Petrol Price Hike by Record 7.5 Rs – No Hike in Diesel Prices

As it was speculated that the fuel is set to catch fire in coming days, You can now get ready for the petrol price hike starting midnight followed by increase in diesel prices as well. As stated by the oil companies that there are losses on petrol sales of about 8 rs/litre, the consumer will have to pay 7.5 rs/litre more which will be applicable from tonight 12 AM on-words.
There is even the speculations that the diesel prices will get affected by 4 rs/liter and LPG calender by rs 60. This is a shocking news for the vehicle owners as the fuel prices have hiked to soaring heights in a short span of time.  According to a government official, caution will be taken while increasing the diesel prices because it runs the threat of Inflation.
While the market price of 14 KG LPG cylinder is approximately Rs 880 but the cylinder  is available for domestic customers at subsidized rates of Rs 400.  It is believed that the oil companies are claiming to be at a loss of Rs 13 on every single litre of diesel and rs 480 on an LPG Cylinder.
So if you thought that you would get respite from the soaring prices of petrol, diesel or LPG you are proved yet again. The governance still does not give any sigh of relief to consumers like us, we will update you soon any further changes in the fuel prices.

Petrol new price 80rs/litre in India (May 2012)

Petrol prices hiked by Rs. 7.5/l

Indian Oil Corp. will raise petrol prices by Rs. 6.28 rupees per liter from Thursday, a company statement said on Wednesday, an attempt to compensate losses incurred by the state-run company to sell the fuel at subsidized rates.

The price increase will exclude local taxes, it added. Earlier, a source in a different state-run company had said the gasoline price would be hiked.

People have been shocked by the steep hike in petrol prices. The Indian government has announced a sharp hike of Rs 7.5 saying that the hike had become essential as the international crude price had gone up. The depreciation of Indian rupee against dollar has also been given as an excuse for the sudden and sharp hike in petrol price.

After the hike, consumers will have to pay at least Rs 73.20 in New Delhi for a liter of petrol, while in Mumbai it will be sold even higher at 78.16, while in Kolkata one liter petrol will cost as much as Rs 77.53.

Importance of the Internet

Today is an exciting time for the web. The importance of the free and open flow of information it provides is being brought to light by recent attempts around the world to limit the unfettered flow of communication that defines a functioning internet. Limiting internet channels of communication has been attempted in both the Eastern and Western nations alike. As a result, such attempts have helped raise awareness about why it is important to keep the internet free from restriction. This awareness has led to successful revolutions and it has raised questions about the validity of copyright and patent laws in the USA which date back to almost as far as the Constitution.

It has long been a controversy that China censors access to the internet, including blocking news media and communication outside of the country, earning this practice the nickname “The Great Firewall of China.” This has often been shamed in western media where most democratic nations value freedoms of speech, particularly in the United States.


Internet censorship in the Middle East has, perhaps, made the need for unrestricted internet access most apparent, as it applies to human rights. In 2009, popular social networks such as twitter and facebook played an important role in helping Iranian protesters communicate. While people around the world assisted protesters by providing them with first aid information due to the severe police brutality, the Iranian government shut down all internet access in the country. During this time, many Iranians living outside of the country could no longer communicate with or read updates about friends and relatives they were concerned for. These limitations further fueled protests in the area. Today, Iran continues to practice filtering internet communication and political tensions between citizens and government continue.

In December 2010, a revolution began in Tunisia when a street vendor set himself ablaze in protest. Once again, twitter and facebook played an important role while journalists were not allow to report on the situation. Protesters rallied against the censorship of speech on the internet after the arrest of a few key bloggers who voiced disapproval of the former regime. This led to the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, a removal of many of the communication restrictions that were in place and inspired a revolution to begin in Egypt.

The Egyptian revolution of 2011 saw a complete shutdown of internet access in an attempt to limit communication between protesters. Once again, the attempts to censor civilians and journalists led to an intense backlash, ending with President Hosni Mubarak stepping down from his position as well as some other regime changes. It seems as though censoring the internet is a surefire way to rally protesters. The free and open communication of the internet has often since been credited with having made such revolutions a success.


