] Fifteen On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 1:43 PM, Nikhil Mehra nikhil.mehra...@gmail.com wrote: Absolutely. So let's say 7pm Friday 21st December, at a place To Be Named Later. :) Works for all? Udhay -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] quiz help
Sent from my iPad On Oct 15, 2012, at 9:19 AM, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 11:59 AM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Bonobashi is forest dweller, not forester. Subtle, but present. Oh, like Kattukaran? You're not related to Gabin by any chance, are you? -- b No, no, I'm not, we're not related. Forest dwellers are not related to anybody. They are shy creatures who avoid the glare and noise of the outer world, and keep to themselves. As you have noticed.
Re: [silk] quiz help
Sent from my iPad On Oct 15, 2012, at 12:00 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian sur...@hserus.net wrote: that's a thought. next long weekend silkmeet in a jungle lodge type place like kabini --srs (iPad) On 15-Oct-2012, at 11:59, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Sent from my iPad On Oct 15, 2012, at 9:19 AM, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 11:59 AM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Bonobashi is forest dweller, not forester. Subtle, but present. Oh, like Kattukaran? You're not related to Gabin by any chance, are you? -- b shiver losing hope Is nothing sacred? Imagine my frayed nerves, at the mere thought of more than three silk-listers gathered together, drifting threads. Imagine the ecological damage. Imagine the economic consequences of, say, three silk-listers abstaining, ALL AT THE SAME TIME, from productive work. Why can't you meet in Pecos or something?
Re: [silk] quiz help
Three, three. You and he, however charitably we look at the primordial merit oozing out of you two, still make one less than three. Sent from my iPad On Oct 15, 2012, at 12:12 PM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On 15-Oct-12 12:06 PM, Bonobashi wrote: Imagine my frayed nerves, at the mere thought of more than three silk-listers gathered together, drifting threads. Imagine the ecological damage. Imagine the economic consequences of, say, three silk-listers abstaining, ALL AT THE SAME TIME, from productive work. Ram, I believe that was your cue. Udhay -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] quiz help
Sent from my iPad On Oct 15, 2012, at 12:13 PM, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 12:06 PM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: threads. Imagine the ecological damage. Imagine the economic consequences of, say, three silk-listers abstaining, ALL AT THE SAME TIME, from productive work. Why can't you meet in Pecos or something? Productive work? Silklisters? They're all too busy plotting thread drift (and bad puns) to bother with work. -- b Unkind, very. Silk-listers arrive at the list after sailing through their work. We might make an exception for Shiv. The imagination boggles at the thought of him sailing through HIS work.
Re: [silk] quiz help
Sent from my iPad On Oct 15, 2012, at 4:52 PM, ashok _ listmans...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 1:52 AM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 2:42 PM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Not fair to Noddy. This is a chestnut, which, considering its vintage, may be considered fresh maal once again. It dates back to the Anglo-Indian era in quizzing, when one could ask the QM to hang on until one explained to a skeptical bearer exactly what was going wrong with the gin-and-lime. ...eheu, fugacesand all that. Perhaps I should explain my reasoning. One does not find many contemporary uses of the term Mau plateau. The region these days is referred to as Central Province (shortened to Central). Most references to Mau plateau that I have across are online, and a majority of them are about Kenya being considered as a potential home for the Jewish people. So when I find someone using a dated phrasing I muttered to myself o tempora, o moraes and fired off a reply. Actually the part of the Mau Plateau that was promised to the Jews was not what is covered by the modern Central Province (that was already by then becoming the White Highlands ) ... but the part of the Mau plateau that extends into Rift Valley province and Western province (think going east from Mt. Elgon - including parts of uganda and West from Nakuru .. ) Coming hot on the heels of Thaths and his blasted o tempora, o Frank instead of the usual, hackneyed orthography, one is pleased to see that the practice of putting an 'actually' before a particularly conclusive dismissal of another citizen's opinion continues. Rule, Britannia
Re: [silk] quiz help
Sent from my iPad On Oct 15, 2012, at 8:27 PM, Dave Long dave.l...@bluewin.ch wrote: ... it would only inflame passions to point out that it should be a chukkah, played for 7 1/2 minutes, on old regimental polo grounds ... In the spirit of distinguishing chassepôt rifles from javelins, a bit of pedantry: 7 1/2, unless it's the last chukka (and unless a penalty has been awarded within the last 5 seconds of the last chukka) Polo? inflame passions? Never. (what, never?) Well, hardly ever... -Dave cf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlHb3NOhEE8 (but only if you wish to wait almost 3 minutes to actually see some polo, compared to the argies http://espndeportes.espn.go.com/videohub/video/clipDeportes?id=1434118cc=7586 who manage to get the action going in about 45 seconds) But of course, Dave. It's a pity those two old buzzards never did one on polo, although Joe Shearer had started CPC in 1861, and they started their musicals ten years after that. I suppose the closest they got was a thoroughly modern Major General; Joe was a Major General, after all.
Re: [silk] quiz help
Sent from my iPad On Oct 16, 2012, at 2:21 AM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Ramakrishnan Sundaram r.sunda...@gmail.com wrote: On 16 October 2012 02:04, Ramakrishnan Sundaram r.sunda...@gmail.com wrote: As a Bambaiyya ex-colleague of mine used to say, gaand faadke darwaza bana diya. I know, replying to oneself, and bad form, and all that sort of stuff... but I think that's one line where I could have added /rimshot. Now you are being fecestious. Thaths Hmm. Demands introspection?
Re: [silk] quiz help
On Oct 13, 2012, at 7:28 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian sur...@hserus.net wrote: bonobashis should know all about foresters --srs (iPad) On 13-Oct-2012, at 7:10, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Sent from my iPad On Oct 13, 2012, at 6:37 AM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 5:45 PM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: And I suppose it would only inflame passions to point out that it should be a chukkah, played for 7 1/2 minutes, on old regimental polo grounds, and other polo grounds alike. I write in my alter ego of 'Joe Shearer', of course. Sure your English alter ego ought to be Joe Forester. Why Joe Forester? What did he do for the game? Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders groan Bonobashi is forest dweller, not forester. Subtle, but present. Joe Shearer was an historical character.
Re: [silk] quiz help
.and how would i/we cope with mili-metternichs left with nothing to criticize? Sent from my iPad On Oct 12, 2012, at 9:53 AM, Naresh xxx...@yahoo.com wrote: BTW that's half-point kodi.Ahh! these long term Bangalorevaasis who don't know Kannada yet...and living in Malleswaram too!! On 11-Oct-2012, at 8:40 PM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: aiyo! seri, parvagilla, half-point kuri, saar. Sent from my iPad On Oct 11, 2012, at 8:31 PM, xxxrum xxx...@yahoo.com wrote: Facebook sirji not yearbook!!! Sent from Samsung Mobile Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Dear Noddy, In my enthusiasm to celebrate your impending beatification, I forgot; Brandy, Yearbook, Humpty Dumpty and Hymen. I have little or nothing to do with the world of figures.
Re: [silk] Quiz help
Allahabad - that's where the east-west midpoint was determined, and the time zone derived from that . Sent from my iPad On Oct 12, 2012, at 10:56 AM, Naresh xxx...@yahoo.com wrote: Thanks everyone for the quiz help (more audio -visual question banks welcome) and Mr Bonobashi for the encouraging noises!! I always wondered about this...Mr Cecil from The Straight Dope has nailed it.. Naresh Why is India 30 minutes out of step with everybody else? June 5, 1981 Dear Cecil: It must be these uncertain times, but once again I find myself coming to you to find the solution to a tantalizing enigma. In banks and other places that want to give that continental effect, one sees rows of clocks showing the time in various locales--New York, Paris, London--you know what I mean, being a man of the world. Anyway, the hour hand varies, but the minute hand is always the same--except for Bombay! It's always half an hour off. Or is the rest of the world half an hour off? I'm very concerned about this. Please explain so if I ever go to Bombay I can set my watch correctly. — Garnet J., Seattle Dear Garnet: Bombay, and India generally, isn't the only place chronometrically out of step with the rest of the world. Lots of countries, particularly in Asia, are a half-hour out of sync, including Burma, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan. Some have even stranger quirks. If my handy time-zone map here is to be believed--I am a little dubious about some of it--Nepal is 40 minutes off the mark. Saudi Arabia, ever the trailblazer, has some bizarre system in which clocks are supposedly reset to midnight every day at sunset. Keeping one's watch properly attuned aboard the Riyadh-Rangoon express must be an exhausting experience. All of this traces back to the haphazard system of timekeeping prevalent before the 1884 Washington conference that established Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as the international reference point. The conferees divided the world into 24 zones, the time in each of which was to differ from a whole number of hours from GMT. Prior to this, people made use of local mean time, i.e., they figured out approximately when the sun was directly overhead, called that noon, and went from there. City A's time would thus differ by some odd number of minutes from that of cities B and C to the east and west. For instance, in 1880, England established two times zones for the British Isles--GMT for England, and Dublin Mean Time, 25 minutes earlier (or later, depending on how you look at it), for Ireland. After the standardization conference, most countries rounded off their local time, as it were, so that it differed by a whole hour(s) from GMT and from adjoining time zones. But some, for reasons of geography or politics, rounded off to the half-hour. Newfoundland, for example, was (I think) three hours, 35 minutes, and some seconds behind GMT before standardization, and elected to round off to three hours, 30 minutes--owing, I suppose, to the native perversity of its inhabitants, who delighted in being out of sync with the rest of Canada. India, as it happens straddles two time zones, but for obvious reasons preferred to have one uniform time throughout the country. Rather than choose between GMT+5 and GMT+6 (which would make dawn and dusk in the far reaches of the country either unusually early or unusually late), the government apparently decided to split the difference. I can't explain Saudi Arabia, but nobody else ever has either. — Cecil Adams On 11-Oct-2012, at 8:38 PM, Ingrid Srinath ingrid.srin...@gmail.com wrote: Do peruse: http://old.qi.com/links/ Especially: http://www.straightdope.com/ Ingrid Srinath
Re: [silk] quiz help
Not fair to Noddy. This is a chestnut, which, considering its vintage, may be considered fresh maal once again. It dates back to the Anglo-Indian era in quizzing, when one could ask the QM to hang on until one explained to a skeptical bearer exactly what was going wrong with the gin-and-lime. ...eheu, fugacesand all that. Sent from my iPad On Oct 12, 2012, at 11:46 PM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Nikhil Mehra nikhil.mehra...@gmail.com wrote: Mau plateau, Kenya Did you use web search in coming up with the answer? Which bring me to the reason I have moved away from quizzing circles. Web search, Wikipedia and Google book search have not only made it unnecessary to remember obscure trivia but also made the lives of quiz masters easier. Quiz masters can now ask questions (to the strain of Humpty Dumpty, no less) about little known cannons in Colchester without needing the ability to locate Essex on a map or knowing who fought whom in the English Civil War. Thaths Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel From: Thaths tha...@gmail.com Sender: silklist-bounces+nikhil.mehra773=gmail@lists.hserus.net Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:36:59 -0700 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net ReplyTo: silklist@lists.hserus.net Subject: Re: [silk] quiz help Speaking of abstruse trivia 1. How are the Indian Railways and the San Francisco-Bay Area BART linked? 2. In 1903 the British government offered to home 5,000 square miles of land to the World Zionist Organization to set up a homeland for the Jews. The offer was declined in 1905. Where was this land that could have become the new Israel? Thaths On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 5:20 AM, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 5:49 PM, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: I must thank this thread. You people just gifted me one of the quiz Tcchah, I meant, one round of the quiz. -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] quiz help
