Ushering the new year

Well, well, well - its the new year, may be not so new anymore since 26 days have already passed and India is celebrating its 60 years of being a republic. What does 60 years mean to this country? It has indeed emerged as one of the largest economic developing country of this era. And with the stature, comes a whole lot of woes, that are hidden away in the life of the common man.

60 years of being a republic means up to 8% economic growth, it means 1.5 billion people in this country, probably the most diverse race in this world, that speaks more than 18 national languages, and has people of all color, creed and religion. It is a miracle that we have made it so far and we, the people, need more than a miracle if we want to survive in the next few decades.

Just last evening, my mobile was stolen amidst a gathering! Bah was I not annoyed. Anyways the phone is having a mobile tracker, I am going to have the last laugh, when the thief puts in a new SIM - its going to trigger a message to an emergency number, which I have registered, that will contain the new number - a convenient software built in some Samsung phones. But I doubt if anyone is going to help me track him down.

To add to the days woes, something else happened. Last night, I filled the tank of my car up to 38 liters of petrol, to find soon after, that the car does not move more than 60km/hr and jerks so often that it gets really annoying. On consulting the mechanic today, he examines the car and after some time says with conviction after having a look at the petrol - "Sir, the petrol has been adulterated"

I am stunned, picturing shooting 'letters to the editors', half cursing beneath my breath, I was plain furious. I then proceeded to lodge a complaint about the phone and the petrol at the nearest police station. You can guess what happened next! Go on! Take a guess!

Ushered by a shabby inspector, I was told to go to the Commercial PS for the lost mobile and to the Audugodi PS for the complaint on the adulterated petrol. I looked at him with pleading eyes, which just elicited a response - "It ain't in our jurisdiction, Sir!". Police is to protect the people, for the people, but here it is 'run away from the people'. The inspector acknowledged that a case has already been registered against the notorious Hamsa Petrol Service [which btw is the one between Forum, Koramangala and Big Bazaar]. If its already known that the service station serves adulterated petrol, why is it still open? Why hasn't the police done anything to shut it down. I sign! Law is not as swift as it seems!

Tomorrow I will be proceeding to the Ford Service Center, get the required proof and proceed to the Hamsa Service Station, to challenge them and than lodge a formal complaint. Well you can almost guess what is going to happen tomorrow, its happened thousands of times before. But well, you never know!

Its been a sad turn of events, and am more hurt since I realize I am one of the million people who get duped everyday - autos, petrol, bad roads, no protection, poor medical facilities and what not, a list that can consume this blog and many more.

"What can a man do against such reckless hate!" - a dialogue said by the King of Rohan in LOTR - 2 on the verge of losing a battle. Only here, the war is against the common man.

Redefining Absentism

How absent minded have you been?

Beat this one :)

Project over and after obtaining a release, I was clearly pleased and the excitement was evident on my face. Getting back to the city which I have grown to love, was definitely something to look forward for.

Chatting with my friend over dinner, we set out to the station to catch the 21:30 train to Bangalore. Discussion was on the current Wall Street collapse and effect it will have on us!

Almost at the station, I had a sudden revelation, something which was probably lingering in my sub-conscience, it popped up - poof. Where is my train ticket. Aaaaaugh, I checked my large plastic bag I was carrying that contained some books and large envelopes having my transcripts. Bah! I remembered giving a print out, and had forgotten to collect it, and that's what was hidden within the deep realms of my conscience, which decided to come out only when I am at the station.

Another neural surge and I remembered reading at the irctc website that failure to carry ticket would involve a fine of only Rs. 50/-, if you had your identification. My pal was still saying something about getting a print from a nearby browsing center.

I was still in the process of searching - since I remember having taken another copy earlier and probably hid it somewhere in the middle of tons of sheets which I was carrying, when another surge suggested, to look in my luggage. LUGGAGE?

