The Origin of AIDS

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“There was no AIDS in America until the exact year the government began experimenting with gay men.” I think a better way to word this is that there was no known case of AIDS in America until the government began to experiment with yada, yada, yada.

To read the full article, go here. The article is slightly scientific, but it is mighty interesting, but maybe somewhat of a conspiracy theory. I don’t know, and I don’t know enough to know. Some digging might yield interesting answers.

But does it really matter where it originated from? Or is it just a matter of curiosity and something that will allow for finger pointing? Or maybe it will allow for the right method for vaccine development.

Safety in West Philly

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I’ve lived in West Philadelphia for slightly over 4 years now. Before I arrived here, I heard innumerable stories about the West Philly Ghetto, the increase in crime as one moves westwards, and the general need to be safe. I have consistently moved westwards in Philly, to my current location. I’ve driven through West Philly many times. I’ve never really come face to face with any of the horrendous activities that I read in the news. A friend had their bike stolen. Another was mugged, but got away safe. A third had money stolen outside of an ATM. But the worst yet is this news article.

A graduate student of Drexel was beaten up by 4 high school students from University City high school. It wasn’t a drunken brawl, where a couple of punches were thrown. He was nearly beaten to death. The worst part? I was in the middle of the afternoon, when school was let off early. What is scary is that it happened somewhere around 36th and Spring Garden Street. I used to live a few blocks away on 36th and Powelton. University City High School, the school that the students were from, is on 36th, between Market and Lancaster. I have walked past it many times — mornings, afternoons and nights. I’ve seen students sitting around there looking like they were doing nothing. I’ve walked past students in the middle of the afternoon when the get out of school. A lot of them look like they could beat me down without effort. And I’m talking about the girls.

This morning, I was working an event where students from the very same high school were present, and were being recruited to Drexel when they graduate. It got me thinking, about inner city schools in general. These students looked very, very normal. So why do some kids suddenly get such urges? Peer pressure is an incredibly strong force.

Another statistic that I just heard – from the beginning of January until the 22nd, there were 19 reported murders in Philadelphia. That is almost one a day. Pretty scary, huh? Anyway, rant time over. Just got to be more careful and encourage others to do so as well.

So much for that…

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Yesterday I went ga-ga over Google. I gave them props for saying no to phone companies posing as extortionists. I also predicted that Yahoo, and other companies will follow suite. There was other news circulating at the same time that Google said “Hell, no!” to the US DoJ when they were subpoenaed to provide search results relating to pornography. I hoped that Yahoo et al. would follow suite here too and protect the civil liberties of the search-engine using public. But according to this Slashdot article, AOL, MSN and Yahoo! have all complied. To what extent though, is still unknown.

My view is probably biased, and it’s not because I have a particular affinity for pornography (or certainly not one that I will accept!). From a sociology class that I’ve been taking (Sex, Crime and Violence on the Internet), I’ve learnt that all the hoo-haa surrounding the online porn business is largely propaganda and has little credence. But it is just a wait and watch now. I wonder if Google will surrender. They do, after all, get about 46% of all search traffic, and have recently contracted with AOL to provide their search results as well.

Love affair with with Google

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As my love affair with Google continues, I bring you two pieces of news that just makes they even more lovable. The first is that Google has proclaimed their IM platform, Google Talk to be an open federation. Quoting straight from the Google Blog, “Open federation is technical jargon for when people on different services can talk to each other.” Email is a federated system. As is the phone service. Can you imagine a world where one is only able to call or e-mail another who subscribes to the same service? I’d have to have a million different e-mail addresses (as opposed to my current 20!) and 10 different phones. Why should IM (and VoIP) be any different? Hooray for Google. As of now, Talk is only compatible with a few smaller players, most of whom proclaimed to be open source anyway. But hopefully the bigger players (Yahoo!, MSN, AIM, and Skype will all follow suite).

The second reason for my extolling the virtues of Google today? This blog entry. Phone companies have been threatening to create a “2-tiered” internet system for a while now. In simple terms, traffic from their own ISP, websites and customers will be given preference on pipes that they own. Unless the big websites (read Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc) pay them a fee. Google has gone ahead and called their bluff. I expect that Yahoo! will soon follow suite.

Now for what may even be termed a rant against Google. Surprised? I recently installed Google Desktop v2. In the 2 days that I’ve had it installed, I didn’t use it all that much. And it seemed to slow down my system a fair bit. I also noticed that my Google searches were taking upwards of half a second now. This is a big change, when I’m used to a response in under one-tenth of a second. By my own admission, I’m a fairly organised person. And this shows on my computer too. I can find almost any file on my PC within a few seconds. However, I can see the use of the software to a person with less technical competencies and a more disorganised lifestyle. If I can find a compelling reason to stay with the Desktop, I may continue with it. Otherwise, it is possible the first piece of Google software that I am disappointed with.

