Culture isn't degrading

I'm tired of these people who say that the new generation's culture and moral values are degrading. They say that we are corrupt and who know's what! Yea, right!

The culture is not degrading. It's evolving. Actually, I think the present generation's 'culture' is much more superior than the old generation's.

It's like a language. Take the changing english language and how acronyms like lol, afaik, imho, etc are becoming a part of the language. There are 'purists' trying to stop this. But a language is something that people use to express themselves. They can use it however they want, as long as the other person can understand it correctly. It might actually be a good thing if the language evolved. Afaik(you can pronounce it Aff-ike), could be used instead of 'as far as I know'. Communication becomes faster, the language becomes succinct by nature.

A culture too is an evolving, 'organic' thing. The youth are building a new culture-one based on global peace and compassion.

We may be 'unreligious', whatever that is, but we now do more important things. Things that religious people were supposed to do but didn't. we give charity, we have NGO's working for oppressed communities, uplifting the blind, hungry, etc. The old generations did no such thing. You would tell the blind man to pray to God, only to starve him to death. We don't let that happen. We don't follow a caste system. We don't believe in supestitions. We don't do dowry.

Some people say that the youth have taken to drinking, smoking, violence and doing lustful(and sinful) acts. If somebody plays a first-person shooter game, these people stand back and say,"Arey! This fellow is violent. He is cold-blooded.".Blah. Just because a person drinks alchohol doesn't mean they go and beat people up. Infact, these 'cold-blooded' types are those who were brought up in families with an orthodox background. I don't see techie teenagers murdering people. These 'purists' are so blind that they can't see we are much better off. Hmph.

PS: For some reason, I am highly unsatisfied with the above write-up.

/nick Bengaluru

Oh great! They changed Bangalore's name to Bengaluru-"to preserve the culture of Bangalore", or something similar. I absolutely despise the new name. How cool was it that Bangalore was the only metropolitan city with a modern-ish name? Now it sounds like some village in the middle of nowhere.

I don't want to graduate from an IIM, Bengaluru or IISc,Bengaluru. "Hey, chill dude, names don't matter". Oh yea? Is that why 'Mumbai' makes me think of slums, but 'Bombay' made me think of beaches"? Would you like to have a hot, smart girl named 'Gouramma' or a hot, smart girl named Nisha as your girlfriend? Unless you are super-noble, or a female, the latter.

"Alright, Bengaluru is almost the same Bangalore", you say. Well, 'shit' is almost the same as 'schmidt', so all schmidts become shit!

They say they are preserving the culture. Actually I don't like anything done in the name of 'culture'. They try to stop globalization, saying it is ruining our culture. What they don't realize is we are creating a new culture, potentially capable of uniting the world into one strong force. What's wrong with having a non-Kannada name for a capital city?

The name was changed by taking opinions from 'great' literary figures (militant-activists). Nobody asked the people. Some wise guy called Anantha Murthy was apparantly the main force. His idea is that most words become kannada-like when we put a 'u' sound at the end. Big dealu. Go to hellu.

In school we had silly jokes ending everything with a 'u' sound for a whole day. "Namaskaravu siru. Siru, Bengaluru hesaru Bengaluru madu bittaru, gotthaithavu siru?". "Namaste, Sir. Bangalore's name is changed to Bengaluru, did you find out, sir?". As you can see, Bangalore is pronounced bengaluru in Kannada. Bendakaluru was the original name of Bangalore long ago, it means "boiled beans town". It's a reference to 'Arave' beans(dunno the english name) which tastes as bad as broccoli.

The government is changing the name because they don't have anything else to do, or rather they don't know what to do. So they have the community waste their time changing names. There are people dying of hunger, disease and things and these silly government officials waste their time changing names.

I hope they don't change India's name to 'Bharath' or something. That would be ludicrous.

PS: IIM, Bangalore will remain IIM, Bangalore just like IIT, Bombay.

Why does this happen...?

