Why don't we have moon satellites yet? It would help with interlunar communications and the inevitable cities on the dark side. It would also be good practice for the Mars missions.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Netflix Instant - Not Quite Perfect
The New York Times had a good article in 2011 on the state of affairs in Netflix Instant, where the gems are hard to find, especially for cinephiles who watch 100+ movies a year.
Instantwatcher is of course your best reference to Netflix Instant. It indexes all Instant movies in an easy to browse categorized format, particularly new releases and upcoming flicks. Netflix Instant is frustating, with its blending of available and unavailable films for streaming, and most of the popular movies being unavailable.
Confession: I added on the DVD option to Netflix again this week. It seems like the best deal, even compared to Amazon Instant Video
pay-per-view deals.
We had great fun watching Cowboys and Aliens on Amazon for New Years' Eve. It is a perfect blend of the classic Westerns and modern alien invasion flicks, even if the aliens get too little screen time.
The shelves of the two leading services, Netflix Instant and Hulu Plus, seem to be full of films you’ve never heard of, arranged in no particular order. The latest hits haven’t arrived yet, and there’s no one around to help you out except for the digital equivalent of the surly, underpaid clerk
Instantwatcher is of course your best reference to Netflix Instant. It indexes all Instant movies in an easy to browse categorized format, particularly new releases and upcoming flicks. Netflix Instant is frustating, with its blending of available and unavailable films for streaming, and most of the popular movies being unavailable.
Confession: I added on the DVD option to Netflix again this week. It seems like the best deal, even compared to Amazon Instant Video
pay-per-view deals.We had great fun watching Cowboys and Aliens on Amazon for New Years' Eve. It is a perfect blend of the classic Westerns and modern alien invasion flicks, even if the aliens get too little screen time.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Joseph Campbell's "Myths to Live By"
This excellent Joseph Campbell book about contemporary myths is currently free on Amazon. Covers everything from the Moon Walk to Schizophrenia.: 'Myths to Live By (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell'
Monday, December 19, 2011
The Insanity Of Provincialism
Having grown up in Bangalore, I can never see myself calling it Bengaluru. Bangalore is as much Koshy's as it is Majestic.
I don't believe the Bengaluru tag ever caught on, it's still Bangalore, unlike, say, Chennai or Mumbai.
What does Bangalore mean to you?
I don't believe the Bengaluru tag ever caught on, it's still Bangalore, unlike, say, Chennai or Mumbai.
What does Bangalore mean to you?
Amazon Select and Free Books on the Amazon Kindle
With all the new Amazon Kindles being bought and loaded up, everyone's on the lookout for good book bargains. This couldn't have come at a better time, as with the launch of Amazon's new marketing fund, Kindle Select, authors are encouraged to give away their books for free, for up to 5 days each quarter.
Needless to say, this is both a shot in the arm for independent authors/publishers and at the same time a shot across the bow (apologies for the overwrought metaphor) of the large publishers. The large publishers had it coming, as it were, with their near-cartelization of e-book pricing, for which they are reportedly being investigated by the EU.
Authors have been quick to take advantage of the e-promotions, and a plethora of books is marked down to free every day. There are a couple of websites that specialize in tracking free and discounted Kindle books. Two notable ones are Kinlib and eReaderIQ. I prefer the user interface of eReaderIQ, although kinlib's sparse format leads to lesser clicking and faster scrolling. Both have opted to hide the many erotica titles, although often titles are miscategorized. An Amazon reader/reviewer, Princess "Jingle Bells" Joyce, has long been sharing free books each day through the Kindle Discussion forum, and her job is much simplified by these new sites. The advantage of the daily Free Books thread is that readers chime in with recommendations and opinions, making it easy to sift through the chaff.
Here's the pick of the lot for today:
Dig in! (Remember, you can send the books to the Kindle Cloud Reader until you're ready to download them and save space on your Kindle)
Needless to say, this is both a shot in the arm for independent authors/publishers and at the same time a shot across the bow (apologies for the overwrought metaphor) of the large publishers. The large publishers had it coming, as it were, with their near-cartelization of e-book pricing, for which they are reportedly being investigated by the EU.
Authors have been quick to take advantage of the e-promotions, and a plethora of books is marked down to free every day. There are a couple of websites that specialize in tracking free and discounted Kindle books. Two notable ones are Kinlib and eReaderIQ. I prefer the user interface of eReaderIQ, although kinlib's sparse format leads to lesser clicking and faster scrolling. Both have opted to hide the many erotica titles, although often titles are miscategorized. An Amazon reader/reviewer, Princess "Jingle Bells" Joyce, has long been sharing free books each day through the Kindle Discussion forum, and her job is much simplified by these new sites. The advantage of the daily Free Books thread is that readers chime in with recommendations and opinions, making it easy to sift through the chaff.
