Hari's Corner

Papa Hari News Service

The much anticipated international readership survey conducted by the Papa Hari Institute for Independent Research (PHIIR) has concluded and has revealed that the Papa Hari News Service enjoys the maximum coverage of readership amidst every demographic segment, beating all other news agencies on the planet including BBC, Reuters, UPI, INS, PTI and other heavy-weights in the business.

Releasing the results of a survey, a spokesman for the Papa Hari Institute for Independent Research announced the award in front of scores of journalists from around the world. Papa Hari, who attended the function was visibly emotional at the magnificent achievement and accepted the award on behalf of the Papa Hari News Service. In his acceptance speech, Papa Hari spoke about the need for a Free and independent Press in the world today and the power of the Internet in transmitting information to every corner of the globe. Making a powerful plea to other news agencies to emulate the Papa Hari News Service, he added that he was proud to receive such an honour from an independent organization like the Papa Hari Institute for Independent Research which he had helped build. He expressed his hope that other media houses will compete to capture the award next year. "The Papa Hari News Service has achieved in one year what other news agencies took decades to accomplish. It is unbelievable. All credit to its editors and reporters who've worked so hard for this! This really belongs to them..." he said, holding aloft the shield. The award function was followed by a private party organized by the Papa Hari News Service to celebrate the occasion.

A Papa Hari Institute research scientist who fielded questions from reporters from other agencies assured everybody that there was no question of "bias" because the Papa Hari Research Institute was completely indepedent and unrelated to international agencies like the BBC, Reuters, UPI, INS etc. and that the results of the research proved the value of objectivity in surveys and data analysis. "We have shown the world what news service is preferred by readers. We refused to be influenced or intimidated by the big, established names in this business such as Reuters or UPI. This readership survey has proved beyond any doubt that the Papa Hari News Service provides the best possible news from every corner of the globe and that the news they provide is unique in content, original and completely free of bias in any form." When a journalist representing another news agency intervened to protest that the Papa Hari Institute could hardly be an independent agency in this case, the spokesman patiently stated the obvious once again and pointed out the word Independent affixed to the Institute's name. In a most unsporting gesture smacking of professional jealousy, several journalists representing other news agencies walked out of the press conference following this reasonable assertion of fact.

In a related development following the event, the journalist who had intervened on behalf of the other news agencies during the press conference was picked up by the police following an anonymous tip-off and was found to be in possession of a huge stack of $100 bills in his briefcase along with an incriminating letter which clearly proved that he was in the pay of a rival research organization working to discredit the Papa Hari Institute's research. It is known that he was later released on bail but nothing more was heard of him and it is believed that he might be absconding. Police investigations are on.

Here's my next edition of Geeky and Meeky titled "In-flight entertainment". I took a lot of trouble over this as you can imagine, but I felt that it was worth it. Actually this was meant to be the 15th episode as I already had the 14th one ready, but I decided to publish this first.

I've been disinterestedly watching one of those "Live" doctor TV shows, where a prominent (or publicity-hungry) member of the medical fraternity decides to take questions from telephone callers and disperses advise. Most of these shows, at least here in India, take a spot in News networks at various non-prime time slots of the day. I'm quite surprised that people actually bother calling, to be honest. Most of these gems of wisdom are just common sense suggestions wrapped in semi-scientific jargon and more often than not, these doctors always ask viewers to consult their own doctors for specific advice. I mean, anybody with a little knowledge of human anatomy could answer such questions.

The only value of these programmes seem to be to fill up time. Of course, there is the occasional specialist who has useful knowledge to share, but most of them seem (understandably) reluctant to go beyond vague generalities. To my mind, such programmes do their bit to encourage self-medication more than anything else.

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I'm trying to write a simple, SQLite-driven blogging tool optimized to displaying images. This is because I'm yet to find a lightweight blogging tool that doesn't take up megabytes of storage space and a MySQL database. I also don't like the current crop of "image gallery" or "photo album" scripts either, most of which are bloated, feature rich and use thumbnail-generation which is suited for high-resolution photographs rather than comic strips.

SQLite seems a very good option for small applications. It suits a lightweight image blogging tool which will organize images in simple categories and require no thumbnail displays. It'll be light on features which other blog software consider standard. Most likely I'll release the source code under the GPL.

The only problem with SQLite is that most PHP setups don't have the SQLite module installed by default. But I'm determined not to use MySQL for this as it will defeat the whole purpose of simplicity.

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I've had it in my mind to write one or two tutorials/HOWTOs here, but I'm not sure how many people will really benefit from them.

It all depends on whether you really want to see a tutorial on creating comics in Linux. The other is one on how to add a basic RSS/Atom feed to a static website (or one which isn't powered by a dynamic script with a built-in syndication mechanism).

If anybody is interested, let me know and I'll get myself to do them.

Here's a new toon I created today (inspired from the webcomic ELER). Called Bushy and Mushy (for obvious reasons ), this one is titled "Democracy Rocks." Hope you enjoy it. If this is well received, I might even make it a regular feature, just like Geeky and Meeky.

I am going to start a new series called "obscure web discoveries." If this works out and I find interesting, but very obscure websites hidden away in the deep archives of search engines, I will try to highlight them here. I also request my blogging friends to help me with this. I am not going to point out to obvious websites or well-known domains, but if you can find some deeply buried story/article in a well-known website where the URL is non-obvious, I will post a link here.

You can send me links either through e-mail or by commenting on this post and I will include them in the next edition if I find it compelling or unique enough to warrant comment.

So, on to the first edition. I've been interested in German history, particularly the period during and immediately after World War II. This led me to research quite deeply into certain interesting, but historically insignificant events (in the larger context) of the time. One such is the German resistance movement to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi rule culminating in the fateful assassination attempt of July 20th 1944. Had Hitler been killed at the time, it is conceivable that the War might have been brought to an earlier and less barbaric end. However, as we wonder at what might have been, I found this site by accident, searching for an image of Ludwig Beck (the chief opponent and leader of the resistance movement).

The story of the German resistance to Hitler

Yes, I know the website is hosted on Geocities and is extremely old-school but it is quite well written and comprehensive. The language is a bit informal and unusual in places (as written by one who's first language is probably not English), but for the most part, it is accurate. Hope you find it interesting as well!

Well, the change of format has inspired a new Geeky and Meeky episode in double-quick time. Here's one, entitled "Squares." Hope you enjoy it as usual.

P.S. I plan on writing a HOWTO for creating a comic strip in Linux in the near future. Watch out for it