Security Check at colleges

I never knew it would go this bad. Things change with time but this change shows how deep the fear has penetrated into the society. A college is a community centre apart from being a place of worship (atleast in scriptures!!). Imagine the impact on young minds, if you need to check each of them for a gun or knife?

Alas, I guess this might be the only way to ensure safe colleges and reduction in college shoot-outs.

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Burnt Buttocks!!

I might sound like a sadist here but i could not control myself after i read this piece on yahoo news.
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"Wow, it was so hot out there. It was really bad. The boxes around where I was sitting got really hot - I burnt the top of my left buttock," The Telegraph quoted Button, as saying.
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What if found funny is the fact that there are too many "B's" in the fray. It sounds very much like the Betty & Butter tongue twister...Imagine this

Button was a Brit with a Bright Buttock but the race in Bahrain changed the Button's Bright Buttock to a Burnt Buttock.

Ok i guess it is starting to sound too Gross!!

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How Jaunty fooled me

One of the telebrands show has a caption which goes something like " Choose wisely, Live well". This Saturday what i did just shows that i should have paid more heed to the statement.

I saw that the new Ubuntu (Jaunty) is available. Immediately i hit www.ubuntu.com and downloaded the latest version. The download manager was able to download the CD in two sessions of 1 hour each ( Which i did in the free bandwidth timeslot using BSNL Connection :-)). I quickly mounted the ISO as a Cd using the mount command and then i tried to install using the gksu "sh /cdrom/cdromupdate" command.

While my eyes gleamed in anticipation......

Alas, nothing happened.

The Reason i later learnt the hard way is that for an upgrade, one needs to use the Alternate  install CD rather than the Desktop CD. The whole operation and 2 sessions worth of downloading had just gone down the drain. First it was anger that the website did not mention it explicitly and later it was self-realization that it was me who had chosen to ignore reading the instructions for an upgrade. There are different versions of a release some aimed at a upgrade and others for a fresh install.
You can find more information here

Finally, i decided ( or resorted!!) that i will not do this upgrade for sometime to come. I have a good system with Ubuntu running fine. I have all the needed apps. Who bothers about uprgrading :-). Please dont cry "Grapes are Sour!!".

Kasab goes scot-free!!

I was not too happy when there were too many proceedings going on for the Kasab case. I was slowly getting a feeling that somewhere there would be some loophole that was waiting to get exploited.

After i read this article today in IBN, I tend to believe that the devil who dared to enter world's largest democracy ; That too at the heart of its financial capital and killed scores of innocent people might go scot free or with some minimal punishment.

Reason: There are loopholes in our law.
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The maximum punishment prescribed under Juvenile Justice Act is three years, Kazmi said.
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Do we always have to look only at the age and not the henious crime done by the individual? If finally I see Kasab going free after 3 years, it would not only be shameful but also would show that we really do not value human life or those of the martyrs who laid down their lives for an ungrateful nation.

Hey by the way, have you noticed that a bullet fired from a gun held by a 16 year old has the same effect as the gun fired by a 60 year old...Looks like the folks who wrote the damned law forgot this...Or where they also not able to understand anything ( As Kasab has been claiming in almost every hearing!!)

More on LAW


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Jailed ? You can contest but not vote!!

After reading this I first thought this was a really bad typo; But it turns out one of the biggest paradoxes of Democracy is that under-trails can contest but cannot vote.
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A convict sentenced to less than two years in jail can even contest elections even from the jail.
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If a convict sentenced to jail wins the election,  how on earth do we expect him to run his government sitting in the jail? I just fail to understand the whole idea behind the person who construed such a weird law.

I would have been more comfortable with the idea that undertrails are allowed to vote rather than having murders and rapists being able to contest elections. Ok, I know you will say dont wont vote for that person...But the point is why even bother to have them contest the elections?

Also, how does it make a difference to the voting capacities of a person if he is on bail or not?

I think either this is one of the worst WTF of the day or maybe we are deemed to live in this crazy world of crazier rules.

Dont be serious

It is sometimes quite nice to see people having fun. Though, election is/was a very serious matter, with the advent of comedy shows and standup comedy it is really difficult NOT to be the butt of jokes for your actions.

DNA report here shows how political parties are deriving humor out of each others campaigns. Some time back i had read a post on my friend Jeevan's blog which has a speech from Chetan Bhagat.
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One student asked him if these jokes would take away something from the yoga practice. The teacher said - don’t be serious, be sincere
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Looks like the mantra "Dont be serious,be sincere" or atleast the first part of it has struck up with people. I believe it is best that we respect each other and take these jokes in right light. I fully agree with Amit Varma who voices here that making a simple light hearted into a big issue is really the heights of WTFness.


