About Flashing that finger at Adobe!

Finally, we hear it all straight from the horse's mouth. Steve Jobs, Apple CEO speaks in detail about the motivation behind iGadgets not supporting Flash video technology!

Citing Adobe Technology as a relic of the PC Era, he says about Flash's flaws, including security, poor performance and no support for touch-based interfaces.

Read Here.

In response, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch wrote in a company blog post about how things could have worked out with Apple, if not for Apple's "blocking" and about how anyhow we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple devices for both Flash Player and AIR.

"We look forward to delivering Flash Player 10.1 for Android smartphones as a public preview at Google I/O in May, and then a general release in June," he said.

Now, that's what people here at the Ketchup Office would call a cool attitude..
Hakuna Matata!..to hell with apples! Oranges and googles.. Bring 'em on..

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An April Moon

The cute picture on the side was taken yesterday in Peters burg, Russia during full moon.

And it is making me think more about the moon and I am in a mood for some astro physics. They say the moon was created about 4.5 million years ago when a mars-sized planet collided with the Earth. Ya! with Earth Day and Hubble Telescope Day passing last week, I'm completely madly in love with the universe.

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These Lucky Israelis!

Unlike many people who are put to torture over big decision making on whether to buy an ipad or not, people in Holy Land needn't worry. Cos its banned anyways. The Israeli Govt. has banned the device as it doesn't comply with European Wi-Fi standards. Apparently US Wi-Fi signals are too damaging for the domestic network and airport officials have started confiscating ipads from tourists.

Only a wi-fi version of the device has been released so far, with a 3G version coming in the US at the end of this month. Apple has put a hold on International Roll out and would not announce international pricing or start taking pre-orders until May 10.

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Bangkok- city of the clashes!

Guess it was last year I heard from a Thai friend that in Bangkok your politics are determined by the color of the shirts your wear. He had jokingly added that you should stick to neutral shades or floral shirts if you don't want to reveal your political inclination(coz Red, yellow, blue, black, pink shirts make strong statements)!

And now I realize it was not a joke,the month-long protests by "red-shirts" which is said to be the worst in last two decades have turned deadly. 18 people have been reportedly killed and more than 800 injured in the post-emergency protests. The red protestors (United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship ) are demanding parliament dissolution and fresh elections. They are supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted from power in 2008 by a military coup.

(More here and here)

ps- Bangkok means City of the Deity in Thai.

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Nothing lean about Carlos Slim

I just learnt that mexico's tycoon Carlos Slim Helu overtook Bill Gates for No. 1 spot on Forbes World's Billionaires list this year.Warren Buffet finished third this time.

Slim's fortune has swelled to an estimated $53.5 billion, up $18.5 billion in 12 months. Shares of his company America Movil, of which Slim owns a $23 billion stake, were up 35% in a year.

Mexico has reportedly the widest rich-poor divide among Latin American countries (after Brazil) according to World Urban Forum held recently.

Quote.
Brazil’s rich/poor gap was tagged as the most outstanding, with 10% of the richest absorbing 50.6% of all income, compared to the 0.8% going to the poorest 10%. Mexico follows, with its top 10% controlling 42.2% of income, compared to the 1.3% for the poorest 10%.
Unquote.

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Public Serving Public

Propublica is a non profit news organization started by civic journos to bring in change in the society by "producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them". Based in Manhattan, Newyork, and partnering with many news groups, they have brought to light stories of medical professional misconduct across states.

Now, they have published their Reporting Recipe: How You Can Investigate Your State’s Oversight of Its HealthCare Workers

Amidst all the recent health care reform and costs talks we are made to listen to, I felt this came as something interesting!

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SocialMedia-GoodBad&Ugly,The!

Twitter is a darling, let’s all agree. It is not anymore just a micro blogging site or just about staying regular in touch or exchanging the latest info. Ofcourse, its all that, but in the fewest words, for most its the new X-factor. I am talking about those people who got a sudden professional hitch (and those who got TV shows, book deals, movie deals etc) just by tweeting. So, all of you who underestimate Social Media, its go-grey time. Its a mini-democracy out there people!

