Non Creative Fiction

This blog is closed

2008-07-09T02:19:00.000-07:00

I'm not blogging here anymore. Havent posted a thing for years, still feedburner shows 7 regular subscribers. Wonder who they are....

I've started a new web comic:
Fly You Fools - An Indian web comic about life and it's irritations.

You can subscribe to the feed at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/flyyoufools

See you there....

Fly You Fools - An Indian Webcomic about Life.

iPhone Spoof

2007-01-20T04:44:00.000-08:00

Link to Video

In Hyderabad...

2007-01-15T06:21:00.000-08:00

In Hyderabad, you dont fuck with the chickens...

from hpk

from gaurang

... the chickens fuck with you.

Innovation

2006-11-10T05:29:00.000-08:00

Innovation is the e-

Fakest shit ever

2006-11-10T01:19:00.000-08:00

The old radio show calling cheating husband/boyfreind trick, this time with fake Indian accents.

Link

"Wife" talks with a born-in-US accent and "husband" talks with a white-dude-imitating-Indians accent.

Husband's name is Raj but wifey calls him as Raj(sh) <- same pronunciation they apply to Taj Mahal's J part, which is impossible to write.

How hard is it to find fake Indian names??? It's always Raj isnt it... Wife's name is Jasmine!! What is this Alladin? Fuck it, but in 27 years of living in India, I aint never met any girl name JA(Z)MIN.

Why Macs suck

2006-10-27T05:30:00.000-07:00

Most excellent video about Macs and their suckiness.

Author of Dilbert

2006-10-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

Scott Adams lost his voice to somthing called Spasmodic Dysphonia, and manages to rewire his brain.

His blog post.

Gaaa!!

Shawshank Redeption Rap

2006-10-23T23:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.jibjab.com/great_sketch_experiment/video/shawshank

Nice.

Steve the man..

2006-10-22T02:08:00.000-07:00

What sound does your wallet make when you ~~are duped~~, invest in a Mac?

Link to Video

No time for nuts

2006-10-21T00:35:00.000-07:00

The Ice Age squirril (or whatever it is) returns and does some time travelling..

Scrat - No time for nuts
Uploaded by Juraya

Link to video

It starts early....

2006-10-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

Link to video

Forces of Evil

2006-10-12T02:47:00.000-07:00

Original photo by Gaurang on Flickr.

You've got comments!

2006-10-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

Google seems to have bought youtube for 1.6 billion dollars... so from now on we'll see Google ads on youtube pages, which isnt too bad since we were seeing Google ads on youtube for the last couple of months anyway.

1.6 billon dollars!! Goddam!! Back in the dark ages, Microsoft used to buy out companies which made cool OR competitive products (a very strict OR application here), now it's like if it's cool, Google will buy it, unless Yahoo buys it first, think Flickr (they were talking with Google too back then... MS also). So instead of buying youtube Microsoft actually made their own video sharing site, I think it's called SoapBox. Like MSN Spaces, it too is probably used by full time employees only.

So anyway, youtube is now GooTube, YAAY!

This is not about the buyout though, it's about the sheer amount of user submitted content on individual -popular- content. The whole point of sharing a video/photo/blog post is to get views, comments and feedback. That may well be the whole point of all these Web 2.0/Social/Rounded rectangle sites. To share: Give and Take.

Danah Boyd says:

On MySpace, comments provide a channel for feedback and not surprisingly, teens relish comments. Of course, getting a comment is not such a haphazard affair. Friends are _expected_ to comment as a sign of their affection.

Furthermore, a comment to a friend's profile or photo is intended to be reciprocated. It is also not uncommon to hear teens request comments from each other in other social settings or on the bulletin boards. In MySpace, comments are a form of cultural currency.

boyd, danah. 2006. "Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace." American Association for the Advancement of Science, St. Louis, MO. February 19. [Link]

Think comments on blogs, scrapping on orkut. And forget Teens! Everyone likes comments. We pimp and hawk our content for more views, more comments, more favs, more linkbacks... more popularity. These are the popularity currency of the second version of the Web.

