Quick Links
- A helluva thing : It’s a helluva thing, a trial by jury. It was a radical notion 200 years ago, and it’s still a radical notion today.
- YouTube - The Process : hilarious
- Visions of Mars : A DVD that was sent with the Phoenix lander - creating the first library on Mars!
- Much-maligned feature being added to IPv6 - Network World : Good article on the state of IPv6 deployment and the case for IPv6 <-> IPv4 NAT devices
- Font Conference - CollegeHumor video : hehe
- Barely Alive, Seafloor Microbes Might Resemble Exo-Organisms | Wired Science : cool stuff
- The Online Photographer: New Panasonic has Superwide, Superfast Lens : The new LX 3 is very attractive. Now to wait for some image quality reports.
- more links | rss
A trip down memory lane
Upon reading Jono Bacon's post where he's dug up his online activities from days gone by, I went looking for my first website. It's still online! I don't even remember now when I made that site; the Internet Archive has no clue either.
Anyway, don't ask me what was my excuse for that tacky design! ;-)
linker | 2 comments | permalink | 03.07.2005 20:25 SGT
Mark Shuttleworth
A very inspiring interview on Slashdot with Mark Shuttleworth.
From a shake-your-bones point of view, the re-entry in a Soyuz can't really be beaten. You are coming in at mach 25 when the atmosphere first sucks you in. You see the blackness of space turning a dull red as the heat builds up around your vehicle. The Soyuz is designed to orient itself correctly for re-entry even if it's a dead craft with no attitude control, so you feel the craft swinging around to ensure that the heatshield will take the brunt of it. Then you watch your spacecraft disintegrate and burn up around you, and the G forces build up till you are in the middle of an inferno with the spare hard drives you brought back on your chest weighting a ton, and the Soyuz spinning like a top to try and spread the heat load out evenly on the shield. You watch bolts and other pieces of metal on the outside melt and run liquid across your window before it blisters and blackens. It's an unbelievable display of forces entirely outside of your control wil you, an ant, in the middle of the fireworks display. You know that your survival is totally dependent on the people who put this machine together, that there is nothing you personally can do if it comes apart. It's a hell of a ride.
linker | 2 comments | permalink | 05.04.2005 10:45 SGT
Test
Checking
linker | 1 comment | permalink | 31.03.2005 22:38 SGT
On Comics
Anyone engaged in academic research will certainly agree with PhD's latest strip.
The absolutely edgy and hilarious, Sinfest, is the latest addition to my comic strips reading list. Others in it: Dilbert, Calvin, Penny Arcade and finally Sexy Losers which I mentioned sometime ago.
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 15.03.2005 18:20 SGT
Face Recognition
Serial Killer or Programming Language Inventor?
http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/
I got a 4/10 - that's worse than random!
linker | 9 comments | permalink | 09.03.2005 22:10 SGT
Killing Innovation
An ex-HP guy describes how Carly's handling of HP Labs killed innovation within the company and fears the long term repurcussions of that, not just for HP but for the industry as a whole.
There's nothing that makes you say, 'Wow." Ten years ago I was seeing something interesting every month, but now we're touting bloated software and cute case designs as innovation. The damage to HP and the U.S. technology industry at large may already be irreversible. If we start investing today and let our engineers play we might have something exciting to show people in 2010. That's a long time to wait for the next big wow.
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 04.03.2005 17:33 SGT
This and That
I thought my next post will be accompanied by some new photos. Sadly, all you people are not that lucky. I got a film roll developed and it has photos from my trip to Kuala Lumpur last weekend, among other things. There was this tiny detail of telling the studio person that I wanted digital versions. Details, I say! Anyway, this gives me a chance to use the scanner at my workplace.
While we are here, let me dump some links that have been losing their bits - bit by bit.
- 59th College Photographer of the Year. The Gold winning images are great no doubt, but don't miss the other winning photos. Oh, NSFW.
- Rip, Mix, Burn, Sue: Technology, Politics, and the Fight to Control Digital Media. A talk by Edward Felten, Professor of CS at Princeton. I haven't watched the whole thing yet.
- The Rorschach Test.
- Art?! (Certainly NSFW!)
- Clicks and Mortar. From the time of the boom, circa 1999. Filled with interesting stories.
- Heavy Metal Umlaut. A scholarly look at the working of the Wikipedia. Neat.
- The Jerry Seinfeld Dictionary of Terms and Phrases. :-D
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 26.01.2005 21:45 SGT
A great way to see the world
Take driving directions from MSN MapPoint!
(via CrazyFrench)
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 19.01.2005 09:44 SGT
Crazy iPod and M mish-mash
- Get this video which the Gizmodo guys wrote about a few days ago.
