A few things, mostly technical notes...

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Tsunami wipes out rare tribe in Andaman Islands??

What happened to the rare tribes?- The Times of India

The killer tsunami is feared to have wiped out entire tribes — already threatened by their precariously small numbers — perhaps rendering them extinct and snapping the slender tie with a lost generation.

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Research suggests Linux has fewer flaws

The Linux operating system has many times fewer bugs than typical commercial software, according to a report.



The conclusion is the result of a four-year research project conducted by code-analysis company Coverity. The project found 985 bugs in the 5.7 million lines of code that make up the latest version of the Linux core operating system, or kernel. A typical commercial program of similar size usually has more than 5,000 flaws or defects, according to data from Carnegie Mellon University.

Coverity has not analyzed the source code to Microsoft Windows because the company does not have access to the source code, Hallem said.

Don't we all know who would have the largest number of bugs? :)

Link is here.

The first beer.

My first beer:



I never tastes the same again.

Thanks to P.

iPod crash protection patent published

A patent submitted by Apple during 2003 has just been published, and it details a new technology aimed at making hard drives more robust and able to survive being dropped, even when in active use.

It allows the drive to detect the acceleration caused by gravity and then stop reading or writing to the hard drive.

However, it's not foolproof. It takes time for a device to notice the acceleration. Thus, the product has to be dropped from a certain height for the feature to kick in.

So JT, if you're about to drop yours, make sure you give it enough time. Or, whenever you are gonna drop it, just toss it as high as you can.



Follow the link here.

Former dpy Prime Minister won't testify against Saddam

Saddam Hussein's deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz has told his lawyer at their first meeting that he will not testify against his former leader.



He was the only Christian in the Iraqi Govt..

NBC television published photographs last week of a thinner, greyer Aziz in prison, wearing an orange jacket and close-fitting white cap.

More here....

Starved to death, he roasted and ate a 2-yr-old

HYDERABAD: Police have arrested a man they say kidnapped a two-year-old girl before roasting her on a fire and eating her because he was starving.

The gruesome incident took place in a jungle hamlet in Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh about a week ago, a police officer said on Friday, and came to light after the 42-year-old man was later discovered gorging on a buffalo carcass.



"He was caught and handed over to us by villagers who found it strange that he was eating such a large animal with his bare hands with flourish," the officer told Reuters. The man was arrested on Wednesday.

Parents of the missing girl, who lived in a neighbouring village, feared the worst when they heard of the incident and went to the area where the man was caught.

Their fears were confirmed when they found the girl's head, a limb, some jewellery and clothes strewn near the site. If convicted of murder, the man faces the death penalty or a life term in prison.

Original link...

Cardinal slams 'billions' spent on Iraq war

Yahoo! News - : "What a terrible thing it is that billions -- and I mean billions of pounds -- are being spent on war in the Middle East which could have been spent bringing people out of dire poverty and malnourishment and disease", said Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, according to an advance copy of his address.



"How can one wish a happy Christmas for our fellow Christians in Iraq or in the Holy Land or those who suffer in Africa unless you and I, in whatever way is open to us, say and do what makes for peace?'"

It's not a painting..



Well, that picture caught my attention.

It's not a drawing, even thought it looks like one. They are Miners standing in the bucket as they leave the coalface of a mine in Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine.

That man at the front looks pissed, perhaps he's pissed about the recent Political turmoils there.

Original Link is here.

Friday, December 24, 2004

From the tourists across the globe...

The girls visiting Taj Mahal had to cough up Rs.300.00 (~ $6.00) as a bribe to some one.



More details awaited.

They were not sure what would "he" do if they did not pay...

What a shame...!!

Democracy, Indian Ishtyle (Style)..

The Notorious Gujarat riots:



Zahira, the key witness, has been flip flopping on her court statements and de-railed the investigation. Allegations are that the MLA has paid about Rs.18 Lakhs (she was asking for 25 Lakhs, quite a bargain..!!) to make her say that she was asleep upstairs and saw nothing. Tehelka has a video tape taken with spy cameras where the MLAs folk say that they paid 18Lakhs. Its here.



