Cybernetic Musings

Sleep sort - ingeniously funny!

2011-06-17T12:03:00.004-05:00

For the last two days, the Amazon intern group has been flooded with emails about a new sorting algorithm some guy "invented". Nope, it is not the usual 'yet another sorting algorithm'. This one is ingenious in that it lets the handler of an element sleep for a time based on the value of that element. That way when they come back, all threads get in line and the values are sorted. The other funny part about this, apart from the concept, is that its coded in shell script (barely 10lines)!!

Check out the new addition to Wikipedia's infamous list of "humorous sorting" algorithms: sleep sort (or derp sort!) - http://dis.4chan.org/read/prog/1295544154

p.s: Turns out this is a mod of bogosort. Check out bogobogosort for a even bigger laugh!

The awesome weirdness of latex... On \begin{table} cross references

2011-01-24T12:51:00.005-05:00

In Latex2e, always remember to put \label in the \caption command or just after it. Else latex might get the cross-references wrong!

Example: In a recent paper, I created this table:

 \begin{table}[t]  
   {\small  
     \caption[]{my caption}  
     \begin{tabular}{|c|cl|}  
       ...  
     \end{tabular}  
   }  
 \vspace{-4mm}  
 \label{tab:agg}  
 \end{table}

\end{table}

And, I referenced it in the document as \ref{tab:agg}. Even though it was the first table, the compiled version read "Table 4"!! After cracking my head against this by resetting counters and creating new counters for the table, I found that the real problem was the placement of the \label. Once placed like this below, the cross-references work just fine:

 \begin{table}         
   \caption{my caption}      
    \label{tab:label}            
 \end{table}         
  or  
 \begin{table}  
   \caption{my caption%  
    \label{tab:label}}  
 \end{table}

The Mind and the Marathon

2011-01-08T11:40:00.037-05:00

While doing my usual Saturday morning run today and having the mind wander between my thesis work and the upcoming 26.2, I thought it might be nice to record some of my experiences from my previous marathon. So here it goes.

Its all in the mind. The Marathon - a distance of 26mi and 385yards, or 42.2 km - is often regarded as testing the limits of human physical performance and capabilities. But what is equally important and often eclipsed by other things in running books and which I realized for the first time on 20th Dec 2009, is the need to condition and control the mind during this long 3+ hour road race. For a fairly trained person (read: someone who has been running regularly for an year or more) the marathon itself comes out as an nice opportunity to test and find your endurance peak. But in that its also a good test for the quality of your grey cells!

Get ready for some serious fun. The day itself rolls out well and the exertion and abuse your muscles endure is often masked by the excitement of being in and completing the race. However, during this period when the legs are super busy the mind is free to take a long trek into the annuls of the unknown. Often what happens is that one starts with a boat load of adrenaline and takes to the running passionately - excited by the mass of runners and cheering folks. All is well. Then the cramps and pain begin shooting from "new" muscle groups (muscles you never realized you had!) and the mind starts to extrapolate on what damage might have happened. In other times there is just nothing new... the road ahead seems endless (even at the 25th mile!) and the mind doesn't have much to work with, so one gets "bored" and starts to think about taking a walking break and thus slowing down. Near the end or around the 24th mile mark, the lower body is so confused by all the pain signals it gets that it cancels them out, and it begins to feel comfortably numb. All one can do at this stage is to maintain pace by putting one foot in front of the other and mentally try to keep going. Take shorter strides with faster recovery and maintain the pace. I believe that a significant part of getting a good time on a marathon or any competitive race is knowing how to tame the mind.

The joy of music? Having an ipod streaming music into your ear might be one way to distract the mind, stay on track and not feel the pain, but it also leads to lesser enjoyment overall. Perhaps that is one reason why the Boston Marathon infamously does not allow heaphones, or recently even iPods!

Mind you body. The need for proper food, stretching and warm-ups has been well elaborated in most books. I recently added two books to my reading list. One is "Running-Getting Started" by legend Jeff Galloway (who incidentally was in Gainesville a few months back as part of the Florida Track Club FTC talks) and the second is "The Marathon Runner's Handbook" by Bruce Fordyce with Marielle Renssen. Both are excellent sources of information for anyone from a beginner in recreational running to serious road racers. There are a few chapters in these books talking about how to stay motivated and enjoy your run which I find very interesting. Galloway's infamous advice is to take walk breaks early in the race, a technique he claims only helps improve overall running time and the experience. Though I find this hard to digest, I have realized that one needs to train to walk n drink and then start running again. Doing this run - walk n drink - run routine takes a while to get used to. Its particularly challenging at 20+ miles where a "small" walk break can easily eat up valuable time. So being able to walk n drink fluids in a marathon and still maintain a competitive time is another test of one's cognitive conditioning.

Train. Finally, the marathon is an endurance test and the best way to crack it is to train, train and then train a bit more. After all lots of exercise only does one good. Just remember to enjoy doing it!
With 42 days left for my second marathon, I have started to hike up those daily miles now. The goal is to reach optimum performance about four weeks before race-day, so thats around Jan 17th. And as a note, a good way to record and keep a journal log of your training activities is: http://dailymile.com/.

Happy running!

Over and out.

Tracking file/directory changes in Ubuntu

2011-01-07T15:30:00.009-05:00

Recently, I was wget-ting a large amount of hurricane data from multiple sources -to the tune of several hundred gigs. These were gzip compressed files and so my perlscript had to download, unzip and then run some cleaning and integration code on all the data, while keeping track of the source locations and possible errors in the whole process. Since the uncompressed data volume was ~5TB, I had these things running in parallel... for most part. ;)

Anyways, the simplest way to get "live" updates of file changes by tracking their sizes is like this:

watch -n 1 --differences du -h
or watch -n 1 --differences ls -lh ~/downloads

This basically gives you highlighted updates on the file sizes every 1sec. Note how the watch command keeps du "alive".

Undoubtedly the best part about any *nix system is the terminal!

Setting up Gatorlink and CISE email on Thunderbird

2010-12-22T12:15:00.005-05:00

Here are the settings for Gatorlink and CISE email accounts valid as of Dec-2010:

Gatorlink email settings for Mozilla Thunderbird on Ubuntu linux:

Outgoing SMTP:
Server name: smtp.ufl.edu
Port: 587
Authentication Method: Normal Password
Connection Security: STARTTLS
Username: your_gatorlink_username

Incoming IMAP:
Server Name: imap.cise.ufl.edu
Port: 143
Connection Security: NONE
Authentication Method: Password, transmitted insecurely

CISE email settings for Thunderbird on linux:

Outgoing SMTP:
Server name: mail.cise.ufl.edu
Port: 465
Authentication Method: Normal password
Connection Security: SSL/TLS
Username: your_cise_user_name

Incoming IMAP:
Server Name: imap.cise.ufl.edu
Port: 993
Connection Security: SSL/TLS
Authentication Method: Normal Password

Aruba - una isla feliz ad.

2010-12-02T08:03:00.008-05:00

"Globe Trekker" used to be a very popular show back home in India. The ever-entertaining host Ian Wright was documenting travel to several exotic places around the world. Today, as the weather fell to 28F for the first time in Florida this fall, I was watching the Weather Channel when this hilarious ad from Aruba tourism (@Mediapost) came on, and made my day.

Click to play.

A bit of background... Aruba is one of the islands in the southern Caribbean and a part of the Netherlands. The official language apparently is "Papiamento" and Dutch (according to Wikipedia). Aruba tourism has the popular catch phrase "One Happy Island" to depict the fresh and chill-out nature of the island.

In the ad, Ian Wright is at the docks and asks an Aruban fisherman the translation for "one happy island" in that local creole language. He gets a quick reply, "una isla feliz!". Then he asks for a word translating into "work-related stress" and gets no answer. ;)

In a related post, the Language log from Ben Zimmer points out that even English has no word for that phrase!

Aruba tourism: aruba.com

Fixing the ironing board

2010-09-05T11:30:00.024-05:00

The lever on my ironing board fell off last week and I thought it was "broken". But after reading this blog post http://craftyredhead.blogspot.com/2010/01/me-vs-ironing-board.html today, I decided to fix it myself. All it takes is about 30secs, a screwdriver and a pair of pliers (and a torch if required).

Here is the quick summary:

1. Set the ironing board vertically such that the cone (sharper side) is facing the top. I started with the board being locked open and unable to close because of the rod.

2. Use a torchlight to briefly study the lever mechanism. This does not need a degree in mechanical engineering. Actually I found the way the pad arrests vertical movement of the rod a bit lame!

3. Test the metal pad (above the spring) that holds the rod in place. To do this, use a screwdriver and push the pad from the top. This releases the rod and it can be ironing board will now be able to close.

This (above) is how the metal pad arrests the vertical movement of the rod. The pad (with the rod running through it) is fixed on one side to the ironing board and a spring pushes it vertically from the bottom to create friction against the rod, thus stopping its movement.

4. Pry open the metal curves with a screwdriver to put the lever in place.

5. Put the lever in.

6. With the pliers bend the metal curves so the lever doesn't fall out again.

And thats it!

Hopefully, this is useful to someone.

live it on the edge!

2010-07-07T16:36:00.001-05:00

"It's not the human walk, it's the human race
If you aint livin on the edge, you're takin' too much space"

--NicKElbacK "This Afternoon"

Utopia

2010-06-07T10:41:00.004-05:00

Theodor Adorno observed; “None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace.”
Perhaps Adorno’s observation is closest, a place where absolute agreement and cooperation proceeds uninterrupted, and yet, reveals why utopian existence in any
form will never be achieved, at least in this world, for to have eternal peace mankind must either voluntarily sterilize their passion for individualism, or, become extinct, which may ultimately be utopian, but certainly not desired.

Readings from "Utopia or Dystopia: The Future of Science and Technology", by Tim Miller.

About Lynx and the future of Ubuntu

2010-05-20T11:36:00.003-05:00

This is a review of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS lucid lynx. I recently upgraded my laptop from 9.10 to 10.04 version and this blog details my experiences with it.

A long time linux user, I jumped at the opportunity to upgrade to 10.04 Lynx. The upgrade went well and the system rebooted. That was all that went well.

Each bootup operation takes ages now. Windows 7 is a clear winner for bootup time.

Also, I got an “error while mounting /proc/bus/usb” message and it required me to press S to continue booting up each time. Accepted it was a quick fix and editing /etc/fstab solved it, but do they expect everyone to go through this step after an upgrade?!

Third, I do not like the default "Ambiance" color scheme. Reviews say it is classy and elegant. I say nay nay. It is another one of those weird colors only Ubuntu can throw up on you. Dark, gloomy, and unattractive the “Lynx Violet” is akin to Window’s Blue SOD. However, the overall theme itself is very close to the Mac Aqua.

Fourth, what is happening with Mozilla Thunderbird 3??!! The cool ajax style search feature is gone and in its place is an antique search that opens a new tab and shows a crappy interface for messages with preview. Did they not learn anything from scrolling the mouse over bing.com search results? It looks like Mozilla released this upgrade to match the mayhem wrought out by Ubuntu 10.04 Lynx.

And, for Mac users (and even for infrequent Mac users like me) this version of Ubuntu will seem familiar. From the theme, to button styles, layout and more. Is it a copy??

I could go on and on.. but my point is that 10.04 Lynx is the worst upgrade decision I ever made. Hopefully it will not make me abandon Ubuntu altogether. Yes, the new gen of OS users like to have choices, fresh UI experiences, flexibility and customization options. But, if Linux had to copy from Windows and Mac every step of the way, it would definitely not appeal to this crowd. The future is not about open-source reverse engineering but rather for innovation and user-friendly visual interfaces.

p.s: Whose decision was that to put the window buttons on the left? Great move! Surprised?Yes, I think thats a bold UI move which must have taken a thrashing before it came to release. But I feel it saves time to perform those tasks once you get used to it and is a plus. Another plus is the social "Me Menu" on Lynx.

Career advice - what to look for in a job.

2010-04-06T10:58:00.002-05:00

Good read...

Career advice from a Google vet: 10 guidelines

by Sukhinder Singh Cassidy @Polyvore

Fortune - now on Twitter!

2010-03-10T09:36:00.002-05:00

This is what fortune told me this morning.

You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture.

haha... sounded like Letterman!

BTW, Fortune is now on twitter!!

ArcGIS 9.3: DLG to shapefile conversion

2010-02-25T13:58:00.005-05:00

The ArcGIS Toolbox provides a powerful set of conversion tools for converting raster files to coverages, importing USGS digital elevation models (DEM) to SDTS (spatial data transfer standard), etc. But if you do not have the ArcInfo license and still need to import a DLG (digital line graph), there are several third party tools to do it.

Check out the DLG2SHP utility (http://tnatlas.geog.utk.edu/downloadfree.htm) that converts DLGs to Shapefiles. This can be used instead of the "Coverage Tools/Conversion/To Coverage" toolkit. Quick and easy!

Mounting NTFS partitions in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

2010-02-19T21:02:00.005-05:00

Here is a quick way to mount the NTFS partitions in Ubuntu. Often my external drive powers off erroneously leaving the OS to de-recognize the mounted partitions, leaving an Input/Output error. If that happens, linux gives you another powerful way to mount partitions:

1. Pull up a terminal and test if your drive is connected using:

sudo fdisk -l

Find the partition you would like to mount from the list. My external partition appears here as /dev/sdc1 to /dev/sdc7.

2. Find the UUID of the device using:

ls -al /dev/disk/by-uuid

In my case, I get "D25801C85801ABF3 -> ../../sdc1". The long alphanumeric string is the UUID.

3. Create a drive to mount, for e.g.,

sudo mkdir /media/my_media

4. Mount using fstab:

sudo vim /etc/fstab

Add your device entry at the end, like this:

UUID=D25801C85801ABF3 /media/my_media ntfs user,noauto,exec,utf8,0222,rw 0 0

5. mount your device:

sudo mount /media/my_media

6. As an additional step give proper access permissions:

sudo chown -R username:usergrp /media/my_media

sudo chmod -R 755 /media/my_medi

Now the explorer window can be opened to browse the files:

cd /media/my_media

nautilus .

That ends my log for quickly mounting an ntfs drive in rw mode (assumes you have ntfs-3g package installed).

Sentra - learning to ride or riding to learn?

2010-01-17T10:31:00.013-05:00

Sure, my car throws out surprises every day. But its a veteran among its species, having celebrated the 12th birthday recently and I simply take each event as a good way to self-educate myself towards a forthcoming auto engineering degree. ;)

For e.g., a few weeks back the handbrake indicator light (on the dashboard) started turning on and off while driving. I found it was because the brake fluid needed a flush. Apparently the brake fluid starts getting concentrated with Cu after prolonged use and a concentration of 200+ ppm requires immediate attention. And that is what the sensor was letting me know. A simple temporary (cheap and effective, though not recommended) solution is to add fresh brake fluid and thus dilute the conc. of the entire volume.

Second: The other day my original key just broke in half! Granted, the metal part was showing some signs of wear and had started to bend a bit. I vaguely also remember straightening it out on the door once. But breaking in half? Metal fracture on a strong auto key? Totally unexpected!

Thanks for that keyhole in the passenger side and the fact that I had a spare key, I eventually got in and drove it back! But this incident should help me remember to double check even the keys before heading out on long trips.

Later, after a long crazy day at Universal's Islands of Adventure at Orlando, Woodlands, and catching Avatar on IMAX 3D I was shocked while driving back, because the vehicle was accelerating even with the foot off the gas! Total shocker! I was hoping it wasn't the accelerator pedal getting stuck on the carpet, a defective throttle position sensor or something worse.

But the real reason: I checked under the hood the next day and found a large nut stuck on the throttle line. How such a large nut got under the hood and wedged-in near the throttle body is something that baffles me. Still, an arcade solution for a digital problem, and All Izz Well!

Its never fathomable what one could learn from a vehicle with over a decade of running experience. And that is exactly the reason I like my ride. Happy 12th birthday Sentra!

