Monthly Archives: December 2009

6 things washed in my washing machine…

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…apart from clothes, that is…

1. USB Drive: Came out sparkling clean. Still working perfectly.

2. Son’s Watch: Fell to pieces. Watch repairer fixed it. Looks brand new. Still ticking away.

3. Umpteen Currency Notes: They look a little bleached, but shopkeepers accept them anyway.

4. Chocolate Eclairs: Came out intact. On opening the wrapper, the éclair looked OK too. But why take a chance? Straight to the dustbin.

5. Paper: Grade Two Disaster. Goes to pieces. Sticks to the clothes. Difficult to get off.

6. Coins: Grade One Disaster. Machine Stopper. Got stuck somewhere and brought the machine to a standstill. Serviceman’s comment: Why do you waste Rs 350 service charge on a one-rupee coin? Point taken. Coin looks somewhat like another coin that I had kept over a railway track and let a train run over it.

Moral of the story: Check your pockets thoroughly before you put your clothes in the machine.

© Sunil Rajguru

Ji Huzoor…

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Centre: Hum weak ho rahe hain!
Advisor: To phir regions ko aur bhi weak kardo!
Centre: Us-se kya hoga?
Advisor: Aap bahut strong ho jaoge.
Centre: Kya bakwas kar rahe ho! Regions weak ho jaayenge to hum bhi weak ho jayenge.
Advisor: Einstein ka naam nahin suna?
Centre: Kis kambhakt puraane British politician ka naam le rahe ho?
Advisor: Woh… chodo… Relativity kahata hain ki agar doosre weak hote jaate hain to aap relatively strong hote jaate hain…
Centre: Einstein ko maaro goli, ye Relativity bhai sahab bahut acche lagte hain.
Advisor: To amal kiya jaaye… regions ko chote chote tukdo main baat do.
Centre: Todo, todo, regions ko todo… as a first step… us ka Fast todo.
Advisor: Ji huzoor.

(Moral of the story: In 1947 there were 17 provinces in India. In 1975 there were 21 states. Today there are 28. Tomorrow there will be 35. First thoda resistance and finally our kids will mug up the new names quietly for their GK test and we’ll happily help them.)

***

Hamare batsman acche hain, Rules se bowlers ki jaan lelo
Ji huzoor…
Ye Chucker ka chakkar chodo
Ji huzoor…
Woh Pak nahin khelega..
Ji huzoor…
Hame T20 nahin khelna hain…
Ji huzoor…
Chalo T20 khel hi lete, domestic bhi
Ji huzoor…
Acha chalo do aur Test hi khelte hain…
Ji huzoor…

(Moral of the story: Who cares about the ICC Test/ODI/T20 rankings when India has been the undisputed No. 1 in the Unofficial Cricket Power Rankings for ages now and continue to do so)

© Sunil Rajguru

Random Thoughts 4

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·We live like matchsticks in a matchbox. We go to office like ants in a line. We work like sardines in a can. As the years go by, we make the boxes, lines and cans more and more beautiful and feel happy about it even as the grim underlying reality never changes.

· Sometimes I think that the Indian Cricket Team’s favourite theme song is Ring a ring a roses… they especially love the “and we all fall down” part.

· I like the way Indian newspapers keep saying “ABC grilled today”, “CBI grills XYZ” etc. Someone coming from the past would have visions of a grim torture chamber with the person a hot grill over fire.

· For men only: As a bachelor you are fully alive. Being a husband leaves you half-dead. Fatherhood fully kills you. If you have many children, then that’s life after death, you are living the life of a ghost.

© Sunil Rajguru

How to use the New Facebook…

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Hurrah! Facebook has changed its Privacy settings! But what is all the fuss about? And should you actually bother? The good part is that it takes just one sitting to optimize and get the most out of the New Facebook. In the old settings, you just had choices of showing content to Friends, Friends of Friends, Networks and Everyone. The Network concept was downright silly. For example, if you are in the India network, there may be millions of people in the network. So much for privacy!

Now you can choose who sees which piece of content. Here’s how:

1. Lists: The most important thing you got to do is to make lists. For example, you could make the following lists: Family, Work, Friends, Schoolmates… This is a one-time job. Now a different and specific group of friends or list(s) can view every piece of content you post. When you add a new Friend, you can automatically add him or her to the relevant list.

2. Default Settings: Go to Privacy Settings–>Profile Information
Choose who gets to see what. To use the specific Lists you have created above, click “Customize” and choose from there. You can also choose a group of friends not mentioned in the Lists.
For example, the settings could be:
About me–>Everyone
Personal Info–>Friends of Friends
Family and Relationship–>Friends
Photos and Videos of Me–>Family
Posts by Me–>Everyone
Etc.
Remember: If you choose “Everyone”, that means it will eventually come on search engines.

3. While posting…: If you simply post a status message, then it will automatically choose the default settings. Otherwise, before posting, click the arrowhead next to the lock and choose your privacy settings for that particular status message!

