For those of you who like simple elegant and soft classical sounding piano music, check out --

http://www.moulitsas.com/music/music.asp

This guy is simply amazing, great compositions. And he's put up all the MP3s for download, and his music is simply fabulous. I strongly recommend the track, Half A World Away - it simply rocks.

Thanks, Cygnusx.

It's time to tell the truth. I am a 55 year-old man. My name is Andy Kaufman, and I live in New York City.

I am sincerely sorry to everyone for all my lies.

--Andy

Here is a really crazy thought -- what if the NSA controlled/secretly funded Google?

They would then have control over (and can monitor) e-mail, web, usenet, groups, blogs and social circles.

Google is #1 in search and patterns. NSA is arguably #1 in crypto, math and distributed systems. Deadly combination.

Hmm, I should lay off the crack.

What is the kind of music that you people dig?

I personally am a fan of Classic Rock (grew up on NWOBHM), Psychedelic (Floyd/Doors) and Metal.

I have been classically trained (Violin & Piano), so I do have an ear for that. Other things I listen to are probably a little of Celtic and Techno/trance stuff.

What's everyone's music taste like? What do you like, and what is the kind of music that you would like to see live?

It's a really really weird world out there - Dog robs gas station

I'm quite speechless.

India has elected it's new Prime Minister, and she's not Indian born, and neither is she Hindu. She is caucasian in a country of a billion people who aren't. The new Prime Minister is an Italian Roman Catholic woman -- and she is not even India's first woman Prime Minister.

I'll paraphrase from a Times of India article --

"...India will now have a Christian Prime Minister to go with a Muslim President (a widow and a bachelor to boot). The bastion of democracy, religious freedom and human rights -- the mostly white Christian United States, to paraphrase the description of India by western correspondents -- is set to elect its 44th President -- another Christian white male."

Despite everything, this is a true example of tolerance, secularism and democracy at work.

Way to go! Good to see that democracy atleast works for real in some parts of the world!

You know, I was at this party tonight and ended up watching Saturday Night Live (long story short, the girl whose house the party was being held at worked for Turner South).

It had Snoop Doggy Dogg and a bunch of fellas doing some really funny stuff.

But the funniest part was Snoop handing them a bunch of umbrellas, and those folks doing the whole Friends jingle and making fun of it.

NEVER EVER have I had laughed so hard, half the people had beer coming out of their noses. There is something about a guy like Snoop making fun of something as stupid as Friends, and his whole rap-dance to the tune was simply priceless.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have not already, please make sure you watch it :)

And oh, this post was inspired by the_mad_poster, thanks for his initiation of Friends bashing :)

Well, the title is quite self-explanatory.

This post was a comment on the possible consequences of an asteroid being discovered.

This is not the first time. I've noticed even before that no matter what is the topic that you talk about on Slashdot, no matter how logical it is, you put down religion and you get modded down.

The worst part is that the particular post in question was not even derogatory, it was merely an observation of how things are run in the real world when something like the end-of-the-world is proclaimed, a mere observation of eschatology.

Oh well, maybe I should make it a new sig on Slashdot - Quick way to reduce karma - oppose religion. No matter how logical, the zealots will get to you.

Too lazy to read The Silmarillion? Want a n00b chat lingo breakdown of Middle Earth's creation in generation-y speak?

A friend of mine sent me this really funny link.

J.R.R Tolkien's The Silmarillion in just 1000 words!

Here are some funny extracts -

*** *** ***

ILUVATAR: Did I mention the world is round now?
NUMENOREANS IN EXILE: Well, crap.

*** *** ***

SAURON: Bwa ha ha!
LAST ALLIANCE OF ELVES AND MEN: Push off.
SAURON: Make me.
ISILDUR: Whack.
SAURON: Ow.

*** *** ***

TAR-MIRIEL: Hey!
AR-PHARAZON: Shaddap, woman. Sauron, j00 suxx0r! I 0wnz0r j00!
SAURON: Okay.
AR-PHARAZON: Make me immortal.
SAURON: Human sacrifice is good. Also burn that pesky white tree.
AR-PHARAZON: Um. . .
ISILDUR: Hey! White tree! Got your fruit!
SAURON: *makes chicken noises*
AR-PHARAZON: Fine. Tree burn! Fire pretty!

