a thinking machine
found this @ http://turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/chess.html
a nice chess game.. fun to play..

AIGAMUXA
this's a funny (?! maybe not so much for the victim ;) ) god from Africa.. here I quote the lines from the original site:
"
Man-eating monsters from Africa. Don’t panic too much because their eyes are in the soles of their feet. They can’t see you during a chase. They have to stop and lie on their backs with their feet in the air. So just keep running and zig-zag a lot.
"
taken from: http://www.godchecker.com/gotw/016_halloween_nasties.php

a Chicken Powered Nuclear Bomb ?! ;)
so many elements are recorded in history, for various reasons.. but some of them get into history for weird reasons..
well, the story s abt a nuclear bomb named Blue Peacock, but otherwise known as the Chicken Powered Nuclear Bomb..
apparently, the bomb was a nuclear landmine designed by UK, supposed to be planted at prime locations of Germany during WWII.. but it got it's name because of an interesting proposal made during the design of the bomb.. the designers proposed to have a casing which could house chickens :O and the chicken housing was proposed to keep the internal electronics warm and functioning (using the body heat generated by the chickens!)..

wow! I feel compelled to appreciate the genius behind the idea [LOL]
add to that, this news was revealed to the public on an April 1^st!

checkout the following to read more about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_powered_nuclear_bomb
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=342#more-342
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_apr2004/Chicken_Nuclear.htm

damn interesting...
checkout http://www.damninteresting.com/..
true to it's title, I'd say :)

deemed guilty of ignorance..
well, officially I've been suspended from TopCoder since Friday :(
here's the (tragic?) story..

I created my first account in TopCoder abt an year back.. I never took it seriously n dint compete in anythin.. but I registered for a component development competition n then dint submit the solution since the submission required a lot of documentation n UMLs.. n I HATE WRITING DOCUMENTATION :X k.. later on I discovered that not submitting a solution for a registered competition affects ur reliability rating.. hmm..

recently, for no reason at all (or for one I dont remember/kno, as it usually happens :D) I found TopCoder interesting.. somehow I was pretty confident of winning somethin over there.. now, since there was this reliability rating crap, I decide to start off afresh with a new handle..
TCO 2006 has started n there're a lotta component n algorithm competitions goin on.. I'm more interested in component competitions n this week, I choose 3 components for development, n had a fairly concrete idea for their implementation..

Thursday there was an algorithm competition.. I dont like them because ur score depends on how fast u solve the problem n that for me means writin quick but dirty code.. I dont like writin dirty code, so I usually dont participate.. (moreover there's a lot of competition in them :D ) but this time I decided to participate for the first time n I did.. got a pretty decent rating.. somewhere around 1600 - a green.. not bad for a first attempt, I thought..

next morning, I wakeup happily n go online.. GTalk notifies me of a mail from some Ryan FairFax.. I ignore it coz I dunno him.. I go to TopCoder n try logging in.. damn! it says my account is locked! same for my other handle :( now I check my mail n there's one shoutin - Rules Violation - from Ryan Fairfax - Algorithm competitions manager, TopCoder.. The mail says that acording to the TopCoder Terms of Use, I've been banned forever from TopCoder for cheating in the previous day's competition!

now I see their Terms of Use page tryin to find somethin that makes me a cheater.. n there's somethin! basically, having two handles in TopCoder is illegal! wtf?! that's nonsense isn't it? never heard of another place with such a restriction.. usually if a site has such restriction, they enforce this during registration rather than allowing u to regster n crib later (as it happed here).. moreover how am I supposed to even kno that unless I R_eadT_heirF_uc*inM_anual? how the hell can they expect all their users to read thru that stupid lookin, long list?

neways, the mistake is mine n so I requested that guy to reactivate my account telling him that I dint kno abt the rules.. but he finally agrees to reducing my banishent to suspension but not to forgive my first mistake :(
as of now, I'm suspended from TopCoder for 3 months n I'm not allowed to participate in any major tournaments for an year! that's mindless! (or rather mind-blowing - literally ;) )..
but this wasn't the right time nor the right reason to suspend me! if I intend to cheat, I'll cheat, no matter what.. this time I dint even have the slightest idea of cheating.. that's why both my handles were pointing to the same mail id n had same details too! n that's how I was caught :( I'm not (yet) that stupid to try n cheat using two handles with cloned details.. after all, how tough is it to create a fake identity on the net n become a new person altogether? hardly an hour's job..
worst thing is, I had a pretty good design ready for 3 components.. maybe I'd not hav won any, but it'd hav been a great start.. moreover, this week, I'd hav got a day extra than usual to complete the solution! ah! absolutely the wrong time to get banished :(

neways, considering that they giv u real money if u win, maybe the rule's sensible.. but relying on the users to read thru the manual to kno all the rules - that's definitely stupid..

finally that makes me an outlaw for not R_eadingT_heirF_uc*inM_anual :D