Friday, January 31, 2025

American and Japanese QUALITY GUYS

 

American and Japanese QUALITY GUYS

1. Walter Shewhart
2. Joseph M Juran
3. W. Edward Deming
4. Armand Feigenbum

5. Kaoru Ishikawa
6. Genichi Taguchi
7. Shigeo Shinto
8. Philip B Crosby

Faculty of Dental Sciences is celebrating its 25th anniversary.
I have to remember at least 3 Japanese.
I was involved with them from laying the foundation stone.
Dr. Yugiro Handa (now a professor)

He is now bit flabby and I cannot remember him wearing specks but he does it now.
He is now a professor and I can remember him saying he would be going to Africa.
I told him he is better as a ambassador but he choose to improve health and more importantly Treatment of Tuberculosis in Ethiopia.
  

Miss. Hagiwara
This lady was the one who managed the documentation and probably statistics.
She was bit stingy and did not give me a copy of SPSS for my research work.
This lady may be now in Ghana and trying to improve Child Health in African continent.
Through Professor Asoka Ekanayake I got her to install a copy of it in the Computer Unit of the Faculty of Dental Sciences.
I managed to find a pirated copy used by the Engineering Faculty Students.
My Microsoft Windows was not pirated and I had 42 odd 720MB floppies.
No wonder I turned to Linux.
It was one of my students Sanjeewa Kandegedara who game me my first working Linux copy.
He is now a good Maxillo Facial Surgeon.
I was involved in recruiting 45 young Dental Surgeons to be sent for Training in Japan.
Only two of them came back and only one paid back the security and resigned properly from the university.
Of course, none of them can joined the university again and they are blacklisted for life.
I think I was the only one who did not ask for foreign sojourns and I did my research work in Ceylon.

By the way, one of my parallel advanced level (bright guy) students from a different school did NOT get through medicine but got a scholarship in Japan.

He tried a scholarship in UK but failed.
He came back to settle his dues in the university and got married to a Japanese lady.
I told him, Japanese are very bad in English and start an English school in Japan, jokingly.
He took me seriously and opened an English Academy in Japan.

I have not seen him since.
Professor Ama Mia
He was a retired Professor of Oral  Pathology  and I gave my room for him to share.
His English was poor but sure enough he managed to learn English in six months and he made a presentation on special staining techniques.
He dissected a hamster and manually showed the technology to our technicians.
I preserved the skin coat of the hamster and kept it as a souvenir until my retirement.
I made his presentation into a booklet for our technicians to use.
My interest was Microscopes with a video display for students. My video microscope never aligned and what I focus student could not see (no synchronization).
99% of students who had never used a microscope in school were not interested in histopathology.
All of them I believed discarded from schools but working OK after thorough check up and alignment.
I of course put my own money and bought a digital microscope used by students in America.
Just forget about Electron Microscopy in Ceylon.
Total Quality Management in Education (at least in universities)
R.W our current president (shoddy deals) is the one who destroyed out University Education for him to initiate Fee Paying Private Universities.
 
We developed a streamlined University Education protocol for all the universities.

Professor Ranjith Mendis
R.W. came in and sacked the U.G.C chairman and destroyed the whole project and appointed a political goon.
Please do not believe him in his educational reforms.
His intention is to destroy our universities and install private institutions.
He is hell bent on this!
He destroyed the Quality Control of Education in Progress in the University System.
He thinks of Education like selling Wattakkas (pumpkin) and Bandakkas (ladies fingers).
When you look at him he is actually Big Pumpkin (I am referring to his brain not the belly).
5 S Principle
Sort
Set
Shine
Standardize
Sustain
TQM
Total Quality Management
Kaizen
Change for better
Continuous improvement

Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Debian on Samsung Tablet

Debian on Samsung Tablet

I have made a List of Arch Linux below and many have gone dormant.

I have tested only 4 of them excluding Steam OS.

I could never boot an ARCH Linux in my 15 odd Network of 32 bit computers of the past.

There are much better Linux distribution of Linux available.

Unless you want to become, a lifetime Linux developer, do not waste time on ARCH.

I am a longtime Linux user and avid critic of Linux and I have proposed Japanese 5 S for Linux.

I was the one who introduced this Principle to Private Hospitals in Ceylon. 

Unfortunately, none of the private hospitals practice this principle in Ceylon, now.

