Memoirs of the non-objectivist

What hurts me most - when innocent people die.

2009-05-31T22:08:00.003-05:00

These incidents from the past few years linger in my memory.

Brazilian plumber gunned down by London police who suspected him of being a terrorist. Of course, with the brown skin, he fit the bill.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4713753.stm
Kelsey Smith, who got abducted, raped and killed, as she was getting out of Target in Overland Park. A search was on for her for couple of days. This was a girl in the prime of her life, whose life was stolen because of one person who went insane: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kelsey_Smith
Four Indian Students hit and killed by an off-duty policewoman who might have been going the wrong way and was possibly inebriated. This one just burnt me to no end. One person sticking to the rules could have had four people in the prime of their youth left on this earth to live the life they could have. http://citizensalliance.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/nri-four-indian-students-killed-in-accident/
Failed to yield at a stop signal : This one took two lives, close to home. How can someone fail to stop at a red light? How can someone risk and sacrifice their life, and a stranger's? http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=176284&catid=40
An off duty police officer chasing a criminal who broke into his car was suspected to be a criminal armed with a gun and shot dead by fellow officer. In New York. How many ways could fate have been different to save him? Oh, of course, the dead off-duty officer was black, and the accused officer was white. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/29/content_11454508.htm
Wichita, Kansas provider of late term abortions, and by all accounts, a compassionate and efficient physician, Dr. Tiller, shot dead by someone who took the time to drive down from Merriam, KS, and Kansas City suburb. He was shot dead while he was performing the Church by a "pro-life" activist. http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/05/31/abortion-provider-dr-tiller-shot-dead-at-wichita-church/
Can't find the link for this, but this was in the first few months I was working for Sprint Nextel. Someone driving on I-35 had a cardiac arrest, and his vehicle, now out of control crossed to the opposite direction, resulting in a 3-vehicle bonfire. No survivors. Nobody to blame in this one though. Except the master up there, or probability, whatever suits your religious convictions.

August 1 - The Jackal - Obama

2009-05-19T21:56:00.002-05:00

August 1 is a malayalam movie based on The day of the jackal - by Frederick Forsyth. The parallel drawn from France's President Charles De Gaulle, is Kerala Prime minister, K.G. Ramachandran. The former a real character, while the latter a fictional character.

But with the effective oratory style, his own method of confident governance, and of eliminating waste, he is Barack Obama. An unexpected similarity that I found was the smoking.

But something I hope does not happen is the plot where enemies to him from his own party arrange a contract killer to take him down. As KGR's policies, and efficient moves thwart the ways of several, the contract is born. And even as the contract initiators have been arrested, the contactless killer is still on his path to target. It is only the intelligent security officer who chases the trail and finally saves KGR at the final moment.

The parallels are stunning.

Heroes of USA

2009-04-16T12:09:00.002-05:00

Heroes are celebrated here. The captain who landed his plane in the Hudson and made sure all passengers were saved before he stepped off.

The captain of the ship who gave himself up to save his 19 crewmembers.

The Navy Seals who shot dead the pirates to save the captain.

My salutes go to all. There couldn't be a more appropriate time for uplifting messages for the nation.

Imagine a new OS

2009-01-11T00:44:00.000-06:00

As good looking and smooth as Vista but as fast as XP?

That is Windows 7. Why would a company that is capable of doing this release something like Vista. Windows 7 is going to make vista disappear like a bad dream. And everyone is going to refer to Vista like they refer to Windows ME. With hatred, pity and sympathy.

I LOVE ONLINE BILL-PAY

2008-08-28T17:00:00.002-05:00

So my bank offers online bill pay. Do you know how that works? I go in there and tell them where to send a check. They print a check off my account and send it to this place where I need to make a payment to. They take it to their bank, and they send it back to my bank for collection. It comes back to them.

In essence, these people print a slip of paper and send it halfway across the country and get it back so that they can send money over ACH to the very same place where they sent the check. Amazing, isn't it?

Plane crashes.

2008-08-24T22:51:00.002-05:00

There have been disturbingly too many plane crashes this year. After 2007 being the safest year in aviation since decades, will 2008 prove that was a fluke?

The public's memory is short, but let's just look at the plane crashes last two weeks. Including teo major crashes internationally, there have been at least 7 crashes with fatalities.

Is somebody taking notes?

Politicking predictions

2008-08-19T21:19:00.002-05:00

Democrat VP nominee : Al Gore : Well, that sucked!

