Chilligavva

Microsoft taken for 1.5 Billion....... "Like hundreds of other companies large and small, we believe that we properly licensed MP3 technology from its industry recognized licensor -- Fraunhofer," Burt continued. "The damages award seems particularly outrageous when you consider we paid Fraunhofer only $16 million to license this technology." -from MacNN Kevin Maney has talked about this to some extent in his article . It seems Karlheinz Brandenburg was an employee of Bell Labs way back in 89-90. The plot thickens.. I so love conspiracy theories, dont you? The article even has a link to the list of companies holding a license aka licensees over here. Looks like there is a lot of German Angst on Microsoft. But analyzing this situation from a political point, it seems that the German government has decided to take on MS and in a big way. When you catch a whale, tiny fish in the net is inevitable. But with so many companies being affected, I guess they will all come together and work something out. June 2003, the German Government decides to switch to Linux. ... Continue Reading

After noticing that her hoarse, high-octave vocals didn't have an effect on me, she upped the ante: she started screaming another song, this time at a higher scale. I wanted to take a rock and smash her mouth but all I did was shift on my feet and flash this really stupid smile.

After reading Suman's article "Circus Monkeys", I had to laugh. It even got me thinking about my childhood. My teen years were fraught with dread of meeting those two. Those two were the sons of our family friend. The uncle I liked, as he was extremely witty and fun. His sons were difficult. One was extremely introverted. The other was into Capitals. And my mom stirred the situation by telling them “Our Lakshmi likes to read a lot. She is good at quizzing.” My fate was sealed. Every time I crossed their threshold, I was in for it. We had to interact with those two, as the elders spoke in the living room. And then the nightmare would begin for me. “Akka what is the capital of Khazakstan?” “Do you know which country’s capital is Warsaw?” etc. etc.

Cut. To the USA.

Scene: Get together cum Pot Luck Party

... Continue Reading

I looked up this site called SPOUSENOTES, and found the entire premise of the site very interesting. If you dig contemporary living history, this is quite a unique take. Some of the entries are quite fun. The entry by Troll Baby is pretty amusing. Continue Reading

"But Mom, they even pay for your college! Mom?". This is how the "Join the army" spot ran on T.V. I was tempted. I saw my single mom slog with no skills and a string of jobs that sucked. I could totally identify with the girl on TV. I was cut out for much better things. I was good at sports, and who knows at the end of the sign-up period I could be a nurse practitioner, a doctor even. I joined up and it was fun. But as I battled the enemy, in the blazing heat, all that I could think was survival on a day to day basis. Don's service was extended twice, he hadnt seen his family for 2 years. Cathy was lucky she only had a hand cut off. All of us at the base thanked the internet fervently. It helped us stay connected and sane. Today was when we were to go on a mission to suppress the enemy. Yesterday's team were killed at battle. The mood was sober but we were confident. We had the best equipment in the ... Continue Reading

Update: I have improved on what I did on the 6th, after some very constructive feedback. Thanks for the feedback David. 9 feb 07, Lakshmi Some of the improvements: Recent Comments - See who has commented recently on this site. Theme switcher - Switch between 3 styles (skins) I developed for this blog. Logo - Repeat visitors may have noticed a change in logo. Decided to go double color on this one, and with only Arial font. More improvements are listed here. Came into a creative burst, and Ta daa... Another template for my blog. Hope you like it.... This time I actually designed something in Pink! [Not my very favorite color...] But the design guided me and I just followed... Continue Reading

"Validate your windows copy" was the prompt to which my husband clicked "yes". It was then followed by an express installation of IE. DUH! We would have upgraded if we wanted to.. If this is not Muscle, I want to know what this is? After this very "Soprano" behaviour, our computer flouted a new installation of IE. My son calls the golden ring around the IE LOGO, the "Jupiter ring thingy". Quick review: It has more viewing space, with reduced toolbar clutter. When you copy something that is already good, just copy it! DO NOT try to "Individualize it.." What am I talking about? The tabbed window browsing--Open tabs in the same window or Open tabs in new window - results in page opening in new window. I do not know whether I need to "ADJUST " something. Personally I am a sturdy design fan. Sturdy What? For instance, I went through a lot of reading and installed APACHE for windows, and now have not messed with the application even once. Likewise PHP for windows. NOTE: These two have been written by non windows users for windows platform and is very robust. Microsoft wake up. Do ... Continue Reading

Saturday morning I had this sweet email from my friend Bharathwaj. He stays in Tennessee and they had a recent bout of snow. He had started trying to build a snowman, when he realized that he was not doing as good a job as he wanted to, and ended up constructing a snow Ganesha instead, complete with 'Mousika' (mouse). Next thing he noticed, some Indians in his building started taking photos. He therefore, posted some to me. I found it really good, and here my readers is the photo. Continue Reading