These days I get to do very little reading outside work. Here is what registered:
Genetically engineered Salmons are coming to a supermarket near you
The new mayor of Reykjavik
That we should all pay more attention to privacy debates (Ezra Klein, David Brooks, James Kwak)
Andrew Sullivan freaking out on Obama's Petraeus decision.
Trying to figure out whether I managed to finally bring this back up!
BBC World Service is holding its tenth International Playwriting competition (for radio play scripts). The last day of submission is April 30, 2007.
30 essential pieces of free software. I have just started using Songbird and Foxit .
You can read the details at Fernham. This looks like a really good cause to support. Do note that I dont know any of the people nvolved.
By the way, happy new year to all my long suffering readers.
I am going to start blogging again from this month.
Check out Dailylit, if you are interested in reading books by e-mail.
Man Group has announced a new literary prize to recognize the work on Asian writers.
I am a bit of a GTD cultist. Here is an old David Allen interview in Fast Company that predates the book. It makes the same points that he did in the book later on.
This website lists and explains all sorts of idea generation methods. Quite interesting.
It is looking very ugly. At this point, the newspapers are really speculating on the number of people dead. New Orleans is still filling up with water and lootings have started in earnest. A TPM reader from Pensacola, Fl wrote in to say:
You can donate to the rescue efforts of Red Cross here.
Ken Livingstone, The Mayor of London:
That isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted faith - it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other. I said yesterday to the International Olympic Committee, that the city of London is the greatest in the world, because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack. They will stand together in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved and that is why I’m proud to be the mayor of that city.
Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life.
I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others - that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail.
In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.
They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.”
Complete text of statement, via TPM
Suphala is a talented Tabla player in New York slowly gaining US national attention. She recently got profiled in NYT. I have been hoping to make it to one of her concerts this year (without any luck so far). As the article makes clear, Tabla is a relatively difficult medium to popularize to a Western audience. The usual Western marketing gimmicks are frowned upon by the traditional arbiters of taste in this space.
If you have seen Annie Hall, you would not have forgotten the scene where Woody Allen pulls out Marshall McLuhan out from behind a counter to tell an insufferable bore standing before him in a line that his interpretation of McLuhan is completely wrong. I was somehow reminded of the story when browsing through this thread in Mefi about Douglas Ruskoff's new book. (Mefi is a great place to hang around. But like a lot of other public forums, it takes very little to derail a thread.) While I have read a few of Ruskoff's essays (and liked them), I am not a huge fan. But I find it annoying when people start criticizing books or ideas without having read them first. So I found it really cool that after a while, out popped Ruskoff to defend his book.
'Captain Capitalism' is an economist living in Minneapolis. Last month he wrote a tragicomic post about how he almost got his dream date, but didn't, and got a call from the editor of The Economist instead. All sorts of people weighed in to offer their suggestion. Check it out.
Eric Alterman has a scary overview of the tentacles of neoconservative influence in America media.
Talking of conservatives, I recently read this old article by Fareed Zakaria on the history of martini. An entertaining write-up.
This is an interesting (if speculative) story on a lost tribe of Jews from Mizoram (via Zoostation, I think)
I'll eventually write a detailed post about the blogger meet. In the mean time, here are a few links that recently caught my attention:
Blogging and journalism
LA Times media critic thinks that bloggers don't deserve first amendment protection. Jack Shafer (an unlikely person) wrote a spirited rejoinder. Soon after -as if on demand- LA Times laid an egg. Shafer didnt miss a beat.
I have now started feeling rather sorry for Eric Slater. (For those of you who dont follow the US media scene as obsessively, I should note here that LAT is actually a damn good newspaper)
Extremely loud and incredibly close
I heard interesting things about Extremely loud and Incredibly close in the blogger meet last saturday (more about that later today). This NYT page has a good review and links to author profile, extract etc.
Photography
There are three different Dayanita Singh exhibitions happening in the North east over the next few months. The one in Sepia will be over on April 16th. If you are in the neighbourhood, you ought to try to squeeze in a visit.
Talking of photography - check out the personal projects of Karina Laval and Kevin Cooley.(via Joerg CoLberg )
Saul Bellow
In case you didnt know, Saul Bellow is dead. I loved this throwaway line in his obituary:
I am currently feeling proud of my current state of residence.
