We live in times were almost every news seen/heard is manipulated so much that the very reason for those news channel seems to be in no longer delivering news but getting more ads. Here are few such instances.
*)What They Reported :
"American President advices Americans to not travel to India". Mr.Chidambaram "talks tough" saying "We will ask their government to retract their statement as India is a secure country".
I saw this news and was amazed for such a statement from their President would do no good in improving the relationship between the two countries. Then they showed the actual videos of what the two people had said.
What Actually Happened:
American President tells Americans in India to be always alert and keep a low profile due to the recent terrorist activities in our country. (No mention of "Don't go" there). Our Home Minister when asked about this said "I am not aware of any such statement. If they given such a statement we will tell them to take it back".
After a few hours the "If" part was cut out and only the "Take it back" was shown. And they ran this piece for the full day!
*)What They Reported :
"Dhoni loses cool : The Sehwag Injury Fiasco"
"Sehwag hid his injury on his shoulder from the BCCI and the Captain and it was akward for Dhoni when details of the injury was asked. This happens after Dhoni reportedly clashed with his Vice-Captain Sehwag.Dhoni then lost his calm..."
Then a video where a reporter blamed Dhoni for leaking the news. Dhoni - coolly - asked him "Are you blaming? No, you just said I leaked the news in front all these people. So are you accusing me?..." Ofcourse after an hour all this was cut out. Only the "Are you accusing me" bit was shown with other videos of ppl diving in the recent IPL. Hmm
What Actually Happened:
Sehwag got injured in IPL. Everyone hoped he would recover in time. He didn't. So the injury was revealed. So all that happend was an injured player was sent back to India. This piece of news ran for quite a few days!
*) I got this as a forward in my cell :)
"Sun News has put this as a "breaking news" : 'Masilamani is great hit' in their channel. Is this really a news? What a pathetic situation."
Thank God there a few -very few actually- who still try and deliver the actual news. Cheers to them for honesty and others for imagination.
Iyyo Iyyo
This is a conversation my dad overheard in the bus when he came from Chennai to Madurai to visit me. It was during the err 'Alagar going around the city festival' when a group of people spray water on who ever they can.
...
Guy X : Ya, I am new to the city.
Guy Y : This is a big festival sir. You know me and my parents have lived many years in Chennai. But the crowd here is so much more than in Chennai ( The "crowded" place was looking like a half empty Ranganathan street!).
Guy X : Oh, I didn't know Madurai was such a big place.
Guy Y : It is sir. After the next turn is the Kamarajar Salai. It is the Madurai equivalent of Mount Road (Whaaaaaaaat???). Its as long as Mount Road. Maybe longer(Omg!). There is also new complex coming in that road like that Spencer Plaza...
(Unfortuntately my dad had to get down on the Kamarajar Salai stop where my house is. Pity we missed the rest of the conversation)
Pride on hometown is ok dude. But this kinda "reel vudrathu" is just too much!
...
Guy X : Ya, I am new to the city.
Guy Y : This is a big festival sir. You know me and my parents have lived many years in Chennai. But the crowd here is so much more than in Chennai ( The "crowded" place was looking like a half empty Ranganathan street!).
Guy X : Oh, I didn't know Madurai was such a big place.
Guy Y : It is sir. After the next turn is the Kamarajar Salai. It is the Madurai equivalent of Mount Road (Whaaaaaaaat???). Its as long as Mount Road. Maybe longer(Omg!). There is also new complex coming in that road like that Spencer Plaza...
(Unfortuntately my dad had to get down on the Kamarajar Salai stop where my house is. Pity we missed the rest of the conversation)
Pride on hometown is ok dude. But this kinda "reel vudrathu" is just too much!
No Single Soul
My life for long has been so bare,
For none came to show me some care,
Life for me had once been much better,
For I got no single soul to talk.
I feel my old friends are very far away,
For they have all gone their own way;
Now I have these new people 'round me,
Yet I got no single soul to talk.
Few people did make me open my mind,
And they all seemed to be very kind;
But in the end all I feel is regret,
So I got no single soul to talk.
