and then there was snow...

It snowed 1 inch in College Station last night after more than a decade.
Here's a snowman (or is it a snow lady?) a friend and I found on campus

(If you are familiar with the campus, this was located next to Sully's statue)

[This is also an attempt at an emailed picture posting]

Quasars in Lightbulbs

This evening, a conversation amongst friends turned to the topic[1] of "How much power does a Quasar emit, in terms of light bulbs".

We looked up some statistics on the web[2] and came up with some interesting figures.

A quasar is said to produce the same amount of power as 10^12 suns.
Our sun produces 4 x 10^26 Watts of power.

Taking the average light bulb to be 60Watts, that means the sun produces the equivalent power of 6.67 x 10^24, 60W light bulbs.

Plugging that into the data above, we find that a quasar outputs the same amount of energy as 6.67x10^36, 60W light bulbs !

So there you have it -> A quasar outputs the same energy as 6.67x10^36, 60W light bulbs

--
While most of us in this conversation were not astronomers or in related fields, two of the participants in this conversation were
astrophysicists. One of them did some number crunching with actual formulae and numbers of luminosity and frequency from the field and came up with a value of 2.7 x 10^34, 60W light bulbs. Close enough for back of the envelope calculations!
--

[1] One person was going to be giving a talk on quasars to people from another discipline.
[2] Some of the data was sourced from Wikipedia or links from Wikipedia, use these numbers at your own risk. If you use these numbers to do anything important, you are insane.

More SPAM Winnings

It seems to be my week of winnings again!
According to the SPAM making its way into my email, over the past two
days, I have apparently won over 1,500,000,000 British pounds.

hmmm...

Paranoia?

This post has been redacted for privacy.

Email me for the text if you are interested.

Pans and Heat

No point in blaming the kitchen range for not heating a pan, when I forgot to turn it on in the first place eh?

SPAM winnings ?

If I believe the spam I've received this week, this has been the most lucky week of my life. Twice in the same week, I've won enormous sums of money from online lottery sweepstakes.

On Monday, I was congratulated on winning 500,000 UK Pounds and today, I was congratulated on winning 1,000,000 UK Pounds. All I need to do to get the money is to send them my contact information. :P

If only things were that simple ;) :P

Words, Parsing and Ads

I sent an email using GMail to someone today. After I sent the email, the next ad that was displayed by Google, was exactly on the topic that I had written the email about.
While I knew that the system does parse emails to display the appropriate ads - it was a tad surreal to see the ad so accurately reflect the content. (This wasn't a simple word matching, it was more complex than that.)

Risks

Thank you to a certain someone.

[If you don't know what I'm talking about - Don't ask me. I will not tell you.]

Another bike in the pool

We found another bike in the pool. Looks like this is becoming a Friday night ritual for someone or some group of people.

Speech Recognition update

Update:
The speech recognition thing works quite well. More training has helped it improve accuracy.

However, there is one issue that needs to be fixed before I can have it replace typing for large text entry. The fact that it is slow.
I can type (and hence input data) faster than it takes to listen to my voice (which has to be at a controlled pitch and speed) and then transcribe it totext.

Also, I find that I'm not used to dictating stuff to my computer and hence end up with lots of junk input in addition to the main text. Typing is more focused and controlled input of data in my case.

Speech Recognition!

So last night, I was talking to a friend and I began to wonder why my computer could not convert speech to text. So today after school, I came home and looked up online to see if the Linux operating system had any utilities that would allow me to do this. While looking around online, I saw (to my surprise) multiple entries pointing to the fact that Windows XP and Office 2003 seem to have some sort of dictation software.

Since I had Office 2003 professional on my machine, I went to take a look to see if the I had the software utility installed. After about 10 minutes of poking around the innards of my computer, I realized that I could indeed get this thing to work.

Once I got the software installed, I spent a couple of minutes (about 20 minutes in all) training the package to understand my voice. Because of the fact that I am not a native English speaker the package takes longer than usual to understand my pronunciation of some of the words. For some reason it seems to think of the word 'package' as packet, and packet as 'kicked'. I obviously need to train this package some more so that it can understand me better.

Oh, and a thank you to Amy, for introducing me to a project ;) that convinced me to go look up speech recognition from my computer to prevent me from having to type out pages and pages and pages of text.

It may be that further posts on this web site will be powered by speech recognition. Let’s see what happens.

The above post was composed using the dictation feature, then formatted and edited before I posted it here. To demonstrate how accurate (or not) the software package was with about 20 minutes of training, I have enclosed the raw text generated by the software below. Take a look, I'm rather impressed with the quality.

---

So last night I was talking to a friend and I began to wonder why my computer could not convert speech to text Saturday after school I came home and looked up to see if the linux operating system had any utilities that would allow me to do this while looking around on the day of useful runs as a multiple entries pointing to the fact that the news expert and office 2003 seem to have some sort of dictation software

Since I had office 2003 perfection of on my machine I went to take a look at if I had the senior treaty install . after about ten minutes of poking around that he notes off my computer and realized that I could indeed get this thing to work


Once I got the package installed I have spent a couple of minutes training the packets to understand my voice
because of the fact that I am not a native English speaker the packets take longer than usual to understand my pronunciation of some of the words. . For some reason it seems to think of the word package has been kicked

I obviously need to train this packet some more so that it can understand what is better or for the first 30 minutes I think this is doing pretty well
The law PCI and each time a friend using major project which required me to go look up speech recognition from my computer to prevent me from having to type out pages and pages and pages of text will obviously using me introducing me, it may be free to post on this web site will be powered by speech recognition. Let’s see what happens.

Bikes, chairs and swimming pools

We found a bike and two chairs in the pool of our apartment complex over the weekend.
While we didn't hear/see the folks responsible for this, one of our neighbors reported hearing people making a lot of noise the night before. Perhaps the drunken revelry lead to an idea about a new place to store your bike.

Happy Diwali

Happy Diwali folks!

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali if you want to read a bit about
Diwali)

From "Tips and Tweaks" to Techbite

Steve Bass - the author of the technology column (Hassle-Free PC) and blog (Tips and Tweaks) has left the organization that he used to work for.

Steve wrote the Tips and Tweaks News letter - a source that has given me quite a few pointers to nifty tips and utilities. Before this he used to write the Home & Home Office column. He was also the founder of PIBMUG (www.pibmug.com). Search this blog itself for a couple of entries/posts which are courtesy of Steve's blog/column. If I've ever shown you the little program on my pc that simulates a martian surface flyby- that program is courtesy Steve from one of his newsletters.

As one of the first writers that I encountered when venturing into the WWW some ~7 years ago, I've been following his column and blog for a while now. I enjoy his writing style and personal touch to the column, a trait missing in many other technical writers.
Steve will now be starting his own column at Techbite (www.techbite.com).

If you were a follower of the Tips and Tweaks blog or the newsletter, hop on over to Techbite, where Steve will be continuing to run his weekly newsletter.

Original Tips and Tweaks : http://www.pcworld.com/blogs/id,43/steve_basss_tips_and_tweaks.html

Techbite: http://www.techbite.com/

Chocolate Chip muffins

I made some chocolate chip muffins today. They came out pretty good.

