.backspace.

I logged in to this site after a really long time, and saw couple of unpublished drafts. I am publishing them now, without bothering to complete them.

Ever wonder what would happen if there was no back space key (^H) on keyboards? Sigh!

JKRowling: Hermione felt a radio active goo (^H^H^H^H^H^H) magical tentacle slide up her nostrils (^H^H^H^H^H) arm and crack open her skull (^H^H^H^H) emit a smoke shield.

ArthurCClarke: John watched as Bob (^H^H) Betty floated into the cabin. He was always attracted by the way Bob (^H^H) Betty moved in zero gravity.

You may say I am a cynic, but I am not the only one…

Just feeling in the mood for some pseudo random numbers.

78% of the world’s population doesn’t have wealth, strength, intelligence nor character.

9% have only strength. half of which toils and labours for the rich, the other half works as goons.

4% have wealth and intelligence. Well, of course, these are the lucky few in this world. These are the ones that drive the economy. Much like the dancers in front of the groom’s horse. And much like the dancers, they rarely actually care about the horse (or the groom; but then no one cares about the groom anyway).

5% have only wealth. These are the even more luckier ones. They don’t drive anything. They just gawp and/or hire the con-men. (see above)

3% have only intelligence. They are usually the ones who light up a beedi sitting under the mango tree, sip some tea, and feed the mosquitoes.

1% have character. Alone. Character never comes with other freebies like wealth, intelligence or strength. These fellows suffer. But some soon learn that suffering is futile. So they spend their lives trying to get some wealth, intelligence or strength instead. In the process they lose their character and also the suffering. Some simply don’t get it. They persist and sometimes make great speeches or deeds. They change the world. They then die. (Some linger on to decorate photo frames).

0% have nothing better to do on a foggy winter night and thus wear purple glasses with essential pulverisation to give exquisite fragrances of servile safety and marble synchronisation.. gah…. have to … turn off.. the random number .. generator

Short. But not sweet.

You might have read Hemingway’s short story (in 6 words):

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

I saw a couple of other good ones.

Kirby had never eaten toes before.
- Kevin Smith

Computer, did we bring batteries? Computer?
- Eileen Gunn

For more of these, check this.

Here’s mine:

When shall I open the parach…

.the beginning of the end.

What do you call somebody who plants a time bomb and gets out quick?

A smart bomber.

What do you call somebody who explodes a bomb tied to oneself?

A suicide bomber.

What do you call somebody who plants a time bomb, wagers a bet on the quality of the bomb, and hangs around to watch it explode?

An investor.

Dude!

MACSJ0025

No … words.. that.. I can … muster

I am (burp.. excushe me) a little sloppy, perhaps, but I AM trying to be a capitalist

It has become rather difficult for even an innocent surfer to open a random web page and not stumble upon the Tata – Singur plant and surrounding controversy. Today I saw multiple blogs taking pot-shots (here and here) at it and I couldn’t resist it any longer.

So here’s my take on it.

I fully support the stance that Ms Banerjee is taking. (Disclaimer: I am not an avid political watcher, and I don’t know whether Ms Banerjee has a hidden agenda or not. I don’t think this knowledge is central to the argument. And moreover, if the only purported agenda is “to get more political mileage”, I don’t see a problem with that either. Politicians/activists have a life too, you know, and they need to survive, to the best of my knowledge.)

If you are capitalistically inclined, it should be clear to you that this deal was not an open-ended one. The WB govt forcefully grabbed private land and then handed it over to another private party. Instead, in a capitalistic society based on free market principles, the acquiring company, i.e. Tata Sons and Uncles, should have struck a direct deal with the previous land owners.
If in the unlikely circumstance that you are communistically inclined, it should be clear to you that the very concept of a profit-oriented private company is rooted in evil. There is no good reason for the WB govt to hand over land to such a company.

So, does Ms Banerjee really deserve all that flak?

.babel.

Some of my newly acquired acquaintances are really quite quaint. They all have a unique way of pronouncing plural words in English. They use ’s’ instead of ‘z’ at the end.

For example, “Your ice are very red today” .. My what?

“Give me the kiss please” or “I hope you didn’t forget to bring the kiss”

Thankfully, this strangeness is only reserved for plurals. The “please” is still pronounced with “z” at the end.

Then there are are some sounds that they can pronounce that I simply can’t. Such as the ‘zh’ in Kozhikode. I pronounce it like the ‘Ɣ’ in Marathi “kEƔa” (banana) or “bAƔA” (child). But apparently it’s something between my ‘Ɣ’ and ‘d’ and ‘l’. I have tried to make those sounds but I really don’t know where to start since I can’t hear any difference between what I say and what they say. (Even french pronunciation was much easier!)

My misery doesn’t end there, yet. Their intonation, accents are all different. “Origin” is pronounced like “Arjun”. “Does the bag come with wheels” sounds like “Does the bag come widheels”. To make matters more interesting, that last sentence was heard on an STD call, and the speaker was in a running auto-rickshaw.

But after reading about Tonal Languages, I think I am much better off than say a newly married Cantonese man. From wikipedia,

In the most familiar tonal language, Chinese, tones are distinguished by their shape (contour), most syllables carry their own tone, words tend to be short, and many words are differentiated solely by tone. (This is more true in Cantonese than Mandarin.) Tone also plays almost no grammatical role. In many African tone languages, such as most Bantu languages, however, tones are distinguished by their relative level, words are longer, there are fewer minimal tone pairs, and a single tone may be carried by the entire word, rather than a different tone on each syllable. Often grammatical information, such as past versus present, “I” versus “you”, or positive versus negative, is conveyed solely by tone.

Imagine speaking in a language in which the meaning of the word changes, sometimes diametrically, based on what “pitch” you say it in! I think there’s one big disadvantage. You wouldn’t be able to lie easily.

“That dinner you cooked was simply terrific”.

“oh really? huh! Then why did I hear an augmented C minor chord there?”

.depressing.

… and so unfair (

This guy is an MD, who fiddled with biology at the molecular level, was a winter olympic coach, did some space-walks and now some Mt.Everest-walks

Check this out,
Climbing Mt.Everest between space-walks

Expect the unxpected

This game is hillarious:

Oracle

It’s like bash.org getting cosy with Yahoo Answers

Update:
Alright it was fun, before the space monkeys invaded it.

The price “we” pay

For a limited resource with high demand, such as gasoline, the price elasticity of  demand is very high, and consequently can adversely affect the economy. Yes, we all know that, but by how much does it really affect?

This article turns a concept into numbers with a stunning conclusion.