Copernicus turns over in his grave!

http://view.break.com/335023 - Watch more free videos

Steve Jobs dishes out *free* iPhones to employees

On the eve of the iPhone launch, Steve announced that all full-time employees will get a complimentary iPhone for their service and dedication. Yeah! but it does not come with complimentary service plan from AT&T :) Now thats another business opportunity isn't it? 18,000 AT&T customers, thats a cool million every month from Apple, of course, part of the revenue does flow back to Apple in two forms, one when the customer signs up for a plan for the iPhone and also from the monthly revenue that the customer generates for AT&T.

It will cost Apple a theoretical $10.8 million for the iPhones. Ultimately its going to recover most of it from AT&T and AT&T from the employees.

Now thats Business i2.0 (complex number :-D)

lookupd problems

I wonder when will Apple ever solve the damn lookupd bug. Damn! Its soooo irritating.



May 16 10:17:11 KPower lookupd[1742]: NetInfo connection failed for server 17.128.100.25/network

May 16 10:17:41 KPower unlockupd[206]: killing lookupd 1742

May 16 10:17:41 KPower lookupd[2438]: lookupd (version 369.5) starting - Wed May 16 10:17:41 2007

May 16 10:18:10 KPower unlockupd[206]: killing lookupd 2438

May 16 10:18:11 KPower lookupd[2444]: lookupd (version 369.5) starting - Wed May 16 10:18:11 2007

May 16 10:18:11 KPower lookupd[2444]: NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local

May 16 10:18:11 KPower lookupd[2444]: NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local

May 16 10:18:13 KPower netinfod local[39]: unable to rebind from 17.128.115.58/network - RPC: Timed out

May 16 10:18:39 KPower unlockupd[206]: killing lookupd 2444

May 16 10:18:40 KPower lookupd[2447]: lookupd (version 369.5) starting - Wed May 16 10:18:40 2007

May 16 10:18:43 KPower netinfod local[39]: unable to rebind from 17.128.115.58/network - RPC: Timed out

May 16 10:31:19 KPower netinfod local[39]: rebound to 17.128.115.58/network (was to 17.128.115.58/network)

May 16 11:00:44 KPower unlockupd[206]: killing lookupd 2447

May 16 11:00:45 KPower lookupd[2502]: lookupd (version 369.5) starting - Wed May 16 11:00:45 2007

May 16 11:01:13 KPower unlockupd[206]: killing lookupd 2502

May 16 11:01:14 KPower lookupd[2503]: lookupd (version 369.5) starting - Wed May 16 11:01:14 2007

May 16 11:01:14 KPower lookupd[2503]: NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local

May 16 11:01:14 KPower lookupd[2503]: NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local

May 16 11:01:17 KPower netinfod local[39]: unable to rebind from 17.128.100.25/network - RPC: Timed out





If somebody can access the bug at rdar://3632865, please let me know if there are any updates.



Thanks

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AACS HD DVD DRM and Google

Over the past few days I have been reading about the whole AACS HD-DVD DRM cracking, postings and deletions and reinstitution of The KEY.



Googled for the key (starts with 09 f9), the Firefox Google Search box itself "suggested" the full key :-D and a full search gave:





I think the goal has been achieved!

Alternatives to an Electricity-based society

Its been over 200 years that electricity has been discovered. We are now dependent on electricity like never before. If there is a big enough blackout on earth our whole lives would come to a standstill. No music, no lights, no A/Cs, no computers. Life as we know it would come to a halt, throwing back civilization 200 years.



Now we have become addicted to electricity and just like a drug addict needs a bigger and bigger dose of the vile stuff, we are mining more coal, more barrels of oil are being drawn out, more nuclear reactors are being planned.



All this makes me wonder, how long can this be sustained? If we try to look at 200 years from now, will we have a society that thinks electricity is a relic of the past. Will we have a world where the main energy is not electricity? Is there an alternative to electricity to power our music players, cars, lights, A/Cs, computers, which would be cleaner and be more compatible with our spaceship technologies.



Step 1. Google.

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Came upon this article in about.com. The Mayans had a long and accurate calendar which lasts till 2012 (about 5000 years). The calendar is very accurate and it seems somethings going to happen on Dec 21, 2012.



As usual, Hindu astronomy has been there and done that. We have the Kaliyuga's Golden Age coming up on that day.







Wait and watch :)





You can read the article here.

Golden Age to begin in 2012

From David Hedges

Mayan Calendar Corroborates Hindu Prophecy

In the “Brahma-Vaivarta Purana”, Lord Krishna tells Ganga Devi that a Golden Age will come in the Kali Yuga
- one of the four stages of development that the world goes through as
part of the cycle of eras, as described in Hindu scriptures. Lord
Krishna predicted that this Golden Age will start 5,000 years after the
beginning of the Kali Yuga, and will last for 10,000 years.

