The hustle and bustle of real life is a killer. But there's no reason for it to be a silent killer, so here's one of those mental kicking & screaming thoughts which was dragged through my head as I was wasting time in Hongkong Airport. My flight called for me before I finished this, but the time has come to acheive some closure.

To: y-blr <...>
Subject: Cubicle for Rent (rates negotiable)

One premium corner cubicle in M G Road available for rent. The cube is 
surrounded by conference rooms, fully furnished with a laptop dock,
a comfortable chair. Extensive table space, entire sixteen foot carpet
area with easy access to sofas, coffee and the pool table. 24x7 
internet access enabled, fully packed bookshelf and with neighbours used
to loud music after 7 PM.

Available for occupancy for a month and at negotiable rates.

Since it is too late to actually send that mail, I guess this is its home now. But sing with me - My cubicle ... it doesn't have a view.

posted at: 08:20 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, fun, yblr

Some of you might have seen me wearing this tshirt. But it was one of those things which me and mojo came up with. After a couple of nearly non-starts, we finally got a half-decent t-shirt design for the Y! Bangalore frontend engineering conference. Nearly completely borrowed the style and attitude of xkcd, threw in a bit of self-deprecating humour (It's so uncool, that even I don't do it).

Somehow the more catty punchline, "When you're *this* pretty, you don't have to do anything" (as said by the machine to the ex-(*heh*)-asperated girlfriend), wouldn't fit into the speech bubble. But this one still is pretty kick-ass.

posted at: 06:27 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, yblr, artwork, conferences

In the last episode of Unicode Fun, we met the non-trademark infringing xoferiF. But this time I bring you English from beyond the equator - do not attempt to adjust your screen.

¿ ʇı ǝsnqɐ ʇ,uɐɔ noʎ ɟı ǝpoɔıun sı unɟ ʇɐɥʍ 'llɐ ɹǝʇɟɐ

˙ƃuoɹʍ uǝǝɹɔs ǝɥʇ ʇɐ ƃuıʞool ǝɹ,noʎ sıɥʇ pɐǝɹ uɐɔ noʎ ɟı

In conclusion, unicode ftw.

posted at: 01:30 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, unicode, fun

The great and awesome teemus has come up with a theme song for APC. Set to the background score of Akon's Smack That !, it goes something like this.

Cache that, give me some more,
Cache that, don't dump some core,
Cache that, don't hit the _store,
Cache that, ~ oohoooh ~

In a sort of related note, I might be singing this somewhere.

posted at: 01:44 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, fun, apc

Happy Vishu to everyone ! For those of us that follow the Malayalam calendar, this marks the birth of the new year. Vishu has like, totally been my favourite festival for so many reasons - it is bang in the middle of the summer vacation, being a kid means you cash in with Vishukkaineetam from all your elders and lastly *FIRECRACKERS* !!.

Because I'm in mourning, I'm not actually celebrating Vishu this year, but that doesn't really stop me from being carried away by the old sounds and smells remembered from the days of my childhood. Ah, nostalgia ... the consolation prize of a loss. For the last 15 years, I've never missed a year in spending this particular day with most of my extended family.

Well, I guess this makes it sixteen in a row ... :)

posted at: 17:46 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, festivals

Consider the past year. Now consider UserFriendly.org's blatant MS bashing of past. And then take a look at the following cartoon.

In the past the Orbital Mind Control Ray could only have been an obvious reference to MSFT (as seen on slashdot). But today, we're making fun of Google - is the attitude towards GOOG changing as the company grows bigger and starts eating small companies for breakfast, lunch and dinner ? Which reminds of this conversation between Bart and Fat Tony from Simpsons 8F03.

Bart: Are you guys crooks?
Fat Tony: Bart.. uhm. Is it it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed 
          your starving family?
Bart:     No..
Fat Tony: Well suppose you got a large starving family. Is it wrong to 
          steal a truckload of bread to feed them?
Bart:     Nuh-uh
Fat Tony: And what if your family don't like bread. They like.. cigarettes.
Bart:     I guess that's okay.
Fat Tony: Now, what if instead of giving them away.. you sold them at a 
          price that was practically giving them away. Would that be a 
          crime, Bart?
Bart:     Hell no!

As someone else pointed out, when Microsoft came out, they were the hungry rebels who were freeing the public from the iron fisted data processing overlords, without the cutsey "Ribbons and Ponies" approach that Apple was taking. The big blue of old, which has now become a savior and hero for Linux, was the evil monopoly ?

How often does sides get switched, old rebels become new masters and acquire new allies from old enemies ?

posted at: 11:45 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, fun, goolge

Found this in one of the mailing lists - but this is total fnuk. Please feel free to click on any of the following links - yahoo shit and google shit. Please take a look at your title bar of your browser to understand the true beauty of bi-directional font-rendering :)

I'm sure xoferiF wouldn't violate any trademarks by the Mozilla foundation.

posted at: 05:30 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, unicode, fun

I remember the last one very vividly.

posted at: 04:20 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, luck

I watch a lot of cartoons, always have, always will. It might not have improved my grasp of physics, but it's always made me laugh. But as I sat in front of the idiot box today, I didn't want to watch any toon they were showing. Ever since Pokemon pointed out the huge merchandising opportunities, the recent trend of toons are mainly intended at making kids buy useless stuff. Sure, there were G. I. Joes and Skeletor toys in the cupboards when I was a kid as well, but watching Beyblade made me sick. Where Pokemon at least redeemed itself by emphasising evolution (for the US bible thumpers), this one seems to be pure merchandising claptrap.

