You can enter anytime you like, but you can never leave

The social networking websites bombarded the internet as we entered the new millennium and have being continuing to do so till date. First it was Orkut which made the public go mad (at least in Swadesh) but that was until the cleaner and sleeker Facebook arrived. Just as how there was a social class created amongst the social networking sites in the US where the educated University going people migrated to Facebook from the ubiquitous Myspace, where every layman had an account.

That was the past.

The future is a nightmare.

Facebook is as cluttered as a college going student’s room. It’s got a list of hazaar applications. It’s just the most irritating thing on the planet. It’s got a widget for everything and I mean everything. I get a million quizzes a day which will compare my performance to the three hundred pals’ of mine and then analyse them. Facebook has been minting a lot of money from these. So once you’re fed up of this you think to yourself that I just want to get out of this mess and so you deactivate your account. But here’s the catch: deactivating your account doesn’t delete your profile, which still exists on Facebook’s servers. Quitting it isn’t as easy as you’d have thought. The manual process makes you sweat more that you’d have at those cricket coaching sessions. As this article rightly says:

Mr. Das — who described his plight by quoting lyrics from the Eagles song “Hotel California” that say, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave” — has found himself cast as an unlikely mascot for disgruntled Facebook users. Several of them have found his empty profile and sent him messages, “ranging from Eagles song quotes to those of support,” he said.

I joined Facebook out of sheer peer pressure. Everyday I’d check my inbox and what would greet me were five new messages from my contacts from Orkut asking me to join Facebook. When I finally did, I realised that I had way too many contacts on Orkut, so now I had to accept all those guys all over again and has to confirm how I was connected to them and anticipate their writings on my wall.
I compelled to start-up with a social community meant for people who are sick of all the other communities.

Posted simultaneously at Mutiny.in

Dotted

I had two mutually exclusive discussions with Atin ad Saurya where I proposed the following theory.

Dots make a word/statement profound regardless of its intellectual/factual weight.

For example: The word 'Believe'. Suspended by itself, it doesn't really grab your interest nor would you give it another look if you saw it as someone's gtalk status message. But place three dots in front of it and the word suddenly becomes of super dense and profoundly profound. 'Believe...', there's so much hope and power in that word now. It's almost as the revamped version urges the looker to take action and awakens the activist which lives amongst everyone of us. And before you know there's music in the background inspiring you to the brim

Another example: 'God hates us all', well this just sounds like a guy cribbing. Again place the magic dots and voila!

God hates us all...

This would make an atheist out of anyone.

P.S: Heard it through the grapevine that one of the suggestions for the theme of this year's techfest, APOGEE was Soch...think

Ahoy!

After applying to them for the second time, I am finally on board. I like being part of group blogs. This one puts special emphasis on voicing ones opinions. As they themselves say:

"We don't want a 100 word post that ends with a question."

This is going to be fun.

P.S:The link to the site has been put up on the sidebar under the "Contributor subheading"

Small talk

There's a wheel that keeps rolling. Most of us relate it to joys and sorrows, or rather still, good and evil and so on. Truth is, it encompasses everything, it's just that the spotlight is cast when a particular feature transcends the rest, usually associated with something dramatic. Another rather peculiar observation is that people who claim to be atheists, agnostic and spiritual-not religious also quite regularly use the phrase "Oh god!", "omfg", "For god's sake". The last one of the lot being my favorite for it portrays human nature oh so well.

This week if plotted on a graph sheet, satisfaction versus date, would give a x(power n) function. Hopefully, it continues this way.

The first cycle of the great test fest has come to a temporary halt, with the second innings about to commence in a short while which should give just about enough time to take a bath.
Also, summer is inching closer. I can already spot kutcha clad boys roaming the streets of the campus, welcoming the cool breeze into their groins.

Now for the main news:
WOOHOO!
WOOHOO!

I am going to Singapore to represent BITS -Pilani in the IMS Quotient 2008. The semi finals will be hosted there. We're amongst the top 8 teams out of more than 5000 teams all over India who took part in the contest. Lots of prizes up for grabs. Hopefully we'll put on a good show there as well. This week is going to be expensive, with all those assured treats that I have to give.

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Wish

Please please please, could the couriers and postal department just stop working for the next couple of days.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Lets see!

Not all monkeys are to be worshipped!

Cornered!

Posts by Navin & Abhilash about how blogging might affect the corporate scenario later on made me think about whether blogging is really as impressive as we made it sound.

