Desi In Toronto

This is incredibly stupid!!

In a new directive, effective immediately, the Army said it cannot guarantee the quality of commercially bought armor, and any soldier wearing it will have to turn it in and have it replaced with authorized gear.

Pres. Bush is in a lot of trouble. The WOT is blowing up in his face, the domestic spying scandal refuses to go away, The step down by his administration on the Dubai port deal, Michael Brown refusing to take the blame on the Katrina debacle, etc. etc. etc.

The whole edifice rests on the WOT, of course so the PR blitz that he and his administration are going through these days is all about how well things are going in Iraq. For the month or so, that’s what he and his staff have been doing. Pointing out how well Iraq is progressing and how the responsibility of governing Iraq is being transferred to the Iraqis.

And then you see something absolutely outrageous like this, you have to wonder, does this administration and it’s leader have any soul left?

I was reading the little scrolling news headlines on the bottom of the page…. Suddenly, one of them caught my attention and I sat up straight on the sofa, wondering if I had read it correctly….The line said:

The translation:

“The Ministry of Defence requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area.”

Defence of the WOT (War On Terror) not going very well, is it? Link

The official line : The iPod is an amazing MP3 player. It organises the songs and podcast for easy access; The unique ear buds are ear friendly and produce great sound; The price is one of the lowest in the market; Combined with iTunes, the player provides unlimited access to all the songs I want.

The reality : MP3 is an amazing player but I had to fudge the MP3 player heavily in order for it to do the things I want from it. Let’s get right to it :

I) The first thing is the DRM (Digital Rights Management) issue.

As everyone probably knows by now DRM is a way protecting copyrighted material. Since almost all the music on the market is copyrighted, DRM is a part of all the legal downloadable music out there. What does DRM on a song do? It limits the ability of the user to make copies to other MP3 players (including other iPods) although you can make unlimited number of CDs. So
why is DRM an issue for me? Well the first one is that DRM packs a lot of muscle. In the form of storage and in the form of processing by the MP3 player. This would have an added affect on the battery of the iPod which is now getting old.

The second, and more importantly, I cannot change the format of the songs to MP3. This is a big drawback for me as I like to listen to podcasts which are not always in AAC format (the Apple format). I know I can convert the podcasts to AAC (that an additional cost) but what about the numerous songs I have on my PC that I downloaded from P2P sites and some paid sites? I have
spent almost $50 on downloading 3GB of music, all in MP3 format. What happens to those songs? So, I had to stick to MP3. This of course means that I have no access to the $0.99 songs from iTunes because they are in the AAC format.

This lockdown on the format is one of the main drawbacks of the iPod / iTunes combination for me.

II) The second thing is that Apple will most probably make the same mistake with iPod as they made with Mac in the early 80s. All said and done, Apple was the first company with a successful business model for online music. The $0.99 song or $9.99 album is well within the means of youth and very appealing to legal conscious adult population. The problem is that Apple is notorious for it’s monopolistic business practices. Back in the 80s, rather than open the architecture of their highly successful and technologically advanced computers to other companies (like IBM did in the early 80s), it had a stranglehold on it’s brand and the result is that Apple now occupies a niche rather than lead the computer world. I fear the same will happen with iPod. Rather than open to new ideas from the market, they will try and hold on to their successful business model. This means they will be successful for a few years but as the prices of the other MP3 players continues to drop and new business models are introduced, they will have to either let go of their lead or, again, occupy a niche.

I know this is very speculative but Apple has proven again and again how to forge ahead of the pack and then meekly step aside.

III) The third that really irks me about Apple is despite it’s burgeoning power in the music industry, it is still toeing the RIAA line. RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is the body that controls the music in the U.S and it’s affiliates (like RIAC : Recording Industry Association of Canada) in the rest of the world. What they say in the music business, goes. If they don’t like the fact that you can download music from a site for free (like the P2P networks), they will do everything in their power to shutdown the site (E.g. Kazaa, Napster, Morpheus etc.) To drive their point to the citizens of the western world that copying and downloading is illegal, they will sue grandmothers and little kids for thousands or dollars. But along came Apple and showed them how to make money out of downloading and everyone is happy for a few months. And then RIAA starts to dictate terms. DRM; Increase in price of the songs; Charge more
for the popular songs. So far Apple has been able to fight off these very silly trends but there are indication that RIAA will dictate to Apple how to run their business.

