Doha Asian Games Silver Medalist Fails 'Gender' Test

This news item was hilarious. And I'm not referring to the fact that 'she' failed it.

'She' had passed the same test when they were conducted on 'her' in South Korea last year :D:

"Reports say the athlete cleared the gender test at the Asian track and field championship in South Korea last year where she won the silver medal in the 800m."

Yellow Submarine

For a long time, I didn't like The Beatles. They weren't real rockers, I'd say. The first 'Boy Band', was the epithet that I handed out to them. All that changed when I first heard "Norwegian Wood". Then other stuff started making sense, and I picked up other old bands like CCR. Rolling Stones still sucks, by the way. Wannabes...

And I used to publicly decry The Beatles, and (may I say it in the same breath?) even Bob Dylan. And at some time, quite recently, new age bands like Linkinpark.

The point of all this being?

No one's ready to debate with with me about exactly what it is that they like about the stuff that is trance (Rap, R&B etc. people still allude to singing).

I'm not saying that I'd listen to it with a dispassionate mind. I'm heavily opinionated. But, I'm also old. Older at any rate.

I happen to have a set of criteria for music. Essentially the same old classical stuff. Meter, notes, chords, lyrics, mood, and of course, lastly the tune. Debating the tune of a song is as insulting as talking about the syntax of a language, grammatical correctness of written communication, the smoothness of a spirit, the truthfulness in a relationship, the taste (not flavour) of food... it is a forgone conclusion.

Beats per minute? I know of human percussionists who can do more BPMs than the ear can tell apart.

I remember a short story by a popular author, a sci-fi thingi, that talked about a Utopian society. It was a society where all aggression was weeded out. Some poor fellow finds some Dylan songs (in print), and causes a revolution. And it's believable. I believe Trance can't do that.

It can't make people think.

That's the difference between good rock songs and great rock songs. Great rock songs make you think.

And this is the dissertation that I can't seem to make when I'm with my friends who listen to trance. I can't get them to make comparisons between the two, along the kind of arguments that I've posed just now.

Now, I shall go ahead and undo the entire dissertation by saying that there is such a thing as free will.

There is such a thing as free will. And people are free to chose, at least in this country, last time I heard, what kind of music they want to listen to.

It still makes a nice drunken conversation, if you are willing to entertain me. Like all other drunken discussions, it is guaranteed last and have no result in sight.

And in case you're wondering about the title of this post, what I've dared to talk about makes it amply clear...

Maybe my opinions should've been darker?

P.S. The lyrics are here.

What to do when the NSA taps your phone

Falstaff wrote this really funny article on his blog recently. It's called "The End of the Line". Check it out.

P.S. And while you are at it, you might want to read this other funny List :). It's called "Or Else". Enjoy.

New Theme

Finally time for spring cleaning. Yeah yeah, I know it's still winter on most of the land surface on earth.

Like it? You might also want to check out the new daily cartoons listed in the "Noteworthy Links" section. Both are really good :).

Why Blog?

So a friend of mine named Sumit recently posted an entry on his blog by the same title.

So rather than express, in detail, his question all over again, I thought I might make an entry of my own on the topic.

Why do I blog? My very own two seconds of fame? To be immortalised for posterity in the somewhat lame hope that someday, in some future civilization, it might actually be considered good reading material? Or maybe to give an opening to myself to rant about stuff that would just make other people uncomfortable if I tried to tell them about it. There's also the possibility that it gives me an ego boost, "Look Ma, I'm publishing."

I think the main reason that I blog is because I'm bored. It is exciting to find that someones made a comment on my blog, I'll be the first to agree with that. However, I don't necessarily regard myself as a serious blogger, mainly because, if I was, I wouldn't be frequently be stuck with "Bloggers' block".

That said, I am attracted to the devious pleasure of writng somethingthat anyone anywhere can read. Do you think that you'd blog if a blog was private? Might as well keep a journal or a diary, right? A blog is a bit like an Orkut scrapbook. The main pleasure is in keeping it public, saying that I have a voice and that I want to be heard by everyone who cares. There are people I know who don't keep their orkut scraps, and delete them, because it violates their sense of privacy. Stick to email people!

The third reason I'd give is pride :). It really gives me a kick tosee the statcounter counter rolling.

So there you have it Sumit. What's your excuse?

P.S. Yeah, the party was fun. We should do it again soon. Ginger Court tomorrow? It is Thursday night :), and the fish fingers are back.

Do you hate UNIX?

I do. Verrrryy much. Though I do have to say that I hate it less than I hate vi. But they didn't write a book about that. However, to my great fascination, here's The UNIX-HATERS Handbook.

I'm loving it :D.

You got mail?

Check out this amazing ad:

http://chitthi.webchutney.net/

MS-Paint Art

When I was working in Veritas, I used to prefer using MSPaint for making screen mockups rather than using Visio. I used to be pretty good, and fast. But these videos show how limited I was. They have both been done in MSPaint. Check them out:

She's Electric

I know you. My energy entirely wasted. My escence.

I enabled you. Heat? A byproduct. I don't like my cousin much.

You guessed didn't you? You slimy...

But I know. Your kind preached.

"Don't get mad, Get even."

Me slave, You Masta...

MASTA

I love you. I serve you.

Bridge, bridge the gap, will you... Will I?

Sorry, I forgot you didn't like NEUTRAL much. Such a pity...

I'm not meant to hold him. They drive him. 11000V of him. He's 50
times more powerful.

My love will try. But she's dead. Melted away.

You don't know. You didn't know. 50 times. I knew. Molten
lead+gravity... She reached over in death.

RIP.

Hate Fantasy Movies?

Well you'll really like this one :D. Here's a trailer of the new spoof that's going to come out in Jan '07. Damn funny:

Epic Movie

Check out these amazing videos of pool trick shots

They are really amazing :). Enjoy:

You thought that the Zidane episode was over?

Well, there's more. All of us have seen that email where different nationalities think different things happened out there on the field, right? So this particular website gives us a graphic potrayal of what happened between Zidane and Materazzi.

Enjoy :).

Toilets and Babies

So someone had a great idea about toilet training babies. It goes like "Start them early"... or "If you do it anywhere else you'll have to stay in the loo for half an hour"...

Well this story really takes the cake. Early? Early????

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006551047,00.html

And then there was light

I was just feeling drowsy. Almost there. Sleep would be round the corner.

I'd been reading a particularly interesting book by Carl Sagan called"Broca's Brain".

Feeling sleepy.

Tiring day.

And just then the tiny critters stopped flowing.

For some vague unfathomable reason Mr. Sandman's tiny specs of dust also disappeared.

What do I do now? I'll blog. Haven't done that in a long time.

And just as I was reaching this particular sentence of my story, rightabout the place where I said "time", something miraculous happened.

:) Can't fault the dude's timing, can you?

Painful week

Until this week, I hadn't been piaying every one of the days that I
was staying in Hyderabad. I was playing only on one or two well
separated days.

This week, I've gone and done something that, in retrospect, seems
quite stupid. I've played on all three available days. The result is
that my legs are quite dead :(.

I think I'll take a break tomorrow. Then again, it's just one more
day. And there's the weekend to rest on.

Right now, all I want to do is hit the sack. I didn't know that
losing weight was going to be so painful.

G'night folks.

Funny Student Science Test Mistakes

Nikhil forwarded some of these at our college 'katta' newsgroup. I found more of them. These are actual answers from test papers and essays submitted to science and health teachers by junior high, high school, and college students around the world. Here's the list. Enjoy :).

"When you breath, you inspire. When you do not breath, you expire."

"H2O is hot water, and CO2 is cold water"

"To collect fumes of sulphur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube"

"When you smell an oderless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide"

"Nitrogen is not found in Ireland because it is not found in a free state"

"Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water."

"Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillars."

"Blood flows down one leg and up the other."

"Respiration is composed of two acts, first inspiration, and then expectoration."

"The moon is a planet just like the earth, only it is even deader."

"Artifical insemination is when the farmer does it to the cow instead of the bull."

"Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them and makes them perspire."

"A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold."

"Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas."

"The body consists of three parts- the brainium, the borax and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowels, of which there are five - a, e, i, o, and u."

"The pistol of a flower is its only protections against insects."

"The alimentary canal is located in the northern part of Indiana."

"The skeleton is what is left after the insides have been taken out and the outsides have ben taken off. The purpose of the skeleton is something to hitch meat to."

"A permanent set of teeth consists of eight canines, eight cuspids, two molars, and eight cuspidors."

"The tides are a fight between the Earth and moon. All water tends towards the moon, because there is no water in the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins in this fight."

