Hilton receipt

Mass or weight

When I say that my "weight" is 70kg, do I really express my weight or am I expressing my mass ?
Not that this is going to have any effect on my resolution not to diet. But I am just curious.

I want to do this,
Some day....

I want to start my whole life again.

Indian English

While reading random Wikipedia documents, I stumbled upon this. I never realized that we Indians do have a style of English so different from typical British or American forms. I used to think that the main difference is just the pronunciations and some grammar which is directly inspired by our respective mother tongues. Read the wiki document if you have nothing constructive to do. It's nice.

No Desktop Calendar ?

Calendar is something we all need to refer to while planning things. I have been a Linux (with KDE) user. KDE has a small calendar app which pops up every time you click on the date. It just lets u go thru the dates if you are not an admin. Makes perfect sense. I recently installed Win XP - SP3 and I realized that unfortunately a normal user (who is not an admin) CANNOT double click the date to see the calendar. So I begun hunting for a simple solution that is
1) Light weight
2) Does not come with a lot of nonsense I don't need.
3) Is installable as a non-admin user.
4) which just sits in the corner (say system tray) and is invoked if and only if I click it.

Surprisingly I haven't found ANYTHING that satisfies all three conditions. Almost ALL of them need administrative privileges which is something I find hard to understand. Why do you need admin privilege to build an app which provides READ ONLY access to system date. I cannot understand this ...
Even mighty google does not have solution. There calendar widget is the funniest widget I have ever seen. It keesp changing size for no apparent reason(also BTW Google widgets need a platform installation which again needs admin privilege. And I realized that I dont need most of the stuff it offers).

So far the best I have is a firefox add on which sits in the corner of my FX3 and provides the same functionality. But if anyone knows of a simple solution that works please let me know.

Ridiculous!!!

From BBC News article :
"... 12 children were killed in Lower Dir on Saturday after playing with a bomb they mistook for a football."

Our neighbors are in deep mess!!

Too many editors drive you crazy

We like to get used to things we do. Like using a text editors. Most of us are so used to using editors with GUI that after every few lines we mechanically press Ctrl+S to save our work. However, It becomes a real PITA if we are forced to use different editors with totally different shortcuts.

I have ended up in a very frustrating situation. I used vim for some basic shell script editing (especially when connected through ssh). For all my local work I used Kate or Kdevelop (KDE IDE), both of which are pretty standard when it comes to shortcuts (so Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V and Ctrl-S works). These days I have been using MATLAB a lot and that too using X11 tunneling :-( Although basic MATLAB editor is standard, the one which uses X11 tunneling has a totally different (and weird) shortcuts. For example, to save, you have to use (Ctrl-X Ctrl-S) and to copy Alt-W while (Ctrl-W) and (Ctrl-Y) is for cut and paste respectively.

The problem comes when you get used to using all of them. Now I type :w in matlab and expect it to save stuff or (Ctrl-x, Ctrl-s) in kate and wonder why did it cut the selected text.

It looks like even though this is exagerrated, it is not very far from truth :-) User interfaces do have profound impact on the way you do work ...

Long time .. no post

I am coming here less frequently. I started blogging mainly to get rid of frustration and to write random crap I will not talk about otherwise. But the priorities have changed now. I am getting less and less time to spend here. And have even fewer things to write about.

So close , yet...

After getting totally pissed off with kopete in KDE 4.X, I finally decided to install Windows XP with VirtualBox. First, I was amazed at how smoothly everything .. just works. I even managed to make Windows detect my USB webcam. Though never really succeeded in getting it to work. I could play in windows and hear them. Everything seemed to be going well. Alas, for some god forsaken reason my microphone wont work in Windows. No matter what I do. Windows does detect it. I mean, sound recorder does attempt to record. But nothing gets recoded. I did some searching and realized that it is a well known problem. Mic seems to be working for some users. However, a lot of them have the problems.
I will just wait and see. I went through all the pain just to get my voice chat enabled but .... Afsos :-(

Skiing is fun

The spring break is finally over. The classes have resumed and a loads of work is coming my way. But for some reason I have chosen to bask in the relaxing memories of the week just passed.

And now compiz is working

I am going to continue my pointless rants about KDE and compiz.

I wanted downgrade KDE back to 3.5.10. I figured that there is no direct way of it. Apparently the "4" in KDE 4.* is not just a version number. KDE 4 is treated as a different software (I maybe wrong here so correct me if I am). Ergo, to downgrade KDE 4 I will have to downgrade to Hardy. Because KDE 3.* is not available in Intrepid. Wow...
Further, downgrading Ubuntu is technically possible but is a not so straight forward. For no apparent reason, I installed GNome along side KDE. And voila... Compiz is suddenly working like never before. It also provides most of the features I liked in KDE3. So now, I have finally settled down with KDE4.1. Amarok2 is the only thing that has issues (mainly coz I am using gstreamer backend for phonon).

