Superb movie of the rock outcrop in Opportunity's surroundings.
Also check out the blue sunset. [As pointed out by a witty soul on /.]-

• Earth
• Blue Sky
• Red Sunset
• Mars
• Red Sky
• Blue Sunset

Makes sense!!!

Keep checking the Rovers page people, much interesting stuff there...

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Fun~ ~Science~
Edited on: Saturday, February 28, 2004 8:41 PM
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Interesting stuff seems to be happening to me lately. Today I got an email with an attachment from webmaster@[name witheld].com with a randomly named zip attachment containing a randomly named zip file. It got through the Vanderbilt email scanning system - which usually does a good job of catching all such stuff, and neither my McAfee with latest definitions nor the latest Stinger could catch it, but I'm pretty sure it's some kind of a virus.

I couldn't find anywhere I could report such an object [Couldn't report to Symantec, because they only take submissions captured by Norton], but finally sent it off to cert@cert.com.

Let me know if you want to play with it. I'll send it to you too! >:)

- Chinmay

Categories - ~GeekStuff~
Edited on: Friday, February 27, 2004 7:18 PM
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I got a paypal phishing email [screenshot] today -

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Dear paypal user, We would like to inform you that we are upgrading our server to install a better protection software. So please click here and fill in the registration form again to renew your account.

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The 'click here' actually points to http://210.14.228.66/sr/, but if your browser is not patched, the URL will be spoofed - exploiting a flaw in Internet Explorer - to show http://www.paypal.com. If you have an antivirus program though, it should be able to catch this as a trojan [screenshot]

Interestingly, the tabs [Welcome, Send Money etc...] in the email lead to pages on the legitimate paypal website.

From Antiphishing.org -
"Phishing attacks involve the mass distribution of 'spoofed' e-mail messages with return addresses, links, and branding which appear to come from banks, insurance agencies, retailers or credit card companies. These fraudulent messages are designed to fool the recipients into divulging personal authentication data such as account usernames and passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc. Because these emails look “official”, up to 5% of recipients may respond to them, resulting in financial losses, identity theft, and other fraudulent activity."

Go through the eBay Spoof Email Tutorial.
Read more about URL Spoofing,
Test your browser [secunia.com, advisory] to see if it's immune to URL Spoofing. [There are also links there to patches on this site].
It's good to run WindowsUpdate frequently too.

Finally, always be sceptical...
...and UYFB!
;-)

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Fun~ ~GeekStuff~
Edited on: Thursday, February 26, 2004 3:16 PM
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Apart from the Google for French Military Victories, Albino Blacksheep has a bunch of amazing stuff.
Check out Kissing Hank's Ass and George Bush's Hotmail Inbox.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Fun~

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Extremely engaging Nature article on the search for our Last Universal Common Ancestor -
"...The ultimate goal is to arrive at a most defendable reconstruction in terms of a set of genes. This set will number about 600, Koonin estimates, based on what contemporary genomes tell us about the minimum number of genes needed by a self-sufficient organism. Once that set of genes is known, it might even be possible to create LUCA in a dish.
Building a microbe may seem outlandish, but just such a project is already under way. In 2002, human genome sequencer Craig Venter announced his plan to build an artificial cell with a minimal genome based on modern genes at his Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives in Rockville, Maryland. And last year, a team led by Steven Benner of the University of Florida, Gainesville, used phylogenetic analysis to resurrect a protein from an ancient bacterium that lived around a billion years ago...."

A Pelamis wave farm to go on real world trial later this year. - " a square kilometre wave farm would power up to 20,000 homes" - part of the Scottish initiative to generate 40% of the country's required energy from renewable resources by 2020

Miracle on South Block - "...Whatever is done in the future in regard to India’s international relations, the years 1998-2004 will surely be judged as the six years which witnessed real change in India’s strategy and India’s relationships around the world."