A day after a Tehelka tape showed BJP MLA Madhu Shrivastava saying Zaheera Sheikh was paid Rs 18 lakh to turn hostile in the Best Bakery case, he warned that he would make the news weekly pay for this.

“I'll pump six bullets into any Tehelka journalist I come across,” Shrivastava said. “If the allegation that Zaheera was bribed is proved true in court, I will hang myself to death at India Gate.”

Yeah, it is Democracy, Indian Ishtyle... If their lousy asses are on fire, politicians will first threaten the witness, then bribe them, and beat the heck out of the media persons. Money and Power makes the exemptions from any heinous crimes, whether communal or not.

Similar is the Kunhalikutty sex scandal, which rocked the state of Kerala, where the minister slept with an underage girl many times, and she, Rajeena, has been retracing her statements every now and then. When confronted, the minister would issue statements like "My community is being tested through me" and shiat like that.

Dude, if you did the crime, you alone pay the time. As simple as that.

Ironically enough, the national emblem has the motto Satyameva Jayate (Sanskrit: सत्यमेव जयतॆ, "Truth Alone Triumphs"). This is a quote from Manduka Upanishad, the concluding part of the sacred Hindu Vedas.



I guess that only applies to Older Times, or is talking about an Eternal Justice from the "Super-natural", not from the Government, as everything is "Maya"..!!

(In Advaita Vedanta philosophy, Maya is the illusion of a limited, purely physical and mental reality in which our everyday consciousness has become entangled, a veiling of the true, unitary Self.)



Thursday, December 23, 2004

10 cm/4 in Cockroaches found...

A 'monster' cockroach and other new insects have been discovered in the jungles of Borneo, scientists say.



An expedition of caves and cliffs, led by the Nature Conservancy, also said it saw previously unknown fish and plants.

Cockroaches are one species I cannot stand. Especially when they are horny, and start to fly all over the place.

I see them, I kill 'em. HA HA..!!

More here...

Here are some more I needed to know:

They prefer darkness, but are not afraid of light. They do run when you wake up and turn on a light, but not because of the light.

The sucker can live without its head for an entire week.

That's nothing as I've also heard that they can survive a nuclear holocaust.

How about we send some of them to moon and mars next time any craft goes there?

They will eat almost anything: left-over human food, paper, wood, leather, cigarette butts, tooth paste, coffee grinds, glue, soap, feces, fabric, shoes, paint, the glue on the back of wallpaper, human hair, fingernails, etc.

Cockroaches have been shown experimentally to transport a number of pathogenic bacteria and viruses on their legs and bodies. They have been found to carry the pathogens that cause tuberculosis, cholera, leprosy, dysentery, and typhoid, as well as over 40 other bacteria (like salmonella) or viruses that can cause disease.

Did I say that hens love to eat them?

Sonar kills the whales?

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Whales 'suffer from the bends':

Damage consistent with the bends - every diver's nightmare - has been found in the bones of sperm whales.



Researchers noticed that many of the bones contained lesions and pits



An acute form of the illness was also suspected in beak whales, which were beached after a naval sonar exercise. Sonar may distress whales into rising too quickly, resulting in potentially lethal cases of the bends.



Express Train collides with elephant herd, killed 3.

A train plowed into a herd of wild elephants in central Sri Lanka on Thursday, killing three of the animals, a railroad official said.

The train's engine derailed in the accident, but nobody aboard the train was hurt. The train had been carrying about 500 passengers at the time of the accident.

The train's impact broke the spines of three elephants, killing them.



Sri Lanka was home to 10,000 to 15,000 elephants a century ago, but today only 3,000 are left largely because of poaching and loss of habitat.

More here.

Merry Christmas..!!



"Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth,
good will towards men"

- Luke 2:14 -


Merry Christmas...!!


Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Or watch the paint dry..

