Category Archives: Science and Technology

Birdsong Battles in Little Guyana

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finch.pngClicking on Wedplan’s news item in the sidebar about “India in Queens, With a Caribbean Accent” took me on a short but vivid tour of Little Guyana in Richmond Hill, Queens. I’d like to visit someday to experience the neighborhood firsthand.

While chutney and soca sound like a significant part of the area’s aural landscape, I became intrigued by the mention of another kind of music.

On weekend mornings, locals bring their black finches to Phil Rizzuto Park, formerly known as Smokey Oval Park, for chirp-off contests.

Many local men keep black finches, which they engage in “chirp-off” whistling contests on early weekend mornings at Phil Rizzuto Park, formerly known as Smokey Oval Park, nearby on Atlantic Avenue.
An older NYT story about chirp-off contests in the same Richmond Hill park gives more details about this musical sport involving birdsong. Continue reading →

Sepia Mutiny for Kindle

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I know your problem, I feel your pain. You want to read our website but you’d rather do so when you have free time. Like on the airplane. Where there is no internet access. Or on the subway. Where there is also no access. Or on the toilet. You are also a cutting-edge early adopter and purchased (or are about to) a Kindle from Amazon. Well then, we have something for you. SM’s e-subscription can now be purchased from Amazon.com for $1.99/month. That is about the cost of a mint tea at Starbucks. We get 30% of the $1.99 cost to pay down our server costs. Happy e-reading.

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Terminator or Resistance fighter?

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I find more personal joy in seeing desi characters in science fiction movies than in any other genre of film. I get a completely irrational “see, we made it into the future” type of feeling. I also like the fact that in the future one’s race is usually treated as an incidental rather than defining feature. Terminator Salvation opens next week and features at least one desi character named Rahul (played by actor Anjul Nigam). No pictures or background on his character are available yet (he explains on his Twitter account that he was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement), but I suppose it is too much to wish that he is one of the cyborg terminators. If anyone has the scoop on his character “Rahul” let’s hear it.

If Nigam looks familiar it might be because you have seen him recently on TV’s “Lie to Me” or (*barf*) “Grey’s Anatomy.”

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A brown captain and an ewok-like thing

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[warning: very very mild spoilers are contained in this post]

[warning: only a true sci-fi fan will understand all the references in this post]

Yesterday I got the chance to see Star Trek at the local IMAX theater. A little backstory about me: I am a Trekkie. I am not the kind of Trekkie that dresses up in Star Trek outfits and knows all the obscure little trivia, but I am still pretty hardcore (well, ok…only half of the previous statement is true). You see, the original Star Trek movie (which sucked by the way) is the first movie I have any memory of. I saw it at the drive-in theater in San Jose, CA in December of 1979 when I was three. I sat behind my dad and the audio was lousy but it must have made some sort of a subliminal impression on me given that I spent the next 30 years of my life quite literally trying to be Captain Kirk.

Captain Christopher Pike: [to Kirk] You can settle for less in ordinary life, or do you feel like you were meant for something better? Something special.

Sigh.

In any case, the new movie opens with the magnificent bald head (no, not Captain Picard) of Captain Robau of the Federation Starship Kelvin. Robau is played by Pakistani American actor Faran Tahir:

[It’s] a great thing,” Tahir said in an exclusive interview. “I have had conversations with J.J. about this, … because I knew the other people who were being considered for this role, and they were not [cast]. So one day over dinner I was, ‘So what was it, why?’ You know, just to get a window into it. And I think he–and I have to commend him on this–what he was trying to do was find a certain quality in the actor and just to set up the story, you know? And to me, that is refreshing, and it’s great to hear. … The biggest compliment is that he was looking for a certain quality. He could have found that in me, he could have found that in [anyone else]. And it just happened to be me, and … the added … layer to that is that, yeah, I happen to be of a certain descent, and … the casting was [in] the spirit of what Star Trek is about.” [Link]

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Aneesh Chopra: America’s Chief Technology Officer

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In his weekly internet address Obama announced today that he wanted to make cuts to all the departments in his government and streamline government spending. He also wants to “promote innovation.” Therefore, as one step, he has named Aneesh Chopra as his Chief Technology Officer (start at min 3:50 in the video below):


4/18/09: Your Weekly Address from White House on Vimeo.

Aneesh is being pulled from Virginia, courtesy of Obama’s BFF Tim Kaine.

