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Dogs prefer Bach to Britney. So do I.

Now Google is complying with local laws by eliminating anti-Semetic sites from their French (google.fr) and German (google.de) sites. These sites still remain accessible through google.com, though. In the long run, I don’t think this state of affairs will continue. I hope we have one law across the world, at least where the Net is concerned. But more likely is an agreement on law guidelines, something like the WTO. Less likely and desirable is where tracking surfers’ country of origin becomes reliable. ...

The homo sapien footprint. Shows the population density of the world. Here’s the result at a glance. The densest spots: Europe, India, the East coasts of China and the US. The sparsest: north Canada, Sibera, Sahara, the Andes, the Himalayas, and most of Australia. via Plastic

NCR Gwalior is a counter magnet city to Gwalior. Like Navi Mumbai (Mumbai), NIKIDA (Lucknow), Anandgarh (Chandigarh), Wadapally (Hyderabad), New Bangalore (Bangalore), Gurgaon (New Delhi), … via Nilesh Comments ramya 5 Dec 2011 1:19 pm: can u plz mail me related information of counter magnets in India..

Anita’s article on domains and hosting.

What happens when you drop dry ice in an aircraft lavatory? via andersja

Digital photography comes of age. Kodak’s 16 mega-pixel digital camera is a dream. Upto 16 bits per colour (we at best have 8), ISO 100-400 (ISO 400 is very sensitive film, suited to night photography), 1.6 seconds reload time, … via Nilesh

Kramnik ties with Fritz. The chess game between the world champion and the computer ends with 2 games each. via RobotWisdom It is now clear that the top program and the world champion are approximately equal." – Vladimir Kramnik

I downloaded Mozilla 1.2 beta. It loads fast. It runs fast. It hasn’t crashed. It’s tab feature is great. It’s Type Ahead Find feature is fabulous. It’s add-ons are great. I think I’m going to switch browsers again! (My only crib, though, is that I can’t customize keyboard shortcuts. Or I don’t know how yet.)

Sachin Tendulkar scores 20,000 runs in international cricket.

A 3D search engine from Princeton. Quite an interesting attempt. I’m not sure what to do with the result of the search, though. via missing matter

Water problems at Chennai. And Mumbai. And Ahmedabad. And Andhra. The rest of the world will, too, in a short while.

Why onions make you cry. via Potti

Good article on how Google Answers works. Unfortunately, the guy who wrote it was fired from Google Answers. (Incidentally, this Fortune article mentions that Google makes over $100 mn a year. That’s incredible!) via GoogleBlog ‘A frequent visitor’ wrote in asking if I meant ‘guy’ as in ‘guy or girl’, because the person who wrote it is a girl. I didn’t know that. Thanks! (Wonder if that re-inforces the stereotype of the female librarian…) ...

AllTheWeb’s Alchemist: customizable CSS interface. Possibly the first non-Google search-engine innovation I’ve seen in a few years. AllTheWeb lets you customise the look and feel of your search results. It looks quite flexible, but I wonder how much the interface will be constrained by the bounds of Cascading Style Sheets itself. Google’s API may end up being the truly customizable interface. via andersja

Microsoft’s ’true story’ of a Mac-to-PC convert isn’t true. The “convert” works in a Public relations firm hired by Microsoft. And probably didn’t switch in the first place. (The original ad)

How do I kill thee? Let me count the ways. Several end-of-world scenarios – scientific and religious. via MetaFilter

After Lessig’s hearing at the Supreme Court, here’s the next step towards rationality on copyrights. The US Copyright Office is asking for public opinion on what could be considered an exception to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. via Scripting News

Music-swapping continues. An RIAA spokesman says, The problem would have been far worse if we had not stopped Napster. We would have seen far more venture capital companies taking a shot (at P2P sites) if Napster had succeeded. However, consumers are continually becoming more accustomed to downloading music for free KaZaa’s the most popular right now, but not for long, perhaps. KaZaa also faces a possible Napster-esque end. The recording industry has sued the service and court date looms in December ...

Opera works well with mobile phones. I don’t understand how, personally, but Opera has revamped its site focusing on smartphones, and seems to have a good technology here.