YuviSense: Codin Kid

Spoiler: Modafinil, if you had followed the Wikipedia link I had given you, is a safe drug. As safe as Aspirin, you could say, except that I haven’t taken any Aspirin yet. The whole point of this accidental two part series is to try to say that drugs needn’t be harmful to be addictive. It might seem obvious to you, yet it wasn’t to me until this happened.

Another Spoiler which isn’t really a spoiler: Incase you are wondering, I did have Dad’s permission from the second dose onwards. I took a total of 3 doses.

So, to keep it short, what really happened was that though I did get an extra 8 hours of preparation, it didn’t help me at all. Besides the fact that it takes more than 8 hours to get prepared for an exam (lesson 1), I found out that inorder to actually stay fully awake the next day, I would have to continue to take Modafinil. Otherwise, I’d be so sleepy a badger can build a dam over me (don’t ask me how).

So, if I take Modafinil to stay awake, and want to stay awake the next day, the only option is to take Modafinil again the next day. An infinite loop, breaking out of which is hard. This infinite loop, is called Addiction. I never felt that before the 3rd day, when I felt I needed another dose of Modafinil. At this point, however, Rob’s timely advice in an IM conversation a week before proved to be damn useful, and I recognized the addiction when I felt I needed to be on Modafinil to be at my best. It’s a dangerous thing, and thanks (again!) to Rob for helping me get out of it before I get stuck in that infinite loop.

So, the point I was trying to get across is, all addictive substances are not narcotic, but they sure are dangerous!

P.S. Don’t I look like a fool?

Probably not exactly the worst, but maybe the most disturbing, distressed, put-things-into-perspective week of my life. So that was the reason for me not blogging about all the stuff that made the week before that the second most awesome week in my life (including 3 freakin’ awesome books that arrived on Saturday, sent by Colin from my Amazon wishlist (which was set up since he asked to). Thanks Colin!).

And, you’ll have to wait for some more time to tell you why the week before last was the second best and the last week was the worst yet, because I’ve been busy as hell with my School’s Sports Day (I’m the inhouse unpaid designer here, but I get to cut classes, so I don’t complain. Today I just changed an Olympic Gold Medal to read the name of my School. Fun).

Will get back to you when I’m fully awake and not having to worry about what’s goanna happen the next day.

In other news, IronRuby released recently, and VS 2008 Beta2 is to go live tomorrow. VS 2008 B2 is something I’ve been looking forward to for some time, since it includes support for Lambda Functions, which were available only in C# in B1. I actaully realized how outta sync I was when Rob had to remind me about this. Thanks Rob!

Now, if only they had IronPython and IronRuby integrated in…

Update : The week was worse enough to make me miss Proto.in, for the second time. Sorry Aswin

Maybe, BadVista.org is a joke?

Let us see. They link to gNewSense and utotu as the Linux Alternatives to Vista.

But, there’s something wrong with utotu.org. First up, you get a security warning about the SSL certificate being from an unknown authority. Why the heck do you need SSL for a homepage?

But, it gets funnier. The site is actually in Spanish! I mean, huh? I guess maybe you need to know Spanish to be pure and free? And, maybe utotu means something funny in some other language?

And gNewSense. Say that fast five times, and you end up say Gee-Nu-Sense. That is Gee, Nuisance!

If this set was a joke(I sincerely wish it is. I respect Linu(x|s)), then it’s a particularly elaborate and well executed one. Kudos!

Asa Dotzler too thinks this is a joke, but the commentators on that post don’t think so. What’s this world coming to?

Update:

Seems like they published the scripts they used to make Ubuntu into the gNewSense. Funny how it requires 35GB of free space. Now, the only thing that we need to show that this was a joke is an official announcement from somewhere…

Other than the horrible colors and the misuse of the <font> and <table> tag with no hint of CSS, there is one almost reliable way of detecting wether a page was done in frontpage.

The <meta> tag. In all the pages that frontpage generates, you’ll find this:

<meta name"GENERATOR" content="Microsoft Frontpage x.x">

While Frontpage puts it there by default, an enterprising user could hand edit the html and remve  that line. But, everytime the page is saved, this comes back, unless you have “preserve html” enabled.

What this means is that, if the page is designed by someone who doesn’t know to get rid of that line, then it will show up in the final markup…

While I have nothing against Frontpage being used by Students and the occassional computer user, I do STRONGLY object to that being used in a government website with transactions by the millions going on.

Steve Pavlina on Ten Reasons you should never get a job. Awesome Article. Something in the ninth reason caught my eye, and I was instinctively able to rewrite it:

9. Loss of freedom.

It takes a lot of effort to tame a human being into an employee student.  The first thing you have to do is break the human’s independent will.  A good way to do this is to give them a weighty policy manual filled with nonsensical rules and regulations.  This leads the new employee student to become more obedient, fearing that s/he could be disciplined at any minute for something incomprehensible.  Thus, the employee student will likely conclude it’s safest to simply obey the master’s commands without question.  Stir in some office student politics for good measure, and we’ve got a freshly minted mind slave. As part of their obedience training, employees students must be taught how to dress, talk, move, and so on.  We can’t very well have employees students thinking for themselves, now can we?  That would ruin everything.

God forbid you should put a plant sticker on your desk bag when it’s against the company school policy.  Oh no, it’s the end of the world!  Cindy has a plant sticker on her desk bag!  Summon the enforcers!  Send Cindy back for another round of sterility training!

Free human beings think such rules and regulations are silly of course.  The only policy they need is:  “Be smart.  Be nice.  Do what you love.  Have fun.”

Truer words of Wisdom never spoken!

Atleast according to the memory hungry but otherwise great Zone Alarm Pro:

I guess I’ll get sued if I remember the answer:)

I guess this should go to the DailyWTF, but WTF? I have a blog of my own:D

I’ve heard that myth some four times this month alone, and that includes twice from my School Friends, who donno an APE from an API.

So, instead of me, an unknown kid with no reputation, kick this myth in the bunt, I’ll just link to Raymond Chen(fixed more bugs in Windows than Windows 98 crashed) who kicks it, in an eloquent, easy to understand way with an awesome example…

I bow down at thy feet, Raymond, and accept the worship of one more humble programmer…

 No offence buddy, but seriously, this craps up the whole thing for Windows Live Writer:

I thought the font tag died a horrible death some time ago, but it still lives through my outdated textbooks(which have almost no mention  of CSS) and now, Windows Live Writer…

Also, the Color Picker needs working:

When was the last time you saw that?

Seriously, Windows Live Writer is just plain awesome, but small non-webby stuff like these need to be ironed out before it’s perfect…

Somebody please tell me that this guy is joking…

I wish I had the guts to say that…

But, anyway, this guy said it much better than I could’ve, and the comments are even better than the post itself!

Reading Paul Graham on Good Procrastination.

Here is what I think is the most striking sentence in the Essay:

…the most impressive people I know are all procrastinators. They’re type-C procrastinators: they put off working on small stuff to work on big stuff.

What’s “small stuff?” Roughly, work that has zero chance of being mentioned in your obituary.[Emphasis Mine]

Main reason why I am completely dissed about marks and studies, atleast here…

Ever read an obtiruary that went like:

Hopefully, more people will come to realize this, especially my Dad…

P.S. I’m posting this from Windows Live Writer, and it rocks… A couple of issues, mainly toolbar coloring has to be ironed out, but the UI is really quite responsive, and the writing experience is great, ‘coz it uses the same style as the actual blog. As far as I know, this is the only blog writer that offers this feature. What else can I say: .NET Rocks!:D

Uh, I know I’m supposed to be writing about [Inside .NET], but I’ve had a tough time deciding where to start: I’ve actually written and torn away several drafts. But, anyway, I’ll write it eventually, so it doesn’t matter…

Update: Any Ideas guys? I’ll post the list of supposed Topics somewhere next week…. But, my Knoledge is a mere fraction of the Knowledge of you guys, so I’m asking for advise:)

What matters is, I’ve been stuck. You know, one of those people who think everyone else is a dumbass, and it’s their appointed duty to boss over people as if they know everything. Ofcourse, they are usually the worst at what they’re doing, but it doesn’t matter to them.

