Should have guessed...

While riding on the internets, and surfing the tubes, I came across this nifty site called Gender Analyzer. Using free text classifier algorithms from a site called Uclassify, this site aims to judge whether a blog/website is written by a woman or a man. A very active research topic.

I tried out using some known standard cases, and here’s the goldmine.

Gosh, I didn't know that Machine Learning had become so accurate these days. Be paranoid, very.

Incidentally, Chappar, when you were on wordpress, your manliness rating was 83%. Did anything special happen during the transition phase?

A thousand apologies, plus one extra, just in case.
And to those who might think of an oh-so-brilliant, "Look who's talking !!!",line. I'm at 71%. Muha ha ha.

So go ahead, check your (wo)manliness rating...

P.S: Incidentally again, this is the 2nd in the chappar series of posts, the first one having been written nearly 2 years ago.[hyper-link to click in case you're bored]

Feisty Fatwa on hackneyed Humour

I, Sheikh Abhi, ( who’ll be known as Sheikh Abhi-Dulha at the time of marriage), decree the following fatwa. This fatwa aims to radically improve the ‘Post-Nehruvian Indian Humour quotient’.
Editor’s note: “Nehru bit” added for extra scope, and does not suggest the writer’s extensive political repertoire.
Abstract:
Its a surprise, and deep shame, that generations after generations have endured shoddy satire emanating from rusty retired maamas,as pale as Stalin. Or athletic Aaanties, as stale as Palin.
They did not rise up to them, or flip ‘em the bird. They didn’t chuck these jokes out of their humour vocab. They didn’t. No. No.
They instead chose to tell it to us. Oh, the Humanities!!!
But, enuph is enuph. Its time for Change.
Background:
These jokes are easily identifiable with any Indian kid’s disturbed childhood. To avoid lethal exposure, I will be jotting down only some of them. Feel free to add more if you’re itchy.
The List, and its interpretation:

• “Which is the most dangerous city?” asked  Master Maams. What ? What ? asked we, in full awe of Maams’ general knolij. “Electri-city”. Get it? Ha ha ha. Maams used to reply.

        It’s a pity we weren’t using WTF back then.

• A particularly putrid, bengalurean variant would be the dreaded, “ Which is the biggest stick”? Maje-stic, maams would say, hardly caring about the kids writhing in agony.
• Or its perverse inverse verse from the alternate universe. Which was worse. “Which is the smallest stick”? “Lip-stick”, apparently. No one would have dare guessed.

         I’ve not heard these for nearly 5 years. Hope they decay soon.

• And there used to be this mother of all J-bombs. I’ll provide a short recap. For the uncut version. Run ‘line 1 – line 2’ some 5 times in a loop.

         Ramu:- “BJ.Franklin discovered Elecktri-kitty”.
         English Teacher:- “No, Ramu. It is pronounced as ilek’trisitee ”.
         I still don’t get the morbid fascination about electricity in so many of these jokes.( There are more like these, believe me) Probably that was the most happening thing back then. Positively shocking. The joke continues….
          Ramu’s Dad:”What seems to be the problem, Teacher?”
          Teacher:"Your son can’t pronounce ilek’trisitee”.
This joke’s punchline. Boy Oh boy!!!
           Ramu’s Dad:” What to do teacher. That is his Kapak-itee.”
So, basically suggesting ramu and his dad had some kind of speech impediment was supposed to knock your socks off, in times yore. Man, George Carlin would have created an 8th swear word, if he’d heard this joke.

• And of course, the ever so popular, and recurring, “I don’t take any decisions, My wife is the home minister” joke. And all its mutated variants.

Khushwant Singh protested in vain,in some of his books, against this genre, and then for some reason, started vacillating between Sardar Jokes and chaddi-ke-neeche waala humour.

• And we all know that it was your P.T Sir who was the stupidest man in the entire universe. And only he made the, “Stand in a straight circle” joke.

Now, If your P.T teacher was involved in a love-triangle, it offers some interesting punning propositions, of geometric proportions.
Results:
Here is an irrelevant experimental graph.
Conclusion:
I’m putting these and any that I may receive from fellow victims, in permanent quarantine. And I ‘umbly request you, not to pass on these family heirlooms to your kids. And one more fatwa - All future fatwas must always be in the paper publication format. I want to see the exact reasons behind the Mickey Mouse one.[1]
And, ya, I’m one of them.[2]

Vista - On the Rocks. Azure in the Clouds...

Seeing this brilliant piece of satire by America's Finest news Source - The Onion News, made me think.

With Vista having chosen the Red Screen of Death , as its official time-please message , the devout and loyal fans of a much peaceful colour were very disappointed. Having to see the altogether familiar shade just on special occasions like the Beijing Olympics, did take its toll on an XP zealot.

BSOD was  ZOMG level in funnity. It was the zen in awesomeness. It unleashed previously unseen waves of creativity amongst the developers [ to use that time on a different OS, I must confess].
Anyways, here is the kinda froody things that you could do with them blue screens.
[ Statutory Warning : Not safe for Work, especially if you're at Microsoft]

Cheaply mashed from the following sources [1 ],[2].

Anways, the point of this painstakingly researched article is to, waht-else, reveal a conspiracy theory of course...
The people at microsoft, ever so attentive to their customer needs, have heard our earnest pleas.
They are rolling out a new and improved version of BSOD on the clouds...Call it BSOD 2.0 if you must.
You don't believe me, do you? I knew it. But I have ball-clinching evidence to this effect.

What do they name their Cloud computing OS as? What better a name to support my theory, than "AZURE". [1 ],[2 ]
A reasonably accurate dictionary defines:


Noun: azure
1. A light shade of blue
Verb: azure
1. Colour azure
Adjective: azure
1. Of a deep somewhat purplish blue colour similar to that of a clear October sky.

The clues are out there, on the cloud .

See, don't tell me that I didn't warn you before.

Happy Computing. I'm on Cloud 7 already...

All Brevity.No Wit

It has been a phenomenal week.
We bludgeoned the aussies... Vishy is in a freakingly awesome form, having tricked kramnik through a queen pawn opening move that he rarely uses, and perfecting its nuances through various stages. ISRO made us proud by kickstarting the 2 year chandrayaan programme. This even got a prominent mention in one of obama's campaign speeches. Which was lapped up by mr.nair, even though it was kinda meant to be in a derogatory context.
Sure, there are homegrown idiots who deny the importance of such an achievement.
Commies don't want us racing with china. Most crankpots question the need to spend crores on what they feel is a non-practical space mission. See,this is just a scientific mission right? , is their argument.
STFU, is my counter argument.
I rest my case.

As usual, here is me wishing myself, big-boned N.R , Hillary 'Dufus' Clinton, and Raveena 'once-ravishing-now-extinct' Tandon, a very happy birthday...

Actually, checking on wikipedia ( A playground where I spend most of my days )

Certain cool things that have happened on October 26th ,

• Maharaja of Kashmir acceding to join India.
• Beatles were knighted.
• A kid got a heart transplant from a baboon.
• I can't believe that the Ghajini female, Asin Thottumkal is exactly one year older.
• small pox officially chucked out of the world..
  
• I don't have an entry in wiki yet, so can't quote it...some time soon..
  

, I'm particularly peeved that the following things have happened on October 26th 

• Seth Mcfarlane -  The creator of Family guy [A long chain of stringed WTF's ] came into existence. This chap's only valid work of art is probably modelling peter griffin to look like royan...lol
• chandrayaan didn't launch on my b'day...sob sob.. Still, it'll reach some prominent orbit location, and I'll take solace with that.
• i'm typing this post on my cell phone hence can't research more.
  But i assure you, its been a friendly day in history. And as an ardent smoker of the peace-pipe, i welcome that.
  

so, That's it.. Cheers to me. Now that i'm at home after yet another enlightening general compartment train journey, mom wants to drag me for temple tours. And with them being b'day formalities, i don't wish to annoy her silly...adios

Times of India - Bangalore Festival

I have been appreciative of The Times of India with respect to two aspects so far.

