Friday, March 20, 2009

IE 8 release has lots of problems

Have you tried the latest Internet Explorer 8.0 which was officially released yesterday?

If you have not, then please don't!!!

It's got lots of bugs. Many web pages that used to work on the IE 8 RC (release-candidate) version are not loadable by the IE 8 official release version.

Of course, such hiccups are expected. But under such market competitions, one would expect Microsoft to be smart and nimble with its execution. Again, I am disappointed.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Romantic Poetry Generator

Have you ever tried writing a romantic poem?
A 60-year-old computing machine specifically programmed to generate love poetry has been recreated in England: the Manchester Mark I.

Here is an example poem that it randomly generated:

SWEETHEART DEAR
YOU ARE MY WISTFUL ENCHANTMENT. MY DEVOTION SIGHS FOR YOUR AMBITION. MY LONGING LIKES YOUR APPETITE. YOU ARE MY ANXIOUS HUNGER. MY RAPTURE DESIRES YOUR CHARM.
YOURS BEAUTIFULLY
M. U. C.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Making Summer Longer -- A Bush Legacy

In the 2005, the United States Congress and then president George W. Bush enacted a law that makes the summer time (daylight savings time) longer. Instead of the first Sunday of April, the law stipulates that the second Sunday of March should be the start of DST, and pushed the end of the DST from the last Sunday of October to the first Sunday of November. So the official calender for summer time is extended by 4 to 5 weeks depending on the year.

Can you really make summer longer by changing the law? Many people still think the weather is quite cold right now, so perhaps the switch to daylight savings time this weekend seem premature. Like it or not, this is yet another Bush legacy that will have long lasting effects on America :-)

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Zeitgeist: conspiracy theory revisited

The movie Zietgeist has been largely ignored by the media. It seems to be one of those exaggerated movie on the liberal front.

The Globe and Mail criticize this movie as:

"[...] this stuff [...] it's all been thoroughly debunked for years. Evidently, debunking isn't the issue. [...] Nor can you cite the findings of the professional, journalistic, and academic consensus to someone who's decided that having credibility means being under the sway of shadowy forces. [...] for all the talk of skepticism, conspiracy counterculture is really an anti-intellectual, populist movement - much like Intelligent Design. For all their absurdity, conspiracy theorists try to drag everything back to the level of common sense. [...] Did the collapsing buildings on 9/11 look like they were being demolished? Then they must have been demolished. Did the 757 that hit the Pentagon's blast-proof walls fail to make a plane-shaped hole? Then it must have been something else. Are there unexplained quirks in the official story? Then it must be the work of a higher power. [...] Conspiracy theorists want to see [...] a malevolent design behind events. The notion that calamity might be the unintended consequence of subtler causes doesn't hold the same appeal. Evil, whatever its other uses, drives a great narrative. Complexity, not so much."

Anyway, if you still want to watch this FREE movie despite all the above warnings, take a look at the following:

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Here is the original movie:





The addendum movie: