Author Archives: Abhi

About Abhi

Abhi lives in Los Angeles and works to put things into space.

Dating advice from…Al Qaeda

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An unintentionally hilarious (to me) story on NPR Monday morning. It seems that West Point researchers stumbled upon a terrorist recruitment “how-to” manual:

Researchers at West Point recently stumbled on the 51-page manual while they were visiting a jihadi chat room, called Ecles. It’s a Web site that allows members to have interactive discussions, post videos and download manuals. Ecles is the second most popular jihadi chat room on the Web, and al-Qaida often posts things there. Because of that, it is a place counterterrorism analysts track regularly.

So when the West Point analysts discovered a step-by-step primer called “The Art of Recruiting Mujahedeen,” it got their attention. On one level, the manual might be an early indication that al-Qaida is trying to identify new sleeper terrorists. On the other hand, the book is so basic it seems to suggest al-Qaida is getting desperate for new members. [Link]

What is it in the manual that suggests desperation to some? Well, if I were to slap a different, more pleasant cover on the book and then re-name it to, let’s say… “The Art of Seducing Desi Boys” I think I could make big money by marketing it to some SM readers. Behold the advice, straight from the manual [with my suggested modifications]:

Here’s how the manual, as translated by the CIA, suggests a recruiter build a rapport with a recruit:

“This stage lasts approximately three weeks [unless it overlaps with March Madness in which case it may take longer],” it says. “You must do something important at this stage [such as letting him go past first base]. You must identify his interests and relations with people [especially with his overprotective mother] and how he spends the whole 24 hours, meaning you study him secretly to be reassured about your choice [and make sure he does not talk about finance, medicine, or Battlestar Galactica too much…well definitely not finance or medicine].”

This section touches on such things as being nice to the recruit. It suggests the recruiter pretend to be his friend, perhaps even buy him small gifts [like the Wii]. It ends with a questionnaire to assess progress. “Is the recruit [more] anxious to see you [than Jamal was to see Latika]?” it asks. You get one point for “no” [because he probably doesn’t have many options anyways] and three points for “[hell] yes.” Does he accept your advice and respect your opinion [about how he should smile like Sanjay Gupta more often]?… “If you have received less than 10 points, you are on the wrong path [and need to try again on Shaddi.com, or a speed dating event], repeat the stages from the beginning. From 10 to 18, you are on your way [to achieving your Bollywood Dreams].” [Link]

I’m telling you. There is money to be made in this book idea of mine.

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A glimpse of the future…of wasting time

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Always hard at work behind the scenes (in the dark bowels of our North Dakota world blogging headquarters) our site administrator Chaitan often comes to me with suggestions for how we can improve your Sepia Mutiny experience. Often he helps us battle comment trolls and spammers by hacking clever new countermeasures on the fly to thwart them. Some of his ideas are just wacky, like the time he suggested we convert our blog to 3D (so you would need to wear those glasses). Even though I haven’t seen him in a few weeks because of some “Top Secret” project he has been working on for us, he did approach me over the weekend and said I had to blog about this new technology he heard about that was the hit of the TED conference this year. He explained that some day anyone would be able to just walk up to any wall and read SM. Heck, with this technology you could even read SM on your friend’s white t-shirt while pretending to be listening to said friend:

The inventor of this wearable technology that was constructed for ~$350 with off-the-shelf components is Pranav Mistry of MIT’s Media Lab:

Currently, I am a Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab. Before joining MIT I worked as a UX Researcher with Microsoft. I received my Master in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and Master of Design from IIT Bombay. I have completed my bachelors degree in Computer Science and Engineering. Palanpur is my hometown, which is situated in northern Gujarat in India.

Exposure to fields like Design to Technology and from Art to Psychology gave me a quite nice/interesting viewpoint to the world. I love to see technology from design perspective and vise versa. This vision reflects in almost all of my projects and research work as well. in short, I do what I love and I love what I do. I am a ‘Desigineer’ :)… [Link]

I confess, I did find it a bit creepy when he walked up to his friend and all of the friend’s metadata was laid bare on his shirt. Imagine your FB profile being projected on your shirt when someone meets you. Then again, how great would it be to sneak in to the toilet stall at work for an extended “visit” and write a blog post on a projected keyboard on the inside of the stall door? What? A blogger can dream…

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Cyberabad 2047

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I grew up reading almost exclusively sci-fi and fantasy books, sometimes one a day during the summers. I was like the main character in Oscar Wao except I wasn’t fat or bad with the ladies (well…I wasn’t fat). To this day, even though I blog for Sepia Mutiny and am surrounded by talented co-bloggers, some of whom are authors, I have never read a single book of desi-fiction. Ever. I have no excuse at all. It just hasn’t happened yet. I read books to escape into worlds that I can never be a part of, or to get smart on something that I want to know more about before I die. Desi-lit, no matter how far removed from my experiences, just seems too close. Every time I pick up a book of desi fiction I tell myself that this time I will read it, this will be the one…only to push it aside once again. Nobody has to tell me, I already know that it is my loss. I have a theory about books. I believe the right book falls into your hands when you are meant to read it. You don’t pick books, they pick you. I haven’t read a science fiction or fantasy book in at least a decade by the way.

