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Below are the most recent 50 friends' journal entries.
- What is the very first song you remember?
- What is the very last song you heard?
- Name one song whose lyrics are close to your heart.
- What are some of your favorite lyrics? (either from song you name above or otherwise)
- Name one song whose video you like.
- Name one song which paints a picture in your mind.
- Name one song you dislike intensely.
- open & read files
- NOT write files
- NOT open sockets
- NOT fork
- NOT do any other system functionality that's not strictly needed for a web app
- Hardened Perl Interpreter: basically, we'll be statically linking in a hardened, customized libperl to a C++ application, disabling all Perl dynamic loading. Only vetted, security-audited XS modules will be allowed. Only safe Perl opcodes will be allowed. (No sockets, no ioctl, no fork, etc, etc.) To get a preview for what this'll feel like restriction-wise, check out the newly written Sys::Protect which Artur and I wrote this evening and will be continuing to develop for people's dev environments (not production).
- Protocol Buffers for Perl: we need support for Protocol Buffers for Perl. I've started on this project internally and will open source the code soon, once I have a few free minutes.
- Server: we need to write an App Engine server for testing, local development, and potentially production deployment. (Replace Bigtable with MySQL, Hypertable, Hbase, Couch DB, etc.)
- Libraries: Perl client libraries for Datastore, URLFetch, etc services. Including docs.
| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | ||
|
deponti |
8:48p | People and Scenes, Ragihalli Here's the great group with whom I made the trip on Sunday: Asha, Geetanjali, Avinash:  Subir, Sid, Anush:  Asha had just returned from a memorable trip to Leh and Ladakh; Geetanjali and Subir (one of the most hospitable couples I have met!They are always enthusiastic when I foist a new group of people on them on a Sunday morning) had decided not to bring their lovely daughter Avantika along; and Avinash and Anush were busy finding picturesque scenes through the cameras..... The area looked lovely because it was the monsoon season. Here's the Bannerghatta Forest vista, with the monsoon clouds:  At the kere, there was a SMALL TEMPLE, constructed of granite:  By the road we walked along, this small shrine... red-striped, surrounded by greenery:  the LICHEN on the rocks, and the outline of the rocks themselves, made a lovely pattern:  another view of the rocks:  There were people who were, literally, living at the edge, in this case, the edge of the lake...  This is the sign for the Ramakrishna Ashram at Shivanahalli:  The Ramakrishna Ashram logo and symbols, and the pink-washed wall, make a nice picture:  That's it folks, until the next trip I make.... Current Mood:  sadCurrent Music: none |
|
gaur36 |
7:43p | Safari Finally managed to go on a jeep safari again this evening. Got the following - I must say that I am now comming to grips with my camera.   Langurs in habitat and close up - never easy getting decent photographs of them as they constantly move and also because of the contrast between the face and body. I also have trouble focusing on them for some reason. Quite happy with these two.     Got a few close ups of a large wild boar. It might be the same animal that I photographed a few days ago.   First saw this Changable Hawk Eagle as a silhouette , moved a bit in front to change the angle,got some foliage behind it to cut off the backlight and got a record shot. This was taken late in the evening around 6.15 PM.  Spotted Deer - so abundant that they dont get photographed and then suddenly after six years you realize that you do not have a good photograph of them . The challenge is to get them in a good pose. This one was in a nice position however our new jeep is too high , would have preferred to get a lower angle.  Got this one near my office. I zoomed in instead of trying a macro as I did not want to scare it - they really move fast. |
| bruce_schneier | 5:32a | Speed Cameras Record Every Car In this article about British speed cameras, and a trick to avoid them that does not work, is this sentence: As vehicles pass between the entry and exit camera points their number plates are digitally recorded, whether speeding or not. Without knowing more, I can guarantee that those records are kept forever. |
|
suku |