Where is my god damn luggage. With a sinking feeling I swept the back of the Auto. No bag. It was peacefully resting in the luggage room back at office. I swore. Asked the Auto champ if it is possible to go and come back in time for the train. He looked at me incredulously, sensing that he was dealing with a mad person, and I was pretty sure he would say - 'Yeah sure, not to the Station but to the mental asylum'. When he realized that I had left the luggage at the office, his doubt vanished and he definitely knew he was dealing with a nitwit - 'You left your luggage? Hold on, you mean are you the one who is traveling and you left your luggage, even a fool will know he has to carry something when he is traveling'. I wished I could explain to him, that well the luggage was not with me, but in the luggage room and after dinner, I was so damn deep in discussion with my friend, that we just got out of office, walked up to the Auto Stand and pronto here we were!! But I knew no explanation would edge that disbelief he had on his face.

Well that's what happened, I walked out of our office to get to the station, left my ticket and luggage and very nonchalantly reached the station to catch the train.

Picture it and damn I still get the laughs when I think about it. ROFL.

Tribute to Michael Crichton

It has come to pass, some of the most fascinating works of man.

Michael Crichton, who died some weeks back on Nov 4 '08, the well known author of Jurassic Park and creator of ER, was an imaginative and real genius who came up with some incredible books.

And about the same time he passed away, Japanese scientists were able to take cells from 16 year frozen mice and were able to clone them. Now they are talking of cloning a mammoth from a frozen baby mammoth found in Russia - 20,000 years old. Phew - it would be awesome to see Ice Age come alive.

Think about it, some of these discoveries were fiction years back. But the fact is that man is progressing, fiction that was fiction 20 years back is becoming a reality.

Michael Crichton will be remembered deeply for his contribution to this world, that has paved man to realize some of the awesome works of this year. I have enjoyed each and every book he has written. Even though producing dinosaurs using this method is far fetched - since there is no known frozen sample of a dinosaur; there is a hope that some day Michael Crichton's fiction will become a reality.

Here's to Michael Crichton - Cheers!

Ubuntu 8.10 - Installed

Couldn't sleep well with this problem nagging my head. A few more attempts later I realized there was something else wrong too. The screen I was getting wasn't all blank, if it had a cursor blinking at the left hand corner. Checked the integrity of the CD, and found one file to be bad. No idea how though. Waited patiently for the download to complete again and this time it was the Alternate CD.

Burned again, installed. It went smooth, and finally I was greeted by the much awaited 800X600 poor resolution screen. Installed the nvidia restricted drivers v177.81 and then on reboot, the evident happened, Black screen of Death. I was almost certain this would happen having read the recurring problem in the forums.

Back to troubleshooting.

Followed some instructions on editing a file called - xorg.conf at /etc/X11. This file contains the parameters to load the display drivers and the monitor - Samsung SyncMaster 226BW. No success. Damn. Tried tons of configurations but to no avail. And just when I am neck deep, grumbling - power goes 'poof'. Sheesh, I cursed loudly and the next two hours were slow, tried reading for the exam a bit. Power was back in couple of hours [no idea why it went in the first place, and if I notice it always does when I am doing something serious].

Browsed a bit more and got the right monitor parameters for the setup. Still no luck.

Opened the Xorg.0.log file and finally figured something was wrong, have a look at this -

(--) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s) on GeForce 7900 GS at PCI:1:0:0:
(--) NVIDIA(0): CRT-0
(--) NVIDIA(0): Samsung SyncMaster (CRT-1)
(--) NVIDIA(0): CRT-0: 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
(--) NVIDIA(0): Samsung SyncMaster (CRT-1): 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
(WW) NVIDIA(0): Option "UseDisplayDevice" requested "DFP", but no unused DFPs
(WW) NVIDIA(0): are available.
(II) NVIDIA(0): Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP" converted to "".
(WW) NVIDIA(0): Unable to find any of the requested display device "" in the
(WW) NVIDIA(0): list of available display devices "CRT-0, CRT-1".
(II) NVIDIA(0): Assigned Display Device: CRT-0

The card Nvidia GeForce 7900GS has a dual display out, and evidently my monitor was configured as CRT-1. Obviously using the UseDisplayOption with DFP was not right, since there is no display like DFP. The system was by default assigning CRT-0 as the assigned display device, which did not exist.

(II) NVIDIA(0): Assigned Display Device: CRT-0

I edited my xorg.conf and changed the option line of UseDisplayDevice as

Option "UseDisplayDevice" "CRT-1"

That cracked it and now I am having the most beautiful screen ever. Below is the snippet of the final file xorg.conf if it helps anyone -

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "SyncMaster"
DisplaySize 474 296
HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 60.0
ModeLine "1680x1050" 119.0 1680 1728 1760 1840 1050 1053 1059 1080
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nvidia"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Configured Video Device"
Monitor "SyncMaster"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "CRT-1"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1680x1050"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Satiated!!

