Really clever title.

Hello Again World

2006-07-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

Oh sweet reader. At long last and after many trials and much pointless tribulation it has come to pass. The purveyor of this tiny bit of digital domain has moved on to graze on the other side. You don't have to cross a mighty ocean, a broad river or even a tiny brook to get to him. Nay, all you need do is click here. Rejoice o' reader of this long standing bit of digital daftness for Mr. FortyOne now lives on live journal. Fare thee well blogger.com, one of Le Google's most disappointing creation to date.

Blogger is Spent

2006-07-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

Salutations! After having held out a long long time I am now seriously comtemplating the thought of moving my dear dirty thoughts to livejournal. Yes, that's right dear 2.5 readers, I am thinking of making a move to LJ. In no particular order, following are the pretexts I shall be using for my move:

all my friends are on zee elle jay
the comment system on blogger sucketh like stinky dog hindquarters. LJ offers forum like threaded goodness. Mmmmmmmmm...
LJ is now almost as customisable as ye blogspot. I can carry mein beloved layout with me.
I can turn up on people's friend pages and annoy them all I want
LJ offers more programming goodness. I get to write cool tools that only I use!

Thats all I can think of for now. I promise you that any serious comments on the matter will be given due consideration. Which is to say they will be completely ignored. Also, disclaimer time, I might just end up being lazy and not do this. Anybody who pulls me up for not doing this doesn't know me well enough to pull me up for not doing anything.

The Life and Times of One Mister Forty One

2006-07-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

So I notice that these blog posts are becoming kind of a weekly thing. Don't think this is some sort of routine though. I still haven't completely defined that word for myself. The last post ended with me having a puncture. Because I have nothing substantial to do at the moment I shall regale you with what happened next. Maybe the tepidity of my life will inspire you to live yours more interestingly.

For the record, that's a picture of my new car. Not a very good picture mind you, but notice how good it looks even in that bad picture. I am smitten. The next day I couldn't really go get the puncture fixed. It was wednesday you see, and apparently all the markets in my area stay closed on that day. You wouldn't believe how depressed a flat tyre can make you feel. You wouldn't believe it until it happened to your brand new car. Anyway, thursday evening I get back home and promptly bully the local tyre-wallah into coming down to my house with a pressure jack. The tyre detached, we go down to his workshop and he hands me a 3-inch screw that has apparently travelled right through the tyre tube. Screwed by a screw. The irony in the air is so palpable I could churn it into buttermilk. As I contemplate the screw my good friend the puncture guy silently labors away at fixing my tyre. His business concluded, I pay him and we troop down to my place to re-install the tyre. That done, profuse thanks are issued and much admiration/information concerning the new car exchanged. He gives me his views on the new car and kindly tells me that the model I bought is probably going to be phased out soon. I (not so kindly) tell him that when he has his own money, maybe he can buy the "new" model and park it up his driveway. As I walk into the house I can't help but wonder whether telling the guy from the local workshop that I own a new car and then showing him its location might have been a good idea. Dissing his opinion on my purchase might even have kindled hatred in his heart for my kind soul. Yes, I am paranoid. No, I don't trust people.

The next morning my dad tells that the tyre's gone flat again. I am, for lack of a better word, bamboozled! There and then, I decide to wage a personal jehad against the bloody workshop wallah. Can't believe I called him my good friend in the last paragraph. Vengeance must be extracted. Knowing that I'll get back home late in the evening I ask my father to give him hell and let him know that this will not go unpunished. The wrath of a thousand disgruntled accent owners be upon him! I shall have my revenge.

I come back home a bit tipsy the next morning. The fact that I've had about 8 pints of beer doesn't stop me checking the tyre for non-flatness. True to his promise, my father has gotten it fixed. On second thoughts though, maybe getting down on my knees and actually touching the tyre was a bit too much checking. I might even have yelled out an impromptu hallelujah. The people who dropped me off sure seemed to think that (or maybe they didn't see it at all). Nevertheless, I go to sleep a sound, happy and thoroughly drunk man.

The next day I am rudely awoken by my phone. I promised to meet a friend who's here from out of town. We meet up, beer is drunk and KFC is had. Car showing off commences and results in rides (although no drives) offered by myself and accepted by others. Much happiness. No flat tyres and zero smoking bonnets make the world a nicer, happier place. I drive home preparing for a life-changing (or should I say life-threatening) moment that is soon to come: Pun23's engagement party. More on that in the next post because its 3.10am on a Sunday morning. I really shouldn't make that promise though. It is quite likely I won't manage to get anything out for a long time. But hey, I've got no editor and you've got plenty of time to waste. Do I look bothered?

Choice

2006-06-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

Choice can be a good thing. Like when you walk into a bar or a pub and find 30 different kinds of beer on tap. Choice can also be a bad thing. Like when you order your favourite drink off the menu of a restaurant knowing full well that they're going to come back with "It's not available at the moment sir." Seriously, what is it with Delhi restaurants and the lack of Guinness? (On that note, this has to be my favorite Guiness commercial) Delhi needs more choice in beer. I'm tired of Kingfisher and Sandpiper. I can't stand the insipid, uninspiring Castle lager. No, I will not drink any of the extra strong types! Excise department, beer barons of the world, get to it!

Buying a car used to be an easy thing to do. You made sure you could afford it and then you went down the closest Maruti dealership and picked out your favourite color. If you were middle-class you ended up with a Maruti 800. The slightly upper middle-class got themselves a Zen and the hoity toity types could go for the Maruti "Esteem".

Well those days are gone. Choice and car loans have done away with the simple process I just described. Now there's more than one car for every budget type, sometimes from the same manufacturer. And then there are the variants for each car. These vary by the size of the engine, the type of the engine (diesel or petrol), even the number of valves in the engine! For some reason, the perfect package is always a breath away from what you can afford. Of course, with the availability of car loans, what you can afford isn't exactly easy to decide either.

Having overcome all these obstacles I finally managed to buy myself a car. Its a Hyundai Accent. Black. The cheapest model they had. I had to play deaf and blind to various people at various times to finally be able to settle on this one car. I'm sure they all had my best interests at heart. But I had to make a choice damm it! And this is what I want. As I drove into the petrol pump hailed by a chorus of hurrahs and congratulations (okay, so it was just that one guy) a couple of idiots chose the opportune moment to show me a few teeny tiny (read 3 cms. exactly) scratches on the front fender. Thank you, you frigging idiots. For your next act, why don't you cut each other's heads off Daniel Pearle style.

I'm cool though. I'm the cool customer who bought the black accent. Of course the old dog (my Maruti 800) needed to be driven home too. As I drive home ye olde battered jalopy (with my dad driving the spanking new acquisition) the poor old thing croaks. No, croaks isn't a good enough word. It smokes. Plumes of grey wispy stuff spew out of the sides of the hood. So I stop, work up the courage to open up the bonnet and am greeted by some more of the aforementioned smoke. I figure all it needs is some water. Its 44 degrees, I know I need water, so it must too. My dad parks and walks back to take a look. We agree on my brilliant prognosis.

Just then, Mr. Arsehole Mechanic From Race Car Care stops by on his crap ass scooter with half an engine and tells us that no, it doesn't need water. What it needs is the fan hardwired. And he promptly proceeds to do the same. When you're hot and sweaty, idiots look intelligent. Must be some sort of mirage effect. We pay him and he promply "scoots" off. I start the engine, put the jalopy into first and give it a little gas. It moves forward exactly 6 inches and promptly dies. Three more attempts yield another few feet. Of course, home being a good 6 kms. away doesn't help much. In comes another mechanic (I still think this was some sort of conspiracy). This one doesn't even posess engined transportation. No, he's on a bicycle. This time I am adamant that we feed the poor old thing (the car you idiot!) some water. So we do, and after a bit of fiddling on the unmotorized mechanic's part it appears to break the 2 meter barrier. Huzzah! We're off and home. I miss an office party. No worries. I'm still cool. In a sweltering 40 degrees sort of way.

Today, I drove my new car to the office. Much showing off. As much showing off as you can do in a dimly lit basement garage that is. I reach home driving more carefully than usual. Taking the longest route possible just so I can avoid the rowdy traffic. Get home. Dad shows up and says he sees a puncture. I go down and look and there is indeed a distinct flattening on one of the circular rubber appendages. Still cool. In a must get the puncture fixed, bridgestone is crap, japs must die sort of way.

Random Recollections

2006-06-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

This is exactly what the title says its going to be so if you're looking for structure, I suggest you navigate away now. Right, that said, there's a lot of blogworthy stuff I've been going through. None of it deserves its own post though. Okay, so most of it is only blog worthy to me. It is my blog though. You still here? Remember what I said about structure? You have been warned. Twice.

They've been showing Anne Heche (people really shouldn't have the sort of surnames you have to google to get right) movies on TV the past couple of nights. That makes me happy. Yes, I know she's a lesbian. But I heard somewhere that she veers between a lesbian and a bisexual. Thats plenty for me. I won't even confirm that rumor lest it turn out to be exactly that, a rumour. Anyway, as you can probably tell from this bit, I really like Anne Heche. I still can't figure out how she manages to make that raspy (and extremely stimulating) voice out of that petite frame of hers. To top all that, she's a very talented actress. Ahh...yes, she is definitely on my people I like list.

Air India has the best food inflight. That is if you're an Indian. If you're not, then you're royally screwed. I suggest packing sandwiches and wafers. The booze is decent though, even in economy. The service overall is abysmal. They've got planes they bought/leased from some airline in Korea flying on the Delhi-London-NY route! Now you might think thats not so bad, except the Exit signs are in English and Korean and the plane's inflight entertainment system consists of a projector mounted up front. Exactly like one of those video coach volvos you get these days. Of course this is an economy seat view we're talking about.

Things actually might be marginally better in first class. And boy do they let you know you're in economy. The tattered curtain separating economy from first has a little piece of tissue paper stuck to it that says "First Class"! Heh, right, of course. Did I mention the food was great? Yes, right, keep saying that to yourself while you're checking in, staying at an airport hotel over a 12-hour delay and while you wait 25 minutes for a glass of water. Oh, and while you sit in the plane for an hour waiting for the more important flights to take off. On IGI airport! The home of Air India. Hurray for being served by government babus while flying. I just hope they outsourced the piloting to a private company or something :)

Okay, enough ranting. I can see Anne on screen and she does look great. Dammit I'm in love with this woman, despite a publicly espoused anti-blonde stance (whatever that means). I should tell you that when the 12 hour late Air India flight landed in Delhi the lady with the mike announced that it was 41 minutes past 8. Those in the know will understand why I found myself sniggering away like a lunatic. Those not in the know probably think I am a lunatic. But thats a risk I take everytime I step out of the confines of my home, so thats alright. You can still navigate away you know. I haven't figured out yet how to use Javascript to hold a person in place. Not yet. Oh, and she goes braless a lot. Anne Heche I mean. I'm sorry, I can't help but comment on what I see. Women's lib be damned (I do not live at my home and my parents don't know who I am. I am not Arun. Otherwise known as !Arun).

Delhi's gone mall crazy. I say that with the experience of a man who's been thrown out of (translated as politely refused) parking at 3 parking lots on a single Sunday night. Its so strange going into a mall, seeing it full and yet seeing all the shops empty. About 20% of the shops haven't even opened yet. Right now, Delhiites are in the bit in mall-goer evolution where everybody just goes to the mall in the evening to take their evening walk. On sundays, going to the mall is the equivalent of heading to India Gate in our times (yes, I am old enough to use the expression "our times" now. You got a problem with that??). I wonder how long it'll take to get to the time when the only people who hang around malls late on a sunday are mall rats. My guess is about a couple of years. But then it might not actually happen at all. Right, I'm done worrying about that.

If you're still here and haven't found what you came looking for there's no point blaming me for it. I covered my hairy butt with a disclaimer. Its 1.44am in the morning and I have work tomorrow. So go away and let me get my beauty sleep (hey, quit sniggering!).

Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!

2006-05-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

Note the number of comments: http://www.myextralife.com/strips/05-08-2006.jpg

One of those things

2006-05-22T01:57:00.000-07:00

You live, you love, you hurt and you move on
You go through each day hoping its the best one
But you know you don't want to live through your best day yet
Not while you're alone
not until someone you want to have met
has had the chance to change your life

Introspection is one of those things that seems very meaningful in a metaphysical sense, but probably isn't. You think about your life, the things you've done. You think you're sorting through your feelings and trying to understand why things in your life are the way they are. Then destiny/fate/god comes along and smashes your sand castle to smithereens and you wonder for an instant: was all the time you spent analysing your life worth it? Still, the next time you're alone and in a reflective mood, you can't help but go over the previous day, week or year thinking about your friends, family, that girl in the office, your last assignment or your job.

With so many of us having so much to think and reflect over, I sometimes wonder how we even manage to get on with our lives. But get on we do. Bumping into each other every day, sometimes acknowledging and at other times ignoring each other's presence. Evaluating and sizing each other up every instant based on our own peculiar criteria. And then going back home to do it some more. In the middle of all this critical social evaluation sometimes, just sometimes, a couple of people will get close enough to each other so that they will begin to share their introspection of life. They will begin to more than talk to each other. They will share thoughts, hopes and possibly, the rest of their lives. Eventually, it'll become what the rest of us know as love. It must be a great feeling, because it looks like a great feeling when you get to observe it up close. And when people like that who you know and love decide to stay with each other for the rest of their life, its a great feeling to know that somehow, somewhere, knowingly or unknowingly, you might have had a part to play in it.

