Stacked Against

Pushing 150 kg

2009-10-12T05:28:00.000-07:00

I'm not super strong or crazy either, but when a 150 kg bike runs out of fuel at 11 o'clock at night, I think there are few choices.

A few Sundays back, I got up late for work (yeah I work on Sundays! and I work nights), I got ready and started from my home for work on my bike. I knew I was low on fuel, but there were no fuel stations anywhere on the way open that late. To top it off, I didn't have cash with me either and my ATM card had stopped working. And the icing on the cake was it was on Puja, when almost all establishments are closed down. In 3 simple words, I was screwed.

The inevitable happened around 3 km away from my office. Well, I knew it was bound to happen, the road was sloping down, so I could press the clutch and get moving for some more distance when my bike eventually stopped. So, now I was left to the task of pushing my bike for around 3 km to work.

This is when I'm eternally grateful to the people of Bangalore. A guy on a scooter stopped to check if something was wrong. Of course I couldn't understand what he spoke (he spoke in Kanada). Finally with the little Hindi that we both know, I was able to make him understand that my fuel ran out and I need to get to Koramangala. He indicated that I should sit on the bike. For a minute or two I was completely clueless, mostly out of shock I guess. I got on and put my bike to neutral. Apparently, he was on his way home and he stuck his leg out of his scooter to my bike and pushed mine. It was not easy for him and it not downhill from then on either. But, he did it for a complete stranger (me) and someone whom he couldn't understand either. And I was doing nothing other than sit on the bike. He got me close to my office to a point from where my office was a constant downhill road.

Of course, after some time, I again got down and pushed. Soon again, I got another guardian angel who was ready to give me a push. Two young guys and they towed me all the way to office. This whole incident kind of changed my perspective on helping others. Though I hate to admit it, generally when I find someone in trouble, I hesitate to help. And that too a complete stranger, slim chances.

I'm pretty sure now that I would help someone who ran into some kind of trouble in anyway that I can.

Here's a google map representation of the route I took. It shows around 4.1 km. No wonder I was aching for a few days.

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StackedAgainst goes Open Source

2009-09-18T23:08:00.000-07:00

Once a geek, always a geek! I guess I can't keep away from blogging about it. My HP laptop came loaded with Windows Vista and if you've used it, you'll agree with me that it sucks! Yes, it sucks big time! A few weeks back I reached the breaking point and decided to get rid of it. Around the same time, I wanted to do some work on the LAMP architecture and decided to install Linux on a small partition. As luck would have it, I had the Ubuntu Hardy Heron CD with me and quickly installed it. There was only word for it. Wow!

It was love at first sight. All I had to do was install all the development packages that I needed to work with, which was much easier than on Windows. I mean, just open a terminal window and type out sudo apt-install.... No clicking, no pressing next and finish, nothing. After playing around for a few days, I ordered a copy of Jaunty Jackalope. Again, I just loved it. It was so.... liberating to move from Windows. I now feel like I've got a laptop with 2 GB RAM. The whole booting process from pressing the power button to reaching login screen takes around 10 seconds max. Its just way too cool.

I spoke with a few friends and was not entirely surprised to hear a lot of people not interested in taking the Linux plunge. Mostly, I found it was fear of the unknown. People just love things the way they are and are mostly lazy to take the effort to learn Linux. That is one drawback (as well as advantage) of Linux. Its easier to get things done on the command line than using a GUI. Most common tasks can be accomplished with the GUI, but we Linux freaks served divorce papers on “the mouse.” We just open a terminal and run a command, things are done much faster.

But what I love best about Linux is the fact that it has far far less attacks from viruses and trojans than Windows and visual effects are pretty cool too! So, here's the stackedagainst promise, we are going to roll on the support of open source software from today on. Posting editing, image editing, all the works – open source all the way people!!!

Here are some screenshots from my Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope. Note that I've changed the looks to blue from the standard GNOME brown.

The wallpaper is a beautiful Downtown Manhattan New York Skyline by Caruba, that I found on Flickr.

Impossible is Actually Possible

2009-08-07T00:28:00.000-07:00

I started this blog think I'd write every week and look where that got me!! It has been well over a month since I posted last. Well, the times that went by have been really busy but inspiring at the same time. I was running around with red eyes (scaring my colleagues) and sleeping very little (2 to 3 hours when I got lucky) and that too not at nights.

I did learn a very important lesson in all this though – The impossible is actually possible. Well, to cut the long story short, I had been asked to make a documentary about a certain topic. From the time it took to conceive the idea and draw the outline to the day it was supposed to shown, we had exactly 3 weeks. When the concept was being explained to me, I told immediately “This is not possible. There is no way I can do this in this time. The problem is time and I don't have enough” and a few other problems (including the lack of a camera!!!). But, I was told to try anyway.

