We were looking for houses for rent in the Ilford area. The most striking thing, apart from how old the houses were, was that all of them had just a single bathroom. No separate toilet. I learnt the importance of having multiple toilets several years ago, and was only reiterated early in the morning this weekend where one toilet and one bathroom were shared by six of us at Swindon. ...
Deep Throat is FBI assistant director, Mark Felt. It’s interesting that UIUC carried out a four-year investigation on Deep Throat’s identity, and had concluded that Fred Fielding, Nixon’s deputy counsel, was deep throat. See Deep Throat Uncovered.
Net lettings has an interesting map of London areas classified by how high the rent is. Comments Sashi 2 Jun 2005 1:35 pm: another good site is gumtree.com. where you can also search for flatshare. unlike findproperty.com, this is a site filled with private ads as opposed to real estate agents S Anand 3 Jun 2005 7:19 am: Thanks, Sashi. How’re you doing? Will catch up.
Google Earth = Google + Keyhole.
Here's how expensive London is, in terms of clothing. ItemLondon (GBP)India (Rs)Costlier by Socks51004X T-shirt103502.3X Reversible jacket3020001.2X Formal shoes2515001.3X Cooling glasses101505.3X Suitcase5615003X Nothing's less expensive than in India. Similarly for groceries. ItemLondonIndiaCostlier by Curd 1/2 kg0.45182X Cucumber (one)0.49313.1X Beans (250g)0.99204X Baby corn (125g)0.99184.4X Carrot (kg)0.45241.5X Cabbage (kg)0.52182.3X Cauliflower (one)0.69252.2X Spinach (kg)4.3??0X Onion (kg)0.46103.7X Chilli (kg)4.39843.9X Cashew (kg)15.93603.5X Apple (kg)1.29601.7X Milk (litre)0.6182.7X
Amazon image abuse. How you can change Amazon images in practically every way that Amazon itself can.
Time: early in the morning, waiting for office to open. Location: public phone booth. Situation: calling a mobile number in London. Insert coin 20p goes in. Press button to push coin in. Credit: 20p 10p goes in. Press button again. Credit 30p Call mobile number... 07xxxxxxx "Hi Malu, this is Shobana." Credit remaining: 20p "We..." Credit remaining: 19p "...just..." Credit remaining: 18p "...got..." Credit remaining: 17p "...here..." Credit remaining: 16p "...last..." Credit remaining: 15p "...night..." Credit remaining: 14p "...and..." Credit remaining: 13p "...are..." Credit remaining: 12p "...staying..." Credit remaining: 11p "...at..." Credit remaining: 10p "...a..." Credit remaining: 9p "...hotel." Credit remaining: 8p "OK..." Credit remaining: 7p "...I..." Credit remaining: 6p "...will..." Credit remaining: 5p "...call..." Credit remaining: 4p "...you..." Credit remaining: 3p "...back..." Credit remaining: 2p "...later..." Credit remaining: 1p "...bye." Credit remaining: 0p
The longest day. We relocated to London on 30th May. This was one of the longest days of my life. 5:30am India. Wake up. Brush teeth. Bathe. Shave. Pack toiletries. 6:25am India. All set. Leave the house. 6:26am India. Forgot spectacles. Rush back and get them. Forgot many other things, but ignore them. 7:15am India. Long queue outside the airport to get an entry ticket. 7:25am India. Long queue in front of the security machine. 7:35am India. Very long queue to check into Emirates Air. 7:55am India. “Sorry sir. Your luggage is 38 kgs overweight.” “Can I pay for the excess baggage?” “Sure. That will be Rs. 1,107…” “No problem.” “… per kilo.” (long pause) “OK, I’ll take some things out.” 8:00am India. Unpack bags. Remove pickles – about 5 kilos. Go back to security counter. Seal bag again. 8:10am India. Back at check-in counter. “Sorry sir, you’re allowed only 40 kgs. I can stretch that to 60. You’ll have to pay for the remaining 13 kgs.” “Could I pay for 5 kgs, please? That’s all I have money for.” “No, sorry. If you were flying to Dubai, that might’ve been fine. But you’re heading to London, and there might be problems on that sector.” “Please?” “Can you pay for 8 kgs?” 8:20am India. Scrape all the cash available with relatives. Rs. 9,000 available. Barely. 8:25am India. Stand in queue to pay Rs 8,856 for excess baggage. 8:40am India. “Sorry sir. Excess baggage is to be paid in the next counter.” 8:45am India. Finally pay for baggage. Back to check-in counter. Wait in queue 8:50am India. All settled. Say “Goodbye” to everyone. Walk over to immigration. 8:55am India. “Sorry sir. You need to have filled these forms. You can’t fill them up while standing in the queue.” 9:00am India. Forms filled in. Stand in another long queue for immigration. 9:15am India. “No, sir. You don’t need a customs document for your digital camera.” “OK, but can I please have one? Just to be safe… It’s been a tough day so far.” 9:20am India. Customs cleared. Walk over to security. 9:25am India. “Sorry sir. The customs seal isn’t on your boarding passes.” 9:30am India. Walk back to customs, get stamp, go through the security machine. 9:32am India. “Sorry sir, no scissors allowed.” “OK.” (dump scissors) “Are you carrying any spoons?” “No… why?” “Can you please unpack this bag?” Long search for spoon reveals some puja items. Duly entered and signed for. 9:43am India. We board the flight. Flight departure time is 9:45am. 10:10am India. “What would you like to have, sir?” “Apple juice, please.” “Sorry, sir. We’re just out of apple juice…” 10:40am India. “Could you please ask the person in front to sit straight? We can’t eat!” 12:15pm Dubai. We land. Long queue for transit security. 12:45pm Dubai. Beep. Security alarm goes off. “Sorry sir. You’ll have to take off your shoes.” 