Information Entropy of Your Browser and hence your online model

Your Browser is one of your identity card when you are online.
Information Entropy is a quantity depicting the information contained in the given data. Higher the multiplicity, higher the Entropy, better you are hidden in the population. The case is reverse if you want to stand out in the mass.
See some basics of Information Entropy in wikipedia here...

I found this nice article which enumerates the information theoretic basis applied to internet identity...
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/primer-information-theory-and-privacy

Using such theories, your uniqueness can be determined. Just like your fingerprint.
Click on the following link to see how trackable you are...
http://panopticlick.eff.org/index.php?action=log&js=yes

For my case, it says:

Currently, we estimate that your browser has a fingerprint that conveys at least 18.21 bits of identifying information.

Now, relate it to the personally identifiable  info that we put online.
This is quite striking and revealing on how the information we put online makes us more and more uniquely available to the web. I wonder what my online model would look like as stored in Google or Amazon.
Google Model: Given his online presence, what could be his next online purchase?
Amazon Model: Given his book browsing histories and buying habits, what could be his next online purchase?


WOW!  
No wonder how serving ads is going to be personally tuned in the near future (For instance, in the movie iROBOT, as Will Smith enters the supermarket, the billboard sign changes which was already personalized for him). That should not be too far :)

Side note:
I dont think that Facebook has deployed this strategy yet. It still displays yahoo/hotmail style fixed ads.  Given all the info available with Facebook, it could be huge!!! They should work on it instead of playing with privacy policy or such controversial items.

Contest to Win from, Buzz Aldrin, the Moon Man!

. What name did MTV originally give to the Video Music Award statue ‘The Moonman’?
2. What was Buzz’s mother’s maiden name?
3. How many months will it take for the Aldrin Mars Cycler to reach Mars?

If you know the answer and if you are lucky, you  can win  Nike 6.0 Buzz Aldrin Rocket Hero Mavrk Mid 2 shoes.
Head on to...
http://buzzaldrin.com/community/buzzs-newsletter/contests/
 

Follow Bill Gates on twitter

http://twitter.com/billgates

His first tweet:
"Hello World." Hard at work on my foundation letter - publishing on 1/25. 11:59 AM Jan 19th from web

The twitter account is "verified" with >300K followers.

I hope he does not quit it.


Billgates on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Gates/502040841

I would say he should create fan page instead of personal page. The first reason he had quit Facebook was unwanted "Friend" invites.

Get updates by Google Reader for news site with no feed

Few weeks back we had conversation in Nepali Blogger's community started by aakar that Nepali News web sites are not publishing the Feed to make people visit their websites and get some hits on their ads or something like that.

One of my favorite News Site Nagarik News has feed... but its little weird. Displays only two recent posts.
http://www.nagariknews.com/index.php?format=feed&type=rss

This problem can now be overcome by the use of Google Reader. Google Reader is a nice tool by Google which can bring you the recent changes made in the site; even if it does not have RSS/Feed by making the "Google Feed".

I have not tried it yet, I am trying the following (as suggested in the reference link below):
I will enter

http://www.nagariknews.com/all-news.html
into the feed subscription of Google Reader, and see if it really works.

Few Screen-shots:

Lets see...

Ref:
http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2010/01/follow-changes-to-any-website.html
http://www.petefreitag.com/item/384.cfm

Project SIKULI: Evolutionary approach to computing

How do you know what to do when you have GUI?
Visual cues are key to navigating and doing things which has made computer experience so easy for general public.
Sikuli Script is an innovative approach developed at MIT to program and control any GUI applications.

Well, let me quote some more:

Sikuli is a visual technology to search and automate graphical user interfaces (GUI) using images (screenshots). The first release of Sikuli contains Sikuli Script, a visual scripting API for Jython, and Sikuli IDE, an integrated development environment for writing visual scripts with screenshots easily. Sikuli Script automates anything you see on the screen without internal API's support. You can programmatically control a web page, a desktop application running on Windows/Linux/Mac OS X, or even an iphone application running in an emulator.

