Technology

My Best Purchases-O2 XPhone II

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This is first of a series where I reminisce about my best purchases and purchases I regret to this date.

I will start with something positive, my second smartphone. The O2 XPhone II, 9th in a long list of phones I have used over the years. Although I did have an N-Gage QD before this, it was barely a smartphone, severely crippled by software.

The O2 XPhone II

The software on the O2 XPhone II was phenomenal. Instead of writing all about it again, I will just link to my original review.

Unfortunately, not all good things last and its joystick broke after a while and was eventually stolen.

This is one of those purchases that changed my life.

Work

Obsession & Burnout

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Last few weeks I have been obsessed with some project at work. It was something I was dreading not doing for some time, but eventually took up because no one else would do it, resulting in burnout.

Now, I am a Network Engineer by profession and this project requires skills in Linux, PHP, Perl etc. so was challenging at first, but eventually I got hooked and it took over my life. Some examples of the madness include

  1. Waking up in the morning anxious to go to office (But not in a good way)
  2. Sitting at my desk for hours without moving
  3. Ignoring all other projects
  4. Not realising it was already night and I have a home
  5. Going home and researching about the project on my phone
  6. Not able to sleep thinking about the project
  7. Having dreams about the project

After 2 weeks now that almost all major challenges are over, I am left spent, exhausted and close to burnout.

Need some time to divert my thoughts to something else.

Rant

Hyundai Creta is the new Suzuki Swift

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There’s a word used in and around Delhi and most of North India. The word is “Lafandar”. It basically refers to a class of teenagers (but could also extend to people in their 30s) who have a lot of free time, whose fathers have a lot of money and whose favourite past time is driving around the streets from evening till late night in their pimped our cars. Also, they do not contribute to society in any way, except by occasionally crushing pedestrians under their cars, keeping this country’s burgeoning population in check.

You can easily spot them at a distance; they are the ones driving aggressively, changing lanes unnecessarily and cutting others off.

Till a few years ago, a vast majority of these “Lafandars” were driving Suzuki Swifts. It never made much sense to me, as the Swift is a middle class car and not a show-off worthy car.

Now that the swift has fallen out of style, most of these people are now driving Hyundai Cretas.

When you spot a Creta at a distance, you can be reasonably sure that if you drive too close to it or overtake it, the owner will cut you off; hence it is best to keep some distance between you and them.

Education, Rant, Satire

Nerd of the decade – Part II

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I wrote this article about a freak called Subhankar Mohapatra almost 12 years ago. Since then I haven’t come across anyone matching his level of loser-ness, till today.

Meet Ankur Garg, another freak of nature who managed to score 171/170 in his Macroeconomy exam at Harvard.

One look at his Resume and you know that his whole educational career has been an aimless pursuit to prove only one thing- that he is good at studies and exams.

Garg, who is 36 (but looks 63) first wasted public money studying at IIT. Then he made a complete U-Turn in his career by appearing for the civil services exam and being the youngest (22 year old) to do so (I believe he looked at least 40 then).

The freak writes

“In the last phase (possibly!) of student life now, I end up getting this score (171 out of 170) in the final exam of the macroeconomics course.”

Sure, at 36, he is just finishing the last phase of his student life. At this rate he might even start working and contributing to society in the next 20 years.

If one wonders what happened to this freak during his childhood that led him to be like this, they only have to read this quote from the article

“When I was in school, my father used to say – 10 out of 10 isn’t good enough in any exam. Always strive for 11 out of 10″

With a father like this, I think it is safe to say that the fault is not his own but of his abusive upbringing.

Also, in this article, there’s no mention of his contributions to society or any achievements other than clearing exams.

The overall beneficiaries of all the hard work this person put in his life would be the politicians, whose boots he can (hopefully) lick with more vigour now.

