Imagine If 2 Cats Did This To You Everyday

If you've ever owned a cat...
Uploaded by a62vw

I have 2 cats, and though I never have to suffer these vagaries, my wife sometimes does. She does dutifully get up and feed them before the baseball bat comes out though :).

Strange Things Happen When Photographing Mirrors

Got these in an e-mail forward. Thought it was pretty interesting :).

The Infamous Underarm Bowling Incident

Sometimes rule-makers goof up. But the utter lack of sporting behavior from the Australians is appalling. Here's a look at the last over of that fateful match:

Laloo Ain't That Bad

I know we all find our esteemed Railway Minister, Mr. Laloo Yadav quite the funny man. Here's a video of him presenting the railway budget in the parliament. ROTFL :).

Google Sky

If any of you have read Asimov's Foundation series, you know about the system that they had for creating a 3D map of space. They'd use it for plotting their way through stars. You could look at the galaxy in 3D and translate yourself to any other point in the galaxy to see how it would look like from there.

Well version 0.1 of that tool is out :D. You can now use Google Earth 4.2 to roam around in space. Check out this video for an how-to:

A New Take On Research

I read Jabberwock quite often and sometimes, like this time :D, Jai comes up with some very funny articles. In this article titled "Research findings we could use" he directs our attention towards how preposterous some research findings are, and of some others that he wishes they would come up with. Here are just a couple of excerpts from just the comments:

1. James Bond has a lesser risk of heart disease, since his martinis are shaken and not stirred!!
2. Regular Breathing leads to 100% chance of being alive. Researchers found that people who breathe had a 100% chance of being alive....

Read the rest of the his blog post here, and enjoy :).

Bajaj Pulsar 220 DTS-Fi Advertisement

Some very awesome stuntwork. Definitely worth a watch:

Sir Arthur C. Clarke Passes Away

I read it just now on BBC News, and it saddens me to no end to know this.

The grand old man of SF, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, died at 0130 hrs (SL time) after a cardio-respiratory attack.

His many books have given me great pleasure over the years, and it is horrible to know that no more will ever be written.

May he rest in peace.

How To Maintain Your Charge Slip

Sometimes you get to see the weirdest things. Like when we went shopping for a colleague's marriage present. The receipt that was handed to us had the following printed on the back:



:)

Why You Can't Type "S-H-I-T" using T9

I'm sure all of us have tried to type in swear words in an SMS window while using predictive text input, at some time or the other, and failed, and irritatingly so. Ever wondered why? Watch this:

Men Will Be Men... Even Those In Blue

GMail Advertisement

Here's an ad for GMail, in Russian. But some good fellow has gone and given subtitles in English. Until then I didn't even know it was an ad (thought it was a how-to). It's very innovative. Notice the way they are simulating the mouse pointer, and the caret etc.

Here you go:

Firefox 3

I love Firefox. It's my preferred browser, and works beautifully for me. And now they are doing even more :).

Here's a list of the coolest of the new features:
1. Native theme support (for Vista, Mac and Linux).
2. New location/address bar.
3. Places: An integrated look at history and bookmarks together.
4. Private browsing: You can now turn history, cache etc. off altogether.
5. Using web services for handling documents/media links, so that you can open attached documents in GoogleDocs and clicking on a mailto: link will open up GMail!

And hosts of others. FF3Beta3 is out, and here are some of the things you can do:
1. Have a look at the FF3 Feature List: Geek version, and Regular version (Note that the latter is 4 pages long, you might miss the page links at the bottom).
2. You can download it: Firefox3 Beta 3
3. You can get a FF3 "Gran Paradiso" Wallpaper, and the FF3 "Gran Paradiso" Poster:











Enjoy :)!

NBA 2007 Slam Dunk Competetion Highlights

Very good dunks, and some pretty average ones. All in all, worth a watch:

Frozen in time

I guess you've all played this game when you were like 3' tall and squeaked instead of talking. It goes something like this:
1. 8-10 people stands in a circle around the person in the den.
2. He calls out "S-T-A-T-U-E statue"!
3. Everyone freezes and is not allowed to move or laugh. If someone manages to touch the guy in den unobserved, he goes back in den.

