It's official - I'm a robot

I just spent the last few seconds in sheer terror, not knowing whether to believe my own eyes. Staring at me from my computer screen was this:



Google encountering a server error? Could it really be true? Stunned, I fumbled around in the dark (and that's not just a metaphor - the light bulb in my room is shot) for a while, frantically typing search terms into my Google toolbar on Firefox, my pulse quickening. What had I done? I tried praying, I tried smashing my keyboard repeatedly, but nothing worked. Then, just as quickly as it happened, everything went back to normal. Google was back online. Like a lost child at a supermarket, I had found my mother again.

Only one thought got me through the 20 second ordeal - as bad as the situation was, I knew it could have been worse. It could have been Wikipedia.

Misleading headline redux

Scientists give birth to a blackbuck, claims the Deccan Herald. Now, either they're handing out degrees to endangered species, or Mommy's been upto some mischief.

My life....in flowchart form

Heh. Via BoingBoing

That burning sensation...

Is it just me, or are we on fire?

Not exactly what you want to see at an airport, but thankfully no one was injured. China Airlines even found a way to put a positive spin on it:

"Everything was normal, including take-off and landing, until the pilots were told the airplane was on fire," China Airlines spokesman Johnson Sun said.

Right, so the takeoff and landing went great - the only hitch was the raging inferno in the back. I guess if no one had told the pilots about the fire the flight would have been a resounding success.

Long time no see

.....and we're back. Hope you enjoyed the commercials. The world has changed a bit since I last posted - Manchester United are the champions of England again (come on you Reds!), the iPhone has been released (finally, a $600 touchscreen!), Paris Hilton got herself in and out of jail, the Simpsons made their big screen debut (and it was a huge disappointment), and I finally moved out of Auckland....to Christchurch.

Why move to Klanville, I hear you ask? Some time in 2005 I'd had enough of engineering, so I decided to become a pilot. Here I am, two years later, in Christchurch - a city deader than Auckland. On the bright side, I'm not going to get too distracted by anything other than breathing for the next year.

The school itself is excellent - it's a well-maintained facility with a large fleet of training aircraft, and it's based at Christchurch International Airport, so we get the opportunity to train in controlled airspace, which is actually a little daunting at first. The course started in April, and I've been flying since May, but I don't have too many pictures. The first month was spent in ground school, passing our PPL (Private Pilot Licence) theory papers and counting down the days till our first flight. When it finally did happen, it was awesome:


The above picture is me taking off for the first time. I was so nervous that I pulled back a little too far on the controls and almost stalled the plane on takeoff. Lucky for me my instructor took control and we climbed out pretty easily. I've since given her more than a few scary moments, but I think it's good life experience for her. By the end of this course I'm aiming to age my instructors at least 5 years.

Apart from the recent exodus of instructors, the school's been pretty good so far - one of this city's few redeeming qualities. Then again, I might be a bit blinkered. Having lived in Auckland for eleven years, I kind of started to settle in. Christchurch is a whole new story. Different climate, different people, different attitudes. It might take a while to get used to some things, but I hope not to get used to everything, like the subtle racism one encounters here every once in a while. Overall, the city hasn't been too shabby to me, but it's hard not to think about what's been left behind.

Anyway that's my personal rant for the day. I'll try to post something interesting later. That is, if anyone still reads this blog.

The Return of the Hoff

Is there anything this man can't do? Give him a green screen and the world's worst special effects and he gives you gold.



Germany salutes you, Mr. Hasselhoff. The rest of us are too busy rolling around laughing.

The PS3 song

Concluding the trilogy of nerd-themed posts, here's some guy's ode to the PS3:

Dell cares about lazy consumers

Dell's decision to consult their customers on how they could improve their products has thrown up some interesting results. Top of the wishlist at Idea Storm are pre-installed Linux, OpenOffice and Firefox, which leads me to only one conclusion - Dell users are the laziest people on Earth. With the exception of installing Linux, most of their wishes could be fulfilled by taking an hour out of their DotA-filled day to download OpenOffice and Firefox and mod them as they liked. But then again, why bother when Uncle Dell is offering to pre-install all those little goodies for a niche market?

I have nothing against Linux, but so far it hasn't proven that it is ready for a mass-market release. Sure, once you've installed all the packages and got it set up it's pretty adequate, but any computer manufacturer looking to sell it as a pre-installed OS has a mammoth task ensuring it'll be compatible with popular hardware. Moreover, Linux can be daunting for the casual user, a demographic I'm not certain has been fairly represented on Idea Storm. Dell's expected profits from this move must reflect the limitations of the as yet nascent Linux market.

