Saturday, June 24, 2006

World Cup Blog

World cup blog is a great site for world cup 2006. I liked it more than the official FIFA site. In fact, it is far better than that in terms of content. Yahoo did not do a good job in the official site. It seems boring to me. The interface is too crowded and the content is poor and short. The BBC world cup site is a good one. Its look is same as its other pages, they did not use any different template. But the content is better than the official site. It also provided some user feedback option, much like discussion forum. Among these three the blog site is the best. I am getting news as well as people's views here. There are photos, fixture, score sheets, virtually everything. I regret not to find it early. Anyone, who wants to read a lot about world cup, can visit this site.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

New Chip Breaks Speed Record

Researchers at I.B.M. and the Georgia Institute of Technology are announced that they have broken the speed record for silicon-based chips with a semiconductor that operates 250 times faster than chips commonly used today.The achievement is a major step in the evolution of computer semiconductor technology that could eventually lead to faster networks and more powerful electronics at lower prices, said Bernard Meyerson, vice president and chief technologist in I.B.M.'s systems and technology group. He said developments like this one typically found their way into commercial products in 12 to 24 months. At 500 gigahertz, the technology is 250 times faster than chips in today's cellphones, which operate at 2 gigahertz. At room temperature, the chips operate at 350 gigahertz, far faster than other chips in commercial use today. I think it is a major breakthrough in semiconductor technology. It was really heard that silicon chips are reaching their limit and optical technology will replace them. But it seems that silicon chips will live longer than expected. The news can be read here.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Joel Spolsky writes on his first experience with Bill Gates' review

This is another mind-boggling article from Joel Spolsky. I liked both the date-time thing and Bill Gates' review part. The date-time part was funny. And the review was funny too but at the same time it provided some valuable insight on how technical Bill Gates is. People used to think that he is just an executive who oversees business leaving all the technical stuff for his subordinates. I am really impressed to see how active he was to read a long review with taking into account every details in only one night. He must be as good in technical side as in business. I also can't agree more with Joel on that a software company should be led by technical people not some MBA type people.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Nuclear Energy: Only solution to our power crisis

Nuclear energy is the only medicament to our ongoing horrible power crisis. It is best both for short term and long term solution. Building many power plants for small production like 200, 250, 400 MW is no more a solution for our country. We build few and more power plant phases out at the same time. As a rapidly developing country, our energy need is growing each day too. So, there is always a gap and that gap is widening. Furthermore, looking not so far in future, fossil fuel is limited in quantity, it will be depleted some day. We will face trouble even before that when the fuel will become dearer. So, it is right time to set up a nuclear power plant. We are long holding a site to build one. We must start building it now. I think we can seek complete help from U.S. They will be costly, but they will provide the most reliable and easy and cheap to maintain technology. Foreign minister sought help from China in this regard. I think government is looking for cheap technology. But building a nuclear power plant will be very costly in any way. So, we have to spend it. But we can spend some extra bucks to get the desired reliability and cheap easy maintenance. The extra money will also be huge, but it is worth it keeping in mind that we have to spend the huge amount only once. Spending big amount initially is certainly better than spending less and then spend every now and then just to keep poor things running. The only thing I am concerned about is whether U.S. will like to help us in this regard or not.

A miracle opportunity for Bangladesh

Right after connecting to SEA-ME-WEA-4, Bangladesh has got a rare opportunity to join another consortium. The new consortium is led by Telecom Malaysia and includes seven countries at this moment. It will lay a cable which will connect south east Asia with U.S.A. The new cable is named Asia-America Gateway or AAG in short. Bangladesh, if acts wisely and promptly, can join this consortium. It will give it a much needed backup to SEA-ME-WEA-4. Currently, the ISPs have to maintain their old vsats just for backup purpose which is not lowering the cost of internet. The new cable will give us huge bandwidth along with the much needed backup. I think, it is a must for Bangladesh to join this consortium. The ruling party must forget its any mean political and financial interest and decide to avail the marvelous opportunity. Otherwise the sad history of 90's will repeat.

Source: http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/06/06/d6060601033.htm

Friday, June 02, 2006

An amazing revenge

This is the most spectacular revenge story I heard any time soon. Amir Massoud Tofangsazan, a con man, thought himself very smart which he actually was not. He sold an out of order laptop by eBay for £375 to Thomas Sawyer, a 23-year-old student. He thought he would get away with it as he did with Debbie McInerney by selling an iPod, which never really reached her. But I think it was the greatest mistake of his life to underestimate Thomas Sawyer and turn down his pleas to refund. In retaliation, Thomas set up a blog about the incident. It is a mocking first-person account which brought fantastic result. When I visited it, the hit counter was showing 2655821!!! This proves that Thomas avenged the fraud with overwhelming success. The anguished Amir told the Daily Mail that the website had made his life a "living hell". The real good news is that police is currently investigating the incident. It is one of the smartest revenges I have ever heard of. So, blogs have found one more use: to take tormenting revenges!!! Thanks Thomas for the novel idea!