Although compiz in KDE seems to be working well for most of the people out there (even without Gnome). I believe there is something in KDE compiz that still is loosely tied to Gnome. So it requires Gnome to be present in order to run properly. I should be doing more testing before making such propositions. But now that things are working well for me I simply do not care....

KDE4.1

While I am at cursing KDE4.1 let me also do it a bit more.

One thing we all accept is KDE 4.1 is "cool" period. Only other desktop more funkier than this is probably a Mac. It has some really nice features. Especially the idea of not having an explicit "desktop" and letting any (and many" folders to become desktop is appreciable. The widgets etc is also good. Unfortunate thing is Compiz STILL doesn't work for me. It blows me all out after the install. But my desktop simply freezes on a restart. I think Compiz does not like my ATI Radeon X1100 :-(

I know SEV, that it works on your ATI but I am so far not lucky with it.

No.. But Compiz is not the reason why I am upset with KDE4.1. In fact I am least bothered about it. Its the shortcuts I am mad about. For some reason KDE4.1 cannot recognize WIN key so ALL my customized shortcuts are just gone. WTF. The main reason why opted for KDE is custom shortcuts (for almost anything and everything, if u knew existence of kmenuedit). I do understand that it is matter of fixing the WIN key issue but I have been unable to do so and that drives me mad.

So ... all this have caused me to lose all the excitement about KDE4.1. Yes, it may be the thing for some of you but I would not mind going back to 1.5.10 if there is an easy way of doing it.

Amarok2 and OSSv4 is a disaster

I am a religious supporter of OSS4 over ALSA. I recently upgraded to KDE4.1 and came across this shitty sound system called phonon. Apparently it is supposed to improve the whole user experience but it murders it. The worse part is Amarok2 is insane enough to assume that phonon is always going to work. WHAT CRAP. The best part abut amarok1.* is that it lets you select your sound system. However, phonon simply cant see OSS. So basically Amarok tries to play sound without managing to get anything out of your speakers. The (only) good part is old faithful VLC (and mplayer) just works as it used to.

While doing a frantic forum-googling I just realized that other than some more funky looks and this phonon shit, there is nothing in Amarok2 that will really excite me (No I am not a big fan of having widgets in everything window doing needless crazy stuff). So I simply downgraded it back to older amarok.

So if you expect you multimedia player to manage your collection and play it properly Amarok 2 is just not worth the pain. OFC if you are already "pulsed into alsa" then go ahead and try it.

I have faced problems getting ALSA to do everything I want. So I switched to OSS instead. I must say, OSS has been way better that ALSA. But little did I know about the potential problems when I recently upgraded from Hardy to Intrepid. It seems that Ubuntu (to be more specific Kubuntu) has undergone some changes in the way packaged are organized (Just my guess....) . Even adept-manager has changed its name to just "adept" with "manager" as a command line argument. So basically (k)ubuntu won't upgrade/remove my existing OSS. Fine. But It couldn't even detect it. Worst, It assumed that there is no sound system so installed alsa. WTF ?
So I had this OSS installation which ubuntu was agnostic about. I had another alsa installed which for some reason never worked. Ubuntu won't let me remove existing OSS. It won't let me install the fresh one. I got following looking errors :

/var/lib/dpkg/info/oss-linux.prerm: 3: source: not found
... and several others

So basically I was stuck in a deadlock. From the error I kinda assumed that it has got to do something with the installer/uninstaller scripts (or related files) being misplaced. So I manually removed (after taking a backup ofc) all the oss related files (/var/lib/dpkg/info/oss-linux*) from package database. Just tried to install the oss again

sudo dpkg -i oss-linux-4.1-1051_amd64.deb

Voila... dpkg assumed that my previous package files were corrupted but did a fresh reinstall. Ofc I did get this ominous looking (serious) warning:

dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `oss-linux' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.

But in end of the it did what I wanted to.

I still do not know if there is a correct way of doing this. Please note that we are actually fiddling with package manager's files which may cause very serious problems. If anyone knows a better/correct way, please let me know.

The main point of this post is to document my experience. Because I didn't find anyone else who had faced a similar problem. So this may be of some help to someone who is facing similar problems.

Conclusions from my latest "research"

Rule 1:
You are so busy with your course work during the semester that you hardly get time to do research

Rule 2:
Once the semester ends, your mind goes in "vacationing" mode which renders any efforts from your brain to do research useless...

