Our words over time

Happen to read a tamil saying, "KAlam pOkum; vArththai nRkkum". (reference "iniya thamizhil ilakkaNap pizhaiyinRi eluthum muRaikal" page 171). Roughly this proverb conveys "Time flies off, words stick around". What a deep sounding wisdom. When we recollect our past and experience, how true is this wordings!

Thirukural 129 gives a similar view. "Fire burn cures quickly. Hurting words leaves a scar and never forgotten."

Why are we here?

A popular and interesting philosophical question is about our purpose in the world. Why did we take this life and what are we supposed to do? Considering any living being, after birth it need to look out for food, develop skills that are passed thru gene, and find a mate. Reproduce, raise children.

Human beings are slightly complex. We not only have to find food, but find food in a sophisticated manner. Learn different fields of studies, make yourself eligible for jobs, be street smart, land up in decent paying job. Looking carefully at the job ordeal, we see that such a complex process is not only for food, but also a yardstick to reach a better mate.

Considering all angle and aspects, life seems to focus on mating and leave a good signature through your children.

Hint for sudoku

I keep playing sudoku at http://www.websudoku.com Most of the time I solve the puzzle easily. There are situation where it is difficult to make any logical move. We get stuck without able to post numbers in any of the cells.

In such cases, I usually fill all the empty cells with the probable numbers that can fit in that cell. For eg, I place the numbers 278 if these three numbers have a chance of being placed in a cell. With all empty cells having such probable numbers, it is easy to apply some deduction logic to narrow down the correct numbers.

Filling in the probable numbers is a tedious task. I came up with a simple java code that would help in filling the numbers (just the hint, not the actual answers).

Instruction to use the code:

• Install watij as mentioned at http://watij.com/webspec-api/
• Copy the java code I had placed in the comment section (placed in 3 comments due to comment size restriction)
  
• run the java code along with the classpath pointing to watij class and jars
• This will open a window and websudoku site is opened
• Settings page is accessed automatically and few settings are tweaked
• once you get the puzzle page, play it as you would do in normal manner
• When you get stuck, click on the 'Done' button in the top panel. The button name is marked as 'pauseUntil'
• we should have numbers filled now. Once that happens, continue with the game

Happy sudoku.

software for spammers

we all know about the princess with enormous wealth waiting for your help. Also the oil company needing your bank account to transfer billions of $. Wondering what kind of software tools and support these spammers use. Sure enough they have a powerful source of email ids. What is beyond them? Do they shoot out the mails and just wait for victims? How do they keep track of day to day activity with each victims?

I would suggest to go for a data managed system. Each victim is tracked stage by stage. The spammer could pull out particular record, quickly glance through the past conversation and development. Based on that, the current mediation could be exchanged. Template builders and generators could be another big plus for the spammer. Need a company establishment proof? The template engine would put appropriate date, time, place etc and churn out the required records. A visa with victim's detail is also a easy go.

Financial income from the victim could be tracked as well. This again helps in judging how much more to extract.

Data could be analyzed across the system, that is with all the victims' data. This data crunching will give interesting answers to questions like: how effective is spamming? which stage is tough to convince the victims? what strategy is working well and which is not? what is the average time to see the money? how to improve the income and increase the victims?

Wish some spammer sees this blog and contact me, not for spamming but for designing this system :-)