Shabda's Home

Agiliq: Django web development

2011-10-13T16:59:00.001+05:30

You can find me now Blogging at Agiliq.com where blog about Django Web Development.

Peacing you with answers

2008-10-04T11:00:00.009+05:30

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

--Friedrich Nietzsche

My friend Gaurav Kochar ask some interesting questions, and ask to "Blast me with an Answer". Here is peacing with answers.

1. Why has never a single politician or even his PA died or even get hurt in any of the blasts.

A. Why has any person whose name starts with ZFS not died in the blasts. Innocent people of our country have died, how would politicians dying make this better, (or worse?). Unless of course, you are implying that the politicians are behind the blast and have prior knowledge.

2. Muslims say that because of a few terrorists their community is suffering a bias. Why has not even a single Muslim ever tried to educate their rotten head brothers.

A. "Why has not even a single Muslim ever tried to educate their rotten head brothers." ^{[Citation Needed]}

I am a Hindu, and have been trying to educate my rotten head hindu brothers, most of the time it does not work.

[PS. How is each Hindu my brother, and each Muslim, a Muslim's brother?]

3. How is it so easy to distribute anti-India posters in the capital of India itself. And why no action is taken against the community that does this.

A. Agree, extremely strict actions should be taken against all such activities.

4. Why did our HRD minister come in defense of the Jamia terrorists even without any proof of their innocence.

A. [You mean Jamia ~~terrorists~~ University.]

Per our constitution, and accepted legal precedents of Innocent until proven guilty.

5. Why does the governance body forget about martyr M C Sharma but remember about the bloody Sohrabuddin.

A. Not only the Government, but we the citizens need to remember, both the sacrifices of Martyr M C Sharama, as well the state sponsored fake encounter of Sohrabuddin.

6. Why does only Modi and Advani get life threats whereas none of the politicians from the governing party are threatened.

A. Umm, what does that prove?

7. Why does our home minister give more importance to his attire in a state of national crisis.

A. Agree, Shivraj Patil has been a failure as a Home Minister and needs to be shown the door. This is a failure of an indivdual, and to an extent an error of Judgement on part of our PM. It has no further meaning in larger scheme of things.

8. Even after 5 blast incidents in last one year there has been no stringent law in place.

A. "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. - -- Benjamin Franklin ".

There are basic civil liberties granted to me, a free citizen of my country, "Innocence until proven guilty", "Right to appeal to a court of law", "No detention without charge". Laws such as POTA and TADA take away these basic liberties, and have a long tradition of being abused. I do not trust the State/Police to use them with resposibilty, without a system of check and balances, and judiciary oversight.

What we need is better/more stringent application of existing laws, more cordination between intellenence agencies, not more laws.

9. Even a common man knows what goes on in a Madrasa, why does the government prefers to keep mum over that.

A. Agree, wheverver anti national/anti peace teaching are being taught, they need to be dealt with firmly and decisively, whther they happen in a Madrasa or a Shakha.

[End of snarky answers]

Islamic terrorism is a problem which our country needs to fight. The answer to it is more voices of reason, not another brand of extremism.

The aim of terrorists with these blasts is not to kill people, but to fight a psychological warfare. And if we start mistrusting people, where one of my countrymen is "guilty until proven innocent", the terrorists have won. Please do not let them win, the stakes are just too high.

Our product launch treat!

2007-07-09T15:22:00.001+05:30

We built Orale Property Manager, PN.M

2007-01-18T20:01:00.000+05:30

Our president asked?
What should we do to free our planet from terrorism?
And everyone, including kiran bedi, leander paes and seri ravihakar answered. Read it here

Myer-Briggs Personality test for programmers

2006-12-14T20:42:00.000+05:30

Wanna know what type of a persion you are? Myer Briggs is a standardised, and widely respected personality test. Test yourself.And then, as the Oracle said, know thyself.
BTW, I am an Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging. Oh but I knew that already.

My favorite programming joke

2006-12-14T20:03:00.000+05:30

Programming Joke? Is that the joke? Well, no. We geeks can be funny too.
When Shakespeare asked, To be, or not to be?, he did not provide the answer. But programming can. Well the answer is FF.

2B |~ 2B = FF

Explaination:
2B hex = 00101101
(bitwise NOT) 11010010
---------------------
(bitwise OR) 11111111

I am participating in nanowrimo

2006-11-08T22:29:00.000+05:30

What is nanowrimo?
NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is a creative writing project originating in the United States in which each participant attempts to write a fifty-thousand-word novel in a single month. The project was started by Chris Baty in July 1999 with 21 participants, and has been held annually in November since 2000. Despite the name, the project is now international in scope. In 2005, 59,703 people participated and 9,765 were declared winners, each having written at least 50,000 words. The cumulative word total for all participants in 2005 was 714,227,354 words.
From wikipedia

Since in next two years I have to write two movels, (have you read my todo yet? Previuos post.) It was necessary I start. I have far too many half written novels none of which have been completed. Possibly a deadline will force me to do so.

My Progress

My long term goals!

2006-11-08T21:21:00.000+05:30

My long term goals
Apart from the second last one, every thing's pretty achievable, won't you agree?

