More than a year back I wrote a post ,more a rant actually, about astrologers and quacks and took a stab at trying to explain their success in this day and age because I really couldn't understand how such a large number continue to thrive and make money here in Sri Lanka. I'm fine with a witch doctor still getting some respect in a tribe that has decided to 'not change with the times' but we have the highest literacy rate in South Asia!
Today I discovered a person actually giving a pretty good explanation for our gullibility on TED; it's apparently built into our wiring!
For everyone who has seen the 'I want to believe' poster on my own wall, I was a huge fan of the x-files and sci-fi and fantasy continue to be the genres that I watch and read almost exclusively, but it stops there!
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Academy Reverses Decision - Avatar Awarded Best Picture!
In a bid to salvage what little credibility they can, after monumental past mistakes such as overlooking ground breaking movies like '2001' and 'Bladerunner' and realizing the terrible mistake they made after a night of heavy pre-oscar partying, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revoked their previous decision and awarded the best picture Oscar to 'Avatar' this morning.
- ONN
- ONN
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Video Lectures on Mobile Communication
If you've been developing software all your life, learned about hardware and networking because they were 'related' but thought of mobile technology as 'interesting but irrelevant to my work', you've probably been looking for a way catch up from around the time you realized phones were starting to replace PC's.
I generally go out any buy myself a book when starting to learn anything new, but came across a pretty good series of lectures on YouTube, the first of which I thought I'd post here, for people who prefer to 'wait for the movie'.
Besides the fact that I now have a great way to supplement the book I'm reading, this video makes me happy for a few other reasons as well. First, it's good to see YouTube being used by educators, who probably don't have the funding to set up a program like MIT OnLine, but want to reach out and help people learn anyway. It's also great to see material coming out of the sub-continent, where we have problems and advantages unique to our environment when adopting any technology, that would be addressed in a curriculum originating here. Finally, based on the number of views, I'd say forty five thousand more people now know something more about wireless communication, thanks to Dr. Bose!
Accessing the channel directly will save you time looking for the parts of the series:
Electronics - Wireless Communication
I generally go out any buy myself a book when starting to learn anything new, but came across a pretty good series of lectures on YouTube, the first of which I thought I'd post here, for people who prefer to 'wait for the movie'.
Besides the fact that I now have a great way to supplement the book I'm reading, this video makes me happy for a few other reasons as well. First, it's good to see YouTube being used by educators, who probably don't have the funding to set up a program like MIT OnLine, but want to reach out and help people learn anyway. It's also great to see material coming out of the sub-continent, where we have problems and advantages unique to our environment when adopting any technology, that would be addressed in a curriculum originating here. Finally, based on the number of views, I'd say forty five thousand more people now know something more about wireless communication, thanks to Dr. Bose!
Accessing the channel directly will save you time looking for the parts of the series:
Electronics - Wireless Communication
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Rocking in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has always had a fairly vibrant local music industry, with each generation producing it's own 'revolutionary' musician, setting a trend and taking the industry forward. I'm referring to people like Clarence Wijewardena who brought the electric guitar and pop music into Sri Lanka and B&S who made Sri Lankan rap and hip-hop mainstream here.
Unfortunately I'm not aware of any local bands that made a serious attempt to take rock music to where pop and rap/hip hop are in Sri Lanka; something I've been waiting for because I honestly prefer rock and would like to hear it playing on radios other than my own. We've actually got a large number of great rock bands here, but the problem I think is that none of them actually did what was necessary to go mainstream; sing in a local language. There are thousands of English rock songs a Sri Lankan can listen to, sung by musicians hailing from Canada to Australia, so one more won't make a difference, regardless of the fact that it it's sung by a Sri Lankan. What made the difference with the trend setters was that they gave the people a new style of music in our language!
Nemesis, a local band I've been a fan of for quite some time are taking shot at this. They've taken the effort to put together a great song, accompanied by a video that does justice to the music. All I have right now is the trailer, but going by that, I think these guys have the best chance of taking rock mainstream here yet! Don't just take my word for it though, watch and decide.
Unfortunately I'm not aware of any local bands that made a serious attempt to take rock music to where pop and rap/hip hop are in Sri Lanka; something I've been waiting for because I honestly prefer rock and would like to hear it playing on radios other than my own. We've actually got a large number of great rock bands here, but the problem I think is that none of them actually did what was necessary to go mainstream; sing in a local language. There are thousands of English rock songs a Sri Lankan can listen to, sung by musicians hailing from Canada to Australia, so one more won't make a difference, regardless of the fact that it it's sung by a Sri Lankan. What made the difference with the trend setters was that they gave the people a new style of music in our language!
