Routine Order

Estonia is all set to be the first country in the world to allow voters to vote over the Internet in a public general election! The system was tested recently where people could “vote” to choose the king of the forest from among 10 animals. They did not disclose the results, so we don’t know […]

This blog is anonymous. You might want to know why, and more importantly, how.
I did have another blog which is way more popular, and older, and respected. I still blog there, but increasingly this is my “preferred blog”.

Photo Credit: Anonymous Blogger by zivpu
Fear of getting fired is not the only reason why someone would […]

ABC News: Whistle While You Work? Not in Space

“You can’t whistle because the air pressure in the suit is only 4.3 pounds per square inch, and normal atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi, so there are not enough air molecules blowing by your lips to make a sound.”
Now, suddenly, I don’t want to go to space […]

What happens to those scissors, lighters and the occasional machete confiscated at US airports?
A few of the items go for sale on ebay, a short while later. The Pennsylvania State Agency for Surplus Property sorts out the lighters from the rest and puts them for sale on ebay. Yes, the items are sold very […]

I came across simple.wikipedia.org. Just like en.wikipedia.org and de.wikipedia.org, the “simple” wikipedia aims to explain things in a “simple” language. But saying you want to explain something using simple English doesn’t create a new language called “simple”, folks!

Also, maybe due to it’s immaturity, you can now find gems like, “Electricity is the flow of positive […]

SI.com - Tennis - Wimbledon agrees to equal prize money - Thursday February 22, 2007 12:20PM
Wimbledon cited a combination of commercial, political and sporting factors for the decision

When I was 10 and me and my dad were watching the Winbledon on TV, I asked him - “So why do the women get a plate, and […]

Fran Allen wins the Turing award, becoming the first ever woman to win the prestigious ACM award worth $100,000. Frances Allen, (not to be confused with the first woman of New England birth to become a nun;) ) was a computer scientist at IBM, an IBM Fellow, who worked on compilers, program optimization work and […]

I love the D*I*Y Planner 2.5 Letter Calendar Pack, 2007 Edition. It is available as a pdf file you can download and print. Why pay $10 or more for a calendar when you can print your own? Just the other day I was searching for free calendars and really couldn’t find anything, since the google […]

I unsubscribed from Gizmodo and Engadget today. While I don’t expect this to change the internet, I wish it did.

Let me try and explain why I unsubscribed in the hope that you see my point, and you too unsubscribe:

They are not blogs any more
They are more like dedicated newspapers that cover the latest shiny “bling” […]

Man who glued TV watchers to the couch dies - CNN.com

Robert Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made couch potatoship possible, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday.
The man to blame for my zillion wasted […]

You know what I am talking about… If you don’t, here are some prime examples:

You know how difficult it is to search for something when you don’t know what it is called, but you can describe it. I am talking about google here - it is impossible to end up with the right results if […]

‘Madame Wikipedia’ runs web giant from village HQ - Yahoo! News
“It’s quite simple, I spend all my time running around.”

A peek into the life of Florence Devouard - the chairman of the board of directors of the foundation that runs Wikipedia.
She lives in a village in France and was elevated to the top position mostly […]

Stumbling upon Glen Murphy’s Projects is like finding a treasure trove of ideas that are complete and yet can be expanded a lot further!

Check out Sproutliner - a web-based outliner made in the finest tradition, then check out his timeline tool. When you are done, marvel at the ingenuity behind trip. Absolutely amazing! Have to […]

“We pride ourselves in offering some of the most comprehensive comparisons between Apple and Microsoft’s operating systems on the Internet.”
Quite a commendable goal - will make deciding between Windows and OSX much easier. Or more difficult, if you are the kind who is confused by your brain, and prefer to decide with your “heart” instead.

This […]

Via Lifehacker I learnt of this great article that details how one can live on an income of $12000 a year.

Further, Lifehacker says:
Granted, the $12,000 living income is wholly unrealistic for some cities (she’s only paying $525/month in rent), but the idea remains worthwhile…
Dear Lifehacker, living on $12000 a year has another name - “graduate […]

The history of evolutionary computation, vol. 1 is a great article that merits a read, at least one read, that is.

Bravo!

The answer comes in the form of an old port in Yemen! So that variant of coffee you can order at a bistro is also named after a place, after all.

All is at peace in my mind now!

How to write an awesome scientific paper | COSMOS magazine
Turning even the most dreary scientific paper into a riveting read is not as hard as it may seem…

FKF Applied Research, with the help of UCLA’s Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, said that Coca-Cola’s “Video Game” ad–a 60-second animated spot that promotes random acts of kindness–scored this year because it elicited the most positive emotions in subjects’ brains.
From news.com.com

Interesting research - they monitor brain activity to see which ads elicit the most “positive” […]

Lip Balm Anonymous
What do the experts say? By the definition, we are addicted. We use (or used) the substance habitually, often not realizing we were actually applying it since it was such a daily routine. Anyone who has tried to quit can readily attest that when you stop using, your lips become negatively affected for […]