Been busy lately

2006-10-15T20:08:00.000+05:30

Working is really a lot of work! No, really. Its not like college, where you have all the time in the world to goof off. I have been so busy that I have not been able to write in a month. Now that means something.
But I have been busy with more than work. Read a lot. Shopped a lot. Its amazing what a shopaholic suddenly having a lot of money can make you. When you get from getting 3K a month to 30K a month, you really get mad and buy everything in sight. Bought a bike. A red APACHE. Am I elated.
Oh and parting, what Have I been doing/reading lately,
http://www.bloglines.com/public/Shabda8
http://reddit.com/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shabda
http://del.icio.us/shabda

Clueless government=Blogs banned

2006-07-18T20:53:00.000+05:30

Ok there is no doubt about the fact that the government has been trying to shutdown blogs. I mean come one Mr. Government, did you even ask your security experts about the feasibility of this block. Do you really think that by cracking down on number of Blogging sites you can stop communication between terrorists? Oh no, those poor terrorists, they can't even afford a domain name.
Heard of something called proxy? Oh, forget that I asked. Do you even know that Blogger alllows posting by email. Heard of Wordpress MU. It allows anyone to set up their own blogging platforms. What are you trying to block.
I know the terrorists are dumb people, but are they dumb enough to post their communication to public blogs?
India has 1.2 million bloggers, but I guess they donot count. Right? Miniscule minority.
I wonder who gave a such a order. Probably some babu sitting in some nondescript office, who just heard the name of blogs and email. Tossed a coin. Heads I ban blogs, tails I ban email. I guess we should be thankful that the coin landed head.
But who am I kidding? Blogs have been banned. Means you can't read my blogs. How do we fight this stupid legislation.

Finally, just the updates,
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/060718indiablock/
http://groups.google.com/group/BloggersCollective

India restricts access to blogs.

2006-07-18T19:06:00.000+05:30

I donot know how much of this is true, but there are some disturbing signs.

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/07/blogspot-blogs-banned-in-india-read.html
http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c.php?leftnm=11&bKeyFlag=IN&autono=3095
So India joins the illustrious leage of China, Pakistan and other Dracon-law countries. However I am still able to acces my blogs, My stats show that I am having a number of visitors from india, so erm not sure if anything like that has been implemented.

Just a blog II liked.

2006-07-13T18:43:00.000+05:30

Sometimes you just come across a blog entry which you are forced to acknowledge. A post so good that you must step asiede and say "Dude, you rock". http://aphrosh.spaces.msn.com/blog/cns!406153B977C7BE5
is an open letter to the Mumbai Blast terrorists. And man, am I touched?
Salute to you Mumbai. But salute to you too Bombay Brat.

We are not Hindus and Muslims or Gujaratis or ....
WE ARE MUMBAIKERS (Bombay-ites, if you like).....
The city has simply dusted itself off and moved one - perhaps with greater vigour.

Amen.

Waiting for the next big idea

2006-07-01T16:23:00.000+05:30

It has been two weeks since I have been in Hyderabad. What do I need in my professional life for success? I mean, I am intelligent, hardworking and blah, blah, blah. But then I guess that is not enough.

I blog I read yesterday commented on the futility of waiting for the next big idea. I had always believed that an idea can change your life. An idea – and lo you are an billionaire. An idea- Google - and lo- you are Larry Page. And idea- databases- and lo you are Larry Ellison. But then, idea is important, but even more important how you execute it.

In unleashing the ideavirus, Godin mentions how important ideas are. But ideas are cheap. There are just too many good ideas out there waiting to be implemented. Codd gave the idea of databases. But Ellison’s implementation of it made him famous and rich. The idea of visual interfaces existed for a long time with Xerox-Parc, but M$ implementation of it made Gates the person he is today.

Waiting there saying that you do not have the correct idea is just another way of saying that you are lazy.

Now I have all the qualities for huge, huge success. Idea is not a prerequisite. I am unwilling to accept that luck is a factor.

Hmm… So what is missing?

How to get me to like you in 15 seconds?

2006-06-24T18:40:00.000+05:30

I guess a public blog is, well, public. You write it coz you want it to be read. Right? Might be, but I really get bugged when some one wants to see what I am writing untill I have completed writing. But then, every one does.
But I am even more private with my (public) blogs. I never, never tell anyone about the fact that I blog. If you get to know it, it wont be from me. So whenever someone tells me that they have read my blog, I take an instant linking to them. Like in 15 seconds you own me. It has happened before and it happned recently, and I guess it has beeen a while since I blogged so you are stuck with this boring blog,......, for now.

Hardwork and intelligence.

2006-06-08T15:22:00.000+05:30

What can you be more proud of? Being very hardworking? Or being very intelligent?
Notice the question is not which is more important for success.(Intelligence most would agree).
What can you take more pride in? The fact that you put in 120% of your effort into whatever you do. Or the fact that you have a IQ rating of 150. I guess most would agree its hardwork. After all intelligence was what God gave you. Hardwork is what you bring to the party. In fact, I would go a step further and claim that hardwork is only thing for which you can be proud. You look better than Tom Cruise or are smarter than Einstein. I guess that is God’s handicraft.
So, I always wonder, what is with people always trying to prove that they did not have to work hard for what they had achieved.

Me: Hey congrats on your success in examination.
Other Guy: Oh! That is nothing. That is nothing. I really did not work hard for that.
(Implied: Oh I am better than Einstein. Its just that I do not have the time or could have Unified Field Theory tomorrow.)
Well I never claim that I am any different. It’s just that I always wonder.

Another loosely related question which I always grapple with is how do you define intelligence? And how do you define hardwork?
Hopefully most people would consider me reasonably intelligent. I am OK at studies. Can read complex tomes, understand huge mathematical formulae and even solve an occasional Sudoku. But go back a thousand years. The skills which make me intelligent today wouldn’t be of any help. Intelligence then would have been the ability to make tools, maybe to find the paths deer take and to predict if it would rain tomorrow. I guess I would be classified as pretty dumb then.
Hardwork, on the other hand, would be defined the same way now or a thousand years back. It is now, as it was then, the ability to put in your best. Every time.

