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June 23, 2005

Triple E- Examining Entrance Exams

When Tamil Nadu government, served an order to cancel the entrance examinations for Medical/Engineering collge seats, I thought of it as a welcoming move. It was certainly one. The idea of taking the entrance exams out, was to help the rural students to be on par with the urban lot who have abundant oppurtunities of getting trained for entrance examinations. This certainly gives an upper hand for the city folks over the rural dudes. The number of Agarwal’s and Subramaniam’s are more in urban areas to teach entrance exams syllabus for a hefty sum of money. So you see this line of TVS scooties and BSA SLRs being parked in KK Nagar even from 4 am in the morning while the rural folks are still busy milking their cows.

But we have to admit, when there are different standards of education system like the CBSE, Matric and State Board in India, it’s tough to decide the right candidates for Medical/Engg colleges without having a common examination. The entrance examination which was in effect was doing this balancing very effectively. However it had these pitfalls of not enough entrance exam training centers for the rural students. What’s welcoming out of this whole hungama, is that the high court, apart from dismissing the govt’s order, has sent out a positive note to come up with a ‘third formula’ of cleansing these differences in education system/entrance examinations which would be help the ovehaul the system in the long run. Atleast, it made me believe that we have a few ‘Rules Ramanujams’, alive and kicking.

TN govt walks away with the cake for bringing this debate to life, High Court gets a applause for streamlining the debate and at the end, I only wish the winners are the students. Not trying to be cliched here but I still strongly believe in the system of government and law in country while I hate censors for films. Kind of double standards but then isn’t this a paradoxical world ?
June 22, 2005

Odeo Beta is Out !!

Ev Head‘s new venture on podcasting, Odeo has been on the talk over the blogosohere for sometime now. Curious to see what EV is onto this time and also try my hand on podcasting, I had signed up for their beta version earlier when it was first announced.

Today I recieved the Google type invite for Odeo. When you sign in, you need to download a synchronizer with which you can subscribe to podcasts or create your own. While I subscriebd to some podcasts, I’m contemplating to create a podcast. Probably I will and will also be the only one listening to it. If you are the unlucky joe, you might get to listen my podcast where I drool over the Sonia Agarwal or go gaga over Spielberg‘s latest addiction to pre-visualization.

From Odeo’s create podcast page –

Odeo Studio – A browser-based tool that makes it easy to record and publish audio. With the Studio, and a cheap microphone (or even the one built into your laptop), you have everything you need.

Phone Posting – If you can leave a voicemail, you’ll be able to podcast, with Odeo’s phone-posting service-a quick and easy way to put your voice on the web (and in people’s ears).

Feed Creation and Hosting – If you already have audio, and you just want to get it into podcasting form, Odeo provides the turnkey way to do that. Just upload your MP3s, and you’re done.

There is nothing called as free lunch. Odeo too has it’s pricing plans to be able to do podcasts which I thought would be a free service. The price plans aren’t announced yet but sooner the craze catches up, the faster they would release their prices.

Neverthless, the first impression on Odeo is ‘Exciting’. Way to go EV and team !!

For starters – Podcasting is for radio what Blogging was for print media. It’s the name of technology by which you, as an individual, can create radio shows and air them through internet. Now, it won’t be exactly sent through air, but will be dumped into your domain server as an mp3/wma file. Your audience, if you get some, will download these mp3 files or podcasts into their IPOD/mp3 player and listen to it on the go. Podcasts can be like radio shows or comentaries with/without music as the background. Imagine instead of reading through a review of Star Wars, you will actually hear your favorite podcaster talking through it. This adds just another human dimension to it and you don’t need to actually read through the review, like audiobooks. It has it’s own pros/cons and the good news is that, many are still figuring out this animal.

That’s my definition, more on Podcasting in Wikipedia.
June 21, 2005

Bala- Ajith – Naan Kadavul

Is this another case of scoop-or-spoof like the Mani Ratnam one, which came about few months back ? The fans are equipped with Photoshops and other titles to make dream posters of their superheroes. And we have the vast internet and silly blogs like this to make them popular !!

Thanks to Karthi for forwadding this. Am not sure of the source though.

P.S – Shouldn’t it be ‘Naan, Kadavul’ like Raa Ki Rangarajan’s novel Naan, Krishnadevarayan and Robert Graves book I,Claudius [someone mentioned these during the book tag meme].
June 21, 2005

Serving Breakfast News !!

[From – Economic Times]

I’m not a full-fledged Times of India group basher. But this was the first headlines of today’s Economic Times. I had no idea when I saw this title up there until I read the article which the headline linked too, Western bros are aping your grandfather’s sex skills.

[From – Times of India]

As I jumped from there to read Times Of India, I get to see this and this on the headlines there.

While agreeing with the content of these articles or not, is a different issue. But these are certainly not the kind of headlines that one looks for, first in the morning, that too in a national/financial newsdaily. Agree ?
June 20, 2005

HondaToyotaToyotaHondaHondaToyotaToyotaHonda

I’m car shopping busily and it sucks big time. I have no idea why desis push other desis, infact torture them until they accept, to only buy Honda or Toyota.

For the money that I’m investing, to get a ‘dubba’ 95′ Honda with manual windows and coffee stained back seats, I can get a slick 2001 Dodge Neon or a ultra equipped 2000 Mercury Mystique clad in leather seats and 4 disc changer attcahed to 6 Bose speakers. I know that these cars might lose their values soon but why should I end up rotating the windows when I have a choice to click a button to make them go up/down.

Oh !! yeah, I love Honda Civic and that’s like the ideal middleclass vehicle. It’s like buying a Kinetic Honda or Hero Honda Splendour back in India. As days go by, I’m petrified to even look at other cars also. It’s like wearing a blind-fold from the minute and finding my way through fellow dudes.

Seattle’s used car market is huge and costly too. Unlike the lazy/pleasant lifestlye, the car market is busy. The cars come and go in no time. So the minute you narrow down on the car and try visiting the car on the weekend, there are couple of others who want to test ride the car there and you end getting fed up by competition and come back after eating masala dosa in Redmond’s Namaste.

Back to the honda syndrome, the minute I start describing the nice Mustang, I got to see/ride, my friends would go busy saying,”Thuddu waste da. Onnu Honda/Toyota vaangu, illaena kamunu engakuda bus’la vaa”. To run from them, can someone help me with escape velocity ?

Triple E- Examining Entrance Exams

Odeo Beta is Out !!

Bala- Ajith – Naan Kadavul

Serving Breakfast News !!

HondaToyotaToyotaHondaHondaToyotaToyotaHonda