American Idiot an Indian Idol?

I don't really watch the show, but seems there is a new thing happening in the American Idiots show. Sounds a lot of racist Americans don't like this kid named Sanjaya (half Indian, American), who is still in the show. I totally agree with those guys, who think he should be out. Well they had this fear even before that the Indians will take over American idiot. For this reason they had a plan; the plan was to have another show for the Indians, "The Indian Idiot". Seems this did not stop the invasion, and Sanjaya is backed up by the high-tech Indians and have come up with a way to keep him on the show.

I say, lets leave this American Idiot title and make Sanjaya "The American President". Yes, Sanjaya for 2008. Anyway here is a little diagram to show the connectivity of both shows.

I am a PC, I am a Mac and I am Linux

Recently Apple, started a new ad campaign on TV and on its web site. It was really a nice concept and entertaining. Here is a link to it on youtube. I can tell you its a must see.

Now Novell decides to put a little spin to the ads. Here is the Linux version of the ads. Both the ads are very entertaining and educative. ;)

Death of Slashdot?

Ok! the question; is Slashdot dead or dying?. Not so sure, but honestly speaking for me it is. I visit digg almost everyday, but hardly I even visit slashdot once a week now. It use to be like everyday, but thats changed. Has digg taken over slashdot?

I first posted about this in Jan 2006, since then its almost more then a year. Well I don't know about the rest of the world, but I think digg has finally taken over. Reasons? Maybe many, not just one or two.

Magnificent shot !!!

Before I start, I would like to apologize to anyone who might get offended. Flickr, we all know about it, its one of the best portals to share photos. Amazing place with so much content. We find so much talent there. Even Maldivians, loads of them. Namely I like works by photographers like Ahmed Zahid.

I don't know if its me , or my limited exploration of flickr that brings me to conclude this. The comments really suck, or its just how artists comment. Its always "Amazing", "Beautiful", "WOW" and "Magnificent" . Or maybe there is others? I love the people there. They always encourage you or fill you with positive comments. Which is damn good, I mean it. I really do. But as there is good art, is there not bad art too? Or maybe not. Art is just art? I won't know.

A few years back, there was this painting which we saw. There was a comment, "haadha eyhen kahalaey". I did not know what that meant. I was not an artist or am, so for me it was just a painting. Anyhow the comment struck me. Later I asked the person who commented, what it meant. According to him thats how you comment art. Like "hmmmm", "its so different", "its unique" , "not all will see this", etc.

vakaruge hits digg main page

http://www.vakaruge.com was on digg's main page tonight with this post.

The Browser War

Started with Netscape and MSIE (MicroSoft Internet Explorer) about 10 years ago. Today here I am looking at stats of my weB LOG. Took the last 100 entries and guess what Firefox is leading. I assume mostly fellow bloggers are the people who read my blog. Next assumption is these people are frequent users of the internet, I mean not like our grand parents and them. No offense. Anyway to cut the chase I think IE has lost the war. Despite the fact that IE comes with the dominant OS (Windows) still most prefer Firefox or an alternative?

Maybe I might not be very right here, since I am concluding this based on my logs

Portuguese and Maldives?

Don't flatter yourself by thinking that we were ever ruled by Portuguese. I am not a historian but I refuse to believe that Portuguese ruled over Maldives for 15 years or so. According to the lessons at school, they even raped our woman, etc. hmmm! where did that white DNA go? I mean raping woman for 15 years and no results or after effects? maybe they were infertile or something?

So the bad guy, Andiri Andirin was suppose to be a black/brown guy? Hmmm! I thought the Portuguese were white skinned? so next you'd tell me it was one of the black Portuguese guys? come on! He was also called Kalhu Mohamed (dark Mohamed). "Mohamed" why? There is a theory that he was actually Maldivian born. Also it was said that the rule of 15 years, was under the name of Hassan IX (the Christian convert king of Maldives). So is it not likely that the fleet was from India (Gova) led by Maldivians? Not really Portuguese. There is no official record of Portuguese ruling over Maldives in any of the official documents of Portuguese.

