Wednesday, December 3, 2008

If you watch the below images from your seat in front of the computer, Mr.Angry is on the left, and Mrs.Calm is on the right. Get up from your seat, and move back 12 feet, and PRESTO!! They switch places!!


George Bush was sitting in his office wondering whom to invade next when his telephone rang.
'Hello, Mr. Bush!' a heavily accented voice said, 'This is Gurmukh from Phagwara, District Kapurthala, Punjab .. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring the war on you!'
'Well, Gurmukh,' Bush replied, 'This is indeed important news! How big is your army'
'Right now,' said Gurmukh, after a moment's calculation, 'there is myself, my cousin Sukhdev, my next door neighbor, and the entire kabaddi team from the gurudwara. That makes eight'
Bush paused. 'I must tell you, Gurmukh that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command.'
'Arrey O! Main kya..' said Gurmukh. 'I'll have to ring you back!'
Sure enough, the next day, Gurmukh called again.
'Mr. Bush, it is Gurmukh, I'm calling from Phagwara STD, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!'
'And what equipment would that be, Gurmukh' Bush asked.
'Well, we have two combines, a donkey and Amrik's tractor.'
Bush sighed. 'I must tell you, Gurmukh, that I have 16,000 tanks and 14,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I've increased my army to 1-1/2 million since we last spoke.'
'Oh teri....' said Gurmukh. 'I'll have to get back to you.'
Sure enough, Gurmukh rang again the next day.
'Mr. Bush, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne...... We've modified Amrik's tractor by adding a couple of shotguns, sticking on some wings and the pind's generator. Four school pass boys from Malpur have joined us as well!'
Bush was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. 'I must tell you, Gurmukh, that I have 10,000 bombers and 20,000 fighter planes. My military complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last spoke, I've increased my army to TWO MILLION!'
'Tera pala hove....' said Gurmuk, 'I'll have to ring you back.'
Sure enough, Gurmukh called again the next day.
'Kiddan, Mr.Bush! I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war.'
'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Bush. 'Why the sudden change of heart'
'Well,' said Gurmukh, 'we've all had a long chat over a couple of lassi's, and decided there's no way we can feed two million prisoners of wars!'

NOW THAT'S CALLED PUNJABI CONFIDENCE

Friday, November 28, 2008

I have finished Mystic murder at last! I had chased my dream and quite lived it. But the response of mystic murder has been mixed from my friends circle. And so, I had planned to rewrite the entire story. Change the style too! It might take another five to six months to finish the story. And meanwhile I have started working on my next story too. It has been tentatively titled as "Final Fiasco"

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Color illusion

If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot,
the dots will remain only one color, pink.



However if you stare at the black " +" in the center, the moving dots turns to green.

The saying in a surgery book of my mom says,"Eyes do not see, what the brain does not know!" How true?

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Klueless

I started solving klueless 4 on November 11 2008 by 10 AM (it was suggested to me by my former blog mate and friend Surya) and finished it today morning by 6 AM. Cracked it in under 48 hours. I would have worked around 10 hours on it totally. I would like to share my experience on each level here.

Level 1,2,3: If one couldn't solve them in under a minute. Then there is no point in the player continuing with Klueless.

Level 4: The real challenge started from here. Relatively simple for Indians because of the title of the level.

Level 5: This involved nothing more than googling. The url of that page was to be observed.

Level 6: This was quite simple for me. 'nAMe' here was the clue. Google about the cartoon character in the page.

Level 7: Very simple level. Observing the name of the image and url held the key.

Level 8: This one was the first puzzle that really tested me. It was a poem. It made me to read about Santa and his reindeer.

Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!

The above lines I got from Wiki helped me solve this round.
Dasher,Prancer,Vixen,Comet,Cupid,Donder,Blitzen
All these are reindeer of Santa.

I should have concentrated on Lucas number, which I didn't do.

Level 9: I googled the title of that level and immediately got the solution in wikipedia.

Level 10: This was very simple to me because I already knew Tom Cruise's birthday. It coincides with my uncle's birthday July 3. And I knew a little about Penelope Kruz too. That helped too. Then I also know the birthday of Angelina Jolie. That really helped me to solve that level!

