Coming out of the window and grabbing Tux

Its all about weighing
the options. After having linux installed on my comp for over a
semester, I finally made a move for migration. But such a drastic
step must not be taken blindly so I jotted down the pros n cons –

Pros

Stop being a software
pirate.

no more windows surprises.

dont have to restart after every little change.

learn more...i guess

NO VIRUSES

no hundreds of services n settings u will never need and not the one you want.

excellent awesome community and repository of how-tos, help and tutorials.

no annoying popups every now and then.

several freeware options in linus are i believe better and more precise than windows commercial versions.

supposed to be an excellent programming platform[:D]

geek factor.

faster than windows..and a specially designed 64 bit version...which fits nicely

CONS
Inertia...after having used windows for about 10 years..its down in the bones.
why fix what aint broken(too much)?
much less user-friendly i would say no matter what
have to figure out everything by my self.
many totally unexpected problems arise...tho solutions are almost always available on net....
not a very nice net connection(to say the least) of our almighty hostel.
compatibility problems....everyone else is using windows unless u make them switch..
GAMES dont run

well,
in the end...it takes a turning point...for it it was brought upon by
the even increasing no of viruses on my comp, turning the brute into a
wimp. Also, the especially annoying property of windows that you hardly
know whats wrong when somethings wrong. And after all, for every
student studying to be an engineer, tux should be a pal if he is to be
worth his salt.

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Object-Oriented Evolution?

There’s a distinct similarity, or should I call pattern, between the attitude of human beings and the paradigms of computer programming.
(Weird thoughts spontaneously develop whenever exams approach. Tomorrow is my CS paper and hence it is not really that astonishing that I am writing this)
Lets see, humans have till now always looked what options he has at the particular instant and chooses the one most lucrative one with quick returns. This is true at both the individual and collective level. And this is the cause of all the environmental mess we are in and all the battles history books are filled up with. Talking of individual, how many of us think for the betterment of the human race and life as such instead of personal instantaneous gain/comfort? (I am not accusing or preaching anything here, just penning down my thoughts) In programming, this is what we would call the ‘greedy’ algorithm, wherein we take the best choice available without future considerations, vis-à-vis what we were talking about. In fact, I read a bio book once ‘survival strategies’ where it said that all the evolution we see around us has been a result of no great egoless individuals of species but the collective spite of greedy lunatics (everyone is one it seems). And it seemed to have been mightily successful till now I would have to agree, seeing that the result has been a person capable of writing all this here, if not anything else.

But I guess greedy has run its course. For one, the resulting change is too slow and for another, there’s finally a life form sufficiently advanced to influence and regulate its own destiny, to change it, for better or for worse. Now, I would say it is time to switch to the ‘dynamic programming’ algorithm, where each generation build up upon the foundation of the previous one. This is imperative, for this is in our potential to do, and not doing so, though would not obstruct development, would make it at snail pace. Hence, living life just for the sake/fun of it makes you dispensable and inconsequential. To make a comparison, we must decide if with advancement, we become a wasteland like Tatooine(refer Star Wars) or a utopia like Terminus(refer Foundation, Isaac Asimov).

Brave New World

The familiar routine of college life has just started to set in again. As I entered my second year of college life, I resolved to get some good reading done. My first adventure in that direction was reading this post-modernist novel, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. To the uninitiated, this name may not mean anything, but this man was a highly controversial figure of the 1930s-1950s era. He endorsed the use of cocaine, earning him the honour of appearing on the cover of the album, Lucy in the Sky, by the Beatles- an ode to the drug culture of the 70s.

Anyway, that’s enough about the author. The book itself is about this post modern society, where the world is controlled by a group of scientists. Now, these guys have created a society where the only way to create babies is through test tubes. Women no longer have to go through labour. Not only that, the babies are mass produced in laboratories.

Now, you must remember that this book was written in an era where we were still unaware of DNA, and genetics was still mostly about messing around with pea plants.

The babies are then subjected to conditioning- both physical and mental. The entire process rests on the mental conditioning. People are tailored right from birth for some job or the other- so that there are castes in society- but unlike our own caste system, this system derives stability from the artificial conditioning they receive right at birth, so that people will feel happy only if they are working in their own specialized environment. So labourers never have any inclination to get educated and get rich.

