the science and tech blog

June 26, 2009

RIP Michael Jackson

Filed under: general — Arul John @ 9:31 am

The king of pop is dead, long live the king.

This is one of my favourite songs – “I’ll be there” in Acapella.

May 28, 2009

Kavya Shivashankar wins Spelling Bee

Filed under: general — Arul John @ 10:06 pm

Kavya Shivashankar won the 82nd National Spelling Bee 2008 in Washington, DC, a few minutes ago. It was a very good show.The last word she said was “Laodicean“.

This was her fourth appearance in the bee. I liked the way she wrote the word on her palm with her finger before spelling it out aloud.

Kavya Shivshankar wins the Spelling Bee

Kavya Shivshankar wins the Spelling Bee

Kavya spelling out a word

Kavya spelling out a word

In this AP article,

Kavya was making her fourth appearance at the bee, having finishing 10th, eighth and fourth over the last three years. She enjoys playing the violin, bicycling, swimming and learning Indian classical dance, and her role model is Nupur Lala, the 1999 champion featured in the documentary “Spellbound.”

Read more.

On a related note, it is also the seventh time in the last decade that American kids of Indian origin have won the title. Previous winners include Nupur Lala (1999), George Thampy (2000), Pratyush Buddiga (2002), Sai Gunturi (2003), Anurag Kashyap (2005) and Sameer Mishra (2008). The first American of Indian origin to win the Bee was Balu Natarajan, followed by Rageshree Ramachandran in 1987.

April 30, 2009

Amitabh shows his middle finger – I voted

Filed under: India, News, general — Arul John @ 9:30 pm

Amitabh Bachchan voted. And he’s showing his voting finger. No, he’s not giving anyone the finger. :)

Amitabh shows his voting finger

Amitabh shows his voting finger

April 20, 2009

Oracle Corporation buys Sun Microsystems

Filed under: News, Unix, general — Arul John @ 8:22 am

Oracle acquired Sun today for a stock price of $9.50 per share in cash.

The transaction was made for $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net including Sun’s cash and debt.

Hopefully this acquisition goes in the positive direction. I’ve had issues with BEA WebLogic support after BEA was taken over by Oracle. Their support team is virtually non-existent now. WebLogic versions are barely being upgraded.

Looks like Oracle’s press release page has already been slashdotted.

Content Server Request Failed

Server is too busy to handle request.

Via Slashdot.

March 6, 2009

Colorado State says IE more secure than Firefox

Filed under: Firefox, general, genius — Arul John @ 12:32 am
Tags: , ,

Colorado State says IE more secure than Firefox and other Mozilla browsers on its website. Their site is built on .NET and trying to submit feedback in the feedback section throws up a bunch of .NET debugging code. Anyway, this article made my day! Read more.

Today’s Award goes to these geniuses.

February 27, 2009

How the Tax System Works

Filed under: general — Arul John @ 4:43 pm

And this from another email, source is supposed to be an Economics professor in Georgia.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this.

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. Read more.

How The American Economy Got Messed Up

Filed under: general — Arul John @ 4:40 pm

I received this in an email forward.

Linda is the proprietor of a bar in Cork. In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers … Read more.

January 30, 2009

India’s 500 rupee laptop out in February 2009

Filed under: India, News, general — Arul John @ 3:22 pm
Tags: , , ,

India’s $10 laptop will be out in February 2009.

UPDATE: It was a hoax. There was no laptop, it was a storage device with wires sticking out.

December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas

Filed under: general — Arul John @ 7:09 pm

Merry Christmas to my blog visitors.

Christmas is a festival celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Read the Bible verses related to Jesus’ birth.

Also, learn how to send Christmas wishes in over 100 languages.

December 20, 2008

Make Money from Old Shoes

Filed under: general — Arul John @ 11:00 pm
Tags: ,

What do you do with your old shoes? Throw them away? Ever thought about making money from them?

Here’s a cartoon in today’s Deccan Chronicle that suggests a solution.

make money from old shoes

Shoes go green, literally.

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