May 2006

Gap Minder – an excellent dynamic interface to world economic indicators.

Why your boss is overpaid. The ugly truth is that your boss is probably overpaid–and it’s for your benefit, not his. We work our socks off in underpaying jobs in the hope that one day we’ll win the rat race and become overpaid fat cats ourselves. Economists call this “tournament theory.” The second, and more counterintuitive, prediction of tournament theory is that the more luck is involved in work, the larger the pay gaps should be between the winners and the losers. If Jack’s promotion is 90% luck and 10% effort, Jack may be inclined to goof off–unless, of course, the rewards for promotion are absolutely astronomical. And they sometimes are. ...

Taglines. A timeline of Flickr tags. I can’t describe this one. Just see it.

Why we all sell code with bugs. All the reasons are tied up in one truth: every time you fix a bug, you risk introducing another. Don’t we all start out with the belief that software only gets better as we work on it? Nobody on our team intentionally creates new bugs. Yet we have done accidentally.

Where does dust come from? Inside the house, it’s mostly from our skin. Short of vacuuming the carpet regularly, there’s little you can do about it.

Timeline of trends and events from 1750 to 2100 (yes, that’s next century).

These are stills from Tamil movies. Each link points to a different movie. I have jumbled the images. You can move the jumbled blocks around, like a jigsaw. Can you guess the movie? Comments Guru 31 May 2006 3:42 am: Cool Stuff! sangi 31 May 2006 12:20 pm: this took me quite some time to crack. Had fun though. saranya 20 Sep 2006 9:13 am: ya sangi i solved only one out of 5 hahaha but was nice kan 13 Oct 2006 8:46 am: 3rd was the harder but found…. sabari 26 Dec 2006 10:23 am: this is really nice senthil 26 May 2006 12:00 pm: wats da 3rd movie.. its very hard.. i found da rest madhu 26 May 2006 12:00 pm: all are easy GMK 26 May 2006 12:00 pm: Got all ash 25 Oct 2008 12:41 am: cool!!!!!!!!!!1 rami 4 Nov 2010 8:32 am: coolll!!!! interesting found all.. nirmala 18 Dec 2010 10:36 am: couldnt find d third one help pls sneha 25 Mar 2012 6:50 pm: yippie!!! got all 5 correct. grt quiz anand :) priya 29 Sep 2011 4:48 pm: 3rd is very hard. :( .. clues pls. Ranjani 7 Aug 2011 2:11 pm: 3/5

I've jumbled up some stills from movies. You can move the jumbled blocks around, like a jigsaw. Can you guess the movie? Comments Ravi Karthik 25 May 2006 8:18 am: Pirates of the Caribbean - Your ex-VM classmate from Chennai S Anand 25 May 2006 7:34 pm: Hi Ravi, where are you these days? Anonymous 26 May 2006 9:47 am: the images keep loading and changing even when they’ve fully loaded. I think its a bug. Can you fix it? Otherwise the puzzle is brilliant! S Anand 26 May 2006 12:08 pm: Thanks! This may not be a bug, though. each jigsaw has 3 images from the same movie. Even after loading fully, the jigsaw will loop through images.

The Mathematical Structure of Terrorism. The frequency distribution of terrorist attacks – be it in Iraq, Columbia, Afghanistan or anywhere in the world – is the same. The frequency distribution of the size of terrorist groups is the same as well.

These are stills from a recent movie. I've jumbled them up. You can move the jumbled blocks around, like a jigsaw. Comments Dhar 24 May 2006 3:06 pm: Got the name of the movie. But to really crack the jigsaw is difficult because the image keeps changing… Dhar 24 May 2006 3:17 pm: Damn, is there one small block missing? Dhar 24 May 2006 3:22 pm: Got it finally!! S Anand 24 May 2006 5:21 pm: How many blocks did you have to move before you guessed the movie? Arun 25 May 2006 6:31 am: Wow, totally totally awesome. Took a while, but cracked it. Knowing the movie sure helped though! sangi 31 May 2006 12:18 pm: did not move any blocks. cracked it immediately. Cool stuff. Swapnaa 12 Oct 2006 10:11 pm: Did you blur Neo’s mouth to make the puzzle harder? Or is something else going on?

How To Set Up Azureus Automatically download your favourite TV shows Totally Anonymous Azureus Tips for speeding up your torrents Make your own torrent with Azureus Using BitTorrent to send files Download public domain movies Huge list of BitTorrent sites Encrypting BitTorrent traffic Top Azureus plugins What do Mickey Mouse, Lars Ulrich, and Mr. Rogers all have in common? Protecting yourself against BitTorrent bandits

Dan cracked the final challenge of the Google Da Vinci Code Quest in 5 minutes. The top 10,000 get a cryptex to solve. (Photos)

Though Google Reader learns to share, I haven’t found it easy to see what others are reading. Even a Google search for shared lists reveals very few.

