A simple hobby

I've found myself a new hobby.

It's really simple and hardly costs you anything. But instant gratification and satisfaction's guaranteed!



Pre-requisites:

1) A sim-card with a great (read CHEAP) SMS-offer

2) a pesky, neurotic, slightly-psychopathic brother

No doubt, except for the few unfortunate, all of us are blessed with these.



Method:

1) Wait until your brother uses up all his free messages for the day.
Note - You could help speed up this step by egging him on.

2) Then, you gloat thusly -- "Haha! See... I told you I have a better offer on my sim! :D"

3) Next, you offer your sim-card in an act of great sibling-affection - but only for a short while.
Attention- The duration of sim-loan must be large enough to allow him time to get into mischief, but short enough to not let him complete.

4) Now, go and DEMAND All That Rightfully Belongs to YOU.
Note- The objective can be achieved with just your sim-card in this case. This will also ensure that you don't spend too much time on this activity.

5) Return to your sanctuary; replace the sim in your phone

6) Wait for a few minutes to receive the Residual Messages (from your brother's conversations).
Note- Obviously you don't recognize the sender's number, nor they yours.... 'coz if they're his friends, they'd know he's signed off and not bother messaging his older sibling. So, rest assured that he's reliably delivered his goods.

6) You reply thusly -- "Who're you?"
Note- In 9 out of 10 cases, you'll get a reply saying "Who's this?"

7) Aha! Now you're FREE to express yourself in whatever way you want.
You don't know the person at the other end, nor does s/he know you.
So have a BALL!
Remember- At no cost, and at no point, will you reveal your true identity.

Note- For an enhanced dose of self-satisfaction and pride, you could be as witty or as nasty or as good-ly as you have always never wanted to be in your real life.

8) When you've had enough, sign off with a polite 'good day!' or 'gn'.
Note- Ignore all pleas; reply no more.

9) Sit back and enjoy.
You've done a great deed today - you've got someone THINKING.



Simple, ain't it?



P.S. Drop me a line about your results.

Sued for $1 billion

Have been reading articles about the $1 billion suit. Brings back a question that's been repeatedly playing in my mind...

Is it legal for any entity to profit by showcasing another’s work, when the entity from whom the material originates gains nothing from it?

In what scenarios is it perfectly legal? When's it sketchy? When's it a definite no-no?

Omniscient Google - Part 2

Google is one of my obsessions.

Anything about Google interests me - be it good or bad. In one of my earlier posts, Omniscient Google - Doesn't it bother you?, I expressed some of my concerns.

Of late, I'm reading 'The Search - How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture'. J.Battelle lends words to my thoughts when he writes thus...



"In essence, we have taken much of our once-ephemeral and quotidian lives - our daily habits of whom we talk to, what we look for, what we buy - and made those actions eternal. It is as if each of us, every day, is tracing a picture of Joycean complexity - recording the mundane and extraordinary course of our lives - via our interactions with the Internet, be they through our personal computers, our telephones, or our music players, and our interactions with businesses, either online or in the store ...
...
... Through companies likes Google and the results they serve, an individual's digital identity is immortalized and can be retrieved upon demand. ...
...
As we move our data to the servers at Amazon.com, Hotmail.com, Yahoo.com, and Gmail.com, we are making an implicit bargain, one that the public at large is either entirely content with, or, more likely, one that most have not taken much to heart.

That bargain is this: we trust you to not do evil things with our information. We trust that you will keep it secure, free from unlawful government or private search and seizure, and under our control at all times. We understand that you might use our data in aggregate to provide us better and more useful services, but we trust that you will not identify individuals personally through our data, not use our personal data in a manner that would violate our own sense of privacy and freedom.

That's a pretty large helping of trust we're asking companies to ladle onto their corporate plate. And I'm not sure either we or they are entirely sure what to do with the implication of such a transfer."

Tusker @ Bhadra Wildlife Reserve

Date : 10-Feb-2007

River Tern Lodge -- Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary

Over the weekend, six of us college friends had been to Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary and stayed overnight at the River Tern Jungle Lodge, which is about 4 kms away from the sanctuary. The lodge pampers your senses with both man-made luxury and the scenic beauty of the Bhadra river on whose banks it is built. Each cottage (named after a bird species) overlooks the river and offers a soothing view of the river which lulls you with the sound it makes as it constantly cleanses the rocks that line its banks. In the pitch dark and deathly silence of the night - when the moon is nowhere to be seen and all the tiny noisome creatures seem asleep - the sound of River Bhadra's gentle waves lapping the surface of the smooth-worn rocks seems no less than that of angry sea-waves crashing and tearing into the rocks that dare to offer the slightest resistance in their paths. At once it is both serene and disturbing, depending on your thoughts and moods.