Welcome to the Machine

I have always wondered why they have those alphabets/numbers written in that funny, wavy pattern whenever you have to register on a website. You know what I’m talking about, the one that looks something like this:

For a long time, I thought it was probably just to make sure that people were sober at the time of registration, although registration hardly requires the kind of complex hand-eye coordination and alertness that driving does. Or maybe it was just some sort of a test of eyesight, although why a website would decide registrations on the basis of eyesight was beyond me.

Then one day I spotted a link below this picture on one of the websites, which said something along the lines of “Wondering why we make you go through this ridiculous exercise?” It then turned out that this is done to make sure that it is a human who is registering and not a machine! I was absolutely astounded by this fact – now that’s the kind of machine I want! There are actually machines in this world that go about trying to register on different websites! Suddenly, it seemed that there was something to this whole artificial intelligence business. Think about it – why would someone actually create a machine whose task it is to simply register on various websites? No, this had to be a machine with a mind of its own – surely, this was a case of a machine developing artificial intelligence, although I must admit that wishing to register on websites hardly represents the pinnacle of intellectual achievement. Ok, for a machine it might be impressive, but when you really think about it, “Mom, I registered on a website!” hardly holds a candle to “Mom, I scored the highest grade at Maths.” Yet, a machine trying to register on websites on its own does give me some cause for hope.

I say this because at a certain phase during my growing-up years, I used to read a lot of science fiction. These were books written by the likes of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, etc during the 50s, when space exploration fooled everyone into making frankly silly predictions about life in the future. So I would read about people having their personal jet-packs in the 21^st century and travelling to far off galaxies just to get a cup of coffee (well, they did show off even in the future!). There were all these pictures painted of a grand universe like the Star Wars but without the fighting, where everybody is rich and healthy and robots and machines would be doing everything for us. Yet, one decade into the 21^st century and all we have to show for is the internet and lifestyle-related diseases. Doesn’t really make for proud reading, does it, compared to all those predictions?

I have a machine which only seems to have a mind of its own when it decides to hang just when I’m approaching an important deadline. Or when it decides to be wonderfully whimsical about how much time it would take to copy some data from one location to another. Whenever it says “Copying Item 1 of 415, 13 hrs 45 mins remaining”, it actually completes the task in two minutes flat. But when it says “Copying Item 1 of 12, 2 minutes remaining”, it ends up taking a good 25 minutes! And in the middle of this process, a little dialog box would appear that says “This box has appeared purely for the purpose of annoying you. Do you need it?” And when you click No, another pointless little box appears that says “Are you ABSOLUTELY sure you do not want the box that came up purely for the purpose of annoying you?”

On other occasions, when I’m trying to insert a picture in the middle of a lot of text matter, the text is suddenly scattered across the page in an interesting but sadly unreadable pattern. And the one time I’ve been working feverishly on a presentation or document for an hour and have not saved it, the machine decides that the time is right for a random restart. And then there is this voracious appetite for updates. Every second day, a little icon dutifully appears in the taskbar proclaiming that new updates are available. You try hard to ignore it, until it solemnly reminds you that “It is strongly recommended that you install the new updates. Otherwise your machine might delete all data, do an upside-down flip and flirt with deadly viruses.”

That is why I’m so impressed to hear about a machine that tries to register on its own. After years of dealing with a machine that came across as only marginally smarter than a call-centre employee, it seems that there are finally signs of the unfulfilled sci-fi promises of the ‘50s coming to fruition.

Fw: Have You Ever Wondered?

You cannot help but wonder how some of the ideas that we take for granted today first came about. Take professional wrestling (the WWE kind), for example. Whoever came up with that idea for the first time? And I wonder how he managed to convince everyone else that it could be the next big thing. It probably happened at the Committee of Miniscule Percentage of People who Care About Wrestling, where someone suddenly said “Hey! I know how we can get more people to watch wrestling. This might sound a little crazy, but just stay with me on this one, ok? How about, instead of people actually wrestling, we just make them pretend that they’re wrestling?” Maybe cricket could take a leaf out of this and try this in order to popularise the sport beyond the current set of a dozen countries that play it – they could get people to pretend to play cricket, instead of actually playing it.

I’ve often wondered who came up with the idea for the first ever forward. What would he have been thinking – “Hey! This whole email thing is pretty neat. What an easy and convenient way to annoy others! Why don’t I send them mails that they have absolutely no use for and that do not make much sense? They would have no idea what to do with it, so they’d just pass it on to others.” I suppose that’s how it all started. While the inventor of the email would be a proud man indeed, surely his achievement has been partially blighted by the man who started the forward.

