YuviSense: Codin Kid

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If only people stopped war and started collaborating together to build this kinda stuff….

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GoodFather, is the rewrite of my Statistics analysis App. The old one, called Chinki, was limited to blogs only and pretty much very unstructured. This one is way more flexible and has one interface for running Reports on Twitter, FriendFeed, Blogs, BlogSets, Digg, Wikipedia, etc.,

Note that this is not yet complete - This is just the UI Mockup, though a complete UI mockup. I know the UI is not the best, but it’s good enough for me, the sole user of this app

Also, GoodFather is named after Rob La Gesse The previous one, Chinki, was named after my friend Avantika (Do check out her blog, she’s what people might call a "normal" Teenager:)) .

I’m pretty sure he won’t read this, so I’m writing it here. I know one person who can communicate this to him (My awesome cousin Sudar) who, I’m sure, will honor my unspoken request to not tell him. However, if he is reading this (by he, I refer to my brother), then can I, Yuvi, please ask him to stop reading now and go back to a safer place?

So, let’s start from the beggining. I have a brother. He’s my younger brother ‘coz, well, he is younger than me. But, he has a problem. He keeps irritating me. Every time. This might (and probably is) my problem, but it makes me feel (slightly) better if I can think it’s his problem and not mine. Also, it reduces my inferiority complex a bit since I don’t have to add “Irritaed by brother even if brother doesn’t irritate him” to the list of things that I’m inferior in. So, I think and believe that it’s his problem that he’s irritating me and not mine. Life (is) (G|g)ood.

But, he has one habit that really really annoys me. He uses the same computer I do. I don’t have any problem with this. Atleast, that’s what I hope I’d like to think. But, in reality (which sometimes sucks), I get irritated when he plays this darn stupid game called Cricket 2005. Don’t take my word for it: Check all these reviewers who also think that this game is stupid, sucks, and therefore shouldn’t be played by brothers. Especially younger brothers. Especially if they have elder brothers who are (wannabe) geeks. Like my brother. And Me.

So, I got too irritated with him today. I don’t use the computer too much now (With the exams comin up and all), but I got so irritated that I wrote this ZOMG awesome app called BroBuster that can pretend to be Cricet 2005 and crash every time it starts. Ofcourse, it won’t just crash. It gives out an error message about a graphics card error, and then, after a random interval, crash. This has a cool side effect, as I really *do* need a newer graphics card as my last one burnt out and my monitor is now all shaky as the inbuilt graphics controller also seems to be giving out. So, he’ll start pestering my Dad to get him a newer graphics card (so that he can continue playing that damn stupid game), which will be much more effective than me pestering him. But, he will get the card after the exams, by which time I’ll be getting my own super-awesome-super-computer thanks-to-Chuck-Rob-Deanna. So, he can play all that he wants, and I don’t have to deal with him. Problem solved!

So, message to all younger brothers out there: Don’t mess with your elder brothers. Especially if they are geeks. Even if they are wannabe geeks who can’t spell beginning correctly.

P.S. I’m sure that many of you would like to use this app(Yeah, sure. It’s goanna be as popular as xoeresa). But, unfortunately, I can’t release it now, as it can’t be used for every game now. A few config changes should take care of that, but those load-from-config-file code is not working now ‘coz it’s not yet written, ‘coz, basically I’m a lazy guy. So, all-the-non-existent-persons-who-love-my-unreleased-app, you’ll have to wait.

P.P.S: If you’re my brother, and you’re reading this, please tell me. I’ve gotta grab a helmet, some earbuds, and run. Thank you.

P.P.P.S: The first thing I’m goanna do after my exams is read the bible. Cover to cover. Well, with most of the pages torn out (so cover to cover will be small, silly). Why? ‘coz I’m goanna continue writing some more stuff that is a continuation of Rory’s awesome creation story series. So, Rory, better complete the series. Atleast before April. You are threatened. By a stupid-wannabe-geek-with-a-nervous-disorder.

People are stupid.
I, for the most part, am people. Draw conclusions. I have done quite a number of really stupid things this week, like breaking my index finger, getting wounds on my leg and hands, and almost falling out of a public bus. All but one of them (the wounds) can be explained by my stupidity, which is why I won’t be explaining them here.

My final year exams are getting close. The marks I get here decide which college I can go to. I don’t (really) wanna get stuck in a college where 99% of my fellow students are jocks. Don’t get me wrong: I do have quite a bit of respect for jocks, but they can be total asses sometimes. So, I’ve gotta get great marks here. Great as in better than good. To the tune of 596+ out of 600. Sigh. Means less computer time for the next 4 months

And, Saki, my current computer, is about to die. She refused to boot up for two days when I wanted her badly to do a Powerpoint Presentation for a competition to school, and then suddenly started booting again when the competition was over. So, I’ve gotta replace her. But, if I do that now, all that I’ll be doing for the next 4 months is drool over the new computer. So, I’ve decided to wait for my exams to get over before I buy the new one. And, I’ll try my best to outspec my cousin Sudar who just bought his new computer.