Mayan Calendar Matches Hindu Calendar


It is interesting that this prediction of the emergence of a new world
is prophesied to appear about the same time that the Mayans predicted
it to come! The Mayan calendar began with the Fifth Great Cycle in 3114 BC and will end on 21 December 2012 AD.

The Hindu Kali Yuga calendar began on 18 February 3102 B.C. There is
only a difference of 12 years between the Hindu's beginning of the Kali
Yuga and the Mayan's beginning of the Fifth Great Cycle.

Golden Age Could Begin in 2012


The ancient Hindus mainly used lunar calendars but also used solar
calendars. If an average lunar year equals 354.36 days, then this would
be about 5270 lunar years from the time when the Kali Yuga started
until 21 Dec 2012. This is the same year that the Mayans predict
rebirth of our planet. It is also about 5113 solar years of 365.24 days
per year, and is day number 1,867,817 into the Kali Yuga. By either
solar or lunar years, we are over 5,000 years into the Kali Yuga and it
is time for Lord Krishna's prophecy to happen according to the ancient
Hindu scriptures. Lord Krishna's Golden Age could easily begin in 2012!

Mayan Prophecy Matches Hindu Prophecy


It is amazing that both calendars began at about the same time over
5,000 years ago and both calendars predict a totally new world and/or
golden age after about 5,000 years into their calendars! We are
definitely on to something with these Mayan and Hindu 2012 predictions.
Historically, this is an amazing fact since these two ancient cultures
did not have any contact.

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Perfomancing

Came upon this new plugin for Firefox. It allows blogging right from the browser window. Well, you do not have to browse to the blogger page and create a new post etc., etc. It splits the browser window into two and one can blog a page instantly. Cool!

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MacFUSE

Have been reading for a while about MacFUSE. This is a port of the FUSE filesystem api on Linux by Google's Amit Singh. FUSE is Filesystem in USErland. It lets the operating system see everything as a filesystem. So you can connect to GMail and see it a mount with all mails in it, or you can ssh to a remote box and see it as a mount and browse to it. There is a driver to mount NTFS filesystem on a Mac. This should be reason enough to try it out.

The Mac port is still in beta though and can be had from the above link. It has a wiki which provides all the info. One more link with a simple howto.

You can mount ssh connections as a filesystem without going through MacFUSE. You will need to visit sshfs for Darwin.


Looking forward to trying this out. :)

BPO to the Villages

Came upon this story during my periodic browsing of BusinessWeek Online.

"If work can shift from the U.S. to a city in India, why can't work from cities in India shift to villages in India?" says Ramalinga Raju, chairman of tech services provider Satyam Computer Services Ltd. and founder of the Byrraju Foundation.

This is an interesting use of IT to spread the economic benefits to the people of real India (70% of the population lives in villages). If this all works out, in say 10 years, it will help in increasing the IT literacy among the people leading to increase in government IT spending (since the government will be a major spender on such projects, a new vote-bank maybe(?)) a domino effect of sorts.

Entry-level GramIT employees, all with at least three-year college degrees, earn $800 a year, compared with $2,000 to $5,000 annually for an employee at an urban outsourcing shop. And because there are few other good jobs in these communities, GramIT's centers see just 5% annual turnover—dramatically better than the 60% rate in places such as Bangalore.

One other good side-effect would be that the next or next to next generation would be more and more IT savvy creating a talent pool for the tech industry.

It still has to pick up steam and hope it really does well.

If the internet connectivity is really good, I wouldn't mind shifting to my native village, grow my own stuff, enjoy life.

Picking Locks and Cracking Safes

Haven't we all seen Amitabh crack open safes in Natwarlal. Always wondering what is that they do when turn the dials, listening with stethoscopes etc. etc. etc. Well, I came upon this wonderful article by Tim Hunkin when searching for the smell of plastic explosives (I had read in a Frederick Forsyth novel that it smells like marzipan).

I agree with Tim Hunkin that cracking safes and picking locks is an art and most of the cracking and picking is done out of intellectual curiosity rather than crime.

Let me see if I can recollect any other Bollywood movies with safe cracker as a lead :)

Go through it here.

Blood Money, Blood Diamond

Today read an article in LA Times (read it here), about the Gates Foundations investment practices harming the very people they are trying to help. From the article:

The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe.

Gates has screwed up the computer world with Microsoft practices looks like he wants to branch out to the real one.

New look Blogger

Did a bit of an update to the template to give a simple look. Upgraded to the new Blogger.

Have to check out the features yet.