A Time To Reflect

charukesi February 27th, 2008

Time was when, finding myself otherwise jobless (which is all the time) I used to head to rediff.com for my daily dose of entertainment. Insipid stories, terribly written out - but the comments following the articles making every moment spent on the site worth it.

It just seems to be getting worse… The problem is when good writers sneak in their pieces when no one (viz. me) is looking - and the same kind of comments show up.

In February, Sidin’s hilarious How to score a Valentine’s date in 10 days! attracted 86 comments, ranging from the mildly abusive…

v-date,bulshit
by Supriya mehta on Feb 09, 2008 12:31 PM | Hide replies

Hi,Ithink your analysis about girl is totally incorrect,& u has enough time to spend , making showoffs, did you personally ever tried the same,kindly lets us know the result,it’s a totally rottan idea.

…to the sincerely woeful…

Valentine’s Date
by cute plumcake on Feb 09, 2008 10:52 AM | Hide replies

Sidin these are cheap tricks yaar… to find a soul mate you need to be truthful to yourself and lovable..

I mean, how can one not feel all warm and fuzzy about ‘cute plumcake’?

Immediately after that, Anita’s travel piece on Top romantic spots for a perfect Valentine’s Day. The comments which are as always irrelevant or rude, suddenly take a turn towards ‘down with western culture’ - India survived for corers of years without vanentines day. Only two hundred year old country like USA is teaching us the way of expressing such love. New generation is falling for it.

Corers of years. Indeed.

This commenter Jayant Tilak goes on and on, to end with - Only those can respond, who can give their very considered opinion. No foolish comments expected please.

And poor Palani was disappointed, he expected to find out about erogenous spots and found himself reading about cool getaways instead - and suggests rediff has manipulated the title to attract readers like him - why not call it places instead of spots, he asks.

I mean, what? When is rediff going to get a comments filter or any kind of policy at all? On writing, reading, commenting…

So, here is what I have been wondering - why would good writers want to write for rediff?

• - New media
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charukesi August 14th, 2006

I was searching earlier on the net for something and came across a site called smartbahu and of course, I had to click on it. This is what the site says - Smartbahu.com - India’s 1st portal for the complete woman.

What was that again - complete women = smart bahu (or is it the other way round?)

The home page contains links to articles such as Injazat data systems to build the most advanced TierIV data centre in the region and GM utilizes internet to introduce new vehicles.

What am I missing here?

• - Gender issues , - New media
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charukesi June 28th, 2005

SK has blogged about Googlinglish, Google’s on-line translator tool - wherein you can translate chunks of texts or the whole contents of a web page into different languages. The translation can be done between English and French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portugese, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. Additionally, it can translate between German and French too..

He tried - The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak

Spanish - El alcohol está dispuesto pero la carne es débil

Back to English - The alcohol is arranged but the meat is weak

No problemo, so long as the booze keeps flowing

****

And having read this, I spent a pleasant and constructively useful (for me, ok) morning at the google translator site… Thanks SK, I don’t remember when I last had so much fun without moving from my chair…

I started with - laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone

And followed a slightly circuitous English - German - French - English route…

Lachen Sie und das Weltlachen mit Ihnen, Schrei und Ihnen Schrei alleine

Et flaques mondiales avec vous, un cri et vous le cri riez seulement

And world puddle pools with you, a cry and you it cry only laugh

Sure, the way it is raining here, the world can only puddle pools with you…

And the English - Portugese - English version goes
ria e os risos do mundo com você, grito e você grito sozinho
it laughs and the laughs of the world with you, shout and you alone shout

___________________________________________________________________________________

I was so enchanted that I went on…

Do unto others as you would like others to do unto you
French - Faites à d’autres car vous voudriez que d’autres fassent à vous
And back in English it was - Make with others because you would like that others make with you

Make with me, baby!

And the best was yet to come…. English - German - French - German - English went as follows (ok, I was jobless, I admit)

German - Tun Sie an andere, da Sie möchten, daß andere an Sie tun
French - faites à d’autres, puisque vous voudriez que d’autres font à vous
German - Gemacht an einem anderen Reisebus möchten Sie, daß andere an Ihnen machen
Finally English again - Made at another touring bus you would like that others make at you

Go figure that out… As for me, I am off to find my touring bus…

Update : Srikanth has pointed out this urban legend around “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”. Do read it. Also did you know “out of sight, out of mind” English - Russian - English is “blind and insane”?

• - New media , Language & writing
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charukesi June 14th, 2005

The social software weblog has an interesting piece on IM as a business networking tool

I work from home as a consultant and this line from the post describes my feeling for IM best - I fall squarely into the IM at work category, and I love the efficiency, the searchability, and the ease with which I can multitask 10 or more conversations simultaneously. I’m also a big fan of the way IM mediates presence — my “presence” there doesn’t require my full, undivided attention the way a phone call does, yet I can be instantly available for real-time discussion as needed (a clear advantage over e-mail).