Windows 7 on VirtualBox with Ubuntu Karmic Koala

2010-01-15T23:55:00.004-05:00

Picture perfect! Got Windows 7 running over Sun VirtualBox on Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 with VBoxGuestAdditions and in Seemless mode. All ready and waiting for my ArcGIS geodatabase!

NPR FRESHAIR - public radio top 10 lists

2010-01-03T12:43:00.006-05:00

Nice top 10 lists on NPR radio: FRESH AIR

And it also made me think that at the end of the last decade came "The Matrix," and "The Matrix" sort of played on this sense that we all have that maybe reality isn't real, that maybe we're living in a vast simulacrum, and so much of the movies of the '90s, say, were about managing to break through into real life, break through from this illusory life into what is real and tactile.

And now we come to the end of this decade, and there's this wonderful movie out called "Avatar" in which it's only by going into this make-believe word a man can truly fulfill his potential, can rewrite history.
And I just thought it was really striking that we've come about-face, and now we sort of hunger for our virtual selves, our avatars to take on, you know, the final frontier, which is maybe in our own minds.

UF VPN on Ubuntu Karmic Koala

2009-12-29T18:57:00.004-05:00

After upgrading to Ubuntu Koala 9.10, I decided to use VPNC instead of manually customizing the CISCO-VPN installation. Here are the necessary steps.

1. sudo apt-get install vpnc network-manager-vpnc

2. In network connections->VPN connections->configure VPN add a new entry->connection name: UF VPN gateway: vpn.ufl.edu group name: vpn-auth user password:  In optional settings: add username as your @ufl.edu

3. Login using Gatorlink at:  http://net-services.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/vpn/vpn-clients.cgi scroll down and download the configuration file: ufl-vpn.pcf

copy paste the "enc_GroupPwd" field into:   http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~massar/bin/cisco-decode

and get the password ("clear:" field) and put that value into "group password" (in configure VPN box). Save the password in the keyring by using password "saved" option.

4. click apply and connect with the UF VPN now. Voila!

Over the hill.. and in flight!

2009-10-12T13:01:00.003-05:00

A brilliant Reader's Digest read...

More than three hours after her heart stopped, Gilbert recalled watching the video probe of Bågenholm's heart.

"It was standing completely still. No movement. I just saw some little shivering. No fibrillation. And suddenly it contracted. Pssh," Gilbert said, squeezing his fists to mimic a beating heart. "And there was a pause and pssh. A second contraction." Gilbert tears up at the memory.

Medical miracle story @CNN

Editing PDFs on linux

2009-10-11T08:55:00.007-05:00

There are three primary packages that help edit PDFs on linux:

Pdftk - tool for manipulating PDF documents.
PDFedit - a good PDF editor, similar to Acrobat (full version on Windows) for manipulating PDF documents
PDFjam - is a collection of PDF document handling utilities

To cut pages 1, 3, 5, and 10 to 20 from a document input.pdf and save them into a new file result.pdf:

sudo apt-get install pdftk

pdftk input.pdf 1 3 5 10-20 output result.pdf

The no-good way:

pdfnup input.pdf --nup 1x1 --pages 1,3,5,10-20 --outfile result.pdf

clod~tune

2009-10-05T10:17:00.003-05:00

Fortune gave me the stiff upper lip this morning:

Your reasoning is excellent -- it's only your basic assumptions that are wrong.

Moving Thunderbird from Windows to Linux

2009-09-19T21:44:00.002-05:00

I found it easy to move my Thunderbird email accounts (data + filters) from Windows to Ubuntu linux. Here is a record log.

1. Transfer the 'profile folder' for your current Thunderbird installation (check this mozilla page for the exact location) to another safe partition or external disk.

2. I had two IMAP accounts and a large Local Folder, and these showed up in two grandchild folders: 'ImapMail' and 'Mail' respectively, under 'Profiles'.

On linux, once Thunderbird is installed, "~/.mozilla-thunderbird/" had a similar hierarchy. I created the two IMAP accounts, and copied the two folders (ImapMail and Mail) with their *.msf files to linux. That got the data (w/ filters etc.) transfered!

Note that I couldn't use the prefs.js directly to transfer account settings. But probably as some others have commented, it is also easy to edit and move over.

Thats all! Happy mailing!

Installing Acrobat Reader on Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) AMD 64bit

2009-09-17T12:48:00.005-05:00

I finally decided to install acroread on my Ubuntu machine (since I had to read edits done using it!). Here is a record log.

1. Check your OS version by lsb_release -a, uname -a, gcc -v,...

2. Get the Acrobat Reader version for your OS from:
http://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/

I use Ubuntu 9.04 on AMD 64-bit. But, since Adobe doesn't have a 64bit installer, I downloaded the Linux - x86 (.deb): AdbeRdr9.1.2-1_i386linux_enu.deb

3. Force install the 32bit package by:
sudo dpkg -i --force-all AdbeRdr9.1.2-1_i386linux_enu.deb

Done. acroread should now be ready.

Finally, a shout-out: don't do it! Go Open! Use evince, or xpdf, or ghostview to read PDFs. Try PDFedit or Kword to edit them.

linux and the lawsuits

2009-08-20T12:11:00.002-05:00

A low blow... to all things open: "Imagine building a billion-dollar business without having to offer any of the usual guarantees or indemnity. No wonder IBM likes Linux."

IBM Refuses To Indemnify Linux Users

Red Hat's Mad Matt Vs. Humongous SCO Lawsuit

Perhaps its a good opportunity for Windows 7 to step up.

Cupola

2009-07-02T08:35:00.002-05:00

The International Space Station will get a new picture window early next year. Called the "Cupola," the new observation platform will be a control point for the space station’s robotic arm. It will also serve as the ultimate chill-out room.

reads

2009-07-02T01:50:00.004-05:00

Property values won't turn around until 2012 and won't return to their 2007 peaks until at least 2017. The reason is that commercial property tends to follow unemployment and the Federal Reserve said it expects unemployment numbers to turn around in three years.

How fit is Boston Marathon fit ??!!

2009-07-02T01:26:00.004-05:00

After a 3mi run, an hour of weights in the gym and 2hrs of tennis with Vikas bhai... feeling fit as never before. Guess its time to take on the Space Coast Marathon and vie for the Boston one :D

btw, didn't know penny stocks could really make sense... GMGMQ made my day!

how fast is superfast?

2009-06-23T14:59:00.003-05:00

After listening to @Jon, I thought of checking out how fast my tux machine tunnels into the web...

pretty impressive eh! :)

social and work networks - to mix or not to mix

2009-05-13T12:23:00.003-05:00

Dos and don'ts for mixing work, social networks

"There is increasingly less difference in work life and personal time," Levinson says. "We are coming from a time when there were very clear boundaries. That comes from an older expectation. Work takes place in more places now."

People can use the sites to make new acquaintances outside their departments and groups, and users can extend their networks beyond the traditional workplace, she says in an interview by e-mail. "It's a way to enter new professional galaxies."

there are crossovers and then there is the Q5 !

2009-03-29T11:13:00.009-05:00

The Audi Q5's roof rack features sensors that detect when it is being used to carry a load. The sensors feed the information into the electronic stability control system, which then automatically adjusts its operating parameters - basically lowering the dynamic threshold at which it begins to intervene - to compensate for the upward shift in the vehicle's center of gravity.

3G MMI Navigation and Multimedia interface.
Seven-speed dual-clutch S-tronic gearbox (manual and auto: Audi drive select modes).
3.2 V6 FSI engine - 270Hp @ 6500rpm, 0-60 in 6.7 secs.

impressed yet?

http://www.truthinengineering.com/truth

When are stocks "substantially identical"?

2009-02-13T12:29:00.006-05:00

A wash sale occurs when one sells stock or securities at a loss and then within 30 days before or after the sale buys or acquires in a fully taxable trade, or acquires a contract or option to buy substantially identical stock or securities. The disallowed loss can be added to the basis of the new stock or security. Bonds or preferred stock of a corporation are not ordinarily considered substantially identical to the common stock of the same corporation.

However, I do not see any clear definition of "substantially identical" stocks. The Pub 550 from IRS presents examples of what is not identical and leaves enough room for wannabe lawyers to craft their class actions (.. or its analogy in the finance world.)
Ordinarily(!), I revere the information-burst from the IRS website, but this is one document clearly begging for more ink.

Excerpt from thestreet: That's why you can't avoid the wash-sale rule by selling stocks at a loss in a brokerage account and repurchasing the same shares in an IRA?
uh. really?

read:
The MER-BAC days.
IRS Publication 550, Investment Income and Expenses.
Tax Loss harvesting - good read!

Jaywalking tamed! Thanks BMW.

2009-02-06T11:58:00.006-05:00

wow!

The fifth generation BMW 7-Series takes the FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) technology one notch higher with the world's first Pedestrian Recognition system. The second generation HUD system scans the road upto 300 metres and notifies the driver of any pedestrians by a combination of algorithms which identify human body shapes like torso, head, arms and moving limbs.

Just humans eh? not cows?

hilarious!

2009-01-31T11:24:00.003-05:00

"Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?

That sounds preposterous to me."

Great news for all NFS fans!!!

2009-01-30T23:45:00.003-05:00

EA is coming out with three new Need for Speed games, to be released later this year (wow... really?!). Another good news is that apart from the new much hyped crash mode, the cockpit view is going to be improved, similar to NFS3: Hot Pursuit. :)

The flagship title will be Need For Speed: Shift, which will be similar to past games, though with a heavier emphasis on simulation. One of the ways that it will attempt to do this is via an in-depth cockpit view mode and some sort of new crash mechanic. The game is being developed by Slightly Mad Studios and will be hitting the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and PlayStation Portable.

Meanwhile, Need For Speed Nitro, which is being developed by EA Montreal, will feature much more arcade-style racing. The game is being developed for both the Nintendo Wii and DS, and will feature some in-depth car customization in addition to arcade racing features like boost. It also will feature another NFS staple: cops that will chase you down a la Hot Pursuit. EA is hoping the game will appeal to new players and genre fans alike.

The third game will be another attempt by EA to enter the free-to-play space. Need For Speed: World Online is similar to Battlefield Heroes, and will be a free-to-play PC title but with optional paid microtransactions as well. Other than the payment model, details for World Online are slim. The game will launch in Asia first, and if successful, will be released in other markets soon after. It is being co-developed by EA Black Box and EA Singapore.

http://www.needforspeed.com/

Install Adobe Flash Player 10 "Astro" on Ubuntu AMD 64-bit

2008-09-28T23:31:00.002-05:00

From Adobe Labs:

Adobe® Flash® Player 10, code-named "Astro," introduces new expressive features and visual performance improvements that allow interactive designers and developers to build the richest and most immersive Web experiences. These new capabilities also empower the community to extend Flash Player and to take creativity and interactivity to a new level.

Adobe released the linux version of their Flash Player 10 beta 2 (Astro) on September 15th 2008. Here are the steps to install it in Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 for Mozilla Firefox 3.0.3. (There is a bash script at the end.)

The earlier installation of flash player (flashplugin-nonfree) was crashing my Firefox strangely. The browser used to go down whenever I activated flash on a website by clicking twice.

This version from Adobe seems to do the job well. No crashes, and Firefox is running smoothly so far!

Adobe Flash Player 10 Installation Steps (as of 28 Sept 2008):
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) To see if you have the latest version already goto:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/demos/index.html

To download from the Adobe site goto:
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/alternates/
I chose "Linux x86 | Firefox/Mozilla" and the .tar.gz file, from:
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

tar -zxvf flashplayer10_install_linux_091508.tar.gz
sudo cp install_flash_player_10_linux/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

(2) Get the latest nspluginwrapper packages from:
http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwrapper/files
I downloaded these two files:
http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwrapper/files/nspluginwrapper-1.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm
http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwrapper/files/nspluginwrapper-i386-1.0.0-1.x86_64.rpm

(3) Now, get rid of other old flash plugins:
sudo apt-get remove -y --purge flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla libflashsupport nspluginwrapper
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f ~/.mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -rfd /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper
#remove old libraries like libswfdec-0.6-90:
sudo apt-get autoremove

(4) Install the 32bit wrapper, alien and getlibs:
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32asound2 lib32ncurses5 ia32-libs-sdl ia32-libs-gtk gsfonts gsfonts-x11 linux32

sudo apt-get install alien

Getlibs:
http://www.boundlesssupremacy.com/Cappy/getlibs/getlibs-all.deb
sudo dpkg -i getlibs-all.deb

sudo getlibs -p libcurl3
sudo getlibs -p libnss3-1d
sudo getlibs -p libnspr4-0d

(5) # Installation for gnome browsers: Use nspluginwrapper to install the plugin and link it to firefox
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/x86_64/linux/npconfig /usr/bin/nspluginwrapper
sudo alien -d nspluginwrapper*.rpm
sudo dpkg -i nspluginwrapper*.deb
sudo mkdir /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins32
sudo mv install_flash_player_10_linux/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins32
sudo nspluginwrapper -i /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins32/libflashplayer.so

(6) Make the plugin available for the browser:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.so /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.3/plugins/
(I think the Firefox-3.0.3/plugins folder is the essential one for Firefox.)
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

(7) Start firefox and head to "about:plugins".
firefox about:plugins &
and it would something similar to this under "Shockwave Flash":
File name: npwrapper.libflashplayer.so
Shockwave Flash 10.0 r12
Again go to Adobe Labs and test if the flash video works:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/demos/index.html

Thats it! Youtube, The Daily Show, Colbert Report - they all should work well now. :)

** A simple Bash script to perform the above operations **
http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~gv1/HeronGetsFlashy.sh

Gudnite!

(Thanks to MeAndUbuntu and Ferdig)

Yeah. Nice job guys, cold fusion on me! Hah.

2008-06-23T01:08:00.004-05:00

Sci-Fi is now borrowing ideas from Halo-3...

Its not what you can do.. its what you want to do!

Sci vs Fi - Halo 3 on the XBox

awesome!

James May vs Gordon Ramsay - Youtube TV

2008-06-22T22:45:00.004-05:00

Brilliant! Top Gear's James May versus Hell's Kitchen's Gordon Ramsay

More with Jeremy Clarkson

:)

PROJEKT REVOLUTION 2007

2007-08-26T20:22:00.000-05:00

Linkin Park, M.C.R, Taking Back Sunday, HIM, Placebo, Julien-K...
Mindless Self Indulgence, Saosin, The Bled, Styles of Beyond, Madina Lake...

PROJEKT REVOLUTION 2007

August 11, 2007 - Tampa, FL

we were there!!

The YouTube-ification of politics

2007-07-18T16:06:00.000-05:00

A very interesting article on how YouTube is empowering the average person to influence the political process like never before:

youtube.effect@CNN

"I think it really breaks down some of the traditional barriers we have seen in American politics," Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube, told CNN's John King Monday. "Time was, if you wanted to engage in a primary debate process, you had to be in New Hampshire or in Iowa."

"Candidates do genuinely hate audience participation, because they like to control the environment," said longtime television news anchor Dan Rather, now the global correspondent for HDNet. Tell candidates people will ask them questions via a YouTube video, he says, and "they get the shivers."

It's those unscripted moments that have taken on a new life on the video-sharing Web site.

There is a flip side to the YouTube phenomenon. It can also help campaigns looking for new ways to harness the power of the popular Web site... Sometimes the campaigns are getting help without asking.