The other day while reading Boing Boing I came across a book review that might just become my first desi fiction book. I say “might” because I can’t guarantee it until it happens given my fickle history. The book is titled Cyberabad Days: Return to the India of 2047 and is a collection of science fiction short stories:

Cyberabad Days returns to McDonald’s India of 2047, a balkanized state that we toured in his 2006 novel River of Gods, which was nominated for the best novel Hugo Award. The India of River of Gods has fractured into a handful of warring nations, wracked by water-shortage and poverty, rising on rogue technology, compassion, and the synthesis of the modern and the ancient.

In Cyberabad Days, seven stories (one a Hugo winner, another a Hugo nominee) McDonald performs the quintessential science fictional magic trick: imagining massive technological change and making it intensely personal by telling the stories of real, vividly realized people who leap off the page and into our minds. And he does this with a deft prose that is half-poetic, conjuring up the rhythms and taste and smells of his places and people, so that you are really, truly transported into these unimaginably weird worlds. McDonald’s India research is prodigious, but it’s nothing to the fabulous future he imagines arising from today’s reality. [Link]

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Inheriting…a bunch of dating problems

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The Washington Post featured an article this morning about ethnic dating patterns, primarily those in the Asian and South Asian American communities. At first I assumed, “here we go again, another hackneyed piece about arranged marriages or something.” While there were a few clichés in the article, it did feature an intriguing revelation (to me at least). 2nd generation South Asian Americans (like some other ethnic groups), are increasingly marrying within their race. The magnitude of the trend was somewhat shocking to me since South Asian Americans are better assimilated than our European counterparts, and truly homogeneous ethnic enclaves which would foster such trends are very rare in the U.S. I thought for sure there would be a minor slope in the opposite direction:

The number of native- and foreign-born people marrying outside their race fell from 27 to 20 percent for Hispanics and 42 to 33 percent for Asians from 1990 to 2000, according to Ohio State University sociologist Zhenchao Qian, who co-authored a study on the subject. The downward trend continued through last year, Qian said.

“The immigrant population fundamentally changes the pool of potential partners for Asians and Hispanics. It expands the number and reinforces the culture, which means the second generation . . . is more likely to marry people of their own ethnicity,” said Daniel T. Lichter, a sociologist at Cornell University.
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Increasingly, singles are turning to a growing number of niche dating sites on the Internet, such as http://Shaadi.com and http://Persiansingles.com. [Link]

A recent book titled Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age also tracks the dating and marriage patterns of 1.5 and 2nd generation South Asian Americans and finds similar results:

Researchers spent a decade following 3,300 children of immigrants in the New York region as they navigated adulthood, which led to a study published last year called “Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age.” They followed both the “second generation” children born in the United States and the “1.5 generation” — children of immigrants who came as youngsters — who were Dominican, Chinese, Russian Jews, South Americans and West Indians.

Researchers found that their subjects were constantly struggling with the desire to be open to people of all backgrounds vs. family expectations, and their own desires to sustain their culture. Most paired with others who shared similar racial or language backgrounds. [Link]

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Gandhi’s eyeglasses now more popular than Palin’s

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Last year everyone was talking about Sarah Palin’s eyeglasses. This year I predict Gandhi-type glasses will be the hot trend among the urban elite. After days of protest by the Indian government and it’s private citizens, Gandhi’s glasses and a few additional personal effects went on the auction block in NYC. In the end, after drama throughout the day, an Indian citizen got the goods:

No wonder he wanted new glasses. Those are pretty fugly.

After intense protests from India’s government and the Indian press, Mohandas K. Gandhi’s eyeglasses and some of his other belongings were sold on Thursday afternoon for $1.8 million at an auction in Manhattan, after last-minute attempts to halt the sale.

The buyer was identified as Vijay Mallya, an Indian liquor and airline executive who owns the company that makes Kingfisher beer. A representative for Mr. Mallya, Tony Bedi, did the bidding and later announced that the belongings would be returned to India for public display, but it was not clear whether they would be turned over to the government, as some officials have demanded.

Indian officials had maintained that the auction — scheduled to be completed on Thursday afternoon in Manhattan — was illegal, but also that they were continuing to negotiate with the owner, James Otis, over a possible resolution. Ultimately, the government and Mr. Otis were not successful in halting the auction. [Link]

At one point in negotiations with the Indian government, Otis asked for the following:

James Otis said he was ready to halt the sale and donate Gandhi’s personal items, including his trademark round eyeglasses, in exchange for India’s commitment to a substantial rise in its funding for poverty. [Link]

Ummm, yeah. Good starting negotiation position. Next time I negotiate with anyone I will start by asking for world peace. Continue reading →

Is “Slumdog” the new “Macaca?”

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For the last few years, every time I hang out with my crew its like “what’s up Macaca?” Or “Macaca puleez.” If one of them is acting ignorant I have to bust out with this derogatory term that we have appropriated from the Man and made our own. The distinction is clear: I love me my South Asian people. But I hate macacas.

Ok ok, I’m just kidding…and ripping off Chris Rock’s material a bit.

