Perpetually Perplexed

Water crisis is approaching all of us very soon. Already some where in Africa people are killing each other for water So we need to find a way  of conserving water. Water still is a machine which converts saline or dirty water into drinking water by distillation. Yes, we in India have large coastlines, and if necessary we can use sea water. But the costs are very high and are not affordable to rural poor. The people who need it most. An entrepreneur Garbiele Diamenti has designed a solar still which does not need electricity or any expensive parts.   This still is called EliDomestico. It works like this. " Pour water into the spout at the top and walk away. Thanks to the circular top, no matter the time of day, it's hit by maximum sunlight. The heat turns the water into steam, which travels down through a nozzle and condenses against the lid of the bowl at the bottom of the still. At the end of the day, the bowl is full of safe, potable water." The s...

I thought I will atleast create a poster with some body else's funny quote. Nope. I will take them from google

I have been watching some TED talks for the last few years. No, that has not made me a great scientist or an artist. But as long as I am watching them, I feel pure happiness - happiness which is not encumbered by greed, desire, guilt. It is a happiness of hope - for the humankind. So today when Ted talks India is being telecast in Star Network, I watched it. And I am happy, I watched the program. The speakers were, Shubhendu Sharma who creates forest within cities, in your backyard, and a scientist  from California who has made microscopes from papers, another engineer who is creating ink from pollution among others. So the idea is that the world is not filled with all bad people. There are good, intelligent people who strive to make our country and our world a better place. And TED honors these people and gives them a platform to share their ideas. So do not miss the show - Ted talk India - a nayi soch. I remember I had blogged about Satyameva Jayate too. Anyway we wat...

As is my habit, I was tweaking my ubuntu laptop and I deleted one unused partition. Then I continued working on the system. After I while I turned off laptop and went to TV. Coming back, I realized my system won't boot. Leave along booting, it was not even showing boot menu - the grub menu. Instead it was going to some grub rescue. Grub is a program which shows the OS options when you switch on the system. Yes, it is called grand unified boot loader. But currently it was not able to find the partition. After some googling, I came to know that I should find out the partition in which grub is present using ls command, then insmod something called "normal" and then execute normal command. And it worked, I did get back my boot loader. And hence could boot the system. So I keep thinking about this, many people like me may post the question about grub rescue, but who has the time, inclination and dedication to answer these? But there are. There are plenty of good Sam...

I hear this Kannada song in Soundcloud, which has lines    anu rEnu traNadalli paripUrNanu nInu    kshaNakshaNake avaguNagaLa kukarmi nAnu which roughly translates to    you are perfect in each and every molecule    but I am full of defects and am a bad person Some how, the song touches my heart. By the way it is a devotional song and I can not remember how it starts. So this perfect God has created men and women in his form and he made some of them like light, some of them like dark, some of them speak one language, some speak another language. May be he gave one religion to some people, another religion to some other people. So that people can hate each other and in some cases kill each other? Doesn't sound right! But this particular grouse of mine is not related to aptrard, siculars or any other adjectives here. I have gone global. I am watching this serial "Shots fired" and being troubled by its storyline.

I went out today because I had some work in the bank. Then? Then nothing. I went and finished my work and came back. Why am I telling you this? I thought it was important - me going out. Because everyone around me thought so. So I thought that too. Or may be they are wondering how do I still manage to get outside the house in spite of their slandering and mean intimidating. Is it?

I read a few days ago about a seminar for elderly regarding smart phone usage in Bangalore. A kind of workshop which was conducted on weekends. It was a good move. A very good move. But I feel these workshops have to be conducted in all towns in the state. See, our parents are compelled to use smart phones. And many of them struggle. They are afraid what may happen if they press the wrong button. They do not realize that the wifi on the phone should be switched on to receive whatsapp messages. So may be either the government or some NGOs can take the initiative and start conducting workshops - workshop on smart phones for elderly. In fact the attendees don't even mind to spend some money on these. And it will be an opportunity for them to get together. When did I become all preachy? Yesterday.

