Monday, December 10, 2007

How should we judge people?

"One Laptop per Child Doesn't Change the World" by John Dvorak caught my eye. After going through it, I find him quite sensible and thoughtful, nonetheless critical. His list of contributed articles were even more interesting...

Why Social Networks Stink
The Google Phone Is Doomed
What's Wrong with Open-Source Software?
AJAX and the Road to Bad Web Sites
Wireless Promises, Unmet
Online Shopping Frustrates Me
Don't Trust the Servers
Is Everyone Over 30 Useless?
Will the Internet Collapse?
The Mobile Phone Industry Must Die. DIE!

Ok! What would you make of him? An unhappy person frustrated with these techy happenings? Well I haven't gone through all of his articles but just listing, which ofcourse I learned from him. And I deliberately left out some articles like

My Top Ten Bright Ideas
Don't Give Up on Old Media

But the list is small :) Check out the list for yourself.

Worldbank largest ever support package to us: be optimist

I am wondering if we should feel happy about the World Bank's largest ever support package to Nepal with US$253 million. As mentioned in the press release, the following projects will be undertaken: Poverty Alleviation Fund, Project for All, Irrigation and Water Resources Management, and Road Sector Development. It does sound convincing. I am optimist and definitely happy about it. But I am wondering if there's going to be a huge party for this occasion - by whom, where, I don't know. I just wish such things don't occur in the name of development and poverty, as realized by John Dvorak of PC Mag., on the over-hyped OLPC (one laptop per child).

[...]Every time I bring up this complaint
[OLPC vs basic needs] to my Silicon Valley pals—usually as we race down I-280 in their newest Mercedes-Benz S Class sedan while listening to their downloaded music from their iPod to the car's custom stereo—I get flak. They tell me, "It's a start. Computers will save the world from poverty..."[...]

Nothing is better than something. Keep the hope alive.



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Sunday, November 25, 2007

Gmail by Microsoft

Someone really got time for this. What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft?
Well just go through the pics. You will definitely agree with this someone.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Finally I get my machine running Linux

I never dreamt I could ever install linux in my rather old laptop - considering my several attempts at installing susu, ubuntu, fedora causing berserk screen. My good pal suggested me "try Wolvix". Guess what - it just worked out of the box without any manual work - I am even writing this post from my freshly installed Wolvix Cub 1.1.0. I was not expecting my internet to work so easily in linux box - having heard bad and harsh experiences of friends in installing modem. My case may be different - i am using a router and cable internet.

I must say Catilyn Martin beautifully articulated review on Wolvix inspired me to write one. As I am writing this, I miss something from my not-so-beloved-yet-attached Windows XP. There are several applications I would love to have them in my Wolvix. Wordweb, notepad++, FoxitReader, just to name a few. There must be alternatives to all these - just need some exploration. That does explain I am a newbie linux user - desktop one - if I must say.

I even compared the boot time for both my XP and Wolvix. Well it took 30 seconds to get Windows logon screen while Wolvix took 56 seconds. Not bad. I should also inform you that my Windows XP is also freshly installed in my freshly plugged Hard disk; this may also have credited to the rather fast load time of XP.

I am a bit disappointed with the GRUB screen of Wolvix. Looks like few others are also sharing the same view as mine and it seems that I will always have to look at this shabby looking GRUB screen until the patch is available or the next version is released.

The other interesting thing is the constant watch on Memory and CPU usage right on the desktop. One can also turn it off if necessary. I don't think I will be able to use my other beloved app "ProcessExplorer".

For all those out there, wanting to use linux but never got guts to do so, should definitely try Wolvix. It's for the users. Just download the iso file from the site, burn it to CD, run as a live CD, use it/see the features and install it if it pleases you. If you are installing Linux for the first time, be sure to backup all your important data to the external storage. Be careful and read doc if you are installing on your own and for the first time.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

nepali speakers count...

Kudos to the NepaLinux Team for grabbing "APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize" Award.

In Himalayan Nepal: Where language can propel FOSS

I was interrupted to see the number of nepali speakers - native and worldwide.

[...]The initiative began as an attempt to find makeshift solutions for electronically cataloguing books in the Nepali language (which has seventeen million native speakers, and an estimated 40 million worldwide).[...]

Wow where did this journalist Frederick Noronha find this number? I remember being told to be questionable whenever we see any numbers. On my quest to this uneasy and strange number, this wikipedia page on Nepali Language does infact have the same number

Total speakers: native - 17 million
total-appr. 40 million

What does this total mean - does that mean all the nepali speakers including natives or excluding?

Isn't it exciting to have such a larger user base. Indeed.
17 million at Wikipedia seems to be referenced from this site Omniglot.com, which has no references as such.

[...]Nepali is an Indo-Aryan language with around 17 million speakers in Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and India.[...]

Noticed "around"!!

Sometimes this does question the credibility of Wikipedia. Infact it does; even Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia, said "For god sake, you are in college, don't cite Wikipedia." in response to the complaints from the students, who emailed Jimmy, saying "Please help me. I got an F on my paper because I cited Wikipedia".

Ok still on my tiny quest and hanging within Wikipedia, I saw another page

[...]According to the 2001 national census, .... The major languages of Nepal (percent spoken as mother tongue) are Nepali (49%),[...]

Still from Wikipedia
Population: July 2005 27,133,000

Which means that native nepali speakers would be 13 million. Note the year difference. Granted for now.

We are still in deficit of 4 million native Nepali speakers. Maybe this number have been covered by now, as of today. And now I can't go on with my quest for another 40 million. Let it be for now.

Monday, October 22, 2007

happy me...

Sometimes Worldlink makes me happy - 24 hours internet during Dashain since the eighth day.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Dashain or Dasa (misfortune)

"Dashain ho ki, yo mero dasa, kati aayeko" meaning "Is this Dashain or is it misfortune (dasa), why does it come so many times?".

I wonder what percentage of Nepalese actually celebrate Dashain with new clothes, good food. For a country like ours with such high poverty rate, it's very unlikely that people actually take Dashain as a celebration but rather as a misfortune. Why won't they? Even if you take a walk around the city, you would see people laughing, carrying big smiles with heavy loads for dashain; and on the other side, you would see another group of people confused with what to buy, whether to buy or not, busy calculating in their head. You can actually read their faces, especially children. There are stories of people getting bankrupt during dashain - mostly in villages; this is the only time, children get to wear new clothes. I just wish every nepali may celebrate Dashain equally.

facebook... addiction... solution

I can't believe that the first thing I did in this morning hour is to peek into facebook. I understand it's absolutely of no use at all and yet... what do you think is the solution to this addiction?

Delete your account? Man... I can't do that.
Ask your ISP to block facebook. Others won't tolerate that.
Block facebook in your browser. Possible... but I can also unblock it.
Unsubscribe internet account. Maybe... but I don't want to do that.

I think I should design an app that would crash my browser everytime I try facebook. That would make me hate facebook so much that I would probably lessen it.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

runner's high.... after a loong time

After almost 4 months break, I made my run back to-fro Budhanilkantha. Yup I enjoyed runner's high again; to my dismay i hurt my legs. Asim, Prasun, Prawesh, and Suprit... don't think I am crazy. You do remember Pokhara?

