I AM The Universe: Random Thoughts

So. There’s been a lot of hype about this new computational knowledge engine that goes by the name of Wolfram Alpha. It has been all over the news for the past couple of weeks, and it sounded pretty cool. The though of being able to get answers rather than page results seemed interesting, so obviously I was pretty excited about the launch. But I was pretty disappointed when it couldn’t tell me why line monitoring and intrinsically safe circuits don’t go hand in hand.

But these guys more than made up for that disappointment with their appeal to Dylan fans! If you’re a Dylan fan, go to their website, and search for “how many roads must a man walk down”

Anyone who has ever designed a web page will definitely agree with this!

Product compatibility has always been a pain when it comes to computers. Ever since the beginning of computers, putting together the right hardware and software was a unique task. In the beginning the choice was simple – Atari Assembly or Altair BASIC? Then things got a little bit complicated, with software and hardware compatibility going beyond the processor architecture, and we had to choose between software written for DOS, Mac OS, BeOS, NextStep, OS/2 and many, many others. But after a while things cooled down, and you could use software on different platforms to access the same file types. For example, you could use Calc on the Macintosh, and Microsoft Excel on Windows to use .xls spreadsheets. Microsofts document format (.doc) could be accessed from several applications available on several different platforms.

This was because these standards had been formed de facto as the industry matured. VHS became dominant because more studios used it, and a perpetual cycle of supply and demand turned it into the de facto standard for video. Things went pretty much the same way for digital file formats like .JPEG, .DOC, .WAV etc, and now our life is much simpler because of these standards.

But now another war is coming. The Web 2.0 war. Let me tell you what I mean.

I use Facebook. I also used to use Orkut, and had a MySpace account. I used to use flickr, and photobucket. I have a blog powered by WordPress, and I have a twitter micro-blogging profile, plus the Absar is tagline from Facebook. After all this, I end up using none of these effectively.

The thing is, that the Web 2.0 has yet to come to maturity, and hence we have too many options for emerging web technologies. We have too many platforms offering options for doing the same thing. I’m sure that Facebook users are haunted by three different wall type. I myself remain torn between uploading my pictures to Photobucket, flickr, Picassa Photos, or the Facebook Photos app.

We have many Web 2.0 apps today that are incompatible with each other, hence causing a divide between different online social communities. Each of these communities offers solutions to bring your photos, videos, messaging, social bookmarking, blogging and so much more in one place, which is ironic, since there are many of these “one place”s. The most ironic thing about standards is different standards for singular login systems like OpenID, Microsoft Windows CardSpace (1, 2), and SAML. Now all we need is a common login system for all these standards (is the sarcasm not palpable enough here?).

What I would like to see happening is the rise of a monopoly. That’s right. No matter what mainstream media would have you believe, people are not capable of making good decisions. Especially not computer engineers. And to save myself from any flaming, I don’t mind if this monopoly is an open-source platform. So, unless there comes a monopoly that establishes a common, standardized web API, we will have to remain torn between our options.

I’ve never felt detached from the blogosphere – it’s always been a comfortable part of the internet for me. The people are (mostly) very friendly and helpful, and they’ve got some good things to say about everthing and anything. Things that get you thinking. Then there’s the fact that there’s an overall ‘happy’ feeling to the place (can I refer to the blogosphere like that? ) – angry, violent thoughts aren’t that common to come across.
Lately, I’ve been thinking why this is – I mean I seldom meet such people in the real world – that are all happy. Everywhere, there’s the friendly people with so much negativity inside! I’m not talking about anyone else – I’m talking about me. I mean, I’m sure that the people I spend my days with have many things to dislike about me – I’m not perfect (at all). But in the blog world, people like me better – because they don’t know me. We don’t let our all show on our blogs, do we? Isn’t that the reason the blogosphere such a happy place?

Kher, this makes no sense at all. Scratch this

I found this on digg, and it really IS the most addictive game ever created! It’s amazing how something so simple can be so interesting. I started with this when I had (tons of) spare time in the college computer lab – and today half my class was competing against each other. It’s that contagious.

Try it here. My personal best to date is 11.25 seconds, what’s yours?