Mousetrap - 20

Pressing business
Extreme Ironing Bureau
“The thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt.” What that means is that a small subgroup of adventure lovers all over the world now carry around ironing boards and irons (battery-powered, usually) and attempt to set records. Here’s a sample: the first at the North Pole; underwater ironing; while paragliding; while doing gymnastics (pommel horse style, using two irons); and so on. There’s even a World Championship, and the Bureau is its ruling body. No, I didn’t find an Indian chapter. ExtremeIstri.com, anyone? We could do ironing in a suburban local train for a start.

(Not) by George
Bushku
They’re not very fond of the Leader of the Free World, the folk at Everypoet (which is worth a visit in its own right). Their Haiku Generator is a popular web destination which produces technically correct 5-7-5 syllable nonsense haiku. And the Bushku does the same in a unique 3-5-3 syllable form, “’Cause 5-7-5 is too darn complexicated, Laura.” Aside from the sillybub count, a Bushku must also contain a Bushism. You can try the generator or read what other contributors have put together. Or write one of your own.

Past Imperfect
National Mission for Manuscripts
Launched by the Ministry of Culture (no, that’s not an oxymoron), this Mission’s worthy, um, mission is to locate, catalogue and preserve India's manuscripts, and to enhance access, spread awareness and encourage their use for educational purposes. In typical sarkari style, sucky site design and navigation, with page after page devoted to restating its objectives. I’m told that in the real world, they have been very successful so far, though there’s much still undiscovered. Should be site worth bookmarking when they’re done (it’s a five-year project that was launched in 2003), but in the meanwhile, I recommend visiting their photo gallery, which has some lovely pictures of manuscripts on paper, cloth and palm and bamboo leaves.

Werds are all I have
Dicshunary
The net is full of wonderful reference sites. Dictionaries, thesauri, what have you, it’s all there. But this site is a home for all those words that will never make it into the more, ahem, respectable resources. The words - make that “werds” - that “might only exist in the language of one neighbourhood, one family or even one person.” You can contribute stuff from your own private lexicon, and even have a custom (you do the tweaking) version on your own site, so people know what the heck you’re waffling on about. [Statutory warning: not for children.]

***

Blog of the week

Are you being served?
Waiter Rant
The view from the other side of the serving tray. Interesting longish posts from a waiter in an Italian restaurant somewhere in America. Anonymous, but good writer, and I’m sure there’s a book deal in his future. He writes about his aching knee, tips, the customers he meets, the conversations. He seems to be the type people naturally talk to - or perhaps it’s his experience working in a psychiatric ward, which he mentioned once - and is a keen observer, so it’s always worth a visit. And here, you don’t have to tip. (Thank you, Annie.)

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 25th September 2005.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Mousetrap - 19

No Dear, I won’t stop and ask for directions
MapmyIndia
Despite the occasionally suspect grammar, this site looks like a very useful one indeed. It promises to help you find locations all over India, including villages and small towns, not just cities, going as far down as locality, street and road names, landmarks and useful info like restaurants and ATMs. It also provides driving and route maps, both inter- and intra-city (some of it is available only to paying customers). I zoomed in as far as seeing my lane in Vashi before it asked me to pay up. It also lets you mark your “e-location,” your home or office on a map of the area. Currently, that’s free as a promotion. I’ve got mine. your turn.

Of sound mind
FindSounds
If you want to jazz up a presentation, or, perhaps, scare the daylights out of someone in your office by surreptitiously changing their boot-up sound effects, here’s the site to go to. It helps you find sound effects and musical instrument samples, letting you specify file sizes, formats and sampling rates. All sorts of stuff available: animal sounds, warfare and chaos, nature, season-related stuff... Go make some noise.

Yes, I’m talking to you
InsultMonger
All the words your parents never wanted you to use. Plus an insult generator for the lazy. And jokes. And slang. And, for me, the real killer app: the Swearosaurus, which helps you be potty-mouthed in 165 languages (Punjabi is one of the featured languages, patriots will be happy to know, with other Indian languages on the list as well). Its content is contributed by over 4000 people. Go see if your fave gaalis are on the list. Definitely not for the kiddies.