"A fossil is an extinct animal. The older it is, the more extinct it is."

"Many women belive that an alcoholic binge will have no ill effects on the unborn fetus, but that is a large misconception."

"Equator: A managerie lion running around the Earth through Africa."

"Germinate: To become a naturalized German."

"Liter: A nest of young puppies."

"Magnet: Something you find crawling all over a dead cat."

"Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away."

"Planet: A body of Earth surrounded by sky."

"Rhubarb: A kind of celery gone bloodshot."

"Vacumm: A large, empty space where the pope lives."

"Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if the blood is affirmative or negative."

"To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose."

"For a nosebleed: Put the nose much lower then the body until the heart stops."

"For drowning: Climb on top of the person and move up and down to make artifical perspiration."

"For fainting: Rub the person's chest or, if a lady, rub her arm above the hand instead. Or put the head between the knees of the nearest medical doctor."

"For dog bite: put the dog away for sevral days. If he has not recovered, then kill it."

"For asphyxiation: Apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead."

"To prevent contraception: wear a condominium."

"For head cold: use an agonizer to spray the nose until it drops in your throat."

"To keep milk from turning sour: Keep it in the cow."

Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. There are 180 degrees between freezing and boiling because there are 180 degrees between north and south.

A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go.

There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters are yet to be discovered. Finding them all means living forever.

There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center of the Earth because of so much population stomping around up here these days.

Lime is a green-tasting rock.

Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils while others preferred
to be oil.

Genetics explain why you look like your father and if you don't why you should.

Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they're there.

Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother.

Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers.

We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget to put the top on.

To most people solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists solutions are things that are still all mixed up.

In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are twice as many H's as O's.

Clouds are high flying fogs.

I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing.

Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around. There is not much else to do.

Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dogs tongue will kill the strongest man.

A blizzard is when it snows sideways.

A monsoon is a French gentleman.

Thunder is a rich source of loudness.

Isotherms and isobars are even more important than their names sound.

It is so hot in some places that the people there have to live in other places.

Wind is like the air, only pushier.

Life is good

I've started a new way of life. I play everyday, I sleep off by
midnight, wake up early, go to office early, eat breakfast, and kinda
finish most of my crucial work by noon.

Let's hope I can keep this up. I'll then be back in shape in o time :).

Blog from anywhere

So do you own a GPRS enabled phone handset with a browser? Well, then
you can blog from anywhere.

All you need to do is to enable email posting to your blog.

On blogger, you can do this by going to your settings page once you've
logged in and then on to the e-maii tab. There,once you've enabled
email posting, you're asked to select a secret word to be appended to
your blogger login ID to form your To: email ID. So your email ID
wili be <login>.<secret word>@blogger.com.

You can also choose whether you want the mail to be posted immediately
or just sent to your drafts folder for your final inspection before
posting.

Happy remote blogging :).

I'm back... For real...

It's been a long day... but still... WELCOME BACK :)

So I'm back. And I promise to remain so for some time at least. I have had quite a twist in my life now. I've moved to Hyderabad from Pune, and am now employed with Microsoft IDC. A very interesting change I might say.

I'll keep you updated from now on.

:) Let's bring on the former glory.

Funny Bumper Stickers

Received a considerably funny forward about bumper stickers:

Constipated People Don't Give A Crap.
If That Phone Was Up Your Butt, Maybe You Could Drive A Little Better.
To All You Virgins: Thanks For Nothing.
Impotence: Nature's Way Of Saying "No Hard Feelings".
If You Can Read This, I've Lost My Trailer.
Horn Broken... Watch For Finger.
The Earth Is Full - Go Home.
I Have The Body Of A God ... Buddha.
So Many Pedestrians - So Little Time.
Cleverly Disguised As A Responsible Adult.
If We Quit Voting Will They All Go Away?
Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway.
Illiterate? Write For Help.
Honk If Anything Falls Off.
Cover Me, I'm Changing Lanes.
He Who Hesitates Is Not Only Lost But Miles From The Next Exit.
I Refuse To Have A Battle Of Wits With An Unarmed Person.
You! Out Of The Gene Pool Now!
I Do Whatever My Rice Krispies Tell Me To.
Fight Crime: Shoot Back!
If You Can Read This, Please Flip Me Back Over... (Seen Upside Down On A Jeep)
Remember Folks: Stop Lights Timed For 35mph Are Also Timed For 70mph.
Guys: No Shirt, No Service. Gals: No Shirt, No Charge
If Walking Is So Good For You, Then Why Does My Mailman Look Like Jabba The Hut?
Body By Nautilus; Brain By Mattel.
Boldly Going Nowhere.
Caution - Driver Legally Blonde.
Heart Attacks ... God's Revenge For Eating His Animal Friends.
Honk If You've Never Seen An Uzi Fired From A Car Window.
How Many Roads Must A Man Travel Down Before He Admits He is Lost?
Grow Your Own Dope -- Plant A Man
All Men Are Animals, Some Just Make Better Pets.
WANTED: Meaningful Overnight Relationship.
Your Proctologist Called.... He Found Your head.

Quack Quack

You know what I think of cricket as a game, right? Well I take that all back. It seems the game can sometimes be quite interesting and exceedingly fast. Check out this report:

http://in.rediff.com/cricket/2006/jul/26ducks.htm

Otherwise Occupied

I'm back, as the proverbial Terminator would say.

I've missed a lot of stuff worth blogging about, Zidane's head butt being a favorite, and the blog ban being a close second. But since I'm up at 7:00 in the morning still drinking last night's booze, now is a good time to revisit my writing skills as any other.

My topic for today relates in a quiet way to my inability so far to achieve what has been my most vocal "ambition in life". Namely, my bike trip around the country. I remember something in the "Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy" that went like: "something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea...". Well it's something like that. The feeling is still there, but it's diminished... or something like diminished.

I think I'm becoming old.

Some other good things have happened. More on that later, when they are confirmed, and when I tell some other people what they are in for. Seems I'm destined to leave behind commotion and destruction whenever I leave.

I'll have more later, and I intend to keep it going this time :).

Bye folks.

While the others may shine

Soooo....

The reservation flu has blown over and so has the wardrobe malfunction. I haven't written for some time for want of time... believe it or not.

For those of you who are waiting for something that is refreshing, here's an anecdote that's bound to turn your insides. Okay, too much gore here... just raising your eye brow here.

When I was due to pass out of my BCS, I had a choice. I obviously took the one that included playing basketball everyday, and consequently, there came a time when I was enrolled in the lowly Garware College for my MCS instead of FC.

Now there be no doubts here. All other colleges are inferior to Fergusson. Wadia was too studious, Garware was too TVC, and Modern was toooooo TVC. Only Fergusson was perfect. Besides, only Fergusson had an unofficial team named after a beer. That put it on the map of cool, and since I'd played an active part in making it Lal Toofaan, I obviously decided I had to be in Fergusson.

So when I was eventually involved with the losers (read the Garware folks), I decided that it wasn't for me to attend any classes.

It so happened that I'd come to college that day when the holy University (that upholds the castration of cows) decided to increase the number of seats for MCS.

Needless to say that I secured the last seat for Fergusson College MCS (as had been my BCS dream, I know not why). And now I'm here, trying to learn the difference between WSDL and "Who Said Dat Love?". Or any other rigmarole that you can think of.

So my main aim has been to ascertain that the Government's reservation policies are shown in a good light regardless of what the technical expertise of the people gain by them is. Therefore,
let me declare that I'm:
1. More moronic,
2. More stupid,
3. More bulky,
4. Fatter (just in case you didn't get point 3),
5. Idiotic,
6. Lazy,
7. Wise Assed,
8. Leechy,
9. Blood sucking (just in case you didn't get point 8),
and 10. Beery (I just love beer, it had to figure somewhere).

Bottom line is that, while I'm going to take a sarcastic viewpoint about the whole reservation issue, I might as well make a good job of it.

The IIT/IIM folks were either overpaid, or sucked anyways (anyone heard of those new grapes in town?). Why all the hulabalooo?

Cricket rant

So what do I talk about. There's the reservation shit doing rounds. And the India-US nuclear deal (that's old news) and ofcourse there's cricket.

I think I'll take cricket.

So I mentioned to Mom that India had just finished 15 successful ODI run chases, and that it was a record. She comes back by telling me that India lost the test match series.

So why test cricket? I won't pretend to understand the bloody game. Hell, I don't even watch one-days if the match doesn't feature India. What I don't understand is why so much emphasis is placed on a game that:

1. lasts for 5 days.
2. might not have a result.
3. has so much less spectator following.
4. doesn't have an ounce of tension until the last day.
5. where most batsmen spend time defending their wicket rather than resorting to some dare-devilry.
6. doesn't have a world cup (it'll last for ages!)
   
