Arbit Scratchpad

Open Source and Feature Comfort (BROWSERS) Somehow I am not satisfied with the open source browsers such as Mozilla and Firebird though IE isn't exactly bug-free far from it its full of high vulnerability bugs but some features I sorely miss on other browsers. I have Opera 6, Mozilla 1.1, and Firebird 0.6.1 installed apart from IE 6.0 ... The one feature that is making me go crazy is the offline viewing capability. If I have visited a webpage and then close down my DUN connection and close the browser, I can come back at a later time and read it offline when I fire up IE (through history or the address bar links) with most websites; this seems to be missing completely with Firebird and in Mozilla it works to some extent, however lately Mozilla keeps on crashing on opening too many tabs and then none of the links will ope even if you make the file -> work offline true. The tabbed browsing is a cool feature but by mistake you tend to close the windows and all youe tabs are ...

BLOGS - A SAFE MEDIUM TO BE PUBLIC ? Do posts convey or mould your character... Have you guys ever had this feeling of 'I should not have posted this particular post I should delete it' - I sometimes have strong feelings like that and feel should immediately delete an earlier posted entry because its not right to make public or is too stupid for me to have done so and will bore people ... Do your posts in some way mould your character in the eyes of the readers - maybe yes; but you can always pretend and stuff - that holds with any medium. Any ways the blog as a public diary seems like a scary thing where you tend to write on and little more restraint would be appropriate. The recent incident wherein a software engineer was expelled from Microsoft comes to mind. Also clicking photos and posting pictures from within the workplace or in and around the organization you work in can be dangerous as I am currently prohibited from doing so in my organization (reasons I will ...

Pixel crunching graphics at the workplace All the PCs in our team (13 members) were loaded with the nVidia GeForce4 MX 420 graphics cards because the application we are developing uses some graphics intensive 2D and 3D GIS rendering and features which the older Matrox cards did not support and this was essential. Earlier, images or icons and symbols didnt load up or where patchy at best (3D features crashed...) - its all gone with the mind-blowing 64 MB VRAM on board. With the GeForce4 MX graphics processing units (GPUs), NVIDIA provides a new level of cost-effective, high-performance graphics to the mainstream PC user. With its incomparable nView(TM) multi-display architecture, Lightspeed Memory Architecture II, and Accuview Antialiasing(TM) engine, the GeForce4 MX series delivers feature-rich, leading-edge graphics technology, performance and flexibility. Though the latest stuff for desktops by nVidia are much more mind-boggling - FIND OUT

Yearning to break free - The Free Spirit There is this mindset that you are inferior to me consequently I am superior to you so I do not care a damn, 'why should I bother about you' attitude that is prevalent in our generation, haughty behavior and a misguided feeling of pride is what follows. Or is it some kind of fear that he is inferior so I should not mingle with him � as a result 'rotten apples will spoil the good ones' phobia? Or does this have something to do with the levels of thinking or wavelength matches that we hear about. People may be good to you and willing to help or be friends but you will not give a second look ignoring and hurting of humiliating them. Muted aggression and contempt dripping in every look. I do not need him or he is of no use to me so I need not even be courteous to him. Strains of autism ? Does it have something to do with the environment we are all bought up in ? Maybe to some extent but its always possible to break free o...

When the Microsoft guys came over to Linux Bangalore 2003 Conference Believe me, unbelievable as it may sound it was true and they had come as usual to promote a proprietary software, something that allows all kinds of Unix/Linux programs to run over Windows (SFU or something...) with support in the windows kernel itself - these guys keenly dissassemble and take a close look into competing technologies. They actually, frankly speaking, did a good job and the supporting 'non-violent' ;-) crowd was a great thing to see. The three days went off very well with non-stop lectures by some of the top open-source developers. Naba Kumar of the feature-rich Anjuta IDE for C/C++ and GTK development on creating projects and maintaining them.The extremely funny antics of Miguel de Icaza (founder of GNOME) on Mono (Open source .Net platform) and and a more sober Nat Friedman on Web-services. Sirtaj Kang on KDE, Jeremy Zawodny, Rasmus Lerdorf (creator of PHP) on PHP optimizations an...