Truely, the Internet has turned the world into a global village; so, its leaders need to become as accountable as panchayat chiefs. Ha, now I begin to understand why Microsoft had aptly termed the most superior age in the 'Rise of Nations' as the Information Age!

where does this lead? check out Micah's view: Event Horizon and Singularity -by Micah Glasser
;)

Rising US oil prices

2007-07-14T20:13:00.001-05:00

I hear people fretting and frowning everyday about the rising gas prices here in the US. But, check out the stats compiled by Glow: http://www.gadling.com/2007/06/26/the-price-of-gas-around-the-world/

Interestingly, according to it, gas prices at London, HK, and even Mumbai are higher than those at major US cities! (Of course, the number of vehicles plying on roads in these cities wouldn't be even comparable to the number in US cities; so the effect would most likely be felt more by consumers here.)

elocution

2007-07-13T20:42:00.000-05:00

Nice articles:

35th President - John F kennedy's Inaugural speech: Friday, January 20, 1961
"...ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkinaugural.htm

Swami Vivekananda's Speech - The World Parliament of Religions, Chicago
WELCOME ADDRESS - Sept 11, 1893
http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/extra/bl-sv1.htm
http://www.theuniversalwisdom.org/hinduism/welcome-address-vivekananda/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxUzKoIt5aM

Public speaking is both a science and an art. The content of your speech is the science part. How you memserise the audience is art.

Video gallery of famous speeches -History Channel

Avalon project -Yale.edu

we need to talk...

2007-07-08T11:13:00.001-05:00

Was discussing the issues slowly developing with the iPhone and rumors of it "not living up to the hype" with some friends the other day. Soon, our discussion turned very interesting, the XBox got thrown into the mix and we started debating about the so-called prowess of the modern day tech industry.

Are today's tech companies trying to add more and more features in-order to make headline news and impress Wall Street, instead of developing reliable products? Is the modern day consumer so excited with these flashy features that effectiveness and reliability have lost meaning.

ya. Intel has its own share of poor products... Google gives a pathetic excuse for every bug by adding a "beta" to every single product and never bringing it out of that stage... msft, no need to say more..

Though not obvious, this is easily true. Of course, Gmail had a good array of features, combined with ~2.8 gigs of storage space which seemed out of the world during those days. But 2yrs later, the free-email arena presents a very different picture. Now, Inbox.com offers 5gigs of space and Walla.com (one of my favorites during college!) has 3gb of space. AOL has also greatly improved its email interface and the feature-set. Microsoft, which brought its Ajax version of Hotmail as the LiveMail, was quick to bring it out of beta. And, Yahoo-mail still rocks!

So, one tends to wonder: Did the mechanical and heavy engineering industries of the earlier decades also go through this phase of creating underperforming goods before improving them substantially to built the foundations of modern day construction & aerospace industry? Did they get this chance to show experimental products out in the open market so easily??

One might argue that the heavy engineering industries dealt with human lives upfront, while software bugs don't bite us directly. But, if the amount of time and money wasted on such products are considered, wouldn't such passive beta errors easily cripple the functioning of an organization and throw it out of business much quicker?

Should Microsoft be allowed to boldly take a 1billion hit from the changes required in Xbox just because it is capable of doing so? In today's highly technological world, shouldn't there be better predetermined standards for all these products, so that when they are released into the market they come with the reliability of a lathe. Or, are we moving towards a new phase where markets turn into research labs and consumers the lab rats?

iPhone

2007-06-22T12:40:00.001-05:00

Get ready for the iPhone. Check out the guided tour.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/usingiphone/guidedtour.html

:)

The Cookie Thief

2007-06-20T10:30:00.000-05:00

read this nice poem sometime back...

The Cookie Thief
by Valerie Cox

A woman was waiting at an airport one night,
With several long hours before her flight.
She hunted for a book in the airport shops.
Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book but happened to see,
That the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be.
Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between,
Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

So she munched the cookies and watched the clock,
As the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock.
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,
Thinking, "If I wasn't so nice, I would blacken his eye."

With each cookie she took, he took one too,
When only one was left, she wondered what he would do.
With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh,
He took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half, as he ate the other,
She snatched it from him and thought... oooh, brother.
This guy has some nerve and he's also rude,
Why he didn't even show any gratitude!

She had never known when she had been so galled,
And sighed with relief when her flight was called.
She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate,
Refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.

She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat,
Then she sought her book, which was almost complete.
As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise,
There was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.

If mine are here, she moaned in despair,
The others were his, and he tried to share.
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.

How many times in our lives,
have we absolutely known
that something was a certain way,
only to discover later that
what we believed to be true ... was not?

Sony's flexi-OLED display

2007-06-11T23:33:00.001-05:00

Modern day surfaces are getting a digital dimension. ;) Sony has developed a razor-thin display that bends like paper while showing full-color video.

Sony has introduced world’s first 2.5 inch full color flexi-OLED (organic light-emitting diodes) display on a flexible plastic film which grins in 16.8 million colors at only 0.3mm thick, enabling to bend the screen casually.

This flexi-OLED display which made from a glass substrate has a resolution of 120 x 169 pixels and weighs a 1.5 grams. We might see these flexible OLED screen technology apply to magazines as advertisements or on the back of a mobile phones for viewing movies in the future. Another cool way to enhance our digital life. bravo!

more:
http://new2blog.com/n2b/blog/?p=62

Virtual Haircut

2007-06-03T12:36:00.000-05:00

Check out this impressive audio experience from David Heron's blog.. Do have your headphones on and in high volume.

Virtual Barbershop:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/554510/virtual_barbershop/

http://david-heron.me.uk/blog/2007/04/08/virtual-barbershop

"Called Binaural Audio, here two microphones are used to record a stereo track at just the location where your ears are. Only heard with headphones, it’s an incredibly spooky effect that has been around for over a hundred years."

You'll definitely need headphones or surround speakers to enjoy it ... best sound intensity cues ever
Almost feels like turning around and seeing the people there!! wow!

Gators go White.

2007-04-09T12:25:00.000-05:00

Pres. Bush does the Gator chomp :D
http://news.ufl.edu/2007/03/23/gators-at-the-white-house-3/

Starbucks. the missing link.

2007-03-20T10:53:00.000-05:00

Campus rocks now. With two new Starbucks right in the middle of town (one at the newly opened Library West and the other in The Hub) its seems like Mickey Mantle's summer has set. again. :D

rocka doodle doo.

My TheWayISeeIt for today:
"Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It's mastery of fear. It's about getting up one more time than we fall down." -Arianna Huffington (Author of On Becoming Fearless.. in Love, Work and Life.)

And so, we are back!

2007-03-11T13:20:00.001-05:00

Gators storm into SEC final !!!

Corey Brewer scored 22 points, Lee Humphrey added 17 and the Gators put on another dominating display to beat Mississippi 80-59 in the SEC semifinals Saturday.

Defending national champion Florida (28-5) jumped out to a quick 11-point lead and was never seriously challenged by the Rebels (20-12), who might have cost themselves a chance to slip into the NCAA field.

Go for the hattrick fellas!

more: FoxSports

Funny SFW jokes.

2007-03-04T14:57:00.001-05:00

Came across this site last week and have had some real nice laughs.

The Top 10 Lies Told by Graduate Students - That was funny

The first and the last are the best. cant say I hold any of them true.. ;)

Rascal County

2007-02-08T13:05:00.000-05:00

Every time you get up and get back in the race
One more small piece of you starts to fall into place
--"Me and My Gang", Rascal Flatts.

Got a chance to listen to this album 'Me and My Gang' from Rascal Flatts. It definitely rox! The album has a clean mix of country hits -from the fun and fast-paced title song ('n Backwards, of course!) to the inspirational Stand and the neat Ellsworth. With such upbeat music and lyrics that demand attention it would be easy to say that Rascal Flatts are deserting their twangy roots for a more palatable pop sound on this compilation. But listen closely and you'll find that they're really pushing the formulaic boundaries of commercial country further outward.

Super cd. Lots of great cuts. Pretty rockin country! Nashville has done it again. lol.

Writing XHTML compliant Flash

2006-11-04T15:08:00.000-05:00

There are a number of ways to manage XHTML compliance while embedding flash in webpages. I had wanted to blog about this for a long time now. So there it goes.
All UF websites are being moved to support strict XHTML compliance (with the new signature tags and all). If you’re into the whole web nerd thing, you’ll know that embedding Flash in a XHTML page doesn’t play so nice with these web standards everyone is raving about. Developers basically have two choices these days when working with XHTML and Flash:

The Flash Satay method, which uses a single object tag to embed the Flash movie. This method’s main drawback is that the movie won’t start playing until it is 100% loaded. This can create problems with large Flash sites where the user would be left with a blank screen until the movie loads. There are ways around this, but it involves using another .swf file that loads your main movie and placing the preloader inside the first swf. This can clutter up your directories with ‘holder’ movies and make adding Flash content much more time consuming than it should be.
(There is a little bugginess in Firefox v1.5 with relation to Satay.)
Use Javascript to write the object / embed tags - This seems to be the most common way of embedding Flash today. Drawbacks include reliance on Javascript being enabled on the user’s browser, and having to include a .js file with each Flash movie, or rewrite the object and embed code for each movie.

Most large sites I looked at used simple Javascript to write each Flash movie to the page, or some reusable code that accepted parameters for the Flash movies. ABC News has one of the most advanced version I could find, with some excellent reusable Javascript that detected the plugin and could not only write the object and embed to the page, but could also target an element on the page and place the Flash movie inside it.

Two guys from http://www.choppingblock.com also showed a clean way to do this at http://www.flashforwardconference.com. They use 2 div's one for alternative content and one for the flash content. Then there is an nifty .js file for checking the client for version and writing the object or embed tag with all its params and the other usable code

=> Adobe Developer Center logs

So, the best way is to remove the embed tags and populate the object tags with all necessary properties - while handling alternative content as shown here: http://www.dgx.cz/trine/item/how-to-correctly-insert-a-flash-into-xhtml
I'll show how I handled all this.. in a later blog :P

gNano

2006-10-23T16:40:00.000-05:00

coming soon...

happy fifth birthday..

:D

New age space vehicles - Orion and the Ares

2006-09-06T21:19:00.000-05:00

NASA has selected Lockheed Martin Corp., based in Bethesda, Md., as the prime contractor to design, develop, and build Orion, America's spacecraft for a new generation of explorers. Lockheed Martin beat out a rival bid from Northrop Grumman and Boeing to win a contract NASA said would be potentially worth $8.15 billion.

NASA made the long-awaited announcement Aug. 31, ending an intense competition the roots of which go back to 2004, when U.S. President George W. Bush called for the development of a CEV to replace the space shuttle and eventually carry astronauts to the Moon.
A day before: NASA had announced that Ares I and V (the crew and cargo launch vehicles resply.) would become the flagship vehicles of the NASA fleet. More about Ares...

Orion will be capable of transporting four crewmembers for lunar missions and later supporting crew transfers for Mars missions. Orion could also carry up to six crew members to and from the International Space Station.

The first Orion launch with humans onboard is planned for no later than 2014, and for a human moon landing no later than 2020. Orion will form a key element of extending a sustained human presence beyond low-Earth orbit to advance commerce, science and national leadership.(?!)

NASA said manufacturing and integration of the vehicle components will take place at contractor facilities across the country. Lockheed Martin will perform the majority of the Orion vehicle engineering work at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, and complete final assembly of the vehicle at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. All 10 NASA centers will provide technical and engineering support to the project.

NASA - The Constellation Program
NASA's moonship site
Ares I
Ares V

Find an interesting discussion about the chosen name here
[ an excerpt]

When the the world clock was established and Greenwich England became time zero, A point in the Celestial sphere above Greenwich England was chosen. What was chosen? The Star Aries in the Constellation Aries and it became known as the first point of Aries.
Why would NASA pick a WAR symbology rather than an astronomical sign? No classically trained Rocket engineers? Yup, in my opinion!!!
Aries anyone?

interesante

2006-08-16T10:26:00.000-05:00

Read an interesting article by the Yankees mngr Joseph Paul Torre on this week's BW:

"As Alberto Alessi once said, anything very new often falls into the realm of the not possible, but you should still sail as close to the edge as you can, because it is only through failure that you will know where the edge really is. The edge is also where real genius resides."

"Competing at the highest level is not about winning. It's about preparation, courage, understanding and nurturing your people, and heart. Winning is the result."
BW

+ 'In praise of the research university' Brandeis University-School of Science commencement address (may'96) by Dr Harry Mairson.

"..one of my responsibilities is to make students realize that their frustration over not understanding and sometimes failing is our jointly suffered occupational hazard. Furthermore, in confronting this frustration, these students confront the limits of the potential and creativity that define them as educated men and women. This, for me, was the moral of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus: for those of us who bear a greater resemblance to Salieri, what can you do with your life that is worthwhile if you are not Mozart?"

"Not that all research is scary, and like a good portfolio manager, you learn to control risk. A balance needs to be struck between barely incremental 're-search' for things that you, or someone else, already found, and the maddening vertigo of trying something so new that you haven't the foggiest idea what to do. But a research life---and an academic life---without risk is not worth the effort, and our language abounds with sayings to that effect: a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

+ Celebrate Failure

STS 115 - Atlantis, Aug27th 2006

2006-08-14T14:23:00.000-05:00

SpaceShuttle Atlantis is all set to take off from Pad 39B at Cape Canaveral, KSC on Aug 27th. The "everything but liftoff" dress rehersal for launch was completed successfully on Thursday.

STS-115 is the next space shuttle program mission and first to resume assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) following two "Return to Flight" test missions. NASA plans to complete the outpost with 15 increasingly complex flights before the shuttle's retirement in 2010.

The launch window is open from August 27, 2006 to September 13, 2006. This mission is also referred to as ISS-12A by the ISS program. The key mission objective is to deliver the second left-side truss segment (ITS P3/P4), a pair of solar arrays (2A and 4A), and batteries.

Latest News: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

PepsiCo gets a new CEO

2006-08-14T09:31:00.000-05:00

Indian American corporate honcho Indra Nooyi — Fortune's 4th most powerful woman in American business for 2002 (8th in 2003), has been named the next CEO of US multinational PepsiCo.

Quick'afile: Indra Nooyi, B.S., M.B.A., M.P.P.M., Greenwich, Connecticut.
Born in Chennai, she graduated in science from the Madras Christian College. A student of the 11th Batch of MBA from IIM-C., she did her graduation in management from Yale University. Apart from work, she is an avid guitarist and loves rock ‘n’ roll.

Nooyi joined the $33 billion global convenient foods and beverages company in 1994 and has served as president and chief financial officer since 2001, when she was also named to PepsiCo's board of directors. She is the fifth CEO in PepsiCo's 41-year-old history. An alumna of the Indian Institute of Management IIM-Calcutta (IIM-C), she brings with her vast and unique skills to the job. Prior to joining the Purchase, New York-based company, she held senior management positions in Motorola and Asea Brown Boveri (ABB). She had started her career in 1980 with the Boston Consulting Group.

She has directed the company's global strategy for over a decade and was the primary architect of PepsiCo's restructuring, including the divestiture of its restaurants into the successful Yum brand. She was instrumental in the spin-off and public offering of company-owned bottling operations into anchor bottler Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG), acquiring Tropicana, and the merger with Quaker Oats that brought the Quaker and the sports drink Gatorade businesses to PepsiCo.

Nooyi is also a Successor Fellow at Yale Corporation and serves on the board of directors of several organizations, including Motorola, the International Rescue Committee, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

In a related development: Following in the footsteps of Karnataka, Punjab and Arunachal Pradesh have also banned sale of coke and pepsi in and around government schools, colleges and hospitals.

[AP]: Sales of the two companies' drinks have been hit since the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi said tests carried out on 57 samples of soft drinks made by Coca-Cola India and PepsiCo India contained pesticide residues that were 24 times higher than Indian standards.

The center said almost all soft drinks sold in India contain high levels of pesticides, but the focus was on Coca-Cola and PepsiCo because the two account for nearly 80 percent of India's $2 billion-plus soft drink market.

yoke:
Gatorade @UF || Nooyi @Columbia || YAN@C (Yet another controversy at Columbia!) || Pepsi @UF Alligator

Zune. Zune. Zune

2006-08-01T17:16:00.000-05:00

Welcome Zune!
Zune == Ipod ????

