On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

She's known to us as ...simply...Dadda...which was my sister-in-law's childish way of saying "dAdi mA" (paternal grandmother).

She's approximately 90 years old; I'm not sure she knows when, exactly, her birthday is. She's as spry and perky as a sparrow. She still makes most of her meals herself; she was married to a freedom fighter, who won the tAmra patrA for his struggles, and still earns a freedom fighter's pension herself.

She's a repository of wisdom, tales of long ago, stories of her family, and is a superb cook.

She keeps up her pooja-pAth (rituals of worship) but accepts me as I am....and though she is rigid in her own discipline, she's incredibly modern in some of her views...when her grand-daughter wanted to marry a south Indian, and the relatives were against it, she said that her husband had fought for Indian independence, not north Indian independence!

She'll be travelling by train tonight, on her freedom fighter's pass... to Kanpur, Lucknow, and then to Haridwar, where she lives in an ashram, where, every day, she can see her beloved "gangA ji"...Mother Ganges.


Here she is, with our maid, Chitra, braiding her hair...which is snow-white, long, and curly as a baby's!





She's so affectionate...she travelled all the way from Haridwar, just to attend my daughter's wedding, and took a star part in the festivities....

Dadda...a dearly beloved lady.

I know there are several other similar types of sites but this is the one I started using. I have been unable to add books for the past month. Every book I search for (even things currently in my library!) cannot be found. I also can't add books from say the libraries of others. I've emailed the webmaster twice but haven't received a reply. I tried the site on two different computers with Windows XP and Vista on Firefox, IE and Chrome, but no go.

Thanks!

The weather finally let up a bit today, and I went for an hour's walk; went down to Luz, down Katcheri Road (or Cutchery Road), down Santhome High Road to the Marina, along it and back through Sir Radhakrishnan (earlier Edward Elliotts) Road.

Didn't take a camera, but the images are vivid....

Newspaper vendors, with piles of the day's papers, busy putting in the advertising leaflets, and sorting them out for quick delivery.

Large piles of milk sachets...also being taken for delivery, or being sold as they are, on the pavement.

Several people who are still fast asleep in shop doorways or on the footpath. Some are just waking up, and retying their lungies.

Tea-shops along the way, already bustling with activity; knots of people standing around, eating small biscuits and sipping tea.

Stray dogs everywhere, approaching hopefully, but yet too scared of having a stone chucked at them.

Walkers and joggers in their "uniforms" (branded tees, branded running slacks, branded shoes, and sometimes caps....also branded...) walking or trotting along, also with umbrellas.

Beggars who share the road and footpath with these walkers, yet occupy a different planet.

A tourist taxi that has "Do Before Die" painted on its side. (I wish I had brought my camera after all.)


Women making kOlams along the pavements in front of their homes.

The cars of the rich, parked along the Marina (to have a healthy walk, it's necessary to pollute the atmosphere in your car.)

The autos, getting down to the first demand and bargain for fare, of the day.

Push-carts and "fish carts" (they are "mini carts", which got abbreviated to "min carts"...and "meen" is Tamizh for "fish", so then they became "fish carts"!) and pedal carts with vegetables on them...beginning the day's sales.

Dirty roads and footpaths, with LOTS of plastic and trash.

Puddles that I step over, skirt, or step gingerly through.

The realization that pedestrians have NO rights here. Footpaths are often just that...a FOOT in height from the road level, and difficult to get on, or off.....on the Santhome High Road stretch, often so narrow as to be unusable....

A lone raptor (NOT a Black or a Brahminy Kite, but too far away for id) flapping its wings slowly, fading into the sky.

The glass architecture on Radhakrishnan Road. Some old, gracious buildings, in bad shape.

Grey, leaden sky, not warm at all...but still, humid and sticky.

Traffic increasing as I walk towards home.

Pot-bellied police constables, who, to their credit, are alertly on duty on the roads.

Flower-sellers already displaying their wares...garlands and lengths of jasmine carefully preserved from yesterday.

The realization, once again, of how much I like walking....I am happy, content....and I head for home, coffee, and the day's newspapers.

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/author/31-deepa-mohan

I find that Metblogs has been quietly deleting some of my earlier articles, that were written with a lot of effort. VERY unethical.