4:23p | The weary traveler returns England Isle Of Wight Portsmouth London Bath Stonehenge (Twice) Ipswich Liverpool Manchester Birmingham York Lake District Stratford-Upon-Avon Oxford Cambridge Windsor North Wales Wrexham Scotland Edinburugh Glasgow Inverness Fort William Mallaig Ireland Belfast Derry Enniskillen Sligo Donegal You bet, I've traveled. Current Mood:  tired |
|
premkudva |
3:46p | Viewership shoots up! Lok Sabha TV’s ratings soar Hah! No wonder. They should tell us how much it was before and after;-) |
|
crabbycool |
3:13p | A most unfortunate meme post. We’re having a horrible day at office. Horrible. And there’s not much we can do except laugh about it. So that’s what we’re doing instead of working. Anyways, here is a meme. ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} pratibha75 is tagged, of course.---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- Vande Mataram, playing every morning on radio. I didn't know it was called Vande Mataram, though :-) What is the very last song you heard? Song from Hu Tu Tu on TV. Name one song whose lyrics are close to your heart. The Shins/ Girl on the wing. What are some of your favorite lyrics? (either from song you name above or otherwise) "Shake it, Sh Shake it, Shake it like a polaroid picture." :-| Name one song whose video you like. I don't like music videos. Name one song which paints a picture in your mind. Bob Dylan/ Shelter from the Storm. Name one song you dislike intensely. Madonna's version of American Pie. Current Mood:  bored |
|
redobsession |
5:13p | For LOLs, and LOLs. You MUST watch this video. Please. You will love me for it! Seriously! I just watched it on You Tube with Premshree watching it simultaneously in Bangalore, and we were too awestruck by the sheer stupidity and funny-ness of this piece of ingenuity and randomness. The captions are especially Killer! I wouldn't waste your time online, really. Ok fine. Here's a hint: It's got Natalie Portman, Bollywood, Devendra Barnhart, crazy captions, and LOTS of funnyness in it. (Psst: Natalie's dating Barnhart, for now, i.e.) Current Mood:  gigglyCurrent Music: Carmensita |
|
jwz |
1:59a | ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small} dnalounge updateDNA Lounge update, wherein mostly photos are presented. |
|
deponti |
1:14p | The plants of Ragihalli The plants and trees, too, at Ragihalli and Shivanahalli, were lovely to look at. I took a lot of pictures, and am still trying for the id's of some of them. At the kere (or lake..it was, actually, larger than a pond but smaller than a lake, so I don't really don't know how to classify it!),we saw a lot of water plants. I am not sure if this is just a leaf of the water hyacinth, or another plant. But the colours were so amazing, I just had to capture it!  Note the little insect on it... ( If you have the time... ) Even with domestic plants, there was something to see and appreciate. I thought these were holes where insects had eaten away the leaves, until I looked at the colouring and realized that they were Patterns on Crotons:  Sometimes the leaves and stems themselves made a lovely picture:  This post shows why I will never be disappointed or bored when I am on a field trip! Current Mood: sadCurrent Music: mahA gaNapathim...mahArAjapuram santhAnam |
|
swatisani |
12:49p | ا آدم آ آدم آدم آ آ آدم آ آم لا |
|
premkudva |
12:30p | The speeches in Parliament Suchitra says Laloo Prasad Yadav's speech yesterday was brilliant. She says he looks and speaks coarse, but what came out of his mouth was not. Another note worthy person was Omar Abdullah. Very short but extremely sweet! Suchitra says that none of the BJP guys seem to have anyone who could speak with conviction against the Govt or the so called nuclear deal. To confirm this while I was watching one dumb ass from the BJP opened his mouth. But we couldn't make out what the fk he spoke at all. Reading muffled from a prepared text. Yuck! Rahul Gandhi could have used some other analogy I feel instead of poor Mrs Sasikala and Kalavathy. Even if those stories were true. So Q and A. Q: Did the Congress pay people to vote for them? A: Of course they did, if they didn't they would be fools! Q: Did the Opposition pay people to vote against the Congress? A: Of course they did, if they didn't they would be fools! Q: Was it right to do so? A: Hah! You are a fool to ask such a question, yes they were right in doing so. Q: The BJP started the nuclear deal during their tenure, so why didn't they support the Congress? A: You are kidding me right? Q: Why is Mayavathy acting like a bitch after the motion she opposed was lost? A: Mayavathy is a bitch! |
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | ||
|
jwz |
11:39p | Fortune Seriously? That's the weak-assed shit you bring to the fortune cookie game? Seriously?