Sent from my iPad On Oct 13, 2012, at 4:22 AM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 2:42 PM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Not fair to Noddy. This is a chestnut, which, considering its vintage, may be considered fresh maal once again. It dates back to the Anglo-Indian era in quizzing, when one could ask the QM to hang on until one explained to a skeptical bearer exactly what was going wrong with the gin-and-lime. ...eheu, fugacesand all that. Perhaps I should explain my reasoning. One does not find many contemporary uses of the term Mau plateau. The region these days is referred to as Central Province (shortened to Central). Most references to Mau plateau that I have across are online, and a majority of them are about Kenya being considered as a potential home for the Jewish people. So when I find someone using a dated phrasing I muttered to myself o tempora, o moraes and fired off a reply. Now that you mention the Ango-Indian quizzing milieu, I am forced to mutter a mea culpa and admit that, for a chappie of the sort you describe, Mau plateau is as pucca as a chakar around the old regimental polo grounds. Thaths And I suppose it would only inflame passions to point out that it should be a chukkah, played for 7 1/2 minutes, on old regimental polo grounds, and other polo grounds alike. I write in my alter ego of 'Joe Shearer', of course. Sent from my iPad On Oct 12, 2012, at 11:46 PM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Nikhil Mehra nikhil.mehra...@gmail.com wrote: Mau plateau, Kenya Did you use web search in coming up with the answer? Which bring me to the reason I have moved away from quizzing circles. Web search, Wikipedia and Google book search have not only made it unnecessary to remember obscure trivia but also made the lives of quiz masters easier. Quiz masters can now ask questions (to the strain of Humpty Dumpty, no less) about little known cannons in Colchester without needing the ability to locate Essex on a map or knowing who fought whom in the English Civil War. Thaths Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel From: Thaths tha...@gmail.com Sender: silklist-bounces+nikhil.mehra773=gmail@lists.hserus.net Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:36:59 -0700 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net ReplyTo: silklist@lists.hserus.net Subject: Re: [silk] quiz help Speaking of abstruse trivia 1. How are the Indian Railways and the San Francisco-Bay Area BART linked? 2. In 1903 the British government offered to home 5,000 square miles of land to the World Zionist Organization to set up a homeland for the Jews. The offer was declined in 1905. Where was this land that could have become the new Israel? Thaths On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 5:20 AM, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 5:49 PM, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: I must thank this thread. You people just gifted me one of the quiz Tcchah, I meant, one round of the quiz. -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] quiz help
Sent from my iPad On Oct 13, 2012, at 6:37 AM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 5:45 PM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: And I suppose it would only inflame passions to point out that it should be a chukkah, played for 7 1/2 minutes, on old regimental polo grounds, and other polo grounds alike. I write in my alter ego of 'Joe Shearer', of course. Sure your English alter ego ought to be Joe Forester. Why Joe Forester? What did he do for the game? Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] quiz help
Dear Noddy, I am glad to tell you that you are a dead duck. It is probable that KQA members, the geriatrics, at any rate, will eat you alive when you turn up with only five questions. It was against this greatest nightmare for any wanna-be QM that Neil and Son maintain question banks of some 10 to 15,000 questions. if you survive your ordeal, do let us have a blow-by-blow account. Sent from my iPad On Oct 11, 2012, at 7:33 PM, Naresh xxx...@yahoo.com wrote: Dear Silklisters I have to set a quiz for a bunch of 50 somethings (part of a quiz group that i have been in for the past 20 yrs) and horror of horrors;it is on this saturday 13th october...And I totally forgot.. Can the group point me to web resources (not the competition success kind ,please) or any ready compilations that can be shared with me urgently? The questions have to be of a general nature , not too esoteric and guessable and above all interesting..And definitely not too highbrow!!! My direct email is xxx...@yahoo.com Please do help..some of the questions I have put together to give you a flavour are below.Audio visual questions are a great hit too!!! I have Gangnam style already!!! I need about 150 questions... 1. In 1512, a Dutch merchant searching for ways to transport large quantities of wine found that by boiling the wine he could remove the water in it and thus transport more wine in the same volume. At the destination, he would just add the missing water. But he found that people were more interested in the boiled concentrate than the wine and made a killing by selling the boiled concentrate. How do we better know this boiled concentrate? 2. What is the common name for a college publication distributed at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students get to know each other better? 3. According to the website of the Colchester tourist board, during the English Civil War a large cannon was placed strategically on the wall of the castle. A shot from the parliamentary army managed to destroy the wall under the cannon and caused it to tumble to the ground. The Cavaliers (who were loyal to the King) tried to raise the cannon but could not do so as it was too heavy. What was the name of the cannon and how has it been immortalized? 4. Accordingly to Greek mythology, he is the God of Marriage and specifically the Marriage Hymn. He holds a burning torch in one hand and is considered the protector of female virginity. Which God? 5. What are algorithms like the layer method, the block method, the corner method and the super-flip used to solve? Probably a nice exercise to answer these too Thanks in advance Naresh
Re: [silk] quiz help
Dear Noddy, In my enthusiasm to celebrate your impending beatification, I forgot; Brandy, Yearbook, Humpty Dumpty and Hymen. I have little or nothing to do with the world of figures. Sent from my iPad On Oct 11, 2012, at 7:33 PM, Naresh xxx...@yahoo.com wrote: Dear Silklisters I have to set a quiz for a bunch of 50 somethings (part of a quiz group that i have been in for the past 20 yrs) and horror of horrors;it is on this saturday 13th october...And I totally forgot.. Can the group point me to web resources (not the competition success kind ,please) or any ready compilations that can be shared with me urgently? The questions have to be of a general nature , not too esoteric and guessable and above all interesting..And definitely not too highbrow!!! My direct email is xxx...@yahoo.com Please do help..some of the questions I have put together to give you a flavour are below.Audio visual questions are a great hit too!!! I have Gangnam style already!!! I need about 150 questions... 1. In 1512, a Dutch merchant searching for ways to transport large quantities of wine found that by boiling the wine he could remove the water in it and thus transport more wine in the same volume. At the destination, he would just add the missing water. But he found that people were more interested in the boiled concentrate than the wine and made a killing by selling the boiled concentrate. How do we better know this boiled concentrate? 2. What is the common name for a college publication distributed at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students get to know each other better? 3. According to the website of the Colchester tourist board, during the English Civil War a large cannon was placed strategically on the wall of the castle. A shot from the parliamentary army managed to destroy the wall under the cannon and caused it to tumble to the ground. The Cavaliers (who were loyal to the King) tried to raise the cannon but could not do so as it was too heavy. What was the name of the cannon and how has it been immortalized? 4. Accordingly to Greek mythology, he is the God of Marriage and specifically the Marriage Hymn. He holds a burning torch in one hand and is considered the protector of female virginity. Which God? 5. What are algorithms like the layer method, the block method, the corner method and the super-flip used to solve? Probably a nice exercise to answer these too Thanks in advance Naresh
Re: [silk] quiz help
aiyo! seri, parvagilla, half-point kuri, saar. Sent from my iPad On Oct 11, 2012, at 8:31 PM, xxxrum xxx...@yahoo.com wrote: Facebook sirji not yearbook!!! Sent from Samsung Mobile Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Dear Noddy, In my enthusiasm to celebrate your impending beatification, I forgot; Brandy, Yearbook, Humpty Dumpty and Hymen. I have little or nothing to do with the world of figures. Sent from my iPad On Oct 11, 2012, at 7:33 PM, Naresh xxx...@yahoo.com wrote: Dear Silklisters I have to set a quiz for a bunch of 50 somethings (part of a quiz group that i have been in for the past 20 yrs) and horror of horrors;it is on this saturday 13th october...And I totally forgot.. Can the group point me to web resources (not the competition success kind ,please) or any ready compilations that can be shared with me urgently? The questions have to be of a general nature , not too esoteric and guessable and above all interesting..And definitely not too highbrow!!! My direct email is xxx...@yahoo.com Please do help..some of the questions I have put together to give you a flavour are below.Audio visual questions are a great hit too!!! I have Gangnam style already!!! I need about 150 questions... 1. In 1512, a Dutch merchant searching for ways to transport large quantities of wine found that by boiling the wine he could remove the water in it and thus transport more wine in the same volume. At the destination, he would just add the missing water. But he found that people were more interested in the boiled concentrate than the wine and made a killing by selling the boiled concentrate. How do we better know this boiled concentrate? 2. What is the common name for a college publication distributed at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students get to know each other better? 3. According to the website of the Colchester tourist board, during the English Civil War a large cannon was placed strategically on the wall of the castle. A shot from the parliamentary army managed to destroy the wall under the cannon and caused it to tumble to the ground. The Cavaliers (who were loyal to the King) tried to raise the cannon but could not do so as it was too heavy. What was the name of the cannon and how has it been immortalized? 4. Accordingly to Greek mythology, he is the God of Marriage and specifically the Marriage Hymn. He holds a burning torch in one hand and is considered the protector of female virginity. Which God? 5. What are algorithms like the layer method, the block method, the corner method and the super-flip used to solve? Probably a nice exercise to answer these too Thanks in advance Naresh
Re: [silk] quiz help
Oh, you poor thing! Dyslexic, and you didn't even know! Sent from my iPad On Oct 11, 2012, at 9:55 PM, SS cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, 2012-10-11 at 19:33 +0530, Naresh wrote: quiz for a bunch of 50 somethings I thought people over 50 did not have enough brain cells left for a quiz. Luckily for me I'm only 25 shiv
Re: [silk] quiz help
what happened to KQA? Sent from my iPad On Oct 12, 2012, at 7:34 AM, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 9:43 PM, surabhi.to...@gmail.com wrote: I have to set a quiz for a bunch of 50 somethings (part of a quiz group that i have been in for the past 20 yrs) and horror of horrors;it is on this saturday 13th october...And I totally forgot.. I thought Deepa was supposed to be the qm this month? This seems to be a different quiz group, Surabhi. I *am* conducting the quiz for QuizFamilies and Saturdaywhy don't Vinit,Vir and you come by at least for a while? It's at Subash's place. I'd like to know about other quiz groups in Bangalore.The one I've been part of since 1992, and which I've been moderating for more than a decade now, is called QuizFamilies, and we meet once a month. Our quizzing is not very intense, the object is to make a lot of noise :) Deepa.