• Newspaper in Education (N.I.E)
• Providing hosting space for R.K.Laxman's awesome offline cartoon strips.

I add one more to that illustrious list today. The TOI Bengaluru Festival.

The PR guys at TOI have been spot on, while conceptualizing an event of this scale. They have gained lots of public goodwill for sure.

 

Sunday evening featured a fusion concert by U.Shrinivas on the Mandolin, Steven on the Keyboard, and Sivamani on anything that could be remotely called as a percussion instrument.

 

This was my first visit to Palace grounds ( surprising, yet true ). I realised its ginormity first hand, by landing on the opposite end and doing a complete circumferential tour.

 

The only means of entry were the generous free passes given at TOI venues, which unfortunately I didn't have. I was waiting for a friend who apparently got enticed by the Bangalore traffic, and would turn up late.

 

Seeing me wait at the gates, a kind Police Maama let me in. I assure you, this was not a security lapse. It must have been my very innocent looking face.

The free pass system only exists, to keep a certain degree of vandals out of the venue ( The ones who are really lazy not to get passes ). True audiophiles ( such as yu-know-whu) should be let in without such formalities.

 

The host, a Ms. Rachana Bharadwaj,was greeted in typical boorish fashion, as is now synonymous with beautiful emcees. A cultural evening, did you say?

Shrinivas took centrestage, Sivamani to his right, and Steven to his left. The spotlight however was to change directions in a while.

 

Shrinivas began with a smooth Jazz piece, with each passing note creating a delightful sensation. Mandolin is a classy instrument, and He, having reached the pinnacle of perfection, can do such fascinating gamakas on it.

The second piece was even better. He was forced,however, to make it an interlude, as Nature decided to improvise.

Intensely ironic, the rain did fall in torrents.

 

I, being, of the vertically challenged variety, wasn't even able to see the artists before. The rain proved to be quite useful. Many Pseduo-interested people, and not-so-enthusiastic Old Uncle-Aunty pairs decided to flee. And I chose to use this opportunity to go to the very front.

 

The artists, being wary of their instruments, stopped playing. Finally paying heed to the crowd chanting "Shivu, Shivu", Mani decided to show us a tiny subspace of his vast repertoire of Percussion knowledge.

He began with a huge Suitcase, and the audience went crazy. This was to be the defining moment of the concert, with audience demanding an encore at various times, just by shouting " Suitcase, Suitcase ".

 

Deciding not to tease the audience further, he went back to the drums. This time, aided by a DJ playing Kannada songs in the background.

 

Songs, like " Baanallu Neene,Buviyallu Neene", etc. The crowd went insane when he started " Huttidare Kannada Naadalli Huttabeku", and rightly so. And by the crowd, I mean myself as well.

Some idiot deciding to be a supreme-idiot, hurled some obscenities about Dr.Rajkumar. The police took good care of him. Surprisingly, the chap was a Kannadiga. Troubled times, these.

 

We were absolutely drenched in the rain, and yet we were dancing to the tunes of Humma Humma. Such was the magic in Sivamani's beats.

Many of my friends are majorly repenting for not having attended this concert. Poor Souls.

 

Eventually, it stopped raining. The artists started a three layered piece, with the artists trying to blend into each other by the end of each cycle. Shrinivas was wickedly quick, and it became kinda tough to follow, yet melodious to listen.

Steven's keyboard was making majestic soaring sounds, that seem to balance the tempo created by Siva's beats.

 

The last piece of the concert was an improvised version of Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram, with mandolin being the ruling instrument.

 

Rachana seemed to have forgotten that there were artists other than Sivamani on the stage, but she seemed too excited to care.

Siva announced Shrinivas's name eventually, and the crowd cheered in unison. He also thanked the audience in kannada, speaking about " Raagi Mudde" etc, and we were naturally pleased.

 

Siva continued, this time with bottles, watercans, the Daayan of a Tabla, some pots, and everything else he could lay his hands on. It was just ama-jing. In the coming few days, if you find me percussioning random objects, don't be surprised.

 

Too bad, I can't make it to Shivkumar Sharma's Santoor concert. Do visit it, if you have the chance.

The pass may be free, but the event shall be priceless.

 

Thanks again, to the Times of India, The Bangalore Police ( for letting me in, and for controlling the unruly crowd), and most importantly to the artists, for having given Bangalore a dreamy rainy evening to remember. ( and to Rachana, for being so pretty ).

 

Cheerio,

The Full Monty Problem…

Monty Singh was a wise man. The brightest in the land.

On that eventful Thursday, he received an email. This was a mail   like.no.other.

It was from a Nigerian King.

A real friggin rich Nigger Raja. [P.C version -  Niger. But different country]

Monty Singh was a pyoor Veggie. He didn’t like spam.

But this mail had to be genuine. His IIT alumnian brain could sense it. It was authentic. Right down to the black fonted signature in Wingdings.

He glanced through the contents. He couldn’t believe it. He read it again, this time slowly, and only then did the weight of the matter dawn on him.

He was chosen to participate in a Game show. A quiz of sorts.

Monty smirked. He was an ace quizzer. How he missed those days.

Flashback : Brought to you by Chintu Candy.


It was in seventh standard. He had had his morning’s cuppa’ Horlicks.
Then he went to BQC, thrashed Derek O’Brien mostly left, and occasionally right as well. Pinky Singh was a proud mother that day.

Monty came back from his reverie. He had to think this through.

Monty loved Probability. He simulated a random bit generator. Lady Luck was with him. “Go to Nigeria, you worthless bastard!”, she bellowed.

The queue for the Visa was shorter than he had expected. There was just one local brown model visiting the country for a Fair and Lovely - Limited Nigerian Edition ad-shoot. He grinned as he saw the neighbouring ‘US of A’ Visa line, mostly consisting of bespectacled grad wannabees.

He was received in Nigeria, amidst a royal fanfare. He was led to the only 7 star hotel in the country -  Bobby Da Dhaba. Monty felt right at home.

He woke up that morning, and got himself a beer.

Oops. Wrong post!!!


Monty was up and soon spiffily dressed himself. His father’s pink tie would go well with his lemon yellow shirt.

Karan Johar, the host, looked surprisingly hetero that morning. Must be all that Koffee, thought Monty. “Never mind his temporary non-gayness”. “Concentrate”, he said to himself, as he walked to the stage, which was lit by a thousand colour-colour LED’s. A sight to behold.

Monty raced through the questions like Usain Bolt on steroids. They didn’t call him “Monty Mastermind” just like that.

The final question. This was a toughie. Monty kept his cool. He worked it out. Ruddy Brilliant. He was dingchakkingly good.

“And now Mr.Monty. How bout a bonus round”, shrieked Johar.

“ A flirty car, or you lose it all…..”

No, wait. No one had told him about a bloody bonus round.

As if reading his concerns, Johar replied, “ Don’t worry, Its just a tiny game of probability”.

Gosh. Monty almost had a tiny orgasm.

“ Very similar to the Monty Hall scenario, I take it that you know about it”, asked Johar.

“Pfft. Know about it? Why do you think my dad named me Monty?”

"Oh. I thought that was because you like to.....  Never mind..."

“Ok. All the doors are hidden behind this wall. Just for kicks”. “And…”

“Oh. Will you start already”. “I choose door no.2”. “Which car is it btw?”


“Premier Padmini’s hot friend, Diablo Lamborghini….” “ Whate joke . Whate joke. Ha . Ha.. I know . I can be a pain in the bottoms sometimes”, quipped Karan Johar.

“Ok. Mr.Monty. I’ll open door no.1 and… WTF…”.

“Damn you, Nigerians, stop touching my goat”.