Level 11: It was the first question related to cricket. And the clues in the page especially four and God, I couldn't have asked more in that level!

Level 12: This one i was really lucky to remember the geometric figure in the picture. Though it has connection with the prominent personality and dish present. For a stranger to that figure, it's quite tough I think!

Level 13: This was very simple. Being a big time LOTR fan. This level was very simple.

Level 14: I was lucky to get this one because, I was naming each stone in the ring and was typing it down in notepad. There were seven stones and I identified
1.Diamond
2.Emerald
3.Amber(This one was with help from wiki)
4.Ruby
5.Emerald

And couple of other stones. oh! oh! I am spilling the beans out. I will stop with this.

Level 15 a: This was very simple. Socrates' assistant helped me. The way level 15 a ended with the road not taken poem edited was amazing!

Level 15 b: Déjà vu of playing Level 1 took me to a semi completion of this level. Which had the prerequisite of completing level 15 a and c.

Level 15 c: This is the first one where my friends Arun and Karthi joined me in yahoo messenger. With search for some time. We found that it was a movie name so close to a man eating another man. Arun's role played important.

Level 16: In this level I found what was required really fast. But unnecessarily delayed due to some wrong misinterpretation. My friend Karthi had some power disruptions too. But he called me up to tell the exact answer, Bletchley Park would not have known this!.

Level 17: This level was nothing more than google search. Saving the image and observing it helped us. This was solved by my friend Arun.

Level 18: This is the level which I love. This was once again solved by my friend Arun. Who told the method and I found the solution. The name of the level has a very important role.

Level 19: Arun had the chance to watch a series which I hadn't watched at all. This helped him solve it really fast.

Level 20: When we entered this level, it was late in the evening around 9. So I left to have dinner and my friend Karthi solved this level before I could get what it was. But it was relatively simple.

Level 21: AT SiX PoinT. This was the text in that round. Arun gave the idea of what it could be. And we were working on the intermediate part of this level. Suddenly I got the solution, which was so close to what all three were thinking. I was back on track.

Level 22: We worked on this for a long time and it was 10:30. My friends bid adieu and left. And I was working on that level, thinking of finishing 25 on day one. And finally patient reading in wikipedia helped me solve that level.

Level 23: I have read some forums where people say that they have solved it but without understanding the crypt. All I can say is prime numbers have never let me down.

Level 24: I liked the concept of this round. Of the rounds that I solved within a minute, this was one too. But this was the one I loved the most of them. After solving it, I tried to match the other clues too.

Level 25: When I reached this level it was 11:30. I was feeling very sleepy. But I couldn't, because my target was finishing 25. But after finishing around 80% of the level I accidentally read the rules of Klueless 4. And the 13th one, Take breaks between levels. It invariably helps :) . Caught my attention. So I decided to sleep by 1.

As I slept, I had dreams about level 25 ;-)

Then when I woke up, I solved it. I never imagined it was such an easy level.

This was my longest level in klueless 4. First time I posted in the forum of Klueless was for this level. And I solved it before I got a reply :-)

Level 26: Hmmm, optical illusions are always available in the net. And this one was a huge let down sort of level after an amazing level 25. Maybe a refresher.

Level 27: The next level didn't test one's mathematical skills or physics skills. It's an altogether different area. Relatively simple.

Level 28: After level twenty five. This one was the best! There's one phrase batman comes to the rescue. I never knew the answer was hiding in this phrase. But solving in the normal route by identifying the picture ignoring the batman sentence proved to be correct.

Level 29: Though this level didn't take much time. It was a master piece from the klueless 4 team. I got the direction to proceed from the picture name. But thought I could solve it faster if I had one of my friends to discuss this with. And Karthi came online. He helped me to unearth the image which was not just the image as I already knew little about the content of the picture. But the way the title of this level was linked to the picture was amazing. The best one of klueless in my view is this level. I was needlessly wasting time on this after finding the correct solution!