VNC, firewalls and iptables

VNC requires port 5900+display_number to be open through the firewall.
For eg: for vnc display on :1, you need port 5901 open.

vnc displays are found to be at server.example.com:PortNumber

Or look in your .vnc folder for an entry that states example.com:X.pid
(where X denotes the display number)

[The following requires root (or sudo) privileges]
---
1. Add rule to firewall by adding the following rule into your iptables
script:

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport
5900:5906 -j ACCEPT

[This opens ports 5900-5906 through the firewall for the tcp protocol]

2 .Then restart the iptables daemon using the command :

service iptables restart

Now you should be good to go. Connect into vnc using vncviewer or a
program such as RealVNC or TightVNC
---
For fedora 9,
iptables is a textfile at /etc/sysconfig/iptables
service is an shell script at /sbin/service

Ubuntu 7 (Gutsy Gibbon)
- implements iptables as an executable. ( located at /sbin/iptables )
Run the command, by prefixing 'sudo iptables' in front of the -A
command, and remove the string RF-Firewall-1-INPUT and replace it with
the string INPUT
eg: sudo iptables -A -INPUT blah blah blah

The Ubuntu community has a set of nice guides which should be helpful.

The main HOWTO: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/IptablesHowTo
Ubuntu Forum guides :
BASIC :http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=159661
ADVANCED_USERS : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=668148

Future Spam

Spam creators have apparently found out how to send messages across time. On

Thu October 02, 2008 07:07 PM CST, I have emails with Saturday, Oct-4 as the timestamp.

:P

Boilerplate responses

I'm a fan of having a boilerplate (otherwise called template) response available when multiple people ask you the same question again and again and again. I am however against form letters that don't give you any useful information. I believe a template letter can do the job, IF it provides some useful information.

I found one such template recently and enjoyed it. This template is to be used for responding to people who come up with their latest idea of "How to solve the Spam problem". Fill in the appropriate sections with a X and you are ready to go.

----
Your post advocates a

( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) $BigCorporation will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) $PopularEmailClient

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, $expletive ! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

Medium Sea Green

you are mediumseagreen #3CB371

Your dominant hues are cyan and green. Although you definately strive to be logical you care about people and know there's a time and place for thinking emotionally. Your head rules most things but your heart rules others, and getting them to meet in the middle takes a lot of your energy some days. Your saturation level is medium - You're not the most decisive go-getter, but you can get a job done when it's required of you. You probably don't think the world can change for you and don't want to spend too much effort trying to force it. Your outlook on life is brighter than most people's. You like the idea of influencing things for the better and find hope in situations where others might give up. You're not exactly a bouncy sunshine but things in your world generally look up.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Reciprocative Communication

Its a new communication strategy. Its simple in concept - Person A keeps in touch with Person B to the amount that Person B keeps in touch with Person A.

It works because it requires that both people put in the same amount (or lack of) effort to stay in touch. If the one person doesn't put in an equivalent effort in keeping in touch, why should the other person have to carry the load ?

Perhaps I should try this out. There are some people I know who never seem to be interested in keeping in touch from an 'initiate a conversation' angle.

So lets see how this goes shall we?

Computers cannot score essays (yet!)

Computers cannot and should not be used to score/grade an essay. At least for the current state of art, this is a fact. 10 years from now this post of mine might be ridiculous.

With the current state of art, if you depend on a computer algorithm to grade people's writing skills, you are making a big mistake.

Here's [yarnsoftheheart.com] one person's account of her experiences with an 'online essay scoring system'.

Read the 'essay' that was scored and the score that the system assigned to it. If you were the teacher grading that essay, would you give it the same score ? If you have a child going to a school that uses something like this to grade essays, you may want to have a talk with the teacher.

[via Kem's Utterly Merciless Guide to Essay Writing]

Busy tuesdays

With the new semester is fully underway, my Tuesday schedule seems to be the most solid booked of the lot.

Here's what it looks like at the moment:
Group Meeting : T 1200p-0200p
TA.Lab : T 0200p-0350p
Advisor Meeting : T 0400p-0500p

Without anything else, I'm booked solid every Tuesday from 12-5.

Add in the fact that I'm the department representative to the Graduate Student Council this year, and every 1st and3rd Tuesday of the month, my Tuesday stretches to 6:15pm. [The GSC meets 5:15p-6:15p ]

Should be interesting to see how this works out.

Random Win

Last night, I randomly decided to go to a graduate student mix-and-mingle event organized by the nice people at AGOSS (Adult, Graduate & Off Campus Student Services - part of the Offices of the Dean of Student Life)

There was a game of bingo in it, and believe it or not, but I won!
This is probably the first time I won something at one of these 'for-fun' events! :)

So what did I win? well, if you are reading this blog - you should have already heard about it from me. :)

If you haven't heard about it, then that should be an indication that you don't keep in touch enough.

Bugs

I stumbled across some interesting definitions of bugs on catb.org
--
schroedinbug: /shrohdinbuhg/, n.

[MIT: from the Schroedinger's Cat thought-experiment in quantum physics] A design or implementation bug in a program that doesn't manifest until someone reading source or using the program in an unusual way notices that it never should have worked, at which point the program promptly stops working for everybody until fixed. Though (like bit rot) this sounds impossible, it happens; some programs have harbored latent schroedinbugs for years.

mandelbug: /man�del�buhg/, n.

[from the Mandelbrot set] A bug whose underlying causes are so complex and obscure as to make its behavior appear chaotic or even non-deterministic. This term implies that the speaker thinks it is a Bohr bug, rather than a heisenbug.

Bohr bug: /bohr buhg/, n.

[from quantum physics] A repeatable bug; one that manifests reliably under a possibly unknown but well-defined set of conditions. Antonym of heisenbug;

heisenbug: /hi:�zen�buhg/, n.

[from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics] A bug that disappears or alters its behavior when one attempts to probe or isolate it. (This usage is not even particularly fanciful; the use of a debugger sometimes alters a program's operating environment significantly enough that buggy code, such as that which relies on the values of uninitialized memory, behaves quite differently.) Antonym of Bohr bug;
--
See more at The Jargon File at http://www.catb.org/jargon/

Clock Radio

I bought a clock/radio gadget. Not a simple one, a rather fancy one ;) Its got 21 different (independent) alarm settings, a nap timer, USB power out (for an external gadget that might need USB power) and more.

Now let's see if it can manage to get me up on time everyday.

You can see the site I bought it from and all the specs on this device from here [thinkgeek.com]

Cows point North ?

Apparently, cows have built in compasses. They can sense the magnetic North.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2623809/Cows-point-north-thanks-to-in-built-compasses.html

A 100 things to try to eat

Lilian posted this 100 things to try to eat at some point in your life.

Some of them I have tasted, a lot I haven't.
This sounds like an interesting list to try to complete!

FoxClocks

I found a most useful extension to Firefox today.

Called FoxClocks, it adds a number of clocks to Firefox! Allowing you to keep track of the time across the world, with a variety of formatting and customization options.