Apart from the above glitch, to experience this OS is a bliss. I remember 5-6 years back when I had installed RedHat and had the most horrifying experience, finding the most elusive drivers, installing and configuring them, connecting to a network, mounting my Windows NTFS disks etc. Linux has definitely evolved, I did not have do a thing - it was as simple as installing Windows, in fact I was most impressed during the installation boot up screen, when my Wireless USB keyboard and mouse worked flawlessly. Though installation took quite some time roughly about 40 mins, [wonder why it took so long on a Athlon 3000+ powered processor] I was blown away when the screen finally loaded.

I can see Linux evolving to a much higher level, and can picture the desktops around the world booting to THE fabulous system. Windows 7 has to pull off a miracle!

US - Jobs - Recovery not likely until 2010

An excerpt from an article courtesy CNN -

Another economist suggested that the positive effects from a stimulus package would not be felt until spring or early summer 2009 at the earliest and that there would be no significant job gains until 2010.

"Classically, employment is a lagging indicator that will decline well into the recovery period," Brian Bethune chief U.S. financial economist for research firm Global Insight. "Assuming the recession lasts until middle of 2009, it may be another six to eight beyond that before employment stabilizes."

This is not good news, especially when I am planning on taking a gamble to study in the US. I am stumped, these signs are not very encouraging!

Read the full post here!

Ubuntu - 8.10 - Disappointed

Well, here I am really bored. Waited patiently for the Ubuntu new version 8.10 of Linux to be downloaded, it just released last week. Never used Ubuntu, have heard its pretty sleek.

I had just finished downloading the entire pack of Fedora as well, however chanced upon the new release of Ubuntu and decided to wait.

Download over, hope against hope I opened the rack of CDs to find a last burnable CD left. It is just a 690 MB install, pretty cool huh, Fedora was 3.8GB, but of course I am not certain if it boasts of all the applications Fedora comes packaged together with, though.

Burned it, rebooted system. Cool menu and even has an option to check out the OS without actually installing. Clicked on the Install option and after a short splash cool screen, nothing - blank screen with the cursor dangling at the left corner. I said to myself OK, just a minor glitch. Tried it again and left the system for an hour, but to no avail. Just a blank screen. Browsed the forum and discovered I am not the only one having this conundrum - I am just one of the victims of the Black Screen of Death

Most likely a problem with the kernel unable to find the right resolution for the monitor. Do not want to try with the Alternate CD [the one with the text installer], simply because I suspect after installation, the problem will again reappear, as it has to some of the folks.

Fedora it is, will give Ubuntu another 2 days time....

Sunset

Browsing through my old collection of hand written documents, written much before the explosion of computer and internet epoch, I found an old poem. A classic piece which astounds me now. I faintly remember being a literary genius, back when I was younger. In 6th Standard, I had attempted my first write up, Ramayana. I had read the unabridged version of the book and wrote the story in the form of an essay. I remember it to have come out very impressive.

Inspired by my father, I had begun writing. Short stories and poems mostly. I also remember winning the Short Story Competition at Champak. Hah! found that antique piece hidden in my collection as well. I signed, those were the days !

Here goes -

Sunset

Dreams of intoxicating love
Pure as honey, sweet as wine
Smooth as a white dove
But devastating as a mine.

Naked, he was standing alone
His whole life flashing by
His lips mouthing a silent moan
The fiery falcon he could hear, fly.

Wonderful dreams descended upon him
When he thought of the maiden
The happy times, an unbroken film
Pleasurable thoughts, his mind was laden.

The fair lady, slim and elegant
Deep desire of a wife
Scattering charms with her scent
Enchanted his entire life.

Black beautiful hair, rolling waterfalls
The fairy beauty, river of milk
Her melodious voice, a nightingale calls
Her irresistible figure, an embodiment of silk.

He lay still on his bed
Love lost, beyond repose
The flower, nipped in the bud
No longer for his joys.

Yeah its crude and can be shaped better, but pretty good for a kid - huh?

Signing off !!