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Chinese PirateBay, What say?

How should we react to these two seemingly opposite things happening at almost the same point in time.

1. Court jails Pirate Bay founders
   

2. Google offers free music downloads in China

Now in the first article, John Kennedy chairman of IFPI states
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"There has been a perception that piracy is OK and that the music industry should just have to accept it. This verdict will change that,"
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And in the second article

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If you can't beat 'em, join 'em......[.....]

Most Chinese users get their music for free anyway, thanks to rampant online piracy. [....]
Google wants to increase traffic and catch up to its competitor Baidu
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So now does that mean PirateBay founders should have chosen China over Sweden for their servers? Or does it mean that if you belong to a nation with stronger muscle power then piracy is acceptable. You decide.


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Flip Flop Karunanidhi

I dont know if is should cry, howl or just let it be. The kind of statements that our politicians make and then re-make just put to shame the statements made by PAK on their involvement in the 26/11 episode.

It is but obvious that our politicians are born with a loose tongue and make unacceptable statements in a public forum only to gain popularity. This serves then two motives; one they get some real estate of leading news papers and the second one is the satisfaction of going against something to boost their Ego's.

However, what is not evident is that this only shows their stupidity and also ensures that they lose whatever little credibility they have.

How i wish Mr. Karunanidhi had taken some training from Mr.Kunte.


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Donkey Vahana

I found this on one of my browsing sprees.
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Diwakar, a former soldier, and his donkey were both heavily garlanded.

However, the police refused to allow the donkey into the Agra collectorate's office.

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I guess the police did not want to create confusion as to which one of the two wanted to file the papers/

Google talk in Firefox

 If you are a google talk fan, and also are not able to download the software and install it on your pc then this might interest you.

I did not like the google chat feature available in gmail because it somehow doesn't feel good like a real chat client. At the same time due to restrictions on the computer i had i was not allowed to install gtalk also. Here is something that I found out on the net to get the same effect as gtalk with firefox. Here are the steps to do this with your firefox installation.

1. go to this link using firefox and bookmark it. http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client
2. After bookmarking it , it will apprear under the Bookmarks menu in firefox.
3. Right click on the bookmarked link and choose properties.
4. Use the checkbox which says Load bookmark in sidebar.
5. Close the window. Again go to bookmarks and click on the bookmark.
6. You should be able to see the google talk like interface load in the side bar.....

One more reason to use firefox :-). This will work on Ubuntu as well.

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Pak woes

Pakistan currently is going through the most dreaded phases and experts say the worst is yet to come. It is very obvious that the Zardari government is no longer able to run the country where the military power is such an overwhelming factor.

In the article here it is predicted that the doomsday for Pakistan is close by.
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It will dwarf anything we've seen so far. Pakistan has a military intelligence establishment that refuses to follow the civilian leadership. Pakistan has 100 nuclear weapons, an army bigger than America's and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control.
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This is a real cause of worry for the whole world and in particular I feel India is facing a great threat. If power goes into the wrong hands then one of the first countries to bear the brunt of the brutal and unmindful use of power would be undoubtedly India. Unfortunately, US and the Obama administration seem to feel that providing more aid is a solution. Some feel that Obama is doing the right thing by providing enough aid to Pak because this would help the country concentrate more about its internal security issues and also ensure that the Talibanisation of Pakistan is curbed. I personally feel that there is no right that US posseses to spend taxpayers money by providing aid to a country that is already being run by military and taliban. The current Pak government is just an eyewash with very little say in any of the matter that really matters ;-).

Sometimes at the hindsight, i feel that all this was to happen one day or the other. When a country gets free lunch, then the need for progress ends. I think Pak also suffers from this. When they are in need, they are fed by US which means that they really dont care about their internal development, rather use their energies in coming out with new ways to cause tension in the Kashmir Valley ( whereby they can grab international attention.)

I feel that US should rather provide aid to India, because it is we who end up paying for the unmindful philanthropy that US is doing towards Pakistan.


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War of Words

IBN reports here one more satirical remark made my Narendra Modi.

