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.

Bloody Finger!

Happy Halloween in advance.

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)

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!

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."

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!

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!

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!

You want tech support na..

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])

Do you have a Vote and an Opinion?

It's been a long and tiring week and I have nothing to write. So I'll leave you with a picture of the Gammage auditorium at ASU. I took this picture on one of those rare cloudy days in Tempe. As usual, nature does such a good job in the skies over here that all you need is to frame the image in your camera.

Oh, and by the way, the Gammage Auditorium is where the third and final presidential debate will be held on October 13. Sadly there are only a dozen odd tickets for students, so the debate may as well be held in Mars as far as the students at ASU are concerned. (Not terribly serious though - I'm proud that ASU is hosting the final debate). Enjoy the debate folks, and make a sensible choice after giving it enough thought. This is an election that will be significant not only for Americans, but for people all over the world. Show your opinion!

The Ig Nobel Prizes!

Every year the Ig Nobel prizes are handed out at Harvard Universtity by real Nobel Prize winners to dudes who do research that makes you go "eh? someone really needed to find out THAT?" Among this years esteemed Ig Nobel laureates are Ramesh Subramaniam who publishshed a study on the dynamis of hula-hooping and a couple of guys who published their findings on the effects of country music on suicide. (eh?)

The Vatican got the coveted Ig Nobel in Economics for outsourcing prayers to India. (Who said religion cannot keep up with the times!) Daisuke Inoue, the inventor of Karaoke got the Peace prize for 'providing an entirely new way for people to tolerate each other'. (Ask my roommates who have suffered my singing in the bathroom)

You have to love this guy who won the prize in Chemistry last year for chemically investigating a statue in Japan that failed to attract pigeons.

Also in 2003, the Peace prize was awarded to Lal Bihari from Uttar Pradesh, India for 'leading an active life even though he has been declared legally dead; Second, for waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic inertia and greedy relatives; and Third, for creating the Association of Dead People.'

Before I burst out laughing, I have to mention these two guys. The Interdisciplinary award for a 'comprehensive survey of belly-button lint' and 'estimating the total surface area in Indian Elephants'.