Alright, I moved house without any major mishap. Normal blogging schedule should resume soon. The announcements that I had talked about earlier, will have to wait for a while. In the mean time, here are a few interesting links:
Two blogs that I have come to enjoy in the last few weeks (via Anand, I think)
- Vernacular body
- India Uncut
A nice homage to R K Narayan in Indian Express (via Amit Verma)
Yet another interview with Neil Stephenson. (he always says interesting stuff)
Sunanda K Datta-Roy used to be the editor of The Statesman in Calcutta. He seems to have lost his job. He wrote about what it is like to be a common man again in the streets of Calcutta.
I was quite big on Pat Metheny a few years back. In last week's NYT Pat Metheny talked about music he likes. If you are a fan, you would enjoy this.
South Asian Journalists Association is hosting an authors night in New York on March 12. Tickets are for $35 each. The proceeds will go to SAJA's reporting fellowship program.
The lineup of authors is quite interesting (Amitav Ghosh, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sulekha Mehta etc.)
(via Sepia Mutiny)
Not away; just very busy at work. 'll probably start posting again by this weekend.
There really isnt much to say.
I have listed below some of the aid agencies that are rushing men, material and resources to South and East Asia in support of the quake relief efforts.
Please Do consider giving.
Doctors Without Border
Medecins Sans Frontieres will be sending a charter to Indonasia within 24 hours. They are also sending an assessment team to Indian, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Burma. I think very highly of MSF.
you can donate to MSF through this page.
Prime Minister's relief fund in India
Dr Manmohan Singh asked for donations to his National Relief Fund to help support the flood-effected people. Obviously, they havent made this easy. This page gives you the account number for sending checks to the relief fund. Mark it to the local Indian Embassy/consulate. If you want to pay through credit card, use this form.
Oxfam
Oxfam is taking donations for its relief efforts in areas affected by Tsunami in South and East Asia. They are active in some of the quake effected areas - specially in Sri Lanka.
You can donate to Oxfam through this page.
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
I am not huge on Red Cross. But let us face it - they have the best ground operation in South Asia. They already have an extensive operation - helping to evacuate victims. Their site allows you to define where your donation dollars go.
You can send money through this page. For those in India, it is probably easier to send a check to Indian Red Cross.
World Vision
This BBC story said that one third of the dead in the coastal regions are children. World Vision is trying to help. You can donate to them through this page.
CRY is the most well known NGO in India among those that work with children. Their online donation page is here. Although, I havent seen anything yet about what they can do in supporting the relief efforts.
Update: There is a more India specific list of agencies here)
Merry Christmas and Happy holidays to you ....
this page maintained by John Musser looks like a very good project management resource.
Talking of tutorials and lecture notes, I always thought that MIT's Open Courseware is an incredible resource. There was some hoopla when MIT first promoted it. Over time, they have added a lot more content and commitment into this venture.
It seems that in middle age Europe, burning women as witches gained currency largely because it was extremely cold. Record cold destroyed crops. People looked for someone to blame. Witches came in handy.
Emily Oster, a doctoral student of economics in Harvard, crunched weather data of years 1520 to 1770 and showed that there is a correlation between sharp drops in temperature and burning witches. Her study was published in the Winter issue of 'The Journal of Economic Perspectives' and is available through her website.
This story in NYT magazine might be easier going.
I have been completely sucked into the Sarbanes-Oxley nightmare. Argggggh! It is the most useless piece of regulatory nonsense ever enacted in the history of mankind. I have no time for anything else this week ....
On the way to a client office in New York this morning, the taxi got stuck in a huge throng of people very near Times Square. The cops had stopped everything on the road. There were all sorts of people - cops TV cameramen, onlookers wielding cameras, girls waving banners .... It was some sort of a NASCAR car rally about to begin. A number of interesting looking sports cars that you get to see only in TV eventually drove by on our next lane. The cab driver was hopping up and down with excitement. He seemed to know the name of every race driver on the rally. Most of them looked rather young.
I felt quite ignorant. I also had a sneaking suspicion that it was not by accident that we had managed to land right in the middle of a rally.
There goes my pipedream of getting a doctorate someday and moving to a leafy campus and quiet library.
(via Crooked timber)
I somehow found this very funny.
