Again, most of the times I have got the same news from many sources and they are usually identical or mostly identical because the root source is usually one of them.

I have always wondered, why Google Reader does not group them together just like it groups emails together in Gmail or more appropriately in Google News. The server software in both of these products groups related news articles from various sources together automatically even if they are separated by a huge time difference. For example, today’s announcement that Apple has released 2.2.1 version of iPhone firmware has been carried by most of the tech sources. I have subscribed to 6 of them and all the news articles are exactly the same. Yet, there are 6 articles and not one Therefore, my conclusion is that Google has all the technologies in place – search, categorize, display. Yet, I haven’t seen the solution in Google reader since its inception and at least for the last one year since I started thinking of this useful feature.

I wonder when my wish will come true ?

Do you know of any RSS readers that does this already ? or know of a tweak in Google Reader that makes it possible ? or simply wish for this feature? then drop a comment, thanks

Updated on Jan 30 2009: Added a sample image below to show my wish pictorially. As you can see, the same news has been pulled from two different RSS sources at different times. In this case, they are next to each other. In many cases, they are not. If Google can club together like a conversation in Gmail or as related news articles in Google News, then it would save a lot of time and scrolling

* – Google reader is a RSS feed reader which picks up updates from websites on your behalf automatically. You need a Google account and access it here Google Reader

]]> http://shruta.net/2009/01/my-jan-wish-for-google-reader/feed/ 0 http://shruta.net/2007/03/what-is-the-natural-time-zone-of-singapore/ http://shruta.net/2007/03/what-is-the-natural-time-zone-of-singapore/#comments Sat, 31 Mar 2007 13:05:52 +0000 Kris Flyer http://shruta.net/2007/03/31/what-is-the-natural-time-zone-of-singapore/ I have been living in Singapore for nearly 8 years now. I started going around the asean region as tourist a few years ago and started noticing that there were multiple time zones in the region. I am inquisitive by nature, and therefore began asking why so many time zones ?

Actually, I got this question every since I came to Singapore. In Hinduism, the religion I follow, everyday we have inauspicious times called in the Tamil language as “Ragukalam” and “Emakandam”. In India, the country I was born in, the earliest inauspicious time start at 6:00 AM and extend for 90 minutes. However, I noticed in Singapore this always start at 7:00 AM. In fact, the sun also rises at 7 AM. I asked a local Hindu temple, only to be told that it depends on the longitude and latitude of countries around the globe and some complex calculations. I wasn’t really satisfied with the reply, but the priest is not a scientist either to know the facts

My first tourist trip was to Malaysia’s Langkawi island and they followed the same time zone as Singapore, GMT+8. Then, I went to Thailand and found that they were 1 hour behind us, GMT+7. Not surprising, Thailand is geographically west of Singapore. Then, recently I went to Bintan island, Indonesia. They were also 1 hour behind us at GMT+7. I wondered why when they are geographically just as Singapore or a little east of Singapore. Very recently, I traveled to Siem Reap, Cambodia and to my surprise they were also at GMT+7, a hour behind Singapore.

This last trip, made me conclude that it was Singapore which was not in its natural time zone. I started searching for an answer why? is it supposed to be a Daylight Saving Time (DST) and if so why it is not published as DST. Operating systems in its time zone settings don’t show Singapore time as using DST. So why ?

I asked Google, the oracle of the internet, and it promptly gave me an academic answer that to from National University of Singapore (NUS).

Quote from that page “The short answer is that West Malaysia follows the time zone for East Malaysia, and that Singapore follows West Malaysia.” If you are not from the region, you should know that west Malaysia is west of Singapore and East Malaysia is to the east of Singapore. This will help you to visualize the picture in your mind.

The long answer by the author Helmer ASLAKSEN is here Why Singapore is in the “Wrong” time zone ?

The conclusion is the natural time zone of Singapore is GMT+7 hours. Now, this answers why the hindu religions’ in-auspicious time zone start at 7 AM in Singapore instead of 6 AM; they have adjusted for this time difference. Now, that is Science.