Wow, quite a revelation this test was at : The Big Five Personality Test Extroverted |||||||||||| 48% Introverted |||||||||||||| 52% Friendly |||||||||||| 50% Aggressive |||||||||||| 50% Orderly |||||||||||||| 58% Disorderly |||||||||||| 42% Relaxed |||||||||| 40% Emotional |||||||||||||| 60% Openminded |||||||||||||||| 70% Closeminded |||||| 30% Take Free Big 5 Personality Test The Big Five is currently the most accepted personality model in the scientific community. The Big Five emerged from the work of multiple independent scientists/researchers starting in the 1950s who using different techniques obtained similar results. Those results were that there are five distinct personality traits/dimensions. Here are your results on each dimension: Extroversion results were medium which suggests you are moderately talkative, optimistic, sociable and affectionate. Friendliness results were medium which suggests ...

"?? Which Creature Of The Sea Are You??" Seahorse ?? Which Creature Of The Sea Are You?? brought to you by Quizilla

YOUR COUNSELLOR IN DISTRESS. (PUN INTENDED) Was planning on going to watch Matrix Revolutions with two of my friends (one had gone to write the CAT - but will have to write it again on account of the CAT question paper leak racket) but had to cancel it due to a calf muscle pull in the left leg early today morning. Currently not much is going on in my life. I am reading Amitav Ghosh's The Circle of Reason, about a small boy with a distorted head named Alu, who is adopted by a school master and then the conflicts with the landlord, the frequent clashes, and how deft a weaver he becomes surpassing his mentor to become a talented weaver, and his coming of age before the ensuing violence leads to his fleeing India to a place in Africa called Al Ghazira or something in a ferry. Here he stays with a community of workers at a lady's house who provides support to such displaced people. The only problem is he is taken as a criminal/terrorist and is in the police books; even as a poli...

Long break from blogging Currently reading The Circle of Reason by Amitav Ghosh. In the mean time that I was away from Blogging I read Jnana Yoga and Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda and a book on Meditation by The Ramakrisha Order of Monks published by Advaita Ashrama, Chennai. REAL ENLIGHTENING BOOKS - DO READ THEM ...

GENRE : Sci-Phi Pseudo fiction Read my most bizzare also absurd short story till date Saw THE MATRIX again today at home on my PC. Got an original CD from my friend another friend bought it from Music World; Crystal clear audio and video. Its a treat to watch . . . With all the kinetic energy, color tones and bullet time; perfect CGI ( Computer generated Imagery ).

That previous post was bit messy wasnt it? Tables are creating problems some tag mismatch - not well-formed I guess ! TODAY'S LINK ACM Queue

I'm on Ryze! A new 'college blog' added here with contributing members consisting of our Computer Science UVCE batchmates/classmates . . .

CSS Filters are a powerful way to add punch to a page without graphics Check out at :

Currently Reading ' The Magic of Thinking Big ' by David J Schwartz, an amazing book aimed at increasing motivation levels . . .

India in bad shape and reeking of corruption - Tasty Teasers Someone was telling us that a carpet seller from Kashmir visits them frequently says that the Kashmir problem is kept alive from both sides - he says that BSF and other armed forces on the Indian side and soldiers take lakhs from the terrorists to allow inflitrators sneak inside India across the LOC paving the way for massacres and mass killings. How far this is true I do not know, but certainly a person from the very epicentre of the troubled state wouldnt be blatantly lying .... Calcutta, the intellectual and literary capital of India once upon a time now is the capital of corruption and mindless violent politics - the politicization of everything from schools to hospitals and everything in between. Also the work culture seems nil in that state. People themselves dont trust the health and education apparatus in West Bengal. Someone was relating an incident wherein a poor lady had kept some small amount of rup...

Reading Thresholds of Motivation: Nurturing Human Growth in the Organization by V.S. Mahesh An analysis of how companies can effectively nurture human growth and potential that combines Western thinking with Eastern philosophical traditions. The examples used are both Indian- and US-oriented. The Indian case studies present fairly common problems, but unique solutions. A great book full of indepth insight on the inherent perfection in humans and how organisations can tap and nurture it in its employees - full of anecdotes and real-life examples. At times each and everything seems so strikingly similar to what he writes A must read. Got the book by chance at work in our library, when I went to browse through some of the books Also reading Honour Among Thieves by Jeffrey Archer . . . Not a great story - borrowed it from a colleague ! Also trying to start Alice in wonderland and Don Quixote (unabridged) in e-book format on MS Reader ! READ THE HECK OUT OF IT, EH! Was...