These five words from Demming (an an American who introduced these principles to Japan), I can remember by heart.

William Edwards Deming is referred to as a quality guru because he was one of the first, in the 1950s, to propose a modern approach to product quality by using staff management, planning, product design and process monitoring.

Much of the field of Quality originated from several individuals who spent their careers researching, teaching and developing the field of Quality. These individuals are Walter Shewhart, W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Philip Crosby, and Armand Fiegenbaum.

Japanese who adopted this was Kaoru Ishikawa.

I had the pleasure of working with J.I.C.A. Dr. Yugiro Handa (he is professor now).

The first is Dr. Yugiro Handa and he was an amiable guy and I used to tell him instead of JICA, he should become a diplomat. I lost touch with him and he never game me his email and I did not ask in any case.

The other was Miss Hagiwara, opposite Dr. Handa very reserved and difficult to make any tangible friend. She was a computer lady and had all the Windows proprietary software including statistics with her. She was stingy not necessarily due to copyright issues but her nature. I gave up trying her but got Professor Asoka Ekanayake to demand from her all the software needed for student education in the small computer unit we had.

She had to give in and I built a small network in Linux at home with 14 computers. 

TQM and the Pioneers Who Made Us Think About It

The origins of total quality management (TQM) can be traced back to the early 1950s, when W. Edwards Deming worked with Japanese automobile manufacturers to improve product quality. The aim was to help Japan rebuild after the devastation of World War II and regain a competitive edge in the global marketplace. Joseph Juran and Philip Crosby also played a key role in developing TQM, each with their own unique contribution. Juran emphasized the importance of continuous improvement, while Crosby focused on the need for organizations to meet customer expectations. Over time, TQM has become an essential element of business strategy for many organizations.

1. Sort

2. Set

3. Shine

4. Standardize

5. Sustain


YES, one can run run Linux on a Samsung Tablet.
It needs at least Android 14.
I think it is Debian Buster which is Version 10. The reason Abiword dis not work on this utility proves that.
I started with Android Version 4.4 which was named  Kitkat.
My cellphone on Android 13 does not support.
There is Linux Utility called User Land.
Do not use it it.
It is taken over by Ubuntu and one has to pay for the services.
I tried using User land 10 years ago on a Nokia Phone, supporting Android 8.
I could not do anything with it and gave it up. I think it was Android version 6.
I had over 10 Nokia phones and I did not know what version they were until, this Cellphone towers reach became an issue.
Current version of Android is 15. I think my old cellphones could support up to version 9, named Pie.
Cellphones supporting version 10 to 12 were expensive and as a pensioner I could not afford them, until I decided to buy two cellphones at cut rate before leaving Ceylon to Australia.

I knew in Australia cellphones were much expensive than in Singapore.

It is the same feeling now but Debian let one installs Synaptic Package Manager and  I even Installed Abiword, focus writer and LibreOffice.
Synaptic has ton of applications to choose.
I am still learning with only mouse key to work around, it is bit of a task. My fingers are OK, having been a Pediatric guy with surgical skills but my vision is the one that handicapping me.
I had to try Debian 4 times. Debian does not support it is an old edition.
I hope Debian Developers should look into its support for cellphone.
If an old guy like me can get it going on my Samsung I think newbie can do that.
Thank you Samsung.
I even got Chromium Browser running.

I think one should Install Synaptic Package Manager first. Synaptic look for libraries and that helps the Chromium Browser.
However, font installer hung up.
Keyboard is not virtual activated by defaults and LibreOffice needs fonts to work with.
I tried even Blender and it was slow and would not probably install.
Debian Developers are wise enough to support it but I think mature Debian Developers should help the young guys who took project seriously but have come into some difficulties.
Cellphone is not built to support Linux by default primarily because O.E.M guy feat that Samsung may be hacked by hackers.
There is only one cellphone, Pine that has Linux but it is for developers and is very expensive.
I hope before I kick the bucket I would have the pleasure to use a Linux phone. Even Ubuntu gave up. I was not keen using Linux on a cellphone moment I bought a NUC computer.
Mini PCs are ruling the computer world and very soon nobody would Apple phones would plummet. I think Apple cannot keep up with Mini PCs within a year or so.
I love the Mini PC with Touch Screen.

Active ARCH Linux distributions.

Asterisk indicates the year of first public release based on Arch Linux.

