A Leap of Faith

Life is a comedy. I mean comedy in not a funny way, but an oddly satirical and ironical way. You don’t always get what you wish for. Sometimes when you do get things that you wish for, you feel cheated because what you got was something that you had imagined to be good in your own way, and is now no longer relevant as you now know the truth. You feel cheated, when you don’t get what you wish for- you blame a higher power. But then, things don’t exactly turn out what they seem to be and you find out that it was good without it, because something better awaited your way.

The irony of life is you can’t really know what is good or bad till you know it, and even then you can’t be sure.

I was lost then. I am lost now, but I hope am not wandering aimlessly any more. I often recall the following from Lord of the Rings:

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

In the rat race of doing things the way other people do it, I believe I lost myself. Too often, we resist doing we feel is right, we resist following our impulses in doing as to what we believe is good, we resist doing in what we believe will make us happy.

I no longer want to be a rat. I no longer want to run.

FLY!

Yes, that is what I want. For once, when you finally think of something amazing, the idea catches up with you. You can longer be happy with running on the ground, for you have tasted flight- that gush of wind in your face, that thrill of flight.

All that is required is a Leap of Faith!

The Story of My Experiments with Linux-II

So, finally I found an almost perfect Linux laptop. I admit I had my doubts initially before buying this machine, but when I finally decided to take the plunge, it turned out to be worth it. A Dell Inspiron 3437. It is almost perfect as it does not feature an Intel WiFi card. The rig comes with an Nvidia GeForce 720m. I would have much rather preferred a 740m, but then in India, this is as close to perfection as it can be.

 

What the laptops does have is:

 

• Core i5 4200- U
• 4 GB Ram DDR3 clocked at 1600 Mhz
• and 4-5 hours of battery life.

This is pretty much awesome I think.

Now, Dell has a history of ruining Windows OS with their own bloatware. I thought maybe Linux would escape unscathed. On the contrary it was even worse. They had not only bloated it, but ruined it!

How?

Well, with the proprietary OEM drivers for WiFi. The driver registered with the kernel as a module. So, as soon as I pulled a kernel upgrade, wham! The WiFi stopped working as the previously installed module was not compatible with the current kernel. And, that was the end of the story.

I obviously, had to reformat the whole laptop, but this time to my satisfaction. Moreover, instead of the buggy Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, this time I installed Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander. I can’t ever recall a LTS version I have hated more than 12.04. Everything will break down eventually if you are using 12.04. Stuff works so much more smoothly in 13.10. Moreover, 13.10 contains updated builds of almost every package. If you are not using these, you are literally left out. To say 12.04 wasn’t properly planned or was overly ambitious and presumptuous would be a gross understatement. I almost considered switching from Ubuntu to maybe Linux Mint or Debian-unstable.

Now, that I am using 13.10, I am loving it. As of now, I am running a MySQL server and a self-programmed Web Crawler on my machine since this past week. Needless to say, the machine response is pretty much awesome. The CPU usage is hardly 5 per cent.

I do have a plan to push the CPU usage to 100% by using a brute force decryption tool. But that is a story reserved for some another day.

PS: I still hate Unity, but have learned to admire it for its ability to not break even when hell cometh over. I still wish to try Xfce though, but then, since, I am using my Linux machine as a development platform, my willingness to experiment has diminished in favour of stability. I need my machine to be available. I still have my fun, and a couple of scripts up my sleeve, which I will share soon.

The Story of My Experiments with Linux

 

Almost 4 years ago, I started playing with Linux. I started with Red Hat but it wasn’t long before I switched to Ubuntu. It was the summer of 2009. A good one. I still have fond memories of that time.

 

I have for the most part self-taught myself Linux. I however am still not an advanced user, as I still haven’t custom compiled a kernel for my machine, nor can I fix problems on my fingertips. I however can google a lot and read through forums and fix a problem for you should one arise. I have also over the years learned to recognize when the given solution in a forum is crap and when it will work.

 

The purpose for me writing this post. When I started playing with linux, it often led to system downtime. My father, with whom I used to share my home desktop system with instead offered to buy me a laptop- Dell Studio 15. A machine which I later realised had more design faults than pros.

 

Moreover, my choice of configuration especially and specifically the processor has wreaked havoc- Intel Core i3 clocked at 2.4 Ghz. I had selected this processor due to its 32 nm MOSFET, believing that it would produce less heat and will optimise my battery life. However, my personal practical observations with comparison to Core i5 have proven otherwise.

 

I am sad and not for the lack of trying. I have tried everything, well mostly. Like I mentioned, I still haven’t tried installing/using a custom compiled kernel. It may help, it may not. I am not sure. To be honest, I feel lazy after 4 years to try this. Maybe, it will be my swan song. Maybe not. It will be a crazy one night stand. Let that night come. That is another matter.

