Lifehacker teaches us how to disable error reporting in Windows XP. Instead of clicking on 'Don't Send' each time Windows acts unreasonably, you could simply turn the feature (Unaswerable Question #23353: Why would I call something that irriting a feature?). Try the link below.
(link)
Tagged Windows XP, Error Reporting, Technology, Life Hacker
The Google Blog says that yesterday was the 'Introduce a Girl To Engineering Day'.
It is a week-long celebration, aiming to raise public awareness about the contributions by engineers to our quality of life. Throughout this week, several Google offices, have been hosting a couple of hundred girls from local middle schools and high schools to come visit them for the day.
The Google Blog says that, "We hope these girls get a real-life sense of what it's like to work here." I gues it would be more like the Engineers at Google got a more real-life sense of having girls around them. :-)
I'm sure I would be able to convince my boss about having something like this here too. Okie, girls see you all here.
Tagged Girls, Engineering, Google
Even though blogger is one of the best blogging tools around, a few changes are always welcome. And what can be better than a chance to have a say in what new functionalities that should be added to it.
This link takes you to the blogger wishlist page, where you can choose one of the features you would like to be implemented in Blogger.
I though about the options, and I decided on two options, one is to organize posts by topic or category and the other is to be able to upload other files to my blog besides images. But since I had to choose one, I chose the categories option.
These are the rest of the options :
1. I want a way to organize posts by topic or category. (This is what I chose)
2. I only want certain people to be able to see my blog or posts. (Don't blog, write them a mail)
3. I want to show excerpts of my posts, with links to the full text. (You can already do that)
4. I want to export/import my posts to/from another blogging tool. (You want to use blogger, use blogger)
5. I want to use a custom domain name with my Blog*Spot blog. (Keep wanting asshole)
6. I want to be able to upload other files to my blog besides images. (Good option)
7. I want to display my posts in reverse, or non-chronological order. (Just change the times of your posts, don't waste a wish)
8. I want to recommend a blog of note. (Who put this in here?)
It's time for you to take your pick. Much depends on what you choose.
(via link)
Tagged Blogger, Wishlist
I dedicate this post to the top 5 rated movies, which were released a 100 years back. The ranking is based on the IMDB ratings.
1. Ned Kelly and His Gang
[Rating 9.4]
[Votes 9]
[Duration "Prints no longer in existance"]
[Country Australia]
2. The San Francisco Earthquake
[Rating 7.5]
[Votes 7]
[Country USA]
[Director J. Stuart Blackton]
3. The '?' Motorist
[Rating 7.3]
[Votes 60]
[Duration 10min]
[Country UK]
[Director Walter R Booth]
4. Aladin ou la lampe merveilleuse
[Rating 7.0]
[Votes 43]
[Duration 12min]
[Country France]
[Director Albert Capellani]
5. San Francisco: Aftermath of Earthquake
[Rating 7.0]
[Votes 91]
[Duration 1min]
[Country USA]
Tagged Movie, 1906, Top 5
Morquendi has written a splendid article called "The Indian Army In Kashmir - An Invading Force". He talks about two very disturbing instances from his trip to Kashmir.
The first one, is when he goes to a STD booth, to make a call to his girlfriend. Though he says he can't see or hear much from outside the booth, he saw soldiers from the Indian Army, who wanted to make a telephone call, troubling the STD booth owner who refused to ask our guy to come out.
I am sure he did bother to ask what the commotion had been about, but he failed to mention it on his blog. The fact that has been disturbing me is that why didn't they just tap on the door and ask him to finish quickly, like it is done in the rest of our great country. But I secretly adore the principals of the booth owner who decided to put his own life in danger, and did not ask morquendi to come out of the booth.
The second one, is when he saw some soldiers, pissing on the rice fields, which he found repulsive, and he felt like they were pissing on his plate.
Another striking example of how the army is invading not just Kashmir, but also our homes. The government should take action and keep electricity running in all the rice fields, so that anybody pissing in them gets automatically electrocuted.
It was an interesting post and I loved reading the comments too. In the end, I wasn't sure if the army was at fault or not, he must have definitely heard a lot of music from his girlfriend for not paying full attention while talking to her on the phone. I guess that explains why he's been in a bad mood.
