Month: November 2005

Aggressive drivers in Florida

Post author By gargs
Post date November 29, 2005
No Comments on Aggressive drivers in Florida

I just got back from a week long Thanksgiving vacation in Florida with my sister and brother-in-law. I have to say, Disney World is a very unique place on Earth, and I truly enjoyed my 5 days there. We had a good hotel, a good rental car (Mercury Grand Marquis), and an awesome weather to complement the long needed vacation.

I drove for more than a thousand miles on this trip, passing through North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia to reach Florida, and I have to say that I prefer driving in NC the most out of all of them. True, NC doesn’t have good well-maintained roads, but I feel that more drivers in NC drive by the book than in the states I passed by.

There was absolutely no adherance to posted speed limits wherever I went to in the Orlando and Kissimmee area. A lot of the times I got weird stares because I was going “slow” at about 50 mph in a 40 mph limit. To a great extent, traffic was similar to that of Mumbai around the theme parks with people changing lanes like crazy or tailgating closely.

I think I saw all of 2 cop cars in a week. On the other hand, there were Crown Vics with flashing lights all over the place as soon as we entered Georgia. No one was speeding. Same in SC and NC.

So, there, Florida has one more attraction for you. The opportunity to drive your V10 race car super-aggressively as you head down to Disney World to meet your favorite princesses and animals!

I plan to make a small web page/site about my trip pretty soon!

Life and Personal

Changes in the Blog

Today, I implemented three major changes in the blog. Firstly, I upgraded the core to WP 1.5.2. Secondly, I have started using the Google AdSense program just to see how much money I could potentially make with it, and last but not the least, I have added Bayesian comment filtering to help me cope with comment spam. Recently, I had been getting about 60 spam comments on a daily basis. I hope the new plugin helps alleviate these issues.

UPDATE: I messed up and now all the images on my blog are gone forever! 🙁

Tech and Culture

UK rolls out 24/7 “Vehicle Movement Database”

Post author By gargs
Post date November 15, 2005
No Comments on UK rolls out 24/7 “Vehicle Movement Database”

Remember my post about using GPS to catch criminals? Well, I talked about the possibility of using advanced technology to monitor vehicles in that post. Turns out that the UK is actually rolling out such a system. It is based on a technology known as Automatic Number Plate Recognition.

The system will maintain a central database containing information about all cars, and would be linked to various other TV channels, radio services, and surveillance systems. “The primary aims claimed for the system are tackling untaxed and uninsured vehicles, stolen cars and the considerably broader one of denying criminals the use of the roads.”

This is a revolutionary system that could redefine the concept of surveillance. Good job, Britain.

Tech and Culture

World’s Ugliest Car !

Ugly Car Check out http://www.rexfeatures.com/features/516925/ to see what the world’s ugliest car looks like!

Tech and Culture

Excessive Blog ads keeping you down?

Post author By gargs
Post date November 12, 2005
No Comments on Excessive Blog ads keeping you down?

I have recently started to observe that more and more blogs are increasingly smothered with ads and commercial links these days. So much so that they repel me from reading the content on those particular blogs. I think this is a very sad trend for the blogging community, and I am quite sure that most of the bloggers participating in these gawdy link exchange programs get a very marginal boost in their earnings/readership. If you are one of those bloggers, I hereby request you to please do something about it.

I don’t care if you have the best opinion blog on the Internet if it is so flashy and ugly looking that my eyes start to bleed. The best way to increase readership is to post good original content rather than depend on banner and ad exchanges. And, don’t even get me started on those multiple pane Google Adsense ads that some bloggers so enthusiastically flaunt. If you are going to do something like that to your blog, at the very least please customize the ads so that they don’t stick out from the rest of your website.

You are killing everyone’s Internet experience by making your website annoying to look at. Do not sell your opinion for cheap, and thanks for reading my rant!