FF2 v/s IE7

Within the last week, two new browsers have been released -- both of which hope to be your first choice for bringing all of that new web content to your desktop.

Firefox 2, the latest version of Mozilla's open-source browser, was released Tuesday -- less than two years since version 1 and about 11 months behind version 1.5. Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7, the first browser from the Redmond giant since IE6 arrived in October 2001, was released for Windows XP users Oct. 18.

Read the Wired story here.

Go Scott!

As regular readers of my blog know, I lost my voice about 18 months ago. Permanently. It’s something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia. Essentially a part of the brain that controls speech just shuts down in some people, usually after you strain your voice during a bout with allergies (in my case) or some other sort of normal laryngitis. It happens to people in my age bracket.

Read on.

That's Doctor Chiru to you

We saw on TV a short while ago (and we can't find the NDTV link, so here's one from the Hindu) that the one and only megastar now has an honorary doctorate from Andhra University to go with his Padma Bhushan. We know this will please at least one resident of our blogroll. You know who you are.

Two things we thought we'd never see in Wired

: Mike, du-u-ude. That's nuts. You're crazy, man. Nine months' worth of music? You could have a full-term baby without ever playing the same song twice.

and

This is not about denigrating the comic book, or graphic novel, or whatever you want to call it. This is not to say that illustrated stories don't constitute an art form or that you can't get tremendous satisfaction from them. This is simply to say that, as literature, the comic book does not deserve equal status with real novels, or short stories. It's apples and oranges.

Both from the same column by a chap called Tony Long.

Thankfully, before we cancelled our subscription (which, we now realise, would have been difficult, because ever since we quit the agency scene, we have only read the online edition), we found this delicious take on pimping up one's MySpace page. [Required reading for all bloggers, Ryzers, and any others who tart up their pages with bundles of junk. Us? We only have a Sitemeter. And Flickr. And Blogrolling. And a some badges. And .. never mind. We'll shut up.]

Cheersh

Meant to do this an age ago, but didn't get down to it.

Please meet our old pal, former fellow wage slave and drinking buddy, erstwhile resident of Bombay and Dubai, now domicled in the frozen wastelands, Tony. He stands alone amongst our imbibing companions of choice; he's the only one who serves as mean a dish of pork vindaloo as he pours a beer. So, extra-highly recommended: his food posts.

Contrary to popular belief, we do get invited to parties.

We went to our first blogparty type thingy this weekend. We were gonna tell you all about it, but the others have, and we've always been a lazy sod, so here ya go: our generous host, Sakshi, that Varma boy, the faymbus Mistah Vij, Melody of the bunny ears, the back-from-sabbatical-Gaurav, the battler-with-dragons, Saket (Saket 1 - Dragons 0), and IdeaSmith (all in black, with litte red horns). Also present: the Varma's better half, Chronicus Skepticus (who, coincidentally, we had visited for the first time just that morn), that talented photographer Akshay Mahajan, a very quiet Anand Agrawal, and three of Sakshi's pals, who stayed firmy rooted to the other side of the room.

And now I lay me down to sleep.

Is YouTube worth all that moolah? Well, yes, because it's just a seedy dive.

Way back when we were still earning a regular monthly salary (and PF, and medical, and conveyance, and Diwali bonusses.. sigh), a Very Senior Person in our organisation used to deliver these occasional little mini-speeches about the business world, because we lower mortals needed to be kept informed. And because he was this incredibly brainy sort, he would kinda break things down for us slower types by equating everything with some kind of, um, inter-personal activity. Like "X Group is courting Y Company," and "Q Ltd and R Inc are in bed together, but are not married yet," and, well, you get the drift.

Yennyway. FOnD* memories wafted back to the forebrain when we read this on Slate:

If the Internet were not a bookstore, or tubes, but rather a red-light district, YouTube would best be imagined as the hotel, and Napster, well, the pimp. YouTube, like a hotel, provides space for people to do things, legal or not. It's not doing anything illegal itself, but its visitors may be. But Napster, everyone more or less now admits, was cast as the pimp: It was mainly a means of getting illegal stuff. Right or wrong, we seem to accept the benign vision of YouTube as an entity which, unlike Napster, was basically born as a place to showcase stupid human tricks.

* Yes, there is a reason for the irregular capitalisation.

How many hands do you need to play this thing?

More here. Or go here, and look for Custom Design.

A word in your ear

Interdoocing: Blogolepsy - http://blogolepsy.blogspot.com/

Reasons

This is not about displaying our own writing. (Though, truth be told, we work hard at stringing words together. And, now and then, we admit to being pleased with the results.)

This blog will search for and promote excellent creative writing on the web, with a wee bias towards the blogosphere.

What we'll link to: poetry, fiction, graphic stories and comics, great criticism, hyperfiction, lyrics, interactive narratives. Occassionally, we may link to essays, rants and opinion pieces unconnected with writing, but only if we think they're extraordinarily good. We'll also point to opportunities for writers, as and when we hear of them.

Tip-offs welcome. Leave a comment, or mail us.

We (Uma, Falstaff, J.A.P., Megha, Krish, Neha and yours truly) haven't exactly been regular with updates there, but p'raps your patronage will prod us into some activity. :)

Do drop by and let us know what you think. And pass on to interested souls.

Give us a ring. Or two.

With the sun behind Saturn.

Clicking on the image will bring up a large (595.77 KB) version of the picture.

This will give you the NASA Planetary Photojournal page, and this, the Cassini-Huygens page from where we found the image, and which also told us:

Cassini scientists discovered two new rings and confirmed the presence of two others.