And more..

Photo © Copyright Indian Express, www.indianexpress.com

Lol. Looks like I will have to start a separate blog to keep track of the number of mention of Arvind these days..

Here is another article on Arvind and MatrixView Technologies, this time on Indian Express.

Click here to read the article..

Cookie of fortune.

I got this very interesting fortune in my fortune cookie yesterday. Well, more of a saying than a fortune actually..

To understand a man's world.. just listen to his words.

Very interesting.. I'm sure there are many ways to interpret it. But, well, the way I see it.. you don't have to read in between lines when a guy says something.

(Confucious was indeed a wise man.. he definitely didn't say the same about a woman. Even in those days)

Heart to Heart

A very interesting article I read on the Hindu sometime back. What say you??

Heart to Heart

Who Is More Intelligent?

This week's Metro Plus on The Hindu carries a very interesting article... Who Is More Intelligent? by Hemjit Bharathan. This is probably one of the very few unbiased articles on this sensitive article written by a male.

A few interesting observations made by the author in this article..

> A man's brain is around 10 per cent larger than a woman's. But, as once assumed, size does not determine intelligence.

> Research shows men are more prone to say and do things unmindful of how they will affect others. And this increases with age, for a tissue behind the forehead concerning self-control and consequences wears off.
A woman, who tends to use more sides of her brain on the other hand, is associated with tact, diplomacy and social sensitivity required of high profile university leaders.

>Women utilising better the regions that handle language and higher functions, narrate and discuss their emotions and feelings, while men who do their thinking with more focussed sides of the brain keep their worries low profile and carry on. Men are thus at times considered insensitive.

From a guy's perspective (mine?).. this explains a lot of observations I make on a daily basis. Women handling people better. Men handling stress much better, probably even keeping their cool in a crisis situation. Men 'appearing' to be insensitive. Women worrying too much..

Pat on the back to Hemjit for this very awesome article.

To interfere or not?

There have been many a times where I thought America interferes too much with other countries' businesses. For example, getting involved in Afganistan and the middle east. The entire Iraq war is another example.

However, recently someone pointed out to me that I was contradicting myself with that opinion. It was me who said that the "Western Powers" should've done something to stop the carnage and genocide at Rwanda (with reference to my post on Hotel Rwanda). It made me think quite a bit. Sure enough, I (and a lot of other people) blame the US for not being humanitarian enough when they don't respond with enough money to something like the Dec 26th, 2004 Tsunami. Time for me to reconsider my seemingly confused point of view on America's foreign policy.

In the company of the elite!

Guess who I catch on India Alive at Rediff??

Arvind Thiagarajan again!

What can I say? I'm just darn proud to my friend.. Just click on the BACK or NEXT links on that page to see the class of people mentioned in that article.

Previous posts on him : Arvind Thiagarajan's Trail Blazing Invention

Santa Fe trip..

New Mexico, the state that lies to the south of Colorado. I've been eyeing it for quite sometime now. Finally got a chance to make a trip down there.. My cousin and her family were making a trip down there and I decided to join them. It was a very short trip.. considering that we left only on Friday evening and we were back on Sunday night. The drive was about 450 miles and would have normally been a 7 hour drive atleast (one way). But, thanks to some expert speed driving for half the distance by one Mr. M (ahem! Me!), we got there in a little over 5 and a half hours. (This inspite of having to make a pit stop for dinner and about 2 ten minute pit stops for my 9 month old niece when she started getting restless in her car seat).
Destination Santa Fe!

The landscape in New Mexico was very similar to the south west Colorado region which I had seen in my trip to Durango & Cortez, just a couple of weeks back. The ground was made mostly of very soft Sand Stone. I guess the same kind of soil must exist in the northern part of Arizona (the adjoining state). Probably why the Colorado River must be able to erode so much to form the Grand Canyons.

The downtown section of Santa Fe has very different achitectural buildings. There is a very strong mix of Mexican/Native Indian/Spanish influence on the architecture. Very earthern colours.. very earthern architecture. Here are some pics from the trip..

Pictures of the downtown area. A lot of the architecture involves clay and sand.
For some reason, red pepper (chilli to us Indians) is very famous here.. It is displayed all over the place.. Huge garlands of shocking red pepper! Probably one of the staple crop in this part of the country?
Hot sauce may be one of NM's speciality.. But still, calling it Pure Poison??	This one's even funnier.. Professor Payne Indeass's Butt Blazin' Recipe #3 Wimp Retardant X-Hot Sauce. LOL!
Santa Fe had the best Mexican food I've tasted so far. New Mexico in general is supposed to have authentic Mexican food, and in proportionate quantities.. (unlike their Americanized versions). This particular corn soup is THE best soup I've ever tasted in my life.

Atkins goes bankrupt!

Get a load of this.. The low-carb business model apparently didn't work out..

Atkins nutritionist files for bankruptcy.

Not pretty hard to figure out why it went bankrupt if you've tried one of the Atkins special Low-carb cereals. I picked up a box of Atkins special bran cereal about 2 years ago when I didn't know what the heck it meant. Ofcourse, it went straight to the trash can next morning when I tried it out. It was like eating wet card-board! NO EXAGGERATION!

Here's the interesting part. When the good Dr. Robert Atkins died in 2003, he was rumored to have been 25 pounds over weight!
Ha.. so much for the (F)Atkins diet...

p.s. For those who don't know what an Atkins diet is..
Dr. Atkins believed that carbohydrates were the reason for obesity. So, he prescribed a diet without any bread. You could eat all the ice-cream and cheese you wanted to.