It’s interesting how Steven Spielberg created his sound effects in movies. For example, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy’s whip is the treated sound of a jet taking off; the punches in fist fights are the result of bashing leather jackets with baseball bats; and the rolling boulder rumble is a Honda station wagon coasting down a gravel road mixed with a rocket blast-off. … or in E.T. The Extra Terrestrial ...
King’s Cross station. 6:20pm. I’m rushing along to catch the next train to Liverpool Street, when a jacket and suitcase step in front of me. “Salaam alekum.” This has happened to me before. 5 years ago. My response hasn’t changed. “Huh? “Salaam alekum?” “Huh? “SALAAM ALEKUM?” “Huh? “Aap Pakistani ho?” “No, India actually.” (smile) “I just lost my wallet, and I don’t have a ticket. Could you please help me?” ...
The story of the Windows 95 user interface.
Think like a genius.
How to sit at a computer.
Google search history is like a9 – it remembers your searches. But why is that useful? Comments sathish 29 Jun 2005 7:51 am: I found it useful recently.. I remembered that I got a link when I searched for a particular term and by going through the search history, I figured out link I had looked earlier. S Anand 29 Jun 2005 8:49 am: Ah… that makes sense. I use the history in the toolbar. Guess this mirrors that. sathish 4 Jul 2005 9:25 am: read more about the google personalization from mit tech review blog - http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/07/wo/wo_070105hellweg.asp?trk=top
Among the various technology gizmos I’ve seen at the UK, this is the best. Our flat has a security system that does not allow anyone without an electronic key to enter. As with most flats, there is a panel on which you can dial the flat number and speak to the owner. Usually this is connected to an intercom in the flat. I was initially surprised that there was no intercom in our flat. ...
Flickr enhancements include 20 MB/month of uploads, 200 photos, and cheaper Flickr Pro accounts.
15 things you can do with RSS – like mix RSS scripts, convert any page to RSS, etc.
Who will Google buy next? Comments Mala 22 Jun 2005 4:44 am: London pahunch gaye?? Send me your new email ID at malavikap yahoo co Anonymous 22 Jun 2005 10:23 am: anand can you give me some CAT tips tech freak 29 Jun 2005 7:03 am: give your new email ID S Anand 29 Jun 2005 8:01 am: root underscore node at yahoo dot com
I’m fairly stingy. When it comes to books, I’ve always taken it to extremes. For example, I’ve read several Asimov novels at Landmark (Chennai). I’d walk into the stoor, pick up an Asimov, just stand there (no seats) and read for 4 hours. After the neck-ache becomes unbearable, I’d leave and come back the next day. I got pretty tech-savvy once I got a laptop and a mobile phone. I would walk over to bookshops, note down the names of interesting books on my mobile, and download books in digital format. I’ve a pretty large collection now. ...
50 Fun Things to do with your iPod
After a long time, things started going right for a change. 7:15pm: Get out of office. 7:22pm: Walk into train platform exactly as the train arrives. The right train. 7:40pm: Long walk to change trains at London Bridge. Once again, the train arrives bang on cue. 7:47pm: Another change of platform at Bank. Train to Newbury Park arrives almost immediately. 8:15pm: Out of Newbury Park station. That was easily the shortest ride I had from Croydon to Newbury Park. Probably will continue to be the shortest ever.
For a long time, I thought the problems associated with getting an American visas was mainly for Indians. Today, I met someone at a Lebanese restaurant near Marble Arch. (It’s called Maroush III. There are at least a couple of other Maroushs in the area.) He’s a consultant, and has been travelling around the globe for over 20 years. He recently flew from Boston to Bangalore. Without a visa. Why? Because he would be issued a visa at the port of entry, of course. Stands in the queue. Hands his passport to the officer. The officer leafs through the pages. Halts. Studies each page very carefully. Gets puzzled. ...
We were staying at the Croydon Park Hotel, on the second floor. There were two elevators, and one of them was down for maintenance. I was walking into the other elevator as the maintenance man stepped in as well. He started pressing the elevator buttons: one, two… “Oh, sorry sir. I was doing some maintenance on the other lift. I didn’t want this lift to come down for some time. You go right ahead.” ...
I always wondered what cuisines were famous other than the ones I knew (Indian, Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Italian, Lebanese, Continental). I’d heard of Ethiopian food from Rajeev Ved, but never of Argentinian and Spanish. I spotted a couple of menu cards while walking down Croydon.
Hotbar threatened to sue Symantec over its anti adware software. Symantec filed back a zero dollar lawsuit against Hotbar. “Until yesterday, adware and spyware makers could send out threatening letters with almost no downside,” said Edelman as he put the Symantec court case into perspective. “Nothing bad would happen to them, and maybe something good would happen, maybe the anti-spyware vendor would give in and remove them from their database.” Comments munish 10 Jun 2005 11:42 am: me in amsterdam..could call you up sometimes Amandeep 10 Jun 2005 5:03 pm: lets meet up sometime munish 13 Jun 2005 2:34 pm: give me your number
There was a geek dinner at London yesterday. Pity I didn’t know about it.
Google Sitemaps. …is an experiment in web crawling. Using Sitemaps to inform and direct our crawlers, we hope to expand our coverage of the web and improve the time to inclusion in our index. By placing a Sitemap-formatted file on your webserver, you enable our crawlers to find out what pages are present and which have recently changed, and to crawl your site accordingly. Anil Dash links to alternate proposals. via Anders Jacobs
Michael demonstrates an interesting Optical illusion. On the right you see a circle of blue-violettish (=magenta) patches, one of which briefly disappears, circling around. Let your gaze rest on the central fixation cross, but observe with your “inner eye” the patches just when they disappear. With good fixation, you should see a strong greenish colour whenever the violet patch has disappeared. When you are fixating well, after a few cycles you will actually see a rotating green spot! If your gaze is really steady, the magenta patches will disappear, leaving only a rotating green spot! ...