I can’t get myself to read!

I picked up a technical book today, read the first few sentences of it and then threw it into the heap of books that I ‘plan’ to read sometime in the ‘future’ that never seems to arrive.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, something has changed over the years. My attention span for long reads has gone down from a few hours (school days) to a few minutes (and even seconds). I just cannot seem to get myself to read anything longer than a few paragraphs of a page. I seem to be in some never-ending hurry to finish what I’m reading now and proceed to the next and gobble up as much information as quickly as possible. I end up just rushing through the article and getting the gist of it.

The only reading I can do is on the laptop computer where my attention seems to range from 1.5-2X what I can manage for paper print. Blame it on the Internet for it seems to have created the idea that there always is much more to read and learn out there than you can possibly read ever in your lifetime, and you have to finish reading this NOW to get to the next one and learn something new.

Incremental backup for free!

I have a nice collection of music on my computer and have been wanting to back it up to my external drive for a very long time. However, my collection grows almost every week and I’d hate to have to copy the entire 60+GB contents all over again to my backup drive. I wanted a piece of software that would do a “incremental backup“.  Searching for a free and/or opensource solution led me nowhere until I realized I was using it all along and the solution was right under my nose. At work, we use rsync to get a variety of tasks done which includes incrementally copying data over to remote locations, all under a UNIX environment. So, would rsync work under Windows? I already knew about CygWin so I got about searching installing RSync under Cygwin. Installation was very simple and all it needed was checking “RSync” under the “Net” category during Cygwin setup. Those who already have Cygwin installed, fret not, you can run “setup.exe” as many times as needed to add/remove components.

Once that was done, I set the PATH variable on my machine to include C:\Cygwin\bin . This step lets you run the “rsync” command from outside the “bin” directory.

Now, I opened a Command Prompt and tried a copy from C:\xxxx\Music\ (source) to G:\ (desintation). Fail+Errors. (I won’t tell you what errors as I intend to keep this post simple.) I searched around a bit and found that Cygwin refers to each drive on your Windows machine as a unix folder. So your “C:\” drive would be “/cygdrive/c”. Your “G:\” drive would be “/cygdrive/g”. After this revelation, I modified my command and entered it as follows:

rsync -av --delete /cygdrive/xxxx/Music/   /cygdrive/Music/

RSync instantly started its work and my music started copying over to the new location.
The “-a” option passed to the rsync command stands for archive – means it preserves permissions (owners, groups), times, symbolic links, and devices.
The “-v” option stands for verbose – it prints on the screen what is being copied
The “–delete” option deletes any files from the destination that no longer exist in the source. It is recommended you use this option unless you know what you’re doing.

During the copy I accidentally closed the Command Prompt. I was worried I might have messed up the copy. However, I opened up a new “cmd” window and ran the same command and the copy started right where it stopped and finished successfully.

This method of backing up might not be everyone’s cup of tea, especially for those not so technically inclined. I just wish someone would write a nice GUI wrapper for rsync so people could just choose a source and a destination and the rest could be taken care of by the software.

However, for now, I have placed this command in a batch file (.bat) on my desktop so I can run it whenever I have new music to be backed up. This saves me the trouble of dealing with the command prompt and typing in the command every time. Place a “pause” in the batch file so the command prompt window doesn’t exit after RSync is complete.

Growing mango from seed

It is astonishing how fast a mango can grow from seed (after germinating, that is). A few weeks ago, I was relishing a ripe mango when I had the idea of trying to get it to germinate. After I was done gorging on it, I kept the seed and let it dry out in the air outside my balcony for about 3-4 days (nothing calculated, pure randomness). Then I prepared a pot (a.k.a CD case) with a mixture of soil and compost, placed the seed upright, leaving equal amounts of soil at the bottom and the top. Note that I did not take the pit out of the seed. Then, I poured some water and forgot about it. The fact is I had at that time several pots with other seeds none of them labeled (I’m lazy and I like surprises). So, I kept watering this pot along with the others. A few weeks later, I sowed 3 seeds of the Morning Glory plant in the same pot not knowing what was cooking inside. At around the same time that one of the seeds of the Morning Glory germinated, I noticed another sapling emerging from the pot, with a bunch of purplish-red leaves already noticeable and a thick red stem ready to shoot out. A couple of days later, there it emerged in full glory, the mango sapling. I was tremendously happy to see it germinate, although I barely had any expectations when I sowed the seed. Remember how I got all excited with the Olive? It never germinated!

Fast forward 2 weeks and this is how the sapling stands today:

This sapling has been growing fast, and how! Mother jokingly remarked if we could harvest it within the next few weeks. The plant has already surpassed, in height, all  other plants in my collection (even the 1year old curry leaves plants). The morning glory stands beside it in the same pot, in awe of the speed of the mango.