I think it's just me, whenever I decide to do something, somebody always manages to tell me to do that exact same thing or make a criticism that I don't do that particular thing or just a comment maybe. The result is I absolutely don't want to do that thing. Because then if I do it, those people will think I did it because of whatever they said. This puts me into procrastination. And once I start doing something easy it's friggin hard to give up into doing something worthy.And the main problem is I'm not being proactive.

If I continue with my plan anyway, people will think that their yap worked and redouble their chattering. I can't stand it when people make me do things, it's worse when they think they did.

Oh well, I guess I need to learn to ignore people when I can't tolerate them.

Getting hits from...

I saw my Blogpatrol Keywords report and this is what I saw:
I get damn ass people searching for rape scenes? Holy whatever! And all of them were from MSN.

A bit about creativity

Creativity is our ability to get new,good ideas. A cretive person can think out great ideas, out of the blue even.
In this expanding world, where populations grow, businesses expand, networks enlarge, competition intensifies. Life is also becoming more mechanical. As a result, a creative person tends to stand out. A creative person can get a meme or idea that others find interesting or amusing or useful. Those people can't think of great ideas easily, creativity hindered. There actually is an increasing need for creativity in this world.
People usually associate creativity to the arts. But creativity isn't limited to art. Creativity is useful and needed everywhere. Einstein's Theory of Relativity was an upshot of good creativity. So are the thousands of inventions and theories. Creativity helps in solving problems too.You need to be creative to crack good jokes,too.
In this large world, there are thousands of people trying to achieve the same thing. The creative person is more conspicuous than the rest of the people, who may use standard methods to reach their goals. The creative person can find ways that are not immediately obvious to less innovative people.
Creative people tend to be original, that's what creativity is about. And originality is craved for. Everybody wants to be special and different.
Let's not let the onslaught of machines hinder our innovativeness, but rather use those tools to help ourselves become better.

Got my SAT II scores

Yay, I got a perfect score on SAT II!
It's the SAT I English related stuff I'm worried about.

Cricket mania

There's a cricket match here in Bangalore on 19th(?) and the local news channel had footage of the rush for the tickets. The tickets are already sold out.

I hate cricket. The only sports I actually like are tennis, golf, swimming, diving, marathons and martial arts. I'm not a sports type at all, actually. But cricket I despise. I actually liked and played cricket when I was young. But now I hate it.

The bowler slowly walks up to his starting point and he runs...then he releases his well-planned ball...batsmen hits, connects...the ball stops a few yards in front of the batsman, he had defended.

The above seems to happen forever.You could fall asleep during a match and not have missed a thing. The game is lethargic. The fielders just stand there for the best part and run back and forth hoping for the ball to come to them(or not to come to them), simple harmonic motion. Maybe because it's such a sedentary game, it's no wonder it has to go on for a day. Otherwise, nobody would get any exercise. The crowds shout all the time, even when the players are running, the commentators are shouting over the roar, rather confusing at times.

Actually I found this and it sums up everything I want to say. So I'll save my time.

Can't count on luck and shit

One thing that astounds me is that a lot of people firmly believe that successful people are 'great' and that they are lucky. They think everyone can't become rich and famous. And that those great people are exceptions. Bleh.

Actually those 'great' people are exceptions. They believe in diligence and work to achieve their goal. They don't give up and say they aren't lucky. They DO. The importance of assiduity is enormously under-emphasized.

Everyone talks about Sania Mirza as if she is some sensation. They talk about her matches, her T-shirts, her religion, and all the blah. The emphasis is shifted towards her other traits. Everybody naturally thinks she is successful because she is good and that she has the 'skill'. Damn the media. Nobody talks about her many hours of daily training and how much effort she has to put in. At the most, there's a phrase for dramatic purposes such as 'against all odds' or so.

One of my friends has a telecommunications business. When I ask him why they don't price aggressively, advertise and attack the market, he says,"It's not so easy, man. You need to have the right place, the right moment and it's all luck".

Luck is just chance. It can happen to anyone. Expecting luck is an unholy waste of time. If you get lucky, then be happen and move on. You can't get sucked into it and waste your time. Luck does play a role. But Apple wasn't lucky with the iPod(IMO). I believe luck is just an 'add-on' factor, not a major one.