Anyone else here read this? I'm halfway through and it's a delightful read! To me, it seems like a strange cross between young adult fiction and regular grown-up fiction, as in either of those age groups could probably enjoy it. It's been a while since I've read anything like that, so I did some research on the author too. It was interesting to find that he used to be a film screenwriter before, and derives a lot of inspiration from cinematic as well as literary works for his writing. I'm curious to read more by him now. Can you guys tell me about any of his other books??

We thought the mist on the hills would prevent us from spotting birds. It didn't. We thought it would prevent us from photographing birds. It did.

But then we realized that the mist, in itself, was a thing of beauty.




( more images of the mist )

And just to see how it would look, I decided to take one image of the passing scenery through the rain-washed window of the car:






And finally, you can see the way the rainclouds are moving ...gliding...along the hilltops...












Rain and mist make for beautiful photography....!

It was raining in Bangalore. It is raining in Chennai. Well, it held off long enough for me to take a long walk last evening, but this morning it's pouring again.

Here's an image I liked, from the Nandi Hills trip, of Garima holding out her hand to feel the raindrops...







Off to do various duties now...back later, when I can...

You don’t need to be a fan of Bill Willingham’s Fables comics to like this book--you don’t even have to know what they are to understand Peter & Max. This is a re-telling of the Pied Piper of Hamelin story from a different perspective, one of those “what really happened” kind of tales. For every other character or event that might confuse the reader, Willingham explains the course of the comics in a few words and lines that, if anything, spoil crucial points of suspense that have navigated and pushed Fables over the years. But don’t let that discourage you at all if you’re a new fan. What I like the most about the comics and this book, is Willingham’s grasp of consequence and reality. To validate these fairy tales with contemporary ideas, Willingham is always examining the life of our favorite heroes and heroines in the unwritten pages after their most famous moments. Away from the storybook and our imaginations is a far removed perspective that pulls gently in our direction--here is more, it says to us; the story continues; life goes on.

For the folks in fairy tales--Fables, they call themselves--reality is about as pragmatic and mundane for them as it is for us. Forced to flee their fairy tale homes and find refuge in an enchanted portion of New York City’s Upper West Side, the Fables remind us that we know of only a tiny period in their lives; in our world they must learn to coexist in very human ways, without magic or magical objects that would draw attention to themselves. Yanked out of context of course it’s easy to imagine all sorts of wonderful, magical settings that make romantic adventures out of very real, scary episodes. Despite still writing in “happily ever after” endings, Willingham’s come a long way to revolutionize what’s been handed down to us for so long and in the same form.

Peter & Max is about the Piper family (a band of traveling minstrels), two brothers (Peter and Max), and the innocent Peep family who gets caught in the middle of fraternal jealousy and revenge. Like all such things, a combination of skewed perspective and hurt feelings tips the scales of envy towards violence. What begins as an ominous and mysterious set of flashbacks and present-day events, the story gradually finds promise in its most haunting thread: who is the true Pied Piper? Peter or Max? Peter is a sweet boy, always managing to do what’s right and do it well; Max is his older, but less talented, brother who snaps at the slightest attempt to undermine his authority and right as the eldest Piper child. It’s almost impossible to imagine the sweet-tempered Peter luring unsuspecting children out of their beds and away from their homes, but too predictable to assume the blame lays somewhere outside, somewhere obvious.

( Read the rest! )