Today, questions are being raised in the US about whether it is feasible, for the sake of enforcing copyright law, to restrict access to certain websites by blocking DNS routing. While this does not remove hosting of the website, it would make it slightly more difficult for the average user to access sites that are blocked. Web services, media and businesses make up a very large industry, proving many jobs in the modern economy. Because bills such as SOPA and PIPA threaten the open access which these industries rely on to thrive, a vast majority of those in the industry oppose these bills. Web presences from independent bloggers to Google and other large companies have voiced concerns, held blackout days and otherwise demonstrated that the need to keep the internet free and open is integral to the very livelihood of the web as well as the economy.

The internet offers opportunities to duplicate and share information on a scale never before seen in human history. It provides virtually free access to education, entertainment, more environmentally sound distribution of digital content, economic development and job creation as well as a growth in the creation and sharing of various arts.

Can Men and Women be Friends?

Every guy knows that what is shown in the above video is generally true by default. Apparently, while not as ready to admit or acknowledge it, so do most women. You see, ladies, me and every other male want to have sex with you. It’s not something we decided. It was decided by nature. Fortunately, we humans have the option to shift into manual override and act against our natural instincts. Therefore, men may not necessarily be actively trying to have sex with their female friends. However, given the opportunity and an absence of the perceived negative consequences, you are more than likely going to get it, ladies.

That’s how it is, but it raises ethical the questions of how each party may best respond to this aspect of the man/woman friendship. If a woman knows her guy friend is waiting for an opportunity to hook up with her, is continuing to hang out with him pretty much like hanging a carrot over his head? Is it ethical to continue that type of relationship? This is directed specifically between exclusive friendships where a woman and her guy friend are mostly alone together while he lends an ear to her problems and then tries to cheer her up by letting her practice her beautician skills by trying applying just the right shade of lipstick to his face to make his eye “pop”. This is not directed so much at the kind of friendly interactions that generally takes place in a group setting.

One reason that keeping the guy friend in your back pocket may be unethical is because, as any guy who has been “friend zoned” can tell you, it can be torture to be so close to a woman you have a desire for and not be able to act on those desires. It is very much like being in a room full of delicious cake and cookies and not being allowed to taste them.

Let’s not put all the responsibility on the women of these friendships though. If a man doesn’t like the feeling of being treated like a woman’s gay friend, he has every right to stop playing that role. You know which type of guy never, ever gets friend zoned? Guys who aren’t friends with women for whom they retain a sexual desire (That’s right. I just proper-Englished a “whom” on your asses. Shaking things up a bit now.).

In other words, if you are going to let a woman walk all over you like that, you are being a bit of a pussy, to put it bluntly. You’re not being a “nice guy.” You’re acting like a bitch, son. I’m very disappoint. Do you really expect her to respect your lack of personal integrity? Just a little tough love, bros. I sincerely hope you ponder this the next time you are fapping about your BFF (Best Friend For_until_intercourse_happens). <3

As if the element of sex doesn't complicate the man/woman friendship enough, let's add relationships to the equation. What effects will having friendships with those of the opposite sex have on your romantic relationship? Once again, ladies first (That's right! I also open the door for my hoes 'cause I'm a gentleman like that...).

Dear wiminz, if you are wondering why your boyfriend might get jealous if you are trying to have a lot of one on one time with another man who is "just a friend," it's because we know what has already been said; that more than likely your platonic guy friend is like that damned camper on a first person shooter who sucks so bad that instead of actually playing the game, he patiently waits for an opportunity to come to him and then he tries to shoot before anyone sees him and treats him as target practice. (Did I just make an FPS gaming analogy while targeting the female Green Pirate audience which probably doesn't exist? hmm not sure if helpful...) In other words, he is likely waiting with his fingers crossed for you to be really upset about that fight with your boyfriend so that he has an opportunity to comfort you, be closer to you and maybe even get the rare, much coveted among friend zonebies, nice guy appreciation sex (Yeah, that's more helpful. BTW, while breaking the fourth wall here (or is it a fifth wall if I'm already speaking directly to the audience. maybe it's the ceiling? Shit, what is this then? Sixth wall? I don't even...) I would just like to let it be know what the term "zonebies" as defined by "persons currently zoned as friends by the opposite sex" is officially being published under a CC license. Go ahead. Google it. No relation to Kenyans.).

