The Lonesome Road

I was watching a show on National Geographic last night. It was about the illegal trade involving artifacts from various countries in the world.

Now, according to the Egyptian Master of Antiquities, tomb robbers and artifact black marketeers are the scum of the earth as they are carting away relics that are a part of the global heritage. And yes- even though they are part of world history, Egypt would like the finds that are made in their soil to stay in Egypt.

Now, this is where their policy made no sense. According to estimates, approximately 70% (yup) of all Egyptian relics and atrifacts are still buried under the shifting sands. This basically means that if you own land in Egypt and randomly dig in it, there is still a chance that you will come upon ancient treasuers. The kicker comes in once you find something. According to Egyptian law, all finds are supposed to be reported to the government, who will take over the find - and the land. Thus the common people are more than happy to sell the items off in the black market to
a) protect their property
b) make a quick buck.

Similarly, if a builder finds any relics when the foundation of a building is being laid, (s)he is also duty bound to report it to the government. You guessed it - the government takes over the land and the builder cannot construct his structure there anymore. Most builders when they find something of value simply do not report it - and in cases of frescoes and paintings, cover it up with cement so that it’s not visible.

Surely, there can be a better way to preserve the remenants of the past. The current policy will only make sure that the egyptian antiquities are destroyed or taken out of the country.

And that’s a shame.

This morning I was up on /. , catching up on the news and one of the articles today was Longhorn Beta is diappointing. Now, the article by itself is pretty ok. The rub of the matter came in when I was reading the (normally erudite) comments posted by the /.ers.

It’s nothing more than a flame war with islands of reason in the middle. Now, I really can’t speak much on the issue simply because I haven’t used the mac - and that’s the main problem in the discussions as well. You have rabid MS and Mac fans who for the most part have not seen what the other side has to offer and simply tout what their side has to offer. Though, from what I have noticed, most MS users who cwitch from Windows to OSX usually have very positive things to say about it. The reverse - well didn’t see too much on that score.

What I found particularly annoying was the fact that people are making predictions and critiques based on a pre-release version of the OS. The main point of the debates - the new UI of Longhorn and how it looks crappy. Therefore the new version of Windows is going to suck. Dudes - let them release the new version - then knock it down. Anyway you guys have quite a wait - God alokne knows when Longhorn is finally going gold.

To a certain extent, I do think MS is playing catch up with Apple, but it’s a good thing in many ways for Windows users. And there is always plagiarism in the computer industry. Apple has not escaped it either. Konfabulator claims that the new widget based desktop is an idea taken from them.

My basic point is see both sides of what you are debating - then flame. There are a lot of problems with MS - the most basic being complacency. But that’s what happens when you are a (near) monopoly. Tiger and Mozilla are showing MS the repurcussions of this attitude. Now it’s upto MS to respond.

In funny news today, it’s been conclusively proved that snail mail beats ADSL - literally

It is now safe to shut down this post.

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The MSEB announced a new load shedding schedule yesterday - without informing the public. We’ve put an inverter in the house, and though it’s quite a heavy duty system (3 tubes, 3 fans and a TV/Computer), the electrician told us we’d have to be careful to turnoff the fridge before the power goes off. The fridge can cause the inverter to trip due to excess load. Since yesterday was the first day of load shedding since the installation, I put in a reminder to turn off the fridge at noon.

Around 11AM, I went to turn on the fan and all of a sudden, there’s this long beep. I looked around to see where the sound was coming from - and then noticed it was the inverter. Turning off the fridge, I went to check up on the system and saw that there was no electricity. And it didn’t come back till 3PM. Welcome to 4-hour power cuts.

The new schedule for the power cuts came in today. They will last from : 7AM-11AM/11AM-3PM/3PM-7PM. The time depends on the area and the day.

The only people who are enjoying this scenario are the dudes who provide power solutions. The sale of UPS, inverters and generators are going throug the roof.

On the plus side, my inverter happily keeps my comp and a fan going for 4 hours easy… now only if my ISP didn’t go down at the same time…

I guess it was inevitable - the mail service providers have finally gone whole hog. The dudes at mail2world [http://www.mail2world.com] have removed the last space barrier. They are offering a no space limit mail account - even on the free e-mail scheme.

Storage space on email accounts has been the latest USP for almost all the providers. Rediff started the trend offering 1Gb of storage space and Google is now offering a mailbox which literally grows before your eyes. All of this forced Yahoo! and Hotmail to up the space offered. Yahoo went first increasing the account size to 250 Mb (and planning to upgrade it it 1Gb soon). Similarly, Hotmail is now providing 250Mb mail boxes as well (though only for US/Can residents).