Microsoft is planning to enter the mp3/ video player domain with its new Zune player. The device is planned to include Wi-Fi connectivity for wireless Internet access, with the ability for users to transfer files wirelessly and share files between each other. It shall also have a 30GB hardisk drive, black, brown, and cotton color options, FM tuner, an all new easy-to-use interface with audio and video capabilities, upto 13 first party accerrories avlble at launch, and a 50% larger screen than the iPod with video (making it 3.75-inches -talking diagonal, and not areal).

"So what's Zune?
It's Microsoft's new, holistic approach to music and entertainment. And yes, this year, we'll be releasing a device as part of the project. Under the Zune brand, we're looking to build a community for connecting with folks, all to discover new music and entertainment."

The product is expected to be launched on Nov14th '06. And, I can't wait to get me hands on it!! hehe!
ComingZune.com

Is this abt Zune??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS4qlYwTdnk&eurl =
Yet another mysterious Microsoft product called "Alexandria" -- "mysterious" because they won't show what the product is, just that it's something that apparently runs on handhelds and laptops alike and that nimbly gathers large crowds of disaffected youth and buttoned-down adults, alike. The video closes with "The future of entertainment / summer 2006," fade to black. Here we go again.

Test post from MS Office 2007 beta2

2006-08-01T16:37:00.000-05:00

Wow. Office 2007 seems to have an amazingly new look and feel. Cool. It sure is a bold leap forward. Now the many billion users across the planet would have to get accustomed to the new UI.

Get beta2 now!! (Last day)!!

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/testdrive.mspx

oops: can office be configured to upload pics into blogger directly..??!! search running…

Test post from MS Office 2007 beta2

2006-08-01T16:29:00.000-05:00

Wow. Office 2007 seems to have an amazingly new look and feel. Cool.

Wikimapia "HCE from the sky"

2006-07-09T12:25:00.000-05:00

Now see the power of Google and Wikipedia unleashed together...

http://www.wikimapia.org/#y=12800377&x=80228584&amp;amp;amp;z=17&l=0&m=a

:D HCE from the sky!!!
www.hindustancollege.com

sincity (2005)

2006-07-08T18:14:00.000-05:00

a Sin-City spoiler:

High-octane, bloody, kick-ass affair. Visually stunning, with enough grit and hard-boiled dialogue to make Dashiell Hammett roll over in his grave. This film is split into three sub-stories: "The Hard Goodbye" is easily the best, "Big Fat Kill" slows things down a bit, and "That Yellow Bastard" is tragic and satisfying.

Though Sin City has been compared with the Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Clockwork Orange genre -the comic to movie adaptation here is strikingly awesome. Particularly the coloring of certain scenes and the depth in characters projects this movie over the "normal" ones and takes it to the level of a classic hyper-noir. Truely, there can only be extreme reviews for this work. Either one must be disgusted and feel offended (the sheep in you), or like it and appreciate the brave crass' n class style. Whatever, it sure boasts of good performances from all the characters.
nice work. bravo team! bravo frnk miller!

The Cinematical SIN CITY Comparison Library
SinCity @Filmrot

STS-121 Discovery lifts off from my backyard!! (soon)

2006-06-29T21:52:00.000-05:00

T-00 Days 19 Hours 00 Minutes 00 Seconds and Holding

(as of now!!)

Check the shuttle launch status here:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/htbin/cdt_main.pl

Live videos:http://countdown.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/countdown/cdt/

Earlier launches: Discovery launch videos: (awesome!!!)
http://msnbc.com/modules/spaceshuttle/discoverylaunch/

Need for Speed: Carbon Canyon

2006-06-22T12:34:00.000-05:00

The next version of NFS is titled "Need for Speed: Carbon Canyon" [NFS 7] !! (rumored!!)

The punch line reads: "Your car, your team, your street...

Although it has yet to be officially announced, it was shown in EA's montage at Sony's E³ 2006 conference. EB Games have announced a provisional release date of November 1, 2006. The story and features of this game are unknown as of now. It is the first NFS game set to be released for the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii.

Weirdly, the name "Carbon" seems to have been chosen at a time when terms like carbon neutrality" and global warming are making big circles in the planning charts of the world's decision makers.

It is also evident that nighttime racing will make a welcome return to the series as some of the cars appear to have neon lights. This could mean that exotic cars may be featured in tuner races such as drift and drag and may have crazy customization similar to Underground.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790814/

NFS Carbon will be the 10th game in the series unless one counts "NFS 2 SE" as a separate game, then this would be the 11th game released.

The next edition is said to be titled Need for Speed "Carbon" apparently due to its setting within a popular racing spot titled "Carbon Canyon" in California. The game is expected to include elements of both the Need for Speed Underground games and last year's Need for Speed Most Wanted, where players must run from the cops all the while building their own crew to race with. Your crew will now have their own unique characteristics and capabilities will on the road, such as some being more violent and dirty racers will others will make use of others' vehicles to slipstream and gain an upper hand.

Relish a sample here:
NFS Carbon Canyon Trailer2

http://www.nfs-planet.de/nfsc_movies.php?lang=eng

E3 high-res videos: http://www.ea.com/theater.jsp?media=videos

Voyagers vs Python!!

2006-06-03T09:03:00.000-05:00

Was reading about how UF researchers are using Judas snakes to lure out giant pythons from the Everglades, and stumbled on the "Introducting Python" video.

This 24 minute video (200+ MB download) contains interviews with luminaries from the Python community interspersed with "A Python Love Story". It was created for use as an introductory activity in a computer science course using Python.

Created by a few high school students with help from the author of How to Think Like a Computer Scientist:Learning with Python, this video has enjoyed great reviews in the Python community. A comical blend of professionalism, programming passion and.. hey, "let the snake be your teacher"!!

Taylor beats the trend !!! Soul Patrol rox!

2006-05-24T21:20:00.000-05:00

Taylor Hicks was named the American Idol tonight after all the steam, pressure and hype.. :P
Hicks, 29, of Birmingham, Ala., became the latest in a string of Southern and Midwestern contestants to win the Fox talent contest and a record contract. In a final viewer voting poll he bested runner-up Katharine McPhee, 22, of Los Angeles.
“Soul Patrol!” Hicks shouted, acknowledging his avid fans by their nickname.

Live Online Feed avble at:
http://www.americanidol.com/finale/videos/

Alabama IS the music county !

Hello Moto :D

2006-04-29T11:03:00.000-05:00

Fishing with my Moto Razr..

Off McCarty Hall..

fun ona pun ;)

Stickies

2006-04-24T01:17:00.000-05:00

Check out a few interesting and useful apps for ur PC:

The best digital post-it notes for the desktop: Stickies
Its free, easy to use and has all essential features like colored notes, strikeout font styles, ringing/ vib alarm, always on top settings, and a good number of other ones. Stickies is the best post-it notes for the desktop I've ever seen. Best of all, its free (unlike the restricted one from 3M).

Quintessential Player: with my favorite minima blue skin
QCD is another gr8 AV player for the PC. Best is the small player size, easy playlist navigation, search and music_add features. The application loads up in a jiffy and quality is really good.

Mozilla Extensions: The IE tab and flashget downloader extensions extend the functioanlity of firefox amazingly. Also, the save session and mouse gestures extensions bring the best of Opera into Firefox!!!! A must get!

NFS-MW: Need for Speed's latest, the Most Wanted edition rox!!!
The Need for Speed series has been with us for over ten years now. The series has seen its fair share of changes along the way. With Need For Speed 3 Hot Pursuit, we saw the exhilarating introduction of pursuit racing. I'm almost embarrassed to admit how many hours I must have put into that game on my PC years ago. After that we saw the respectable High Stakes game, where damage to your car was not only visible, but a major factor. Porsche Unleashed was a nice tribute game, and Hot Pursuit 2 was great. Then the Underground series took Need For Speed into the world of street racing--a move I wasn't very pleased about, but free roaming was really cool. Now, enter Most Wanted--the next Need For Speed title that combines the immense fun of pursuit racing along with the customization and atmosphere of Underground racing. The idea was great, if not obvious, and the outcome is something every racing gamer should enjoy.

Need for Speed Most Wanted delivers a unique, fast-paced and gripping ride in the racing genre as players build up their Rap Sheet and street cred to move their way up the Black List to become the most wanted racer on the streets. Players go head-to-head with the top drivers on the scene as well as strategically evade more than half dozen cops at any one time.
Ok, so what new in MW thatz not in UG1?? Well, the time lag feature (reminds me of Max Payne!!), "rushing" landscape, dynamic open world, new gameplay and customization as well as tuners, supercars, muscles and sports cars, improved car handling and amazing nitrous boosters (try Ultimate!) and a large number of levels (ensuring long play time) are really good additions. The AI is good too. For eg. rain brings in slippery roads (beware!) and the effects of breaking barriers and police roadblocks is visually glamorous.

Further there are new modes like timestamp racing(tough in higher level, trust me!) and the "bounty" collection which sometimes make the game amazingly tough ;) The best part is that the game goes in as a story, wherein you increase your blacklist(in polize records!) to reach the no1 street racing gangsta in the city.
Overall a nice car racing game (and rmbr to login into challenge series at beginning to check out the many new modes of play), fast paced, intelligent and enthralling(Rmbr to check into some earlier levels for quick bucks to upgrade your car!)

HalfLife2

2006-04-15T03:42:00.000-05:00

Valve: Halflife2

5am: Just completed HL2! Thought i'd put down some notes abt the long long story.
HL2 is amazing! One imp comment: Though Valve released HL2 sometime in May 2004, after many deadline misses, there still seem to be many bugs in the program. I somehow managed to get rid of the infamous "Memory Read Error" twice, and was able to complete the whole game in 2 sittings :D

These were my settings:
hl2.exe -steam +mat_forcehardwaresync 0 +snd_async_prefetch_priority 1 ai_norebuildgraph 0 -console
[hope this helps someone]
In the first case, I was able to postpone error using the forcehardwaresync and prefetch_priority (i doubt this is even a valid command!). Then I got stuck at Highway17, (after the colonel provided me with the rocket launcher). The problem seemed to come from the [Wood Splintering] audio file (I found this by setting the subtitle feature). Anyways, loading back from a previous stage and was able to continue with the gunship rockets scene by setting the above and heapsize as 1/4 of my RAM (250000).

But the memory read error seems so stark common and its suprising that Valve didnt come up with a subtle solution. There are tons of forums flooded with users thrashing the issue and some announcing victories, but no concrete fix (still!). And, the error is so fustrating cause u cannot proceed easily once u r struck by it!

Anyways, coming to the game: the improvement over original HL is the new range of weapons, (the gravity gun(!!) , crossbow particularly) and gameplay. The physics is simply stunning from ripples and gunshot ricochets in water, to an almost real high altitude bridge climbing experience -in the Coast level. Combine forces play well (!!!) and the strider creatures are stunning. However, the noticeable issue is the abrupt change in level difficulty and weapon availability. For eg, the last two chapters seem nothing more that videos(!!), there is almost nothin to do. The super gravity gun can pull the CPs off the grnd and hurl them aside. So, it simplifies the levels too much. Also, valve has failed to maintain the level of suspense and addictiveness that were the definin moments of original HL. The entire game almost seems to be the same maps coming over and over again (except for that long drive on highway17! on the super buggy!). The final scenes are almost like from The Matrix!

Overall: a nice way to spend a few hours, gravitate into the world of Gordon Freeman and save humanity from the bots (that is if you can make it work!). Also, the HL2 Lamba symbol rox!

Some screenshots from the mahabarat:

The Canals: start of the tourney

The Wonder Buggy!

The Final Reunion!
Breen does a namaste to Gordon ?? !!!

The Defining Moment: I win!

NCAA National Champions - Go Gators!!!!

2006-04-03T23:20:00.000-05:00

We are the National Champions !!!! YAY!!!!

April 4th 12:21am: Gators beat UCLA to win the NCAA Champions title today! Gainesville is rocking with fireworks and music tonight. Ppl are pouring out onto the streets with delight and its masti masti everywhere.

Go Gators!! Yo! :D

from ESPN

Daylight Savings Time and me. chaos

2006-04-02T11:59:00.000-05:00

huh. my laptop clock suddenly spun ahead by 1hr today morning, and gosh -did i just miss the submission deadline for my automata verif assignment :P

This whole daylight savings funda seems so fuzzy and confusing. I hear that the laws regarding DST are in constant flux, even today.

News: Indiana just started observing DST from today!! and in Aug. 2005, the US Congress passed an energy bill that included extending Daylight Saving Time by about a month. Thus, beginning in 2007, DST will start the second Sunday of March and end on the first Sunday of November!!! (gotta rmbr this now :P)

-- frm the archives --
Daylight savings time rules vary by location (as well as historically) -- for example some parts of Indiana don't obey Daylight Savings, India, Japan don't use it at all and in some countries (like Israel) it happens at a different time every year.

For example, in the year 1977, the United States was running on year-round Daylight Savings Time due to the energy crisis. Similarly, during World War 2, the United States went on DST all year round. And between 1945 and 1966, the DST rules varied from region to region.
The DST cutover dates in Israel are decided on a year-by-year basis by the Knesset. As a result, there is no deterministic formula for the day, and therefore no way to know it ahead of time.

So, these DST changes twice a year are like having the Y2K problem over and over, but without the media hype.. huh?

more observations:
1. The time zones in the US are not fixed. They've been changed 50 times! Detroit one day woke up and said "we're now an eastern time zone city" to be the same as NY and soon after Chicago (for awhile) said -- "hey, we wanna too!" and they did AND they observed DST so for a period, Chicago was one hour AHEAD of D.C.

2. Stalin put the USSR on DST one April and forgot to change it back in October and the USSR was "off" by an hour for over 60 years.

3. China, which spans five time zones, is always eight hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and it does not observe DST. Though China is roughly the same size east-west as the USA, there's ONE time zone -- everyone is on Beijing time so in parts of western China, the sun rises at 12PM!

4. Widespread confusion was created during the 1950s and 1960s when each U. S. locality could start and end daylight saving time as it desired. One year, 23 different pairs of DST start and end dates were used in Iowa alone. For exactly five weeks each year, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were not on the same time as Washington D.C., Cleveland, or Baltimore—but Chicago was. And on one Ohio to West Virginia bus route, passengers had to change their watches SEVEN times in 35 miles!

5. The U.S. has imposed DST in the countries it has occupied -- they put Japan on it during WWII, S. Korea in the 50's, etc. (Part of the Kyoto Accord is that Japan must observe DST?). In Japan, after WWII in 1952, it was abandoned because of strong opposition by Japanese farmers.

6. Most of Canada uses Daylight Saving Time. Some exceptions include the majority of Saskatchewan and parts of northeastern British Columbia. In the fall of 2005, Manitoba and Ontario announced that like the United States, they would extend daylight time starting in 2007. The attorney general of Ontario commented that "it is important to maintain Ontario's competitive advantage by coordinating time changes with our major trading partner, and harmonizing our financial, industrial, transportation, and communications links." Other provinces have indicated that they may also follow suit.

7. It wasn't until 1996 that our NAFTA neighbors in Mexico adopted DST. Now all three Mexican time zones are on the same schedule as the United States.

8. Also in 1996, members of the European Union agreed to observe a "summer-time period" from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.

9. Most countries near the equator don't deviate from standard time.

10. In the Southern Hemisphere, where summer arrives in what we in the Northern Hemisphere consider the winter months, DST is observed from late October to late March.

11. Three large regions in Australia do not participate in DST. Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and Queensland stay on standard time all year. The remaining south-central and southeastern sections of the continent (which is where Sydney and Melbourne are found) make the switch. This results in both vertical and horizontal time zones Down Under during the summer months.

DST, the OldNewThing

dimanche musings

2006-03-19T19:07:00.000-05:00

Jus returned frm South Florida trip. My first big trip out of Gainesville. Had great fun at Daytona, Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral), Miami and Orlando (and of course along the drive: I-95, 75 and 4).