Can't say I don't feel just a little tinge of envy. But thats also how I know it must be a good thing to have. I also feel happiness, incredible joy at being witness to something that doesn't happen very often. So this is my tribute to my friends, and to something that makes an atheist want to believe in miracles. You know who you are. Congratulations, and good luck on your new journey.

What Are The Odds?

2006-05-19T06:28:00.000-07:00

Why I Say Oui to Wii

2006-05-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

First a confession. I'm a huge fan of Nintendo. Despite the fact that they've never actually sold their games or consoles in India officially. Despite the fact that they couldn't care less about the market here. Despite the fact that they came out with the lame-ass light gun that idiots like me bought and still own. Despite all that I love Nintendo and what they do. The way I see it any company that can take a mushroom stumping Italian plummer and make him a cult icon all over the world deserve to be loved. That at a time when game consoles didn't have processors or hard drives or internet connections. Just two people going at it in a room (read that in context pun23!). And thats the important bit, two people.

As I've grown up video games have become less and less participative and more and more competitive. I miss games like Contra where two people could play together. Or Battle city, where you and a friend could hunt down enemy tanks and destroy them. Sometimes your friend would end up destroying the silver bird you were protecting. But thats alright, shit happens. I remember spending hours in the game arcade just standing around, watching others play and trying to learn their techniques. In a game like Street Fighter I (and many other people) weren't averse to elbowing the competition to avoid getting beaten up in the game. It was all fair play. The game was as much outside as it was inside.

Today however, the enduring image of a gamer in most people's minds is that of a lonely geek basked in the blue glow of his television mashing away at buttons like there was no tomorrow. The same games come out again and again. Exactly how many Need For Speed titles do we need anyway? Yes, Nintendo have used Mario in almost all their games but they've all been different games. Games aren't movies. They don't have to have a format and they don't have to have a genre.

When I first saw and heard about the Revolution controller I was surprised like everybody else. At the same time I realised how much potential something like this has. Like Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo too want to bring the gaming experience closer to reality. But they don't choose to go about it by giving you better graphics or sound. They go about it by letting you immerse yourself in the graphics and sound. And if they're a little bit less than perfect on a high definition TV that practically no one can afford, so what? The reason Wii is better than the PS3 or the XBox is the same reason a party is more fun than eating alone. People want other people. People want to talk and they want to interact with each other and in real life.

I wouldn't be surprised if Wii ends up in Gyms and sports clubs all over the world. I wouldn't even be surprised if Wii brings back old-style game arcades where people used to play standing up and you fed the machine coin after coin just to get a high score. Where there was no internet connectivity but plenty of people around if you wanted to team up. Places where gamers were people, not slaves to a machine.

So I don't know about you but I'm saving up for Wii even though I can't stand that name. If you want to come hang out with me over the weekends, I suggest you at least invest in a controller :)

Wii??

2006-04-28T07:54:00.000-07:00

Why Wii? I have a feeling somebody's going to wii wii on nintendo's parade. Could be me. Wii???

Lake District Ho!

2006-04-20T03:41:00.000-07:00

Recently took a trip to the south-east of lake district national park. Photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fortyone/sets/72057594112056260/ but only accessible to "friends". I'll probably do a post about the trip if I can drag my ass away from the KFC/Beer long enough.

Be well and have a joy-joy day.

Mount Abu 1

2006-03-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

So I took a trip to Mount Abu recently. Actually it was more like a week and a half ago but I've been too lazy to write about till now. Now I've decided to do a detailed account just so I can remember the journey later. I've also decided to serialize it to make it easier for me to write it out. Pictures here. These don't contain the family photos though. Ask me to add you as a friend if you want to see those. So here goes.

The decision to go to Mount Abu was definitely an impulsive one. Having seen practically all the hill stations close to Delhi (Shimla, Kasauli, Nainital et al) I was in no mood for more of the same. So we (me and my family) decided we'd go someplace different this time. We thought of Kashmir but everybody just kept giving us grief over the terrorists. We thought of the North East but it would've taken too long to get there. Finally, exasperated and out of options, we settled for Mount Abu.

Mount Abu's always had this allure for me. Not because I've been there or even heard about it, but only because I've come close to going there at least three times but never made it. This time though I booked us tickets even before I asked for a leave from work. Indian Railways really shouldn't make it so easy to book tickets online. Anyway, the search for hotel reservations began. Mount Abu, like any touristy hill station in this country, has loads of hotels. Problem is, they all want to get paid in advance when booking. Mostly when I make a booking I do show up, but unless I've seen the place before I don't like paying in advance. After all, the brochures will always contain photographs of the best rooms won't they. Besides, you can't tell what a room smells like from its picture. So no bookings then. I decided to play adventurous/skirt danger/tempt fate/finger the devil (ok, I'll stop now) on this one.

The ride to the train station was pretty uneventful except for one detail. We got to hear loads of this guy. A detail I chose to ignore at the time (although at my own peril as I later realised). If you don't know who the guy is I am going to spare you the grief by NOT telling you who he is. The train station we went to was Old Delhi. That quaint little edifice (compared to New Delhi anyway) that always reminds me of a small town railway station. What was surprising was that it actually looked kind of clean. Guess Lalu's been doing his job after all. The air conditioner in the train was a bit noisy but not so bad that we couldn't sleep. The bit I really like about train journies though is the people you meet. True to form there was a zimbabwean (a Muslim of Indian descent) headed for Ahmedabad to see his grandfather's city and a German couple headed for Pushkar via Ajmer. A little bit of polite chit chat and some impromptu photography done we got ready to sleep.

The train got to Abu Road, which is the closest thing railway station to Mount Abu, at 10 in the morning. It was about 10 minutes late. But going by northern railways' previous track record this was actually a pretty good time. When I'd made the booking I thought that Abu Road would be just that: a station by the highway leading up to Mount Abu. I couldn't have been more wrong. Turns out Abu Road is a whole town at the foot of the hill that has Mount Abu atop it. Also, people in Abu Road sure do like their Rabri. I saw shops selling it everywhere. Strange. I always thought Punjabis had a think for high fat dairy products. Now I know we're not the only ones.

Abu Road is in a district called Sirohi in Rajasthan. Its only about 14 kms from the Rajasthan-Gujarat border and therein lies the reason for its mysterious prosperity. Gujarat is a prohibition state. Rajasthan on the other hand has no such problems. As a result, Abu Road has turned into the place Gujaratis use to get drunk legally (of course they can still get bootleg in Gujarat). Almost every roadside establishment serves alchohol and has rooms to rent (probably because people might want to stay the night). Unfortunately a lot of people still do tend to get pissed and go driving. Not a very reassuring thought when you're about to go up a hill in a taxi. Also, the day we got to Abu Road was Holi which didn't make things any better.

Greetings!

2006-03-19T06:44:00.000-08:00

I'm back from Abu. Too tired to do a full post right now. But I did come loaded with pictures. So many that I ran out of the 128 MB card on my camera and had to switch to the one in my phone. For now, I leave you with a couple of images I deem wallpaper worthy.

Enjoy. Or something like that.

Randomize

2006-03-13T10:55:00.000-08:00

As I sit in this dark room
In this very full but very stark room
I can't help but think
What if the world were to sink
In all the misery that it creates
The incredible sadness that permeates
This tiny little ball of dust
Which I inhabit
because I must

Change. To live all your life collecting unfulfilled promises, regrets and unhapiness. Or to try and fulfill each one of them while risking failure at every turn. In our naivete we often assume that we control whether the world around us changes. Like it or not, change the world does. Constantly. Question is, does one want to be the initiator of that change or just end up being an anonymous victim. How does one define change anyway? Is it the differential between one moment and the next? Is it purely a function of time, or is it also defined by space? There are times when I wish I could travel through time and see the consequences of actions I contemplate. But then I realise the pointlessness of it.

Yes, this post makes no sense.

Dilbertesque!

2006-03-12T02:57:00.000-08:00

Joy to the world. Asok wants to hire me for work in global companies!!!!!

Newses Newses!

2006-03-08T10:01:00.000-08:00

So loads of new stuff going on. Must record.

1. Good friend bought a brand new car (you know who you are). One I've been wanting to drive for a while. Hopefully he'll let me have a go. Somehow I never did get the hang of test drives. Case of shopper's guilt?

2. New project at work. Very excited. As usual, it'll see me away from home for a month or two, but well worth the price of admission.

3. New personal project I've been giving intense thought to. Under wraps right now. Something I've wanted to do for a long time.

4. I am getting FATTER! I must, absolutely MUST get off my bum and do something about this. The situation demands remediation (is that even a word?). Have been giving some thought to going on a diet. Yes, a diet! Now get off my case.

5. Am headed to Mt. Abu for a short vacation before I go off to the new project. Photos and impressions (good ones hopefully) when I get back.

The Ultimate Workaround

2006-03-06T01:28:00.000-08:00

I just logged into my gmail account after a long time and saw the new Delete button. Got me thinking. Do you think the whole 2GB storage thing might have been because they couldn't figure out how to do the Delete functionality?

The ultimate workaround ;)

Rhyme Nor Reason

2006-02-17T09:29:00.000-08:00

O Abraham did you know
What would come of the seeds you sow
Your children chopped up little pieces of the earth
The very mother who sired them, gave them birth
They eat her fruit and then poison it for the others
These others Abraham, are none but their brothers
They fight, they bicker and they feud
Whilst their spawn hunger for but a scrap of food
O Abraham how could you possibly know
What terrible deeds would come of the seeds you sow

Out With It!

2006-02-13T10:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've discovered there are other people out there affected by this problem so I have to ask. How many of you out there just can't type the word "ratio" without typing "ration" first. Come on, don't be shy, there have to be others out there. I know a couple of people at work who have this problem, and now I know Jeremy Parish's got it too. So tell me, can you type "ration"?

Sorry, I meant "ratio".

Of Animated Protestors and Inflamed Passions

2006-02-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

"Cartoon protestors torch embassies in Damascus"

"Cartoon protestors try to rush US base"

"Cartoon protestors train their sites on web"

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you've no doubt heard of the "cartoon protestors" and their protests. The first time I heard this term, the only thing I could think of was an inflamed bugs bunny saying "Of course you realise this means war".

I am the first one to admit that religion fascinates me. I have serious trouble believing what most religions preach, but I still am quite intrigued by the capability of religion and its prophets to hold sway over vast swathes of people. After what little I have studied of religion, I have come to certain conclusions:

Religions are, at a very basic level, simply a set of moral rules. The problem with most religions is that there is no graceful way of changing these rules. A change/deviation almost always results in a new sect (or even religion) branching off.
All religions have what I call the fundamental streak. This usually coincides with a sect that chooses to interpret religious symbols/texts literally despite the fact that they might not make any sense in the modern day and age.
Most religions provide no means of enforcing the rules they proscribe.
Religions become more and more tolerant overtime. However, this relaxation has very little effect on the fundamental elements who tend to see their form of religion as purer than the one followed by the majority.
Lastly, all religion is based on an unseen authority whose existence can't be proved. Empirically speaking, all religion is a lie.

However, the fact of the matter is that this whole brouhaha is costing lives and property. All this for what? A loose system of rules which can't be amended? A concept which quite possibly could be a complete and utter lie? And who's to blame?

The problem with the Danish cartoons isn't necessarily that they depict Mohammed in a bad light. The bigger problem here is that they depict him at all. Islam as a religion preaches god as a formless concept. To give god, or any other Islamic religious figures a form is considered nothing short of blasphemy. The question is: Can blasphemy committed by a non-believer be considered blashemy at all? Obviously not. But one might argue that by publishing his cartoons in a newspaper the illustrator also exposed innocent Muslim readers to his blasphemous depictions of god. Seen from that perspective, the anger of a Muslim reader of the Danish newspaper would seem quite justified. Although this still doesn't justify the anger of all the Muslims who haven't even seen these cartoons themselves. Then why is it that buildings burn and people get shot?

The real reason I think lies in the greater sense of fear and insecurity that Muslims feel in the world today. Take the term "Islamic terrorism" for instance. It has become widely used in the media and is bandied about with reckless disregard. It is used to refer to the terrorists in Afghanistan as well as the rebels in Iraq. It is also applied with equal ease to Chechnyan seperatists. To the lay person the term simply means any terrorist who ascribes to a version of Islam (no matter how perverted that version might be). In real terms though, an Iraqi rebel and a Chechnyan one have less in common than an everyday Indian and an everyday American. Each of these people are fighting for their own cause. While its true that at times they do combine forces, it is no different from any two terrorist outfits (or indeed any two combat units) combining forces to accomplish a task.