Chances are, most women with guy friends are faithful to their boyfriend and don't actually want to have sex with their guy friend. Different men respond differently to this. Some might be very opposed to it and others might just feel confident in the fact that your guy friend is a zonebie who doesn't pose a real threat to his relationship with you. In either case, if your boyfriend is not making a stink about your spending time with another man, it is because he respects your freedom as well as your judgment and wants you to be happy. It is doubtful that it is because he believes your guy friend genuinely wants to be "just friends."

Alright fellas, your turn. What is going with on you guys who, admitting you want to have sex with your female friends, find yourselves hanging out one on one with other women while you are in a monogamous relationship? While I don't speak for every man or claim any absolutes here, I am not generally wanting to spend my free time with women who aren't my girlfriend.

It is not unheard of for the roles to be switched where a woman gets friend zoned by a man either. Why string someone along though? In most cases, I suspect that a man who keeps a lot of female friends on hand don't feel like he is at a point in the relationship where he expects it to last indefinitely. I'd be willing to bet that it's a lot less common for men who are married to have female friends than men who just have a girlfriend, unless they are having a lot of problems in the marriage. There is way less paperwork and alimony involved. It is a simple matter of risk vs. reward.

For both men and women, who are as of yet unmarried, keeping such "friends" may even be treated as a way to hedge your relationship risks. If ever things should go downhill in your current relationship, there is another suitor. Of course, this includes the connotation of expecting your current relationship to fail. I have my doubts about whether it is possible to move toward a serious relationship until this notion and the practice of keeping a backup around is removed, even if it is just for emotional support without any romantic interest in that guy friend. Of course, most of this only applies to monogamy. The ployamorous couple probably isn't having these same concerns.

Lastly, I would like to address the zonebies out there who I have not been so kind to in this post. Most guys have probably been in this situation and some wise up while others keep falling into the same hole. You poor saps who are stuck in the friend zone, don't you put yourself in that position? Or at least, you keep yourself there.

Your feelings for your friend may be genuine, but is your reaction to them? Do you find yourself justifying the situation a lot? Do you say things like "I just care about her so much that I want to have her in my life, even if it's just as friends." How noble of you, white knight! If you care so much, why do you want her to go through the heartache of breaking up with her current boyfriend? Is it really because he is such a bad guy and you would treat her a million times better if only she would just give you a chance? Maybe so. What about if he isn't a bad guy?
Either way it raises some questions about your character when you are scamming on another man's woman. Doing it under the guise of being a friend really comes off as cowardly. Once again, I maintain that it is this very lack of balls that is keeping you in that situation. If she wants to be with you then make it happen. If not, back off and move on with life. Either way, if you don't man up you're going to miss out on all those nice women out there who actually do want to be with you. Good luck!

It's ultimately up to each couple to decide how they will address this issue or whether they will address it at all. Hopefully, this gives some insight and things to discuss. I'm Dr. Ill and I approve this message.

Disclaimer:
Dear female friends, I hope the revelations that some part of my human nature wants to have sex with you or the implication that being friends with a female means I don’t have any sexual attraction toward you doesn’t piss you off, thus ruining any chances I might have had at sleeping with you at some negative-consequence-lacking, future point in time.

Harvard Professor Speaks on MegaUpload Case

Yochai Benkler, Faculty Co-Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, is shown in an interview with Bloomberg Law’s Lee Pacchia speaking about copyright law, and the shutdown of MegaUpload. He lays out why the procedures taken against MegaUpload will kill this type of business.


Prof. Benkler raises suspisions about the timing of the raids on MegaUpload operators after a huge response from citizens in opposition to SOPA. He compares YouTube to MegaUpload while questioning the moral ground for legal actions led by entertainment lobbyists against innovative companies like MegaUpload.




Just another expert who either takes his cues from Green Pirate or actually knows what he is talking about. Let’s listen to the Prof., shall we?

The Moral Battle Between Pirates and Copyright Lobbyists

In a recent interview, Harvard Professor Yochai Benkler raises some serious concerns surrounding the MegaUpload bust.

