internet-history 96

Cool abused amazon images.

Domain name analysis. All two-letter and three-letter acronyms are taken. About 80% of 4-letter acronyms are taken. All common names are taken. 90% of common full names are taken. And more.

Best of Google video.

Are the free Mac Minis for real? Hardy tries to get one – and succeeds. But… is it worth it? Pretty good economic analysis.

The Internet is shit.

There are explosions all over London. We are fine. Comments Sri 7 Jul 2005 2:24 pm: Nice way to let your family Krishnan 7 Jul 2005 4:14 pm: Hi Anand…The six ways of reading a book for free link is not working. Can u pls reload the link S Anand 7 Jul 2005 4:45 pm: Did I have a link like that? Where? Ram 8 Jul 2005 2:15 am: Those who are using IE may get a false icon saying it as a broken link,but with Firefox it works fine S Anand 8 Jul 2005 5:44 am: Guys, what link are you talking about!? Anonymous Hero 8 Jul 2005 7:22 am: I am using Firefox but the link is not working Ram. Can you tell me how it worked for you? S Anand 8 Jul 2005 8:47 am: If this is a hoax on me, it is the best I have seen so far! Anonymous Hero 8 Jul 2005 10:12 am: From my side, yes… I saw the other two comments and thought to myself, “Mate, that looks like a nice way to pull a fast one on Anand’ :-) S Anand 8 Jul 2005 10:59 am: Well, seems like a day of hoaxes. I got a mail from a colleague in Finance asking me not to reclaim VAT. I never even tried! Ram 9 Jul 2005 3:44 pm: From where can we get Free e-books ? If anyone knows please post it here or mail me Dhar 10 Jul 2005 1:58 am: Depends on what kind of e-books you are looking for. If you want novels, you could check out http://www.greylib.align.ru/ S Anand 10 Jul 2005 11:38 am: The torrent network has plenty. Try the BitLord client. Dhar 11 Jul 2005 3:46 pm: And the sites: torrentspy.com and thepiratebay.org/. What I like the most about thepiratebay is their response to legal threats (http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php) Anonymous 12 Jul 2005 9:41 am: guess the link that was mentioned corresponds to the june 17th entry at http://www.geocities.com/root_node/articles/London_2005.html and mirc is a good place for ebooks. S Anand 12 Jul 2005 11:04 am: Oh, OK.

April fool.

Google domains is next, possibly leading into site hosting with 1GB space, and linkages with Blogger. Comments Bhuvan 2 Feb 2005 12:00 pm: nice to have you back Anand S Anand 2 Feb 2005 12:00 pm: Font size of comments? Or the whole page? The latter can be increased through View - Text Size - Larger Sumeer 2 Feb 2005 12:00 pm: can you do something about the font sizes

Google games

The Best Google Answers.

Terrorists use the Internet well.

Caltiger is dead. Comments Ranabir 8 Mar 2011 9:43 am: Caltiger was a company which brought internet for common.. I don’t know how and why it is dead, but it is… I was in class 7 that time when caltiger guys came to our school and gave us a floppy containing something , I was not having a computer at my home that time … but one of my senior had it .. so he took it from me and used it .. and then returned it to me.. :) Now I know what he did with the disk and the password page… But whatever happened is happened.. caltiger must rise again.. I would love to support it once again jose 3 Jun 2012 7:56 am: Long live caltiger, it was every indian’s first internet access opportunity. Joginder singh 12 Feb 2019 9:30 am: We are indebted to India’s first people’s internet service. They will be legends forever

Vote swapping site declared legal via slashdot

The NY Times on ‘captchas’. At the time of Turing, we were wondering if computers would pass the Turing Test. Today, these captchas stop computer programs from fooling us into thinking they’re humans. We’ve come a long way! via missing matter

Insight from a NY Times article on how the Internet can be accessed from flights: the reason you shouldn’t use a laptop on a flight during take-off and landing is not because of electrical interference; it is that the laptop could be a dangerous loose flying object in case of turbulence. Now, that makes more sense.

