June 2012
4 posts
4 tags
Rotten Tomato Science
taste The successful sequencing of the tomato genome will lead to tastier varieties within five years say scientists. They believe that the elusive flavour of home grown tomatoes will by then be widely available in supermarkets. Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers say the genetic information could reduce the need for pesticides. via bbc.co.uk Nice, tasty, tomatoes. Two...
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Drizzles and loshedding
NEW DELHI: After a sizzling, hot day, Delhi experienced some respite on Saturday evening as a drizzle brought the temperature down by 2.6 degrees Celsius in the national capital. According to an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official, the temperature at 8:30 p.m. was recorded at 35.4 degrees. At 5:30 p.m. it was 38 degrees Celsius. Saturday’s maximum temperature was 44.2 degrees...
1 tag
Drizzles and loshedding
NEW DELHI: After a sizzling, hot day, Delhi experienced some respite on Saturday evening as a drizzle brought the temperature down by 2.6 degrees Celsius in the national capital. According to an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official, the temperature at 8:30 p.m. was recorded at 35.4 degrees. At 5:30 p.m. it was 38 degrees Celsius. Saturday’s maximum temperature was 44.2 degrees...
1 tag
Total hipster but not bad
via youtube.com
May 2012
9 posts
3 tags
The dark side of Dubai (the wet dream of the Dilli...
There are three different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, like Karen; there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here. They are hidden in plain view. You see them everywhere, in dirt-caked blue uniforms, being shouted at by their superiors, like a chain gang – but you are trained not...
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Hurrah ! Prickly heat powder to the people
According to Nielsen, in Middle India, 43 of the 53 categories it tracks saw a growth (by value) in excess of 10% in the last quarter of 2011 (October-December) compared with the first. In smaller towns, the number of categories that saw this growth was an even higher 53. The fastest growing categories? Shampoos and conditioners, air fresheners, prickly heat powders, and cheese—not exactly the...
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For my lime sodas
CH3COOH + NaHCO3 → CH3COONa + H2O + CO2 via en.wikipedia.org
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Broadband Installation 2.0
I did get it connected to a plug inside my house. Very fancy, I thought. However, there was a catch… Maybe I’ll just pass by the store and get some electrical tape later.
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If scale is what got us in this mess, is scale...
There’s a need, it seems, to acquire and expand. And it’s not just in our personal and material lives. Startups want to scale — that’s the most critical stage for them. How do we expand? How do we robotize it so we can speed up the process? Nonprofits need to collect data for “impact” reports, illustrating how their ideas are not only innovative, but scalable. ...
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Sustenance for all or profit for some?
Barah Anaaj is a mixed farming system wherein farmers grow 12 foodgrains on the same piece of land. These 12 crops include ram dana (amaranthus), rajma (kidney bean), ragi (finger millet), mangjeer, green gram, buck wheat, lobia (black eyed pea), horse gram, a traditional soy called math and a few other crops. Farmers in Uttarakhand explain that the reason their ancestors used to follow this...
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Why thinking in products invites failure
One problem is that having a cheap, clean technology is no guarantee that it will be properly adopted. In a new NBER paper, economists Rema Hanna, Esther Duflo and Michael Greenstone note that there’s been very little evidence on whether these stoves work in the real world. They looked at a randomized control trial that handed out cleaner stoves to 15,000 people in Orissa, one of India’s poorest...
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A cuban prostitute (or: Hemlängtan)
Sigh… Some things Delhi just doesn’t have.
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Making your deodorant
Ingredients: 1/4 cup baking soda 1/4 cup arrowroot powder 4 tablespoons unrefined coconut oil 10 drops/shakes grapefruit essential oil A tin or jar with lid In a bowl, stir together dry ingredients, then add oils gradually until you like the consistency, mixing with a fork. Store in a closed container at room temp. (If the mixture seems too soft, try refrigerating it for a bit to firm it up.) To...
April 2012
2 posts
3 tags
Thankfully we can now reach Khan Market easily
“While working on the redevelopment plan of the community centre at Khan Market, we stumbled upon the drawings of Land and Development Office. We found that the Amrita Shergill Marg extended all the way to Humayun Road, which had been encroached upon over a period of time,” said Amit Prasad, spokesperson of NDMC. “A boundary wall had been constructed by people and some...
Painful Cake - Racism at Swedish Art Exhibition?
March 2012
6 posts
3 tags
Why men can't – and shouldn't – stop staring at...
This is another thing that made the girl on the bike so appealing: she was free. It would be nice if we all were. Y, a 35-year-old married friend who still flicks his gaze at passing women the way other people flip channels, blames our national earnestness. “The problem for us as men is that we’re in the wrong culture, and we’re men at the wrong time. We’re not a culture that...
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Protect yourself against pesticide - eat oranges
Scientists at Gwalior-based Jiwaji University have found that a combination dose of vitamins A, C and E can prevent organophosphate pesticides from causing too much damage. Organophosphates are the most commonly available pesticides in India. They are used in agriculture and in households against head lice and parasites in domestic animals. Its exposure can lead to, among other things,...
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A wonderfully sparse language
“Who has boarding pass may go.” Or in other words: “Those passengers who have already received their boarding pass may please proceed through the security check immediately”
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Amazon's customer service kicks ass
via library.corporate-ir.net After having battled it out with customer service operations of Indian companies such as Airtel (dismal) and MTNL (slightly less dismal), dealing with Amazon this morning was nothing but revolutionary. First up, the problem: My Kindle’s screen displayed a strange pattern and was stuck in a “Critical battery” screen. It’s a few years...