That's right we DO pimp our content. "Hi, NICE blog post, I feel the same way about it, please check out my totally cool blog post about it, over here" "Hey y'all! Check out my new photos from the superbly awesome road trip over here, here and here."

We're looking for more views. More comments. And we're hoping other people would be going so crazy about our content they'll mail all their freinds about it, and we'll get more views. More comments.

All this is fairly obvious.. the only problem being most popular sites dont seem to have a mechanism of handling this feedback very effectivly. The Digital Inspiration Blog says the most popular YouTube video is this: Evolution of Dance.

It's been viewed about 33.7 million times. It's been faved by 85,000 people and there are 10,642 comments on it. Views and Favs can be handeled. It tells you this be popular. Very Popular. But how do you handle 10,000+ comments?? For that matter how do you handle 50 comments?

Earlier avtars of youtube used to show all comments in the same page as the video. As more and more people signed in and started commenting, later versions showed a few, and you could view all after clicking on an ajax powered link. Now they've just put in a separate page for ALL comments. Gets ridiculous though... >20 comments dont make sense at all. I just pulled the number out of the air.. it could even be less.

And most of the comments are same - "Cool stuff dude!", "Really nice video", "OMFG! I wish I could do that" etc etc. A large percentage would be spam "Check out this totally cool site", "Make money sitting on your ass at home and answering surveys!! I got 1,000 dollahs last week!! This is not fake!!" And the rest are racist comments "Only you fat american bastards would spend so much time on this crappy video! America sucks ass!!" etc etc..

And what's with the racism on the internet??? Is it that the new internet is putting content generated by the common man available to the comman man across the globe? Is that it? Is it the fact that after looking at USA through the telly, and all those beutifull people on the telly, the fact that every american on youtube/flickr seems to be way too fat is too much of a shock to non Americans?? What's with the anti American comments on youtube?

For that matter, what's with the anti Indian comments? I mean... they've been seeing a distorted view of India on TV since forever... and on the internet the most popular India related videos are just reinforcing the same thing. Bollywood spoofs, 70's C grade telugu movies, Dr Rajkumar singing a fucked up song in English... Terrible, terrible stuff that will kill even a pure bred Indian raised on a healthy diet of bollywood trash.

A recently popular India related video on the internet was some old south Indian movie (I'm assuming it's C grade or worse) song which is a copy of Micheal Jackson's thriller. Of course, the total movie budget was 1/10th the price of Micheal's latest nose job, so the costumes and makeup are horrendous. So is the music. So is the dance. Everything is terrible. It's something you watch and die laughing or of shame (whichever is first).

But this was too much of a India-Racist-Comment bait. Here's some comments..

THATS WHY FOREIGN PEOPLE ARE ON THIS PLANET FOR OUR ENTERTAINMENT PLEASURE
Can u fuckers be more ignorant?
faggots, please nuke India
Indians are officially the funniest people on the face of the planet. THe only thing that makes it funnier is that they all think they are awesome actors and dancers and take themselves soo seriously.
who the heck would pay to produce this thing? It totally made my top 10 most wierdest internet videos. Kalimar, mar, mar, mar, mar. Hehe, crazy indians with their curry and stuff.
JESUS VISHNU!! Go eat a cow dipped in rat sauce you fukin dotheads LOL!!!!
WTF These are the same people who answer you tech questions when your computer crashes

What's with the hatred dudes?? These arent the same people who answer the tech questions when your computer crashes... these are cheap ass actors (or at least NOW famous actors from their starting days) doing a cheap ass movie shown to a public that couldnt care less if the original song was thriller or if the zombie makeup is good quality or not. The tech question people are regular educated young people and they dont go dancing like crazy, taking themselves all serious and shit. Though they might be >>EATING<< curry, they might even be eating cows.. but not in rat sauce. [Here's the link to the video on break.com]

Coming back to the comments overload problem. Popular content does not just have comments... it becomes a discussion forum. Positive comments get mixed up with racist talk, positive criticism gets mixed up with viagra peddlers. Someone needs to fix this thing.

