Blogspot displays incorrect time stamps

What time did I write this post? Blogspot/Blogger is reporting incorrect time! For the last two posts, the timestamp was behind the actual time by around 20-30 minutes. Google though is reporting the correct time.

What is going on?

, ,

Movies over the internet

Apple's decision to take on Netflix, Blockbuster and others, with their online movie viewing business plan sounds interesting.

While reading about this development, I learnt (btw, Google thinks that 'learned' is the correct word and not 'learnt'!) about a new web online movie download web portal. Undoubtedly all such ideas are built on the primary assumption that the viewer has a very good internet connection. Anyway, here is a list of the many ways one can watch a movie on via the internet:

Free

1. Youtube
2. Google Videos
3. Internet Archive
   

Paid

1. Netflix
2. Jaman

UI Talk:

BTW I liked Jaman's UI for helping the viewer select a movie. As shown in the screenshot, one has to move the various sliders and depending on that, movies are recommended.

I don't know how they classify their movies. Most probably after watching a movie, the viewer is asked to judge it. A viewer can of course intentionally provide the wrong ratings, but what is the chance that the majority of Jaman's paying customers will do that?

The next step would definitely be to add a rating and recommendation system as Amazon has in place.

Netflix on the other hand has a simple UI.

, ,

Linux and 'screenshot' Applications

I had to again search for ways to take a screen shot in Linux while working on a blog post. A quick google revealed the following ways to take a screen shot in Linux (primarily these methods work on Gnome, I will add newer methods for KDE as I find them):

1. Using PrintScreen button (alt+printscreen for the active window only)
2. Using ImageMagick (from command line)
3. Using Scrot (from command line)
4. Using 'gnome-panel-screenshot' (for Gnome)
5. Using ksnapshot (for KDE)
6. Using Gimp
7. Using Firefox web browser extension - Snapper
8. Using Firefox web browser extension - ScreenGrab

References:
How to Take a Screenshot in Linux (Ubuntu)
How to Take a Screenshot in Linux (GNOME) Revisited
Taking Screenshots with Linux

, ,

CAPTCHAs and P0rn

At last some proof that CAPTCHAs are being solved using p0rn. The Panda labs blog speaks about an application, which when installed on the system, offers p0rn in exchange for solving CAPTCHAs. They detect the client side application as Trj/RompeCaptchas.A.

I wonder how the application gets to know if the answer to the CAPTCHA is right or wrong. A desperate individual might enter wrong answers to view the images quickly.

, ,

RC Indoor Helicopters

Tried out two RC indoor helicopters during the last few weeks (well, one is modeled after a chopper while the other is modeled after a fly).

The first one was the $30 one from Brookstone. For the price this is a great buy. The looks are good and when it is turned on, a flashing led gets turned on too. The chopper comes in four models. Each model looks alike but differs in the frequency it works on. So four people can have the A,B,C and D models flying in the same room without their radio controllers getting confused. One advantage this model has over the 'Micro Mosquito' model (discussed below), is the landing skids (the ski like structures instead of wheels). These allow it to take off from any kind of surface (rough or smooth).

The chopper is not too tough to control. The problem is that it is not very responsive to the controls and it kinda has a mind of its own. For instance, turning left on the control won't result in the chopper turning left immediately. It slowly will turn by when it would have already flown ahead on its course.

Since the turns are not sharp and while taking off it strays off-course, a big room is necessary to fly this. Perhaps with more control I will be able to fly it in a smaller room and the ultimate test would be to fly it in the passage in my house. It requires 6 AA cells in the radio controller. Charging takes a 10-20 minutes and after a full charge, I am able to fly it for around 10 minutes.

The chopper has a single rotating blade. The top most blade (as can be seen in the image) is not an actual blade. It has a tail rotor which I guess functions pretty much as the real chopper's tail rotor does.

The other beauty is the famous superstar 'Micro Mosquito'. This is priced at $70 at your nearest Radioshack outlet. Although the price is higher than the Brookstone model, this helicopter has amazing control. I am currently playing around with it.

Taking off is pretty easy since the amount of thrust that it generates results in a near vertical take off. Controlling it to move forward and backward seems to be a little tough. It is pretty sensitive to AC ducts in the house.

Since the 'Micro Mosquito' is really not modeled on the lines of a helicopter, there are a lot of differences between it and a real helicopter. The mechanics of flying are explained well here. Due to its sharp projections like legs on which it stands, it can not take off from carpets and requires a smooth surface to take off from. This is a disadvantage. I guess the manufacturer was trying to imitate a fly in appearance.

(I don't like the name 'Micro Mosquito'. The name suggests something that is smaller than a mosquito, while the product is definitely not! I really believe that if such trends continue, and people keep accepting them, English words will loose their current meanings.)


