Really like this photo. Took this a few months ago on my cell phone camera. Just felt like sharing it. Have a few more but need permission for those before I post them 😉
– Suramya
November 22, 2006
Dirty Car Art
All the best art is dirty: Where a normal person sees a dusty windshield, Scott Wade sees a canvas. This guy is good. Check out the paintings he makes on a dusty windshield. Below is an example of his art. This one took him about an hour to paint in three sessions.
Dogs playing poker
Check it out: Dirty Car Art
– Suramya
November 20, 2006
Megapixels: When more isn’t necessarily better
A good article about how to choose a good digital camera. It talks about how people mistake higher megapixel camera’s to be better cameras.
I have actually seen this personally with photos I have taken. At Gaurang’s engagement the photos I took with my 1.3 Mega-pixel camera looked better than the ones taken with a 4 megapixel camera. The pics from the 4 megapixel camera looked blocky and the indoor photos were the worst. They pretty much looked like they were taken with a 4 year old camera. The sad part was that I used that camera more than mine as I thought that it would give me better pics.
Right now I have a Sony Cybershot and I don’t see a lot of difference between a 3 mega pixel shot and a 5 mega pixel shot. Oh, I know the 5 mega pixel has some more details and even when I crop out a particular portion of the photo I still get a good resolution on that portion.
Check it out over here: The myth of maximum megapixels
Thanks,
Suramya
November 17, 2006
Casino Royale: A must watch movie
Ok first a disclaimer, I am not a very big James Bond fan. I mean I liked the latest movies but I wouldn’t go back to watch the old ones over and over again. I loved the books though, Ian Fleming is one hell of a writer. This movie is based on his book by the same name which was the first James Bond book.
Me, Vinit, Surabhi, Pranav, Aarti, Tintisha and Jessica went for the first day first show today morning at 12:01 am. It was worth the time and effort. For some reason the theater for not that crowded as what I had expected (It was only half full) But I guess it could be because it was a Thursday night. We sat all the way up in the top and really enjoyed the show.
The best part about the movie was that is is completely different from the usual bond movies where Bond is this smooth character with all the cool gadgets that let him perform the most impossible mission with style. The Bond in this movie is a little rough on the edges and there are no cool gadgets involved (Q is not even shown/mentioned). He is a darker and more emotional character.
The movie started off with James Bond getting his 00 status by making his two kills, (which was a great way to start the movie) and then continued to build up on that great start. I loved the chase scene in the first 10 mins of the movie. The movie has some great action scenes and the casino scenes were really well directed. The movie kept true to the book for the most part with a few minor changes, but to tell what was changed would spoil the movie so I suggest you go watch it yourself. If you haven’t read the book and are not planning to you can get an idea of its plot over here
I didn’t like the movie theme song though, I think it was pathetic (I really liked the Golden Eye theme song).
Once the movie was over, we (Me, Vinit, Surabhi, Pranav, Aarti and Tintisha) went for a late night snack to some diner. The food there was awesome. We were there till almost 5 am. Got home at 5:30 am, went to bed at 6:00 am and woke up at 7:45 am. So a bit tired and sleepy
but it was worth it. Below is a photo that I took at the diner of all of us:
Group Photo at the Diner
Well this is all for now. Will post more later.
– Suramya
November 16, 2006
Jangl – Call someone without without exchanging numbers
Here’s an interesting concept, using jangl you can call someone using a regular phone without having their actual phone number and they can call you back without having your actual number.
The way it works is that you goto the website and sign up for a Jangl ID and you give them your phone number. Once you finish the registration you can give your ID to any one you are interested in calling.
Once they have your ID they will have to visit the site and create an account by giving their phone number. Once they do that they will get a unique 10 digit phone number that either one of us can call to get connected to the other person.
I tired it using my cell phone and black berry and it worked pretty nicely. One of the useful features is that it forces the called to identify themselves with a brief message and that message is played to the other party and they can choose to accept or reject the call.
I think it will be of good use in the bar scene or using to communicate with people when using online dating services (Match.com uses this service).
The only down side is that you have to use a website to register and get a number. They should allow users to register using SMS etc. That would make it a lot more popular/easy to use.
Check it out.
– Suramya
November 15, 2006
November 14, 2006
OpenStreetMap: Creating a free map of the planet
This is a really interesting idea. It uses the power of open source/wiki/group efforts to create a free map of the planet. Now you might ask why do we need a free map of the world? Can’t we just use Google Maps or Yahoo Maps to get a map? After all they don’t charge us for access…
Well yes and no. In the open source world there are two kinds of free: “free as in beer” and “free as in speech”. Google Maps are free as in beer, not as in speech.
Basically since Google has to pay for the mapping data it can’t make it available for free. So even though I can access it for free online and get directions I can’t export the map data and create a map to be used on a GPS from it. That would violate Google’s copyright. You can’t copy it to your local system and fix a street name that they got wrong or add new items to the map.
To fix this issue OpenStreetMap was born. It uses GPS coordinates fed to it by users to a Wiki like system and allows users to fill in information like street names etc. Which gives us surprisingly accurate and upto date data as whenever anything changes (e.g. a new street is added) anyone can edit the map and make the changes.
Check it out here: OpenStreetMap.
I think I will be using my GPS on my trips from now on and upload the tracking data collected to the site.
Thanks to TechRepublic for the link.
– Suramya
Post that made me laugh…
This blog post made me laugh… Its by Maritza Campos who is the creator of College Rommies from Hell. She was complaining about getting old:
Anyway, yesterday was my birthday. I’m so OLD. 30 years is so old.
Yesterday hubby told me Bah, you don’t look a day over 22.
And I told him WHAT? I used to not look a day over 12!!!
– Suramya
November 13, 2006
November 9, 2006
Thinkature – Real-time collaboration for the web
I like the concept of realtime collaboration over the web and I have used a couple of tools for this earlier but didn’t find any that I really liked. Until now. I really like Thinkature as its pretty easy to use and intuitive.
Thinkature has a couple of features that I really like:
- Its free. (Duh..)
- It doesn’t use Flash. (I am not a fan of flash, I know it lets you do stuff that you couldn’t do without it but I still don’t like it.)
- The interface is simple and clutter free.
The parts I am not a big fan of are:
- Its a visual collaborative tool, You cant use it to collaborate on coding or development. Though you can use it for designing presentations and flow charts.
- There doesn’t seem to be any official privacy policy (That I could find…) on the site. Who owns the content I create on the site? Do I still maintain ownership?
I have emailed their support about it, lets see what they say,
- They don’t have any export/import feature (Though it looks like they are working on it.)
Over all a good tool. Check it out over here: Thinkature – Real-time collaboration for the web
Thanks to OpenDotDotDot for the link.
– Suramya