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What’s dripping down Christina’s legs?

Jagadish — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:55:51 +0000

I usually don’t like posting gossip and celebrity images but I thought this is kinda funny. There is something dripping down Christina’s legs as you can see in the image and some people are saying it is spray tan mixed with sweat but I don’t know. I’ll leave it up to your imagination, however dirty is that. Haha! (Click the images for bigger version)

Image/Article Source: Oh no They didn’t

Netflix Increases Prices

Jagadish — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:23:07 +0000

A wise man once said:

This is why we can’t have good things - Anonymous

And lo-behold, the giant in video streaming industry decided to screw up a good thing. Reading some of the comments from Gizmodo, there was a clear consensus that people want to either cancel or change to just streaming plans. I’m probably getting way ahead of myself here. Netflix decided to change their pricing plans from $9.99 (before tax) to an Unlimited DVD-only plan of $7.99 without streaming. If you want the streaming component, you will have to add the Unlimited Streaming only plan which also $7.99. So this effectively increases the plan from $9.99 to $15.98.

There is no way in hell I’m paying $16 for a service that I barely use. I haven’t watched the movie I rented last week and I haven’t watched anything on streaming since I finished 8 seasons of Monk. I intend to watch Star Trek eventually but at this rate, I might just cancel the service. I’ve seen the movies Netflix has on their instant streaming and it is not something that can stand on its own. Sure, there are some good shows but nothing I haven’t already seen before. I will most definitely cancel after the billing cycle or stick to just streaming only because I don’t want to lose all my ratings and reviews.

(New netflix plans)

I understand Netflix is improving and making changes but part of the appeal of Netflix is that it was affordable even in a college student budget. This increase in price means that a lot of people will be getting out and potentially losing a lot of subscribers. I’m only guessing but considering the comments on Gizmodo, Engadget and Twitter, this seems like a fair assumption. The author on Engadget does offer a fair and balanced opinion on this fiasco. Also, I do like his idea of paying for DVDs rented out like Redbox in addition to the streaming service. I will gladly pay $2 per DVD to have them delivered to my home instead of driving to Redbox.

And for all those people who think everyone is over-reacting to a $6 increase, consider that fact that you’re paying $72 more over a course of an year that is plenty of savings for someone living on paycheck to pay check. Let me know what you’re gonna do in the comments.

Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality

Jagadish — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:59:24 +0000

There are few things that get me riled up very easily. Freedom, Equality and access to information are some of the things that I really believe in. The Internet is in many ways a proof of principle for all the above three things. There is freedom to say anything you want and “stupidity” can quickly become viral. Everyone is equal. It doesn’t matter if you’re a rich kid who is using a Mac or someone less privileged using a 5 year old desktop PC. Once you’re on the internet, everything is same. You also have easy access to information and there are really no limits to the kind of information you can look for whether its legal or not is a different issue. However, this freedom is not always a given. In most countries like China, Iran and North Korea, the internet is already being censored. Even in countries like India and USA there is already some kind of internet censorship. However, it is an entirely different thing to regulate it.

In the past couple of years, the decreased bandwidth limitations and the easy access to broadband services have paved way from a hugely written media to a streaming media platform that we know these days. People have moved from blogs to vlogs. There is more content on YouTube and Hulu at any given time than the TV. Granted that TV is still the champion of live telecast but the coolness of the internet comes from being an “on-demand” medium. With the busy lives, people have really stopped making time for TV. Instead, they just tune into Hulu/DVR/TiVo and watch their content when possible. The increased popularity of Netflix and the ability to stream Netflix movies on several other devices other than just PCs have severely increased the bandwidth demands on the ISPs. It is not just about using P2P services like torrents but it’s also about using legitimate means like Netflix, YouTube, Hulu and online gaming that put a lot of strain on the ISPs. The increased consumption of bandwidth means that they will have to push their prices up higher for those bandwidth hungry people or increase it for everyone. The fact that most of these services are in competition with the cable service gives them more reason to make these services crippled or inaccessible in some way.