Cut!
Movie Mistakes
Do you delight in bloopers? Would you love to know, for instance, that in Harry potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, ‘When Harry, Ron and Hermione rush to Hagrid after the end of the year exams, and Harry is saying something that ends with, “Why didn't I see it before?” Hermione is mouthing his lines.”’ That the Cesna in Terminator 3 changes registration numbers in flight? That Drew Barrymore called Lucy Lui by her real name in a fight scene in Charlie’s Angels? Go then, my nitpicking friend, to this site. There are, as of my last visit, 51,885 mistakes and 4,384 films for you to chuckle through. The site is free, by the way, though paid membership gives you a bunch of additional benefits. [Thank you, Nina.]

Blog of the week

Not quite news
Crazy Journo
As the title suggests, the person behind this blog is, apparently, a journalist. And one who perhaps, finds the news reporting not satisfying enough. He does regular take-offs on the news, with deadpan articles that spoof our more, ahem, conventional media. His standards are a tad erratic, but we put that down to youth. It will take a lot more life lived before he can hope to rival a Barry, Buchwald, or our aapro late lamented Busybee, but what I like about this blog is that he tries and does often get a grin out of my cynical face.

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 18th September 2005.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Mousetrap - 18

Today, I’m in the mood to give you a different kind of site from the usual. All these sites seek to make a difference in some way. Three are home-grown. The fourth should be. And the fifth was created in that borderless place, the web.

Where good guys don’t finish last
Good News India
To go by the daily dose of disaster, scandal, crime, page three banality and political ludicrousness, it’s easy to forget that good things happen too. This site wants to remind you of that. “India is a million new initiatives now,” it says, and the site brings them to you. Stories of initiatives that strive to make a difference – and succeed! – of individuals for whom “a better India” isn’t a phrase they last used in school. They verify each story, and give you follow-up information. The site has also followed the example of the stories it features: it has given birth to a foundation of its own.

The buck starts here
Project Why “Rupee a day” festival
It’s less than you paid for this paper. And that’s what Project Why (a Delhi-based NGO that works with deprived children, mainly in education) would like you to consider donating to support their efforts. And now, with the start of our long festival season, they’re trying to reach more people. They’re looking for ideas, so head over if you have any. And yes, they could also use that rupee a day. (Project Why’s founder also runs a blog: http://projectwhy.blogspot.com/.)

Start them young
CRY buddies
Run by the well-known NGO that works for deprived Indian children, CRY (Child Relief and You), CRY Buddies is targeted at more privileged kids. It features large doses of games and fun stuff, while gently educating its users on the situation with children less fortunate and giving them ways to participate in CRY’s mission. Point the kids this way, folks. You won’t be doing just them a good turn.

Don’t read this
Forbidden Library
Take a look at the date on top of this page. It’s 2005, yes? You wouldn’t think it from the way, even now, we have self-appointed custodians of culture that exists only in their narrow minds wanting to decide for us what we shouldn’t wear (hide those legs, girls), whether we can send roses on February 14th, and yes, what we shouldn’t read. This site has neatly sorted lists of books that have been banned or challenged over the years, telling you why they were considered bad for the innocent public. A fascinating and scary view of narrow minds through the ages.

Many hands
Katrina Help - http://www.katrinahelp.info/ and http://katrinahelp.blogspot.com/
[Disclosure: I’m involved with these sites.] Come visit, and see how a group of volunteers are collaborate across the globe, to run an inspiring online effort using multiple technologies to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. If you’re comfortable with wikis and blogs, you might even be able to join in.

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 11th September 2005.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Mousetrap - 17

Don’t take my word for it
The Skeptic’s Dictionary
“A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions (and how to think critically about them).” That’s it in a nutshell, really, but I get paid – not much – to write this column, so... a great listing, conveniently sorted out under topical indices, as well as alphabetically. Or you could just do a random search. You’ll find the odd (I use the word advisedly) Indian godman there, and new age guru too. Oh yes, while you’re in the mood, go see the Science and Rationalists’ Association of India’s web page. Terrible looking site (may I redesign it for you chaps?), but you should go visit.