Websites, can we have something like a classification system? Sounds lame I know... a viagra pimp wont file his comments under MISC/Spam, but maybe some type of basic classification. Some better content management.... threads? Please can we have threads?? Someone replying to a comment from 10 scrolls up doesnt make any sense. Tagging anyone? That's so early 2006ish, but still...

And please please please.... No generic drupal interface. Free is the new ugly.

The Classics !!

2006-10-06T05:48:00.000-07:00

Some of the worst movies one can watch are in the imdb top 250. Here's a few I have suffered:

5. Casablanca

Was this the most cliched movie ever, or did the cliches evolve from this movie's popularity. Doesn't matter now. It's an hour of over acting and cliched misery.

12. One who flew over the cuckoo's nest

This movie could well be the prequel to The Shining. Jack N is not crazy but happens to be in a lunatic asylum and gets some women and booze in for the other inmates... one of which kills himself. Yawn.

19. Dr Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

Long title for the movie which is supposed to be the funniest movie of all times (By Americans). It's not funny. Peter Sellers is overextending himself by playing three roles.. and the sentence "Gentlemen you cant fight in here, this is the war room" is humorous, but NOT good enough to make it the funniest movie ever. And I know critics would be shaking their heads right now and saying I missed the subtleties of the cold war humor and multi layered sarcasm etc etc. Fuck all that, if I am not laughing during/after the movie then it aint funny.

21. Citizen Kane

It's at 21 here, but supposedly this is the best movie EVER. PERIOD. I'd say its the worst example of American propaganda. EVER. PERIOD. Citizen Kane is the worst movie! The soviets and Chinese used to have propaganda movies of soldiers and the youth of the country marching etc etc but Americans produce one-man's-struggle-against-the-rest-fucked-up-sagas. This is right up there with Atlas Shrugged, another piece of literature I hate.

64. The Shining

It's not a bad movie. Just that the novel was actually scary. Still I wouldn't say it's bad, just that it aint AS good.

103. Donnie Darko

Damn it's a dark movie. Weird, depressing dark.

108. The Great Dictator

Is it just me or do others also find Charlie Chaplin unfunny. Ok ok fine, look he's dressed as Hitler and playing football with a globe, yes yes very nice metaphor.....

127. Monty Python: Life of Brian

Supposedly the funniest movie ever made (according to the English). The monty python series were brilliant, genius and totally absurdly funny. Their movies are totally unfunny and just sad to watch all that talent being wasted.

And the good movies:

1. Godfather
An excellent movie. A more than excellent movie. I wouldn't say the best movie ever, but the most PERFECT MOVIE. That's different from the best.... it's just perfect.
(5 stars)

2. Shawshank Redemption

Not a bad movie, again the novel was better and if you have read the novel than that kills the suspense anyway. But still the movie manages to be interesting, even if you know the story. That's why its a good movie.
(3 and 1/2 stars)

3. Godfather 2

Umm.... it's also good. At least since the third part sucked so much.
(2 stars)

4. Lord of the Rings - Return of the King

All three LOTR were kick ass and can be watched over and over again. And I would've been watching them over and over again, but one mean bastard took my Director's Extended Edition 9 DVD set and hasn't returned yet.
(5 stars)

6. Schindler's List

Good movie... although Holocaust themes have started to be overused by now. But the way the movie is shot is brilliant. And it's black and white.
(4 stars)

9. Pulp Fiction

If Godfather is the perfect movie, the pulp fiction is the PERFECT WIERD MOVIE. It's been called the best movie ever too. Probably NOT by the same group who called Citizen Kane the best movie. This is a great movie.
(5 stars)

14. Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring

Same as 4.
(4 Stars)

Other great movies below 15:

17 The Usual Suspects ***
18 Cidade de Deus (City of Gods) ****
32 Fight Club *****

37 Apocalypse Now *****
45 American History X *****
63 Reservoir Dogs ****
65 Saving Private Ryan ****
66 Sin City *****
93 Kill Bill Vol 1 *****
100 Full Metal Jackets ****
105 Crash ****
106 Fargo ***
113 Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) - Anime ***
178 Trainspotting ****
193 The Big Lebowski *****
228 Lock, Stock and two smoking barrels ****

So, do people actually like watching movies like Citizen Kane, The Fountainhead and Three Colors ???? Or is it just cinematic snobbery to appear elite?

