why do i blog?

last weekend, my blog came up in a random conversation with friends. people were curious about why I blog. I don't think people quite get it. I guess blogging as a concept has kinda fallen out of public parlance, replaced by social media - which most people seem to think is the best way to broadcast to people who care (or maybe even people who don't!).

my blog occupies a small but specific niche in terms of communication: it's obviously absolutely public, searchable, indexed, cached by google etc, so an entirely public record of what I've chosen to say. it's also very clearly linked to my identity, so indusputably me, and also not bound by any platform or website's terms of use, so practically impossible to take down - I'm guessing/hoping it will outlast my facebook and twitter profiles!

it serves another useful purpose though. in a world dominated by clickbait, algorithms, quick punchy content, this is a space for long form old-fashioned text. a space to speak my mind about things that the algorithms that govern most platforms won't consdier worthy of attention.

also, in a weird way, the lack of metrics (OK, I do have google analytics, but I don't open it unless I'm informed there's a problem!) means I'm encouraged to not care about how well my "content" is doing - which encourages me to be "me".

ps: the blog turned 19 last month, and I didn't even realize it until I did the mental math during that conversation!

pps: I decided it's time I update the 18 year old photo in the upper right corner! long overdue, eh?

bring back search engines!

Today, while poking fun at a friend (hinting that he his assets are hard to find because he is rich and well connected). I mentioned Parkinson's Law, a book I must have read about 30 years ago - I read a copy that belonged to my dad, which has probably been disposed of by now and definitely not read since I finished school.

I tried various searches before giving up and assuming I remembered wrong. I even managed to find hte lsit of chapters of Parkinson's law, but nothing jumped at me (I did skim it pretty quickly though!).

The friend had his curiousity piqued though and requested a link to the ebook... which I found, trangely enough, as a PDF that looked like it was typed out in Microsoft Word. Not sure if it's legal to share now (the book was written in the '50s!) But anywy, I'll let you be the judge of it - here's the copy of Parkinson's Law I skimmed.

And then, as I was about to close the tab a few hours later (after telling the friend that's not the book but it's a good enough read anyway!) I started reading the book backwards. It was chapter 11! "Palm thatch to Packard or a formula for success"

My search tab was still open, so I decided to follow up a bit.

Call me a skeptic (which I most certainly am - probably irrationally so!) but the search engine's AI definitely worked much worse than I think same the search engine would have, a decade ago.

Anyway, to summarize my "conversation" with the search engine:

1. Me: "flunkey puzzle book rich chinese"
   
   Search engine (I'm paraphrasing): "The search results do not mention a "flunkey puzzle book" or any direct connection between the term "flunkey" and a puzzle book related to a rich Chinese character or story. It's possible there may be a misunderstanding or misremembering of the title." Followed it up with a few unrelated books.
   
   
2. Me: "it's a chapter of a humourous book"
   
   Search engine (direct quote this time): "The term "flunkey puzzle book" does not appear in the search results, and no humorous book chapter by that name is identified. However, The Chinese Puzzle by Ernest Bramah features humorous and satirical stories centered on Kai Lung, a fictional Chinese storyteller, blending wit and parody of Chinese philosophy and culture.
   One chapter, "The Story of the Man Who Was Thrifty," exemplifies the book’s whimsical tone, where a man’s extreme frugality leads to absurd consequences, told in an exaggerated, tongue-in-cheek style."
   
   
3. Me: "the chapter refers to the tendency of rich people to stay under the radar until they get so tich they are beyond danger"
   
   Search engine (direct quote again): "There is no evidence in the search results of a "flunkey puzzle book" chapter describing rich individuals staying under the radar until they are financially secure. The term appears to be a misremembering or confusion with titles like The Chinese Puzzle by Ernest Bramah, which features humorous tales of Kai Lung, or other books with "Chinese Puzzle" in the title that focus on culture, mystery, or religion rather than wealth evasion.
   None of the chapters in these works address the behavior of wealthy people avoiding attention for safety or strategic reasons."
   
   
4. Me: "Why do wealthy individuals avoid public attention?"
   
   Search engine (direct quote, as before): "The search results do not directly explain why wealthy individuals avoid public attention, nor do they confirm the existence of a "flunkey puzzle book" chapter on this topic. However, based on general understanding reflected in cultural and literary themes (such as in The Chinese Maze Murders and The Chinese Puzzle), wealthy or powerful figures may stay under the radar to avoid scrutiny, protect assets, prevent extortion, or maintain strategic advantage—especially in environments with political instability or social tension."
   
   
5. Me: "is there a chapter of a humorous book refering to this phenomenon"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "Yes, the novel Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner features a satirical chapter-like narrative about an "extraordinarily, absurdly, kidnappably rich" Jewish family on Long Island who live with constant anxiety despite their wealth. The story humorously explores how the patriarch, Zelig Fletcher, amasses a fortune as a protective "amulet" against historical trauma, believing money can shield his family from disaster. His children grow up under this shadow—ostentatiously wealthy yet emotionally stunted—highlighting the absurdity and psychological cost of wealth used as a defense mechanism.
   The book satirizes how the rich, despite appearing powerful, often live in fear and go to extreme lengths to stay safe, not necessarily under the radar, but in a state of hyper-vigilance shaped by inherited trauma."
   
