TrafficView®: Awesomely solving India’s traffic problem.

Or

Where I ramble on before getting to the point, and then get really tired so I cut it short. And also use excessive commas.

Google Maps have really upped their game in India. They've added traffic information in the Metros, and are planning to bring in street view soon too. With your Android phone, you can tell where your friends (victims) are, and what their ETA of arrival to a location is. Google Navigation has come to India on Android. Maps now have a textured background to indicate topography. You can geotag your photos and people can view them on a map. And most interestingly, Google maps now even has an overlay to show the location of Wikipedia entries on your map, allowing you to see the places of interest close to you.  Both the Traffic as the Wikipedia view can be turned on from the overlay panel on the top right.

Traffic and Wikipedia overlay on Google Maps

All in all Google Maps really shows the power that technology wields in this information generation.  And also, it’s not Apple Maps. Zing.

Hold on. Let’s not be lulled into a false sense of security. Trusting GMaps has led to some awesome fiascos, like turning off a well lit and broad highway into a narrow pitch black road surrounded by fields, which goes by an innocuous name like St Andrews Path of Redemption on Google Maps, but is probably better known to the locals as Rape Lane. After turning onto such a road on the way back to Norwich from the Peak District thanks to Google, it took about five minutes for our fear to overcome our faith in technology, and we performed a hasty u-turn, leaving the axe murderers frothing in frustration down the road.

On the positive side, Google Maps have allowed us to experience wonders previously unknown to civilized man.  Driving in Wales, we decided to toss our paper map and caution to the winds, after which Google decided to show us the meaning of fear by balancing us on the edge of a cliff somewhere in Snowdonia. The view was very nice, though.  Or that time we turned off into a dirt track and had to drive for five miles followed by an angry farmer in a tractor before we found a field to turn in. On reflection, I can’t really blame Google for that; it may have been a product of a driver/navigator conflict (to clarify, I was neither).

But as bountiful as the bloopers were while driving around the UK, they cannot really compare to the magnificence of the mistakes we made blindly following our phones, while driving around the Indian subcontinent. On our way to Choki Dhani at Jaipur (more about that later) from Bharatpur recently, we put our trust in dear faithful Google. Highway, highway, highway… oh hold on; that turn looks super awesome and will get us to our destination faster than a unicorn can shit out a rainbow. ‘Dear Google’, says I, ‘you wouldn’t ever steer me wrong; let us take this turn and embark on this magical journey hand in hand.’

This was the last time I smiled for a month.

The road tapered off till we found our self in the center of a village market in a dust patch which followed the outline of my car exactly.  Google Maps had by now decided that we were in the centre of a lake, and indicated we swim in a north by north west direction. Times like these bring out the iron in a man’s soul, and I bravely struck out in the aproximate direction Gmaps indicated, followed by feral dogs nipping at my tires and cow’s scratching their arseholes on my side view mirrors.

The aforesaid iron turned out to be not in my soul but in my head, as the road took us deep into one of those Rajasthani villages where automobiles are probably outlawed by the Khap Panchayats, and old men with bright red turbans and skin the colour and consistency of tanned nutsack stared silently at us with eyes which screamed, ’We will burn you and use the ashes to fertilize our corn’.  The road grew narrower too, obviously just meant for bicycles and lynch mobs, and sparks flew off the side of my tortured vehicle as I accelerated through the enclosing walls, knowing that to stop would be to seal our death warrant.

At one point I think I drove through someone’s courtyard.

We emerged from the village like Meatloaf’s bat out of hell, leaving a few puffs of feathers to mark where the chickens had exploded as I hit them, and were soon driving through fields of sugarcane: the kind where the axe murderer hides the bodies in all those movies. 

Scenic Detours!

The road, which had long since abandoned any pretense of actually leading somewhere, was now just a mud track, and we soon skidded to a halt in front of a pit half full of glutinous clay. ‘WE CAN MAKE IT!’, screamed my intrepid navigator. ‘KEEP ON GOING!’, screamed Google.  ‘WE’RE GOING TO DIE HERE’, screamed my bladder!  And so, I reversed for ‘bout half a kilometer , past a gawping goatherd, and drove back to the highway, rejoining it a few kilometers after where I had originally turned off, thus ending both my adventure, and the excessive use of commas in this sentence.