Waiting for something to finish to begin the actual work which itself is quite cumbersome is no fun.

Not really. It is very much a part of the task.



3 hrs 55 mins 38 secs for 68.32 GB over 100 mbps FD NIC.

Not that bad considering where it is going to.

But 10 years from now this much data will be slurped in say, 10 seconds, predicts the englightened.

Man plays same videogame every night for 2 hours for 25 years.


He is going to keep on playing that vintage game until he gets a million points.

What his wife said is kinda cute:

"It's not like I didn't know what I was getting into, He has always been really interested in video games. At least I know where he is and what he's up to. It's our silver wedding next years so I'll wait till then and then we'll see. "

More here at BBC.

JT - Hint, hint...!!

Tribute to my systems....

My Linux Box is an ancient Pentium Pro 233MHz PC, running RHEL 2.1, and 98 Meg of RAM.

It was about to be trashed, but somehow ended up with me.

Within its limitations, it has been exceptionally good to me so far.

I've never powered it down since almost an year....

The rear side:



Its neighbours are the surround side system, the Cable Modem, Wireless Router, Xbox, VCR, TV and a RCA switch. Hence the complexity of wires is at par of a "decent" Data Centre.

Wires...


More Copper...


Also, here is my Wireless Router, the left speaker on top of it.



Beneath it is my sound system. I hope that the heat won't kill any of them.

And finally, here is my Gateway laptop, which has an annoyingly loud fan.

Room heater:


Did I say I love them all?

Victim dials 911 with her tongue..!!

If you're going to break into a house and tie up the residents, try to pick a house where the victim can't dial 9-1-1 with her tongue...!!!

Home Invasion In Hampton: "A woman with her hands bound behind her used her tongue to dial 911, sending police looking for the armed intruder who stormed into her home Friday, terrorizing the five people inside."

Her tongue saved her.


Owned for a while:

Marine's family beg's Yahoo! for his e-mail

From the net:

The family of a Marine killed in Iraq is pleading with Internet giant Yahoo! for access to his e-mail account, which the company says is off-limits under its privacy policy.

Lance Cpl. Justin M. Ellsworth, 20, was killed by a roadside bomb on November 13 during a foot patrol in Al Anbar province. The family wants the complete e-mail file that Justin maintained, including notes to and from others. "I want to be able to remember him in his words. I know he thought he was doing what he needed to do. I want to have that for the future," said John Ellsworth, Justin's father. "It's the last thing I have of my son."

But without the account's password, the request has been repeatedly denied. In addition, Yahoo! policy calls for erasing all accounts that are inactive for 90 days. Yahoo! also maintains that all users agree at sign-up that rights to a member's ID or contents within an account terminate upon death.

"While we sympathize with any grieving family, Yahoo! accounts and any contents therein are nontransferable" even after death, said Karen Mahon, a Yahoo! spokeswoman.

World's smallest baby

Of the size of a cell phone, was born to an Indian Couple in IL.




You go girl...!!

More here..

Sad Irony

Mount Everest has always been a challenge to many.



In 1996, Andy Harris, a climber, stayed on the peak of Mount Everest longer than others. Later, on his way down, he ran out of oxygen and stumbled upon canisters abandoned by others. He radioed the base alerting that he was running low of Oxygen, and that the canisters he found were empty.


The base camp knew that the canisters were not empty and pleaded with him to use them. He argued back that they were indeed empty. He had become delusional by the lack of oxygen, and to him the canisters of oxygen appeared to be useless.

Sad irony, he died of the lack of oxygen, while his rescue was right in his hand.

His body has not yet been recovered.

Comes to mind a few lines by Kabir:

'And, as "Kasturi" lodged in navel of deer
He seeks it in grass here and there.
Without knowledge of self all else is false'

In life too, the things we search for, are right before us, but we decline to discern them. Let it be love, comfort or peace of mind. We are so hallucinated that we fail to recognise the blessings and abundance right before our eyes. And the resulting search might eventually deprive us of the very same thing we were looking for. I wish I remain content with what I got. For me, there is another phase to it: I wish I knew what am I restlessly looking for.

