...THE BLUGLES...

2010-05-03T11:09:00.006-05:00

Seen At a Parking Lot...

Came across this car in a parking lot.

Sorry for the bad quality pics - took them with my iPhone on an overcast day. Below are the text of the stickers:

"You can keep the change - PALIN 2012"
"GM - Government Motors"
"Born Free - Got a birth certificate?"
"If you think health care is expensive now - wait until it's free"
"OBAMA-NOMICS - The "change" I have left after paying your bills"

Make you own judgment, people!

2008-12-06T21:49:00.001-05:00

Is It True...

2008-11-24T20:29:00.003-05:00

Hi, I am a Mac and I can make Pizza!

2007-07-07T14:44:00.003-05:00

How to Hack Your Friend's Password!

As seen on IRC chat...

Cthon98: hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars
Cthon98: ********* see!
AzureDiamond: hunter2
AzureDiamond: doesnt look like stars to me
Cthon98: AzureDiamond: *******
Cthon98: thats what I see
AzureDiamond: oh, really?
Cthon98: Absolutely
AzureDiamond: you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2
AzureDiamond: haha, does that look funny to you?
Cthon98: lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as *******
AzureDiamond: thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that
Cthon98: yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as *******
AzureDiamond: awesome!
AzureDiamond: wait, how do you know my pw?
Cthon98: er, I just copy pasted YOUR ******'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw
AzureDiamond: oh, ok.

2007-07-07T10:24:00.000-05:00

An Excellent Ad. Very Well Done.

You'll probably replay it again to get the meaning. Enjoy!

2007-05-28T13:16:00.008-05:00

Summarization of Information for Indian Students Coming to RIT in Fall

Before we proceed, here are some important websites that you might obtain information from:

A) Rustic Village Apartments
B) RIT Housing Website
C) RIT On-Campus Housing Room-mate Available/Wanted List
D) RIT INN
E) RIT Shuttle Services

0. The Quarter System:
In my opinion as a senior undergrad at RIT, I feel the quarter systems are more strenuous and difficult than the semester systems. From my understanding semester systems in most colleges last for like 15-16 weeks, where as quarter systems last for only 10 weeks (11 weeks if you include the finals week). Now, the colleges which follow semester system, they have 2 semesters per year (with short winter and summer terms), where as colleges like RIT which follow the quarter system have typically 3 quarters (Fall, Winter and Spring) along with an extra Summer quarter.

So the point is, where other students learn a particular course for 15 weeks, we guys go through the same topic within 10 weeks. That doesn't necessarily mean less materials are covered or there are any less tests. In fact in RIT, professors love to go beyond what they teach in other average colleges and there is practically some kind of exam, quiz, project or home work due every week. So its definitely more stressful during the quarter system where you don't even get a break or have time to relax or catch up. Basically the only way to survive the quarter system is through a lot of planning, a lot of hard work, a lot of stamina and also a lot of patience.

However the advantage of being in a quarter system is (which I believe is an advantage), is the co-ops or internships. With 4 quarters available to us, we as students, can easily choose any two quarters for our double block co-op for 6 months. Or, we can do one co-op for one quarter, come back to school for the next quarter, and then again go for another co-op the following quarter. This flexibility is only possible because of the quarter system, as for students in semester system, they do not have the option of working full time or doing any internship for less than 6 months and then come back to school and pick up with their classes.

Hope this helps.

1. Cost of living:
Cost of living and other expenses depend on a lot of factors such as:
a) Food
b) Books
c) Laptop
d) Cell phone bill (including calling cards to India)
e) Clothes (if you are planning to purchase some)
f) Internet bill (if you plan to use internet at Riverknoll or off-campus apartment)
g) Transportation (Bus trips – if you are staying off-campus, or buying a car)
h) Electricity bill (if you are staying off-campus)
i) Miscellaneous

a) Food
Food will cost you from anywhere between $200 to $400 per month if you plan to be very economical. Food is something that can fluctuate depending on your eating habits. Eating out would cost you a minimum 8 to 12 bucks each time, while cooking would save you a lot of money. I included breakfast, lunch, dinner and other snacks into food costs. Again, it will largely depend on your own individual eating habits and eating style (whether you are vegetarian, or eat non-veg, etc). But, $300/month would be a good bench-mark for food expenses.

b) Books
The cost of books varies from course to course and also where you buy it. Usually books at on-campus apartments are very expensive and it’s usually cheaper to buy it from other stores or websites like half.com or ebay.com or amazon.com. But books bought from those websites also come with a shipping charge, which when included more or less cancel out their difference between the cost of buying the same book from Campus Connections. Some books are even available in India (if you check the ISBN) and you can buy those from India before coming here.

c) Laptop
Pretty much every technology student at RIT would eventually end up buying a laptop. It depends on when you actually want to buy it, where you want to buy it and what kind of laptop you want to buy.

As for when to buy, well RIT’s technology students DO need a computer like a fish needs water to survive. But if you eventually plan to buy a laptop, and if you have a lot of patience, you can wait till late November for Thanksgiving, when laptop prices go down. Also, during the first few weeks of Fall, there would be another sale for “Going back to school Sale”. So if you can get a deal, go for it.

An average laptop costs anything between $700 to $1000. I made this observation from my own experience, where my first laptop cost me 1300 bucks and my second laptop was just 800 bucks. Both were more or less average Windows laptop. But if you are a Linux fan, you can go for a cheaper Linux laptop being sold by Dell. These laptops would be cheaper. Also don't forget to consider cheaper Dell Refurbished Laptops.

If you are a fancy Apple guy, then you can buy laptops from the Campus Connections where you might get a student discount on specific Apple products.

d) Cell phone bill (including calling cards to India)
Cell phone bill depends on the carrier you have. There are 4 basic cell phone carriers – i) Cingular, ii) Verizon iii) Sprint and iv) T-Mobile. As far as I know, T-Mobile provides the cheapest service (about $20 bucks per month) but has the crappiest signal strength.
Cingular and Verizon are more widely used services here that have plans which cost around $40-50 bucks per month. Cell phone handset is included with the contract. I would suggest you to go to their individual websites to make your own final decision.

There are numerous “Call India” calling card websites online. Those websites provide different pay-per-talk plans. An average $10 calling card would provide you approximately 2 hours of talk time.

