Tumblr has an incredibly easy user interface. Right from the signup process on, things are very simple . In addition to working great, it looks wonderful – clean and elegant. And there are a number of cool features that make re-blogging something very easy.

For example, the “Share on Tumblr” bookmarklet allows you to quickly share a photo, a quote, a link, chat or a video. And all from the page you are on, without having to log in to your blog at all.

This is a big deal for me. I often see something I’d like to share quickly with a comment attached, but the thought of having to log into my blog, compose, copy and paste the link etc. makes the bar too high for a quick post.

I could move to a Tumblr blog to get this feature, but I really like a lot of the WordPress plugins that I use (and want to keep). So I did a quick search for Tumblr and WordPress and what do I find? A plugin that does the exact same thing as the “Share on” bookmarklet.  Called QuickPost, the plugin looks and works great.

Another reason I love WordPress.

Dearest Shailu Chithi,

Happy Birthday!!

You have had a profound impact on my life. You’ve inspired me, you’ve supported and guided me, you’ve energized me. On your special day, I want to say “THANK YOU!!!”

Thank you for being such an inspiration. I still remember our conversation when I was seven. I was cycling on the gravelly front yard of our house in Madras and you were talking to me about business school! You were telling me how there were these schools called Harvard and Stanford and how you wanted me to attend them. How I could do it – how I could be a leader and make an impact. What an adult conversation to have with a seven year old! It sounded very mysterious and alluring back then. But it left a lasting impression – especially coming from my super-cool aunt.

Thank you for our relationship. You always treated me as an adult. Whether I was seven or seventeen, you gave me the rights and the responsibilities of an adult. Our conversations were so entertaining – you’d ask my opinion on issues and actually listen. You’d challenge my assumptions and expand my world view.

Thank you for your generosity. You were selfless with your time – driving hours to pick me up when I landed on my first solo trip and when you took off from work and drove me to Boston for a weekend. You were so kind with your gifts – the Samsara you bought me was an incredible treat! I loved using that perfume. I still have the bottle. Oh, and that Express jacket that was so incredibly stylish (in black of course 🙂 – it hangs in my closet.

Thank you for your fierce, fierce love. A love that made you want to protect me, a love that made you push me, a love that made you passionately want the best for me.

On your birthday, I seek your blessings as always. And this year, for J and G as well.

You have had such an impact on my life and my choices. And what’s more, your passion and generosity impacted everyone you touched!

I miss you desperately. I love you very much.

Shripriya

In memory of my incredible aunt, Shailu Iyengar, 1955-1996.

Joseph Stiglitz won the 2001 Nobel Prize for his work on the effect of information asymmetries on markets. He used that lens to talk about the current sub-prime mess and its effects globally.

Very illuminating. And quite entertaining as well – with some amusing and pointed digs at Greenspan (considering that Stiglitz was the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton years, you know how he leans).

These Nobel Laureates are sharp cookies.

I was hoping 2008 would be my lucky year…

It has certainly started out that way. A few weeks ago, this blog qualified to join the ranks of Mommy Blogs ¹ when the boys, J and G, arrived.

“Incredible” doesn’t even begin to capture the experience…

And yes, they are really, really adorable!!

1. Despite qualifying, I politely decline the privilege of turning this into a Mommy Blog ↩

In the past 48 hours, the US Primaries have changed dramatically.

Hillary Clinton choked up

Bill Clinton spoke out

Gloria Steinem wrote a thoughtful piece on whether women can ever be front-runners¹:

Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.

:

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

And Hillary and McCain both performed come-from-behind Houdini acts.

I am sure the front-runner in both the Republican and Democratic races is going to change often. I just hope we get candidates that, at a minimum, offer us hope of getting out of the complete and utter mess we are in right now.

1. If you think sexism isn’t alive and well, you should read about the guys who stood up at a Hillary campaign event and kept yelling at her to “Iron my shirt!” ↩

It’s been a very mellow start to 2008. And that’s pretty much how I’d like the rest of 2008 to be.

I’m refusing to do any lists including one on resolutions. As I look back on the list I made a year ago, what seemed reasonable and achievable back then didn’t quite pan out that way. Some things I hit, some things I missed by a mile. But… I’m not going to stress about it. 2008 is all about mellowness… just floating along. 00…

Or so I tell myself. Because, after all, the 2007 list seemed reasonable and achievable back then…

This post made me look around and realize how much I adore our bookshelves…

Sometime in 2005, we ran out of bookshelf space. Done. All gone. But there was a small problem – we still had about 30 boxes of books in storage and we had to get them out.

The boxes showed up, we doubled up every shelf in the house – so there are two layers of books on every single shelf – and yes, you can’t see the second layer at all. Even after all that, we still had close to a thousand books and no clue where to put them.

Then we discovered these really cool stand alone bookshelves. In fact, when fully stocked, you can’t even see that it is a bookshelf. It looks like a stack of books rising from the floor. We first got a couple and then, over time, acquired a few more.

Life savers. Space savers. And elegant. These now dot the house. I can’t recommend them more highly. But as much as I love them, R is on a book diet and is also armed with an eBook reader in the hope that we don’t have to buy more of these!

When I lived in California, I listened to music all the time when I was home. Moved to NY, married someone with overlapping but different tastes in music, combined our music collections and put it all on a shared server. In concept a great idea, but the damned thing never worked properly and connecting from my Mac was excruciating (old NAS boxes were very Mac unfriendly 2-3 years ago). And back then, our collection was too big to put on a single iPod.

Barely listening to music for over two years = less happiness.

But all that changed when my friend and tech savior George visited and came up with the idea of making a Mac Mini into our server. With a couple of external hard drives plugged in, all the music is shared and we can each listen to anything. Everything is online. One central, in-sync library. Perfect.

I have all my various versions of Offenbach’s Barcarolle/Belle Nuit on continuous repeat 🙂 Happiness.

Thank you, George! You rock!

A lot to be thankful for this year… At the top of my list:

– I’m thankful that despite it being a tough year health-wise on family, we’ve mostly recovered and are chugging along.

– I’m thankful for being able to stay in touch with special friends. I’ve been on an IM spike with a friend from eBay who I hadn’t really talked to in a while. Made me realize that there are handful of folks in my life that I hope I will stay in touch with for a long time – with these folks, even when we reconnect after a while, it feels like we just spoke yesterday.

The New York Times has an interesting article on making thankfulness a daily (or weekly) experience versus just a yearly one… And on that note, thanks to my imaginary and not-so-imaginary readers for making this a fun space to hang out!

Update: check the bottom of the post for an update. In a nutshell – glitch. They know about it and are working on it.

———

I am trying to buy a friend on Facebook a gift. It’s his birthday.

So, I click on his profile and say “Send <name> a Gift”. I get to a screen which requires me to verify my password. Okay.

However, when I type in password, here’s what I get. Where, precisely, am I supposed to enter my email?

And yes, I did try to enter my email in the password box. But of course that didnt’ work…

Facebook – what’s up? Don’t want my dollar? I’ve read conflicting numbers that their gift revenue is anywhere between $2 and $20 million per year. I wonder how long this login issue has been going on…

Update: Nov 15th, 3PM – After IMing with Eileen (who works at Facebook), I tried a few things to get it to work. Finally figured it out – when you sign in to Facebook, if you check the “Keep me signed in” box, gifts don’t work. If you leave that box unchecked it works. Apparently they are working on it.