Kiruba’s interview with Google. Nice questions! And good to see the post on MetaFilter. via MetaFilter

Drinking bug juice. via RobotWisdom

Blogspamming: the new phenomenon. It works only if you have a referral log, and look at it. Unfortunately for me, thanks to my crazy domain hosting service, I am blogspam-immune. via kuro5hin

Anita’s article on domains and hosting.

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…) ...

Today, I couldn’t access Google. When I tried, I got this site instead.

India Today on blogging. Very nice article, Nidhi. (You need to have a subscription ID. But if you just keep typing random 4-digit numbers, it eventually lets you in.) Featuring Rohini, Prachi, Prabhakar Venkataraman, Radhika, Aditi, Rajesh, Anand, Mahesh, Anita, Arun, Jaykrishnan Nair, Rushi, Kiruba, Madhuri and Sylvia. Comments golu 25 May 2007 6:44 pm: thanx a lot yaar """" 4181 """"" worked for me nkt 29 May 2007 6:33 am: 4181 still works, thanx man!! Sai 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: 4181 works!!! Thanks a lot rejin 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: thanks mohit 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: thanks worked for me gbaja biamila 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: this works for me too, thanks man, appreciate it Krishna 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: It still works, dude! 29th Aug 2007 hksubbu 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: works…… 10/10/07 Amit 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: thanks a lot….it still works 01/11/07 :-) g 17 Sep 2002 12:00 pm: still works .. nov 10 2007

andersja talked to a spammer. Some insights into the spamming world.

Yahoo PayDirect is free again. This is the first time I’m seeing a paid site turning free. I’m sure Internet history of some sort was made. Yahoo!

Dontlink.com talks about sites that don’t want to be linked to. Pretty silly, as some of their linking policies reveal.

While on the subject of spoofs, gatt.org is a pretty good one on wto.org. WTO doesn’t like it, though. Links: 1 2

For those as ignorant about the World Cup as I am, the FIFA website has a summary of Stage 1 and Stage 2.

Staci Kramer interviewed the CEO of Turner Broadcasting (who, among other things, said stuff like not watching ads is theft). Staci traces how news of this spread through the Internet into sites like top 10 copyright crimes and “But Daddy I need to go”.

Nice of whitehouse.gov not to have sued whitehouse.org.

PigeonRank. Google’s amazing technology (funny).

Inventing the future by Tim O’Reilly is an article I have read and reread many times. If you want a quick idea of what the Internet will look like in a year, read it.

A non-verbal dictionary.

It’s true. The Web is boring. I am increasingly bored. Can’t somebody come up with new paradigms?

Yahoo! starts charging for autoforward facility. I’ve been used to its unavailability for quite a while, so it doesn’t bother me too much.

Star Wars on Telnet. In text. Still worth a look.

I hate this. “Beginning April 2, 2002, we – Geocities – will no longer provide FTP access as part of our free home page service.” Nice of them to let me know well in advance, though.

Pity… Netsurfer’s Digest now costs $20 a year. They’d been hinting about it for a while. I’d probably pay for it, if there weren’t alternatives. I find myself using them less, and substitutes like Metafilter are pretty good too.

The psychology of weblogs. After reading this, I realised I ran out of things to say almost a year ago.

740 digits of pi in a poem.

Weird Star Trek sites.

.name is out. Domain name prices should continue crashing.

I opted out of many popup ads. Not that I particularly mind them… I just wanted to test out the code.

2001 in retrospect: Google.

A whole lot of webloggers linked to KPMG once they heard about this letter.

Google groups archive is out of beta.

The tourist guy has been found. (Or is this another elaborate hoax?)

The Harry Potter site is becoming quite popular. But what I don’t get is the comment on CNet saying “Females made up 63 percent of the site’s audience, while males accounted for more than 37 percent.” Hmm… what were they expecting? Martians?

Opera 6 Beta is out.

