Spam & Spyware

Looking for an tobic to blog on, i came across this article 'Bill Gates gets millions of spam daily' in MSNBC To be more exact more than 4 million.

What does it say...just that Internet has become a painful community to come forward and say who you are. Or the least of all leave your contacts to make friends.

Another one of the woes of browsing with you computer is the Spyware. It is worse than cancer and kills your computer. I am scared to do any financial transactions on the web and its a daily ritual of scanning your computer every day for spywares and still worried that they might be still there recording all you do.

In a way the news that Bill Gates and Ballmer gets so many junk is kind of funny and reminds you that you are not the only one there. Hope this is a lesson that the products they make are more stable and robust and gives little leeway for these spyware and spam companies to make your internet experience a miserable one.

Another this this reminds me of was an article on CNN A spyware mystery: Who's behind it? which makes you wonder who actually is behind it. Is it the same companies that are trying to sell as the spyware blockers and cleaners.
All this ambiguity is making one paranoid. But i guess that is part of the life
Thriving in Ambiguity

Pallanguzhi Vs Bantumi

Today I was going through the Hindu Magazine section and read the article on Games of Yore about the games created by Krishna Rajendra Wodeyar III of Mysore. Which set me on a series of nostalgic thoughts about the games I used to play as a kid, which my nephews have not even heard of these days.
One such game is PALLANGUZHI, which my brother and me used to play with my grandma. It is a game where there is a wooden board seven cups on each side and filled with usually tamarind seeds or seashells. We had a board specially made for us in wood shaped as a fish and got seashells brought from Kanyakumari for us to play with. The best was to play with my father who was adept in cheating in the game and missing the count for his benefit. (This required skill in number counting and foreseeing where your turn will end and the subsequent effect of it). A search in the net for the rules of the game was without success except I fond a company in India Kreeda is trying to revive these traditional games.

Some time back one of my Nokia cell phones had a game called Bantumi which was similar to Pallanguzhi and which set me wondering how this traditional game of India found its way into the Swedish Cell phone makers instrument. They mention the game has an African origin. A British friend of mine when he was in India found this game available in DakshinaChitra

It is even more interesting that two different part of the world had a similar game hundreds if not thousands of years ago. Unfortunately they some of these are disappearing slowly these days and we have to praise the effort of the Game makers be it for the computer/cell phones or as board games for reviving the interest in these games of the past.

Happy Gaming

Have you ever tasted Madras ??

In the movie The Outsiders
Bob to Ponyboy: You guys know what greasers are? White trash with long, greasy hair.
Ponyboy to Bob: You know what a soc is? White trash with mustangs and madras.

I was surprised to the see the word Madras there and was wondering what it actually meant (Click the name to find out)

But what I still could not understand is Madras is the name of a cocktail which is a mixture of Vodka, Cranberry Juice (4 Portions) and Orange Juice (1 Portion)

As I always say 'I Love Madras' - Cheers

Stay Gold

Yesterday I saw the movie The Outsiders by Francis Ford Coppola. I had seen this movie earlier but for some reason the story never registered to me as some thing interesting until yesterday.
It was the first time yesterday the Poem
'Nothing Gold Can Stay'

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
~~~~~~~Robert Frost

I could get the text because I had the subtitles on and was able to follow what is being said. In the end of the of the movie when Jonny says, “Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold” it made a lot of sense compared to the last time I saw it.

In the back flap of the CD cover I read Tom Cruise was also acting in the movie, till the end we were not able to identify who it was (Mainly because we were expecting him to be playing a bigger role) and was wondering who it could be. Only in the specile features of the DVD in the trailer we were able to confirm which character Tom Cruise played.

~~~~Stay Gold ~~~