And like in most democracies, there's all the over whelming talk about just everything in the entire wide world. Yeah, its a little bad but a lot better compared to some things that happen to those like Shamu,for whom it was end of career. Atleast from what I hear,they closed down Shamus Tweets as people who previously found Shamu a playful whale boy having fun sea life, suddenly feel Shamu's words and deeds are abusive and not so lively and funny, anymore!

Hmm, bottomline is-- Twitter is to stay, whether you stay or not.Just like the Universe! So, better not to tweet like a bird brain.

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Internet help TRPs

Media Convergence helps everyone. The latest person to join this thought wagon is Leslie Moonves, chief executive of the CBS Corp, who got to broadcast both the Super Bowl and the Grammies this year. Many feel that the online media (blogs, twitter, etc) provide a water-cooler effect, and encourage people to split time between computer and the TV. And, this works not just for live programs but even when its not live.

Alan Wurtzel, the head of research for NBC Universal also feels as long as people want to share something, the effects of online conversations are “important for all big event programming, and also, honestly, for all of television going forward.”

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Whales that kill

So, Shamu killed his trainer. And they say, its rare. And Borrowitz asks - If, as reported, killer whales rarely kill, how did they get their name?

So now I learn(from here) that killer whales really don't kill humans. They just kill others. And, sometimes mistakenly kills humans thinking they are not humans. Hmm. Interesting. I wonder how do we communicate properly with these beasts of preys that we are humans and should be let alone?

Perhaps, by simply letting them be in the sea and not messing with them? But, if we have to have fun looking at them imitating cute tricks(inside our natural buildings), i guess we should not be surprised about this too.

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Some Press Conferences

I just read Brooker's latest press mock. He was contemptuous of the recent Tiger Apology Episode. And some where else someone jokingly said its easy for the press and public to forgive Tiger, after all they are not married to him! If you are just another golf man nobody would have cared for sure. But, when you are a celebrity and your career and life is sculpted out of a good guy image, yeah you are the public's darling. And, then its the press and the public thats your actual parents(...and spouse and kids and relatives) than your birth family, when it comes to forming opinions and taking decisions based on your actions.

Well, perhaps you and I don't really have opinions about how other people should be leading their lives, but it seems a lot of people really really care. Like this media person for instance.

Image- MicrosoftE3 pressconference,2007

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Politics Cymru

So this assignment blog started by three journalism students in Wales who call themselves Three Dewis first changed the structure of local news programming, then became an award winning and one of the top ten political blogs in 2009, and now is helping Production Company Tinapolis bid for the government's IndependentlyFunded News Media Tender.

Glin Tansley, one of the co-founders say that they reported on anything Welsh Politics. "We have tended to focus on the process and what's going on behind the scenes rather than policies. There's a bubble in Welsh politics and your either inside it or outside. We wanted to let people know what was going on on the inside. Part of this appeals to people who write and read online and are used to this style of blogging."

The big break came last year in June during European Elections. "We tweeted (and retweeted) the result live and then blogged the highlights (gaining a thousand followers in the process)."

Politics Cymru has surpassed its student beginnings and Tansley says any student with the chance to launch their own specialist or hyperlocal sites should take it up.

PS- Cymru(pronounced kemri) is welsh for Wales.

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Flamingo Journalism

Indian Journalist P. Sainath recently wrote a piece, highly critical of the Indian Media and titled ABC of Media : Advertising, Bollywood and Corporate Power He has written it after the recent and highly hyped Shivsena-SRK media coverage and I guess, like many, couldn't take the over-dramatization anymore.

I agree to a lot of things he felt, but I am not sure if I really want to agree to his ridicule. "They(the news) have to be justified not by their importance to the public but by their acceptability to the media, their owners and sponsors."

Is that so? In my opinion, the public seeks this kind of news. Hasn't our civilization reached a point that people actually expect some fun out of news? Isn't that why its named info-tainment? That made me google and I came across some very old articles like this , this etc.

