Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

January 27, 2006

Deleting code

Filed under: My Thoughts,Tech Related — Suramya @ 3:30 PM

Pretty interesting article on why its important to delete code you don’t use. I never thought about it before reading this but now that I think about I don’t like deleting code either.

Even though I have subversion that I have started to use as a source control repository I still comment out code and leave it in there. Sometimes I do it because I am not sure the new code will work and then it jsut stays behind as “dropping’s” until I remove them (Which is not that often) I am not as bad as some of the examples depicted but I guess I have to improve on this…

Overall an interesting point of view.

Original Article: Ned Batchelder: Deleting code

– Suramya

October 19, 2005

Did I tell you I really dislike Derby?

Filed under: My Life,My Thoughts — Suramya @ 11:31 PM

Did I mention that I really really dislike Derby? No.. Well now you know.
What on earth is wrong with the Derby developers, is it really really that hard to print sensible error messages? It is? Then maybe they need to hire a 4 year old as they would be able to suggest some more intelligent error messages. Don’t believe me? Check out the following error message:

ij> select * from blahs;
ERROR 42X05: DB2 SQL error: SQLCODE: -1, SQLSTATE: 42X05, SQLERRMC: BLAHS42X05

Is it really so hard to just say that ‘blahs’ doesn’t exist like any other DB would? If thats not enough there is no way of looking at the table structure (At least not that I could find) or my personal faveroite: no way todump an entire DB to a file for archiving or convertion to another DB. Every other DB I have worked with has let me do this but derby… Arrghh…

In case you are wondering I wasted almost all day today with Scott trying to export data from Derby to Postgresql. Finally Scott ended up creating a Java program to read the data from derby and create SQL statements which can them be imported in any DB.

If any Derby developer is reading this: get your act together, the goal is not to make an impossible to use DB (Though if it was then you have suceeded) it is to make a simple and user friendly system… Go read a few books on usability

– Suramya

September 30, 2005

Sangh’s Dandia song: no Muslims, please

Filed under: My Thoughts,News/Articles — Suramya @ 2:11 PM

What the hell is wrong with these people? Have they taken complete leave of their senses? These idiots have decided that muslims will not be allowed to attend Dandia because ‘hindu’ girls will run away with them… Believe me if a girl is desperate enough to run away with a guy she just met it won’t matter if he is hindu or muslim. They will run away regardless…

What next, are they going to start banning christians next from attending a celebration? Moron’s.

These festivals are meant to promote understanding , peace and encourage people to have fun but idiots like these have nothing better to do than cause problems and create trouble.

I have gone to churches and mosques, celebrated Thanksgiving, Easter, Id and whole lot of other festivals that are not ‘hindu’ festivals. During which I had fun and learnt a lot about other cultures & religions too.

Whatever… These people should be locked up as a public menance or shot for being too stupid to live… or made to spend 40 years learning about other cultures.

Source Story: Sangh’s Dandia song: no Muslims, please

September 25, 2005

This is just bad…

Filed under: My Thoughts,News/Articles — Suramya @ 10:32 PM

This is just plain bad. A picture of a Red cross credit card issued to Katrina hurricane victim Latesha Vinette was posted to various news outlets. As soon as the pic went live fraudsters went on a shopping spree with the card, reducing the balance to 0 within minutes.

Don’t these people have any shame, any sense of a moral stature? Here’s a person who has probably lost everything she had and is being given a chance to start afresh and these idiots try to make a profit out of it.

People like these should be caught and punished, not by being sent to a nice jail where they can relax and enjoy a vacation on government funds but put in a work detail and sent to the hurricane affected area’s as a workforce to rebuild. Make them work 12 -18 hours a day. That will teach them to behave. The same should be done for the rest of the scam artists who are trying to make money off the disasters using various phishing scams etc.

There is no excuse for people trying to make money off other people when the money they steal is being pulled away for things that desprately need money.

Original Story: SHOCK! Credit Card Pic Leads to Fraud

September 22, 2005

Saw an interesting movie

Filed under: My Thoughts — Suramya @ 1:15 AM

Saw an interesting movie yesterday called Slipstream. Its about this guy who has a timetravel device that lets him go back in time by 10 mins. The movie wasn’t that great (The acting was pathetic) but one of the idea’s in the movie was interesting.

