Category: bookmarks

Rediff slideshow of Avenues 2009, the annual B-school festival of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay

Now that's what you call innovative marketing:
'A company at a German trade show has attached tiny banner advertisements to flies and set them loose on unsuspecting visitors, in a bizarre yet effective marketing stunt.'

An article by William Deresiewicz about how universities should exist to make minds, not careers from The American Scholar
Not very different from the way things are shaping up in India

Interesting way to use the unfinished code that's part of Windows 7 to turn a laptop into a wifi hotspot. Wonder whether this will be patched up eventually by microsoft or will they ship their own finished frontend.

I wonder whatever would happen if revenues continue to grow the way they are in the entertainment industry. In fact they seem to be at an all time high. Maybe just kill the internet & wait for things to happen.
Transcript & MP3 available on the site – http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2009/2726710.htm

Kind of like initially mutilating the hand that will feed you in the future:
'Digital Video Recorders, once considered a mortal threat by the entertainment industry, have now become its new best friend.
When the industry meets a new technology, it panics and fights it tooth-and-nail. Eventually, the industry loses this fight, often squashing innovation or arbitrarily singling out a few citizens for punishment along the way. Finally, the same technology ends up benefiting the same short-sighted industry — but rather than learn their lesson, the same corporations are usually busy repeating the same cycle all over again with something else. It happened with the VCR, the audio cassette, and even the turntable.'

Advertisement for copyright services from 1906. Guess some things are timeless.

Read Batul the Great comics online

Summary of the findings of the study conducted by CRIA in 2005-06 regarding music piracy & P2P

An older study from 2005-06 conducted by the CRIA similar to the one conducted in UK recently.
'Three out of four P2P users admitted to purchasing music after downloading it online, with 21 percent of P2P users saying that they have bought tracks they have also downloaded on more than 10 occasions. 25 percent admitted to purchasing previously-downloaded tracks only once or twice, while an additional 27 percent claimed to have done it less than 10 times, but more than twice. The end result is clear: people are buying music after downloading it on P2P, meaning that the industry has failed to recognize the marketing-like effects of P2P. Just as important, this should caution the industry against assessing each and every download to a "loss" to piracy, since the statistics clearly show that those engaging in P2P do buy music in not-insignificant numbers.'

People who illegally download music from the internet also spend more money on music than anyone else, according to a new study. The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of £77 a year on music – £33 more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.

The survey was conducted over the Internet, and this particular question relies on notoriously inaccurate consumer recall, so it's hard to know just how seriously to take the results. It does fit with past research, like that commissioned by the Canadian government which found a strong correlation between downloading songs from P2P networks and buying more CDs. But even that research found no such correlation between downloading and purchasing music online.

It's called a spoiler tactic. You take your competitor's biggest cash cow and offer a free alternative. Everybody from Linux to Google has used the tactic against Microsoft. So who can fault Microsoft when it uses it against Google's advertising cash cow? The guys who benefit from this tactic today are the good folks at OpenX, the open-source alternative to ad servers from Google such as DoubleClick (for big publishers) and AdManager (for small publishers).

Points from the book:
Steve Jobs does not sell computers; he sells an experience. The same holds true for his presentations that are meant to inform, educate, and entertain. An Apple presentation has all the elements of a great theatrical production—a great script, heroes and villains, stage props, breathtaking visuals, and one moment that makes the price of admission well worth it.
The 5 elements:
1. A headline
2. A villain
3. A simple slide
4. A demo
5. A holy smokes moment
One more thing…sell dreams

A variety of movies & cartoons that have entered the public domain. Can be viewed on site or downloaded. Interestingly this is one of the sites that makes use of the <video> tag of html5.
'This library contains thousands of digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download.'

'Kuler is a web-based color tool from Adobe that has thousands of community-generated color themes from which you can search, but the best thing about Kuler is that you can easily make your own themes. Once you register with Kuler (it's very quick), you can begin to create your own color themes or palettes and store, view, and retrieve all your saved themes in your personal Mykuler space. There are two ways to create unique color themes: either by selecting a single color on the color wheel as your base color and building off of that, or by importing an image from Flickr or your hard disk and extracting harmonious combinations from the image.'

Options ranging from basic desktop clients to online ones

Vocaloid is a singing synthesizer application software developed by the Yamaha Corporation that enables users to synthesize singing by typing in lyrics and melody.
More info on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid
Sample youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqdB0yspQVA

The inspiration behind HAL singing the "Daisy" song in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

An novel way of visually depicting movie narrations. Includes Star Wars (Original trilogy), LOTR, Jurassic Park & 12 Angry men

The different strategies adopted by agencies to leverage upon facebook's popularity & make money.

In case you had any doubts as to what weapons were used in a movie (or even video game), this is the site to find answers. Moreover, since it's a wiki, you can easily contribute too. It also has some Indian actors in the list.

