Just another blog!

Due to a work overload, I doubt that I shall have time for blogging. I have two unfinished posts already, but cannot find the time to complete them. Do keep watching this space for posts when I am relatively free. Or you may subscribe to this blog via email, and get posts delivered to your inbox as I post them. RSS is another option.

Disclaimer: The posts on this series have nothing to do with a similarly named program appearing on Fox History and Entertainment. I generally do not get to watch a lot of TV in the hostel. Most of the time, the TV room is occupied by some spineless jerks good friends who like to spend their time watching the latest music videos (with more of a visual rather than an auditory remix), or some older people (read hostel workers) who like to watch nothing other than Hindi movies from the 1970s/80s, which is perhaps the stupidest era of Bollywood. And when there is a cricket match, as is now, the TV room is hijacked by cricket fans, almost the entire hostel. That coupled with the extreme peer pressure to not be labelled a hopeless nerd means that I barely get to watch my favourite programs on National Geographic or Discovery channels. I also like to watch the news sometimes. However, of late, I have been less and less impressed with the news too. I believe that there is less of news and m...

There is a hare and a tortoise who wish to have a race. The hare runs swiftly, goes ahead to win the race. Seems a plausible one line alternative to the classic version that we grew up hearing, doesn't it? But it would be difficult to find this version in Aesop's Fables. Yet, it seems strange that we as kids accepted the story of the hare and the tortoise without doubt when our parents or grandmothers read it to us. Now, it seems hard to believe. The trouble with the fables is that they are meant to amuse and instruct, and are written for kids. The writer assumes an ideal world, where everything goes according to some master plan that he may have in mind. Reality may be very different. What will happen when the thin ice breaks and a child sees reality for the first time, so far removed from the fables that he has heard? Yet, the ideal world continues to haunt us throughout life. In school, we are always taught stuff in the ideal world. Non-ideal is too hard to deal with, so ...

Experiment: the testing of an idea. This post follows from my post on stats and posting . I do observe a number of pageviews from countries other than my own, and often wonder, how many people are really that free to read up a seemingly random blog? How many actually end up reading more than the first few lines? I have decided to create a blog which I shall not publicise in any way. I shall put up seemingly random posts there, but not post the URL on Buzz, Facebook or Twitter, in other words, not thrust the blog upon my friends. What do I hope to see from this experiment. I suppose that it would give me some idea about the number of people who happen to visit my blog from various sources, those who do not have the blog thrust upon them. As to the question about how many people end up reading more than the first few lines, checking that would be much difficult. Can someone suggest a good method? Why do I wish to do this experiment? Because I am hopelessly jobless. Will I share my ...

This is to let you know that I am trying out Wordpress.com. I have started a new blog anothersillyblog.wordpress.com , but, as I mention on that blog, I do not plan to use it permanently. However, for the time being, I shall be posting on both the blogs so that readers of either blog need not worry about not getting content. Yeah, right, I do know that no one wants to read my blog anyway, unless I thrust it upon them... I simply feel good writing the last sentence of the previous paragraph.

Yesterday, Google Buzz notified me that Shahrukh Khan wants to follow me. Of course, given Buzz's default action, he already was following me, that is, until I blocked him! Shahrukh Khan following me! Doesn't that seem absurd. When a celebrity tries to follow a nobody, the nobody has to be really pig-headed to allow the celebrity to follow him. I mean, it should be obvious to the nobody that the celebrity profile is actually fake. I took some pains to check out Shahrukh Khan's profile. It had 130 odd followers and followed 1300. Weird, isn't it, considering that at the time of publishing this blog, he follows 49 and is followed by 798,768 people on twitter ? Further, his profile had a single post on Buzz, a picture of him taken out of some glossy, with the text My new look for Don2 So, what obvious steps did I take besides blocking him? I also reported the profile to Google as a fake. It is obvious that someone is using some kind of a crawling script to follow random...