So, people, it's time to our butts moving for whatever we want, because as long as it's even obscurely possible, it's possible.

I don't wanna become better...?

A lot of people(atleast those who I know) , feel that self-help books aren't 'right'. They said that they don't believe in self-help books when I told them about GTD. There was a time when I didn't believe them either, or rather didn't know much about them. But now I firmly believe that personality, time management, and everything else about oneself are skills and can be developed just like all other skills. By practice and knowledge.

I don't know what the opinion actally is, but maybe people who don't 'believe' in self-help books feel that those skills can't be learnt out of books. Then may I ask why laboratory experiments in college are elaborated in books? And why there are tons of do-it-yourself books? My point is that there is absolutely nothing wrong in reading self-help books and it is in no way nerd-ish/geek-ish.

Other stuff
Rejected iPod Engravings
Distributed Proofreading - If you want to proofread for gutenberg
Book Archive-Tons of books

Information Overload

Today's quote in school was:"In this age, information is growing faster than our wisdom"(or something like that).

People are being overwhelmed with information: the television, countless books, and the ever-expanding web. People read from over 150 feeds, get number of emails and what-not. The common man has access to a lot more information that he used to. The problem is one doesn't know how to use it. One gets overwhelmed.

Which book shall I read? That new Jack Higgins, or a nice Tolkien?

I need some info on Singapore, so I'll just google Singapore tourism.
So, I go and do that and click the first link and get a link there and another one and another one, until I end up reading an article about the world's best airports. What a fuck.

The problem with a lot of information is that you could get lost. It's like sailing in an ocean, you go in a certain distance and you lose sight of land. Whereas, if you travel in a lake, you can always see the end, or atleast you will reach land much sooner. You need something for the ocean, a 'compass', which we should use in an ocean. Sadly, the compass is small and people often forget to keep it, or they don't know they should, so they get lost in the ocean. The compass is your plan.

Information is a tool, you need to use it like one. You can't use a screwdriver for hammering nails. You just need one tool for nails, a hammer. You can keep a screwdriver with you when you need to be hammering nails, just so you look professional, but it is a waste of time and energy, both much more valuable resources. You need to get the information you need, and use it proper, and just junk the useless information. You can try using the screwdriver to drive a nail, but waste your damn time, not a shit cares. You need to learn to use your information correctly.
I honestly think everybody can cut on Internet time. Internet is, IMO, a web. You get caught doing useless things. By cutting on time, you will be forcing yourself with an increase in productivity. You could increase your internet time gradually later.

If youare one of those who finds themselves doing unimportant things, you have a problem. Try working with limited information. You'll automatically find yourself sucking all the juice from it.

When we browse the web, we need to be focussed on what we want. But sometimes we just browse random stuff. In times like those, time limits is the way to go. And then, some people subscribe to newsletters, feeds and stuff just because it's there. Do you really need that stuff?

Having a large amount of information isn't inherently bad. The problem is not using it efficiently.

On IQ

Even taken one of those 'free' IQ tests? Chances are it was absolute bullshit. I had taken one of those IQ test a while back and it said my IQ score was 165, which is impossible. My IQ can't possibly have been over 140.

I did believe though. Until two other people I know took the test and got the same score. Hmm...what are the chances? They were both smarter than me... sadly, I don't remember the website, so I couldn't check if they just threw a score at one.

I don't think IQ tests are that accurate. They do a good job of measuring one's intellectual abilities, but it doesn't measure a person as a human being. But then again, that's why it's not called the awesomeness quotient or something. And besides it doesn't measure your ability to use the intelligence(whether you are a lazy butt or not).

I think IQ tests can be used very efficiently if they are used in school and the kids are trained based on their weaknesses, using data from the tests. If one is weak in visual abilities, then train one more on that. And so on. They don't/shouldn't use these as exams, just make it a casual test.

IQ tests, are best I think to use as a scale for intelligence, and not for using it to judge anything else about a person. I've seen people with high IQ but are total jerks.

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Darn, I'm not getting any good ideas on what to write about.

SAT vs JEE/AIEEE

The SAT is The USA's standardized college admissions test. The JEE and AIEEE are just two of India's admissions tests.