Over a period of time, through a careful combination of never forwarding emails and occasionally poking fun at the odd forward, I’d managed to steer myself clear of most people’s forwarding lists without hurting their sensibilities. This was hard work indeed, especially given the fact that each office/group has at least one or two serial mail-forwarders, they type of person who only appears in your inbox in the form of a forward, and seems to be the source through which every forward is routed. Of late, though, all that hard work seems to have come to naught as I’ve again been inundated with a series of forwards each competing with the other in terms of sheer inanity.

The first of these types of forwards is the “This-mail-will-bring-you-good-luck-believe-me-it’s-true” type:

“I am not normally the type who believes in these mails, but believe me, THIS ONE REALLY WORKS.

Mrs Leaden Foot’s husband had been missing since the First World War; she wished that he would come back to her. Within minutes of forwarding this mail to everyone on her list, there was a knock on her door – it was Mr Leaden Foot!

Bashir had lost his donkey to a terrorist suicide attack. He wished that he would get another donkey just as good. He forwarded this mail to 100 people and the next day, TWO donkeys AND a horse arrived in his courtyard!

Nine year-old Jamie’s life in school was made hell by the class bully, who would pull down Jamie’s pants every single day. Jamie wished that God would turn the bully into an orange frog, and forwarded this mail to his entire class. The next period, the bully was nowhere to be seen and an orange frog appeared out of nowhere in the school pond!

I know there is no logic, I know it makes absolutely no sense, I know that you have to be dumber than a lamppost to believe all this – but it actually DOES work. All you have to do is make a wish and scroll down.

(At this point, you REALLY have to scroll for a long long time)

Forward this mail to everyone you believe deserves to have their wishes come true.

Now that you have made your wish, all you need to do is count your age. Add this to your waist size, subtract your height and then multiply by e^π and apply differential calculus techniques to the result to arrive at a number. Your wish will come true in that many minutes.

But if you do not forward this to at least ten people, bad luck will haunt you for years to come. Fleas will nestle in your armpits, the Lord will smite you and the plague shall befall you. You will be declared a communist and forced to fight against Foreign Direct Investment. You will be made to watch every single episode of that TV show featuring Paris Hilton.”

Another very common type of forward goes something like this:

“The end is near; apocalypse is upon us. The founder of Orkut believes that people are no longer stupid and threatens to shut down Orkut. Forward this message to everyone on your list to show him that stupidity is alive and kicking. This is the only way to save Orkut. Else it will shut down and all our accounts will be deleted.”

A third type, even more annoying, is the one that makes the heartfelt appeal to your conscience to save a terminally-ill child. This one goes something like this:

“Ann Farthing is a four year old child who loves ice-cream. You would say “So? Every four year-old loves ice cream, what’s the big deal about that?” The big deal is that Ann is suffering from a condition of fibrosis herbiscular neuroflexoethnomer. This is an extremely rare condition, the odds of which are like a gazillion to one.  Her parents have tried every cure around the world for the last two years, without any success. You’d say “Well, that’s too bad then, tough luck. I feel sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” Well, you’re wrong. It seems a cure is possible, but it would cost $15 million!

Two weeks ago, Ann’s parents approached Bill Gates, who, being the complete nerd that he is, decided that this was absolutely the most appropriate opportunity to try a whacky social experiment. Instead of just giving the $15 million, Bill Gates decided that he would forward this mail to everyone he knew, and each time the mail was forwarded, one dollar would be added to Ann Farthing’s fibrosis herbiscular neuroflexoethnomer fund.

So please forward this to everyone on your mailing list if you do not wish to have the blood of four year-old Ann Farthing on your hands.”

Yet another common type is the inspirational, never-give-up-in-life stories, or stories about how well off we are in life and therefore should not be complaining. These often go something like this:

“Andy Warren was once a successful businessman who had it all – a supermodel wife, two doting kids and a house big enough to accommodate an entire village. And then tragedy struck. An earthquake destroyed his house, a car accident killed his entire family and a snake bite left Andy with just one leg.

However, Andy never lost his belief in God. Even when God told him “Look, I’ve got Israel-Palestine, Jihad attacks and Darfur to deal with. You think YOU’VE got problems???” it only made Andy more determined. He prayed all day and all night.

Over the years, stuff happened. Today Andy is happily married and owns a used-car dealership.

Remember: No matter how bad your situation seems, you could always be the subject of a forwarded mail and make a difference to other people’s lives. So never give up.”

And then of course there are all those “pictures speak louder than words” kinds of forwards, which are full of these pictures of cute furry animals or babies/kids and try to teach you important life-changing lessons about things like the power of human endeavour, the importance of sharing and so on. I am sure there are many more types that I would’ve missed out on – this list is probably an ever-expanding one.

