Ah, the wonderful world of wireless...

Wireless LANs are great aren't they? Ofcourse, if you haven't used one before you wouldn't know. Well, when they work fine, I think they are brilliant. Right now, I've got a Wireless Router/ADSL modem from BT, which gets me my internet, and my notebook connects to that wirelessly. Cool. Allows me to walk around with my notebook (as if I run about lugging it around. There were a couple of problems setting it up. Well, actually, just one. The really fancy 'user-friendly' installation wizard (which also tells what you have to do out loud, hence asking you to increase your speaker volume)crashed right after restarting the computer...big surprise. So I ended up having to set it up manually, which actually wasn't that hard.

Then my landlady asked me to help her with HER wireless LAN for internet. Yay. How could I say no, I was living in her house! No really, it was fun. :) I thought to myself, how hard could it be? I've already done one! So. on and on. I got it hooked up to the main computer and got the connection working, but for some reason, I couldn't get any of the other laptops to connect to it. They could connect to mine downstairs, but not this one. So..troubleshooting..there we go. I ended up spending about 3 hours on the whole thing, even installing WinXP SP2 on the computers that didn't have it on. Also, one of the guys upstairs, Christian, had a german laptop, naturally, everything was in German on that one. So my SP2 installer didnt work. Hmm. Just to speed things up a bit, I decided to connect to a neighbouring house's Wireless network, (Ah, the wonderful world of wireless..now you know) and download a German version of SP2. It was only for half an hour anyway. :)

So SP2 on. Still no good. Grrr. Still more time spent on it. My frustration grew. I tried everything....and then, suddenly...VIOLA! It worked! Turned out that there was a wrong digit entered at the beginning of the installation that identified the router exactly, and when I rentered all the ID keys and WEP keys..it began to work. Whew! I actually felt a certain sense of elation at having managed to get it to work. However, my Wireless Adventures (as I'd like to start calling em now) were not over. There was a lovely Powerbook that needed to be connected to the LAN wirelessly and I couldn't even begin to start to understand how to get that to work lol. That's in my 'IN' tray now.

That done, I wanted to get my Linux OS to connect to the internet too. Wirelessly. Now that is, frankly one heck of a task, as far as my skills are concerned. I'm still working on it, and will be updating when I have actually accomplished something more than reach the closest hurdle (which is obviously just waiting for me).

Long Weekend

Nothing to do..

Gmail Invites...Got Lots More!

Well, I have 50 to give away, and if anyone wants one, just comment with ur email address to send the invite to!

Have fun!

Teleportation? What gives?

I had a random discussion with my mates today. Strangely enough, the topic involved "teleportation". oooo. Right, maybe its not yet 'Beam me up, Scotty' quality, but hey, I've heard that scientists are now able to recreate few atoms some distance away from their originals, (ofcourse the originals cease to exist after the 'teleportation'). This was what prompted various opinions from the guys about the subject of whether it would be really you that comes out of the other end of the, teleportation booth, if you will.

Let's say there is a booth on Earth into which you step in. You press a button, all sorts of stuff happens, and out you pop from a similar booth on Mars. At that very instant, you 'disappear' from the booth on Earth. The human being that comes out of the booth on Mars, is exactly you, with your memories, your consciousness, and has your body down to the position of an A-T band of your DNA. Now the question is, is it REALLY you that comes out of the booth on Mars? The striker is that, in this method of 'teleportation', the atoms which make up your whole body (on Earth) are entirely disassembled, going back to being just random particles. Meanwhile on Mars, random particles are assmebled together in the exact and only way of which the result is..YOU. The fact that upon teleporation, a 'part' of you ceases to exist, makes you wonder if it will really be you that appears on the other one, although that person (whether he is you or no) will not feel the moment of non-existence. My original opinion was that yes it would be you, because there is no other way that the certain combination on physical appearance and memory and conscious thoughts would NOT result in YOU. But then I thought, what if by some chance, the booth on Earth fails in a way, and although you are recreated (or teleported) on Mars, your original self comes out of the booth thinking that the teleportation didn't work? Now that would a dilemma wouldn't it? Which one would be the real you then? I suppose it depends on whose point of view you look at, in a way.