The SATs are much more 'standard' tests than the JEE. For one thing, there is no 'rank' given to the a person taking the SAT. The scores in the SAT are 'caliburated' to match SAT scores of other tests. That really is neat. The JEE, on the other hand, and all other competitive exams in India are based on ranking systems. Well, the percentile is also given in the SATs, but that is a sideshow. If you get a 780/800, you are good. You are not the 100th best, you are good.

The JEE's don't measure anything, except the student's performance in the test. So do the SATs. They do the same thing. But one is hard, the other isn't. The SATs test knowledge way below what the students actually know. It tests their basics. The JEE tests from stuff that aren't even taught in high school. It tests the basics too, but the questions are anything but basic. If the JEE were simpler, and all other tests were simpler, life could have been much more lively.

One thing that the JEE lacks is that it lacks verbal testing. The students aren't testing on the verbal skills, which requires a different side of the brain(right-side?) than that demanded for learning math and physics, and a different approach altogether. But maybe they didn't do that because there are some hundred languages in India.

The beautiful thing about the SAT is that you can take it as many times as they have it. There are some 6-9 SATs a year and you can take one or all and the largest score is your proper score. You can take the SATs any time you want. Take it again, if you screw up. That reduces stress by a large amount.

The JEE's have had a revamp for next year(2006), but they need to cut the toughness. It's already so tough that the best get only 40-60% marks. That doesn't look very motivating to me.

...*sigh*...

A Life-saver, I hope: GTD

I was getting desperate. I had literally done nothing 5 weeks of holidays. I was procrastinating again yesterday when I bumped into 43folders. I was bored, so I loafed 'round the site. Then read about a book: 'Getting Things Done' by David Allen. So, I looked into it. I unearthed a whole cult!

The book talks about a system of work management, commonly called GTD, for Getting Things Done. I got(ahem) the book. It's very good. The ideas are quite simple. The techniques look promising. The system is mainly making 'lists' and keeping all plans out of your mind. The systems focuses on Actions rather than Time. I've not read the book completely. Only 1/2 way through. But I'm getting very excited.

The thing about GTD that appeals to me is that it's a completely documented tool. The whole method is flexible and extendable. Like Open Source... It's not that other techniques aren't. But there's no solid framework. In GTD, there's a 'workflow' thing. You know exactly what to do. Then there's hacks and stuff(lifehack, lifehacker, hPDA).

Right now, I'm focussing on getting a working system up as fast as possible, probably within a few hours from now. Then I'll keep bettering myself.

I've got the SAT this Saturday, and I don't know a thing. :(

Less is More

More and more does is seem to me that less is more.

If you were to work for only 1 hour a day, you would work at a very high efficiency. You would try to get everything done. If you had the whole day, you would probably laze away and take your time.

People want everything on their mobile devices. Convergence proves that less is more. They want internet, email, camera, music, video, and a load of other things on one device.

Look at some of the best computer games. They're either just point and shoot or accelerate and turn. Not some complex strategy thing, with hell a load of different points and items. Again, more is less.

I had read about how research had shown that organizations with large numbers of members had much lesser volunteers for things. Apparently, everyone thinks that someone else will volunteer. The same is the case with forums. Bigger forums get less replies than small to medium sized forums.

I have noticed that when there are plates and plates of food, it sometimes makes me sick. It's too much. I can't eat all that. Maybe in the beginning it looks good, but it definitely doesn't after a while. Maybe you are different.

People don't wear highly embroidered, frilly, complicated clothes. And females wear 'less' clothes more and more. That's got to be more!

People like less because it also means less maintenance, less hassle and therefore more productivity. Nobody wants to make a mess of things. Not everyone are experts at organization. Not everybody like complicated environments.

Less is more, quite a lot of times.

A Futile Holidays

Ah! The old school topic. We'd come back after holidays and the English teacher would ask us to write an essay about how we spent our holidays. I'd write the same things everytime. Heh.

So what did I do in my holidays? Hmm...let me see now. I would do usual stuff, eating, bathing, then try to study, but would surf the internet, procrastinate, sleep at 4am, repeat, for 30 days in a row.