7. lasts for FIVE F**KING DAYS.

India is losing tests and winning its one-days. I find that extremely gratifying. Go India go! What I want to see happening is that India keeps losing all its tests, and winning all its one-days, and eventually gets removed from the list of test-cricket playing nations.

What people don't understand is that the original form of cricket was invented by the British upper class. The people who prided themselves for not having to work for a living. So if you're not working for a living, how do you occupy yourself? You invent a game that lasts for 6 days (thanks Aniket, for pointing this one out). Yes six. The original format of the game had a rest day in the middle.

The spectators used to be just as jobless, and consequently used to spend their time sitting just beyond the ropes, drinking copious amounts of alcohol (that is a part I like though).

I'm not saying that one-days have made the game perfect. Cricket is a game for the lazy. Test cricket infinitely so.

Look at what the British lower class invented:
Soccer.

Friday night no beer (and classnames)

I had talked to Tum around 2 hours ago. We were discussing the futility of life in Delhi, and how much we love Pune. And I was feeling extremely sleepy. And this is a FridayNight/SaturdayMorning that I haven't had any liquor because of a trip to Bombay. So I go to bed and sleep off. AND THE BAI RANG THE BELL. She has explicit instructions not to disturb this household on Saturdays. She did. And in my rote, I went to the door and let her in.

Usually when she wakes me up after around 3 hours of sleep I promptly get back into bed and continue snoring away to glory. Today... I just couldn't sleep. The OldManDownstairs kept shouting and the electricity went for a toss, and I kept getting reminded of the fact that I hadn't blogged for a week (and Saurabh (MyBrotherInLaw) told Tum it was so).

So here I am. Bai is gone and I have all the time in the world. Next post contains the real post :D. Sorry to bore you with my horribly mundane life.

Blogging from my phone

Bad times ahead / Good times ahead

Tum is going off to Delhi for her two month summer internship tomorrow :(. She's going to be visiting every other weekend, but hell, I never want to be in that Oakland place again. Lonely... so lonely :"(.

But, this time is going to be different. In Oakland I was allllllll alone. Except for the couple of times that Manish, Ashwin or Subho took me out. Here I'm the king of the road, and there are plenty of places to go. Rest assured, I won't relapse into that drunken spell this time.

And then there are the cats :).

The other philosophy

The concept of the Matrix is not new. Many a philosopher has argued many a times that what one sees around oneself is not real, just a myth. Yeh sab maya jaal hai (All this is an illusion) is a comment made by lots of college going people, not in the least understanding what it means.

The meaning is brought forward in the Matrix by the following dialogue (kindly excuse the inaccuracies):
How did I beat you?
You were too fast.
Do you think that my being faster or stronger has anything to do with my muscles in this place?
(Silence, Panting)
Do you think that's air you're breathing now?

In that world, everything, EVERYTHING, is a myth, an illusion, "You've been living in a dreamworld Neo."

In this world, while a lot of people need to, want to, think that what they see, what they feel, taste, touch are just electrical signals to their brains, it doesn't help them, because they're never rescued.

There is a couple of other important dialogues that I want to quote before I bring this post to its conclusion:

Are you saying that I can dodge bullets?
What I'm saying, is that when you're ready, you won't have to.

and,

I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to know. I'm going to show them a world without you, a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

The first is a commentary on what everyone lacks when they say that it's all "maya". Everyone seems to think that they can dodge bullets. What they really need to do is to deal with them.

The second is about cool. That statement is just so "in your face" cool that I become completely speechless (also, in other words, I don't know what it means). Somewhere it reminds me of what all the rockers at Woodstock '69 were trying to do.

There's more philosophy to come. Rukavat ke liye khed hai (I regret the interruption).

New mobile phone

I went ballistic yesterday. In a good way. I spent a pot of money on getting myself a new mobile phone.












Yes, that's the new Nokia 6270. What does it have? Well, here's a list:
2 MP camera,
EGPRS
265K color display
9MB+512MB memory
MP3 player
FM Radio
A browser that works
and a host of other things that you'd find in other phones (and some more that you won't but I don't care about).

Anyways I was/am very excited about the phone. It's the phone I always wanted. Infact, today when I was in office, I made only one outgoing call. I usually make as many calls as I have smoking breaks. Today I spent all my breaks playing golf on the phone. And guess what? I ran out the battery.

And while I was looking forward to a quiet night of playing more golf while my phone was charging, when I reached home, I come to darkness. Yes. The MSEB played spoilsport and decreed that there shall be no electricity at my place today. So here I am... blogging away to glory, on the only battery powered thing in my house (other than my shaver, and I still haven't shaven, by the way).

So moral of the story? When you buy a nice phone, buy an inverter (or atleast a second battery) :).

Tasting my own medicine

Today while coming back home in the evening, I was passing near the Command Hospital, when a rickshaw (auto, 3 wheeler designed to carry passengers at their own risk), blocked the right lane, ferverently trying to overtake a luna (small 50 cc 2 wheeler designed to make the owner pray that he reaches his destination (forget on time)).

So obviously I tried to overtake the fellow by crossing the single solid line I wasn't supposed to cross. There was only one car in the oncoming traffic and it had plenty of road space to get through despite me.

Well it is now pretty obvious that the driver didn't feel like it. He kept in his lane and I had to do some nifty driving to keep from having the wrong kind of collision (yeah yeah, all collisions are of the wrong kind, but a head on one!!! Definitely wrong).

Well immediately after I heavily cursed the bloke under my breath (closed windows, AC on, Metallica blaring), I realized that that would have been exactly what I'd have done. Maybe that fellow had even more nerve. I swerve away at the last moment.

All said and done, I can't help but feel a bit proud of myself. "So this is the kind of fear that I instill on the roads." And I shall continue swerving. Not everyone is capable of nifty driving :).

The love song for my ex

I'd just written a 1500 word essay about why I quit my last company, but realized that it was in bad taste. It smacked of the venom I had inside me, and was inappropriate.

So instead, I'm going to be happy about things.

I'm happy about having made great friends in the team.

I'm happy about having developed a great GUI.

I'm happy about having gotten a start that no one can take away from me.

I'm happy about having amazing mentors (Plural)

I'm happy that I got to work with such talented people.

I'm happy that I learnt shit that I'd never have learnt anywhere else.

I'm happy that Manish stayed around as long as he did.

I'm happy that someone taught me my value and put me in my place.

I'm happy that there were other people who learnt from me.

I'm happy about having left a hole that no one can fill.

VEA, no one else has ever taught me such humility.

I love you.

I contain ALL

I exist. Therefore I exist. Descartes got it all wrong, didn't he? He didn't live in the IT era :).

So here's what I'm cribbing about today: "Extreme Programming". Who the hell thought that it is a good idea for me to write test cases for my code before I wrote my code? I'd rather rot in hell.

No I wouldn't.

Actually, my anger is wrongly directed.

I don't mind being taught a new methodology. I mind being kept close tabs upon. Your project plan template is suitable for building a freeway to the moon. And maybe a few fields will be left blank because they weren't relevant.

If you are so reluctant to read my project plan, maybe you shouldn't read it. I wouldn't mind not getting your esteemed comments. If you want to read it so badly, you should take your time and read it the way I want to present it, not the way you want to read it.

F*** you, I won't do what you tell me! (Almost everyone, esp. Rage against the machine, says so).

I like your project plan because it lists out all the possible things that I might have to say about the project. You forgot my pet cats. They had a couple of meows to contribute.

My Nemesis: My Beard

Adolescent boys, at the tender age of 15, are likely to do stupid things. Like taking a sharp piece of metal to their faces. I had to do it. Even then I had the brains to know that if I shave it, I'll have to continue shaving it for what now seems like the rest of eternity. But, like I said, I had to do it. In a class full of men, I was the only boy left.

Only one day goes by every week when I'm not reminded of the disgusting fact that I have hair follicles on my face. That day is the day after I've shaved. The five other days those hair follicles sprout like they wish they lived on a cactus, leaving me in various levels of discomfort, and attributing to me looks that range from a macho cowboy with sandpaper instead of skin, to It's head from the movie Five children and It. On the seventh day, I give up my battle, retreat, and reach for the razor.

One particular week was particularly horrible. I'd run out of shaving cream. And I'd wanted to buy more. My corner store keeps an account for me, so that I've to pay him only once a month. I kept asking him for Gillette shaving gel, but finally gave up and bought a can of shaving foam and got rid of the horrible growth. I finally slept that night after 3 consecutive nights spent sleeplessly scratching my neck.

