The US government has had an unprecedented bout of sensibility (Joelle Tessler, Associated Press via Yahoo! News) of late. It covers quite a few areas, so I'll try to go through each point one-by-one. In general, the new statement says that breaking technological locks on devices is not in itself illegal unless provable copyright infringement is committed.The biggest news is that anyone can unlock their cell phone to work with any service provider or to use any application developed for that phone. The phone most affected by this news is, of course,...
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Monday, 26 July 2010
Since I started writing Das U-Blog, I've been worried that I may never reach an audience who might otherwise (possibly) be interested in what I'm writing.A lot of sites online have numerous tips on how to promote a blog to make it more successful and widely-read. Of course, I haven't even been at this for a full year (speaking of which, Das U-Blog's 1st birthday is coming up soon!). Therefore, I don't really have any experience from which to speak regarding these matters.I personally know many of the people who read this blog. I know some of you...
Friday, 23 July 2010
(CC-BY-NC-SA Das U-Blog by Prashanth)This was actually given to me as a gift by the same relative who has The Undercover Economist. I will also say that I have read The Code Book, one of Simon Singh's other books, but it has been a few years since I read it, so I will not be reviewing it any time soon.Singh starts with an overview of creation myths and the use of reason and science to determine whether the sun goes around the Earth or vice versa....
Thursday, 22 July 2010
(CC-BY-NC-SA Das U-Blog by Prashanth)This is also a borrowed book (from the same relative that lent me the book Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya). That said, I will say right off the bat that this is a far superior book in terms of writing style and quality.I took an AP Economics course this past year, so I was somewhat familiar with most of the concepts presented in this book beforehand. However, when I read the book, I realized what I had been missing.My...
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
(CC-BY-NC-SA Das U-Blog by Prashanth)Some of you may be wondering why I've written 3 posts today. Well, as I'm staying at my relatives' house, these relatives are at school or work during the day, so I don't really have a whole lot to do; hence, I've been reading a lot and blogging a lot. (I wish I had a more consistent Internet connection to download and try out some Unixoid distributions as well, but while I'm at it, I might as well wish for a...
(CC-BY-NC-SA Das U-Blog by Prashanth)This is actually a relative's book; this relative has let me borrow the book for the time being.I must confess that I haven't read the entire book. But there's a reason for this.With parents from Karnataka, I am of course proud of Sir M. Visvesvaraya's contributions to the industrialization of India. I am of course amazed by his physical and mental agility even through his 90s.Yet, I am pained when I read this...
(CC-BY-NC-SA Das U-Blog by Prashanth)I had actually started reading this book over a year ago but never had the time to get past the first few chapters, so when I picked it up again just over a month ago, I decided to read it in full, from the beginning.I guess another appropriate title for this would be "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Nonfiction) by Not Douglas Adams". It really is a comprehensive guide to atomic physics, astronomy, chemistry,...
Monday, 19 July 2010
(CC-BY-NC-SA Das U-Blog by Prashanth)I actually got the idea of getting this book after watching an episode of The Daily Show with John Stewart and its interview of this book's author (who was there to promote this very book). It piqued my curiosity because I am very much into computers and robots.Let me say that this book, just like the robots it discusses, is "frakin' cool".The book starts out by describing typical scenes of robotic battle in Iraq...
Saturday, 17 July 2010
I was visiting $relative's house in a small town, where access to the cutting edge in technology is not the easiest to come by. First, I was surprised to find a digital photo frame (and a big one, at that) hanging on the wall. Then, $relative asked me to turn on the computer so that I could show some recent family pictures to other relatives. I turned on the computer, expecting to find nothing more than the Microsoft Windows XP loading screen. To my shock (which quickly morphed into delight), I was greeted instead by this (note: not verbatim):GNU...
Thursday, 15 July 2010
A new article (Paul Matthews, New Zealand Computer Society) reports that the latest version of New Zealand's new patent bill has once again excluded software from patentability.This is a great move in itself, but what's even more significant is that the people leading the charge against software patents are actually the 2 largest software companies in New Zealand. This means that the companies (and not just individual high-profile developers) are the ones who are aware of the counterproductive effects patents have on innovation. If only US software...
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
I never thought something like this would happen, but I have seen 3 articles today bashing the RIAA (and one doing so for the MPAA) for different reasons.The first (Ray Beckerman, Recording Industry vs. The People) summarizes how the RIAA, to get a certain (relatively small, for the RIAA) sum of money back, spent at least 50 times that sum of money on legal fees alone. (They spent $20 million in legal fees to recover $0.4 million in probable lost revenue.)Well, now we know that the money recovered probably isn't going towards the artists that the...
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Some of you may be wondering what all of the various objects on this blog are. I will try to explain this to the best of my ability.On top, of course, is the title of this blog. Clicking on the title takes you to the main blog page (or refreshes the page if you are already there).Each post has a date, title, and content. Clicking on the title brings up the full post (with comments).At the bottom of each post is a link to share the post to various social networking sites. These consist of Facebook, Google, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Slashdot, Delicious,...
(image courtesy of Wikipedia)This is actually the book I had to read to get credit for my high school gym class (I did not have to do any of the actual physical requirements for reasons obvious to those who know me personally). It's been a while since I've read the book, so this post will be relatively short.It's an entertaining read, to be sure, and while I agree with the general guidelines given by the book, I believe that due to the current state...
Monday, 12 July 2010
Glyn Moody has a piece on why Android will beat the iPhone.To summarize, the reason for this is twofold: Android is making its way onto more platforms than just smartphones (it is also making its way into TVs, set-top boxes, GPS devices, et cetera), and there are apps for the Android allowing for the creation of even more apps for oneself or for further distribution, so the app ecosystem can grow much larger.The latter part reminds me of a quote (which I can't find verbatim at the moment) I read in the book The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford...
Sunday, 11 July 2010
I visited a village in India recently and was astonished to find that while the water quality was still as poor as it was 35 years ago (according to other traveling companions whom I shall not name here) and the general state of the village has not changed, almost every house has a satellite TV dish and at least 1 cell phone. It just goes to show that the technology revolution has started to reach even the remotest corners of the world.The question is, why is this true of villages in India and not quite true (yet) in the US?A few of my relatives...
Monday, 5 July 2010
I know that the original post was many months ago, but it still bears some relevance here.A few news articles have reported on some ACTA analysts' warnings that ACTA will be detrimental to search engines' businesses.I can only say that with Rupert Murdoch's moves in the past, I saw this coming. Murdoch has been the only (pre-ACTA) high-profile businessperson to remove the holdings' websites from search engines' indices due to copyright violations. All ACTA is doing is essentially legitimizing this and opening the door to more people removing websites...
I watched this movie a week ago, but I haven't been able to write this review until today.I really enjoyed the movie just as a funny little film. I also appreciate its attempts to touch upon the controversial subject of stress levels in the Indian educational system.At the same time, however, I feel like the message (which is to focus more upon learning than upon rankings and to enjoy life a little more) is too muddled through the movie. Rancho, who supposedly loves learning, isn't shown to be very studious at all and is shown to be enjoying life...
Saturday, 3 July 2010
I had previously reported on this development in this post. I am here to report that these developments are getting closer to reality.Yes, folks. Linux Mint is actually making larger efforts to move towards a Debian base. In my previous post, I reported that the new Debian-based Linux Mint was for PowerPC systems and used the LXDE desktop. Well, the fact that the linked article reports that this new version of Mint will use a rolling-release model, will use GNOME, and will be for i386 systems means that the Mint developers are really serious about...
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