Posts filed under ‘Silly-Point’
Curious Cat, Butterfly Effect, 3 Buses Arrive at Once
Now that I thunk about it, I have also found that if one replaces the bus in an analogy reflecting life like an email or opportunity or guests or ideas et al., it has often held true. Well, your mileage might vary but the error could atmost be +/- 1 bus. No?
India Immune to Inflation, Corruption, Exploitation
This is inspired from many a movie where the hero can endure any punishment meted out by villains while pouting testesterone charged dialogues for the masses and particularly, a skit/scene in the ‘Monty Python Flying Circus’ film, “Life of Brian” where Brian gets arrested and is put in a dark battered cell with a pain immunized hedonistic-for-torture prisoner singing praises of the Romans. Here is a transcript of the dialogue converted into a monologue for your reading pleasure –
You lucky, lucky bastard! Probably the little jailies’ pet, aren’t we? You must have slipt him a few shekels, eh? Oh, ohoh, what wouldn’t I give to be spat at in the face? I sometimes hang awake at night, dreaming of being spat at in the face. Manacles! Ohuuhoh… what idea of reaving; is to be allowed to put in manacles, just for a few hours. They must think a sun shines out your arse, sonny! You’ve had a hard time!? I’ve been here five years, they only hung me the right way up yesterday! So don’t you come ’round… They must think you’re lord God Almighty. Oh, you’ll probably get away with crucifixion. Yeah. First offense. Best thing the Romans ever did for us. Oh, yeah. If we didn’t have crucifixion, this country’d be in a right bloody mess. Nail ’em up I say! Nail some sense into ’em! Hah! Ptui! [Spit] Oh! Look at that! Bloody favouritism! Now take my case. They hang me up here five years ago. Every night they take me down for twenty minutes, then they hang me up again. Which I guard as very fair, in view of what I’ve done. And if nothing else, it has taught me to respect the Romans, and it has taught me that you’ll never get anywhere in this life, unless you are prepared to do a fair day’s work for a fair day’s… Oh haha! Nice one, centurion! Like it. Terrific race, Romans! Terrific.
Yep! Terrific politicans, businessmen and police we have too. Truly blessed.
Student Satellite Madness – VSSC ISRO India Trend
The most difficult and expensive phase is sending the satellite into the ether and even more important is what you do with it after because otherwise, it is just space junk. I rest my case. Let me be and ponder why that chicken is crossing the road.
Rain and Umbrella – Vaana Vallappa, Law Challappa
Taj Mahal, Pyramids are Empire Sponsored Tombs
Looking deeper, I questioned why would the guy in the picture be sick and pale and green? Could it be that idiot sod thinks this was not an advertisement but death caused/sponsored by some cola company? I could not put a finger on it but it made me wonder about tombs and sponsorship. This is hardly a futuristic phenomenon for there are instances all around us if we really looked. What is the Taj Mahal really but a tomb sponsored by erstwhile Mughal empire as a proxy display of power and wealth? It is high time before people saw it for what it is than some crazy idea of eternal love. Even so, there is documented evidence of slave labour, severed hands and whip deaths. Ditto with pyramids of Egypt which have traditionally been an icon of engineering prowess and cultural superiority but they are nothing but tombs of power-mad god-complex kings who even in death wanted to cross the river Styx first-class and craved for a premium deluxe specical place in heaven. No sirree, heaven was not enough to these buggers. They wanted box seats to watch the play as it unfolds down below. It makes me look at all these so-called wonders of the world with new eyes unveiling the monstrosity behind the farce and the ignoble intentions/cruelty behind these structures. To jest, all this started with a ponderance with why a cartoon character was puzzled in some random image of some booklet.
Suicide Bomber and 72 Virgins – Steve Martin
Casual listing of responses of 72 virgins to a suicide bomber who has just arrived in heaven in New Yorker magazine “Shouts and Murmurs” column by Steve Martin…
Virgin No. 01: Yuck
Virgin No. 02: Ick
Virgin No. 03: Ew
Virgin No. 04: Ow
Virgin No. 05: Do you like cats? I have fourteen!
Virgin No. 06: I’m Becky. I’ll be legal in two years
Virgin No. 07: Here, I’ll just pull down your zipper. Oh, sorry!