Tagged Indian Army, Desicritics, STD, Rice, Girlfriend
Manjunath Shanmugam, an IOC official, who was an IIM L alumnus was shot dead on November 19 outside Lucknow, on one of his surprise checks at one of the Petrol Pumps.
It is his birthday tomorrow. The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust has been created to make sure that the deed does not go unpunished and we finish what he started with.
This is how you can help the trust.
An online petition has been created here.
Link
Link
“Once upon a time in China, some believe around the year, one-double knot-three. Head priest of The White Lotus Clan, Pai Mei, was walking down the road, contemplating whatever a man with Pai Mei’s infinite power would contemplate – Which is another way of saying, who knows. When, a Shaolin monk appeared on the road traveling in the opposite direction. As the monk and the priest cross paths, Pai Mei – in a practically unfathomable display of generosity, gave the monk the slightest of nods. The nod was not returned. Was it the intention of the Shaolin monk to insult Pai Mei? Or, did he just fail to see the generous social gesture?
The motives of the monk remain, unknown. What is known are the consequences? The next morning Pai Mei appeared at the Shaolin Temple, and demanded that the temple’s head Abbot offer Pai Mei his neck, to repay the insult. The Abbot, at first, tried to console Pai Mei, only to find, Pai Mei was inconsolable. So began, the massacre of the Shaolin Temple, and all sixty monks inside, at the fists of the White Lotus. And so began the legend of Pai Mei’s Ten-Point Palm–Exploding Heart Technique.”
- Bill, on the legend of Pai Mei and the Ten-Point Palm-Exploding Heard Technique
Tagged Kill Bill
“When engaged in combat, the vanquishing of thine enemy can be the warrior’s only concern. This is the first and cardinal rule of combat. Suppress all human emotion and compassion. Kill whoever stands in the way, even if that be Lord God, or Buddha himself, the truth lies in the heart of the art of combat. Thou shall fear no one. Though the devil himself may bar thy way.”
- Hattori Hanzo, the greatest maker of swords on the earth.
Tagged Kill Bill
“It’s the wood that should fear your hand, not the other way around. No wonder you can’t do it, you acquiesce to defeat before you even begin.”
- Pai Mei, on breaking wood with bare hands from three inches away.
Tagged Kill Bill
“…In Africa, the saying goes, in the bush, an elephant can kill you. A leopard can kill you. And a Black Mamba can kill you. But only with the Mamba, and this has been true in Africa since the dawn of time, is death sure. Hence its handle; Death Incarnate….”
- Elle, on poisoning Budd.
Tagged Kill Bill
“…in combat, the opponent that does the unexpected, can usually expect to be the victor…”
- Beatrix, on learning from the three godfathers.
Tagged Kill Bill
“Well, if that’s too cryptic let’s get literal. There are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard. You experienced some of them.”
- Bill, explaining why he tried to kill Bea.
Tagged Kill Bill
"Yeah, bullets are bad news. In the future, you should avoid them if you can”
- B. Owens, the nurse
Tagged Kill Bill
This is just a test blog.
I thought it would be a good idea to try blogging through email.
So here it goes.
NotPron, is supposed to be the simplest yet the most difficult game online, ever. It is just a point and click thing actually. So far, 77, 15,450 people have attempted the game, out of which 94 have completed it. It just means that 1 in approximately 82,000 people finish the game. A ratio almost equal the area of New Delhi compared to the area of The Earth.
Give it a try. May the force be with you.
Tagged NotPron, Online Game
Found a new directory for Indian Blogs. Most of the ones that we all know about are already there.
Talking about directories like the one above, there is one called Indian Bloggers. Other than that there is a long list of Indian Bloggers, compiled by Anita Bora. Unfortunately it does not take any more submissions. There is also Blogstreet India which lists blogs by city. I have a small listing of Pune Bloggers. Are there any more that you know about?