On one hand, you can use your blog to advertise your products as is exercised by Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin. There is surely a huge market for Viral bloggers out there, but that's when you use it with corporate intentions, what about ones personal log entries where one opines?

What if in the future( or is it being done already) recruiters start to scan your social networking accounts and blogs in order to get a real insight into your personality? Would that be ethically correct on their part? And would it be smart on your your part to go around exercising your free speech and maybe jeopardize an opportunity coming your way( mind you the other way is also possible)?

I can think of anonymous accounts or rather under a pseudonym as a suitable alternative to this issue. The reason I say this is because:

1. While your anonymous, you have the power of choice as to whom to disclose your identity to.

2. You can fully be vocal about your issue without thinking twice about the repercussions as as your corporate life is concerned.

WWF

‘Matches 145, clash!’

‘Oh shit! I can’t believe your Undertaker beat me!’

The melee of card clutching youngsters could be seen everywhere. School buses, corners of class rooms (when the teacher wasn’t looking obviously), canteens and homes. WWE (then WWF) was truly a sensation. In an era when Playstations hadn’t quite become available (leave alone affordable, wait a second, are they affordable yet?) to the Indian market and computer games hadn’t graduated above those that required a RAM of greater than 16 MB (ah, sweet reminiscence), WWE ruled. It was a plague, every kid would clutch on to it as though it were his life savings, religiously following the sport on TV. Cheering the face, cussing the heel and becoming a theist whenever a bra and panty match would take place, WWE had taken over.

The story line would be discussed over the lunch break with enthusiasm far exceeding that of when some folks sit down and chat about which soap had the maximum number of divorces. A difference of opinion would invoke fights of the highest order and would sometimes create havoc and even destroy friendships (and forge new bonds).

I would buy thermocol once every fortnight and would make a virtual table out of it. Then we’d have the greatest of all matches- TLC. The sheer joy of lifting my 12 year old langotiya yaar and pushing him through the chasms of hell and breaking the pseudo table (and hence winning the game according to the self imposed rules) would easily overshadow another moment. Glory indeed!

We would also partially heed their advice, the famous ads where the gods would themselves ask us to “not try this at home!” No kicking, no punching at the “shame shame”. We’d share their joy, their grief during the darkest hour and cheer them, these neo-gladiators with bodies of steel.

Post 2004, I gave up on wrestling. The unbelievable solace that WWF provided couldn’t be matched by the unbelievably juvenile plots of WWE. I didn’t see myself cheering these new stars for they didn’t have the same zeal, nor did they seem loyal to the game. And the old ones didn’t seem the same as before. They seemed to have evolved into something more commercial, someone the fans couldn’t associate with.

Or maybe I grew up.

Analysing Movies

Rachit's post motivated me to go to the supposedly last Recreational Activity Forum ( RA F) movie.

The movie was Shehanshah.

Yes, yes I quite understand. The only well documented fact about this movie seems to be the monologue from the omnipresent savior of humanity, "Rishte mein to hum tumhare baap lagte hain, Naam hai Shehanshah"

But as I sat in the auditorium with several other mourners I realized that the character of Shehanshah is quite a smart chap. Not only has he a good sense of economy, he knows which role to play when. Now this is something lacking in Superheroes and many unsuccessful entrepreneurs.

He is a cunning chap. Police officer in the morning and a crime fighting superstar studded in black (with a steroid enhanced arm covered in silver) once the sun sets. He doesn't shy away from his duties nor does he give up on the money making opportunities that come his way. He takes bribes from the goons and pretends to be the stereotypical police officer, slacking on the job, chewing that pan which seems to replenish its juices on its own. But come dusk and he transforms into this mean crime fighting hirsute machine with an uber cool baritone.

So lets sum up Shehanshah then:

He acts like a lazy bum while on his day job, networking with high socialites and businessman and maintaining contacts and gathering enough information which he later uses to his advantage while he is "bustin' ass" in the night. He's earning decent too, with all those leather briefcases he's acquiring. And well its only fair, crime fighting is after all a job and why shouldn't one demand a compensation for one's services? The great thing here is that he's also portraying a clean image to the public.

And yes he gets the girl as well.

It had always been a curiosity of mine regarding the mode of income of Superheroes.

These are the Superheroes we need to worship, who have a keen eye for a good deal.

P.S: Meenakshi Sheshadri was surely well endowed back in the day.

Fornication to save Rainforests!

People are always on the look out for some innovative ideas. As is the case in most start ups, the primary idea isn't anything revolutionary, its something ordinary, something which makes us go like "Yeah, so?" but what matters is how you implement it.

