Pakistan cheer for the Indian side

Another example of the good spirit of Pakistanis, this time the military boxing team of Pakistan cheered and supported the Indian team in the Military Boxing Championships at Pretoria, South Africa link

Neither team won a gold at the championship but "friendship came out as the winner", as they say

In March 2004, India toured Pakistan in a cricket series and the reception Indian fans and team received surprised and overwhelmed everyone from across Wagah - the tour was won by India but the spirit shown by Pakistani fans was fantastic. The winning Indian team were cheered and given standing ovations and Irfan Pathan, the bowler, was cheered loudly in Peshawar as he bowled to the Pakistani batsmen. Top Indian actors, former sportsmen and politicians turned up for the historic series, even the two scions of the Kennedys of India, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi


img © tribuneindia

In March 2005, the Pakistani team returned the visit and it left the Indians wondering if their countrymen could reciprocate Pakistani hospitality. Even though the Indian people were found to be generally supportive off the field, in the streets and markets, in the stands it was a different story. Eyewitness accounts of Pakistani fans sitting in the crowd tell how they started to feel hostility when the Pakistani bowlers started putting the pressure in Delhi and only singing we-love-delhi ditties created in run-time could helped them sit through them match

The biggest winner for Pakistan would be if the Indians could forget the previous Indian governments' propaganda that Pakistan is the Big-Evil and both countries could have a culture of hospitality and friendliness to match and even exceed that within the EU... england, france and the others forgot their centuries old tribal wars, why not the peoples of one of the richest and most ancient cultures in the world?

cartoon laws of physics

full list: link

Cartoon Law I
Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation.

Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second takes over.

Cartoon Law VII
Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot.

Cartoon Law Amendment D
Gravity is transmitted by slow-moving waves of large wavelengths.

Their operation can be witnessed by observing the behavior of a canine suspended over a large vertical drop. Its feet will begin to fall first, causing its legs to stretch. As the wave reaches its torso, that part will begin to fall, causing the neck to stretch. As the head begins to fall, tension is released and the canine will resume its regular proportions until such time as it strikes the ground.

googleEarth - how to see NY in 3D

Download the free version of googleEarth from here

Start the application, it should login automatically or select "Free version"

In the menu on the top left, select "Fly To" and write "New York, NY"

Wait a little while and data is streamed, when the progress meter at the bottom shows 100%, all the satellite imagery has been loaded

In the toolbar at the bottom, click on the button that says "Tilt down"



The view should tilt and you can see the city of New York in perspective - only the earth is flat



In the "Layers" menu on the left, scroll down and select "3D buildings"

Wait a little and the earth will be populated with the skyscrapers of NY!! They are not texture mapped yet, maybe Google will fix this in the near future....


(Click to see large view)

You can navigate now using the toolbar at the bottom, try flying above the NY landscape...

wacky dude face thingy...

found this on worldwind, an application similar to googleEarth...



here is a gmap link, in all its fullcolor glory

USAF toystore

where they keep all their surplus planes, all shrink wrapped and ready to fly.... also have redundant planes like the B-52 bomber, these were mercilessly destroyed in large number after the cold war ended...



This is SE of Tucson, Arizona

more googleMapping

I've been experimenting with Google Maps and it turns out that you can go to a location directly by giving a lat/long... could not decipher the url googleMaps generates when you click "link to this page", (solved it later) so tried it out in the edit box itself and it turns out you can specify lat/long in this form:

115 44 00 W 37 38 30 N -or- 45.9820 N 63.5560 E -or- 45.9820 , 63.5560

...don't need to give the tuntuna for degree, and hypehns etc, spaces will do.. you *do* need to specify W/E & N/S though...

so I googled for an Area 51 location (what ARE all those green thingies?) and the Baikonur Comsodrome, Kazakhastan and the Nazca Lines in Peru using lat/long values

since a google map search for these phrases would turn up nothing, my approach was to web search for: MY_PLACE latitude longitude - and someone had always had it listed somewhere, and then map search for that lat/long

- More Area-51 lat/longs here

While googling for this post, I came across this page... are they just bombing targets or is there something more sinister here?....

