Who’s the most beautiful of them all?
The Mirror Project
Verily I say unto thee, it takes all kinds. I mean, yeah, there are photo sites. And yeah, there are sites that are devoted to narcissism. But a site devoted to pictures taken of the photographers, taken off reflectove surfaces? Who’da thunk? But let’s be fair. These are not just the kind of shots we’ve all taken—y’know, aim at mirror, pretend like you’re not posing—though there are many of those. Some of these are truly imaginative, unusual and very well composed. You could browse by theme and go away happy. But hit the ‘random’ button, or, better, take a look at the link titled ‘galleries’ for user-selected mini-selections. Reflections on reflections, I could have said, but I decided not to be a smart arse today.
Per cent
The Miniature Earth Project
One simple method to simplify complex things dealing with large numbers of things or people is to state them in percentages. And this site takes that to the extreme, looking at the earth and humanity, breaking everything down into a ‘if there were only 100 people on earth’ scenario and puts them together into a short animation you can view online or download. The points the film makes are about poverty and imbalance, and, since 12 of those 100 own a computer and just three have an internet connection, it’s clear who it aims to talk to.
Help
Bhookh
You’ve heard of the Hunger site, I’ll wager, or been sent there. This is an Indian copy. This column doesn’t think kindly of rip-offs that do nothing but clothe themselves in the tri-colour and proclaim that they are novel. But in this case, despite its lack of originality and the exaggerated claims (‘India's first online activism site’), its intentions are good. A click to help feed the hungry in exchange for viewing a sponsor ad; that can’t be a bad thing. Though I must point out that my clicks didn’t throw up any ads. So perhaps the site is dead or lacking sponsorship..
The news in your pocket
MyToday
A clean, simple site with no frills. I rubbed my eyes. It felt like the mid-nineties! But nay, this isn’t a retro site. It’s an internet portal for mobile phones, with an India focus. I couldn’t give it a real test, seeing as I’m a poor freelance hack with a decrepit cellphone (see how cleverly we work in our semi-annual whine to Editorji?) that makes calls and sends SMSes and freezes every two days, but on a computer, it loaded like lightning, even on my slow connection (see, Respected Editor? no fat-pipe broadband). The navigation is ultra-simple, the content seems pretty decent: bite-sized news, some utilities, listings and guides, with a Bombay focus. Worth a click through. Erm. Beep through? Whatever it is you do with those gizmos I can’t afford. (Your Editorness?)
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 17th February, 2008.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
Sunday, 17 February 2008
Sunday, 3 February 2008
Mousetrap - 135
Digital Alexandria
Universal Digital Library: Million Book Collection
This column may have pointed briefly to this project once before, but it bears a revisit. The goals of the project are noble: preserving human knowledge for the future. We had stories first, word of mouth. Then writing came in, and then books became the best way to pass information around, and down the years. But books can deteriorate. This project believes that ‘digital technology can make the works of man permanently accessible to the billions of people all over the world. .. A universal digital library, widely available through free access on the Internet, will improve the global society in ways beyond measurement. The Internet can house a Universal Library that is free to the people.’ Well, here you are. A million books to choose from. And more coming in as we read. There’s an India connection here, by the way. The project’s founder is of desi extraction, and a large chunk of the digitisation has been done in this country.
Speaking ill
Sick Words
Do you think you’re an animal? You zoanthrope, you. Are you perhaps displaying a regrettable tendency to swear at this column for it’s sheer silly waste of your time? Well, your alochezia is showing. Never mind our witzelsucht. You go look at this page full of terms that have something to do with illnesses of some that your average family doctor may not be able to cure. [Link via Amit Varma.]
The A-lists
The List Universe
Cool place for the trivia-obsessed, this. The name gives it away: this is a site devoted to lists. Its slant is fun, with a nice weirdness quotient and plenty of bias. Want to check out who the top ten alcoholic writers were? Or 7 ways to get the best of a zombie? Perhaps you’re more, um, normal, and you’d like to see the top ten unsolved murders? Or the most expensive foods? It’s all here, with regular updates, and neatly categorised. There’s even a forum, where you can go shmooze with other list addicts.
Party time
Kala Ghoda Arts Festival
Once, there stood a statue here, in black stone, of a man on a horse. The statue has been dumped somewhere in the zoo, and no one remembers the name of the horseman (it was King Edward VIII, incidentally), but the area in Bombay continues to be referred to by the locals’ affectionate name for his horse, ‘kala ghoda.’ Since 1999, this heritage quarter has hosted an arts festival. And for nine days in February, the stone fronts of the elderly buildings are lit up with carnival lights and echo the happy sounds of Mumbaikars having a good time. There is a street festival, food stalls, music, films, theatre, installation art on the pavements, literary events, workshops, all for free. Go check out the schedule. Can’t be there? Never mind. Go visit the festival’s official blog, the Kala Ghoda Gazette, where a bunch of local bloggers are ready to bring you all the highlights. And there are some contests you can join in on wherever you are.
[Disclosure: Your columnist helped organise parts of the Festival, and is one of the editors of the Gazette.]
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 3rd February, 2008.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
Universal Digital Library: Million Book Collection
This column may have pointed briefly to this project once before, but it bears a revisit. The goals of the project are noble: preserving human knowledge for the future. We had stories first, word of mouth. Then writing came in, and then books became the best way to pass information around, and down the years. But books can deteriorate. This project believes that ‘digital technology can make the works of man permanently accessible to the billions of people all over the world. .. A universal digital library, widely available through free access on the Internet, will improve the global society in ways beyond measurement. The Internet can house a Universal Library that is free to the people.’ Well, here you are. A million books to choose from. And more coming in as we read. There’s an India connection here, by the way. The project’s founder is of desi extraction, and a large chunk of the digitisation has been done in this country.
