Vermaji Uncut

Vermaji is one of the best scribblers in the blogger world ji, and I read his scribbles daily morning with nashta ji. But the best ji, are his series, like the one on cows, and the one on purplocity. So I thought ji, I would dedicate this post to sadde Amitji, and his series ji cause I simply love them.

Amit Verma on 'Cows' (yes right COWS)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 , 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64

Amit Verma on 'Purplocity/Verniness'
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.

Amit Verma on 'Lalu Prasad Yadav'
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

Amit Verma on 'Astrology'
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Amit Verma on 'Where do your taxes go'
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Amit Verma on 'Orkut'
1, 2

Multi-tasking

There is this ultimate multi-tasking game I found via Random Good Stuff. The maximum I clocked was a 4.5 second. Really difficult to get more. Do give it a try.

Link

Howto Turn Google into Napster

They killed Napster, but the spirit won't ever die. If you want to search for free music on the internet, the easiest way to go about it is to use the searching algorithm you use day in and day out, yes, Google.

For example, if you're searching for Nirvana, try this

This is a listing of all nirvana songs that Google Uncle can find for us. Yoohoo.

Okay so spell goes -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "Nirvana".

So there, that is how you use Google to find Nirvana. umm.

Incase you have all of nirvana, but are looking for some other band, just use your head.

In case you're wondering that I'm way too smart, let me tell you, I stole it from Life Hacker. The best thing since napster.

People are always thinking about it

As if we didn't know (link)

The Ultimate Guide to Sudoku

Yesterday was an amazing sudoku day. I spent a lot of time on www.websudoku.com, and I came up with amazing results (well atleast by my standards). I completed the easy level with a best timing of 4 minutes 11 seconds. But the best part was that I managed to complete one of the games at the "Evil" level. It took me almost 45 minutes to complete it, but it was a satisfying victory none the less.

I would like to clarify here that though you would have heard that people complete the puzzle in like a minute flat, but let me tell you, anybody who completes it in less than four minutes is a bloody freak. So 4:11 is the best non-freak timing that you can get.

Anyways, sudoku has taken over the world, probably like the craze of the rubik's cube, which hit the world when my dad was about my age. Here is what Google Trend shows us about sudoku and the rubik's cube. (link)

Solving a sudoku puzzle takes no more maths than eating an ice cream. If this is your first time, the here is a list of the strategies you could try using.

1. The first step is to look at each digit and try to complete it across the board.

2. Now after you've filled up all the places you could, you try to fill out all the numbers in each of the nine boxes.

3. After you can go no further, complete all numbers in each row and column (each has 9 digits).

4. In both of the above steps, if there are two digits left, it's not much of a problem. But if say there are 3 or 4 or even 5 digits left. The easiest way to go about it is to find out the remaining numbers, eg. 1,3,5,6. Now look at each empty slot and if you can find three of the four numbers in that row or column, then you know what number to put there.

5. After you've hit a dead end with all of the above, try each slot and see what all numbers can fit into each slot. Many times, you would find that even though a number can be placed in a lot of slots in a group, in one particular slot only one number can be placed eg. in the right top corner only number 3 can be placed.

6. If you've exhausted all possible alternatives, this is the last way to deal with it (atleast as far as I know), if you find a number can be placed in two places in a box, substitute the number in one of the places and try to find out what other numbers can thus be solved. But one thing you need to remember is that even if all the numbers fit correctly, you have not found the correct solution, you can be sure only if you find something wrong. Then you replace the first number you have substituted with the second number, which would definitely be correct now.

That is all I think. Now just start up, and if you manage to better my score, let me know. Happy sudokuing :)

Making money on niche markets

Read a nice article about making money on niche markets...


For the young and enthusiastic people keen on earning loads of bucks online, niche markets is a perfect hub. Affiliate marketing with niche markets are especially designed to suit the select few who are simply opposed to the idea of commuting several hours five days a week to earn their livelihood. In this business, you are free to work from home and earn commendable benefits at the same time. Above all, you can do all this at your own convenience, selecting your own time and making an affordable investment.

Fine, but you need not be under the false impression that affiliate marketing is just a piece of cake. To establish yourself in this field, it would cost you a lot of hard work and concentration. You will also pick up skills with time and experience.

