Aay-Tee...

My friend from Infosys (Hyderabad) came over this week. Apparently those bastards pay him eighteen grand a month for copy-pasting code, and this guy is a MECHANICAL engineer! We stripped him of some cash (and a good chunk of dignity). People are usually flabbergasted at the amount of food consumed by us, not to mention the speed at which it is done.
Called my friend twice to send the photos...my inbox still awaits.

Conquering the City of Knowledge...

Went to Pune for a couple of days, had a blast with my cousin there. Spent the evening at a great Fluid Lounge called 'Apache' on FC Road. The ambience was excellent, especially if you are the "indulgent" type. Rock music, beer and a thick cloud of cigarette smoke...ingredients for the perfect evening!

By the way, for those who have not been to Peshwe park recently, it's been converted to an "Urja Udyaan" which is basically an exhibition of Non-Conventional energy resources. The display lacks any real educational value and if anything, it's even worse than the zoo...

Fabulous Urban Cultural Kaleidoscope...

Diary of a failed star...

1st January 2006:
Dear Diary...
Damn, what a start to the year, my last two movies have bombed hard. I don't know what I would do if it wasn't for that court case coverage. Only God or bhai can save me now.

5th January 2006:
Dear Diary...
Wow, I just heard about this thing that they are doing, some investment company or bank or something is sponsoring a Marathon. I just HAVE to register for that one, think of all the free publicity I'll get. And anyway I don't think they really expect me to run the WHOLE distance...I mean seriously, when was the last time I completed something.

15th January 2006:
Dear Diary...
What a day! All those hundreds of common insignificant people had come out on the road just to see ME! I waved to them and they waved back. And all those women staring at me (or may be that's because I was running in front of Milind Soman). Anyway it felt great, I have a new surge of self confidence just like my therapist said I would, well not the one I shot at, the other one.
(Note to Self: Court hearing in attempted murder case on Thursday).


In the words of Ameya Sohoni:

And so it trotted,
The Page 3 crew.
What really moved them,
No one ever knew.

Their spirits were high,
And so were they.
Huffing and puffing,
Anchors aweigh.

The men, they bonded;
The women they bitched.
One quarters ran,
And three quarters hitched.

Their living deficit,
In truth, love and pity.
Onward they carry,
The spirit of the city...

P.S: Read the first letter of every word in the title!

Techno Blog...

http://technovanza.blogspot.com/

My new blog...

Windows XP = OS X...

I spent 2 hours converting my Windows XP to look like a Mac OS X...I must say I have outdone myself this time! Cheers...
(The screen captures are grainy because I've compressed them beyond reasonable levels.)

Desktop

Taskbar on top (like a Finder bar) and Animated Dock at the bottom.

Explorer

Tiger OS X Desktop theme and OS X like icons for Folders, Drives and Toolbar.

Firefox

Firefox, showing glass finish buttons and OS X style drop shadow behind window.

Of Chaos and Order...

I spent all of yesterday fixing a friend's computer. Yes, all day! I was rudely reminded of the meaning of the phrase "disorganised" again and again and again...Google has made nifty business from people like these.

Now, my computer is unusually well organised, and I keep it that way. I probably border on the obsessive compulsive when it comes to keeping stuff in order, but surely everyone has to have some method of doing things (maybe not as good as mine, but still...).

What is the first thing that comes into people's mind when they download a spreadsheet or a pdf?
"Let's put this somewhere in such an exquisitely imperfect manner that it is next to impossible to find it again without the aid of a very well-indexed desktop search?!!"

The first thing that you realise when you browse through any operating system is that there are directories and you can name them. But still the wonderful utility of this feature is completely lost on them. They tend to put Momma's recipes, Daddy's IT returns and their own Project reports directly into that thing called "My Documents".
And God forbid if anyone ever changes the filenames, no my friend, a file called "10982ver3.pdf" is saved as it is!

But frankly that wouldn't be so bad, I mean you know when you go "I have definitely put my keys in THIS drawer". You can't see them now but atleast you're sure they're there. But NO, operating systems are created by God, even if you put half of your documents on one partition and the other half on another, IT should KNOW that automatically...

Maybe it's true...we don't need to simplify software, we need to complicate people.


"One cannot assign with full precision, values for certain pairs of observable variables, including the position and momentum of a single particle at the same time, even in theory."

-Werner Heisenberg

Love is in the air...

My friend from IIT Kharagpur came to town recently. He was struck sick by the Lack of Female Sightings (LOFS) syndrome. Now though this disease is a well documented phenomenon in Engineering colleges, far flung institues like Kharagpur seem to spiral it beyond control. He was desperate, and no amount of cautioning could convince him otherwise. And hey, who are we kiddin' anyway?
Men are suckers for women... mothers, friends, girlfriends et al. They were built that way, they aren't happy unless someone is shoving a thermometer down their throats, laughing at their stupid jokes or cuddling up to their arm.
In the words of Bob Dylan:

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death,
and men who are fighting to be warm.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."