My laptop Buying.

I shopped for a laptop at dell. Always refurbished. Stingy. Not exactly. I don't deserve my gadgets. To reduce guilt, I go for medium priced stuff. Why not low priced? Because I am addicted to games. And though games are cheap (pirated) , game machines aren't? Why don't these Chinese or somebody else pirate graphic cards or still better whole laptops?
But like with many things, I am getting tired of games.
What next, probably world travel. Hmm, that would be waste of gasoline. Books, they not longer attract me as they used to.
Time to reboot. :) Life , I mean.
Ok, what happened to laptop? I didn't buy. Postponed the decision.

Justice revisited.

I am aware of facts in a certain case. A murder case. The guy who murdered was definitely in the case. His relatives too were implicated. Like dad, uncles,... Not even half of them were aware of murder plan.
The family members of murdered guy naturally were vengeful. They wanted justice. And lower court delivered that. Life term.
Serves the accused right. Hmm, what about implicated innocents. There was no clear way of confirming who's involved and who's not? Benefit of doubt goes to...? Accused.
It was not the case here.
They went to higher court.Based on proceedings they were confident that, they will be freed. Judgement was reserved. And when it was delivered, it was no different.
There were attempts to influence judges by money. Probably by both parties. There is no way of knowing if it really took place.
A 30 yr old will be 40 by the time he comes out. And his father 60 yr old will be 70. At times violence doesn't pay much.
That said, I have some people on my list , whom I would like to bump off.

Naxalites, Maoists. An introduction.

Maoists , erstwhile naxalites who changed their name have their origins some 30 yrs ago, or probably still more. Naxalbari, a place in West Bengal lent it's name to this ultra left organisation.
I am told, initially professionals, educated youth go attracted to this movement and sacrificed their lives towards upliftment of downtrodden. Redistribution of land is foremost on their agenda. They are looking for new democractic revolution , power emanatin from barrel of gun.
There have been splinter groups, revisionists. State tried to supress them for over 30 yrs now. I am talking about Andhra, not chattisgarh, Nepal maoists.Couple of yrs ago, I guess, they have announced compact revolutionary zone extending from nepal to south india.
They have amalgamated organisation with MCC of Bihar and formed Maoist party. From what we see these days, it's only semi literate or illiterate people who get attracted to the party these days.
With constant onslaught from Andha Police, the strength has come down a lot in andhra and things worsened in Chattisgarh.
In past couple of months, atleast 5 top leaders have been killed in "encounters". usual protests that, they are fake encounters crop up. There are some frontal organisations for Maoists in guise of cultural organisations, civil liberties.
Nothing is what it seems. State has failed in providing reasonale justice, basic amenities to majority of population. Feudal culture continues. Large scale corruption, administration out of touch with lower strata of society. It can be scary at times.
If state wins, we will have to live with old systems, old mistakes and unsatisfactory lives. If maoists ever come to power (that's a remote, remote, remote possibility) it's going to be anarchy, upheavel.
Meanwhile stupid talk shows on TV continue. we continue with our silly lives.

Being Sentimental.

It's so passe, right? To remember times when one was sentimental, is it also stupid? To format the memories, to be unsentimental is cool.
And boring. To remember missteps, misplaced faith',corny emotions,..feel like puking everything. But whatever I am today is because of whatever I was.
Perfect life, postponed to next time.

$3,130

That's the money L.N Mittal makes in minute. Bill gates makes 6000+. Tiger Woods 171. Average american 8 cents. ...
http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/jul/18forbes1.htm

And I make 3 $ per minute. Err make that 3 cents, hmm probably 30 cents...Whatever. I am not going to buy expensive watches (except for girls), Porsche, an island somewhere or designer dresses.
So I guess I will do just fine with whatever money I am making.
And If you mntion my sons, that's a different story. They want to get trained at Power Rangers Academy, buy a helicopter of their own, the best laptop available to browse toondisneyindia.com . :)

Defeat Censor.

http://anonymouse.org

I hate this country.

I never thought India will censor websites. And like this. Al blogs on the domain blogspot are censored. And some other stuff too. What's this about? If this is democratic, forward thinking country, I will prefer some other country.
All these bored, perverted bureaucrats with nothing much to do...India will do better without a govt and bureaucracy.

Linus

"http://trends.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/07/15/2224218"

We immediately sought out Torvalds for his reaction to the story, trying our best to be sensitive to his mortally wounded ego. Here's the Q&A that ensued via email.

NewsForge: What's your reaction to allegedly having fallen from grace?

Torvalds: I will hunt them down, and personally kill every single Fortune reporter.

That will teach them. Mwhahahhaaahahaa!

NewsForge: Will you and Steve Ballmer form a 12-step recovery group as a consequence?

Torvalds: No. We're rivals in this, and I worry that Steve "ninja" Ballmer will find those reporters first, and use his magic chair-shaped shuriken to get to them before I do.

He's crafty, that Steve. And the company jet gives him a certain edge. But I will prevail!

NewsForge: Have you really made a billion dollars from Linux?

Torvalds: No. Linux was just the cover story. I made all my money smuggling drugs while traveling to international conferences under the guise of talking about "the future of technology" or some such tripe.