Here's the pick of the lot for today:
- Bindi Girl: Diving Deep Into the Heart of India
- Mirror Maze - A Norwegian Man's True Story of Five Years in Mexican Prisons
- Prime Cuts - An Anthology of Short Stories
- Another 100 Chess Problems for the Rest of Us
- Diagnosed With Cancer
- Sky Tongues
- The Rules of Management, Expanded Edition: A Definitive Code for Managerial Success (Richard Templar's Rules)
- Angry Mobs and Founding Fathers: The Fight for Control of the American Revolution
Dig in! (Remember, you can send the books to the Kindle Cloud Reader until you're ready to download them and save space on your Kindle)
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Apple's problem with in-App purchases, refunds and single sign-on
Ken Haas draws attention to problems with getting refunds from developers and the Apple Store. I've had a bad experience like many others with inadvertent in-app purchases made by my kids through stuff like TapZoo, etc and run up $200+ charges. Apple and the developers were kind enough to reverse the charges, but after that, I have explicitly disabled in-app purchases, which should be the default.
Apart from the difficulty in getting refunds, Apple's model of storing your iTunes password for 15 minutes after its entered and indiscriminately passing authentication information between apps for in-app purchases is the nub of the inadvertent in-app purchase problem.
In typical Apple fashion, though these problems have been known and reported for years, its unlikely they will be fixed.
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Super 8 - Perfect Blend
Steven Spielberg and J J Abrams' Super 8 is a perfect blend of 80s sci-fi, Spielberg themes and Stephen King-style plot. The children act as if they were unsullied by the 90s and 21st century. The sketchy plot besides, this movie is really about the children.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
India wins ICC Cricket World Cup 2011
After 28 years, India won the ICC Cricket World Cup in grand style, with captain M S Dhoni finishing off with a six. The team carried the captain off the field as the crowd went wild. Everyone had a part to play, and the match was a rocking great 'un. Sri Lanka's excellent 274 score was surpassed by India.
The match was seen as a proxy for rising Indian confidence and this victory will doubtless be touted as symbolizing a resurgent India.
It's just a game in the end, though, and someone had to win.
The match was seen as a proxy for rising Indian confidence and this victory will doubtless be touted as symbolizing a resurgent India.
It's just a game in the end, though, and someone had to win.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
"
Saturday, December 04, 2010
My Personality Type
ENFP - "Journalist". Uncanny sense of the motivations of others. Life is an exciting drama. 8.1% of total population. |
This is quite accurate.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Andy Warhol on Coca-Cola
This is one of my favorite quotes from anyone; it's from Warhol's 1975 book, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.
What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Bee Study Sponsor Went Unmentioned in NYT Article
You know that New York Times story that implicated a ‘tag team’ of virus and fungus in the collapse of American bee colonies? And how it implicitly exonerated pesticides, which are among the prime suspects in the bee plague?
CNN reports that it turns out the author of the study on which the NYT depended is funded by Bayer and may have ulterior reasons for downplaying the role of pesticides, some of which were banned in Europe because it was found that they were killing off the bees. The question is why the bees suddenly became vulnerable to fungi and viruses that had long been around. And the pesticides can’t be ruled out.
The NYT reporter on being queried said that the author of the study had not ‘volunteered’ the sources of his funding.
As for bees, they are crucial to pollination and the health of many plant species.
The bees are telling us something
CNN reports that it turns out the author of the study on which the NYT depended is funded by Bayer and may have ulterior reasons for downplaying the role of pesticides, some of which were banned in Europe because it was found that they were killing off the bees. The question is why the bees suddenly became vulnerable to fungi and viruses that had long been around. And the pesticides can’t be ruled out.
The NYT reporter on being queried said that the author of the study had not ‘volunteered’ the sources of his funding.
As for bees, they are crucial to pollination and the health of many plant species.
The bees are telling us something
Happy Douglas Adams Day!
Happy Douglas Adams Day!: "
Douglas Adams fans would know that 42 is the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, calculated in 7.5 million years by a supercomputer named Deep Thought.
Today is the 10th day of the 10th month of the year, and if Y2K never happened, this year would be ’10. In binary notation, 101010 is 42 in base 10. Today’s the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything!
Happy Douglas Adams Day!
"
101010!
Douglas Adams fans would know that 42 is the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, calculated in 7.5 million years by a supercomputer named Deep Thought.
Today is the 10th day of the 10th month of the year, and if Y2K never happened, this year would be ’10. In binary notation, 101010 is 42 in base 10. Today’s the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything!
Happy Douglas Adams Day!
"101010!
Kinect for Xbox 360: The Inside Story of Microsoft's Secret 'Project Natal'
Kinect for Xbox 360: The Inside Story of Microsoft's Secret 'Project Natal': "With its Kinect entertainment platform, Microsoft plans to reinvent how we interact with computers. But first it had to solve a few impossible problems."
The name sounds like a misspelling, but this is stretching the user interface, so good stuff! I wonder when it will show up in regular computing. Gaming and regular computing seem to be ever-divergent.
The name sounds like a misspelling, but this is stretching the user interface, so good stuff! I wonder when it will show up in regular computing. Gaming and regular computing seem to be ever-divergent.
James Surowiecki: How Netflix beat Blockbuster.
James Surowiecki: How Netflix beat Blockbuster.: "In the nineteen-eighties, a new kind of chain store came to dominate American shopping: the “category killer.” These stores killed off all competition in a category by stocking a near-endless variety of products at prices that small retailers couldn’t match. Across America, independent stores . . ."
The stock price is the best indicator of success.
The stock price is the best indicator of success.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)