Hello, booklovers. I have a feeling that mine is not an altogether right way of stepping here, but I do need some help from people who might be willing to provide it.
The thing is I have written a book. Yes, yes, I’m laughing myself. Nonetheless, please, do save your sense of humour for when you start reading it. Being a self-publishing writer, however – atrociously sad world, this one! – I am currently looking for several volunteers to proofread what my insolence considers as a work a merit. Don’t let the word “proofreading” scare you though. I don’t mean ‘editing’ it professionally, just seeing that the wording is in conformity with standard British English.
I hope my appeal for help does not hurt anybody’s feelings. If it does, I sincerely apologise.
For the same reason of being a self-publishing comrade, the only remuneration I am able to offer will be a free copy of the book along with your name in its Special Thanks list. Not very much, I know. I would LOVE to pay for proofing services, but self-publishing means you put your money into having your work published, but you very seldom make profits. I haven’t been one of those lucky guys.
If you’re curious, intrigued and tickled by any other feeling, you are more than welcome to visit the homepage of the future book, ‘The Red Britain Chronicles, or 4891: Comrade Cat, the Macho Axe Effect and the Human Gramophone’ at
http://sites.google.com/site/theredbritainchronicles/
where you can read sample chapters hereof and decide if you’d be tempted by my unappealing offer, or not really. I would even go as far as advising you to get acquainted with the sample chapters in the first place so that, one day soon, you do not find yourselves wondering how you could have accepted to proof a book which is poor or not exactly to your taste.
British English as your mother tongue would be sort of a plus in my case. (apologies if I sound in any way condescending or arrogant - I did not mean to sound this way at all!!!!!!!) Thank you for your patience and attention! And an excellent day to everyone!
Alexander
ps. May I ask you to respond to this post by sending me a private message (or ideally reply to my email - theredbritainchronicles@gmail.com ), instead of posting comments? I haven’t figured out yet how I can follow posts on this site. Thank you!

Ladies and gentlemen, if this book had a penis, I would kick it. It lies. This book is not just deceptive, it outright lies.



A demon trapped in a red gem. Spooky, but it could be just a metaphor. Let's check the backcover.

The Evil Masters. Imprisoned in bloodstones, buried in the catacombs, hidden vaults deep in the volcanic bowels of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Now they are unearthed by archaeologists, freed to work their evil on an unsuspecting humankind.

Bullshit!

Their blood-curdling orgy of nightmare-horror spans continents, crosses oceans, and finally plunges straight into the blazing volcanic maw of Kilimanjaro itself!



THAT SHIT DOESN'T HAPPEN!

As I was reading it, I kept filing away these comments for my review. Like, "two hundred pages and no blood-curdling orgy of nightmare horror." But I thought, okay, it's just the set-up. The blood-curdling orgy of nightmare horror is coming. Then "four hundred pages and no blood-curdling orgy of nightmare horror". I checked the last page. 520. So maybe the blood-curdling orgy of nightmare horror is the climax. Dishonest, sure, but okay. Then I got to the end of the book.

No blood-curdling orgy of nightmare horror. Not one.

You want me to tell you what it is about? Well, really, I have no fucking idea. I think it's part of a series, because it starts off with these archaeologists in trouble like they just escaped from some horrifying situation, but it's not the cryptic kind of mysterious, it's the 'you should know this already' kind of mysterious. Now look up. Did you see anything in the backcover description to make you think this was part of a series? No! They just sell it as a standalone so you buy it, then you realize it's a sequel and you have to give them more money to know what's going on. I hate when they do that! I'm looking at the book and there's no way to know what the prequel is or if there even is a prequel! I looked it up on Wikipedia and it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page.

( A tl;dr rant about a tl;dr book. )

But hey, maybe the prose is good? Shit plotting can be redeemed by dialogue and description sometimes, right Joss Whedon? No?

( The goofiest rape scene outside of a Gor book. )

( Did I mention Jade's sidekick? He's pretty light on his feet. )

( Sky-diving! )

( More of the romance between Raun and Jade, who are shockingly not Star Wars characters. )

( No, really, Jade has superpowers. )

( But it's not all fun and games. Jade has a nemesis, the mad Russian Belov, who runs into that girl who got raped? You remember, with the rhino? )

Ten Thousand Lovers by Edeet Ravel
Tel Aviv Trilogy #1
Review 2003
373 pages
Fiction


This was a random buy the other week; the author's new book caught my eye and since it was the third book in a sort-of trilogy, I picked up the first one, this one, and was interested enough to take it home with me. For some reason, it was just begging to be read, so it didn't have to wait the usual waiting period of books I take home (which is anywhere between five months and five years). However, now that it's time to write the review, I find myself stuck. Every time I try to summarise it, it just doesn't sound right. So I'm ditching my usual review structure and will just talk about the book, revealing necessary bits of the plot-light story as I go.

The premise, in brief, is about a young woman, Lily, studying linguistics and language at the university in Jerusalem who meets a man, Ami, who works as an interrogator for the army. It is a story of their love for one another, a story of horror and heartbreak in a war-torn country, of a people persecuted - and I'm not talking about the Jews here. It's a powerful story, set in the 70s, that is inherently relevant today.