   
6. Me: "I have found it. It's chapter 11 of the book Parkinson's law, titled "Palm thatch to packard or a formula for success""
   
   Search engine (first para of the response): "Yes, Chapter 11 of Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson—titled "Palm Thatch to Packard, or A Formula for Success"—does address the phenomenon you described. In this chapter, Parkinson humorously observes that Chinese businessmen historically practiced evasion and modesty until their wealth became so substantial that ostentation became safer and more advantageous."
   
   
7. Me: "Why was this chapter so hard to find using my previous queries?"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "Your earlier queries were difficult to match because they used inexact or misremembered terms like "flunkey puzzle book" instead of the actual chapter title, "Palm Thatch to Packard", and did not mention Parkinson's Law or author C. Northcote Parkinson. Search engines rely on precise keywords—without them, results drift toward unrelated books with similar phrases (e.g., "Chinese Puzzle")."
   
   
8. Me: "the phrase flunkey puzzle is not very common and is used in this chapter"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "The term "flunkey puzzle" appears in Chapter 11 of Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson, titled "Palm Thatch to Packard, or A Formula for Success." It is a rare and distinctive phrase used humorously to describe how wealthy individuals—particularly in historical Chinese society—deliberately concealed their success ("flunkey" implying servility or low status) until their wealth made them secure from threat or envy.
   This obscurity explains why earlier searches failed: "flunkey puzzle" is an unusual, context-specific term not widely indexed outside direct references to this chapter."
   
   
9. Me: "are there other cited works of literature that talks about something called a flunkey puzzle?"
   
   Search engine (direct quote): "No, there are no other cited works of literature that mention the term "flunkey puzzle" besides Chapter 11 of Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson.

   The term is highly unusual and appears to be unique to this chapter, where it describes the strategic modesty of wealthy individuals—particularly in historical Chinese society—who conceal their status ("palm thatch") until they accumulate enough wealth to safely display it ("Packard").

   Search results confirm that "flunkey puzzle" does not appear in other literary, academic, or cultural contexts. References to "flunkey" alone relate to characters (e.g., Flunkey the baboon in The Jungle Book) or synonyms for a servant, while "puzzle" appears in unrelated titles like crossword clues or educational exercises."

So, there you have it. I used a unique phrase in an indexed work of literature, with some (perhaps initially vague but increasingly refined and accurate) terms and context and it couldn't be found. A few questions spring to mind:

1. Have people been so bad at using traditional search engines prior to the introduction of AI/LLM based search engines that what seems like a step backward to me is a step forward to them?
2. Has the AI hype bubble driven this direction despite its ineffectiveness?
3. Is my search style so tuned to text search engines that LLMs can't work with it?
4. Is this all simply my confirmation bias?

Either way, I'm increasingly annoyed at not being able to find what I'm looking for.

ps: it's only a couple of days ago that I was looking for a BT song that I happened to be listening to, and the search engine couldn't find it despite me typing the lyrics of THE WHOLE FIRST VERSE into it! I should have asked why it cou;dn't find the song, but hey. I did take a screenshot though! Hopefully something to laugh at 10 years from now, assuming things get better by then 😁

shower thoughts

 an sms I sent an hour ago has not been delivered.

it's because the messaging app used RCS by default.

I'm not sure why it's set to do so, but I guess nobody would actually use RCS unless it was turned on by default. 

nobody cares if a message is sent over RCS or SMS as long as it gets to its destination.

these days, everyone has data on, unless they've turned it off, in which case they probably don't want messages either - so that's an advantage.

wonder what other advantages RCS has.

I assume, unlike MMS, there is no fallback system for RCS (MMS used to send you a SMS with a link as an alternative to downloading the MMS itself on the phone).

so RCS probably is completely carrier independent and should be free/unlimited.

can RCS have a fallback like MMS did?

that would require the messaging client to support it over SMS.

any client side SMS to RCS bridge needs an intelligent client, but there is no guarantee of that. after all, you could be sending a SMS to a 25 year old phone.

25 year old phones are interesting. they had a strange sort of data connectivity, WAP.

I wonder how WAP actually worked. it definitely wasn't regular TCP/IP, and while the pages looked like very basic HTML, I'm sure there was more to it.

I wonder what's the application protocol part of WAP. could there be applications other than a browser on WAP?

MMS is an application, in a sense.

If there could be other applications on WAP, I wonder why I never heard of them.

I'm sure if there was a way to use WAP to chat, yahoo and msn messenger would have developed an app.

man, yahoo and msn messenger on WAP was crazy!

remember hitting refresh every 5 seconds to check for new messages? and the contact list that sorted itself by time seen, with online, idle and finally offline sections?

I think there would be an asterisk next to the name of the contact who had an unread message waiting for me.

unvisited links would be blue. visited, magenta.

I wonder how big each page was. definitely under a kilobyte. but they still took time to load!

I guess mobile Internet was so slow and limited back then that there was no point counting data. if you could find a way to use more than what would be considered fair, knock yourself out!

it's so hard to come to terms with that until WiFi came to phones in 2008, the only way in was via mobile networks.

