Matt Drudge, amazing number of hits

You have probably heard of Matt Drudge, he started as a one man online news portal and now has a small team, and makes a sizable amount each year from arm-chair news publishing. But what is amazing is the simplicity of his home page www.DrudgeReport.com and the amount of visits he gets. The number of clicks he gets are given below.

Amazing, isn't it??

14 y.o. Aishwarya Majmudar sings Albela Sajan

She's just 14 and in grade 8, and she sings this difficult song with much ease. Look at the praise she gets at the end of the rendition. 5 stars to the prodigy.

Pocket IE v/s Opera Mini

Tata Sons EKA, World's 4th fastest

Tata Sons assemble Asia's fastest Super computer and call it the EKA. Given above is the comparison chart of the first 4 fastest supercomps. Way to go Tata.

MBA, are you??

OK, in a lighter vein, are we getting our MBA's right???

Save the Planet. Some Earth duty here..

What's Your Green IQ?

Results for DrVx : Green Giant

Can one person make a big difference? Absolutely, and you're doing it! From separating your recyclables to carpooling, you're well on your way to having the green lifestyle all wrapped up (in recycled paper?). But there is room for improvement, you know. Good thing you have the drive and the initiative to keep seeking out more ways to make a difference! You're probably going to be the one to start a clean air initiative in your neighborhood or to install that new low-flow toilet. Can't you see it?


Of course you've still got a few big lifestyle changes to make before you can declare yourself perfectly green, but that's okay. Who doesn't love a little challenge? Keep making your life eco-friendly — the planet needs you!

What is your Green IQ ?
http://web.tickle.com/jumpto?test=greeniqogt&c=50652

Nokia Morph - Wonders of Nanotech.... drool

Buoy. Nokia and the Cambridge Nanoscience Center manage to put together a two piece mobile device that I would term as really revolutionary by several magnitudes. What with actual 3D context menu buttons, Nano Grass for solar charging, Morphing skin for wearability, and other features, it would be a real iPhone killer if released in the market. But it is only a concept yet.

The Big Bang explained, well kind of...

Need I say more. But I have a few unanswered questions:
1. If the Universe is about 100 Billion light years across and only 14 billion years old, would that not mean then that the Universe is expanding at a rate of 3.5 times the speed of Light. Wow, would that not mean that we can never see the other end of the universe, or even it's center. Bummer.

2. If the Universe was the size of a Neutron to begin with, what were we comparing the size to. Where was this neutron sized Universe sitting, or Floating if there is no such thing a space beyond it. Bummer again.

3. If the Universe is expanding, then where is it expanding into. Where does this Universe occupy this massive space.

4. Why would objects move away from us at a speed of distance squared. Aren't they supposed to slow down as they move further away. If the expansion is accelerating, then isn't it matter which is actually going to finally move faster than light. Bummer again.

5. When Universe was the size of a Neutron, what was it;s composition? Was it matter, with mass, or was it energy. If it was matter, (we are talking size, aren't we) then what kind of matter was it. If it was energy, then where does the question of size creep in?

??? Have lot more , but seriously....

English to L337 convertor

//
4R3 j00Z L3Ph7 5(R47(|-|1|\|9 \/\/0|\|D3R1|\|9 \/\/|-|@ j00R 933|< 733|\|493R 15 \/\/R171|\|9 1|\| 7|-|@ PhU|\||\|'/ L1|\|90. 7|-|475 (4LL3D 7|-|3 L337 0R L337 5P34|< U53D b'/ 7|-|3 933|<'/ |<1|\|D. 7|-|3 \/\/0RD (4/\/\3 PhR0/\/\ L337 4|\|D /\/\4|\|'/ 4 p30PL3 r U|\|4BL3 70 (0/\/\PR3|-|3|\|D \/\/|-|@ 17 /\/\34|\|5. |\|0 L0|\|93R. |-|3R3 15 4|\| 0|\|L1|\|3 3|\|9L15|-| 70 L337 7R4|\|5L470R. |\|0\/\/ j00Z (4|\| r34D j00R 733|\|493R5 /\/\41L5 4|\|D 3\/3|\| /\/\4|<3 53|\|53 0U7 0Ph 7|-|3/\/\. 4|\|D 1 d0|\|'7 /\/\34|\| pR'/1|\|9, bU7 7|-|3 0|\|35 7|-|3'/ \/\/R173 70 j00Z.
//
In English
Are you left scratching wondering what your geek teenager is writing in that funny lingo. Thats called the leet or L337 speak used by the geeky kind. The word came from elite and many a people are unable to comprehend what it means. No longer. Here is an online English to L337 translator. Now you can read your teenagers mails and even make sense out of them. And I don't mean prying, but the ones they write to you. Here is the converter..

