.. is the story of how MIT students took 2 years to plan and execute a cross country cannon hack on Caltech [in 2006], who in 2004 had hacked a laser to print “Caltech” on the Green Building in MIT during some college recruiting weekend.

Read the well written article The Great ’06 Cannon Hack [new window], on the Technology Review.

This is what truly makes college/school/university life worth living

NEW DELHI: The government proposes to put its stamp of authority over one chunk of hitherto unregulated cyberspace: internet telephony offered by companies like Yahoo, MSN, Skype, Mediaring, Packet8, Dialpad, Amazon, Impetus, Euro, Net2Phone Bandtel and Euro. Read more in the Economic Times article.. [New window]

The government is going to make us pay! I think it makes economic sense today as it would mean a lot of revenue, which potentially will lead to better infrastructure and services by the ISPs.

Do read this article: Streetkids to Investment Bankers on IBNLive.com.

I really commend the kids, and the spirit they are exuding. Goodluck and Godspeed to them in their endeavours.

Was randomly surfing through Rediff online and came across an amusing article by Rohan Siddhu on his life of an investment banker.

Yesterday’s Economic Times (paper edition) had an article about ‘Missed Call Culture’. It made for an interesting read, talking about how missed calls have evolved into a culture in India. A missed call could mean one of many things here: let’s meet for lunch, I won’t make it for the movie, call me back, etc. I’ll see if I can scan for you guys.

On the flip side, I checked out the songs for Rang De Basanti (Color me Orange). Daler Mehendi makes an amazing comeback with the title track, which promises to keep your feet tapping. The album isn’t too impressive, coming from the land of A. R. Rehman, but it isn’t all that bad either. Worth a hear-play.

Today I went for the movie Apaharan (meaning: Kidnapping). A must watch for those interested in another take on the political and mafia scene in the country, focusing on Bihar. AJay Devgan and Nana Patekar come away with great performances, as do the supporting cast. It was enlightening to see how the process of kidnapping really works in India. The planning is phteenomenal, and includes accounting for everything from rooms to stay at night, the car rental and get this, tea and snacks! The ending was predictable, but still didn’t take away anything from the movie.

I’ll start with the hilarious and move on to something a little more interesting.

Smoker tried to open plain door (BBC)

I guess dangers of passive smoking can be expounded hence forth on a new level all together!!

Apple Mac OS X on x869: a first test (ZDNet)

I’m impressed with this attempt, and elated at it’s success! The ZDNet team talks about the benefits, including a fairly easy install, and good support. Worth a read as it even includes a photo-gallery.

Staff crisis threatens physics (BBC)

The article points out how the new breed ot teachers (who even consider taking up teaching physics) seem not to have studied it at the university level at all. This is disturbing, not to mention seeing how the number of students taking up the subject is dropping. I can understand trying to make everything easy is a good thing, when it comes to living, but I surely don’t see how it can be carried over to learning. Somethings still need to follow the policy of no pains, no gains.