The addiction called gaming

“Enemy spotted. I am fagged out. Need backup,” shouts Pyrex into his microphone.

“Affirmative. I am in position. Stick together,” replies Soil who is the team leader of the Evolution Clan.

The Evolution Clan has waged a war against ‘Fragnation Clan’ that is a terrorist squad in a computer game of Counter Strike. Communication between the clan-mates seems frantic and their activities action-packed. All this is happening inside a video game parlour that can accommodate twenty gamers. 

The members of each team call each other by fancy names such as Luca, Cosmo, Jaku, Tantan, etc., and many of them  do not know the real names of their mates though they are playing with them for several months in a same cafe.

Welcome to the world of online and LAN gamers. Online and LAN (Local Area Network) gaming is as popular as Google among youth. LAN gaming is catching up fast among the youngsters of Bhubaneswar. 

There are many gamers who spend more than six hours every day and over fourteen hours on holidays playing games such as Counter Strike, Defence of the Ancients, Team Fortress 2, Unreal Tournament, etc. They play these games over LAN in gaming parlours and on the Internet in their homes.

Explaining the craze of gaming among youngsters in Bhubaneswar, Surya Narayan Sahoo, a cafe owner, says, “Gamers are a crazy lot. A group of gamers played a video game incessantly for seven days in my cafe. They were eating, drinking and playing. When one player went for a few hours’ nap another  took charge on his seat,” said  Sahoo who is among a few cafe owners who brought LAN gaming culture in the capital city.

There are many gaming teams in Bhubaneswar such as D Famers, Psychopaths, The Evolution, and Fragnation that have participated in gaming tournaments organized by engineering colleges in the State and outside. Smarjeet Mohanty is a B. Tech. student and known as Luca in gaming circles. His team D, Famers, have participated in over ten gaming tournaments.

“My team has won the gaming tournament organised at KIIT, Bhubaneswar and one organised by The Zephyr in which teams from Cuttack and Bhubaneswar participated,” he said. His team stood third in the gaming tournament organised during Spring Fest at IIT Kharagpur and were runner-ups in God of Gaming tournament held at Kolkata in 2011.

“Gaming gadgets cost money and winning these tournaments fetch us enough money to buy the gear to play these games efficiently. A gaming mouse costs up to Rs. 12,000 and a headphone up to Rs. 6,000 he added. Playing games in a cafe costs Rs. 10 to Rs. 15 an hour.

Do these gamers get scolded by their parents for spending too much time and money on gaming? “Most of us began playing games after finishing our day-to-day work. I don’t like going out with friends in the evenings and prefer staying at home and game till midnight. 

We lock ourselves in our rooms, switch off the lights and play games online quietly without letting our parents know about what is happening inside the room,” said Siddhant Mishra, a student of class 10+2 of Sai International School. Mishra said, “Sometimes my parents come to know about our late night gaming activity but I know how to convince them.”

Gamers say that it is always a thrilling, exciting and fun-filled experience because they explore new things because these games are updated almost every day to provide a rich gaming experience to users.  They believe that these games help them learn how to work in a team.

Siddhant Mahapatra, an avid video game player, says, “Gaming has helped me to learn how to work in a team. We play strategy games such as Counter Strike (CS) over Local Area Connection (LAN) in cafes. We have to co-ordinate with other team players to perform better than the opponent team.” 

Home made beauty aids

To keep your hair healthy and luxuriant, the scalp should be regularly rubbed once a week with warm oil. There are many oils that can be used for this purpose—amla, mustard, coconut. Soap-nut powders or arethas are wonderful for washing the hair, as they make the hair glossy. Washing the hair with ‘curds’ is also a tried and tested ancient recipe for beautiful hair. Vinegar and lemon juice are splendid rinses for the hair, after a wash. They impart a soft, glossy sheen.

The habit of beautifying the eyes with surma and kajol is another practice that has stood the test of time. It was practised in ancient days and continues to this day. Kajal is easily made at home. It is simple lamp black, which is collected on a plate held over an oil-lamp. Castor is used in the oil-lamp, and the lamp black, dissolved in castor oil, is then applied to the eyes.