Level 30: I had not visited the original iris site. So I didn't understand this and posted in the forum for which I received a reply that I should check out the iris site. After checking the iris site. Solving this level took more time because. There were some differences to be discovered. And this level was aptly named alternate. I had my semester exam today. So I had to stop at that point and study. Today morning, when I woke up, I woke up the solution to the alternate. And reading Dan Brown helped me to solve this level.

Level 31: After solving thirty levels this titled XXX+1 took less than half a minute to solve. This level was more a tribute to Klueless team.

I enjoyed playing klueless. But it is addictive. So try it only when you are free. Definitely not when you have your semester exam happening.

I would now like to solve the previous versions of klueless(1-3)!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Fantastic Contraption is an addictive puzzle game. The laws of physics apply in the game. To win the game you must get a designated piece into the designated goal area. To accomplish this you have to build contraptions. Your building blocks for your contraptions are, three distinct balls with five potential connecting points (top, right, bottom, left, middle)and two types of connectors. One ball rolls right, another rolls left, and the last does not move under its own power. The difference between the connectors is one is solid and the other allows some things to pass through it. If you get stuck or just want to see how other people beat the level, you can see what other people made available and even modify them.

The game is free, but if you want to design your own levels or play other people's levels you have to pay $10. Even without paying, you can share your designs with other people easily through a designated URL. You do need to register for a free account to save or get a URL so you can send the link to your friends.

I have embedded the game here for you.



Below is my design for each level:

I won't claim them to be simple. But they aren't bad either!

Share links to your contraptions as a comment.

Sunday, October 19, 2008



This is indeed a very happy moment. It's been one year since I started this blog (I started it on October 19 2007) I had been receiving stupendous response for my blog from all my readers with the alexa ranking of my blog reaching 7 lakh and odd at one stage. Thank you readers. You gave me all the inspiration to work with my blog. The success of my blog doesn't lie with me alone. It lies with all my readers. Once again thanks for supporting me. I hope that your support continues forever and we celebrate many more anniversaries like today.

An interesting anagram to mark this occasion.
Try to identify this person: He admires talk,pen,UK!
Clue: Those who know me can solve this easily.

Are you still trying???
That's my name Deepak Senthilkumar!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Anagram Poems

I found interesting anagram poems when I searched the term ''Anagrammatic poetry" in google.

The poem below, in yellow, was written by Shel Silverstein. Below it, in rose, is an anagram of the poem created by Meyran Kraus. It scans and rhymes well, paraphrasing the original remarkably closely. Such anagrams take a lot of time and patience to produce.

The Little Boy and the Old Man
Shel Silverstein

Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the old man, "I do that too."
The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
"I do that too," laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, "I often cry."
The old man nodded, "So do I."
"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
"I know what you mean," said the little old man.


And here is the anagram poem:

The Tot and the Elder
Olin Foblioso & Billy Foblioso

The tiny tot went: "When I eat I mess up."
The elder replied: "O, that makes two of us."
"I soil myself," went the tot with shame
And the elder added: "O, I do the same."
On the tot told him: "I sob a lot."
"O, not only you," answered gramps to the tot.
"And what's totally bad," the tiny tot told,
"I think mom and dad don't love me at all."
While grandpa simply, pitiably smiled,
then said: "O, I understand, my child."


Article idea: http://www.fun-with-words.com/anag_short_long.html

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Few shortcuts used frequently in Windows word...