Dahlia Lithwick has a dry wit that makes even the most obscure of cases being argued before Supreme court interesting.
Good story in the Guardian about how Bangalore's creaking infrastructure is failing to scale up to the needs of the booming IT industry and its growing population.
Also in Guardian, 70 anecdotes about Leonard Cohen on his 70th birthday
Zadie Smith gave a talk about her American road trip peddling her new book
Isaiah Berlin virtual library
Great hackers is Paul Graham's new essay
Lastly, if you havent yet checked out, you ought to check out Vivisimo
New York Times provided a list of charities accepting donations to help the relief efforts in Beslan, Russia. These are:
Beslan Relief Fund of the Orthodox Church in America,
Consulate General of the Russian Federation
Embassy of the Russian Federation,
International Foundation for Terror Act Victims
Terror Relief Fund
I understand that 'Doctors Without border' has also sent a team of physicians to Russia. I personally think that governments or most large organizations have way too much unnecessary overheads that eat into the donations. I feel that Medicins Sans Frontieres is one of the exceptions. Almost 86% of what they spend every year go into program services (management overhead is about 2% and the rest go into fund raising)
They go to the worst places; They are usually among the first ones to go in and the last ones to come out. That is why their closure of programs in Afghanistan caused such shock waves.
Their donation page is here.
It really is true! Cats do have nine lives.
Charles McGrath wrote an interesting article on graphics novels in NYT Magazine last week. (Time also published a good list of noteworthy graphic novels sometime back).
Talking of graphic novels, I recently read rave reviews of Epileptic. I hear is similar to Persepolis, which makes Epileptic immediately interesting. ( I have talked a bit about 'Persepolis' earlier and hope to go back to that subject again later).
Someone sent me Philip Van Allen's Thinking About Interaction Design for Online News Delivery. It provides a good context to the current discussions on Interaction Design
If you blog, Blogger Burnout will probably prove to be an interesting read.
I am taking 'comments' option out from this weblog for the time being. Unfortunately, comment spam has reached epidemic proportions. Cleaning it up is a depressing task ....
I have not been keeping up with MT updates and fixes which would (hopefully) make this task easier. Unfortunately, until I install a fix, we would have to make do without comments.
A very happy new year to all of you. Posts will resume from tomorrow ...
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of you ...
I am going to take the rest of the month very easy with very little actual work and all play :-). But I do hope to post here off and on ....
Incidentally, I started this weblog on this day two years back. I have plenty to say about that; but let me keep that for later.
As in last year, Fimoculous seems to have the most comprehensive 'best of 2003' list on his site.
Cup of Chicha looks like an interesting weblog. It resolved my quandery about posting random links. I want to categorize them for my later reference. It is decidedly low tech; but will work for now.
Interesting essays on writing, philosophy and urban renewal
-Colin McGill wrote in Prospect magazine on how he ended up becoming a philosopher.
-Washington Post had a terrific article on 'brain gain cities' sometime back. It touches upon one of my ongoing obsessions; what makes cities tick?
-JM Coetzee's nobel lecture. Coetzee, it seems, likes to usesomeone else's persona to give lectures (he doesnt like public speaking much anyway. He ditched the ceremonies for the two booker prices that he got). This one is given from the persective of Daniel Dafoe after the book ends.
Films
POV has an awesome post about Kieslowski.
This looks like an interesting resource on documentaries
Guardian writes about Kal Ho Na Ho and what it means for Bollywood
Sandipan Deb on the appeal of Hindi movies in Asia
Manu Jain about efforts to brand India; I am not too impressed.
Books, media
Nice article about Slate in CBS marketwatch.
Talking of slate, this is a raving review of a book (Mimesis) that I have never heard of
An interesting magazine called One-story
A directory of quotations
I am alive and kicking, just managing my time very badly. I hope to start posting again from this evening.
On my way back from New York last evening, it occured to me that surprisingly good number of commuters from Stamford or Greenwich to New York read The Economist on the way. I guess it could just be the location (many Wall Streeters in Greenwich). It is not that ubiquitous in California.
Everett True in a particularly moving passage about Rock:
I want to dress in black, cool, studied, shades a matted mess on my shaking faces, life a riot of colour, (pink and gold and red). I want to conga with Billy Liar, dance on the grave of dead and given up friends and shout in their comatose skulls, leaven this existence, with an enthusiasm that is all the more wonderful because it is so primal. I want to fuck the world and give birth to nobility, a new strain of life.
