42 Quirks

RSS feeds have dramatically changed the way we consume content online. Over the course of time, I have come to subscribe to 90+ feeds of which I manage to read about 20 of them completely.

If there’s one debate that keeps raging across the blogosphere, off and on, it has to be about RSS feeds. Even now, I hear occasional raves and rants about how partial text feeds are irritating and nonsensical, and all that.

What if (this may be a very silly what-if) the choice were left to the user?

What if I as a reader could decide whether I wanted a Partial-Text, Full-Text or Headlines only feed for a given site?

For instance, I’d prefer to have a Headline-only feed for heavy output websites like Slashdot and ZDNet while I’d prefer a full-text feed for sporadically updating sites, like friend blogs.

Alternatively, this can be achieved from the client-side itself, i.e. within the RSS reader. To me, it makes sense to open the feed in three stages:

Headlines >> Partial Text (Excerpt*) >> Full Text

In either of the cases, the publisher must provide a full-text feed.

Of the few readers that I have tried and tested, Google Reader comes close, offering Expanded and Reading views. Combined with keyboard shortcuts, these make for an amazing experience.

At the end of the day, reading RSS feeds is nothing but consuming content, and right now, there are only so many ways to do it.

I have a sneaky suspicion, things will be different soon.

(*caveat: I would define an excerpt as a paragraph or two, having a total of about 5-7 lines at least)

powered by performancing firefox

This time around, it’s not my fault.

My Web Hosting providers suddenly got into their mind that Blogging was an activity they did not want to allow on their web servers. And for some reason they thought that my YouTube videos were hogging their bandwidth. So they suspended my account.

Just like that.

Without information, without notice, without anything. And this happens right in the middle of a post submission!! No prior intimation, no update, nothing! So I did what anybody would do. Got myself pissed and mailed them immediately. 11 emails and 3 days later, i.e. today they ‘relented’ to my questions and ‘unsuspended’ the site.

Just like that.

In the course of the email exchanges I learnt that my site was blocked because of streaming and blogging activity. Huh? Blogging is a perfectly acceptable activity for a website. In fact I choose to use my blog as a website, instead of the other way round. As for streaming, the only streaming came from the YouTube video, which streams directly from source!

What irritated me further was this line in their Terms of Service Agreement:

Denial of Service: We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason.

That line just absolves them of all liabilities, doesn’t it? So tomorrow, if their system admin turns out to be a BOFH, I stand to lose all my content?

Silly of me to give them ideas, isn’t it? But what irritates me is this fine print in the legalese. Why should one shirk from responsibilities? If it is an error, it IS an error. Accept it like a man, make amends and move on. Is that so difficult to understand?

Sigh, seems like a classic case of the Friday blues to me…

Word about Google’s New Year gift might have reached some of your ears. Digg and Slashdot both ran a story about Google exposing your contacts to the WWW, simply by visiting a malformed page.

Well, here’s a quick roundup of the events in the last 48 hours. Not so much as a time-line, but more of an aggregation:

1. Jan 1st 2007, Haochi of Googlified posts a blog entry and follows up with a description of a demo exploit, describing how an attacker could use malicious XSS code to extract your contact addresses. He diggs his own story and gets a mute response (typical, Digg, did I hear you say?)…

2. Alex Bailey of Techread duly noted it on his blog which can be read here, which was then dugg and made it screaming to the front page as:
GMail Hacked: Visit ANY Website, and Your Whole Contact List Can be Stolen

3. About the same time as Digg, Slashdot picked up the story, and then, the whole world knew.

So, what exactly happened?

Apparently, when you log in to any Google-affiliate site, your GMail addressbook finds its way into your browser through some nifty JavaScript function calling. And someone, somewhere, forgot the mandatory checks and balances. What it means is, you can see all your Gmail contacts lined up here.

Don’t worry, only you will be able to see them and nobody’s using the link for any malicious purposes. Until today morning, the contacts could also be viewed in your browser. Google engineers acted immediately (well, 24 hours after the bug was posted by Haochi) and fixed a part of the bug. You can no longer see your contact’s list in a browser. However, you can still get them in the XML format.

The other part can still be exploited and is worse as it directly provides the XML version of your addressbook. Hope, the GTeam fixes this one up in time, before the email harvesters have a field day.

The standard warnings go with this one:

• Do not click on links from untrusted sources.
  Hey, when did you ever know a person who was named “DWickjasl Pfennry”?