1. Ctrl + Shift + A All Caps
Makes the selection all capitals (toggle)
2. Alt + Ctrl + 1 ApplyHeading1
Applies Heading 1 style to the selected text
3. Alt + Ctrl + 2 ApplyHeading2
Applies Heading 2 style to the selected text
4. Alt + Ctrl + 3 ApplyHeading3
Applies Heading 3 style to the selected text
5. Ctrl + Shift + L Apply List Bullet
Applies List Bullet style to the selected text
6. Alt + F10 App Maximize
Enlarges the application window to full size
7. Alt + F5 App Restore
Restores the application window to normal size
8. Ctrl+B Bold
Makes the selection bold (toggle)
9. Ctrl + PgDn Browse Next
Jump to the next browse object
10. Ctrl + PgUp Browse Previous
Jump to the previous browse object
11. Alt + Ctrl + Home Browse Select
Select the next/prev browse object
12. Esc Cancel
Terminates an action
13. Ctrl+E Center Paragraph
Centers the paragraph between the indents
14. Shift+F3 Change Case
Changes the case of the letters in the selection
15. Left arrow Character Left
Moves the insertion point to the left one character
16. Shift + Left arrow Character Left Extend
Extends the selection to the left one character
17. Right arrow Character Right
Moves the insertion point to the right one character
18. Shift + Right arrow Character Right Extend
Extends the selection to the right one character
19. Alt + Shift + C Close Pane
Closes the active window pane (if you are in Normal View and have, for example, the Footnote pane open)
20. Alt+Drag (or press Ctrl + Shift + F8 and drag) Column Select
Selects a columnar block of text
21. Ctrl +Shift+C Copy Format
Copies the formatting of the selection
22. Shift + F2 Copy Text
Makes a copy of the selection without using the clipboard (press Return to paste)
23. Alt + F3 Create AutoText
Adds an AutoText entry to the active template
24. Ctrl+ Backspace Delete Back Word
Deletes the previous word without putting it on the Clipboard
25. Ctrl + Del Delete Word
Deletes the next word without putting it on the Clipboard
26. Ctrl+W, Ctrl+F4 Document Close
Prompts to save the document and then closes the active window. (But doesn't intercept the menu command)
27. Ctrl + F10 Document Maximize
Enlarges the active window to full size
28. Ctrl + F7 Document Move
Changes the position of the active window
29. Ctrl + F5 Document Restore
Restores the window to normal size
30. Ctrl + F8 Document Size
Changes the size of the active window
31. Alt + Ctrl + S Document Split
Splits the active window horizontally and then adjusts the split
32. Alt + Shift + F9 Do Field Click
Executes the action associated with macro button fields
33. Ctrl + Shift + D Double Underline
Double underlines the selection (toggle)
34. Alt R, G Draw Group
Groups the selected drawing objects
35. Alt R, I Draw Snap To Grid
Sets up a grid for aligning drawing objects
36. Alt R, U Draw Ungroup
Ungroups the selected group of drawing objects
37. Ctrl+Shift+F5 (Or: Alt I, K) Edit Bookmark
Brings up the bookmark dialog
38. Del Edit Clear
Performs a forward delete or removes the selection without putting it on the Clipboard
39. Ctrl+C Edit Copy
Copies the selection and puts it on the Clipboard
40. Ctrl+X Edit Cut
Cuts the selection and puts it on the Clipboard
41. Ctrl+F Edit Find
Finds the specified text or the specified formatting
42. F5, Ctrl+G Edit Go To
Jumps to a specified place in the active document
43. Alt E, K Edit Links
Allows links to be viewed, updated, opened, or removed
44. Ctrl+V Edit Paste
Inserts the Clipboard contents at the insertion point
45. Alt E, S Edit Paste Special Inserts the Clipboard contents as a linked object, embedded object, or other format
46. Alt + Shift + Backspce Edit Redo
Redoes the last action that was undone
47. F4 Edit Redo Or Repeat
Repeats the last command, or redoes the last action that was undone (unfortunately, doesn't work for as many commands in Word 2000 as in Word 97 and below, but this is still one of Word's most useful shortcuts, if not the most useful)
48. Ctrl+H Edit Replace
Finds the specified text or the specified formatting and replaces it
49. Ctrl+A Edit Select
All Selects the entire document
50. Ctrl+Z Edit Undo
Reverses the last action
51. Alt + PageDn (to select to end of column, use Alt + Shift + PgDn) End Of Column
Moves to the last cell in the current table column
52. Ctrl+Shift+End End Of Document Extend
Extends the selection to the end of the last line of the document