In other news: -Bought a packet of Red Dark Chocolate from Walmart and gobbled it up so fast that it got me on a pseudo high and almost wreacked my brains off ;( [..typo done intentionally, its not meant to mean wreck; but to sound like it!!]
Then, the driver license fellow buffeted me off for not "stepping on the gas". These ppl conveniently have an option saying: "Did not listen to the examiner 2 or more times" to veto granting that paper to ppl they see .. whatever.
Univ starts back from Monday. cya spring break. Its been loads of fun! :D

Nice flashes... ;)
Bovine Freedom: http://www.3dweb.no/galleri/stuestolbm/bilder/anim1.swf
Buggin U: http://img.tapuz.co.il/forums/8572800.swf

Oscar '06

2006-03-06T03:01:00.000-05:00

An Oscar 2006 Update:

Ontario's Paul Haggis pulled off a surprise win Sunday night as Crash beat front-runner Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture.

Haggis and co-writer Bobby Moresco also accepted the award for Best Original Screenplay for Crash. "I want to thank people who take risks in their daily lives when there aren't cameras rolling," said Haggis.

The film also won for Best Film Editing.

As predicted, Best Director went to Ang Lee for the Alberta-shot Brokeback Mountain.

Philip Seymour Hoffman surprised few with the win for Best Actor for his portrayal of Truman Capote in the Manitoba-filmed Capote. "I'm in a category with some great, great actors and I am overwhelmed," he said. Hoffman was emotional as he recognized his mother.

Best Actress honours went to Walk the Line's Reese Witherspoon, who said the film helped her realize her lifetime dream of being a country singer. "(My parents) never hesitated to say how proud they were of me," she said. Witherspoon also acknowledged her husband, actor Ryan Phillippe, and her late grandmother.

George Clooney has won Best Supporting Actor at the 78th Academy Award. The night's first award was handed out by Nicole Kidman.

Clooney was recognized for his work in Syriana.

At the podium the actor, who is also nominated for Best Director for Good Night, and Good Luck, quipped: "I guess I'm not getting Director."

Clooney is also nominated for Best Original Screenplay.

Pregnant Rachel Weisz earned the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in The Constant Gardener. "Thank you. Thank you so much," said the grateful star.

Director Robert Altman picked up an Honorary Oscar for his career achievement. "I look at it as a nod to all of my films, " he said. "To me, I've just made one long film."

King Kong was honoured for Best Visual Effects, beating out Chronicles of Narnia and War of the Worlds. Some of the digital effects for the blockbuster were done by Ottawa's XYZ RGB. King Kong also won for Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing.

Best Animated Feature was awarded to Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which beat Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and Howl's Moving Castle.

Six Shooter won Best Live Action Short Film. It was presented by Luke and Owen Wilson, who got their start with a short film called Bottle Rocket. Best Animated Short Film went to The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation.

Colleen Atwood accepted the prize for Best Costume Design for her work on Memoirs of a Geisha. She singled out the people of Japan for inspiring her work. The movie also won Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography.

Best Make-Up honours went to Howard Berger and Tami Lane for Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe.

Canada's Rachel McAdams was showcased in a taped segment highlighting some of the winners of the Scientific and Technical Awards, which were handed out last month in Beverly Hills.

Best Documentary Short Subject went to A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Noman Corwin.

March of the Penguins won Best Documentary Feature. Morgan Freeman, who narrated the English version of the film, listened intently to the acceptance speeches from producers, who held plush penguins.

Brokeback Mountain's first award of the night went to composer Gustavo Santaollala for Best Original Score. It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp won Best Original Song. It later won Best Adapted Screenplay for Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana.

Best Foreign Language Film went to South Africa's Tsotsi.

"Crash," an ensemble story about underlying racial tensions across Los Angeles, won Best Picture on Sunday night at the Academy Awards. Its surprise win proved true the eleventh-hour buzz that surrounded the film, which touched a nerve among people who live in and around the endless, multicultural sprawl of the city and intuit its character from behind the wheels of their cars.
"Crash" has been controversial, with critics saying that it oversimplifies race issues and that some of the characters were stereotypes -- a notion that director Paul Haggis again batted aside during a backstage interview. "My favorite kind of film is the kind where you argue when you walk outside after the film, and break up with your date."
Best Original Score went to Gustavo Santaolalla for his work on "Brokeback Mountain"; the Best Animated Feature was "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit."

Should we take off the landline?

2006-03-06T02:56:00.000-05:00

AT& T in $67 Billion Deal to Buy BellSouth: Purchase Involves Local Lines, Cingular
AT&T Inc. announced plans yesterday to buy BellSouth Corp. for about $67 billion in stock in a deal that would reassemble large swaths of the old "Ma Bell" local-telephone monopoly but is likely to win regulatory approval because of growing competition from mobile phone, cable and Internet telephone companies.
The merger would dramatically expand San Antonio-based AT&T, which is already the largest phone company in the country, by extending its local-phone service into 22 states and giving it full control of Cingular Wireless, the largest mobile phone company in the nation.
The deal, which was announced by the two companies yesterday, would not have any immediate impact on the Washington region, where Verizon Communications Inc. is the dominant local-phone provider, but would be one of the largest telecom mergers in history. The new company would be a behemoth with 317,000 employees, 70.9 million local land lines, 54.1 million cell phone subscribers and 9.9 million broadband Internet users.
Taking control of Cingular, currently run as a joint venture of AT&T and BellSouth, was one of AT&T's main reasons for the deal and would give it free rein to exploit one of the fastest-growing parts of the industry -- the huge demand for wireless services, company officials have said.
The merger illustrates how the U.S. telephone industry has been transformed since the government broke up AT&T in 1984, splitting its long-distance operations from the seven major "Baby Bells" that offered local-phone service across most of the country.
In recent years, the number of local-telephone land lines has steadily shrunk as people have switched to wireless and, albeit in relatively small numbers, have begun to buy phone service from cable companies and voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) providers.
As they see their local-phone business eaten away, the big telecom companies are increasingly vying with cable companies to offer a triple play of services -- combining phone service with cable TV and high-speed Internet access into "bundles" that cost customers less than if they bought each part separately.
By adding mobile phone service, phone companies would be able to offer a "quadruple play."
AT&T chairman and chief executive Edward E. Whitacre Jr., who would become head of the merged company, said he planned to market Cingular under the AT&T name and was confident that the deal would pass muster with federal regulators.
Under the deal, BellSouth shareholders would receive 1.325 shares of AT&T stock for each BellSouth share in a transaction the companies valued at about $67 billion. Based on AT&T's closing stock price Friday, BellSouth shareholders payment would be valued at $37.09, a 17.9 percent premium over BellSouth's closing price Friday.
Analysts said they thought the deal would easily win approval from federal regulators.
Blair Levin, a regulatory analyst with Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., said the merger has to be looked at "in the light of a very different marketplace, with more competition, more substitution and more ways of reaching consumers."
To put it simply, before 1984 AT&T was virtually the only game in town. Now it is not.
Levin also said it was likely to be approved without major conditions by the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission, noting that both allowed the recent mergers of AT&T Corp. and SBC Communications Inc., which took the AT&T name, and of Verizon Communications Inc. and MCI Inc., which assumed the Verizon name.
"When you look at the road map provided by the government in the prior mergers, there doesn't seem to be anything that looks like a brick wall," Levin said.
AT&T and BellSouth do not compete significantly with each other in local-phone service; BellSouth has largely kept to its nine-state region, which stretches from North Carolina to Louisiana, and AT&T to its 13-state region that runs from Texas up through the Midwest and also includes California and Nevada.
Nor do they compete on mobile phone service given that Cingular, which is 60 percent owned by AT&T and 40 percent by BellSouth, is run as a joint venture.
The one place where they now compete is for medium and large corporations -- also known as "enterprise customers" -- that are large enough to command special lines running to their businesses. In this area, regulators may require that the new company divest itself of some of these lines to try to foster competition, analysts said.
Executives at both companies said they expected to save money by eliminating duplication in their networks, corporate operations and advertising expenses. They declined to estimate how many jobs they would shed as a result, saying they hoped to reduce headcount through attrition but could not rule out layoffs.
The two companies estimated the net present value of synergies at nearly $18 billion and said they expected the merger to close within about a year.
The proposed merger reflects a remarkable transformation for what was once the modestly named Southwestern Bell Corp., one of the original Baby Bell companies that had a region covering Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas.
The company has grown via a string of mergers, acquiring Pacific Telesis Group in 1997 for $16.5 billion; Ameritech Corp. in 1999 for $72 billion; and AT&T Corp. the dwindling remainder of Ma Bell, for $16 billion last year.
F. Duane Ackerman, BellSouth's chairman and chief executive, said he and Whitacre had been talking about merging their companies off and on "over the years, but it's only been in the last couple of months that we got . . . to the environment and the kind of specifics that made it work. "
Ackerman rejected the idea that the old AT&T monopoly was being put back together.
"When you think about the collective impact of wireless, of cable and the growing impact of VOIP, that is no longer a minuscule issue to be managed or to be dealt with," he said in an interview. "I hear the cliches that come out about AT&T putting too many land lines back together, but at the end of the day, it is not reducing competition because the competition really is coming from these other forces."
--from the Washington Post archives

Worldwind is amazing!

2006-02-28T14:26:00.000-05:00

The new WorldWind from Nasa is simply amazing.

The newly expanded NASA 'World Wind' computer program can 'transport' Web users to almost anyplace on the Earth/ Moon, when they zoom in from a global view to closer pictures of our natural satellite taken by the Clementine spacecraft in the 1990s. Computer programmers at NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley originally designed the World Wind program to deliver satellite images and data of Earth to the Internet..."We have just digested the best of the Clementine images, so we can now deliver the moon at 66 feet (20 meters) of resolution," said Patrick Hogan, manager of the World Wind Project Office at NASA Ames. "This is a first. No one has ever explored our moon in the 3-D interactive environment that World Wind creates," noted Hogan.

Worldwind is a freeware (Windows only) from NASA that allows you to easily search and manipulate many terabytes of satellite images, aerial images, and topographical maps from various sources including Terraserver. Therz even a 3-D imagery of the moon on the World Wind platform. Major landmarks around the globe can be marked on images. In fact, icons are clickable and link to a Wikipedia entry about the landmark. If you like how you easily you can manipulate/move Google Maps, you can do just about the same thing here.

This is only one of the many amazing things you can do with this service. World Wind comes from the NASA's Learning Technologies. More cool tools on their site. This post from the World Wind Forums does a nice job providing info about a few of the services strong points and weaknesses compared to what other services provide.

I've found this chart very helpful. It offers a explanation of how to use World Wind and introduces the different datasets available. A real timesaver!!! Btw, switching from one data set to another is easy. All you need to do is click.

World Wind also has a wiki and online forums (World Wind Central) where you can get help and find some of the latest "cool" images that people have found. This post offers a good
overview of what World Wind offers compared to other services.

TerraFly is another gr8 service. If you're looking for info about a local area, it's amazing. Simply find a satellite or aerial image of interest, click on a specific location and you'll find Census info, street names and more. You'll also find nearby hotels, schools, and other local info.

However minute details arent so clear. I was only able to find Adyar, and even then after 50km altitude, its all hazy :(

Anyways, therz a gr8 increase in the number of such imagery and info tools nowadays. And all this means more and more data to store, mine and present. Yo!

Check out some tour vids here http://www.alteviltech.com/WorldWind/Tour/

Palladium NGSCB; VISTA

2006-01-07T16:49:00.000-05:00

Microsoft has dropped the code name of its controversial security technology, Palladium, in favor of "next-generation secure computing base." Microsoft unveiled Palladium sometime in summer 2002 with the goal of allowing companies to wall off data, secure communications, and to identify their systems and those of business partners.

Critics, however, argue that the technology can also be used to restrict access to data. For example, a text document could be restricted to being accessible by only the application that created it. To address the criticism, MS decided to release the source code of the core part of the software, known as the nub or nexus, so that others can verify it is secure and allz as per claim.

VISTA => http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/default.aspx

birdsart

2005-11-15T15:51:00.000-05:00

http://www.birdsasart.com/toddgustafson.htm

a trip to Mars and flipping thru the pages of history

2005-11-12T13:15:00.000-05:00

Noo, it's not the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
In a prologue to Halloween, the Red Planet - actually it looks more the color of a jack-o'-lantern - tonight made its closest pass by Earth ...until 2018. So, there was a special telescope-viewing outside the Florida Museum of Natural History (nr Harm Museum) beginning at 7 p.m., and the we "had a chance to see the best show on Mars in years".

It was organised by a team of amateur astronomers from Florida Astronomy Club at UF. Got to see Moon, Venus, and Mars real close. Even the lighter ice caps in the red planet was visible!
Well, the overall xperience was quiet good: starting from Sriram's driving us to that place.. to the actual view of mars as a orange disk.. &those amateur astronomers and enthusiasts proudly advertising their telescope stations and thrusting forth all their geo knowledge. [/)]

Also had visited the Musuem on Thursday evening.. since Naresh said the Butterfly Rainforest would be open for free public viewing.. its wasn't though, so we instead ended up whacking the skeletons out of their joins ;) and dragging ourselves back to SW16th.

links:
Florida Museum of Natural History, UF, Gainesville

p.s: Haho. must get a camera soon//

'The Scientist' ranks UF among best places to work in academia

2005-11-09T14:59:00.000-05:00

The University of Florida ranks fourth in the United States among the Best Places to Work in Academia, according to a new survey by The Scientist magazine.

More than 2,600 academics rated relationships with their peers, a sense of accomplishment in their work, and access to research resources as some of the ingredients that make for a great workplace.

More at:
http://www.the-scientist.com/info/press_releases/bptw_051107.

Yo!!

Homecoming weekend!!!

2005-11-08T19:02:00.000-05:00

Finally the IInd mid-terms are over!!
Been for 4hrs at ETD today. This weekend is 'Homecoming' so we plan to gofor HP Goblet of Fire, visit Harn Museum (Naresh's invite) and also to Lake Wauberg.(pronounced "Wah-t-the-heck-were-we-thinking") ...

:D !! yo!
--g//
p.s: Lake Wauberg - related links
http://gsyouthcampers.tripod.com/id28.html
http://www.animal.ufl.edu/amcb/2004%20picnic.shtml

My first shot at daylight savings!!!!

2005-10-30T13:01:00.000-05:00

ha.. seems like all clocks need be shifted 1hr back today... i just made my Titan Amir Khan Collection species go to 1:55, as per SgK's advice (timed 2:55pm).
(The grad handbook says its frm 2am Sunday)...

So there goes my first tryst with daylight savings time...
Welcome to Apple Pie county!!! yo!
----
p.s: Wish you all[readers] a Very Happy, Prosperous and Fun-Filled Diwali And New Year....

DARPA Robot Challenge

2005-10-19T21:46:00.000-05:00

Stanley wins in robot car race and nets $2 million prize
The Grand Challenge is an off-road robot competition devised by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to promote research in the area of autonomous vehicles. The challenge consists of building a robot capable of navigating 175 miles through desert terrain in less than 10 hours, with no human intervention.

cnn
Stanford Racing - All videos here!!!

The Stanford Racing Team awarded 2 million dollars for being the first team to complete the 132 mile DARPA Grand Challenge course. Stanley finished in just under 6 hours 54 minutes and averaged over 19 miles per hours on the course.

Navigator, University of Florida's robot car drove at least 23 miles in the race across the desert Saturday before turning off a road and stopping for "unknown reasons"!!

DARPA Robot Challenge
Sebastian Thrun @Stanford AI Lab
UF Navigator Videos

UF an Audubon Sanctuary !!!

2005-10-18T14:02:00.000-05:00

UF becomes first university in world to win Audubon Sanctuary status

kudos once again to the univ Office of Sustainability(!) & the zippy agri dept... voila!

Latin

2005-10-10T08:52:00.000-05:00

Per ardua ad astra
"Through adversity to the stars." — Motto of
the British Royal Air Force

Wiki's list of latin phrases *interesting*
Answers.com

gator gets a haircut!

