Virtual war between Estonia and Russia

If you are a quiz freak like me then this mark this week as the time when world’s first virtual war between two nations took place.
New York Times reports on how quickly Estonia which calls itself E-stonia turned into E-stoned (ok last one I added!) -
The computer attacks, apparently originating in Russia, first [...]

Flat world under microscope

This was bound to happen as it makes for such a juicy political resume builder. Outsourcing is a hot button and H1B visa is it’s most visible aspect. Business Week reports that Senators Chuck Grassley and Richard Durbin are going after leading outsourcing companies.
Unfortunately congress will put this under political arena and will run the [...]

How to raid offshore suppliers employee base

Interesting data point on Sadagopan’s blog:
The top 50 IT services vendors employed 1.7 million employees at the end of their most recent reported financial years. This is an almost an increase of 13% of the comparable total of 1.5 million from the previous year. Much of this growth has been driven by the major offshore [...]

Good manners means knowing when to keep your mouth shut

Is he sick or just plain moron.
Sorry I couldn’t control my reaction as this guy is just trying to hijack a purely human tragedy into something political.
There are more than 33 families deep in tragedy and last thing they need is a senseless politics and media circus around their private emotions.

Laurie Baker passed away

Laurie Baker, social worker and champion of low-cost housing, passed away at the age of 90 years.
I first learned about his work in 1991 while arranging temporary shelters for earthquake affected villagers, which happened in the cold Himalayan region of Uttarkashi. His key contribution was the unique architectural style.
Baker’s architectural method is one of [...]

Nobody died

Billion odd people distraught
Reminded me of Boris Becker’s famous response: I didn’t lose a war. Nobody died.
My friend’s 8 year old wondering loudly:
“I don’t understand what’s the big deal. It’s just a game”
Poor kid still figuring out why her father is suddenly so irrational.

Spooky Wall Street Games

Father of Fortran John Backus Passed Away

Man who introduced Fortran and BNF to the world died at age 82. For everybody who started with Fortran in the college knows the academic importance of that language.
Back then I hated learning Fortran but now I can fully appreciate the intellectual effort involved in the creation of a first widely used functional programming [...]

Jack says Chinese have more grrr factor than Indians

Steve Hamm leads the cover story on what can go wrong in India.  Jack Welch mentions superior grrr factor giving productivity edge to Chinese. 
To me this grrr factor sound same as hunger for success which should be same globally at the individual level?

Coming soon: Cricket - Made in China

Anything China does has serious impact across the world. Bloomberg reports on the silent diplomacy used by China to counter Taiwan’s influence in West Indies.
Big news in that post is what China is doing about that big Indian obsession called Cricket:
China aims to have 150,000 players, a league and a “credible” national team by 2020, [...]