Wednesday, December 10, 2008

What the Search Engines Have Found Out About All of Us

Google has released its map of the national brain and appetites for 2008, and it turns out that many, many people across America have been asking the Internet “what is love?” and “how to kiss.”

And to tighten the focus, Google has also provided a list of search queries made by people sitting at computers in New York City.

It turns out that New Yorkers are looking for something a bit different. On a list of the 10 subjects that posted the greatest increases this year, the country as a whole was looking for Fox News and information about David Cook, the “American Idol” champion.

Neither made the New York list. Then again, the national list did not have 2 of the city’s top 10: Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus architecture school, and the Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile circular underground tunnel in Switzerland that was built to smash protons into each other at the speed of light.

No doubt someone out in cyberspace can explain the surge of interest this year in Gropius, who has been dead since 1969 and has only one structure of any note in the city, the former Pan Am building.

The collider is easier to understand. There were worries that the crash of protons would instantly create a black hole, but in good news that was widely overlooked at the time, no hole appeared — or is it disappeared? — on Sept. 10, the day the machine was turned on. Search-engine interest in the collider promptly dropped off, as people pointed their anxieties and inquiries toward “Wall Street.” (The collider is currently on the fritz, as is Wall Street.)

On the surface, these kinds of lists are supposed to reveal what Google calls the zeitgeist of 2008, though it’s not much of a surprise that people were interested in Sarah Palin and Barack Obama. But they also provide hints of the level of personal details that people are now turning over to search engines and related businesses without much awareness.

The lists, said Lt. Col. Greg Conti, a professor of computer science at West Point, “are just major tsunami-type activities, big waves in the online searches.”

Professor Conti, the author of “Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know About You?” (Addison-Wesley, 2008), contends that Google’s internal tools make it possible to develop detailed pictures of individual interests, not just of masses of teenagers looking for the very latest about Miley Cyrus.

“A complete picture of us as individuals and as companies emerges — political leanings, medical conditions, business acquisitions signaled by job searches,” he said. “It would be very scary if we could play back every search we made. Those can be tied back very precisely to an individual. You can go all the way from individual molecules of water up to the tsunami.”

INFORMATION on the Web looks free, but it is actually swapped for little bits of data that are useful to businesses. Google records Internet protocol addresses that are generated by each computer, cookies permitted by the users, the kind of browser being used, and the operating system of the computer, said Heather Spain, a spokeswoman for Google.

After nine months, Ms. Spain said, Google “anonymises” the data it has collected.

“At that point we permanently delete the last two digits from both the I.P. address and parts of the cookie numbers,” she said. “This breaks the link between the search query and the computer it was entered from. It’s similar to the way in which credit card companies replace digits with hash marks on receipts to improve their customers’ security.”

Professor Conti said that few people have the slightest idea how much of a trail they leave across the Internet. “People tend to think they’re only leaving footprints on sites that they trust,” he said, but many Web sites contain invisible code, like Google Analytics, that can track users over swaths of the Web.

The lists of popular searches, Ms. Spain said, are the products of inquiries by millions of people and do not threaten anyone’s privacy. The tools Google provides to the public for analyzing searches generally make it possible to look at the inquiries made in a particular state, not by individual cities.

For now, surrendering personal information is the cost for asking questions and getting answers quickly. All of the privacy measures are cumbersome.

“I speak about this at hacker conferences,” Professor Conti said, “and if they say something’s hard to use, believe me, it’s hard. There’s really no solution now — except abstinence. And if you choose not to use online tools, you’re not a member of the 21st century.”

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Where are you when I need you most?

Where are you when I need you most?
You disappeared into the darkness
You left nothing behind but your memory
And for me to wait for you

Your heartfelt spirit is absent now
The smiles have wiped off the faces
Of the people you deserted here
You caused internal forever pain

I, the one you loved am crippled
Because of your sudden vacation
Your vacation that would last a lifetime
To a secret resort I will never know of

What made you decide to change your mind?
You made me feel I wasn't good enough for you
Maybe that is true, maybe it is not
But now, how will I ever know?

