Software's real bugs!

History's Worst Software Bugs from wired.com

My fav...

"With that recall, the Prius joined the ranks of the buggy computer -- a club that began in 1947 when engineers found a moth in Panel F, Relay #70 of the Harvard Mark 1 system. The computer was running a test of its multiplier and adder when the engineers noticed something was wrong. The moth was trapped, removed and taped into the computer's logbook with the words: "first actual case of a bug being found.""

However, there is a list of software bugs as we know of it today.

I did not know such a thing existed

The Literary Darwinists from NYTimes

"Jane Austen first published "Pride and Prejudice" in 1813. She had misgivings about the book, complaining in a letter to her sister that it was "rather too light, and bright, and sparkling." But these qualities may be what make it the most popular of her novels. It tells the story of Elizabeth Bennet, a young woman from a shabby genteel family, who meets Mr. Darcy, an aristocrat. At first, the two dislike each other. Mr. Darcy is arrogant; Elizabeth, clever and cutting. But through a series of encounters that show one to the other in a more appealing light - as well as Mr. Darcy's intervention when an officer named Wickham runs away with Elizabeth's younger sister Lydia (Darcy bribes the cad to marry Lydia) - Elizabeth and Darcy come to love each other, to marry and, it is strongly suggested at book's end, to live happily ever after.
For the common reader, "Pride and Prejudice" is a romantic comedy. His or her pleasure comes from the vividness of Austen's characters and how familiar they still seem: it's as if we know Elizabeth and Darcy. On a more literary level, we enjoy Austen's pointed dialogue and admire her expert way with humor. For similar reasons, critics have long called "Pride and Prejudic" a classic - their ultimate (if not well defined) expression of approval.
But for an emerging school of literary criticism known as Literary Darwinism, the novel is significant for different reasons. Just as Charles Darwin studied animals to discover the patterns behind their development, Literary Darwinists read books in search of innate patterns of human behavior: child bearing and rearing, efforts to acquire resources (money, property, influence) and competition and cooperation within families and communities. They say that it's impossible to fully appreciate and understand a literary text unless you keep in mind that humans behave in certain universal ways and do so because those behaviors are hard-wired into us. For them, the most effective and truest works of literature are those that reference or exemplify these basic facts.
From the first words of the first chapter ("It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife") to the first words of the last ("Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters"), the novel is stocked with the sort of life's-passage moments that resonate with meaning for Literary Darwinists. (One calls the novel their "fruit fly.") The women in the book mostly compete to marry high-status men, consistent with the Darwinian idea that females try to find mates whose status will assure the success of their offspring. At the same time, the men are typically competing to marry the most attractive women, consistent with the Darwinian idea that males look for youth and beauty in females as signs of reproductive fitness. Darcy and Elizabeth's flips and flops illustrate the effort mammals put into distinguishing between short-term appeal (a pert step, a handsome coxcomb) and long-term appropriateness (stability, commitment, wealth, underlying good health). Meanwhile, Wickham - the penniless officer who tries to make off first with Darcy's sister and then carries off Lydia - serves as an example of the mating behavior evolutionary biologists call (I'm using a milder euphemism than they do) "the sneaky fornicator theory.""

A different scrutiny on one of the books I really like. I wouldn't think of it this way!!!!!!! The entire atricle is rather long but good read.

Blog regulations

Most blogs are terrible [from The Examined Life] [via IndiaUncut]

This is a write up on blogging (good and bad) and how will regulating blogs will effect.

Fuel alternative

World's next fuel source could be designer organisms from CNET

"J. Craig Venter, who gained worldwide fame in 2000 when he mapped the human genetic code, is behind a new start-up called Synthetic Genomics, which plans to create new types of organisms that, ideally, would produce hydrogen, secrete nonpolluting heating oil or be able to break down greenhouse gases.
The initial focus will be on creating "biofactories" for hydrogen and ethanol, two fuels seen as playing an increasing role in powering cars in the future. Hydrogen also holds promise for heating homes and putting juice into electronic devices. "

:) more on ID and evolution case

In Intelligent Design Case, a Cause in Search of a Lawsuit from NYTimes

Closing Arguments Made in Trial on Intelligent Design from NYTimes

Husband & Wife

From Vishnu Bhagavata
Husband and Wife must be souls like twin flames illuminating all about them.It is not a question of equality between them but of identity.

She is language; he is thought
She is prudence; he is law
He is reason; she is sense
She is duty; he is right
He is author; she is work
He is patience; she is peace
He is will; she is wish
He is pity; she is gift
He is song; she is note
She is fuel; he is fire
She is glory; he is sun
She is motion; he is wind
He is owner; she is wealth
He is battle; she is might
He is lamp; she is light
He is day; she is night
He is justice; she is pity
He is channel; she is river
She is beauty; he is strength
She is body; he is soul

Take a guess before you click!

My favourite Microsoft product [from IndiaUncut]

quote

You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.
-- Pearl Buck

Finally a home seires win after a long time !!!!!

7-0 will sound good too :)

This is pathetic!!!

