rantlust

Posted by anupcs on December 18th 2008 in Politics, Technology
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Blogs are so out. Microblogging is where it’s at these days. Even the US Congress gets in on the action at Tweet Congress. Check out the site for whether or not your local politician is tweeting (is that even a word? Sigh). So far 15 Democrats (including the President- and Vice-President-elects) and 26 Republicans are on Twitter.

The pressure is on enough that our buddies across the pond also started their own tweeting with Tweetminster (Westminster, get it?).

Is this going to be information overload or is this going to be actually a useful way to keeping track?

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Posted by riyer on December 15th 2008 in Food & Wine, Movies, Politics, Technology, USA, War, World
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For every one of you who hated the show of security that is the TSA line in airports - I am sure you thought of doing this a few times.

Is that secure enough for you Mr. President?

To his credit, the President joked that he saw the man’s sole.

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Posted by riyer on November 23rd 2008 in Medicine, Society, Technology, Women
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While we frequently get caught up in the cool aspects of mobile telephony (social networking, LBS etc.), there are many cases where a bare-bones mobile phone with SMS actually helps to save lives. This is one such story.

Satyam Computer Services in collaboration with the state of Andhra Pradesh in India developed an SMS application with a view to decrease pre-natal and neo-natal mortality rates.

The way this works is as follows

Geek Details

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Posted by Suman on December 12th 2007 in Earth, Environment, Government, Politics, Society, Technology
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As you may know, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an energy bill last week (H.R.6) that among many other things raises mpg standards for cars (to 35 mpg by 2020), extends and raises the tax credits for residential solar energy (thru 2014, and to $4k from $2k), and eliminates tax breaks for oil companies (currently $13.5 billion - that’s $13.5 thousand million, for our readers who speak U.K./European English).

The bill is currently being debated by the Senate, which may reject all or portions of it, and the President may also use his veto powers.  If you are a U.S. voter, please send a quick note to your elected representatives to let them know your views on the matter.

To write in support of H.R.6, click here.

To write in opposition to H.R. 6, click here.

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Posted by meerkat on November 05th 2007 in Rants, Society, Technology
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I always thought all cubicles in the cube farm are bad for humans. But, some cubicles are really really bad. Here’s Wired magazine’s sad cubicle list.

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Posted by meerkat on September 19th 2007 in Internet, Society, Technology, USA
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I am looking to move to another apartment in San Francisco and boy, is that difficult! I am looking for apartments by browsing Craigslist and have set up RSS feeds on my home page. I constantly check to see if there are any apartments on the market. There are a few that come up now and then. It is not as straight forward as elsewhere in the bay area. There is this open house that you have to go to and there are so many people that show up there looking for a place to live in SF. The owner of the apartment gets to choose the lucky one from many many many applications. Owners’ market for sure. I have found that an open house is a waste of my time competing with so many people and try avoiding them altogether.

Then, I look for ads that do not call for an open house. There are no guarantees even here. When the owner gets too many emails from people looking for a place, they call for an open house eventually. This is what happens in most of the cases in SF. Anyway, I chanced upon an ad that sounded so good.

$1500 / 2br - Amazing apartment! W/D, D/W, A/C, 1300 sqft, all is included, parking (noe valley) (Read more…)

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Posted by anupcs on August 29th 2007 in Internet, Language, Technology
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This is cool. I can now enter queries in Malayalam from my iGoogle page using their on screen keyboard “gadget.” The results are displayed in Malayalam. You don’t need a separate localized keyboard for this. Other Indian languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, etc., are also supported. If nothing else, I hope this will prevent me from forgetting my own native script.

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Posted by Suman on August 06th 2007 in Environment, Raves, Technology
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I’ve been asked this question fairly often ever since I had a PV solar array installed on my roof in early 2006.  The short answer is yes, but many factors are involved.

The main components of a PV system are the solar panel array, which converts light into DC electricity, and the inverter, which converts the DC electricity into 110 Volt AC electricity that can be used by the house.  The system is designed to run the house on solar power first and only switch to the grid when electrical demand exceeds the PV system’s power output.  It operates seamlessly, so no manual intervention is ever necessary.

During winter and early spring, my home’s electrical demand is low enough that I use solar power exclusively.  In fact, for a few months I generate more electricity than I consume, and sell the excess to my power company, which applies a credit to my bill during those months.  During the summer, however, air conditioning (a necessity in Phoenix) requires more power than my array provides.

(Read more…)

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