Facebook is running a deceitful campaign to undermine Net Neutrality in India

The Internet is supposed to be a decentralised tool for the dissemination of information and provision of long distance communication abilities. You, for instance, can start a blog - for free - and make your views heard to over three billion people, just like you are now when visiting and reading this content.

Recently, A full two page ad in the most distributed daily and in many others http://imgur.com/yqDSv72 were published.

Similar hoarding in prime spots in Metro Cities can also be seen.

http://imgur.com/SWYTq4w
http://i.imgur.com/aSV0ln4.jpg

Facebook now to an extent is also Sending SMS's to people in regional languages.

ફેસબુક દ્વારા ફ્રી બેસિક્સ સેવા બધા માટે બુનિયાદી ઈન્ટરનેટ સેવાઓ નિશુલ્ક ઉપલબ્ધ કરાવે છે. પણ આ બધી સેવાઓ પર પ્રતિબંધ લાગવા ની આશંકા છે. કૃપા કરી 1800 209 0921 પર આજેજ એક મિસ્ડ કોલ આપી અમારી મદદ કરો.

Translation.

Free basics by Facebook provides basic internet services free, but these services may get banned. Please help us by giving a missed call today on this number.

Also prompting users to send a message to TRAI(Telecom regulatory authority of India) through their very platform. I wonder how much would other users have to pay to run such a campaign on FB. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CWfYxOfU4AACHA5.jpg

This is all being done to save their 'Free Basics' platform which infringes upon the principles of Net Neutrality.

We fought them off once, but Facebook is now pumping in a hell of a lot of money and utilizing the reach of their platform. We are still fighting, and www.savetheinternet.in is a good initiative which helps people mail the regulatory authority TRAI before the deadline on Dec 30.

Do support us by shaming Facebook globally for the underhanded tactics they are using here in India.

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Year 2015 Tech Review

Apple fanboy: My new iPhone has a 3D touch. I can hard-press an area in Instagram to open additional features.

Android fanboy: I can long-press the same area in Instagram to open the same features. No need for 3D hardware.

Windows fanboy: WTF is an Instagram?

BlackBerry fanboy: Hello everyone! What are you guys talking about?

FirefoxOS fanboy:

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Sony developing long lasting Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries have been powering phones and laptops for so long, it's easy to forget that other — potentially more promising — battery technologies exist. 

Reports now say Sony, which played a key part in popularizing Li-ion batteries in the 1990s, is working on new, sulfur-based batteries, which could offer up to 40% better energy density per volume. The report also states that Sony is working on magnesium-sulfur batteries, which are potentially both more efficient and cheaper than today's batteries.

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The long tail of Passwords

Remembering passwords was always a nuisance and these days when a secure password has at least 20 characters and resembles the product of a cat walking over a keyboard, it's worse than ever. 

Google has an idea how to fix this, and it includes using your phone to log into your account. The new feature was first reported by Reddit user Rohit Paul, and Android Police confirmed with Google that the new feature is being tested with a small number of users on iOS and Android.

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I am very critical of People around me

I realized when analyzing my life that in my head I'm pretty judgemental.

I'm always looking at what people are wearing in public, how they look, how their hairs done. I sort of analyze everyone I see and rate them in my mind about how attractive they are.

I'm by no means handsome or attractive myself but I just have this bad habit of always thinking about other people. I know you can't judge someone by their looks and when first meeting them. I do it anyway without realizing. And when I catch myself I still do it anyway. I just am aware of it.

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Can you learn all these Handwriting styles ?

click to view

Every single one of those is better than the only handwriting I've got.

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DuckDuckGo Grows 70% this Year

I've been using duck duck go as my primary search engine for some time now on both my laptop & phone.. I really like the ! searches (!w for wikipedia, !r for reddit, !yt for youtube, !t for thesaurus, !d for dictionary, etc). I think it's a feature not found in other search engines.

I also like the fact that it doesn't track. When you do a lot of repeated searches with google, it adds more and more to your URL to keep track of what you've searched that session.

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Individual Principles

I don't think the world is so black and white. Its grey; everything is on a spectrum; It might be possible for Zuckerberg to contribute to positive changes in the US. He will have zero power in China. So, if he wants to continue operating his sites there, he plays along. There's really almost no option. There are a wealth of different circumstances and conditions.

I have no issue with people who selectively apply their principles, or those who are seemingly hypocritical with regard to morality or ethics as I am one of those people. I believe in free speech but accept circumstances where it should not be free; I believe no human should be killed but assume I could/would and justify killing in defence; I believe we should treat the life of animals with respect and seek no harm but I eat meat; I believe nepotism is wrong but many circumstance exist where I would show bias to my family; I believe in philanthropy and charity but contribute less than I can afford; etc. I accept that I don't fulfil my principles as much as others or in their entirety but I believe in them, to me they are principles I stand by, in my own way and capacity.

Zuckerberg is the same. I believe most of us are. 

Read More - Source

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Ubuntu is about People

Ubuntu has been around for just over a decade. That’s a long time for a project built around a field that evolves at such a rapid pace as computing. And not just any computing –software made for (and by) human beings, who have also inevitably grown and evolved with Ubuntu.

Over the years, Ubuntu has changed and has lead change to keep thriving in such a competitive space. The first years were particularly exciting: there was so much to do, countless possibilities and plenty of opportunities to contribute.

Everyone that has been around for a while has fond memories of the Ubuntu Developer Summit, UDS in short. An in-person event run every 6 months to plan the next version of the OS. Representatives of different areas of the community came together every half year, somewhere in the US or Europe, to discuss, design and lay out the next cycle, both in terms of community and technology.

