Gods must be democratic

Saw snippets of a major national leader filing nominations paper from respective constituency. As part of coverage, snippets of a traditional yagna being performed, obviously to garner blessings of the gods above.

Sort of ambiguous, would you not say, seeking divine intervention what in principle is meant to be a free and unfettered people process?

Curious to see rituals from two different times and settings, being mixed up like this.
Gods must be democratic; for how else can one explain conducting a yagna and invoking them for victory in elections?

Prize to Prez : Change had come to America, and now it has become Nobel.

Thought on the occasion of President Barack Obama getting Nobel Peace Prize. Surely puts him in elite company. And to my mind what is most significant is how this signals a change in award giving policy/committee. When it comes to Nobel Prizes, whatever be the field, history is littered with examples of deserving individuals not receiving it, for one reason or another. So most interesting to see that for once potential being recognized, and early. Looks like change has come to the Nobel prize giving process too.

When Life Imitates an Ad

Oks, so we all know of this phenom, where art imitates life. Also converse of this, life imitating art, is fast becoming a well known idiom, what with media's hold, and its ubiquitous presence in modern life.
Now just something i noticed, where recently ads of an insurance company featuring cricketers, and illustrating uncertainty of modern life, are running.
Guess surely a case of Life imitating Ad, when one cricketer featured there actually got injured, before the start of Champions Trophy. No ?

Secret Sauce of Super Success

Found this interesting post on Found|Read, giving a top executive's view of how they look at their company's product. Company in question is Disney and product being discussed is an animated movie, Up, being made by Pixar, to be released as Disney Pixar offering for '09 summer. Well, have always enjoyed a Disney Pixar movie, with all of them gracing my DVD collection too. Guess there is so much talk of repeat value of a movie, about initial opening, about number of prints,star cast and cost of making, by business guys and critics, that what makes for a great product is forgotten.
Reading CEO's comment puts things in correct perspective. Make a great product, even great art, and than or rather that would (surely) make money.

Nice Fortune and Great Feature

Saw this line in Orkut's Today's fortune section : Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working.

An aha moment; guess want to say how appropriate, without giving too much away:)

On a different note though, over time have noticed Orkut's fortune section to have lines that immediately connect. Just wondering how this is generated, whether there is a kind of engine or whether it is a person(or team)? Whatever it is, is pretty effective feature, for am not a heavy Orkut user, but have logged on many times just to catch the Today's fortune section. Also have had similar thought been expressed by some of my friends. Given that make or break for a social network is stickablity with users, guess if this what gets people in the network to log on, it is great.
No? Maybe?
Any readers who have similar experience with Orkut? Also similar feature or application seen on Facebook?

Me back to work, on my game,charged up.