Orkut - A new feature

I consider Orkut as the GOD of all social-networking sites in India. Though I'm not a strong promoter of such sites, I agree that they do have great benefits.
One thing I've always appreciated about Orkut and certain other similar websites has been the way they have developed themselves to become more user-friendly. They have also provided many applications which support their core functions. Tracking what your friends have been doing has become far simpler today then what it was in 2004, when orkut was launched.
I don't want to bore you with core features which all of you know about. The objective of this post is to praise one of their new features:
"View this conversation", provided in scrapbooks
This feature helps you track the complete discussion which you've had with a particular individual. Of course, your discussion will only be tracked if it has been posted as "Reply" by your friend.
Sometimes people forget in what context someone has replied to them, especially when the reply comes after 15 days. :-) This new feature makes your life easier. Since most people use the "Reply" function, you don't have to go to their scrapbooks to view your recent scraps anymore.

Google in 2001... Travel back in Time!!

Some call it the "Virtual Time Machine" while others call it Rembrandt's of the past. Google has become nostalgic and in celebration of it's 10th anniversary they've put their 2001 search index online for about 1 month(till end of October). This index gives you a feel of how the world has changed in the past 7 years. And it also helps us realize that the future is so unpredictable.
If you're wondering why, on its 10th anniversary, it isn't a 1998 index, well, Google has quoted that the 98 archives weren't readily accessible and hence they came up with the Jan 2001 search index instead. Google has given you the option to view the current link for any search as well as the cached link from 2001, to give you a good way to compare. However, don't be upset if you can't find a few sites, which you're sure existed in 2001, because Google has also stated that some links have been removed on request while some other sites have blocked google.com.
Now, I'll leave it up to you to go experience the fun(click on the picture above) or you can read about some of my own interesting searches below:

1. Search item: "Wikipedia"
First result: link to "Nupedia". For those of you who've never heard that name b4, it was an English web-based encyclopedia whose articles were written by experts and licensed as free content. The idea did not last too long(Mar 2000-Sep 2003). In June 2008, CNET hailed Nupedia as one of the greatest defunct websites in history. Today it is known as the predecessor of Wikipedia.

2. Search item: "orkut"
Results: No link to our present community site which probably every teenager knows. But instead it sites links to the OWNER of orkut.com, ie. Orkut Buyukkokten, an employee of Google and a student of Stanford University in 2001.

3. Search item: "Youtube"
Result: This entry which gives you 1,070,000,000 hits today, gave me the following message: Your search - Youtube - did not match any documents. :-)

4. Search item: "ipod"
This word has done fortunes for Apple today. But the 2001 archives knew nothing about it. Instead it returned entries such as Image Proof of Deposit Document Processing System (IPOD), IPO disorder(A post-traumatic stress syndrome from the 90s), International Program of Ocean Drilling(IPOD), and the list goes on...

5. Search item: "blog"
Result: Though blogs in 2001 also referred to the same "blogs" of today, but the number of search entries in 2001 were 76,400 as compared to 3.32 billion today.

6. Search item: "Gmail"
Result: Gmail in 2001 was not the brainchild of Google. Instead, it reffered to a Gnome email client which used Mysql database as the datastore.

7. Search item: "9/11"
Result: This date is one which humankind shall never forget. The day when more than 3000 people were killed and many others were left lifeless by the 4 suicide attacks which rocked the whole world. In Jan 2001, 9 months b4 the attack, this same search led to various events such as meetings scheduled for September 11 in addition to a site called www.9-11.com(A complete search research tool for the emergency professional). This link however has been removed from the archive and it gives just one line -" Our Hearts go out to the victims of 9-11".

8. Search item: "BitTorrent"
Results: This entry which gives approx. 58 million hits today, asked me to check if all words were spelled correctly. :-)

9. Search item: "Barack Obama"
Result: This was a real shocker. It shows how famous a guy can become in a short span of time. 2001 - 771 results : 2008 - 75,400,000 results

I guess that's enough to get you interested if you already weren't. Don't miss this opportunity guys. And yeah, if you come up with any other very interesting searches, do post them as comments. Happy Googling!!

