The Lonesome Road

Will make this a short post - have a mid-term today.

The smart guys at Encyclopodia have come up with a way to transfer Wikipedia onto iPods. Thankfully they have created the trnasfer software for Windows and Linux. Find out more about it here.

Now really I gotta run.

Enjoy!
PS : I just wonder how they will handle updates….

I take (a small amount of) pride in my vocabulary. To be honest, I don’t have no idea how many words I know - but the number I know usually serve me well.

Till I play Boggle.

I suck at Boggle.

What’s Boggle? Oh - I assumed that it’s common knowledge. Boggle (the physical version) consists of a 4×4 grid. Each grid has a cube with a letter from the alphabet - one on each side placed in it. The base is then covered with a clear plastic cover - it’s like a cuboid dome - and shaken. Vigorously. Once you survive the noise assault of the shaken plastic, the dome is lifted and a 3 minute timer is started. You now have all of 3 minutes to find words.

Words can be found by connecting adjecent letters horizontally, vertically or diagonally. The only prohibition is a letter may not be reused. Minimum word length is usually 4. Scoring is simple. You and your opponent(s) compare lists at the end of 3 minutes. Every common word is crossed out. Then for every unique word points are awarded. 4 letter words = 1 point. 5 letter words = 2 points and so on. Decide a limit to be reached - and that it.

Sounds simple? The rules are. The game isn’t.

First of all you have the timer ticking away. But once you get into the groove, the timer is usually ignored. The second problem is running through combinations. You have 16 blocks on the board and each brick has 3 possible outgoing paths. I’m not saying it’s as complicated as chess - but you have to be fast to see, use and discard combinations. The best Boggle players will make words and quickly look to see if they can make multiples and use them in various tenses. For eg. Test - Tests - Tested and then similar words such as Tester.

And you better know a lot of words.

Why all this interest in Boggle? For one, I think my vocabulary is good (see article start) - but my cousin wins big time at Boggle. The rumor in the family is that she cheats - but I don’t agree with that theory. It’s all about vocabulary and pattern matching. So, today I found a Boggle game on GameHouse and downloaded it. There’s a solitary mode in it. I thought - why not. That’s where I got a bit of a beating. I’m getting 36% of the possible words on each board. Ouch. Even if you factor in the fact that this board allows 3 letter words (which I hate looking for. Consider the minimum should be four) - it’s still pretty low.

So here I sit. A little humbled - but definitely not defeated. I’m going to hit the game again and show it who’s the boss.

Until next time : Keep your mind sharp - play a word game!

My friend and I were cooking dinner today (yes, I do cook - so there) and we had to get a new can of salt.

Now, I have this thing about reading ingredients from cans. And this one boldly proclaimed itself as REAL SALT - with Iodine. I was intrigued. Iodized salt is something I am familiar with - Real Iodized salt was something new.

So, I turned the can around to see if they provided any more information. That brought me to the second piece of information : Real Salt - with 33% less Sodium. Now, I am a poor computer engineer and have not actively been reading chemistry books for the last 5 years. But some things do stick in ones mind. One of them is that common salt is made of Sodium and Chlorine. Na+ and Cl- in an electrolytic bond form NaCl i.e common, table salt.

Now, if these guys have 33% less Sodium in their “salt”, it logically (to me) suggests that there is an imbalance in the sodium/chlorine ratio. i.e it’s more like salt with free chlorine. I know that excess sodium is bad for health - but I don’t think swapping it for chlorine is a better option.

I decided to see if they provided an explanation that did not involve the presence of excess chlorine. According to their box : “unique flake shaped crystals are larger, yet lighter than cube shaped granules which help you consume less sodium with every use.”

Again, I have no concept of crytal shapes affecting the chemical composition of a molecule, but I don’t think that flakes of salt with have any less sodium than cube chaped granules. But then, that’s me.

Personally, I long for the iodized salty salt of home.

Salt ho!
[PS : Please, please do not take this article seriously. Oh - you didn’t. All right - I’ll go now.]

My grandmother passed away today.

I sit here, trying to let the words flow to take away some of the shock and disbelief. Even though I got the news early this morning, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact.

I know that in time acceptance will come, but in the interim it feels very hard to believe that someone who had so much energy is no more.

