The computer defeated me yesterday

Things I learnt and realised in a futile quest that lasted well over 3 working hours.

1) An Atom processor is frustrating you're trying to use Dragonnaturally speak 10. You need a good processor to get it to work well without lag.
Todo: try to pawn off netbook for a heavy duty replacement.
2) Google search is not that great if you are looking for tech support. The forums are full of pointless and obvious blather, keyword optimisation has beaten meaning, coherence, and relevance.
3) HP's online product and driver support is fairly detailed, but not helpful. Lots of words, very little solutions. Driver support is unreliable .
3a) HP had a battery recall program recently, but it doesn't cover the laptop I am using, which more than a year old and has a battery life of 5 minutes.
3a)HP Pavilion DV2519TU, like many other products of theirs, has a peculiar problem that has no solution: You cannot plug a mic headset into the DV2519TU if you are trying to use it for voice recognition. The laptop's built-in mic is no good for VSR. No amount of fiddling in V's sound settings is going to help you fix this either. A reoriented windows UI makes pine for Windows XP.
The connexant HD smart audio 221 has 25 MB driver updates that do not alleviate this problem.
Your best bet is to use a bluetooth headset, or get an external USB sound card. I got one for rs 200. Which is what I did this morning.
And now I am sorted.

About Biz Journalism: Two interesting reads:

http://stanleybing.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/11/02/how-to-save-business-journalism/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/business/media/02carr.html?_r=2

Hat Tip: Parag Chhaper.

TED Inversions

Ideas worth spreading
from a walled garden

I am not a person
there is no you or me
We are all the same

The minds on the margin
are not marginal minds,
Only businessmen with
margins on their mind?

Write the code
that fits the world
today
Use a checklist
but do it any way

Write your obituary
before your CV

If the penny has dropped
your balls will soon.

Don't chase the paperwork,
Chase the dream,
The paperwork will
chase your dreams
and fuck your scenes

So stick your middle finger up
and say that I am one.

Wear a cap or a pope-hat
and do what needs done

And dont you fret
If you didn't make
any friends at TED

you can always be
a laughing Buddha
going alpha on the web

P.S. Wear sunscreen :"D

Retweeting what VS Ramachandran, Sadhguru Vasudev, Anil Gupta, David Pogue, Derek Spiers,
Devdutt Patnaik, Horst Rechelbacher, Kavita Ramdas, and Bob Thurman have said previously at TED.

As a net junkie and tech journalist, I consider myself a bit ahead of the curve in many respects, but TED India has given me five ideas that I'm fired up about. Has your penny dropped?

Talks from TED India will slowly trickle out into the information ether. The walled garden only seats 800, those who got in, through money, influence, jugaad, or merit have a major headstart.

Scenes from Mahabharata: Thus spake duryodhana

Got a whole bunch of sweet smelling Amar Chitra Katha comics from Bangalore. This stuff is off the hook.

Qualities of an antisocial entrepreneur

Hates people
is an elitist
probably a nerd
and ugly as sin
Or he could be
rich as sin
who gives lip service
while squeezing
employees, ecosystems,
enforcing patents
and copyrights

Quote hunt for syncretic polymaths

Quote hunting for this one particular paragraph, i think it's an american president, who says every man should know how to to architect and build a house, navigate using the stars, grow food a farm, start an industry. It's a vague recollection, but rousing.

Some quotes that I found during that search:

I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it.

Mankind naturally and generally love to be flatter'd: Whatever sooths our Pride, and tends to exalt our Species above the rest of the Creation, we are pleas'd with and easily believe, when ungrateful Truths shall be with the utmost Indignation rejected. "What! bring ourselves down to an Equality with the Beasts of the Field! with the meanest part of the Creation! 'Tis insufferable!" But, (to use a Piece of common Sense) our Geese are but Geese tho' we may think 'em Swans; and Truth will be Truth tho' it sometimes prove mortifying and distasteful.

• As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.

These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:

• 1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
• 2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
• 3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
• 4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
• 5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
• 6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
• 7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
• 8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
• 9. MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
• 10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
• 11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
• 12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
• 13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the principal studies and endeavours of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under this burthen of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey's end, when we may deliver up our trust into the hands of him who gave it, and receive such reward as to him shall seem proportioned to our merit. Such, dear Page, will be the language of the man who considers his situation in this life, and such should be the language of every man who would wish to render that situation as easy as the nature of it will admit. Few things will disturb him at all: nothing will disturb him much.

There are no iPhone killers sadly, only iPhone clones that aren't Apple branded

What's with all this killing business anyway. There will be no killing from now on.
Businessmen like to sit under a banyan tree and trade, stay rooted.
Also the Droid's keyboard sucks apparently, and the battery life is not that great.

I find satisfaction in killing mosquitoes though.