I was not surprised to see the fuel queue as early as 6 in the misty, cold morning. I ran observing the standing faces, on the seventh day of Dashain. Some must be getting fuels to get home, away from Kathmandu. Around the midway, the misty environment turned to clear, blue sky, however there was a clear demarcation between the two - conveying the message that darkness will definitely be followed by prosperous light. I wait for that day in Nepal.

I still remember there used to very less runners just 3/4 months back Today I saw hordes of runners - must be looking for the fresh morning air, though the road is not free of micro-buses and other vehicles. However their number does not seem to affect the air, though it won't take time to corrode. I am being realistic if some of you happen to take it as pessimist view.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

The final day at Social Science Baha

Finally 13 rigorous weeks at Social Science Baha came to an end, though research is still on the way - but not more morning class at 6:30AM. However this marks the beginning of our thinking in contemporary issues - we have been introduced to lots and lots of topics in this short period. Economy and Society, Media, Society and Culture, Development and Society, History and Society, Research Methodologies, Politics and Society to name a few. Besides the content, the moderators were equally of highest quality. And of course the wonderful and intellectual colleagues.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Helambu Trip

Fours days/three nights trek around the Helambu region is the longest and the most delightful one I have done so far. We stayed at three different villages - Upper Timbu on the first night, TarkeGyang on the second and Dhuba Chour on the third. The first two nights were chilling - it was raining throughout but I couldn't differentiate it from the flowing river (Melamchi river I suppose). One could hear the soothing sound of the river throughout the night at Upper Timbu.


On the way to Upper Timbu

Upper Timbu as seen on the way up. There were only two lodges. Fortunately we didn't have problems with stay throughout the hike.


Upper Timbu Village

The second day hike from Upper Timbu to Tarke Gyang via Kakani was almost 6-7 hours plus. Man... I have never seen so many leeches clinging to my pants as on this day - the tiny one even managed to get to my leg. You can imagine how much psyched out we were... almost more than half the time, we would be looking at our legs to find at least one leech and even pull up our pants to see if some bloody leech is enjoying our blood. You should see the abundance of water in this region - you can't hide away from water - it's just everywhere you gaze - not just raining :)

It was raining throughout second day at Tarke Gyang. But the third day we were
blessed with beautiful mountains right from our room's window.

The view from Tarke Gyang


The mountains - I don't remember the name:(


We stayed at this point for almost an hour - really mesmerizing

The third day stay was not inviting at Dhuba Chour - the comparatively hot night, with bedbugs and scratching a lot. But again the other final day was bright, sunny and warm, and ofcourse the beautiful mountains.


The mountains as seen from Dhuba Chour


Stone throwing game at Melamchi River
PS:nobody was hurt during the photo shoot :)

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

I am stupidly :( happy :)

I was smiling and elated, just like winning some kind of competition. The thing is I managed to get fuel worth Rs.500 for my bike. Really it was a competition that costed me one and half hour. I was awarded finally. There had been cases when I got knocked out of the competition even after queuing for hours - making me gloomy as if I lost the race.

Doesn't that sound stupid? Really we are stupid bunch of people - not in a position to do anything despite such perpetuating problems. If I am not mistaken, it's been almost 6 months that we are having fuel shortage. People have to take leave from their work to queue up for fuel, have to get up at midnight....

Monday, September 24, 2007

Celebration for Prashant Tamang

Prashant Tamang just won the Indian Idol 3. Now at 1AM I can hear people celebrating here in Kathmandu; I just saw some people dancing on their rooftops, firecrackers can be heard, whistles from far way, people cheering, shouting. The city suddenly goes lively. It seems that people are rallying in the street at this hour.

Prashant Tamang, an Indian but from Nepali origin, suddenly seems to be a very important figure for us and has created nationalism among Nepalese people. I think many of us are still furious with the fact that Nepal had to lose almost 1/3 of its land to India in Sugauli Treaty in 1816. Lots of Nepalese are now living in our used-to-be land holding Indian passport; Prashant being one of them.

Updates:
I can't believe I actually went out to take photographs at 1:30AM. People, mostly youths, were chanting slogans like "Yo jit kasko, Prashant ko (whose win is this, it's Prashant)", there were even girls, women in the crowd. People were also shouting from taxis. Finally the crowd moved towards the Maharajgung from Narayangopal Chowk. People are certainly overwhelmed and excited but how valid is such excitement.

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Thursday, September 20, 2007

really concerned about Nepal?

I had to walk all the way to Lagankhel from Patan Dhoka because of blockade by cabbies. That was no wonder... I was expecting it sooner or later. I would say this is the test of tolerance of Nepalese people.

Now this PM officer is concerned not about the citizens of Nepal and their rights to live but Nepal's image before the international community. Gosh! There are already lots of other things that has done enough for our notoriety.

[..]the Prime Minister’s Officer raised concern over the serpentine queue in front of the Singha Durbar stating such queue could present a bad image before the international community[...]

Govt decision fuels ire, cabbies disrupt traffic

Monday, September 17, 2007

Nepal Engineering Association election: a mess

I queued up in a line for more than 2 hours to cast a vote. There were lots of engineers lining up and herding - just to vote for an association - the purpose of which is unknown to me and lots of other engineers I approached. I realized that most of them were there for the sake of their boss, friends, relatives, some good and useful contacts. If you ask me, I am there for my friend's father. If it were not for him, I would have left or most possibly wouldn't have come at all. It was a total waste of time - atleast to me. I was really frustrated to see the unmanaged and disorganized engineers of Nepal (Remember I stood in that heated low-ceiling hall for two hours plus with god knows how much CO2). What else shall we expect from others?

And I met this water guy around mid 40s and a PhD, who boasted that he was there for the sake of his voting rights and nothing else. Then he bragged that he won't never do anything dishonest to earn money, he had no greeds for money, fame, position and blah blah.. At first I was kind of impressed with him. Later he sounded more extravagant with his words - the thing I hated most about him is he mentioned about some design, some new technology and he would whisper in my ear "That was my design" and that was not just once. Crazy? Later I just hinted him that I was not interested - guess what... I looked outside the window :). Then he went and sat a little ahead of me. Then another person who's standing infront of me, said sarcastically "You had a good talk with him. I know this guy.". I felt that maybe that PhD was trying to convey his message to someone else through me.

I was wondering how much money our country lost in that election - if we analyze from hour-rate calculation and again for engineers. But that hardly matters. The good news is we don't have such hour-rate system. We can definitely afford hours of mess.

Friday, September 14, 2007

FOSS: How much difference can it make?


foss solidarity candle illumination at Maitighar to mark SFD tomorrow

Illuminated FOSS indeed looked exotic. But can it exotic to other people besides those involved and those aware of FOSS. I myself am a sort of fan and user of FOSS and look for FOSS softwares whenever possible. I use GIMP occasionally but again happen to use photoshop. I use Firefox excessively but again test applications in IE to make sure that the firefox-ignorants can also use the web-apps. I use Microsoft office though I have installed Open-office. I am still using Winamp; I am happy with pidgin (IM replacement of gtalk, msn, yahoo and lot others), VLC Player or MPlayer. Despite all these love-hate for FOSS-proprietary softwares, I am still using Windows XP at home as well as office. I could have used different distributions of Linux but I can't at office and my home computer doesn't support so far - the screen goes berserk. I remember finally having suse installed but resulting in much slower pace compared to XP - it seemed to be hardware problem. I have no choice than to continue with XP :(

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Long time.... who cares anyway?

