Shell Age - Manfred looking for Ellie

Absolutely hilarious article here.

There is a sad truth to the world today. I am part of a dying breed of people known as "shell users." We are an old-fashioned bunch, preferring the warm glow of a green screen full of text over the cold blockiness of a graphical interface. We use ssh, scp, and even occassionally ftp. Back in the days before high-speed connections ("broadband"), we would dial up during off-hours to avoid being slammed with huge phone bills. The whole "Microsoft Windows" fad will fade away sooner or later, but in the interim, our kind is facing extinction.

Because there are fewer and fewer of us, I must help keep our lineage alive. I am looking for someone to help me do this. I need a woman (obviously) who is willing to raise a child with me in the method of Unix. Our child will be introduced to computers at a young age, and will be setting emacs mode before any other child can even read. I earn a sufficient income to support a family in modest comfort. Other than the fact our child will be bright, text-based and sarcastic, we will otherwise be a normal family. We will even go to Disney World and see Mickey Mouse.

So, if you are a woman between the ages of 23 and 43 who is ready to raise a child in the way of the shell, let me know so we can begin the process. (If you are ready to raise more than one child, even better.)

PS - yes, this is for real. Given the right person, I would obviously propose before we ... call fork().
PPS - I only set emacs mode for my ksh session. I only edit files using vi. Just wanted to clear that up. And I'm looking to raise the child(ren) as a dedicated couple, so if you aren't interested in being married, you may wish to select() a different posting.

N.B. - on the issue of relocation. I live in a place where my income/expense ratio is proper (i.e., greater than 2:1). I'm willing to live anywhere in the world where this remains true. I've been to much of the country as well as foreign nations. There are no limits to where I will live *so long as the job market for unix admins is robust enough to be sustainable.* And yes, I am interested in a strictly monogamous situation. I've been known to actually turn down offers of "two chicks at the same time."

An even more hilarious discussion about this article here.

Of elevators and people !!

We have 2 elevators in the building where our office is, which are controlled by a central dispatch pad located on each floor. A very typical setting nowadays ..... I know ...... nothing out-of-the-world about this ..... I know ..... but given the number of people using elevators thus described ..... why do they commit the same *stupid* mistakes ..... I do NOT know !!!!

Seriously, everyday, I come across at least one person, who commits at least one of these. And if you have the time and the patience, do observe that person carefully (well, maybe not too carefully, if it were a lady, she might just slap you), it could also tell you quite a bit about the personality.

So ..... you are inside the elevator (going up or down doesn't make a difference), and you reach your floor. The doors open, and this horde of people just starts barging in !!! I mean, take a look around people, you have the entire corridor to yourselves (how many ever you might be), and there's not more than 6 or 7 of us inside this cubicle of 5' x 5' !! Not only that, but most of the times, some of us are wanting to alight, which is going to make SPACE FOR YOU to come in !!!!! Can you not hold on for a couple of seconds ?? Take a cue from the local train commuters in Mumbai ..... :-)

Why do people think that they are so important, that they should TELL the elevator, where it should be going ? So ..... a person, who has to travel to the ground floor, is standing on floor 3 (lets say, of a 6 storey building). Both the elevators are at some floor below him, and SO, this person presses the UP key. And this is because he feels that the lift should be coming UP, in order to pick him up, and take him to his destination !! Dude, you should not be telling the lift where IT should go, you should be telling it where YOU want to go !! Is this asking too much, is this not common-sense ? Do you tell a shopkeeper what HE should be selling, or do you tell him what YOU want to buy ???

And then, there are those people, who feel that they are so smart, that only when their divine fingers touch the keypad, will the elevator move, and all those stranded on this floor would be saved !! So ..... you are on the lowest floor (parking or ground or whatever), meaning everybody HAS to travel up. Somebody has already pressed the UP button, very clearly advertised by the red indicator light. In spite of this, this person walks up, rather impatiently, and purposefully pushes the same button far into the wall, and that too a number of times !! My good man, we still do not have finger-print recognition on the elevator control pads, in buildings with IT offices (which is a lot of buildings), in India, for you pressing the key to make a difference. Or do you just want to show off in front of the well-dressed female (standing alongside me, though not with me), that you have something very important awaiting you upstairs (which is incidentally not important enough for him to take the steps :-)) ??

