Valentine’s Day Contemplations

“You don’t have to get me a red-rose. I’m already yours!!!”, well i still don’t know if that was a trick question or not that she threw at me. All i asked her, “Shall i give you a red-rose?”

Or rather i wasn’t supposed to ask anything like that. May be it was stupid cupid playing the role of the culprit. How the hell would i ever know what she meant? Cant they just ask us what they want rather than using virtual pointers. We run Java, pointers are not an option and why else do you think we date so many and never result in garbled memory. The core is never dumped.(2 years with IT industry this is all that i have left in my mind)

Sandy had said it the right way,

“And they say, love makes the world go round.
It sure does, in damned circles of nothingness.”

Inspired from Love and his post on Nothingness, came my two posts Second in Love and Second in Love – The Closure, two close to reality stories. 3 in fact!

Trust me “Guys who are Single”, the world will be mean to you, but once SHE is there in your life, your life can never get meaner. Jokes apart they do bring in a sense of orderliness if your really serious. I have seen that in people. They change overnight. Power of Love, they say, Power of HER i say.

Some people really live their life out on LOVE. They forget that they have a life that’s precious and they forget it. All the sweet words that you might have said and those moments that you cherished are all good. But once you break-up, you need to move on. Kambath Ishq, is to be blamed? No dude. Its you at blame’s end. Move on!!!

GUYs never ever on a very special day, especially on this day, tell her that you will get food from outside. You can never be convincing enough and wont sound sweet to her at all. Trust me all that She would hear would be, “I cant eat the carp that you prepare everyday! I need a break at least today. So lets eat outside”. Let her to decide. Its the safest bet. Watch “Pyaar Ke Side-Effects”, its a nice start for beginners.

As a parting gift, here is my 2 cents – Never trust someone who says, “I cant live without YOU! You’re my life”. Thats the biggest lie in the world.

And with all these said, I wonder why i’m still here in office on Valentine Day’s eve, working. She hasn’t called either. He phone is not reachable too…

(This post is now abruptly stopped. There has been a Fire Alarm at my office and Its a fake!!! Somebody got too steamy in love on V-Day i guess.;) )

2 Things before playing Basketball after a long time…

I was out playing basketball after .. lets say its been quite some time. The last time i played actively was an year or so or may be more than that.

I finally decided, enough of sitting around and hogging trying to put on weight. I head out to the court. I bitterly learn 2 things.

1. I was not having a good diet all this time. It was all filled with cheese, chocolate and junk food. I was on a desperate move to put on weight. I need to have a more balanced diet.

2. Never wear your favorite white shirt to the court. Ya i agree that was really dumb of me. But i had to learn it the bitter way.

10 min of running on a 5-point, half-court match and man i’m out of breath and i almost felt like fainting and throwing up. Thats it. New year is long gone but my resolution this year(as of now) is to stay fit and healthy. After all its not me alone that i have to think of now. There is a new addition too …

Cricket Virus

A game that is nowhere gets a whole page of news. A foreign Tennis player gets half a page when he is victorious. Yet the Indian pair of Bhupathi and Sania just gets less than quarter a page. They represented India, and they were beaten in the finals. If we can create a huge fuss about Indian cricket loosing then we can celebrate their near title miss. I have no idea. Leave all that how many knew that they made it to the finals of the mixed doubles at Australian Open

Over the days i have come to hate Cricket. It has become the single most inappropriate game that the Indians pursue these days. Its no less than a masala flick from a skimpy clad bollywood actress. There is nothing that you can define which is worth to be defined as memorable or a truly historic. I can hear people shout out what about the win at Perth? What about the lack of sportsmanship that was displayed by the mighty Aussies. I say damn all that. It was all as good as the wardrobe malfunction at fashion shows – you got to see something that you generally don’t see.

A racist remark, umpiring errors, a whole nation roars against that, a dramatic decision by the governing body, gentleman behavior by the captain – i’m asking do we need all these hype. Do we need cricket to survive. With cricket we no longer consider our neighbor as the arch rival anymore, its an island, miles south. The nation is celebrating victories and is doing injustice to other sports.

I dont care if the team loses or wins. The media makes sure that news reaches me even if i dont want to read it. Its in the front page of every news paper, flash news on TV. get out on the road, every one speaks about that, at work place the screens will have the score board open and local commentators shout out updates. I’m sick of this. Cant we just have some other sports take the center stage.

Does anyone care about what is happening to the other players. May be the media should dedicate time for other sports as well. At least report on the pitiable conditions of the other players. May be it should just avoid reporting in cricket. They are not GODs. They don’t deserve so much of attention.

Indians wake up, its just a game. F**K cricket. Its not really worthy of any praise now.

Some reasons why you SHOULD use Free Software..