2005-10-06T04:08:00.000-05:00

Gator cuts!
Had my first hair-cut in the Uncle Sam's county today! six bucks on a student discount :) gr8 funny exprience..
the call rang thus: "2 on sides and scissors on top- ma'm!". The lady was of the iskcon clan;) and kept putting a 'hare krishna' chant whenever she dropped the comb or something. The saloon also had many pics of saree clad clanlings(!) roaming streets in supposedly Indian territory!
Had OS class at 10:40 though and so had to rush back! Also, got some good "upliftin" phinally dony advise from ssk's rommie when in the salon. Feeling much better now that the load on head has condensed.. to reveal astonishing facts. dome getting a chrome?. na.ney. !!?!! kisarhardgidentpare yo!

Pulp Fiction

2005-10-05T12:31:00.000-05:00

..
Jules: You know the shows on TV?
Vincent: I don't watch TV.
Jules: Yeah, but, you are aware that there's an invention called television, and on this invention they show shows, right?
...
Got to watch pulp fiction today. Free movie at the Reitz Union. 8pm!
Stunning cast and solid rotten dialogues mixed with the good talents of Samuel Jackson, John Travolta and Uma Thurman lead to a nice fxperience. Display of pyrotechnics by Jules's cavity-on-face amazes all. Pretty good combo of philosophy and wanton musings.

Audience: ciscofresco, drquantum, rajah and drdata!

http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=179105
http://imdb.com/title/tt0110912/quotes

how wierd a land on this weird universe...

2005-09-28T14:56:00.000-05:00

ahh..
"what is this one tiny morsel of humus doing in this wierd country; surrounded by wierd earthlings who do wierd things just to redefine their wierdity(?) and strengthen their weird sense of weirdness?", I wonder weirdly.

Green Day rox MTV Video Music Awds '05 !!!

2005-08-29T08:56:00.000-05:00

Rock was resplendent at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night, as the veteran punk group Green Day took home seven moonmen and newcomers The Killers and Fall Out Boy won one each.

Green Day, who arrived at the venue in the vintage green convertible from their gritty "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" video, won best rock video and video of the year for the clip — two of their leading eight nominations. They also won the viewer's choice award, best group and several technical categories, losing only to Gwen Stefani's "What You Waiting For?" for art direction.

In recent years, hip-hop and pop have dominated the show, especially in the major categories. Not this year: My Chemical Romance and Coldplay were among the showcase performances, and Kanye West was the only rapper to win an "all-genre" award, with his "Jesus Walks" taking best male video.

The Killers won for best new artist. Fall Out Boy won the MTV2 award for their song "Sugar, We're Going Down," beating out artists like Mike Jones, My Chemical Romance and reggaeton star Daddy Yankee.

But Pete Weintz of Fall Out Boy downplayed the "rock is resurgent" angle. His backstage taunt-mania: "Whatever is going to happen is going to happen organically," & "The return of rock doesn't mean anything else is going away."

Before the awards began, MTV dodged two major disasters — one from nature, the other from the barrel of a gun.

The annual bash was briefly overshadowed by Hurricane Katrina, which hit southern Florida on Thursday and killed several people. As the storm passed, a celebratory mood took over the city — until early Sunday morning, when rap mogul Suge Knight was targeted by gunfire at a Kanye West party.

Knight was shot in the leg and scheduled for surgery at a Miami hospital; his lawyers would not release his condition, which was not expected to be life-threatening.
MTV vowed that neither Katrina nor Suge would affect the ceremonies — and they didn't.
"The theme of tonight is, anything can happen," proclaimed host Diddy, whose entrance included dancers, pyrotechnics and a cascading waterfall — a spectacle that rivaled the show's actual performances.

Ludacris managed to turn his hedonistic "Pimpin' All Over the World" into a multicultural Mardi Gras-like extravaganza, complete with steel drummers, African dancers and, of course, around-the-way booty-shaking girls. Miami booty king Luke of 2 Live Crew fame brought a bevy of girls for his cameo appearance. But one of the biggest surprises was MC Hammer, recapturing some of his glory while shaking to his '90s hit, "U Can't Touch This."

Another flashback came in a tribute to Diddy's protege, the late Notorious B.I.G., featuring Diddy "conducting" a string orchestra as the legendary rapper's songs played. Snoop Dogg came out at the end and delivered a verse on the B.I.G. hit "Warning."
Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" won two awards, for best female and pop video. Also winning two awards were Missy Elliott, the Gorillaz and Stefani. The evening's most inexplicable moment may have come from R. Kelly, who remains a chart-topper even during her trial days.

The much-hyped white carpet was one of one of the Diddy-designed elements of the show. Another was the "Diddy Fashion Challenge" — in which he vowed to give away $50,000 each to the charities of the best dressed female and male at the event, won by Snoop and Stefani.
Diddy himself was out of the running, though you wouldn't know it — he made three wardrobe changes in the first half-hour alone!

Watched some of it live, over at Aunrag's place along with Uncle(!!) Krishna(thnx for the ride machi!). Hope i'm not waving the red flag in front of the bull :P !!

MTV
AFP
OnAir

PWC now in chennai !!!

2005-07-02T01:50:00.000-05:00

Chennai is fast turning into a den for major consulting, IT and financial services institutions from around the globe.

Next chip in the block is Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the renowned advisary services grp. (famous particularly for managing the entire OSCAR role-call; tabulating &ensuring secrecy of the Academy results//)

PWC has now a big complex at Nungambakkam, off Talwalkars Body Construction Zone on KaiderNawazKhan Rd.

also, therz a brand new Barista coming *BANG* in the middle of Elloits Beach Road.

yo!

Wodehouse picks

2005-07-02T01:38:00.000-05:00

{ Bachelors Anonymous }

'The toad beneath the harrow knows exactly where each tooth point goes. The
butterfly upon the road preaches contentment to the toad. Kipling. All very well for you to talk. You're a happy rollicking stage-dorrkeepepr without a care in the world.' Pickering

'My sympathies are with you,' Miss Dolby proceeded, softening. 'I wish you
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and I shall give three hearty
cheers if you come through, but I'm like the referee in a football game. He
can't take sides. He may want the boys in the pink shirts to clobber the lads in
the green with purple stripes, but he doesn't allow that to affect his
decisions. Same with me. I take my job religiously.'

Twixter business //

2005-06-28T06:03:00.000-05:00

Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young

According to TIME, grad students are getting more &more ambitious and stake out much time, effort n money on getting superior education without due regard to responsilibities, security, home &commitment!

pulls;

"Grad students have always resigned themselves to relative poverty in anticipation of a cushy, tenured payoff. But in the past decade, the rules of the game have changed. Budget pressures have spurred universities' increasing dependence on so-called "casual labor," which damages both the working conditions of graduate students and their job prospects. Over half of the classroom time at major universities is now logged by non-tenure-track teachers, both graduate teaching assistants—known as TAs—and adjuncts. "

“They’ve never had responsibility; they’ve been constantly reinforced for nearly nothing — everybody gets a trophy for the soccer team, whether they win, lose or draw. Because of this indulgence, they keep putting off responsibilities of adulthood.”

”While gaining a superior education will lead to greater lifetime earnings and job security eventually, in the meantime it prevents young adults from taking part in the workforce and establishing independence."

"Members of this group are delaying certain transitions like marriage, but the majority of them are productively engaged in seeking an education. They cannot be characterized as dudes surfing on the beach or slackers in the pop media with no reality.”

Mud-hit; US: Twixter, Canada:Boomerang Kids, UK:Kippers, France:Tanguy Syndrome, Germany:Nesthocker, Italy:Mammone, Japan:Freeter//

Grow Up? Not So Fast

related links;
Village Voice: Wanted: Really Smart Suckers
Grad school provides exciting new road to poverty

Twixters not ready to grow up
It's a Matter of Parenting: The Twixters – GOPUSA
JOUSHGA JOSHUA TREE IN EVERY POT ; Hey Twixters, What r u really afraid of mate?!
http://www.thespoke.net/MyBlog/creasyja/MyBlog.aspx
who r u?
Graduation designed to be dignified

comment@--g// { GRAD: recipe to wit, glory, dough ?! yeah! }

New Blog

2005-06-16T06:51:00.000-05:00

http://cyberneticmusings.blogspot.com

The WEB is a vast and virtually amaranthine terra incognita left to digital explorers and knowledge weavers to make sense...

since the amount of junk in the world seems to be generalizing and proliferating rapidly...

yea,... i've decided to list, pigeonhole &throw out material (read: practicable lore/ more handy news/ info) via my very own digital junkyard (read: an intelligent all-purpose newscaster interface)

tis loaded with more of informal scoop; &continues the incessant quest for the prized x'e'i'log'm''h''pod'perience !!//

Yo !!!

Welcome to tech-mania !!!

'Spiderman' scales HK skyscraper

2005-06-11T08:40:00.000-05:00

French urban climber who calls himself "spiderman" has scaled a 62-story Hong Kong skyscraper barehanded.

Alain Robert, 42, scrambles up the Cheung Kong Center in Hong Kong.

Wearing only a pair of red pants, Alain Robert, 42, scrambled up the Cheung Kong Center on Saturday -- the flagship building of Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing -- in about an hour. He said the building was 283 meters (928 feet) tall.

During his climb, Robert rested several times and even answered a reporter's phone calls.

"I can't talk to you right now. I'm climbing," said Robert, renowned for scaling buildings without ropes or other equipment.

After reaching the top of the building, he waved to a small crowd of spectators on the ground below. He said he was greeted by police, firefighters and security guards at the top of the building.

Police officers checked his passport but did not arrest him, even though he had not sought permission to climb the building.

"Everyone was very nice," Robert said, adding that the climb was not too difficult.

"On a scale of one to 10 in terms of difficulty, this would be a five," he said.

The building's Web site did not provide any information about its height.

In December, Robert scaled the world's tallest building, Taiwan's Taipei 101. It took him nearly four hours to reach the top of the 508-meter (1,679-foot) building -- nearly twice as long as he had expected -- because it was raining.

His other feats include scaling Malaysia's Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Empire State Building in New York. --The Associated Press.

David Lodge Trilogy stinks!

2005-05-28T03:29:00.000-05:00

Got a David Lodge Trilogy from the British Council here... (Changing Places, Small World, Nice Work). An aweful creation_it sucks big-time!

The book exposes a dizzy pursuit of knowledge -literary, commercial, romanesque and salacious -with unparalleled wit and insight. The academic patterns of US and UK are well depicted and compared, thoroughly reviewed and delightfully painted on 897 pages on yellow recyclable paper//

Lodge's wit _like that of Wodehouse, froths around and out of characters and is meant to be hugely enjoyable. I do agree that his novels engender a flowing sense of fun... however, they seem to be making more of a mockery of the entire educational system than putting forth the story of the role-swapping academics let loose in the international conference circuit. The depiction of profs and their academic lifestyle is unnecessarily lewd and calls for more refinement.

Overall, though the language is enlightening and the books might seem interesting for any academic planning to head westward, they soon loose out their charm... and the raunchiness purges out any of the reader’s interest from the vicinity of the "dazzling comic"(as reviewed by the NYT -BR)!!

One advice: pls dont struggle readin on till the climax (if you aren't able to bear the first few pgs)... itz the most disgusting ever!!!

links

2005-05-17T03:51:00.000-05:00

Chennai... NewYorked?

"The British were drawn to India as a physical place: a repository of precious raw materials from which the natives might be parted, and a locus of beauty and mystique. The new American attachment is not physical but conceptual—the lure of cheap, smart, pliable labor. Among Chennai’s janitors and security guards, as well as its bankers, the need for discretion about the labor is understood. Even the ephemera of the United States offshoring debate becomes front-page news here; many of Chennai’s young professionals now know the names John Kerry, Lou Dobbs, Benedict Arnold, and Timothy Platt—the latter the proprietor of a U.S.-based Web site called yourjobisgoingtoindia.com, which is as closely followed in Chennai as it is in Silicon Valley. Fascination with the American controversy is more bemused than fearful. Chennaians in general believe that what they call “outsource hoopla” has already redounded to their favor, alerting a wider audience of executives and stockholders to the benefits of wage arbitrage.

Some American companies, such as Ford, have been manufacturing in the region for years, working to capture a piece of a potentially vast consumer market. But now non-factory, professional employment is surging. Among the white-collar options available to Chennai’s college graduates are work for Verizon, Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard, Citibank, Visa, MasterCard, and Electronic Data Systems, a Plano-based tech company founded by the free-trade opponent Ross Perot, which recently announced a layoff of fifty-two hundred U.S. employees. "

>> http://www.officetiger.com/whattheysay/media/archive/37_mar.htm

others;
http://www.tamilnation.org/index.htm
http://teleworkrecruiting.com/resume-detail.php?category=Consulting
http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/education/incoming.html
interview xprnces: http://interviewat.com/
http://interviewat.com/cts/
http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~nemo/awards
http://interviewat.com/verizon/
http://www.pagalguy.com/cat/archive/index.php/t-5860.html

Dragon Fire

2005-05-17T02:35:00.000-05:00

British MP George Galloway has told US senators who accused him of profiting from Iraq oil dealings their claims were the "mother of all smokescreens". George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, delivered this statement to US Senators today (05/17/05) who have accused him of corruption.

Yo! Watched it fully on the BBC: a pleasantly mean and burning dialogue!!!
--g//
frm simplyappalling

In the Belly of the Beast
Scott Ritter on George Galloway more
George Galloway's Testimony to US Senate here (video and transcript) Letters of support

related links:
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

Full transcript +video @
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8869.htm

frm http://www.simplyappalling.blogspot.com/

In the Belly of the Beast !!!

2005-05-17T02:30:00.000-05:00

Testimony of Mr. George Galloway, Member of the British Parliament, before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee

Senators Norm Coleman and Carl Levin attending "

SEN. COLEMAN: Mr. Galloway, I'm pleased to have you before the committee today.

What I'm going to do is briefly summarize the evidence before we give you a chance to give your sworn testimony.

The Oil-for-Food program was used to support those who were favorable to Iraq. Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan confirmed this.

I would think that you would admit that your efforts to oppose the sanction were well received by the regime. I know it's been quoted to you many, many times--but your, I would say, infamous statement to Saddam Hussein on January 21, 1994, where you said to Saddam, "Your Excellency, Mr. President, I greet you in the name of many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war of aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means, which is aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq."

You then went on to say you greet the Palestinian people, you went on to note that you thought "the president would appreciate knowing that even today three years after the war I still meet with families who are calling their newborn 'son of Saddam.'"

You went on ultimately at the very end to say, "Sir, I salute your strength, your courage, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you." And I believe it was in Arabic (????), which means "Until victory, until victory, until victory in Jerusalem." And I also would note that you would say that you deeply regret those comments and that the comments were not aimed directly at Saddam but were aimed at the Iraqi people.

In the fall of 1999 you headed a two-month London-to-Baghdad bus trip to gain support for lifting the sanctions on Iraq.

We have your name on Iraqi documents, some prepared before the fall of Saddam, some after, that identify you as one of the allocation holders, that your allocations were then used by Fawaz Zureikat, operating under the name of Meridian Petroleum and Middle East Advanced Semiconductor to actually lift the oil.

We note too, based on the statements of former Iraqi officials as well as some documents and in the cases of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Alexander Voloshin correspondence in documents, that allocation holders knew that surcharges or oil allocations were paid to Saddam Hussein, and that allocation holders were aware of this and were responsible for the payments.

We have also heard testimony regarding several documents retrieved from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil that demonstrate how Iraq allocated oil to its friends and allies.

Exhibit 13, which you see displayed, (inaudible) Vladimir Zhirinovsky's dealing with (inaudible) in Phase 11

That chart also lists Contract N1104 with Middle East Advanced Semiconductor.

Footnote 93. Your testimony regarding a SOMO commercial invoice dated June 27, 2002, that shows Middle East Semiconductor loaded 2,360,860 barrels of Iraqi crude oil pursuant to SOMO crude oil sales contract N1104.