INDEPENDENCE DAY The Intellectual Scene in Post-Independence India - A critical review of strengths and weaknesses "But this is not the image of America. The image of America is a technologically advanced country etc. etc. Ours is the only country where the mobile citizens of India have transformed the problems of India into the image of India-its identity. Go to any country and the same negative stereotype is echoed that India is suffering from poverty and malnutrition. India has no drinking water. Indian women are all burnt. If they are married, they are burnt, if they are widows, they are burnt. See the image that has been built about this country. Who did this? The English educated Indian." - S Gurumurthy (Read more)

I was thinking, with all the attempts at information gathering by US agencies against terrorism, is such a thing possible ? Presenting : The 'Info Sensory Monitor Organ' By Shamit Bagchi Trying to add a whole new feature to the human being, that of embedded genes to communicate with associated nano-agents that receive signals and transmit to the nearby grids or nodes, powerful towers linked up with satellites orbiting in space to transfer the data between locations on earth for data capture, storage and monitoring. They become an integral part of the human body unlike cyborgs who voluntarily embed themselves with sensors and other such devices this one is fissioned into the human chromosome as ISM genes and specific DNA sequences which actually get transmitted in the genes as an act or pact of coordinated activity between the humans and nano-agents. An individual (two to be precise) once introduced with the gene will get an agent (nano-bot) activated by mea...

ACTION: DEEDS MATTER MOST (SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE) A fat plump person endowed with a lot of fat is treated in a dismal manner - laughs, jeers, stifled giggles and smiles. How does he cope, either he chosses to ignore the barking lot or reacts in an agressive manner or in an emotional manner. He certainly may choose to think he is hurt humiliated (subjective) as against seeing the true cause of the problem(objective) and ignore it as a wrongful action from the otherside. Every person who chooses to tease or bring down another person, is himself suffering from some discrepancy or deficiency - he tries to react in a manner so as to show that he has everything under control - whereas he is trying to gloss over his weakness at the expeense of someone else. Provocative actions should not provoke negative reactions - then the wrong thoughts of both the provoker and the provoked would suceed. The Mind should be under perfect control for this and to achieve this end meditation I think wi...

Interview with Brian Kernighan CYBORG RIGHTS - the World Transhumanist Association conference at Yale University in late June. International academics and activists, they met to lay the groundwork for a society that would admit as citizens and companions intelligent robots, cyborgs made from a free mixing of human and machine parts, and fully organic, genetically engineered people who aren't necessarily human at all. A good many of these 160 thinkers aspire to immortality and omniscience through uploading human consciousness into ever evolving machines.

SUPRAMUNDANE : On Second Thoughts... Survival of the fittest - was this concept right in the first place? - because everything depends on the behaviour of the species or individual. There is this stunted person I see everyday who is always laughed at either in smiles or stifled giggles and must be feeling the ignominy . . . However this in turn makes the person I am referring to timid and more shy and unable to cope, submitting to the public - or is it the 'meek shall inherit the world' syndrome playing in here - is the person becoming humble so as to be a victor inthe later stages of life. Handicapped men and women have reached great heights but thats totally based on the attitude and the behaviour they adopted - no inherent fitness genes or inbuilt or inate abilities! Assume a burly strong guy - surely in a place of shallow people he will thrive become the bully and the domineering type - successful in his own right making use of his brute chauvinism. However in a more ...

THE BHARATEEYA BLOG MELA #22 Another blog mela for me is due This time the entries have been few But none have been rejected Nor would they have been if plenty Whereas I am not exactly dejected Am I supposed to get senti? DRAGON - 'yoni ki baat?' Discussions on a play and the related issue of abuse against women ... Ram Duraikannu - Embedding Amazon Products in your webpage On Automating Amazon wishlists (Indian connection ? anyway... I have a dearth of entries u c) Using the Amazon.com web services and PHP (amazing must be a linux junkie PHP Hmmm!), he has written a small script which makes it easier for users to embed wish lists, list mania, and other keyword items into their webpage RAVIKIRAN - Troops to Iraq - comments on sending Indian troops to patrol Iraq ... RAVIKIRAN NOMINATES : An entry from Jivha - the Tongue Ground duty, after Fifty - on the recent Indian Supreme Court's decision allowing the government-owned air...

Hey whats wrong with everyone - no entries in this time's Blog Mela after a Kumbh last time ??? I REPEAT (SHOUT) BLOG MELA #22 - On 23rd July RIGHT HERE at BLOGMIND's Blog . . . Entries SINCE 17th from your or someone else's blogs can be submitted PLEASE Send it in to shamitbagchi@yahoo.com OR POST THEM AS comments on this blog With the subject line as BLOG MELA ENTRY ... So what are you waiting for WHAT THE HECK? NOTE : SOME THINGS All kinds of mails except personal entries are welcome. You should be an Indian or the post must be about India or Indians. Posts must be dated between 17 July 2003 and 23 July 2003 will be considered for my version of the Bharateeya Blog Mela - Ver. #22 Send in URLs (permalinks) of the particular post (not the blog URLs please) by 23rd Blog Kumbh Mela Irony - (INDIAN BLOG FEST 21-22) Dont you hear my hue and cry, As I shout, my throat goes dry, I try and try and try and try, Yet no posts and en...