Virgin No. 08: Can we cuddle first?
Virgin No. 09: It was a garlic-and-onion pizza. Why?
Virgin No. 10: … there was this one time in band camp
Virgin No. 11: First you’re going to have to show me an up-to-date health certificate
Virgin No. 12: Hurry! My parents are due home!
Virgin No. 13: Do you want the regular or the special?
Virgin No. 14: I’m 84. So what?
Virgin No. 15: Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
Virgin No. 16: Even I know that’s tiny
Virgin No. 17: “Do it”? Meaning what?
Virgin No. 18: I’m saving myself for Jesus
Virgin No. 19: Somewhere on my body I have hidden a buffalo nickel
Virgin No. 20: Don’t touch my hair!
Virgin No. 21: Typical. You’re gonna bang me and then go sleep with 71 others
Virgin No. 22: Do you mind if we listen to Mannheim Steamroller?
Virgin No. 23: Are you O.K. with the dog on the bed?
Virgin No. 24: Would you mind saying, “Come to my office, Miss Witherspoon?”
Virgin No. 25: Ride me! Ride me, Lucky Buck!
Virgin No. 26: You like your vanilla hot?
Virgin No. 27: Does Ookums like Snookums?
Virgin No. 28: It’s so romantic here, dead
Virgin No. 29: Well, I’m a virgin, but my hand isn’t
Virgin No. 30: You are in?
Virgin No. 31: Hi, cowboy. I just rode down from Brokeback Mountain
Virgin No. 32: I’m a virgin because I’m so ugly
Virgin No. 33: You like-ee?
Virgin No. 34: I’ll betcha you can’t get an erection. Show me, big shot
Virgin No. 35: BTW, here “virgin” has a slightly different meaning. It means “chatty”
Virgin No. 36: Sure, I like you, but as a friend
Virgin No. 37: No kissing. I save that for my boyfriend
Virgin No. 38: I’m Zania, from the planet Xeron. My vagina is on my foot
Virgin No. 39: It’s a lesion, and, no, I don’t know what kind
Virgin No. 40: I’m Jewish. Why do you ask?
Virgin No. 41: Hi, I’m Becky. Oh, whoops – you again. Allah. Not again
Virgin No. 42: I just love camping! It is so great! Can we go camping sometime?
Virgin No. 43: In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m a single mom
Virgin No. 44: You like my breasts? They were my graduation gift
Virgin No. 45: When you’re done, you should really check out how cool this ceiling is
Virgin No. 46: I’m almost there. Just another couple of hours
Virgin No. 47: Get your own beer, you nitwit
Virgin No. 48: No, you’ve got it wrong. We’re in the Paradise Casino
Virgin No. 49: I really enjoyed that. Thank you very much. Gee, it’s late
Virgin No. 50: You make me feel like a real woman. After this, I’m going to find one
Virgin No. 51: What do you mean, “move a little”?
Virgin No. 52: Not now. Am on my BlackBerry. What’re you gonna do? Blow up?
Virgin No. 53: I love it when you put on your pants and leave
Virgin No. 54: Sometimes it’s O.K. to say something mildly humorous
Virgin No. 55: That was terrible. I should have listened to the other virgins
Virgin No. 56: I think I found it. Is that it? Oh. Is this it? Oh, this must be it. No?
Virgin No. 57: It must be hot in here, because I know it’s not me
Virgin No. 58: Those are my testicles
Virgin No. 59: Did you know that “virgin” is an anagram of Irving?
Virgin No. 60: First “Spamalot,” then sex
Virgin No. 61: Great! I was hoping for circumcised
Virgin No. 62: Was that it?
Virgin No. 63: Dang. George Clooney was being reckless on a bike, but I get you
Virgin No. 64: Tonight, I become a woman. But until then you can call me Bob
Virgin No. 65: They’re called “adult diapers.” Why?
Virgin No. 66: We could do it here for free, or on a stage in Düsseldorf for money
Virgin No. 67: I’m just Virgin No. 67 to you, right?
Virgin No. 68: Pee-yoo. Are you wearing Aramis? And no fat mama jokes
Virgin No. 69: Condom, please
Virgin No. 70: My name is Mother Teresa.