There are amazing YouTube videos on this chopper.

, ,

Trying to squeeze through the 'rabbit hole'

"Would you teach me how to dance, uncle"
asked the little boy,
"No" said the dance to the uncle,
"I do not wish to be his toy!"

"When it rains, little boy" said the uncle,
"I will teach you how to boat".
"No" said the little boy to his uncle,
"I can't 'cause I'll be wearing a rain coat."

"In the winter, when it snows", said the uncle,
"I will teach you how to paint colors".
"No" said the snow to the uncle,
"I would rather prefer to remain duller."

What then, thought the uncle,
could he teach the little boy,
"Teach me to write a poem, uncle"
"For that would bring me a lot of joy!"

(c) Deapesh.

, ,

More non-verse-sence !

Black text, grey cloudy messages,
foretelling the future;
like little birds flying away into the skies,
and fast disappearing into the horizon.

letters and thoughts unexpressed,
from feelings and experiences
felt and vicarious, prejudices all alike
appearing, asking again and again,
"can you not see it?"

And there at the break of the dawn,
smelling the awakening air,
in that stillness, I reach out
towards what is yet to come.
can you also feel it?

A tingling in your head, a twitching muscle,
a destiny, a long path ahead,
turning, twisting, as it may like,
courage and strength with you, on your side.

(c) Deapesh

, ,

A poetic answer

to this.

IF three plus two wasn't five,
we surely today wouldn't have been alive,
but the waters still flow down daily,
as pretty smiles in those teary eyes.

What you may ask about life,
is provided in the riddle of the kite,
which flies daily high into the sky,
and at night, falls softly like a heavy sigh.

Creation and appearance, are all just so,
that we may ask, wonder and crave to know,
the clouds in their passing have told it all,
if only on your feet, you had landed on that fall.

Many have come, many more have left,
what remains at last, is just a 'beleft',
coming and going is just like a tide,
which has pushed many a dream to that side.

And yet tomorrow, the sun will shine,
your body will be locked in arms of mine,
the pleasures that you and I together seek,
have long borne fruit and struck roots deep.

Just counting the days you may simply pass,
the dreams dreamt over shadows on the grass,
but when you will wake up with a flushed face,
you will remember nothing of this place.

So go on, continue on your travels, sow what you have got,
and ask nothing of the questions which have been answered not,
and as these lines end in their length,
you will find hope, you will find strength.

(C) Deapesh.

, ,

Alas, my window!

It is pretty unfortunate that my window is closed almost constantly. When I mean closed, I mean that the shades are always closed. This is the price one pays of living on the ground floor.

Only if someone could grant me a window that opens to a forest in some countryside or a window on a higher floor overlooking the hustle and the bustle of the city. But here I am stuck with a shaded window. What good it is to me?

I hear voices. Voices of people passing by. Weekend parties well spent are announced by loud cheery voices, a cell phone conversation is partially heard and mostly what is heard is the loud monotonous sounds of the construction activity going on.

Sometimes in the day I draw the window shades up and life flows in. People walking around, birds chirping and the change in light, as the day progresses are experienced. But that is only sometimes. All that I get is sounds, paartial sounds.

Alas, for the want of a window, I pine in sorrow and dream of the freedom an open window would have offered me.

, ,

Unimaginative Brand Names - II

Before reading this, you should perhaps read the first part of my blog post.

As I was driving around today, I passed a rental car agency car which had an advertisement on its side. The ad as such did not catch my attention as much as their 1-800 number did. They had the easiest 1-800 number for a rental car agency - 1-800-rent-a-car.

Of course this irritated me, just as my previous complaints have. This rental car agency, just because it was first to register a 1-800 number, has got itself the easiest one. Undoubtedly this makes recalling the number very easy for the customers, but gives them an unfair advantage. Not only is this unfair to the existing competitors, it is also unfair to future competitors.

On another note, I got to know that Intel changed their naming process of their chips from 80856 name series to 'Pentium' name series, since they were not able to cipyright the numbering system.

, ,

Captcha email-ids

We know the risks of posting our email ids on the internet and so resort to address munging (eg.: instead of posting my-mail-id@isp.com we post my-mail-id(at)isp.com).

Here is a utility which creates a small Captcha for the emai id, so that people can post the image.

, ,

Unimaginative Brand Names and Trademarks

Every day morning on the way to work, I cross a construction site. Since this area is just near a traffic light (which is green for only a little time), I invariably look at the site. The first thing which strikes me DAILY is the fence which encloses the site. Well, not the fence itself, but the little sign boards on the fence - "Long Fence" (R). I don't know the exact reason why this fencing company chose to name themselves as "Long Fence", but it surely pains me a lot on two accounts:

1. Lack of imagination in choosing a name


2. Trademark protection of generic names

How boring it would be if all brand names were unimaginative! We would drive cars with names such as "Car", "Little Car", "Sedan", etc., we would read newspapers in the morning with names such as "Daily Newspaper", "The Newspaper", or would wear shoes named "The Shoe" and "Running Shoes" !

