Tag: technology

Turn on the heat

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

Covid 19. This has trained so many new Celebrity Chefs.

Thanks to YouTube and it’s new cooking shows, there are so many new amateur Chefs that if you take an average, there must be at-least 2.5 chefs per house hold. The .5 accounts for that guy who accidentally sets things on fire because he was watching those Youtube Videos, while cooking rather than just before he started the process.

I always find that it is so funny that every show starts with, or contains this process . : Turn your gas on.

Duh. How am i supposed to shallow fry an onion if I don’t turn the heat on ?

Anyway, I did manage to cook something and the reviews I had are 100% positive. Admittedly, those that ate it, consisted of the wife and me, but end of the day, the statistics say that the reviews are 100% positive, and that is all that matters. It is not my fault that the reviewers are limited. I Blame it all on COVID-19.

Stay safe.

I am back…

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

Yes. I am back.

One of the many things for which the COVID-19 is responsible for, is that the “(hope)-to-be” writers like me, want to spend some time expressing my thoughts.

And “forget” to shave.

And work from home in shorts and Ts.

And attempt cooking.

And can get up late.

And as soon as I get up, sit in front of the laptop and start working.

Yes… I can get used to it, but the thought itself is scary (not because of the acute shortage of toilet paper). It has been almost a month now, where we, the IT people, are working from home. I am sure this will not be healthy in the long run.

I wish this lockdown would end, sooner rather than later.

 

Stay indoors, stay safe.

 

I am too old for this Sh*t

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I still remember the day when the favourite pastime of the fairer sex, was visiting the salons.

The ladies used to spend hours and thousands to look young.

The amount of makeup it took to make a 40 year old look like a 20 year old was astonishing. Personally, I am not against beauty, but I hate the idea of looking something which you are not. It is unnatural.

Well, times have changed.

I just found the internet full of people posting pictures of an old version of themselves.

Is this progress ?

Definitely.

This is the first step for Nirvana — Acceptance of the truth.

Or maybe, as Roger Murtaugh says, I am too old for this Sh*t.

I can’t understand how a 40 year old, wears makeup to look like a 20 year old, who then uses an app to look how she will look like a 40 year old, 60 year old and 80 year old.

You don’t need an app for this, just a bucket of water.

Power outage testing

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I was watching a TV series when a thought came into my mind.

Why do the characters go out and check their electric meters when the lights go out ? check if the entire area is out of electricity supply.It is not as if your previous 10 generations were electricians and your is the 11th generation.

Now, you may be wondering why this came up, so let me give you a sneak peek into my thought process.

In Pune (India), where I live, electricity cuts are very rare (contrary to popular belief). Which means, whenever there is a power outage, it is usually announced well in advanced. The possible causes are mostly maintenance, power cuts across the national grid or first drop of rain (don’t know why,but it always is the case).

Now, whenever I face such an outage, I first peep out of the window to check if the apartment next to mine has also gone dark. If it is day time, there is usually a house wife who is talking on a phone explaining to the other house wife that there is an outage at the other end.

Once confirmed that there is an outage, then I proceed to call the electricity board to lodge a complain and find out when the power will be restored.

If, however, the surrounding apartments show no such signs of outage, then I do not proceed to check my power meter.

Long exposures to such TV series / Films have taught me that there is always a killer in waiting. I proceed to call the electrician and have him look into the matter, albeit for a nominal fee.

So, Beware …

 

* This article was sponsored by “Flash Electricians”.

Their tag line :

“Afraid of getting Zapped ? Worry no more, we will help you.”

The thinking Man…

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

There are still a large number of people using old and slow HDD instead the fast SSDs.

What this means is, the boot time for the windows is so slow, that the person, with a very serious expression on his face is thinking :

” Hm. My windows is still loading.

Has it gone into a hung state ?

Should I do a restart ?

Why am I waiting so long for this ?

Should I switch to SSD ?

Do I have a virus ?

What did I open last night to get a virus?

What time did I sleep last night ? or did I even sleep ?

What is the purpose of my life ? ”

And that is why we should transfer to SSDs. Else we are going to have a lot of spiritual leaders and philosophers who spend too much time thinking on the meaning of live and a few more deep thoughts while all the installed applications boot.

Disclaimer : I use a MAC with SSD. I will no longer be a philosopher. 

Does Power beget evil ?

