“RVP switched the fan on. And here, ladies and gentlemen, comes the shit.”

So Robin van Persie said what he did. For people who know how corporate communication teams work, it will be hard to believe that Alisher Usmanov's Red and White Securities Limited took so little time to draft their letter. The letter is elaborate, lengthy and articulate. It was written within 24 hours of RvP releasing his statement. I personally find it hard to believe that this was drafted today. I sincerely believe that the timing of RvP's statement and the reaction from Usmanov was all well planned to cause deliberate pandemonium. It is a well known fact that David Dein is 'close associates' with Usmanov and RvP. While it is clear that one of the intentions of the letter is to secure a seat for Usmanov on the board, is this also a move to bring back Mr.Dein back into Arsenal in some way?

The letter seems like a tool to whitewash R&W's past and bring about a fresh and clean image. You have to hand it to them, a statement like "We will proudly retain our holding in the club as long-term investment for ourselves and our family members to benefit for generations to come." is sure to melt hearts of us fans, easier for us to relate to. To be fair to the letter it rightfully questions certain issues that we've all been clueless about, like the financial model of the club. Although I do not understand why it questions the club's level of professionalism in an open letter while stating that Gazidis had made a call to Megafon (another one of Usmanov's investments) about a possible international shirt sponsorship deal. Am I the only one seeing the irony in this? Does this not put negotiations with the existing sponsor (Emirates) in jeopardy?

I am not sure where we go from here but I do know that we will bounce back. Setbacks are now a part of our history.

 PS: Gunnerblog summed it up really well in his tweet and that ended up titling this post.

Tech droppings

"My experience as a SysAdmin has significantly enhanced my technical knowledge."

The line above has been copy-pasted from my resume. I thought I should share a few 'technical knowledge' tips I have on day to day CR(Computer Relations) with those who think its never going to concern them because they belong to a different industry(heh.. good luck to you!).

This is it.. we are living right in the middle, in the age of the machines its like Die Hard 4.0, if you haven't watched the movie watch it, your life is about to depend on it. If you don't know it already, the world now is sneakily pushing below it a machine layer, a computer layer which is now almost complete, the foundation is almost complete and it always will seem almost complete. This is more important to you than you think it is.

To be more precise with sub-genres this is the age of the web. A computer without internet is as good as people without clothes, we were happy being naked for a while but soon we started wearing clothes, right? look what happened to those who chose not to wear clothes. Clothes have gained so much importance that to some people, it defines them. Internet doesn't define a computer, but how you use it defines you. In the sense that if you know how to exploit the internet, it will give you an edge over those who don't.

You can find just about anything on the internet with search engines, with Google, moving steadily to replace the term search.If you're somebody who needs to be heard, your audience is vast and steadily growing. I could start listing out the endless advantages of the internet but that would lead to people calling me Mr.Tanenbaum. My point being, this is the biggest revolution media has seen since the words media and revolution were coined.

Tip1: Do you think you're 'up-to-date' because you're using Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows Vista? Not only is Office 2007 unpopular, there are now online tools to create presentations, documents, spreadsheets and such, have you heard of docs.google? Here's an uber cool demo



Tip2: It is time to get rid of MS' softwares one by one. If you use Internet Explorer and Outlook Express to browse and check emails, you should stop doing so! Let me explain, these softwares are Microsoft's creations and are therefore directly connected to MS' kernel. Any major virus attack will easily bypass these softwares and bring your OS down. I'd recommend Mozilla's Firefox and Thunderbird since they're 3rd party, free and open source. Here's the equation Free+Open Source = great support for an average user. Open source software is good for you in more ways than you can think of, personally I think FOSS is the future. You can read more about that in my article for The Hindu.

I shall post more such random tech tips and I might also rant off about how the society needs to be altered for the greater good, watch this space! I now need to take a piss, so later.

Religion is like your sex life

I firmly believe that one's religion is a very private and sensitive aspect of one's life, much like the sex life he/she leads. When I sit down to pray before an exam or an interview or any major event in my life, I don't invite people home to pray with me, its just me and my god, me and my beliefs. I feel content when I pray alone rather than sitting amongst a group of people who chant and dance around me, I find that very distracting and disturbing. Have you ever come across a person who organises rallies to show that he has had a dry spell for a 6 months? I haven't, but I am sure there are a bunch of Americans, if not already, who are exercising their freedom of expression! there are always exceptions.. Point is, its stupid to force your belief. If you are content with it, good for you! but to shove it down another's throat is just lame.

If you look through the pages of history, you'd find that religion came into existence out of the need for unity among the newly evolved, uncouth, animal like species - the human beings. A few wise, old men probably sat around and thought about how to bring about peace and order in this pack of hooligans and religion was their solution. Coming to think of it, it was a well thought out solution for that era, to capitalize on faith and beliefs to bring about unity.

Little did they know, that religion would one day used by a human being to pull out a foetus from a pregnant woman and boast about it. Little did they know that religion would be an excuse to rape and burn people alive in batches, to hack and mutilate the limbs of a certain somebody because he belonged to a different religion/political party. Haven't we learnt enough from wars of the past? What good did the concentration camps in Germany do to mankind? How did humanity grow from the precious lives that were lost in religious battles during the partition of India? Why doesn't one realise that these are steps taken backward in evolution? Imagine all the thinking, effort, money and time was utilised for something scientific? something that actually contributed to mankind's growth? If we keep killing and raping, would all of us have the kind of comforts that we have today? Would you be reading this blog? Would I have had this machine to write this blog post if my forefathers and ancestors indulged in animal like carnage? What did violence ever achieve other than temporary pseudo satisfaction? There are alternate peaceful ways to achieve such satisfaction!

The Gujarat riots for me, is the biggest step taken backwards in the development of India, as a developing nation. But, have we learnt from all this? I don't think so! Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, has now been elected for the 3rd time in a row despite solid proof that he had mentored these riots. How are people encouraging this shit? Have we become a bunch of couch potatoes who sit and enjoy this real life blood bath? I admit some blood and gore is entertaining to watch, I love them Tarantino movies, but real life? I remember how I almost puked at the sight and smell of a fresh corpse that was in two parts from a gruesome bike accident, my hands were shivering at the sight of blood oozing out from what was left of the torso and the smell was morbidly sickening! I wonder how these 'activists' gain strength from Hinduism, the religion definitely does not advocate this kind of violence. Not only has Hinduism lost its character but this a matter of shame for the entire country. India's secular ideals that separated it from our radical, religion driven neighbouring countries are slowly fading away.