From last year freshers' experience, I learnt that AT&T (Cingular) usually offers cell phones to new international students from India when they arrive here. The thing is, when you apply for a new cell phone, they are gonna need your ID (Driver's License is a must), Passport and a credit card. A new international student might not have a Driver's License or a credit card. So, its difficult for that person to get a cell phone. However, you have a relative or a friend you can trust, they have the option of "choosing another line" and getting you a cell phone. But, in some rare cases like some students told me last year, AT&T and T-Mobile were issuing new cell phones and cell service contracts to the international students who don't have any driver's license or credit card. You may wanna dig out more details about this, as much of the facts mentioned here might be incorrect.

e) Clothing
For winter, I would suggest you to buy your clothing from here. Primary winter clothing includes sweat shirts, jackets and gloves. The sweatshirts cost anywhere between 20 bucks to 45 bucks (if you want the expensive but good looking one) and the same stands for jackets. Gloves would cost you around 5 to 15 bucks depending on quality. You might also need a thick sole boot for snowy winter, so that you don’t slip while walking. Sales go on mostly all the time here in Rochester or any where in US, so during those sales, you can find decent sweat shirts or jackets or anything that you might wanna need.

f) Internet bill
If you live on-campus anywhere except at Riverknoll then you don’t have to worry about monthly internet bill. But if you plan to live at Riverknoll then you have to pay a monthly bill of approximately $45. That’s the monthly bill for old accounts. For those who plan to create a new account, it would be around $30 bucks for first year only. Now you can split up the bill depending on how many room-mates you have. Also at Riverknoll, you get a yearly refund of $200 bucks from RIT for RoadRunner (Internet service provider).

g) Transportation (and car expenses)
If you plan to buy a car, a used car would cost you anywhere between $1500 (poorest quality) to $25,000 (best quality). New cars usually start from $15000, depending on the make and model. But after buying a car, the costs don’t end up there. You need a valid driver’s license to buy a car. Also you need to insure your car. Insurance and other maintenance cost are usually a lot and depend mostly on the car itself.

If you plan to use the bus transportation, there are two kinds of bus services here. 1) RTS and 2) RIT Shuttle. RIT shuttle is free of cost and provides you transportation all over on-campus and also to the mall, racquet club, RIT Inn, etc. RTS is the public transportation service which provides service from RIT to Rustic Village. It charges $1.75 for each trip.

h) Electricity
If you live on-campus then you don’t have to worry about electricity. But if you live off-campus then you probably might have to. Since I live on-campus, I can’t help you regarding the cost of electricity in off-campus housing.

i) Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous other costs include like going out, or eating out, or other hidden costs. That mainly depends on each individual and could be from a mere $50 bucks to even $200 bucks.

2) Pre-requisites
My experiences with pre-reqs tell me that these are hard to avoid courses. Some pre-reqs are pretty easy but there are indeed some courses which are very difficult. These are some courses you can’t avoid by coming here early or talking to the professor. The professor can waive those pre-reqs if you do well in one of the “course waiver” exams, but if the particular course is tough, it’s difficult to do well in the particular exam.

My suggestion for you is to take each pre-req as a required course for your graduation and complete them as soon as possible. Everyone in RIT had to take some kind of pre-req, so the concept of having to take them is nothing new or abnormal.

However, my primary recommendation is to talk to your academic adviser and your professor regarding this because they know about this topic more than I do.

3) On-Campus Jobs
There are tons of on-campus jobs starting from many different cafeterias to TA and RA positions. For RA or TA position, you have to know your professor really well. However, RA or TA jobs are not really guaranteed, however, not impossible to get at the same time. Alternatively, you can apply for any of those "Labbie" positions as a "Lab Assistant" in many of those computer labs on campus.

4) Co-Ops
RIT has plenty of job opportunities for internships and full time positions. We have career fairs in Fall and Spring quarter when about 150 to 200 companies come to hire students for co-ops and full time positions. These companies include Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Boeing, etc etc. These companies look for students who have a decent GPA and have matching experience. So this means, the probability of getting a co-op in the fall quarter for someone in his/her first quarter is very less. After taking more courses, getting more experience and earning a good GPA you can always apply for co-ops or full time jobs. Again, getting a job really depends on each individual, regarding how good he/she is regarding a particular skill set, and how much experience he/she has or how good his/her GPA is. Nothing is purely black and white regarding the whole co-op or full time job situation. Chances are better for Masters International students than Undergraduate International students, but situations can vary from one individual to another.

The co-op wages vary from one company to another and it also depends on the experience of an individual student as well as the job position itself. It can be as little as $10 per hour to even up to $32 per hour at big companies.

5) Indian Associations at RIT
We do have certain Indian and other international associations at RIT. The most common and popular one is OASIS (website).

6) Temporary Housing
I know many students have been assigned for temporary housing at RIT Inn. What they need to realize that there are a lot of students applying to few number of on-campus apartments. Some people get lucky and some others have to adjust. In any manner, getting an apartment in Rustic Village should be one of the options. RIT Inn is very expensive.

For students who are willing to come here early, before the move in day, they MIGHT face situations regarding temporary housing before the move-in day. Temporary housing at RIT before the move-in day would be around $25-$30 PER DAY. Now, that's kinda expensive if you come here like 1 month early. So make sure you make your arrangements with someone staying off-campus or something. However, there are plenty of Indian students living in Rustic, so, if you know anyone in Rustic, then you can move in early and stay at their place, only if they are willing. So you have to make your own prior arrangements before moving here.

2007-05-06T11:46:00.000-05:00

Love This Picture!

LOL

2007-05-06T00:42:00.000-05:00

Windows Vista - Stunning. Breakthrough. Entertaining.

Picture says it all (as seen in one of the Best Buy counters).

2007-05-05T18:44:00.000-05:00

NASA - Methane Blast

NASA testing a new methane engine.

Source - http://science.nasa.gov

2007-05-05T12:20:00.000-05:00

We Are All Monkeys!

An interesting perspective into what we are:

2007-05-02T19:29:00.000-05:00

PC vs Mac - South Park Style!

2007-05-02T11:03:00.000-05:00

Digg HD-DVD User Revolt As Seen on Google News

Below is a screen shot of the news related to Digg HD-DVD User Revolt as seen on Google News. May 1st, 2007 was a day when users prevailed over unjustified censorship.

2007-05-02T09:59:00.000-05:00

Digg DRM User-Revolt Makes BBC News Front Page

As quoted on BBC News website -

"Attempts to gag the blogosphere from publishing details of a DVD crack have led to a user revolt.

The row centred on a 'cease and desist' letter sent by the body that oversees the digital rights management technology on high-definition DVDs.

It requested that blogs and websites removed details of a software key that breaks the encryption on HD-DVDs.

The removal of the information from community news website Digg was a step too far for its fans.

As quickly as stories relating to the issue were removed, they were re-submitted in their thousands, in an act described by one user as a "21st century revolt".

The site collapsed under the weight of the attack at one point.