No before i get into the whole thing, by Free Software i mean the programs that follow the 0-3 Freedoms as stated by the Free Software Foundation. Or rather Copy-Left than Copy Right …
Why is that a Free S/w user is so good at fixing a system, trouble shooting software issues and fixes thing without even reading the manual.
Now these are the reasons

1) Free software users expect open licenses and no activation methods
2) Free software users expect regular upgrades and patches
3) Free software users expect to work the way they choose
4) Free software users want control of their own systems
5) Free software users explore
6) Free software users expect to help themselves
7) Free software users don’t fear the command line
Free software users learn software categories, not programs
9) Free software users expect access to developers and other employees

DOMPlayer and the Doom.

Creativity has no limits and the fact that people can go to any extend to infect you machine with malware, let me say comes as a total relief. After people has spend dollars securing their machine with the latest spyware remover, anti-virus, pop-up blocker and all the shit that you can get you hands on, there is no stopping a curious browser who downloads some thing and authorizes it to do some operation and ends ups in a deeper shit that he was before.

We all love torrent. The countless torrent files that you looked up on the net to download your favorite movie, would have at least made you thin, what you would have done with out those torrent sites. Its the same feeling you get when you thank George Bush for the oil that he is bringing in from Iraq and Kuwait.

So when some thought of the idea of infecting your machine with the help of torrent download and get paid $3 for doing so , has to be credited with the ingenuity of the idea. Here is the whole scenario.

You download a movie (most of the reports came up with the latest movies like Hitman, Beowuf, National Treasure : Book of Secrets) or an episode of your favorite series on TV. When you try to play it it says

“This video can only be played in DomPlayer, Visit Download.Domplayer.Com“

Like any other desperate downloader you visit their site :

Pretty neat site of a movie player, compared to VLC Player and Real Player. So you go and download the player, the Download button is right in front of you. So whats the big deal. Go ahead download the file… At this point i got suspicious and thought hey i never heard any of my friends talk about such a player, instead of installing it at the home PC (Windows XP), let me try to get an installer/player for Linux. That way its safe and its my Laptop, if anything gets screwd up i can just install all over again. Big Deal!!!

Web searches got me to couple of forums here and here. They talked about another player 3wPlayer by Wildman Productions(i have no idea who the hell they are).

In fact the real deal here is as reported from Best Security Tips is DOM Player says its clean but you call them up and pay them to activate the attack on your P. If that doesnt work they ask you to download 3wPlayer. Which is another piece of shit and load the malware to the PC free of charge.

Now that is a cool idea. You get paid to get infected like the way you paid to get protected. Over that you download movie files (AVI files) which might be renamed porno movies.

SPIT Zone India

We Indians are developing with a tremendous pace. We are all set to even concur the moon. But inspite of all that we just cant kill the habit of – SPITTING

We are just oblivious to the fact that ‘Spitting in Public Places is a Punishable offense‘. But who cares, look at our tradition. We have been traditionally a pan-chewing-spit-anywhere-you-like community. So we carried our tradition to the 20th and now to the 21st century, not to mention that we infected the Britishers too who left after 400 years.

When will we ever stop this? We pump out more and more gutkas and pans. Something like the BJP lead swadeshi movement against Wrigley’s chewing gum. Chew!!! Indians chew!!! Spit and make every place red at first and then maroon. Or may be they are just trying to make India a communist state.

Who prompted this short post? – the guy who was with me at the railway station this morning. He would just walk in circles and spit all round the place. As if he is tired he would come and sit occasionally and then spit every where in a 1 meter radius. I have never seen a much more disgusting fellow in my life.

Something Every Critic should know…

While reading Sanjukta’s post onTaare Zameen Par | Review Rip Off, it struck me that critics generally dont do justice to a persons work. (and thats why we call them Critics.. moron..). Though a lifetimes work might have gone into a creation, let that be the movie, songs, art, nothing escapes the critics noose.

Critics are necessary to build something of artistic value by pointing areas of improvement. But these days Critics have become art destroyers. They pointlessly rip apart a movie/art, like a sex maniac on a rape rampage, and goes on to publish their work for the bitter enjoyment of the masses as an accomplishment…

In the movie Ratatouille(2007), Anton Ego is a mean Food Critic, but at the end of the movie he goes on to give this critique :

…In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new… (read more)

This i say, every critic should read and understand before they wake up the rampaging art rapist in them.

FTP problem in Fedora/RedHat

IF any one using Fedora with vsftpd service for FTP might have come across the issue while connecting via FTP

500 OOPS: cannot change directory:/home/xxxx

Login failed.

Then here is the solution. The problem is with SELinux. Go to System > Administration > SELinux Administration. Left side – Select : Boolean. On right side – FTP, check the box that says – Allow ftp to read/write files in the users home directory.