Just what I needed. A google toolbar, except that it’s not by Google. Wonder why they didn’t think of it…

I wonder what caused this… From: [email protected] Subject: Your Data Transfer Status Congratulations, your website seems to be very popular and has been receiving a large amount of traffic. Our records indicate that you’re using more than the allotted amount of data transfer we provide for a free web site, which is 3 gigabytes per month (measured on an hourly basis). That means that during the past few days we had to temporarily turn your site off to keep the bandwidth within this limit. ...

I got a “Craig is ill” letter today.

Blogback: Remote commenting for weblogs. But I’m not interested in going the full weblog way. Wonder what the next “new new thing” is…

The simple rules for RPGs.

I just can’t figure out some people. It’s not just their English, which can be even more confusing than mine. It’s just their way of thinking, I guess. This guy, for instance, started off with… debasissatpathy: hi friend i want a cool girl root_node: I’m sure you do. Haven’t found one yet, have you? debasissatpathy: no i have lots of girl friends not a lover root_node: Too bad. Why don’t you have a lover, though? debasissatpathy: i want a girl who will perfect matching for me root_node: And what kind of a person is a perfect match for you? debasissatpathy: a sexy bold and friendly girl root_node: That’s it? And you’d fall in love with a sexy, bold and friendly girl? root_node: (BTW, hope you’re not trying to hook ME…) root_node: I’m not a girl, FYI. debasissatpathy: he i am a girl try to hog me This floored me completely. I had no clue what the guy was saying. I figured he might have meant, “Hey, I am a girl… try to hug me!” – so I figured… root_node: Gosh, I’m chatting to a lesbian!! debasissatpathy: he i am not a lesbo i am intrest in your pennies Now, I’m completely clueless. “pennies”!?? Why’s he interested in my money, and how’s he going to get his hands on it? But then, it hit me… root_node: Ah, I trust that would be a mis-spelling for the male organ of reproduction. root_node: Nice thing to be interested in. root_node: And you’re looking for your sexy bold friendly girl online? debasissatpathy: it is only nice or any thing special in you root_node: Oh, dear me.. always thought I was a bit different, at least in name… debasissatpathy: no nothing in name you want to enjoy so don’t be a homo root_node: Fair advice. Thought bisexuals have the best of both world’s I guess. root_node: Wouldn’t you agree? debasissatpathy: common i am a male and don’t be so bore root_node: Hmmm… what do you propose we do then, Debasis? root_node: I hate to bore you as much as you hate being bored by me. root_node: Shall we pester some of the lasses around? debasissatpathy: no if you want a strong friend ship then step your feet now debasissatpathy: i am a very carring person above all i am an indian Wow! Strong sentiments. I’d better “step on my feet”, and prove my “friendship”. root_node: So am I Debasis. Caring, and Indian. debasissatpathy: he don’t be so bold enjoy root_node: I didn’t understand… debasissatpathy: to be a friend you should tell me somthing about you and your family root_node: OK. I’m an only child, and I’m from Madras. debasissatpathy: do you native of tn or migrated root_node: Native. root_node: What about you, Debasis? How old are you? What do you do? debasissatpathy: what about your hobbies root_node: I play the keyboard. Mostly film songs. I play basketball. Reading, etc. debasissatpathy: tell me about your education root_node: Of course… but do answer my question? How old are you? And what do you do? debasissatpathy: i am 22 year old a mechanical engineer and warkin in a mnc at new delhi root_node: Oh… which company do you work in? debasissatpathy: in neolite industries root_node: What products do you manufacture? debasissatpathy: automobile lights root_node: Oh, cool. I just finished a management degree a few months ago. root_node: I’m a chemical engineer myself. debasissatpathy: good but tell me what you want to be in feature root_node: I want to direct a cartoon film. Some day… debasissatpathy: ok why cartoon these are aim of girls Sheesh! Such preconceived notions…. anyway, at this point, the guy starts getting really wierd. root_node: Well… sounds like Walt Disney was a guy. And I kinda admire the guy. root_node: Wouldn’t mind being like him. debasissatpathy: tell me one thing if you are alone with a girl what will you do root_node: Talk to her. debasissatpathy: what type of talk root_node: Normal talk – the kind we’re doing. What’re your interests, etc. root_node: Why? What would YOU do? debasissatpathy: i will try to notice if see will screm or not root_node: OK, and then? debasissatpathy: try to know about her needs root_node: Like what? debasissatpathy: if she want help ok or if her intesions are bad then leave her alone root_node: What do you mean by bad intentions? debasissatpathy: not by bad intent but i like those who know there limits root_node: Please clarify…. debasissatpathy: a girl look good not only from skin from charecter that is for male also debasissatpathy: so always try to control yourself root_node: Of course, Debasis. I’ll keep that in mind. debasissatpathy: because i love those girls root_node: Have you met many girls who do not know their limits? debasissatpathy: oh you are not he ok we are good friends make it strong root_node: Great to hear that! root_node: Now, back to cartoons – why do you think they’re for girls? debasissatpathy: give me your address and mine was **debasissatpathy**@yahoo.com root_node: [email protected] debasissatpathy: what is ur name root_node: Anand. debasissatpathy: annad are you rajesh khanna What on earth does that mean? Took me quite a while to figure out he was refering to the movie “Anand”. root_node: Would love to be, but hate to admit that I’m not. Why? Have you lost him? debasissatpathy: clear it root_node: Are you asking about the film star Rajesh Khanna? debasissatpathy: and tell me about your family root_node: I already did – single child, and from Madras. That’s about it. debasissatpathy: are you not she root_node: No, trust me – I’m as masculine as they get. I’m a “he” for sure! debasissatpathy: ok try to contact me through mail and i am a native of orissa root_node: Sure, Debasis. It’s been a very interesting experience, chatting with you! debasissatpathy: ok it is very long chating because here i am after my duty is over you debasissatpathy: plase contact me through e mail bye friend root_node: Bye!