Re: [silk] musings on identity and culture.
That is true. Soon, there will be no S N**. Ram has been engaged for the job, and is waiting for the next flight out. Sent from my iPad On Sep 1, 2012, at 10:42 AM, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 10:09 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: Or, if you prefer, identity and culture. I was looking at this morning's edition of Mint Lounge [1] and I noticed that Shoba's column for today [2] namechecks silklist while talking about where to eat in Chennai. :) I thought we shot listers who mention silk to people who don't know the secret handshake. -- b
Re: [silk] LOTR and Ayn Rand
I think we are reading too much into these works in politically correct hindsight. There is no getting away from the fact that Sanders of the River (and Major Hamilton, and Lt. Bones), Biggles, Bulldog Drummond - for that matter, even Billy Bunter - were racist somewhere deep below, but this was an irritant that one just brushed aside and got on with reading the breathtaking stuff. It was racist times, and the only good native was the brave, upright native chief, sometimes one with an endearing rascally streak in him, all the more to separate him out from the prim WOGs whom it was meet and proper to despise - even for prim WOGs reading the tales. There was simply no alternative narrative, not unless one dived into Bankimchandra, or a delightful series about a teenager in Maratha times called Sadashiv-er Hoi Hoi Kando. Stirring stuff, both sets, and so orthogonal to Anglo-Indian narrative that the contradictions didn't come up. Not until Kim, anyway. The babu in Kim was a real person, btw, who led an unbelievable life beggaring anything that Sandy Arbuthnot might have dreamt of. Kipling was nothing if not ambiguous. Sent from my iPad On Aug 8, 2012, at 1:16 PM, Landon Hurley ljrhur...@gmail.com wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 On 08/08/2012 03:17 AM, Ramakrishnan Sundaram wrote: On 8 August 2012 12:24, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: Udhay (first encountered LotR and Rand in high school, disliked both on sight) I read them both in high school as well. I found Rand hard to read, as you could see the point some 2000 words before she got there, but slogged through all her fiction because they came highly recommended. Tolkien was a tedious read too, but the Peter Jackson movies made them watchable, unlike the Rand movies. I read the books again with my son, and realised that I had missed the racism completely the first time. Ram Perhaps because of my own misfortune in being raised catholic, I always interpreted the colour symbolism to be more demons vs angels than any ethnic biases. Now one could make the strong argument that these colour choices are directly drawn from ethnic divisions, but I don't think of that as racist, just inheriting the dichotomy and symbolism of previous generations. That certainly hasn't changed even today, and tbh, introducing novel symbolism to address this seems beyond the scope of his writing, as well as tedious, because it makes the writing less accessible. If I recall correctly, there also wasn't a discrete equation between good and evil, black and white. Gandalf was grey originally, which is, as I interpret it, a cross between his pursuit of magic, an unearthly power (thus white), and his constant involvement in ordinary affairs, that of mortals. So his purpose is mixed. Furthermore, there is Saurumon the White, who, if I recall correctly, was almost exclusively involved in the ethereal, but was ultimately completely evil. LOTR certainly was an epic, but I never felt that there was anything ridiculously deep about the symbolism. Then again, I haven't read it since elementary school. //landon - -- Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJQIhlBAAoJEDeph/0fVJWswfgP/j3gOWtw/bxV5DAHufPMvK/y T5L1IWYLxvQAts4DJJ41M8DhFIbyIgfs0x3tTrNpkXqV/uvUYmA1iJmpDxEqhgPV oLxHZdPYLUQFqtTFVrUPYCaXvQBCmwTb8didBNSvystChhC2mvu9kMLyh8g5NeAN 7yIfD5Enq6zNPPwN4MlT5jh1DiFsYKl5F2cV+etXimJ0rXTWaDDTZsuL50KPaj0Q f5dVH+Cg3kAhfeDW3xdGJIAsZ0YGJ8sSQe3U+kZngZ+I60M9uPAQKl4i6hsCy6St 4c/juvC+hmGt86xa++KFFUbRvCnyKTs1jogJf9atXOvzGDt5mOSlV7kvvWllHuer 6PK2Erohp/H3xmL8b68hK+kj+8iTOfNVLRJ6R1DkO+aj/kqlXD/ra1M2YMbXJRVl Za5JwcinzeFB5L2yzKzMInX13Izf+SBNqkPAPXFYedt4JHXxFX3nLwSmcsnCHXdG XdQcpCuTJS9cjUYiYIhRYiTH5RMrHPD5tsCIyLgxfTPkeoQmPrY1L8ALIG5GzZsb DlTd0Og7BsRoLqZvORaQsaiVkLuWuTkCrWgLZiFNwUiVUvyzNerUfLesSAY9lkrR W1Djn4w7vEw3lr7e4fnAOw6PTWT3YoimF+TVoJfuIHyilV9QJd5CukIKl27XlHhA 35UJOU8Q3C8JjK2JxPa5 =Rk07 -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: [silk] LOTR and Ayn Rand
Regarding the class system that Tolkien depicts, it was the fairly rigid class system that still existed in his time which comes through without much conscious effort. That is the way it was, and a look at Sir Nigel or The White Company will tell us oodles more about it, again in spontaneous form. Sent from my iPad On Aug 8, 2012, at 10:53 PM, Heather Madrone heat...@madrone.com wrote: On 8/8/12 8:36 AM August 8, 2012, ss wrote: On Wednesday 08 Aug 2012 12:47:58 pm Ramakrishnan Sundaram wrote: Tolkien was a tedious read too, but the Peter Jackson movies made them watchable, unlike the Rand movies. I read the books again with my son, and realised that I had missed the racism completely the first time. I am re reading those Tolkien books right now. I'm afraid I haven't yet got to parts that I can say are definitely racist. I am about 30% through - with my first reading having been done about 30 years ago. Tolkien's world amazes me mostly for the class rigidity. Position in society is largely determined by birth. For all Sam Gamgee's heroism, he's still the hired help when he gets back home. Elves are the true aristocracy in Tolkien's world, and they exist in a realm far above men and hobbits. I guess you could see racist overtones in that, but I think the class overtones are far more sinister. To me, the most important aspect of Tolkien's work is the way he used it to work out his own experience with early industrialized warfare. He served in WWI, and many of the scenes from _The Two Towers_ (like the trip through the dead marshes) are taken from his battle experience. Years ago, I read that the Nazgul were based on the German Stuka divebombers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89eRBGqtVBo The Stuka were one of the tools of warfare tested by the Germans in the Spanish civil war and used to terrorize in the blitzkrieg. Sometimes it seems to me that British science fiction writers told the story of the world wars over and over again in the 20th century. Even Harry Potter seems like another retelling of WWII. Tolkien is perhaps the prime example of the way the world wars gripped the British imagination. He wrote much of _The Lord of the Rings_ under the influence of WWII. One of the overarching messages of _The Lord of the Rings_ is that evil tools cannot be used for good ends. Many of the terrifying aspects of Sauron's power are manufactured, a sort of evil technology that cannot possibly be used for good. Even the orcs (which might be the basis of some of the claims of racism) are an engineered species rather than a natural one. When Sam and Frodo return to the Shire, they discover that it has been despoiled and polluted by the war. For the rest of their lives, they are slowly poisoned by the evil they encountered on the war, much as WWI veterans died slowly due to gas exposure and other aftereffects of trench warfare. So, for me, _The Lord of the Rings_ is mostly interesting because of what it reveals about the interior experience of early industrial warfare. -- Heather Madrone (heat...@madrone.com) http://www.sunsplinter.blogspot.com Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. - Martin Luther King
Re: [silk] Trolling as counter-terrorism
Sent from my iPad On Aug 3, 2012, at 9:20 AM, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 8:52 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: If you listen to recordings of telephone conversations of the 26/1 Mumbai terrorists after they hijacked an Indian fishing vessel and cut the captain's throat, the leader was asked by a controller in Karachi what he did to the captain, and he repiles Zabiha. Zabiha was done to Daniel Pearl as well. \ Er, they were eaten to satisfy the need for food? That's what we were just told. Where's the confusion?