This is exactly what is happening in France.

The French government is going to pass a law that says that Apple has to let the users change format of the songs to whatever they wish. This, of course, means that the DRM needs to be stripped off. This is going to be a big no, no within RIAA. And there are strong indications that if this law comes into effect in a month or so, instead of trying to come up with a better model to
accommodate French laws, Apple will pull out of the French market!! Imagine that. Rather than find a model other than the one they have (which Apple will have to do sooner or later), they just snub an important market. This is in line with RIAA.

In conclusion, Apple is on the cusp of some major changes in the music industry. It needs to show some creativity in leadership (like it did when it came up with iPod) to clear a path for music lovers around the world. I (and, I am sure, millions of others listeners) are sick of the way music industry functions.

Ok. Here is the first crisis in my little girl’s life.

My wife goes to the gym everyday from 9am to 11am and takes Rhea with her. She drops Rhea off at the baby center in the gym and picks her up after the class is over. When my wife started, Rhea would look forward to the trips and I thought that this is great. She gets to interact with kids her age and hopefully learns new things from them. But lately she has been resisting going to the gym. Charu says that these days she always cries and howls about not going to the gym.

Last night while I was dressing Rhea after her bath I asked her,

“Rhea do you like going to the gym?”

And she replied with a sad face and downcast eyes, “I no like it gym.”

And I was completely at loss what to do. This is the first time my daughter has come across a problem which I am not able to fix. She will have to resolve this on her own. The only thing that I and my wife can do is prepare the ground for her.

I have asked my wife to drop in to see her in the middle of the class to see what she is up to. If she is playing and generally having a good time then we can ignore her protests. But if she is sitting in the corner and not doing much then we would have to rethink the gym trip.

The worst is that here I am sitting at work with no control over the situation and I hate it. And I realise that as life progresses worse situation will come to fore and I would have no control over it. Damn!!

UPDATE : It was a false alarm!! My wife told me that she sneaked in between her sessions to take a look and Rhea was having a ball at the gym.

(From Amit Varma)

When you hear things like this, you have to wonder at how stupid a human mind can be. The headline of the article says it all.

Planned Mother Teresa bust creates friction in Albania

Very few bloggers tear apart idiotc fan mail like desicupcake. Look at some of her posts here, here and here.

A) In Ontario, MDs slam the privatization of hospitals. Ok, I am totally ambivalent about this idea. I will be putting up a post soon to try and understand why more privatization sounds like a semi-good idea.

B) Warmer Oceans linked to Stronger Hurricanes (from slashdot.com). There has been so much speculation going on in the last few months (especially after the hurricane Katrina) about the link between global warming and the intense hurricane season. Looks like there is finally some proof that a temperature rise of Earth’s oceans is linked directly to frequent and intense hurricanes (link here). So, will the politicians of the world please sit up and notice now? In the meantime let’s all of us pledge to vote Green.

C) GOOGLE has won a round in it’s fight against the U.S. government. What’s the fight about? The U.S. administration says that it wants the company (now the leader in search engines) to provide it with a list of items searched by the US populace. The U.S. administration that this will help them confront pornography, especially child pornography, on the internet. The critics say that the current U.S. administration is as usual infringing on individual rights. They also contend that the pornography is just an excuse with the real motive being able to spy on people. GOOGLE is all about protecting U.S. citizen’s rights but the company showed how hypocritical big businesses can be. When the same request was made by the Chinese government of GOOGLE and YAHOO, these companies agreed with the government. Not agreeing to the Chinese government’s demands meant that these companies would have been shut out of millions of dollars to be made from China.

D) Tony Blair is in quite a lot of trouble. It has been discovered that his party (Labour) received massive loans from private parties for favours ranging from seats in the parliament to business deals. In spite of this I am sure that he will stay in power. Unlike Margaret Thatcher this guy never knows when enough’s enough.

E) I finally got my new play station game BLACK from eBay. MAN!!! What. A Game. Not suitable for kids under 15 at all because of free use of the four lettered words.

From Globeandmail.com, Harper, Emerson cleared in ethics probe.

Canada’s ethics czar has cleared Prime Minister Stephen Harper of any wrongdoing in his controversial decision to bring former Liberal David Emerson into the Conservative fold.

There was going to be no other conclusion from day one.

