Friends of Rohit Jnagal

grrm

02:38 pm - Battling Babes of Westeros

Here's a sneak peak at two new Ice & Fire figures from Dark Sword Miniatures -- a couple of the battling babes of Westeros, the wildling spearwife Ygritte ('You know nothing, Jon Snow')and the kraken's daughter, Asha Greyjoy.






Both sculpts are by the talented Jeff Grace. They're not available yet, but will be soon. Watch the Dark Sword website for further details and more pix.

Current Mood: happy

07:14 pm - Carpe Quotum

I'm following the STS-127 mission on NASA TV. Note that one of the astronauts is called Dave Wolf. Please allow me to register a formal request for someone on the space station to say to him, just once: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.".

VLC is playing it fine for me with: $ vlc -vv -I dummy http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx

05:43 pm - Consistent user interfaces FTW

I was in the process of carefully replacing function calls in my code using M-x rgrep. After a few changes I wanted to refresh the search. I instinctively pressed "g" and was pleasantly surprised to see it update the rgrep search results.

sfbayarea

i_like_hiding

02:52 am

Hello...

I don't know if I'm allowed to post this or not, but I am desperate because I have been doing a lot of research, and haven't found any answers. My boyfriend's birthday is coming up next week, and I have been searching for something fun (but not too expensive) to do in the bay area. Particularly, I have been trying to find a place that has laser light shows! Like one with The Beatles or Pink Floyd. We have always been wanting to go to one!

So, I was wondering if anyone knew of any? I have been searching and searching - and no luck! Just rental places - maybe they don't exist in the bay area? Any other particularly fun and cheaper things to do? I have done research on this as well, but it's hard to find things that are off the beaten path, and not just normal tourist attractions.

Also... any recommendations on any good places to eat? Ones that are especially fun and have a fun atmosphere (again, not too expensive, but maybe up to $20 a person for dinner), we are also vegetarians (but eat fish), so it being veg friendly would be helpful :).

Thanks so much for any suggestions in advance!

08:01 am - Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz - 18 July 2009

http://darkgate.net/comic/#peanuts

swatisani

01:16 pm - कभी न सोचा था प्यार बाँटा तो दर्द पाऊँगी

Shared Love

कभी न सोचा था प्यार बाँटा
तो दर्द पाऊँगी

कभी न सोचा था कि दर्द होगा तो इतना
कि उसे न बाँट पाऊँगी

वक्त लगता है संभलने में मगर
यकीं है मुझे कि संभल जाऊँगी

Originally published at Swati Sani. Please leave any comments there.

arvindn

05:40 pm - Amazon is not the enemy

Everyone who's flipping out about the Orwellian Kindle fiasco needs to relax.

Yes, Amazon did something stupid. Yes, DRM is bad for consumers and bad for society. But Amazon is not the enemy here, the publishers are. Right now, the balance of power is still with the publishing houses, so Amazon needs to play with them. When it comes to DRM, people at Amazon "get it." They're techies, after all. If they do evil things, it's because their hands are tied. It is the publishers who are pushing for DRM. Market forces are going to push them out of existence, and they will do all they can to prolong their misery.

Dramatic as the current incident may be, the same story has already played out with Apple and the iTunes store. Apple bent over backwards for the labels in order to sign them up to sell their wares online, but once they came on board, the power shifted to the technology companies, and Jobs turned around and attacked DRM (the "Thoughts on Music" letter.) By now, just two years later, everyone agrees that music DRM is on its way out and the future of recorded music is Free.

So please do express your outrage, but make sure you have the right target :-) Do complain to Amazon about how much DRM sucks, go write reviews of the product on their site and others, but don't "boycott" the Kindle. That's just plain counterproductive — books aren't magically going to become DRM-free without first becoming digital, and there's no way that's going to happen except under whatever terms the publishers choose to impose.

There's still quite a ways to go before all the major publishers succumb to the pressure of growing Kindle sales and start offering their content digitally. For that to happen, the Kindle userbase needs to grow a lot. Paradoxically, now, more than any other time, the Kindle needs your support.