Tagged Desiblogs, Blog, Directory
Sachin, is a brand name. He is bigger than IBM, Microsoft and Google combined together. The same Sachin, whose name inspired hope in the millions watching the game. Tendulkar, the poster boy for cricket in India, started his career by thrashing an unbeatable 326 in a school cricket tournament. I found the link to the scores from that very first day. There is also this long lost partner to Sachin, Vinod Kambli who figures in that match.
I was just too nostalgic not to mention it here today. Though I don't follow the game anymore and I don't seem to worry when people tell me that we lost another match, and don't get too excited when they tell me that we beat Pakistan expect for the small smile which I'm wired to produce on hearing it. But I find it tragic when people say that Sachin Tendulkar, is over his peak. I am just not ready to believe it. Just not ready enough I guess.
Tagged Sachin Tendulkar, Cricket, Score on Technorati.
I got up early today morning to do a study on the early birds in the Indian Blogosphere ( or atleast the part of it I can track). Not surprisingly, there were a few who had already posted. Here are the top three:
1. 4:04 am Mobile Pundit
2. 4:28 am Vantage Point
3. 5:42 am Locanca
A big cheers to all three of them for taking the special effort.
By the way, I have received the activation code from CoComment, and I'm in the process of trying it out. Let's see if it is as good as it looks.
Tagged Early, Bloggers and CoComment
People are already talking about it as the next best thing to sliced bread.
It can be used to keep track of your comments on other sites, it can be used for sharing your comments on other's blogs on your site, and also to get informed if somebody replies to your comments. Sounds interesting?
Sure it is, but it would need an invitation from a user, since it's still in beta. But definitely worth waiting for.
Tagged CoComment on technorati.
There is an interesting article by Tim Wu on software patents and the problems it can cause. It uses the recent debacle over wireless e-mail, where NTP, a virtually non-existent company who had applied for a patent in the US for 'wireless e-mail' in the 1990's sued RIM (Blackberry) for not paying royalties, to stress the problems that we could be facing due to software patents.
I would leave it for the experts to decide if software patenting should be abolished or not. But what I think we would need to make software patenting a reality instead of the confusion that it currently is, would be to make another software which would decide, if the new software which has been created is in any way similar to the one which has been patented or not. The software would be called 'The Supreme Courtware'. Google and Microsoft would fight with each other about who would make that software, but some small startup consisting of one South Indian from IIT Chennai, and many geeky Americans would get the project, and get a few trillion bucks to make it.
The project would be huge, and the ETA (Estimated Time Of Arrival) would be given as five years from the date the contract was signed. After a couple of years of working on it, the Indian would quit the company and get a couple to trillion US dollars with which he would come back to India and buy Infosys, who would then outsource the development and maintaining of 'The Supreme Courtware', and the geeky Americans would drink beer all day long.
After 10 years, the product would be ready, but by the time, somebody would have patented the idea of creating 'The Supreme Courtware' and the first case for 'The Supreme Courtware' would be to resolve the issue about patent for itself, during the execution of which it would crash and the issue would go back to the Supreme Court, which would abolish software patents once and for all.
Tagged Software Patents, Infosys, The Supreme Software
While lurking around in bloglines today, I came across Jabberwock. It's a nice blog for sure, and I enjoyed reading it. But I found something funny in there. In his last post he talks about some guy who had written a controversial review about 'Rang De Basanti'. He refers to him as This guy. When I went to the guy's page, whose name is Chandrahas by the way, it turned out our jabberwock, is also a blogger at the page. I just found it a little funny that you'd refer to somebody you know as 'that guy'. But I guess I'm just taking it all too seriously.
Chandrahas has written a long, and definitely controversial review about Rang De Basanti. I don't know if it's just his personal vendetta against Amir Khan, but he looked really pissed with him. I thought it was a good movie in a long time. Though I agree, I had found the story pretty silly before I saw the movie, but it had been brought out in an amazing way. But alas, Chandra ( hope he doesn't mind me calling him that), thought that it didn't have the right message. I am sure, he is the first critic who thought that this was a valid point, and full marks to him for creativity, but it makes me ask myself that was the movie so good, that our guy Chandra couldn't find anything else wrong with it other than the message. After all critics are critics because they criticize, and if he didn't do it, I wouldn't have read his blog.
