yes ,one person who looked like taking pakistan out of its mess is now gone .

http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/55114/benazir-shot-deat-at-rally-pak-erupts-in-violence.html

years of flirting with terrorism and perpetrators of terror is now being felt hard .
sadly it is the people who are feeling it than the people in power as civilian security and democracy keeps dipping down .

Michael of Tativille posted a nice list of the Ten best movies of each year starting from 1930 to 2006.

Michael is a rare Ph.D. in the history of Art and film studies and, needless to say, a lovable film buff. Do drop him a line if you like his work.

Here is his list for 2006:

• 1. Private Fears in Public Places (Alain Resnais, France/Italy)
• 2. Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/
  France/Austria)
• 3. Still Life (Jia Zhangke, China/Hong Kong)
• 4. Climates (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/France)
• 5. Kodak (Tacita Dean, United Kingdom/France/United States)
• 6. Longing (Valeska Grisebach, Germany)
• 7. I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan/France/
  Austria)
• 8. Opera Jawa (Garin Nugroho, Indonesia/Austria)
• 9. Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
• 10. Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, Portugal/France/Switzerland)

If you look at the whole list, it is pretty dominated by American and European (Italian and French) Cinema.

p.s: It is interesting to note that India has a small contribution to the list as well - around 23 movies out of the 760. But that pales in comparison to the number of movies we make in India every year !

The inauguration of Antha Sai Album, a devotional Album composed by the upcoming Telugu film Music Director Sri Krishna and written by established lyricists Varada Raju and Smt. Lalitha Trinadh, got off to an auspicious start at 7PM on 6th December 2007 in Sanathana Dharma Kendra, Sunnyvale, California.

The simple ceremony, hosted by Shabdalayam LLC (shabdalayam.com) and attended by special invitees and Sai Devotees, started with the Jyothi Prajvalana, a simple prayer to Sai Baba and inauguration of the first Song (a slokam from Sai Sachcharitha) by Joshiji, the head priest of Sanathana Dharma Kendra, a multi-theistic Hindu temple in the heart of the Silicon Valley that is quickly gaining popularity.

The presence of Sri Komati Jayaram, Vice President (President Elect) of Telugu Association of North America (TANA) as the Chief Guest of the evening added a special grace to the simple occassion. Sri Jayaram Komati, who received the first copy of the Album prior to the ocassion, wished the Album his best and inaugurated the second Song in the Album - ‘Gaganana’, a heartful rendition by Madhu Balakrishnan, a celebrity Malayam Singer who recently started lended his voice to some popular Telugu Devotional hits like ‘Ramadasu’.

In his opening speech for the third Song - ‘Antha Sai Mayam’ (sung by Padmasri S.P. Balasubramanyam), Sri Anand Kuchibhotla, Chairman and Founder of Silicon Andhra, who received the second pilot copy prior to the release, congratulated the founders of Shabdalayam on their music venture, introduced them to the audience and said he liked the songs very much for their lyrical values as well as the singers chosen to render them.

The Vice Chariman of Silicon Andhra, Dilip Kondiparthy, inaugurated the fourth Song - ‘Dhyaname’, another heartful rendition by Madhu Balakrishnan, wished the Album his best, received his copy on stage and enjoyed the preview of the song on stage.

The fifth song - ‘Gajjala Ghallu’, a powerful, fast rendition by Padmasri S.P. Balasubramanyam, was inaugurated by Surya Vakkalanka, founder of the first Telugu Band in United States, Avakai (also known in Hindi/English as Drumstix). Surya spoke on the ocassion and said he liked the Songs for offering a combination of modernity and Divinity.

Smt. Vijaya Asuri, the Cultural Queen of Bay Area Telugu Association (BATA) and a popular Bay Area patron for various Telugu Cultural Events and Celebrities ranging from Telugu Movie Stars to upcoming Artists, inaugurated the sixth song - “Shiridi Puramuna”, rendered by Nitya Santoshini. Vijaya Asuri spoke on the ocassion and said she liked the Album for presenting the devotion to Sai Baba in a very contemporary music style and wished it her best.

