Maudlin Ruminations of a Mind bit by Wanderlust

Moved

2006-03-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

The author of this excuse for a blog has moved the same to : http://my.opera.com/sykora/ The author regrets any inconvenience caused due to this one extra click.

You're telling me...

2006-03-13T21:19:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of statements I definitely don't want to be on the receiving end of:

"Oh my God."
I've heard this statement being used by an atheist. My typical response to this type of remark would be:

"What do you mean 'Oh your god'? You probably even don't know who your god is.

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."
I've heard this a lot. The effect this remark has on you changes from place to place. However, there aren't many places now where I can take this positively.

"Go to the Microsoft Help Center"
For me this direction is ambiguous. Is it a place which has been set up by Microsoft to give help to others (In which case I would be better off not going) or is it a place set by someone else where Microsoft goes to get help? You decide.

"I'm a member of Chocoholics Anonymous."
Totally defeats the purpose.

"Are you asleep?"
Cliched, yes, but I've still heard that one.

"Trust me."
If I already trust you, then you don't need to say it.
If I don't, it's not what you say but what you do that is going to change my mind so don't bother.

"What I'd really like to see in Windows is some transparency."

If there are any more, don't worry, I'll let you know.

2006-03-07T23:58:00.000-08:00

Just another screenshot for now, these exams are sapping my creativity. I'm in love with that wallpaper though, considering that it's fully computer generated. 3 cheers for Digital Blasphemy!

2006-02-08T04:17:00.000-08:00

My Desktop...

A conjugal scene

2006-02-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

I seem to be taking quite a few hits at the education system this week...ah well.

This post is in reference to an Article in 'The Hindu' dated Monday, January 20, 2006. It's the article at the bottom of the front page, about the AIEE model exam that was conducted the day before. It was only the very last line that struck me as soooo funny that I simply rolled of my sofa laughing...here goes --

"...However a few still feel that the AIEEE standards are high for state board students. "It is based on a thinking syllabus [CBSE], which is difficult for us...""

I really fail to see how anyone can hope to get through an exam without thinking. What worries me the most is how blatantly the person in question admitted that he found it difficult to think.

Reverse Gender Bias?

2006-02-03T00:28:00.000-08:00

I had attended many of the shows put on at the recent Saarang 2006 at IIT, and had thankfully been saved from most of the hustle of buying tickets, because it was quite a bit simpler for me. Because of this 'special' treatment, I seldom experience the problems of those who go in the 'normal' way.
The Reason I called this post 'Reverse Gender Bias' is because at quite a few shows I had to enter the 'normal' way, and was exposed to the biased treatment offered. There were tonnes of policemen (and women), and all of them would jump at the slightest oppurtunity to accuse a male of harrassing a female. Because of this, many boys were dragged out of the waiting lines, (which sometimes stretched for about 100m) and had to go back to the end. On the other hand, the girls, who were the souls of gentility, got preferential treatment by the police and the IIT students who were administrating, and left us in the lines.

Of course almost all the girls who were there will disagree with me, but I'm telling you my point of experience.

For the past I don't know how long, there have been women's rights activists and other related political parties, lobbying greater rights for women. What I think is that in response to these claims, authorities have swung the other way, and actually upset what little balance they could get.

So now it is the men who must protest for their rights and equal treatment, until either everyone gets what they want (which is an impossibility) or nobody does (which is the most possible case, all things considered).

Another example is the new 'Single Girl Child' initiative by the CBSE. It's utter nonsense. In many cases, the families which are unable to afford education, are unable to do so precisely because they have many children to support. Moreover, there are many underprivileged boys who are not given the oppurtunity because they are boys.

Men's Rights Groups? Not yet, but it is coming...

A way with words

2006-01-29T17:02:00.000-08:00

While Studying for my English Exam, I came across this nifty passage, which was a declaration made by one of the authors of poetry in my textbook. I liked it so much that I thought I should include it here :

"I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the contrivance of agonies which they do not, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize".

Succint non?

This is one of the many passages you wouldn't here in a WWI history lesson.

A queer question...

2006-01-22T04:53:00.000-08:00

This is just kind of a survey of sorts. I wanted to find out which movie scenes have impressed you or influenced you the most. Whether it was in a good way or bad way, I don't know, just mention it. I'll start it off by mentioning the movie I saw yesterday, for about the 20th time.

2006-01-17T04:30:00.000-08:00

But this one rocks -- Please note -- I don't know whose these are, nor do I want to.

