When all kinds of shops / retail chains / food joints call you / text you up to wish you on your anniversary :)

Just what do you do when you hear all around you about folks who decide to shun basic human values ? Do you start believing that you are a relic from an age that is long gone ?

Current Mood: annoyed

i went and got myself a fever. The burning forehead kind. Last checked temperature was 102 degrees. i suck.

I planned to watch Samsara (the 2001 film). The tagline says "What is more important: satisfying one thousand desires or conquering just one... " That's the simpler version of the film. It is extremely well produced, directed and acted. The underlying question of course is how do you renounce or reject something that you don't have. The movie somewhat oddly reminded me of duality and the fact that good cannot be existing without the existence of evil.

If I did not have anything to say, I guess I shouldn't be saying anything after watching Letters from Iwo Jima. Ken Watanabe is a superb actor and I wish I can watch more of his movies.

Current Mood: working

Spent the afternoon watching Flags of Our Fathers and I've nothing to say. Really nothing.

Current Mood: thoughtful

runab has gone home. There's nothing much to do around the house. So, when I found an old favorite - had a nice time watching it. And since I have been reading up a bit (again !) on WWII, watched Battle of Britain. This one was an aftermath of reading up "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

Plan to watch Samsara today besides the usual pottering about the house and doing some of the smaller chores. This movie is getting rave reviews via word of mouth and seems to be the flavor of the month at Crosswords and Landmark.

Current Mood: working

I "plodded", and I mean plodded, through Until I Find You. Utterly pseudo noir. It takes a more than required long time to come to the point by which you seem to be reading faster and faster to get to the point.

The story isn't really trivial, but the execution sucks.

Here's where I lamented. Suffice to say - we did go out and get one.

pradeepto writes about education. Especially the way it is handled these days. I have seen my share of "marksheet children" and I tend to think that it is not the parents who don't get it. They wish the best for their children - material comforts, wealth, success and measure it with yardsticks they are used to. Hence this insane enthusiasm about the "rat race". There's something more to write about it, but I guess I'll do that later. Perhaps you read that blog entry of his though.

Current Mood: thoughtful

It is pleasant weather right now. There's a lazy cool breeze coming in through the windows and the sky is that perfect shade of blue, between azure and egg-shell white.

The only glitch is that something made me wake up very early in the morning and I have not been able to go back to sleep.

Yesterday, we raided Pune Central. And for the umpteenth time I started wondering as to why I get stuck behind d0d0s at the Cash Counter. Speaking of which, the Future Group would require to take a good long look a the number of Cash Counters here. Anyways, out of the 4 counters of Level 2, 2 were in action. In one of them was this group of folks who wanted a trouser length altered in 15 minutes (since we are from Bombay and have to go back) and in another someone decided to choose to speak in English and try to comprehend how much 1110 INR actually is. 10 minutes. All for a measly single item that I wanted to purchase.

From there it was the nice long walk back home with a little stop at CCD near Lane 5. There are 3 CCDs in close proximity on that single stretch of road and all seem to be doing fairly well. Consumerism is strange.

The walk was lovely since we got to see the green leaves on the trees and of course enjoy all those who were returning from playing Holi being drenched in colors (and some bit of intoxicants too I'd daresay).

Current Mood: happy

Spent a good part of the morning yesterday (re)arranging the bookshelf. runab claims that I have ensured that her books cannot be seen, so I did some shifting around. And then watched re-runs of CSI :)

Fun.

Current Mood: busy

Calm down. Take a deep breath. Getting annoyed at pointless long threads on mailing lists is just another sign of old age.

Current Mood: grumpy

A translation of this page.

বাংলা নিয়ে যে প্রশ্ন সর্বত্র পাই সেটা হল যে SCIM ব্যবহার করে বাংলায় ইনপুট কি করে করা যায়। বেশ সহজ যদি এই কয়েকটা ধাপ অনুসরণ করা যায়:

ইন্সটলেশনের সময় "Bengali Language Support" বেছে নিন "Languages" থেকে আর যে সব প্যাকেজগুলি লাগবে সেগুলি আপনা থেকে ইন্সটলড হয়ে যাবে।

যদি আপনি ওই ধাপটি না করে থাকেন, তাহলে "root" হিসাবে "yum groupinstall bengali-support" করে নিন আর নিচে উল্লেখ করা প্যাকেজ আছে কিনা একবার দেখে নিন। দেখে নেওয়ার জন্য ব্যবহার করুন "rpm -qa " এই কম্যান্ড

scim
scim-bridge
scim-bridge-gtk
scim-qtimm
scim-m17n
m17n-lib
m17n-lib-devel
m17n-db
m17n-db-bengali
im-chooser

না থাকলে, সগুলি ইন্সটল করে নিন "yum install " এই কম্যান্ড ব্যবহার করে। এই কম্যান্ড ব্যবহার করতে গেলে আপনাকে root হতে হবে।