At first glance, it may look as if the company is making progress towards recapturing the market share it lost to Hewlett Packard and doing so in a fresh and innovative, almost Apple-esque fashion. Unfortunately, of all the ideas they could have chosen to implement first, they chose the easiest and least effective one. Improving customer service, making their laptops more energy-efficient, more memory for the same price, continued support for Windows XP - these are the issues Dell should be looking at. Like it or not, Windows users far outnumber Linux and Mac OSX users, and not everyone is currently ready to take the plunge into the unknown world of Windows Vista. Rather than forcing consumers who buy their high-performance PCs to switch to Vista, Dell should offer the option of installing Windows XP Home/Professional at reduced cost.

Perhaps there is more to come from Dell, but one can't help feeling they are only paying lip service to the actual needs of their customers.

Gets me every time

It's always a good time for a Microsoft joke, especially if it's created by the employees of the world's largest software corporation. Enjoy.

This is one job I definitely don't want

I wonder who'll draw the short straw on this one - the obstetrician or the husband? I sure as hell wouldn't want to tell a pregnant woman she's a little on the chubby side. Terming it a "serious public health time bomb" is hardly helping.

The taming of the beauty queen.

Pearls of wisdom from Amitabh Bachchan. It turns out Aishwarya Rai is 'domesticated', which must be quite a relief. The last thing you want is one of those feral girls who go around pooping on your expensive carpet and attacking the neighbours.

A man of his word

Well I promised Kris I'd blog by the end of the night, and being a man of my word, I only missed my deadline by 33 minutes, so I'll consider that a promise sorta kept.

Um, what else...I've been busy so I haven't blogged as much as I'd have liked to. I did learn something while I was away though - if you're an aspiring blogger, don't read Scott Adams's blog. There is no way one feels like blogging after watching a true master at work. That is sadly one of the main reasons I've been away for so long, wallowing in a pit of despair as Adams continues to churn out masterpiece after masterpiece. DAMN YOU, SCOTT!

In your face, Chiang Kai-Shek!

I was as surprised as anyone when I learned I had been voted Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2006. After all, no one expects to win awards for sitting on their rapidly expanding backsides for 22 years, but I'm not complaining. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to join the esteemed ranks of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Nikita Krushchev, The Computer, George W. Bush and Middle America.

All-pervasive religion

The BBC reports on the inevitable controversy caused by Left Behind: Eternal Forces, the latest attempt by the church to project a 'cool' and 'hip' image of religion. The piece is pretty much par for the course - liberals calling the game a recruitment tool for religious warfare, with conservatives countering that liberals aren't very good Christians and fully deserve to burn in the depths of Hell for all eternity. Like I said, par for the course.

However, Left Behind: Eternal Forces isn't the only religious video game doing the rounds. The Global Islamic Media Front refuses to be - for lack of a better term - left behind its sworn enemy. They have released a game called Quest for Bush, in which players aim to kill the US president. With a title like that, it could very well have involved a bunch of sex-starved college freshmen looking for some luuurve, but as it turns out, the game is a straight shoot-em-up and the only bushes involved are Dubya and some shrubbery. Sources say the title's literal translation from Arabic is 'Night of Bush Hunting', which to be honest is just as bad, if not worse.

Oh to be young and stupid - REAL stupid

The passing years tend to mature the vast majority of us, however hard we may try to hold onto the last vestiges of our youth. From personal experience, 21 is a peculiar age - not quite old enough to discuss the wider socio-political consequences of paper production in Southern Latvia, and not quite young enough to hang out with teenagers. It's an age of deep introspection, a unique opportunity to compare the lives we once had with the lives we are about to embark on, Latvian paper industry and all. Quite often I see today's teenagers doing things that neither my peers nor I would ever have dreamed of, dismissing it immediately as immature and stupid. Yet it wasn't that long ago that we ourselves belonged to that group of immature kids. Surely times haven't changed that much?

That's when I read the New Zealand Herald and found that underage drink driving is still very much in fashion amongst today's teens. Tragic it may be, but it also provided a degree of perverse reassurance. While I was too lazy to actually get a licence during my own years as a hormone-heavy pimple monster, and therefore unable to take part in this most hallowed of rituals, I knew my fair share of drunk drivers. Of course, none of them actually had any accidents. Not quite the case this time. Sixteen year old Rae Rae (!) didn't just crash his car into a lamp post following a police chase, he also managed to injure his sister and girlfriend in the process. I'm not quite sure what he was expecting, driving at 180 km/h in a 50 km/h zone, but he soon found out that lamp posts are, well, pretty solid. Still, I'm sure he has learned from his mistake. No more drinking and driving for you, right Rae Rae?

"I would do it again but with no-one in the car besides me. I would drink and drive again with just me in the car," Rae told National Radio.

See? No more drinking and....WHAAAAAAAAA? So a police pursuit at 180 km/h, followed by a crash, an engine fire and severe injuries to your loved ones isn't enough to deter you from driving drunk? Man, your mum is going to be so pissed.

Rae's mother told National Radio she gave her son alcohol and would not be punishing him.

"Every time I told him not to drink too much but he don't listen. He ignore it," she said.