(No) Reservations against reservations

2006-06-07T15:19:00.000+05:30

Before you stop reading further and decide that I am opinionated, confused and ask my caste affiliations, let me tell you what this post tells.
I am not against reservations, per se, even caste based.
I am against this reservation policy (27% for OBC).

Why reservations, per se, even caste based are not wrong?
The most scathing and persistent attack against reservations has always been that it is against meritocracy. Respect to meritocracy is a worthy goal, which all of us should subscribe to. Yet there is one higher principle which I subscribe to Greatest good for the greatest numbers. Caste is a reality in India. Whether you believe it or refuse to see it backward castes are disadvantaged. Someone recently described India’s economy as an enclave economy, with 200 million marching towards globalization while 800 million get left behind. It is the responsibility of our government to see that it does not happen.
“Reservations do not work. They have failed to create an equitable society in last 50 years”, I hear you say. Reservations have not worked as nicely as we would have liked them to. Yet what other options do we have? Should we just sit back and and hope that social inequality goes away.

Why this reservation policy is a bad idea?
If you are reading this blog I am sure you would have read a million reasons why thy are wrong. Blogosphere is out and out against reservations. So I will not ramble much on that. Still.
22.5% for SC/ST + 27% for OBC+Other quotas. Means less than 50% for every one else. But more importantly, the government, and for that matter any one has no idea what is the percentage of OBCs in our country. And what is there demographic. I guess before this bill is put before public the it is the government’s responsibility to get the required data.

My papa and branding building.

2006-04-16T20:52:00.000+05:30

What is a brand?
From wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand
"In marketing, a brand is the symbolic embodiment of all the information connected with a company, product or service. A brand typically includes a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images, fonts, color schemes, or symbols. It also encompasses the set of expectations associated with a product or service which typically arise in the minds of people."

What is the symbolic embodiment of Shabda Raaj? Shabda Raaj is me. Shabda raaj is the blogger who blogs at shabda123.blogspot.com. Shabda Raaj is the webmaster of www.grinhost.com. But consider who is Ashwini Kumar. Lets ask google. http://www.google.com/search?q=Ashwini+Kumar. Hmm there are just too many of them.
You want a name which is easily brandable. Notice it is Google and not TheBestSeachEngine.com. Notice it is Linux or Windows and not GreatOS? What was the last unbranded site you visted, unbranded thing you used. Heck, it is lux, nirma, wrangler, lee, not theSoap, Uncrushable jeans or anything like that.
If your name is something generic, Rahul, Raj, Tina, Geeta, anything generic, it is just too difficult to brand it. There are just too many of them. Ask google who is Rahul. It tell you 1 million results found. But ask it who is Shabda Raaj. Yes buddy I am first result on that. I am the only result on that.
You want your name to Symbolise you. You want your name to be brandable. You want your name to be Google, Orkut, Shabda.
My papa was a damn intelligent man. My papa and branding building.

Ps: What is the point of all this? Nothing. Just that I am branded. You are not. Live with it.
Pps. If your name is Ashwini, Chill. Rohit, awadhesh, Kishore, nothing is branded. Just Shabda is.

Blogging 101.

2006-03-12T14:10:00.000+05:30

With a year of blogging experience and the supposedly the wisdom that comes with it, let me give share my experience with you.

Why do you want to blog?
You might be a budding writer wishing to let the world know how your imagination can soar, or you may have a hidden journalist hidden within you fighting to come out. Probably you know more that everyone about the dietary habits of people of shire, or might be you just want to tell every one how your last vacation was.

Who is gonna read your blogs?
If you take the pains to write, what fun it would be if no one read your blogs. Before you start writing, think! Is there an audience for what you will write? Is the niche already too overcrowded with writers? There might be a huge audience for blogs about iPods, but with millions of people writing about it, what chances your blog has of getting popular? Will writing about the latest gossip in your locality be a better idea?

Where are you gonna blog?
To start blogging you will need to choose your blog provider and platform. www.blogger.com is the foremost blogging platform today and it is free. You may want to host your blog yourself; wordpress from www.wordpress.org is most suited for it. www.wordpress.com offers free wordpress based host. There are some other options but these are most popular.

Who are your visitors?
You need to track your visitors, see where they come from, what browsers they use and how they find you. Tracking your visitors is important as it tells you what your visitors like to read about, and help you in optimizing your blog. www.statcounter.com provides free invisible tracking, with very extensive results.

Brand yourself.
No matter what blogging tool you use, it will come with a set of default templates. Your visitors will be sick of seeing the same template over and over. Change it to something more original. When they are reading your blog they must be aware of it. Get a good logo for your blog.

Ping, link, comment.
When you update your blog, ping to blog tracking services so they may index your upadated blog and visitors find you. Link to other realated blogs and they will link to you. Visit other related blogs and leave a comment. Generally people will come to visit your blog and if you have great content a large percentage will be hooked.

Most importantly, have patience. A popular blog takes time and effort to build. So many people leave midway. If you follow these advice, and put in some effort, your blog will surely get popular.

I turned enterpreneur!

2006-02-18T01:31:00.000+05:30

Well almost. I and Shishir have started a web hosting business. If you can call it business. We are providing web space for free at www.grinhost.com.
If we are providing free web hosting, how am I going to pay for it? And I am not showing ads on the website of people who host with me. But basically what the terms of my hosting are that you have to be regular on our forums, where we discuss about web hosting, god anything. How exactly we make money is a bit of secret, but we show ads on our forum. So if you ever wanted to have a website, come on over, we dont just give you web space, well also teach you how to design a website and everything related. Even if you donot want to host, just come over to wish us luck in our endeveour.