|
| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | ||
|
premkudva |
11:05a | Found on eBay Old Rs 2 British India note signed CD Deshmukh This dude is selling the above note. Okay so it is rare, but not as rare as a JB Taylor signed note. And seeing his price of Rs 3,600/ you think he has a mint condition note, click and you see far from a mint condition note. This one in fact was used as toilet paper! |
|
anushsh |
11:12a | |
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | ||
|
brad |
8:38p | Perl on App Engine Fellow Perl hackers, I'm happy to announce that the Google App Engine team has given me permission to talk about a 20% project inside Google to to add Perl support to App Engine. To be clear: I'm not a member of the App Engine team and the App Engine team is not promising to add Perl support. They're just saying that I (along with other Perl hackers here at Google) are now allowed to work on this 20% project of ours out in the open where other Perl hackers can help us out, should you be so inclined. As background, I've been writing Perl code for almost 15 years now and quite fond of the language. (I'm "bradfitz" on CPAN.) Here at Google, though, it's not one of our big languages so I don't get to write as much Perl as I used to. I'd still like to run my personal web apps on App Engine, though, and I'd like to write them in Perl. And I'm definitely not alone, looking at how many people have starred the wishlist bug. Some of you have already started talking about it. We'd like to join the discussion, and start hacking out in the public. In the process we can build the start of an open source App Engine server clone that's suitable for many purposes: initially just for regression testing & local development (like the "dev_appserver" that comes with the App Engine Python SDK), but perhaps in the future (once Hypertable/Hbase/etc are ready) a full stack to give to ISPs to let them run App Engine apps on their own. Before I get into my proposed roadmap, let me describe what's publicly known about the App Engine architecture. In a nutshell, it looks like this:  The App runs in a multi-layer hardened environment, one layer of which will need to be a hardened Perl interpreter. Basically, we need a hardened Perl runtime which can: Perl on App Engine then would involve the following steps (in no particular order): If you'd like to discuss this and/or help out, join the perl-appengine mailing list. We'll be submitting code to the appengine-perl project on Google Code hosting. For more information about this, see the Perl-on-AppEngine FAQ. Brad & the other Perl Googlers |
|
f1 [ tomswift ] |
12:56p | New McLaren device? So i'm wondering whats every ones take on this new steering wheel for the McLaren racers, is even true and if it is, is it making the difference? http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/n Current Mood: relaxedCurrent Music: MOS Presents Garage Classics Mixed By The Wideboys |
| Friday, July 18th, 2008 | ||
|
mmk |
12:05p | For the times they are a-changin'. With much sadness, I have to admit: me@yahoo~$ uptime 11:52:11 up 2840 days 13:01, 1 user, load average: 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 me@yahoo~$ shutdown -p now Friday was my last day at Yahoo!. More soon. |
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | ||
| jeremy_zawodny | 12:30p | Congrats to Chad Dickerson on his new gig! News is out today that Chad Dickerson is leaving Yahoo! to become the CTO of Etsy in New York. That's fantasic news and I wish him the best of luck. Having made a similar decision myself, I know it's not easy. How time flies. I still remember interviewing Chad on the phone a few years back and talking about some experiences we had in common: using Perl to wrangle news and content feeds from varous partners and so on. It... |
| bruce_schneier | 12:29p | Washington DC Metro Farecard Hack Clever: Thieves took a legitimate paper Farecard with $40 in value, sliced the card's magnetic strip into four lengthwise pieces, and then reattached one piece each to four separate defunct paper Farecards. The thieves then took the doctored Farecards to a Farecard machine and added fare, typically a nickel. By doing so, the doctored Farecard would go into the machine and a legitimate Farecard with the new value, $40.05, would come out. My guess is that the thieves were caught not through some fancy technology, but because they had to monetize their attack. They sold farecards on the street for half face value. |
