Companies and their Punches

Punch-lines of some companies are sometimes too punchy that they make you think aloud. For example,

Canon: Delighting you always.
A strange feeling always. Out-dated you are, please upgrade to our new products.

Café Coffee Day: A lot can happen over coffee.
Quit your job, start a firm, be a loser.

Lufthansa Airways: There's no better way to fly.
You are caught, your legs are tied. Now show me how you can fly.

Dominos: Khushiyon ki home delivery.
We have little space in our outlets, better be-(a)ware.

MS Office 97: Work less, Do more.
Eat more, Grow fat.

SBI: With you all the way.
Make all your payments on time.

MTNL: Transparency makes us different.
The transparent customer service representatives tell us all.

Epson: Exceed your vision.
Yeah... and Go Blind.

CNN: Be the first to know.
From a cat's cry to a dog's weep.

Tata Indicom: Business without limits.
Network with all limits.

ICICI Bank: Hum hai na.
Wohi to chinta ki baat hai.

Compaq: Ban jaaye baat.
Chalo fir sun lo gal aur kar lo baat.

TCS: Beyond the obvious.
Right. Oblivion.

Allstate Insurance: You are in good hands.
You do not have an option to think anything else.

Disclaimer:

The content of this post has views that are my own and none of them are aligned towards maligning any individual or organization but are intended for humorous purposes only.

Faking

The end of ‘Claymore’ manga was a false one! It still continues… YO!!!

Somehow the usual scanlators seem to have been demotivated and someone used machine translation to produce a low quality scanlation. Well, something is better than nothing, I guess.

It’s too damn hot here so don’t feel like writing any more. Have a look at the beginning of my

Nepal Trip’12

Feeling Lucky

This post is about luck in photography. About having the (right) camera right at hand when you need it. About uttering the most clichéd photography advice, “it’s not the camera that takes the photo, it’s the person holding it”. And hence I believe my Nokia’s 3.2MP camera does a better job than iPhone’s 8MP one. Since it’s about belief, I don’t need to furnish any proof!

So let’s start with an insect

of a book. Compare the insect’s size with one of the words in the title of the book! Guess this word… Should be simple enough!

So these photos were shot with my Nokia phone, which has no Image Stabilization but it captured nice presentable photos in low light nonetheless as you can see for yourself! Now we move on to photos taken from my usual Olympus camera. Two edge-on shots of a dandelion, to demonstrate the effect of why auto-focus of the camera cannot always be trusted!

Another way to put the above photos in context would be to say how manual zoom can be chosen to give what you really want. The following set of photos demonstrate the effects of choosing different shutter speeds:

My first proper photo with ‘long’ exposure leading to capturing acceptable water trails (of a fountain in this case; someday it will be a waterfall) and imparting a feel of hazy veil over the scenery. (Ah, such poetic lines, I amaze myself!) Now, we come to the real ‘luck’ aspect of photography. How many flies do you see in the following photo?

I was about to leave the place after taking this photo but then I saw that the fly had moved up the flower and without studying the camera’s LCD screen much, I just snapped another pic. The following is what I got. Now how many flies do you see here?

That’s right! Only when I uploaded this photo on my laptop was I able to realize that what I had snapped was a photo of two (mating) flies! I don’t know the exact name of the species and am not bothered to search for them. However, if you know the name, I would be more than glad to learn! This is what being lucky means: I captured an interesting moment in a photo, which is also sharp enough as far as the focussed subjects are concerned to give the camera’s auto-focus system some well-deserved pat on its sensor (not ‘literally’ though)! Obviously, these puny flies are not that interesting subjects when we have the brilliantly bluish Damselflies hogging all the spotlights in such a fine display of orchestrated choreography! Anyway, enjoy some more of my photos at

Summer 2012

Some Shers of Shaharyaar

When you don’t have any good ideas about a post, fall back to Shayari. Nothing beats it; if you understand it, that is! So I’m translating a bunch of Shers from different Ghazals by the poet simply named शहरयार (Shaharyaar). After skimming through the page titled ‘Shayari’ above, do dive in:

ऐसे हिज्र के मौसम अब कब आते हैं
तेरे अलावा याद हमें सब आते हैं

Aise hizr ke mausam ab kab aate hain
Tere alaawa yaad hamein sab aate hain

Such seasons of separation are now few
I tend to remember everyone except you

जागती आँखों से भी देखो दुनिया को
ख्वाबों का क्या है वो हर शब आते हैं

Jaagti aankhon se bhi dekho duniya ko
Khwaabon ka kya hai wo har shab aate hain

Watch this world with wakeful eyes’ sight
Ignore dreams for they appear every night