I mean, I'm not asking for a strong story plot here. But it should have something, at least something that stimulates your brain. Most roadrunner cartoons are stupid, but I still ROFL at the Wyle E. Coyote, Genius business cards or anything that's named Acme (with apologies to Leon Brocard). Or to take another example, Tom and Jerry - perfectly predictable, yet funny in some excellent episodes. Even Scooby Doo has its moments of mirth, especially the Let's split up cliches. None of these needed a story to make it funny, it was merely funny because they were.

But there are still some which are for kids of all ages. They go beyond mere physical humour, into word play and referential humour. The moment, Bugs Bunny said "It's baseball season" [1] or the classic What did you expect, a happy ending ? [2] were landmark events for any cartoon to follow. Even the background music was borrowed from operatic greats [3] and a Casablanca spoof with carrots. Not that Bugs and Daffy toons were lacking in the low brow humour either. Those cartoons were loaded with jokes at all levels possible in six minutes.

But that era has passed and passed on the baton to the new overlords of cartoons. I probably won't consider Simpsons or Southpark as cartoons, but as merely animated series. But there were a few glimmers in the pile of shit that got served to me in the late nineties, by Cartoon Network.

First on the list would be Dexter's Laboratory [4] - the classical mad scientist story, only the mad scientist is just 8 years old. Having a secret laboratory, while living the life of a normal kid in front of the parents makes for some moments which involve the audience in some conspiratorial laughs at the expense of Dexter. Not to mention Dee Dee's meddling of the "Ooooooo. What does this button do?" kind. Nobody with a sister can stop smiling at that. Now, you might laugh at the standard jokes it sets up, but there are a few lines from today morning's episode ( * Figure Not Included ).

Major Glory : So what have you learned today ?
Dexter      : I learnt the important lesson that you cannot buy
              friendship with gifts.
Major Glory : No, not that. 
Dexter      : Then what ?
Major Glory : You're going to learn that you can't get away with 
              Copyright Infringment
Dexter      : Oh ?
Major Glory : Now you'll have to face someone much more 
              powerful than me.
Dexter      : Who's that ?
Major Glory : My attorney.

Or even the referential Mock 5 where Dexter (btw, the name means "Right") races against Racer-D who is actually Dee Dee (remember Speed Racer ?). Yeah, Genddy Tartakovsky is a genius. His other works, such as Samurai Jack or Powerpuff Girls, were excellent as well. In fact, PPG was far more involved than the name would suggest, though it is a slightly acquired taste (you need to watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to get some of the jokes).

And then there was Johnny Bravo. For a blonde Elvis clone, who picked up enough Fonzie cliches, comedy comes easy. I for one, love the Kirk Tingblad episodes where Johnny's narcissim is brought to the forefront. Sure I know enough folks who think that it is a stupid show written for stupid people, but the flourishes are there in the details. For example, in Aunt Katie's Farm, Johnny is a pig in the sketch. And after destroying the set, Johnny rolls around in the mud and starts to yell "Four feet good! Two feet bad!". Or even the Prince and Pauper version, except in this one Mark Twain ends up thrown into prison for calling the plot an old chestnut. But my best Johnny line was from the "Panic in Jerky Town" where he comes out of the factory yelling "It's people! Jerky Jake's Beef Jerky is made of people!" [5], which goes whooshing above most viewers' heads.

What I saw on TV today didn't even come close to any of these. I have a glimpse of the future Bill Waterson saw when he said no to selling cuddly stuffed Hobbes to his fans. I'm sure enough younglings will complain that Beyblade is the coolest, but from what I see, it is all about buying tops. I used to love DBZ, but it was never about buying Dragon balls from the nearest shops. These toons seem somehow different and alien to me.

I suppose, every generation survives on nostalgia. Maybe I'm wrong - all these kids will outgrow all the stupid toons and bitch about the next set of twelve year olds when they're twenty four. I mean, I'll really be scared if they don't

Oh, and to relieve you from the suspense about the deer uncles. That's from a Dee Dee quote - "Deers don't have uncles, they have antlers". Laugh if you can ...

posted at: 15:46 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, cartoons

Now, this isn't new, but it just had to be given its due respect. Sung to James Blunt's - You're Beautiful.

My cubicle, My cubicle
It's one of sixty two
It's my small space
In a crowded place
Just a six-by-six foot booth
And I hate it, that's the truth

Well, I give a sigh
As the boss walks by
No one ever talks to me
Or looks me in the eye

And I really should work
But instead I just
Sit here and surf the Internet
In

My cubicle, My cubicle
It doesn't have a view
It's my small space
In a crowded place
I sit in solitude

I haven't seen anything that has more truth in so few phrases. Kudos to Keith Hughes and Jym Britton for pull this one off, with style. Get the song from morningsidekick and play it loud in office.

posted at: 16:51 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, fun

Being the bookworm, I couldn't resist this particular meme. The last one I'd indulged was the superhero one. This one on the other hand, makes a lot more sense.