When newsjournos first started flamingo journalism,they stopped being "true journos" and did it so that they don't lose audience. And yeah,they might have been "responsible" for "this". But, now, lets face it. Flamingo is what majority of the people actually care for.Should we(as "responsible journos") unnecessarily fret and worry about average human IQ going down?

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Classwork-2

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Classwork-1

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Some frequent Websights

Good Website designs should take care to showcase their purpose well.And while offering the best of services! Sometimes, minimalism help a lot, sometimes not. It depends on what its there for, and who their audience is. Look at craigslist.com. Perhaps, it may not be called the most beautifully designed website. But, check again, it actually is. For their purpose, to suit the 30 million users(or more) who visit their site every single month, they are doing a great job by going too simple and by being to the point.The content management is well structured. Page load time is fastest. No disturbing ads.

Check jkrowling.com. That was a site I used to frequent when the HarryPotter Mania was at its peak. The ten long years she took to complete her book series. I still sometimes check it just to look at the design. They have utilised Flash to the most, and the site is very accessible even to visually impaired/deaf users thro keyboard and gives a very spooky wizardical atmosphere.It brings me back to the thought- Think again what is your purpose. And go for the design accordingly.

Another site I frequent and which I like is the one of NY Times . It is designed in the best way for any newspaper site. The news organization in grid formats gives a good feel. Plus, the title designs and the typography. Even though it holds a lot of content, it has a very professional look and you feel far from being in the middle of a clutter.It is easy Navigation.

But same is not the case with some other sites I go often. One is amazon.com which makes me a little uncomfortable. The clutter, the ads,the lousy look. But,it is cleaner compared to some other websites that's a little too much in every sense..like this newspaper I go to check local news and another magazine website from my hometown.

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Blind Faiths

Only yesterday I had read about British Islamist Anjam Choudhary urging everyone to wake up to the fact that Freedom and Democracy are Idols that must be destroyed and replaced with Obedience to Allah . And now, I hear that in Malaysia(yet again) theres a lot of heat over recent religious tensions between Christians and Muslims.Churches were burnt and in return Mosques were filled with heads of wild boars. Looks like Malaysia is doing great with enraged sentiments.

The other day a friend of mine was arguing that Image Merchants across the world have really succeeded in mixing faith,religion and politics for obvious purposes.Makes me really wonder what makes politicians divert attention from real issues to infantile matters. Well,in a way, I guess I answered my own question.

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BlueBerries for better Memory

Researchers at Univ. of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, OH and scientists at Tufts Univ, Boston have led a study that found out that intake of blue berry juice can considerably help boost memory in Aging Adults. Apparently, berry juice contains high levels of anthocyanins which act as strong anti-oxidants. This helps in improved motor skills and enanced memory when consumed in the mild impaired stage. That is, when memory failure just starts in old people.

This study has been done before on animals, but its been done for the first time in humans. The trial lasted three months on a small group of people averaging 76. Considerable improvement was noted at the end of daily consumption of blueberry juice. They also fared better than a similar group with no-blueberryjuice consumption.Hmm..so may be this might really help a lot of old people who has trouble with aging memory.

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Innovative Journalism

Got to watch this discussion on Social Media and Journalism, featuring Rachel Sterne and Robert Mackey - two successful new age leaders in American Journalism. They started as citizen journalists who streamed news from information available on weblogs about the various new incidents that happen across the globe. And, now they have even started syndicating content to big names in the newspaper industry(HuffPost and NYTimes respectively). GroundReport's information sourcecount goes up to 5000+ contributors worldwide who get paid based on ad revenue.

Watch them talk about how online networks help in news gathering and what can be done to ensure accuracy in reporting.

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A little big school

Apart from anti-government protests and struggle stories from Iran, I recently heard about this young soldier who is also the headmaster of a school. Abdol-Mohammad Sherani, 23, heads the smallest school in the world(recognised by UNESCO), with a student population of 4 in the little town of Kalou. He has been sent there as part of government program, to provide education in small underprivileged areas and has now been teaching for four years.