One question raised by the professor, which may not have been entertained by many prior to the wide public opposition to SOPA, is of whether the lobbyist companies currently reaping the benefits of increasingly harsher copyright enforcement confer a strong moral cause for government interference of free market innovation. When a Harvard Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies raises these concerns, perhaps it is time we stop and consider this.

 

I have to say that, given the limited time he had to work with, I am very impressed with Prof. Benkler’s ability to address many important issues surrounding the MegaUpload case in such a succinct manner. Lack of due process. The legal targeting of an entire industry and the effect that has on the free market. While these topics are deserving of in depth scrutiny on their own, it was the moral issue raised at the end that caught my attention.

Now, I don’t generally like to argue morals because they tend to get a bit sticky with each party holding fast to whichever beliefs they identified themselves as before any debate even begins. How do you decide whose morals are right and whose are wrong?

Do you go by the majority rule? As Benkler stated:

“The moral authority of the networked public is on a different plane than the moral authority of lobbyist companies and that’s an enormous power to be reckoned with.”

This is clearly reflected by the 71% of recently polled Americans who feel that censorship is a far worse threat to society than piracy. The millions of people who contacted their government officials in protest of SOPA censorship was so overwhelming, I nearly took for granted that it needs mention.

Something else struck me about this moral when he gave his closing statement.

“It’s critically important that this new political force be focused on what will build a network that supports the industry in its legitimate needs, not in it’s overstated fears of piracy, for which there is no real data.”

This is something that had occurred to me only recently. If all practical reasons or perceived “bogey man” type threats surrounding the word “piracy” are discounted, then there is not much left to look at other than the moral cause for such extreme legal action. Is there even a moral basis to be found here? Is there a moral excuse for an open legal attack on a rather young industry which had found a popular niche in the marketplace?

Unfortunately, this is not something I can argue for because no matter how hard I try to play devil’s advocate for the legal authorities involved, I can not see a moral motive behind their willingness to take such extreme action on behalf of copyright lobbyists. It is really difficult for one to see anything beyond greed or ignorance as the underlying motive here. Please, I challenge you to raise some moral support for the general attack on innovation by these lobbyists. Just give me one moral argument that has not already been completely refuted. Those of us who have paid close attention to these issues just can’t spend any more time explaining why file-sharing does not equal theft.

There is no strong practical or moral argument to justify the tremendous money and resources that go into preventing innovative companies from settling their own business conflicts with the established industry in a civil (not criminal) court of law. That said, Prof. Benkler is right. It is time to focus on what is best for society as a whole. Granted, that includes even the lobbyists who insist that we drag them kicking and screaming toward progress.

It’s not that we hate you, lobbyists. It’s just that, you know, things have been kind of rough for the rest of us lately and we could really use new industries, jobs and the many benefits that the internet actually offers us in spite of you. It is a great time to take a look at the solutions and benefits that lie in wait for us all. This type of progress is inevitable and the rest of the world has a moral duty to see it meet our common needs instead of waiting around for the industry to keep up.

Anti-Pirate Prejudice Taught to Beginning Programmers

I’m a bit hurt today. I think “hurt” is the best way to put it, because it hurts me whenever I see society kicking itself in the proverbial balls. “Why,” you ask? Because today I read a lesson in an introductory programming course which displayed a devastating display of institutional ignorance being instilled in young programmers. It is an unfounded bias that I believe to be the source of much of the confusion in the professional approach to software development and the enforcement of copyright and software patents today. What was the unfounded, biased implication made in this lesson? That open source is in some way a bad thing.

This school, while by no means Ivy League, is accredited and is listed in the US Dept. of Education database of accredited postsecondary institutions and programs as such. So how bad was this lesson? Well, the biased slip is rather subtle, which makes it far too easy to be accepted as fact rather than opinion by those who are not already aware of the values of open source. Especially since the main topic of the lesson is not one of licensing.


The lesson is explaining the differences between compiled vs. interpreted programming languages. Speaking in regard to compiled programming languages, the following is said:

“There are advantages for creating programs this way, one of which is that you can give out the .exe file to users without giving them the source code of the program.”

I realize I am posting this out of context, but I assure you that no definition of “advantages” or explanation of why it is an advantage to hide the source code of a program is given throughout the lesson or in any of the prior lessons leading up to it.

