What the novels teach you - everything

Soon after I finished The Second Lady, a stunning novel by Irving Wallace, impressed by his style of writing I started off with The Golden Room. Though the plot raced on a somewhat slower pace than The Second Lady it was certainly way better than The Sea of Poppies[you know,I stopped reading it when I was 25% through]. For that matter any male - hmmm the females too[just giving them their due rights lest I should be reproved by the LGBT community] would enjoy reading both The Second Lady and The Golden Room because of the author's generous citing of on-bed events in a stimulating fashion. I used to deeply condemn Sidney's way of introducing episodes of physical union because I felt they were forced into the story without any actual need. But Irving has every reason to boast about his writing - perfectly fitting. While The Second Lady speaks about the cold war that existed between Russia and the USA and an immaculate impersonation of Billie Bradford to win over this crisis situation, The Golden Room explores the internal affairs of Chicago with The Everleigh Club as its epicentre. Well after you get to know what The Everleigh Club is[sorry, you have to google it and know for yourself because I don't wish to lose the chastity of my blog], you would appreciate the phrase - 'perfectly fitting.' But, only one thing about The Golden Room remains abstruse to me and it is the name of the novel - The Golden Room itself. There has hardly been any great detail about the significance of the name in the story except that the club housed a golden room with a golden grand piano. Chuck it!! I am no panelist in the Booker Prize judging panel to scrutinise this. I read just for the pleasure in reading. But, if any of you know the interpretation of the name of the novel with the plot or if it transpires to any of you after reading it do drop a note in my comment box. 

I have just one last thing to say - I am sorry for having displayed a tinge of perversity in this post. And for those who are planning to read one of the two novels or both of them, please shed a reasonable part of your ideals and morality or else you might end up saying - Cheap!! Cheap!!Cheap!!

Mummy Mummy I've grown a tummy

The longest semester holidays, probably the first and last of my entire course, is going to end. And what have I been doing all these days????? I have grown a tummy!!! See, I have to take credit for such involuntary improvements on my body because I don't have any other voluntary activity[to state] that I have been doing all these days. A pile of ghee dhosas in the morning for breakfast, a short nap for brunch, thayir saadam for lunch followed by an afternoon siesta, any crunchy snack to munch in the crepuscule and of course anything for dinner. Now tell me, what would anyone expect out of such a creature???? 

And you know, my life is full of realisations. Recently did I read a quote. 'Middle age is when the age shows up at ur middle.' So off I go to work-out, to rescue myself from this ever-growing lump of fat that has accumulated on my middle.

P.S: I intended to make this post humourous but I wonder if it has fallen flat. And hey, for those who might be seeing me after this vacation, I'd look perfectly proper because it is just the onset of a corporation that is common among us Indians. And for those who are never going to see me, just dont bother.

How secret is your secret?

“Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.”

Life has become so unreliable and so are the people. The curiosity to illegally peep into others’ possession has grown. I was appalled when I received an sms from a friend of mine who[just relieved from a state of shock] mocked me with a tone of both satire and surprise on seeing a sensual display picture on my orkut profile. The other information on my profile had also been monkeyed and modified to suit the display picture. No sooner did I start cursing the hacker than I realised the fact that my password was untouched. I uttered a great sigh of relief and said to my self ‘Thank God!! for the bad (wo)man had been good enough to leave the password undisturbed.’

But not all are fortuitous enough as I had been because Brian Green's experience with not-so-secret questions began when he logged on to his World of Warcraft account in March of this year and found all of his characters in their underwear. LOL!!! Someone had stolen the account and sold off all of his virtual equipment. He then involved himself in a great amount of research and finally came to a conclusion. "My 'secret question' has an all-too-common answer . . . This wasn't something I considered when I filled it out."

The incident bears similarities to the high-profile case involving Alaska governor and former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In September 2008, hackers used the name of the location where Palin and her husband met to gain access to her Yahoo e-mail account via the "secret question" password-recovery mechanism.

It has been shown by the researchers from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University that the secret questions used to secure the password-reset functions of a variety of websites are woefully insecure. In a study involving 130 people, the researchers found that 28 percent of the people who knew and were trusted by the study's participants could guess the correct answers to the participant's secret questions. Even people not trusted by the participant still had a 17 percent chance of guessing the correct answer to a secret question.