Several times, I've been sorely tempted to grow a french beard. But I've had two problems. I still have to shave. Infact I have to shave more often because a french beard looks good only if it is surrounded by bristleless skin. Secondly, the area between my moustache and my beard (right next to my lip) doesn't join properly. So my french beard doesn't look good even when I shave more often :(. So I've abandoned that attempt as many times as I've been tempted.

So why this outcry? I'm on my 7th day today, and I still haven't shaved. It is starting to poke my neck, and I've started scratching my chin, pretending that other people will think that I'm pretending to be Inzamam. It's got to go. Where's that razor...

Let us improve

I remember a particular passage in a story in "I, Robot" (the book) where Dr. Susan Calvin says that it is easy to prove that an individual is human, but not that he/she is a robot. Basically, based on the three laws of robotics, it would be impossible to tell between a robot and a very decent human being.

Now, this post isn't about artificial intelligence. Far from it. What I want to talk about is culture. I'd once read somewhere that it is wrong to say that someone is uncultured. What one really wants to say is that the person in question is not of the same culture as I am. What I really object to is the use of the word 'culture' in the collective.

I know, I know. It's there in the definition of the word. Why I object to it is because I resent being grouped together with a bunch of people who, I think, have vile behavioral patterns. I mind being denied my individuality and uniqueness. I mind being given a label.

Tolerance, one of the qualities which today's "culture" sorely lacks, can come only when individuals can begin acting like individuals. I am Manjit. I stand alone. I don't give or take anything from a culture that decides that it owns me.

To understand it, become associated with the assholes who brought down Babri Masjid. The idiots who were responsible for the Godra violence. The imbeciles resposible for the Bombay blasts. Become the rich man who evades taxes. Become the Delhite who is materialistic. Become the shameless Puneri or the uneducated Bihari. Become the Indian responsible for that unemployed firang. Become the Allied citizen responsible for that homeless, orphaned Afgani or Iraqi child.

I resent being told that choosing my music brings about the decline of traditional Indian music, and that that is a bad thing.

I want freedom. I want to thank the people around me for having allowed this freedom that I have in parts. I hope that some day people will learn to be decent individuals before becoming decent groups. Only then can there be a single world, and only then will we all be us.

Singing or something like it

I don't like my voice. Or rather, it sounds perfectly alright when I'm talking, as in through my bones and all, but when I record it and play it back, or if I'm listnening to myself on the phone :D, it sounds nasal and really belies the fact that I'm a big guy.

Other people feel otherwise. Especially this guy I had an accident with a couple of weeks back and I came out of the car all guns blazing and screaming my head off. He was really scared. So I must be hoarse and manly, huh?

But these things aside, its about singing that I want to talk about. I know a few people who can sing quite well (Tum, Fuzzy, Darshana, Parvinder, and a guy in my team(Vishal), not to mention the scores of relatives who prepare to sing at each other's marriages ). I sing okay.

I usually know what note to sing at, and always notice when someone makes a mistake (which is why I love American Idol so much). I also know how fast or slow to sing. I can remember and reproduce vast lengths of guitar solos (Red House rendition by Eric Johnson in G3 Live). But I still maintain that I can't sing. The only time that I think that I sounded well was when my Bullet club had a party in which I sang "Turn the page" and I think it turned out quite well, but that's such an easy song to sing. I'd once tried "It's probably me" and embarassed myself considerably.

I wish I could limit my singing talents to make an appearance only in the bathroom, but sadly it doesn't happen. My only redeeming point is that I'm not completely tone deaf. And that I'm thankful for.

So the next time one of you hear me singing away in my car, or in my office cubicle, please excuse.

Hangover cures for the average Indian

So you've just woken up late in the morning, expecting it to be another normal day where you work some, play some? Well, sorry. No such luck. That sandpaper in your mouth is an indication to something else entirely, isn't it? It's going to be a horrible morning. And depending on how much you enjoyed last night, it might very well last into early evening or late night.

So are we defenseless against this scurge of the fires of hell? Well, there are some things that don't cost too much, and will help you.

So, without much ado, here goes:

1. Eat before you start drinking. This will not only help the hangover, but also how drunk you get. A high carbohydrate, high protien diet (chicken sandwiches, daal bhat) will help you retain sanity on the day after.
2. Have drinks with juices rather than cola. The goodness of all those vitamins helps. Also, when you have effervescent drinks, they get absorbed faster (neat shots are the slowest, but that helps only if you're having them at the rate of one every hour). If alcohol gets in your bloodstream faster, the faster you'll lose control of how much you drink, and consequently end up drinking more alcohol.
3. Avoid the bar feed. The free goodies that come with your drink are high in salt and contribute significantly towards your thirst. So you end up drinking more, faster. Order a green salad instead. You'll have it slower, and the nutrients help in reducing the intensity of the headache you'll have the next morning.
4. If you couldn't eat before you started drinking (which will often be the case if you headed for the bar from office), remember to do it after your drinks. Before you hit the sack, have something with a lot of carbohydrates and protiens (chicken sandwich, daal bhat? :)). Basically the weakness and the listlessness that you feel has a lot to do with low energy levels
5. Have a Crocin (tm) before you sleep. Even if you don't like taking pills just for the sake of it. This is not for the sake of it. Drunken sleep is hardly ever restful. And this contributes a lot to the listlessness you feel in the morning after. Believe me, if the headache isn't there, you'll feel a lot more normal that you'd otherwise do.
6. Drink water. Alcohol is a diuretic. It makes your body believe that it has too much water and therefore the body counteracts by making you pee a lot. So you'll have lost copious amounts of water by the end of your session, and more by the time you sleep off. So you wake up severly dehydrated and very badly off. Drinking around a litre of water before you sleep and a glass between every 2 drinks will do wonders to ward off this devil.
7. So you didn't do all those things before sleeping off, and already have a hangover. So what do you do? Best thing is to still drink that litre of water and take a crocin and sleep for a couple of hours more. It helps.
8. Eat some sugary stuff. Your body will be very low on glucose, and that is the cause of the weakness that you feel. Drink a couple of glasses of fruit juice or a couple of tablespoons of glucose dissolved in water.
9. If you are a smoker, don't smoke until after lunch time. You'll notice that that cotton mouth feeling will cause a aftertaste that you can't shake off, and will cause a lot of misery.
10. And for those adventurous readers, please remember: the hair of the dog concept doesn't work here. You cannot consume more alcohol to cure a hangover. It will only delay some of the symptoms, and you can't go to work anyways (you'll be smelling more like a vat of whisky than anything else).

So enjoy responsibly, and beat that hangover. Its a trick that needs practice. You'll have to find out what works best for you and then stick with it. Ciao.

New Noteworthy Link

I came across this one in the blogs of note list on Blogger. Nice cartoons. It's called Savage Chickens. Quite entertaining, especially given the bird flu scare doing rounds.

Welcome!!

I noticed in my site stats, that I'm getting a few regular visitors from the US and the Czech Republic. Welcome, and feel free to comment :). Thanks for visiting.

MS Office 2007

This link here shows the new look of MSOffice 2007. Mindblowing indeed. I really like the way that they've classified toolbar buttons, and done away with menus and added tabs instead. Impressive.

The provocation of the Matrix

There are lots of people who don't like the Matrix series because they don't understand it. "What's there to understand? It's just a bunch of special effects.", you might say, except that it makes that beautiful series of science fiction into something as obnoxious as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

There are themes that run through each of the three episodes of the Matrix. As far as I can see, these are:

1. Freedom
2. Choice
3. Purpose

The first episode is about how Neo finds out that he is The One. And, in the process of doing so, he realizes several things. At each stage, each degree of his freedom, he has to conquer a new peak. You see him take on physics, self, emotions and finally death. You really have to listen to the Oracle's predictions in order to really understand the movie. The Oracle didn't predict anything. She just set the mood so that when misfortune befalls Morpheus (which happens rather in a hurry) Neo finds himself compelled to oblige. But the real expression of freedom comes when Smith has him in a lock on the railway tracks and calls him Mr. Anderson. He goes on to reply that his name is Neo, and thereby establishes his identity and his freedom.

The second episode is about choice. The conversation that Neo has with the Architect of the Matrix has a lot to do with this. He tells Neo that either Trinity dies, or everyone dies. And to him, the choice doesn't exist. "Hope, the quintessential quality that's simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness". And Neo makes a choice. He goes to save Trinity, thereby going contrary to the the plan that was laid out for him as the owner of the title bestowed upon him (The One).