Everett True in 'Careless Talk Costs Lives' (CTCL) #11, Feb 2002 issue as quoted in Pink Planet May-June 2003 issue. CTCL is an independent British music magazine started a few months back by Everett True. True is a slightly eccentric British journalist, ‘credited with discovering grunge, introducing Kurt (Cobain) to Courtney and later busting the door wide open with a now infamous story in Bretain’s Melody Maker’. Later on, he hit the road.. hit the bottle.. wrote books..dropped out of circulation and has now resurfaced with a new magazine. His stated goal is “Destroying the music industry with 12 issues – or else we have failed”
Everett is one of dozens of personalities from the zine world interviewed and excerpted in the May-June issue of ‘Pink Planet’. This issue is a celebration of print rather than music and introduced me to a host of zines and people I have never had the time or inclination to research. If you are in North America and have access to the magazine, this is definitely one for the keeps. (Incidentally, CTCL is a British magazine and for some weird reason True doesn’t seem to terribly interested in finding distribution)
It doesn’t even sound like Chris Bell; He had never sung that well before, which makes it even harder to take, since it was the last, or one of the last things he did. So confident, and at the same time, somehow so vulnerable. The song itself, the experience of singing it, seems to have done something to him, worn him our. Three and a half minutes have gone by, but he sounds ten years older. The chorus is simple:
I fall every time
Though I know she lies
I can’t stay away
But it’s how he holds the words in his mouth, sings “stay aawaaay” from the back of his throat, like he’s physically trying to hold himself down in the bed, knowing he shouldn’t go over there, shouldn’t call. There is only one line of harmony in the song. It comes out of nowhere, on the bridge, a quiet falsetto, maybe Bell’s own. You can miss if so easily – you have to squeeze the headphones to sides of your head. The line is “keeping me in the dark”.
John Jeremiah Sullivan writing about Chris Bell who sang the track 20 “You and Your Sister” in Oxford American’s 2003 music issue. Chris Bell died when he crashed into a telephone pole a few days after Christmas in 1978. John Jeremiah Sullivan has a book coming out about horses and fathers in 2004 (Farrer, Strauss and Girox’). The song is available in the album ‘I am the cosmos’ released by Rykodisc in 1992 and ‘The big star story’ released by Rykodisc in 2003.
Oxford American is a literary magazine of the South. It showcases music from the South in an issue every year. This year, the accompanying CD has 20 tracks of blues, jazz, soul, folk and pop music from the South. The magazine itself is devoted to describing each track, its singer and the history behind the music. It is worth checking out.
The current issue of PDN magazine out on the shelves is their photoannual. Check it out. I ought to start subscribing to the magazine instead of buying it off the shelf every other month!
Ok, I have been caught up. I had also been trying to polish off an article. I did not want to post anything until I was through with that. Here is some random interesting stuff ......
Guardian's take on Solzhenitsyn's new book.
Janeane Garofalo's rather provocative remarks on the Iraq issue (though she lost me with her Chomski suggestion). The story that Kurtz filed is here (the transcript is better).
lazyweb is an interesting idea worth checking out.
Mark Kleiman's very smart weblog
New Yorker's hilarious story on NYT's new code of ethics.
This is a nice story about the writing of 'Mme. Proust and the Kosher Kitchen'. (As I was reading it, I stumbled over the word 'Picayune' which, incidentally, means a. Of imitative origin b. Something trivial. It was derived from Provençal picaioun which means 'a small coin'). via Mobilives
The Power and the Silence in the Vatican is Alan Riding's review of 'Amen'. It raises interesting questions about how much did the Pope really know about the Nazi holocaust. (Among those who remained silent, count the the swiss banks too)
Stones of summer is a a film about bookishness (kind of). Having read the review, I badly want to watch the movie.
The unexpected candor of Peter Goldberg (the Outgoing CEO and chairman of IHT) reminded me of Jay Harris. (though Harris' gesture was in a different league altogether)
Check out the Winning photos of everyman photo contest (via Kottke).
And here is a profile of Ami Vitale. Some of the most powerful images coming out of India has her name on the credits.
greg.org has an interesting, eccentric post on powerpoint as a creative medium.
