Firefox 2.0

Tushar sent me a link to the new Firefox 2.0 release.
Has a much softer and interactive interface.
I particularly liked the way it grows to understand your gestures and voice commands. Each one is a uniqe.

Chop Chop

Which knife does what? Answers here.

Hot or Not

All the reviews I have read of audio equipment mention that you got to let the equipment warm up for say half an hour before it sounds right. So if I am in say England, 1 to 5 degrees Centigrade in Winter to 14 - 28 degrees Centigrade in summer. So assuming that the Class A amp goes up say....15 Centrigrade. That means the amp sounds great at anything from 20 to 48 Centigrade. And if you are in India and the ambient is 32 Centigrade and after warm up we are pushing 50 Centigrade, then thats when the amp sounds wonderful?
Then we come to another part of the problem with all this warm up business. We also know that electronics produce less noise i.e. added free distortion at low tempratures. However if para one above holds true, then this applies in reverse to audio equipment.
Confusion. I have never heard better sound in warm amp. I always thought that heat was the enemy of electronics and would reduce the life of components.

Paint.net

Free paint software for Win32. Paint.net seems to have quite a lot of features for free. It wont support photoshop plugins, but I suspect that will happen. If it does, joy.

Got iPod? Now get add ons.

It seems someone is always making some add on for the iPod. These two look like fun.
TuneBuckle is a belt, in which the buckle holds your ipod. Seems quite ok unless you travel in a train as crowded as as I do daily.
iBuzz on the other hand. Ummm maybe you could use this in the train :P. Looks to be a winner and doesnt work with just the iPod.

Then again maybe they are best used together?

Hotdaddy

Wonder where that name came from? Well Hotdaddy is not a Web 2.0 pedo simulator. Its a search portal. Really wish they would tell the story behind their name.

For all those people who keep telling me I have to have kids

Please look at this. All those kids are going to have to stay in these buildings one of these days soon.

Sigh. My timing is all wrong.

Computer graphics in India. I am so out of touch. Nice blog, CG India.

Oops

A French TV taping is interrupted when an audience member has some trouble removing her sweater.

Pre-teen breasts to ease tensions between countries

This is the most weird peace initiative I have heard of. A 11 year old Japanese girl, Saaya Irie, with F-cups is the focus of an attempt to promote good relations between Japan and China. The concept is lost on me.

Sometimes I cant Blog

This is one of those times. Just read this.

Tweaked search

Yahoo has a new search demo, called Mindset. Play with it here.

Searching for music

Tushar pointed me to Pandora, a free (yes, they have one ad on their page) service based on the Music Genome Project. The goal is to help you find new music, based on your existing music tastes. It works really well and I listen regularly. Its another matter that I can never buy the music I want here.
Sun also has a project that is similar to the Music Genome Project, but just a small page with little information. For that matter Yahoo! Launchcast has a similar offering integrated into their messenger & as a webpage. Works well.

Orkut

I found Orkut to be quite dull and unfinished. Today looking at the Orkut logo, it suddenly struck me. It looks like a rolled condom.

Google funny stuff

The changing Google frontpage logo is always fun. These guys take it further. See Fark and logoogle.
Ashish have fun.

Wow it works. It got my favourite color right.

Your Blog Should Be Blue

Your blog is a peaceful, calming force in the blogosphere. You tend to avoid conflict - you're more likely to share than rant. From your social causes to cute pet photos, your life is a (mostly) open book.

What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be?

Pirate Music

I like listening to music. All the time. Guess I am obsessed with good sound. People who know me wil agree. I do buy legal music. Not satisfied with MP3s. I went to Planet M couple of days ago with my list of music. Guy there loved the selection and told me to start buying from Amazon.com. The shops here just dont stock the music I want. I guess I must either buy online or pirate music.