In India, Muslims are discriminated against everyday. We don't see it, but its definitely there. Let me illustrate. I belong to a community (Sikhs) which makes up roughly 3% of India's population. Thats a tiny number. Having lived in Delhi all my life, I can say with some authority that the number of my Sikhs in Delhi can't possibly be higher than the number of Muslims in the city. However, in my place of work the total number of Muslims is less than 1% of the total. On the other hand, about 5% of the total workforce is made up of Sikhs. So where are all these people going? Do they not earn a living? Part of the problem is the parallel school system (Madrasas) where the quality of education is mostly sub-par. However, the very reason for the existence of this parallel system is the intense fear of discrimination that has been instilled in the Muslim community.

In Iraq, an occupying army systematically deprives a people of the assets of their own country. Make no mistake, the American occupation of Iraq is no different from the British occupation of India. Sure they have the technology, the resources and the media accumen to put a pretty face to it. But the premise remains the same. The Americans think they must govern the Iraqis (and "give" them their freedom) because the Iraqis themselves aren't capable of doing it. This is the same line of thinking that was used to justify colonisation in the 19th and 20th century.

In Afghanistan, everyday lives of real Afghanis are still run by ruthless warlords who are a law unto themselves. The fall of the Taliban served to replace one form of chaos with another. In Iran, religion chokes the lifeblood of the country and its people. In Palestine, a people fight for their houses, their farms and the future of their children.

All these are problems that have been seen in other, non-muslim countries too. In and of themselves, these problems have nothing to do with religion. Religion however is a great rallying point. It combines people all over the world inspite of their region, race, ethnicity or language. Islam is playing that role right now. To ensure that the cartoon protests never happen again, the world would need to come together and fix the everyday problems of people in India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Palestine and many other countries. The fact that all these people happen to be Muslims is just a co-incidence. We need to make sure we understand this, lest "Islamic terrorism" become a self-fulfilling propecy.

P.S.: Sorry if the cartoon looks crap. My illustration skills are a bit rusty.

Note to self: This is what happens when you use a digital camera to transfer a drawing to the computer.

Thought

2006-02-10T10:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, silence is the better response.

Fun With ASCII

2006-02-07T07:30:00.000-08:00

Quiet! He's sleeping
- -
0
---

Oh look what you did! You've woken him
- -
o o
o
---

It's alright. It looks like he's happy to see you
- -
o o
o
\_/

Or maybe not
^ ^
o o
o
\O/

You've scared him out of his wits!
" "
O O
o
-O-

Phew! He looks okay now
- -
o o
-
\_/

Don't leave. Please don't.
- -
0 0
o
/-

Unauthorised Constructions in Delhi

2006-02-02T04:46:00.000-08:00

I just thought I'd put the word out among my friends on this. NDTV has the MCD's list of unauthorised constructions up on their web site. Its at http://www.ndtv.com/homepage/unauthoconstruct.asp. This list and many other things in the news set me thinking. My thoughts are a bit muddled right now so I won't discuss them. Maybe in a later post.

Saved For Reference

2006-02-01T08:34:00.000-08:00

At least one other person I know (well, in a sense) thinks this doesn't completely suck. So there.

I don't see dust and smoke and pain and squalor
I refuse to bear witness to the lust of power
I see chirping birds and a gurgling stream
I see snow-capped mountains and scenes serene
Why is it again that we can't live in dreams?

If People Were Shapes

2006-01-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, its fun to squint your eyes and look at life and people from a skewed perspective. Studies have shown that most people have an inherent understanding of geometry without having the need to be taught even the most basic principles. After all, we do live in a 3-dimensional world. But enough of that. What would you do if you were asked to describe yourself/others as a shape? I've gotten used to doing that as I go through my day. It doesn't always have to do with the way people look (although that does play a big role in it). In fact, it also has a lot to do with how their personality works. The abrasive ones end up with more edges, the smoother ones end up with less. The more honest or to the point ones get a lot of straight lines, where as the round talkers get more curves :)

This whole people as shapes thing has turned into a major obsession with me. I'm still surprised at the number of shapes I can come up with. Try it sometime, and you'll see how much fun it can be. Especially in boring meetings where you can fill your notepad with sketches of squares, triangles, cubes and pyramids sitting around a table. Although thinking of the shape a person is while talking to them isn't very advisable. There's this girl in the office who has a pointy head and a slightly squeaky voice. In my head she's a cone and I swear I can't talk to her without looking at the top of her head (the pointy part :)). She probably thinks I'm either some sort of freak or too distracted to talk to her. Aside from that though, its all great fun. I spoke to a few friends a few days ago and we came up with some very interesting shapes for each other. Everybody thought, and I agreed, that I am probably an oval. Still can't explain exactly why. Probably has a something to do with my body shape. Or maybe with the fact that I can't really make up my mind about anything.

Bitter Sweet Comedy

2006-01-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

Ever notice how all the really good comedies have a bitter person as one of their main characters? Well I have. Let me give you some examples:
Friends: Chandler
Seinfeld: George
Becker: well Becker of course!

Chandler stopped being bitter in Friends after he paired up with Monika, but that when the show went downhill for me (and I know people who'll agree). The only exception I can think of is comedies that are sexual in nature. Coupling, for example and this Hindi comedy that used to air on Zee TV when it first started. Weird I know, but we just seem to enjoy the sour pusses knock the wind out of the goody two shoes. Maybe its because we've all felt like that at one point or another in our lives.

Another thing thats really been bugging me lately is the severe lack of traffic police on Delhi's roads. Anybody else notice that? Where did all the coppers go anyway? Of course, Delhi's traffic, the wild beast that it is, is taking full advantage of this. Nobody seems to care about traffic signals anymore. Earlier, it used to be just the SUV/People carriers, now its everybody! Lane driving never really arrived in this city, probably because most lanes are painted wrong, but the new trend in lawlessness is definitely something new to me. People switch to the wrong side of the road on a heartbeat. Trust me, its not comforting to look at an 8 wheeler heading your way, headlights on high beam, when you THINK you're the one on the right side of the road. Maybe I've just been away too long. I don't know what it is, but to me it certainly looks like that Delhi's becoming more and more cruel as a city.

Say What?

2005-12-27T07:39:00.000-08:00

Please to be reading this email I receiving from consultant type gentle man

To: arun
Subject: Excellentopening from MNC and CMM-5 level...Rajan/

Hi Sir/Madam

How are U.?.

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Wish to inform you that there is an urgent and very prospective requirement from MNC(Fediliti) and CMM-5 level(Xsansa,Keane,HCL,Interra,Gnix) company ....
Here attach the Requirement details for this positions.........
Skill:-IBM Mainframe(Cobol,Cics,Db2,vsam,Jcl)
Exp:-2+yrs to 7yrs of Exp.
Position:- SE/SSE/Test Lead
Location:-Delhi.
How confident are you on these skills...?
Are you interested.?
(Plz inform me,which company are u intrested) Pls, Send me Ur update CV with salary Details(Salary is no issue for this position, as per company Standard)...ASAP.
FAVOUR US by referring some of your DESERVED friends/collegues who at present or in the future may take our services to get best available in Industry......................
If ur profile is matching u are very confident for this particular technologies.

Kindly c c to this mail -( brainsoftconsultants@yahoo.com)!
Early response Appreciated !!!!
Regards
[Details withheld after a strange bout of pity for the linguistically challenged]

Shadow of the Colossus

2005-12-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Video games these days have become like mass produced music, caught up in genres, sub-genres and needless hype. Every time a new game comes out it gets put into some sort of box. Be it a first person shooter, a role-playing game or a racing simulator. But sometimes, just sometimes, a game comes along that defies classification. Shadow of the colossus is one such beast.

The story begins with a young man who has just lost his lover. Not willing to accept her death, he journies to a temple in a far away land where the gods supposedly have the power to grant life to the dead. He lays her on the altar and a voice in the temple tells him that what he wants is indeed possible. However, to achieve that end, he must find and slay 16 collosi spread throughout the land. Ah what a man won't do for the love of a good woman! He willingly accepts the adventure of course. His magical sword (which also helps him locate the colossi) and a bow are his only weapons. Thus begins the adventure.

One of the most striking features of the game is the lack of minor enemy elements. You won't be killing any minions while you go looking for your next colossus. There aren't any in game characters to interact with. What you have however, is a beautiful black war horse called Agro that you can ride across the landscape. And what a landscape it is! The feeling you get when riding Agro through lush green fields, vast open tracts of desert and dense forest can only be described as profound. Let's face it, how many games let you ride a horse these days. Agro isn't as responsive as your fancy quad bike in the latest action-adventure title, but I think that is deliberate. After all, a horse is an animal. Besides that, the affinity you feel for the animal can scarcely be replicated by a vehicle.

When you finally get to a colossus, the game truly lives up to its name. These things are HUGE! I'm talking creatures the size of buildings, so that you actually have to climb them like a mountain before you can slay them. Thats no mean feat either, given the fact that these mountains tend to move around a lot and generally resist getting climbed. Plus, they always have some sort of fittingly humungous weaponry to swat attackers the first chance they get. Having said that however, each of the colossi do have a few vital spots on their body that you can stab with your magic sword to bring them down. Of course the vital spot will almost always be located in the place that is most difficult to get to. There is also a puzzle element involved whence you figure out how you are going to get on a colossus.

Each colossus in the game is like a separate work of art. Just by looking at them you can tell that the game's designers spent a significant amount of their time giving each of these guys a distinct personality. Some of them live on land, others swim under water and then there are those that fly around in the sky. The result of all this work is that by the time you have beaten a colossus, you get a real feeling of accomplishment. This more than makes up for the lack of any other sort of enemies.

Graphically speaking, this game is one of the best titles I've seen on the Playstation 2 to date. I'm sure that had it been released on the Playstation 3 or the Xbox, it would have looked better. Even so, the real selling point of the game is the incredible gameplay and the elegantly simple premise. I know its not a game everybody is going to like, definitely not people looking for quick thrills. Fighting a colossus can be a very time consuming undertaking. There will also be people who will get bored and give up mid way. But to me, as to a lot of other gamers, this will remain one of those games that will always be at the top of the pile because it does something fantastic in a world that seems to have given up on fantasy.

Do You Like To Doogle?

2005-11-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

Every wonder what an Irish search engine would look like? Here. I know Andy will appreciate this :).

More Evidence!

2005-11-23T07:29:00.000-08:00

So I was on Sampada's blog right. Sampada's blog!!! Holy crap! That number won't leave me alone. Pun23, I curse thee!

Saved For Reference

2005-11-21T07:17:00.000-08:00

Top 20 Geek Novels

===============

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams 85% (102) - Done
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell 79% (92) - Done
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley 69% (77)
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick 64% (67)
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson 59% (66)
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert 53% (54)
7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov 52% (54) - Done
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov 47% (47) - Done
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett 46% (46)
10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland 43% (44)
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson 37% (37)
12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons 38% (37)
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson 36% (36)
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks 34% (35)
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein 33% (33)
16. The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick 34% (32)
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman 31% (29)
18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson 27% (27)
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson 23% (21)
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham 21% (19)

All You Bases Are Now Belong To Us

2005-11-16T06:42:00.000-08:00

Ok, I really needed to get that subject line out my system. Ever since I read the news that Google's launching a service called Google Base, its been doing the rounds in my head. Anyway, about Google base. Its a service where in you can upload stuff to Google and tag it so it becomes searchable via...you guessed it...Google. So its kind of like Yahoo! Briefcase but searchable. Why would you want to upload all your stuff to Google? I don't know, but looking at the examples of the site there's probably a few lazy people out there who can't even be bothered to put their information/data on a decent web site. So Google does it for them.

Does this mean the Internet will soon be inundated with useless junk? I think that one's happened already and as long as you use Google to search through the junk to get to the useful bits, the ad words machine keeps churning and old Goog is a happy corpy. I don't know how they're going to deal with helpful company employees who choose to upload their company documents to THE_BASE so that they become searchable. I can already see men in black business suits hovering overhead. Oh, and what about people who use the service to upload and tag software and mp3s (otherwise known as piracy)? Don't know. But ol' Goog'll fix it.

Aside from this, I am beginning to become a little paranoid of all the dirt Google has on me. Lets list the ways Google knows me shall we:
1. This blog, hosted on a Google server. Holds my thoughts, ramblings and other stuff I don't mind having in the public domain.
2. Gmail, which I really don't use at all. But if I did, and many of you do, they know me by my email. Somehow, since the Sony's rootkit fiasco, my trust in big corporations has gone down.
3. Google desktop search, which knows almost everything there is to know my hard drive and tracks all my internet usage (by sitting on top of winsock). Oh, you didn't know that? Read the EULA.
4. Google search, which tracks my usage using anonymous cookies. This includes Google local search, which now knows the post code of the London apartment I put up in while I'm there.
5. Google talk.

...and I wonder what else. So there, thats my State of the Google address for you. Not necessarily bad, just very paranoia inducing.

What Does It Take?

2005-11-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

A Peculiar Day

For as long as he could remember, Hamid had always taken Roshanara road to get to his house from school. Today was no different. In fact, he had become so used to this walk home that if he were to think back to all the days he had done it, he’d be hard pressed to distinguish one day from another. Did that mean that all the hours of his life he had spent travelling on this road were lost forever? Had the innocuous walk taken away from him a part of his life? He did not know whether that was true or even why he was thinking these thoughts.

