Fun

Experiences setting up a Lotus Pond Pot

A novice’s first time experience setting up a Lotus pond and germinating the Lotus seeds to a full plant

The trigger

Our neighbors have a very nice Lotus setup in the front of their garden, with flowers blooming in it. It is really a pleasing experience to see it. With lifestyles limiting to specifics, I’m glad to be around with like minded people. So we decided to set up a Lotus Pond Pot in our garden too.

Lately, for my day job (to be more efficient for the time I spent), I am required to use Windows, back again. :-)

It is great to be back. By back, I mean using Windows for some of the workflows. All these years, I’ve been using Linux based tools (Debian, Kontact | IceDove, Konq | Chromium | IceWeasel etc) to get my job done. It is great to try back Windows for some of the workflows.

Wrestling (WWE) is entertaining. The way the ww[ef] superstars (Especially the ones like Undertaker, Triple H) are presented is fun to watch. Or the kind of high flying maveuveurs the wwf superstars are able to perform, it really is super cool. The only catch is - it is not a sport. The feuds are all pre- defined to juicen things up.

I recently came to know of UFC. I hope some day they start airing it in my part of the world. I’m still getting acquianted to MMA, but it really is an awesome sport. This is one forum which does show size does not matter. Was watching Royce Gracie’s matches from UFC 4. Awesome matches clearly showing the skill with which one can beat any size or power. The final was in between a pro-jiu jitsu vs pro-wrestler. Gracie won it but was given a tough fight by the wrestler.

I have been thinking of this topic for some time. I am a happy owner of the old Phat PS3 Model. At one time, I use to do a fair amount of gaming on my computers. So when Sony marketed the PlayStation 3 product, it was cool to see a machine that did:

1. Gaming
2. Movies, Music, Pictures
3. Blu-Ray
4. Ran Linux

I convinced myself to buy a PlayStation 3, that I’d use it for playing with Linux apart from gaming. The regular gaming did not excite any more, perhaps it had to do with the limitation of time. On running Debian on it, was when I realized that the Linux support was merely a joke. The Linux support included running a Linux distribution in a VM with not much access to the full hardware resources. Not a Great Experience

The following document was taken from Machtelt Garrel’s Site.

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Go for nerds!

The information below was gladly sponsored by European tax payers. The money went to a Dutch company for doing social research among developers. People doing this kind of research deserve a financial compensation, of course.

The start point of the research was a questionnaire for developers, asking about demographical information, orientation, motivation, earning and employment.

The typical nerd

The survey started with a description of the typical geek or nerd that can be expected in a developer environment:

Fishkeeping is a very common hobby and an easy one to start. What’s challenging is is to be able to continue the hobby. Very often most people give up on fish keeping.

Reasons being:

• Water - Gets contaminated too soon.
• Fish - All of a sudden they start dying and you’d hate to see that happen
• Cleanliness - Sometimes, it just becomes a burden cleaning the tank

All the points above are inter-related. If you can crack 1-2 of them, you might have a better experience with your fishkeeping hobby.

So this past weekend, me and my friend, went on a drive to Yellagiri Hills. It was exciting driving on the highway in an entry level Indian car, Maruti Suzuki Alto.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t make it to the destination. 5 kilometers before the destination, while we were uphill, the car b0rke down. On one of the hair- pin bends where we had to cut down the speed to zero, switch to the 1st and 2nd gear failed. Hmmm!! At that point, we were on a very steep road, with the car stalled and the gear box (for 1st and 2nd ) broken down. Nice!!

Do you like crabs ?

Have you bitten one ?

Or been bitten by one. That’d be the case if they weren’t tied.

A couple of years back (or maybe still), it was difficult to find Device Support in Linux from the Hardware Vendor.

Recently I was at home on a small vacation. There something surprised me. I bought a device which had a logo saying, “Designend for Linux”. Cheers!

For all NFS Old Timers…

Many must be aware of the older Need For Speed games that EA produced. One among them was High Stakes. IMHO, the uniqueness of High Stakes was its Damage Mode feature which could be very well felt in the game. The more the car’s engine/steering/suspension got damaged, the more difficult it was to handle the car then. I could never find the same game play in the later versions of EA’s NFS.