Oh, and while I'm at it, can we stop making silly comparisons between the Kindle and Sony's or whoever's two-bit book reader that no one's ever heard of? Without the EVDO network and Amazon's catalog behind it, it's not even the same category of device as fas as the average person is concerned. Thanks.

sfbayarea

leenercat

05:09 pm - Alterations

Hi all!

I have a dress with a rather complicated hem that needs to be shortened - can you recommend a good, reasonably-priced tailor? Nordstrom quoted me $52 and that seems a bit much, but I really don't want this dress ruined. I've looked on Yelp and haven't learned anything conclusive.

I live in Ingleside, so anything in the southwestern part of the city or the nearby suburbs would be best.

TIA!

grrm

04:12 pm - The Genius of Jack Vance

Wonderful article in the NEW YORK TIMES about Jack Vance:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/magazine/19Vance-t.html?%20_r=5&partner=rss&emc=rss

It is nice to see one of our genre's few authentic masters finally getting some recognition from the mainstream press. I agree with most everything that's said here: Vance is not only a great SF and fantasy writer, he's a great writer, period, and deserves a place in the canon of American literature.

Current Mood: pleased

grrm

03:25 pm - I love TIME magazine

Great blog post from TIME magazine's TV critic, urging HBO to pick up ICE & FIRE.

http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2009/07/06/hbos-next-i-hope-great-drama

Needless to say, I share his hopes.

Current Mood: excited

grrm

02:27 pm - Home Again

Back home, safe and sound. Finland was great and I enjoyed my visit to Estonia as well. More on both later. The journey home was endless and exhausting, and god, I hate the TSA, especially the ones at Chicago O'Hare. Petty pseudopolice drunk on their authority. But never mind.

Tons of emails, a mountain of mail, much sleep to catch up on. I'll be digging out from under for a while. But lots of cool stuff happening too, on all sorts of fronts. I'll post what I can when I can.

Next trip on the schedule is worldcon in Montreal. I have my program for that, and will post it here soon. I'm hoping to complete a few more chapters for DANCE before taking off. Still tugging, slashing, and cursing that Meereenese knot.

Current Mood: busy

04:00 am - Disaster Voyeurism

http://xkcd.com/611/

07:50 am - Flying to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons

http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/011266.html

09:10 am - Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz - 16 July 2009

http://darkgate.net/comic/#peanuts

08:46 am - Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz - 17 July 2009

http://darkgate.net/comic/#peanuts

bramcohen

08:25 am - Oskar's Mixup Cube

This puzzle looks like a Rubik's Cube, but it allows some moves which clearly shouldn't be.

onigame

07:33 pm - A Journey Down Asian Etymology

There's a local new restaurant we went to last week called 怒髪天 (Dohatsuten). It has its name emblazoned in giant characters across its awning.

The literal meaning of the characters?

• 怒 : Anger.
  
• 髪 : Hair (as in, the stuff that grows on a human head).
  
• 天 : Sky.
  

sfbayarea

bloggingsara

07:23 pm - the speakeasy is back, ya'll.

http://rialtocinemas.com/index.php?location=cerrito&page=home

please go and watch a movie or three!

sfbayarea

subsonicmonkey

07:07 pm - Vintage Music Collective, Free concert at the Fillmore Center Plaza tomorrow!

The Vintage Music Collective, a 13-piece roots reggae/soul music band from East Palo Alto, will be playing a free, all-ages, outdoor show at the Fillmore Center Plaza on Friday July 17th. The free music starts at 6 PM and goes until 7:30 PM.

The Fillmore Center Plaza is located at 1475 Fillmore St. at the corner of O'Farrell.
http://www.fillmorejazzcbd.org/summerseries.html

Hop you can make join us!

Connect with the Vintage Music Collective on the innerwebz:
www.facebook.com/vmc

( Here are some recent performances: )

bangalore

phoe6

10:57 am - Looking for Old Computer parts

I am specifically looking for 100 Mhz SD Ram. Where I can find those?

* Enquired at couple of shops at SP Road. No luck.
* Asked at Computer Ware house, if I could do pre-order with them. No help here too.