*** *** ***

NUMENOREANS: Life is cool. Why do we have to die?
ELVES: You're human?
NUMENOREANS: Can the Valar fix that?
VALAR: No.
NUMENOREANS: That sucks. Go away.
ELVES: Fine.

*** *** ***

Now that was funny. Endless hours of laughter. Enjoy!

So, I went and saw Kill Bill 2 - it was quite cool. Not as gory or violent as the previous one, and they were fewer action sequences too.

But it was quite a cool movie, and I thought it was well done in the typical Tarantino style.

Now, one thing that bugged me on the way and back were stupid drivers who were driving alone, but went in the HOV lane. Now, if you are caught in the HOV lane, you are fined heavily. But how many do get caught, really?

The damn HOV lane was crowded, and was full of morons who were driving alone. And when you look at them, they have this really stupid grin on their faces that tempted me to go out there and punch the shit out of them.

And oh, come end of the month and you will find the traffic reducing drastically on the HOV lane, because the cops tend to be a little more active.

Am sure the cops are quite aware of the fact that a lot of people do this, and yet why is nothing done? Hey, why even bother having a HOV lane when more than half the people shouldn't even be there.

Duh! Just how stupid and irritating can people really get?

Here's a new caption -

People: Testing the bounds of human stupidity!

Just submitted this as a story - wonder if it would get accepted, but here it is for all ye' folks beforehand ;-)

I was searching for Tetris Source Code on Google when I came across a message at the bottom of the search results that informed me that certain results had been removed because of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Further probing revealed that the removed sites were mirroring copyrighted work, and hence removed. So, if I complain that some website is mirroring my content and I'm unhappy with it, does that mean Google will remove the indexing of the offensive content? Given that Google is the ubiquitous search engine today, this could have far reaching consequences. Scary, considering that this could be misused in so many ways (SCO and Genome sequences, anyone?).

Update: And oh, here is the screenshot of the said search. And oh, Slashdot did not accept the story, either :)

I came across this really cool Programming Language called Processing - its designed for the electronic arts and visual design stuff, and comes with its own environment, and runs in conjunction with Java.

You might want to check out processing.org.

It seems really cool, and a lot of people seem to have done pretty complex stuff - check out their gallery.

I was watching the new Star Trek : Enterprise - once you get the hang of it, its pretty well done - way better than Voyager with Janeway and her emotional throbbing. The only highlight of Voyager was Seven of Nine - other than that it was all crap.

Now I was watching the First Office Tpol on Enterprise work her Vulcan neuro-pressure magic on some Earth female, and couldn't help wonder if the Vulcan society would support lesbians?

Would they not choose to be homosexual because logic dictates that this would be a waste of their genes and it would be quite illogical not to mention wasteful?

How would the Vulcans accomodate something like this?

And oh, Tpol would have made an excellent substitute for Liz Tyler's role as Arwen in Peter Jackson's LoTR adaptation.

1. They see faces everywhere.
2. They are biodegradable.
3. Base 10 zeroes excite them.

Here's a little something to excite you:

1. 1 Million - Congrats to Archie Binnie!
2. 2 Million - Congrats to Anonymous Coward!
3. 3 Million - Congrats to ronc_LAemigre!
4. 4 Million - Congrats to Anonymous Coward!
5. 5 Million - Congrats to jefu!
6. 6 Million - Congrats to The Bungi!
7. 7 Million - Congrats to nytmare!
8. 8 Million - Congrats to Anonymous Coward!
9. 9 Million - To be announced soon
10. 10 Million - To be announced soon

Thanks to India for inventing the base 10 zero. Where would we be without it?

Saw this over at Memepool -

The 213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army

Immensely entertaining, borders on the ridiculous and had me in splits for quite a while. Jesus H Christ! That man must have been hilarious to work with. Or painful. Probably both, I think.