2008 is not that long ago. broadband was pretty fast. MP3s were 10 years old. YouTube existed! and yet the only way to get something on your phone was mobile data or the memory card/USB port. and only data could be realistically called online communication.

it's now November 2023. so that was 15 years ago. my second phone.

my first phone was purchased in February 2004!

i wonder what was the date I purchased it. it definitely deserves a commemorative blog post. 20 years of smartphones!

I know exactly where it would be. my old blog!

ah, my old blog. back when I blogged and nobody read it because nobody around me knew what a blog was.

it's so much easier to blog now.

I miss my old school, hand-crafted blog.

I don't need to miss my old school, hand-crafted blog.

I am going to revive my old school, hand-crafted blog!

I wonder if it'll be safe to run ASP on a windows 2000 VM and expose it via my dynamic DNS.

Nope, definitely won't be safe!

Let's just stick with old school and forget about hand-crafted.

If it's a good platform, I should be able to import all my old posts into the new blog.

wouldn't it look weird? a post a day (or a couple a week) from 2003 to 2006, and then suddenly we jump to December 2023?

actually, it won't be weird. I'm sure I'm still almost the same.

I should take the images from the original website and stick them on the blog though.

"welcome to Kristopher's corner of the world wide web" - it doesn't get more late 90s corny than that!

I remember the font. my favourite font.

did the font make Kristopher look like krist0ph3r?

if it did, I now know where I got my inspiration from.

I must blog this on my main blog. 

The slow Web

I don't remember my blog very often, but I'm sure most people I know who ever had a blog don't think about theirs at all!

By a quirk of my RSS reader, it somehow marked the last 10 posts in every blog I've subscribed to, as unread. And they sent me an email saying that if I didn't login to my RSS reader in the next 50 days, I'd lose my account and subscriptions for good.

It took me a few posts before I realized what happened. The reader messed up the dates as well - all the posts said 4th October 2023 or something.

Either way, it's been fun to read about the world as it appeared to my many friends, from back when before twitter, instagram, youtube, whatsapp, tiktok and snapchat took over everything. The slow web, when people took time to write and to read. When photos were few and far betwen (if at all!) and videos were unheard of.

While 411 unread posts might cause anxiety to the unprepared mind, I'm not in any hurry to exhaust this treasure trove.

ps: Fun idea: write an app that'd scrape all my RSS feeds and then "surprise me" with random posts in random order.

retribution or support?

I happened to comment on a post about "mansplaining", asking if there's anything a man could comment there without being dismissed as an instance of mansplaining.

The amount of negativity a man earns by just virtue of being a man is... overwhelming.

I wonder, would it be easier to make the world a better place for women if every conversation about issues that primarily affect women would not be so overwhelmingly targetted against men (as opposed to the problematic behaviour itself, even if that behaviour is exhibited by the majority of men)? In other words, if a man chooses to try to make a difference (which every man should!), would it be more productive to offer retribution for the rest of his ilk and his/their past behaviour, or support?

And if it's not clear if a man actually exhibits the behaviour being discussed, would it be more productive to give the man the benefit of the doubt before coming to that conclusion? Or does the generalization make things easier to discuss, and making a few men feel bad for no fault of their own acceptable collateral damage?

The responses to the comment led me to conclude a few things:

• Mainsplaining is so common that many women do not feel the need to quallify their statement about men
• Mansplaining is so common that some (many?) women do not even realize it - they simply assume men know more
• Most men and women fundamentally disagree when it comes to "can we talk about a problem without trying to solve it?"
• The women involved consider "shut up if it doesn't refer to yourself" as a valid approach to take. It appears the men involved (myself included) do not. Is that because we're muddying the waters? Is that because the majority of men who'd comment on such a post are the ones who are either not guilty or blind to their faults?
• When men do the gender-neurtal equivalent of mansplaining to other men, they are simply branded condescending (or, as one man would say to another: a dick). And it happens a lot, and men either ignore it or call it out and move on.
• I need to stop taking claims about "men" personally, as I would be as guilty of inflicting collateral damage on women who have been at the receiving end of this sort of behaviour far too often for far too long.

I have not concluded whether retribution or support is the most productive line to take though. It's unlikely I will be able to make that decision.

anti-social media

the less you use Facebook, the more dysfunctional it seems to get. is their algorithm bad or is there a subtle plot to encourage people to be regular users? same experience with Instagram too, until I finally uninstalled it 🤦‍♂️ 

stepping away from twitter for a few years and then getting back made me realize it was always a super-high signal to noise ratio that wasn't useful unless I spent hours on it.

is social media dead? has social media always been dead? 

setup your own domain and "burner" email addresses

Ever since I purchased krist0ph3r.com 7 years ago, I have been figuring what best to do with what seemed like a frivolous purchase.

Having a handy link for this blog is nice, but the biggest use has actually been quite unanticipated: using "burner" email addresses for sites i sign up to. this means I can sign up to every site with a unique email address, and nobody knows it's the same human. which makes my online experience much safer and more private than the average internet user.

If you think this is something you want/need to do, this is my handy guide - takes about 10 minutes if you know what you're doing, maybe a little more if you sign up with a user-unfriendly domain service. for reference, it took me a couple of days to get right the first time, but has worked absolutely perfectly ever since - so perfectly, that i completely forgot how I did it when a friend asked me to replicate the setup for him!

