Friday, March 18, 2005

Found Out the problem

I was losing hair pondering over why my posts were not being updated on the profile page. And finally the blogger team replies:

"We have had to temporarily disable stats collection, which means that
recent posts and stats will not be updating correctly on your dashboard or
profile. We plan to restore this functionality in the short term but have
needed to stop collecting the information for now in order to stabilize
the database servers. We apologize for any inconvenience this problem has
caused."


and seeing that this problem has existed for many months now, i think the blogger.com team is hung on crack. either that, or google is up to "evil" just for fun.
the problem is not something minor and i expected a fix in short time. this thing is gonna put off many other bloggers like me.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Nemesis of the "small ones"

Today, in most unofficial fashion, I declare myself "Mosquito Slayer", "Cockroach Sniper", and "Spider Nazgul".
Yes, the uncouth retard who goes by nome de plume of "vidrohi" adds more monikers to his name.

Watch out for my series of posts to follow. The story and procedure explained. Insectillitious!

Warning: Insects were, and in the future, WILL be harmed, while I compile my Insect Monologues

A simple gaze does it all

source: boingbiong.net
original source: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524914.900


Researchers at Harvard University tested the altruism of 96 volunteers with a game involving the donation of money.

"The researchers split the group into two. Half made their choices undisturbed at a computer screen, while the others were faced with a photo of Kismet - ostensibly not part of the experiment. The players who gazed at the cute robot gave 30 per cent more to the pot than the others. (Investigators Terry) Burnham and (Brian) Hare believe that at some subconscious level they were aware of being watched. Being seen to be generous might mean an increased chance of receiving gifts in future or less chance of punishment...

Burnham believes that even though the parts of our brain that carry out decision-making know that the robot image is just that, Kismet's eyes trigger something more deep-seated. We can manipulate altruistic behaviour with a pair of fake eyeballs because ancient parts of our brain fail to recognise them as fake, he says."


Not only humans, there was another recent scientific study demonstrating that monkeys think about whether they'll be seen before they swipe food that's not theirs. Similarly, humans donate more to charity if they're being watched. And oddly, this is true even if the gaze is coming from a photo of an anthropomorphic robot.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

look look...

there go my exigent duties and priorities in oblivion.

Keeps me kicking around

Arrrr,
Damn media is up to its antics once again. Stereotypical fashion.
Doing rounds, is the news of "Daniesh Kaneria", the Pakistani Spin Bowler (and a rare Hindu in Pak) making trips to Hindu religious destinations. Obsessed with showing his Indian-ness.
And of course, the scandal about great Indian actor Shakti Kapoor, being caught on tape, lecherously advising an undercover journalist posing as young upcoming actress to shed clothes at drop of coin if she wants to make it to the big screen.

Shakti Kapoor incident was simply shocking. Conservative Indian society might never see some actresses and directors mentioned in the tape with same religious respect as they did earlier. The news of Shakti Kapoor being banned from acting in Indian films comes as no big surprise. Shameful and regretful.
But then, one would say, its not everyday that such covert ops are held. Otherwise be prepared for a loooong list of lowlife jerks who somehow permeated in mainstream media. Its something we all know. Something we all expect.
To further add fuel to the fire, the News Channel undertaking the operation interviewed many upcoming actresses who shouted on the cameras and expressed their disgust. But I tell you, that by their looks, it gave impression that they had done the "sleeping around" part themselves. Well, if that didnt give them any media coverage, then speaking against the same did. Kudos! 3rd grade sleazebags.

Weekly TV viewing has been reduced to about 1 or 2 hours now. But somehow scandals and hype news always catch my eye. We make a good pair.