Lenovo thinking about Linux

A while back, on Dell’s adoption of Linux for its home user segment, I had said:

Dell happens to be the number 1 PC maker in the US. It won’t be wrong to assume that other PC manufacturers would mimic Dell’s strategy.

And guess what, now Lenovo has this to say in its blog:

… One of our competitors has done so and it seems to be working out for them. (I won’t say who, because every time I mention a competitor by name, you should see the five-alarm fire that erupts over here. You all know who I’m talking about though.)

It also mentions:

… we’re spending way too much time on the enterprise market and not enough on the enthusiast market. Enterprises have been, and will continue to be, slow to adopt Linux for some of the reasons I outlined, but there are nonetheless a LOT of people running Linux out there, especially on their ThinkPads.

Lenovo has started a poll asking users to vote for their favorite distros which they want to see officially supported for their Thinkpads. Go ahead vote for your distros!

All thanks to Vista! Thank you Microsoft, you’re finally going to help us get rid of Bug #1.

On being separate

An interesting video about non-dualism

At this juncture I’d also like to share an excerpt from Wayne Liquorman’s (aka Ram Tzu) poem:

Go back to your church, your temple,
Your therapist, your drug dealer, your ashram.
There you may find a moments peace.
You found it there once.
Here is only emptiness for you.
You’ll find no food for your ego here.
What if your precious sense of self
Were to shrivel up and die?
Where would you be then?
What would happen?
Best not to risk it.

Milk for the Cat

If you happen to be a cat lover, you surely must have read Harold Monro’s  “Milk for the Cat“.

I had come across this poem at school. It’s been one of the most cherished ones till date; not only because it was amazingly detailed, but also because I grew up in the company of cats

But why am I writing a post on cats? It’s not caturday is it? No, what really triggered this post is this song I accidentally discovered on Youtube:

Both Harold’s poem and this video exude some kind of timelessness, which I find hard to pin point. May be it’s as simple as “love for cats.”

What if Harold Monro were to be alive in today’s times? He’d probably come up with something like the “Mean kitty” song No?

The Sacrificial Lamb

Just stumbled upon this:

Nepal’s state-run airline has confirmed that it sacrificed two goats to appease a Hindu god, following technical problems with one of its aircraft.

BBC NEWS

I don’t know who really is the sacrificial lamb; the goat or the passengers? If you happen to use Nepal Airlines for your travels, you better decide

US bomber loaded with nuclear missile by mistake

An Air Force B-52 bomber flew across the central United States last week with six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads that were mistakenly attached to the airplane’s wing, defense officials said yesterday.

The Stratofortress bomber, based at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, was transporting a dozen Advanced Cruise Missiles to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana on Aug. 30. But crews inadvertently loaded half of them with nuclear warheads attached.
(emphasis mine) Washington Post

Also read the story here.

Geosci blog has some reactions.

Having the worlds largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, the mistake is no doubt embarrassing for the nuclear messiah.

But, at least they made it public.

Marvel vs DC

We have so many Mac vs PC parodies floating around, but this one’s the best I’ve come across so far. Here’s some Marvel vs DC action!

There are more here

Prostitutes no longer criminals

If the proposed amendments to the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act of 1956 are passed, prostitutes would no longer be treated as criminals.

However their profession would still continue to be treated as an illegal one.

Fifty years after India enacted a legal framework to check prostitution, Government has finally decided to go for a radical change in the law.

The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act of 1956 is being amended and sex workers will now be treated as victims and not as offenders. They cannot even be asked to vacate the property they reside in.

“It’s not legalising, it’s decriminalising of the prostitutes. Most of them are in it not by choice,” says Chairman, Centre for Social Research, Ranjana Kumari.

CNN IBN

 

The oldest profession in the world still continues to be illegal in India, depriving prostitutes of their legal rights, and thus making them vulnerable to exploitation.

Given the socio-cultural impediments, legalizing prostitution might be suicidal for the administration at this juncture.

But with this creative middle ground adopted by the Goverment through the proposed amendment, the prostitutes, particularly those who have been pushed into this profession against their will, might get some legal rights.

Women who have entered the profession voluntarily, or those who wish to stay, might have to wait a little longer.

One step at a time, I guess.

Related read:

India Together article on the issue

Google indic transliteration

is simply the best indic transliteration tool I’ve come across till date.

Currently it’s just available for Hindi. Hopefully this would be added to Google’s localized pages — and support for more languages and scripts is always welcome. (via: india uncut)

Dailytimes Hacked

Just got this via email (thanks Ayesha). It seems the website of leading Pakistani daily Dailytimes got hacked yesterday. The exact time and the duration of operation is unclear, but the site is back up and running today.

