Wiki-ing, Goggling and more

Look how the world has changed! I still remember around the time I was in 8^th grade and so, every time I ran into something interesting, finding out more about it was an uphill and upbeat task, you had the reference books, then there was occasional newspaper write-ups, the not so frequent shows in the discovery channel or the National geographic and then there may be the library, a teacher who could help me out and many a times a really good dictionary. Those were my close friends’ every time I found myself fascinated by something or the other. But that’s all history now!

Goggling the World

I don’t even bother opening the dictionary these days and the last time I touched it was to dust it! Every time I see something I go to that fabulous website that can be termed nothing short of a window into the world outside. I Google! The refreshingly clean and no fizz home page of mine that gives me an answer to all my awkward questions even the ones to which my mother’s answer would be “stop asking such stupid questions”.

Simply enough Google has literally revolutionized the world and the rise of Google has been nothing short of a revolution in itself. But of all things it revolutionized it revolutionized the education sector most, free and open information was now freely available and any person who had a question in his mind had a place to ask it and hope to get an answer to it. You could follow anything you want you could study all that you can and want; there were no longer any restrictions. And the education was becoming more fun as it is meant to be. The single most important factor that made it possible is the ability to select and study any subject you want without the walls of a curriculum closing on you or any pressure being put on you. For the first time you were free! But what Google did was simple enough, it put everything there was on the internet and put it in a shelf so that we could find it easily, it opened the way to a hoard of services.

Wikipedia : Creating a world with Free Knowledge

Then the next revolution in the world of world education ought to be the Wikipedia, a site so simple yet so powerful that it just changed the way we learn things altogether, the very definition and purpose of an encyclopedia is rewritten with Wikipedia. There is practically nothing under the sun that the Wikipedia doesn’t have an article about. Even the organizational hierarchy is worth the praise, an encyclopedia anyone can be part of the making. Whenever I want to know something, a place, a thing a concept, whatever it may be it’s a one stop place for information.

The internet has just realized its potential and is coming up with innovative ways to enrich the experience of education; the days when education was confined to the walls of the classroom and monochromatic black board are history. The education today is more an holistic approach and when its powers are truly extracted education can be real fun and an experience worth experiencing.

The Discovery of a Friend

She was just as I had imagined, her rounded spectacles, her classy selection of colours, her magnificent smile, when I saw her walking towards me after three years, one month and twenty eight days, she was just as I imagined. It was three years, one month and twenty eight days ago that we first met, a truly serendipitous discovery in every sense of the word. The memories of her lies in the most vibrant colours available in my mind, these images boast some of the most wonderful memories I will ever have to cherish. People say a long distance relationship is hard, it may be true in case of a relation that has a future with a wedding and kid in it but not for friendship, it can survive some of the harshest conditions that the nature can throw at it, it can be deceived sometimes but not deceived always, it may have some dark days but it sure will come around and the friendship will flourish.

It was on a warm sunny April 12^th way back in 2009 that I met her, we were sitting next to each other in the examination hall for IIT-JEE, I had wonderful plans for the day and so did god but it’s not the case that I did anything for either. Half an hour into the examination I was pretty sure this is not going to happen not with three answers a zillion random guesses and that’s when she caught my attention. She was sitting there doing most humorous things in the world, at one point in time she actually held her hair up and used her question paper for a fan, Oh! God I wanted to fall to the floor and laugh my heart out. But then she turned around and it was as if destiny bought us together, a friend for life served in a platter.

Now if you had by some chance came from Indiblogger, you must be wondering what in the world does this have anything to do with the internet, this doubt is sure to rise in any readers mind who understands that this was submitted under the tag “Internet is fun”. The ambiguity is because the part where internet played any part is just about to come up. Those who just lost it here try this link here.

So as I was saying we met for the first time, but this is not a love story it’s a friendship story so just one meeting is not going to suffice, we should meet again and we did too( otherwise there won’t be a story to tell. Would there be?). We left the hall with just a smile and I had her name and knew where she was from. That night I had the stupidest idea ever why not Google what I have, then the popular network was orkut and I searched for her there. I still think what if I had second guessed it, I would have been really stupid had I not been stupid then, I would have missed meeting my best friend and would not have even known that. Oh! Yes I found her on the first try, I send her a friend request and she accepted, we started talking and we chatted and then orkut became Facebook and then messages and then calls and now, three long years have passed and thanks to some stupid decisions and the amazing world of internet I had a friend, not just any friend my best friend was discovered hence.

When I think about it now it occurs to me had I there not been there, had there been no Facebook or had there been no orkut, I would never have had her, never would have got to know so well a wonderful human being and above all a magnificent and irreplaceable friend. Isn’t it wonderful what you can find in the internet these days? I tell you this internet is not all a fairy tale, there are dark corners in the internet that’s is better not talked about but it’s not an evil place to be, the vast majority of it is marvelous, the vast majority is about sharing, friendships, chatting, getting to know and exchanging ideas. Internet sure is fun when you get discover something marvelous in the tangible web!

