Friday, August 31, 2007

Student builds supercomputer

Wow...came across this bit of news from Slashdot

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Ponzi schemes?

Well, I seem to have misunderstood. Have taken down my post on the Ponzi scheme etc.

Garage Floor Paint

Ok, you have a garage in your house and your wife hates it. It is after all a man's domain!. But I guess garages can actually look messy. I actually love em that way. But you can actually make it look like a room, a part of the house. Just use garage floor paint. It actually not just looks good, it also helps in protecting against oil-stains and more. Check it out!.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Paintball

Wow....awesome Sunday people!!! Renie was in town with Martin. Siva and Pochi joined in. Anwin, me, Anoop, Karthik and Sanjeeb. The women - Nafisa and Jackie. Paintball!! Fucking awesome. Though my joints feel like they need motor oil (to steal Renie's words), I would love to do it again. When dudes??

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Biker and Indian? Indiblogger helps....

If you are the above, then you have to put this up on your blog!!! Or BE LEFT OUT!!!

IndiBlogger - Where Indian Blogs Meet

My badge is already up on my blog...check it out on the left side.

By the way, clicking on this badge takes you to Indiblogger.in, the latest in a series of adventures taken up by the err, drunken monks. This site is for now, a directory of blogs by people of Indian origin. We have a lot more in store for the future. But what you can do right now is to click the above badge, register your blog on the site and best of all, pick one of the badges to proudly display on your site!!. Like we say, "Feed your blog often or it will die".

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

FUD

FUD. A term that not many of us may have used but have certainly used as a strategy. As I was reading up on some books on Open Source, I came across this term and read up on its definition in Wikipedia (Oh! what would I do without you!!). FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. It kinda reminds me of what you'd feel like if you were facing the Black Gate of Mordor. Bile rushing up your throat, you become uncertain about your actions and doubt creeps in. Its worse when you stop believing in yourself. Self doubt more like? Just imagine you are running a business and you choose to go with Open Source tools. It may be because of the financial situation or just cause you believe in Open Source. In comes a competitor or just someone who actually wants to help. He creates a situation or utters something meaningless. Or should I say with just enough meaning to make you think twice on the steps you are taking. You face the Gates of Mordor through again!.

Wikipedia mentions in its article - "By spreading questionable information about the drawbacks of less well known products, an established company can discourage decision-makers from choosing those products over its wares, regardless of the relative technical merits. This is a recognized phenomenon....."more here.

Its kinda disgusting to see that this is an accepted business strategy and well, part of business ethics. Ethics as in, its an accepted practise!!. Well, its also quite ironical to see that though IBM was accused of starting this practise, it itself was at the receiving end when SCO launched a series of FUD attacks against it!!.

Well, how can I talk about Open Source and FUD and not mention Microsoft in the same sentence? Hehe, I just did it!!. Also reading up on this incredible book - "Open Sources - Voices From The Open Source Revolution" and some information on the web (more like Wikipedia), I came across the Halloween Documents. These were a series of internal memos and whatnot that Microsoft was circulating amongst its staff about Linux and the Open Source Movement. Its kinda funny that though Microsoft is so derisively dismissive of Linux et al in the open, its actually a little worried about the inroads that Open Source is making!!. These documents have been comprehensively ripped by Eric S Raymond and he has done a great job of it.

You can read up on Eric's article here and the Halloween Documents FAQ here.

Want to join the bandwagon? Be part of the FOSS Exhibition in December this year!!.

Is it fucked up?

Hilarious!! Came across this flowchart from BoingBoing...





The original flowchart was done up by Cristóbal Palmer. The original image here and a more legible version here.

Monday, August 20, 2007

GNOME's 10th Birthday!!


Since 1997, the GNOME project has grown from a handful of developers to a contributor base of coders, documentors, translators, interface designers, accessibility specialists, artists and testers numbering in the thousands.

As the leading user experience platform for Open Source and Free Software operating systems, GNOME has received massive commercial adoption and support among distributors such as Novell, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems and Ubuntu, and software vendors targeting those platforms such as Eclipse, Google, Mozilla and VMWare.

More on their official site......here!