Today is the fourth day of sanyas from coding. Why is it? For how many days? Don't ask such meaningless questions. If you haven't understood so far, then you won't understand. So things are going good, I can say. Because TV is there. And it is OK for me to watch TV, I think. So I saw this movie today "Three musketeers". The story is that of young boys who leaves his small town in search of musketeers and wants to become one. He is bright, courageous and a little bit cocky (- only on Tuesdays, so he says). In Paris he meets the original three musketeers - Athos, Parthos and Aramis - a bunch of disillusioned warriors who have fallen into drinking and brawling. Because apparently they have not much to do. D'artgan, I think that is the boy's name - name is quite long and difficult, brings out the soldier in them back. They together fight with Cardinal's men. And are arrested for that. This Cardinal is de facto ruler because the King is very yo...

Articles are appearing about master plan for the city of Bangalore. There is a need for citizen partnership in this huge plan for our city. As we have seen this year like previous years, city struggles with lack of water and when it rains the streets are flooded. Few years ago, people would have found the idea of flood in a city with no rivers or seas ridiculous. But not now. Now every city in India shivers when it rains. Why? Why is the much anticipated rain becomes a curse? Because of our craze for cement. Every inch of the roads and houses and courtyards are cemented and there is no place for the rain water to percolate. What can water do, except to flood. There was a talk about rain water harvesting being compulsory few years ago. Is the rules still there? Is it being implemented? Is it being implemented in large corporate buildings? Government buildings? If all the possible buildings harvest rain water, many of them become self sufficient. And the pavements. They ...

Almost convinced that people are accessing my system and trying to find ways to stop them, I spent more time on various linux commands. And as I should have expected the terminal stopped working. I tried going to dash and again searching for terminal, shell, sh etc. I even went and checked whether I am running some script instead of original bash. bash, dash, sh no. I can not go to tty1 and run commands and come back to graphical ui every few seconds. I tried, tried and finally gave up and went back to TV. Luckily for me nothing interesting was running. So I half heartedly googled about no terminal. There it was. I should have looked at nome terminal. Not shell program. So I checked the location of that terminal program. And there was a python script in place of exe program. I corrected it and got back my terminal. Now I am even more convinced of rogues and rogues accessing my system. Ha ha.

Today I was sad. No, this is not going to be another one of my endless stories about my "victimhood". No, I was sad because "Pretty little liars", the TV serial was over. May be for 100th time. Out of which I may have watched 50 of. We have shared so many meals together. Me, Aria, Hanna, Emily and Spencer. No, not Alison. I don't like her. She was wicked, once. Correction, I would bring in my meals and sit with Zee cafe. The story is about 5 childhood friends from a small town who are being harassed (!) by an anonymous 'A'.  A would ask them to do bad things failing which their dark secrets would be reveled. They are unable to find out who this A is, and why is she "harassing" them. For over 8 years!!! Alison, one of the liars goes missing presumed to be dead. But the turn of events convince the girls that "A" is Alison. After many episodes, Alison reappears, who is also a victim of A. Then there is a blind but vicious girl...

She was a little girl and had dengue. When the small clinic she was being treated advised, her parents took her to a very large hospital - part of huge network. She was kept in ICU for two weeks. Parents unable to understand anything would stand outside ICU praying. Many a times, no doctors were available. But her situations was getting terrible. When the father saw that her skin was all blue and wrinkled looking, he asked the hospital to discharge her. They did not agree. They wanted to do some "plasma transplantation" which would add another 10 lakhs. Finally she was discharged but with "against medical advice" tag from hospital. The original clinic tested her now and declared her dead. And the sad thing is the parents could not save their daughter even after spending 18 lakh rupees. No, I am not copying from some "crime story". This is the story of little Adya from Guragaon. I saw this in youtube channel akashvani and he was saying TV channel...

When I visit my parents, I will have a feast waiting for me. Literally and figuratively. I get to read various left leaning kannada magazines. So in one of those magazines I read about the famous quote by Kanakadasa "naanu hodare hodenu". I may go? Well the backstory goes like this. In a meeting of many poets like Purandaradasa, Kanakadasa etc., someone asked a question. "Out of all of us, who may go to heaven (after death)?" And Kanakadasa said "naanu hodare hodenu". How arrogant is he? He thinks he is the only bhakta (devotee, not in its current form). But he meant that if we leave our pride, self centered behavior, we will go to swarga. But I think, we don't even need to do that. We just need to stop thinking about others. Feeling jealous about others, anger, hatred, revenge all these feelings are our worst enemy. They not only stop us from reaching heaven (we are not so worried about that). They make our present life hell. But we say tha...