Hopefully, one day I will realise...

Links for Desi Audio

After hours of surfing last night which spilled over to early hours of today morning, I was delighted to end up on Shoutcast.com. The search for Audio Enhancers took me there. (Audio Enhancers is another story, which I will put up here after I get my hands on the final one).



Shoutcast stations: If you have broadband, go for the ones with higher Bitrates. Play them on Winamp, if you don't have it, get it from here.

HUM FM is a radio station in Dubai I guess. They have some good DJs during their daytimes. One thing I disliked is that they broadcast their prayers when it is time for them, which I found annoying.

Raaga is another "okay" station. Their streams are mono?

AM-530 is a multi-lingual radio station some where in Canada. Stable Mono streams.

Radio Netscape needs you to download their player, the sound quality is pretty good. They let you listen only for a few hours if you do not have AOL.


Smashits is pretty good too. The sound quality is better.


These links may change or even die overtime, so do your own search too..!!

mdadm lies on RHEL 2.1?

In RHEL 2.1, /proc/mdstat is not consistent.



/proc/mdstat shows failure:

[root@linux01 root]# grep F /proc/mdstat
md3 : active multipath sdd[1] sdi[0](F)
md1 : active multipath sdb[1] sdg[0](F)

sdi and sdg are marked as failures.

When queried with mdadm, both paths appear to be online. So, who's lying here? Mostly /proc/mdstat, as I could dd in from the paths:

[root@linux01 root]# mdadm -D /dev/md3
/dev/md3:
Version : 00.90.00
Creation Time : Tue May 11 16:44:46 2004
Raid Level : multipath
Array Size : 79548416 (75.86 GiB 81.46 GB)
Raid Devices : 1
Total Devices : 2
Preferred Minor : 3
Persistence : Superblock is persistent

Update Time : Wed Sep 29 12:52:08 2004
State : dirty
Active Devices : 1
Working Devices : 2
Failed Devices : 0
Spare Devices : 1

UUID : e1be071a:110648f2:19f2d1af:0588e532
Events : 0.64

Number Major Minor RaidDevice State
0 8 128 0 active sync /dev/sdi
1 8 48 1 spare /dev/sdd

[root@linux01 root]# mdadm -D /dev/md1
/dev/md1:
Version : 00.90.00
Creation Time : Tue May 11 16:44:16 2004
Raid Level : multipath
Array Size : 79548416 (75.86 GiB 81.46 GB)
Raid Devices : 1
Total Devices : 2
Preferred Minor : 1
Persistence : Superblock is persistent

Update Time : Wed Sep 29 12:51:07 2004
State : dirty
Active Devices : 1
Working Devices : 2
Failed Devices : 0
Spare Devices : 1

UUID : 9b320ac7:e8f70c42:020e975f:932c0ba2
Events : 0.70

Number Major Minor RaidDevice State
0 8 96 0 active sync /dev/sdg
1 8 16 1 spare

Net Bandwidth monitor for Linux

ibmonitor is so far the best network bandwidth monitor I have seen.

It looks neat. Best syntax for me is:

ibmonitor --data MB --nocolors

Can be run as non-root user too.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Spot the similarities....

The notorious Nazi Flag:



The VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) Flag:



See something similar?

Indian Minister Caught Peeing in Public...!!

Mid Day took this picture of Union Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal taking a leak on the airport runway.



Jaiswal was at Leh airport with his boss, Cabinet Minister for Home Shivraj Patil on his Kashmir tour this week when this happened.

Arriving at the airport, the team was about to board the plane on their way back to Delhi when a TV crew stopped Patil to ask a question or two.

Man In A Hurry: Jaiswal


Rather than use the airport toilet or use the one in the aircraft, Jaiswal just walked off to the side and unzipped. ROFLMAO..!!

Garden State Hate in the 1920s.