Friday, August 17, 2007

Bangalore Nagercoil Roadtrip

Damn, this is something that I have been wanting to do since I bought the bike. I want to ride all the way from Bangalore to Nagercoil. From MapMyIndia, I see that the distance is 678.1 km. This seems like quite a distance on bike and we'll need two days to cover this distance. Naveen AC, an old friend from way back when I came to Bangalore and working in my first job was online yesterday and said that he'd be here in December. He suggested the ride to me and since I was already interested, I think we'll end up doing the ride this December. Any one else interested?



Thursday, August 16, 2007

PayPerPost

Ok, I have come across another service that pays you for doing reviews of advertisers and their products, called payperpost. What makes this more interesting is the fact that you have much more opportunities and the pay is also better than some competitors. I came across this site after Anwin mentioned it to me some days back. I quickly signed up and had to submit my blog online and provide my PayPal information. All done, it took them a couple of days to approve my blog and I was done!. The dashboard is easy to use and you can locate your opportunities by keywords or by just clicking a tab that shows what opportunities you are eligible for. This makes it very simple. I see that I am not eligible for some of the most high paying opportunities since they require a high Google ranking as well as a good score in Alexa. But lets wait some days and I am sure that I can pick up one of these posts and with the money earned, host a party!!
Another interesting aspect of Payperpost is the fact that you get to meet other people doing the same thing on their site. You can exchange tips and other tidbits of information.
I am looking forward to having some fun and getting paid for it..

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

You have a Nokia BL-5C battery?

Well, you're in luck. Along with 46 million other people on the planet. Engadget Mobile reports that these batteries are in risk of exploding and causing a serious burn. Hmm, if you're unlucky (or lucky, depending upon your viewpoint) enough to be affected, then Nokia will provide a replacement battery free of charge. Haha, thats if you are reading this. Visit the above link to see what batteries and mobiles are affected. Fuck you Nokia!

Click here to read the official Nokia Press Release....

And click here to check if your mobile is in this list and check the serial no of your battery....

Let them sing it for you!

Wow...Let Them Sing It For You is an awesome site. You type in some words and what it does is pick up these words from various songs sung by famous artists. Interesting concept and it does a pretty good job of it!. Check it out.

Monday, August 13, 2007

My word for the day

al·ien·ate (āl'yə-nāt', ā'lē-ə-)
usage : tr.v., -at·ed, -at·ing, -ates.

1. To cause to become unfriendly or hostile; estrange: alienate a friend; alienate potential supporters by taking extreme positions. See synonyms at estrange.
2. To cause to become withdrawn or unresponsive; isolate or dissociate emotionally: The numbing labor tended to alienate workers.
3. To cause to be transferred; turn away: “He succeeded . . . in alienating the affections of my only ward” (Oscar Wilde).
4. Law. To transfer (property or a right) to the ownership of another, especially by an act of the owner rather than by inheritance.

Digital Framez Australia

I came across this site called DigitalFramez. Its a site where you can place orders online for Digital Photo Frames. Its a pretty nifty idea and they even have these digital frames in various sizes. So no need to strut your photos, they can be very much personal and small also. These digital photo frames are also very competitively priced, making it very much within the reach of common man. Comeon, you would pay more to lay your hands on something as good as this!. And the process is also very simple. All you have to do is shoot a picture on your digital camera and put the memory card into the slot on the digital photo frame. It does the rest. All frames are compatible with JPEG, MP4, DivX, AVI, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, MP3, WMA, WAV formats. Besides your pictures, you can also view movie clips that have been taken with your camera, even play music in the background.

The standard, Five-in-one Card Reader supports CF/XD/MS/SD/MMC cards. In addition, there is also a USB 2.0 connection for maximum compatibility. With the built-in stereo speakers, you don't need any extra cables to plug an external speaker. However all products have 1/8'' headphone out for more private use. The infrared remote control (included with the price) offers an easy access to the settings and preferences of your photos.

Wow, I think I'll lay my hands on one of these.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

SCO loses......Linux wins!!

Woohoo....news just in I guess. Got this from Aaron Toponce's blog!. The courts have finally ruled against SCO and said that "The court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights". To read on the complete story and know why this is so important a news, visit Wikipedia's article on SCO-Linux controversies.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Porotta on Wikipedia

Hahah, hilarious. Genuine error or somebody's prank. Wikipedia's article on Porotta says the following about Porotta.

Damn!