He found that if he let his mind ramble in the maze of pointless thought, it almost always served to relax him. Of course, this came with a price. Occasionally, people would come up to him when he was in a personal reverie and rudely interrupt him with social pleasantries. Did they even qualify as pleasantries he wondered? Especially when all they did was bring him back to a world that scarcely seemed to take notice of him. And what was so good about being part of society or the world at large anyway?

To avoid sudden interactions breaking into his private world, he had lately taken up to walking with his eyes to the ground. It was a bit like some of the girls in his school who had just sprouted the strangest protrusions on their chests. He didn’t think they looked down for the same reason that he did. He thought that like some of the boys in his class, the girls too enjoyed looking at their chest all the time. Unfortunately, he was at a loss when it came to this strange obsession. He had concluded that this was just one of those things that weren’t interesting enough to devote any time to. After all, how interesting could a body part really be? In the end, it was all just skin and bones.

He didn’t like to admit it, even to himself, but he did enjoy watching other boys watch some of the more bloated (was that even the proper word for this?) girls in the class. Somehow, it made him feel powerful that whereas he couldn’t care less, these boys could not help but surrender to their urge to stare. And for a moment, they simply forgot to take notice of the world around them. He thought that they might feel something like his thoughtful reveries at these times. Maybe it was their way of escaping the world. Maybe they just weren’t clever to get lost in their own thoughts.

Hamid’s habit of walking with his eyes to the ground had exposed him to a few new things. For one, he now could identify each of the varieties of flowers that grew in the flower beds by Roshanara road on his way from school to home. He had borrowed (more like stolen) his brother’s digital camera for a few days and photographed all the different flowers he saw. He had then matched the photos up with those on the Internet to find out what each one of them was called. The wide array of flowers he had found was astonishing. No less than 40 different kinds! Ever since then, he’d taken to counting and keeping track of the flowers to bide his time while walking home everyday. It was a sort of floral census. If the government ever decided to do some sort of count of the number of flowers in the country, he felt confident that he would be able to handle the role of the floral census officer for his little stretch of Roshanara road.

Today however, he saw a new kind of flower on the ground. This one wasn’t even growing in a flower bed. It had just sort of come out of a crack in the concrete pavement. He was so startled that he just stopped dead, almost causing a burly man behind him to trip over him. Fortunately, the man just grimaced at him and walked away. He saw the grimace out of the corner of his eye and didn’t even look up lest the man try to teach him a lesson in morality. Anyway, he was far too concerned with his new find to care what the big man thought of him.

What was surprising was that Hamid was sure that the flower hadn’t been there yesterday. Yes, he was quite sure. His floral census was faultless. Had somebody planted it there? But who would plant something in the crevice of a pavement where it was quite likely it would be trampled by some passer by? It couldn’t have grown there overnight, could it? He resolved in his head, there and then, to find out where this flower could have come from. After all, events like this didn’t happen every day. And he owed it to his duties as a floral census officer to keep accurate count of any flowers on this particular stretch.

Now he had a problem though. He couldn’t go home because he couldn’t risk the flower being trampled by somebody while he went home to get his brother’s camera. However, he didn’t want to pluck the flower either. What if it was the last one of its kind in the world? Come to think of it, what if it was the first one of its kind? So he just stood there, thinking about a possible course of action. He didn’t really have any friends, nobody who wouldn’t laugh at his foolish notion of trying to protect a flower that had sprouted up on the pavement. Besides, not too many kids from school used Roshanara road anyway. It ran by a cemetery and that scared some of the other kids off. Hamid didn’t get that. What was so scary about dead people anyway? If anything, the dead ought to be afraid of the living.

To bide the time while he waited for something to come to him, Hamid decided to tell himself stories. He had a fertile imagination, surely enough to keep himself entertained for a while.

New profile photo

2005-11-10T08:43:00.000-08:00

Too lazy to post anything. So here's a spanking new profile photo.

Kevin Bacon Ho!

2005-10-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

You have to check this thing out. The oracle of Bacon can give you hours of fun. It links any actor on IMDB to Kevin Bacon in less than 6 movies. Incredible! Kevin Bacon is at the center of the movie universe apparently. So far, I've been able to link Mithun da, Amisha Patel, Saira Banu (yes her!) to Kevin Bacon. Lets see if you can find someone who isn't linked to Kevin by less than 6 movies.

Is Chetan Bhagat "Inspired"?

2005-10-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

Right, so I'm reading this book called "One night @ the call center" by Chetan Bhagat. Chetan is one of those rare Indian authors who writes in English, but whose target audience actually are English speakers living in India. Unlike your Rushdie or Arundhati Roy (or V.S. Naipaul and countless others of that ilk), he does not concentrate on the side of India that the average Indian just does not encounter that often. Which is to say, he is an Indian author who writes like an Indian author and refrains from adopting the condescending western attitude that one sees in the writings of the aforementioned authors. Whats even better however is that this guy's books are actually priced low enough to be affordable to most of India's reading public.

With that last paragraph, I hope to firmly establish that I like what Chetan's doing and would definitely like to see more writing like his. However, the reason I wrote up this post is because I found something quite startling in the book. Around page 161, some of the characters in the book decide to play a game called "radio jockey". What goes on after that is almost an exact recreation of this real life event (happened on Andy Savage's show) that became something of an urban legend on the Internet a few years ago. Now what I want to know is that whether or not there is a game called "radio jockey" or if Chetan's just been "inspired" by Andy Savage's show. Can anybody out there answer that? Because if he has picked up this scenario just to incorporate it into his story, I think he ought to at least acknowledge the fact that it is something that actually happened. I don't write a lot of fiction (come to think of it, I don't think I've written any at all) and I don't know what the ethical and moral constraints are when one fictionalizes a real life incident like this, so I'd like someone to tell me if what he's done was indeed the right thing to do.

Verbosity, thy Name is NDTV

2005-10-17T23:43:00.000-07:00

Found this little turd from a grammar poor writer on the NDTV web site today. Some quotes:

"From the very beginning even in their infancy, video games were able to capture the hearts and minds of all..." - No shit! So infancy is what happens in the beginning? Here I was thinking people came down to earth as fully grown adults.

"...and it's just a matter of time before video games become as big as Hollywood..." - Uh...that happened about 3 years ago already. Or didn't you hear. Can you say research?

"Present day computer games very realistic and detailed. However they are are much more resource intensive too." - Its language, not math. You can't skip a word in one sentence and then make it up in the next one. No really, you can't!

"There is more interactive entertainment and at present is bigger than movies." - Oi! If you're going to contradict yourself, at least have the decncy to do it on the next page or something.

If You Have Respect for Beer...

2005-10-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

...you should watch this. Its a new commercial for one of my favorite brands of beer (you'll know which one right away). I originally wanted to use the punch line for the heading to this post, but its great when you eventually see it in the commercial. Really. Enjoy!

Ye Olde Arun

2005-10-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

A lot has changed since I dropped out of my mother. So much in fact, that I almost feel old. Yup, I could pretty much gather a few kids around me and go "Hamare zamane mein..." (Back in our day...) in a highly patronizing tone. Here's why:
1. I've seen black and white TVs
2. I was born in a time without cable and one, yes one, government run terrestrial TV channel.
3. I can recognise the tune All India Radio plays when it opens broadcast every morning.
4. I know what Krishi Darshan is (if you don't, don't ask).
5. I don't understand the chat lingo kids use these days. Chatting with my cousin on MSN makes me feel inadequate. I'm old skool. I first conversed online on a quaint thing called IRC. LOL sure! LHO?? What the f***?
6. I've owned and used a Unix shell account.
7. I used to run a moderately popular Bulletin Board System. No, not an online forum! You could dial into it using your modem and surf (if you can call it that) in colorful ASCII. Yay!
8. On that note, I know what Legend of the Red Dragon is.
9. I played GTA and GTA2. Yes, that's right, they're top down and 2D and free. You got a problem with that, punk?
10. I was born before the Internet.
11. Until I was 12 years old, you'd have to wait anything between a year to your whole life to get a phone connection (yes, a landline). Thank you MTNL.
12. I was born before cellphones.
13. I was brought up with the notion (and given theory to prove) that the most a telephone line could do was 33.6kbps. If your provider was nice, maybe you could get 56kbps sometimes. DSL?? ADSL?? Hogwash!
14. At various times in my life, I have owned an Atari 2600, Atari 5200, the original 8-bit Nintendo, the 16-bit Nintendo and a Gameboy. The only one I still have track of is my super nintendo. And yes, Contra still rocks my world. Bring on the 30 lives!!
15. I've used an 8088-based PC and a BBC micro.
16. I know GWBasic and QBasic (hate both).
17. I can write an application using C++ and Windows API, in Windows 3.11, on a computer with 2MB of RAM, and a 33Mhz processor.
18. I've seen Visual Basic 1.0. The DOS version. Don't believe me? Translate this Einstein!
19. I can tell you the speed of a modem by listening to its handshake. No really, I can! And I know other people who can. Sad. I know. Not if you've spent 20 calls and 40 minnutes trying to get connected.
20. I know what .mod and .s3m files are.

Birthdate: 03/09/80

Can't think of anymore right now, but feel free to add to the list. I know I will. Also old:
http://anupma.livejournal.com/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/serioussam/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/pun23/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/anand/

Ouch!

2005-09-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, you want people to notice you. But damn woman! That has to hurt. Can she even breath? Women reading the blog, please back me up on this. Oh, that's Mallike Sherawat by the way. Here's a link to the whole piece (no pun intended).

Onlineee!

2005-09-20T08:18:00.000-07:00

I'm back online. Stronger than ever baby. 256Kbps strong! Oh, and does anyone else find this a bit strange? Oh, and Opera's free.

The Number That Must Not Be Divided

2005-09-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, this has to be my strangest encounter with THE_NUMBER yet. Some people see statues of the virgin weep, I see 41.

Off the Grid

2005-09-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

So it looks like I won't be able to log on from home for a while. I'm switching broadband providers and nobody from the new provider (MTNL for those who know) has come around to hook me up yet. My account with the current guy expires tomorrow. Not that anybody cares, but it looks like I won't be able to log on from home for a while. Unless I can resist the urge to use the shitty MTNL dial up. Is it just me or are they running out of songs to remix? Even the shitty 80s numbers are getting the glossy treatment. That might mean that they'll have to do some original indipop next. Egad! And the models are getting uglier by the minute. I really should turn off the TV now. That girl in the strange orange PVC dress might give me nightmares.

Excrement!

2005-09-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Every few months I put myself up for this, only to get shot down or end up with a heartbreak after a short-lived relationship. After that, I promise myself that I'll never do it again. But my damn mind just won't quit! I have a crush on a girl at work and this time and I know for sure I am setting myself up for a dissapointment. But I can't help it. I can't get her out of my head now. Damn! Damn! Double damn!

Half

2005-09-07T07:47:00.000-07:00

A half-filled glass,
A half-hearted attempt,
A half-baked solution,
and a half-lived life.

We gon sip bacardy like its yo birthday

2005-09-01T02:01:00.000-07:00

Now I know what I want for my birthday. Please! Pretty please...

A Personal

2005-08-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine recently did a small piece about herself on her blog (you know who you are) and I really liked the idea. I've never actually talked much about myself on this blog because I do not consider myself a particularly absorbing person. Even so, I felt like committing a bit of myself, 24 years old and generally comfortable, to my blog. I thought I'd write up a short personal to give the two people that probably read this sorry excuse for a blog some idea of the kind of guy I am and what I like/dislike in others. Its as honest as I could possibly make it, hypocrit that I am. I must be crazy to be doing this, but here it comes anyway.

I am a male homo sapien, usually pre-disposed to long spells of quiet followed by short bursts of frenetic activity. I think my blog speaks quite well for that fact. I wouldn't consider myself a go-getter or an ambitious person, although I am attracted by people of such dispositions. This has always worked out badly for me though because I end up disappointing said people because of my laid back attitude to life. I am one of those people who actually does spend most Saturday afternoons in bed, only to rise in the evening to watch TV and maybe go out with friends.

I do not believe in religion or the (so called) almighty because I consider both ideas to be too autocratic to be natural. I do however believe in the power of nature as frequently evidenced by large scale disasters and the like. Having said that however, I do not attribute any divine power to nature. I am of the belief that like everything in this world, nature and things in general around us are nothing but complex systems that can be broken down into a simple set of rules. Speaking of rules, I do have a few which I find myself breaking more often than following. I have been known to state a principal loudly, and then blatantly contradict myself in the next instance.

I grew up in a liberal Sikh family. For the uninitiated, Sikhism is one of the many minor religions that have sprung up in India over its long history. It is a reformist religion (primarily an attempt at a reformed version of Hinduism) that has quickly turned archaic like all the other religions of the world. My turban and beard are symbols of my religion. I keep them around, even though I am an atheist, because I wasn't really offered a choice and over the years I've grown used to (and sometimes enjoy) the way I look. I do however fully intend to offer my offspring a choice of religion if they are so inclined.