Ultimately, all of this is more or less useless. From what I have seen of mail accounts, most people don’t really get/keep all that much mail. I’m not saying everyone’s a neat freak - but I feel that on an average, most people don’t use more than a 100Mb - and I think this is a high figure. It really does not cost the providers to dole out large mailboxes - most of the space goes unused anyway. There are always those people who make the best use of the storage space provided - turning their mailboxes into portable online briefcases.

To be very honest, I like Rediffmail simply because of it’s speed and low overhead on the page load. Google also wins high marks due to the free POP3 mail system that it provides. Now if only they put in IMAP….

Until next time.. fill the mailbox!

Taking a break from Unix last night, I was surfing through the sports channels ( all three of them ) when I came across ESPN showing Cricket Gold. Now on this show, they usually play highlights of good matches. However, last night’s match was very optimistically categorized as gold - it was India vs Bangladesh. It’s was more like cricket Fool’s Gold.

However, as I watched the highlights, I did notice something - Ganguly’s form with the bat. It was also a trying time for Tendulkar as he was also in a lean patch. Now both these batsmen as they played were let off around 4 times each by the Bangladesh fielders. While Ganguly made a half century and Tendulkar completed his century, there was no real domination of the bowlers - especially the ordinary bowlers - that are part of the Bangladesh team. The captain was scratchy and there is probably no other side in the world that bowls to him on or around the off side. They’ve all found that he cannot play the short ball that comes into him at around rib height. The Bangladeshi bowlers tried a few balls in that mould and when they did - he almost got out twice. Now, his batting skills have worsened - at least at that point of time he knew where his stumps were. Now, the only time he seems the stumps are when they are flat on the ground.

One more aspect of the match was the running between the wickets. Tendulkar is fast - and he hares through the first run and mostly presses for a second. However, our great captain believes that that the fastest form of running is an amble. You could see the anger and frustrationon Tendulkar’s face each time he called for a second run. Makes me wonder - what would happen if Inzy and Ganguly were batting together? This lazy attitude also carries on into his fielding. In the recent Indo-Pak matches, as soon as the ball was hit anywhere near Ganguly, the batsmen would call and run for two.

It seems now that Ganguly is planning to make the best of his ban and join County Cricket (he’ll be playing for Kent). A newspaper coloumn pointed out today that the Kent players are not very happy with Ganguly as according to them, he does not “play from the heart”.

Boss Ganguly - take heed.

B.E Farewell Party
In local news, a farewell party was held for the final year students in my college. The pary was organized by the third year students and was a resounding success according to eyewitnesses (including this reporter). The party started off with a small awards ceremony with prizes going out (by popular vote) to the best profs. There were also prizes for best outgoing student, most sincere student, and a few other categories which simply made no sense (a case in point being : The most easily fooled person). The party then shifted to the lawn where there were “fun and games”. In the end, it came down to good tracks and some fun dancing. Even the professors were encouraged to shake a leg. All this was followed by dinner and all the B.E students were presented with mementos at the end of the party.

On a personal note, it’s a little hard to say good bye to the friends and professors you have known, but then in life, we all move on. But I would like to say a big Thank You to all my professors and wish all the people I’ve met all the best for the future. We’ll meet again - but that’s only for the exams - and then who knows…

MSEB lacks common sense

Today’s power cut was scheduled to start at 3 in the afternoon and continue till 6 in the evening. However, the MSEB officials in this area decided that it would be a good idea to cut the power supply in order to cut down a tree that was causing problems with the wiring. It never occured to the officials that the tree could be cut down at 3 when the area had a power cut. Thus residents were forced to suffer from 10:30AM to 2:30PM. To add insult to injury, the power promptly went off at 3PM. God help us all.

Indian Cricket Team Lacks Spine

In sports news, we present the marvel of world cricket - the Indian team. It’s the only team that is spineless. This has been well documented over the recently conculded competition between Pakistan and India. The test series draw at 1-1 was a moral victory for the visitors and though the Indian team did manage to win the first two matches of the ODI series, Pakistan came back stongly to win four matches in a row and clinch the series 4-2. Watching our “world class” batsmen struggle on pitches that the Pakistani batsmen made merry on was a demoralizing sight to any Indian sports fan. But to be very fair - all credit goes to the Pakistani captain Inzamam for steering his side to a series win. As the TOI put it very correctly - Pakistan performs last Wrights.( John Wright being the coach of the Indian cricket team and this was his last series as coach)

Weather : Rain and Ice

In weather news, due to intense heat in the afternoons (range : 38-40 degrees celcius), there has been a tropical weather system in the area with rains lashing through the city in the evenings. yesterday however had a new twist in the tale - there were pieces of ice falling mixed with the rain. According to the weather board, this is due to the fact that the rain is localized and the vapor rises to a greater height where the vapor condenses and freezes to form ice particles.