Independence Day
BreakTheChain
One of the site’s banners says: “If email chain letters are your idea of staying in touch, don’t touch me!” BreakTheChain lets you input text from chain letters you get and test them for veracity. The site has a forum and a newsletter, like any site worth it’s web space, but it also has a library or interesting articles, and a couple of apps that let you generate your own chain mails, just to show you how easy it is. All in all, using the site is a polite way to let people know you’ve been had. (Of course you could use my method: ignore the frequent offenders; in fact, junk their mail unread, all of it.) [Link courtesy: Joan Pinto]

Hoisted
Flags of the World
Know what vexillology is? It’s the study of flags. And if those symbols of old fashioned notions (to us netizens, that is) like borders and countries turn you on, come right aboard. It boasts of more than 52,000 flag images, including civic and personal flags and banners. And yes, you get vexillological terminology explained, information about books on the subject, and links to other sites along the same lines. Oh yes. There’s line drawings of flags to colour in. Imagine there’s no countries...

In a more serious vein
Indian Blood Donors
A resource I’m conflicted about. They list current requirements prominently on the front page, and ask for volunteers to join in and list themselves as donors. So far so good. But they do not state how they work – whether there’s a database that contacts volunteer donors automatically, how much personal information is revealed (they ask for a lot) – and they don’t have even cursory information about donation on their site. Their hearts may be in the right place, but I’m wary. The hack I’d recommend? Go see the donors wanted listing and get in touch direct.

***

Blog of the week

Cheersh
Daily Lush
Need one say more? (One must. –Ed.) A newish blog, and it features well-written long pieces about various aspects of booze. Glasses, drinking stories, bar bets and so on. Sip through the archives by subject, or just go post by post. Recommended reading for the thinking sot. Have one for me this weekend. Better still, buy me one, why don’t you?

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 4th September 2005.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Travel log [Cybertrack - 1]

Instead of postcards, gloating SMSes from the beach, or mass e-mails to all your friends, why not blog the your next holiday? Just send your friends your own blog address ahead of the journey and tell them to Watch This Space. With cyber cafes as ubiquitous these days as touts, keeping your blog updated is easy.

What is a blog, you ask? Simply put, it is your own personal website, but comes with tools that make it easy to post fresh entries, as easy as hitting the “send” button on your email program.

Most blogging software makes it easy to post not just text, but also images, so pack your digital camera. And if you choose your blogging service carefully, posting is dead simple: log in, type, hit “publish.” Some services let more than one person post to the same blog, so you, the significant other, and the brats can do a family log. Most services also let readers comment, so you’ll have the pleasure of seeing feedback from your envious pals slaving away in the city.

Oh yes. Here’s the delicious little irony. Know how blogs got their name? In the brave new world of the early web (in the dimly recalled 1990s), a few geeks began posting information about the websites they visited on their cybertravels. They styled them like the logs of the real-life travellers of pre-internet times, with dated entries, their observations, and route maps in the form of hyperlinks. These began to be referred to as web logs, which, in the way of the web, shortened first to weblogs, and then to blogs.

So, when you blog your holiday, you’ll be tipping your hat to a tradition that predates the internet. How cool is that?

And where do you go to sign up for a blog? “Free blog service” threw up 24.5 million Google results the last time I looked. You, my friend, have choices.

Published in Outlook Traveller, September issue, in a new column I will be doing regularly, Cybertrack, which you will find in the NSEW section.

Tags: Outlook Traveller, Cybertrack

Mousetrap - 16

The ultimate shopping site
Private Islands Online
Got a few million stashed away, sahib? Dollars? Yes, dollars. US. Yes? Come weeth me. I ’ave a leetle something for you. Your very own private island. Right here, we have this wonderful spread in Nova Scotia for 150,000 Canadian dollars – for you, 149,000. More tropical? The Bahamas? Let me see, 35 acres, 7 mill US? Oh, nearer home? I have a bargain. Sri Lanka. US$ 200,000. Hop, skip and a boat ride from the airport. But you’ll have to keep the environment protected. Excuse me. Hey! You there! Yes, you, the newspaper writer. Don’t get your hand on the merchandise! Run along to the downloads section now. There’s some wallpaper there you can take. Yeah, yeah, no charge. These columnists I tell you! Ah, B’wana. Now where were we? Fiji perhaps? [Thank you, Sujoy Mukherjee]

Heh
Huhcorp
This site isn’t a keeper. That is, it’s not one that you keep going back to see what the latest updates are. But it is worth a visit. It is a deadpan slash job on the typical consultancy corporate site – take my word for it, I’ve designed similar – and well worth ten minutes of your time. And do try the “contact” button. Form and all.