Speaking ill
Sick Words
Do you think you’re an animal? You zoanthrope, you. Are you perhaps displaying a regrettable tendency to swear at this column for it’s sheer silly waste of your time? Well, your alochezia is showing. Never mind our witzelsucht. You go look at this page full of terms that have something to do with illnesses of some that your average family doctor may not be able to cure. [Link via Amit Varma.]
The A-lists
The List Universe
Cool place for the trivia-obsessed, this. The name gives it away: this is a site devoted to lists. Its slant is fun, with a nice weirdness quotient and plenty of bias. Want to check out who the top ten alcoholic writers were? Or 7 ways to get the best of a zombie? Perhaps you’re more, um, normal, and you’d like to see the top ten unsolved murders? Or the most expensive foods? It’s all here, with regular updates, and neatly categorised. There’s even a forum, where you can go shmooze with other list addicts.
Party time
Kala Ghoda Arts Festival
Once, there stood a statue here, in black stone, of a man on a horse. The statue has been dumped somewhere in the zoo, and no one remembers the name of the horseman (it was King Edward VIII, incidentally), but the area in Bombay continues to be referred to by the locals’ affectionate name for his horse, ‘kala ghoda.’ Since 1999, this heritage quarter has hosted an arts festival. And for nine days in February, the stone fronts of the elderly buildings are lit up with carnival lights and echo the happy sounds of Mumbaikars having a good time. There is a street festival, food stalls, music, films, theatre, installation art on the pavements, literary events, workshops, all for free. Go check out the schedule. Can’t be there? Never mind. Go visit the festival’s official blog, the Kala Ghoda Gazette, where a bunch of local bloggers are ready to bring you all the highlights. And there are some contests you can join in on wherever you are.
[Disclosure: Your columnist helped organise parts of the Festival, and is one of the editors of the Gazette.]
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 3rd February, 2008.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
Friday, 1 February 2008
Siteseeing - 15
travel bookmarking
‘Social bookmarking’ isn’t new. When you share a cool link with friends, that’s what you’re doing. Sites like del.icio.us make it ludicrously easy to do, giving you the added bonus of saving ’em online. (Psst, if you’re on del.icio.us and know of sites you think we should cover, tag them ‘for:zigzackly’) This site goes further. For one, as it’s name indicates, the focus is travel. Secondly, it lets you write your own notes, or import content from free sites like World66 and WikiTravel (which we have covered in this space), or its parent site, So Much World, to make your own custom travel guides. You can share your guides with your pals, and, naturally, go check out guides created by other members. You’ll find this site more useful if you’re travelling abroad—in the west; basically, and more specifically, the USA— than you would if you tried to check out India, which has negligible mention as of this writing. You have some spammers there too, which is worrying, because it makes it more difficult to find good stuff. The wisdom of crowds helps: search for ‘popular’ links. And you can change things yourself; that’s the point. So go sign up and mark out good stuff, hmm? Make sure to mark outlooktraveller.com, and maybe the Ed will give me a bigger cheque. Hah.
Published in Outlook Traveller, January 2008.
Tags: Outlook Traveller, Siteseeing
‘Social bookmarking’ isn’t new. When you share a cool link with friends, that’s what you’re doing. Sites like del.icio.us make it ludicrously easy to do, giving you the added bonus of saving ’em online. (Psst, if you’re on del.icio.us and know of sites you think we should cover, tag them ‘for:zigzackly’) This site goes further. For one, as it’s name indicates, the focus is travel. Secondly, it lets you write your own notes, or import content from free sites like World66 and WikiTravel (which we have covered in this space), or its parent site, So Much World, to make your own custom travel guides. You can share your guides with your pals, and, naturally, go check out guides created by other members. You’ll find this site more useful if you’re travelling abroad—in the west; basically, and more specifically, the USA— than you would if you tried to check out India, which has negligible mention as of this writing. You have some spammers there too, which is worrying, because it makes it more difficult to find good stuff. The wisdom of crowds helps: search for ‘popular’ links. And you can change things yourself; that’s the point. So go sign up and mark out good stuff, hmm? Make sure to mark outlooktraveller.com, and maybe the Ed will give me a bigger cheque. Hah.
Published in Outlook Traveller, January 2008.
Tags: Outlook Traveller, Siteseeing
Sunday, 20 January 2008
Mousetrap - 134
Be sharp
Musipedia
No prizes for guessing this is for the music buffs. As the name suggests, it’s a take on the Wikipedia model of collaboration, in this case a searchable, user-editable, and steadily expanding ‘collection of tunes, melodies, and musical themes.’ The entries include sheet music, audio files, and plain-text information. It also features a search engine that helps you find a piece of music—and this is so cool—even of you know nothing about it except the tune, or even the beat. There’s a virtual piano keyboard, or you can tap out a beat on your computer keyboard, or you can hum, whistle or sing to the computer. Being rather tune-challenged, to put it mildly, I had some rather weird results. Others, more musical than your columnist—admittedly a huge category that includes most of humanity, even the baseball-hatted chappie who sings through his nose—have reported better results. Go try it and write in about how you fared, okay?