Alas, for I have wasted my precious holidays, which by some unknown power has been effectively extended from 3 to 5 week, and when all my friends have been studying really hard for the boards and the plethora of tests that we have to take inn 5 months, I have covered nothing. This experience has taught me I am truly a slothful rogue procrastinator.

I vow to study well, work well and not waste time doing useless things, which is what I did everyday in the holidays. But this time, it's different. No, wait. It's not...ARGH!!!!

Delhi Explosions

Looks like Delhi has been hit by terrorists this time. I wonder if it was a suicide bombing, but I don't think so. People will jump every time a cracker goes off this Diwali in Delhi.

I read an interview-article recently in TIME magazine with a suicide bomber 'supplier'. He says that the suicide bomber were actually very happy and they believed that they would go to heaven and God would give them high honours. I can't believe those guys were so brainwashed. They must have been pissed when they died and nothing happened.

Alas for all those people who were just minding their own business and next thing they know some screwhead detonates a bomb which is 10 feet away from them. Damn, what a waste of life.

I think the only way this can be reduced is get an education and a proper life to everyone, so people won't have to kill to get to heaven.

Other stuff
Microsoft accused of piracy
Maybe I can play MMO's now
Mutated gene seems to prevent HIV

The Indian Rape Scene

I bumped across this.

An 18-year old engineering student could not approach her mother when she was abused by her uncles. “I had been abused by my maternal uncles for five to six years and after a while it just stopped bothering me. It just didn’t matter and I did not tell my mother because I didn’t expect her to understand,” she said.

Quite alarming. I thought it was total strangers who rape, not uncles and brothers. Now I know better. The worst part is, most parents hush it up.

What can a girl do in such a case? Those who were supposed to be helping her were making her life a living underworld. I wonder what a young girl will be thinking when she is going to be raped, they probably don't know about sex, considering India's highly conservative attitude.

And many parents don't want to believe it. Or maybe they do, just don't want to ruin the 'family reputation' and make a mess of it. Or maybe they think they can't do anything about it. What reputation do they think they have by actually allowing their children to get raped? Maybe others will continue to think well of them while they themselves are facing problems.

It found that 76 percent of respondents had been sexually abused as children; of them 71 per cent were abused by relatives or someone they knew and trusted.

I wonder why. Probably because rapists feel safer abusing someone who they know trusts them. And they would have easy access to them too. Just walk into the house...

Sex Education: Does it help?

Living in denial isn’t going to help. We need to accept that incest occurs in many families and once we accept the reality, we can then fight it. It is our responsibility to talk to our children and to introspect ourselves as parents. As we introduce sex education in schools, egged on by the fear psychosis of HIV and AIDS we should include the topic of sexual abuse and include lessons that encourage girls to stand up for themselves, that give them courage to say ‘No!’ And the courage to share their trauma with an adult.

There was this sex education 'talk' thing in our school a few months ago. It was a total mess. The 'educator' avoided the real topic about sex and instead focused on HIV/AIDS. He was actually suggesting that sex was a bad thing and only should be done after marriage. The worst thing to do with a group of hormone-pumped teenagers is to TELL them to do something. I don't know about other places, but I suspect it's the same everywhere, except for a few places. As a side note, many people in India(including women) don't what what a clitoris is.

Sex Education in it's proper form does help however.

To Arms: Prevention is better than therapy
If the rapers can't be stopped, then the raped must be armed. Children must be taught to fight back. Not in the literal sense. But given knowlegde about what can happen can help likely victims avoid it. Knowledge is Power, they say. Also it can give them courage to face the situation if they are forced to face it. Atleast they know what's happening. They'll also be given courage to tell others what's happening.

And parents should not shush things, they should take action. If the uncle is raping, then it's the uncle who will be in trouble. Nobody will gasp at the mother/father for that. It's not exactly their fault.

Out of the Shell
Indians need to start shedding their conservativeness, because they are way too conservative. Mothers don't allow love-marriages for Lord's sake. What's wrong with that, I don't know. If we don't change a bit faster, the whole world might surpass us.

Some free speech!