Virgin No. 71: I’m not very good at this, but let’s start with Reverse Lotus Blossom
Virgin No. 72: It was paradise, until you showed up
I have a few more myself up my sleeve but Islam says that suicide bombers only get 72. So this is pretty much it. Better not mess with the facts of the Quran.
Male Paralysisio Pretty Womanoma – Clever Barber
As Seinfeld puts it, the male mind literally numbs down in the presence of beauty (in the eyes of the beholder of course) and advertisers really take advantage of this. Don’t you love those ads where you see the woman in the bikini next to the 32-piece ratchet set? We’ll be looking at girl in bikini, then looking at the ratchet set, going:
All right, well if she’s right next to the ratchet set, and I had that ratchet set… I wonder if that would mean that by transitive… I better just buy the ratchet set
Who knew, observational stand-up comedy could be so profound, eh? I have never heard of a beautiful woman ever getting a parking fine or speeding ticket. In fact, I am aware of instances where women try to validate themselves by committing a crime and see if they still have it in them to escape the lonely long hands of male officer enforced law. Apparently, it is not that hard and if so, they can do whatever they want. Flirt a little and a beautiful woman is off the death row. Flash a boob, or two, and a beautiful woman gets free taxi rides. Wars have been fought over women and many a friendship and kinship has been lost because of beauty. Gotta love the fair sex. Or comprehend the stupidity of the primitive male brain. Unfortunately, they are both impossible. Many people have tried and failed. Helen of Troy (not, Diane Kruger, you fools) is famed to have a face that launched a 1000 ships according to Iliad by Homer (not the Simpson, it should be said). Mel Gibson could have been very wrong. Women, not Jews, are responsible for all the foolish acts of men during entire tenure of primate history before and after civilization. That is a considerable amount of time and an extraordinary number of actions happening even now as we speak. There goes another failed attempt at conquest in a bar. Another feeble attempt at office romance. Keep on trying guys. To infinity and beyond and all that.
Beggars Can Be Readers – Breakfast Newspaper
Mathematics of War – 1 – Ecology and Patterns
Describes dynamical composition of an insurgency. Here, n_s is number of groups with strength s (> 1). The different terms describe processes of group coalescence, and group fragmentation.
I feel for Bohorquez and others because the spotlight seems to be on Gourley who is listed as the second author and we all (well OK, some geeks) know what that means as noticed in time-tested real-life graduate, academia and university life…
Ha ha. Having started communications with a joke as schooled, let us get to the abstract but not before mentioning that this paper is featured as the cover story of Nature beating out the ‘new earth discovery’ and ‘possible cancer cure’ which says as much of our fascination, nay, obsession with killing other people we don’t know, err… war, terrorism and occupation than nothing else. Enough trivia, le abstract…
Many collective human activities, including violence, have been shown to exhibit universal patterns*. The size distributions of casualties both in whole wars from 1816 to 1980 and terrorist attacks have separately been shown to follow approximate power-law distributions. However, the possibility of universal patterns# ranging across wars in the size distribution or timing of within-conflict events has barely been explored. Here we show that the sizes and timing of violent events within different insurgent conflicts exhibit remarkable similarities. We propose a unified model of human insurgency that reproduces these commonalities, and explains conflict-specific variations quantitatively in terms of underlying rules of engagement. Our model treats each insurgent population as an ecology of dynamically evolving, self-organized groups following common decision-making processes. Our model is consistent with several recent hypotheses about modern insurgency, is robust to many generalizations, and establishes a quantitative connection between human insurgency, global terrorism and ecology. Its similarity to financial market models provides a surprising link between violent and non-violent forms of human behaviour.
