Twisted View

So long, and thanks for all the …

2006-09-06T15:52:00.000+05:30

I’m moving off blogspot now. Got myself one of those domain thingys. Check out simulacra.in for more.

Blogger’s been really good to me. I’ve had a lot of fun here, with surprisingly few annoyances. I’ve got a lot of plans for simulacra, so lets see how that goes.

This old page will remain here, I think. For now.

Feelin’ fine.

2006-09-01T23:08:00.000+05:30

Something I just realized today—I’m good. Don’t know exactly when, but I’ve found out that my life does not exactly suck.

I’m doing pretty much what I want to do. It’s not too hard, not is it too easy. I get tons of free time. I’m even getting paid for it!

Almost everything has been going my way for the past few months. I mostly like the people I’m around.

Don’t worry though, I’m not turning into an optimistic prick anytime soon. But I do feel pretty damn fine right now. That count for somethin’.

Baudolino

2006-08-30T22:50:00.000+05:30

I love Umberto Eco, but I don’t think I’ll be reading any other post-modernish books anytime soon.

Baudolino is truly a great book to read. Alas, I have no energy left to write a fitting few paragraphs here.

“Concern with pleasing humans causes the loss of all spiritual growth.”

…

“Yes, I know, it’s not the truth, but in a great history little truths can be altered so that the greater truth emerges.”

Greatness

2006-08-27T16:51:00.001+05:30

I’m am not destined for greatness. Nor do I aim to achieve any form of greatness. I’ve never tried to be really good at anything I do … I always aim to be, quoting Gattaca here, ‘as good as any, better than most’.

Competition drives me to better myself, and only to a certain limit. If it gets too hot, I’ll promptly give up and not feel sorry for it. I’ve never had the drive to become the ‘best’ at anything.

I perform best when I know I can beat the game. I like challenges, but not ones that deserve all my attention. I can always find other interesting things to do, one aspect of my life should not occupy all my time.

Guess I’ll never turn out to be a workaholic. Then again, I won’t ever be the top guy at anything as well. I don’t give a damn.

Still, watching someone at their best leaves me feeling a mixture of awe and disdain.

Got a shock today...

2006-08-25T20:39:00.000+05:30

I read a lot as it is. Nice bug.

The Lonely Shepherd

2006-08-19T22:01:00.000+05:30

Amazing music by Gheorghe Zamfir. I recognised this song from the Kill Bill soundtrack.

Blogger beta.

2006-08-19T13:30:00.000+05:30

I’m on Blogger beta right now. Was sick of the old template, and new features are always fun to test out. What’s funny is that I’ve pretty much re-created my old template again, and it took me just fifteen minutes to do it.

With this launch, Blogger can now at least hope to compete with Wordpress.com. I’m not blogging much lately, and hopefully I won’t stay here much longer. Expect some news in a month or so. Hopefully.

Java—Second impressions

2006-08-19T11:55:00.000+05:30

Now that I’ve had someone who actually knows Java teaching it to me, it’s time to re-think. Java is both not as bad, and much worse, then what I thought it would be.

I think I can happily keep churning out Java code as long as I’m going to get paid for it. The worst thing about Java is that it’s boring. Not challenging at all. Practically too easy, if you’re a patient man. Nothing exciting ever happens in Java-land. No cool shortcuts. And it’s way to verbose for my taste.

I understand why Java is so damn popular: it’s designed for enterprise use. I don’t think there’s any way possible to make generic enterprise applications interesting.

Working for a company—not that I’ve started work mind you—is damn impersonal. Everyone keeps talking about the necessities of good communication skills, team work and the such; but the work itself is not something you’d get attached to. Which strikes me as strange: I work best when I personally care about the results, not just for money.

“It’s business, not personal” is the worst thing anybody can say to me. Java seems to literally scream that out.

Still, not as bad as I thought it’d be.

Annoyances: False smiles

2006-08-16T20:21:00.000+05:30

I hate it when people give me false smiles, when the pretend to be polite. Especially the management-type people. Don’t know why, but it always creeps me out.

Forcing oneself to behave pleasantly makes it even more unpleasant on the others. I would rather spend a day with a sullen old curmudgeon then a hour with some one who forces himself to be up-beat.

I don’t have anything against people who are genuinely up-beat. I love ’em. They’re energising to be with. But please, don’t force it.