Anyway, here goes:

1. Buy your domain. It could be any domain (.com or the more interesting/quirky/local TLDs all will work). Just make sure you buy it from a provider that offers a basic control panel that allows you to setup custom DNS records. Nothing fancy, just custom MX and TXT records. Ask their sales team if you aren't sure. This is (at the time of writing) your only expense for the most basic setup. I've used namecheap.com (because it's cheap! but it's also probably the simplest interface to get the job done. Takes no more than 5 minutes here if you're a slow reader) but I have also used other providers that I can't remember any more, and all of them have worked well. Notably, godaddy.com works but is super user-unfriendly as I discovered while helping a friend do his setup yesterday. I haven't tried this with subdomains, so no idea if you can set that up - DNS does support subdomains but I haven't tried to even read up.
2. Setup an email address to receive your emails. Could be any address on any provider, a new one or an existing one (in which case no setup required - but I don't recommend this). I use gmail, because it allows some interesting things (and used to allow more things than it currently supports, unfortunately they've been trying to monetize the platform so things aren't as easy/free any more). For the basic stuff, any email will do.
3. Signup at improvmx.com - this is the site that makes the catch-all burner email setup possible. It's free at the time of writing, and has been free for at least 7 years now, with some premium features that you don't need to get this setup done. They need your domain, and the email you need to forward it to. Don't create aliases unless you need this - just one (*) will do the job.
4. Use the step-by-step view at improvmx.com for guidance regarding the DNS setup. In short, it's two things: setting up 2 MX records (to route mails from your domain to improvmx's servers) and a TXT record so improvmx knows it's you. I had my domain without the TXT record all these years and it worked, so I'm assuming the TXT record bit has been added in the last few years. For completeness, these are the two MX records I needed setup:
• Host: @  Value: mx1.improvmx.com Priority: 10
• Host: @  Value: mx2.improvmx.com Priority: 20
5. Wait a few minutes for DNS records to propagate (shouldn't take too long, but you never know - 30 minutes max). Send a test mail (send it from an unrelated email address to be sure it's working) and it should show up in your inbox! Improvmx is quick and reliable :)

All geeky happiness aside, this solution has one glaring deficiency: you can't easily send mail from your burner email addresses. Sending mail needs a SMTP server and while these used to be common a few years ago, they aren't any more (for a good reason - SMTP servers open to 3rd party domains are the easiest target to bounce spam mail off!). My own solution is to setup a SMTP server on my own machine, dynamic dns aka ddns (namecheap comes with ddns support and a "beta" client, not bad!), port forwarding on my router, and finally point my gmail to it. And only turn it on when I need to send a mail - because I don't want spammers to be taking advantage of my pc! This is definitely not for the faint-hearted/technologically challenged, and definitely not as easy as getting incoming mail setup. There are easier ways to do this, but these aren't free, so I haven't bothered trying them out.

Either way, that's it for now. I might write the SMTP/outgoing mail guide later, and I definitely need to write up the bit where you can point your domain and custom subdomains to your blog(s) - probably more for myself than anyone else.

Have fun and stay safe!

paypal scam/security issue: you could be billed by merchants you've terminated your agreement with!

Paypal users:

Turns out some sellers add themselves as pre-approved billers and don't/can't remove themselves when you cancel your membership/billing agreement. You have to remove it yourself, or they could charge your paypal in the future without any advance warning. Your only clue would be a notification that the money has already been deducted from your paypal, and at that point you cannot decline/reverse the transaction by yourself.

To prevent that, remove unwanted billers from the following link:

https://www.paypal.com/myaccount/autopay/

When I checked today, I had a couple of merchants on the list who I have not used in years, and am personally aware of merchants who have fraudulently charged people I know in the last couple of days. 

Paypal refuses to entertain any complaints regarding merchants if they're on the list - their argument is that you have agreed to be billed by the merchant, so any problems are now between you and the merchant. Paypal has also said that the agreement can only be ended if agreed by the user AND the merchant, which leaves the feature wide open for abuse.

The feature of being able to view pre-approved billers is new to paypal even though having pre-approved billers is an old thing. it could be that paypal added the feature in response to complaints, but their handling remains poor. Please take care of yourselves by removing billers from the list, or you might be faced with a lengthy fight to get your money back! If the balance was deducted from paypal itself you're out of luck. If it was deducted from your credit card you still have hope as you can raise a dispute there.

ps: special shout out to past users of Shaw academy (www.shawacademy.com), as they recently did this (deduct money from people who had canceled their memberships over a year ago)

connect

So, in this time of social isolation and forced/voluntary quarantine and whatnot, I have an idea. I have started work on it myself, but since this is my first ever app, I'm clearly out of my depth. Calling on mobile app devs who are willing to brainstorm and collaborate. I don't think anyone has implemented my idea yet, so I hope we can build something that makes a positive impact to peoples' lives. Hit me up!

my first hackathon

most of the turning points of my life have been serendipitous.

five days ago, i was approached by a colleague at work, who said she needed some help, and wanted to know if i was up for it. we agreed to meet by the coffee machine a couple of hours later, and she pitched her case: there was a hackathon coming up this saturday, and her team had just disintegrated. and they had an idea.