Did it never strike you that a lot of the people coming to Linux conferences were the long-haired hippie type, and seemed a bit spaced out? You thought that was because they were geeks, didn't you? It's an easy mistake to make.

It was the perfect cover.

NewsForge: Now that you're off the A list, will you go back to giving keynotes at LWCE?

Torvalds: I'm still on the A list of certain multi-national government agencies, so that's a very definitive no.

NewsForge: Do the kernel hackers still respect you anyway?

Torvalds: The long-haired hippie ones still do. Wink, wink.

Sorry

Sorry, these days, I am not being regular. Hmm, busy in mundane affairs, like making money. :( A friend was saying recently "it's rich people who say "I am not interested in money"".
Believe me, I am really not interested in money. Not that I am rich. ;) I am more interested in equilibrium. Equilibrium of things around me. I am scared of imbalances, sad faces around me, missing commitments, ...
If I had perfect planning, I would miss being tense most of time. But then laziness and planning don't go together.
I hate being lazy. But being planned is more boring. :)A lazy man takes luck as "recievable" that will not turn bad debt. Hmm, but it often does. And when it does, more trouble.
Ok,ok, forget all this nonsense. I am doing fine. And if allowed to live , will do much better.
:) Life is beautiful. Life is good.

Is this the war I was looking for?

Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iran.... Oile already touching 78$. I can't tae sides because, I am not aware of issues involved. But this looks bad. World doesn't have enough diplomatic resources to deal with N.Korea, Iran, Mid East conflict, Iraq simultaneosuly.
One or other would be neglected and that would lead to complications.But world isn't capable of sustaining long term war these days. Imagine oil touching 100$. Or say 5$ per barrel in US.
This situation, is it due to clash of civilisations? Or lack of democracy, or lack of oppurtunities for all?
Whatever, news will be interesting for next few days.

Bombay Blasts.

137,140,170,190,.... dead. 700 injured. Another blast, another day. Same doubts, same accusations. Same apathy.
It's just another statistic.
Sad, but true.

Parking Tickets and Corruption.

Some guys dig new ways of discovering the ways of world. 2 guys did a study of unpaid parking tickets to legally immune Diplomats from various countries. And they found a correlation between their behaviour and corrption back home.
Their findings in their own words.

"5. Conclusion
We exploit a unique natural experiment – the stationing in New York City of thousands of government officials from 146 countries from around the world – in a setting ofzero legal enforcement of parking violations to construct a revealed preference measure of official corruption. We find that this measure is strongly correlated with existing measures of home country corruption. This finding suggests that cultural
or social norms related to corruption are quite persistent: even when stationed thousands of miles away, diplomats behave in a manner highly reminiscent of officials in the home country. Norms related to corruption are apparently very deeply engrained.
The second main empirical finding is the strong correlation between affinity for the United States in the diplomat’s home country and parking violations in New York. This provides real-world empirical evidence that sentiments matter in economic decision-making. Of course, in the case we study the punishment for parking violations was essentially zero (at least in the pre-November 2002 period),
allowing individuals to indulge their tastes without penalty.
"

Discussion happening at
http://digg.com/offbeat_news/Average_Kuwaiti_diplomat_has_246.2_unpaid_New_York_parking_tickets.

And original PDF at

http://www.usc.edu/schools/business/FBE/seminars/papers/AE_4-28-06_FISMAN-parking.pdf

Pakistan is at 10th position and India is at 69th position. Something wrong with study? Or probably, we really have good diplomats.

Funny one.

Disclaimer: I am for reservations. Fully into them. BTW, I am for Israel:palestine war, America:Iran war. I am for any radical event that changes boring status quo. :)

My Gene Profile.

I spent 126$ on National Geographic genographic project.

From

http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=2346&itemType=PRODUCT



The Genographic Project is a global research partnership of National Geographic and IBM. With support for field research from the Waitt Family Foundation, Dr. Spencer Wells and a group of the world's leading scientists will attempt to collect and analyze more than 100,000 DNA samples from indigenous people all over the world. The goal of the Genographic Project is to learn about the migratory paths our ancestors took and how humankind populated the planet.

Not exactly my gene profile. But I want to confirm that my ancestor is Alexander/ Chengiz Khan. :)
Am I Aryan/ Dravidian/ Uber Human?
Hope my genes don't test limits of testing hardware. ;)

To be a Leader.

It's difficult to be a leader. You need to live upto expectations of all those follow you. And since they are not perfect (or why whould they choose you?), their aspirations too , at times would be unreasonable.
You don't know for sure, how much of their energies can be harnessed to achieve goals without that effort being called exploitation.
I used to dream about wars and leading armies. (like a zillion other kids) But I realise what a nearly impossible task it is.
You need to be in forefront of every battle. Or you would risk self criticism. (if you are like me , that is) You need to fight battles, you may not be ready for, or willing to for the sake of your followers.
At times you can't make peace with enemy even if conditions are ripe. Because you should live upto "Hero" image.
What do you get out of all this? Glory, fame,lack of peace of mind, hmm definitely material gains. What do you get if things go wrong? Life long infamy, lack of peace of mind,...Looks like a bad deal to me.
Who's focing you to be leader? None. Just allow to be lead by somebody. Follow orders. Get your daily ration. An risk dying anonymous.
Blue pill or red pill? I am tired, anything goes.