The Revolutioners

Earth Has a Second Moon, Astronomers Say

In a research paper called “The population of natural Earth satellites”, astronomers say that Earth has a second moon at any given time. While these moons are small, the scientific implications of this discovery are phenomenal.

Think about it: instead of having to send crews to asteroids, now we know that they come to us—they orbit Earth and we can intercept them to learn more about the origins of our solar system. All with a small price tag.

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Democracy needs ignorant people, says science

You might think that democracies work best when people care and know about the key issues. But a new study argues that for a democracy to function at all, you need lots of ignorant people blindly siding with the majority.

That’s the argument put forward by Princeton researcher Iain Couzin and his team, who make the argument that a fully informed electorate would collapse into an unworkable hodgepodge of minority factions or risk being dominated by a single forceful minority group. But if most voters don’t really think about the issues, they will just tend to side with whoever is popular, allowing majority rule to continue and democracy to keep functioning. Yeah, you might want to check your last shreds of political idealism at the door for this one.

Couzin and his team argue for what we might call a sweet spot of ignorance. There needs to be just enough people who know anything about the issues to act as leaders for everyone else, but the majority disintegrates if there are too many viewpoints pulling in different directions. And while that seems to pretty aptly describe the last decade (at least) of American political discourse, I’d feel better if I knew just how the researchers arrived at their conclusions.

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Steve Jobs Worked On Apple’s ‘Next Product’ Until His Last Day [VIDEO REPORT]

You may remember the news about Steve Jobs’ last project not being the iPhone 4S but instead being, possibly, the next iPhone 5. Well it has been confirmed that Steve worked on that project all the way until the day before he died.

During a meeting on the day of the launch for the iPhone 4S between Apple partner and CEO of Softbank Masayoshi Son and Tim Cook, Cook had to excuse himself from the meeting after a phone call. Son stated the following:

He [Tim Cook] said that Steve is calling me because he wants to talk about their next product. And the next day, he died.

Regardless of how you feel about Apple products, this should inspire all of us to chase what we love so much. If Steve didn’t care so much about Apple and their customers, he would have taken leave from work weeks, if not months before his departure. And rightfully so! He knew, and so did everyone else, that his time left on this planet was very slim. Jobs knew that he had unfinished business and dedicated his days to influencing the next device from Apple. At this point, we expect it to a newly revamped fifth-generation iPhone but with how tight lipped Apple is about their products, we won’t really know until closer to the release date.

Steve died due to an unfortunate illness, the cause of death however as noted by his death certificate is; respiratory arrest caused by a pancreatic tumor. Today Cupertino Headquarters is holding a special ceremony for Steve. Apple stores outside of Cupertino are also reportedly closing for three hours to participate in the tribute to the man who had so much drive and influence in the technology community. You can visit the Apple site dedicated to Steve here and read individual contributions from around the world from people whom Steve inspired. If you feel like these many people who have already shared their feelings, you can also send in some thoughts of your own.

You can see a scrolling wall of personal thoughts shared by those who cared for Apple almost as much as Jobs himself. Steve was the definition of a role model and Apple is set on keeping his legacy alive.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOlf1uGBoCQ[/youtube]

IBM – A century of Achievements

What does it mean to be an IBMer? Every employee experiences the company in different ways, but the global impact IBM has made on business and society over the last 100 years gives us all a common framework. “They Were There” is told by first-hand witnesses—current and retired employees and clients—who were there when IBM helped to change the way world works.

More information at www.ibm100.com or http://www.ibm.com/ibm100/us/en/

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2 Young Men Kneel Before Dead Dog For 1 Hour In Suzhou (China)

I was reading ChinaSMACK and found this article interesting to be shared. Not many people would be aware of this website in India. Its the same website which showcased the Filthy Ganges pictures in the wild. Which was criticized by a lot of people. ChinaSMACK focuses on providing news from China.

