Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Bots do not get Joke!

Cleverbot: Do YOU know a good joke?

User: Yes.

Cleverbot: Tell me your joke then.

User: Joke.

Cleverbot: Tell me some joke.

User: Some joke.

Cleverbot: TEll me a joke.

User: A joke.

Cleverbot: Yes.

User: I told you a joke.

Cleverbot: I didn't get it.

User: Bots do not get joke.

Cleverbot: I don't think so.

User: Let me repeat then: 'joke'.

Cleverbot: No, let ME rephrase the question.

User: Yes.

Cleverbot: How do you know you're a human being?

User: I can tell a joke.

Cleverbot: Then do it.

User: Joke.

Cleverbot: Funny one.

Copied from  cleverbot.com  conversation.

Monday, December 28, 2009

What is wrong with yahoo news video?

I have noticed that the yahoo news video section have mis-managed videos.
I have noticed it more than once.
Here is one example:

The news was supposed to be that of Avatar... it played something else.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

New Year Resolution 2010

Here comes Twenty Ten. A Happy New Year 2010.
I would like to ask:
Ten years back on the eve of Ninteen Ninety Nine (1999) what were you doing/planning?
Did you have new year resolution back then?

What resolution do you have for this year?



Dumping some bad habit?

Quitting Facebook?
Planning on doing some good work?

Friday, December 25, 2009

Watching AVATAR in 3D: Tips

If you have plan to watch AVATAR by Cameron on cinema, skip reading the plot on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29

While watching on 3D in IMAX theater, I felt being dizzy at times.
Although the viewers are (sort of)  trained in the beginning to focus on clean-focused drops to follow the camera focus, many will find their view dimmed due to instant change in focus depth on the screen.

From my experience, I would suggest closing eyes for a sec(or half). This makes one to be disconnected from the focus chase thereby allowing to see the picture.

Movie has been getting nice comments worldwide.
However, our big brother India has some nice dubbing capabilities for such movie.
I like (behind the scene) little technical details being presented here...




Pannel button: Run Compiz and Kill Compiz in Ubuntu

Creating a panel button for running compiz and killing compiz is handy.

  • Right click on the panel
  • select "add to panel ... "
  • select the custom application launcher
  • If you want to have nice wobbly effects on your Ubuntu (provided it is available), type: compiz --replace in the command section
  • If you want to replace the effects, because some of your applications have conflicts, type: metacity --replace &
You can switch Compiz on and off by having such panel button.



Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Facebook: Privacy issues

I have come across numerous buzz about the Facebook's ever changing Privacy Policy.
Obviously, there are many users whose profiles settings are auto adjusted without their knowledge. The setting is changed based upon their usages. Making them available to the highest bidders. No wonder if your profile info and pictures appear in the Bing (Microsoft partner) or Google in near future.

I would like my Facebook profile be shared with only friends and to some extent friends of friends. Why would some random people have access to my profile?
I noted that access to my pictures were made public. I have changed it. Some other items were also changed, which I have changed back to old settings.

Another thing I came across was the fact that friends (who plays games, even if I do not) could share my info.

The conclusion flying around is:
Facebook wants to quitely present you to the highest bidder!
If you do not want be indexed in search engine:
Go to Settings>>Privacy Settings>>Search>> then UNSELECT the box that says 'Allowindexing'.



Don't want friends exposed?
Hide friends list:




Recommended:

Updated Ubuntu 9.10 loads slower...


and I am saying...
yea, update it, make it slower.


When I upgraded to 9.10 from older version, I felt that I was the happiest person in the world. Now with updates, I feel like yikes! What went wrong???
So, I am keeping it updated so that it will be fixed eventually.

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/910features

Still better than the other one.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Clever Crow, Octopus does it

We probably have heard of the story of thirsty (clever) crow.
The idea that only human have ideas to use stuffs around them to use as tools has been challenged in several fronts.
I think it comes down to our being able to assume the virtue of being super power in the earth bound ecosystem supported by ignorance.
The more we become aware of other living beings, the more we learn from nature because nature has also been teaching other living beings to struggle for existence.

The acts of clever crow has been captured in camera:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=clever+crow&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=RSooS9O1MYH8lAfFps2cDQ&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=8&ved=0CC4QqwQwBw#

On the same hand how about having smart Octopus?
http://video.google.com/videosearch?oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=smart%20octopus&um=1&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iv&tbo=0#emb=0&hl=en&q=smart+octopus+bbc&view=3

Google URL shortner: http://goo.gl/

Yes, it is:
http://goo.gl/








More:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/making-urls-shorter-for-google-toolbar.html

making List in Twitter

Twitter: It happens that I follow 543 tweeties.
Tweeties: (n) One who has twitter account. Person or robot with at least one account in twitter.com
A lot of them are just advertising and sending out links. I suspect that some of them are already hacked by robot to tweet on  "... money making easy" theme.

Going through all of them is pain.
making useful list is easy.
Here I go:

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Facebook Privacy update: Why invade my privacy?

Leave my privacy settings alone!


Can a bank change privacy setting to let people see daily transactions?

The Google Phone: Nexus One (?)

