992.

I clicked on my name on Facebook and looked at the left side of the webpage. 992 ‘friends’. Just 8 away from 1,000.

One thousand friends…

Holy crap!

I have a lot of friends who have more than a thousand friends on facebook. But seriously…think about it. I’m the kind of guy who’d be pretty open about myself, but I wouldn’t call every second person my friend. In fact, I think I’m more the kind of guy who has very few close friends, and with the rest, I’m friendly and approachable. To be completely honest, a lot of times, I think I’m a bit of a loner, a bit of a shut-in. I don’t particularly desire company, except occasionally. A thousand friends? I think I’ll pass, thank you very much.

But don’t put me into that broad category of people who hate Facebook. While I think that most things about Facebook are ridiculous, I am certainly impressed by quite a few things about it.

To begin with, Facebook is here to stay. Unlike Orkut, Myspace and Hi5, Facebook is not a fad, and its popularity is not limited only to certain geographical areas. And with the advent of the “Like” button, Facebook has cemented its place on the Internet. Most websites now have a “Like” button that is linked to your Facebook account. “Like” something, and you’re instantly connecting it to your friends. You know which of your friends have been to this particular website and liked this particular content. More importantly, you are showing off to your friends your likes and dislikes. It’s ridiculous and superficial, but it’s genius.

Like it or not, it really is ingenious

To me, though, Facebook is much more useful as a means of keeping in touch and finding old friends. With its help, I’ve found friends from way back, like the time I lived in Kenya (more than 15 years ago, when we were still kids and didn’t care enough to keep in contact). It’s also a much easier way to keep in touch with people you don’t meet very frequently. Like someone’s picture or comment on their status, and you’re instantly back in touch with that person.

The only other aspect of Facebook worth mentioning (I’ve just had Red Bull and my brain’s racing) is the utter lack of privacy. The moment you “like” something, your full name is displayed for all your “friends” (and friends of friends) to see. You upload a photograph, and a friend of a friend of a friend can see it. Of course, everyone’s aware of all this, and you can throw the privacy settings at me. But that doesn’t prevent Facebook from being a privacy hazard. It’s like saying, “You know the dangers of smoking, and if you want to be careful, then don’t inhale the smoke all the way”, but that doesn’t prevent you from being susceptible to lung cancer or any of the other problems associated with smoking (or passive smoking).

Ok, enough Red Bull induced rambling for one day.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

But it’s really sad that the same thing is true in sport.

Barcelona have cultivated an impression of being a team that plays positive, passing football that’s a delight to watch. But really, under this disguise, their true selves are shameful and every bit as disgusting as any other team. Yet, because everyone seems to have a collective crush on Barcelona, they get away with everything.

Barcelona players surround the referee to try and get Pepe sent off

The Champions League semi-final first leg saw much of what was expected. Real Madrid were keeping things tight, and Barcelona got a player sent off. Much like they have done to the last few opponents they have played at the same stage of the Champions League in the previous editions. Oh, and Barcelona fans…there were seven players surrounding the referee, including goalkeeper Victor Valdes. Don’t even try to deny that they were not all surrounding him trying to get him off.

And it’s not just referees who give special treatment to the messiahs of football. For example, why did Andres Iniesta not get a ban for deliberately getting a yellow card while Real Madrid players did?

When this team’s glory days die down, it will possibly be remembered as one of the best teams of all time. Sadly, we may end up putting on a pedestal a team of actors, cheaters, whingers and divers. If your argument is that any other team does the same thing, let me tell you now not to bother. I agree that every other team has players that do the same thing. But for God’s sake…please stop going around claiming to be the golden boys of football if this is how your team wins. There’s no way in hell Barcelona would have got a goal against RM will all 11 players on the pitch. The Copa del Rey proved that. What could have been a good game of tactics ended up with one team shamefully and unfairly gaining an advantage.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I normally tend to stay away from “controversial” subjects like religion on my blog, but I reckon this post has been coming for some time now.

I just had a very entertaining (let’s put it that way) “conversation” with a batch-mate here at XLRI who was adamant that all Sikhs are Punjabis and vice versa. For the record, Sikhism is a religion and Punjab is a state. Let this debate come to rest once and for all. Anyone hailing from Punjab, who speaks Punjabi (probably) has a right to be called Punjabi (this was a point on which we differed), and Sikhs who do not hail from Punjab, who have lived in other places in India (like me and the last few generations of my family) have no need to call ourselves Punjabi. In fact, South Indian Sikhs (hailing from the Deccan area) are often called Dakhni Sikhs, hailing from the Southern Indian Deccan area.

