Tuesday, March 09, 2010
18:09 - A call to all the NRIs
I request all the NRIs - the foreign staying occasionally coming back home folk to spend money back home. Infuse what all you can into the Indian economy. Especially your foreign earned income.
Most of us buy land or homes - but those things are already inflated and don't really add to the economy.
I'm talking about services. Public transport, government funded institutions etc.,
If you pick a train now - you have on an average 20 compartments - 1 or no first AC, 1-2 second AC (two tier) coaches, 2-3 third AC (three tier) coaches and 12 second class (three tier) sleeper coaches. See the disparity? That's because the others are over-priced and a little beyond the reach of the common middle class Indian family.
Pick the best these can offer - travel in the priciest AC train coaches that you can afford when you are back home. This helps the railways. And it badly needs an uplift. And it is and will be the common mode of transport for the next 20-30 years. I think that's the best way to give money to the government and help the economy in general. Can you think of something else?
Let me know.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
10:13 - my first ticket
unknown race
Monday, October 22, 2007
13:34 - Micheal Clayton
The usual drill: Another weekend so why not a movie at the local theater.
Micheal Clayton was getting a lot of attention. And by attention I mean people waiting patiently in 500 ft lines for the back row seat.
Just to be sure I look it up at
rottentomatoes: a whopping 91% 'fresh tomatoes'.
The movie's been out for a week already and 91%?? Isn't a week long enough for the critics to have sunk their teeth in?
Or maybe the movie IS really good. Wait,
let's adjust the truth here: WRONG!
That's strange .. American folk plagued by the blind hero worship syndrome?
Hello George Clooney!
Friday, August 17, 2007
12:25 - Independence
So it was August 15th and people followed the usual '
How are you' with '
Happy independence day'
I always wonder if people really mean what they say. And ... usually ignore it after a little while. But this time instead of replying with just the "Wish you the same" line, I added
"... what does 60 years of Indian independence mean to you?"
And the reply:
"Independence only to the country but not to the people of India, in the sense
people are not free here. Just the software field in every field. Just see what growth has been obtained: don't think just about the 60 years, but 5000 years of Indian background.
Education, politics, business, movie industry, sports, science and economy not up to the international level. India does not do any thing for globalization on its own."
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
14:28 - Lost in time
Sadly, Amazon doesn't sell time machines.
Friday, May 11, 2007
18:54 - Not reading emails?
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
02:23 - Access remote Xserver apps from windows
This is something I might forget later :|
Step 1: Install
Xming Configure it for multiple windows and disable server access control
Step2: Set 'export DISPLAY=$windows_host_ip:0.0' in the remote machine (Where $windows_host_ip is your IP)
Step3: Test! (this shows 'gnome-system-monitor')
Labels: linux, trackback, X
Sunday, February 18, 2007
02:33 - Notes for Gnome
I was looking for a utility in gnome for taking notes, and as usual I was confronted with many choices. Open source is about choice after all, right? One too many though.
This is not a review/comparison. Just a list.
There's the usual tomboy which sits on your panel.
hnb : Hierarchical notebook. Mimics a gui within a shell. Once you get the hang of it, this can be pretty efficient/easy to manage. Sort of like vi :)
note : Pure command line. Uses vi for editing.
notebook-gtk2 : This is meant for keeping track of things. You have a status and day/time. Looked neat, but I wasn't able to save a sample note.
**: gdk_window_set_icon_list: icons too large
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/pradeep/.notebook/notes.xml"
Document not parsed successfully.
notecase : You can move your notes around: Uses it's format to save files: Note Case Document(.ncd)/ Note Case Encrypted Document (.nce)/ Note Center Document(.hnc). Very simple/clean GUI.
zim : A desktop wiki.
The names in bold are the package names. You could simply do a apt-get install (If you use debian and it's derivatives)
Labels: gnome, notes, trackback
Monday, October 16, 2006
09:36 - How I got my license...
I had to get my driving license one day. It turned out that day was a really bad one.
Nothing new about the licensing process as such. I mean there was the "test" of course (for namesake), but nothing testing about it.
So the journey started at 9 in the morning with me arriving at the famous R.T.O. office(which also happens to be a famous landmark/bus stop). We (we, as in, the batch of people from the school through which I got trained for this test : about 10 of them) had to head off to the nearby beach (which was the thiruvanmiyur beach) where the test would be.
So we get ready for the 'officer' to arrive and approve us of our driving skills. But our Govt officiail(TM) takes his time and he arrived at the 'scence' at about 11 30. It was a nice little 3 hour dry summer that we had.
The test starts. And it ends. Quick. For the motor cycle(with gear) we had to do a '8' and for the LMV(Light Motor Vehicle) : car, a simple 100 mts straight drive.
He could have as well just given us the license instead of making us wait in the sun for so long.
This done, I had to go stand in 3 queues to get the forms signed and for a photo of me, all of which left me with the license in my hand at about 2:30 : A total of 6 hours !
I was exhausted. All the sun and no lunch had given into a stingy headache (which would later turn into fever and stay a week)
All's done. I need not go through this ordeal for the next 20 years. And I hope by then the process would be easier and the traffic would not be as haphazard as it is now.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
23:02 - IE specific
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