Monty’s brain started working faster than a computer. All those nuggets from Dasgupta, and T.M.H, heck even some from Krishna’s came back to him in a rush. He evoked Bayes, and his conditional Probabilistic models. And in a jiffy, the answer was gambolling right in front of his eyes.

“So, Mr. Monty, what’s your call? Will you flip your choice, or keep it?”

“ Duh. Flip my choice. Obs”.


“Ok. Have it your way.” ……. “ “Hurrah, You win….”
…..
…..
…..
…..
“ the goat”.

“There were only two doors. Retard”….


All rise for the Nigerian Anthem.
P.S : Monty Singh was a wise man. The brightest in the land.


Update - 7-10-2008


Atul asked me whether this was a Himesh Reshammiya belting post? Actually, I am currently cursing myself for not noticing that Himesh is playing Monty's role in Karzzzzzzz ( Did I miss a 'z'? ).


Quoting Himesh - " Rishi Kapoor is the best-looking Monty, I’m the worst" - We agree.


That, friends, is a different Full-Monty-Problem altogether. 

BAD, Very BAD...

      A standard procedure when the comment to a post grows longer than the post and is mostly disconnected to it, is to write a new one. Hence drawing from this, I continue.

      The Monty analogy fits the situation perfectly. Resilience at its stupid best.
      And now there is this new thread that Narendra Modi had pre-warned the PM, and M.K.Narayanan - the N.S.A , regarding a clear threat to Delhi. Several people might wonder why Modi didn't bring this out to the public.

      The idea of any intelligence/security related pre-warnings is that the government/authority is to be made aware of it before a public disclosure. Standard protocol.

       As an analogy it is something followed even by white-hat hackers/ exploit researchers as well. The 30-90 day disclosure rule. So that the vendor [ in this case , the Government of India ] can act on it much in advance, without tipping off the adversaries.

       So, this brings an interesting situation. Why, even in the face of an imminent threat, was there no clear cut action taken? Why are bombs defused only after some go off?.. and so on.
I would completely understand if this is just the Home ministry going lax, on what is just a tiny issue of National Security. But if this is childish cross-party obstinate behaviour, something that we are all to used to by now, it raises some serious concerns.
    
        Especially since the PM wants to create a Federal Agency to tackle terror. A federal agency is built on the premise of state-centre co-operation pertaining to every aspect regarding the security of the nation. Now, if this isn’t a major example of a BAD game of Chinese Whispers, I’m not sure what else to call it.
      
        Now, to the newly cropped up development of hacking Wi-Fi Networks, and then using that to send terror emails to media organizations.

        Wi-Fi networks are not safe. Lets face it. For chrissakes, there have even been comic strips about it.
For a government that is so obsessed with getting a backdoor entry into the 256-AES encryption algorithms used by RIM-Blackberry , isn’t this a bigger and more feasible a threat to ignore?

         I mean, an absconding tech-trained terrorist would find it a piece-of-nilgiri-cake work to hack into some fat-american’s un-protected wifi network, than strut around with a neat Blackberry sending Indian Mujahiddeen mails on the fly.

          Then, there is the issue of security pepped up all around the major cities as soon as an attack is done. Previously, there used to be a large time-frame between two attacks. So, it was almost passable that the security didn’t know it was coming.

           Now, that attacks are happening just weeks apart, one wonders, what exactly this pepping up is all about.
           For an honourable minister of India ( Kapil Sibal @ War of Words to Arun Jaitley ) to tell that these attacks are a result of the BJP’s antics in Gujarat 2002, is nothing short of a lame excuse. These do nothing other than incite a political flame-war, doing more harm than good. What any party at the centre needs to realize is that the situation has changed drastically since 2002.

           For the major worry, in the recent set of attacks, is the choice of soft-targets. Be it local trains, or busy markets; hospitals, or bus stops. As one Mr.Das of the TOI puts it, prior to POTA being removed, most attacks were by so-called Pakistani para-troopers, militants born, brought-up, and trained in Pakistan. Post-POTA has seen an influx of home-grown terrorism.

           I’m not stupid to believe that Correlation implies Causation . That is the job for conspiracy theorists. All I say, is that current mechanisms are not adequate. If the POTA was a draconian law, improve upon it. We don’t need something as uncivilised as the U.S. Patriot act, but we sure need something effective and soon.

          India has seen different methods of attack over its resplendent history. It has survived through each of them, and in most cases, has emerged out stronger.Unfortunately, that opinion is being shattered in the wake of these recent developments.

          In dark and troubled times such as these, the country should stay united and focussed, sense should prevail, and actions be taken at the earliest, lest these insane acts crumble the beautiful ethos of the nation, that is India.
------------------------------------------
As of writing this post, there have been two major updates:- (September 22, 2008)
Update 1: Indian Government successfully installs Deep Packet Inspection. This means better sniffing of all your emails in realtime. Yay. Read here.

Update 2: IB has successfully cracked the BlackBerry Code. Without help from RIM of course. Yay Yay.
Read here.

Both of these developments happened after yours truly wrote this post.
But as I said before, I am not implying  that "correlation implies causation". :) :)

The Life and Works of Sir Takal...

Drawing on this extensive article; the sole biography of Sir Takal in existence, I choose to limit myself, and write only about his magnificent works, with particular emphasis on some of his recent views about everything of consequence to the neo-modern chinese cult-societies in Bangalore.
Takal doesn’t read my blog, so I presume I am safe. [ Sincere apologies in advance ].
Inspirations: [ with the equivalent deft delicateness of Anu Malik ]

• Appar’s exhilarating review of his best friend’s literary masterpiece.
• A superb book review of "The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats, and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India" - the most scholarly book ever written in this field.

There are two kinds of literary critics in this world, one who totally adore Sir Takal’s succinct analogies, and metaphorical embellishments at times, and the others who haven’t read him yet. I proudly say that I belong to the first variety.
You see, when you read Takal ( a metonymic reference to something written by him ), you not only get the perception that the author is trying to convey an issue of importance, but also the subtle realization of the deeper meaning that this exalted mind offers.
Through innumerous surreal examples, chiefly drawn from the author’s experience with life, and his in-depth knowledge of the Bengalurean city-life, as well as his profound insights on global politics[ with a categorical expertise centered around topics related to the Chinese and Tibetan domain ], Takal clearly convinces of a dark and shady conspiracy that the system[ The Indian Government ], is running in the background of a hazy “India Shining” campaign.
Some Excerpts, and a Detailed as well as a Figurative analysis :-

• “I don't know why I wrote this post. It is bad. Or may be not . I am not sure. “  Never since The Tale of Two Cities, has a enantiosis, the figure of contraries, of this nature ever been displayed in English Literature.  Walking on both lines of the  paradoxical line, he gently prepares the reader for a tumultuous article ahead. He continues….
• “ It was Friday. It was when I went to piss at 4 o'clock that day, that I saw that it was a haze of grey outside . Well, with only work in my mind, I went back and hardly gave a thought to the heavy rain. " – Metaphors be damned. This is God himself writing. When was the last time you had such a phantasmagoric visual treat lined up for you[ In the most literary, straightest sense possible ].
• “Well, when I came back home, another shitty thing happened. Power went off.” -  A powerful, yet hidden message to the Yeddy government.
• “ And it is the engineer's duty to do everything at the last moment. So, thinking I had all the time in the world, I disregarded the increasingly heavy rain, and started to play candle-lit carrom with Kela.” – Inspirational substance, and a brief hint at an on-going romance.
• “I went and saw to my horror that there were only girlie umbrellas available. But, when I searched properly I did find some black umbrellas. So, I decided to buy it. But wait, I saw the label, and here it was for 667 rupees only. Well, with no time, and having more than a goat's brain, I decided to adjust with a girlie umbrella for a day( which was available for 220 rupees), I got the umbrella.” -  Sir Takal is a champion of the woman’s liberation movement, and he breaks all stereotypes, and urges the reader to do the same. Notice how he assigns a higher price to the “Black Umbrella”. Yes, you guessed it. Sir Takal loves the Afro-American Community as well. He is a maestro in the field of Zulu Dancing, though he is very coy about it.
• “Thus, it should be clear that a torturer is a torturer, whatever language he speaks, and whatever country he belongs to. The driver was talking to people in singular whatever, I don't remember the word. It was as if he thought he was the lord. It was as if he was enjoying the overcrowding of the bus. I realized what sadists felt like. He was feeling comfortable in his chair looking at the crowded bus. I felt what a concentration camp felt like, and I for the first time sympathized with the Jews, Borat notwithstanding.” –     Just two words :- Drawing parallels between a BMTC ride and the Holocaust, Sir Takal takes the reader to an epochal period and drops him there. Also of importance are the tyrannical analogies of the bus-driver, who here is being compared to Adolf Hitler himself.   Did I say two words?.. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