Search engines rank their own sites better. Yahoo Answers ranks higher on Yahoo, but not on MSN or Google. Google Answers ranks high on Google, but not on Yahoo or MSN. This is bias, but not necessarily evil. They may just be fooling themselves. Even scientists, the genuinely objective ones, do this. As Feynman points out in Cargo Cult Science: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It’s a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It’s interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan’s, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, and the next one’s a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher. ...

More songs from the 60s and 70s. These are by A M Raja. Can you guess which movie they are from? (Some films appear twice) Don't worry about the spelling. Just spell it like it sounds, and the box will turn green. Comments Kaps 16 May 2006 6:49 pm: 9/10 for this one and the next. Couldn’t crack the 4th one. S Anand 16 May 2006 7:38 pm: 4: Sivaji, Chandrababu Dhar 19 May 2006 5:54 am: Errr, dont you think too much of Tamil Songs been featuring on your site? How about a nice juicy quiz on books, movies or something that non-Tamilians can take part in? Cheers, D. S Anand 19 May 2006 5:58 am: OK, will have something for you this weekend! ;-) Dhar 19 May 2006 6:13 pm: Wonderful! Will try to send you a quiz on Sci-Fi & Fantasy novels that you can package in this neato approach. Cheers, D. preethi 24 Feb 2007 10:07 am: got 10/10,4th one - sabash meena subadra 9 Mar 2007 2:39 pm: we too got 10/10 Anonymous 25 Mar 2007 7:56 am: I was hunting the inet for Am raja’s photo, i couldnt find one , i want to relate his songs to his picure, do u have one ?can u post them ?-Thnx -Savithri MANY 15 May 2006 12:00 pm: thanks RAJA MOHAMED 27 Nov 2008 5:22 pm: i am a a.m.raja fan.but i am young generation Hilmy - Sri Lanka 10 Jan 2009 2:48 am: I/we(entire tamil am raja lovers) are very unlucky,thats why pepople like am raja didnt stay with us for another onE or two decades. pem 7 Feb 2009 4:14 am: good songs Thomas Prins 12 Sep 2010 9:47 am: 4th one from Sabash Meena - was sung by TA Mothy, not AMR. DR.NINAN KOOTHOOR 5 Dec 2010 5:30 pm: Songs like ulavum thenral,yaum kuzhalum un mozhi (kodiswaran) theladum neerodae meethae (alavudeenum albutha vilakkum) are wanted by me. If any of A.M.Rajah fan can help me to have them Iwill be greatful to him

Google Notebook released. Would be more useful when they Add offline functionality Reduce the accesses to the server Comments India News 17 May 2006 5:10 am: I am building a large INDIA news website. I found your blog today and loved the things that you write about! Would you be willing to write 1-3 small articles about India related topics that I can include on our site? We will gladly link back to your blog from the page that your article is on. - We have high ambitions for this site and will be generating quite a bit of traffic. Would you like to trade links? (Our site is: http://www.India-News.in ) I would love for your contribution,

Shared books at esnips.com. You can download the entire book. Authors include Jeffrey Archer, Fredrick Forsyth, Arthur Hailey, Erich Segal, Michael Crichton, J K Rowling, Terry Pratchett, etc. Comments blogreader 18 May 2006 4:39 pm: Anand, are these downloads copyright comliant? any idea? Sai 18 May 2006 7:01 pm: Real nice, thanks for sharing. Dhar 19 May 2006 5:53 am: Blogreader, you can bet your last dime that these books are NOT copyright compliant. Cheers, D. Anonymous 19 May 2006 1:38 pm: Then do u still think we shud support these? S Anand 19 May 2006 5:35 pm: Doesn’t look like anyone’s earning any money out of it – so it may not be a matter of support. I guess at best we can choose not to download these. Sai 19 May 2006 11:09 pm: Oops :). did not realize that angle. Had felt happy for having found a cool medium. Anonymous 20 May 2006 6:25 am: Yes Anand. Makes sense. It wud be so unfair on our part to enjoy some nice works without having to pay for it.