| digitalphoto | 5:30p | Just posted! Canon EOS Rebel XS / 1000D review  Just Posted! Our review of the Canon EOS Rebel XS / EOS 1000D. The latest entry-level DSLR from Canon has a lot to live up to and some fierce competition to face so can the baby Rebel make as big an impact on the market as its forebears. And, more importantly, does it deserve to? Read our in-depth review to find out. |
|
deponti |
10:36p | Examination subject I am not kidding, people are taking a comprehensive exam on this topic: 29th July 2008: Comprehensive Exam: Molecular Ecology of thePrimitively Eusocial Wasp Ropalidia marginata: Metapopulation Structure,Genetic Relatedness and Queen Succession And here I am, leading a blithe life...does eusocial mean being friendly in all the European countries? This post is for you, premkudva. I don't think we belong on this planet of "human doings". Current Mood: zzzzz Current Music: delicate little zzzzzz |
|
pramodbiligiri |
10:17p | The Rally for the Republic Ron Paul's parallel (to the Republican) convention on Sep 2nd has started selling tickets at $17.76. As they are expecting 15,000+ people, they've booked a place called Target Center in Minnneapolis, which is the biggest arena in the city. In fact, that day is the official launch of the Campaign for Liberty. The initial burst of tickets will be sold through a Ticket Bomb. It will be a 3-day extravaganza with lots of live music. |
|
deponti |
9:55p | Some of the birds we saw on the Ragihalli/Bannerghatta trip Ok, all non-birders to the next friends' page please! Every trip around the Bangalore outskirts, I must say, springs surprises for us. I had gone with two people who were coming for their very first nature outing, so I really didn't think we would spot anything new...but I managed at least two firsters! We started of course, with the ORIENTAL MAGPIE ROBIN (no photos, I have so many of those!) and its female counterpart, but I couldn't resist clicking this FEMALE HOUSE SPARROW  It's as if she's looking at the broom and sighing, "oh, so much housework left to do!" :) Here's the MALE, perky and chirpy, getting some house furnishings:  ( more birds ) Pictures I couldn't take were of CKPM (CROW, KITE,PIGEON,MYNAH), ASHY PRINIAS, a WHITE-THROATED FANTAIL, a GREY-BREASTED PRINIA, several SMALL GREEN BEE-EATERS, a RED-WATTLED LAPWING with its typical call, some SILVERBILLS, LAUGHING DOVES, a BLUE-FACED MALKOHA, several LARKS (larking around with their typical flight patterns...up-and-sing-and-flutter-back-t the the ORIENTAL HONEY BUZZARD made a great finale to the day! Current Mood:  pensiveCurrent Music: nA..jiyA lAgEy nA.... |
| bruce_schneier | 10:05a | The Case of the Stolen Blackberry and the Awesome Chinese Hacking Skills A high-level British government employee had his Blackberry stolen by Chinese intelligence: The aide, a senior Downing Street adviser who was with the prime minister on a trip to China earlier this year, had his BlackBerry phone stolen after being picked up by a Chinese woman who had approached him in a Shanghai hotel disco. That can't look good on your annual employee review. But it's this part of the article that has me confused: Experts say that even if the aide’s device did not contain anything top secret, it might enable a hostile intelligence service to hack into the Downing Street server, potentially gaining access to No 10’s e-mail traffic and text messages. Um, what? I assume the IT department just turned off the guy's password. Was this nonsense peddled to the press by the UK government, or is some "expert" trying to sell us something? The article doesn't say. EDITED TO ADD (7/22): The first commenter makes a good point, which I didn't think of. The article says that it's Chinese intelligence: A senior official said yesterday that the incident had all the hallmarks of a suspected honeytrap by Chinese intelligence. But Chinese intelligence would be far more likely to clone the Blackberry and then return it. Much better infomation that way. This is much more likely to be petty theft. |
| zawodny_links | 9:00a | Beautiful Code: False Optimizations Beautiful Code: False Optimizations: interesting take on a tight binary search optimization |
| zawodny_links | 9:00a | Chocolate Cake In 5 Minutes! Chocolate Cake In 5 Minutes!: heh |
|
ashbirder |