I was born in Delhi, India and have lived here all my life. I don't think I've ever been away from Delhi for more than five months at a stretch. I do like my city, but I am frequently dismayed by the attitude its citizens and its government show towards it. I believe a city as accepting and accommodating as Delhi deserves a lot more respect from its general populace. Respect that it is denied everyday. I hate people who throw banana peals, plastic bags or cigarette butts out of their car windows and people who pee at street corners. I also blame the government for not putting up enough public conveniences and dustbins where they are needed.

I don't easily make friends because I tend to clam up when I'm in a new environment. This is a bit strange considering the fact that I am a half-decent public speaker. Anyway, when I do make friends, I tend to be loyal to them and hold on to them for as long as they'll care to keep in touch with me. I don't usually call my friends and can't even manage to remember birthdays of most of them. However, I think most of them understand that this is wholly unintended and forgive me for it. My friends have always been my greatest strength and I like surrounding myself with them whenever self-doubt or self-loathing strike me.

My general view on life has always been at a tangent with most people I know. I find personal relationships and being nice to people tedious and extremely draining. For me, having a kind conversation with a stranger is the most emotionally draining experience I can imagine. This is probably the reason people who've just met me come back with the impression that I am a bit aloof. Truth is, I find society and its many norms of behavior a tiresome construct. I believe most of these so called norms and etiquettes are redundant and should be chopped off our daily routines after a public vote. Of course, that doesn't make me very popular with the nice, politically correct lot. But then I never wanted to be nice, I just wanted to be me.

Now, something about the kind of person I'd like to end up with someday. I may be insular and an exclusionary, but I definitely don't want to die alone. I believe that humans initially came together because they needed security and warmth. They found that if they huddled together and fought against the elements together, their chances of survival in their ecosystem were a lot higher. Over the years, we've found other, higher emotions to justify staying together. But I believe that deep down, most human relationships are still about warmth and security, both physical and emotional.

Ideally, I would like the person I end up with to be my exact opposite. Somebody who has set goals in life, although not necessarily set ideas about life. Someone who is their own person and does not need emotional crutches to prop themselves up in life. Because more than anything else, the thing that scares me most about companionship is the thought of becoming somebody's life buoy. I don't think its the kind of responsibility that I want to or even need to shoulder. Mind you, that does not mean that I won't be there in times of need, just that the said times of need must not be indefinite in scope. I know that makes me sound selfish, but neediness and over dependence are the main reasons that most relationships end. I obviously don't want the same thing happening to me.

Of course, my companion would have to be a woman (I'm not gay, contrary to what one of my homophobic friends would have you believe), but other than that, physical attributes don't carry a whole lot of weight for me. I do understand that physical beauty counts, but its very transience makes it uninteresting to me. We all come into our prime and then grow steadily older and uglier. That's all there really is to it. Of course, getting older does not have to mean that a person has to become uninteresting.

So there. That's me and what I want. Do comment, and if you want to answer the personal (unlikely I know), remember that there really isn't a whole lot on offer here. Just me :)

What Do You Call A Punjabi Bird?

2005-08-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

Why a chicken of course!

Just For The Record

2005-08-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

My top five beer brands (in no particular order):

Guiness
Stella Artois
Grolsch
Indian Pale Ale
Kingfisher

The anti-list to that list:

Budweiser (if I want water, I'll get it from the tap)
Carling (has no flavor)
Carlsberg (watered down piss)
Royal Challenge (uggh! worst tasting shite ever)
Haywards (whoever said beer had to be strong to be good must die)

Oh, and the best list didn't have ciders like strongbow, which i enjoy quite a bit.

What Changed on Thursday

2005-08-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

Last thursday, I woke up to the sound of a helicopter hovering above my neighbourhood. At first, I thought it was probably part of the security detail for a celebration near the tower or something. As I was in the shower I suddenly realised why the helicopter was there. It was thursday, and London had seen two terror attacks in two weeks over the last two thursdays. The city was scared, and this was the government's way of saying that they were there. Out on the streets and around the station, I could see a muted yet potent police presence everywhere.

A lot of things have changed in London since that fateful day when 56 people died. The high street shops are doing even worse than they were earlier because people are too scared to go out on weekends. The traffic jam on the road in front of my apartment building is heavier than it used to be despite an 8 pound congestion charge. Railway stations have suddenly become microcosms of the city, reflecting in minute detail what goes on in the minds of Londoners everyday. People are suspicious of everything and everyone.

In the midst of all this, I am brown, wear a turban (although I am not a Muslim) and carry a laptop bag that looks suspiciously like a rucksack. You would think that I would be the prime candidate for a stop and search or racial abuse. Significantly however, none of these things has happened to me yet. Despite this however, I have changed some things to compensate for these terrible times.

Nowadays, whenever I walk into a train station, I tend to take the ear plugs of my music player out of my ears till I board the train. The reason I do this is because there are almost always police men/women posted at the entrances to stations and I remember what happened to the last man who didn't stop when the police told him to do so. When I close my bag, I make sure none of the wires from my laptop charger are sticking out of it. I don't carry a bag on the tube anymore.

Some of these changes are conscious decisions, others are not. I feel that if I can make my fellow humans feel a bit more safe by changing somethings about myself, maybe I should. I don't intend to pass judgement on Londoners or even on the perpetrators of those heinous atrocities, simply because I do not understand either side well enough. But I do know that these strange events will not just become part of history. I do know that things like this will probably recur around the world until all of us start to understand each other a bit better.

The way I see it, the only other way around this problem is to cut the whole world into neat little pieces and isolate these pieces from one another. Unfortunately, recent political events indicate that that is already beginning to happen. But this is not the long term solution. People of the world need to throw out governments that do not respect public opinion.

The Apocalypse Cometh!

2005-07-05T13:11:00.000-07:00

I have always believed that when the world eventually ends, it won't be because of one catastrophic act or because we finally pushed the planet's ecosystem too far. No. I think it'll happen the day we reach a certain (unknown at the moment) critical mass of stupid people in the general population. Reading this makes me feel that that time is now very close indeed. There should be a law disallowing people like this from breeding! Honestly, what in fuck's name is going on!

Why the Concept of Political Asylum Makes No Sense

2005-06-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

I find that the concept of nationhood, although a human invention, is integral to the functioning of society as we know it. At the heart of the concept lies the fact that people who are born, live and die in a region must own up to what goes on around them. Nations aren't necessarily made up of people of the same ethnic, cultural or even religious origins. In fact, this is precisely what makes the concept of nations stronger than these more frivolous and abstract divisions.

When people run away from their countries to other countries because they face persecution at home, I find that they are doing something akin to a soldier running away from the battlefield. We all know what militaries around the world do to cowards, and I think that fate is well deserved indeed. While I am not advocating that we shoot all asylum seekers, what I am trying to get at is that the oppressed peoples are the ones who foster regime changing revolutions/struggles in their countries. If they were to run away and hide in other more congenial surroundings, we wouldn't have any of the great freedom struggles that history has witnessed. Frankly, I think that is simply outrageous, and that is why I don't condone political asylum or asylum seekers.

Simply hiding the harassed and the oppressed from their oppressors does not guarantee protection of human rights. In fact, it does quite the opposite because it decreases the critical mass of the population who hate the regime and delays the eventual uprising that much longer. I don't favour the approach that the United States has taken with Iraq either because I don't think freedom is something that can just be granted to a people. Freedom has to be hard won and frequently paid for in blood. Freedom too cheap is no freedom at all.

Lately, however, governments in exile and asylum seekers seem to have become acceptable to the world. The Tibetans sit in India dreaming about a country they have lost but will do nothing to regain. They run a government whose writ extends to a few people in a small hilly town which isn't even inside the country they're meant to govern. I think they are deluding themselves just like Chiang Kai-shek and the Americans did long after the communists had taken control of China. They need to realise that freedom struggles aren't won by setting up stupid proxy governments and sending diplomats of said governments to other countries who have no obvious reason for helping you. And why should they? What exactly would the United States, Britain or indeed India have to gain by making a foe out of China. There is an expression that goes "God helps those who help themselves". It would be appropriate to reword it to say "The world helps those who help themselves". If the Tibetans are committed to sitting with their collective thumbs up their arses, then they should realise that this will always be their fate.

I do accept the fact (although I'm not sure it works) that the Tibetans wish to use non-violence to further their goal of freedom. One might argue that India and South Africa took this route and emerged free, successful nations. But the point worth noting here is that the leaders of their struggles waged their struggle INSIDE their countries as opposed to watching from the sidelines and waiting for others to do their dirty work for them.

Even if someone were to invade Tibet (highly unlikely) and wrench it from the Chinese and hand it to the Tibetan government in exile, I suspect it would only end up like another Iraq. I think Iraq is a perfect example when the people of a country have someone force a certain kind of freedom upon them. We've seen it happen before in Vietnam, and today we see the story repeated in Iraq.

The problem of Tibet is also replicated in Zimbabwe, where people are just now beginning to stand up to a corrupt regime that has made the whole country bankrupt. But what we need to understand is that one or even a small group of people are not nearly enough to prop up a bad government. It takes the complacence of all the good people in the country to keep the few bad people in power. Zimbabweans who end up in other countries seeking asylum should ask themselves whether betraying their country is a fair price for keeping themselves and their families safe.

The whole point of this discussion is that the people of the world who live under oppressive regimes absolutely must learn to stand up for their homes, or they must choose to lower their heads in shame and live off the neighbour's hospitality. The choice is theirs, and theirs alone.

Closer

2005-06-13T14:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes an experience, a song, a vision or a person can just take hold of your senses and refuse to let go. Its not the same for everybody or with everything, but it does happen to all of us every once in a while. A couple of months ago when I'd just moved into my rented accomodation and was feeling a bit lonely, I decided to watch one of the DVDs I'd brought along when I came from India. The movie I was going to watch was Closer. Now I'll admit that the primary reason I stared to watch it was because I saw Natalie Portman on the cover. But as soon as I started the movie, I was captivated by the title number. Its a song called Blower's Daughter by a guy called Damien Rice. Now I haven't the faintest clue what Blower's Daughter means, but when you listen to this song and then watch the movie, you realize that it is a perfect marriage of music and imagery.

After that day, the song had been playing my head non-stop for over 2 months. I watched the movie again today and felt exactly the same things I did the first time. Can't quite explain it, but what I can say is that it would be pretty hard to find someone who isn't moved by this very human story. I defy you to watch the movie with someone you care about, I defy you to not feel the desparation that Clive Owen feels when he tries talking to Natalie Portman in a strip club and finally, I defy you to explain what you feel for Natalie Portan's character. Go watch this movie, and tell me if it moves you the way its moved me.

Online Journalism

2005-06-11T03:25:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time since I last posted here. The main reason behind that is that I haven't had access to a computer at home. Blog posting at work has always felt somewhat like an anti-thesis of blogging to me, so I have resisted that temptation. Now that I've finally managed to wrangle a laptop out of the company (don't you just hate these stupid 88-key keyboards??) I'm back to dumping my frustrations/thoughts in digital oblivion. Oh, and whoever said laptops are portable obviously had shoulder blades made of steel.

Coming back to what prompted this post though. I just installed and logged into MSN on the new computer and happened to click on the weather link for Delhi. It is pretty hot out there, isn't it? Anyway, while looking at the forecast I noticed an "NRI edition" link on MSN and clicked it. I saw a story about "Bollywood and Smoking" and decided to read it. I thought maybe it was a write up about how Indian movies had woken up to the incredible uncoolness/unmachoness of smoking. Turns out however that its an article about product placements in Bollywood cinema. Fine I said, minor editorial fuck up. But it was when I started reading the article that I really started to get pissed off. Sample this:
"And even for the biggest and the best, it may not been enough."

What??? Been enough? I won't even go into the area of starting a sentence with an "And", but surely, Microsoft Word would make a better editor than the people who went through this tosh! There's more:
"Here comes in Bollywood. It offers a captivity which most mass media can’t."

What?? Captivity? So bollywood's some sort of S&M club now? The quality of writing in this article was made even worse by the shoddy editing. If this is the stuff we see coming out of MSN India, I wonder what is to be expected of other online publications of lesser repute. Stuff like this is also the primary reason I often can't read online publications. However, the online media isn't the only place where the editing staff seems missing in action. This malaise also affects our print media. Now I write a blog and I don't get paid for it, but I still do read through what I write after I'm done. Besides, if I were getting paid for it, I'd make sure that the quality of writing would be at a level at least slightly above the completely pedestrian. It hurts me to see online writing destroyed like this in the ameteurish, untutored hands of most online writers. I've done a fair bit of writing myself, and I can't imagine the kind of people who produce stuff like this. I don't know whether it is because they're gtting peanuts or that they just don't care, but this is not the way I want to see journalism going.

Security: A Dangerous Illusion

2005-03-05T10:23:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: This writeup is a bit more tech heavy than my usual posts. You have been warned!

Any power user will tell you that computer security is just an illusion. The only safety most people have is that there aren't nearly enough people out there with malevolent intent who have significant computer knowledge. Plus, most hackers are benevolent and the real cyber criminals aren't interested in small game anyway. That said, the little security that digital security techniques such as SSL and PGP key encryption offer go a long way in ensuring that you don't make it easy for the casual hacker to snoop on your data.

