Its my life

2011-12-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

MIT launches online learning initiative - MIT News Office

2011-11-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

Are baby shampoos poisoning infants? - Yahoo! News

2011-09-06T13:26:00.000-07:00

Looks good but we need higher Contrast

E Ink promises thinner, lighter, higher resolution, and color e-paper displays – New Tech Gadgets & Electronic Devices | Geek.com

2011-09-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

Chromebooks are dead, they just don't know it yet | ZDNet

as expected Chromebooks will be dead judt like google wave

2011-09-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

Palladio 16 Cinemas - (916) 984-7469 - Folsom, CA

$5 for movies on Tuesdays!

2011-09-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

Rumor Mill: Intel to temporarily halt MeeGo development - FierceWireless

Meego has always been a waste of time IMHO. Focus on optimizing android on x86

2011-09-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

Devices to Secure a Second Home - NYTimes.com

Cheap and useful when going away from home for a long time

2011-09-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

Lenovo Heats up Price War With $199 IdeaPad Tablet | PCWorld

Finally OEMs are getting it. Lower the price and there is definitely a market for android tablets. But no one in their right mind will buy a tablet which is >$499 when iPad is still around

2011-08-31T10:51:00.000-07:00

Skype for Home Phones - Use Skype on your phone today - Skype

Finally an official Skype phone adapter!

2011-08-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

Your Guide to Reading on the iPad

2011-08-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

Comic book archive to EPUB converter | Download Comic book archive to EPUB converter software for free at SourceForge.net

2009-05-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

Rachel Maddow and Priyanka Gandhi. Lost sisters??

2008-08-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin. This is the best Republicans could come up with. Meet the future commander-in-chief of America

2008-07-05T14:07:00.000-07:00

Useful software:

Puretext

Launchy

Ditto

Snippy

2008-06-03T11:21:00.000-07:00

AP tally: Obama clinches Democratic nomination.

Wohoo ... The bitch is dead!

2007-09-14T23:36:00.000-07:00

How to block ads in nokia n800 opera/mozilla browser

First you will need to install the following:
1) xterm
2) becomeroot
3) Your favorite editor (I used pygtkeditor)

Now start xterm and type sudo gainroot. The prompt should change from $ to # indicating that you are root. You can also verify that by using the command whoami.

Now adblocking is achieved by modifying your host file. I will recommend that you make a backup copy of your host file located at /etc/hosts.

Now go here and use Mike's host file and append it to your existing hostfile at /etc/hosts

Thats it! Now you will never have to see those pesky ads on your nokia N800 ever again. :)

2007-08-02T16:45:00.000-07:00

I love instiki :)

2007-06-18T16:43:00.000-07:00

I have become a HDHomeRun Fan! This nifty little device adds dual HD-Tuner to your existing PC. Since it connects to your PC via network, you dont have to bother about lack of availability of PCI slots.

HDHomeRun is the first QAM tuner available on windows platform which integrates with MCE. I have been using Dvico FusionHDTV card for tuning OTA HD channels, but the drawback with that setup was ugly antenna in my living room. With HDHomeRun I have finally been able to get rid of indoor antenna, and dual tuner capability allows me to simultaneously record both Leno and Letterman in full HD glory :)

The integration of HDHomeRun with Windows MCE is quite straightforward and I strongly recommend this tuner to anyone looking for HDTV capability in his HTPC

2007-04-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

Tulip festival 2007 in Woodburn, OR

2007-04-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

netmeter is very useful freeware software to monitor network traffic on your PC.