Imagine there’s no copyright
Open Clipart Library
A completely free, “open” library of clip art that you can download and use in your presentations, projects, email, website, what-have-you. The limitation is that the site mainly favours the .svg format (scalable vector graphics), which means that you’ll need an application that can read that kind of file. But you’ll find .jpgs as well. The project also invites submissions, provided, of course, that you place them in the public domain.

Swatch closely now
Colour Lovers
If you’re an artist, artistically inclined, or just need to decide on a colour scheme for your home, this is a fun way to interact with like minded souls, pick their brains, and perhaps make some contributions yourself. The colour values are given in hexadecimals, so you can use the codes for your sites and blogs. Or – pretty please! – go change some of those ghastly default Powerpoint templates. (You’ll have to register to make comments, or contribute, but anyone can browse the palettes.)

***

Blog of the week

Blogging blogs
DesiPundit
First, the west appropriates the word “pundit.” Then, a blog that recommends sites uses the word in its URL (I’m referring to instapundit.com). It becomes a worldwide hit, and the P-word, like the “gate” ending suffixed to scandals, is now used by a bunch of imitators to indicate what they do. And, now, in burst of irony, a group of Indian bloggers brings the word back home for their CollaBlog (that’s a word I invented). That apart, DesiPundit has very quickly become an excellent introduction to the Indian blogosphere, and its recommendations will, I think, over time, have similar effects on the sites they point to as the original Pundit. And since I intend to raid their larder often for this column, I might as well send them some traffic first, right?

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 21st August 2005.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Mousetrap - 15

Talk to the Fish
Babel Fish Translation
In Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker books, characters pop little “Babel fish” into their ears. Benign parasites that live on sound waves, they give their hosts simultaneous translations of any speech form found in the galaxy. Thereby neatly pre-empting any quibbling about how different species could understand each other. Named in affectionate homage to this narrative device, this free service lets you type in text, or copy-paste from a website, and get instant translation to and from several languages. It won’t match up to expert human translation, but will give you a fair idea of, say, the caption to a picture on a Portuguese site. (For a giggle, try this. Copy the translated output, feed it back to the Babel fish, and translate it into a third language. Repeat as many times as you like. Then translate the output back to English.)

Reader’s Jest
The Digested Read
The Guardian has some of the finest books coverage on the web. And this little section of it has long been a personal favourite. It “condenses” entire novels into around 500 words (that’s a little less than this column, unless the desk slashes it, in which case, a little more). And in the process, takes lots of pot shots at the writer, the genre, and the lit world in general. And the icing on the cake: at the end of each piece, you’ll see the “The digested read ... digested.” A one line review that, in general, tenderly massages salt into the poor author’s lacerated ego.

Fw Heaven
EatLiver.com
Here, gentle reader, is a motherlode of pictures with which you too can be like your cool friends, blocking everybody’s office servers, or limited inbox free email accounts (or just the whole darn world wide web), with large emails full of funny pictures. Warning: very frequently contains adult content.

Blog love
Technorati
If you want to know what the hot topics du jour in the blog world are, or, for that matter (and that’s what most of us bloggers use it for), to see if anyone is giving you any link love, Technorati is the place to go. Enter a word or phrase, and see how many blogs have mentioned it, and in what context. Type in a URL, and you find out whether anyone has linked to it. Of course it confines its search to blogs, and only those within its database, but then, the only opinions most bloggers care are those of other bloggers.

***

Blog of the week

Gadget envy
Gizmodo
The ultimate boys’ toys site. And no, not that way. It’s technically a blog, but it’s much, much more. “Everything related to gadgets, gizmos, and cutting-edge consumer electronics,” it promises. You get news, reviews, rumours, buzz, pictures that will provoke more drool in some men than Pamela Anderson’s home movies. And, perhaps, less wrath from their Significant Others. First port of call for any gadget geek.