RACISM, AFRICA AND CIVILIZATIONS Nelson Mandela is now 85 - and to mark this a portion of the daily current affairs programme on DD National at 10:30 pm 'Worldview India' (a very good programme - I am reminded of my younger days when watching 'The World This Week') was dedicated to him on 16th July. It had poignant footage from history, of the African national struggle against the imposition of Apartheid by the British. Mandela and his comrades were imprisoned decidedly taking the struggle on the path to success. The foucus was on how the Indians helped throughout in the struggle - also India was the first country to cut off diplomatic and international links with the then SA's racist goverment and the last to resume it. Saeed Naqvi the first to interview Mandela when he was released from prison after twenty seven years, recounted on the show how he had managed to enter SA because of contacts in high places during those troubled times and was assisted by one ...

[BLOG MELA UPDATE] : You should be an Indian or the post must be about India or Indians maybe even remotely associated ... no problem I might actually attempt a winner or best entry kind of thing - just my choice is that OK?. . . thats all. [UPDATE ENDS]

[[the bharateeya blog mela #22]] - [[ early info ]] On 23rd July here at BLOGMIND's Blog Any interesting entries after 16th July from 17th ie - from your or someone else's blogs can be submitted Send it in to shamitbagchi@yahoo.com OR as comments on this blog With the subject line as BLOG MELA ENTRY or something of the like... So what are you waiting for - Oh yes, of course 17th I guess . . . ;-) NOTE : Specific Points All kinds of mails except personal entries are welcome. You should be an Indian or the post must be about India or Indians. Posts must be dated between 17 July 2003 and 22 July 2003 will be considered for my version of the Bharateeya Blog Mela - Ver. #22 Send in URLs (permalinks) of the particular post (not the blog URLs please) by 23rd noon THE MELA IS HELD EVERY WEEK & THE MIRRORS CAN BE FOUND HERE:

Find all the LINUX DOCUMENTATION here . . .

Blogger's new interface is a bit confusing initially, but overall a very good attempt - 'help sidebar' is a good idea. Initial problem with finding republish link Republish is much more effective and effects are seen immediately with post, republish and template changes . . . Help as I mentiones is good The rest is just a makeover for easier navigation - everything else must be under the hood !

LINKZ AND ARTICLES TODAY: Microsoft's next target--Google? Surfers have no clue how they are tracked A GREAT DESIGN COMPANY Photo blogging by a few Indians

Apples, CDs and Super Computers Safari is out - looks are great though I may not be able to use it cause I have no Mac dud ! But still Apple's worries and more worries are far from over. And now the Power Mac G5 CD ROM FILE SYSTEMS TOP 500 Super Comps.

The Intel P4 3.2 MHz is here - Reviews from /. A NYT article on the fast catching phenomenon of corporate blogging ie corporates blogging ...

Minority Report is going on nice . . . Read Chapter 1 from Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

I just became a registered Linux user !

Finished 'And then there were none' by Agatha Christie - a very ingenious plot, however some portions to tie up the amazing plot are hard to believe. But Dame Agatha's recipe is almost always the same - lots of people in a big house or a mansion and murder(s) . . . NICE STILL ! Will start Minority Report and other stories by Philip K Dick tomorrow ...

Life of Pi was good but a bit too complex - almost like a strange and scary children's fable ... Currently reading And then there were none by Agatha Christie

Major lapses in blogging, I have not been upto too much, losing interest thats all... I am not feeling too well for the past 2-3 days too, took a leave today - the heat is a bit too much I guess. Reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel - borrowed it from a friend - halfway through - a slow moving story on faith and religion and experiences of a young boy, which won the Booker Prize for 2002. Apart from this I bought a cassette of Jagjit Singh's ghazals titled FORGET ME NOT - nice melodious music and the full voice of Jagjit Singh - however the accompanying synthesizer music can make it irritating at times. Also bought the VCD of the classic comedy PADOSAN - with Kishore Kumar, Mahmood, Keshto and others. I have yet to see it. It is suggested that a blog is supposed to be about public stuff and a journal for personal stuff - but that distinction would be tough for me to maintain - I am a bit too lazy to take all the trouble maintaining two such web logs . . .

