masala: the international spice
Flavor your world with masala


Thursday, January 27
 
Virtual Go Eagles


Click to Play (allow popups)


or

Make your own character


Monday, January 24
 



Social Networking Sites: Reloaded | article

Tidbits:
  • MySpace has become more popular than Friendster
  • .
  • A lead venture capitalist for Friendster says Friendster will
    become profitable "within 90 days", but doesn't reveal how.


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* Nail embedded in man's skull for 6 days - he started having toothaches
*
How Iraq war affecting American Brands in Europe (graph)-
AOL, Exxon, McDs, AmEx, Barbie, Bud most hated
Amazon, Kleenex, Kraft, Visa, Gillette still loved
*
Recent Spate of Lansdale Bank Robberies - five banks since Nov.29, one suspect
*
PHP Fastest Growing Programming Language of 2004 -
Most popular overall: C, Java, C++, PHP, VB, Perl, SQL
*
The Long Tail - small volume, many titles, cheap advertising = more profits.
*
aacPlus will replace MP3 - it takes up less bandwidth and sounds better



Friday, January 21
 


Tuesday, January 18
 


Nutanfua



Indians Reach Out to Help Homeland After Tsunami | article
Dr. Nutan Parikh, president of the local Indian group The Friends of India, has both family and friends who live in western India. In the days after the quake struck, Dr. Parikh said he and other Las Vegans with ties to India were consumed by worries about loved ones.

"We really didn't know the extent of this until the day after," Dr. Parikh said. "We found ourselves wanting desperately to find out how friends and family are, and what we could do to get in touch with them. Many of the phone lines were dead."

While he fortunately learned none of his friends were seriously injured, others were not as lucky. The Friends of India has been meeting for the past month, trying to come up with the best way to help the relief effort. The group started with fund-raisers within the Indian community that have netted $50,000, and now the organization is branching out its fund-raising efforts to the rest of Las Vegas.


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* Random Googleable webcams
*
Airtran Pilot Shows up for Work Drunk and Armed
*
Report says train fire that caused 2002 Gujarat riots was accident
*
Scientific Truth in Product Labels
PUBLIC NOTICE AS REQUIRED BY LAW: Any Use of This Product, in Any Manner Whatsoever, Will Increase the Amount of Disorder in the Universe. Although No Liability Is Implied Herein, the Consumer Is Warned That This Process Will Ultimately Lead to the Heat Death of the Universe.
*
World Bank grants $1 billion for Mumbai projects
*
Carbon and nanotech create way to cheaply see in the dark
*
More twentysomethings living at home - 56% of 18-24-yr olds; 25% of 24-yr olds; 20% of 26-yr olds
*
JavaScript: The World's Most Misunderstood Programming Language



Monday, January 17
 
Comics, updated daily:
(Props to Rushabh for the hosting space and help with the code)



Friday, January 14
 


Gizmodo also posted some oddly
disturbing pics of a young Gates.


Gizmodo interviewed Bill Gates and posted the interview on his blog in four segments: blogs and RSS, Microsoft's vision, XBox 2, and digital rights management.

I liked how the interview ended:

Gizmodo: I think we just disagree.
Gates: No, I actually don't think we disagree.

Gizmodo was arguing that the Microsoft DRM, which limits the how often a file can be copied, shouldn't be placed on purchased music. Gates said the DRM was just a piece of software and that anyone (from doctors to musicians) could use it to protect their information.

Unfortunately, it seems the DRM can't protect another group - its users.


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Unrelated posts:



* Stomper - The Oakland A's have an elephant mascot? Who knew?

* Playoff theories: Mythbusters
*
100 things we didn't know this time last year
Lasagna has replaced chicken tikka masala as the favourite dish of Britons.
*
Kobe's dad, aged 50, attempting basketball comeback
*
NASA to Launch Comet-Busting Spacecraft
* DiscHub: Store CDs without the case - Stanford Product Design project
*
The birth of synthetic biology
--------------
PHP Resources
PHP Tutorial


Thursday, January 13
 


Harry Potter Car Doesn't Take Off | article
Custom made car gets only 1 bid on eBay, but 65,000
stop by to take a look.

