Your One Stop Keyur Shop!

cognitive therapy

Apple didn't buy Universal thank god. It would have been "cool" but beyond that I can't imagine how Apple would have managed should record sales and computer sales decline together. With the iTunes store Apple has created by far the most solid music service to date. I've played with this service quite a bit and so far its an almost there sort of thing. I'm still not too comfortable paying a full dollar for what is essentially a compressed sound file. If I am paying the full price I should get the highest quality available so something that is akin to the quality of a 320kbps MP3. Yes I know this is computer audio but for some of us computer audio is the only audio and I for one demand full quality especially if I'm paying for it. An alternative implementation would have Apple selling the 128kbps quality file for $0.50 with progressively higher qualities selling for higher prices and the 320kbps quality file selling for $0.99. This sounds good from the consument point of view but introduces vastly higher storage costs for Apple. Regardless of what the marketing says $0.99 for a 128kbps quality file is too much, give me high quality recordings and this deal becomes perfect.
Another idea about this service that I wonder if Apple has explored is the possibility of allowing independent artists to sell their material via the iTunes store. This would have the same effect on the independent music industry that blogging has had on the personal web-publihing world. Apple could take a small cut of all sales and in turn indie artists get amazing exposure. The interested artists create an account with Apple then pay a fee and upload their music via some sort of template based system and boom, instant presence. This sounds very much like mp3.com doesn't it? Yea it does, but this is mp3.com done right, good inter face and proven technology and the backing of a stable technological innovator. Although this sounds very utopian, in the capitalistic sense of the word, but I'm sure the labels have already covered their bases and don't allow Apple to do this. What if someone made it ridiculously easy to connect the musician with an audience willing to pay for her music, how would the record execs eat?! The horror!

So one of my favourite online reads Penny-Arcade was presented with a cease and desist letter by America Greetings for "abusing" the Strawberry Shortcake trademark. I don't at all see this as any sort of abuse, I see it as mere parody. Clearly the American Greetings nazis don't agree. Looking at that comic I'd have thought that American McGee would have had the biggest problem with it due to the obvious links to Alice, but clearly I was mistaken. I wonder on what basis they consider this a trademark violation because the strip has a sexpot male fantasy whereas the real Strawberry Shortcake is a young girl's play toy. If the parodied material was at all close to the source trademark than this would atleast have somewhat stable footing to walk on. However this does bring up the question of when exactly does regular speech begin to infringe on the rights of copyright holders. Gabe made a very intersting point in his post; "I can hardly have thoughts without utilizing brands." This is so true. A lot of brand names and other forms of corporate intellectual property have become part of the common cultural vernacular. Should gcorporations give up their rights on their coveted products when these products become everyday common? Obviously any corporation's goal is to produce profit, but when potential profits and freedom of speech are at such opposite sides of the argument how can there be a solution? This is only going to become more of an issue in the future because the world has just begun to take the first few steps in the era where corporations gain such power over not just financial markets but the very intellectual fabric of our culture. Eventually its going to boil down to whether society deems it more important to preserve the right of corporations to profit or the right of individuals to express themselves.

So the other day I was sitting at work and just chatting with CassiB about life and the meaning therein and etc. and she pops, what i thought was a tremendous concept. Pool is a racially motivated game. The striker ball is white and heavier than the rest of the coloured balls. The white ball is the last ball left standing on the table. The white ball strikes out at the balls as they are divided up by colour and in one game pockets all the balls first and saves the black ball for last. Is this whitey's way to dominate subliminally or just a simple game using colours to create entertainment and intrigue?

Quoteses:
"That wasn't a gibberish sentence? Awesome." - The Captain
"BRB... bowl." - Angry Mike

Linkses:
Not go on the intenet?! That unpossible!
Segway...post ricing
The man just wanted to sell some doughnuts
So it wasn't bird poop afterall
American entrepreneurship at its best

new host bemsha swing

So after many worries I've finally transitioned over to Dathorn. I've gone into a hosting plan with 6 other friends and together we've purchased a reseller account that we're sharing amongst ourselves. This new plan is really a lot better than what I had before. I've got 352MB of space and 5.43GB of transfers every month all for just $2.50 a month. On top of the savings I get a host with known good reliability whos located in Texas and has uptimes pushing 99%.

On top of that I'm running MT from a mySQL database instead of the Berkeley DB since I get unlimited SQL DBs on this system so thats super neat.

Welll thats all for now. Pretty tired. Its been a long weekend of going to Dallas and getting new hosting and salvaging work from the past week because someone doesn't understand the importance of saving all open VI buffers.

In closing a big big thanks to The Captain and The Old Man for making everything pertaining to the new hosting going down as smoothly as it did. I couldn't have done it without you guys.

canyanero!