The tourist guy on top of the WTC seems to have been everywhere.

A chat with BinLaden9151.

Obituary: Industry Standard, Excite@Home, Exodus. Long live the Internet.

The Pocket Guide to the Internet.

What is the Usenet?

A spoof on Windows: Windows RG

To those who’re curious about what’s happening in Russia, Pravda has been online in English for a while.

DotComDoom.com – about the demise of dot-coms. News links.

Encyclopaedia Britannica is now a paid service.

MIT’s Blogdex crawls weblogs (like mine) for popular links. Nice concept – somewhat like Google’s, except more “current information” based. The page of only weblogs has a good list of weblogs (not as comprehensive as Eatonweb), and Rebecca’s written a good history of weblogs.

The Internet Oracle (ultimate source of Internet humour, IMHO) is alive and well.

Someone wanted to know dating sites in India. Bachelors India, India dating, Bharatplanet singles, Yahoo India dating, Dating club, Singles India and Dhak dhak. Comments dhanaji sutar 24 Jul 2001 12:00 pm: It is a good idea to have absolute indian dating site managed from India.

The Webby Awards are out.

Guys want to speak to girls, not guys. (I’m root_node) ra_sun74: hi root_node: Hi ra_sun74, ASL? ra_sun74: m/26/dehi ra_sun74: u root_node: M/26/MUM. Are you a Delhi-ite? As in, born in Delhi? There ends the conversation. ra_sun74 doesn’t even say Bye. He’s not interested. root_node: Hi Sanav. Where are you from? s_sanav: asl root_node: m/26/mum. Still interested in chatting? Clearly not. rosesaif: hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii root_node: Hi rosesaif. ASL, please? rosesaif: 19m rosesaif: u root_node: 26/M/Mumbai. Where are you from? rosesaif: mum rosesaif: bye root_node: Bye. ...

Nuke the Hamptons: a very interesting site.

50% of all Net surfing is done on the sites of Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft and Napster. There’s consolidation of web properties for you!