If on the contrary, you belong to the camp wherein people conceive of affiliate marketing as something too tough and consider splashing some AdSense ads on a page a much easier pursuit, you will need to be reminded of the money you can earn out of affiliate marketing.

Read the whole article here

Should you use Adbrite on your blog?

Shai Coggins, one of the smartest bloggers you would ever find, writes about the good and bad points about using Adbrite on your blog.

The Good:

It’s a good way to start in selling ads on your site. There are different ad formats available. And, there’s the option to set up various ‘zones’ if you have different web properties and charge different ad rates on different zones.

The ability to choose between running a house/network ad and/or just ads that get sold on your site. You can even opt to run alternative ads if they don’t meet your revenue requirements. For example, you can run an AdBrite ad code on your site and set AdSense as you’re alternative. This is a good way to make sure the ad space on your site doesn’t get wasted, if you know you can earn more from AdSense (or other ad programmes).

The Bad:

The returns are not that good, and they put up interstitials too

Link

The Doors

Even after hundreds of millions of years, I still find myself confused. I am still looking for change. Another door has opened and another one has closed, and I still can't let go of the last one. Just can't forget what I dreamt was outside that door. A whole new world I would never be able to feel now that another door has taken it's place. And by the time, I can see what is outside the new one, and much before I move to enter it, it will close on me. Like the ones before it, and like the ones after it. The world is moving ahead everyday, and I'm sitting here, staring at my doors, praying that I choose the right one. Not that it really matters to me. I could say this is the perfect search for perfection, but I know it isn't. The world is moving ahead, a door at a time, and I'm struggling to make that first move. Waiting to see the light outside. Maybe it's just another room like this one. Maybe it's a beach all for myself. But I like it here too, and I really want to go there too.

I switch on the TV, and I see people trying to sell me stuff. But they are really not people, just something which makes noise and replaces the need for real people to be standing there. And if I want to get any of the things that I see there, there would be nobody to help me get it. I will call up and talk to a call center guy, who's struggling through life, working at nights, and knows shit about what I am really looking for.

I call up old friends, and they are all struggling too. They seem to know the answers, they open each door as if it were their last. And they walk right in, without emotion. But sometimes, you can feel the emptiness inside them too. Your voice echoes back to you when you talk to them. I am sure they feel that with me too. It's like a million people talking to each other, and hearing their own voice, amplified by the vast hollows inside other men.

I switch on some music, move to the song that thought I used to love the most, and I can't feel the rhythm. It's like somebody walked inside one of my doors and stole it, right under my eyes, while I was busy dreaming about the door, which closed on me. Now even the music echoes inside. And it keeps getting louder. And I keep shrinking. Maybe I should realize that my choice wasn't good enough for myself. Do I need somebody else to pick my music for me. Like I chose somebody else to tell me what to do with my life. Like I asked somebody else to decide how to talk to the strangers I meet, how to act when in front of them. Like I gave somebody else the right to run my life, and chose to be the slave. Why did I do it? I do not know, ask him who asked me to do it. Or ask him who asked him. We are all just sheep maybe.

It's like a giant conspiracy to hide the hollowness inside ourselves. The most successful ones are the ones who are the most hollow, because when you talk to them, and you voice does not come out, and you believe it's because they don't share your vices, but then suddenly you realize you were wrong, the voice comes back later, much later, much louder, and you are thrown to the ground, broken into pieces, like the shiny new glass you dropped, when you were drunk.

It is a pity that most of us believe in the world our eyes show us.

It is just a story, like in a movie, and you will be out of it one day. And nobody would remember the sad part. Nobody would remember the dirt. All they will know, is the greatness of your glorified life, not the hollowness within your souls.

And while I write, I realize that another door is closing, and nobody seems to replace it. The older ones are cracking and the cold wind is blowing inside the rooms. I can now even absorb the light inside my heart. And I'm shrinking, under the power of my own will. And I will keep shrinking till I explode. And when that day comes, I will see the light.

I know I will, because I have been there before.

Who am I?

I'm not a fucking IT Professional, I'm a Software Engineer. Maybe even an entrepreneur soon.