I'm not an angry sort of man, most of the time I'm in what would be categorized as a "happy-go-lucky" sort of mood, taking what comes my way. There are some things in life though that will absolutely get me very angry very fast. For example there are these "god complex" people walking amongst us. All of us know atleast one of these people. These are the people who have the gall to ignore the common man talking to them. You could be no more than three feet from them and they will not hear a word you have said. Clearly this cannot be the case especially after you repeat it twice. Their face registers nothing as and their actions continue as they were as if the world around them is a falsehood. One of these days one of these people is really going to push my button and hold it down at which point I'm going to be forced to hold them down and pop their eardrums so they have a real excuse to ignore the world around them. Bastards.

To counteract that enjoy a math joke: A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house.
The physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate."
The biologist: "They have reproduced".
The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again."

Quoteses::
"I think environmentalist groups should have an 800 number you can call so you can rat out members that make them look stupid." - foyle
"Did you feel like cotton candy?" - Akash K.
"I tried rolling my Rs the other day and I just sat around sounding like a cat." - Daniel H.
"I want to be Mars too! He's like a nerd on a sugar high...like me!" - The Captain

Linkses::
Yay America!
PETA is stupid
suck it Madonna!
Price of convenience
A rose by any other name...
Playstation becomes a man
300 reasons to love the Simpsons
OS X browsers compared side by side
Kinda creepy in that what if sort of way
Is there a Winamp/iTunes plugin for this?
Destroying Saddam's regime wasn't all bad
Theres a good reason I stick with the glasses
My school distric wasn't this cool about our prom
Bush vows to remove toxic petroleum from national parks

happy earth day

Dear President Bush,

Since taking office, you have made a series of decisions that will have devastating consequences for our communities, our country and our planet. I am writing to ask you to stop this alarming trend of weakening important environmental protections.

I am especially concerned about your administration's destructive pollution policies. At the behest of corporate polluters, your agencies have taken dramatic steps to weaken fundamental clean air programs by loosening control of power plant pollution that causes acid rain, asthma, and numerous serious respiratory problems. Your administration is also shifting the burden of toxic waste clean up from polluters to taxpayers.

I am alarmed that under your policies endangered species are more threatened than ever, and millions of acres of pristine forests are about to be exposed to destruction. All this even though the vast majority of Americans want our natural heritage protected. And now, the Clean Water Act and the waters it protects is under attack.

Mining and drilling on public land is already a huge give-away to special interests, and is about to get bigger. And on top of all this, your administration is aggressively promoting an energy policy that puts corporate interests ahead of national security and environmental protection.

I urge you to respect the overwhelming consensus for environmental protection in this country and keep our remaining wild forests and precious lands free of destructive logging, mining, and road building. Help find a solution to the problem of global warming and improve our nation's energy security by supporting increased and expanded energy efficiency and clean energy initiatives.

We need to move forward, not back, when it comes to protecting our environment and the health of all Americans.

Sincerely,

Keyur M. Parekh

like my style

So the past couple of days have been spent desperately trying to figure out how to not make my wrist hurt while I use my computer. Jackson gave me a lot of advice and whats worked for me is a combination of a homemade wrist brace and a slight change in my typing style where my right hand floats over the keyboard and the awkward reaches I was making for the 'backspace' and its neighbours are no longer happening. There is a bigger problem though because the surface that my keyboard and mouse rest on is at a higher level than where my hands naturally come to rest, which is just plain uncomfortable. Eventually when I get around to setting up a real office for myself I'll definitely have to keep ergonomics in mind. This current setup doesn't have much longer to go, and I don't have the resources to implement any sort of a permanent solution. Another problem is that I've mentally conditioned myself into believing that my trackball is comfortable for me, but I hate having to use my index and middle finger to control the ball and my thumb just can't seem to find a comfy way to scroll a lot without getting bent into an odd shape. The fact that the ball's rolling motion jams with dirt and goes from smooth to extra crunchy every 24 hours doesn't help. I wish so much that Microsoft would have a little demonstration video or even a couple of pictures on the website of the trackball that demonstrated how real people (not diagrams) are supposed to use it. I haven't given up though, I know that I've got the going better than the people with mice.

While I wasn't worrying about my wrist I went on an awesome bike ride Saturday. I got to see all sorts of Austin type things from the Holly Power Plant, to the Longhorn Dam, and some rowing races and the bats under Congress and the people-watching in Zilker Park and the ducks clamouring for food on the shore of Town Lake. Actually I made a wrong turn and instead of going over Longhorn Dam (Pleasant Valley) to cross it, I went under it and went and onto a random detour that took me all the way to Leander. I had to back track to the Dam, but damn what a great little side trip. It was a great ride, but in my infinite grace I sprained my ankle during this excursion and so since then I've been limping around like only a large clumsy brown man can. Thankfully I'm like Wolverine and can heal quickly, I should be up and about by Thursday for sure.