It was in this setting where Ubuntu governance and leadership were discussed, the decisions of which default apps to include were made, the switch to Unity’s new UX, and much more. It was a particularly intense event, as often discussions continued into the hallways and sometimes up to the bar late at night.

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PM Abe has sent his condolences to the deceased cop who was guarding his cavalcade

On December 13, Delhi Police constable Virendra Pratap Singh died after being hit by an unidentified vehicle in Delhi Cantt area while guarding the route that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was to take for the airport on his return to Japan.

Guruswamys post says that as soon the word reached Tokyo, the Japanese PM did what he thought was needful.

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Sign Up to keep your 15GB OneDrive Storage

A month ago, ‪#‎Microsoft‬ planned to significantly change storage plans for nearly all OneDrive users because of the misdeeds of a few people that exploited the unlimited ‪#‎OneDrive‬ storage plan - this caused a huge outcry from thousands of OD users asking for their storage back and/or threatening to switch cloud storage services because of it.

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Movie Review: Pan 2015

Is it just me or do all these fantasy movies feel the same? I can't put my finger on it but this movie gives me the same visual and acting vibe that Cinderella and Maleficent did.

I watched the movie, and I liked it. It wasn't a great movie, but it was pretty good. Hugh Jackman was awesome as Blackbeard, I actually didn't even know it was him until I got home and looked it up.

Some parts of the story felt "forced", for example when they are in the mermaid water and the girl says to Peter "The mermaids charged the water with visions of the past, stick your head underwater and you will see what happened to your mother years ago".

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The fight to become the “Amazon of the IoT” will intensify in 2016

Amazon's IOT Strategy

Amazon’s disruptive one-stop-shop approach to online shopping saw it quickly become the dominant force in the retail industry. As the IoT’s vast potential becomes more apparent, we will start to see a growing number of organizations fighting to establish themselves as the go-to provider of IoT solutions, or the Amazon of the IoT. 

This will spur the rise of the IoT mega-platform; vast one-stop-shop Platform-as-a-Service solutions. The battle will likely play out across both the consumer and enterprise spaces and many of the usual suspects are already coming to the fore. 

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Amazon most visited e-commerce site in Oct

As e-commerce players battled for consumer attention during the festive period, Amazon India saw maximum visitors on its web and mobile sites in October at over 20 crore visitors, as per the recent data from Internet analytics firm comScore.

An annual comparison shows that Amazon has also seen the most rapid growth in one year between November 2014 to October 2015.

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Why do people link Terrorism with Religion ?

I've been thinking a lot about terrorism recently and why it happens. The media seems to always jump to radicalization of religion but I've come to the conclusion that it's probably not the root cause. I believe that the gap between rich and poor is the root cause for modern terrorism.

If rich countries could share their wealth with poor countries (would probably be impossible) then there would be less people turning to religion. Religion often appears to be what people turn to when they need strength because of a bad situation including being extremely poor with no hope of things getting better.

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Review: AMD Radeon Crimson

AMD announced their new Radeon Software drivers I knew big changes were coming, AMD didn't just promise that they would be delivering us a new and improved user interface, but also that they would improving the stability of their drivers, the performance of their drivers and will be continuing to add more and more useful features to their software.

With the first release of AMD's Radeon Software, AMD Crimson, AMD planned to tackle not just performance, efficiency,the aging UI of their drivers or simply add more features, but take a 4 pronged approach that will endeavor to do all this at once in a since, stable driver release.

With Last years AMD Catalyst Omega driver AMD had fixed the 10 biggest issues that AMD Catalyst users had requested to be fixed, and now around a year later AMD has some so again, fixing many of the issues that their end users have been facing over the past year.

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Khan Academy plans to tap India by localising content

Khan Academy, the non-profit educational organisation to impart free, world-class education through YouTube videos, is looking to strengthen its presence in India. 

India needs Khan Academy, desperately. Our teachers venting all their professional and personal frustrations on poor students need to relax and learn from these greats. We have some amazing students in this country and their minds are destroyed by morons pretending to be teachers in schools and colleges.

I cannot tell you the innumerable number of times a stupendously complicated concept has been glossed over by college teachers. I've had to spend hours scouring Khan Academy and other videos to understand them. All the very best to these Khan Academy people. You're the best :)

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You're my Everything

If I am the sun, you are the moon. Humbly beautiful, standing back and letting me shine.

If I am the moon, you are the stars. Lighting up even the darkest nights, surrounding me with infinite reasons to love you.

If I am the stars, you are the sky. Holding me in your strong hands and never letting me fall.

If I am the sky, you are the mountains. Reaching up as tall as possible just to be closer to me.

If I am the mountains you are the trees, Filling my whole life up with indescribable beauty.

If I am the trees, you are the river that flows near me. Giving me life every time we touch.

If I am the river, you are a boulder coming into my life and forever changing the way my heart flows.

If I am the boulder, you are the ground beneath me. Supporting me and keeping me safe.

If I am the ground, you are a flower. Planted in my soul and showing me my potential.

If I am a flower, you are the rain. Falling gently across my face like a thousand little kisses.

If I am the rain, you are the wind spinning me around, keeping me dancing.

If I am the wind, you are a flag. Waving fiercely and cheering me on.

If I am a flag, you are a castle. Proud to present me, giving me purpose.

If I am a castle, you are a king. Letting me protect you, letting me be strong.

And if you are a queen, I must be your King. Because you love me as sweetly as the moon loves the sun.

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Elon Musk is Probably the Greatest Entrepreneur of our Time

Elon Musk Co-founded 3 different companies; each one aims to solve one of the biggest problems of our generation.