Inactive

These distributions are no longer developed, but show some of the history surrounding Arch Linux and the greater FOSS community. Sections show the year of the latest release.

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2004


Posted by at No comments:

Mini PC Domain-Minisforum Atomman X7

Mini PC Domain
Reason for using a Mini PC
Save Space, Money and Energy.
1. Save Space
2. Upgradability 
3. Productivity
4. Portable Gaming and Emulation
5. Save Money
6. Save Energy, consume less watts
7. They are Quiet

Minisforum seems to be the best with many options with up to 4 NVMe slots. 
One can add a frame for old SATA disks.
There is enough room inside and I believe one can change the CPU.
Oculink port is there for external GPU.
But it is very expensive but not worth the money spent.
DDR 5 up to 64 GB RAM.
Storage no problem at all.
Cooling system is pretty good and no thermal throttling at high work load.
It is a power house.
 
It does not have a touch screen on top which is my current craze. 
This is box shaped but I prefer a oblong or rectangular (cellphone like) design. 

Box shaped design generally makes the components cramped up inside.

Minisforum Atomman X7 has a touch screen design which is an excellent addition to Mini PC Domain.

Uses 
Multiple Monitors with 4K display with high frame rates
Gaming
Video Editing
Video Playback
AI compatible 

Setup
One can change the setup for Graphic Memory but they are optimally set at boot time and one should not fiddle with them without knowing how graphic cards perform in a given setting.

1. Minisforum 
2. Beelink is AMD
3. Acemagician
4. MSI
5. GMK Tech is Intel
6. Intel NUC
7. Morfine
8. Karui Plus 
9. Geekom 

Intel series are cheaper whereas AMD are expensive but performance efficient.

All these are better than Apple Mac cheaper and ungradable. With Apple one is stuck with their design, generally for two years at a time, whereas the rest of Chip Industry is moving forward extremely fast and dose not follow the old Moor's Law of incremental development.
It is actually exponential.
Chips have come down from 250 nanometers to almost 3 nanometers.

Samsung is on top with TSMC closely following.
Dell, LG and HP are way behind.
Intel NUC in the middle. 
NUC is bare bone but upgrade with a cost.

Ryzen is the CPU brand name
Radeon is the GPU brand name

Redeon is AMD proprietary Trade Mark.

Iris Xe is Intel at 1000 dollars whereas 
Geekom gives a better unit for 850 dollars.
This is the reason Intel NUC bowed downed to ASUS. 
Less people would be buying Intel NUC.

Graphic cards are expensive to produce and NVIDIA has been ruling the market.

RDNA is probably a Generic term for Graphic Cards
RDNA 5000, 6000 and 7000 series.

Choices
? Bare bone and cheap 
? Ready to go and expensive 

The Mini PC Domain is full of different Form Factor Units.
Deciding on a unit is almost impossible.

If you are new to mini PC, I recommend list your requirements before purchasing one.
Then go to the dealer and look for a Mini PC that fits your requirement and the budget. 
 
The plan is not to fiddle with the internal components inside once your operating system is installed.

I use Debian Linux which looks after the components and updates the system regularly. 
I have NO comments on other operating systems that are power hungry and resource hungry.

Adding components as and when one's money supply improves is not the way about. 
In that scenario waiting for a year or so is a good option, hence most of the old units with good performance invariably down their price when they introduce new designs. 

I do not recommend buying second hand one from E-bay (refurbished units), unless it is used as a spare unit. Managing two units is not are good idea. May be the spare unit one can take home over the weekend.

Mini PCs are in development for over a decade now, and they vary from the bare bone units to the top of the range units with many fancy brand names. 

I will let you know my own preferences later and I am not a gamer.

If you are are a compulsive game addict go for a top of the range unit and do not try to upgrade (it takes the warranty away). Besides, go for a 3 year warranty instead of one year as is the case of usual warranty.

One year difference is very big time in Mini PC Domain.

Limitations 
Has Integrated Graphic Card which cannot be upgraded. There are units with Thunderbolt and a port for external graphic cards but they are expensive. Problem with high end graphic cards is they consume lot of electricity and contribute to the thermal throttling. 
These units are meant to run on low power consumption.
Basic units do not have fans for cooling and use moderate resolution Integrated Graphic Cards which do not consume lot of power. 
 