Then while I wasn't on my bike or spraining ankles I watched Chicago. It was a fun film to watch, but I'm still trying to figure out why it won as many awards as it did. The musical aspect of it was crazy go nuts fun, but the plot left me wanting more, classic modern Bollywood type of mistake. Most modern Bollywood blockbusters have the plot just sort of sprinkled on top of what is phenomenal music, perfect example of this would be Taal. For any of you that have watched old school Bollywood films from the 1940-50s will know what I'm talking about. The integration between the music and plot was seamless and looking at the film as a whole it wouldn't at all make much sense to try and separate the plot from the music. Chicago was very close to this where the plot integrated very well with the musical aspect of the film, but sadly the plot was just came off as being weak. If any of you disagree, please let me have it. Hollywood definitely needs more musicals though. Coming to a theatre near you Arnold Schwarzenegger in Puny Gymnasium Blues!

Being home bound I caught up on some TV watching. I was very intrigued and was quickly caught up in Dicovery Channel's new series Extreme Engineering. In the particular episode I was watching the premise was a transatlantic tunnel. Okay so I know this show is supposed to be all about whats possible, but really this tunnel idea was just so half-baked that I can't help but rage on it. The general idea is to have an underwater tunnel from NY to England suspended about 100 feet below the surface of the Atlantic tethered to the ocean floor via adjustable-tension cables. In this tunnel is a an almost vacuum, and in this almost vacuum rides a maglev train going 5,000 mph (8047 kmh)! I laughed really hard when this was laid out before me. So for shits 'n giggles lets forget that it would take a magical material to sustain even an almost vacuum at 100 feet underwater safely, then you have to maintain this vacuum, then you have to have ridiculous amounts of security and then you have to somehow magically integrate this type of train track into whats currently deployed in the UK and NY because it'd be annoying to have to change tracks for the "last mile" of your journey so to speak. This is all on top of the fact that according to the show itself this project would use all the steel the US and Europe are able to produce in 1.5 years and cost upwards of a trillion dollars. All of this precluding that aerospace makes no real progress into the future. Who the hell are these guys kidding? Why aren't they wasting their high value production money on something even remotely credible, like the anti-pants movement. Next episode of Extreme Engineering: a serious discussion on the real plausibility of the warp drive from Star Trek. Morons.

Too close out this action packed post have a go at this quiz on the male or femaleness of your brain. I scored a 43 on the Empathy Quotient and a 46 on the systemising quotient. This is called the male brain, or a brain of type S. Wow paint me surprised. You can read the article describing this quiz. I didn't read it.

Random sidenote: one of my friend's boyfriends got her a book called Wrinkle Cure, two quarts of Rice Dream and a copy of Alernative Medicine magazine as her Easter present. Man I wish I was that creative.

Quoteses:
"We didn't make Dan an ass vibrator out of a toilet paper roll and a [sic]bettery." - Akash K.
"There should just be a crash Mozilla webpage." - The Captain
"I don't know if I want a job." - Nic W.
"Guh. Making up word is tough." - Daniel H.

Linkses:
CNN.com's audience is all moron.
I hate privacy and freedom!
Pure genius that man!
Food is icky, tables are sticky, waitress has a hickey, stay home if you're picky

reading the wrong assignment

My dad left for India today. Until May 5th I'm an orphan in this country. Thats going to be weird, no parents at all in this country. The G is more accustomed to this concept that I am. On second thought it's gonna be a lotta bit weird, not a just a little bit weird. I think I'll be okay until May 5th though, I'm a big boy now.

Also a big thanks to Matt Haugey for a very awesome tutorial on how to display current winamp song in a MoveableType blog. He also has a similar step-by-step for iTunes users. Of course this tutorial wasn't enough for my feeble mind and I couldn't have done with the help of the one and only Captain. So yes now you can view the last 5 songs I've been listening to. This interweb thing is amazing. Only eggless donuts are more useful.

I think my online writing is going to have to slow down a little bit. My right wrist has been hurting a lot, to the point where I can't actually keep typing. Going past the obligatory masturbation jokes, I'm quite a bit worried about this whole thing. I made a little makeshift brace for myself today with the bandage I normally use to wrap up my ankles. It feels a little better but its no permanent solution. I hope I don't have to go see a doctor. I've begun doing some basic excersices for carpal tunnel and they actually helped a bunch. It actually felt like blood was getting to the pain and lessening it. Must avoid carpal tunnel at all costs. My typing skills are vital to my livelihood and perhaps my neighbourhood too.

Quoteses:
"Look! That woman has an ass like an elephant." - Casio IDF-3000
"And as a secondary preemptive response, no, I'm not gay." - The Captain
"I wore the G-shirt on campus today. I got 9 girls' phone numbers and 2 guys', plus I won $20 in a scratch -off lotto ticket. The G-shirt may also be bulletproof, I'm not sure." - Nick W.

Linkses:
Poor cat.
Heavy honey
The borg are real
Inside the soul of the web
Agent Orange use 'understated'
Indians are not of an Aryan descent.
"Violence as a concept, an abstraction"
What do museums have to do with the oil?
'Time traveler' busted for inside trading. Ohhhh Wessssssly.

congrats shlep

Lots of thinking is being done of late. Maybe I shouldn't have put down in words my thoughts of finally departing Austin. Its not really a pleasing thought, bonds with people here have become much too strong to leave with any ease. "I'll cross that bridge when I get there.", I keep telling myself.