And this is just one of his works. Imagine the greatness of a man who has managed to put so many critical issues in such an eloquent manner.
I could go on an on, but I do not wish that the reader misses out on exploring Sir Takal all on their own. A chance that everyone must take.
Takal is a genre in itself. Kafkaesque creations seem pale in front of this divine force of literary grandeur.
Some blurbs from some more reputed sources:

• “This is the 98956’th Indian Origin author that I have been asked to review. Please give me a break. God Damn it.” – Shashi Tharoor.

• “To reduce such a richly diverse book to a couple of main themes is a disservice, for there is much here to reward the careful reader (notably two startlingly educative essays on the ancient roots of relations between India and China). Particularly pleasurable is Sir Takal’s masterly reclaiming of Rabindranath Tagore’s reputation from the unjust misjudgment of him in the West as a mediocre mystic poet rather than the rationalist and humanist genius and polymath Takal convincingly depicts. But -- disservice aside -- two principal arguments emerge from this collection: an affirmation of India’s political and cultural heterogeneity, and of the ‘reach of reason’ in India’s intellectual traditions.” – Shashi Tharoor on cannabis.

• "I think of the glorious Tiananmen square days, when I read Sir Takal’s works.” – Long Dong, The Times of China. he continues, “Actually, I always think of those days.” ,he clarifies.

• “I so adore Takal because he posts his articles mostly at the break of dawn. I love to wake up and read Takal, with the cup of coffee in my hand. WoW, Sir Takal. You’re totally on my favorites list. ” – Chetan Bhagat.

• “Pardon me for this infantile indulgence, but pray allow me to savour the poetic mastery of Sir Takal. I fear that if I don’t quantify it into my already vast intellectual cache, I shall miss out on something very special, the stuff that mortals are faintly aware of.” – Noam Chomsky, not on cannabis.

• “TB rules. TB is my hero. TB is GoD .” – Hashish, The Arizona Daily Star.

• “Ashish to Ashes, Dust to Dust” – Sir Takal, The Davangere  Daily.

Normally I don’t recommend authors, but in his case, I doubly do so.
Venture into the unknown,
for there is where true beauty lies,
Do not miss this literary Oasis, O’ pensive traveller,
Not a shadow of doubt, I premise.

Dinga Product Launch. Audio-Phish a.k.a De-Reshammiya Filter

[written with absolute permission from Dha, and Moral Insurance from Takal (just in case) ]
It was a festive atmosphere in the Dinga Electronics ™ campus on Thursday. A small gathering witnessed the launch of a revolutionary product in the field of consumer electronics.
Shri. Muthappa Rai, renowned reporter of the world-famous newspaper "Karavali Ale", was in Udupi to cover a murder scheduled later that evening.  After a pressing request by Logik, that this report would fetch him the PULL-it-Saar prize, he reluctantly came to cover the event.

Chief Dingologist P.S.L.V. Babu, and Senior Dingineer Sadagopan Ramesh, described their motivation to create the Audio-Phish™.
" It was just unbearable. We couldn't tolerate it any more. People like Himesh Reshammiya were inflicting aural torture the likes of which, we have never heard before". " And then there were these countless reality shows as well. Mindless retards. Horrible Horrible. " - Mr.Babu said reflecting his profound thoughts to our now, hapless reporter.
"We felt we owed it bigtime, to the society, and to the future generation. We realized the need for a product that would obviate these crass voices once and for all. " said Sadagopan Ramesh, looking obviously pleased, with this new found attention.
Ramesh continued. " We hit a roadblock mapping Reshammiya's voice to current noise models. Even Gaussian seemed melodious compared to him. Which is when we took the aids of Dha, a man so well known in audio processing circles.
" Of course. What were you thinking? Gaussian it seems.Pfft. The Himeshian model is so so complex. It is not just-white-noise. " remarked Dha, in between games of Minesweeper, slyly gaining some Google-juice in the process.
After months of hard-work, The Dinga team has proudly launched the Audio Phish [ codenamed De Reshammiya Filter].
  
" This is still a prototype. We have just managed to make him sound like Sonu Nigam as of now. It will take us at least months, if not years, to get some decent sounds." quipped Ramesh. " Questions from anyone in the media? ", he said, obviously pointing to the one and only Muthappa.
" Now, what if Himesh comes to know of this, and sticks it down his . umm. throat? Wouldn't that limit your sales to just one piece, and achieve similar results.?" asked Mr.Rai, beaming at having come up with such a brilliant doubt.
" Actually, make that two. One for each naris/nostril. Yes. That is a valid point. Which is why we are not seeking much publicity. We are just planning to put all this info up on a third-rate blog. And now, your paper as well. " Mr.Babu replied, delicately avoiding any references to the atrocious piece of trash, that is Karavali Ale.
" Any copyright suits expected?"
" Probably just one. For flicking that pic from HHGTTG".
" That's it gentlemen. This is a joyous moment for us, for we know, that in our own humble way, we have saved millions from an imminent brain-freeze."
Mr. Muthappa Rai looked exuberant as this pathetic show came to an end, and he bouncily jumped in joy.

The dingologist, and the dingineer rejoiced in their unique way.

"Hey, isn't that the Bingo guys?. Are you planning on a merger?" asked the ever-inquisitive Rai.
" Listen, dude. Question time is over." "Damn. The news shouldn't have come out so soon. Yes , we're planning on a new food-products division. We are yet to decide on a name though. "
  " Bingo-Dinga, and Dingo-Binga both sound like African cuss-words". mentioned Logik, haughtily considering himself so important that he had to do a self-reference.

Regular readers might be aware of the deal. Takal obviously irritated with the lack of publicity for Davangere Food Products, took on Dha in a verbal duel.
Dha says - " You know what. You'd anyway be killed in that weird incident, by Sads, who would be taking over Davangere Semi Conductors. And if he doesn't, I'll certainly sh00t you, and take over Davangere Food Products". , fondly reliving his glorious days on Dc++.
Takal says- " Ha Ha. D.F.P's output would just be self-sufficient for its CEO then." taking a violent jab there, and making a below-the-belly joke.
Dha replied- " Don't ejaculate with joy there, Yoga-Boy. I know all about your deeds. "
Looking exasperated after this vicious remark, Takal left the scene, vowing to avenge this defeat.
While the day drew to a close, the absence of famous Wildlife Photographer, and avid Hornithologist S.U.Saravanakumar, was deeply regretted. Despite an official invite from Logik, it is said that he went off to  Manipal, to watch the cheer-babes at the newly formed Udupi Premier League Kabaddi matches.
Dha, obviously gleaming with joy, at having directed such a great project, went on to address the gathering.
" This, in my not-so-humble opinion, should be the IEEE standard for Indian Humour blogposts".
He also shouted " All Hail the Son of Bosey", for no apparent reason, before he was whisked off for security reasons, still maintaining the ambiguity in the minds of the readers, whether this was a tribute or a parody.

Cheerio.

Choti Si Baat...