Those of you who have seen my Windows desktop, would have seen a Yahoo Widget that I use called Timezonabulator that serves the same purpose. This is a Firefox add-in that serves the same purpose.

Get a copy of FoxClocks from Mozilla addons here : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1117?id=1117

I found this when wandering around Wikipedia, from here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CatherineMunro

Olympic Games Opening Ceremony quote

I liked a comment on radio today -- "The only people who probably won't
be happy about today's grand opening of the 2008 games, are probably the
folks in charge of organizing the 2012 opening ceremony"

$500 Audio cables ?

Read the reviews here Cat-5 AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cables.

In case you do get inspired to buy one of these, stop for a moment and pay a visit to the experiment listed on the Consumerist website on whether coat hanger wire makes for good sound quality http://consumerist.com/362926/do-coat-hangers-sound-as-good-monster-cables

From Steve Bass's Tips and Tweaks Blog and the EndUser Blog

My MP3 player works again.

Whoop!
My MP3 player (A Sansa c240 that I got from Woot) is back in operation.

A couple of weeks back, I went in and deleted some stuff off the player and accidentally ended up deleting something that I probably shouldn't have. It turned my player into almost a brick. Out of the ~80 tracks that I had on it, it could only see 30 seconds of one track. Over the course of the last weeks, I tried poking it and restarting it and reformatting it, to no avail.

So this morning, I decided to go for the heavy action. A couple of hours of looking around the web, led to re-flashing the device (install new firmware on top of the old one) thrice (yup, not once, but thrice), multiple formatting sessions in the middle of all this, and countless reboots later it works!

Back to regular operation as usual. I can once again drag and drop music onto it from my desktop and not have to use custom software to get into the device! :)

Being a geek can be useful.

------

Thank you! to the folks from the following places:

The people on the forums at "Anything But iPod" : http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/

The people on the forums of Rockbox : http://forums.rockbox.org/

People on the forums of SanDisk : http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board?board.id=c200

Southpark Avatar

I credit (perhaps that should be blame) Lilian and Mags for this creation of mine. :P This be my Southpark avatar !
If you want to make your own SouthPark Avatar. Go here : http://images.southparkstudios.com/games/create/

I'm running for election.

When, and only when you are done watching the video, if you are still interested in following through to the source from where I got this idea from, go here

The Jedi Gym

Former swordplay trainer to the stars and Star Wars fanatic Jeremy Flynn recently opened "Jedi Gym", a fitness center in Torrance, CA where members channel characters from the Star Wars film series to work out, meditate, and improve their lives."Star Wars is all about the Hero's Journey, and so is working out," says Flynn, " you leave home, battle your demons, and hopefully return home stronger."
Flynn is frustrated with his students' lack of commitment and focus, but when a 7-foot man in an incredibly authentic Darth Vader suit arrives at the gym, Flynn thinks he's found his dream student.
Instead, Flynn and his students learn, first hand, about how powerful the Dark Side can be...

Watch it to the end... Its worth it.
Note: If you are not a Star Wars fan (or don't know the base characters of Star Wars, you probably won't find this interesting.)

What's going on ?

A week or so back, I got notified by the university that there was an armed bank robbery in my university town. This was followed by a message some hours later that the culprits were apprehended by state rangers. All's well I figured.

Until today, when a friend informed me that the bank robbery was actually at tje bank that is less than 5 minutes walk from where I stay! Which means, this is the bank in which I have my bank account!.

So, in the last few months- the area has had robberies, aggravated assaults, a stabbing incident, an aggravated robbery (mugging) and now an armed bank robbery.

So much for the safety of a small town.

Part of a world record attempt

Part of a world record attempt, originally uploaded by Suneil.

Its official, the firefox team did set a world record for the most number of downloads inside a 24 hour period.

I contributed to it by getting my copy of Firefox 3 during this period (see previous post that has the certificate)

Carpets and Doorways

Yet another random post - this time to store a thought on carpets.

"Do not spend $$$ and install white wall to wall carpets which start at the front door of the house, if you don't want to spend the rest of your life worrying that your white carpet is going to get a stain of some sort"

In fact either don't get carpets at all, or get a color other than white, and you'll find your life at home that much less stressful!

Countertops

A random post to store a thought of mine on Kitchen Counter tops.

"It makes absolutely no sense to spend $$$ remodeling a kitchen, including a very expensive new counter top, to get a counter on which you can't put anything hot."

What's the point of installing a counter top on which you shouldn't put a vessel that is at a temperature of more than 80F ?

Ducks! Smile for the camera.

Even More ducks!, originally uploaded by Suneil.

Close up of part of the 10,000 ducks that were in the race.

10,000 Ducks

10,000 Ducks, originally uploaded by Suneil.

I went to see the Silicon Valley Rubber Duck race over the weekend.
10,000 Rubber ducks. Adopt one for the duration of the race and the proceeds goto charity.
It was a neat event.

Mad Roger Flint

That be me!

According to the Pirate name quiz from here : http://www.piratequiz.com/
My Pirate Name is "Mad Roger Flint"

"Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!"

If you don't get the joke, don't worry about it. You just need to be aware of the Pirates vs Ninja debate. If you don't get this also, again, don't fret. It just means you aren't part of the geek crowd.

Baseball game- San Jose Giants vs. Visalia Oaks

I went for a baseball game yesterday with two other colleagues and one of our managers. This was a minor league game with the San Jose Giants playing the Visalia Oaks.

This was also my first baseball game in the US. So it was fun!.
If you have access to my flickr page there are pictures there of the game and the people with whom I went for the game.

We were there to support the San Jose Giants! and yes, our team won!

SanJose Giants: http://www.sjgiants.com/ or http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/clubs/ip_index.jsp?sid=milb&cid=t476

Visalia Oaks : http://visalia.oaks.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t516

Pictures on Flickr : http://www.flickr.com/photos/68701052@N00/sets/72157605733229114/

(The Flickr set requires authorization - i.e you need to be family or friend to see the pictures.)

Firefox Download Certificate

Firefox Download Certificate, originally uploaded by Suneil.

Firefox 3 was launched June-17,2008 at 10am PDT
[Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 17:00:00 UTC]

The Mozilla folks were trying to set a Guinness World record by getting the largest number of people to download it in a given day. I participated in this and got the certificate!

(Participation in this case, was to download the latest version of Firefox inside the deadline)

See also:
www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/
and
blog.mozilla.com/blog/2008/06/16/download-day-kickoff/

University Birthday card - Warns against the dangers of alcohol

"At Texas A&M, where student Michael Wagener died of alcohol poisoning on his 21st birthday in 1999, students who turn 21 receive a card about safe drinking that is signed by Wagener's parents, the university president, and vice president for student affairs. "

I have seen this card - (that a friend of mine received). Its a real birthday card to wish you for your birthday, along with an insert that contains a message from the parents cautioning people about the dangers of alcohol poisoning and why they are including this message.

Here are some more stories on this:
http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2004/colleges-look-for-balance.html

The Story of Stuff

Take a look, its an interesting presentation.
--
"The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."

http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html

[Note: its a 20 min video/presentation]

Davis, CA

Random tidbit of information.
I'm visiting Davis, CA this weekend to see some friends of mine.