This is where “Net Neutrality” comes in. This is what lets us do whatever we want on the internet without the ISPs getting down and nasty like Comcast does/did. I’m angry because FCC passed a new regulation that basically allows for some shady government regulation. The mobile operators can do whatever they want meaning competing services will be blocked. The wired operators need to disclose what is going on but they can impose a fee for access to specific services. Also this means that services could be blocked and your blog might not be as readily accessible because you’re not part of the corporate elite. This kind of screws up the whole system. Everyone is not equal anymore, there will be preferential treatment for the corporations that are able to pay the cable companies for quicker access.

I am severely disappointed by the role Obama played in this whole thing. I have been trying to read up on this whole thing and many news groups have been claiming this as a victory whereas the real news people will tell you that this muddled and unclear way of FCC has been a huge setback for net neutrality. It will probably take a while for these regulations to come into effect but seriously this is gonna set us back in terms of freedom of speech on the internet. Very soon we will probably have to pay for being able to access “special” content. The spineless administration will dub this as victory for Net Neutrality but it is not. This is another way of pushing the corporate agenda down the throats of tax payers. First he extends the Bush tax cuts and now this Net Neutrality thing. I doubt he is winning any points with the people he is trying to please but he is definitely pissing off the people who voted for him and his change.

A few good articles to read on this:

FCC breaks Obama’s promise on Net Neutrality: 3 things you need to know

Obama FCC Caves on Net Neutrality; Tuesday Betrayal Assured

FCC set to enact new net neutrality rules

Anyone with a perspective on this, please comment or leave a link to your blog. Thanks.

Image source: Wikipedia Internet censorship map

FCC breaks Obama’s promise on Net Neutrality: 3 things you need to know

Google ebooks and Mac App Store

Jagadish — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:10:55 +0000

Google has launched their e-book store today. This new e-book store sort of tries to be a unified playground for all the e-book needs for tablets, PCs and e-book readers alike. The Kindle is obviously not part of this ecosystem because Amazon has its own format (amz) and does not support epub format which is a standard in most other e-book readers. I am a proud owner of the Barnes and Nobles’ Nook and I love reading books on it whenever I have time. The cool thing about it is the ability to load books that you find from different places. Its support for a wide variety of formats is also a major selling point.

Google e-book store has support for the Nook and I can’t wait to use it. I find that Amazon has a wider selection of books when compared to B&N store or other e-book stores. The sad part is that you can read Amazon e-book only on Kindle software. It’s a good thing that I own an iPod touch which has a Kindle app and lets me read the books I buy on Amazon. I’m hoping that Google with their truck loads of money gets the publishers on board to sell their books in a format that is accessible to non-Kindle users. It is good to have competition and that can only mean good things for the consumers.

Coming to the next thing on the title, the Mac App store. I have severe loathing for everything Apple does these days. I have been seething with anger since the day they killed Lala and robbed me of an online portal that plays all my favorite songs. Their iPhone which is a good phone but I can’t stand the snobby little college students acting like it’s the second coming of Jesus when my MotoQ from 2007 could play flash videos on Skyfire. There are some good things about the iPhone, it has made smartphones popular and people expect a lot more from their phone these days than just calling and texting. The App store also significantly eased the way you install software on your phone. No longer do you have to scour the internet for cab files and then transfer them to the phone and then install them.

Apple wants to bring a similar ecosystem to the MacBooks. I own a MacBook and I have to say the software offerings are not as varied and free as the Windows. I also find that people who own MacBooks are probably more inclined to purchase software than PC users (insert mac users are too dumb to use torrents joke here). There are two things that are possible here.

There could be an influx of developers to develop software for Mac just like the App store had done for the iPhone.
More people will find useful software that they hadn’t discovered before.

