Rungta’s Webmarks

In Rainbows – Radiohead ∞

I know, I know, was I living under a rock all this time? Maybe I was. A few days ago the “House of Cards” music video rang my bell, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

US Open Tennis draws for 2008 ∞

Now featuring up–to–date singles draws for this year’s U.S. Open Grand Slam. Matches start on the 25th.

Dive Into Python ∞

Dive Into Python is a Python book for experienced programmers.

And a very good one too. I especially liked the ‘diving in’ philosophy throughout the book, like in chapter 2:

You know how other books go on and on about programming fundamentals and finally work up to building a complete, working program? Let’s skip all that.

You’ll also find plenty of bits like this one from chapter 5:

Java programmers who have been taught to believe that the world is a better place because == in Java compares by identity instead of by value may have a difficult time adjusting to Python’s lack of such “gotchas”.

Another one from the same chapter:

As a former philosophy major, it disturbs me to think that things disappear when no one is looking at them, but that’s exactly what happens in Python.

Some nice humour goes a long way in making the mundane task of learning yet another programming language a fun task.

If ever you plan on learning Python, make this your first read. Oh, and it’s written by Mark Pilgrim.

Profanity Works ∞

It seems that profanity can work as a record button for the brain. It brings people to the edge of their attention as they’re trying to figure out whether they’re supposed to be offended or inspired. And then the content warrants the emphasis, the idea seems to stick better and longer and with more affection.

Yeah it does!

Walt Disney Animation Studios website ∞

Nice simplistic design with some gorgeous artwork. (Via Gus Mueller)

xkcd on Google Maps ∞

Google Maps is great and everything but their directions recently made what should’ve been a 20 minute trip a 1 and a half hour hunt.

High Court orders ban on plastics in Delhi shopping centres ∞

Good news. Let’s hope the government is able to enforce this ban.

Space Tourism posters ∞

Awesome retro–style tourism posters for interplanetary space travel. Got to take one of those trips. (Via Subtraction)

Location–sensitive car park signs ∞

Very clever design for directions in one of the last places you’d expect to find clever, innovative design — a car park. (Via Daring Fireball)

Last-lap Losers ∞

[Dan Gurney] soldiered on with no more than the dregs in the tank but only made it as far as Stavelot on his last lap.

Graham Hill inherited the lead but his fuel pump broke on the last lap. That left Bruce McLaren leading for Cooper but as he neared the finishing line (which in those days was after the La Source hairpin instead of before it) he too ran out of fuel. He came out of the last hairpin and rolled down the hill — as Clark blasted past him to win.

Some other racers who faced similar situations like the heartbreaking mechanical failure with race leader Massa’s Ferrari in the third last lap of yesterday’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

Look ma, no Flash ∞

A nice demo of the -webkit-transform and -webkit-transition CSS properties by Shaun Inman. You can also see the -webkit-transition property at work over at my Grand Slam draw charts.

Driver Debates: Fernando Alonso ∞

Will be interesting to see how the rest of his career pans out.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s reply to the Trust Vote, or, BJP’s latest and most shameful attempt to unseat the UPA coalition ∞

On BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate L.K. Advani:

Can our nation forgive a Home Minister who slept when the terrorists were knocking at the doors of our Parliament? Can our nation forgive a person who single handedly provided the inspiration for the destruction of the Babri Masjid with all the terrible consequences that followed? To atone for his sins, he suddenly decided to visit Pakistan and there he discovered new virtues in Mr. Jinnah. Alas, his own party and his mentors in the RSS disowned him on this issue. Can our nation approve the conduct of a Home Minister who was sleeping while Gujarat was burning leading to the loss of thousands of innocent lives?

Petty — yes petty — issues are the biggest road-block for India’s progress. How then do these issues manage to hamper the growth of a country so large and so populous? Well it’s because unlike those caused by care–free children, these can’t be put to rest or ridiculed since these are caused by old, narrow and conservatives folks such as Shri L.K. Advani who people might (by not voting) appoint as our next Prime Minister.

On the proposed Indo–US Nuclear deal:

We have large reserves of coal but even these are inadequate to meet all our needs by 2050. But more use of coal will have an adverse impact on pollution and climate. We can develop hydro-power and we must. But many of these projects hurt the environment and displace large number of people. We must develop renewable sources of energy particularly solar energy. But we must also make full use of atomic energy which is a clean environment friendly source of energy. All over the world, there is growing realization of the importance of atomic energy to meet the challenge of energy security and climate change.

Why is it that when something good can happen, we hear war cries but when something bad happens, all we see are turned backs?

Mumbai’s water supply could go dry in 120 days if it doesn’t rain ∞

High time people started to listen, don’t you think?

LinkedList Updates ∞

Recent updates to both my sort–blogroll–using–feeds plugins:

• Can now limit the number of feeds displayed
• Shows relative time for feeds updated within the last 24 hours
• Shows a loading indicator before the list is displayed
• Reduced file size

Limiting the number of links (to say the 5 most recently updated ones) has been the most requested feature and I apologize for the delay in implementing it, but its here finally so grab the relevant release.

• LinkedList JavaScript plugin 1.2
• LinkedList Wordpress plugin 1.1

The Dark Knight ∞

Me after watching the movie:

Met my expectations, blew them away, left my mouth hanging.

If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it ASAP. Oh and if there’s an IMAX theatre in your city, make sure that’s where you treat yourself.
(Official Site | Wikipedia | Apple Trailers)

Why Google Search is so awesome ∞

For example, [Côte d’Or] is a geographic region in France – but it is a large chocolate manufacturer in neighboring French–speaking Belgium; and yes, we get that right too…

Examples of few of the “Technologies behind Google ranking” in action.

Spots on that Apple? ∞

I really do think that, as Mac OS X has grown long in the tooth, and as Apple has tackled more and more priorities across multiple platforms — not just iPhone, but maintaining Windows applications too, and Apple TV, and the iTunes Music Store, and even the basically disappointing MobileMe — the company is starting to get sloppy, their ability to finesse details now compromised.

Not that I expect Apple (or anyone for that matter) to be perfect, but one of the characteristics that I admired most about Apple as a company was their eye for detail (not just in design) and I couldn’t help but agree with Khoi Vinh.

• Me so sorry
• No Contact Is an Island
• Did Apple set developers up for failure?
• iPhone 2.0: Hindi
• iPhone 2.0: The glory wore off in wash

Being a programmer myself I’m more than aware that what might seem like a trivial feature to implement almost always ends up taking much more resources than one would’ve estimated but I feel the issue at hand is with quality, not quantity.

Unexpectedly Quit ∞

Looks like its Adobe bashing month. Tsk–tsk.

The Dark Knight Soundtrack ∞

Looking forward to the score almost as much as the movie. Already love “I’m Not a Hero”.