By the way, new 10 rupee coins are out and they look different; different from what one would expect a normal aesthetics for a country’s currency. I did not like the design much but what the heck! They buy me everything worth 10 Rupees and that’s all I care for! There are a few gold looking 5 rupee coins as well. In fact, a shopkeeper was so amazed looking at those 5 rupee coins that he accepted just 5 rupees instead of the actual 8 rupees for a pani puri from my friend.
Here it is:
I have been using a mac recently for all my work. I am using a Macbook White with Leopard 10.5.8 in it. I have not yet upgraded to Snow Leopard and I do not intend to for sometime. I bought a DVI to Mini-DVI cable from AppStor (Official Apple Re-seller) to use my mac with my LG Wide screen monitor that I have for my PC. I connected the wire with a lot of enthusiasm and it worked like a charm, which is actually true for every feature on a Mac 
.
When you connect your external cable to a Mac, Leopard boots up the dual screen mode with multiple desktops. You can move applications, windows and other UI between screens seamlessly and eve have different wallpapers on different desktops etc. I was happy using it but after a while, I wanted to disable multiple desktops and use a single one. I wanted to even switch off the screen on the Macbook to save some battery power. I looked around over the net but I couldn’t find much help. This is when I decided to explore myself. I found it and here is how you do it.
- Select “System Preferences” on the Dock. If you cannot find it then use the spotlight on the right-top. Click the “Magnifier icon and type “System Preferences”.
- Click “Displays” under Hardware.
- Tick the checkbox which says “Show displays in menu bar”. You will see an icon appear on the top bar next to the date and battery icon.
- Left-click on that icon and select “Turn on Mirroring”. Soo nafter that you wil see your screen refresh and the same desktop on both your monitor screen and the Macbook.
- You can reduce the “Brightness” down to Zero if you do not want your Macbook screen display the graphics (To save battery power, to save the world etc). Press F1 until you see your screen dissappear.
By the way, if you ever face an issue that you have your dual screen enabled with multiple desktops but you have not physically connected your monitor, check the cable connection to your Macbook. You must unhook the cable for Mac to realize that an external monitor is not connected to the Mac.
Ciao!
This year I followed US Open meticulously all night. Since, I stay in another part of the world, all the way in India, I had to be awake all night and sometimes watch it the next morning. Watching Melanie Oudin, Wozniacki, Clijsters, Nadal, Monfils, Isner, Serena, Roger and particularly, Del Potro was amazing as they won every match with style and class. I am particularly awake from last 24 hours with 8 hours of work, 5 hours of journey in between. All this for what? Dissapointment?
Today, just about 30 minutes back, Juan Martin Del Potro, aged 20, beat the greatest Tennis champion of all time, Roger Federer in a 5 setter. It was amazing to watch how one could just go out there and play against Roger and win. I am not denying that even I wanted Roger to win. I did. But watching Juan Martin winning the championship was equally good. As Linkin Park puts it, In the end it doesn’t even matter! The presenter from USTA (United States Tennis Association) horribly denied insulting Juan Martin, to say the least, a chance to speak in Spanish in one of the greatest moments of Juan’s life. While a grandslam win itself is a major event in one’s life, beating Roger in his first ever grandslam finals could only be described as the penultimate event and the presenter did not have the basic courtesy to speak politely to the winner. The presenter announced $1.2 million and another 6o0 thousand dollars resulting a total of $1.85 million dollar as though it was a dog’s meat! Who cares god damn it? I really wish Juan Martin would have rejected it but then it was his first grandslam ever, so I wouldn’t have wished for it. I can only say that US Open would have found a better presenter in remote village of Afghanisthan selling meat with better courtesy than that moron who f**ked up the entire sweetness of such a great tournament. In the end, it’s a grand shame to US Open to say the least.
If you have an Airtel Broadband connection in India, then it’s time to change your current plan. Airtel has reduced / slashed prices for all the plans, probably in response to price reduction in BSNL, although I am not sure. These new cheaper plans are beneficial in all respects to your older plans but you need to change your plan yourself and Airtel will not migrate you automatically. So what are you waiting for? Call up 121 and change your plans. My current plan vs. my new plan is:
Current Plan: 1499 (With Tax actually: 1700)
Speed: 512 Kbps (Whole Day) – Limit: 100 GB – Calls: 75 free Airtel to Airtel.
New Plan: 1299 (With Tax actually: 1500?)
