Article by the real Charles Van Doren of "The Quiz Show" fame

Personal History: All the Answers: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

"The Quiz Show" is a movie directed by Robert Redford that had me riveted. Every time I watch it I cannot but think of the then successful Charles Van Doren whose life becomes miserable at the end of the movie.

Now the real Charles Van Doren speaks after quite a long media hiatus. His recollection in the New Yorker is pretty neat.

Some bad decisions taken on the spur of the moment haunt us for life indeed. Charles Van Doren is the example for this.

VW's expensive but amazingly fuel efficient car

Laugh at High Gas Prices With a 282-MPG VW | Autopia from Wired.com

This is a stunning car (with an equally stunning price tag). Now, you can zoom with style without worrying about rising fuel costs as this gives an amazing 235 Miles per Gallon that translates to a whopping 99 kms per litre (of course, two wheelers in India are already north of 100 km per litre).

Now for the simple matter of money - the car costs a paltry 20K to 30K Euro (INR 13,53,800 to 20,30,700). The article concludes thus:

"That's a lot of money. But then, the One-Liter, despite its diminutive size, is a lot of car."

There are some great pictures in that link too.

25 year anniversary of the World Cup win - losers' celebration?

Brands rule Lord's '83 celebration, Tricolour missing

Up until now, I was happily reminiscing about that famous '83 win and about what a great achievement it was. And then it struck me - we are a bunch of losers!

1983 was the third edition of the world cup. India were the underdogs and they scripted a fairy tale win over the formidable reigning champs. For me, it constitutes an interesting, pleasant and even uplifting memory. But, would we want to celebrate the anniversaries of that? 25th? 30th or 50th?

The Windies won the Cup in '75 and '79. Did you see the likes of Lloyd and Richards celebrate their 30th anniversary of winning the cup anywhere? Or at Lords? Or, did Australia under Border celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first cup win in '87 in Calcutta?

Australia, especially, have made a habit of winning world cups regularly that celebrations don't matter at all. However for us, one win 25 years ago is all so important that we focus on that like an obsessive stalker (me included). That is what makes me sad. A tiny bulb shines in a pitch dark room. But even if a single bright light comes on, our tiny light gets completely overshadowed. The tiny bulb of our win in '83 is the only source of light for us. By celebrating the single light, we are unwittingly celebrating the darkness around it or in this case - the lack of significant wins since.

It is not that I don't like celebrations of events bygone. But the event has to be of some significance and should, IMO, be a one time occurrence. For example, India's independence day is an event worth celebrating. Not winning a once-in-4-years-world cup 25 years ago; unless that was the only time you won it - in which case, the celebration would be of the losing streak.

With apologies for my cynicism,
-N

Flexible India : S Gurumurthy on Covert

http://www.covert.co.in/gurumurthy.htm

This is a great piece by Gurumurthy where he talks about how India's past is relevant to its future. My idea of India is just the same as the following reference from Gurumurthy.

British
historian William Dalrymple sees rising India as merely
claiming back its original status as a leading global power.

Colonialism did ruin India and fie upon the likes of Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram for their see-only-positives blindness vis-a-vis the British Raj. India's position as a potential world economic power is not because of, but is in spite of colonialism.

Kudos to Gurumurthy for writing a rejuvenating piece! (It got me started enough to write this piece!)

BTW, Covert seems to be a new fortnightly edited by MJ Akbar who was with the Asian Age till recently. Familiar to several as a journalist par excellence, this seems to be a good effort as he has articles from across the political spectrum. Rarely do we get such dissenting views together on one platform. Kudos to Akbar too!

ReiserFS developer convicted: should commodities have a moral value?

Hans Reiser guilty of first-degree murder | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

It feels somewhat strange as I have a Suse 9 box with the file system developed by Hans Reiser. And this is because I chose to go with the default.

I got to know of this conviction only today - nearly two years after he was charged. The interesting question is - did people change file systems after this news?

Which brings me to a larger question: how much importance do people attach to the moralities of the originators of the software they use? Taking it even further - when people consume any commodity, is importance attached to the perceived morality of the producer/source? Should it be?

For one of the Indian perspectives on it, I now recall an anecdote from the life of a holy man (I don't recall where I got this story from and I remember it only broadly). This holy man used to deliver illuminating lectures to his disciples every day. One day, however, the holy man's lectures were not well delivered and his utterances were far from normal. A curious disciple who normally followed his teacher everywhere started investigating. Nothing had changed that day apart from the saint eating his favorite vegetable during lunch. When the cook was asked where he got that vegetable from, he mentioned the name of a person. When that vegetable vendor was asked about the source of that vegetable he confessed that he had stolen those from a garden. The disciple then warned the cook to ensure that all food came from good sources.

This perspective takes the morality of the source to be very important.

If this view were followed everywhere, we shouldn't be consuming half of what we consume nowadays (food, newspapers, television, water.. you name it).

Certain follow on questions:
Will you continue patronizing a store that sells quality stuff for really low prices but the owner of which is unscrupulous?
Will you continue patronizing a restaurant where the food is not bad but whose owner was convicted for involvement in illegal activities? (I know I stopped going to such a place)


Is the software question on the same level as these two?

I don't think so - because I believe Reiser didn't get monetary or other benefits from my use of his software (open source). But my patronizing the restaurant would have given money to that owner to indulge in further illegal activities and so I stopped.

Am I right here? Am I being needlessly fussy here? It would be pretty interesting to get some other perspectives on this.