2006-01-17T04:27:00.000-08:00

I admire this one

2006-01-17T04:26:00.000-08:00

I understand a corrector's stress levels...

2006-01-17T04:15:00.000-08:00

I would like to offer my condolences to my friend (whose name I shall not mention) for his grievous loss.

And so you're Dhruv's cousin eh Kungai? I should have guessed...such insanity
doesn't come from too many places...

For want of whatnot...

2005-12-17T06:48:00.000-08:00

Sorry for being so lax...I hope you can forgive me
I'll have time to post more meaningful stuff after my terminal exams get over -- This week I've been caught up in 2 projects and 1 record (75 pages long).
I doubt anyone other than CS students will understand what I'm going through.

This post then, Is thoroughly meaningless, so if you want decent reading, wait till next week.

And incidentally, Lord Kungai (Whose real name I don't and don't want to know) said while Antarius is for lame jokes and Madhvi is for lame stories, I am for lame Debate topics. Well, If you used your brain once in a while, Mr Kungai, they might cease to be lame and start to be something else...(no comment).

Also, I am seriously considering shifting my blog to another address -- This server is giving me hell.

Here's something to keep you occupied...

Two men met at a bar and struck up a conversation. One of them kept
complaining of family problems. Finally, the other man said: "You
think you have family problems? Listen to my situation, A few years ago I met a
young widow with a grown-up daughter and we got married.

Later my father married my stepdaughter. That made my step daughter my
stepmother and my father became my stepson. Also my wife became
mother-in-law of her father-in-law.

Then the daughter of my wife, my stepmother, had a son. This boy was
my half-brother because he was my father's son, but he was also the son
of my wife's daughter which made him my wife's grand-son. That made me the
grand-father of my half-brother.

This was nothing until my wife and I had a son. Now the half-sister
of my son, my stepmother, is also the grand-mother. This makes my father
the brother-in-law of my child, whose stepsister is my father's wife, I'm my step-mother's brother-in-law, my wife is her own child's aunt, my son is my father's nephew and I'm My own grandfather!

And you think you have family problems!"

Dedicated to those whose lives have been ripped apart by divorce.

Disclaimer : "This is most probably NOT a true story. Don't contact me saying that you know who this is -- I really don't want to know"

So much to do...So little time to do it in...

2005-12-09T10:13:00.000-08:00

This is, in the true sense of the word, a maudlin rumination. It was the last day of school (classes) for my whole life today and everyone around me started to drop off crying towards the end of the day. After sometime I had to call it quits or I'm pretty sure I would have joined them out of lack of anything else to day.
It seems only in the very recent past that I even came here, let alone finish school, it's a shock where all the time goes.

NUMB3RS

2005-11-26T06:41:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, sorry its been so late.
I was revamping my computer, and installed windows about 6 times in order to get it right.

This post is about a new show I saw recently on TV.
It's called Numbers, and it's about a mathematician who helps out his bro who's on the FBI. Some of the stuff he does is really cool, but those who know me will prbably think that it's one of my quirky idiosyncrasies to like such things.

I liked it (though the TV cut about 4 times in between), and thought i ought to recommend it to you guys.

For those in my vicinity and who have the resources, it comes on AXN at 7:00 PM every Saturday.

Civilization in Reverse

2005-11-16T03:43:00.000-08:00

My friend recently asked me a question:

"Name one invention whose adverse effects have not eclipsed the good"

He went on to say that man should not civilize and invent new things, because he will surely suffer for it. He suggests that man could have continued to live indefinitely without rudimentary technological innovations such as the wheel, and farming, not to mention fire, by continuing to hunt and forage.

I strongly disagree. What do you think?

Carbon Monoxide is a cheap stupid Ligand

2005-11-16T03:41:00.000-08:00

Quote. Unquote.

Remarking right along...

2005-11-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

In a maths class, we were finding the point of contact between a sphere and a tangential plane. We had found the radius and were about to find the point of contact when...

Teacher : "Saaaar, you must find the point of contact saaar, You know, even before Archimedes could jump up and say Eureka Eureka, he said 'Find me a point of contact and I will move the world'"

This is not bad grammar, just a horrible analogy and a worse choice of words.

In a totally unrelated incident, a fellow poster on the gameFaqs forum remarked to me about the pokemon game as such...

"How can the practice of stuffing half-a-ton animals into hollow tennis balls and taking them out just to ram into someone be considered normal?"