They seemed to find my words so funny,
Yet every word I said was said in pain;
They made jokes of my memories and so,
Now I got no single soul to talk.
For none came to show me some care,
Life for me had once been much better,
For I got no single soul to talk.
I feel my old friends are very far away,
For they have all gone their own way;
Now I have these new people 'round me,
Yet I got no single soul to talk.
Few people did make me open my mind,
And they all seemed to be very kind;
But in the end all I feel is regret,
So I got no single soul to talk.
They seemed to find my words so funny,
Yet every word I said was said in pain;
They made jokes of my memories and so,
Now I got no single soul to talk.
What's gone wrong???
- Empty seats in the IPL matches. No jam-packed crowd for a twenty 20 match?
- Yet to see a 200 plus score in this IPL.
- Still no joy for Ferrari :(
- A debut team is having - to quote from espnstar.com - "too much brute force for his rivals to seriously compete".
- Neither Raikkonen nor Hamilton have a won a race so far this season!
- The face of Roger Federer with the Champion's cup is in the papers no more.
- Manchester United lost a semi final!
- Berbatov is running - yes running! - during a game.
- My happy-go-lucky friend says "I ve studied couple of units in SS". (And we re only in the study holidays)
- My geeky friend says "seriously me full time ipl,epl and fpl only".
- And I am suddenly having thoughts about studying during study holidays. (Hopefully these feelings will go away for they are very disturbing).
- Yet to see a 200 plus score in this IPL.
- Still no joy for Ferrari :(
- A debut team is having - to quote from espnstar.com - "too much brute force for his rivals to seriously compete".
- Neither Raikkonen nor Hamilton have a won a race so far this season!
- The face of Roger Federer with the Champion's cup is in the papers no more.
- Manchester United lost a semi final!
- Berbatov is running - yes running! - during a game.
- My happy-go-lucky friend says "I ve studied couple of units in SS". (And we re only in the study holidays)
- My geeky friend says "seriously me full time ipl,epl and fpl only".
- And I am suddenly having thoughts about studying during study holidays. (Hopefully these feelings will go away for they are very disturbing).
Intel 945G - Not The Worst?
I have owned a computer for as long as I can remember. And none of the computers I owned ever had one of em "dedicated"( ah, how I hate that word) graphic cards. Guess the main reason for that is my father knows good deal about computers and hence knows "graphic cards" means "hardcore-gaming". And let's face it. No father is gonna let their son ruin(are so they are led to believe) their lives playing games 24x7. Hence I have always been left to contend with the Intel 945G chipset(now that's another word I have grown to dread).
I can never forgot the times I had to sit through half an hour of solid installation only to be shown a message like this (accompanied of course by the all-too-famous Bump! sound). After a few more double clicks I would be forced to accept the painful truth.
Couldn't they just do a small test before the actual installation in lieu of wasting my time and tell me that their high-end game makes my PC a goner? Ah, fate does enjoy such petty moments I guess.
Of course few games did run on my PC. And I am very thankful for that. The better games that have been kind enough to run on my PC were Warrior Within, T2T, NFS MW and FIFA(after a lot of prayers, 09 worked) etc. It goes without saying that these didn't look at their best but hey, anything is better than that error message na. This was all before that fateful day when I was googling for fun.
For people who share my lugubriousness in gaming, I have two words. SwiftShader and 3d-Analyzer. I stumbled upon these softwares and they provided, inter alia, an option for "emulating HW TnL capabilities". My eyes immediately lit up because the absence of this "HW TnL"(no idea what it actually is) was sited as one of the reasons why games failed to run on my PC. Hence I tried to gives these a try.
The error message shown in the pic came when I tried to run Return Of The King. And being a huge fan of LoTR I was much disappointed.I tried the game with 3d-analyze and it worked! I was kinda taken aback by this uncanny behaviour showed by my PC. RoTK turned out to be a pretty decent game in the end :)
And the good news didn't stop there. A whole other bunch of games which had previously belittled my PC suddenly worked fine. The list included Splinter Cell, Portal, Deus Ex2 etc. But as with all things, they too had their shortcomings. A few other games failed too. Inspite of that, I finally decided that the Intel chipset(that word now seems ok) was after all, not the worst in the buisness.