A New Sexuality Overtaking India?

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Or maybe the title of this post should read “An Old Sexuality Returning to India?”

I read a few months ago that the popular “wings-and winks” chain was planning to enter the Indian market. A recent web search for articles relating to such news yielded this. The news article on MSNBC was published in August 2004. I’ve not been able to find anything more recent confirming intent on part of the restaurant to bring their food, beer and skimpily clothed girls to the bustling Indian metros.

What does the world’s quintessential men’s magazine do when they find that their publishing sales in their premier western markets are declining? They turn to the new world economies of course. Playboy magazine has said that they are seeking to enter the Indian market, according to this IHT article. The magazine will not be called Playboy and will not feature nudity, according to the article. The article makes some interesting generalizations regarding the emergence of sexuality into the mainstream in India. The author claims that the India of the 21st century is much like the America of the 1950s, sexually speaking of course. This should mean that in approximately 20 years, we can expect to see women marching in the streets, burning their underclothes and long haired hippie males impregnating everything in site. It is hard for me not to become judgmental about the angle that the author is taking. I see him as an Indian, born (or brought up) in the west, and making assumptions about a country that he knows only through infrequent visits to his grandparents. “Sex is bubbling”, he says, “one-quarter of urban, unmarried women have sex, one-third read erotic literature and half go on dates.”  No doubt the Indian youth in urban metros are increasingly westernized by what they see in the mainstream media. However, the power of the Indian family should not be underestimated, nor the power of religion in a country that is all consumed by it. We should not forget too, that the majority of the Indian population is still rural. But the real kicker about this article is that the author states right at the beginning that the magazine will not feature the Playboy name nor the famous Playboy bunnies. So where is the need for a 26 year old living with his parents to “hide his stash?” The author compares our famous cave paintings, sculptures and the Kama Sutra to this new revolution that he claims is about to hit India.

The introduction of a men’s magazine published by Playboy enterprise is not going to impact Indian sexuality in any major way. But maybe Maxim, the magazine that my roommate claims to subscribe to for the articles, might bring about this revolution? Maxim has ventured into the Indian market as well. Priyanka Chopra is on the cover of the first issue that apparently hit newsstands in the New Year. The author, published on the Guardian, claims that, “this is not the typical coy, sari-clad Bollywood pose, rather a scantily clad woman who looks directly at the camera.” Obviously he is unaware of the current state of Bollywood. I don’t remember the last time I saw a Bollywood actress under the age of 45 wearing a sari on screen. Comparing the two articles, one wonders if the authors are talking about the same India. “Indian men never touch a woman in public, unless she is elderly or sick” and “smoking and drinking are symbols of moral laxity among Indians” are direct quotes from the articles. I’ve walked along many streets in India holding my girlfriend’s hand. I’ve bought beer and had a drink with friends. No one judges me or my morals. India is not an archaic land that is ruled by iron-fisted rulers where women were required to be covered from head to toe. The Indian girls that I know I are as fashion conscious, as beautiful, as talented, as motivated and as free-thinking as girls in the USA (the only other country I’ve lived in). It would be refreshing for once to see an article that accurately depicted the social changes occurring in urban India as it integrates itself into the world economy.

There is one and only one reason that companies like Hooter, Maxim and Playboy are so eagerly eyeing the Indian market – money. With a GDP growing at 7% annually and an ever increasing purchasing power of the middle class, there can be no other reason. It is certainly not because these companies are hatching a super secret pan to change the Indian sexual scene, as the authors of these articles seem to be implying. Wrestling over sexuality will happen as a natural progression of society, civilization, and culture, without or without these magazines. Spirituality need not be exclusive of sexuality, as one Maxim India employee claims.

The continued westernization of India is inevitable. The magazines and restaurant are certain to cause a stir in some section of the population. But in the land of the Kama Sutra, where sex is revered (the author wasn’t kidding when he claimed seeing murals of orgies in temples!) what is needed more urgently than anything else, is good, clear education about sex. Instead of treating it as an immoral, taboo and dirty act that is reserved for the bedroom only, the youth of India need to be sent the correct message. Sex is natural and feeling sexual urges is normal. Give them the opportunity to find and discover it themselves. They will not go wrong. I guarantee you.

