Dec 13, 2009

Random quotes from bash.org

Bash.org never fails to make me laugh. Whenever I feel particularly bored, I start reading random comments there, and it cheers me up quite a bit. Here I've posted some random quotes that I read there that I liked. These are conversations that people had over Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
 <Malagmyr> This linguistics professor was lecturing the class.
<Malagmyr> "In English," he explained, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative."
<Malagmyr> "However," the professor continued, "there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."
<Malagmyr> Immediately, a voice from the back of the room piped up: "Yeah..... right...."
[I've always loved this piece of wordplay. For those who didn't get it - saying "Yeah, right" actually means you don't believe in what the other person said, so it's really 'double positive forming a negative' :) ]


<Sonium> someone speak python here?
<lucky> HHHHHSSSSSHSSS
<lucky> SSSSS
<Sonium> the programming language
[SSSHHHSSS]

Sardonyx: what do you do when a girl likes you and you have no like there of
DooD: do what they do to you if the positions were reversed
DooD: string them along forever
DooD: slowly destroying their heart from the inside out
[Some guy's bad experience brilliantly expressed as dark humour]

<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls
[Reminded me of the 'robots' I did with my friends in college... ]

<Raize> can you guys see what I type?
<vecna> no, raize
<Raize> How do I set it up so you can see it?
["Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." - Albert Einstein]

<spil0ink> is it pronounced live or live?
<Shit_Pifter> live
<spil0ink> thanks
<Shit_Pifter> np
 [What the heck dude? Really??]

<Jeff> :-(
<Jeff> :-(
<Jeff> : (
<cabbage> your nose fell off
 [:-D]

<Axe> I
<Axe> do
<Axe> not
<Axe> know
<Axe> where
<Axe> family
<Axe> doctors
<Axe> acquired
<Axe> illegibly
<Axe> perplexing
<Axe> handwriting;
<Axe> nevertheless,
<Axe> extraordinary
<Axe> pharmaceutical
<Axe> intellectuality,
<Axe> counterbalancing
<Axe> indecipherability,
<Axe> transcendentalizes
<Axe> intercommunications'
<Axe> incomprehensibleness.
<JediHobbes> woah
<JediHobbes> *blinks*
 [Wonder how many hours this guy (or whoever came up with this first) spent on making this up!]

<Zybl0re> get up
<Zybl0re> get on up
<Zybl0re> get up
<Zybl0re> get on up
<phxl|paper> and DANCE
* nmp3bot dances :D-<
* nmp3bot dances :D|-<
* nmp3bot dances :D/-<
<[SA]HatfulOfHollow> i'm going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet
[get on up and DANCE!]

I think that's enough for a random sample. If you want more, there's always the random page from bash.org, the top 100 quotes or the top 100-200 quotes pages. Keep smiling. :)

Nov 13, 2009

Three observations

1. After I wrote 'a series of changes', some days I felt like those changes were all just transitory. As one of my Gtalk status messages said, "Life's about to settle back in its dull routine without much room for creativity." But, as the same message said, "I'm trying to rise with the tide and resist the ebbs, but my strength is being tested." This attempt to resist the dullness itself gives me confidence that I am indeed changing... And things around me are changing for the better, which is a symptom that I am too. Good. :)

2. The word 'multiple' has been stuck in my mind for multiple.. I mean, many days. It all started when I realised that a program I was writing at work required not one but multiple input files. But from then, this word has shown its face every time I was blank in a conversation. When a colleague asked another colleague here if he was single, I answered for him 'no, he's multiple', and was given glares for the PJ (i.e., bad mokkai). The results have not always been this harmless either. No, my dear mind, when your manager asks you 'How many days will this work take to complete?', 'Multiple' is not an appropriate response!