As always we just want to make belief and change history and hide the dark chapters of the Maldivian History. The next funny part is up until 1950's there was a street named Andiri Andirin magu. There was no such street named after the "hero" savior Mohamed Thakurufaan, until the 1990's.

Sometimes I feel that this Thakurufaan's were pirates . I mean the boat they sailed was called "kalhu oh fuhmi", The black pearl of Maldives and caption Jack Sparrow. We never know. Even the recent history that happened in my life time has been altered, so why can't these events as well. At school we were forced to study the history events like "rannamaari" and when we were kids we were told stories like "foolhu dhigu handi".. But yeah, nice and entertaining stories. Thanks.

Change?

Past few years, I've worked on Linux as my desktop OS (operating system) at work and home. Now things has changed. Nothing was planned. My work changed, I no longer work for an IT department. As of now I work for a marketing team dealing with products and services. Which is kinda exciting and different. Anyway point is, I took the chance to step outside the circle in which I have been for so long. If you ask me, I'd tell you its good, very good (now that goes to my current team). I do miss the old gang, I had the opportunity to work with some of the best.

So coming back to the point, "Linux". At work now I use Windows, why? One reason being that I won't be allowed to install Linux. Thats how it should be too. Every place has standards (or at least they should). I don't need to develop, run services or do any system administration work. So thats the reason. Right now its mostly just word processing, presentations, visio diagrams, emails, and maybe browse for research purposes. So Windows is ok, not that I like it (I don't even have a choice). I do feel very limited at time with Windows, maybe since I am used to Linux. But working with it, is again a good experience. To understand how things really work rather than assumptions or observations. The lack of tools is a major problem. When I want to work with maybe lists and files, etc its just Excel. I don't think working with VB based macro's is as much fun as lets say, awk, sed or perl. Doing some things becomes too complex. But I am trying to adjust as needed. Again, this is not by choice. Its sometimes like forced labour.

With the same wave of change, at home too I've switched to full time Mac OS X. Been like almost 3 months now. I love it. Apples; you just fall in love with them. Yes, I have better user experience than Windows in terms of GUI (graphics user interface) and I've got the good old UNIX tools and power. So its more like an all in one box. I would say one can customize a Linux desktop to get a close feel of Mac OS, but I guess it won't be like the real thing. Mac's are too damn sexy, its the best how I can put it. After all sex is sex, but its a different thing when you have sex with Angelina Jolie. Anyway what I can tell you is some people think mac's are for pro's or for designers. Which is totally NOT right. Its "THE" true "human OS", designed for "humans". Getting things done is easy; only condition is "know how to read English and click". You don't need to click 20 times and do "fill in the blanks", score 100% in multiple choice questions, restart the machine 3 times before you can setup GPRS via Bluetooth, share internet or setup a web server. Its just a few seconds, before you can get even those done. For the applications; I have MS Word, and the rest of them like FireFox or Photoshop. Its just amazing .

So again, what about Linux? What about it? I still have my passion for Linux and have a Linux box at home too. I guess its a better development platform and a good server environment. The desktop is rapidly improving and its impressive. But maybe my usage of Linux has declined over the past few months. Basically reason being the change of field maybe, and that I am on kinda break from it all (what ever that means). But that did not stop me, I tried but... anyway I've started another blog (http://mvlinux.blogspot.com/) too; just about Linux as main focus. Objective being a sort of a log to keep track of evolution of Linux here in this country plus kind of a help for others (I hope, maybe..). You can say maybe because of "guilt". hehe. Whatever you consider.

UK - Pixels , Russia - Millimeters

Most of us remember the Million Dollar Homepage, The UK guy who sold pixels on his web site to go to university. But a million dollars, hmmmm? Anyways lucky smart guy. Well I found a Russian version of the concept, this time a girl is trying out here luck. The difference is not pixels, but millimeters and on her body. So you pay her for the ads that you want to put on her body, costing is per millimeter. The name of the site is I Sell Body

Crazy?

