Eisenhower’s address to the joint session of the Indian Parliament:

I come here representing a nation that wants not an acre of another people’s land; that seeks no control of another people’s government; that pursues no program of expansion in commerce or politics or power of any sort at another people’s expense.

Aaaah, of course!

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I don’t understand what the deal is with not having a simple, non-javascript, non-flash, plain HTML login form on the front page of websites where most (all) content require authentication. Twitter, linkedin, flickr, (to name a few) are all guilty of this. I do not like staying signed-in to any of these services and have my browser clear their cookies after every session.

Its not lack of real estate, most of them find space for elaborate sign-up forms. All I ask for is a simple one line login form which shouldn’t take more than 24×240 pixels. While we’re at it can we all agree to set tabindex=1 on the username field so that I don’t have to tab over a gazillion times?

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Give a boy a fancy toy and the first thing he does is break it open to see whats underneath. So when I started using Google Voice, I had to break it.

Now, the most important feature of Google voice is call forwarding where it can ring multiple registered phones when your Google voice number is called. Here’s a bit of fun with this feature –

• From a registered phone, dial your Google voice number
• Key in your PIN, press 2 and dial your registered phone number (the same one you’re calling from)
• Say “hello” and enjoy the infinite loop, its more fun if you love hearing your own voice

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While certain companies are always viewed with a suspicious eye, certain others are considered a joke. Google, on the other hand is considered the son of God despite its evils.

With the explosion of Web 2.0 services, I find it a pain to sign on to Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, and the million other sites that have mushroomed. (I’m paranoid about staying signed on to sites with everyone and their brothers abusing beacons). So, on this day, the 13th of November 2008, I nominate our friendly neighbourhood do-no-evil company to implement a single sign on that I can indiscriminately blindly trust.

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Its not the most reliable metric and is probably the easiest to critique, but it is definitely interesting to look at the pledges to download Firefox 3.0 as a measure of Worldwide Internet penetration given the stark contrast that the data presents.

Pledges to download Firefox 3.0 on June 17th 2008 for a Guinness Record

It is Interesting to note that the entire African continent as well as the Middle-East are severely under-represented. The numbers from India, South-East Asia and China are nothing special given their population.

Oh, by the way, download Firefox 3.0 today and be part of a Guinness World Record!

Update: The actual downloads reflect a similar trend.

Downloads of Firefox 3.0 on June 17th 2008

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