2/22/2009

Linguistic overtures

What characterises the oppressive regimes of the world?
Try to
DEMAND
but you will be
DAMNED

1/21/2009

Even OUP makes mistakes

I just got to read a book long due - Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. I was browsing the table of contents and I saw a word - Foreward, a word that according to the best of my knowledge relates to a van.
I was immediately turned off, how could they do it. Foreward instead of Foreword. Such an insult, OUP. Coming from Oxford, not expected. Nevertheless I will read the book.

So I thought only us normal people make typos. Shame!!

1/20/2009

Linguistic overtures

I think I will keep this simple - Freudian Mistake -

Diss ID dent "versus" Diss ent

Dissent just missed an "ID" to become a dissident.

1/14/2009

A day in the life of Zephyr

Zephyr was the man of his own quirky theories and assumptions about the world around him which he carefully and patiently constructed like the way the parents want to see their image in their child or hell, even how God was once seen in the image of man himself. Zephyr proclaimed not to written the last few words after "hell". If Zep was ever to see this, he would have a smile on his face that extended from the outer vicinity of his mouth to the closest inches of his ears.
Does that resemble a creature, this writer, asks - and Zep would have said with a proud grin of his face "Dr. Seuss" you fool.
These were the entries from his diary dated January 13th (year unknown) -
6:30 A.M. (On the way to the day's first bout of tea intake) - Saw a fairly large man riding on a bicycle today. There was a close striking feature about him that almost gave him away. This man, lets call him Mousty, had a bushy moustache and an underbelly that only a married man of 40 years would not be proud of. But this wasn't it. It was rather the feisty cheeks and stretched chin with a jaw that coalesced with the shoulders that gave him away. He was a "Bhaiya" finally Zep deciphered. Mousty had a self confident smile plastered on his face while he was gently combing his moustache with one hand and the other ruddering the bicycle.

"Life almost felt like the morning cold, waiting to be set free by the first rays of sunlight."

12:30 A.M - (in a rather interesting lecture) - I should have two heads atleast. One to monitor what the professor was saying and other perpetually involved in an effort to turn right and catch Zikka unaware without being caught in a reciprocation. Alas I have only one and the other one even if it existed would be involved in a useless exercise. Suddenly Zikka got up and went out and there she goes. Aah she comes back again, phew and craftfully nudges a book in front of me towards my resting palm.
"Is there something called telepathy? Lord Krsna said "don't wait to see the results of your actions", did I do anything or was it an accident? Shup up you fool and believe that it was neither and feel lucky"

7:30 P.M. (On the way to the day's second last bout of tea intake) - Saw a harmless couple walking down the busy road which was trisected by railroad construction which left to fend for itself would take atleast a million years to complete. There was something really carefree about them. The hubby (with a soon coming belly just falling out of his khakis) had comfortably placed his hand around her supported by the envelope of her hand. All this while he was placing a grain of peanuts softly on her lips and criss crossing the enveloping traffic like an experienced gymnast.
"Live in my own shell, self sufficient and deftly avoiding the glare of the surrounding world"

1:30 A.M. (The last tea of the day but this was special) - Every city ought to be judged not by its roads, infrastructure but by its tea vendors. Sample the city at two times - 6 A.M. in the morning and 1 A.M. and count the number of tea vendors that populate the scanty roads at these times. This could give out the actual nature of city pretty well. Walking down the road after seeing a damp squib of movie I stopped for tea at this guy who sells authentic south Indian dishes at 1:30 A.M. in the morning. Of course, it felt like being back in the toddler years, the first nibble of the soft Idli smelling like sweet rice mixed with the sensibilities of a coconut only laden chutney attacking the previous memories of any wheat or any spice that remained after dinner. Anyways on the way back I could see atleast 2 tea vendors punctutating the space between two signals which is a standard distance of 1.5 Kms. All college students coming out for late night snack with the holy smoke. See this thing also applies in the morning as well. The 6:30 tea vendor actually starts out at 5:00 A.M. (must try out at this time as well).