Later in the lesson, speaking of interpreted languages, the word “advantage” is never used, nor are there any advantages implied. You will, however, notice some very different language used here.

“One disadvantage of this method is that when you give out your program for others to use, you are giving them the source code of the program.”

Interpreted lagnuages represent those that generally produce software in an open source fashion by default. Again, no explanation is given for why this could possibly be considered a disadvantage. Why does these disadvantaged programming languages even exists? Should we be building ramps for these languages, because it sounds like they might have trouble getting up stairs?

As a student, I am left to either blindly accept it as a fact that open source development is some sort of disadvantage or to call into question the validity of this institution’s capacity to competently education students in this field of study. Opting for the path less traveled, I chose the latter. This little slip of anti-pirate sentiment was enough for me to go as far as double-checking whether this school is even accredited. It also had me wondering just how prevalent this issue is among otherwise reputable schools.

Even Stanford, home of Stanford Center for Internet & Society, makes it clear that any student caught copying another students code will be suspended, charged with 40 hours of community service and issued a no pass/no credit for the related course. In the collaboration policy for their CS143 class on compilers, Pascal Van Hentenryck, Prof. of computer science at Brown University, is quoted.

“Your code is like your boyfriend or girlfriend. It’s okay to talk about it on an abstract, high level. But you don’t want to go into the specific details, and you certainly don’t want to share.”

The following is specifically discouraged by students of Stanford as per the honor code:

* Copying code
* Using work from past quarters
* Studying someone else’s code
* Debugging someone else’s code

These rigid standards and harsh policies shared by some of the most prestigious schools in the world are most often taught before a student has even written their first “Hello World!” program. They set a foundation for the entire career of many of tomorrow’s software developers without allowing the student of software programming to consider the realm of benefits offered open source development, shaping their programming method to be one restricted to reinventing the wheel.

Granted, reinventing the wheel is a necessary skill if you are entering the world of proprietary software. My only gripe is that the opportunity for the student to choose whether or not to work in proprietary or open source development is not given. Proprietary development has, in essence, been made “opt-out” by leading educational institutions.

Of course I am not writing this to get down on Stanford or Brown University or any specific school. I am simply exploring one area in which we may find solutions to problems related to copyright, software patents and piracy which become much more difficult to approach further down the road when that student begins developing software for real world application. Copyright infringement and patent disputes will remain an eternal struggle for software developers for as long as software is developed and released under a proprietary license.

On the other hand, have you tried to pirate GNU licensed software lately? It’s Gnot possible. mehuhuh

In a recent piece by Pirate Party founder, Rick Falkvinge, he labels policy makers (as opposed the Hollywood and rights groups) as the primary target that will ultimately lead to the copyright and patent reform that must be made if we are to maintain our rights to free speech and civilian privacy. Why might policy makers be views as such an important “target” to Mr. Falkvinge? It is likely because it is the enforcement of bad policy that threatens said rights. Good policies must and, therefore, good policy makers must be put in place in order to ward off such threats to our freedoms and economies.

Educational institutes have a responsibility to the future heirs to the software industry to set policies into motion, providing a foundation which will produce ethical software developers who will build a better software industry, a stronger economy and a society extends benefits to more rather than few. It is important to embrace and espouse educational policies which do not threaten our human rights, but instead harness their benefits. To do this, students must be given, at the very least, a clear, unbiased understanding of open source philosophy so that they may decide on their own whether open source or proprietary is more advantageous the themselves as individuals and to the industry and society they belong.

P2P May Become The New Cloud, New Mobile Network

Green Pirate recently spoke with Dilum Bandara of Colorado State University’s Computer Networking Research Laboratory (CNRL) where research is being done to discover new ways in which the power of P2P technology can be leveraged to improve many existing technologies. This one is for futurist nerds, anonymous ciphernauts and anyone else who loves seeing distributed P2P technologies implemented in new ways. CNRL is currently seeking feedback from BitTorrent users as well as developers, researchers and those in various industries which may benefit from CP2P.

