Just a little addendum to the previous post.

• "shell:" exploits have been found in MSN Messenger and Microsoft Word. Unlike the Mozilla foundation which patched the same vulnerability in the Mozilla Firefox Browser in 24 hours, no word has yet been received from Microsoft about when these will be patched.
  
• Furthermore 4 new and extremely critical vulnerabilities have been found in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Quoting from the advisory "Issues 1-4 has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6 and Microsoft Windows XP SP1." My suggestion (and the one given in the advisory) to anyone using IE is either use a different browser, or at the very least disable Active Scripting in IE.
  

Maybe I should change that sidebar of mine to read, "Save Yourself From A Horrible Fiery Death"...

Any comments and flames are welcome.

This is the longest I time I have spent without writing, and for some reason it's not really bothering me as much as it should. I think this is happening because I am busy enough with work and algorithms and commuting. It's strange but I believe my creativity is simply finding more outlets at work.

I can write about mundane things I suppose such as Spiderman 2 and Fahrenheit 9/11, but I don't really think that will be in the spirit of this blog. So instead I'll just talk about how more and more people I know seem to be shifting to Firefox from IE. It was inevitable I guess. Microsoft last released the last version of IE in 2001 and there haven't been any features added since. Add to that the fact that malcontents on the Internet seem to be eager to find vulnerabilities in IE and exploit them.

I switched browsers when the URL phishing vulnerability for IE was announced. Microsoft took a whole month to fix that. Until they did the recommended workaround in the Microsoft Knowledge Base was to type out the URL for each link that you were planning to click! (If you don't believe me read the third bulleted point in the Knowledge Base Article.) The phishing vulnerability allowed malicious users to fool you into believing you were browsing on a trusted site (like Microsoft.com) when in fact you were getting pages from a malicious site (like some criminal server in Russia intent on getting you to enter you credit information.) Microsoft took a week to fix the Download.Ject vulnerability and even then they did not fix it properly. Download.Ject exploited a IE vulnerability and allowed people get infected by trojan software by simply visiting a malicious website. The Download.Ject trojan software would then find and send sensitive information (bank account numbers, credit card numbers) to the malicious website owners. The Mozilla shell vulnerability, which would allow for the execution of arbitrary EXE files on you computer if you followed a "shell:" link, was patched within 24 hours of it's announcement.

I don't really care if software is open source or not as long as the price is right - Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are both free. I do care that the software I use is secure enough to protect my privacy and my money. Internet Explorer and Microsoft have failed in that respect. I'll go back to them when Firefox and the Mozilla Foundation fail. I don't use a cheap, easily breakable lock on my door, why should I use a cheap, easily breakable browser.

"Who found the tail?"
"I", said Pooh,
"At a quarter to two"
"(Only it was a quarter to eleven really)"
"I found the tail!"

Two things.

First, I have had a relapse and early-wake-up-itis has caught be in a fever grip again. I wake after four hours of sleep on a Saturday, and I'm bright and cheerful, eager to blog. Somebody send a cure.

Second, I like noisy houses. I really do and moving to a noisy neighbourhood after three years of quiet places in Madison brings back all those noisy Mumbai memories. Now if only all states to the east of Wisconsin would sink under the Atlantic, then I could get my beloved ocean with its beaches and sunsets back too.

In other news, something perplexing. I don't understand this mad rush in geekdom to get Gmail accounts? I have one and don't even use it. No point unless Google decides to give an IMAP or POP interface.

In more new, something even more perplexing. I'm talking about the Open Source communities ability to gleefully hammer it's own toes. I am talking about the recent UI "updates" being applied to a plethora of Open Source products.

• Firefox 0.9 changed the default skin to something much less prettier then the old default. The lead developer claimed that the skin author was uncommunicative when asked about skin licensing. Funny how the same author's skin is still being used on Firefox's sister product Thunderbird 0.7. Good leadership involves making tough negotiations to get a better product (and not throwing your hands up in the air helplessly and looking for an inferior alternative).
  