Nemesis, a local band I've been a fan of for quite some time are taking shot at this. They've taken the effort to put together a great song, accompanied by a video that does justice to the music. All I have right now is the trailer, but going by that, I think these guys have the best chance of taking rock mainstream here yet! Don't just take my word for it though, watch and decide.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Avatar - Worth Every Cent!
It was definitely worth the eight hundred odd Rupees I spent on four tickets and I was obviously not the only one who thought that way, because at the end of the movie there was a very spontaneous and very loud round of applause! If you're wondering whether clapping at the end of a movie is a Sri Lankan tradition, it's not; I've been watching movies for close to thirty years now, and this is the first time it's happened. Of course people applaud a good performance at a live event like a cricket match or a stage play, when the performers are actually able to hear the appreciation of the audience for a job well done, but I think this was just a 'thank you' to all the people who made it possible for us to spend almost three hours on Pandora, and the fact that Mr. Cameron and team couldn't hear us clapping was immaterial.
Will it get a permanent place on my favourite movie list like Contact, Blade Runner, The Matrix and 2001? I'm not sure; guess I'll wait a few years and see. The idea of Eywa was pretty cool, like the sentient ocean of Solyaris or Foundation's Gaia but with some actual pointers on how it could conceivably occur somewhere. The Na'vi will also keep me questioning what environmental factors could have influenced a few of our ancestors on earth to make us like them instead. I think it's mostly the questions a book or a movie ask that keep me going back to it, but in this case it could just be to relive the audio-visual experience!
A the start of the movie I told Sharm that I still remember how it felt to see the Brachiosaurus stand up on it's hind legs to pick a few leaves off a tree right at the start of Jurassic Park (incidentally at the same theater, just 16 years ago) and was hoping this would be just as good. In Avatar there were so many moments like that, I have to say it's without a doubt the most amazing movie I have ever seen!
Will it get a permanent place on my favourite movie list like Contact, Blade Runner, The Matrix and 2001? I'm not sure; guess I'll wait a few years and see. The idea of Eywa was pretty cool, like the sentient ocean of Solyaris or Foundation's Gaia but with some actual pointers on how it could conceivably occur somewhere. The Na'vi will also keep me questioning what environmental factors could have influenced a few of our ancestors on earth to make us like them instead. I think it's mostly the questions a book or a movie ask that keep me going back to it, but in this case it could just be to relive the audio-visual experience!
A the start of the movie I told Sharm that I still remember how it felt to see the Brachiosaurus stand up on it's hind legs to pick a few leaves off a tree right at the start of Jurassic Park (incidentally at the same theater, just 16 years ago) and was hoping this would be just as good. In Avatar there were so many moments like that, I have to say it's without a doubt the most amazing movie I have ever seen!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Not Just Cursing the Darkness
Sri Lanka's in the BBC World Challenge again, with a project initiated by a person who literally lit a lamp, and a safe one at that, instead of cursing the darkness. I just cast my vote and thought I'd put up a post so that there's one more link pointing to the entry.
Everywhere you go you can now see people working towards the same goal, doing something productive to try and make the best of the opportunity we've been given to improve ourselves and Sri Lanka. At the same time I do honestly feel that almost everyone from every community is enjoying the freedom to go out and attend an international cricket match or a public exhibition without fear, because it's not one language that you hear being spoken at any of these places, it's all three!
There are a bunch of people that I feel aren't doing enough to make amends for helping start and exacerbate the war and are directly responsible for the plight of the people who's lives have still not returned to normalcy. I'm talking about entire countries here, that trained, armed and funded the terrorists to achieve their own objectives, be it destabilizing a friend-of-an-enemy or gaining access to fishing grounds and oil reserves.
I'm sure a majority of the citizens of these countries are fairly decent human beings, so all I can hope for is that these people take the initiative to help undo the damage that their politicians did and maybe stop the really rabid fanatics that are trying to attack us again, using different tactics this time.
Given the choice, I would jump at the chance to replace all the politicians everywhere with benevolent, hyper-intelligent Minds, but since we have to wait for the first true AI to start the ball rolling, writing this post is all I can do for now.
Oh yes, I'm reading every Iain M. Banks novel I can get my hands on and can't wait for the technological singularity!
Everywhere you go you can now see people working towards the same goal, doing something productive to try and make the best of the opportunity we've been given to improve ourselves and Sri Lanka. At the same time I do honestly feel that almost everyone from every community is enjoying the freedom to go out and attend an international cricket match or a public exhibition without fear, because it's not one language that you hear being spoken at any of these places, it's all three!