• Absolutely zero fear of risk; he is willing to put his entire bankroll on a single project (500m+ invested in his own companies)
• Arguably the most brilliantly diverse engineer of our time.
• His level of optimism and determination is unmatched by anyone of our era. Elon will literally not stop a project until it succeeds, regardless of its size (http://www.wired.com/science/spa...)

Forget about iPhones and iPads, Elon is trying to solve some of the biggest problems of this world's future.

And he's doing so without being properly noticed. So my perspective; that alone makes him the greatest Entrepreneur of our time.

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Advantages to Switching over to FOSS

I could never understand the fact that governments and medical facilities would not use open source software. The cost savings are substantial as well as the ability to make software that performs a certain jobset without the need for extra crap stuffed in.

The biggest advantage I see to open source for government work: the formats must, by definition, also be open. That means that their data can never be held hostage by any company.

If they're using Office, they're more or less forced to do so in a way that Microsoft finds acceptable. If they don't like the old deal any more, then when it's time for a new contract, the government can find itself over a barrel, with a very serious problem.

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We are the last Ones to Die

We are among the last humans to truly die. Eventually, humans will learn how to measure and record the state of all matter and energy running though the human body. Once that happens, it will eventually be loaded into a computer simulation and the consciousness of that at the moment of measurement person will be fully available for study. 

Someone, anyone will be able to judge every thought, memory and event ever witnessed by the person. Imagine being able to speak with a long deceased relative. Imagine being able to see the honest memories of a mass murderer or a hero saving the world. This, done at a massive scale will become the information we currently see as lost due to death.

Our past self may be immortal already. If we can do it, it's quite possible that an alien race already has.

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Children's Day Special at Amazon India Hyderabad

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Firefox Celebrates its 11th Year

Over the past year, Mozilla Firefox brought forth innovative new ideas to attract users and to stay relevant in a super competitive area as the Internet transitions to a mobile generation.

While celebrating this birthday, Mozillians have access to exciting new features like Firefox Hello, a built-in video conferencing tool; improved Firefox Sync, a developer edition of the browser; and many other under-the-hood improvements.

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Libreroot to Join GNU Project

Libreroot website explains it as following:

Libreboot has been 100% philosophically compatible with GNU, from the day the project was founded (our goal is identical to GNU, and our philosophy is identical to the one held by that project), but there are some technical issues with it that make it incompatible with GNU at present.

What exactly does "joining the GNU Project" mean?

Generally tweak the site and documentation, to more aggressively promote the freedom aspect (the main goal of the GNU project). We already do this to a great extent (especially on the home page), but there are obviously areas for improvement. A lot of the time, we assume that the reader already knows about the free software philosophy, without actually explaining it to them properly. We need to fix that. [Announcement]

Libreboot provides a fully free (deblobbed) coreboot tree, called coreboot-libre, with payloads and utilities already included. It attempts to make coreboot easy to use, by providing a fully automated build and installation process (and tested, stable releases), along with documentation designed for non-technical users. You don't even need to build from source if you don't want to; ROM images and utilities are also included in each release, pre-compiled from the available source code. [main libreboot.org page]

Sounds like it's mostly about aggressively reminding you that something is non-free in the universe. The benefits this project provides are stripping out the binaries from the coreboot source while still letting things build. For some of the computers and chip-sets, you might actually be able to use it afterwards.

If you're the type of person who can't compromise on non-free binaries, this probably matters a lot to you. For those of us with filthy enough souls that we're willing to compromise it's likely not going to make much of a difference.

Source

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Scissors

When I was little I used to believe in a thing called left-handed scissors. I always thought that the scissors with orange handles were for left-handed people, because that's what my parents told me.

Then, one day I mentioned something about left-handed scissors, and my friends laughed at me and explained their logic about how they don't actually exist. Like, scissor handles just have 2 holes, it doesn't matter which hand it is. And I believed them, it made sense. Had my parents lied to me?

THEN, a couple years, I found out that left-handed scissors do exist. And now I have trust issues.

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Coping Up with Depression

There are times I feel void of meaning or understanding. Frequently occurring more oft than I can handle or admit. Like the desire or will to live has been sucked out of me, tormenting my mind with beige pondering of nothingness. Minutes become hours, hours become days. Time goes on and I feel the effects of an aging body, yet I have no further wisdom, as if my mind has decayed more than ageless years can afflict. What will come of me? What is the point of meaning something? Working to exist so that I may exist to work has spun a perpetual cyclone of hopelessness. Why bother to breathe, to eat, to try to feel; when you are only occupying space that would be better suited for one who has purpose?

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Terrorist Hafiz Saeed invites Shah Rukh to stay in Pakistan

India has always had religious riots and untouchability since a long time. Gujarat has had religious riots since 1947, almost all including Godhra started by Muslims. Since Godhra and Modi, riots have ceased. Call it intolerance but this is a good thing. Actually intolerance is not new but intolerance is receiving more press and therefore it is good thing. 

As for idiots returning awards, that is political. Maybe SRK should visit the victims of all Hindu victims of Mumbai bombings and attacks by terrorists and Godhra victims from Hindu and Muslim communities rather than speaking to the media. While at it, SRK should also visit the families of soldiers whose heads were chopped off by the Pakistani soldiers.

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False Assumptions

People assume that I have a lot of friends because I get along with a lot of people, but I'm the last to be invited by most people. I'll hear that a group of people that I thought were friends went out without even asking me, and it hurts. Or I'll be the one that tries to make plans and out of the few people that reply, only one or two will actually show up.