Words are all I have
SongMeanings
Since one is in this musical mood, and the neighbours haven’t complained—yet—here’s another site for you tuneful folks. Unlike the gazillion lyric sites out there, this one gets into what them words really mean. No, wait, that’s inaccurate. It doesn’t have the lyricists expounding on their intent. What this is a forum, where members come in and post what they think song words mean. Much debate and discussion and all that, and you don’t have to sign up to read what they have to say. The site stats, as of this writing, say the database covers 31,878 artists, 14,502 albums and lyrics for 369,577 songs. Most of it is songs sung in English, but I did find a few songs from the Hindi film industry as well. No ‘Eena Meena Dika’ though. One still searches for meaning..
The way we were
Historical Maps of India
One of the things I’ve never liked about our country is the paucity of good maps. That’s partly because of some kind of government regulations, I am told; security risks or summat. Pretty irrelevant, that, in an age where satellite imagery is easily available, and for free at that, on the web. Nothing fancy on this site, no Google Earth zooms and pans and fly-bys. It’s just a collection of links, but what a collection! The owner has painstakingly assembled links from all over the interwebs, pointing to scans and reproductions of maps going back to the 18th century. The area covered extends beyond the ‘India’ in the page title, with much of the neighbourhood that was under European colonisation included. There’s even a world map from 1772!
Self -portrait
10 x 10
Every hour, this the site automatically generates a grid (10 x 10, natch) of 100 words and pictures that ‘matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time.’ How does it figure out what matters? It scans feeds from several international news providers, and picks out the 100 words that appear most, factoring in some complicated linguistic stuff. What you get is a snapshot in time, a sort of patchwork that reveals much about the world and what we think is important. You can click through, look deeper, muse, fulminate, mourn, rejoice, whatever; that’s up to you. Fascinating way to spend some time, and kind of addictive, I must warn you.
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 20th January, 2008.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
Musipedia
No prizes for guessing this is for the music buffs. As the name suggests, it’s a take on the Wikipedia model of collaboration, in this case a searchable, user-editable, and steadily expanding ‘collection of tunes, melodies, and musical themes.’ The entries include sheet music, audio files, and plain-text information. It also features a search engine that helps you find a piece of music—and this is so cool—even of you know nothing about it except the tune, or even the beat. There’s a virtual piano keyboard, or you can tap out a beat on your computer keyboard, or you can hum, whistle or sing to the computer. Being rather tune-challenged, to put it mildly, I had some rather weird results. Others, more musical than your columnist—admittedly a huge category that includes most of humanity, even the baseball-hatted chappie who sings through his nose—have reported better results. Go try it and write in about how you fared, okay?
Words are all I have
SongMeanings
Since one is in this musical mood, and the neighbours haven’t complained—yet—here’s another site for you tuneful folks. Unlike the gazillion lyric sites out there, this one gets into what them words really mean. No, wait, that’s inaccurate. It doesn’t have the lyricists expounding on their intent. What this is a forum, where members come in and post what they think song words mean. Much debate and discussion and all that, and you don’t have to sign up to read what they have to say. The site stats, as of this writing, say the database covers 31,878 artists, 14,502 albums and lyrics for 369,577 songs. Most of it is songs sung in English, but I did find a few songs from the Hindi film industry as well. No ‘Eena Meena Dika’ though. One still searches for meaning..
The way we were
Historical Maps of India
One of the things I’ve never liked about our country is the paucity of good maps. That’s partly because of some kind of government regulations, I am told; security risks or summat. Pretty irrelevant, that, in an age where satellite imagery is easily available, and for free at that, on the web. Nothing fancy on this site, no Google Earth zooms and pans and fly-bys. It’s just a collection of links, but what a collection! The owner has painstakingly assembled links from all over the interwebs, pointing to scans and reproductions of maps going back to the 18th century. The area covered extends beyond the ‘India’ in the page title, with much of the neighbourhood that was under European colonisation included. There’s even a world map from 1772!
Self -portrait
10 x 10
Every hour, this the site automatically generates a grid (10 x 10, natch) of 100 words and pictures that ‘matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time.’ How does it figure out what matters? It scans feeds from several international news providers, and picks out the 100 words that appear most, factoring in some complicated linguistic stuff. What you get is a snapshot in time, a sort of patchwork that reveals much about the world and what we think is important. You can click through, look deeper, muse, fulminate, mourn, rejoice, whatever; that’s up to you. Fascinating way to spend some time, and kind of addictive, I must warn you.
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 20th January, 2008.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
Sunday, 13 January 2008
Mousetrap - 133
Identity Crisis
OpenID
Hell, my friend, is keeping track of IDs and passwords for every darn site you use. If you’re like me, you’ve got a loooong list and you’ve forgotten more of them than you can remember. It wasn’t for my browser storing passwords for me, I’d have no online social life to speak of. But here’s a solution. OpenID lets you wander around the web under one identity. Let’s say you have a WordPress ID, and Wordpress supports OpenID. You can then use that ID as your base, using it to sign in to other sites that support OpenID. What sites? The claim is ‘nearly ten-thousand’ as of this writing (there are a couple of directories the site links to, for reference). Worth checking out, if you’re part of the participatory web. And who isn’t, these days?
I dub thee..
Dot-o-mator
You know how all the good domain names are taken? And how tough it is, if you’re launching something new, to come up with a name for your service / mash-up / bit o’ self-indulgence that isn’t already taken? Well, that explains all those weird site names one comes across these days. And what this site does is generate domain names for you. You can feed it prefixes and/or suffixes (or pick from the ready-made lists) and the generator combines them for you and presents you with a list. If you like something it comes up with, you can check for availability right there. (The scary part is how many of them are already booked! Perhaps it’s not as tongue-in-cheek a site as I thought it was.) There are also useful tips for picking domain names. If that’s all too much work for you, try the Web 2.0 name generator for random names.
