Tea Trumps Towers as Dubai Maps Way Back to Future as Trade Hub

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-30/tea-trumps-towers-as-dubai-maps-way-back-to-future-as-trade-hub.html
BusinessWeek: "Dubai is spending $13 billion on building a new international airport and expanding existing air and shipping terminals. The ruling Al Maktoum family is focusing on the emirate’s traditional strength as a trade hub, after borrowing $109 billion to build record skyscrapers and man-made islands led to the world’s worst property crash last year."

Extra trains to help reduce Dubai Metro journey times

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100312/NATIONAL/703119824/0/BUSINESS
Well, at least there is SOMETHING to look forward to this April.

Got a vada pau and no chutney and imli at hand? Astonishingly, ketchup and mustard kind of works.

xkcd: Devotion to Duty

http://xkcd.com/705/

Nothing should be ambiguous about what’s indecent

http://www.zawya.com/blogs/sultan/100321101748/
(Sultan Sooud AlQassemi)

It is time that the UAE has a serious conversation with itself about what is and isn’t acceptable in public. It is no longer possible to expect that these issues will sort themselves through a policy of ambiguity. Emiratis must also be brought in to the conversation as stakeholders in the future and shape of their country.

Environmentally friendly shoppers likely to cheat

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/Environmentally-friendly-shoppers-likely-to-cheat-/articleshow/5698197.cms

Environmentally aware consumers are more likely to lie, cheat and be unkind than regular shoppers, a study suggests.

Researchers say that people have a limited stock of goodwill and that being virtuous in one part of life leads to meanness in another. The phenomenon called "compensatory ethics" came to light in a series of experiments ...

India’s Mobile Users and Missed Calls (PodTech.net)

http://www.podtech.net/home/3780/indias-mobile-users-and-missed-calls

The Indian mobile user has mastered the art of missed call. Instead of leaving voicemail, mobile users in India prefer to dial a number, let it ring a couple of times and hang up. And the person who gets the missed calls knows that someone called them. The missed call can be a pre-arranged signal or pre-arranged message to mean ...

...

Every month millions of cell phone users are added in India and they continue to flummox marketing folks in the innovative way in which they use their mobile phones.

Quite. With many not even having ever used a landline or pager in their lives, there is no precedent norm of usage to stymie creative approaches to internationally mature but locally novel technology.