Even the odd news

Saurav Ganguly seems to be considering a career shift - the latest Tata Indicom advertisement sees him extolling the virtues of the telecommunication services provided by Indicom to the tune of Shankar Mahadevan’s ‘Breathless’ with Irfan Pathan smiling at him from outside the recording booth. Considering their performance on the field (esp Dada), I’m sure they had plenty of time to record the ad.

Thank you for tuning in. Until next time…

It’s been a hot and stifling day today - even more so when you have to lug two machines to college to show your project demo. Half an hour back, the air was still and warm - it pressed into your clothes. Fortunately for me, I have a handy-dandy spray. It’s similar to the ones the barber uses to wet hair before he cuts it. I usually spray it and then walk in the mist. It’s real fun. Today however, the Big Guy decided to take things in His hands and let the waterworks flow. Unfortunately, the rain was short lived and has only added to the discomfort… oh well, happens. Will put up a photo of the sky later.

Oh - and all you cricket fans who went ballistic on our teams performance yesterday, here is a post that covers anything you might have been thinking. Be warned though - it’s not pretty. He’s come down pretty harsh on the team and I really don’t agree with his assessment of Tendulkar.

I guess the only good thing that came out of the match was that Ganguly can now officially be retired for the rest of the series. I read that in the Davis Cup, the captain of the team is a non-playing member chosen for his wisdom and maturity. Now, I have no doubt that Ganguly Dada is a good captain, so I propose that we make him the 12th man, or as the Davis Cup people do it - a non playing captain. Let him bring the drinks to the players on field and offer suggestions and tactics. It’s a win-win situation. We can have a performing player in the side and the benefit of Dada’s aggressive capatincy. Any takers??

All users of Flyakite, rejoice! After a long wait, the goal has been seen. Version 2 is out and tested. As of now it seems to be stable and trouble free. This time around, the author has very kindly packed in two object bars to make the Mac experience a little more complete. You can get the update from the author’s home page. As for the username, do not write anything (unless you are a forum member, in which case you may use your forum name) and simply press login. I love what he’s done to the site..

Also included in the package is a nifty window roller. Simply right click on the minimize button and the contents of the window disappear into the title bar.

Do drop the author a line if you like the software. And remember - an apple a day keeps the doctor away

Later!

This post only for non /.ers

Hitachi has made a flash animation “expaining” their new perpendicular hard drives i.e their microdrives. Now while the animation provides no technical information whatsoever, it’s still fun for the nery song and dance routine of the bits. And it (annoyingly) sticks in the brain. Highly recommended. You can see it here.

Also in cricket news - we lost to Pakistan. I really don’t mind the defeat - it keeps the series a little more interesting - but I do mind the way we lost. In the previous match when Pakistan were chasing 357 it always looked like they may make it. Our illustrious batsmen on the other hand crumbled chasing 320 on a flat pitch in a small ground with only five batsmen scoring in double figures and the highest score was by a bowler. It’s easy to bat first, set a target and then put the opposing team under pressure. The real test comes when you have to chase a target. Come on India - we know you can do it. Just go for it - still 3 matches to go. Here’s a quick link to the scoreboard.

That’s all from me for now..

The dudes at Mozilla have released version 1.0.3 of Firefox. Seems that they started off with minor revisions and it just grew . Anyway, you can get your hands on it here. Also, Microsoft is out with the new version of Messenger i.e version 7 final.

Honsestly speaking though, I prefer to use Trillian - simply because it manages my contacts across multiple accounts in a single windows. Give it a try.

Aqua Dock has a minor problem. If the mouse is moved too close to it’s location - especially on high sensitivity of the dock, it has a tendency to minimize a full screen application and bring itself to the fore. A replacement can be found in RK Launcher which provides the same functionality without the problems of Aqua Dock.

Finally - I found this article very amusing. Apparently, the force is not very strong in them

Until next time…

Can’t believe I forgot to put this in - I changed my dinosaur of a 17 inch CRT for slim, black LG 1530s LCD TFT. After I set it up the only question that came to my mind was : Why did I wait so long

Well, it’s the time for march madess. It’s that time in every semester that a student usually dreads - submission time. This time around, our group didn’t take any chances. One journal (Unix) is ready and all assignments have been checked. The other is complete and just awaits correction. All this has allowed us to focus on the project - which is now officially up and running !

Had a blast watching the match yesterday. It’s always fun to watch an Indo-Pak match - it’s usually a fight to the finish. In that respect, yesterday’s match was a disappointment - but we won - so it doesn’t really matter!

What else..nothing much on the news front really. Too busy. Later all!