Obviously, you also get to see a combination of these categories, and mark my words, it DOES tell you a lot about the personalities. Let me not get into HOW for now, because I am still in the process of evolving my theorems in this context :-).

To end, all I can do, is empathise with the poor lift-man (who casts knowing, help-less glances at me and my like, especially when his elevator stops mid-way for no apparent reason, and the other patrons look at him rather accusingly), and appeal to the above described category of people as:
"My dear people using elevators, please also use your brains too once in a while!!"

A related and very interesting article here.

मेरा जहाँ ......

Great work Mr. Prasoon Joshi (lyricist), Mr. Shankar, Mr. Ehsaan, Mr. Loy (Music) and Mr. Adnan Sami (for his dreamy voice, and dreams is basically what this song is all about :-)).

A little sweet, a little sour,
A little close, not too far.
All I need, all I need, all I need,
Is, to be free !!

चूम लू मैं, इतना करीब,
चल पडू, तो कितना दूर .....
सपनो का बुना sweater सा warm,
सफेद बादलों के पार .....

मेरा जहाँ !!!!!!!

Let me in, without a shout,
Let me in, I have a doubt.
Let me in, without a shout,
Let me in, I have a doubt.
There are more, many more,
Many many, many more, like me !!!!

अकेला नही मैं,
खुली आखों से, नीन्द मे चलता,
गिरता ज्यादा, कम संभलता,
फ़िर भी न कोई, शक ना शुबा,
निकलेगा फ़िर से, सूरज जो डूबा,
हैरत हो सबको, ऐसा अजूबा
है ..... मेरा जहाँ !!!!!!!

Open eyes, how I run,
How I run to the other side,
Then I glide, like a bird,
I just want to be !!!!!!!

उड़ने को सौ पंख दिये है,
चढ़ने को खुला आसमा .....
मुड़ने को है करवट, करवट,
और बढ़ने को ..... मेरा जहाँ !!!!!!!

बचपन के, दिन चार,
ना आएँगे बार बार,
जिले जिले, मेरे यार,
जेब खाली, तो उधार,
जी जिंदगी ..... !!!!!

A lot has already been said about the movie, so no point in re-iterating. Excellent movie, very well handled, and backed up some awesome music and lyrics.

Sachin's Cricket Ground

Seriously, why don't they just re-christen the "Sydney Cricket Ground" to be called the "Sachin's Cricket Ground" ??

4 matches, 6 innings, 4 not-out's, 652 runs at a whooping average of 326.00, 3 centuries and just the 1 fifty. And all of this is just till date (the second innings is yet to commence :-)).
[courtesy: stats.cricinfo.com]

Whatever happens to the match, I do not care ...... because The Man is back (if he ever was away) ...... the jinx is broken (if it ever was there) !!!

Also, I would like to thank Bhajji from the bottom-most part of my heart, stomach, whatever ..... for staying put through an entire session, unlike some others (who should not be in the team in the first place, especially for this series).

Long Live The Little Master !!

The Prologue

The urge to write this post has been derived from the most recent India-Pakistan match, held on last Friday, as part of the ongoing T20 World Cup. I do not wish to review it, or put it my *expert* comments on the same. But the match reminded me of another match that was played about 10 odd years ago.

Since I want to describe the incident in its true detail, I have decided to split it into 3 parts :-).

Disclaimer:

This story is *not* a figment of my imagination. All characters and incidents in this story are real (I have put in links to people's orkut profiles wherever possible), and there is no question about the characters having any resemblance to characters living or dead, since as I said, all this is true !!

The Prologue:

Mumbai, about 10 odd years ago. There is a craze in Mumbai for under-arm cricket, which is for some reason, looked down upon by the rest of India (as far as I have known). They have tournaments (under lights as well, nowadays) at various levels of expertise. I will not get into the rules of the game, but believe me when I tell you, it requires the exact same set of skills you need to do well at over-arm cricket, and a lot more !!

We (the team of our building) had been a bunch of underdogs for the last 2-3 years that we'd been participating, but this year we were actually well prepared and kind of looked upon as a strong contender by the other teams. We called ourselves "Six Squares" (the number of our building was 36 :-p). In fact, we were so well prepared, that we had enough people to form 2 teams of our own - namely 36A, comprising of the senior members (though all were below 16, cause it was a U-16 event), and 36B, comprising of the relatively junior (read kachchaa) players.

