Quiz Post: Football Again

X played football for Y between 1912 and 1927, scoring over 200 goals and captaining the team towards the end. He became the first ever manager of Y and remained so until 1936, when football was suspended due to an outbreak of a civil war. He was elected the President of Y in 1943, a position he occupied until his death. In his honour, Y named their stadium after him.

Put X, Y.

Quiz Post: Return of the Revolution

Connect the Pics( Not related to the title)

Follow numberfail by SMS(Works in India only)

Now, you can know when a new poat comes out on numberfail by SMS.

For this you will need to register with Google’s SMS Channels

You can log in with a Google account. Register for our channel by clicking here

You will recieve a confirmation SMS from Google, with a security code. Enter the code on the SMS Channels page and you are done.

How I keep myself updated with my mail, twitter, and the blogs I follow when I am not able to access the Internet

I shall be joining IIT Madras in some time now. Rules there don’t allow LAN and Internet access for the first four months(No idea why; they say you need to experience IIT life, as once you get  your computers, you get hooked to LAN/Internet gaming, and you will hardly enjoy  the campus; This is true for a lot of people, from what I have seen from my last year at NITK). So I felt the necessity to keep myself updated. So, with a little help from Google, and a bit of tweaking, I figured out how to get regular updates by SMS(this works only in India, though you could use some alternate services to work it elsewhere; this does not cost anything, and is way better than using GPRS/3G).

So here is how it works. Gmail and Twitter have authenticated RSS feeds. This means that feed readers trying to read these will prompt the user for Username and Password. Hence authenticated feeds are not supported by most readers. Moreover, to view these feeds, there needs to be an interaction between the user and the reader, and hence an internet connection is needed.

So we use something called a Feed-Proxy. These are sites, that automatically supply the login details when asked, and export the feeds to thier own RSS feed. In simpler words, they convert authenticated feeds to unauthenticated fields.

Google Labs India has a feature called SMS channels, from which one can subscribe to Channels created by other users. You can create your own channel, and RSS feed updates can be sent. So we use these SMS channels to send the updates to your mobile as the unauthenticated feed supplied by the Feed Proxy(Most blogs have their unauthenticated feeds, and can be accessed in a similar way).

I shall post some useful links here:

Gmail Feed(Authenticated):

Twitter Feed(Authenticated): http://twitter.com/<username>/with_friends

Feed-Proxy: FreeMyFeed-Enter the authenticated  feed address, username and password. The RSS feed link is to be used later;Copy it somewhere.

Google SMS Channels: You need to login using your Google account.If you have not already done so before, you need to verify your phone number. Click on the create channel link, select RSS feed, and paste the feed address appropriately. Fill the rest of the details and you are done.

Edit: Use tinyurl to convert your feed proxy feeds from relative URLs to absolute URLs as relative URLs may fail on SMS Channels.

SMS Channels takes some time to activate, so be patient

Best Mafia Wars Tip

It’s been two weeks I’ve been playing Mafia Wars, and I have to say, I’m addicted to it. It’s a simple game, but it’s really compelling and I have drawn the ire of my family for hogging the computer all day because of it.

One of the major challenges in Mafia Wars is levelling up to build a better character. You level up by doing jobs that cost energy. The most efficicient way of levelling up is to find a job that has a high experience given to energy cost ratio. In the starting of the game this ratio is 1. As you progress, you get better jobs with a higher ratio, that helps you gain more experience. However, there is a way to beat the system. The steps are given below:

1. Get your self a really good mastermind and wheelman as your top mafia. How good? The mastermind and wheelman must be such that they give you the 11% bonus, which is the maximum. I would suggest getting players above level 500.
2. Buy a motorcycle.
3. Do the Bank Heist job.
4. Keep doing it until your energy drains

The explanation is simple. Before the bonus the Bank Heist job gave 14 experience for 9 energy, which was a fair ratio of 1.55. But since wheelman makes it so that energy costs are reduced by 11%, the required energy becomes 9-(9*11/100) which is 8.01, which is rounded off to 8. The mastermind gives you a bonus of 11% more experience per job, which makes the experience 14+(14*11/100) which is 15.54 which is rounded off to 16.

This gives us a ratio of 16/8, which is 2, the best possible ratio. Using this method, you will not get much money at all but a little later  in that game or when you need to level up in a pinch, this is the best strategy

Disclaimer: I am in no way related to Zynga, the creator of Mafia Wars. All copyrights and trademarks are respected.

Los Galacticos: Then and Now

Then…

Now..

Madrid are bloody Copy Cats!

Quiz Post: The Game Theory

Connect:

Deus Ex, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (game), America’s Army, Brothers In Arms: Road to Hill 30, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Star Wars: Republic Commando, Army of Two, BioShock, Gears of War, Mass Effect, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

List is not exhaustive.