3. After I wrote my previous post, I thought why would people want to ever read about my insignificant life. But then I realized most of the blogs are about people's 'insignificant' lives only. And I too read those every now and then. So, why do we do it?
There's of course a social element - we read and comment to keep in touch, to maintain relationships. But it's not even just friends' blogs that we read.. Think about it, haven't you ever read a post in some stranger's blog, about his/her own experiences totally unrelated to you?
We all do it, because we are interested in others' lives. Why would that be?
Well, imagine a large, very large auditorium, where random people from the street are picked up and asked to dance the Assamese tribal dance (and imagine none of them are Assamese or tribal). The rule is that, the better they dance the happier they will feel. Let's call this auditorium as 'Life', just a random name I picked. What do you imagine would happen?
Since none of them really know to dance it, each one would be unsure what to do. Everyone would start with bad attempts, and would probably become frustrated. Many would get into a state of denial, where they refuse to admit that they are not as happy as they could be, that they are not dancing as well as they can. They place the blame on something - their neighboring dancers, the floor, even their own legs. Among themselves, they would form local groups called 'Friends', with some of whom they are unashamed to share their ignorance of dancing. With others, they would put up a great show of their 'expertise' in dancing, their ego not wanting the others to think less of them. Since no one really knows what that dance is, everyone would keep looking around, observing how others are dancing, while pretending to know the dance. In this situation, if some of them started writing about their experiences in dancing, on what worked and what didn't, wouldn't they be eager to read it?
Of course, there are greater texts, written by experts who, with years of effort in the auditorium, have mastered the dance. But, these are out of their reach, too difficult for them. For all they know, these experts might be people lying about their dancing skills, just as these people themselves do at times. So they deny them, or claim they are for 'special' people, not for ordinary men and women like them.
Their friends' blogs, on the other hand, are much simpler - they feel comfortable seeing that others are also stumbling around in Life, and they have the confidence that the methods they find and share here would be tested and true. Wait, did I say blogs? Yeah, that's what these writings by ordinary people sharing their dancing experiences are called.
As I expose my ignorance of the Assamese dance here, I hope to get myself out of the denial, and perhaps help a few others get there too.

Have a great weekend... :)

Oct 28, 2009

A series of changes

Warning: This post is entirely about me (the ‘traditional’ kind of blog post) and has ended up like a Confessional. :) You might find it boring (in fact you probably would).
I’ve been undergoing a series of changes, all for good. It was high time these changes happened, before life got too awful.
You know the best part of my life so far? It was my High school life. I was proud of who I was, and life was going smooth. Higher secondary wizzed past, and I started seeing changes then itself. But college was the worst part of my life. I was totally unlike myself and I hated myself like anything. Despite a beautiful love story, lots of exploration into domains I had not seen (I started dabbling in philosophy, higher mathematics and many other things in college only), and unbelievably great friends (I don’t think there ever existed a class with a wider variety of great characters), college left me with only a bitter taste at last.
I don’t know what exactly the problem was. Yes, I chose the wrong course, but I don’t believe that was the entire reason. I believe whenever something goes wrong in life, it means something has gone wrong in you. Perhaps I became too ambitious. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to become an expert in both computer science and electronics (yes, I tried that a while before I gave up), and at the same time was trying to change my introverted nature and seeming unfriendliness. In retrospect, it was an impossible situation, as life is all about tradeoffs. I wanted to be everything at the same time.
I think that sums up the problem. I was trying to fit in contradictory personalities within myself, and hence my mind was left as a battleground constantly in war. Every time someone told me I was a good person, a part of my mind, the part which did not like who I was at that point, told me “Huh! Yeah, right, like hell you are!” You know where that would lead? An ever worsening mind that keeps losing good qualities simply because it believes it doesn’t have them. Add to this a heartache that no one really understood me, and you have a recipe for disaster [what a cliché old phrase! :) ]. Every time a good friend talked as if I was bunking classes for fun, my heart sank a bit lower. I tried, a few times, explaining that I was going through tough times and none of it was fun, but gave up after some time. There were very few people who I felt really understood me (Vineeth was one of them, thanks dude). I woke up with no dreams for the day ahead, I went to bed with no satisfaction most of the days, and I was only half-conscious in the time in between. That’s why I missed many of the joys of college life, and instead of being the best time of my life, it ended up being (hopefully) the worst.
Yikes, that was a lot of negativity pouring out. But, like I said at the beginning (still remember wat I said?), I feel I’m changing for better. If you keep trying to get better, life definitely sends you support in some form. I got it in the form of an illness that gave me some compulsory time-to-think, a vacation at home that reminded me of who I really was, and a good understanding friend. I’m starting to view myself positively, have started reading self-help books again, am trying to do everything with utmost concentration, and am trying to be friendly and loving towards everyone.
In short, I’m trying to be… myself!
Edit: Came across this quote immediately after posting this: "Calm down. Breathe. This isn't the end of a beautiful love life that ended suddenly, this is the beginning of the rest of your goddamn life, and it's only going to get better from here." Well, thanks, life, for your beautiful coincidences. :)

