May 2003

The end of error-message advertising. Bonzi has been ordered by the courts to stop advertising popups that look like Windows error messages. I’ve been conned a few times by these too.

The Code Book by Simon Singh is the last book I read. It’s also the only non-fiction I managed to finish in two years.

Microsoft iLoo. Yes, it’s what you think it is. No, it’s not a hoax, though at one point, Microsoft itself thought it was.

Now you can pay for railway tickets online.

Scope is an interesting new Microsoft technology. It lets you see your e-mail, tasks, calendar and alerts on a circular panel. The items are positioned by priority around the circle (centre is more important than periphery), and the shape of the item (circle, star, etc) determines whom it’s from (work, family, only to me or to other people also, etc.) See their demo to get a better idea on how it works.

The 591 spellings of Britney Spears on Google searches. What’s also interesting is to read the sites that have linked to the mis-spellings.

Google is fiddling around with algorithms to make PageRank 5 times faster. Wonder why they want to do it. The article mentions something about personalised search engines, but I don’t quite get it.

Inspired post by Aashish on the top 10 hindi movies ever. Sholay Lagaan Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge Anand Deewar Roja Aandhi Golmaal Khamoshi Pyaar to Hona Hi Tha Comments Manoj Saraf 16 Jun 2009 8:36 am: Pyar to hona hi the should be exclluded from the list sudhir 11 Mar 2010 4:41 am: Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge & Pyaar to Hona Hi Tha should be removed….instead Dil Chahta Hai and Swades should be included Sachin 16 Aug 2010 5:39 pm: I agree with Sudhir…instead Pyassa (Guru Dutt) and Guide should be included. munish 6 Oct 2010 5:08 pm: Guide, 2. Mugal e Azam, 3. Mother India, 4. Sholey, 5. Anand, 6. Deewar, 7.Lagaan, 8. Jaane bhi Do Yaaron, 9. Paakija, 10. 3 idiots Chinmaya 18 Nov 2010 4:20 pm: 1.3 idiot 2.kaho naa pyar hai 3.solay 4.ram teri ganga maili 5.dhoom 6.andhi 7.ddl 8.lagan 9.dil chahta hai Thakur 6 Jan 2012 1:59 pm: DDLJ 2.Kuch Kuch hota hai 3.Devdas 4.Sholey 5.Sangam 6.Mughl-e-ajam 7.Guide 8.Kagaj Ke Phool 9.Chak de India 10.Anand Oolala 12 Jul 2012 7:47 pm: 1 hum apke hain kon 2 mother india 3 sholey 4 3 idiots 5 anand 6 kuchh kuchh hota hai 7 do bigha zameen 8 guide 9 mughal-e-azam 10 kranti

The most interesting review of The Matrix Reloaded I’ve read, rating the film on spiritual grounds. Of course, the film does badly. Have a look at the “WISDOM” graph to the top-right of the page. The film barely makes a ‘D’ and half an ‘M’ on this scale.

Yet another example of the regulation doing the opposite of what was intended. The CAS - Conditional Access System Bill was introduced to ensure that customers pay only for what they want to see (and hence, presumably, less than before). However, the customer is likely to pay 2-3 times as much. Of course, the other objective of making local cable operators pay their full dues is likely to succeed.

About Webmap. It maps the Web topographically, offering a different way of navigating. Pity, the download is not available any more.

Full text of Jeffey Archer’s short story: The Perfect Gentleman. A nice introduction to Archer’s style, if you haven’t read him. And here’s some more from Harper Collins. PS: Here’s an introduction to backgammon.

The Grammer of Sound. (Free registration required.) Fast-Talk has created a product which can search sound files for text. So you can type “Dil” to find all Hindi songs having the word.

Lateral thinking: A woman has incontrovertible proof in court that her husband was murdered by her sister. The judge declares, “This is the strangest case I’ve ever seen. Though it’s a cut-and-dried case, this woman cannot be punished.” Reason: The sisters are Siamese twins. PS: Was Ravana a Siamese decuplet?

US high school seniors can’t read Perl. Not even a simple DeCSS program (obufuscated, of course).

The Darwin Awards honor thouse who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it. (Tales of silly deaths.) via Abheek

25 technologies for 2003. via Anders

I’m Debian Linux. Apparantly. via Dancing with Dogs

Hacking gets more focused.

The cost of an outgoing local call (at least, as of today) is: Rs 0.40 for landline-landline Rs 0.80 for landline-WLL Rs 1.20 for landline-cell Rs 1.75 for cell-cell Rs 1.99 for cell-landline via ET