Friday, March 31, 2006

Fired Kodak Manager sues, Was fired for opposing lower-resolution images

Fired for protesting a cost-saving proposal that would have quietly compressed millions of digital images stored by customers. Kodak insisted it would never condense images in a lower-resolution format -- and thereby potentially diminish their quality "without our customers' knowledge."

read more | digg story

Sepia Mutiny Goes Foolish

The folks at Sepia Mutiny have brilliantly replaced their entire site with something, well, wierd - a day early, more the merrier.



The weblog link itself takes one to first a Wordpress site, and then a blogger blog purporting to be the real Sepia Mutiny, a victim of cyber squatting.

The main page itself has tons of inside jokes that are pretty neat.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Ants need Wet soil

Discovery of the week:

Argentine ants in Southern California need wet soil to
live and breed.


I could've told them that.

Steve Ballmer's Kids Don't Use Google or IPods

Fortune interviews the dude with the 'Developer' yell, and he doesn't disappoint in acerbic responses.






AOL is not making any investment in the future of the media and advertising business.







Do you have an iPod?


No, I do not. Nor do my children. My children--in many dimensions
they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this
dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you
don't use an iPod.




Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Internet Censorship, the Pakistani Way

If the government controls all outside links, one might think that it should be a simple matter to censor the internet. Yet this isn’t the case-the current filtering system in place is very crude. There is a list of banned addresses which the Pakistan Internet Exchange look at, and block requests by users to the computers on the blacklist.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

20000 Hong Kong Citizens Info Leaked Online, Governmental Silence

Information on 20000 people from Hong Kong's Police files found on a commercial server. This is undoubtedly the worst breach of data privacy in Hong Kong's history. The Government remains mum. The data was taken offsite by a consultant whose contract did not cover data security.

read more | digg story

Stanislav Lem, Sci-Fi writer dies, where do they go?

Do science fiction writers and mystics get a different afterlife? They spend their creative urges imagining a world different from their own, it only seems fair they should be allowed a universe different from anyone else's when they pass over.

Stanislav Lem, author of fine books like Solaris, the Star Diaries, etc. died on March 27 at 84.

It was in this extraordinary tradition that Lem wrote, for all that he
chose the science-fiction form — and he was a prime examplar of it. He
was a true polymath and at the same time a virtuoso storyteller. He was
truly described as “one of the deep spirits of the age”.

AJAX IDE released

Friday, March 24, 2006

South Park Without Chef

South Park won't be the same without Chef - his songs, his horny nature, and his explanations to the kids were a key part of the show. Some analysis of the episode "The Return Of Chef", shot post the announcement of the departure of Isaac Hayes is over at Blogcritics.

In his eulogy for Chef, Kyle says "Some of us feel hurt and confused that he seemed to turn his back on us." That's quite a public admission of vulnerability coming from these macho pirates. After all, like L Ron Hubbard, Parker and Stone have many enemies.

On the surface, this episode looks normal, but it's not a typical South Park. The style of their animation is the same as ever. The narrative structure is customary. Like the returned Chef, it looks standard.



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Thursday, March 23, 2006

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Magritte's Lovers

ARTas galleries

Some interesting art galleries here - worth browsing the ARTas Erotica gallery

Friday, March 17, 2006

Greasemonkey This!

Epic Records to Feature Artists on Xbox Live

The Artist of the Month feature on Xbox Live will have free exclusive artist content & high-definition music videos. Through the Xbox Live Game with Fame program, Live subscribers can also enter a monthly sweepstakes to win a chance to play against the musicians. The first artist in the AOM series is British singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield.

read more | digg story

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Thursday, March 16, 2006

The Always-On Digital Lifestyle - Sereniti's Smart Home Server

This is a Wi-Fi router with an on-board storage drive. It comes with a monthly subscription that gives you 24/7 support with setting up and managing your network connections,and keeping your firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware software current and updated. And something unique: $1000 if you incur virus damage, and $25,000 for identity theft.

read more | digg story

machu picchu


machu picchu
Originally uploaded by mappamundi.
Wish I was there...

Monday, March 13, 2006

Is the Rise of Iran a Threat or an Opportunity?

Scientific Development can only benefit a nation - should we not cheer nuclear development, even on the part of Iran?

India Rising - The Big Scare - Is it warranted?

Very topical discussion on media portrayals of India that don't seem to have changed much despite the boom.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Sunday, March 05, 2006

The Locus Magazine Recommended Reading List

It's always good to get a pre-researched reading list, makes one's hyperconnected life a little more directed. Locus magazine published a recommended reading list from 2005 science fiction works in their February 2006 issue, selected by Locus editors and reviewers, as well as authors

Some great stuff, too much to really read or list here, but a few standouts:

If one had time enough...

Venice, Italy


Venezia
Originally uploaded by cuore di marmo.
I'm no Romeo, but I think I'd feel at home in Venice

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Doing It Right

Today's Dilbert has so much personal relevance

Cricket Diplomacy


Play cricket, not war

O'Reilly Continues To Bloviate

O'Reilly threatens a hapless caller for invoking the fell name of Olbermann - and still people will call:)

Hilarious Cartoon by Monk:




Friday, March 03, 2006

Blogger/Blogspot Censored In Pakistan

Another pointless blow against free speech.

Desicritic Teeth Maestro reports that Blogger has been censored in Pakistan

As I write this post on the 4th of March 2006 all sub-domains on Blogspot.com/Blogger carrying thousands of free blogs continue to remain censored for all internet users in Pakistan. The mess started on the 27th of February when the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority issued instructions to all ISP to block all websites displaying the controversial cartoon images of Prophet Muhammad.

Good grief!

A banner to demonstrate solidarity against this action, which is vitiated by the millions of options to get the word out, is also available.

RIM Reaches Settlement With NTP on Blackberry Patent Dispute

Apparently, RIM has reached a settlement in the long-running patent dispute with NTP on their ever-more popular Blackberry devices.


The settlement is for $612.5 million - Press Release here

More details later - leastways, I won't see my crackberry switch off abruptly, leaving me bereft from my mails, conference calls, etc.:)

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Thomas Friedman at Yale Law School

A video of Thomas Friedman's talk at Yale Law School (Quicktime) recently - very interesting hearing his views.

Also, the first of a new series on Tom Friedman's book, The World Is Flat, at Desicritics

The whole controversy about Dubai's take over of Ports; India and USA
signing a Nuclear Deal; Pakistan and India moving towards peace through
trade and hence opting for the "Lexus"(Trade) and keeping the "Olive Tree"(Kashmir) in background would be more clearer if we look at them in view of "The Flat World."

Lightning quote

A quote I came across and really like:

"The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is
the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug" - Mark Twain


Some Fine Books

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