There are a bunch of people that I feel aren't doing enough to make amends for helping start and exacerbate the war and are directly responsible for the plight of the people who's lives have still not returned to normalcy. I'm talking about entire countries here, that trained, armed and funded the terrorists to achieve their own objectives, be it destabilizing a friend-of-an-enemy or gaining access to fishing grounds and oil reserves.
I'm sure a majority of the citizens of these countries are fairly decent human beings, so all I can hope for is that these people take the initiative to help undo the damage that their politicians did and maybe stop the really rabid fanatics that are trying to attack us again, using different tactics this time.
Given the choice, I would jump at the chance to replace all the politicians everywhere with benevolent, hyper-intelligent Minds, but since we have to wait for the first true AI to start the ball rolling, writing this post is all I can do for now.
Oh yes, I'm reading every Iain M. Banks novel I can get my hands on and can't wait for the technological singularity!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
If your NVIDIA driver doesn't work after an Ubuntu Update...
I have a habit of accepting any and all updates on my home PC and sometimes end up getting a kernel upgrade unwittingly. The moment I'm asked to reboot the system, I realise what I've done and half the time my graphics don't work when the PC restarts, since I'm using an NVidia GeForce board with restricted drivers and these don't update themselves with the rest of the system from the Ubuntu repositories.
If you found this page after a Google search, I have to assume you've pretty much done the same thing and got into your browser after booting up in low graphics mode or used another PC to search for a fix. I use one of two options at this point, depending on how much of a hurry I'm in to get my graphics working again and I've documented both below hoping it'll be of some help to other casual Linux users, who just want to get back to their movie, game or web page as quickly as possible. Mind you, I'm not an authority on Linux administration - both approaches below just happen to 'work on my machine'!
This is the easy way out; assuming your using grub, simply navigate to /boot/grub, edit menu.lst as root and change the 'default' setting from 0 (the most current kernel) to 2 (the one that was working perfectly well until you upgraded). Save and reboot, and you're fine until you run an update that upgrades your kernel again, at which point you have to change the default to 4 and so on.
This is obviously the better solution, but takes a little longer.
a) First, you need to go to the nvidia download page and get the right driver for your graphics card.
b) Next you have to restart your system and get to a command prompt using the boot options, because if you're in some restricted graphics mode or a command prompt you managed to get to after having tried to boot normally, you have a broken X windows running somewhere in there and NVidia refuses to upgrade the driver while it is. I can never stop X to it's satisfaction, so I reboot.
c) Run the installer by typing 'sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-[driver version]-pkg1.run' as root. After getting you to agree to some stuff, it'll tell you the old driver will be removed, try to find some relevant binaries, typically fail to do that and compile from source, then install itself, ask your permission to update the x-config and will finally tell you it's done. Reboot at this point and you should be fine.
I've been doing this for some time, so can't remember if I had to set-up any other pre-requisites the first time I upgraded my drivers. Please do comment if I've missed something.
If you found this page after a Google search, I have to assume you've pretty much done the same thing and got into your browser after booting up in low graphics mode or used another PC to search for a fix. I use one of two options at this point, depending on how much of a hurry I'm in to get my graphics working again and I've documented both below hoping it'll be of some help to other casual Linux users, who just want to get back to their movie, game or web page as quickly as possible. Mind you, I'm not an authority on Linux administration - both approaches below just happen to 'work on my machine'!
Revert to booting your older kernel version
This is the easy way out; assuming your using grub, simply navigate to /boot/grub, edit menu.lst as root and change the 'default' setting from 0 (the most current kernel) to 2 (the one that was working perfectly well until you upgraded). Save and reboot, and you're fine until you run an update that upgrades your kernel again, at which point you have to change the default to 4 and so on.
Updating to the latest NVidia Drivers
This is obviously the better solution, but takes a little longer.
a) First, you need to go to the nvidia download page and get the right driver for your graphics card.
b) Next you have to restart your system and get to a command prompt using the boot options, because if you're in some restricted graphics mode or a command prompt you managed to get to after having tried to boot normally, you have a broken X windows running somewhere in there and NVidia refuses to upgrade the driver while it is. I can never stop X to it's satisfaction, so I reboot.
c) Run the installer by typing 'sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-[driver version]-pkg1.run' as root. After getting you to agree to some stuff, it'll tell you the old driver will be removed, try to find some relevant binaries, typically fail to do that and compile from source, then install itself, ask your permission to update the x-config and will finally tell you it's done. Reboot at this point and you should be fine.
I've been doing this for some time, so can't remember if I had to set-up any other pre-requisites the first time I upgraded my drivers. Please do comment if I've missed something.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