She says
Ultra Violet
A new(ish) blog that is pretty much described by it’s URL if not its name. It is a feminist blog, covering the issues and challenges that Indian women face today. Their About page says that the site ‘provides a place to explore and understand the ways in which young women in India are challenging, negotiating and transforming unequal power structures. It is also a space to celebrate women’s histories, wisdom, creativity, laughter and love for life.’ There have been some interesting debates up there, and the contributors list features some well-known writers and bloggers, so it’s worth your time to visit. The only thing is, they’re all women. One can’t but wonder, how come? Can’t a man be a feminist?
Who shall guard the guards?
Mission Safer India
The creation of former supercop Kiran Bedi, the site offers to step in if you have had trouble getting your complaints attended to by the police. It’s terribly badly written, and clumsily designed too, but if you wade through and try not to cringe too much, it’s a genuinely useful service. Just create an ID, and then you can fill in a complaint. The webmaster then makes sure your complaint is forwarded to the correct channels in the police hierarchy, though it’s up to you to then, with your printouts, to follow up on the matter. It deals solely with e-complaints, so no paper submissions will be dealt with. Now if only Ms Bedi would get someone to redo the site decently.
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 13th January, 2008.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
OpenID
Hell, my friend, is keeping track of IDs and passwords for every darn site you use. If you’re like me, you’ve got a loooong list and you’ve forgotten more of them than you can remember. It wasn’t for my browser storing passwords for me, I’d have no online social life to speak of. But here’s a solution. OpenID lets you wander around the web under one identity. Let’s say you have a WordPress ID, and Wordpress supports OpenID. You can then use that ID as your base, using it to sign in to other sites that support OpenID. What sites? The claim is ‘nearly ten-thousand’ as of this writing (there are a couple of directories the site links to, for reference). Worth checking out, if you’re part of the participatory web. And who isn’t, these days?
I dub thee..
Dot-o-mator
You know how all the good domain names are taken? And how tough it is, if you’re launching something new, to come up with a name for your service / mash-up / bit o’ self-indulgence that isn’t already taken? Well, that explains all those weird site names one comes across these days. And what this site does is generate domain names for you. You can feed it prefixes and/or suffixes (or pick from the ready-made lists) and the generator combines them for you and presents you with a list. If you like something it comes up with, you can check for availability right there. (The scary part is how many of them are already booked! Perhaps it’s not as tongue-in-cheek a site as I thought it was.) There are also useful tips for picking domain names. If that’s all too much work for you, try the Web 2.0 name generator for random names.
She says
Ultra Violet
A new(ish) blog that is pretty much described by it’s URL if not its name. It is a feminist blog, covering the issues and challenges that Indian women face today. Their About page says that the site ‘provides a place to explore and understand the ways in which young women in India are challenging, negotiating and transforming unequal power structures. It is also a space to celebrate women’s histories, wisdom, creativity, laughter and love for life.’ There have been some interesting debates up there, and the contributors list features some well-known writers and bloggers, so it’s worth your time to visit. The only thing is, they’re all women. One can’t but wonder, how come? Can’t a man be a feminist?
Who shall guard the guards?
Mission Safer India
The creation of former supercop Kiran Bedi, the site offers to step in if you have had trouble getting your complaints attended to by the police. It’s terribly badly written, and clumsily designed too, but if you wade through and try not to cringe too much, it’s a genuinely useful service. Just create an ID, and then you can fill in a complaint. The webmaster then makes sure your complaint is forwarded to the correct channels in the police hierarchy, though it’s up to you to then, with your printouts, to follow up on the matter. It deals solely with e-complaints, so no paper submissions will be dealt with. Now if only Ms Bedi would get someone to redo the site decently.
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 13th January, 2008.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
Sunday, 6 January 2008
Mousetrap - 132
So, all hangovers taken care of and messed up your first cheque by writing the wrong year yet? Happy New Year, from the bottom of this little column’s, well, for lack of a better word, heart.
A watched kettle never boils
Kitchen Myths
The web is host to more myths stated as serious fact than any other medium. And many sites specialise in busting those myths with reason, research or just plain scorn. Says this site author: “The same sort of thing happens in the world of food and cooking, although on a much smaller scale. This page is my answer.” So you have the skinny about such stuff as baking soda used to absorb odours in the fridge, the alleged dangers of microwave cooking, and my favourite, how much alcohol is really left in a dish after cooking (not zero, as the conventional wisdom goes, I’m delighted to report), among many others. And should that pall, the site also has recipes. Eat up. [Link courtesy Ashwan Lewis]
You genius, you
The Blog Readability Test
Just a wee bit of frippery. Enter a URL (not necessarily a blog), and the site will tell you what level of education is required to understand its content. You, dear reader, will be glad to know that the site where I archive this column requires a genius reading level. Sheesh. So that’s why I don’t get fan mail.
For the record
Vinyl Sleeve Heads
This column is clearly not in a serious mood today. You want serious? G’wan, go back to the op-ed page. Right, it’s just us chickens now. This page just has.. but wait, I’ll have to explain something to the young ’uns; you old-timers hold on a sec. Now, kids, before mp3 players and CDs, people used to listen to music on things called records, which were discs, much like CDs, but large and black and made of vinyl, which were sold in covers made of thin cardboard. How big? Well, enough to cover your face. Now where we? Yes, It’s a simple page, nothing but pictures of people holding up record covers in front of their faces, usually with album covers that feature a face. And yes, it’s much funnier than it sounds. Go see.