I have been trying to thrust your memory aside
So I could get on with my life
I have tried to love someone other than you
Yet, somehow you remain the main focus






Sunday, November 30, 2008

FRIENDSHIP IS A PRICELESS GIFT



True Friends





FRIENDSHIP IS A PRICELESS GIFT

THAT CANNOT BE BOUGHT OR SOLD



BUT ITS VALUE IS FAR GREATER

THAN THE MOUNTAIN MADE OF GOLD



FOR GOLD IS COLD & LIFELESS

IT CAN NEITHER SEE NOR HEAR



& IN THE TIME OF TROUBLE

IT IS POWER LESS 2 CHEER--



IT HAS NO EARS 2 LISTEN

NOR HEART 2 UNDERSTAND



IT CANNOT BRING U CONFORT

OR REACH OUT A HELPING HAND



SO WHEN U ASK

GOD FOR A GIFT



BE THANKFUL IF HE SENDS

NOT DIAMONDS, PEARLS OR RICHES



BUT THE LOVE OF REAL TRUE FRIENDS

Reality in Darkness


Reality in Darkness

I was born about noon in the shade of magnolias

Wearing the rose-colored glasses of trust

Everything to lose, but still I flew higher

When I took that one fatal glance at the earth



You were born on a night without trees or spectacles

Aspiring to mediocrity and lacking in love

So I knelt on the ground with my knees in the dirt

And now I'm the same height as you



I know in my heart that you're all that I have

(I've lost my faith in sweet-smelling trees)

My rose-colored glasses have turned a dark gray

And my noon in the shade disappeared



It's hard to believe that it's worth it to lose

But I happen to know from experience

The wings of naiveté hold so few pounds

And land is more stable than sky

nahi manga koii bhi tere siwa !!

nahin manga koi bhi tere siwa !!

mere dost

mere hum-nasheen


meine rab say manga to kuch nahin


meine jab bhi mangi koi dua


nahi manga kuch bhi tere siwa


ye talab kiya k mera khuda


sabhi rahatein


sabhi chahtein


vo ata karay tujhe manzilein


ye talab kiya k mera khuda


tujhe bakht day


tujhe taaaj day


tujhe takht day


nahi aur kuch bhi tere siwa


meri dosti


meri zindagi


meri khamoshi


meri bebasi


mera ilm bhi


mera naam bhi


k meri subah


k meri shaam bhi


k jo mil sakein mere daam bhi


vo sabhi kuch tujhe ata karay


mere charagar tu yaqeen to ker


mujhe mangna to naa aa saka


meine phir bhi mangi yehi dua


k gawahi day ga mera khuda


meine jab bhi uss say talab kiya


nahin manga koi bhi tere siwa !!



Chalo ek baar phir say ajnabi ho ja'ain hum dono











Chalo ek baar phir say ajnabi ho ja'ain hum dono


Chalo ek baar phir say ajnabi ho ja'ain hum dono

na main tum say koi umeed rakhoon dil nawazi kee


na tum meri taraf daikho ghalat andaaz nazron say


na meray dil kee dharkan larkharaey meri baaton say


na zaahir ho tumhari kash-ma-kash ka raaz nazron say


tumhain jo koi uljhan roktii hai paish qadmi say


mujhey bhi log kehtay hain kay yeh jalway paraey hain


meray humrah bhi ruswa'eeyan hain meray maazi kee


tumharay saath bhi guzree hu'ee raaton kay sa'ay hain


ta'aruff rog ho ja'ay tau usska bhoolna behtar


ta'alluq bojh bun ja'ay tau usska torna acha


woh afsaana jissay anjaam tak lana na ho mumkin


ussay ek khoobsoorat mor day kar chorna acha




chalo ek baar phir say ajnabi ho ja'ain hum dono...