(*) I would think that the ‘why’ of universal patterns in any collective human activities, peaceful or violent, is fairly obvious to an acute observer, not just surreal zoologists such as Desmond Morris. We humans are a young and naive species. Inspite of our pretensions to be sentient and complex and underneath all the make-believe layers of civilization and smoke and mirrors, we are still nothing but animals with barbaric instincts influencing our thought patterns which are focused after all, on the primal need to feed, greed and breed. Everything, with a capital E considered, brain has not really evolved after an initial mutation burst but has only adapted
(#) Let me spare the suspense and list out the universal pattern across conflicts, purely by observation and my study and understanding of history (however little I seem to recall) without me reading the paper (which is gated) or the editors note or news article(s) or Q’n’A session or TED Talk or commentary or books like Naked Ape or Human Zoo or just about any sort of reference research whatsoever –
1) Humans organize themselves into collectives. It is natural
2) Each collective, duh, collects stuff that makes others jealous
3) Conflict ensues and power and control comes into equation
4) Vanquished seek revenge. Conquerors seek more blood
5) Uneasy peace exists but there is in-fighting and ambition
6) Objects of affection evolve from materials to idealisms
7) People just want to kill others brutally and be famous for it
A) Pattern holds for war and insurgency. Rinse and Repeat
There. We do not have to face an ordeal of the propaganda and rack our brains to read paper or any related materials to make sense of the world as seen through lens of war, or to be more precise, increasingly fluid insurgency that mathematically fits collected data. Wrong. I thought so too but my brain disagreed. It is a nasty piece of work and wanted to have a peek. After all, it is a beautifully written paper and only about 4 pages – most of which is justifying data gathering to the point of being apologetic – and a look-see will not take too much time or too much rewiring of the neurons. Or so, it said. As a principle, I dont argue with my brain. It makes me do unspeakable things and hurts me if I dont do its bidding. So, I complied and boy, was I glad I did? It was a page-turner and a well written piece of inquiry. Well done. I have much to say (continued in later posts where I delve into math, commentary from other places, media coverage and of course, cartoons), but for this piece, I will just cite/para-phrase/quote and expose a model schematic from the letter itself…
The political scientist Spirling and others have correctly warned that finding common statistical distributions (for example, power laws) in sociological data is not the same as understanding their origin. Possible political, ideological, cultural, historical and geographical influences make conflict arguably one the ‘messiest’ of all human activities to analyse. Mindful of these challenges, yet inspired by recent studies of human dynamics, we analyse the size and timing of 54,679 violent events reported within nine diverse insurgent conflicts, placing equal emphasis on both finding and modelling common patterns. Such insurgencies typify the future wars and threats faced by society. To our knowledge, our model provides the first unified explanation of high-frequency, intra-conflict data across human insurgencies. Other explanations of human insurgency are possible, though any competing theory would also need to replicate and/or fit the results. Our model’s specific mechanisms challenge traditional ideas of insurgency based on rigid hierarchies and networks, whereas its striking similarity to multi-agent financial market models hints at a possible link between collective human dynamics in violent and non-violent settings.
Taking our empirical findings for event size, and event timings. Our model (described in schematic) provides a quantitative explanation by treating the insurgent population as an ecology of dynamically evolving, decision-making groups, in line with several recent sociological hypotheses. In addition to explaining the ubiquity of approximate power-laws in the event size distribution it explains the conflict-dependent deviations beyond a power-law. Furthermore, the same model framework also explains the common burstiness in the distribution of event timings that we observe across insurgent conflicts. Following our preliminary 2005 results for Iraq and Colombia, we had suggested that other insurgent wars might be clustered around similar findings supporting our hypothesis. By contrast, we find that the Spanish Civil War and the American Civil War – neither of which are considered insurgent – each give distributions where log-normal can not be rejected, and therefore different from conventional wars. This finding provides quantitative support for claims circulating in social science that insurgent wars represent qualitatively different dynamics from traditional wars and can be classified as “open source”, “fourth generation” warfare – for lack of terms.
Insurgent population comprises of N people, weapons, resources, money etc. distributed into groups with diverse strengths at each time-step t. This distribution changes over time as groups join and break-up. Dark shadows indicate strength of numbers and fire-power, and hence severity of casualties that can be inflicted in an event involving that group.