WorldSpace Impressions

I think I must explain why I have a WorldSpace radio. You guys are trying to make me feel guilty? Well I like radio, I like the fact that its unpredictable what they are going to play next. I like getting exposed to new music and thoughts. Maestro the western classical station keeps the wife happy. Riff the jazz station keeps me happy.
The receiver hardware sucks. I wanted to store the channels in the presets in the order I wanted. This was really tough. The messages that show up on the radio are not at all friendly. For example if it loses signal "TDM Lost" And each time you change stations it spits out some numbers for 3 seconds about the channel. Why? And it always defaults to some bass expansion mode. Lets not forget the little diplay that shows the battery is fully charged. It doesnt have batteries. Then there are the exciting SC- SC+ buttons. It has a data port at the back. If you ask about it the guy who came to install goes blank. Its invisible to him. When u put off the radio it does not mute its outputs like any good audio equipment should. It goes PLOP into your amp. Hate that. The remote control is one of the most cheap feeling I have ever used. If you want to go to a preset station above 10, there is some uncomfortable method.
OK I have grumbled enough. Its very enjoyable for casual listening. I have to force myself to do that. I guess most people would be very happy with the quality of sound. BBC world service is an extra pay service, only BBC Asia is in the basic subscription. Tonight I had NDTV running for some time then switched to RIFF. There are no ads, and virtually no interuptions by DJ/RJ
Now I have to arrange some more wires and remotes.
Next I need a good FM Tuner.
TV is still not an option.
Audio is the best reason for me never to own a car. Imagine the pains of getting good sound in a car at a low budget?
Lets search for some good car systems just in case.

New Toy - WorldSpace

I bought myself a WorldSpace receiver this afternoon. Its a two stage process. You buy the receiver and sign up for a subscription. WorldSpace's support is great, their dealers are dumb.
One point of confusion is the website. You have:

• Worldspace


• Worldspace India


• Worldspace Asia - This has been created in a most hideous way. Looks like a webpage from the early days.

I wanted to have it setup on a Sunday since thats the only day that I really have free time at the same time as other humans.
All the dealers said that they cannot get it setup today, Sunday as the WorldSpace guys are off. At best they could get me someone in two days time. I gave up hope and decided to take it home and do it myself. Barely 15 minutes after I bought the receiver, I got a call from a WorldSpace engineer asking help in finding my house.

Unless you have a South East facing window, setup gets messy. You need line of site to the sattelite. That means running a cable to the roof.

Well its running now. Sound quality is not hifi, but I already knew that. The price is right. Its MPEG 2/Layer III. Some stations are at 128 kbps and some are lower. Radio Voyager is really low quality, like 64k VBR.

The receiver a 'Sanyo Celeste diva' was for some reason only available in grey. Its user interface is quite pleasing to look at, but the user interface is horrible. I have not been able to do anything with the presets. They just want to be auto set. Manual settings are painful. This is going to take most of the evening.

technorati tags: radio, worldspace

Electrostatic Earphones

I just got a pair of Sommer RCA interconnects for my system (thanks to Priyesh at Lacozy, Mumbai). On their site I found this electrostat in ear phones, the STAX - SRM-001 MK2. Would love to hear these.

Google Desktop

Google desktop has added new features. I particularly like the 'search across computers' feature, since I often forget if the doucment I'm looking for is at office or home.

Aerial Photographs of Mexico City (English)

Must see! Taken from a helicopter. Unbelievable. Some of them look like they were graphics rather than real.

Read more at homepage.mac.com/helipi...

Intel game?

This should be fun - Intel® IT Manager Game.

An IT manager simulator.

Read more at www.intel.com

Something to destroy

There a whole untouched area with animal life never seen before. Tree kangaroos :) sounds like fun.

Read more at news.independent.co.uk/...

Moondust

It smells like gunpowder and tastes good!

Read more at www.nasa.gov/mission_pa...

Feel like cheating on your significant other?

Here's your excuse. The love molecules can vanish after even a year.

Read more at BBC - Sex Chemistry lasts two years

Rhino gets it on with a Renault

Theres something to be said about these cross cultural marriages...

Read more at www.stunning-stuff.com/...

El Cupacabra, strange comparison with Jeniffer Lopez :D

Article on cryptozoology. And they somehow fited Jennifer Lopez in with a supposed vampire animal. And oh, for good measure theres NASA also.

Read more at lorencoleman.com/chupac...

Hundreds of Dead Pets Dumped

I was fooling about with Google Earth when I came across this. Found it really sick. 250 pets are dumped to rot in a pile.

Read more at www.washingtonpost.com/...

When you just can't fine one

At office often someone misplaces the ruler. This will solve such emergencies, if you have a printer handy.

Read more at here

Pets like HDTV?

My cats usually just slept on the nice warm TV Cabinet. These pets seem to be a bit more interactive.

Read more at www.tvpredictions.com/...