P.S : To people who have "high-end" PCs I have this to say - "A day will come when you too shall hear the Bump! error"
I can never forgot the times I had to sit through half an hour of solid installation only to be shown a message like this (accompanied of course by the all-too-famous Bump! sound). After a few more double clicks I would be forced to accept the painful truth.
Couldn't they just do a small test before the actual installation in lieu of wasting my time and tell me that their high-end game makes my PC a goner? Ah, fate does enjoy such petty moments I guess.
Of course few games did run on my PC. And I am very thankful for that. The better games that have been kind enough to run on my PC were Warrior Within, T2T, NFS MW and FIFA(after a lot of prayers, 09 worked) etc. It goes without saying that these didn't look at their best but hey, anything is better than that error message na. This was all before that fateful day when I was googling for fun.
For people who share my lugubriousness in gaming, I have two words. SwiftShader and 3d-Analyzer. I stumbled upon these softwares and they provided, inter alia, an option for "emulating HW TnL capabilities". My eyes immediately lit up because the absence of this "HW TnL"(no idea what it actually is) was sited as one of the reasons why games failed to run on my PC. Hence I tried to gives these a try.
The error message shown in the pic came when I tried to run Return Of The King. And being a huge fan of LoTR I was much disappointed.I tried the game with 3d-analyze and it worked! I was kinda taken aback by this uncanny behaviour showed by my PC. RoTK turned out to be a pretty decent game in the end :)
And the good news didn't stop there. A whole other bunch of games which had previously belittled my PC suddenly worked fine. The list included Splinter Cell, Portal, Deus Ex2 etc. But as with all things, they too had their shortcomings. A few other games failed too. Inspite of that, I finally decided that the Intel chipset(that word now seems ok) was after all, not the worst in the buisness.
P.S : To people who have "high-end" PCs I have this to say - "A day will come when you too shall hear the Bump! error"
Time Travel - Myth or Fact
Time traveling is one of the most fascinating branches of physics. The very idea of taking a peek into our future - in the literal sense - and watching our past actions kindles the heart. Scientifically time travel has never been proved. On the other hand, there is no actual proof or theory to deny such a possibility. Let's take a look at some of the interesting theories proposed for this.
The idea closest to time traveling that has strong scientific foundations is time dilation. Time dilation is the idea wherein the clock of a moving person appears to be 'running' slowly when compared to the clock of a stationary person. There is too way of explaining this - special relativity and general relativity. Time dilation and time traveling can be combined in this way. Say me and my friend are at rest with our watches showing 9 am each. If he remains stationary and I start running really fast, then technically my watch would run faster than his. For eg my watch would perhaps show 9 10 am and his would show 9 8 am. Thus I would be in the future when compared to him.
There is also another theory that suggests that objects moving faster than the speed of light would time travel. Let us analyze this logically. If I run faster than the speed of light ( theoretically ofcourse ;) ) and say I turn back. The light particles behind me would fail to reach me and hence I would see only black - the absence of light. I cannot fathom what we would see if he straight ahead. I leave it to your imagination.
Another interesting possiblity arises when time - as every measurable constant possibly - is seen as a relative variable. Consider a man living one light year from us. Now we can see what he does only after one year. Hence he knows stuff happening there before we do - that is he is, technically in the future when compared to our time frame. The reverse is also true i.e. we are living in the past when compared to him.
When considering the possibility of time traveling, we must also consider what will happen if we do manage to travel in time. The only possible idea seems to be the thoery of multiple universes. Like Michael Crichton said in 'Timeline' perhaps the universe is constantly dividing into different universities where the different possiblities of an event happens. For eg an universe where I win the Kriya blog contest, one where my blog gets deleted, one where I am heavily criticed for my works here etc. Now arises one interesting question. If we do time travel, which of these possible universities will we land up in? Can we choose any one? Your guess is as good as mine.
As Stephen Hawking suggested, the absence of people visiting us from the future suggests the absence of time travelin. But then this is not enough evidence to decide the idea as an impossibilty.