That place looks like Mercer County...!!
Do I know some of their possible offsprings?



/still likes Chicago more than NJ.

Delhi "Sex" Scandal and the CEO of Bazee.com, the Scape Goat of archiac laws.

Let's see.

Two teenaged students of the Delhi Public School (DPS), around 17 years of age have sex, that too oral sex. The boy shot it on his CellPhone, and distributed it to others over MMS. As the grapevine does it, it is circulated quite well.

Ravi Raj, a final year student of geophysics at the IIT Kharagpur in West Bengal gets this 2.37-minute clip, and writes a CD and wants to sell it. He posts his "item to sell" on Bazee.com, Indian Avatar and Subsidiary of Ebay.com. From what I understand from the newspapers, Ravi was to mail the clip to those who paid him. 7 people tried to buy, and 5 paid Rs. 125.00, which would roughly equate to $3.00

All the hell broke loose then. Having solved all other problems of the 25% of population below the poverty line which itself is way too below to ease the statistics, the authorities sprang into action.

Avnish Bajaj, CEO of Baazee.com, who is an US citizen is contacted by the Police, and he voluntarily flies to Delhi to aid in the investigation. Bajaj was arrested on December 17 with police claiming that baazee.com listed the MMS clip on its site under the title '...Girl Having Fun' for sale on November 24, which was put up by Ravi Raj. It was merely a listing, and Ravi did not post the alleged obscene material on its website.

The listing was removed by Bazee officials when it was brought unto their attention. It remained active for about 38 hours, of which 24 hours was on a Sunday.

Perhaps if logic has this way, the Indian Prime Minister can be grilled for the Crimes in India. Or the DOT folks can be arrested for potholes in their Highways, Or a newspaper editor can be arrested if some one puts up a phony ad there.

He was sent to the Tihar Jail, like a common criminal. "Just like any other inmate, Bajaj sleeps on a bed-sheet on the ground. No one gets a bed here," Tihar Jail's Director General of Prisons, R P Singh, tells Indiatimes News Network. He gets just about enough space in his cell to curl up and sleep, if at all he manages to get some.

Sources alleged jail superintendents "must be extorting a lot of money from him, else they would make him work like a slave".

But DGP Singh denies this, saying, "Undertrials are not made to work at all."

A statement that is rubbished by a former inmate, who recently got bail in a rape case. "I paid lakhs (of rupees) so that I am not made to work. Otherwise undertrials have to work," he says.

He further adds that every new inmate is "made to clean the dirty toilets (three in a cell) for a week at a stretch." "It's part of ragging," he emphasises.

National Association of Software and Service Companies on Monday condemned the arrest of e-commerce portal Baazee.com's CEO Avnish Bajaj in the Delhi Public School MMS scandal.

"We condemn the arrest. We are extremely dismayed at what has happened (the arrest of Bajaj)," Nasscom President Kiran Karnik said on the sidelines of a conference organised by TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).

A BJP member in Lok Sabha on Monday voiced strong objection to US Secretary of State-designate and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice reportedly pleading for Avnish Bajaj.



Senior Advocates Arun Jaitley and A S Chandhik , with US Consular aides, finally managed to secure a conditional bail for Avinash on the 21st, he had to surrender his Passport until the investigation is over.

Meanwhile, the schoolboy who allegedly prepared the sexually explicit clip was sent to a Juvenile home on Tuesday, after the Delhi Police revealed that the cellphone used to make the film had been destroyed. With the police not pressing for further interrogation, the judge incharge of the Juvenile Board sent the boy to the juvenile home till January 4. The girl was sent outside India by her family, as this issue gained momentum. Neither of them have lodged any complaints.





How to force a Linux box to panic...

How to force a panic?