DONE!!! Close SELinux…

Hungry and Starving??? – EAT Technology

By this time i hope that every one would have known about the One Laptop Per Child Project. The promised price of $100 laptop for every unprivileged child by Nicholas Negroponte. Well at first i found the project as one that was very thoughtful of Nick. But like every other thing, its supported and opposed and suddenly i find myself not in consonance with OLPC.
Are they providing fresh water? No. Food? No. Shelter? No. Laptop? YES!!! Ohh its going to make so much difference for the child.
Now with his ‘$100 laptop’ which comes for $200 as the ‘introductory price‘, he order food online, munch through the online junk, drink the filtered out SPAM and look at the fat kids in US with out laptop and say how unprivileged they are.
Now thats the way i see the OLPC vision as…
Look at these fact from the World Hunger Site.

Every year 15 million children die of hunger
For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years
3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day (i should stop complaining about my salary and consider myslef lucky)
Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger

Now as a good will justure, they have the Give One Get One offer – you buy a laptop for $400, one goes to a child who is dying of hunger and another is for you as a gesture of your good will.
Many a times i dont get the point – Stars come together for some relief fund raiser program. Put up an elaborate show like the 24Hr concert for saving the earth, where they wasted a lot of electricity for earth (obviously they dont know the idea of SWITCHING-OFF), ask people to spend money and join in for a cause. Aren’t these stars filthy rich, may be at least a 10? Cant they just donate what they get for a month in the from of endorsements. That could have helped the world a long time ago. But we are there too see our Stars, who cares about the dying child 3000 miles away???
Related reading -  One Laptop per Child Doesn’t Change the World – John C. Dvorak

Security of an IT Company and YOU…

Security is still a big issue in India. Since there are terrorists ready to blow up anything here, we must be aware of the fact that we are vulnerable and take all means in avoiding it. Of lately when the security measures in my company was stepped up, many employees expressed dissatisfaction and where highly irritated. Sadly they dont realize the threat. They all complained that the Security at the main gates and buildings scrutinized their belongings and treated them equally like terrorists. To a mail sent by my colleague to the Security in charge, part of the reply went like this

… We (the security and the company) are not bothered about what the employee takes unauthorized from the company(hardware and documents). But more worried about the a much more grave situation… The attack at IISc Bangalore was first planned against IT companies as they (Terrorists) realize that a well planned strike at the heart of the Silicon Valley of India, will send India’s market crashing and the country will be in a chaos in no time. Sadly our company was also in their list. They were outside our gates, looking at every move and they found the security tight even for a normal employee. Thus we were spared. Else the AKs would have gone in any of the leading IT company…

A normal Techie, works from 8-to-8 and is completely oblivious to much of the things shaping up in the outside world, spare may be Bipasha’s curves or SRK’s Abs. He doesnt realize that the Bad Guys have really turned ugly and they are recruiting Graduates and Post Grads, like most IT companies, to do the dirty job (both ways its true for the Terror Organization and IT Company). I was surprised one Monday morning when i was asked to stop at the gates and the security guy checked my ID to verify its me. After 2 years, that day i entered the campus a bit happy, coz i found the Security doing their job properly.

Sadly, the fact is, the Security at majority of the IT Companies are a bit inadequate. They in most of the cases doesn’t realize the force they are up against. Everyday i see the security at all the companies on my way to office and i bet i can breach their physical security. I dont know why i do that. But i like doing it. Every time i face a security at a gate, i think of a way of beating him without raising the slightest suspicion.

Leave alone the physical security, its the Cyber age and are we prepared against an attack via the net. No!!! Network security, if you look at most of the intranets, is getting internally compromised by the employees. Simply coz a fair number of people will click the “You won a million dollars“, flashing ad on a web page. In most of the case, that will lead to a pornographic site, at times they open up the pandora’s box for the network of the company. E-mails in particular can bring a network down. A well placed attachment asking the user to open it is more than required. Remember “I love you” or you dont coz you remember it as what your lover told you.

I have had friends approach me saying “I think my damn system is affected with virus. I have the latest in anti-virus updated everyday, the latest pop-up blocker (how did that ever block a virus), a bazooka and an entire army guarding my system… but still. Damn windows … its all because of Windows.” Let me tell you there is nothing wrong with Windows (may be not entirely and probably this will be the only time i’ll be talking for Windows and Microsoft), what is wrong is YOU. Couldn’t resist visiting the site that flashed “Sexy savvy teens… going dirty…”, or couldnt resist opening the attachment that told you how to increase what ever you have or may be had. Think before what you click on or open. They are out there to make money and they will make it any way possible.

Knowing all this what can you do … if u cant make that out by your self, then how lame are you???

“How lame are you???”, the words that lead the world’s biggest Hacker Kevin Mitnik to his fall.