Hear n’ There

Dear Web Designers of the Indian Government

I write this, not because I am a frequent visitor of your website. In fact I never visit your website, knowing fully well that the only reason it exists is because it should. The only governmental websites I ever access have been CBSE and the IRTC.  Both of them pale in comparison to the rape of the internet that is your ‘national informatics portal‘. You have not only eaten the d or e or s from design but you seem to have chewed it, spitted it, then drank it only to excrete and paste it on your website. Not the first three alphabets. But the whole W.O.R.D.

While most countries work hard to build an image better than the existing reality, you dear Sirs, seem to have worked meticulously hard to ensure that India- contrary to all the Microsoft and Google offices here, contrary to all the customer support jobs that we steal,  has as much technological talent as the Sahara desert has water.

This letter has been excruciatingly frustrating for me to write. I have written another draft which frustrated the hell out of me because I kept on writing and it seemed it would stretch all the way from my my laptop to the end of the milky way. I have now decided I would put in points why your portal, if you can call it that, puts many of us concerned citizens and geeks under significant cardiac stress.

We believe that the whole of humanity is at stake here. Forget WMDs or Oil or Taliban or asteroids. Hitler wouldn’t have needed concentration camps had he been able to access nic.gov.in in his time.

**Begin rant**

(1) You seem to be using a version of Front Page 304BC which was invented when Bill Gates first learn how to shag. The next time you go to Palika to buy School Girls become Naughty Nurses 3, please also buy a copy of Dreamweaver for Rs 50. I would have sent you a torrent link myself, but I am afraid that Azureus may prove too advanced for you.

(2) It pains me to recommend you to use one of the readymade templates. It is unfortunate that you have been inspired by Ramsay and his horror movies for your color schemes.

(3) Try not to have broken links. At least on your front page cad.delhi.nic.in denies me access to your highly confidential data about Computer Aided Design. Are you sure that CAD expands to Computer Aided Death

(4) People stopped using Lynx and  Mosaic many many years ago and it is possible to do many things with a language called HTML. If LTTE and the State-Jail in Bihar the only organisations offering me work, I still wouldn’t like to work with you after seeing your recruitment page. I wonder if your dresscode asks people to wear animal skin  and there are two stones and twigs in place of your coffee maker.

(4) A search for India on the search form, returns the same page. If you want to get the same thing done, you can use something called the Refresh button on your browser. The ‘software‘ that you use to display things that you call website are called browsers. The blue ‘E’ thing that you click, you know.

(5) The website is ‘optimised’ for IE only and I noticed there is a Hindi version of the site. Next time take the following fact into consideration- Number of Non IE users is 30%.  Number of people in India who have a computer, use the internet (in particular your site) and do not know English but know what Prayogiki means- Tends to zero.

(6) I have for a minute thought that you may have created this page only to add security to the pages. Which geek worth his mp3 player would like to hack your website? The idea was soon dismissed when I took your collective IQ into consideration.

(7) If a link on your homepage redirects to another website, link to that directly and not give another page saying ‘Please go to Crap.MoreCrap.gov.in’ If I suffered from OCD and liked clicking on things I would go and play Bubble Wrap online.

(8) I think you should sue IBM for copying your logo. How dare they copy your logo?

(9) There is a link to ‘Evolution’ of the NIC. It actually means the process by which things develop and diversify into better forms. How one could evolve before history was the future am sure you can tell.

(10) Your ‘History’ page sadly does not talk about how the pages that you host, are the remains of the First great Internet disaster of the fourth century. I actually cleared my browser cache just to make sure that the page that I was viewing was actually a page and not some unloaded junk. Junk, Dear Sirs, is not something that you should intend to create when creating anything.

(11) Using blinking images is not the same as using Flash in a website.

(12) To supplement your income from all the embezzlement of the millions the government provides for maintenance you should also place Ads selling Cyanide on all the pages.

(13) I really cannot go any further. I doubt if I have ever used these many phrases in italics to stress a point. For assistance contact any sixth grade student in any computer club in any school in Mozambique.
Please burn the servers buildings which contain your data. Then throw the rubble in the holy ganges which would then be unholy forever. Then never let any human come in contact within a light year radius of your perimeter or human race will not evolve.

We will have a future where the creative faculties of our genetic offsprings would be such that even the greatest poets would not be able to compose ‘Roses are red, Violets are blue, dear mom and dad I love you’ and the Rainbow that I created in second grade would be a masterpiece no one would ever be able to reproduce.