So the thinking on another topic of late has been the whole value of human life issue. I was talking to a friend earlier in the day about how its horrible that people are voluntarily allowed to die in battle. How true it is, we train our soldiers to essentially kill or be killed during battle and there are "acceptable losses" too.
However humanity works so hard to save lives. We spend huge sums of money towards the research for the cure of deadly diseases, granted to some degree we save lives out of an instinctual desire to keep the human race going. There is however such a large segment of medical research devoted solely to keeping bodies alive, even when there is very little person left in the body. The value of human life is just priceless, we take care of our disabled our sick and our weak, yet we sacrifice all that for an endeavor such as war. Even though we are willing to sacrifice, what is otherwise very precious, human life freely at the altar of war, people tend to cringe should human life be lost in the quest of furthering science. For example the United States' entire space program halts when 6 people are lost in the quest to further science.
Sure you can throw out the argument that those 6 people were highly trained scientists who were foremost in there field with accolades and awards and discoveries in their name from here to Bombay, but then wouldn't that argument also be saying that some human life is more valuable than others. Bluntly stated it's saying we don't care if "grunt" soldier become cannon fodder, but educated scientists are too important to lose. Human life is either important or it isn't, you can't introduce a grey area because then the whole argument will implode.
Then working off the assumption that people view human life as valuable why is it then that we're so willing to sacrifice this assumed valuable resource often when other methods would work just as well. Yet humanity as a whole recoils when human life is lost to further the boundaries of science. Science is the one discipline out of all that can actually help us understand ourselves better than any other at all. Science is the only real contender in the debate to answer that one question, "Why are we here?" Maybe humanity just needs some time, to sort this sort of stuff out. Maybe we're not really wired to sort this stuff out, however it's massively interesting to peer over that cliff of possibility and imagine the valley below. Maybe someday far in the distant murky future we will have people as willing to die for science as people are willing to die for their nation/ideals/beliefs today.

Quoteses:
"Damnit, why are you leaving Austin?" - The Captain
"I've decided not to post here anymore unless it's really necessary to get information out about something." - Parker D.

Linkses:
Onward Christian Soliders
American ingenuity hard at work!
A tragedy of curvaceous proportions
Just lose the pants man, no need to go that far.
About time someone found a use for Nokia phones.

towel cape

I'm sure most of you have read by now of Apple's intentions to purchase Universal records. This is great news! What got me mad was people's immediate reaction of, "What the hell is Apple thinking?". Sure if you just gloss over the big numbers then this deal makes no sense whatsoever, also why would a computer company want to get into the media business? Well Microsoft has been making some serious inroads over the past few years incorporating technologies that make the recording industry happy and they haven't forgotten about the video side of things either. Now the news comes out that Microsoft is considering purchasing Universal Records too. Microsoft doesn't "experiment" with industries, they play for keeps or they don't play at all, look at the game console industry. They can bleed more cash than any of their competitors and live to monopolize said market.
Universal is a huge company and they have huge artists like Ashanti, Erykah Badu, Mary J. Blige, Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Eminem, Jay-Z, Elton John, Limp Bizkit, Nelly, No Doubt, Shaggy, Sting, Shania Twain, U2 and then some. Apple is in the perfect position to implement and roll-out a digital distribution system for music. This type of a system would give a much needed boost to the flagging sales of records that the RIAA has been crying over for the past few years. Apple's iTunes is bar-none the best audio player and audio management software and for kicks lets ignore the iPod for now. Apple should by all means establish itself at the forefront of digital music downloads. If Apple gets into the fray they will go with MPEG-4 and AAC for sure, which is not nearly as restrictive as Microsoft's DRM vision. Microsoft's DRM obviously requires Windows, "approved" hardware, and forget about burning songs to CD or any sort of copying for that matter. I don't want a day to come when to enjoy any sort of music I have to pay regular homage in money to a large entity like the RIAA or Microsoft or anyone, its my music and I'll enjoy it as I wish under fair usage standards.
Its very important that Apple be the first company to implement the digital music distribution system, because this will set the precedent for the type of user experience people are going to have and expect. If Microsoft gets this first, like everything else they will establish themselves for good and that'll be the end of that (Office, Windows, Solitaire). Once they're established it'll take them three tries just to get the interface right and then a major code revision until they achieve good stability. Another great reason for Apple to do this more than Microsoft is because Apple has a Unix based operating system they would develop this distro system for which leaves the window for the Linux users wide open. Choice is a good thing.
A couple of the major points people seem to keep coming back to regarding this deal are the hit Apple stock took on Friday and about how Apple is going to manage a mini media empire and do everything they have going on already. So the stock...okay its fact that investors have a herd mentality and they aren't very smart (Enron investors). Investors are fickle ignoramuses in most cases and just follow the crowd, and one trading day doesn't mean anything. On the matter of the multiple project management, well Jobs and Apple together are doing a phenomenal job with Pixar, Silicon Grail, Nothing Real, Raycer, Prismo, Emagic and Filemaker has only improved since joining Apple. There is nothing that would make me doubt that Jobs and the rest of the Apple crew can't do the same with Universal under their umbrella. I for one hope that Apple can pull off this buy. Universal is looking for a cool $7 billion and Apple's offer is in the $5-6 billion range from what I've read, I have no doubt that Microsoft can top that.
In the summer of 2001 while I was with Microsoft I had a some time with Bill Gates and I asked him why Microsoft isn't purchasing a media company (Disney and Viacom were possibilites) to really compete with the AOL Time Warner beast. He looked at me with his signature grin and a twinkle in his eye and said, "Microsoft isn't a media company, Microsoft is about computing. That's why we sold off Expedia. We want to be the platform that delivers the content from our partners."