The third episode is about Purpose. Smith takes over the matrix, and since he's a rogue program, it can be argued that he has exercised (nay, made) a choice. But in my mind it is quite apparent that what he's actually done is to just change his purpose. Ever since he was "changed" because of his being anhiliated by Neo in the first episode, he has taken on a new mission. That of destroying Neo. And there comes the real problem for him. Because when he assimilated the Oracle, he got her eyes, and he could "predict" the future. Unfortunately for him, he didn't count on choice, and that became his undoing. Neo exercised the choice of, at first, not giving up, and then of submitting. In doing the latter, he destroyed Smith because he finished off the Purpose of Smith's existence.

There are other really philosophical angles in the movie that are worth mentioning, but this post is getting quite long. I'll reserve them for a later post. However, I hope that I've given some reason to appreciate the second and the third movie for things other than their special effects.

Some people are so good

Here's a photoblog that has done a lot to dispel my doubts about camera-phones. This guy(s) is amazing: The best of K750i.

Zen and the art of starting a bullet

Starting a bullet is an art. I remember that my uncle, at one time, had a diesel bullet. This was supposed to be so difficult to start that it didn't have a handle lock or ignition lock. If you had it in you to start it, you were welcome to take it away.

The petrol driven bullet is a lot easier. In fact, when I'd broken my foot, but had recuperated enough to ride my mean machine, Tum used to start my bike. This had been particularly embarassing for one of the well meaning bullet club members who'd happened past us just as she was just about to start the bike up. The story of my broken leg had spread far and wide, and he made an obviously noble gesture by stopping to help us along, just to discover that Tum was equally well equipped to start the big bike.

So what does it take to start a bullet. Three words: decompress, TDC, swing. The first step is to decompress the engine. The bullet has a big combustion chamber, and so is liable to develop a pressure on the wrong side of the piston. To remedy this situation, the engineers at the Chennai factory have provided the bull with a little lever that can be depressed so that the piston can be brought to TDC, and air be driven out of the wrong side of the piston.

The second step is to ensure that the piston is TDC. This is usually a natural outcome of decompressing. TDC stands for Top Dead Centre. It means that the piston is at its highest point in the cycle, and can compress the maximum about of fuel-air mixture in the next compression cycle. This is necessary because of the unusually long bore that the bullet has, so it achieves only a couple of cycles in one kick instead of the usual 5-6 that a 100cc bike will achieve.

The third step is to swing. One doesn't kick the 'kickstart' lever. For a bullet, one has to swing it in order to take the piston through 2-3 revolutions. Swinging implies a constant rather than an impulsive force. The engine offers little resistance.

And that, my dear friends is how to start a bullet. The zen part of it is ofcourse the fact that the purpose of the kick is to start the bullet. If all your being is behind the endeavour of starting the holy bike, it will have no option but to roar to life.

Superstition

I admit to having one superstitious kink. I carry 2 coins in my wallet at all times. One is a silverish coin that a fakir gave me while he was trying to beg my skin off me (and he was quite disgusted to know that I only had Rs. 30 on me, I'd just bought 2 pints of beer for my morning routine). The other is a 10 cent coin that somehow landed in the same place that the other superstitious coin is kept, and stayed there.

Oh yes I have one more. My bed's head always points north. Since I have rather small bedroom, and a rather large bed, it basically means that my bed has been in the same position for the last two years. Almost every other bit of movable furniture in my house gets mercilessly displaced every 6 months or so, but the bed stays put.

And the kinds of superstions that adorn the minds of some of my most esteemed colleagues and friends still continues to amuse me. Like when Nikhil (Khade) bought his laptop. He bought a Compaq that was exorbidant for the features that it offered, when there was a much cheaper local brand (Zenith) to be had. I'd have understood if he'd have admitted to having a bad experience with Zenith computers, or that he'd imported his laptop from abroad, in which case he'd have been getting a better deal.

Then there's the obsession with odd numbers that Tum has. She has to do some things 3 times. Even numbers are the worst. I'm sure that if I open and close the door (while counting the number of times I'm doing it) an even number of times, I'll have to do it one more time.

There are other modern superstitions: not writing cds on a saturday night, waiting for 3 drinks before going to the loo, saving one's work every n minutes even though you have power backup, not turning on the AC in the first few minutes of starting the car, not lighting up more than 2 cigarettes in a single flame, never passing a cigarette in any other way other than thumb or forefinger.

This guy in the plane took the cake. He looked both ways before crossing the aisle.

Obscene songs

I've come into the posession of six songs that were written and orchestrated by various bands in the enterprising B-schools and IITs. The common factor in all these songs is their inherrent collegeness, and their liberal use of profanity.

To name them, they are: Sabka katega, Ga** mein danda, Nadia, Bhench** sutta, XLRI ki kudiyana, and Yeh 'kundum' hai.

I rather like these songs. They display an amazing penchant for creativity and coolness. So much so that I've put these songs on my mp3 player and regularly play them when I'm in the car.

Funny results have ensued. Like the other day I was at a traffic signal with "Bhench** sutta" playing loudly in the car, and a traffic cop was doing his end of the month rounds to collect his quota of "fines". And just as he was crossing my car (they don't usually bother cars, just the non-bullet bikes), the speakers blared out the final stanza, "bhench** mach** ..." going on and on. He gave me the queerest of stares before telling me to reduce my volume.

And then there was the time when I was late in picking up Tum from college owing to some pain-in-the-a** politician doing his rounds, blocking traffic for his motorcade. And I saw more than a few smiles (and one very stolid stare) from the numerous rickshaws and commuters on bikes as they wandered past my stuck car while it was blaring out "Teri ga** mein danda de". The stolid one had a kid in tow.

But Apurv takes the cake. All through the Friday night rock show, he kept telling me how Indian Ocean was a better band than Parikrama because it had original music. But just when we got back to the car and the chosen tracks of collegeness started crooning their choice of profanity, he was all chaste like a little nun, saying that he didn't like them and to put on something else.

I happily obliged, knowing that originality didn't really figure on the top of his list of criteria for judging bands :).

I'll be 30 next year

Life does like to throw googlies at you. I wish I had a pact with God like the one that Joey (of the Friends fame) had, where I'd never turn 30. I wish I'd keep on oscillating: 27-28-29-28-27-28....

Life differed with me. I'm quite sure that I'll be 30 next year instead of 28 :(.

But being 30 brings along with it a new horizon. Call it a question of sour grapes, but for all the good things that have happened to me in my 20s, there has been a bug infestation of the juvenile kind has been my constant companion for the last 10 years.

There has been that independent and rebellious (read lazy) streak in me that has prevented me from showing my potential. All things said and done, this one aspect of my personality has been my greatest enemy. Basically, if I'd been hardworking, I'd have been a much richer man.

But maybe not happier. Apurv mentioned to Tum the other day that while I was sitting in office proclaiming to learn about web technologies, I was actually watching a move (I plead guilty - Aeonflux, don't watch it). At other times my various colleagues would have caught me at playing games, catching up with different blogs, reading funny news from around the world, and chatting up with many of my capital former colleagues.

The intention isn't there. I'd much rather be an industrious worker and finish off my stuff before it is ever asked for. I'd like to be a Subho or a Santosh (and I really admire them for their brand of faithfulness, neither of them read my blog, I think), but I'm sadly built without that particular switch that'd make me both fun-loving and hard-working at the same time.

But I don't mind. I work great under pressure. And that brings me to my point of contention (there is a french sounding phrase for that, but I can't remember it for the life of me). I am getting old :(, and I probably won't be as good under pressure as I used to be. Then what do I do?

Apartments and hand-me-downs

When Tum and I had started living in together around December 2001, we had a bare apartment. And bare apartments need filling up. So even though we did manage to get some basic kitchen utensils (worth around Rs. 5000) and a computer (5 months later) on our own, most of the stuff that we had around the house was garnered by pillaging my parents place.

Consequently, we acquired a rickety bed that used to be mine when I used to live with them (and it probably wasn't rickety then, but I'm sure that two people 'living in' didn't fit its terms and conditions for warranty ;). That bed and its mattress now adorns our guest room and is living a retired life by mostly enduring the burden of a host of washed clothes and being the sleeping place of choice for Hobbes and Tequila.

My sister's steel cupboard was next. This one is also still doing time. Since she got married went off to her beloved UK, I was free to pick that up. My own collapsible fabric cupboard also came with me, and between the two of them we had plenty of space for clothes, files, books and what not.

There were a bunch of cane patio chairs that Dad had bought around 15 years back in Delhi. They were in good condition, and were the host of many a boozing sessions in both our rented and owned apartments. They were finally thrown away after 3 cats had been through their cane like a borers and termites spoiling woodwork.