Re: [silk] outdated words in Indian English
Internalised. Hmmm. Sent from my iPad On Jul 21, 2012, at 7:37 PM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Saturday 21 Jul 2012 7:07:45 pm Nikhil Mehra wrote: I think racism came to be recognized as unacceptable as a matter of law only after WW II. Probably. Europe, the dominant continent before WW2 were in search of some ancient history and Germany found that in the form of Aryan and stuck a finger up the backside of the rest of Europe. The first Indian to emigrate to the US as per Wiki was a Bengali http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.K._Mozumdar In 1913 Mozumdar became the first Indian-born person to earn U.S. citizenship, having convinced the Spokane district judge that he was in fact Caucasian and thereby met the requirements of naturalization law then restricting citizenship to free white persons. Ten years later a Punjabi was refused immigration on the following grounds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind The eligibility of this applicant for citizenship is based on the sole fact that he is of high caste Hindu stock, born in Punjab [Amrit Sar], one of the extreme northwestern districts of India, and classified by many scientific authorities as of the Caucasian or Aryan race...In the Punjab and Rajputana [Rajasthan], while the invaders seem to have met with more success in the effort to preserve their racial purity, intermarriages did occur producing an intermingling of the two and destroying to a greater or less degree the purity of the “Aryan” blood. The rules of caste, while calculated to prevent this intermixture, seem not to have been entirely successful... the given group [Asian Indian] cannot be properly assigned to any of the enumerated grand racial divisions. The type may have been so changed by intermixture of blood as to justify an intermediate classification. Something very like this has actually taken place in India. Thus, in Hindustan [India] and Berar [town in India] there was such an intermixture of the “Aryan” invader with the dark-skinned Dravidian It is ironic that the Bengali got in and the Punjabi was turned down because a few decades later the Muslims among the two ethnic groups (Bengali and Punjabi) were clubbed together in one country united by Islam as West Pakistanis and East Pakistanis. Benazir Bhutto once said that she had been taught in school that West Pakistans were tall, had white skin and ate wheat. East Pakistanis were short, had a dark complexion and ate rice. Of course the original Gunga Din of Kipling was from the Indian northwest - which included Indian and Pakistani Punjab and the North West Frontier Province, whence the Taliban come from. But after the Indian army revolt of 1857 the British army made it a point to recruit the relatvely apolitical north-western Indian and were suspicious of the politicking Bengalee. The former were praised as martial races who were immune to syphilis among other valuable traits. This mythical trait, I am told, was internalized by the Pakistan army. LOL shiv
Re: [silk] outdated words in Indian English
I wonder what he meant by the raw kaffir. Sent from my iPad On Jul 15, 2012, at 2:03 AM, Venky ve...@duh-uh.com wrote: On Saturday 14 July 2012 at 6:38 AM, Srini RamaKrishnan wrote: Kipling is Gandhi's contemporary, funny how they came to rather different conclusions about the fate of the races. With quotes likes these, I don't know if I buy the theory of Gandhi being a champion of racial equality: “A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.” “Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.” Venky (the Second).
Re: [silk] Just So Stories
Not just that but some of his sea stories and whimsical forays were eminently 'readable'; not a popular word in the age of deconstruction. Of everything including styles of speech and accents. Sent from my iPad On Jul 14, 2012, at 12:00 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian sur...@hserus.net wrote: the codeword for forget the critique and enjoy it is those books were a product of their times John Sundman [14/07/12 02:05 -0400]: I wonder what you-all think of Kipling's Just So Stories? I myself find them delightful -- especially when read in facsimile of the original printing, with Kipling's own illustrations. The Just So Stories are some of my favorite children's stories ever. I love the voice, tone, whimsey, humor, use of language, gentleness, kindness, subtlety, etc. In fact, when my wife I opened our children's book toy store in 1988 we named it The Elephant's Child. I know a little bit about Kipling's standing as the Voice of Empire and Racist Hegemony. But having never been to India nor studied much of its history, I'm sure that I miss much of the nuance in both Kipling's writings and the critiques of them. So I wonder: What do Silklisters (especially Indians or members of the Indian diaspora) make of the Just So Stories? Do you find them innocent lyrical funny potent as I do, or do you find them obnoxious and all of the same cloth as his other white man's burden imperialist writings? Curiously, jrs
Re: [silk] Fwd: Re: Just So Stories
gag Sent from my iPad On Jul 15, 2012, at 2:15 AM, Ramakrishnan Sundaram r.sunda...@gmail.com wrote: From: Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com Is whimsey the right (er, Kipling British) spelling or it is whimsy? I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Peter_Wimsey
Re: [silk] outdated words in Indian English
It was. That was just Shiv in mid-flow demonstrating that he DOESN'T squirm. He tends to get carried away proving his balance and refusal to be carried away. Sent from my iPad On Jul 13, 2012, at 9:34 PM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 9:00 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday 13 Jul 2012 7:12:33 pm Eugen Leitl wrote: http://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/whnoj/as_an_indian_never_reali zed_that_these_words_from/ Big deal. Ever since Macaulay made the learning of English compulsory for the natives of India who were up until then studying useless Sanskrit and Arabic, Ummm. I thought the language of the Moghul court was Persian Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] outdated words in Indian English
I can't bear the burden. This really belongs to Ram and functional equivlents. Sent from my iPad On Jul 13, 2012, at 9:43 PM, Danese Cooper dan...@gmail.com wrote: that sounds...recursive. must be hard for him ;-) On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 9:08 AM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: It was. That was just Shiv in mid-flow demonstrating that he DOESN'T squirm. He tends to get carried away proving his balance and refusal to be carried away. Sent from my iPad
Re: [silk] outdated words in Indian English
No. Shiv is right. Mainstream (and, for Muslims, compulsory) education was in madrasahs, and started with Arabic. It was not exclusively Arabic, and study of Persian was taken up when the course of study defined demanded it. Sent from my iPad On Jul 13, 2012, at 10:56 PM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 10:05 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday 13 Jul 2012 9:34:32 pm Thaths wrote: Ummm. I thought the language of the Moghul court was Persian You haven't been reading history have you? Naughty naughty. The court language and the language of the courtesans too perhaps was never the language of education. It was madrassas and Arabic. Sanskrit and Arabic might have been studied (by a minority who could afford education) for liturgical purposes. But weren't the language of the bazaars the likes of Urdu, Hindustani, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, etc.? Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] outdated words in Indian English
Persian was not only the court of language but the language of administration as well, until 1832, when English replaced it. Sent from my iPad On Jul 13, 2012, at 11:23 PM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: No. Shiv is right. Mainstream (and, for Muslims, compulsory) education was in madrasahs, and started with Arabic. It was not exclusively Arabic, and study of Persian was taken up when the course of study defined demanded it. Sent from my iPad On Jul 13, 2012, at 10:56 PM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 10:05 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday 13 Jul 2012 9:34:32 pm Thaths wrote: Ummm. I thought the language of the Moghul court was Persian You haven't been reading history have you? Naughty naughty. The court language and the language of the courtesans too perhaps was never the language of education. It was madrassas and Arabic. Sanskrit and Arabic might have been studied (by a minority who could afford education) for liturgical purposes. But weren't the language of the bazaars the likes of Urdu, Hindustani, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, etc.? Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo! Sudhakar ChandraSlacker Without Borders
Re: [silk] outdated words in Indian English
Of course it's not true! Indians spoke English to the 'manor' born, with no slips or stumbles! Anybody who denies that is a lackey of the Marxist hordes ruling Indian history - and economics, and anthropology, and sociology and that whole pack of nonsense outside the good ole professions - and probably thinks that we speak what we do because the Aryans came riding in, two by two, hurrah. Having thrown You Know Who off the scent, we can re-convene under the rowan bushes, or, since there isn't much rowan growing in India, the rhododendrons, and plot how to send out the truth, which is ... Aaack! He's got me! We've been betrayed! Scatter, you fools! Sent from my iPad On Jul 14, 2012, at 3:16 AM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 6:00 PM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: [...] The most well adjusted Indian is the one who is not conscious and apologetic about his English and his accent and does not squrim in the presence of other indians who speak out of date English. It is not out of date in India. The British didn't help exactly in this respect you know, Mundy, Talbot. King of the Khyber Rifles: He spoke English well enough. Few educated foreign gentlemen could have spoken it better, although there was the tendency to use slang that well-bred natives insist on picking up from British officers; and as he went on, here and there the native idiom crept through, translated. This is Mundy who was supposed to be understanding of the natives, Kipling no doubt would have fainted at so much praise being offered to a native.
Re: [silk] outdated words in Indian English
The exception to Shiv's colourfully phrased but authentic description was the Punjab' which had an astonishingly modern system that was uprooted by the British. The consequence is Banta and Santa jokes. Sent from my iPad On Jul 14, 2012, at 9:04 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday 13 Jul 2012 10:56:58 pm Thaths wrote: Sanskrit and Arabic might have been studied (by a minority who could afford education) for liturgical purposes. But weren't the language of the bazaars the likes of Urdu, Hindustani, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, etc.? Oh absolutely. But there was a system of education in India that, in retrospect was as elitist as it is now. All the texts containing knowledge for Hindus was in Sanskrit, which they studied. All that was required to be studies by Muslims was in Arabic. For centuries before Macaulay both Hindu and Muslim kings has subsidzed education in both Arabic and Sanskrit (at least that is what Macaulay said). Initially the Brits continued these subsidies in the areas they got involved in. What Macaulay did was to stop Britidh subsidies for Sanskrit and Arabic education and introduced English. So what we have now is that the vast mass of Indians speak Indian languages , but the few elite educated (who used to be Sanskrit/Arabic scholars) are now English speakers. Democratization of education does not seem to have existed in old times and still does not exist. You learn an elite language to become elite and take on the mannerisms and attitudes that the elite language brings with it. shiv
Re: [silk] outdated words in Indian English
There you go, despising your fellow Indian, just because you've done your bit impressing furriners. You've just proved You Know Who right. Sent from my iPad On Jul 14, 2012, at 9:30 AM, Ramakrishnan Sundaram r.sunda...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 July 2012 03:09, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Persian was not only the court of language but the language of Silver surfer moment? Ram
Re: [silk] How the Woosters captured Delhi
But you referred to this effect your own lily-pink self, Shiv! Some 200 posts ago. Sent from my iPad On Jun 7, 2012, at 8:00 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday 05 Jun 2012 12:58:41 pm thew...@gmail.com wrote: Standards have fallen, though. That actually depends on whose standards you consider as the right standards. Indian school children of the shiv in Poona class (and tens of thousands of others) were taught that Ye olde Britishe Public schoole was the standard to follow. Typically they liked Wodehouse. But the bunch I was thrown with after I joined Medical college, all of whom scored marks near the top of a competitive entrance exam, mostly did not like Wodehose or English classics. Decades on they are none the worse for their ignorance of what was considered essential in my own schooling. But funnily enough, my own friends circle today seems to include those very Wodehouse fans of that era, and fewer of those who did not like Wodehouse, suggesting to me that this sort of education also imbued a kind of Old School Network/Public School Caste like personality on many of us. shiv
Re: [silk] How the Woosters captured Delhi
Swapan-da? Sent from my iPad On Jun 3, 2012, at 12:08 PM, thew...@gmail.com wrote: Dragging this back to the original thread- how widely read is PGW today? Does he still attract fresh batches of public school readers, or is his appeal limited to those who started reading him in the 90s or before and have fond memories of Mr. Wodehouse's idyllic world? This article, remember, was written in 2002. I remember Swapan-da once slicing apart Tharoor, saying that he was prouder of being President of the Wodehouse Society than of being Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations. On a personal note- PGW was a personal favorite through much of school, but the only book of his on my current reading list is Wodehouse at the Wicket. That said, I still think I got all my Shakespeare quotes from PGW. Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone From: Deepa Mohan apeedna...@gmail.com Sender: silklist-bounces+thewall=gmail@lists.hserus.net Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 03:23:28 +0530 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net ReplyTo: silklist@lists.hserus.net Subject: Re: [silk] How the Woosters captured Delhi On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 1:03 AM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: Shashi Tharoor on The Master. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jul/20/classics.pgwodehouse\ We will have to accept that there is a whole world of readers out there who do not know their Plums from their peaches. I feel that Plum's world is like another writer in Tamizh that I know of...his pen name is Marina, and his plays deal with the leisurely world of the Brahmin community in Chennai, a community, like the members of the Drones Club, that no longer exists. Has anyone read Marina's work? Deepa.
Re: [silk] How the Woosters captured Delhi
There was, actually, an Anglo-Indian (as in Brigadier Hugh Stevens, not as in Sir Henry Gidney) accent that preferred it to be 'wottah'. So, too, 'caw', as in 'moto-caw', of which you bought the best you could buy, to impress the 'gels'. A terminal 'g' was never, ever pronounced. People with proper RP accents like Philip Crossley, Assistant Editor of The Statesman, visibly blenched when they encountered this variant (except for dropping the 'g'). But that was a clash of extremes. Steven Miles, a career diplomat, had a far easier accent, one closest to the older breed of Indian Army Indian officers, and quite easy to cope with. Sent from my iPad On Jun 2, 2012, at 10:11 PM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Wednesday 30 May 2012 1:03:25 am Thaths wrote: So how do you pronounce it - is it Woad-house or Wood-house? It's ironic that Wodehouse's main character Bertie Wooster bears a name that is a spoof on Worcester. It believe that World war I - (a war fought between nations who thought that the plains of western Europe constituted the whole world) was the great leveller that brought the British upper (uppah) classes down to the same level as the lower classes. The uppah class of course had all these wierd liinguistic, sartorial and culinary affectations including the intense need to keep their language pure and different from the hoi polloi. Even today Prince Charles is likely to say hice for house. About the house is abite the hice in the upper class Bertie Worcester accent. The female who cleans your house is a woman, not a lady. A lady is a lady, not a woman. The Brits threw off the uppah class affectations ages ago, but Indians have tended to hang on to them with fond, if faux, memories of days gone by. Some time in the late 1980s I was somewhere in England and needed to meet the man in charge of something or other (accommodation IIRC) I was told that I needed tomeet Mr. Woodwood? Woodwood? wtf, I asked. I was told Not Woodwood. Woodwood. Eventually I asked for a spelling and got Woodward And for the Kannada speakers I have this one. My sister in law from the US was baby-sitting her niece from England for a while in Bangalore. The little girl said I want woota. So my SiL thought the little girl is aking for a meal (oota) in Kannada. But the girl said No not oota. Woota She meant water which the Brits pronounce as woota. My SiL from America thought water was wa'er in Americanese. It is, of course wah-tarr for Indians. shiv
Re: [silk] How the Woosters captured Delhi
Oh, great! I can't download or listen to it!! You Microsoft sell-out, you!!! You...you anti-Semite! Sent from my iPad On Jun 3, 2012, at 9:53 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On 03-Jun-12 9:19 AM, John Sundman wrote: Your narration is quite good. Isn't it lovely, and curious, how we descendants of former subjects of the British crown can speak with such distinctive accents, yet still understand each other? Or, at least, I understood you. Remains to be determined whether others understood me. I converted your file and uploaded to the silklist page on facebook [1]. Interestingly, facebook was only prepared to accept it if I converted to WMA (I tried MP4, MP3 and WMA) Udhay [1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/silklist/ -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] Help!--linguistic brain-tapping needed, please
Shiv is always so helpful. Sent from my iPad On May 25, 2012, at 8:12 PM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Friday 25 May 2012 4:50:19 pm Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn Blocked nose? I know the feeling. Try a good shot of brandy. shiv
Re: [silk] India's dangerous capitalism
Sent from my iPad On May 18, 2012, at 12:34 AM, Nikhil Mehra nikhil.mehra...@gmail.com wrote: Amen to that post that, Divya. Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel From: Divya Sampath divyasamp...@yahoo.com Sender: silklist-bounces+nikhil.mehra773=gmail@lists.hserus.net Date: Thu, 17 May 2012 12:01:28 -0700 (PDT) To: silklist@lists.hserus.netsilklist@lists.hserus.net ReplyTo: silklist@lists.hserus.net Subject: Re: [silk] India's dangerous capitalism I actually started reading it then got lost. Does she always write like this? Yes, she does. Her writing defies parody because really, who could possibly out-do her own stock of entitled, delusional, condescending, endlessly recycled, logic-defying, inane rhetoric? The State is evil! Check. Sinister Global capitalist forces (of Indian origin)! Check. Vast Right-Wing Media conspiracy! Check. A few things in the article are worth giggling over - she now describes herself as part of the Indian middle class. The same middle class that in the world of Arundhati Roy as recently as last year were 'incredibly hostile, abusive, and dangerous' to her. Apparently, the pernicious, reality-challenged middle class in India were a privileged lot who had 'seceded to outer space' and were disconnected to everything but 'their own andolan, their own Jessica Lal, their own media, their own controversies'. In other words, people who choose to rally around anything other than Arundhati's chosen andolans, media and controversies are detached from reality. The worst part? She is such a terrible, disingenuous pseudo-intellectual that it makes me cringe when she espouses a cause that I care about. (It happens frequently). I'd rather not have my issues advocated for so ineptly. cheers Divya She's a double-barreled menace. She hijacks issues, and permanently skews them with her high-decibel manifestos, and she also manages to attract right wing troglodytes in massive numbers, forcing people to defend her right to free speech rather than presenting the merits of the original issues involved.
Re: [silk] Fwd: Re: Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism'
Sent from my iPad On May 6, 2012, at 4:12 PM, Ramakrishnan Sundaram r.sunda...@gmail.com wrote: On 6 May 2012 10:53, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: Now all this thread needs is the entry of Ram with deadpan face and hobnailed boots. We can't be banned from our own list, can we? ;-) Oh, if you insist: some 15+ years ago, there was an infamous thread about onanism If I recall correctly, the thread, originally, was not about onanism. I suspect that was my, err, contribution. (And now someone who has the bloody archives will step in, and say, no, that isn't true.) Also, the original banner is now touchy only about Apple (good) vs Android (bad). Or so it seems. I'm sure Mahesh (Murthy) has an opinion on that. (cf. Udhay, Shuriken, the throwing around of) Ram -- Ramakrishnan Sundaram | r.sunda...@gmail.com | +91 860 501 585 It was, sadly , your contribution. And you refused to stop, err, contributing. One of those unforgettable moments when one peers at life's lees and finds them, err, grim.
Re: [silk] Fwd: Re: Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism'
Sent from my iPad On May 6, 2012, at 4:14 PM, Ramakrishnan Sundaram r.sunda...@gmail.com wrote: On 6 May 2012 11:03, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Do you remember Shiv's epic first post 'after coming out'? No. Do tell us about Shiv coming out. On second thoughts, some things had best remain 'in'.
Re: [silk] Fwd: Re: Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism'
Sent from my iPad On May 6, 2012, at 5:14 PM, John Sundman j...@wetmachine.com wrote: On May 6, 2012, at 7:42 AM, Bonobashi wrote: It was, sadly , your contribution. And you refused to stop, err, contributing. One of those unforgettable moments when one peers at life's lees and finds them, err, grim. The more time goes by, the more honored and astounded I am to find myself on this list. jrs Dear Sir, You are a most fortunate man. You have not had to endure those stark, early days when an unkempt, ragged band found itself outside the warm comfort of the original BBS, huddled together and laughing nervously at each other's quite appalling jokes. Things have improved considerably. Ram has gone into exile to a bandwidth-starved location. It is safe to come out. Nothing can be done about Shiv's North British (or functional equivalent) disposition, manners and syntax since he insists on playing golf. Having relieved myself of which, I shall seek the solace of my own company in as distant a brooding forest as I can find. The list may not be a place of peace much longer.
Re: [silk] Fwd: Re: Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism'
Sent from my iPad On May 6, 2012, at 6:52 PM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Sunday 06 May 2012 5:14:23 pm John Sundman wrote: The more time goes by, the more honored and astounded I am to find myself on this list. Don't feel honored. You need to be alarmed. Insanity is only a hair's breadth away with this bunch. Luckily I'm bald so the breadth of hair does not bother me. shiv There's another hairsbreadth left? Scheiss!
