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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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)

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

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