Chronicles of an Eclectic Life

Monday, December 27, 2004

Tarnishing the whole concept of blogging

Ah, Blog! How enthused was I when first decided to be a regular at blogging and reading other blogs to exchange some fantastic ideas! Another step in my ideology of being a perfect man. But nobody's perfect. Bah! I'll try that. Either I'll end up a known name, or an example of overdosage. Now i'm drifting too far from my intended conversation... damn me.

My open criticism to the readers of news-based blogs and curses to them for making them so popular. I ask, if there is any difference between them and forums, or sites like slashdot after all? Just because they're putting it under the label "blog" doesn't mean it still is'nt just a news update. Flashy movie pre-release sites dont' qualify as "blog" either (shrek, incredibles, that made-up lemony snickett antagonist's blog, et al).

Blog means "Weblog". Or as google itself has quoted: "A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world."

And it requires that it be strongly biased towards what you think, not how the world thinks or what happens on the planet (which is put up zillions of seconds accross sites as "news" before you are going to post it). One needs to represent himself. Criticize anything he/she/it finds resentful and ridicule the error-prone world. Be arrogant, be doleful, be showy, be mournful, be sarcastic, be fussy. Talk about your new gadget, your crushes, your observations, your field of intense interest. But be true to your personality.

Do you do that? Are you a true blogger?

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Somewhat like I

The link takes you to a scientifically interesting, and philosophically sad article. About a whale sending out noises in 52Hz range. Whats interesting is that these vocalizations have not matched any other whale species' prints (Humpback, Blue, Fin) and have always indicated a single origin. And that too over 12 years! So chances of us having a deformed whale are eliminated.

What's deeply moving is the thought of the single soul out there in the deep, crying out for company during the past 12 years. And it remains lonely, the haunting voice resonating across the blue seas still waiting for an answer. While the world marvels at its existence, it, contrary to them, wishes that its heart would soon cease and allow it to walk in the land of eternalness.

Eerie and sympathetic. Do I see somewhat a reflection of myself? Because i've found pedants wishing to climb the most elusive branch they find on a tree to wisdom, while I, lone and determined, wish to taste every fruit on every single branch so that I may feel the true sweetness, bitterness and struggles of life.

O' World, hear my silent wails.

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Sunday, December 19, 2004

Aim wikipedia

Joined the very small wikipedia "hindi" group. Link here
Not many pages so far. Most incomplete or just explaining the meaning. This is one chance to redeem myself of ignoring my mother-tounge when it was taught to me, and feeling disgust at myself for doing so later. Large crowds wish to learn, and there should be no such thing as "language" presenting a barrier. And other than that, many other like-minded people to share the ride.

My Wikipedia Profile (in Hindi!)

Let the revival of the structurally stable and phonetically strong languages begin. The extensive works of our ancestors should not remain in the sands.

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Saturday, December 18, 2004

Turning into a lunatic

I'm slowly heading either towards glory or painful nights of silent crying. All this, for, I wish to be consummate in everything I love. Being the eclectic that man I am, everything somehow falls into the category of 'interesting' which leads to further branching of the tree I intended to climb all the way to the top. Then retracing my steps back to the central branch of the tree becomes difficult.
More involving things are encountered, exigent duties come up, frustrating work hovers around, and my life is in a state of entanglement. Am just wondering how much is enough. Maybe I'll end up being a "Jack of all trades, master of none". These types are people are found in ample in small places where they are loved, respected, supported, but due to their inability to develop expertise, they fall into chasm of depression.

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Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Where I am destined for

This is a short piece of literature written about one of the greatest persons since evolution of humans, Leonardo Da Vinci

No other personality was so intimidating, no other career so difficult to encompass, so biographers often resort to the assumption that Leonardo embodied some superhuman quality: "il divino". Vasari (a contemporary biographer of Leonardo) writes:

"there is something supernatural in the accumulation in one individual of so much beauty, grace, and might. With his right hand he could twist an iron horseshoe as if it were made of lead. In his liberality, he welcomed and gave food to any friend, rich or poor." His kindness, his sweet nature, his eloquence ("his speech could bend in any direction the most obdurate of wills") his regal magnanimity, his sense of humor, his love of wild creatures, his terrible strength in argument, sustained by intelligence and memory, the subtlety of his mind which never ceased to devise inventions, his aptitude for mathematics, science, music, poetry. What's more, Leonardo was a man of physical beauty beyond compare."

This teases my nerves. It whispers me to shun the glamour of a material, conspiring life for a higher purpose. Being perfect isn't in my kit perhaps, but I know that I have ample of time to do enough good to the world. I'll be quite satisfied if I get even a tenth of praise of this kind by the time I turn to ashes.