So as per Zep's tea breaks his city or atleast his neighbourhood was devoid of tea only for a brief period of 2 hours. However that spoke volumes about the economy of the city and the entrepreneurship of his city. His city, Zep was really confused. He was undecided between the comfort of tea and comfort of home. He knew the difference but the experience of a late night tea and an early morning tea was something that could never be understood at home. It's different, he concluded concurring with an old ketchup advertisement. He thought all this time bewildered by the industry of the inhabitants of this city. They exploited every services available and offered services wherever there was any opportunity to serve a hidden demand. That is why he kept on reiterating that the true nature of a city is in the pulse of its tea vendors. Therefore a place where you cannot see a tea vendor open shop before 8 A.M. meant that it was a sleepy city, and Zep's experiences seemed to concur.
So after a long day Zep went to sleep silently rehearsing these words in his head "Don't walk away when the world is burning, don't walk away when the heart is yearning" for tomorrow's bathroom performance which had been a consistent spectacle on the 7th floor of his hostel faithfully attended and recorded by the inhabitants of the floor. "Poets of the fall" were the writers of these words, Zep remembered.
Earlier Zephyr posts - (1)

1/13/2009

An idea to write about

A crazy thought if you will (I might try this with Zephyr's character soon) -
  1. What am I talking about - a character in a movie or a book (I prefer the latter)
  2. "Shoot" - Architect a character that ages in the usual way but matures in the opposite. In other words, imagine you born with the mental wit and wisdom of your grandpa - at age 0.
  3. "The suspense" - As you grow only one of the thing increases - your age. Your mental wit and wisdom goes down just like the way in normal life our mental wit increases, supposedly, with age and experience.
  4. "The consequence" - This has always been my favourite part - you will be aged 70 but will behave like a baby and that is what is needed in this mad mad world.
  5. Disclaimer - This does not intend "anterograde amnesiatic" effects to be incorporated.
Amen!

12/21/2008

A small exercise

Do this exercise today -
  1. Blog yourself as a hypothetical character - keep close clues to the real you but weave a story around it
  2. See and observe the comments from the visitors.
While responding to these comments you will be hit a strong sense of duality of the exercise. The feedback could well be for you and/or for the character. This is raw material to build on the idea of making you as a story - powerful, real-time. I love it!!

11/30/2008

Zephyr and the intruder

He liked to stay in his room, where always he felt under control, his feudal kingdom. He felt under control because the elements of the room were under his own supervision. Zephyr could decide on who comes in, including sunlight, how should he react or even ponder whether the other presence deserved a reaction or not. But once Zephyr stepped outside the threshold of the door his control was gone. He was under pressure to respond to the sudden intrusion of external elements. Forced to react to the new sounds, new people, old people and even the Sun's play on him. Sometimes he chose not to and be like a transparent layer between what was on his right and what was on left. He could choose not to but damn those people who knew him well.

"Don't pretend to read", Zikka laughed derisively in a mocking tone. Zephyr knew he was caught while retreating to his shell. He immediately put on that "I am sorry" expression on his face with a fake smile that Zikka could immediately penetrate. Zikka smiled back, conscious of the fact that she had sensed that moment of vulnerability in Zephyr, caught spliced between reaching out and shrinking back. People like Zikka made it a point to blot Zephyr's social journeys, and these were the people who forced him to learn what he called the art. His art was exclusive and its only practitioners were the secret service agents. The art of being inconspicuous, the art of being fluid like a person minus his physical presence. Only because of his art he learnt to be cut off and be sane. Sometime he wondered why people are so fake with a wedge forcefully inserted between their external and internal appearances.

His life went on like this and one fine day came the intruder.

Zephyr had stayed all his life in hostels and knew an empty room without its occupants is a prized possession. Fortunately or not his roommate decided to go for a yatra to attend a marriage. That too for a week. There was he, lying alone in his room wondering what he could do. "Don't be naughty, Zep", someone hollered from the outside. Zep smiled and thought field nights for a week. So he set about decorating the night with a bushel of his favourite cigarette, a comfortable quart of "saste main masti - old monk" and settled comfortably in his universe ready to vanish. Once the rituals were done Zep set on to do his favourite activity of the day - which was to read a book with a glass of the monk and a cool breeze cutting across his thighs. For a bried period he was lost in this reverie and was close to becoming something which was not his character. He for once became a wall completely divorced from his room.

