Five Indian Tech Startups to Watch
With more than 400-million internet users China's online success stories, like QQ and Baidu, make even Facebook's numbers look average. But India's open economy, its high percentage of English speakers and its highly educated new caste of IT whizz kids make it a perfect breeding ground for tech entrepreneurs.
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Posted: January 8th, 2011
at 12:32pm by Koookiecrumbles
Categories: entrepreneurship
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Politics and the English Language
Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.
Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.
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Posted: January 7th, 2011
at 2:11pm by Koookiecrumbles
Categories: politricks,education,language
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It costs 1.62 cents to mint and distribute a penny. AReally. AAnd this isn’t anything new. ASince 2006, it’s cost slightly more to produce a penny than the one cent it is worth, leading to a loss of of about $20 million dollars, total, in 2009. AThe main culprit? AThe metals used to make it. AA penny is 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper, and as the price of these materials have gone up, so has the cost to produce the coin.
Happiness, then, depends on our ability to accept what is really going on right now, and to first focus on the areas of our life where our needs are being met. The more basic our needs are, the simpler it is to take care of them. To know yourself in this way is to have control over your happiness.
Looking For The Dream Makers
Why is it so hard to find artist that are working hard to make their dreams come true. It seams like most artist I know feel it is too hard to become a successful artist so why try. To make it as an artist in the art world you have to fail over and over again but with time you will start to succeed. Once you start to have some successes that's when the hard work starts to maintain your space in the art world is no easy task. I am always looking for driven hard working artist to work with but this is no easy task. If you are hard working, Driven by your dreams, and refuse to take no for an answer you are the type of artist I am looking for.
Posted: January 6th, 2011
at 4:09pm by Koookiecrumbles
Tagged with art, allen vandever, chicago, dreams, opart, artist
Categories: life,art,contemporary,philosophy,art theory
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These actions confirm the end of the PC era. Although most people would characterize the era as exemplified by a particular form factor or market, for me the definition of that era is the way the value chain was structured and hence how profits were captured. AThat era was marked by the condensation of profits around two companies, Intel and Microsoft, with the simultaneous evaporation of profits from all other participants in the value chain.
Japan’s Stereo (Post-Rock)
Why does Japan’s rock scene seem to be overflowing with post-rock bands? Do they think that the genre’s inclination to forgo vocals will endear them to a more global audience? Do its heart-rending crescendos and diminishes appeal to something in the typical overworked, emotionless Japanese psyche?
These are just vague musings, don’t pay them any mind. Whatever the reason, post-rock bands are abundant. Here are the best.
MONO
The sort of band that you don’t listen to every week. You can’t; the human body’s not built to withstand that sort of emotional pressure. The appropriate interval between experiences of their desolate silences and engulfing barrages of noise is perhaps around a year - but like Christmas, it can be an event that your entire world seems to revolve around.

LITE
After beginning with intricate yet atmospheric math-rock, they experimented in two directions by writing both catchier songs and blurrier ones. Their latest venture - the sudden, surprising introduction of synths - has yet to reveal itself as a either a hideous mistake, or a progression that leads to their more unique and interesting music yet.

ENVY
Their recent, unfortunate tendency to swoop into overly grandiose, rising-into-the-sunset melodrama - along with their often one-dimensional vocalist - can’t erase the fact that thet have created some of the most powerful, moving hardcore ever commited to tape.

TE
Dynamics instrumental ability, guitars that both twinkle and rasp: Their musical arsenal is shared by any post-rock act you’d care to mention, but Te wield their weapons with a sheer force of will that is awesome to behold. It feels like the songs are jumping from the speakers and literally forcing themselves into your ears.

TOE
Toe don’t use the same vast dynamic gulf between quiet and loud that many post-rock bands do. It’s a fact that males their emotional impact harder to find - but there’s no mistaking its existence when you do. One of the most subtle and wonderfully textured bands in the genre.

DOWNY
Music made for walking through the city at night. The guitars and vocals are the wispy, drifting mist; the bass and drums are the looming buildings. Eerie like nothing else.

Just as interesting a question as "How did these 5 adapt?" is "Why did these 21 fail to adapt?" ABut it's a question that's only begun to be reconsidered. ADeath and extinction are far more powerful forces in shaping the whole of biodiversity on our planet than successful adaptation, but these evolutionary failures that occur all around us are little studied. AEspecially as we anticipate global climate change causing unknown impacts on species worldwide, we should be studying non-evolution to get a better sense of what natural genetic variation actually looks like and what we may be facing in the future.
Jamaican ‘Ninja Bird’ Used Wings as Nunchucks
The wings of flightless birds usually shrink after they abandon flight. But a flightless ibis that lived on Jamaica until about 10,000 years ago turned its hand bones into miniature baseball bats to defend its territory and probably its young.
By avian standards, that is seriously weird. "No animal has ever evolved anything quite like this," says Nick Longrich, a Yale University researcher who describes it in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"We don’t know of any other species that uses its body like a flail. It’s the most specialised weaponry of any bird I’ve ever seen."
The species, Xenicibis xympithecus, was described and named more than 30 years ago by Storrs Olson of the Smithsonian Institution, who recognised it was flightless, but lacked complete specimens. Working with Olson, Longrich went to Jamaica and found more fossils - including curved hefty handbones.
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Posted: January 5th, 2011
at 1:36pm by Koookiecrumbles
Categories: myninjaplease,science,"ninja",10th dan
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