Notice how large the leaves have grown already. They’re already changing to the typical mango green from the red-brown that they were a few days back. I’m only worried that at this pace it would soon outgrow my CD case pot. Where do I take it next? Plant it in the ground somewhere or upgrade to a large pot? Does it make sense to continue growing a mango in a pot when it would (probably) be happier stretching its feet into the ground?

Is this the path to God?

A temple priest to a bunch of devotees at a random temple:

Which ‘darshan’ would you like to prefer today:
- Regular darshan of God’s idols from far away for Rs15/- in a very long queue?
- Silver darshan from 10 feet away for Rs50/- in a long queue?
- Gold darshan from 3 feet away for Rs 100/- in a very short queue ?
- Platinum darshan including touching idols’ feet for Rs350/- and no queue at all?

One of the devotees says she earns Rs20/- per day and not able to afford to pay Rs15,  mumbles something and leaves. Another devotee says he’ll pay for the Regular darshan. Meanwhile a software engineer dressed in a Louis Phillipe shirt and a bluetooth headset on his ear, says he is willing to pay Rs100 and stand in the short queue and get with it ‘quick’. Meanwhile, a VIP (government servant) arrives at the temple in a fleet of cars and pushes his way himself into the temple while various ‘salams’ are thrown at him by temple guards and priests.

There is yet another temple elsewhere in a residential colony. This temple only has one priest and has occasional devotees. While waiting for the next devotee, the priest continues to play remixed bhajans and songs at blaring decibel levels. People passing by the temple touch their heart with their right hand as a symbol of ‘devotion’. Meanwhile, a family arrives at the temple, removes their ‘dirty’ footwear and starts praying. The priest blurts out a few mantras, jingles the bell, puts a dome on their head and eagerly waits for his tip. He pockets the money and returns to his seat waiting for more ‘devotees’.

Is this what you call religion, and is this what it has come to? I thought religion was founded as a means to connect with the spiritual and as a path of light for when all other ways seem to be dark. However, the mockery that has been made of religion these days just turns me off and the very idea of God and religion that people have come to create in their minds is just disgusting for a large part.

I question the government: Who gave you the right to segregate people based on their economical status at a temple?All along, I was taught that God sees no race, color, or bank balance. Why should government servants be given a VIP treatment? Are they above the commoners who elected them into power, or is it they have been chosen as special devotees by God Himself?

I question people, what makes you start praying something that was a block of clay or a shapeless stone just sometime ago? What makes you think for any moment that God might be present in these idols or places of worship that man made himself a few weeks, years or hundreds of years ago? What devotion is this that can be bought for a few Rupees and is forgotten the moment you step outside the temple? Have you ever wondered why man has been subject to this strange phenomenon called Religion?

I welcome criticism.

Growing olives from seed

Olives, in India, are only present in the form of bottled & pitted olives in brine solution. I felt it would nice and unique to have an olive plant growing in my apartment garden. So, I went online and ordered for Olive seeds on Ebay. 10 seeds for about $5. I got them in 3 weeks along with a free gift. I was excited looking at the seeds and immediately got one pot out and prepared it with some nice wet brown soil. I only had ten and I had never planted olives before, so not wanting to lose to experimentation, I planted only one. And waited, and waited, and waited as my excitement turned into anxiety and finally after 2 months I gave up. I dug out the seed to find out nothing had happened to it. It was just as I had left it except that it had become muddy. All along these 2 months, I was occasionally reading about growing olives from seed and realized they had a hard shell that needed to be scoured. However I had no idea how much I had to scour until I started out on it.

I took a fresh seed and started with a little saw I had lying around. I began carefully, trying not to damage the seed. Then I picked up speed and then some, until at one point I couldn’t believe how deep I had already gone. Some more scouring later, I was able to see that the shell was giving away to a hollow inside. I started scouring along the seed and finally pried it open. What I saw shocked me, for inside, lay a tiny cumin sized dark seed. Then I glanced at the shell and boy was that thick! It took me 20 minutes of careful sawing to get rid of it.

This is what I used to pry it open.

I have sowed it in a coconut shell containing a mix of mud and used-tea leaves. A great way to reuse those shells and it has a natural hole at the bottom for drainage! Tea is supposed to be an excellent fertilizer. So, I’m back to the waiting game now. I hope I have a beautiful olive plant in a few weeks from now! On a side note, I wonder how these seeds ever propagated through all these centuries with such hard shells? Maybe they just waited for the odd elephant or dinosaur to come along and crush the shell away!

Greenlands junction needs help!

Say “Peak Time” in the morning and the Greenlands junction is jammed half-way on the bridge, with traffic crawling like snails on the road on a lazy rainy day, dodging vehicles negotiating a right turn from the leftmost lane on the flyover, and those coming from under the bridge/Lifestyle building heading towards Greenlands. Frankly, I’m tired of this sh*t. It is time folks @ GHMC think of a solution to this other than the police waving green wands frantically, trying to clear the jam. To be honest, right-turning traffic is not as heavy as things might make you think. It is more to do with the great-minds on the road cutting corners to get ahead into the turn. I’m no traffic engineer, but I’ve come up with a ‘solution’ here to lock right-turners from trying various feats at the junction. It is totally open to criticism.