I once used quintuple negation separated by commas in an English essay, causing my teacher to go into retirement.

So, besides these very minor inconveniences, Google Maps is great! It’s the wave of the future, and this brings me to the meat of this post, which hyperbole and punctuation have prevented me from reaching till now.

The problem: My daily commute to office involves driving from one city into another (Indirapuram to Sector 62 in Noida) across a national highway. It’s a 3 kilometer drive. It takes me an hour. Why? Because the average office going Delhi person is a crazed rabid wanker with shit for brains and the traffic sense of an autistic orangutan. The daily dose of traffic rage that Delhi brings will take me to an early grave. Though there are 4 routes to cross the highway, one never knows which route will be FUBAR by some asshole trying to go horizontally through a tunnel, or a pack of insane auto rickshaws driving in the wrong direction. The time and location of these traffic snarls cannot be predicted in advance and change hourly.

Route options for my commute

The solution: TrafficView ® - A web camera at each of the 4 route options steaming live video onto a site. Before I set out, I’ll just fire up the feed on my laptop or phone, and make an informed decision on which route will be less likely to make me kill myself.  The interface and pricing will be simple… an overlay on Google maps will show you which locations cameras are available at, and you can subscribe to a feed for a fee per camera per month.

TrafficView!

TrafficView® could also be clubbed with the route options of Google and their live traffic information, recommending cameras to subscribe to based on the destination you want. As more and more people subscribe to a particular camera, its icon grows larger on the Map overlay, indicating its heightened usefulness.

I’ve just blown your mind, haven’t I? Google, are you listening?

Where I cater to the common denominator... meaning YOU.

Hurricane Sandy has taken Gizmodo and most of the Gawker network down. Bereft of my daily post lunch ritual of scrolling through Lifehacker (if ever there was a life that needed hacking it is mine) and Giz, I decided to pay a little attention to my own small neglected corner of the web.

I often imagine what would happen if prospective employers read my blog before the interview. Would it garner a favorable response (you’re on your way to the top of this insane asylum, my son), or would my racism and perversion turn them off? ‘Let’s just try it once and see how you like it’, I’ll plead. 'I’ve got a lot of love to give this organization; I've done it before and people have enjoyed it. let me just squeeze the tip in…'

What were we talking about?

Well, it’s not really a problem, as no one reads my blog anyway. I've therefore decided to make this blog a lot more adult oriented, and eliminate that veneer of social acceptability that I've hitherto tried to incorporate in my posts to cater to a discerning audience. The lack of an audience, discerning or otherwise has made this now redundant. Family, friends and other prudes, please avert your eyes; I shall now sell my soul for the seamy popularity that sex brings to any publication and cater to the prurient interests of the base masses.

…lonely crickets chirp…

Hm, the problem with above bravado is that the intent is clear, but the method is lacking. How DOES one emulate the sexy formula that sells copies of Playboy, X Men comics or every single popular British daily newspaper?  ‘It’s Obvious’, you might yell, dear reader. ‘Just increase the boobage ratio of your blog and people will come flocking, just like they do to that guy who built a better mouse trap. Pocket mice or real mice, the principle is the same; the cheese is the boob.’

Well, dear reader, we all know about cheeseboob, but how do I smear it on my blog? I keep trying to cull pictures from the interwebs, but get… distracted… every time.  I was then inspired by the Kate Middleton photographs, and slotted in my telephoto lens, attached my tripod, and started peering into the neighbouring apartments from behind my curtains. The problem is, the quality of the average Ghaziabad high rise dwelling lady falls more into the ‘BURN IT WITH FIRE’ rather than the ‘So hot I assploded all over my tripod’ category.

Assploding is going to be a regular theme in this blog now.

