The Meeting must go on

Maybe Yes Maybe No 

We Dont know, Dont We Know ?

Smoke and Mirrors Brightly Glow

All wise men in the know

Can't discern but a slide show ?

Thine divine insights we seek

O Lord let us hear thee speak

Skips hear me silent yell

On my lips but not to tell

Take off tinted glasses gold

Take a peek at masses cold

The clock chimes six  to signal light

and then fix some more in the night

Under the radiant moonlight so bright 

Thunder or rain we must go fight

'Toingg' a notification appears

Boinks to action my peers

This review, this demo, this update

Tomorrow will be yet another's fate

Meet Bray Serve till I'm gone

Yes; this meeting must go on

Fun to see the kids sometime

reminds me of a simpler time

It never ends; this pantomine

Just portends long lost sunshine

Yes; as the truth must slowly dawn

This meeting must go on

A Pure snowflake

How is this a girl so pure ?

Dainty smile and ethereal allure

A candle shining in the world so boor

A ray of hope in a haze obscure

No waking up to see her dumbo face

No looking in her eyes in locked embrace

No eating cheetos off her mane

No getting drenched in the rain

No eating her cake and having it too

No seeing her paint as i softly coo

No celebrating her career advance

As we sing caress and dance

No long walks in the park

Oblivious to the dogs that bark

No holding her while she cries

Something inside me slowly dies

NO no no no Donut for me 

For i am the evil he

I will leave mid way she fears

A thought that drives me to tears

Such misery she feels

at the thought of us off our keels

Such emotions i knew not i could cause

Oh how can i get her to unpause 

How can i leave someone who

Always gets me out of my Blue

She Makes me a better me

To my happiness she is the key

She is my own shot of espresso 

Yes, Im addicted to my beau

She met all the skeletons in my closet

From her eyes i saw my own audit

Oh what i would not do for her, 

but alas a time machine is a distant blur

In the end there was one sin too many

Who could love such a fanny

Everything's so messed up with me

Pretty sure she don't want to be my baby

When i see the moon i think of you

like a pure snowflake only to see but not to hold

"Intuit" Did someone say ?

Let loose this shower they may

As i feel more and more blue

Yes boys can cry too

Goodbye my sweet rose, 

May you always bloom

how i wish to be worthy of your thorns

You deserve nothing but the best

I may in another life be blessed

A pure snowflake in this corrupt air

An answer you were to my prayer

poem on war

This Poem is a follow up to this post about the game of diploacy

https://yumndrum.blogspot.com/2008/02/communicationsnegotiations-game.html

Yes you have my support and like But only till the conditions be right In Anonymity friendships are forged That in reality could only be forged Behold, Germany and Poland act as one When all the Pole ever got was the gun Support my Hold cried the dane Her armies lost in plight so vain The British convoy swam so grand Could not keep her own mainland Zion that lone star in the East Lioned by the Pharaoh beast Her Centres of supply so gallant Now birth Egyptian Army Gallant Yet for a minute did anyone care 'bout the peasant or her mare Be it the Czar, the Sultan or the Knight Its the poor who must pay for the fight And Pay they do with their life Ahh Treachery that unfair Knife East, West, North or South Two Ears, a nose and a Mouth Brothers in this World so Queer Wish you all the Love and Cheer

Security Vulnerability in Google Accounts

  

There is a bunch of security vulnerabilities on the google account which i have raised via issue :- https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/80305862. This issue exists not due to a technical failure but a weak user experience which makes it easy for a hacker to trick a victim into ceding access to their google accounts. Note this issue only affects people who have chosen to use their android devices as a authentication mechanism for their google accounts.

These popups (Above) appear at least 20 times on my Android phone. They shows up  without warning right in the middle of whatever it is that i may be doing.

Normally, i would have ignored this but the other day i was playing a game and was pressing ok and yes without much attention when this showed up and set my alarm bells ringing. So i decided to investigate this further.

Upon further scrutiny i found out that a hacker can write a small script to submit my user name to a google login form and generate this prompt.

Whats more the first 20 attempts per day to do this do not even have a captcha protection. 

If a hacker were to run this script against a 1000s of such accounts it is possible that at least 1-2% people would inadvertently press yes and cede access to their google accounts.