 

I have installed linux, repeatedly. I loved Ubuntu 9.04. Those were the days when they used to ship original installation media all over the world. I still have mine, with the original packing. The second version that I fell in love with was 10.04. It was a very stable version and I admit a very robust one as well.

 

My love for Ubuntu took a beating when they unified and the default version started bundling Unity interface. It took another downfall, when I got over my fascination of GNOME 3. It simply isn’t worth it. If any package breaks (read: any fun with the graphics driver) it falls back to GNOME 2. I mean, I liked GNOME 2, but I will use it on my own free will, not when I intend using GNOME 3. If you think I am confused, I am not. I am just a difficult person.

 

Every time, I have installed Linux I spent the next week customising the look and feel of the core operating system. The menus, the desktop gadgets. Everything. It’s hell of job, because not everything works. But then I like my eye-candies. Some things work which work easily in Unity don’t work at all in GNOME 3, or some other environment. Why? You may ask. And I have no answer. The linux community is heavily biased, they feel that people will install some of these gadgets in some particular desktop environment only. These people will never bother testing them on XFCE, LDE, or Cinnamon.

 

Why? Because fuck you. That’s why.

 

You must suffer.

 

And so I did. After one painful week, I would be done customising, looking over all the problems, installing different stuff. And then, something as simple as a kernel update means that some of these settings are not compatible anymore. I have to do it all over again.

Or, that my system is behaving like a heater, that I don’t need heating in my room anymore. I have to turn it off. Worst still, I have to reboot and load up Windows. I love Windows. It’s the greatest and the most robust operating system I have used till date. I mean to say I haven’t used Mac, yet.

 

So, overheating issues coupled up with persistent issues, meant I never installed Linux for more than 3 months at a stretch on my laptop.

 

However, in an interesting turn of events, I thought of buying a new laptop. This time with a more carefully selected specifications.

• 14 inch screen- to make it portable
• Intel Core i5 4200U- well it wasn’t going to be Core i3 obviously and so an undervolted Core i5 to boost battery life.
• 4 GB Ram
• At least 1 GB Discrete NVIDIA graphics card preferably 740M but even 720 or 730 would do.
• Intel Wireless Adapter
• Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

 

I don’t care for hard drive space or RAM as they can be upgraded by loosening a couple of screws. No big deal.

 

The specs that I have put together, I expected to pull it in at around 45k INR. 50k being the upper limit. I expected there to be at least 4 models at this spec sheet from different manufacturers. What I have wound up with was Windows 8 laptops which would each offer me a Windows experience and that too only with some partial set of these specifications.

I don’t expect manufacturers to spring up with my custom spec sheet. But this is something decent, and not exactly out of the blue or weird or unheard off. This in my honest opinion is a decent rig and anybody would be happy to have it.

 

What irritates me the most is not even the unavailability of a laptop with these specs, but the tendency of OEM units to bundle these machines with Windows. Not that I hate Windows or anything, but shouldn’t it be my choice whether I need an Operating System or not. And to top it all, they then gloat over this supposedly genius idea of forcing people to pay for software that they are never going to use. I mean what is with the bundling, especially in Indian sub-context. Not everyone pirates Windows. And, even if I admit that I have in the past, and intend to do it again in future. Then,

 

So fucking WHAT? What are you going to do about it? I would like to see you try.

Microsoft makes money not through personal home users, but by corporate sales and support, and even though a significant chunk of their revenues is down the drain due to piracy, but then Microsoft knows exactly when each copy of Windows is pirated and they take pride that they have invaded our homes and offices and eventually our personal lives through their sometimes substandard piece of software which absolutely refuses to perform what it promised.

 

You might talk about buying a cheap linux laptop, but I don’t like the cheap stuff, and for obvious reason if you still haven’t understood why, then I suggest you to stop reading further.

 

This is my cue to end, because I see people in black uniforms and helicopters hovering outside my Windows. Seems like Microsoft got wind of my little piracy admittance.

Disclaimer: The writer proclaims that this article is a work of fiction, and any fact or declaration can not to be held against him for it may not be true. If proven otherwise, it’s one of those funny little comedy of errors called as “the coincident” which means the Universe is trying to screw him. Please Universe, that is quite enough. Thank You.

Living Life: The Way of the Dunedain

 

People often remark that life is short. Be happy, stay focused. What these people will oft also reflect is that to do some things, they also had leave out some others which they had absolutely loved. For instance, giving up on some hobby like reading, travelling, playing a musical instrument, learning a new language. They often lament that how despite achieving a significant amount of success in terms of money, fame and even love. They had to give up on some things. Why?

There wasn’t enough time.

Last night I had an epiphany. I wished I were a Dunedain. Why?

