Did you know that fear of the number 666 is known as hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. Try pronoucing that!!. Very entertaining article on the BBC, of how one town has decided to change their area code from 666 to 749. Guess, there is nothing better to do 🙂 (no offense to anyone’s beliefs).
Rantings
Finally!!!
AOL has finally decided to officially nix Netscape. I don’t know, what took them such a long time to make this decision. The only good thing that came out of the takeover of Netscape by AOL, was Firefox. If only AOL saw the writing on the wall and made this decision sooner, they might have been able to save some jobs!!. But, oh well, I guess that is what the folks with 6 digit salaries get to make decisions for :)..
This just shows, how fast stakes can change in the Internet world. At one time, Netscape looked it was invincible..and then came along Internet Explorer by Microsoft. I somehow see the same situation with Microsoft and Google. The good part is that we, as consumers, come out as winners.
An evening at the airport..
6:00 PM – Arrive at O’Hare. Flight was scheduled to depart at 9:20 PM.. As I check in, I realize that the flight is delayed by 30 min.. No big deal right.. Check in my luggage.
6:30 PM – Get past security in a record breaking 2 minutes. That was my best record :).. Check the monitors and realize that the 6:30 PM flight is delayed by 30 minutes too.. Run 0.25 miles to the gate and stand in line..
7:00 PM – The agent keeps yelling in them mike that they are not taking any more passengers on the standby list. I persist and don’t give up..
7:15 PM – There is 1 remaining seat in the flight and I am the only one remaining standing.. (reminds me of a cowboy shootout for some reason!!). I hand over my ticket in hope to the agent and she gives me my ticket.. I am so happy that I am actually getting to my destination earlier!!.. Alas, I had to ask the stupid question “What is going to happen to my luggage”.. The agent gasps and pulls the ticket away from my hands “Young man!! How naughty of you. You thought you could fly without your luggage!! You have to take your original flight.. which by the way is delayed by 1 hour now.”
7:30 PM – I sigh in despair and headed over to the food court… Glance through all the stalls and settle on the “Billy Goats” tavern. Get a hotdog, fries and a cold bud light.. As I eat and glance around me, I realize how many cultures, one can see at the airport. There are some women, in head scarfs and skirts (Sudanese??) munching on some McDonalds grub.. Right next to them is a South Asian dude, trying to look hip in his Gap attire. And by him is a gum chewing teenager with a slogan “I am blogging this” on her chest..And she seems to be taking incospicous pictures with her mobile phone..
8:30 PM – Complete “Mr.Sampath” by R.K.Narayan.. The beer had gotten warm by now and I had to discard it. BTW, R.K.Narayan is one of the most gifted authors, I have read so far.. He is a natural storyteller. You do have to have an understanding of Indian culture and history to turely enjoy his stories though..
9:00 PM – I pick up my gear and get to the new gate, just to realize that the gate has been changeg again.. Lug my bags to the new gate.. Wait in line for the agent to give me a seat no. Just as it is my chance to speak with the agent, she decides that she has to go and serve another gate!!!
10:00 PM – More wandering in the hallways of O’hare in search of a power strip, so that I can at least watch a movie on my laptop.. They should really provide more power outlets in the airport for the passengers. And free wi-fi, while they are at it. I think, it would be a nice idea to create a website and/or page with listings of the freely available power outlets in the airport… Another business idea, that will never get realized!! :)..
10:15 PM – The flight is delayeg agian.. It is going to leave at 11:00 PM now.
10:30 PM – Finally find, a seat in the “Sprint sponsored laptop center” next to an old couple.. Think they have been married for ever and am impressed by their dedication to each other.. The old man struggles to get up as they leave and I offer to help…”No sir, I don’t need any help. But thank you though!!”.
10:40 PM – The gate is still not open.. I start to think if I am ever going to fly today. Scroll over to the gate and see the dreaded message “Flight Delayed.. Departure time 11:22 PM”!!. Just for the record, I was originally planning on driving. The drive would have taken ~10 hours and flight is supposed to last 1.5 hours. At this rate, it might have been better to drive. At least, I am in control of my own destiny..
10:45 PM – Complete first episode of Cowboy Bebop. If you are into Anime, you will know that this is a classic. This series was my introduction into the Anime world and I still cherish it..The blond girl and the hispanic guy in the “Big Shot – Bouty Hunters” TV show crack me up. BTW, that is a TV show in the series.. Here’s a screen shot from the series..
11:00 PM – Looks like the flight timing hasn’t changed.. Decide to use the restroom, before I board the flight and note this new gadgetry in the restroom..
How cool is that?
11:20 PM – Finally board the flight and on route to my destination!!! Happy Holidays :)..
Disaster Strikes Kudithipudi.Org – Part III
The server that hosts this website got hacked last week and the site was down for most of the week. This is the third time, a server at my current hosting provider was hacked. Think it is time, I moved providers.. Getting tired of restoring databases :)..
The world is a wierd place!!
