Why Geeks?

I don't know why some people take Linux as a crusade against Microsoft , why can't they just appreciate if Microsoft , after a decade , comes up with some decent technology?

See the comments in the following article for further details

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/23/linus-torvalds-gives-windows-7-a-big-thumbs-up/

PS: Linus Trovalds is the creater of Linux.

Diwali thoughts

How perceptions have changed. Only a decade ago , the number of crackers burst on Diwali were directly propotional to the prosperity of a person.
Today , that number is propotional to your height of ignorance.
My area saw a significant reduction on the number of crackers burst this year. Recession? May be.
But I would look that in the light of environmental conciousness of the people.
For me , it were the horrendous memories of this summer and the long delayed monsoons , and its effects on the agricultural economy , that haunted me .

gung-ho

Today , after talking to a friend , I feel optimistic . Or it may be the effect of the Diwali Lightings that I see around . Any which way , I am sure that one of the biggest reasons for it being so is the confusion that I see around my generation . It was so even in my elder sister's ( I do not remember about the eldest's) , but at last we have started questioning ourselves palpably.

The confusion is an indicator to us started thinking aloud. About our future , about our knowledge base , about our information , about our work and about our lives at large. I feel that this has been made possible by the 'India shining' phenomina in the past five years , which , has been proved by the recent bout of global recession having no pre-dominant effect on India compared to the rest of the world.

This confidence indulges us in thinking out-of-the-box. It gives us the strength to remove the shackles of , as I would say , 'the middle class' mentality viz-a-viz a degree implies a job implies finding a good match implies ....implies.

People brand us being impatient and unfocussed. I would rephrase that to take things 'just-in-time'.

Students dropping out of college , sometimes even in their final year , some opting out of placements that would come with a stinkingly fat paycheck , forces me to think of an Indian Bill Gates or Steve Jobs in the making.

We have overcome the initial inertia for thinking , for innovating. The momentum needs to be maintained.

Would an egalitarian society remove this disparity and make us all equals , in terms of independance or would it shackle the elite and the priveleged , as in the above context?

Seeing into the history of India from the 70's to the late 80's , I find the above to be impossible the socialistic way.

Though our vision would be a free society , the above can only be achieved by having a society where nothing comes free. Teenagers coming to the metros from the villages of Bihar , Jharkhand , Karnataka , Tamil Nadu and making it big , have been able to do so , only because of the fire which was kindled by the age old disparities in their hometowns. Not that I would like that happening , but it is the biggest incentive.

The dreams have been percolated down to them , in some cases by observing these teenagers, an osmosis has occured into the higher and privelaged classes.

Any which way , the spirit is high and till the time this euphoric society of all being equal is not achieved , which I find impossible to be so in every letter and in every word , the above metamorphosis is bound to continue.

The only problem that could arise can be in the form of the '77 emergency that Mrs. Gandhi had imposed on the youth of then , curtailing them of their fundamental right , the right to freedom.

The government should focus on just the law and order to be mantained. The rest , we are confident , we can very well manage.

Problem with Pidgin

Disclaimer : This post totally highlights the problems that one could face while installing the pidgin music tracker plugin . All the events described are fictitious.

Pidgin is a chatting client that comes pre-installed in Ubuntu( it comes for windows platform as well). I recommend it because of its proxy support and the various protocols that it supports. I use it for IRC , which is a wonderful resource for geeks. XChat on unix or MIrc on Windows are other clients for the same with more functionalities.
This is a warning for all those who use pidgin . "BE careful if you use the music tracker plugin". Music tracker, as the name suggests , should set as your status message the current track that is being played in your music player.
Now, in Gtalk , the plugin like the above only sets the name of an mp3 being played in your media player as your status message.
Music tracker is evil on that front.
I only got to realize that when at 3:15 am , I recieved a burst of chats , each with either a 'lol' , 'haha' , 'mazze' .... and some being a lot bold with ' apna haath. .....'
One of them was kind enough to tell me that my status message was ' extreme pe**tra**ons'.
Well ... the next time you use pidgin , either do not use musictracker or configure it properly.
It even sets the name of the videos being played in your media player as your status message , to embarass you.