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A nitwit on Orkut. There are many, you say?

While doing my routine channel changes, I caught a news clip on a news channel (I forget which one it was). Orkut was the object of attention and with the amount of firing hurled at Orkut, I thought my television set will go up in flames.

The gist of the story: A girl met a boy on Orkut and they became paly-paly after some time (I refuse to use the sentence 'She was befriended by him', that's utter nonsense, he can't be friends with her if she doesn't want to). She shared her personal details, including photographs of her family, her phone number, her address etc. After a while, there was a tiff among them and the boy went ahead and 'published' all her details on Orkut. The girl claims that the boy put her name and phone number on his scrapbook for everyone to see.

The news channel invited the Managing Director of Google India and what surprises me is that the MD agreed to it! If a girl is stupid enough to give out her phone number to strangers, what can the MD of Google India can do about that? If she didn't know that the rules of real life applied pretty much the same way to the internet life, whose fault is it? How can she claim that Orkut was responsible for the mess when she didn't her own boundaries? How can she ask the MD to make scrapbooks private? If scrapbooks are private, then how do they differ from emails?

I am not pro-Orkut or anything, I know there are many pitfalls in using Orkut which many people don't know. (Read my older posts on about Orkut to know my opinion.) All I am saying is, don't point a finger at Orkut to justify your stupidity. If you are a nitwit, abstain from using Orkut.

PS: I really wonder how net-savvy this particular news channel is. For the above story, the headlines being shown was: 'Orkut hacked'. This news channel should have 'How computers work' and 'How internet works' on their wish list.

Admiration at zeroeth sight?

How often does it happen that you meet a person and start liking her instantly? Well, it had never happened to me until yesterday.

I saw this girl in one of the numerous trainings that I have to attend as a new joinee. We didn't exchange words - oh, even our eyes hadn't met! She was introducing herself to the rest of the team and what attracted me towards her was her language and her simplicity. She was totally care free, not a hint of hesitation or consciousness in her voice. She was talking as if there was nobody else in the room. Her English was impeccable and she was oozing with confidence.

I switched places so that I could sit next to her and we exchanged a few words. The admiration was mutual - she too seemed quite impressed about me! Well, I don't know why she was impressed - I can't praise myself!

We have decided to meet over lunch so that we can take this forward! Gosh, do I sound like I am in a romantic relationship? Oh no, I am married and I am a girl.

Live a happier life

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

When these words figure in the About section of this blog, the blog can't be anything but interesting.

Zen Habits is a blog which strives to make its readers happier, inculcate good habits, share tips about leading a simple, yet fruitful life and in general, improve their quality of life. These might seem to be harder to achieve goals, but the author with his simple-to-read and easy-to-follow posts makes it look like a cake walk.

I had been trying to wake up early everyday. As a godsend, I found a link to this article on lifehacker. The post is so powerful that it tempts you to wake up early and catch the sunrise. I am going to follow the tips given in this post and see if I can make waking up early a habit.

Another gem I found is the article on developing compassion for others. I just love this quote from His Holiness Dalai Lama:

"Today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can." - Dalai Lama

Fell in the well... again

After burying my Shuffle with tears in my eyes, I dared to buy another Apple product. Even after burning my fingers, I still went ahead and bought an Apple iPod. It's black, it has 80GB of memory and it can play videos! You guys think I should be stupid to buy this! Yeah, I think so too, but hey I can't act intellectual all the time. A little stupidity won't hurt.

The mouse wheel is as good as it was claimed to be. Just slide your finger over the glossy surface and iPod is at your service. It’s heavier than I thought. It’s black skin shines and it’s steel body is cold to the touch. It can play movies, it can store photographs… more than what I asked for. I was happy with just the music part.

I can access songs based on playlists, album, composer etc. Shuffle option is of course there. It comes pre-loaded with a few games. One of them is this cool game where a random song is picked and a part of it (not necessarily from the start) is played. You need to guess the song from the four options given. Probably boring for some, but for me, it sure is engaging. I could play this for ever.

What I really hate about this product is that it doesn’t have a stop button. Nope, I can’t stop playing a song. I can pause or start some other song, but I can’t stop. It’s official, it’s there on the site: iPod doesn’t have a stop button. I guess Apple wants to keep the music flowing. Don’t stop… let the music play.

There are two ways to pause the song. Hit the pause button or just the plug out the earphones. Neat design or what?

It has gapless playback feature, which means the iPod will play music back to back with no gap in between. When switching from one song to the other, you will have absolutely no lapse. This does support the previous ‘Let the music flow’ philosphy, doesn’t it?

All in all, my satisfaction meter shows thumbs up for this new addition in my kitty. Bring on the music.

Disclaimer: This is not intended to be a review of iPod. This is just me drooling over my new found joy (or toy?).