modern kootuk Kudumbam

That the family members and relatives living in far-off places (US, UK, India, Australia) becoming the norm, doesn't stop us from living together! This which might sound strange occured to me when my sister-in-law was looking after me recovering from the ACL surgery for the past ten days. The moment my brother walks into his house in Atlanta would log on to skype and we would do the same in NJ. The quality of the chatter is so clear that we would leave it connected in one room and would be walking all over the house and he would be able to hear us and vice versa. The whole ten days I felt like my brother living next door. We would cook together, eat together (at the same time) , share our thoughts and tease each other. This is exactly what we would do back home when we all lived together with our uncles and cousins in one home. I plan to take broadband connection in my parents' place and thus we would be living together even though the parents are in India, one brother in Atlanta and myself over here. While we are on skype, it would be like sitting and yaping in the living hall in my childhood days.

As an offshoot, I tried to use more of the wireless technology, I found the following information. This might be useful to the readers as and when they think of trying this.

Minimizing Bluetooth Interference
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/1379911

I saw that my Toshiba Techra A3 laptop has a built-in bluetooth antenna, hence bought a plantronics bluetooth headset in the Blackfriday sale for $9.99. I tried to use it to unleash myself . After much trial and calls to Toshiba, I found that it needs an optional bluetooth mobile toolkit to carry the signals picked up by the antenna into the cpu?!!! I decided to buy an external USB blue tooth adapter from buy.com for free. After that I would test and see whether I experience whatever I read in the above article.

What goes comes over. Let us re-invent the wheel.

This week articles

This is a tactical move - IBM Lenovo's retail move
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2005/
tc20051103_908972.htm?link_position=link1&campaign_id=
nws_tech_Nov4

This is a strategic move - Sprint-Nextel-Cable wireless
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2005/
tc20051103_235560.htm?link_position=link2&campaign_id=
nws_tech_Nov4

Beware of - Online stock hackers
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2005/
tc20051103_565150.htm?link_position=link10&campaign_id=
nws_tech_Nov4

I think a lot of folks would agree with this
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1292.cfm

Why Shoot the messenger?

Paul Vocker, former US Federal Bank President (before Alan Greenspan) is a distinguished gentleman and definitely not a politician. He has done his job as professionaly as possible. As recently as the Enron scandal, he conducted investigation into Arthur Andersen consulting and this time around the UN's Iraq Oil for Food program.

A little background will help understand the Natwar singh link. While Iraq was banished by the UN security council, a little commercial window was opened by the UN. The little window let Iraq barter Oil for Food at a price determined by UN. Since the little window was not enough for Iraq, the president of the country, in Capitalism terms cut deals with various traders who were hungry for oil. As the rest of the world is cut out of the Iraqi oil right now, the US traders were out of the Iraqi oil then. The political power brokers or the lobby groups always serve in the middle ground between businessmen of the world and the respective governments.

The US govt. cut out of Iraqi oil business in the last decade was gunning for some reason to get in and in the pre-text of WMD, they eventually got in. Now that the reason is not valid anymore the US government was looking for some other reason to throw at the world. So they dug this up and hence the report. However this wouldn't justify Iraqi Invasion. Who will dig the current spate of contracts being handed out by the US backed Iraqi government? There got to be another conqueror to do that! We all know that Winners write history. This is exactly what is happening in the saga of Paul Vocker report and Natwar Singh.

Even if Natwar singh or whoever is accused of in the report has done some deals, it is only as condemnable as the current political power (both Iraq and US). They are businessmen, lobbyists and politicians and they play their role according to the situation. In US terms they are power brokers and entrepreuners.

Why shoot the messenger or blame the bearer of bad tidings?