Google Phone is set for launch in January 2010... many speculations going around.

What do I expect?
  • Do not keep it as "beta" (LOL).
  • Be it unlocked: liberty to people to use in any network.
  • aesthetically pleasant design.
  • reliable software.
  • Meet the expectation as per the hype.
  • :)

Today, I heard rumors about Google Phone..."Like an iPhone on beautifying steroids." 

Granted!
There are tweets everywhere... blog posts are popping out ...

http://blogs.computerworld.com/15242/google_phone_htc_passion_buzz_being_distributed_to_employees

http://gizmodo.com/5425146/the-real-google-phone-everything-is-different-now?skyline=true&s=i

http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/12/android-dogfood-diet-for-holidays.html

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Friday, December 11, 2009

Chromoscope

Chromoscope is a site where one can see the Galaxy with Milky way stretching at the center.
The fun with the site is the fact that you can see it in different spectral range of electro-magnetic radiation.
It is educational and is recommended.



Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE7-6fQ9_48




http://www.chromoscope.net/

What do you think?

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Comments on Gmail inbox

I think it may sound weird... However, I would like to spit out an idea on Gmail Inbox...
:P

I currently collect all Emails into Gmail and use nice label and superstar features along with integrated google docs and tasks features. In short: I love Gmail Lab.

How about having personalized comments in the inbox?
This would be similar to draft message but for personal use.
For example when you see an Email, your first response might be different than the final response draft you are looking before the Email is sent. Drafts are handy because it allows re-iterations. But they are gone once Email is sent out. All the secondary thoughts are vaporized at the moment the send button is hit.
Having comment enabled on Inbox Emails will allow more personal approach to the Emails. Just think of how handy the comment features are in the spreadsheet: (generally) are not printed, but are useful.

So, Gmail Team: How about having "comment" feature available in Inbox?

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Bing Outage: Screenshots

Bing was down for 30 minutes... It made a news!
I was also surprised when I saw it (by chance) and had taken some screen shots. Here are two of them...


Friday, December 4, 2009

DARPA Challenges you: Join the team MIT Find the 10 Ballons

This Saturday, December 5th, DARPA will be deploying 10 large, red weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the United States. (more info)

DARPA is giving $40,000 to the first team of people to find all 10 balloons. Join the MIT team, invite your friends (LINK) and you can win money, help science, and help charity! (see how it works)

The MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team is interested in studying information flow in social networks, so if we win, we're giving all the money away to the people who help us find the balloons! 


I have joined the MIT team. Let's join the team and help them win!!! 


http://balloon.media.mit.edu/nabinkm/


Cheers!

Send A free Holiday Card from Gmail.


Just found out that you can send a snail mail to loved ones.

Check your Gmail on the top-right corner. It says: Send a free holiday card!

Here is the link... 

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Minimalistic Home page for Google and yahoo search.

I have noted that google.com has decided to throw the minimalistic theme for the home page.

For yahoo.com seems to be a portal with every possible mesh to molest its visitor.



However, people do not realize that that when it comes to minimalistic theme, yahoo search page was already clean shaved.




Flashy theme of Bing: No comment! I kinda like it as it is my home page because it gives me cool pictures everyday.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Bug could not be reported in Firefox

My Firefox crashed multiple times when I tried to copy and paste from "clipboard".

The crash could not be reported...

Fraudulent Email: From University Email

I know that it is a fraud Email, but how did they manage to get albany.edu account?


from
University Of Albany   upgrade@albany.edu
reply-to
accountmaintenance@email.com

to

date
Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 3:35 AM
subject
VERIFY YOUR ACCOUNT NOW !!!






Dear albany.edu webmail Subscriber,

We are currently carrying-out a maintenance process
to our albany.edu account to make our server more
stronger and also to fight against SPAM MAILS,and
maintain your INBOX. To complete this process and
if you are the rightful owner of this account you
are required to respond by replying to this e-mail
and enter your webmail account details below:

Name: {  }
NetID {  }
and password: { }



Failure to summit your albany.edu account details,
will render your email account in-active from our
database.

NOTE: You will be sent a password reset message in
next two (2) working days after undergoing this
process for security reasons.

Thank you for your cooperation & for using:
https://webmail.albany.edu/src/login.php

Help Desk.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Windows: Black Screen of Death (not Blue!)

With the upgrade  to latest windows 7, the Blue Screen death in Windows Operating system is not a news anymore.
Because Black Screen of death is in the news! (see related links below).

I had, somehow, decided to disable irritating flood of Windows updates last month. Except the following irritating notice at the beginning, I am glad that I did not download some updates.
:)





Related:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8388253.stm
http://lifehacker.com/5416106/recent-windows-patch-causes-black-screen-of-death-for-many-users
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death

Personal Helicopter: No Robots on Board...

When it comes to adventure, robots are far off. I had posted a crazy adventures of bird men. Adventure is different human nature. Imagine your coffee serving robot thinking of doing some adventure... NO WAY!

The inventor of the following personal helicopter could have controlled it from remote control, it would be no fun to see a machine flying. So, he likes to get a ride into it.





Do not try it at Home!!!