Short glass shot glass

Among the major contributions from the University of Illinois are the transistor, superconductivity, LED and the internet (ok..just mosaic...but you get the idea). Its alum have gone on to start many pathbreaking firms (playboy..Hugh hefner) and run countries (Taiwan's veep). Continuing that storied tradition of innovation, 198 students of the university were recruited to perform an extremely important study. Do short and wide glasses increase the amount of booze consumed? The answer turned out to be yes (:

Why a Cornell professor recruited U of I students, I don't know. And given the tendency here in UIUC to get plastered and get others even more drunk (esp of the opposite sex), I don't think I believe the study!!

Watched a couple of movies recently. Recommend both of them. Went retro with the first one. Blade runner.


This movie, which can walk into a bar and legally buy a drink, still manages a cult following. Despite the fact that movies like matrix are basically Blade runner on steroids (and with CG), it is still revered as one of the most technically plausible sci-fi movies (except for the stupid flying cars). So, intrigued, I watched this semi-noir, semi-punkish sc-fi movie about clones (called replicants). It tries to answer what it is to be humans, just like in the movie I, Robot (which I won't recommend). There are many different versions floating around (there is a version with voiceover..a la Sin city). So, get yourself a copy and watch it if you still haven't and like sci-fi. An interesting fact about the movie: This was made around the time when Japan was beating America black and blue in the industrial sector...so this movie set in the future has a huge Japanese influence and presence in it. Its funny that most of the companies advertised in the movie are dead!

Second movie, Goodbye Lenin.




Rammstein is one of the main reasons for my current interest in the German language. That combined with the fact that this German movie is the most rented intl. movie in my local free library made me check it out. It is a well made movie that takes a nostalgic view of East Germany through the eyes of a son trying the save his mother's life. She went into a 8 month coma around the time the wall came down. Basically the world had changed around her. Trying to prevent her from being shocked, the son recreates the east in his bedroom and with the help of a friend's video skills on his television set. Overall pretty nice. Doesn't overwhelm you with brilliance, but a nice and easy way to understand how the wall fell and who it fell on.

The war on Christmas

Christmas drives me insane. Nothing to do with shopping or the crowds, just the cheesy tunes you hear for more than a month. The soundbites this year got nonsensical with Mr. O'Reilly singing his carol. If you have been living in a hole in the frozen ground, good ol' Bill wants to put the Christ back in Christmas and has declared war on the PC crowd who wish Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas (why isn't it Merry Diwali or Ramzan, I shall never know. But that is not the point here). Nicholas Kristof (columnist, NY Times) started this new round by saying that maybe the commentrators should focus on saving Christians dying in Darfur (Kristof is deeply invovled journalistically and emotionally to Darfur). Bill O'Reilly responded with some crap calling him a leftwing idiot or something to that effect. Kristof responded in this article. He has upped the ante by titling the article "Challenge to O'Reilly".

Perhaps I'm particularly sensitive to religious hypocrites because I've spent a chunk of time abroad watching Muslim versions of Mr. O'Reilly - demagogic table-thumpers who exploit public religiosity as a cynical ploy to gain attention and money. And I always tell moderate Muslims that they need to stand up to blustery blowhards - so today, I'm taking my own advice.

So I have a challenge for Mr. O'Reilly: If you really want to defend traditional values, then come with me on a trip to Darfur. I'll introduce you to mothers who have had their babies clubbed to death in front of them, to teenage girls who have been gang-raped and then mutilated - and to the government-armed thugs who do these things.

You'll have to leave your studio, Bill. You'll encounter pure evil. If you're like me, you'll be scared. If you try to bully some of the goons in Darfur, they'll just hack your head off. But you'll also meet some genuine conservative Christians - aid workers who live the Gospel instead of sputtering about it - and you'll finally be using your talents for an important cause.

So, Bill, what'll it be? Will you dare travel to a real war against Christmas values, in which the victims aren't offended shoppers but terrified children thrown on bonfires? I'm waiting to hear.


This insane state of affairs makes me wish for a Silent Night...pun fully intended.

The greenest of them all

“To me, proving that earth’s climate is changing from human actions—namely global warming—is like statistically ‘proving’ the pavement exists after you have jumped out a 30-story building. After each floor, your analysis would say, ‘so far, so good,’ and then, at the pavement, all uncertainty is removed.”

Wanna guess who said this?? You will be excused for thinking it must be some leftie or some well meaning scientist. It's actually an industry guy; an insurance industry CEO. In a unique and predictable twist, insurance industry leaders are realising that the house always wins only when the house is still standing. Extraordinary changes in the playing field can lead to a losing streak. So major insurance industry giants like Swiss Re are actively considering premium changes and educating its customers about global warming. This has obviously lead to extremely critical statements in Wall Street and other traditionally climate sceptic communities. But when an industry that is 3 times the size and power of the oil industry (insurance worldwide is a 3 to 5 trillion dollar business) crunches its numbers and makes its move, it is very tough to argue against it. Like a good casino owner, Swiss Re is basing its policy not on emotion but the cold fact that the number of recent natural disasters is well beyond what any of its models predict.


The American insurance industry joined the European camp when AIG decided after Katrina to start investing in industries that have active greenhouse mitigating technology or related research. However the key difference is that the Europeans are educating people quite openly about what is happening, and how it might affect reinsurance rates. Swiss Re for example has an openly declared 250 Million Euro warchest just for investing in green technologies. An early result of this policy is a documentary series they financed called The Great Warming. I found it funny that this documentary aired in 2004 had the following lines in it : And the city of New Orleans - already well below sea level and sandwiched between the Mississippi and the sea - is certain to be a victim. Tarot reader John Williamson reads the future, and it's grim.!! The American insurance industry on the other hand is expected to make small efforts to cover its losses and improve its future without openly going against the mainstream industry. It is a more wait and watch policy because in America, unlike in Europe, they can pass the buck to consumers. As already reported widely, consumers in Hurricane Central can expect to pay more to live there with insurance.

To me, personally, the interest shown by the insurance industry is heartening. Not because i think they are turning a new leaf; i could care less about that. But because the underlying principle of the free market has been proven right. Everyone and everything has a price. When the price is too high, change shall occur on its own; in its substantial but at the same time unjudging and uncritical way. Sure, it might be change at what used to called a Hindu rate of change, but change due to economic reasons have a much higher longevity and chance of success than change because some few million tree huggers like me wanted it that way.

when the chinese go farming and the latin go trading

Time was when video games used to mean Mario Bros; when i would rather break the damn thing than hand it over to my sister...or some chinese farmer dude.

Time was when sweatshop workers meant young kids working and making your jeans when they actually should have been playing games. Unlike today when it means chinese youth getting paid 56 cents an hour to collect gold in WoWarcraft

Check these series of articles from NYTimes about video game farming: the booming industry where people collect and sell "gold" and other gaming previleges. I am sure that these morons could use a 12 step program!!
Nytimes article 1

Article 2


On another more positive note, I discovered Mercora, Latin for trade, the newest P2P kid on the block. Started by a McAffe exec along with others, this uses a neat loophole in the DMCA (digital copyrights act) to bring us P2P radio/webcast with the option of recording the song. Perfectly legal and free till a certain point (i think it is 1 hour per day, but not so sure). Anyways, i am hooked. Listened to Rosenrot, Rammstein's new album; release date in the U.S. unknown.