  
• Wikipedia.org, the excellent web-based collaborative encyclopedia recently updated their look too. While the new version of the site looks much more modern, the developers decided to use a sans serif font for main body text. Couple this with wikipedia's tendency to put large amounts of word's per line (something like 20 at my default resolution) and readers are faced with a serious readability problem. Might I suggest changing the stylesheet to bring wordcount per line to something like 10-13 words per line. And giving readers an easy option to change article font to a serif one. And when I say easy option I mean something which does not involve any form of logging on.
  
  
• And I am not even going to comment about the Gnome project's ridiculous blunder of forcing spatial filemanager browsing down their users' throats. Way to go Open Source leadership.
  

I've just spent the better part of my Saturday morning ranting about geek-related issues which nobody cares about. I need a life.

Packed. Moved. Unpacked. Have to do this again in two months. Luckily my new place is within two blocks of Madison's greatest ice-cream shops.

Hmmmm...White chocolate ice-cream with almonds, walnuts and KitKat...(drool...)

(Tomorrow it's going to be boysenberry and cream gelato. Eat your heart out world!)

It's hot and muggy, I sweat all the time, clothes cling and it's too hot to sleep. Life is finally good!

Sleep comes as a drug
In God's country.

In God's country
U2

Ever had a chill run down your spine, as you suddenly realize that the world seems to be overrun with morons, and how most of them seem happier, healthier and sturdier than you. It's like their stupidity immunizes them from the tragedies of life. They run through the courses of their vacant lives, resisting change, being tricked by the next con man out for money or power, breeding, and killing other morons. And you're caught somewhere in the crossfire, all your intelligence nullified by a fool with a gun.

हॉब गॅड्लिन्ग चा नमस्कार.

आज़ सकाळी सहा वास्ता, ऐक ज़ोराचा आवाज़ आला. मी झोपेतून उठ्लो. ऐक मोठ्ठा राक्षस माझ्या बाज़ुला उभा होता. मी त्याला "Good morning." बोलुन परत झोपायला गेलो.

Finally a day when it's cooler when to go in than to go out.

Ah! great. Looks like blogger.com has just gone and dumbed-down its interface. I can't easily preview my old posts while typing a new one. Score one for the morons and the candification they bring about everywhere. However, I can tweak the interface into behaving a lot like the old interface. Score one back for the sane. This post continues into another generic rant about how morons are slowly beginning to rule the world.

Warning bells rang out today as an old friend called and accused me of turning into a boring person. Rest assured Madame, your warning has been acknowledged and an upgrade is being worked on even as I write. A fresh as mint, witty as a cucumber version of me is on his way. This bold new me is taller, darker, more handsome, and comes in three new flavors -- maniac mango, brain seizure banana and my personal favorite, strawberry nutcase. I'll be available in all quality boyfriend stores soon, and also in my new online me store, myTunes. Old customers will get a volume discount, so keep those old receipts handy!

You walk down a grey street on a grey day. And you walk into yourself, walking down a grey street on a grey day. Life curves onto itself. Möbius strip. The hell of the mathematician.

What I need is incisive political commentary but no dogma, what I need is to write elegant and efficient code, what I need is slick and robust hardware, what I need is a warm and sunny day, what is need is no regrets unless absolutely necessary, what I need is a second chance at everything but most of all at life, what I need is bloody pint of beer served for free, what I need is rest before the game, what I need is friend who I can betray, what I need is a enemy to hate, what I need is a rhythm to dance to and sleep by, what I need is no speed limits except ones which my bones set, what I need is dreams but no sleep, what I need is the ticking of the clock but no alarms to stop by, what I need is cable TV but only reruns on, what I need is sequential art but painted on a palace, what I need is to get back to something which I lost a long time ago, what I need is a change of career, though I know I love my job, what I need is a brand new car and to learn how to drive it, what I need is sustained effort at something, at anything, what I need is to win and to win bad, what I need is killing fields so that I can finish crying for once, what I need is stereo FM but no DJ's, what I need is free love but no chains. Somewhere, sometime, somehow.

My life has become random text, punctuated my music. At this point I wish I was Superman. I want to fly, look down on the world. At night, when it's dark and all I can see are random flickers. These are the days, when quoting is easier then writing.

