Monthly Archive for November, 2006

Well, here I am, all packed and ready to go. the clothes are packed. The ticket’s in my bag, there is no food or anything that can cause some horrible smell when I’m back, all things are taken care of and five cds of assorted mp3s are burning and a few dc++ downloads are taking place after which I’ll shut down and take my hard drive home. This is weird, I’ve never actually been ready to leave on time. There’s always something that has to go wrong and thus, I become late, but this time things seem alright. In fact things are better than alright, I just finished my end semester examinations three hours ago, I’m leaving for home in one hour and I just got through one of the biggest hurdles of my life – The infamous Kharagpur Third semester. Days and days I just waited for this moment to arrive and now that it’s finally here, I’m wrapped up, warm and ready to go and take over the world outside these walls, something doesn’t feel right.

It’s not about the travelling or the times ahead or even the grades that will come out later. There’s just a strange cold feeling of unbearable guilt that I didn’t do what I must, that I didn’t do what I can. It’s crushing down on me. That and the lack of sleep and what’s been done to my head over the past few days.

December has always held a very special place in my heart. For no specific reasons as to the dates, Christmas, etc. It’s just that I spend every December reflecting on the previous year and do a lot of soul searching. December represents a potential for change and a chance to start afresh. A darker, colder month. A month for me. Nothing puts it together better than a song that I love and am listening to it right now.

Current music: Linkin Park, "My December"

In a way, I am primely responsible for unleashing this brilliant piece of art upon kgp. But not everybody will like and accept this movie. The thing about this is that it uses images to convey meaning rather than having people say and speak things. When I watched this movie I was moved instantly with the beginning. The ice falling off the rocket in slow motion. The imagery and beauty it was simply astounding.

Before I give my thoughts on the movie, an excerpt from the wikipedia article

Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of balance is a 1983 documentary film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by minimalist composer Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke. The film consists mostly of slow motion and time-lapse photography. The documentary contains neither dialog nor narration and relies heavily on music to set the film’s tone. Glass and his Philip Glass Ensemble have toured with the film, playing music live in front of the film screen.

The movie appealed a lot to me because I appreciate visual imagery and this movie made me ask "Why should there be a meaning,a story and a plot in a movie. What if there isn’t" and then you get this. This movie reminds me of Led Zeppelin’s immortal classic "stairway to heaven" where nobody knows what the lyrics mean. But you can kindof make out what they’re trying to say. When someone watches this movie, everyone gets their own impression of what this movie means and what is the director trying to say. But whatever it is, this movie was a wonderful way to spend two hours last night. The brilliance is that there are no famous hollywood actors or actresses or are there explosions or cars or any of that junk. It’s just a video of deserts and canyons and highways and people taken from helicopters, but you can’t walk away. There are some ridiculously boring movies, I agree but this was not one of them. I want to watch it again sometime soon. The music was brilliant, the photography and imagery was breathtaking. I loved this movie.

A little trivia how this movie invaded kgp. In a bid to find out the music played in the "Evil Eye" scene in one scrubs episode, I searched on the net to find the song, the song was the theme of koyaanisquatsi, and out of curiosity, I searched for the movie and found that it had excellent reviews. I posted on mutter if someone could get it and Iluvtar got it for us. So here we are. Sad bit of trivia there for you. Gotta go mug now.

Current music: Chester Bennington Vs Julien K, "Morning After"

[tags]movie, review, koyaanisquatsi, phillip_glass, kgp, scrubs, evil_eye[/tags]

Can you seperate, Seperate me from the sin Is it not too late To try and start again Can you seperate All the darkness from my eyes Try to cover me ‘Cause I’d rather be alone now

-Sevendust

Currently listening to: 07-Sevendust – Separate

You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Antivirus software, while protecting you, slows down your system. What you may not know is that every time you start a program, every time you open a file, your antivirus checks all the dll and exe headers, a time consuming process. I never feared viruses because I lived majority of my life happily without an internet connection, and most of my life virus free. But here’s how it works:

1. Virii come in through external sources. CD roms, downloads, websites, etc. It never comes from inside.
2. Most programs that you download aren’t infected, only if the download is from a p2p or some other shady source, there might be a problem.

Getting to the point: you need virus protection some places and if you’re sure you’re clean. So here’s how to get the boost I’ve been telling you about.

1. Update your antivirus to the latest signatures.
2. Reboot in safe mode, and run a full system scan.
3. Boot into normal mode, and look for an option in your antivirus called “Exceptions”. Refer to your antivirus manual for details.
4. Add “X:\windows” and “X:\program files” to it. Do not add documents and settings, as temp is stored there and if you don’t have a seperate partition for it, downloads head around that area.
5. Enjoy your newfound speed with protection. You should notice a significant difference
6. Make sure to run system scans every once in a while.I have one scheduled every two nights.

Disclaimer: I am really not responsible if something goes wrong. I am not paranoid about security like some people are. I figured this thing out on my own, so don’t go about commenting that this is something old or shit like that. Nevertheless, let that not stop you from commenting.

In fact, I’d recommend you to switch over to linux if you want speed and security and everything else.

Currently listening to: Slayer – Raining Blood

[TAGS]speed, windows, antivirus, safety[/TAGS]

Everything’s back to normal again. I just checked a little later and all the problems seemed to be fixed. Tag archives are working. Live writer seems to be working fine at the moment and I’m loving the flickr4writer plugin, and the now playing plugin. And also the studying is coming along morderately okay.

Essentially the problem was this: Hmm… come to think of it, I don’t know what the problem was, but whatever it is it seems to have been fixed. Kudos to 110mb.com, my new host. Also once I found the 502s were not coming anymore and the ftp started to work, I just got on and made a few small changes in the css which makes the page a little wider than the original k2. And now things should be great. Allright. I had a big day, I need some sleep. If you’re reading this and it’s not after 3 in the morning on saturday, do your level best and wake me up.

Currently listening to: Nine Inch Nails - Just Like You Imagined

[TAGS]me, site, miracles, sleep[/TAGS]