Month: September 2008

Face it you love yourself !!!

We all should know by now not to put stuff on our Facebook profiles that might someday come back to bite us on the behind: no pictures of ourselves doing drugs, skipping work, or dancing naked on the table.

But a new study suggests that, even if we’re careful what we post, our Facebook pages might reveal more about ourselves than we realize.

Researchers at the University of Georgia set out to discover whether people who were narcissists in real life could be identified as such simply by the way they crafted their Facebook profiles. Lead author Laura Buffardi, a doctoral student in psychology who co-wrote the study with associate professor W. Keith Campbell, did personality assessments of 129 Facebook users (all students at the university) to determine whether they qualified as narcissists — self-promoting, self-aggrandizing people who often seem charming and easily attract other people but don’t typically form warm or lasting relationships. (One could argue that the very act of establishing a presence on Facebook, as I have done, is an act of narcissism, but that’s a topic for another study.)

The researchers have analyzed the participants’ Facebook profiles and had untrained strangers do the same. They found that the number of “Friends” on a person’s Facebook and the number of “wallposts” they have there correlated with their narcissism. That figures, Buffardi suggests, as narcissists tend to have lots of shallow relationships rather than a few solid ones. Narcissists on Facebook also tended to post more glamorous photos of themselves in their profiles. (Thank goodness my photo’s so frumpy so is my friend who has a photogenic gene!)

It’s interesting to see how narcissism plays out on the on-line social networking scene, in which millions of teens, young adults, and even full-grown folks like me take part. But the really fascinating, and perhaps scary, thing is to think about the implications beyond this study. If researchers can look at my Facebook page and make an educated guess that I’m a narcissist, what else might they be able to discern?

What do you make of this Facebook/personality trait connection? Interesting party game? Mountain out of a molehill? Or is it a serious concern?

source: Washington Post
original paper : Narcissism and Social Networking Web Sites

Make Face Time

This cant continue, the formless bodiless living on cyberspace.

Get off the internet,power down, log off, unplug … make face time.
“Make face time,” was created by McCann Erickson for Dentyne chewing gum.
People under 20 are the most avid gum chewers, the industry says, and the Dentyne campaign touches on the explosion in digital tools that help those young people connect, share and network. But it also seeks to make customers stop and question whether all that online communication is really making them closer.

“What’s meaningful is being reminded that being face to face can’t be substituted.” Read More

Hari Puttar – The Ghost

Ranbaxy tried hard on original drug compounds through proprietary research route- they failed. Indians are still incapable of being thought leaders after all they been encouraged to do what is being told, to knock off or copy. I personally feel that most Indian firms could be potential take over targets since their growth formula depends on incremental volumes and cost arbitrage unlike global leaders who are innovative and thinkers and have proprietary research in their portfolios.

And now “Hari Puttar” will probably provide the magic ingredient to the world to understanding the typical Indian Psyche. This will be haunt the Indian confidence and deal blows after blows to our image, and the worse is yet to come. There will be more companies and individuals who will be inspired by Hari Puttariqe style and like how USA (Ullasnagar Sindhi Association) mocked us for years, Hari Puttar will do to our current gen.
Its really sad that our Legal experts overlooked this perspective and went by the letter ignoring the spirit.

What is Android?

Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.
The Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies, developed Android: the first complete, open, and free mobile platform. To help developers get started developing new applications Android Software Development Kit is being offered.
Android will ship with a set of core applications including an email client, SMS program, calendar, maps, browser, contacts, and others. All applications are written using the Java programming language.

It is said that Android is about advertising not enterprise

Google Phone

Google smartphone that runs on new software designed by Google.

The device has a lot in common with Apple’s popular iPhone.
Photos, music and map services? Check, check and check.

It will be the first smartphone powered by the search engine company’s software, called Android.

Naturally, the device is Google-friendly, with a built-in button on the keyboard as a shortcut for online searches.

With its move into the smartphone market, Google is taking a slightly different approach from Apple. While Apple keeps control over the applications that can be sold or given away at its online store, any programmer can create and distribute software products designed to run on Google’s new operating system.

The Data Centre


New horizons in data centers
Recent months have brought a burst of innovation in data centers. We have seen data centers in semitrailers, data centers in caves, data centers in Siberia, data centers in the Las Vegas desert, and data centers that float in the middle of the ocean. Today we have word, via Data Center Knowledge, that Microsoft has been testing data centers in tents. (They’re calling it In Tents Computing.)
Read more in Nicholar Carr

We need Thought Leaders


Dark men in station wagon, typical profile of the leaders who rule our land. Here is this decent upright officer who had the gumption and the backbone to stand upright to a union minister. Instead of appreciating her sincerely she is being harassed.
We must not be carried by the emotions this incident packages but need to be aware of the pathetic quality of leadership we end up choosing, and also strive to make our children good leaders.
I believe this land of ours has no future if we do not have good responsible leaders.

readmore

Minimally invasive surgery to new levels

When Albert Pagliuca got gallstones, his surgeon offered to remove his gallbladder with a new operation designed to hurt less, get him back to work more quickly and leave no visible scars. But there was one catch: Doctors would pull the organ out through his mouth. “I kept thinking, ‘What if it gets stuck in my windpipe?’ ” said Pagliuca, 45, who lives outside Chicago. ” ‘What if I choke on it?’ “

After doctors guaranteed that would not happen, he agreed, becoming one of several dozen Americans who have undergone experimental procedures that could take minimally invasive surgery to a new level — operations that do not cut the skin open. Instead, surgeons enter the body through a “natural orifice.”
Surgeons have now performed the procedures on more than 400 patients worldwide, mostly in South America and India. Doctors in Europe are experimenting with them, and a handful of surgeons began trying the approach in the United States in the past year.

The technique has been used mostly to remove gallbladders through the mouth or the vagina. But a few patients have had appendectomies, and doctors are experimenting with stomach surgery for obesity and other conditions.

Tzipi Livni


Ehud Olmert officially resigned as prime minister of Israel on Sunday, but the woman who hopes to replace him, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, faces formidable obstacles in preserving the ruling coalition. Labor, her main governing partner, is weighing a move to early elections.