Apr 17, 2009

Do Religions forbid you from enjoying life?

An Archbishop writes:


Modern man’s concept of happiness has not changed much since primitive times, ie. happiness is when I acquire more material things from others, and unhappiness is when others take my property from me.
Even if we leave aside the morality of this concept, it is still flawed in its essence because no matter how much property, power, public recognition, and pleasures we amass, it will not bring us happiness. Material objects cannot bring true happiness, only taedium vitae, after which a person is overcome by depression even more than before.

If you have lost something near and dear to you, you'd know how very true those words are.

Every material thing that we desire for brings only pain to us in the end.
Still, why do we continue to do it? We tell ourselves that it is all part of it. We think that without desiring for things, we'll not be enjoying life, that we'd be like robots.

And these saints and people like them seem to give support to it - they give up desires and live like paupers. This is not to blame them, to them there's no need for money or comforts, so they live without them. But for us, outside observers, it appears as though they're living a dull life that you and me surely won't want.

And this is why most of us stay away from religion... It feels like giving up our happiness willingly, which no fool would do.

But... shall we think for a moment? How many sages have you seen who think and write very clearly, who have great minds and brains? You might have heard of Vivekananda who was a very lucid speaker and writer, who understood a lot in science and even memorized whole encyclopedias without effort.

Don't you think it's a bit of contradiction if we say they do something not even a fool would do? Isn't it strange if they all were to be senseless in this one thing alone? Why would such intelligent people give up everything for nothing?

If you sincerely think about that question, you might get a suspicion they might actually have had some reason for what they did. Now, let's think about what they taught and followed.

They taught to take everything that comes as the Will of God. They didn't say don't enjoy things, they just said don't get lost in enjoying, then you'd suffer later when the thing is not there. Keep yourself a little detached from things always, that way you can remain sane always.

How about that for a philosophy of life? Enjoy things when they come, but no worries when they aren't there either. It's a Win-Win situation. Won't you love it?


When they said give up your material belongings, they didn't actually mean throw them all out into the Ganges and become penniless. Some real physical giving up might be needed in some cases to break mind's addiction, but that's not the real goal here. It's like this: if you feel you're getting addicted to the Internet, and want to break the addicitoin, you can probably do it better if you remain off the computer for some days rather than if you continue to be on the net every second, right? The same way, though the actual objective is getting the mind not to depend on some thing, physically taking it away is sometimes necessary to enforce that. If you get very stable in being unattached, those things might be returned to you, because your mind will no longer get affected by them.

And from time to time, life itself gives you big shocks to remind you that you aren't supposed to get too attached to things. Now, I don't honestly get why life (or God or whatever) does this, why it wants us to get detached (there are theories like Advaita that, if true, might explain this), but if this is the state of affairs, it's wise to make the best of it right?

And you know what, life treats you like you'd treat a little child if you're a teacher - life gives you blows only when it wants you to learn something and you refuse. If you learn the lesson yourself and show to life, it pats you on the back and gives chocolates. And believe me, life's chocolates can be very sweet. :)

Now, don't get attached to even that sweetness, just enjoy it, and move on. After all, that's all life's about. :)

hello, world!

Hi everyone.
I learnt one thing in the last few days. Even if you love technology, programming, etc., sometimes you just don't feel like talking about them. You want to talk about yourself, random things you saw, rant out any anger you have, jump out (virtually :) ) in joy, and do much nonsense in your blog.
This is my place for it... You might find anything and everything here, so don't blame me I didn't warn.
Welcome. :)