And mind you, all these names would be trademark protected. Meaning that if I put a fence which is long and another one which is short, and put up boards on them (for whatever reasons) - 'Long Fence' and 'Short Fence', I would be liable for brand infringement. Whoa !
Another instance can be as follows: a company obtains a trademark for the generic word "Shoes". Now, if I roam around with a t-shirt with a message printed "My shoes are pathetic", the company can very easily build a case against me on the grounds that I am derogating their brand name.

I really wonder why the copyright office does not reject generic names as trademarks!

The USPTO website offers simple definitions of all such confusing terms. Here you will note that there is a distinction between 'generic names' and 'brand names'.

Another case in question is the Project Honeypot (TM). If you read through their terms of use, you will be surprised to learn that generic word combination 'Project HoneyPot' is now their trademark and can not be used by others.

The Honey Net Project (R) also uses a generic name.

Generic names should not be offered trademark protection. It is definitely disadvantageously to future competitors.

To all such generic trademark holders, please TRY to be imaginative!


I might need to drop my case against 'Long Fence' (R) since it seems that the word 'Long' is what is registered and not both together. But even then it is disadvantageous to competitors who loose consumers, every time a person googles up generic words and reaches the website of a company with a generic name.

, ,

Which book influenced you the most?

I was catching up with some reading. I happened to chance upon the article in IEEE Spectrum March 2007 issue which was about books that made an impact in the lives of a few leading technologists.

The two books that were mentioned by more than one person were:

• A Single Pebble


• Gravity's Rainbow

The reason for such books the article writer thinks is:
Science fiction probably did as much as anything else in the 20th century to push youngsters into engineering. So it’s natural to look at the genre today and wonder if, amid the electronic clutter of modern adolescence, paper books still retain their power to enthrall and inspire.


Here is the link to that article.

, ,

Indian Advertisements - 2

Let's take a look at advertisements for a particular brand. Starting with Fevicol ads. These ads, I recall were very fresh, were funny and remarkably creative.

---

Undoubtedly the first Fevicol ad which made a lasting impression. The use of animals in ads is definitely wrong.

---

The most famous Fevicol ad. To the Indian guy watching, it provided some humour (not 'humor'), allowed him to smile at himself and his way of life, while to the western guy it provided a way to define and grasp India (like the abused concept of 'snake charmers and cows').

---

The Katrina Kaif ad!



Very nice, a whole story is told in a few shots. There is the classic tension in being married and loosing the freedom, the appearance of a pretty girl in a married man's life who beckons out to him (much to his frustration and dilemma), the epehemeral quality of such attractions is well brought out by the busy railway station setting and the cloud of steam which seems to cover her. The husband wakes up from his dream and realizes that the box of fevicol had such a powerful influence, that he found himself to be really stuck to his wife.

As I said about this ad, so much in so less.

---

Fevicol is so strong that you don't need gravity :)

---

To the urban class, there is a definite charm in the rustic life. Perhaps this is why there are so many shots depicting the rural setting. And of course the Rajasthani people's life is very interesting. Note how the parents have made a toy for the kid from a used fevicol bottle. I think this is a very accurate depiction of how people use a little creativity in thier daily lives to turn things into something other, especially for the poor folks who can not afford a real toy.

---

This is another classic ad. This was one of the first few ones which lay the stage for Fevicol's brilliant ads.



It is also pretty interesting as the radio in the scene has two uses. One to be a part of the srtting and the other brilliant use being to supply the audio for the ad.

---

, ,

Indian Advertisements - 1

One of the greatest pleasures of watching Indian TV channels are the BRILLIANT advertisements.

I found a treasure trove of some old and some new ads on YouTube. Here are a few:

---

This one must be new. I don't recall having seen it before.




The shots are definitely inspired by a great movie called "Rudaali". The first few lines of introduction are definitely for the Western viewer. They establish some of the cultural truths associated with the marks of being married in India.

The ad viewers have no clue what so ever as to what this ad is all about until the last shot. The shot from outside, when the husband has seemed to die is very nice, because there is this little explosion (audio and visual) in the story at this time.

---

Another new one, very funny! The music is JUST RIGHT, starting from a traditional piece to some western song snippets.



You will notice (perhaps on the second viewing) that there is no break in logic in the story (I get pretty upset about logic breakdowns), since there is a good explanation as to how the girl gets the remote and mistakenly preses a button on it too! This is conveyed in single shots and people may miss it. But then this is not so important to the normal viewers perhaps. The only problem I had, was that there was no couch in front of the Tv set! People in that house viewed the TV by turning their heads by 90 degrees...yeah right!