Or, some form thereof (I remember a girl who couldn't spell statue correctly :p).

Well, this is something like that. Except that instead of the 8-10 people, there are 207. They aren't kids, they're all adults. They aren't standing around in a circle in the park behind your apartment, they're all doing it in the Grand Central Station in New York City. And they are from a group called Improv Everywhere. I can't help but admire them.

Lots of fun :). Watch it:

Google Doodle?

The Google logo, or the "Google Doodle" is redrawn by Webmaster Manager and Chief Google Doodler, Dennis Hwang, from time to time to commemorate special dates/occasions. You've all seen them. And some of you, like me, wish you could also do something like that.

Well now you can. Or at least try. If you are still in school :(. But still, it is worth a read. Heres an excerpt from the Official Google Blog:

"However, with the Doodle 4 Google competition, we're making an exception...

Doodle 4 Google gives U.S. students in grades K-12 the opportunity to design a doodle for the Google homepage. Students will be asked to draw a doodle that best represents the theme "What if...?" We ask ourselves this question every day when we build our products, so we thought we would ask the same of the future doodlers."

Read more about it in this blog post.

Pune, Pretty Pune

Just back from a very good and well deserved (I say so!) vacation. To Pune. Aaaahhhhhh!

You know what they say right? "You never miss it until you don't have it?" Well, that's completely true. There's one thing more I'd like to add... "If you still don't miss it, visit it agan" :).

Met a lot of friends, partied like mad. Went out with parents. Went out with college buddies.

All in all, a very good vacation.

P.S. Had taken my SDCard for taking photos, but left it in my Dad's camera. So photos are delayed. Will put them up soon.

US Claims WMDs on Satellite

You all must've read about the US spy satellite gone rogue. Well, now they're accusing it of even worse things. It has WMDs (or is a WMD, it's quite unclear). So they're going to shoot it down :o

Read more about it here.

Bizzare Pingpong Round

Found this video on a friend's orkut profile. I really HAD to share it :). Here it is:

I mean... they actually changed sides!!!

Photo Collage

Have you ever wanted to create a collage for your desktop wallpaper? Wouldn't a collage like this one be great?



Well all you need is Picasa and you can download it here.

Once installed, let it discover all your pictures. After that, select any host of pictures and choose Create->"Picture Collage" from the top level menu. You can customize the type of collage and the background. I'll try to add a screencast later.

GMail's WebClips

I don't know how many people use them, or even notice them, but GMail's WebClips are a pretty useful and entertaining source of daily trivia/news (anyway you want to look at it).

I know what I'm going to hear... "I'm an RSS poweruser." "There's Google Reader (or replace your favorite aggregator here)."

But the bottom line is, if you are as much of an email junkie as I am, your GMail is always open, whereas your aggregator, you open once a day, and you're done with it. Besides, with an aggregator, you'll probably configure your feeds. You can do that with GMail also, but I suggest add new ones, but leave the ones that are there already, be.

Here's why. You will read random (and interesting) stuff from sources, at random times that you'd probably have vetoed off before you ever saw it. And it is non-interfering. If you don't like it... click ">".

And just to keep you interested... Look what I found today on a WebClip:
Kirsten Dunst: The Latest to Check into Rehab.

Yay, finally she won't look drugged on the next installment of spiderman... (and much more hopefully, she'll die of withdrawal symptoms :) ).

There was another one, a quote, by some famous actress of the age old days who said something derogatory about having sound in the movies... :p I'll look it up and edit this post later :D.
EDIT: It was Mary Pickford who said, "Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo. " :D
G'night.

Funny Recruitment EMail

As the title suggests, I received a very funny recruitment email today. The subject said:

Urgent opening for Debugging Professionals @ Bangalore

It's been almost a year since I've stopped active development work, and shifted to design. But the ~7 years before that, I was working on development, and I did all my debugging myself.