I miss her most in the small ways. Her snacks of toast and pickle. The way she would insist that my friends ate well - and try her best to stuff them. The special sweet that she would make just for me (no one made it like she did). I miss her boundless energy - she would be ready to roam all over Bombay - every day. Why? Just because she felt like it.

I miss the small things we shared : She would always pass me family news - including information about people I didn’t even know about just when I would be relaxing with a book. I would always tease her that I knew more songs of her generation than she did - I’d even play song openings are ask her to guess which song it was. She almost always did.

I’m going to miss her presence. Dignified, stong, and above all - fiercely independent.

My last conversation with her was on thursday night. And it went along lines long established.

G’Mom : Hello.
Me : Hi pati, it’s me. How are you?
G’mom : Have you eaten yet?

At that time I thought - some things will never change…

So, pati - let me end by saying Thank You. Believe me - I miss you a lot already - and I wish that I could have met you once more before I left India.

na jayate mriyate va kadacin
nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah
ajo nityah sasvato ‘yam purano
na hanyate hanyamane sarire

For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.

Until we meet again…..

There are some software with which you get so comfortable that moving away from them seems alomost painful. One of them - for me - is Winamp. Been using it for such a long time that it seems like a permanent fixture on my computer.

Then there came a time when music management seemed to be required. I wanted lists, songs arranged by certain criteria - basically the whole media manager bowl of wax. So, I started experimenting. The first one was MediaMonkey, which I used for quite some time. Worked well, but ultimately, was not for me.

Then I moved on to MusikCube - which is a nice piece of work. Supports ogg and mp3 from the get go, can play internet radio, has some nice plugins to help extend it’s functionality. But most importantly, it’s fast and very light on system resources.

I must also mention Foobar, which I did try. While it lives upto it’s claims of speed and low memory requirement, it also lacks features that I want it to have. Was a bit disappointed - specially considering the glowing reports some people wrote about it. May go back and play with it some other time.

One of the major problems I initially had with both MM and MK was that when you search for a song, they take you to a new screen - and keep you there. You will have to come back manually to the library (iTunes is better on that score). Secondly, after a search if you double click on a song, it will play the sond AND add it to now playing - and replace all that was already there. Very bugging. Thankfully, MusikCube offers an enqueue feature. Finally, I am addicted to keyboard shortcuts - they just make my life easier. MediaMonkey has none, and MusicKube has a really wierd key setting to make it work. Winamp by far has the easiest set of the lot - or it’s just that I am too used to it.

Finally, I decided - enough is enough. I need something to play music - not manage it. Downloaded and installed WinAmp, created my multiple playlists - and I am in a happy place. You just cannot beat the convenience. Press J - the search screen comes up - even if the Playlist Editor is closed. Type what you need - press play/enqueue/repeat - and there you go. Instant gratification. The annoying thing about the enqueue in MM and MK was that in these software, enqueue simply moves the song to the position following the current song. In case shuffle is on (which on my player(s), it is by default), they will NOT play that song next. Winamp will. And for all the times a song is stuck in your head, open the playlist editor, find the song and press “Q” with it selected. It will repeat that song once for every Q-press.

I just want one feature back in WinAmp. In version 3 they had this extra colomn in the Playlist Editor which kept track of all the created playlists. It was really useful as I could switch playlists at will. I don’t really care about their media library - I just want this feature re-implemented.

Until next time : “Winamp - it really whips the llama’s ass”
[PS : That’s not me - that’s what plays when you start WinAmp for the first time]

I had a great day today. Went to Manhattan to meet my cousin for brunch - and then went to The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

It’s been a very long time since I set foot inside a musem. The last one went into was the Prince of Wales museum in Mumbai (Bombay) - and I don’t have very fond memories of it. Well, today I tried to make up for all the years of non-exposure to history and culture.

Today, in the span of 4.5 hours, I saw paintings, sculptures, castings, stone work and architecture. We started with paintings. To be very honest, paintings are not my thing. I have never been able to decipher/read what the artist is trying to convey with the medium. That being said, I do admit that some of the paintings did manage to capture my interest - though modern art will forever remain beyond the realm of my comprehension.