One week in San Jose

You might know that I'm currently in San Jose for an internship. If you
didn't, well, I am in San Jose,California on a summer internship. I'll
be here till August.

Today marks one week of being here. The work is going on fine. I got my
deliverables and plan of work for the period all squared off with my
manager and I even made some small but useful progress on the work on
Friday.

San Jose is cold! Coming in from Texas where it was 85-90 'F (29-32 'C)
to here where the mid day temperature doesn't seem to cross 55 'F (12
'C) this place is cold. One of the first things I did on coming here was
to go buy a blanket. With the new weight and piece restrictions on
flights, I had to leave my perfectly good blanket at home and come here
with a very light collection of stuff for the next 2.5 months.

Phoenix lander on Mars has a twitter page

The mars lander Phoenix which touched down a few days ago on Mars, has
its own Twitter page with updates written in a slightly spooky
first-person voice.

See the page here:
http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix

World's Scariest Model Train Wreck

A reality show about the scourge of wrecked model trains. Watch it if
you dare...

Roof Leak fixed

I forgot to post this before, but the roof leak was fixed last week finally on Thursday (22nd). They came in and sealed the area of the pipe that had the leak with some sort of clamp rather than replacing it. I now have my roof ceiling all back to normal :)
I'll put a picture here sometime.

My name on Mars.

My name is on a DVD that was part of the Phoenix Mission that landed in the Martian Artic regions yesterday (May 25th, 2008) at 23:38 UTC (16:38 PDT).

So how did this happen? Sometime in mid 2006, (June I think it was) the Planetary Society had a web page where you could ask for your name to be added to the list - which I filled up and submitted.

After that, I completely forgot about it, until I got an confirmation email this morning that the disc was on board the Phoenix Lander which touched down yesterday.

The message that I got reads:

As part of The Planetary Society's Messages from Earth program, your name — along with a quarter million others from around the world — is now on the surface of Mars. Landing with you on the disk is Visions of Mars, a treasure trove of literature and art — from classic works by Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury to Orson Welles' radio retelling of "The War of the Worlds" to a special audio recording of Carl Sagan delivering a message to the future."

I searched my archives and found my original certificate too. :) Ask me if you want to see it, or perhaps sometime in the future I'll post an image of it here.

You can find out more about sending your name on future missions by visiting this page: http://planetary.org/special/messages

Roof Leak-2

The roof leak saga continues.
Maintenance came in over the week (on the 14th) to patch the insulation,
they installed new insulation on the pipes, only for it to start leaking
again the next morning.

Because of this, the next morning (on the 15th), Maintenance sent in
someone else to look at the problem. This person found that the problem
was not a failure of insulation on the cooling lines, rather a hot water
line next to it had developed a leak and was dripping out water at
>140F. He cut away some of the insulation, so that the water no longer
flows along the insulation and drips into the room, rather the leak now
flows onto the wall.

He said that at some point over the next few weeks, another crew would
come in and replace the 20ft long hot water pipe.

Net result: My room still looks like the previous picture, with the roof
tiles off. Added change being that we've moved out the computers that
were under the leak, since changing the pipe is going to involve water
splashing around the room.

I'm not sure when they are going to be getting around to fixing it. The
maintenance guy did say that since the semester has just ended, they
were very busy fixing things across campus that had been postponed due
to classes in session.

Banks and Facebook

I received an offer in the mail from a rather well known bank that
offered me a credit card with an added bonus.

If I joined their facebook group, they would credit me bonus 500 points
to their member-reward-program.
/rolleyes

I decided to decline their generous offer.

Why ?

Answers to questions I have received about the recent activity on my blog.

Q. Why the sudden flood of posts?

A. Multiple reasons --
(a) A very good friend of mine (Hi A!) reminded me that blogging is/could be fun.
(b) I remembered and reactivated the ability to post by email.
(c) I got something interesting things that could be posted without
problems.
(d) I have some extra time on my hands to send/make posts.
(e) For fun!

Q. Why all the Linux based posts?

A. I'm playing around with my Linux install, and figured (based on what
I've seen on other sites on the net) that using my blog to keep track of
methods/procedures to fix problems and make things work could be a
viable and potentially useful method. Plus the ability to email posts to
the blog has made it much more accessible.

Q. Does this mean that the blog will now be active/be updated regularly?

A. Unfortunately, No. If point (d) in Q1 (available time) drops, this
blog will be one of the first things to lose attention. I will (and
believe it or not, I do) update this blog when I get the time and
inclination to do so.

Roof Leak in HRBB

Roof Leak, originally uploaded by Suneil.

My office in the department developed a leak in the roof!
Maintenance said that it was a lack of insulation from the AC cooling pipes.

See bucket placed below to catch the drips.

Two days later, the bucket has 2 inches of water in it and no techs to fix said drip.

Bluetooth on Ubuntu Gutsy

If you get the message
"obex://[xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx]" is not a valid location."
when you try to connect to your BlueTooth enabled device using Gutsy,

Run the command:
sudo apt-get install gnome-vfs-obexftp

This should fix it.

(On Ubuntu Gutsy on Dell E1405 with built-in Bluetooth)

Primary Source : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BluetoothSetup
Secondary Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=580347

Car needs a wash

Car needs a wash, originally uploaded by Suneil.

Found this car parked outside my apartment this weekend.

Ubuntu - Dual Monitor support

How to get dual monitor support to work on my laptop on Ubuntu to get
multiple resolutions to work.

To make the second monitor goto the right of the LCD run:

xrandr --output VGA --right-of LVDS --auto

Hardware Setup:
Video Card: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express
Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
Laptop LCD: 1440x900
External Monitor: 1280x1024

Make sure xorg.conf has this:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS,
943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Modes "1440x900" "1280x1024"
Virtual 2720 1924
EndSubSection
EndSection

xorg.conf is in /etc/X11/

"Thank you" to Nikhil for making this work on my laptop

(This is for Ubuntu 7.10 - the Gutsy Gibbon.)

Lolcode

With all the lolcat pictures around (see http://icanhascheezburger.com/ or search for the Caturday thread on Fark) its only natural that the computer people come up with a programming language that takes into account all this awesome lolcat language. I was shown this website by one of my students www.lolcode.com

From the website:

[quote]
Programming the LOL way.

All LOLCats, LOL, ALL CAPS.

HAI! This site provides community documentation of the emergent LOLCODE language. It was the creator's original hope that the examples could grow in a way that is both internally consistent and suggest a real, feasible computing language.

[/quote]

To get you started off; here's the customary Hello World Program:

[code]
HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE
[/code]

Have fun with lolcode. www.lolcode.com

Meh !

I've been seeing the word "Meh" being used on the web --in emails and online communities lately. While the context of the word made it obvious that it was a form of a non-commital indifferent response, I wanted to figure out what its actual meaning was.
So I went a-exploring and found this definition on the urban-dictionary www.urbandictionary.com

Meh:

Meh is used to describe any and every word possible, including:
Yes
No
maybe
kind of
never
always
ok
alright
no thankyou
yes please
look b**** i really dont care so just shut the f*** up
if you want
whatever
If you wnat
i dont want to really
well
shut up
i dont really care
no honestly, i dont care...