“How cool would it be if Open Office is online like Google Docs? Though open-source community behind Open Office will be eager to develop an online version, no one is willing to invest in a large datacenter. What if each of us can contribute residual computing, storage, and bandwidth resources in our computing devices to build a globally-distributed virtual datacenter, that can not only run Open Office but also many other FOSS tools?”

“CP2P [Collaborative Peer to Peer] system is the heart of such a community-based, cloud computing system that interconnects underutilized computing resources from homes/businesses.”

According to Bandara, there are some problems with the current cloud model that could be solved by moving to a decentralized model.

“P2P clouds will be able to target issues such as centralized data, privacy, proprietary applications, and cascading failures in commercial clouds. CP2P enables a set of community members to contribute their storage and bandwidth to store (encrypted) user files, and a second set of members may contribute their computing power for backend processing, while a third group of resources may enforce security and privacy.”

For the many people who are now faced with having their data destroyed by what is a foreign government to a portion of them, a decentralized solution may not seem like a bad idea.

Researched is also being carried out to find ways of improving the way data is transferred over mobile devices to allow for a powerful means of decentralized mobile communications.

“Mobile Social Networks – Value of social networks can be enhanced by allowing users to share diverse resources available in their mobile devices. For example, a person with a basic mobile phone could connect to a friend’s smart phone with GPS capability to locate a nearby ATM. In another example, a group sharing their holiday experiences in a coffee shop could use one of the member’s projection phone to show pictures from others’ mobiles/tablets or stream videos from their home servers.”

“Moreover, in large social gathering such as carnivals, sports events, or political rallies users’ mobile devices can be used to share hot deals, comments, videos, or vote for a certain resolution without relying on a network infrastructure. CP2P is useful in these applications to aggregate and connect groups of mobile resources based on their users’ social relationships.”

Already, weather monitoring networks which have found decentralized CP2P technology to be most appropriate have been created.

“DCAS – CASA is an emerging dense network of weather radars that collaborate in real time to detect hazardous atmospheric conditions such as tornados and thunderstorms. CP2P-based data fusion provides an attractive implementation choice for CASA real-time radar data fusion, where data is constantly being generated, processed, and pushed and pulled among groups of heterogeneous radars, storage, and processing nodes. The group of radars, processing, and storage elements involved in tracking a particular weather event continues to change as the weather event migrates in both time and space. Moreover, certain rare but severe weather events require specific metrological algorithms and more computation, storage, and bandwidth resources to track and forecast/nowcast about the behavior of those weather events.”

Fortunately, a CP2P model allows a community to offer up its resources in order to meet these needs and receive early warnings of severe weather patterns such as tornadoes.

“A CP2P system can exploit the temporal and spatial diversity of weather events to dynamically aggregate underutilized resources from anywhere in the system to enhance the resource utilization and reduce cost. Similarly, crowd sourced, community-based weather monitoring systems such as weatherunderground.com can benefit from CP2P. Armature methodologists may provide data from their home-based weather stations, while another set of community members may provide computing power to process those data to predict weather, and a third group may provide bandwidth and storage to enable public access those weather predictions.”

Bandara explains that CP2P is a common solution for multiple applications.

“P2P clouds, mobile social networks, and DCAS depend on some form of resource collaboration and strong social networks. These resources are characterized by multiple static and dynamic attributes, e.g., CPU speed, free CPU, memory, bandwidth, operating system, and a list of installed applications/middleware. These multi-attribute resources need to be combined in a timely manner to meet the performance and quality of service requirements of CP2P applications. Yet, it’s nontrivial to discover, aggregate, and utilize heterogeneous and dynamic resources that are distributed.”

“Moreover, characteristics and preferences of user communities need to be understood to better utilize resources provided by users while ensuring their incentives, security, and privacy preferences are not violated. Our goal at Computer Networking Research Laboratory (CNRL) of the Colorado State University, USA is to recognize these foreseen challenges, formalize the problems, understand the resource, user, and community characteristics, and develop fundamental building blocks that other developers, industry, and researchers can build upon.”

*I left every word of Bandara's description as I received it, so if you are not up for reading the tech talk, I suggest viewing the GREEN text in the original version which summarizes each section.

CNRL has been steadily making progress with the development of CP2P and is currently researching ways to create better decentralized search strategies.