( Read on... )

The Nandi hills trip was wonderful...but from this video, you can get an idea of how it was for birding....






It was utterly beautiful, and we did manage to see a wide variety of birds, and though I don't have the images to back that statement up, I have...plenty of fellow-birders to testify to it!

Hello. Not sure if this is okay to post here. If not, let me know, and I will remove it.

I am selling a signed hardback copy of the book Impetus of Dreams by the artist Daniel Merriam. (I have it listed on Craigslist, but will pull it and deal with any serious buyer via Paypal.)



Thanks :)

Speaking of clippings from youtube.com, here is one that I enjoyed watching: ((Oh well, this is from the dancer's website):
http://mythiliprakash.com/videos5.html

It's difficult not to sound whiny, but the past fifteen days, as the gum infection has been steadily drained and dried, have been quite murderous. I have now learnt to ask for fresh local anaesthetics as the first injections wear off...but still the deep pain has been quite unbearable sometimes...and being alone in the house is NOT very nice. To be unable, at times, to get up, and yet to know that I have to drag myself to the kitchen for even a drink of water, has been very hard.

But it has taught me how difficult it must be to undergo this kind of chronic pain on a regular basis....and surely, I will be even more gentle when dealing with ill people. I will be able to bear their crankiness, because I know how cranky one feels with constant pain; I will be empathetic to their depression, as I have experienced the lows that being unwell brings. Er...all these good intentions are there now...

These thoughts have been brought out by visiting a friend whose ailing mother is now with her, and she was describing the difficulties of caring for a very strong-willed elderly person...having gone through this a few years ago, I could really understand her problems.

Caring for the elderly is very similar, in the acts performed...feeding, cleaning up, full responsiblity...to caring for a baby...but it is certainly bereft of the joys of the latter. With a baby, one is watching a person and a personality developing...with an elder, it is the waning of a person, of a childhood without any appeal to it. An elderly patient is often cranky and wilful, and also often complains about the caregivers to all the visitors, and sometimes, it's very hard to take.

I am taking a break for a month from the dental treatment, but will come back to get the root canal done...for the fourth (and hopefully final) time.

In the meanwhile, of course, I have tried to do as much as I can, and have thoroughly enjoyed meeting up with those friends who did make the effort to come home (alas, not all of them did!), went on wildlife trips, went to plays, and just....enjoyed being back home as well.

Well, a month in Chennai will bring me back even more appreciative of home....

But before I leave, a quick trip to Nandi Hills, with the BULBs is on for tomorrow! :)

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

Title: Fire Editor: Kristin Cashore Format: TC Available Formats: Kindle, Sony eBook, Audio Download, Audio CD Page Count: 461 Genre: Fantasy/Young Adult Publisher: Dial Pub. Date: October 5, 2009 ISBN-13: 9780803734616 Series: A novel in the Grace universe Rating: 10 of 10

Summary:
Fire gets her name from her hair. After all, the shade of her hair contributes to her terrible beauty. Fire is a monster and her unnatural beauty and coloring comes from that fact. Being a monster also ostracizes Fire from society. Of course, it doesn't help that her father was one of the most feared men in the kingdom, Cansrel. He had the ability to enter the minds of others and twist them to his own devices. So can Fire. But Fire does not want to be a second Cansrel...

TL;DR Version:
Anyone who loves unique, strong female protagonists must read this book. Both Graceling and Fire have raised Kristin Cashore up into my favorite authors because of her beautifully rendered protagonists (each unique from the other, both strong in their own way) and interesting world. Do not hesitate to read either book. Although, if pressed, I'd say Fire is a bit deeper than Graceling, I'd recommend reading in order all the same.

( Read the rest at Book Love Affair? )

If

Karthik

comes, can moths be far behind?

Yesterday, he told us that this beautiful

OLEANDER HAWK MOTH

was sitting on the staircase of my apartment, so mohanvee and I went off to photograph it...





Meanwhile, he had also spotted these two...a lovely gold-and red one:





and an even prettier "pied" moth....





I guess all moths and butterflies know an expert when they see one, and consider Karthik a kind of foster moth-er....

Couldn't resist that!