So, when it eventually happens, (ofcourse, they are doing fantastic stuff today, who knows what's next) teleportation is certainly something to give thought about, not just spend time playing with :) Similar implications to cloning, I suppose. :)

This is just...

To move those HUGE pictures down hehe. I didn't think this would happen. Formatting glitch. eesh.

UPDATE: Added "Peek-a-boo" Comments + "Read More" Links to each post, so that way the pictures problem does not mess up the main page.

Edinburgh. A Short Stumble.

Here are some selected pictures from my time in Edinburgh! I also had my caricature drawn, and I'm trying to find a scanner big enough to scan it, hehe.





That's Edinburgh Castle, one of the main tourist attractions and historical sties in the city. I can tell you it was a strange feeling to stand by the gates, looking upto the great ramparts, where hundreds of years ago, Kings and Queens dwelt, along with Knights and Lords of old.



This is St. Giles' Cathedral, which I passed on my way upto the Castle. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to take a look around the cathedral, as I was in a hurry to get to the Castle.



I took this while on a bus, going around a famous hill in Edinburgh (I forgot the name :D). There were these little lakes(or ponds) of water, with ducks and swans milling about looking smug 'n fed.



Edinburgh Castle again, a closer shot.



This is just some street in Edinburgh, I was trying to take a cooler looking picture than the normal ones :)



Another picture of the side of the Castle, showing the hill which it is upon.



Some random building in the city, which shows some Roman-type architecture? Odd.



Wehey! Benches and more benches!



This must be a gunner's view just before firing? Hmm, I suppose he would move away though :D



This must be part of the main keep of the Castle.



Here's a view of the city from on top of the walls of Edinburgh Castle. The Kings must have had a great view. I say the guy who planned where to build it has thought this through, eh.



Now this picture, unfortunately, is a bit blurred, but I wanted to show it anyway. These are swords, known now as Scottish Claymores. It is said that Sir William Wallace had carried a weapon such as this. And I can tell you that if he did, you wouldn't want to face him ! These blades were almost 4 feet long! And looked menacingly sharp. Brrr. Cool too :)



These should have been more impressive, but I guess I was too excited to be able to take proper pictures lol. The sword, crown and sceptre (behind crown) are replicas of the Scottish Crown Jewels. I know these aren't much to look at, but cameras weren't allowed in the Jewel Room (or whatever its called). Those actual Crown Jewels were .....wow....dazzling! Gold, silver inlaid with precious jewels, polished and cleaned till they shone like lamps... Even the scabbard of the Sword looked unbelievable... The blade of the Sword was also inlaid with some kind of writing, I couldn't read it, but the whole get-up looked awesome!



And the last one, just a bit of Scottish humour I suppose. If you don't get it, follow the arrow, and I promise I never touched the arrow or manipulated the image. Hehe. First time I heard I went "Say what?" to the guy who was giving me directions.

As always....

....I should post more regularly, no? Yes, I mean. Er. Right. Yea I will. Promise. Honest!

Finally!

Ah, I finally got my web-browsers working again. I was having trouble with Firefox and IE as they didnt load pages correctly, and I could never sign in to anything, especially blogger.com. Grr. Well its been an interesting few weeks so far.

I've just had half-term holidays, and went to Edinburgh for a day. Actually it was for the University's open day, but I kinda ended taking a look around the beautiful city the whole afternoon. I think the long train ride was certainly worth it! I'll be putting up some pics here soon.

Reason: None

Yea. I know. It's been more than a while. My fault really. Nobody held me back. I guess it was just me being angry with myself on that fateful day. I decided that I wouldn't brood over it after a few days. I didn't. But I just didn't have the heart to talk about it, for some reason. Either it was too much of a shock to me, or it was something I had long expected and feared.

Sigh. Got that habit from her. You know I'm talking about you. :P

In one way, I hate the cards that fate has dealt me. But only the bit where it says that I have to get a cold every other week. Damnit. Those viruses just cant get off me. Hmpf. Meanwhile, I'm losing a lot of valuable time trying to recover from this godforsaken incurable annoyance of an illness.