Quiz Post: Sport Collection

1. XY was born into a family known for its footballing prowess. His father, ‘Periko’ Y won the Spanish league twice in successive seasons with Real Sociedad and a third time after he moved to FC Barcelona. Born in Tolosa, a small Basque town, XY lived in Barcelona for the first six years of his life and moved to San Sebastián thereafter. It was here that his passion for football began as he whiled away his childhood playing at Playa de la Concha (Shell Beach) . Who?
2. The Concorde Agreement is a contract between the X, they and the Z. There have in fact been five separate Concorde Agreements, all of whose terms were kept strictly secret: The first in 1981, others in 1987, 1992, 1997, and 1998, and the current agreement in 2007. Give X, Y, Z
3. Three-under-par (-3); often called a double eagle. extremely rare, and occur most commonly on par-fives with a strong drive and a holed approach shot. Holes-in-one on par-four holes (generally short ones) are also called X. The most famous X was made by Gene Sarazen in 1935, which propelled him into a tie for first at The Masters Tournament. He won the playoff the next day. The sportswriters of the day termed it “the shot heard ’round the world.” Between 1970 and 2003, 84 such shots (an average of fewer than three per year) were recorded on the PGA Tour. What?
4. The Indian opening batsman Sunil Gavaskar named his son after XY and wrote of XY, “To say that he is the greatest batsman I have ever seen so far is to put it mildly.”.XY born December 26, 1935 in Port Mourant, Berbice, British Guiana) is a former West Indian Cricket player. He is widely considered as one of the best batsmen of the 1960s. Of Indo-Guyanese descent, XY featured in several great West Indian teams, playing with, among others, Sir Garfield Sobers, Roy Fredericks, Lance Gibbs, and Alvin Kallicharran. C. L. R. James wrote in the New World journal that XY was “the high peak of West Indian cricketing development”, and praised his “adventuresome” attitude.XY was part of the West Indian team that won the inaugural World Cup.
5. Event Year Result
   Czechoslovakia Junior Open 2003 Winner
   2004 Commonwealth Youth Games 2004 Silver
   Asian Satellite X Tournament 2005 Winner
   World Junior X Championships 2006 Runner Up
   2006 Commonwealth Games 2006 Bronze
   Philippines Open X 2006 Winner
   Asian Satellite X Tournament 2006 Winner
   Indian National X Championships 2007 Winner
   National Games of India 2007 Gold
   <blanked> Chinese Taipei Open 2008 Winner
   Indian National X Championships 2008 Winner
   2008 Commonwealth Youth Games 2008 Gold
   World Junior X Championships 2008 Winner
   Y Open 2009 Winner. Z’s achievements. Id XYZ
6. On October 10, 2008 Jim Lyngvild set the Guinness World Record for eating a grand total of seven XYs in one minute live on TV2 Denmark’s Go’ aften Danmark.
   On April 11, 2009 James Boyd tried to beat the Guinness World Record on “Britain’s Got Talent” for the most XYs eaten in one minute, but failed, reaching only four in sixty seconds. He had previously admitted to only ever have managed six and gave the excuse that he was feeling sick because Stephen Mulhern, presenter of Britain’s Got More Talent had challenged Boyd eating as many different kinds of Ys in a minute. For the semi-finals, James Boyd is invited back onto the show in another attempt to break the Guinness World Record .
   Also, during James Boyd’s audition, Anthony McPartlin, a presenter on the main show, attempted to eat as many XYs in one minute, and he was able to beat Boyd with a total of five XY, and so did Piers Morgan, managing a total of seven chocolates on Britain’s Got More Talent; however, Morgan failed to swallow, and thus, was disqualified as shown on Britain’s Got More Talent’s XY Eating Contest. . At a later date, the two presenters of Britain’s Got Talent, Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly attempted to beat the record on their website. What is the XY?
7. During the Test at Auckland, a streaker appeared when XY was at the crease. Incensed by this new craze and the disruption that it caused, XY grabbed the man and hit his bare backside with the bat.When play resumed, the ensuing din from the incident caused XY to mis-hear his partner’s call for a run, and he found himself run out. For once, the famous XY concentration had been broken. But the most significant occurrence of this match occurred off-field: XY was approached to sign with a proposed break away competition, later to be known as World Series Cricket (WSC) . Who?

Blackberry Apple Ad Wars

Blackberry tried to take a bite at Apple with this ad.

So Apple hit back

Now this is entertainment!

Quiz Post: Cola!

The X cola, originally made in Africa, is one of the first in Europe to follow Fair Trade regulations. X is associated more with something else than with the cola. What is X?