Show what people want to see and win a golden globe (nomination)

ok... Slumdog millionaire is a decent movie. Especially if you watch it the day after watching TDTESS (read the previous post), it may even look like the movie of the millennium. But it is definitely not worth the reviews it received. The US and the western world in general likes to see India (read: All the third world countries) as a country where you don't find anything good. They like to see people shitting on the road, forcing children into begging and prostitution, devising innovative plans to con foreigners. That is exactly what the movie show. Agreed, the child artists in the movie are really amusing and fun to watch. But the picture of India that is being portrayed is not something I would like to see on the celluloid. I just get the feeling that this portrayal has a lot to do with most of those (except Rehman's) golden globes nominations. Because second of the movie is nothing but good old (predictable) hindi cinema. And what the hell is Anil Kapoor doing there ? His character is simply incomprehensible (to me).

I am not saying that the movie is bad. It is nice movie to watch and everyone should watch it. It's some good fun but it's definitely not up to the reviews/nominations it has received.

P.S. In all these negative things, I must not forget to mention how superb job Rehman has done in the movie. Really nice soundtrack!

How can you (pretend to) likeTDTESS ?

The Day The Earth Stood Still... The name itself suggests something creepy about the movie. We all think that it's a sci-fi thriller and walk in the hall. But We are all disappointed. Even if you get free passes, the movie isn't worth the time you spend. It's nothing but crap.

But... there may be other ways of looking at it. Rather than considering the movie as a Sci-fi thriller look at it as a philosophical movie. All the aliens, there space-spheres(?), which incidentally look like blown up models of marbles I used to play as a kid, are a metaphor to all the evil things on the earth. The representative of The President of the United States (aka "the eyes and ears of the president and the vice-president") is a metaphor for ... The President of united States. Keanu Reeves is a metaphor to the UN and UNICEF etc. etc. who are hopelessly trying to establish peace. jennifer Conelly is a metaphor to few honest people going about their business without hurting anyone. The irritating kid represents the confused "rest of the world". With this frame of mind, if you watch the movie, it really isn't all that bad. Despite the funny iron-man, with a light bulb in his head, which disintegrates into alien bugs (the man not the bulb), the movie MAY still make some sense. So go and try to pretend to like it.

Mumbai meri jaan

And it happens again. One of the biggest terrorist attack rocks not just the city or the nation but the whole world. I cannot exactly put my feelings in words. On one side, I am deeply shaken with what has happened. I feel sorry for people who lost their beloved ones in the attacks. But there is also that hidden relief that my people are unhurt. Every one I know from the city is safe. And that still makes me smile in all this chaos. You can't really avoid being selfish even at worst times like these.

The loss of life is but just one evil consequence of the attack. There are many worse which are not evident yet. As I write this sitting here, I still cannot stop worrying about my family. An unknown fear is slowly taking over me. I am not sure whether I will think of going to Marine drive, the next time I go to India. I am scared of going to my home.

Not only the city but the whole nation is going through tough times. Share market is closed. I read that many tourists have called of their plans to travel to India. England is calling off their tour (And I think they are justified, for once). And Australians are canceling their games. This only is a hint of other indirect consequences, this whole thing is responsible for.

To be frank, bomb blast is something I have got used to(?) hearing about. With bomb blasts, its kind of straight and easy. The bomb is planted. Time is set and Kaboom ! Its all over. But what has happened today is virtually a battle, a war. As I understand, the fighting is going on as I type this. People are taken hostages. Army has taken over some of the operation. WTF This is Bombay, not Baghdad. What has become of my beloved city. And the worst thing is all I can manage to do it write this mostly useless, shitty blog just to vent my frustration,anger and fear.

I have no idea what I have written. Whether it makes sense or not. Thoughts are just coming flying out of my mind. But I had to write this. This is not for me, not for you. This for my city, my home, Mumbai, meri jaan.

6 Facts about me

SEV recently tagged me. Although in my opinion, tagging is utterly useless and a total wastage of bandwidth, I liked the idea of writing few things about myself. It's something I believe I am better at. So here are six random things about myself.

1) I am an arrogant, cynical, male chauvinist (I know people who will vouch for that). And I like it that way.
2) Ironically, I am also a very nice person (the SAME set of people will vouch for this).
3) In my opinion, out of 6 billion people on earth, 5.9 billion are living a pointless life. And if we kill these 5.9 billion, lives of rest 0.1 billion will become (mostly) pointless. As a corollary, I am still searching for purpose in my life (hence the blog name).
4) At night I think about things I should be least bothered about and then wonder why am I an insomniac.
5) My hidden dream is drive Dodge Viper Convertible at its top speed, jump over a cliff and do the Vin Diesel's XXX Chevy Corvette stunt.
6) I am a total atheist and no, I do not think I am god.

P.S.
After writing this, I just realized one possible use of tagging. Tagging creates hyper links between pages. If through transitivity you get connected to some bigshot, page-rank of you blog will go up. Which in turn will increase probability of your blog being shown in any of the google searches. If you have "Ads by Google" then this means you have greater chance of making money without earning it. So SEV, you may have just increased your odds for earning some money.

P.P.S. Despite my proposition above I am still not going to tag anyone. I am sorry SEV. You are free to tag someone else :-)