"Secret questions alone are not as secure as we would like our backup authentication to be," says Stuart Schechter, a researcher with software giant Microsoft and one of the authors of the paper. "Nor are they reliable enough that their use alone is sufficient to ensure users can recover their accounts when they forget their passwords."

The least-secure questions are simple ones whose answers can be guessed with no existing knowledge of the subject, the researchers say. For example, the answers to the questions "What is your favorite town?" and "What is your favorite sports team?" were relatively easy for participants to guess. All told, 30 percent and 57 percent of the correct answers, respectively, appeared in the top-five list of guesses.

But answers that require only a little personal knowledge to guess should also be considered unsafe, the researchers warn. Of people that participants would not trust with their password, 45 percent could still answer a question about where they were born, and 40 percent could correctly give their pet's name, the researchers found.

Schechter agreed that researchers will have to find a completely different mechanism for backup authentication--secret questions just don't cut it. "We would eventually like to see these questions go away," he says. "Unfortunately, since we didn't find many questions that were conclusively good, it's hard to recommend simply changing questions."

So what is the way out????????

I might blindly[because the feasibility is a haunting issue] suggest that the desktops and laptops henceforth produced should all be installed with some form of biometric recognition system that can be suitably linked with the networks over the internet so that any site that requires back-up authentication can provide biometric sensing as another option apart from the endangered password authentication. This, according to me is a foolproof mechanism until the attackers/hackers turn out to be as rude as the ones in Angels and Demons.

The shoe throwing era

I thought of posting about this the second time it happened. But I didn't. It happened the third time. Again I didn't. It happened the fourth time and now for the fifth time. So, if I dont post about this at least now, it might happen again. 

True to their claims, the Americans were the pioneers in this too - in being shoe-ed. And what more does a country need to strengthen its claims when the President himself falls a victim to the action. Let me first mention the incidents in their chronological order.

First : Ex-President of the USA, Mr. George.W.Bush targeted by an Iraqi journalist

Second : Home Minister of India, Mr.P.Chidambaram by Jarnail Singh

Third : A Congress M.P from Kurukshetra, Mr.Naveen Jindal by a retired school teacher

Fourth : An independent M.P whose name I forgot

Fifth : The B.J.P candidate for the post of Prime Minister Mr.L.K.Advani 

Sixth : ????(With fingers crossed!!)

Now for the succinct reviews.

The first incident was indeed an exceptional display of sharp reflexes by the then president. kudos!! kudos!! The first shoe that flung across was aimed exactly at the target but missed it by a whisker. The second throw,though, was not up to the mark.

It was a shock for every person associated with him, when Jarnail Singh pelted a shoe on the Home minister. He(Jarnail Singh) was a man known for his soft-spoken nature and this event came as a bolt from the blue. 

The other three incidents don't demand much consideration as it has become a weekly affair now. So no review on them.

But,I wonder why every person misses the target. 

So, few tips on how to improve your accuracy.

1)From the events, it could be concluded that the shoe when aimed at the face of a person assumes a trajectory that tends to deflect it to the left, thereby missing the target. So, make sure you are seated in a place where the direction of the wind is to your right.

2) Alternatively, you can aim at the left ear of the person so that the shoe at least brushes the right ear, thereby accomplishing your task.

3) Donot wear costly shoes on the D-day because you obviously wont get it back. But, if it hits the target you are sure to find your shoe in some depository or a museum few years later.

4)Last but not the least, practise well because only practice makes a man perfect. Stand in front of a mirror. Encircle your face on the mirror. Go 5 stpes backward and fire(of course with a shoe). Higher the number of shoe marks inside the circle, greater is the chance of your hitting the target on the D-day.

P.S : Although these events happen to be a source of entertainment for all of us it is a shame for each and every person of this country. It was out of shame that I had to make this post comical. But we shouldn't forget that these are depictions of the country to the world outside. These are the incidents of utter ignominy and contempt that are witnessed by all. These incidents de-escalate a country's reputation. In all these events, both the thrower and the person at whom the shoe was thrown is to be blamed. It might be true that one throws a shoe to insult the other out of agony and frustration. But, there are other decent ways of expressing one's disappointment. And the best way is to act sensibly during elections. Excercise your right to vote and do it honestly. Don't ever be carried away by those election-time astroturf manifestos. You never know if it would be consciously implemented. Use your discretion to judge a person based on his past rather than on his oft-deceptive promises for the future. Whether as a sign of revenge or interest or duty, do it for the welfare of the nation. So pls think before you act and before you cast.