“To date, we have shown that BitTorrent communities are not isolated, proposed a community-aware caching solution for DHT-based solutions such as BitTorrent, analyzed the characteristics of resources and queries from real-world systems, developed a tool to generate synthetics traces of resources and queries for large-scale performance study of CP2P solutions, analyzed performance of existing resource discovery schemes and illustrated why they fail under real workloads, and developed a solution for large-scale and multi-attribute resource discovery.”

CP2P researchers are currently reaching out to the BitTorrent community for feedback about how search is commonly performed today. The anonymous, eight question survey has been extend until April 8th.

“Our current survey focuses on user access of multiple BitTorrent search engines/sites with the objective of developing better community-based search strategies. Lots of work needs to be done to realize the full potential of CP2P, and we invite other developers, industry, and researchers to contribute to this vast and emerging field.”

Draconian ‘Privacy Invasion Bill’ Continues to Gain Support

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) hasn’t received a whole lot of media attention yet, but it continues to pick up support from legislators.

The bill is touted as being much worse than SOPA when it comes to privacy invasions.

Just as SOPA put an emphasis on piracy, CISPA also appears to include the infringement of intellectual property as a security threat warranting access to user data. The definition of “theft or misappropriation of private or government information” is given four times throughout the bill H.R. 3523.

Under CISPA, Internet providers and other companies could be expected to hand user data over to government agencies and even other companies upon request.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), it “would let companies spy on users and share private information with the federal government and other companies with near-total immunity from civil and criminal liability. It effectively creates a ‘cybersecurity’ exemption to all existing laws.”

The EFF is concerned that, due to the vague language used in the bill, “a company like Google, Facebook, Twitter, or AT&T could intercept your emails and text messages, send copies to one another and to the government, and modify those communications or prevent them from reaching their destination if it fits into their plan to stop cybersecurity threats.”

After the huge public outcry against SOPA and ACTA, it is hard to imagine that CISPA will sit well with the greater online community.

And is it really needed in the first place?

Acquiring user data would merely be a reaction to whatever security breach may have already taken place. Without being a security expert, it raises major privacy concerns for this writer. As someone who regularly relies on many popular online services, it is disheartening to think that a bill is being introduced which would create such potential horror scenarios by so readily offering up access to user data.

A good social engineer (con man) would have a field day gaining access to user data with a simple phone call by posing as this or that government agency/corporate entity. It happens all the time at present.

It will be interesting to hear from security experts as to whether CISPA would actually provide any additional security or if it’s only creating a nightmarish internet environment wrought with much worse security vulnerabilities then we are faced with today.

MIT and Harvard Create Open-Source Online Learning Platform

edX is the name of a new online learning platform developed and led by leaders from MIT and Harvard University.

“Features will include: self-paced learning, online discussion groups, wiki-based collaborative learning, assessment of learning as a student progresses through a course, and online laboratories.”

The founders intend to revise and improve upon this platform as time goes by. “Because it is open source, the platform will be continuously improved.”

As it stands, quality educational material is reserved for the elites of society; those of us who are wealthy enough to buy an education and those of us who are smart enough to find pirated educational content. Unfortunately, the rest of us are screwed.

It may only be the beginning, but extending access to educational material which helps people of all financial circumstances to develop practical skills in this way could set a major precedent for universities everywhere to follow.

Another great aspect of this way of providing educational tools is that it begins to put education back into the hands of society. As student learning is evaluated and the edX program is revised, it will ultimately be the students who shape the model of education.

“The platform will also serve as a laboratory from which data will be gathered to better understand how students learn.”

The peer reviewed nature of relying on a wiki database means that the quality of information will ultimately be held to the higher standards of being subject to scrutiny by many as opposed to a few. It leave little room for personal agendas while putting much more emphasis on providing accurate information.

Perhaps we will see a day when all universities collaborate the same way MIT and Harvard are doing to create a massive online collection of educational tools and content.

You can visit edX to at http://www.edxonline.org/

Marketing Concepts Examples for MBA Students

A Professor Explained Marketing to MBA Students

1. You see gorgeous girl in party, you go to her & say I am rich marry me - "That’s – Direct Marketing."

2. You attend party & your friend goes to a girl & pointing at you, tells her: He is very rich, marry him - "That’s Advertising."