"A Friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature."- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Believe me! I am NOT a BOT

It has happened way too often, every time I decide to surf the internet I have to question that keeps haunting me. Every time I want to comment, Every time I want to subscribe for a newsletter, every time I want to do something interesting it happens. They always ask politely but when the number of times one has to answer increases so does the frustration and anger multiplies. The question is always the same, “Please prove you are not a Robot”.

The question is always accompanied by a set of illegible letters that no one with a sane pair of eyes can read and if he does try its certain to drive him insane in seconds. The worst part is when the set of letters never matches anything you type because some idiot who did the data entry was way too drunk to realize the difference between ‘a’ and o or ‘r’ and ‘n’. You have to keep typing till you lose sanity and give up or by some divine luck you get it right. I there is one thing in the internet more irritating than those crazy videos that go viral just because some idiot just realized he was an idiot and was lucky enough to be caught on came and helped himself to a few million hits overnight then this must that.

They call it captcha I call it capture

They do have a very lovely name for this insane madness; they call it ‘Captcha’. It sounds like ‘capture’ and I have never been able to understand what they were actually trying to capture, some bad evil robot developed by the sky net or our sane minds.

There are way too many captchas out there for any sane person to happily search the web without losing their minds.May be they do have no other way to distinguish genuine users and spammers but what I don’t understand is why is it that I have to enter the same thing again and again in the same website can’t they just be happy with one verification. I will tell you this I am sick and tired of being called a robot and being asked to prove otherwise. It never fails to make me cry out “Believe me! I am human”.

The Lost Childhood

Do you remember your juvenile days, the time when the whole world was full of wonder and possibilities? The time when the whole world was just perfect and everything was just a thought away? The truth is most of us cant, if I were a wee bit wrong and I do wish I was wrong, we could have seen a whole lot of people trotting along the streets smiling happy smiles. If I were wrong we could have seen unknown people playing with each other and there would have been no disgust or bias based on colour, race or faith. Every evil is the work of an adult, the child is not tainted, the child knows no distinction, and for a child all are one and the same. With age we learn to bias, discriminate and demarcate!

Let me tell you something that happened on my train journey yesterday, I was travelling on a train to home in a relatively full cabin. There was a young couple, an old man, a middle aged professional and then there was me. A rather weird mix of people that under no circumstances would strike up a conversation with each other but it so happened that in this particular journey we were meant to be more than just polite  in our conversations but friendly enough to play together. There was a girl, A sweet, cute angel with a flower the size of a lotus stuck to her hair bow and a smile that could melt the world away. She talked to us every one of us and before we knew we were cracking jokes playing at each other’s expense and mocking each other. What had happened for such a remarkable transformation to occur to a very strange group of people?

The truth is, the kid happened, her innocence transcended our hearts and heads, her innocent melted away any discrimination and disgust we would have carried, it annihilated whatever it was that prevented us from talking to each other. In her presence we were becoming children poking her, making faces, mimicking her stories and acclimating to her emotions. She made us able to see through life with clarity, without prejudices, an ability that we have lost in a very distant past. It’s a shame that we can’t live the life of a child always. Wouldn’t it be amazing had we been able to remain a child forever, an age of mind where your biggest sadness was not getting candy and your days always started with sunshine and ended in fairytales? An age when we were willing to believe in magic, fairytales, magic and fairies. An age characterized by an ability to trust and love unconditionally.

I believe we need to reclaim our childhood if we are to live life to our fullest. I believe when we lose all childishness and child-likeness in ourselves that’s when we really become old. It is possible and it is achievable, to be like a child, it is possible to keep an open mind and it is possible to love and trust unconditionally. We need to understand the child in us and keep it alive inside us. Life is too short to be not a child. Ask yourself if being in the presence of  a child is enough to make you childlike then would it be hard to be childlike all your life if you tried.




Photo Credits: Children Playing in Rain, Bangladesh© 1996-2012 National Geographic Society.

The Bernard Shaw Incident

I read about this incident in a book long back and it just came back to me now!

Once Bernard Shaw was in a party or sort, He  met a beautiful women with whom he had chatted up or the other way around, I am not so sure as I was not invited to the particular party and people who where are yet to make up their minds about it. But they are pretty sure about what happened later.

The Bernard Shaw Experience

During the conversation Bernard Shaw asked the women, " Would you sleep with me if I offered you 1000 euros?"

The women has shocked and said "No"!.

Mr Shaw persisted, He continued " What if I would were to give you 10000 euros?"

The women was by calming down and simply replied "No!"

Mr Shaw was  not the one to give in He asked "What if I were to give you One Million Euros?".

The women must have thought he was crazy but when he took out his check book and waved at her, she started thinking. I wouldn't blame her ! million euros is a lot of money. 

She thought hard and replied "May be".

Mr Shaw quickly put the checkbook back in the pocket and held out Hundred Euros to the lady.

She was furious and asked "What kind of a lady do you think I am?".

Mr Shaw smiled and replied calmly " I think we already established what kind of a lady you are, we are just dangling over the price!".

The Take from Bernard Shaw's Experience

This is just one example of how people change in the presence of money, A sum that's all it takes to influence people, sometimes they come cheap some times they are expensive but it is really hard to find priceless people.