But honestly, why would any developer want to put their software on an App store? Are you seriously going to give 30% of your hard-earned money to Apple just because they’re putting it on their “App store”? Every time I think about this, it makes me really angry. I do coding and write software and I know how much effort goes into writing a bug-free app. Why should Apple get any part of this? They are not really promoting my software by any means? How is it any different from searching for software in a search engine rather than an App store search engine? If my software is good enough, people would probably find it through a search engine and buy it from my site and I can keep all the money except taxes. I just don’t like that Apple wants 30% of the developers’ money for doing nothing at all. It makes sense in a closed ecosystem like an iPhone but a Macbook is not closed and if Apple so much as makes a move in that direction. I am gonna dump my overpriced Macbook and buy a Windows laptop. I don’t understand the need for Apple to make money off of everything. I hope the users are smart enough to move away from this kind of ecosystem. So far the users haven’t shown anything to prove that they are smart. They’ve just been sheep to Steve Jobs’ magical keynotes. Don’t be sheep people.. get smart.

I would like to know what everyone else thinks? If you’re a developer would you be okay with Apple taking 30% for “promoting” your app? If you’re a user, do you think its okay for Apple to use an App store when people can find software using a browser and a search engine?

Google ebooks Ad

Things that happened since I last blogged

Jagadish — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:22:28 +0000

As always, there are too many things to write and too less time. I really enjoy teaching a lot and I love it when I teach these kids new things and they are just amazed like I did some magic trick. The thing I hate about teaching is that it takes up a lot of time. It really does not allow me to do other things. I spend a lot of time making homework problems, solutions for them and grading. The grading part of teaching is probably the most aggravating aspect. You see the kind of blunders they make in homework after going through all the trouble of explaining things, it really pisses me off.

Anyway, a lot of things happened since I last blogged. A few things I really hated and a very few things I enjoyed. Just thought I’d make a list in no particular order.

Nadal lost
Federer won French Open. I kinda expected this would happen though
Deccan chargers have won the IPL. Chennai kings lost in semis.
My girlfriend bought me a MacBook. I don’t know if I should cheer about this or not. I am a windows guy, not a great fan of Mac. But I will have to try to use it and see I guess.
Apple released a new iPhone which I really wanted to get. I even planned to get out of my contract with Sprint but really not a wise move considering AT&T has really bad network. Coming from a Sprint customer that is a huge insult.
Palm pre, the most loved phone since the original iPhone has finally been released, it is another phone I still want but I might not get it because I just don’t want to spend all that money and change my existing $30 SERO plan.
E3 has come and gone and so much to cheer about .
Microsoft – great show, highly impressed with Project Natal but I doubt it would work as well as they showed it would. It is not going to be an easy task pulling it off. And honestly, Peter Molyneux should shut the fuck up. He has a big mouth and I doubt if Milo would work as well he touted he would. Artificial intelligence is a still thing of science fiction and we are far from it. This is coming from a guy who does programming for a living, you better believe it .
Nintendo – probably the most boring show of all three. I am a rabid Nintendo fanboy and even I couldn’t help but yawn a few times but the announcement of Metroid: Other M has completely offset everything. Also I heard that there is a new Zelda in the making, there was a trailer for Super Mario Galaxy 2 and finally Little Big Planet Mario style. All exciting things but Nintendo is still missing that one puzzle piece, Wii-HD. Get it done, Nintendo. Give us HD.
Sony – Sony came up with the regular stuff. They had a brilliant show and very entertaining as well. God of War 3 was amazing, the Last Guardian trailer was awesome as well. Have to say, their motion controller seemed very interesting too. But they only showed a bunch of tech demos and no games yet. This kinda proves that MS and Sony have finally adopted the Nintendo philosophy and they jumped on the bandwagon a little too late. It might still take them a year or two to pull it off but HD is one thing Nintendo is far behind, so unless Nintendo comes up with Wii-HD, MS and Sony will be moving ahead this generation.
India lost the T20 World cup. They didn’t even qualify for the semis. They have been winning a lot lately, so this was expected to happen one day. I had no interest to start with anyway.
Lakers WON!! Enough said!

I guess that covers everything. Maybe I will blog often now that I have gotten that off my chest