Open source in India

[As usual, you can also read this on BBC News online]

The five of us bounced out of the restaurant at around ten, after a great meal, some beers and the usual arguments about preferred programming languages, the future of free and open source software and the merits of Terry Pratchett’s later works.

It was a warm night so we crossed the street to get something to cool us down – not ice cream, but the best kulfi in the Defence Colony, one of the hippest areas in downtown New Delhi.

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Delhi observations

Drawing crowds in the Old City

Monday was not quite the hottest day in Delhi so far, but 44 degrees Celsius made it the hottest May 8th for five years and, if the CNN weather maps are to be believed, made Delhi one of the hottest places on earth.

This may in part explain why, when Julian, Gareth and I stood at the closed gates to the Red Fort, the massive brick construction at the heart of the Old City built by the Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan, we attracted such a crowd. They were waiting to see which of us would faint or perhaps even die first in the heat that was extreme even for residents.

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My first time in India

It’s seventeen degrees Celsius in my hotel room on the sixth floor of Shangri-La Hotel in New Delhi.  The room is just starting to get warmer as I’ve turned off the air-conditioning, but it’s unlikely to approach the searing temperatures on the road outside, where yesterday’s peak of 44.5 was the highest in the city so far this year and prompted health advice from the local government.

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Nehru Place, Delhi


Delhi, May 2006

Originally uploaded by BillT.

If you need some hardware, this is the place to go…

bread machine
breadman bread machine
toastmaster bread machine
panasonic bread machine
cuisinart bread machine
sunbeam bread machine
oster bread machine
west bend bread machine
westinghouse bread machine
regal ware bread machine
indoor grill
george foreman indoor grill
hamilton beach indoor grill
cuisinart indoor grill
star manufacturing indoor grill
anvil indoor grill
presto indoor grill
delonghi indoor grill
cadco indoor grill
eurodib indoor grill
krups indoor grill
sanyo indoor grill
farberware indoor grill
oster indoor grill
breville indoor grill
chefmaster indoor grill
electric indoor grill
sunbeam indoor grill
sandwich maker
george foreman sandwich maker
cuisinart sandwich maker
anvil sandwich maker
toastmaster sandwich maker
breville sandwich maker
presto sandwich maker
hamilton beach sandwich maker
krups sandwich maker
tefal sandwich maker
delonghi sandwich maker
durabrand sandwich maker
diablo sandwich maker
eletric sandwich maker
oster sandwich maker
waffle maker
villaware waffle maker
nemco waffle maker
chefs choice waffle maker
cuisinart waffle maker
star manufacturing waffle maker
gold medal waffle maker
hamilton beach waffle maker
toastmaster waffle maker
oster waffle maker
krups waffle maker
belgian waffle maker
kitchenaid waffle maker
delonghi waffle maker
george foreman waffle maker
westinghouse waffle maker
sunbeam waffle maker
waffle iron
villaware waffle iron
nemco waffle iron
chefs choice waffle iron
cuisinart waffle iron
star manufacturing waffle iron
waring waffle iron
gold medal waffle iron
hamilton beach waffle iron
toastmaster waffle iron
oster waffle iron
krups waffle iron
belgian waffle iron
black and decker waffle iron
kitchenaid waffle iron
delonghi waffle iron
george foreman waffle iron
sunbeam waffle iron
pancaker maker
perfect pancake maker
toastmaster pancake maker
george foreman pancake maker
deep fryer
frymaster deep fryer
presto deep fryer
rival deep fryer
cecilware deep fryer
gold medal deep fryer
delonghi deep fryer
wells deep fryer
star manufacturing deep fryer
tefal deep fryer
anvil deep fryer
anetsberger deep fryer
dean deep fryer
garland deep fryer
imperial deep fryer
keating deep fryer
pitco deep fryer
waring deep fryer
electric deep fryer
bravetti deep fryer
oster deep fryer
nesco deep fryer
ge deep fryer
black and decker deep fryer
cuisinart deep fryer
euro pro deep fryer
hamilton beach deep fryer
durabrand deep fryer
sunbeam deep fryer

Meeting the Delhi Bloggers

I’m in Delhi, working on some programmes for Digital Planet, and I’ll write more about my first time in India later. But on saturday evening, seven hours after my plane touched down, I was lucky enough to be able to go along to a meeting of the Delhi Bloggers.
It was their eleventh meeting in the last two years, which is pretty impressive, and around thirty people showed up, which is more than normal. It would be nice to think they came because the fame of Digital Planet has spread to the Delhi blogosphere, but I suspect that wasn’t the case…

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Quasi-socialising with Will

My good friend and long-time colleague Will Davies, originally at The Work Foundation and more recently at ippr, is inteviewed by John Sutherland in today’s Guardian, talking about the dangers of putting our faith so completely in technologies whose current primary purpose is to make the world ever more “flexible to the whims of consumers in egocentric and irrational ways.”

It’s an argument he’s been making for some time – as he points out in his usual self-deprecating fashion on his blog – but no less valid for that. I recall standing outside Demos one evening some time ago as we argued that text voting was making it all too damn easy for people and devalued the democratic process…

Don’t bank on secret security

If you have a MasterCard-issued credit card then you may be hearing from your bank in the next few days.

The credit card company has revealed that that a potential security breach at a UK retailer means that cardholder details may have been leaked. MasterCard has told banks that issue their cards to take what they call ‘necessary steps to protect cardholders’, which may include reissuing cards with new numbers.

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Buying tickets for the Folk Festival

Every year Cambridge hosts a rather fine Folk Festival, sponsored in recent years by BBC Radio 2. And in recent years it has become rather popular, so as a result it is hard to get tickets. In response to this the City Council, which promotes the event, has decided to make it not just hard but positively unpleasant to buy tickets: they have no online booking, a phone line with one person on it [it seems], postal booking with no guarantee – and a box office that you can attend in person. Perhaps they believe that this will ensure that only dedicated folk fans and Cambridge residents will attend, thus preserving the purity of the event. Or perhaps they are just incompetent, stupid and contemptuous of those – like me – who pay their wages or vote them in.
Today I spent the day queuing, and like any working geek I had my laptop with me. I also had my camera.
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