Rohit’s Ramblings

Archive for June, 2009

Tihor had consumed even the last few drops of his drink. But he was still greedy for more. He kept on sipping harder on the remaining cubes of ice. As the ice would melt, it would release a droplet of water - which would find its way into Tihor’s straw, upwards into his mouth. On its way up, it would make a rude crackling noise.

Tihor: “I wonder why it’s making that noise…”

Raj: “I think it’s trying to say… YOU SUCK!”

This is sketch of Lord Ganesh that I created using pencils.

Found this neat comic called “Regular Expressions” on xkcd -

I swear! I always thought that someday in the future, my knowledge of … - - - … (morse code for SOS) would help me…

Herbert A. Millington
Chair - Search Committee
412A Clarkson Hall, Whitson University
College Hill, MA 34109

Dear Professor Millington,

Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite Whitson’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,
Chris L. Jensen

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Really Stubborn!

Although the Indian learning system places emphasis on memorizing multiplication tables (my grandfather supposedly knew multiplication tables till 40×12 by heart) – kids should also be given a contingency plan to fall back on – in case their memory fails them.

This method helps to quickly calculate the product of two numbers, each of which is between 6 and 10 using only your hands and knowledge of smaller products such as 2×3.

1. First we have to number the fingers on our hands as follows –
   
2. Now let’s take an example – say 8 x 7 = 56. Make the “8” finger on one hand touch the “7” finger on the other hand
   
3. Digits in the tens place - Count the fingers below (and including) the “7” and “8” fingers. In this case there are total 5 fingers.
   
4. Digits in the units place – Multiply the fingers above the “7” and “8” fingers. In this case 3×2 = 6.
   

There you have it – 7 x 8 = 56!

Found this floating on the internet

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Dear Tech support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I’ve tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,
Desperate.

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DEAR DESPERATE,
First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download Tears 6.2 and don’t forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

Also do not attempt to reinstall Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck,
Tech Support

Have you seen one of these floating around on the internet?

These are called CAPTCHAs. Wikipedia describes them as “a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer”. In simple words, the web servers that serve the above image wish to ensure that it’s a human being at the other end (and not an automated script or bot of some sort). Hence, if the response is correct – the entity that created the response must be human.

Now, there are several ongoing efforts to try and digitize mankind’s physical texts into a publicly accessible digital archive. These efforts rely on OCR software to convert the scans of physical texts into digital content. However, OCR isn’t perfect. It often makes mistakes in recognizing words. But, it is kind enough to point you to the words where it feels it may have gone wrong.

Question is – Is it possible to harness the intelligence of the masses surfing the internet to aid the digitization process?
Answer is: Yes, with the assistance of reCAPTCHA.

reCAPTCHA technique is simple – it serves two words for the CAPTCHA: One of the words served has been flagged as “not recognizable” by the OCR during conversation. The other one is known (i.e. it has been successfully recognized during OCR). Now, the human user attempts to decipher both words. If the user enters the recognized word correctly – he has most likely entered the unrecognizable word correctly as well. This can be confirmed by serving the unrecognizable word to several users – thereby improving the confidence. Ultimately – the actual contents of the unrecognizable word are registered. That’s one more correct word added to the digital archive.

Smart!

Read more about reCAPTCHA here.