MERC HAVEN

Wow, it's been more than a year since I posted anything on this blog. As of today I have decided to switch over to Tumblr, because it allows better integration with my 'under-construction' website. If Tumblr doesn't work out, I might get back to my old trusty blogger account. For now, Tumblr it is.

Labels: blog, switch, tumblr

Posted by Prashant at 12/05/2008 01:48:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

This always amuses me. As if the kernel version of 2.6.20.16.28.1 was too short, here are a couple more to marvel at:

Opensource version numbers from the Ubuntu repository:

• The commented version number
  
  libqt3-mt - 3:3.3.8really3.3.7-0ubuntu5.1


• The dfsg version number
  
  libmagick9 - 7:6.2.4.5.dfsg1-0.14ubuntu0.1


• The source package version number
  
  libnss3 - 2:1.firefox2.0.0.6+1-0ubuntu1


• The kernel module version number
  
  nvidia-glx-legacy - 1.0.7184+2.6.20.5-16.29


• The compulsively specific version number
  
  freewnn-common - 1.1.0+1.1.1-a021-1.1


• The all-in-one cvs tag version number
  
  faad - 2.0.0+cvs20040908+mp4v2+bmp-0ubuntu3


• The usual timestamp version number
  
  ippd - 1:3.10.20070306-0ubuntu1


• The holy-crap-you-win version number
  
  comerr-dev - 2.1-1.39+1.40-WIP-2006.11.14+dfsg-2ubuntu1

Then there are Microsoft version numbers like
6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2gdr.050301-1519 (Internet Explorer 6).

In terms of actual point numbers, the linux kernel image of 2.6.20.16.28.1 pales in comparison to a Drupal based shopping cart's version number of 1.125.2.23.2.17.2.50. That's a whole eight levels of nesting!

I gave up on such schemes long time ago. Everything I code has only a serially increasing 'build number' which starts from 1 and goes up to however many times I change and re-build it ...

Posted by Prashant at 8/30/2007 06:22:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

That's true. The domain registration and hosting account expired yesterday so now it's gone ...
I don't know when I'll be able to renew the registration because PayPal stopped direct debit on my account, despite being a verified member and having used my account for 2 years.

Until I'm able to buy back my domain (which probably will cost me a lot because someone's hoarded it already) and a hosting account, there will be no more mercurysquad.net. Sorry all you facebook hackers.

Posted by Prashant at 6/25/2007 02:42:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

A while ago there was a post linked from digg.com, titled the "15 most unforgettable cartoon theme songs". It was a neat article, but it grossly missed some *real* themes which should have been included. So here is my own compilation. Not all of them link to the cartoon versions, but you can get an idea of the theme anyway :


10. Johnny Quest (new one)
9. Popeye theme
8. Looney Toons (+crappy remix)
7. Addams Family
6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
5. Tale Spin and Flintstones (tie)
4. Ghostbuster
3. Arabian Nights (Aladdin)
2. Family Guy
1. DuckTales (hindi version!)

That's all I can think of right now. Might update later.

Posted by Prashant at 6/01/2007 10:52:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

A prominent computer services company has the following rules on their website when you register for their job stock:

1. Passwords must be at least 8 characters long and no longer than 16 characters.
2. Passwords must only contain alpha and numeric characters, not symbols.
3. Passwords must not contain more than two identical consecutive characters.
4. The first or last character of a password cannot be numeric.
5. Passwords cannot contain your e-mail address.


I wonder who came up with point 2, 3 and 4. Anyone can see that :

Assuming the restrictions weren't in place, there could be a possible of 26 times 2 (letters) + 10 (digits) + 10 (approx number of symbols) = 72 to the 8th power.. combinations. I don't even want to calculate that.

Restriction 2: cuts down the number of combinations from 72^8 to 62^8.

Restriction 4: cuts down number of combinations about 20 times (10 possibilities for first and last)

As for restriction 3, I would need to spend more than a few minutes to come up with the number of possible combinations that rule removes.