I tried and it was a huge success. In fact, people who asked me to make it in the first place told me later, “Now don't you believe the impossible is actually possible?” Now I believe. Next time, someone comes to me I would say “yes” immediately (conditions apply ha..ha..ha..).

This whole thing did teach me a few things though. Below are some of them.

[WARNING: If you can't understand the technical terms, sorry, this is the simplest I can get it.]

Planning
The first thing is that a well-planned project will finish on time. We did have a few glitches (okay, okay, many glitches) along the way, but still thanks to the safety time that we had put it, it all worked out eventually. My laptop's display crashed, my laptop crashed, my video editing software crashed, and my video encoder crashed. That leads me to the next thing.

Shit Happens
You can't control it, you can help it. It happens. You have to work around it. Like I learned during editing. Copying the stuff into another system everyday “helps” when your system crashes. Creating a system restore point just before starting also “helps.”

Relax
Since my video encoder crashed, I couldn't get a high resolution version of the video. I played around with the encoder a lot of times before I gave up and decided not to encode and just make it into an AVI (which would take more time and more memory space). The process would take around 10 hours. We started encoding at 3 am and we needed it ready by 11 am (yeah, in case you are wondering, I slept only for 2 hours), which we couldn't do and finally we showed the low resolution version, which everyone liked anyway. Anyways, the point is I was unusually calm and didn't let the troubles get to my head. That helped everyone around me to be more calm and that again influenced me back. Finally, we were all calm and ready to deal with things logically.

Know what went wrong
Now, I know what can go wrong and next time, I would plan for all the issues that came up.

FYI, I never copied the files to another system, neither did I have a system restore point, so basically we were screwed when my system crashed. I had to restore to a much earlier point and start again. Luckily I didn't lose any files when the System Restore was done.

Birthday Mania

2009-06-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

June 19th. I never knew this date was so significant. The birthdays of four of my friends fall on this date and only this year I realized it and wished all of them. From morning 12 a.m. I have been wishing people "Happy Birthday" :D

First, my classmate and dear friend's birthday. I wished her at 12 a.m. and spoke to her for some time. Of course she was awake with her buddies to finally turn a legal adult.

Next, my colleague. I noticed that it was his birthday a week back but forgot it at 12. Anyways, went over at 1 a.m. to his workstation and wished him.

If that wasn't enough, it dawned on me at around 4 in the morning that it my old colleague's birthday. She was the one friend I had there. It was great to wake her up at 5:30 in the morning as she was getting up from bed.

Last but not the least, another colleague's birthday. I got to get off the shift by taking some sweets and wishing her a "Happy Birthday" too. I wish I would remember this date next year and these guys would remember my birthday next month ;)

Shake It Off And Step Up

2009-05-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to writing my own blog. I have been having a writer’s block about this for quite a long time. Finally, I got rid of my own procrastination and started working on my first post. Of course, many thanks to Zhu and Gail coz it was after reading their blogs for about one month that I really got encouraged to write my own blog. Stacked Against is all about how to rise above whenever troubles are stacked against you. My posts will as far as possible be reflecting this attitude.

I read a lot of books, magazines, blogs, and the likes. One particular story which I read a long back has always stayed in the back of my mind and would come to my mind whenever I faced a crisis. I only remember sketchy details of the story and here are they are.

There was this farmer who owned a donkey. This donkey was one of the most faithful of all his animals and also the oldest and very frail. Even though the donkey was very old and frail, the farmer did not have the heart to take its life.

One day, the donkey fell into the farmer’s well. The well was quite deep and it seemed as if the donkey didn’t survive the fall. The farmer like the practical man he was assessed the situation and decided that it was not worth the trouble to save the donkey and decided to cover the well. He took the help of his neighbours and started dumping basketfuls of dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery. Baskets of dirt began to hit the old, weary donkey in the back. Initially, the old donkey was deeply saddened and disheartened.

Suddenly, an idea dawned on the donkey. He realized that the dirt would cover him up only if he stood still and let it. So, he started to shake off the baskets of dirt that were landing on his back and step up. So, every time a basket of dirt landed on his back, the donkey would shake it off and step up! “Shake it off and step up,” he kept repeating to encourage himself. He was pretty sure now that he could survive. In any case, he realized it was better than doing nothing and letting the dirt cover him. No matter how painful the blows, or distressing the situation, the old donkey fought “panic” and just kept on shaking it off and stepping up!Imagine the surprise of the farmer and his neighbours, they came to cover a well over a dead donkey and instead they get to see a tired but extremely smug looking donkey jumping out when the dirt reached the ground level.

Shit happens, we can’t control that. But how we respond to them is perfectly within our control. It’s left to us to decide whether to do nothing and be buried under it or to shake it off and step up, but no one can make that decision for us. Every time you feel that troubles are stacked against you, remember the donkey, and “Shake It Off And Step Up!”