Saturday, November 20, 2010

Café con leche

As I sipped my morning café today accompanied by my ritualistic aimless surfing on the net, I (yet again!) stumbled upon the facebook's sky-rocketing revenues (the third time this week!):

That would put its worth at about $41 billion, more than EBay’s $39.3 billion valuation on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Facebook only trails Amazon.com Inc., worth $74.4 billion, and Google Inc., valued at $192.9 billion, among US Internet companies.[Source]

Everytime I read Facebook's success story, I am amazed at how cleverly we manoeuvered clear of any "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" era. Internet now is synonymous to opportunity, money and recognition. It has this distinct feature of linking up content and users treading these trails to find useful/interesting content. And here comes another feather in the cap of Internet - Social Networking. The magnitude of it all is what is rather a surprise (41 bn $ !!); and all so because people have found a new way of life -- "living" online?

The content creation rate on Internet is massive (I would love to be pointed to some statistics on this btw). Every new day brings tonnes of new websites/services going live; Increasingly interesting content is being created and used everyday. Internet as a platform for Knowledge sharing and Collaboration has made life much easier (and astonishingly richer for quite a few).

Other interesting Internet content that I found over the course of this week(two of the six to be precise) --
  1. xtranormal : Great site for text-to-video creation. I tried a test video and other than the limited avatars/backgrouds/effects, I was impressed at what it enables a user to do -- Create your own animations!
  2. Sintel : An impressive "open-source" graphics creation testimony.


This morning, my Café con Leche tastes peculiar. My Café con Leche is intimidated at sharing its much endeared place in my weekend morning breakfasts with a multi-billion entity - the Internet!

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The Indian Head Wobble or "Bobble"

Much to my amusement, I found this link on the Indian Wobble or "Bobble" - what it is, and how to interpret it. Read it full, please (the bit on "Tips for Understanding the Indian Head Wobble" might be insanely insightful for a foreigner and much enjoyable for an Indian) ! Google it and you will be amazed to see how carefully it has been observed by so many people across the world.

Youtube video: how Indians say yes and no


I have personally been accused of having wobbled my head to indicate a "yes", and I, of course, denied the allegations.

Although the bobble gesture does seem to be pretty colloquial, but it was never very hard for me to understand whether it was a Yes or a No :). It's pretty useful I must say. Here's an example how -

Q : Are you telling me that you agree that Indians really wobble their heads?
A : Head Wobble