The first line in which the girl's father asks her to "come and meet your husband" is perhaps just to reinforce the idea that this a matrimonial related ad. Without that line, it might be tough for the advertisement creators to convey the message that the guy has come to see the gal, to viewers who are not familiar with what is going on.

Hmmm...perhaps this ad and the previous one are also targeted to non-Indian viewers.

---

The cute Rasna girl! She was such a rage, that millions of kids would get the "Rasna" haircut in summers. The mark of a cute kid was having the Rasna haircut.

, ,

Zen Poetry - II

From the book: "Ryokan Zen Monk poet of Japan", translated by Burton Waston.

---

Midway in its flight
the bird burst into a song,
something to say,
which couldn't wait for a perch.

---

With what delight,
the pigeons practice their flight
from one window ledge to another
and then back again

---

Now and then,
You must long for your old nest
in the deep mountains -
I too have,
memories of the past.

---

Oh big bird,
ruler of the skies,
what could frighten you?
that you build your nests
high up in the mountains,
deep in the crevice.

---

It is not that
I never mix
with men of this world -
but really I'd rather,
amuse myself alone.

---

Showing their faces
showing their backsides
the autumn leaves fall.

---

Though travels,
take me to
a different stopping place each night,
the dream I deram is always
the same one of home.

---

, ,

Fedora Core Resources

The best resources for Fedora:

• Fedora Forums


• Unofficial Fedora FAQ


• Stanton Finley Guide


• mjm Wired Installation Guide

, ,

Are you a true Vim fan?

To all Vim users and lovers:

Have you proved your love towards Vim by buying the Vim book?

If not, then BUY THE VIM BOOK! If you buy it through the URL provided, 7.5% of the sales proceeds will be donated to the charity working for children in Uganda, which is where, the creator of Vim, Bram Moolennar wants the proceeds to go.

So if you want to express your heartfelt grateful thanks to Vim, then buy the book at the very least.

UPDATE: The book has a lot of typos and errors. Do not forget to check out the errata for the book.

, ,

Microsoft's New Captcha - Cat or Not?

Microsoft came up with a new CAPTCHA idea. The CAPTCHA asks the user to classify the given photographs into a group of photos which depict a cat. This scheme is named Asirra.

The scheme is very similar to an earlier scheme called KittenAuth, in which also the CAPTCHA taker had to recognize the cat. The difference is that Microsoft is using labeled photos from www.petfinder.com and so has a huge database of images.

People who work at petfinder have done all the hard work in creating the CAPTCHA since they have labelled the photographs of the pets (cats and dogs). The claim is that the database has around 2 million images and more arrive regularly.

Humans can also adopt the pet that the like and so the creators hope that the animals will get a shelter.

Advantages of the scheme:

• Visual CAPTCHAs are always easier than the character based ones
• The test is easy to perform and is universal
• The database is very large
  

Disadvantages of the scheme:

• The scheme assumes that the database will always keep growing (what if petfinder.com stops its services?)
• Since no distortion is used, the database has to be kept a secret
• Humans are used to create the CAPTCHA (humans at petfinder.com label all the images and provide the 'difficulty' to the test. An elegant solution to this problem would not involve humans in creating it

Continuing more on the last disadvantage, does Microsoft mean that the best puzzles which the computer can NOT solve need to be human generated? Can't a computer create a puzzle which it can not solve?

, ,

Converting .pdf file (Adobe Acrobat) to .doc file (MS Word)

In the last post I had mentioned a way that I thought I am going to use to get a .doc out of the .pdf I had.

After a few more online searches, I was extremely thrilled to know that there were many more options for me, all thanks to the LaTex community. This http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/textopc.html
has all the details! There are many options listed in that site, I am referring to a few
below and also have added some other ideas.

If you have a .tex file and want a .doc file at the end, you can choose one of these methods:

1. .tex --> .pdf -> (pdftotext) .txt --> (copy & paste) .doc
   
2. .tex --> (TeX4ht) .html --> (copy & paste) .doc
   
3. .tex --> (LaTex2rtf) .rtf --> (MS Word/Open Office) .doc
   
4. .pdf --> (Adobe Acrobat Standard - use 'save as' option) .doc
   
5. .??? --> (Google Documents - covert to .doc) .doc
   
   
   I have used the 1st option many times before. It always requires some cleanup after the .doc has been created.
   
   I used the 2nd option for my work this time. The results are nice. Cleanup is not required at all for text. Tables and figures require some cleanup. There is another option "html,word" "symbol/!" "-cvalidate" which supposedly makes the .html output tuned towards MS Word. I haven't used that option yet.
   
   The 3rd option seems interesting. Should try it.
   
