Christmas.NET - Dedicated to all the programmers out there

using Self;
using Self.Emotions;
using Self.Online.Blog;
using Self.Rides.Bike.Pulsar150;
using Self.Offline.GirlFriend;
using Self.Offline.SocialCircle.Dudes;
using Self.Gadgets.Canon500D;
using Self.Gadgets.AmazonKindle;

namespace Self.Life.Experience
{
    public class Christmas
    {
        public Christmas()
        {
            InitialiseComponents(Self.Life.Instances[CURRENT_INSTANCE]);

            GalacticDomination.Thread.Suspend();

            Emotion emo = Chrismas_Start(new System.TimeSpan(48, 0, 0));
            Self.Life.Experience.Add(emo.Summary);
            Self.Life.Components[2009].Vacation.Add("Chritmas", emo);

            GalacticDomination.Thread.Resume();

            var settings = new { Audience = "Public", LevelOfDetail = "Overview", OutputLanguage = "Human, C# v3.5" };

            Blogs[TECH_BLOG].Post(this, emo, settings);
        }

        [System.Serializable]
        [System.STAThread]
        public Emotion Chrismas_Start(System.TimeSpan duration)
        {
            if (Self.CurrentStatus == Status.Married)
            {
                Monotonus.Do("boring, chistmas tree, boring, big dinner, boring, gifts under tree, boring");
                throw new InvalidSystemStateException("maybe try a few linux commands like sudo. If not on mono then no chance buddy");
            }

            Shopping("Gifts", "for friends, family, her");

            WithHer("Bike to Secluded spots, Curvy Hilly Roads", "use lots of breaking ;)");
            WatchMovie("London Dreams", "could have been better movie but only spent half the time actually watching movie");
            WithHer("xoxo", "[censored]");
            WithHer("Dinner", "Chinese");
            if (GiveGift("Her", "Necklace").IsHappy) Self.MentalState.SaveSnapshot();
            WithHer("xoxo", "[censored], snuggle, [censored], snuggle");
            Gadget("Kindle", "Read some more from 'Spin by Robert Charles Wilson'");

            duration.Subtract(new System.TimeSpan(24, 0, 0));

            BikeTo("Mussoorie", "No Snow, still lots of fun");
            WatchMovie("De Dana Dan", "great Hera Pheri like fun");
            Gadget("Kindle", "Catch up on blogs using google reader mobile ed.");

            BikeTo("Back Home", "make too much noise, overspeed, pit stop for beer");
            WithBuddies("Get Drunk", "best part of the day");
            GiveGift("Buddies", "Suspicious dvds, " + Emoticons.EvilGrin.Load());
            Gadget("Canon500D", "takes pics of buddies in wierd and compromising situations");
            WithBuddies("Passed Out", "best part of the Night");

            duration.Subtract(new System.TimeSpan(24, 0, 0));

            return new Emotion(this, "Happy", "Huge Handover");
        }
    }
}

Buying an Amazon Kindle 2 in India? Bollywood estyle!

Scene 0 – The hero spots the heroine. Love at first sight – General Specs

First off, I purchased a Kindle 2 and am very happy with the product. It is what it is said to be and then some!

But acquiring this neat gadget is not so easy if you are in India. It makes for a neat story with a whole lot of bollywood style twists. Read: kicking the ass of the hero(me) for the whole movie and then unite with the heroine (kindle 2 global) right at the end. o-O.

Like everyone else outside the US, The hero went crazy for a few seconds when he learnt about the Kindle going international global :D He simply had to have it. Any science fiction bookworm would agree. Reading about awesome alien worlds and insane time-travel ideas on a comparably cool gadget is boundless fun.

So sit back, relax and enjoy the saga.

Aside from being extremely hot, the Kindle 2 is an amazing device. It’s form factor is surprisingly thin and E-Ink is so clear and easy on your eyes that it looks even better in the sun unlike other displays we are accustomed to. It can show a whole variety of file formats and for those it cant, one can find even more converters to get the job done. The Wispernet is great and covers almost all over the world. Via EVDO and falls back to 3G, EDGE and GPRS respectively based on the cellular service. It can charge via USB too and functions as a pen drive when plugged in.

Scene 1 -  The seduction – Geek specs

It uses a Lithium-polymer battery which does not degrade after each charge cycle. It has a processor faster then the Iphone. It has a Cellular modem that has hidden GPS features. It is extremely easy to use as it follows the minimalism  methodology set by google. It has stereo speakers albeit not a full blown MP3 player. It runs linux! and with some cool software you can easily be looking at the root prompt and happily compiling a custom kernel. It has many experimental features like a browser, picture viewer (manga), MP3 player, audio books and Text 2 Speech in addition to the million and one hacks out there in the wild due to the OS being linux. Oh and did I mention, an internet access is free.

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All this in a 290 gram, super sleek, white hot body. The hero yells within ‘just take me. take me right here…’

Scene 2 – First date, her daddy is strict, no dates before marriage - Import fees and ways around

So, The hero trotted of to her home (Amazon.com) all giggly and bubbly and gobble up all the information on the new release and decided to ask her out on a date (check out the payment options).

