2001

Take two plates. Bring them very close in a vacuum. They will attract. The Casimir Effect (free subscription required).

Fantastic images at the Internet Ray Tracing Contest and at POVRay.

Prof. Vijay Kumar was kind enough to give us hints on how to prepare for placements. How to prepare for interviews Have a list of intelligent but unoffensive questions for each company. Contact alumni who are working there, and find out what work is like. What should I find out How does the work improve my employability or value? Specifically in terms of the Nature of work The experience that I get Skills acquired What will the salary growth be over time? What are the perks at different levels? What are the promotion and growth opportunities? What industries does the company focus on? How many people are there, and what is the employee growth rate? What do clients feel about you? (Talk to clients themselves – maybe friends in client organisations.) Which is the largest office? Where are most of the projects executed? (It makes a lot of sense to get into this office. Project staffing is usually done with people in the same office.) What should I question ...

Yahoo’s auction listings fell 82% when they started charging for auctions. But the sales apparantly is steady, and quality of listings is going up. Amazon may follow suit. Looks like the pay-model is the one that will survive on the Net.

Fucked company reports that X-Drive.com is likely to lay off people. Given their accuracy, I’d recommend anyone having files on X-Drive make backups in the near future.

In Delhi & Mumbai, you can send voice messages, and soon (hopefully) use the telephone to access e-mail. Through Indivoice. They have a long way to go, though, to get on par with Yahoo! by Phone.

Typographical errors on San Fransisco sidewalks.

NASSCOM 2001 is on.

The Annals of Improbable Research have sent all kinds of things by post. Almost two-thirds were delivered. I doubt if it would happen in India.

US Postal Department archives interesting letters. It includes famous love letters and ‘Dear Santa’s.

Online classics: video-on-demand for operas, plays, and dance. Video is definitely in these days, with NASA, CNN and a whole lot of others.

Kumbha Mela from space. If they can do this for free, I suppose Frederick Forsyth’s and Tom Clancy’s description of satellites catching individual’s faces can’t be far from the truth. They’ve got a pretty good gallery.

Of the films selected by the National Film Registry for preservation in 2000, I haven’t seen a single one! Not even read the script of any, for that matter.

Dream Research and Dream Bank. Lots about the analysis of dreams.

Tomments. Tom Murcko, CEO of InvestorGuide.com, writes about once a month, when he feels something important isn’t being said by anyone else, like whether Bill Gates is a good investor.

KPMG Consulting is going public.

Kerala chat. Joseph, find yourself a nice girl!

Web usability. About interface design on the Web.

The greatest hacks ever. And now, credit cards stolen from Bill Gates, George Soros and Yoshiro Mori.

The California power crisis is not due to computers. So distributed projects like Seti@home and RC5 are not to blame.