2007-03-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

This Friday, India will clash with Sri-Lanka in a do-or-die match in the cricket world-cup 2007. Winning team moves on to the next round and loosing team will most-probably sit out. Interestingly, there was an identical scenario in the 1999 cricket world-cup with India and Sri-Lanka clashing in a do-or-die match then. India batted first and Vaas removed Sachin in his very first over. Sachin faced 4 deliveries from Vaas and scored 2 runs before he was clean bowled. Dravid walked in next and back in 1999 Dravid used to be a really pathetic ODI batsmen,. The trouble with Dravid back then was that he could neither hit big shots nor he could rotate strike. Dravid was considered as a technically proficient test-match batsmen but someone not suited for one-day cricket. When Dravid walked in, I remember making a comment that if Dravid doesn’t deliver in this match, he should be kicked out of Indian one day team for ever. Surprising he delivered, and boy what an innings he played. Dravid who had a reputation of a very slow and non-aggressive one day batsmen, just took off and scored his half-century in 30 odd balls. He was so dominant that all the Sri-Lankan bowlers were shell shocked. Dravid raced to his century but in the mean time, the other batsmen Ganguly who until now was playing second fiddle to Dravid also picked up the slack from his side. Both these guys then went on rampage and India scored around 150 runs in the last 15 overs. India ended up scoring 373 runs which was their highest ODI total ever. Ganguly hit a barrage of sixes and in one particular over from Murli he hit 3 consecutive sixes.

When Sri-Lanka came in to bat, their only hope was that Jayasurya would give them quick start and play a big innings. Unfortunately for Sri-Lanka that didn’t happen, and Jayasurya departed very quickly. Sri-Lankan batting subsequently collapsed and India registered a thumping win by 157 runs.

Let’s hope that history repeats itself this Friday and India again beat Sri-Lanka.

2007-03-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

unplug is a very useful firefox extension which allows you to download embedded videos from a website. I find it very useful in downloading trailers from movie websites which do not allow you to save the movie.

Typical website

and here is how you grab the embedded video. Pretty cool!

2007-02-22T18:39:00.000-08:00

Britney Spears, the no talent ass clown ...

2007-01-16T16:37:00.000-08:00

Disk fragmentation is a bitch. Use the following instructions to keep your PC running smoothly

How to Automate Disk Defragmenter Using Task Scheduler Tool in Windows XP

1. Open Control Panel
2. Double-click Scheduled Tasks
3. Double-click Add Scheduled Task
4. On the Scheduled Task Wizard dialog, click Next
5. Click Browse
6. In the Select Program to Schedule dialog, navigate to the windows\system32 folder
7. Select defrag.exe
8. Click Open
9. In the Scheduled Task Wizard dialog, type a name for the scheduled task (Disk Defragmenter, for instance)
10. Under Perform this task, select how often you wish Disk Defragmenter to run
11. Click Next
12. Set the time at which you wish the Disk Defragmenter scheduled task to run. This should be a time when your computer is on, but not in heavy use.
13. Select the frequency at which you want the Disk Defragmenter scheduled task to run (Every Day, Weekdays, or Every days, where is the number of days between scheduled runs)
14. Click Next
15. Enter a user name under which the Disk Defragmenter scheduled task will run. Note: This user must be an administrator on the local machine.
16. Enter the password for the user you entered in the previous step
17. Confirm the password for the user
18. Click Next
19. Check Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish
20. Click Finish
21. In the Run text box, you should see the full path and command for defrag.exe. By default, this path is C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe
22. Append the drive letter for the drive you wish to defragment to the command in the Run text box. In a default installation, your Run command will look like this:
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe C:
23. Click OK
24. In the Set Account Information dialog, enter and confirm the password for the user listed in Run as
25. Click OK

2006-10-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

In Windows XP you can do safe browsing and other internet activities by running all the apps under reduced user privileges. Follow the instructions from this website

2006-09-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

If you have sensitive documents and information in your PC, use this free, open-source encryption software. Its intuitive and works like a charm. Download

2006-07-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

Both HD-DVD and Blu-ray suck. These technologies are completely useless and serve no purpose for the consumer. Now, I am not saying that HD sucks. I myself own a 46" HDTV, and it is awesome. Over-the-air HD broadcast looks stunning, and I whole-heartedly support movies in HD format. But the world does not need a new storage-disk/format for watching movies in HD.

An ordinary dual-layered DVD can store upto about 9GB of data. 9GB of space is more than enough to store an entire movie in HD format. It is a myth that one needs to invent a high-capacity disk in order to store HD movies. An entire HD movie will not fit in an ordinary DVD only if one uses an old and archaic codec like mpeg2. But Instead of mpeg2 if modern codecs like h264 are used, an entire movie in HD quality can easily fit in an ordinary DVD. The h264 codec has already been approved by both HD-DVD and Blu-ray camp and is in their list of mandatory codecs. So the million dollar question is, why do these folks want to create a new storage medium instead of using the old and trusted DVD? Two reasons: DRM and Money. The plan is to create new disk format infested with DRM and then suck consumers into paying more for these shiney new disks!