The founder of Digg, Kevin Rose, has now decided not to censor the information, telling users:

"After seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company.

We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. ""

Below is a sample picture of Digg's upcoming stories at one point, where all the stories were filled up with HD-DVD keys. To protect the copyright, all the keys displayed in the picture have been removed.

BBC News Source

2007-05-01T21:58:00.000-05:00

Crappiest Name for Any Company!

What a crappy name for a company! "Tom Raper RVs - Where the "fun" begins"??? "Now available at both "locations""???? WTF was he thinking?

Go to the website here.

2007-04-30T19:25:00.000-05:00

British History Timeline

Explore all of British history, from the Neolithic to the present day, with this easy-to-use interactive timeline. Browse hundreds of key events and discover how the past has shaped the world we live in today.

Source: BBC - History

2007-04-30T14:29:00.000-05:00

Feels Good Being Recognized at Job (even if it's for the wrong reason :-) )

Following is the email I received from my boss today where he congratulated me (sarcastically off course) for not forgetting to punch in or punch out for the last pay period:

2007-04-29T11:15:00.000-05:00

How NOT to place your AD in a Ball Game

Picture says it all!

Source - Click here

2007-04-28T19:38:00.000-05:00

Scary Female Bodybuilders

Me and my friends were browsing through some bodybuilding pictures online on our "new" gym computer until we found THIS:

2007-04-14T23:09:00.001-05:00

Hilarious Anchorman 300 Recut!!

2007-04-13T22:14:00.000-05:00

Worst Exam Schedule EVER!!

Thank you RIT :-|

In case all you are wondering, "S" stands for "Saturday". Apparently, we don't have any Saturday classes in my college.

2007-04-09T22:22:00.000-05:00

No One Makes Fun of Chuck Norris!

2007-04-06T18:03:00.000-05:00

74 Bands in 1 Picture

Click here for the full size image.

Source: http://www.hellan.com/bilder/allgemeines/74bands140673.jpg

2007-04-06T17:59:00.000-05:00

MPAA Names Its Top 25 Movie Piracy Schools in US

By: Ken Fisher

"The MPAA may be gearing up for an RIAA-inspired assault on US colleges and universities. Last week the group announced its support for the "Curb Illegal Downloading on College Campuses Act (2007)," and MPAA head Dan Glickman said that his organization would work with school administrators to put an end to movie piracy on campuses, which Glickman says costs the industry $500 million annually.
Related Stories

* China signs agreement to crack down on piracy
* Large-scale movie and music piracy operation busted in Brazil
* Piracy: all it takes is a garage
* Fox to sell low-cost DVDs in China to combat piracy

Most telling, the group has heard the call of Representative Howard Berman and has compiled a list of the most piracy-ridden schools in higher education. This is a page straight out of the RIAA playbook. Here they are, the schools that made the MPAA's "dishonor roll" and the number of students identified as making unauthorized use of copyrighted materials:

1. Columbia University - 1,198
2. University of Pennsylvania - 934
3. Boston University - 891
4. University of California at Los Angeles - 889
5. Purdue University - 873
6. Vanderbilt University - 860
7. Duke University - 813
8. Rochester Institute of Technology - 792
9. University of Massachusetts - 765
10. University of Michigan - 740
11. University of California at Santa Cruz - 714
12. University of Southern California - 704
13. University of Nebraska at Lincoln - 637
14. North Carolina State University - 636
15. Iowa State University - 586
16. University of Chicago - 575
17. University of Rochester - 562
18. Ohio University - 550
19. University of Tennessee - 527
20. Michigan State University - 506
21. Virginia Polytechnic Institute - 457
22. Drexel University - 455
23. University of South Florida - 447
24. Stanford University - 405
25. University of California at Berkeley - 398

A number of schools have the dubious distinction of being on both the MPAA and the RIAA list. The overachievers are: Ohio University (#1 RIAA/#18 MPAA), Purdue University (#2, #5), University of Nebraska at Lincoln (#3/#13), UMASS (#6/#9), Michigan State (#7/#20), North Carolina State (#9/#14), University of South Florida (#11/#23), Boston University (#15/#3), and the University of Michigan (#18/#10). In all, 10 schools appear on both lists, and Purdue University wins the Gold Medal for highest overall ranking between the two combined.

Whether or not the MPAA will get into the trenches and follow the RIAA's pre-litigation strategy is not yet clear, and historically the MPAA has been less eager to wage a public campaign against file sharing. But like Santa, the MPAA is making a list and checking it twice... the question is, are they merely humoring Representative Berman or planning something more aggressive? "

Source: ars technica

2007-04-06T17:56:00.000-05:00

The Future of Marketing

"A team of advertising and branding luminaries recently gathered to judge the Effie Awards. The advertising prize is awarded by the New York American Marketing Association to the year's most effective campaigns. The 121 judges came from companies including Kraft Foods, Home Depot, and Yahoo!, while the agency side was represented by top-level executives from the likes of BBDO, Leo Burnett, and Saatchi & Saatchi. While the panel was deliberating over the year's campaigns, we sent the members a survey to find out what's really going on in the world of marketing and advertising. Their answers are shown here.

Source: BusinessWeek Online

2007-03-14T14:04:00.000-05:00

Funny Picture Taken at the Parking Lot

I was going to the class today morning around 10 am when I saw this car. I had to take a picture from my cell cam. It was hilarious!

2007-02-25T20:04:00.000-05:00

Jesus Christ's Coffin Found!

" Titanic director James Cameron has produced a documentary that he says will rock the foundation of Christianity. Cameron claims the coffins of Jesus Christ and his family have been found at a burial cave in a suburb of Jerusalem.

By implication, the filmmaker says that Jesus did not rise from the grave — an assertion that hits at one of the main pillars of Christian faith, the Resurrection. Further, the documentary claims Jesus sired a child with Mary Magdalene, a disputed theme made famous by the best-selling fiction book ‘The Da Vinci Code’ the and 2006 movie based on it, the Time magazine reported on its website.

Cameron is scheduled to hold a news conference in New York on Monday to unveil what he says are the stone coffins of Jesus, his mother and Mary Magdalene.

Cameron and the film’s director, Simcha Jacobovici, claim to have put together DNA and archeological evidence, as well as evidence found in biblical studies proving the coffins belong to Jesus and his family. The caskets were discovered in a 2,000-year-old cave in the Jerusalem suburb of Talpiyot during construction of an industrial park 27 years ago. After 20 years of examination, the names on the caskets supposedly became clear: Jesua, son of Joseph; Mary; Mary; Matthew; Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua."