It is therefore disheartening that Sikhs who do not speak Punjabi are treated as second-class citizens by our own brethren. It’s also sad that people have common misconceptions and absolutely refuse to budge from their stand. It reminds me of how the whole world once believed in the geocentric theory…of course, just because they believed in it did not make it true. Similarly, objectively stating the facts, one does not need to know Punjabi to be a Sikh. Technically, having been baptised, all one needs to be a practising Sikh is to follow the Five Ks. I rest my case.

While I’m on the topic of Sikhism, however, let me add a few more thoughts. Sikhism was, in its time, among the most practical of all religions. We were not expected to give up our worldly ways. Instead, we were to moderate our greed, pride and other ills while still remaining practical. Our religion was founded on the principle of protecting the oppressed, of giving voice to the helpless and of being protectors to those who could not protect themselves. It breaks my heart, when I see now, that instead of following the philosophy of Sikhism, we are now so adamant on following the rituals, something all our Sikh Gurus abhorred from the beginning. In fact, this is the basis on which Sikhism differed from the Hinduism of old.

I hear a lot about the young firebrand Sikhs, who love their religion. In my opinion, they don’t even understand it. Instead of accepting, like we should, each others’ differences, they actively seek to force Sikhs to fall in line. Instead of convincing those on the fence to learn about the philosophy and spirit of the religion, they force them to learn the behaviours and characteristics that are expected. Like in every other religion, interpretation of the rules varies subjectively. However, this active castigation is likely to lead not towards the growth of the religion in the hearts and minds of youngsters, but more towards active desertion of the faith. This is, after all, how rebellion works in our mind. Force something down our throats, and we will puke it out and reject it, irrespective of whether it’s good for us or not.

PS: If you really want to complicate things, Sikhism is not a religion, it’s a philosophy. The “religion” (as embodied by the command to have the Five Ks, etc.) is known as Khalsa.

PPS: If you intend to argue with me, please note that any arguments you make that are contrary to what I have written, whether backed up by fact, research or ordnance, will be deemed null, void and stupid. Basically, come what may, I am right and you are wrong. Thanks, and have a nice day!

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

1. Ads were not always pretty.
2. Depending on the content, unwanted ads could pop-up.
3. I used to log on every day to my Adsense account and see if I had made any money that day or that week, and many disappointing weeks went by when I made just a few measly cents a week.
4. I realized that the content of my site was more important to me. The content and the design. Ads and pure design could not go hand in hand.

I’ve never really regretted my decision to take off ads, although I admit I have been tempted to put them back on. I don’t know, I just might in the future. But ultimately, what satisfies me is the fact that I know I am not blogging for ads. I am blogging because I like to write and I am writing what I want without being concerned about what keywords I’m using or what my Page Rank is or whether my site is efficiently optimized for search engines. And that is what gives me freedom and pleasure in blogging.

Today, I came across a software that goes against everything that blogging means to me.

Behold WP Robot!

What does it do? I quote:

WP Robot is a powerful and easy to use autoblog plugin for WordPress weblogs allowing you to turn your blog on complete auto-pilot and drip-feed it with fresh content in intervals you specify. And the best part: The posts created will be targeted to any keyword you enter and any topic you could ever think of!

Basically, you enter one keyword and turn on “auto-pilot” and you have a blog full of content. Then you place your ads and sit back while the money pours in. Blogging, as we know it, is going to get transformed into a hideous web of commercialisation. All gas and no substance.

Disgusting. If this software (or others like it) succeeds, and if people start using it on a massive scale, imagine the situation. Every time you search for information on something, you’ll end up going to a blog that’s made by a robot, purely to attract page views and make money.

If this is the future of the internet, then the internet is going to hell.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

For too long now, we’ve read about Australian sledging and saying unnaceptable phrases and getting away with it. Glen McGrath’s exchange with Sarwan is probably one of the worst sledging exchanges in the history of cricket. I say “probably” because I’m basing this on a few lists of the world’s most (in)famous sledging incidents. But that’s just one incident. Given at the end of this post are a couple of links you could check out. Notice how most if not all incidents involve Australians.

And I also encourage you to read the third article which, admittedly, has been written by an Indian. It does make some valid points, which I’ll state in my own words:

• It appears that as long as they’re the ones sledging, they should be allowed to get away with anything, including calling the Sri Lankans “black monkeys” or “black cocks”, but if they’re sledged at, they run to the authorities.
• Why is it that calling others “bastards” should be allowed internationally if it’s not such a big deal in Australia, but calling others “monkey” should not, though it’s less than an everyday insult here in South Asia?
• The Australians claiming to have played the 2nd test in “the spirit of the game” is pure bullshit. Cricket is a gentleman’s game, Mr. Ponting. Not one where you claim grounded catches and celebrate.

