Page Rating on Wikipedia

Social media craze has finally caught up with Wikipedia, the ubiquitous Like button is now showing up in many articles albeit in a different avatar as Page Ratings.This interesting new way of crowd ranking of articles aligns perfectly with Wikipedia's philosophy of creating an crowd sourced encyclopedia.

Page Rating
This nifty little widget at the bottom of the article lets you rate the page by giving 1 to 5 stars on the following properties:

• Trustworthy : Do you feel that this page has sufficient citations and that the citations come from a trustworthy source?
• Objective : Do you feel that this page shows a fair representation of all the perspectives on the subject?
• Complete : Do you feel that the page covers the essential topic areas that it should?
• Well-Written : Do you feel that this page is well-organized and well-written?

You Can also see the current rankings of the page by clicking on the "View page ratings" link which brings up the page ratings like shown below:

Whats the use?
As we have all come to know that too many of the articles on Wikipedia can not be trusted and are poorly written which was kind of defeating the whole purpose of its existence. But hopefully this page ranking system would help the good articles[which is most of the wiki pages] to float above the poor ones.

Its is crowd sourced so the next time you are on wikipedia looking at some article do not forget to check its rating and provide your own rating too.

Trivia : The Google Way

What's that?

Google announced today on its blog that its launching a daily trivia game called "A Google a day". According to Google "A Google a Day is a new daily puzzle that can be solved using your creativity and clever search skills on Google." Unlike traditional trivia games where you cant cheat by looking up the answer on Google , here the questions are so tricky/complex that you are encouraged to use Google to find the answer.

Can't I just Google someone Else's Answer?

Nope, you can't. For this Google has created what it calls "Deja Google", "A wormhole inspired time machine that searches the Internet as it existed before the game began.". Also to make sure no one else can spoil the fun of you use your super sleuth googleing skills by posting the answer in a tweet / or blog post google suggests you use agoogleaday.com instead of google.com which excludes real-time updates and other things that are likely to include spoilers as people post the answers to the puzzle online.

Your answers can be posted on agoogleaday.com. The correct answers are displayed the next day under the Question on agoogleaday.com. Also it lets you share the question on all the social media sites , you can even follow agoogleaday on facebook or twitter to get notified when a new questions is posted.

Why Should I bother?

This is an attempt by google to encourage people to use google in innovative and meaningful ways and to demonstrate the power of search. It will not be an understatement to say that google search's computational powers have hardly been put to use, through this google expects user to realize its full power.

So go ahead jump in have fun.

Read Chandamama [Janha Mamu] Online

I am sure like me, most Indians  have read Chandamama [Janha Mamu] at some point of time in our childhood. I used to eagerly wait  to get the monthly story magazine in our post, I remember I used to scan it right to the last page as soon as we got it in the mail. Specially I liked the "Bikram Betal" stories; a regular feature of Chandamama. While going through the pointless forwarded e-mails yesterday I saw an e-mail from my friend Pintu with a link to the Chandamama archive. Once there I was back in my childhood days. They have digitized all the issues in all the languages [including odia] from 1955 to 2000 issues. Its a wonderful way to preserve such a rich story telling heritage and making it available to the web savvy next generation.

The site itself is quite cool, you can find issues based on language, year and month of publication, though the quality of the pages of the older issues isn't that great but still every thing is in pretty readable resolution.They even have all the vintage ads published in the magazine , completely search-able the same way as the issues.It also has cool online games for children. Check it out it might refresh some of your childhood memories.

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Watch Rath Jatra Live online- The Festival of Chariots of Lord Jagannatha

Rath Jatra - The Festival of Chariots
of Lord Jagannatha Celebrating on
24th June 2009 at Puri, Orissa From 8:30 AM IST Onwords.




May lord Jagannath Bless you.

Live Web Cast is brought to you courtesy National Informatics center.

3 Oscar Nominations for Rehman and 10 for Slumdog

After becoming the first Indian to win the Golden Globe, Melody maestro A R Rahman added yet another feat to his long list of startling achievements over the years, a triple Oscar nomination in two categories, an unprecedented exploit for any Indian.
Rehman nicknamed 'Mozart of Madras', has enthralled audience in the country and abroad with his heartwarming symphonies for years; finally got his due recognition on the international stage with his composition in the British movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' by Danny Boyle. Slumdog Millionaire is leading the pack with 10 nominations, including a directing spot for Danny Boyle and two of the three song slots.

Rehman, bagged nominations in the Best Original Score and Best Original Song categories for two of his compositions -- 'Jai Ho' and 'O Saya'.
I hope Rehman wins the OSCAR for all his three nominations. I have my fingers crossed till Feb 22nd 09.

UPDATE :

I guess my crossing paid really big. Rehman won 2 Oscars. Hurrray!!

Golden Globe to Rehman

Bollywood music director A.R. Rahman Monday became the first Indian to win the Golden Globe Award, for best original musical score in Danny Boyle's movie 'Slumdog Millionaire'. The honour bestowed on the maestro has brought much cheer to the Indian film industry.

Rahman won the prestigious award for his musical score in the song 'Jai Ho', for which Gulzar penned the lyrics. The song is a typical Rahman number and the composer stuck to his signature style while composing it. The song was rendered by Sukhwinder Singh a Rehman regular.

Three cheers for Rehman! Hip Hip Hurray :)

Wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2009

I really hope the bad times[bankruptcy,market slump,layoffs] are over with the end of 2008 and lets hope 2009 will bring with its onset a lot of hope. Hope for the economy to get back on track, hope for people who lost their jobs and houses to earn enough to get them back.Hope for the world to find peace and an end to the hatred[Terror attacks in Mumbai] we saw last year.


I wish all my readers a happy and successful year ahead.
Happy New year.

Cheers!!
Debasys

Sony, ibibo launch application for RMTC movie

Sony BMG has partnered with ibibo.com to launch an application for the movie 'Raaz - The Mystery Continues' (RTMC).

The movie will hit theatres worldwide on Jan 23. The RTMC application on ibibo offers for the first time in India an opportunity for the audiences to Karaoke to the tracks of the movie and that too sing straight from their mobiles.

The application also treats users to the latest music of Raaz- The Mystery Continues and the haunting rifs of smash hit Maahi- the lead track, along with four other super hits! Users can register and sample exclusive RTMC videos, trailers, befriend the cast and crew, send exclusive RTMC eCards and eGifts to their ibibo friends.

Besides singing to RTMC tracks and joining the RTMC fan club, aspiring film makers and directors are invited to upload two to three minute videos, shot on a handy cam, mobile camera or a digicams, based on a supernatural or freaky theme and get a chance to spend a day with Mohit Suri, Director of RTMC and get to learn the art of film making.