Republican VP Nominee : Bobby Jindal

Fortune favors the brave Obama

2008-07-21T22:55:00.002-05:00

What do you know... Obama says 16 months from Jan 08, Al Maliki says end of 2010. White House linguists spend a day searching for an alternate word for timetable that had the farthest meaning from it but still could be used in its place. 'Horizon' was the best they could come up with.

And then Al Maliki goes out and tricks the McCain campaign. He says something, the Germans translate it to, "I agree with Obama's troop withdrawal timetable.", then his guy comes out and says it was taken out of context and mistranslated. The McCain guy holds tight to this piece of straw. But then

New York Times comes out with their original recording of the interview and it turns out Al Maliki had not been mistranslated at all.
The very next day, after Al Maliki meets with Obama, his guy comes out and repeats the story and adds a Jan 2010 "horizon" to it.
The "democratic" government installed by George Bush in Iraq is leveraging all it can out of US Presidential Politics, in turn giving Obama a bloody boost in National Security awareness.

Now, Bush has a time horizon. Obama has a withdrawal plan. And Iraqis want the US forces out. Guess who is left in the dark with his idea of a 100 year occupation? That's right. McCain is sitting at home guying, "What the **** just happened? My birthday cake mate with whom I spent my Birthday with while Katrina was hitting New Orleans now wants a time horizon?"

End result : While the lefties kept saying McCain was 4 more years of Bush, he ends up looking like 4 more years worse than Bush! His Presidential Jinx is going strong.

"Open File - Security Warning"

2008-06-27T03:43:00.003-05:00

So I go restore my Thinkpad to what it used to be when they shipped it to me from HongKong 1.5 years ago, and install sp3 and other updates, and some software, and among this IE8.

For some reason (SP2, SP3 or IE8), my PC now takes it on itself to ask me about execute every freaking exe file I download to my PC. Why? Because it cannot verify the freaking publisher.

Here's a message. I double clink on my file on my PC because I know the freaking publisher. I know who publishes Inkscape-0.46.win32.exe. I know who publishes irfanview setup. I know who publishes jxpinstall.exe. In short, I freaking know what I am doing! There is a reason (listen good here) I am double-clicking the bloody file.

Oh the pain that you are, Windows. Don't act Vista-esque on me, XP. I love XP, but somebody is shoving Vista down my throat and I ain't liking it.

Edit :

I find out that the issue was the handiwork of IE8 which took upon itself to ask me whether I was sure I wanted to open files in Windows that I downloaded using FIREFOX to to my desktop. Quick question : Who the freak made IE8 king of internet-downloaded content on my PC when the whole freaking process had nothing to do with IE8 anyway. And this coming from IE8 beta 1 which is supposed to be for developers who probably have a pretty good idea what "unsafe" files they are opening.

Anyway, I figured out how to fix this in IE8 and if this happens to you with another version of IE, you are free to dig up and find it in a similar place. Check out the screenshot below. By the way, Windows will bitch and moan about me making it unsafe, but guess what, if someone rapes her in the middle of the night, she deserves that for making IE her master.

Obama : Not that there is anything wrong with that (being a Muslim)

2008-06-20T22:15:00.002-05:00

Seinfeld fans will remember the episode 'The Outing' where Jerry is mistaken by a reporter to be gay. The episode is peppered with the words, "not that there is anything wrong with that", whenever Jerry asserts that he is not gay. The words reflect the politically correct attitude of the times where someone making an assertion that you are not gay must ensure that his assertion is not misconstrued as an aversion to or condescension towards gay people in general.

In this context, it is disturbing that over months, as Obama and his campaign have refuted claims and rumors that he is a Muslim, have not bothered to add, "Not that there is anything wrong with being one." Being Muslim would politically disqualify Obama for presidency, but in these times of hate and intolerance, he needed to set an example pointing out that while he is not a Muslim, being a Muslim does not pre-empt someone from being a good person.

This leadership would perhaps ensure he does not win the election, as his statement will more be seen as an appeasement rather than statement of a fact. But the absence of such a statement, together with his campaign going out of its way to ensure muslim women do not appear with him in a photo-op makes me lose part of my faith in this candidate, te proclaimed agent of change.

For someone who talked so passionately of racial divide, he needs to also understand religious divide and gender divide. Frankly, I am disappointed.