When the controversy first started, the issue was a genuine one. An MP elected as Liberal (from a riding which always has elected a Liberal MP) and immediately after (or during) the election changes to Conservative. This blatant disregard for an electorates votes was called into investigation by the Ethic’s Commissioner (Ben Shapiro). But along the way, this investigation became a full scale political battle.

In the wake of the controversy, three opposition MPs - two Liberals and a New Democrat - filed complaints with Mr. Shapiro’s office, asking that he probe the move.

Mr. Harper’s office responded to word of Mr. Shapiro’s probe by suggesting that the Prime Minister would be loath to co-operate, labelling Mr. Shapiro a Liberal appointee and pointing out that he did not launch similar investigations into Belinda Stronach and Scott Brison when they moved from the Tories to the Liberals.

Conservatives began their mud flings by decalring that :

1. What about the Liberals? They did the same with Stronach.
2. Bernard Shapiro is a Liberal hack.

I think this was never an ethical issue. Yes, he crossed the floor and moved to Conservatives. But all in all he did this within the rules and did offer his extensive services (in the form of contacts within the US business and administration) to the current government.

I think that Andrew Coyne says it the best.

Well, I have a theory. And here we come to the point I made off the top: this isn’t about Emerson and Fortier, or the correct prodecure for crossing the floor. This is about whether questions of principle are permitted to intrude into political decisions, and by extension whether those committed to the principles on which a party was elected — in a word, its base — have the right to object when their leaders seem to stray from them.

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Slobodan Milosevic is dead. May his soul rot in hell.

So, he is finally in a place where he should have been 6 years ago. Milosevic unleashed a reign of terror on Muslims (and other religions who were considered non-Serbs) during the break-up of Yugoslavia. It was akin to the terror unleashed by Hitler on the Jews during the 30s. The Serbian government power was used to kill, rape, pillage and uproot all that was”non-Serb” from the so-called Serbian lands.

Milosevic maybe dead but the controversial nature in which he died (in a cell in The Hague awaiting the completion of his war crime trial) keeps his infamous legacy alive and kicking. He claimed that he was being poisoned (his last three handwritten letters claimed so) by his “enemies”. With his sudden death, he will surely become a martyr in the eyes of some poordeluded Serbs who will use his image to perpetuate his crimes.

I don’t think this is the end of the Milosevic’s nightmare.

It’s Wednesday 8.55pm. Life in our house suddenly switches to high gear.

“Is Rhea’s milk bottle ready?” asks my wife.

I answer “No. I am putting the dishes away. We have exactly 5 minutes. Is she ready for bed?”

“No. I am brushing her teeth. Get her milk ready and you are going to read to her tonight.“

“No way. I have been reading to her in the past 2 nights. It’s your turn tonight.“

“Ok. But you’ll take next Wednesday either way.“

“OK.‘

LOST is one of those TV series that comes into your life without warning and whoooooooooshes you away. (SPOILER WARNING!!! Stop reading if you intend to see LOST from the beginning). The story, the characters, the mysteries envelope you and don’t let go. The desire to know what happens next is so intense that if there is a re-run instead of a new episode, I just curse the
network for next 15 minutes or so!!

Why is LOST so different from your run-of-the-mill-lost-on-an-island story? The first thing about this story is that the island is a strange island with a mystery that is revealed in snippets (e.g. there are strange people living in it with no desire to go back to the “real” world; There is a strange room on the island which is running a computer system which has to be monitored
for a strange series of numbers else a calamity will fall on the world; so on and so forth).

The other really good thing about this series is that each survivor’s personal story is told through a series of flashbacks. And these flashbacks tell us that all these survivors are linked to each other in one way or the other in the form of running into one another (or their close relatives) in their flashbacks. The encounters are as innocent as meeting one’s father, or eating in a restaurant of one of the survivor’s mother or stepping on the toes of a person running to catch a plane. Innocent but a powerful reminder to the viewers that all these people are linked to each other in some way.

I have no idea how long can this series be stretched and over the last couple of episodes, the stories have become a little too pretentious. The producers will probably come up with a new twist (as they did the last time the stories were becoming a little boring by introducing a new set of survivors from the same plane lost in the other part of the island). The twists are usually quite kick-in-nuts kind of twists. I hope this time “the kick” will be as good as the last time!!!

For the longest time I had been resisting this bug but, unfortunately, for the last week or so I have caught it. And it’s got a stranglehold on me. Whenever I get a few minutes during work, I either blog or I indulge in a little Sudoku. Initially I just wanted to finish the puzzle but I am happy to report that now I want to beat the clock.