7:39p | Peacock Pond Such a long month. Not much time to take walks outdoors, much less take photographs. For the last couple of weeks a Hawk-cuckoo's been singing its insistent, unceasing song. I envy the way it keeps calling like that- with a clarity and sense of purpose that I really seem to lack these days. Today afternoon though I decided to take a break and go to HCU. The Don came along for a while and then had to leave. We walked up to Peacock Pond in HCU campus which adjoins Buffalo Pond - the one I'd posted about earlier. The rains have filled up the pond and the banks were covered with tall grass and reeds. Saw a lot of Marsh Buckwheat growing among the grasses. The nearby rock had a couple of juvenile River Terns with an adult that was calling and flying around nearby. Here's a picture of cormorants and a Night Heron that wanted to rest on one leg for some reason:  White-breasted Waterhens were calling from the reeds and as I was walking along I disturbed a Purple Heron that took off and sat on a dead tree some distance away. The path at the periphery of the pond disappeared after a while and soon I found myself squelching through mud in a manner that was pleasing but detrimental to my jeans. Digiscoping yielded mostly sorry results (as you can see above) but there were many birds around. Saw a pair of Hoopoes fly past, a solitary Bronzewinged Jacana, a preening Pond Heron and a Pied Crested Cuckoo. I'd posted about Silverbills reusing Weaver bird nests earlier and this time, I caught a couple of them red-handed. ( Silverbills ) Saw Bee-eaters, Ashy Prinias, a Spotbill Duck and heard many White browed Bulbuls and peafowl around the lake. I wanted to linger but thought it might rain. The walk back was pleasant too, many Ioras calling from the trees and Plum headed Parakeets on the lamp posts. |
|
evan_tech [ evan ] |
8:54a | dns attack of doom If I've learned anything from the new Kaminsky DNS attack, it's that if you want to keep something a secret while disclosing to a trusted subset of vendors, you do not include publicity-hungry overeager bloggers in the list of people who can keep their mouths shut. |
|
bluesmoon |
10:43a | Travels - updated Here's the new US travel map: visited 10 states (20%) Create your own visited map of The United States. It's strange that I live on the west coast, but I've travelled more on the east. bluesmuse and I visited Jackson, New Hampshire over the weekend. It's a beautiful place with mountains, rivers, lakes and waterfalls all over the place. We'd have liked to do a lot more, but there was a thunderstorm all of Sunday, which made hiking a little dangerous.I'd booked a car at AVIS - a sub-compact to be picked up at Boston airport. They had only one sub-compact left when I showed up. This one:  Anyway, I reached Toronto at around 15:15 yesterday, and took public transport to get to the office in downtown Toronto. Right on the harbourfront. I don't have my own pictures up yet, but it's the building right in front in this pic. I'm off to Ottawa this afternoon, and will be speaking at Linux Symposium on Friday and Saturday. Oh, and I hate how twitterfox keeps grabbing focus away from my browser and never returns it. |
| jeremy_zawodny | 7:20a | Settling in to a New Environment at Craigslist Yesterday was my first day as an employee at craiglist. Several folks on Twitter asked how it was, so here are my thoughts. First off, it was a bit like a first day anywhere. I had several new people to meet, a bunch of paperwork to fill out for benefits and payroll stuff, and started to get an overview of how things work. Unlike jobs in larger organizations, I had the pleasure of un-boxing and setting up my chair,... |
|
deponti |
6:26p | A compliment and the reply to it... I had started an egroup for COSTIIMA (Class Of Seventy-Three, Indian Insitute of Management,Ahmedabad) and have been moderating it ever since. Recently, there have been a huge spate of compliments that I have been doing a good job (I am the one who has benefited a lot...I have got to know so many people, in fact, I got to know Beheruz so well that I went and stayed with him and Madhavi twice at Atlanta!)