Trojans from Hell

Damn it! Im rewriting this post again because of the reason I am writing this post in the first place. What an irony! My damned PC seems to restart on its own without warning me, and the stupid blogger autosave feature did not kick in! Writing 2 paragraphs, and having to rewrite that again immediately is irritating, and that would still be an understatement. Is it a virus? Is it a hardware malfunction? is it a phantom playing tricks or is it one of my split personalities who kicks in for a second, hits the restart button and vanishes.

Around a year ago, my lappy was plagued with an army disgusting demented viruses and trojan horses (If I ever lay my hand on a virus writer...), all of different shapes, sizes, functions and names. They did not attack all together, but eventually. How they sneaked upon me, even I cant say, but they sure took me by surprise. It started off with little annoying problems like my cursor suddenly running about the screen uncontrollably, a couple of IE windows opening etc. Then the symptoms slowly started growing in magnitude. OS hanging, sudden restarts, not saving files when I save them, disabling certain softwares, making me, the admin user a guest user without any authority. All the other attacks, I bore silently. But taking away my admin rights was just too much. I had to fight back. But the trojan army was always one step ahead.

For starters they disabled all my anti virus software. They left me like an AIDS patient, without any immune system. My WBCs had been hijacked. I decided I wont give up, and gave up my PC to an expert. He started using his special anti-virus programs, his special tools etc. Some of them were terminated, but others still lurked. Some bold and defiant got detected, but could not be removed. Others craft and sly, lurked undetected (we realized this later). After my friend Richie toiled over my lappy, after hours of formatting and reformatting, he managed to clean up my laptop of all its crap. But in the bargain, I lost my genuine windows installation.

Now the ugly head of this black army seems to be slowly rising again. I did some virus scans, and updated my anti-virus. But the restarting problem still exists. Sometimes I wonder whether it is a hardware problem I'm dealing with here. Initially I absolutely had no clue about why may laptop used to go kapoot. But a couple of weeks ago, I found the trigger. Or at least I think I found it.

Whenever I press the arrow keys or the backspace keys in rapid succession, my lappy just goes out cold. Strange. I noticed this while playing Dink Smallwood (a postworthy game thats gonna get a post of its own soon). Whenever Dink had to slay a bonca or a slayer (considered to be dangerous enemies atleast early on in the game), he had to run about and make quick turns. That meant hitting the arrow keys in rapid alternating succession. Plonk! Out cold. This happened so many times that I stopped playing Dink for now. But the problem still persists. And as long as it does, I cannot play Dink! Damn!!

Anyways, Keep checking back to see what happened in the war between me & this unknown enemy of mine.

Subconcious Plagiarism - Cryptomnesia

A few months ago, my sis Annette & and her friend Jennifer, were working on a pop-up greeting card. Both of them were doing a course in Early Childhood care (& now are Kindergarten {sounds better than K.G. ;) } teachers at schools), and this card was part of their assignment. Ann & Jen showed me the semi-complete card, and asked me how it was. The card had a drawing of a small chick hatching out of an egg, with pieces of eggshell flying all over. Something like the hatching of a superchick shot using a split-second-camera. I liked the idea, but technically, the drawing was wrong. The chick was standing in the shards of the hatched egg, one leg in one half and the other one in the other half. And above the chick were some more fragments of the cracked egg. If one tried a logical reconstruction, one would come up with an egg and a half. I pointed this out to them, to which they said, the drawing was copied from a book. I criticized the quality of the books they were referring. But this wasn't enough, I had to give them some advise on how they could improve the drawing. I personally love cartooning, and by habit pay attention to the little nuances of cartooning. I would let myself down, if I wouldn't be able to come up with some original ideas to better the drawing.

After a minute of thought, I was lecturing both of them about how the drawing would look much better, if a piece of the eggshell would rest on the head of the chick, like a cap. It would give it the appearance of an Anne Geddes baby. I knew it was a small suggestion, nonetheless I was proud of it. My sis smiled at me, and then said, "Well I know where you got this from". I was surprised. I told her it was a completely original idea. She insisted that she knew where I got this from. I told her that I probably would have come across something of this sort in a cartoon show or something along the way. She still said, she knew exactly where I had got this idea from. Then she pulled out one of her journals (the kind she shows all of her family after completion). She flipped the pages, and turned the journal to show me one page. It was exactly the image I suggested a few minutes ago. I was shocked. It was the exact image I had picturised in mind a few minutes ago.

I could bet my life on the fact that I thought my idea was kinda original. Atleast not the carbon copy of something that I had seen a few months ago. But the evidence was against me here. This was the first time I realized how powerful the subconscious is.