Because they were tall, with dark hair, pale skin and grey eyes and benefited from longer life-spans (three times the life of a regular man) than ordinary men and could retain their youth until the very end of their days.


Fuck!

Thrice the lifespan and young till the very end! That is not just amazing, that is THE

DREAM!


In case, you still don't get the reference. The Dunedain- the Men of the West, were an ancient race in the Middle Earth who descended from the Numenoreans. All hail Tolkien! I love Lord of the Rings.

Currently, I

• Have books on my reading list, which if I were to read one book a day, may take me around 3 years to finish. And that is just reading them, thinking and talking about them will take an entire lifetime (a normal man’s lifetime, not the royally descended one as that of a Dunedain).

• I have enough music on my playlist that if I were to listen continuously to it 24x7, the playlist runs into years. With so many artist and their music still not discovered, imagine.

• Want to learn Spanish, and maybe French.

• Have projects/ideas which need time to implement and all my focus and energy.

• Maybe want to learn to play the piano or violin.

I want to do it all. I abso-fucking-lutely want to do it all. On top of this, I also want to enjoy doing it all. Sharing it with my friends, family and all the people I love.

Why we are as people limited by just one lifetime’s worth? We can only read as much, listen as much, and share as much.

Why?

The prospect of me thinking about all these things makes me excitingly happy and sad at the same time. Happy because these are the things I love. Sad, for obvious reasons and time being the limiting factor that I would have to give up most of these things.

My one and only wish is that whatever happens- whether I get to do it all or not. I just don’t want to have regrets. They say when you are on your deathbed, your life flashes in front of your eyes, I don’t believe it.

But, just in case.

If it happens, I want a brightly coloured neon sign which says, “NO REGRETS”.

The Freedom of Offensive Choices

 

I like my freedom of choice. I may not use it. But I like the notion of knowing that you are free to do what you choose to do and when you choose to do it. I like the idea of a world without borders. Internet censorship, restricting services, blocking certain resources simply because a particular organization or the government in your country thinks that this material is offensive.

SO FUCKING WHAT?

I will decide if it’s offensive, and if it is offensive, I would like to remind you that there’s a nice close button on the application browser for you to close. Better still, don’t like what you see? Then you don’t have to open it to see it’s still there. You have a choice. I like having that choice. What I don’t like is a bunch of hypocrites deciding for me.

The best way to circumvent any firewall is to use the Tor network. It’s an online open source network which uses chained proxy settings and routes packets in an unconventional manner, which makes it impossible for a firewall to guess the destination of the packet. Moreover, unlike OpenVPN the settings are localised and not system wide. The downside is that only one application can use the proxy at a time. Which means you can either use it for surfing or for downloading torrents (or some other application). But not both at the same time.

Setting up the Tor network for web browsing is the easiest part. Using the Tor proxy to download torrents is a tricky one.

Setting up Tor

1) Download the Tor browser bundle from the project homepage and extract.

2) Start the Tor browser

3) The Tor browser will establish the connection and open an instance of the Tor browser which is nothing but a portable version of Firefox.

4) In case, your network restricts how Tor connects, you will need to add Tor bridges. Please refer to the Tor project homepage to see how to add bridges or simply Google it.

5) Now before you can start using Tor proxy, you need to configure a few options. Open the settings from the Vidalia control panel.

6) Now, change your settings to these.

7) Your Tor proxy is ready!

Using Tor proxy for watching videos and web surfing!

In the Tor browser, you can’t really watch videos on YouTube. So if you need to do that you will need to configure the desktop version of Firefox browser to use your tor proxy.

Socks host : 127.0.0.1  

Port: 9050

Using Tor proxy to download torrents!

If you want to download torrents through Tor proxy, you will need to make the following changes.

If your Firewall blocks UDP trackers then you need to disable UDP trackers and add http trackers to your torrents. Block UDP trackers through this setting.

You are now done, and can download torrents on almost all networks through this tutorial.

Please let me know if these settings don’t work for you, or if you encounter any problems. I also welcome your views and suggestions for more ingenious methods to bypass network firewalls.

Disclaimer: It’s illegal to download copyright stuff through torrents. Some organizations make it illegal to bypass firewalls that they have set. It has been proven through research that downloading torrents through Tor networks does not guarantee you anonymity. User discretion is advised. Don’t get caught!       

It's your fucking fault

Satya Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft Technologies. Yes, this is big news for him. Fuck! This is the definition for big.

Yes. For HIM.

Not for me, not for you, and certainly not for India.

Simply, because he is a person of Indian origin, yes that is how they refer to themselves these days. He is just that, he is not Indian. He is as much Indian, as Miley Cyrus is.

Let’s talk more about what he is not.

He is not an IITian, which means he didn’t enter the great Indian circus of- get into IIT, get placed big, make your life. He didn’t. He did get placed, and made his life big though.

