In the meantime...

What kind of quiz-taker are you?

And speaking of quizzes, here's the answer, finally, to something I'm sure all of us have wondered, at one time or the other..... WHAT KIND OF INDUSTRIAL SOLVENT AM I?

SOYGOLD® 2000: You are a water-rinsible solvent that contains no petroleum distillates. Your low VOCs (4.89%, 43 g/L) has been tested by EPA Method Number 24. You have ultra-low evaporative properties—0.005 @ 76° Fahrenheit relative to n-butyl acetate (NBAC) = 1—and are an FDA approved surfactant. Find out what kind of industrial solvent you are

Song of the moment

I've just discovered Dulce Pontes's heavenly voice, and more widely, Portuguese 'Fago' music. The melodies are so ethereal, sounds of that language so sensual you'll just float along. And the words mean beautiful things.

Why would anyone want to hear pop ever again? Compare these lyrics to the usual bilge:
("Quit playng games with my heart, my heart, my heart..." repeat ad nauseum.)

SONG OF THE SEA

I was dancing on my little boat
There on the cruel sea
And the sea was crying out to me
Telling me that I should steal
The incomparable light
Of your beautiful eyes

Come and prove that the sea is right
Come here and see my heart dancing

If I go dancing on my little boat
I won't go to the cruel sea
I'll tell her that I was singing, smiling,
dancing, living and dreaming of you

CANCÃO DO MAR

Fui bailar no meu batel
Além do mar cruel
E o mar bramindo
Diz que eu fui roubar
A luz sem par
Do teu olhar tao lindo

Vem saber se o mãr terá razao
Vem cá ver bailar meu coraçao

Se eu bailar no meu batel
Nao vou ao mar cruel
E nem Ihe digo aonde eu fui cantar
sorrir, bailar, viver, sonhar contigo

- Famke Damsté

Interpret this

Sushil once posted his take on artistic freedom, and the legitimacy of allowing a director to interpret a playwright's work. Now I'm not your typical arts-savvy person who can roll off a phrase like "escaping the paradigm our social constructs impose on interpersonal interplay" faster than you can toss your rebonded hair, but I have thoughts, you know, like, decent ones even if I do put them in words understandable by the general engineering public. So I got to thinking about this time I had a conversation with Shashwat in Borders a couple of years back. (Speaking of whom, wonder what he's up to these days. If you're reading this, dude, hi!)

Shashwat's an ex-Objectivist. He was telling me how the 'ex' part happened, and here's what he said: "I've always thought that people who read and like Ayn Rand probably suffer or suffered from an inferiority complex."

For those of you unfamiliar with Ayn Rand, I've recommended this essay a few times already on my blog: 'Philosophy: Who Needs It?' It's a good introduction to her philosophy, which is about the primacy of reason and things like that.

What Shashwat took away from her writings was that human beings have incredible worth, especially the ones that don't default on their responsibilities and are productive people. And that's so different from what I get from Rand: that responsibility for oneself is the most moral thing to do, and about the only moral standard... and that independence is the prime necessity when you want to exercise this responsibility.

This is so apt to my own circumstances..

Oh, man, I'm going to have to finish this later. Ta! Leave your thoughts here though.

Dry Spell

Fingers poised like a kingfisher's beak, ready to swoop down on any word that reveals itself at the surface of the keyboard, I wait.

This blog will take it slow till the pickings get better.

Meanwhile, log into your blogger/blogspot accounts: there's a gmail trial offer there. And don't make the same mistake I did and get some stupid account name thinking, 'hey, that'll be cool!'... and then belatedly realise that you could never, not in a hundred years, bear to reveal your gmail account name to anyone. Ever.

Good dialogue

... should read like this:

"Why Remus! You animal!"
"Oh Katie, you have no idea!"
(Katie and Remus: Thingi Compilation: Alphie)

LOL.

MCPs

How sexist is this.

Yes, I know the link takes you to a 404 page. The point is the error message you get on it.

Quote

From a highly respected Creationist, Kenneth Hovind's website:

"...Also, no fossil could ever count as evidence for evolution since it could never be proven the fossil had any offspring that lived let alone different offspring."

I just had to post that, it was soo laugh-out-loud funny. Long time since I laughed out loud while reading something...