Head on to Project SIKULI:

http://sikuli.csail.mit.edu/documentation.shtml#doc/pythondoc-python.edu.mit.csail.uid.Sikuli.html

Adam Lambert - Whataya Want From Me

American Idol is a strange place. Remarkably, Idol may  or may not reach to the top of the pop but some of its top tens do reach there.
Adam Lambert is one of the example. Who was the last year's winner?


While his songs have been buried like a signal in white noise, Adam Lambert has been matter of talk throughout the year.
I like this one by Lambert. "Whataya Want From Me"

Everybody Tweets: Who reads then?

 
We need to have a mechanism or code where a "140 character section" can be devoted to tweeting!
Every blogger at this moment may have access to services like twitterfeed to syndicate the feed to twitter and facebook and hope a bit of publicity. Yes we do it with 140 characters :) . That is not bad if you eventually get a click through visitor. But so many tweets... what do I do with it?

Have you ever sat under a tree in the evening time?
The tweets are overwhelming like that.
When Sparkfun 100K Sale ended, I had posted some screenshots (http://bit.ly/818o5U) of the pain I was going thru, google and twitter quickly poured visitors. In that case it worked. However, in general, not all of my posts are interesting.  The pain is added in reading tweets by half cut words lik...
Somebody Please develop a plug in or script for bloggers so that bloggers can add the useful highlight in "tweet" section.

American Idol Season 9: Voices and News Trends

American Idol season 9 starts tonight. The news has been hyped by the news about Simon's possible exit after season 9.  It is a fun show. Some regard that it has been accepted as some sort of culture by now. At the least, the twitter trends has been set for today for "American Idol". Google trend shows it to be top 50 topic for today.

In the past it has been successful to bring many talented artists into the spot light. Surely, this year will be no exception.
May the best artist win!

Follow American Idol on twitter:
http://twitter.com/americanidol/

Buzz meets Buzz

Buzz Aldrin, the second person to set foot on moon after Neil Armstrong, meets buzz:




Follow Buzz on twitter:
http://twitter.com/therealbuzz
Guess what he had his background on twitter before he had current one?
Orbits!!!


Friend with Buzz on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/buzzaldrin

Buzz on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/therealBuzzAldrin

Beyond AVATAR movie and AVATAR the game

The Game based on AVATAR may become bigger than the Grand Theft Auto. There is the whole planet to wonder and discover.
Ah ha!

To fight with the heavily loaded villain in AMP (Amplified Mobility Platform) suit with the help of bow and arrows at the hardest level will be full of fun. Not less than some training the hero has to go through to get in control of the situation. The fact that the hero character is subdued by villain at some point can make it challenging.

What is potential for the market after screening of AVATAR besides having the game?



Yes, you guessed right!
I am thinking about sequel of AVATAR. What next?
Take a side:

Supposing yourself as the defeated characters, (that means you were thrown out by the blue monkeys on the first part of the movie), shall you strike back?
OR
Supposing yourself as one of the Na'vi, (that means you expelled first wave of invaders), shall you plan for the defense? who knows, human beings never give up!

Can you imagine what can happen next? after the hero opens the eye to the new world saying good bye to the world where he could not move his own body parts?

Into New Year Twenty Ten (2010)

I am watching the live telecast of the lowering the ball ceremony held annually in Times Square, NY.

Colloquially, I think we pronounced whole decade in thousands by saying year Two Thousand One to year Two Thousand Nine.
There are still style in variation in saying "Year Two Thousand Ten" versus "Year Twenty Ten".
Which one sounds better?

As my biased hint:
Which year the first Nobel Prize was awarded?
One thousand Nine hundred one (1901) or Nineteen o One (1901)?

How does Year Twenty o One sounds? Year Two Thousand One?