   The 4th options caught me off guard, since I had not thought of it. I tried it, but Adobe Acrobat did a very bad job. Text, tables will require a lot of cleanup, while no cleanup for figures is required.
   
   One of my friends recommended the 5th option. Have not tried it fully yet. Tried exporting a .xml file (created with TeX4ht) to Google Writer, but Google does not accept .xml files yet.
   
   
   In conclusion, I really must thank the selfless efforts of all the people who have created these amazing open source tools.
   
   Do refer to http://www.tug.org/utilities/texconv/textopc.html
   for all the options.

, ,

Creating American Psychological Association (APA) Style documents

For a book that I am writing for, I have to submit a .doc file (ugh!) which follows the American Psychological Association (APA) style. Just getting the 70+ references to follow this style was a nightmare for me. With no help from APA and the MS Word community (if there existed one!), I had to turn to Latex to help me out.

The Apacite package was what I used. I thought that as usual it would be relatively a simple task to use Latex, but this time Latex really took away a lot of my time.

I had forgotten how to install packages on a Linux machine and so first had to re-learn that from here. Once I had that working, it just seemed impossible to get the references working!

Firstly, I had to see that all the URLs were enclosed with the \url tag (before that I realised after many hours that I had forgotten the \usepackage{url} directive in the tex file and Latex had not specifically complained about that!), then I added the \bibnodot{.} command to the end of each URL.

After these steps of making my .bib file look as similar as possible to the .bib file provided at the CTAN's site for Apacite, I still was not able to get it working. The worst part was trying to debug the "Runaway argument"!

I got an error which was similar to:

Runaway argument?
\bibitem
! File ended while scanning use of \@tempa.

\par

After some googling and after finding some useful sites for debugging common Latex errors (this one), I still was not making any progress. I had this idea of replacing all the indents (hex09) in my .bib file by good old space (hex 20), thinking that it would help. I don't know if that helped or not, but by this time, I was able to get a few references.

Simply rewriting some of the bibtex entries (at places where Latex complained) helped ultimately and the invisible errors were at last gone!

At the end of hours and hours of working on the format of the document, at last I got a pdf file which followed the APA style guidelines.

((UPDATE-START))
A lot of errors such as this:

?
! Undefined control sequence.
l.1072 ...ves/sum2005/entries/turing-test/}\bibnodot
%

were flagged both by the CUI and GUI (Kile). Just ignoring them produced the .pdf file nevertheless.
((UPDATE-END))

BUT, Latex's promise was the EXACT OPPOSITE!

Latex promises that the writer does not have to worry about the style and can concentrate on the content only. It promises the flexibility of different styles just by changing a few lines or so. Well, Latex did not deliver that promise to me in this case.

But if I had taken the other route of working on the style while using a Word document, surely I would have gone mad by now and would not even have got close to finishing the task.

Now I have a few more simple steps:

1. convert pdf to text (pdftotext)


2. copy the text to MS Word (or Open Office)


3. do the final edits since pdftotext would not have done a neat job


4. paste all the figures and create tables and


5. that is it!

, ,

Mails from the future

I wonder if anyone else has noticed this. Some of the spam that I receive is dated years away from now. For instance I received spam mails dated with the year as 2037, 2030 !

Some bug in the spammer's engine?

, ,

Well, I'll see you in a few minutes, ol' buddy!

27 March, 2007 (9:43am)

RIP dear Kuku.

--------------------------------------------------
Hobbes: I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night!
Calvin: Hey, yeah.

Calvin: Well, I'll see you in a few minutes, ol' buddy!
Hobbes: I'll be right there!
--------------------------------------------------
Bill Watterson.
Released on: Sunday, Oct 22nd 1989.
The Calvin and Hobbes Searchable Database

, ,

Dining in and around Fairfax

To make it easier for me, let me keep adding URLs to interesting places to eat in and around Fairfax city.

This website lists a lot of interesting places in Herndon where one could try different tastes.

Vegetarian places from the 'Veggilicious' website.

Friendly Reminder: "Eat to live, do not live to eat!"

, ,

This is no longer a 'beta' product !

Just noticed on the dashboard - Google's announcement that this is no longer a 'beta' product!

, ,

Cool Web Tools - creating a Google map of the route you walked/hiked/biked/ran/swam/etc.

Found this at a posting on a birding forum. (oops seems that the 'return' key is no longer supported by Blogspot and so this might end up being one long line!) Will return back later.....

I do not know what the problem is and where it is. Anyways I thought this would be a good reason to blog in HTML rather than plain English.

The problem: You walked/hiked/biked some place and want to know the distance that you travelled.
The Solution: this website!
It displays a UI which is the same as what you see in Google Maps and allows you to chart your route on it while displaying the total distance covered so far. Problem solved!!!

