Monthly Archives: September 2008

Smallpox, chickenpox goddess still lives

Posted on September 10, 2008 | 2 comments

IN VARANASI, the Smallpox Devi Shitala still lives. Although she has been wiped out by science, her little sisters like chickenpox still survive. And presumably cow pox too. We believe Smallpox is dead – the UN declared it to be dead years ago. Let’s hope no samples still exist in warfare labs worldwide, eh?

And a kind word to Louis Pasteur, who figured out the connections and eradicated this Smallpox scourge to people. These horrid little Herpes families of virii live in the spine, and sometimes erupt as “shingles”, cold sores, and worse.  Kids with chicken pox want to scratch the pustules, and that leaves scars.  If the kids manage not to scratch the scars, the horrid Herpes virus might erupt 40 years later and scar them. It is  a horrid little virus and there’s no accounting for the damage it might and does do.

Eradicating Devi Shitala is practically impossible, we’d guess. You just have to wear her down.  Or bow to her.  In Benares, of course.    ζ

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Steve Jobs is the sheesh kebab of earlugs

Posted on September 9, 2008 | 2 comments

ON THE EXAMINER a certain C Shanti has expressed scepticism about Apple’s Steven Jobs’  launch of yet more stuff that plays music and that.

Everywhere we go, people have tiny little plugs in their ear lugs – we’ve on some occasions seen people being decked by bicycles and buses because their little, lovely ears are filled up with earphones.

It puts people in a different world – actually a nihilistic world divorced from the banality of life – because of course they are “listening to what they like”.

You can shut yourself up in a cocoon like a butterfly and moth caterpillar and internalise, internalise again and again. But when the wasps specialising in butterflies and moths decide to lay their eggs in your cocoon, you might find you never get to spread your wings and instead become a tiny waspette, looking for daft moths and butterflies again. And earphones.

I sort of deplore earphones in peoples’ earlugs although I am liberal on many other topics. We should talk to each other – it’s taken goodness knows how many years for us faux chimps to develop speech. We don’t need Apple’s commercial crapitude to reverse people talking to each other, do we?  And if they wear these lagged lughole warmers in Bangalore on the 100 Feet Road, they will be bygones of a past era. ♥

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Coconut gets the chop in Ole Bengaluru

Posted on September 8, 2008 | 2 comments

IT’S BEEN A COUPLE of weeks since we’ve been to The Examiner office in Ole Bangalore.  Last time we were there, we were interested that “progress” had not decked the coconut tree plus the local lore goes that if someone chops one of these trees, there will be a death in the family.

Last time we were there, the coconut tree was intact.  The building site had its own postbox. There was a shrine to Vishnu in his form as Tulsi (Basil) right next to the tree, which was home to little gilhari (squirrels) and other creatures like, er, birds, as well as butterflies and stuff.

How things have changed.  And they aren’t for the better. A source sent us this picture showing sheer wanton destruction on a grand scale. The building site appears to have turned into a cesspool. And the coconut is one of the dear departed. ♦

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10 qualities – the first being patience

Posted on September 7, 2008 | Leave a comment

THE GUIDE in Varanasi (Benares), gives yours truly the SP (starting price – a racing term).  We disagree with him on the translation, even though the guy is a caste Brahmin. The first is persistence (dhriti) and not patience. And we certainly disagree that Ma Ganga is so great she can wash away your sins. Because we don’t believe that Hinduism has any sense of sin. Although Brahmins, being professional priests,  are bound to disagree, we understand that when Hinduism went east to Java, there was no Brahminism. No doubt scholars can debate that point endlessly.  But Bali is full of a potent mix of Buddhism and Hinduism, and the varnas (colours) there in Indonesia are far from clear cut.  ♥

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Giant fruit tree found in middle England

Posted on September 7, 2008 | 1 comment

WE HAVE BEEN to Middle England, an interesting place in a county called Gloucestershire which appears to preserve things old and some things even older.

Middle England is up a bit from Oxford to the left from London, and down quite a lot from Aberdeen which is to  top right in Scotland,  so Middle England is down a lot and traverse Hadrian’s Wall and if they let you in, you will find it. It is very swampy up in Moreton-in-Marsh and environs. It was so wet yesterday a big show was called off, much to the chagrin of those that have chagrins.  But opposite the very excellent Bakers Arms,  in some quaint little village called Broad Campden, we spotted a tree which must be the mother and father of all sorts of trees.