Spielberg’s next movie, A.I., has sparked a weird game. I read the article on it at ZDNet and searched for Jeanine Salla, listed as the movie’s sentient machine therapist, which lead me to her site, (at the so called “Bangalore World University”!!) and from there to others… it really is a wierd game. Those with enthu, do try it and let me know your progress.

The subject-specific Scout reports, which were a prime source of my information, are about to be discontinued from the end of the month. (No funds.)

eBay will delist items associated with Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, etc. Yahoo is cleaning its porn content. AOL is, however, using neural networks to automatically filter content.

There’s a portal for “404 Not Found” error messages.

Some sites with good cracks, thanks to Alok: astalavista.box.sk, wtcracks.com, kickme.to/FOSI, bannerkillers.cjb.net, and start.at/these.urls.first

Clayton’s parents are divorced, and his mother has custody. But he wants to see his father, so he went on a hunger strike. His site raises the important question: how much can kids decide which divorced parent to be with?

Yahoo’s auction listings fell 82% when they started charging for auctions. But the sales apparantly is steady, and quality of listings is going up. Amazon may follow suit. Looks like the pay-model is the one that will survive on the Net.

Online classics: video-on-demand for operas, plays, and dance. Video is definitely in these days, with NASA, CNN and a whole lot of others.

Kerala chat. Joseph, find yourself a nice girl!

Forbes: Best of the Web

Freedrive closes public storage space. Along with Napster, that’s a nail in the coffin of free software. But what about the argument that code is speech, and hence “free speech”?

Full credit to Joseph for introducing me to chatting. I decided to conduct a series of experiments in chat rooms, and document the results. After that, I pretty much got hooked. Here’s a log of some of my more interesting conversations, where I adopt a 6-year old (I’m anand_m26blr) I learn that guys want to speak to girls (I’m root_node) I learn that girls can be very confusing (I’m anand_m26blr) I have a virtual date at London with a Canadian (I’m root_node) I help a guy in Texas propose to his love in Hindi (I’m root_node) I am befriended by an Oriyan with strong opinions (I’m root_node) I help a guy pick a college in Mumbai (I’m root_node) I talk to a business consultant at London (I’m ME) I appreciate mahomedyaseenkhan’s and his sister’s music (I’m anand_m26blr) I try to fall in love with a magic crystal ball (I’m root_node) I learn that robots are patient, but infuriating. (I’m root_node)

zeroTV: good TV-like entertainment for free. World Bank’s B-SPAN has World Bank seminars online. Yeah, the computer is becoming the TV.

Microsoft Deathwatch. No, Bill isn’t dead, but his servers were for a while.

Statistics on websites that have been defaced.

Yahoo! Internet Life surveys the year that was.

Didn’t know dot-coms had unions. Amazon does. A reaction to the layoffs in dot-coms?

Finance.com has shut down. Desktop.com too. NetZero. And the biggest of all: Pets.com (chart). This is more the trend than exception. People who had accounts on these? Tough luck! That’s one reason to stick to big players like Yahoo or Microsoft.

The classic collection of smileys and more :-)

What’s new on 123india is a good way to find out new Indian sites. So is What’s new on Yahoo.

Just the service I’ve been waiting for. The Scout Report – one of the oldest and best sources of what’s good on the Internet, has launched a web log.

A whole new range of domain names, ranging from .museums to .sansansan have been bid for. I wonder who .biz and .xxx will go to.

Biz, AOLiza and other chatbots are programs that lurk chat space. Have a look at their conversations, especially this one with a guy who was jilted. It’s bewildering, and yet…

The Economist has an article on The failure of new media – about how the Internet’s a disappointment. In fact they have lots of articles on the Internet.

Don’t know what a web log is? It’s a site where people talk – usually about the Web. Some are discussions. Some are moderated. Some are narratives – like mine. Scripting news is my favourite, and SlashDot’s another popular one. Blogger’s the most popular, I hear.

What’s more of a rage than profitable dot-coms? Bankrupt dot-coms, as listed by dotcomfailures, startupfailures, and fuckedcompany. Scepticism’s gone far enough to make this web economy bullshit generator a great hit.