It was more of a problem in high school and some parts of college, I've basically stopped talking to the people that treated me like a filler friend. So I have my close group of friends now, and I feel a lot more wanted.

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#OffTheRecord

I walk around with a purpose, keep an attitude of confidence wherever I go, I'm friendly and sociable with people I pass, making light-hearted small talk about the weather in elevators.

Inside, I'm a nervous wreck, no idea what I'm doing, constantly questioning how stupid I must look to people around me. The thing that keeps me going, though, is the thought that the only thing worse than constantly worrying about how I appear to people, is people knowing that I'm worried about how I appear to them.

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Mozilla Should try to Mind its own Business

People are hating on the fact that a non profit organization is donating a significant amount of money to OSS which does not even have to help them in any way ? Or does the fact that their products have bugs in them stop them from doing any good ?

As has been said already, it's about priorities:

• Mozilla has been wasting its time hunting down posters who criticized the SJW infestation,
• The company has chased out the father of javascript,
• Is now embarking on the same sort of shenaigans which bled dry the Gnome Project.

People see this sort of social justice focus as frivolous in a software project which has bugs that are still outstanding since 2001!

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Music is the greatest soothe to my Soul

Whenever I get sad, happy, mad or all in all 'Emotional' I tune up the music in my ears to the situation that I am in.. and right now its this song that fits my psychic vibrations.

All it takes is to find resonance within, close my eyes and hit play on my phone. Its like escaping from reality, far from everyone and everything that matters. For some its music, for some its meditation and so on and so forth but for me its a mixture of both music and meditation.

Go ahead, try it on.. it works for me. Maybe it'll be same for you too :)

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You're my only One !

You've given me everything I needed in my life, the motivation to thrive and better myself for a cause. You're the sole reason I do what I do anymore, I watch your progress in life through the social media, knowing you're doing great in life brings me so much happiness.

Though with the strains in my heart for you, I know I'll never move on from what we've once had, I'll hold onto those memories until the day I die. You are the inspiration of my life, the reason I want to become successful, everything I do, I do for you. You don't know anything I've done since our departure, but I know you're living well without me and that's all I care about, your happiness. Stay well, till I see you again in the far future.

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Dusherra Celebrations at Office

When I entered the floor today, I could see cabins decorated with flowers (real ones) and well preserved for something that was yet to happen. At first I wasn't sure what was happening? Later realized we are celebrating 'Dusherra'.

Till mid day we were busy with stuff, later we were taken to training whilst in middle of it, people started getting excited. News broke out that there would be some sort of skit on account for Dusherra.

I could see the glimpses of people getting ready with costumes. The girl sitting beside me was playing (Sita's) role. She seemed super excited...when I asked her what's her role? Sadly there wasn't any skit except for ramp walk. Most of my friends participated in the ramp wearing jaw dropping costumes.

Everything was great today except for the morning and evening part. It came as a surprise when I got to know that I am assigned a different cab and my friends were in different cab. (Usually we r in same cab most of the time) so that was a bummer.

And evening was bad too, had to do mandatory post OT in order to complete the training.

Hopefully we'll be graduating by tomorrow. People I intend to talk today couldn't spend any time with them. So that was something I feel sad about. Other than that... I guess everything was alright and good.

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New friends at Work Place, My Life is just getting started.

Its hardly been a month at my work place and I already have made over a dozen friends,. Few close, few still in progress. Most of all there are two special people that I've met, one of them my team mate and the other one is from totally diff floor and diff dept.

We all get to meet during the breaks, while we go grab a coffee together. People I've met so far are very sweet and friendly. Never did I feel out of place in their company. They are the greatest source of laughter in office.

A few might be little too close to heart because they understand me and are very open to any discussions. I hope it stays like that .. without any misunderstandings. Always wanted to go to parties and movie with team mates, hope that day comes soon. :)

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Selfless act of Love

Few days back a friend offered me food, I didn't took my lunch to office that day. I don't know what it is, but to me food has always been the way to my heart. 

Those people that like to feed others really have a special kind of soul. She made something with her own hands and work, bought it with her own money, and give it to me just because. Nobody is obligated to feed you unless you're a child, so cooking someone food is a true and selfless act of love.

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The Illusion of Free Will " TEDxUCIrvine

Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. 

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Twitter Probably won't end up like MySpace

Twitter has been undergoing some tough times lately with some 10% of their employees being laid off and struggling to find a CEO before settling on co-founder Jack Dorsey. I believe that Twitter has some unassailable competitive moats that will allow it to maintain its current standing as the go to source for breaking news:

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My thoughts grew up when

I started reading from an early age and lived the lives of adults vicariously through novels/stories. I remember even at the age of seven or eight feeling a sense of disconnection from the other kids at school and a certain dissonance between my mind and child body. This caused me to feel, at the time, that I wasn't a child.

In retrospect, of course, I know that I was a child. I can chart, looking back, the stages of development. But that sense that I wasn't a child makes the transition out of childhood hard to pinpoint. This realization crawled down my stomach like a cold, fat eel. It scared me, the sudden awareness that before me stretched out a finite plane of time and whose end would be my end. No escape. And the loneliness of it all.

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Survival Skills & Tools

The absolute best survival technique in any situation is to keep yourself as healthy as possible before an emergency happens. You're not outrunning zombies if you're pushing 3 bills. If you've got COPD, type-2 diabetes, or jacked-up blood pressure, you're immediately at a disadvantage once the poles reverse, electricity stops working, and the dead start climbing out of their graves. 