Feed update

2006-10-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

Just a note: If you're subscribed, please make sure the feed is coming from Feedburner.. Few reasons... Blogger's atom feed doesnt seem to be coping too well with Windows Live Writer and all these photos come scattered all over the place.

And the second, more important reason: Feedburner's got some feed stats. It massages my vast ego to see that my subcription is into double figures now. It's only a matter of time now that I bring in the Google ads and then it's Goodbye 9-to-5 naukri.

Here's the URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/saad

Tourists

2006-10-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

Now what?

2006-09-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

Mutton Eaters

2006-09-26T01:56:00.000-07:00

"Mutton-eaters cant play garba", says this article in Hindustan Times.

The Shiv Sena has warned Muslim youth not to participate in festivities — particularly the dancing — during the nine days of Navratri.

“We may allow Muslims as onlookers, but on the dance floor, strictly not. That is forbidden in Hindu custom,” declared a statement in the party mouthpiece Saamna on Monday.

“How can you allow mutton-eating youth inside a temple during such a holy period?” he told HT, when asked to explain the logic of the ban.

*Sigh* If only these people would leave their mutton chomping habits for a measly 9 days, they might be eligible for a most excellent time dancing round and round all night.

-- from willem velthoven

But they just cant leave their mutton alone. The SS didn't say anything about chicken though. Colonel Sanders will be pleased... or KFC outlets in Mumbai might get ransacked every year during Navratri.

Another cool quote from the news article actually made me laugh out loud... it said:

“This is not the party’s stand, it is Jaiswal’s individual opinion,” Saamna executive editor and Member of Parliament Sanjay Raut said in Mumbai. “We are not against all Muslims, only against those who don’t love India and obey the laws of the country.”

LOL! Yeah let's not let those who don't love India, partake in this most excellent all night dance extravaganza. Those mutton eating, India hating, commie scum.

-- from hpk

Garba was a big deal back in NID. You'd have non-Gujratis practicing for weeks and every night there'll be people from other institutes (IIM etc) coming in. Supposedly NID garba is famous there, for the same reason the non-dancing NIDians end up on the lawns there. The reason being, women:

-- from ratri

-- from amrita b

And all were welcome. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis (Yes there WERE Buddhists and Parsis). In fact I remember one notice from the administration saying, Please consider the fact that outsiders come during these ceremonies, so please dress and behave accordingly and do not smoke.

Nowhere else could you find a bald headed, pierced face girl dressed in a backless choli and traditional gujrati dress smoking weed and talking filth. Too much of a cultural shock for non-NIDians.

Technorati Tags: garba - nid - gujarat

Got Dignity?

2006-09-25T02:02:00.000-07:00

Some would say this is a terrible, some will say they're terrific. Behold the Business Bib for people who work from their home.

What the web cam will see

What anyone else in the room will see

How it'll look being used by normal people
(i.e. who dont look as good as the sculpted model above)

-- from businessbib

Liberty

2006-09-21T08:54:00.000-07:00

Apologies to "Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC", known to his friends as Dickie. [1], Edwina [2] and Prime Minister Nehru.

Photo by the Master of the "Decisive Moment" - H.C.B.

If you're going to San Francisco...

2006-09-19T03:55:00.000-07:00

.. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there

For those who come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there
In the streets of San Francisco
Gentle people with flowers in their hair

Gentle people and extra long Stretch-Limo-SUVs stuck on the curvy roads.

[Original Article]

Musically possessed child prodigies

2006-09-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

He may be still wetting his bed but he can play a mean beat on the drums

[Link to youtube]

And this other kid MOST certainly wets his bed, but he can also, most certainly move his ass on the dance floor.

[Link to youtube]

Holy Crap !! What the hell are his parents feeding him? Milk and Speed?? Baby food sprinkeled with Ecstacy powder???? Satan's milk????? I wouldnt want to be near him when he's grown up... I wouldnt want to be near him NOW.