Anyway, here’re the links:

1. Ten Most “Hilarious” Sledging incidents in World Cricket
2. Some Classy Cricket Sledging Incidents
3. Aussie Sledging and other strong arm action leads to reaction: What is sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Anyway, so I come back from college today, after bunking off during lunch (there’s some sort of technical paper presentation fest going on, and no classes were going to be conducted), a little tired because I had to stand for quite some time in the RTC bus. I have a late lunch, sit in front of the computer for a while, then realise I need to go and take a nap. So I tell my mum to wake me up an hour later and go to sleep around 5.30pm… eventually, I wake up and find that the room is dark, but there’s a light on outside the room… doesn’t make sense… my first few thoughts were that I had probably woken up in the middle of the night, and obviously started to wonder who would be awake at 3am… so I walk out of the room to find that it’s really only 11pm!

Just perfect! 5 hours of sleep in the evening… and I’m expected to go back to sleep again tonight, and have a normal sleep cycle? Bollocks! The cycle is likely to continue like this… I’ll obviously not be able to go back to sleep before 2 or 3 am today (it’s already 1.12am and I’m fresh as a flower), which will mean I’ll wake up late tomorrow. Since I woke up late, I’ll also fall asleep late tomorrow, and I have to go to college day after. Not enough sleep the night before a college day means I’ll fall asleep in class… just perfect!

Fuck it… go back to sleep.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Let’s begin with some “mindblasting”… what in the world were the admakers of the Aveo ad thinking? The ad gets reduced to a 30-second long motion picture of 4 words … “wow fanstastic mindblowing mindblasting” The first 3 words, while signifying a lack of ideas, are yet OK… however, “mindblasting”? What’s the car going to do? Plant C4 in your brain?

Even more disastrous is the Pepsi TV ad. Shah Rukh Khan gets reduced to a mentally retarted (in my opinion, that’s how he looked in the ad anyway) man with the brain of a 4 year old who gets excited about a soft-drink-cum-TV-channel company that gets supermodels and highly paid TV actresses to deliver their goods home to their customers. Oh, and in the end, he solves a super-mystery “…to use Pepsi TV kehte hai” He’s flanked by 3 more idiots whose roles I couldn’t easily decipher. But the ad’s message was clear… no matter what crap you’re watching on TV, you’ll enjoy it if you’re drinking Pepsi! Fantastic message! Pepsi have now proven that drinking their soft-drinks makes people so mentally numb and backward that you enjoy saas-bahu dramas… “Nahee Ansh! Is Pepsi ke bottle par goli main ne nahi chalaee”

But well, one must also point out some good stuff on the TV… as it is, this kind of stuff is really rare. The naukri.com ads are just excellent… all of them. So are/were the IBM thinkpad ads. Now, these ads are worth celebrating. I even remember some print media ads that were truly awesome… most of which are the Times Of India ads… 2 were based on word-play…

1. This was then they were using the tag “One nation, one newspaper”… the ad was a giant billboard with something like this :
DIWALI
RAMZAN
Who are we to divide?

2. They ran this ad on a giant billboard when they reduced the price of the Tuesday and Thursday editions to only 1/-:
Priceless
TOI now only for Re.1/- on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a master’s degree in business administration. Originally designed to provide engineers with management skills, today’s MBA draws applicants from a range of disciplines.

An MBA is considered a professional Master’s degree as well as a traditional or academic Master’s degree. However, completion of a professional MBA does not usually result in admission to a Ph.D. (program for research-oriented engagements) although it could be helpful. Schools that offer the MBA are usually known as either management or business schools.

Having highlighted the part about imparting management skills to engineers, I’d like to say how appropriate it is that a college like mine is able to impart these mangament skills to us budding young engineers. I mean, their management of our first academic year of engineering has been nothing short of fascinating. Let’s take a look at some highlights:

• We spent close to a month and a half in required and totally necessary leisure, while the college spent that time looking for the perrrrfect lecturers to replace the ones who left.
• Our portion is not going to get completed in time, and our Drawing lecturer proudly announces “See, for your final exam syllabus, you will have only… everything that is specified in your JNTU syllabus book. Whether we completed our portion or not, you will have the same paper as everyone else with the whole portion”
• Special classes are being arranged every Sunday, Saturday, public holidy, and every other day possible.
• Our 5th and 6th online internals (descriptive and online respectively) will both begin on May 1st, and 2 exams will be conducted each day. No amount of foresight could have made anyone realize that time was slipping out for us to have our exams on time and conducted in a proper manner rather than just shoving them all together down our throats.

*sigh*… life in this college is just perfect. Other highlights include getting called up at our homes if we don’t go to college even for a single day, and having to meet with the H.O.D or the principal and tell him why we didn’t come the next day… even if we already called up someone and took permission. But this is how school is, right?

Oh wait, right, I almost forgot… I’m supposed to be in a college which is training us to be professionals, not a school, aren’t I? …hmm…

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh