Psychologists researching a high incidence of suicides in thirteen blocks of South 24 Parganas, West Bengal say they may have hit on India’s “zone of melancholy,” with some 500 suicides in one year and 936 documented suicide bids last year. Apparently, ‘hundreds of thousands’ of people in the region suffer from depression, home to the Sunderbans and man-eating tigers.
Monthly Archives: August 2002
Affordable Web Hosting in India
There was a post today on affordable web hosting in India on the ILUGC mailing list today. My two-minute braindump about it.
Sifting through to the Truth
Indeed, a finely tuned bullshit detector is a survival trait in the information age. When we are inundated with data, much of which seems contradictory and much of which is intended to persuade or deceive us, we need to learn how to reject that which has a high probability of being invalid, and to that end we begin to understand what kinds of messages or ways in which they are delivered tend to suggest that the messenger is less than honest. Those of us who have grown up in information-rich societies have learned this skill over time, although to differing degrees. This is a real problem for those using these media, such as advertisers, to try to influence us in ways which are to their advantage but not necessarily to ours, and as our access to information grows, the effectiveness of advertising has declined. We’re just not that easy to convince. Indeed, it’s not all that easy to even get our attention any more to even deliver the message, let alone to have the message convince us and change our behavior. That’s why there’s a long term trend for advertising to become more strident, more intrusive, more obnoxious, and more emphatic; it shows that the advertisers are growing desperate. Ironically, those very characteristics in turn decrease the effectiveness of their message because they more strongly set off our collective bullshit detectors. (Advertising is falling prey to the tragedy of the commons.)
The Embattled PC
Bruce Sterling says that Windows is rapidly becoming like an airport — an armed terrorspace. He gets it half right — the PC platform itself is becoming an armed terrorspace. Before the ‘net, in the days of floppies and BBSes and company wide ethernets, PCs were little islands of information — cute to work with, but not for serious use. With the onset of the net, the copying flexibility of the PC is a scourge for content hoarders. And for the vast majority of trusting humans who connect to what is essentially a hostile public network without the benefit of a Infosec 101 course, the net is an endless source of detritus online life leaves behind — spam, viruses and exploits designed to trip up an OS never really designed to guard Fort Knox among them. Between scheming business people threatened with extinction of business models and irresponsible crackers and social engineers, the PC of yesteryear is growing up to adulthood — and the loss of innocence adulthood entails will not be a pretty site.
The sad part is: the companies who once championed the PC most are turning away from it. Microsoft (with Palladium) and Intel (with TCPA) both hope not only to eliminate the spam and the viruses, but also the unique flexibilities of a PC that consumers love so much and which give content hoarders so many sleepless nights. Today, Apple (for all its faults) is perhaps the only company that celebrates the PC as an instrument of individual expression (apart from the geekish allure of Linux, of course). Microsoft is too caught up in readying Windows “for the enterprise” when it is not busily turning Windows Explorer into real estate to be used for MSN ads; it also treats its smallest customers like dirt, subjecting them to insulting activation procedures (which it can afford to do, having 90% of the market). There is no message from Intel that makes me think that their thinking is in any way different.
Bottom line: between the crackers, the content hoarders, Wintel and me, there are at least four groups fighting for control of my personal computer. I’d cut it a little slack if it felt embattled.
We Don't Need No Thought Control
Reminds me of a time back in ’94 when I went to a Pink Floyd concert. As per usual, people like to sing along with the songs. To dying day, I’ll never forget the sound of 30,000 people droning in unison: “We don’t need no thought control”.
The Great Game Continues in the Middle East
Companion Pieces: Read Rahul Mahajan’s Iraq and the New Great Game and Steven Denbeste’s What Comes Next?. Then see the Powerpoint slides at the end of this article. One thing still puzzles me, though — Iraq as a “tactical pivot” I can get, but why do the slides call Egypt “the prize”?
Interesting Take on the DRM Wars
The media industry continues to cry out for a DRM solution that meets their desires for complete control over content delivery and use. Microsoft can supply a 60% solution now, and a 99% solution with Palladium (and derivatives for use on devices). However, the media industry doesn’t want to give over implementation of DRM controls to Microsoft. They want to pick their partners. Given the rule of power politics in Washington, this means that the only thing really stopping the implementation of a mandatory DRM solution based on open standards (or media selected proprietary ones) is Microsoft. It isn’t fair use, privacy considerations, or the needs of you and me. This is a battle over control of the technology.As long as Microsoft can delay this in Congress we win. In the end we all are losers.
Radhika Nathan Visits a Temple
Radhika Nathan‘s Temple Again brought back vivid memories of why I shudder inwardly at the thought of visiting a temple. The notion of a group of priests, ticket collectors and sundry temple officials mediating an encounter between me and my Maker is somehow repulsive to me.
Farther away from the special queue, this other crowd was getting bigger and more unforgiving by the minute and they were being pushed and pulled as they struggled to get a glimpse of Her. By the time we crossed the gate and entered the inner sanctum, I was beginning to seriously doubt the purpose of my presence there. Where was the peace and serenity that I was expecting?The inner sanctum was another story. Some wise guy had deemed that those with the special tickets deserved to sit in the small chamber in front of the deity for a few minutes. Now there was already enormous traffic, those entering into the chamber, the priests and the assorted staff regulating the flow. To top it, the good people in the chamber hardly seemed satisfied with the opportunity given to them and were sitting rooted to their spots or worse, upon entreated to leave, were standing right there, blocking the view of the less unfortunate ticket less mass of people, who could hardly stand let alone sit, passing by beyond the chamber straining to see the deity. The priests vying to get our attention, the incessant monotonous chanting with no depth to it, the police woman desperately cursing to get the attention of the blockers, the faceless crowd with a thousand folded hands moving like an automaton, crying for help.. I felt suffocated, even guilty and need to run away from there arose from the middle of my being, constricting my throat.
Btw, Radhika’s got to be in the reckoning for being one of the most readable writers in blogdom. Unlike most hacks, er, bloggers, she actually knows how to turn a phrase. A blog worth watching.
Thanks for the Links
I’m now a Subcontinental Singer on Suman’s blogroll (can I keep the title even if I can’t sing worth beans?) And sathishr very kindly linked to me as well. Thanks!
Actually, there are quite a few Indian blogs that aren’t on either of the two lists — Ravi Rao’s LiveJournal is one I enjoy looking at from time to time.
SHDOCVW: Never Say Die
In the settlement-mandated app preferences dialog (in Win2k SP3), even as the confirmed IE-phobe switches to Mozilla with a sigh of satisfaction only the righteous can emit, the UI continues to be powered by the same evil browser the confirmed IE-phobe had fought all these years. I can almost hear the defense addressing Judge Kollar-Ketally: Yes, your honor, IE’s html renderer really is a system service. We use it to show dialogs. Accompanied by peals from laughter coming from Redmond … 
Actually, here‘s an easy, compatible answer to folk wanting to embed a html renderer within Windows apps — Mozilla as an embeddable control that implements IWebBrowser2 — the same API IE exposes to AOL, Outlook, and many other apps. If only Netscape had created something like this around Netscape 3. Wonder if they had ever considered this idea seriously, though, or were too high on their “the browser is the OS” trip to take notice.