4. Groups: Imagine you are having a controversial discussion in a group. Later when you use similar keywords, you’ll find it appearing on Google Search. What happened? Simple. The owner of the group would have set the settings as Content Open to Public. In such groups, whatever you write will become public. Check for that before posting liberally in any group.

5. Twitter type following: Now when you send a Friend request, all the person’s public content will start coming in your live feed. So you can follow that person like Twitter. But if you have a dozen friend requests from downright strangers and don’t “Ignore” them, then you have already started coming in their feed!

6. Photos: It’s better to use Only Friends for personal and private photos. The reason being Friends of Friends also runs into thousands of Facebookers, which is virtually public.

7. Links/Notes: You may want these to be public and show up in searches and hence click “Everyone”.

Final Tip: The moment you click on “Everyone” for anything, it is bound to land up on Google Search. If you want it, that’s fine. Otherwise, avoid it altogether.

Most people will find all this quite complicated and tedious. But if you implement it, it actually works!

© Sunil Rajguru

Random Thoughts 3

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· All the roads, walls and grounds in India are public toilets. Our Nation should be renamed UriNation.

· Credit Cards should actually be called Debt Cards. Debt Cards and Debit Cards go well together.

· If horns and honking was banned on Indian roads, then most motorists would die of boredom and silence.

· Why call them Moral Police? Immoral Goondas would be better.

· Population Explosion? I think it has already happened in India and we are living in the Post-Blast Holocaust.

· It’s not death I’m scared of… it’s rebirth…

· Inventions keep continuously coming and make things easier and easier for us… then why is life getting tougher and tougher?

· The more you progress, the more time you spend working hard at doing nothing.

· Is Wikipedia turning into a Weakipedia?

© Sunil Rajguru

How Facebook led to the end of civilization…

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Facebook now has 350 million users. The milestones keep coming and coming. What next?

2010: Facebook crosses 500 million users.

2011: Facebook crosses 1 billion users.

2012: Facebook launches the Second computer and Internet Revolution. Since everyone wants to be on Facebook, everyone wants a desktop/laptop and broadband connection.

2013: The world, which was ready to get into another round of Recession, doesn’t do so thanks to the new IT and Telecom revolution.

2014: Global literacy rates go up as everyone wants to read people’s profiles on Facebook. The phenomenon of stalking vanishes as all the weirdoes start following Facebook accounts.

2015: America issues the Facebook Identity Card, which replaces all other forms of identification.

2016: India undergoes Transformation and as all the Indian politicians jump on to the Facebook bandwagon and try to get as many Friends and Fans as possible. A competition starts to get the maximum number of “Likes” after posting things like: Just laid 20 roads. Just completed the Metro Project. Just electrified 100 villages, etc.

2017: 90% of the world is now on Facebook. The remaining 10% are declared as “Dangerous to Civilization as We Know It” and are hunted down.

2018: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gets the Nobel Prize for Peace amidst the Facebook Witch Hunt Controversy. Facebook gets the Nobel Prize for Literature.

2019: SETI receives $100 billion funding. Humans are tiring of each other and are desperate to have aliens join Facebook.

2020: The US Presidential Elections is fought solely on Facebook. As expected, Mark Zuckerberg emerges victorious.

2021: Bharat Ratna Shashi Tharoor, the pioneer of political social networking in India, sworn in as Prime Minister.

2022: The Last Wave of Facebook Resistance is crushed. Now the whole world is Facebooked.

2023: Governments and constitutions collapse as local leaders rely solely on Facebook to make their decisions.

2024: The Facebooker Prize displaces the Nobel Prize as the most important global award.

2024: The Facebook Zeitgeist is formed. All one does is feed in one’s preferences, likes, dislikes and ideas for the world, country and city. The Zeitgeist automatically computes and calculates what the world and everyone has to do. No need for committees and bodies of any kind.

2025: Facebook Zeitgeist attains Godlike status.

2026: The Dislike button is finally introduced after years of campaigning and leads to an all-out war on Facebook.

2027: The last remaining survivors of the Facebook Resistance unleash the deadly Facebook Doomsday virus.

2028: While the Doomsday Virus initially gets 10 billion Dislikes on Facebook, nobody is able to do anything about it and eventually the whole Facebook System shuts down.

2029: With the end of Facebook, mankind is left clueless. The subsequent anarchy leads to the end the existing civilization.

3013: An archaeological find unveils lost data disks pertaining to Facebook. Experts conclude that Facebook was once a planet that existed between Mars and Jupiter and got destroyed due to some mysterious reason.

4014: Thanks to SETI’s success at transmitting the Facebook code throughout the universe, many intelligent worlds are now on to Facebook. The Facebook saga keeps rolling on, as the Grand Purpose of Facebook was not to destroy civilization on Earth, but the universe itself…

© Sunil Rajguru