Null Bit Me

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs10. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at Rs10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buy at Rs20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to Rs25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey let alone catch it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers.
Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at Rs35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell it to him for Rs50.” The villagers squeezed up with all their savings to buy the monkeys. Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!! !! -

*_Welcome to the Stock Market!!!!!_*

I wonder how do people make commitments to develop a particular technology in 3 years or 5 years. This would be new stuff, right? You cannot plan it in a MS Project sheet, right? A lot of it is unknown, right? Then how does someone make a commitment that their technology will be ready in so and so time.

I presume, as the time approaches nearer, competitors arrive and ensure that timelines are met more or less. Also, I guess the actual developers start putting in insane hours at work… nothing that affects the guy who actually made the commitment, right?

I love being the first one at the STOP sign. For two reasons.

1. I am usually the one who made a lot of people stop. In the NCR region, it’s very rare that people stop at a red light. So when I stop, I piss off a lot of people, but make them follow the rules.
2. When the red light turns green, I get a chance to zoooomm.. away, leaving everyone behind far far away.

Now what does this say about me?

How do you do?

How do you look like?

Will I keep you?

“After six, there is seven. After Sivaji, there is heaven“

“If Sachin hits, it’s a sixer. If Sivaji hits, it’s a stretcher“

“If you cross Chittoor, there’s Katpadi. If you cross Sivaji, there’s a dead body” (Say it with a Tamilian accent :-))

Got any more of these??

I tend to blog when I can see too much work coming my way.

I want to run… but there’s no place to hide. The next few weeks are going to be hell

Yep… “Fighting for Chairs” is another name of the game that people usually call “Food Courts”. I suddenly see too many of them nowadays. In malls, in big restaurants like Haldiram’s and small road-side restaurants. When road-side temporary establishments do this, I’m fine with it. But when these moneyed chains do it, it sickens me. They charge the same as everyone else or more. And they let in as many people as can enter in their obscenely huge shops with very few chairs and tables. It’s totally up to the people to fight for them or eat while balancing their food on one hand. Perhaps the only differentiating factor from the road-side vendors are that they give you air-conditioning. But then the road-side food tastes better

Lots of events seem to give me the impression that I am a little too weird. And when I see so many people happily jostling for standing space in a super over-crowded Haldiram’s, I get a little more sure that there might be something wrong with me. But I will be what I am. When it comes to dining out, it is restaurants that direct me to a proper table, or a road-side vendor. Fighting for food and tables and chairs are not for me.

Though my gut feeling says that food courts are the future… with the amount of profit these guys must make while having almost no costs in managing customers. Once you set up a food court kind of joint, it just raking in the moolah all the time I gotta learn how to cook.

[UPDATE: The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!]

Early morning… you get a link to the Gender Genie. You try out your latest blog posts on it and the Gender Genie identifies them as … grrr…. female… WTF!

I’ve subscribed to “Cricket Zone with Krish Srikkanth” recently in Bloglines. I got the link from Amit Agarwal’s blog. However, I see an interesting thing happening. The feed that is displayed on Bloglines misses random words from the post. And this happens with each post. So even though I can see most of the posts, I have to browse over to the post on the original website to read it properly!

I’m wondering if this is some new strategy being tested by Google to increase ad revenue from Blogger blogs. Well, it isn’t working that well I think. Because I’m pissed off, and I’ll unsubscribe if the next post doesn’t read properly from my feed reader.

If God created women… I wonder who created men. Because if God had created both of us, we’d all be brothers and sisters! I don’t like that!!

I’m hoping it was a guy in a galaxy far far away… maybe we men are all descendants of Darth Vader

May the force be with us

I just installed the latest WordWeb Free Version. I never read license terms, but for some reason I did today. This is what stood out:

You may use the program free of charge indefinitely only if

• You take at most 4 flights (2 return flights) in any 12 month period
• AND you do not own or regularly drive an SUV (sports utility vehicle).

I was stumped Read the complete license at http://wordweb.info/free/licence.html.

It’s nice to see software spreading awareness about global warming.