I totally, absolutely relate to it.
I spent the the past one week obsessing over a presentation that I finally made this morning. Rest of my life ground to a halt while I was thinking about it. This is usual whenever I have an important presentation ahead of me. Mind you, I was not working on it all the time. Mostly, I was simply fretting about it and debating internally about rephrasing a particular bullet point or simplifying a Vision diagram. I NEVER wake up early. This morning I was originally up at 4.30 AM. This is not normal.
I love the quality of Matt Jones' slides.
The 2002 Moby awards currently on the Mobilives homepage is a hilarious read.
There is a a provocative commentary on "the most overrated and underrated ideas" in NYT
LAT profiles the faces to watch for in 2003. LAT website has an annoying registration process that you have to go through to access this. But they post a lot of good stuff these days. So you may want to swallow your dislike and get it over with now. (via Modern Art Notes)
Yahoo's Year in review is quite good. (via Cyberjournalist)
There is an interesting looking best albums of 2002 list in Pitchfork (via Fimoculous). I am completely clued out out contemporary music and haven't even heard most of the names on that list :(.
Year in Pictures:
Washington Post
MSNBC
Some days are productive. Some days are depressing. Some days are great. And some days you just surf after work.
I must figure out a place where I can use the word 'limn'. One of my ex-bosses was inordinately fond of the word 'segue' (which is nowhere near as obscure as limn!) and managed to work it into almost almost all our the research reports.
Chesa Boudin is an unlikely Rhodes scholar. There is already a backlash. Cecil Rhodes must be rolling in his grave!
Talking of backlashes, Franzen, Eggars et al seem to be at the receiving end of one from the mainstream press. There is a devastating critique of Franzen's new book by James Walcott. I have not read anything by these writers. So no comments.
The best thing I read today is an incredibly eloquent ode to Rothko by Jonathon Jones in today's Guardian. (via Greg.org)
Note to self: must dig up and read more stuff by Jonathon Jones.
I really need to go out of circulation and meet some rather bad deadlines. But in the meantime,
From the folks that made furniture stores sexy: Unboring
Some great locales for sex
And finally, I am glad that someone has now put together an encyclopedia of comic artists (via Purse lip square jaw)
Have a great week. I am busy for the rest of the week. I'll be in LA from 18th to 20th. If you guys know of anything interesting going on in LA (in the evenings) during that time, please let me know.
I saw on my logs that some people had been looking for a contact page. It doesn't exist. My e-mail address is banerjee_kaushik AT hotmail.com. I had forgotten to add the e-mail address to the template when I moved to MT last month. I had been meaning to put up an about page for almost one year!
She: "I couldn't believe my ears! He said, 'Wow! you look pretty! You looked so fat and unattractive in school. How did you manage this?' And then, and then he asked for my phone number!"
He: "Did you?"
"I sure as hell didn't. I told him, 'YOU still look ugly".
Some random thoughts and links:
I am busy at least till saturday. Meanwhile, I recommend:
-Jennifer Balderama's post on discipline.
-This old article from Scientific American (via sylloge). It has been sitting in my 'To read' folder for a while.
-The 'World of Awe' (via mefi)
-Paul Graham's 'Taste for Makers' (via Kingshuk)
-Patrick Demarchelier's Photographs (Not work safe)
Have a good weekend.
Some random stuff I noticed on the net while taking frequent breaks from doing my taxes:
-Anil Dash's terrific respone to John Dvorak in PC Magazine.
-The current issue of 'The filter'. It has the best take on 'Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act' currently being debated in the US Congress. The Congress has asked for public comments. I feel anybody who has that privilage, should comment on this. This one is scary.
- Subway Life: Illustrations of subway passengers by a Protuguese artist.
(via mefi).
-Kamat's photographic essay on Bangalore - one of my favourite cities.
(via Random Thoughts).
Filing taxes is the most annoying, exesperating, painful, time consuming, irritating, stress inducing yearly ritual that the mankind has invented.
Some totally random stuff:
-Did you know that there is something called Seasonal Affective Disorder (or Winter depression) in the medical vocabulary? Apparently, you may feel more depressed in winter than in summer and there is a 'bright light treatment' to cure it (same link). Now I know why I have been so depressed! Its the cold. All I need to do is find myself a bright light source and sit in front of it.