Saddam Hussain

I rooted for Saddam when Iraq was invaded. And I still don't feel I was wrong. Show me another man, who is any better.
BBC: Iraq

A New Constitution

The government wants to draw up a new constitution before democracy can be restored, and a special drafting committee is now in place, which should mean the constitution is ready in about six month's time

How long before India gets to a situation like that.

BBC : Thailand

Betting on CAT Results

It is that time of the year again, when the institute which churns out super efficient managers, call some more people to join their race. And not surprisingly, they seemed to have extended the deadlines without prior notice. After all, the IIM's have been troubled to no end this year by changing reform policies and what not. And this is their chance to get back at the people.

But I have other plans. For in every problem there is an opportunity.

Starting next year, I plan to start up a website, call something like www.betthecat.com. The idea would be to charge everybody Rs 10, and let them guess the exact time at which the CAT results would be out. I am working on the business plan, so that I can convince the venture capitalist.

Now, the costumer base is close to 2 lakhs. And if you add in say a large number of parents, and teachers, and institutes, the final base should be close to double that. Since it would cost just rupees ten to get involved, I am sure, at least half of them would bet on it. More so, because in that one week, there is nothing more interesting that people like to do. In schools and offices across India, people are talking about the same thing.

So our expenses would be something like this.
Buy domain name - Rs 500
Buy hosting service - Rs 5000
Building the website - Rs 0 ( I'm usually out of work, so I guess I can make it )
Fixing up with Paypal - Rs 5000

After that all that would remain, is to find out the exact time at which the results came out on the website. That might be possible by c0nverting the website to a RSS feed and noting the time when the results section is added to the website.

Now, assuming a lakh people are intereted in paying ten bucks, we could raise Rs 10 lakh in a single week or so. Add to that the income from advertising. Google adwords would allow us to get in $500 ( or Rs 25,000) and institutes which advertise, would allow us to raise another 5 lakhs.

The final balance sheet would look something like this
Expenses - Rs 10,500
Income - Rs 15,25,000

Profit - Rs 15, 14,500

With profit margins like that, I could give out prizes worth Rs 5 lakhs.

Now, about 1,00,000 people are participating. In the one week, people can choose from 10,080 minutes to find the correct value. So on an average 10 people would bet on any given minute value. Assuming the number of people who bet on the right minute is 10 times the average, we could give out prizes close to Rs 5000 for each of the 100 winners.

So, all in all, Rs 5000 if you guessed the correct time at which the results come out, on paying just Rs 10. Would you be interseted...

The Good Year

I started the new year by getting drunk and getting rid of old baggage, both literally and hyperbolically. It wasn't exactly the best I could hope for, but there are times when you challenge everything you think you are, and there is nothing you can do about it. History keeps repeating itself, and you keep failing to learn your lessons.

But all is not lost. The battle will go on as long as we're alive, and we will never be able to see the final score. In the meantime, there is more to drink, more baggage to collect, and more to learn.

Wishing all of you, a sanguine new year.

Ranting about the bottle

It has been over a month, since my last post. Life has not exactly been entertaining in the last one month. No ups, no downs, just free flowing. I have started working as a consultant. I wake up whenever I feel like, take an off whenever I feel like, and start drinking whenever I feel like, but still there is that sense of dissatisfaction which prevails. The project is going smooth, yet there is an awful lot I haven't really understood about it. I have been drinking much, but haven't been drunk really. Except a few times ofcourse :)

But there is still hope. The next cheque will come tomorrow, and along with it will come, a lot of glasses of beer at toaks. So the new year should get interesting, at least for a few days at a time.

Anyways, wishing everybody a happy new year.

Job Searching

Maybe I want to be a security guard too (link)

The Next Leader

Is this the face of our next prime minister?
(Who cares?)
Link

Executive v Judiciary

The Executive comes up with a trump card against the Judiciary in the form of this. So now unlike the politicians, each judge would be answerable for his decisions, good or bad. It should have been implemented the other way around, but well who makes the rules?

Hey Dey, Whadday, Badday

Even before I've completed the first few paragraphs, I know this article was written by Atanu Dey. Mr Dey, please tell me why is everybody an idiot? (link)

The only problem is that the bugger makes sense. (The listen to daddy link)

Closing Bell

Have you ever had a chance to watch Closing Bell on CNBC anytime? Well I see it everyday, and not because I am really interested in what is going on in the market, but becuase it has a hot anchor.