Apologies

2006-08-12T20:18:00.000+05:30

I apologise for the lack of posts here. Not that having a like is something to apologise for, but I’d made a personal commitment to post more which I don’t seem to be able to honour. Plus the fact that I’ve had plans for so many good ‘essay-like’ posts that I have not been able to materialize.

I started my technical training recently. It’s a change from college, to say the least. I’m used to my time being my own, and doing things in the manner and speed I want, that having a strict schedule’s been quite a shock. My body’s not adjusted to the routine yet, and I feel tired when I’m not in-charge of my life.

I’ve had quite a few wonderful chats (both off-line and online) with friends in the last week. Good ideas have occurred to me this week. Plans have been laid down sub-consciously that I’m not even aware of. Life is changing faster than I can comprehend.

And I’ve already forgotten most of it. I’ve a terrible memory for specifics. I remember that I had a great conversation with so-and-so person about some vague topic, but for the life of me I can’t recall anything specific about it. At least with online chats, I can keep a history (not that I ever read my logs). Remembrance comes very hard to me. I may understand something, have made a decision about some matter, but will promptly forget it later until the time I need to recall that. When I really need some details, I can dig them up somehow—otherwise me trying to pick my own brain is hopeless.

I’ve even considered keeping a thought journal, but that seems too weird even for me. Blogging seem natural, but writing my thoughts down privately somehow seems to be dis-tasteful.

Of course, when I’m not getting bored with technical stuff I already know, being intrigued with technical stuff I hadn’t thought of, trying pathetically to socialize a little (I do take advice, though it is quite a rare occurrence), or having a terrible commute to ’n’ fro’ the training centre, I’m reading (what else?). Guess that does not leave much time for anything else.

Still, things are only bound to get better from now on.

Cryptonomicon

2006-08-06T19:01:00.000+05:30

This book rocks. I’m going to have ta buy the Baroque Cycle soon.

Cryptonomicon defies classification—just how I like my books. You can find elements of cyberpunk, historical fiction, SciFi, spy stories, war stories, love stories and the gods know what else here. I’m not gonna try and list ’em all.

The story runs simultaneously in two timelines, with multiple POVs in each period—endless fun. Foreshadowing, aftshadowing, whatever you wanna call it—each chapter blends very nicely with those around it.

I love the way Neal Stephenson’s explained technical stuff here. Any non-technocrat should be able to ‘get’ the grizzly details.

At times the serious-ness and paranoia shown by some of the characters lightens the mood, other times it’s quite disturbing. Particularly effective are the descriptions of the ‘lawsuit culture’ and the lengths the characters go in order to ‘enhance shareholder value’.

No use trying to describe the myriad plot lines, and any attempt to simplify and explain the basic plot will not do justice to the book.

Will leave you with some choice quotations:

Randy was forever telling people, without rancor, that they were full of shit. That was the only way to get anything done in hacking. No one took it personally.

Charlene’s crowd most definitely did take it personally. It wasn’t being told that they were wrong that offended them, though—it was the underlying assumption that a person could be right or wrong about anything.

…

One evening when Avi and his family had been over for dinner, Randy had said, “I’m the beard, Avi’s the suit,” as a way of explaining their business relationship, and from that point Charlene had been off and running. Charlene has recently finished a scholarly article, deconstructing beards.

…

Chester’s eyebrows go up. Amy glances out the window; her hair, skin, and clothes take on a pronounced reddish tinge from Doppler effect as she drops out of the conversation at relativistic velocity.

…

“You know what this is? It’s one of those men-are-from-mars, women-are-from-venus things.”
“I have not heard of this phrase but I understand immediately what you are saying.”
“It’s one of those American books where once you’re heard the title you don’t even need to read it,” Randy says.
“Then I won’t.”

Another try.

2006-08-04T20:23:00.000+05:30

I’m not getting much better at writing a haiku, but what the hell.

Plans change. Or come un—
done. The winds of change do provide
delicious serendipity.

Smart(er) spam

2006-07-30T21:39:00.000+05:30

Gmail’s filtering rocks, but today I got a spam mail that got through to my Inbox. Spammers are getting smart. Just look at this:

First of all, they’re sending their messages via frikkin’ image attachments. I don’t think anyone’s gonna develop technology to filter image-based spam soon.

And secondly—this is just a hunch mind you—notice the message text. Innocuous looking, easy to get through the filters. I think there’s gotta be some hidden agenda here. Bayesian Classification is what most email filters are based on—and if you train your filter on such messages, there’re bound to be more false positives. This sucks.