All the consumer really want is an ordinary DVD player with an HDMI/DVI/component-video output and ability to play movies encoded in h264 at HD bit-rate. But who cares about the consumers?

2006-02-26T14:02:00.000-08:00

Default installation of tight-vnc server on windows also registers vncserver as a windows service and starts it everytime the computer boots. This is very handy and allows one to control his/her desktop remotely

In Linux (Fedora core 4), things are a bit different. Since the xserver is running at display :0, it is not possible to run vncserver on this display. vncserver can be run on another display including multiple displays (e.g :1, :2 etc). But this solution is not very useful if you want to control your default desktop session running at :0

Fear not! There is a very elegant solution. Newer xservers (xorg) have option for loading vnc modules, which allows vncservice to run on the :0 display.

Here are the instructions for doing it

1) First create vncpassword
# vncpasswd
Once you have entered a password in and verified it, it will automatically create a file located in $HOME/.vnc/passwd

2) Now modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf as follows
Go to the Section "Module" area of the config and add the vnc module to load:
....
....
Section "Module"
Load "vnc"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
....
....

3. Now that the VNC module is set to load, we also have to specify where to have VNC look for the password file as well as the option to use it. This will be done under Section "Screen" as shown.
Section "Screen"
....
....
#This tells X where to locate the VNC password file
Option "PasswordFile" "$HOME/.vnc/passwd"
....
....

4) You will have to restart X (no need to reboot, just log out (end session in KDE), and hit CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE when the login window comes back up, then login).

-------------------- Mandriva 2006 ------------------------

The above solution does not work for mandriva 2006. But there is an alternative x11vnc. Download x11vnc from here. I downloaded the source code and compiled it myself. It took less than 2 mins and was very straight forward.

% tar xvzf x11vnc-0.8.tar.gz

(cd to the source directory)
% cd x11vnc-0.8

(run configure and then run make)
% ./configure
% make
% make install

x11vnc will be installed in /usr/local/bin/x11vnc

Now, create a symbolic link to automatically start x11vnc everytime kde starts
% ln -s /usr/local/bin/x11vnc ~/.kde/Autostart/x11vnc

2005-11-23T15:09:00.000-08:00

In linux you can use the following commands to get more info about hard disks and CD-ROM units.

hdparm -t /dev/hdd
hdaprm -i /dev/hdd

Use them as root. Replace the X by the letter that corresponds with your unit.

2005-11-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

Restore Show Desktop Icon to Quick Launch on Taskbar in Windows-XP

If the Show Desktop icon is deleted from Quick Launch, the procedure below will recreate the file.

Open Notepad and enter the following text:

[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop

Save the new file as Show Desktop.scf then drag and drop the icon on the Quick Launch bar or whatever location you want the shortcut to appear.

2005-10-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

Sine... Cosine... Cosine... Sine...
Three point; one four; one five; nine ...
(3.14159)

Well, thats how our Dick Solomon cheers for his local football team Pendleton Badgers!!

The whole 3rd rock from the sun series was hillarious.

2005-10-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

New version of our product (Vivek 2.0) is due to be launched in the first week of January 2006. Vivek 2.0 will introduce bold and interesting new advances in the human evolution cycle. Vivek 2.0 is currently being developed from scratch at our state-of-the art facility here at Hillsboro, OR. Its revolutionary design and unparalleled computing power is sure to blow away all the competition. Gartner has already predicted that Vivek 2.0 will take the world by storm and accomplish all that its predecessors failed to do.

More updates on Vivek 2.0 including some screen-shots will be published here as soon as they are made available

2005-09-11T01:29:00.000-07:00

This is the state of the 5th game between me and gnuchess. What should be white's (i.e mine) next move?

2005-09-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

This fucking bitch keeps showing up in UPN TV channel here in the Portland, Oregon area. She is fucking hideous and obnoxious. And the funny part is that she thinks she is really hot. I find this bitch is so creepy that I might altogether stop watching UPN if she keeps showing up.

God… She is such a fugly irritating bitch.

