August 28, 2009

Its not perfect.. but its mine..


Wandering around in cyber-space, I just stumbled on something so poignantly simple in its beauty that I can't even wait to come up with some nice words to describe it, before I share it here. This just cant wait. The song is by a stand-up comedian called Tim Minchin. This song is like the 'doosra' in his repertoire. Listen to it. Till the end.

Luv-n-Luck,
Av

P.S. - You can find the lyrics here.

August 18, 2009

Coders Only!

Warning: Very long geeky post!

/* This post is written to share a few laughs */

In the light of my recently celebrated non-anniversary of my mindless IT coder job, I wanted to share a few coder's jokes, compiled from various sources. People who do not plead guilty to the tags of coder or geek are encouraged to NOT read the following in interest of their continued sanity.
The rest of my brethen, join in for a few smiles, giggles and laughs!
Here goes..

1) Q: Whats the object-oriented way to become wealthy?
A: Inheritance

2) Q: how many programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None, that's a hardware problem!

3) Q: How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None, it'll be fixed in the drivers!

4) Q: Why do programmers always mix up Halloween and Christmas?
A: Because Oct 31 == Dec 25!

5) If you hold a Unix shell up to your ear you can hear the C!

6) C++ is a modern language: your parents can't touch your privates, but your friends can!

7) Ascii a stupid question, get a stupid ansi!

8) if(!this.Kill(me))
me.Strength++;

9) There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who get laid.

A) Q: How do you keep a programmer in the shower all day?
A: Give him a bottle of shampoo which says "lather, rinse, repeat."

B) "Knock Knock!"
"Who is it?"
Very long pause...
"Java"

C) Programming is like sex. ONE mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life!

D) The Programmers' Cheer:
Shift to the left, shift to the right!
Pop up, push down, byte, byte, byte!

E) Eight bytes walk into a bar. The bartender asks, “Can I get you anything?”
“Yeah,” reply the bytes. “Make us a double.”


/* Rajnikant Fact Collection (RFC) */

1. When Rajnikant throws exceptions, it’s across the room.
2. All arrays Rajnikant declares are of infinite size, because Rajnikant knows no bounds.
3. Rajnikant doesn’t have disk latency because the hard drive knows to hurry the hell up.
4. Rajnikant writes code that optimizes itself.
5. Rajnikant can’t test for equality because he has no equal.
6. Rajnikant’s first program was kill -9.
7. Rajnikant burst the dot com bubble.
8. Rajnikant can write infinite recursion functions…and have them return.
9. Rajnikant can solve the Towers of Hanoi in one move.
10.Rajnikant doesn’t bug hunt as that signifies a probability of failure, he goes bug killing.
11.Rajnikant’s keyboard doesn’t have a Ctrl key because nothing controls Rajnikant.

/* End of RFC */


/*~~~~~~~~ Start of Jokes Section ~~~~~~~~~*/

A guy is standing on the corner of the street smoking one cigarette after another. A lady walking by notices him and says "Hey, don't you know that those things can kill you? I mean, didn't you see the giant warning on the box?!"
"That's OK" says the guy, puffing casually "I'm a computer programmer"
"So? What's that got to do with anything?"
"We don't care about warnings. We only care about errors."

/*~~~~~~~~~ Joke Seperator~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*/

A Cobol programmer made so much money doing Y2K remediation that he was able to have himself cryogenically frozen when he died. One day in the future, he was unexpectedly resurrected. When he asked why he was unfrozen, he was told:
"It's the year 9999 - and you know Cobol"

/*~~~~~~~~~ Joke Seperator~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*/

Jesus and Satan have an argument as to who is the better programmer. This goes on for a few hours until they come to an agreement to hold a contest with God as the judge. They set themselves before their computers and begin. They type furiously, lines of code streaming up the screen, for several hours straight. Seconds before the end of the competition, a bolt of lightning strikes, taking out the electricity. Moments later, the power is restored, and God announces that the contest is over. He asks Satan to show his work. Visibly upset, Satan cries and says, “I have nothing. I lost it all when the power went out.” God says, “Very well, let us see if Jesus has fared any better.” Jesus presses a key, and the screen comes to life in vivid display, the voices of an angelic choir pour forth from the speakers. Satan is astonished. He stutters, “B-b-but how?! I lost everything, yet Jesus’ program is intact! How did he do it?”
God chuckles, “Everybody knows… Jesus saves!”

/*~~~~~~~~~~ End of Jokes Section~~~~~~~~~~~~*/

/* And to wrap it up, a beautiful poem, a-la Dr. Seuss: */

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
Then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!

You can't say this? What a shame sir!
We'll find you another game sir.

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary RISC,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!


/* End of post. Hope you enjoyed it! */
/* Users are encouraged to leave comments on my comments! */
/* Luv-n-Luck, */
/* Av */

August 16, 2009

A curious co-incidence..


Today is the would-have-been 2nd anniversary of me taking up a job in the alternately flourishing and floundering IT industry. While I am extremely happy to be not in a mundane developer job anymore, I was surely contemplating posting something about it.

A few minutes back I opened my old acoustic guitar cover, and it has yielded a poem I had written way back in early 2005, when I was saying my good-byes to my graduate college. Corny and clumsy as it is, I wanted to share it because it brought a flood of memories back to me.

The poem is in keeping with the theme of a farewell, and while it was untitled back then, I've thought of christening it as

NOT A FAREWELL

When tomorrow starts without me
I'll not be there to see
If the rising sun would find your eyes
All filled with tears for me..

I wish so much that you wouldnt cry
The way you did today
While thinking of the many things
We didn't get to say..

I know how much you love me
As much or more than I love you
And each time that I think of you
I know you'll miss me too..

So when tomorrow starts without me
Don't think that we're far apart
For every time you think of me
I'll be right here, in your heart...


Ta-daa! Its ok, don't take my case over it. :)

Luv-n-Luck,
Av