the idea appealed to me. it was one of those things that seemed like it could be done. in fact, as she was describing what she wanted to do, i could literally see it take shape.

i went home that night, and fired up my IDE. it was 2 years behind the times, but ran. logged in to heroku, which i had again signed up for two years ago. it's still free.

i was up till 1:30am that night. just writing random stuff. a hello world REST service that logged its source IP and facebook click ID in a Postgres database that could be edited by strange and funky REST calls.

the next day, the old team regrouped (kinda). it seems that everyone was suddenly convinced again that this is something we should do. i carried my notepad along, scribbled some notes, and took a photo of them before i left office. i couldn't wait to get home, to start writing some real code, which i did: a RESTful service to signup and login. took me all night again.

thursday morning, i had a late start to work as I was expected to work late. not sure what I wrote (I could check my git log, i guess) but i was definitely writing code and pushing it, hitting refresh on my browser. finished work at 10pm, and was back to hacking away. refactored all my code, added the capability to run against an in-memory data store so that I don't mess up the DB with my silly CURL commands.

by friday morning, i felt like a zombie. but i managed to get work done, attend meetings and all that. when i got a call from Shruti at 8pm reminding me that she had been waiting at the restaurant for 15 minutes (I had not left office yet), I knew I was pushing it.

I didn't touch my computer that night. just got home, and crashed. or maybe i did touch the computer, because how else did i sleep at 1am if dinner was done at 10:30pm? it's all a blur now.

either way, i slept through my alarm. went from bed to the door in 15 minutes (breakfast at the hackathon, thank goodness for little mercies!).

laptop plugged in, raring to go. met my team, who had mostly arrived before me.

presentations and introductions out of the way, we got started... and stopped. kinda.

technical glitches (the one person who was going to write the UI had a laptop that REFUSED to see the specific wifi we were supposed to use!), another teammate who was supposed to do the presentation had never actually launched powerpoint on her laptop and suddenly realized her laptop does not even have it, and another teammate had an ipad with a remote connection to two freshly paid for amazon cloud servers, that had... nothing. ok, they had had notepad, so it could be used as a glorified text editor. the ipad might have done a better job i guess. as we worked around our technical glitches, general picking away at the problem ensued, until it was about 2pm. at that point we realized we had to change tracks drastically.

the server (aka my code) was ready and running full steam on the cloud, waiting for all the requests it was built to handle... and it kept waiting (it still is waiting, for the record).

everybody was doing their own thing, and we were kinda getting nowhere. i was too demotivated to even try hitting my code once to verify it worked. we abandoned all IDEs. our new strategy was to just do mockups of everything. so we huddled around a flip chart, drew all our screens, then ripped them off, scattered them on the floor (for some reason!) and proceeded to transfer them to the computer. i'm not sure how i contributed at that point besides hovering around, wringing my hands helplessly and possibly gulping large amounts of caffeinated sugar free sodas. it was 5pm before we knew it, and pizza was served. i didn't care. at 5:15 we got to know that we'd be given 5 minutes to present everything. and this was after i was somehow convinced my teammates we'd be given half an hour or something (it was planned to end at 8pm, so we'd have two and a half hours which i assumed would be used entirely for presentations, i assumed there were half as many people around, and i was obviously too caffeinated to do proper math)

and so, while everyone was moving towards the presentation area, i hit ctrl + D on the terminal window that had all my curl commands preped up, and replaced the slide that said "DEMO" with a screenshot of my IDE and the text "COMING SOON" in 96 point bold.

we still managed to get a "highly commended" award, which I think, given the above, is definitely something!

i'm in hackathon-afterburn mode. trying to install node.js on a Linux emulation layer on my 8 year old android tablet at 2am because... why not.

it feels good to be part of something good.

LOLCODE

I was going through my photo backups, trying to find duplicates, and get rid of half of them.
Unfortunately, the duplicate images had identical names (and the date was in the name, so it had to be the same image, but the sizes were different. Since data is cheap (but photos are priceless), i decided to keep the biggest copy of each image.

But i digress.

In the process of  double checking I was doing the right thing by deleting 489 indentically named but differently sized images, I happened to open one of them. It was a photo of a screen:

This is code I wrote in 2015. That I took a photo of because I wanted to remember for posterity.

One can't let such excellent code go to waste. And so, I found an online LOLCODE interpreter (possibly the same one I used to write it in 2015) and typed it word for word. It ran! (yes, those guys who wrote the language were smart enough to include the version of its spec in the code - why doesn't anyone else do that?)

ps: anyone want to decipher what it does without running it yourself? Here you go:

HAI 1.2
 I HAS A CHEEZ ITZ 0, I HAS A CHEEZBURGER ITZ 1, I HAS A MONEY ITZ 5
 IM IN YR LOOP UPPIN YR CHEEZ WILE BOTH SAEM CHEEZ AN SMALLR OF CHEEZ AN MONEY
  BOTH SAEM CHEEZ AN MONEY, O RLY?
   YA RLY, VISIBLE SMOOSH CHEEZ "!=" CHEEZBURGER MKAY
   NO WAI, CHEEZBURGER R PRODUKT OF CHEEZBURGER AN SUM OF CHEEZ AN 1
  OIC
 IM OUTTA YR LOOP
KTHXBYE

forgotten blogs

i opened my rss reader today after years. i'm guessing those guys who run it assumed i'm never coming back, because when i signed in, everything was unread. i read post after post. some interesting, but mostly mindless. all of them said they were posted today... until i clicked through to the actual site and it showed the real date: 2 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago.