3. Girl walks to you & says u are rich, can u marry me? - "That’s Brand Recognition"

4. You say I m very rich marry me & she slaps you - “That’s Customer Feedback“

5. You say I m very rich marry me & she introduces you to her husband - “That’s Demand & Supply Gap“

6. Before you say I m rich, marry me, your wife arrives - "That’s Restriction from Entering New Market."

Difference between Focusing on Problems and Focusing on Solutions

Case 1:
When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that
the pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink won't flow down to the writing

surface). To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million.

They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater,
in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range
from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.

And what did the Russians do...?? They used a pencil

Case 2:
One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case
of the empty soapbox, which happened in one of Japan's biggest cosmetics
companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a
soapbox that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to
the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the
delivery department. For some reason, one soapbox went through the assembly
line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem.

The engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution
monitors manned by two people to watch all the soapboxes that passed
through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked
hard and they worked fast but they spent a huge amount to do so.

But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the
same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., but
instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial
electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on,
and as each soapbox passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of
the line.


Moral Of The Story:
Always look for simple solutions.Focus on solutions, not on problems.

Facebook IPO Scam

As in my previous blog about FaceBook I made the claim that Wall Street and FB executives and employees were simply using the IPO to make cash for themselves. FB is on the decline as a company, so stock price, which represents future value, should be priced low and will continue to declive over time.
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Well, FB has lost over 8% just today
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I don't feel like digging through the SEC Form 4s to see how much stocks were "given" to the FB executives, but the underwriters are getting paid $176,000,000 just for helping FB go public.
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Wall Street is a different animal these days. It seems its primary purpose is to take money from investors and pocket it. Same goes for executives of major corporations.
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India Wants UN to Control Web

India suggested moving away to a government-run multilateral body which would relegate civil society, private sector, international companies and technical and academic groups to the fringes in an advisory role.

Meanwhile, the proposal is gaining traction in the United Kingdom without any public consultation, though the move impacted 800 million mobile and 100 millionInternet users from the country.
India suggested that Committee for Internet Related Policies (aka CIRP) develop online policies, oversee all online standards bodies and policy outfits, and negotiate web-related treaties. In addition, it would also rule on online-related disputes.
The Committee would be funded by the United Nations, governed by staff from the UN’s Conference on Trade and Development arm and report directly to the UN General Assembly. In other words, the outfit will be entirely controlled by the UN’s member states.
The opponents of this suggestion can’t explain the advantages of the present situation, where the web is governed by a voluntary, multi-stakeholder group namedICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Since this outfit is headquartered in California, the only government which has a say in its operations is the United States, which means that the web is in fact controlled by the US government.
However, the local newspapers claim that there’s something worse than the anti-Christ afoot for the nation’s interest in controlling work performed by ICANN, adding that this outfit will give a lot more government control over the web. Actually, India started worrying about the web when anti-government corruption campaigner Anna Hazare has managed to attract large crowds at the Ram Lila grounds by using the web and social media.
In the meantime, the trouble with the Indian plan is not that it has some secret plot, but more that it puts politicians in charge of the Internet. According to the local press, a 50-member inter-governmental process lodged within the bureaucracy of the United Nations, meeting once every year for 2 working weeks in Switzerland, can’t really be useful for the web development.
Thus far, China, Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have already confirmed that they also want government control over the web.

Deepika Padukone in IPL5

Beautiful Deepika Padukone giving her sweet smile in T20 Extra Innings before starting of first qualifier of DLF IPL-5 between Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders on 22nd May 2012 which Kolkata Knight Riders won.

[May be she was present there as she would have thought that the team in Red dress is Royal Challengers Bangalore!:P]

Looking Gorgeous!!..:D

There are three kind of people

Haha, This one is so true. Isn't it? Like and Share it if you agree!

There are three kind of people:

1. Impatient
2. Patient
3. Rich

SINGLE Attitude Quote

Single? No, I'm just in a relationship with freedom! :)

AFTER SACHIN RETIRES

A photographic facts representation about what will happen when Sachin declares his retirement by a die hard crazy fan.