Crazy little planet called Earth

For some time now I’ve been unable to access Wikipedia both at home (using MyT) and at work (I suppose they use ADSL from MT or Orange now).

The solution is to use proxies and a good one is Anonymouse.org available at: http://anonymouse.org/anonwww.html

Proxies seem to be essential in Mauritius to:

• check whether a site is really down or has been censored (like in the facebook episode)
• access sites when MyT for some reason doesn’t allow you to.

Good surfing

Firefox 3 is out and for sometime now there has been a campaign launched to help set a world record for the greatest number of downloads of one software in one day.

However, if you look beyond that, I think that this map (available at http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord) gives a fair idea of the use of Internet and awareness that something else exist apart from IE. You will also note from the map that Mauritius is well ahead most countries in Africa but we’re lagging behind many countries like Reunion island for example.

Anyway, firefox3 is out, so good download!

For some time now Begum, Anwar and I have been trying to install Kubuntu 8.04 (a smart and sexy OS) on a laptop where the CD-ROM is not working. We’ve tried many things like booting from a usb CD – did not work, from a usb floppy with Smart Boot Manager and then the usb CD – did not work and then directly from a bootable usb pen drive which seemed to be the right way. However, making the pen drive bootable is harder than it seems since despite following many detailed instructions, we each time failed to get it working.

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The easy way out
I finally found the solution on this website which provides alternative solutions to installing Linux. In sum these are the steps:

• Make sure you have:
  • the Kubuntu 8.04 desktop CD
  • a pendrive of a reasonable size; e.g. 2GB
  • a PC with linux (the steps below are on Kubuntu 8.04; another PC which has it installed of course)

• In Adept Manager, choose Adept -> Manage Repositories -> Third-party Software (tab) and add deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/probono/ubuntu hardy main as a new repository
  • on clicking close, this will reload adept and install liveusb
• Now insert a pendrive and the Kubuntu Desktop CD in the PC and launch liveusb
  • this smart software will detect you prendrive and the CD
    
• Just click execute (I did not tick “Download and Integrate Adobe Flash Player”). It will take some 5 mins and your pendrive will be ready for install
• Insert it into the PC where you want to install Kubuntu. The Desktop version will boot and you can then install. Works like a charm.

Note: I’ve not tried it with Kubuntu Alternate

The homepage of the software is: http://klik.atekon.de/liveusb/

Mr Barak Obama is going to be the Democrat candidate at the next presidential elections in the US. Mr Obama can be described as an “African American” (12.2% of US population are African American according to wikipedia -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States) his dad being an African and he still managed to secure the place of Democrat candidate! If he had not managed to secure the Democratic spot, it would have been Hillary Clinton, a woman that would have been selected.

Change of country: let take the same scenario and see how that story would unfold in a Mauritian surrounding. Eh… well there would not have been a story at all since the same thing currently defies imagination.

Of course, officially there’s no rule forbidding anyone from a minority to run for Prime Minister but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. Someone (whose name I won’t mention) said: Will the french accept someone of Algerian descent as president and when quizzed about Obama he said well he’s not president! Of course, he’s noooooooooooot racist. He just doesn’t like someone from another community than his own being the leader and he certainly is noooooooot a racist. Well well how do you call that then?

Shame!!!

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Definition of racism from answers.com:

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.