I have posted about this song earlier. But I do love the song very much. As it is much more relevant in these disturbingly divisive times. So please watch this video by Colonial cousins And here is the lyrics of the song.   

Before I was obsessed with these motivational or satirical quotes which are some times lame, I was interested in design ideas. No, I was not an entrepreneur then, nor am I now. But still I would look at those pictures and be "awed" by them. Now I don't even remember the site I used to visit. Today I went back to old hobby. And got some of them in pinterest. Do you like this mobile and pen stand? How about this scissors with its holder? And this cozy looking cave bedroom! Wow, who wouldn't want to sleep here? Get these colored showers in your home and your children will be too eager to take a bath. How about these beautiful bowls for chips and dip? Pool table cum dining table! Red chairs which hide the entire table. If only we knew carpentry and build at least one of these!  You would certainly want to buy this for your child. Doesn't matter if your child is all grown up and adult now.

Simon was a popular game in USA in 80s and 90s.  The device has four colored buttons, each producing a particular tone when it is pressed or activated by the device. A round in the game consists of the device lighting up one or more buttons in a random order, after which the player must reproduce that order by pressing the buttons. As the game progresses, the number of buttons to be pressed increases. There are some apps in google play which try to replicate the game. So does my my app - memorypro. As this is also memory colorful and melodious (almost) memory. Here is me playing simon game in my memory pro - not so well.  Well, I personally like playing Simon game as it appeals to one more sense, that of auditory. You can see and decide by downloading the app from google play

Thoughts From A Secular Humanist April 20, 2012 by Anita Jose  I have no invisible authority I am not mentally enslaved, I am not an unworthy sinner Who is waiting to be saved. My actions are my own Responsibility for which I will take, Credit for the good and penalty for the bad The payment for my deeds only I can make. I’m not the innocent, confused child; ‘Humble’ messengers try to find, I’m a skeptic with adult reasoning Who has left Faith behind. The answers gifted by logic and reason Are far more appealing to me, I keep searching for the still unknown Not fitting baseless assumptions dishonestly. Morality for me is not derived from an ancient book With tiring tales of brutality and occasional verses of love, To be good and to care for my fellow beings I don’t need promises of gifts from above. The knowledge and wisdom accumulated by science Sincere and provable, without disguise, Is what I find more comforting and reality revealing Tha...

I have written so many times about people trying to malign me in so many different ways. Now there are some people sitting across the road with their mobiles and I don't know maybe with the laptops. Do they  get connection to my computer?  I know you call me paranoid. But this is what happened since their "hiring". And they go away when I switch on my TV in the hall. They can not certainly hear the TV noise from so far. What is happening? And today a new situation has come up. Since this morning, all our land line calls are getting redirected to some other number. I am phrasing it wrong. They are not getting redirected, but they may come via some other number. Phone rings, when I pick up there is no sound. And when I check up the logs I see some unknown land line number. And the call was coming from my parents. Wow, things are only getting better. Now I do not  understand the situation, but I may have some idea behind the motives. I need to find a solution. But I a...

This year the chrysanthemums have decided that they will bloom generously and provide some solace to this poor soul. The reason could be incessant rains in the months of september and October. I really do not provide much care for these plants. I water them when there are no rains. And some times, I picks the dry leaves littered all around the terrace and place them inside the pots. I do not take the help of any gardener. I rarely put any fertilizers. OK, let me stop glorifying my laziness. Roses would bloom now and then, though their quality is deteriorated now. Even hibiscus flowers bloom now and then. But chrysanthemums are a real pain. They are like me - they follow no rules, nor do they feel any obligations to any one.

Finally an endless trial and error of UIs, background, buttons, fonts is ever. This is not how I am supposed to announce the new release of my app, right? OK, I have renamed my app - Shataka to "Hundred- a number game". To appeal to more users. One major change (other than the name ) is the simplicity of the game. The initial levels have many solved cells. In level 1, Out of 9 cells, 6 are already solved for you. How is that for simple game? And also there is a tutorial. Not just text with images. The actual step by step instruction to play the game. Download the game at least now. I am sure you will love it.