My point is that this happens, and it doesnt take an expert to know that it does. Along the way, as we keep picking up ideas and concepts developed by other, snowballing down the hill of information, we lose quite a bit of what comes at us, but a lot of it gets tightly packed into that huge snowball of data. Somewhere deep inside in that vast sea of experiences, it gets hidden under some more important concepts/ideas/skills that the brain has to remember. But it still is there waiting for its time. When a trigger of some sort goes off, this thought is pulled out by the subconscious, now hazier than before, it easily gets thrown out by the brain, which deceives itself into making the person believe that the idea is original.

As I was googling for "Subconcious Plagarism", I came across the following-

Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory is too good.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

Friedrich had been accused of plagiarism, when the book that he wrote,
I couldn't agree less that this is obviously more than true. But the above statement in isolation may not be complete, especially when discussing SP. If your memory is too good, it would be conscious plagiarism. For it to be subconscious, the memory needs to pass out from the conscious zone into the subconscious zone.

The first time the term "Subconscious Plagiarism" came to me, It came to me in thought, as an original idea. I had never ever before read the word anywhere, anytime. But I know that to have an original Idea today is extremely difficult. Somewhere, somebody has already thought about it. And something as obvious as Subconscious plagiarism could never go unnoticed. So I decided to find out using Google. When I Googled it, there were some vague mentions of Subconscious Plagiarism, but no concrete definition of the same was found. In highest probability, In fact I was almost sure that this phenomenon/habbit/behaviour/whatever it is, must be documented somewhere in some Psychology book of some kind. Then I came across Cryptomnesia.

Cryptomnesia is the actual scientific word for Subconcious Plagarism. Following is the Wiki definition of Cryptomnesia:

Cryptomnesia, or inadvertent plagiarism, is a memory bias whereby a person falsely recalls generating a thought, an idea, a song, or a joke, when the thought was actually generated by someone else. In these cases, the person is not deliberately engaging in plagiarism, but is rather experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration.

Read the whole article on wiki. Worth reading!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptomnesia

To sum it up, everybody sometime, somewhere may experience bouts of Cryptiomnesia. Human beings are wired up that way, to use past experience to better future experience. But if we are aware of this behavior that the Human brain exhibits, we will be more cautious the next time that "Original" idea pops up in our mind.

The Diwali Blast...

13 more blasts in Assam! Seems like Diwali will never end. The fireworks have been on throughout the year. The Muslims have this perennial problem with religion-bred-terrorism. There are a majority who are peace loving muslims. But because of a certain section of demented extremists, it is diwali for India every day. You dont know where the next blast is, maybe just around the corner. You don't know whether you will make it back home in your office clothes, or in a polythene bag, with your clothes.

The other day when returning home, I stopped at the red light of the Inorbit signal at malad. Just in front of me stood a bike, with its bearded rider. The back of the bike had a sticker of the trademark Shiv Sena tiger, all growling and wild. Suddenly, this guy in front of me yanked out the side-stand, left the bike leaning on it, and walked away. Just imagine leaving a bike just like that in a busy junction. He walked towards a few bhel-puri stalls on the pavement and disappeared into the crowd. I was bewildered. In many of the blasts that had happened all over India, the bombs were planted on bikes and cycles that could be easily abandoned in a busy place, without anybody even getting a whiff of what was conspiring in the shadows. The engine serial nos/registration nos. can be easily filed off to prevent detection and tracking. I looked at the bike and the small carrier box that it had fixed below the pillion seat, and considered possibilities of what all it could carry. Bomb kept coming back to my mind, like I was stuck in a loop! Bomb. Bomb. Bomb. Bomb. The Shive Sena sticker on the bike and the beard on the man made me even more uncomfortable. Maybe it was a muslim extremist who was out to frame Shiv sainiks in what would be known as the Inorbit Signal blasts. Maybe the Shivsainiks had finally decided to retaliate by entering the blasts business themselves. Whatever it was, it kinda scared me.

After a few anxious moments of craning my neck to see whether I could spot the alleged bomber, I saw the man re-appear, emerging from the crowd like a water in a Sahara desert tap. I was relieved. He probably had gone to the loo for a leak, and had inadvertently scared the crap out of a genuine alert citizen ;) of this country.

Jokes apart, many people today would have reacted to this situation in the same manner. This just goes to show the subtly developing fear psychosis in our people. In a country where we could just go about anywhere, without even thinking twice, we now live in constant fear of the next blast. When would it happen, where would it happen, who would die etc.

What are the rulers of this country doing? Where is the security? After the 7/11 tragedy in the US, could anyone even burst a single Lavangi within the country? If they could do it, then so can we. If not immediately, eventually. But there has to be some positive movement toward that eventuality. That positive movement, my friend, is what I never get to see in this country of mine. I may sound like a synic, but believe me, this is optimism.

