Shelfari

This is an interesting Book Library website to share your thoughts on books that you read.

Check out my book shelf

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Making of Velupillai Prabhakaran - in his own words

This snippet is from The Hindu - an interview with Prabhakaran in 1986 about his movement. This is very gruelling... …Could you give us an idea of your personal heroes in revolutionary struggles or liberation movements or in any sphere of life..... people and experiences that have inspired you? And perhaps thereby give us some insight into your own political evolution from the time you were a schoolboy? From my boyhood, the struggle that attracted me most was the Indian freedom struggle. The role of Netaji attracted me very much. I was brought up in an environment of strict discipline from childhood. I was not permitted to mingle freely with outsiders. I used to feel shy of girls. Great store was laid by personal rectitude and discipline. My father set an example through his own personal conduct: He would not even chew betel leaves. I modelled my conduct on his..... he was a government officer, a district land officer. A very straightforward man. People say in our area: “When he walks,...
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Stamford, CT -"Wall Street North"

Wow! This is about my city. Following are some of the facts that I didn't know about Stamford. Stamford is also referred as "Wall Street North" UBS built its largest trading floor in North America (I knew this but just adding for pride). RBS did the same starting in 2006 and moved to its headquarters (as far as I can tell, RBS had not occupied this new fancy building yet). General Re (GenRe) corp , which is part of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is based here. Unemployment in March '09 is 7% (about 120,000). This is still lower than national average. There was a plan to build a Ritz-Carlton hotel. But later shelved due to economic crisis. Home of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.) and Comcast's Versus sports channel (formerly OLN, Outdoor Life Network - one of my favs). Check out www.versus.com . Movies being shot include "Rachel Getting Married", "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2". NBC is planning to move production of "Jerry Springe...
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US Railroad guage

Very Interesting read... The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England , and English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. T...
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