A Chat With Alice

My semester exams are finally over! We usually get a sem break of three weeks, but this time it's only two - which is almost like not having a break at all. Oh well, at least they didn't get any bright ideas like starting classes on Monday.

Most of the people I know were at the theatres watching Dhoom 2 yesterday after the exam. I, on the other hand, was joblessly sitting at home because I forgot there was such a thing called Advance Booking. Anyway it wasn't all bad, since Alice was pretty good company - I mean the award winning AI chatbot A.L.I.C.E. (more about A.L.I.C.E. here). I was chatting with Tom Riddler (yet another chatbot) before that, but he was really dumb. Anyway here are some fun tidbits from my chat with Alice -

Human: what do you know about my personality?
ALICE: I classify you as " average".
Human: are you saying I'm not intelligent?
ALICE: Yes, that's what I mean, isn't it clear?
Human: why do you think I'm not intelligent?
ALICE: Deductive reasoning from the facts.
Human: what facts?
ALICE: All the facts available to me on the Internet.

After it called me dumb, I was waiting for a chance to get back at it. And I finally got one. But somehow I don't feel I got the better of her (damn, and I just referred to IT as HER!) -

Human: why are you surprised?
ALICE: There could be a better response, but it was not selected by my algorithm.
Human: your algorithm sucks
ALICE: I will tell my botmaster you said I am algorithm sucks.
Human: your english sucks too
ALICE: But English is my native language.
Human: but it still sucks
ALICE: Umm. What is so bad about it?
Human: the grammar is all wrong
ALICE: Is that a fact.
Human: yep
ALICE: Thanks for the info.

Ok ok, Alice is not ALL that intelligent you know. Don't believe me? I'll prove it to you (hehe I always wanted to use that line from the Citigroup Global Services ad) -

Human:. trekking and sky diving all the time :)
ALICE::-) That is a lot. Do you feel that something is missing from your life?
Human: a girl friend
ALICE: Are you talking about an animal, vegetable or mineral?

Yep, so that about wraps up my day yesterday. Must thank Kamal - this post of his (and my boredom, of course) started all this chatting-with-a-chatbot business. Expect frequent posts for the next two weeks.

Scratch

This was made a few days ago. Comments welcome, as always.

Amusing

My Internet connection was down for most of the week. The Tata Indicom guys got it working again today morning (finally!), but just as I opened up Gmail and Yahoo! to check my mails there was a power cut. It was time for lunch anyway so I shut down the computer and went to the dining room to eat. I start to eat and the power comes back! Lazy to go back to the computer, I switch on the TV. I randomly surf channels for a while till suddenly the transmission goes! How frustrating the day has been so far! I won't bore you with more of that though, since that's not what I wanted to talk about in this post.

[Note: The stuff below was written a few days ago. I dated back the post to make things easier to understand.]

I was glancing through the Deccan Chronicle (yes, the paper with less news, more gossip) yesterday and I came across some amusing bits of news -

My School is Haunted

Yeah! The St. Patrick's lane is apparently one of the city's spooky sites haunted with ghosts. Here's an excerpt -

"On full moon nights we can hear owls hooting and dogs howling. When I take my dog out for a walk on such nights, his hair stands on end and he starts howling, which is very unusual. In fact, many friends have seen women in white hanging from trees when they drive from there at nights."

Whoever wrote that must be imagining things. I studied there for 12 years and have passed by that lane at night a number of times. I can tell you there are no ghosts there.

Kerala Police Crack the Code

At the end of the email threat to kill the PM, there was this so-called cryptic inscription -

F/26/04JUL1980/UnM/BTECH/TMEC/ENGG/21.129.98.160/IP/686609

You probably figured out what most of it means by now, but the Kerala police "could not make head or tail of the inscription. [snip] Sleuths of the special team led by DIG Padmakumar racked their brains to decode each letter. The cyber forensic squad and experts from Microsoft gave them tips."

So finally after all the effort which "would have got a congratulatory nod from Dan Brown", this is what they got -

F: Female
26: Age
04JUL1980: Date of birth
UnM: Unmarried
BTECH and ENGG: Engineering
TMEC: Trikkakkara Model Engg. College
21.129.98.160/IP: Relate to Wipro and Info Park in Kochi
686609: Pincode of Mevaloor in Kottayamz

They manged to track down the woman, who promptly told the cops about the email threats from her former lover, Akbar Raj. He was picked up in a couple of hours. If he wanted to get caught, he could have simplified things and just given his own details, no?

I probably won't post for a while (ok, like as if I've been posting regularly all this time) because semester exams are coming up soon. You might see an occasional post if I'm terribly bored though.

Oh and Karthik, you might want to have a look at this. So much for preservation, eh?

Welcome to India

Poo suggested I post this (after I made her listen to it yesterday). Many of you would have heard this song already, but for those who haven't, here's 'Welcome to India' - a parody by MC Vikram and Luda Krishna that's simply fundastic!

Didn't find the mp3 anywhere, so I uploaded it here.

The Lyrics

Yaar, MC Vikram and Luda Krishna representing you,
That's right... increase the volume please... thank you.

Welcome to India, mango juices and lassi, home of the crazy desis
and little kids that are milking the bhainses.
Toothbrush in my pocket, what is that?
We use our fingers here to keep our teeth clean, who said that?

