Goodbye Cochin.
Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep. - Carl Sandburg
Its time to roll again. I’m going to Bangalore for college. Read the rest of this entry »
Archive for August, 2007
Seven Things to Hate About StumbleUpon
First of all, I love StumbleUpon! None of the social bookmarking sites available today can come even close to it (Sorry to say this Diggers!) . The best thing is, it makes all the better things on the internet available for everyone & It has a remarkable ability to produce unimaginable levels of traffic to a website. Believe me, I know.
If you are a relatively new user or if you have never used StumbleUpon, you may not get what I’m trying to explain in this post. You should become a part of the StumbleUpon ’s forums, social activity & networking if you really want to understand what I’m on about.
We know, SU can be seriously addicting and alot of fun. However, most of the general Stumblers are unaware of many things that goes on StumbleUpon that just pisses you off! - particularly if you are a supporter of freespeech or if you are simply looking for a place to relax. Here is a list of SE7EN Things to Hate About StumbleUpon. This list is in no particular order & I’ll provide maximum number of links for reference. Read the rest of this entry »
it was Onam
Most of you know that my family is here for the Onam holidays. I’m terribly sorry for leaving without a notice (I wasn’t expecting it either). I was out with my family for the last two days to celebrate the festival. We just got back to my parent’s house & I better write about it when its fresh in my memory.
I was hoping to spend some time with my sister this season. She flew in last week (& no, Emily, her arms were not tired from flying). Just like always, when ever I expected some quality time at “home”, Dad (On leave from his work in Bahrain) booked hotel rooms and dinners at Cochin city (As days pass, I’m less and less informed of what goes on inside my parent’s house). I couldn’t say no to it since Onam was a “family thing”. So, there I was, sitting at the back seat with people who I have nothing in common with, going to some hotel, to sit around a table in a dimly lit room to celebrate another festival that I hate.
Read the rest of this entry »
Islamic Light, Bahrain & Me.
As-salamu alaykum,
In the younger years of my life, I grew up in an Island Kingdom in the Middle East. Bahrain; A few miles off the coast of Saudi Arabia, in all the rich & vast beauty of the pristine blue waters of the Persian Gulf; Bahrain, simply hearing her name brings joy to my heart. I was born and raised in Al Bahrain; The land of the beautiful, the land of pearls.
I was raised a Roman Catholic by religious parents, but I loved Islam more than my religion. But it never even occurred to me that I will end up in neither of them. Life took me to a state of skepticism, of reason & of science; it took me, to Atheism.
In Islamic thought, pearls symbolize Read the rest of this entry »
Indian Independence from Religion.
Namaste Everyone!
I’m a proud Indian Atheist. Today, India is celebrating her 60th year of freedom. India was founded as a Secular nation. meaning, no religion is favored over another. BUT, this is not what we see everyday. Read the rest of this entry »
Wrong Shoes!!
Dear Diary,
I went to pick up Angeline & Evelyn from the airport today. The Bangalore flight arrived 20 minutes earlier than expected in Cochin International. Needless to say, I was still on my way to the airport at well over 100Kms/Hr. Anjechi called me and said that she would wait up front after getting her luggage.
Minutes later, I payed the parking fees for the Airport, picked up my phone from the dashboard and and walked to the gates. Dialing Anjechi’s cell on my way. I saw Evie next to her mom pushing the trolley (she thinks she is a big help for mommy) the minute Anjechi picked up the phone. We both said “hello” together, looking at each other with a huge glass pane separating us. It had been 2 months since I saw Evie on my last trip to Bangalore in June. She hid her face behind Mommy when she got sight me standing at the domestic flights’ arrival gates.
Even after Evie’s 2nd birthday, I still don’t feel like an uncle. Read the rest of this entry »
deviantART’s little Birthday Party.
Today is deviantART.com’s 7th birthday! & I’m not going!
It was during a long weekend, with a rather bad fever, before August 7, 2000 that deviantART was born. deviantART was coded from the ground up by a Yellow Alien from Japan called Jark, in its entirety, throughout this hot summer weekend.
Slowly but surely the site took off. In what they like to refer to as “the early days” Matt and Jark (the founders) would comment on every single piece of art that was submitted to the site. It was easy to do and they really enjoyed leading by example. It survived many things on its way up to the top.
I’m not very good in politics and diplomatic drama, but the Co-founder of one of the most highly trafficked websites ever, was dethroned. Read the rest of this entry »
Awesome God & Atheist Morals
I’ve waited for ever to write about this. This inspirational youthful song just makes me want to believe in God. To have an Awesome God on my side would truly be, Awesome. Everyone, please take 4 minutes & 55 seconds to watch this video. Its The Awesome God & its one of the few videos that I play everyday on my IPod.
Like I promised in my previous post, I’ll talk about Atheist Morals. I was curious when I asked my Christian friend, “What does it feel like to believe in God?” Her response was a simple, “safe.” . I’d love to have that awesome feeling for the rest of my life, but I simply chose not to live in a delusion. I hope you have watched the video, lets continue..
According to the above video, God’s qualities are… Read the rest of this entry »
We are back in business!
The website was down all night yesterday, thanks to StumbleUpon (Hey stumblers!)
RubenBabu.com went down a little after 23:00 Hours and took TheJesusMyth along with it. I was surprised to find that it was one of my PHP scripts that caused Apache Server to shutdown on the Slashdot Phenomenon. The Slashdot effect is the term given to the phenomenon of a popular website (Like StumbleUpon) linking to a smaller sites, causing the smaller sites to slow down or even temporarily close due to the increased traffic.
Although we get well over 25,000 unique visitors (multiply that with page views) on TheJesusMyth, it was simply my scripts (and my traffic) that caused almost all of the trouble. I think I burned just a little too much CPU on our server. We have sorted it out and it will not appear again, hopefully.
We have worked out the issue with our hosting company & needless to say, we will be shifting our hosting company to a service that is able to handle the load. Any Suggestions? (we need more juice than what MediaTemple, Hostgator & 1&1 hosting services offer)
& Now, for the post that caused all this traffic,
Christians don’t understand Atheist Quotes
-Ruben
Christians dont understand Atheist Quotes
I had a discussion with a Christian yesterday and our conversation moved on to a topic that ended in me trying to explain a quote that I really love.
She had many questions about Atheism but she was more curious about an Atheist Quote that I randomly used.
 I contend that we are both atheists. I just go one god further than you. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
-Stephen Robert |
I gave her only the first half of this quote since I wasn’t trying to disprove her God. I was expecting her show signs of discomfort for calling her an Atheist but to my surprise, Her immediate response to it was that she does not understand what it means to say “I just go one god further than you“.
That was when it hit me. I see Atheist quotes & phrases on bumper stickers, T-shits and graffiti all the time and always thought that It was also read and understood by the Theists who walk the same path. But it never occurred to me that they do not understand what it means.
I explained it to her and she understood the quote the same way Atheists do (way to go, me!). Here I’ll try to elaborate on the quote so that more Christians would understand the quote that she herself asked me to post on my web-log. But first, its time to define Atheism & Theism. Read the rest of this entry »