So you see, it’s not that easy catering to the common denominator. Just like in real life, where rather than causing girls to fall over in a frenzy and start spontaneously humping the sidewalk, wearing skinny jeans just forces me to walk with my leas at 60 degree angles to each other and end the day in hospital, trying to get sexy up in this blog may just have a counter-intuitive effect.

And also forces me to write long convoluted sentences.

So, I’m just gonna throw my door open to suggestions and volunteers. Especially volunteers. If you’re a girl and want to support this blog, just email me those tittay pics. Or ass. Armpit? Chin? Whatever; just send them to mdtl@outlook.com. Once I’m done with them (and it may take a while so be patient), you’ll get prime position on my sidebar. And the satisfaction of having done a good deed. And the knowledge that I’m gonna have to drink a LOT of Gatorade to replenish my fluids. 

Remember, the more pictures you send, the more likely I’ll perish of dehydration. It’ll be a win-win, for at least I’ll die happy.

My Life is a Comic- Part Deux

Well, you probably haven’t read my earlier post - My life is a Comic - pt 1. Go check it out, as this is the long delayed continuation.

 

Having seen The Dark Knight (twice!) in the theatres, I have to say, the movie is great and all, but how will people who don't know about Batman; who don't appreciate the subtle play between the Batman and Joker and Gordon and Dent really *get* it? To be quite honest, a lot of the people around me wouldn't know their Poison Ivy from Harley Quinn. In fact, I've oft heard the opinion, from some of my sadder friends, that reading comics is for kids. The people are invariable those who only read books like 'Who Moved My Cheese', and get to hear of stuff like Sin City or Hellboy when a movie is made of it. Quick Tip- If you’re reading self help books, you’re doing it wrong.

When I was in the sixth grade I moved to a new school, St Pauls in Kota, Rajasthan. I stayed there till seventh, before moving to a new school. St Pauls was, in many ways, one of my worst schools. I never performed really badly, but I was a lackadaisical student; daydreaming in a class which seemed, to me at least, to be full of the most detestable collection of little sneaks that I'd ever seen. I can still remember those little rotters - 'Sir! Viren's sleeping in class!' or "Ma'am, Viren's trying to look down your blouse again!". I hope they burn in hell! The teacher's too were quite god-awful, except for our maths teacher who taught us geometry by taking us out to the school field and making us measure and calculate the volume, diameter and radii of various objects like tree trunks, car tyres and so on. And of course, Miss Sehgal, who taught us physics, and on whom I had an aching crush. Of course, by the time I started paying attention in class, answering questions, and finally catching her attention, it was time to move on to a new place and a new school.

So, not surprisingly, surrounded by people whom I would rather not associate with, I became a bit of a loner. Instead of spending my lunch breaks scuffling in the dirt with the rest of the plebes, I used to retire with my tiffin to the library. And what a library it was. To me it was a regular treasure trove of books and comics which I used to devour with lunch. It was here I encountered many a hitherto unknown comic, such as Strawberry Shortcake(okay, okay! I enjoyed it at the time). Try as I might, I cannot remember the names of the other comics I read, but I do recall some were mighty weird. And cool! Okay, having typed that I decided to google around, and found two more comics I loved at the time. The first was Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham. Heh, No it’s totally not a joke.

 

 

 

And then there was Planet Terry, this supercool scifi comic. I totally need to search these out!

 

This library was where I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs, and spent many a lunch deep in the jungles of Africa. The librarian was a nice man, and quite handy with arts and crafts. I was especially inspired by his money plant holder made out of a bulb, and resolved to make one for my mum on her birthday. I was quite pleased with the result, but my mother not so much when she discovered I had broken about thirty-six working bulbs before I found one that was suitable.

Moving on, Nainital was when I grew interested in comic strips. I collected the daily Garfield and Hagar from the paper. I continued with my Archies, and the occasional superhero comics. Batman was always my favourite, but Superman and the JLA would do in a pinch.