Lately reading - Buddhism Lecture & Essays by Ven. B Anandamaitreya - a good text on the features, context, aims of Buddhist teachings and how Buddha showed the way from ignorance to realisation or Nibbana (Pali word for Nirvana). I was especially struck by the concept of 'Loving Kindness' ( This is the first step to the realisation and total non-attachment ) - where you have a feeling and always think of 'Let him be happy and free of all enimity, troubles and afflictions' for all beings (KNOWN OR UNKNOWN, human & non-human too...) from your loved ones right upto your enemy ! It would be such a great world if this precept of Lord Buddha were to be followed.

LINUX, WINDOWS AND PARTITIONING WOES When I got my new hard disk installed from the vendor, they had installed Windows 98 (yes I still use it with pleasure - no problemo) from my HP Recovery CDs on it. The Seagate HDD - 40GB was split into : C: 10GB and D: 30GB So I wanted to install RedHat (PCQ) 8.0 Linux from the PCQuest CDs. I used fips.exe (it comes with all Linux CDs in a folder named dosutils) from DOS command mode to split the active partition ie C: to something like 5GB (initially fips.exe gave some error like last sector not free and a 'bye cannot split partition') Then I defragmented Windows (with Diskeeper Lite - stupid piece of software was an evaluation version and allows defragmentation only once but its fast) and tried fips again and it partitioned the disk and I installed the complete Linux system. It was then that the trouble started - Windows became unstable and crashed and became frozen or slow at times meaning frequently. I defr...

SAGA OF SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM VS CAPITALISM ??? Today's All India Public Sector Workers strike caught on at workplace - no work today ! Striking workers disrupted work. Opposing privatisation - does it cause loss of jobs or more oppotunities ? What about impact of 'Globalisation' ? Are labour laws made to safeguard workers or victimize and exploit them ? And other such concerns & demands were the chief causes of the strike ! The support of course as usual came from the Leftist parties and unions - known for their repeated strikes on even the minor issues even if it causes economic losses running into hundreds of crores . . . Financial estimate is todays strike did about a Rs. 1000 crores !!! Do leave your views on the issue if you find time . . .

LINUX&UNIX - SCO vs.IBM Complaint Unix was invented more than 30 years ago by AT&T's Unix Systems Laboratories. In many ways Linux works similarly to Unix, making it relatively easy to translate Unix software to Linux. AT&T sold the Unix intellectual property to Novell Networks, which in turn sold it to the Santa Cruz Operation. Caldera International, a seller of Linux, then acquired from SCO the Unix rights and two SCO products, OpenServer and UnixWare. Then last year, Caldera changed its name to SCO Group to reflect the fact that most of its revenue came from its SCO business and not from the Linux products. But SCO has recently alleged that parts of the Unix source code have been copied into Linux, and it is seeking fees from Linux users. In March, SCO sued IBM for $1 billion, alleging that Big Blue had used SCO's Unix code in Linux. IBM, along with Hewlett-Packard, has been a major backer of Linux. Last week, SCO escalated the battle by sending letters t...

Look at ALBERT EINSTEIN's ARCHIVES ONLINE The Einstein Archives Online Website provides the first online access to Albert Einstein�s scientific and non-scientific manuscripts held by the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and to an extensive Archival Database, constituting the material record of one of the most influential intellects in the modern era. The site allows viewing and browsing of approx. 3,000 high-quality digitized images of Einstein�s writings. The website also provides access to the published versions (in PDF format) of 39 among the 934 digitized manuscripts.

THEY ALL NEED YOU, SO USE THEM ALL India's friendly gestures towards China and Russia on one hand and USA and Israel on the other is certainly intriguing. From being neutral (neither here nor there) to active neutral (both here and there) is the Indian foreign policy becoming more active? The recent visit of defence minister Fernandes to China emphasizes this and frequent visits and long-lasting defence coperation with Russia are up. Also USA seems to be planning to join hands with India and firmly step into the Indian military bases, if the supposed ongoing discussions between officials are anything to go by. As reported by Rediff ( Article at www.rediff.com ), who were able to lay their hands on to a classified US DoD (Department of Defense) document, intense interaction and lobbying to gain a foothold in South Asia is on its way. Britain has supported India's entry as the permanent member of the UN Security council. Israel is also keen on increasing contacts militar...

THE MATRIX RELOADED/REVOLUTIONS The philosphy behind The Matrix THE MATRIX RELOADED - Killer Special FX THE MATRIX RELOADED READ MORE HERE :

A new PC prototype co-developed by Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, Athens sports a translucent case, integrated wireless phone complete with handset and headset, integrated video camera for video conferencing and a gorgeous 23-inch flat panel display with an integrated CD/DVD drive built into the monitor Gates Goes From Geek to Chic Why the future doesn't need us. Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species.