With the grain
Free Rice
I must have had at least a score of friends pointing me to this link over the last couple of months, so perhaps you’ve heard of it by now. Nevertheless, you have a bleary-eyed columnist here, who needs to sleep. And this site’s stated objective is a winner: to give to the needy. Also dear to my heart is the method, a word game, where you get words in increasing degrees of difficulty, and you have to choose the correct meaning from four options. (Rather like the old Reader’s Digest word power games, except that here you don’t get a few lines of explanation and contextual use in the Answers page.) For each right answer, the site donates twenty grains of rice to the UN, paid for by the advertisers whose banners appear on every page. With every three words you get right, you advance one level. For every wrong answer, you drop one level. The site says, ‘This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place.’ My ‘outer fringe’ is now 49. What’s yours?
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 6th January, 2008.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
A watched kettle never boils
Kitchen Myths
The web is host to more myths stated as serious fact than any other medium. And many sites specialise in busting those myths with reason, research or just plain scorn. Says this site author: “The same sort of thing happens in the world of food and cooking, although on a much smaller scale. This page is my answer.” So you have the skinny about such stuff as baking soda used to absorb odours in the fridge, the alleged dangers of microwave cooking, and my favourite, how much alcohol is really left in a dish after cooking (not zero, as the conventional wisdom goes, I’m delighted to report), among many others. And should that pall, the site also has recipes. Eat up. [Link courtesy Ashwan Lewis]
You genius, you
The Blog Readability Test
Just a wee bit of frippery. Enter a URL (not necessarily a blog), and the site will tell you what level of education is required to understand its content. You, dear reader, will be glad to know that the site where I archive this column requires a genius reading level. Sheesh. So that’s why I don’t get fan mail.
For the record
Vinyl Sleeve Heads
This column is clearly not in a serious mood today. You want serious? G’wan, go back to the op-ed page. Right, it’s just us chickens now. This page just has.. but wait, I’ll have to explain something to the young ’uns; you old-timers hold on a sec. Now, kids, before mp3 players and CDs, people used to listen to music on things called records, which were discs, much like CDs, but large and black and made of vinyl, which were sold in covers made of thin cardboard. How big? Well, enough to cover your face. Now where we? Yes, It’s a simple page, nothing but pictures of people holding up record covers in front of their faces, usually with album covers that feature a face. And yes, it’s much funnier than it sounds. Go see.
With the grain
Free Rice
I must have had at least a score of friends pointing me to this link over the last couple of months, so perhaps you’ve heard of it by now. Nevertheless, you have a bleary-eyed columnist here, who needs to sleep. And this site’s stated objective is a winner: to give to the needy. Also dear to my heart is the method, a word game, where you get words in increasing degrees of difficulty, and you have to choose the correct meaning from four options. (Rather like the old Reader’s Digest word power games, except that here you don’t get a few lines of explanation and contextual use in the Answers page.) For each right answer, the site donates twenty grains of rice to the UN, paid for by the advertisers whose banners appear on every page. With every three words you get right, you advance one level. For every wrong answer, you drop one level. The site says, ‘This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place.’ My ‘outer fringe’ is now 49. What’s yours?
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 6th January, 2008.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
Siteseeing - 14
Travel Greener
Quicker than you can say Pachouri, we’ve suddenly come all over environmentalist. We now talk grimly of recycling, cutting emissions, carbon footprints and more, not just as dippy tree-hugger behaviour, but as something we all need to know more about. More talk than action, it must be said, but at least we’re taking it seriously. And we travellers—yes, you too, dear reader—must do our share too. The buying and selling of ‘carbon credits’ is one of the businesses born of this awareness.
Now I have to admit that I’m just over the clueless line about how exactly this works, but what I understand is this. When you fly, your share of the plane’s emissions significantly increases your personal carbon footprint. (A Bombay-Delhi flight would send 288 kilos of carbon into the air; Bombay-Boston would be 2689kgs.) You can offset the damage to the environment by purchasing carbon offsets, which are used in projects that reduce CO2 emissions elsewhere.
This site lets you make travel bookings (flights, hotels, cars), and uses its commissions to fund its environment-protecting projects. It also has calculators that let you calculate flight or road-trip emissions and then buy offsets directly. (The road-trip calculator only works for US trips, alas.) Cool idea, and a worthy model for someone to emulate in India. And when you do, please send me some free credits for pointing it out to you, okay?
Published in Outlook Traveller, Januray 2008.
Tags: Outlook Traveller, Siteseeing
Quicker than you can say Pachouri, we’ve suddenly come all over environmentalist. We now talk grimly of recycling, cutting emissions, carbon footprints and more, not just as dippy tree-hugger behaviour, but as something we all need to know more about. More talk than action, it must be said, but at least we’re taking it seriously. And we travellers—yes, you too, dear reader—must do our share too. The buying and selling of ‘carbon credits’ is one of the businesses born of this awareness.
Now I have to admit that I’m just over the clueless line about how exactly this works, but what I understand is this. When you fly, your share of the plane’s emissions significantly increases your personal carbon footprint. (A Bombay-Delhi flight would send 288 kilos of carbon into the air; Bombay-Boston would be 2689kgs.) You can offset the damage to the environment by purchasing carbon offsets, which are used in projects that reduce CO2 emissions elsewhere.
This site lets you make travel bookings (flights, hotels, cars), and uses its commissions to fund its environment-protecting projects. It also has calculators that let you calculate flight or road-trip emissions and then buy offsets directly. (The road-trip calculator only works for US trips, alas.) Cool idea, and a worthy model for someone to emulate in India. And when you do, please send me some free credits for pointing it out to you, okay?