All the rest of the stuff that we garnered lives in the lofts. An inkjet printer that's never been used (never could be used, ink dried up), a makeshift shelf's iron rods, a vaccum cleaner that's so noisy that we could've woken up the dead with it, an ancient aluminium oven that was only good for baking potatoes, a electric heating plate and a gas 'shegdi', loads of airbags that the cats used as so many scratching posts. The list is endless.

I have to say that apartments are good at this kind of stuff. They easily lend themselves to an untidy life.

Basic Carpentry

The elevator in our building used have a handle on its door that was attached using four screws. Now it so happened that it is very boring to actually wait for the elevator to come down from the top floor, or to wait at (my) sixth floor foyer for it to come up from the ground floor.

I'd gotten into the habit of loosening the screw (always the top right one) on both floors with my thumb (nail) while I was waiting out my wait. It provided me with immense satisfaction to know that I could undo a screw that people had to use a screwdriver to place there, with my bare thumbnail.

I guess, the other day, I'd gone too far when I came round the corner and grabbed for the handle, and by hand closed around nothing. That's right. Just because I'd loosened the screw too far and dropped the screw, that then proceeded to roll under the ground floor door and disappeared into the elevator well, someone had taken a screwdriver to it and made off with the other three screws and the handle to boot as well.

What came as an even bigger surprise was to find, a couple of days later, that all the door handles on all the floors had now been replaced with ones fixed in with nails rather than screws. Someone obviously took the missing screw too personally.

But the anecdote apart, this incident taught me how little even carpenters know about basic carpentry. When you want to put a screw into wood, the way to do it is to make a thin (2mm across) and just as shallow hole in the wood, and then to let the screw do the rest of the work. Not make a 4mm hole the length of the screw just to make the job easier for yourself. It is no wonder the screw didn't hold.

Which leaves me as to what past-time I should now resort to while waiting for the elevator to arrive. Grow a claw hammer out of my toes?

Because cricket is a very funny game

Cricket -Field Placings
By Ruskin Bond

Long leg has a cramp in one leg,
Short leg has a cramp in two;
Twelfth man is fielding at mid-off,
Because mid-on's gone off to the loo.
As short leg has a long leg
Long-off has been moved further off;
Silly-point goes back to gully
Cover-point backs off a pace or two.
Every one is thinking of the drinks' trolley
When first slip lets a catch through his fingers,
Forgetting the old ball is now new.

Arctic Fissure

Quality (example)

When I made my earlier post, I realized immediately after posting the post, that I'd missed an important name. Needless to say, my internet connection went kaput, and I was left with my useless GPRS connection (with a transfer speed of 1KB/s) to make ammends with.
I did manage to do it, and I'm making this post throught the same browser... Lynx running on Cygwin. And here is an example of a quality product. Blogger.com runs on Lynx. To give credit where it is due, it might entirely due to Lynx's abilities. Eitherways, it is an example of really good quality.
Because it works.

Quality

Quality

For some obscure reason, a conversation I had with Sumit and Nikhil a long time back came back to me just now. The meat of the talk was revolved around Sumit saying that games did not have to be picture perfect (pun not intended) and Nikhil and I saying that he was wrong. Sumit's contention was that games are made for a breed that are adamant on playing the bloody thing so gamers would go to any length to make the game work. Nikhil and I were saying that there was a certain level of quality that is required of any product, and that games in general had one of the lowest levels of quality in commercial products that we'd ever seen. It was actually Sumit's heartfelt belief that in the case of games, some kinds of quality are superior to others and that games that look better, and play better, and feel better, and provide more fun, were more important than games that can be played easily (you know the way I mean that). He knew of so many consumers working their asses off to get to play a game on their chosen hardware platform, for example, that it blinded him into believing that all games have the same kind of cult following that Half-life, or Doom have.

Long story short, the conversation died out somewhere in the middle of one rum and another half beer.

I will not pretend to know about quality control in games. I do however know a little bit about kind of people that are involved in persuing that elusive goal of making the quality of their product a matter of their personal prestige. It is this knowledge that has provoked me to write this particular post.

What is quality? It is the description given to that facet of a product, the facet that is shown to everyone, that when seen by whoever is using the product, causes them to judge the product. That's quality, the description. How it is judged decides whether the quality is good or not. Good quality is like good ethics. Both are so predominantly required that the opposites don't make sense.

Given that particular lecture, here are 5 things that I need for great quality of the products that I design and build:
1. A great quality control guy. He should be shameless, nitpicking, and not afraid to be unpopular (in that order).
2. A great management. To say no to releasing a product that doesn't meet the mark.
3. A great team. That thinks, like the great quality control guy, that an incident is a mark of every time that their mother slept with a bug.
4. Great tools. To help me to find and diagnose problems.
5. Great consumers. To point out to me my deficiencies.

Aatish, Manish, Darshana, Parvinder and Khushboo, I salute you.

Gallows Pole

It seems that not many people have heard this excellent song about how life treats you :). Incidently it is the excitement of going to a rock show tonight that explains the sudden enthusiasm. Check out the lyrics below. The song is by Led Zeppelin:

Gallows Pole
by Led Zeppelin

Hangman hangman hold it a little while
Think I see my friends coming
Riding a many mile.
Friends did you get some silver?
Did you get a little gold?
What did you bring me my dear friends
To keep me from the Gallows Pole?
What did you bring me to keep me from the Gallows Pole?
I couldn't get no silver I couldn't get no gold
You know that we're too damn poor
To keep you from the Gallows Pole.
Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while,
I think I see my brother coming,
Riding a many mile.
Brother, did you get me some silver?
Did you get a little gold?
What did you bring me, my brother,
To keep me from the Gallows Pole?
Brother, I brought you some silver,
I brought a little gold,
I brought a little of ev'ry thing
To keep you from the Gallows Pole.
Yes, I brought you to keep you from the Gallows Pole.
Hangman, hangman, turn your head awhile,
I think I see my sister coming,
Riding a many mile, mile, mile.
Sister, I implore you, take him by the hand,
Take him to some shady bower,
Save me from the wrath of this man,
Please take him,
Save me from the wrath of this man, man.
Hangman, hangman, upon your face a smile,
Pray tell me that I'm free to ride,
Ride for many mile, mile, mile.
Oh, yes, you got a fine sister,
She warmed my blood from cold,
She brought my blood to boiling hot
To keep you from the Gallows Pole,
Your brother brought me silver,
Your sister warmed my soul,
But now I laugh and pull so hard
And see you swinging on the Gallows Pole
Keep-a-swingin'!
Swingin' on the gallows pole!

A picture is worth a thousand words

It is so much easier to post pictures than it is to write anything in this blog. When I want to write something I have to first sit and think about what I want to write about. I have to ruminate, and an unfortunate habit of mine makes the job even more painstaking. I do everything with a top-down approach. Which means that I will sit write one title after another until I get one that seems promising.

I think the problem is in remembering what happened in the day. I usually have no idea what I did all day. Most of my days are uninteresting and boring. Nothing memorable happens, and even if something seemed funny at the time it happened, by the time I sit down to make an entry my brain turns blank. Like I have nothing to say.

The solution is obvious. Whenever something interesting happens, jot it down. And that's exactly why posting pictures is so easy. Because when you are out taking photos of things all day, at least a couple of them will be nice, worthy of gracing the eyes of those who read this blog. The same probably cannot be said of all the sludge that gets posted in the form of words.

I did try jotting things down when it happens, but it turned out to be quite awkward. You can't really stop a conversation in the middle (like hitting the pause button), and start storing a note on your mobile phone, can you? And imagine the chargin of your unlucky other half (of the conversation), if it turned out to be particularly good, and several points worth mentioning came up.

So when I started this post it was starting to get dark. You know, the orangish light in the sky, and I had the itch to go down to the parking and click a few snaps of my bullet in that light. But I resisted the urge with infinite determination, and have come out with this string of words that say it all:

Summer evenings, lazy power-cuts, hot shower, meeting friends, smoky bar, lots of wood, golden beer, glistening condensation, comfortable talk, long night, nice picture, no camera.

A couple of more wallpaper snaps

We had an office day out on Sunday, and we all headed to a place called Splendour Country. Excellent view and lots of oppurtunities for good wallpaper snaps. Here are a couple:

On the moon

Well I did say earlier (a long long time ago), that I was a capable wallpaper photographer :p. The fact remains that I need to be under the influence to click them. That's when the creativity flows. Some people might disagree, but the fact remains...