Well it's been more than a month. I wonder why do people write post like this after taking breaks for long time - including me. I have noticed several of my friends who posted after a long time apologizing, promising to write again and blah blah... Who cares anyway?

But my problem is i am supposed to be busy; though I don't get busy reading my to-be-read stuffs for Social Science Baha Immersion Course; but rather busy with surfing internet. Really there have been so many happenings within the last month that I would definitely not want to forget.

Just listing for my own memory.
--
Met Ross , a developer from Italy, who contacted me through my blog just for some developers' talk. He also gave presentation on Ruby on Rails at FKK (FOSS ka Kura at Yala Maya Kendra)

Met Lawrence, an old man :) from US and my pal, who is here to help the street children, yet to be started. He is working on it.

Took a session on GIMP and Audacity on FOSS training organized by Bellasap.

Had an interesting talk with journalist from Pokhara at Bellasap Party at Hotel Radison.

Went to Nala at Banepa from Ason Baja Guthi. Well i can also play the traditional baja (drums).

Played dare or truth with friends at Hots and really made fool out of ourselves. Enjoyed anyway.

Lots of late-nights with friends.

Still going to Social science baha for Immersion course on Contemporary Social Issues.

Watched few movies at Cinema hall, which I normally don't do. That doesn't mean I am abnormal ;)

Still waking up at 5:30 in the morning 5 days a week. Really something not to be forgotten.

Well my supposed-to-go yet still-unconfirmed trip:( I am still waiting.

Created a profile in Facebook and met lots of friends.


That's all I can remember so far.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Foreign aid in nepal

I used to wonder how foreign aid starts to proliferate in Nepal. Well Nepal received aid for the first time from US in 1950s, when China invaded Tibet - a gesture to ensure that communism didn't penetrate Nepal. Similarly India also started development programs in Nepal - building Tribhuvan highway and Tribhuvan International Airport - to make Nepal more and more dependent on them. See everyone has a motive - "money for nothing" doesn't apply in this practical world.

It's been more than 50 years and still aid is coming. People argue that aid is an attempt to influence the receiver - us in our case. Maybe a bit of truth. There's also an argument that foreign aid is creating jobs for the donor countries. More than 60% of total aid is taken back by themselves in the form of salary, travel and god knows what else. And yes there will also be local employees and another 20% goes to them. Now the remaining less than 20% goes to the actual development work. This may not be true in all the cases. People again justify that something is better than nothing - atleast 20% goes to development work. They are also right.

There's also a lot of debates on "Whether foreign aid is doing more harm than good in Africa". They are saying that they need capital and investments, not foreign aid.

I wonder if there's going to be any similar debate in Nepal where foreign aid fills large percentage of annual budget. I hardly see any.

Monday, July 23, 2007

big blunder from the leading bank: US$ at whopping Rs. 95.35 selling price

"We started banking in Nepal...
still we are leading way
"
The slogan at the banner of Nepal Bank Ltd's website is very inspiring, despite the fact that foreign management team of ICC are looking after the bank's management for the past 5 years and God knows at what cost. Now ICC team is withdrawing.

Another interesting happening at the website is the exchange rate of US$ at Rs. 64.35 buying price and whopping Rs. 95.35 selling price. I did not recreate the image below but just took screenshot of the exchange rate page.

I hope the rate is amended by the time you look there. Who's to blame here? The leaving ICC management team or just ignorance from the web people or we take it as a typo or we look 9 upside-down. Big blunder from the so-called banking leaders, starters or whatever...

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Mind game with time

Since starting 4 weeks course on Immersion course at Social Science Baha last week, I thought that I wouldn't get time to update my blogs; guess what? I was right. My mind was filled with the no-time trivia. But today I told myself that I would write no matter what and I managed time. Mind game is very interesting to play. Try with yours too but positively; it's not to be messed with.

Monday, July 16, 2007

maoists have become a joke

Everyday I skimmed through online news to find atleast one ridiculous news on maoists. Some of my past posts on them -
How do we define terrorists?
'Crime against Humanity': Are there still humans?
Can I also get nominated for the ambassador?

And another joke of the day: Include YCL in polls security plan: Prachanda - security plan for CA election. Huh!! If that is allowed, then all the parties will also ask for their student league or newly formed league for the security purpose. I wonder if Prachanda means security of their win in CA election.
"[...]The Maoist supremo also claimed that the former US president Jimmy Carter had given a written suggestion to them that the elections was not possible without the coordination between the YCL and the Police administration.[..]"
I am sure coordination doesn't mean including YCL in the security plan, even if Carter had said or written that. Com'on Prachanda, YCL threw stones at US Ambassador's vehicle.

I have no doubt that they did spend their 10 years in the jungle.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

How do we define terrorists?

There's a funny opinion from the maoist leader.
"The government should not hold dialogue with parties that want to split the country. They should be termed terrorists and strong action taken against them"
Terai extremists are terrorists: Maoist leader

Terrorists = those who want to split the country

Didn't he mean that?

According to Wikipedia, terroists or terrorism has the following key criteria
  • Violence
  • Psychological impact and fear
  • Perpetrated for a Political Goal
  • Unlawfulness or illegitimacy
Following that criteria, can somebody tell me why maoists shouldn't be put in that category? Or else we redefine the terrorist and terrorism, in Nepal's context. Why do people give their opinions without even going through the dictionary? Maybe they were never taught to.

Being sick is sick...

Just got ok from flu. The last three days were passed almost entirely in bed. On Friday, the fever day, I was sleeping entire day except for 4 hours and food-breaks in between. Wow! I never knew I could sleep that long. But got bad back-ache the next day when fever worn out. Man... being sick is sick.

I found this interesting uses of food items (ginger, garlic, onion, honey...) normally would-be-present in kitchen, that would have saved my time from getting bedridden, had I found it before. Nevertheless, its worth a look.
You can be a doctor in your kitchen


Tuesday, July 10, 2007

No water, no electricity, no fuel and now no banknotes

No water and no electricity has been with us for quite a sometime and has become an integral part of day-to-day lives. We don't talk about water and electricity scarcity any more. Then came another blow - no fuels. Man! that was harsh - I was in a queue for 3 hours to get 3 litres of petrol, under the scorching sun. It's been months since fuel crisis - even government said that scarcity will be over in 2 days almost 4 days back. But still the same.

Banknotes likely to be in short supply after Dashain

Now another crisis is about to be revealed. No more notes. Now people would be queuing up in completely different line to convert their cheques into notes. How's that?

Can money buy money? Cheque is a kind of money. If your cheque is worth Rs. 10000, then black market will pay you Rs. 9000 for your cheque. You have no choice. You can't buy food with cheques.

I am wondering about ATM. Will I have to stay in queue for hours to get money? Here's my money strategy. I am going to cash in all my money from the bank and keep stock at home just like fuels, but with less risk of having my house burned unlike insecure fuels stock at home.

Is there going to be any quota for debit card just like fuels (everyone will get petrol worth Rs 200)? You can't withdraw more than Rs.1000. I can't wait that day. I am sure Nepal is going to put its name in Guinness World Records as the "The Country of extreme quotas".

Sunday, July 08, 2007

MS Windows match-boxes... what??

Would you believe if I say Microsoft started a new product - the Windows match boxes. I wouldn't myself but Microsoft Nepal has done that. I wonder when Microsoft established it's office here at Nepal but it sure is a wonder to see Microsoft Windows match boxes in a small restaurant in Kathmandu. Don't believe me - take a look.