Re: [silk] Fwd: Re: Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism'
Sent from my iPad On May 5, 2012, at 8:30 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: Forwarding this one also, from IG - but people, PLEASE trim your posts, else they will get trapped by the list filters. And I can't be depended on to forward them forever. Udhay Original Message Subject:Re: [silk] Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism' Date:Sat, 5 May 2012 00:27:28 +0530 From:Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in To:silklist@lists.hserus.net silklist@lists.hserus.net Oh Lor'! Just finished getting this same jack-ass article slung at me to prove that our oppressed were better off being our oppressed than being anywhere else. And all because some NGO jockey has got right wing foundation fever in his old age! Have you no mercy? And how did you get into Ashok Chowgule, that neutral, fair and unbiased observer of this social activism phenomenon, and president of the Mumbai chapter of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in his spare time? Sent from my iPad Sorry about the trimming, Udhay. I really got worked up on that one.
Re: [silk] Fwd: Re: Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism'
Sent from my iPad On May 6, 2012, at 7:20 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Saturday 05 May 2012 8:30:22 am Udhay Shankar N wrote: Original Message Subject:Re: [silk] Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism' Date: Sat, 5 May 2012 00:27:28 +0530 From: Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in To: silklist@lists.hserus.net silklist@lists.hserus.net Oh Lor'! Just finished getting this same jack-ass article slung at me to prove that our oppressed were better off being our oppressed than being anywhere else. And all because some NGO jockey has got right wing foundation fever in his old age! Have you no mercy? LOL IG but doesn't your comment fit exactly into the steroetype that Yoginder Sikand disses in his article. You instantly place a person who fails to meet the exacting standards of being uncompromisingly sympathetic to pre-determined definitions of being oppressed as someone who belongs to the right wing. This is like saying that everyone on my right is right wing. shiv Aren't they?
Re: [silk] Fwd: Re: Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism'
Sent from my iPad On May 6, 2012, at 9:21 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Sunday 06 May 2012 8:56:50 am Bonobashi wrote: This is like saying that everyone on my right is right wing. shiv Aren't they? Yes IG, but the observation tempts me to retype and post a footnote that I had earlier decided against posting. This is in the genre of mundane truisms masquearing as fundamental philosophical truths handed down by God or some similar authority. Such as a mullah. I was recently looking for Islamic injunctions on onanism and found that the rules, after much deliberation and multiple references to holy texts and historic precedents, state that one must not do it unless one must. shiv Duly noted that you did not post that till you had to. Good, that should ensure no hair on your palms.
Re: [silk] Fwd: Re: Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism'
What seems to be happening is a rather deeper, more far-reaching phenomenon that effectively reverses the trend to make allowances for the underprivileged. As long as it was a talking point in cocktail parties and seminar lunch-breaks, as long as 99% of administrative and professional opportunities go to the privileged, effectively the Hindu upper castes with a satisficing sprinkling of Christians, Muslims and Sikhs who had gone to the right schools, talking with great sincerity about the serious and compelling need to do something for the underprivileged was safe enough. Those were the days. Things happened. Mainly reservations. The steely grip that 'we' had on schools, colleges, engineering schools, medical training and professional opportunities or government jobs was pried loose. Sachar came along and raised a stink. Mayavati came along and spread the shit around. Brother-in-law Sashi's son failed to make it to medical school because some half-literate idiot with nowhere near his marks got a quota seat. All of a sudden, the vague discomfort began. Nothing direct and damaging, you understand. Nothing against the Scheduled Castes, no, that's not the word, is it, Harijans, no, no,that's the older word, Dalit, that's the word, not a word against them. Though they are such tiresome people, dahling, they keep snarling all the time, when they aren't whining, you know? It's just that it's so difficult to get along with them, they're so insistent on talking about the same dreary things all the dreary time. And hey, nothing against the Muslim either. Some of my best friends are Muslim, you know that? I know how to greet them on Eid, and what each Eid holiday is, and I say Adab on meeting them, Khuda Hafiz with a rueful smile and a quip about how the Tablighis don't say Khuda any moreit's just that they're so, I don't want to sound negative or anything, but set in their ways, somehow, not willing to compromise even a wee bit, rigid, is that the word I'm looking for? They're all converted Dalit anyway, why they give themselves such airs and graces, I can't imagine, they should be grateful that they get to lead such peaceful lives, look at the way they breed, their birth rate is way higher than Hindus, they'll be overtaking us soon. Which leads to the Great Question. And that's when it starts unravelling. Sent from my iPad On May 6, 2012, at 10:30 AM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Sent from my iPad On May 6, 2012, at 9:21 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Sunday 06 May 2012 8:56:50 am Bonobashi wrote: This is like saying that everyone on my right is right wing. shiv Aren't they? Yes IG, but the observation tempts me to retype and post a footnote that I had earlier decided against posting. This is in the genre of mundane truisms masquearing as fundamental philosophical truths handed down by God or some similar authority. Such as a mullah. I was recently looking for Islamic injunctions on onanism and found that the rules, after much deliberation and multiple references to holy texts and historic precedents, state that one must not do it unless one must. shiv Duly noted that you did not post that till you had to. Good, that should ensure no hair on your palms.
Re: [silk] Fwd: Re: Why I Gave Up On 'Social Activism'
Sent from my iPad On May 6, 2012, at 10:53 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On 06/05/12 06-May-2012;10:30 AM, Bonobashi wrote: Duly noted that you did not post that till you had to. Good, that should ensure no hair on your palms. Now all this thread needs is the entry of Ram with deadpan face and hobnailed boots. We can't be banned from our own list, can we? ;-) (for the rest of the list: inside joke, nothing to see here, move along. Oh, if you insist: some 15+ years ago, there was an infamous thread about onanism on a BBS that several of the denizens of this list used to frequent, that led to the PUNS forum being shut down and lots of shouting done. Heh.) -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) Not unless you want to start something called Rayon next. Do you remember Shiv's epic first post 'after coming out'?
Re: [silk] Fwd: Justice
What is it you are asking? Richard was killed by two imbeciles for an unbearably stupid reason; there is a growing movement demanding justice and fair play, though the authorities have been tap-dancing around it. I don't know if this is a genuine petition. Sent from my iPad On May 2, 2012, at 2:04 PM, Mahesh Murthy mahesh.mur...@gmail.com wrote: I'm not based in Bangalore, and haven't heard of this. Have any of you? Is this legit? -- Forwarded message -- From: Dr. L Rajesh m...@change.org Date: Wed, May 2, 2012 at 1:35 PM Subject: Justice To: mahesh.mur...@gmail.com Help Our Son Get Justice Email the Commissioner Mahesh - Our son didn’t deserve to die. Richard was just 19 years old and studying at Archarya NRV School of Architecture in Bangalore (India). On the night of April 17th, his head was smashed by two students from his hostel. What makes his death so much harder is knowing that we were only informed by the college authority about our son's death the next day at 3.30 pm and the accused Vishal Banerjee (1st year B. Arch student) and Syed Afzal Ali (1st year MBA student), who brutally killed him are still not arrested. But we hope for justice. We have started a petition asking the Police Commissioner of Bangalore, B. Jyoti Mirji to arrest the accused and file charges against them. Witnesses have revealed that Syed Afzal Ali repeatedly hit Richard’s head and face. The photographic images and preliminary post-mortem report also support this. However, the college authorities are trying to cover up by linking our son's death to a minor accident he had a few days before and drug abuse which is clearly an attempt to defame our loving son. The support that everyone has shown by organizing protests gives us strength to stand our ground. CNN-IBN and other news agencies have already reported on the issue, but we need to put more pressure on the Police Commissioner to arrest the accused and put them on trial. Even though the accused have been booked for murder, they havent been arrested yet. Two weeks have passed, and we are still demanding a fair and transparent investigation. Please help us in getting justice for our son, Richard - we will be very grateful for your support. Thank you, Dr. L Rajesh (Loitam Richard's father) Dr. RK Vidyabali Devi (Loitam Richard's mother) This email was sent by Change.org to mahesh.mur...@gmail.com | Start a petition Unsubscribe. Edit your email notification settings.
Re: [silk] English expressions that irritate me
Or you could use the equivalent of Noel Coward's St Dunstan's explanation. Sent from my iPad On Apr 24, 2012, at 1:17 PM, Mahesh Murthy mahesh.mur...@gmail.com wrote: When I was a kid, gay meant carelessly happy. I cannot tell my 7 year old what it means now. Rather, I don't know how to. See, sometimes one uncle loves another uncle. Sometimes, aunties love other aunties too. This is perfectly normal, kiddo.
Re: [silk] The Bhansali Stork
Congratulations. Nice way to manage the new arrival. My Mum was playing poker and was on a winning streak and was reportedly extremely reluctant to retire gracefully. As the District Surgeon, a family friend, was present, he pulled rank and restored discipline. Sadly, nobody, then or later, noticed my own good looks, or if they did, they didn't mention it as they ought to have. Life isn't, umm, a bed of roses. Sent from my iPad On Apr 18, 2012, at 3:59 PM, Anil Kumar anilkumar.naga...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 18, 2012, at 11:16, Vinit Bhansali vi...@bhansalimail.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 9:44 AM, Deepa Mohan apeedna...@gmail.com wrote: I am very happy to tell everyone that Vinit Bhansali and Surabhi Tomar found a baby boy in a bed of rose petals on Sunday, April 15. The little one, in Vinit's words, is so good-looking that we are wondering which couple have left their baby with us. Emailing them might be better than calling them, but it's up to each person. Cheers, Deepa. Sharing some interesting news based on the SilkMeet from the 13th. For people who were there and wondering why Surabhi disappeared halfway through the evening ... She had just gone into labour! Though it lasted longer and our baby Vir was only born on Sunday, I can safely say that he did start kicking to get out during the SilkMeet (to meet my wonderful SilkList friends) So thanks SilkList for having this meet at our place and literally kickstarting our baby's birth! Congratulations Vinit and Surabhi!