Scooting Around

Just a couple of weeks ago, as Harvest approached, the much awaited outdoor-trip-plan was being discussed again by none other than the ex-syntelite buddies (group of friends from my old company, Syntel) . Our group is now scattered across IT companies. Infosys, Syntel, Accenture, Capgemini and Merrill Lynch. We keep in touch through daily e-mails. And through emails, we were discussing about having an outing. In the good old days, when we all were on the same payroll, we were known as the ABS globe trotters, because of our travel-mongering ways. It had been a real long time since we hung out together again. We knew that we wouldn’t have all the old guys along with us. But even if we had three to four, it would be fun.

Sometime back in august, we had planned for a trip to Thailand. But when Sunil realized that his passport was to expire in 3 months, we had to abandon those plans (you need to have a 6 month valid passport when you are entering Thailand). Now the destination being discussed was Goa. Goa is a place where I would always go, without thinking twice. In the last 4 years, I have been there 4 times, and this trip would take my average to more than once a year. Finally after a lot of persuasion, dropping out, excuses etc. four of us managed to commit ourselves to the trip. Out of the 4, I was the one who was the most reluctant. The reason being that we were planning to go out on a Harvest Sunday. Initially, I disposed the option of going, but some persuasive calls later, I changed my mind. It was after a real long time that I would get to hang out with old buddies, and I thought it would probably be worth it.

We started off the journey in Konduskar Volvo. The journey was pleasant enough, because the Volvo was really a volvo. On my return journey,

The Psycho Canine Gang

For the past few days I have been seeing the sun much lower in the east that I ever get to. My MDiv examinations are scheduled way up in the morning at around 7:00 am. I am a perennial slugabed, since my office starts later than other offices, and this time change in my schedule was really unwelcome. But fate had is such that I would need to get out from under those cozy sheets much earlier than I should have otherwise had to.

My exam timings are from 7:00 am to 10:00 am, after which I get some time to come home & have my mor-noon brunch. I can then leave for work. My examination hall is my local church, just 5 minutes as the wolf runs. The early morning bike ride helps me get rid off a bit of my slumber. But what really wakes me up is the Psycho Canine Gang.

As I ride into the compound of my Church building, (my church is located on the second floor of a commercial-residential building with other workshops & shops.) a gang of around 8 dogs attack me. I go to church on Sundays, & other days, but never so early. These dogs usually are silent & leave me alone. If one of them starts barking, I start whistling profusely, and this seems to pacify the mongrel. It then usually shuts up.

But this was different. Early in the morning these dogs seemed to go Mad. They surrounded me, gnarled and barked at me obstreperously. The first attack was when I was attending the first paper. The attack was led by a white bitch, (the other dogs were probably her kids) and these dogs knew no fear. I know that I am not an intimidating person, and friends would call me a teddy bear rather than a grizzly, but all said and done, I am six plus and almost weigh a quintal. No dog would take any ‘Panga’ with a person of this size, or at least that is what I thought. But these dogs were crazy (as I have said before). I had to stop my bike even before I got to the parking area and get off it, lest I find, stinky canines buried into my calf muscles. Initially I started whistling profusely. (I always whistle to pacify dogs that bark at me, and most of the time this tactic works). Most of the dogs went quiet, but one of the crazy dogs along with the white bitch seemed unaffected. The barking continued, and the dogs closed on me, one of them just behind me. I knew I had to get my hand to a stone, or atleast act as if I had found one. I did, and whack, I flung the stone at one the white bitch. I missed, and managed to scare off the other dogs. They kept barking and I kept looking for stones to fling. That is when the watchman of the building arrived with a stick & drove away the dogs. They seemed to recognize him and obliged with half-silence. There were muffled growls that still showed some defiance. But I wasn’t harmed by those dogs that day.

Later when I left after giving my exams, I observed that the dogs were all sleeping. None of them even turned to look at me. I wasn’t surprised. Because in the past, I always have seen the dogs sleeping, least bothered about me. Then what in the world stirred them up this morning, I though to myself. As I cautiously left the compound, trying to make as less noise as possible, the watchman waved at me, with a smile on his face.

“Darneka nahi, kattha nahi hai. (Don’t be scared, they don’t bite)” He said cheerfully. “These dogs are harmless”. I stopped the bike and paused to talk to him. I asked him why nobody drove these dogs out of the compound? He said, that the madrasi who owns a workshop in the basement of the compound regularly feeds these dogs. He has done this to put in place some kind of a security system. This, so that people don’t dare to venture into building compound. Now what kind of security system in the world was this? A bunch of mongrels?

Then I asked him about why these dogs attacked me in early in the morning, and let me go later on when I was on my way back. He told me that early in the morning, these dogs are un-fed. That is when they start behaving rabid. Anyone who enters their area is barked at. But later after the madrasi has fed the dogs, they cool down. They go to sleep. They aren’t bothered who comes or who goes. Cause they are full.

I thought of complaining to the municipality, but then after my exams were done, and after my altercations with the Psycho Canine Gang became a thing of the past, the desire to do so slowly went away. But one day I will get them. I will get the PCG, for what they did to me.