#define SUCCESS_to_ME

2006-02-01T00:00:00.000+05:30

What is success to me? Is it making a million dollars? Or is it getting a secure 9 to five job? Or is it marrying a girl of my choice and live of farming and fishing?

I want to be rich, Very, very rich. It is a pretty materialistic view of success but then that’s me. I want to be pretty powerful. Power doesn’t have that charm for me. But still I must be able to do some things foe the people I like, and to destroy (for lack of a better word) the people I dislike. And then I want to fall in love. Yeah, yeah I know that happens once a week, but then the girl too should reciprocate. That’s success.
But then don’t I want to do anything for my country, the society, my family and friends? Is that not part of being successful? Yeah. That is what I want to be rich for. My country, family, friends. So that I may return the love bestowed on me. I don’t want riches; just to enjoy them. I want them also so that I may use them to create wealth for my country.

recipe for sucess?

2006-01-31T23:25:00.000+05:30

What is the personality trait that separates the men from the boys, the winners from the also rans? Its not hard work, for then a truck driver would be pretty successful. Its not even intelligence. Enough unsuccessful people have it. Its not luck, for luck evens out in a lifetime.
My papa says its perseverance, and I would agree, but perseverance to what? Perseverance in spite of failures. To not be afraid of loosing and failures. To keep on pushing in spite of them.
Its the desire and ability to rush in where angels fear to tread. The ability to risk failures, fail and rise again. Loosing the battle but not ones heart. To rise from ashes, phoenix like.
In a lifetime, heck even in day, you cannot always win. You win some, you lose some. So if you are afraid of loosing, you are not going to try and you have lost already.

2006-01-27T19:21:00.000+05:30

Shasanka's blog:http://beanengineer.blogspot.com/

Testing BlogJet

2006-01-24T16:01:00.000+05:30

I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It's a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination." -- Albert Einstein

Going to KGP

2006-01-17T18:38:00.000+05:30

Tomorrow I and the whole gang is going to IIT KGP. For Spring fest, the best fest in these parts of countary. Euphoria and many other bands. Full time music. Cool girls.
About half of the people from our class are going. So its gonna be real fun. More of a picnic than a party. And I am getting last minute thoughts about going. To go or not to go that is the question.

Make money selling text links on your website.

2006-01-12T00:42:00.000+05:30

Before I go any further, I must warn that this is a shameless plug, containing affiliate links.
[shamelessplug]
Do you own a website? A blog? Will you sell some advertising space on it? Have quality content and visitors? Yes! Then you may be missing a chance to make some money.
Sites exist which will get advertisers to advertise on your site. You obviously have to split money with the site which gets you the advertisers, but it is a fair deal for the work they do.
The site I use to get ads is linkworth. To sign up visit the partners tab, and you will get advertisers to show ads on your site. You will get 50% of the advertising revenue. And you can make some more money by getting other webmasters to sign up.
How does this help the advertisers?
There are two major benefits. The advertisers receive pagerank improvement and free customers.
UPDATE
Another one I am using is

2006-01-05T22:05:00.000+05:30

Vacations finally got over. A reasonably nice vacation, What with the goa trip and all.
Ah Goa. Beautiful beaches. Good scenary. Better babes. What more can you ask for. Especially after the last part?

2005-12-06T18:14:00.000+05:30

After a long time I again started learning client side scripting, Javascript. And again I met the big enemy, the bane of all web designers, the great devil, M$. I mean how brain dead browser can be. CSS support which would have been better had it not been there. Javascript which kills it. And to think that this browser is the most popular.
Why cant M$ make better browsers? Come, on if forefox can comply with standards, if Opera can, why cant M$? And then they wonder why M$ is loosing the battle with google.

TheRecordBreakingDomainName

2005-12-05T13:57:00.000+05:30

Earlier I had posted about how a guy(Andreas Kello) wants to make millions using a simple and crazy idea. The idea is that he is selling a domain name for 7.5mil dollars. By buying it, you are breaking a record and generating instant pulicity for yourself. Without futher commenting on merit of this idea, let me get straight to the point.
Today I got a mail from Andreas telling me that I have won a thousand dollars from commenting at his site. But that ,obviously,is payable only when the site gets sold. Oh God! Let there be one crazy billionaire who sees this site and buys it, so I may get my 1000$. Ha ha.
But what is the possibility of this happening? Hmm. Is the marketing hype, if there is any generated by it worth the 7.mils. No sir. But what if a crazy bilionare sees and is intruiged by the idea?If I had a 100million dollars would I buy it? No. If I had a billion? Might be.

Exam over and I am yet living!

2005-12-02T19:10:00.000+05:30

So finally exams got over today. Ill pass in all subjects, hopefully. Obviously I was not expecting to do any better, what with stopping studying midway through the semester. Doing everything except studying, even during the exam.

Saurav Ganguli and the Indian Cricket team.

2005-11-27T00:00:00.000+05:30

Ok so my first post inspired by cricket.
Saurav G. is not in the indian cricket team. And so how can we allow Indian team to play in eden gardens? That was the message we all got watching the fans there.
Ok I donot claim to be a cricket expert. But I know that, even if Saurav G is not in the team, the fans in eden gardens must support the India.
But yesterday, they were booing India. When Dravid got out the people were overjoyed. And SA winning was cheered. Oh is Bengal in India? Whats more important being a bengali or being a Indian?

2005-11-14T00:54:00.000+05:30

What will people not do. What is a crazy idea which has not yet crossed anybody's mind?