2005-09-02T00:27:00.000-07:00

I have done it again! My second successive victory over GNU-Chess. The computer gave stiff competition but lost the game on 53 moves. This victory was sweet as I completely dominated the game and didn’t give my opponent any chance.

I will be playing three more games with the computer. And if I can beat the machine on all these three occasions, GNU-Chess will receive a performance/level raise before our next set of games.

Here is the game in PGN format

[Event "Computer chess game"]
[Site "localhost"]
[Date "2005.09.01"]
[Round "-"]
[White "vchaudh"]
[Black "GNU Chess 5.07"]
[Result "1-0"]
[TimeControl "40/1"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qd5 6. Bd3 Nf6 7. Qe2 Be7
8. c3 Nxe4 9. Bxe4 Qd6 10. O-O O-O 11. b4 Bd7 12. Rd1 f5 13. Bd3 f4 14. Qe4
Rf5 15. a4 Raf8 16. b5 a5 17. Ba3 Nb4 18. cxb4 axb4 19. Bb2 Rb8 20. Ne5 Be8
21. Bc1 Bg5 22. Bd2 Rd8 23. Rab1 b3 24. Rxb3 Qxd4 25. Qxd4 Rxd4 26. Bxf5
exf5 27. Nf3 Bh5 28. Rb4 Rd7 29. Rbb1 Bxf3 30. gxf3 Kf7 31. Bb4 Rxd1+ 32.
Rxd1 Ke6 33. Kf1 Bf6 34. Ke2 Be5 35. Rc1 g5 36. Bc3 Bxc3 37. Rxc3 Kd6 38.
a5 c6 39. bxc6 bxc6 40. a6 Kc7 41. Rb3 c5 42. a7 c4 43. Rb8 Kd6 44. a8=Q
Ke5 45. Rc8 h5 46. Rxc4 g4 47. fxg4 hxg4 48. Qe8+ Kf6 49. Rxf4 Kg7 50. Rxf5
Kh7 51. Rg5 Kh6 52. Rxg4 Kh7 53. Qh5#
{computer loses as black} 1-0

2005-09-01T00:19:00.000-07:00

I have finally managed to beat gnuchess!!

Gnuchess is a free open source chess program which can be used with a gui frontend xboard (winboard for windows). It is a formidable opponent with an ELO rating of around 2100 with mediocre settings on a 1.3GHz AMD Athlon computer with 512 MB RAM. I decreased its ability by using the following settings :)

% xboard -highlight -size huge -tc 0:01 -xponder -depth 1 -sgf chess/games.log -autosave

Here is the PGN chess file.

[Event "Computer chess game"]
[Site "localhost"]
[Date "2005.08.31"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Vivek Chaudhary"]
[Black "GNU Chess 5.07"]
[Result "1-0"]
[TimeControl "40/1"]

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qf5 4. d4 Nc6 5. Nf3 Nf6 6. Bd3 Qe6+ 7. Be3
Nd5 8. Qe2 Ncb4 9. O-O Nxc3 10. bxc3 Nxa2 11. Qd2 Bd7 12. Ne5 b5 13. Nxd7
Kxd7 14. Bxb5+ Kc8 15. d5 Qd6 16. Rxa2 a5 17. c4 Kd8 18. Rxa5 Rb8 19. c5
Qf6 20. Bf4 Qb2 21. Qd3 Qb4 22. Bxc7+ Kxc7 23. Qg3+ Kb7 24. c6+ Kb6 25.
Qxb8+ Kc5 26. c7 Kxd5 27. c8=Q Qd6 28. Rd1+ Ke4 29. Rxd6 exd6 30. Qg4+ Ke5
31. Bc4+ Kf6 32. Qb7 d5 33. Bxd5 Ke5 34. Bxf7+ Kf6 35. Qf5#
{computer loses as black} 1-0

2005-04-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

The only constant in this universe is change. Those who dont change perish. One should never be scared of change. Change is what keeps you alive. This is the basic survival technique. Species which do not adapt to changes in their surrounding environment get extinct.

The same logic holds for your career. One has to take risks and adapt to changes. Dont just sit on you ass, because you think that you job is safe. Never get complacent. I repeat, never be scared of taking risks. Without taking risks, one can never make any progress.

2005-02-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

Life is too short to sit on your ass and whine. Just do it. Just do what you think is right, and don't give a fuck about what others think.

