Is the Internet really forever?

fantasy-ga6bab6ff1_640I had a Twitter account with 5K+ followers and 10K+ Tweets which had a record of all my articles and blogs. That got hacked and hijacked one day and all my old Tweets just vanished. I used to write regularly for Sify and had more than 1000 articles and one day they just upgraded the website and all those articles now show broken links.

I had made a list of all of my correct predictions on the internet and now there’s no proof as my old Twitter feed and article archive has been 404ed. One of my Tweets had more than 3K ReTweets and 140K views and I found that on the Internet Archive. I was happy since the original Tweet had gone. Now I am hearing that even the Internet Archive is on its way out.

So is the Internet really forever? We were taught that civilization began around 6000 years ago. However now there are theories that Göbekli Tepe, the Sphinx and the submerged city of Dvārakā could be more than 10,000 years old. If that’s true, then most of the records simply vanished.

Paper/papyrus records wither and die. Libraries are burned to the ground. Stone tablets with inscriptions survive, but are gibberish if you don’t know the script. I have many floppy disks (the new generation doesn’t know what they are) which are useless for me. CD/DVD drives are on their way out. They may become like floppy drives.

Websites have to keep getting upgraded otherwise they may lose content. And they may especially lose content thanks to the upgrade. We are creating a record amount of content compared to the history of our civilization, but how long will all that last? In fact one could argue that in a catastrophe, it would be easier for all that content to be wiped out.

Stone tablets last for thousands of years. Paper can too if preserved correctly. In a catastrophe they can be preserved. But for the content of today you need a device, electricity, the Internet and a server and someone who is maintaining all that 24X7. Come to think of it, it’s much easier to lose content today. In fact it’s much easier to lose ALL the content today. That’s quite a sobering thought.

On a side note maybe that’s a good thing for content creators. There have been reports of artists destroying all their works and beginning afresh.

On a personal note, now when I usually meet a person for the first time, they don’t know what my politics is thanks to most of my political Tweets and articles being taken off the grid! Nice to start fresh with someone without having any misconceptions.

March 2017 Status Updates

UK triggers Brexit.
EU chief vows to break up USA.
Two break-ups don’t make one unification.
(People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones)

Random alternate reality universe…
PMs…
1947-60: Netaji.
1960-75: Shastri.
1975-85: Vajpayee
1985-95: Rao.
1995-2000: Advani
2000-10: Scindia.

(March 30)

Does anyone remember that 6 years back the nation came to a standstill, an old man fasted, a new party was born over Lokpal?
Where’s the Lokpal?

(March 29)

How do you counter Eve-teasing?
By Romeo bashing.
#MixedMetaphors Adam & Eve + Romeo & Juliet.

Priyanka’s daughter will be saviour: Poojary.
Sonia couldn’t be PM.
Pappu can’t be PM.
Pappini won’t be PM.
Can’t dare to think beyond dynasty.

(March 24)

Schrodinger on steroids.
If you go by the TV news channels, Uttar Pradesh currently has one dozen “next” Chief Ministers.

(March 18)

Assange is a bigger name than Jack.
Yet Jack refuses to give Assange a verified Twitter account.
Tells you what’s wrong with the Left-Liberal ecosystem.

(March 17)

It is the right moment for the Right.
But things are still far off for the Far Right.
#GeertWilders #DutchElections

(March 16)

Till 1945-Colonialism.
1945-91: Big 2.
1991-2000s: Pax Americana.
2010s: US, China, Russia, India, Turkey, Iran etc all being assertive as EU collpases.

(March 13)

Till 1980s it was the BBC.
1990s was the decade of CNN.
In the 2010s its WikiLeaks all the way.
#Vault7

The “Internet of Things” simply means that every device in your home can become a snooping device and be used against you.
#Vault7

Team India’s Women’s Day gift.
They finished the match on March 7 to keep March 8 free from cricketing distractions.
#IndVsAus

(March 8)

On any day, in any match, for any reason, from any position of strength, no matter what the mahurat, India can lose 5 wickets for 10 runs.

Imran has 1 World Cup.
Darren Sammy has 2.
Sammy graces PSL, so Imran calls him phateechar.
And you ask what’s wrong with Pak cricket.

(March 7)

If you want to be really politically correct, then you also need other names for woMAN and feMALE and maybe even huMANkind.
(March 6)

Incredible India.
Three straight matches of 600+ scores. (World record).
Followed by…
Three straight innings of 200- scores. (Business as usual)

Ashes to ashes ashes and dust to dust,
If O’Keefe don’t get you Lyons must.
#IndVsAus

Return of the Nair.
India last two Test innings: 212 for 20.
Karun last Test inning: 303 for 0.