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Back of Windows matchbox

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Front side of Windows matchbox

I don't understand why would people do that? Don't they know that the giant would sue them, causing them billions of rupees, on copyright issues? I doubt that they ever informed Microsoft.

My version of what would happen if Microsoft sees it's new product in the market without it's knowledge let alone approval.

Microsoft would come to Nepal and first see me (they have to - who's going to take them to that shop). Then they would ask for the matchbox - I wonder if the match sticks would still be present in that particular box; chances are they would have another box. Unfortunately there is no mention of where, when and by whom it was manufactured in the box - well I had checked that. It ain't gonna make any difference to the giant Microsoft - they would develop a program,which would allow them to enter ..... ok i am digressing. Let's come to an end ... Finally they would be able to catch the local manufacturer, who couldn't even hire a designer to make a logo let alone billions. The giant's dream would shatter :( but with a new hope that now their reach and name will span to the rural people also - unfortunately not as a OS. Rural people would sure laugh when they would see Windows logo in a computer, "he he... we used them to burn."

Saturday, July 07, 2007

ICT opportunites in Nepal

Today my cousin brother, who runs a lucrative jewellery business, asked me about the accounting software, internet presence, how to start a website, online business. I was happy to answer him. A year ago, I remember asking him whether he would like to have a website of his own with some of jewelleries designs, people might contact him through the website and it's high time to start before anyone does. He disapproved the idea saying it's not time yet - maybe hasn't understood the power of internet. Now he came across few people who started websites, got jewellery orders from there; and he got interested in having his online identity - that's business mind.

The power of ICT is yet to be realized in Nepal. Who says there are not opportunities in Nepal?

King's Bday: why so much news?

Our-still King's birthday made lots of news this week - it has to, afterall he is still king. Unfortunately the news are not welcoming. See some of the news made to the headlines...

Palace requests additional security for king’s birthday celebrations

Attending king’s birthday will not be useful: Moriarty

Attending king's b'day bash an individual choice: RPP, RJP

King's birthday proceeds amid protests

Monarchists not to change their party plan [to gather and go to the palace to greet the King]

Another interesting news covered in front page of most daily newspapers last week was rejection of the King's invitation by the various ambassadors including Moriarty of US. That was ok so far, but now another news, quoted Dr. Durga Pokharel, says "Nobody has sent invitations to them".

Does that mean that the shrewd ambassadors were rejecting the invitations they never received?

Is that they gave their rejection views considering the fact that they would be invited? Or is that they gave their rejection views out of anger because they were not invited? Or is that the King thought these foreigners are of no use to him at all as he has to do everything by himself? Or is that the King wants to cut off some extra expenses? ........ I wish government formed a committee to solve this issue. We have rights to right information.


Friday, July 06, 2007

'Crime against Humanity': Are there still humans?

The literal meaning of human is
1. of or characteristic of man
2. having or showing the better qualities of man; kind; good;

"Humane", the adjective form of human means having or showing sympathy, kindness, and understanding.

The maoists filed a case against the army officials saying they did the 'Crime against Humanity' to their cadres and that army officials should be punished. Ofcourse they should be, no body is allowed to behave unhumanely to other humans. How of us agree that the moaists are human? Take a second look at the meaning again. Maoist victims have given and will give barbaric account of moaists so called humanity. And still citizens are being victimized now.

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/jul/jul03/news11.php

We have lost the value of humanity. The greed for money, power, fame has made us uncivilized, selfish animals. 'Humanity', 'Human rights' don't make any sense in this 21st century unless everyone understands and abides by the meaning of humane.

Those who are ranting 'Crime against Humanity' are doing the same, those who are advocating 'Human rights' are not aware of human rights violence in their home and their neighbourhoods. Don't you think that everything is revolving around money, power and fame? Take a look around the world. And do you still think that we are humans?

SLC results out but ekantipur not working

The SLC results were out at 11:40 at night. I got a call from my cousin sister to help her look up her number in the "Ekantipur" website. I have been awake since half an hour, trying to figure out how to see the results; it's already 1:15AM now. These people have already setup their google adsense in the SLC results page but the results were yet to be displayed. I can't click "find" button. Fortunately "Enter" key works, but again search leads me to nowhere - same page without any results. Com'on kantipur guys - you should have been prepared before. At one point, I even got mysql error. I wonder if they are prepared to get a huge spike in their server.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Should we? Yes! Will we? Not sure!

Just imagine this ...
A woman, left by her husband, works from 6 in the morning then walks for more than an hour to reach her second work-place and then walks back to her rented room, with her two daughters to feed. The same woman fasts twice a week. She faints one day and is taken to her room by her colleagues. The next day, she is diagnosed with jaundice. She still insists on working....

This is not a story but rather life of a cleaner at Tribhuvan International Airport. My mom, who is in-charge of the cleaning project of airport, but also an employee, had to hear such disheartening stories every now and then. Just comparing our day-to-day lives with theirs, we are in heaven - all of you who are reading this blog. Computer/internet is a luxury though we say we can't do anything without computers/internet. The world has become mean - in the road to development, billions of people are neglected and left behind on their own. I asked mom to give her a thousand rupee, from her own pocket, and ask her to take leaves for another two weeks. Jaundice can get very complicated and may even take life if neglected.

The same story may be lived by lots of people all around the world - mostly concentrated in developing countries. Most of us may never come across such stories - I wouldn't myself if my mom didn't tell me. Can we do anything to help them? I hear you saying "Yes we can (if not all) and we should." But will we? I don't know. It's hard because we all have our own problems - and sorting out problems of others, whom we don't know at all - is definitely to be pondered over.

Though our individual effort may not bring drastic change in this selfish world but it definitely helps those who are being helped.

I remember a nice story of a small boy, who is throwing the starfishes to the sea one by one, from the beach where these starfishes are being washed away due to tide. The grown-up person, seeing the futile effort of that boy, approaches him and says, "There are thousands of starfishes here, you are not going to make any difference." The boy picks up a starfish and says "I know, but I made a difference to this one", and throws it back to the sea.

How do people fantasize others garbage?

Can you imagine paying $305 for a used toothpaste, trashed coke can for $51? Some crazy people did that. I forgot to mention that those trash belonged to Paris Hilton.

yahoo news

What are you going to do with someone elses used toothbrush? Yucks! I can't see any use except throw it back to the trash.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Can I also get nominated for the ambassador?

Once I used to hear that to be an ambassador is not an easy job, you need to be qualifed in every way, afterall you will be representing your country. But it doesn't sound that difficult these days. There are 14 vacant ambassadorial posts that haven't been filled for over a year.

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/jun/jun28/news14.php

Why is this? It's not because of the lack of qualified people - every political party has tremendously qualified people and they can't reach consensus on who is the most qualified. The most qualified people involved party, the Moaists, are very difficult to convince, they are so qualified that they don't understand anybody else, besides them, can do the job properly. Indeed they have lots of experience - I mean in jungle - and they are demanding the 'A' category nations like India, Russia, US and China. Do they think that it's like hide and seek game? Infact it's nothing like that - but they are built to be rebellious - "Always be negative - no matter how good the result is". Offer them the ambassadorial post in 'A' category nations, I bet they would say "Nah! we won't take, we know why you are giving those nations to us." Afterall they are rebelliously qualified.

