You are being watched

It has to happen, it happened.
AOL accidentally released the searches performed by it's users on the web. And it pulled them out quickly. It was enough time for people to download that info and mirror it everywhere. And if you look into those searches you'd really get scared.
the identity of the user is not revealed. But each user goes by an ID. I guess they track these users based on browser cookies.
You can understand why the Govt. is requesting this kind of information, there are people out there who doesn't have right intentions.
Most of the big companies submitted their saved searches but Google complains that it is unethical and Govt is crossing the line in doing that. And google has become sort of hero in every ones eyes. Good for us.
But why in the first place should these companies store these search queries with out any warning, with out informing the users. Is it ethical for these companies to store such information? How is it different from recording all your phone conversations? How is it different from taking your photographs or video with out telling you? Is it not Un ethical?? It is a blatant abuse on privacy.

But what is ethical and what is not decided by us. It is decided by the big guys :)

Web based apps vs Desktop apps

While google is trying to move apps from desktop to the web. Microsoft is attempting to bring some of them right back on to the desktop. At least one of them, that is online blogging with a desktop publishing - Live Writer

I think there is middle ground for this 'every thing on the web' vs 'everything on the desktop'. That is, to have light weight zero foot print clients on the desktop and have the information on the server. In that way you could use both the power of processing and rich user interface at the desktop and have your preferences and data at the server. You can have nice interfaces with out getting into the limitations of web based technologies like flash and AJAX standards. And you can have access your data every where.

British rule in India

I have seen a discussion in one of the forums about what are the +ves and -ves from british rule-- there are people who think that british rule has done good to the country by giving railways, administration etc...

Only thing that came out of British Rule is INDIA.
The Identity of an Indian. The Unity of Indians under one flag.
There were 565 princely states that were put together by Sardarji.

the misconception the british gave us railways, postal system and electricity are bullshit. they would have come to India anyways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_GDP_(PPP)

%share of India in world gdp
1 AD 32.9 rank1
1000 AD 28.9 rank1
1500 AD 24.5 rank2
1600 AD 22.9 rank2
1700 AD 24.4 rank1
1820 AD 16.0 rank2
1870 AD 12.2 rank2
1950 AD 4.2 rank?
1973 AD 3.1
current 6.3

It is in the 1700s that the colonial rule started...
SO.. what do you think??
they just looted us.. we missed the industrialization bus because of them...
********************
And some intelligentsia say that the british gave us English, which is the most precious thing ever... and we are on our feet only because of english...
Hmmm....


chinese can't speak english..
German can't speak english
japanese can't speak english
french can't speak english

And they are in the top 5 economies.
english is offical lang only in 5 countries.. with less than 5% of world population
*********************