We were wandering around, looking for the Santiago Calatrava exhibit (more about that later) when we came across some of the Mayan and Inca section. Almost all the exhibits were made of stone or gold. One expects jewelery to be made from gold, but consider humble implements like tongs created from gold. Amazing. My favorite item in that entire display was a set of gold lime skewers - each one of a higher order of workmanship than the one before it.

Moving on, we went to the Santiago Calatrava architecture exhibit. For those not in the know, this gentleman is going to design the new WTC station and the Verizon building in Manhattan. The exhibit was astounding. Amazing designs tranlated into revolutionary architecture. His works have been known to use straight lines to create curves. The centrepiece of the exhibit was a giant wave made of staight horizontal cubical colomns. These were moved via motors to create the effect of an undulating wave - and you could see how this man translated straight lines into curves. If you have the time, definitely go see it - it’s running until March 5th.
[Click here for pictures]

The exhibit I understood the least was Robert Rauschenberg Combines. This gentleman combines paint, furniture, fabric, wood, paper, bricks, stain glass, tires….basically anything he can to create works that straddle the areas of sculpture as well as painting. Well, that’s what the plaques said. As I was walking around, I overheard one patron say to another - “Every time I look at it, I see something new”. I am happy for him - all I saw was a big mess in all the displays. But that’s probably just me.
[Click here for pictures]

After all this wandering, I wanted to see what the museum had in terms an Indian exhibit. So, off we went - and I wasn’t disappointed (well, a little). The exhibit was divided into periods and once could see the artwork from different eras of Indian history. Here’s where I was a tad disappointed. Most of the displays were Buddhist in nature. It’s not that I have anything against Buddhism, but I would have liked to see a greater representation of other artifacts. The best exhibits were in a room which had black walls and spot lighting. In that room were two statues - one of Garuda (who is Lord Vishnu’s mount) and one of Lord Vishnu. The room had the look and feel of a temple (though I don’t know if this effect was intentional). The statue of Lord Vishnu was huge - and according to the plaque, it’s the largest single piece they have in the Indian exhibit. The other display piece I liked a lot in the Indian collection was a pair of gold earrings. They were cast in a floral motif and were embellished with intricate carvings of a lion and an elephant (royal protectors). Simply stunning.

The second part of the Indian exhibit was smaller and contained stories on Alexander from a book comissioned by Emperor Akbar (not sure on this - wasn’t paying too much attention to the details of the exhibit). The display consisted of pages of the book with translations of the stories on a plaque.

One last piece - we exited via the Egyptian section. As we were entered the room leading to the exit, a piece caught our eye from across the room. It was made up of two masks and a terracotta figurine of a ram. The display got our attention as the pieces were a deep and rich shade of blue. The work on the ram was simply beautiful - it’s back was made of small blue terracotta squares.

So, that was my afternoon. An afternoon steeped in art, history and culture. If anyone from NY (resident or visitor) is reading this and has not been to the Met, I strongly urge you to go. I have plans to go back there when the weather is better - I still have not seen all that I want to. Of course, the dumbest thing I did today was not take my camera. I will rectify that situation the next time.

And what can be a better topic than this to celebrate my 200th post

To the next 100 posts - salut!

“It is cruel, you know, that music should be be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and of freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.”
- Benjamin Britten

[Benjamin Britten is considered one of the greatest English composers of the 20th century]

What do you think?

It seems that the new trend in OS hacking is trying to make OSX run on Wintel machines. Just goes to show how starved we are for a well behaved operating system . Hence, the good folks at Apple included this piece of poetry in the new releases of OSX :

“Your karma check for today:

There once was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind
he’d do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined.

Please don’t steal Mac OS!
Really, that’s way uncool.
(C) Apple Computer, Inc.”

Of course, in keeping with the Mac culture, it’s hidden away, revealing itself only to the ones who really go deep into the system.

And secondly, even though it’s not going to win poetry competitions anywhere, it’s still nice to see a dash of humor instead of a ton of legal jargon.

Until next time - get a Mac!

Over the last few days, I have seen major problems with Blogger (or Blogspot, if that’s the name you prefer).