Universe as consciousness !!

Thought provoking vid.

Forbes Billionaire List.

Bill Gates Slips 2 places. Warren Buffet takes lead. Ambani brothers add the most wealth last year ($ 22.9 Billion and $23.8 Billion respectively). And 4 Indians (circled) made it to the top 10 Forbes list. And Kamprad, the IKEA man, known for his bus rides to work and a frugal lifestyle, slips to 7th place after flirting with the first place for a while a few months back. A very volatile market and a very unstable list, but is MS losing their grip on the planet?
See the entire list on Forbes here

Peugeot wakes up to Sex Appeal, does a Jag

Peugeot, known for their flat and ho-hum body lines, seem to have finally woken up to some serious curves. Showcased at the Paris Auto Fair 2007, is the Peugeot 908 RC. Quite a stunner, though still a concept car and no known plans to go commercial. Either way, I dig these wheels...


and the cool interiors are as appealing..

BMW Demos Night Vision

BMW has released a video of BMW 7 Series Night Vision System with FIR (infrared) camera in front air dam. Video includes night driving scene with a jogger and a skater on the road. Infrared image is displayed on the on-board monitor. From here

Now how long will it take them car manufacturers to replace them wind-shields with such IR screens and make street lighting redundant. One of my *bright* ideas for fighting global warming.

GPS Rulez

I have now been using a GPS Navigation device for almost close to 10 months. I have tried Mapking for turn-by-turn directions GPS.run Trainer for navigation and track storage etc.

Here are a few features of Mapking that are cool. For one it is Mapking Mapking. It's not like some other brand of GPS software renamed for local markets.

You can see turn by turn directions like any other GPS software and you also keep getting speed warnings as per settings. You can switch from 3D mode to 2D mode and day- night mode as per your choice. Given above is a screen grab in Simulation mode [I was not really driving at 85 KMPH :) ]

Another good feature is it's fuzzy learning. How it works is that, if the software suggests a road on a particular route and you avoid it for your own reasons repeatedly over time, then Mapking lowers the weightage (marked W below) allotted to that road, and as time goes by (learning process) it will not suggest that road anymore. Cool. Many others out there don't have this feature. Good work Mapking..
And among many other good features, you can also add a POI (Point of Interest) by simply holding your stylus at any point on the map and adding it as 'my favorite' as shown below. You can name the favorites as per your choice and classify them under various categories for easy access later.

What Mapking could introduce though, is classifying favorites as per active maps. Like If I have a particular map as active, say Bangalore, then it should only show favorites for \Bangalore in the favorite list, and not all favorites from all the cities that I might have added. Also, it could cover larger city areas. They haven't covered outskirts of cities like you would want them to and these are some of the features on my wish list.....

And given below is a grab from Run.Gps Trainer. Quite a cool tool.
Needless to say, I wasn't really canoeing. But you can choose from many different types of activities and if you have entered your age and weight etc. honestly, it will show you calories burnt etc. You can choose what audio prompts it keeps spewing at chosen intervals and you need not have to look at the screen till your 'training' is through. A tad difficult while in a canoe with your PDA, unless you have one of them waterproof cases that I haven't. :(

Indiatimes email pimped up

Indiatimes mail in it's new Avatar. What with narrow and broadband versions and with a lot of goodies that they have christened Ziplets. And an infinite inbox, which presumably should mean that there is no limit to how much you store there. They are also running an expensive ad campaign on TV and other media. Looks like Indiatimes are finally taking their webmail seriously.

