Some Quotes.

Some Quotes from today's Times of India.

It is better to live as long as you want rather than want as long as you
live. -- Socrates.

It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final.
-- Roger Babson.

True love somes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear
bells, get your ears checked. -- Erich Segal.

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who
face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. --
Douglas Everett.

Who are You?

I came across this very good and encouraging, thought-provoking article in
The Times of India today.

Who are You?
------------

In the 17th century, the French philosopher Reni Descartes came up with
the explanation for it all: I think, therefore I am. I remember this
statement being the source of debates in philosophy classes. It was the
existential 'which came first' story the chicken or the egg.

Years later, I feel that his statement really is a fill-in-the-blanks
statement. 'I think, therefore I am.' In other words, 'I think I am angry,
therefore I am angry, I think I am tired, therefore I am tired, I think I
am busy, therefore I am busy.'

Let's go back to Descartes and fill in the blanks. I think I am too busy,
therefore I am too busy. So the usual conclusion to this thought is I'm
too busy to go into the garden this morning thus I don't go. [I think I m
too busy to go into the garden, therefore I am too busy to go into the
garden.]

What this does is, for one, tell your subconscious mind to keep looking
for that answer, and two keeps the door open to the answer coming through.
If you keep saying I can't remember, well guess what, your subconscious
goes, 'ok, can't remember,' and it goes off to lunch and stops trying to
remember. End of story. On the other hand, if you say 'I m remembering'
it will stay 'on duty' until it finds the memory you're asking for. In the
same way if you're searching for the solutinos to a problem, if you say to
yourself 'I don't know what to do', I think I am unable to find an answer,
therefore I am unable to find an answer -- there again you've closed the
door to the answer coming through. Saying 'I am able to find the answer'
opens the gate wide for the answers to come to you. We can replace those
dead-end thougths and statements with some that leave the door open for
solutions. 'I think I am able to discover the answer, therefore I am able
to discover the answer, I think I am capable of finding a solution.' Now
some of you might be saying this is simplistic. Well, yes it is, and
that's the beauty of it. We humans seem to have a tendency to complicate
things, when things really are simple. First a thought, then an action.
First a belief, then a consequence of that belief. A thought, then a
result to that thought (action or inaction).

We have disempowered ourselves by thinking 'small thoughts' or dead-end
thoughts fulled by low self-esteem, images of unattainable goals (to be
like the 'slimmer-than-life' model on TV), and thoughts rampant with
self-criticism (or criticism of others). Thoughts that are self-defeating
[I think I am a failure, therefore.]

I think I am not smart enough, therefore I think I am unattractive,
therefore I think I can't do this, therefore...

The belief or thought we have sets the tone for our actions, for the life
we create. If there's one thing that can change our lives, it's to change
the nature of our thoughts, of our beliefs. We are not powerless. We are
powerful beyond measure.

It's up to us to fill in the blanks with the reality we desire, not the
one we don't. We can change our reality. We can make a difference in our
lives and in the lives of the people around us and in the world.

-- Marie T russell.

--
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
-- Albert Einstein.

Matching between words in mind and around.

At times, and rather quite frequently these days, I find that I hear a
word someone speaking and at the same time I find myself reading this
very word. Just a moment ago, I heard Soumyajit saying aloud the word
'Arena' and I found myself reading this word in a manual!

They call me sysadmin now ... always!

It's been quite some time now since I got appointed as the astt system
administrator for my institute and have become known profusely since then.
But hardly had I sensed that there could be an awkward side of the coin
too. People seem to have forgotten that I'm still Nirnimesh and they
address me as sysAdmin, root, and so on. I get the impression that they
think that we sysAdmins keep looking for people to block their logins (the
institute's policy says to block the logins of spammers). Every now and
then I get mails/requests when someone is not able to work out something
with his/her system or when suddenly the programs stop working due to some
reason not remotely related to me and my job.

So, though it feels good to be called sysAdmin, come'on..enough is enough.
Do I cease to be myself?

Feeling angry at everything.

Don't exactly know why, but since yesterday I'm feeling angry on
anything and everything. Someone speaks and I feel irritated, someone
laughs and I feel irritated, someone moans and I feel irritated..
someone breathes and I feel irritated. Oops! that's getting too much of
it. What do I do?

To MS or not to MS

Often in life you come across situations where you have two choices. The
fate of either of the choices is equally appealing or equally apalling.
You need to choose one pill of the two, however.
The decision for or
against doing MS was a similar dilemma for me for long. One thing was
however sure that if I did MS, I would do it at my href="http://www.iiit.ac.in">institute only. What wasn't sure was
whether or not I had to (or rather should) do it.
And finally I
decided (or should I say realize?) that I wanted to gradute my B.Tech
degree to an MS by Research by the time I leave IIIT-H. And the decision
wasn't easy.
So why did I make up my mind to go for MS by Research at
a monthly stipend of Rs 6000/- which would work out to around 12% of what
I would have got had I appeared for campus placements at my institute?
What did I really want?
One thing I do realize about myself is that I
want to be rich, and famous. I wish to start company of my own. With the
idea of a job comes the tail "What next?" Assume I have a handsome job and
I work hard for my job and earn a good position in my company. So what?
How proximal do I reach to my goal? Is that a step in the direction of my
goal or does that take me to a room whereafter there's no door leading to
my light? And I found the answer to be the latter.


