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.