I say all this because today I realised once again how naive people can be. You see, in India, most of the so-called "cable internet" is actually a euphemism for a local area network hooked up and administered by a cable operator. So, not surprisingly, there are no cable modems involved in a cable internet set up, just a lot of Ethernet cards. What the cable operators and the users don't realise however is that they are setting up a large broadcast network (Ethernet) on which everybody has access to each other's data packets. While it is true that most people won't see each other's packets because they get filtered by the operating system's TCP/IP stack, that won't stop a determined hacker from having a looksy.

That, in a nutshell is exactly what I decided to do today. I was getting bored so I decided to find out exactly how bad the situation is. I have had Ethereal (a network protocol analyzer) set up on my windows machine for a while now. All I had to do is to fire it up and set it up so that it would capture all packets going past my network card. I did that and stored all the frames (network packets) in a log file. I did this for an hour and then ran a simple search filter on the file to bring up all http packets with the request method set to POST. Doing this got me access to six username/password combinations all for different users.

I didn't verify any of the credentials because it wasn't my intent to impinge on anybody's privacy. But I'd willingly bet all my knowledge on the fact that each and everyone of these credentials work. Because I limited my search to just the most obvious way of submitting credentials on web sites (the POST request method), it is also quite possible that this is just a small subset of all the credentials contained within the raw data that I gathered. The worst part is, that this network isn't just used by individuals. I know of actual companies that use my cable operator to provide for their connectivity needs. Having seen the general level of awareness of system admins in this country, I'm pretty sure a lot of them have no idea that it is so easy for anyone to steal data that is potentially valuable to their company or its clients. On top of that, I am sure that 90% of these companies have never bothered/will bother to get a third party security audit done.

So what I'm saying is:

Use PGP or any other good free encryption tool to encrypt all important email.
If you use a web mail provider, make sure they have a secure (possibly SSL) login mode. Otherwise, close that account.
If you use an online banking provider, make sure their login is secure. This is the case 90% of the time, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Firewalls and Anti-virus scanners won't help in this situation because they only protect your computer and the data that resides on it from outsiders. They DO NOT protect your data in transit, only encryption can do that.

Right now, I don't see much evidence of the data I found being misused. But I am quite sure that it probably won't last for long. Imagine two companies on the same cable provider operated network sending out tenders to the same client. How hard would it be for someone with a little knowledge working in company A to grab company B's mail off the broadcast network? And this is just one of the potential scenarios. The problem becomes even more complex when we consider wireless (802.11 based) networks. My company just put up a wireless network in the office, and although I don't use it (still tied to a LAN cabled desktop) I am quite sure that it is very unsecure. While someone would need to hook up their workstation to an Ehternet cable coming from the office to listen in on the packets earlier, now all it would take is an 802.11 wireless card. I'm pretty sure my network admin has never heard of the term war driving, but if he's not careful he's going to hear it pretty soon, and not in a good way. Same goes for you! Don't think 24-hour connectivity comes without a price.

The Replicators Are Here!

2005-02-20T03:25:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but Star Trek has to be one of my favorite TV shows of all time. I know of at least two other devoted trekkies who watch Star Trek as often as they can. But while most trekkies tend to be impressed with gadgets like Phasers (weapons that shoot something akin to a LASER) or warp drives (engine technology that powers faster than light travel), I tend to marvel at the wonders of the humble replicator. If you've seen Star Trek, you will remember the magical niche in the wall of almost every room in the ship that supplies the crew with everything they desire. It could be Will Riker's request for a shot of Tequila, or Captain Piccard's demand for herbal tea. The replicator always gives them what they want in an instant.

It is a matter of history that science fiction portends future innovations and discoveries in science. In some cases such as the communication satellite, science fiction may even directly inspire invention. And so it has happened that the first steps towards making a viable replicator are already being taken. Quite surprisingly, the precursor to the replicator is nothing but your humble inkjet.

To imagine an inkjet printer as anything other than a printer is truly a leap of faith. But technically speaking, there really isn't a whole lot of difference between what an inkjet does and what an industrial robot does. Think about this, if you were to replace the ink in the ink cartridges with some sort of liquid acrylic, and use a 3D compositing platform (such as silicon or aluminium) instead of paper, you'd be able to make any shape in plastic that you desire. Customized Lego blocks anyone?? Now replace the inks with special fluids, one that is insulating in nature and another that is conductive in nature. Use silicon as a substrate and what you have is any kind of integrated cicuit that your heart desires. Attach this custom printer/robot to a computer and you have a quick way to prototype anything from sculpture to microprocessors.

Of course, getting the inkjet technology to do this stuff is no child's play, but then who said we had any children working on this. There are people all over the world trying to adapt inkjet printers to print things as wide-ranging as tissues/organs to complete housing. There's a group of people who are even looking at printing complete electronic gadgets, essentially turning hardware into intellectual property and making delivery of such goods completely electronic. So in the future, buying a cellphone or a PDA could mean downloading the schematics and actually manufacturing it at home! The possibilities are unlimited. Popular science has a great article this month that prompted me to write this post. I just hope I get to see the Star Trek replicator for real before my time on this planet runs out.

To be a Republic

2005-01-25T23:37:00.000-08:00

For those of you not aware of the significance of this day, today is India's republic day. It is the day that the Indian Union first began using its current constituation. The other day, a friend and I got into a conversation about whether or not the quality of life in India was better when the British still governed the country. I pointed out that conditions may be bad right now, but at least we can hold ourselves responsible for the state we are in, rather than some king ruling us from 6000 odd miles away. What's more, we can actually look forward to improving the situation (no matter how hard that may be) by taking things into our own hands.
That got me thinking about all the sacrifices this country and its people have made, and continue to make everyday, just so we can be a democratic republic, not JUST a free country. After all, China is a free country, and also a prosperous one. Except they don't get to choose their leaders, their representatives and by association, their laws. True, they have one of the fastest growing economies in the world but they still do not have true freedom of expression. One only has to take a look at the large list of failed democracies that have emerged from former Asian/African colonies to realise what a huge achievement it is for India to be where it is today.
So, my friend, if you are reading this, things are indeed better now than they were under the British. Our polity is flawed, and a lot of the stuff does not work. But there is also the fact that India's politics is dominated by leaders formerly considered low caste. We have managed to achieve that without having reserved seats in our legislatures. We've also managed reasonable economic growth after liberalisation. In my opinion, we've gotten way farther than the Americans got (and this is just an example) in the first 56 years of their republic. These are indeed reasons to celebrate. Happy republic day to all Indians!

Blogger Solidarity

2005-01-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

I suppose I could adopt an "I told you so" attitude to it, but I really can't. If it hadn't been for the lack of certain geeky features, my blog too would've been hosted on livejournal.com. Especially since 90% of my friends chose to put up their rants/thoughts there. If you haven't heard the news yet, the servers of livejournal went down, totally down. The situation's so bad that even their home page isn't available anymore. All the poor guys have got up is a time-stamped account (dare I say blog?) of their desperate efforts to remedy the situation.

In this time of darkness (pun fully intended), I would like to express support and solidarity to the folks who've temporarily (I hope) lost their blogs to digital oblivion. This might seem overtly dramatic to some of you, but you wouldn't believe the amount of value some people attach to their blog. And why shouldn't they? After all, aren't blogs the "Dear diaries" of the digital age? So here's to all you live journal users: May your blogs come back to life without any problems, and lets hope something like this NEVER happens here at blogspot(Whoops! Did I just jinx blogspot??).

2005-01-11T11:31:00.000-08:00

New profile photo. Oh joy!

2005-01-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

New profile photo. Oh joy!

For the Fallen

2004-11-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
- Laurence Binyon

Great things are afoot. Peace may soon be coming to a valley that has been referred to as heaven on earth and nuclear flashpoint at different times by very different people. Whether or not the current relative calm will turn into lasting peace is anybody's guess, but I can't help but think about all the Kashmiri militants/freedom fighters (depending upon which side of the line of control you are on) who died in this conflict. More so because I do not see anything being achieved in return for their lives.

While it is true that "Azad Kashmir" or "Pakistan occupied Kashmir" fares no better than the Indian Kashmir, I wonder what exactly has changed since the insurgency began in the 1980s. From what I can see, not much. This is what has me worried about the current peace initiative. If nothing has changed, then where did all the passion which led a peace-loving people to pick up guns go? My guess is, that like the rest of India, they're just watching and waiting to see what the governments of both Pakistan and India will do next. If the results are not in line with the expectations of the majority of Kashmiris, it could fan a fire so intense that all of India's military might may not be enough to put it out.

To some of you, these views may sound highly anti-Indian. But take this fact into consideration, the Chinese consider Tibet as much a part of China as Indians do Kashmir. Would you be surprised if they might look upon India as India looks upon Pakistan? I am not passing judgement over the Tibetan government in exile, but just trying to illustrate how national fervor can cloud the judgements of even the best of us. Saying that Kashmir was handed over to us by its ruler is no excuse, because it is a well known fact that certain people in the Tibetan government also co-operated with the Chinese when they came calling.

When the Sin Fein (the Irish Republican Army's political face) negotiated the laying down of arms by the IRA, it was done in lieu of the promise of significant autonomy for the Irish people to rule themselves, and also led to better relations with the Republic of Ireland. My firm belief is that unless we can hand the people of Kashmir (on both sides of the Line of Control) the same sort of autonomy to govern themselves, we will not see an end to this conflict. The price of blood after all, is not cheap. The souls of all the Kashmiris who died in this long and hard-fought conflict demand no less.

Part of the problem on both sides of course are the armed forces. Although it is logical to conclude that any right thinking people would prefer living in a stable, secular democracy rather than a dictatorship, every day life in Kashmir has come to resemble a Nazi police state where the armed forces are frequently above the law. The end result of this is that Indian Kashmiris enjoy none of the democratic freedoms the rest of us take for granted. What's more, our suspicion of them is fast turning the valley into a gigantic Muslim ghetto. The first step has to come from the rest of the country, and our leaders need to go out and build consensus on that. What is more, we need to take Pakistan down the same road with us. Fate has handed us a chance, it would serve us well not to squander it.

If Pakistan and India do manage to come to a long standing agreement, there is always the problem of Pakistan holding up its part of the bargain. But this wouldn't be the first time that an agreement signed under a military government would be made to stand the test to time. Fortunately, the record of such agreements is quite good. Spain made many agreements under the rule of General Franco which still stand today. As long as the agreement is equitable and fair to all parties, there is no logical reason why any government, autocratic or otherwise would abandon it. A case in point is the water sharing agreement between India and Pakistan that has survived the brunt of three wars. The people of both countries know that they need this to move on, all that is lacking is the political will to take a few bold steps.

Sixty million Frenchmen can't be wrong

2004-11-15T09:05:00.000-08:00

I usually don't post book reviews on my blog, and I don't know whether this time is just a one off, but Sixty million Frenchmen can't be wrong is the kind of book most of us are not likely to actively seek or even encounter in most bookstores. It is, however, a book that deserves to be read. I came across this book almost by chance in a Canary Wharf bookstore while waiting for some friends. The fact that my friends did not turn up at all meant that I had read through quite a bit of the book before I finally decided to buy it and head home.

The blurb goes something like this: "They work 35 hour weeks and take seven weeks of paid vacation every year, and yet they have one of the largest, most productive economies in the world. They smoke, drink, and eat the most fat in the world, yet they live longer and have fewer heart problems than most of the world." The contrast instantly struck me. More so because the French have almost everything that we in the developing world so desire, and yet they don't work half as long as we do in a week. Of course, they're also pretty laid back with respect to the Americans, British, and other English-speaking societies and it is from their perspective that this book is written(The authors are French Canadians).

Another thing I noticed while reading the book was the number of parallels that I could draw between French and Indian culture as I read the book. I'm pretty sure that the authors never investigated the parallels between the Indians and the French, but if they did, they'd realise that as alien as they might be to each other, the Indians and French are very close in their attitude towards the State and each other. Like the French, Indians expect their State/Government to do a lot for them in their lives. This is highly unlike the Americans or the British, who are more comfortable taking the reins into their own hands. Also, the French have a close bond to their land despite living in a highly developed and industrial society. The reason that the French system works so much better than the Indian state is the sheer difference in the numbers the Indian state must support. The French government also seems to have a highly developed sense of social responsibility (what the authors refer to as Interet General, or general interest).

The book also does a good job at explaining a lot of the idiosyncracies (or rather the things we think of as idiosyncracies) of the French and the French societal structure. For instance, it explains why French politicians seem to get away even after outrageous claims are proven against them. Or why it is that most foreigners tend to get the raw end of the deal when they approach sales clerks or government service counters in French cities.

The book is divided into three parts: Spirit, Structure, and Change in that order. Each of these parts is full of insights into the French mindset, their system, and what shaped them. My personal favorite would have to be the Spirit section if only so for the large number of anecdotes and events the authors quote in their bid to prove their point. That brings me to another great thing about this book. Unlike most other books about the French in English, this one is definitely well-researched. The authors do not chose to live their time in France in some quiet country house. They live in a working class Paris neighbourhood and make it a point to interact with the people around them to understand them better. Although the book isn't too objective, it does not pass any judgements on French society, which is a sad mistake most American authors make when approaching France/French as a subject. In other words, the authors do not set out to prove any stereotypes. If anything, they debunk some popular myths about the French along the way.