Real-time, convenient and moderately personal - perfect…

And on a personal front, I find friends from all over the world updating me on the latest in their lives - from a new job to a recent break-up - and all without exchanging a word - sanam bewafa as IM status is enough, don’t you think - for me to reach out and say - split again? And I write this, I see ‘Crashed lap-top’ from Korea and ‘Beer is hard work’ from a friend working in a liquor company in Dubai…

Another thought I have been having for a while - I find most bloggers using a gmail account for their blog correspondence - maybe because of the huge storage space - it would be interesting for google to launch an IM service - how would that connect bloggers - would it add a different dimension to blogging interactions?

Er, my msn handle says - Say NO to deadlines - excuse me, I need to go change that now - or restrict clients to yahoo…

• Technology , - New media
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charukesi May 31st, 2005

I had blogged about how rumours spread through SMS had hampered a health survey in Bahrain.

Here is a post from smartmobs on how SMS alerts were used as human rights tactic.

Golden Misabiko, a journalist in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was arrested and imprisoned without any charge in January 2001. It was feared he would be tortured. Amnesty International sent out an Urgent Action to members all over the world. We, at the Dutch section, sent out a text message to 8,000 cell-phone users in the Netherlands who participate in our new text-message alert network. Within 48 hours we sent a protest fax with thousands of signatures to the authorities in the DRC. Golden was released in May 2001. He had not been tortured. Golden wrote to Amnesty, “When I heard in prison that Amnesty campaigned for my release I knew: Je vais sortir (I will be released).” And so it happened. Amnesty International has found a new “weapon” to use in its battle against torture: cell-phone text messages.

Read more here…

• Technology , - New media
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charukesi May 24th, 2005

In a strongly worded post*, Dilip raises some uncomfortable issues here starting with What happens when bloggers post lies, whether knowingly or not? What happens when they post rumours, whether knowingly or not? What happens when they post unsubstantiated assumptions, whether knowingly or not? What happens when they call others names?

Here is a report from textually.org on how rumours spread through sms hampered a health survey in Bahrain… Word went round that the volunteers conducting the survey were forcibly injecting unsuspecting people in their homes. As a result hundreds of householders literally slammed the door on surveyors, who were just trying to find out how best to help them, volunteers said yesterday.

And of course all of us have received scores of messages on email ranging from the mildly absurd to the really scary (or potentially scary, if they did not come from unidentified people who claim to have your best interests at heart)…

Does it look like technology only makes name-calling and rumour-mongering easier - accountability be damned?

———————–
*for Dilip, that is, I have only seen his Buddhaesque calm so far!

• Technology , - New media
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charukesi April 6th, 2005

I have not read Jon Stock’s The Cardamom Club… but I read Stock in The Week regularly. In the recent issue of The Week, he writes about a Delhi based blogger who has reviewed his book…

…the Internet might seem a thoroughly vast and unanonymous place, but as search engines trawl ever more deeply through the sea of Web pages out there, it’s becoming smaller, more intimate and, ultimately, more accountable. On the whole, I think that’s a good thing. Freedom and responsibility are not such unpleasant bedfellows, are they?

True, does owning your own blog space mean writing what you will without any accountability?

Dina had written about this - the responsibility that comes with power - during the Mediaah controversy….

(Vivek meanwhile is basking in his new found er, popularity?)

• The World of Indsight , - New media
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charukesi November 5th, 2004

Nokia launches SMS in Hindi to widen reach .

The Mera Nokia service currently in Hindi, is soon to be followed by other regional languages including Bengali, Kannada, Tamil and Marathi. Following efforts for providing computing in regional languages, this is a major step in taking technology to the hinterlands - not to mention tapping the huge markets of regional language and rural India…

Link thru Ideas Bazaar which also has an intresting bit on how mobile phones were still posh pagers for the nascent middle classes…. a few years ago when mobile phones were expensive, inaccessible and for those reasons, a status symbol…

It is very interesting to watch how markets shift and products become cheaper and more accessible with technology… Mobile phones, computers, CDs (I still remember paying obscene amounts like Rs.300 for a music CD, sob!)

• Technology , - New media
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charukesi October 29th, 2004

Following this post about immersive text messaging is this paper on marketing through SMS.

A rather startling statement here - selling via SMS has also started picking up momentum and will soon be at par with the figures of trading on Internet.

Will SMS marketing really take off this way?

• Branding and Marketing , - New media
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charukesi October 17th, 2004

Immersive text messaging in the short film Textual @traction
(link through community mobilization)

Came across this piece about an interactive movie… Do read through the whole short piece… Is sure to make you think the way I did - is there no end to the possibilities that new technology offers?

Opportunities for mobile advertising is just one thing I can think of immediately….

• Technology , - New media
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