September 2002

More nostalgia. John Keogh patented the wheel. via Ig Nobel Prizes

Wow! Google News is completely revamped! via CNet

Yahoo India’s TV Guide. I’ve been waiting for this for sooooo long! Comments Som Patterkine 23 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: Hi. The Yahoo India TV Guide is really just a list of links. Not very good. The one that I have found better is http://www.zipazap.com This is perhaps one of the better TV Guides especially on accuracy. I looked up the promoters of Zipazap and they all seem to be solid TV professionals that explains the quality of info on this site. Bye Som

Interesting article: suggests that Tamil nationalism a moderating force to religious politics.

IBM’s research shows that people who are trusting adopt the Internet more than those who are suspicious by nature.

Open Courseware from MIT will be open to the public on Sep 30th. OCW is a set of MIT-designed courses that will be available online to the public. via MetaFilter

Kamat observes that most people find out about the site via a search in Google. I’d say advertising is probably pointless for just traffic generation. If one has something to sell, fine. Not otherwise.

Ralph Nader talks about how businesses are using GATS to their own ends. The argument is that trade laws are used as a lever to subvert local laws, which protect citizens from businesses. via RobotWisdom

Daypop is out of disk space. Poor thing! Could we lend it some? I mean, could sites like Daypop work out a distributed architecture, using web services? Or using things like space drives? via Scripting News

Corporate scandals at a glance. Nice, the way they’ve linked Martha Stewart and her daughter to Sam Waksal. (Wax-all?) via Metafilter

Chatting with your computer – the new way of interacting with your DOS prompt.

India Today on blogging. Very nice article, Nidhi. (You need to have a subscription ID. But if you just keep typing random 4-digit numbers, it eventually lets you in.) Featuring Rohini, Prachi, Prabhakar Venkataraman, Radhika, Aditi, Rajesh, Anand, Mahesh, Anita, Arun, Jaykrishnan Nair, Rushi, Kiruba, Madhuri and Sylvia. Comments golu 25 May 2007 6:44 pm: thanx a lot yaar """" 4181 """"" worked for me nkt 29 May 2007 6:33 am: 4181 still works, thanx man!! Sai 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: 4181 works!!! Thanks a lot rejin 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: thanks mohit 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: thanks worked for me gbaja biamila 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: this works for me too, thanks man, appreciate it Krishna 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: It still works, dude! 29th Aug 2007 hksubbu 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: works…… 10/10/07 Amit 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: thanks a lot….it still works 01/11/07 :-) g 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: still works .. nov 10 2007

Hongo-san turned 115 yesterday. But she slept through it. She sleeps two days, and stays awake for two days. The secret of longevity?

Interesting thought-piece by The Economist on how bankruptcy laws may be hurting America. The logic is, industries with excess capacity have bankruptcies. The bankruptcy restores a balance. If courts help bankrupt companies shed debt and re-enter business, excess capacity again results. Leading to bankruptcies again.

Esperanto is quite an easy language to learn. This article from kuro5hin teaches you the basics in 10 minutes. If only it were a widely spoken language… Still, I’m going to learn it.

Writing screenplays. Interesting: modern murder-movies are based on Three Little Pigs, Psycho is based on Little Red Riding Hood, Pretty Woman on Cinderella, …

MMS: Multimedia Messaging Service. I take a photo, and send it by SMS. I take a video, and post it on my weblog through my cell phone. Nice.

The world’s 100m record is broken. Without drugs, this time. At 9.78 seconds, Montgomery has been running at over 35 km per hour. I used to drive that fast, on average.

Waiving import duty for Sachin’s Ferrari is kicking up a controversy. Fair enough. The smartest thing I see Sachin do is drive it for a while, and auction it for charitable purposes. Announcing, of course, his intentions beforehand.

More e-mail being used as evidence. This time, by the evil RIAA against Morpheus and Kazaa. I wonder if this goes against some legal principle? Aren’t you supposed to say, “Anything you say can be used against you?” Reminds me of ‘American Beauty’, in which Ricky agrees to kills Jane’s parents on video.