Scribblings in time

Of connecting the dots..

2010-01-09T01:33:00.008+05:30

Dots don't always connect in a discernible way, or maybe it needs Steve Jobs of sorts to connect them. It has been a forest for me, of independent, distinct dots. Like the planets of solar system, they might have some universal gravitational influence on others but they definitely don't connect in any big way. They do their own circles( or ellipses if you prefer). Gravitation however is universal and sometimes - you see it assert itself.

We had lost two games before gravitation struck. The first one lost economizing on the limited paintballs we had, and the second, defending from badly selected bunkers we'd chosen as posts.
Paintball must be familiar to most. According to wiki it is a team game "in which players compete, in teams or individually, to eliminate opponents by hitting them with pellets containing paint (referred to as a paintball) from a a special gun called a paintball marker".
Continuous firing from other side had us all painted and we were tired and exhausted. Our muscles had given up and the pull of the earth was never more apparent. It pulls with quite some force, and yes it sucked - quite literally.
Another team was resting, waiting to take us on. Two more to go and elimination seemed quite likely, clearly it was not working for us. Leaning on the grass i looked around, it reminded me of AOE(age of empires) i used to play on my desktop and i must have smiled or was it a smug, i don't remember. Nostalgia is like childhood, you can always relate to it however alien it might be to you now. Like the history of an era gone by, whether with triumph or not, it never fails to please. It always leaves you slightly high. In the game of AOE one starts with building villagers and farming until you're poised to build military units and attack. A brilliant digression from this progression of play is - The Early Attack, where you take your villagers and make them fight like martyrs, if you have the number advantage you stand a fair chance. That was the epiphanic moment, that was it, we had a strategy, gravitation had struck from above.

Our team of six had to start at A and reach B. We decided that we will have two guniea pigs. The idea was that everybody just runs for their life berserk, as if they were running on a sprint race track. The only difference being that the one on sides do it in surreptitious silence while the two guniea pigs in middle charge like bulls, howl like gorillas, attracting attention and globs of paint. The guniea pigs dash straight taking all the bullets, while the other two pairs run from the sides unnoticed into the opponents den. I have no idea what happened in the game, who was where or what went in those minutes of which i have little recollection. All i know is that it worked, and we won.

Those were the two dots, but hey isn't the connection inherent, after all they're just two games with similar motifs? Ahem, ahem.. so much for hogwash.

There however is another game, the game of corporations, big businesses and strategic consulting. This dot is about ABC corp, a company which makes products catering from budget to luxury segment in the merchandise category. When ABC started it was aware that there was a powerful brand existing in the market and it would be very difficult for it to bite into the luxury class of the product line. A largely engineering driven mid-sized organization the only strategic advantage ABC had was a dozen patents it owned. ABC's products at that time could be categorized somewhere between the best luxury class and the regular but somewhat different from competing brands. In todays markets many a times you get one shot, which either make or break the company. ABC promised an upcoming product launch in the luxury segment and cleverly floated an advertisement that not only did brand building but at the same time enticed the regular segment customer's dreams. Just prior to the scheduled launch, instead of the proposed luxury model it flooded the market with derivatives of the regular models. Although lacking a few features these regular models almost mimicked the luxury model. It was an instant hit, the market was flooded with ABC's regular segment products with more models than any other brand could offer at that time. The luxury model was delayed and never mass produced. It aggressively marketed and invested in the regular category and within a year it had 62% of the market share.

Moral of the three dot story is - gravitation is a very confusing topic, so when i doubt dont think, just run like crazy. You can always come back later and connect the dots.

