Caesarean Rhapsody

If you use Ubuntu on your laptop (and why not?) you maybe facing or may have faced this problem. But fikar not, here’s the solution.

Scenario:

You user wireless/wired network to conenct to your company network. Suddenly one day you are asked to travel and you take the laptop with you. While traveling you find that any application you open takes at least 1 or 2 minutes to spawn. You are stumped. You log on to the network and find that nobody has had this problem. You disable Compiz and desktop effects but still no improvement.

Solution:

Open /etc/hosts in your favorite editor.

sudo vim /etc/hosts

The 1st two lines read

127.0.0.1 <hostname>

127.0.0.1 <hostname>.<domainname>

Change the second line to

127.0.0.1 <hostname>

And voila you’re good to go

And what’s better, unlike, Winblows you don’t have to restart

Reason:

The way Ubuntu is built I think it tries to reach the network to check the existance of your username everytime a command is executed. Even if you’re running some application from the GUI it means a command is spawning the application in the background console. To verify this, even before you make the above changes, fire up a terminal and try spawning an application. After some time you’ll notice a “username not found” kind of error and then the application starts. This means the OS tried to search for the username on the network and upon failing finally launches the app. But this removal of domainname should fix the problem.

I was watching the US Presidential debate a couple of nights back. Although a lot of people say that both parties were evenly poised, I think Obama pummeled the shit out of McCain. Unfortunately for the Republicans, the entire economy got a diarrhea earlier that day and McCain really had nothing to say about the whole deal.

Although McCain claims, and Obama humbly accepts, that the latter knows nothing about foreign policy, who would have given 2 flying fucks about it at Tuesday’s debate? People wanted hard questions answered about how America would get back on its feet and how soon. They wanted to know why McCain was talking about canceling welfare. Instead he kept pointing at Obama and telling people, “This is the guy who supported tax increases and never spoke about the promised tax holidays once he reached the senate”. People wanted to hear exactly that. They needed to be told that the big earners will be made to pay more taxes and those at the bottom of the economic pyramid will get tax reliefs. Obama just had to speak into the mic and tell people that he intended to do the same.

But McCain failed, miserably, to deliver. I should not even touch upon the topic of the Biden-Palin debate. Too many choice expletives have already been uttered about the dumb-as-fuck Governer of Alaska for me to reiterate them here. I think anyone who votes for the Republicans based on his/her liking for Palin should  get his/her IQ checked. His/her spouse should probably consider buying a tee shirt that reads “I’m with stupid”. Better still get the phrase tattooed on the most visible part of their anatomy.

The fact that the Republicans are getting constantly punched in the gut but continue to make comebacks with broad smiles plastered on, reminds me of the penguins in the movie Madagascar. “Just smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave!” How fucking disillusioned can someone be?

Although it’s unfortunate that Maharashtra didn’t get a chance to host the Nano plant, I’m happy that the opportunity went to the friendly state of Gujrat. Ties between Maharashtra and Gujrat are not just because of the geographical proximity but also due to the large number of people who’ve crossed state borders to make the other state their workplace and home.

It’s good news for Maharashtra since this will definitely benefit a lot of suppliers in the state. Gujrat would be more helpful and lucrative from Maharashtra’s point of view compared with states like AP or Karnataka since the latter two tend to keep business within state boundaries or use suppliers from Tamil Nadu.

I think Modi acted more professionally and rapidly in response to Tata’s moving out of Singur. And Mamata Banerjee will probably be lynched by her own people after they see the way Tata will invest back into Gujrat. This was clearly an opportunity for West Bengal to shed its tag of “impoverished state” but now because  of some emotional fools the state has missed the train. Those Singur farmers could take a leaf out of this Gujrati farmer’s book.

All I can say is “Jay Modi” and let the cash registers start chiming.

Just finished watching Mongol, the movie. It tells the story of Genghis Khan’s rise to power as the man who was once the most powerful ruler in Asia. It has to be one of the best non- big ticket movies I have seen all year. Excellent direction, great screenplay, beautiful cinematography and a fitting cast. No wonder it’s got so many votes on iMDB. This movie is a must watch for people who appreciate good cinema.

Stay away if your idea of a movie is abercrombie/victoria’s secret models getting the impossible done during 5-minute foot tapping musical montages and stereotypes with an accent blessed with impeccable comic timing. Or … if you threw up during any of Kill Bill’s fight sequences.