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"Ab mein Congress ko budhiya nahin, gudiya kahoonga"
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Well looks like Mr. Modi trying to create poetry. Imagine his poem

"Jab mey chotta baccha tha, congress ko mei budhiya kehta tha
Ab mey bada ban raha hoon, congress ko gudiya kehta hoon"

And who knows if all the small girls protest against this remark by Modi, then he might once again change his statement and come up with a new rhyming word

How about chidiya ??

"Ab congress ko maati ki Chidiya kehta hoon"

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What's for dessert ?

This pic was taken at Adiga's at Malleshwaram, Bangalore.

I wonder what kind of ingredients go into the said dish and who's nuts are going to be under the chef's knife!!. Just imagine this dialogue...


me: What's there for desserts?

waiter: Sir we have some special ice creams. You can have "My dreams" if you are a dreamer, "My darling" if you are a flirt and "My nuts" if you are a pervert or Gay..

me : Ahem (with obvious surprise) , anything else ?

waiter : Sir if you are horny then we have some "Merry widows!!"

I think i should seriously consider using the RTI act to figure out who's nuts and who's widows are these??

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Finally its here - Electronica

I had wanted to create a separate blog to share my experiences with the embedded world and the effects of having bitten by the electronics bug. Finally, the blog is ready. You can find it here.

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Free Media

The issue of Media trying to poke their nose deep into the personal lives of celebrities and page-3 personalities made big news after Princess Daina's car crash, which was caused due to high speed reckless driving to avoid paparazzi who were chasing her vehicle. There was a recent incident where a reporter was assaulted. The actor Woody Harrelson claims that he was still not completely "OUT" of the character he was playing in the movie ("Zombieland") and mistook the reporter for a zombie (WTF!!).

I am not saying Mr.Harrelson was right. However, I am not sure if i would agree fully with what the reporter did.

The question one needs to answer is How much of independence is OK for the media? Unfortunately, this there is a very thin line between independence and over independence. In recent times,  the ugly face of media came out. I am pointing at the 26/11 terrorist attack episode which took place in Mumbai. Most of the news channels had their cameramen trying to capture scenes which could add to their TRP, while they couldn't use their common sense to grasp the fact that the terrorists where using the media as their eyes outside the Taj and Oberio hotels where there were holed. In the melee to gain more viewers the news channels go to any extent, which  includes causing damage to the whole crime scene. Another notable fact was that the coverage provided to the people killed at CST was minimal compared to the repetitive news that kept of coming for the whole 5 days during the encounter.

While media independence is a must for free flow of information, It is up to the journalists and TV-reporters to refrain themselves from crossing the thin line beyond which their reporting becomes a quest for providing sensational news rather than the truth. More often than not what we get a a version of the news that is supposed to cause maximum impact rather than provide us with maximum truth.

With changing times the way journalism has evolved has also changed. This is the reason we see News channels like aaj-tak talking about winners of dance shows or TV soaps in their main stream news...( That is of course when they dont have some spicy news like 26/11). All I can wish is that before it is too late for the mess to be cleaned up...there is some self realisation...

A GM Two Wheeler

I did some research about two wheelers (of the kind we know ) recently. Reason, I finally thought that i should provide some assistance to my 2 legs that have carried me around for the better part of the last 26 years and chose this assistance to be a two wheeler.

So If everything goes well, I should be having a Bajaj XCD 135 by the weekend.

Coming to the point, I also found some two wheelers ( of the kind we may know). These are two wheeled vehicles which run on battery power. These are highly efficient and for a change you do not need to balance these vehicles. They are smart enough to balance themselves with you on them. I am talking about segway. GM and Segway are working together to manufacture a vehicle that can be made commercially available. This seems to be a great contribution by GM under the P.U.M.A program. This would atleast help to to clean up its image as a guzller manufacterur. 
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"The next two months, and really 2009, is all about the reinvention of General Motors,"
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I really hope that GM comes out the mess it is currently in. This is not because I have worked for GM projects ( as  a part or my career), but because i hate to such a gaint fall. Yeah, it is time the clean up their act but if GM cannot make it then we will lose much more than just an automotive OEM.....

Mera Jhuta Hindustani

Anything elsewhere gets immediately popular in our country, such is the miracle of our country. The evidence for this comes from the following incident that recently took place.

The only difference from the George Bush incident is that in this case only one shoe was thrown. I wonder if there will be a advanced level in the Bush shoe throw flash games called the "Chidambaram Level", with only shoes from only one leg!

I wonder was the has the incident got to do something with the Bush incident or would the journalist have expressed his anger in some other way had the Bush incident not gathered so much limelight.