He keeps a blog (translated by an Australian friend) about his life in Kalou. Its thro' this that he has gained world wide attention.

Reminds me of a news I had heard sometime back about 16 year old Babar Ali, youngest headmaster in the world.

Kudos to the young teachers.

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Just Costa Rican Cat Fights? No!

I happened to read something about Costa Rica having their first female president and about "some women not happy in spite of the fact that a woman has become president".

What infuriated Ana Felicia Torres, leader of the New Feminist League is that President Laura Chinchilla(image,right) still has a very social conservative outlook as she seemingly preached "No to Abortion and No to Gay Marriage " to her countrymen and women. According to her(Torres), being in the Presidential Post, she(the Prez) needs to bring in more equality in and outside her office. Being a subscriber to that slogan of Live and let Live myself , I will take sides with Torres here.

I had once talked in detail to a senate candidate myself, and wondered if its a good idea for people in her constituency to elect her, as she had highly strong views about, 'curbing gays once I got elected'! We honestly need more Representatives who can preach Tolerance and a little more Goodness in the real sense of the word.

Costa Rica, like most Latin American countries, enjoys a good dose of equal female participation in politics, like not seen in many countries of the world.

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A Halal Youtube

Youtube has decided to help a lot of parents,like my landlady for one, to be happy and relieved, by introducing new Safety Mode (where no mature content will show up anymore). Like Google Safe Search, the new Youtube Safety Mode is for all those who were uncomfortable with their kids getting to watch inappropriate/uncensored stuff over the internet. Even the auto-fill that flagged up inappropriate content were upsetting many.

In Islamic World, when some time back some grown ups got very offended by popular search engines like Yahoo! and Google, they decided to come up with a new search engine altogether for muslims- imhalal

In there if you try searching for inappropriate content, you get messages like -

Warning! Our filters flag the results for this search with a Haram level of 2 out of 3. This means that the search results could contain Haram content.

Are you sure you want to continue to the search results?


ps- In Arabic --Halal means Good, Haram means bad.

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Will you email this post?

What kind of content makes it to the most e-mailed list? Two researchers did a study on it. And found that "People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics".

The intensive study was based on the New York Times list of most e-mailed articles. They kept analyzing the content of the shared articles every 15 minutes for more than six months.

For studying the "viral" trends, 3,000 articles were rated by independent readers for qualities like providing practical value or being surprising. The researchers found that people forwarded more articles about science than more practical topics.They genuinely wanted information about the world and felt very "small" as compared to the big wide world.

“Science kept doing better than we expected,” said Dr. Berger, a social psychologist and a professor of marketing at Penn’s Wharton School. “We anticipated that people would share articles with practical information about health or gadgets, and they did, but they also sent articles about paleontology and cosmology. You’d see articles shooting up the list that were about the optics of deer vision.”

“An article about square watermelons is surprising, but it doesn’t inspire that awed feeling that the world is a broad place and I’m so small.”

Read on here.

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Up in the Venezuelan Clouds!

Yesterday, I was listening, as my favorite cabbie was telling me that his little son wants to grow up to be a meteorologist - "For some years now,his greatest passion is switching weather channels and chewing on all the information".( yea, hes very smart for his age. I have met him once) And then today, I hear about Venezuela working hard at cloud seeding to make rain. They are going thro' a severe drought which has created a big need in electricty and water. And the government has now decided to depend on unconventional methods to make rain.

"Using technology borrowed from Cuba and Chile, the idea is to fire a mixture of silver iodide, dry ice and salt into vertically growing cumulonimbus clouds to encourage raindrops to join together."

Read more here.

Update-- Back home, my landlord told me once he met a couple who run a business of Predicting weather and Its effects on the financial market! Now, that was real news for a weather-illiterate like me. (Should google to learn more!)

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Buzz's on Time!