Another year gone

2010-01-01T03:03:00.005+05:30

saal isi tarah phisal jaate hain aksar
calendar ke pannon ki tarah,
january mein table pe jo, post-it notes lagaye the
ab antique ho chale hain, sepia photographs ki tarah

is saal ke calendar mein shaayad, panne kuch extra the
rewind kiya to sab udd gaye saare, kuch life ke bhi.
fluttering pages are difficult to count,
the rufflin's over - yup so? what next?

yawn and yawn as i gape, its 2010
Dhann te nan, old notes on new post-its again

Francois of The Dinner Game

2009-11-22T15:29:00.018+05:30

[ In fond memory of Hyper, H#, S#, R#(x2) and A# ]

It is such a wicked concept of fun, but there is an imp in you and me that enjoys the ignorant suckers, the lovable losers, the adorably cute dumasses.

I'm sure everyone has his/her share of pappus they thoroughly enjoyed in college or at work. I'm sure you had your own pappu moment and you look back and you laugh thinking how stupid. You meet friends you talk about old memories and sometimes feel proud of what you did, and brag about how idiotic you were. But then there are habitual pappus,the incorrigible pappus, the innocent, the credulous pappus, the Tushar Kapoors of real life, the Bharat Bhooshans of Bheja Fry.

They are the most important men living at any time. If 2012 happens and there's a Chandrayan to save mankind they're the first ones to save. Imagine a world without them? I mean what would the human race be, what would they talk about? Have you seen a bunch of people laughing? I'm sure you have, what a pappu question is that? Like it is, what it is?.. haan.. that behind every successful man there is a successful woman, behind every ebullient laughter there's a big mushy pappu.

There however is another kind of pappu, or should I say another breed of pappu, which 'becomes' by association. Two perfectly normal(for the lack of a better word lets just call them non-suckers) beings bringing out the pappu by affiliation. For that moment they transmogrify into angelic morons. Its a treat to just sit and watch the symphony. Lets call them shimmering-pappus in the heat of the wave.

It is this frolicsome entertainment that i derive watching reality tv. The best part of reality tv to me has always been the auditions when the best of regular pappu is showcased, whether it be Mtv Roadies or any ABCs got talent show. Then there's 'Dare to Date' on Channel V, with a simple concept - get two dissimilar people to date, spending a complete day and at the end see if they would like to date the other again. First half the pappu quotient is made up by the host, a shorts wearing, gay bearing fashion connoisseur(ess), who calls h(im/er)self Anddy. Next there are two non-suckers in their personally divergent galaxies brought together on earth for a day. There you get your pappu of the second kind. A different twist comes to fore when the regular shimmering-pappu is replaced by a douchebag to date two girls this time. Its known in psychology that under competition the perceived value of a commodity is way higher than its worth, but when it involves two women in competition the proportions are epic. A shimmering-pappu pair wrestling it out for a pappu! It is well know visual illusion that a small object appears smaller when surrounded by a large one. Every dog has his day and so does our pappu - his very own Idiot(s) for dinner - one too many.

So lets celebrate our pappus, we owe them many of our laughters and possibly the best moments we have spent on this planet. On 1st of April i.e. fools' day instead of trying hard to make a fool of someone, if you fail to evoke a great joke that does not look very orchestrated, recall the pappus of your life, and gift a day in loving memory of pappus of the world. Every pappu's story needs to be told, every pappu-moment to be shared. This is my ode, my plea in conservation of pappu lives and pappu stories.

[.. Oh! So mean of me, so cruel.. please don't be evil, just enjoy every pappu to the fullest :) ]

God's own country

2009-06-14T13:50:00.026+05:30

On my week long trip home i wrote this when there was no power, thought i should post it, so am i blogging again? Nope! twitter tweet simple and sweet.