सीने में जलन आँखों में तूफान सा क्यूँ है
इस शहर में हर शख्स परेशान सा क्यूँ है

Seene mein jalan aankhon mein toofaan sa kyon hai
Is shahar mein har shakhs pareshaan sa kyon hai

Why is inferno in the heart, typhoon in the eyes
Why is every single person in this city troubled

क्या कोई नई बात नज़र आती है हम में
आईना हमें देख के हैरान सा क्यूँ है

Kya koi nai baat nazar aati hai ham mein
Aaeena hamein dekh ke hairaan sa kyon hai

Is there something visibly new about me
Why does the mirror look surprised to me

हमराह कोई और न आया तो क्या गिला
परछाई भी जब मेरी मेरे साथ न आई

Hamraah koi aur na aaya to kya gila
Parchhaai bhi jab meri mere saath na aai

No regrets that no other companion came along
Given that my own shadow did not tag along

बिछड़े लोगों से मुलाक़ात कभी फिर होगी
दिल में उम्मीद तो काफी है, यकीन कुछ कम है

Bichhde logon se mulaakaat kabhi phir hogi
Dil mein ummeed to kaafi hai, yakeen kuch kam hai

Will meet those again, who have parted ways
Enough hopes in the heart, the belief sways

अब जिधर देखिए लगता है कि इस दुनिया में
कहीं कुछ ज़्यादा है, कहीं कुछ कम है

Ab jidhar dekhiye lagta hai ki is duniya mein
Kahin kuch jyaada hai, kahin kuch kam hai

Wherever you look in this world, it feels
Somewhere it’s more, somewhere it’s less

आज भी है तेरी दूरी ही उदासी का सबब
यह अलग बात कि पहली सी नहीं कुछ कम है

Aaj bhi hai teri doori hi udaasi ka sabab
Yah alag baat ki pehli si nahin kuch kam hai

Even today, being far from you makes me sad
Though, compared to the past it’s not that bad

-शहरयार (Shaharyaar)

I felt weird that day in Feb when I, after reading his Ghazals, searched for him and found the above article containing his obituary, which was barely a week old! Such ‘fragile’ coincidences…

I have presented here 8 Shers spanning 4 of his beautiful Ghazals (break-up: 2+2+1+3) and I will leave you with yet another beautiful Ghazal of his:

ये काफिले यादों के

Nested Conversations

Before I get to the stuff related to the title, let me just shout out, “What the hell?”! How the hell is this chapter the end of ‘Claymore’? This is much worse than what happened with ‘×××Holic’! If this chapter came out in April, it could have been labelled as April Fool’s joke but this is May for the Reader’s sake!

Anyway, forgive me for that small excursion into the field of my dislikes, let’s now enter the like-field as it is supposed to be bad to keep dwelling on the negatively charged field of thoughts. So, how many fields have we crossed and has my intention of using the word ‘field’ for at least 5 times in a paragraph fulfilled? Who is to answer such questions in a vast field of equally irrelevant questions? So, let’s get back to the like-field and explore the field of general ignorance in the form of this small field-view of QI’s last episode in Series I – The Immortal Bard:

Words…

After seeing this very likeable video, I thought people do indulge in such weird rituals like inventing names for others despite their given names being already available for use! Ok, the parents do need to indulge in such trivialities of naming their child(ren) otherwise the child will grow bitter with resentment as years pass by for being kept nameless. But why do others, those beings usually labelled as ‘friends’, indulge in such meaningless activity of creating a ‘(nick)name’. Their work has already been done: Just pick up the name already present (thanks to the parents) and Use it to your heart’s content! I know I have used the nickname for Shantanu but I didn’t create it – it was created by someone, who thought there was a need to drop the first syllable and mutilate the last syllable. Anyway, he doesn’t mind so why should I hesitate: Jai ho T da…

But this view of mine changed recently (like Charlie Brooker’s view of babies did) when I got the urge to ‘create’ a name for my superpartner. You know how these things happen: One day you are bragging about never ever driving above 60 Km/Hr and the next day you find yourself on an Autobahn. I got over that a while ago just in time to see the video above and get another idea to figure out what ‘affectionate’ but at the same time ‘funny’ name would suit her! You do know that superpartners are apparently required to do this and it is supposed to be an important part of the checklist titled “Things to do to piss off others around you:”. Nobody has handed me the full checklist for now so I guess they don’t have to think about alienating me just yet.

