• Plugging In

    Since I have been on streams and brands for a while, I thought I’ll take a break and plug you in on a couple of discoveries and connections. For those reading this in Google Reader or actually anywhere else other than this site itself, kindly step outside. No, the hands can still be on the keyboard/mouse but please drop in at the site since it’s contextually relevant that you be here.

    One of the fringe benefits of writing this column for Bangalore Mirror is that I sometimes discover interesting startups that are useful to me as well. Now I am associated with two of them – one on each blog. And since we’re on discovery, and I don’t want to bore you more with semantics, allow me to introduce you to Dhiti, a content discovery engine driven by semantics. I first read about them at Pluggdin and then got a mail from  Aditya (at Dhiti) to try it out. I have, many a time, expressed my frustration about WP’s native search, the plugins I have tried to augment that, as well as the not-as-accurate-as-I’d-like YARPP plugin that I have been using so long. Dhiti arrived just in time and, from the short experience so far, has solved this to a very large extent. To see it in action, scroll away to the bottom of this post (later, after reading the post completely!!)

    The Dhiti plugin, which you can download from here, has versions for WP.com, (thanks Ranjani) Blogger or self hosted WP blogs like mine. It provides multiple ways for you to get to more, and contextually relevant content in this blog – a ‘search’ function, a ‘Topics’ section displays the topics the post covers, a ‘Concepts’ section which shows the related topics, and ‘Nuggets’ which show excerpts from posts. Words in both Topics and Concepts are clickable and when you click them, the Nuggets show the excerpts of posts in which they have appeared and highlight them, so you can quickly understand the context and navigate to the relevant post accordingly. It functions just like a browser with ‘back’ and ‘home’ functions. You can even make it a pop-out within the page if that works better for you. Do play with it and let me know your feedback. I have asked for better customisation options and am also supposed to get some analytics from them.

    So, Dhiti gives food for thought, and my new friends at the other blog give actual food. Ok, they help you find food, specifically restaurants. Zomato, formerly known as Foodiebay is now taking snippets from the restaurant reviews on my blog, and adding them to the menu and photos they already have. More than the hits that will hopefully deliver ;), I was really kicked about their Android app. If you have an Android, download the app right now from the market. It automatically detects your location, and then allows you to discover a random restaurant nearby, recommends a restaurant near you or just plain search. Pretty much all the website functionality is built into the app. There’s even a button to call! The showoff feature is the ‘Shake’ and though it doesn’t do the ‘slot machine’ like Urbanspoon, it still rocks! 🙂

    until next time, scroll below for discoveries 🙂

  • Whose line is it anyway?

    When I wrote about the ‘notional boundaries’ in the context of the Arundhati Roy speech, I was reluctant to push the issue further. But while reading ‘The Argumentative Indian’, I came across a section called ‘Critique of Patriotism’ under ‘Tagore and his India’, in which the author – Amartya Sen – mentions that Tagore had once written ‘Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity.‘

    Tagore also apparently used characters in his novel Ghare Baire (The Home and the World) to hint at how nationalistic sentiments could easily turn sectarian. Amartya Sen ends the section with the words of Bertolt Brecht “…of the corruptibility of nationalism. Hatred of one group can lead to hatred of others….” you can read the section in entirety here)

    And that started a thought on nation states. If we consider attributing more than a functional (say economic, political, administrative etc) importance to it (despite its ‘freedom’ being earned after much effort and sacrifice), how can we logically dispute a demand for separate states intended on the basis of say religion or language, especially since these might be older than the boundaries of the nation state and could prove a better cohesive force than the idea of a country?

    This is not to say that I’m in favour of this kind of a line or line of thought, but I would like your help in finding a logical conclusion.

    until next time, line of reasoning 🙂

  • Legal Crystal

    [scribd id=51587921 key=key-20ylqt7e1axvnkbu58je mode=list]

  • Illusions

    Richard Bach

    Richard Bach and Donald Shimoda, master and disciple. One, a messiah waiting to retire and the other reluctant to learn. Both barnstorming pilots in mid west America.

    The book is about our perspectives and perceptions of reality, and a view that what we see around us is an illusion.. of our own making, a manifestation of what we want it to be.

    Shimoda is tired of being a messiah as he thinks people are more interested in the miracles he shows them, than any understanding of what he’s trying to say. As the narrative progresses, Richard is first awed by the miracles himself, but then starts questioning his sense of reality and begins the journey to become a messiah himself.

    The book consists of many profound quotes from what is called the “Messiah’s Handbook”, which Shimoda lends to Richard. A handbook with no pages, because it opens to the page which answers the questions in the reader’s mind, but like Shimoda says any book can do this, because it is the reader’s interpretation.

    The larger statement here is that each of us has in us, the power to make our own path just the way we want it, if only we let go. To quote, “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours”

  • Weekly Top 5

    How To Get Your Ex Boyfriend Back

    More: How To Get Your Ex Boyfriend Back