The second popup is worded even more confusingly . What does "Confirm Security lock" mean, if i click that and enter my screen lock to unlock my device to figure out whats going on I have already been hacked.

In view of all this i decided to change my password. And now i cant even do that since the link to change password is broken and is leading to a 404 not found with spammy content right on the *.google.com domain. (See video below)

That Sinking Feeling

I can't taste the Pizza or the wine
Coz i Know you'll never be mine
Everyday, I sleep in shirt and jeans
Tossing and turning in fit full dreams

Only to wake up in a pool of sweat
If only I could think of something else
A mobile notification comes up
Aching heart jus won't give up
Did I think that being ignored was bad
Boy, the knockout punch wasn't so rad

The passion of a thousand stars in vain
Without a whisper to express my pain
Just cant imagine being Happy again

A breaking heart creates no sound
Barely Visible the world around
Numb, the mind plunges down
Suffocating emptiness envelopes around
No Melody can my ears hear
As my limbs refuse to bear

Questions reverberating in my head
All the stuff i shouldn't have said
I never told you what you meant
Wasted all the time that we spent

I can't imagine a life without
Love is all that life is all about
This feeling i will always cherish
Till struggle ceases and my bones perish

Love, Hardships, Mistrust and Heartbreak

In this decade twas year the fourth
The Ice broke that shook the North
By by by sweet lil nothings flew
And so it was that nothings grew

The perils of the mountains asunder
Spud that grew in the Rain and Thunder
It took the courage of the Fifth
For eyes to meet and the hearts be with

The year that was bliss
oblivious to the homes amiss
Not of the world is He
Who is with the souls that be

Oh how they dueled the nation
As one they had but one disaffection
The siblings were the first to give
As the folks learned to let live

While the date was in the Sixth
A chink in trust was born in the mirth
An intractable horse, it took a life of its own
For a stranger she lost what was once her own
He apprehended a love so one sided
The Quake which shook his mind

Forgotten lie the dreams of desires
A Plague which destroys empires
A house which was a home in the sixth
Now an empty tomb in the Seventh

Weak Channel Affect

First the Terminology

1) A Task: A task is a particular objective which needs to be completed by performing a predetermined set of milestones. E.g. To get a job is a task, to get married is a task, to buy an object is a task.

2) A Milestone: A Milestone is a smaller unit within a bigger task. E.g. to get a Job you can a) Make your resume, b) Search for openings, c) Apply to openings. d) Prepare for Interview e) Ace the interview. And So on...

3) Channel:- A Channel is a medium used to complete a task. E.g to get a Job monster.com could be a medium, to get married friends/family could be a medium.

I state the Weak Channel Affect as follows.

Among Multiple channels if a particular channel is weak for a particular Milestone within a task than it becomes even weaker for all subsequent dependent milestones within the same task.

E.g. If getting a job is a task, and the channel naukri.com is the weakest in terms of getting shortlists.

Than this same channel will also be weakest in terms of getting an interview call as a ratio to number of shortlists.

E.g. 2) If Marriage is a task and shaadi.com as a channel is the worst performing in terms of searching for a suitable match, than for every 100 searches through this channel fewer will reach the next milestone than any other channel.

The crux is that the channel becomes even weaker even of the denominator is maintained the same as for other channels. 

Mathematically i = 1..n are a set of milestones.

and C is the initial population through a channel

Ei(C) is the number of samples crossing Milestone i, then by definition the weakest channel is one for which 

E1(Weak Channel) is the least of E1(All possible C's)

Now the Weak Channel Affect states that even if we take the same number of people who have crossed the first milestone from C and any other channel. a fewer number of people will cross the next milestone from the weakest channel as compared to other channels.

Examples in Real Life.

1) For a weak set of students, if you somehow get them to pass Grade 1, more will fail Grade 2 compared to a set of strong students, even as a ratio of total students passing grade 1.

2) For a set of poor employees, if you somehow hire them, fewer people will get promoted as opposed to a stronger set of employees.

3) For a poor set of customers, If you somehow pull them to the store. Fewer people will make a purchase as compared to a stronger set even a proportion to number of people entering the store.

....

Conclusions

A poor channel will always remain poor and can not be compensated for by increasing the throughput and hence it always makes sense to focus upon stronger channels even is this means a smaller overall throughput.