আপনার সাধারণ লগ-ইন ব্যবহার করে এবার SCIM কে পুনরায় চালু করুন "scim-restart" কম্যান্ড ব্যবহার করে। এই সব করার পর আপনার বাংলা ইনপুট কাজ করা উচিত, নইলে একবার X কে পুনরায় চালু করুন।

"scim-setup" ব্যবহার করে আপনি SCIM এর সেটিং পরিবর্তন করতে পারেন। ডায়লগ বক্স থেকে FrontEnd => Global Setup => Hotkeys => Trigger বেছে নিন। সাধারনত এটি "Control+Space" থাকে, আপনার অন্য কিছু লাগলে এই ফিল্ডের পাশে ... তে ক্লিক করে মান পরিবর্তন করে নিন।

বাংলা ইনপুট মান একবার দেখে নিন IMEngine => Global Setup থেকে যেখানে Bengali থাকবে Installed Input Method Services এর তালিকাভুক্ত। Bengali লেখার পাশে ক্লিক করলে তিনটি ইনপুট মেথড দেখতে পাবেন

inscript
itrans
probhat

সবকটি চেকবক্স সিলেক্ট করে রাখুন। যদি আপনি m17n-db-bengali না ইন্সটল করে থাকেন তাহলে ঐ চেকবক্স পাবেন না। আপনি আপনার পরিবর্তিত মান সংরক্ষণ করে নিন। SCIM কে পুনরায় চালু করুন "scim-restart" কম্যান্ড ব্যবহার করে।

আপনি এবার SCIM ব্যবহার করতে চালু করে দিন। একটি এডিটার খুলুন, ট্রিগার Hotkey (মানে যদি আপনি Control+Space এর মান পরিবর্তন না করে থাকেন, তাহলে ওই Control+Space) ব্যবহার করে ইংরাজী ও অন্যান্য কিবোর্ডের মধ্যে অদলবদল করে নিন। নীচের দিকে ডান কোণে একটি ছোট্ট বাক্স দেখতে পাবেন, ওটিতে ক্লিক করুন আর যেই ইনপুট পদ্ধতি ব্যবহার করবেন সেটা বেছে নিন।

একবার দেখে নিন im-chooser প্যাকেজটি আছে কিনা (root হিসাবে yum install im-chooser করে নিন নাহলে)। Terminal থেকে im-chooser টাইপ করে শেষের যে রেডিও বটন অর্থাৎ Use Custom Input Method => Scim বেছে নিয়ে Close ক্লিক করে দিন।

মান সংরক্ষণ হলেও আপনাকে আবার লগ-ইন করতে হবে সেগুলি কার্যকরী করার জন্য।

Current Mood: sleepy

Dear Indiaplaza Team,

You have been steadily attaining various lows in customer service. However, given that my greed for books has overridden my expectations for something similar to customer "service", I had on earlier cases decided to stay along.

Not now. With the last of the books at hand. I will not be using your portal to buy books.

In short, you really are getting worse at what you are supposed to specialize in - selling merchandise online.

I have provided the following as reasons for my unhappiness earlier, but I'd like to record them here all the same:

[1] You are yet to revert on the issue of refund of a sum of 100+ INR. It has been around 90 days and I am yet to hear / read something like "yes we did refund the amount, go bash up your bank". That my bank is another classic act is a different blog.

[2] You finally provided an ETA of refund of 200+ INR (from a separate transaction) after 5 mails and 3 phone calls to your customer care. All the while, the customer care kept sending the template mail of "it is going to be refunded in 2-3 days" - for 10 days.

[3] You have no way of marking books as out of stock. The fairly lame response that "we source our books from suppliers and so at the best we can refund the amount" really does not scale. For what it is worth, I tried ordering a book which you previously mentioned as "Out of Stock" and I managed to book an order for it. That is bad.

[4] For delivery date ETA, your customer care sends out different dates of arrival on the same day. Now, it is possible that various customer care agents were looking at the ticket queue - but changing ETA is kind of quirky and very customer unfriendly.

[5] Packaging quality is steadily going down. I order enough books to figure that packaging is not being looked into.

[6] Your prices are on the higher side in spite of the "discounts"

It was good while it lasted. But now it is time to part ways.

Regards
Sankarshan

Current Mood: annoyed

I spent a small amount of time yesterday watching Sidney Lumet's classic Twelve Angry Men. I remember the hindi remake of this since it was a Diwali I was down with measles and was kind of compelled to watch it. And I was hooked. It was the one time I did not repent being sick.

This time around I watched it in silence and more or less undisturbed. With minimal sets and no fancy lights - the movie is made by the script, the understated movements and the actors (especially Henry Fonda). Just magnificent acting prowess makes this movie a must watch.

It was time well spent.

Current Mood: working