August 1, 2009

I talked about few dates here (6th June, 9th June and 4th July). As luck would have it, they have moved. I dont know for good or for bad. But they have moved.

The new date is August 1, 2009. Fingers crossed.

is hungry ...

for more.

@Saurabh is back

@Saurabh is back.

For the uninitiated, twitter suspended my account last week. I am now told that it was because the link on my account was compromised. I did everything to get it back. Wrote to them, made blogposts, spoke to experts, updated FB, asked for help.

And few people heard. They came forward and helped.

Starting with Zishaan, Rajesh and Rina who helped me understand the problem to all the people who tweeted and re-tweeted. This is going to be a long list. I did not know I had so many friends. AaruC, dhempe, FagunB, umeshg, sharadaprasad, GauravSaha, krist0ph3r, SLotH13, Raj_S, fossiloflife, danishctc, aritra_m, Gagan, prolificd, anaggh, sahnigagan, sakthidharan, saaket, Netra, iMBA, KapilJoshi, nakulshenoy, Sampad, mtaram, deepakravindran, punkpolkadots, b50, thinkerwrites. I hope I did not miss a name.

Thank you guys. You rock. And this is my followfriday list come friday :)

P.S.: I missed twitter while my account was gone. :|

@Saurabh finds friends on Twitter

After my Twitter account was suspended due to "strange activity" (which Zishaan, Rajesh and Rina helped me track to a malicious attack on my website), I have been trying to get the twitter account back. I wrote to twitter help, made this blogpost, posted messages on Facebook and asked for help from my online friends.

And it came.

Thanks to AaruC, dhempe, FagunB, umeshg, sharadaprasad, GauravSaha, krist0ph3r, SLotH13, Raj_S, fossiloflife, danishctc, aritra_m for their tweets and retweets. You guys rock.

This is what they did. Only thing that remains to be seen is if I get my account back. Anyone else wants to tweet? re-tweet?

@Saurabh is suspended

Twitter. How can I live without it for a single day. Action, inaction, attention, ignorance, work, play, meetups, tweetups, its everywhere.


I went to Delhi and when I came back after about 4 days, I discovered that my twitter account @Saurabh has been suspended. Their support page says that they suspend an account if

• Impersonation: You may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others
• Privacy: You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.
• Violence and Threats: You may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.
• Copyright: We will respond to clear and complete notices of alleged copyright infringement. Our copyright procedures are set forth in the Terms of Service.
• Unlawful Use: You may not use our service for any unlawful purposes or for promotion of illegal activities.

I have been using twitter since 2007 and have about 1400+ followers and 8730 updates. As far as I can remember I have NOT impersonated anyone, breached privacy, threatened anyone, violated copyright or used it for unlawful purposes. Wonder why is twitter showering me with all the attention after two years of use?

Mails to twitter support remain unanswered as I write this blog post (I did get an automated response telling me things that I already know). My previous experience with twitter support has been really great (when I changed my handle from @s4ur4bh to @Saurabh). Wondering what is taking so long this time.

I really want my account back. And I dont know how to do it. May be a tweet to @biz, @ev and @twitter asking them to reconsider? Any volunteers for the same? Or any other tips maybe?

UPDATE (2009Jun 30)
Zishaan pointed that my website SaurabhGarg.com is reported as unsafe by Google. And may be that is what is causing Twitter to block my website. I logged into my twitter account and it DID point my website as "[ unsafe link ]".


For the moment I have changed the url to point to this blog. Hope this would help expedite the process of removing suspension.

And this brings me to another problem. How do I fix my website? Twitter is important but SaurabhGarg.com is more important!! It cant be marked as a site "that may harm your computer". More help?

The New Black ...

... is Yellow.

Delhi Trip - June 2009

Came back from Delhi last night, took a Go Air flight. Thank fully they have changed their dress code. They no longer wear those black denims and black tees. The ride was bumpy. For some time I thought I was in a train. But anyways, any trip to Delhi is fun and hectic. I stay in one of the remote corners of the city and it takes me forever to reach any other place. Would have easily spent 6 hours everyday on commuting. Not that roads are choked and all, just that distances are bit too much. No wonder I want to stay in a smallish city/town.

Today is PD's birthday (similarity with her blog URLs is purely coincidental). Happy Birthday PD. You have been an awesome friend. Wish I could spend more time with you.

So many things happened over the past week. Michael Jackson passed away. Nandan Nilekani left Infosys to take care of the ambitious NID project. And there are some not-so-consequential things that I would want to keep a note of.

• Attended Sandy's wedding. Took elaborate notes. Might upload them on the blog sometime.
  
• My twitter account (@Saurabh) and sgElectra's twitter account (@sgElectra) got suspended. I have no clue why would they do it.
• Met Kunal. Scrapped some ideas for Cyntax. Thought of few new ones. We are back to square one now.
  
• Met Vanita and Girish. I know them from MDI JFK. Had interesting discussions. More than discussions, I was confessing and they were being guiding light. Both had differenet opinions to the same problem and both of them merit a thought.
  