The good part is that somethings remain the same,
the sad part is somethings never change..
Take it as i am, said the city.
In the bank the old four legged table's gone, the AC is in. An old plank of wood, the whorls in it, the banker's curls and the confusion in his head,amusing and irritating. Infuriating.
My file's on the table, his tea sitting warm beside it, both in peaceful tranquility, cozy and a little moist, damp with the steam, the drizzly weather and what perspired between the tea the papers in the file and those salivated fingers still beats me.
He sipped a bit of the golden syrup, his mustache brandishing a sparkling pearl.
What i like about bankers is the way they treat both work and money with the same dearness and sincerity, which is otherwise a very unusual trait in any profession. In this case i'm sure, any doubt if at all is quelled by the indiscriminating amount of saliva he laces on his fingers and generously bestows with an indifferent promiscuity on the face of every paper or currency that slid between his fingers..
Once in a while he looks at the CRT monitor that sits beside him. Ah! i think i know, it must be the windows screen. As he peeps inside, and adjusts the binoculars that balance on the bridge of his nose, his face looks like an hourglass busy processing processing.. two clicks, then another two, then another two.. then everything stands quiet and still..
I try to catch his sight, thousand questions in my eyes but the expression on his face loud and clear, exclaims- 'not responding'.
Suddenly the babu gets up moves to another desk, he says something to the other, both of them look at the box on the other desk, the beaconing wizard from inside the box seems to shed some light on them. He looks content, nods his head and walks out of the hall...
Hell, boss i'm here, fifteen minutes past and i'm sitting staring at the wall, i feel so dumb and useless. Sir, i can crunch numbers too, can i help you? Oh! sorry i'm just not qualified, but do you have puzzles for kids, introduction for starters? I realize there is one, figure this - why the heck am i here?
For another fifteen minutes i grapple with the questions in my head, when he appears, rests himself on the chair, his body language makes me reevaluate my bodily presence in the world. I am relieved as my faith in my existence is restored and he says - "kal aa jaiye kaam ho jayega" [come tomorrow it'll be done].
I'm puzzled,lost but hopeful: Thank you sir, i'll come tomorrow.

P.S. It was a good trip home after a long long time, meeting everyone, the compassion, the food n everything.. what i liked was the nice slow pace, the personal touch in everything but at the same time i'm so agitated with the lack of a sense of urgency and the casual approach to everything. I'm not as mad at them as i'm with the dichotomy of my liking and loathing something at the same time.

Folk Music!! Nostalgia

2008-10-27T22:47:00.009+05:30

Ah! i feel so nostalgic, where have they all gone..
MeThinks: Why did you do engineering? Isnt being a shepherd better?
MeThinksMore: But what about the moral duty of bringing technology to the everyone?
MeThinksEvenMore: Economy is at risk, market is crashing, earthlings need me in these testing times..

Sigh! Sigh!

I can read your mind when you type ;p..

2008-10-22T22:10:00.012+05:30

My friend freaks out because I do not register for netbanking.
He argues that it makes life so easy. In that he is so correct.
"Why are you so cynical about it.. so many people use it.. abey isme bhi apna encryption mat laga..", he grumbles.
So here is another reason why i dont, I'm not saying that ATMs are very safe(power analysis has proven it already) but simply for the reason that i do not trust the software ecosystem that we create in our PCs - this ecosystem is also as random in nature as evolution of human beings and develops in a similar fashion ;)... < hope my manager doesn't read it :) its difficult to explain that its not my code but it is an intrinsic property of a software system to behave differently at different times ;p - ain't it hmm? >

Anyways here is a genius experiment:

Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Keyboards

There is another video where he shows how this can be done sitting in another room [checkout the link].

Now you will argue: " tere jaise fakir ka account kaun rob karega! "
That is very true too, but you see, that one rupee i have in my account is all i have :D...

Dumb and the beautiful...

2008-05-05T23:56:00.009+05:30

Some days back i was thinking - one should have a 'really' "educated" girlfriend/wife, who is beautiful and loves you like crazy.. and thenn i saw this :D.. lol..

Now i'm confused.. <.thinking> the dumber the better, no no can't be dumb, no way... i can never get this thing right.. mmmm.. dumb and beautiful, hmmm sounds ok..<.still thinking> phew!.. what chaos<.and you thought yours was the only problem on earth!>..

Scroogle : The google scraper

2008-04-20T15:12:00.018+05:30

Dont be evil

It is said, everything you do online, every keystroke, every click leaves a footprint of your personality, interests - your life. In this era of gadgets and technology, information is power and your identity online is as important as your physical being. Am i being paranoid? Imagine all your mails, all your documents, every thing you ever keyed falling in someone's hand. Scary?

