Last saturday I lost my pendrive. Looked for it for a week but could not find it. If it fell down somewhere not at home or in my office, did not have any hope that it would be returned to me and so was already inquiring about prices.
However today, someone dropped the pen drive in the office of one of my workmates, Anwar. So good people exist still exist in this world. Don’t be discouraged by the news saying only gloomy things, some people are up to good and many of them I would think are honest.
I hate:
- people with no personality
- I really hate people who can’t decide things on their own and just live their lives according to other people. These people should in fact be sheeps
coz it better reflects their personality. People have a brain to think, make decision and act (not to wear hats). So why not make use of it.
- Also once you have made a decision, stick to it (but review it in the light of new evidence – only fools never make mistakes) and fight for it – prove u r a man!
- racist people
- I hate people discriminating at others for the sake of colour of the skin. Who said that white is beautiful and black ugly? There’s also reverse racism where black people hate white people and discriminate them
- Racism is not only in terms of colour but also religion. Christians discriminating against Muslims and the reverse, Hindus discriminating against Chinese and the reverse, … the list goes on.
- Anyway, what’s this stupidity? It all bogs to discriminating against someone on something he/she can’t do anything about – and the worse it’s sometimes very religious people who are racists. Yet I’m not aware of any sacred book saying that white is a good colour and black is bad or saying that only people who belong to this religion are good!!!
- lazy people who complain all the time
- some people just idle all day long and then complain that they have miserable life. Well some basic rules: if u want to pass exams you must study, to study u must buy books (not mobile phones or mp3 players) – later when u get money, you buy phones or mp3 players. If u want to earn money, u must work; money doesn’t grow on trees!!! So u reap what u sow. Stop stop complaining, get yourself together and work for your dreams.
- irresponsible people
- people who never assume their responsibilities and push that on others (pas moi sa, li sa). What the hell is that? You erred – assume it.
I wrote quite strongly about those coz I feel quite strongly about those. Also I’m NOT criticising any religion. I’m christian by birth – don’t want to hide it but i’m not too sure I believe in religions any more. More people have been killed because of religion that people have died due to cowpox or chickenpox. I think I believe in God but I’m wary of religions coz religions seem to divide more than unite.
There been a lot of fuss lately on Da Vinci code and Mauritius has not been spared. Thank God, religious authorities have not tried to prevent that movie from coming out. Anyway i think that all this fuss is juste a waste of time.
Mr Dan Brown has written a good book that is entertaining and intriguing. The controversy however arises when it is said, in the book, that Christ got married, had a kid and that his great-great-great …. -great granddaughter is still alive today. Shocking!!! Sure??? Well why don’t we simply consider Da Vinci Code as a good fiction and an entertaining story.
If u want to know about the life of Christ, then read the Bible. However if you want to see an intriguing movie, go see Da vinci code. As far as i know Dan Brown has not said that he plans to re-write the Bible (or prove it to be false); he has just written a book (inspiring himself on the Bible probably) and has added things that would seem normal – it’s quite normal for humans to get married and procreate; that the basis of life; that why you and me are here right now.
I would also like to point out that the foundation of Christian faith (according to me) is that Christ died and was brought back to life again in 3 days!!! No man has been able to do that and that’s how he proved to his disciples that he’s God, if someday someone manages to prove that wrong, then Christianity will crumble – not by claiming that Jesus got married.
I saw Da Vinci code, it’s entertaining
I’ve just bought a dell laptop – was fed up of having to work in my room all the time, especially during the hot summers of Mauritius. Now I can move around and it’s much more fun.
Fisrt of all I’d like to say that laptops are generally very expensive in Mauritius – they are often twice as expensive as they would have been in Europe or The States. There are many reasons put forward for that; mainly shipping cost and taxes at the customs but personally i think that retailers are making huge profits on our heads. However, I managed to find a company; Isis Fusion at New Grove (thanks to my mate Anwar) that sells laptops at reasonable prices, in fact the best prices I’ve found in Mauritius!!!
Anyway back to Linux and the Inspiron E1505.
