Of Blogs and Oranges..

Exclusion or Inflation: Is there a third choice?

If one tries to include all strata of society in economic growth, everyone’s purchasing power increases.  Give the poor easy loans, and they’ll take the banks down when they default. Give them earning power, and they will vie for a piece of the limited pie you want – inflating everything from real estate prices to vegetable rates.

What’s the solution?

1) Exclude sections from economic growth?
Make the barrier between exclusion and inclusion higher, so that few cross it. Those who do, will be able to afford a quality life. Those who already do, remain that way. Those who can’t, get angry.

2) Include everyone, in a totally free market?
Lots of people are included in economic growth. Due to the paucity of resources, inflation grows. While the poor earn more, their rupee buys them less so they almost stagnate. At the same time some of those who were earlier rich find their worth decreasing. As it is always more painful to traverse Maslow’s pyramid the other way, the erstwhile rich cannot handle the drop. The (vocal) rich get angry at finding themselves poor.The poor don’t realise they are rich, since the target has shifted.

3) Exclude everyone?
Doesn’t make sense, since society stagnates.

So, we arrive at a new question: is Inclusion a zero-sum game?

An Intuos3 6×8 Graphics tablet. Yes, the Boy finally gave in to Temptation.

First day, playing with Photoshop. Back to the basics!

Okay, so I’m learning how to use a graphics tablet effectively. But right off the bat, this seems like one of the best investments in computer peripherals I’ve ever made. It’s slightly more tiring than a mouse as of now (with 4 hours of use), but the full-arm movements will definitely save my hand from being amputated due to RSI.

Peculiarly, you know what writing with the pressure sensitivity reminds me of?
Writing on an ATM receipt (you know, the ones that you can scratch on to leave a mark). Not surprisingly, those are pressure sensitive too.

“Akl-O-Hosh Nami Danum” – this is a line from ‘Deewangi’ (Om Shanti Om), which would roughly transliterate to “I don’t know where my mind and senses are”, or simply that I’ve lost both my mind and my senses.

That is just how I feel, having been called upon to code Windows API functionality in Pascal over the past couple of days. Yes, you read that right. Pascal. Derived straight from ALGOL, and the grand-daddy of Delphi. I mean, who the fuck codes anything in Pascal any more? I learnt programming with LOGO and BASIC, and directly went on to C. Never took a formal course, so never looked back.

But no, custom scripting in Inno Setup is solely in Pascal. So when I wanted to customize my installer I had to delve into the archaic mysteries of this ’structured’ language.

I just hope I don’t have to use COBOL soon – I’ve seen Computer students at my college using it before the syllabus was changed. Boy, does that make me feel ancient!

There’s another old language (ADA) which I might be interested in shortly though, since I read about how it was used to break the German (circa WWII) Lorenz cipher before the Colossus computer in a rematch of sorts. Which other language compiles ‘Hello World’ to a 1.5MB file? Ah well, at least ADA is used currently in interesting applications.

I’ve been to Chandigarh only around 5-6 times till date, but I absolutely detest the place as a city.
It’s like someone promises you a city, and then presents you with a village in disguise. Yeah, it’s nice to have all the open spaces and all, but fuck, all addresses are numbers. I mean, when I ask for an address I want an address; if I wanted a number, I’d look in the phone directory, no?

And one thing I really like to do in different cities is to walk around; take in the sights and sounds, the bustle and feel for life there. But no, that city wasn’t made for walking at all. Walk one kilometer, and you’ll see some sign of life. Then a wall for another half kilometer till you come to a crossing. Then a few more signs of life, and then again the monotony of a long unbroken road.
That’s not how cities are supposed to be. Cities happen when people come together, work hard, spontaneously create their own social energy. There has to be bustle, noise, a crowd, sweat, people of all
classes doing their thing and making it a cosmopolitan place. But no, Chandigarh is like little pockets of excitement with lots of boring stuff in between.

The girls are easy, though. And the lake is nice. And the chicken is cheap. Actually, that’s all I can say in favour.

On every glass bottle of Coke.

Like, what do you want me not to do with it? Why not be upfront and say “Please don’t stick this bottle up your ass” or something.