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 14th August, 2005.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Mousetrap - 14

Browse the planet
Google Earth
One of the more recent offerings from Google’s prolific labs, this is hours and hours of fascination. You’ll need to download the app first, and you’d better have a broadband connection. And from then on, you have the power of satellite imagery and maps at your fingertips. You can (only works for some parts of the world) get to see what it feels like to zoom in from outer space right into a particular street. Or try an orbit – adjust your height from the surface (I’d recommend going high enough so that the earth’s curvature becomes apparent), tilt the “camera,” then keep the mouse firmly pressed on one of the arrow keys. And bingo, you’re floating above the planet. Oh yes. A special bonus. Do also see Google Moon which offers you views of the lunar landing sites. Go to maximum zoom. There. Now you finally know what the moon is really made of.

Great minds think alike…
idea a day
“Where ideas are free,” the site says. And it delivers. Launched at the turn of the century, the site delivers a fresh user-contributed idea every day (it’s on Day 1814 as of this writing). And the thoughts contributed range from the recipes for world peace to flavours of chewing gum. The archive is a bit of a pain to browse through (a flash page, for heaven’s sake!), and offers only a limited look-see, but you can vote on ideas, get a free subscription, or even submit your own idea. Except that the site’s owners get the right to use it in their book (there’s one out already). Now that’s an idea.

…but some are, thankfully, unique
Totally Absurd Inventions
The USA, besides being arguably the most litigious society in the world, where you can sue a company because your coffee was hot when you spill it in your own lap, also seems to encourage some decidedly, er, different inventions. This site features inventions that hold actual US patents. There’s a portable spittoon (hang on, we could use some of those, here, right?), there’s a bird-powered blimp, there are “shin skis,” which look kinda fun, actually, and there’s even, believe it or not, a wig flipper. Really. Go see.

***

Blog of the week

Everybody hurts
PostSecret
I discovered this site just a couple of weeks ago, via a link found I don’t remember where, on a night when I was doing the lonely-as-a-cloud thing on the web. I spent an hour reading every post. The blog features postcards – collages, sketches, photographs, mixed media – and is a visual treat. But that isn’t why I’m recommending it. PostSecret is about secrets. You are invited to confess to anything that you’ve never told anyone before, via a home-made postcard mailed to their postal address. So, go see it for the range of confessions, for the creativity in the way they are expressed, and, most of all, because it tells you, no matter how low you’re feeling, that you’re not alone.

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment, or mail inthemousetrap@indiatimes.com
Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 1st August, 2005.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Mousetrap - 13

Weather, ’tis nobler in the mind
India Meteorological Department (Mumbai)
Ah, those weather bulletins on TV. Ah, those pretty ladies who always get in the way of the charts. But I digress. If, like many in this city after Tuesday’s cloudburst, you’ve become a wee bit more interested in the weather, you should bookmark this (hint: type in “main.htm” after the URL above, or you’ll have to wait for what is practically de rigeur on Indian government websites: a large graphic that takes ages to download, only to tell you to “click here to continue.”) The site features current forecasts, weather reports, satellite pictures, advisories, even special sections on cyclones and earthquakes, all laid out in a no-nonsense menu. No pretty weather lady, alas.

Connector Pro Bono
Karmayog
Ever since we started the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog (http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com), a few friends and I have been working on the idea of a web service that helps NGOs, and the people who’d like to support them, to get together. So it was, in a way, disappointing to find a site that’s already doing that, and operating out of our own back yard, so to speak. Karmayog, despite its name, is not a site on spirituality. It focuses on Mumbai, and lists precisely what non-profits and charities are looking for, as well as what sponsors, donors and volunteers are offering. It also has profiles and category lists of non-profits, emergency numbers and other resources, articles and explanations of laws and government schemes, and more. (Thanks, Amit Varma.)