...and another classmate of KM's sent this: A small token in appreciation of all that you have done. > > > > > > Hawaaon ke haath ik armaan bheja hai, > > Raushni ke zariye ek paigam bheja hai, > > Fursat mile toh kabool kar lena, > > Is nacheez ne aapko salaam bheja hai .......... > (I have) sent, by the wind, a wish-- Through the light, sent a message; If you find the time, accept it-- This nothing (literally, "no thing") has sent you a salutation.... > Here's my response to Gautam, in my "phonetic" Roman script... kyA bOloon jawAb mEin...tOhfA thO niklA bahut badA.... jiskO Ap sAgar kehlAthEy hain, vOh thO hai bas ek ghadA! kabool karthee hoon nathmastak, yeh bhEint jisEy pyAr kEy sAth ApnEy diyA... bhar gayA dil merA, bhar gayee AnkhEn, bhar gayA mErA jiyA! What can I say in reply...the gift has turned out to be very big... What you call an ocean, is just a small vessel! I accept, with bent head, this gift that you have sent with love; My heart is full, my eyes are full, and my soul is full! AdAb arz, Gautam Bhai.... "nAcheez" unhE kehlAthey hain, jinkEy dookAn mEin Amul na hO... apnEy kO "nAcheez" kehlAnA..aisEy phir kabhee bhool na hO! Thank you, Gautam, my brother... "no cheese" is the name for those who don't have (Amul brand)cheese in their shops... To call yourself a "nothing" is a mistake I hope you won't make again! dhanyavAd sahith, With thanks, Deepa. Current Mood: chirpier Current Music: none |
|
amoghavarsha |
12:35p | iphone 2.0 and airtel gprs I upgraded to 2.0 yesterday, and the new update won't let you set your APN etc. So the gprs for airtel won't work. They have new system which based on profiles to manage all this. I've modified a config profile, So here's the work around, download this file and mail it to yourself. And via wifi download the mail and it'll give you an option to install the configuration file and there you go... One you have installed, you have gprs on airtel. http://amoghavarsha.com/temp/apn-ai |
|
deponti |
12:08p | Food and Water Two of the most basic requirements for life....as typified by this photograph:  This was at the Ramakrishna Ashram at Shivanahalli, in the Bannerghatta Forest Area; a lovely calm retreat in the lovely calm forest! Current Mood:  rushedCurrent Music: cnbc stock music! |
|
premkudva |
11:29a | Col Samosa! Chicken tikka, samosa power Israeli troops  If Indian food has found its way around Israeli barracks, the credit goes to an Indian lady who made Tel-Aviv her home 25 years ago. Born in New Delhi to a colonel, Reena Pushkarna’s restaurant chain — Tandoori — currently supplies over 1,500 tonnes of packaged food to the forces every year. Simply brilliant. I hadn't heard of this till today! |
|
premkudva |
11:24a | Unbelievable! South Africa beat England by 10 wickets In the first test they had to follow on and managed to draw instead of lose. And now they defeat England by 10 wickets. Too much! |
|
anushsh |
11:25a | :)
|
|
premkudva |
9:51a | Antique Diamond Watch Costliest item on eBay.in? The cost is Rs. 21,000,000, [2.1 crores] and it is not BIN price;-) You have to bid. heh! heh! BUT the shipping is free. Heh! Heh! You meet a lot of comedians on eBay;-) A seller has yet to make a sale or a purchase on eBay. Actually he joined on 17th. And ah I don't see any diamonds in it. |
| Monday, July 21st, 2008 | ||
|
shortindiangirl |
11:30p | Unconditional love Disclaimer: Please add "I think" to each sentence below: We tend to desire unconditional love or affection from those who care about us. When we don't get it, we feel disappointed or perhaps short changed on our expectations. Love is more often conditional, especially "love" outside of family, but also sometimes within family. At the least it may be a condition of how rewarding it is to love, or express affection. While unconditional love has more weight and is warmer on the soul, we shouldn't reject conditional love, or downplay it. It is still love after all, and worthy of cherishing. Current Mood: disappointed |
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | ||
|
premkudva |
8:34a | Images restored Regarding my Gandhi Foundation removes 1969 stamp images from Photobucket post of last week. rythm had commented saying I should take the matter with Photobucket regarding the right of the Gandhi Foundation to claim these images. And so I shot an e-mail off. Today morning I got their reply: "We believe they may have reported those on accident, they reported thousands of images. We restored those images for you." Hah! Hah! Thanks Sandeep:-) |
| Monday, July 21st, 2008 | ||