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Thoughts on Weekend

I often daydream about being in my late 30s or so and having "made it" in life - great wife and kids, nice house, a border collie I jog with in the evenings, family holidays, a well-paying job I enjoy, close circle of friends...

It's actually incredibly mundane, I know, but it's a healthy break from fantasising about zombie apocalypses and winning arguments I had several weeks ago.

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Do Half Zombie Human Hybrids Exist?

Yes Demi-Zombies, aka Human-Zombie Hybrids, do exist.  There are a handful of anecdotes found in ancient scrolls apart of the private collections of secret societies.  However the only known living case, and verified Demi-Zombie is our dropped out biology student Ms. Ayesha.

Her limited predecessors mentioned in ancient documents tended to be far less intelligent, and rather unpredictable.

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Feel Good Today

Spreading Positivity: Saying hello to strangers. Holding doors open for people. Complimenting strangers (and actually meaning it). Doing something that will make someone laugh a little. I try to encourage people and find the best in them. I find it motivates people a lot more when you build them up for what they do right rather than breaking them down and berate them for what they did wrong.

Idk I like seeing people happy, even when I'm having a shitty day. It makes me feel like I did something productive and significant.

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When I feel Insecure

It always seems like whenever I'm with friends I get insecure and intimidated when my friend talks to others. I feel incredibly foolish, especially since I know it's nothing, but nonetheless I get jealous.

When I'm feeling insecure or helpless, what I do is simple: I think, or rather stop and look around at those around me. I observe everyone else's situation. I'm not talking about something like, "Hey, at least my life isn't this bad!" type of deal. At the end of the day, that doesn't make me feel good, normal or confident.

No, what really comforts me is that everybody knows nothing. No one person out there can see the future, no one person out there knows exactly what they're doing with their lives. And I focus on that when I'm down. I focus on that and take comfort from it. These people don't know what they're doing, why should I ? And anyone who expects me to know doesn't know themselves. In short, stop. Look around. Realize that no one knows.

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Looking forward to Travel places (preferably not alone !)

It is wonderful to be alive. There's so much to experience in life. So much.

Travel is an excellent way to experience the infinite wonders in this world. There are 7 continents, 5 oceans, 193 countries and over 13,000 ethnic groups.

Imagine tasting different kinds of ethnic cuisine, or walking through an ethnic neighborhood in other countries. Even buying snacks in a foreign shop is exhilarating. No two travel experiences are the same.

It's all about culture shock. And it feels so good!

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Lalu stirs up Caste Controversy

I can't believe that in a time when elections were being fought on development agenda, or at least on talks about development and Digital India and Clean energy, this one thug called Lalu Yadav and his band of buffoons that is the RJD have managed to draw back the entire agenda to Caste and Religion politics.
And here we thought Bihar had finally become literate and aware enough.

One dirty fish... Or in the case of Bihar, one dirty state... Bihar will single handedly manage to ruin it for entire country if Biharis don't get off their fat asses now.

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Miss being a Kid

I think everybody misses being a kid. What I miss the most about being a kid is going out to play football in the fields.

Everyday around 5 pm, all the kids in the neighborhood used to do this. We would split teams and play, and play passionately. And it was so much fun.

We'd play everyday, even in the rains, and the ground would get all mushy, and the ball would get stuck in the puddles, and man did we have fun.

And around 7 pm, it would start to become dark so we'd just sit down in a circle and talk for a while, and then go home really tired. And I'd have to enter through the back door cos I'd always be really dirty after playing, and have a hot shower.

Then we stopped cos life got in the way in the form of college and work. But those days playing football in the fields are still some of the sweetest memories I have.

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Hyderabad Man Duped Flipkart Of Rs 20 Lakh, By Exploiting Company's Item Return Policy

Leading e-commerce portal Flipkart was taken for a ride by a Hyderabad youth, who is said to have duped the company for over Rs 20 lakh.

The youth, Veera Swamy, 32, of Vanasthalipuram in the city allegedly duped the company by booking orders and returning the goods upon delivery. He would place the orders for valuable electronic items in the name of mother, father, wife, brothers and other known people in the neighbourhood. After the items were delivered, he would call up the call centre complaining that the goods delivered were of poor quality.

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IoT is happening at Amazon's fulfilment Warehouses

Amazon's drones have a long way to become reality, but the real magic of the Internet of Things (IoT) is already happening at Amazon's vast fulfillment warehouses in the US. 

Amazon runs a fleet of thousands of small robots moving storage pods around so orders can be fulfilled in record time. They are so efficient that they can move an entire warehouse and have ready to operate again during the weekend. All together the small robots have travelled over 93 million miles — almost the distance from Earth to the Sun.

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Make In India is growing at a rapid pace

I support Digital India & ideas towards the mission of Make in India.. I believe & I can vision the thoughts of PM Narendra Modi for India.

The vision creation of digital infrastructure, delivering services digitally, digital literacy is main point of digital India. Internet is gaining the knowledge and understanding new skills of life, Internet have made this world a riding station of a talent in a different way..internet have changed many life's work into working technology.

I wish the same vision works in India, Youth is needed to join power to raise there hand to be part of this Digital India and Make In India..

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Why the fuss about Zuckerberg changing his profile pic ?

www.Internet.org looks so imminent now, that every bit of effort taken by people and communities across the internet seems so futile.

I'm mad at the way the media is playing this whole thing out. Even biased media houses like NDTV are jerking off to the fact that Zuckerberg changed his profile picture. DoorDarshan officially tweeted about this ffs.