Exhibit 12. We heard testimony regarding correspondence between the executive director of SOMO to the Iraqi Oil Minister providing details of contract N1104 and listing your name in parentheses, next to Middle East Advanced Semiconductor and Fawaz Zureikat, who we know lifted the oil. Again statements of detainees, including former Vice President Ramadan, confirm that the name in parentheses--your name--is the allocation holder.

Your testimony regarding Contract N1104, which was signed on December 12, 2001, between SOMO and Fawaz Zureikat, president of Middle East Advanced Semiconductor.

Your testimony regarding SOMO commercial invoice B13201 that shows Meridian Petroleum lifted 1,014,403 barrels of Iraqi oil pursuant to SOMO crude oil sales contract N923.

Exhibit 45. We heard testimony regarding SOMO chart entitled "Crude Oil Allocation during Phase 9 Memorandum of Understanding" that indicates that contract N923 was executed between SOMO and Mr. Fawaz Zureikat (slash) George Galloway (slash) Meridian Petroleum.

Exhibit 9. We also heard testimony regarding the memo from the executive director of SOMO to the Oil Minister requesting approval of contract N923. The document includes an official Ministry of Oil stamp dated 1/15/2001 and provides details of a contract N923 signed with Meridian Petroleum Company, (parens) Fawaz Zureikat (dash) Mariam's Appeal, indicating that the allocation recipient of the contract N923 was Fawaz Zureikat - Mariam's Appeal.

Mr. Galloway, as I indicated in my opening statement, this is not a court of law. This committee has simply made available information obtained during the investigation from interviews with former Iraqi officials and Iraqi documents to lay out how the Oil-for-Food program worked--how allocations were given to favored friends, how allocation holders made substantial commissions on those allocations to oil companies, what Ramadan called "compensation for support."

But another official in talking about another allocation holder said, "Of course they made a profit. That's the whole point." Surcharges and oil contracts were given back to the Saddam regime and were the responsibility of the allocation holder.

The evidence clearly indicates you as an allocation beneficiary, who transferred the allocations to Fawaz Zureikat, who became chairman of your organization Mariam's Appeal.

Senior Iraqi officials have confirmed that you in fact received oil allocations and that the documents that identify you as an allocation recipient are valid.

If you can help provide any evidence that challenges the veracity of these documents or the statements of former Iraqi officials, we'd welcome that input.

Mr. Galloway, you're appearing before the subcommittee without asserting any privilege or immunity. Indeed, your appearance before the subcommittee is entirely voluntary and on your own accord. No subpoena was issued to secure your appearance.

You're appearing before the subcommittee concerning matters that do not arise out of the performance of any of your official duties as a member of the British Parliament but instead concern actions taken by you in your capacity as a private citizen.

Before we begin, pursuant to Rule 6, all witnesses who testify before this subcommittee are required to be sworn.

At this time I'd ask you to rise and please raise your right hand.

[Swearing in]

SEN. COLEMAN: We'll be using a timing system today, Mr. Galloway. You have 10 minutes for an opening statement. If you need more time, we'll certainly accommodate that, and you may proceed.

[Opening statement as given by Times Online]

GALLOWAY: Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001.

I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his.

I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.

Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.

Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.

You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realize played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.

And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].

Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.

Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?

Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.

You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could possibly be no documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.

And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.

But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government.

SEN. COLEMAN: Thank you, Mr. Galloway.

Mr. Galloway, can we start by talking about Fawaz Zureikat. Do you know the individual?

GALLOWAY: I know him very well.

SEN. COLEMAN: In fact you were Best Man at his wedding?

GALLOWAY: I was.

SEN. COLEMAN: And at some point in time he became chair of Mariam's Appeals. Is that correct?

GALLOWAY: He did. Yeah.

SEN. COLEMAN: And can you tell me when that occurred?

GALLOWAY: I think in late 2000 or early 2001.

SEN. COLEMAN: Before Mr. Zureikat was chair of Mariam's Appeal, who had that position?

GALLOWAY: I was the founding chairman.

SEN. COLEMAN: Was there someone between you and ---

GALLOWAY: Mr. Hoffman (?)

SEN. COLEMAN: And do you recall when he had that position?

GALLOWAY: I don't.

SEN. COLEMAN: Mr. Zureikat was a significant contributor to Mariam's Appeals. Is that correct?

GALLOWAY: He was the second biggest contributor. The main contributor was Sheik Zayed, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, which you've glossed over in your report because it's slightly embarrassing to you. And the third major contributor was the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, which you've equally glossed over because it's embarrassing to you.

And both of those individuals are your friends.

SEN. COLEMAN: How much did Mr. Zureikat contribute to Mariam's Appeals?

GALLOWAY: Roughly 375,000 English pounds.

SEN. COLEMAN: About $600,000?

GALLOWAY: I don't know the conversion. But it's 375,000 Sterling.

SEN. COLEMAN: If you can, uh... By the way, Mr. Zureikat was your representative--uh, designated representative--for the activities of Mariam's Appeals. Is that correct?

GALLOWAY: For the activities of Mariam's Appeals. Yes.

SEN. COLEMAN: And when did he get that position?

GALLOWAY: I think late 2000.

SEN. COLEMAN: Late 2000. Looking at Exhibit 9--and I think you have the books in front of you--that appears to be a document from the Ministry of Oil that testimony has indicated that the signature is an accurate signature.

Do you have any reason to believe that that document is false?

GALLOWAY: Well, I have told you that I have never heard of Aredio Petroleum, and I've told you that the Mariam Appeal never received a single penny from Aredio Petroleum. So the information at the top of the page, if you've translated it accurately, is false.

SEN. COLEMAN: Have you heard of Middle East ASI company?

GALLOWAY: Yes. That's Mr. Zureikat's company.

SEN. COLEMAN: I turn to Exhibit 12.

And that purports again to be a stamp of the Ministry of Oil of Iraq and this purports to be showing the details of a contract signed with Middle East ASI company, Mr. George Galloway and Fuwaz Zureikat. So Middle East ASI is Mr. Zureikat's company?

GALLOWAY: Middle East ASI is Mr. Zureikat's company. He may well have signed an oil contract. It had nothing to do with me.

SEN. COLEMAN: He was chair of Mariam's Appeals in 2000. I take it you knew him well. Did he ever talk with you about his dealings with oil in Iraq?

GALLOWAY: He did better than that. He talked to everybody. He talked to every English journalist that came through Baghdad--who he helped at our request to get the interviews and to get to the places that they wanted and needed to go. He was introduced to everyone as a major benefactor of the Mariam Appeal and as a businessman doing extensive business in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

SEN. COLEMAN: I'm asking you specifically, In 2001 were you aware he was doing oil deals with Iraq?

GALLOWAY: I was aware that he was doing extensive business with Iraq. I did not know the details of it. It was not my business.

SEN. COLEMAN: So this is somebody who was the chairman of committee that you know well and you're not able to say that he was...

GALLOWAY: Well, there's a lot of contributors - I've just been checking -- to your political campaigns.

SEN. COLEMAN: There's not many at that level, Mr. Galloway -

GALLOWAY: I've checked your website. There are lots of contributors to your political campaign funds. I don't suppose you ask any of them how they made the money they give you.

SEN. COLEMAN: Certainly not at $600,000 American.

But let me ask you again, just so that the record is clear--that it's clear on the record--that you're not contesting then the validity of Document 12, Exhibit 12. You're indicating that Mr. Zureikat could have had dealings with Iraq. You're saying that at that point in time you're not aware that he had oil dealings with Iraq?

GALLOWAY: First of all, I've only seen this document today. And I'm telling you that insofar as my name is in a parenthesis the information in it is false.

I've no reason to believe that Mr. Zureikat's company didn't do that particular oil deal.

But this is your problem in this whole affair. There is nobody arguing that Mr. Zureikat's company did not do oil transactions and many other--much bigger, frankly--business contracts with Iraq. There is nobody contesting that Mr. Zureikat made substantial donations to our campaign against sanctions and war.

My point is--you have accused me, personally, of enriching myself, of taking money from Iraq. And that is false and unjust.

SEN. COLEMAN: Mr. Galloway, do you recall an interview you had with a Jeremy Paxman in April 23 of 2003,

[Addressing aide] Can we have a copy of the transcript of that?

I'd like to refresh your memory.

[To aide] Can you get a copy of that.

As we get you a copy, you were asked a question, talking about business dealings with Mr. Zureikat in Iraq. And at the least the transcript that I have--and I'd ask you to let me know if it's incorrect--your quote is, something about business in Iraq

"Well, I'm trying to reach him"--this is in 2003--"I'm trying to reach him to ask him if he's ever been involved in oil deals because I don't know the answer to that." So in 2003 you're saying you don't know the answer to whether he was involved in oil deals?

GALLOWAY: Well, I told you in my previous two answers--I knew that Mr. Zureikat was heavily involved in business in Iraq and elsewhere, but that it was none of my business what particular transactions or business he was involved in--any more than you ask the American and Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] when they donate money to you or pay for your trips to Israel, where they got the money from.

SEN. COLEMAN: So Mr. Galloway, you would have this committee believe that your designated representative from the Mariam's Appeal becomes the chair of the Mariam's Appeal, was listed in Iraqi documents as obviously doing business, oil deals with Iraq, that you never had a conversation with him in 2001 or whether he was doing oil business with Iraq.

GALLOWAY: No, I'm doing better than that. I'm telling you that I knew that he was doing a vast amount of business with Iraq. Much bigger, as I said a couple of answers ago, than any oil business he did. In the airports he was the representative of some of the world's biggest companies in Iraq. He was an extremely wealthy businessman doing very extensive business in Iraq.

Not only did I know that, but I told everyone about it. I emblazoned it in our literature, on our Web site, precisely so that people like you could not later credibly question my bonafides in that regard. So I did better than that.

I never asked him if he was trading in oil. I knew he was a big trader with Iraq, and I told everybody about it.

SEN. COLEMAN: So in 2003, when you said you didn't know whether he was doing oil deals, were you telling the truth at that time?

GALLOWAY: Yes, I was. I've never known until the Telegraph story appeared that he was alleged to be doing oil deals. But his oil deals are about one-tenth of the business that he did in Iraq. So I did better than telling people about his oil deals. I told them he was doing much, much more than that.

SEN. COLEMAN: So Exhibit 14, which purports to be a contract with Middle East Semiconductor, Contract M1214. Middle East Semiconductor, again, is Mr. Zureikat's company, is that correct?

GALLOWAY: Yes, it is.

SEN. COLEMAN: So do you have any reason to believe that this document is false?

GALLOWAY: Well, the parenthesis, if the parenthesis implies--as you've been arguing all morning that it implies--that this was being signed for by Middle East Advanced Semiconductors in order to pass the money on to me, is false.

Mr. Zureikat and Middle East Semiconductors or any other company have never given me any money. And if they had, you would have it up here on a board, and in front of the committee here.

SEN. COLEMAN: I take it, Mr. Galloway, that in regard to any surcharges paid to Saddam--I think it's Footnote 89, which refers to the surcharge for the contract, focused on Mariam's Appeal-- you're saying that that document, first of all, any contract between Iraq and Mariam's Appeals is false?

GALLOWAY: Well, Senator, I had gotten used to the allegation that I was taking money from Saddam Hussein. It's actually surreal to hear in this room this morning that I'm being accused of giving money to Saddam Hussein.

This is utterly preposterous, utterly preposterous, that I gave $300,000 to Saddam Hussein. This is beyond the realms of the ridiculous.

Now. The Mariam Appeals finances have been investigated by the Charity Commission on the order of Lord Goldsmith.

(You'll recall him, Senator. He's the attorney general. Practically the only lawman in the world that thought your war with Iraq was legal, thought Britain joining your war with Iraq was legal.)

He ordered the Charity Commission to investigate the Mariam Appeal. Using their statutory powers, they recovered all money in and all money out ever received or spent by the Mariam Appeal. They found no impropriety. And I can assure you, they found no money from an oil contract from Aredio Petroleum--none whatsoever.

SEN. COLEMAN: And the commission did not look at these documents relating to this contract with Iraq. Is that correct?--

GALLOWAY: --No, but they looked better than that, Senator.--

SEN. COLEMAN: --I'm not asking you better. I'm asking the question whether they looked at these documents.--

GALLOWAY: --Senator, you're not listening to what I am saying. They did better than that.

They looked at every penny in and every penny out. And they did not find, I can assure you, any trace of a donation from a company called Aredio Petroleum, or, frankly, a donation from any company other than Mr. Zureikat's company. That's a fact.

SEN. COLEMAN: If I can get back to Mr. Zureikat one more time. Do you recall a time when he specifically -- when you had a conversation with him about oil dealings in Iraq?

GALLOWAY: I have already answered that question. I can assure you, Mr. Zureikat never gave me a penny from an oil deal, from a cake deal, from a bread deal, or from any deal. He donated money to our campaign, which we publicly brandished on all of our literature, along with the other donors to the campaign.

SEN. COLEMAN: Again, Mr. Galloway, a simple question. I'm looking for either a yes or no. Did you ever have a conversation with Mr. Zureikat where he informed you that he had oil dealings with Iraq, yes or no?

GALLOWAY: Not before this Daily Telegraph report, no.

SEN. COLEMAN: Senator Levin.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D): Thank you, Mr. Galloway.

Mr. Galloway, could you take a look at the Exhibit Number 12...

GALLOWAY: Yes.

SEN. LEVIN: ... where your name is in parenthesis after Mr. Zureikat's?--

GALLOWAY: Before Mr. Zureikat's, if I'm looking at the right exhibit--

SEN. LEVIN: I'm sorry. I was going to finish my sentence -- my question, though. My question was, where your name is in parenthesis after Mr. Zureikat's company.

GALLOWAY: I apologize, Senator.

SEN. LEVIN: That's all right. Now, that document--assuming it's an accurate translation of the document underneath it--would you... you're not alleging here today that the document is a forgery, I gather?

GALLOWAY: Well, I have no idea, Senator, if it's a forgery or not.

SEN. LEVIN: But you're not alleging.

GALLOWAY: I'm saying that the information insofar as it relates to me is fake.

SEN. LEVIN: I -- is wrong?

GALLOWAY: It's wrong.

SEN. LEVIN: But you're not alleging that the document...

GALLOWAY: Well, I have no way of knowing, Senator.

SEN. LEVIN: That's fine. So you're not alleging?

GALLOWAY: No, I have no way -- I have no way of knowing. This is the first time...

SEN. LEVIN: Is it fair to say since you don't know, you're not alleging?

GALLOWAY: Well, it would have been nice to have seen it before today.

SEN. LEVIN: Is it fair to say, though, that either because you've not seen it before or because -- otherwise, you don't know. You're not alleging the document's a fake. Is that fair to say?

GALLOWAY: I haven't had it in my possession long enough to form a view about that.

SEN. LEVIN: All right. Would you let the subcommittee know after you've had it in your possession long enough whether you consider the document a fake.

GALLOWAY: Yes, although there is a -- there is an academic quality about it, Senator Levin, because you have already found me guilty before you -- before you actually allowed me to come here and speak for myself.

SEN. LEVIN: Well, in order to attempt to clear your name, would you...

GALLOWAY: Well, let's be clear about something.

SEN. LEVIN: Well, let me finish my question. Let me be clear about that, first of all.

Would you submit to the subcommittee after you've had a chance to review this document whether or not, in your judgment, it is a forgery? Will you do that?

GALLOWAY: Well, if you will give me the original. I mean, this is not -- presumably, you wrote this English translation.

SEN. LEVIN: Yes, and there's a copy underneath it of the...

GALLOWAY: Well, yes, there is a copy of a gray blur. If you'll give me -- if you'll give me the original ...

SEN. LEVIN: The copy of the original.

(CROSSTALK)

GALLOWAY: Give me the original in a decipherable way, then of course I'll...

SEN. LEVIN: That would be fine. We appreciate that.

GALLOWAY: Yes.