More sinister Area-51 GoogleMap images here... God bless google & gis, sniff sniff

mould the prez's face

http://www.colonize.com/warp/warp04-2.php

a caricaturist's dream come true... loads of fun...

rock tha party (& how to record audio streams in xp)

"rock tha party" is a really cool new song by a danish/indian group called bombay rockers...



homepage at bombayrockers.com

i could not find an mp3 so i recorded the stream on my pc...

this is a how i recorded the media stream into mp3 format:

1. Do volume control->options->properties->recording->click OK. Select "Wave Out Mix"

2. Start Start->Programs->Accessories->Entertainment->Sound Recorder & Start Recording - (before you do that, you need to work around the SR 60 second limit, here is a tip how to do that - link (is there a better way to do this? maybe change a reg value)

3. Play stream. It's recorded by Sound Recorder as a wav file. (You can cut out start and end silence, increase/decrease volume inside of SR)

3.5 Save this to disk as wav file for later conversion by winamp or set option to "mpeg3" in the "save as" dialog box and save as mp3 here

4. Right click Winamp bar -> options -> preferences -> output -> disk writer -> click configure button -> convert to format -> mpeg 3

5. Click play (make sure cycle/repeat is off)

TIP: keep the "Wave Out Mix" volume low, keeping it high introduced noise for me..

flying with baloons... real ones

"Anyone who’s ever been eight years old has wondered the same thing: How many balloons would it take to carry me up into the sky? John Ninomiya knows the answer. He’s logged 32 flights—and ascended as high as 21,400 feet—dangling beneath clusters of between 40 and 120 helium balloons."


img © popSci

link (opens in new window)

Google maps gone global

Now googleMaps shows almost all of the world, albeit without maximum zoom... Islamabad looks OK... Rawalpindi looks like a dump...
Moscow is really beautiful from in the sky...

I zoned into Gwadar, a hot topic of interest these days in Pakistan, the government and other "intellectuals" predict it to become another dubai.....

maybe this snap gives an inkling to why it's so important...check out the beautiful coastline and the apparently strategic land shape


© google

what makes a good programmer

an excellent article by the guy who founded the company that went on to become store.yahoo.com

http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html

some highlights:

Ordinary programmers write code to pay the bills. Great hackers think of it as something they do for fun, and which they're delighted to find people will pay them for.

The programmers you'll be able to hire to work on a Java project won't be as smart as the ones you could get to work on a project written in Python. And the quality of your hackers probably matters more than the language you choose.

One big company that understands what hackers need is Microsoft. I once saw a recruiting ad for Microsoft with a big picture of a door. Work for us, the premise was, and we'll give you a place to work where you can actually get work done.

If companies want hackers to be productive, they should look at what they do at home. At home, hackers can arrange things themselves so they can get the most done. And when they work at home, hackers don't work in noisy, open spaces; they work in rooms with doors. They work in cosy, neighborhoody places with people around and somewhere to walk when they need to mull something over, instead of in glass boxes set in acres of parking lots. They have a sofa they can take a nap on when they feel tired, instead of sitting in a coma at their desk, pretending to work. There's no crew of people with vacuum cleaners that roars through every evening during the prime hacking hours. There are no meetings or, God forbid, corporate retreats or team-building exercises.

sightseeing with google maps

http://www.googlesightseeing.com/

check it out... lots of cool stuff seen thru satellite images, sometimes an airplane, skiers and even potential UFO's...

The best of the best on the web (and some tips on better surfing)

(posting on office newsletter for may)

Next to Google on finding accurate information comes the excellent Wikipedia, which is a multi-lingual encyclopedia of information created and maintained by everyone. It is coded using wiki technology, which is "a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content". The wonderful aspect of wiki is that it enables everyone to contribute freely and independantly to a topic of interest. It is again monitored by visitors to the site who notify moderators to any omissions or mistakes. Since anyone can contribute, the articles present a rich & exhaustive treasure of information without the usual bias found in corporate media. Check out the links on my hometown & Harry Potter. Another source for information is answers.com, which is the website behind the link if you click for a google definition.

If you are a veritable news reader, you may want to check out the new Customization feature of Google news. It allows a user to add specific sections of news to the main Google News Page. It also allows a user to share their customized news pages.

A very common annoyance on some news sites is a subscription requirement. You can get around it by using bugmenot, which lists logins submitted by users. If you can't find a login here, try pookmail, which is a disposable mail account. Just enter any username@pookmail.com and it is delivered to that mailbox where it is alive for 24 hours... no messy logins to your own email account and no fear of getting spammed

If you love reading comix off the web but don't have the patience to visit each website, try this site. It lists many daily comics. The best thing is that it is open-source so you can add your own comics and view them on your own PHP server

Probably the most pervasive word on the web these days is weblogging which is a website updated by users, or webloggers, daily. There are many blogging sites out there where you can make your own weblog including blogger & livejournal. Blogger is more user-friendly, with a host of useful templates to choose from. One of the most popular blogs is instapundit.com, a political blog. One of the most popular photoblogs is ddoi, updated by an Irani artist living in Toronto. Each picture here is a real gem, and the author gives details on the camera used and its settings, excellent for beginner photographers with a digital camera

What can be better than having access to a repository of sites based on your own interests. Instead of googling for sites, you can view sites recommended by like-minded people with the help of the stumbleupon application or del.icio.us bookmarks site. It is obvious that sites recommended by people are always better than those recommended by search engines, no matter how good they are or by corporate owned websites like msn who have their own preferences. Stumbleupon is installed as a toolbar. Once logged in, enter your interests and click stumble to see sites based on those interests recommended by people, not machines. I have stumbled across many gems stumbling (at home, of course :), including these singing horses, science of cooking, the internet as it was on a past date & flash-based robots, It is recommended that Firefox be used for stumbling, since it has better rogue-site blocking capabilities than IE. de.icio.us lists sites based on tags assigned to them by people and it can help find very relevant sites.

