How / Why did Rakhi trend – A case study

I know I'd be asking a bit too much out of you, but
please head over to the wordpress post . Cross-posting is quite a pain.


P.S: I still like you, blogger.com  [ atleast until wordpress opens up it's html access ]

Honey, I shrunk the Url…

For numerous reasons, I don't like bit.ly so much. Some of them being -

• They don't have a middle layer which acts as a NSFW [ stands for Get Kicked Out of Office if you open This here] warning. There's the append '+' at the end of the link hack. But seriously, who does that usually? You barely have enough time to click on links these days, save reading their contents as well.
• They've a "This page has been reported to serve malware in generous doses" middle layer, but since it's Mr.Twitter who's one of their major link sources, this has to be more 'realtime'. Depends on what realtime means, yes. But everyone's using that word nowadays, so what the heck.
• They've a twitter monopoly. You've got to hate the leader. It's a rule.

So, Should I plan to start my own Url Shortening service, it wouldn't have all these issues. And just to humor myself, I shall call it id.ly

And since there's no Country Top-Level domain with .da, I'll have no competitors like va.da . Humour monopoly, FTW...

Pre-(Post-Script):

Is there a Mai Ka Laal, who can gift Mr. Veerappa with a moi.ly domain... He'd be the cool-kid on the block, instead of the peddler-like grumpy face that he flaunts usually.

You know, as genuinely awesome as the chap to the right, who's currently booked under the Limca records, for the fastest fast in India. [ No, I'm kidding. Maybe]

Obligatory Show-off Post-script section :

Whate pity. Honourable Son of the Soil can't get the prized gow.da. He'll have to settle for de.ve , I guess.

Today's Special - à la carte

Bonjour!
"Tout ce que dit en français, des sons de classe" - 'Anything said in French, sounds classy' - Monsieur. Abhishek, Circa 2009.
      Well, enough of dillydallying.Yesterday, Akshay and I, had been to the Fête de la Musique, at the Alliance Française de bangalore. A cozy place, and a Cultural hangout for the French, in Bangalore. We had no clue of the lineup, and I, had almost thought that it was the 'Galeej Gurus' who'd be performing. 
I saw the calendar, and it said "Today's Special". And that, was the name of the band. Band names[ and songs] mostly come out as as the aftereffects of drunken revelry. [ Considering that this band cites whiskey and beer to be some of their driving influences, my guess isn't that far-fetched :-P ]. 

      And needless to say, it's a decent pun as well. I suppose they get stuff like, " And Ladies and Gentlemen, Today's special performance is by well, Today's Special", all the time. Much like when there was this bunch [including Frank Noon], who called themselves "The Next Band". [ And the Next band is ......] , or even better, this group that performed at Decibels at Saarang 2009. It was simply called "The Previous Band". Man, the confusions.
      'Today's Special' was listed in the lineup for Saarang as well. I couldn't see the entire Decibels event, hence must have missed them there.
      Anyway, about yesterday's performance. Absolutely loved it. Primarily funk based music, and the fact that they can dabble in with a bit of metal as well, makes them extra special.

Now, that's some branding. Bound to impress.

Here's what the band has to say about themselves.
"We are a Bangalore based blues rock band, mostly into classic blues, blues rock and retro hard rock, with an added flavour of funk.We cover songs of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Phish and the likes, and also compose originals that fall in the same taste."
Some would call it confusing and disoriented that they have so many influences, but the fact that they switch easily between these at will in their tracks, makes them versatile, I feel.

The Band's line up [ I picked this from the website, I'm sure about at least the vocals and the bassist], and my opinions about them:

Aditya : Vocals - Roaring, High voice at times, which suits the retro style very much. Could do a semi-growl if need be, I guess. The lyrics are very much set to the swing style [ Elvis -like ], and this chap sings fast-paced as the style demands.
Dhruv : Guitars -Very Naice, Sir. Nice techniques, the sweep Picking was awesome, and the riffs were very distinct.
Sathwick : Drums - Brings the song into picture right from the start. The bass and the drums combination is probably the signature of this band, from what I could make out from most of their numbers.
Shalini : Bass - Let's get out the most obvious fact first. A Female bassist? Yes, that's something really rare. Unique enough to feature an independent wiki.
Ok, once the whole hullaballoo and temporary jaw-dropping was done, we were actually in awe of her performance. One hell of a bassist. And as I said just two lines before [ were you noticing?? ], the bass+ drum intros defined the course of the song.

Yesterday's performance featured originals like "Aloo Tikki" and covers like "Hush - Deep Purple", and "Woman - WolfMother". The wolfmother cover was nearly identical, and the highlight of the gig, for me.

One minor complaint is that once I tried to some post-concert searching for this band, its tracks and lyrics, I was thoroughly pissed off.
It's a pain googling for them. Try some innocent search term like "Aloo Tikki Today's Special", and a hajar Tarla Dalal like cooking sites pop up.Aargh. With a little Search engine kungfu I could manage to find their myspace page, and some two tracks. Seriously guys, A Blog comes for free these days.
Kindly to be setting one up soonly. Thank you.

Akshay pointed out yesterday that Rock n Metal music seems to have dried up in Bangalore for the past few months, what with absolutely no gigs of interest happening.
Genetically mutated concert organizers, Please take note.

Be there or Be Squared?

