prat

"scientific adviser to the Defence Minister said that the OS was needed to protect India's economic framework."

That's very typical of India. If you want to do it, do it - no need to hold press conferences for things like this.

I was annoyed at my cousin (14) who kept texting the entire time I was visiting - non-stop. knowing him to be a smart kid otherwise, I asked wasn't this going back in technology when you could call and convey the message in a few seconds? He seemed to agree but couldn't kick the habit.

That made me thinking, that when it comes to communication, we as men (or atleast the more introverted among us - language-usage-wise) always prefer lower and lower levels of intimacy while communicating with friends - texting is preferable to email is preferable to calling is preferable to meeting.. I wonder if a semaphore simulation on a cellphone would ever catch up!

I think it does count as different kind of ketchup - however if you plot the popularity of different ketchup flavors - I am guessing you'll get a pointed peak bell curve - whereas mustard would give you a longer tail curve. My point is that examples exist (I consider BBQ sauce as a variant of ketchup) but the distribution is much skewed in favor of 1 flavor for ketchups.

>>There is no conundrum. People simply don't want ketchup that isn't ketchup.

That IS the conundrum - why are people fine with mustard that's not mustard. Is there something inherent in the taste ? Can some tastes be universal and some customizable?

all time best stories please.

If you talk to people who come from Asian countries, you'll find a completely different set of values as far as spending is concerned. Yes - I did NOT use to buy things I couldn't afford. I lived by saving and waiting to buy. This is how even the US was officially before 1940-50, but practically even as early as 1980s.

Where I come from (India), a decade ago, you could find people who had waited all there lives to use there savings to buying a new home. There was no concept of 30year mortgages - forget about credit cards. When credit cards were first introduced, they were used for the convenience of not having to carry cash not really for credit (at least from the customers point of view). But things are changing now - its becoming the same as in the US.

This reminds me of google's April fool's joke "gmail paper" about converting emails to traditional post.

I may be a prude for not having added any "extra" facebook apps since I registered back in 2005. I always found myself outdated but still refused to accept friends' request for quizes, games, buttons etc. Now, I am not as embarrassed after all of my plain old page with standard options.

My question is only this. in the heyday of altavista or yahoo, could PG have known that a hackercentric culture is whats most essential. Remember this is a completely new economy and business - just like the automobile industry in 20th century, could anyone have predicted who would be the most important players then ? dealers? mechanics? engineers? manufacturers?

Wish I had an answer for you and for myself :) If you look at the crazy people who made it and sane people who got burnt out, you'd stop asking this question. The lesson I took away from this was that when you think you have recovered, with time you have grown wings (or whatever you need to accomplish what you started out for), make sure to clear up the history and restart as a curious kid.

PS: To me, Gagarin did not restart - was central idea of the animation.

I saw this award winning Russian animation short sometime back - Its called GAGARIN. After watching it,I felt it spoke of those who tried before their time and failed. Not sure how relevant it is to this post, but I try not end up like Gagarin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA7RKwhrOT0

That makes sense.. so it boils down to the ban on "exclusivity" - if it wasn't for that, then for sure there is no net neutrality.But even with that in there,

I am sure it won't be difficult to find a conflict of interest given enough time and freedom for verizon to strategize. For a hypothetical example, what if verizon itself spawns a paypal like website using its own secure service for free for which others have to pay?

I understand.. so yes - we as users won't mind. but what if I were another bank? The security upgrades that I would normally pay Infosys to do for me now no longer give me a competitive advantage over BoA. I'd have to pay verizon in addition to get the same "special service" to offer the same security (replace with speed/features etc.) right?

I think this PR tactic became common because this is probably the most obvious way of responding to something that one (Google in this case) thinks is a rumor or inaccuracy.

even though the parallels are disingenuous, I would refrain from citing this as a reason for feeling suspicious.

"So, for example, broadband providers could offer a special gaming channel, or a more secure banking service, or a home health monitoring capability – so long as such offerings are separate and apart from the public Internet."

Can somebody explain? Does this mean verizon would be able to sell special secure service to say, bank of america for its public site? What is the meaning of "separate from public internet"? doesn't this eventually mean that by paying verizon, BOA would be able to offer secure service than a bank who did not buy the "special service" from verizon? Am I missing something here?

If this is the case, what is to stop verizon from going a step ahead from offering "secure" to "faster" service to those who care to pay. then where goes net-neutrality.?

This is just my experience, but I noticed that I used to have flu every 3-4 month between the age of 18 to 22 and then it suddenly stopped. I didn't take any supplements for this to happen, just graduated from college. I am not sure if it was the hormonal changes or change of environment or just plain growing up, but I'd think twice before attributing it to supplements.

If the idea behind linking via facebook/twitter was to make things easier for users - that's a mistake. There are people who already are sensitive about their info on facebook - I bet they wouldn't like to expose it to yet another fledgling website with its own privacy fine print on what it can do with that info. I wonder if this is a surrogate attempt at privacy violation by facebook itself.

Link to paper

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5979/710

classic twain.. way ahead of his time..Its a pity we still interpret the statistical significance of events by their interestingness and not by the frequency and end result. Shark attacks get way more coverage in media than Deer accidents even though a deer is 300 times more likely to kill you than a shark (http://www.dalecarnegiecoaching.com/2009/06/which-do-you-fea...).

Does anyone know if the US/NIH spends on such techniques?

93% is great! but this would have been ~100% in pre-automobile era. And would keep falling as we become more and more mobile. Humans may be creatures of habit but not humanity.

that's too much oversimplification.. moreover there is, if any, a inverse correlation between lines of code and productive output. not so with papers,

I guess you are talking about this or something like this http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081021093944.ht...

But I think analogies are a nice way to come up with hypothesis at best, not conclusions.

how did you get the idea of connecting caste system to this ad? Do you know caste system is an almost a prehistoric sociological invention that has long been abandoned and forgotten - and for a good reason too. And yes, other than the so called "Curious" people - there are another kind of people who can't do a repetitive, boring job, criminals.

Older discussion thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1033444

There aren't as many pseudo doctors as there are pseudo scientists. This bit of pseudoscience is not as resilient as intelligent design. I think this dent will quickly kill the movement.

article is more or less empty of any useful info, but the title is something..

There is cost of walking away, damage to credit. So if they stay, assuming things will get better and they do, they keep their credit too.

I understand and agree.. but banks set up there loan terms and conditions assuming that real estate (unlike cars) increase not decrease in value over time. Ofcourse, thats an assumption that buyers have too and that's their risk. So what do you suggest if that assumption doesn't hold any longer? should the terms and conditions remain the same?

thats okay - but this is like paying for music/porn to be taken away from you. A big part of the equity you got when you signed up and paid for has been taken away but you are still paying the full price!!