.com shadi

2006-09-18T02:17:00.000-07:00

From this post by AlooTechie

An 18-year-old Muslim girl who fell in love with a Hindu boy on internet has fled her home in Britain against her parents' wishes and married him in India.

Link to original news article

Nice story and it had been 1999 it would've made the newspapers but such things are common now.

Reminds me of another such internet wedding. This guy I knew met some girl from Iraq on the net. They talked regularly and I guess fell in love. So one this the guy leaves for Iraq without telling anyone from his family and went underground for a few months. No mail, no call no nothing.

Apparantly he had gone to talk to her parents and get married. Few months later he shows up back in Delhi, unmarried and rejected. Life had no meaning for him... for some time... then one day the girl arrives unannounced and ready to get married (against parents' wishes). They get married... and all is well for some time.... till her parents show up unannounced!

They threaten, police is called in and it's an international diplomatic incident. Then all is resolved and parents go back to Iraq, scorned.

Then all is well for some time. Then the girl goes back to Iraq to visit parents and convince them to get unscorned. She probably succeeded because she comes back with 75,00,000 rs as a gift from daddy. They buy a house and live happily ever after.

The next day, the rest of his gang get their computers hooked up, and take to searching and chatting with NRI women full time.

The vast global shave controversy

2006-09-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

Edit: There's some problem with the feed and it's only publishing a part of the post. Visit the blog for the whole thing.

It all started with a google ad about Gillette Fusion. The latest ~~razor~~, nay, "Shaving System" comes with not just 5 blades on the front, but two "trimming blades" on the back. The brings up the total to 7! Now anyone who buys this and still feels he's not being taken for a ride needs to reduce the number of blades to ONE, and slit his throat with it.

Let's go back to the beginings of the conspiracy. You'll excuse the spelling mistakes and the lack of hyperlinks to support every little detail, the links will be provided at the bottom.

Our great-grandfathers, when they woke up in the morning used to hack away at their man hairs with a straight razor.

These were also called the Cut Throat Razor.. for self explanatory reasons. But to paraphrase Douglas Adams, "In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri."

They did the job well. Needed to be sharpened on those leather strip things and came in handy for self protection in countries where the Second Amendment didnt apply. You can still buy these razors in some places, your local grocery uncle shop does not stock it though. Or you can buy this very fine example of a gentlemans' accesory from classicshaving.com for only 400 dollars American. That's right, 20 thousand rupees Indian.... do I hear a few throats being cut?

But no matter how manly our forefathers were, nobody likes to get their throats cut early in the morning, and Mr Gillette invented the safety razor, to ensure that the men of the day can live with uncut throats and actually end up being forefathers, instead of being... DEAD.

Now here's where the conspiracy starts. The thing that makes a safety razor different from a cut-throat is not only is the razor shielded from the skin (only the edge is out), but you can change the blades when the old one dies out. You dont have to sharpen the damn thing before shaving.

A good business model also. The old cut throat once sold, remains sold. The company doesnt get any more sales from a buyer. Now in a safety razor, you get to sell the razor, then there's a constant demand of blades. Good business for Mr Gillette, good convinience for the shaver.

And for some time, everything was well in the world.

But how long can a good thing stay good... and pretty soon saying that even safety razors werent safe enough, we have those twin blade cartridge systems with both blades facing the same side.

They ruled for some time... with the disposable razors as an added convinience. For the price of a old fashioned blade, you can have a one piece disposable plastic razor. Sounds convinient, except for the terrible quality of blade, the extremly terrible quality of the plastic and the fact that this puny little block of plastic doesnt feel as deadly... as manly.... as solid as the old fashioned full metal safety razors.

This was probably the dark age of razors... and people of my age probably started with these as their first razor. First shave with these plastic babies and many male adolescents would have been asking God, WHY?? Why this curse on the male fraternity?? Why must we endure such pain and skin burn and cut pimples??

But things were to get better... as the smart people at the Global Gillette company had a few more innovations in this most excellent morning-hair-cutting-actuvity. This might, or might not, be related to the fact that the even smarter people at the Global Gillette's Sales Division has realised that the sales of their disposables had plateued and like everyone else in the world, they too are money worshipping whoremongerers.

