Two bugs: [1] Traffic [2] Festival

I can’t believe I am saying this and I never thought that I’ll be saying this so early:

Whoa! Unbelievable! For the past two weeks, I am spending 2 hrs or more in Pune traffic from office to my home. And it never took me this long even on the worst days of traffic in Bangalore (I agree that I didn't live so far from Electronic City, but still).
Distance b/w Hinjewadi and AFMC ~ 25 km.
Time taken (at least) = 2 hrs.
By simple algebra, Average speed of my commute ~ 3.5 m/s
That is slower than a normal man's walking speed.

I ran out of Bangalore cribbing about the same thing, but the traffic seems to be following me. I actually felt a little comfort in my initial days in Pune but the situation worsened gradually and now I won’t hesitate in handing over the “Poorest traffic” trophy to Pune.

The jams seem to be a result of “Ganesh festival” going on and the situation is hoped to be improving from this Monday. Festival is OK, but people just don't have traffic sense.

We in India, have a many more seasons except the regular summer, winter etc. We have a season of weddings that goes from October to April in North India. Then we have a season of festivals. Two festivals, I have seen, seem to be very state specific. “Durga Pooja” in West Bengal and “Ganesh Chaturthi” in Maharashtra! These states seem to have a copyright on these two festivals. People collect funds to celebrate. The disciples of these Gods collect the funds from their respective societies in order to have huge celebrations on these festivals. On the contrary, I have seen people consuming alcohol on the money raised for these events (the very evening after Durga Pooja). Yesterday also, I saw some groups of people taking Ganesha idols for Visarjan, but the people were dancing drunk and they were smoking while carrying Ganesha. What is all this? Do people raise funds to celebrate or to feed upon it?

I don’t believe in God(s) but I am not even against those who have faith in them. But I appeal (to those who believe) to at least show some respect to the almighty, the one you fear the most. I had been much happier to see people collecting funds for “Bihar flood victims” and investing it there only. But “raising money for celebrating a festival and then spending it on uncompromising things” is just unacceptable. This is something “We Indians really need to learn”.

The world is mesmerized by these two guys. They have created history this time in Beijing – one on track and one in water.

Google is the most extensively used search engine. In July this year, we got a new search engine "cuil" (http://www.cuil.com/) – A rival search engine by three former google employees.

People already must have compared the search engines. Geeks pounce upon anything new that comes in the tech world and review it in and out. But I would like to quote a particular feature of CUIL: As and when you go on typing the search keys, a drop down (attached to the search bar) with 10 results keeps getting refreshed dynamically based on the current search key. The feature is actually Cool (cuil, for that matter).

Google being a gang of geniuses adopted this feature in no time and even took it to the next level. Google drop-down refreshes with more relevant results. Most sought after results at the top!

Justifying the post title -
I started searching for “Microsoft”. As I typed ‘Mic’ and got “Michael Phelps” as the topmost result.
You search for “USA” and get a Jamaican, “Usain Bolt” topping the results.

See what Olympics have done to the world:


But Cuil displays no such thing. The results there are not so relevant. CUIL already has a lot of issues, but being a new kid, things can be condoned for a while. Competing with Google really takes a heart. All the best CUIL!

One more update from Google: Picasa Web Albums have undergone a redesign. The new look! Change always appears good, let’s see how it comes along over time.

Please get the information from any of the following links and get going to do your bit:
[1] http://biharflood.wordpress.com/
[2] http://biharfloodrelief2008.blogspot.com/
[3] http://removing.blogspot.com/2008/08/bihar-floods-how-to-help.html
[4] List of Medicines required: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pXkYURrkCSy7Cd6zB4VmMQg

Thanks in advance for your consideration!