In a desperate attempt to bridge the gap between WolfRam Alpha and itself, Google released something known as Google Squared. [ The service ] [ The official Post].
My conspiracy theory is that this is a majorly quadratic statement by Google in the light of the Tiananmen Square Incident Anniversary, which happens to be on June 4th[ i.e, Today ].

To all those crazy lunatics over there, let me fuel it further by saying that June is the 6th Month, and 4 is the date.  Oh . Holy Moly, that's 6 and 4.  => 64? Get it? That's a perfect square... 

Go ahead, I've made your day. Send all those crazy forwards, and troll in all possible forums out there, because deep within your stupid hearts, you know it to be true.

With all due respects to Google, Wolfram Alpha still continues to totally arouse Geeky researchers ( and trivia hunters), with the same feeling that people used to [ and still get ], when randomly bouncing off wikipedia pages.

And in keeping up with my holy tradition of keeping the kernel of the post in the very end, and most often than not, missing it entirely, here's them goodies...

[ Open the image in a different tab, if you wish ]
Well, there has been no editing absolutely. There in lies my integrity [ as well as differentiability, from other arbit meme creators out there ]. Don't believe me, check it out.


http://www.google.com/squared/table/ageTYAeHzVe5UFezJFN2MFtg

Now, let me expertly dissect this information, as a certain annoying Arnab ComeSwami would.

Some Salient Features:

• Vajpayee proves why he's still the best out there. He's a DLF maximum, and a citi moment of success all rolled into one smooth package.
• Karat's priced at 2 Dollars. he he. Take that you pseudo-communisty bleddy red-chaddis. No Marx for you this time. For all that dirty Lenin that you washed in public, serves you right.
  
• Advani's priced slightly higher than Mr.Singh. That's just the added value of viral marketing, and internet flash ads. And him being the Iron Man of India, to boot. 
• Lalu foxes even Google. Even the mighty know-it-all search engine cannot figure out how much stash the Bihari-Bond is hiding.
• Sonia Gandhi -  well, I refrain from commenting, in accordance with previously maintained policies. Respect mam, or as they say in fluent Italian, 'KThnxBai'.
  

In other search engine news : Microsofty released their new polished search service, which they call Bing.
which apparently stands for " But It's Not Google".
Several scapegoats have confirmed this fact to be true, and have unanimously bleated out that a search engine so lousy, cannot definitely be a clone of Google.
But, do not shoo off this Bingy thingy so soon. If history has taught us anything, [ other than about one crazy dude pillaging through other another crazy dude's city, and general voyeuristic/hedonistic activities of folks with lots of cash ] , it is this.
"Services/Movements/ Tools/ Softwares with recursive names might not be successful commercially, but will definitely end up being a major pain-in-the-ass of the opposite party concerned. "
off the cuff examples being, GNU, LAME, WiNe.
So, watch out. Microsoft hopes for some Bing Bling soon...


Oh, and by the way. This happens to be my 50th post.[ Hurrah, yippee yay. Saavdhaan, Vishraam.]
Muchas Gracias to all of you for all this nice readership thing that's happening so far.
Keep up the good work :-)
If there was an award for the highest blogging throughput, an award for the most prolific and active blogger out there, you know, the person with all the witty regular posts, and amazing rapport with the readers.....

I wouldn't have got it.

N-Blox Reloaded...

Not exactly a post. [ Ergo, something better.]

/*************************************************************/


[Btw,  My hiatus is surprisingly, not due to a writer's block. This is your chance. Enjoy while it lasts...For be warned, Soon, I'll be back. With my regular doses of  textual - harassment. Phew, I can't be booked for that]
/*************************************************************/


My love for tetris has been documented pretty well over here. So I'll not kutch further.
I discovered N-Blox some days ago, when chappar , wanting to get some cheap highs, was looking at psychedelic visuals on this site. And sent it to me.
Turns out Paul Neave is a brilliant Flash designer, with a passion for Retro games. Kewl. And I found Tetris. Blissh.
The gameplay is superb[ Considering that there's not much scope for innovation]. But as it turns out, Neave is a bit of a N*gger [ Southpark fundaes]. With the sole intent of pissing off fans, he sets out and puts a score_reset which is called at the stroke of midnight. I could think of only a few possible excuses that he could have.

• Probably to save on diskspace of the scores.txt file. [Wtf]
• To give every newbie a chance to figure on the highscore board. Turns out they already do. Through  simple,stupid, "Injection" techniques. [Come on, Man you...]
• "It's my game."  " Respect Mah Authoritah"...[ Awesome ]

Well, the third reason seemed the most logical, and we laud his spunk n all that, but we didn't like it in principle. He could have at least given people the source code and allow us to tinker with it. But that's his choice and we respect that.

But, we did want the game.

So, The php whiz from college, and myself,  tweaked around the flash file for a while to send the scores to a different location. And the php to receive, process the scores at this remote location, and send back the results back to the flash file. No edits to the gameplay/graphics. Honest.

Did someone miss a beat? Never mind, Let me beat you again. 

Me n php? Ha ha...

Well, truth be told, he did both of those.  Great work dude, and btw, the Inci site rocks, as usual.

And me, with my stupendous Html skills, set up an oldschool website, which is approximately Web 0.2.

So, enjoy Nblox on the site shown below ( while it lasts), and u get to post ur highscore as well. 

So, without much ado, here's N-Blox Reloaded peoples...

Disclaimer : I could post the flash here,on this blog, but that ain't right.

Phree Publicity: Check out http://byethost.com/  Free, and Hassle-free webhosting, with php support, and nice technical support as well.

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…