Hate, Rant

Sanghi Rule

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The country is going to the dogs.
1 year before Narendra Modi came to power, things slowly started to change in the country. Suddenly the word “Hindoo” started getting used much more around the office and in general life.
RSS[1]
Everywhere around me, chants of “NaMo NaMo” started gaining fervour slowly, but surely. Being an atheist, I have never  been in favour of political parties with a religious agenda, but surely NaMo would be a sensible man and would focus on things that matter instead of religion, right? He would keep his party people and the RSS in check, right?
Wrong.
One year since he became Prime Minister, the following things have happened in the country

  1. Beef has been banned in my state and many other states of the country. Being a person who likes eating beef, I am not happy with this move. There have been a few incidents of mobs killing Moslems on the suspicion of eating beef.
  2. Almost all new kid’s shows on TV are now based on Hindoo mythology starring the child versions of Hindoo gods.
  3. Gurgaon has been renamed to Gurugram, Allahabad renamed to Prayagraj and talks of Shimla to be renamed to Shyamala and Delhi to be renamed to Indraprastha, soon.
  4. Ramen from Nissin and Nestle both tested positive for high levels of MSG and were banned for a couple of months. Ramdev Baba, a known BJP crony “coincidentally” chose that exact same time to launch his own brand of instant noodles and immediately filled the void in the market. Nissin and Nestle both successfully appealed and got the band removed (turns out the test results were wrong), but by then the damage was done and Ramdev Baba’s noodles were already famous.
  5. One day after the PM banned most denominations of currency, a full page advertisement by PayTM (which gained most users because of the ban) was displayed on the front pages of most Indian newspapers with the PM’s photo prominently displayed. Is the shameless endorsement of private companies by a country’s sitting PM even allowed?

The country is going to the dogs.

Rant

The Beckhams live in a different, parallel universe

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Today while channel surfing, I came across this new show about Beckham going on a trip to Brazil and roughing it on a bike -“Into the unknown with David Beckham”. The show starts with a 15 minute discussions between David and Victoria Beckham about what David will do with his hair in the humidity of Brazil. Many ideas are thrown. Eventually they settle on David wearing a cap throughout his trip.
I have never been to Brazil, but I have experienced humidity, so I do not understand, what happens when humidity meets hair? Does your hair melt? Does it catch fire? Then Victoria casually comments that she can’t even go to humid countries? What? Regular people can’t go to countries because they can’t afford it, or can’t get a Visa. I know the Beckhams are far from regular people, but the Gates spend half their time in Africa without worrying about their hair.
Finally after making sure the hair Is OK, David heads to Brazil and checks in to a Luxury hotel. He remarks many times that he hopes people don’t recognize him, in a football loving nation like Brazil.
He rides his bike all the way to another part of the city and then plays beach volleyball with some locals and Is really surprised when they recognize him. Yes, Brazilian football fans recognising David Beckham is a surprise.
He then boards a plane to go to the rainforests. He gets on his bike again and rides it from his hotel to the edge of the city. Rea’ rough. There he finally meets people who don’t seem to recognize him, which is his dream, right? David looks suspiciously sad and insulted considering his dream came true, but then he and his entourage promptly starts asking these people if they recognize him.
He then sleeps in a hammock inside his hotel and plays flappy bird on his iPad.
I have never seen celebrities so full of themselves or so far removed from reality.

Hate, Rant

Spawn from Hell & Haraamzada

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So I was at the mall, sitting on a bench when I come across these two. The kid is almost 2 years old and still sucking on a soother. One look at his face and you are sure he is a Spawn from Hell.
While the Spawn from hell is hanging out with his man-servant, pulling his hair and being a dick in general, his father comes over and screams at the servant “Yaha kya marwa raha hai haraamzade?” (What are you doing here, bastard?) in front of his son.
Haraamzada and Spawn from Hell must both be partially deaf, because the father is shouting at the top of his voice.

Spawn from hell must want something from one of the stores, that his father is in no mood to spend money on, because he immediately lies down face downwards and starts beating his fists on the floor. The father gently kicks him over so that he is face up and cannot beat his fists anymore.
While the parents walk away, the haraamzada servant bends down to pick up the spawn. The spawn shouts “haraamzade” one last time before giving up and resigning to his toy-less fate.

Hate, Rant

Pathetic Freeloaders

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What won’t people do for free stuff? Fisher and Paykel had an exhibition at Ambience Mall, Gurgaon where they had a chef make food using their products. People who sat for the demonstration would get this food for free.

Losers
More Losers

We saw this scene when we reached the mall and after more than an hour later, while walking by, we saw the same group of people sitting there, licking free ice cream. Surprisingly, it was not people from the lower class who were wasting their time for free ice cream, bit rather well to do people. Pathetic. Bonus: Another (or the same) set of losers getting photos clicked in front of Valentine’s day decorations