Two young men driving a green postal van accidentally hit and killed a pet dog while driving past a building; facing the dog owner’s demand to either pay 5000 yuan or kneel before the dog for 1 hour, the two young men chose to kneel after being hit. After the police arrived, the young men and the dog owner said they have already privately settled the matter and do not want the police to get involved; About 1 hour later, the dog owner carried away the little dog’s corpse, and after being helped up, the two young men left without a word…

[ Read more and Image after the Break]

And I clicked on Fan button for Mark Zuckerberg

Like my daily routine, I was browsing Gizmodo and found an article about Mark Zuckerberg donating half of his fortune to charity. Here is the snippet from Gizmodo.

Joining up with Bill Gates, George Lucas, Warren Buffett, and 50 other billionaires, Zuckerberg has agreed to donate the majority of his wealth to charity, as part of the Giving Pledge movement Gates launched back in August.

It’s the largest philanthropic work ever done, with over 50 billionaires pledging to give away most of their fortunes to various charities. They’re not legally bound to do so, but if they renege then I imagine all hell would break loose. Just imagine having Gates’ beady glare on you, wherever you go. *shudder*

15 other billionaires signed up recently, alongside Zuckerberg. AOL’s co-founder Steve Case, and investor Carl Icahn are just some of the names you might recognize. The charities on the receiving end of the Giving Pledge’s handout haven’t been named yet, but considering Gates fascination with green issues, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some funky eco-friendly initiatives start looking…well, greener.

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Reliance and Tata may provide iPhones in near future

Many top notch news agencies and bloggers are claiming that Apple is up to a new CDMA iPhone. Verizon will be the first carrier as per the experts to launch CDMA iPhone in the US. Its been speculated that Apple has been looking to end the AT&T exclusivity for a long time. A new iPhone is expected to surface late this year or early next year. Not sure about India launch though. Apple seems to have initiated talks with 2 Indian CDMA carriers, Reliance and Tata tele-services. No news on the pricing as of now, I think we would need to wait and see how Apple keeps the price of the new CDMA version of iPhone. Apple has been testing iPhone 4 CDMA version for quite some time now and has code named it N92.

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Did you see the World Class Facility for Common Wealth Games 2010 ?

For those who has not seen the so called world class facilities prepared for common wealth games 2010 by our Indian Government. BBC has done us a huge favor and released some images of the beauty. Don’t be ashamed of anything because as per our government that’s our standard of living and this is the best they could do. And bonus is that our Delhi Government promises to improve it before the whistle blows for the first play of CWG 2010. Pretty Heroic huh !

And yeah, anyone counting the countries laughing on Indian Government now. 8 years, 8 bloody years and we could not prepare some flats and stadiums. Just for your information if you did not know, China had its games facilities ready 2 years before the Olympic Games. 2 Years, yeah because they knew their county’s reputation was at skate.

India should not have been allowed to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games, according to the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) president John Coates. I can’t even begin to tell you how I feel after reading this but there is nothing we can do. Damage is done. Good Luck India and sit tight all the Indians. We are in for a roller coaster ride for the next 2-3 weeks.

While I was about to publish this post, I thought of having another post tracking all the shame our government bought for our country through CWG 2010. (don’t forget to watch the pictures after the break)

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Coming soon at a theatre near you, a film on Google ?

With the news that a Groundswell production is working on a movie about Google, based on the book, “Googled: The End of the World As We Know It,” by Ken Auletta. Its eminent that people start speculating about the casting of the movie.

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Happy Independence Day

On the eve of Indian Independence Day let me treat you all with some reality and truth of our free India. Actually it is in form of a movie review. I went to see Peepli Live today. And OMG its such a pathetic movie. Well, if you’ve watched it then you must be having different opinion than me. Why ? Because it shows exactly what happens in India. I can bet you guys that this movie is not going to be on theaters for long. Now you must be thinking why am I thinking like that. Its because this movie uncovers our media’s reality. It show what exactly our pathetic news channels are in reality.. So if the these channels don’t show anything about this movie then how would this movie run. It won’t because the news channels don’t want to show their embarrassment on their own channels.

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