Another interesting fact, was that the captains of both our teams, were brothers. And also the junior-most members of the respective teams, meaning that all strategic decisions were made by everybody other than the captain, and if things were to go wrong, the captain would be the one to blame :-). Newyz, each team comprsed of 8 players. I don't think I remember the composition of the teams exactly, but here is what I recollect:

36A - Akhil (c), Arun, Ajith, Lovely, Pathak, Takla, Amit, Chikara
36B - Abhishek (c), Mota, Bantu, Pranav, Alan, Guy from Ajith's building, Nalwaya, Varun

Both teams started off well. 36A did very well (as expected), and 36B did exceptionally well, mainly because of the bowling exploits of their captain, arguably the most prodigious under-arm leg-spinner in the tournament, and some high spirited team management by Mota.

Both teams registered very crucial (and memorable) wins in their respective league matches, which were supposed to be followed by the Semis.
36A got the better of 35, arch rivals, seperated by just a wall (complete with India-Pakistan like hostility, on and off the field. We, of course, were India :-)). 35 had players like Gaggu, Zaid, Lotsy, etc. who were part of their over-arm teams as well, which had no age-limit. We, for that matter, also were part of our over-arm team, but that was because none of the seniors from our building were ever interested (which is why we never took part in the over-arm tournament :-p). I think I would attribute that win to some excellent batting by Lovely and Arun, and a blinder of a catch that Ajith took, to dismiss Gaggu. We were heroes when we went back to the building in the break :-D
36B, not to left behind, and riding on luck big time, got the better out of 47, who called themselves the "Fighting Tigers". They were very strong contenders themselves, with Deepak as the captain, and Amit (tailor) as the hard-hitting all-rounder. 36B actually won because of Nalwaya's hanuman style hitting, and more importantly a second last ball 6 hit by the guy from Ajth's building, which travelled all along the ground at a height of not more than 6 inches.

The camaraderie between both our teams uptill this point in the tournament had been enviable, with the seniors guiding the game plan of the juniors, and the juniors shouting their hearts out to support the seniors. And then it dawned upon the 16 involved. The second semi-final to be played was 36A Vs. 36B !!!!!

Nastik (Sandeep Khare)

Okay, I realise 2 things as I start writing this post:
a) I have not written in a long time, but I have managed to make a comeback of sorts, and not doing exactly what I did not want to do here.
b) As the title suggests, this post is about the famed कविता by the same name by Sandeep Khare.
(it took me about 3 minutes to type in that piece in देवनागरी , which is why I skipped writing the name of the poem or the poet again :-p).

I know that this poem has been talked about as well as posted on *n* number of blogs, websites, as well as communities. So it makes no sense for me to put it up over here. But the extent to which I have been able to identify with this piece of prose, I could not *not* put this up here (maybe for no one else's reading pleasure, but my own :-)).

So here goes ......

एक खराखुरा नास्तिक जेव्हा देवळा बाहेर थांबतो
तेव्हा खरे तर गाभार्यातच भर पडत असते
की कोणीतरी आपआपल्या पुर्ता सत्याशी का होइना
पण प्रामाणिक पणे चिक्टून राहील्याच्या पुण्याइची !

(When a true atheist stands outside a temple
Some offering is actually being made to the altar
Of the goodwill, that at least someone, loyally stands behind his belief,
Even if it is a selfish one)

एक खराखुरा नास्तिक जेव्हा देवळा बाहेर थांबतो
तेव्हा होते निर्माण
देवाने आपला आळस झटकून देवळा बाहेर येण्याची !

(When a true atheist stands outside a temple
It generates a need for God to shirk his sluggishness
And step outside the temple)

एक खराखुरा नास्तिक जेव्हा देवळा बाहेर थांबतो
तेव्हा कोर्या नाजरेने पाहत राहतो
सभोवतालच्या हाल चाली, भाविकांच्या जात्रा.......
कोणितरी स्वतःचे ओझे , स्वतःच्या पायांवर
सांभाळत असल्याचे समाधान लाभते देवालाच !