Mumbai ICE
In Case of Emergency (ICE)
Here’s an example we high cellphone usage Bombaywallas can well follow. Launched by the East Anglian Ambulance Service after the recent London blasts, the ICE campaign advises you use the acronym “ICE” followed by a contact name (for example, ICE - dad or ICE - Ravi) in your mobile’s phone book (not forgetting to tell the person you choose that you have nominated them. Then, should you – God forbid - be involved in an accident, and incapacitated, medics, the police, even a good Samaritan, can quickly inform the nominated person. Good idea, Mumbai? (Thank you, Aparna Dogra.)

A Term Opus
Internet Anagram Server
“Use Om, Rapt.” “More stupa,” and the perhaps most accurate “Use at prom.” Just four, including the title of this paragraph, of the thousands if anagrams I found for the name of this column. Started by Anu Garg, the chap behind the famous A.Word.A.Day list and site, this “I, Rearrangement Servant” ltes you type in a word or words, the finds you oodles of anagrams. Use the “Advanced” button to fine tune your search, for instance, if you’re looking for a message that anagrams your name, and want one particular word to appear in it. Gives you results in other languages too.

***

Blogs of the week

This one’s for you
Mumbai Help and Cloudburst Mumbai
On a personal note, some friends and fellow bloggers and I are attempting to set up a resource centre, Mumbai Help. It lists emergency helpline numbers, rescue routes, safe areas, and similar information for this city. If, in the future, we do face a scenario like the one that resulted from Tuesday’s cloudburst, we hope that this site will be of help to all of you. We’re also going to put together news, links to news, and personal stories at Cloudburst Mumbai. Come visit, make suggestions, or join us.

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 31st July 2005.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap

Mousetrap - 12

If you love something, set it free
BookCrossing
BookCrossing wants you to free your books. And you do so by deliberately losing them. Leaving one in a train, say, or in a restaurant. But first, you register the book on the site and get a BookCrossing ID number, with which you label the book. Then, every time someone picks up the book and sees the label, they can log in to the site and record a journal entry for the book. And you get notified by email every time that happens, so you can “follow” your book on its travels, and read what other people think about this book that you loved enough to want to share it with the world. Just make sure it’s not from the library, hm?

Pink city
Mumbai Flamingo Bay
A home-grown site with its heart in the right place, even if it does layer on too many flashing banners and has a few pages that are, to put it kindly, clumsily written. This is a site with a cause: the migratory birds, including 20,000 plus flamingos, that spend the winter wading the nutrient-rich Sewri mudflats. Its founders think that the proposed Nhava Sewri Trans Harbour Sealink, which the powers that be have decided will run slap-bang through the middle of this area, will destroy this delicate eco-system. They hope to get the government to move the planned bridge a little further South, and to declare the Bay a bird sanctuary. There’s an online petition you can sign, some lovely pictures, and a message board where you can leave words of encouragement.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Website?
Twenty Questions
If, in the age of lightning fast PCs and the complex games they support, you sometimes yearn for simple, old party-and-picnic, pencil-and-paper games, hie thee, then, to this charming site. The version of Twenty Questions here is not just a dumb game that you figure out after playing it a few times. 20q.net learns, and gets smarter, each time someone plays it. Its creators call it “an experiment in artificial intelligence. ... Everything that it knows and all questions that it asks were entered by people playing this game.” So you’re not really goofing off on the net when you visit this site, see? You’re contributing to the development of artificial intelligence. The site also has those other faves, Hangman and Concentration. (Thank you Pooja Raut.)

Blog of the week - The Read Queen
Happenings of the Heart
Don’t get misled by the title. This isn’t a ditzy teenager blogging about her latest crush, her newest shoes or the handset Daddy bought her. Yes, she does SMS, and a recent post was about spectacle frames, but she also talks about aging, about being single, about old friends, about life in the city. That isn’t all. This lady - and yes, you wouldn’t dream of calling her anything but that after you’ve been around her blog a bit - is, quite frankly inspirational. She’s a single mother, she learned to swim in her forties, she’s performed with a dance troupe, she jogs, she can “conduct an aerobic class for as long as 90 minutes at a stretch.” And, you know what else? She’s sixty, and a grandmother.

Reader suggestions welcome, and will be acknowledged. Go to http://o3.indiatimes.com/mousetrap for past columns, and to comment.

Published in the Times of India, Mumbai edition, 24th July 2005.

Tags: The Times of India, Mousetrap