The reason being that due to the rushing up of deadlines, most of the times the writing suffers. Which is exactly the opposite of what I wanted.

Therefore until further notice, I will only be uploading Photos of the week to this blog.

Abishek

Amazing work!

Abishek

What it does is quite simple, it lets you change the skin color in your profile picture into a lighter tone.

I am dark skinned by nature. And I agree, at one point of time, I too was under the spell of ‘the whiter the better’. But at some point of time I realized just how stupid that was.

Unfortunately, millions of people don’t agree with me.

Screw them.

If you are one of people who do not belong to the above mentioned category, then kudos.

I would like to end this really short post (which is really short because I can’t say much more without sounding ‘defensive’) with this quote from one of those articles:

“And in a way, this is the Photoshop of Horrors brought to its most depressing possible conclusion. In the past, advertisers had to create unrealistic images to make people feel bad about themselves and buy shit. But now, Facebook users can create their own. It’s crowdsourced insecurity, with an added bonus of racism.”

Abishek

And before people start freaking out and labeling me ‘mad’, I would like to clarify that I have never met any of the above 150.

It all started two years ago. I had only taken my baby steps into orkut a couple of months earlier and had just heard of Facebook from some friends.

And there began the tale of my Facebook adventures.

It started innocently at first. A few friend requests, a couple of profile updates… you know how Facebook was back then. And then, THEY started.

VAMPIRES vs WEREWOLVES

VANDALISER

MAFIA WARS

It was fun at first, I admit. But after a week, things took a downturn. The once funny applications became irritating.

Then came the first generation quizzes.

“What is your lucky color?” “What is your ideal pet?”

Those were fun as well, until the wall crowing began.

For the younger generation of facebookers in the audience, let me clarify. There was once a time when ALL of your applications and quiz results were published on your profile. And the profile wasn’t anywhere as neat and organized as it is today. It was a huuuge mess of boxes of quiz results. As a result most of us gave up on facebook and went back to Orkut.

And one day, Mark Zuckerberg probably realized that he was losing all of his users and did a major layout re haul.

And slowly, all of us moved back to facebook.

And THEN began the friend request frenzy.

If we had been crazy enough to make our ‘scrap books’ on Orkut bigger than all our friends, then we hit on the ‘More friends on my list’ idea with a vengeance.

Friend requests were sent and received like crazy. As our friend lists grew, we began to lose sight of what Orkut and Facebook were REALLY for – actual friends and networking.

And so, slowly but surely, the friend requests died down and the facebook as we know it today, began to take shape.

Its the usual story from then on: status message jokes, picture tagging, wall posts and commenting etc. etc.

And we all forgot about the gazillion random people whom we added to our friend lists.

Until today.

———————————————————————————————————————————————

Today, I realized that there were a huuge chunk of posts and pictures on my news feed which I didnt even care about. And it became obvious where the source was.

And so, I began sorting through my friend list.

I did spend a large amount of time deciding on what criteria I should use. I finally settled on this simple one: ‘The people on your friend list should be people with whom you have had at least a couple of proper conversations, FACE TO FACE.’

And two hours later, presto, my initial friend list of 541 reduced to 398.

That’s nearly one-thirds of my friend list gone!

Phew.

Abishek

PS: If you are among the people who have been removed, its nothing personal. You are more than welcome to add me again and lets try to actually BE friends this time, instead of two people who have to put up with each others random inside jokes on our news feeds!

Three days ago, I packed my bags, checked my electronics and left my laptop on the table before heading off to Coorg.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

Battle 1:

This morning, I reach home, thoroughly refreshed and relaxed. I unpack, have some breakfast and switch on my laptop.

RED ANT.

A solitary red ant runs in between the keys.

I brush it aside and connect to the internet. I begin to check for updates and emails.

RED ANT RED ANT.

Two of them dart across the LCD screen.

Impatient to reply to some mails, I brush them aside as well and continue with my work. A couple of minutes pass.

RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT.

Four of them rush out from the ventilation holes on the laptop.

I begin to wonder where they are coming from and decide to investigate. I remove the charger and other wires attached to my laptop and lift it off the table.

RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT RED ANT.

Dozens of them run out from all corners of my laptop and begin to swarm over the keyboard. It takes all of my self resolve, not to drop my laptop.