Its your life. Not theirs...

2005-02-13T22:24:00.000-08:00

Prime numbers are the basic building blocks of Mathematics. Just like every known substance in this universe is made of basic ingredients (elements like H, N, C, O), similarly every number can be constructed from prime numbers.

Pick any random number say, 1224142002. This number can be entirely constructed from Prime numbers.

1224142002 = 2 * 3 * 3 * 41 * 859 * 1931

where 2, 3, 41, 859 and 1931 are all prime numbers.

My date of birth is -------. It happens to be a prime number if expressed in the form YYYY/MM/DD !!

---------is a prime number.

Does that mean something? I guess I must be really special, although I don't think that I have done anything useful in my entire life :)

2004-12-20T11:13:00.000-08:00

Firefox tips

1) Type about:config and press enter. Change the value of keyword.URL to http://www.google.com/search?lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q= This will change the autosearch behaviour in firefox from google I'm feeling lucky to default google search.

2004-12-01T17:41:00.001-08:00

I just purchased a Plextor DVD Burner for under $60 (49.99+9S&H).

The model is PX-712A.
* 12x4x16x DVD+RW
* 8x4x16x DVD-RW
* 48x24x48x CD-RW

DVD+R (and -R) have become a really affordable backup mediums (about 50 cents a pop). I briefly thought about getting a dual-layer DVD-burner but decided against it, because the media is still very expensive. I don't think that the price for these dual-layer media is justified considering the fact that one gets only double the space (about 8GB).

I think the future belongs to blue-ray DVDs, which will hold about 40-60GB of data.

2004-11-04T06:44:00.000-08:00

I thought George W Bush was a bumbling fool...

But after this years election results, I am wondering who is the real bumbling idiot?

The American President or the Americans?

2004-10-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

This week I compiled KDE 3.3 from the source using konstruct. The ease with which I have been able to compile the entire KDE environment has simple blown me away. I had never compiled and installed KDE from the source, it just felt too huge and complicated. But it turned to be a brainless exercise with konstruct. You just run this script and it automagically downloads, de-compresses, compiles and installs everything!!

I would like to congratulate KDE folks for creating this fine desktop environment. The wealth of software that you get if you compile all the packages in KDE is simply amazing.

Three cheers to the KDE team :)

2004-09-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

God created this world in 6 days.

He created Man is his own image

BTW.. Who created God?

Well.... um.. he is God. So no one needs to create him.

Oh, really. So tell me, why does, someone need to create this world?

We humans always think in terms of creation and destruction. Humans are irrelevant. Stop flattering yourself by believing that you guys have been created in the image of God himself. You guys are no better or worse than a tape-worm.

IF tomorrow all humans kill each other and are extinct, nothing will change.

What if there is no God?

And what if all the humans are nothing but a puny little piece of sh*t in this Cosmos?

2004-08-12T23:57:00.000-07:00

Mozilla mail is a free email client. If you want to transfer all your emails from one PC to another (assuming you had a POP account), here is the trick

Suppose PC1 has all your mails and you want to copy all your emails to PC2.

In PC1 look at the names of all the folders that you have created inside "Local Folders" in Mozilla mail. Create these folders in PC2 inside "Local Folders" in Mozilla mail. They will be empty, we will transfer their contents later. For the time-being just create these folders and keep them vacant.
If PC1 is a windows machine then go to the the following folder "C:\Documents and Settings\%USER%\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\default\%RANDOM%.slt>\Mail\Local Folders".
If PC1 is a UNIX/Linux then go to "/home/%USER%/.mozilla/default/%RANDOM%.slt>/Mail/Local Folders"
Note: %RANDOM%.slt> is some folder inside the dir "default".
Copy the entire contents of the "Local Folders"directory from PC1 and put it in PC2. PC2 will also have a "default" folder and a random named folder inside it. Inside this folder will be the "Mail" folder containing "Local Folders". Delete this "Local Folder" and copy the "Local Folder" from PC1 here.
Thats it!! All your emails will now show up in PC2 in Mozilla mail

2004-08-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

This new DVD player from Philips is simply awesome. Get it from walmart for $69. The cool thing about this DVD player is its ability to play MPEG4 videos (Divx and Xvid formats). I have been using this baby for about a month now, and I give it a 5-star rating.