Take my advice and don’t get caught up with the Sudoku bug. It really is annoying when you are not able to complete the puzzle. At times I have had this urge to tear the paper with the puzzle on into minute little pieces and then burn the pieces and launch the ashes into space and crash the spaceship into the sun.

It’s so easy to forget the important things in life and I was reminded of it by my daughter yesterday.

I had had a long day yesterday and came back home carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. Rhea was like a breath of fresh air. Whenever I enter the house in the evening I always hear from some corner of the house “Papa’s here” and the sound of running to the door. A hug and a kiss and my day islooking up already.

Charu left immediately to study and Rhea and I had our regular laughing session for the next 15 minutes or so where we get imaginary points for the times we can knock each other off our feet (Rhea is on the bed for this game) or the times we can tickle each other. Then I got a call from work and I had to sign on to the network to get it done. I was logged on for the next 45 minutes or so and Rhea was watching TV and had her dinner. I then tookher in for a bath where we spent a good 20 minutes.

I just want to point out here that Rhea is fast approaching the line separating a toddler - defined as a parent dependent creature - and a child - defined as a person with her own thoughts. We see flashes of Rhea the person more and more these days. One area where she always asserts herselfis, Clothes.

After her bath it always used to be fun and games while dressing her. Now it’s a shouting match.

“I wanna wear ved (red) dess (dress)”

“No Rhea. It’s time to do neenee (it’s time to go to sleep). Let’s wear the…”

“Noooooo. Ved dess. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah”

And we have to threaten, cajole, plead with her to wear what we want her to wear. But there have been instances were we have lost.

After forcing her to wear PJs and then pacifying her (which is usually a 5 minute job) I took her to the basement where we took out all her toys (and I mean ALL her toys) and started to play with them one by one. By 8:30 I had enough and wanted to make myself a drink and chill. All this while Rhea and I were running around the basement and throwing the ball at each other or playing with the balloons and blocks. In the midst of this I got another call from work and at that point Rhea wanted to go to the loo and I quickly resolved the issue over the phone and just when I was going to take Rhea to the loo another call came (which I should have ignored but like a fool I picked up the phone) and it was a friend of mine who I told to hang up and Rhea was still insisting on using the loo and I finally took her to the loo where she pooped. The moment she was done, instead of letting me wash her she ran away……..and then I lost it. I screamed at her and stared at herangrily.

And then I got a look from her that almost said.

“Dad I am just being a kid. How is it my fault for being just a kid. Don’t you want me to laugh and play and be myself”

I wanted to kill myself right at that moment. Here we were having a great time laughing and tickling each other and a little thing like work makes mescream at her.

I apologised to her and she hugged me and we went back to tickling each other.

Just got this alert from CNN breaking.

“Gov. Mike Rounds signs legislation banning nearly all abortions in South Dakota, The Associated Press reports.”

All abortions!!

Picture this :

A young girl living in the poor area of a town in South Dakota is abused and raped by her father. The young girl goes through this hell day after day until the point where she has to go to the hospital because the father has hit her too hard this time. The doctors find out that not only the girl physically and mentally bruised, she is also pregnant. Of course, the next step is to terminate the pregnancy BUT because the politicians of the state own the girl’s body, the pregnancy is not terminated. The girl, being poor, cannot go to another state to have an abortion. So, the girl, against her
wishes, has her father’s baby. The baby is given away promptly to the orphanage and is out of the picture and the girl falls deep into a mental break down and commits suicide. The father serves a scentence for a few months and is free to continue his abuse of other innocent victims.

And all the politicians in the state are happy to see that “a life has been saved” by their policies.

This is the beginning of the end of America.

Coroner: I have to go take care of the guy with the javelin in his chest.

Cop (shuddering): Why’d you get into this line of work in the first place?

Coroner (deadpan): Free javelins.

There is controversy about this new law that’s being introduced here in Ontario. The proposed law says that once a person dies and has not specifically stated to the provincial government that his/her organs cannot be used, it will be assumed that the person wanted to have his body harvested.

In the meantime, this is one of the policies I am in agreement with from the government. I think it will force people to look at the issue and make a choice (and balls to those who don’t give their consent). It will also make (a very, very small) impact on the black market

UPDATE : Added links