In Passing: It's official: Brits don't know f***

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Environment~ ~Fun~ ~India~ ~Science~
Edited on: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:48 AM
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"Over the last three years, the administration has made every effort, through both words and deeds, to ignore and undermine the science behind global warming. It has ridiculed study after study and testimonial after testimonial as insufficient, incomplete, inconclusive, biased, or worse. Now, however, the administration's in a bit of a pickle. How do you discredit the source when the source is YOU? - RAW"

A report by the Pentagon quoted in The Guardian and Fortune Magazine as "Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters... [and]... should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern"
and
"Megadroughts afflict the U.S., especially in the southern states, along with winds that are 15% stronger on average than they are now, causing widespread dust storms and soil loss. The U.S. is better positioned to cope than most nations, however, thanks to its diverse growing climates, wealth, technology, and abundant resources. That has a downside, though: It magnifies the haves-vs.-have-nots gap and fosters bellicose finger-pointing at America."

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Environment~

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NYTimes link [registration required] - "More than one child in six born in the United States could be at risk for developmental disorders because of mercury exposure in the mother's womb, according to revised estimates released last week by Environmental Protection Agency scientists.... Mercury pollution has become a contentious environmental issue with the Bush administration's proposal to create a market-based trading-pollution system." [i.e. Power companies - mainly coal based electricity generation - can promise not to pollute in one area but skip cleanup measures in another.]

If you are concerned about the environmental policies of the Bush Government, subscribe to RAW: : the Uncooked Facts of the Bush Assault on the Environment.

Excerpt from this week's RAW -
Mercury + Hot Air = Silence- The apparent ebullience and jubilation with which EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt celebrated this effort seems to have vanished from the White House along with holiday spirit. In December, Mr. Leavitt bragged that the new standard was better than the stronger one recommended by the previous administration and that it was, in fact, "more aggressive." Well, maybe it was better if you define "better" as a standard that's more favorable to polluting power plants than to the American people, but clearly we disagaree with the Bush administration on this point. So why has the administration allowed the subject to grow cold, instead of continuing to remind us how grateful we should be? In fact, we think the administration has missed the boat on three really good opportunities to sing its own praises regarding this special gift to its polluting friends.

And so on in that vein...

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Environment~ ~USA~
Edited on: Thursday, February 19, 2004 2:38 PM
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Nikon FM3A - $465 on ebay. [review]
Nikon Nikkor 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 AF Zoom lens - $190 on ebay.[review]
Nikon Series E AI-s 50mm f/1.8 lens - $60 on ebay. [review]
Nikon Series E AI-s 28mm f/2.8 lens - $46 on ebay. [was pointing to the wrong review... this one is a simple 5 element 5 group design, unlike the 8 element 8 groups design of the Nikkor...and consequently costs only a third as much!]

Finally getting my own SLR camera - Priceless.

Cost of Priceless on ebay - less than half of retail. :D

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Photo~
Edited on: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 5:09 PM
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The whole University of Pune campus is set to go on Wi-Fi!
Just a few days ago, there was the report about UoP digitizing all the results - starting from those way back like in '53 or something... and now this!
Things are moving fast... although I wonder how many UoP students/profs have Wi-Fi enabled laptops/handhelds. Heck, I haven't yet bought a 802 card.... and there's gigahertz radiation all around me.. even at home!

- Chinmay

Categories - ~GeekStuff~ ~India~
Edited on: Sunday, February 15, 2004 7:35 PM
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Preity Zinta, Ahmed Rashid, Kaushik Basu and Rohit Brijnath talk about matters south asian, on BBC.

Morgan Spurlock offers himself as a human guinea pig in 'Supersize Me' - a documentary about McDonalds, that wins him best director at the '04 Sundance.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~World~

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Apparently, now I'm firmly on the SLR path now, having won a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AIS for 51precious dollars! Also bidding on a couple of other lenses, and maybe an FM3A itself...
So much for the 256 mb CF II card I bought a while back... I guess I'll buy a reader/writer and use it as a USB flash drive now...

In Passing: an egaging interview with Strobe Talbot

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~Photo~ ~World~

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Read all about it...

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Photo~

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... how about a Nikon FM3A with a bunch of Phoenix or Vivitar lenses for now?

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Photo~
Edited on: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 6:51 PM
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