The Hoot features an article titled Weblogs: a library of live autobiographies written Jyothi Kiran.

A well researched and a comprehensive article that enables a stranger peek into the world of weblogs. My weblog got a mention in the article. Read it !!

See what could the deadly SARS to a beautiful marriage

Got this pic via email

Data Mining intiatives of the US government :

The Data mining efforts of the US government on US Citizens might be an effective tool to scrutinize terrorists and other illegal elements.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which created the predecessor of the Internet, is developing the Total Information Awareness database which is re-christened as Terrorist Information Awareness, draws on a cross-section of school, financial, travel, and medical records, looking for trends and patterns that may indicate terrorist activity.

The Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System II (CAPPS II) which is being developed by the Transportation Security Administration would analyze airline passengers’ names, addresses, birthdays, and phone numbers for use in preflight screenings. CAPPS II would replace the current airline passenger screening system in the U.S during the mid-2004.

While some section of congress feels that this could be an anti-privacy act, some duly defend it. However it could be, I am happy that the under-estimated and mis-understood data mining technology is put to its maximum use.

Read this for what Raghu Ramakirshnan, a professor of computer science at the University of Wisconsin and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, has to say about these data mining initiatives.

Outsourced : The coming of the end of Indian Tech era ?

This article not only signifies the obvious but also has hidden impacts.

Kevin Flanagan’s suicide resulting because his tech job in Bank of America was outsourced to Indian Info-Tech companies shattered US during the month of April. And the aftermaths had a very negative impact on the Indian Info Tech companies. Four US states including New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut and Washington are planning to ban outsourcing totally.

Outsourcing has been there since ages and it isn’t new to this world which has now shrinked handful. But it was expected that these bans would definetely happen because the no. of jobs lost in US due to this outsourcing spree amounted to 800,000. It all began when New Jersey passed a bill that none of their jobs would be outsourced outside the state.

With outsourcing ban started to becoming more than a fad in US, Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley said that the move was against the principle of market access and is very certain to have it negotiated in the WTO forums. If these bills get passed very smoothly in the US congress, it would couple with the already threatening L1 Visa ban bill and would create nasty impact on the Indian job front and also on the export income of India.

230 million downloads and still going strong. Kazaa, the file-sharing p2p software (including streaming audio/video), just as what napster was supposed to be for audio files. Read about it here.

Can’t stand this chennai heat. Last evening had good half-and-half bath in besant nagar beach. Well it wasn’t intentional. We just went to have our feets washed but the gushing water tempted us and swept us by our feet. But the bag hanging behind me didn’t allow to get drenched. As we were children we never had any such issues of carrying mobiles, credit cards, docs and such responsibilities. Wish we had a remote control to rewind our lives back to childhood.

Rahman is a Robinhood. As Valli, the ace lyricist uttered these words, a whopping crowd of 60,000 plus shouted happily on their way to glory. Last week, Vijay TV aired the part 1 of Unity of Light concert which took place in Chennai during the month of Feb. As A R Rahman performing for the first time in Chennai, chennaites had a chance to witness the whiz kid who hailed from this city and made chennai a global spot in the music arena. Watch for Part II this week on Vijay TV.

Is it Ash or her diamonds that shined during the Cannes Film Festival ? Anyway here’s presenting one more Julia Roberts to the Hollywood from our desi Bollywood.

Last night, I complelled myself to listen to Radio Mirchi @ 98.3 because I had comment that radio mirchi is doing well. I had listened to it just for few hours and wanted to see if the comment was true. During the nights they play some oldies which are very nice. Their comperes are really good and their ads are also fine. But I am still not convinced with their song picks. Some of them are really unheard. But lets wait and watch…err…hear.

Kanmani, the compere of Kaalai Thendral ( Morning Breeze ) in Suryan FM @ 105.8 is doing a great job. With her honey sweet voice and the entu that she shows to greet her callers is simply fabulous. I have become a regular listener of her shows and they are real mood-setters for the day.

I don’t understand why people plug lampshades on the fences and then tie it tightly with a non-transparent polythene cover. Why put the lampshade in first place ? Any takes ?