Anyway, in yet another torturing period of boring Yrtsimehc of having forced to copy stuff that’s already in the book in a more, uh, say unclear manner, I turned my attention to the back of my Yrtsimehc note book and did some usefull work. And, here’s the result of that half a period of useful work:D

Note: I know, I know. Just String.Reverse it.
Reason for that is that there’s one guy from my School who’s not my friend who’s reading this Blog, and I almost got into hot water for the last post, and I’m sure I’ll get into a Volcanic Lake if he were to grok what I’m writing about…. So, please bear with me…..

10 Unspoken commandments by the Yrtsimehc Rehcaet

1. Leave the part of your brain that does independent thinking at home. I don’t have one, so it must be dangerous.
2. Thinking an Idea by yourself is against the will of God®.
3. Having fun is the work of the Devil®.
4. People who laugh are under the evil influence of the Devil®, and need to be brought under the Will of God™ by such techniques as bashing them for no reason, and giving them extra homework and fines for no apparent reason.
5. People must not be happy. Ever. How could you…..
6. Teaching means reading what’s in the textbook in the most unclear manner possible, in such a way that nobody will have a hairline chance of understanding anything that’s said.
7. Asking doubts is against the Will of God™, and against giving respect to teachers. If you respect your teacher don’t ask doubts.
8. The most important thing in a Classroom is my Concentration, and not
   your concentration. It shouldn’t matter a damn if you understand or not, as long as it looks like I’m the best teacher on Earth, atleast to the delusional few who fear me.
9. The best tool of the teacher is Fear. Ever.
10. The Most Important one: Never teach the students, always teach the Blackboard, the Fans, Tubelights, and ofcourse the Floor along with the Textbook: They’re always present during all Exams, so they need to know everything.

This List is Incomplete, because of the fact that the whim of the Yrtsimehc Rehcaet becomes a commandment the next nanosecond.

Anyway, this is just me Yrtsimehc Rehcaet bashing. Ofcourse, in due course, I’ll stop typing Yrtsimehc Rehcaet and start writing and thinking “I hate Yrtsimehc”, resulting in me shying away from Yrtsimehc for the rest of my life, eventually voiding me of the benefits of Yrtsimehc. That’s how millions of Students’ lives have been spoilt by the unscrupulous Teachers who’re not really, uh, Teachers: Just morons, Jocks, claiming to be Teachers….

And yes, it’s fanatical people like this who spoil religion…. That’s how it came into being this corrupted mass of blabbering idiots from the useful way of life that it was intended to be.

Anyway, just hoping that Yrtsimehc Rehcaet doesn’t grok this, though I think that has as much chance as a Windows OS running on a Linux Kernel…. Oh wait, we used to say “as much chance as Apple switched to Intel”, so I guess we better be on our Guard now:D

Thanks, and comment man, I’m tired of finding no comments on my blog

The News that Indian Government’s blocking blogs, albiet unknowingly, is all over the web. But, looks like the ban has been lifted, as I have been able to access blogspot from School. Gotta test it at home, and then, I’ll have a clear picture… A blog post comin up in a few hours time:D

Thanks, and Keep the comments coming….

Now, previously, I’ve written about my First Experiences with Installing Netbeans. I came out with a not-so-favourable Impression, but Aswin reminded me that It actually required a min of 384 MB of RAM. So, I’m not complaining. But, Still, I don’t know why, Visual Studio 2005, which is far more bigger, is much faster on my system. Maybe, it’ll change tomorrow, for reasons I’ll post tomorrow:D

So, I started it up. Well, it took exactly 4 mins 25 seconds for the Window to show up, invalidated. Then, it took 3 minutes 13 seconds more for the contents to show up. Well, but then was my Complete Dismay : My Desktop is not a standard WinXP Desktop. Two days before, my System would’ve looked like OS X. Today, it’s profused with Dragonz. So, I customize my Desktop a lot, and it Net beans doesn’t even reflect my setting! My Tabs look different in NetBeans than in any other app. Well well well, what can I say? Nothing. I don’t know anything about Swing, so I can’t say anything about it….

But then, when I tried to create an empty project, it took some 3 or 4 mins to finish up. And, then, It took some 10 or 20 secs for a single CLICK TO REGISTER!…

Well, I thought the Minimum Requirement label was like how it was in VS 2005 : You can easily ignore it:D But, turns out to be otherwise… So, I’m giving up Netbeans right now, but not for long:D