Our model framework incorporates two key features: (1) ongoing group dynamics within the insurgent population (for example, as a result of internal interactions and/or the presence of an opposing entity such as a state army); (2) group decision-making about when to attack based on competition for media attention. Mechanism (1) is consistent with recent work on human group dynamics in everyday environments, and with current views of modern insurgencies as fragmented, transient and evolving. Mechanism (2) is consistent with comments by former US Senior Counter insurgency Adviser David Kilcullen (no kidding, this is the real name and is a combination of ‘kill’ and ‘cull’ – how apt), who noted that when insurgents ambush an American convoy in Iraq, “… they’re not doing that because they want to reduce the number of Humvees we have in Iraq by one. They’re doing it because they want spectacular media footage of a burning Humvee …”
If a group launches an attack during a day with many other attacks, its media coverage will in general be reduced. If, instead, it launches an attack on a quiet day, its media coverage will increase. Each group receives daily some common but limited information (for example, public radio or newspaper announcements about previous attacks, opposition troop movements, a specific religious holiday, even a shift in weather patterns). The actual content is unimportant provided it becomes the primary input for the group’s decision-making process (akin to a financial market). Although the groups are heterogeneous in terms of their strategies, they tend to converge towards similar responses when fed the same information. Our model also includes trapdoors allowing us to interpret the increase in non-randomness over time for Iraq and Colombia when insurgent groups in both wars have become less cautious over time about whether to launch attacks providing more fodder to empirical evidence that groups of humans do indeed use such generic decision-based mechanisms. The data for all the 9 conflicts deviates from its ‘random war’ model (randomizing event occurrences within each epoch): the ‘real war’ exhibits an over-abundance of “light days” (that is, days with few attacks) and of “heavy days” (that is, days with many attacks), but a lack of “medium days” compared with the ‘random war’. By considering subsets of days, we have determined that these features are not just an artefact of a variation in attack volume across days of the week (for example, Fridays). Interestingly, this burstiness has become more pronounced over time for the wars in both Iraq and Colombia, suggesting that they have become less random (ergo, more predictable) as they have evolved.
Just some high-level observations. One, this study shows humans are predictable and therefore, their actions, which is predictable on by and itself. Boy, you know, people don’t like to think that their lives can be tracked so accurately, but, uh, human action isn’t very different than any other data, is it? Two, what this letter really achieves is refute/ratify (not fully clear at this point) the mathematics of a fictional character Charlie Eppes in the CBS TV series Numb3rs Season 2, Episode 16 “Protest” where Charlie blurts that terrorists/insurgents/soldiers/fighters behave on the lines of a social network. They are after all, only human and like all other humans form social networks from bridge clubs and church groups to university staff and federal agencies to jihadi extremists. Mathematically, we can analyze these organizational structures to reveal who the leaders are. Now, these various insurgents or terrorists or freedom-fighters or even, anti-war anarchists (depends on which glasses one wears) are also social networks an analysis of which can reveal which members of groups got along, and which didn’t, and who linked up with people in other groups quantifying relationships. It reveals sub-structures in networks, like cliques, romances, even secret alliances with other groups. Now, using bipartite network analysis, one can identify who the true connectors are and bomb the crap out of them through unmanned predator strikes which will kill more innocent people prompting their loved kith and kin to take up arms against the marauding invaders who had no reason to be there in the first place. Three, there are people who are actually collecting the data which all made the headlines and getting international press right down to the international section in a local newspaper in rural Mongolia whereas the mission to Mars, or its postponement has become a footnote in history. Four, the authors are not really expounding any new theory. They say that current theories being explored by other people are somewhat true or false – it depends on the theory – based on quantitative analysis of public domain data on insurgent attacks. Five, perhaps, they need not have done this research at all. But since they did, they would have been better off explaining their work by just showing “Monty Python’s Life of Brian”, especially ‘Judean People Front’ vs. ‘People Front of Judea’ vs. ‘Judean Popular People Front’ vs. ‘Popular Front of Judea’ scene, “Romans Go Home” graffiti scene and kidnapping planning/execution scene where two groups land at the same time and scuffle that they thought of it first. Just a fun touch. Finally, the irony is if one has to verify if this model and/or the theory behind it holds any water using the scientific method i.e. conduct more experiments to see if it fits to new streams of data, we need more violence, more bombings, more killings and more attacks. The constant quandary of such analyses. To get more data, you need more wars in spirit of curiosity.