Alright. So, Google is just determined to be the next Alexander. Buying out all potential competitors and integrating all services and feeding us at one place; now they are one more step ahead- by changing Gmail to Social Gmail. So, what if they had failed at first, with a lame "wave" that couldn't create many tides? The Buzz's here. And, like last time, it was not based on "invitations". They know better this time- that propogated elitism won't work anymore in the digital world where there are already a lot of more useful come one come all applications floating around. So, anyways, they just shoved the Buzz down everybody's throat yesterday. (everybody who opened their gmail inbox yesterday and thats a lot of people,if me and the stats are not wrong).

Aah,so, it seems like, little failures are still the big stepping stones to ultimate empire-dom. Is it? Lets see.

Update(Feb 18)-- Buzz is sued by Florida Resident for violating consumer protection laws. Many users had complained of loss of privacy. Buzz Settings initially automatically created profile and added friends based on most frequent emailed and chat contacts, sharing among them Picasa albums and Google Reader. Now, they had disabled it following a large number of complaints.

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Will the real Sport please stand up?

Remember I told you just sometime back, about how lot of sociologists and Mandela and readers and almost everyone, think Sports is the one-shot solution for removing all chaos of the world and that is the best hope and easiest path for all of us living the dream of an Utopian Global Village? Well, hitchbitch (as he calls himself)just made me think -- Hm, so at the max, it might be good only for " intra-national" unity. For inter-national unity, we need much much more than just Sport.

Hitchens speaks quite insightfully about where the Olympics Spirit failed, and how international competitions breed conflict and bring out the worst in human nature.

Read on, for more.

Update(Feb 12)-- Good luck and Great Times from the 12th to 28th to all Nations and all participants at 2010 Winter Games,VanCouver!

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Pour me some coffee,please!

Mostly, when I hear Fox, I honestly prefer to be one of the three wise monkeys of olden adage and at times, all three altogether! But, couldn't help learning a lot about their Tea Party Movement in one of my classes. How do I just tell my professor I'd rather be a wise monkey when Fox is discussed. He'd have said too- Alrite, fine.I'll also be a wise monkey regarding your exampapers. So I listened, and learnt, and got more reasons to hate them.

Anyways, lets not deviate. The point is the foxes have come with a poll now. In their website. (No, no, I never went there to spy on them,I swear! The Twitterbird just whispered to me now.)

It seems that, at their National TeaParty Meet-up, when they tried to "discuss political issues", the participants had some "differences in opinion". And so, they being quite fair and square people, want to make sure with the new poll,that all are in unison, atleast about what they mean by all the Tea drinking! Sigh!This Silver Fox!

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Which is Greener? Paper or Digital?

Looks like an easy question, but I happened to read this interview with Don Carli , a senior research fellow with the Institute of Sustainable Communication. He was talking about NewsMedia Innovation, Convergence and Sustainability. And during the talk, about how people have a misguided notion that less print means saving trees and a wasteful way of environmental destruction. Of course, it is so but print media is based on comparitively renewable materials. Where as, digital media means single largest stream of toxic waste created by man. The energy need to sustain digital electronics is much more as its primarily based on mining and refining of a lot of minerals and extensive use of plastics and hydrocarbon solvents.

So, think about it and see if you want to change the answer.

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AirBenders in Pittsburgh

Last semester in a class, one student had talked about the urgent need for more giant wind mills in the United States to harness natural renewable power resources. President Obama had talked about more green jobs too during his campaign a year back. And,Spain's Gamesia Corporacion Technologica, one of the largest equipment manufacturers in Wind Technology has now taken root in Pittsburgh, PA.
They had invested 200$ million to convert old industrial sites to clean technology power houses. They were successful in creating and offering a lot of green jobs in the US. They have 700 workers in the state currently and to a large extent, been able to cut down on carbon emissions.

The company hopes to soon account for 20 percent of electrical supply of the US.

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Mind games for a Sporting mind!