...and is never explained on which is actually used...

"you wanna come round mine?"
"meh"
"whats that mean"
(told all of the definitions above)
"so which one? yes or no?"
"meh"
"that a yes?"
"meh"
"a no??"
"meh"
"a maybe???"
"meh?"
"maybe???"
"meh"
"look please tell me"
"meh"......

Small Earthquake

Wouldn't you know it ? I come to this new city, and it has an earthquake to welcome me !!

A tiny tremor happend around 4pm local time. The building shook, some pans rattled, the other person in the apartment felt it too. We both thought initially that the other person had moved something big or stomped around a bit, we then realised that it was probably a small earthquake.

Anyway, no damage was done, hence everything's fine.

The earthquake was recorded by the USGS on their website:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/catalogs/cap/nc51182114

Pale Blue Dot

This excerpt from A Pale Blue Dot was inspired by an image taken at Carl Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990.
As the spacecraft left our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, engineers turned it around for one last look at its home planet. Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away, and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane, when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun),Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.


Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.


The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.


It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.



-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

---

---

The content on this page originally came to me as a forwarded email. I decided to turn it into a webpage.

You can find out more about Carl Sagan on the web. Here are some starting points:


Entry on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_sagan)

NASA's StarChild Program page (http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/sagan.html)

The Carl Sagan Portal (http://www.carlsagan.com/) (More of a commercial site)

Malicious Program Mimics Windows Activation Scheme

Symantec has detected a new Trojan Horse on the loose that asks for your credit card information by pretending to be part of the Microsoft Activation package.

Read the story and see some screenshots here:
http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/security_response/weblog/2007/05/ms_needs_your_credit_card_deta.html

Symantec has published technical details and removal instructions at:
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2007-042705-0108-99&tabid=2

Doctor Who - Theme - Video

A behind the scenes look at the making of the theme song to the television series Doctor Who. (BBC)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDxFqw36KQ0

From the description of the show:

Footage of the early 80s remake of the doctor who theme song for the show of the same name by Peter Howell. Get a great behind-the-scenes view of how it was made and close glimpse at the equipment used (this is a portion of the Music Arcade - Radiophonic Workshop special)

(more)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDxFqw36KQ0

Instant Messenger Worm

I almost got infected by a Instant Messenger Worm today.

This evening I signed into Yahoo Messenger.
A few moments later, a good friend of mine logged in and sent me this seemingly harmless link, but before I could respond/click, this person logged out !

In and out in less than 30 seconds ? That's not like them...

I felt odd... so, I looked at the message/link carefully.

The accompanying message told me that it would lead to screenshots of a popular operating system. This message seemed ok to me as this friend of mine knows that I like computers :)

Looking at the link.. something did not feel right. Remembering the set of IM worms that have been around, I decided to try to search the web for some information. But what do I search for ?
The message text was too generic.. so, I decided to Google the name of the site that apparently the link pointed to...

and was I lucky...

This was an attempted infection by WORM_SOHANAD.AL.

A Win32 "Memory Resident Worm" , this worm attacks and propagates through Instant Messenging applications - specifically Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger/ Windows Messenger.

The said message contains a link to a remote copy of itself. When the recipient clicks the link, the copy is executed on the recipient's system.

The message it sends out has the following details:

-------Message: (any of the following)------------from trendmicro.com----

• :D who is beside you in this pic http://{BLOCKED}icknews.info/friendpic1.jpg so good-looking hot pics this week http://quicknews.info/hot.jpg :x
• ;) 1 of my vacation pictures http://{BLOCKED}icknews.info/vacation1.jpg <:-P
• ;) 1 of my vacation pictures http://{BLOCKED}icknews.info/vacation2.jpg <:-P
• Screenshot of new windows version _ Windows Vista http://{BLOCKED}icknews.info/vista.jpg so cool :D
• Images shot in Iraq _ The war will never end http://{BLOCKED}icknews.info/Iraqwar.jpg << :( • oh my god , i've won a 20000 usd lottery :O http://{BLOCKED}icknews.info/mylottery.jpg <<
• never click into the links like something in this image http://{BLOCKED}icknews.info/dontclick.jpg #:-S !!!
• :( the page cannot be displayed http://{BLOCKED}icknews.info/error.jpg Something was wrong !!!
• :( the page cannot be displayed http://{BLOCKED}icknews.info/error.jpg Something was wrong !!! Check it again and tell me later. THanks
• Do you realize who is in this image: http://{BLOCKED}icknews.info/who.jpg . Just think for a moment and tell me soon ;))

---------end messages-------------

This worm also replaces the status of the affected user with any of the abovementioned messages. For more indepth look at this worm, visit http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=WORM%5FSOHANAD%2EAL&VSect=T

So that explained it. Looks my friend's got this worm on their machine :(
I've sent them an email informing them of this.

Hope they fix it.
Luckily I escaped.
Moral of all this : "read before you click".

What can the wind do ?

What can the wind do ?
Ans: It can break window panes !

So here we are (me and my roommates) all doing our own work, when we hear this really loud smash followed by the sound of breaking flass. We investigate to find the area next to our front door splattered with broken glass...

What does this have to do with wind ?

We had a small thunderstorm tonight. All the sound and light effects and some really strong wind. So, a really strong gust of wind picked up a plastic chair from the corridor in front of the front door and hurled it at the window pane next to the door. Net result = a smashed pane of glass and our living room gets a shower of glass. Luckily no one was sitting on the couch right next to the window.

(See the picture of the smashed pane)

Books worth reading - Part 1

I've recently read two books which were really good in their content.
---------------------
1. Beyond Fear - Bruce Schneier - (Non-Fiction)

This books talks about how to think about security in the modern day world. Why you should not believe that it is possible for something to be completely safe or completely foolproof. He presents a five step approach to evaluating security and uses it in numerous examples in all sorts of situations. Completely written for the common man without any kind of jargon, this is definitely a great book.

Publication Details:

Author Bruce Schneier
Country United States
Language English
Publisher Copernicus Books
Released Sep 2003
Media type Print (Hardcover)
Pages 266 p.
ISBN 0-387-02620-7

http://www.schneier.com/book-beyondfear.html

---------------------
2. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious
Character " - Richard Feynman - (Non-Fiction)

This book is an edited collection of reminiscences by Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. The book covers his life history and is almost an autobiography. Starting from his childhood days on how he got interested in Science to his involvement in the WW-II projects with the US Army and his winning of the Nobel Prize, Dr Feynman presents an interesting insight into his experiences. This book brings about a unique perspective into the life of an Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Very refreshing book to read.

Publication Data:

Author Richard Feynman
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Autobiography, Biography, Non-fiction
Publisher W.W. Norton (USA)
Released 1985 (USA)
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback) also Audio book
Pages 350 p. (US hardcover edition)
322 p. (US paperback edition)
ISBN 0-393-01921-7 (US hardcover edition)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surely_You%27re_Joking%2C_Mr._Feynman%21&oldid=107077189
-------------

I will post more "Books worth reading" as I come across books that I
find unique/interesting

I am now officially an engineer

Almost a year after I graduated, I finally got my Degree Ceritificate from my undergraduate institution...