I find it quite breath taking to watch a beautiful woman rant about bulls and bears, and other convoluted financial terms. Like the other day she was grilling some bald, ugly, middle aged financial expert on why some stock he had chosen was going down. I couldn't really make out (umm is this the wrong way of saying it) what they were talking about, and I was asking the rest of the people what was that hot woman doing there?

Anyways, it might seem odd, but if everything goes to plan, then someday I would be the bald, ugly, middle aged expert. (No I am not working on being bald and ugly. I am trying to become the expert, the rest would automatically follow).

I believe in talking shit

Sheila Dixit wants the tax payers to pay for the supposed misfortune of the owners of the illegal shops. Why not ask Bangladesh for aid too? Link

First of all, please ask them who is going to pay for the DTC bus they burn everyday.

From the moment they started constructing it, they knew it was illegal. This isn't a new rule, this isn't a natural calamity. This is your own mess.

Besides, all this talk about traders misfortune, and the traders power, the stock market seems to be shooting up, so nobody will real money thinks that the sealing issue is of much importance.

Anyways, the government is going to pay for it now (by losing their much beloved seats), and they deserve it. Though they are also trying that the babus too pay for it (link). But who is going to check if the babus are declaring assets, more babus maybe. Atleast it would provide an equal black income to all babus.

Career Planning

In one of his latest posts, Gautam Ghosh declares that career planning is a waste of time. He rather suggests his eight point memo for furthering your career.

Now I'm no big shot management consultant, but I do have 24 years of experience and I can tell you this: Planning of any sort is a waste of time. Why? Because 97.23% of your plans do not work out at all, 2.76% of your plans go astray after the first minor milestone. The rest of them go beyond that level, but there are no statistics to prove anything after that. So basically all plans are destined to fail.

But then why plan? Because it's all in your mind. Planning helps you convince yourself, even though it is just one big illusion in the head. It just makes you feel well prepared. It's selling your ideas to yourself, which is why it is absolutely necessary.

(link)

Desi Big Brother

Big brother was a big hit in Australia back in 2005 when I was there and since reality TV has a history of going round, the next logical thing after the Indian Idol was a desi version of Big Brother. Sony Television, hoping to lead the way, has started Bigg Boss on the same lines. (Rakhi Sawant is in there too, if Mika is there too, then I'd watch) Anyways, if you ever had a chance to watch Big Brother in Australia, you would have known how absolutely useless the show was, but yet managed to draw audiences or pseudo audiences called TRP's.

All that is fine. But the interesting part is 'Big Brother Uncut', the part of the show which was edited from the prime time show, to be showed later on national television as free porn for the poor as it consisted mostly of people having sex on the sets. CNN-IBN supposes that it could come to India too, which is an interesting idea for sure but in a place like ours where channels pay huge fines for showing videos, I doubt if we would ever get as lucky.

Anyways, even if 'Big Brother Uncut' came to India, can you guess what would it be called??
India Uncut. hehe.

Link

It's a kind of magic

Here is a cool magic javascript that I found via indiapad. It makes the pictures go round. (link)

The way to see it work is this.
1. Open Ma, I Shot Something, or any web page with photographs.
2. Enter this code in the address bar.

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+"px"; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+"px"}R++}setInterval('A()',50); void(0);

3. And press enter.
4. Lo! and Behold!!

Jeev Milkha Singh

India is a land of few sportsmen, but there are a few men who have known no boundaries. One of them is Jeev Milkha Singh, the golfer son of the charismatic 'Flying Sikh' who has recently taken the world by storm, after winning the Volvo China Open and Volvo Masters. The victory, which came at the end of the season, brought him up to the 16th position on the order of the merit.

Life hasn't been all rosy for the man though. After a career best 50th place on the order of merit in 1999, Jeev suffered a wrist injury which took away his form for years. But six years hence, he seems to be coming back. Currently, he is one of the only two Indians who have won on the European circuit (The other being Arjun Atwal).

Currently, Jeev stands 73rd in the world golf rankings, and 2nd in the Asian rankings. (link)

Hindu

Followed

She seems to be following me everywhere. First it was Pune, now she's even coming to Delhi. (link)

I don't think my mom would like it very much if she came here, but well is there anything I can do to stop her.