Time to start looking for tougher email filters. Maybe go for a white-list approach.

Work

2006-07-30T12:46:00.000+05:30

Uh, new rule: no blogging about work. I’ll try not to. Really.

This is for no particular reason. I’ve always had clear partitions between different aspects of my life. It’s simpler to deal with disconnected things.

Ranting about college was fun—whining about work will not definitely not be.

It’s not like I have any shortage of topics to write about as it is.

New in Google Talk: Voicemail and File transfers

2006-07-28T16:27:00.000+05:30

Google has selectively updated Talk on some accounts. The new beta supports Voicemail and File transfers, with some other minor UI tweaks. If your version is not updated, download the beta manually.

Voicemail seems about to be integrated into Gmail too. Clicking on the Voicemail icon on talk sends you to a voicemail label on Gmail. The label does not (yet) show up by default, you have to visit it manually.

This’ll be really cool if you can check voice messages even when you don’t have the client running.

Flatlife

2006-07-22T11:12:00.000+05:30

Jonas Geirnaert graduation project “FLATLIFE” (2004), selected for Short Films in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2004.

Don’t miss watching this.

IM Hell!

2006-07-21T19:12:00.000+05:30

I can’t handle talking to two people simultaneously, let alone five! Multitasking is not for me.

Blogspot banned in India?

2006-07-17T17:49:00.000+05:30

I’ve always felt that the Indian government is stupid, but I never realized how stupid they can really be.

It seems that some shadowy government body has decided to ban a few, or possible all blogs hosted at blogspot.com… Whether this is intentional or not, all blogspot blogs are not accessible from India.

Nikhil was the first one I knew who had this problem. Since then, many people have noticed the same. Some have talked to government officials. I personally didn’t have any problems accessing mine or any other blog, until this evening. It seems that Sify has joined in the fray, and has started the blockages too.

Frankly, I’m pissed. I’m betting on this being a temporary problem, caused mostly due to some miscommunication. We Indians have never been too big on open-ness, but I still can’t imagine something like this being permanent. I’m not too good at political rants, so allow me to give you all a (temporary) solution.

Tor is an anonymous-browsing network, which utilizes onion routing if I’m not wrong. Seemingly makes it impossible to block sites.

The setup is really simple, read the instructions. And viola:

Without Tor:

With Tor:

It’s a little slow, but I can’t complain of that.

Now someone please send me some ‘pre-fabricated’ mails I can fire off to Sify Customer Care and whatever Indian government agency is responsible for this. I’m no good at writing those myself.

Opinions

2006-07-14T15:07:00.000+05:30

Edited version of a chat I had with Sunil. My messages only:

Most people frame opinions just to mirror what others are thinking; to fit in, that is.

Some decide what they want to believe, and then try and figure out some factual basis to support their opinions.

Almost no body ever frames an opinion after getting the relevant facts… at least not about anything important.

Only difference is, I know my opinions are pointless… So I never try to justify them.

Well, he said he didn’t believe me. So:

Too bad … that’s my cynical opinion.

Based on years of observation :P

This drivel was prompted by him forwarding to me a mail conversation he had with guy talking about all sorts of heavy stuff: religious intolerance and all that. After the recent blasts. Trying to talk sense into the religious zealot.

Of course I started off quoting one of the classics of the internets:

Never argue with idiots they drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experience.

Then followed all of the above. It was a fun conversation for five minutes. Poor guy, he stood up for what he believed in, and I give him crap for it :)

Chess

2006-07-12T14:11:00.000+05:30

I’m currently lost. FICS does that to people.

I wake up. Play a couple of games. Surf for a while. Play some more. Eat. Sleep. And then play s’more.

From the site:

The Free Internet Chess Server, with over 150000 registered users, is one of the oldest and one of the largest internet chess servers. Whether serious with your chess or just looking for the occasional game, whether looking for another player or eager to challenge a strong computer, whether you like a blitz chess or you are fond of one of the many variants, here you can play chess over the internet for free.

My chess client of choice for now is BabasChess.

My ratings are:

Category   rating     RD      win    loss    draw   total
Blitz      1141    137.3       3       5       1       9
Standard   1330    107.6       5       7       1      13

RD = Ratings Deviation.