Feels good to get that piece of paper that certifies your qualifications.

See the snippet from the Degree Certificate >>

How the vi editor would look if Microsoft had developed it

Nice little animation. (warning for language content)

http://blogs.sun.com/marigan/entry/how_the_vi_editor_would

Found on Geekpress (www.geekpress.com)

"Microsoft Firefox 2007 Professional"

Here's something I never thought I would see...

 

A customized version of Firefox from (who ???)

Take a look at the site : www.msfirefox.com/microsoft-firefox/index.html

Now featuring (information from the site)

 

Secure my Kernel with TakeOver™
To help protect the Windows kernel being affected by unsafe code executions, Microsoft Firefox automatically notifies you of any programs that may put your computer at risk, and will take the necessary restarting/shutdown processes required to save Windows.

Competition Disabled Mode
To help troubleshoot difficulties launching Microsoft Firefox or reaching specific Microsoft websites, you have the ability to start in "No Competition" mode, where only system critical Microsoft sites can be accessed.

AKobe Phlash™ Multimedia Kit
This multimedia deployment package works in conjunction with the native Phlash™ Plugin that comes bundled with Microsoft Firefox 2007. Delivering, viewing and downloading customized interactive multimedia content has never been so simple. Learn More (Lawsuit from Adobe Pending)

Put safety first.
A robust new Microsoft security architecture known as TakeOver™ helps to protect the Windows Kernel from malicious, damaging and viral software such as Symantec and McAfee products.

 

 

"Microsoft Firefox 2007 Professional"

[Note: If you didn't get the all the hints, this is a Hoax, a rather elaborately planned one at that. ]

[Any and all trademarks mentioned here are property of their respective owners]
[this link was originally found on http://johnhesch.com/ ]

You know you're at A&M when...

You know you're at A&M when.....