, ,

Firebug

Firebug is an excellent tool to debug website code and also to analyze websites. I recently found some nice video tutorials at their documentation site.

From there I got to know about this PHP/Ajax programmer's blog which seems pretty interesting.

, ,

Networking Cars !

This would be a big paradigm shift in our day to day lives. The idea is that all cars should be able to communicate with each other and to roadside Tx/Rx stations.

This month's IEEE's newsletter "The Institute" describes the standards for "car talk".

In the new world of networked cars this will be the scenario, your car will be aware of all the cars around it, their speeds, acceleration, deceleration, braking etc. If the car in the other lane tries to move into your lane, your car being in its blindspot, both the cars will recognize that situation and avoid the collision (by alerting the drivers perhaps).
As your car passes by a roadside information pole, it will be updated with the traffic conditions up ahead. Accidents on a road, major blockages and all such related information will be beamed to your car and you will be able to take a decision on an alternate route.

Sounds great !!!

To enable this scenario new standards have been developed and are called the IEEE 1609 suite of WAVE standards. WAVE here stands for Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment.

One of its promises is a simple technology change about which I think a lot (I almost led myself to believe that it was my new idea.) This simple idea is the idea of the traffic light signals being more than visual. Directional radio waves emitted by the traffic lights can "speak" to one's car and inform about whether it is ok or not to cross the intersection. WAVE will enable this simple idea.

If the system is integrated with the engine controls, the police might be able to over ride the car controls completely and take over the car of the runaway driver and stop it safely.

There is always a price to pay for new changes. This system will not only mean that a monetary price will have to be paid to have all that infrastructure in place but there will also be a loss of privacy, perhaps.

Security of the data will have to be a key concern. It must not be possible for one car to purposefully mislead the other car; or for some prankster to interfere with the waves of traffic lights.

The possibilities seem endless and so does the abuse. But nevertheless it sounds exciting.

, ,

The visitor

Not once did he flap,
the visitor who came to check by.
while hundreds of pigeons took off,
flapping, turning, circling and restless,
all exploding into flight.

Between one ledge and the other,
a thousands flaps were heard.
but not once did he flap,
the visitor who slowly disappeared in his soar.

(c) Deapesh.

, ,

Spam and Weather Advisories

Noticed recently that pump and dump spam was using text from some weather advisory.

The IP address I got it from was 67.199.231.212 (no information available on this IP address) and then relayed to 24.150.209.12 the address of which is Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada. The address matches the weather advisory. Perhaps this content was cached on the computer.


The particular one that I received used the following weather advisory content.