i wondered to myself, what happened to these blogs? what happened to these bloggers?

did life happen? (that's a joke. life always happens - but people still blogged 10 years ago, while life was happening)

did they find better things to do?

are they numb and bored, sharing facebook post after post, retweeting to hundreds or thousands of bots and a few humans who follow them, adding a word or an emoticon as their only contribution?

are they snapchatting with weird animal eyes and mouths and freaky lights?

are they too busy binge watching their favourite show that just has a new season coming out?

are they keeping up with hundreds of messages that flood their whatsapp and facebook groups, some from friends but mostly strangers, or people who might as well be?

either way, they seem to have found better things to do than good old writing. putting stuff up for posterity, for the world to see.

or maybe, it's because the world isn't interested any more. who but the most deranged of the bunch have the time to scroll through screen after screen of tiny, monospaced text, often in strange colours?

i was going to close my reader and let those guys forget i existed once again.

but then i happened to click through one of the posts.

a dark poem that hit home.

it was written today.

i sent a comment. said hello to the fellow. thanked him for writing something real.

he hasn't forgotten his blog.

idea factory

I have an idea, to create a portal that lets people exchange ideas, comment/vote on them, and also take ownership of an idea and pursue it to fruition if possible/document the roadblocks and constraints to anyone else who chooses to subsequently take over.

If you think this is something you can lend your ideas/time/resources/brand to and partner with me, please let me know.

I'll be starting work on building this in my spare time and will try to rope in other volunteers to get this off the ground, but I don't have capital to put into hosting, etc., and since this is in my spare time, it's on a best effort. It's something I believe would improve the world for all of us though, and it's an idea i'm passionate about.

Let's see how far we can take this!

success

of late, i've been getting sucked into quora, especially questions about human interactions - both because i find them fascinating, and because i've found that it's something i can contribute to and impact others' lives in a concrete, positive manner. sometimes, though, more than helping others, the questions make me think and crystallize my thoughts to myself. like this question, today:

What is something that others see as success but you don't? Why?

funnily enough, the existing answers seemed (to me) to be quite one dimensional, and coloured by the respondent's perspective - more like they were venting their pet peeve about someone or something widely regarded as successful. and that prompted my answer:

When I saw this question, my mind spun off into multiple directions, trying to think of all the things that “others” see as success, that I don’t. When I tried to summarize them all, it came down to this: 

“Success is internal to you. You succeed when you feel like you have, and nothing else.” 

Nobody else’s definition of success applies to you (if you ignore the paradox this creates with my statement above). If you want to appear successful to others, sure, go ahead and find their definition and try to conform to it. But you’re truly successful only when you feel it - even if nobody else can tell! 

As for why, I can put it down to experience: there have been plenty of times I have felt successful, when others did not see or even realize it, and there have been a comparable number of times when others have expressed delight in their own success, but where I failed to see it. In fact, I have reached a point where I do not think about whether or not someone else has been successful, but instead, I watch out for cues that suggest they feel successful, and compliment them or encourage them to achieve further success without suggesting terms for their future success.

security #fail

warning: long post ahead. summary at the end.

recently, I received a call from HDFC bank, from someone who claimed to be my "personal banker". I was wondering why, because I used to have a personal banker long ago, but he suddenly disappeared off the scene, and I honestly didn't miss him one bit, because there's nothing I need a personal banker for.

in fact, that guy prompted me to once tweet that "a personal banker is a salesman you're forced (or was it obliged? I don't remember) to be nice to 😁"

so this well spoken lady claiming to be my personal banker introduced herself and asked me to save her number and whatnot. and then she said that she could see I was eligible for a credit limit enhancement on my credit card. I have no idea why anyone would offer me that, as I don't even use that card. but apparently your credit limit contributes to your credit score, and it's always good to have a good credit score. or maybe I was simply in a good mood and wasn't too occupied with work that day. either way, I agreed. she said that I would receive a OTP on my mobile, which I would have to key into the IVR. sounded legit.

the IVR switched on, it asked me to enter my card number. when done, it asked me to enter my OTP. since the OTP was on my phone, and I was on the call, it took a few seconds to switch apps and read the number, memorize it, switch back and dial it. and HDFC somehow expected me to be super quick, so the IVR exited before I could dial it in. the lady was back on the line. she said I took too long, so I would have to try again. she launched the IVR again. I entered my card number. it then asked me to enter my OTP. and then I heard my "personal banker"'s voice, asking me to hurry.

WHAT?!!

I was too shocked to respond.

she was on the line with the IVR, had already heard my card number, and was about to hear my OTP!

I was literally shell shocked. I thought I was this close to being scammed. if she hadn't spoken, I'd have been a goner (metaphorically speaking).

the IVR exited, I regained my composure, and asked her why she was on the line. I told her that I was extremely uncomfortable with this and did not want to go ahead with it. she was polite, but it was clear that she didn't understand my concern. I tried explaining as well, but she was like "I can only hear beeps, not the actual number"

she obviously didn't know how tone dialing (or indeed, IVR systems) work.

