What does Cameron smoke He doesn’t get how…

What does Cameron smoke?

He doesn’t get how social media works. His government can’t figure a policy to tap the social media for better intelligence and riot control. He and his top colleagues don’t bother with it. So, when rioters use it for communication, in stead of tapping in and harnessing social media, he responds like any autocrat would – ‘block them when needed.’

Then he goes out and claims that it was the return & presence of him and his top ministers that got the riots under control. Yes, they were patrolling the streets in their superhero capes while the police were hiding in their stations. This comes from a prime minister who didn’t face the public in presence of media lest the heckling be telecast publicly. The police, the opposition and, now, even most of the public realise that the police numbers on streets of London are already low and cannot be reduced further. He, however, prefers to cut them further and instead wants them to ‘update their policing techniques’.

Well, there are only so many ways for the police to react when they are outnumbered 20-to-1 by rioters on the street. One is what they did – abandon some areas and protect others. Another is to go the way of middle eastern authorities – baton charges, water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, and, if nothing else works, live ammunition. Or, perhaps, they could just offer the PM and his top colleagues to the rioters as hostages and peace will return. I prefer the 1st one, but if that doesn’t work, I’d rather have option 3 before the 2nd one.

What London needs is a continuance of its low-force, community policing policies. What it also needs is more boots on the ground, not conservatives in power cutting the good services in the country.

Finally, I’m tired of this PM shouting from the rooftops that everyone needs to take responsibility for their actions, coming as it does from the fella who refused to take any responsibility in l’affair Murdoch for a long time despite pressure from all sides.

I can understand the frustrations of youth from…

I can understand the frustrations of youth from poor neighbourhoods in a govt led by elitist, rich white men.

What I can’t understand is how destroying buses and looting small businesses in poor neighbourhoods improves their lot.

Protest, yes. Go out and stage a march of thousands outside the parliament every day till the government relents.

Rioting & looting, no. Just NO.

Last few tweets..

… just archiving.

Fri Aug 05 21:28:09:

“There’s no way to sugar coat it – if your work habits rely on minimizing windows you’re going to hate GNOME 3.” :(

Sat Aug 06 01:42:59:

Missing the long & strong tropical rain. The one which, once it starts, will go on for a few hours with no breaks :) #missingIndianMonsoons

Sat Aug 06 09:11:52:

Feeling bad for @julykatrae, no one @-mentions her or DMs her anymore. Other than me, that is. Show her some love, twitter!

Sat Aug 06 23:45:09:

2 small pints of beer and 3 tequila shots got me reasonably drunk. Not happy with myself. Off to sleep. Hopefully.

Sat Aug 06 23:57:36:

One night I take off to go drinking with friends and riots start off in Tottenham. London really can’t do without its super hero!

Sun Aug 07 01:00:52:

That frustrating feeling when you feel the tears welling up inside but they refuse to come out. Just finished reading: Half of a yellow sun.

Sun Aug 07 09:56:07:

From a family caught in civil war to families caught in Mumbai’s redevelopment fraud. From Chimamanda Adichie to Arvind Adiga. #Books

Sun Aug 07 13:50:50:

I hate hardcover editions of books :/

Sun Aug 07 13:55:08:

The ‘Ravi Shastri’ of Triathlon coverage just commented “he’s the picture of pain and the model of courage…’ :D #BBC

Sun Aug 07 15:53:03:

Glory glory Man United! :D

Sun Aug 07 15:54:05:

Also… just saw the movie… bhaag bhaag d k bose d k bose d k bose d k… bhaag bhaag

I’ve been good. And I’m better when drunk :)

The phenomenon that is Boston Globe’s Big Picture…

The phenomenon that is Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog.

  •    Started by someone with an eye for opportunity and good photographs.
  •    Powered on by the community with hundreds of comments and thousands of shares on each post.
  •    Turned into a closed network by a marketing maven who thought of harnessing the community info by linking in FB’s comment engine.

I discovered the blog sometime in 3rd quarter of 2008 (that’s the earliest share of that URL I can find in my rss). My visits to that treasure trove reduced a little after Alan Taylor, the good fella who started the blog, left. I stopped visiting completely, in frustration, after they removed the blog’s own commenting system and instead introduced the Facebook engine. Having quit FB in 2008 and being glad for it, I wasn’t going to join that waste of a site just to comment on BP.

Visited the blog again today after ages. Was happy, and sad. The feeling was similar as that when you visit your old school. The building, the memories, even some of the teachers are still there. But there are new guards at the gate now, who tell you, you no longer belong there. That love-longing-belonging-outcast feeling :(

[Feeling sad now. Don’t know if it is about the BP Blog or about the school I can never visit again]

Ian Bell was just being selfish in the…

Ian Bell was just being selfish in the aftermath of being of having acted foolish and arrogant.

However, I can’t understand that what was Strauss doing going to the Indian dressing room asking for Bell’s recall! Did he go begging bowl in hand? Or did he go threatening them with dire consequences on and off the field if they didn’t recall Bell? Or was it that he & his team suddenly remembered that cricket has a ‘spirit of the game’ that they can mould according to their needs and flout it about for getting a decision reversed?

Not one of the many people discussing the incident in Sky studios said that Bell had been wronged. Almost all of them went out and said that Indian team’s appeal was not against the spirit of the game. Nasser Hussain accepted he would have acted in the same way as Dhoni in appealing for the decision. English hero Ian Botham was clear in his belief that Bell should have gone. Still, Strauss had the balls to go into the Indian dressing room and ask for the recall!

Can’t figure how he’ll sleep with his decision tonight. It was clear from Bell’s behaviour that he knew he was out and that the protest could get him out. He acted in a manner to incite the situation and use the crowd to force Indians to recall him. However, I expected Strauss to remember that Cricket isn’t really a Gladiator’s arena – crowd doesn’t decide what’s wrong and what’s now. My disappointment is in Strauss, for I expected better of him.

Play snake on Youtube!

Just made an interesting discovery. Remember that circling dot that you see when a video is loading on Youtube? You can now play snake with it. All you have to do is use the arrow keys on your keyboard and the circling dot will start moving in a line like snake with another dot somewhere that the snake has to ‘eat’.

Nice, little, quirky discovery :D

BBC-F1-Sky!

The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, described the deal as “tough but fair” and reassured the BBC’s commercial rivals that it would no longer be used to “blast them out of the water”.

In other words, Msr Hunt apologizing to the masters in Sky and offering them F1 coverage as a peace-making present after the NI-BSB deal got scuppered.

Further, what I don’t get is why keep half the races? If they were sharing the other half with a free to air channel like ITV, I could get the idea but in the current deal, BBC is just acting as a teaser for Sky – we’ll lure them in with half the races free and then you sign them up for the other half!  Heck, instead of paying £33m, BBC should be getting paid by Sky for generating subscriptions. But then that wouldn’t go down too well at the next conservative-NI-Sky dinner party, would it?

I have Sky at home and still hate this deal. I love the presenting team on BBC and will be distraught if that is split up, as seems likely from Martin Brundle’s tweet. Yet another reason for me to say – Screw you Conservatives!

Out.

P.S.: The Hunt quote is from here.