Ressurecting myself from the Rubble of that Past...

Finally I got a new PC. My third machine and yeah this time my kid bro assembled it himself. Specs are not important. It just made me realize the value of my lovely Flinstone aged P4 PC. My kind bro did not delete anything from that PC and so one of the first things I did was to take a backup of all my resources. Well of course a 1TB external hard disk comes in handy :D. So going through the ruins of that PC I found a curious text note called links and I was momentarily stunned!!!. It brought back fond memories of a day when I never knew how to operate a machine and how to grapple up terms like C/C++ and Java. Looking back in retrospect I feel that I had a greater sense of direction then than I ever had in my entire life. Life had a purpose then. The goal of learning for learning's sake and not for achievement was imbibed in my veins. Each and every vein responded in sync to that single desire of learning something new. Achievements never mattered. Hell who cares whether I win or not? Is it not the fact that I learnt that I could use pointers to traverse arrays today when I was using subscripts yesterday more gratifying?.

Thank goodness I found that out. Waking to life is the most important thing that was required for me. From a stress filled day to think about what I achieved!!!,is it not better if I start piecing the links and go ahead. At least I shall cover some ground instead of sitting tight :-). Thank you my dear old PC, you have truly woken me up :-). It was then I realized that in pursuit of something called success I truly forgot what was more important. Self realization dawns and Longfellow comes to my rescue.

Not for enjoyment,Not for sorrow
Is our destined end or way
But to act that each tomorrow
Finds us farther than today..

Yeah he was right :-). Life is not always about that success. It is about that experience. It is about living for the right things, for living without hurting others and for helping when they need your hands and not regretting it later. It is about going forward as a underachieved human being than a successful monster. It is about cherishing those wonderful moments from which we learn and piece together an entirely new puzzle in this amazing world. And finally it is about the joy that comes out of Learning for learning's sake.

Landmark Quiz at Bangalore (Nov 2009) Prelims

Ohh yes, The Noob has been loitering in and around quizzing competitions for ages now. So the day was the Rajyotsava and as goes tradition, The Landmark Quiz 2009 Bangalore edition was held at St.John's Auditorium in Koramangala. We had Dr.Navin Jayakumar as our host. The enthusiasm was palpable. The entire crowd was brimming in confidence. Me and my team mates also saw the usual QFI and the KQA folks and then we realized that definitely we are not going to make it any big there. Of course that doesn't stop us from learning new things or trying out our luck in these quizzes. I'll just post the questions from the Quiz for a lot of folks who did not attend them. These were the prelims questions. Mind you, some questions are not in order. For the nth consecutive time I forgot to bring my quiz notebook and yeah I did feel bad. Of course two tissue papers came to my rescue :P. Thanks to Transit at The Forum ;-). Hmm without further ado, here are the first fifteen questions from the prelims. I'll post the remaining in some time from now.

1) The question was about a treaty that formally came to effect on November 1st 1993 by some European Countries. Treaty of European Union as it is known officially. Also some details were given. My team mate cracked it the moment he saw November 1st. I took some time to decipher that. But we both got the answers right :-).

Ans) MAASTRICHT Treaty

2)After Taj Mahal this monument is the second most visited place in our country and has the second largest number of tourists visiting it. Name this monument.

We got confused by the 'word' monument in the question. The answer was so obvious.

Ans)The Mysore Palace

3)This American sitcom has an ongoing narrative revolves around four children—Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormick—and their bizarre adventures in and around the fictional and titular Colorado town.

The name Eric Cartman was enough here :D

Ans) South Park

4)The question was about a variety of grain which could be stored for decades and was made famous by the Arabians and the Mediterranean Muslims. Some more lines describing the trivia of the grain was also given.

Obviously I know only how to eat and not to think about the food stuff. Turns out that the answer was actually easy if we had guessed properly.

Ans) Durum Wheat

5)What new words were added to the constitution of India during the 42nd Ammendment by Indira Gandhi?

Yeah we found this out. It is not so dificult

Ans) The words were Socialist,Secular

6)Theatrum Orbis Terrarum was a book published in 1570 and first introduced a word in the English language which perhaps was the best word for what was published in the book. The book was published by Gerard cramer. Some more trivia also was there.

We thought it was Encyclopedia

Ans)Atlas and Gerard Cramer was Mercator

7)How do we celebrate Hockey Legend Dhyan Chand's birthday?

Ans) National Sports Day. Also the Arjuna Awards are announced on the same day.

8)This sweetmeat got the G.I ( Geographical Indicator Tag) for it's uniqueness. I have forgotten the exact wording.

Ha ha ha.. I got this answer right. Thanks to Priyanka. Her quiz at the office had that question and so pat came the answer.

Ans) Tirupati Laddoo :-)

9)In 1883, when a printer in Cheyenne, Wyoming working on a regular telephone directory ran out of white paper. What did he do?