Here’s the important part of the post: I’m going to thanks Chuck, Deanna and Rob for making my dream computer a reality by naming the Motherboard+Processor as Chuck, the RAM and Grafix Card as Deanna and the Storage Array as Rob Couldn’t have done it without you Huge thanks to Chuck (who works at Virtual Reality IM Network IMVU) for contributing the major chunk of the $1500

Rory Blyth.

Teenagers are supposed to have some idols. Y’know, people who they follow around all the time on TV/Internet/MySpace/Whatever. Whenever said teenager talks about said idol, they’ll be frothing at the mouth and various biological compounds of unknown origin will find their way into the bloodstream of said teenager.

I’m a teenager, and Rory Blyth is one of my idols. His was one of the first blogs I read (I got there through another idol, Sriram Krishnan), and one of the blogs where I don’t just read through the RSS, but actually go out and read through the archives. I’m that kind of a Fan. Shruti often comments that I have a crush on his words. Not just his blog, but his videos and podcast as well. Infact, the only Channel9 videos(well, videos from anywhere, infact) I download are Rory’s, and the only podcast I listen to is Rory’s(Though he’s been off it for sometime now. Wassup yo?). While this is partly because of my bandwidth restrictions (Try living on 2.5 gigs of upstream and downstream data a month), this is also partly not because of my bandwidth restrictions. He could interview my Geography textbook and actually make it interesting.

I actually stole that above bit from a previous bit of writing. That previous bit of writing, ofcourse, was also mine. I was trying to write a StatBot on Rory Blyth. I had my Data. I had the fancy graphs. I had pretty much what I wanted (except, uhm, a lot of compromising things I can’t disclose here). But then, I was sucked into reading Rory’s archives (again). I was like, so frothing at the mouth again that I had to gave up. He could not be quantified. The words there, the text, the blog posts, they’re on a class of their own. That class doesn’t implement ICloneable, the fields are all private, and the only constructor is private, so you won’t be able to do anything about them except acknowledge that they are a class of their own. You can’t even use reflection against them, so, admit it, those words are a class of their own. Quantity can’t do justice to them. It really can’t, so I gave up.

This is the only time I have actually gagged laughing. It’s very much like reading Douglas Adams, except Rory actually responds to my comments. It’s almost kinda a drug: I swapped back to Firefox thrice while writing this short paragraph to read 3 fantastic old posts of his. It’s just that every post of his is so, well, ooglable.

So,

Rory, you’re my hero. I thought I should let you know. You have become a hero to atleast one (1) teenager around here. One day, I hope to have your qualities(Damn, my writing needs to improve. I’m writing in cliches) Thanks yo, I’m feeling better now because of you!

Your posts

And, as a small tribute to my hero, I’m leaving this XML file (right click, save. It’s 5 megs, crashes FF) containing all the posts he has written so far, along with their associated metadata, in an easily digestable format. Whip up Visual Studio Orcas and use LINQ over this to get some nice statistics or anythin. I’m using LINQ, and loving this. So grab that XML file and do something, anything, with it. For starters, I just ran one of Rory’s recentish posts through one of my not-so-recentish apps, Fudge, to produce some cranky output. Read it here.

On a completely different secential note, I dig this picture below and ask you all to atleast click on it and if you click on it because you really actually like it instead of because I asked you to, fave it as well. I assure you that there is a bening motive to this:

Rereading this post, what’s the point? I donno, I guess I just wanted to say thanks for his awesome writing. I say thanks just for the fun of it, and it makes me feel good as well: Ask Rob, he gets a bit irritated about it!

Also, he commented on my blog post here about my experience with Modafinil. I was pretty pumped up over that(buf, how many days do YOU wake up to see a comment in your inbox from your hero?). I had taken a bit of slack over that Modafinil post, and he made sure I calmed down and got on my senses. Thanks Yo!

And, I’ve been stealing his style quite a bit for my school essays, and getting good grades for them as well! So, there’s another reason.

So, ending with, Rory, you’re my hero! Okay, change that to, Rory, you are one of my heros!

Sad and Confused, by YuviPanda.

How I am feeling now. Divorce (as most things) seems very impersonal and matter-of-fact when it doesn’t happen to us. But when you feel it happen to someone who is almost like a sister to you, it takes a whole new dimension. It hurts. A lot. Sigh.

Perhaps you have gone through this hell. Perhaps you know someone else who has undergone that hell. She is only 14 years old. Her parents are getting divorced. I don’t even know what to say: I feel really out of depth. But, perhaps, you do know what to say. If you do, please please please email me(yuvipanda@gmail.com) or drop it in the comments. I’ll pass it on to her. You’ll be doing someone a very big favor.

And girl, I know you’ll be reading this. Remember, there are boatloads of people to be with you. Remember.

Is funny, but a bit scary as well. Where is humanity going? There would have been wars about it, if not for that we are getting a bit lazy of late to go about warring with each other over trivial issues.