Things I learned by watching Collateral Damage:

• Fire doesn't stand a chance if Arnold is a firefighter.
• Arnold's pain is my pain.
• No matter what, don't piss Arnold off.
• Don't give Arnold a baseball bat when hes mad.
• Much to my disappointment, Arnold can be electrocuted.
• Geography doesn't have any impact on Arnold's ass kicking ability.
• Arnold is invincible and sometimes invisible when hes underwater.
• Arnold can speak great Spanish.
• Arnold is a natural when it comes to dealing with small children.
• People can somehow mistake Arnold to be German when hes clearly Austrian.
• Arnold knows MacGyver and learned a few of MacGyver's tricks.
• Arnold can't help but make great films.

In other news, my mom is back at my mama's place and shes doing fine. I think shes getting a little tired of the repeated phone calls from here courtesy of dad and I. This is a sure sign of her well being. Just happy in the knowledge that mom is nearly well.

Quoteses:
"I'd spend 50 cents on you any day." - Cassi B.
"Put your mouse in the air and wave it from side to side." - L.L. Cool J for AOL
"Learn COBOL!" - The Captain

Linkses:
Antiseptic war.
Wrong on mulitple levels.
What channel can I watch on?
Time to find a job in Belgium.
Stop Shannon. It just makes sense.
2003 Jefferson Muzzle Award Winners
Not all Keyurs can be as cool and suave as I am.
These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed

meta existence

Its sinking in slowly that this whole "college" dealie is going to come to a screaming halt in a month and change. I can't say I'm going to miss Austin but I'll miss the people and I'll miss the life. Ah well there'll be time for musings like this later.

So this most pointless and egotistical war in Iraq. America has finally accomplished recreating itself in the mirror image of the very British Empire from which it bought its independence in blood. America is a machine and this machine needs new markets and oil, more oil than new markets. India has got Pakistan knocking down its door, and the Korean peninsula seems to want to blow itself clear into some sort of low Earth orbit. However neither of these situations yield in a final gain of oil to America so its safe to ignore it, so screw trying to make the world there a better place. Not a day goes by that I don't hear of some new link between the Bush government and some large corporate entity. I'd much rather have a president who gets real blowjobs from interns rather than one who figuratively takes it up the ass from large corporations. If only it was as easy as calling shenanigans and getting it over with.

My mom's is doing well after her surgery. Her recovery is happening much faster than I thought it would and shes already back to her normal routine. Shes still in the hospital but only because the doctor couldn't come by to do her final pre-discharge checkup and sign the appropriate paperwork. She should be back at my mama's (mom's brother) place by Saturday.

I'm going to write about the meta data and the responses I got to the April 2nd rant. I have to get around to that and also cleaning up the CSS. This is just not working the way it is right now. Michael Brown is right, I should just tear it down and start all over.

Quoteses:
"The 'activation energy' for setting up a MoveableType blog is way too high for me." - The Captain
"He would try to argue with them and make sure they don't get unfairly bullied into stripping. Then he would show them a 300 meg picture of the earth from space" - Gabriel V.
"Those who deface a Hummer in words or deed, deface the American flag and what it stands for." - Rick S.

Linkses:
"If I could get an A1 Abrams, I would, but I don't know if California would allow it."
Pulitzer prize photography.
Pretty photos, prettier photographer.

stosx.1331.kparekh

So it turns out mom's hysterectomy was completed without any complications. The actual procedure only took half an hour from what I've been told and as of now is that shes in good shape although still quite a bit under sedation.

The main reason her sugery was delayed is because she has an irregular heartbeat so they transferred her from a small surgical clinic to a larger hospital, namely Bombay Hospital, the same place where I was born. Furthermore one of the doctors , Dr. Paresh Pai, who was part of the team that did the C-section that was my birth was the same person who did this operation for my mom.