Of course you need not be Einstein to figure this out. :D

Ans) Yellow Pages

10)In nuclear weapons, a ________ occurs when the testing of a nuclear bomb fails to meet its expected yield. The reason(s) for the failure can be linked to improper bomb design, poor construction, or lack of expertise. All countries that have had a nuclear weapons testing program have experienced this. What is the one word used to describe that low yield.

Ans) Fizzle

11)This question was related to mythology about an Avatar of Goddess Earth who actually killed Narakasura when Krishna fell asleep just for a moment.

Ans) Satyabhama

12)The question about a species of Elk which was named after an American President.

Ans) Roosevelt Elk named after Teddy Roosevelt :D.

13) Hmm I forgot what question this was.

14)A question about the Hugo award for 2009 and how it was inspired from "The Jungle book".

Ans) The answer is Neil Gaiman for "The graveyard book"

15)The domino effect suggests that some change, small in itself, will cause a similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change, and so on in linear sequence, by analogy to a falling row of dominoes standing on end. This was the Domino Theory of the United States referring to the growing Communism in Asia. Where did it all start?

Ans) Vietnam

I'll post the rest of the questions in some time folks. Needless to say I did enjoy the Landmark quiz as always. Yeah waiting eagerly for the Chennai Edition next year :-).

Ah she does it again!! Chronicles of Rakhi Sawant!!!

This one is for all the folks who tuned in to watch the infamous "Rakhi ka Swayamvar" on TV with great eagerness. The show was an absolute facade!!! Ohh yeah the bharatiya naari Rakhi Sawant has managed to pull it off again. This time she has called off her engagement with that Canadian based guy. Guess What?? Thanks to the media boom in our country almost all the news channels will soon have this piece of shit as "Breaking News" and the so called Sabse Tez channels will have 2 hour shows asking questions like "Rakhi ne aisa kyun kiya?", "Kya Elesh aur Rakhi ke beech mein pehle se daraar tha?" etc etc!!!. Yeah right when the whole country is burning with issues like drought and less rains and looming recession our so called educated media has to offer us only this!!. Looking back I reflect on the media boom and the astuteness of Rakhi to use this as a tool to keep her in the limelight. Any publicity is good publicity and with that publicity comes in a load of opportunities to make good money.

Chronicling Rakhi Sawant might be a really good case study in finding out how the Media creates a somebody out of a nobody. A good for nothing Item girl, she starts her tryst with the television in various reality shows. Makes a name for herself by being foolish!! and yet rakes in a lot of money. Aah how she must be rolling on the floor laughing at the poor folks who watched her on television saying,"Ha ha ha,I fooled you" (*South park style dialogue*). This is what she does, selects a set of folks who have enthusiastically applied to become her husband. Makes fun of some of them very badly on Television. Chooses another guy and then happily calls off the marriage. Yes not before making another show with the guy on how they live together!! Wow. I really should learn a lot from this woman. She sure does know how to make money. I really feel bad for the Indian Public. Do the channels feel that the entire Indian public is foolish or do they thrust in shows like these so that we are left with no choice. I am reminded of the movie called Idiocracy which shows a dystopian future where the entire world has become so foolish and a person of average Intelligence tries to help it. It is so prophetic to watch that movie if you see so many people in this country watching Miss.Rakhi.

No offence meant to Rakhi though. She knows how to still be in the limelight and still make fools of people who watch her. Aah will the entire world listen to a minority of sane voices. It never has and so she will still continue. "And that's the way it is". *Signing off in Walter Cronkite style :D :D *.

We Game!!! Yeah Right I have been spammed!!!

"Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, baked beans, Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam"
-SPAM(Monty Python 1970)

Yeah the word SPAM actually meant processed canned food in the U.K which was the only food product that was not rationed during WWII days. This I believe led to the fact that in every house this dish used to be a regular. Ok now this was parodied in the popular Monty Python sketch that I have mentioned and towards the end Mrs.Bun shouts I HATE SPAM

So you would have guessed that in the early days of Usenet groups some set of folks as usual referred to the junk mail as spam and hence the name.

So much so for history. Here goes the details. I recently received several mails from Wegame.com telling me that XXXXX sent you a photo. Obvoiusly XXXX is some friend of mine. I set out eager to open(of course friends showing off in their photos is not a uncommon thing is it? It happens to me also :P..I love being photographed and then making others look at it also..poor folks :D). Now the site that I went into asked me for a very simple registration process and then later on went to the next page. Now here is the catch. The site seems legit but they ask for your gmail id. Now the comical thing was that I entered a different gmail id. Not the one that I went to the site from and even then it did not verify the email. Now obviously suppose my friend Jack wants to send me a photo, he would send it to my email id 123@xyz.com. Now assuming that is my email id, if WeGame wants to send me more photos should it also not check for the fact that my email should be 123@xyz.com and not 456@zyx.com. Ok so first sign of a spamming site. What was more convenient was the fact that it asked for my gmail id and password. Ha ha ha how easy? My password??? and for what reason do you need my password??( I was skeptic even with LinkedIn asking for my gmail password to check my address book :D :D ). Yeah at this stage I was wary. I typed out "WeGame spam" in google and guess what? I have a lot of folks complaining about it in the blogosphere and any forum that they can rant. Apparently it sends a spam mail to all the users in the address book. Woaa that seems pretty harmless for a site that asks you your email password :D.. Nways I turned my gmail filter on for this new WeGame spam. I hope those who have read this blog shall not surrender to the WeGame spam. :D. Hopefully the mails should stop here. Aah yes "All's well that ends well"


UPDATE: They have still not stopped :-(. Had to make sure that my filters included the mail addresses wegame@wegame.com,mailmaster@wegame.com and what not. This time it is some of my friends who have added me on wegame it seems!!! Gosh when does this end?