- Play it once and enjoy. (Hey, it's a funny clip!)
- Now play it again at 125% speed.
Doesn't the guy sound like Judi Dench aka M? M is for Mac?!
linker | 2 comments | permalink | 17.01.2005 11:52 SGT
Whattay New Year!
http://www.tha.jp/project/greeting2005/
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 13.01.2005 10:08 SGT
Renegade Coders?
This story is just too cool! Excerpt:
His contract in another division at Apple had just ended, so he told his manager that he would start reporting to me. She didn't ask who I was and let him keep his office and badge. In turn, I told people that I was reporting to him. Since that left no managers in the loop, we had no meetings and could be extremely productive.
linker | 2 comments | permalink | 23.12.2004 15:56 SGT
Dogs
A link dedicated to Sharad: Three Stories about Attacking Dogs.
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 14.12.2004 12:52 SGT
Internet Security FUDnation
This was too funny to pass without putting up a link here.
The Internet Security Foundation.
I hope someone reverse engineers their Asterisks software and see what is it actually doing. Like calling home to mommy with all your passwords...
(via Schneier)
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 14.12.2004 10:08 SGT
IBM sells out
It's a sad day. The rumours have been confirmed. It's official now that IBM is selling it's PC division, including the Think* trademarks to China's number one PC maker Lenovo.
Reuters reports on the US$1.25 billion deal.
linker | 1 comment | permalink | 08.12.2004 16:00 SGT
On Reliance
Finally, a good article in Rediff! It's a special feature on the Reliance imbroglio and provides a nice overview of the whole situation with a bit of the company's history. More specifically, it makes a point that I was making to Prerit when this story first broke out a few days ago.
Very few politicians have had the gumption to oppose the Ambanis, just as the overwhelming majority of journalists in the country preferred not to be critical of the Reliance group. The Indian media, most of the time, has chosen to lap up whatever has been doled out by the group's public relations executives.
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 23.11.2004 09:39 SGT
Isn't 'National Security' abused enough already
A quote from Jonathan Lamy, spokesperson for the RIAA, on the proposed Intellectual Property Protection Act currently doing the rounds of the US Congress.
Intellectual property theft is a national security crime. It's appropriate that the fed dedicate resources to deter and prosecute IP theft.
From an article in Technology Review: Is Fair Use in Peril?
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 21.11.2004 00:09 SGT
Florida
Florida and Bush - unbeatable! Watch this damn funny video. (via Scoble)
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 29.10.2004 20:43 SGT
Link Blink
Excellent article in the Guardian on the Mona Lisa and the hype surrounding it. An excerpt:
Waiting to see the Mona Lisa has all the thrill of standing in an airport check-in queue. The crowd pushes forward, cattle-like and unquestioning, performing a ritual they know they have to go through with in order to complete a pre-ordained tourist experience. ... Caged in a box of bullet-proof glass, the picture looks unimpressive under the harsh institutional lighting. Winking dots of red and orange reflected camera eyes dance across the canvas and every few seconds the Mona Lisa's face is obscured by another flash.
While I am at it, here's another article which promises to be good stuff. Yeah, I haven't read it yet. ;-)
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 21.10.2004 21:14 SGT
BLAST
Sitting in a workshop right now. Getting bored.
Elizabeth showed me some pretty pictures she took when she was in Shanghai some time ago.
This is BLAST.
(Published post-facto)
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 20.10.2004 16:44 SGT
Quickies
The new feature rollout at Gmail trickled into my account this evening. Curiously, what exactly these new features are is presently unknown since Google is still not saying anything. What I can make out as new so far is the much needed Draft email facility and quick access to the address book on the main page itself. Also, Ctrl+Click (in Firefox) now opens links in new tabs without popping up new windows. One more - email forwarding!
There's word going around that an Atom feed of your inbox is being rolled out too - it hasn't rolled into my account yet. BTW, Yahoo Mail now does address autocompletion too. Competition is always good for the consumer :-)
There are some new additions to the SuSE Linux page.
Interesting stuff if you have the bandwidth.
Have you read the Algorhyme? (via adam barr)
Update: SpaceShipOne makes history!
Update2: (more link mania)
NY Times article on SS1's flight success; provides a good overview of the X prize contest. Wired story on related stories.
Search mania: Yahoo's personalized search launch comes on the heels of A9 and My Jeeves.
Snap.com - really innovative! But they need a big speed boost and a bigger index to really make use of all that dynamic filtering magic! Jeremy Zawodny's thoughts.
linker | 0 comments | permalink | 05.10.2004 19:53 SGT
