Improving traffic by removing traffic rules

Towns in Europe are trying innovative ways innovative ways of handling traffic on their roads:

The usual remedies — from safety crossings to speed traps — did no good. So the citizens of Bohmte decided to take a big risk. Since September, they’ve been tearing up the sidewalks, removing curbs and erasing street markers as part of a radical plan to abandon nearly all traffic regulations and force people to rely on common sense and courtesy instead.

As far as I can tell, we have implemented this system in Pune already.

What waterboarding feels like

Waterboarding is a torture technique that has been in the news recently because the United States Justice Department authorized the use of this technique by the CIA to interrogate suspects. This person on the Straight Dope message boards tried it upon himself and reports on the experience:

So much talk of waterboarding, so much controversy. But what is it really? How bad? I wanted to write the definitive thread on waterboarding, settle the issue. Torture, or not?

To determine the answer, I knew I had to try it.

[…]

So, here’s what I would do. First I would google waterboarding to understand the basic concepts than I would try it on myself. First, self inflicted and then, if necessary, inflicted by my wife.(she has no problem torturing me. We’ve been married almost 15 years.)

These are the results of my research and experience:

I am not going to give away the suspense – read the article yourself.

Babajobs: Linked-in for maids and drivers

Webyantra reports on babajob a site that you can use to find domestic help in your area:

Many urban families are looking for good, trustworthy maids, drivers, chauffeurs and crib they don’t get one, whereas many unskilled laborers are desperately looking for some job. He decided to bridge this digital divide with Babajob, a rural version of LinkedIn. Conceptually all of this looks pretty simple, but operationally, it’s a challenge to bring internet to the local Laxmi or Latha, who can’t even read vernacular, let alone reading English or using computers.

How are they tackling this problem? They pay (INR 200/-) anyone who registers the potential worker; may it be a net café owner, or an NGO, or another employer of the maid. The fees for posting a job is 500/-, but again there is a smart caveat here. They first charge 800/- from you, and only when you inform them whom you hired, they return 300/- out of it, so that they can pay 200/- to the mentor. Moreover the site is also available in Hindi and Kannada, and will be available in other languages as they expand to other cities. As expected, there are a few glitches with font and linguistics there, but they should clear up after a few releases. They have also thrown in a neat Google Maps integration to find maids in your specific area.

Found: here. See this International Herald Tribune article for a fuller treatment.