I make back-ups of DVD movies and videos by converting them to Divx. Since Divx is a compressed format, you can easily put 3 to 5 movies in a DVD+R media without loosing any noticeable video quality. There are plenty of softwares available for ripping and encoding DVDs, but my favorite is dvd::rip. It run on linux, and this makes it even more cool because DVD ripping and encoding is a very CPU entensive process, and will frequently crash Windows OS. (XP Pro is much more stable, but simply forget doing DVD ripping and encoding on previous versions of windows).

I like encoding DVD movies in Divx with a video bitrate of 1Mbps and audio bitrate of 192Kbps.

BTW you can use dvd-shrink and dvd-decrypter to make an exact copy of any DVD. It is legal, as long as you own the original DVD that you are copying. (If you care about legal crap!)

2004-08-08T14:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I installed debian and came back to Mandrake (10.0 Official). Debian is good only if you stick to the stable packages. I tried Mepis linux which uses the latest (debian unstable) packages, and I was sorely dissapointed. apt-get sucked big time. I could not even get the nvidia drivers installed using apt-get. Some other software installation also failed.

My conclusion is that debian is great for running servers where one doesnt need to use the latest and the greatest apps. If you just stick to the debian stable packages, debian will be rock solid. But if you tread anywhere near unstable packages, then the legendary debain stability becomes a joke. Overall, I belive that Mandrake linux 10.0 (official version) is still the best desktop OS.

Period.

2004-08-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

I am planning to install debian linux on my desktop. I have been a big fan of Mandrake and have been using it since version 8.1. It is a nice distro and installation is a breeze. But software installation is not easy (rpms suck, source install takes a lot of time). The most difficult part is to upgrade major components of the OS. For e.g upgrading KDE is not straight-forward.

Debian has apt-get. I have heard lot of good things about it, lets see how good it actually is. I am really fed up of installing new versions of linux every 9 months. Debian it seems, follows the philosophy of "install once, keep upgrading for ever". I hope that will be true, lets just see...

BTW I plan to install Mepis Linux, which is the easiest debian distro.

2004-06-24T18:06:00.000-07:00

Spielberg's work is consistently deteriorating. His latest movie "The Terminal" is awful.

Well, he never was a great director but atlest he has made thought-provoking movies like A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) in the past. A.I. is probably his most under-rated movie, he didn't get any credit for this movie. The movie was complex, and most of the audience had a hard time understanding it. A.I. flopped at the box-office and all his movies since then have been very mediocre.

* "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise. Super-Duper shit, and as usual Tom-Cruise sucked big time
* "Catch me if u can" was OK. Actually it was pretty good.

2004-06-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

Unless you are implementing a new kernel or some TCP-IP bull-shit, u don't need to code in C/C++. Both these languages are dated and completely useless in most of the practical programming scenarios. Memory management should be automatic. PERIOD ....

The overhead for automatic memory management in modern programming languages like Java, C# and Python is very minimal, especially when CPU cycle and RAM is in abundance.

Only old zealots prefer sticking to C/C++. C/C++ is outdated Its obsolete. Get over it!!

2004-06-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.

Which explains why Buddhism is not a mainstream religion.

2004-04-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

I would strongly recommend people to use the following open-source softwares:
* Mozilla Browser has a builtin pop-up blocker and is inherently more secure than Internet-Explorer.
* Mozilla Mail has a builtin baeysian spam-fillter and is inherently more secure than MS-Outlook.
* Open-Office is a free office-suite which rival MS-office in terms of usabillty. Why on earth would
you want to pirate MS-Office when you can use an equally good office-suite for free?
* If you like programing, use VIM editor

2004-03-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

"I already gave my best, and I have no regrets at all"
William Hung

The same philosophy is echoed in Bhagwat-Gita. "Do what u gotta do, and dont wait for any rewards"

Simple philosophy, but so powerful. All the pain and sorrow in your life will vanish, if you stop expecting rewards for karma (work).

The same philosophy is echoed in Buddhism as well, which says that:
* Life is suffering
* The root cause of all suffereing is desire
* One can get rid of desires
* Getting rid of desires leads to ultimate happiness. Nirvana ...