As the time passed by the bushel became a couple, page 6 became page 69, and the quart was reduced to an ounce, the apothecary's ounce. But he was sure saw a silhouette with tail that swished by and he was confused what to attribute it to. "Definitely not the monk" his innards whispered confidently. He chose to ignore it, the voice and the tail. When the quart was done, his day was done, or so he thought. As he retired into the bed and reached for the lights he saw the tail, escape the dustbin lid and not the dark room as he had imagined the room would be. At 4 A.M. end of the day shouldn't have been so bad, Zep thought. He could still see the tail sliding along the lower skirting of the wall into a corner along with 2 pairs of legs. The lights were still on and he tried to desperately search every corner, thanking himself that the room did not have many things on the floor to plunder. Of course the tail eluded him suddenly appearing and disappearing like magic act. Finally at 5 A.M. tired with the search, Zep chose to sleep and chose to forget that the tail could climb up the legs of his bed and put on a late night taandav on him.

The next morning was very happy for Zep thinking that the tail would be gone, but this elation lasted only for 30 seconds, for now in broad light he could confirm it was a rat. Sadly he surmised that from now on his control area, his terra firma, would have to be shared between him and the rat. Atleast the rat couldn't be Zikka, thanked Zephyr and went about doing his job - hiding from any external intrusions and calculating the area the rat would need in his room. He was firm and decided that the rat could not be allowed to prance in his whole territory till his roommate returned. Then it would not be his headache alone anymore.

11/29/2008

Forget the quartiles !!

Don't target the 1st quartiles or the second or hell even the third. As per Pareto, and the tribes, its the quintiles that matter.

Can't think of a title

"
There was a young man who said: Run!
The end of the world has begun!
The one I fear most
Is that damn' Holy Ghost,
I can handle the Father and Son.
"
(Unknown limerist, early 21st Century) - From William Poundstone's Prisoner's dilemma

Meanwhile the fires must linger (from a friend)

11/18/2008

MBA Hazard

On two different levels, I think there is a problem with this statement -
A good piece of statistics or a good piece of fiction, which is tougher to create?
I think, after undergoing the tortures of regression, clustering, multivariate analysis, the former is not a cakewalk.
However, the years of endless reading also says, the latter ain't that easy either. I think lets leave it to the Poissons, flauberts to decide.

11/17/2008

Linguistic overtures - reloaded

Presenting the linguistic overtures, the longitudinal collections. At the behest of a cynic, here it goes, the time warped collection of tilted view of words.

Collection 1 - "Around the world"
Saluting the spirit of obsession - "Lust is contained fully in being a slut"

And they say the problem with the devil was that - "Even after reading it backwards it lived"
Devil and lived
Infact it goes a little inside as well, evil when prodded backwards is live

It's very puzzling to see two words describing the same action, having different connotations but the same letters just rearranged. I need not explain, but see the difference between -
Veto and Vote

Two difficult words with the same letters but very different consequences for our world, today. How a flip can make something so dangerous?
S AC RED
S CA RED

Collection 2 - "Mathematics on english - English language quirks, mathematically speaking."
A matter of taste : State - Taste = '\0' (Null character) which means for me (stating without having a sense of taste is meaningless). I am just curious or plain "wanton"

Matter - Meter = Eat

Touch taken to hurting proportions loses a "t" and becomes ouch.

Intim"id"ate - Intimate = " ID ", coincidence or Freud coined these words.

Propitiously "women ...... men" and the question to you is what fills that dots (a mathematical symbol). The answer is ">" because men on both side cancel out. Now this has some deep insights.