Furthermore, at 21, I feel I could rather give myself more time at the
institute, learning, perfecting, and maturing myself before I step in to
deal the intricacies of the world. I expect to get acquainted better with
the habits and the habitats. Besides, the idea of doing research is
exciting. The feeling of doing something which someone else does not do or
is not able to do sends a feeling of superiority, and it feels good in a
positive way.


I thought and thought and thought and thought, and have a feeling in my
mind that MS would be a better choice for me for the time. I communicated
my thougts to my professor href="http://www.iiit.ac.in/faculty/pjn.php">Dr. P. J. Narayanan
and with the talk we had, my decision was sealed to certainity.


I pray to god to make sense and wisdom of my decision.

Wow! the email works.

It's real fast and far more convenient to post thru emails. Of course, I
should keep in mind to remove my signature from my emails.

Checking blogging by email.

This is to check blogging thru email.

Nirnimesh.

--
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
-- Albert Einstein.

To pen it down.

I remember of the days when I used to have a pen readily available to me. I could get it in my hands easily without overly twisting my body. And now is the time when pens have become a commodity which I have at times, and lose at other times. I buy pens, and lose them. I rebuy pens and relose them. This has happened to my pen collection so many times now that I've settled to the sleek and trendy Reynolds 045 now. Not only does it write nice, at Rs 6, it costs conveniently cheap to afford losing it. The lifetime a pen remains with me, if defined to be in terms of dpp (days per pen) would work out to around Rs 5. This is a rather optimistic figure considering a good situation. At times when I need a pen and roam around with it are exactly the time when the dpp drops to something around 1.5-2.0.

To pen it down.

I remember of the days when I used to have a pen readily available to me. I could get it in my hands easily without overly twisting my body. And now is the time when pens have become a commodity which I have at times, and lose at other times. I buy pens, and lose them. I rebuy pens and relose them. This has happened to my pen collection so many times now that I've settled to the sleek and trendy Reynolds 045 now. Not only does it write nice, at Rs 6, it costs conveniently cheap to afford losing it. The lifetime a pen remains with me, if defined to be in terms of dpp (days per pen) would work out to around Rs 5. This is a rather optimistic figure considering a good situation. At times when I need a pen and roam around with it are exactly the time when the dpp drops to something around 1.5-2.0.

Spiderman 2

Saw Spiderman 2 today. In one word -- "superb". A truly awesome movie after a long time. Far more practical, inspiring, thoughtful, sensual, and everything than the last one, and than most other movies. Good work by the directors. Spiderman, one who posseses so many superhuman powers, one who has the strength of the unbreakable web at his fingertips, one who is the saviour of so many lives at times of distress, has disturbances in mind too! He too has a choice between the superhuman and the petty needs of a human (which he anyway is too). He chooses the latter, does well with it, untill he gathers second reflections and wisdom directs him to realize who he is and what he's got to do. It seemed the directors had planned to keep the bridge strong between the superhuman and his girl who he adorely mentions as "one thing he wants the most". Maybe it got too hard, and that is why Spiderman is given back his girl.

Spiderman's jumps and sharp manouverablitiy over the buildings -- wonderful.

My batchmates getting LAN.

Finallyj, after years of speculation, my batchmates are getting rooms with LAN connection in the hostel. The joy on their face is worth giving a see, as they load themselves down the stair-cases with their stuff. This has happened since our seniors have passed out vacating the rooms for the next batch, and we being the seniormost in the undergraduate program, form the preferred ones. I, nevertheless, had been lucky at having got a LAN room early.

And the anticipated happened.

After being spared of bumps for 3 years of my existence in IIIT now, I lost the bumping virginity when yesterday night I was given the thrashing in the air. Strong people holding me from both sides, and even stronger people hitting hard at my butt with their legs, and all I could do was shout, scream... And it is still aching. It had become hot that time, and kept vibrating for long. It's hard to sit straight. :((

Anticipating b'day bumps.

It's my birthday tomorrow. Tradition in the institute proclaims that the birthday boy should get bumps wherein all others make him feel sorry for have taken birth. For long, I've been known for getting over this, and dodging the bumps (thanks to my nature), but this time I feel I won't be spared. I've opened up a lot this year (as per my new year resolution) and this is gonna hit me back literally at the stroke of the mid-night hour. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the whole world sleeps, my batch would be awake to hit me. Let's see!