On a funny note i remember this one which i got as a sms.

90% of Afgans think that the Bush Shoe-Thrower must be is guilty and must be punished. "How on earth can you miss two times in such a close range?" they say.

Update: An interesting update from India Uncut

Vista Codec Pack

At times i do search for software stuff also on the web for my pc. In such a spree i found this codec pack which might be of interest for vista users.

I have so far stayed away from VIsta and have been happy with Gstreamer plugin's in Ubuntu.

Block Facebook - Increase productivity..Says Who?

It is like with any other company these days. There are meetings and sub-meetings held to figure out how we can reduce our operational costs. In one such meeting a bloke mentioned that removing all kind of chat and socializing websites from the desktop would lead to greater productivity. I had screamed WTF at that time.

At that time my point had been that there is no experimental data to quantify how much productivity boost one would get by removing these simple pleasures in life. In a recent browsing experience i came across this study done by the University of Melborne (reported by Reuters).

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" people who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive that those who do not."
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It is not really surprising to me. I have always felt more comfortable being left to myself. It also makes me feel that i am not being monitored  and my seniors have full trust in me. I have always believed in the following....

"You can take a Horse to water but not make it drink"

In the current context what it means is that you can try to make a bloke work hard but it is totally up to him to decide if he really wants to do it or not.

Which is rightly said in the final sentence.
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"Those who behave with Internet addiction tendencies will have a lower productivity than those without," he said.
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Fortune ? You got to earn it.

"Fortune favors the brave"

I had heard intelligent people say this and also heard it at many motivational speeches given by even more motivating people. However, I had thought that it was just on paper. However, my little sister proved me wrong..

When she went to Singapore for her higher studies, she was extremely cash strapped. The required loan amount being huge with very less property to keep as security not many banks were ready to part with any educational loan. However, she struggled. It was almost like a beg, borrow or steal situation.

Thanks to our manager, Mr. Sivaram who stood as her surety against which the bank reluctantly parted with the educational loan.

That was then....just 10 odd months later (i.e now) she is having two scholarships ( which takes care of her entire education, so she need not depend on the loan amount anymore!!), has secured a internship program with a semiconductor company which i am sure will pay her a handsome stipend and plans to take her parents to Singapore for a tour after their retirement.

Now how should we interpret this? Was she lucky or is it that she was destined to do this. Well i consider it was because she was brave and fought against the odds that she is being bestowed by all these gifts from the nature.

Swami Vivekananda had quoted in most of his speeches that fear is the biggest enemy for our development. If we conquer fear, we open our doors to success.

Luck is there only for people who earn it....

They are free already!!

In the big Idea here, Ms Beards suggests that all the criminals who can be considered NOT as direct threats to the society can be let off or atleast be made to do something which makes them more productive than just locking them up..

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I don't want to see errant bankers get off scot-free. I want to see them working their socks off to pay back what they have stolen. Couldn't we get them building a few schools, hospitals, railways?
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This is in stark contrast to what happens in India. In India criminals are really free. I say this because I know that a big chunk of our politicians are actually either criminals who have been acquitted due to lack of evidence ( read use of muscle and money power) or are folks who have a bunch of cases pending against them..

What can we do to punish these criminals, who are now wearing a white coat and calling themselves our leaders?

(Note: I found this on wiki)

Red Hat goes proprietary

 Yahoo News reports that Red hat might go out of the open source paradigm.

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"We see open source getting embraced more and more by not only customers but other vendors like Microsoft, and I think this can be directly attributed to Red Hat's leadership,"

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I am sure that this will cause a lot of news and a lot of heated debates as to what Red-Hat can do and what it cannot ( or rather should not!!).

In my opinion this is a very debatable issue. Why debatable? 

Because if you had read the whole article you would have realized that you have just become a victim to the April fools day spoof!!....

Sequel to Pic of the month

This could not get any worse. As i was browsing i heard a loud bout of laughter from my brother's room. On enquiry what i found could  was  more than hilarious...

The whole article is here...

This is what happens when e-paper blends with the newspaper....or is it mass cut-copy-paste ;-)...

Bonobo styled justice

Some time back i had ranted about the way justice is being rendered in our country. However, in a recent internet-loafing session i found this.
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"That's right, bonobos are believed to resolve issues over food and territory not through violence, but through sex."
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If this idea is accepted by our judiciary then i am sure that all the cases that are pending today will vanish in no time. In-fact, I am sure there will many who will be more than happy to resolve the issue in this way.