53. Ctrl+End End Of Document
Moves the insertion point to the end of the last line of the document
54. End End Of Line
Moves the insertion point to the end of the current line
55. Shift+End End Of Line
Extend Extends the selection to the end of the current line
56. Alt+End End Of Row
Moves to the last cell in the current row
57. Alt + Ctrl + PgDn End Of Window
Moves the insertion point to the end of the last visible line on the screen
58. Shift + Alt + Ctrl + PgDn End Of Window
Extend Extends the selection to the end of the last visible line on the screen
59. F8 (press Esc to turn off) Extend Selection
Turns on extend selection mode and then expands the selection with the direction keys
60. Alt + F4 File Close Or Exit
Closes the current document, or if no documents are open, quits Word. Horrible command, as it makes it a long winded business to quit Word. But there's a simple solution - assign Alt+F4 to FileExit instead.
61. Ctrl+N File New Default
Creates a new document based on the Normal template.
62. Ctrl+O File Open
Opens an existing document or template
63. Alt F, U File Page Setup
Changes the page setup of the selected sections
64. Ctrl + P File Print
Prints the active document (brings up the dialog)
65. Ctrl+F2 File Print
Preview Displays full pages as they will be printed
66. Alt F, I File Properties
Shows the properties of the active document
67. Ctrl+S File Save
File Save
68. Alt F, A (or F12) File SaveAs
Saves a copy of the document in a separate file (brings up the dialog)
69. Ctrl+Shift+F Font
Activates the Fonts listbox on the formatting toolbar
70. Alt I, L Insert File
Inserts the text of another file into the active document
71. Ctrl+Shift+P Font Size
Select Activates the Font Size drop-down on the formatting toolbar
72. Alt + Ctrl + K Format AutoFormat
Automatically formats a document (or sometimes, automatically screws it up)
73. Alt O, B Format Borders And Shading
Changes the borders and shading of the selected paragraphs, table cells, and pictures
74. Alt O, E Format Change Case
Changes the case of the letters in the selection
75. Alt O, C Format Columns
Changes the column format of the selected sections (brings up the dialog)
76. Alt O, D Format Drop Caps
Formats the first character of current paragraph as a dropped capital (must select it first)
77. Ctrl+D Format Font
Brings up the Format + Font dialog
78. Alt + Shift + R Format Header Footer
Link Links the current header/footer to the previous section (but does not intercept the button on the Header Footer toolbar)
79. Alt O, P Format Paragraph
Brings up the Format Paragraph dialog
80. Alt O, S Format Style
Applies, creates, or modifies styles
81. Alt O, T Format Tabs
Brings up the Format Tabs dialog
82. Shift + F5 Go Back
Returns to the previous insertion point (goes back to up to 3 points, then returns to where you started; this is one of the most useful shortcuts of them all. Also useful when opening a document, if you want to g straight to where you were last editing it)
83. Ctrl + > Grow Font
Increases the font size of the selection
84. Ctrl + ] Grow Font One Point
Increases the font size of the selection by one point
85. Ctrl + T (or drag the ruler) Hanging Indent
Increases the hanging indent
86. F1 Help
Microsoft Word Help
87. Shift + F1 Help Tool
Lets you get help on a command or screen region or examine text properties
88. Ctrl + Shift + H Hidden
Makes the selection hidden text (toggle)
89. Ctrl +Click on it Hyperlink Open
Connect to a hyperlink's address
90. Ctrl + M (or drag the ruler) Indent
Moves the left indent to the next tab stop
91. Alt + Ctrl + M (or Alt I, M) Insert Annotation
Inserts a comment
92. F3 Insert AutoText
Replaces the name of the AutoText entry with its contents
93. Alt I, B Insert Break
Ends a page, column, or section at the insertion point
94. Alt I, C Insert Caption
Inserts a caption above or below a selected object
95. Ctrl + Shift + Return Insert Column Break
Inserts a column break at the insertion point
96. Alt + Shift + D Insert Date Field
Inserts a date field
97. Alt + Ctrl + D Insert End
note Now Inserts an endnote reference at the insertion point without displaying the dialog
98. Alt I, F Insert Field
Inserts a field in the active document
99. Ctrl+F9 Insert Field Characters
Inserts an empty field with the enclosing field characters

Article idea: http://c-n-k.blogspot.com/2008/10/few-shortcuts-used-frequently-in.html