Wednesday, October 18, 2006

How they built Stone Henge

I have seen lots of stupid things on YouTube. This is not one of them:

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Mozzies Rule

They are at every corner, every turn, turn of the lights and there they are, turn of the fans and they attack. They are the mosquitoes (mozzies) and they rule.

Epidemic in Delhi, epidemic in Kerala, both caused by the mosquitoes, do you think they care if the government doesn't declare an epidemic yet? I live in Melbourne and am spared by the mosquito bites and also spared from biting the mosquitoes when I accidentally open my mouth while riding my bike. But, I am seriously worried about the state of affairs in India at the moment.

Foresight is not a human thing, humans do not necessarily plan for the future. No one acts on preventing or preparing themselves against future issues. Just look at our environment. I am sure the relatives and friends of the people who have been killed in the Mumbai blasts in July are very upset at what happened to them, but are any of us upset now? It didn't affect any of us did it?

So, why now should we worry about Chikungunya or Dengue? It is happening somewhere in Delhi, and it is happening somewhere in Kerala, the rest of us are not dying, yet. I say it can happen to any of us, we live in the same society, poor mosquitoes do not know the rich from the poor, ask Manmohan Singh.

I have met Indian men here, no doubt very intelligent, came from top schools and got top grades, they will not think twice before opening up their zippers to relieve themselves on Indian streets. The women, will not mind for their husbands/boyfriends doing that. After all, applying that education to some civic sense is not filling up their bank accounts is it? They daren't do that here overseas, they might get fined. Economic sense over Civic sense makes common sense.

Too, the same educated junta will quote the Geeta and try to explain Hindu rituals scientifically. Do not eat non-vegetarian food twice a week, not only is God happy with that, it keeps your digestive system well-oiled, scientific you see. God is also very happy with the cleanliness of your house, as long as you make sure the banana peel is not dropped in your room.

So, when I tell them India is having issues like these epidemics, they do not blink and say, 'Urine and shit does not cause Dengue or Chikungunya', bring on Plague again I say. Then we will do something about it: blame the government.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Funny ads on Radio

On the radio while driving back to work.

Advertise your car to sell for free in our newspaper and you will go in the draw to win a free glass tint


!!!!

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Of Time and its management

So, when the timing to create a new blog just wasn't right. Especially when a friend had to set up shop in my room to complete Uni assignments, increasing the productivity of my PC. I think my PC was well utilised, coz the friend is expecting good marks.

Networking jobs usually have long shifts, kinda like the interns at hospitals, who have to work 48 hours at a time. Which is a scary thought, imagine you having a deep cut on your back and you get to the Emergency Room to be invited by the residenty sleepy, imagine him or her(for the PC*) to be drowsy while putting those stitches.

Ok, my job does not have 48 hour shift thankfully. I got a 10 hour shift though. Which means not much time to sit down and pour out the thoughts into bits on the PC**. There are quite a few things for me to learn, one of them being time management. So, will hopefully keep this blog updated.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

How to save Youtube Files and Convert them

Reading the title makes me think I am some kind of evangelist. I seriously get annoyed when we do a google search for something like that and get no step-by-step information for this. Me being technical can figure it out if I really want to. But wonder how much trouble someone less associated with the computer's million types of configurations.

Ok, so this old friend of mine has her assignment and part of it is to submit a video file which was on youtube. How to save them:

  1. Make sure you are using Firefox to watch the video. Get it from here - http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ . There is a reason for this IE downloads your video twice.
  2. Copy the link of the video (e.g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkTpUxh8Vxc) from the address bar of Firefox.
  3. Paste the link in this site http://www.youtubex.com and click on download. Now if you were using Firefox to watch the video and then click on download the download is instantaneous. But if you were using Internet Explorer the video downloads again. It has downloaded before when you were watching it.
  4. Once the file is downloaded, rename it with .flv extension.
  5. There are quite a few softwares to convert a flv file to mpeg or other video formats, but I found Total Video Converter good for this. Get it at http://www.effectmatrix.com/ and install it.
  6. Once you got the software it is very easy to select as it is very user friendly to select source and destination files.
  7. Don't forget to ask for favours from your friend in return..
Hope that helps.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Free music downloads coming soon

According to this report in The Age Free music downloads is on the cards from Spiral Frog. While this is great news for all of us music buffs, it is just available in US and Canada for starters. The service has not started yet though. But it sounds too good to be true.

This site will be an advertising supported service. While popular sites make loads of money on the internet, I think this site is too good to be true. I always thought that the best way to make some illegal (non-serious, like illegal music downloads) operations stop is to make them legal and let the authorities deal with real problems.

Hopefully this will start a new trend for music lovers across the world. As for now only music from Universal Music Group will be available.

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Sunday, August 27, 2006

Ganapati Bappa!

"Please wait till 12.30, today is Ganesha's birthday no, we give free food to everyone.", quipped the lady in the temple. Now this made me fill with happiness, the operative words 'free' and 'food' made me feel so very good. Also the fact that today is Ganesha's birthday keeps me in good spirits, he being my favourite god. I am not religious at all, but have certain very good memories of this festival.

I had to pay for the south Indian breakfast elsewhere, could not wait till 12.30. Have a happy Ganesh Chaturthi.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Welcome to my personal blog!

Ah! Well! So many thoughts, so few avenues to let them out. I always keep a low profile in general, I am the quietest at work (bad), noisiest at home (bad again) and inanimate when discussing something, which is no good as well. All of these actions get reversed when I am drunk, no I don't drink at work.

I started a blog with gung-ho, look at Desi in Golden Land if you really are interested (Look at that blog.. pleaaase!). I thought that blog's name was brilliant. I thought that kinda name will bring me fame and a bit of fortune on the side. But it didn't. Besides that is more of a travel blog rather than a personal blog.

So, here it is, yet another personal blog! Hopefully it will be entertaining for all those who read this blog of mine, It will certainly be entertaining for me while I am writing it.