Maths over, and Aswin!

Well, finished Maths I today. Well, am extremely sad now : I lost 2 marks in the only sum I didn't check, and maybe another one which can't be checked :(( And, I never knew Aswin did these kinda Stuff:D [Courtesy : MSN Search:D]. Thanks MSN, and atlast a feature MSN has that Google doesn't:D Thanks, and Keep the comments coming....

Tamil.. Wah! Cool... Back...

Well well, well, I've written the last Tamil Exam of My Life. I'm taking French Next Year. Tamil can keep it's Elitist Attitudes and all-academy-no-practical kinda Stuff to itself. Paper was easy. No. Paper was Yellow:D The Questions were Expected, so it was kinda Easy... Well, over it. I'm learning a new language next year. Tomorrow's holiday, since the State and Matriculation Boards have Tamil 2[sic] as well, and [Thank God] We don't. Day after tomorrow is English. Hope to get a 90+ in that. Long Live Choic! Less Live Elitist-No-Choice-Rigid-Follow-What-I-Say! Well, this Post might seem to be a bit irrational, but that's because I'm almost dozing off : I slept over my Tamil Books today morning at 2. So, I'll get a 2 hour Sleep, and try to study English. And, More Elobarations on the Elitist Thingy Later... Thanks, and Keep the comments coming....

Exams. How about Unexams ?

Yeah, we have UnConferences, so why not UnExams ? Well, not a great thing to be posting with your First[and Worst] Public Exam 40 hours from now. But, just wanted to say... First of All, Thanks to Aswin and Ramesh for phoning up to me. Ramesh's come over here for Microsoft Project Review. Thanks guys for phoning up. Hearing a Voice is surely much much more Lively and Living than reading an IM... That's why Podcasts are going great... Anyway, Barcamp Chennai. I badly want to go. Cool Timing : My exams finish on the 7th, and Barcamp starts on the 8th. So, first thought is that I can't go. But, while Ramesh phoned up, he asked me to come, suggesting that maybe I could do some live Demo on Impementing Plugins in .NET like I did for Smilidon. Well, after some time, I got some more Ideas : Strong Names and are they Really Effective ?, AJAX .NET, Writing yourself a Simple Web Server, Running ASP .NET Pages in Apache and stuff like that. Still not yet decided. Help me out on this guys. Should I go, or Not Go ? Aswin/Ramesh/Sunil/Sudar and everyone else who reads this, I want your Opinions on these... OK ? Since, I've actually not spoken before anyone before. And, I don't have enough Confidence that I can actually do it... Anyway, my Last 40 hours of Struggle with Tamil. Spent the Last 10 hours playing and watching Cricket;) Nice thing to do, right ?:D Well, and, after another long post last time, I just got someone inside me saying : "Stop Whining dude. Learn it". I also got some comments to that effect. So, I'm just going to learn Bash/Apache/PHP/Perl/Python[Know a bit already]/Ruby on Rails/Java/Some other 64 Languages I have on my HDD. Thanks guys, and help me with this BarCamp thing.... Thanks, and Keep the comments coming....

1337 ? WTF ?

Well, just wanted to make a point : Have a look at this Article, about "10 Reasons why Linux "pwns" your OS".. Well, looks like Linux's not yet ready for even the just above average user. I donno about all the other 9 points, since they need more Research, but the 10th Point just drives it home :