You know how most time travel movies and books talk about going back in time and taking over the world… this guy hits on a cooler idea that doesn’t harm anyone. He decides to cash his entire paycheck and take a spin back through time and then cash it again, and again and again.

Think about it, you keep the money you have and then go back and cash the same check again. The only difference is that since you still have the money from the first time you get double the amount for the same check. Cool eh. The only thing tricky is that all the bills in the second would probably have the same serial numbers as their counterparts in the first set so you have a set of bills that can’t exist and still do… If done enough times can this cause the world economy to collapse? Who knows… A pretty original idea though.

The movie could have been way better. The idea was great the picturization was pathetic.

Well this is all for now. Will write more later.

– Suramya

PS: Yes I have way too much free time today… 😉

September 13, 2005

Snooping on Text by Listening to the Keyboard

Filed under: Computer Related,My Thoughts,Tech Related — Suramya @ 8:25 PM

According to Bruce Schneier’s blog a group of researcher’s from Berkeley have developed a process that lets them identify the keys being typed by analyzing an audio recording of someone typing at the computer for about 15 mins.

There was some research done on this earlier but their method required specific training tapes where the system knew what keys were pressed and when to configure the listener before it was able to accurately deciper the input. In this case the training tape is an actual recording of a target.

This brings an interesting possibility for hackers/crackers to steal passwords/information by setting up hidden mic’s etc.

Saw a technique somewhat like this being used in a TV show called ‘MI-6″ (Or was it MI-5? It was 3 am… ) In it one of the spies gives a special cufflink to the target and gets him to type her resume out. As the spies knew what was on the resume they were able to get a readout of each key (They didn’t explain what readout’s they were taking in too much detail) and once they got that they were able to see what ever the target typed on the computer in realtime as long as he was wearing his cufflink. Neat eh?

But before you start panicking, remember the bad guy’s still have to either get physical access to your system and/or the area around your system in order to bug it and you know the law: “Physical access is root access”.

So to lower the risk of this attack all you have to do is follow the same basic rules you have been following about not granting unknown people access to your workplace and keep an eye out for people carying video camera’s and mic’s.

To make the risk go away completely play loud music to drown out the typing sound when working on sensitive data.

Original Source:
Schneier on Security: Snooping on Text by Listening to the Keyboard

Link to the Paper: Snooping on Text by Listening to the Keyboard (PDF File)

– Suramya

August 16, 2005

Response to the feedback on my Hinduism article

Filed under: My Thoughts,Website Updates — Suramya @ 10:44 PM

Hi Everyone,
Over the past few months I have recieved a lot of feedback on my article on Hinduism and some of it is good some bad and one or two quite rude. I know that there are a lot of religions in India and that Hinduism is not the only religion in India. Come to think of it some of my best friends ar not Hindu’s. So I don’t know why people would think that I don’t like other religions and send me mails saying that I am showing India in a wrong light.

I only wrote about hinduism as I had done a lot of research on it and being from a hindu family I learnt a lot about it by osmosis. I would love to write about Islam or christianity but the simple fact is that I don’t know enough about these religions to be sure that what I am writing is accurate. Me talking about something that I have only a little idea about would make no sense. Thats why I don’t have articles about other religions.

Then there are those other guys who keep sending me links about how the aryan invasion theory has been disaproved. So far I havn’t read anything that either proves or disproves the theory so until I know it for a fact I don’t think I will be re-writing any articles (Plus it takes time and effort to rewrite an article and I don’t have that much free time). This article was written as a research paper for a class. I got an A in the class and I am happy with it. If you don’t agree with me too bad. I like a good debate but don’t mail me and tell me that I am an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about without proof. I will ignore you. I have better things to do with my time.

I will however, respond to people like Carl who make sensible suggestions (Carl: I will be adding links to other religons soon) and not come through like idiots.

Well this is all for now. Will write more later.

Cya,
Suramya

August 11, 2005

Now this is the height of stupidity

Filed under: Funny News,My Thoughts — Suramya @ 1:19 AM

This politician (Martin) is giving a new meaning to the word ‘Stupid’. Apparantly he decided that MS has been selling “bad code” (Not that I don’t somewhat agree with this but…) So he decided to sue MS and ask for an Unconditional warranty that the Windows Vista code is free of security bugs.