For those of you who are the least bit anthropologically inclined, or ever intend to visit France, this book is a must have. In fact, the cover of the edition I bought went so far as to quote a reviewer saying that the book is worth handing out at the Charles de Gaulle airport. I wholly agree with that view. We frequently tend to treat the French as just another western society. This book explains why we are so very, very wrong in doing that. The French are as different from the Britons or the Americans as chalk is from cheese. The book is also available through firstandsecond.com in India.

Unfortunately, I managed to leave my copy behind when I left for India. I was about 50 pages away from finishing the book. I'll get it back the next time I go, but meanwhile, if somebody buys a copy, do lend it to me.

India's (English-speaking) Child Genius?

2004-10-03T03:52:00.000-07:00

The "search" for India's child genius is conducted in English, a language that about 60% of Indians can't understand or speak fluently. Does this mean that true genius in India is confined to the (admittedly large) middle/upper class minority? Or is it that we consider children who can't afford to go to expensive private schools (which, quite ironically, are called "public" schools in India) so inferior that they can't even be considered for such a contest.

I'm sorry if I sound cynical here, and I definitely don't have anything against popular television or the English language. But calling the show India's child genius can't possibly be right. Sample the first rule of eligibility:

Any child may apply, who is between 10 years and 13 years of age, as of 1st September 2004, is a resident and citizen of India, is fluently conversant with written and spoken English, enrolled in a school in India that is duly recognised by a state or central government, and has scored an overall average of at least 80% or equivalent in school tests in the past two (2) academic years.

The really strange part is that I have seen no popular protests against this. In fact, a man as widely respected as our current president has lent support (and perhaps a certain degree of legitimacy) to the show by meeting the contestants. Political parties that take to the streets for the smallest, most insignificant disgressions have chosen to completely ignore the issue. This is probably because opposition to the show is likely to earn them the ire of the Indian middle class, one of their most vocal critics. But really, how can this possibly be justified?

Don't get me wrong though, I don't want the show to be shutdown or anything. If anything, I think the show is entertaining and presented quite well, even though the questions sometimes are a bit off. What I would like to see happen is either a change in the name of the show or a widening in the scope of talent search so that it become more faithful to its name. This, of course, might be too much to expect from the hubris laden, inconsiderate producers who came up with the name in the first place.

Of Sheep and Sheep Herders

2004-09-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who like to tell others what to do and those who like (consciously or sub-consciously) to be told what to do and what not to do. Most of us, despite our illusions to the contrary, belong to the second category. I like to think of these categories as the sheep herders and their sheep. There is nothing wrong with being part of either category, but the truth is that as society advances, the number of sheep herders keeps going down. We become set in our ways, tied down by the norms of society, by relationships, and by laws. We learn to limit our capabilities, and as we move forward, we close all avenues that one might use to move away from the mainstream.

There are many examples of this self-limiting behavior strewn throughout human history. The ban on human cloning, the inability to choose one's own name or even religion. These are all testimonies to humanities sheep-like behavior. Once in a while though, a sheep will stray from the flock and discover a new path to the next level. But as societal controls tighten, we see less and less of that too. We play so many roles in our daily lives (software engineer at work, son/brother/husband at home) and have so many prerequisites for any task that we rarely find time to ponder the larger questions anymore.

A few thousand years ago, our ancestors could concieve moves as radical as new languages, new nations, or even new religions for themselves if they needed them. We on the other hand are hell-bent on fitting everything into pre-made moulds. Breaking the mould is out of fashion. We tell each other to think out of the box, where as very few of us are actually capable of doing it anymore. Instead, we satisfy our egos by thinking inside slightly larger boxes. And so continues the process of silently turning the human race into a anonymous mass of automatons.

Human society is a prison. Think about it.

On Contentment

2004-09-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, me and a friend got to discussing what we'd do if we won/were given Rs. 5 crore (close to a million dollars). Him and me were of the opinion that we'd have the money deposited in a bank, give up our jobs, and live comfortably on the interest for the rest of our days doing whatever we liked, but we'd never work for money again. So no jobs. At the time, it seemed to me to be the only thing to do in such a situation, but we still thought it would be interesting to find out if others agreed with our plan.

So, throughout the day we asked whoever we met what they'd do with this much money (remember, 5 crore in India lasts a LOT longer than a million dollars in the US). The answers we got varied from people wanting to start their own business to others wanting to continue in their current jobs. This even included those who profess to hate their jobs or even working. That set me thinking upon the subject of contentment. How much money would be enough for somebody to give up selling themselves (or their services) commercially? And does it have to be money? In other words, what would it take for you to stop working for money? My answer's a million dollars, because thats enough for me. It would buy everything I need for me to live comfortably. What's yours?

The Right to be Obnoxious

2004-09-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

I am not particularly proud of the fact that my country (India) tolerates, and in fact, sometimes actively encourages all sorts of corruption and free-loading. From the corrupt government servant milking the public for services that he gets paid to perform, to the beggar on the street asking for alms only because he'd rather not do an honest days work, things have now come to a head. A lot of this is the fault of the citizens of this country. We pay the beggers and turn it into a lucrative business, and instead of getting together and protesting (no point going to a snail-paced judiciary), we prefer paying up and becoming whores to system. Yet, despite all this, we harbour dreams of turning this country into a power of some reckoning.

Sometimes though, this whole charade will go so far that I will pull back in revulsion and suddenly be faced with what this country has come to. It is one of these revolting incidents that I wanted to bring to light here. Apparently, eunuchs, who've gotten used to getting money for free from the public have now begun considering it their right to harass people of all ages in all places. Now, they want to be able to enter public monuments with the express intent of collecting money!! You can read more about it here. All I can say is, at least they're honest in their dishonesty. I am so overwhelmed with disgust right now that I can't write anymore, so I'll end here.

2004-09-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

What the hell does wonder-woman wonder about anyway?

The Nature of Prejudice

2004-09-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

We all have our prejudices. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that people who say they have no prejudices are prejudiced against the truth. The flavor (and I daresay color) of our prejudices is determined by the geopolitical realities we must endure in our daily lives. It might be religion in one country, race in another, and language or tribe in a third one. Lately though, the constraints imposed by a global society and political correctness have meant that some people have become extremely adept at hiding their prejudices.

While I don't believe it is possible to completely remove a prejudice (it is after all a result of a lifetime of social conditioning), I do think rational people can stand up against their prejudice and use their intellect to override their conditioning. But there are those who simply choose to mask their inward leanings with fake niceties. These are the people we should be looking out for. For it is these people who will be willing participants in tomorrow race or communal riots.

Of all the forms in which prejudice is expressed, I believe stereotyping to be the most dangerous. While race riots may result in great physical carnage, stereotyping is the kind of practice that goes on under society's civil facade every single day. As a result, it can have wreak far more havoc on a people's psyche than any one violent event. I saw a good example the other day. A good friend of mine, exasperated by my momentary stupidity, chose to bring up my religion while sneering at me. Of course, what he implied was that I was being stupid solely because I belong to a certain religious persuasion.

I'm not sure he even realised that in his rage, he had allowed his hidden prejudice to surface as a countermeasure. But it did leave me fuming, and that is the sort of thing people need to be made aware of. So the next time you choose to abuse somebody's religion/race/language/ethnicity, please put yourself in their place for a moment. Let your intellect take over your social instincts. I know this sounds like a cliche, but its worth a try.

Of course, there is something to be said about the many forms of prejudice. The question that really puzzles me is: Are some forms of prejudice justified? Are we right in using prejudice as a punishment to challenge unwanted behavior? Take the example of the growing prejudice against cigarette smokers around the world. Or even prejudice against people who are prejudiced. How does it work? And who decides where the line gets drawn between common sense and political correctness?

Comments as usual are welcome.

2004-09-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

Who is this?? This, my friends, is George Bush. You put your hand up his ass and press a couple of levers to make him punch people!! Yeah, I know, thats what Dick Cheney's doing these days.

2004-09-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

Entertainment for the demented

In one of his books Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) said that we're all stupid some of the time. But I have to question that, because I know some people who are probably stupid all of the time. You encounter these people on the street, in everyday life, and sometimes on the Internet. The reason I'm writing this is because I discovered this while browsing for free audio books on the web. Apparently, the only way the creaters of AudioBooksForFree.com ("the No1 UK online mp3 audio book publishers") can think of making peace with terrorists is by selling an MP3 player that looks like (and fits into the slot of) an AK47 magazine!! Way to go Einstein!

Incidentally, the guy promoting this hair-brained piece of crap is a "ex-rock-star". What the hell does that mean anyway?? I mean, did he get bored of being a rock star? Did he just get up one day and decide that he was bored with rock n roll, groupies, and drugs? Or maybe the reason he gave it up was because he decided it was time he made a contribution to world piece by selling a shitty gun magazine shaped MP3 player. Seriously, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. On the plus side though, they advertise the product just like most American companies (even though this one, presumably, is Brit) do, by showing you a half naked woman who's got nothing to do with the product.

Right now, I can half imagine some stupid urban yuppies actually buying this player, and then buying a kalashnikov to put it into. Believe me, there are people like that out there! The next version of the damn thing will probably even have the capability to hold bullets. So that the user can kill people on the street while listening to a Megadeath MP3! Go shitheads!

2004-09-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

How Fat is too Fat

Throughout my life, I've been what people here (in North India) politely refer to as healthy. What that basically means is someone who's definitely fat beyond fit, but not quite obese. Up until a month ago, I was okay being the bulky one among my set of friends and didn't even mind the occasional fib on my weight. Recently though, I discovered to my surprise that I now weigh close to 77kgs. Now that might not seem like a big problem, but when you're 5'8'' tall and the spare tyre begins to show, it becomes a problem.

I have since decided to take up some sort of excercise regimen to cut down on my flab. The way I saw it, I had two choices, give up beer, or start excercising. If you know me, you know that giving up beer is definitely not a possibility. So there. I now go out walking every evening (actually I only started two days ago) for about 40 minutes. I figure I cover about 2.5 kms in that time judging by the size of the park. I intend to turn my walking into jogging by the end of next week. Let's see how this goes. Any advice of course is appreciated. Keep in mind though that this is the first time in my life that I am doing excercise for the sake of keeping fit, and other than roller skating, I've never really taken an active interest in any sport.

2004-09-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

Now this is what I call inspired! Programming in nightclubs, who says geeks don't get out :)

No Single Men, Thank You!

2004-08-14T14:07:00.000-07:00

So I finally decided to go out for a few drinks with a couple of buds from the office on Friday night. We went down the the local mall(s) and started scouting for a decent pub/bar. The first mall we went to had two pubs that I knew of. One of them I'd already been to last weekend so we skipped that one. The second one was booked for a private party. So we went to the mall across the street. The only club here was couples only so they wouldn't let us in. SO, we went to a third mall, and were again struck down by a couples only night club. Finally ended up at this weird naval (no, not the one in the tummy!) themed bar called Odyssey.

The place looked okay, and the drinks were close to decent, but what really struck me was how hard it is to have a guys night out in this town! I mean we were three decent guys just looking for a couple of drinks a piece, and we had to walk around looking for a place for a good half hour. And the place we eventually did find was way too quiet. I'd like to see more noisy, open British style pubs in this city. Not closed off, snooty, couples only joints whose only credibility stems from their stupid exclusivity. The real stinker came when I asked the waiter what the loud music upstairs was (I had assumed it was another private party upon seeing that the staircase was roped off). He said it was a night club. I asked if it would be fine if we walked up and checked the place out (still thinking it was a private party). To this he replied that the place upstairs was COUPLES ONLY!!!

Maybe I do need to get into a relationship with a homo sapien of the opposite sex. God knows its about time! But all things said and done, this city's a cruel place for a single guy. More so for a poor nerdy software engineer like yours truly! Ahhhh...shucks....there's always my PS2 to keep me company :)

2004-08-11T12:34:00.000-07:00

Is Outsourcing Paid Slavery?

This is not just something that popped into my head out of the blue. I have been thinking about this for a while. If you live in India like me, and have seen the way some of the offshore/outsourcing development centers work, you might just be inclined to agree with the thought. I have a friend who has been working at least one day of almost every weekend ever since he joined his current company about 6 months ago (If you are reading this, I am talking about you Andy). He gets paid about 1/10th of the salary even the most inexperienced tech sector worker can expect in the West, and he doesn't even get paid any overtime for the weekends he works. On top of that, if you speak to any software engineer working in an Indian company (or the offshore branch of a foreign company) you will find that they spend a significant amount of time over and above what they are paid for in the office everyday!

When slavery first started, the main purpose behind it was not to oppress other people. That was just a side-effect. The main purpose was to get things done that the slave owners did not want to do or were not capable of doing. I see the same sort of thing happening in many call centers all over India. It is a job most people in the west would not enjoy doing, whereas they're more than happy if we can do it for them at a lower cost. What that means is that a significant part of Delhi's (and other Indian cities) population works at times when the wages charged would be double in most developed countries. What these companies are taking advantage of is the extremely outdated and colonial labor laws that this country still follows.