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/jul/jul02/news12.php

Monday, July 02, 2007

Fuel crisis: who cares?

It's been months since we are facing fuel crisis. And today not a single petrol pump was opened. It's pity to see people queuing up for the fuel outside the closed, fensed bar of the secured pump station. There was even scuffle for a moment by the agitated people, queuing for a line. Who wouldn't? Waiting under
scorching sun - just to find out that there's no more fuel. That's not a new problem. If people get angry, charge on them. If the same thing had happened in King's regime, that would have been suppression; then, no more king, Nepal should be declared republic, the great Prachanda, the president - that scum-bag is somewhere in Switzerland.

I am sure the officials of police, army, government, diplomates have their high fuel quotas, no matter what's happening to the rest of the country. Afterall citizens have never been in their list of agendas. They are just scapegoats - we will do this and that - when it comes to actual problem, not a single so-called leader spoke on this issue and said that this problem should be solved ASAP.

Another funny thing is there's not any coverage in any news site, except that of the small scuffle. It's not news anymore - afterall media needs new stuffs - who will pay to read the stale,stinky news. Let people die, then news comes, let some petrol pump gets burned, then media will cover.

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/jul/jul02/news07.php

It's the same old reason "The Indian Oil Corporation has decreased the supply of POL asking the Nepal Oil Corporation to pay the dues."

Why isn't this solved even after months of crisis?

The fate of my internet existence

My internet existence may be known to even hardly 10 people, besides those who already know me personally. I have blogs, have couple of email accounts, have profiles in several social networking sites like hi5, linkedin. Not much of an existence compared to those already established in the internet world. I am just another so and so. If I stop blogging, neglect hi5 comments, requests from friends, stopped checking my gmails, will there be anyone who will query about my status - what happened to me, whether I got lost in the jungle, whether I exist. I doubt that. There are people dying every day and so - of all ages. They sure may have their own existence in the internet. Now what, nobody cares.

Is my blog going to exist 50 years from now? How would I feel when I go through my posts then? I would be laughing at myself. Wow! Sounds pretty exciting!!

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Prachanda and Baburam on trip

Prachanda is sure going to enjoy his first trip to Switzerland, not to forget, it's his first trip to Europe. He must be elated and excited to enjoy his holidays there. You know the reasons for his trip. Yeah.. it's about discussing the peace process, constituent assembly, feudalism and so on. Isn't that exciting? Is Prachanda going to obey the outcomes of the discussion, "Prachanda, give up your YCL wings, shake hands with Girisha, don't do any more bandhs, and ...". Prachanda would then come back to Nepal and do whatever the Swiss guys told him. I can't even imagine this in dreams. Then why on world is he going? Oh... it must be a free ticket and we must be paying for his trip, unknowingly and he must have been bored with everyday talkings of the same ol' things. Is there any mention of his comrades accompanying him? I doubt him going alone, and he doesn't have to worry about money. That's life. After all, his years of staying underground has paid off.

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/jun/jun30/news14.php

Baburam is expected to join him. Don't laugh, he is in Norway for conflict resolution conference.
Damn! I should also start getting underground, who knows one day it gets paid off.

According to Prachanda, his visit will be helpful in developing international relations of the Moaists. And what about the national relations? Don't worry, let your guns do the job.

"Once in a blue moon" was here

Blue moon caught my eyes when skimming through the news at the Himalayantimes online. 31st June was the blue moon day and it is watched and loved by the lovers and is taken as a herald of good time - that was really new for me!

I was wondering if the blue moon was really blue. If it were then there would certainly have been lots of talkings. To my amazement, i didn't hear anything. Searching for blue moon reveals some interesting details and why there's a saying "Once in a blue moon". If there's an extra full moon besides 3, in any quarter of a year, then that extra one is considered the blue moon. That's all and is a part of solar system phenomenon.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Somewhere in Bhaktapur

I went to Picnic somewhere in Bhaktapur last Saturday (see i am posting it almost a week later.. i swear i am getting lazy). It was a small religious place with lots of small temples and gods. There is a lord Vishnu lying over water and guarded by snakes - which looks like a tiny replica of Budhanilkantha deity.

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The entrance to the religious place - our picnic spot

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Lord Garud

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Can you see god appearing from fish mouth?

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Tiny replica of Budhanilkantha deity

Later in the day we saw lots of farmers working in their fields - planting season just started. I have never seen people working in the fields, in a large number. It was terrific feeling.

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I like this photograph

Drupal at YTC

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I had a short informal presentation on Drupal to friends at YTC (Sap-falcha) on how Drupal works. Basically it was to give them a rough idea on how CMS should work - I chose Drupal because I know it well and there are other reasons too like active community, popular CMS. They found it worthwhile and even vowed to try it on their own. All the best guys.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

ICIMOD seeks ...

We are expecting few major changes at ICIMOD since new DG, Dr. Andreas Schield, took over in April. Now ICIMOD is seeking lots of new professionals - different from what I was used to seeing. I hope to see big positive changes here.

Disaster Risk Reduction Specialist
Environmental Change Specialist
Senior Economist
Information and Knowledge Management Coordinator

links here http://www.icimod.org/home/vacancies/

ICIMOD Books-online: a satisfaction

I have been working on ICIMOD Books-online for the past three/four months plus and yet there are still little issues popping up every now and then. "It's almost complete" is my favorite line and I wonder when I would be in a position to say "It's done now". I can't wait for that day.

In fact I am very much satisfied with this application after more than two years in software development. It uses lots of ajax (I used jquery) and I have tweaked lots of jquery plugins for its purpose. The other interesting feature is that it is maintained at two different servers - local and online. Local server is accessible with in the ICIMOD premises only. That's make data entry job much easy and quick. I don't want people to take two hours to upload files. There are pdf files which are scanned versions of books and can go up to more than 40MB. Local content is synced with online content but there are lots of issues to be taken care of. I don't want all the database tables to be synced - especially downloads statistics table. Thanks to rsync tool - syncing folders is a breeze.

Though searching may not be very powerful, I have heavily tweaked sphider (open source search engine) to index directly from database rather than spidering through web links.

Now we have a plan to provide the application in DVD format - targeting researchers and academicians. Much work has been done - running database and web server from the DVD is not much of a problem - thanks to internet and the contributors.

The environment Minister inaugurated ICIMOD books-online on World Environment day, 5th June. So much publicity. Though I am not excited about minister inaugurating it, I am much elated on seeing my work on stage.

Give a try. See if you can find any books of your interest.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Snake in the workplace: adventurous

A snake was found sleeping under the bag in one of our colleagues room. There was a photo session of snake for several minutes, maybe scaring it. Finally one bold colleague used a long bamboo stick to get the snake out of the room. I was holding another bamboo stick behind him in case it slid away. Fortunately it didn't. I don't know whether it's poisonous or not but I really wanted to touch it and hold it by its tail - which I didn't do. But I would have done if there were some snake experts around.



I was imagining Steve Irwin or some other nat-geo guy carrying that snake by its tail and shouting "beautiful!" and all.



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Saturday, June 02, 2007

Whitewater rafting: everyone should go for it once - atleast

I still feel water splashing in our faces at various rapids. Twisting and turning of our raft at these rapids were the most exciting part of entire trip. Many of these rapids even have names - the most dangerous one at Trisuli river is "Upset" and "Surprise", as told by our instructor or life guard or director of our boat. It looked like our boat almost overturned at this rapid but we managed to get through. We were busy shouting rather than paddling - some friends were even paddling in air at these rapids.