Read that sociologists have started forming allusions around sports to teach young students at Harvard. Studies say they feel young minds 'get things better' when concepts revolved around sport analogies. They identified the role of moral ethics in American Sports and applied athletic traditions of olden Europe to the college classrooms. And it clicked!

Guess that's a good idea. Sports can unite minds easily than anything else. Only last month I watched Clint Eastwood-Morgan Freeman movie Invictus and learnt about how Mandela realised what our sociologists realised, and how sport united a split south africa with so much ease(in the mid-90s).

Hail Sports! Read it all here!

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Aichas of Arabia!

Today morning I read about some women in Saudi Arabia who felt empowered thanks to the internet. In Arab world(and in many other parts of the world), where women are still repressed, that is good news!

“From the authorities’ viewpoint,” one woman explained as she saw it, “so long as women are behind a curtain, or a screen, and so long as they are not before a camera or walking down the street, then everything is fine. Women are free to do anything they want as as long as they aren’t seen, heard or spotted doing it by men.”

Reading the post made me feel happy for atleast those women of repressed societies, who now feel empowered. Made me go to youtube, and check out an old favourite song from Outlandish- Aicha, which was a tribute to all women(and a hit video back then!)

ps -Aicha is a very common girl name and in Arabic, it means - 'She's alive'.

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Breaking Old Records

'We are the World' the old charity single from the 80's(also immediate chart buster world-wide), and that which has benefited aid events over two decades, is going to be re-recorded to benefit Haiti Earthquake Fund. Hope it turns out well, unlike the old iconic Indian song Mile Sur Mera Tumhara(meaning One Tune) which got re-recorded and re-released today in connection with 60 years of Indian Republic. The new song was not well-received and was scorned for being "soul-less".


Update(Feb 4 '10) -- Guess inspite of being a commendable effort for Haiti, it is looked at with a little skepticism-messing with old iconic tunes and making people to like new versions is surely a tough job. But, its nice to see efforts to re-create history!

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Obama gets his grade!

It’s been one year that Obama took charge of the US, and hence the world in general, thus giving hope to mankind for a bright future. But looks like not everybody is happy with the man, and the puppy dog charisma will not save him unless he 'changes' something fast!

Most people are of the opinion that he should have concentrated on unemployment issues than about the health care. That reminds me Politics are not the best way to really solve things. They always end up creating Much Ado about Nothing.

Poor man. Not his fault. The best he could have done was at least be real “political” about this whole World leader-thingy and at least make it look like everything is in safe hands and thus,keep the world happy. And just save his face. (A birdie had once told me if you ever jump into politics be as politrickal as you can, or just stay away. and that there’s no in-between!). Haa, but what does he do, when the horrible media of this day and age can be so overbearing. Perhaps, the man should learn a lesson or two from media people and create some subtlest propogandas ever!

Anyways, Obama Politricks got mixed reviews like they say here. And it looks like a B minus. Almost C!

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"Does Journalism Exist?"

I sometimes really feel British Media is never a waste of time to listen to. Alrite, don't take it at face value. There's of course a lot of crap everywhere including Britain's watchdogs. But, seems like the media houses there, are still most closest to the real concept of Fourth Estate.

So, they had a lecture about Journalism. By Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. And it had some fodder for thought. As always, Alan "knows"!

Good thoughts on how traditional journalistic values and Internet can keep 'real journalism' undying, paid webnews, this n that, and then about William Perrin a 'real journalist'-- who is not an actual journalist.Means,he doesn't do it as a profession.(check this).

Always felt InternetWorld is the closest the human population can come in terms of 'Global Village' and an Utopia at that! No borders,no nations, no government!

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National Ad Gaffe Day

It was National Girl Child Day today in India and the Government, with all good intentions, tried to promote the ' Say NO to Female Foeticide' Message with a good Awareness Poster. But, a little carelessness turned it all into a Himalayan blunder! And finally, they had to apologize to the Indian Citizens for that.

Evidently, they included a pakistani ex- Airforce chief and "hurt" Indian sentiments. How dare they put foreign man on "our" Poster! And of all the nerve, a Paki!