A Norwegian organisation which goes by a self explanatory name Fuck For Forests(FFF) has sex in public places to raise money for saving the rainforests. Now I was scandalised as well deeply impressed by the idea. On one hand the idea of having sex in public is still a taboo if not unacceptable in most countries. On the other hand they are raising money for a cause.

The idea receives cent per cent on innovation. The reason I say this is:

However noble be the cause, you can't expect to take money from people if you don't give them something in return. FFF gives it target audience exactly what it wants in return for saving the world's rainforests.

They have sex in public, they have sex on stage during concerts, basically they have sex anywhere they can.

After their first year they made nearly 100,000 USD from their website by selling merchandise and membership.

The problem from this sort of start-up can be that they'll be mostly on their own. I don't see any huge NGO (WWF doesn't accept their money) or Govt Organisations coming forward to help start-ups like FFF. The internet proxies will add to their woes. Also their reach will be quite limited as far as on ground activities are concerned, not many countries are that liberal to public pornography.

But despite that they still have a huge base according to me. If your product is good, people will buy it, the same applies to porn as well. They might not be able to have hoardings and bill boards, but I can safely assume that word of mouth publicity for a venture like this can work just fine. Also, I don't think the initial investment for this would've been anything significant.

FFF is currently working on projects with tribes and locals in the Amazon rainforests.

IMS

It was fun.

St Stephens though were brilliant, they crushed us in the next round, the north zonals, which were also on the same day.

The quiz was quite workoutable with some brilliant questions and as such very few questions "hand-picked" from other quizzes. One issue which did piss a lot of people was the emphasis on bollywood of yesteryears which comprised nearly two thirds the quiz. Quick witted Charanpreet Singh, the QM was pretty good and witty though he had a "I-am-getting-late, I-have-to-go-to-office, so-better-be-quick" style of hosting.

Interesting viewpoint: There were so many banners there saying that smarties will fly to Singapore and that to win this quiz you have to be a smartie. Everywhere I looked I could see the word. Smarties was also the word resonating from the compere, who kept on emphasizing the need for IMS for MBA prep. Shuchi suggests that perhaps IMS actually stands for I'm a Smartie, or something like that.

Another ad maybe?

Great ADs in poor taste

Our Stakeholders never miss an opportunity to score!

**** INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE ****

A billion strong or weak?

While having a discussion with my wingies on the eve of a SPM test, I came up with the following hypothesis.

India should become a super in the recent future. People say that India will be a super power second to China. But I feel that might not be entirely true.

Lets consider China's case. What has happened there in the recent years is something of anti-baby boomers. Though people secretly still produce more than one child and don't report it during the census, the overall population growth rate has certainly declined compared to the last census which was way back in 1990.

I feel the next few decades and the immediate times after that are going to be very crucial. China will move into a newer time where they will not have as many young people as they did have earlier. This they will realise only once the current generations comes to age. There are chances of work being outsourced to India instead. Its just a possibility after all.

Yes obviously this hypothesis makes a lot of assumptions some of which might not be quite accurate but all I'm saying is that its a point of view. Reports show that by 2050 India would've overtaken China as the most populated country, and that too if we take official records, in reality, it could be much before that.

According to the 2001 census, about 35% of India is 0-14 range and nearly 60% is 14-60 years. Currently around 75% of the population is below 38 years of age. The numbers are large, it all depends on which way you look at it. It can mean a billion mouths to feed, where as it also means double the number of hands which can work. A billion strong or weak?

Did any of you guys ever own a community on Orkut?

Yes that giant social networking site which has been crushed to rubble by Facebook. I did, and was quite proud of it. It was a community called "IIT Aspirants" whose ownership had been tranferred over to me while I was in my 11th. Watching it grow from a humble 20 odd something to a whopping 9000+ and still growing was quite fascinating and then t mails. Oh the mails. Tons of them. Advice, rankings, validations of facts and the thank-yous. I had for some time become one of the most credible sources for info on competitive exams. Agreed after a point of time I did a sub standard job as an owner courtesy the banning of orkut at BITS last year and thus appointed moderators. However after I log into my account after what would have been 3 months I notice that I am no longer the owner of the community.

I punch in furiously into my google toolbar and find this

The current Owner is some guy called Vendetta(6), the queer part being that he's Cuban. The moderator is some guy whose screen name I suppose is Evil Genius, he's from Quetta, Pakistan and some girl called Kavita.
And these are the related communities

!?