With this long preamble, we finally get to the crux of the title. In trying to come up with names for each other, we indulged in a conversation on SkyDrive using OneNote (Web App) [Microsoft should be thanking us for advertising their Awesome products and using it extensively on almost daily basis… Oh, holy crap! I just realized that’s too much usage with some deep & dark & personal thoughts passing through their servers… Oh well, it can’t be worse than using Google…] where stuff is synced in real-time and simultaneous editing is seamless unless you’re editing the same sentence (even then, resolving conflicts is pretty easy). So the following ‘nested’ conversation started after I called her ‘sly’ for asking me to find purple chocolates and then other ideas started pouring in. This conversation spanned a few days and got too colourful for my taste, which led me to think, “that’s a blog post right there” and so here it is (obviously, the details are smeared out in view of the fact that no one is going to read the post this far and it will remain an inside joke between us):

Sly is one of the most sought after compliments in today's times, so thank you! :) - Sure, welcome; some more: cunning, foxy or vixen-y ;) - hehe ;) - Happy to know that there is something else too - oh, come on! I do come across as cheap but at least not as cheap as you're making yourself believe by thinking I'll bring just a packet of chocolates - c'mon dude! don’t know what has made you imagine all this; you are very hp (how is this name, not as good as pw, right? - Ya, Not at all Good! hmm... what about ct, mt How did you stumble at these combo? head-dumps Just being cm… how about that? sounds super cool) or a very simple one dm ;)... don't shout at me now [No, am not shouting but dm is such a nursery kid's abuse… you can do better than that! ;) hehe... ok Also I was thinking we're trying to find some endearing names for each other but the last one makes your 'dislike for me at times' a bit too transparent, doesn’t it, pw? hehe… :) That's not right cm ;)]) and don’t struggle for those chocolates… I’m creating a hue and cry for purple may be (so even you’re not sure why you chose purple, huh?) just to irritate you a bit ;) - I have not had one in such colour for a long time now, no great reason as such - Well, I found some and have ordered them already. Just to irritate you too, I'll try some and hand you an unsealed packet. ;) - thanks but don’t hand over an empty packet and I will be more than happy :) - Good :)

Could you figure out how many levels does this conversation have? Assuming each level was created per day, how many days did this conversation last? Are the brackets matched up? [If they are not then it’s not my fault, it’s hers... Which is the last line or in other words, who had the last word? And philosophically, is this possible in ‘linear flow-chats’ like those that occur in various messengers? [I’ll say NO and refuse to listen to any of your contradicting answers!]

And finally, this colouring method is a great way to

“See” Four-dimensional Space

How NOT to…

… do Macro Photography. This could have been another “Spot the…” post but instead let me document (actually I guess there’s only one follower here who’s interested in this topic so “Hello SD!”) something about how (not) to take photos of flowers & insects during springtime.

First of all, if it’s cold outside, wait for another day or dress properly. Don’t go out in shorts and sleeveless shirt and get frozen like I did.

Second of all, be patient. The flowers will always be there (for that half an hour you’re there) but due to winds, they’ll sway so turn on that in-camera (or in-lens but only one) Image Stabilization, tie yourself securely to the ground, focus on the equilibrium point of their oscillations and start clicking in continuous shutter mode. (Wish I’d done that.) You should be able to get at least one well-focused image.

Third of all, have a sense of humour. The insects will scurry about without even giving a moment’s thought that someone is trying to snap their photos. Thus, we need to pounce on them metaphorically: follow their flying patters, predict their trajectory, pre-focus on the flower they are going to land, hit the shutter button as it comes in the camera’s live view and curse have a laugh for getting an ‘unsatisfactory’ shot.

Fourth of all, blog about all those failed techniques / shots:

Wait for it to appear in full view... Here the flower has obstructed the view.

Bad Focus & Insufficient Zoom… At least you can notice its proboscis.

It is way in the background and so focus is on the wrong objects.

You know what’s the problem here even without me spelling it out but appreciate the pattern on it’s back.

Again focus on wrong objects but with better zoom, notice its proboscis again.

Ridiculously and Completely off-focus both above and below.

For the last two photos: I pre-focused on the flower while the bee was roaming around on other flowers and when it landed on that flower, I hit the shutter button congratulating myself on the timing and what not. But now that you see the results (& when I did it way before you!), you realize that since it’s macro, the depth of focus is really shallow and the body of the bee was large enough to be out of that depth and be ‘out of focus’. So learn to use manual focus. But my camera doesn’t allow manual focus in macro mode… aaahhhhhh!