I won't give you the company's name, but here are the rest of the details:

Title : Lead
Required Skills : Debugging Tools (GDB, DBX, MDB...etc), C++
Total Experience : 6 – 9 Years
Job Location : Bangalore
Mode of Position : Permanent

6-9 years working only on debugging?!! I can imagine the kind of conversations that the selected candidate must be having with his wife:
Wife: "Honey, why don't you listen to me?"
Husband (to himself): "Hmm, I wonder why she said that... Let me launch gdb..."

and promptly reaches for his laptop... And he wonders? [snicker]...

A Tribute to "Weird Al" Yankovic's Parodies

I only ever knew of a few of "Weird Al" Yankovic's songs. There was "The Saga Begins" which is sung in the style of "American Pie" and tells the story of the movie Star Wars - Phantom Menace. And a couple of others. I always found them very funny, especially the lyrics. So the other day, I visited Deezer to find the above-mentioned songs, and guess what? I came up with hordes. So here are the ones that are sung as parodies. What follows is a streaming media player that'll play the parody playlist, and the lyrics of the songs below that. Click on the song's name to see its lyrics. Believe me, they're hilarious. :)

P.S. I'll post the lyrics widget shortly. It isn't currently working as desired. In the mean time, you'll find most of the lyrics here:
Smells like Nirvana
The Saga Begins
Eat It
Pretty Fly for a Rabbi
I Love Rocky Road
Amish Paradise
eBay
Fat
Livin' in a Fridge
Money for Nothing - Beverly Hillbillies
I Can't Watch This
Achy Breaky Song
Bedrock Anthem
Cavity Search
Gump
Like a Surgeon
Ode to a Superhero
Theme from Rocky XIII

Roboquad vs. Puppy

Are you afraid of artificial intelligence? Do you wonder (with curling toes) whether some day robots will take over the world, and all of mankind will be doomed to slavery or worse, extinction? Well it's not going to happen in our lifetime. As this video shows, the robots of today can't even get the better of a cute little puppy :).

Orkut trends

Ever wondered what the most common scraps being sent on Orkut are? Well, between Hi, Oi[Hi] and Hello, 2004 scraps are sent (out of 1,000,000 short scraps). Here is the list:

scrap

# of occurrences

hi

1131

oi [hi]

689

ok

298

parabens [congratulations]

273

.

187

hello

184

=]

146

vlw [thx]

135

^^

133

blz [ok]

132

=)

124

:)

117

[:p]

115

=D

115

You can see more stats and other interesting details on the relevant blog post on the official Orkut blog. It also gives details about who sends scraps and to whom (gender-wise and country-wise distribution).

Breaking News: Microsoft Proposes to Acquire Yahoo!

Just read this on a Microsoft press release:

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion.

Read more about it in this press release.

Shocking news no?

Real Guitar Heroes

Sumit sent me a link to a YouTube video of a guy playing the most difficult song on PS2's Guitar Hero 3. It's Dragonforce's
Through The Fire And Flames.

So I'm going to put the videos up here. Watch them in sequence to get an idea of the about of skill required for both of them:



Both the videos blew away my mind so. Pay special attention to the solo after 3:02 in the second video [drool].

Bidi Quotes

Found this image on a friend's album on Orkut. Found it hilarious :):

For those who don't know, a bidi is a like a tiny (very very cheap) cigar. :) Beauty in all things LOL.

The Sufferings of Famous People

My very close friend Sumit Mehra is quite a famous personality on the Indian game scene. He is a game designer/producer and is currently working for Microsoft India Development Center for its Casual Games department.

Now, being such a prolific figure in the game industry has its advantages as well as drawbacks. He is called up by magazines for interviews (an early example is on his website and another one here). Very rich people call him up and offer to give him pots of money to become a producer for their games (all of which he has refused, until now).

He posts on several forums as PurpleBlade (gamedev.in is currently giving a database error as of writing this, but I'm sure they'll fix it soon. Here is another as PurpleBlade at DesiGameDevelopers), and is quite nice to the people there actually, considering that they, more often than not, are extremely stupid. His philosophy is that people should be allowed to make one correctable mistake, however stupid that mistake is.