[mdlug] netdump on Red Hat ES
GREG WOJTAK GWOJTAK at salliemae.com
Tue Oct 12 09:05:57 EDT 2004

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This is what I needed, but I couldn't get his code to compile, so I
re-wrote it based on the source:

#define __KERNEL__

#include
#include

extern int init_module(void);

int init_module (void)
{
panic(" panic has been called");
return 0;
}

compile with:
# cc -c -o panic.o -DMODULE -I/usr/src/linux-2.4/include panic.c

# file panic.o
panic.o: ELF 32-bit LSB relocatable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), not
stripped
# insmod panic.o
Warning: kernel-module version mismatch
panic.o was compiled for kernel version 2.4.21-20.ELsmp
while this kernel is version 2.4.21-15.0.4.ELsmp
Warning: loading panic.o will taint the kernel: no license
See http://www.tux.org/lkml/#export-tainted for information about
tainted modules
Warning: loading panic.o will taint the kernel: forced load
Read from remote host sqcjbafi10: Connection timed out
Connection to sqcjbafi10 closed.

Sometimes, there is nothing like the feeling of having the power to
crash a server.

netdump works great, BTW. It sent over a core file and the contents
of what would have gone in syslog to the netdump server, leaving me with
something I can diagnose.




Greg Wojtak
Unix Systems Administrator

More about Samsung X105...

From http://cellphoneforums.net/t118967.html:
Unlocking your Samsung All Models
Tested on x426, x427, e105, e715



EX: you are using phone Samsung e105 which is locked by T-Mobile, and now you
want to use it with ATT. Do these step correctly and you get your phone unlocked.

* You have to have ATT SIM card with you, and now suppose that T-Mobile SIM card
is in your phone. Here we go:

1. Change your phone's password back to 00000000 (8 number zero)
2. Power off your phone.
3. Take battery out --> take your T-Mobile SIM card out of the phone
4. Put ATT card in side the phone --> put battery back --> power phone on.
5. WRONG CARD message would appear on screen (in some case if the phone ask SIM
unlock code , just put any number and it will show that message)
6. Enter *#9998*3323# and you see option exit ---> press right softkey to use
function EXIT
7. After that one menu will show up, use arrow key go to number 6(or 7) Malloc
Fail and use right softkey to choose this one.
8. Your phone will auto restart and now ATT network show on screen
* Until now your phone temporary unlocked ATT SIM CARD, to unlock your phone
forever, please continue:
9. On screen, press *0141# and hit call button then screen appear "Persernalized"
10. Turn off phone --> take ATT SIM out --> put T-Mobile SIM in --> Power on
11. Screen ask " SIM unlock code"
12. Please enter 8 number zero : 00000000 ---> OK
CONGRATULATION,
Your phone now is unlocked.


More samsung x105 codes



A few typos, but those are from the site I saw them. Don't flame me, if your phone dies. Use at your own risk.

*#06# for checking the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) for Samsung X105 . Please Note down this Number This can be helpful if Samsung X105 Mobile IS Stolen. Imie for Samsung X105 Is Unique for each Samsung X105 mobile and if Samsung X105 cellphone is lost and somebody is using your Samsung X105 Phone then report this card to Nearby Police station and Mobile service provider to trace your X105.

  • IMEI number for Samsung X105: * # 0 6 #
  • Software version for Samsung X105: * # 9 9 9 9 # albo * # 0 8 3 7 #
  • Net Monitor for Samsung X105: * # 0 3 2 4 #
  • Chaning LCD contrastfor Samsung X105 : * # 0 5 2 3 #
  • Memory info for Samsung X105: * # 0 3 7 7 # albo * # 0 2 4 6 #
  • Reset memory (SIMLOCK`a removing!!!) for Samsung X105: * 2 7 6 7 * 3 8 5 5 #
  • Reset CUSTOM memory for Samsung X105: * 2 7 6 7 * 2 8 7 8 #
  • Battery state for Samsung X105: * # 9 9 9 8 * 2 2 8 #
  • Alarm beeper for Samsung X105: * # 9 9 9 8 * 2 8 9 #
  • Vibra test for Samsung X105: * # 9 9 9 8 * 8 4 2 #

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