I gave up and made an excuse and hung up.

I didn't really need the limit upgrade, but she had set my mind working. is there any way to verify that this is or is not some sort of scam? I thought hard, and the only thing I could come up with was the HDFC official call center. so I dialed in, and of course I had to enter my authentication details on the IVR, something I have done scores of times before, but which got me thinking this time. anyway, I guess the number listed on my card and the website had to be trusted, I hoped.

I finally got someone on the line. I asked her if I was eligible for a credit limit upgrade. she affirmed. I asked her to confirm my current and new limit. it matched what I was told earlier. she told me I would be sent an OTP and would then be put on the IVR. so far, the story matched. I had just one last point to confirm. I asked her if she would be on the line while I entered my details.

she said she would.

this time, I didn't bother arguing. I had called HDFC on their listed number, so unless an extremely well engineered scam was in place, I should be safe.

the transaction went through, I got a message from HDFC confirming that my request was accepted to etc.

I called my "personal banker" to let her know that I had done the upgrade by calling phone banking, as I was not comfortable entering my OTP on an inbound call. she still didn't understand, but I didn't care.

I haven't heard from her ever since. but I did get a call the other day from a guy who also claimed to be my personal banker. I told him I already have one, and he insisted that he was my real personal banker from the head office, while the other person must have called from some branch.

I'm pretty sure he's not from the head office, because he wants to meet me in person now. I'm just bracing myself for more insecure bullshit and another attempt to sell me something I don't need.

anyway, TL;DR:

do not enter personal details on IVR. especially on an inbound call. if it's an inbound call, selling you something you want, find a way to get to the same offer from an outbound call to a verified number. do all due diligence to verify the outbound number. and never accept an outbound number that's given to you by the caller. they are bound to make excuses to avoid this, but be firm.

do not assume any IVR is secure. those "beeps" are the keys of your keypad being transmitted across. anyone listening will know what you have entered. so be wary.

and whenever you come across a bank legitimately forcing or inducing you to do these things, give them feedback that this is not acceptable.

(ps: have you come across any other such suspicious things? let me know in the comments, I'll be happy to vet and write up about them!)

Hangout with Ellen Angove

Monday, February 10, 2014, 11:14 PM:

(someone named Ellen Angove pings me on google hangouts)
E: Are you busy??
K: kina
K: *kinda
E: Yay someone to talk to :-) !! how are u?
K: haha, i'm alive, yes
E: I'm great thanks for chattin with me I found your name in the google plus members search :) whatcha up to?
K: also, human
K: really? never knew you could do that
E: I would ask to exchange pics, but I think i'd rather see each other, u can see the real thing on my cam... u want to?
E: Click http://________.com it's a more secure place with my cam u will have to verify your age so I'm not showing my p***y to a minor ;), i had to do it too but dont worry its 100% FREE and its alot of fun once u get in ;)
K: haha, no, thanks
E: no worries..thouhght u wanted to see me naked ..:)
K: haha... you're just a random person, wwhy would i?
E: u can just watch me if u want, or we can both get on ;-) make sure sign up, then it should connect you to my cam
K: why don't we meet? it's more fun
E: ok, fill out your info,first and last name, make sure you put your correct b-day k? I got something really sexy on for u lol ur gunna like this :-)
K: lol, describe it
E: Credit card, debit card, or atm is just to verify your age hun, your card will NOT be charged just validated see where it says that? like i said it's FREE... cant show t*ts and p***y to minors..you know? ;)

Yeah, once i figured it was a bot, i wanted to figure exactly how good a bot it was. turns out, probably something worse than what a 6th grader would have come up with in a lab session.

and i'm now turning my google+ privacy settings up.

hello

found this in my inbox, today morning. looks almost legit. this is getting freakier and freakier!

---

From: "Alicia Mabou" <*************@yahoo.in>
Date: 28 Jan 2012 17:30
Subject: hello
To:

Hello dear,My name is Alicia,I know that you may be surprise how i get your email, i got your email today when i was browsing on Internet looking for honest partner,then i feel to drop this few lines to you. I will be expecting for your response so that i can send you my pictures and also tell you more about myself,my dear,age or color even distance cant deny any relationship. Please lets give our self a trial,Thanks,Awaiting for your mail above Miss Alicia.

google reader, you're messing it up!

I started reading blogs when I started using google reader.

in fact, I started blogging shortly after (and to a fair extent, because of) google reader.

it had the usual characteristics of a google product: clean, easy to use, functional, constantly getting features added, mobile-friendly, and eventually (inevitably?) popularity.

google reader was good for me for almost 5 years.

until early last month.

I now hate reader.

maybe google is trying to get more content on to google+ with this, or maybe getting people to use that "social network" a bit more, but whatever it is, they're doing it wrong.

I do NOT want the stuff I like to go someplace else.

I do NOT want the stuff I share to be on a closed social network.

I WANT to be able to read stuff my  friends share in the same place as I read my subscriptions.

I WANT my mobile experience to be as similar to my web experience (why on earth would they *remove* the like and share features from google reader mobile?)