The Global Food crisis

2008-06-11T01:00:00.002-05:00

It has been proven time and again that corn for ethanol is perhaps the most inefficient way of generating fuel for automobiles, and that cellulosic ethanol or sugarcane is a much better bet. Sugarcane molasses are already distilled at sugar plants all over the world to make alcohol. Even so, Bush's 2007 January address stating that Corn ethanol was the way forward was taken by at least some as a sign that the administration has started taking into account the energy and environmental crisis in store.

In this context, when Hugo Chavez said in March 2007 (link here) that the American administration's plan to make fuel from foodcrops while the world goes hungry, will be catastrophical, did not make too much sense. After all, the world was self-sufficient in food. The issue was just distribution, right? Wrong.

As 2008 reaches its middle, the world is mired in a food crisis of epic proportions, and an energy crisis to boot. While all of the Corn Ethanol has done nothing to solve the energy issue, it has added to another issue - food. While Chavez does not know enough about economy to know that removing zeros from his currency value does not make it stronger, at least on something, we might have to agree that he was spot on.

Teaching Americans Responsibility - quarter dollar at a time.

2008-05-15T21:12:00.004-05:00

Having been a 3-year supporter of Wal-mart, I recently switched allegiance to ALDI. While the reason I went to ALDI first was the lack of a decent Wal-mart in St. Louis county, now, I have more reason to stick with ALDI, their attitude, and their vision.

ALDI is a responsible store, keeping customers responsible to keep costs low. How's that, you ask. For starters...

1. ALDI makes you pay for your own cart.

Well, not actually. You insert a quarter to get a cart before you go in. When you get out, after loading your groceries in your car, you need to put your cart back where you got it to get your quarter back. It's not as luxurious as going to a store, leaving your cart where you like, and have people employed by the store to bring back the carts. Well, guess where the money to pay them comes from? That's right, now you're catching on why Navel Oranges cost so much. Another way this helps is, before you go to ALDI, you make sure you have a quarter. At the same time, you'll probably also remember to check what stuff you REALLY need, rather than window-shopping through 10 aisles. It is also wonderful to note that a quarter dollar keeps people from leaving carts anywhere in the parking lots, causing tons of damage. Guess how that works psychologically? Coz it's your own quarter!

2. ALDI makes you bring your own bags / pay for bags.

This makes sense on so many levels. Bags, plastic or paper, is a choice of choke a fish or kill a tree. Again, the bags at the other stores are not really free, you already paid for them when they bag your stuff. Environmentally friendly. Economically sound. You can also buy good quality reusable bags at ALDI for 10 / 5 cents as well.

3. ALDI closes at 8

This is harder than the others, but it makes sense to close shop, rather than pay your employees for all those low-traffic hours. Making customers be responsible, and buy their stuff on time. Avoids paying higher ( I am not sure if the other stores pay higher for night hours) wages to employees.

4. ALDI makes you pay with your own money, not someone else's

ALDI accepts only Cash / Debit Cards - period. Your own money. They could have added checks, but the issue of bounced check charges means, it's better to avoid that and keep prices lower. Credit Card clearing charges range from 2 to 3 %. When you go to Walmart, and pay with cash or credit, realize that part of your money is going towards the credit card processing as Walmart budgets it. Same at other stores too. Another angle is that, this prevents overspending, and accumulation of debt. Studies have shown that paying with actual cash reduces the amount you spend because you feel the loss. This is true for debit cards too, to a lesser extent. If only every institution was like this, America would not be in the huge debt it is in today.

5. ALDI does not smother you with brand choice.

ALDI doesn't offer you 20 brands of Vegetable Oil. It offers one quality brand. And not just vegetable oil. Chocolate Chip Cookies. Sour Cream and Onion Chips. White Bread. Thus it streamlines its supply chain management, keeps operations lean, and easy. It also makes shopping a breeze, and not having to stop and compare prices on 45 different varieties of roast beef slices is a blessing in itself.

I am sure there are thousands of people out there who believe ALDI is a low-class shopping place, but the quality of goods is impeccable. Even the packaging is way better than Wal-mart's Great Value brand. Give ALDI a try. I assure you, you'll like it.

By taking responsibility, and forcing customers to take responsibility, and not lavishing meaningless luxuries on them (24 hours open, free bags, play carts, brand choice, and proxy-pay), ALDI keeps prices low. The stores are medium-sized, and well-organized.

Evil from Google maps.

