Blog closure

To all the imaginary readers, this blog shall not be updated hence. I am not deleting the blog as such, because I have done a lot of deletion in my life, I have repented later for.

The vanishing act – Feed stats

Feed Stats, which was a feature available at WordPress for bloggers to look at how many people are reading their blogs with feeds and using which software, was shown the pink slip about a week ago. The official announcement is here. Personally, it was just another graphic to look at every evening, and wonder how the heck could these chaps use feeds for my blog.  Another of the routines in my digital life.

It is interesting to ponder what could have led to such a decision: scrapping a feature? The blokes were genuine enough to mention that the page was in a beta, and that everything there wasnt spot on. And so it was understood. But to scrap a feature after it has been in beta for a long is rather unusual. The only possible thing I can think of is the stats being completely bogus or there being a big hole in the code somewhere. It is difficult to estimate feed readers especially with the gamut of available reader services. Or maybe it was hard (resource intensive?) to keep track of everyone who accessed the feeds.

Anyways. It was a good feature. Even if slightly off target, many bloggers seemed to like it as another number adorning their blogging ethos. Hope it comes back soon, as is promised.

F1 in New Delhi

India agree deal on Grand Prix. That means a Grand Prix in New Delhi in 2009! Yeah you will have your fair share of conditionalities that need to test positive. But still the very thought that this is happening is exhiliarating. From a personal point of view, I really hope it is in the early part of the 2009 season, as that will be the year I shall pass out from IIT, and dont know where I shall land afterwards. Coming to think of it, maybe an additional dimension would be added to Formula 1, that of smog induced visibility loss.

Religion and tea pots

Of late my life seems to exist as little clusters of thought which are formed every week, and slowly collate to form some theme of sorts. This time it is the turn of God, to be paraded through my blog, whether he wills it or not.

Religion is, I think, the next most talked off topic, rather the next most thought off topic (since its still a taboo), after love, of course. Its perennial rivalry with science is so popular that it finds its way into beauty magazines too. This post is another drop in this ocean, another discussion of what I make out of this enigmatic facade to human life.

Ah the sweet smell of vindication

The ink has not yet dried from this post of mine, and Hamilton pulled off a sensational victory in Montreal. It was indeed a dramatic race. 8 teams among the top 10. Did I say 8 teams? Yes. When did that ever happen before? Godspeed Hamilton. You made up for the disappointment of sitting in Switzerland and watching Federer lose out. What a day.

Of feeding Orkut and being fed by Google

Orkut has added another feature to its bouquet: that of adding your feeds to your profile. This could mean you can add your Flickr or Picasa Album feeds, or even your Blogger or WordPress feeds. Other feeds like news and jokes from popular websites can be added, if that is sensible. Google also acts Googlish (means smart) and automatically adds Blogger or Picasa feeds under the same account as your Orkut account. Since Orkut is diametrically opposite Facebook in the universe of Internet, and Facebook has recently started its immensely popular Facebook applications, this move makes a lot of sense. Slowly but surely, Orkut will add the popular features.

In other news, I added Google web history to my Google account. This is not a new feature and has been around for more than a month (thats like ages in the universe of Internet). I tend to browse a good 100 pages a day. Multiply that by 7 and in a week I have been through pages enough to fill the fattest book I have read, and the fun part it is searchable. So Google figured this out and did what it does best: Store and search. Again its surely an invasion of privacy, and the fact that Google is so pervasive in one’s online life, could be a matter of concern. But frankly I don’t mind. There might be others who would. Its green, make your turn.

Time to call in the bets

My previous post on Formula 1, painted a certain dilemma in my mind regarding my allegiance in this season, after the ground breaking deals and a certain retirement, at the start. With four races behind the start line, its time to throw in my hat too.

IITK Website Hacked AGAIN!

Just as I was ruminating over the done deal of IITK website hacking, an alert netizen points out that the website has been hacked again. This is straight from the website.

ɱcDonalds buys IITk for 40 80 Billion USD (Perhaps our new bid will catch your attention. Yesh, We’re loving it still!!)

I guess this is turning out to be a mockery of the system in place and the fact that this is happening in the so called creme de la creme institution should raise serious questions.

ps. A certain burger company would not mind the free publicity.

Previous Post – IITK Website Hacked

The singularity named Google

With a very unpopular blogger like me as its author, the only hits my pitiful blog manages to generate are from the search engines. In today’s world the search engines are instant oracles. Google has become a verb of sorts and might pop up in the next Oxford dictionary (with a big copyright symbol of course). So you don’t know something, you just google it. Consider JFGI for example.

IITK Website hacked

Yes its true! The official website of IIT Kanpur has been hacked by apparently a McD fan. Click on the screenshot to see a bigger image.

The IIT websites, atleast the main pages, are never put to any important use. So not much harm should be incurred, if you ignore the embarrassment of the sysads that is. Anyway hacker saab, enjoy your Happy Meal, while it lasts.

[EDIT 4 June 2148 GMT] The IITK site is apparently not loading now, either because the server is down due to the enthusiastic support to McD Hacker saab or as a facesaving gesture from the webmasters @ IITK. [/EDIT]

[EDIT 5 June 0532 GMT] Normalcy has been restored at the IITK website and it looks like the burger party is over! [/EDIT]

[EDIT 5 June 2010 GMT] The IITK website is hacked again. [/EDIT]

ps Times annotate the edit, not the event.

Human mind as a system – II

I really enjoyed writing the first part of this series.

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. – Sir Francis Bacon

That quote wouldn’t sound more true to me now than ever. Writing reinforces ideas and helps develop more correlation between the various suspended discrete thoughts. So I decided to continue writing on this topic for a while (maybe a couple of more posts). Since I am having a certain heightened amount of eagerness regarding this topic, it is worthwhile to look at what shape something like this can take, in anti-romantic style: what is the use of such a topic.

Human mind as a system

There have been separate incidents which have led me on to write a post like this. Actually I like to think of things like these. I do not know how objective or perceptive I am being doing so, but still I think it is the worth the time and energy spent to type it out here. This post is going to be about the human mind from the perspective of an engineering system. I am an expert in neither, and thus all that is being said here are cursory judgments of my own mind. Please gather a certain amount of tolerance before you proceed.

Pain

Loss, defeat, fight or strife
Pain is but another facet of life
Another gift of our wise creator
Giving a view of truth- the greater.

Let me cherish it
To its very last bit.
For I don’t know when next
Life would appear clear, not vexed.

My Poems page

Away

She goes away
Like the rains of May
Never to return again
Unlike the November rain
I do deserve this numbing pain
No one to blame, nothing to explain
Not even like the cold November rain.

 

My Poems page

Launch of Swiss Dossiers

As has become the de facto standard now, one ought to start a new blog dedicated to one’s internship. So let me board the train too. So here is announcing the Launch of Swiss Dossiers @ http://swissdossiers.wordpress.com. Everyone is invited.

For the sake of completeness, I have a two and half month internship at EPFL in Lausanne in the Western state of Vaud in Switzerland. I arrived on 9th of this month and would stay until 24th July. The dossiers at SD will capture every frame of (what already seems like an interesting) internship.