• Sonali sent this couplet "Anjam-e gulistan kya hoga ... Har shaakh pey ullu baithe hain". I think its very pertinent and apt. Especially in the times we live in. Ayone knows the origin?
  
• Neo thinks that hes now a vegetable.
• I missed the Mensa AGM and an oppurtunity to meet up with other members. I am being lazy in sending my documents and all.

What else?

I am Mohan Bhargava

Every little kid is often asked - who is your hero. Answer vary from their dads to Supermans to Shaktimaans to Sachin Tendulkars to Mahatama Gandhis to Bhagat Singhs and what nots. If someone asked me when I was a kid, I wouldnt have known the right answer. I dont know what a hero is. And definately not what "my hero" is.

Ask me now. I know who my hero is. I know what "my hero" means. My hero is Mohan Bhargava. And yet not many would have heard about him. He is the protagonist in the movie Swades (website, wiki, imdb, movie on youtube).


Right now I am sad. For more than one reasons. One of them being my inability to do anything for my country. One might argue why such and alieginece to the land where I was born. And why just a country? Not a continent? Or not a state. I wish I had answers. All I have right now are pangs. Guilty pangs.

I want to be "foolishly romantic".

Mood: Depresed.
Listening to: A R Rahman's Vande Mataram and Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera (youtube)

Update: After I posted this, I have had three people telling me that they want to do the same and they have no clue how to go about it. Now the question is, what can we do about this.

I'm a Mensan!

About a month ago I took an administered Mensa test. It took 20 mins of test and a month's wait to get the results. And I am through. I am now a Mensan. I still have to complete the formalities of joining it and paying for the membership.

Most people I told this, dint even know what Mensa is. And then the few who know about it, asked, what I am going to do with it.

To be honest, I dont know what lies ahead. I asked the only other Mensan I know - Raunak (23, blog, Mensa member since 1999, part of Mumbai Value Investors club). He tells me that Mensa is a very close knit community of gifted people. They meet very often (almost once a month) and most meetings are lot of fun. Lot of mental masterbation happens. Lot of gyaan is exchanged. Lot of new things get uncovered, invented and discovered.

Of all things mentioned, I am most excited about meeting these gifted people. And discover amazing talents they bring to the table. Lets see how it goes. As they say, its just the beginning.

Unrelated Rant
Everytime I am listening to music and oblivious to sound around me, I enter a different world. I zoom out (zoom out as in zoom in and zoom out and look at a situation). I see people around me engaged in things that are important to them. Things I can never relate to.

And come to think of it I needed affirmation from a test to make me happy and feel good about myself. Now this has to change. And soon.

Update - 6th June, Goa, Futility

Been some time since I uploaded this blog. Few things worth mentioning have happened.

6th June happened to me. Do did 9th. And now waiting for the 4th. Its happening too fast and too slow. Its a blur and a dream. Its all there and it isnt.

Then I missed the deadline for TED India Fellows application. No it was not too complex. I was too lazy and I dint have a lot of substance to talk about.

Visited Goa. Went to a casino. Played Mini Flush for four hours. Won few rupees. Beginners luck probably. Saw mental models in action. Going to read more about Casinos, gambling etc. They says its one of those seven deadly vices. What are other six (hint hint)?

Spoke to Neo and Gandhi about life and all. Gandhi as always had no opinions. Neo had some. I could not comprehend most of them.

Thought about Cyntax. Wrote about it. Planning to get a designer to help me with it. Any volunteers?

Felt sorry for being rude and demanding. Said sorry. She was surprised. She said she was used to my tantrums and randomness. I had never said sorry since I have known her (since 2004). Five years is a lot of time.

Sandy getting married. And the future of PseudoSocial is now in a quandary. As if it wasn't in a jeopardy already. We have run it as an adopted child at best. And then the ever shrinking bachelor club, shrinks even further. More exclusions from the club are being planned as I write this (or you read this). I hope is not Neo or Gandhi.

Miss MDI more than ever. Reminds me of Rabbi Shergill's Gill Te Guitar.

Want to debate with someone on futility of our actions. And our thoughts. And our emotions. Dont have anyone to debate with. I even have doubts on the futility of these debates.

FB came up with vanity URLs. And the website is that important that I actually planned to check it when they were released. And I was disappointed that I could not get Saurabh. And now am blogging about it. Wonder how these "tools" take so much importance in our lives.

Then half wrote this rant. Even though India is a huge country, there are some things that are so Indian that you will find them in every nook and corner of the country. Buffalos for example. Stray dogs. Then electric wires hanging loosely on the poles. Chai shop. Cigarette shop. Then there are home grown brands like Agarwal Sweets, CCD etc in almost every locality worth living., Amongst them is this Maruti Suzuki service centre called Sai Service. Yes, that place with a blue and red flower logo. Every state that I have traveled to India has a Sai Service. And I am told one Mr. Suresh Kalmadi owns the chain. Now I need to know if he is the same Mr. Kalmadi who is more famous (actually rather infamous) for his role in the Indian Olympic Association. Any answers?

And then there is some more. I cant think of it now. May be later? Another uninteresting, boring, mundane week comes to an end. How many more?