But high end units will have well designed cooling system and fans but do not expect Water Cooling Systems in a Mini PCs.

RAM is not a problem with many units but single RAM units are undesirable. 
Two RAM slots is a necessity, simply because when running the system everything runs on RAM with only shared rendering with the Graphic Unit. Spending a lot on RAM is sensible. 
I use 8GB RAM in my NUC which is DDR4. 
I have a spare slot if I decide to do some graphic intensive work. 
I use Stacer (Linux Utility) to test my work load and my general consumption never exceeds 2GB out of 8GB. 
 
I run many Linux utilities in the background to test my user experience and never use cynebench marks.

CPU with single core is good for basic work but not good if heavy works loads are intended.

Multicore CPU is a necessity by default.
CPU is almost idle in my daily use.

Storage Hardware
With Nvme hard disk coming to market one must check what is the type of storage option and capacity.
I still use old (I have several), SSD SATA disks, and I look for whether the PC can accommodate one. 
I do not look for terabyte hard disks.

That's about it.
Only other thing, one has to worry about is how many ports are available for extensibility. 
Ports for mouse and keyboard cannot be used for other purposes. 
Stick them to the back and leave the ports in front for additional devices.
More ports there are it is better. 
This is especially so for monitors. 

Do not forget about audio / video outputs. 
 
I bought a cheap NUC without audio and I have to stick a USB Audio jack for music and video.

Having a stand for mounting is mandatory.

My Craze
The units with Touch Scree is my craze.
It is two units in one.
Cellphone and Computer Unit integrated.
 
I do not like the box or cube shaped units.
I prefer the rectangular shape units.

They are expensive but more units with new designs will come from China, if not from the West.
Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

My Samsung Tablet

My Samsung Tablet

Last time I updated it was in December 2013.

Last time I used it was in May 2024.
Touch screen is very smooth and l wish it keeps it like that for ever.
Google does not support Abiword hence I will never use this tablet for long pieces of writing. 
Certainly not books.
It is updated to Android 14.
My standard cellphone was updated to Android 13 and I am happy with it.

I expected it to be smooth after updating but it went into a fenzy mood trying to do many things (multitasking) at once.

Before updating had several pages with different application icons in different pages.
My regular browser is Firefox but I use several browsers. I wanted all my browsers in one page. I could not move application icons to what I desired or alternative location.

Moment I touch the icon it opens up the application and split the screen into 3.
This was annoying. 
With some fiddling I got the blogger app to the first page.
I went to the Setup and look at the option for display.
It had two options,
One standard icon display.
The other was the split active application display.
I choose standard and it did help to stabilize.

All these things are annoying to an old guy. But I am a fast leaner.
I used to keep my cellphone charged to 100%. 
Samsung advises to charge up to 85% for longer battery life. Battery life is a concern for me, simply because unlike the old ones one cannot replace the battery easily when it is dead. One had to break the rubber seal. My first Samsung cellphone had that problem.
I am a Nokia fan from the very beginning.
Posted by at No comments:

Ultimate Gamers Edition

Ultimate Gamers Edition
Most of these games age already bundled up in Debian Gnome in 64 bit format.
 
I have not tested but Ultimate Arch Gamers also have bundled their own game pack.
Even though, it is 4.4GB the Box Utility of Debian it mounts in a Virtual Session, bringing nostalgia of 32 bit era.
It has GDebi Package installer and that it means it is updated to current use and once installed one can install even my favorite Abiword. 
Being a gamer, it has no office packages.
I have no hesitation to recommend using it by a newbie or an old hand like me in Linux.
Thank YOU guys and Girls developing Ultimate Gamers Edition.
 
 I have include in my book "Linux Essentials" in the Gamers section.
 
I am not a fan of MATE and I have not used MATE as a regular user and that is why this Distribution has missed my attention.
By the way, I am not a fan of ARCH Linux but ARCH has come up with (Storm, Blue Star Linux, Arco Linux) many editions.
Blue Star Linux was 4.7GB and is a very elegant distribution only my lack of experience in ARCH Linux keep me not using it.
Manjaro is on top.
 
I am too, old to learn new tricks and I am happy with Debian.
 
It took almost two hours to download Blue Star Linux by torrents with only 3 seeders. I used my old Laptop. I use my Laptop (500GB but only half full after loading with all the Linux images) to store store all the Linux images, since my NUC has no space. Already filled with over 50 Iso images, mostly old Puppy Linux my favorite.
 