Re: [silk] Sociolinguistic query
Srabonti Bagchi might have got closer with mukhpora, kopalpora, hatobhaga than her own effort. Sent from my iPad On Apr 14, 2012, at 6:49 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Apr 14, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian sur...@hserus.net wrote: Well well .. I sort of suspected someone would have written a paper on this. http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/rev/8/2/113/ Citation Database: PsycARTICLES [ Journal Article ] The psychology of profanity. Profanity when it is not cathartic is a weapon isn't it? The idea is to shock and wound the opponent. The subject of the profanity therefore is anything that the opponent values which can be degraded. What profanity gets used though depends on context, even if the aggravation levels are the same across contexts. When it is two soldiers exchanging abuses across trenches, it is usually about nationality. When it is neighbors cursing each other, kids, spouses and pets seem to be invoked. Kids in a playground prefer unflattering comparisons to body parts, mothers and scatology. In each context the perceived identities of the parties is different, and this chooses the language. Now, men historically seem to have fought more often than women, so the body of non-physical violence is mostly equipped with curses that are effective against men. The profusion of unflattering references to women in curses is a natural outcome of this. Most men after all place their identity in their women, and it's an excellent object of attack. Cheeni
Re: [silk] Sociolinguistic query
Variations of the Ill-fated: Mukhpora - burnt face, blackened face, disgraced in public Kopalpora - burnt forehead, forsaken by good fortune Hatobhaga - whose fate is killed; no prospects, doomed Sent from my iPad On Apr 14, 2012, at 7:24 PM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Saturday 14 Apr 2012 7:02:54 pm Bonobashi wrote: Srabonti Bagchi might have got closer with mukhpora, kopalpora, hatobhaga than her own effort. IG who are these people mukhpora, kopalpora and hatobhaga? shiv
Re: [silk] How To Be More Interesting
For you, the war is over! Ve haff ways to make you talk! Sent from my iPad On Jan 20, 2012, at 8:30 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian sur...@hserus.net wrote: thew...@gmail.com [20/01/12 14:46 +]: Achtung, Englander? ach ja.
Re: [silk] Why this Kolaveri di?
It is. Pack your plate armor. Sent from my iPad On Nov 28, 2011, at 7:01 PM, Chew Lin Kay chewlin@gmail.com wrote: as for quizzing for fun and profit try your luck here (once you fly down to one of these cities) bangalore - http://kqaquizzes.org/ hyderabad - http://www.kcircle.com chennai - http://quizfoundation.com/ there are more, in one indian city or the other Reason #2501 I need to visit India. And then of course I remember that quizzing is a blood sport in that country...
Re: [silk] Why this Kolaveri di?
You missed Noddy. Sent from my iPad On Nov 28, 2011, at 8:06 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian sur...@hserus.net wrote: Srini RamaKrishnan [28/11/11 14:46 +0100]: idea of holistic development, and most quiz heads I met were these answer spewing, buzzer tapping monsters on stage who seemed to *ahem* lack other skills. ha ha yes. among quizzers on silk, for instance, samanth is only a published author and successful journalist. mahesh murthy is a vc among other things, then there's udupa, me, sumanth srivathsan, ashwin .. no shortage of people holding down regular jobs and hanging on silk. I also grew up without the oversight of the traditional Indian school system which seems to hop up normal kids into competitive tiger kids. Not all that many of us were tiger kids. Lots of chennai quizzers seem to have been the misfits of PS Senior / PSBB (so exactly the opposite of the ideal PS kid who aces his IIT, IIM, etc)
Re: [silk] Why this Kolaveri di?
No. Try not to break down and get emotional, but there is at least one other. Sent from my iPad On Nov 28, 2011, at 11:03 PM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: On Monday 28 Nov 2011 7:01:30 pm Chew Lin Kay wrote: as for quizzing for fun and profit try your luck here (once you fly down to one of these cities) bangalore - http://kqaquizzes.org/ hyderabad - http://www.kcircle.com chennai - http://quizfoundation.com/ there are more, in one indian city or the other Reason #2501 I need to visit India. And then of course I remember that quizzing is a blood sport in that country... Am I the only one on this list who has gradually learned to be bored to death by quizzing? shiv
Re: [silk] Query on wines.... and snobbery
Apart from that, surely far more entertaining as well? Sent from my iPad On Nov 15, 2011, at 10:50 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote: I've always thought of pot as fairly harmless (though I may be wrong -- facts welcome), but I'm in two minds about whether it should be legalized. On the one hand, I don't see why alcohol and tobacco are any different from pot -- they can be addictive and they have long term consequences to ones health if consumed in excess. No comment on the rest of the debate, but this page on the relative addictiveness of various substances may be of interest. Marijuana is, in fact, significantly less addictive than tobacco or alcohol. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/misc/addictiv.htm Udhay -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] Assuming goodwill
Couldn't agree more vehemently. Sent from my iPad On Aug 6, 2011, at 10:24 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian sur...@hserus.net wrote: In other words, screw the right wing trolling, the pseud-intellectual trolling etc etc etc? Fully agree. Shiv, Anand, if you guys have any sort of remotely useful point to make in periodically winding people up with chaddiwala and chomsky arguments please do enlighten us. Else, start making the effort to talk about some damned thing other than your favorite hobby horses, kthxbai. On Saturday 06 August 2011 10:21 AM, Biju Chacko wrote: Y'know: After this latest (of a series) episode it's becoming increasingly difficult to assume the goodwill of posters who I don't know for sure are real people. As it is, the tone and level of discourse on silk has changed over the years. A few years ago, it felt like the conversation of people who knew and respected each other, now it often feels like the impersonal, points scoring discussions of dozens of other mailing lists and news groups scattered around the 'net. If this place is also going to become the focus of people's silly intellectual games, I'm afraid I'm not going to work up the enthusiasm to spend my copious free time on it. If we want to continue to have intelligent conversations here it may be time for us add a other rule: Do unto others as you would have done to you. -- b
Re: [silk] Subramanian Swamy
That is ridiculous. Switzerland is Catholic in significant parts, but was also the home of Zwingli and one of the original bases of Calvinism. Neither the Roman Catholic Church nor Protestant denominations dominate the country; while it is Christian, it is not ruled by any specific type of Christian. Sent from my iPad On Aug 5, 2011, at 11:33 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Heather Madrone heat...@madrone.com wrote: On 8/4/11 7:18 PM August 4, 2011, ss wrote: What is a secular democracy? How would a non secular democracy work? Does anyone have any examples of a non secular democracy? Israel. Switzerland is Catholic on paper, but of course in reality it is quite secular, notwithstanding the brouhaha over minarets a couple of years back. Cheeni
Re: [silk] I'm Back, I Hope
--- On Wed, 27/5/09, Bruce Metcalf bruce.metc...@figzu.com wrote: From: Bruce Metcalf bruce.metc...@figzu.com Subject: [silk] I'm Back, I Hope To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Date: Wednesday, 27 May, 2009, 10:36 AM All, I'm back. Never really left, just got so damn busy that something had to give. At first it was Silk. I've decided that was the wrong thing to cut and have made an adjustment. Hi again. Two years ago, my wife and I were named executive directors of a non-profit historical group (The Augustan Society http://www.augustansociety.org), in addition to my two other jobs which I still have. What was supposed to be a part-time role with two small trucks of material turned out to be a more than full-time job for both of us, and four large truckloads for the library, museum, and business records. Stashed the first two groups in storage and we're now living with the latter all over our home. Great fun, but a whale of a lot of work for an embarrassingly small stipend. I gave up on my Silk backlog and read the past month's worth. I'll send along a couple of relevant posts directly. We'll all see just how long my new commitment to the community lasts. Feels good to be back though. Bruce Nice to have you back, Bruce. Explore and discover exciting holidays and getaways with Yahoo! India Travel http://in.travel.yahoo.com/
Re: [silk] On the rights of (harmless) bigots
--- On Sat, 23/5/09, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: From: Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com Subject: Re: [silk] On the rights of (harmless) bigots To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Date: Saturday, 23 May, 2009, 6:18 PM Can both of you avoid both a) top-posting (no, mine is not a top-post, your messages, hopelessly mixed up are below as a reminder) and b) quoting several dozen lines of irrelevant material? Udhay Kiran K Karthikeyan wrote, [on 5/23/2009 5:19 PM]: Harmless indeed, also gormless. I don't know if you know me that well but if you're so sure, I'll agree. I'm anything but gormless as well. :). Nobody will hurt you - promise - if you render that 'I'm sure it's not I...' rather than the way you did serve it up. Ummm...ok. So now you're going to hurt me or what? Kiran -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) Sorry, wrong address. Hopelessly mixed up is the way I received it, and hopelessly mixed up is the way I answered it. Try the next street. Explore and discover exciting holidays and getaways with Yahoo! India Travel http://in.travel.yahoo.com/
Re: [silk] More on India in Illiad cartoons
--- On Sat, 23/5/09, Lawnun lawnun+mailingl...@gmail.com wrote: From: Lawnun lawnun+mailingl...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [silk] More on India in Illiad cartoons To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Date: Saturday, 23 May, 2009, 10:41 PM I'll preface this with I'm not Indian but... I must admit, the whole comic screams gross caraciture, and not terribly funny to boot. That being said, userfriendly ceased being entertaining (at least to me) about 3 years ago. By design though, I understand Illiad's need to yank in the generalizations for an attempt at comedic effect -- he works in a medium that falls back on such conventions regularly. In some respects, particularly in the case of the three-panel daily comic, I think you need to employ caricature and generalization to hit the succinct punchline at the end of the third panel. That India (and to a lesser extent, Indians, are the brunt of this particular thread) seem only to serve the current story arc, and I'm not sure it'd be fair to extrapolate ignorance of India(ns) to the creator (and even less so, to the comics' readership). Given that, I'm curious, in an 'across-the-pond' sort of way -- do you ask the same questions (or generate the same 'datasets' that Bonobashi did) -- regarding Indian comics that exaggerate or generalize about the U.S. or Canada (or anywhere considered away for that matter)? Carey FWIW, I only read Doonesbury; used to read Peanuts but haven't got used to Lucy's primaeval violence and dropped out after a while. I haven't tried to form a mapping of the Doonesbury world because Trudeau has explicitly done it already. I don't think this strip is more or less ignorant than expected, about India and Indians. That is because Indians themselves are not well informed about India. I've just finished explaining to a college contemporary who is a Kannada speaking Bunt, and whom I inadvertently insulted by asking if she spoke Tulu, that no, I didn't think before moving to Bangalore in 86 that all Southies were Madrasis. To find a (well-informed about India) cartoonist in the west is hugely unlikely. I think. This is the cue for some busybody to refer me to the work of Nalini Thimayya who cartoons for the Mid-West Patriot and whose cartoons are about South Asia. Yeah, right. Own a website.Get an unlimited package.Pay next to nothing.*Go to http://in.business.yahoo.com/