It was interesting to see when i was checking out loan interest rates online my spam mails next day were mostly regarding loans and a couple made into my mailbox too. Similarly when i was checking out something on japanese culture my spam mails had subjects like travel japan, japanese %$#* etc.

The question is not just about spammers and advertising, or phishing or hackers. Search engine companies record everything you search and can locate the ip it came from. This includes the likes of google, yahoo et al. The fact is that search quality and privacy is a zero sum game, at least at the face of it. If a search engine claims to give you "more personalized search", "precise relevant data", " give you exactly what you want".. how is it going to do that? Obviously it needs to know you and you can bet it knows you pretty well. It is attempting to "understand" you, trying to read your thoughts, trying to serve you better :).

Ever noticed the correlation between the advertisements on gmail and your recent mails. It would be good to know that google by default does not encrypt your mails, i.e. they are transmitted over unencrypted session. So the bottom line is that your ISP can read your mails easily.
Google's reason for this is obvious, encryption is costly( in terms of computation ) also it would make the site slow.

Comming back to search engines, Google uses the http GET requests for its search queries i.e. when you search a keyword google inserts the search terms into the URL of the page. This also helps the the web site owner to know what query lead a user to his page( good or bad? :p).

All thanks to Daniel Brandt you need not worry about this anymore, try scroogle.org for your searches.
It provides an anonymous search and is powered by google. The site uses http POST requests and as the website puts it: " google cannot set a cookie, doesnt see your ip, cannot tell which searches are from the same person". The site also provides you with an option of using ssl connection.
From wiki page: "I don't save the search terms and I delete all my logs every week. So even if the F.B.I. come around and ask me questions I don't know the answer because I don't have the logs any more," says Brandt "I don't associate the search terms with the user's address at all, so I can't even match those up."

Happy Scroogling :) and please donate if you can.
http://www.scroogle.org/

Other links:
Microsoft MSN bans Scroogle
Fears mount over internet privacy

P.S. : There is nothing hidden in my life and i know all my secret(s)(if any) are safe with google and uncle sam and the callcenter who calls me everyday :).. sorry cant put indian police here, they need to get mosquito net before internet.

Too much Monkey Business... :)

2008-04-05T00:06:00.011+05:30

..yeah moosic, chuck berry blues,
awesome lyrics..

"
Salesman talkin to me - tryin to run me up a creek.
Says you can buy now, gone try - you can pay me next week, ahh!
Too much monkey business. too much monkey business.
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in!

Blond have good looks - tryin to get me hooked.
Want me to marry - get a home - settle down - write a book!
Too much monkey business. too much monkey business.
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in!

Same thing every day - gettin up, goin to school.
No need for me to complain - my objections overruled, ahh!
Too much monkey business. too much monkey business.
Too much monkey business for me to be involved in!

Too much monkey business for me!!
"

And one flew over the cuckoo's nest

2008-03-28T02:10:00.003+05:30

Pigeon flock.. whoop-whoop..

The cuckoo's nest is warm. The rusty brown banyan has roots deep. In the banyan weeds proliferate. Then came an emerald squab.. and one flew over the cuckoo's nest..

The doves are nomads and the cuckoo knows it too.

The sparrow flew and has got the worm. There weren't many that could be found in cuckoo's dorm. The emerald looked at the sparrow. It saw the worm. Does it taste good? Maybe. Maybe not. The cuckoo's nest is full of twigs muddled around and last summer it had laid a golden egg. Sitting there the emerald recalled its tryst with the woodpeckers of another banyan. It had too many roots and the woodpeckers had made it nearly hollow. Weeds grow on that too but they are slick and thin.

Cuckoos nest will slowly develop worms. The question is - one flew over the cuckoo's nest, and the banyan lays berries too. If the squab would, soon it will be seasoned and homing too.