I came across this interesting article on the BBC news website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7040191.stm) which lead me to think of how wierd the world we live in today is.. Essentially the article is about the publishers of Harry Potter, sueing a religious organization for building a “Hogwarts” like temperory castle as part of their celebrations of “Durga Puja”. It is quite common during these celebrations to mimic popular settings (be it either movies, events or books). I understand that the publishers have to protect their “intellectual” property, but is it fair to sue a group of people that are just trying to have some fun when they are not exploiting your “intellectual” property for commercial gain? I guess, there is nothing called “common sense” in our modern legal dictionary.ÂÂ
In honor of St.Valentine..
Here’s one of my favourite poem by A.S Pushikin .
I remember a wonderful moment
As before my eyes you appeared,
Like a vision, fleeting, momentary,
Like a spirit of the purest beauty.
In the torture of hopeless melancholy,
In the bustle of the world’s noisy hours,
That voice rang out so tenderly,
I dreamed of that lovely face of yours.
The years flew quickly. The storm’s blast
Scattered the dreams of former times,
And I forgot your tender voice,
And the features of your heavenly face.
In remoteness, in gloomy isolation,
My days dragged quietly, nothing was new,
No godlike face, no inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love, no you.
Then to my soul an awakening came,
And there again your face appeared,
Like a vision, fleeting, momentary,
Like a spirit of the purest beauty.
And my heart beat with a rapture new,
And for its sake arose again
A godlike face, an inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love, and you.
Disaster strikes Kudithipudi.Org – Part II
One makes mistakes in haste, or so goes the ancient saying :). As soon as I discovered that my hosting company for the past few years did not store backups for longer than a day, I switched to 1and1.com, but little did I know that 1an1.com doesn’t provide web site logs (statistics) with their basic package. Well, serves me right for not doing my research right. Now I am with the third hosting provider in as many days. While the admin interface is not as polished as 1and1.com, I like that hostrocket provides all the features that I want for a relatively inexpensive price and the fact that it has a 20-something CEO.Hopefully I am going to be here for a while.. 🙂
One a side note, I am working on restoring all my old posts. Expect to see them up in a few days. Need to engage my uber-database-guru friend for help with the restore :).
Disaster strikes Kudithipudi.org!!
As many of you might have noticed, Kudithipudi.org has been down for the last couple of days. The database containing all the posts got corrupted and my hosting provider didn’t have backups from which I could restore the data.. As you can imagine, I have a new hosting provider now. I am trying to restore as much data as I can from the old site. This is pretty embarassing for me, since I am in the business of providing IT Services. This just validates the need for a good backup :). I am going to start using the new feature in WordPress which automatically sends a backup of the database to an e-mail address. Live and learn!! 🙂
Please ~sound horn~ Please
I went in India for a (very) short trip this week. I was literally there for only 4 days to attend a wedding. For anyone who travels between US and India, you will realize that this is a SHORT trip :). I ended up spending more time in the airports than with my family. In fact, I am writing this post from the business lounge in the Frankfurt airport. How I got into it is another story :).
I spent a lot of my time during this trip on the road travelling between cities for the various wedding ceremonies. It was a lot of fun, but pretty tiring. During my last trip to India in February, I came back with a vision of a country on the verge of moving on to the next level. It looked like there was unlimited potential everywhere you look. This euphoria certainly came down during this trip. The rural countryside has been mostly left behind from the benefits of the “Internet” explosion. This might pose a big problem to the country if there is no immediate focus on developing the infrastructure. For comparisions..travel time in the US between two cities ~200 miles apart would be ~4 hours. The same distance took me ~9 hours in India. And not to mention the numerous times you get a heartattack from vehicles parked in the center of the road without any visual signs or the cows that wander onto the road without a bother :). And every truck/bus has a “Please ~Sound Horn~ Please” printed on the back of them. Just imagine the sound pollution when everyone in the world seems to be honking at the same time. It is so bad that people seem to have stopped responding to the horns. I know that a lot of people have nostalgic feelings about this situation, but unfortunately, if we want to move from a “developing” nation to a “devloped” nation, we have to get better infrastructure.
I wanted this post to be a reflection of my nostalgic feelings of the “do as you wish” country that India was (is) and how we need to get more organized, even if it means giving up this luxury of being a laid back country. But as usual, I seem to have made a mess of expressing my thoughts :). More posts on this topic soon….
Cheesy pickup lines :)
On of my friend sent me an e-mail with the top 10 pickup lines.. I thought they were hilarious and wanted to publish them here
Was your father a thief? Because he stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes.
Didn’t it hurt when you fell from heaven?
You must be tired, because you’ve been running through my mind all day.
Excuse me, I seem to have lost my phone number. Could I borrow yours?
Do you believe in love at first sight, or shall I walk by again?
Excuse me, do you kiss strangers? No? Well let me introduce myself.
Do your legs hurt from running through my dreams all night?
I’m new in town. Could you give me directions to your apartment?
Do you have a map? I keep getting lost in your eyes.
The only thing your eyes haven’t told me is your name.