Golden Arches diet updates

I wrote an entry a while back about this woman called Soso Whaler who's going on a 'healthy' McDonald's diet in response to Morgan Spurlock's "Supersize Me". I thought it would be interesting to see if this female could reach her goal of losing weight in the one month that she eats only Mac's food... that it would be something unbiased and fair, even though the site she posts on is sponsored by Mac's. Well, guess what.

She is blatantly cheating on her diet. She started off saying that she wouldn't be gorging herself on Mac's food, that she'd eat 3 meals a day there and stop when she was full. Fair enough. But in her latest entries she is clearly starving herself:
- she once eats just one cup of Mac's yoghurt for dinner beause she 'can't find a restaurant' and has to get someone to pack this for her, even though she was 'starving' and the yoghurt didn't really make her full.
- she has once had a McGriddle sandwich and orange juice for breakfast and because her schedule didn't permit it, had a combined lunch and dinner at 3.30 pm which consisted of a filet o' fish and a yoghurt parfait.

Her blog entries are full of praise for the taste, variety and nutrition of Mac's food. Seriously. She mentions how she's loving the 'new adventures of the palate' or some such in at least 8 of the 12 entries so far... and I categorically refuse to believe that someone can eat exclusively in one restaurant for 16 days and not want to throw things, let alone get excited about finding out that the Hot Lemon something pie is their favourite dessert of all time. She admits herself that she eats the McGriddle and Filet O' Fish as often as she can, and still goes on to claim that she's not tired of the food at all, that she looks forward to every meal with great enthusiasm. Crap.

She also seems to have stopped her doing her daily updates for the past four days. Maybe she got sick. And except for a much-publicised 5th day entry about having lost 3 pounds (in five days - right.) she hasn't mentioned her weight ever again. Her latest entry talks about how unfair it is that the government comes up with things like BMI just to 'make people feel unhealthy', and how we shouldn't be concered about superficial things like weight and the body image that the media feeds us.

Methinks one Soso Whaley is getting a bit bloated, perhaps.

NaNo - what?

National Novel Writing Month. The philosophy is simple: on November 1st this year, roll up your sleeves, steal someone's laptop, apply seat of pants to chair, and spew. Keep spewing till you have a novel of 50,000 words written or November 30th happens, whichever is earlier. If it's the former, you have bragging rights for life: the unique privilege of dropping the words "my novel" into casual conversation. If you're short a few thousand lines, well, at least you tried.

All you need to know is on the NaNoWriMo site. And some guy called C. A. Bridges has tricks to share:

"
I crossed the 50,000-word finish line on November 30 with half an hour to spare, although I'm not proud of how I did it -- I decided my main character was suffering from traumatic flashbacks and I copied the entire first chapter over again.

This year I'll be ready. All those years of shamelessly padding school essays have not been wasted, and I'll be using these techniques as I confidently sit down at 12:01 November 1st.

-- Never use contractions or acronyms. If space aliens are using their forehead lasers to destroy teams of bikini-clad supermodel scientists, have them explain that 'laser' stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation with every shot, right up until the fighter pilots from National Aeronautics & Space Administration blasts them.

-- Devise a protagonist with interesting quirks, such as the obsessive habit of reciting Kipling's "Gunga Din" -- 573 words, including annotations -- during times of stress. This can really up the old word count, especially if they stutter.

-- Famous quotes can jazz up a book. Consider starting each chapter with a relevant Shakespearean play.

-- If you write anything at all in November, use it in your book. Anything. Shopping lists, business memos, petitions for constitutional amendments, ransom notes, anything. Copy all of your unwanted e-mail and give it a chapter title.

"

Disturbing

Dave Barry calls it the most disturbing Japanese commercial of the day so far.

Jai Google

GMail is true, guys. Believe it. Yahoo, Hotmail & co are finished. The "Happy birthday, April!" personal mesage on the site, which had given rise to doubts about the authenticity of the 1 gig space offer, is now gone. Plus, there's official confirmation.

Ah Capitalism, thy wonders never cease.

But more about Gmail. Did you know it's getting sued for breach of privacy? Gmail works by scanning incoming mail and looking for keywords to provide targeted advertising. Text only. You might say it's obvious why people are throwing their hands up about it, but I have a few things to say:

1. It's right there in the privacy policy and user agreement. If you're not OK with it, go ahead, pass up the 1 gig free space.