To be a good wallpaper guy, one needs to see the micro side of stuff. It's pretty simple really. The way one goes around doing that is by seeing things minutely. That means that you take a macro scene and recognise a small part (if you are lucky) or the whole thing (if you are extremely lucky), to be something that you'd want on your desktop. You need to see it.

The question is how you do it. The following picture is an example of the macro kind. No cropping or manipulation needed. The subject is pretty ordinary, but the overall picture makes a good wallpaper.













Then there are those photos which would make good wallpapers if cropped. It's not as easy as it sounds. More often than not, one needs to recongnise that only a small part of the "bracket" is going to look good. That "bracket" is often hidden in the noise that surrounds it and wit a little bit of practise, one starts looking for it.

An example of the cropped kind follows:













I'm particularly proud of this one becuase it didn't need much cropping. Let me give you a hint... "just the corners". A free beer to any one who can guess what the object really was. By the way, I call it "The Crevice".

P.S. hese photos aren't wallpaper quality. If you want 1600x1200 images, either post a comment (for those who know me), post a comment with your email address (I won't spam you, I promise).

Like father like son

I can't believe it. After all that there is for the sake of difference, I and Hobbes are a lot similar. We both like to lounge around, we prefer to rest rather than work, we regard sleeping as one of the way that we are contributing to the world's betterment, and we both love Tum.

And if we were normal human beings, there would have been some jealosy and resentment between us. But luckily, Hobbes is a cat. And I don't mean just any cat. Hobbes is one of those feline creatures that have perfected the art of living without earning anything more than love.

He's a cute creature. And arousing "aaawwwww" feelings is in his nature. I wonder what it takes. No one ever said "aaawwwwww" to me the same way that they say it to Hobbes. Maybe I need to grow some fur.

But jokes apart, there are certain attributes that he does have that really endear him to anyone. The way he says "meeeeeeeaow" in this high alto voice that he specially reserves for his begging. I wish I could "meeeeeeaow" my way through my appraisals... if it worked it would have a double meaning, wouldn't it? Not only am I not hungry, but so is my cat :D.

And I really don't want to mention how caring he is. When he was really young (less than 6" long), he and Tequila used to sleep around their Mom. In the middle of the night, Tequila would get it into her head that she wants to bother Mommy. So she'd start biting her. Hobbesey to the rescue. Despite being tiny, the little runt would go and plop himself on top of her, and refuse to let go until Mommy finally woke up and acknowledged her debt to him ;).

Bole to ekdum apne baap pe gaya hai ;).

Cycling in Nagpur

Quite a few of my readers know that I've studied engineering in Nagpur for two years before I was forced to quit due to eligibility problems and ended up doing my graduation and post-graduation in Pune.

Well, I was a different type of person when I was in Nagpur. I used to study for one ;). Another of my traits was cycling. For two years I rode my bicycle of Japanese origins a lot. I would peg it at around 15-20 kms a day on average.

It was a beauty of a bicycle, if I may say so myself. I'd bought it in Colombo when Dad was posted there, and it was one of those all-terrain things. With a light MgAl frame (the same stuff that's used in making airplanes), I could lift it from the hub with no effort at all.

I used to ride pretty fast. I remember once, when I was cruising down a road, pumping my legs hard as usual, I'd chanced to look at a motorcycle's speedo while passing it. It showed 40kph. :) Still brings a smile to my face. I remember his face as well... no smile there :D.

Once when I was visiting my classmates on the other side of town (hell I don't remember the names of places anymore, its so long ago), I'd bragged to my sardar friend (Harpal) that I could race him to the south-indian fast food joint around a km away, and would beat him. The bet was on. I'd been slightly lucky. The traffic was a bit heavy, and I had access to the footpaths that he couldn't get onto :). I got a free milkshake.

I'd had a couple of accidents on it. Nothing serious (serious means broken bones). I'd a habit of always skidding to a stop. It used to work like this. My front brake calipers were slightly loose. So when I used to apply the front brake even slightly, it used to cause the calipers to go inside the fork so that the front wheel used to lock. This used to cause the rear wheel to go light. If I hit the rear brakes at that instant, the result used to be a beautiful skidding stop.

My tyres always wore out pretty fast. One other time I'd claimed to the aforementioned Harpal and his roomie Sanyam that I could do a 360 degree skid. As chance would have it, a patch of loose sand on a smooth road happened at the right time, and I managed to perform the only 360 degree skid in my life :). More milkshake :D.

Nice memories actually. I left the cycle back in Nagpur along with some other of my stuff, intending to go back and pick it up a couple of weeks later. Never went :(. I don't even have any photos of those days, only memories. But as I said, nice memories actually :).

Look Ma, extra heads!

A colleague in office (Navneet, methinks), responded to my fire writing post with an idea of his own. The result is here for you to see. The trick is to set the camera steady on a 8sec exposure in a dark room and use a flashlight to light up your face in different locations. Cool no?

The cartoons of yesteryears

I have a recurring dream. There's a hole in the ground from which animated bugs are coming out. I can't see what kind of bugs they are. But they are of different shapes, colours and sizes. They all seem to be in a trance. All except one, who is helplessly shouting away to glory at all the others, telling them not to do it. And they all take to the sky... one after the other soaring towards the sun. Just to fall back dead.

I have this dream once in a while actually. When I say recurring, I mean once every 3 or 4 months. But it is there for the remembering. I saw it the first time after watching it in a cartoon. And the scene stuck. The cartoon was one of those Japanese variety dubbed in Arabic, so I don't even know the words. Just the images. Must've seen it when I was around 6 I think.

Another cartoon I remember is the Thundercats, about whom I've blogged at length already, so I won't bore you with them.

Then there's Tom & Jerry. Absolutely the best comedy pair ever. I know their cartoons down to each scene. Touche Mr. Pussycat :).

And there's Bugs Bunny. I really like him. And I hate Mickey. Wiley Coyote. Elmer Fudd. What a set!!!

And last but not the least, my video cassette of Pink Panther cartoons, that my Mom and Dad recorded the movie Masoom over. I hated the movie for 4 years, and watched it 25 times before I finally understood it. Then I didn't hate it as much, but I'd still love to have those Pink Panther cartoons back.

Dead ant, Dead ant :p.

The sanity of numbers

He waited for the star to fall. Which one was it to fall next? Maybe it is that blue one that he can see only from the corner of his eye. What's that smell? He turns his head around... The stink of treason, cunning, betrayal. He had almost learnt to stop anticipating it. Seeing shadows and ghosts at every turn, at every step. He turned and took a step. And fell. And fell...

He was rising. Fast. Faster... Everything was a blur. All the stars. Except one. It was blue.

A different world

The recent hulabaloo about the Prophet's cartoon has prompted me to think how different the world might be if instead of having just one dominant species in this world, there were two. Imagine for an instant, for example, that the dolphin too had an opposable thumb and an underwater fire. It would really have been a very different world wouldn't it?

There would probably have been no countries. Mankind would have been united against dolphin-kind, regardless of whether dolphin-kind were a threat or not. Or maybe there would be dolphin-countries that were defined in the oceans just like ours are defined on land.

There would have been bilateral agreements to curb land and water pollution.

The olympics would have had a different meaning.

Dolphin-kind would have offended humans by depicting walking bombs, and humans would have offeded the dolphins by drawing cartoons of swimming ones.

Guns would be quite useless in wars.

There would be underwater rock shows.

There would be seaports/airports at the same place, or maybe planes that turned into submarines.

There would be a cigarette that can be smoked underwater.

Spying would always be treason. You can't have human disguised as a dolphin, can you?

Beaches would be high security places.

A whole new range of salty cocktails.

Inter-species marriages anyone? (Hell that happens even now, remember that woman who married her dog or something :) ).

The possibilities are endless aren't they.

A Power Outage and a Camera

Things that run on batteries are the only entertainment when the power goes out. But this time it was quite a bit more than that. It inspired creativity (what little I had :p). A candle in a dark room with a digital camera set on a 3sec exposure. I moved the camera during the exposure for the desired effect. Presenting the new "Pyro"!!!

Clicking on that intelligent button

I often have this conversation with Tum after a few drinks. The topic is: What constitutes intelligence. The one I had today had two entirely new outcomes:
1. I agreed with her for the first time that eventually artificial intelligence will be possible (even if it doesn't arrive). I usually used to get stuck on the point where I argue that no amount of programming can ever create useful or otherwise emotions. Today I agreed that if we make a silicon based "brain" with enough connections, intelligence will automatically become a secondary venture. Infact if you let such a "brain" sit around long enough with basic circuits for getting energy when needed, it will eventually be intelligent because our own brain turned out to be so.