I hate those mices to pieces

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Web-rant time: So ever since I’ve moved in to this apartment, we’ve had a mouse problem. With the weather finally reaching what it should be in the middle of January, the problem has just become worse. While earlier we’d only see them scampering from behind the refrigerator to behind the dishwasher, they seem to have gotten bolder and smarter. 6 loaves of bread had to be discarded this past weekend. Cleaning up rat droppings on the counter-top is a daily task. And only one has been caught using a trap, when it dragged the trap and its broken leg into my room early one morning. I did catch another, using two tupperware containers in the wee hours of the morning when it was tormenting my roommate and his girlfriend. A third was found by me, dead and stuck to a glue trap. The four other “men” in our apartment are yet to open their scores. I don’t want to waste any more food to the mice, and more importantly I want to know that the food I am eating is safe and clean. Since we’ve had no luck in trapping them, the next step is to create a routine where no food is ever left open and accessible. Now trying to get 5 college guys to follow routine is the bigger challenge. Just stick me with the mice instead.

Random Reflection

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Reflecting on the progress of technology (although this may be extremely obvious) it seems to be that every major step forward has been to make things more instantaneous. Communication now, information now, now, now, now…With our broadband, Google, cell-phones, and the like, we want everything now.

Transportation and movement of goods, although improved my leaps and bounds in the last 200 years, is still a major hinderence because of its slowness. When I can talk to someone on the other end of the planet, almost on a whim, to me it is unacceptable that it take me 24+ hours to travel there.

Research into teleportation is growing and God Bless physicists who are working on this. It can’t happen soon enough.

The Return

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So one of my most ardent readers (har! har! I’ve got readers 🙂 told me yesterday that he noticed I’ve not blogged for many months. I agreed and told him that the motivation just wasn’t there. But towards the beginning of the summer, I did have a little bit off ‘josh’ (not to be confused with my ex-roomie Josh) to write. This was mostly because having nothing to do after a hectic year at college was strange and writing provided me an outlet for the pent up energy. But as internet availability was sparse and as the long, beautiful days of my idyllic vacation set in, the motivation was thrown out the window.

So this post is going to be somewhat of a chronicle, summarizing for myself (and my ardent readers 😉 my fantastic summer!

I arrived in Bangalore in the middle of June, knowing that my folks had sold the house that I’d mostly grown up in. I’d lived there from 1990 until 2001 when I moved to Philly. And they’d moved to…well they had no where to move to…so we were temporarily housed in my grandparent’s apartment, where after 3 weeks of living out of a suitcase, we finally moved to another apartment in the same building. Since the ‘rents worked and my sister is lazy, most of the work concerning the move was left to me. That took up a bulk of July, along with a weekend trip to Delhi for Sameer and Divya’s engagement. I had a great time there, spending time with Divya’s family. I started playing some golf, watching cricket, TV shows that I’d brought with me, reading a fair bit and hanging out with friends. I had some aspirations of doing social-work over the summer but those were quickly squashed by my mom who kept me plenty busy getting the new apartment in order and by my own desire to be able to play golf in the mornings!

A few days before my birthday the family and I went to Sri Lanka for a holiday. Two days at Bentota, and 3 in Colombo was an excellent vacation from a vacation. Sri Lanka is incredibly beautiful and if I weren’t so lazy, I might have been motivated to see more of it. I got my first experience at water-skiing, which is great fun but hurts like hell the day after. We spent 2 days at a the Galle Face Hotel which is the same place that Arthur C. Clarke lived, while writing some of his best books. Life in Sri Lanka has, unfortunately, changed irreversibly after the Tsunami of December ’04. Everyone remembers it and the way it has affected them. Being such a small nation, there are many things that struck me as fascinating about the country. One is the lack of public advertisements about their cricketers. Even though they are one of the best teams in the world currently, they don’t hold the same God-like status as their Indian counterparts do. Not even Murali. The second was that everyone (and I do mean everyone!) on a two wheeler wore a helmet. This simple act shows the cultural differences of these people who live a few hundred miles from India. They follow rules! The third thing that struck me was the vehicles that Sri Lankan’s use. Being such a small nation they don’t manufacture much. Instead they import tons and tons of second hand (and some new) cars, trucks and vans from Japan. Only now have some international car conglomerates set up office there and are importing vehicles and selling it themselves.

The first week of August was spent in Bangalore with family visiting from Singapore and London. The next week and a half was spent in Hyderabad visiting the other Grand parents, Aunt and Uncle. For 4 days in between I scooted of to Goa with some friends. Every aspect of Goa was completely unforgettable. Right from the two over night bus journeys, the rains, the small dusty rooms with no hot water, the sunset on the beach, the cheap liquor, the dancing (yes! I danced) at the clubs, and the people I went with. It was back to Hyderabad for 2 days, and then right back to Bangalore around the 20th.