2008-05-13T21:50:00.002-05:00

So Google Maps on my phone thinks a lot different than Google maps on my PC.

Results for Kill near 63031 are:

1. Monsanto
2. Nara military Personnel Records.
3. Barnes-Jewish Hospital
4. Eagle Forum
5. Humane Society of St. Charles
6. United Industries COrporation
7. St. Louis County Library
8. Data Research Associates
9. Veterans for Peace Inc.

I guess they all do a fine job of killing in the crime capital of USA.

Anil

Sitcoms...

2008-05-01T23:05:00.003-05:00

Been through a lot of them. Friends, King of Queens, Scrubs, Raymond, Will and Grace...but then again you come back to a masterpiece like Seinfeld, and picking out any of the episodes from the nine seasons is simply a treat. Like say, the Mango from Season 5, or The Pilot. The whole Soda Can refund inter-state shipping scheme. The emotional mechanic who flees with Jerry's SAAB.

Or Coupling (UK) - come back to an innuendo-filled series where you can have a dialog like 'You are single. You now qualify for my elasticity." can have two meanings. Where concepts like the Giggle loop, melty-man, Nose Avoidance Angle, Visual Access Angle, or Porn-buddies were born.

It's amazing when you get something like this, and wonder whether more of stuff with the same quality will ever be made.

Clinton says

2008-04-25T22:10:00.002-05:00

"At the end of the day, people have to decide who they think would be not only the best president, which is the most important question, but who would be the better candidate against Senator McCain" - Hillary Clinton

Translated....

I may not be a better president than Obama if I am elected, but I am more likely to beat McCain!

The Delegate Game - Worst case

2008-04-24T16:51:00.011-05:00

Well Done India

2008-04-24T10:22:00.002-05:00

We have shown we have balls

"India and Iran are ancient civilizations whose relations span centuries," the Foreign Ministry said in statement Tuesday. "Neither country needs any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations."

Check the article here

Why I don't buy Google Stock?

2008-04-17T21:24:00.003-05:00

Because it will be a conflict of interest that's why! I'll explain.

So, Google has this thing on buy.com to provide $10 off to any new customer who uses Google Checkout to buy anything $10 or over. Whenever I really need to buy something, I go here, and make a new google account, and buy it. In effect, I am hurting Google's bottomline without doing them any good.

This means, I can't own Google stock, coz that's going to go down that little bit every time I do this.

If anyone's going to say, "Shame on you for stealing from Google.", Come On, guys. They're like the Reserve Bank!

Gibibytes anyone?

2008-04-16T15:07:00.002-05:00

It was in November 2000. I was listening to the droning old 'What is binary?' lecture once more, in an Engineering class, after learning the ins and outs of binary from sixth grade onwards. But then the lecturer suddenly had the audacity to declare that a Gigabyte was 10^9 bytes. I was incensed. I had to put my arm in the air, and as soon as she made eye contact, I had to jump up and shout 2^30! She had no idea what I was talking about. One GB is 2^30 bytes, I repeated. She could only say, "Relax. Whatever you say."

In April 2008, I now realize all the filthy profit-minded hard drive makers colluded with her to make me an idiot in the pages of history. Apparently now, a GB is indeed 10^9 bytes! So, to name what was previously to my knowledge, a GB, (2^30 bytes), they made up this thing called a gibibyte.

Are you kidding me? Even the Firefox spell checker does not know this one. It thinks it should be legibility, eligibility, or guess what, gigabyte! Here's my apology. I resign from counting bytes. CIAO.

Veendum Chila Veettukaryangal

2008-04-12T13:31:00.003-05:00

I got to see one of my all-time favorite movies, Veendum Chila Veettukaryangal again, thanks to the guys at Rolla. I was reminded how the movie flows smoothly from beginning to end, like a well-oiled machine, like a well-managed project. In short, the only way I can describe the movie is a well-thought movie. The movie possesses an amazing storyline, a great script and screenplay combination, and perfectly fitting performers in every single role.

Jayaram fits the role of the prodigal son so perfectly, I am led to wonder if the role portrays his real character accurately. The father-son bond that resembles a friendship more than a relation is well-portrayed by Thilakan and Jayaram, and the chemistry is amazing. KPAC Lalitha and Siddique have perfected their acting techniques in this film as well. The foul-mouthed bigamous Aravindan portrayed by Nedumudi Venu is again just brilliant. But then, all of them have proven time and again their class in acting. The family around them feels real, not an on-screen made up family.

