Quizzed!

Gawd I am so utterly bored right now. 

Correction. Have been bored the last 48 hours. The entire weekend was spent in the close confines of home.....or rather my room with an occasional step outside to umm....eat or poop.

Thank God for the internet. And broadband. 

I just been hanging out in the web world. I can now conclude that a human being can survive for any length of time, all alone, by just looking at one website. Yes just one.

Craigslist.

You can find all kinds of things at Craigslist. All kinds. I mean it. For example:

Guy whose Turtle needs a booty call

Farewell to a cat

Pizza Problem

Office Poop Guide

Myths about America

Local TV News Bloopers

Rules of a break-up

I'm going nuts. Time for some TV.

PS: Oh yeah, by the way, I was so bored I took a 'News Quiz' at Reuters. Yeah, you read it right - a freaking news quiz. And as with any other test I've taken since kindergarten, I could not score over the magical 75th percentage. 

Check it out. 

1. The U.S. warned its citizens against travel to which region?

Darfur, Sudan

Vladivostok, Russia

Naples, Italy

Socotra, Yemen

 

2. A study from UCLA found that women are predisposed to prefer...

Brawny men

Slender men

Older men

Tall men

 

3. Undercover investigators who formed a dummy company with a P.O. box received what in 28 days?

A $650,000 loan from a leading subprime lender

A license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to buy enough material for a "dirty bomb"

Fifty-two credit card applications

"Fast-track" approval for multiple green cards

 

4. Which national leader has the lowest approval rating, in the latest poll in their country?

U.S. President Bush

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

New British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

President Nicolas Sarkozy

Russian President Vladimir Putin

 

5. Astronomers said they had discovered the best evidence yet of...

Active volcanos on Ganymede

A DNA spectral signature on Mars

Water outside our own solar system

Radio signals from Vega

 

6. In media industry lawsuit action this week...

A Chinese company is suing Google for copying its name

Google's CEO declared "Viacom is company built from lawsuits"

Microsoft is sued on claims its game console Xbox 360 scratches discs

Sun-Times Media is suing mogul Conrad Black for $542 million

Sony BMG is suing the company that developed its antipiracy software

A Muslim group lost a libel case over cartoon in Denmark

All of the above

The Knack

I've always loved Dilbert and today I got a funny Dilbert clip via email. I thought I was smart when I managed to embed the video in my post; and then it hit me...

...Duh.....Blogger has the video reel...

So here you go....Welcome Dilbert!

And since tomorrow will sure be Another Day In Cubicle Paradise, where I will try to find more ways of Thriving on Vague Objectives thrust upon me by Random Acts of Management, I promise not to get involved in any Random Acts of Catness and instead will bring you some Dispatches from Cubicleland

Yours,
Fugitive From the Cubicle Police

PS: Everything that is italicized is a Dilbert compilation. It's Not Funny If I Have To Explain It

787

Something tells me that 2007 will go down as the watershed year for technological innovation.

Just as I was getting over the goosebumps of looking at the iPhone, of raving on how 'cool' it was to have a feather-touch phone, Boeing, the airplane guys, have come out with a feather-touch plane. That's right. A feather-touch aircraft.

Although, I am awestruck everytime I see a aircraft fly (seriously, isn't it cool to see a mammoth metal contraption flying?), my experiences travelling in one have been less that pleasant (I ended up sleeping for two straight days after my travel back home last month. The flight was cramped, smelly and exhausting)

And therefore I am happy that atleast someone took notice and did something about it. 

The Boeing 787 was launched on 7-8-7(hope those guys will not take the number game too seriously, else our desi astrologers will be motivated to ask Boeing to add an extra 'o' or 'i' to its name so that it can enlist the support of rahu and ketu in its battle for the skies with Airbus)

This aircraft is like the iPhone of commercial avaition. First up, its launch was eagerly awaited for months now. And even before Boeing built the damn thing, they sold 660 odd such planes for over $100 billion. Then comes yesterday's launch. Broad/Pod-casting to over 100 million people in over 45 countries, Boeing unveiled its baby on a misty morning in Seattle.

And its totally worth the hype. Some things that knocked me off:

1. The huge windows - that extend over the height of the seat 

2. The teeny-tiny feather-touch button that can tint the window. Yes, no more window shutters to pull down :)

3. Roomy seats. Just like a pod in one of those space-ships

4. Seat operated climate and light control 

4. Awesome lighting and entertainment options

5. Other cool stuff like a composite body, a cleaner and more efficient engine and stuff.

Its called the Dreamliner. 

What the iPhone doesn't have

The list is out and is growing.

Some of what is listed as missing must have been there, though.

No way to search phone book or song lists

Now, I thought the world had finally got the utility of 'search'. So many of the desi names begin with either 'r' or 's' - and it would be a nightmare to scroll through everyone you know on the face of the earth to get to the one you want talk to.

Can't turn iPod songs into ring tones

Ah! subtle!, but point taken. Just when you thought you could have your favourite Metallica song(from that pirated CD) as your ringtone........

No way to download contacts from old phones

So this data entry job is going to be outsourced to desis?

Can't cut and paste

Whatever happend to those computer engineers at Apple?

They are talking iPhone 2.0.

BangaloreLive!!

Its now been exactly 26 days since I returned to Bangalore after a 20 odd month hiatus. The city is still the same - bustling with activity, noise, smoke, dust and plenty of people working IT jobs.

Turns out the office environment is more conducive to productive pursuits such as blogging etc than I had imagined. Still, given my predisposition to being lazy, the extra time, I am sure will not amount to much.

The much anticipated iPhone will hit the stores tomorrow. Of the 68 million odd reviews by as many number of 'experts', only some stand out as useful to the guy who doesn't know if a phone, even a cool phone, is worth $500.

Here is one

One thing you probably didn't know, and I quote:
"Apple says that the battery starts to lose capacity after 300 or 400 charges. Eventually, you’ll have to send the phone to Apple for battery replacement, much as you do now with an iPod, for a fee. "


......much as you do now with an iPod...??? Holy! I wouldn't have spent 235 bucks (and an additional 15 to get my name engraved in microscopic alphabets) if I knew that before. ...or......er......maybe not........maybe....