Communist Contradiction.
The Global Bourgeoisie are trying to lead a Proletarian Revolution.

Casualties of war.
1947: 1500.
1965: 3000.
1971: 3800.
1000s more in Kargil, Siachen and terror attacks.
Par Pakistan ne ek ko bhi na maara.

(March 4)

American politics has transformed into a 1980s Bollywood movie.
Foreign hand in everything.
The man in power must be stopped with violence.
Bad script.

Sasikala-Stalin drama.
Kejri-Pappu nautanki.
Lalu-Nitish ka bhai bhai Jungle Raj…
No matter how badly Modi does, his rivals will do worse.

(March 3)

Uber led to the English word super.
As in: Uber was a super taxi service.
The literal translation of uber is “over” or “above”.
As in: Uber drivers are asking benefits “over” and “above” what they are getting now.

(March 2)

These versions by Sunil Rajguru

The leader with the most Twitter followers shalt win

twitter-848528_640Nowadays in democracies, Twitter seems to be playing a great role and whoever with the most Twitter followers simply wins the elections and consolidates after that. It’s almost a cent per cent record.

First take the case of US President Barack Obama (https://twitter.com/BarackObama). At around 75 million followers he is in a league of his own. But in 2008 he was a rank non-entity and he was supposed to stand absolutely no chance against Hillary Clinton. But Hillary wasn’t even on Twitter then and was soundly thrashed by Obama who debuted on Twitter in 2007 a year after its launch.

Obama thrashed Mitt Romney (https://twitter.com/MittRomney) who after being on Twitter for a good seven years is yet to cross the 2 million mark. This year’s US Presidential race saw no surprises too.

Hillary (https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton) beat Bernie Sanders (https://twitter.com/berniesanders) on Twitter by 7.2 million to 2.7 million. The same thing happened in the offline world and Hillary got the Democratic ticket.

Absolutely nobody gave Donald Trump a chance in the Republican race with many saying he wouldn’t even make it to the Top 5. But on Twitter he (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump) thrashes Ted Cruz (https://twitter.com/tedcruz) by 9.4 million to 1.3 million, again a no contest which played itself out in the offline world.

Now also the mainstream media is staunchly behind Hillary, but it is usually social media which proves to be the deciding factor in the end. Trump is way ahead on the Twitter count, so you can’t count him out!

The Number 2 global politician on Twitter is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) with 20.6 million followers. His rival Rahul Gandhi wasn’t even on Twitter. That also showed in the offline world when Modi’s BJP thrashed Rahul’s Congress by a whopping seat margin of 282-44 in the Parliamentary elections.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (@SBYudhoyono) has 9.1 million followers and he won his two Indonesian Presidential terms. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RT_Erdogan) has 8.5 followers and he has been Prime Minister/President of Turkey since 2003.

Premiers David Cameron of UK and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel were predicted by the mainstream media of losing their respective elections, but they won. Not surprisingly they are Twitter leaders in their political worlds.

Most of the politicians are national leaders, but regional head honcho and New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) is biggie in the Twitter world with 8.1 million followers and that’s why he won 67/70 Assembly seats in the 2015 Delhi elections!

So whenever you want to watch a democratic election keep your eyes firmly on the Twitter followers of every leader, for it appears that the latest commandment is…

The leader with the most Twitter followers shalt win!

© Sunil Rajguru

Twitterverse musings…

According to sources*.
* 1960s: Real flesh and blood sources.
2000s: Made up sources to suit the news.
2010s: Twitter.

There should be something called “Reverse Troll” when you troll your troller in grand style.

Write 280 characters.
Tweet the second half.
ReTweet it adding the first 140 characters as comments allowed.
People will read it as a Tweet of 280 characters.

Traditional media.
Traditional politicians.
Traditional economic unions.
All falling like nine pins.

These versions by Sunil Rajguru

The Indian Lords of Twitter…

twitter-117595_640Here’s looking at some Indian Twitter millionaires who have emerged as the most followed in their particular field…

Bollywood: Amitabh Bachchan.
@SrBachchan, 20.7 million followers.
Amitabh made his filmi debut in 1969 and became a superstar in the 1970s. The Grand Old Man has been around for ages, but he is no fossil. He was one of the first people to jump on the blogging bandwagon and did it quite regularly. He is a regular Tweeter too and has notched close to 50,000 Tweets till date.

Politics: Narendra Modi.
@narendramodi, 19.6 million followers.
So the Indian Twitterverse produces its first ever Prime Minister. That may be a bit of a hyperbole, but Twitter has a big role in Modi’s rise to the top spot of India. No Indian politician comes close. (Many years ago @ShashiTharoor was the leader though). But more than anything is how Modi has used Twitter to fire his ambitions. He has connected with the young in social networking and Modi’s army regularly ReTweet him and fight for him. There are also handles which translate his Tweets into various Indian languages.