1:15pm Dubai. Try calling a relative at Dubai. Credit card doesn’t work. 1:30pm Dubai. Try again. This time, the number doesn’t work. 2:00pm Dubai. “Excuse me, but are you boarding my seat number now?” “Yes sir. Please go right ahead!” My best moment of the day. 2:45pm Dubai. “Excuse me, the movies aren’t working on my screen.” 6:40pm UK. Flight lands without further incidents. Long queue for immigration. 7:30pm UK. “I’m afraid I have to detain you for health control, sir, since you’re staying for more than 6 months.” 8:00pm UK. Realisation that we don’t have a chest x-ray. 8:30pm UK. “Sorry sir. You’ll need a chest x-ray. Please wait here with the others.” 8:40pm UK. “Sorry sir. You’ll need to take off your shirt.” 8:45pm UK. “Sorry sir. You’ll have to take off that white thread as well for the x-ray.” 9:00pm UK. Clear immigration, and pick up baggage. Walk to foreign exchange. 9:05pm UK. “I need to make a call. Could I have change for 10 pounds, please?” “Sorry sir, all I have are one pound coins. You’ll lose a fair bit if you use these for calls.” “Excellent.” 9:10pm UK. Call car company. “Sorry sir. The driver waited until 7:00pm and left.” 9:15pm UK. Very hungry. Walk over to coffee shop. “Could I have that casserole, please?” “The ham & cheese, sir?” “Oh… no. Anything vegetarian?” “That will be 3 pounds 10, sir.” I pass him a five pound note. “Sorry sir. These are old notes. You can get them changed at the travel counter.” 10:00pm UK. Driver arrives. We leave for Jurys Inn. 10:05pm UK. Driver’s parking pass doesn’t work at the machine. 11:00pm UK. Jurys Inn. “Can you please help us with our luggage?” “Sorry sir, most of our staff have left…” 11:15pm UK. Sleep. Almost instantly
I am on vacation. Comments sathish 20 Apr 2005 3:39 am: enjoy madi.. have fun. harish 21 Apr 2005 10:57 pm: hi anand. have fun mark wu 22 Apr 2005 2:31 pm: yes and thank you Venkat 25 Apr 2005 6:01 am: Enjoy maadi Dhar 25 Apr 2005 12:36 pm: Coming back here after a long break. Have quite a few interesting links to check out! Will certainly check out the MIT Prank once I am on a good Net connection. sunshine 29 Apr 2005 8:46 am: Anand u r so cute he he he sunshine 29 Apr 2005 8:47 am: Hey that one was to pull ur leg(i read that u hate being called cute" bharani 29 Apr 2005 10:26 pm: this commenting style doesnt look very clean…leaves a lot of blank space on your page…i was wondering if there was some pic there that was not showing up…lol… S Anand 1 May 2005 8:54 am: True, Bharani. I’ve been thinking the same. Am planning some changes, and will have them online by mid-May. sathish 4 May 2005 4:08 am: Anand, One suggestion is that you could have the comments below the main post, instead of right hand side of the post. rinku 9 May 2005 4:59 am: rinku:where did u get a copy of “What do you care what other people think"by Richard Feynmann.I have been hunting for that book for around 2 years and still no success. Venkat 16 May 2005 4:55 am: Where are you right now Boss? sp 16 May 2005 8:53 am: hi “rinku”…i have a old copy of the book, and you Sriram 23 May 2005 6:21 am: I work for Dell and they seem to have blocked your weblog!! Any clues why? Dhar 25 May 2005 10:20 am: Or if you dont have a server outside that you can use, try searching on Google for something called JAP (Java Anonymity and Proxy)
MIT pulls a prank on the World Multi-Conference on Systemics by submitting a computer-generated paper titled “Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy”. I was among the people spammed by Nagib Callaos, the organizer of the conference. The students were soliciting cash donations so they could attend the conference and give what Stribling billed as a “completely randomly-generated talk, delivered entirely with a straight face.” They exceeded their goal, with $2,311.09 cents from 165 donors. ...
Google Maps, UK. I’m thrilled!
Yahoo’s Buzz Game tracks various technology markets, and lets people bet on which one will win. So, for instance, C leads language, Livejournal leads blogs, Flickr leads tags, and Bittorrent leads P2P.
D-Lib magazine reviews Social Bookmarking Tools. Comments Jetru 18 Apr 2005 7:38 am: i think you forgot something:D
Adobe Photoshop comic art effect.
MERLOT is like a Wikipedia for online learning materials are collected here (along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments).
There are a fair number of Tamil torrent and Hindi torrent sites. TamilTorrents.net and TMSTorrents.com look good for Tamil, and DesiTorrents.com (search for invites) & bwtorrents.com for Hindi. I've collected a bunch of sites that have Indian torrents. Loading Tamil movies are available for online viewing here. It's not a frequently refreshed list, but I hope to get there soon.
The Corporate Takeover Photoshop contests has some cool pictures: Revlon’s lip service, AT&T’s takeover of the moon, and Microsoft toilet. Comments Kingsley 19 Apr 2005 12:01 am: and then, there’s the adome macromedia merger. Photoshop that
An incredibly detailed look into the rescue of the Apollo 13 mission. What follows is a little known story, even to many involved in the Apollo 13 mission. While they have been complimented on rapidly getting the lunar module into lifeboat mode, stretching its resources to keep the crew alive for the journey back to Earth, few realize the lunar module controllers first had to overcome a basic problem: how to get the lunar module to turn on at all. ...
Surprises lurk in satellite maps. Like the tsunami hitting Sri Lanka, an erupted volcano, bombing at Baghdad, etc.
Compare Yahoo and Google searches. This site lets you compare the rankings of each site on identical searches with Yahoo and Google.