On the whole, I guess, it was a critics way of giving him a compliment. After all, as Jai says, that some American psycho had something crazy to say about Sholay too.
Some critics just do their job too well.
Anyways I would like to ask Jai sometime, if he was named after the Jai-Veeru from Sholay. Probably not, but who knows.
Tagged Rang De Basanti, Jaiarjun, Movies.
I saw this on Geeks Make Me Hot, and decided to try it too.
I searched for Sudhanshu Raheja and Ma, I Shot Something.
This is what I got.
2nd and 3rd rank on google.com, alongwith 5076 points.
6th and 7th rank on yahoo.com ,alongwith 4606 points.
nowhere on technorati.com, but did manage 500 points.
scored zilch on msn.com and del.icio.us
Now I go Ego Tripping..
Tagged Egosurf on Technorati
This one has got to be the best blond joke ever. Thanks to Gaurav, for letting us on it.
Link
I was asked to feel guilty about falling in love. Guilt, the forbearer of shame, the angel of the evil in men. Guilt, the destroyer of sanity, of love and of all the emotions that we should have tried to inculcate and to breed amongst us.
I hoped from the depth of my heart that I had misunderstood them. It is always difficult to explain the matters of the heart to the people standing with open minds. But when they try to guide you to unlearn the language of love with the pain of guilt, all that comes out is revulsion, for both, the guide and your love. When I stand amidst that hate, which stemmed from love awhile ago, I am the rebellious child of God, I am the lost crusader, I am the first kamikaze, I am the king, of the broken pieces of my heart.
I rip myself apart, put myself on the cross, intersect and interject every memory, every thought, that I've ever had, to search for the reason for my guilt. I swim in the gutters in my heart, I walk through the fires of my vengeance, I fly through the goodness in me, to find where I had failed my love, where had I fallen so low, to be so ruthlessly mean to my love, to kill it with my own hands, to trample it under the giant feet.
I scuttle and I strive for the answers, and I come up with nothing, not a sin, to scar my love, to dampen its spirit or to destroy its morality, and now after the soul searching, I realize that guilt was the test, to gauge the strength of our bonds, to measure the vastness of our sky, and guilt failed, and love came across just as it had gone inside, untouched, unscratched, undeniable.
I used to always find the beach soothing. I had always felt that it was good for the psyche, it bought peace inside me, it was inspiring, it was liberation from the daily life, it was the best time I used to have. But this time, from the moment I reached there, I felt a void. The feeling was missing. As I sat there sipping beer, it occured to me that probably I hadn't spent too much time thinking about things, life had just been happening to me, and I was just watching it fly past. Maybe that was why the ocean could not do what it intended to, probably there was too much confusion, too much even for the huge ocean to satisfy. The answers weren't quite forthcoming, neither from the ocean nor form me, besides even the beer wasn't good.
I walked back to my bike, charmed and helpless. I had been cheated. And now that I started moving back, I felt an insatiable need for a home. I don't have a home, and I don't quite like going back to the place I am staying in. Two months back, it was this same need that had me looking to buy a new place. Time took it course and it finally occured to me that I wasn't really looking for a structure of bricks, or rooms full of people. It didn't really matter where I stayed. I have spent nights on the road, in my own city, when I didn't feel like going to anybody's place, not Sumit's, not Praveen's, not Ankur's, not anybody's, I just didn't know what I wanted.
Where there is a way in, there is always a way out. I looked at the beach, it looked like a giant screen, with just a few ships, standing still, which were insignificant in the water that surrounded them, but without it they did not have any significance, they were nothing without the sea, without the constant buzzing of the waves, without the clouds in the sky, and the birds above them and the fishes below them. The meaning of thier life was to exist in that place, forever. If I didn't have a home, them everyplace was my home. I had the freedom, the independence to call anything, anyplace, my home. For by definition, home is a place where you feel like home, and I did feel like that right here, and every where along the way, amongst the beautiful mountains, sitting in the rain, next to the river that followed. A warm wave of water hit my feet, and it suddenly came to me, that I had never left home. This is how I was born to be, I wasn't made for the walls or for the miling crowds, I was born to sit in peace, alone.