We covered 25km of Trishuli river, in the south of Kathmandu. We even dipped in the river - and swam with life jackets though. Later the water turned out to be really cold and had to get back to the boat.



While rafting, we had to follow our instructor, who would say "forward", "backward", "left forward" and so on. His favorite line was "Stop". He had to make sure that we didn't lose our direction and also that we didn't miss those interesting rapids. 3 hours seemed to be too short when we reached our final point. Arms were exhausted with paddling, so were the body and legs, but not our spirits. We wanted more.



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Preparing for the show


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It's me - showing some excitement


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That's the Trisuli river we rafted through - our stop point

Friday, June 01, 2007

yet another doomsday: who benefits?

Some snaps taken during the morning hour of bandh, today. These bandhs (Valley shutdown) seem to be the only way of protest and the only way the government understands. The idea was conceived and brought into action by those people in the government and now others are just following in their footsteps. No one to blame.

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Protesters busy carrying nearby objects to block the road. May God give them a little consciousness.


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Police van and UN vehicle getting past the blockade at Maharajgung

Nature

Some of the pics that I took on my last visit to ICIMOD Godavari Demonstration and Training Center at Godavari.



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A bee and the flower




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A staring beetle




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A gang of unknown bugs




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Leaves from closeup




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A pink bug




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USBCell: look around for new ideas

Host unlimited photos at slide.com for FREE! Charging battery via USB never crossed my mind, though I have seen and used MP3 player being charged after plugging into USB. But AA battery (USB Cell) charging with USB is something new for me. You may also charge them with your normal charger, after putting the cap on.

How about this? The world with no battery. The device getting charged from the powerful radio waves, emitting from super powerful transmitter. Seems absurd now. But you never know - some scientists may already be working on this.

The world is indeed full of ideas and these ideas are on an increase with every innovation. Look around us and see if we can conceive anything of our use - or anything that is going to solve a problem to some extent. I bet your life will get transformed that day. Keep exploring.

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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

French or other languages: gain with pain

I am in the third week of my french class and now can speak few sentences. There's a whole lot of conversion (english-french) and constructions taking place in brain, before words burst out of the mouth. And again most of them would be improperly articulated. It's difficult and yet fun to learn new stuffs. Sometimes it gets really frustrating when I don't understand anything our instructor is saying and i feel that I am the only victim. Later it turns out that most others are also on the same side.



The problem with beginners in any language is vocabulary. There are so many things you want to say but you don't know the words. You go through simple nursery books, comics and couldn't comprehend beyond first few words. Our instructor said that we would be in a position to understand simple comics after third level, which would take six months plus. That's a way too long for me. I am really looking forward to read comics after the first level. That means I give at least an hour to french everyday. Gain and pain are part of learning indeed.



technology vs us: who is using whom

My mobile had crashed two times, leaving me at the mercy of the callers. Technology does paralyse us at times. But still we are dependent upon it. Just to make sure that I don't go through the same agony, I now take monthly backup of my addressbook, transfer to my computer via bluetooth and then safely email to my gmail account. There are cases I have seen, when people totally get lost after losing their mobile. Well I am not preparing to lose my mobile nor crash it again, but just the precaution in case. If you notice, I am still at the mercy of the technology. I sometimes wonder if we are using technology or it is using us. This world has indeed become more and more complicated.

It's upto us!

1960: richest 20% of the world's population had 70% of global income

1991: richest 20% of the world's population had 85% of global income

Courtesy: http://www.iht.com/articles/1996/12/11/edbim.t.php



"A billion customers in the world are waiting for a 2$ pair of eyeglasses, a 10$ solar latern and a 100$ house."



There's a lot of inequalities among the richest and the poorest of this world and yet the cleverest designers are catering to the richest 10%, according to Dr. Polak. True! isn't it?



We can help billions of poor people and yet make money (only if u are money minded - i guess most of us are) or we can help few millions of rich people and again make money. What do we choose? It's upto us whether to bring long-lasting smile to the billion people or an instant joy to the insatiable million people.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

For how long??

I stayed in queue for exactly 50 minutes to get fuel for my bike. There were hundreds of people waiting for their turns. How many productive hours of the nepalese citizens been wasted? Who cares? Those who should never get time to think about the citizens and their welfares.



Waiting in queue for 50 minutes with starving stomach. Ohh! Finally I got home, just to find that there's no electricity. It was load-shedding day. Well my would-be-unproductive hours seemed to be productive, though in some way. I must say that "They do think about us - randomly". />

Monday, May 21, 2007

being positive is hard

No matter how much I read about positivity, it's really hard to be positive. I was returning from my french class, there was a jam in New Road. It was not moving at all. I got off my bike and climbed the overhead bridge to see the vehicles, enveloping entire road - as far as my vision allowed - just sitting there without any sign of movement. I asked couple of people standing, "What happened?". Most questioned me back. Some were mentioning that something's to be with whining teachers, they were burning something. I still don't have any idea what might have happened exactly where at 7:30 in the evening today.



Anyways I turned back and came the long road - yeah we still have fuel shortage. On the way back, there was a mid-aged man, with a pot belly, in a scooter honking after almost every 3-4 seconds. I would count 1-2-3-4 and he honked and it continued for quite a long period. I wondered if he is obsessed with horns. So I let him overtook me. And he would still not stop honking, even in an open road. I was so irritated that everytime he honked, I would honk him back. He didn't seem to be affected at all. Finally he took another way. I wonder what's wrong with people here. They don't think or they don't have mind at all.





Saturday, May 19, 2007

Runner's high: I felt it before I knew about it

I wrote about happy feelings after running, almost two months back. I have even recommended people to try running rather than consuming alcohol to achieve the same feelings as one would get during alcohol intake. I even derived an empirical equation



Tiredness = hanged - worries = happy feelings



I didn't know that people already knew about such happy feelings and have even given a name "Runner's high". Runner's high involves not only in running but all sort of sports and occurs due to the generation of chemical called endorphine during strenuous exercise. I felt it and now I knew about it.



Today is my probably the 6th run to-fro Budhanilkantha. My wish to run without breaks is finally accomplished today. I am happy about that and ofcourse there's runner's high. The mild rain on the way back added even more excitement and boosted my energy. I guess I experienced "runner's very high" today :)



Scott Dunlap seems to know a lot about runner's high and his feelings are also quite similar to mine - regarding the use of marijuna (in his case) vs running for the euphoric feelings.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

'Telecommunications in all villages in a year' huh!

I wonder if Mr. Mahara did any study or consulted with telecommunication people before making statement like 'telecommunication facilities would be expanded at each village across the country in a year's period'. I hope he did. He is information and communication minister after all. I would like to see their work plan not just talking. I wonder if they think construction is as easy as destruction.



If you look at the ekantipur news, the above statement seems to make way for other topics like declaration of republic, constitutent assembly, Moaists People's Liberation Army...



It just seems to be waste of time to go through such news. But the headline caught my eyes. These media people do know how to get their audiences.





Sunday, May 13, 2007

A short Shivapuri hike

Though it was a short hike, we had lots of fun talking at the colorful monastery somewhere at top of Shivapuri hill with Anna, Emma and Prajna. The rain was even more exciting, with one umbrella and one raincoat and 4 people with coordinated down hill walk. We didn't get to drench in rain though our pants got dirty and gave the look of the real hike. And I got to know lots of interesting facts on Sweden from Anna and Emma.