This is the most telling stat:

% of life online:  20.6  (since Sun Jul  9, 23:32 PDT 2006)

I’ve been online there for 10 hours, 17 minutes since registration. Note to self: need to got a life.

the show

2006-07-12T11:55:00.000+05:30

I’m addicted to the show with zefrank. The only podcast/online show I watch.

Today’s show was brilliant. Transcript via the wiki:

Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [psych] writes, “Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?” Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that’s a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I’ve used up the last idea that’ll ever come to me. If you don’t wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don’t have the time or resources to do ’em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you’ll get to later.

Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themselves of how perfectly that idea should be executed. And they imagine it on a beautiful platter with glitter and rose petals. And everyone’s clapping for them. But the, but the, but the, but the bummer is most ideas kinda suck when you do ‘em. And no matter how much you plan you still have to do something for the first time. And you’re almost guaranteed the first time you do something that it’ll blow. But somebody who does something bad three times still has three times the experience of that other person who’s still dreaming of all the applause. When I get an idea, even a bad one, I try to get it out into the world as fast as possible, ‘cause I certainly don’t want to be addicted to brain crack.

Blasts.

2006-07-11T20:34:00.000+05:30

First there were the heavy rains. Then there was some minor rioting. And now a series of bomb blasts. Mumbai’s in for it right now.

Check out Vantage Point for mostly live updates on the situation. Or you can watch the news. CNN-IBN’s site seems to be down though.

Phone networks are jammed-tight. Nothing works. No cellphones, no landlines. There was some footage shown outside Khar station: all blast survivors, bloodied and wounded, with no help on the way it seems, trying to call their loved ones. And shaking their heads when they couldn’t.

There’s a theory going around that the government’s blocked all calls: ostensively to avoid spreading rumours. How, by inducing more panic? Sounds like what these idiots in power could actually do.

The net’s still on. That’s a mercy.

Ecstatic martyrs

2006-07-10T11:10:00.000+05:30

There’s no type of person more vile than an ecstatic martyr.

The type of person I’m talking about:

Someone who has a huge martyr complex.
Someone who collects old wounds and resentments, imagines slights, and has a paranoid ‘they’re out to get me’ complex.
Someone who just won’t let go.
Someone who needs others to feel for them, pity them or hate them, anything at all.
Someone who gets all glassy-eyed and ecstatic when sharing all that’s been done to them.

Being ecstatic is not being happy. It’s a high, and it’s addictive. These people are like junkies for others’ pity.

I just can’t stand these morons.

World Cup Predictions

2006-07-06T21:33:00.000+05:30

What I think will happen¹.

Germany wins against Portugal on Saturday.
Italy wins the cup on Sunday.

France is a good team, but I’m pretty much certain that they can’t win against Italy. Some more predictions:

Zidane will be magnificent in the final, but to no avail. Italy’s defense (especially Cannavaro, and Nesta if he’s fit) will not allow him any space.
France will probably score first, and it’ll be because of Franck Ribéry. The man can fly I tell you.
Totti will be terrible, he’ll be substituted in the second-half.
Italy’ll come from behind and score in the second half. Expect someone unlikely to equalize, Gattuso maybe.
Extra time: expect a few good saves by Buffon, and then an Italian goal, maybe by Pirlo or Luca Toni.

Now if all this turns out to be right, I should switch careers and become a full-time prophet.

No guarantees.↩

Some YouTube vids for ya.

2006-07-01T15:41:00.000+05:30

I’m not embedding any videos here, you can as well click on the links and see ’em for yourselves.

First of all, have you checked any of Billy Collins’ poems? I’m not much of a verse man, but I do like the few of his poems that I’ve read. Without further ado, watch: Forgetfulness and The Dead. This is him reading those two poems with some wonderful animation thrown in for fun.

All Monty Python fans are in for a treat. YouTube has many Python sketches. My favourites: The Dead Parrot Sketch and The Four Yorkshiremen Sketch.

OK, I’ll be running through the rest quickly.

Science and a sense of proportion: The Powers of Ten video.
For ‘retro’ video game geeks: A Mario Speedrun
For ‘current’ video game geeks: Nintendo Wii E3 Trailer
For political satire: Lewis Black on Broadway (huge video)
For Apple geeks: The Original 2001 iPod announcement

That should keep ya all busy for some time.

PS: To d’load those videos, go over to KeepVid. To play d’loded files, use VLC. When VLC does not work, use the FLV Player.