Ad Haiti

In the long vertical list of catchy news titles, Google News chose to display this one at the top "Haitians Cry in Letters: 'Please — Do Something!'" (NYTimes, Sep 19, 2010). Supposedly a computer program chose the exact placement of this article, nevertheless, I paid attention and went ahead with the click. The same Google News has been telling me for more than 6 months that most countries who had pledged aid to Haiti (for the Jan 2010 earthquake) has failed to deliver. Reports trickle in that the situation as of now is no better than what it was 1 month after the earthquake. Priorities are strange in "least developed countries".

I evoked a mixed burst of emotions as I read the article - NYTimes kept showing a clickable ad about luxury travel offers side by side. I wished that the ad servers displayed more consistent ads. This isn't something totally out of the blue ... keyword "Haiti" does not necessarily mean a vacation travel destination. Sentiment analysis is already a niche area of R&D for CS/Linguists.

midoonestam / I know

Been continuously listening to "Midoonestam" by Soroush Malekpour for the last several "days". It is still playing on a loop in my music player - non stop. Sounds very much like a good Ghazal - but without words to destroy the resonance satiating my Atman.

Even after a lot of searching, I am still ignorant-yet-curious about what Midoonestam actually means (as far as I could gather, its a Farsi word).

You might like it. Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NexqAIeY4-A

Edit: My esteemed ex-colleague helped me confirm it's meaning - "I Knew". Thanks, Ilir.