Bhavana's character (portrayed by Samyukta Varma) as an industrious, intelligent, and thinking-on-the-feet girl is in very stark contrast to Roy's character, but once again, the chemistry is great. Samyukta Varma's acting is commendable, precise, and sharp, and even more so, considering this was her first foray into the big screen.

Placing a turning point into the story by placing Lohithadas who comes back to inspire Jayaram and provide him direction was a brilliant touch. Again, the whole film shows the importance of motivation and purpose in life.

The film provides glimpses into what has made Malayalam film decades ahead of other Indian cinema. How malayalam film stays (at least on occasions) in touch with reality, while the rest of Indian film flies in the face of it.

Sathyan Anthikkad sells simple and pure life lessons with a message attached. His movies have the taste of truth and the smell of earth to them.

Veendum Chila Veettukaaryangal is and will always be a movie I will cherish and love to watch any given day.

Hardees - the inevitable breakfast switchover

2008-04-06T15:17:00.003-05:00

At Rolla, MO - we used to frequent the Hardees often. As UMR (University of Missouri - Rolla) students, we would get a combo for the price of a sandwich. One night, in the throes of hunger driven by deadline-driven research, two of my researchmates (Kainan Cha and Maciej Zawodniok) and I drove to the Hardees drive thru.

Around 3 AM, As Maciej pulled his car into the Drive-Thru menu area, the sweet voice on the intercom said, 'Would you like to try a Thickburger today?'. We discussed and settled on our respective thickburgers, and Maciej was about to order, "We would like..." when the bell rings, and it's like Christmas. The whole drive-thru menu rolls over, and all the thickburgers are gone and it's now all breakfast, Unfazed, Maciej continued ordering thickburgers, when the same intercom voice said, "We're sorry, We don't serve Thickburgers anymore. We are now serving breakfast!"

It took three graduate students over 30 seconds to figure this out, and drive to McDonalds, where they were not into breakfast yet.

How to fix the subprime / foreclosure crisis

2008-04-03T16:05:00.002-05:00

The IRS should make even home mortgage principal payments tax exempt upto a certain limit per year. What will this do? This makes $5000 of after-tax money that you could have paid into principal now equal $7000 that you can pay into your house. This will discourage people who just want to or have to give up their homes because they put zero down and their house values plummeted.

While this is similar in nature to the Stimulus package, this will be effectively targeted at homeowners in the foreclosure crisis.

Things on the internet that make me cringe

2008-03-18T22:29:00.001-05:00

1. People on comments who write :

A. Their is no such thing.

B. Your stupid.

C. That's a fake / photoshopped.

D. Obambi, HillBilly, Billary....

E. mute point / mote point

F. and so on...

2. Webcomic guys who have to write something about their comic. It's a COMIC. If you have to explain what it is, you're not doing it right.

3. Jokes I've already read a thousand times. You don't see old films still running at the movies, do you? When they're old, take them down!

4. "Congratulations. You've just won a brand new Ipod." Ring a bell?

5. and so on...

10 minute course to writing Sitcoms

2008-03-11T21:59:00.004-05:00

So, what is funny.

For starters, people think that weddings and pregnancies are funny. So they pile up on those. Planning those scripts, they are thinking well, leave enough fertile and commitment-minded people in there so we can have a lot of pregnancies and marriages.

So much so that when it comes to really needing a pregnancy, FRIENDS show writers thought that would be too funny, so they went with an adoption instead, and guess what, tried to make that funny as well.

From the locked in spell of FRIENDS, I have now been released. I am now a fan of Seinfeld, the forever ultimate in Shows. And Family Guy, which just does everything writers of Seinfeld would have wanted to do in their show, but couldn't.

It was funny when in an episode of Family Guy, Peter has the tribals re-enact the 'contest' episode of Seinfeld. Cramer and Elaine asking for a square are hilarious. That's a tribute to Seinfeld from 'The' Family Guy.

"Warning"

2008-03-11T13:38:00.004-05:00

I just got an email from a service provider that, instead of the usual "Please do not reply to this message" warning had a "***Please note, you will not be able to reply to this email."

Just for the heck of it, I went ahead and replied. And I sure as hell was able to reply. I mean, they may not have gotten the reply but I rock, and nobody says "You will not be able to" to me!

Edit : http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3624091 gives a good way for those companies which send stuff out of unmonitored mailboxes to tell the recipient what to do.