UGH!

I never realized just how used I am to the Gmail interface. It smacked me like a Mack truck between the eyes when I see today they'd changed "Move To Trash" to "Delete".

Why oh why?!

Oh, and it also sucks that Microsoft Word doesn't accept :wq as a valid method of saving a document and exiting the editor. Sharp ones may point out that MS Word is not an editor, but a word processor. To these I say - go jump in a well.

Oh dear God

I always figured I was a little strange.

Just how strange, I came to know earlier today, when I took the Nerd Quiz. Frankly, the results are rather depressing - I thought I'd be somewhere in the 70s range :-(((



This basically says that I am nerdier than 99% of all people. Which is just NOT true. People who know me, shaddup :p

You scam me, I damn you

By some freakish coincidence, I stumble onto 3 (THREE!) very, very similar stories yesternight. All involving some generally idiotic behaviour by a 'seller' over some relatively trivial thing, which results in not-so-pretty things happening to them.

In short, selling party tries to pull one over buying party, and realizes - the hard way - that they've screwed with the wrong people. Not quite "Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less", but actually much worse. In that amazing book (and not-so-amazing movie) the victims just scheme to get theyir money back. In these following cases, the scamsters lost a BLOODY GREAT DEAL more than they would have gained through their shady activities..

Precautionary note: When relating these stories to a colleague, he found them intensely boring. It's probably me. But they really do make for compelling reading. The scam itself is not too innovative, but the retaliation that follows is simply awesome.

• Wenzeled!

This one has the most violent response ever. It actually gets physical here. And interestingly, this case has a Wikipedia entry too. The 'scamster' does end up apologizing, but not out of any feeling of guilt, more out of fear for his life.

Lesson learnt: NEVER mess with road rashers. Even online. Especially if you're a snotty brat.

• The most expensive $94 Orbitz will ever make

Orbitz, an Internet travel company (damned if they're getting any PageRank through my blog!) based in Chicago, decided to sell Maddox an 'impossible itinerary', accepted their error, and refused to refund him. This guy's really popular, and puts up his experience on his site. Immediate result: MASSIVE losses to Orbitz. Then Orbitz actually tries to justify their stance by attempting to discredit Maddox's claims, only to end up going "Ow, ow, ow...ooohhh bullet in foot hurts ooohhh". And losing still more customers.

Lesson learnt: None. Orbitz still hasn't issued an apology. Unless you count some random fake email Maddox received. But on some level, they're now more wary of who they decide to screw over.

• Consumer strikes back at crooked retailer

(This, I found through Slashdot) This is very similar to the regular online shopping scam deals. Guy orders dirt cheap camera, only to be taken for a ride he's not likely to forget. PriceRitePhoto, the retailer in question (once again, no PageRank from here, dude) is gradually being de-listed from various shopping sites, and the icing on the cake would be that it's also been reported to the New York State Attorney-General's office. Read the comments on the Slashdot post for more horror stories.

Lesson learnt: Listen to good ol' Abe when he says, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

Fun with avatars

Yahoo! Avatars is definitely something to be checked out, if only for its initial "oooh-there's-an-interesting-widget" value.

I did notice one really, really interesting thing. I'm not sure if Y! did this intentionally or not. When customizing your avatar, you get to pick a hairstyle. Y! Avatars offers you FOUR pages of hairstyles alone, so I decided to go through them all. And what do I see? The fourth (and last) page has only one hairstyle.

Yup, you guessed it - 'No hair'. Egghead!

Scratch the surface

I just discovered George Ouzounian/Maddox's page today (Hat tip: Jayakanthan) Figured if anybody got moms against him, he must be a pretty decent chap. Of course, the fact that he hates Websense endears him to me :-D

Excellent thoughts on racism, and its true definition.

Why whine about 'losing out on jobs', Yankee doodles? Your country is the pioneer of capitalism, and free market economy, and all that. Suck it up.

Mmm...

You Are Chinese Food

Exotic yet ordinary. People think they've had enough of you, but they're back for more in an hour.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Oh goodie

Slashdot finally has a news item posted that, for a change, does NOT bash India/Indians. This particular comment appeared to me to be quite uncalled for, though.

Is there some value that I'm missing in this? Why does any care that some rich guy made a balloon to take him up 60K ft? Is there some practical application that he is trying to improve this technology for? Or, is he just trying to pump his own ego?

Why does this get reported everywhere / anywhere?

Of controversies and verbal diarrhoea

Just got back in touch with the civilized news-channel watching world tonight. I managed to catch NDTV Turning Point, where I find out India's lost by ten wickets. I've never seen Navjot Singh Sidhu spew so much vitriol before. Blustery yes, but never ever have I seen him so angry.

I really wish I'd seen the match. I want to know if Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappell were indeed booed off the field. If they were, then I suppose one might be forgiven for concluding that the Eden Gardens curator was "out to get them".

The Eden Gardens crowd hasn't shown itself in the best light over the last ten years :/

As an aside: I'd have like to seen Greg Chappell giving the finger to the crowd.

As another aside: I feel sorry for the anchor chap on Turning Point who has to put up with Sherry's bluster. Wouldn't want to be him...

Hurray!

Amit points out a blog post, written by a female, no less, that gives hope to all us non-slim people of the world! *bows to Amit in eternal gratitude*

I would've commented on that post itself, but can't email from office :-/

Once again, hurray!

This is a test post

to see if anally-retentive policies against blogs just depend upon the name of the site, or the service itself.

Oh, and it feels like AMI all over again, what with higher-ups fearing your deserting the company..