Coimbatore was where I found a reasonably steady source of comics in the form of a modestly small but well stocked (and probably illegal) lending library called Choose and Read. I managed to get hold of the Batman Knightfall and Knightquest series; however the issues I got were later on in the series after Bane had broken Batman's back. I was quite shocked by all the changes; Batman retired.. Robin murdered.. Batgirl shot and paralysed! And the redesign of the Bat’s costume (see left)! In fact all the DC comics I picked up we strangely confused. Superman was killed, Lex Luthor was batting for the good side now and Batman had a son with Talia Al Ghul? A lot (but not all) of this confusion was due to stories set in alternate earths. and then DC had this major reboot with a series called Crisis on Multiple Earths, which I have not understood till now.

Marvel was a bit better with Spiderman as entertaining as ever, but more and more I began eschewing the fantastic four and Captain America for new comics abut these gang of mutants known as the Xmen. The XMen were a great hit and thousands of mutants (or metahumans as DC called them) started popping up all over comics. They’ve become a bit overused now, and it seems that Marvel’s writer just invent characters on whim. How about Maggot, Jazz or Zeitgeist? And often, I feel Marvel introduced female characters just coz they wanted to see how skimpy a outfit they could fit their heroines into before their comics started getting shrink wrapped and placed in the ‘adult’ shelves. Take a look at this, if you don’t believe me.

Like a review by R. Fiore goes -

Being physically invulnerable and endowed with gnarly powers, their clothing need have no practical value aside from the practice of exhibitionism.  They are attired in one of three ways:  Scantily clad, partially nude, and almost completely nude.  If they were going to church, they would wear tight trousers and leather jackets.  The simpleminded viewer might conclude they are dressing simply to please men.  This would be wrong-headed.  Their dedication to self-exposure is as pure, selfless and inner-directed as the vocation of the most devout monk.

Okay, so I totally get where they are coming from. That’s why I put all those pics above. Hey, I DO want more people in here!

 

Anyways, next time anyone asks you Marvel or DC, you know the right answer. It’s DC all the way baby.

Okay, so this post has stretched a bit longer than expected. I will be back with more…

A Wedding Card from the heart.

And she thought her in-laws didn't love her.

Car Pool

Oh, I just crack myself up.

 

Baby got Back

I know, right? WTH was he doing for a year? Sleeping? A coma? Perhaps he decided to unplug himself from the interwebs.

Well, conjecture no more. It's time to share a deep darke secret about myself; a secret which will explaim the tragic story of my year long hiatus; a sordid secret which will shake the foundations of your reality. No, it's not that I dress as a obsessive compulsive superhero every full moon and solve crimes involving geriatric penguins. It's just this - I'm Lazy. Note the capital L.

This is not simple lethargy folks. I have elevated ennui to an art form. Much like the Mona Lisa, my lazyness looks out at the world with an enigmatic smile.

And now that's cleard up, lets move on. I have resolved to start posting again, though, of course, my words are not worth the the htm that renders them. I got a few queries about when I'm going to start posting again. . . got a few ideas percolating. Lets see how long I can keep it up.

I've been getting quite a few views on some posts; unfortunately these are on those post which are most derivative (containing plaigarised content, in other words). Depression Dog's V day and Baww seem to be up there. Also, MDTL seems to have been discovered by spammers. If I were to take them up on their offers, I'd be sitting in a casino, wearing jewellery, sporting a massive errection with my herpes all cleared up.

By far the most hilarious of these are, and I quote,

HELP! I’m currently being held prisoner by the Russian mafia xyzrxyz [url=http://www.buypenisenlargement.com]penis enlargement[/url] xyzrxyz and being forced to post spam comments on blogs and forum! If you don’t approve this they will kill me. xyzrxyz [url=http://www.male-sexual-styles.com]penis enlargement[/url] xyzrxyz They’re coming back now. xyzrxyz [url=http://pills.buypenisenlargement.com]vimax[/url] xyzrxyz Please send help! nitip [url=http://www.male-sexual.com/vimax-pills.html]vimax[/url]

I can just imagine the poor bloke, battered, bruised and chained to the table, forced to spam a neverending procession of no-account blogs. That just moves me to tears that does.