ONE OF THE COLDEST AIR MASSES OF THE WINTER SEASON HAS SPREADSOUTHEASTWARD FROM CENTRAL CANADA. A LATE SEASON ARCTIC BLAST ARRIVING IN WESTERN MAINE ANDNORTHERN. THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PADUCAH, KENTUCKY HAS ISSUED AFLOOD WARNING FOR THE FOLLOWING RIVERS. THIS LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL STARTSPREADING SNOW INTO THE REGION WEDNESDAY MORNING AND SHOULD ENDBEFORE WEDNESDAY EVENING. STRONG NORTHWEST WINDS BEHINDTHE FRONT WILL PREVAIL OVERNIGHT. STAY TUNED TO NOAA WEATHERRADIO OR YOUR LOCAL MEDIA FOR FURTHER STATEMENTS AND POSSIBLE UPDATEDFORECASTS. THIS LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL STARTSPREADING SNOW INTO THE REGION WEDNESDAY MORNING AND SHOULD ENDBEFORE WEDNESDAY EVENING.
AVOID SERIOUS CONDITIONS SUCH AS FROSTBITE AND HYPOTHERMIA BYKEEPING WARM. A SNOW ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST TUESDAY. LIGHT SNOW POSSIBLE WEDNESDAY. SEVERE WIND CHILL VALUES WILL SET IN LATETONIGHT AND TUESDAY MORNING.
A WIND CHILL ADVISORY IS ISSUED WHEN WIND WILL COMBINE WITH COLDTEMPERATURES TO CREATE DANGEROUSLY COLD CONDITIONS FOR EXPOSEDSKIN.
THE GREATEST IMPACT BASED ON THE CURRENT TIMING IS FORTHE SNOW TO AFFECT THE AFTERNOON AND EVENING COMMUTE ON WEDNESDAY.
A WINDCHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 6 PM EST TUESDAY.
A LATE SEASON ARCTIC BLAST ARRIVING IN WESTERN MAINE ANDNORTHERN. IF YOU MUST GO OUTSIDE. COUPLED WITH THE STRONG WINDS, THIS SHOULD PRODUCE WINDCHILL FACTORS REACHING AROUND ZERO COME TUESDAY MORNING. ONE OF THE COLDEST AIR MASSES OF THE WINTER SEASON HAS SPREADSOUTHEASTWARD FROM CENTRAL CANADA.
WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 6 PM ESTTUESDAY. A DRY COLD FRONT IS MOVING FROM NORTH TO SOUTH THROUGHTHE MID ATLANTIC REGION.
THESE STRONG WINDS COMBINED WITH BITTERLY COLDTEMPERATURES WILL PRODUCE WIND CHILL VALUES FIVE TO TEN DEGREESBELOW ZERO LATE TONIGHT INTO TUESDAY MORNING.
CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST NEW HAMPSHIRE THIS EVENING.
SNOW ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST TUESDAY.
THE CORE OF THE COLDEST AIRWILL BUILD OVER THE REGION TONIGHT AND TUESDAY.
WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 6 PM ESTTUESDAY. WIND CHILL VALUES WILL FALL TO 25BELOW ZERO OVERNIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY. LIGHT SNOW POSSIBLE WEDNESDAY.
THE HEAVIERSNOWSQUALLS WILL CONTINUE TO DIMINISH OVERNIGHT BUT STRONG WINDSWILL STILL PRODUCE POOR VISIBILITIES IN BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW.
THE HEAVIERSNOWSQUALLS WILL CONTINUE TO DIMINISH OVERNIGHT BUT STRONG WINDSWILL STILL PRODUCE POOR VISIBILITIES IN BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW.
TO THE LOWER AND MIDDLE TEENS IN URBAN AND COASTALAREAS. LAKE WIND ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST TUESDAY.
IF YOU MUST GO OUTSIDE.
SEVERE WIND CHILL VALUES WILL SET IN LATETONIGHT AND TUESDAY MORNING.
A WINDCHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 6 PM EST TUESDAY. WEST TO NORTHWEST WINDS HAVE GUSTED TO 35 MPH. A WIND CHILL ADVISORY IS ISSUED WHEN WIND WILL COMBINE WITH COLDTEMPERATURES TO CREATE DANGEROUSLY COLD CONDITIONS FOR EXPOSEDSKIN. OHIO RIVER AT CAIRO AFFECTING ALEXANDER. LAKE WIND ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST TUESDAY. SEEK MEDICAL HELPIMMEDIATELY OR CALL 911. EVEN COLDER LOWS WILL BE ON TAP TUESDAY NIGHT INTO WEDNESDAYMORNING AS WINDS DECREASE AND LOWS DROP INTO THE SINGLE DIGITS.

, ,

Long days are back....

It no longer is dark when I reach home. Noticed it for the first time this Monday.

The winter retreats back slowly into the dark corners of the forest. While over the meadows the sun shines bright.

, ,

Pathetic Greed - scam mails

I received the following pump and dump scam email in my inbox:

============
Subject: The answers are ``it depends,'' ``no, definitely not,'' and ``yes and no.'' O'Reilly and Associates do take a risk in publishing the Networking Guide,

Train cars derail, catch fire in KentuckyMassive fireDare to be stupid.
In fact, idea! Whencounselor that convinced me that I thought I was I
was 12 years old I had a guidance University bombings

XXX XXXXX ENTERPRISE (XXXXX.PK) new share for YOU!!!
We PROVIDE U ADVANTAGEOUS METHOD to earn a lot of money.

This XXXXX.PK share increases with every hour !!!
It has CONSTANT GROWTH POTENTIAL.

For more info about XXXXX.PK check broker web-site!!!
Hurry up YOU need get this XXXXX.PK stock on TUESDAY: 02/13/07

--WARNING--: Tomorrow will be more expensive!!! Do it!!!

TV Wants You. I thought I was Need fresh faces shows all major networks
ABC, NBC, CBS & FOX Now But seasons 1-5 have already
============

where I have replaced identifying information with "x".

My point: how greedy must a person be, to accept an email with a subject line as:

"The answers are ``it depends,'' ``no, definitely not,'' and ``yes and no.'' O'Reilly and Associates do take a risk in publishing the Networking Guide,",

with content as:

"Train cars derail, catch fire in KentuckyMassive fireDare to be stupid.
In fact, idea! Whencounselor that convinced me that I thought I was I
was 12 years old I had a guidance University bombings "

and some advice about investing money in it to be true?

Is there ABSOLUTELY NO sense in people? It would be REALLY interesting to know the kind of people who will accept such an email to be good advice!

This brings us to the question, to what levels of distortion can the scammers stoop to, while still ensuring that the stupid greedy people will neglect ALL warning signs in the scam email?

I hope there is some level of distortion and obfuscation, below which even the most greediest person will become suspicious of the intent of the scam mail.