  Disclaimer:- This post is not a review of this Amol Palekar movie. Which happens to be one of my favourites, btw. It however deals with a similar aspect of life.

  Claimer:- Too much fundae_putting for a very small issue. Excusus Maadimus.

  Location: A semi-posh hotel in the heart of Bengaluru. Woodlands a.k.a Woody’s it is called.

  So here I was, happily staying at this hotel [ albeit at company’s expense, but don’t ruin the moment ], which is supposedly famous in B’ lore for its breakfast. Not many star hotels can boast about that.

  Aha, if that’s not enough, there is one more USP to this place. At all the dining venues, this mallu-run hotel plays Carnatic Music to give that xtra aambience effects.                  Yes. Good-ol’ Classy stuff that sits well with most of the senior Tam folk who seem to form a majority of the customers here [ and with me as well - if you still didn’t get the point ].

  I think this must be an corollary/extension of that experimental research that, cows gave more milk when exposed to western classical music.

  In the mornings, they play Mandolin Shrinivas. The same CD every day. I still liked it.

  At dinner, for some weird reason, they play death-note Shehnai/saxophone. Morose funeral-ish stuff. I didn’t quite get the funda, but since the food was quite good, I didn’t bother much.

  Well, enough of bitti publicity. Back to core issues. Or the lack of it.

  So, one day at the breakfast, the hotel features the Southie menu filled with awesomeness, the Idlis, the Vadas, dosas…. and also some mandatory nuisances like the Upma [ a.k.a Uppittu. as if an alias changes the hideousness ]. And being a devout member of the caffeine cultus, I order a coffee as well. Wait, let me rephrase.

  A true-to-Bengaluru-tradition Cothasian fresh, piping hot, delicious cuppa coffee, with a frothy layer as a visual bonus.

  Ya, it was something like that. I’m a bit restrained with appraisals.

  It was of course sugar-free, to suit the oldies. So, I take the  semi-crystalline, semi-powdery sugar sachet, and pour it down. It made a small hole into that layer, sinking in slowly. Maybe I was already high in anticipation of the coffee, or maybe bengaluru’s   early-morning cold had excited my mind, in either case, this sight brought a smile to my face. I assume the classy people around me thought I was some downmarket crazy oaf. That is, if they hadn’t already thought of that, while I came to have the breakfast in my pair of jazzy bermudae.

  To me, however, it reminded of old cartoon characters. When they used to fall out of planes, or space, or anywhere else… Dropping through columns of white clouds, making appropriate look-alike cut-out holes in the process.

  Maybe I’m imagining a bit too much. “Much ado about nothing”- ing about a petty issue.

  Signing off with a recent chat with Akella. [ Expletives included ]

      Me : Hey, I found a house in Wilson Garden. Pretty neat. And near as well..

      Akella : So, when are you shifting to a proper house?

      Me : Wtf, this house is closeby, has a maid, and a TV as well.      You can’t get properer than that.

      Akella : No, I meant why are you staying in a Garden?

      Me : You Whore.

 

  Some people never change…

       And that is good…

            And that is all…

Chetan Bhagat - The three mistakes of my life.

presents............
The three mistakes of my life.......

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This is the primary reason why people don't approach me for book-reviews.....

Anways, jokes apart. The reason his first book was good[ again, my opinion, shoot me], was because it was a novel attempt[ nah. no puns]. And primarily because, I'm an engineer and this book was about IIT. After that, friends, the charm has faded away.

I haven't read the third book yet. Ah, A lying,nasty, cynical,hypocrite you say.
No. What prompted me to put this up, was some lame comments on a 'genuine' review page.

• just loved it.......i hav only read three novels in my life...n they r all by chetan bhagat... I sincerely hope that this guy is joking. Or is this Chetan Bhagat himself?
  

• hi chetan i must say u always rokzzzzzzzzz n plz nxt time try to write something new not the same scripts yar waise i must say u r great. No Comments
  

• i must say its a rocking come back chetan uncle i am a big fan of your i read your five point someone ,than a night at call center........ but i must say that you are a perfect writer.... i am plnnin to take your book "three mistakes of my life" so how has been your experience for been the best seller for 70 weeks ?????? it must be fellin great ????? Chetan Uncle? Wtf. You btter be plnnin hard. I'm fellin awesome btw.
  


• being a die hard fan of chetan..i can say dat dis book jus rockz...but a little less dan his previous books...its worth reading once..some ppl commented dat they can write better books dan this every week..dude..if u could have done dat..then u wud nt b here postin reviews for smeone else books....is dat clear??? Yes Sir. All- Clear. The job of a critic down the drain.

Ok. I thought I'd be unbiased and put some comments that actually dissected the book for what its worth. Some of them were too shallow, and most of them involved obscenities. Hence I present you the link.

What I didn't like honestly was his division of reader-mentality on his blog.

• Core Readers - hardcore fans who will read all CB books
• Fringe Readers- My fringe readers are those who do not like my books, but read them anyway. They are “I’ve read all 3 books , all are crap” variety.
  

[ Sir, I thought your 1st book was good. and 2nd was bull-crap. I haven't read the third one yet, Do I qualify?]

• Critics - "the reviews were not as bad as I expected. Maybe they liked the book, or maybe they had a change of taste or maybe they realized that a few million, English speaking, educated Indians can’t be wrong."
  

Mr. Bhagat- Sir, witnessing the exquisite linguistic skills of your elite fan-base. I wouldn't take that opinion for granted.
And he continues criticizing the critics....

• "but if you call yourself a critic or an expert, you must offer some original, analytical insight about the work - good or bad, to justify your job. Summarizing the plot and repeating past interviews is not that. Anyway, less slamming this time, so I am happy. Thank you guys."

The problem is the moment you end up slamming him, you're automatically promoted to the 2nd set of readers. What do we do?

Anyway. Go ahead. Read his book. He's after all the "biggest-selling English-Language novelist in India's History".


P.S: Chetan Bhagat rokzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Well, You know, I tweet. Sometimes.

As you all are well-aware by now, there is this regularly dysfunctional site called Twitter which allows several critters like me to post the answer to the greatest question the human race has ever asked.
Which is........
"What are you doing now"?
To be answered in 140 characters or less. Phew. Now, that's a toughie.
If only it was as simple as the answer to life, universe, and everything.
Barring mundane, obscene,irrelevant, personal, and utterly inane tweets[ more on this annoying term later], a normal person would not find much to tweet about.
Thusly, twitter is out of business.

Wrong on two counts.

• My assumption that people wouldn't want to share such routine stuff.
• And that the kind of people who refer to this act as tweeting are sensible to begin with.

Now, for their technical issues. For starters, they tried to do too many things at the same time.

• web-service - good
  
• Im service - good
• Mobile-tweeting - good , so that you can say " hey there is a monkey walking on the street". I'm not sure which retard would actually write something like that. But their site says this is the single most important reason that led them to E-nable this feature.
• Iphones[ no no.. they are not just cell-phones. They are I-PHONES], twitterfox, opera twitter gadgets. Heck, any text-entry mechanism ever-built has some twitter client attached to it by now. There was this kid, who tweets from his command line. I pity the fool.
  

All at once, with limited resources to handle it. Bad.
Well, all would have been fine. They didn't expect one thing. You guessed it. The no. of users.
So, every now and then their service goes down. Which is more often than ever.

The irony of course lies in this aspect. There was this tiny little site run by this nice chap, with a well-defined purpose. That site of-course was, Is Twitter Down . Now I say 'was' because since the time twitter went comatose today, even this site has. You could call it the Slashdot-esque effect, . Wait, I've an even brilliant idea. You've been twitted . Ha ha....
"Is twitter down" is down? Hey, maybe I can open a new site to check that. But how far can we go in this stupid endeavour when the faults lie deep within Twitter.

So, gear up folks. Use that crisp 15million bucks to good effect.

For Pete's sake. Let a man tweet.


