https://t.co/NJuaJumx5R, https://t.co/DaaxpAmyoB — Paul Epps (@paulepps) August 7, 2024 The “outrage” seems to be over Trump’s implication that Kamala Harris is using racial identity in an opportunistic manner. Which she probably is, making it a fair topic of discussion. Let’s go back a few years to President Obama. His mother was white, his father was black. I never heard anyone refer to him as anything other than black. Do you think it would have been silly if President Obama had identified as white? It would have been silly, right? But he had one white parent and one black parent, so if you can just pick the race of one parent and say “that’s what I am”, ignoring the race of the other parent, what difference does it make which one you pick? To me, the only accurate description would be to say that he’s mixed-race, but mixed-race doesn’t get you… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: India
What’s on Your Nightstand?
Lamp Clock radio Extra pair of reading glasses Business cards, mostly my own 1 pen, 2 pencils Post-Its Vaccination record Schedule of classes for LA Fitness Two or three dollars in change Nine dollars in Candian coins 440 Indian rupees Read more →
Sandeep Hornblower
Even in an entire city full of motorists honking at one another, our driver this afternoon distinguished himself as the greatest horn blower since Horatio. We were stopped in traffic at red lights, and he’d still sound the horn a couple of times just to stay limbered up . . . Read more →
Riding in Cabs in Bangalore
The cab drivers here are either highly motivated to get you to your destination or completely insane. Or possibly both. “Roads” and “lanes” aren’t well-defined. A lane is any relatively flat piece of ground, paved or unpaved, that you can take possession of and defend with headlight flashing, horn honking and aggressive refusal to yield. Thoughts I’ve had more than once: Is this part of the road? Isn’t that a sidewalk? Read more →
Crossing Streets in Bangalore aka Human Frogger
A photo by Rasidel Slika on Flickr Read more →
Goin’ to Bangalore
I’m spending a couple of weeks in Bangalore at the end of the month. Travel is the most depressing thing in the world, beating out listening to other people talk about their travels. Bangalore has been called the Silicon Valley of Asia. It’s like the Silicon Valley here in California, but with monkeys and malaria. My boss has cautioned me to drink only the bottled water from the hotel, never the bottled water at the office. “They refill the bottles at the office with their own water,” he said. “The hotel will give you two bottles a day, but I tipped the staff a dollar a day and they left extra bottles in my room. That’s a lot of money over there.” I’m seriously thinking about tipping two dollars a day just to see what the heck happens . . . Read more →
Look Out, You Rock ‘n’ Rollers!
My bizness is taking me to Bangalore, India, at the end of the month. I got vaccinated for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, polio, typhoid, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis. I’m now immune to everything, including your consultations. Read more →
Other Than That . . .
The social fabric is fraying. Human capital is being squandered. Society is segmenting. The labor markets are ill. Wages are lagging. Inequality is increasing. The nation is overconsuming and underinnovating. China and India are surging. —David Brooks, New York Times Point taken. But other than that, things are going okay, right? Read more →
Cash for Clunkers
Cash for Clunkers has the following elements of spectacle: Americans destroying perfectly functional cars Americans whose skills are uncompetitive in the global marketplace driving around in fancy new cars Somewhere in China and India they must be having a good laugh. — Philip Greenspun Read more →
Better, Faster and Cheaper?
Somehow we’ve got it in our heads that every programmer in India is good, fast, and cheap, and every programmer in the United States is lousy, slow, and expensive. My theory is that for version 1.0 of a product, the maximum allowable distance between the engineers and marketers is thirty feet. — Guy Kawasaki Read more →
Road to Destruction
Road Accident in India Kills 21 The victims were Hindu pilgrims on their way to a temple to worship Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. Read more →