| digitalphoto | 5:57p | Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28  Panasonic has today announced the Lumix DMC-FZ28. The new camera is the successor to the popular FZ18 and comes with a slightly increased resolution (10.1 vs 8.0 MP) and all the zoom range you could ever need (27-486mm, 35mm equivalent). However, if that's still not enough there is also an optional 1.7x tele converter available. The Lumix DMC-FZ28 will be available in the UK from August for £329.99. |
|
anomalizer |
11:36p | Got power? Random conspiracy theory: When was the last time you remeber having power shoratge in this time of the year? This usaually happens in the summer. Is this the government's way of making a case for the nuclear deal? :-) |
| digitalphoto | 4:24p | Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150  Panasonic has today announced the Lumix DMC-FX 150. The new camera offers a whopping 14.7 megapixels effective resolution which makes it (together with the Samsung NV100HD/TL34HD) the currently highest resolving compact camera on the market. Other features include Panasonic's new Venus IV imaging processor, a 28-100mm (35mm equivalent) zoom lens and not one but two baby modes! The Lumix DMC-FX150 will be available in the UK from August for £299.99. |
|
deponti |
9:37p | Ending on a high... We had finished the day's birding at Ragihalli, and were wending our way homewards when I said, "So sad, we haven't seen a single raptor yet, apart from the BLACK KITE." So immediately this ORIENTAL HONEY BUZZARD flew out over the road near the first gate/watchtower...  and went to settle itself on first one tree,  And then on an acacia tree:  What beautiful bird it is....it satisfied my wish to see a bird of prey in all its majesty! Current Mood:  sleepyCurrent Music: something from the neighbour's home! |
| digitalphoto | 3:06p | Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3  Panasonic has today announced the Lumix DMC-LX3. The camera is aimed at DSLR users who are looking for a compact camera to complement their existing SLR gear. Consequently the LX3 comes with comprehensive manual controls and a fast F2.0-F2.8 24-60mm (35mm equivalent) Leica DC Vario-Summicron lens. Images are captured on a 1/1.63-inch CCD sensor sporting 10.1 million effective pixels. The Lumix DMC-LX3 will be available in the UK from August for £399.99. |
| digitalphoto | 3:03p | Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX37  Panasonic has today announced the successor to the FX35 digital compact camera - the FX37. The new model comes with Panasonic's Venus IV imaging processor and an enhanced Intelligent Auto mode which is now capable of tracking an object once the AF has locked onto it. All this fancy new technology has been built around a 10.1 MP sensor and a 25mm (35mm equivalent), 5x zoom lens. The Lumix DMC-FX37 will be available in the UK from August for £249.99. |
|
redobsession |
11:01p | The Sunshine Girl Who i traveled many miles to meet at lunch today... and will do so gladly many more times in the coming months. Current Mood:  cheerful |
| bruce_schneier | 6:12a | Scary Knife Makes for Great Newspaper Headlines Who can not feel a little chill of fear after reading this: "Britain on alert for deadly new knife with exploding tip that freezes victims' organs." Yes, it's real. The knife is designed for people who need to drop large animals quickly: sharks, bears, etc. I have no idea why Britain is on alert for it, though. |
| bruce_schneier | 5:53a | Cost/Benefit Analysis of Airline Security This report, "Assessing the risks, costs and benefits of United States aviation security measures" by Mark Stewart and John Mueller, is excellent reading: The United States Office of Management and Budget has recommended the use of cost-benefit assessment for all proposed federal regulations. Since 9/11 government agencies in Australia, United States, Canada, Europe and elsewhere have devoted much effort and expenditure to attempt to ensure that a 9/11 type attack involving hijacked aircraft is not repeated. This effort has come at considerable cost, running in excess of US$6 billion per year for the United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA) alone. In particular, significant expenditure has been dedicated to two aviation security measures aimed at preventing terrorists from hijacking and crashing an aircraft into buildings and other infrastructure: (i) Hardened cockpit doors and (ii) Federal Air Marshal Service. These two security measures cost the United States government and the airlines nearly $1 billion per year. This paper seeks to discover whether aviation security measures are cost-effective by considering