Size Zero Jealousy – Poverty Fashion Show – Thin In
If I kept the balloon emprty, most people would come up with a similar caption am sure. I also bet if the impoverished African lady were looking at the model, she would be thinking the exact same thing too and then some more, “Gosh! If only I was born in USA and found a fashion designer”. Well, that is women for you. Cant live with them. Cant rationalize with them. Cant survive without them. Cannot really blame them for the vanity becase society has always placed a high premium on slimness and has set, what some claim to be, impossibly high standards of glass figurine shape for girls. No matter what one says, beauty business is very big and is one of the growth engines even if the world is going to fall apart tomorrow.
Coming back to “size zero”, on hindsight (I probably dont have to say this because no one can stop a woman hell bent on becoming wafer thin or anything she sets her wonky mind to for that matter), no amount of reverse literature can stop this fad from spreading (to media controlled countries to be specific) because when you look around, it is the ill waifs (from Kate Moss to Ann Coulter to Kareena Kapoor) who are making the big bucks and horror of horrors are proclaimed by many to be role models. You dont see regular/fat women on billboards or modelling or selling lightweight laptops or power drills or starring as evil desperate housewives, crime scene investigators, bounty hunters, world peace protectors, braided archaelogical heiresses and what not, do you? I think women can make that connection. One might have no talent, not an iota whatsoever except for going for long periods of neglect, crapping and puking and yet, one can land into shit-loads of money. Thin is in. Good luck to the fat feministas. If not yet apparent, I for one support “size zero” as long as it is done through starving oneself and exercise and NOT through smoking, pills, eating disorders, fast unto sickness/death (hey, this could be good) and worst of all, bulemia. If more people dont eat, it is better for the world in general, no? I think thin people are more attractive because after all that is how nature intended the human body to be. Anyone can become fat – one has to just sit on bums all day and be indisciplined – but it takes real effort to stay thin. Think about it folks. Thin people eat less food, occupy less space, need less clothing et al. Just economics.
Crimes Against Bowlers – Batsmen on 99 – Cricket
Virender Sehwag, not for first time in his extravagant career, stands on cusp of history. To break Brian Lara’s Test innings record, the Delhi Devastator needs another 117 runs – equating to approximately 23 minutes’ batting at his standard scoring rate. Suffice it to say that, if this innings continues long into day 3, the International Court of Human Rights may become involved, and the phenomenal Indian opener may find himself charged with crimes against bowling humanity. For all the splendour Sehwag has once again given to the cricket-watching world, all record of this cruel innings must be surreptitiously destroyed. What if impressionable young bowlers were to stumble upon evidence of the kind of abuse they may endure? What right-thinking parent would want their precious little baby bowler to grow up in such a heartless universe? Even bowling machines might refuse to bowl. How cricket has changed. As a schoolboy, I was an opening batsman. Not a good opening batsman, but an opening batsman nonetheless. And, more importantly, an excruciatingly tedious one. I saw it as specific responsibility not to score runs, and to not score them over as long a period as possible. Steve Waugh used to talk of the “mental disintegration” of opponents. My approach to this task was to block full tosses, leave wide half-volleys and pad up to long-hops until the opposition bowlers and fielders were on the verge of either tears or retirement. Sehwag embodies everything I could not even have imagined being possible as an opener. In fact, cricketing orthodoxy at the time was such that a boy was expelled from my school for scoring a run-a-ball 50, bringing disgrace to the school’s proud cricketing tradition with his morally wanton strokeplay. That story is not true, but it might as well have been, so it’s staying in the blog. No arguments. End of story.
Angelo Matthews has already claimed his place in the record books, with the narrowest failure to score a century in Test history. Matthews was run-out by approximately half a millimetre, after an agonising delay as the third umpire subjected the video footage to more intensive scrutiny than any piece of film since the JFK assassination. Being out for 99 is a strange form of sporting failure − you have basically succeeded, but the moment of disappointment is all the greater than if you had in fact properly failed. And being run-out for 99 adds a piquant element of avoidable silliness. Matthews’ dismissal was the 67th time a batsman has been out for 99 in Test cricket, and the 14th time one has missed out on three-figure glory by virtue of being run out. 14 out of 67 – this is an extraordinary ratio which illustrates the madness that can envelop the human soul when the tastily steaming baguette of personal triumph is within nibbling distance. This 20.9% ratio can only be put into perspective of the 59,237 Test dismissals that had occurred as of 5pm GMT on December 3, 2009, only 3.5% have been run-outs. Batsmen on 99 are thus six times more likely to run themselves out (or, perhaps, have a sadistic team-mate run them out), than batsmen who aren’t already mentally picturing charging around with their arms in the air, kissing their helmets, waving their bats at any available camera, and cuddling the non-striking batsman. There are statistics and there are statistics. And this statistic reveals the inherent nature of the human condition, and the potentially fatal pitfalls of personal ambition, as much as any play by Shakespeare. Arguably. Expect it to be on all school curriculums around the cricket-speaking world.