Source: www.timesofindia.com

2007-02-14T20:41:00.000-05:00

Five Thousand Years of Middle East History in 90 Seconds

(Source: http://mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html)

2007-02-14T09:19:00.000-05:00

Quick Firefox Tip: Single-key search tool

LifeHacker's Rick Broida writes:

"Reader Grant wrote to tell us about Firefox's little-known Quick Find search tool, which you access by pressing the forward slash key (the one that shares space with the question mark).

When you press slash (or the apostrophe key), you'll see a little Quick Find field in the lower-left corner of the screen--not unlike what you get from pressing Ctrl-F (but without any of the Find controls). Start typing and you'll see instant results. Wait a moment and Quick Find disappears on its own.

Obviously this won't work if you've placed your cursor in a text field (you'll just get the slash or apostrophe), and I'm not sure there's any major value in using this search method instead over Ctrl-F. That said, it's one less keystroke, so it does seem a little faster. Just one more way to wring a little more value out of Firefox."

(Source: lifehacker.com)

2007-02-07T15:02:00.000-05:00

7 Deadly Sins and their Combinations

(Source: http://stuffaz.blogspot.com/2007/02/7-deadly-sins-and-their-combinations.html)

2007-02-06T16:41:00.000-05:00

Amazing Video of the Sun

2007-01-08T20:21:00.000-05:00

Funny Picture

2007-01-03T16:03:00.000-05:00

NYC on New Years Eve on Times Square

These are some pictures of NYC, taken on 31st December 2006 and 1st January, 2007 at Times Square. Some of the pictures were taken from 43rd floor of Hilton Times Square while some of them were taken in the Grand Central. I hope you will enjoy them:

Flickr Photo Gallery

2007-01-03T15:28:00.000-05:00

Grand Central Station in NYC

I shot these videos in Grand Central Station in NYC, near Times Square. Sorry for the lack of audio. Hope you like those videos.

2007-01-03T15:27:00.000-05:00

NYC from Hilton Times Square in the Night

I shot this video from my digital camera from the 43rd floor of Hilton on Times Square in NYC.

2007-01-03T15:24:00.000-05:00

NYC Times Square on New Years Eve

These are some videos, I shot using my digital camera on Times Square in NYC. It doesn't have any audio.

2006-12-10T13:57:00.000-05:00

Amazing Photograph of December's Launch of Discovery Shuttle

Source: NYTimes

2006-12-09T11:10:00.000-05:00

Amazing 360 degree QuickTime view of the Mt. Everest!

Click and drag to see the 360 degree view.

QuickTime is required to view this.

Click here for Full Screen mode.

Source: http://www.panoramas.dk/

2006-12-09T01:59:00.000-05:00

Scientists Spot 'Tsunami' on the Sun

A major flare on the Sun earlier this week generated what scientists are calling a solar tsunami.

The tsunami-like shock wave, formally called a Moreton wave, rolled across the hot surface, destroying two visible filaments of cool gas on opposite sides of the visible face of the Sun.

Astronomers using a prototype of a new solar telescope in New Mexico recorded the action.

"These large scale 'blast' waves occur infrequently, however, are very powerful," said K. S. Balasubramaniam of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Sunspot, NM, "They quickly propagate in a matter of minutes covering the whole Sun, sweeping away filamentary material."

It is unusual to see such an event from a ground-based observatory, Balasubramaniam said. And it was also unusual that it occurred near solar minimum, when the Sun is at its least active during an 11-year cycle.

But solar activity can come at any time. Flares like this one are spawned by sunspots, which are dark, cool regions that cap magnetic activity below. When the caps pop, colossal doses of superheated matter and radiation are unleashed.

Sunspot 929 began kicking up flares Tuesday, when a major X-9 event was detected by a space-based observatory.

When another flare erupted Wednesday, the NSO's Optical Solar Patrol Network (OSPAN) was watching.

A shock wave propagated like the splash from a rock thrown into a pond. This was seen as a brightening from compressed and heated hydrogen gas. Astronomers enhanced the contrast of the images to bring out the detail, and they created an animation of the event.

Later, the shock wave swept across two dark filaments widely seprated on the solar surface, and they disappeared for a few minutes. Scientists are unsure whether the filaments were blown off or were compressed so they were temporarily invisible, according to an NSO statement.

Forecasters say there is a 40 percent chance of more major flares through this weekend. Skywatchers in Alaska, Canada and the very northernmost United States should be on the lookout for colorful Northern Lights generated by the space storminess.

Source: Space.com

2006-12-04T09:12:00.000-05:00

The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken

A really cool video about the most important image ever taken by humanity.

2006-12-03T07:46:00.000-05:00

Robot Chicken: Titanic meets Instant Messaging

Hillarious spoof on Robot Chicken depicting what the titanic conversation would look like if done with Instant Messages.

2006-11-24T01:09:00.000-05:00

Space Station Golf Shot

International Space Station flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin became the world's third space golf as he took swing with a six iron at the start of a scheduled six- hour spacewalk. For details and more info, please visit this source.

2006-11-23T12:08:00.000-05:00

Google Wishes Us "Happy Thanksgiving"!

Google wishes us "Happy Thanksgiving" by creating a new holiday logo. To find out Google's other holiday logos, please visit this website.

2006-11-23T11:55:00.000-05:00

Everything You Wanted to Know About Vista!

Has any operating system been so maligned and so praised during a painfully long development cycle as Windows Vista? The march to Vista's launch has sometimes seemed longer than the Hundred Years War.

Now that Windows Vista is at hand, let the debating begin. Is it a look into the future of operating systems, or the last, dying gasp of an old way of computing? Should you upgrade your system to meet its considerable hardware needs? Is it anything other than Mac OS X Lite? Go ahead and find out for yourself from this source.

2006-11-21T21:59:00.000-05:00

Cool 360 Degree Picture of Toronto

This picture was taken from the Observation Deck of the CN Tower.

2006-11-21T16:25:00.000-05:00

Best Hockey Fight Ever!!

This is hilarious! Reminded me of the last South Park episode.

2006-11-19T22:42:00.000-05:00

Before the Big Bang

What triggered the Big Bang? According to a new theory, our universe crashed into another three-dimensional world hidden in higher dimensions. “The model suggests a radically different view of cosmic history in which the key events shaping the structure of the universe occurred before the Big Bang,” says cosmologist Paul Steinhardt.

For more info, please visit the source.

2006-11-19T22:38:00.000-05:00

How The Brain Weaves A Memory

Memories of events comprise many components--including sights, sounds, smells, and tastes. Somehow the many features of an episodic memory are woven together into a coherent whole, and researchers have had little understanding of how this binding takes place as the memories are processed by the brain's memory center, the hippocampus. A central question has been whether the hippocampus receives an "episodic packet," or a collection of perceptual strands that it must integrate into a memory.