10. Using Linux makes you l33t. If you don't agree, then you are wrong. STFU n00b.

Cool. Insults me. Awesome, right ? Insult prospects. n00b. STFU. Hurting dude!. I mean, take for example, my Friends Abu, Krishna or Shiva. Abu is already disgusted with Linux after it screwed up his System : He had used Partition Magic to clean up unallocated hard-disk space, and tried installing SuSE. Well, it worked. Cool. Next, he heard about Ubuntu. Did the same thing. Result : Only thing running on his Computer was a Console. Yeah. Nothing else. All he got after a frighteningly blue-screened Installation was a Black and White Console. Cool. Linux for Human Beings. Mirrors my Feelings. And, he's quite a good administrator of his Windows XP System, considering he's been with computers appreciably for just about a year... I'd certainly not call him a n00b. Shiva and Krishna have not yet tried Linux, but after hearing of Abu's tragedy, they're quite reluctant to try it. Yeah. And, show them that article, and tell them the meaning of STFU, they're going to be soooooooooooooooo disgusted with Linux that they're never going to try it.... Yeah, and I know it's not Linux's Problem : It's the Linux People's Problem. Superiority Complex ? Maybe... But, no not everyone is like that. I've come across quite a lot of sites that Respect the User, and the "other" Crowd as well. Monologue, the Mono blogs is the best in that Respect. I'd rather trust those guys rather than that CoolSolutions guy. And, I'd betcha you won't find anything like that kinda STFU-n00b kinda user degrading stuff in any of Microsoft/Yahoo/Google/Apple/Symantec/Intel/AMD/Transcend/Sony/Samsung/BenQ/Adobe sites or even Blogs. Yeah, and they sell. Make a Profit. Keep the User happy. In all my Life, I've come across only one Mac System, and that too was kept huddled in a corner, inactive till I booted it up out of Curiosity. It was in our Computer Lab. And, till I booted it up, nobody has used it for, about 5 years. And, it was bought 5 years ago... And, I'm yet to come across a Computer without Windows and with Linux. And, all the Linux systems I've seen are either Dual Boot with Windows or LiveCDs. And, those with Dual Boot are either wanked out after quite some Frustration or left there to be unused to Oblivion. Yeah Linux Guys. You're great Coders. Good 1337 people. You've got a stable Kernel. KDE's good. Some of the Applications Bundled are cool. But, GNOME's bad. Quite bad. And, I've got that impression from Gnoppix and Knoppix, and I like the KDE of Knoppix better. But, it's still quite a long way from Mac OS X or Windows XP in terms of User Image and Usability. Discoverability is awful. I know many of you won't agree with me, but these are just the stuff I percieve. I might be dead right. I might be awfully wrong. If I am wrong, just correct me : Don't say STFU n00b. One more example : I blogged about my Problems with IIS, and you know what ? A Guy from Microsoft actually Contacted my by Email and Blog Comment and tried their best to help me. Cool. They Respected me and they've got one more satisfied Developer. Contrast it to this : I write a post titled Linux Sucks, and see the response I get from the Linux Guys :

U should understand onething u should never say Linux sucks because it screwed ur system. It screwed ur system may be because u didnot install it correctly

You suck to the core man...

Cool. Awesome. Fantastic Response. So, If I can't say it sucks since It screwed up my System, when should I say it sucks ? Maybe, when it bursts out my Monitor. Or, Sucks the Air out of my Room ? No, I say it sucks when I feel it sucks. end of story. And, what the hell guys ? I did something wrong ? Cool. I followed carefully every prompt I got inorder to make sure I don't screw up my System, and it still won. Infact, there's a Solution for this in their FAQ here. Something like, type sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg followed by sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm. Cool. Fantastic. Linux For Human Beings. Sudo. DPKG. XORG. gdm. Cool. Self Descriptive. I'm sure that if those guys at Canonical wanted, they could've hit this Console Bug Out of the Park. Why they didn't do it is beyond me... Well, so, the crux is, Linux is good, but is screwed up quite a lot by some of those Linux guys. Wake up guys, and you could be some Serious Competietion to Windows if you get your Act together and start Respecting the User... Well, Feel I am wrong ? Correct me in my Comments. Or, better still, write a Blog Post and leave a Trackback. Anyway, My Public Exams start on next Monday, and I'm being heavily pounded by my Mom and Dad. Wish me Luck guys... Thanks, and Keep the comments coming....

Harlequin Ichthyosis...

WARNING : This Post contains links which are not for the faint of the heart. If you are suffering from Heart Problems, Epilepsy, Nervousness, or Love for Babies, please do not follow the links in this post... Well, I never knew what that term ment till I came across this. And, after that, I'm sure I'd never forget what that Term Means... I mean, If I feel I couldn't sleep for weeks after seeing those pictures for a single second before I scrolled them off, imagine a Dad who sees his kid like that... Plain Horrible, and you don't want to be in that guy's Shoes... And, here's the Story of a Guy who's living till 18 with that kinda problem. What's more, he's a Triathlate... Kinda great, considering he has to swim in salt water, and salt water hurts his tender skin, and he has to spray lotion over himself once every 3 hours, and he couldn't actually taste anything... It's pure Greatness.. Congrats dude.... Well, if a guy with that kinda problems can be a Triathlate, well, what can we say about some of us, who are just trying to find some excuses for not being good in life..... Well, let's be greatful that atleast we are not as bad as that, and not waste our precious life.... And Oportunities as well... Update : Some more links. And, Please note, I'm almost crying after seeing some of these. And, I'm surely not stout-hearted enough to see the last link... Wikipedia Article News Article 1 News Article 2 Medical Article Video Thanks, and Keep the comments coming....

500 Wickets for Kumble!

Kumble got his 500th Wicket 24 seconds before now. An LBW. Successive wicket. Hope he gets a Hat-Trick:D

Tagging....