Linux Mint
MxLinux
Debian
4M Linux (version 5 did not have seeders). 
Majaro
Blue Star linux
 
By the way, Netrunner KDE derivative has become one of my favorite distributions which has many attributes.
 
Ultimate Gamers Edition is an open source and completely free Linux kernel based operating system derived from the world’s most popular distribution of Linux, Ubuntu, and designed from the ground up for hardcore Gamers. The Gamers flavour of the Ultimate Edition Linux operating system is distributed as a Live DVD ISO image that has approximately 4GB in size,    it supports both 32 bit (x86) and 64 bit (x86_64) hardware platforms, but contains software packages optimized only for the 32 bit architecture. It can be written to either a DVD disc or a USB thumb drive of 4GB or higher capacity.
Being designed from the ground up as a Live DVD, the Ultimate Gamers Edition distribution will allow the user to use the entire system directly from the bootable medium, in live mode. By default, it will start automatically when you boot the ISO image from the BIOS of a PC, but various advanced boot options are available on the boot menu.
The distribution’s default and only graphical desktop environment is powered by LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment), which uses a traditional single panel layout for a productive and very fast desktop experience.
Among the pre-installed gamesare 3D chess, Airstrike, Aisleriot Solitaire, Barrage, Blackjack, Boswars, Brutal, Chess, BzFlag, Brutal Chess, Chess, Dream Chess, Five or more, Foo Billiard, Four in a row, Freecell, Gbrainy, Glest, Gnometris, Gridwars, Hearts, Lango, Kslotski, Majongg and Mines.
The Nexuiz, Nibbles, Nimuh, Open Arena, PokerTH, Robots, SameGnome, Sauerbraten, Snoballz, Suduku, Super Tux 2, Tali, Tetravex, Tremulous, Vetris and Warsow are also included.
The Play On Linux application, a graphical front end for the award winning Wine software, will allow the user to download, install and play games that have been designed to work only on the Microsoft Windows operating system.
Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Email Etiquette

 
Email Etiquette

Web is full of suckers.

Most of them pretend to be your Advisor or Savior.
This is true with obtaining VISA.
But they are suckers.

They are out there to get your money and email and more importantly your personal details.

They use your identity to get involved in undesirable activities.
Beside your government or its stooges are the most untrustworthy.
For example your Grama Niladari is not innocent.
He/She provides your information (sometimes incorrect) to the politicos and often leave important documents lying around.

Not in a safe or safe place.

In that way I am against this new trend in e-governace and e-commerce.

They provide these information to third parties and there are no legislation in this country to prevent them doing so.

Most of is done under the name of prevention of terrorism but now used for political mileage.

The police is not selective but they are corrupt.

They have no mechanism to anticipate and prevent disaster.
They are always after the fact and slow to respond.

So with this background my advice is simple.

1. If you do not need an email or not competent enough in using please do not open one.

2. If you do have one do not share it with others.
It is private property like an address.
Like our politicos you cannot have more than one birth certificate or more than one identity card.

3. Hackers are out their to use you as a Zombie.
Identity theft is a serious offense.
Our politicos operate in this way.

4. If you are opening an email, you should have at least two not one, for good reason.

I forgot my password for my private email it took three months for me to recover.

I forgot the 'the pet phrase' and the document that I wrote them was misplaced.
After three months, my memory recovered by accident and the pet phrase (now I have a pet phrase recovery method) was typed in to get back to the normal working order.

This was time I was migrating from Microsoft (dual booting) to Linux so my memory loss was not due to sickness but due to work overload and lack of sleep.

Trying to do too many things one at the  same time and wasting my time downloading Linux at night.

It was appallingly slow and University download was even worse and was restricted.
This was the time I had a university email and it was hacked by a guy who worked there for a while (temporary may be) and did some damage due probably to personal vendetta after leaving the university.

He took the password and the email password document of a particular faculty with him.
This was the time of mistrust and terrorism in its peak and with the most bizarre password (it was stolen) of all, I had was stolen.

The password was file was stored in a Microsoft Server which was available for the hacker/s.

So my conviction to go for Linux for the sake of Security was of paramount importance and the university was slow to adapt to Linux.

I never used university portals for my work and developed my own little private network which is practically dismantled to save my electricity bill NOW.