Playback singers ruled the day in the 60s and 70s. At least, I remember songs more by the singers than the music directors. Here is the background music from some songs from the 1960s and 1970s, sung by P B Srinivas. Can you guess which movie they are from? Don't worry about the spelling. Just spell it like it sounds, and the box will turn green. Comments Kaps 16 May 2006 6:50 pm: Any clues for the 10th song? S Anand 16 May 2006 7:42 pm: 10: Gemini, Savithri (movie also has Sivaji) [email protected] 17 May 2006 12:52 am: I love PBS voice. It is enchanting one. I could guess all the songs correctly inthe first instance itself. Thank u for the efforts taken. Good work. preethi 24 Feb 2007 10:20 am: got 10/10 but 5 was tough subadra 9 Mar 2007 2:49 pm: 10/10 again subadra 9 Mar 2007 4:12 pm: vijaya too got 10 K.R.RAVI 19 Mar 2007 12:43 am: I am in search of a song which i think was sung by PBS and someone else which i heard as a child The lyrics run something like CHITTU KURUVI PAADATHU.. can someone gve me the name of the film/It will be a dream come true. K.R.RAVI Hema 24 Mar 2007 11:38 am: This is for K R Ravi. The song is ‘THENNANGKEETUR OONJALILE’ in the movie Paadhai Theiryudhu Paar. It is there is Anand’s song collection. Type the song and the movie and there you get to enjoy the song. This was the song I too was yearning to listen paadagark 14 May 2006 12:00 pm: hai hai i hope i found those 10 songs.if its ok??thanks u Jayashree 14 May 2006 12:00 pm: I am in search of this song"Illammai Kolluvirrukkum..Iyyarkkai Mannam irrukkum"…i dont know the name of the movie. Can somebody help?? Seelan 14 May 2006 12:00 pm: Jayashree The song that you are looking for is from the film “Hello Mr Jamintar”. balasurendran 31 Aug 2008 3:12 am: Nice songs and very easy to predict.I would like to download songs of that type. jayaar 16 Feb 2009 10:01 am: Fantastic. P.b. srinivas is for melody. nice collection. great work. hats off to mr. anand. have you got it done for more of his songs. how nice it would be if we could download the songs at once from here! thank you! vijayakumar 29 Mar 2009 7:39 am: I am a fan of PBSreenivos.When he visited Singapore in 1984 i visited his his show.It was marvellous to hear live from a great and a legeng in meledious music. Thomas Prins 29 May 2009 2:27 pm: 10th song was sung by AL Ragavan with P Suseela. Not by PBS. Gemini Sridhar 10 Sep 2009 8:18 am: PBS all time great, md.rafi of south, a song in Prema Paasam, avan allal puvi mele and nenjam alai modave kangal kulamagave a song from mana maalai are two great songs he only can sing. yes my Master, i pray Almighty for his long live with good health. Devi sri devei thedi alagindren-puriyadu vazkaiyin ragasiyam puriyadu- oh what a lovely songs, Friends you might be knowing- all the stage singers and leading singers by singing Nilave ennidam nerungade song they shown their talent. yes it is true. eswar 12 Mar 2010 4:33 pm: got 10/10 really very interesting what melody M.KUMARI 2 Mar 2010 6:19 pm: I am not able to answer those. Hoping I would success in the next chance. J.Venkatesan 2 Oct 2010 6:13 pm: kanavo kalyana oorvalam B .VEERABADRAN 24 Oct 2011 4:10 pm: very very nice songs p b s I LIKE EVERY TIME thanking you Sureshwar 19 Aug 2011 9:10 am: Great PBS… Venkat 19 Jul 2011 9:41 am: Team, do any one of you know this old song from PBS ? Kodhai un meni oliyaam kulir neeril neendhum vizhiyaam; poovil amarndha vaani; aadal therindha raani; nee kalamangaiyo……. full hindhusthani music background ? Can anyone tell me, the lyrics, the music director, movie and the lyricist ? N C Phani sayee 8 May 2012 7:26 pm: As a Telugu, Iam proud of PBS ,being a Telugu but Mastered Tamil and Kannada film songs.We can find fault SPB’s improper Singing in Tamil/Kannada,KJJ faulting the Tamil songs, but PBS can’t be faulted for faulty spelling in singing in these languages. dr.ninan koothoor 13 Sep 2012 6:35 pm: Ilamae koluvirukkum song is in the film hello mr zeminthaar ( gemini genesan movie) v.s. prakasa rao 23 Apr 2013 3:02 pm: It’s a great, pleasant feeling listening to PBS. Kalangalil aval vasantham, Ilamai koluvirukum, Manidan enbavan, Paadatha paattellaam padavandaal, Chinna Chinna roja, netruvarai nee yaro naan yaro, yaar yaar yaar aval yaaro, Nilave ennidam nerungade, Mayakkama(Tamil), Apara keerthi galisi etc(Kannada) and Andalu chindu mana prema, manasuloni korika, Andaalaseema manameludaama etc.(Telugu) are only some of my favourites. Thanks for this quiz which I tried only once. VSP Rao

People act on the spur of the moment, most of the time. So, as you can see from this example below, psychology can be more important than economics. Senthil Mullainathan worked with a bank in South Africa that wanted to make more loans. A neoclassical economist would have offered simple counsel: lower the interest rate, and people will borrow more. Instead, the bank chose to investigate some contextual factors in the process of making its offer. It mailed letters to 70,000 previous borrowers saying, “Congratulations! You’re eligible for a special interest rate on a new loan.” But the interest rate was randomized on the letters: some got a low rate, others a high one. “It was done like a randomized clinical trial of a drug,” Mullainathan explains. ...

Google launches Google Co-op, which lets you search deep content (and share deep content), and Google Trends, which is like Google Zeitgeist for your searches.