"I don't blame him because he was working hard. He needs something to relax."

Oh for Pete's sake lady, throw me a bone! I've got nothing to work with! You know a glass of warm milk can be just as relaxing, right? And research suggests it might actually be a wee bit better for the young lad than copious amounts of booze. What he needs to relax him now is a good ol' fashioned ass-whooping.

Holocaust conference opens

A conference that will examine whether or not the Holocaust really happened is underway in Iran. The two-day summit is to be followed by a debate titled "Babies - Where Do They Come From?"


Side note: It's good to be back blogging after a lengthy break. I could try and explain why I've been away, but Scott Carney has already done it for me.

If you're desi and you know it clap your hands!

I would have expected this of Indian Airlines or Air India, but not Jet Airways. Shocking customer service.

God's foreign policy

From the New York Times:

He[Rev. John Hagee] called the conflict “a battle between good and evil” and said support for Israel was “God’s foreign policy.”

The next day he took the same message to the White House.

Many conservative Christians say they believe that the president’s support for Israel fulfills a biblical injunction to protect the Jewish state, which some of them think will play a pivotal role in the second coming. Many on the left, in turn, fear that such theology may influence decisions the administration makes toward Israel and the Middle East.

A biblical injunction, you say? Man, I guess those early Christians were reading it all wrong then, what with the burning and the massacres and all. They must feel pretty stupid right now.

Pardon this momentary lapse (updated)

Harp on all you want about our 8% annual GDP growth, but until we actively work towards preventing events such as these(1, 2), we may never make true progress. The first story garnered little interest in the mainstream media initially, but spread like wildfire through the blogosphere and eventually sparked a delayed response from the police.

The second story ended with the 8-year-old victim dying of excessive blood loss, while her attacker was spared the noose. The ToI report makes for a nauseating read:

...it had serious doubts about fastening the murder charge on the accused. "The death occurred not as a result of strangulation but because of excessive bleeding," the Bench said quoting the doctor’s report, which noted that at that age, a girl has two litres of blood in the body and as she had bled half-a-litre of blood, it was enough to cause death from shock.

"The death occurred, therefore, as a consequence of, and not because of, any specific act on the part of the accused," said Justice Sinha, writing the judgment.

And that is how a child rapist can escape the noose - by claiming the poor girl's blood loss was not his intention...only strangulation, which he ended up sucking at. And the last time I checked, the word "consequence" implies causation, so I'm not entirely sure what Justice Sinha - a Supreme Court Justice, no less - is trying to say here. And the next part, in a related report, is the final kick in the teeth for the deceased girl and her family:

The Bench said: "It cannot be said to be a rarest of rare case. The manner in which the girl was raped may be brutal but it could have been a momentary lapse on the part of Amrit Singh, seeing a lonely girl at a secluded place.

"He had no pre-meditation for commission of the offence. The offence may look heinous, but under no circumstances it can be said to be a rarest of rare case."

A momentary lapse. It may be the letter of the law, but surely there is no place for a "momentary lapse" when we are talking about an 8-year-old child being molested by a 30-year-old! That a Supreme Court Justice would even utter those words is shocking enough. If anything, the accused's propensity towards having such momentary lapses around minors should be enough to give him the death penalty.

One could argue that the death penalty may be too harsh, even for a child rapist, in which case it may be time to consider compulsory castration for offenders such as Amrit Singh. Cross-border terrorism and other, more perceivable threats may be of greater importance, but surely we cannot let our most helpless citizens - be they children, women, underprivileged groups, or all of the above - be exploited this way without some serious retribution.

Related: Another story of injustice, this time by the local panchayat in Murshidabad, near Calcutta. Who gives these kangaroo courts the right to separate families of victims? Not only was the poor woman raped, she was driven out of the village for her 'crime'. The local police have so far done nothing (via Narika's blog).

I recently had a discussion with a friend about the viability of the panchayat system in modern-day India, and an incident such as this just proves my point.

The luuurve boat

Rich and lonely? Too many uggos on Shaadi.com/Orkut/MySpace/Hi5/Friendster/Bebo? Perhaps you should consider a trip to China, where lonely millionaires are trying to find the brides of their dreams on a river cruise. However, if you're male and want to get on the Love Boat, as some literary mavericks have christened it, you must have at least US$25 million in assets. And it's only fair - rich people have had a hard life, and deserve a break once in a while, as this young(?) man explains:

"I often find pretty women on the street, but many of the women I meet in person are not the kind to win husbands...appearance is most important to me."

Well said, sir. As an engineer, I know all too well the paucity of hotties in the workplace, and I imagine it must be even tougher for you. It's hard enough being rich, with a fast car and a degree from an Ivy League school without having to actually talk to good-looking women on the street. Peasants such as myself, with our social skills and "co-ed schools", have had it far too easy for too long, and it's time someone did something about it! More power to you, sir. I truly hope you find the gold-digger of your dreams.