SEN. LEVIN: Now, at the bottom of this document, assuming -- assuming it's not a forgery for a moment, it says "surcharge." Are we together?

GALLOWAY: Yes.

SEN. LEVIN: "As per the instructions of Your Excellency over the phone on 12/11/01 of not accepting the company's proposal unless they pay the debt incurred since phase eight."

If, in fact -- if, in fact, Mr. Zureikat's company paid a surcharge or a kickback to the Iraqi government in order to obtain an allocation of oil, would that trouble you?

GALLOWAY: Well, as it turns out, from your own testimony, that practically everyone in the world, and especially the United States, was paying kickbacks.

SEN. LEVIN: My question... It troubles me a great deal. As you've heard from my statement today, I'm very much troubled that we have an oil company that was involved in this and we're going to go after that oil company.

Now let me ask you. I've expressed my view about Bayoil. So now let met ask you about Mr. Zureikat's company.

If in fact Mr. Zureikat's company paid a kickback to the Iraqi government in order to obtain this allocation, would you be troubled? That's my question.

GALLOWAY: Yeah. That's a good question. And will you allow me to answer it seriously and not in a yes-or-no fashion? Because I could give you a glib--

SEN. LEVIN: Providing you give us an answer, I'd be delighted to hear it.

GALLOWAY: Here's my answer and I hope it does delight you.

I opposed the Oil-for-Food program with all my heart. Not for the reasons that you are troubled by, but because it was a program which saw the death—I'm talking about the death now; I'm talking about a mass grave—of a million people, most of them children, in Iraq. The Oil-for-Food program gave 30 cents per day per Iraqi for the period of the Oil-for-Food program—30 cents for all food, all medicine, all clothes, all schools, all hospitals, all public services. I believe that the United Nations had no right to starve Iraq's people because it had fallen out with Iraq's dictator.

David Bonior, your former colleague, Senator, whom I admired very much--a former chief whip here on the Hill--described the sanctions policy as "infanticide masquerading as politics." Senator Coleman thinks that's funny, but I think it's the most profound description of that era that I have ever read--infanticide masquerading as politics.

So I opposed this program with all my heart. Not because Saddam was getting kickbacks from it--and I don't know when it's alleged these kickbacks started. Not because some individuals were getting rich doing business with Iraq under it. But because it was a murderous policy of killing huge numbers of Iraqis. That's what troubles me. That's what troubles me.

Now, if you're asking me, "Is Mr. Zureikat in some difficulty?" --like all the other companies that it would appear paid kickbacks to the Iraqi regime--no doubt he is. Although it would appear he's quite small beer compared to the American companies that were involved in the same thing.

SEN. LEVIN: Now my question...

GALLOWAY: That's what-- I told you what troubles me.

SEN. LEVIN: I'm not asking you-- [crosstalk]

My question... Now that you've given us your statement about your feeling about the Oil-for-Food program--My question is, Would you be troubled if you knew that Mr. Zureikat paid a kickback in order to get an allocation of an oil contract? That's a very simple question.

GALLOWAY: It's Mr. Zureikat's problem, not mine.

SEN. LEVIN: It would not trouble you?

GALLOWAY: It's Mr. Zureikat's problem, not mine.

SEN. LEVIN: And so that if a kickback, which was illegal under international--now you may not agree with the U.N., but that's the international community that you're attacking, which is fine. You're entitled to do that. You're entitled and I'll defend your right to do it. But you're attacking a U.N. program--which is your right to do--which was aimed at providing humanitarian assistance to try to alleviate the problems that the sanctions provided--which is your right to do. But my question--which you are so far evading--is, Would you be troubled if that U.N. Oil-for-Food program was being circumvented by the kind of kickbacks which were taking place and being given to Saddam Hussein in order to obtain allocations under that program if Mr. Zureikat participated in that kickback scheme, which violated the U.N. sanc... You may not have agreed with it, but it violated the program. Would it trouble you if he violated that U.N. program in that way? That's my question.

GALLOWAY: Senator, there are many things--

SEN. LEVIN: I know. Other things trouble you. But can you just give us a straightforward answer? You've given us a long explanation of other things that trouble you, which is your right. Now I'm asking you whether that troubles you.

GALLOWAY: It troubles me that it might put him in difficulty. It troubles me that it might now lead to a prosecution of him. It troubles me that this will be further smoke in the smokescreen. But I, root and branch, opposed this [SEN. LEVIN: I understand...] Oil-for-Food program.

SEN. LEVIN: There were a lot of things you opposed, but you don't believe should be circumvented in illegal ways. Isn't that--

GALLOWAY: But, please, Senator! You supported the illegal attack on Iraq. Don't talk to me about illegality--

SEN. LEVIN: Sorry about that. I didn't. But that's beside the point. [Crosstalk] That's beside the point. You're wrong in your--

GALLOWAY: Well, I'm collectively talking about the Senate. Not you personally.

SEN. LEVIN: Well, that's okay. Let me go back to my question. I don't want to get involved in--

GALLOWAY: Why not? You want to talk about illegality?

SEN. LEVIN: No.

GALLOWAY: You launched an illegal war, which has killed a 100,000 people. You want me to be troubled?

SEN. LEVIN: No, I want you to answer questions which are fairly put and directly in front of you. Now I'll ask you one last--two last questions. If--if--Mr. Zureikat's contribution to Mariam's Appeal came from the sale of oil--or his share of the sale from oil--which he was able to obtain because he paid a kickback in violation of the U.N. program. Would that contribution trouble you? That's my question.

GALLOWAY: Well, Senator--

SEN. LEVIN: If you can't give a short answer, just--

GALLOWAY: I'll give as short as I can, and I appreciate your fairness in this.

Fundraising for political purposes is seldom pretty, as any American politician could testify. I took the view--I can be criticized for it, have been criticized for it--that I would fundraise from the kings of Arabia whose political systems I have opposed all my life in order to raise funds for what I thought was an emergency, facing a disaster. And I did not ask Mr. Zureikat which part of his profits from his entire business empire he was making donations to our--

SEN. LEVIN: That wasn't my question. My question was, Would it trouble you if you found that out?

It's okay. You're not going to answer. I want to go to my next question.

You're simply not going to answer. I will say, American politicians who find the source of money after it's given to them is troubling--they find out something they didn't know afterwards--frequently will--and hopefully, I think always--at least frequently will return that money, will say they disagree with the source of the money. Hopefully all of us will do that. But whether or not we all live up to that standard, you clearly do not adopt that as a standard for contributions to Mariam's Appeal. You're not going to look at the source of the money; you're just simply going to accept the money, and you've made that clear.

I wanted just to ask you about Tariq Aziz.

GALLOWAY: Yeah.

SEN. LEVIN: Tariq Aziz. You've indicated you, you--who you didn't talk to and who you did talk to. Did you have conversations with Tariq Aziz about the award of oil allocations? That's my question.

GALLOWAY: Never.

SEN. LEVIN: Thank you. I'm done. Thank you.

SEN. COLEMAN: Just one follow-up on the Tariq Aziz question. How often did you uh ... Can you describe the relation with Tariq Aziz?

GALLOWAY: Friendly.

SEN. COLEMAN: How often did you meet him?

GALLOWAY: Many times.

SEN. COLEMAN: Can you give an estimate of that?

GALLOWAY: No. Many times.

SEN. COLEMAN: Is it more than five?

GALLOWAY: Yes, sir.

SEN. COLEMAN: More than ten?

GALLOWAY: Yes.

SEN. COLEMAN: Fifteen? Around fifteen?

GALLOWAY: Well, we're getting nearer, but I haven't counted. But many times. I'm saying to you "Many times," and I'm saying to you that I was friendly with him.

SEN. COLEMAN: And you describe him as "a very dear friend"?

GALLOWAY: I think you've quoted me as saying "a dear, dear friend." I don't often use the double adjective, but--

SEN. COLEMAN: --I was looking into your heart on that.--

GALLOWAY: --but "friend" I have no problem with.

Senator, just before you go on--I do hope that you'll avail yourself of this dossier that I have produced. And I am really speaking through you to Senator Levin. This is what I have said about Saddam Hussein.

SEN. COLEMAN: Well, we'll enter that into the record without objection. I have no further questions of the witness. You're excused, Mr. Galloway.

GALLOWAY: Thank you very much. "

(This material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational and entertainment purposes. I have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is this blogger link endorsed or sponsored by the originator.//)

Galloway turns the tables on U.S. Senators

2005-05-17T01:47:00.000-05:00

I am putting my inquisitors on trial, says British MP

WASHINGTON: The British MP confronted his accusers in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, denying he had traded Iraqi oil before the war and using his testimony to unleash an indictment of the invasion in one of the most heated exchanges Congress has witnessed in many years.

Mr. Galloway, the newly-elected MP for the east London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow, was appearing before the Senate investigations sub-committee examining sanctions-busting oil deals in Iraq before the war.

Indictment

Senator Norm Coleman, the committee chairman has taken the lead in making allegations against Mr. Galloway. He read out an indictment of Mr. Galloway, recalling praise the Scottish politician had addressed to Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, saluting ``your courage, your strength, your indefatigability''.

Then it was Mr. Galloway's turn and any sense of judicial propriety was instantly shattered. The courtroom became a vaudeville theatre, as the MP lampooned his interrogators, particularly Mr. Coleman.

Mr. Galloway insisted that he was entirely innocent. He entered the hearing room with guns blazing, telling journalists his inquisitors were ``crazed'', ``pro-war'', ``lickspittles'' of the President, and predicting he would turn the tables on them.

``I want to put these people on trial. This group of neo-cons is involved in the mother of smokescreens,'' he said.

He said that 100,000 people had paid with their lives for the mistaken intelligence on Iraq.In their cross-examination, the senators focused on Mr. Galloway's relationship with Fawaz Zureikat, the chairman of Mr. Galloway's charity, Mariam's Appeal, and one of its biggest contributors, arguing that the MP must have known about Mr. Zureikat's oil trading in his name. Once more, the accused tried to turn the tables on his accusers. When Mr. Coleman asked how he could have failed to be aware of Mr. Zureikat's oil deals, Mr. Galloway turned the attention to Mr Coleman's campaign fundraising.

``I've checked your website. There are lots of contributors to your political campaign funds, I don't suppose you ask any of them how they made the money they give you,'' Mr. Galloway said. The interrogation continued another few minutes before the Senators gave up, frustrated.

They had come equipped for a trial and found themselves in the role of stooges for a man accustomed to playing to the gallery. —

frm the Archives...

"You're a Drink-soaked Former Trotskyist Popinjay!"
Thusly, I Humiliated Norm Coleman (and Christopher Hitchens)
By GEORGE GALLOWAY

Before the hearing began, the independent MP for Bethnal Green and Bow had some
scorn to bestow generously upon the pro-war writer Christopher Hitchens. "You're
a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay," Mr Galloway informed him. "Your
hands are shaking. You badly need another drink," he added later, ignoring Mr
Hitchens's questions and staring intently ahead. "And you're a drink-soaked ..."
Eventually Mr Hitchens gave up. "You're a real thug, aren't you?" he hissed,
stalking away.

--The Guardian

Galloway denies the allegations made by the committee.

Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.

I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.

Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.

Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.

You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realise played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.

And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].

Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.

Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?

Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.

You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could possibly be no documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.

And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.

But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Haliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

more;
http://www.counterpunch.com/galloway05182005.html
red pepper: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/brit/x-may2005-galloway.htm

worker's liberty: http://www.workersliberty.org/node/view/1463

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/16/galloway.committee/

senate oil_for_food: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/12/senate.oilforfood/index.html

off:http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/15/oil.food/index.html

Mendelian Inheritance refuted!! "weedy cress defies the rules"

2005-05-17T01:13:00.000-05:00

" MENDELIAN inheritance, the central tenet of genetics, is under attack from a few scrawny weeds that haven't read the textbooks. The weeds are somehow inheriting DNA sequences from their grandparents that neither of their parents possessed - which is supposed to be impossible. "

The orthodox view is that genes are passed down in the form of DNA, and all organisms have to make do with this parental DNA inheritance, mutations and all. Chemical or structural modifications to DNA can switch off genes, and these changes can pass from generation to generation, a phenomenon called epigenesis. But epigenetic changes do not alter the actual sequence of DNA.

Yet that is what seems to occur in the weedy cress Arabidopsis thaliana, the workhorse of plant biologists. Cress with two mutant copies of one gene seem to be able to correct the DNA they pass on, ensuring that at least a few of their offspring revert to normal.

Robert Pruitt, whose team at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, made this extraordinary discovery, thinks that the mutant genes are being repaired using RNA templates inherited from earlier generations.

Genetic mystery

It is possible that the phenomenon is limited to this one plant. But in Nature (vol 434, p 505), Pruitt's team speculates that it might be a more widespread mechanism that allows plants to "experiment" with new mutations while keeping RNA spares as a back-up. If the mutations prove harmful, some plants in the next generation revert to their grandparents' DNA sequence with the help of the RNA. "It does make sense," Pruitt says.
"It was our view that it was heresy when we started working on it, but we've had time to get used to the idea now," he says. "I'd say I've been the biggest sceptic all the way along, but every experiment has been done to find a conventional explanation and it's as foolproof as we can make it. I have every confidence in the data, but I'll feel better about it when other people have seen similar things."

The team has also found that in hothead mutants, other faulty genes mysteriously revert to the sequence of earlier generations too. It may be that the phenomenon is caused by the hothead mutation and restricted to plants that carry it, says Ottoline Leyser, who studies plant developmental genes at the University of York in the UK. "People have been working on mutants for years, and they all behave in a Mendelian way," she says.

Pruitt's team is now trying to find the stash of RNAs from earlier generations that might provide the templates for repair, and work out how it is passed down. "My guess is that it is in the nucleus somehow, or hitchhikes on chromosomes, but that's just speculation," he says.

While the search goes on, Pruitt hopes other biologists will hunt for evidence of the phenomenon in plants, animals and even humans. "If we can understand how these templates are used, we might be able to make our own to order," he says. That might help improve existing methods for repairing genes, which are not yet efficient enough to be used to treat genetic diseases.

{ Rogue weeds defy rules of genetics: From issue 2492 of New Scientist magazine, 26 March 2005, page 8 }

Google Maps +hacks =awesome !!!

2005-05-17T00:55:00.000-05:00

Google Maps offers detailed maps of nearly anywhere in the United States or Canada on which users can quickly zoom in or out.

Now, web developers are taking Google's online map service to a new level, layering in house sales and apartment rentals, real-time traffic stats and Flickr photo tags.

HousingMaps, created by Paul Rademacher, a 3-D graphic artist from Santa Clara, California, is just one of several innovative hacks giving users new ways to use information since Google launched its maps service. Hackers have also meshed Google Maps with sites like the photo-sharing service Flickr, Yahoo's traffic notifications, city transit maps and others.

HousingMaps is an eye-opener, offering a simple and easy-to-navigate interface that lets home and rental shoppers take in a neighborhood of offerings at a glance, complete with locations, prices and, in some cases, pictures.

These simple but powerful hacks are not exactly authorized. Google has not offered software tools and licensing terms for developers to work with its mapping engine and data. But the hacks nevertheless offer a compelling glimpse of what's possible when online data plays well together -- a major goal of internet-standards initiatives such as XML that, for the most part, are still a work in progress.

A daily timesaver: Greg Sadetsky's hack -- which mashed up Google Maps and traffic information, first from Yahoo and now from Traffic.com.

Another hack overlays the Chicago public transit system on Google's map of the city. There are similar sites for Boston and New York.

Another popular combination is Daniel Catt's Geobloggers, a blending of Google Maps with Flickr that displays the location -- within geographic areas on a Google map -- of pictures hosted on the photo-sharing service. Users plug the longitude and latitude of locations of their Flickr photos into Geobloggers and tag those photos with the name of the city within Flickr.
Geobloggers users can turn to a third site that automatically returns the longitude and latitude of any address entered into Google Maps.

more:
HousingMaps
craigslist
Flickr
Geobloggers