2004-03-01T00:21:00.000-08:00

Cool...

Lord of the Rings: The return of the king swept all the 11 academy awards it was nominated for. Its really nice to see that finally the Academy had the balls to honor a fantasy movie. I wonder how many more years the Academy would need, before they start honoring comedy movies.

Acting is acting. A good drama film, is as good or worse as any other film. But the academy has been very biased in giving awards to only drama movies. LOTR is the first fantasy movie to get a "best movie" award.

We have yet to see an actor getting a "best actor" award for a comic performance. Why is this so difficult? After all, doing comedy is as tough as doing an intense dramatic role.

2004-02-24T14:30:00.000-08:00

I saw "Lord of the Rings: The return of the king" this week. One word... Brilliant. Absolutely stunning visual-effects. So much praise has already been bestowed upon this movie and Peter Jackson, that I don’t need to say anything else. But after watching this movie, I was left wondering why doesn’t someone make a movie of this scale on Mahabharata or Ramayana. Mahabharata and Ramayana (written by Ved-Vyasa and Valmiki in Sanskrit) are considered by many as one of the greatest literary works. Although both of them are a part of the Hindu mythology, but keeping religion aside, both these works are fascinating. They have powerful stories which if told in the right manner, would appeal to everyone irrespective of their religious faith. Both Mahabharata or Ramayana have ample fantasy elements, which would allow the movie-makers to put plenty of special effects and computer wizardry. I bet if Peter Jackson takes on this project, it could even blow away the LOTR trilogy.

2004-02-18T00:08:00.000-08:00

Ok... This is just another random thought in my head (I keep generating many!!)

It’s about Mathematics. I have come across this quite often. "Mathematics is a universal language". What does that mean?

Mathematics is a language which transcends all the boundaries one can think of. In other words, an intelligent alien culture located somewhere far-far away will be able to comprehend all our mathematical principles, theorems and equations.

Think about this for a sec…. This alien culture, may be completely different from us, from what we can possibly imagine in our wildest dream. Maybe this alien culture is residing in some parallel universe, where even the laws of physics are different. But even then, the language of mathematics would be the same. Same in the sense that the underlying concepts would still hold. (will they?)

Think about a right-angled triangle. It’s a 2-D shape, where the length of its three sides are related by a simple equation. This relationship will hold no matter where you go. Even if you are in this alien place, where the laws are physics are different, where there are 15 dimensions, where the gravitational force does not follow the Newtonian equation, where time is not linear but varies in sinusoidal fashion, the three sides of a right-angled triangle WILL still be related by the Pythagoras theorem.

Fascinating!!

2004-02-17T15:21:00.000-08:00

Down here in the south, you get to meet lot of religious people, who seem to think that they know everything. Almost everyone of them, that I have met try to prove the existence of God, or teachings of bible in the most ridiculous way possible.

Usually the conversation goes like this:

Zealot: Hi

Me: Wassp

Zealot: Where are your from?

Me: Where are u from?

Zealot: Uh.. I am from here.

Me: Yeah me too.

Zealot: OK

Me: Cool

Zealot: So what is your religious faith?

Me: None..

Zealot (Surprised and Happy): Well, I can help you

Me: I never asked your help.

Zealot: See, this is bible

Me: So?

Zealot: Read it and you will find answers to your questions.

Me: Really? Have your read it

Zealot (Proudly): Yes

Me: So tell me, if your God is so powerful, omnipotent, omnipresent, why the fuck does he care whether I worhsip him or not? Why does he (and people like u) get threatened by people like me?

Zealot: Because he loves you.

Me: If he loves me, then he is only human. Love is a pathetic human emotion. In order to be a God, one has to do better than that. How can he be God if he loves, hates and gets anxious and angry over trivial things?

Zealot: In order to make you realize that you are not alone

Me: Who told you all this?

Zealot: Its written here in Bible

Me: So what?

Its like, if I want to prove that A=B
- I start with a Hypothesis and say lets assume A=B
- From A=B, I derive B=C
- From B=C, I derive C=D
- and from C=D, I prove that A=B

This is how zealots try proving everything, by reverting back to bible. Its wriiten in Bible. So what? Its just a book.

No its not. Its a holy Book

Oh really?

Yeah.

Who told you that?

Its written in Bible !!!!!!!