Then came the Gillette Sensor! A brilliant design with twin blades mounted on springs that would easily glide over any uneven outgrowth on your face. Less cuts for sure, and they say a closer shave. I will now repeat this phrase, please pay attention, it will be repeated at every new invention from Gillette. The sensor "shaving system" gives you less cuts and "a closer shave".

Spring loaded blades = Good invention
Results in closer shave = WTF! HOW?

It sold out! Everyone bought one. I bought one. It was nice. The only problem being blades were expensive. One blade was more than a hundred rupees, dont remember the exact price. And yes, none of these "Shaving Systems" are backward compatible, so if you were suckered into buying an expensive dual blade "shaving system" your spring mounted super expensive blades wont fit into that. Suffer, sucker.

So when the Sensor sales platued out on Gillete, they came out with another invention. The Sensor Excel! Bravo... the same spring mounted dual blade system, but with a strip of "MICROFINS" at the bottom, which suposedly raised the hair to get a..... you got it, "closer shave". Shaving is getting closer and closer by the minute now, blades however keep increasing in price.

Similar situation with the sales again, and BEHOLD!!! THE MACH3!

Not only was it spring mounted for a "close shave", it had *gasp* three blades! And not only did it have "microfins" for a "close shave", it had a strip of goo on the top which will moisturise your skin and do all kinds of things like fade out when the blade is gone (or sales plateu again).

So even if your blade is working fine but the strip fades out... throw the blade and buy a new set of expensive blades. I assume the blades are made out of steel? What dies first... steel or goo? Hmm.... I remember the ad for this... some fighter plane going around and a voice over saying "YOU take one stroke, it takes three" then some dude with a face that looks like its been waxed with boiling hot wax is there with a smirk on his face and a woman lovingly caressing his freshly "close shaved and auto-moiseturised" cheeks.

All in all this was a good "shaving system". The head swiveled, which was suposedly a feature, but I never got used to it. The only thing being, blades were too damn expensive! Around 350 for a pack of 2 blades. Remember it's not just a pack of two blades, it's - 6 blades, 6 springs, 2 moisturising goo strips and around 8-10 microfins. That's a lot of stuff for 350 rupees. One should be gratefull.

After some time they released the Mach 3 Turbo, which was the same shit in a new bottle, but had ONE more microfin. That's right, just ONE more microfin. And I bought it too. I bought all of their shit except Mach 3 Venus Divine, which was meant for women, or extremly sensitive men.

Not to be outdone, the competition had already launced Quattro 4, which had, YOU GUESSED IT, four blades. All in the noble cause of a "closer shave". At this point there was a public outcry about a razor "Arms Race" with Gillette and Wilkinson trying to outblade each other and The Onion came out with a article (link below) about Gillette's CEO saying, Fuck it, we're making a 5 blade razor. Little did they know Gillette also subscribed to The Onion's RSS feed.

They released the Gillette Fusion with 5 blades. Fusion it's called... Fusion of WHAT??? Five blades?? Here's the marketting blah about it:

'the combination of adding more blades and narrowing the inter-blade span creates a “Shaving Surface” that distributes the shaving force across the blades, resulting in significantly less irritation and more comfort'

A shaving surface you say! The sheer force of 5 blades running across your face will create a force field (Bernoulii's principal perhaps?) for the distribution of "shaving force" !! Just shoot me already! At this point I realised they will never give up until we end up with something like this:

Camps

2006-09-13T05:38:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Gaping Void.

If you cant laugh at others, who can you laugh at.

In other unrelated news... I open up a magazine - Living Digital and the article about Barcamp Delhi has 4 photos, 2 of which were "liberated" from my Flickr account. No credit, no nothing, definitly no money. They were crappy photos anyway.. but this magazine is interesting.

This and this photo taken

Instead of the usual naked centerspread of a fine lady, they have a centerspread of a fine lady with an ipod or some other mp3 player.

Nice! Being geeks and dorks, tech people can drool over the ipod, while the rest of the world can feast eyes on the fine lady.