How land reform changed villages in Odisha
The experience of these villages post pattas underscores the economic importance of land reforms. Most of the families covered under the programmes are marginal farmers. In Chilipoi, no family was taking up agriculture as a full time occupation despite availability of land. But with their rights settled, people are again involved in vegetable farming. On an average, each family earns Rs 1,000 from...
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Shremetyvo shows its other face
See the full gallery on Posterous Okay, it doesn’t quite look the way it did when I was here last. And with free wifi to boot I have no complains.
February 2012
21 posts
1 tag
It's a state of mind
via youtube.com And the cello kicks ass!
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Microfinance - contribution on poverty reduction:...
Development agencies have promoted microfinance — the provision of small financial loans to poor people — because it is supposed to help poor people move out of poverty. After a comprehensive review of existing studies, with particular focus on recent randomized control trials, Roodman says that just isn’t true. “On current evidence, the best estimate of the average impact of...
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(no subject)
“Intelligence. Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intellignece.” ― Thelma Ritter as Stella in “Rear Window” via goodreads.com
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Cutie & nostalgia
via youtube.com bom bom bomfalleralla
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"Intangible religious benefits"
A statement indicating whether or not any goods or services were provided in return for the gift; receipts from religious organizations must include a statement indicating that “intangible religious benefits” were provided but they have no monetary value for tax purposes via nonprofitexpert.com If you have donated to a religious charity in...
The Gender Neutral Pronoun Debate
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WTF 4 days to go
It’s not fair.
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To a flatmate with good music taste
via youtube.com At 3:17 it really takes off.
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What's wrong with TED...?
The way TED talks fuse sales-pitch slickness with evangelical intensity leads to perhaps the most damming argument against the TED epistemology: It necessarily leaves out other groups and other ways of knowing and presenting ideas. As Paul Currion tweeted, TED seems “unaware of its own ideological bias.” Let’s take one example. Take a wild guess which gender is massively over-represented as TED...
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All cash transfers above Rs1,000 to be transferred...
Panel says all cash transfers above Rs.1,000 should be made electronically into #Aadhaar-linked accounts… bit.ly/xEUA9s #India #UIDAI— Shrey Goyal (@ShreyGoyal) February 24, 2012 Increasingly, the ability to prove your identity and citizenship through the universal ID scheme of the Indian government will become the main way to access benefits from the government. I can’t come to terms with...
Decriminalizing homosexuality in India
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The two sleeps or They myth of the 8 hour rest
Much like the experience of Wehr’s subjects, these references describe a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep. “It’s not just the number of references - it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge,” Ekirch says. During this waking period people were quite active. They...
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World Bank Chief Economist, 1991: Let's move...
DATE: December 12, 1991 TO: Distribution FR: Lawrence H. Summers Subject: GEP ‘Dirty’ Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons: 1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone...
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Early this morning
Women hold the keys to sustainable development
https://twitter.com/inclusivecities/status/171670861168910336
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Shatabdi to Saharanpur
So pretty!
via youtube.com
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Aomame
Aomame, 1Q84, Haruki Murakami 5’6…Not once ounce of excess fat…The left ear much bigger than the right, and malformed, but her hair always covers her ears…Lips formed a tight straight line…Small narrow nose, somewhat protruding cheekbones, broad forehead, and long, straight eyebrows…[Face is a] Pleasing oval shape…Extreme paucity of expression. (Suggested by goya-galileo-vangogh ) ...
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Sundays
Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
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My container farm - phase 1
So, there’s this guy named Dr Doshi in Mumbai. Apparently he grows a ton of things on his terrace, and he’s written a couple of passionate books on the topic. When I got interested in how you could produce food, and especially how you could recycle your food waste and use it as a basis for growing your own food, I found his instruction manuals and figured I’d want to try his...
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The other story
From Nilanjan S. Roy, Listening to Rushdie:Midnight’s Children tears up the textbook version of Indian Independence; one of the ways to counter, for instance, the hagiography of the Gandhi family, those full-page ads featuring Indira and her progeny is to read Rushdie’s portrait of the Widow and what she did during the Emergency. But in these times, there are other writers who continue to write...
January 2012
12 posts
4 tags
Where the Mehrauli flower market ain't no more
I was told that this market had been there for 100s of years - in fact maybe one of the oldest in India. Thankfully, on my last visit to Mehrauli I was relieved to see that such a blotch on the face of the world class city of Delhi had been conveniently relocated.
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Mocha has some seriously strange mixes of music...
via youtube.com … and their waffles are kind of shit.
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A little bit desperate and a trifle horrified
When there’s no Kindle for quotes in physical texts here comes the offline version:
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How long is thirty days?
via youtube.com Now, this is a movie I can’t wait to see!
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Oh noes!
via xkcd.com
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Begumpur Masdjid take 2
Begumpur used to lie in the middle of the city called Jahanpanah which was one of the many capital cities founded around Dilli. The village, which is now integrated with colonies like Malviya Nagar, still feels separate from the urban sprawl of modern South Delhi in the way that Shahpur Jat, Hauz Khas, Mehrauli and other villages around are. On the road between Mehrauli and Shahjahanbad it has...
3 tags
How many parrots?
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23 & 1/2 hours & the best thing you can do for...
via youtube.com