I've also been making a few tweaks to the layout and colours of the page; hope you like them. Colours tend to look much more vivid on my glossy RGBLED than others, so I apologise in advance if everything looks washed out on your screens.

Wow! So that's like two posts in as many days. Maybe I AM turning over a new leaf. Eh. . . or maybe not. See you in a year folks!

Rage against the Page

So, they've finally decided facebook users are narcissistic and attention hos (link). Big surprise. Lately facebook seems like it's like one of those reality shows that is so horrid and rage inducing that it's actually addictive. So nowadays I scroll through my feed cringing a bit waiting for the next rage inducing post.

I now know how I'm gonna go - face down in front of the laptop with a massive brain haemorrhage; a facebook feed exploring the hitherto unplumbed depths of human idiocy opened up.

Let us explore this theme. One genius says "lts g n c hw muc ppl luaaaaaaaved her.... ws at th 2320 sho..... she s sooooo fukkhhin ht...she lft t the car l8er". It's as though, via some weird alchemy, vowels have been transplanted by a Dr. Frankenstein with some sort of motor neuron disease. How busy can you be to type ’t’ instead of 'to', dude?

And then of course we have the mandatory farmville updates - Thorne has planted a ear of corn; Karthik has lent a ladder out; Julia has screwed the neighbour's pig...

And lady, it's nice to see a few pictures of your kid, but I don't need to see every stage of their development. I don't care if they're cute, all babies look like Walter Matthau anyway. Besides, do you think you may be invading their privacy a little bit? The net, and especially Facebook ain't exactly safe, y'know. There ARE sites like flickr or picasa where you can direct those pictures to relevant people.

And then of course there are the lurkers. People who stalk their old friends to they can compare lives - 'Oh his job probably sucks', 'She’s looking good but she's probably just a slut. Look at how short that skirt is.'.  Do you have to judge the standards of your life in comparision with others?

And of course, there are the bitter old men who spew anger, about facebook, but still check it every day. What? No! I don't mean ME!

Of course, these are just the bumblers and Clouseau's of the online world. There are more insidious fiends - the attention hos who update their status every few hours, copied from somewhere likely as not. They are usually followed by a gaggle of acolytes with such pithy and deep affirmations - OMG tht's sooo trueee. . . you rock babe. . . I agree with everything you write, on the off chance you'll let me in your pants. (Okay, so the last person does have a genuine reason. . . I mean getting into someone's pants is definitely worth acting the retard).

And you, my long lost classmate from school who's just gushing about how nice it is to catch up; Newsflash! You weren't my friend in school; you were a wanker then and, in all probablity, are a prime wanker now. Let’s just agree to not know each other... ever.

But this is just the beginning. The truly apocalyptic thing about Facebook is that it has provided a convenient place for all these retards to communicate. What will happen when they actually meet and, god forbid, mate? What then, Mr. Zuckerberg? Answer me that.

We'll have a generation of kids going 'Lol, jstin Beeberz is so freeking the coolrz. omg w b2hatt'. And that’s when a vengeful god will finally lose it and sweep us off the face of the planet.

But hey, at least I'll get to say I told you so.

So people, let take the time to fill in those vowels; no matter how much the temptation, let us resist the urge to type 'z' in place of 's'. No, it's not 'zexy'. And finally all you cotton-brained freaks out there, let’s not seek affirmation by your vacuous updates every few hours. No, you will NOT feel better even if a bunch of your bubble head friends think that your status is the height of wit. If you really want to feel good about yourself I'd strongly advise you to have a romp in the hay with some, or even all of them.

And now my vitriolic diatribe is done, if you'll excuse me I'll pop off and try to get into someone's pants - this should work ' OMG, your post is the funnest EVAR'.

 Disclaimer: Okay, the intent of this post is humor rather than vitriol. No one really conforms to these stereotypes (I hope).

Depression Dog’s V Day

Well, I was trolling 4chan and here are some depression dog jpegs just for you sad lonely people on V Day. Enjoy and relate.

 

   

            

Marriage ala TRex

Men are from Mars... Women are from Crazy.