In my solution:
The two lanes under the Begumpet bridge at the LifeStyle barely have enough traffic to require two lanes. In my solution, this has been reduced to one normal lane and one Temporary Parking Lane (in criss-cross green marking, and can probably be painted green. See this painted lane), one that can be used by Autorikshaws/Taxis to drop off customers and car owners to stop for valet parking.

Barricades (dotted orange on white) have been proposed separating the Begumpet bridge from the LifeStyle road to prevent illegal turns at the end of the bridge. This is longer than the current concrete dividers. There still is no way you can prevent traffic from UmaNagar from cutting across lanes to turn right. One solution would be to extend the barricades all the way up until a point where they can no longer negotiate a right turn and would have to proceed to take a U-turn at the Somajiguda circle. Compromises need to be made.

Width of thoroughfare has been fixed at 4 lanes, 3 Lanes from the Begumpet flyover + one coming from LifeStyle road. – this is something I propose for the entire SP road stretch. 4 on each side of the road. More on this later.

Taking advantage of the space created by the Greenlands flyover, two turning lanes have been added for those turning right towards Greenlands. Again metal barricades are proposed to prevent people turning right form the other lanes. One of these lanes also acts as a U-Turn. The pocket for these turning lanes is actually quite long, judging from my physical examination of this area sometime back, allowing for a significant number of vehicles to fit in. This has been achieved by extending the stop line farther than present since the right turn from Greenlands towards Somajiguda is anyway disallowed.

People going straight from Somajiguda circle towards the Begumpet bridge have two lanes, one going straight ahead to UmaNagar (? not sure of the name), one going onto the bridge.

All unnecessarily paved road has been marked as Yellow (not including yellow median lines indicating opposite sides of the road). These extra spaces can be used to construct some much needed footpaths and are wide enough in most places for trees as well.

It is my firm belief that if three lanes on each side of the Begumpet bridge are enough to get traffic going smoothly, we wouldn’t need more than 4 consistent lanes on the road. My plan is to provide solutions for the entire SP Road stretch starting from St.Anns school until Somajiguda circle with 4 lanes on each side of the road.

This solution targets several issues at one go: Illegal u-turns, haphazard parking, lack of footpaths, wild-lane-changing behavior, inconsistent number of lanes (width of thoroughfare), and artificial bottlenecks at the right turn.

Baava – A ridiculous movie. Not for the urban viewer.

Just came back after watching Siddarth’s latest movie – Baava. I usually go to Siddarth’s movies blindly, without waiting for reviews, and this was no different especially as this was released more than a year after his previous Oy! Add to that, I was watching a movie after nearly 5 months, a stark contrast to the 2 movies per week ME that I was until last year. So, I booked tickets online early in the week, and was eagerly waiting for the weekend. But, just 5 minutes into the film,  I knew I got stuck big time.

Right from the start, the script was loose, and the story never went anywhere. None of the characters in the movie had anything solid to perform. Nope, not even the hero. Siddarth himself did try to deliver his best, although it was clear that he was not able to involve himself into the shallowly written script. Emotions were thrown around in spots, with (forced) comedy performances by Sid’s sidekicks and a special appearance by Brahmanandam and Ali. Performances by Brahmanandam usually provide a round of relief in most useless movies, but the spoof written for him and Ali was also so poorly done nobody could spare a smile a few scenes later.

Music, by Chakri, was well below the bearable, except for the title “Baava” song (sung by Sid himself) which had decent beats. Background score was non-existent except for the odd ‘copied-from-another-movie’ bit thrown at the audience once in a while.

There was very little utilization of Rajendra Prasad’s acting skills and his performance in this movie pales in comparison, wait, should not even be compared to his performance in any other movie of his. During the few minutes he is on the screen, he is adding ‘sentimental value’ to the movie or is being humiliated by others. He and Sid did share decent chemistry on screen but again the script fails to make use of the same.

The new heroine Pranitha looks to have been subtly used to lure front row audiences of the Rs10 per ticket kind, although not as obviously as heroines are in other ‘mass’ movies. Other performances are highly repetitive from a plethora of other movies and are forgettable.

This movie has nothing to offer for the educated, office going class found in multiplexes. Rather people were found (including us) laughing at all the crap this movie was dishing out, for we had nothing better to do in the movie hall. Tilting more towards the mass-movie angle, but still not completely, this movie might not be ‘paisa wasool’ for the Rs10 hooters either. In short, Siddarth has picked a terrible movie and will be adding this to his  “Forgettable Movies” kitty along with Aata, which still was miles ahead of this shit. Never am I going to watch another movie without reading its reviews.