There can be any number of examples of the gross exploitation of human resources that goes on in India (and I suspect in most other developing countries). Somehow, issues such as these never seem to recieve the kind of PR that the outsourcing backlash does. I see the twin issues of labor exploitation in developing countries and the outsourcing backlash as two sides of the same coin. The problem is, that the people who are losing their jobs in western countries to lower wage earners are targetting their anger at the wrong people. Instead of hitting out at the people of these countries or the companies who generate employment for them, they should really be making efforts to target the governments of developing nations.

Even if the government of India suddenly wakes up one day and decides to change its abysmally bad labor policies, the corporates will probably just pick up shop and move to the next cheap destination. What is needed here is an honest effort to raise the standard of living in all developing countries at a uniform pace. This, of course, is one of the objectives of the WTO. Once again, this critically important objective seems to have been side-stepped in order to benefit some of the most developed nations in the world. What they don't realise of course is that by ignoring the standard of living of the children they chose to sell coca-cola to, they are simply shooting themselves in the foot.

It is true that the raising of living standards in developing countries will not really stem the outsourcing/offshoring wave. Salaries are still likely to be at least 3 or 4 orders of magnitude higher in the west than in countries like India. But this change is certainly likely to slow down the flow and bring it inline with the populations of these countries. More importantly, this will give the developing countries the chance to develop their own local markets for products like software and call center services. Right now, very few companies in India seem interested in picking up government/local projects because the outsourcing market is so much more lucrative.

In the end, it all does come down to population though. The fact that populations in most developed countries are leaning towards the senior citizen demographic means that there is no way to avoid giving work to countries like India. If living standards in India and other developing countries go up, this pendulum is likely to swing the other way in a generation or two. Think about it. In a couple of generations, Indians might actually be outsourcing work to the US. I wonder if they'll call it outsourcing then :)

As usual, I'd like to have comments from anybody who's reading.

2004-08-10T23:07:00.000-07:00

Conficious say: "If this product malfunctions, try new batteries"

2004-08-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

Monday morning music:
1. Coffee and TV - Blur
2. Zombie - Cranberries
3. Deep Inside of You - Third Eye Blind
4. Polly - Nirvana
5. Ae Ajnabi - Dil Se

Comments and additions are welcome as usual. Oh, and comments with torrent links are even more welcome ;)

2004-07-31T12:59:00.000-07:00

Once Confucious dreamt that he was taken to meet the Damned in hell. He was very surprised to see that hell was an immaculate banquet with the most delicious food he'd ever seen just waiting to be eaten. But there was a rule, everybody had to eat with chopsticks, and the chopsticks were five feet long. The Damned were starving, because no matter how hard or how long they tried, they never could get the food into their mouth.

Next, Confucious was taken to see heaven. This was again an immaculate banquet with delicious food. This banquet hall had the same rule, everybody had to eat with chopsticks that were five feet long. But people here were happy, because they were feeding each other!

2004-07-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

Spiderman 2 goes the way of the Chicken Chowmein

I saw something very cool on MTV today. They're adding an Urdu song by the band Strings to the Spiderman 2 soundtrack. We're beginning to do to Hollywood flicks what we've done so long with Chinese food, localizing it to our taste. Not that this is a bad thing of course, I think this is excellant. You can read more about this here. The number's called Na jaane kyun (literally translated, "don't know why") and is quite good. My problem is that it is a typical Strings number, melodious and long-stretched vocal wise (remember Duur??). I would've thought a band like Junoon or even Parikrama could've come up with something that had a little more bite, suited the theme more. Anyway, this is a good thing so I won't bash it too much. I'm just hoping that Spidey 2 and its soundtrack do well so that this trend can continue. By the way, the song is not on the international soundtrack of the movie (I checked imdb), but that can't be too far along.

Some more music news. Emma Bunton's latest album FREE ME just came out in India. The album had been doing reasonably well in the UK while I was there. The mojor development is that Emma Bunton's gone HOT with this album. She ain't no baby spice no more. I personally like the sound of the album too. It's got that airy, echoey 80s pop feel about it. Think Bangles, Cindi Lauper, Culture Club. The lyrics aren't too brainy either, but the album is okay to pass some time. I know I might be putting myself up for a few brickbats by praising a former spice girl for anything other than her ahemm...aesthetic assets, but I happen to like this sort of music, what can I do?

Also caught a new advert starring Amitabh Bacchan (for those of you who don't know, he's only the biggest, most famous star in Indian cinema). The ad starts out well, he's talking about his film career and the difficulties he faced, and how satisfying its been. And then he begins talking about what helped get through it all. That's when he stands up and pisses all over his credibility. Can you guess what he's selling?? It's Navratan tel, a third grade, cheap, crappy hair oil. C'mon man!! How important can money be to you? I seriously doubt he ever uses the product himself, and by doing this sort of thing, he's throwing away the little credibility he has left with the current generation. In fact, even the way he speaks now sounds practiced and put on. I mean, I know he had a heavy voice up until around the time he was 40, but after that he probably started losing it. And now I just know that the way he speaks on screen is not what he sounds like in real life. I mean common, who does he think he's fooling! Its just sad to see such great people grow old so ungracefully. Now I know how Ronald Reagen's admirers felt when he got sick with Alzheimer's and couldn't even remember his speeches anymore.

2004-07-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

My mini-mini! Notice how the remote control's bigger than the car. Fun! Oh, and that stuff in the background's my dinner.

2004-07-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

My spanking new PS2. Now that's what I call beautiful!! No woman can match up to that!

2004-07-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

Stupid is as stupid does.... :)

2004-07-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

Puneet Nayyar in a Ferrari 6-bar cap with a Ferrari 1/43 scale model. Ferrari hater in Ferrari gear! An irony in pictures!

2004-07-25T09:27:00.000-07:00

In case you don't know me personally, this is me! Yeah, I know I'm ugly :)

2004-07-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

I am soooo.... bored right now! I got nominated for this stupid CMM training, and that too on a bloody Saturday. As I write this, this guy from a quality consulting agency is trying to pounds facts about CMM into my head. I can't even keep my eyes open anymore. I've already gone out once by pretending I got a phone call, not sure whether I should try that again. God!! 10 more slides to go. MUST KEEP AWAKE!! Samrat, you moron, return my call so I have an excuse to get out of this dump. Thankfully, most of the girls here are worth looking at. That won't help me much if I die of boredom though. And why is every next slide very very important to this guy??

Ok, enough ranting.

2004-07-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

Just enabled comments on my blog. Not that anybody's reading...

2004-07-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

Heard this?? Hutch (a cellular provider in Delhi) is actually going to launch Push-to-talk in India!! In fact, I saw an advert for it the other day. Basically, what the service provides is a walkie-talkie like functionality where you push a button to talk to somebody who you've already previously set up for the service. This service was first launched by a provider called Nextel in the US, and at the time it was thought of as nothing but a cute toy. Lately, most providers all over the world have been discovering the potential of this service and have been trying to play catch up.

Back to Hutch though, I don't know how they are going to price this yet, or whether it is going to be compatible with other providers. It would be great if they just used Nextel's pricing model as a reference. Basically, Nextel just charges a higher rental fee to people who want to set up push to talk with another Nextel subscriber. There are no extra charges for the airtime used. This I believe has earned them a lot of loyal customers.

2004-07-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

Direct quote from a story on Slashdot:
"The Register reports that six more US Universities and colleges have agreed to enter into protection schemes with the RIAA. In short, several institutions have signed deals with the RIAA's lapdog, the Napster music service, to 'goad these schools toward..."

These are sad times indeed. Napster's actually being called the RIAA's lapdog. I hope the generation after me who have all the benefits of legal(??) file sharing software remember the kind of contribution that Napster made to it all. It's sad really, when a pioneering innovation such as this has to demean itself to these levels just to survive.

2004-07-19T01:12:00.000-07:00

At long last, it has finally come to pass!! I am going to go buy myself a PS2 today and loads of games to go with it! Oh, happy day.

2004-07-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

Holy shit!! It changed my homepage! The new version of MSN Messenger changed my home page. this is going just too far. That's it, I've had it with Microsoft trying to push crap down my throat. I'm off to give Some deep thought to my plans for revenge. Meanwhile, DO NOT INSTALL THE LATEST version of MSN messenger. It stinks like a stinky dog's ugly butt.

2004-07-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

I just logged into the MSN messenger, and it prompted me to install a newer version. Like a dutiful tech. slave, I accepted the invitation and was soon on my way to installing the latest and greatest MS has on offer by way of messengers. After the install was complete, lo and behold, I see a dialog box asking me to set my particular brand of English. I was half-ready to leave English (United States) selected and move on, when out of interest, I opened the drop down and discovered English (India)! Apparently, Microsoft's finally woken up to the existance of this billion strong demographic.

My adventures didn't end here though. Upon clicking next, an internet explorer window popped up with a brand new MSN toolbar installed. The point to be noted here is that I'd never asked for anything other than the latest version of the messenger to be installed. How the search toolbar ties into the messenger is totally beyond me. What's worse is that the new MSN toolbar looks exactly like the Google toolbar that now sits above it. Looks like MS have pulled off another embrace and extend. Not that I use internet explorer at home these days, but this does peeve me. What gives Microsoft the right to slip this unwanted product into my life anyway??

This leads me to a larger problem. Too often, providers of free (or seemingly free) services seem to go too far. I mean, i can understand the advertising, the popup news widgets, and even the occasional promotional IM or mail message, but installing a whole new product on MY COMPUTER without MY permission is going too far. Providers seem to think that because they provide a free service, consumers should pony up and just take whatever they might throw at us without any sort of protest. I daresay that that is a view shared by some of the consumers too. I tend to think that a consumer's rights must have nothing to do with a product/service's pricing, free or otherwise.

2004-07-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

Test blog entry using my PDA.

2004-07-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

It's beginning to happen, humans are finally turning into cyborgs. Not that it is a bad thing, not necessarily anyway. There's a mexican attorney general who's had a chip implanted into his arm. Japanese school children are going to be tagged with RFID. What do you think about this?? I haven't formed a view so far, and probably never will.

2004-03-14T10:34:00.000-08:00

Sky Dragon

What type of dragon are you? (Both Genders, Pictures!)
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2004-03-14T10:21:00.000-08:00

Ok, so preperations for leaving town are now officially underway. Bought a new business suit today for any formal gathering I might have to attend while on assignment. Might even have to learn something about cookery (yuck!) and washing clothes (double yuck!). All this, and I feel like I have a stick lodged at the back of my head. I called her the other day. I don't call up very often so she must have known that it was something important. But somehow I just couldn't work up the courage to ask what I needed to know. Just did not wanna' mess up a good thing, I think I know how she feels now. But still, the heart wants what it wants.

2004-03-14T10:17:00.000-08:00

I hereby annoint myself the KING OF OPTIMIZATION!!!

Now, time to justify that outburst. Well it simple really, I optimized a piece of code and took the run time down to .886 seconds from the original 88 seconds. If that ain't good, you tell me what is. Anywho, enough gloating, but I do think this could get me some major browny points with my boss (yes, i am a brown-noser right now).

2004-03-10T09:54:00.000-08:00

Its a strange twist of fate. With the Americans and British who visit third-world countries like India becoming sick with hygeine related disorders, you'd think that they have much higher standards at home. Yet, they wipe their....how shall I put this...they wipe their behinds with paper instead of washing it with water like we do. I guess it has something to do with the colder climate in their part of the world. But with all that they've accomplished, how difficult can it be to have a running supply of warm water in the loo? Its already there for washing hands, right?

The reason I am discussing this is simple. I don't know how I am going to condition myself to use toilet paper. On the whole, the idea absolutely disgusts me, but I am left with no choice. Oh well! As they say, "When in Rome..." Still makes me feel icky though.

2004-03-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

Lots of new things piling up in my life. Lets take 'em one by one. Delivered the big project that was waiting to be delivered for a while. My first full-fledged project in Rebus IS! Lets see what the comments are like. Should be fun. Found out that I might have to leave for London around the 5th. It should make me happy, but I think I left my happy bone in the dresser drawer. I just don't seem to get excited about anything anymore. I AM THE WALKING DEAD! HELP!

2004-03-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

Ever get that bitter-sweet feeling when you're sad but don't really know why? I mention because I've been experiencing it all day today. It's as if I know something big's going to happen, yet I can't do anything about it but wait. Except that in this case, I don't even know what's going to happen. Weird!

2004-03-06T10:13:00.000-08:00

From the date of the previous post I see that I last posted 9 months ago. At the time, I had told myself that I would try to post at least once a day. But I guess life took me over and this blogging thing just fell by the wayside. Plus, I never could seem to remember my thoughts long enough them to document them. Now I renew the commitment I made to myself a year ago. Off and on, I will post my thoughts/experiences here. Lets see how long I can keep this promise to myself.

2003-06-24T03:08:00.000-07:00

Two questions:

What does spin boldak mean. I know that it is a city in Afghanistan and that it lies on the border with Pakistan. What I want to know is, "What does the phrase (word?) Spin Boldak mean?".

How the hell is thermacol made?

Anybody who has the answers can contact me at arunjeetsingh at infoprocorp dot com. I promise the winner some nice virtual candy and exemption from the impending armageddon that is about to destroy the world.