-----------------------------------

Unrelated Links
:

*
Blink vs. The Wisdom of Crowds - the authors debate their books
*
Call center monitoring - A growing profession, filled with intrigue
*
Geri's Game - Geri plays chess in this Oscar-winning Pixar production
*
Getting stuck in the game -
"I'd play it, then walk out into the office corridor and realize I was

looking at my co-workers as potential targets. I was so used to killing
anything that moved."
*
25 foot rock falls on LA road (photo)
*
Large flat TV screens that can roll into small pens
*
Tsunami survivor picked up after 15 days at sea
*
Verizon blocking all e-mail from Europe because it's spammy
"If it's really important you might want to make a phone call"
says Verizon media relations manager Ells Edwards



Tuesday, January 11
 


Carbon cures cancerous clams


Burnt Toast for Drunk, Clams
Not only can burnt toast sober up the hung over, it can also cure cancer in clams.

Said environmental engineering professor Dick Luthy:
"They’ve known for a long time that an antidote for certain kinds of poisoning is to give activated carbon. You sorb up [the poison] with the carbon and it passes through the gut and is eliminated. And if you don’t have activated carbon, in a pinch you can use burnt toast.”

Why cure clams? The cancer-causing PCBs don't kill the clams, but do impact things higher in the food chain (ie people, or sharks).


---------------------------------------------------------

Unrelated Links:
* The lack of trust between Wikipedia and academia - written by Wikipedia's co-founder
* 27 percent of Americans support federal registeration of all Muslim Americans -
44 percent favor some restrictions on their civil liberties.
*
Eyesore of the Month - at Harvard's Business School
*
Rap Artists' Real Names
*
Original Google prototype proposal, submitted 1998
*
Top Indian Outsourcing Sites - Chennai and Hyderbad will pass Mumbai and Bangalore by 2010
*
Blair, Labour Party stronger than ever


Monday, January 10
 
I'm copying the Kottke format for this post - a number of links followed by a regular post.

* Stanford B-School woos India Inc
*
Married, armed and dangerous - a couple in Mumbai started an air rifle school
*
Deer causes crash - on the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike
*
Furore over Mumbai slum demolition drive - 200,000 left without shelter
*
Waiting for a TV Technology to Inherit the Future - different standards fighting for control of the television market
*
Columbia House Plans Porn Club - called "Hush"
* Blink excerpts - from the new book by the author of Tipping Point

* Starbucks drinks explained

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Is Favre Done?
Four picks against a Vikings defense that had 11 interceptions all year, two straight playoff losses in Lambeau, and he's looking older by the game. Maybe Favre should go into politics. Or acting..

The Eagles and Falcons should make the NFC Championship Game easily, each facing off against a mediocre team that struggled to go 8-8 in the regular season. The Pats and the Colts on the other hand will fight to the death in Foxboro. My pick is the Colts - the Pats have dominated the rivalry so far, but their banged up defense goes against a Colt offense coming off a record-setting year.




Saturday, January 8
 



Practice? | Listen
I took the "Practice" rant by Allen Iverson and set it to a backbeat back in 2002. My crowning achievement in mixing audio, alongside the "Weed and Coke Intro".



Friday, January 7
 



Kobe's Jersey Drops Out of Top 50 in December | article

In June, during the rape trial, three Bryant jerseys were in the top 5 in terms of units sold.

Industry insiders say that while fans may have been willing to look the other way during the rape scandal, they seem far less willing to forgive him now for what they see as the breakup of a championship team.

Seven of the top ten best selling jerseys in December were either LeBron James or Carmelo Anthony jerseys.



Thursday, January 6
 



The Washington Post has an article on my favorite actor, Don Cheadle, who I've seen in Picket Fences, Traffic, and Ocean's Eleven. His newest movie, Hotel Rwanda, is about how one hotel owner saved over 1,000 refugees from being massacred during the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s.

From the article:
Cheadle felt so strongly about the story that, when director Terry George approached him to play the role, he didn't take offense at George's caveat: If Denzel or Will Smith showed interest, then all bets were off. George would have to go with the A-list, the better to obtain funding. After all, movies about massacres in central Africa aren't generally considered a box office bonanza.

Yes, of course, Cheadle told him, in an anecdote that has become part of the press junket lore. "I thought getting [the movie] made would trump me being in it," Cheadle says.

Don Cheadle, a Star But Still in Character



Tuesday, January 4
 



Immigrants Outlive U.S.-Born Residents | article

Immigrants who come to the United States live an average of three years longer than people born here. The life span difference reflects both immigrants’ innate vitality and their reluctance to embrace Americans’ drive-thru, drive-everywhere mentality.

Immigrants outlive the U.S.-born population even though they’re more likely to be poor and less likely to see a doctor.