I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don't want God in it

The Wanderer,
From the album Zooropa by U2, featuring the vocals of Johnny Cash,
Lyrics by Bono (1993)

Old friends
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
Of the high shoes
Of the old friends

Old friends
Winter companions
The old men
Lost in their overcoats
Waiting for the sun
The sounds of the city
Sifting through trees
Settles like dust
On the shoulders
Of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be seventy

Old friends
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fear...

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories; they're all that's left you

Old friends, Bookends
From the album Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel,
Lyrics by Paul Simon (1968).


Better than anything I can write in a short time. And I don't have a long time to write.

And the prize for the quote of the day goes to George Orwell for this stunning gem from his tour de force, 1984.

"What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?"

And the prize for application of the day goes to PDFCreator for creating a compelling GUI to Ghostscript. Much better than my old "print to file", "open with GSView", "convert to PDF" loop. For people who don't know what I'm talking about, PDFCreator lets your print any file to a PDF. So you can convert your Word and Excel files (all kinds of files, actually) to PDF files.

Alas. I can't ABX between PCM and Faac at -q 100. Nor between PCM and Lame CBR 128. Woe is me. I think I shall try again in better conditions with better headphones. Next time I shall not fail. My keen ears and sharp hearing will prevail.

In other news, I heard one of the best film soundtracks I've ever heard. Trainspotting. Almost as good as the movie. I'm going to get the soundtrack to Run Lola Run next. (Sorry if that first sentence was awkward. I really tried to rephrase it.) And yes, I listened to Moon Safari again. Air. Whatever happened to them. When will they make happy music again?

It's been so long I almost forgot my password.

Anyway, here's what was interesting today:

1. Sun-dried tomatoes rock. Especially along with mushrooms and fettucini al-dente cooked in a white-wine sauce. Sun-dried tomatoes. We need more of those for sure. Mmmmmm.

2. Interesting poll on Slashdot.org today.

Ignorance is...

•  Bliss
  
•  Strength
  
•  Contagious
  
•  Hereditary
  
•  Mandatory
  
•  Not a crime
  
•  the rule rather than the exception
  
•  Cowboyneal's middle name
  

So far "the rule rather than the exception" is leading with 39%, with "contagious" and "bliss" neck-to-neck at second and third place, with 17% and 16% votes. I don't know whether to laugh with delight or tremble with fear.

3. Restarted 1984. Maybe this time I'll also finish it.

4. Rolling Stones - Forty Licks. A long long compilation, with a surprisingly large number of largely listenable songs.

5. Got upset that all freshly mastered CD's are tweaked to sound loud and end up sounding terrible. Got even more upset that nobody has implemented ReplayGain on a CD Player.

I miss so many things.

Today, I come clean. I have proclaimed the death of good music quite a few times on this blog, when in reality exactly the opposite is true. If anything music has simply improved over the decades. Modern stars like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake are simply leagues ahead of anybody else from the past. Music back than was too difficult and disjointed from the mainstream, with overly complicated lyrics (think Bob Dylan), dull melodies (think the Beatles), grating voices (think Aretha Franklin) and terrible personalities (think Elvis Presley). Music videos did not exist which worsened the problem according to some, but my own belief is that it was a blessing in disguise. After all, most singers back then were simply not good looking enough.

The worst part of the music from the old days was the sort of fake popularity that it generated, with an entire generation that desperately wanted to have idols, no matter how terribly they sang or how ugly they looked. This kind of devotion to mediocrity still rears its ugly head now and then, with FM producers announcing an Oldies special or worse yet entire radio stations devoted to so-called Classic music. This can only be attributed to regressive fans, who are afraid of change and can't accept genuine musical progress when they see it.

It can safely be said, that all music produced in the late Nineties or later is simply much better than anything produced before it. Our entire generation can testify that modern music legends like Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias have more stage presence in their toenails than no-talents like Jimmy Hendrix and Jim Morrison ever had in their lifetimes. And bands like Westlife and NSync make us look back at past bands like The Rolling Stones and Dire Straits and wonder in shame, what could our parents have ever seen in such terrible acts?

We can only take comfort in the fact, that finally, after years of listening to terrible music and pretending to like it, we have finally seen the light and accepted the timelessness of the music of the present. The future of modern music is bright indeed. There you have it, finally a coming to terms with reality. Another person really ignoring light, finds out on life. Viva Britney!