Re: [silk] Hello
--- On Thu, 21/5/09, Dr. John Marshall Johnson johnso...@gmail.com wrote: From: Dr. John Marshall Johnson johnso...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [silk] Hello To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Date: Thursday, 21 May, 2009, 11:45 AM On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 8:48 PM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: I have donned saffron clothes, joined the Hindutva brigade and I throw stones at people called Johnson :D Oh ! I am surrounded by the Saffron brigade. Need to run !! But where ? Like Churchilll said - If England is conquered, we will go to Canada and fight. But ( I would love to visit Canada), Bangalore is my place where I was born, bred and buttered ... and I have got so many good friends ... No seriously - I am fine. I know that. You may have your views, but then most of us know you well. So, golfing Mmm!!, looks like you have been succesful in life. Great ! johnson C'mon Doc, you can make out when the man's kidding, can't you? Trouble is, Shiv has been scaring kids with these saffron clothes and large tilak, and garland of skulls (plastic, stamped Made in China) for so long, he feels if he doesn't keep doing it, he'll lose his mojo. Inside, he's just the same old Shiv, kicking the s**t out of anyone who lets a syllogism go haywire. If the Hindutva Brigade turned up on his doorstep without an invitation, I have a sneaky suspicion we'd see some world land speed records broken. Shiv is a secularist fallen among, erm, very strange company, and doesn't know how to ask them politely to shift their collective Taj Mahal and let him take his next shot - a difficult one with trees on the left and a horrible bunker to the right. Bollywood news, movie reviews, film trailers and more! Go to http://in.movies.yahoo.com/
Re: [silk] Hello
--- On Thu, 21/5/09, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: From: Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [silk] Hello To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Date: Thursday, 21 May, 2009, 4:19 PM On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Ramakrishnan Sundaram r.sunda...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/5/20 Dr. John Marshall Johnson johnso...@gmail.com: Well, can see Shiv, Mahesh, IG, Chetan, Venkat, Ram out here. Hi !! guys. Hi, JMJ. No, no, Ram...JMJ in general parlance stands for Joseph Mary Jesus! I know of schools and businesses which are called JMJ (much like the ubiquitous SLV or Sri Lakshmi Venkateshwara) and I found this out. Deepa. I no understand. Now Doc is to call himself SLV? Whyfor? Confuje, phull. Explore and discover exciting holidays and getaways with Yahoo! India Travel http://in.travel.yahoo.com/
Re: [silk] Hello
--- On Wed, 20/5/09, Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com wrote: From: Deepa Mohan mohande...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [silk] Hello To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Date: Wednesday, 20 May, 2009, 10:05 PM On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 9:43 PM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote: Hi, Doc. How it going? Oh, it's now passe to say, what's up, Doc? It Bugs you? No, not at all. I have this deep humanitarian urge to leave the cliches to those of mature years who NEED to say them off. It's wonderful seeing the relieved looks on their faces afterwards. a greatly rewarding thing. Share files, take polls, and make new friends - all under one roof. Go to http://in.promos.yahoo.com/groups/
Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?
--- On Thu, 21/5/09, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: From: ss cybers...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately? To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Date: Thursday, 21 May, 2009, 9:14 AM OK IG here is my answer ( I presume this is the one that you meant) On Wednesday 20 May 2009 9:38:03 am Bonobashi wrote: But based on what I have produced as evidence on my stand on the subject, you have a perfect right to arraign me on that count. The question is, and I leave it to you, having 'framed charges', so to speak, would you then allow me the right to plead? If you do, then I intend to indicate very clearly what my examples were (hint: they were examples), and my stand on the cut-off line. Franky I am inclined to let the matter drop for purely selfish reasons. Anything anyone says will tempt me to make long winded responses and maybe there are other things people want to do and and other things that I ought to be doing - like getting down to reading 4 books that I bought as part of redeeming Citibank reward points (and 3 others bought before that) I was just having a ball experimenting with the concept of If you (not you personally) think I am North pole I will show how you can never be neutral, but represent South pole In fact - I am tempted to get verbose again - i believe that this concept is exactly the one that has led to the very visible failure of Hindutva as a driving force in the last election. A very likely outcome if you start believing that you are always North pole and the other is always South pole., so to speak. To me the real mystery state is Karnataka. shiv I am anguished at Karnataka. How could it do what it did? Well, so be it. The humiliation of it all; labelled pseudo-secularist and not a tap in sight, not a drop of water in sight. I suppose I shall have to console Suresh by sending him your (battle) responses and my calm, considered exercises in polished, immaculate logic which are of such transcendent superiority that even you throw in the towel with one final, brave and obviously defeated effort before going off to practice short approaches to the green from the bunkers. [SRS: QUICK. BOOK THOSE TICKETS TO THAT ISLET OFF MACAO BEFORE HE CHANGES HIS MIND AND HEADS BACK THIS WAY. REMEMBER, BOOK THE TICKETS IN STRANGE NAMES. CALL ME AGHA HILALY OR SOMETHING] Own a website.Get an unlimited package.Pay next to nothing.*Go to http://in.business.yahoo.com/
Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?
--- On Tue, 19/5/09, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote: From: ss cybers...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately? To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Date: Tuesday, 19 May, 2009, 9:55 AM On Monday 18 May 2009 10:14:56 pm Bonobashi wrote: there is nothing hypocritical in my condemnation of the Gujarat massacres, and that you can use this only against a specific party and specific individuals from that party and from elsewhere who have actually demonstrated the hypocrisy that you have rightly pilloried. The point? Not everybody falls within your classification, and it does not seem logical to use arguments which depend on these categories as universal categories. Now it would be interesting for you to state those other issues which are being suppressed under the Modi smoke-screen. Please go ahead and list them, and see how secularism or its absence affects those issues. Or our responses to those issues. IG I will try and address the following issues in my reply (and will hopefully answer your questions as well). 1) I will try and illustrate why the use of what I term as a torn shirt versus open fly argument leads inexorably into a slippery slope where anything can be connected up with anything else leading to irreconcilable argument without the ability to see some important issues. 2) I will also try and show why the views you have expressed, while being valid, still count as pseudosecular in their ability to obfuscate and suppress certain opinions. 3) How the suppression of certain inconvenient viewpoints has a negative effect on Indian society today. if you felt personally targeted by my comments, I must admit that my comments (while not targeted at you personallly) were meant to hurt anyone who counters what is seen as a Hindutva argument with a reminder that Modi represents genocide. i don't think any one of us on this list needs a reminder that Modi stands accused of representing genocide. I don't think anyone on this list is a supporter or abettor of murder. Let me merely point out how you have fallen into the standard Hindutva trap by raising the Modi is a killer card as soon as your Hindutva detection meter sounds a warning. But you will have to listen to a fundamntalist Hindu viewpoint that I will state here because this is exactly what is said (and let me point out that is is another egregious example of torn shirt versus open fly - where one fact does not make another irrelevant or false) Al Beruni has documented the murder of Hindus in the past. There are records of other massacres of Hindus including that of 500 brahmins in Melkote. Despite this, I will explain why would it be wrong for a Hindutvadi to call all Muslims murderers on the basis of documented history. No matter who committed murder in the past there are two incontrovertible facts: 1) All Muslims are not murderers and do not support or abet murder 2) For all the murder that was commited by some people, a lot of innocent people are being smeared merely for representing a different viewpoint Now apply that to Hindutva and BJP 1) All Hindutvadis and BJP supporters are not murderers and do not support or abet murder 2) For all the murders commited by Modi and his goons, a lot of innocent people are being smeared merely for representing a different viewpoint. The pseudosecular argument is as follows: You represent Hindutva. Modi represents Hindutva. Modi is a murderer, and therefore your opinions coincide with that of a murderer. No decent human would agree wth you. You need to shut up The counter argument made by Hindutvadis is similar: Islam is a murderous religion. Muslim opinions represent a murderous religion. And your support to them represents support of murder and Hindu genocide. You do not represent real secularism when you fail to criticize genocide by Muslims in the past, while you criticize murder by Hindus more recently. You are pseudosecular. You need to shut up yourself This is the slippery slope that you are getting into when you use Modis guilt to suppress an opinion expressed by somenone else - in this case Bharat Shetty. How does all this impact Indian society? How is pseudosecularism as damaging to society as a misrepresentation of all Muslims as fundamentalists? You and me and everyone else on this list, as decent, secular people claim to fully understand the angst of religious minorities in India such as Muslims and Christians. But what does not get expressed so often is that the majority community of Hindus have their own reasons for dissatisfaction and angst. In a secular and democratic country such as India, if we must go to great lengths to reduce the angst and suffering of the religious minorities' it also means that we have to be willing
Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?
--- On Tue, 19/5/09, Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com wrote: From: Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately? To: silklist@lists.hserus.net Date: Tuesday, 19 May, 2009, 3:27 PM IG, -- I am arguing against Bharat making the mistake of those who admired Hitler, and before him, Mussolini, the original model, for making the trains run on time. Strongly agree with most of your points. But I do not like this, anyways. I did not champion Modi nor do I admire Modi. If you felt so, it wasn't to be, honestly. -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb Don't be stupid, it wasn't meant personally. I was attacking your views, not you personally. I am fond, very fond of Shiv. One of the few people without cant and hypocrisy. That doesn't stop me from looking at the views he's expressed, and saying out loud what I feel. Sometimes we agree. Other times, I keep quiet. Unless he says something outrageous, like he did. Likewise, if you think my views suck, say so. I don't feel personal about it. Except if it's Chetan. Now Chetan comes under the classification of game. For historical reasons. He can be guaranteed to provide entertainment. Just as soon as I finish making you wish you hadn't been born, I have some stuff in the kettle for him. Own a website.Get an unlimited package.Pay next to nothing.*Go to http://in.business.yahoo.com/
