Shameless Media Allegedly egged on a man to set himself on fire

In these days of ridiculous media coverage by TRP-crazy TV news channels, anything can happen. It seems the media persons encouraged a transport contractor to set himself on fire. The man would get a voice for his complaints and the sick TV channels would get audience watching live flesh burning.

These channels and journalists will go at any levels nowadays to improve their ratings. Its a criminal act and the most chilling part is that, when the things got out of control and the man in danger of his life, still not a single of those greedy cameramen cared to douse the flames.

More details here.

Whatever is going on here is really atrocious. The guilty must be booked, charged, punished and we must stop viewing such insane news channels.

Astronomy: New Planets Possible in our Solar System

Recently, International Union of Astronomers proposed to change the definition of a Planet. Details at Solar System Could Gain New Planets Under Definition Change. This news led me to a few questions and answers. Some of them are:

Q1. What is the difference between star and planet: Observational Difference And Physical Difference.

Q2. Why is a planet/star always spherical? Answer - present on the above pages - The gravitational pull is so big that everything is pulled towards the center. Due to this, a sphere is created in the 3 dimensional space.

Oh, Astronomy is so damn Exciting!!!

Cheers,
- Tosh

Back to using the Linux Operating System

This is the history of my Operating System usage:

- Started with windows in VNIT/VRCE labs
- Used linux in VNIT labs for some assignments in COmpilers/other courses in VNIT
- Used Solaris for BE Project
- Used linux in IIT Bombay
- Used Windows in my office - Persistent Systems Pvt Ltd (For the past 4 1/2 years)

Now I have successfully installed and configured SuSe Linux 10 on my home PC. Its good to be back on Linux again. The latest versions of Linux are much better that the older one. Guess what, it detected my Canon digital camera, all my other hardware and also my ethernet card/VSNL (Tata Indiicom) broadband internet connection without any additional installations/driver configurations.

So back to Tetris and Mozilla :-)

Cheers,
- Tosh

Funny Place - Hilarious video advertisements

Take a look at Funny Videos of TV commercials

I find the ads absolutely amazing!

Cheers,
- Tosh

Test Cricket: The resurgence of England and Sri Lanka

What a spectacular week for test cricket! Two fantastic matches, which on the last day, could have gone towards any team. But the better teams kept their nerves and won the series along with the match.

Sri Lanka deserve a special mention. They have held England in England 1-1. Then beaten them 5-0 in the ODI series and now, at home, they have comprehensively beaten South Africa 2-0. They are the most promising team of the year and we should be looking forward to their future series. The change in captain was a welcome move for them as Mahela Jayawardena just keeps on getting better and better. His knock in the last innings of the last match against the SAFs was one of the most memorable innings played under pressure that I remember watching. Murali as usual spun a web and continues to be the genius that he has been for so many years. Other bowlers have also supported him very well, the most interesting being Malinga. Sangakkara and Jayasuria are also hitting good runs and helping Mahela along. Kudos to the Lions. Sri Lanka was my favourite team at the time of 1996 world cup and they seem to be getting close to that sort of form once more.

England's easy series win has been a bit of a surprise. How often do you see a team making > 525 in the first innings and go on to loose a test match easily? That's what Pakistan did yesterday and they must be utterly disappointed that they could not hang on for one day. As I had written earlier, The two Ys and the I have been good but there has been absolutely no support from other batsmen and that has proved to be critical. England turned all the screws on them with brilliant batting, bowling and Fielding. I am reallly happy for England with their two wins. This now means that they will be ready, charged and raring to go at the Champs in the Ashes. They have many things working for them - the outstanding forms of Bell, Cook, Pieterson, Strauss and Trescothick. Peiterson and Strauss's efforts were kind of expected but both Cook and Bell have been sensational. Of all of them, my favourite continues to be Kevin and he is already moving up places in my all time favourite cricketrs' list. He said at the start of the match that he sees a century coming his way soon and he hit one in the first innings! Isn't that brave? He has that ruthless arrogance and confidence in him which makes him extremely dangerous. He has no fear of failure. In my opinion, he will be on of the best batsmen of this decade. As expected, Harmison has bowled beautifully but the real surprise weapon was Monty Panesar. He has improved his game by leaps and bounds to compete now with the top spinners in the world. His will have be a pivotal role if England are to match Australia.

According to the form of the day, I cannot put my money on Australians for winning the Ashes. I badly want England to win the Ashes and I think they look good to do so on paper but then the Champions are always hard to beat. It all makes up for an even more exciting Ashes tourney. Can't wait for it to start...

Cheers,
- Tosh

Loss of precious lives due to rain...

Over the past few days, one thing worries me. Why don't we shout and scream against the loss of lives of the poor due to the rains? In my opinion, this is one of the most important responsibility of a nation (or state) and its government. To save the citizens from periodic/yearly disasters such as floods and rains. There seems to be a chaos and lack of planning in handling such situations. So far, this year, rains and flooding have cost around 60 lives each in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

My concern is that not enough is being done to reduce this damage over a period of time. Not many people seem to be so serious about it. The schools in Mumbai being shut for a day or two make bigger headlines in papers/TV that the number of deaths due to floods! The funniest thing I saw on TV news was that on yesterday, they were showing a filthy-rich young kid playing video game at his house and the reporter reporting that this is what the rains and the floods have done to Mumbai! Is that it? I AM SORRY NO... The rains and floods have washed away lives. Taken away sons, fathers, husbands. Taken away the homes, bread and butter of millions. But not enough people that I see are taking this seriously.

And about the government efforts? They are all in rescue mode now. The relief operations are a knee-jerk reaction. But this should not happen time and again. There must be better planning to avoid the life-loss in the first place.

What are the solutions?
- More government plans and their execution.
- Rain water harvesting in cities [I have heard that there is a law in Ahmedabad where every new construction is not allowed a clearance unless they make sure that none of the rain water falling on its surface will go beyond its boundaries. It has to be harvested below its soil. Its an excellent initiative. Why is it not seen in all the cities?]
- A mega river plan wherein floods can be avoided or reduced.
- Early weather monitoring systems to warn - Heard that the Doppler radars which are coming in before the 2007 monsoon will help this cause.
- Any other thoughts?

I urge the governments to give serious thoughts to all these issues and start putting together short and long terms plans to avoid such calamities.

-Ashutosh