Height of Democracy?

So you thought that electing the wonders of the world was a height of democracy? Wrong.

There are more fantastic ways in which the democratic rights of the breeding multitude be used to establish fundamental facts. The algorithm of democracy mandates a clear answer to all long impending questions. Let me tell you some of them:

• Vote to ascertain the validity of the Newton's laws of motion
• P = NP? Vote to find out
  
• Are dinosaurs really extinct? Vote to derive the correct answer
• Vote to determine if God exists
• Tsunami, is it? Vote to determine if Tsunami is really harmful
• Is euthanasia cruel? Vote for it
  
• Vote to determine where e = m . c^2 (or e = m . c^10000, for that matter). Also vote for the value of c, pi, e, etc
• Should the value of pi be constant? Vote for it
• Did Pratibha Patil's company go bankrupt? Vote for it
• What's the DLF's share value? Vote for it
  
• Vote for 2 + 2 = 4
• Is all this the height of democracy? Vote to find out

Einstein once said, "God does not play dice".
Right. He votes.

McD buys IIT Kanpur?

At about 3:00 AM yesterday night, a friend pinged me to inform that IIT Kanpur's site had been hacked. And it had been done in with a funny story-line:

McDonald buys IITK for $40 billion. The institutes's mission has been revised to: carrying out original research of significance and technology development in the ever-green field of burger making. While the general look and feel of the website remained the same, funny links to McFries, Mccy, Fry Gold medal, McBurger appeared.


See the screenshot for the rest of the fun.

Submit, Submit you Form

<form>
<input type=text />
<input type=submit />
</form>

It can't get simpler. Pretty much all you need to make an html form work on ALL browsers ALL the time, without being dependent on the phase of the moon or the price of tea in China or muhrat. Yet, of the limited number of ways to get this wrong, some website creators tend to know all of them.

Chances are they're are result of javascript abuse. If there's a need for driving licenses, there's an equal need for javascript-license. There are a couple of things in javascript you should not do just because you can. www.indianrail.gov.in is a handsome example of a painful website experience made traumatic with javascript abuse.

Anyway, the website I want to criticize today is that of Hutch (www.hutch.in). It has a login form. And it submits in exactly ONE browser. No points for guessing which one. And even on that lone browser, it won't work properly if ....(well, I don't really know what it depends on. my guess is it doesn't work unless your (age+weight+time_in_secs+7) % 22 == 0).
If you get through this ordeal (and I did), you have to be really good with all the pink colors which already make you feel unwanted, or else you'll get broken links, missing files, and what not.

Despite all this, Hutch AP is amongst the 5% of service providers who manage to cross TRAI's minimum service performance metrics. So, I ain't complaining.

Oh Lord! Pardon my Sin

I committed a huge sin. Even thought I was fully aware of it, I couldn't do anything to stop it. I was rendered powerless.

It all started when I went to Fry's to buy a laptop. I bought a Sony VAIO T2250 (1G RAM, Centrino Duo 1.73 GHz x 2, 120G HD, DVD RW, 15.4") for $874. Now the sin part -- the laptop came with Windows, a Vista variant, to be specific. I appealed to the Fry's personnel to give me a laptop which didn't come with Windows. There's none. I repeat, the whole of Fry's (a store with thousands of electronics items) didn't deal in a laptop which without Windows. In fact, there's no windows-less desktop either.

Helpless, I'm now waiting to take a dip in the Holy Ganges. It has purification effects, they say.

Damn you Wisdom Tooth

The story begins 5 years ago when two pairs of wisdom teeth set foot in this world. They were born in Jaw street, one pair in downtown, the other in upscale uptown. Being molars, they were destined to the dark parts, near the premolars. They had a playful childhood without much work to do in the inner bylanes; they didn't have much sunlight either. Off and on some crumbs would make way to them and they would have a nice time nimbling over. Such merriment was detestful to the gums residing in the neighbourhood.

"How dare stupid little molars have no work and all play!"
"How dare they be called wisdom-teeth, while we turbid gums!"

The gums conspired to outgrow their colonies. They began spreading their appendages to such extents where it'd almost block the growth of the poor molars. Very soon the molars had difficulty coping with the cramped up space. Lumps of gum would get in between the meeting of the uptown and the downtown wisdom teeth. It caused pain, yes.

The above is a story a dentist narrated to me after having charged me $150 making my toothache worse (he didn't have painkillers either). Well, he didn't craft it as a story, but yes, this is the gist. And yes, damn you wisdom tooth. Just kill the gums!