More to come

I have been watching how the bloggers and the media have taken to it, it is just crazy. I love the frenzy India’s gets into. It looks as if we all have nothing to do and we suddenly find an occupation I got seven congratulatory SMS as a chain mail, at-least 20 people broke the news to me, and I was asked thrice whether I have posted a blog. Not bad in an otherwise action packed day, with no time to breathe.

We also have another Indian greatness, we all instantly get into “I knew that” and “I had predicted that” mode, today’s newspapers are full with these and other such reactions.

Twenty eight years is more than a generation, may be one and a half generation of going gold less in Olympics, somehow as a nation we have come to terms with the fact that “our focus is somewhere else”. Hockey use to be our only hope which got us all the Gold Medals we won at the Olympics till date. It is ironical that these are the first Olympic Games when India is not participating in Hockey as we failed to qualify for the same. So as a nation Abhinav Bindra has done us a big favor of making it less humiliating and making those of us who are still hooked on to Olympics 2008 see reason for the same.

If Abhinav Bindra can do it so can many others. Last Olympics it was Major Rajyavardhan Singh  Rathore who won silver for us in Shooting in the Athens Olympics in 2004, so from Silver in shooting event to Gold medal we have moved ahead. With one Gold Medal in our kitty we are at-least sure that we would not be making the bottom of the medal tally for Beijing Olympics 2008. If we get one or two more medals we may make it to the Top 50 Sporting Nations. The second most populous nation in the world seeing it as an achievement to be in top 50 Sporting Nations of the world is a realistic statement on India’s Sporting focus. For us, as a nation,  sports begin with cricket and end with cricket, and even in that we’ve not won a world cup for last 25 years.

News read at http://www.headlinesindia.com/olympics-news/beijing/abhinav-wins-indias-first-gold-247.html

More to come…

It took me about 10 minutes to conclude that Google.com was indeed down, atleast for me.

If Google can go down like this - Oh my God!

There must be a vulnerability, there is so much of technology available. Am I the only person who is not able to use Google.com?

Google.com for me went down after 4:30 Pacific and came back before 5:20 Pacific. I am right now in India and accessing from there.

Maybe Google.com was not down and it was a DNS glitch?

Please inform, if you faced n problems?

Is it really Cool?

Yes, the interface is. It is too good.

I will work towards a detailed comparison of Google and Cuil, let us see what comes out.

As a starter, Cuil is to Search Engines what iPhone was to mobile devices (at least the interface). It is awesome. The interface and HCI angle is a killer. It can disrupt the party for Google. It has that in it. That’s the good news. On HCI they get 10/10, compared to Google’s 2/10. But on search terms, I am afraid the novelty doesn’t pay, they are just continents away, or shall I say halfway around the world.

I just did about 2300 searches. Random. Global. On any thing and everything. I am getting more focused as I move on with more parameters.

1. As per Cuil there are no “Indian Restaurants in San Jose” though we have “Japanese Restaurants in San Jose”, “Mexican Restaurants in San Jose” and “Chinese Restaurants in San Jose”. LoL
2. Search for Map and see the error
3. Search for Sap and see the error

Notes:

1. I am still working on this post, this post is continuously changing.
2. New Parameters are being added every day
3. Scores are also changing – I plan to do a major update
4. This is a self initiated review
5. I make no claims to be an authority on this subject or methodology adopted. However I admit to be a part of the vision/ engineering/ architecture/ design and development team  of a Search Engine project which worked well as a beta product, but couldn’t find financial backing and died a natural death.

What are the calculations, the masterminds amongst the terrorists would be doing, 3 per blast is good or bad for them. Numbers matter to all, and more over to those who are in the business of fear. I am sure they would have planned and hoped for 100 per blast, yes hoped. Reading across Guardian, CNN, NDTV, Headlines India, Times of India and BBC one just gets one feeling, media would move on, the Government would move on, the terror merchants and there terror network would move on, even the relatives of those who have died would move on, but these 40 -50 lesser mortals would never move again.

No one is talking about Bangalore blasts today, 48 hours is what it took for everyone to move on, a search on Google for both Bangalore Blasts Suspects and Ahmedabad Blasts Suspects, got an unexpected first result – http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGIH_enIN234IN234&q=Ahmedabad+Blast+Suspects - Al Jazeera. Yes Al Jazeera network’s english website. No CNN, no BBC, no Times of India, no NDTV. Ruthlessness of the conspirators is demonstrated amply by the fact that they planted bombs near/ inside the hospitals – objective can be nothing but if you survived so far, die now.

Ahmedabad blasts have something more in them, they bring back unpleasent memories of series of communal violence incidents which have been happening  in Ahmedabad and other areas of Gujarat for about a decade now. Gujarat has suffered, it was coming up very well and would have beome number one on per capita income in India in these last ten years. Every blast takes it  back, demotivates some, cautions others, investment climate does suffer.

India as a nation needs to practice zero tolerance when it comes to such acts, we need political will and quick execution. I am sure our police would know the sympathizers if not the accused very well. Just lock them up and hang couple of them after every incident. On the other hand, work towards economic integration of both the communities, economic ties can sometime be thicker than religion.

Thank Usha for a more balanced update: http://blogs.mapsofindia.com/2008/07/27/ahmedabad-blasts-update/