But seriously, I still wonder how it all started. And who are these people who create these forwards? I mean, I’ve never seen anyone actually creating a forward, or met someone who’s told me “Oh, I create forwards for a living/in my spare time.” I guess we’ll never really know the answer to that one. In the meantime, you could forward this blog link to at least five people; else grave misfortune would befall Abhinav Behari for the next five years! ;)

Moses of the Dance Floor

There are some things in life that I’ll never figure out – quantum mechanics, women and ‘the beat’. All my life, I’ve been asked to listen to ‘the beat’, feel ‘the beat’, allow ‘the beat’ to take over – and my dancing problems would vanish like Kate Moss’s waistline. Yet I’ve never been able to figure out this mysterious thing called ‘the beat’. Yeah, I can hear the music, sure – but ask me to move to ‘the beat’ and I’m hopelessly lost. More often than not, I end up being laughed at for moving opposite to ‘the beat’, when I don’t even know what ‘the beat’ is!

Now don’t get me wrong here – it’s not as if I lack all basic social skills or that I’m an engineer. I’m not very talkative, but I can speak well when needed; I’m not the networking sorts that makes friends wherever they go, yet I have enough friends I can count upon; I may not be the most fashionable dresser, but neither will I land up looking like the Village People – in other words I’m pretty much your average guy in most respects. Yet when it comes to dancing I could make even Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a graceful ballerina. I’m like the Moses of the dance floor – people on both sides of me will part away in a sea of laughter when I take to the floor.

Thankfully, I am well aware of this shortcoming and have ensured that this sort of a scenario does not arise too often. Yet, there has been many an occasion after being a few drinks down when I’ve been coaxed/cajoled/bullied into joining the dancing, even though the most I manage is the ‘stand-in-one-place-and-move-your-hands-and-feet-around-a-bit’ variety of dancing; all the while looking stiff and uncomfortable with this ‘I’d-rather-be-facing-a-Siberian-tiger-in-the-Tundra-wasteland’ expression on my face. In order to better avoid this eventuality, though, I have tried to identify the categories of people I need to be wary of.

The first category is the ‘overzealous-but-cannot-dance’ type. This is a person whose dancing skill would only be marginally better than mine, but he does not let that stop him from rushing to the dance floor. This is the type of chap with no inhibitions whatsoever, the sort who always likes to be the centre of attention at any gathering. Predominantly, fellows in this category tend to be loud and boisterous – which is fine, except for the fact that they will not rest until every single person has been on the dance floor at least for a while. Often, the people in this category tend to dance bhangra whatever be the genre of music that’s playing, and are at their best when the music is Punjabi. Largely, this category comprises almost exclusively of guys.

The second category that I look out for tends to be the ‘eagerly enthusiastic, all-inclusive’ type. People in this group tend to enjoy dancing every now and then and are often pretty good at it. While they don’t go overboard with the whole dancing business, they take it as their duty to make you dance, and make it seem as if theirs as well as your evening would remain unfulfilled if you did not dance. While they would not just push you on to the dance floor like the overzealous type would, they would keep pestering you, accuse you of being boring and even say that you look ‘cute’ (when they actually mean comical) while dancing, just to get you on the dance floor. At which point they’ll promptly start laughing at your attempt at dancing while at the same time encouraging you to hang around and try to tell you to follow ‘the beat’. As many of you would’ve guessed, mostly girls fall into this category.

One category that I know I have nothing to fear from is the ‘totally absorbed in dancing’ sort. These are the ones who would jump on to the dance floor when everyone else is thinking “Should I be the first one on the dance floor? I sure feel like dancing, but the floor is empty – maybe I should wait until the crowd picks up and it’s more happening”. These are the ones who do not care whether they have someone to dance with or not - you might often spot them dancing away on their own next to the speaker, or they’ll form their own little group – 2-3 girls/guys dancing with each other, oblivious to everything else, first on the floor and the last to leave. At a non-dance environment, these are the sort of people who would break into dance at the slightest of provocations, and sometimes without any provocation!

I am, however, eternally thankful that a craze as big as the Macarena has not taken a hold of the collective consciousness of humanity since the one time that it did happen. I have seen the world go crazy a lot of times in the last couple of decades – the rise of boy bands, ‘80s fashion, Iraq war, etc – but none as baffling and painfully annoying as the Macarena. There you were, sitting at a normal get-together – when suddenly EVERYONE gets up in excitement and starts dancing to the Macarena with steps (that looked like squirrels performing aerobics) that everyone seemed to know except for me! To date, that happens to be my all-time MOST annoying song, and has left me strongly in favour of banning songs-that-have-their-own-dance-steps.