This has happened before. It is similar to the IIPM thing. What I don't understand is, why don't these schools don't take it up as a sort of challenge and use the stuff they see on the blogs to improve themselves instead of snubbing and threatening them? Not only is it a violation of free speech, they're creating a bad name for themselves.

The justifications they give is silly too. Does this-"Rev. Kieran McHugh, the school's principal, said that he was trying to protect students from online predators.", make any sense? Ofcourse! I can swear there have been atleast 3 sexual predators on my blog over the last hour. Yeah, right.

Kids are the parent's responsibility. The school can warn in a affable manner but they can't threaten them with expulsion. The school can in no way ban blogs on the basis of something that they actually have no right over. What the children do at home is none of their concern. As long as the parent is okay with blogging, it's okay.

Hiding Secrets? Maybe it's that these kids are letting others know that the school is really horrible and that they shouldn't join them. Something similar happened in the IIPM case. f there's nothing wrong with them, they should allow bloggers and maybe even encourage them to talk about them.

Good Intentions,maybe...Okay. Maybe they really have a good intention. They should just tell them to remove their real names and photos. THey don't have to expel them. That's crazy and it doesn't fit in.

Just mind your own business, bastards! Anyone can say anything they want about you. If you can't deal with it, and you cry like a little baby, you'll have a lot of crying to do.

If this is continued, more and more bloggers will go anonymous and faceless people can be dangerous...

Bunch 'o links

I was cleaning my bookmarks list and thought I should post a bunch of interesting links.

MIT's OCW- Contains lectures notes and assignments from MIT courses. Good.
Jedi Trainer-Flash game. Good pass time.
Computer books-Loads of books.
Top Ten Linux Commands
O'Reilly CD Bookshelf-Lots of O'Reilly books
Firefox tweak Guide- A must
Relativistic Physics - If you want to learn Relativity
Ten steps to boost creativity - Still have to try them...
Physics Flash Animations
Universal Pen Spinning Board- To spin pens, these guys are good

That's it for now.

Rain Mayhem

It's raining quite, nay, really heavily here in Bangalore. Why, tommorow I have no school because it's been declared a holiday! I won't say no, I shall gladly not go!

From the news, it looks like the situation is bad. But as for myself, I'm enjoying the rain. It's really cool and wet here. And it was raining all day today. Got wet too^.^ I think giving a holiday is going too far, but then again...

Mind, Subconscious

Reading 'Blink' got me into thinking about the power of the unconscious mind(sub-conscious). How many times have you done something wonderful without planning or thinking about it? Some of our best decisions are made instantaneously. And all those times something like that happened, I thought it was pure luck, and you probably did too. But it isn't. That's your subconscious.

When I crack a good joke, I don't think ages to get one. In fact, never have I got anything like by mere mental force. It happens, just like that, blink! And I am sure, it's the same for you. Memory is unconscious as well, we don't 'think' to remember. And many other normal daily activities are because of the subconscious mind.

Well, great! The subconscious is powerful, so what? We can't use it at will. Or can we? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure we can. It's always working, behind the 'locked door'. You need to just think less and feel more. Try to capture your instincts, like a first impression.

The law of your mind is the law of belief itself.
75% of all sickness is from the mind. If you feel healthy, you are healthy. If you feel happy, you are happy. So just feel happy, feel good. The subconscious will register that. And it works! I've tried it. Positive thinking works because it 'primes' your subconscious with good thoughts.

I was always a mindful, analyzing type of person. I analyze too much. I've decided to reduce that. Introspection can be dangerous. It can confuse the subconscious with too many signals. But changing habits is hard.

Although the subconscious is powerful, it's still a human thing:It makes mistakes. So balance is important as well.

So, Listen to your intuition, but don't be led astray.

Flock

Flock is the latest internet browser out here, and there's lots of talk & buzz. It's based on Firefox. They use the gecko engine. It's touted a 'social browser' and is Web 2.0 style. First, Opera goes free and the Opera 9.0 tech preview is realeased. Now, Flock is here.

At first I wasn't so sure about Flock. Now I know it's gonna rule when it's done.