More classy remarks

2005-11-05T00:55:00.000-08:00

Here are some more excerpts of amazing grammar :

Student : Can we solve this problem by another method?
Teacher : Of course. I know only one method, and I will follow only that method which I know. This is not to say that I do not know any other method.
(So finally..what?)

Teacher : Find the equation of the bisector planes which bisect the angle between the planes into to equal parts.
(That got me nowhere reeeal fast)

Teacher : The direction of the normal to the plane is directed along the direction normal to the plane.
(As if I couldn't figure that out)

While this is all very entertaining and all that, I do wish that my teachers (sans my English teacher) would learn some english - the right way.

Spherical Aberration

2005-11-02T04:00:00.000-08:00

My physics teacher today defined a spherical surface (with respect to refraction) as:
"A Spherical surface is a surface portion of a sphere of which the given surface forms a part.

I count : 2 references to the word sphere, 3 references to surface and 2 to part or portion.

She has basically defined the phrase by repeating the phrase twice over

To cap it all off, she makes her final remark...

"This is what the board will accept. If you do not write this, the examiners will look at their key and see that it is not there and will strike it off and give you zero."

I feel sorry for the examiners.

Shiny yes, but is it insured?

2005-10-29T07:53:00.000-07:00

Ground Rules not taking off

2005-10-20T07:35:00.000-07:00

This year will be remembered at my school as the "grounded year".

Every morning, during assembly, some student makes a speech, which is intended at making our day more lively and getting it off to a good start. As we are students at the top of the school, we were asked to start the ball rolling at the beginning of the year, and we decided to talk on random topics, not having our speeches connected by any common theme.
I believe we were very lucky, because we were not affected by the craze which was to follow.

Starting from the class after ours, every student spoke on the topic of ground rules, punctuality, politeness, honesty, uniformity, monotony, but I digress, you know the sort of thing. It's healthy, I suppose, we should know that sort of thing, but it started to irk me when, for one whole month, student upon student, started the morning with "Ground Rules are an important part of a student's upbringing...". For heaven's sake they spoke on Punctuality for four days straight.

There are banners all over the school depicting the objectives of ground rules and what we should do, what we shouldn't do, etc. It finally got to the stage that I couldn't figure out whether the kids on stage believed what they were saying, or even in the worst case scenario, at least wrote the speech by themselves.

On one occasion, a seventh grader came out with a blockbuster oratorical, a part of which I quote verbatim, which confirmed my suspicions that the poor kid did'nt have a clue what he was talking about :

"Following ground rules is a very important trait which all human beings should posess for it gives us a sense of uniformity and belonging, and allows us conduct ourselves in a regular fashion, using proper mannerisms as befits us, who belong to a high strata in society..."

If he understood more than half of what he said, then I'm Sailor Moon.

The most lamentable part of it is, while these speeches started mid-way through June, it's nearing the end of October, and they're still going. I mean, we're not that thick are we?

Your Money or Your Life or...um...er...your other life?

2005-10-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

This was an interesting question asked at a business interview:

"If a person with Multiple Personality Disorder threatens to take his(/her) own life, should it be considered as a suicide case or a hostage situation?"

And no, it wasn't an interview for a psychologist.

Monster Club Madness

2005-10-08T05:39:00.000-07:00

Wait till Tiger Woods gets a load of this!!

Start Running

2005-10-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

This is an African Proverb I came across and was greatly impressed by it. Tell me what you think

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it has to outrun the fastest lion,
Or it will be slaughtered.
Every morning in Africa a lion wakes up.
It knows it has to outrun the slowest gazelle,
Or it will starve.
It doesn't matter whether you are a gazelle, or a lion.
When the sun comes up,
You'd better start running.

Succint, non?

Copyright Infringement?

2005-09-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

A Man named Mike Rowe, when buying a domain name for himself, thought it would be funny if he added a "soft" to the name. The domain name then became www.mikerowesoft.com.
Microsoft sued him for copyright infringement.
Were they right?

An Apt Comparison?

2005-09-28T01:38:00.000-07:00

I received the following forward from sources so far down the line that I really don't know where it came from. It's quite interesting, so take a look...