 Surma is a preparation of antimony pounded to a paste in rose-water. A silver or zinc slide is dipped into it and passed along the rims of the eye-lids, lightly but firmly, to make the eyes appear larger, luminous and exquisitely shaped. Skillfully applied kajal or surma can beautify the eyes almost as well as the modern eyebrow pencils and eye-shadows.

Pimples and acne are often due to impurities in the blood, and cutting out fried foods and sugar and eating more raw fruits and vegetables, skimmed milk and curds, will help. Neem-tree leaves can make an excellent blood purifier. Crush neem leaves in water, strain and drink a tablespoon daily. 

The juice of a lemon in a glass of hot water drunk first thing in the morning is indispensable for people on a reducing diet. But it should not be confined to dieters alone, for lemon juice, in hot or cold water, is excellent for the system and the complexion.

 The price of good cosmetics today is prohibitive and not all of us can afford them. Why not utilize some of the old and proven beauty aids, so easily available in one’s own home.

The language of Gods

Everybody on this earth is a singer and a musician. A singer need not carry a note. Music is the language of gods. We understand that god is universal and he encompasses everything which is good. Similarly, music is universal. Music soothes the nerves. It makes people laugh, cry and forget their pain.

Music can make a man fall in love. It never tells a man to hate. It is  our perception of music that  determines our actions. Some people may become violent after hearing a song. But it is their perception. No piece of music asks them to be violent. Music can be understood and misused. Even God is often misunderstood and misused. But God never asks a man to commit crimes and hurt others.

Music was created to make human beings feel better and stir their  emotions. Music can be appreciated differently. Some people understand the complexities of various forms of music like classical, jazz, rock and others. Some people are not experts, but they enjoy it regardless of its form. Religious scriptures can be understood by some, but religion and God are appreciated by all.

Listen to what you like. Appreciate music. Do not misunderstand music and never ever misuse it. You will be surprised how simple life becomes and how  better a place the world becomes to live and prosper.   

Are you curious about content curation?

People love to collect things. They collect stamps, postcards, coins, matchboxes, newspaper clippings, photographs, obituary notes, etc. The list is endless. Collecting has always been a kind of experience that demands interest and skill for selection, evaluation and classification. In the age of Internet when digital content disappears fast, some websites allow users to become content curators and save what they like.

Most of us use social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, etc., and every day come across digital content in the forms of pictures, tweets, FB updates, blog posts, articles and web links. Content on the Internet is short-lived. If you had read an update on Facebook a few months ago and want to read it again, it becomes nearly impossible to find it again.

In the information age, we are loaded with digital content. Some of this digital content we find useful and want to keep in our archives. Collecting digital information is becoming increasingly popular among Internet users because it makes  it easy for them to refer to the content they like and find useful. It is like sorting out information from Internet for study and reference.

Users have two options. First: They can download the desired content and save it in their external hard drives. Second: Use the services of the websites that provide content curation. A few websites such as Scoop.it  and others provide Internet users with a service by which they can save  the desired digital content in their accounts. The service is becoming popular because you can save even an update on Tweeter in your account.

Content curation is a collection of articles, pictures, web links, videos and other content on a website. People tend to collect content on the web for future reference or for research. An online advertisement of Scoop.it shows a person, Jack, who is passionate about the electric guitar and has a huge content  collection in the form of web links, articles, You Tube videos, etc., but no one has any idea about his hard work and passion. He opens an account on the website, saves the digital content of his choice and shares them with others.

Pinterest.com is a website that enables users to pin pictures they like on Internet on virtual boards and share them with their friends. The site allows users to find, classify and share images of their interest. Users can pin pictures on virtual boards under different categories. Reddit.com is a website on which users can share news of their interest with other users. The website allows users to rate the news items they like. Some other content curation websites and tools are Strawberryj.am, Curata, Faveous, Delicious, Inboud.org, Hackernews, etc.