Aneesh Chopra is currently Virginia’s Fourth Secretary of Technology serving Governor Tim Kaine. In this capacity, he leads the Commonwealth’s strategy to effectively leverage technology in government reform, promotes Virginia’s innovation agenda, and fosters technology-related economic development with a special emphasis on entrepreneurship…

Secretary Chopra was awarded the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s (HIMSS) 2007 State Leadership Advocacy Award, and was also recently named to Government Technology magazine’s Top 25 in their Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers issue, which recognizes the 25 individuals they believe help set the standard for using technology to improve government. [Link]

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Hated by desi brides worldwide

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The advertising campaign for BritAsian sausage company “Mr. Singh’s Bangras” (a pun on bangers and bhangra) recently won a major award. The concept behind the ads is simple enough to describe in pictures:

That’s right – they used edible ink to print the casing in “henna patterns” and create the first ever “branded sausage.” I’m waiting for the UK government to start printing health warnings directly on foodstuffs that are bad for your heart such as “eating this weiner will make yours a little limper.”

I really hope Daljit Singh, the company proprietor, is married already because he has just earned the enmity of every desi bride around the world. If this campaign gets widespread airplay, what do you think most people will think of when they see a chubby brown hennaed calf peeking out from underneath a red lehnga?

You can see the video version directly on the company website.

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The perfect blend of East and West

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On my way to the East Village last night, I stopped by a store which is arguably ground zero for shameless Orientalism in NYC, East-West books.

This store is exactly as over the top and ridiculous as the name suggests. It’s the kind of place where one (White) salesman was dressed in a very handsome lime colored Chinese silk jacket while another (white again) had 3 sandalwood malas on one arm, several around his neck, and at least one on the other arm. Their list of books and other offerings is very left coast, the sort of thing I encountered regularly when I lived in the Bay Arya, but rarely see in skeptical, ironic NYC.

Soon after I entered, in the CD rack, I found Jaya Lakshmi’s “Jewel of Hari.” I love the blurb that introduces the album: Yoga! Mantras! Flamenco! Veils! It’s nearly a perfect listing of New Age clichés, it has everything except Zen, Native Americans and gnostic wisdom.

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In a Recession, H-1Bs Get the Boot

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I’m a life-long Democrat, but one aspect of the Democratic party message that has at times bothered me in recent years is the tendency towards protectionism. It was one of the things (among many) that annoyed me about John Kerry’s campaign, and I was somewhat relieved that Obama wielded this axe a bit more lightly during his campaign, at least after Iowa (notice how most of that talk about NAFTA disappeared too?).

During a bad recession with spiralling unemployment, of course, any earlier caution we might have seen from politicians regarding protectionism is going to be in danger. Congressional politicians from both parties are increasingly turning to populist language to ensure their own political survival. And the easiest group to pick on politically in recent years, by both Republicans and Democrats, has been immigrants, since they can’t vote anyway.

As many readers may already be aware, the recent American economic stimulus bill contained explicit language concerning foreign workers in the U.S.: Continue reading →

We Are Fatter Than We Think We Are

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An African-American friend of mine on Facebook recently jubilantly posted a link to this article about a recently-discovered problem with the BMI Index, a number widely used to determine body fat levels — whether people are underweight, healthy, overweight, or obese.

The BMI index was calculated with reference to caucasian body types. But people from different ethnic backgrounds have bodies that might be constructed slightly differently, so one BMI might not accurately determine everyone’s body fat level. A more direct measure of body fat can be found through Dual X-Ray Absorptiometry (DXA or DEXA), which measures body fat directly, rather than as an index. Here are the basics:

BMI is a formula that estimates a person’s body fat using only his/her weight and height. The result is then used to determine weight categories: 18.5 and below is considered underweight; 18.6 – 24.9 healthy; 25 – 29 overweight and 30+ obese.

“This scale was created years ago and is based on Caucasian men and women,” says Bray, “It doesn’t take into account differences in body composition between genders, race/ethnicity groups, and across the lifespan.” (link)

The good news for African Americans and bad news for Asian Indians is after the jump: Continue reading →

Valare Upakaram, Google

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Indic_screenshot.jpg Via the “web clips” which perch above my 5,090 unread GMail messages, news that Google’s email is now down with some brown languages:

Until now, there hasn’t been a good way to send email to friends and family in Hindi, my native language and their language of choice. That’s why I’m happy to announce a new feature for Gmail that lets you type email in Indian languages. If you’re in India, this feature is enabled by default. If not, you’ll need to turn it on in the “Language” section under Settings. Once enabled, just click the Indian languages icon and type words in the way they sound in English — Gmail will automatically convert them to their Indian language equivalent. [link]

3410684214_542408482e_m.jpg Oh, if only there were some way for me to type Malayalam words the way they sound in English to me…and have GMail (or anything else, for that matter) automatically convert them to the correct Malayalam-in-English spelling equivalent.

For example, sometimes while I’m writing, blogging, tweeting or commenting on your Facebook crap, I feel the compulsive need to refer to the side dish I loved most as a small child: a fried, potato-y concoction which I’d spell “oorelkarunga merehkwerty or in a similarly butchered fashion.

Do you know how that shiz is actually spelled?

urulakizhangu mezhukkupuratti

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