Eiffel tower seen from space via Google Maps

Link via reddit.com
You can now count the people!

I just really like the way the Eiffel Tower looks from the top.

Brokeback Mountain - Bunny Parody

Just something fun I found online. Link
Cool Comedy. Great for a one time laugh.

Image based Material Editing

Don't get put off by the title. This is something way way cool.

It seems this guy has put together a tool that will allow him to change the material of an object in an image. Amazing. Check it out here.

An old Maxim

Heard a supposedly old maxim today that was totally new to me.

"Friends don't let friends use IE."

Hehehehe. Well put. Succinct and to the point.

Why is Google's Share price so high?

The one thig that continues to amaze me as I get more attuned to the ways of the modern world is the fact that Google's share price, its PE ratio are amongst the highest in the world.
Why? Why I ask?
To me all of Google's important services(leave search out for some time) are free. And free as in FREE. No ads, no shit. I mean, take blogger - no ads nothing. Orkut - again no ads. No Ads in Picasa. These are all emerging services, the kind that are expected to be the major revenue generators post Web 2.0 . If these are all free , what the hell?
And as if this is not enough I got to listen to this shit. I mean why the *(&^ google cares how many people use Firefox except for purely charitable reasons. And giving money to webmasters to make their users see the light. Exactly what makes Google so tight with Firefox? Hell, IE 7 integrates Google search just as well as Firefox.

How to stay awake at Boring meetings

via FastCompany Blog

How To Stay Awake at Boring Meetings

Do you keep falling asleep in meetings and seminars? What about those long and boring conference calls? Here's a way to change all of that.

1. Before (or during) the next meeting, seminar, or conference call, prepare yourself by drawing a square. I find that 5" x 5" is a good size. Divide the card into columns-five across and five down. That will give you 25 one-inch blocks.

2. Write one of the following words/phrases in each block:
Synergy, strategic fit, core competencies, best practice, bottom line, revisit, expeditious, to tell you the truth (or "the truth is), 24/7, out of the loop, benchmark, value-added, proactive, win-win, think outside the box, fast track, result-driven, knowledge base, at the end of the day, touch base, mindset, client focus(ed), paradigm, game plan, leverage.

3. Now check off the appropriate block when you hear one of those words/phrases.

4. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally stand up and shout "BULLSHIT!"
___

"Real Testimonials" from satisfied players, after the jump...

"I had been in the meeting for only five minutes when I won." - Adam W., Atlanta

"My attention span at meetings has improved dramatically." - David T., Orlando

"What a gas! Meetings will never be the same for me after my first win." - Dan J., New York City

"The atmosphere was tense in the last process meeting as 14 of us waited for the fifth box." - Ben G., Denver

"The speaker was stunned as eight of us screamed 'BULLSHIT!' for the third time in two hours. The Bullshit Bingo Championship will be played at the next meeting." - Rod H

Not that I can use this right now. But it was too funny not to post.

Yahoo! Mail Beta

Ok I also did it. All the posts about how to activate Yahoo! Mail beta were also seen by me. And I turned on Yahoo! Mail Beta.

Wow! Seriously , Wow!

Yahoo! just redefined AJAX tools. Its fast fun and user friendly. And its so cool to look at. With a glazed silver look. Cool. Also the compose option is so damn fast. I clicked on Forward and blink! I am there. Go Yahoo!

SciGen

Now this is the reason why MIT students are way way kewl. I was laughing a little but when I actually generated a paper I was shocked by how good the results are.

SCIgen is a program that generates random Computer Science research papers, including graphs, figures, and citations. It uses a hand-written context-free grammar to form all elements of the papers. Our aim here is to maximize amusement, rather than coherence.

Check out SciGen now. Hats off to Jeremy Stribling, Daniel Aguayo and Maxwell Krohn.

$500 Million type conversion error

via Gadgetopia

A piece on Ariane 5 — a rocket that lost control on liftoff in 1996 and had to be destroyed at a cost of a half-billion dollars.

What was the problem? A single datatype:

It turned out that the cause of the failure was a software error in the inertial reference system. Specifically a 64 bit floating point number relating to the horizontal velocity of the rocket with respect to the platform was converted to a 16 bit signed integer. The number was larger than 32,767, the largest integer storeable in a 16 bit signed integer, and thus the conversion failed.

