Sunday, December 22, 2002

The story of the telecom dream and implementation of the reliance group in india. long distance calls for 15 paise per minute (0.3 cents per minute)...yeah its not a type...this will sweep india...am waiting to see the results..

Say Hello to the Telecom Dream


reliance uses WLL(wireless in local coop) based on CDMA. what is WLL and how does it compare with CDMA.

WLL
not a review of "Die another Day"- the new Bond movie
saw the new bond movie yesterday. was surprised that M cant make any futuristic gadgets anymore. the camera phone the north korean general has is now available off the shelf(sony ericson T300 with a MCA-25 camera attachement). common they can do better than this. the "missiles" on the cars are pure and simple silly. the invisible car will be a reality(i believe) in another 10 years or so. the high freq sound emitting ring might be available now(at least no new technology there). ok..ok..the icarus satellite which can concentrate the sun's energy onto earth might be something. but there were some proposals by the erstwhile soviet union for lighting up the earth during the night using such a satellite.

the figths were pretty good. sword fighting(fencing) seems to be hip again(MGR-a famous tamil actor will be a macho hero again). the girls are good(in the last scene halle berry mysteriously looses the fab breasts she has during the whole movie), rosamund pike is amazing. madonna's rendition of "die another day" deserves some applause. clap...clap..brosnan is ok.

Wednesday, December 18, 2002

This is an article from business week on the reliability and trust worthiness of the code written by non-US companies being used in US military services. In the end the author concludes that reliable code is the code written by oneself. How true. I totally agree with the author. Thats why i guess in india(at least in the department of atomic energy) almost all coding of critical services is done in-house.

BW Online | December 17, 2002 | Software, Security, and Ethnicity

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

is it threatening when somebody brandishes a burning cross, what about a burning torch(the one which burns...fire...you get me...) what about a gun being brandished... what about a unloaded gun...is it legal to burn a cross in one's bedroom...what about in an isolated spot when nobody is present...what about bruning it in a highway...

read the (partly)humorous transcripts of a US supreme court case which deals with burning of crosses...enjoy the dialogue between the different justices.

Virginia burning
neutrinos have mass...ok its only 0.1 eV...for comparison the electron has 0.5 eV.

PhysicsWeb - Neutrino mass discovered

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

amazing developments in wearable networked devices which can form mobile ad-hoc networks. what this means is that finally you can have a portable wireless device which can communicate with others of its kind and exchange relevant information. lets take an example: if am going to the library and i indicate this through my device, others(my trusted group/friends/geographical partners etc) will come to know this through their wireless devices and they can indicate their book pick-ups to me through the devices and i can swap/auction/buy/sell chores. can be used at the basic level for dating, targeted advertising(i pass though a aisle of cds and the shelves talk to my wireless device as they know that i am interested in that type of music through my preferences list on the device- kind of "minority report" scenario) etc.

Clothes Make the Network
a very good article about how new immigrants in america are coping with life and how high the expectations are from their children. a case of a vietnamese girl expected to become a doctor is analysed with anecdotal daily details. very good read.

The Weight of a Family's Hopes (washingtonpost.com)

Monday, December 09, 2002

Largo, A city in Florida is using linux only for all its computing work. This srticle gives a hardware and software description of the system they are using.
ZDNet: Tech Update: Networking / City saves with Linux, thin clients Total cost of ownership must be really low if you buy $5 thin clients on ebay in lots of 10 and 15.

The followup article from SourceForge
. The interesting thing is that their sysads seem to have a good time with minimum emergency calls.

Friday, December 06, 2002

A good paper from NASA on the feasability and technologies reuired/available, motivations etc on the idea of a space elevator. These are structures which connect the earth's surface to some point in space.

Study on space elevator

Wednesday, December 04, 2002

I took this photo on top of the empire state building. I have never been on top of the world trade center so this photo has a special meaning for me.

click on photo for a clearer view. If the photo is not seen please click on the comment "Photo not available"

pigeon on top of empire state building in NY, USA




I took this photo at a friend's party. notice the transparent nature of the vodka bottle and how the colors and shapes are distorted for effect. I thikn the composition is ok but lighting is lacking.

click on photo for a clearer view. If the photo is not seen please click on the comment "Photo not available"

The right combination

one of the best websites on super string theory. do check it out if you are into this type of stuff

The Official String Theory Web Site
a neat website explaining what is analemma. yeah yeah...i know... go to the website to read abt it. its a very good one. I picked up this link from nilesh.org. i dont know if this is right or wrong. i pick up a interesting site from another blog and then i link it on my blog(as if it was i who discovered the link. but i guess giving the credit to nilesh.org solves the mental dilema.
Introduction
the true periodic table table. this is actually a table of periodic table of elements. very interesting. what we will do without the web. how would i have ever seen this interesting site??!!
The Wooden Periodic Table Table