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Part of the fun of being in a booming/bubbling industry is the constant rumour-mongering. The most fun is when the rumours are about you, which is what happened to me some minutes ago. Apparently, I am leaving my current employer to join CMP. The deal is done. Such irresponsible chatter must be dealt with, and I enclose my official response below.

This talk of my leaving my current employer for CMP is totally inaccurate and fueled by irresponsible reportage. I am fond of CMP and we remain good friends.

I saw bits of a classic Mithun family drama called "Pyar ka mandir" last night. Shakti Kapoor has to be my favourite Hindi film villain ever. I want his lecherous laugh in a .wav file so I can make it my phone's ring tone. Can anyone help?

Oh, and the title is Shakti's signature line in the movie. Ever so often, he launches into a maniacal tirade about how truly evil and smart he is, laughing that evil laugh, threatening bodily harm and rape in the most amazing, metaphor-filled, roundabout ways possible. Concluded, of course, by:

"That is Dilip!"

Say what you like of the sex-fiend. He lives his character. There are few people I would like less to invite into my home. That is Dilip! Someone should start a Chuck Norris-style list for Shakti Kapoor. 

Technorati Tags: shaktikapoor, bollywood

Via Russell Beattie:

Google buys Writely

There’s nothing sardonic I can say that wouldn’t be a hackneyed stating of the obvious. Also, Writely was pretty nice when I tried it. So who’s next? I suggest 30boxes.com. The name, interface and approach is so Web 2.0, it hurts.

Technorati Tags: google, writely, web20

I just read this article on Rediff, detailing the upcoming ventures of Hotmail founder, Sabeer Bhatia. I always thought his hyped status as some sort of biz/tech whizkid was insanely optimistic, but I guess $400m can make anybody feel a tad overconfident. Hotmail was a matter of being at the right place at the right time. It didn’t take killer technology or particularly ingenious ideas, and it wasn’t the first.

Bhatia made an attempt at another business with Arzoo.com, which, as far as I can recall, was something of a marketplace for customers and professionals to trade services. That bombed, but is pending a relaunch “on the lines of Expedia”. His new projects are even more pedestrian:

A Skype wannabe with built-in games. I quote,

“Entertainment has a great opportunity in the country, and this is what is going to be the differentiator considering there are a number of other VoIP providers like Skype, Yahoo, MSN and GoogleTalk,”

Umm… don’t the competitors, barring Skype and Google, also have games and links to gaming content built-in? SkypeOut also does POTS calls plenty cheap, so I’m not sure how much impact the one rupee rate will have.

Another Bhatia project aims to speed up Hotmail, because users are complaining. Can you say Greasemonkey with spyware? Still another project aims to “increase the capacity of Hotmail”, and the article mentions the discrepancy between the email storage space available to Indian and US-resident Hotmail users.

And the icing:

“My services are always free, and I make my money from the advertisement revenue,”

Sweet. Why didn’t I think of that? Sabeer, a word of advice chief: put some of that $400m into a fixed-deposit and get some of that Section 80C loving. I think mutual funds are probably beyond your level of sophistication right now.

Technorati Tags: hotmail, sabeerbhatia, arzoo

This will be educational for the stupid-fucks-in-denial demographic:

According to “The Bottom of the Pay Scale: Wages for H-1B Computer Programmers — F.Y. 2004,� a report by Programmers Guild board member John Miano, non-U.S. citizens working in the United States on an H-1B visa are paid “significantly less than their American counterparts.� How much less? “On average, applications for H-1B workers in computer occupations were for wages $13,000 less than Americans in the same occupation and state.�

The study concludes that H-1B abuse is far more rampant than legitimate use.

Duh!

Read the full article here.