जो जीत वोही सिकंदर

we're performing today and tomorrow.
it's a creative, theatre-esque show
we've written our own script
for a movie scene
voices will be ours
for the actors on the screen.
we will perform our script Live!
and we hope you like
but even if you holler
Vote for Us, with your dollar
the money goes to AID
a charity with a crusade
to help with activities
in development and sustainability.

टीम का नाम - फिल्मी भेलपुरी
http://seattle.aidindia.org/sikandar

Michael Jackson and the Media

When I was studying for my GREs the New York Times was supposed to be the newspaper to read. I still agree with that. For creative writing, the New York Times is the place to go. For example, there's this article I read this morning - http://bit.ly/12081w. Very nice article about Michael Jackson and race. It analyzes the progression of Jackson's skin color from black to white and his perception among the black community.

The ending is too good. I quote -

When the video of Mr. Jackson’s “Black and White” came on, her daughter turned to Ms. Deabreu and asked: “Mommy, he said it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white. So why’s he trying to make his skin white?”

Michael Jackson suffered from an auto-immune disease called vitiligo. You can watch him talk about it here. My question to the New York Times is this - why was it irrelevant to news item/analysis to mention that this incredibly famous person actually suffered from a disease that alters his skin's pigmentation. Why is only half the story being told?

But this is my problem with the New York Times in general. All too frequently I feel that only facts that further a thesis that the author came up with apriori to a complete examination are mentioned and others are discarded.

bing

there is no reason for me to blog about bing.

or so i thought. except that as a child i loved encyclopedias. the reason i loved them was that they told me about places and people and things through words and pictures that i wouldn't find out about otherwise. i would jump at every opportunity to pull out one of those gigantic books, toss away any vestiges of sense-of-time, and hop and skip from topic to topic, ending up spending hours on the J-K World book. how much that contributed towards improving my general knowledge is debatable, but it was definitely fun.

after a long time, i had that same feeling while visiting www.bing.com. everyday, they have a new gorgeous image there. an image of a real place, with all these tooltips telling you what it is, where it is, and why it's special. and you can go through all the ones that came before the one they have today.

pretty cool! i wonder who thought of this and how!

NYT: Cellphone in India

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/world/asia/08iht-letter.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=world

The Marriage Naming Problem

A CS Prof from Boston College solves it thus.