I'd hoped for Through the Looking glass or at least H2G2. Anyway, there it is though, full of smiling cats and queens playing crocquet with flamingos.

W3rd.

posted at: 03:46 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, books, memes

When we last left off, we were talking about matchpot and the soon to be world championships. But what matchpot lacks in cerberal and social subtlety, Mafia brings out in potfuls. Basically the game is about killing innocent villagers, whether you are the mafia or one of the lynch mob yourself. I was introduced to this game when we were all sitting around in our hotel rooms in Thrissur. The real interesting part is not the game in itself, but how it lets (or in fact forces) you to study other people under a microscope.

After the first few games where Mafia won hands down, slowly the villagers started to pick up on the non-visual cues as well. It was quite interesting to see people trying to be overclever and bluff with poker faces. Also several interesting observations, some particularly personal, were made by a lot of people. I did get a quite inside picture of a couple of people's minds and it is terrifying what some people are actually capable of, compared to your mental estimate of their trick quotient. On top of that, it is also a measure of how successfully you can con other people into changing their opinions. On the receiving side, mafia has a way of exposing your gullibility in a painfully obvious way.

An important lesson the game has taught me is about myself. I found out to my surprise that I think a lot more clearly when I am not formulating a point to present. Being dead in the game gives you a totally different perspective which you are unlikely to get while you are talking. Sometimes just having to sit and watch the entire crowd ignore the clinical quality of the strategy is just way too frustrating. Masterpeices of strategy are completely lost to the villagers who're more concerned about staying alive to the next round rather than bringing the mafia down. Exposed are the simplified versions of our daily grind, where the evil go un-punished and good are targeted. Religions have been based on much less than fixing this (later, much later).

Nobody has seen me as the Mafia yet, but I'm better at finding things out than hiding them.

posted at: 07:46 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, fun, games

As gleaned from the php irc channels on wednesday :-

<helly_>    need to show a table with >2k columns, it can but not show all column headers
<SaraMG>    funny
<Rasmus_>   You need Dell's new 8192" wide monitor for that table
<Davey|Job> *with* the built in HDD
<Rasmus_>   and a bicycle
<g0pz>      and it blinks "pedal faster !!"
<Derick>    8192 inch
<Derick>    wow
<Derick>    that's 208.0768 meters..
<scoates>   Derick: NVGA
<scoates>   (Neighborhood)
<scoates>   it requires 16GB of video ram, though..
<andrei_>   it's not the size that matters
<andrei_>   it's the font

The humor doesn't stop with IRC channels, though. Consider this very awesome groklaw comment, inspired by the Cheese Shop sketch. Also making the rounds is more interesting things like this firefox gurl.

Life's never boring if you watch this world carefully enough.

posted at: 09:51 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, fun

Time is nearing 1 AM and there's a cool breeze blowing across. It's actually quite pleasant to sit there and we're discussing all of life's problems. Mostly with sabiokap and really about the difference of really crossing 25. According to him, that's when you really get to loosen up and relax in life - but I don't believe it. Then, the stage is set for the ultimate joke.

<me> Man, you're in denial.
<sabiokap> No, I'm not !

I've never laughed like that in my life. Mister Douglas Adams could have hardly set up a more perfect paradox in context. Please feel free to wrap your brain around it and tell me, could he have answered any other way ?

posted at: 09:12 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, yblr

I've come to love php. No, not really - but some of their fan generated advertisements literally kill me. To quote Rasmus about what's happening out there :-

Being an open source project, we don't have an HR nor a marketing
department to bug us about political correctness. Nobody can get 
fired. Anybody can do whatever they want.

There are many such pics that are floating around the web with PHP splashed all over. There are a lot of other projects like firefox which have outrageous posters. Amidst all that, here's one that quite caught my attention - feel free to guess why.

Projects aren't really about code, they are about communities. Technical issues get solved in commercial companies as well, but FOSS communities take the rest of the being together, building together thing to the next level. Basically, writing code isn't the only way to have fun.

Do what's fun.

posted at: 07:03 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, php, fun

Today is February 14th - the Singles Awareness Day. Before you jump to any conclusions, I didn't actually name this day. After having sold all the cards and chocolates, this seems to be the latest thing from Hallmark to harness the other and largely under-utilized market of single people. What is written here is largely inspired by the perverse genius of spo0nman.

SAD is a humorous holiday celebrated on February 14. Its a day for
people who are single; that is, who are not involved in a romantic
relationship and can therefore not participate in Valentine's Day
traditions. 

Some observers of SAD do so out of spite for Valentine's Day as a Hallmark holiday or for other reasons. Hallmark spokesmen were unavailable for comment as they were too busy at the moment (rolling the stuff, I suppose).

posted at: 15:40 | path: /fun | permalink | Tags: public, fun