do me a favour
“can you do me a favour?”
Its sooo saddening after hearing that phrase for the fourth time in the SAME day.
Was known people - not unknown either. damn, I’d surely do what they were asking, why do they need formality to this extent! Just asking right out would have been just as happy for me to do it….
March 7, 2005
unpatched windows PC gets infected within 18 minutes on the net
YAY! Pop the corks off the celebration. Bring home the ‘naya kampooter’.
“Babloo ko bulaaaao……”
Nice scene ain’t it? 
The family just bought a new PC for the home, and their “clever” son in 7th standard managed to convince his parents to get an internet connection. Ahhh…. the joys….
SCREEECH !!! (gasp) What was that? What did that dialog say? What’s this about “we can see what you’re doing” and advertisements and pop-ups and pop-ins, and pop-unders and all? Some red-warning there?
huh? Welcome to spyware, worms and trojans push-downloaded from the Internet without the awareness of the victim. You need to keep your Windows OS updated with the latest hot-fixes all the time, and have the clunky tools of the trade - Antivirus, Firewall, Ad-Aware, and what not! Else within 18 minutes of jumping onto the Net, you get infected. Read the report here.
Viruses do not necessarily create visible symptoms for you to detect, and before you finally get to know, the infection has taken its toll upon your machine, almost invisibly! Sure, not everyone gets infected - but it pays to be safe. A stupendous phenomena lately seen round-abouts here is….
“I (sic) run Windows XP which I couldn’t upgrade to any service pack level (because of being a pirated copy) - and I have none of that anti-virus/firewall crap you tell me to install, but still see! See how my system still functions fine?
So says the person, blissfully unaware that:
1. He has no backup
2. Not even hell hath as many viruses as crawleth his hard-disk! (which he simply doesn’t even come to know of due to not having an antivirus) - And he spreads his mentality and files to others. Small wonder then, that we don’t seem to ever be able to see infections gone?
Like Arnold Schwarzzeneger, so viruses - “THEY’LL BE BACK!”
February 21, 2005
Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V
Yesterday, I went to a restaurant in FC Road (Pune) to have lunch. Most of the people there were wearing Jeans/TShirts/Jackets etc, except for 3 girls. They looked really beautful in normal Salwar Kameez. And, they were not Indian!!
I was just wondering, why Indians like to ape the west, and westerners like to copy Indians? Why? 
February 18, 2005
The Real You
Does anybody know who they really are? Yeah, one knows that he/she likes pastas, hate cabbage, like ghazals and dont like heavy metal. But how is he/she?
“What makes a person behave the way he behaves?” was a question I was asked in a B-School form, and that really triggered off a long line of thoughts. What is the answer? I dont know. Is it just your likes and dislikes that affect your behaviour? What about social taboos and stuff like that, and even ignoring all external aspects, what actually causes your likes and dislikes that in turn dictate how you behave? Is it the your surroundings that dictate your behavious? Or, is it just your past experiences and your experiences as learnt from others? The factors and the potential inter-relationships among them are countless. I will stop here or else this will become a mini-psychology theory.
indian theatres become costlier than anywhere else in the world
I would hear complaints from some in the film entertainment industry - that as compared to the international prices of a ticket to the cinema, we Indians pay very less. (this calculation was meant to include paying the stars, and the average price-rise of tickets over time…)
Considering the price of a ticket to the cinema theatre must have risen in proportion to the general levels of inflation, a friend did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation and ended up with a figure rounded off to 460 rupees! This was two years ago, and I exclaimed “What the hell!” when he said this. Was I alone in that feeling back then?
Fast forward to Circa 2005. PVR Cinemas has been running since 3 months now, here in Bangalore. Located in The Forum Mall at Koramangala, it is the single biggest cash-sink for youngsters here… Middle-aged family members come here for the wide range of choice in goods that it offers, girls go to see what the hype is all about and to enjoy the music/karaoke and have a gala time, and ahem…. guys visit the place to check out the gals. 
In other words, a buzzing location milling all the time with people… and a multi-plex theatre with so-called “Gold Class” - supposedly star treatment for the audience. It wasn’t all that good though, plus with only 32 seats in the entire hall, it rather resembled a party at home, if a bit quieter. (other classes of theatres exist too with more seats in them).
So yeah, back to Gold Class, the tickets cost Rupees 500 and you are served the beverages/snacks that you order inside the auditorium; unlike other cinemas that actively dis-courage this practive. And I’ve gone to this place twice with my family and similarly with friends, already. Whither price-rise? Was I the one who talked something about it? errr…. *blush*
sonu clones in indian idol
Goddammit!
The presence of Sonu Nigam as a judge in most competitions that search for a good singer, is becoming claustrophobic. In order to impress him, singers sing songs just like him and then those who don’t… somehow don’t make it to the next round.
Did any of you see how the Top three contestants in Sony television channel’s “Indian Idol” contest, are all having voices as if they are his clones?
how we have modelled our programs in our own mould…
Today while training Thunderbird (the mail-client) on the bayesian spam filters, a few thoughts occurred…
How do you “train” your brain to good/bad, acceptable/unacceptable?
How do you relate things one to the other? For example, when you hear of Aunty Ellis, don’t you immediately also get a vision in your mind of her two sweet children in kindergarten?
February 17, 2005
pp number
Ever heard people requesting you to call at their PP number and then they give a phone number? This number normally is not their own, its of someone residing nearby… Well I could deduce that “PP” is an abbreviation of some word. Of what exactly, is something I’ve not been able to find out in all of 8 years…. All the googling, all the asking people, all the searching books in library has not yet led to that singular flash of wisdom that says..
Ah, PP is not a word in itself and is the short-form of: ?????
Anyone have an idea what its all about? What’s the full form of PP ? 
insane
Is there a reason “insaan” and “insane” sound alike?
February 15, 2005
don’t run with scissors….
don’t run with scissors….
because you might hurt yourself.
Pretty much the same applies to computers - don’t run with an Admin or root account because you will be hurt.
(reason being that if you run as admin, besides yourself even the worms/spyware can peek into whatever they want)