This post by Ideasmith that linked to further posts by other women suddenly made me want to understand why did men want to marry virgins. Let me try to think like different males of different ages and lets see what I can come up with:

1. Damn, she’s done it before me I don’t want to marry her. I’ve lost the race. [This applies to a guy who's not done it yet and is extremely competitive]
2. Aw shucks… what if she starts comparing me to the other guys…. and I am not good enough [This applies to a guy with low self-esteem and would especially apply to a guy who's never done it]
3. What! She’s done it before. She’s got no morals. What if she does it with other men after marriage. I can’t marry her. [This applies a guy who doesn't understand the power of love]
4. If I meet one of her ex’s and he reminds me of their time together, I won’t be able to bear it. Wah! [This applies to insufferable romantics weak-hearted men some men]
5. She must have become “big” down there. I’ll never be able to fill her and satisfy her. [You need to grow up kiddo]
6. She loves to do it too much. What if she can never have enough? She’ll wear me out and still not be happy [Go out jogging every morning...]
7. She might have STD’s. Why take a risk? [The ever cautious idiot]
8. She might find me too small and make fun of me

Ok… that is all I could think of. Please don’t beat me up. I just needed a break from work and something to get me to blog… and sex is usually a good topic to get out all that rust All these came from all the discussions we had when we were in school and later.

Sometimes age is not enough to grow up.

http://friends.imagini.net/vdna.php?uid=10122-2cb9&srv=iwebhd5

Check out your Visual DNA at http://dna.imagini.net/friends/

I’ve been spending wasting some time playing Multiplayer Cricket at www.zapak.com. And I’ve realised one thing… most people are just plain arses. They quit the game when they don’t get to bat first. They quit when they are losing. They quit if they can’t score a couple of balls. They don’t reply back when you try to chat with them. They’re just a pain. The people at Zapak must find a way to throw out these guys. I don’t think I’m going to play again at that place

But a wider problem still remains. Why are people like that? Why do they have to be so selfish? I expect most people playing cricket at Zapak to be from the Indian subcontinent. Are we in this region such asses generally?

UPDATE [31/Jul/2007]:

THIS  POST  IS  OBSOLETE  NOW

A couple of days back, a (lazy) friend asked me to suggest him some digital cameras that he should consider while buying. And he won’t give me any specifications because he has no idea what to look out in a camera

Anyways, I just spent about 2-3 hours evaluating a few cameras and sent him a long mail. I thought all that research could be useful to other people too. So I am reproducing the mail (with relevant edits) below. I hope it is useful to some people.

Disclaimer: I am NO expert in cameras. But then most cameras are not bought by experts! So what follows is a very naive review of some shortlisted cameras using information that I found on the Internet.

First of all, I shortlisted some cameras which had the following features (that I would consider mandatory for buying a digital camera). But before that I had to narrow down brands. I decided to choose the following brands which are (I think) easy to get in India:

1. Canon
2. Kodak
3. Nikon
4. Olympus

Then I made the following conditions manadatory before I shortlisted any digital cameras:

1. It should be a 6 MP (megapixel) camera or more.
2. It should have video capabilities with 640 x 480 @ 30 fps.
3. It should have a good optical zoom. I love 10x optical zoom cameras
4. The price of the camera should preferably be within INR 20,000
5. The LCD should preferably be 2.5″

Using the excellent search features provided by Digital Photography Review, I shortlisted the following cameras:

1. Canon A710 IS
2. Kodak EasyShare V610
3. Kodak EasyShare Z612
4. Nikon Coolpix S4
5. Nikon Coolpix S10
6. Olympus SP-510 UZ

After going through all the brochures/specifications etc. from the official sites, I have ranked the cameras as follows. PLEASE note that the ranking is in decreasing order of preference (i.e. I have rated the first camera listed as the best). In addition, I have listed down the salient features of each camera in a *decreasing* order of goodness.

So here goes the rankings (clap clap :-)):