Foreigners do have lots of problems here. We have to pay Rs 10 to enter Shivapuri National Park while they have to pay Rs 250. I was surprised to hear that they are constantly approached by drug dealers, asking if they need any, while walking in the city. Interesting.

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Kathmandu city as seen on the way


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Girls pointing somewhere at the city


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Way to Monastery (Yellow Building)


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A whole lot of colorful Buddhist flags near Monastery


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Emma, Prajna and Anna inside Monastery


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A huge colorful drum inside Monastery

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Boogie, the bday boy

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The Boogie, alias Sugam bhai, was preparing to cut his birthday cake in the third and the last day of his birthday celebration series. I heard it - about the series. Yet to find the truth which I don't care, and also similarly non-important issue is about his name - why he is called "The Boogie".

Updates: Three days bday celebration mystery solved

Thursday, May 10, 2007

It's so easy to get depressed here, learn to suppress it

I was just going through the daily online news and felt very bad reading all those bad news, making to the headlines.

Fuel shortage hits valley
[...]The current stock of petrol, diesel, and kerosene in the Kathmandu Valley is hardly adequate for two days,[...]

Patients return from Bir hospital empty-handed

[...]I came from Janakpur for my throat check-up, but they (hospital officials) didn't issue a ticket saying there was no doctor,[...]

Camps: Hell for PLA combatants
[...]
They desert their camps and knock at the doors of locals, pleading for
shelter and protection from gales, rain, mosquito bites, and possible
harm from snakes and scorpions during the night.[...]

Ex-soldiers take to the street
[...]
We will now hold an indefinite transportation strike in Chitwan,
Bharatpur, Mugling Bazar and Bhaise area of Makawanpur district
beginning Thursday to exert pressure on the government[...]

Besides there's daily traffic jams, water scarcity, terrai conflict... Few days and probably weeks back, I thought I wouldn't see news and read news. I hardly watch News anymore, though I skim through the online news once in a while. And it's enough to get depressed easily.

It is said that whatever is in our mind, will manifest. We are very prone to negativity. Negative thoughts are very very health hazardous as explained by Guru Michael Anthony in his freely downloadable howtobehappy book. Read how to be happy and may you help yourself and your surrounding in getting happiness despite the looming depression.

"I am always truthful, positive and helping others" is the mantra to bliss.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Wired Kathmandu

I still remember an ICIMOD colleague, a finnish lady, once mentioned to me, "I wonder why do people need to hang all those wires around the city". I looked around and wondered "Wow! she's right!". I have never realized that. After 25 years of staying here at Kathmandu, I saw that there's not a street, alley that don't have wires hanging in air. We are so much used to hanging wires, our eyes filter them unconsciously. We have to be reminded that it's there. Among those wires are electricity wires, telephone, channels cables, and now internet cables. I bet people would also hang wireless cables, if only they could.

From the visible perspective, Kathmandu should be one of the most wired city. What do you say, folks?
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If you look down from my home veranda, there's a bunch of wires running across the alley towards my home and few of them are actually for my home - telephone, channel cable, internet cable and electricity. The white box in the dirty looking pole is actually the world link internet cable box. You can imagine how easy it was to get internet for me. Don't ever think of stealing internet from there.

Hail wired Kathmandu!! Now I see wires everyday ;)

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Ugh! Worldlink

It's been few days that blogger.com is not working from home, the result is none of the xyz.blogspot.com are working. I called Worldlink, the Great ISP, to inform them about this. They told me that they have blocked blogger.com to prevent massive spamming to their email accounts. How could they do that to such popular blogging site just because they can't control spamming? I was asked to talk with some other person tomorrow. Let's see what he'll say to me.

Strange - French or English?

Learning French is fun and strange, especially when we are much used to English, which is even much strange when we really ponder on it.



Pronounce Put and Hut

Similarly Go and Do



We pronounce them correctly because we are used to it. Such type of mis-pronunciation rarely occur in French, our instructor at Alliance Francaise told us. I have yet to find that out by myself. So far I learned speaking 4 sentences, which I don't remember at all. I don't need to - that's what our instructor told us. And I obey him :)





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Monday, May 07, 2007

Kathmandu jams

If you ever been stuck in Kathmandu jams, you will know how suffocating it can be with smokes, dust, horns, ever-increasing vehicles and mindless people. Vehicles are increasing in a daily basis and it is said that if all the vehicle are being lined up, then the entire Kathmandu road will be found shorter. I don't know how much facts support that said statement. But whenever you get stuck in jams which don't seem to move for almost half-an-hour, you feel that all the Kathmandu dwellers are on the street in their vehicles at the same time - atleast I feel that way. If people are little calm, then we don't ever need to get stuck in jams. Everyone is in a hurry and as a result everyone gets stuck. We should abide by the rule - first-in-first-out but here people try to follow last-in-first-out rule. Usually people take up the wrong lane in order to leave the jam behind and in a matter of seconds, two-way lane gets filled with unidirectional vehicles. You don't want to be there.

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Yesterday I got stuck in a not-would-be-but-people-caused jam. A taxi tried to change the lane to move in other direction. It's quite common in Kathmandu. You back the vehicle and change the lane and direction. You may see the traffic policeman approaching a taxi (see image above), which hit the micro-bus during backing process. The other side is blocked up by the micro-bus, driving in the wrong lane (see below), trying to overtake, God knows who. This is called bottle-neck and it happens almost everyday. If only people have mind, they would never hurry to drive, change lane and would never get stuck in jams.

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Artifact to be preserved or replaced?

Can you see what exactly it is? Looks like some sort of artifact.

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Take a close look.

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More close. Maybe you want to take a sit now.

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I hope you can see that it's a bus stand (5 minutes walk from Narayan Gopal Chowk). It has been there for more than a year in such condition. It's obvious that some reckless driver had hit on it and I still wonder from which side. Isn't that something to be preserved for future generation to see? Maybe it is otherwise it doesn't make sense to have it lying there for more than a year. I propose that it be fenced to protect it from amendments.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

10 free softwares without which i can't think of my computer

Some of the free softwares which get opened in my computer frequently. Besides I use other propriety softwares also, microsoft office, photoshop, adobe acrobat to name a few, which are not included in this list below.

Firefox Browser
I can't live without firefox - my window to the internet world. There are plenty of extensions/plugins that enhance the functionality of firefox. Let's see whether you imagination can beat it.

Notepad++
I accidentally used Notepad++ for the first time and now this is my standard editor. I use it for normal editing and even for programming php, python. This light-weight notepad++ has tabbed interface, syntax folding, line numbering,... features. I use its regular expression a lot when I need to manipulate data, extract information from raw data.

7-zip
7-zip is open source counterpart of winzip, winrar or whatever you are using for compression. So far 7-zip can open any compression file type. It's been more than a year that I have been using this and haven't regretted since.

M-player/VLC
VLC is a fork of M-player. You can play almost any media (video/audio) in these players. How many times your window media player wouldn't play some video and shows you some nasty message. I bet you will never get such message from either m-player or VLC. It's default installation contains most plugins for many media types. I like controlling volume, forwarding using keys functionality of m-player.

Fox-it reader
This is a light-weight counter part of memory gobbler and slow starter adobe reader. These days whenever anyone comes to me for help in opening pdf files, they get free fox-it reader installed in their computer and without a charge.