1) It's Beautiful! Firefox looks like a serious work thing compared to Flock. Flock's got a cool Mac look.2) Bookmarks, Exuent. Favorites, Enter. Favorites isn't very different from Bookmarks, except that it's all stored on the web and integrated with del.icio.us. Social.
3) Integrated Feed Aggregator. This is something which Firefox didn't have. It also checks for feeds on your favorites and caches them. Another very nice thing is that pages with Feeds have a Feed button in the URL bar, like Firefox, but it shows you the stuff in the feed instead. That is quite useful. What happened to to Live Bookmarks? I have no idea...But who needs that when you can view the whole feed?
4) You own Shelf. There's a Shelf, where you can drag 'n drop webpages. Sort of like a 'a lil while later' box.
5) I'm having trouble with Integrated Blogging. It seems to work for most people. But weird stuff happens when I try to blog with my Blogger account.I'm very dissappointed here. I put the BlogID, API URL and it still doesn't work. Flock's auto settings don't get my correct blog. Maybe I'm doing something wrong...But the idea is good. It will encourage blogging.
6) Flickr Integration is nice for people who share images a lot.
7) When you start typing in the search box, Flock searches your history for relevant results.

There are quite a few more new stuff. There's the Blog and Flickr 'Top bar'. And you can change your toolbar on the spot to view different sets of bookmarks.The browsers seems to be slightly faster, but maybe it's because I've installed it newly.This is only a preliminary preview. There's gonna be a lot more on v1.0.

But there's a lot of things missing. Extensions for one. Most of them don't work. But time will heal that. There could have been something like an inbuilt Page rating system. They can do something like comments for pages and loading similar pages based on tags given by users.

Flock seems to be too less for Web 2.0. They need more idea, more breakthroughs. It needs to be big. Flock right now is just Firefox with a theme and extensions. Just a bit of delicious integration and blogging won't cut it.

I'm not exactly switching over from Firefox. Flock is great and all, but Firefox is light. I'll stick to the original, for now.

Update: I go the integrated blogging tool working. It works fine. I dunno what was wrong before...

:Colon:

The colon(:) is my favourite punctuation mark. The reason? Because of this: It's simple, effective, and elegant.

The colon is used to introduce a distinct concept. It's the 'introduction' punctuation mark. It creates a nice pause, long enough to give the reader a breather, yet short enough to keep them there.It creates anticipation, thus spurring the reader to read on. It creates continuity. The 'pause' helps emphasize the point to be made.

The colon is also a relatively simple punctuation mark to use. It's not confusing like the apostrophe. It's quite easy to know when it's not supposed to be used: usually after verbs.

The colon is one if the writer's powertools. It is, sadly, underused. Throwing in a colon here and there adds more variety.

So remember:"The Colon Is Your Friend"!

Modding a Nano

Well, somebody has taken apart a Nano and connected a 200Gb hard drive to it. Kinda cool actually. Only problem is that the play time is 6 minutes. It could be hooked up to a bigger battery.
I love these kind of mods. Although I wouldn't dare try any, fearing that I may ruin any electronics.

Inter'net'

Well, my phone is back to normal.
My 15 days, or so, without any Internet has taught me an important lesson: the importance of the Internet for my brain's normal functioning. I was disconnected from the world and my life felt meaningless. All was dark.
Now it is returned. I feel invincible. I can do anything! Ha! I have the power of the Internet, along with my own, I can achieve miracles!
Now, if I can just stop browsing nonsense...

Life without Internet

The reason I have not posted for so many days is that my Internet was down. Actually, I use Dial-Up and the phone has a lot of noise in it, so the internet doesn't work properly.
I have gone two weeks without Internet and it has been a horrible experience. Do not try it!
I am typing very fast and I want to make a post before the noise starts again! Those BSNL dudes are doing nothing to reduce the noise, even though I call them up twice a day. I guess I'm being too nice!

Study Group hell

About a year and half ago, I got a brilliant idea . The notion was to make a study group. So, I asked some (good)friends and told them about it, and they thought it was a good idea. So, five of decided to meet every Sunday afternoon.