Published in Outlook Traveller, Januray 2008.
Tags: Outlook Traveller, Siteseeing
Sunday, 30 December 2007
Mousetrap - 131
It's that time of the year. When an editor's fancy turns lightly to thoughts of round-ups and best-of lists. “Yassah massah,” we say, and jump to it.
The quick version: If 2005 was blogging, and 2006 was all about the Social Web, Web 2.0, then 2007 was when the people jumped in and began to take the web back.
We began to use the web in ways that went beyond random surfing and forwarding allegedly funny pictures and unverified urban legends to our entire email address books. Small example: the burst of jingoism that saw Indian frantically emailing and SMSing their entire address books to make sure that the Taj Mahal was voted into some company’s little gimmick, the New Seven Wonders. Arguably more constructive was the trend of web activism. Gujarat, Nandigram, and other issues were discussed threadbare, on all sides of the debate, and people began tweaking web tools like social networks, blogs, event sites and the like to garner support, recruit participants for protests against other people’s actions or in support of their own. NGOs began to see the value of online presence and spruced up dead or languishing web sites.
And yes, Social networks became ubiquitous. (We who keep track of this have a name for this: YASN, which is short for ‘Yet Another Social Network.’) Not a day goes by when we don’t receive at least one invitation to a social network that some friend has just found. Folks who had never had more than an email address before that, people who had scorned personal home pages and blogs were now in social networks, and inviting all their friends in. Old webheads, luddites, famous writers and artists, journalists, serious professionals, pet-owners, hobbyists, activists, politicians, poets, painters, tinkers, tailors, greying grandparents and pre-teeners, they’re all leaving messages on each others ‘walls’ and ‘scrapping’ one another. We’re friends online with people we may ever meet. Heck, we use ‘friend’ as a verb now, much to the dismay of the language purists. I tell you.
Oops. Sorry. We got carried away. We had better quickly work in a couple of predictions or Editorji won’t pay us.
The Empire(s) strike back
Open Social
With the bad news out of the way, time to look at things a lot chirpier. A little while ago, Google launched an attempt to change the game back in its favour. This isn't a social network. Rather, it is a way for developers to build applications that work across many networks. For example, Friendster, hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Plaxo, XING, and yes, Orkut, along with a bunch of others, are implementing OS. Will it take the web back from Facebook? Frankly, we dunno. But hey, it’s going to be interesting to watch.
A little bird tells me
Twitter
Twitter is a simple service. It asks you one question: 'What are you doing?' And you can answer this in 140 characters or less. Friends, family, whoever, can subscribe to or 'follow' your updates, which they can choose to get via their Twitter page or cellphones (the message are well within the 160 character SMS limit). The controls are easy: you can permit random strangers to follow you, or not; you can choose who to follow, and how. The site's been around for a bit--we noticed it somewhere mid-year--but has gained momentum only over this last month. And we think 2008 will see a lot more Twittering.
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 30th December, 2007.
This bit didn't run in the paper:
Could-have-been
Orkut
Orkut could have ruled. It’s been around for years, has a huge Indian presence, and despite a horde of me-too networking sites launched by eager desis wanting to cash in, none of them really made a dent. Orkut kept popping up in the news, with every second politician and righteous defender of our kulchur wanting it banned for some reason or the other, and bemused media types who barely knew what they were talking about trying to make sense of it. With the teen and pre-teen set, it became the communication medium of choice, outpacing even instant messengers. But privacy concerns—until recently, one’s settings did not permit control over one’s ‘scrapbook,’ for instance—and the perception that it was juvenile, meant that few fossils my age joined in.
The star
Facebook
This network, once restricted to college students, opened its doors to anyone who wanted to join. Cautiously, many early-adopters checked it out. Somewhere mid-year, Facebook opened its platform to developers to launch their own ‘apps.’ And suddenly, something changed. Everybody and her grand-uncle suddenly started popping up there. Folks I had never seen on any other forum, people who had never had more than an email address before that, old webheads, luddites, famous writers and artists, journalists, serious professionals, politicans, poets, painters, tinkers, tailors.. you get the picture. Now, even greying grandparents talk of Facebooking and leaving messages on each others ‘walls’ and ‘poking’ one another. I tell you. What is the world coming to?
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
The quick version: If 2005 was blogging, and 2006 was all about the Social Web, Web 2.0, then 2007 was when the people jumped in and began to take the web back.
We began to use the web in ways that went beyond random surfing and forwarding allegedly funny pictures and unverified urban legends to our entire email address books. Small example: the burst of jingoism that saw Indian frantically emailing and SMSing their entire address books to make sure that the Taj Mahal was voted into some company’s little gimmick, the New Seven Wonders. Arguably more constructive was the trend of web activism. Gujarat, Nandigram, and other issues were discussed threadbare, on all sides of the debate, and people began tweaking web tools like social networks, blogs, event sites and the like to garner support, recruit participants for protests against other people’s actions or in support of their own. NGOs began to see the value of online presence and spruced up dead or languishing web sites.
And yes, Social networks became ubiquitous. (We who keep track of this have a name for this: YASN, which is short for ‘Yet Another Social Network.’) Not a day goes by when we don’t receive at least one invitation to a social network that some friend has just found. Folks who had never had more than an email address before that, people who had scorned personal home pages and blogs were now in social networks, and inviting all their friends in. Old webheads, luddites, famous writers and artists, journalists, serious professionals, pet-owners, hobbyists, activists, politicians, poets, painters, tinkers, tailors, greying grandparents and pre-teeners, they’re all leaving messages on each others ‘walls’ and ‘scrapping’ one another. We’re friends online with people we may ever meet. Heck, we use ‘friend’ as a verb now, much to the dismay of the language purists. I tell you.