The seventh Song in the Album was a new interpretation to Sai Baba Harathi. The popular SareGama 2005 finalist Hemachandra rendered his best in this song, which was inaugurated by the duo of Umakanth Uppalapati and Sastry , popular patrons of Telugu Cinema in the Bay area and known as ’serial entrepreneurs’ in the bay area Telugu Community.

The eigth song - ‘Nirguna Nirmala’, rendered by the music director Sri Krishna himself was released by Veeru Vuppala, Regional Vice President of West Coast for TANA, a good friend of Jayaram Komati garu himself, a friendly co-host to many Telugu community events and a man who never says No when asked for help.

The program ended with a rendition of the songs after the release and best wishes from Sai Devotees and the guests who attended the function. The Album was received very well and sold well on its release day. The album is available for samples and purchases at http://www.shabdalayam.com/sai.

It looks like values are the last thing on mind in the M & A scene. Webfives, a company that specializes in the video & music sharing through mobile phones market, got bought over by a big company called Microsoft. ughh umm.

I love some Microsoft products like Excel and the idea that it saw value in and acquired a smaller company like Webfives but it is hard to understand why they have to shut down the current service itself.

This throws a direct contrast to what Google did with YouTube, despite taking over it almost an year ago. They made sure that the synergy worked well to create a better video search, a core Google function. At the same time, they continuously improved YouTube to make it more engaging and immersive.

They could have argued that YouTube infrastructure or staff is a redundant expense that needed to be shut down. But, they respected the differences and let both cultures bloom by working together. Now, that is a much smarter merger.

I have been mucking around this portal called Moola for sometime today and it makes perfect sense to me - as a revenue model and as a business model. Check it out! you might be in for a surprise !

You play in a death match mode, pitted against another player of similar level and the woo is doubling your cash reserves everytime you win ! Lose though, and you lose it all !

Essentially, that means moola needs to give away only a penny per user from its cash reserves. Unless, ofcourse, you lose your penny like I did and chose to invite friends or tell them where you live!

Given today’s CTR of 1-2%, I would say this model has a pretty good chance of being successful. The flash interface is pretty cool too! (tuh-da-da, Moola makes me lose control…:| )

Amazon launched Kindle, its version of the electronic book reader yesterday in a fancy NY setup that reminds us of the recent Apple Keynote where the iPhone was launched. Jeff Bezos seems to have done a good job explaining the features of the Kindle, if the blogosphere is some indication. It may lack the glamor of a Steve Jobs keynote but that is an entirely different conversation.

In the first day of the launch, there were some very strong,polarized opinions on the future of the Kindle. Some thought it was cool because of the seamless Amazon service and the sprint EVODO connection that it was bundled with. Some thought it looked like the next generation etch-a-sketch.

Some authors and publishers wanted to be in it and some say ‘no way Jose’ (or is it Jezos? J Bezos? Jeff Bezos? Get it? … ).

Regardless, I think the Kindle is the start of the digitization era for the last bastion of analog technology - books and print media. I like how the EVODO service was bundled into the device but donot like how you would have to pay to read blogs that you would otherwise get on the Internet for free.

All in all, from the reviews and press notes, I think the Kindle scored well in terms of screen readability and seamless uploads through the Sprint EVODO connection. It lost a few marks on User interface design and may lose big time on trying to make people pay for free content.

Most of all, I think it will create a market long forgotten till the Sony e-reader came out - the digital reader segment. Hopefully, this will push the iPhone and other portable devices into creating a better reader experience. To Kindle and beyond !

Something new I did not know about till today ..

The original meaning of the English word “man” (from Proto-Germanic mannaz, “person”) and words derived therefrom was used as a designation for any or all human beings regardless of gender or age. This is the oldest usage of “man”. In Old English the words wer and wyf (also wæpman and wifman) were used to refer to “a male” and “a female” respectively, and the word “man” was gender neutral. (This is still seen even today in certain words. For an example, there is the word “werewolf”, which literally means man-wolf.) Later, in Middle English, “man” displaced wer as the term for male humans, whilst wyfman, which eventually evolved into “woman”, was retained for female humans. Since then, the word “man” has been used to refer both to humanity as a whole (e.g., “Mankind”) and to male humans.