Atif-Popularity beyond borders

Since music has no languages and boundaries, we are fortunate to relish the popular music and unique voices of artistes from across the border. A singer who has really made his mark in India and South Asia with his songs and his voice is Atif Aslam, a Pakistani pop singer. 

Remember Pehli Nazar mein, the song from the movie Race which was an instant hit. There are many songs which have been highly appreciated by youngsters. He is well-known for his powerful vocal belting technique.

Atif Aslam (Mohammed Atif Aslam) was born in 12^th march, 1983 in Wazirabad in the Gujranwala province of Pakistan. He studies at PAF College, Lahore where he completed his F.Sc (Pre-Engineering) in 2001. 

He participated in cricket and represented his college in various events in other cities. He won his first singing competition in the Independence Day (Pakistan) celebrations. He completed his Bachelor in Computer Science from University of Central Punjab.

Atif met Goher— a guitarist, in college and they went on to form a band which was called Jal. They performed at their college canteen and various hotels in the city. They performed in the songs of Junoon and Strings. They came out with their first album Jal Pari which was a hit. Atif left Jal due to personal differences and Atif released another album Doorie in 2004. His albums were popular in Pakistan and India.

Atif’s songs were in a Hollywood movie, Man Push Cart. These songs were taken from his debut album Jal Pari. He has become the third Pakistani singer after Strings and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to be featured in a Hollywood movie.

Atif has sung for many Hindi movies. Some of his songs which were huge hits in India were Pehli Nazar Mein from Race and Tere Bin from Woh Lamhe among others.

Atif is truly a popular singer. He is liked and admired by youngsters of India and Pakistan. If only music could be used to bridge the difference between India and Pakistan, both countries would have been the best neighbours.

What is trending today?

Internet is volatile, ever-changing and unpredictable. Something that tops the trending charts in the morning may disappear into oblivion without leaving a trace in the evening. But trending charts produced by Internet giants such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and Twitter tell it all.

Trending is not a new term for tech-savvy Internet users. Trending topics tell us about popular topics of the day on the Internet. There are many websites that regularly update the list of popular searched for terms in their websites. Many search engines, news websites, micro-blogging and social networking websites have begun showing trending topics of the day to inform their users about the most-searched for topics on their website on any given day.  

Trending topics on a website like Twitter are topics that are the searched for because they prompt users to talk about them because of their importance on any given day. Usually, the names of the topics on Twitter are followed by the ‘#’ hash sign.

Many a time trending on these websites are the results of concerted efforts by the fans of a celebrity or the marketing department of a brand. To make their trending results authentic and accurate, Google, Twitter and other websites, which display trending topics on their websites regularly, change the algorithm of their search results to check manipulation by users.

To make trending easier for common people, Google launched called Google Trends in May 2006. This enables users to see what were the popular search terms over a period of time on the search engine. According to the website, "Trends for Websites combine information from a variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. (...) Additionally, Google Trends for Websites only shows results for sites that receive a significant amount of traffic, and enforces minimum thresholds for inclusion in the tool."

Google Trends has added many new features under the tag Google Insight for Search to tell users about ‘hot searches of the day’ and other information based on their research. The site is updated on an hourly basis. Users can know the estimated number of daily visitors on a specific website and also the number of people who visited a website in the previous seven days or in a month. The website also provides country-specific data. 

Choice is yours

RICHARD Blechnyden wanted to promote Indian tea at the St. Louis World Fair. It was very hot and no one wanted to sample his tea. Blechnyden saw that iced drinks were doing a flourishing business. It dawned on him to make his tea an iced drink, mix in some sugar and offer it for sale. People loved it. That was the introduction of iced tea to the world.

Human beings are not like a nut. It can not decide whether to become food for squirrels or grow into a giant tree. Human beings have choices. If nature gives us a lemon, we have a choice: either to cry or make lemonade.

WHEN THINGS GO WRONG, AS THEY SOMETIMES WILL, YOU CAN REACT RESPONSIBLY OR RESENTFULLY—IT IS UP TO YOU.