I was really touched my this youtube video about the problems European muslim kids are facing and why so many of them are turning to terrorism. We should always keep in mind this quote from the video If the young are not initiated into the village      they will burn the village just to feel its warmth                                                                   - African proverb

pinterest not only has LOL quotes and lists for quick fixes (drink this and in one week you lose 10 kgs!!). It also has pins of these amazing, wonderful painting and sketches. Bless these individuals for painting them and sharing them with us. When there are beautiful contents, you can expect funny drawings too. Here is one for you. Monolisas can be like us too.

It all started with this song "ಈ ದೋಸೆ ಯೋಳ್ತಿಲ್ಯಲೇ ". My parents sent me this song which is a kind of comic song about making a dosa - or rather unable to make a dosa. At the end of the audio, a voice told me that you can get other songs like this in the app h-fm . Ha, my favorite thing - downloading the apps (thanks to Jio - yug yug jio). The app has some havyaka songs, some havyaka recipes, and other stuff. If you are a Havyak, download the app  and have a look at it.( In fact you find more than 5 apps if you search for "havyaka" in google play. ) Thus my curiosity being triggered, I searched in the wide wide web about havyaka songs. See, these songs are unique. In traditional families, the festivals and pujas should be accompanied by these songs (they are called haadu). There are songs for each step in a puja like "aarati ettiddu", "huu bediddu", "naivedya maadiddu". And there are songs for different Gods and Goddesses. And...

This is the name of new TV serial in Z cafe. When I saw the name, I got interested, this should be something about IP addresses. So it will be serial about IT and  should be watched. When there can be so many TV serials about doctors, why can't there be serials about engineers, right? And I am a regular watcher of Silicon Valley, another serial about a start up in - of course, Silicon Valley. Not namma Bengaluru. So coming back 11.22.63, I failed to notice that neither IP4 address, nor IP6 address will have three numbers. Nor does the mac address. The story is about  some plot which takes place in 1963, even before I was born!!! Imagine that. Was there ever such a time? I think it is about Kennedy assassination. Not worth pursuing. In other news, I got 3 different calls from ICICI bank regarding some international travel card - on the same day. The reason could be that I practice some times German, some other times Italian using an app called Duolingo . At home,...

So I was telling you about the problems I faced the other day. What happened was my browser stopped working. Browser would just show blank white screen and I think with white letters. I tried cleaning. I tried reinstalling several times. No, nothing worked. Then I tried installing some software from CD. That too did not work. Next day my development IDE was not working. Upon inspection I realized that several directories were missing. After few days I realized that I was even unable to ping to google. Which means my all traffic was being redirected. I know that all of you come up with the same question. Who do I think I am that people would want to hack my computer? Hillary clinton? Why would any one bother with my computer? I don't have an answer for that. But I am telling you the facts. Not only this. Some one, I don't know who, does not want me to get out of the house. Come on people. Don't you know the phrase MYOB. And leaving me alone. 

I just wanted to stop for the day. Two posts with borrowed images from pinterest. Not much work for mind of the reader nor for the blogger. Then I realized some thing. Watching the news channels 24 hours a day has turned all of us into the people whom we hate publicly. We have become politicians. We hate to work and are lazy. We do not take responsibility for our actions or the lack of them. We always blame others for any problems, and argue in most childish way worse than even a 4 year old. And we love to hate. Sad and dangerous. This time I hope that I am wrong.

I found some beautiful poems and poetic images in pinterest. Let us start with smallest one.   Next one is by none other than the wonderful poet Maya Angelou

When you are in a difficult situation, you need a friend. That's what every one says. And I have one. The books. They talk to me endlessly. In a language I am fond of. They converse in my wavelength. They do not  try to condemn and insult me. On the whole, they make me feel that there is some one who still understands me. So this book by Saul Bellow is about a strange closeness between the narrator and his uncle Benn. Kenneth has a womanizing father. Having put up with this nature for many years Kenneth's mother leaves him and goes to Africa as a volunteer. Rather than a Casanova father, Kenneth feels his unworldly scientist uncle understands him. So he leaves Paris and moves to America to stay close to his maternal uncle. His Uncle is caught in a Maya in the form of a woman. Kenneth wants to save his uncle but is unable. I have realized that I should restrict my reading to few authors whom I really like. And Saul Bellow is certainly one of them. I am still ...

