Prof. Manindra Agarwal and his students at IIT-K have figured out a polynomial time test for primality. It was an unsolved problem. The RSA algorithm assumes that this is impossible. (NYTimes) Of course, others have claimed the same. To my knowledge, none is conclusively proven. What if they’re true? Well, in a few years, our cryptography algorithms will be useless. So it’s back to the drawing board, with security-related dot-coms from Univs popping up.
The first link I found on Google when searching for “Moria” was Moria poetry. Now, Moria is this text-based game that I used to play until day-before. I like it. I don’t like poetry. Still, I gave it a shot, and before long, I read stuff like “Buffa in the seria of my sights split infinitive sunrise cicadas and more cicadas.” Sounds Vogon. No offence meant. But the only poetry I’ve enjoyed till date is Alice’s The Mouse’s Tail.
Incidentally, the full-text of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is available. (Note: you can’t click the links on the site. You’ll have to modify the URLs a bit.) More hitchhiking to keep you busy.
Berkeley’s course on weblogging has some pretty good links.
At last, Microsoft will be revealing its Windows source. Parts of it.
Sathish, got your comment about problems on my new format. What’s your e-mail ID? Please mail me at [email protected] and I’ll try to fix it.
My Blogtree.
Dontlink.com talks about sites that don’t want to be linked to. Pretty silly, as some of their linking policies reveal.
I’ve overhauled my site, replacing tables and frames with CSS. If you have problems with your browser, please let me know.
The stock market falls when the Parliament is in session. Particularly if the Budget is discussed. Personally, I would attribute it to investor over-optimism. I don’t see how the politicians take bad decisions more than half the time, because in that case, we’re better off without them. Hmm…
The Internet Archive has archived my page as of Aug 2001. The site hasn’t changed much since then.
This is a smart one. Sony Ericsson makes these mobile phones with cameras. To promote them, they’ve hired young couples, who’ll go to bars, etc and ask people to take a snap of them. If I were asked, I’d fiddle with the camera/phone a bit.
The music industry has taken a step away from the ridiculous. Now, on pressplay.com, you can download and burn songs on a CD for a fee. (The big deal is that, earlier, you could only stream and listen. For a fee.)
I have a cold. And although some Chinese may say otherwise, it has nothing to do with cold weather.
China, which anyway has the largest mobile user base, has now beaten Japan to the second largest PC and Web base in the world. Wonder how they do it.
IBM acquires PwC Consulting. Or what would’ve been Monday. For $3.5 bn. I heard somewhere that the stock price of acquiring companies typically fall after such announcements. IBM’s didn’t. Does that mean they got PwC at a low price? Given that HP once refused them at $18 bn, maybe…
Project Gutenberg explains some proposed changes in answer to a question on Slashdot.
Here’s a good business model. Buy a free e-mail provider. Add spam. Then charge for eliminating spam. Good thing I got rid of my Hotmail account.
Since I was updating this site from home as well as office, I completely muddled up versions. I think I’ve lost a few days’ work – at least in the archives. Something like Blogger does help.
Companies like L&T, Ashok Leyland, Infosys are using digital signatures already.