Last but not the least, one web browser that will enhance your browsing like no other is Mozilla Firefox. It helps manage multiple windows by opening each new window in a new tab and blocks ad-popups natively. My favorite feature of the browser is its adblocking capability. Installing this extension allows one to right-click and block the ad itself or even its frame, remove the dangling whitespace. Also, updating the usercontent.css file in the Firefox installation directory with the file listed here blocks websites or links based on url e.g. all urls containg _ad_ or _click_ are blocked, thus eliminating 99% of all ads. Imagine browsing without flashing promos and annoying smiley ads. (You may need a firefox or windows restart to see effects of changing your css file)

21st century in desi-land

a poster somewhere in pakistan blends the best of today and yesterday, desi and par-desi...


Translation: Telenor (then new gsm cell phone service) connections are available, and oh yeah, home-made butter is also available

drop kick the singer

http://www.dropkickthefaint.com/

found on bandbaja.org blog... really cool

firefoxy

.

Been stumbling in Firefox..

Firefox works for me 'cause:

. it has pretty good adblocking capability... download and install the adblock extension (firefoxy for plug-in... damn all these abstractions) and right-click and block all the crap from the web.... imagine ad-clean browsing howstuffworks, fileplanet and even hotmail

Also check out the ad-parser/remover file for firefox, dunno if there is something similar for IE... looks and removes all urls which *may* be ads like /ad/ etc.

. I can do a right-click & open in tab in background - makes browsing so much easier

It *does not* work for me 'cause...

. Memory intensive... open a window with 2 tabs after a couple of hours and it takes soooo long to respond

. Tabbed browsing does not work with alt-tab, it takes you to the next tab in order, whereas it should take you to the previous tab, like in windows

. Cannot move the toolbar buttons as easily as in IE, gotta go into "edit toolbar buttons" mode and *then* move the buttons around... cannot resize toolbar as in IE e.g. one row of toolbar on my IE has 3 toolbars are compressed together...

. Seems bulky... IE is much cleaner and lighter.. or mebbe I can make it that....

In conclusion I *really* think IE can get more downloads if it implements tabbed browsing and an adblocker atleast as good as the one for FireFox

.

cool links

Fixed some bugs right before a close deadline.. been chilling today, stumbled alot.. found something really useful...

If u wanted to make a new blog interafce but did not have the time/knowledge to make one from scratch, try this one out... makes a nice 2 or 3 coulmn interface for u based on color choice for font, links etc. with the help of a generator..... support for Blogger and MovableType... font choices are limited but u can always change the code for that....just copy the source code and paste it in your blog template setting page... have'nt tried it for mine yet...

Jinnah saved man from gallows?

The story goes like this:

Once upon a time, long time ago (apparently in the early 1900's), Jinnah was a famous practicing lawyer. He took the case of a man about whome everyone said would get the death sentence... Jinnah promised that he *would* be spared no matter what.... As the trial wore on, the evidence kept piling up against him... at last he was convicted and ordered "to be hanged"

The convict and the people around him deplored Jinnah about how he promised the man's life would be saved but now his death was certain... Jinnah kept saying, just wait and see....

The dreaded day arrived and the guiltly man was made to climb the scaffold... the noose was placed around his neck and finally, the trapdoor opened...

As the man struggled against death, Mr Jinnah stood up and said, Release him, 'cause the sentence said "to be hanged" and not "to be hanged to death"...

so they released him and he went to have a long healthy life....

I thought this was some urban fiction passed around by people, but it turns out they all believed it to be true... I don't see how it can be... when you hang a man (and the executioner does it correctly), it is supposed to break the neck, causing instantaneous death; you don't *choke* to death by hanging....

Googling for the story yeilded nothing.... any ideas?

T-Rex's in F-14's

One of my fave C&H comics...

profound poetry

a rat, a bat & a cat
sat on a mat
who thought
that such diverse creatures
hang out together...
forever
like that...
sometimes they converge
on
a hat or a bat (baseball)
just like that...
true to the end
sometimes in the toilet's u-bend
the end was nigh unknown to the trio
as they sat, one night on the patio
listening to music from the jerry macguire remix jhankar...
they were bitten on the mat
by a gnat
three bites...
and they succumbed to the deadly toxins
in the smaller creature's saliva...
nice cool saliva
oozing from the sharp fangs;
it goes to show
there is
more than one way
to break a friendship...