(When a true atheist stands outside the temple
He listlessly looks upon the happenings in his surroundings,
hordes of believers.......
God Himself feels the satisfaction
that somebody is bearing his onus on his own shoulders !)

म्हणून तर एक खराखुरा नास्तिक जेव्हा देवळा बाहेर थांबतो
तेव्हा देवाला एक भक्त कमी मिळत असेल कदाचित !
पण मिळते अकंठ समाधान एक सहकारी लाभल्याच

(Which is why when an atheist stands outside the temple
Maybe God gets deprived of a follower
But He feels the enormous satisfaction
of having gained a colleague)

देेऊळ बंद झाल्यावर एक मरट आळस देऊन
बाहेर तातकाळलेल्या नास्तिकाशी गप्पा मारता मारता
देव म्हणतो, "दर्शन देत जा अधून मधून...............
तुमचा नसेल विश्वास आमच्यावर,
पण आमचा तर आहे ना !"

(When the temple closes down,
As God has a lazy chat with the atheist stranded outside,
God says to him, "Keep visiting...............
You might not believe in me,
But I believe in you !")

देवळा बाहेर थांबलेला एक खराखुरा नास्तिक
कंटाळलेल्या देवाला मोठ्या मिन्नत्वरिने पाठवतो देवळात
तेव्हा कुठे अनंत वर्षे आपण घेऊ शकतो दर्शन
आस्तिकवातच्या भर्जरी शालित गुद्मरलेल्या देवाचे.................

(The atheist standing outside the temple finally sends the
weary God back into the temple with much persuasion
Which is when, for countless years to come, we can pay homage to
the God, who is smothered in the expensive shawl
showered upon Him by theists.................)

True Sandeep Khare fans, please excuse me if I have not been able to translate the words so as to hold true the exact meeting intended, but this is what I understood and related too :-)

Also, I have very desperately wanted to put the actual stanzas in the देवनागरी script, but believe me that is a hell of a tedious job. However, I intend to keep converting it into the देवनागरी script as I get time.

Be spiritual, not religious !!! :-)

Update: Thanks to Google (and Salil), I have been able to convert the text into the देवनागरी script in almost no time (compared to what it took for me to write कविता using KDE Keyboard Map :-p). I know there are still a few mistakes, which will be sorted out soon. :-)

It is but "Natural"

A senior of mine had been speaking about one for quite some time. The same guy finally got one for himself. I'd been looking at it and wondering for a long time, as to how in the world would it be possible to use it. Then I reached a level of competency where I could actually use one myself. And today I finally got myself one of those.

*satisfied smile*

The one in the story above refers to this.

I have always been fascinated by people who can type without casting a single glance at their fingers (I understand that this is not something to be fascinated about. but I really was). It almost seems like they are speaking, maybe because their eyes never lose focus !! And now, after completing more than 2 years of handling a keyboard continuously (and having lost the ability to use a pencil), I can almost do exactly that :-). I remember how contented I had felt when I had first been able to type my password without looking down, I'd practically told about it to a good friend of mine :-p.

Newyz, coming back to today, because of my incessant practice on my laptop, the keys got screwed big time. To the extent, that I got used to using the screwed up keys the way they respond :-D. And today for some reason, I had an urge to go get a new keyboard for myself, and now if I was going to get one, why not one which takes care of me ergonomically. Hence, the Natural Multimedia Keyboard from Microsoft.

So now, even though I am very proud of owning, and being able to use one, I still hate a few things about it, as follows (in order of appearance in the last 6 hours):

• The fact that it has been designed by Microsoft (I don't know when I might have to restart my keyboard :-p)
• It costs way more than its other simpler counterpart input devices, and its possession may be termed as extravagance on my part.
• Since I have not configured most of the other keys as yet, I am in a position where I can make my machine sleep in one click, but I do not know how to wake it up. (I choose to blame it on Microsoft ;-)).
  
• Throughout the writing of this post, I have kept pressing an "N" when I want to write a "B" (ditto for "T" and "Y").
• I have an uneasy feeling, that the keyboard on my laptop is going to feel left out, a soutan kinda feeling :-(.
  

In spite of this though, now I am looking forward to spending on otherwise busy Sunday, configuring the unused keys, and making nice things happen to my XGL setup, thanks to this writeup.

And now I can sleep peacefully, knowing that there is at least one disorder that I am guarded against.