Two Persian words, with a Siamese leaning,
for the losing King, there’s a deadly meaning.
In times gone by, it was a blow from fate;
now they just call it ‘Checkmate’

ECE Bulbs aur Tubes
Bhool na jaana,
ECE bulb laana…
B..b..b.. Bulb?
Jyaada de ujaala,
din-o-din chalne waala,
ECE Bulb aur ECE Tube.

Bajaj Bulbs
Jab main chota baccha tha, badi shararat karta tha..
meri chori pakdi jaati.. jab roshan hota Bajaj.
Kya rangeen jawani thi, ek raja aur ek rani thi..
Raja rani sharma jaate.. Jab roshan hota Bajaj.
Ab main bilkul buddha hoo, goli khakar jeeta hoon,
lekin aaj bhi ghar ke andar.. roshni deta Bajaj!

Khaitan fans
Chahiye hawa jahaan,
Khaitaan hai wahaan.

Tobu Cycles
Aao chale hum, lekar apni Tobu Cycle!

Jai Sabun (soap)
Pehla pyaar.. laaye jeevan mein bahaar, pehla pyaar..
Tan ko chhue, kayi baatein kare.. Pehla pyaar.

Tan-man mehke aise, pehla pyar ho jaise

Action Shoes
L..la..light? Woh bhi shoe mein? Kaisa hai yeh system?
Yeh hai Action ka naya light system..
(Ad for Action shoes with Kapil Dev)

Sosyo (soft drink)
Sab se accha ek drink hai, S-O-S-Y-O;
Yeh hai Sosyo, yeh hai Sosyo, Yeh hai Sosyo..

Had my first Sosyo last week. It’s just Kocum Juice.

If you’ve signed up for anything online lately, you’ve seen a CAPTCHA. They usually take the form of a distorted image containing text, where you have to type in the text shown.

The capitalization is correct; the word is an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart” and is trademarked by Carnegie Mellon University. Actually, I’m not entirely sure if these are Turing tests, since a Turing test would be the process of trying to hoodwink a person into thinking a computer is not a machine, but another person.

The first time I saw a CAPTCHA would be around the year 2000, while signing up for a second Yahoo! Mail account. They haven’t really evolved since, but anti-CAPTCHA technology has. Character recognition scripts that clean up images, correct distortions, split characters and use edge-detection to solve the CAPTCHA are available. Another low-tech technique is to use cheap workers in India (Rs. 25 ~ $0.60 an hour).

Here’s a slight improvement, suggested in jest on /.

Match each band to the model of truck its music is eminating from:

1. Metallica
2. Billy Ray Cyrus
3. Lynnrd Skynnrd

a. GMC truck with double tires on the back
b. Primer-color El Camino with beer cans in the back
c. Shiny red F-150 with aerodynamic truckbed lid

Bittersweet. That end of relationship sex, the we’re graduating, we’re moving apart, we’re taking a break for the summer, we have both come to terms with the fact that our relationship is doomed, let’s end it with a bang of passion sex. Goodbye sex is hot because it’s emotional: happy and sad, distract- yourself- from- your- feelings- with- your- body kind of sex.

You honor the best of what you had because, damn, for a while there it was really good and you’ll never forget it. You focus on creating those memories to carry on: the smell of her hair, the smooth skin on his stomach, the way her breasts bounce when she’s on top, the look in his eyes just before climax. With real goodbye sex, you’re together, but already apart, too — in your mind and your memories. So, if you’re smart, you make the most of your goodbye sex, walking away from a climax that you both know is closure. You savor every moment on the way there, because when it’s over, it’s over, and you know it.

- From The Flat Hat.

Yeah, so we have a slight chicken-and-egg situation happening on his blog. Turns out that while Thomas Alva Edison was no doubt a great man, he didn’t invent electricity. Just the light bulb. Apparently, James Watts-his-name invented the steam engine, which led to Michael Faraday inventing the Faraday (no wait, that’s just a unit named after him) or something and then Edison finally invented the bulb. At least, that’s what the Boy had to say. Bah, humbug. Why do I need to know this anyway?