In case you are wondering, what he writes is damn true as well. And, don’t ask me whose Fan I am: I swear no allegiance

Lightning Strikes Everyday: Rajinikanth: The Phenomena

P.S: Hawkeye is one of the most funny, insightful, stylish blogger on earth. Violent Acres doesn’t even come close (At least for me). One of the first blogs I encountered, and one of the best blogs around. Subscribe, if you haven’t.

Steve Clayton of Blue Monster fame dropped by on my Engadget Analysis post (Which is cool ‘coz I’ve been in love with the Blue Monster ever since I saw it and it’s there in my Sidebar) and offered to gift me a copy of Office ‘07 (Thanks Steve!). After a really stressed out first day at school (they just increased school hours from 7 to 8:(), I came home fully expecting to crash. And here comes my Mom and tells me that there’s a package for me! Crash averted

Dad had already rummaged through it, and I found a Blue Monster T-Shirt (yaay!), a fantastically shaped box that is Office ‘07 and two Blue Monster cards of Steve Clayton, one signed. In order of coolness * size. Thanks Steve!

Here’re some shots of the package. The DOF goodness thanks to Thomas. More found at this set here on Zooomr.:

The last one is the teeth of the Blue Monster, and no, the Microsoft logo on the Office Box didn’t look like the one shown in the top (It was a quick Photoshop job). The real logo looked like this:

So, Thanks Steve for the swag, and Thanks Hugh for the Blue Monster. I’ll probably wear the Blue Monster Tee first time for something cool, like, say, Proto.in (the DEMO of India)?

P.S. Some more interesting shots. Interesting ‘coz, it’s a DVD, and I don’t have a DVD drive

How can I make copies if I can’t read it?

P.P.S: One more thanks to Steve Clayton and Hugh. We’ll change the world!

Zooomr is MY photosharing site. Not just that I use it, but It is “mine”. In the same way my watch is mine, my school is mine, the internet is mine, I am part of it and it is part of me.

It’s been down for quite some time. I won’t tell you the whole story, as it has been told here by Zoli in an excellent way. Just wanted to post this to say thanks to Zoho and Sun for helping MY photosharing site get back up, to Robert Scoble for making that possible and to Microsoft’s Anand Iyer (who was the first guy to kiss Rory Blyth on camera) for offering to help.

Thanks guys!

Funny:

Still waiting for Mark III, though I think it’s worth the wait. It probably will be up by the time I get up tomorrow morning, because Kristopher’s gotta demo it today evening Kinda weird when you write today evening in the future tense at 8 pm, but that’s the Internet for ya!

Support a wonderful photographer who is being ripped off. Her photos are being sold off without her permission, and she can’t do much about it.

All that I could do is to send you over to Thomas Hawk for more information and all you could do (and I ask you to do) is to Digg this story here so this gets more attention. Thank you.

Also, I have to explore Flickr more….

…read this thread on the Java forums. A guy posted this question:

What are the different algorithms in Java? Can someone list me each and its uses?

And, read the 56 responses he’s gotten so far. You could write a book off them…

Here are some samples:

An unattached trunk on the beach may still be a trunk (I think they are collected and installed in American cars)
So, if we could find a good algorithm for counting American cars, the same algorithm might be used to count basket ball playing hippopotamuses.

 

> > Wikipedia is nearly without elephants
>
> Duh, breaking news; my ‘Culinaria Espana’ cookbook is
> *completely* without elephants.
then you are missing out on a great receipe for elephant soup…

Man, aren’t geeks fun(ny)? I laughed out loud on many of them, but showing them to my brother would’ve gotten me just a blank stare in return. Remind me in a decade: Gotta marry a geek…

Thanks to Abhina (Who works on the VS C# Team) for the link! Is that forum the place where you get ideas for new features from? J

Kristopher Tate, founder of Zooomr, turned 19 today. He’s officially 3 years older than me. Just wait for 3 more years Kris, and I’ll be as old as you!

Happy Birthday Kris: In our School Style Hosted on Zooomr

That’s my “Happy Birthday Card” to you, Kris. The way we do it in our school.

Happy Birthday, and thanks for Zooomr!

Oh, and if you are wondering about the text, it was autogenerated by a small tool/library/script I am developing(The same one that powers this prototype online entity called stupidscoble).

[Photo stolen from scotersen, but hey I love it!]

Class in the Grass Hosted on Zooomr

Fantastic experimentation with focus. But, the greenery rocks. Hopefully, I’ll be able to sit on grass green as that and just relax…

In other news, life’s been hectic, with me getting pretty sick(physically) along with a bunch of nasty exams coming in the way. We should be able to resume our regular programming in a relatively short time.

In other news that matters, Kristopher and Thomas are really teasing us (especially me) with those new stuff on Mark III, the next *release* of Zooomr. Hope they flip the switch pretty soon. One of the best things about this is the new support for non-OpenID login system. Why? ‘coz that means my friends from school who wouldn’t know an OpenID if it bit them can leave comments on my photos. Hurrayy!