Now comes the controversial part: since babies are mass produced, there is absolutely no concept of family. No mother, no father. In fact, people are conditioned to believe that these, and particularly mothers, are bad things- not to be mentioned in polite society. Monogamy is strictly frowned upon- so no marriage. So you must have relationships, preferably physical, with maany people at once. Children, right from ages 7-8, are encouraged to indulge in erotic play, so that they reach maturity faster and start contributing to the society sooner. There is no concept of an individual- the society is supreme.

This entire set-up is based on one fundamental premise- that the aim of human life is the attainment of happiness. So no radical books or poetry is allowed to disturb the public consciousness.

On the face of it, this society is perfect. There is no crime, no want, no sorrow-even if someone dies, for you are never attached to anyone.

Huxley then introduces a man who is like us into this society. He, of course, cudnt manage to adjust, and eventually commits suicide.

The beauty of the book is in how Huxley draws parallels between the modern world and that society. I saw this interview in which Huxley says that the current trend in which we are becoming more and more enslaved to technology is leading us towards a similar society, where we can be controlled by our material desires completely.

I think this is probably the most compelling argument against technology that I know of.

Huxley also talks a lot about mental conditioning. I got interested enough to check it out on wikipedia. Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_conditioning.
The precursors to this process are the conditioning experiments on dogs carried out by the Russian scientist, Pavlov. It's an extremely potent process- affecting your entire belief system. It leads you to wonder if there is actually any existence of an individual at all. And since all our beliefs are anyway shaped by other forces, what is actually real? Buddhism has a nice answer: the human mind is incapable of grasping true reality.

So there it is. No clear answer at all.

Hello

hey,
this is my first post on this blog. i tried to avoid blogging for quite some time.but like a few of my other friends, i have been peer pressurised into blogging too.though,after once starting ,i can hardly stop now. (well,there are some good effects of peer pressure).
until next time,
goodnight

Bloggermania!

Well, blogging seems to be the latest fad in in the group. With new blogs coming up every other day, its anyones guess how many will survive more than 3 posts. That is the condition the world over it seems(I am not overshooting myself here, I read it in a magazine). Many people start blogs with high ambitions (the easy to use n free services don’t hurt either) but after their initial venture just cant seem to be able to sit down for a while to collect their thoughts and write. I will not produce any judgment here, the same was the case with me but fortunately I was too idle to keep ignoring it for long. I guess its not that people don’t like to post but the tragedy of life is whenever they plan to sit down to write something else interesting(what do u expect when they sit in front of a computer) pops up which they rather be doing. And when they do have a brainwave of an idea…theres not a computer in sight(all from personal experience).

Well, so heres wishing everyone a happy blogging experience..its tough to move those fatty fingers every once in a while but the euphorism after posting is addictive!..

Some Extensions to improve your standard of life

Here are a few extensions (Firefox) after using which you won’t be able to imagine your life without them.
1. Video Downloader – watch videos on YouTube? Save them for posterity
2. Adblock Plus – remove the annoyances….while saving your bandwidth
3. Cooliris Previews – Really cool! Hover above a link to see the target window in a pop-up.
4. DownThemAll – Download manager for firefox.
5. FireFTP – FTP client for firefox, really useful if when you are in college.
6. PDF Download- Gives you options to download or preview when u click on a PDF link.
7. Greasemonkey – for the geek in you…really cool mother of plugins!
Of course search engine plugins of IMDB, Wkikipedia, Youtube are also quintessential for any amateur surfer. Also fun are the various skins (I currently use noia).

All this and more can be found on the official mozilla page. So if you are getting bored in summers, theres your day right there.

fool-n-final

one of those interminable days which have become a common feature of these hols, i started watching fool-n-final....now if you have seen the movie/hrd of it, please refrain frm making a judgement on my choice of movies...its all the fault of these hols...

neway, as i found out, the movie is an near exact copy of the movie 'snatch'...now snatch is one my fav movies ever....and it is literally painful to be watching sunny deol play brad pitt's part

so instead of the brad pitt's gypsy accent, u have sunny deol and gang sporting their punjabi...complete with 'puttar' and all

not ony tht, theyve introduced a heroine too...whn snatch didnt even have a girl even in the props...it makes u cry out loud

just whn u thought bollywood is finally improving....