I had a lot planned for the last month but I achieved very little. Instead I watched cricket, ate a lot, slept a fair bit, played more golf, met more friends, and did more of nothing in general. Until yesterday, the vacation was absolutely great! Then I realized I had to have a root canal done! Most of yesterday was spent in panic because the Doc said it would take 5 sittings. But it is done today. I am much happier. I just have to go in to put on a cap. That has been the only minor hiccough thus far. I have another 10 days to go before it is back to Philly. The winding down has begun, the last bits of shopping are being done and the last good-byes are being said.

One thing that did bother me a great deal over this holiday is the state of Bangalore. It has transformed, over the last 20 years from a pensioners paradise and the Garden City of India to the Silicon Valley of South Asia and a city with no infrastructure to sustain the population explosion it has seen. I shall not dwell on this too much as currently Bangalore is not my home. Maybe someday when the city has regenerated from the wounds that have been inflicted on it, I shall be happy to move back here. Of course, that depends on my allergies 🙂

I also got a lot of thinking done over the summer. I was incredibly confused about what I want to do in the future. This is strange for me, because for as long as I can remember I was always very sure of where I was going. The last year has changed me a lot though, because of certain events in my life. But at least now I have clarity as to what I will be targeting post my graduation. The long term goals are still as unclear as ever, but whose aren’t? I’m going to give it time to come into focus for me, as it is really not prudent to try and plan out every year of my life for the next 15. Although, that has not stopped the oldest generation of my family from already wondering when I’m going to get married! 🙂

I’m really, really glad that I took this break. I think it was well deserved and I made the most of it. I’ll go back to Philly with fond memories of a great 3 months as well as motivation to finish of my last year of college on a high note!

The Limits of Blogging

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I recently read a post at BLADAM about the possible demerits of blogging. It got me thinking about maintaining a blog with personal posts on it. For a techie, as I sometimes like to consider myself, a website is a must. Why? I’m not sure. For me it is part vanity. Before blogs came to the forefront, maintaining content on a personal website was somewhat of a problem. I had photographs on there, as that is an interest. Other things like links, and my resume were on there. My first website had just about this. None of it was really dynamic content. The most active part of my current site is the blog, even though it is not updated as frequently as I would like.

So when I do post, what do I post? Personal thoughts, eloquent philosophy, some poetry, general updates on my life, interesting quotes, some political insight make up the bulk of my posts. All in all, the content can be considered to be personal in nature, as opposed to those who use a blog to put out tech news or postings that do not relate to them personally. According to BLADAM, there are risks to putting out personal thoughts on the web. Unlike a personal journal that may be written in a book and hidden under a pillow, a website can be googled by anyone who cares to. Infact, a Google search for my name yields my old and new website as the first two results.

Assume the following scenario: I have a job interview with XYZ Corp. It is routine for them to do a background check on all employees. As a part of their research, they are told of my website. The person in HR decides to see if I’ve got anything on it that may be incriminating. On my blog, she happens to read a post that I made some years ago that has a decidedly leftist point-of-view. She doesn’t agree with me and feels that I would be a bad fit to XYZ Corp.

Feel that such a hypothetical is a bit over the top? It happened to BLADAM and I don’t doubt that it may happen to me. So does that mean the end of my blogging career? Hardly! I’d rather work a place that encourages open thought and a mix of people.

There are other points to consider, however. The first is what should corporations do to disallow their employees from blogging about the company? There have been instances covered in the news media about the dangers of blogging. The most famous, being the recent Apple case. Corporations need to develop comprehensive policies and educate employees about the benefits and dangers of blogging.

The second point that I feel is of importance is a blog coming back to haunt a person. Google, the company whose mission it is to archive everything, most certainly will have archived my website on their massive servers. I don’t make it hidden that it is my aspiration to be a big time CEO or a big time politician or a big time something. So what if I’m running for the office of Something Big and something I wrote many, many years ago comes back to haunt me? After watching the recent fiasco of the 2004 US Presidential elections where documents were “uncovered” about the candidates and became such a big issue, I don’t see why an electronic blog post would not come back to haunt a person.

Despite all these fears, I think that I’m going to continue blogging. I will have to wait and watch to see what comes of it.

:-D

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A Friend: “Krishna can be accused of many things, but he can’t be accused of being cheap”

😀