In an article in the November 9, 2006, issue of the journal Neuron, published by Cell Press, Melina Uncapher and colleagues report experiments with human volunteers that shed important light on this process.

In their experiments, the researchers presented the subjects with series of "study" words on a display screen, as their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This technique involves using harmless radio waves and magnetic fields to measure blood flow to brain regions, which reflects brain activity. As their brains were scanned, the subjects were shown words of different colors and that were located in different quadrants of the display screen.

Later, the subjects were presented a collection of words including both the study words and new words. They were asked to recall whether the words were old or new, and for the old words, their color and location.

The researchers then correlated fMRI data on the brain regions active during the study phase with the data on the subjects' later retrieval of the features of these study words. They found that, indeed, regions of the brain involved in processing color and location were active during formation of memories for those features.

However, importantly, they found that the subjects' successful retrieval of both features--versus only color or location--was uniquely associated with enhanced activity in yet another brain region called the intraparietal sulcus, which has been strongly implicated in other studies as important in "perceptual binding" of multiple features of stimuli.

Thus, the researchers concluded that "The findings suggest that the encoding of disparate features of an episode into a common memory representation requires that the features be conjoined in a common perceptual representation when the episode is initially experienced."

The researchers include Melina R. Uncapher and Michael D. Rugg of University of California at Irvine in Irvine, California; Leun J. Otten of University College London in London, United Kingdom.

(Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061108154604.htm)

2006-11-19T22:30:00.000-05:00

Ruben's Tube: The Physics of Music

Kids - don't try this at home!

2006-11-06T03:15:00.000-05:00

Steve Jobs: Three Stories of My Life

"You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says.

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5￠ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much."

(Source: http://tillthend0.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!B92B8B0496E1EBFC!258.entry)

2006-11-05T12:29:00.000-05:00

Slow Motion Missile Launch

This is an experimental missile launch for the US army. Check out the amazing footage from the moment the missile leaves the launch tube. Filmed in extremely slow speed at 1000 fps you can watch the whole process in full detail. I especially like the firing point with the huge burst from the "cannon" mouth..

Check it out...
3...2...1...Launch:

(Source - http://thefucktory.com/index.php?itemid=52)

2006-11-03T13:02:00.000-05:00

Secret of Heart Regeneration Uncovered

Newts can regrow a limb. Some lizards can sprout new tails. Even humans can replace some damaged tissue in organs, such as the liver. But none can accomplish what the zebra fish, a common denizen of home aquariums, can do: regenerate their hearts. Biologists have long known about the zebra fish's cardiac ability, and now researchers think they have unlocked the secret of the process, which may provide essential clues for human heart repair.

Kenneth Poss and his colleagues at Duke University found that zebra fish, Danio rerio, regenerate heart muscle in two synchronized steps. Within five days of removing about 20 percent of an adult zebra fish heart ventricle, undifferentiated progenitor cells begin to line the injured area and turn into cardiac muscle cells, which grow and divide, building new heart muscle. Meanwhile, developmental genes in the epicardium--a cell layer that surrounds the entire heart and influences embryonic heart development--switch on, activating the epicardial cells. Most of these cells form a new layer to cover the wound and the regenerating heart muscle, but some also create blood vessels for the growing muscle, "fulfilling the same role as they do when the embryonic heart develops," Poss says.

For more information, please visit this source.

2006-11-03T12:40:00.000-05:00

WoW Obituary Picture

Someone posted an obit for someone on a WoW forum, and the first reply is soooo wrong, yet so funny at the same time!

If you are not familiar with WoW, its a computer game called World of Warcraft where you chose a particular character and play it (or fight with) other characters online from different countries or places.

2006-11-03T11:17:00.000-05:00

Mac OSX - Tiger Demo

This is a demonstration of what the Mac OS can do, particularly if you are a new user to the Mac or if you've never had one and are wondering what it can do for you or if it is something you would like to try.

(Source: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1189432741672174507&q=macos+x+demo)

2006-11-02T17:56:00.000-05:00

Hubble's Top 100!

Top 100 pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Enjoy!

For more information, please visit this source.

2006-11-02T14:51:00.000-05:00

Scientists 'discover cause of cot death'

Scientists believe they have solved the mystery of cot death, the leading killer of children in their first year of life.

A study of victims of sudden infant death syndrome (Sids) has revealed that they had an abnormality in the brain that prevented it realising their bodies did not have enough oxygen.

The effect of the abnormality is that babies may suffocate if they become smothered by bedclothes, especially if sleeping on their fronts.

The finding "takes the mystery away from Sids", said Marian Willinger, a researcher at the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which financed the study.

"It should take the guilt away from any parent who has lost a baby, because they always wonder, 'What did I do wrong?' Now, they need to understand, 'My baby had a disease'."

The researchers from Boston Children's Hospital said the finding was the strongest evidence yet of a common cause for cot death, the cause of which has been a mystery to specialists.

For the full article, please visit this source.

2006-11-01T12:39:00.000-05:00

How iTunes saved The Office

Ever since Dwight opened his desk drawer and pulled out his Jell-O encased stapler, I have been an Office devotee. I'm not one to bust out laughing while watching TV but the old stapler-encassed-in-Jell-O gag gets me every time, and in turn, gets my 8:30-9:00 PM Thursday night time slot. Apparently NBC wasn't aware that it had a winner on its hands, and according to an article in Newsday, NBC wasn't going to renew the show.

According to the people at NBC, the iTunes Store and the success that The Office has experienced from it are responsible for keeping the show alive:

"I'm not sure that we'd still have the show on the air" without the iTunes boost, says Angela Bromstead, president of NBC Universal Television Studio, which owns and produces "The Office." "The network had only ordered so many episodes, but when it went on iTunes and really started taking off, that gave us another way to see the true potential other than just Nielsen. It just kind of happened at a great time."

It's interesting to see that Nielsen ratings are becoming less of an issue as the success from online media retailers such as the iTunes Store. One has to wonder what the fate of shows such as Firefly and Futurama would have been had the networks, OK one network, had reliable numbers of non-traditional viewership. It's unfortunate—a show that has won an Emmy for best comedy could be on the chopping block.

Like it or not, Apple, the iPod, and the iTS are all becoming more and more of a force in the media world and the daily decisions they make. As long as Jim continues to encase things in Jell-O, that can only be a good thing.

(Source: http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/11/1/5814)

2006-10-30T22:50:00.000-05:00

Cool Visualization of US Population Density!

