S Anand

Several ways of receiving mail on a mobile phone.

A study on the meows of cats.

Textarc – a visual way of representing text.

The art of pen-spinning. A site dedicated to teaching you about twirling pens on your fingers.

I didn’t realise I could send/receive mails on my mobile (BPL mobile). So I have yet another e-mail ID now @bplmobile.com – and I can send e-mails too! I’ve integrated that with MSN messenger, so I can chat via SMS. (OK, not really. Lead time is in the order of several seconds.)

Inventing the future by Tim O’Reilly is an article I have read and reread many times. If you want a quick idea of what the Internet will look like in a year, read it.

The Enemies of the Internet. A report on the censorship of the Internet, by country. (Another report)

No, I haven’t stopped updating because I wanted my Google entry to be on top for a long time. It’s just that the web is boring, and my life has become interesting otherwise. Read more in Mumbai. I’m in Delhi these days, so I hope to add a Delhi chapter as well.

Crustless bread. The greatest thing since sliced bread.

Never thought the day would come when the Google query S Anand would throw up my name first. Probably won’t last…

Realistic lateral thinking puzzles.

I was waiting for Vandana and Prashasti at ticket counter of the Andheri (E) station. Mumbai is extremely warm these days, so I went in search of a fan to stand under. I found one, but the place under it was occupied. By a dog. Now, I have to describe this dog. It looked like on of the normal mongrels. Not too discoloured or anything. Looked pretty young. And it was lying on its back. Yeah, sure, dogs aren’t supposed to do that, but this one did it pretty well. In the middle of its sleep, it woke up, and tried scratching itself. Poor thing must’ve felt itchy all over, so it ended up trying to bite its paw several times over, and not always succeeding. ...

Now we can control rat brains. Dr. Talwar’s comment is apt. “Nonetheless, the idea is sort of creepy.”

Babu is looking to IT-enabled movie distribution too. Long live Babu.

Things Mil and his girlfriend have argued about. I dread to think of my future.

Some people petitioned that “The Two Towers” (sequel to “Fellowship of the Ring”) was named after the World Trade Centre. Curiously, this petition has a far larger number of votes compared to its counter-petition.

I can send SMS via the Web through NetXCell. Neat.

12:05 Churchgate Hmm, maybe it’s not just the London and Tokyo trains you can set your watch by. On the way back from my trip to Ullas Nagar, I was sitting at the Bandra station waiting for the 12:05 to Churchgate. (That’s 12:05AM – as in the middle of the night.) The train was late, and I was enjoying the last of my plum cakes on the platform. Two old people clad in khadi strutted in, and looked at the display. It said “12:05 C”. The older one said, “Heck, we’ve missed the train. Let’s go to the next platform.” ...

I was traveling from VT to Ullas Nagar to buy furniture. Since it’s an hour-and-half, I had taken a printout of an article on Scenario Planning to read. Being the gripping reading that it was, I’d fallen asleep on page 4, when I feel a gentle tap on my shoulder. “Excuse me, are you reading this?” Since I was asleep, I clearly wasn’t. But I looked at him, just to make sure he hadn’t mistaken it for a newspaper or something. He had a moustache, was wearing a blue shirt, and didn’t looked like the type who could mistake Scenario Planning with the latest political gossip. ...

Resources for scenario planning.