| Devangshu Datta: When Obama bows right | 21-NOV-09 |
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| North Indians travelling south of the Vindhyas experience disconnect in terms of body-language versus verbalisation. “Yes” in those parts is emphasised with a side-to-side shake of the head. That gesture means “no” in most other places. Foreigners visiting India are often equally foxed by namaskars. Putting palms together is common to many forms of prayer and not employed much as a peer-to-peer greeting outside India. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Looking good in comparison | 07-NOV-09 |
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| Behavioural scientists chuckle over the “Lake Wobegon Effect”. Lake Wobegon is a fictional small town whose residents claim that all the women are beautiful, all the men strong, and all the children intelligent. Similar effects are seen in surveys where everyone is a self-assessed good driver. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Getting that EDGE | 24-OCT-09 |
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| Mahatma Gandhi would disapprove of me. Not only do I pay taxes as he once refused to; animals die, and grain is fermented to keep my cats and me happy in-between filing tax-returns, which is one of the most painful tasks on the semi-annual agenda. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Intimations of immortality | 10-OCT-09 |
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| I don’t want to attain immortality by becoming famous. I want to become immortal by living forever”—Woody Allen’s wistful confession encapsulates the mystical world view of the alchemists, who sought the philosopher’s stone. That search for a magical object that conferred immortality (and turned dross to gold) led to the scientific discipline of chemistry. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Dropping a bomb | 26-SEP-09 |
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| "What is truth?” It is often subject to multiple interpretations as in Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Any reporter who has collated varying eye-witness accounts of any given event knows that the fable of murder in medieval Japan is firmly rooted in reality. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Brave new world (contd) | 12-SEP-09 |
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| In September 1969, researchers at the University of California’s Los Angeles campus initiated packet data-transfer between two computers. This is generally thought to be the first proof of concept that eventually led to the Internet. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Institutionalised ignorance | 29-AUG-09 |
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| The Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914 saw two Tsarist Russian armies destroyed by a German force about half as large. The credit for brilliant German tactics is generally apportioned to staff officers Erich Ludendorff and Max Hoffman, rather than to the commander, Field Marshall Paul Von Hindenberg. Years later, Hindenberg said, “I don’t know who was responsible for the victory but I would have been the one responsible for defeat. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Google Earth's desi version | 15-AUG-09 |
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| Software is one industry where it is feasible to release experimental products in the hopes that user-feedback will help iron out bugs. This is what an open beta release seeks to do. “Beta” carries large built-in disclaimers. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Search for market share | 01-AUG-09 |
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| Internet Business” is no longer an oxymoron, but the descriptor still causes rational dissonance. The logic of cash flow and market share is often obscured by over-emphasis on “eyeballs”. This is a pity. Deals like Microsoft-Yahoo and its ramifications are complicated enough without misdirection. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Wages of permissiveness | 18-JUL-09 |
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| The Second Reich’s (1871-1918) penal code listed all offences with exact punishments. As Jerome K. Jerome said, this made financial planning a snap before planning a night out on the tiles. A German could get drunk, pick a fight, sing obscene songs and calculate to a pfennig the fines that would accrue. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Imagine a ban on lefties | 04-JUL-09 |
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| Nobody knows why babies prefer one hand over the other. It may be genetic, or due to uneven development of brain hemispheres. It may also have to do with womb positions. Nine out of ten people are right-handed. Society is built around their preferences. Lefties cope with disadvantages. Using scissors, writing or playing hockey is awkward. |
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| Devangshu Datta: China's Great (Fire)Wall | 20-JUN-09 |
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| If the Chinese government has its way, the sexual proclivities of the grandchildren of the revolution will be remoulded. As of July 1, every personal computer sold in the PRC must ship with pre-installed censorship software called “Green Dam Youth Escort”. |
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| Devangshu Datta: The search continues | 06-JUN-09 |
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| As societies advance, they generate more information. They become more dependent on an ability to store, index and retrieve that information. The task of searching becomes far too important to be left to humans with their wetware biases and frailties. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Out of step with the times | 09-MAY-09 |
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| Obama’s leverage of technology was key to his bagging the Democratic nomination and the presidency. His campaign coordinated ward-by-ward efforts of volunteers to reach millions of first-time voters. Both the 2000 and 2004 US elections generated terabytes of cyber coverage. |
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| Devangshu Datta: Tweeting out blankness | 25-APR-09 |
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| A few nights ago, Doginder found a creative way to wake up the neighbourhood. Like all street mutts, he fancies himself as a watchdog and enthusiastically assists his nominal owner, the apartment’s durwan. He usually stops at barking his head off. |
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Content Guide