Sparrows might get the worm and cuckoo's egg might hatch, but the squab's being is destined to be a dove no matter what flew over cuckoo's nest..

All we need to do is make sure we keep talking

2008-02-03T01:12:00.002+05:30

Dhoondhle dhoondhle se lafz
misre gum ho gaye
your lips still have the gloss
baaton mein kho gaye

Did you hear them all-lafz jo
Khwabon mein bune the
Khwabon mein uud gaye

2008-01-13T19:33:00.001+05:30

Yes! six strings have finally found their way..

beauty.. buzz..

What is real is drab, that which is imaginary is beautiful..

How many times have i said it, and how many times did it occur to me..

Deja vu... its all coming back to me now..

It's been a hard day's night ( really!! :D lol )

And I've been working like a dog ( very much :D lol ).
It's been a hard day's night,

I should be sleeping like a log (truly).

But when I get home to you, ( main aur meri tanhayi :D lol )
I find the things that you do

Will make me feel alright...

.. when I'm home, when i'm home.. da da da da da-da..

2007-02-04T16:01:00.003+05:30

Have been so busy of late, it appears that probably this is what my parents must've envisioned when the nomenclatural ritual of their child would've started. Haven't been so ubiquitous, atleast in mind, if not in form, if not in heart(s)(oops! sorry for the digression, my folly is but natural that a man fumbles in this age, in this season ;) )... anyways, or was i always? Thats why probably they named me like that - ubiquitous - thats what it implies.

There are so many things in this world that one wants to do but where's the time, some just wishes, some dreams, some left untouched some half undone. In this turbulence slithers procrastination - man's only natural instinct, takes over. And you wonder what the heck are you upto and time flies. This is probably a clichéd story of almost all, but then..

Dil dhoondhta hai phir wahi fursat ke raat din..
ye fursat koi ruki hui cheez nahi hai, ek jumbish hai,
ek harkat karti hui kaifiyat.
-Gulzar.

Silence

2007-01-24T23:09:00.001+05:30

This is bliss
I'm dead again
There's no chase
Life here
runs on a jet plane.

You didn't ask me then
and I won't
answer it again.
I remember
you told me once,
Zombies are born to die
and come back again to life.

GURU

2007-01-14T23:21:00.000+05:30

jaage hain daer tak
hamen kuch daer sone do
thodi si raat aur hai
subah to hone do
aadhe adhure khwaab jo
pure na ho sake
ek baar phir se neend mein
woh khwaab bone do

I know i'm a big gulzar pankha :D

Anyways after watching the movie i've decided - aab to bus big biziness - everywhere you'll listen only one roaring voice - chinu bhai chinu bhai chaya che ~ ... bapuu do teen khokha deo ne.. ;D lol..

Music knows no language :((

2007-01-13T12:14:00.001+05:30

With his new songs Himesh is trying to keep his nasal flute low but even without that he can create the same magic, the evergreen Himeshji as ever :D
A friend of mine sent me this ..

Himeshji goes South!
"Himesh Reshammiya is expanding his horizons and this time he has entered an unexplored venue, by rendering a song for a Kannada film titled Preethi Yeke Bhoomi Melide(Why is Love On Earth?) , along with Shreya Ghoshal and Hariharan."
Have Hariharan and Shreya nothing better to do, I admire their singing so much, please please someone stop this... was my dear hindi not enough! will it take more than the national language to suffer, what will happen when the auto/bus/cab drivers start palying it on my way to office, Hariharan accompanied with the nasal flute :((...
My God!! Helppp..my eardrums are getting ruptured.. Jeepers Creepers! Lord save us!

Some more on himesh:
Asha Bhonsle on Himesh
So much furore over a song!

All woes solved...