What sort of tree is this?  These villages are very quiet and do not have 100 Feet Roads, as far as we call tell. ♣

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Mikey Dell gets out of factories

Posted on September 5, 2008 | 2 comments

IT’S A SEA CHANGE, Dell Inc getting out of building PCs. The report on www.itexaminer.com, following one on the Wall Street Journal,  speculates that Dell will flog off its factories to third party contractors.

It makes sense, but only if you understand how PC assembly works. For Dell. We visited Dell’s places in Ireland quite a few years ago, and they have it to a tee. It’s a just in time build model, so the resistors and everything else are in place just as they’re needed, and according to orders received.

No one who buys a Dell cares where it is built, whether it’s in Chennai or Limerick. Buyers want a bog standard desktop, server or notebook, and it’s got to arrive on time, at a given price, and the rest.

The bigger question is when Dell sells off its assembly units to Whoever Inc, what will happen on the support front? In Bangalore there’s a massive Dell call centre. Will Dell sell that off too? Does anyone need PC support these days? Or is everything so simple and straightforward that it’s like plugging in a microwave? [No, Ed.]

Next time you buy a Dell, if Dell goes through with its plans, you probably won’t have a clue where it’s been built or what’s in it. But never mind, you never did have much of a clue anyway when you bought a Dell, where it came from, did you? And you really didn’t care. Chip manufacturers, take note.  ♥

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The nest is above

Posted on September 4, 2008 | Leave a comment

THE PIC above is of the Beijing “nest” – the main stadium of the Beijing Olympics which are now thankfully done. As we were frying around the world, we missed some major crap sporting events, including Wimbledon and the Olympics. We also missed endless golf tournaments no doubt! So there is a god.

It was taken last year at the Intel Developer Forum as was. The area then was pretty boring, but we’re sure by now all the excitement is over one year later and now it is even more superlatively boring.

Kind but officious officals were keen that we took the right track to IDF. We preferred to take the wrong track, but were kindly sent to the right track. Outside our hotel, the manager came out because we were sitting on precious marble and said: “Sir, we cannot have our guests sitting outside, and enjoying the sunshine.”

It was ever thus. Who invented sport? Was it the English? If so, damn their poxy games called cricket and rounders and netball!  Never mind croquet.  And “football” (soccer) ♦

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India outsources visas to British firm

Posted on September 4, 2008 | 3 comments

THE INDIAN HIGH COMMISSION has outsourced its visa applications to what seems to be a  British firm and confusion now  reigns.

A firm called VFS – you can find it here, now looks after all British visa applications. This is great. The firm has a two to three day turn round time, but appears to have mislaid a consultant’s  business application which he must have submitted three weeks ago on a promised two to three day turnround.

In the old days, you could just tip up to the Indian High Commission in the Strand, and they would issue you one provided you had all the documents and paid in cash. Plus ca change.

He called them on the premium line today. They said: “Don’t worry, we will find it.” What if this outsourced company has lost his passport?  He travels to India in early October. Does he then have to apply for a new British passport and a fresh Indian business visa so everything can be lost all over again?

In the meantime, readers of this bog may be unaware that you still need a liquor permit if you go to Gujarat. And they’re serious about it. How, otherwise, could this man have lost £500 for having a bottle of liquor on Ahmedabad station? He didn’t seem to get a receipt from the cops.

Yes. Perhaps the Indian High Commission should have outsourced it to Bangalore.  None of this cafuffle would have happened except that Lady Margaret Thatcher of Finchleyville insisted after a Khalsa rising in Amritsar  that Indian citizens needed visas before they could come to the UK. The Indian government retaliated by saying we need visas too. And now we’re in outsourcing paradise.  ♣

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Spinola gets beatified – Holy Spinola!

Posted on September 1, 2008 | 1 comment

ANDREW THOMAS, who works on the IT Examiner when he’s not playing around with his train set, has spent a week away from the Midlands or wherever he lives, to play with real steam trains and that.

Imagine our surprise to find this photograph of Spinola being beatified, as if was some latter day Reverend Awdry of Andrew Thomas the Tank Engine.  We have unashamedly stolen this picture from here.  Sue me, Awdry, I am a straw man. ♥

The Saint Spinola

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