Well, about tweet. This is one of the most annoying web2.0 terms that I've heard. However, its not something new. Guys who do similar stuff also have stupid names. Jaiku, Pownce ...
What's it with micro-blogging and icky terms?


P.S: The author tweets at

Additional twitter information: Wiki , Killer-Apps [ Cho Tweet].
And a twit-toon.

One more, that asks me to politely stop this post.

Self-Spam

A small technical exercise testing the effectiveness of gmail to combat spam, which on their site says "Fast, searchable email with less spam".

This is true mostly. However, there is a downside to gmail spam filters w.r.t false-positives, i.e (filter mistakenly flags a good mail as spam)
These numbers are particularly high in case of gmail. I'm comparing it to, say using Spam-Assassin , or Akismet as your spam filter. I've had a sufficient number of good mails, not so useful, but not spam either-> which have been flagged off as spam.
This is unacceptable. In my case, I've the patience, and also a weird interest to go through my spam messages everday. But, busy people would consider this to be a "costly nuisance".
The Nuisance is obvious. It's also costly as the flagged message might have critical business information.
Most people however do not worry much about this. Because they trust their spam filters to weed out only the bad guys. As Matt Cutts of Google says about Google Search so elegantly, " Sure, I could stop all the spam in the world if I didn’t have to return any search results." :) [source]

What people don't like, however, is the appearance of { stimulating/enlarging/Nigerian King bequeathing his 100 million $ /cheap adobe software or Rolex-es / mortgage loans at unbelievable rates } mails in their inbox. This is totally irritating, and this does more damage to the lay-user than the previously mentioned almost-rare case.
Spam filters involve many techniques which are constantly under development. These chiefly include heuristic[ drawing from previous experiences, a learning method], bayesian filters, simple database matching, matching ip's with regular spammers, and lots more involving complex probability/statistical models beyond my wildest dreams.
So, being the evil chap that I am, I did this nonsensical thing. I sent a spam mail to myself.

Granted, this is stupid. Gmail should place a trust on the sender[ me], and the sending server[gmail.com], and hence classify this as a legitimate mail.
So I repeated this exercise with a well-known email spoofer, www.pranketh.com . What this nifty project [written by two brilliant chaps from University of waterloo] does is pretty simple.
As the site says - "It allows you to send an email, that looks like its sent from someone else." Or in simple terms.
I can send an email from id's like mukeshambani[at]reliance[dot]in, or soniagandhirocks[at]congressrocks[dot]gov[dot]in.
[ note the delicate usage of "rocks", Blogger belongs to google. I don't want no risks]. A screenshot of pranketh's page.

Yes. I know your doubt. If its so easy, why do nefarious miscreants use stupid yahoo/gmail id's to threaten people, or send smokescreen bomb-footage, to the extremely retarded tv channel Aaj Tak[ self-proclaimed to be "Sarv-Shresht].
The point is the email server, folks. Your id is spoofed. But the smtp server name. No no. I couldn't dream in my distant dreams to get a gov.in smtp[ Since I don't happen to be a chinese (govt-sponsored) hacker :( ]. As a test case, try sending a prankethmail to your own id. And check the "original mail" option in gmail.
Ah. The post digresses from its core issue. Lets come back to the main point, shall we.
An important reason to gmail, not blocking my self-spam, was that it trusts my id, and its servers.
I tried sending the same text through pranketh. Guess what. It thrashes the mail left and right, before it even leaves their servers. Why?. They use Aksimet.

My advice to gmail [ In the remotest probability that Matt Cutts is reading this,], and other mail providers is this.
Google's servers are checking all our mail-contents for generating their automated ads and stuff anyways. So, there is no illusion of privacy. So, the next time, I'm sending a mail, check the contents before hand. Warn me if its spammish. Keep the thresholds appropriately such that I'm not regularly annoyed with these warnings.
If all smtp servers start this routine, we can see at least some major changes.

1. All the worlds emails would take a longer time to reach their destination. [ There's got to be some catch.This is it]
2. Say I send one mail to a big bunch of people, it'd be scanned for spam-behaviour only once. Then some certification can be piggy-backed along, saying its reliable, and not spam. The experts can handle that bit. Not too difficult.
3. Botnets prevention. Say, some dumbo privately runs a smtp server, and has been been subjected to a backdoor/trojan attack. And this is currently acting as a zombie sending out bunch of viagrish mails to innocent people, who've left their email id's lying out in the open.

I'm not saying you give up your earlier approach. That'd be foolish. But if its absolutely obvious that a mail is spammy[ self-spam for eg.]. Block it before it leaves your grounds.

Now, a general warning to all those who think spams are obnoxious. Your bigdaddydog@rediffmail.com might be the prettiest email id around. But don't leave it on some arbit website, for all the world to see. One syntax-based text crawler and you get thousands of them.
Believe me, some of these spammers are millionaires[ Not the Nigerian kind]. And run their business professionally. And have awesome technical expertise too.
If anything, don't make their job easier. Let them just fight it out with the big-guys[ yahoo, google, msft et al].

I reiterate. If you desperately want to put your email id on the net, use images like these.

And, a word of caution. Even this is not safe. Within 1-2 years, google image search is going to search the contents in images. And character recognition. Piece of cake.
So, what do you do next. Do not fear, I have the ideas.

1. When you must, put your email id's with re-captcha. I'd written a post about this some time back. My email id through this schema would be abhi...@gmail.com .Go to their website and register for their free service. The only reason this idea is safe, however, is because Spammers, like all of us, are average-ramesh hard-working people. They do not have time to fill your captchas. Where as, your friends and people who want to see your email id so desperately, do.
2. Use images, but this time, write them with 3-d blocks. Even by extreme image processing hacking standards, this is nearly safe for 5-6 years.
3. Do not put email id's on the internet.

This is probably the first in a series of spam-related posts to come.

P.S: I kinda remembered the first word of my blog's title, and how I hadn't paid any attention to it, for the past few months.
And, let me clarify. I love gmail.

Holiday Hoo-Hahs

I’m a particularly strange person. I don’t like vacations. They seem to drag.
Especially the post-college-no social contact ones.
Makes me feel like a social retard. [ Nice post, dude].
Without much nonsensing, here’s some peculiarly interesting/irritating incidents that happened over the past few weeks.


I arrive back from college. Mom’s lambasting me on my apparently obvious weight-loss. Unlike some hoggers, I lost nearly 5-6 kg’s while at college.
Most relatives think that its due to my burning of the mid-night oil-esque studying.
I don’t like to disturb pretty thoughts.


She proclaims with full gusto. “ Before, you leave for Bangalore, I’ll make sure you gain at least 8-10 kgs.” Its gone off to a point where I actually said,
“ Amma, I’m bored. Eat, Eat, Eat... Give me a break ”.
So, Ladies, the next time you see me, in addition to the awesomely dashing, supremely bright looks, I might also be slightly chubbier. Be prepared, lest you be swept off your feet.
[ ROTFL]

Needless to say, gone are the days when Parle-G used to be my
breakfast/lunch/dinner.

Whole family went on major temple touring. Dharmasthala, Kukke Subrahmanya, Aane Gudde[Near Kundapur], Kota Amritheshwari…. yada yada. I hope that this fulfils my religious affiliations for this year.

Non-faith reasons aside, these visits were still pesky. Getting up at 4 in the morning, AND taking a bath, both on the same day, is quite an ask.

On the Aane Gudde- day, I had only one T-shirt left to wear, and by an act of cosmic co-incidence, it happened to be one with the awesome Black-Sabbath band pic on it. Was laughing to myself at the apparent irony. Mom asked why.Told her about the whole satanic/atheistic stuff about Black Sabbath.
She laughed at my stupidity.
Now, That’s a Wardrobe Malfunction, I feel.