Fifth of all, Hit & Trial is the best way to go (for amateurs like me to gain ‘experience’) and I managed to get a few decent shots. To prove that I did get some interesting shots and that half an hour was not a total failure, here’s an interesting perspective of a pretty flower (to start with):

The Celebrations - Then and Now

Then:

Get up early, touch everyone’s feet, may be let your body fall flat for a few to get the nice & warm blessings, perform the aartis (big, fat, long)... you learnt the concept of diffusion long back – spread of the mixed smell of milk-curd-honey-sugar-ghee, the olfactory lobes felt delighted with exotic smell of sweets.

Every year, on this particular day, there was a ‘session with the photographer’ where you were pushed into getting a picture of yours clicked so that tracking your growth/progress became easier for the parents to remember. When in good mood, they showed you your growth… ‘that was the year you grew the most, i had to buy clothes for you two times in the same year’ and you wondered in your mind ‘and still I wore trousers that were 2.5 inches longer than required and by the time, they became of my size, they were not worth getting into’... there were hugs and shoulder-kicks and when you copied the same, you were told ‘you looked like a rat when you were born and look at you now – a grown up man with my blood flowing inside you... it feels great when your heavy hands rest on my shoulder’ and then they cried and wept and at the same time – smiled and you could do nothing but to say ‘its okay, now stop being so emotional/sentimental’.

Back in College:

A cake is ordered to be dissected at 12 in the night. Names that you have no clue are mentioned on the same. They range from strange ones like ‘kedi’ meaning ‘naughty’ to ‘psia’ meaning ‘please stop increasing the averages’. The cake is eaten less and wasted more with the cream utilized for facials, the cherries for decorating your face and roses/cartoons from the cake are ripped off and placed on your head and where-not to make you look like a complete idiot. Then starts the actual drama.

Close juniors and seniors all gather up (so it’s not just who you are putting up with). Each one has their own intentions:

- “this fellow has made me sit through all the stupid movies that he watches, right time to give him back”

- “let us bump him to dust so that his next week is not just painful, but hell – that would be quite awesome”

Confession Sessions:

Sitting through them is a painful task in itself. There are some standard questions that one has to get prepared for:

- who is it that you are going around with, we no longer see you in room these days

- Now, if the guy is a shy little one – then the question is turned around like this – whom do you chat with, all the time, we don’t see you outside these days?

If you feel happy by escaping the above questions, you are thinking in the wrong direction – it simply doesn’t end there. In fact, it doesn’t stop – till you state a name. What’s the safest call in such cases – just use the name of some popular figure on campus, people laugh at you for a minute or so and the game is over. They never ask you a question in the similar lines again because they have already identified you as a fool to even think about the famous one. Its a win-win situation (friends are happy in describing you as an over-enthusiast and you are happy because there are not going to be troubles for the next one year unless and until you fall into something serious).

Truth & Dare:

The Q&A saga continues, the birthday guy has no option but to choose ‘truth’ that day

- Have you cheated on anyone and describe the incident (there is no such answer as ‘no’)?

- Have you been ever caught copying, what were the after-effects?

- Have you ever flunked an exam?

- What has been the most embarrassing moment in your life (don’t state crap like ‘none’)?

and if there was no confession session like above – then the most obvious questions are taken from there.

Treasure-hunts:

It starts with something of the following kind:

Every clue will lead you to a room from where you will get the clue to another room.

It is made sure that all the rooms in the wing (the crowd keeping up together so that they are not alone when trips are planned or movies are to be watched in Audi or to get help for courses where none of the classes are attended or when you are assigned the task of making wall-posters) are covered, sometimes even the washrooms and bogs (bathroom of graduate students – what a shady name) are :)

You finally get the clue to your room and that obviously is the last clue and you find a decent gift on your bed.

Everyone is tired at the end and after cribbing for a while about classes and profs and students who raised the averages last time, you go to bed. You can not sleep like every other day, the hits and misses on your back will not allow you to move an inch, forget lying straight. So you just stare at the white washed walls for a couple of hours imagining stuff and cursing all those who had hit you and you go to sleep taking a pledge that you will be ready, more than ever for the ‘tit for tat’.

High-thinker Groups:

They are a class apart, they celebrate with a much smaller crowd.