Speed: 512 Kbps (Morning) + 1 MBPS (night 10 – morning 6) – Limit: 100 GB – Calls: Something better, I dont remember.
So mind it! I mean, change it!
Bollywood is big, beautiful and grand. Please let it be! Indian Film making need not be outsourcing with lesser cost, cheaper actors and actresses, and unoriginal ideas. It’s an art and a business associated with that art. Please let it be!
The new Bollywood movie “Dil Bole Hadippa!” slated to release next week, 18th September, seems to be a remake of “She’s the man”. Of course, India is a Cricket crazy nation and so it only makes sense to transform the story around cricket. Sadly, the fact still remains that good actors are being exploited for bad roles and remake movies, just because producers fancy a burst of ignorant public rushing in to catch a story which they may not be aware of.
Someday I really would like to see a statistics portraying information of the number of hit remake movie to the total number of remake movies in Bollywood. There has been a “unoriginal”, hackneyed trend of remaking other language movies in Bollywood and later fishing budding actors with the lure of big money, big budgets and big production banner to act in these movies. This sad state of affairs throws light on the state of the industry itself. I do not yet believe that the industry lacks intelligent directors for there are one too many directors such as Rajat Kapoor, Farhan Akthar etc, who have given amazing original movies. It stands to show the desperation of Indian producers to make profit from every movie as though it’s biscuit pack came out fresh from a factory in Mumbai suburb with some fixed cost of manufacturing and distribution associated with it, and the producers must make a fixed amount of profit per movie.This also brings up the question, do big companies and organization have to churn profit from every movie in any way possible or should they spend a fixed amount of their money on experimenting with budding talents and original movies? The recent trend with all major production houses in India somehow falls into this horrendous formula:
- Bollywood movies: Flick a story from any hollywood movie, preferably some romance in it, or a Tamil movie.
- Regional language movies: Flick a story from Bollywood movies itself!
- Change any sports to Cricket, any fight to a family melodrama, and any love to a trustworthy everlasting idealistic bond of relationship.
- Change a background music to a foreground dance number.
- Change the theme to Punjabi theme and make the hero to return from UK, USA, where Rishi Kapoor will be his father “surprisingly”.
- Rope in a dummy director, budding actors and preferably the one with a recent success streak.
- Hack the actors into every possible every TV program such as talk shows, news, stage shows, dance events, talent shows, singing contests to even controversies as these producers believe that every publicity is a good publicity.
- Release in every damn theater by bullying it under a big production banner.
I for one, will not watch this movie in theaters as supporting such movies is just against creativity and innovative film making. Pushing the film on every media, forcing actors to appear on every TV show and finally releasing the movie in all multiplexes under Yash Raj Banner should not be the parameters influencing the success of a movie. By spending ones hard earned money and more importantly time, one will only be encouraging bad movie making and thereby resulting in more such shopworn movies, this time with a new set of budding actors praising this avaricious production house as “classic”. This fact also emphasizes the desperation of Yash Raj Films which has had a terrible year with no good movie after Chak De India!. While I would have expected the desperation to result in a more worthwhile movie to turn things around, sadly YRJ has opted the other alternative. As far as the performances in this particular movie, I expect Rani to deliver her best as it’s her big comeback and Shahid to continue his success streak after Kaminey! Although my jibe is an anguish against remaking films with no creativity, this particular movie fits the bill right with a namesake director roped in, well for namesake, along with a newbie with success streak, Shahid, and a desperate established actor looking for a grand comeback, Ms. Mukherjee. Dile Bole Originality Please!
So this is big. I have been struggling with Venn diagram related problems. Not that I am dumb or mathematically illiterate but it’s just taking too much of time when I try to solve them. So here is my new raw deal. I am not getting into the whole concepets of P(aUbUc) = P(A) … thing. It’s just gets on my nerves. My simplistic formula is this:
Venn diagram
- T = Grand Total (All the students)
- E = Extra (e.g: number of students who do not study any of the subjects)
- A = 1st inclusive set (Students registered for English)
- B = 2st inclusive set (Students registered for Math)
- C = 3st inclusive set (Students registered for Zoology)
- M = Set including both 1st and 2nd (Students registered for both English and Math)
- N= Set including both 1st and 2nd (Students registered for both Math and Zoology)
- P = Set including both 1st and 2nd (Students registered for both Zoology and English)
- O = All inclusive (Students registered for English, Math and Zoology)
- X = Only 1st set (Students registered only for English)
- Y= Only 1st set (Students registered only for Math)
- Z= Only 1st set (Students registered only for Zoology)
Formula: T – E = A + B + C – 2 ( O ) – [ M + N + P ], Sometimes E will be zero in some problems.