To come to think of it, if even eight years back when I was preparing to be a rat, if somebody had told me about this guy, I would have laughed him off. His own parents might have been disappointed when he went to the private MIT of India, where I still wouldn’t go, because it’s Tier 3.

Who’s having the last laugh now? Not me.

So, why the sudden rant on this guy, for whom I don’t exist? (And an inconsequential non-existence for good reason as well)

Because he reminds me, of what each of us can be. What we miss out while we bum and wait for things to happen.

As I write this blog post. I am currently listening to some of the best modern music on Pandora, by using Tor proxy network, while I reside in Delhi- the heart of India. Only in India you will find that people will proudly proclaim Delhi being the heart of India. Apparently, we proclaim pride that our so-called heart is biased to the right and not correctly placed to the left. But, it feels right, so I guess it’s okay to put up stupid metaphors which don’t even make a geographically correct statement.

But I digress. Let me return. Pandora is restricted when it comes to India. You can’t subscribe to this super awesome service which allows you to listen to music for free. You have to try it to believe me. But you can’t. Because you will have to hack, you will have to do things which might seem more complicated than simply typing Pandora.com in your browser window. Why do we have such an insane amount of bozos running this country like Rahul Gandhi who is now in his middle ages, still not married, and who can’t do anything without his mother censoring him.

Our system. Anything. Be it politics, educational institutes. Everything. Everything has been designed to keep people out. It’s an exclusive system, and not an inclusive system. It’s easier to get into Harvard or any ivy league insti than getting into an IIT. It’s even more difficult to get your kid into nursery school than it is getting into an IIT.

Every year, year after year of bullshit. We hear the same story. Things don’t change. They never will. People have to change.

And if you want to change. If you wish to make a change. Fuck the people. They will be there when you make it big, they will also be the ones who pull you down, and they will also be the ones who will bury you deep in shit when you fail.

Who would have thought about some guy born somewhere in India, going to college somewhere in India (because it’s not a place if it’s not IIT) making it so big that the world has to stop because and take a look.

You did it man. You made it! Congratulations!

This is my cue to shut down my laptop and go to sleep.

Nokia IndiBlogger Meet: Your Wish Is My App

To describe myself as brand loyal would be an overstatement, as I will switch loyalties the second a brand disappoints me. When it comes to Nokia, I have never been disappointed. Over the years I have owned three mobile phones- Nokia 6275 CDMA, Nokia E63 and currently using Nokia Lumia 720. So, it was a nice to hear that Nokia collaborated with IndiBlogger again for the second season for Your Wish Is My App program- an initiative to find the most creative and the best ideas from none other than but the people who use these phones. This program is in sync with Nokia’s very own ideology of “Connecting People” and I find it refreshing that a brand cares so much. The most successful businesses in the world have always been about people.

IndiBlogger had organised the meet at the Oberoi Hotel, New Delhi. It’s a really nice place, and the venue couldn’t have been better. The food, the drinks, and the ambience were no less than awesome. The evening was hosted by Rajiv Makhni, Vikas Khanna and Vishal Gondol.

 

The evening started with Kartik introducing a masked man posing as everybody including Ms. Poonam, who later on addressed us and introduced us to the YWMA program. Mr. P Balaji, MD@ Nokia then gave us real insights into the philosophy behind the program, and how user perception of mobile has transformed over the decade.

 

There were a lot of engaging activities which had everyone picking their brains for ideas. The friendly banter between the hosts Rajiv Makhni and Vikas Khanna over food related applications were no less entertaining. They had everyone in splits.

My app idea: Augmented Reality- Connecting People

Nokia recently introduced a concept of Augmented Reality. The technology is really simple, you simply open an app such as Nokia City Lens and look around through that app as if you were taking a photograph, but what you really see is hotspots around you- places of interest for dining, exploring, cafes, maybe some museum, an art exhibition etc.

I was thinking, why not use the same technology for doing what Nokia does best? Connecting People!

This augmented reality lens can be used to find and chat with other people, people can make their profiles and share some information such as their interests, a status update on this public profile they wish to share with other people, and this way they could communicate and meet new people, make new friends! People can now never complain about not knowing other people when you go to someplace different.

This app can also be used in more than one way, for instance, people all over the world often share cabs at airports. One could simply integrate it as a feature into the app, all you would have to do is look through the app and find the person who wants to go to the same destination as yours. And voila!

This idea is really unique and good as it underlines the core philosophy of Nokia- the people. It connects them, and there’s some real synergy between what’s being said and done at Nokia.

This is my entry for IndiBlogger and Nokia Your Wish Is My App program, and I really do hope that this idea is converted into an app.

So, till the next IndiBlogger meet when we all come together, I part with HURR HURR!