QUARK SOUP - A very good blog on environmental issues and sciences as its point of focus . Impressed by this particular entry First David Appell talks about (not entirely his views but a collage of links to) how nanotechnology and biotechnology (same as Prey) can be a serious threat beyond just sci-fi to actually finish off biological life on earth and get(a chilling prospect)taken over by exponentially replicating artificial life by as near as 2035 . . . whoa ! Day-dreaming ? Its his analysis of a book by Bill McKibben - Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. The book calls for putting tabs on nano and biotech tinkering(aka research) or risk killing the human soul ! "A moratorium on these 'dangerous' technologies" - Luddite thoughts ??? That this is even not conceivable in this age of technology march with blinding pace, is surprising. But then isnt it thought provoking and even scary. Appell then refutes these claims well . . . he couners the argument...

Discussing Blogs - an engrossing interview with Rebecca Blood Rebecca Blood is an internationally known weblogger and writer. Rebecca has maintained the popular weblog, Rebecca's Pocket, since April 1999, linking and writing about current events, media literacy, web culture, sustainability, domestic life, and whatever else catches her eye. She is frequently called on by the press to illuminate the currently unstoppable weblog phenomenon. She has a BA in English and has held more kinds of jobs than you have ELIZA Today I took the Eliza interview, the computer program that converses/speaks with you. Its very very interesting but once it abused me I said bye . . . ;-) A DOS based artificial intelligence program, which I found in one of my colleague's PC on the intranet. Other Definitions : ELIZA IS AN AMUSEMENT PSYCHOLOGIST PROGRAM THAT CHATS WITH THE USER IN PLAIN ENGLISH, AND USES ADVANCED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE METHODS... "ELIZA - A computer program for th...

The phone was dead or problematic for the last 2 weeks BLOGSTREET.COM seems upgraded & really good - Go check out all its features ! Ordered a new pair of spectacles (price of lenses have really gone up).

SYSTEM UPGRADED Got my system upgraded : -> 40GB Seagate HDD from 10 GB (this Quantum Fireball had crashed) and -> 128 MB RAM + existing 64MB now 192 MB - my system is faster & breezier than ever before . . . NEO-NEO-COLONIALISM The illegal war on Iraq seems to have come to the endgame stage, with Baghdad captured and Northern Iraqi cities falling one after another like dominos. How the Republican guards gave in so fast is still a mystery probably the arial US strikes neutralized them ? The Americans are using Kurdish fighters to fight their own country men and using them as shields. They are further opportunistically dividing the already fractures social religious strata into Shias Sunnis and Kurds and . . . The rampant looting and images and video footages are so amusing with the coalition forces carelessly looking on. The great Iraq civilization is in its ruins. Saddam's palaces are stunning and all this is being destroyed by the barbaric acts of t...

The latest Open Sound System (OSS) device drivers (for my Conexant Riptide sound card) - OSS 3.9.7h works excellently on my system. Auto detection and auto sound testing is allowed no IRQ problems this time around . . . no freezes. Only in the beginning of playing a track, a scratch sound occurs and volume control on KDE is to be used with the KMix sound mixer to reduce the initial volume set to 100% by default. VISIT http://www.opensound.com/ THE CATCH ! The evaluation copy of OSS comes with a FREE limited time evaluation license which is activated on the day you install OSS. The software will only work for a limited time. After activation each time it works only for a period of 3 hours(no problem with that). Ofcourse a permanant license key can be ordered. These guys (4Front Technologies) make drivers for all flavours of UNIX, Great ! Now the only problem is my Rockwell winmodem . . . It Sucks, On Linux! On Windows (98 only, not 2K or XP) It Rocks ! And in Iraq the war...

Using PCQ Linux 8.0 (Kernel 2.4.18 - 24.8.0) a rip-off from RH Linux 8.0 with some added functionality and latest updates till Feb 03 from RedHat. Cool antialiasing and other features HP Deskjet was instantly detected and works fine a truck load of drivers are pre-available. Sound(Riptide) and modem(Rockwell winmodem) as usual dont work yet - drivers will be required ! Taking lots of leaves from work; as a set of pending leaves are to be finished by financial year 2002 end (march end). PCQ Linux with antialiasing and themes and all else is coool . . . but the PCQ guys missed to add GNU Chess in the games - my favourite ( fools ;-( ).

