/me on the net!

Tumblr?

I wonder if I should move over my blog to Tumblr?

Bullshit

I think the comparison to bullshit is not not so apt, as bullshit has some intrinsic value as a fertilizer, and, where I currently live, as a fuel for heating homes.

On comparing the craze for Diamonds to Bullshit.

Rest in Peace Kenneth

Sad to hear the news earlier today. Its quite rare to get the news of someone you know on the internet passing away. Kenneth had his own unique way of getting people to do interesting things. He was a part of several linux user's groups and participated actively in the foss activities around the country, given his age and health.

Anyone who has ever interacted with Kenneth "lawgon" Gonsalves over email, in a mailing list, on IRC or in-person at a conference is surely going to miss him and remember him well.

There's something about Urdu poetry

Haath Baalo'n Me Phere Tou Main So Jao'n Ga,
Koi Qissa Wo Sunaye Tou Main So Jao'n Ga,
Us Se Kehna K Mujhy Neend Nahi Aati,
Apni Banho'n Mein Sulaye Tou Main So Jao'n Ga,
Meri Palko'n Pe Sajey Hyn Kaii Raato'n Se Diye,
Koi Palko'n Se Bhujaye Tou Main So Jao'n Ga.
Aakhri Saans Mujhy Mauqa De De Ye Zra ,
Mera Wada Hy K Wo Aaye Tou Main So Jao'n Ga.
Baad Ki Baad Mein Dekhe'n Ge Us Se Kaho,
Aaj Ki Raat Na Jaye Tou Main So Jao'n Ga...

via the interwebs.

On the fly compression of mysqldump

mysqldump -uroot -pPASSWORD --opt --all-databases | bzip2 -c > mysql-full-dump.bz2

Requiem for a Soldier

If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.

I spotted this on the comments page of Katherine Jenkins's live performance Requiem For a Soldier. Though it refers to English language, it applies equally to just about any country or civilization.

Setting up UserDir on Nginx

Nginx doesn't have mod_userdir like Apache, but the behavior can be emulated by the following configuration snippet.



# userdir simulation

location ~ /~([^/]+)($|/.*)$ {

  alias /home/$1/public_html$2;

  error_page 404 = @404;

  autoindex on;

}

location @404 {

  return 404;

}

Putting these location directives in a virtual host config section will let the virtual host publish user's public_html directories.

Tracing ruby programs with set_trace_func

At times you may need to trace a ruby program's execution flow. Ruby's set_trace_func comes handy there.

When saved in a file called trace.rb and executed with $ ruby trace.rb, it outputs

   2011-12-15 00:33:26 +0530 c-return trace.rb:3  set_trace_func   Kernel

   2011-12-15 00:33:26 +0530     line trace.rb:5                     

   2011-12-15 00:33:26 +0530   c-call trace.rb:5        puts   Kernel

   2011-12-15 00:33:26 +0530   c-call trace.rb:5        puts       IO

   2011-12-15 00:33:26 +0530   c-call trace.rb:5       write       IO

*** Hello World

   2011-12-15 00:33:26 +0530 c-return trace.rb:5       write       IO

   2011-12-15 00:33:26 +0530 c-return trace.rb:5        puts       IO

   2011-12-15 00:33:26 +0530 c-return trace.rb:5        puts   Kernel

What's new in Firefox 5!

Rotten tomatoes' rotten TOS

3 (b) No Conflicting Uses. You may not use the Flixster API to develop (or instruct any third party to develop) a service that may reasonably be deemed to be directly competitive with Flixster’s products and services, unless you have been specifically permitted to do so in a separate written agreement with Flixster prior to the undertaking of the development and launch of such service.

Dear Rotten Tomatoes, what's the point of launching these APIs then?

Convert videos for Android (Samsung Galaxy)

My Android phone doesn't support DivX/XviD. To play videos on it. I need to convert them to MP4. Taking a note for myself if I need it later.

$ ffmpeg -i input_video.avi -f mp4 -vcodec libx264 -acodec libfaac -s 400x240 -ab 128k output_video.mp4

400x240 is the phone's screen resolution.

[Edit] Good parameters for high quality MPEG4 encoding:

-mbd rd -flags +mv4+aic -trellis 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -g 300

Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad - Autorickshaw Taxi fares

Rickshaw fares for Mumbai

Two months back Mumbai's autorickshaw and taxi drivers went on a strike, demanding a steep increase in fares. While earlier the fare calculation was simple, after the new fare structure came in place, autorickshaw fare calculations became relatively complex.

I started http://rickfare.com on the day new fares came into effect after seeing the new complicated fare structure. Over time, friends pitched in for their cities and I added New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune and Navi Mumbai. Today Rickfare.com is accessed by thousands of commuters over a wide variety of mobile devices including iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, HTC and assorted Nokia handsets.

I'd like to thank Ashish Mehta, Atul Jha, Kartik Mistry and Kamaleshwar for helping out with auto fares of their cities

Extract mp3 audio from a video clip using mencoder

This post is a note for self. I always keep forgetting how to extract mp3 audio file from any video clip.

$ mencoder videofile.avi -of rawaudio -oac mp3lame -ovc copy -o audio-output.mp3

This is an awesome companion to the youtube video downloader - youtube-dl.py

Server sent unexpected return value (502 Bad Gateway) in response to COPY request

During the recent server migration, I shifted svn services from http to https. Everything seemed to work fine, except for this error while creating branches.

frodo$ svn cp https://svn.xinh.org/svn/project/UberCool/trunk https://svn.xinh.org/svn/project/UberCool/branches/1.0

svn: Server sent unexpected return value (502 Bad Gateway) in response to COPY request for '/svn/project/!svn/bc/15/UberCool/trunk'

svn: Your commit message was left in a temporary file:

svn:    'svn-commit.tmp'

frodo$

Googling around a bit helped. I'm using HTTPS over Apache + dav_svn module. This issue can be fixed by enabling mod_headers module in Apache and adding the following line at the end of your VirtualHost.

RequestHeader edit Destination ^https http early

Trek to Sankshi fort

After a long long time I got a chance to go trekking again on 22 Nov. Sankshi fort is located near Alibag, off the Mumbai Alibag highway. Difficulty level is easy to moderate, but it involves about an hour of walking.

Article on Sankshi fort from Maharashtra government website.

The name Sankshi is said to have been derived from a chief named Sank who is traditionally believed to have been the lord of the fort. See below.] (T. Pen) also known as Badr-ud-din, or Darghaca Killa from a tomb or dargah of the saint Badr-ud-din at its foot, lies within the limits of Nidivali village about five miles north-east of Pen. read more...

We assembled at Panvel ST depot at 7AM, waiting for others to join in, and finally left Panvel at 9:15 after having breakfast at a restaurant across the road. Since the bus started from Panvel, everyone got seats, and I dozed off to sleep.

We got down at Balavali Phata and marched towards saint Badr-ud-din's dargaah. The route is cool and covered with dense trees, but full of giant spider webs. The photographers among us took half an hour to capture the arachnids and buffaloes on camera.

We reached dargaah in less than 2 hours, relaxed and moved towards the Sankshi hill. There's a GI water pipe that runs to dargaah at the base of the hill from a water cistern at the top of the hill. Some walk in the jungle, struggling with the itchy bushes, a rock patch and we were at the top. After exploring for half an hour, we came back down to have lunch at the old dargaah structure that looked beautiful and wise in white color.

It was a nice little trek (microtrek ) and we were back to panvel around 6PM, without feeling tired at all! Complete pictures from trek to sankshi fort are available in my flickr set.