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Best of AnthoBLOGy • Unripe Revolution • Rooster's Dharma • Don't Know Jack • No Love for Condi • Blogger's Block • Father of the Bride • TinTin's Diary - I • TinTin's Diary II • Hate Bollywood • Child Labor • M.F.Husain Guilty •Marathi & Konkani • Artist's Daughter • India's First IT Guru

Computing, Libraries, Tennis, India & other interests of Vikas Kamat

Misc. Notes

Some random notes/links: Ramesh Kamath sent me a link to the delightful Konkani song Gongo-ailo-Gongo . Very nice! I am a few days late, but nonetheless very proud of the landmark: The number of pictures searchable in our has crossed 10,000. Mukul Dey Archives is delightful website I discovered recently. (Comments Disabled for Now. Sorry!) First Written: Sunday, October 3, 2004 Last Modified: 10/3/2004 10:20:29 PM

Lost and Found Picture

I once wrote (see Destiny's Games ) that "we do not have even one photograph of Kamat working in his shop." Then Dr. Somashekar, a customer of my father in 1972, sent a photograph that he took. It is autographed by my father and is a treasure. Now we have a photograph of Kamat sitting in his shop! I find it amazing because how many customers in a photo studio photograph the photographer?! (and ask him to autograph it, and then keep it for decades?!) I know it was taken in the lab because the handle of the photo-trimmer is visible on the desk! K. Somashekar Photograph of Kamat in his Lab. taken by a customer See Also: Kamat's Scientific Photo Lab. (Comments Disabled for Now. Sorry!) First Written: Thursday, October 7, 2004 Last Modified: 6/14/2013 2:04:29 PM

Greetings from Caribbean
Greetings from Carnival Conquest! I will be back on Oct. 18. (Comments Disabled for Now. Sorry!) First Written: Monday, October 11, 2004 Last Modified: 10/17/2004 8:46:36 PM

Kamats in Media

Kamat.com is Website of the Week in Dallas My hearty thanks to the DallasNews writer for a wonderful recommendation (Subscription Required) and review of Kamat's Potpourri. She says that with people like Kamats around, "the evil doesn't have a chance". Wow. What a great compliment! Now I feel the burden to live upto that expectation! Dignity Dialogue I have recieved a copy of the "Dignity Dialogue" magazine featuring Amma on the cover. It is a delightful interview, and features an introduction by the editor. Jyotsna's writings are not lost in the dusty shelves of academic libraries in Karnataka, but are made very available to the public through the regularly blogged pages in the World-wide-Web. The voluminous writing is astounding. But Dr. Kamat wears her learning very light on her shoulders. Her simple and frank interview of who she is as a person, what her husband achieved for her and himself, how she simplifies her mundane life to the barest essentials preferring to indulge instead on the deep and the profound are some of the glimpses captured by my new associate editor Jitendra Kothari in the cover feature article. About Kamat.com, the editor writes "..an mind boggling site of rare depth and coverage". Very nice review. Thanks! (Comments Disabled for Now. Sorry!) First Written: Monday, October 18, 2004 Last Modified: 10/18/2004 9:59:54 PM

India's Convoluted Problems

Have you seen that Java wireframe applet (I can't find the link now) where if you elevate one vertex, all other nodes fall down, and vice-versa? That's how I feel when discussing India's problems. You can't isolate one problem and solve it. If you thought that corruption, poverty, pollution, and caste system are India's most urgent problems, wait a minute! BG Mahesh: Infrastructure Problems of Bangalore Madhu Menon: Alienation of Indians in India My complaint of the day with India: Why does the phone company keep changing the area codes and telephone numbers? I guess they have no concept of durable numbers. In middle of the these micro-complaints is the profound issue of killing of the bandit. I personally do not think Veerappan caused more harm to India or environment than the thugs running India's governments. You know, if they didn't shoot him dead, he would one day have become a Governor or something. We elected the bandit queen to the parliment, didn't we ? BTW, the Moustache Man in our collection is NOT Veerappan the bandit. Recommended Link Aperture PhotoBlog: Talking Torn Shirts... (Comments Disabled for Now. Sorry!) First Written: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 Last Modified: 10/24/2004 9:24:59 PM

Digital Object Identifiers (DOI)

DOI is not DUI Creators of Web content often are faced with linkrot, which is the problem of a URL changing or expiring, and causing the Webpage to break. People have suggested caching servers, durable URLs and permalinks to circumvent this problem. Although I am not fully convinced, in some ways, that's a problem the emerging Digital Object Identifier (DOI) standard will solve. DOIs also have the advantage that the URLs are shorter and very specific. Like the competing OpenURL standard (see my review "Problem with OpenURLs"), DOI has numerous applications in scholarly publishing, in electronic aggregations, electronic libraries, and digital archiving.  Example: Let's say you want to link to my article in ACM Software Engineering Notes. The actual URL is something like http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=126501&jmp=cit&dl=GUIDE& dl=ACM&CFID=30024329&CFTOKEN=32606966#CIT Now who can remember that URL ?! Whereas using DOI, the URL is simply: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/126496.126501 and is typically guaranteed to be durable even if the website changes its underlying technologies (from CFM to ASP to ASPX or JSP). Soliciting Peers See: My other blog entries on Library Technologies My company provides technologies and services for libraries, publishers, and aggregators. Contact me at if you have specific questions or inside industry tips. (Comments Disabled for Now. Sorry!) First Written: Thursday, October 28, 2004 Last Modified: 10/29/2004 7:58:38 PM

Remembering November of 1984

Some first-person history for the kids among my readers. Exactly twenty years ago (is it really twenty years? oh my!) I was a freshman in college, and they had just assassinated Indira Gandhi. A boy I knew told me that Sikhs were being butchered. I told him not to spread such rumours, because I didn't think such a thing would happen in Independent India. There was not much media coverage about the violence on Sikhs; afterall the violence was sponsored by the ruling goverment; there were horrible rumours -- which were confirmed only much later. IMO murder and looting of Sikhs is the most shameful event to take place in India since independence. To this day, no one has been punished. Punished by the law enforcement of India that is. I'll be honest with you. I really felt that the powers of justice that rule our world were at work, when the terrorists killed one of the thugs (if I recall, he was the son-in-law of the then President of India) responsible for the riots. They chased him in the streets like a dog and killed him as he begged for his life -- in the same way his men had killed innocent Sikhs of Delhi. Another Congress leader who is said to have arranged the riots, was later made into a minister for Information and Broadcasting -- the ministry under which my mother worked, so in some ways, he became her boss. How unfortunate! Remember how the Palestinians danced after 9/11? As repulsive as it was to us in the non-Islamic world, there was a reason for their celebration. Similarly, some Sikhs had danced and celebrated the murder of Indira gandhi on that fateful November day, that is said to have triggered the riots. I digressed. BBC: Painful Memories of 1984 See Also: • What I really think of Indira Gandhi • Sikhism Potpourri (Comments Disabled for Now. Sorry!) First Written: Sunday, October 31, 2004 Last Modified: 11/27/2004 7:01:35 AM

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