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Thursday, December 02, 2004

Alexander : came and went without whisper

people seem to have clinged on to epic films to make their lost money since the Gladiator stormed the theatres few years ago.
Now it seems, the opposite is the case. So many bad epic movies, and critics have jumped onto each and every one of them, stabbing them for their poor portrayal of historic characters and events.

Alexander was another one to pass by recently. Star cast had Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Anthony Hopkins. Abundance of talent. Just puerile writing and poor direction that sent it to the dumps.

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Top of the Blogs

Its been time since I've clicked on the little interesting-looking links on the home page of blogger under the "Blogs of Note" category. Here's a quick personal review of those (with a very limited vocabulary):

SciFiDaily - interesting. takes on movies, updates on cast&crews, all this from an intelligent perspective.

Core77 Design - heavily built, with lots of futuristic stuff to gawk at. Links are good help.

From the Floor - Somebody wrote a book on how he cheated in Casinos, and if that wasn't enough, decided to release a blog about it. I don't find it interesting in any sense.

Na-No-Blog-Mo - myriad of links relating to blogs tailoring together a novel. confusing and useless until and unless you know specifically what you're in for.

Dinyahloreng - kept by National Service(Malyasia) Trainees. Pretty much a bland experience.

Pop and Politics - Updates from US political scene. No relation to "pop" whatsoever. I think only reason this blog is in the list is because it has a whopping 31 contributors! I think only their regular visits would be enough to get its count high. The blog is crap. Right now, I see same blog posted 5 times on front page. As if that doesn't indicate the quality.

Pixar Animation - dedicated to the work going on at Pixar. Nice and clean. Moreover, there's no Pixar Employee involved. I'm quite sure to follow it.

Our Man in Hanoi - Good detailed journey of an (seemingly) altruist guy workig in Vietnam for KOTO. Lots of emotions spoken and praises made, but still tends towards being ordinary somewhat.

Sox Yankees 2004 - utter crap. don't know how baseball season update for the Yankees could get you in limelight. The man has posted no history, nor dedications, nor any long debates. I guess U.S. of A. folks really are brain-damaged when it comes to baseball (or American football).

That does it. Many of the blogs are uninteresting enough that a beginner would leave blogging instant he/she touches it. I'll just have to say that there are enought of peanut-sized minds to make the world a dull and unproductive place.

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Saturday, November 27, 2004

Day of Doom coming near

heh heh.
Its going to be one twisted tale. I will be getting my hands on HL2 (G-man Edition) on Monday. And my papers begin a week after that. And my preparation is none whatsoever. And my heart wants to leap into the world of Gordon Freeman until the experience is over.

Will I be able to immerse myself in the most realistic 3-d FPS there exists, or will the hounds of chemistry hunt me down and force me to remember those ugly formulas and conversions?

Stay tuned for more. Only on this blog.

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nice walkthrough

came accross this: http://www.recordholders.org
Quite nice way to spend your time. These people are brillaint(mentally or physically).

Now, let me attempt to calculate 13th root of 100digit number in 22 seconds...... gonna take time. please be back in few months.

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Monday, November 22, 2004

hooray!

This person, sent me my first blog-mail. Lots of thanks. Anyways, I should still consider that my blog is in a state of obscurity as he might have stepped on it by mistake.

This really shows the pathetic stage my blog is going through. Like the great wonders that lay buried/hidden deep in the oceans of the world.

Okay, now I'm saying too much. I'll just continue to write from my heart, and lets see how everybody responds to that.

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Search Engine are the most thrilling (apparently)

Yesterday, our computer teacher, had to lose her nerve over the constant chattering going on among the backbenchers of our class. Add to that the level of technical illeteracy my fellow classmates have. And all that led to one of the most exciting and bizzare description of "Search Engine" technology. Here it is, the whole transcript. no editing.

"Yes, students, be quiet. Now we move on to Search Engines. These are special websites or softwares created to help you search the internet.
As you know, the internet is also called world wide web. And on that web, there are special spiders. There are many types of spiders out there. For example robots, etc.
A spider's job is to report back the links.
Now when you search, for example, go to google, and type Visual Basic [she pronounces it Vijual. sic!], it would return you some links. What happens is that at the instant you press the 'search' button, all these spiders are let out on the internet. They travel really fast. They perform a scan of the www and return the links. The page which has most of the matching words will be displayed at the top of the list and so on."

She has to be on drugs to throw up that definition. Does she even know how the technology works? Searching the net would take thousands of years on a single PC. Hell, even all the efforts of Search Engines, combined has been able to index 30 or 40% of the Internet. God save those aspiring Computer Engineers!

I'm no UltraGeek so far, but even my short virtual span has not gone without understanding basic underlying technologies.

If anybody wants to know more about Search Engines, go to the conventional place for wisdom here

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Had to post these separately

Brief History of Contra - Contra! a happy part of my childhood memories. On retrospection, I can recall it as being the first game I played on my personal TV Game System, the Sega Little Master. I was thrilled when I took on the role of Bill and got the "S" power, and proceeded to shoot down everything evil around me in first round.

Complete story behind HL2 development at Valve - not even hardcore followers of the game must be knowing some of the wisdom in this piece. Valve definitely dug up their grave around 2003-end. But now they're flying in the success of HL2, the same game that brought them death threats an year ago.

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Weekly roundup of some links

Not necessarily fresh but surely interesing...

Wallmart storing terabytes of personal data - Alarming/Scary article. What in case there's a grand and successful attempt to obtain that data? What in case it gets mixed up?

Riding Through Chernobyl - Instant praise for Elena after reading this. And sad feelings abt the Chernobyl incident float up again in the mind. This was done long time ago. Elena's in for another adventure these days in telling us about the history of Kiev's fortifications

How Half-Life is a religion - To me, yes it is! No other game has been able to incorporate so many concepts and characters ever. But considering something which is under control of mere mortals a religion would be too naive.

History of Raven software - Must've been written quite a long time ago, for the games avaiable today are still under development as according to the article. Nonetheless, it provides a fascinating reading about the evolution and initial work of Raven Software and their strong bond with id software. Raven is busy developing Quake 4 at this time of the year.

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Just says it right

This is one of the most hilarious cartoons I have come accross lately:
Year of the Monkey

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Something to regularly look into

Anagrams are the greatest things! The genius makes up the most interesting of words from a bland passage. Being in touch with those would only help.

Usenet Anagrams Group: alt.anagrams
The best of Anagrams: Anagrammy Awards

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As Sigmund Freud describes me

Acc. to Sigmund Freud, I have an Oral Fixation and Anal-Retentive Personality.
Some study on Stages of Psychosexual development revelas that fact about me. Should I be alarmed?

The link: Freud's Psychosexual Stages of development

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I tend to forget

Sorry, once again, my dear blog (and those who follow my blog regualrly...nah, nobody does). I again turned my back on my virtual manifestation for the past few days.
Just consider that so many of my revolutionary thoughts have gone into oblivion...only if i would've padded them or put them up here.
Anyways, just like before, I again vow to keep the postings up-to-date. And this post will be followed by many in a matter of minutes.

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Thursday, November 11, 2004

Realising the Importance

The shocking incident of the most astute and optimistic friend of mine commiting suicide still creates ripples in my heart. The question of "WHY" beats louder than ever, and will so for the rest of my life. I've never seen a diamond lose its brilliance this quick. A snap and its all gone. Ah the Devil!

But its a moment of realisation that somethings can't be taken for granted, especially friends. Being the closed character my friend had developed himself into, slowly, over a couple of months, was his cause of giving up. After our school days together, distance grew to some extent. The regular monthly or bi-monthly hang-outs or online parties were there, but that wasn't something to replace physical interaction. His life grew darker. He cocooned himself more and more. And one day he found there was nobody to insipire him, rejuvenate his lost spirit, and make him realise the amazing precision with which life injects its doses of love, laughter, tension, anger, guilt, etc. A lonely soul scared from the planet, and whose heart cannot bear the self-assumed defeat went on the wrong track for all the wrong reasons.

The tears in his eyes, the last words he said, the last regrets he expressed, the last love he spoke of, the memories he recollected, the chaos in which he committed the ultimate sin.............................

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Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Remorse forever

Death, it seems always shows its ugly face to me. Instead of seeing it as a continuation beyond the celeberation called "life", I have formed opinions of it being the most distressing and depressing thing that could break you apart forever.

First to go was my Uncle's Father. Brain dead in a horrible accident.
Next was my pet Cocker Spaniel Ben (I), short for Ben Hur. The most tragic of deaths. Choked to death in my vehicle which was like an oven during the summers. I'll love him till the end of my life.
And yesterday came the shock. One of my best friends had committed suicide.

Out of nowhere did the news strike me. Like a spear through my heart. Defying any logic. The most prudent, astutde, shrewd, professional person I had known had succumbed to a moment of the devil. One whose thoughts resonated with mine, and the one our group always looked up to is no more. Shower all praises on him, and you still would be looking for more. He was consummate in every action and dedication of his.
I cannot convince myself to feel sad about him as there was nothing wrong or tragic going on in his life. Tears are hard to flow down as there is a feeling of absolute anger for the life he wasted. Lately I am not aware if anything that might have happened to the extreme, but it couldn't be that big in any possibility, that it would drive him to suicide.

May he R.I.P. My heart will always cry for him. Its sad that the planet lost one of the very few revolutionaries.

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Thursday, November 04, 2004

One hella Democrat

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/election2004.jsp?feature=ne_election5

the pic of jubilant bush along with his wife, when put to closer scrutiny revelaed it had been uploaded originally as "asshole.jpg" (now, after few hrs they have changed the pic name). that's one freaked out, angry democrat who was responsible for uploading the file.

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