A guy has started a bidding to let anyone buy his domain name for something like 7million and one $. His sales pitch is that by buying the domain name, you can make a new world record, get your name in guiness book of records and get instant publicity. And the guy is so sure of someone buying it, that he has put up adwords ads for it.
Just a little problem mr. Wise Guy. What if someone really pays you 7mils for the domain, but after that another guy pays just a cent more to buy another domain, your clients record is broken. Oops, and all his money is wasted. Oh BTW, henceforth domain shabda.name is officially on sale. If you can offer more than that. Oh and the site is this http://www.therecordbreakingdomain.com/
Might be you will like to see his sales pitch.

Have bought a domain name.

2005-11-12T19:00:00.000+05:30

Hurray. I finally bought a domain name. It costed me 350 bucks at e-bay. BTW the domain name is shabda.name. So ill soon be hosting a website at http://www.shabda.name It hos not yet been hosted, but soon.

2005-11-10T14:13:00.000+05:30

मैं अपनी कुछ ्पसन्दीदा कवितओं को पोस्ट कर रहा हूं। ऊन्हे पढने के लिये यहाँ क्लिक करेँ। ईन्मे एक कविता मेरी है।

2005-11-08T19:22:00.000+05:30

I am writing some articles about Google's services. Adsense. Google Answers. etc. These can be found here Google news. Yeah It seems these days I write on any topic I know, even marginally. But This is last post before end sems end. I hope I can stay away from my keyboard.

Mid sems marks.

2005-11-08T18:15:00.000+05:30

The marks of mid sems have been finally declared. I got 90 outta 120. Reasonable. Or very good with my standards. But at least this sem I had the courage to go and see my marks. My god, for last 4 sems I was such an escapist that I didnot even see my marks.

2005-11-07T00:00:00.000+05:30

Long back i had wriiten a java implementation of Logo. I have uploaded the source as well as my ideas on how we(Ashwini and me) implemented it. Find it here.

2005-11-06T19:19:00.000+05:30

I am posting the various java programs I wrote in the past year to Blogger. It can be found here. Hope they can be useful to someone.

Testing BlogJet

2005-11-05T13:15:00.000+05:30

I have installed an (UN)interesting application - BlogJet. It's a (UN)cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." -- Pablo Picasso

2005-11-05T03:34:00.000+05:30

What do people do when they have too much bandwidth and time? Start a campaign about aliens. I sometimes post and visit the Frihost forums. That’s where this story is from
It all started when noobie was terribly bored. And this was what he posted.

Join the "We Hate Aliens" Campaign today!
and stand to win 0.00 FRIH$ in cash!

"Woahh! I want to join!!!!! How do I join?!"

YOU HAVE JOINED THE "WE HATE ALIENS" CAMPAIGN!

"Whyyyyy should I join!?"

Aliens are things that steal our Earth women and then probing us with their probe things!!! They are evil things that give FREE stuff away!! Say no to aliens to save PLANET EARTH!!!

Now when one mod does a crazy thing like this can another be far behind. So soon Dan started a we love aliens campaign. This is what his post said.

Come and join the "We Love Aliens" Campaign today!
And stand to win0.00 FRIH$ in cash!

"Niice!! I want to join!!!!! How do I do so?!"

It's SIMPLE! Just go to your profile page ……

YOU HAVE JOINED THE "WE LOVE ALIENS" CAMPAIGN!

"Hold on, just why should I join?!"

They helped our ancestors build the pyramids, Great Wall of China, and the Winding Staircase under Trinity United Church at Wall St. and Broadway (as seen in National Treasure). They are generous creatures that give stuff away for FREE!! Say YES to aliens to ensure mankinds efforts to improvement!!!
………
And also to win against the "HATE ALIENS Campaign"!

AND!!!! Also to pass the message to our alien friends that we love and support them!!!!!!!!!

And as I came too late on the scene, I had to be content with starting a we the aliens thread.

Oh i was just passing through earth, and what did I see. My! There is a raging war going war going on bout us. We hate aliens. We love aliens and now even a we dont give a .... bout aliens.
I mean come on guys. We aliens too have feelings. We never will steal your women. We will only steal your men, if you get my point. Noobie oh why do u hate us so much. BTW, dan dont worry much bout him. He is not gonna live much longer. Our sniper are trailing him day and night, from mars. Die.Die. Die noobie.
Join the "We the aliens" campaign. Only if you are an alien.

Note to noobie- We outnumber you on earth too.
Grins to himself- Bondings is, Dan is. MhWaaH. All your bases are belongs to us.
Ps. the pic you have of aliens is all wrong. We donot look like that.But I will not tell you what we look like. Top alien secret.
Also Might I ask some of my Alien friend to make us a avtar. Im not much good with photoshop. But im good with sniper rifle, trailing noobie.
Now people are starting so many alien threads and frihost is gonna be a virtual Star Wars set.

Voice Chat-my new Addiction

2005-11-05T01:23:00.000+05:30

Give a man a messenger and he will char for a day. Give his voice messenger and he will while away his life.
-Fun Tzu, Words of wisdom.
So we found out a new use for our unlimited net connection. Voice chat. I started only 2 days back and already I am addicted. Already wasted so many hours when I should have been studying hard. But from tomorrow no voice chat.

Is Harry Potter only for children?

2005-11-04T22:35:00.000+05:30

I have read all Harry Potter books, but I realy cant say I like them. I read them, coz I wanted to see why are they so famous. And if you claim to be a book lover you cant not read them. For the same reason I also had to read Dan brown. :? For me the Potter world is too infeasible. Even a fantasy world must be reasonable, which it is not. Also the magic system is too simplistic. Like you just shout a spell. And everybody's spell is equally good, well almost. There is no mana/experience/anything system.