Hoping aliens who are uglier than you would eat you alive

Yours sincerely

Aditya Anand

This post would have looked much better if I used screen shots and many images that I planned to. But I am too lazy and tired at 4:30 in the morning. Further I am yet to change the permissions for my upload folder. Hence this whole image keeda would be a real bitch

Thing(s) of the Day: Don’t mess with Mommy.

In keeping with the theme of the post, I thought I should also give you this

Went grocery shopping this weekend. Let’s see what I bought, and forget about the things that I should have bought. I can stare and use  gadgets at showrooms for hours doing nothing but admire human creation the same way I would for Cobie Smulders (except, quite unfortunatey, for the using part). Standing in lines, trying hard not to crash the trolley into the forty-five year old women who race against a snail and do surprisingly well in coming last. Dealing with thirty year old executives who consult programming models and astrological charts to place their carts at exactly the places which would irritate the bejesus out of me as they they take their own sweet time on their cell-phones as if the world were was their effing toilet seat would make tragedies Shakespeare would die twice to take credit for.

Of-course he would have tried to shorten the above sentences and not make them seem like I ate the stop out of Full-Stop. Well, I just gave a test  for my Technical Report Writing course where one is supposed to shorten to One-Third the given composition. The course purpots to see to the heinous obliteration of enriching cliches alongwith flamboyantly ostentatious words and phrases barring the blatantly obvious mundane while ostensibly setting higher standards of report writing about which no one gives an iota of an iota. I on the other hand am striving my best in destituting the English language of an sin of gargantuan proportions and Satanic intentions. One long sentence at a time. Short and meaningful equals things like say e=mc^2 or Schrodinger’s equation. The last time I checked; they gave a Nobel for that piece of crap, while ink in tons, was wasted utilised to explain all that anyway.

Let this not be a rant against against forty five year old pregnant aunties, thirty year old rich businessmen, mentally retarded Hypermarket planners. Or even the simplicity of Quantum Mechanics.  I rather flabbergast by providing crucial insight to the ways of a hostel student.

Knorr Instant Soup: 12 Cream of Chicken Sachets. 12 Tomato Soup Sachets. Easy to make. Cheap. The buy one get one free offer was a steal.

Americana Double Chocolate Chip Cookies: 16 Packs. Yummy. Great when you are hungry at four in the morning. Recommended eat 3 packs if not had Dinner. Eat none in front of others, lest you like them to magically disappear. David Blaine’s magical powers pale in comparison to the collective appetites of even four college students.

Koka Instant Noodles: The cost as compared to Maggie Curry Flavor? Double. The taste as compared to Maggie Curry Flavour? One Fourth. Not going down a couple of floors to use the microwave and cook Maggie but rather use the hot/cold water system in your corridor to cook Koka? Priceless.

Gingerale: Six Cans. No comments on the value of Fizz in life.

Tang: Because drinking gingerale all the time in place of water means you either got your priorities wrong, or got more money than I do.

Chocolate Sticks: Bought only because they were cheap and it looked great. The power of Marketing. Funny, I got a course in Marketing Principles and this is a classic example of employment of Projective Technique as per Freud’s Motivation Theory. It basically involves me lazily getting up to get my book, looking up the index for Freud, quoting terms, italicising them to tell you what it is simply means that packaging, advertisements, hot blondes endorsing products help. 

Graph Sheets: Hail the force which asks nerds to buy many more sheets than they require. Oh My academically oriented friends! I meant not what I wrote. I didn’t even write that. Without Thy grace I would be calling fifty-five other people who am sure don’t have graph sheets or A4 papers to ask if they have graph sheets or A4 papers. I have a lot of phone balance, my grades, notes, knowledge of syllabi- hours before a paper thanks only to the divine aura that thy radiate.

Lunch at Chilli’s: Some ridiculously expensive Chicken exotic sounding name.

Ink for Pen: Seemed a trifle overpriced.

Healthy Food: Waiting to turn a richer thirty year old hypertense, diabetic. Innit? Oh, but I am not the only one.

Hoping that you all are living the good times, the instant way.

To provide me company in the gym twenty years later.

Thing of the Day: What 207 Million Dollars looks like.

Ahh does blogging after a long time feel good. Especially when the last time you checked the blog read  pwned By Mor-r0ver gr33tz to all. Excuse me if it seemed that I had intended this blog to be a historic artifact bearing a testament to the might of human laziness. Hey, but you are not gonna blame me for security exploits in earlier versions of Wordpress, access to port 2083 being blocked by my college (hence not being able to bring the blog back). College life is pretty hectic with all the assignments, projects, terabytes of- movies, sitcoms, documentaries on your network, and hours of DOTA you know. This semester has been the most eventful for me yet. Only about a month left before I finally give my finals and this rugged semester will finally come to an end.