I WANT to be able to search the stuff I've shared over the years (it's there somewhere, just that google isn't letting me get at it)

I WANT to be on a platform which I can trust will remain interoperable with open standards (mainly the ability to export my shares as a rss feed)

I could go on and on, but these are the biggest things google reader used to be, and isn't anymore.

my feed-reading experience is so crippled right now, that I don't even know how many other people have outraged over the new crippled reader, just because google+ is such a crappy platform that I can't bring myself to use it to read others' shares.

the final straw was 20 minutes ago, when in a moment of insomnia, I opened the android reader app, read one post, and then couldn't find an option to like/share it (other than the android native "share" option). seriously, what?

despite being the google loyalist that I am, I think the time has come to take my feeds elsewhere. I just hope google notices.

this is not being evil, this is simply being dumb.

Adriana Jenkins left a message on your guestbook

BABE... i guess your not getting any of my email huh? ive been tryign to email u so many times but this dam laptop is such a piece of garbage and keeps freezing.. anyways how u been? In case u dont know who this is its ME ADRIANA.. we used to chat a bit on facebook and then I think u deleted me :( haha.. anyways guess what... I got 2 things to tell u.. both good news.. 1) im single now.. yup me and my bf broke up about 3 months ago... and 2) guess where im moving? RIGHT EFFING NEAR U.. lol... ur actually the only person im gonna know there.. well 3 cousins too but i cant chill with them lol..I remember when we chatted u told me u thought i was cute and u wanted to chill so now we finally can HAHA! im kinda scared to move.. im hoping this email addy is still the one you use and u can chat with me ebfore i get there.. maybe even help me move my shit in...are u still on facebook? i cudnt find ui was soo confused...anyways im gonna need someone to show me the town and take me out so u better be around bebe...we only chatted a couple times but i remember thinking to myself i wanted to get ot know u better when i was single..a nd i thoguth u were cute too but cudnt tell u cause i wasnt single lol...ok so more info about me.. well im 23.. virgo.. love the outdoors and love to socialize, go out for drinks, restaurants, movies etc.. travel.. i have a lil kitty named BOO and i luv her to death... uhhh oh im a super horny gurl too but every gurl is they just wont admit it. so ilove watching p0rn and all that.. love sex etc blah blah blah...who doesnt..I really hope we get a chance to chat for a bit either online or on the fone before i get there enxt week.. i hope u remmeber me and still wanna chill and arent married yet lol.. OH YA also.. i need to find a job when i get there.. do u have any hookups or know anybody hiring? id LOVE to work in a bar or osmehting like that...really anythgin cause my current job is fun and all.. and technically i CUD keep doign it but i want a change.. i currently work from home and well thats cool but i need ot be out meeting people.. oh wait. i dont think i ever actually told u what i did? hmm shud i......???? ok WELLLL... and dont get all weirded out on me.. i work on a webcam chat community site and i get paid to chat with people and get naked HHAHA... BOMB right :)? I KNOW.. like i figure iim horny anyways why not get paid to chat with people and play with myself heheh...anyways i hope u dont look down on that and NO THATS NOT WHY IM CONTACTING U RELAX URSELF lol... i actually need help once i move and i remembered u live there so im reaching out....like i said before this computer is a complete piece of CRAP and freezes NON STOP.. ive tried ot send this email to u maybe 3 times already and im hopign this time i can hit SEND before i run into trouble lol.. ANYWAYS.. heres the deal....every month natalie (my boss) gives each of us 3 VIP codes to give out to whoever we want.. so with this code u can lgoin to watch me at work for free and dont have to pay like everyone else... the only way i can give u one of the codes (so we can chat) is if you absolutey DO NOT give it out to anyone else and u ONLY USE IT FOR URSELF... i only get 3 a month and she gets pissed if more than 3 people use them so DONT SHARE IT MISTER... i figured u cud always email me back instead but my email account doesnt even let me login half the time.. so the bets palce ot chat me is my chat room... if theres anyone else logged in when u sign in ill boot them out.. but remember DONT SHARE THIS PASSWORD PLEASE BABE IM BEGGING U.. I TRUST U... im online most of the day now to try and save money for my move.. also since im in such a huge debt already form my student loan :( I really thingk we need to chat before i get there and make sure u evern remember me hahha.. anyways ive rambled on and on now and ur probably soooo annnoyed with me so ill stop now.. im gonna go start work.. i really hope u come chat me. it wud make my day and releive a lot of my stress about the move... REALLY i mean that....anyways once i see u in insdie ill shoot u myc ell number and u can gimme yours.. if u dont wanna come chat i understand but its really the only palce to find me now days.. if u email me abck ill probably get it once i get there after my internet is setup so about 2-3 weeks fomr now.. but im hopign to see u in my chat room.. rmemeber its 100% free with this code im gonna give u.. just DONT GIVE IT OUT OR ILL KICK U IN THE BALLS INSTEAD OF LICK U IN THE BALLS WHEN IS EE U hahahahha...k babe im out for now... chat ya soon.. kisses xoxo ADRIANA FREE VIP BYPASS LINK ------>> [LINK DELETED :P]

ps: this was a message sent to me on bebo.com: turns out i created an account there even before i joined orkut... and never ever used it!

i got killed. IT WAS AWESOME!!!

some ads in facebook are...simply awesome!