Last year. December to be precise, I went to Strands Book Exhibition in Bangalore. Nice place, books at decent prices. One of the many books that I purchased that day was "The Devil's Alternative"- by Frederick Forsyth. I finished it last week. Ace book. They even called it unputdownable. But that's how I read. Shame...

Boarded a bus from the M.G.M stop[ My P.U college, I miss it very much too, but too much senti is not good, so I skip intro]. The conductor saw me and gave me a C.
That’s a half-ticket in Udupi/Mangalore lingo. There used to be a time, when my friends and me were immensely pleased at this 1-2 Rs. savings.
But C’mon. At 21? You got to be kidding me. Probably I need to look a bit more refined/mature.
I think I should sport a beard. Maybe I will.

One major improvement over the past vacations, is that I finally am getting to surf through Broadband this time. Dial-Up’s a pain in the Bottom if you ask me. [ Did you spot the pun. Ya right there, that’s it. Read on].

Here, I’d like to mention the extremely suave, gracious BSNL folks who came over to my house, installed the ADSL modem+router, and made sure that the connection’s up n running. Granted, its their job. But, it is nice to see govt. officials who are courteous.
It restores my faith in the system.

Now, I surf at nearly 200+ kbps. And as Dha says, I can now download anything that “tickles my fancy”.

Oh ya. I take only the legally downloadable movies, music, sitcoms, software.
After paying for it, of course.

Ah. My board. With Sarcasm written in large letters. Where’s it?.. Better hold it up high.

A Linux guru from Bengaluru, Atul Chitnis does more justice to BSNL’s efforts. It is also a stepwise guide to the whole deal of getting a dataone connection.
He's written it better, hence I won't dare repeat it here.
Read Maadi. His first opinion on this was cynical, and then he changes his mind in this entry after getting the connection. Likewise in my case.

To Atul : I installed it myself on Linux. You took their help. Ha ha…

P.S

Atul says: kill -9 ‘pidof logik’

Senti - -

So this is it. The bluesy feeling finally came. Initially, in small doses. But eventually, as time passed, and we came closer to the end [ if you could call it so], the senti-jolts were obvious and caused intense discomfort.

4 years seem to have swished by in a jiffy.

The realization of that, however, came a bit too late[ which was good, btw]. It probably started as soon as Inci got over. Random flashes- scenes from the past years, events of importance, the funner things in life that I experienced here
- appeared at times. And me got all pensive, which is, you can safely say, not normal; considering my nature.
A CnH strip, that probably describes my situation. With due apologies to Watterson.

[Pls right click and open the image in a new tab, will ya.]

The last few days were unbearable. Every task that you did in college had some kinda tag associated with it. Last time this, First time that etc. Add to that a whole bunch of drippy farewell ceremonies. The senti-meter kept showing intense readings as the days passed.

[Pls right click and open the image in a new tab]

Each of these peaks had some significance associated with it.

For instance, on 21^st was the impulse outburst after the exams, the moment that I realized that I am an Engineer…

On 27^th, after certain touchy fare-thee-wells, Chindu, Shishir, KK, and me set about strolling in the campus. We went to SAC. I delighted them with impromptu renditions of “If you come Today”, and “Another Brick in the hall”, with a booming voice atop the stage, and was well-received.
[ Three is a crowd, remember?].
Sat there contemplating, and discussing. What went right, what went wrong, memories etc. The discussion eventually became about IPL. So zip it…

On 28^th, bored after packing, and late in the night, 2-ish, I set about doing a Noorie-like walk, taking a route from the 8^th block, to Main Building, S.S, G.B and Coffee Dabba[was closed], SAC, S.J.A, and back. Trying to remember moments.

The remaining peaky spots on the graph involve reasons unbeknown to many. And probably realized by a certain close-knit set of friends. They know. I know. That’s pretty sufficient.

I’m saddened to leave the place that nurtured my academic curiosities, the place where I met a wide assortment of interesting people. Passers-by like me, driven by zeal to make the most of their stay, to find a purpose to their erstwhile directionless lives, and most importantly, the folks who were here just to have a jolly good time.

All of you made this place special. Memorable. Stand up, and take a bow….

To good friends, arch-enemies, SPICMACAYites, fellow tronixians, Bloggers, Tronix-Bloggers, room-mates, wing-mates, ENGI-INCI junta, all those people of the 7 batches , that I’ve had a chance to interact with, and uttermost importantly,
Our esteemed faculty.
I’ll miss you.

So, hoping that, “With the world being a small place”, “Keep in touch”, “ Ping me” and all other clichés turn out to be true in this case.

And as Watterson rightly said,

It’s a Magical World out there, Hobbes.
Lets go exploring…

P.S:

My room. 8^th Block, 2, has the above lines etched as a means of frustu-graffiti. The kind soul who occupies it next is requested not to erase it, and other brags that I might have written there.
Final visit to Sunder’s was pretty senti too. The last full-maggi with half-fry there, and a hug later.

Other tata-bye-bye posts can be found at [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] ,[7]
From Ol' friends and new...

Quantification of sentimental feelings on a graph. Bad. Abhishek. Bad.

This post should have been written about a month ago. But, I’d so many things on my mind then and writing a post was not one of them.

MSpaint rwocks...

Right now I’m feeling bored…. Totally BORED.

Turing Machines and extreme irritation

/* The F word will be used 3 times in this post, for completely appropriate reasons. Kindly close your eyes just before u pass over it. Thank you */

Well, I was on my way to good ol' Bengalooru on some work. In this bus called Indira Travels...
Well, I dint find her, but anyways, this is what happened.

Some of my brilliant NITKian Juniors were here,
filled with placement fear,
Oh. Dear Dear....

These buggers are discussing about Turing machines, and other algos. Various placement related stuff.
[ I'd give a million to anyone who'd guess their branch]

Well, to this particular chap, I pose a question.

" It is 5.45 in the morning. You have a 80 decibel voice, and you're shouting at an angle of 60 deg relative to your seat, about turing bullcrap. Exactly how many people are you annoying? "

Answer: The whole fucking bus.....

Well, if you want to understand Turing Machines, I'd love to teach you.
An awesome description by my friend- Junior- con- comps don - Anirudh
" Turing Machines should be called "SlideFuck" , you know like " BrainFuck" ,
but this time, with only two symbols, "left" and right".

There, you nasty sucker... got that.....
If you still have a doubt, then " One tight slap".

Cheerio

P.S: I know who you are.... [ grin]

Sakku Tetris

Narcissism should be the state religion.

Some 6 months ago, Sakku Tetris [ Sakkut ™ ], a weapon of mass distraction was
unleashed upon hapless nerds of NITK by the cranberry Zombie a.k.a
The Ghost who Codes, or more popularly known in dcpp circles as RatPoizon.

Random announcement: Tetris is a part of the bsd-games packaged
in the great archlinux.
[I swear, evil-chappar-sense asked me to add that. Evangelism at its core].

Sure, we’ve all used those hand-helds before. What was it.. Ah . Yes. Brick game.

Laying bricks[ a term totally ripped by Ali G btw], in search for that
elusive long bar, that would just give it to the huge pile that you’d
meticulously planned, with just that one column space. An lo, behold.
Crasheth thy tower, Gaineth thou points.

But there is no fun in that now, is it?... Along came Skld.
With his generous spirit and cranberry heart, he sets up this amazing
tetris server in a jiffy. That too with all sorts of high score updates, linearly
graded levels with higher rewards and ball-shattering speeds.

The best part about Sakkut ™ is that there is no need to complete the tetris.
The faster you get em’ bricks down , the faster you earn, and the earlier
you f’kup and leave.

Now, you might be wondering. Why the fudge is this chap blabbering
about a game that even my dad would consider Victorian?

Aha. I happen to be the highest scorer, my dear… and a whopping 30k+ at that.

For the ones that did not understand even a single word until now, here’s the post in
Sakkut ™ for Dummies Picture Edition.