Needless to say, their rules make it easier for brute-force password attacks to be successful, and harder for people to come up with a password they are not likely to forget. Bravo.

Posted by Prashant at 5/01/2007 03:47:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Replaced the strings on my guitar and started jamming. An interesting funk riff caught my fancy, so I added some loops, a couple of extra guitar parts, and turned it into a song. Called "Siesta", it's an electronica/lounge track for my in-the-works album "All an Illusion."

You can download Siesta here. (8 MB mp3 file). Or if you prefer, you can download a 5 MB mp4/aac file here, which can be played in iTunes or Winamp, for example. The mp4 also sounds loads better than the mp3, by the way.

The original mix I made turned out to be almost 7 minutes long. The one I have uploaded here is actually a shorter edit, about 4 min 44 second long.

The other track from this album that I have released already is Conditions for peace which you can get here. It's a techno/breakbeat track.

Posted by Prashant at 4/28/2007 08:09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Yup! Made it to Hanover this year. Couldn't afford to miss it again. Here's what Wikipedia says about CeBIT:

CeBIT is the world's largest computer expo. It is held each spring on the fairground in Hanover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology. With an exhibition area of roughly 450,000 m² (~ 5 million ft²) and up to 700,000 visitors, it is larger than COMPUTEX and the no-longer held COMDEX.

And it's true - the whole thing is HUGE. Each exhibition hall is roughly the size of 1 or 2 football fields, and there are ... twenty seven such halls. :-\ No wonder it's the world's largest. What could be better than 27 stadium sized halls full of tech gadgets (and chicks).

There were lots of cool things to see, although for the most part the halls were occupied by Chinese/Tiawanese companies demonstrating such technological wonders as... a mouse! A webcam!! Holy damn, LAPTOP BAGS!

Anyway, some highlights were: natural 3D displays, eye tracked video conversations (also on 3d displays), huge point-to-choose displays where you simply point at the screen with your finger, from a distance, to select objects (it was guided by a green overhead laser and some cams). Face trackers (it tracked people's faces, eyes, lips, and shows the gender, mood of the person etc.). Audio cubes (new way to compose music, crappy, in my opinion).

And the above was all from ONE single section of ONE hall (the Fraunhoffer IIS section)! The World Cyber Games 2007's Euro championship finals were being held there, as well as some Germany high school robotics competition.

More details, pics etc. will follow later. I'm too tired right now to write anything more. For now, satisfy yourselves from this: Videos of CeBIT 2007 on Google.

Posted by Prashant at 3/17/2007 11:56:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

It's here. 3/14. Also happens to be the birthdays of Albert Einstein (scientist) and Johann Strauss (composer). Great day indeed.

Posted by Prashant at 3/14/2007 06:18:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

The whole Software Engineering Lab course is getting on my nerves.. in a sort of good way.

Your programmer personality type is:

DHTB

You're a Doer.
You are very quick at getting tasks done. You believe the outcome is the most important part of a task and the faster you can reach that outcome the better. After all, time is money.


You like coding at a High level.
The world is made up of objects and components, you should create your programs in the same way.


You work best in a Team.
A good group is better than the sum of it's parts. The only thing better than a genius programmer is a cohesive group of genius programmers.


You are a liBeral programmer.
Programming is a complex task and you should use white space and comments as freely as possible to help simplify the task. We're not writing on paper anymore so we can take up as much room as we need.

Posted by Prashant at 3/01/2007 01:46:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

Discovered another little hole in Facebook which lets you view anyone's notes - even those who are not on your friends list or those you don't even know. You can read about the hack (in detail) on this page.

I have packaged it as a bookmarklet so using it is drag-and-drop simple. This is mostly not because of any security hole in Facebook, but a simple default setting which most people never bother to change. For anyone worried about this, all you have to do to prevent your notes from being viewed is to use the My Privacy page sensibly, instead of leaving it to defaults.

Posted by Prashant at 2/05/2007 10:02:00 AM | Permalink | Comments