Clipmarks | Amiya's clips

How did David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear?

Thu, 03 May 2007 06:18:31 GMT

clipped by: Amiya

How did David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear?

Naturally, Mr. Copperfield isn't telling, so we consulted the research experts at The Straight Dope. They explain a common theory from William Poundstone's "Bigger Secrets." First, "Copperfield had a setup of two towers on a stage, supporting an arch to hold the huge curtain that would be used to conceal the statue." Those viewing the trick, both live and on TV, saw the statue through this arch.

After the curtain closed and while Mr. Copperfield addressed the audience, the stage was apparently rotating very slowly on a lazy Susan type turntable. When the curtain opened, it seemed the statue had disappeared, but in reality, the audience's view was blocked by one of the columns. The article also mentions that Copperfield used very bright lights to "nightblind" the audience. Those magicians are a tricky lot, eh?

Tags: info

7 Hidden pages within Firefox

Thu, 03 May 2007 06:11:22 GMT

clipped by: Amiya

Clip Source: www.our-picks.com

The 7 hidden pages within your Firefox browser

about:

about:buildconfig

about:config Oh look, many many info. Indeed, it’s the most complex and meaningful of them all. Careful on what you plan to change here, your browser won’t run properly after if you play with the wrong things.

about:plugins Of course, what is Firefox without it’s powerful extensions? This option will display detailed information about all the plugins installed for Mozilla Firefox.

about:Mozilla This is a weird thing. It will display the so-called “Book of Mozilla”. Something similar was present in Netscape too. There’s actually no real book although the quotations might give you that impression.

about:cache Will display info and statistics regarding your disk’s cache, including the name of your cache’s directory and a list of the entries you can find there. By default, Firefox doesn’t allow you to view the cached webpages, so this can be an useful option.

about:credits

Tags: tech, info, firefox

How to make Firefox faster

Thu, 03 May 2007 06:09:23 GMT

clipped by: Amiya

Clip Source: www.our-picks.com

Firefox CAN be faster - 4 easy tricks

1. Fetch only pages that you click

2. Limit the RAM usage

3. Reducing the RAM usage even more when Firefox gets minimized

4. Make pages load faster
Most browsers are configured for dial-up users. Tweak the settings for your optimal use. Filter out the list after “network” then search for the key that says network.http.pipelining and set it to TRUE. You may alter the key below (network.http.pipelining.maxrequests) and change it into a higher value - 10 for example. Voila, your pages will load much faster now.

Tags: tech, info, firefox

If Google didn't exist... (horror!)

Thu, 03 May 2007 05:52:13 GMT

clipped by: Amiya

Clip Source: googlesystem.blogspot.com

If Google Didn't Exist...

* our mail account would still have 2MB or 4MB of storage and we would be happy about that.

* we would find a mail by manually reviewing each subject and sender.

* we would pay for software like Picasa, Keyhole (now Google Earth), Sketchup.

* many startups would not exist without Google AdSense, so there would be less innovation.

* Opera would still be shareware and ad-supported.

* our homepage would be a portal, or about:blank.

* our search engines would be cluttered, would mix ads with organic results and wouldn't care about the users.

* we wouldn't look for a search bar in every site.

* we would think beta software is just for the testers and it's dangerous.

* technology news would be less exciting.

Tags: google, humour

iGoogle Gadget Maker

Thu, 03 May 2007 05:47:52 GMT

clipped by: Amiya

Clip Source: googlesystem.blogspot.com

iGoogle Gadget Maker

As reported by Google Blogoscoped, Google Personalized Homepage will be rebranded as iGoogle and will let you build your own gadgets using wizards. The gadgets are very simple and are more like containers for things that matter to you: photos, videos, events.

"Once the gadget is created, you can invite other people to view & use the gadget, and make it publicly available for other people to view & use it." So whatever you choose to add to a gadget will be visible to the people you invited.

The wizards let you enter the settings for seven new gadget templates:

1. Photo album - add up to 7 photos that can be rotated.

2. GoogleGram - enter seven greeting messages.

3. Daily Me - type what you are doing.

4. Countdown - count the days until a special event.

5. Simple list - you can use it as a ToDo list, shopping list.

6. YouTube videos - up to 10 videos.

7. Freeform gadget - add an image and some text.

Tags: new, google, tech, info

Arundhati Roy on State-sponsored violence

Thu, 03 May 2007 05:43:19 GMT

clipped by: Amiya

Clip Source: parisar.wordpress.com

Arundhati Roy interviewed by Shoma Chaudhury

(a must read interview of writer activist Arundhati Roy on the question of state and revolutionary violence. although we disagree with her on some points regarding socialist states and her evaluation of Mao and Stalin.in these times of fascist terror and repression Arundhati brilliantly exposes the hollowness of the logic of neutralism and same attitude towards fascist state violence and the resistance.we thank TEHELKA for the interview. — Editor)

‘It’s outright war and both sides are choosing their weapons’

Posted by parisar on March 27th, 2007

Tags: politics, interview