The hackers posted the following message:

“hack3d by ic3d r0s3 :) greetz to (linuxg0d) ,(savechanges) ,(pagefault) and old whackerz crew;;;;;; to PHA and yeah to the criticized one (abunasar) : keep it up kid;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; and still after 2 yrs ………….. — THIS IS THE END BEAUTIFUL FRIEND ?? ;;;;; Mr. Mush PLz GOOOOOOOOO;)”

Apparently the hackers were of Pakistani origin, and their message seems to be directed against Musharraf.

Will update this post in a bit.

Update: Blogosphere coverage

• Eteraz
• Karachi Metblogs
• Islamabad Metblogs

Update 2:

It’s 11:26AM IST, DailyTimes has been hacked again, apparently by the same hackers. The same message has been posted

Deja vu

It seems wordpress.com was blocked in Turkey. Almost seems like a page out of history.

Thanks to RTI we came to know how the Government blocks websites in India.

Update:

Official reaction from wordpress.com regarding the ban in Turkey.

The letter mentioned in the above link contains the list of blogs that led to a Turkish court order to bring down the entire wordpress.com domain in Turkey.

Go have a look at these blogs before they are taken down!

These blogs have now gotten more publicity because of the entire censorship process. What an irony

Synchronous Hermaphrodite

Srikant, a really good friend of mine, has framed an ‘interesting equation’

Limit [Human] = Synchronous Hermaphrodite
Perfection~> Infinity

Those of you who are not familiar with calculus, should go ahead and read his post explaining the above equation.

Bravo I must say!

Tagged

So I’ve been tagged  by raindreamer. I usually give tags a miss, but this one I feel like taking up.

I’ve to list 7 blogs that I like, though I’m just going to mention three. ( Argh! what’s with these tags and the number seven? )

Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind (RTDM): The thing I like the most about greatbong’s blog is that it highlights and glorifies subaltern cultures within India, the ones that are usually despised for the sake of sophistication. Greatbong makes them palatable for the ’sophisticated junta’. Of course that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The humorous seasoning that comes with each post makes you wanna read more and more of the same.

All Things Pakistan: Simply the best thing to happen to the South Asian blogosphere. A nice mix of culture and politics topped up with honesty, passion and occasional humor. Although the USP of the blog is the community that surrounds it — ranging from extreme left to far right. You may be done reading a post, but you keep coming back for the never-ending discussions that follow (much to the misery of the moderators ).

The Spinster chronicles: Amazingly candid. “The story of a single woman in her 30s travelling through these modern days; sometimes funny, other times serious, always real.” Very real indeed! One would assume that the blog’s posts, which are really honest personal expressions, would give an insight in to the writer. But in reality these posts give an insight into one’s own self. At this juncture some would say “key to understanding others is understanding one’s own self truly”

There are many more, but my stamina only permits three per post

err … who do I tag next?

zeebee I guess? ( I am determined to break the number 7 rule )

Minorities and minority opinion

A lot of people confuse democracy with majority rule, the latter being only one of the pillars of the former. The other pillar is minority rights. In a very simplistic way I say that democracy is actually a dynamic equilibrium between these two pillars ( I use the word equilibrium because bad things happen if it ceases to be so)

I am a fan of nature, and the way it works. And the best thing that we have learnt from nature is ‘natural selection’. In a very very old post of mine, I had said:

Einstein had said “the only constant in life is change”. This philosophy is embodied in Nature itself. Going by the theory of evolution (my apologies to people of the book(s)), selection and reproduction are accompanied by crossover and mutation. While selection helps in getting the best out of existing alternatives, mutation(change) helps in exploring better alternatives – thus improving the overall race. This concept has been successfully applied in optimization applications in the form of Genetic Algorithms.
In short, resisting change would lead to stagnation or may be deterioration.

And there lies one of the reasons why minorities are important.

However, when I use the word ‘minorities’ I not only use it for communities, but also for ideologies and opinions — each aspect being equally important for the reasons mentioned above.

Protection of minorities and minority opinions leads to a diverse society with diverse opinions.

Related post: Preventing the percolation

Indian politicians - Vande mataram mix

Politicians with I-day vigor!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day

… to all my friends in Dushman Des

All Things Pakistan has a series of insightful posts on events around Pakistan’s independence. Do check them out!

Tomorrow, on the occasion of India’s independence day, NDTV has a bouquet of interesting programmes. The ones to watch out for are Azaad Humsafar and Freedom at Midnight.

The thing to note about these programmes is that it’s a joint production between Pakistan’s Geo TV and India’s NDTV. (a first of its kind?).

Indiantelevision.com says

The one hour programme Freedom at Midnight: 60 years of India and Pakistan’s Independence will bring together politicians, soldiers, artistes and ordinary people from both sides of the border. The show will be anchored by Barkha Dutt from Dubai and an anchor from Pakistan live in Dubai, Islamabad and New Delhi.

(image source)