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

Hilarious review of ‘Baba’. Baba is the latest film by Rajnikanth. via Potti

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.

Problems in online education. David McGrath teach English online. He ends up … spending hours copying excerpts from her paper into cheater catching software programs and search engines to verify that it was authentic. [It is not authentic] 30 to 40 percent of the time. Universities today certify the ability to do original work, in addition to training students. Corporates, I think, value the ability to create a good quality report, irrespective of originality. This is a mismatch. Maybe the whole objective of courses, at least online courses, will change shortly. via Plastic.

Nicholas Negroponte on “Being Wireless”. Five years ago, I put a wireless LAN in my home in Boston. At the time it cost about $2,000 for the base station and $500 for each device I wanted to connect. Today, it costs $120 and $50, respectively, and the price is dropping. That’s about Rs. 10,000. My next gadget is identified.

Lessig argues copyright to the Supreme Court. Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford, and argues against excessive legislation of the Internet and related technologies. Good guy.

The Economist on the Nobel prize in medicine. The Human Genome Project was a formidable achievement, but one that was managerial as much as scientific, and there is no Nobel prize for management. Instead, Sir John has been given a prize for real scientific work which nobody could doubt was of Nobel quality.

India to go the Linux way. Department of IT will support Linux as the de facto standard in academic institutions. Possibly elsewhere in the future.

Amrita has mirrored pictures of the Mumbai Bloggers’ Meet. Since she has no bandwidth restrictions, please visit that site.

Spotted this ad on Business Standard. It was at the bottom of the page, and initially, I thought it really was an ant crawling across my laptop. Incidentally, catching the ant is not all that easy. Took me a minute. But once you catch it, it stays put. Business Standard no longer has an ad with an ant crawling across the bottom of the page.

Escher’s Ascending and Descending in LEGO. Also Belvedere and Balcony. via Metafilter

IGPC makes 65% of the world’s stamps. Their site has pictures of some recent stamps issued by India. via Metafilter

Tomorrow’s leaders: opinion on IIT/IIM grads by T N Ninan at Business Standard. From his interviews for the Aditya Birla scholarships, and observes that there is a lack of awareness about India among them, and that the real value of the IITs/IIMs is in the selection process, not the education. I disagree on the latter. I think the 4+2 years of intense competition also adds value. The curriculum, however, may or may not.