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Twitter Is Testing A Polling Feature for Its Website and Mobile Apps

Twitter is getting ready to test a polling feature that the company has been working on for some time. The company has made the feature available to a subset of users. Twitter CFO Anthony Noto posted simple question for his followers Thursday: “Boxers of briefs?” Entertainment Weekly also tweeted out a poll. Twitter has been working on the feature for at least a year.

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Pride is the root of all Evil

I have spent some considerable time... Considering things like this, and I noticed something about sin. All sin seems to stem from Pride. Sins of desire are also sins of entitlement; that regardless of others, you deserve something.

And then yes, there's the concept of Wealth, Power, and Control. Wealth is simply an illusion, but what it supplies is a convenient means for the exchange of Power. And Power is used to exert Control. Though, funny enough, true control can never be had in either a chaotic system, or one in which you're dealing with free will.

And Pride itself is not necessarily evil. But it leads to evil so easily, and that's the danger.

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Sunder Pichai Welcomes Indian PM to Silicon Valley

Sundar Pichai, CEO of technology giant Google, today said India has long been an exporter of talent to technology companies, but is now undergoing its own revolution that will have great benefits for the 1.2 billion people in the country.

Welcoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Silicon Valley, the India-born CEO said there is tremendous excitement for his visit among all Googlers and the entire Indian community.

But it is India that's now undergoing its own revolution, he said in a YouTube video. It has received tremendous support in India and in Silicon Valley, Pichai said.

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False Vacuum Collapse

The basic idea is that the resting state of the universe is state which has the lowest amount of energy. We see this all the time, this is why crystal form -- that arrangement of the mineral requires the least amount of energy. But, sometimes there's a lower energy resting state available, but it requires a kick to get it over an energy hump before it can reconfigure to that lower energy state.

So the theory goes... what if vacuum isn't the lowest energy state of our universe? What this means is that if we could provide that kick to get it over the bump and create a blob of space that's lower energy than vacuum... the entire universe would essentially re-crystallize. Virtually instantly. You wouldn't see it coming, and the laws of physics would change.

This is one theory on how the big bang could have happened.

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Imgur Compromised through XSS exploit by Attacker

Soon after the news broke down that '4chan has been sold to Hiroyuki Nishimura, founder of 2chan' the platform started falling apart. Apparently the site has been compromised by an Attacker with XSS Exploit.

When an Imgur image is loaded from /r/4chan, imgur loads a bunch of images from 4chan's content delivery network or 8chan (unclear at this point, might be both), which causes a DDoS to those sites.

"Take a look at the network tab in the developer console when opening up one of the links. Over 453 requests made. Doesn't happen for other non-4chan images. Something fishy indeed:http://puu.sh/kjzzU/c926757f68.png"

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Fascist Chennai College

Click to Enlarge

For some reason Chennai prides itself on moral policing. Parents support these policies too.

They don't understand how harmful it is to a student's social development to treat them constantly like a criminal who'll break every rule if given the chance. Even with this I believe if the students are adults they should be allowed to make their own choices (or mistakes for that matter) rather than being forced to live under such oppressive conditions. Which by the way does more harm than good in later years.

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Will Steam Box Deliver?

Win 10 isn't total shit and seems to have much less consumer backlash. If Valve don't get Steam boxes on the market soon (and they're already late for Christmas) then they are unlikely to gain real traction as people won't see the need to switch from Windows.

The current level of GNU/Linux adoption makes it pain-for-no-gain for companies to support GNU/Linux.

And I say that with a heavy heart as I am a GNU/Linux user.

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Olivia Hallisey a High School Teenager Built an Inexpensive Ebola Test

A 16-year-old Olivia Hallisey from Greenwich, Connecticut saw news reports of the devastation caused by last year's Ebola epidemic in West Africa, she became determined to find a way to help prevent the highly infectious and often fatal virus from spreading. She realized that the tests being used to detect Ebola were of limited value -- they required 12 hours to determine if someone was infected and, even worse, they needed constant refrigeration which was often not available in the remote areas most affected by the outbreak. 

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Migrant Crisis In Libya

Well, in your next installment of a world gone nuts - there is the other migrant crisis in Libya.

Not too sure I like this report because it seems probable that any of those providing interviews to Vice (especially the well spoken girl in English) is probably dead now for their honesty.

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BJP Accuses AAP on Onion Scam

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The BJP spin masters are accusing the AAP govt of an onion price scam via Aaj Tak channel ! Accusing the AAP govt of buying onions at Rs. 32.50 and selling it at Rs.30. As Vishal Dadlani says, 'you fools! For a scam, govt has to sell at prices more than the procurement price" ! hahaha rofl!

AAP is as stinky as onions and so their first scam had to be ONION SCAM. Delhiets, cry now. :D

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The World’s Largest Green Roof Proposed by Apple

Apple may soon have some mild competition as the most famous attraction in Cupertino, California., though they would probably welcome it: A developer plans to convert the currently “outdated” Vallco Shopping Mall into the largest green roof in the world. 

The proposed 30-acre “roof” would be the main attraction of a mixed-use town center planned for the heart of the city’s emerging downtown called The Hills at Vallco. Cupertino’s “roof” would serve as a community park, nature preserve, and energy efficiency sponge.

Source

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Inauguration of the 'Electronics at School' Project in Kerela

Looking to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools, the state government today said that all schools in Kerala, both government and aided, will soon be equipped with electronics and Raspberry Pi kits. 

Speaking at the inauguration of an 'Electronics@School' project, initiated by the state IT Department, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said that 6,000 government schools would be given electronics kits to support and nurture a "maker- culture" among their students.

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Reality behind the 'True Love' Notion

Who's to decide what "true" love or "really, really" loving someone means?