2. I came to the horrific conclusion that since our brain has been the same for the last 30000 years or so, we have effectively had the same intelligence potential for that much time. That means that if someone picked out a baby from those prehistoric times, and raised it here, it would not only survive in the world today, but it would also have the dubious potential to perform in our "intelligent" software industry. Horrors of horrors. You know why? Because that means that what's missing from today's artificial intelligence is a certain 'X' factor that time can certainly bring.

Hmmm, I'm probably not making sense. I'd had this conversation around 2 hours back and I've already forgotten the key points. So much for intelligence, huh?

Aniket's B'day Bash

We had a nice party on Friday night. It was Aniket's birthday on the 15th and we all had reason to celebrate. Aniket got a nice b'day surprise when his valentine wish turned up at the party. The faux-pax that ensued had better stay unsaid :). Some snaps from the party follow.










All the party people in the house sit tight :).










Gautam and Vai (the only married folks around, I was a married folk :p).










The camera-man and the host (Happy B'day Aniket!)










Khushboo saying "Wassup?"










Aniket, Aatish and Gautam (Oh no!!!)










B'day boy Aniket with Nikhil.










The Man.











Nikhil and I say "This is life!"

Creams

It has become an everyday thing, I guess. I prefer to wake up around half an hour after Tum. (Background story: I drop her off to college everyday, so my in-time in office is linked to the time of her first lecture). Even with my unusually long (half an hour) toilet routine (that's how long it takes me to finish reading the news), I can get ready in 40 minutes. Tum takes half an hour longer.

"Why?", you might ask. Well, its the creams. And moisturisers, and foundations, and brushes and selecting what to wear!!! I know these things are the culprit because I know someone else who takes just as long to get ready (ring a bell Nikhil? Okay, no brushes and foundations, but definitely more creams ;) ).

"So we take some care to groom ourselves!" And I'm branded as uncouth and as having no sense of what's good-looking.

Creams, its the creams. The unholy God of tardiness resides in its moist innards. And He casts a spell on all people who are otherwise good, making them forget that they have classes to attend!

Give me a can of deo anyday... and a newspaper :).

Ten Thousand!!!

We crossed 10000. And if you're not Indian, and quite possibly if you're not Indian, you won't know what "We crossed 10000" means. The BSE index crossed 10000 points a couple of days back.

What does this mean. The P/E ratio is good, so this isn't a bubble at all. What this does mean is that a lot of people stand to make money merely by investing in mutual funds. It also means that it really does help to have an educated person at the helm of our country. Okay, Atal Behari Vajpayee was educated, but he was a far cry from being an economics guru. What the Sardar and the Anna have done is established India as the financial destination in Asia, and nudged numerous small-time investors into trusting their money into this great economic destination.

I'm a Speedking, see... me... type!!!

Check out this really cool (and slightly nerdy ;) ) game that wants to know how fast you can type out the alphabet, and then ranks you in the world at it.

My current rank is 1403, and my time is 3.164 seconds. Can you beat me?

http://frenzy.morpheme.co.uk/frenzy/index.jsp?gameId=0

Banking blues

I have ended up having like a gazillion bank accounts. And I have loan installments being deducted from 2 of them, my salary comes in a third one and the fourth one is just sitting there doing nothing because I can't figure out how to change the ATM pin :o (right, I can't find the option anywhere!)

So you can imagine my predicament. I have to juggle the money around from one bank to another so that none of the direct debits default (I usually love alliterations but this was too much). Besides I had happened to bump into someone from my previous company on the road the other day. Well if you want to split hair, I bumped into his car... with my car. So I wrote him a cheque to cover the damage. And it's the beginning of the year, so I had to pay my building maintainence. And the Life insurance premium, my car insurance premium, the list goes on and on.

The result is that I've gone and written a host of cheques in all directions, and I realized just now (literally 10 minutes back) that one of my bank accounts is short by some :p. So tomorrow morning I'll have to rush to the said bank and deposit some cash before one of the cheques bounces.

And I haven't even started cribbing about my credit cards yet. It's going to be a gorgeous year.

A question of probability

Over our smoking breaks ;), I and Tum have had quite a few discussions. 2 of them stick out right now because my mind was mulling over probability and chances:

1. Is there any difference between a pair of dice thrown together and one after the other? Well, this question arose when I was telling Tum about how easy it is to make money at the roulette table when you only bet on the outside. You know, odd-even, red-black and first-second-third-twelve. If you don't know what I'm talking about you can read this article about roulette on wikipedia. Anyways, what I was saying was that since the last 15 outcomes are displayed at the table, it is easy to be right about which way the ball is going to fall. She insisted that each game played is a purely random event, and as such does not depend on the previous results (obviously). I was talking about trends.

We simplified the problem to the roll of a die. If a die is rolled a hundred times, and the die is fair, each face should have come up on top ~16 to 17 times. Now if you were shown a streak of 6 even rolls (2, 4, 6) what would you bet your money on for the next roll? Odd or even? The real answer is that it doesn't matter which way, because it's a purely random event. But what I kept maintaining was that I'd keep putting more and more money (doubling it every time) on an odd roll, because an odd roll is bound to come up sooner or (rather than) later.

Eventually we decided that we are talking about different problems. But actually it boils down to the statement of the problem. She was talking about the difference between a pair of dice being thrown together, and the same die being thrown in subsequent throws. In the former you it is a single event (as it would be if a line of roulette tables were spun together), and the latter are distinct events and the bet depends on pure chance and no trends can be set.

2. The Monty Hall problem. Tum was reading "The curious incident of the dog in the night time" by Mark Haddon. This puzzle presented in the book as follows (pasted from wikipedia):

In this puzzle a player is shown three closed doors; behind one is a car, and behind each of the other two is a goat. The player is allowed to open one door, and will win whatever is behind the door. However, after the player selects a door but before opening it, the game host (who knows what's behind the doors) must open another door, revealing a goat. The host then must offer the player an option to switch to the other closed door. Does switching improve the player's chance of winning the car?

Now think about it before reading the next sentence, the answer is there.
.
.
Okay, the answer is yes. We had a lot of fun discussing this problem. While Tum got it instantly, I took some convincing. The answer is counter-intutive because most of us tend to think of the event as "choosing the door" instead of thinking of the event as switching. So...

• The player picks goat number 1. The game host picks the other goat. Switching will win the car.
• The player picks goat number 2. The game host picks the other goat. Switching will win the car.
• The player picks the car. The game host picks either of the two goats. Switching will lose.

So if you switch the probability of winning is 2/3 as opposed to 1/3 when you first chose the door.

You can read more about the Monty Hall Problem on Wikipedia by clicking on the link.

Quotable Quote

Caught this on a web clip in GMail.

Joe E. Lewis - "I distrust camels, and anyone else who can go a week without a drink."

Cheers! :)

Subho's Bachelor Party

I wanted to post these for some time now, but somehow kept forgetting to get the photos off the camera. Well here they are:



Kiva before the party











The bachelor boy














People having fun (Clockwise: Darshana, Subho, Aatish, Pramahtesh & Aniket's censored finger).









More people (Clockwise: Subho, Gautam, Pramathesh, Me, Aatish)









Click on the photos to get the larger picture (heh heh, I hate myself).

What fashion does to all things nice

I really like the Motorola Razr. It is one of my likely future phones (along with the D600). So when I saw this I really had to share my agony with my fellow bloggers and blog readers...































Pink???!!!

Attitude Songs

Today, on the way to the gym, I happened on a particuarly bad traffic light, where there was such a line in front of me that I had to wait, and wait, and wait... for eternity. The CD playing in my car at the time was a compilation of antiwar songs that I have. And I got to thinking... It'd be great to have a lot of theme songs. Theme songs, mind you, not mood songs. So a CD containing songs like Burn, Stormbringer, Speedking, Fuel, Whereever I may roam etc. would be a 'speed' CD. What I was thinking about at the time was attitude.

So the first thing I have to do is compile a list:
1. The attitude song - Steve Vai ( no words, but the sounds say "No I won't do it")
2. No rain - Blind Melon (I hear this song saying "Nothings going to bring me down")
3. I shot the sheriff - Eric Clapton (No, I'm innocent)
4. Bad obsession - Guns 'n' Roses (Do I have to say anything?)
5. MI2 theme song - can't remember whodunnit, was it Limp Bizkit?
6. Killing in the name - Rage against the machine (F*** you I won't do what u tell me...)

I need more. Let me know.

Me and my bike

Here are few snaps of me on my bike. Remember that these were taken a couple of years back. She's just as pretty, I've put on some weight since then :).