I mean come on… I am not the world’s biggest microsoft fan but in this case I will have to side with Bill Gates. Its literally impossible to write a program as complex as Windows and not have any bugs in it. You can try to minimize the bugs/fix them in a timely fashion but you can’t remove them entirely. You might as well ask for World Peace and free gasoline while you are at it. And how about suing the car companies because cars can be broken into and need maintainence.

With people like this running for office and winning… God help us…

Original Article:
Anti-MS Group Aims to Block Vista

July 18, 2005

Life is good

Filed under: My Life,My Thoughts — Suramya @ 10:21 PM

Life is good. The weekend was fun. Read a lot of books. relaxed.

1. Finished Harry Potter 6. Its a good book. Surabhi actally went to the store to buy it at 12:00am. I was too lazy to do so, luckily for me shw wasn’t.

2. Re-read Elvenborn by Mercedes Lackey. Its an awesome book. This lady knows how to write a good story.

Read an interesting article about street photographers somewhere. (Don’t remember where or I would link to it) In it the article basically talked about how it was becoming more difficult for street photographers to take photos of everyday life without getting in trouble. Its illegal to take photos at most highrise places and bridges.

This is really depressing for photographers. I know ’cause I myself like taking a lot of pics and most of them are totally natural pics of people or friends going about with their everyday life. Now its illegal for me to take a photo of a friend doing something stupid so that I can Blackmail them tease them later just because some genius decided that terrorists could take photos can use it to plan an attack. A terrorist is not going to be walking about in broad daylight with a huge camera in their hand openly taking photos of their target. They would use hidden camera’s that are a lot higer resolution than my pathetic 3 pega pixel camera. And this is if they actually decided to take photos from site. A good telephoto lense would give them enough resolution to take the required pics from a long way off.

NEway its not like the stupid bridge has changed a lot in the past 10 years. If someone really wanted to they could goto a library and get a photograph of it from there. All the ban on photography does is makes it inconvenient for tourists and photographers from collecting memories.

On the same note I was in CVS a couple of days ago and was looking at their copying service. And noticed something really funny. Its illegal for me to copy my *own* passport or immigration docs using their service. Now can some one please explain to me what on earth is the logic behind this? I understand the restriction from copying currency but my own docs? Thats just being plain stupid. I would have taken a pic but was scared that I would probably end up getting arrested because I took a picture that puts the national security in such high danger…

If I was going to forge a passport I wouldn’t use a CVS to make a copy, I would go out and buy my own copying machine and do it from the privacy of my house. This is another one of the rules that is *supposed* to make the world safer but all it does it make life more difficult for law abiding people.

Any comments?

– Suramya

May 14, 2005

Should privacy end when you die?

Filed under: My Thoughts — Suramya @ 3:14 AM

I was reading the archives on the GPG mailing list and saw this really interesting conversation going on about what all should you put in a safe to make life simpler for your loved ones in case you die. One of people suggested that you should always put your PGP/GPG key in a safe deposit box so that if anything happens to you your documents etc can be decrypted.

This started me thinking, do I really want people to be able to read my emails/personal correspondence etc when I die? I don’t mind them having access to my financial stuff/legal papers/programs etc but I am not that comfortable with anyone reading my email’s.

The reason is not ’cause I don’t trust my family or friends, its just that my emails/documents might have some stuff that I don’t want people to know about and this cover’s not just my secret’s but other people’s information also. You might ask, What other people’s information? Its your email isn’t it?

Go through your email archive, look for any correspondance you had with a friend that is supposed to be a secret. You might be discussing a person issue with a friend or giving them advice on how to deal with something that they don’t want to have publically known. Or just something thats embarrasing for them. In my case there is a good posibility that I have archives of emails where I discuss some friend’s personal issue with them and that issue is something they don’t want to disclose to anyone. Did you find anything? I sure did. There are a lot of things that you don’t want to tell, or more accurately there are a lot of things that your friends don’t want you to tell.

So what gives me the right to disclose all this information to my survivors when I die? Just because I am dead doesn’t de-classify the information. The person whose secret it is might still want to keep it that way. So what do you do in such a case? Do you remove the ability of your family to access your emails/diaries etc to protect the secrets, denying then the pleasure of remembering you by reading stuff you wrote, your thoughts etc, or do you go ahead and tell all?

What would you do? There is no one solution for this and I am sure people can argure about this both ways. If you have some time do post a comment and let me know what you think about this issue.

– Suramya

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