Web 2.0 Bubble

Ozzy and Rob Zombie concert

Just came back from a truly outstanding performance by Ozzy Osbourne and Rob Zombie at San Diego Sports Arena. Some pictures posted below -

Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs

Lego NXT Walking

It happens only in India

I clicked these photos on my way to Jaisalmer during September this year. These people are devotees of Baba Ramdevji at a small village called Ramdevra. About 0.5 million people visit this place everyday during this time of the year. Most of them travel barefoot from their villages. Now this is some amazing devotion !

Funny signages

Yeah Right ! Point noted !


I am still not sure why do they put ash trays below no smoking signs on airplanes.

Beer for children

Just a funny poster

Quite detailed explanation @ Taj (Jodhpur): "Press 3 in elevator"

These folks can sue Linus Torvalds for using their registered name :)





The Real Test !





I just find this one funny because the man is floating in mid air !

The Declining US Dollar: Winners And Losers

A good article. Source: TechCrunch

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/14/the-declining-us-dollar-winners-and-losers/



This is a sign that outsourcing to India will decline in the future due to effective increased cost. US companies have to pay more than before to have offshore offices and development centers now.

Value of information

I woke up today morning (as usual around 11am) and was checking my mail sitting in the living room. The door bell rang and I saw some people, whom I had never met before at the door. I was little resistant to allow them in our house, but they claimed that they knew our family. They started of by calling a list of people they know and most of the names sounded familiar. So out of courtesy I allowed them to come in and have a seat.

They said they were Jaggas from Rajasthan. Jaggas are people who maintain family information for several families, and they were the one who maintained for our family since last couple of centuries. This concept sounded familiar to the concept of Pandaas my dad had told me few years ago. Pandaas are folks who maintain information of people who have visited Haridwar (holy place in India). In India, I believe there are hardly any families who don’t visit Haridwar in their lifetime. Hence these people maintain a list of people who visited Haridwar since last couple of centuries at this central place. There is a master record which is passed on from generations to generations and this master record connects all the families to their roots.

After talking to the head Jagga, I realized that he knew much more about our family than anyone else in our family would know. They told me about 100 names of the people in my family. I must confess that there were some whom I never knew existed. I believe the reason they could do this is the vast information base they had gathered over generations and also because of the fact that they make their living on this information. I was amazed to see the information they had collected and memorized. They were recalling it faster than what Google would do in the modern world.

Another amazing thing I was told that they visit each of the families on their record every year and keep on updating their information base. They maintain records in a big fat book. When I asked if I could see that book, they replied saying it was extremely hard for them to carry it as it was about 2 feet tall !!! I was thinking on back of my mind it would be so cool if we could just gather all this information and upload it online so that it would help families re-connect.

Another thought that came to my mind was that the value people find in this information or consider any information. This value existed since last several centuries even when internet and computers never existed. The reason these people could run their business is only because other people were ready to pay for this information. Typically each family pays around Rs.500/- to Rs.1000/- per year to Jaggas.

Another interesting aspect is that these people realized several centuries ago that there was a business opportunity in collecting information. A lot of information existed in fragmented form and if they could collect this information into a single source it could turn into a business. This business model can still be applied on internet today. A lot of information on Internet today is fragmented. The one who can collect this information and re-organize, can turn this collective fragments of information into money. I believe search engines like Google are just beginning to this.

A lot of information exists in scattered form on internet today. The one who is willing to collect and re-organize this information can make money on it. Any ideas on what type information might be of interest to people?

Throw things into space

This product called Slingatron can throw things into space by spinning the object until it achieves escape velocity and then releasing it. Will be cool if it works ... sending people you don't like away from you into space would become much cheaper :)

Source : Gizmodo

Nike commercial

Joke

Indian soldiers capture an intruder at Kashmir border. They give him a dice and tell him that if throw between 1 and 5, he would be shot
The intruder says what if he throws six?
They reply that he'll get another throw

Google's new street view

Source: Boing Boing

Check out the technology used for mapping Google's new street view. I got a chance to walk on the Las Vegas Blvd after missing a real walk last week when I was at Vegas.

Inflatable Balls Provide Broadband Connection from Anywhere

Source: Gizmodo

Came across this pretty neat idea, a portable parabolic antenna inside a balloon which can be inflated and deployed for terrestrial to satellite communications on the go.

First post

I am not sure why I created this blog ... my best guess is may be just because everyone else had one or may be just to organise the random thoughts in my mind. My postings would mostly focus on Science and Tech, Hi-tech sart-ups, India's development, Music, Jokes, Food and lot of random stuff.