2. Google doesn't ask for personal info - only your first and last name are required to get your hands on the loot. Yahoo, on the other hand, requires: First Name, Last Name, Zip code, Gender, Industry, Job Title, Specialization, Birth Date, and a check box for special offers from selected Yahoo partners that is checked by default. Yahoo states that they ask for this information to provide 3rd parties for targeted advertising. How come it's Google that's getting all the bad press?

3. I said it before, and I'll say it again: Hotmail, Yahoo et al are finished. That's probably what this whole fuss is about.

Congrats

to nimbupani woman on landing a "kewl" (as she no doubt would say) job with Motorola. $$$, too! Here's to you, girl!

Book Reco

Understanding International Conflicts by Joseph S. Nye (where have I heard his name before??) is nothing short of brilliant.

Modern international relations depend on an anarchic system - states interact among themselves with no superior authority they need to defer to. There are different philosophies which try to model this sort of behaviour: the skeptics, who believe that might is right in the world of today; the state moralists, who talk about diplomatic relations and treaties as serving roughly the same purpose as higher authorities; and the cosmopolitans, who believe international relations are shaped by decisions made on an individual level (large personalities as well as the collective beliefs of a society). Nye goes on to analyse the World Wars, the Cold War and modern day conflicts in the light of these theories, stressing the inaccuracies and usefulness of each of them. He examines the extent to which these theories can be deterministic, and comes to the conclusion that the wars were not inevitable, only extremely likely. It is also not inevitable that you'll thoroughly enjoy Nye's book - only extremely likely.

For Artanis

... who lost her list of favourite fics. These are the ones you recommended to me, as far as I remember:

HP Stuff:

Darkness Dying by Iniga
Interwoven, or The Seamstress and the Lovable Stray by Katinka
Promises Unbroken by Robin
Acts Infernal by Samvimes
Draco Malfoy's Diary by The Morning Starr

LotR Stuff:

The Very Secret Diaries by Cassandra Claire

Update: See the recommended fics section, newly added. All of them are absolute gems; they come with my personal guarantee.

Supersize Update

It'll be interesting to see if this works out.

Laugh

Cuckoo has this wonderful quiz about my favourite comic of all time. And if I had to pick the best feature of all in the whole Asterix series, it would have to be the names. Here are a select few:

Evil Roman Officials
Dubius Status
Raucus Hallelujachorus
Curius Odus
Poisonus Fungus
Crismus Bonus

Foreigners
Haraldwilssen, Nogoodreassen
Localpolitix, Forinpolitix, Thermostatix
Soporifix, Postaldistrix, Tragicomix
Haystax, Anthrax, Tintax, Surtax

etc. The fun never ends. And, my half-birthday is just 'round the corner.

Ain't no hoax!

The news came out on April 1st. It sounded too good to be true. Some people thought it was an elaborately un-funny April Fool joke, but I (you may henceforth address me as "O Perceptive One") didn't think so.

It's official (because today's April 3rd, and the site still exists) - Google has gone and done it* again!

* "It" being harnessed the wonders of modern technology to bring immense benefits to mankind, profits for itself and make its stock shoot through the roof. Damn, wish I'd bought some back in 1999.

Once upon a time

In March 1992 a man living in Newtown near Boston Massachusetts received a bill for his as yet unused credit card stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away. In April he received another and threw that one away too. The following month the credit card company sent him a very nasty note stating they were going to cancel his card if he didn't send them $0.00 by return of post. He called them, talked to them, they said it was a computer error and told him they*d take care of it.

The following month he decided that it was about time that he tried out the troublesome credit card figuring that if there were purchases on his account it would put an end to his ridiculous predicament. However, in the first store that he produced his credit card in payment for his purchases he found that his card had been cancelled. He called the credit card company who apologized for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it. The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue. Assuming that having spoken to the credit card company only the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out. The next month he got a bill for $0.00 stating that he had 10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt.


Finally giving in he thought he would play the company at their own game and mailed them a check for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the credit card company nothing at all. A week later, the man*s bank called him asking him what he was doing writing a check for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank replied that the $0.00 check had caused their check processing software to fail. The bank could not now process ANY checks from ANY of their customers that day because the check for $0.00 was causing the computer to crash. The following month the man received a letter from the credit card company claiming that his check had bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he sent a check by return of post they would be taking steps to recover the debt. The man, who had been considering buying his wife a computer for her birthday, bought her a typewriter instead.