Oops. Sorry. We got carried away. We had better quickly work in a couple of predictions or Editorji won’t pay us.
The Empire(s) strike back
Open Social
With the bad news out of the way, time to look at things a lot chirpier. A little while ago, Google launched an attempt to change the game back in its favour. This isn't a social network. Rather, it is a way for developers to build applications that work across many networks. For example, Friendster, hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Plaxo, XING, and yes, Orkut, along with a bunch of others, are implementing OS. Will it take the web back from Facebook? Frankly, we dunno. But hey, it’s going to be interesting to watch.
A little bird tells me
Twitter is a simple service. It asks you one question: 'What are you doing?' And you can answer this in 140 characters or less. Friends, family, whoever, can subscribe to or 'follow' your updates, which they can choose to get via their Twitter page or cellphones (the message are well within the 160 character SMS limit). The controls are easy: you can permit random strangers to follow you, or not; you can choose who to follow, and how. The site's been around for a bit--we noticed it somewhere mid-year--but has gained momentum only over this last month. And we think 2008 will see a lot more Twittering.
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 30th December, 2007.
This bit didn't run in the paper:
Could-have-been
Orkut
Orkut could have ruled. It’s been around for years, has a huge Indian presence, and despite a horde of me-too networking sites launched by eager desis wanting to cash in, none of them really made a dent. Orkut kept popping up in the news, with every second politician and righteous defender of our kulchur wanting it banned for some reason or the other, and bemused media types who barely knew what they were talking about trying to make sense of it. With the teen and pre-teen set, it became the communication medium of choice, outpacing even instant messengers. But privacy concerns—until recently, one’s settings did not permit control over one’s ‘scrapbook,’ for instance—and the perception that it was juvenile, meant that few fossils my age joined in.
The star
This network, once restricted to college students, opened its doors to anyone who wanted to join. Cautiously, many early-adopters checked it out. Somewhere mid-year, Facebook opened its platform to developers to launch their own ‘apps.’ And suddenly, something changed. Everybody and her grand-uncle suddenly started popping up there. Folks I had never seen on any other forum, people who had never had more than an email address before that, old webheads, luddites, famous writers and artists, journalists, serious professionals, politicans, poets, painters, tinkers, tailors.. you get the picture. Now, even greying grandparents talk of Facebooking and leaving messages on each others ‘walls’ and ‘poking’ one another. I tell you. What is the world coming to?
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
Sunday, 23 December 2007
Mousetrap - 130
Santa’s back
NORAD Santa
A quick reminder of this site, which I’ve mentioned every year. It’s run by the combined USA-Canada NORAD (North American Air Defense Command). And it ‘tracks’ Santa’s travels. You go read about why the military wound up running a kiddie service for more than half a century. And let the kids enjoy the rest of the site.
Happy Holidays
In a world where business and friendships cross borders, time zones and continents, it can be difficult to remember or keep track of regional differences for small things like public and bank holidays in different locations. Each of these sites has a slightly different way to help you do just that.
time and date calendar — No-nonsense national calendars
Earth Calendar — Lets you find holidays by date in different countries and for different religions.
The Q++ Holidays Portal — Run by a diary publisher, this one has month-by-month listings that show which countries have a holiday on a certain day, country-by-country listings if you want to check on a particular country, and a set of religious calendars, including ‘Chinese (both lunar and solar), Coptic, Christian, Hindu (both lunar and solar), Jewish/Hebrew, Muslim/Islamic/Hijra and Orthodox.’ Note that some of the info is available only under license.
GTS World Holiday Calendar — A daily list (with an RSS feed you can subscribe to), country-by-country search, and one that you can export to a calendar app on your PC.
Country Reports’ World Holiday Calendar — Pretty much the easiest to use, with the whole month displayed, with days marked with holidays and the country or countries that that observe them. Unfortunately, this one’s woefully incomplete.
bank-holidays.com/ — Self explanatory name, no? The current year’s holidays can be viewed free. Others need a paid subscription.
Phew. That was a lot of work. Now I need a holiday. Or maybe Editor Sahib will send me a nice present, you think?
What the Dickens
Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL
The full text, as it was originally published, with reproductions of the illustration plates as well. Great holiday reading for you and the kids, if you haven’t read it before. ‘And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!’
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 23rd December 2007.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap,
NORAD Santa
A quick reminder of this site, which I’ve mentioned every year. It’s run by the combined USA-Canada NORAD (North American Air Defense Command). And it ‘tracks’ Santa’s travels. You go read about why the military wound up running a kiddie service for more than half a century. And let the kids enjoy the rest of the site.
Happy Holidays
In a world where business and friendships cross borders, time zones and continents, it can be difficult to remember or keep track of regional differences for small things like public and bank holidays in different locations. Each of these sites has a slightly different way to help you do just that.
time and date calendar — No-nonsense national calendars
Earth Calendar — Lets you find holidays by date in different countries and for different religions.
The Q++ Holidays Portal — Run by a diary publisher, this one has month-by-month listings that show which countries have a holiday on a certain day, country-by-country listings if you want to check on a particular country, and a set of religious calendars, including ‘Chinese (both lunar and solar), Coptic, Christian, Hindu (both lunar and solar), Jewish/Hebrew, Muslim/Islamic/Hijra and Orthodox.’ Note that some of the info is available only under license.