That, my friends is PuTTY, one of the best ssh, telnet clients out there.
Use this for tetris.
Why?
cmd sucks. and this terminal window looks way better.
Once this is done, you're hooked up with Sakku's comp.
Id Unta swamy?..

Look at that picture carefully. Wtf. Colour ASCII Art, that too with your alias. Dude. Its 2008... Wake up...
And speaking of aliases, how many do you have, man?...

Once you're in, all that strikes you is one illustrious list of extraordinary gentlemen who have dedicated their precious NITKian schedules towards Sakkut ™.
Several cold wars, semi-trained Zulu Dances and a cut-throat competition in 8th block has led to the compilation of this awesome list.

Lets dwell on this page for a while [ grin]...
8 out of top 10 scores. 30k. Not bad. Mission accomplished.
The 28k score happened to be when I was in a major inebriated state.
[ There, the first time that I've mentioned that I was high, on my blog.
I will not even attempt to chronicle my stupid endeavours under
the influence of substances.
Self Suck-Dingy.... ]
For details read N.R's alcohol blog.

A new section started by the Rat. For practical purposes, lets call it the tetris blog.
Or shall we call it the Never come out the room-Yet report sensational news- Journalism?.. Hmmm...

Ranging from motivational speeches to Soma/me during the famous
( Sakkut ™ Wars ) ™, to kick-in-the butt orders for Dha to join, or claims that a certain evil soul did some nasty hacking, or arbit couplish stuff, that only the gossip-freaks would be bothered with....
The best part about Soma's style of playing was the cool and the panache
with which he deftly manoeuvred.
@ Soma:- It's lonely at the top.... [ evil laughter]...
The modest Rat however fails to mention that he himself is an accomplished player, however owing to the sudden influx of jobless junta, he fails to appear more than once in that list.

Now the golden moment. What lies within such a heavily guarded fortress, so charmingly entwined with the tales of the geeks, so dazzlingly depicting the brilliant set of conquerors?.....
Well, Sakkut ™ of course....

What is provided here is a sample of the way the game ought to be played. It might appear too fast, and could be confused for an animation gimmick. Well, lets be frank here.
There was some post processing. Irfan view is an awesome image editing software, and a new discovery advp does a good job at creating animated gif's. But having screen captures at 1 sec intervals, what with that piece of software running on my lousy Tony, some glitches/ time lapses are bound to happen.
What is interesting is the level of F'kup's that happen in level 9. One mistake, and Sayonara...
Without further ado, a humble demo...

Tiny things in life bring you the greatest of joys. Sakkut ™ was my companion during many a stressful days.
j-k-l-space The keys to freedom.

Finally I would like to sign off with a adapted quote from the best movie ever made. Yup. The Shawshank Redemption[ Suck on it, Godfather fans].

" Prison time is slow time.Sometimes it feels like stop-time.
So you do what you can to keep going...
Some fellas collect stamps.Others build matchstick houses.
Andy built a library."

Logik , Soma, Dha, RatPoizon, and evilsense played Sakkut ™.

Thanks to Dha for this. It taught me how to use animated gif's in blogs.
Thanks to Google for being there as always. Thanks to Photobucket
and Imageshack for hosting.
And readers, watch this image, while I make a silent exit.


Kudos to John Battelle for being the first John on Google when
searched for John.
Yup, he beat John's Gospel, John Lennon, John F.Kennedy ,
John Deere and John Abraham too....
And juniors, might want to set up their own Sakkut ™.

We are alumni now..........

P.S: My Blogger theme sucks.
All those awesome animated gif's that took me ages to prepare have
been mercilessly chopped off.A better way to read an elegant looking
post would be to subscribe to my rss feed via Google reader, or via the
email service provided by feedburner.
[ Marketing is the cheapest job genre ever.....]
P.P.S: Anyone who has closely observed the P.S section
might catch the subtle chopping irony.

Cheerio

This n That...

The SPCB called me yesterday. So here is a round up of some oddities that happened in the past week.

A tiny confession. I'm pretty nonchalant about the Indian political scenario. However, when I was glancing through the online edition of the Times of India[ I'm not keeping well these days :) ], I couldn't but help notice this.[1]
" Rahul Gandhi washes himself with soap and incense after visiting Dalits".
Scrolling down to check out the audacious person who could come up with such a statement, I was kinda perturbed to see Ms.Mayawati Naina Kumari's name.[2]
Ok. Lets analyse this profound political conundrum using the now famous cheapness rating[TM].

The contenders would be
1. Rahul Gandhi[3]: who has allegedly performed ablutions with the choicest of soaps and all the perfumes of Arabia[ An exaggerated Macbeth joke. Pray pardon, and continue reading], in order to sanctify himself from the visit to dalit homes. thereby rendering useless,all the election mileage that he was supposed to get from such random visits, as leader of the youth congress, and general secretary of Indian National Congress, and as Rajiv Gandhi Part II etc.

2. The ever charming Lady, Ms.Maya, a.k.a Pachydermus Proliferatus[4] : For having supposedly found out about innocent Rahul's bathing rituals,items in his bathroom, and other issues privy to all. Being on the spying side of a phone-tapping controversy seems to have given her some experience. Do we call this tap-tapping now[ for lack of a better pun]?....
A word of advice to Madam Maya. Please do take a bath once in a while. We the electorate are sensible enough not to attribute it to such inane stuff.
Ok, the previous suggestion was a bit hypocritical of me, since I don't follow the practice of regular bathing myself.
But then, I'm not a dirty politician, am I?....

3. Me: For having dwelled on this bulldung for two whole paragraphs, when the solution was so evident. Mayawati feared losing her prized possession. The dalit votes. Her recent policy, simbly great by any modern politicians standards, seems to be

Brahmin- Harijan Bhai Bhai,
Everyone drinks together Chai.
Swalpa Lingayat and Swalpa Vokkaliga for extra high,
Whaatai, Whaatai..
[5]
Now,lets see.. Where did Rahul go wrong?.This chap is one of the most honest politicians[an oxy moron, sorry] in recent times. Honest maybe not in deeds, but in words at least. The Doon school's charm is still visible when he speaks. For those are not statements masked with fear of the supreme Holy Mother of congress. He points out critical mistakes in Indian political history, most of them committed by the Nehruvian clan themselves. Pity Kapil Sibal had to bear the brunt of the ever-wicked Karan Thapar, trying to justify such wise thoughts as coming from a kiddish nansy-pansy person.

But, alas. Soon he will be one of them. Already getting diluted, delving deep into election dirt, propagating nonsense, touring every vote-hotspot of India. India has lost one more Leader....

Now, the results.
Its obvious,isn't it?.. Its my blog;I win...I am the cheapest of them all....

Politics and economics are quite the sapphic pair.So how could I leave her out?
One more news headline...[6] [7]
" Researchers at Wharton Business School have carried out the study and found that inhabitants of richer nations are happier than those of poorer countries".
or in Noob terms, "Money can Buy you happiness".
My, My. And it took buggers from Wharton to figure that out?. Wtf.
I'm a pretty fiscally challenged person myself. I would have suggested this much earlier. Damn,
if only I weren't so frigging busy...

In local news, but of much more value, We the Batch of 2008, were presented with nitk logo-ed silver rings. A symbol to connect us all, the brethren, the sistren, and the couplen.
So after all the possible jokes spanning from Captain Planet, The Ring horror movies, Semi-lewd wedding fundae, Nursery rhymes, Suffe-"ring"[ Sir, You're the best. We now know where the Nitkian gets his/her Pj'ing spirit from] etc, we set out as blazoned warriors, all ready to face the world in all its glory, or as one friend points out, " To come out in Flying colours".
Oh.. wait.. There are still some more days left before I spew that...

And, for the outsiders, and the juniors who dint know. EnC Don Ajay the Great, went on to win both the golden medal, and the golden ring. The best outgoing student of our batch. Tronix rocks macchi...

Cheerio...

P.S: Zippidee Doo dah...