Quite a wide variety of top 10 lists available on site. All made by users of course.

To scam & make money or not to scam & fall back… That is the question. A must read for all fans of Mafia wars & Farmville on facebook:
'In short, these games try to get people to pay cash for in game currency so they can level up faster and have a better overall experience. Which is fine. But for users who won't pay cash, a wide variety of "offers" are available where they can get in-game currency in exchange for lead gen-type offers. Most of these offers are bad for consumers because it confusingly gets them to pay far more for in-game currency than if they just paid cash (there are notable exceptions, but the scammy stuff tends to crowd out the legitimate offers). And it's also bad for legitimate advertisers.'

So how can the music industry seek to capitalize on the potential customers rather than trying to put them behind bars?
'A new British independent poll conducted by Ipsos Mori concluded that the people who do the most illegal downloading also buy the most music. This is in line with many other studies elsewhere and is easy to understand: people who are music superfans do more of everything to do with music: they see more live shows, listen to more radio, buy more CDs, buy more botlegs of live shows, buy more t-shirts, talk about music more, do more downloading — all of it.'

Interesting round of comparisons between warriors across the world. Kind of reminds you of the special units in Age of Empires with Samurai, Vikings & all.

So much for thick skinned politicians. A critical 3 year old blog leads to a series of resignations forcing a new election.

Interesting way to tie it up.
'…Yes, go ahead and pinch yourself: this is unit testing described in 1986 by the Feynman we know and love. Not only unit testing, but 'step by step increase' in scope and 'adversarial testing attitude'. It's common to hear we suck at software because it's a "young discipline", as if the knowledge to do right has not yet been attained. Bollocks! We suck because we constantly ignore well-established, well-known, empirically proven practices. In this regard management is also to blame, especially when it comes to dysfunctional schedules, wrong incentives, poor hiring, and demoralizing policies.
…
With respect to software, I take out four main points:
* Engineering can only be as good as its relationship with management
* Big design up front is foolish
* Software has much in common with other engineering disciplines
* Reliable systems are built by rigorously tested, incremental bottom-up engineering with an ‘attitude of highest quality’

Possible solution for multiple proxy authentication prompts in Firefox. The thread is for version 1, but seems to work in 3.5 too. So should work in earlier versions 2 & 3
In about:config, set:
network.automatic-ntlm-auth.allow-proxies=false
network.proxy.share_proxy_settings=false

If you thought VLC was only for playing back content, think again.
'Cross-platform media player VLC is often referred to as the "Swiss Army knife of media applications" for good reason: Not only does VLC play nearly any file you throw at it (you even voted it the best desktop media player), but it can do so much more. From ripping DVDs to converting files to iPod-friendly formats, let's take a look at the four coolest things you can do with VLC and start you on your way to becoming a VLC ninja.'

Includes SUPER, FormatFactory, MediaCoder, Handbrake & FFmpeg
SUPER is pretty feature rich, but the interface is a total mess without much help. Their website is not much better either with the download link being really hard to find. Easier to find it on filehippo – http://www.filehippo.com/download_super/
Handbrake is kinda slow at conversions, but has a nice interface.
I've also used Any Video Converter that uses the mplayer engine for conversions – http://www.any-video-converter.com/

Computers might struggle to exhibit intelligent behaviour, but blindly performing arithmetic calculations is surely their forte. Or is it?
The calculation of where to look for confirmation of an incoming missile requires knowledge of the system time, which is stored as the number of 0.1-second ticks since the system was started up. Unfortunately, 0.1 seconds cannot be expressed accurately as a binary number, so when it's shoehorned into a 24-bit register — as used in the Patriot system — it's out by a tiny amount. But all these tiny amounts add up. At the time of the missile attack, the system had been running for about 100 hours, or 3,600,000 ticks to be more specific. Multiplying this count by the tiny error led to a total error of 0.3433 seconds, during which time the Scud missile would cover 687m. The radar looked in the wrong place to receive a confirmation and saw no target. Accordingly no missile was launched to intercept the incoming Scud — and 28 people paid with their lives.

On July 22, 1941, a young girl watches from the window of her parent's apartment as her neighbors – he in a top hat, she clutching a bouquet – leave for their honeymoon. The video was shot, of course, to capture a special moment in the lives of the neighbors. But it is significant now because of that little girl – Anne Frank, about a year before her family went into hiding.

Common themes emerged. Some job candidates answer cell phones during interviews. A surprising number ask the interviewer out on a date. A few too many fall asleep midinterview. Several are so nervous or unprepared that they forget the company name, the position they are applying for, or the interviewer's name.

Quote: 'I don't believe I can really do without teaching. The reason is, I have to have something so that when I don't have any ideas and I'm not getting anywhere I can say to myself, "At least I'm living; at least I'm doing something; I am making some contribution" — it's just psychological.'