- there are murals of farm scenes in the lecture halls
- Bats out number birds 2 to 1
- people beat the hell outta anything they don't like
- members of the corps yell at trees
- the president of the university is the U.S. Secretary of Defense
- luck can be bought in the form of pennies
- anything done twice is considered a tradition
- the band can beat up any other college bands.... and possibly their
football team
- a bike is a better form of transportation than a car
- walking to class and back is considered daily exercise
- cell phone service sucks on game days
- it takes only 5 people to make 85,000 sing and yell in unison
- maroon is a camouflage color
- mugged isn't a term used to describe the act of getting beat and robbed
- propane tanks and Bunsen burners are used to attract females
- you've had the best chocolate milk in the world
- people can snow ski when it is 100 degrees
- places to park on campus only exist in fairy tales
- construction crews build bridges for students... just so they won't walk
on the MSC grass
- a dog barking can mean the difference between passing or failing a class
- you can't say such words as "zipper" and "Elephant"..... unless you are
a senior
- elephants DIE at the end of the year
- cowboy hat, boots, and belt buckle = stylin
- overalls = even MORE stylin
- steam tunnels can create 2nd degree burns
- it is university policy that everyone carry protective rain gear at all
times
- Apaches, F-16s, and Chinooks fly overs are a part of everyday life
- swimming to class happens every once and a while
- every road has potholes or has been repaired 100000 times
- scooter cops ticket you for backing in to a parking spot
- getting a ticket by the police is inevitable
- tourists come and take pictures of Aggies "in their natural habitat"
- people try to guess the number of engines a train has as it passes by
- late night cravings for food only mean a trip to the c-store is pending
- football is life during the fall
*- the highest ranking member of the corps is a four-legged animal
*- you think cheerleaders are overrated
*- you hear the phrase "t.u." and don't think of Tulane or tennessee
*- you frequently hear/make phrases that start with "Fightin' Texas Aggie"
*- walking under a tree with someone means you're going to get married
*- guns are fired on campus first tuesday of the month
*- you've fallen asleep in just about every building with couches on campus
*- Club WCL is the place to be seen during test weeks
*- eating chick-fil-a everyday ends your plan to not gain the 'freshman 15'
*- traditions are taken seriously, such as Midnight yell, Touchdown
kisses, MSC grass.....
*- someone says Howdy in stead of Hi.
*- someone says Thanks and Gig'em.
*- you see the "pole guy" hanging on the pole on george bush drive.
*- you are hesitant to walk on grass. anywhere.
*- you wake up to the sound of construction work less than 100 yards away.
*- squirrels with collars are normal
*- the president of the university wears a t-shirt and shorts to help you
move in.
*- you sweat in early November.
*- burnt orange is banned from the visual spectrum
*- a blackout is looked upon with fondness.
*- a dozen or so students are jumping in ponds at midnight is a normal
occurrence.
*- 85,000 guys and girls "hump it" in public, and sometimes even on
National Television.
*- the doctors at Beutel diagnose EVERYONE as pregnant
*- hearing a very large gun go off after a touchdown doesn't bother you
*- your school song revolves around only one football game a year!
*- the winning shot of beating tu in a basketball game becomes the
highlight of the whole season, and is replayed in every Aggie Highlight
reel regarding the basketball team
- bike accidents happen more often than car accidents
- there are never enough bike racks
- the same person speaks on behalf of the "12th Man team Rewards Program"
at every home sporting event.
*- there is always free food somewhere on campus
*- 2000 guys wake up at the butt crack of dawn and go run around the world
singing songs and yelling
*- you get hissed at if you are from Austin
*- a senior boy can make a poor little freshmen girl do pushups for
however long he chooses if she pulls out
*- we pull out in public and its not what most people think it is
*- we can hump it, yell the word hell, say redass, and mug down all while
standing next to a 4 year old
*- it's almost like Christmas when the cookies are fresh
*- boots, spurs, khaki, and a goofy hat are in style when you are a senior
*- if you are in the corps. you don't have a first name
*- freshmen girls giggle and point when either reveille, a yell leader, or
stephen mcgee walks by
*- the rivalry between the north and south sides make you think there will
be another civil war
*- every other person has a picture of Kyle Field as the background on
their computer
*- the university always makes sure the dead mascots know the score of the
football game
*- freshmen beat out seniors and juniors in every major drill competition
in the country.
*- the bandsmen are always the first people awake in the fall.
*- 80,000 people interlocked in one giant hug is not considered offensive.
*- wildcats are not animals.
*- nobody, not even the opposing team, will voluntarily miss halftime.
*- you sit down in every class and notice that at least one person is
wearing the same aggie shirt as you.
*- you can make a large group of people whoop just by honking on northgate.
*- people are more proud of their Aggie Ring than they are of their
wedding ring.
*- Walking outside early in the morning and hearing the Aggie Band
constitutes a GREAT day.
*- People hiss their professors for giving pop quizzes.
*- the Chicken is not an animal
*- You can get yelled at for not taking off your hat or getting off the wood
*- you're made to do pushups for saying everyday words or numbers
*- clothes you carry logs with are never washed
*- the table is banged to end dinnertime
*- bonfire means an event that is over a month long
*- men dont build bonfire, bonfire builds men
*- bull refers to whether something is good or bad
*- You have more bars across the street from campus than bookstores and
fast food joints
*- You spend more time worrying about when you get your Aggie Ring than
when you are graduating
*- You will forever be known by ONE year for the rest of your life, no
matter how long or short that may be.
*- Everyone sings their school fight song at a dance hall every Thursday
at Midnight
*- You see the water tower and smoke stack and think "I'm home"
*- a tent sale is a big event in one's weekend
*- you have never read a newspaper till you came to A&M
*- you go to midnight yell so you can hear a good story
*- save a dollar every week just to buy a 12th man towel
*- a good addition to you car is a sticker
*- when you stadium holds more people than the population of the town its in
*- when every event, no matter how small, has an accompanying t-shirt.
*- when your reproduction of livestock professor points to a uterus in a
slide show with a fishing pole.
*- the cops drink your beer, whether or not you offer them one
*- when you have CarPool's number on speed dial.
*-When it's so windy outside that you can't even hear the person talking
on the other end of your cell phone
*- A bird aims a fresh one for the top of your head
*- if your bike has spent more than three hours on Northside, its likely
to be in a tree when you get back.
*- being redass doesn't require a paddle and sore hind-quarters
*- everyone understands waiting for the train to pass is a legitimate
excuse for being late
*- no one has any problem whatsoever when people dressed in all white are
thrown into a pond.
*- you don't graduate, you die
*- opening of dove season means only 1/4 the class will be present
*- cold weather means a switch from maroon to carhart brown
*- your wardrobe consists of maroon t-shirts.
*- you daily decide between cookies or fruit.
*- the day after Thanksgiving is as important as Thanksgiving day
*- You leave a class in medical school early to catch a flight to
Aggieland for a football game
*- Your apt/house is decorated at least 50% by maroon
*- You can spot a stranger with an aggie ring from 20 yards away
*- The time for Thanksgiving dinner revolves around the time it takes you
to get back for Yell Practice
*- Everyone's right hand is permently stuck in the Gig'em sign.
*- the finger you wear your Aggie Ring on is slightly deformed due to the
fact that you NEVER take your ring off.
*- your dad, his dad, and his dad all went to A&M and told you, "you can
go to school anywhere you want, but I'll only pay for you to go to Texas
A&M!"
*- (even when you're 6000 miles away) you are walking down Bond Street in
London after a hellicious day to hear another Aggie spot your class ring,
offer to buy you a pint and talk about how the best pizza rolls come from
Double Daves and the best drunk food nights were when Carpool took you
through Taco C before dropping you home.
*- you never lose a game, you just run out of time
*- when you say HOWDY instead of hi no matter where you are in the world.
*- you suddenly have tons of new friends at the end of the semester who
want to use your extra outbounds for free food!
*- you can be too drunk to walk from one bar to another, but you can still
walk back to Southside with complete confidence.
*- the clock tower has IIII instead of IV because it looks too much like
t.u.
*- even the trains know "Hullaballoo, Caneck Caneck!" and they sound off
as they pass through Aggieland
*- a bunch of people wear pots to cut wood
*- you know Jorvorskie Lane could take Chuck Norris and Jack Bauer down at
the same time.
*- the sprinklers come on ten minutes after it stops raining.
*- you go back home and forget that nobody takes AGGIEbucks.
*- you talk to the nice old lady at Sbisa more than your mom.
*- you spend more time on Facebook than on studying
*- you spend 30 minutes in the morning trying to decide which A&M shirt to
wear, because you can't remember
*- which one you wore yesterday because they are all maroon!
*- someone sees that you just missed the bus you were sprinting after and
asks if you need a ride
*- the campus police pull you over and give you a ticket ON YOUR BIKE!
*- any time you knock, tap, rap, or bang on anything, you do it with the
exact same rhythm as everyone else on campus, and it means, of all things,
"hullabaloo caneck caneck."
*- you randomly mutter 12-7 when you pass someone in burnt orange.
*- the radio starts playing "Friends in Low Places" on the bus, and
everybody starts singing along
*- you whoop after the line "you may now kiss your bride" at a wedding.
*- you hear a quiet whoop during a prayer.
*- anything that happend a year ago or more is "Old Army"
*- being refered to as "Old Army" is a compliment
*- your professor officially holds class at The Chicken
*- 42 is an official Aggie sport
*- your Aggie parents teach you the Aggie War Hymn before they teach you
Jesus Loves Me
*- running around campus in cammo with a Rifle over your head for several
miles, is considered an Honor.
*- when the traffic conditions in your town do a complete 180 if school is
not in session.
*- the tubas are called basses because tuba starts with "t.u."
*- you feel totally comfortable wearing an A&M T shirt, flips flops,
hoodie, and charm on your necklace at the same time
*- you see someone wearing orange and immediately think "tree-huggin hippie"
*- the mascot has her own credit card.
*- not owning a pair of boots is a crime.
*- your animal science prof gets so into the lecture he doesn't realize
he's said "inbreeding can be fun" until all 350 of his students are
laughing out loud.
- the temperature in the air can go from 80 degrees to 30 degrees in under
24 hours
- near the end of the semester, the c-store needs to restock again 10
minutes after it has restocked for the week.
- bikes get their own room for the winter
- the president of your university "humps it" as a final fairwell to the
university
- the president of your university says "beat the hell outta terrorism!"
- the student body does the yell "beat the hell outta terrorism"
- *You don't sing a "fight song" you sing a War Hymn
*- A bat flying around during your animal science final is a common
occurrence.
*- at the beginning of the semester, your animal science prof has to tell
class that dipping will not be allowed during class
*- you have hundreds of people yelling at you to "pick it up" after you
have dropped somthing in Sbisa.
*- you see people during the final exam that you didnt even know were in
your class.
*- you wake up every night either to the sound of a train or 2,000 singing
people.
*- you can spot someone with a brown sack or white to-go box and
immediately know they ate at Freebirds or Layne's.
*- your classmates share not only their class year, but the class years of
every family member who has EVER attended.
*- the dorms fight each other for pride

taken from the Facebook Group "You know you are from A&M when..."
http://tamu.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2220049511

SPOOF : Apple Recalls iPhone; Forgot to Include ‘Phone’ Feature

This story from BorowitzReport.com
Here's a good piece:

SPOOF : Apple Recalls iPhone; Forgot to Include 'Phone' Feature

http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=6682

Laptop Security Initiative

For the purpose of securing my laptop, I got some secuirty stickers for my computer. It comes as a pack of two. One on the lid and one next to the keyboard. Take a look at the images.




The image of the lid has a barcode and a tracking number (both blackened out since this image is on the web)

I got them from Computer Security (www.computersecurity.com) ,
The specific url is http://www.computersecurity.com/stop/


(as to why I came up with this... well, shortly before Christmas - some creep decided to test out a lock cutter on my bicycle lock and went away with my bicycle.)

Freezing Rain

"Its freezing here ! "

Literally ...
the temperature has dipped below 32F (0`C) here in College Station.
The a look at the current temperature reading (see picture )

The "feels like" value is the temperature drop caused by the wind-chill factor

(Picture is a screengrab from the website of weather.com)

We have an ice storm warning in progress.