E.g.: People from the poetry club recite poems, quote some of their own, do some deep-meaningful readings.

The small crowd is very proud of their accomplishments, the other groups call them ‘boring’ but both the parties don’t care about each other.

The Likely Landscape:

They call it the ‘thirsty-day’, all the more if it is a ‘Thursday’ and drink and drink and drink till the whole group is split into a simple 3

- people who are aware of their bodies and know where to draw the line

- people with a pathetic show of chivalry – puking around

- people who repeat the same story again and again (‘n’ times is the minimum)

Examples:

Where is my room dude?

I think you are not okay (now this is hilarious )

I feel so normal, my capacity is rising (ohm why not)

Now:

Phone calls (morning till evening): at one point, you feel irritated and feel like dumping the black gadget to a corner so that you can enjoy peace for sometime.

Treats and more… and that’s it.

---

Well, this is going to be incomplete without a birthday song (remember one from my school times)

‘Wish you enjoy your birthday, your birthday, a very happy birthday to you

clap again, clap again on your birthday, your birthday, a very happy birthday to you

tap again, tap again on your birthday…

clap again, clap again on your birthday…’

and, how can i miss the lovely chipmunks:

Enjoy!

Random Ideas

Some random collection of stuff in this post:

Fiction

Let’s get individual ‘lifts / elevators’ for every floor!
World should follow non-linear time evolution as in Memento!

---

Oxymoronic Statement

An example: Love but do not Confess! –Saba Balrampuri

If AI were expected to handle such OSs, I’d sneak in the following code:

...
x=S1; y=S2; %S1 & S2 form an OS.
if x==TRUE && y==TRUE
   h=find(Human,1);
   try
      result=kick(h,'follow_3_laws');
   catch
      run(‘for_Life’,[‘whatever_the’,result]);
   end
   ...
end
...

---

Interesting arXiv Papers

Initials-heavy title: U(1)-decoupling, KK-relation and BCJ relation by BCFW relation in S-matrix Program.

What the hell?: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0209143

Natural?: http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.1337

C. Quesne: I wish it were C. Quense!

---

Some ‘Facts’

Uncopyrightable, Dermatoglyphics → Longest words with no repeated letters!

If a lion mates with a tiger, you get a… Scandal! (Alan Davies in QI)

Am I running away from… Reality? (A song?)

I had higher hopes from… Reality! (Same song?)

Bill Bailey is a materialistic hippy, comfort-based environmentalist, confectionary-based existentialist! (From one of his earlier stand-up?)

---

OMUs 7

You’re intelligent; You’re Determined; → You’re inefficient; You’re Determined;

I am constantly at war with my body → I am constantly at worth my body!

Miss Kate Newman → Kiss Mate Newman

Is ‘r’ a constant? → Are forms closed?

Are you enrolled? → Are you a girl?

hehe..perfect :) → hehe..pervert :)

Portals → Potholes

---

Random Quotes

When engineers try to do fundamental physics, the results are usually pathetic! –Konstantin K. Likharev

Goal of Physics: To predict the outcome of the experiment, which has not been done yet. –KKL

We have got a new set of variables now and you've got 25 more minutes! –Peter van Nieuwenhuizen

Now we've come to the part which nobody likes. We've to think! –PvN 

Only my students are here! What's going on? –Warren Siegel

I might as well write a Joke Paper as I’m bored! –WS

If you think my papers are hard to read, these (his hand-written notes) are going to be even worse. –WS (as told me by MEI-G)

No Rest for Massless.
Support your Local Symmetry.
–MI’s Status Messages

You only live once! –LA
Why make it long? –George Sterman

You know he’s my student? Yes... Oh, you met him in Singapore. You're smart. That's necessary for survival. –Vladimir Korepin

How can you solve unsolved problems when the theory keeps working? – Matt Strassler

Some theories are smarter than some theorists. –Nima Arkani-Hamed

The Plural of Anecdote is not Data. –Attributed to someone by William Bialek

You study things you don’t know! –Anonymous

You pursue things that you lack. –WY

I like my papers to have coffee stains on them, it gives them Class. But I'm sure YOU don't like your papers to have MY coffee stains on them. –PMC

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. –Someone’s SM

So, I’ll go after linking to the poet of these two nice Ghazals:

नाज है तो है
गहन गंभीर

–चंद्रभान भारद्वाज

Spot the…

Falling Petal(s):

Dumbledore(s):

So what and how many were you able to find? Let me know via your response(s) below and follow the link below for correct answer:

The Link