The war goes on : Guard are dictator's last hope By Rachel Morris and agencies March 26, 2003 THEY are highly trained, armed to the teeth and apparently blindly loyal to their President and brother in arms Saddam Hussein. The Republican Guard which lies in wait for coalition forces as they approach the capital Baghdad are their master's trump card in this war. Concealed in entrenched positions around schools, hospitals and mosques � away from military buildings that might be targeted by allied bombers � they are ready to fight. They are better equipped, better trained and better motivated than the conscripted foot soldiers who have surrendered en masse. "There will be surprises," coalition forces commander General Tommy Franks said last week. "We have not yet seen them." The Republican Guard was formed in 1986 when Saddam's army suffered surprise defeats at the hands of arch enemy and neighbour Iran. They also pioneered the modern use of must...

I have long since blogged. I am losing interest in a lot of things ??? War now seems imminent with belluigerent Bush and Saddam sticking to their guns India will surely reach the finals and then uncertainity. Then here work goes on. I am staying back at home all the time ; need to reverse this trend and go out once in a while. Thought of buying The Demon in the Freezer & Hot Zone by Richard Preston - each is INR 500+. COSTLY NAA? Bought PCQLINUX 8.0 made from RH Linux 8.0 - actually father bought it when he had gone out . . . Need to install it and try out; my hard disk seems to be stalling off suddendly troubled times ahead donno ? Lets see what lies ahead. Running a online McAfee Scan as I type cause I am also suspecting viruses . . . This is what Mc Afee says about it : VirusScan Online is the #1 online anti-virus solution, providing around-the-clock protection for your PC. With over 63,000 computer viruses identified, and another 500 discovered each month, why take chances?...

Life goes on . . . France uses veto threat in UN Sec Council against US strikes on Iraq Twins crack face recognition puzzle

Well I got the brand new Compaq Evo D230 at workplace with Win XP and Win 2K pre-loaded by our sys admin guys . . . Fast breezy system Pentium 4, 1.8 GHz 256 MB SDRAM. - This was on 19th Feb 2003

Google + Pyra(Blogger) = ?

I came across Wikipedia for World Parliament of Religions From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. - The World Parliament of Religions is an interfaith conference that was first held in Chicago in 1893 and again in 1993. At the latter meeting it was decided to hold a Parliament every five years, and in 1998 one was convened in Cape Town.

Paper on Broadmindedness of Hinduism As Amartya Sen reemphasized - dont become a frog in a well ( Kupamanduka ); Indian science, arts and every form of heritage gained and enriched itself to such levels of excellence not in isolation but because of its intense interaction with men from other parts of the world. MORE ON THE SWAMI AT THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS . . .

Goodbye, Dolly - Euthanasia to first cloned sheep. Dolly, the famous cloned sheep has been put to death after being diagnosed with a progressive lung disease and follows earlier reports that she was prematurely aging, including developing arthritis. [ DETAILS & DISCUSSIONS ] EXCERPTS FROM SLASHDOT : You see there's this very important substance called telomeres attached to the end of chromosomes. As cells divide, the telomere caps become shorter, and eventually the cells stop dividing and either malfunction or die. It stands to reason that, if you start off with an adult cell, you already have shortened telomeres and will therefore have a reduced lifespan. Telomeres aren't just any substance. They're DNA. The end of a chromosome has short repeating sequences of a few base pairs (ex: AATTAATT, etc.) which are not all replicated when a cell duplicates its genome and divides. This presumably acts as a molecular "clock" for the organism to keep track of its...

I will tell you a little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has just finished say, "Let us cease from abusing each other," and he was very sorry that there should be always so much variance. But I think I should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this variance. A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course, the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story's sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another flog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well. "Where are you form?" "I am from the sea." "The sea! How ...

UNDERSTANDING THAT THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTENT IS PRIME A raging argument on the Power Laws in WEBLOGS & Blogging community . . . CERTAIN PEOPLE GETTING MORE ATTENTION OR ARE THEY? A good comment . . .

The AERO-INDIA 2003 came to an end with its magnificient display of the Flying Machines. SUKHOI 30 MKI WAS A TREAT INDEED WITH ITS LANGUID TACTICS AND SUDDEN SHARP GUSHES OF SPEED, ALBEIT FROM MY BINOCULARS . . . Learn about the Sukhoi More on the SUKHOI - Youll find plenty of links here. The others seemed to pale out in front of it. I am infatuated/possessed/obssessed by this plane since I saw it in the Aero-India show 4-5 years back . . .