• Do not click on suspicious links even if they come from trusted sources
  Your bank would never send you a referral scheme via e-mail. Period. And no, you are not gonna win that iPod (unless its freepay, and they do not operate in India. So, there.)

• Report all spam. It helps.
  Use that small button named “Spam” (or “Report Spam” in case of GMail). It really works, you know.

• All Links are NOT meant for clicking
  Use the status bar. Keep your nouse over the link and look to the bottom left, you should be able to see the address of where the link points. If it looks suspicious, DON’T click. Period.

• Above all, use your common sense.
  If you don’t remember participating in the Fifth Third bank International lottery, YOU DIDN’T PARTICIPATE.

So, there you go… Capisce?

Recently I came across the Great Bong’s review of the latest Bond movie (Casino Royale). A good review, I must say. And the movie IS brilliant, in some aspects, especially in capturing the true Casino Royale spirit.

Read it here: The Bond Walks Again.

But I am surprised, of the 45 comments (at the last count…) and through the entire post, there is not one true Bond fan.
Everyone keeps commenting on how Daniel Craig is un-suave and un-stylish, or at the very least less worthy than Pierce Brosnan and Sean Connery (Ye Gods!). I thought movies were meant for watching and *listening* as well.

For those who haven’t gotten the drift yet, check this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Fleming#James_Bond_books

And a complete Ian Fleming Bibliography can be found here:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/series/james-bond/

A ‘Casino’ Quickie
Casino Royale is Ian Fleming’s FIRST Bond book. The book is about a spy who has been recently promoted to a double agent status and given the license to kill. In casino royale, James Bond is a brash, short-tempered, somewhat uncouth (if I may say so) young man who believes in here and now. More often than not, he lets his heart rule over his head.

Casino Royale is not about the shaken-not-stirred martini Bond we know. Rather, it is about the man who became James Bond 007. It is about the process of finding and losing love that eventually hardens him into the ‘Bond, James Bond’ as we know today. Ever wonder why Craig never says the trademark Bond line (”The name’s Bond, James Bond”) except at the end? Now you know…

Everything about Daniel Craig in the movie, from his clothing to his Body language is raw, and exudes a different charm. The Bond babes are there and yet, not quite there, if you get my drift

But this post is not intended to be a review of the movie. It is meant to quash some of the misgivings about the ‘Bond series’.

The Bond Series

1. The Bond series is not a ‘Series’.
   Or rather, it is not in a chronological order. Check out Fleming’s bibliography and you’ll realize what I am talking about.
2. Daniel Craig looks gay/wussy/________ (Your adjective here)
   He’s meant to look raw. It’s his first ‘assignment’. Or sort of. He’s supposed to behave like an air-head. A promotion often does that to you.
3. Daniel Craig is not as stylish as ________ (Your choice of Bond here)
   See point 2.
4. Casino Royale is not as stylish/gadgety/______ (Your adjective here) as _______ (Insert name of a Bond movie)
   See point 2.

Oh by the way, did you know Casino Royale was written in 1953? You didn’t, did you? I figured…

Trivia:
In one of the scenes during the Poker tournament, Bond orders the bartender to make a drink for him. He proceeds to narrates the recipe from memory for about twenty seconds and ends with, …”shaken, not stirred.”

Yep, that is the famous ’shaken-not-stirred’ Bond martini. The more observant of you may even have noted down the recipe during the movie.

Pass it on, if you did.

A round of gin and tonic for everyone, then!

1. quirk (kwûrk) pronunciation (n.)

1. A peculiarity of behavior; an idiosyncrasy: “Every man had his own quirks and twists” (Harriet Beecher Stowe).
2. An unpredictable or unaccountable act or event; a vagary: a quirk of fate.
3. A sudden sharp turn or twist.
4. An equivocation; a quibble.
5. Architecture. A lengthwise groove on a molding between the convex upper part and the soffit.

2. 42: DNA, H2G2 fans, rejoice!!

There’s still a lot of work to be done. This is just a stop-gap setup. Over the coming days (or weeks, or months) I intend to set up my own particular design, once I learn the basics of this thing…

Almost all the posts have been imported from Blogger along with your comments.

Here’s a hint:

Navigating these pages is easy. Simply, use the categories on the right! Or if you are looking for something specific, try the search box on the top.

For those who came from my Conversations blog on Blogspot/Blogger, you can find all the stories, in the stories category. Here’s a handy link:
http://42quirks.com/index.php/category/stories/

Thanks to everyone, who prodded me enough to set this up…