-While driving back the night before, I caught the end of a fabulous program on 88.5 FM on coffee cultures. Among other things, it mentioned that Turks believe that you can read your fortune from the leftovers in your coffee cup. They infer your fortune from the patterns formed inside the cup by the coffee grinds. Culturally, it is similar to reading fortune from tea-leaf (Tesseography) that has been prevalant in China. 'Coffee-fortunes' has the detailed scoop online. I read elsewhere that the practice survives in other parts of the former Ottoman empire including Bulgaria, Greece, Egypt, Macedonia and Bosnia.
-Average Incomes in USA:
White male: $31, 213
Black male : $21, 662
Hispanic male: $19,833
White female: $16, 805
Black Female: $16, 801
Hispanic female: $12,255
'11.3 percent of the nation's population lives in poverty. 9.4 percent of that number are white, 22.1 percent are black, 21.2 are hispanic. (ref US Census, Via Mefi)
The Mediaval Vocational Personality test (via Mefi) is the funniest that I have taken in some time. Regular readers have probably figured out that I love taking these tests! Anyway, I am the 'Benevolent Ruler' type. This is what it says about me:
"You are the idealistic social dreamer. Your overriding goal is to solve the people problems of your world. You are a social reformer who wants everyone to be happy in a world that you can visualize. You are exceptionally perceptive about the woes and needs of humankind. You often have the understanding and skill to readily conceive and implement the solutions to your perceptions. On the positive side, you are creatively persuasive, charismatic and ideologically concerned. On the negative side, you may be unrealistically sentimental, scattered and impulsive, as well as deviously manipulative. Interestingly, your preference is just as applicable in today's corporate kingdoms.".
So there!
NPR has done a story: Born to Be Tone Deaf that says tone deafness can be genetic. It also has links if you want to explore the subject further. (via Mefi via Girlhacker)
Idly surfing last night:
-NewScientist's Alcohal: The inside story tells you more about Alcohal than you would really like to know. But what I liked most was this story which talks about why red wine is good for the heart. Before this, I have never really read in any respectable journal that red wine is good for health.
-Write-up on Warbloggers: Well-written, but extremely partisan. But what can you expect from someone who is writing for Antiwar.com?
(via Blogdex)
I ran into this quiz today that apparently determines your political orientation (via Mefi). Very interesting. Turns out that I am a left libertarian (left-right -0.50, Authoritarian/Libertarian: -3.79). I always thought of myself a centrist! Since I am a borderline leftist (only 0.5!) I guess I can call myself a centrist? Anyway, they have interesting questions, gave me pause for thought. Great Reading List too.
Another interesting quiz, Which drink are you? is inching its way up blogdex. I love watching how some interesting new content slowly makes its way up the collective consciousness of the weblog community and suddenly its here, there everywhere. I think blogdex is a greater cultural barometer of the North American Internet cognoscenti (that's a loaded word to use, sounds rather arrogant and is probably not very accurate. but I am groping for a word) than anything else out there.
I have been reading Steven Johnson's Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software. I have been hearing about it for some time, just couldn't lay my hands on it earlier. Its an interesting read. The only problem is I have to return it next week and the next few days are shaping up to be very busy. I also found an interesting site called Project Gutenberg- (via Mefi). It has been around for quite some time. You can download most of the classics from that site (all pre-1923 due to copyright restrictions). I dont think I want to read entire books online. But its accessible and one cal always read them slowly.
Check out Yann Arthus-Bertrand's ariel photography Awesome stuff.
In case you are using ICQ or Windows XP:
AOL reported a bug in its pre-2001b versions of ICQ and urged users to upgrade.
Technical problems have stopped some users from downloading a patch for what appears to be serious vulnerability in XP. If you are using XP, you should probably download it as soon as it becomes available. (via GMSV).
This is the neatest resume`/portfolio concept that I have seen in a long time. Very cool. Check out the bar on top.
Final Meal Requests of the death row inmates in Texas.
I was feeling slightly guilty when I was surfing through this page. This too is pandering to our baser emotions in the same way as browsing through reports of an electrocution . But that didnt stop me from checking it out :(. ( Via another weblog. Can't recall the name right now.).
The best best of list compilation for 2001 that I have run into. From - Fimoculous.com: Feeding Time