A tragedy - lots of questions and some answers - Columbia FAQ Some of the most common questions about the Columbia tragedy, and the answers as best as Space.com could give

BAD NEWS FOR SPACE EXPEDITIONS Tragic end to Columbia - Kalpana Chawla, an astronaut of Indian origin was on board the 2nd time . . . Updated Information On Shuttle Tragedy [from SLASHDOT]

Oh My God - Smitten by KDE 3.1 Take a look at the new KDE 3.1 These screenshots show KDE 3.1 , the current release of the K Desktop Environment And then read the details at kde.org and HERE

WORMS & VIRUSES - Have they become a routine feature of the web ? Now that I am out of college, and into the industry I am understanding what havoc viruses and worms can cause . . . FRESH PERSPECTIVES I got elkern, kriz and funlove infected at workplace - a series of deadly viruses but Norton AV exists and my system is still working - up and running though I get lotz a BSODs - Win NT 4.0 ( Sheesh ! Old naa ? But its what I have got, as I await new Compaqs (with XP as default - though project requirements specify win2k) coming in the first week of Feb). CNET News: Computer worm slows global Net traffic NOW I KNOW WHY I WAS NOT ABLE TO LOG INTO MY DIAL-UP ACCOUNT THE WHOLE OF THE EVENING ON REPEATED TRIES . . . MS SQL Server Worm Wreaking Havoc On Saturday January 25 -> "Since about midnight EST almost every host on the internet has been receiving a 376 byte UDP payload on port ms-sql-m (1434) from a random infected server. Reports of some hosts receiving 10 pe...

I was there for the informal meeting of the UVCE Foundation A very good initiative - By Anand Adkoli and others . . . for the alma mater !

Linux set for world domination and other Linux stories . . . SGI also chips in

A WHOLE LOT OF CONTENT - Check out and read them all HERE CREATIVE COMMONS Do check Creative Commons' collaborators for all the stuff :: KEEP YOURSELF BUSY, READING . . .

Crichton's Prey was great - though I felt somewhat let down after finishing the book. The concepts, a cutting-edge-hi-tech amalgam of distributed computing, nanotech and genetic engineering (emergent self optimizing behaviour + triumphs of molecular manufacturing i.e. using e-coli bacteria to create nanoassemblers which inturn assemble molecular machines like cameras etc, which have memory, solar cell particles to sustain themselves and organize using goal-seeking PREDPREY distributed algorithms to mimick vivid shapes and forms, which as usual go out of control or do they. . . never mind; and have to be exterminated, else will take over the human race) are great, but the ending is not very inspiring and actually a bit disappointing. Killing the villain bacteria instantly with bacteriophages/viruses ? The content handling at times is dry and clumsy. Of course the story is fast paced and chilling too at times - he has focussed a lot on character development, which he was criticis...

And now Rediff Blogs - a ditto copy of BLOGGER . . . NEAT COPYING ! Have you guys copied word to word or is it on a contract basis, looks like one though - Rediff developers must have gone through the Blogger site code. NOT BAD THOUGH - TAKE A LOOK AT http://shamitbagchi.rediffblogs.com/

Slashdot Articles . . . Brain Surgery Robot Running Linux Hacker's Delight GEEK CODE ? CDMA & QUALCOMM QUALCOMM is best known as the company that pioneered Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, which is now used in wireless networks and handsets all over the world. By making very efficient use of radio frequency spectrum, CDMA allows more people to share the airwaves at the same time - without cross-talk, static or interference. LEARN ABOUT CDMA AT QUALLCOMM - Start here . . . ALSO HERE - CDMA Development Group

VERY INTERESTING READ [from Slashdot.org] : Reliance Infocomm's launch of the largest CDMA network Also read this particular entry . . . A VERY GOOD SITE : http://metlin.org

Apple out with its browser Safari and 17 inch Laptop ( 1 inch wide amazing and gorgeous hallmarks of Apple ) . . . Microsoft with SPOT watches and more devices - go find out ! ! !

LINKS ON WI-FI OR WIRELESS LAN -> http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/technologies/communications/wifi/default.asp -> http://standards.ieee.org/wireless/overview.html#802.11 -> http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/tech/network/802x/default.asp -> http://www.80211report.com -> WIRELESS TECH

I am back and blogging - a tight field trip, first official one and first to Maharashtra too, just ended. Travel sure does something on uplifting confidence levels :: The visit to Nashik, Shirdi, Deolali and Mumbai was great ! Reading Prey by Michael Crichton - Its a bit dry in the beginning . . . first comments after 80 pages that is !