Quite funny, satirical and whimsy which struck a chord with me because I too was an opening batsman (and spin bowler) in the past when I played cricket as part of a neighbourhood gang. I am pretty sure I would not be as bad as Andy though.
Fish Monger and PETA Environmentalist
True story. I am not making this up. Or maybe I am. A little exaggeration has not hurt anybody and has always helped in getting the point through. So, for all you PETA and environmentalists morons out there, beware with whom you pick your battles with. Go fight the mega fishing/export corporations if you dare and leave the small business peope alone. If they don’t beat you up and deservedly so, they will soon be protected as under the “safety of social entrepreneurs act” underway anyway.
Do You Drink Milk – Kid Home Theatre
Story goes that my nephew absolutely hated milk and any of its sidekicks like yogurt, buttermilk and horrors, even ice-cream. As any parents would do, they would tell him that drinking milk would make him strong and excel in sports and studies. But this was of no avail because both parents were not smart nor athletic at all. The kid just could not make the connection. One day, an LPG cylinder guy came to the house and he was quite simply the strongest guy the kid has ever seen because he was moving the cylinders like toys. Visibly impressed, the kid hounded the worker and finally mustered the courage to ask him, “Uncle, do you drink milk?”. The guy was bemused and not knowing what to say, looked around only to find us as surprised as him, if not more so. Finally, he answered in the affirmative. The kid immediately ran to the mother and asked for milk and has never complained of it in the many years since. Mothers can be great inventors of necessitating milk but most of the times, I suppose, kids are greater discoverers of positive effects of milk.
Running Water – Word Play – Fools Paradise
[edit – 20091119] While I initially did this in jest, it never escaped my purview that “running water” is still a dream chased by over 90% of the worlds population. There is just not enough water (the future wars will be fought over water and all that) and plumbing and there are just too many people. Why, just today, Thomas L Freidman in his latest piece, “Americans Living in Fools Paradise” quips –
people in the developing world are very happy being poor – just give them a little running water and electricity and they’ll be fine, no worries at all for us
Just gives more weight to the pondering, ain’t it? I guess we just have to live with the knowledge that those of us (believe me, it was a fight to get it working in my house) who have running water are the chosen lucky buggers and could do with a little more modesty in complaining about our pampered and mundane lives. If you are statistics/story inclined, you might want to go see some numbers and realities on Red Button Design (disclaimer: co-founder of this company, James Brown, was a club-mate of mine at University of Glasgow) making acclaimed Reverse Osmosis Sanitation Systems (ROSS) based water purifiers aimed at BoP of the third world.
You Dont Mess With Nataraja – Kick Ass
Better be careful when gyrating before the lord of the dances…
Loss of Laughter – Environmentalists Changing Bulbs
Somewhere over the years, we manage to lose a few hundred laughs every 24 hours. Children (of all cultures and eras) laugh, on average, 400 times a day. For adults, the number is 15. Subsequently, every house or apartment comes with a medicine chest. Ah! the age or innocence. It should be obvious that it’s okay to sometimes joke about what’s serious; and that includes the environment. Laughter is universal. Everyone laughs, except maybe morose ordinaires. When it comes to what produces laughter, well, that’s a different story. There’s gotta be something positive about a language with so many words for “laugh” (giggle, chortle, snicker, chuckle, cackle, guffaw, hoot, snigger, titter, snort, etc.) and “funny” (hilarious, humorous, uproarious, comical, droll, hysterical, amusing, witty, mirthful, etc.), and “joke” (gag, one-liner, witticism, wisecrack, pun, riposte, jest, prank, jibe, etc.)
Jokes were lame except few below which made me chuckle for 316th time today…
Lisa: Do we have any food that wasn’t brutally slaughtered?