Software from the Ariane 4 was carried over and modified for the Ariane 5. However, the newer rocket accelerated faster than the older one, so the value in this variable had the potential to be much larger than the variable could hold.

Check out the link for the full report and the orignal post at Gadgetopia

Orkut

Yesterday me and Abhinav were discussing the relative merits between Hi5 and Orkut. For me it was no competition : Orkut won hands down. Hi5 had just too many Ads compared to the text ads that Google put in orkut, I said in reflex. Then it suddenly it hit me Orkut doesn' t have any ads. Nowhere none zilch. Now I wonder, where does Orkut generate its revenue from? It is no longer a small invitation only service. The number of people on Orkut is ridiculously large. I am myself connected to 16,914,729 people.
By the way Abhinav did put up a spirited argument for Hi5 but most of it was centered on the Hot Photos he gets to see in friends and Featured Members. But hell I could get those on skins.be .

Update : Dhananjay tells me that Google will put AdSense in Orkut soon. Well I hope that it doesn't happen anytime soon.

Small Ads in UK

I am so bored today. Got nothing to do it seems. Thats the reasons for so many posts .

Another thing I saw today was this . Ok all right won't say anything, just visit the site. The last one is too good. Damn Funny!

Themed fonts

Just found a great lot of movie themed fonts at typenow.net. Take a look.

Condom Wedding Dress

from Uneasy Silence Post
"The theme today class is practice safe sex even on your wedding day."

Have to admit though, it looks good. :D Colourful or as Kim would say : Good!Good Creativity, Good thinking , Good use of objects!

Ubuntu 6.06

For the last year I have been thinking hard about trying ubuntu but one thing or the other kept me back. But now Ubuntu 6.06 is in its final development version and is getting rave reviews. So maybe its time to take the switch when I go home. With Ubuntu.com coupled with this guide I feel I'll be alright. Anyone out there has stuff I should know then help me out in the comments section.

Suprisingly MadPenguins review of Ubuntu 6.06 was digged and slashdotted the same day and the damn server still works!

Stupid Censorship

IPC-BITS follows a very strict procedure of censorship. Why it does so is anybody's guess! But this causes considerable consternation to people like me. This post is dedicated to all those who couldn't access celebritywallpapers.com!

IPC's method of censorship uses URL checks. So any URL containing words like celeb, sex etc. are automatically blocked. A pretty easy way of circumventing this is through circumventor at StupidCensorship. This is a basic proxy. Keep in mind not to access https secure sites through this as the connection between you and circumventor is not secure. Also don’t access actual pr0n through this, use only for sites that have been blocked by mistake or wallpaper sites. How to access pr0n is a topic for another post altogether.

Check out : http://wwww.StupidCensorship.com
And also a huge proxy list at : http://www.econsultant.com/proxylist/index.html

Self-sutained

I think you can describe BITS in a word : self-sustained.

All the Clubs, Assocs and Departments depend upon sale of T-Shirts , grubs etc. for income generation. Now I would rather do without the Sponz T-Shirts and a lot of other stuff. But I know that tomorrow its going to be me behind the table selling Mandal grub tickets. If I don't buy T-Shirts from the guy sitting there behind the table today, tomorrow I will be baffled with what to do with the tickets in my hand. As a result I am the unwilling owner of countless grub tickets, Sponz T-Shirts, Dopy Planer, useless T-shirts that don't even fit me. This whole mess has become a local economy.

In Academics, I believe that BITS has achieved the distinction of achieving MAX efficiency possible. Many Profs here first come in as first degree students, the get their Masters here followed by their PhD here. Thus there is no need for any outside input in academics at BITS. Again ‘self-sustained’.

Now Thermodynamics tells us that Entropy can never be zero. So where is the input that goes inside? Where is all the money that must come in for all the buildings being continuously made? You might say fees taken from students. But you would be wrong! Students’ fees are the bare minimum considering the facilities available and even then SWD gives such largesse every semester in terms of Merit Cum Need Scholarships. The answer Brutus is DLPD.