staying.cool

this one is due to riri.

remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

1. zydeco fish
2. doris
3. Radmila
4. Riri
5. SEV

Next select five people to tag

1. marie
2. trine
3. sol
4. anita
5. rads

What were you doing 10 years ago?
10 years ago.. was 13. was probably finishing up my 8th grade.. think i made my first trip via mumbai public transport too. had adjusted to the move from dubai at long last. was discovering the joys of writing.. as in writing that made sense

What were you doing 1 year ago?

blogging was becoming more sporadic. according to my archives, the closest post is of the devils in my head. the cynicism that is so prevalant in my attitude now, seems to be raising its head then. i seemed to realise that expression is the best way of making it all make sense, though i don’t know about that anymore.

otherwise, i seem to remember that my course was hotting up, with deadlines for exams a month or so away. the cyberjunkie had come to the UK, so misery had some more company

Five snacks you enjoy

• salted nuts - any kind
• crisps - cheesy
• banana chips
• chivda
• digestives

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:

• kiss from a rose - seal
• kya kare - rangeela
• rabba rabba - aks
• with or without you - u2
• ironic - alanis morrissette

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

• travel by road everyplace that’s anyplace
• make myself the ultimate connected home theatre
• buy this gigantic society where everyone important to me can live. together.
• ensure that i have a million more every year
• get all those movies i want. and watch them.

Five bad habits:

• biting the skin off my fingers
• working too much on my lappy
• being absolutely lazy about starting anything
• thinking too much
• not facing my feelings

Five things you like doing:

• working on my lappy
• watching movies
• experimenting in the kitchen. when i’m in the mood. dependent on point 3 above.
• reading
• blogging

Five things you would never wear again:

• tight shirts. too thin.
• uniforms
• the pyjama of kurta-pyjama
• capris
• white sports shoes

Five favorite toys:

• my gi-joe action figure set. seriously
• alienware m5500
• iriver h140
• nokia n70
• my brain

ever since today morning, an idea has been rattling around in my head. what good use does google have of archiving IM chats under gmail ? there is an option to save it on your home pc. face it, that is easier to access.

but, for people who use the chat client as a method of communication.. and i don’t mean asking your friend whether he has the latest movie with him; it is a cheap way of many facets of a technical team staying in touch. for these people, they are no longer limited to their own PC. they can access the archive anywhere.

lets look again. gmail. currently 2692 MB; or about 2.7 GB. why ? the user never needs to store his/her mail again. they can access it with their favourite email client, but their master archive will probably be at gmail. why ? human logic. ‘i have 3 gig of free space online; i’d better use it’. gmail is a great way to archive all the mail you ever get. all that space must be used. its a perfect backup server. for free. there are applications for storing data via gmail.. accessing it as a filesystem on your pc. accessible anywhere.

live chat under gmail ? i don’t need a chat client anymore. my browser.. i log-in to gmail and i’m good to go.

blogger ? great. store your diary online. accessible anywhere. photos ? not a problem. can be hosted as original under blogger (in contrast to yahoo); as many as you want at a time(in contrast to flickr). again. accessible anywhere.

video ? we all know they host that for free too. audio ? we know of google’s effort to catalogue media of any kind.

RSS is still a fledgling technology in terms of usage; but thats probably because people still have a choice when it comes to using it. keeping track of all of you is simple, given an RSS reader. i can keep track of updates to my news sites, my tech sites.. you get the idea. there is the argument that RSS news will never replace papers… its too much a ‘techie thing’. 5 guys in my house, we’re all past 21, and not a paper is bought. everything is read online. the first step is made towards “paperless”ness, so to speak.
and in case i didn’t say it, that RSS reader ? accessible anywhere. i can see them integrate it with gmail, just to provide you with one interface for it all.
accessible anywhere.

it may seem that a lot of this is unneccessary, but think of it long term. no-one thought people would need more than 6 mb of mail storage, until gmail decided that 1 gig was more appropriate. and once that became de-facto, they gave everyone unlimited storage. RSS, chats and so on may seem like silly bells and whistles, but you have a lot of these features expected on standalone email clients. why not on an online client ? plus, i don’t see any difference in the loading time. people can always make use of new features. they will. because they are there. and then these features become the standard.
what’s left ? possibly an interface to ensure that all that information is not accessible to everybody, but just to you. or as you choose it.

all your information. accessible anywhere. via google.

i remember reading about how google was aiming to provide an all-in-one solution. an “online OS”. a thin client is used to access the internet; you login into your personal portal.. and you’re good to go. your data is stored online, you choose how public you want it; or how private. you don’t even need your own PC.. its all on google. there is also that presentation about epic.
its a bit of a stretch of the mind to imagine it.. but we could be there 10 years. broadband is becoming ubiquitous. a lot of our information is best stored online. we may not go the distance of no PC, but we certainly are making more and more of ourselves virtual.

“don’t be evil”. that doesn’t mean “don’t be the ultimate information resource”. after all, you don’t have to be evil to control the world.
uh-oh.

gmail has tied up its ‘chats’ with ‘conversations’ within your gmail account. and just to spice things up a little, a little mock-up of upcoming features:

i can begin to imagine where all of this can go.

remember its ‘don’t be evil’.

looking at the variety of things that they sell in other countries notwithstanding, there’s more than one gadget i don’t have. is the cyberjunkie listening ?

and of course…

that about sums up my current mood, really.
actually what i should do is put one of those annoying ‘mood indicators‘ that so many blogs seem to think the ‘most amazing thing ever !!!!!’ and before you ask.. this post is not written after going over some traffic exchange program.. i stopped going to those over a year ago.

yes, i know there are links alongside, those are free to have on a site. you really don’t have to click them if you don’t want to.. you know. you don’t even have to look there actually. stop it. stop it.
dammit.

i’m apparently not in the mood to write. or work. or watch movies (though the latter is probably because i just watched one). which one ? like you really care. if you really must know.. an average comedy called ‘the 40-year old virgin’. not too bad really.
didn’t do anything for my mood anyway.

its a little scary though. this lack of ‘mood’. its almost like a lack of motivation to accomplish anything. feels like the start of the slide into monotony. almost as if i have lost the ability of think, for inception of original thought, for realization of a goal.
one could put it down to upheavals that my life has seen. but i know i’ve been through worse. and they have never affected me thus. a more fundamental belief system is under attack here, one that has brought me through some tough times. one that was formed during those times.
and i couldn’t care less that its all going for a toss.

acceptance doesn’t seem right, but i am. screwing around with goals that could shape my future shouldn’t be done, but they needn’t exist as far as i am concerned. sitting around killing time in the bargain feels like the murder - the wanton destruction of constructive thought processes.

talking like this isn’t nice, but i’m doing it anyway. its not going to help, its going to make a lot of people very worried, but in about 30 seconds i’m going to click ‘publish’, go back to doing nothing. and, of course, meet anxious enquiries with a stoic silence.

get used to it.

my favourite line from this article is

she now believes her former life was as a ’sheepdog that worked in a farm in Virginia’.

i’m not sure if the hindu fundamentalists should be up in arms too. to me, this is far worse.