The large import fees really made me mad and like all desi people couldn’t find it easy to pay the proper fees, need a jugaad shortcut. So I scour google with all the search trick i know. I find a few options like using one of those sites that provide you with a US address where you can ship the item and they forward it to you for a modest fee. The other one was a Chinese site selling Kindle at a much reduced price. However since kindle has a tiny cell phone for its eyes and ears I couldn't risk one of those options due to the fear of void warranty or wispernet not working.

So our hero wastes a lot of time on her from afar and finally succumbed to the Righteous ways. Marriage with the full 7 rounds. (i.e. the displayed $259 become $378.57). That is what girls do a guy’s pocket so the hero shouldn’t be surprised :)

Scene 3 – Family wants NRI - Payment options Credit card only

Soon thereafter the first hurdle comes, You have to have a credit card which I dont have (a whole other rebellious policy I subscribe to but best left out of this post). It wiped the smile off my face. More days pass searching and looking for options. Come up with only two. Either get someone to buy it for you or get someone to buy you a gift card which can then be used to make the purchase. I was a bit worried as, like other mobile devices, they get tagged to the purchaser.

The hero doesn’t want some random NRI to marry her and bring her to him. She is too hot to be trusted with anyone else.

After some talk here and there I find another in the middle option, Get someone to buy it for you as a gift ! In such a case the kindle is unregistered and one can then register it themselves. However, that options is some what hidden and not easy to catch. There is only one option and that is gift wrapping and that costs further more money. God help our hero. However after reading a lot more text in amazon support on the not so easy on eye non E-Ink monitor I find that just select gift wrap and dont select any wrapping method and add some gift message text and you are done. The purchase is made via a trusted friend

The heroine will stay single! All roads appear clear and our hero sings a couple of melodies. But he doesn’t know the mafia (whole shipping industry) is after her. The Mafia sends their minions all over the route. Will the heroine survive? Will they unite? The mafia is sure to be badass, what will the hero do?

Stay tuned for the next episode.

Ever thought what goes on in the mind and life of a scener(pirate)?

 

Ever thought what goes on in the mind and life of a scener(pirate)?  Watch The Scene series and see the first season first.

 

I was(am) a big fan of 'The Scene', a mini series that you can freely download and watch online, and stumbled back to their site today. This series is an awesome creative work about the life of pirates and it started the cycle of thought in me. I have researched this subjects many times and wanted to write a post about it as it is a very interesting world as well as a community of exceptional talent.

‘The Scene’ refers to the online piracy world including the real world aspects of it and the Sceners are the people who make warez(pirated stuff) available to us i.e. the public. They put themselves in real danger and, if caught, are exposed to very real consequences. This is not to be confused w ith hackers as that is a whole separate world and much more evil ;).

 

Organizations and Governments all around the world spend millions of dollars to try and stop piracy both by developing newer and difficult to pirate protection systems and legal teams to catch the culprits but we, the people, still get everything without paying anything. All due to the sceners.

We find it so easy to just go about downloading anything in sight, but the story of how that ‘thing’ found its way to the public sharing sites is a long and interesting one with all sorts of organized crime like aspects to it. Generally speaking, releases(warez) are created by a Release Group. In such a group there are sources and couriers, like someone in a DVD printing factory who will sneak one out to send to the encoders who convert the original stuff and package it into online deliverables via top-sites and uploaders. After going thru all those ranks of the group do the files reach out in the public. There are also the Primes  who are people who donate hardware to the top-sites for access rights on their servers so that they can get the very best releases, post requests for special items and to get the rights of bragging that they are the first ones to enjoy the releases.

Why do they do it. The most common reasons are along the lines like – they can do it so they do it, for the fun of it, for the thrill of doing something wrong and getting away with it and also for the fierce competitive world that The Scene is. Scene lifes are made and  destroyed based on who goes thru the process of obtaining and releasing an item first and in the correct way, leaving the others sulking in the dust behind them.

Despite what you might thing, The Scene is cut-throat and yet self-regulated community i.e. has its own rules and principles which the participants must follow or be removed. Without trust between the members of a group they would be caught easily or simply not live up to the competition. Due to the high risk life of a scener they use sophisticated anonymity and security software to fool anyone looking for them. They spoof, hop, run in circles and spew garbage leaving very little if any trace behind them. To this effect, there are a lot of methods that have evolved to keep some measure of control like release lists, where bad releases are nuked and access controls mechanisms to keep the blacklisted out, most of which the common man cant get a glimpse of.

 

The most hardcore of all sceners live a very secretive life and definitely are not the ones who like fame and exposure. It is extremely difficult to get in contact with such people even though be sure that they live among us. I like to think they live on a separate plane of existence :).

Now that you know a tiny bit about The Scene, next time you download ‘stuff’, take a moment to thank the uploaded and keep those speed limits off.

Cheers. Peace Out.

Links: Wiki 1 2 3 4. I was going to post a bunch of links here but it better to let you search it yourself and there is a whole lot of stuff out there.