GTS World Holiday Calendar — A daily list (with an RSS feed you can subscribe to), country-by-country search, and one that you can export to a calendar app on your PC.
Country Reports’ World Holiday Calendar — Pretty much the easiest to use, with the whole month displayed, with days marked with holidays and the country or countries that that observe them. Unfortunately, this one’s woefully incomplete.
bank-holidays.com/ — Self explanatory name, no? The current year’s holidays can be viewed free. Others need a paid subscription.
Phew. That was a lot of work. Now I need a holiday. Or maybe Editor Sahib will send me a nice present, you think?
What the Dickens
Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL
The full text, as it was originally published, with reproductions of the illustration plates as well. Great holiday reading for you and the kids, if you haven’t read it before. ‘And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!’
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 23rd December 2007.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap,
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Mousetrap - 129
Where were you when the lights went out?
Mumbai Unplug
As I write this, it is many hours to go before Mumbai Unplug’s designated ‘batti bandh’ time, so I have no idea how successful it was. I hope it went well, because it makes me optimistic: political parties, rival media houses and businesses have put aside their differences and supported this; huge numbers of people care enough for our environment to make this gesture; and not least, because it reassures us that our future is in good hands (the four people who started this snowball rolling are striplings in their twenties). I’m extra delighted because this idea also demonstrates the power of networking and online collaboration. But that aside, why am I pointing you to the site again (this column featured it on October 21st), and that too after the event? For one, in October, the site was a mess, and I was uncharitable in my review. It has since spruced up quite a bit, and there’s now information there that has value beyond the 15th December, like how you can continue, in simple ways, to save precious resources. Secondly, this column runs in all editions of this paper. If it helps the Batti Bandh boys to inspire similar efforts elsewhere, I would be delighted.
Softer voices
Blogbharti
Links are currency in the blog world. Your chances of being read increase once other bloggers link to you. Preferably A-Listers. Who, alas, tend to link most to other A-Listers. Blogbharti, when it started up, promised to bring a wider selection of blogs to the fore, by seeking out and linking to less well-known blogs. I’m somewhat dubious—the reason why popular bloggers are popular and others are not, is because, well, the stars are just darn good at what they do—but there’s usually enough quality to keep one reading. The added attraction just now is a series of guest posts on, as one of the blog’s founders told me via email, ‘a diverse range of topics.’ How diverse? Alternative films, race and caste, Indian English literature, dalit consciousness, Hindutva, primary education, Sufi poetry, and much more. See http://www.blogbharti.com/the-spotlight-series/ to get the whole lot as the series unfolds. The argumentative Indian is alive, well, and online.
Free, free at (hic) lasth!
Free Beer
Come back here, young man, let me explain. Richard Stallman, open-source guru, explaining the Free Software concept, said ‘“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.”’ Then, a group of students in Copenhagen decided to ‘see what happens when an open-source structure is applied to a universally known product.’ Being students, and wags to boot, they chose, well, beer. Their site has the story. And the recipe! Which, as per open-source philosophy, you can use and adapt, provided you make your adapted recipe available under the same conditions. Um. Now what’s our Government’s position on this? Am I going to get pulled up for assisting unlicensed alcohol distillation?
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 16th December 2007.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
Mumbai Unplug
As I write this, it is many hours to go before Mumbai Unplug’s designated ‘batti bandh’ time, so I have no idea how successful it was. I hope it went well, because it makes me optimistic: political parties, rival media houses and businesses have put aside their differences and supported this; huge numbers of people care enough for our environment to make this gesture; and not least, because it reassures us that our future is in good hands (the four people who started this snowball rolling are striplings in their twenties). I’m extra delighted because this idea also demonstrates the power of networking and online collaboration. But that aside, why am I pointing you to the site again (this column featured it on October 21st), and that too after the event? For one, in October, the site was a mess, and I was uncharitable in my review. It has since spruced up quite a bit, and there’s now information there that has value beyond the 15th December, like how you can continue, in simple ways, to save precious resources. Secondly, this column runs in all editions of this paper. If it helps the Batti Bandh boys to inspire similar efforts elsewhere, I would be delighted.
Softer voices
Blogbharti
Links are currency in the blog world. Your chances of being read increase once other bloggers link to you. Preferably A-Listers. Who, alas, tend to link most to other A-Listers. Blogbharti, when it started up, promised to bring a wider selection of blogs to the fore, by seeking out and linking to less well-known blogs. I’m somewhat dubious—the reason why popular bloggers are popular and others are not, is because, well, the stars are just darn good at what they do—but there’s usually enough quality to keep one reading. The added attraction just now is a series of guest posts on, as one of the blog’s founders told me via email, ‘a diverse range of topics.’ How diverse? Alternative films, race and caste, Indian English literature, dalit consciousness, Hindutva, primary education, Sufi poetry, and much more. See http://www.blogbharti.com/the-spotlight-series/ to get the whole lot as the series unfolds. The argumentative Indian is alive, well, and online.
Free, free at (hic) lasth!
Free Beer
Come back here, young man, let me explain. Richard Stallman, open-source guru, explaining the Free Software concept, said ‘“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer.”’ Then, a group of students in Copenhagen decided to ‘see what happens when an open-source structure is applied to a universally known product.’ Being students, and wags to boot, they chose, well, beer. Their site has the story. And the recipe! Which, as per open-source philosophy, you can use and adapt, provided you make your adapted recipe available under the same conditions. Um. Now what’s our Government’s position on this? Am I going to get pulled up for assisting unlicensed alcohol distillation?
Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com. The writer blogs at http://zigzackly.blogspot.com.
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 16th December 2007.
Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap
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