2004-02-09T14:56:00.000-08:00

I just completed taking my PhD Qualifiers exams. Phew !!
What a break...
Anyways the good news is that I DID qualify, so I am officially a candidate for PhD.
Now my focus will be publishing shit-loads of journal and conference papers.

2003-11-16T16:06:00.000-08:00

I have been following the stories about the theory of "super-strings" on slashdot. An excellent introduction to this theory is available online here

This theory is fascinating because it is attempting to unify general relativity with quantum mechanic and Electro-magnetism. The motivation behind this theory is that there should be a single force (as opposed to gravitation, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces) and an elegant theory which should explain every physical phenomenon in this universe.

Einstein had tried to solve this puzzle during his later years of research, but he wasn't successful. Personally, I believe that such a theory will be formulated, it is just a matter of time. What makes me so sure... because this universe is a very elegant and beautiful construct, and every physical phenomenon can be explained using the language of mathematics. The existing contradictions in general relativity, quantum mechanic and electro-magnetism point to the existence of a broader theory, which will elegantly resolve all these anomalies.

2003-11-15T12:33:00.000-08:00

My dell laptop should be arriving next week. It has a 60GB hard-drive and I plan to put mandrake linux along with Windows-XP. I have been debating whether I should put Mandrake 9.1 or 9.2. I have been using 9.1 on my desktop and it is rock solid. On the other hand, I installed 9.2 on one of the lab PCs and it looks good, but there doesn't seem to be any significant improvement over its predecessor. But the biggest concern with installing 9.2, is that it has fried some LG CDROMs (which are co-incidentally used in Dell laptops). Although my laptop has DVD-R/RW, and these are not being damaged by 9.2, I am still hesitant to put 9.2.

Usually installing the latest version of a distribution is better because it comes with the latest updates and the drivers. If I decide to install 9.2, I will make sure that the LG firmware of the DVD-R/RW is not affected by the kernel of Mandrake 9.2.

I still maintain that Mandrake is the best linux distribution available to the free world.

Some areas were I see potential installation problems with 9.2 on my laptop:

1) Official nVidia linux drivers for video-cards are not yet available for 9.2. But I am hoping that nVidia's unified linux drivers will work correctly in 9.2. I have been using the nVidia's unified driver in Mandrake 9.1 and they work flawlessly.

2)The integrated WLAN card from dell will not work. These cards use a chip which is not yet supported by linux. But using a propriety windows-wrapper from Linuxant (?), these cards can be made to run in linux using the vanilla windows driver. The only problem is that Linuxant charges $20 for their windows-wrapper, although one can get a 30 day trial version for free.

2003-11-14T10:52:00.000-08:00

Matrix Revolutions was a big dissapointment. My biggest problem with this movie was that it felt so much like a PS2 game. Too much CGI. Also the APUs (i.e the mechs) were so stupid. Why would someone design a fighting machine with legs? The operator had no protection, he was sitting exposed right at the top!! I thought Wichoskis were smarter.

2003-10-29T15:40:00.000-08:00

The Theory of broader design: Everything happens for a reason. The reason may not be obvious to you for sometime. But sooner, rather than later, you will figure it out.

We are all here to do, what we are all here to do
-- The Oracle (Matrix Reloaded)

We all do what we are meant to do
-- The keymaker (Matrix Reloaded)

Choice is an illusion created by those in power for those without power.
-- The Merovingian (Matrix Reloaded)

Fate it seems, is not without a sense of irony
-- Morpheus (The Matrix)

2003-08-14T02:22:00.000-07:00

OK. So it turns out that the inconsequential details of my trivial existence are not so inconsequential after all.

The last couple of months have been really eventful. I made a bold career move by deciding to go back to school and get a PhD.

Mark my words boy, and mark them well. The next big thing (after google.com) will be coming from Arkansas. Yeah you heard it right punk! Arkansas, University of Arkansas. :)

2003-04-06T23:35:00.000-07:00

So, I have a question. Why are all the hot chics only attracted to bad guys? Seriously guys, this is no longer funny.

2003-04-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

I have been looking for a *reliable* online diary, where I can put my thoughts. All the previous websites I have tried have either closed down, or they plain suck. But google being a mainstream service, should be good. Lets see