2006-10-30T14:26:00.000-05:00

Star Explodes in Surprisingly Orderly Manner!

Stars don’t always rip apart in violent explosions. Some blow up in an orderly fashion.

A star named Cassiopeia A blew up in such a tidy manner that it retained much of its original onion-like layering. Click here to learn more!

2006-10-30T01:00:00.000-05:00

So Who Codes for the Space Shuttles?

An excellent article about the quality and quantity of coding involved in the space shuttle. Click here to find out more!

2006-10-29T21:40:00.000-05:00

13 Year Old Kid Tries to Pwn but Gets Pwn'd!
(A must read and the reason why you should NEVER try to steal any account!)

"br0kenrabbit says:
hi

Greg_ValveOLS says:
good evening

br0kenrabbit says:
What's ip?

br0kenrabbit says:
up?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
my name is greg a member of the valve online Support team

br0kenrabbit says:
On MSN?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
yes :)

br0kenrabbit says:
Why?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
we logged multiple ips from your account and ned to verifi your information

br0kenrabbit says:
My information?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
we believe someone may have stolen your account mmmm you havent shared youre account infomation with anyone have you?

br0kenrabbit says:
No. I don't even have it written down.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
hmmm maybe a keylogger on you r PC then maybe you need a format?

br0kenrabbit says:
Well...

Greg_ValveOLS says:
if you can verify your account information to me i can insure that only your ip have access to it Its a new security feature were trying because this happens so muchlogin names and passwords aint safe anymroe You know. L:)

br0kenrabbit says:
Well

Greg_ValveOLS says:
dont worry this connect it secure

br0kenrabbit says:
Can I be honest with you, Greg?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
k

br0kenrabbit says:
Look, I don't know how you go this MSN account name, don't really care, either.

br0kenrabbit says:
Unlike you, I DO work for Valve. Trace my ip and you'll see.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
huh?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
bs

br0kenrabbit says:
Trace it.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
how

br0kenrabbit says:
Start/run/cmd type Tracert and then my IP address and hit enter.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
oh k

br0kenrabbit says:
As an employee, I know that Valve employees will NEVER contact users over MSN. I also know a valve employee will NEVER ask a user for his/her username and password.

br0kenrabbit says:
I'm putting a temporary hold on your Steam account.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
why?

br0kenrabbit says:
Have you read the ToS?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
Tod?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
tos

br0kenrabbit says:
terms of service

Greg_ValveOLS says:
were?

br0kenrabbit says:
Greg, this is a serious infraction against the Tos. You are at risk of losing your account.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
why

br0kenrabbit says:
I just told you why

Greg_ValveOLS says:
:(

br0kenrabbit says:
I need some information from you if you want me to unlock you account. I'm going to write you up but I will only suspend you account for three days, since this is your first infraction, okay?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
k

br0kenrabbit says:
First, what is the name the account is registered to. Not the user name, the persons real name who created the account. This is for verification purposes.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
xxxxx xxxxxxx

br0kenrabbit says:
Is this you?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
ya

br0kenrabbit says:
Are you the only user of this account?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
ya

br0kenrabbit says:
Okay, and what is the username

Greg_ValveOLS says:
xxxxxxxx

br0kenrabbit says:
Okay.

br0kenrabbit says:
I see you have purchased a few of our games, thank you. :)

Greg_ValveOLS says:
some. dude

Greg_ValveOLS says:
m

br0kenrabbit says:
Do you always log on from the same IP?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
ya

br0kenrabbit says:
And who is your internet providers, your ISP?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
xxxxxxx

br0kenrabbit says:
Thank you. One moment, please, let me verify this information.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
am i gonna be bale to play 2nite?

br0kenrabbit says:
What is your city of residence?

br0kenrabbit says:
That depends on if you cooperate. You're doing fine so far.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
xxxxxx

br0kenrabbit says:
Illinios?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
yes

br0kenrabbit says:
Okay. And what is the password associated with this account?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
xxxxxxx

br0kenrabbit says:
Okay. Do not try to log into steam. If you are connected now you need to log off.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
why

br0kenrabbit says:
So I can update your account.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
can I play 2 nite

Greg_ValveOLS says:
clan fight

Greg_ValveOLS says:
wont win without me heh

br0kenrabbit says:
Heh. You'll have to wait a few minutes. Are you logged off?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
ya

br0kenrabbit says:
Okay. Give me just a moment.

br0kenrabbit says:
Try to log in now.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
k

Greg_ValveOLS says:
It says login failed wtf wtf!!@?

br0kenrabbit says:
Greg

Greg_ValveOLS says:
did u ban me???????????>WHY

br0kenrabbit says:
Greg

Greg_ValveOLS says:
what

br0kenrabbit says:
Valve will never ask for your username and password.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
what????

br0kenrabbit says:
I don't work for Valve dude, but you just got pwnt.

Greg_ValveOLS says:
omg dude wtf why?

br0kenrabbit says:
Why were you trying to steal my account?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
i wanst

br0kenrabbit says:
Then why were you asking for my information?

Greg_ValveOLS says:
i was just making a joke but not cerious honest dude just give
my acount back pllllleeease i'm only 13 and save d up for like a year to buy it

br0kenrabbit says:
Greg

Greg_ValveOLS says:
dude pleas

Greg_ValveOLS says:
what

br0kenrabbit says:
Go mow some yards, bitch. "

2006-10-29T14:49:00.000-05:00

Australia Shows India the Door

Well, we had enough of experimentation and politics in the team. I am still wondering why is Dinesh Mongia still being played in matches when he has consistently failed in 95% of his games? Are his statistics better than Ganguly's? I doubt that. Ganguly may have gone through a rough patch, but he was a matured leader and respectable captain. He knew what the team needed to do to get out of situations like this. He has done that before, and he could have well done it again!

Rahul and Greg (besides the BCCI's board of selectors) know couple of things best these days - making money and politics. I was never a fan of Greg Chappell's "experimentation strategies" and no doubt they have back fired most of the times. John Wright seemed to be a more responsible coach, who wanted to change one thing at a time with getting along and winning the respect of all the team members. He never had any issues with any individual player and at the same time, he was responsible for helping Indian Team to reach the finals of the WC 2003. What has Greg Chappell done so far, besides commenting on different team members' attitudes and performances? If he is such a serious critic of the performances of the individual players, I wonder, if he even criticizes his own performance as a coach? Rahul Dravid is just too busy shuffling the top order and following Mr. Chappell's order, than to think about the real problem inside the Indian team and addressing it head on.