Here is the video from Monty Python that talks about spam :-)

Of Indian Movies and that thing called originality!!!

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will

-George Bernard Shaw

I recently saw the trailer of a yet to be released so called action flick named Luck. What I saw in one of the trailer scenes told my brain that I am not going to watch this movie,come what may. That one of my favorite hero's kid is playing a part does not add any value to the movie. Indian Cinema has some very very good film makers like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Mani Ratnam, K.Balachandar, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and these days Kamal Hassan. Their cinemas had a distinct charm and of course that thing called imagination and originality. Sadly it is not the same with all the movies that come out. Most of the movies usually rehash the ideas of a very well known Hollywood movie and package it to the Indian audience. Now I am not against remakes. As Kamal Hassan says even the writing of Ramcharitamanas is a blatant remake. :D. But then in that case we call it Tulsi's Ramayana or Valmiki's Ramayana or Kamban's Ramayana. Whereas in this case the film maker who creates the remake doesn't even make a single mention about the person from whose movie he has blatantly copied.

Coming back to the movie Luck.It talks about a betting syndicate being run by Sanjay Dutt and how lady luck smiles on different folks. Well the trailer scene showed me a picture which is something similar to the pic below

This pic is from a French movie named 13 Tzameti 13 Tzameti is a wonderful French movie which even has a English remake in the progress titled as 13. The previews of Luck never attribute this fact. The director does not even mention any name of this movie. I really don't understand what the director is trying to achieve? Does he think the entire Indian population is so dumb that they don't notice his blatant copy? This trend with Indian Cinema is wide and deep rooted. Some of the remake movies never do well. For instance take the example of a Bollywood movie Chocolate. Very badly ripped of from the classic movie The usual Suspects, this movie was so badly done that it never had a decent run in the box office. Even the latest movie Kambaqt Ishq is a remake of the Tamil superhit Kamal Hassan movie Pammal K Sambandam. The packaging has been good in the bollywood movie. Bring in two Hollywood biggies. Even ask a rapper to sing a song for you and that's it. The movie would be hailed in all the news channels with interviews to foreign actors asking them how good Akshay or Bebo is in the movie. :D. Aah some of them don't even know the names of the Bollywood movies. Ohh here I forget to mention movies like God Tussi Great Ho, Partner which were blatantly ripped off from Bruce Almighty and Hitch. This makes me wonder,"What is wrong with our industry?". Is the talent pool short? Definitely not. Think of a great movie like A Wednesday. That defined how a movie should be taken. It was so wonderful that it prompted Malayalam superstar Mohanlal to ask Kamal Hassan to direct a remake.

Now this trend of rehashes is not going to affect the large Indian population as most of them would not have seen the movie 13 Tzameti. But definitely it brings a slur on Indian Cinemas. The world will look at us as a copycat nation when it comes to original cinema. A nation which has no new ideas and no new scripts.This is definitely not true. We as a nation should stand up to them saying we can bring up more creative movies than them. I think it is time that we start promoting those beautiful movies in regional languages like Malayalam which have produced quality movies. Even Tamil cinema these days is moving towards originality in script. The world should know that Indian Cinema is just not Bollywood but much more than that. After all A.R Rahman and Mani Ratnam are not from Bollywood.. are they?Aren't there many like them who never get the recognition they deserve? Kamal Hassan? Mohanlal? Ohh both these heroes are versatile geniuses. Two folks whose most beautiful movies go un-noticed by most of Indian Media. I also am sad that A Wednesday which was such a beautiful movie never got the recognition it deserved. Well hopefully things change in the future.

Tada!!! Here I come :-)

The vis insita, or innate force of matter is a power of resisting, by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavors to preserve in its present state, whether it be of rest, or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line.

It took a great deal of power and persuasion to at last write something here. Blogging as I see is more of an art rather than incoherent thoughts just put up. As I sit down and key these words in the comfort of my home, I just wonder what it is like to come up with something on the mind that transfers itself to graphics on the screen through a bunch of key stroke combinations. Inertia is one of the most important characteristics that I would love to overcome at this point in time. As my title suggests I would go with the gaming lingo of Noob to describe myself. This I think is the best name that one could give me rather than anything else. I fail to learn anything that is thrown up to me. As I key here I think of the various experiences in life that I can post and that can be useful to a few fellow beings on this planet. Hopefully atleast somebody finds them interesting. As of now it is the end of the first post. Overcame Inertia. So folks.. Tada Here I come :-)