Homer: Well, I think the veal died of loneliness. (The Simpsons)I love children too but I don’t cut heads and stick them in vases. (G B Shaw)
Some national parks have waiting lists for camping. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong. (George Carlin)
Q. How many environmentalists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. 12! One to write the light bulb a letter requesting that it change. Four to circulate online petitions. One to file a lawsuit demanding it change. One to send the light bulb loving kindness, knowing that this is the only way real change occurs. One to accept the light bulb precisely the way it is, clear in the knowledge that to not accept another is to do great harm to oneself. Two to beg for grants and donations. One to write a book about how and why the light bulb needs to change. And finally, one to smash the f#$^#&ing light bulb, because we all know it’s never going to change. (Derrick Jensen)
Twatter – Because People Talk Shit – Twitter Parody
A service for twats who think other people give a fuck about the small twattish, mundane detail of their sad, socially impotent lives or who simply believe that what they have to say should be spread across the globe because they want to be a major fucking twat – all by asking the ‘simple’ question: What The Fuck Are You Doing? Some twat testimonials from twats who tried the service…
Great name and I can tell everybody what I’m fucking doing in my life.
I’ve developed an over-inflated sense of self-importance and glow smugly.
Incredibly useful (if you glue a brick to your head and jump in a lake)
If you try to register/login, you are a twat and will get a 404 error. Parody apart, I really feel for Twitterers. The only other people who get more of my sympathies are followers. Very important for human beings to feel they are popular and well-liked amongst a large group of people that they have no interest in. That I understand. But followers, well, they are at a different level of pathetic. Enough said, you twats.
Gandhi Jayanthi – Shave the Head, Save the World
On the way home, I could not help but ponder about Gandhigiri but soon, with the wind hitting and gliding across a freshly shaved scalp, the mind wandered about benefits of a shaved head. I had an epiphany of sorts that if everyone shaved their head, we could save the world and the gears were in motion to put together a “Top-10 Reasons” like the ones seen on David Letterman show. I checked with Bing just to be on the safe side and apparently, obvious really, someone beat me to it, as always. Here is a Squidoo collection on shaved heads and here is a Devil style guide combined into a short list followed by some of my own proven theories –
* You are going green and use less shampoo and lesser water and no hair dryer
* You need not ever be scared of the elements again – wind, fire, rain and 2 more
* Women absolutely love to stroke a bald head. The shinier, the better
* You can improve the aerodynamics in any sport and save fuel while on a bike
* You dont need a mirror nor comb nor worry about wearing a cap/hat nor dandruff
* It is a better insurance against old age. No worries of grays or thinning hair
* Ever wonder why mannequins are all bald? Because it is cool to be hairless
* You save time. Time is money. Money is power. Skinheads are powerful people
* Less frequent bathroom cleanups. Less hair on soap. No more clogging of sink
* In India, shaved head is the best option for pollution, dust, sweat and what not
* All advanced civilizations are bald. No aliens and future evolved humans have hair
* Help the economy. Hair is a natural fibre and packing material. Less plastic used
* 40% of heat escapes through head. Bald heads dissipate it better. Am just cool
So, a shaved head or a bald look is not just monetarily sound and ecologically stable but it is also future proof. It is said that the next big wars will be fought over water and so, if you are one of those world-peace types, shave the head, save the world. (drumroll) For those vanity fairies, it has to be shoved that hair (and nails) are nothing but dead tissue. They are the farts of the body metabolic processes. That is the reason we dont feel any pain when hair is being cut and styled and so on. So, it is sad to give importance to hair. Off with it. Finally, Gandhi has maintained a shaven head look for most of his life. Apparently, he has said somewhere that this has saved him immense time. I concur. Who has time to write such posts, eh? and I dedicate this to all bald people. Be bold. Live with dignity. Shave those scraps.
Story of My Siemens S25 Mobile Phone
More than the loss of the device which was substantial when compared to my salary in 2003 and its buying price, I was very pissed that I lost the numbers and messages. It had IR and came with a software suite but I was just too lazy to take backups. Ah, youth. That feeling of invincibility until we get served.
Recovery Greenshoots – Drag Rain Clouds
Thoughtcrafts Sriks6711 
Recent Comments