~ Pied Piper ~ 3 Comments

I was having a chat with one of my colleges yesterday. The topic of the discussion was -how it is evil to strive for power. I was the champion of power. I don’t believe power itself is evil.

Let me explain myself.

Power is nothing but the will to be the best. To be so good, that people would follow your advice/ teaching without question. This “advice” could be through the show of force or through show of knowledge. The power which is enforced through a show of force, though powerful in itself can always be nullified or countered with someone who is more adept in the “intelligence” department. Let’s see an example :

You are in a bar, and a few beefy bullies try to show power by pushing you around. Now you, a skinny, powerless but intelligent person can do a lot of things to save themselves. You may call the cops. But they may take some time to arrive at the place. You may simply pay the football team in the bar room, who are causing a lot of ruckus, to beat the bullies up.  If you are short of cash, simply order a drink and serve one of the groupies in the football team, hinting that the drink is from one of the bullies. The high testosterone levels in the football team members will help you to beat the bullies up to save their “honor”.

In any case, you overpowered an enemy who was in superior strength and numbers and hence – more powerful.

Now you, in this case, used your intelligence as power and saved yourself from getting bullied. Does this make you evil ? I don’t think so. It is natural to save ourselves and those we love.

Now, power itself is not evil then. But the person wielding that power, could inherently be evil, which would just mean that even though power itself is not evil, it was used to spread the evil.

Let’s take another example.

Imagine two accomplished neurosurgeons. They have the power to save people by performing very critical and complex surgeries. One of them uses his skill to heal the people and the other uses the skill to sell the body parts on the black-market.

Does this mean the power to perform complex surgeries is evil ?

Knock knock…

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Is it just me ? or does everyone stand in front of the glass doors , hoping that it will open automatically?

I visited a client recently and he had a set of doors placed consecutively in a passageway.

Both of them were made of glass obviously. When I approached the innermost door, it opened automatically, so then I proceeded to the next one.

Imagine my surprise when the door did not open. It took me a whole of 2 minutes to realize that I had to push the door.The embarrassment was compounded by the fact that a cute lady was looking at me, bemused by my predicament.

All I could do was to give her a sheepish grin, pull the door a few times and then push it, even though the words”PUSH” were written in capital and bold letters.

Technology makes us lazy and ignorant.

Viruses, Viruses everywhere

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It is that time of the year when your throat starts to pain a bit, your activities and movement speed slow down, the nose becomes itchy and you start feeling as if you are Shiva, the Hindu God which brought a river into the world to take care of a drought, from his head. Although in this case, you will be bringing a river into this world via your nose.

Go to a doctor, and he will say; ” It is a viral infection. You will be alright in a few days.”

I think the doctors will term anything as “viral” if they don’t yet know what caused the infection.

Now I am an IT guy. What I don’t understand is, why people don’t believe us when we say that the reason their computer slowed down is because of a virus. Isn’t it basically the same thing happening to a computer ?

Keys… to flying

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Have you ever wondered if the pilots on the airplane need to insert keys to start a plane ?

I have often thought about it. I always imagine that the pilot will always have to insert the key into the ignition and twist it to the right side to start the plane’s engines.

That makes me wonder, what would happen if the pilot forgot his keys at home ? Is that why we get the “technical issues” when we board the flight ?

The pilot might be saying , ” Oh crap. I left the keys in my other pants. Well, can’t really tell the passengers this, can we . Let’s just say we have a technical issue and in the meantime, send a steward to the tower to pickup the spare keys.”

Morning Ritual

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Due to technology, this has become the morning ritual of most of us :

  • Reposition yourself from a prone position to a seating position on your bed
  • Take your mobile in hand with sleepy eyes. Let your eyes adjust to the bright screen. Rub them vigorously till they adjust.
  • Check whatsapp.
  • Reply with as little words as possible on whatsapp. If reply can be a smiley, consider it as an added advantage.
  • Go to the facebook app on the phone, check status updates you posted a decade ago and share it. This will indicate you were very socially active at one time
  • Share random facebook posts. If possible tag your friends.
  • Refrain from posting anything original. If you do, take care to repost it at a later stage.
  • If you are properly awake, gather enough energy to get down from bed, else keep browsing 9gag till you muster the strength.
  • Curse the weather for making the floor so cold.
  • Figure out what day it is. Use complex mathematics if necessary, else refer to your phone.
  • Start your daily routine.