In pictures: Force Fed from BBC

"Souadou’s fingers are often clamped between two sticks, a frequently-used instrument of torture.
This, her grandmother explains, will stem her urge to vomit by distracting her with some local pain.
Officially, force-feeding is said to have disappeared after government health campaigns pronounced it wrong, but the message has yet to reach some remote areas of Mauritania."
...
"Some young women affected suffer from conditions such as early diabetes, heart disease, gallstones and arthritis, which may immobilise and eventually kill them.
The obsession of some Mauritanians with female obesity is continuing to cripple a small but extremely vulnerable sector of its society."

Another thought... why are women in most societies treated as a object to represent something, it can be wealth, honor, anything?

Intresting non-techinical readup on Gravity etc.

On Gravity, Oreos and a Theory of Everything from NYTimes

Translations of Hindi song lyrics

Not bad translations.... from http://www.bollywhat.com/lyrics/swad_lyr.html


yeh jo des hai tera swades hai tera
this country of yours is your motherland
tujhe hai pukaara
and is calling out to you
yeh woh ba.ndhan hai jo kabhi TuuT nahii.n sakta
this is a bond which can never break
miTTii kii hai jo khushbuu tuu kaise bhulaayega
how can you forget the scent of your earth
tuu chaahe kahii.n jaaye tuu lautke aayega
you can go anywhere but you'll always come back
nayii nayii raaho.n me.n dabii dabii aaho.n me.n
in new paths, in every sigh
khoye khoye dil se tere
to your lost heart
koii yeh kahega
someone will say
yeh jo des hai tera swades hai tera
this land of yours is your motherland
tujhse zi.ndagii hai yeh kah rahii
life is telling you
sab to paa liya ab hai kya kamii
you have achieved everything now what's left
yuu.n to saare sukh hai barse
looks like hapiness has been showered on you
par duur tuu hai apne ghar se
but you're far from your home
haa.n laut chal tuu ab deewane
now come back oh crazy one
jahaa.n koii to tujhe apna maane
where at least someone will call you their own
aawaaz de tujhe bulaaye
and will call out to you
vahii des
that very same country
yeh jo des hai tera....
this land that is yours.....
yeh pal hai vahii jisme.n hai chhupii
this moment has hidden in it
puurii ek sadii saarii zi.ndagii
a whole century of life
tuu na puuchh raaste me.n kahe
don't ask why in the road
aaye hain is tarah do raahe.n
has come a fork with two ways
tuu hi to hai raah sujhaaye
you are the one who should choose the path
tuu hii to hai ab jo yeh bataaye
you should choose
jaaye to kis disha me.n jaaye
which direction to take
vahii des
this very country
yeh jo des hai tera....
this land that is yours....

quotes

Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.
-- Agatha Christie

It isn't what you have, or who you are, or whereyou are,
or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.
It is what you think about.
-- Dale Carnegie

Happy Diwali

Wishing Everyone A Very Happy Diwali.

Hope the new year brings lots of happiness, love and laughter to you!!!

100 Years of Relativity -- Sir Albert Einstein

Einstein's Legacy -- Where are the "Einsteinians?" from Logos Journal [via ALDaily]
An excellent write up on Einstein. There is another article on him regarding the situtaion of Nazi Germany and him being a Jew. That is a good read too.

"For more than two centuries after Newton published his theories of space, time, and motion in 1687, most physicists were Newtonians. They believed, as Newton did, that space and time are absolute, that force causes acceleration, and that gravity is a force conveyed across a vacuum at a distance. Since Darwin there are few professional biologists who are not Darwinians, and if most psychologists no longer often call themselves Freudians, few doubt that there is an unconscious or that sexuality plays a big role in it. So as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s great discoveries, the question arises: How many professional physicists are Einsteinians?"
...
"After 1930, virtually all of Einstein’s colleagues were certain the revolution was over and that physics was nearly complete. Nearly alone in his stance, Einstein saw the quantum as only a stepping stone to the real thing, which he searched for the rest of his life. Quantum theory was not the only theory that bothered Einstein. Few people have appreciated how dissatisfied he was with his own theories of relativity. Special relativity grew out of Einstein’s insight that the laws of electromagnetism cannot depend on relative motion and that the speed of light therefore must be always the same, no matter how the source or the observer moves. Among the consequences of that theory are that energy and mass are equivalent (the now-legendary relationship E = mc2) and that time and distance are relative, not absolute. Special relativity was the result of 10 years of intellectual struggle, yet Einstein had convinced himself it was wrong within two years of publishing it. He rejected his theory, even before most physicists had come to accept it, for reasons that only he cared about. For another 10 years, as the world of physics slowly absorbed special relativity, Einstein pursued a lonely path away from it. "
...
(It took us hundred years to catch up to him)
"One way to understand this story is to say that theoretical physics has finally caught up to Einstein. While he was shunned in his Princeton years as he pursued the unified field theory, the Institute for Advanced Study where he worked is now filled with theorists who search for new variants of unified field theories. It is indeed a vindication of sorts for Einstein because much of what today’s string theorists do in practice is play with unified theories of the kinds that Einstein and his few colleagues invented."
...
"Let us be frank and admit that most of us have neither the courage nor the patience to emulate Einstein. We should instead honor Einstein by asking whether we can do anything to ensure that in the future those few who do follow Einstein’s path, those who approach science as uncompromisingly as he did, have less risk of unemployment of the sort he suffered at the beginning of his career and less risk of the marginalization he endured at the end. If we can do this, if we can make the path easier for those few who do follow him, we may make possible a revolution in science that even Einstein failed to achieve."