What he frequently laments however, especially when I goad him about it, is the sheer stupidity of some of the people who bother him on his orkut scrapbook. He's put up examples of good questions and bad questions in his "About Me" section:
Bad Question: I am an Animator. Should i also learn programming?
Good Question: I am an Animator, I like programming too. Do you think I would be preferred over other animators and programmers who are as good as me at time of interviews?

But he still gets so many bad questions that I make it a point to go to his profile every few days just to have a good laugh. Here are a few examples:

• "u know how to skinning our won application in visual basic
  please tell me" --[What? Who? Why? What kind of digital butcher are you? The poor, poor 'won' application.]
  


• "...I want to ask you that what is the initial procedure to start a web site on the www & how can I be able to access it & manage it..." --[And I want to know why you think I'll unleash you upon the net...]


• "BTW why u r aka purpleblade?..." --[The same reason why your mother named you "Blood" of all things. The same reason why she probably had you in the first place. 'Twas all a big mistake, I tell you. All a big mistake!]


• "plz gv me ur number .. as my testomonial i will call u juzz once ! belive me plz" --[Oh really! Thanks so much. I'll tell you what. You give me your number and I'll give you a call in around a hundred years. Hopefully by then you'll learn to spell correctly.]


• "hey, cud u plz help me out.
  i wanna know if someone is a talented j2me programmer and wants to get into the mobile game programming industry, but is not a graduate, can he do so?
  means is there any hard and fast rule that to be a programmer in a mobile games development company (good comapnies like ea, gameloft) one has to be a graduate even if he or she is talented? " --[Nopes. Don't even try it. We'll be very well off without an apathetic person like you in our fledgling industry.]


• "...can u tell me which game engine is free for downloading .... " --[God said "Search!". Man therefore invented Google. It's still there. I promise.]


• "...I am new in this filed so plz co-opreate with i know basic about the programming plz tell me about gaming Action script. Becasue i want to make a new game..." --[You should start at the beginning. Look for "Make game" command under the Tools menu.]


• "hey there this is xyz here kind a game freak nd learner too ...
  can u help me in better understanding in game programing... " --[You should also start from the beginning. Write a program to print to the screen the following string, "I'm an idiot".]


• "iasked our sir , they said .. we r nt here to teach u g.d u have to learn languages 4 that . then i said .. i will .. bt juzz tell me .. wher .. i mean whch iz good institute 4 dat .. wher shud i have to admit but they r nt ans me properly !" --[There is a mental hospital at N M Road, Thane. They'll gladly admit you. I'll gladly pay to get you to use more vowels.]


• "hello sir, i hav completed my 1.5 yr course from arena multimedia in animation n i think am a good 3d animator. what would u advice me 2 do next. I want 2 work here in hydbd. where shud i apply 4 jobs" --[Try joining the Indian Army. You'll get to see for yourself how to animate for games like "Call of Duty". Also, the Pakistanis will hopefully 'get' you before I do.]


• "Hi, I am an avid game player and really would like be a part of a game development team. But I don't have game development experience per se. What are all the companies could possible consider me for their open position?" --[Where is that baseball bat?]


• "i have read u r webiste.. learn lot of things but i have one doubt.. to be come programmer.. can i get any degree. in college..? or shud i get only engineering college..??" --[What I'd like to give you is the third degree. However, the law forbids it. But if you're still interested, contact Munna Bhai in Mumbai and call him some bad names.]

And this one was the best of all:
"hello,

Let me interduce my self this is Mr Sultan from hyderabad(india) working as an associate director since 17 years.I have some very good subjects for telugu and hindi . I have the team to work hard for the success of my film. I have love, family,comedy, thriller and action subjects. we are seeking for a PRODUCER who is very much intreasted to make a movie and gain good name and profits.If u are intreasted please contact me at xyz@gmail.com . waiting for u r reply
THANKING U ,
Sultan"
[17 years in the bloody profession and he still hasn't learned a thing. No wonder all our movies are so horrible. Why anyone would be "intreasted" in getting back to him is anyone's guess.]