Thursday, August 09, 2007

A Change Would Do You Good

Was listening to Sheryl Crow on the comp and damn, these lines struck me as awesome.

I’ve been thinking ’bout catching a train
Leave my phone machine by the radar range
"Hello it’s me, I’m not at home
If you’d like to reach me, leave me alone!!"

These lyrics are from the song, A Change Would Do You Good.

Click the above link to listen to this song and others by her.

Sumatra PDF Viewer

I know there are a lot of us who know that Adobe Reader is such a bloated piece of junk these days. In fact, it is so bad that the first thing I do when I get a new system is to go over to OldVersion.com and download Adobe Reader 5.0!!. So its refreshing to see a smaller, faster PDF file viewer. This is the Sumatra PDF Viewer and can be downloaded there. Give it a try.

Got this off DownloadSquad. My all time favourite tech blog!.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Budweiser in India

Came across this post from Rearset's blog. Budweiser is available in India these days.


Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Massacre

Does anyone remember this picture?




Interesting. In this time when they have handed out umpteen death and life sentences out to various people of the Mumbai bombings, I was reminded of the Gujarat pogrom. A systematic, well-planned massacre that took place in Gujarat some years back. I don't think anyone has been convicted. Hmm, some even have offices of position these days. Aah, the irony.

Incidentally, that picture is of Qutubuddin Ansari, a tailor who was pleading with the mob at the time this picture was taken. He is now living in West Bengal at the behest of the government there.

Just an excerpt from Harsh Mander's writeup.... " What can you say about a woman eight months pregnant who begged to be spared. Her assailants instead slit open her stomach, pulled out her foetus and slaughtered it before her eyes. What can you say about a family of nineteen being killed by flooding their house with water and then electrocuting them with high-tension electricity. What can you say?"......

Read more on that here....

FlickrBabes

Damn, I wish we'd come up with this idea. Someone has made a site with pictures of the babes from the popular Flickr. Interesting concept. Kind of worksafe. It also depends where you are working or if you are employed at all!.

Got this nifty bit of information from SeoBlackHat.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Ashop Commerce

My friend who is a web-developer was looking for a good, robust Shopping cart software for a new project that he is about to begin. He mentioned AShop shopping cart software. Curious, I checked out the site and had a look around. The site is quite well laid out with all the information that you need available at the click of a button. You can even use a 10 day free trial of this software without even having to use a credit card. The features are well laid out on the site and there is a demo of the shopping cart software that you can use. This ecommerce software is also Search Engine optimised. This means that you automatically get recognition on all the major search engines and there is no more tweaking that you will have to do. The site says - "Having helped 1000's of now successful merchants, Ashop Commerce is the most intuitive shopping cart software in the world providing the most up to date and relevant advice you need to start or advance your online business. Accept credit cards online, customise the design, features and all content of an online store by yourself within hours! Feel free to test drive our demo store's to see the advanced functionality for yourself." This ecommerce software has fully customisable themes, an easy setup and you will need no HTML knowledge. Go ahead, if you are looking for a shopping cart software, use Ashop ecommerce software.

Friday, August 03, 2007

Mr.Crowley

After that amazing cover by Killswitch Engage yesterday, came across this video on YouTube of two kids covering Mr.Crowley. But they play it on violins. Though not very good, I thought the kid on the right did really well. Interesting...

Just scroll video forward to 1:42...Randy Rhoads would have been proud...

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Flames.. > 1000 views!!

Well, I think I have a right to strut. My Flames pic has crossed 1000 views on Flickr.

Flames

David Beckham

Haha, this is turning out to be a hilarious day!!. Came across this picture where a fan is holding up a placard during one of Beckham's games.


Came across this from SoccerBlog.

Pepsi Forced to Admit It's Bottling Tap Water

Hohoh.....this is so damn funny. So finally, Pepsi admits that all along, it was actually bottling tap-water and selling it under the Kinley brand name. Hilarious. If this is happening in the US, I can imagine what it is like in India.

Click to read the complete story in Alternet.

Holy Diver covered by Killswitch Engage

Damn, came across this cover of our favourite song, Holy Diver by Killswitch Engage from MetalSucks. I actually liked the version cause unlike other cover versions, they have stayed true to the original version and the video is funny too. Fucking awesome rendition. Follow link to watch the video.