Spirituality: Dalai Lama.
@DalaiLama, 12.7 million followers.
The Dalai Lama came to India in 1959 and since then has been a resident here calling himself a “son of the soil”. His Tweets are inspiring and spread a great deal of goodwill and harmony. Incidentally, he is following exactly zero people. He was India’s leader till 2014 but since then has fallen way behind.

Official account: PMO India.
@PMOIndia: 11 million followers.
There was hardly any traction to this account when Manmohan Singh was in charge. However it has zoomed ahead after Modi took over. It’s also always buzzing with activity a sort of government news feed and a lit of achievements. On Twitter Modi + PMO amounts to 30 million plus followers!

Cricket: Sachin Tendulkar.
@sachin_rt, 10.7 million followers.
When Sachin joined Twitter, the Indian Twitterverse went berserk. He picked up tens of thousands of followers in no time. He soon became the first Indian to notch up 1 million followers. However since then many Bollywood stars have left him way behind. That’s probably because of his lacklustre form towards the end of his career and subsequent retirement. Sachin is erratic in his Tweets, but still writes enough to keep his die-hard fans engaged. Virat Kohli is close on his heels with 10.5 million followers.

PIO: Aziz Ansari.
@azizansari10.5 million followers.
Indian Americans are doing very well and on Twitter at least, Aziz is the clear leader. He has his roots in Tamil Nadu and is stand-up comedian who has been part of many tours. He has acted in many TV shows with the most prominent being Parks and Recreation. Aziz visited India a few years back and joked that he could act in a Tamil action movie. Indians may not be familiar with him but may have heard his voice in Hollywood movies like Ice Age: Continental Drift (Squint) and Epic (Mub).

News handle: The Times of India.
@timesofindia: 6.9 million followers.
India’s oldest newspaper and the English daily with the most circulation manages to hold its ground on Twitter too. With close to a quarter of a million Tweets, it continues to pull its weight in the Indian Twitterverse.

Authors: Chetan Bhagat.
@chetan_bhagat, 6.9 million followers.
You’ve got to hand it to Bhagat: Whether you like his books or not, he definitely has built himself as a big brand. Twitter plays an integral part in that. Out of all the celebrities, Bhagat is probably the most active and interactive. He never shies from controversies and his Tweets always make news. Once when he blocked a few people many years back, #ChetanBlocks became a top trend. His open support for Modi got him many bouquets and brickbats. AAP followers also keep attacking him from time to time.

Industrialists: Ratan Tata.
@RNTata2000, 6.1 million followers.
Everybody Loves Ratan Tata! In real life too and also on Twitter. This despite the fact that he’s hardly active on this medium. For ages it used to be @TheVijayMallya who is much more active but has since fallen on bad times.

Comedians: Kapil Sharma.
@KapilSharmaK9: 5.2 million followers.
Comedy Nights With Kapil saw a meteoric rise and its hero became one in Bollywood movies too. Kapil is a superstar in his own right and was a late entrant on Twitter (he came in June 2013), but he’s on top here too.

Worldwide…

Indians are rising in in the Global Top 100 list and we currently have Amitabh, Modi, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra and Hrithik Roshan. In mid-2014 from Bollywood there was only Amitabh, but with 7 more apart from him and more in the next 100, they are taking over Twitter! Priyanka has a great chance to go even further thanks to her exposure to the West.

While Ashton Kutcher narrowly went past CNN to become the first with 1 million followers, the landmarks of 10 million and 25 million were first breached by Lady Gaga.

The current leader is Katy Perry, the first to get 50 million followers, narrowly edging out Justin Bieber in the race for that landmark. She’s close to 88 million and must be eyeing the 100 million mark.

As far as the next Indian landmark is concerned, it remains to be seen who reaches 25 million followers first.

In terms of ReTweets, Ellen DeGeneresOscar selfie not only became the first to get 1 million ReTweets, but also crossed 3 million later on!

Modi’s victory Tweet got 80,000+ RTs.

© Sunil Rajguru

(This post first came on May 26, 2014. This is the updated version with a lot of changes.)

Social networking and riots…

Weapons of mass destruction…
An Afghani girl with a schoolbook.
A Kashmiri girl with a guitar.
An Indian citizen with a Facebook/Twitter account.

Once they used to blame the Foreign Hand for everything.
Now they blame the FBTwitter handle.

Please spell Internet.
Politician: Interiot.

These versions by Sunil Rajguru