1. Canon A710 IS
   - Image Stabilization
   - 7.1 MP
   - Focus: Macro: 0.39 in.-1.8 ft./1-55cm (WIDE) [This was the best among the reviewed cameras]
   - Shutter Speed: 15-1/2000 sec. (settable in Tv and M) [This was the best among the reviewed cameras]
   - Aperture: f/2.8-4.8
   - 6x optical zoom [This was a tiny disappointment. I would have loved a 10x-12x optical zoom here]
   - 640 x 480 @ 30fps (or 320 x 240 @ 60fps)
   - Memory: SD/MMC
   - ISO: Auto, ISO 80/100/200/400/800
   - AA batteries (also AA-sized rechargable Ni-MH battery)
   - 2.5″ LCD (115K pixels)
   - Flash: Normal: 55cm-3.5m (W), 55cm-2.5m (T) Macro: 30-55cm (W-M)
   - Look at photos taken by this camera
2. Olympus SP-510 UZ
   - 7.1 MP
   - 10x optical zoom
   - Focus: Super Macro Mode: 1.18” – infinity (3cm – infinity) [You can take photos really close to the object]
   - Digital image stabilization [Note however that this is not real image stabilization]
   - ISO (AUTO, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 2500*, 4000* (* approx. 3 Megapixels))
   - Aperture: f2.8 – f3.7 (adjustable in 1/3 EV step)
   - Flash: Wide: 14.8 ft. (4.5m), Tele: 11.2 ft. (3.4m)
   - AA batteries (4) (630 images per charge)
   - Take pictures in low light conditions with Bright Capture Technology
   - 2.5″ LCD (115K pixels)
   - Shutter Speed: 15 - 1/1000 seconds, Bulb
   - Memory: xD-Picture Card™ (16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512MB, 1GB or 2GB) [This is not very good since these memory cards are used in extremely few devices and hence cannot be reused or borrowed from or lent to friends]
   - Look at photos taken by this camera
3. Kodak EasyShare Z612
   - 640 x 480 video @ 30fps with stereo sound in MPEG-4 upto 80 mins. [This is real good. I wish more cameras had MPEG-4 videos. You use up only about 1/10th of the memory compared to the normal videos in other cameras! If videos are very important to you, choose this camera.]
   - Image stabilization
   - 12x optical zoom
   - 6.1 MP
   - Aperture: f/2.8-f/4.8
   - Memory: SD/MMC
   - High resolution viewfinder (230K). 100% field of view.
   - Flash: wide: 2.0–15.4 ft (0.6–4.7 m) at ISO 140 ; tele: 3.9–8.9 ft (1.2–2.7 m) at ISO 140
   - Proprietary Li-Ion Rechargable Battery.
   - Shutter Speed: 16 to 1/1000 seconds (adjustable in 1/3 EV step)
   - macro wide: 4.7 in.–2 ft (12–60 cm) [This is bad. Close-up photographs at short distances will not be good.]
   - Look at photos taken by this camera
4. Nikon Coolpix S10
   - Image stabilization (with Image Sensor Shift and vibration reduction)
   - 2.5″ LCD (230K pixels)
   - Focus: macro: upto 1.6″
   - unique swivel design [This is unique to Nikon. I like it.]
   - 6 MP
   - 10x optical zoom
   - Memory: SD
   - Aperture: f/3.5
   - ISO: upto 800
   - Proprietary Li-Ion battery (300 images per charge)
   - Look at photos taken by this camera
5. Kodak EasyShare V610
   - Extremely small and thin
   - 2.8″ LCD
   - Embedded BLUETOOTH
   - 640 x 480 video @ 30fps with stereo sound in MPEG-4 upto 80 mins.
   - 10x optical zoom
   - 6.1 MP
   - Memory: SD/MMC
   - Shutter Speed: 8–1/1200 sec.
   - Focus: macro wide: 2.0 in.–2.3 ft (0.05–0.7 m)
   - Flash: 2.0–11.2 ft (0.6–3.4 m) at wide, ISO 280 ; 2.0–10.8 ft (0.6–3.3 m) at tele, ISO 400
   - Aperture: f/3.9–f/7.1 at wide, f/4.8–f/8.0 at tele [This is the ONLY reason why I rate this camera so low down. I think night photography will be awful with this camera.]
   - Look at photos taken by this camera
6. Nikon Coolpix S4
   - unique swivel design
   - 6 MP
   - 10x optical zoom
   - Memory: SD
   - AA batteries (2) (290 images per charge from alkaline batteries)
   - Aperture: f/3.5
   - Focus: macro upto 2.5″
   - 2.5″ LCD (110K pixels)
   - Look at photos taken by this camera

Now we can’t forget memory prices which will have to be bought. The memory prices being quoted at JJMehta today are as follows:

SD Card: 512MB - Rs. 995 ; 1GB - Rs. 1750 ; 2GB - Rs. 2750
xD Card: 512MB - Rs. 1500 ; 1GB - Rs. 2250

Well, that is it. Please do remember that I am no expert in digital cameras