"The Man from Earth", Released Nov. 2007

On recommendation by a friend at college, I watched this movie a while back. And I must say, it's one of the most simply made films I've seen in a long time. But don't let simplicity cloud the ingenuity behind the plot. I mean, how often have you seen a movie in which 6-7 people sit in a room, chat and create a blockbuster. The beauty of the movie is accentuated by the soundtrack "Forever" by Chantelle Duncan, featured at the end.(Click on the link to download the song and see what I mean)
The story is Jerome Bixby's last work, which he completed on his deathbed in April 1998, after starting it in the early 1960s. Bixby dictated the last of his screenplay to his son, screenwriter Emerson Bixby. After Jerome Bixby's death the script was given to Richard Schenkman to direct on a $200,000 budget, which is pretty low by all standards. That's understandable by the fact that the whole movie was shot in 1 room.
The lead role,Professor John Oldman, is played by David Lee Smith, who claims to be 14,000 years old from the Upper Paleolithic era. No, it's not a case of incarnation; John has walked across ages exploring religions and nature across the globe. To avoid being discovered, he moves on every 10 years leaving his past to become history.
I shall not reveal any more of the suspense... For movie lovers, I'll just say one thing-"You can thank me once you've seen it". And for those of you who just want to know the full story, proceed to the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_From_Earth
For more details on the cast and the men behind the movie, you can visit the movie's official website, http://www.manfromearth.com/index.html

"Earth from Above" and Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Aiming to inspire people to think globally about sustainable living, photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has been capturing unique views of our planet, seen from the sky, since 1994. He has produced an exhibit of over 150 4-ft. by 6-ft. prints which will be on display in New York City from May 1, 2009 to June 28, 2009. When completed in New York City, the "Earth from Above" exhibit will also move on to California in 2010.

I have displayed a bit of his magic below, but to view his complete work, you may visit some of the links I have given at the end of this post.

Waste from the copper mine at Chuquicamata, Chile. This giant scallop shell is made of earth. A crane deposits the earth in successive, slightly curved lines giving the appearance of sheets of sand lined up side by side. This earth is extracted with the copper, but it is separated from the ore by sieving. The metal is refined in the Chuquicamata foundry that, thanks to newly installed equipment, can now filter out 95 percent of the sulfur dioxide (SO2 ) and 97 percent of the arsenic that the process releases. (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand)

Mountainous countryside near Maelifellssandur, Myrdalsjökull Region, Iceland. Once the young lava fields of Iceland cool down, life begins anew little by little. Ice, wind and water flatten and carve out shapes to begin with, then, during the summer, bacteria, lichen and fungi prepare the soil for plants, in particular mosses which adapt to an environment which remains difficult. These plants colonise the most favourable sites and terrain little by little, forming a new ecosystem.
(© Yann Arthus-Bertrand)

Worker resting on bales of cotton, Thonakaha, Korhogo, Ivory Coast.

Cotton crops occupy approximately 335,000 square klilometers worldwide, and use nearly one quarter of all pesticides sold.
(© Yann Arthus-Bertrand)

About Yann Arthus-Bertrand:
Photographer, Filmmaker, Activist, Environmentalist

Born in 1946, Yann Arthus-Bertrand has been interested in the wilderness and animal world throughout his lifetime. Using a camera, he started to create a record of his observations and eventually discovered his gift: testifying through images.

In 1991, Yann became a photojournalist and founded "Altitude", the leading aerial photography agency in the world. Inspired by the link between humankind, wildlife and nature, he collaborated with the UNESCO to focus his vocation on a long-term documentary photography series: The Earth From Above, Wild Animals, Horses, and 365 Days.

As an activist convinced of the importance of sustainable development, his aerial photographs and accompanying texts request every individual to take note that we are all personally responsible for the future of our planet. To this end, with the Earth From Above series book release, Arthus-Bertrand saw the need to broadcast this call-to-action through a large-scale public art exhibition of this testimony. Premiering in Paris in 2000 to unprecedented success, the exhibition soon travelled to cities around the world to reach over 130 million visitors across every populated continent by 2008. The book would eventually sell millions of copies in over 21 languages.

By 2005, Arthus-Bertrand created the association GoodPlanet. This international NGO develops numerous projects whose shared objective is to educate about sustainable development and request individuals across every background, culture and border to think beyond the development of our planet and, instead, toward the future of all of its inhabitants.

Earth From Above, a 4-episode, 8-hour TV series then launched in 2007 and renewed for 2008, prompting Arthus-Bertrand to begin filming of Home (http://www.home-2009.com/us/index.html), a documentary-style feature film about the state of our planet and challenges facing us to protect it. Its simultaneous worldwide release is scheduled for June 5th, 2009 – World Environment Day.

Arthus-Bertrand was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Institute of France in 2006. He is a knight of the Legion of Honour, an Officer of the Order of Agricultural Merit, and an Officer of the National Order of Merit. In 2007, Arthus-Bertrand helped Al Gore present his Academy Award-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, to the French Parliament.

Yann's personal website: ›› www.yannarthusbertrand.org
Note: There is an English version for the website once you enter one of the links on the home page.
You may also view a collection of 38 photographs at
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/10/earth_from_above_comes_to_nyc.html

Photographs and captions all courtesy of Yann Arthus-Bertrand.