their effectiveness, their cost and expected lives saved as a result of such expenditure. An assessment of the Federal Air Marshal Service suggests that the annual cost is $180 million per life saved. This is greatly in excess of the regulatory safety goal of $1-$10 million per life saved. As such, the air marshal program would seem to fail a cost-benefit analysis. In addition, the opportunity cost of these expenditures is considerable, and it is highly likely that far more lives would have been saved if the money had been invested instead in a wide range of more cost-effective risk mitigation programs. On the other hand, hardening of cockpit doors has an annual cost of only $800,000 per life saved, showing that this is a cost-effective security measure. From the body: Hardening cockpit doors has the highest risk reduction (16.67%) at lowest additional cost of $40 million. On the other hand, the Federal Air Marshal Service costs $900 million pa but reduces risk by only 1.67%. The Federal Air Marshal Service may be more cost-effective if it is able to show extra benefit over the cheaper measure of hardening cockpit doors. However, the Federal Air Marshal Service seems to have significantly less benefit which means that hardening cockpit doors is the more cost-effective measure. Cost-benefit analysis is definitely the way to look at these security measures. It's hard for people to do, because it requires putting a dollar value on a human life -- something we can't possibly do with our own. But as a society, it is something we do again and again: when we raise or lower speed limits, when we ban a certain pesticide, when we enact building codes. Insurance companies do it all the time. We do it implicitly, because we can't talk about it explicitly. I think there is considerable value in talking about it. (Note the table on page 5 of the report, which lists the cost per lives saved for a variety of safety and security measures.) The final paper will eventually be published in the Journal of Transportation Security. I never even knew there was such a thing. |
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dianaparadise |
5:01p | It's been a while Since I last posted so I decided to type anything that came to mind. Since my last post I am happy to say that the trunk of the breadfruit tree that dad had replanted has started sprouting new shoots:o) Erika started play school on the 16th of June and now over a month later I can safely say she is enjoying it. She was ok from day one itself and never cried once when I was dropping her off. Since school starts at 9.00am I am forced to wake up at 7.00am myself and start my day early, some days it works some days it doesn't. rocknromuald and I went to see 'Hancock' last week, I loved the movie. Saw 'Air Buddies' at home today. I had actually brought it for Erika to watch but she was happy with watching bits here and there. It was a very sweet movie though.The travel bug has bitten and so next week Erika and I are off to Pune to spend some time with my cousin who is down from Canada. I am really looking forward to this trip. As many of my fellow LJers may already know I finally signed up for Facebook. I am proud to say that I am not addicted. I managed to go swimming twice last week and by swimming I mean serious laps. The only problem is that there is no pool near home that I can access and so have to go two suburbs away to the gymkhana where my cousin is a member to use the pool. If I can manage to swim three times a week for an hour each time it should be worth it. I am not as out of practice as I thought I was and am building up my stamina pretty fast. Also been busy with my freelance environmental awareness work and am glad to have something to keep the gray cells active. I work with a small NGO and I design awareness projects for schools. Enough happening in life to keep it interesting...... Current Mood:  thoughtful |
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premkudva |
4:33p | Cheese cake Saturday night we had been to the food court at Empire Mall. After food ..a burger and fried chicken.. from Chic King we decided to hop over to the Chak de Saiba counter. And there I spotted their cheese cake, which looked simply yummy. We bought two wedges to take home, along with one wedge of a chocolate cake that Kavya asked [Sneha was at her grandma's place]. We had had the cheese cake the next day after lunch. It was splendid!  |