Also, sub formulae:
- T – E = X + Y + Z + M + N + P + O
- A = X + M + N + O
- B= Y + N + P + O
- C = Z + P + M + O
- A + B + C = X + Y + Z + 2 [ M + N + P ] + 3 ( O ).
- Therefore,
- A + B + C = X + Y + Z + [ M + N + P ] + ( O ) + [ M + N + P ] + 2 (0)
- A + B + C = T – E + [ M + N + P ] + 2 (0)
Just remember the formula and not the sub-formulae. Pick any set related question and I assure you that it will be a breeze 
. Try this question for kicks: Set Question .
Ciao Myte!
India’s Chandraayan I was a disaster. Blame it either on the mistakes done in hindsight or on the lack of technical capability, we truly lost millions of dollars which could have been well spent on much meaningful researches. Using 1970s Russian technology they “literally” spammed the space. Now there is yet another satellite orbiting with no purpose or control, just like “The moon”.
I wouldn’t be shocked if some poet writes a story on this satellite and labels it as a god, just so that someone in some 53rd century believes that Chandrayan is the brother of Chandra (The moon). Although this failure does not discount the hard work put in my the reasearchers at ISRO in ‘Namma’ Benagaluru, I would have hoped for a better result. India needs to realize that “Good times” as Kingfisher likes to call it, are over. Privatization and borrowing technology from the west is not the ultimate solution to all of India’s problems because as we know, India has one of the most complicated ecosystem in the world. With 2/3rd of its population in rural areas and about 90% of the rest 1/3rd barely making their end$ meet, it has to invest in technologies which can better cater to its masses in sustainable way. Government needs to take the high road and start initiatives in a much faster pace. Indian Government and its politicians are so self involved in their dirty politics, dynasty politics, extreme corruption that it needs another 120 years to realize the meaning of the word “technology” and “developed”.
I have observed that a lot of my fellow Indians, especially the older ones refer to the Golden era of Vijayanagara, pre-Moghul times and other achievements of India in historic times, during their conversation about India’s achievements. Yes, I agree that history is important but not to the extent that we forget the present or be ignorant of the future. The recent Swine Flu epidemic broke out in the west an year back and the Indian Govt. and the health ministry behaved as if India has been shielded by a Ozone layer for Swine Flu or something. Worse, a major chunk of vegetarians strongly believed that they are immune thanking their abstinence or referring to their ancestral values.
“I don’t eat Meat, I don’t eat Pork, Yeiy!” Boom! Please take one tablet of TamiFlu thrice a day and hope for the best!
Are we missing the revolutionaries of 1930s and 40s? I think so. We need a new set of revolutionaries who know their technology well enough to make an impact in this space age and more importantly nationalist enough to stay back in India. Every possible means to plug this loop hole should be done now and seriously. It could range from setting expectations to IITians, making them accountable for their expenses, to creating opportunities for the skilled labor. We need to stop being proud of every little failure and start concentrating on real success. Nevertheless, Chandrayan-I is a right step towards it but no less a joke!
An afterthought: Does sending Indian ministers in rockets help upgrade Indian space technology,now that their choppers are getting upgraded due to the recent chopper crash?
Isn’t the same Akram commented that IPL is bad? Isn’t he the same who supported ICL or IPL? Well, money can buy any Pakistani I guess! I mean this scathing comment because we have had enough of these pakistanis asking for a dossier every next day, and commenting on everything that they don’t have in their country. Another idiot trying to sell himself for money, I guess! Google Wasim Akram and IPL to see what I am talking about. Apart from the first result everything else points to his opportunistic behavior! Afterall, he can’t snap tie with ESPN to favor commenting on Sony Max, as Sony has bagged all the telecast rights. He must have been furious when Kamiz Pasha (Ramiz Raaza) got to comment while he had to sit and watch the matches on TV.
Whenever you are calculating time and work, take the LCM of all the numbers in the question as your work unit. Link: Time and Work
When you have to count the number of Zeroes in a factorial, count the rare occurance of a prime factor. Link: Good Point.