Quoteses:
"Well, what do you expect from a slave-banging, Hitler-loving queer?" - Stephen C.
"Join with me in prayer that her friend is single, hot, and has a thing for neon white skin." - Parker D.
"I myself prefer the LML Vespa - India's #1 two-wheeler!" - Gautam P.
"He speaks with an ironic inflection, elongating vowels so that when he says "Re-loo-oaded" or "Revo-luuu-tions," the titles come with air quotes preinstalled." - Steve S.

Linkses:
Perhaps the most heinous corollary of the "business of America" saw, however, is that it operates under the guise of the national interest.
No Babar is not here. I repeat Babar is definitely not here.
A guide for new g33k dads.
"No amount of clothing removal will be sufficient to withstand the fiery inferno that awaits them on the battlefield."
Slow news day.
Is the message to take my clothes off to get people to like me?

word up to not syracuse

I finally got my main email address for this website going (keyur at keyurp.com). I had it working but the web-interface was simply excruciating so I just never bothered to check. Now that I have the POP interface working again I can use the spiffy Mozilla Mail client to check it. Problem is while I wasn't checking it I got 1184 messages! Most of which are just spam. Thankfully the spam filtering in the Mozilla Mail kicks ass. Anyway thought I'd share some of the more interesting subjects:

• he hit me - yea that sheelpi. gotta watch him all the time.
• free bulletproof hosting - damn those turrorists.
• how do i clean my bowels? - wow i don't even know what to say.
• god? - yes, how can i help you?
• Moechten Sie Ihre finanzielle Zukunft veraendern? - Ik spreek het geen Engels.
• hello kevinb, get HUGE! - uhhh i'm keyur.
• look how big it got! - i am seriously scared.
• keep your castle safe - wow junk mail from medieval times!

So then beyond the email I've taken a new fascination with my sever logs to see who is coming by here to my little nook of the internet and how they got here. One of the most common ways people stumble onto my site is via Google. So the next logical step was to figure out what phrases they use to find it...I give you some of the more interesting ones:

• i want you to have my last name
• i just want you to know your whole being is beautiful im going to do the best i can do cause i m the best when i m with you
• lyrics i am a punjabi girl very fuckin funny
• what all monkeys eat
• angry monkeys
• what monkeys eat
• cameltoe song bob and tom
• really mad pornography that blows your mind
• penguins humping

So then this is what I'm known for. Thank you.

Quoteses:
"The main reason you disagree with him is that you're considerably
smarter than average. (Evidence: you have a Weblog, and it's not on livejournal.com.)" - Matthew T.

Linkses:
Something the Captain would do.
I know hes in the right, but how annoying.
I laughed so hard, I cried.
All monkey all the time.

thank you all

After Thanksgiving last year I decided to take on a project to help a family in need. I couldn't have carried through on my plans without help and a lot of you went out of your way to help me out. The computer is built and with the family now!

Sadly though due to scheduling conflicts I couldn't acquire very good pictures but here are the pictures that were taken. It was a very rewarding experience to actually go through with this little adventure and although I don't know how the family is using this machine I hope they find it helps them through the years to come.

Of course I couldn't have done any of this without a lot of help. I'm still missing the name of one person from the DOS office who made a donation but either did not offer their name or their name was not recorded. Please get in touch with me, as I would very much like to make sure your name is included as well. Listed here in alphabetical order are the people whose name I do have....

• Cathryn Cole
• Jewish Community of Louisville Kentucky
• Kalam Family
• Ram Kannappan
• Tany Norwood
• Steve Preiss
• Katie Schaeffer
• Cheryl Wood

Thank you all again very much.

dehydrated bell pepper

A lot of people have asked me what I plan on doing when I come back from my trip to India in early 2004. Well I've finally decided on my new career path. Don't try to change my mind, its already too late.

While I was on campus today there was a point when I was unable to listen to my own music because my server is full. I wondered who could be listening. Well well its some folks from citicorp and intel. I think thats pretty neat. In that 'making mega-corporation drone life exciting' sort of way.

Later on someone from MS was also listening.

I am not trying to copy the dullest blog in the world. That thing just has weird effects on people after they've read it.

Quoteses:
"...ah well, there's always my next reincarnated life. Sucks to be all you white people as your chance is gone." - Gautam P.

Linkses:
What NOT to say.
Is this is a business decision?
"We drink some coffee and run around the neighborhood."

delayed

So it turns out that mom's hysterectomy has been delayed for 2-3 days. Right before the operation was about to begin in the "pre-op" they discovered that my mom has an odd heartbeat. I'm not entirely sure how serious this is, but the way the news was conveyed to me I understand its not a very big deal but it would be safer if the surgery was conducted at a larger hospital with a fully equipped operating room in case of any issues. So now she has to wait while all of that is setup. As long as its done safely it matters not to me where it is done. She just better be in good enough condition to fly back States side.

This is sort of cool...of the two listeners this morning on the One Stop Keyur Music Shop! one works for Harper Collins out in New York and the other was from the Universität Bamberg in Bamberg, Germany. Frankly I just want to know how the Germans know about this damn thing!

free mike hawash!