I put my laptop of the floor and begin to brush them away. They quickly scurry back into the nooks of my laptop.

Battle 2:

I put my laptop out in the sun and wait for fifteen minutes.

Not a single peep from them.

Battle 3:

I tilt my laptop 90 degrees and wait.

No sightings.

Battle 4:

Distraught by my previous failures, I decide to play sneaky.

I place my laptop on a sheet of old newspaper.

I take a bowl of sugar and bowl of honey and draw trails away from my laptop.

I wait.

Five minutes. No sightings.

Ten minutes. No sightings.

Fifteen minutes. The first enemy scouts appear.

Twenty minutes. About 4 or 5 ants are roaming around the trails.

Twenty five minutes. Around 10-15 ants can be seen. Begin operation ant-a-gonize.

Thirty minutes. Twenty ants dead. Five roaming around the battle field. No new targets.

Thirty five minutes. The eery silence of the death-filled battlefield is deafening. Twenty five hostiles dead, no others can be sighted.

End battle.

Battle 5:

I take a brush and try to brush through all the openings in the laptop.

No result.

Battle 6:

Starts by chance actually.

I place my laptop on a cushioned chair and browse facebook. Twenty minutes pass. A couple of ants scurry out one of the vents.

They are quickly crushed by giant human fingers (with respect to them that is) and the carcasses are piled up on an old newspaper.

Two more minutes pass. Four ants run out of the laptop. Only to join the pile.

Another minute passes. The hostiles begin to appear more frequently. The pile grows.

It is then that I realize that using the laptop on the cushion blocked a couple of vents and hence heated it up. The laptop sizzles to the touch, but at least the ants are coming out.

By the end of the night the pile is stacked on the newspaper.

No more ants appear.

But as the wise warrior knows, I may have won the battle, but the war isn’t over yet.

Time will te..OUCH.

Ant bit my finger.

I HATE ants in my laptop.

Abishek

PS: Completely true story.

Time for some holiday travel.

Abishek

Narcissism seems to be getting a strong foothold within the certain domain called ‘Profile pictures’.

Most people realize that they can pose more casually when they themselves are taking the picture.  What they don’t realize is that more than half the time, this leads to disastrous consequences. For both the photographer and the viewer.

Example 1: The ‘I’m all muscular/wearing make up’ shot in the mirror. Mostly ends up scaring away the viewer.

Example 2: The ‘blank stare’ shot with an outstretched hand with the camera. No comments….

Example 3: The… While I am extremely tempted to write on about this phenomenon, I take a look at my facebook profile. Realization dawns. My own profile picture is one I’ve taken in a car mirror.

Self pwnage.

Abishek

This is one of my favorite Feynman videos. He’s got this amazing perspective on things.

Abishek

I was on a train back to Chennai today morning. When people think of trains, they usually think of the fun journeys, the interesting strangers and the new food. I too think of them, but just when I am about to sleep on that thought, BAM, roach on my pillow.

Ok, fine! There was no ‘BAM’. But there might as well have been one.

Ok, now the full situation. I’m all set to drift into sleep from the ‘drowsy-limbo’ of listening to songs. I’m settling my things into my bag and getting out the pillow. I turn around for a second to make sure I havn’t missed a thing and when I turn back, ROACH.

Let’s list the possible reactions I could have given:

• I could have squashed it with a piece of paper from my bag.
• I could have brushed it down to the floor (from the upper berth) and let it scurry away.
• I could have taken the pillow, tilted it outside the berth and let the roach fall.

But instead, I simply stared at it. Yes, that’s right folks. There I was, half asleep, in the dim lighting of the train, having a staring contest with a cockroach.

Luckily, I won.

The cockroach moved away ever so slowly, crawling on to the wall. I let out a premature sigh of relief and slowly closed my sleepy eyes. When I opened them again 5 minutes later, Mr.Roach had resumed the staring contest from the wall.

This time, I chose to cheat instead and gave it a huge smack with the pillow. And, thank the heavens, the roach did not get squashed but went flying all the way to the next set of berths.

I woke up the next morning after several recurring nightmares about giant roaches. This time, I was sure to check my bag for any open-zips or roach entry points.

Thankfully, there were none. Or so I thought…

Abishek

[Click on the picture to view a bigger version]

Want to play?

Abishek