There is a good site guiding you through installation of Dapper Drake on Laptops: it’s http://swm1.com/inspiron_e1505.html. Following that is sure to keep you out of trouble for most of the time. However I did encounter a few problems installing Linux:
1. I created a free unallocated space on my hard disk but kubuntu would not install on that. It said something like unusable space!!! Tried to work it out but in vain. So seeked the help of a guru of Linux – Avinash and he told me that I’m not supposed to have more than 4 primary partitions on my hard disk and I had … 6!!! (A lot of them were some partitons created by DELL for backup and restore and other stuff)
So the solution was to convert some partitions to logical partitions and then only would the installation proceed – Thank God or rather thanks avinash 
Installation went smoothly from then on. Next came to fine-tuning linux for day-to-day use. A series of issues cropped up:
1. Amarok not playing MP3s – just listing through them
My favourite media player of all times was not playing MP3s. How dare it to that to me!!! 
;(. It’s a common problem – according to the Internet – and the solution is to download libxine-extracodes. Yet, this is where lies the problem; where do I get that? It is not listed in Adept though I’ve enabled all repositories (including multiverse where it is supposed to be). I downloaded a list of repositories from the internet (one that was supposed to solve my problems but still nothing). Again Avinash came to my rescue; he changed a few parameters in the repository listing and it was done
The repository listing to get all packages is :
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://mu.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://mu.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper main restricted universe multiverse
2. The default resolution 1280 x 800 was not detected by default
Just to to: System Settings -> Display -> Hardware and change it.
3. Duo core not detected
The default kernel installed during installation does not detect the two cores of the DELL inspiron. The kernel has to be changed to an SMP one whcih means installing a new kernel.That seems scary!!! In fact, just go Adept and choose linux-686-smp and select request Install. After downloading the kernel, it will install it on its own – no problem at all for u .
Even before I started watching Ruroni Kenshin, i heard that it was a great anime (I’ve heard that Samurai X – what comes before Kenshin is even better but can’t confirm that yet) and I must agree with that. The “manslayer turned wanderer with an oath never to kill again” starts slowly but bit by but we discover the true nature of Kenshin (now fighting with a reverse blade sword) as his past comes to haunt him back.
Compared to most other anime, most of the series are just one or two episodes standing in isolation apart from a few very very gripping set of episodes (particularly shishio) but it is nice and easy watching. So if you have a chance to see it, go for it but it requires a lot of downloads – about 90 episodes.
P.S. Seeing Japan move from a sword driven society to modern age is also very interesting – people always have problems to adapt and this series depicts that as well. Don’t know how much truth there’s in that though!
I’ve been teaching an Introductory course on Computer Graphics for a semester at uni now and i have a problem. What to teach and not to teach to students? and What book to use?
So let’s first have a look at the book to use
Up to now the book in use has been Computer Graphics by Hearn and Baker. However I think that is book is too broad; covers too many topics in too few details. In the end, I just end up listing techniques to students! So what book to use? I came across a webpage – a survey carried out for the famous SIGGRAPH in 1999 and the book by Hearn and Baker was 2nd – 
Incredible!!! Don’t know too much what to think but still consider that book to be too broad and vague. So what are the options? The best two contenders according to me are:
1. Fundamentals of Computer Graphics by Shirley – seems excellent, used in a lot of top US universities; waiting for an exam copy to arrive to pass my final judgement
2. Computer Graphics: A top down appraoch by Angel – seems good; again waiting for an exam copy to arrive
3. Computer Graphics with OpenGL by Hearn and Baker – will it improve on its lack of focus – exam copy analysis will tell
Now what to teach?
A search on the internet will reveal many possible syllabi. My main problem last semester was: how to make someone understand that this hidden surface detection algorithm is better than that one, why is many polygons in a 3D mesh a problem, why is the Phong model important to know. I came up wih a solution that I’m going to try this year. Instead of teaching students just the theory of animation, I’ll make them use Maya PLE to learn about animation (extending the animation part of the module to 3 weeks instead of 1) and while I’m at it, I’ll make then try the Phong model, Blinn model, applictation fo different textures and see the difference between a heavy 3D model and a light one in terms of polygons. A small assignemnt will have to be submitted eventually.
Will it work? The answer will be known in one year. So keep reading posts here.