Inches of rain in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina : 18
Inches of rain in Mumbai (July 26) : 37.1

Population of New Orleans : 484,674
Population of Mumbai : 12,622,500

Deaths in New Orleans within 48 hours of Katrina : 100
Deaths in Mumbai within 48 hours of rains : 37

Number of people evacuated in New Orleans : Entire City...
Number of people evacuated in Mumbai : 10,000

Number of cases of violence in New Orleans : Countless...
Number of cases of violence in Mumbai : None

Time taken for US Army to reach New Orleans : 48 Hours
Time taken for Indian Army to reach Mumbai : 12 Hours

Status of New Orleans 48 Hours later : Waiting for relief, army and electricty
Status of Mumbai 48 Hours later : Back on its feet and is business is as usual

Let me make it very clear : I'm not pointing fingers anywhere nor do I agree or disagree with antyhing. I just think it's interesting.

What do you think?

Management for Dummies

2005-09-19T23:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some expert guidlines for aspiring managers, that someone actually bothered writing down. See if you can recognize people with these traits...

Spark's Ten Rules for the Manager :

Strive to look tremendously Important
Attempt to be seen with important people
Speak with authority. However expound only on the obviuos, proven facts.
Don't Engage in arguments, but if cornered, ask a totally irrelevant question and lean back with a satisfied grin while your opponent tries to figure out what's going on - then quickly change the subject
Listen intently while others are arguing the problem. Pounce on a trite satement and bury them with it.
If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.
Get all the good assignments, but don't let anyone else know until after you've finished with them.
Walk at a fast pace when outside the office - This keeps questions from subordinates and superiors at a minimum.
Always keep the office door closed. This puts visitors on the defensive and also makes it look as if you are always in an important conference,
Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down for which you can be held responisble later.

Well? Follow those and you are bound to succeed. Incidentally, this is Murphy's Law II

Religious right or Ridiculous fight?

2005-09-18T07:11:00.000-07:00

The High Court of California recently passed a ruling that schools could not force students to say the national pledge. This was because the pledge contained the words "under God" which smacked of religious content, and could not be enforced under a previous ruling. The children must choose (or have their parents choose for them) whether or not they would indulge themselves in the religious pledge. Guess who pushed for the ruling?

What a View!

2005-09-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

Murphy's Laws - The reasons why things go wrong

2005-09-18T00:23:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been caught in the shower when the phone rings? You quickly finish the shower, towel down and run to the phone and pick it up – just here the sound of the receiver being put down at the other end?
Have you ever been put on hold by a theatre’s phone booking service, and just as you put it down in disgust, you hear the voice at the other end, but it’s too late?
If you drop a sandwich, why do both slices separate and fall so that the buttered sides on both are facing down?
Why do you always just miss the last bus, catch a taxi, only to find a special service speed right past you minutes later?
Have you ever felt that your life was a sort of divine conspiracy, orchestrated from above, making things go wrong at just the right time so as to inflict the maximum damage?
Are you resigned to fate? Or resigned to screaming “Why me?” to an unoffending wall?

Don’t Worry – you’re not alone

Welcome to the domain of Murphy’s Law, that sacred tenet that so many people hold dear – because they have given up trying to hold on to anything else.
Murphy’s Law, simply stated, goes somewhat as follows:

“If anything can go wrong, it will”

There are many statements and corollaries of Murphy's Law, here are some of my favorites:

Murphy's Law :
"If anything can go wrong, it will"

O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
"Murphy was an optimist"

Goldberg's Commentary on O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
"O'Toole was an optimist"

Boling's Postulate:
"If you're feeling good...don't worry, you'll get over it."

White's Statement:
"Don't lose heart..."

Owen's Commentary on White's Statement:
"...they might want to cut it out..."

Byrd's addition to Owen's Commentary on White's Statement:
"...and the want to avoid a lengthy search"

Etorre's Observation:
"The other line moves faster"

O'Brien's variation of Etorre's Observation:
"If you change lines, the line you just left will start to move faster"

Kenton's Corollary
"Switching back screws up both lines and makes everyone angry"

Ginsberg's Theorems:

You can't win
You can't break even
You can't quit the game

Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's Theorems:
"Every major philospohy that tries to make life sound meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's Theorem :

Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win
Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even
Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game

Impressed? This collection, however, cannot remotely be called a complete set of Murphy's Laws: There are much more, these are just the few I chose to fit on sheets of paper.

Do you want more? - Tell me - Comment

Here's one more one liner to bide you over till my next Edition

The Murphy Phliosophy:
"Smile...Tomorrow will be worse"

Page under reconstruction

2005-09-18T00:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay, dear readers, but due to unavoidable circumstances (and fairly dodgy resource management), this site is still pulling itself back up, slowly and painfully

Thank you for your suspected loyalty