I was wronged in that moment,which was fateful even, I may add. The problem was nobody came. We have met only 10 times or so in 1.5 years. Each one would give a reason such as,"I have to go to the temple" or "My cousins are coming over" or "I have to go shopping" or something equally silly. Why silly? Because, why can't they go to the temple, shops or their cousin's place before and after the meeting. Sure, sometimes it is important, but I find it absolutely crazy that most of these airheads are not free every afternoon. It's for their own good too.

And when we meet, some interrupt with some useless stuff about Cricket, or my neighbour's dog or about their school's teachers.

So, why didn't I find others? Others are either too dumb or live too far away. I'm not saying these guys are brilliant, they are rather dull and have a rather narrow view of everything.

Lesson- Don't even bother.

If they don't care, there's no point in me wasting my time and energy on those silly meetings. This has been a good lesson to me. And it's pretty much ground into my brain after that long time.

Eclipsed Minds?

Today(yesterday, actually), there was a solar occultation. And quite a lot people hid in their houses.

I can't imagine why people do this. My grandmother is highly superstitious, and thus she covered all windows with curtains, put grass near stuff we eat and all sorts of weird stuff. She forced me not to eat anything and thus I am pretty starved today. She went as far as to say that there is harmful radiation from the sun, and tried to appear 'modern'. Ofcourse there is harmful radiation, it's always been there, since people started ruining the planet. It's perfectly okay to be outside when a solar 'eclipse' is taking place.

People know perfectly well that no devil is swallowing the sun. Rahu isn't angry either, for how can a planet be angry? We have perfectly plausible explanations and proofs as to the causes of eclipses. People believe it, know it's true, but STILL carry on with the bathing and the cleaning.

Things are looking better though.

More people should viewed the eclipse just to remove their superstitions

says a lady from the Delhi Planetarium.The newspapers also helped in the campaign against superstitions by putting up constructive articles.

Now all we need is more of this for stuff like 'Rahukala'.

Superstitions-Dispel!

Astrology banged

I don't believe in Astrology at all. It seems likes a bunch of cleverly chosen words that fit into many contexts. Motivated by this fellow, I decided to check my horoscope for today.

dailyhoroscopes.com says,

Progressive people and idealistic groups or concepts play a more important role in your life now, as a new energy begins.

New energy is beginning, it's my dasara(mid-term) holidays.

During a get-together with friends or loved ones this morning you may gain ideas of how the trends in business will be moving this winter.

What get-together? I was as alone a dead tiger today.

Today, however, is full of opportunities to rest and relax in your own private environment.

How contradictory!

It looks as if this afternoon will be the best time to catch up on any reading, cooking, mending, cleaning and whatever else has been nagging at you to be attentive lately.

Everyone always does whatever job is nagging them most. Besides, this evening was not the best for catching up, I was too lazy!

The good life, and all that is fine and luxurious, may be what you value just now. You put your feet up and just lay back to relax later today. You find solutions to whatever problems you have.

I decided to get working for the IIT-JEE. I did, however, relax today, by reading "The Comedy Of Errors". They got lucky. And problems...I couldn't get a single damned solution to any problem, or do they mean solutions from the solution manual?

This evening someone else cooks for you.

I dunno how to cook(except Maggi and Sunfeast).

To me, this looks like balderdash. Tommorow, I think I'll check with a different horoscope site. Maybe they'll get lucky.

Pinchbeck

Hello and Welcome to my blog.
Today was the last day of our Mid-term exams in my college(12th std school actually). I actually taught a younger student who was sitting next to me an answer.

I don't cheat in tests and I detest doing it. But others in my school don't seem to care. They were copying answers from each other. The test wasn't that important. The scores weren't counted for the finals. But still people want to get good scores, even if it is by cheating. I don't get it, why do people have to cheat, run the risk of getting caught, punished and worse-expelled, just for a few measly marks that nobody except themselves care about? Why don't they study hard and just do their best?

My opinion is that parents and teachers rub it into students that marks is more important than anything. My physics lecturer says,"Ultimately, you are recognized by your marks". I am inclined to disagree. Surely, experience, skill and social abilities are more important and marks.