Random browsing leads me to..
Hot Abercrombie Chick who is blonde, beautiful and breaks the mould of every stereotype about blonde-beautiful chicks (while I reinforce a few male stereotypes).
While I am on an abercrombie induced high, I stumble upon Lingerie Dreams which is Victoria’s Secret with a commentary. Now I can claim that I was browsing through the site for the commentary. The pictures just happened to be there, I swear.
I don’t know why I am rambling so aimlessly today, but I also want to tell you about the guy who made a request not to post any movie spoilers, and got a barrage of movie spoilers instead. (I didn’t see the final Matrix movie since I was so bummed out by the second one, so I didn’t know that Neo and Trinity both die!)
In today’s interesting news from the technology world… Google bought Keyhole. Keyhole for the uninitiated is a wonderful application which lets you type in an address and then zoom into a color aerial (usually sub-meter resolution) image of that location. You can also do a flyby, so you can actually fly over your city to your target location. The bummer was that the subscription was so expensive. Now that Google has bought it, the subscription should go down (which it has, already), but I expect more interesting applications to come out of it. Maybe Google will now augment its local search with actual aerial imagery of the results. Want to find the local pizza place? Maybe we can now see it on a photograph! Of course, that’s my speculation, but the most awesome thing that can come out of it will be if the maps can be accessed using the Google API so that we can have some cool GPS applications.
Posted by Anil on October 28th, 2004 :: Filed under
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Bloody Finger!
Happy Halloween in advance.
Posted by Anil on October 26th, 2004 :: Filed under
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Diebold spoof
Diebold, maker of secure bank ATMs and grossly insecure voting machines has its touch screen voting machines parodied in this hilarious movie by Boom Chicago. (thanks Avinash)
Posted by Anil on October 25th, 2004 :: Filed under
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12 crores for IIT-Kanpur!
Arun Shourie, sitting member of the Rajya Sabha spent his allocated Rs. 12 crores on setting up a Biological Sciences and Bioengineering Department at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-Kanpur). A swanky new center which boasts an energy-saving building and expert faculty comprising Indians recruited from around the world! The center is already conducting research in DNA sequencing, tissue restructuring (which involves creating artificial human skin), bioinformatics and computational biology. Now that’s money well spent!
Posted by Anil on October 23rd, 2004 :: Filed under
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Mosh with Eminem
Eminem‘s new album Encore has a charged-up song ‘Mosh’ which was ‘leaked’ online this week. Pretty strong song (real : windows media) with some strong lyrics. [source: Boing-Boing]
Some people, like our logically impaired columnist at ASU’s State Press believe that if people oppose certain actions of the President, it is because they are “people whose ideology is based entirely on hatred — of Bush, America, Israel, capitalism, etc“. Reminds me of a certain “If you are not with us, you are with them” comment. Reality check Eric: Opinion is not always in black and white. There are people who love America and Capitalism and freedom and everything else that America stands for, but do not believe in causing death and destruction for reasons that no one understands. It might do you better to justify the actions you support using logical facts, instead of characterizing any opposition by saying that it is borne of hatred.
Posted by Anil on October 23rd, 2004 :: Filed under
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Did we mention faith again?
From a comment on Defective Yeti about the presidential debate:
Personally, I thought the worst part of the debate were all the lame ass questions. How many times were they asked to describe how big their cock for God was? It was like a faith-based penis contest with the “oh I pray 74 times a day, and I’m praying right now, and I’ll pray right after this, and maybe again in the car on the way home” and “faith guides my every move and I don’t take phone calls until the pope says it’s cool.”
Posted by Anil on October 20th, 2004 :: Filed under
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Jon Stewart calls the media’s bluff
Those who are familiar with Jon Stewart’s Daily Show on Comedy Central, the show presents a much better version of news than that presented by mainstream news programs on CNN/Fox/NBC. Even though the show bills itself as a fake news show presented by those who have no credibility to lose. Jon Stewart presents viewers with the absurdity of the way news is presented by media and while presenting his take on the day’s events, he brings out the contradictions and ironies – It’s funny, but sadly it calls your attention to the terrible state of News in America.
On Friday, Jon made an appearance on CNN’s Crossfire, apparently to promote his new book, but instead he took opportunity of the live telecast to dig Carlson and Begala news holes that they will feel the pain of, for a long long time. Stewart said that they were forgetting their roles as journalists and presenting theater instead of news. “How old are you” he asked Carlson. “35″. “And you still wear a bow tie?” Stewart finished by calling Carlson “as big a dick on your show as you are on any show”.
Come on, think about it – News channels are supposed to present news so that we don’t have to dig around for the truth. The average person on the street gets his/her news from the nightly news which does an excellent job in educating Americans about the cat that was rescued on 58th and Broadway, and the 7-11 that was held up in who-cares-where. Real news gets lost somewhere in between. It is ridiculously ironic to see the channels brag about their Jetsons-esque technology when they only use it for stuff that should really reside in the inside pages of a tabloid.
And the truth? The media is so hung up on being ‘balanced’ that if person A says something, they go find person B who can counter that. There is little research into what the truth really is – it is deemed enough to just present two opposing views on everything and let the viewer figure out the truth for themselves. Present any view that you like, but don’t present ‘spins’ as truth! It was really heartening to see Jon call their bluff on their show. Crossfire later called Jon ‘mis-informed’ and a ‘pompous ass’. Jon had the final laugh on his show the week after. “They said I wasn’t being funny. And I said to them, ‘I know that, but tomorrow I will go back to being funny, and your show will still blow.’ “
Oh, and talking about television, I saw a part of Montel while getting out of the house yesterday. The show was about a woman who had trained her Chihuahua to ride a motorbike. Like anyone cares a sparrow’s fart about that.
Way to go Jon, we need more people like you!
Posted by Anil on October 18th, 2004 :: Filed under
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The Bush-Kerry debate at ASU – in pictures
We had a great time this week due to the Bush-Kerry debate on campus. I’ll let the pictures tell the story!
Posted by Anil on October 15th, 2004 :: Filed under
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ASU gears up for the presidential debate
A memorial to the soldiers and civilians on both sides who died in the Iraqi war – at the Student Services building lawns at ASU. Creative and very touching.
I can’t wait to see Jon Stewart’s take on the debate tomorrow. The vice presidential and second presidential debates were deathly boring. Hopefully tomorrow at least one of the presidential candidates will stop mouthing the same lines that we have been hearing for months!
Posted by Anil on October 12th, 2004 :: Filed under
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When NBC writer Andy Blitz needed tech support for fixing his ‘popup’ problem, he found that his calls went to NBC’s call center in India. In this funny clip, he flies to Hyderabad along with his computer and has a rocking good time while answering calls at a helpdesk with ‘Sharon’. Ever notice how the people who pick up the phone have American sounding names? When I called up Dell for support, the girl who picked up the phone gave her name as Alicia. She then asked me very hesitantly if I was from India. Affirmative.
“So what’s *your* name?”
“Alicia”
Ahem.. Alicia.. in New Delhi? Yeah right, and I’m Andy!
“So what’s your *real* name”?
She laughs and says that they are not supposed to use their real names, but they use the same first letter. I reeled off all the sweet names I knew that began with A, but she wouldn’t confirm her name. Whatever. It’s not like I’m gonna get a date from halfway around the world? Ahem.. what was I thinking..
Okay, I digress.. check out this clip from Conan. (Thanks Avinash for pointing me towards this one! [source])
Posted by Anil on October 11th, 2004 :: Filed under
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