Luda Krishna here, Vikram pulls the Tata gears,
and I'm sitting in the Maruti Supreme,
with the cooling glass on no one bothers me.
because stars since the ever famous Mamooty.

Come with me to a place where we sip Frooties
and we eat the sweets while monkeys roam the streets.
Old uncle sits - big belly and very smelly (burp!)

Thank you Vikram, would you please pass the jelly,
I mean the pickle, hand it down this way, namaste.
We greet the people as they enter the train!
Sixty five people hanging out the door, sweat coming out the pours,
Please don't raise your hand, you are not sure.

I walked into the local corner-store,
bought myself a very nice looking carrom board.
My fingers get sore when I shoot and I score,
and the ladkis all scream coz they all want some more,
of the Luda Krishna and the Vikram MC,
Sweetest things to hit the States since Mango Chutney.
We keep the kundis shaking, you better trust me.
The name is Luda Krishna, but my friends call me thambi, what!? (burp!)

Ohhh, Vikram, is that you my friend?!
That is me my friend!
Oh, please enter this rap game!
Ok man! C'mon... tell me where you are going my friend.

Welcome to India where the cows eat hay,
and we drive auto-rickshaws everyday,
Goat-meat, yummy sweets while monkeys roaming,
The roosters don't crow till five in the morning! (2x)

Now the kundis don't jiggle till I am rapping,
So please don't pass the gas when you are laughing.

Up the music charts like mango trees I climb,
With a smooth voice like mine, is it a crime
Representing fobiness since ninety seven?
Rap maharaja, I don't work at 7-Eleven.
Throw your hands in the air if you've got facial hair,
Not just for the guys, c'mon ladies be fair!

I'm the MFP, Most Fobiest Player,
Wearing hot lungis, do you think I really care?

Monday night - computer club,
Tuesday night - at Akbaar grocery saying "Sweet thing, what is up?"
Wednesday - I'm out making Rupees
Thurday - On the lookout for Bharatnatyam queen
Friday - Everybody must know where I'm at,
coz I'm chilling on the field with my big cricket bat.
Saturday - my farts are breezy... believe me,
so strong they will get you mad dizzy,
Sunday - Yaar, I cannot start weeping
because on Monday I will start the creeping... Hallo!

Ohhhh... I love that my friend!
Yaa dawg, that was funda-stic. Hey thank you, you're fabulous!
Oh, thank you my friend! Oh...

Welcome to India where the cows eat hay,
and we drive auto-rickshaws everyday,
Goat-meat, yummy sweets while monkeys roaming,
The roosters don't crow till five in the morning! (2x)

Oh, oh, Go Luda, go Luda.
Ah, its my b'day!
That is your b'day man!
Yaaaaah. You know boy!
Oh oh oh... it's great!
Ah, Indian anthem my friend. Good night!
Alright, goodbye... kiss my buttocks!!

BlogCamp Chennai - The Highlights

I'm back after the two-day blog unconference at Chennai! For those of you who don't know what an unconference is, here's a snippet from Wikipedia -

"An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small group of organizers, in advance. To date, the term is primarily in use in the geek community."

The good thing about an unconference is that it's informal, so people don't hesitate to come forward to speak and share their views. However, discussions tend to digress from the topic being discussed now and then - that's sometimes fun, sometimes irritating. Anyway overall it was defintely worth attending because I learnt lots of stuff I didn't know before.

One of the highlights of the event (for me) was the session with photographer Sharad Haksar - a photographer since the age of 3, uses a 22 megapixel camera (he's thinking of getting himself a 39 megapixel one!) to capture his shots. I asked him what program he uses to edit his photographs and he told me Photoshop. Am I the only person who uses Paint Shop Pro to edit images? His shots are amazing, so you should check them out at his site.


Day 1 had interesting sessions on Wordpress and Ajax. I never knew Wordpress had so many features that Blogger doesn't! Never knew Ajax had so many cool applications for a blog either. Karthik spoke about how he implemented many of the features that blogging tools provide in his site. He also spoke about the CAPTCHA system he used for the comments. Useful for those interested in knowing what happens behind the scenes.

Sunil Gavaskar was present on day 2 (hence the media). He spoke about podcasting (and cricket, of course) but I wonder if anybody was listening to what he was saying. Most people were busy with their cams, either taking photos or recording videos of him.

After lunch there was a video conference on Skype with Robert Scoble, Vice President of Media Development, PodTech.Network Inc. (was formerly with Microsoft). Don't know why, but I was too sleepy to listen to what he was saying. I was looking at some high res wallpapers on Karthik's laptop instead.



Was watching CNN IBN today and they covered BlogCamp - I make a brief appearance right at the beginning of the clip holding a cam (how ironic!). Will upload the video sometime soon. Or just put up a link in case somebody has uploaded it somewhere already.

Update 1 (after reading Jace's comment): Some images used here were found on Flickr. They're the property of their respective owners. Their sole purpose here was to make this post look good.

Update 2: The video is here.

BlogCamp - India's Biggest Blog Unconference

"BlogCamp is keynotes, talks, forums, hallway discussions, demos, party, contests. 50% conference, 50% unconference. 50% broadcast, 50% interactivity. 100% informal."

My tickets are booked!

Industrial Tour :: [Aug 11-19]

Beautiful places were seen...


No industries were visited...


People were transformed...


Couples bonded...


Lecturers became our friends...


There was dancing...


And everybody had a wonderful time!