2005-11-04T17:06:00.000+05:30

Got bored of Blogger and its quirks. Like I have to sometimes write html tags inside my post. So when I write <title> in the compose mode it doesnot show it. when I am writing in compose mode everything must be shown. It is the job of the Site to check that the necessary changes are done. So thought of changing to Wordpress or my.opera but both have even more quirks. I did not have enogh rights to set up Wordpress on the server. And my.opera tried to get the content from my Blogger page but garbled up everything. So I am struck with bloger some more.
On a positive note, tomorrow we have Eid holiday. SO I get one more week to submit my project. ANd since I came to know of my holiday today I completed the project. Anyway have too many quizzes etc next week.

2005-11-03T20:59:00.000+05:30

Back to BIT after Deepawali. Could not stay at hoem for even two days. It is pretty hard living without always on internet. And I dont have it at home. Trying to learn to create blogger templates and css for some days. But its not as easy as i thought. Sunk at least 15 hours in that. Have a project this saturday. And havent done anything for that. Tomorrow fully devoted to project.

The Hacker Manifesto

2005-11-03T01:41:00.000+05:30

The Hacker Manifesto

(And my Story)

by
+++The Mentor+++
Written January 8, 1986

---and Shabda---

Written October 27, 2005

Yes I, Shabda Raaj, claim to be a hacker. Not a uberhacker like Richard Stallman, Linus, Or JRR Tolkien. But yes, following in their footsteps.

Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"...

Damn kids. They're all alike.

And who is a hacker. I have never been able to breach a network or to steal a password. Oh I almost forgot, I havent’t even tried. But yet I call myself a hacker. Yeah that’s the difference between a hacker and a cracker. Hackers build things, crackers break them. I code compulsively. I write compulsively. Sometimes I try to stop but am not able to. I code without stop. Better to stare on a computer screen than a sea side. Do you know the number of times I have read LOTR.

But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?

I am a hacker, enter my world...

Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me...

Damn underachiever. They're all alike.

Oh in school I was smarter than most of my classmates. Did you see that I called them classmates, not friends? It was so difficult relating to a group of guys interested only in cricket. So difficult to talk to a guy who had not read anything except his course.

I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."

Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.

Oh I learnt percentages and decimals when everyone was learning addition. Oh I just wanted to know which of the cricketers was better. And I needed to calculate average for it. And decimals. Yeah, but I failed the math exam of that year.

I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I'm a smart ass.. Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...

Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.

Oh the power of computer. The power to do what I want. I am not a stupid kid toiling away in college, but I am a paladin a day, a necromancer the next, a jedi later and a coder in between. The power to play games, and to make them when you get bored. Hey Ashwini you may solve Sudoku way faster than me, buts its me who could program a solution for it.

And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...

Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike...

Oh who would like to talk to the guy next door when you could be talking to the girl on other side of the world.

You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

This is our world now. The geek shall inherit the earth.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.

Amen.

2005-10-31T11:10:00.001+05:30

I wrote a tutorial about blogger templates. Also shihir has made photo blog. Check it here.

My Own Personal God!

2005-10-30T11:55:00.000+05:30

My God.

I say I am an atheist. But still I do believe in God. Contradiction in terms, do I hear you saying?
I call myself an atheist as I believe in no God you believe in. No matter what your religion, my God is different from yours. He is my own personal God.
My God does not ask me to pray every day to him. He does not ask me to come to his temple every day. But he does ask that I sometimes drop in for a chat with him to his home, which others call temple. And he is always ready to talk to me, near me omnipotent that he is.
He does not ask me to bathe before I pray to him. He does not ask me to give alms to the priests. He does not mind that he is not the first person I remember when I wake up. But he does ask me to remember him sometimes, when I get the time. He ask me to do my bit for society.
He does not mind the fact that I remember him mostly in trouble. In fact, he says, that I always ask him for his help when I am in need. After all he is my “wighnaharta” “विघ्न्हर्ता “थे the destroyer of my maladies.

Deepawali

2005-10-30T02:34:00.000+05:30

Deepawali, the festival of lights is here. And our collage is closing for almost a week. Most of the people have went home. But I will go after a day or two. He he, my home doesnot have a always on free internet connection. Oh our connection was down for two days. My God , it was pure hell. Basic necessitites of life, Food, water and net connection. Exams are less than a month away. Have not even started reading. If I dont start right now, its gonna be another hellish exam.

Programming tutorials

2005-10-30T01:31:00.000+05:30

I am writing programming tutorials on some of my fav subjects, PHP, Eclipse, Cryptography. Check it here.

Programming and Natural languages

2005-10-27T11:46:00.000+05:30

Programming and lateral languages.

Programming languages are like your everyday English- or Spanish, or hindi if you prefer. All languages C, Java, Hindi and English come with their own syntax, rules, grammar, constructs and idiosyncrasies. All languages have their strengths Latin for the courts, Pidgin English for the common folk, Java for the web and C for systems.
“I ate a mango” is syntactically correct and compiles with the English compiler V 3.1 of your head. But try running Hindi, Spanish, or Java compiler on it and you are sure to get an error message. A program written in java won’t compile with an English compiler. “I ate a play” is syntactically incorrect even with the English compiler. Did you eat or did you play. (It will surely violate some rule of English, but my grammar is too poor to find out what). “I ate a man” may be syntactically correct but has a logical error. It compiles, it does violate no rule of English grammar. But really are you a cannibal?
Really is a programming language anything other than a natural language minus redundancy and verboseness and no ambiguity. How long before we are able to program in English. Or will it be the other way. We learn to talk in Java?

Games people play.

2005-10-27T00:07:00.000+05:30

A zen master once dreamed that he was a fly. Now this so shocked up the zen master, ever in search of the elusive truth that he immediately woke up. He then asked himself whether he was man who was dreaming he was a fly or a fly dreaming to be a man. Whether he had just woken up from a dream or just went back to dreaming.