I came across this story(more) over at Wired News and I can't help but feel a total and utter sense of outrage and despair. Maybe its because I feel a connection to Mike, as he is also a programmer. Whatever the reason be, I am just totally floored. Not sure why this particular case of the U.S. government detaining its own citizens is getting under my skin any more than the others I've heard about but damn it I am angry. Mike's friend and colleague Steven McGeady has set up a Free Mike Hawash website which has all the details pertinent to this case. America should be ashamed of itself. So many choice words running through my head but I'll keep it PG-13.

In other news as this post goes online my mommy is about to undergo a hysterectomy in Bombay and the procedure should be completed by 12pm IST. My major concern for her is if she will have enough time to recuperate before she flies back to the States on the 5th of May. Thankfully dad is flying out to India on the 17th of this month to be with mommy and then they'll both be flying back together. Also my masi (mom's elder sister) and my masa (masi's husband) are both doctors so I feel better knowing that the care my mom will get is going to be first class. Anyway I guess I'm just a bit worried until this is all over and I hope all will be well with the mother unit.

Originally I put this article by Arundhati Roy from The Guardian into the Linkses section, but after giving it a good read I realize it was far too brilliant to be simply in the Linkses section. I cannot suggest this article enough.

Quoteses:
"War is a poor chisel for carving out peace." - Martin L. K. Jr.
"F___ Saddam. we're taking him out." - George W. B.
"Then eMpTyVee came along, and gave me the attention span of a ferret, and I didn't care any more." - Wil W.
"Hinduism is a lot like Pokemon!" - Unamerican.com

Linkses:
War! What is it good for?
"If the Americans and British pick a leader from among the Iraqi people, the war will be a success."
"F___ Saddam. we're taking him out."
Why are we invading Iraq?
Less war more peace!
I'm never going swimming in the oceans around Antartica again!

yellow 6

Yea I know I just got this website going again, but bear with me, this entry is near and dear to me.

John Siracusa at ArsTechnica is at it again with another critical look at the OS X interface. Unlike a lot of reviewers he clearly states at the very beginning that he does not like the Finder and goes into the review with that assertion. So Siracusa is arguing that the OS X Finder has a huge shortcoming due to the fact that it loses spatial orientation thus causing major UI woes. I'll take his argument one major point at a time...

1. Goodness of spatial interfaces
I cannot argue with the goodness of spatial interfaces. Even under tremendous clutter the user who created that mess will find what they are looking for because it was where they put it. However Siracusa needs to address the major shortcoming of spatial interfaces which is the lack of screen real estate. The light switch analogy to illustrate how muscle-memory is formed was great, but you never need to have light switches that control more than 2 or 3 sets of lights together. Whereas on computers, users often have to manage large sets of files. Screen real estate becomes a major issue when you have a large number of folder windows open, especially considering that there never has been a method in the MacOS to immediately switch to an open window a la the Alt-Tab and Taskbar in Windows. MacOS only allows users to cycle through each running application not each open window. Evolved human skills at managing visual information doesn't help much when you've run out of screen space. You can make excuses about this point, but a busy screen does not facilitate ease of operation especially a task like file management, which is one of the core functionalities of the MacOS Finder.

2. Coherency and Stability
The "one-to-one relationship between folders and windows" is a great relationship, however it does not work well in the Unix environment. Unix filesystems and HFS+ support hard links which allows the same file to exist in multiple locations at once. To some extent this frustrates the one-to-one relationship, because now the same folder or a file can be two places at one. Also with the web being as pervasive as it is today, users are familiar with the concept of a text-based address. Whether that address be http://www.mywebpage.com/ or /home/myfile/mymusic, a filesystem path doesn't necessarily confuse the user. I'm not advocating that users be unnecessarily exposed to text-based path names, but rather pointing out that users are familiar with text based paths and use them regularly. Siracusa cannot be denied though regarding his points on the stability and consistency of appearances. Changing how the same folder(s) appears from one double click to the next does not work with or without the one-to-one issue, its really that simple.

3. Live Searches
Awesome concept, but poorly suggested. Live searches don't make much sense based on what type of file data is offered by the OS today. Those data being: creation/access/modification date and time, file size, permissions, location, and type. Its hard to think of the usefulness of a live search based on this dataset that a user would find much use with on a regular enough basis to make a folder to watch regularly. Also this list is bound to be littered with random files such as web browser cache files and other files that have no real use for the user. However think about the concept of Live Search with a query like: all text based documents older than 6 months that contain a given string or all pictures larger than 50K of my dog. That would be far more powerful not to mention useful. More on this concept tomorrow. Another take on the whole concept of Live Search would be to have search bookmarks so to speak with a search can be bookmarked like a website, but I love the idea of a specially badged folder that updates a specific search query in realtime. I don't think bookmarked offer as much functionality as the Live Search folders.