My 2cents on Social Networks

Social Networks need to add a dimension of subject area to the Social Graph. What i mean is that just because I am friends with my accountant i should not be forced to see all his pictures and commentary on religious sentiments right on top of my news feed. However i would love to check out all his posts related to personal finance and investments. Quora addresses this very issue with the Subject Bio tag and following a topic or question in addition to following people.
Quora will carve out a special Niche for itself in knowledge management, would love to see features like question search based on tags and relevance to friends in a certain area.
There is so much noise on twitter that unless a mechanism to sort tweets based on subject area is soon developed i don't see how it would remain useful

Ironically, the increasing number of hours spent on ‘social’ networking sites is making a student more ‘unsocial'

Social Interactions can be viewed as being:-
a) Casual or
b) Personal and intimate.
The Online channel works very well for the former, whereas face to face or telephonic channels work best for the latter.
Facebook offers a convenient medium to interact with tons of like minded casual friends. This makes it an easy information gathering and convenient socializing channel. Similarly LinkedIn, twitter and Blogs and communities can be used to expand ones social circle.
However, not so for the chosen few cherished friends and family. Face to face interactions are necessary to sustain the bond and identify emotionally with our closest links.
In Summary use Social networks for quantity, other channels for quality.
It is often the student reversing this combination who ends up being ‘Unsocial’. E.g. Relying solely on the online channel erodes personal bonds. These ties are necessary to sustain social behavior. Vice versa by ignoring the online channel students can lose out on a wealth of information and quantity of friends.
I read this article recently. Social networking causing depression? (http://educationtimes.com/educationTimes/CMSD/Your-Health/34/2010061120100610172118308670e216f/Socialnetworkingcausingdepression.html)
DEPRESSION: This article talks about ‘depression owing to irresponsible and rude comments made by friends.’ WOULD a similar offline act would not cause much worse despair. If YES, why blame the online channel. In fact tracking the trail of evidence is much easier online than offline. Hence, if anything Online media provides for an easier redress mechanism.
PRIVACY: The article also claims that students are unaware of the public nature of this media. This is definitely a problem, and needs to be fixed. When existing media channels were born it took time to fully understand the privacy implications. The social network greatly enhanced the power to express. However, today we yield this power like a kid plays with a toy. We do not fully recognize the advertising implications of doing so in public. E.g. girls posting sexually suggestive pictures and titillating details to establish their status as “hot”.
This power needs to be fully understood and used with great responsibility.
With great power comes great responsibility.
If you look at broad Internet usage trends, porn represents a substantial online interest. But, this does not mean that the online medium itself has failed. Powerful Search Engines, free expert guidance, health and educational websites, online e-commerce etc... are available for those who care to use them.
Similarly, Social media can be the most powerful learning tool after search engines. E.g. by subscribing to expert feeds and tweets can be a powerful educational platform. On the other hand using tweets, Facebook updates and blogs to stalk someone is also possible. It is the latter behavioral pattern which is a waste of the power of this media! Hence, used properly Social media represents a disruptive change in our educational and social lives.
Another misguided study is published here, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/social-media/Facebook-affects-students-grades/articleshow/6512366.cms
The primary conclusion of this Article is that Facebook impacts Grades. However, grades are not everything. Social media enhances street smartness and communication skills. Students are increasingly cooped up indoors by overzealous parents during exam times. Such students find Facebook a pleasant release of creativity and peer interaction. By keeping tabs on Facebook students can improve their general knowledge and unite for social causes. The recent use of twitter in Iran demonstrates the ability of the medium in fighting social injustice.
In conclusion like other media’s Social comes with a bag of pros and cons. Education students on the privacy and educational potential of Social media is essential. Similarly mixing online social networks with offline events and networks makes for Social Success.

References

Google








Synopsys

Power and Forgiveness

http://www.geeta-kavita.com/hindi_sahitya.asp?id=154

Here is a great lesson in diplomacy and human relations from Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. Forgiveness of a weakling does not count. First have the power and capability to defeat the enemy, then only your offer of peace would carry weight. Virtues of forgiveness, kindness and tolerance are appreciated in society only if you first have the capacity to crush. Illustration by Garima Saxena – Rajiv Krishna Saxena
Keywords: strength and forgiveness, strong, power, mahabharat, ram, sea, varun, Duryodhan, poison, snake, docile