But I am coming to the point. Have you played a simulation game- AOE, Civilisation, heck even Need of Speed. The people in there, those sims, how can they know that they are not real. That they are just bits in memory, created solely for my enjoyment. How can we know that we are not part of some computer simulation, that our universe is not only finite but just the ram of some computer. That the rules of our universe “thou shalt not exceed the speed of light” are limitations imposed by the simulation engine. That god is not some punk kid high on beer and adrenaline. But before you dismiss me as another Matrix junkie, consider the Moore’s Law. Computing power doubles every 18 months. It has held for last 40 years. If it holds for another 50 years, we will have computers capable of simulating the universe. So why are you so sure that the universe did not arise 50 years earlier, and we are simulation of that universe.

But now consider this. Take a shoot-em-up space game. How is it coded? You shoot a missile at the baddie ship. If you manage to hit it, the missile sends a message to the ship- hey buddy you have been hit. The ship calls its destruct function and dies.

If(missile_hits_ship){

Pirate_ship_n.destruct();

}

What if god coded the universe this way. A person shoots a bullet at me. The lazy-bone I am, I don’t get out of its way in time. So the bullet sends a message to me, that I have been hit and need to die. But what if I refuse to call my die function. BTW, is this what is called will power, refusal to call my destruct function? Also, my isAlive variable is private to me. The bullet can hit me all day long but cant set my isAlive variable.

Is Computer Magic?

2005-10-26T16:46:00.000+05:30

Its our world now..
The age of the electron and the switch.
The beauty of the baud.....
-"The hackers manifesto"

Do you believe in magic? Do you believe that holding a wand in your hand and saying something like abracadabra or Expelimus or anything equally bizarre can have any effect except to get you branded mad?
What is computer if not magic? The magic wand in your hand. Say the correct word and it does your bidding. Just know the correct spells and the world is at your fingertips.
You gotta know the correct spells to work your wand. You gotta write the correct code to work your computer. A good spell caster can work a weak wand, though a strong wand may make it more effective. A good hacker can work a weak computer and any computer is only as good as the human behind it.
It has got every thing the good wizards(hackers), the dark wizards(crackers), whit magic the software which make your work easier, black magic the varus which just makes you want to tear your hairs out.
You only got so much mana and you only got so much bandwidth, computing resources. So if you believe when I say that there are a billion stars, why wont you if I say that some one may fly.
And yes I compared the good wizards to the hackers. If that shocked you probably you do not differentiate between a hacker and a cracker. Hackers build things, Crackers destroy them.ESR tells the difference

Why I Blog?

2005-10-26T12:21:00.000+05:30

Or for that matter why does anyone blog? Like don’t you have anything better than to sit in front of your computer and waste your time hurting your hand typing? Go play out, watch nature, get a date whatever. Probably that’s one reason I blog. I never seem to get a date. I don’t like playing, at least not any out door game. I won’t see a scenery until it has a nude woman in it. In short I am your nerd next door.
But still there are many advantages. What ego boost do you get when you see the server logs and see that your blog has been visited by people from ten different countries. And imagine the size of my ego when I find that two of them stayed reading my rants for full 10 mins. Oh it almost makes me forget the time my English teacher gave me a full half marks out of twenty on my essay test.
And I hope I make some money out of it. I dream of the day when a publisher reads this blog and signs me a million dollar book deal. (BTW if you are a publisher even a hundred dollar book deal will be okay, really). Failing that I have adsense installed with my blogs. So you see some text ads on my web pages. If you click any of them Ill make money. And I sometimes place text ads on my blogs for money. If you are a blogger or web master and would like to place ads for money visit them, Text Link Advertising. Beware though, I make a lot of money if you signup, but at no cost to you. And yeah the more I write the more of my webpages get indexed. I rise in link popularity and pagerank. More people visit my blog. My ego inflates even more. I write even more. Ah, it’s an endless cycle. But don’t I love it.

Dan Brown: Digital Fortress

2005-10-26T12:02:00.000+05:30

Today I completed reading Dan Brown’s digital fortress. The more I read him, the more I seem to dislike him. Like Da Vinci Code was ok, but nothing to be the bestseller it became. But if you claim to read books these days you cant afford not to read Dan Brown. I mean everyone is reading it. So to discuss it with friends and others who share your interest, you must have read it.
But Digital Fortress was intolerable for me, at least intellectually. If you write a fiction, you must get your real world facts correct. Like it would be absurd if in a novel you read that New York is in China. But Dig Fort is full of such bloomers. If you know anything bout cryptography, I mean anything, you would be left wondering how can anyone write such bullshit. And did you know that when viruses attacked networks, they ate away security like real world walls. And firewalls fall bit by bit, with hackers inching closer.
But whatever I say you are going to buy and read that book, right? Once a book becomes bestseller, it remains so.
But this one was a nice touch. On the last page, there is a code given (it’s a book based on cryptography ).128-10-93-85-10-128-98-112-6-6-25-126-39-1-68-78.
Haven’t yet tried to break it. But it surely is Caesar’s cipher(16 chars, square of 4) along with numerals for letter substitution

My new hobby.

2005-10-25T12:01:00.000+05:30

These dussehra holidays I took on a new work. Graphology. Have been trying to learn it for some time now, but these holidays its official. Bought two books, read them in the vacations, and am collecting samples of peoples writing to analyse them.
Read my notes on graphology here

Some of my fav quotes.

2005-08-29T12:09:00.000+05:30

Time is precious, waste it wisely.

I donot want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying.

In the end ordinary efforts of extraordinary men will be beaten by the extraordinary efforts of ordinary men.

War, as a solution to any problem is wrong. It is employed only by small children and large nations.