Rain drops that reach the ground surface freeze and turn to ice. Some parts of town report having ice formed on the road.

Two nifty PDF Tools

Two nifty PDF tools that have made life simple

 

CutePDF :(Freeware) CutePdf is a software that can convert virtually any format document into a pdf file.

It installs itself as another printer on your machine, and from any program that you can print, just select the CutePDF printer and enter a filename, and voila, you have a pdf version of the same.

You can get Cutepdf from (www.cutepdf.com) while you are there, don't forget to grab the free GhostScript program that CutePdf also needs.

 

 

PDFSAM :(Freeware-OpenSource) PDFSAM or PDF Split And Merge, is a simple easy to use software that can split or merge pdf documents for you.

You can get pdfSAM from (www.pdfsam.org)

 

(PDF files require a pdf viewer to be installed on your machine. You can get a free copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html )

 

The names CutePDF and PDFSAM are owned by their respective owners. Adobe, Acrobat, Reader are trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Icon War

Do you know what happens while you are asleep and you leave your PC running all
night ? Click here to learn the shocking truth.

Thanks to Steve Bass of PC World for the link.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/tipsandtweaks/

You can get his newsletter by going here http://www.pcworld.com/resource/newsletters/index.asp?sub_source=NL_XB

Tom&Jerry Cartoons

A Tom and Jerry Cartoon from Google Video.

Cold in College Station

Its going to be 32`F in College Station today.
Look at the hourly forecasts to the left betwwen 11am and 3pm

<<

[32 degrees Farenheit = 0 degrees Celsius]

How to convert:
'F= (9/5)'C + 32
=> 'C = ('F-32)*(5/9)

(Click on the image(s) to see a larger view)

Thanksgiving Day

Nov 23rd, was Thanksgiving day here in the US.

 

Thanksgiving day has many significances, generally it is a day of expression of Gratitude to God for all the blessings of the previous year. It is also a day for family to gather together from afar and spend some time together. (This also makes it one of the most busy travel periods in the US and other parts of the world)

 

Wikipedia has a nice article on this day. Goto http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thanksgiving&oldid=89889167 and read up on it.

 

Chennai on Wikipedia

Did you know that, as of 2006, Chennai (Madras) has a population of 6,957,669 (about 7 million) ? I sure didn't. 

Take a look at this fascinating write-up on Chennai on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chennai&oldid=89717557

 

My homepage is now active

I finally managed to get my homepage on the Dept Website up and running.

Take a peek at http://students.cs.tamu.edu/suneil/

 

 

Quantum Relativity

Here's a quote I found a day or two back:

"Ever since the mathematicians got ahold of relativity, I find that even I
don't understand it." -Albert Einstein

Test from CS Mail Account

This is a test post from my CS Mail Account.

Test from Neo account

This is a test post from my Neo Account.

India Association hosts "dia"

An Indian Cultural Program was hosted today by the IA at the Rudder Theatre.
Named "dia" the program had Musical Performances, a Drama, an Antakshari event and more.

'dia' is a play on the word "diya" which means "lamp"

I couldn't go for it since I have a presentation due first thing tomorrow that's worth 30% of the course grade. I figure that gets more priority.

Some related links:

'dia' poster: http://dsa-stuorg.tamu.edu/ia/dia.html
What is Antakshari :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antakshari
Define 'diya':  http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Adiya&btnG=Search

Fire Alarm went off in the Department on Friday

We had a small fire alarm incident on Friday in our building.

We were in the midst of class on Friday. Around 11am just before class was to end, the fire alarm in the building went off. It was an interesting experience, considering that I've never experienced something like this before here.

In order to be compliant with accessibility regulations, the alarm system is supposed to be valid for people who are visually or aurally challenged. This meant that there was a loud warning buzzer, along with a strobe light that flashes about once every 5 seconds. This is accompanied by a automatic voice that tells you that the fire alarm has been activated, so please exit the building while this is being investigated.

There was no panic or confusion as people very calmly exited the building and went to wait outside as the physical plant staff arrived to investigate the situation. There was a joke making the rounds that someone was probably interested in getting out of a test or something.

Anyway, it turned out that someone in the basement was moving something on a cart when the cart bumped into the fire alarm switch, setting off the fire alarm.
So much for all the confusion.

Hello World 2

This blog goes active starting today.
I will be posting snippets from my day or just about anything I find interesting here.

Please leave me a comment if you find something interesting.

Thanks and Gig em'
(http://aggietraditions.tamu.edu/gigem.shtml)

This is a test post

This is a test post being emailed directly from my email account.
This way, I don't have to login to this site to post, rather I can just email the contents and they will get posted here.

Blog under going renovation

The template of this blog is undergoing massive renovation.
Please bear with me as I try to find a scheme that I like

Over the next couple of months, you can expect to see lots of changes in the colour and styling of this page.

Useful Online Utility

Go take a look at this interesting and useful service.
www.changedetection.com offers a "free" website monitoring service.

Let's say you want to know when a certain person's webpage is modified or changed in someway. Instead of manually trying to go look at the site every so often, let changedetection do it for you.

Goto their site, and enter the url of the site you want to monitor. Then enter your email id where you want to be notified.

That's all you have to do. Now, whenever the page that you are monitoring changes, changedetection.com will send you an email notifying you of the change.

November's Post

Exams are around the corner for most people I know.

In case you are reading this and want to spend some time, here are two links you really ought to pay a visit.

World Sunlight Map - A world map showing current sunlight and cloud cover, updated every minute. Its a cool way to spend a few minutes. Visit it over the course of a day...its cool to see your place move from being in the midst of sunlight to going dark.
(Thank you one of the hosts of G4Tech Tv's shows for the above link)

Live Sorting Algorithm Demo - How many sorting alogrithms do you know? Bubble sort / Merge Sort / Quick Sort/... what else? how about 17 different ones?
Want to know how one of these sorting algorithms work? Visit this site to get a graphical representation of how the algorithm works. (This site uses Flash, should work fine in both IE5+ and Firefox.)

All the best for the upcoming exams ...
...and those of you who don't have exams...well..take it easy then...

Catch you later!!

October's Post

Here's this month's post.

Its the month of Diwali in India.

If you want to know what is Diwali or learn something on its origins... take a look here...
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Adiwali

or visit this for one of the best write ups I have seen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali

So happy Diwali to all,
see ya!

Why no content? - Answered

I've had people ask me why my blog is empty and not having any content. So here's my reply.

I created this blog basically cause someone I know created a blog and to comment on that I needed a blogspot.com account.

Currently, updating this blog is not on my list of priorities.

It will become active in the future and there will be plenty of activity , but for the next couple of months, its going to be dormant, maybe one post in a month or two.

So hang around, thanks for dropping by and viewing this blog. Come back soon...

FootNote: One of my classmates has a blog up and running with plenty to read/ see. If you want to get an idea of what's going on in our class, pay his blog a visit. It can be found at http://praveenbabu.blogspot.com