Maldives Ice Skiing Association

Come on. Why not? No offense but , we do have a Maldives Racing Association too.

8 Things Employers Need to Know About Geeks and Intelligent People

I read this post a couple of days back, and really liked it. Again tonight I came across it, and just had to post it here. There was no way, I just had to do it. :)

#1. Let them work when they want
Geeks work almost every moment they are awake. They are online before they go to the office. They are home working after the office closes. They work weekends. They are even sometimes working in their dreams. Employers should understand this and more importantly appreciate it. Don’t force geeks to work 8 - 5 if there is no real need other than “company morale.” Meetings are one thing (, so is socializing with coworkers, but a relaxed office schedule will do wonders for the contentment levels of your employed geeks.

#2. Let them work where they want
Geeks prefer to have a couch around to nap on if they are tired. Some like no windows, others want to stare out into a city or landscape. At home, geek’s offices are usually more lived in, more comfortable and enjoyable than anywhere else in the world. This is because they love what they do, and they do it so much of the time they need to be comfortable where they do it.

#3. Let them control their lighting
There is nothing more annoying than working in bright crappy fluorescent lighting if you prefer to work in the dark, or vice versa. Geeks usually have sensitive eyes from staring at CRT monitors for too long. The last thing you want is your geeks to have headaches. Most geeks aren’t very pleasant to work with when they have headaches.

#4. Let them wear headphones
Geeks are experts in the arts of “focus.” Focusing takes removing all unnecessary distractions from your environment and creating a state where nothing else is going on but what they are working on. The harder the problem they are trying to solve or the more creative they have to be, the more they need to focus. Headphones, or simply a lack of ringing phones and talking sales people allow geeks to focus much easier.

#5. Do not expect them to wear a suit
Geeks find arbitrary activities that lack real and meaningful purpose, a waste of time and energy. This includes attire. Most companies today are aware of this and even practice casual dress so as to make everyone more comfortable, but geeks are a special case. “Suits” (the kind of person) usually represent a business man who lacks most things other than a nice smile and great negotiation skills.

#6. Do not make them participate in company events (unless you are sure it is geek-friendly)
Most geeks will not be jumping up and down with joy to attend a company party to celebrate the local football team, unless of course there is beer, and they can hang around and talk to each other about geeky things. Keep this in mind when planning company events. Geeks like to have fun, just not the same kind of fun as your typical non-geek.

#7. Do not hold a lot of arbitrary meetings that could have otherwise been handled through email or IM
This one is important. Like I said, geeks need to focus to be happy and able to focus. Nothing is more of an interruption than someone walking into their space unexpectedly and saying “hey do you have a minute?” The answer is usually going to be a disgruntled “Sure.” The truth is geeks are fine with attending planned meetings (and will happily be there if the meeting is really a necessary one for them to attend in person), but are usually most happy communicating through email and IM. These forms of communication are most appealing to geeks because they do not interrupt you, and polite geeks will even respond with a quick “hold on a sec, I’m in the middle of something.” Email and IM are recorded, searchable records of conversations. They are efficient and to the point. This also makes geeks happy. Geeks can discuss anything through email and IM and will usually be more willing and thorough with their response. Face to face meetings are important, geeks know that, but I would guess that 90% of conversations and meetings held face to face, would be more efficient and end with happier people, if they were held in a recordable, written, virtual space.

#8. Do not make them do anything other than work
This one isn’t completely accurate all the time. Geeks are team players, but they are also easily insulted by being given a task below their level of expertise or outside of the scope of their position. They’ll do it, but they won’t be totally happy. This includes: answering phones, taking out trash, going shopping for company supplies, and “filling in” for a sales person.

So there you have it! Employers, take note!