Readings

Last Read:
A Song Of Ice And Fire Series (George R. R. Martin, Fantasy)
- A Game Of Thrones
- A Clash Of Kings
- A Storm Of Swords

The best fantasy series I have ever read, along with the Darktower books and LoTR. Amazing characters and a great plot. Favourite Characters: Tyrion, Arya (After the third book, the Hound has suddenly become rather likeable too!). Least favourite character development - Jaime the Kingslayer.

Currently Reading - Neuromancer by William Gibson (Science Fiction - Cyberpunk)

Absolutely Useless Nugget - II

More than 98% of Google's revenue is from advertising. The rest is from licensing their technology.
For more info, navigate to page 12 of this report.

Google Web Sites Advertising Revenue: 1,058,645 thousand dollars
Google Network Web Sites Ad Revenue: 1,064,263 thousand dollars

Total Advertising Revenue: 2,122,908 thousand dollars
Licencing and other Revenues: 34,814 thousand dollars

Total Revenues: 2,157,722 thousand dollars

And no, I didn't read the report myself, just picked it up from this thread on slashdot.

Junkyard - III

I found out today that there actually exists a Society for Scientific Study of Sexuality which publishes a journal called Journal of Sex Research

Visit iCLOD for the latest in insensitive news from around the world.

President Bush's resume!

Virtual kingdom richer than Bulgaria
Noroth, the virtual setting for Everquest, is the 77th richest nation in the world!

If wishes were horses....

...then I would have this connection (Slashdot discussion). 8mbps download with a monthly cap of 500GB @ 40pounds a month. Instead I am saddled with a connection which gives an average of 10KBps and has a monthly cap of 400 MB :(

Outside, Bharti offers unlimited usage connections with speeds of around 512k, but for 10k and up. Or for 6k/month you can get a 25gb capped connection. But these are all 'corporate' tariff plans. For personal use, the best plan offers speeds of 384kbps and is capped at 2gb, for around 1000Rs a month (and an extra 1.5Rs per MB).

Hathway Broadband has some decent packages. The best one seems to be the Gold Value plan. For an annual subscription of 60000 Rs, you get a 128k line with unlimited downloads. Assuming you download 24/7 at the max speed, this translates to a monthly quota of around 40gb. Other options include 256k line at 120 grand a year, and 512 k at 240 grand. Among the more economical plans, the Silver Value 8- 8# plan (128k/750Rs/1GBper month) seems the only one worth its price. It is an attractive offer if one works all day and only surfs in the night, not if you are a heavy downloader though.

Techtree has a comparison chart for broadband ISPs in bombay

But nothing even remotely compares to the UK offer.

Enterprise season finale rumours

A post on slashdot reports rumours that William Riker and Deanna Troi (of TNG fame) will appear in the season finale of Enterprise. Also posted here, the news is yet to be confirmed by official sources. But the only reason I am not jumping around and salivating at the news is because frankly, the prospect of another (possibly more than one) episode with Troi isn't very appealing. Perhaps they should have got Dr. Crusher to make an appearance... or Seven of Nine :p

Junkyard - II

42.857142857142854% of me is a huge nerd! How about you?
Lots of fun!

Did you actually pass the bar exam?
Old stuff, but still good.

Er.. lesbian who?
Lol!

Politics For Dummies - II

Britain Announces Sweeping New Anti-Terrorism Powers
PoTA for Britain?

What's the argument for democracy?
None, according to the author.

The Gender Bender - II

NYT continues its series of op-ed pieces examining the recent controversy.

Unstoppable Federer

While I wanted Agassi to win, realistically speaking I knew it would be a tough match for him. Still, the result did take me by surprise (6-3, 6-4, 6-4 against Agassi). Later, when asked to comment on the match and his opponent, this is what Agassi had to say - "I would suggest that his next opponents don't look to me for advice." (Source)

On a sidenote, ESPN had an interesting piece comparing Federer with Sampras and Agassi.

Politics For Dummies - I

Why does America keep blundering again and again? A possible answer. The writer postulates that certain high-violence societies may not have it in them to adopt a democratic form of government, not easily.

Paul Craig Roberts writes in Outlook about The End Of Conservatives. Interesting views, although their credibility is lessened to some extent because of the personal gripes he keeps bringing in again and again.

Yet another proof (more here)that fundamentally all religions suck :-)

The Junkyard - I

Visited Something Awful after a long time today. Here are some random pieces that I found rather interesting (each link followed by the authors' 'preface').

Your Genre Sucks

As you all know, I’m a man of science. As such, I constantly seek to refine my understanding of bad music and share my findings with you. Lately I’ve spent many delirious nights half-awake, feverishly pondering the deep structures of badness in music. In all this nightmarish meditation, I’ve hit upon a bold new formulation which will surely revolutionize the way the world thinks of crappy music. Of course, I’m not going to share it with you, because you’d steal it and sell it to the legitimate press. I’ll just pitch you one of my lesser ideas instead, in order to keep the satisfied glaze over your dull eyes for another two weeks.

How To Survive In Any RPG

To say we enjoy games would be like saying Canada's got some syrup, or that we employ clumsy metaphors once in a while. We live them, breathe them, and sometimes breathe them too deeply, in which case we need someone to strike our collective backs repeatedly until we cough them up along with the set of Duplo Blocks we dined on the previous night. Our love of video games began back in the eighties when we were smaller, smarter people, and has kept us both in peak physical condition to this very day. Since no one can dispute our claims in this article, we officially anounce that we are the undisputed greatest gamers ever, and therefore you'd be a fool not to read this definitive guide to RPGs. It's guaranteed to raise your INT by 3, although possibly lowering your CHR by 7 in the process. Please kill us!

On a different note, Slashdot reports that researchers in UK have developed a program that can learn the game rock, paper & scissors through observation. Wonder if it can play this version of the game - Rock, Paper, Saddam!!

To Hell With Me...

Based on Dante's Divine Comedy, this test attempts to predict the right hell for you. Here are my results:

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

More about the City of Dis:

You approach Satan's wretched city where you behold a wide plain surrounded by iron walls. Before you are fields full of distress and torment terrible. Burning tombs are littered about the landscape. Inside these flaming sepulchers suffer the heretics, failing to believe in God and the afterlife, who make themselves audible by doleful sighs. You will join the wicked that lie here, and will be offered no respite. The three infernal Furies stained with blood, with limbs of women and hair of serpents, dwell in this circle of Hell.

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

Absolutely Useless Nugget - I

I had always wondered what the acronym WASP stood for, but never actually got around to looking it up. Until today. According to Acronym Finder, the most common meaning is White, Anglo Saxon Protestant. Even more interesting were the other links that Google threw up. Like this article in the UIUC student paper bemoaning the increasing use of acronyms. And this one, which ends with an interesting expansion for ACRONYM - Any Contrived Row Of Nonsense-Yielding Mnemonics!

The Gender Bender

The Harvard President Larry Summers recently caused a furore when he effectively suggested that women might be genetically incapable of excelling at maths and science!

The Spoof has a nice take on the incident here

On a more serious note, this is what the New York Times has to say in their week in review piece (Read Here). A word of warning though - the language in this article is rather heavy. It took George and me a considerable amount of time to decipher the piece, and we are still not sure we understand everything Mr. Traub wanted to say!