Life in college, especially engineering ( and I think in medical ones too) colleges is much different than what you expect it to be. For one, time sits on a crow which flies faster than light. All that masti that they show in Rang De Basanti and Main Hoon Na, does not exist. There is no going around singing and dancing Masti Ki Paathshala roaming around in bikes. Oh but don’t get me wrong, college life is fun. Staying up all night, playing Counter Strike or watching Juno with friends ( which is one of the best movies I have seen) hours before a test gives a rush of adrenalin which is unique in its own way.

Horn, OK Tata Then

Thing of the Day: Did you know that hell was exothermic?

It’s been quite long since I last updated. What has this blog missed? Ex-Prime-Ministers killed, laptops as thin as air invented and India winning in Perth among other things?

A quick update here, not that you probably care; but I still need to write stuff so that I get in the flow or be in the zone and I write more stuff later. I haven’t blogged much this last semester. Poor blog had to be neglected in the grander divine scheme of things including but not limited to the pursuit of attaining a higher GPA- I would have loved to say that. But whom am I kidding here? I mean excusing yourself with studying is the universally accepted fool-proof method of chickening out. Remember telling your parents that you cannot go to the marriage of the fifth cousin of yours because you had to study  three days after your exams finished? Then playing NFS, UT, AOE or any of those popular computer games with initials till your parents came back? Or when  the teacher asks why most of the class was absent the previous day and students say ‘I was not well‘, almost in unison -like saying ‘Good Morning, Teacher‘ in third grade. The thing to be honest is that I simply didn’t feel like blogging. Period. Never saw any point in posting You Tube videos or lyrics or one link posts just for the heck of it.

Nonetheless I am back to blogging, or something like that. Of course wish you all a happy new year and all that jazz. My winter break started on the 10th January and ah well, I am bored here  and all man like last time. Oh and what is it with reading your own old posts and cursing yourself for writing juvenile stuff. They all look OK some months back. Oh and why am I too lazy not to edit them?

I have written this post over a course of twelve hours. Still publishing it, because otherwise  this would have been the cliched millionth time I would have discarded something in this fashion. Also simply because this blog receives less visitors than Ram Gopal Verma ki Aag did in the theaters.

All said and done- I expected drumroll and the like, probably a couple of Supernovae thrown in too for my reception back.

Damn the dumb me. Most stars are millions of light years too far away distance. So not cool. It means that by the time we can actually observe it, the human race would be too busy having sex with their favorite super model clone to actually give a flying frick about me. So not cool.

Thing of the Day: Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge  -Charles Darwin

Oh lord, what can I say?
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Host.ac Web Hosting STAFF

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November 27, 2007 - 8:20 AM

There has been a major hardware failure in the sun.host.ac server due to which all the data including operating system has crashed. The server has been completely compromised and could not even boot.To avoid any further downtime for your website, we were forced to re-setup your hosting account in the mercury.host.ac server.Your hosting account has been successfully setup in this server and you should have received the new account details in your registered email address. We have also extended your hosting account validity by extra 10% due to this inevitable problem.Your domain name’s dns has also been automatically forwarded to the mercury.host.ac server. So your website should be up and working now. You do not need to do any more dns changes.As your hosting account has been re-setup from scratch, you will have to upload your files again to the new web space from your backup. All the data in the sun.host.ac server has been lost due to the hardware failure. We are trying to get your data from our tape backups. If any backup is available, it will be provided to you with next few days.We regret the inconveniences caused to you.Please update this ticket if you require any further assistance.

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I have an extended weekend thank to the UAE national holiday and see what all greet me? Tests, Quizzes, End of Semester Exams, End of Semester Economic Crisis, Practicals, Server Crashes and the worst cold that I have ever have had the pleasure of catching. If there are two sides of a coin, then I sure as the frikkin’ reserve bank of doomsday got the one which says ‘Screw You’ on both sides.

It is a temporary phase, it shall pass but I admit cribbing feels good.

Till then

Aaaaa’chooo!

Heya folks

Blog’s been moved over to http://www.adityaanand.com

I have previously mentioned the restrictions with wordpress.com and ultimately decided to buy some hosting and domain and shift to wordpress.org Should give me some more room to stretch er.. my blog?