Talent develops in quiet, alone; character is sharpened in the torrent of the world.
Goethe

Exams Start in a week.

2005-08-24T21:52:00.000+05:30

Our mid-sems start in week. So probably wont post for some time.

"where fear stalks the mind and head hangs in shame" - Google Search

2005-08-17T01:29:00.000+05:30

Gurudev tagore wrote this in Geeatnjali:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

Recently I read this, I donot remenber the source. Sorry. A google search returned no answers.
Where fear stalks the mind
And the head hangs in shame
Where knowledge is twisted
Where the country has broken up into fragments
By narrow walls of caste and creed
Where words are mouthed for short term gains
Where insatiable lust streches its arms
towards seats of power
Where the clear stream of reason has dried up
In scorching heat
Of communal flare ups
Where the mind is lead backwards by thine enemy
Into ever narrowing thought and action
From this hell my father
Let my coutry awake.

Touching and tragic. Also true?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Delay for .xxx 'net sex' domain

2005-08-16T18:47:00.000+05:30

Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) was planning to assing a new domain .XXX for adult content. It was planned that adult sites may move to this domain for people looking for them to find easily, and for other people to more easily avoid them. But the Bush administration has put a brake on the move, saying that it might lead to more adult content. Typocal of Bush? Any move with porn in it has to be banned, even if it be moves to separate it. Such a move would have made it easier for people to filter adult content. Read the full story here.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Delay for .xxx 'net sex' domain

Utopia: An addiction unlike any other.

2005-08-06T06:12:00.000+05:30

Yeah, they call it Utopia: A game unlike any other. Might be. BUt it is an addiction unlike any other. Here I am at 6 in the morning sitting in front of my computer. Half sleepy. And thinking whether banks will be better or training grounds? Killing imaginary ppl. Earning imaginary money wasting real time. Thats the magic of computer games. Thats the magic I want to create.

Friendship Day

2005-08-05T18:32:00.000+05:30

This sunday will be the first sunday of the august,that means friendship day. Will I be able to ask her out. Will she agree. I can get all I want, excepting her. But what else matters?

2005-08-04T00:05:00.000+05:30

What is SCJP?

Scjp is Sun Certified Java Programmer. It is a entry level Java programmer certification exam conducted by sun. Cost 150 dollars.

Certification Exams

2005-08-02T23:10:00.000+05:30

The cost of most of IT certification exams is 150 $. Now that is neither too much nor too less, but rather depends upon where you are from. If you are from the US it might be very cheap. But if you are from a developing coutry that is way too much of money. Most of the people donot make that kind of money here in a month. I am not sure what the per capita income of India is, but it will surely be less than this. I mean the IT companies should do something about it. The tests can be conducted much cheaper here, and they dont have much too lose, if prices are down many more people will give the exams.

Finally got my SCJP certrification.

2005-08-02T12:00:00.000+05:30

Today i got my SCJP certificate. Gave the exam on 12th July. So it took something like 3 weeks. Yet to get my CCNA certificate though.

Utopia : the Game

2005-08-02T11:53:00.000+05:30

I sometimes play utopia, a MMOG, massively multiplayer online games. Thousands of people might be playing this game simultaneously. And boy are these addictive. With no graphics and music the addiction is something. But thses games are more of a social experience. You meet new people kill some, make friends, allies, enemies. Its more like chatting with role playing.
Also programming for these games should not be too tough. MySql and PHP ought to do it. So thats why I have to learn PHP. I have to write such a game.

Some irritations with blogger

2005-08-02T01:09:00.000+05:30

How does Blogger chooses the random titles? I use the google bar and its pretty irritating when it uses titles of currently open pages. Also the xml tags of the post below have not been shown. So i have to find out how to show xml tags here.

Google AdSense - Reports

2005-08-02T01:03:00.000+05:30

Finally I started work on writing a tutorial for the SCJP 1.4 exams. Yeah I only just passed the exam but I got a 100% in that exam. I am using docbook to write that. That docbook is one cool tool. You write the contents and someone else( the docbook program) has to worry about the formatting.
So you basically write something like:

some bullshit.

somemore bullshit.

and the program generates a very nicely formatted pages for you. And not only in html. You choose your output format,pdf , html or rtf. Whatever. It has got them all. Now that is cool.

Blogger==Google

2005-08-02T00:20:00.000+05:30

Did ya know that Blogger is owned by Google. So are many web services you might be using (Orkut, Froogle blah). My God , it gives me creeps to see all the power Google holds over the world. What if Larry Page has a particular political laening and uses google to help that political party. Google has that power. So lets just hope that Larry Page is a gentleman.
Talking of google, they are coming to our Campus for placements. And they are really good payers. God they pay so much, its almost obscene. Sadly I cant sit for those exams as I am already placed in Oracle. They too give a really god package, though not so obscene ;)

Shabda's Home

2005-08-02T00:07:00.000+05:30

Shabda's Home
The priority right now is to complete the jobs which I had long wanted to do,
So I have to complete and publish the java website I long planned to do. Finally learn PHP the awy I know java, and create MMORP using PHP and MySql. Yeah these will take time but that I now have in plenty, with the placements over. But thats time in plenty to use not to waste.

Blogger: Dashboard

2005-08-01T23:59:00.000+05:30

Well time sure flies. I ab blogging after 5, or is it six months? But it was time well spent. Leant a lot of new things. Gave and passed the CCNA and the SCJP exams. Most importantly got a job. Really what more could have I asked for? A dream job, a dream for last six months.
But as the saying goes, Stay hungry, stay foolish. I have to keep working hard and not rest on my laurels.

A test

2005-02-21T02:08:00.000+05:30

This is just a test to check.