While considering all these fascinating theories, one question reamins unconsidered. Where is the Hand Of God come into play when we talk of time traveling? Or is it God that stops us from jumping from one time frame to another?
The idea closest to time traveling that has strong scientific foundations is time dilation. Time dilation is the idea wherein the clock of a moving person appears to be 'running' slowly when compared to the clock of a stationary person. There is too way of explaining this - special relativity and general relativity. Time dilation and time traveling can be combined in this way. Say me and my friend are at rest with our watches showing 9 am each. If he remains stationary and I start running really fast, then technically my watch would run faster than his. For eg my watch would perhaps show 9 10 am and his would show 9 8 am. Thus I would be in the future when compared to him.
There is also another theory that suggests that objects moving faster than the speed of light would time travel. Let us analyze this logically. If I run faster than the speed of light ( theoretically ofcourse ;) ) and say I turn back. The light particles behind me would fail to reach me and hence I would see only black - the absence of light. I cannot fathom what we would see if he straight ahead. I leave it to your imagination.
Another interesting possiblity arises when time - as every measurable constant possibly - is seen as a relative variable. Consider a man living one light year from us. Now we can see what he does only after one year. Hence he knows stuff happening there before we do - that is he is, technically in the future when compared to our time frame. The reverse is also true i.e. we are living in the past when compared to him.
When considering the possibility of time traveling, we must also consider what will happen if we do manage to travel in time. The only possible idea seems to be the thoery of multiple universes. Like Michael Crichton said in 'Timeline' perhaps the universe is constantly dividing into different universities where the different possiblities of an event happens. For eg an universe where I win the Kriya blog contest, one where my blog gets deleted, one where I am heavily criticed for my works here etc. Now arises one interesting question. If we do time travel, which of these possible universities will we land up in? Can we choose any one? Your guess is as good as mine.
As Stephen Hawking suggested, the absence of people visiting us from the future suggests the absence of time travelin. But then this is not enough evidence to decide the idea as an impossibilty.
While considering all these fascinating theories, one question reamins unconsidered. Where is the Hand Of God come into play when we talk of time traveling? Or is it God that stops us from jumping from one time frame to another?
From Licensed To Open Source
For years I had been a user of the Windows OS. I came to know about the concept of Open Source only during my late schooling days. That was thanks to a chapter dedicated to Linux in my 11th which explained in great detail about the commands used in Linux. For someone used to doing stuff by click-and-point actions I was not very impressed by this new idea. Hence my first impression of Linux was that it was not user-friendly.
As I started my college, the words "Open Source" and "Linux" seemed to pop up everywhere. Hence I decided to check out this non-user-friendly difficult-to-use (or so I thought) Linux . Enter Ubuntu. I was asked too many questions during installation. At one point I was so confused I gave up installing it half-way.After few days and some advise from friends, I successfully installed Ubuntu in my PC. A feeling of satisfaction filled me :D
In the next few days, I struggled through the ways of Ubuntu. The GNU available was the only familiar thing compared to Windows. I found myself using the Terminal more and more ( I haven't used DOS for more than ten minutes totally in all my life). Yet in those few days I learned more than what I had learned from all the time I used in Windows. Soon the only reason I logged into Windows was to play FIFA which being an EXE file would not normally run in a Linux Distro.
After all this I began to wonder why the Open Source softwares where not widely used. The migration seemed too slow considering the lucrative offer Open Source was. I discussed this with my brothers - all working in big multi national companies - and found out few reasons for this lack of migration.
- Most of the companies have such large storage of data that the migration would take months - valuable time which cannot be wasted in this competitve world.
- The lack of technical skills available when it comes to handling Open Source applications. Most people feel comfortable with Windows rather than Linux.
- The muscle power of the big multi-national companies. These companies can simply buy off - thanks to their huge revenue - the smaller Open Source softwares.
- While Open Source is a collection of ideas from all over the world, the Licensed products comes from a single source.This means the latter has much greater unity compared to the former.
The basic difference between the Windows and Linux can be best explained by this example. Windows is like an automated car - you don't need to do much but lose the control over the system and Linux is like a geared car - you have much to do with which comes full control. It is upto the people to choose between the two.