In my perspective of the world people are egocentric at the very core. Even if motivated by what we describe as "selflessness" because you want someone else to be happy, then you are still doing what is best for yourself - since it is what you want. If you know with yourself that the other person won't be happy with you - and you care about that person - then you know that being with that person would include that person being unhappy which in turn would result in you not being happy with that person.

You can say that leaving that person for happiness it is the most selfless thing to do, but it is still at its very core a completely egocentric action - as is everything we ever do.

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Elon Musk to launch 4000 Satellites for World Wide Connectivity

From what I've read, he plans to have 4000 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) rather than the usual Geostationary Orbit, which is a difference of around 35,000 km in terms of radius of the orbit. This is ~0.12 seconds of latency each way, which will go a long way in reducing the usual lag in satellite networks.

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Intelligence affects the Survival of Species in the Long Run

Consider a planet similar from Earth: very suitable for life, with vegetal and animal life forms thriving onside. Imagine if one of these life forms could raise as a civilization, genetic evolution would have given them at least some intelligence, but that would eventually end up in a very short life expectancy.

The reason I say this is first of all based on the evidence. We already see data that shows that higher IQ's in human beings are linked to lower reproductive rates. That's a scientific fact. Lower reproductive rates are typically not beneficial from an evolutionary standpoint.

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The Dark Web

A great documentary on deep web and silk road back . It is the internet black market. I can only imagine sites like these will continue to pop up as technology only builds bigger walls.

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Amazon Introduces Cheap Tablets Starting $50

In a breezy modern home atop one of the city’s steep and iconic hills, Amazon representatives told a small gathering of journalists on Wednesday about their new fall lineup of hardware products. “That we’re in a home is purposeful,” one Amazon rep said, explaining that Amazon has been trying to integrate home automation into its products as it also tries to take over living room entertainment.

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Rosary Pea 75 times more deadly than Ricin

From a young age we’re warned not to eat random berries and fruits we may come across. But did you know that some of the most lethal plants are commonly used as ornament plants in homes around the world?

The rosary pea for example, is 75 times more deadly than ricin – BUT, if you ingest the whole seed, it will pass through your body in a harmless manner, as it has an extremely tough outer coating.

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Me You and Nobody is Important in this Universe

There's not a single human being is vital to the operation or continuation of the human species. Even the most "important" person on the planet can be seamlessly replaced.

And even if by some marvellous coincidence you are that important, you're still just top monkey on a speck of dust in the middle of nowhere.

The ego is a liar that tells people that they're important. Psychedelics are good for overcoming that illusion.

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Indian girl responds to hypocrite America

I'm sure most of you would have probably seen this video on YouTube yet I post it for those who haven't seen it. This video by the brilliant blogger Srishti Kukreja, makes an important point, that cannot be underestimated:

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A Modern Sci-fi Story

It was the year 2871. It started soon after the successful mapping of the galaxy in 2844. A time in my life when my spirit was high, when everything was an opportunity to be taken. Traveling to other planets on the milky way had just become the new exotic extreme sport, it was cheap, it was dangerous, and as with all other sports it was pointless.

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Facebook dislike button to become Reality

Facebook may soon become less civil as the result of equality. After years of desire from the user base, Mark Zuckerberg announced the company will add a "dislike" button to their popular social media service. According to reports from Business Insider and CNBC, Zuckerberg confirmed the development citing years of requests.

Business Insider quoted the CEO as stating people wanted the ability to express empathy because not every post comes from a positive moment. Citing the Syrian refugee crisis, Zuckerberg stated the simple "like" feature did not allow users to easily convey their sympathy. Now that the service has launched News Feed, a scrolling news ticker, the move seems all-the-more reasonable.

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200,000 People have been killed in Syrian Civil War

It is estimated that over 200,000 people have been killed during the Syrian civil war. That's a lot of lives. Lives. In a striking representation by the New York Times, a dot represents each life lost.

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Twitter facing new class action Suit for Scanning Messages

Twitter is facing a new possible class action suit that accuses the company of violating user privacy. The lawsuit states that the company has been "systematically intercepting, reading, and altering" direct messages, most likely a reference to Twitter's long-standing practice of automatically shortening and redirecting any in-message links. 

The practice could be used to monitor or redirect any URLs included in a direct message, although it's generally seen as a benign extension of the company's broader link-shortening systems. In a statement to USA Today, Twitter, to nobody's surprise, insisted that the allegations are "meritless.

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Internet after Ad-block

There is definitely a reckoning coming, and I'm not convinced there's still time to save ads by blocking ads. Maybe 5 years ago, that would have been possible -- sure, even then, ads were obnoxious, but I feel like that was nothing compared to a lot of today's bullshit. 

But, nowadays, what we have is ... well ... completely unsustainable bullshit that even the most pro-people-getting-paid consumers are tired of. Consequently, even people who otherwise weren't savvy enough to even consider that ad blocking was a thing are starting to catch on.

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Facebook extends React Native to Android

The JavaScript development technology lets developers create Web, iOS, and Android apps with the same core set of code. Facebook today is unveiling React Native for Android, extending its JavaScript development technology for Web and native development to Google's popular mobile platform.

React Native lets developers create Web, iOS, and Android apps with the same core set of code by leveraging JavaScript and React, a Facebook- and Instagram-developed JavaScript library for building user experiences. React Native was open-sourced in March.

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It felt Ridiculous

I had a dream that one day there would be an Ubuntu release that wasn't accompanied by a promise of the actually finished version some time in the future. Then I woke up laughing at how ridiculous the chances of that are.

“Just wait until next year! Ubuntu will be amazing then!”

