An interesting application of genetic programming. Two people at the University of Sussex wrote this genetic program to make a circuit produce sound. The circuit became a radio instead.

Vice Fund is a mutual fund investing in vices. Tobacco companies, casinos, etc. I do hope it’s not a hoax. Such a nice idea…

I’ve seen the Economic Times server have lots of problems. But this is a new one on me. (Didn’t last long, though…)

Good summary of superconductivity at kuro5hin.

I’m trying Mozilla. It has native SOAP support. So I can make a web page that has dynamic Google searches (and Amazon booklists, etc) without a web-server.

Google toolbar: experimental features.

America’s population ageing seems to be less than was expected, thanks to more kids per couple. kuro5hin has a good discussion.

Garth is working on audio-blogging tools. Given the amount of poetry I see among bloggers, this might unleash a host of blog-singers.

Google-watch is against Google, because they’re unfair, and don’t respect privacy (via Salon). I still don’t mind, as long as I get good search results. But this “unfair” part I kind-of agree with. Wish Google would search recently updated sites better. And they’ve also got a point about the ordering. Sometimes, I would like to see the “less important” (low pagerank) sites on top.

Ever since I started using NewsIsFree.com, I manage to run through my morning news much faster. Now, I’m trying to use some of these RSS newsreaders to see if they can speed it up even further. (Note: Though I read news faster, I’ve ended up spending more time on it, not less!)

India’s first eunuch mayor has been dismissed because he/she was occupying a seat reserved for women.

Zen stories. Read some of these first in Douglas Hofstader’s Godel, Escher, Bach. Searched for a collection for a long time. This looks like quite a comprehensive one. If you want a flavour of these, Zen Master Gutei’s story is one of those bizarre ones.

Deepti: a Hindi chatterbot (sic). Apparantly, it’s downloadable, but I couldn’t find it.

Progress on the polynomial-time computability of prime numbers.

Asimov’s Foundation was translated into Arabic. Title: Al-Qaeda. The Guardian explores the link between Asimov and bin Laden.

P K Rappai has been banned from restaurants because he eats too much.

Contract research by Eli Lilly. They put up problems in chemistry. You solve them. You get paid.

The Invisible Library. Has books that exist only inside other books. Neat stuff. Talks of various books by Holmes & Watson (Doyle) as well as Oolon Colluphid (Douglas Adams), though I was disappointed that too little of Lewis Caroll is mentioned.

The flip side of copyright: Hindi songs featured in albums.

Bizarre. Funeral homes offer to convert cremated ashes into a diamond.