S Anand

Will OggVorbis beat MP3 Pro? Will Netscape 6.1 beat IE 5.5? Will OpenBSD 2.9 overtake Linux? Unlikely. But should be interesting to watch.

A review of Spielberg’s A.I. with lots of spoilers.

The US Copyright office has come up with a Copyright search engine.

Danny Yee’s micro-advertising experiment indicates that weblogs like Robot Wisdom (which is quite impressive) may be more effective than Google.

Feed is dead. Suck is dead. Thankfully, Plastic is alive. Demise of a Net Magazine.

A note from my friend Ashish: “To check your Mobile phone’s serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Should your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset. So even if the thief changes the SIM card your phone will be totally useless. If everybody did this, there would be no point in stealing mobile phones.” ...

The Gartner Group, which focused on IT strategy, has launched GartnerG2, which will talk about business strategy.

Intruiging, but Collins (author of Built to Last) finds that the most successful executives are filled with self-doubt and humility.

Envisionet filed for Chapter 11 (they’re bankrupt), and sent a reassuring e-mail to their employees, telling them it was business as usual.

BCG New Delhi is now officially on the BCG world map.

Changemakers.net is a journal/portal for social entrepreneurship. That is, people who’re changing society in a new way. Normally, I wouldn’t have given this a second thought, but the site appears so extensive, and the concept so intruiging, that I think it’s worth a browse. DigitalDivide.org is based on a similar theme, except for the Internet world.

Keep up with Yahoo’s buzz.

Vishnu and I tried out Indian Summer, opposite to Gaylord. It looked like one of those ‘classier’ places, so I wasn’t expecting the meal to be any good. The variety was impressive though, so sticking to my policy of ordering dishes I never had, we tried Shahi shorba (soup), methi tikki and simla mirch besan ke sath, with makai roti and reshmi paratha. For Rs. 550. I recommend every single dish – especially the soup. The service was good, too, and I’d rate it as excellent, except for the fact that the waiter walked up to us and asked us if we’d ordered Shahi Shorba. True to my form, I stared at him cluelessly, looked around, and said, “Who me?” ...

If you don’t believe in online theft, read the diaries of hackers who make six figures, or stores of junk-mail hoaxes. If you’ve already been had, share your sorrow at Card cops.

This morning, for the first time, I saw what the waves crash over the rocks on Marine Drive. I did see some spray on Friday as we were walking along Marine Drive, but nothing like this. It was raining, and torrentially. The previous evening, my umbrella broke. I was walking out of office, which is directly in front of the sea. The breeze blows towards office. There’s no way for the wind to go except through the door. So when I walked out of the door and opened my umbrella, the breeze inverted it, and broke a couple of the rods. It’s still usable, but won’t stand another strong wind. ...

Crystal is opposite to Chowpatti beach. I didn’t know that, so when Bhura suggested we take a cab there from Churchgate, I boldly said, “Let’s walk down the beach.” It’s not that long a walk, but longer than I’m normally used to. At the end of the walk, I nearly collapsed. Crystal is apparantly pretty famous for its value-for-money. We ordered 2 alu parathas with malai kofta and paneer masala and dahi. The food was quite tasty, but filling. Neither of us had space for many more rotis. The bill came to about Rs. 100.

After having been stood up on a dinner engagement, Amitabh and I walked from Regal to Food Inn, which looked fine from outside. We decided to have dinner in the AC section upstairs. I didn’t notice anything, until Amitabh wondered: “Anand, why is it that there’s no one in this whole place except us?” Well, there were, actually. 4 waiters, all standing with their backs to the same wall, with a tray in the hands, equidistant from each other. Looked like those thugs in movies who’d move away from the wall at the villain’s orders, and say, “Yes Boss!” Our hypothesis was that the place was run by the Mumbai mafia, and was the meeting point for the shady deals in the city. ...

And now you can send out your genes into space. You write a poem on your photo, stick your hair on it, and they’ll throw it into space. Read the FAQ. Oh, and by the way, it costs $50. If they can store 4.5 million submissions, and get $30 per submission (after discounts), they still make $135 million. Plus merchandise, advertising, etc. How much does it cost to launch a spacecraft? (NASA lets you send your name to Mars for free, though. I signed up and got a certificate.)

Carl Steadman’s book, NetMogul, is evolving online. It’s about dot-com startups. What I liked best was the way the book has been formatted online.

Amitabh, Shyam and myself finally managed to see “Someone Like You” at Sterling. I arrived a bit early, at 10PM, and the show began at 10:45PM. The wait was well worth it, because it seemed to me that the who’s who of Mumbai fashion were parading about the theatre. Not that I recognised anybody, but then, not that I would recognise anybody anyway. We got corner seats, unfortunately, with the AC directly above us. The three of us sat huddled in the corner, trying to warm ourselves. Fortunately, the movie proved a hilarious piece.