Basic Instructions

Came across this blog that could make life much simpler for some of us. There are instructions on how to talk to someone you don't like or how to talk to someone who just doesn't get it, and many more. Most are farcical, but some could be tested in real life situations, if you like taking risks.

Nice work there.

Mark Zuckerberg listed

Does this 23 year old boy strike you as something extraordinary. At first, maybe not, but when you read about his accomplishments, you'd be in awe.

He's Mark Zuckerberg , a Harvard Alumnus, and he owns 30% of Facebook. MS recently bought 1.6% stake in FB at $240 million. That makes the Market Capitalization nearly $12.75 Billion. But his worth has been pegged at some $1.5 Billion, conservatively, and he has been listed as the youngest self made Billionaire ever.

And as you can tell from the cover of this mag below, many are jealous.



Well there you have him, he's 23 and there has been none like him before. He's already a legend. Read about him here

Google introduces invisible mode in embedded chat

Go ahead and check this out on your Gmail page. Now that pesty habitual PMer need not deprive you of being online.

Opensocial from GOOG

Opensocial is a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) for web-based social network applications, developed by Google, and released November 1, 2007.[1] Applications implementing the OpenSocial APIs will be interoperable with any social network system that supports them, including features on sites such as Hi5.com,MySpace, Friendster and Orkut. Want to write your first Opensocial app, watch the vid below..

IBM created MS. Now it may want to kill it.

IBM, allies to offer open-source PCs in Eastern Europe.

As this news article says. IBM chose MS-DOS as the first OS in their PCs way back in the day. MS owe their fortunes to IBM PCs. But as they grew, they started competing on many fronts.

Now IBM may want to undo whatever good they did to MS, but will they be able to. Do they still hold clout in the IT Universe. Time only will tell.. and I don't mean the weekly.

Blu-ray downs HD DVD

Blu-Ray pips HD DVD, as this news item claims. We are yet see how things sum up in the coming days. Both technologies have their supporters and I feel none is willing to retreat from the battle lines.
Here is a detailed article on Engaget about what the technologies hold and who is supporting whom, though a tad dated, not much seems to have changed. Personally, I will go with whichever technology is cheaper and can be retrofitted on my dual layer DVD capable DELL.

Image courtesy Engaget.

Indic Transliteration on Blogger

//वहत दो यू थिंक थिस सेंटेंस मांस ? इ हवे नो आईडिया वहत इ ऍम व्रितिंग हियर। वौल्ड सोमोने प्लेस हेल्प मी चंगे बेक टू इंग्लिश ? //
वैसे इस का मतलब समझ आया की नहीं ?

Don't go scratching your head. This is the transliteration feature in Blogger that instantly converts your English input to (transliterated) Hindi and many other Indic languages. The above example is from Hindi. Great job GOOG.

Original Sentence : What do you think this sentence means? I have no Idea what I am writing here। Would someone please help me change back to English ?

For more details go here..

Sulekha dotting the Globe

One of my favorite 'Indian' portal has been Sulekha. They are not only dotting the entire Globe but the information on their site is relevant and contemporary. They used to be only in a few cities in US way back in 2003 and now I see they are all over. Good work Sulekha.

Yahoo Maps India pips Google Maps India

Yahoo Maps for India pips Google maps in introducing driving directions function. Though the functionality has been enabled with technology from Malviya Nagar based Mapmyindia.com owners CE Infosystems, but Yahoo beat GOOG to it. Now you can search for many POI's directions, etc with the click of a mouse. Go ahead and try it out. http://in.maps.yahoo.com and http://www.mapmyindia.com (the orginal)

Painless shots

You are staring at what could be the future of injections. The Tyndall Institute in Cork, Ireland, has come up with a technique for making arrays of microneedles that it says result in cheaper, more effective medical patches. Microneedles penetrate the skin but don't go far enough down to touch nerves, resulting in painless injections. read on here