If you subscribe to my blog then please change the location to http://adityaanand.com/blog/?feed=rss2 or http://adityaanand.com/blog/?feed=atom (Atom)

Ofcourse, I would like that you rather visit my blog and be greeted by the K2 theme which though disturbingly common, is something which I like and something that you will have to do with for the short term. Till I go out there looking for themes which are not all bling-blang and which do not use every colour in the world only because they can be used. I could also go out there and edit my style sheets and stuff, but the ‘but’ actually would be some subtle excuse for my laziness. So do excuse me. Enjoy new things like the search and the commenting system and click on the ‘older’ button, if you enjoy seeing things like those,that is.

Catchya there!

Leaving for Bombay day after tomorow. What will I be doing for the couple of days before I finally leave for Dubai? Many things. The most significant of which being- Clubbing, my dear. Clubing. Bombay is the place to party. A place where you can even get a Taxi or Auto at 4 am when the only words you have to mutter are - Powai, Hiranandani. In Delhi it would be the luckiest day of the year if you find any transport at that time. Then starts what looks like an Auction house at Christie’s.

“Vasant Kunj.”

“Baitho.”

“Kitna?”

“300 de dena”

“@!#!@#!@#!@# Kya???”

“Bhai raat ka time hai”

“@#!@ 70 !@#!@#”

“!@#!@”

“!@#”

…..

When you ultimately settle for something like 135 Rs you realise that students are going to school, DTC buses are up and the auto stand is full. You go back, haggle a bit ‘Bhaiya, ab toh din ho gaya’ lots of exclamation marks and others symbol follow and a finally new rate is agreed upon.

I hate digressing. Brevity though, was never my forté.

Dubai, here I come again. Life is gonna be all in High Definition Format on 30″ screens. It was getting boring with all that static in the All India Radio version.

Thing of the Day: R0535 4R3 R3D v10le75 4R3 81U3, 1337 P037ry 5uck5, if you don’t get this you suck too. ( Roses are red, violets are blue. Leet poetry sucks, if….)- A friend’s status message.

If all your life you walked with only one leg, how would you feel if you had to walk with two legs? You will probably hate the idea of it, you will be faster with your single leg; even though you know that it would be better if you used both your legs.

I type fast, fast enough by standards of many people around me, things like not looking at your keyboard became trivial long back. All these years I knew that one day I would have to change the way I type though. Denial they say is not a river in Egypt, it is a freaking ocean. So how do you save yourself from drowning in it? By finally starting to  touch type using all your fingers when your fears were brought into prominence again on Karan’s blog. But old habits, die hard. Muscle memory dies harder. It takes a lot of self restraint to stop your ring finger from not encroaching upon the territory of the z button which is rightfully the little finger’s.

That my dear friends is not all. Misery they say comes in more flavors than any ice-cream parlor offers and lady luck, the bitch that she is, likes giving me sundaes for free.

My last post was actually meant to be in Hindi and written using all my fingers. Trust me, doing wither of them is hard enough on its own. With both of them together, you would rather think of drowning in the Bihar floods (I can swim) or smell your stinking socks ( Ok, but not more time than I can hold my breath ).

I don’t know where did I develop this penchant for embarking on grand projects that fail so pathetically that they put things like Microsoft and their voice recognition technology to shame.

Thing of the day: God got Virgin Mary pregnant by magic, he doesn’t play by the rules- Katherine Heigl (Izzie Stevens, Grey’s Anatomy).

That is what every fermi of my body wants to scream.

There have been times when I have thought about a subject for hours and days and finally blogged about it.

There have been times when my posts have been saved as drafts for ages.

There have been times when I have discarded entries or simply closed my edttor.

But never, ever- never ever- have I been so  so mind numbingly so frikkin’ly irritated by a blog post.

Rusted Locks. Bihar Floods. Stinking socks - images that are cropping up in my mind. They are supposed to be analogies and metaphors.

Yeah I am in cannot-think-of-sane-things mode.

The post in question? Is this very post.

More about this when I am stable enough to figure out what floods in stinking socks and lusted rocks in Bihar mean.

Thing of the day: Gravity is a myth. The earth actually sucks. Or  would you rather trust individuals famous for having apples or bananas fall on their heads.

I am not patriotic. I am against the idea of borders or nations. They divide us and ferment un-symbiotic competition. It leads to things like the Nuclear bomb.

I cherish my independence more than the common man does. I am not a man without morals, just a man with principles.

I cheer for the Indian cricket team and not the Australian, even if we mostly lose to them. Just like I cheer for my College and not the college nearby, even if they have all the babes.

Independence day is for us to think what it is to be free. What it is to be the master of your own self.

Celebrate it. Cherish it. Happy Independence Day.