Read on and you’ll know:

The lesson: If the optimist says the glass is half full, and the pessimist says the glass is half empty, the physicist ducks.

via Glass Half Empty.

3D realisation has thrown up a further indication that some of the pitoti are, literally, in suspended animation.

via Major motion pictures from our prehistoric past | University of Cambridge.

Big rig carrying fruit crashes on 210 Freeway, creates jam – latimes.com.

The SMC, or system management controller, is a chip used to regulate a Mac’s current and voltage, manage its light sensor, and temporarily store FileVault keys. Turns out that the SMC contains undocumented code that is invoked by entering the word “SpecialisRevelio,” the same magic words used to reveal hidden charms, hexes, or properties used by wizards in the Harry Potter series written by author J. K. Rowling.

via “SpecialisRevelio!” Macs use Harry Potter spell to unlock secret “backdoor” | Ars Technica.

The Bechdel test is used to identify gender bias in fiction. A work passes the test if it features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Commentators have noted that a great proportion of contemporary works fail to pass this threshold of representing women.

via Bechdel test – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

via Digg – Do a Google Image search for Atari Breakout. You….

On May 13, Ranbaxy pleaded guilty to seven federal criminal counts of selling adulterated drugs with intent to defraud, failing to report that its drugs didn’t meet specifications, and making intentionally false statements to the government. Ranbaxy agreed to pay $500 million in fines, forfeitures, and penalties — the most ever levied against a generic-drug company. (No current or former Ranbaxy executives were charged with crimes.) Thakur’s confidential whistleblower complaint, which he filed in 2007 and which describes how the company fabricated and falsified data to win FDA approvals, was also unsealed. Under federal whistleblower law, Thakur will receive more than $48 million as part of the resolution of the case.

via Dirty medicine – Fortune Features.

Really shows how much the iPhone camera has evolved, the biggest jump being the 3G to 3GS one. I’m sure other smartphones will have a similar trend as well. 2009-10 seems to be the time when the camera modules came of their own in smartphones.

via How does the iPhone 5 camera compare to previous iPhone cameras?.

Going by the numbers on the What-if blog, Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit sure had it easy in Dil To Pagal Hai:

The odds of running into your soul mate are incredibly small. The number of strangers we make eye contact with each day is hard to estimate. It can vary from almost none (shut-ins or people in small towns) to many thousands (a police officer in Times Square). Let’s suppose you lock eyes with an average of a few dozen new strangers each day. (I’m pretty introverted, so for me that’s definitely a generous estimate.) If 10% of them are close to your age, that’s around 50,000 people in a lifetime. Given that you have 500,000,000 potential soul mates, it means you’ll only find true love in one lifetime out of ten thousand.

Top voted answer that takes a very different view point from the popular notions, by Tejasvita Apte (The other answers are interesting as well):

This is my opinion. This may be a bit harsh. But before you downvote, please give it a thought.

I have been a critic of Gandhi but even I admit that there are many wonderful things about his personality. Since this question is not about that, I will refrain from speaking about it.

Following are the reasons why I am his critic.

1) Gandhi’s core ideal was Ahimsa (Non Violence). I agree with the ideology. But he took it to extreme. So much so that according to Gandhi, Self Defence too was a form of Himsa (Violence). Now this philosophy is stupid. Let me quote him -

“Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. I believe in hara-kiri. I do not believe in its militaristic connotations, but it is a heroic method. That would have been heroism. It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to the evils of Hitler’s violence, especially in 1938, before the war. As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”

You see, what he thought? Apparently, by committing suicide, the Jews would have died a heroic death. So, Jews should have neither fought back nor tried to escape, because then there wouldn’t be any difference between them and Hitler.

In my opinion, he completely misunderstood Ahimsa. Non violence should be preached to the Aggressor and not the victim. A victim has a complete and moral right to self defence.

Now let me quote George Orwell whose thoughts speak volumes about Gandhi -

“Gandhi has been regarded for twenty years by the Government of India as one of its right hand men. I know what I’m talking about-I used to be an officer in the Indian police. It was always admitted in the most cynical way that Gandhi made it easier for the British to rule India, because his influ­ence was always against taking any action that would make any difference.
The reason why Gandhi in prison is always treated with such lenience and small concessions sometimes made when he has prolonged one of his fasts to a dangerous extent, is that the British officials are in terror that he may die and be replaced by someone who believes less in “soul force ” and more in bombs.”[1]

It is very important to understand this. George Orwell had served once and therefore was in a position to judge Gandhi. If your enemy likes you, you are seriously going wrong.

2) Gandhi’s non-violence was selective.

In 1930, two platoons of Hindu troops refused to fire on Muslim rioters, instead breaking ranks and fraternizing with them.

Rather than supporting this non-violence, Gandhi said “A soldier who disobeys an order to fire breaks that oath which he has taken and renders himself guilty of criminal disobedience. I cannot ask officials and soldiers to disobey; for when I am in power I shall in all likelihood make use of the same officials and those same soldiers. If I taught them to disobey I should be afraid that they might do the same when I am in power.” – Reply to French journalist Charles Petrasch on the question of the Gahrwali Soldiers, Le Monde, 20 February 1932.

3) Now let us look at his views on technology and modernization He is far from what is claimed. He is a mere reactionary.

“It is not the British people who are ruling India, but it is modern civilization  through its railways, telegraphs, telephone, and almost every other invention has been claimed to be a triumph of civilization … Medical science is the concentrated essence of black magic … Hospitals are the instruments that the Devil has been using for his own purpose, in order to keep his hold on his kingdom … If there were no hospitals for venereal diseases or even for consumptives, we would have less consumption, and less sexual vice amongst us. India’s salvation consists in unlearning what she has learnt during the past fifty years or so. The railways, telegraphs, hospitals, lawyers, doctors and such like all have to go.” [2)

4) There is another reason why I criticize his actions. He spent too much time fighting over different paths to achieving freedom. Why he never embraced revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Bose is beyond me. End of the day, they too were fighting for the same cause. He may not have agreed with their means, but he should have lauded them for their goals as they gave their lives for it.

This further lead to a great divide among intellectuals even after independence.

Having said this, in conclusion, I feel that he lead people into believing extremely wrong and delusional notions like passivity and inaction which he camouflaged as Non violence.

In my opinion, his extreme Non Violence was more Violent than Violence.

[1] The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol 2, p. 136

[2] M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (1909)