On the way back home from my journey to the library, I decided "let me the smart one. I will just blog that - I must feel safe even when I step outside the house". But it was not to be. When I came home and ventured into the laptop hours later, there were some serious issues. Very serious ones. Whom do I blame? No one. Really. I tried several different ways and failed. Now I will add one more sentence to my declaration of safety. That it doesn't even matter.... You say it is intimidation technique. No.... You are so wrong. We are talking about good people here. Very good people. Why would they want to intimidate me? A nobody?

All of us agree.

(Vim is a text editor used in Linux)

Real programmers know this

Not 1,2,3..

You have faced this situation more often than you care to admit.

Baby markup language  :)  Great parents!!!!

Land line

वख़्त इंसान पे ऐसा भी कभी आता है Even the "God" closes the door for you. :(

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. But in Kannada we have another proverb which is slightly derogatory. ಒಕ್ಕಣ್ಣು ರಾಜ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದು ಕಣ್ಣು ಮುಚ್ಚಿಕೊಂಡು ಓಡಾಡು. "In a country full of one eyed men, walk with one eye closed." Wikdipedia showed me a list of similar proverbs in so many languages of the world. Which means, this is a universal concept. Why? Why should we conform to the common customs of the people? Or to put it crudely, why should we behave as a sheep in a herd? Is it because people do not like "others". They detest (slightly) others who do not conform to norms. They detest (strongly) who defy norms proudly. Most often their question is "Who does he/she think himself/herself to be? How dare he/she act like this?" OK, ok. If this norm is something "right", something your value system agrees upon, you can follow the norm. But what if you disagree? What if your value system says the path of everyone is wrong? Let me go to the ...

That is not happening. People Life does not stop harassing me.  And I am running out of both wit and sanity. 

I found this image in pinterest - one of the many things I waste my time on - thinking I am doing something useful. The image is simplistic yet great. Image from:pinterest

He was lying there Next to foot path In front of a bus-stop But was invisible Was he drunk Or doped Simply asleep Feeling safer Among people We don't know He was invisible No one tried to wake him No one tried to chase him No one even looked at him He was invisible Mother might be praying Child might be dreaming Of dolls he may bring Unaware, he was In a bliss Invisible to all No sympathy from anyone No empathy Not even disgust He did not get a glance In a corner Of a busy road He was lying down Invisible to all

For few days I have been thinking about this. OK, now you realize this is going to be one of those I, me and myself posts. So it is. I have been thinking about what are the portions of my 73 kg weight? And I am not talking about scientific blood, muscle, bones etc. I think around 30% of my weight is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the unknown and of the partially known. Fear of sounds and sights. Fear of future, fear of present and fear from the past. So fear is the major ingradient here. Next comes guilt. Around 20% is guilt. Guilt of missed opportunities, guilt of having wasted my education, and wasting my capabilities. Guilt of not having done anything good for myself. Guilt of not being a good daughter, a good bahu, a good wife, a good mother. The rest is all anger. Anger towards everyone because they are being cruel or at least indifferent to me, anger towards  semi-believed God and anger towards self. But self directed anger might be more because I find myself i...

I think you will like this video. The channel  why so serious by newslaundry has good and humorous content. And also the channel consti-tution. Try it out. I removed the video. For obvious reasons.

I was happily writing my C programs. Then... Then at some bad moment I took out this. I thought I will make this app "Shataka " better. The app is already good. It is fun, it is good for your brain and is easy. But I only need to get more people to download it. :). Not an easy task. Don't you agree. Especially when I am the only person in the marketing team. Me!! So I thought I will make the app more user friendly and easier in the initial levels. So I started tweaking the app. And gave only 3 numbers to solve in level1. And 4 to solve in next level etc. That was not so tough, once I imported the app. The tougher part was UI. Some thing told me that the background and other colors are not standing out and as this is a game, they should. So I started experimenting. Lot of google image searches, some GIMPs, changes in xml file. Then run in the app on phone and see. Not happy.  Change some background colors, change some xmls and repeat. So this repe...