Creative pepole really do produce arts out of anything… These are all made from packages of daily commodities.They are called Package Craft and created by Mr. Kazuma TAKAHASHI.

All of the tools in the world won't beat the chemistry and aligned motivation that come from creative win/win deal-making. The tools are like a hammer for a carpenter. You have to have them, but carpenters are not defined by their tools. However, something substantively different is happening online at the tool level, thanks to social media.
A good carpenter with a power drill will beat a good carpenter using muscle alone. A bad carpenter with a power drill is, of course, just a dangerous maniac! But we don't really have the equivalent of a power drill yet. We can see bits of it, but it is like having a drill, motor and battery that no one has put together. The pieces that make up this hustler's power drill are: email + CRM + LinkedIn + Twitter.

Tracing origins of quotes ranging from: "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." to "In English law, everything is permissible that is not expressly forbidden. In Prussian law, everything is forbidden that is not expressly permitted."

Handy career advice from Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert:
"If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:
1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things."

A commentary on the social experiment conducted by Washington Post.
"…the young man finally started playing his violin. He was quite good … He played continuously for 45 minutes and during that time few, pitifully few people actually stopped and payed attention to the stranger. Some not sure of what they should do gave him some coins and walked away in a hurry.
After playing a total of 6 musical pieces, he paused and looked at his money case. Inside there was a small pile: All he had made was 32$. He picked up his pride, packed his violin and with a quick gait, he exited the L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station.
He then did something bizarre: He took a cab.
The real reason behind his decision to spent his money like that, was his violin's price-tag: A staggering 3.5 million dollars. … Joshua Bell is one of the finest classical musicians on this planet and to get a seat at one of his violin concerts, would cost you at least 100$ given that your seat was in the back of the concert hall."

An interesting social experiment. How many people do you think recognize true talent in the mad rush of our lives? Not many it seems as one of the top violin players found out a couple of years back. Not to forget that he played a $3.5 million violin to make $32 in 45 minutes.
"No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities — as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"

Bogus copyright and trademark complaints have threatened all kinds of creative expression on the Internet. EFF's Hall Of Shame collects the worst of the worst.

A handy way to order food online. I guess it was only a matter of time before someone did it in India. Only Ahmedabad & Mumbai at present. Gotta try it out some time. Description:
"Started by 3 IIM students, the site features number of restaurants and allows you to place orders online. It has an intuitive user interface that makes ordering a breeze and a search engine that helps you quickly find your favourite dishes.
Subway, Shaolin, Gary's Menu, Mings, Food Planet are some of the restaurants that now deliver to your door step."

Some simple tips to revive yourself ranging from plain deep breathing to going outside.
"Recent research confirms what world travelers and adult-education addicts already know: New experiences give you a rush."

Quite a few useful links given in the article.
"The future of music over the next ten years depends on finding the right mix between “free” and “paid,” luring fans away from file sharing networks by offering them services that are faster, easier, and more convenient without asking them to subsidize the industry’s return to CD era profits."

A useful list of advantages & disadvantages along with some basic description of DSLRs.

Now this is a way to publicise a wedding, with a poster, trailer et al. And don't forget the multi-layered, multi-flavoured cake either.

geek.menu is a fork of the portableApps.com menu system. It has many enhanced features (a complete list is available here such as support for:
* truecrypt
* categories
* custom buttons
* multi wallpaper switching
* auto-executing apps on start
* ejection scripts
* special behavior for authorized PCs
* local/www searchbar
via http://lifehacker.com/5389421/five-best-portable-apps-suites

Gorgeous! Fire breathing videos captured in 1000+ fps for viewing in super slow motion. Currently only low res version is present. via http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/25/super-slomo-fire-bre.html

Lupo PenSuite is a completely free suite of portable programs and games. This Suite is designed to simplify the user's life, by collecting the best suites and portable applications available on the Web.
Optimized to be loaded on a USB flash drive and brought always with you, this Suite works perfectly well on any other device. It includes over 200 highly selected portable programs and games (7-Zip, Audacity, CCleaner, eMule, FileZilla, Firefox, Foxit Reader, GIMP, IrfanView, Notepad++, Opera, Pidgin, Thunderbird, µTorrent, VLC and many more).

A handy open source file renaming utility

A handy portable applications suite – includes multimedia, disk management, internet, productivity, security & utility software. Perfect fit for a thumb drive. Comes in 3 flavours ranging from a 56 MB setup to 186 MB.

Crowdsourcing at its best! What happens when you let loose crazy Star Wars fans on a remake project of the movie? You get a ton of 15 second clips that get put together to recreate the original. It's a work in progress though.

What happens when X-men meets peanuts or He-man meets Garfield. A really interesting & innovative take on comics.

A couple of workarounds for the high CPU usage in the Online Armor firewall. The first solution seems to work for me. Hope they fix it some time. Hopefully it's not the second case with the nvidia drivers for me.