Pause..

Sitting here on my desk, I suddenly have this sinking feeling - Lost in a herd of people, whom you don't know, whom you don't even wish to know, just there because you're afraid to be anywhere else.

Time flies by, and you are just left thinking about all the good things that you think will happen. People, places, and things you really cared about just go on with their lives. You expect everyone, everything to wait for you, and miss you. But they don't. Everyone has to go on, the world never stops. You are always under the impression that you still care about everyone, everything that you always cared about. But you get so lost in things, which you don't even know for sure are what you wish for, that you never have the time to think about the very same people, the very same things. And you don't even know if you can say that you care. Then slowly you realize that there's a strange gap, with even the people and things closest to you, and it just keeps widening. You are afraid of trivial things like what will you say and what will you type, that you never even make a call, never drop a mail, and never make a visit. You wish to congratulate everyone on what they have achieved, you wish to share with them the sadness that they've gathered, but you just can't. You think that everyone has moved on, leaving you behind. And you never know if they feel the same.

Life just moves on. And sometimes it goes quite a distance before you realize.

And even then, nothing changes.

~ Ankur.

I Love Bloglines..?!

Now, it seems that Bloglines and Ask Jeeves guys came to know that I curse them every now and then. It also seems that they've decided to make me happy in some way or the other, if unable to do that through their service. I received this mail today from a certain Mr. Paul Loeffler -

Dear Ankur,

Congratulations on being one of the first 200 people to email Ask Jeeves about receiving a free "I love Bloglines" t-shirt. We will send your t-shirt to the address that you have provided on March 14, so you should be receiving it in the near future.

If you have any questions/comments, feel free to let us know.

Kind regards,

Paul Loeffler (Fellow Bloglines Enthusiast)
Ask Jeeves, Inc.

Man, they're calling me a Fellow Bloglines Enthusiast :| There's actually nothing like a free lunch. And ya - I did send the mail for the free t-shirt. Whatever.

[Learning for the day: Semantics]

~ Ankur.

Creative Commons..

If you have an eye for detail, you might have observed a new button that has appeared at the bottom of the sidebar of this blog. It says 'Some Rights Reserved' and has been lying there at the bottom for a few days now. This button links to a partial copyright license that I've got from Creative Commons.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit, offering a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors and artists, to build a layer of reasonable copyright. They have built upon the "all rights reserved" of traditional copyright to create a voluntary "some rights reserved" copyright.

Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which "all rights reserved" (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare "some rights reserved."

Thus, a single goal unites Creative Commons' current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules.

[from Creative Commons]

Till about a week or two back they had indexed all the webpages that have linked to a license from them, and believed it to be around 5 million. But after it's birthday party, Yahoo did the same and found to everyone's amusement that the number is nearly 10 million! I think everyone should get a license from them. It makes absolute sense. Perfectly absolute sense.

~ Ankur.

Firefox, who?

So I realized that my blog appears all haywire in Internet Explorer, while it's perfect to look at through Firefox. IE cannot even interpret all the colours I use for my blog template - which is very awful in my opinion. And it brings me to my request - please use Firefox. I even thought of a subtitle for my blog: "The Life and Times of Mine - best viewed in Firefox!" Unfortunately, this template doesn't have a subtitle thing, so I couldn't have all that fun.

Anyhow, so I went to one of the IT guys here at workplace, and asked - "Hi. Why don't we have Firefox?". And imagine what he replied - "Firefox? What's that?" Whoa! That's IT for you! Anyway, I said - "It's a browser. It has tabs." Bam this came - "Tabs?". Then I just blurted - "It's free." and started back, but I think I heard him saying - "It won't support our applications." I was like - "We are a business research firm - what applications?!"

No wonder Internet Explorer still has nearly 90 percent market share! But it's falling, and Firefox is increasing fast. Wonder what's up with Opera people - someone said they were ahead of their time! And opera was cool, back in CC :)

By the way, the IT guys here are real nice people, and if I just push a little, we might even have Firefox (at least for me). Should I, then?

*Lights fade off and the spot is on the protagonist, who contemplates life and its meaning*

~ Ankur.

Long time..

It's been a while since I last blogged, as lots of stuff kept me busy. Mostly work - have had an insane last week, and now plan to bring some sanity back to life again. And while I was away, the following happened:

1. I bumped into Hello and Picasa. Both these utilities absolutely rock! Fully recommended to all the people clicking their way to glory with their digicams, and also to those who wish to post images to their blogs.

2. Yahoo turned 10. And idiots, they gave out free icecream to everyone except this big user list in India. Even to Alaska! Now those are the people who can open their mouths and dive towards the ground anytime for free icecream. What a waste!

3. I came across this guy with this blog. An amusing read - his blog, if you go bottom up.

4. I found out that a starter drum kit is for about 8 to 10 grands, but presently that's out of the question for me. Also I think I'm trying to take up too many things together, and that I will have to be selective now in my aspirations. So I think till the time I am done with the digicam, the drums will wait. But I might still do something about starting the learning curve.

I think that's about it for now.

~ Ankur.