With the World Cup knocking on the door, I wonder when will BCCI open its eyes and get a better coach who can actually coach the players rather than criticize them about their moves? Also, can we please postpone all the politics at least till the end of the World Cup and bring back Saurav Ganguly, if not for his performances, but at least for his maturity and experience? If I were the BCCI and after spending so much on Indian Team, with these kind of results, I would seriously consider making some changes. The rule is not to upset the strategies when everything's going on smoothly. But going gung ho with Greg Chappell, the "strategists" upset many decisions in the name of "experimentation". They removed Saurav from Captaincy, and then removed him from the team without, I believe, any valid reason. Rahul Dravid seemed to be the next natural choice for captaincy. With his victories over helpless Lankans at home, he showed a glimpse of hope, which was extinguished shortly and abruptly by the West Indians who are under going through a tremendous transformation.

I believe, its time for BCCI to wake up from its hibernation and analyze what's going wrong and make some changes, which will not only restore normalcy in the team, but will also instill some confidence among the players. Bringing back an experienced player like Saurav Ganguly, could be the best thing they can do right now.

2006-10-27T22:55:00.000-05:00

Firefox 2.0: The Honda Civic of Web Browsers

"Tapping once again into the collective talents of the open-source community, the new Firefox 2.0 Web browser is unambiguously a success.

Released late Tuesday, the Mozilla Foundation's latest Net-surfing tool is almost everything Web denizens have come to expect from the popular Internet Explorer alternative. Firefox 2.0 offers a handful of obvious improvements in searching and security and a couple of new features, and it largely keeps doing well what it has done well before."

From another source, I found out that there has been above 2 million FireFox 2.o downloads in 24 hours with a peak rate of 30 downloads per second from www.getfirefox.com

For more information, please visit the source website.

Have you downloaded your copy of Firefox 2.o yet? If not, what are you waiting for?

2006-10-27T13:53:00.000-05:00

If World War Two had been an online Real Ttime Strategy game, the chat room traffic would have gone something like this:

*Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.*
*Eisenhower has joined the game.*
*paTTon has joined the game.*
*Churchill has joined the game.*
*benny-tow has joined the game.*
*T0J0 has joined the game.*
*Roosevelt has joined the game.*
*Stalin has joined the game.*
*deGaulle has joined the game.*
Roosevelt: hey sup
T0J0: y0
Stalin: hi
Churchill: hi
Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0JO: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got **** to help, sry
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO
T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol
benny-tow: haha
benny-tow: hey ur losing ur guys in africa im gonna need help in italy soon sum1
T0J0: o **** i cant help u i got my hands full
Hitler[AoE]: im 2 busy 2 help
Roosevelt: yah thats right ***** im comin for ya
Stalin: church help me
Churchill: like u helped me before? sure ill just sit here
Stalin: dont be an arss
Churchill: dont be a commie. oops too late
Eisenhower: LOL
benny-tow: hahahh oh sh1t help
Hitler: o man ur focked
paTTon: oh what now biotch
Roosevelt: whos the cripple now lol
*benny-tow has been eliminated.*
benny-tow: lame
Roosevelt: gj patton
paTTon: thnx
Hitler[AoE]: WTF eisenhower hax hes killing all my sh1t
Hitler[AoE]: quit u hacker so u dont ruin my record
Eisenhower: Nuts!
benny~tow: wtf that mean?
Eisenhower: meant to say nutsack lol finger slipped
paTTon: coming to get u hitler u paper hanging hun cocksocker
Stalin: rofl
T0J0: HAHAHHAA
Hitler[AoE]: u guys are fockin gay
Hitler[AoE]: ur never getting in my city
*Hitler[AoE] has been eliminated.*
benny~tow: OMG u noob you killed yourself
Eisenhower: ROFLOLOLOL
Stalin: OMG LMAO!
Hitler[AoE]: WTF i didnt click there omg this game blows
*Hitler[AoE] has left the game*
paTTon: hahahhah
T0J0: WTF my teammates are n00bs
benny~tow: shut up noob
Roosevelt: haha wut a moron
paTTon: wtf am i gunna do now?
Eisenhower: yah me too
T0J0: why dont u attack me o thats right u dont got no ships lololol
Eisenhower: fock u
paTTon: lemme go thru ur base commie
Stalin: go to hell lol
paTTon: fock this sh1t im goin afk
Eisenhower: yah this is gay
*Roosevelt has left the game.*
Hitler[AoE]: wtf?
Eisenhower: sh1t now we need some1 to join
*tru_m4n has joined the game.*
tru_m4n: hi all
T0J0: hey
Stalin: sup
Churchill: hi
tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff!
tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES
Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz
tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple
Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets
T0J0: wtf is nukes?
T0J0: holy ****holy****hoyl****!
*T0J0 has been eliminated.*
*The Allied team has won the game!*
Eisenhower: awesome!
Churchill: gg noobs no re
T0J0: thats bull**** u fockin suck
*T0J0 has left the game.*
*Eisenhower has left the game.*
Stalin: next game im not going to be on ur team, u guys didnt help me for ****
Churchill: wutever, we didnt need ur help neway dumbarss
tru_m4n: l8r all
benny~tow: bye
Churchill: l8r
Stalin: fock u all
tru_m4n: shut up commie lol
*tru_m4n has left the game.*
benny~tow: lololol u commie
Churchill: ROFL
Churchill: bye commie
*Churchill has left the game.*
*benny~tow has left the game.*
Stalin: i hate u all fags
*Stalin has left the game.*
paTTon: lol no1 is left
paTTon: weeeee i got a jeep
*paTTon has been eliminated.*
paTTon: o sh1t!
*paTTon has left the game.*

(Source: http://www.strategypage.com/humor/articles/military_jokes_20057151.asp)

2006-10-27T13:45:00.000-05:00

How to Play a Video Game on Paper

When you want to play a video game, but can't because you don't have one, or your parents say you can't play it? What if you want play a game in school, in the car or anywhere and your GameBoy is dead? If your 'rents are using the TV? What to do to cure that boredom? Try this.

Steps

1. Get a blank piece of paper.
2. Draw some sort of monster on it, but don't fill up the page. Use a pencil so you can erase when he gets hurt.
3. Give it a name and a health bar.
4. Draw two smaller characters. You can make them up yourself.
5. Give your characters names and health bars. Write a 100 above each health bar.
6. Draw a magic bar
7. Think up some attacks for your characters, and a few for the boss too. They should do varying amounts of damage the strong ones use magic.
8. Have one of your characters attack. Subtract the attack value from the enemy.
9. Have the characters take turns attacking. You can play with your characters on the same team, or you can have all three go at it.
10. Once the boss is down to zero health, you have advanced to Level 2. Reward yourself by unlocking something like power Armor or Fire Arrow or a new character. One idea is that every level you unlock a Fusion ability, which lets you merge two characters into one.
11. Once you're on level 2, keep going. There's really no limit in levels--just your imagination.
12. Then, finally sit in your room for hours on end, and your parent will think your doing something naughty, but you're just playing VIDEO GAMES!