4. Proxies
It seems to me that the very concept of a "proxy" icon that is not an alias kills the whole spatial orientation idea. This "proxy" icon gives user two ways to get to the same folder/file. One is the folder/file itself and then you have the "proxy" icon in the live search. This confuses me because this seems like its negating the spatial orientation and outright breaking the one-to-one relationship requirement.

5. Finder Browser
Why deliberately obfuscate the concept of file management? Windows does this and it doesn't offer a clear benefit. Also the concept of Navigating is another idealogy which is an option to spatial orientation. I simply don't understand why mix and match like this. Siracusa throws in the address bar when all this time we've been on the topic of spatial orientation precisely so that users don't have to worry about text-based path names, even if it is just for expert users. Ambiguity is the best way to ruin an otherwise good interface. Windows has a thousand ways of proving this. Design one file management concept and run with it don't patch up a poor design with another concept thrown in for good measure. Ambiguity in an user interface is not the way to go. The Shelf that Siracusa discusses is another concept I disagree with. Although the desktop was not designed with this intention in mind it serves the exact purpose of the shelf perfectly without the need to add more UI. I feel its not good to add more UI when there is already an established concept that also serves this purpose without creating any extra problems or UI.

6. Customized Browser Windows
This is a can of worms just waiting to be opened. A lot of people have asked me and I've thought a lot about whats wrong with blurring the boundaries between the OS and applications. Its sort of like creating a car thats also an airplane, both of these machines have opposite goals. One needs to stick to the ground the other one needs to lift off the ground. The task of managing files and the task of editing/creating files are different in their very nature. Microsoft's UI/UE team would argue with me about why a user should even have to worry about files and where they are and such. Thats fine if it could be done perfectly, however there is no such thing as "perfect" technology. Data that users go through the trouble of creating or acquiring is important, no questions asked, data loss is simply unacceptable. However for the forseeable future user's should have more or less direct control over where their data is stored. That doesn't mean they should be forced to manage their files, but managing files should not be made harder or abstracted confusingly. Also when you have a special folder window that becomes a psuedo <insert simple editor type> things quickly become more complicated than necessary. It is not worth while for the user or the designer to have a system, "that is a jack of all trades but a master of none." Another issue that arises when very specific application level functions (image editing, document editing, etc.) are blended into the OS it becomes questionable where the line should be drawn. At which point does the OS stop being the OS and instead become every imaginable application. Microsoft for one is definitely going towards that vision where the OS is the end all and be all. I cannot agree with that vision because its not realistically possible for one interface to work for everything. On second though, forget doing everything. Its not reasonable for one interface (based on the WIMP model) to do more than a few similar tasks well, let alone a lot of dissimilar tasks.

7. Finder Plug-ins
This is a gray area much like skins. In most instances I'm not a big fan of skinning because its messing with a good thing. Yes its nice to have the option but in the long run its just not worth it. Its also prudent to remember that when you have an open API that adds functionality to one of the primary OS interfaces you are bound to run into some major headaches like poorly designed UI, poorly written code causing stability issues, etc. Let the OS do what its best at doing and allow applications to do what they are best at doing.

and in closing...

In Defense of the Finder
A lot of people have <insert list of standard OS X Finder compliants>. However most people forget that the Finder is the computer even for a lot of power users who don't want to get dirty with the command line. The stability of the Finder is priority #1. The Finder between OS 9 and OS X is completely different except for general apperances. For all intents and purposes the Finder is being recreated and a lot of the <insert list of things OS X Finder is missing> will take a while to reproduce because stability cannot be compromised. Apple is too smart to throw away what they've learned over the nearly 18 years that the classic Finder was maturing. The OS X Finder will get there.

Quoteses:
"So you didn't mean to say 'naan-sequitor'?" - Ram. K.
"I'm already convinced that Mozilla is the way to go. I haven't used IE since I installed it." - Gautam P.
"Good luck kid, come back if you ever need anything." - Erik O.

Linkses:
Bush's human rights hypocrisy
To the victor go the spoils
What more could I ask for?
Awesome print adverts we never saw.
Great preso, cute penguins.
Theres a reason why Altavista sucks now.
I purchased a push lawn mower and only used it once when the engine blew up.

almost here

Happy Birthday Sonia!

For any of yous that might have been stopping by in the past 24 to 48 hours you'd have seen this site changing nearly every 6 hours. I'm very close to the final design. At this point I'm just trying to solve some layout issues. The colours you see are final and any changes from this point forth will primarily be to the layout, unless I find that readability is compromised.

CSS is not as hard as I originally thought it to be. However it's hard for me to form the visual in my mind of the design based on the text changes I'm making to my style sheet. I guess I'll get there eventually.

Also for any developers out there...when you are about to check-in a new version of a common module back into the tree and its interface has changed since the last check-in, a little email explaining the changes to the rest of the community would be most appreciated.

Quoteses:
"Haul him in K.I.T.T.; before he gives garbage a bad name." - Michael K.

Linkses:
This is the greatest news ever.
Hahahahaha! That is all.
NOT FUNNY!