Process explorer
This is another freeware, highly advanced counterpart to the windows task manager. Have you ever realized that your windows computer wouldn't let delete some file or folder, saying used by some other program, and you won't see any program running. Huh! crazy Microsoft. Now you have to restart your comuter just to delete that file. But not anymore with process explorer. You can search for that file from it and choose to close the handle that is using that particular file or folder. No more restart. Really useful and attractive GUI.

Wordweb
You are reading in your computer. You come across some unfamiliar words. You turn your dictionary. No way. You can setup a hot-key to open freeware wordweb after selecting some unknown word. If I come across some unknown words, i will select it and press CTRL+ALT+W to see the meaning in wordweb. Really handy if you do lots of reading in your computer. So far there are 2/3 instances where wordweb couldn't find the searched word but provides a link to search in the internet.

Winamp (lite version)
Lite version of winamp is free and consumes very little memory and also installer is pretty much small. Unfortunately it doesn't play wma file in its default installation.

Xnview
This is editor, image viewer, screenshot capturer and free of course but for non-commercial use. I like its batch transforming features. You select a bunch of images and choose to resize to some standard size, in just one click. This is very handy when you have downloaded large images from your digital camera and your friend asks you to email photos of him only. Capturing screenshots with xnview is also very very useful and easy and time saver.

Thunderbird

I use Thunderbird to get mail for my office mail only. Otherwise I prefer web interface for others.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Some salesperson are just too great

When you are buying any stuff, you will immediately know that, "yes, this is the person I will buy from". They explain the things, even without being asked, and so nicely put that you can't resist buying from him. Similarly you know when you are not buying from some sales-person when he/she speaks his/her first sentence.



Like today, I was buying a battery for my bike, to replace the worn-out one. The person, behind the counter, probably at this sixties, explained to me so nicely about the battery world that I couldn't get out of there without buying one. Though I was looking for some recommended brand, I got some other "If you are not careful enough, any battery will drain out no matter how expensive it is or of whatever successful brand it is. If you are careful, the battery will last for atleast 4/5 years, no matter how cheap it is." There may be some exaggeration, but he was very persuasive, with reasoning ofcourse.

think before you leap

Sometimes I wonder why I do something without thinking. Today at office I suddenly stopped the database server; I was testing something. I forgot for a moment that lots of applications are being served from that server. It took me more than an hour to get it started - just to start the database server. Can you imagine that? I was so tensed. Sometimes linux machine gives me a lot of headache. Now I know the problem and the solution. There's always learning from ones' mistakes. But again I haven't documented anywhere about that scenario. Ugh!

Socialize

"I have been drinking lots of water these days."

"You better leave Nepal soon. Maybe water scarcity will get minimized to some extent."

You bet I would, if only I did that.



In almost every get-together with friends, there would be jokes. Some jokes get really creative, like the one above. Laughing and mocking never gets done before the party gets over. This is very important for everyone of us to get refreshed from our daily work. Socializing every once in a while is a boost to the productivity.



How long have you not been out with your friends? Have you realized how much dull your life has become? Get your feet running.





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Monday, April 30, 2007

addictive downloads: threat to memory

My hard drive is almost full with loads of downloads that begin once my night-surfing internet goes online. Downloading is like addiction, the more you download, the more you want to. The worst thing about any download is you don't want to erase them - though you won't know whether you are going to use it or it. I am a follower of "When in doubt, throw it out" philosophy, but still i find it hard to apply to the virtual stuffs; it's ok with tangible stuffs, though. Primarily it's because I am in Nepal, bandwidth is a valued resource. It takes time, a lot, to download and even more patience. A lot of time mean lots of - sometimes it can take days or even month.



I bought an external hard drive case for my 20GB disk, to keep backups of my precious downloaded files. Now 3GB left. Download addiction is indeed threat to beloved memory.





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Alcohol: you haven't tried, well you don't need to now!

You have not tasted alcohol once? You have never been drunk? You feel that you should experience it once. Thanks to Brad Paisley, you don't need to anymore. This great country singer knows alcohol much better. It's got both good and bad consequences. It seems that bad (13) outruns good (9). And it's upto you whether you taste it or just listen to it.



Alcohol

- Brad Paisley



I can make anybody pretty.

I can make you believe any lie.

I can make you pick a fight with somebody twice your size.

Well, I've been known to cause a few break-ups,

An' I've been known to cause a few births.

Well, I can make you new friends, or get you fired from work.



And since the day I left Milwaukee,

Lynchburg an' Bordeaux, France,

Been making the bars lots of big money,

An' helpin' white people dance.

I got you in trouble in High School,

But College, now that was a ball.

You had some of the best times you'll never remember with me:

Alcohol; Alcohol.



I got blamed at your wedding reception,

For your best man's embarrassing speech.

And also for those naked pictures of you at the beach.

I've influenced Kings and world leaders,

I helped Hemingway write like he did.

And I'll bet you a drink or two, that I can make you put that lampshade on your head.



'Cause since the day I left Milwaukee,

Lynchburg and Bordeaux, France,

I been making a fool out of folks just like you,

An' helping white people dance.

I am medicine and I am poison,

I can help you up or make you fall.

You had some of the best times you'll never remember with me:

Alcohol.



Yeah, since the day I left Milwaukee,

Lynchburg an' Bordeaux, France,

Been making the bars lots of big money,

(Helpin' white people dance.)

Yeah, I got you in trouble in High School,

But College, now that was a ball.

You had some of the best times you'll never remember with me:

Alcohol; Alcohol.






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Saturday, April 28, 2007

Unpredictable life

I was startled to see a group of people with red bands on their heads, blocking the road at Lazimpat. I turned my bike - I had no choice. Upon reaching Kamaladi, there was another blockade and similarly at Durbar Marg. If you ask any pedestrian, "Don't know" is the first response you would hear the most. We are so much used to this life, we don't care anymore. "Used to" doesn't mean we look forward to but we adapt ourselves when such situation arises and curse them and then ignore. Then I reached Samakhusi and saw people burning tires. One guy, a frail looking, approached and asked me to give him a lift to Lazimpat. He explained that he walked all the way from Soyambhu ( a long way from Samakhusi) and he works in a hotel and that he's getting very late. At first I thought I should give him a lift, but I was waiting for a friend. "Sorry bro!". Also I feel that people are not to be trusted especially in such situations. That guy may not have any bad intention as such but I didn't feel secure; and I didn't have any good reason to give him a ride too. There may be hundreds or even thousands of people,who are directly or indirectly affected by such unpredictable situations. May god give consciousness to those who lack.



Monday, April 23, 2007

An attempt to organize life

It's been few weeks that I find myself cluttered. I have several things in my mind that I would like to do, write in papers or spiral copy, sometimes I would write in a text file in my computer. Often I would lose the paper or I would forget to turn the pages. Result is I would do nothing that I would consider productive, just surf the internet, listen to music, watch movies, send SMS, and time to sleep.



In an attempt to make my life a little organized, I bought a white board today. I have already written my todos, and I wait for the day to get them crossed one-by-one.

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Can you read my todos?


Coincidently there's also a post "Why paper to-do lists work better?" at lifehacker, which says paper-todos lists are better than e-todos lists. I would say white boards even outrun the paper-todos, atleast for my case. There are pros-cons in each of those cases though.