Booting to windows back..for a few minutes.

I booted to Windows (my grub screen shows it's option as "Virus") today, after a long time. There was a VC++ code that I needed to run, and don't know what fantasy lighted upon me when I thought the machine would work safely and securely. This indeed did not happen. I was almost hoping against hope when the machine started behaving as if it had no RAM at all. A sizable part of my 256 MB and 1.6 GHz P-IV are always taken up by the Norton (yes, it's not foolproof, of course, but still, something is better than nver, and I feel without it, I won't even complete my booting--the network starts before you login :(( )
After a threatening experience for my pc, I gave it relief and reverted it back to it's Linux.

Seriously, some things such so real-time!

The day with the apathy with Windows...again.

My faith towards use of Linux further strengthened yesteray with Windows performing horribly, if not hopelessly, on every quarter. The situation was something like this:

My institute admits students based on the results of the AIEEE exam, for which the results were out some days back. Our placements officer had retured from Delhi with a CD containing the scanned labels of addresses of the first 5000 all-india-rank holders. The institute intended to send the brochure to the first 2000 or something students, and since there needed to be some preprocessing done to get the material in the right order before printing, the matter was redirected to the server room of which my sys-admin colleague Sunil Mohan Ranta and I are a part. The address-labels were arranged in several directories based on the region of the applicant. We needed to bring all of them in a single folder, with a minor manipulation with the filename (needed to remove an unnecessary 'A' from the filename). The thrill begins now. We began wondering how much it'd cost if Microsoft made such a software to do this sort of a manipulation of filenames and locations (If such a thing already exists, it means that they've not marketed it well-enought, for otherwise I'd have known it for sure). Rightfully enough, I turned to Linux and the job was done withing a few minutes of juggling with the shell commands (We have poor memory and often make syntax mistakes).

The bigger excitement, however, was yet to come. Each of the address labels were such that we could have four of them on one A4 sheet before printing. (Why?.. shall I say--To save paper!) We began huting for the printing preferences on the Windows machine and many a test-pages went martyr to the gesture, but to no avail. Photoshop, Painshop, MSPaint, etc proved no better. We had in mind that we could hunt for some Windows-printing formatting software which could do our job. However, we decided to give a second lease to Linux and Ranta played around with some image manipulation commands (convert, montage, mogrify, to name a few) and in a few minutes we were able to devise a command (yes a single command) by which to get the labels in the right format on a single page. In fact, we were even able to sharpen the image a bit (we didn't want to overdo it). That being done, we were using the Windows system back again to send each page to the printer for printing. After some time, the machine showed its colors againa and we realized that the laser printer was being given a lot of rest between successive prints as the Windows was slogging hard to pump data to it. We promptly added 2 and 2 together and shifted all printing to be done from the Linux system instead. This worked the required magic for us and we were able to finish the herculean work (the work was exhaustive) in no time thereafter.

Configuring a nameserver

Since the last few days my sys-admin colleague (Sunil Mohan Ranta) and I have been working together to setup a nameserver for our institute. After about a complete evening of slogging (including the time we spent on installing Linux - Fedora Core 2, and learning about DNS's) we finally got it working by the evening. We are using named and configuring it was a breeze (not much to do actually). We had to configure it for the new domain www.iiit.ac.in that the institute is getting.

However, after some days now I find that when I compare the host query results of our newly setup nameserver with the ISP's nameserver we were originally using, the MX entries are missing. Actually, it's only the NS and A entries that figure out with our nameserver. I wonder whether it'd create problems if we use this nameserver for resolving on the mail-server. The nameservers obtained by the root nameservers for .net and .com actually give the same results (as the new NS), nevertheless. The best method, I guess, is hit-and-try. :-)

HR training.

Here it's 3:22 AM and i'm sitting over here in the lab, and portraying (rather pretending) as if I'm helping this girl Priyanka with answering the HR questions for the upcoming campus placements. Of course, I'm also appearing for the campus placements (i'm in the same batch) but don't know why she wants _me_ to help her out (yes..she seems a bit confused with the gamut of questions our placements officer has showered us with, but so what?..so am I).

Feeling cold.

I'm sitting in CVIT, my computer lab and I presently confess I'm feeling cold. In this country, this has more or less become a natural tendency to keep the AC temperature a bit below the normal comfortable temperature, coz I can feel a bit of a shiver in my bones (I assume I am normal in perceiving temperatures). This has occurred to me on several occasions; in trains, offices, banks, though the degree varies from one place to the other. I suggest these AC companies should start sporting a suggestion saying that having an AC is for your comfort in hot days and it does not in any way imply that you have to bear your shivers with benign serenity.

Pankaj getting frustrated.

I started bloggin today, and Pankaj here is gettting frustrated by seeing the wonderful web-interface provided by the site, and yes it's fast too. They've done some serious good work, he says.