Tips

* Add 10 HP whenever you gain a level. Experiment with different attack powers.
* Try playing co-op--you control one character and a friend controls the other or 1 on 1 battle.
* To make yourself more motivated, plan out attacks for your characters to learn on later levels, like Meteor smash on Level Five.
* For the Health Bar, make a narrow box but don't fill it. Whenever the character gets hurt color in some of the bar to represent damage or when you use a healing move rub out some damage and when the bar's all colored...well, you're dead.

Warnings

* People might think you are weird
* Don't tell your friends who play D&D about this, unless you want them to try and recruit you for their next session

Things You'll Need

* paper
* pencil
* ideas
* eraser.

(Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Play-a-Video-Game-on-Paper)

2006-10-26T21:21:00.000-05:00

My Flickr Slide-show

I have embedded my Flickr slide show below. Please check it out:

Flickr Photo Gallery

2006-10-26T14:29:00.000-05:00

Web Browser Faceoff

The last few weeks have been packed with browser action and the two market leaders, Internet Explorer and Firefox, have launched major new versions. So to round out our recent browser coverage, we present the Web Browser Faceoff - looking at how all the main browsers compare with each other in terms of features and innovation. We are basically looking for what is unique, interesting - and missing - in each browser.

Right now Microsoft still holds onto its huge market lead, but Firefox is gaining more ground every month. Probably more importantly, there are other major innovators in the browser space - such as the social browser Flock (a Read/WriteWeb sponsor) and the perennial innovator Opera. The Mac browser Safari of course has many passionate supporters, while new kid Maxthon is one to watch.

Regardless of who will prevail in the 'browser 2.0 wars', the users will win. While fighting each other, the browser makers innovate and simplify. They increase our productivity by integrating into the browser web concepts such as search, RSS, OPML, microformats and more. The core browsers are getting slimmer and faster, while extensions that cover a wide range of services are being developed by external parties.

To find out more details, please visit this website!

2006-10-26T13:46:00.000-05:00

What a bunch of bored students can do when their professor is late for class?

Well to start with, they may get intrigued by the projector and start playing with it....
One of them may even have an iPod and focus the projector on the iPod to watch a movie on the big screen. This is how it looks like:

The console looks some-what like this:

You can see above, the obedient students watching the movie on the big screen. To hear the audio, the audio port for the projector is connected to the iPod. Now you can not only watch the movie, but also hear the audio. But wait..how's the video quality? Well....judge yourself below ;):

The professor finally arrived after 30 minutes of "movie time" and we had to continue our lecture, but let me tell you one thing. The professor was damn impressed. Since it was a marketing class, she also mentioned that the whole set up could have been a great advertisement for Apple's iPod.

2006-10-25T22:07:00.000-05:00

I came across this hilarious picture today!

2006-10-25T17:49:00.000-05:00

Blatant Facebook Rip-Off Gets Acquired.

It was announced today that China’s leading college social networking site has been acquired for an undisclosed sum. That sounds reasonable, since the Chinese social networking space is growing fast. But I was shocked to load up the site and see that it’s an exact clone of Facebook - how did they take this all the way to acquisition when the site is such a blatant rip-off?

Xiaonei.com, the Beijing-based social network for college students, was acquired by Oak Pacific Interactive (OPI), a Chinese Internet consortium. The plan is to merge Xiaonei with 5Q, OPI’s own college social network. Xiaonei has close to a million active users, and together the two sites will have a similar stranglehold on the Chinese college market that Facebook has in the US: they now serve more than 90% of the active online student population. A price wasn’t given, but the co-CCO (Chief Operating Officer) of OPI has been quoted saying “We paid a premium, but the team deserves it.”

The story isn’t quite the same as Zuckerberg and Facebook, but there are echoes: Xiaonei is a one-year old startup founded by Tsinghua university graduate Wang Xing. It soft-launched in October 2005 and the official launch was in December. Even the strategy was a clone of Facebook - Xiaonei focused on the top schools first, realizing that widespread adoption would follow. They even received angel funding from investors that included an ex-CTO of Amazon.com. Facebook, meanwhile, was founded way back in July 2004.

From what I can see, Facebook haven’t pursued any legal action against the site, although they almost certainly know about the problem: even the site’s users have reported the similarities in the interface and functionality, and there are multiple blogs and mainstream news outlets that called them out on it after launch. But somehow this big payout for the founding team seems to rub salt in the wound for Facebook, a site that’s yet to be acquired despite rumors of a Yahoo deal. It also sends a signal to would-be founders that they can clone a popular site, get away with it, and go on to sell that property for a large sum.

Below is a comparision of the screen shots for Facebook and Xiaonei (To protect the identity of my friends, I had to cover their pictures. But you can get the idea how much Xiaonei copied the format from Facebook):

Facebook

Xiaonei

2006-10-25T11:44:00.000-05:00

Here are some coolest webclock/calendars I came across:

1.

(Source: http://beeks.eu/swf/handclock.swf )

2.

(Source: http://beeks.eu/swf/timeline.swf)

Visit this website for some more cool web clocks and calendar applications.

2006-10-24T13:22:00.000-05:00

Google launched the new Custom Search Engine today. Now you can search within your blogs and personal websites!

As the Google Co-op website put it,

"Harness the power of Google search to create a free Custom Search Engine that reflects your knowledge and interests. Specify the websites that you want searched - and integrate the search box and results into your own website. " (source: http://google.com/coop/cse/)

To learn more, visit http://google.com/coop/cse/

To check out my own custom search page, click here!

2006-10-24T12:31:00.001-05:00

Hilarious video of how to play bowling on Roller Coaster Tycoon 3:

2006-10-24T11:18:00.000-05:00

Colors of Autumn...

This picture was taken outside my house yesterday evening. I apologize for the quality of the picture, since it was taken from my cell-phone cam.

2006-10-23T22:30:00.000-05:00

The Dove evolution!

2006-10-23T22:03:00.000-05:00

Borat on Late Night Show with Conan O'brien. This is hilarious!!

2006-10-23T21:59:00.000-05:00

Don't know about you all, but I can't wait for this movie: The Pick of Destiny!

Here's a preview:

2006-10-23T14:04:00.000-05:00

Lets start with some music!
Following is a music video of Switchfoot's "I Dare You To Move".
Hope you all will like it!