2007-01-06T13:36:00.000+05:30

All my food problems will soon be solved.
~ My friend's got a girlfriend and he loves that chic
He tells me everyday.. da da da da da.. ~
This is the same music i get to hear everyday, but as a compensation for listening to his bagpipe he tells me he'll keep me as a PG in his mansion of his dreams - probably it'll be a single room apartment I guess.
My restaurant bill is going beyond control, and I'm tired of those self cooking economy dinners on weekdays which have become so frequent.
I cant tell you how eagerly I'm waiting for your girlfriend dude, its not only you who long for her, me and my pocket also feel the same :).

P.S. Don't worry i'll help you out in running your PG just keep the promise :D.

Let me sleep

2007-01-06T00:45:00.000+05:30

the candle burns voraciously
the night untired and relentless..
doesnt let me sleep,

since last two months i've been trying
to see the sun rise..
but this habit, just doesnt seem to leave..

Its late and the nocturnal me just doesnt seem to sleep..
Here in my room music smells like teen spirit.

Lenovo Y Series.. Security!

2007-01-01T11:55:00.000+05:30

I was quite excited when I first saw the Lenovo Y series add.. Not because now laptops will have your face as a password but the accuracy of the underlying software which could recognize such an obscured face, which only adds to the below average success of my own endeavor in college.

Wow! thats something i'm looking forward to get my hands on.. guys if you buy one please let me know :)..

I wonder what if I put a photo in front of the laptop, if it just captures the image and processes it using a face recognition software it'll pass. What if it uses more than one views of the face, the question is how many and is it possible to fool the camera(s) by having photos.

Waiting for it :)..

Finally I give in...

2006-12-30T22:23:00.000+05:30

So finally I start blogging..
It is in our Hindu tradition that we start every new thing with the name of God.. and to this wish of my father, his father and his father... I comply :)...
And dare you think this to be a satire or in any way a caricature, it is a tribute from the hub of my heart - and the concentrate of my fluid brain - to the Ramayana and its creator, and its curators (which now includes me obviously)...

Hence I present to you the story of WalMicky..

WalMicky was born in India.. where else could have he been born.. ha ha ha..
Anyways, WalMicky used to study in a gurocool where he used to be an actor in the local theatre of the town, being a bright sharp boy he soon started his own and became a director.
This bright boy was going to change the course of history, he was going to become the showman of all times. But he knew, he knew that in the future there would be fierce compettion which he would have to face - Bollywood, tollywood, and the kollywood. He knew that the technology will change and his small theatre would not be able to stand the challenges of these woods in the dark ages. But it was written in the stars and prophesized on his birth by his guru.

In the era devoid of television and camera how could WalMicky bring out the special effect. He didn't have television - but, but he had a great vision. So once the theme was decided he picked his crew - sita was enacted by a village girl called hema and malini was her maid. He added background music to it ~aa aa aa~ aaa a a~ (which was later copied in the saas bahu epic without any reference). The theatre started, the initial shows went houseful, but nothing would satisfy WalMicky's soul.

Thus dissatisfied WalMicky took to writing, and thinking- like Tolkien, like Rowling his pen would go on and on pages after pages after pages for ages together, and finally - a fat book.
But it was a masterpiece, each character hand picked and nurtured, vivid in detail like Tolkien, imaginative like Rowling and encompassing like Bollywood. It had it all, the drama, the romance, and the action.
But not everyone would like it.. what about the kids? Hmmm.. but they do love monkeys, hence they're found all around and not to mention the mayavi arrows and Ravan's private helicopter... too much fun huh!... just the right thing for kids.
Everything said and done, for every story to live it needs the wisdom of the author on whose shoulder it stands, and WalMicky knew it rather too well. Hence dawned in the history of literature a novel which had it all - Ramayan - the drama, the thriller, the science fiction, and the management textbook - the one which would haunt management students for years.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said (Not that I care who said it, only few - 'intelligent intellectuals' - listen when me sayeth it ;D ) : To become the founder of a new religion one must be psychologically infallible in ones knowledge of a certain average type of souls who have not yet recognized that they belong together.

But for a book to be a Ramayan it needs a religion, and religion just followed.
Thats great literature... and thats Valmiki - something a Tolkien or a Rowling can never find.