Last I heard, Women and Child Development people in the country went mad. Not surprising, wonder if anyone thought to remember the girl child amidst all the hullabaloo :P

Sigh who is to blame. "Careless" Adpeople or "touchy" Nation! or both!

More Details here

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Colorful Jobs

Heard that Yahoo! News is hiring bloggers.
Checked out the site to find that they are filling five posts - Senior. National Affairs, Senior Politics, National Affairs, Politics and Media & Culture.

And, then came across something interesting: - "Only those with more than 5 years of journalism experience will be considered for the two senior positions. Only those with more than 2 years will be considered for the other three. All bloggers will be paid according to experience.."

No that's not interesting. That's just plain depressing!!
What was really interesting was, one last line which followed.

"People of color and women are strongly encouraged to apply".

Googled to learn that 'People of Color' includes all communities that are non-white and is a very positive word as opposed to previously used terms which were considered to be highly offensive, like 'Colored People' for instance!

Couldn't help laughing out loud. Funny Euphemisms for a Funny world!

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Reality Check

Happened to come across this Captioning Contest on flyyoufools comic website, and one of the winning entries based on facebook-ing. Really funny and made me laugh.

But, it also made me wonder- should we really care ?
I am not trying to talk about this comic in particular, but about our thoughts on onlinesocial networking in general. If some one feels happy farming (or whatever) online, and feel a sense of satisfaction quite similar to what a real farmer feels, or atleast thinks he feels, why should it be looked upon as something dangerous for humansociety blah blah? It made me think about how we assume,and think that everybody's feeling has to be - objective! Similar to the thought lines of anti-gay marriage movements which assert that homosexuality lacks sanctity, when gays are having as much fun as straight-married people.

So in every aspect- to each on his own! People should,start to think that way;automatically!

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Enhancing security or creativity?

Will the new automatic profiling(of 14 countries )help tighten security at US airports? So, thinks the American TSA. But is there something like a reliable terrorist profile?

To say that Post 9/11 we have all got into this habit of automatically associating all Muslims with the BinLaden-likes, would be an understatement. We just need to take a look at the list, as out of the 14, 13 are muslim countries.

And,the countries on this new watch-list have petitioned against this,requesting for behavioral profiling and to not encourage racial biasing.

Anyways, those arguing for behavioral profiling and the people at TSA must be in unison on one thing- that our terrorists are going to be far more imaginative.

Like this Martin Rowson cartoon portrays!

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The Media Dilemma

Popular Indian TV Journalist, B.Dutt tweeted that on her show 'We the People', she's going to address the issue - 'Does a journalist/camera person capture an image/story or help a person in need'. That reminds me of reading something a couple of days back about angry people in Haiti yelling at the media- "More doctors, less journalists".

*****************************************************
Update -Watched debate.

"Being a journalist does not relieve you of the obligation to be a humanbeing.. and, a responsible human being. If I stand on the street and allow some one to be hurt, I am as guilty as any one else."

"Journalists, by capturing graphics and putting themselves in danger in several cases, are feeding a market which is a vicious beast."

Listening to all the arguments and counter arguments, I guess focusing on the moral ambiguity of a journalist is not the real point. The average ethic quotient of the human race need an urgent raise. And perhaps, the media should take up the responsibility to do it, as it has the power element!

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Hold on, Please!

Listening to the political speculations about how the Haiti Situation can improve US-Cuba relations, or the anti-capitalistic views of how the US-Haiti policies for the past years made the impact so severe, or the insensitive comments from a group of media opportunists, or the over-patronizing attitudes adopted by several aid organizations, I can’t help but wonder if it isn't a little early for all these? Can't this hold at least,till the critical phase is over, after which, anyways the whole world will be talking Haiti for quite a while....?!!

It’s great that Haiti’s debts will be forgiven and aid-reliefs will be purely grants. Last I heard, during pre-quake days, the country’s population used to diet on mud cookies

Image- A NewHaiti Abstract

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