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Ok Google !

I still don't understand why Google doesn't provide things like a Drive client and Picasa natively for Linux. On the one hand they try to give the impression that they are all for community and stuff, but then they slack off in the important areas.

"OK Google, how about a frikkin' Drive client and Picasa for Linux?"

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Opinion: Violence and Women

In-response to All violence is male-generated: Maneka Gandhi

Violence is a trait of all animals. Since humans have learnt to control it, humans have become civilised. Violence is not a trait of a particular gender but a primitive trait inherent in all animals. 

If we look into the animal world where Smt. Maneka Gandhi specialises, we can find loads of examples where a female animal assumes the position of leadership through violence. 

Moreover it has been scientifically proven that the nursing mother is the most violent in the animal world. In human beings the basic upbringing of the male is invariably done by the female(mother) so violence in males as well as females is often female-generated. As such violence cannot be attributed to a particular gender.

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Indian Railways to get Wi-Fi Service from Google

Google and Indian Railways have partnered together for 'Project Nilgiri' which aims to set up more than 400 Wi-fi hotspots. IBTimes reports: "Internet access will be free for passengers after the system verifies a user's mobile number with a one-time password sent by text message. 

However, only the first 30 minutes of usage will be on high-speed Internet, Telecom Talk reported. The telecom industry news site has also posted a screen grab — that shows the service is being provided by Google — of the portal into which passengers have to enter the one-time access code.

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'Technically Steve Jobs was not fired' - Wozniak

"One of the things we know about Steve Jobs is that “At 30, Steve Jobs was wildly successful, fabulously wealthy and a global celebrity. And then he was fired by Apple.”

The CEO of Apple at that time was John Sculley and we always called him “the man who fired Steve Jobs.” As CEO, Sculley was thought to have control issues with Jobs — who founded the company alongside Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976 — which later metamorphosed into the sacking of the former by the Apple board at that time. - BestMobs

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Nanoscale Solar Cells Outperform Traditional Technology

Scientists have designed a novel type of nanoscale solar cell. Initial studies and computer modelling predict these cells will outperform traditional solar panels, reach power conversion levels by over 40 percent.

Solar power cells work through the conversion of sunlight into electricity using photovoltaics. Here solar energy is converted into direct current. A photovoltaic system uses several solar panels; with each panel composed of a number of solar cells. This combines to create a system for the supply usable solar power.

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No Place for Randomness

I believe that in competitive games (card games, video games, etc) should not have any form of randomness in them. I think it reduces skill by leaving too much up to random chance.

One game specifically that has an excess of randomness is Pokemon. A lot of the game is affected by RNG (random number generation): status effects, damage, accuracy, evasion, and more. I have heard that RNG adds depth by adding another layer of preparation to your game plan, because you have to be prepared for a critical hit or something like that. But, in my opinion, this is hardly preparing for your opponent's skill. Is preparing for their strategies, moves, and items not enough of preparation? How do the benefits outweigh the problems?

My competitive game experience comes from fighting games, which are constant action, and not turn based like Pokemon is. In fighting games, risk comes from trying different strategies and moves based on your opponent's play style and habits, not from randomness. I understand that some games like poker do not work well at all when randomness is taken out, and I'm not saying that there is no skill involved in games that have lots of randomness. But in my opinion there is skill in spite of the randomness, not because of it.

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BJP is not development Oriented Government

"The BJP which came to power in some states and in centre with a huge promise made to the people of the country like "Sab-ka-saath,sab-ka vikas", make in india, and upliftment of farmers,unorganizeed workers,weavors and others."

Youth have over-whelmingly voted to Mr.Modi for his assurance to provide jobs for youth and bringing black money to pump in to the economy and provide infrastructure to boost economy.

But unfortunately, the BJP made the whole country to debate communal violence,ghar vapsi, diverting the attention of national festivals of minority community by bringing some unrelated issues,banning anything and everything etc. It is time that the BJP must tell the people openly about their hidden agenda and also accept the fact that the RSS and its ideology are the sacred book for them to run the government.

The country is looking for solutions from Mr.Modi for youth employment, farmers suicide,agricultural growth,manufacturing growth,infrastructure development,poverty removal,hunger,malnutrition,education,health etc. Certainly not this kind of communal divisive politics from BJP.

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Dull Weather

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A Milk Diary Engineer explains 'Distribution of Milk in India'

The vast majority of Indian milk distribution is usually carried out at "ambient temperature" meaning it isn't cooled in any way, and isn't distributed in pouches.

Usually, it takes about 4 hours for milk to be transported to your doodhwallas (milk delivery people), who then add water to it, and sell it on to their customers. Average time for milk to go from cow to the customers is 6 hours. By most dairy standards, this milk is already unfit for human consumption.

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Apple Pencil

Apple unveiled their newest lineup of high-tech goodies Wednesday and it’s an impressive slate. However, Internet users have questioned the value of the Apple Pencil. 

Yes, it seems like a cool tool for the tech company’s flagship digital sketchbook, capable of drawing and painting and dragging and doing everything else that your standard-issue Wacom tablet has done for almost a decade. Is it worth getting if you’re an artistically inclined iPad owner? Definitely. But is it worth $100? Maybe not.

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Opinion: Apple Special Event

Apple came out with "new" stuff. 

Most of this stuff was already being done by competing companies. Notably the Microsoft Surface Pro (most recently their Surface Pro3). For years now Microsoft has been getting shit about how stupid/pointless/etc the Surface Pro devices were. Now that Apple has basically cloned (but made it worse by making it use a mobile OS/apps instead of real programs) it's being celebrated as this new great invention.

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