The recession blues

The recession demon has not spared even the brightest minds of our country. It has marooned few IIM students for they are yet to be placed in some organisation. With few companies like Lehman Brothers that have become a history today, the spectrum of recruiters has greatly reduced. It is quite natural that the same problem exists in all other educational institutions. This in the long run would drastically increase unemployment in India. Consider this : People of the upper strata who are forced to give up their jobs would inturn take up some other job to earn their living. The same would happen for the next lower level of people for their seats are now occupied by the upper strata. This happens at every level of the pyramid leaving the people at the last level under the ground, buried, smothered to death. Is this the peak of recession menace or has it got something more ? 

In the past few months we have seen a series of stimulus packages, cost cuts by the government and by individual organisations too. But, no one is able to get down to the brass tacks of the issue and formulate a strategy to ward off this demon. Maybe it is not possible. But, it has to be done and is definitely an intimidating task for the economists of the world who have an added responsibility of allaying the fears that have started creeping into the minds of today's younger generation. 

So, let us be optimistic and keep our fingers crossed with our minds disarrayed and hearts laden with mixed emotions of dreams and dreads.  

The Blame game

The recent attack by jihadists on the srilankan cricketers epitomises the far-flung terror infrastructure in Pakistan. It is shameful on the part of the present regime for they have failed miserably in diluting these hydra-headed activities of a part of their community. That these carnages are totally bereft of any motives makes the issue even more complicated. And now, Pakistanis(a considerable minority) suspect Indian hands in this attack. Doesn't this seem foolish the moment one hears it? Just because the ISI(Inter Services Intelligence) played a part in 26/11, should its Indian counterpart, the RAW(Indian Research and Analysis Wing) avenge in a similar fashion? The Indian government is yet to bring the lone gunman(Ajmal Amir) involved in the 26/11 attacks to a proper trial. In such a state would any sane person on earth hatch a conspiracy of this kind? 

The investigation till now projects the similarities in both the attacks(3/3 and 26/11). It brings out the involvement of LeT or some other terrorist group that has copied the Mumbai modus operandi. Few Pakistani localites, including a leading television channel have however managed to intelligently relate this attack with the erstwhile tit-for-tat attacks carried out by India. Though few sources have identified the weapons left back by the terrorists as that of Indian make, no conclusions can be arrived at until proper evidence from the forensic department is out. 

Whatever the case might be, Pakistan has to realise that this is no kindergarten skirmish to point fingers at and that it has undoubtedly become the epicentre of terrorism which has to be destroyed soon, root and branch. This growing terrorism originating from Pakistani soil is turning uncontrollable. It is high time the world seriously discussed this menace and took realisable decisions. Each and every sane individual should understand that just as Swat is to Pakistan, Pakistan is to the rest of the world.   

Oscars all the way!!

What a memorable day it has been to all Indians!! It was at the stroke of 10:00 A.M this morning, just after my control systems assessment while walking on the corridors of my college that I got a message from one of my friends - "Rahman bags 2 oscars!!" It gave me goosebumps just to read about it and the news of Slumdog Millionaire winning 8 academy awards knocked my socks off. 

But, personally speaking the movie didn't seem so appealing to me nor did ARR's score for the movie. With the little musical knowledge that I imparted long ago, I would certainly not rate Jai Ho as the best of ARR keeping in mind his many other stunning compositions. But, Nature has proved its largesse once again without any deviation from its own law of conservation. ARR's years of hardwork has borne fruit only now. Ella pugazhum iyarkaikey(because I regard Nature and God as one and the same).

The whole crew of Slumdog, including those unfortunate Dharavi kids who couldn't fly to LA despite being a part of this grand victory, would be on cloud nine. Although those hapless kids with a desire to set foot on the red carpet watch their once play-mates posing for a photograph with the world renowned actors, they might also be contented by the fact that rubina and azhar would come back to them with lots of interesting tales to tell.