secure shell is such a handy thing!

If you are a linux user you probably have used a secure shell one time or the other. I always thought of ssh as that 'thing' I use to connect to mail servers and the like in my insti. Nothing much more. Only later I came to know through a friend that ssh facilitates http tunneling and acts as a SOCKS server.
For the less-interested, let it suffice you to know that this allows you to connect to machines that you are officially not permitted to;) I wont go into the specifics, lest I get into trouble:D

It also allows arbitrary TCP/IP port forwarding. And of course, its over secure channels, which is its primary purpose anyway. So go give the ssh man page a glance. Its worth it.

My google glory

For a few months now, a search on google for "weboggle solver" threw up this very page as the first search result. Pretty cool for a small-time blog aint it?

Puzzle-o-philes and Dirty Math problems

(The following was written in a light vein and is a result of that weird pleasure I get by looking at things in the most uncommon and ridiculous manner.)

I dont really mind solving the occasional math puzzle (or any other puzzle for that matter). I probably even enjoy them a little, atleast as long as I am able to solve a few of them. And I certainly understand that, for some people, its a passion. But, see, a lot of these people think its cool to like or solve puzzles. Now why would anyone think that?
"Oh I love puzzles...have you heard this one about the coins?", they would say to you and wait for signs of admiration or new-found respect on your face. And you are thinking, "Ok, I love Charlize Theron, but that aint making me any sort of a hunk is it."
The joy is in solving them, friend, not in spreading the news of your liking them.

Also, I really don't see whats there to like in those arithmetic/math puzzles in particular. Even kids dont like them. I began to ask an 8-yr old I happen to know, the following: "Say, you have a certain number of toffees. You gave 1/2 of them to your sister...". And the kid interrupts, "Oh I would never do that."

Equally ridiculous are the number series questions. 1, 3, 8, 19...what next? I say 23 is next. Why? Well the differences between each term and its previous one are 2, 5, 11 and then 4 (considering 23 too). So I propose to repeat these differences periodically and lo! I have a legitimate series. Further terms would be 25, 30, 41 and 45. So irrespective of what series you give me I can give you a variety of 'next terms' for each.

In fact let me go far enough to say there is nothing cool in being able to solve puzzles either. Ok, so you are good at it. But you still can't solve all of them. In that sense you are still, pretty much, like anybody else. Yeah you may have a higher success rate. But thats only natural, given that you are at those puzzles all the time...its your passion remember?

What would be really cool is if one can 'formulate' a real tough puzzle on his own. But that doesnt seem to be happening for decades now. Some of Einstein's puzzles are still considered to be the toughest. He breathed his last way back in the 1940s and stopped formulating puzzles a good 20 years before that.