, ,

General Knowledge Quiz

Attending and winning quizzes was great fun during my school years (especially if the team you are on is the best team in the city). The questions in the quizzes during my school days were pretty much like the questions below, simple GK based question. But then during my college years, the quizzes became intensely "trivia" oriented. If you had not seen the third episode of a series, you would not know the answer kind of question, like the most important question below.

Answer these questions:

* When did Columbus discover the Americas?
* The first shot of American Revolutionary War was fired here ______.
* Which Bolshevik played a key role in the October Revolution along with Lenin?
* What did Eli Whitney invent in 1793?

(I could remember the answer to the last question only!)

and the most important question is:
what is the common theme between these questions?


Hint - He is the 'Defender of freedom', 'Advocate of liberty', the 'champion of liberty and justice', "it's a bird, it's a plane, no its not ...it's ..."

, ,

Sometimes...

when you look back you wonder IF....

, ,

iMac, Canon Camera and an argument lost

One of my friends had an iMac and late last night we got into a contest regarding the super-powers of an iMac (why do all such experiments have to begin late at night always?).

He said that we could get any device and his iMac will instantly recognize the device and without the need for any drivers to be additionally installed, make the device usable.

The first device we got, as starters was a wireless mouse. We plugged it in, and in a few seconds the mouse was working. Wow! my other friend said while I was still unimpressed.

The real test would be, I declared, if it recognizes and downloads photos from my camera.

I was certain that it was not possible. On my Linux machine, certainly the OS did not recognize the camera and rightly so, 'cause Canon was using a proprietary protocol to download the images. I had googled it up and read elsewhere too, that this was a task still not possible.

I had previously taken a look at gphoto2 and now, from what I recall, it was said that this task was not possible yet.

So, I went and got my camera and with a smile attached it to the iMac's USB port. iPhoto came on, it went into some searching mode, my smile got wider, the iMac owner showed some restlessness and my smile got even wider.

Ha, I said, it is not possible!

It had been a few minutes now, the software had only recognized the camera make and the number of photos in the card.

It is over, I said and started to explain about the proprietary protocol and why definitely there was a need for a driver to be installed.

Lo and behold then, iPhoto started displaying the photos ! (we had clicked on the "import" button by then).

Another late night argument, this one I lost.

, ,

Historical Note

So shall it be noted, that on the 21 of January, 2007 at 13:04 hours, the city of Fairfax, VA had its first snowfall for this winter.

, ,

Two 21 winds

It happened at last. The wind made its way into my room shattering the glass panels. I used many devices as I grew up to keep it out of my room and every time it had come knocking, begging to be let inside, I flatly refused it.

Every man has his room and so would I. It screeched, howled and spoke at lengths to me. But I persisted, every man has his own persistence and so did I.

We ended up speaking so much with each other, that I started looking forward to meet it. I would wait for it to knock and bang on my windows. As one eager child waiting for his Dad to get back home from work, I would leave every thing which I might be involved in, and would rush to the window to hear it speak.

At last it managed to convince me. To my credit, it took two winds to convince me. And they were not just any winds, they were the catch 21 winds (in a catch 22, one has two options, while in a catch 21 situation, (which is as you would have already noted, one less than 22) one has to choose just one option).

These two winds teamed up and convinced me at last that I should let them in so that they could explain everything to me. I had always been very curious and I really wanted to know. So I did let them in.

It was then that I realized that I had never asked them any question. What then would they explain to me? Well, it was too late, I had already decided to let them in. They broke the glass panes and came in.

I waited for them to settle down. They finally did settle down but did not speak anything.

Well..I said, so what is it?

"The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, The answer is blowing in the wind" they said.

(c) Deapesh.

, ,

TED Conferences - II

Found that TED conferences has an interesting blog here and the video/audio files can be found here.

, ,

TED Conferences

Thanks to Kiran T, that I was made aware of these brilliant short presentations from renowned people. The presentations I am talking of are of the presenters in TED conferences.

From their website, they describe this annual gathering as:

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an invitation-only event where the world's leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration.

Some of the videos are available on Google Videos. Listen to a great talk by Richard Dawkins about how we perhaps have been evolved to live and rational in the middle world.

, ,

Subject - Biography

Just as we have different subjects such as languages, social sciences, science, maths etc in schools, we should also have biographies as a subject. Every year students can learn about some great people. I guess students won't have this subject for all the 10 years or so of school life, but having such a subject during the formative years will indeed be valuable.

Who then will the students read about? Here the state and the education board will have a say. Such a scheme is prone to political/religious propaganda by the state/government, but then there is no other way. Surely depending on which government is in power, the definition of 'great people' will change.

Nevertheless, I think it will have a considerable impact on the students and will help shape their personality.

, ,

Happy New Year

Another year passes while another starts.
Time you old friend and enemy, what do you hide for me in the folds of your robes?

, ,