A few days ago one of our commenters made the following observation: “slumdog” is the new “macaca.” Bobby Jindal’s primetime response to Obama was given about 48 hours after Slumdog Millionaire mopped up at the Oscars. The most watched speech ever given by an Indian American occurred only two days after a huge audience watched a large cast of Indians take centerstage at an event embodying American culture. I think the combined effect of the two is greater than many people realize. Over the span of 48 hours desis literally dominated the airways. And, of course, that can be a double edged sword when you are a minority

On many websites and blogs, liberal commenters, who immediately pounced on Jindal’s poor performance to discredit his “rising star” hype, used the term “slumdog” to describe him. It wasn’t limited to liberals though. Conservative commenters and bloggers did the same exact thing. After Allen used it in Virginia, the term “Macaca” was denounced almost immediately, and to the best of my knowledge was never widely used by non-desis again. I get the feeling “slumdog” is going to have some legs, however. See this exchange today between the new Chairman of the RNC and a Guardian Angels founder turned conservative radio host Curtis Sliwa:

Did Steele say “friggin’ awesome?” The Republicans have publicly stated that part of their strategy to come back from the wilderness has to be to aggressively court the urban youth vote:

Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party’s principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

The RNC’s first black chairman will “surprise everyone” when updating the party’s image using the Internet and advertisements on radio, on television and in print, he told The Washington Times. [Link]

If this is part of his strategy I think he should fire whoever is advising him. Is it just me or does Steele come across like an old white guy trying to sound like he can speak like a young black guy?

Mainly I would like to hear from our readers. Have any of you been called “Slumdog,” even jokingly, in the past few days? Were you okay with it or did it bother you?

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Live Blogging Jindal’s Rebuttal (and the SOTU) at 9p.m. EST

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Ok folks, tonight we will try a second attempt at “Cover it Live” which Anna debuted on SM to cover the Oscars on Sunday night. I have had zero practice at this and am totally winging it so I aplogize if it doesn’t work out. If it fails then you can revert to leaving comments in the comments section as usual.

Also I was think about a drinking game. How about every time Jindal says “Let me be clear” or “stimulus” or “Louisiana” in a good-ol’-boy accent you have to take a shot? Continue reading →

Will Jindal’s strategy succeed or backfire?

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It has been all Jindal all the time since this past weekend no matter where you turn. First, check out his appearance on Meet the Press where he explains why he is going to refuse (some of) Obama’s stimulus money that was bound for his peeps in Louisiana:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Later tonight he will be giving the official Republican rebuttal to Obama’s unofficial State of the Union speech. The Republican party is clearly positioning him as the face of the opposition going in to 2012. The question I want to examine in this post is very narrow. “Is Jindal’s early visible opposition to a popular President and his rejection of money for his state going to help or hurt his presidential ambitions?” I say it will ultimately hurt him and below are the reasons why. Continue reading →

Is Dev a homewrecker?

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Rrrrrrrrrrrr.

Earlier this week I read a salacious article claiming that innocent little Latika Frieda Pinto is really a shady McShadester:

The star of Slumdog Millionaire has been hiding a secret husband whom she ditched after the film became a hit, it was claimed today.

Freida Pinto, 24, is said to have married Rohan Antao at a ceremony in Goa in December 2007 but last month ended their relationship. The couple were previously thought only to have been engaged… Their relationship appears to have foundered in the wake of Slumdog Millionaire’s success. Pinto, who plays the main love interest, was nominated for a Bafta and the film won a Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a cast.

It is claimed that Mr Antao, a Mumbai-based executive, supported Pinto during filming but ‘she just stopped calling him’ at the time of the Golden Globes this year, according to reports today. [Link]

If you check out the picture of Mr. Antao you can’t help but come to the conclusion that the poor chap never had a chance. In reality you can only date so far outside of your attractiveness league and the fact that guys like Salman Rushdie have a lock on the statistical outlier category means that the Rohan Antaos of the world are headed for disaster. Then I read another article yesterday that got me to re-think this all a bit. Perhaps Frieda is innocent and Antao is possessive and delusional. Continue reading →

Let the “brainy Indians” come in?

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On Wednesday’s NYTimes op-ed page Tom Friedman forwarded on a novel solution to our financial mess and housing crisis:

Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.” [Link]

Once you get past the model minority stereotyping in the first paragraph, he does have a good point. In all the talk of bailouts, stimulus, bad banks, etc., the one thing nobody is talking about (not even the Obama administration) is immigration policy. Now may be the best time to swing the doors open so highly skilled immigrants can enter the U.S. and help stimulate the economy:

… the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.

Bad signal. In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage a knowledge economy can have, why would we add barriers against such brainpower — anywhere? That’s called “Old Europe.” That’s spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D…

If there is one thing we know for absolute certain, it’s this: Protectionism did not cause the Great Depression, but it sure helped to make it “Great.” From 1929 to 1934, world trade plunged by more than 60 percent — and we were all worse off.

We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy, the faster your incomes will rise. Therefore, the centerpiece of our stimulus, the core driving principle, should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts more smart people to our shores. That is the best way to create good jobs. [Link] Continue reading →