The stupidity aside, when will these people ever learn to spell!

I go to his profile often just to read these and many others. I have a good laugh, but I commiserate with his frustration. My heart goes out to you, Sumit.

Until later. Signing out.

Yay!! I'm Famous

They put my picture on the cover of the People magazine:



Nice no? The trick is this website called MagMyPic.

Go on. Become famous.

Know Color, Get Picture

Every decent website that I see has a banner on the top. The problem is choosing a good photograph/picture for the banner that fits with the color scheme of your website.

The process of fixing this problem has started with Color Fields on Flickr. This enables people to shoot photos of a single color and tag it with the color. They can then list it on this group and people can search it.

The searching just became easier. Check out the Color Fields Colr Pickr at KrazyDad. It is an amazing tool. There are other color pickers for specific objects of a particular color, flowers or doors and windows, for example. Check them out at the links immediately below the color picker tool.

And if you want pictures with multiple colors in them (blue and yellow, for example), check out the Tiltomo (BETA) Image Search. Very well done.

Happy designing.

An amazing utility to clean your screen

It uses organic methods to recognize deposits and fingerprints on your screen and compensates by getting rid of them. Very cool. Check out its demo here.

Enjoy, and forward to all your friends.

How Gullible...

This is for all those people who think that this recent photo means that there is life on Mars.

Oh come on. Go back to the days when you still had time to lie down on the ground and look at the clouds. Even if you did think that dog shaped cloud meant that there was a dog in the sky, I'm sure you'd scoff at it now. The human brain loves seeing patterns in random images.

And even if there was life on Mars, it would definitely not be a naked woman.

You can read more about the story here. And this report on IBNLive will show exactly how much effort people went to to find it.

Tornados

I noticed today that I haven't even once blogged about storms. And I felt pretty stupid. So to correct the misnomer that my blog is, here's an amazing video by some very brave storm-chasers:



There are more amazing videos at TornadoVideos.net. Check out the documentary trailer at the bottom of the main page.

Seamas' Sketches

Those of you who like to read fantasy, but still haven't read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, are really missing out on something.

And those of you who have read the series (and even those who haven't), would be interested in looking at the character portrayals that Seamas has done on his blog, here.

These are by far the best sketches of the WOT characters that I've ever seen. Enjoy yourselves.

P.S. One of the characters is provocatively dressed. You might want to be careful in office.

A New Beginning to the New Year

One of my resolutions this year was to blog more often. Having a job in designing meant that my old template really turned me off. I had to start afresh. So after a few days of work, here it is... My blog's new avatar. Hope you people like it.

The basic design is courtesy the people at FinalSense with a few changes for shifting/styling the blog title and description appropriately. Thanks a lot FinalSense.

Intelligent Simians

More Simiand-related stuff.

There's news of a 7 year old chimp named "Ayumu" living in a lab at the Kyoto University. He and some of his simian cousins performed better than college students in a test of memory. You can watch him in action in this video.

You can pit your wits against Ayumu's in the same game. The question though is, would our least favorite Andrew win? Probably not. You know what they say right... "Dhobi ka bandar, na ghar ka na ghat ka".

Boy, I love taking a dig at this fellow :).

Fiat vs. Ferrari vs. Ferrari F1

The Fiat starts at 0s, the Ferrari at 30s and the F1 at 60s. The end of the race is sooooo cool :)

NGM's Pictures of the Year

These are some of the 2004 Picture of the Year winners from the National Geographic magazine. Amazing pictures no? You can find more on NGM's website.

Breaking News: Symonds Business

In a new first-timer, simians all over the world have gone on an indefinite hunger strike following Harbhajan's alleged comment. They consider it a speciest slur to have called Symonds a monkey.

"It is very debasing," the official spokesman for the WSP (World for Simian Protection) said in an interview today. "It is widely known that we monkeys see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. To be associated with a people who sledge like that is intolerable." The rest of the interview was not printable because stars would have outnumbered the other letters of the alphabet.

African Chimpanzees on hunger strike.