Well, well well, I got caught in my own Net : I started a Tagging game to escape from a Particular Tag, and in the end I got caught in it. Sortof, usual stupidity of mine.... Well, Sunil's tagged me, so, err, have a look at Sunil's Response here for an Example. So, here it goes :

What is a tag? A tag is when a friend sends you some questions that you need to answer in your blog and then pass on the tag. The tag that I got has the following instructions as mentioned in his blog - 1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover. 2. Need to mention the Gender of the person. 3. Tag 8 (or as many as possible) victims to join this game leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged. 4. If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again. Here goes my response-

1. Must Must Must NEVER NEVER EVER WATCH ANY MEGA Serial. Hope you know what I mean.
2. Should be a Techy Person.
3. Should know to seperate between Marketing Crap and real useful Stuff.
4. Speaks out what she thinks, rather than what she thinks she must think..
5. Should be Practical more than Sentimental
6. Should have a Reading speead of ~1Kwpm. Well, if you've read Sherlock Holmes, you'd know what I mean.
7. Should judge people on Core Values like Intelligence, Rationality, etc, rather than extra-fittings like, say, Bank Balance, or type of Silk Sari, or Amount of Gold things, and all those queer strange things present in my Cousins...
8. Should be Understanding, like say, when I'm in an all-nighter at work...

Well, there it goes : 8 Points. And, I'm supposed to tag some more people, so, I'm tagging Sharath and Ammu. I would've tagged Abu, Shiva and Krishna, but that'd get me into a whole splew of Problems in School. And, even I wouldn've responded, if not for heavy pounding from Sunil:D P.S. If you've any difficulty reading this post, I betcha you'ven't read all of Sherlock Holmes.. Thanks, and Keep the Comments coming...

Turning off Captchas...

Well, after the introduction of the rel="NoFollow" attribute by Google and subsequent support by MSN/Yahoo and the other Blog engines, it looks like I can give comment spam a Rest. So, inorder to save you the trouble of typing in some unintelligable garbage just to post a comment here[remember comments ? I'm not getting much now:D]. So, am just going to disable Comment Verification as soon as Blogger gets online [looks like it's offline now].

P.S. I'm posting this from Performancing which is just plain plain awesome. I like it better than Flock, since Firefox is faster by loads than Flock. Only thing I'm missing in Performancing is Technorati Tags, but i think that it's hidden somewhere...

Dance Baby Dance!

Well, if you're like me, always infront of your Computer, unwilling[and unable:(] to do any sort of Physical Exercise, then, Microsoft Research's got some serious stuff for you. Microsoft Research are those Ph.Ds from various Universities around the World, who work on some Really cool and academic stuff, which may or maynot becoma an actual Product....

Anyway, here it goes : StepUI. Well, it sounds an awful lot like NextSTEP or GNUStep, but it's quite different in that it's a real, unvirtual, actual, physical step. The kinda step that you actually make during those Rare times when we step out from the Computer:D

Well, if this thing's made into an actual Product, imagine finding stuff like this in a Windows Box :

Stomp Right Foot, Stomp Left Foot and Jump up and down to reboot System....

Well, kinda cool, right ?:D But, looks like it'll be much more useful for stuff like, say, reading RSS Feeds on a 70 inch Plasma Screen or Cycling through your Media Library Collection or, like venting out your anger on a Misbehaving System:D

Well, looks like I can't keep all of Scoble's feeds. Exams were over today, and hope to trim them out tomorrow...

Thanks, and keep the comments coming...

Telepathic Keyboard...

Here comes my First News post. Well, Medgadget, a Blog devoted to Medical breakthroughs and like stuff, was on Top, and this thing caught my Eye : A Telepathic Keyboard! Nothing could be more Geeky, though It's still a Long way from being as fast as a regular QWERTY Keyboard.

Exert from the MedGadget Post :

This way it takes five to 10 minutes to write a sentence," according to Kaplow...A lot of time is taken up affixing the electrodes to the volunteer's scalp, a procedure which usually last for about one hour.

"The breakthrough will come when we develop a contact-free EEG, something that looks like a cap, says Kaplow, who expects progress on this front during the current year.

Well, I'd be the first one to get that Cap If I can, provided I can type as fast as I can think, which is quite high[since I consider my a Human:D].

Thanks, and keep the comments coming....

Using Newsgator...

Well, I'm using Newsgator to get that list of Scoble's Feeds, err.. My Feeds Now:D Well, So, I'd be picking up anything that looks cool to me and post it here. Have[ing] fun:D Thanks, and Keep the comments coming....

Right here, on Earth:P

Well, I'm right here, on the Lithosphere, breathing Oxygen. Getting Bogged down By the Exams. Remember, my Public Exams are on the 27th of This month ?:D Well, gotta Lot of things to do, such as responding to tags:D Would be doing it after My Exams finish tomorrow... Well, got this coooool Idea : How about subscribing to all of Scooble's Feeds ? Well, I just did that, only to find that RSS Bandit's extremely unstable when it tries to retrieve all those feeds. It's just unstable, not unresponsive, so I think I might be able to get it down during today's Nightly downloads... Well, I'd love to put up Scoble's OPML file somewhere, but eSnips.com doesn't seem to be working, so I'm just pointing you to his Bloglines Reading list. Just scroll down to the bottom of the left frame to get the OPML Generated for you... Thanks, and Keep the comments coming....