• Wierd outages : Was trying to update my blog a few days back. It updated and then told me to republish my index 10 minutes later. I tried in half an hour - only to get the same message again. Finally, after 4 hours (and a browser change from Firefox to Opera), the index was republished.
• Slow page loads : Once in a while the blog page just keeps loading and loading and loading..ok you get the drift.
• Comment trouble : Comment numbers do not increment once in a while. Even after refreshing. If I click on the comments link, I can see the comment, but it displays 0 comments.
• Comment mail : I’ve set up my site to drop me a line when a comment it posted. This too seems to be off. The last two comments that are up on the site are not in my mail (and yes, for what it’s worth - I did check my junk mail folder).

I’m not the only one experiencing this trouble. I just hope it gets better - don’t want to shift all these posts elsewhere

Adios!

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IMG_0864-1600×1200, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

After the snow finally stopped at 5 PM, my roomies and I decided to go clear the snow from the driveway.

Of course, I had my camera and took a few snaps. This was the height of the snow in our yard. Doesn’t look like much does it - but believe me - it was deep.

As usual, all other photos on the photo page or you can directly go to the Blizzard photoset

Enjoy!

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collage, originally uploaded by shadowfall.

A blizzard was predicted over the weekend for the NY area - and boy did they get it right.

The snow started last evening and even as of now, shows no sign of stopping.

So I did what I could do to take some photos that show Mother Nature (with some help Lady Snow) in all her glory.

Hope you like them. The complete photo set can be seen in the Blizzard photoset.

Enjoy!

Can you see the error in the photo above?

If you can’t - here are two hints :

1) See the screen
2) The laptop is supposed to have XP Home installed.

Happy solving!

I will be installing Fedora Core 4 on my system today. Need it for a couple of courses I am taking this semester.

In the windowing system department, I’ve always been a little biased towards the KDE environment as compared to Gnome. Just a personal preference. The good folks at KDE are picking up their game. Version 3.5.1 was released recently and had a nice set of features/fixes.

So, when trawling around, I found some new screenshots of KDE4 - and it looks amazing!

All I need from them now is a release date.

Ah….the waiting

PS : More pictures here [thanks to Digg]

Here’s a solution for all the times that you want to use a messenger system on another computer - or in college where IMs are more or less banned.

It’s called Meebo, and it works like a charm. Simply type in your username/password for the account(s) of your choice - and presto! instant messaging in all it’s glory.

Certainly beats the idea of installing the messenger(s) you want/need to use on every computer

Enjoy!

As I wrote in a previous post, that I prefer Star Trek : TOS to Star Trek : TNG.

One of the primary reasons of course is the captain of the original Enterprise - Captain Kirk. I think Picard is too much of a “thinker” and depends way too much on his “Number one” and Data. Kirk actually got things done - by himself!

Of course, there are people with more time and resources. They have come up with a whole ton of reasons why Picard sucks and Kirk rocks. For those who need proof about this fact, please click here.

Here are some I liked :

Captain Sisko from DS9 was a god who was destined to join the Temple of the Prophets (the wormhole aliens). And even a god-like figure like him had a lot of hero worship for Kirk ( Trials and Tribble-ations). He also had a lot of contempt for Picard (Emissary). What more proof is needed than the judgement of a God.

Kirk’s era had higher standards of command. Spock said it best: the captain had no right to appear anything but perfect; otherwise, the crew lost faith, and he lost command (The Enemy Within). And Kirk worked hard to avoid displaying weakness in the eyes of his crew-forcing himself through the Psi-2000 virus by sheer willpower. Picard? His first stated concern was that the captain, “project an air of geniality” (Encounter at Farpoint). How standards have changed.

Kirk’s first order as captain of the Enterprise: “Take her out of the Galaxy, Mister Mitchell.” Picard’s first order as captain of the Enterprise: “We surrender.” (I just love this one!)

Even when faced with the new Romulan plasma-torpedo, Kirk didn’t run in order to “live another day” like Picard did.

Kirk could easily end a serious and dangerous adventure with a good, hearty laugh with his crew, therefore keeping up morale and creating a more friendly environment . Picard frequently would merely scowl a lot and have a crabby attitude, contributing no morale whatsoever.

Well, you get the drift…

Of course, if you *still* don’t believe me - here’s more proof [@ 1000 x 30 words/second]

Brings to my mind : This old man went rolling home

And this is what would happen if Picard ever went head-to-head with Kirk

Until next time, “Boldly go where no man has gone before”