'We look at heroes and do-gooders as a special sort of breed: people who possess extraordinary traits of altruism or self-less concern for the well-being of others, even at the expense of their own existence. On the other end, sociopaths also have an extraordinary set of traits, such as extreme selfishness, lack of impulse control, no respect for rules, and no conscience.

As crazy as it sounds, there may be a closer link than than most people would think between the extreme-altruistic personality and sociopathic personality. Would it shock you to know that two people, one with the traits of extreme-altruism (X-altruism) and the other the traits of a sociopath, could be related? Even siblings? And that their personality traits are very similar, with only a few features to distinguish them?'
via http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/21/heroes-and-sociopath.html

Corporates & mobile access feature big time in the prediction

Handy extension to play & even download videos from different sites right from the Firefox sidebar. Ideal for widescreen laptops/monitors.
The extension – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5709

Very interesting case. Can social networks be used to gauge the mental state of a person?

"In satire, truthiness is a 'truth' that a person claims to know intuitively "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts."

Rationalizing the irrational
via http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/20/seth-godin-laments-f.html

Linus Torvalds for Nobel Peace Prize? Why not… After all look at the number of people he brought together worldwide because of Linux.

'X-Flex is a new kind of wallpaper: one that's quite possibly stronger than the wall it's on….
bonds so tightly, it helps walls keep their shape after blast waves.'

Delhi from the perspective of two New Yorkers who've moved there

Interesting perspective on the language & culture from a couple of foreigners.

'If this sentence is true, then God exists.' explained in simple terms. Also see wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry%27s_paradox

A handy way to clean up the clutter & noise in facebook news streams/feeds.

Preview of the next generation flash plugin supporting hardware acceleration for HD video in flash.

Apparently, the fog near a plaza in Ukraine was so utterly intense, advertisements were reflected in the sky

Lots of interesting incidents made up or otherwise

One thing for sure is that none of them will be cheap.

Some real wonders of nature

All you need is an A4 size copy paper.

A simple set of FAQs by NASA on 2012. This should hopefully put to rest the worries of those disturbed by the movie 2012.

Cassette to iPod, "I am your father"

The Apple App Store problems continue with approval delays & its confounding approval process.
'Apple has a very serious problem on its hands, one that can derail its grand plan. It needs to fix this as quickly as possible. Otherwise the company is going to blow the game in the bottom of the ninth — much like the Phillies in Game 4 of the 2009 World Series.'

Results from my Johari Window test

Comparison of different tariff plans across telecom service providers in India, particularly the 1p/min schemes.

A variety of items inside bottles that seemingly would not fit through the mouth

Research seems to indicate a couple more higher order traits over the Big 5, viz., stability and plasticity. And they seem to have to be dependent on serotonin and dopamine levels in the body.

'Sometimes, from certain places, the light from the sun can briefly appear green.'
via http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/15/the-green-flash-of-t.html

'The bottom line is that there has never been an expectation that IT would be solely responsible for a company's rise or fall. Adroit management, supported by the right IT tools, makes the difference. A company that smartly and innovatively leverages its IT in new and creative ways will move to the head of the pack. And, thanks to IT, you don't need a workforce of thousands to do so. And we need to measure these changes in more holistic ways.'

Modeling, collaboration, customer service, live event annotation & RPGs

Facebook comes out on top followed by MySpace & Bebo. Orkut's at no. 6. Odd to see that Yahoo 360 is still on the list.

A dozen things listed by Scoble ranging from picking the wrong technology to having priorities messed up.

'Alyson Shontell writes about her unsuccessful job interview with Google, which has gained a reputation for asking hard and bizarre questions that test a candidate's creativity, priorities, and critical thinking skills.'
Kind of like the stuff covered in the book "How would you move Mount Fuji" based on Microsoft's puzzle interview questions.
via http://www.neatorama.com/2009/11/13/googles-famously-difficult-job-interview-questions/

Verifying the wordpress.com blog for Google, Yahoo & Bing Webmaster tools through the dashboard itself. Earlier the process was a lot more complicated, but now support has been built into wordpress.
Just go to the Tools page in the blog dashboard & copy the meta tags as described from Google/Yahoo/Bing

Publications by Danah Boyd, a social researcher. Papers are mostly on social networks & trends among the youth.

A nice do it yourself lost screw finder using CD spindle case & similar stuff

Interesting way to represent the human organs using vegetables

Handy service that acts as a single point of checking

They have a big catalogue of Hindi, Bengali & other regional movies & songs available for free viewing online. Quite an interesting development. They also have their own youtube channel – http://www.youtube.com/user/rajshri

Interesting way to use the robots. They also have photos & videos along with other details.
'Three computer scientists at Colorado University programmed several Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners to act like Pac-Man and the ghosts which chase him. Jack Elston, Cory Dixon, and Maciej Stachura did so in order to demonstrate the unmanned aerial system that they are developing. Click on the link for more videos, pictures, and schematics for this project.' — http://www.neatorama.com/2009/11/09/roombas-playing-pac-man/

From fixing scratches on glossy devices to fixing loose lenses on spectacles

From fixing scratches on glossy devices to fixing loose lenses on spectacles

Black & White at that