Collection 3 - "Quirky, related? Yes the words in English"

Gateway = Getaway (flipped the three letters in between, and backwards)

Incidentally if you have not wondered ever "Bedroom" has an interesting jumbled up word which is "Boredom".
Two unseemingly related words which are again jumbles of each other -
"Teacher" and "Cheater"

"Fresh from the rakes inside - doom is also after all a mood"

Disclaimer - Some of the listed contents above are plain rants or even beyond redemption. I know or sometimes I donot know. I have just documented as they occurred in that moment. Let me know which are "Meh"!!
PS - Meh is the latest addition to the English dictionary.

11/11/2008

Random Quotes

A small session of random quote making progressed in the ideation area of my brain. So here is a couple of rant / quotes / whatchamacallit -
"Photography is just an eye between an intrepid at one end and the world at the other end."
"Death is also like photography but intrusive. The act catches a snapshot of life but in the process ends it. "

11/10/2008

Linguistic Overtures

Saluting the spirit of obsession -
"Lust is contained fully in being a slut"

And they say the problem with the devil was that -
"Even after reading it backwards it lived"

11/06/2008

Juste comme ce la

The journey of internet - from period to dot.

Linguistic overture

Two difficult words with the same letters but very different consequences for our world, today. How a flip can make something so dangerous?
S AC RED
S CA RED

11/03/2008

Twitter curious

Apparently when someone tweeted a gmail address, I checked out whether GMAIL is on twitter.
Lo and behold - YES!
Where on twitter - Here
Soon I visited the profile only to see this and twitter offered me "actions" to block "gmail".

Well, the gaffes of technology ...

Linguistic overture - 7

State - Taste = '\0' (Null character) which means for me (stating without having a sense of taste is meaningless)
I am just curious or plain "wanton"

11/02/2008

The Hindu's Literary review is a treasure trove to discover your likes and dislikes for a host of books. Some of them in today's issue -

"I have long subscribed to the idea that one of the novel’s primary tasks is to produce a map of the contemporary. By one definition, then, the province of the novel is what you read in your newspaper each morning or watch on your television at night. The novelist’s task is to explore how the news enters people’s lives and indeed becomes a part of daily life." - Amitava Kumar in his piece on Aravind Adiga's 'The White Tiger' (This is great)

"
These are women who live a humdrum existence, mainly jobless, surrounded by children, a world so common that I sometimes think it does not deserve to be written about." - Rumina Sethi in her book review "In the country of deceit" (Now this sounds really apathetic, isn't great literature about what is everyday and common, like the above quote. I felt offended.)

"

A falling petal

Strikes one floating on a pond,

And they both sink.

" - quoted by Ravi Vyas in his article on classics revisited (This is spellbinding. Poetry is a real dense form of communication and often very tough for me to even get near to it, forget comprehension. But this enthralling, WOW)

So for me THLR is a treasure trove. For many who really do like it, here are date wise listed archives

10/31/2008

A sign of things to come

" but we really don't care about OS's the way we used to. I switch back and forth between my Vista and OSX boxes with ease. Why? Because everything I do now is in the cloud so all I need is a Web browser. Hint: starting a web browser up on both OS's isn't that much different between the two. After getting my browser started I really don't care about the cool desktop search or the improved wifi features (at least not that much). It's not like the early 1980s where there was deep pain in using these systems and each update brought a TON of new stuff.."

This is from Robert Scoble. Although I am not that well informed/aware of the cloud computing business and all, but pretty much of my activities today are centered around my browser. So more power to such things.
What I do understand is -
  1. The OS will become a "low involvement purchase".
  2. Browser will be the cynosure of activities.
  3. Apps will become indifferent to the underlying OS.

10/29/2008

An issue with design

We are being exposed to a lots of good looking and useful applications these days. Top of my list that have really broadened what I know today are - Friendfeed and Twitter. But the problem still remains, the disconnect between semantics and application design. Sample this -

A business veteran of 30 years of experience has been wiped out. But the feature of "liking" an article says below that "someone liked this". I know that the person who liked it was referring to the article. But for god's sake someone has been wiped out, and the application says - "someone liked it".
As I see it there is a disconnect between the application side (the content) and the human side (emotion). This is pretty much disconcerting for me at least. Semantics is therefore about two things - the application, the human.

PS - The person who found this article "intriguing" is a great guy.