My daughter's Microsoft computer at home with
wireless connectivity was hacked most probably by a guy in the Engineering Faculty but never ventured to capture the culprit / guy but changed my tactics to be secure.

Coming back, if you forget your password, the easiest way is to give the service provider the alternative email so that they send an instant email for you to have a new password.
This simple technique was not there 15 years ago.

5. The use of alternative email gives you flexibility.

6. I have many emails and one email is for money transactions only and I do not give it to anybody.

7. Another is to keep track with my batch mates and I always get the sad news of demise of another guy with serious illness.

8. Another one for all the academic / magazine articles.

9. The email what I regularly use is called the Junk Email. So anybody who sends an email to it is considered a JUNK MAN / WOMAN.

10. My biggest problem is when I kick the bucket who will be responsible for them.

I have already forwarded them to Apaya Director to take appropriate action since I will be in Apaya as a guest speaker since I have done nothing to stop the Sri-Lankan National / International criminals who go scot free from all their crimes and his / her / their balance of crimes have been credited to my account by accident.

I need to clean my balance sheet at Apaya before I think of my next birth.

Not Sri-Lanka again by default.

I am tired living with criminals, including Cyber criminals.
Posted by at No comments:

Managing Passwords

 Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Managing Passwords
 
I think Ubuntu One and few others give concern for good password management.
Naming others would be improper since they are not Open Source based.

What goes behind them and whether they share them with the NSA or a corrupt regimes is open for debate. I have personnel reason to believe they do and my own experience with institutions specially corrupt or vested interests, is on the affirmative.

They are hell bent to breach any privacy one may have.
The reason being that they do not want to be exposed of their sordid acts.
They are paranoid and it is a disease.

Fact that this blog post exists is due to the interference with my blog post elsewhere and a site that lacked good security protocol.

They were dysfunctional over more than a year and I do not use the site anymore.
My writings were very docile innocent and not politically involved.
They were bit humorous and the basic ingredients were satire.

Unfortunately for me, out of the top ten, my writings (I was involved in initial setup) filled the top eight and the administrator got paranoid and blocked my name.
I still continued to write (very little traffic) in spite of noticing the administrators handiwork, since my idea was not to reach the top ten.
They used my birthday as a discriminator. 
This institute is now defunct not due to my influence.
 
Who says there is no discrimination in web hosting and social media.
But my writings were there for anybody to read in spite of blocking the rating.
I have collated them and recently deleted 75% of the original writings from that site.
Some of them are now in digital output for posterity, in a book form.

This preamble is necessary since when one opens one’s heart and not the mind in the web, one has to be prepared for insults and discrimination.
Sadly now governments and secret agencies are doing things that one would not suspect 30 years ago.
Technocrats and not the real hard working guys who fill these posts and operating from air conditioned cubicles and are scared to be on the beat and foot.
 
Invariably paranoia develops.

So I think it is necessary to have a bit of paranoia when one enters the web with email to begin with.

How does one have a good password?
 
How one can remember a password with 14 to 16 characters (what banks employ now for an account, with the help of computers)?

To begin with one has to train the brain to remember.
I have a suggestion elsewhere (under web etiquette) that  I do not want to repeat here.

Beginning,

Step 1
One has to remember in blocks of three or four.
To train your mind try to remember your VISA card number.
Front four are almost specific and easy.
The last four should be your next attempt.
Do this every time when you go to the bank or to the till.
Do not worry if you forget.
When you can remember the first and the last lot of four numbers, try the other two lot not in specific way.
Suddenly part of the brain not utilized before get a rush of blood and new neurone networks.
Person with any age with firm resolve can do that.
This subconscious repetitive acts can be easily extended to one's password.

I used to remember all the telephone numbers of my friends by heart in good old days and friends are the ones, one frequently ring and (telephone charges were relatively expensive, then) the brain stores them for good.
 
I stop doing that when cell phones came into existence.
 
One has to have one’s own trick for remembering blocks of three or four.

Try to associate them with pictures, names, pets etc.
 
Your pet fish or dog or cat would have a secret code attached.
Every time you feed them repeat the code (in mind) mentally in no time it get fixed as a long term permanent memory.

Step 2
 
Come with a phrase to include all the 10 to 16 characters in one’s password.
This is the hard part but it can be done.

Step 3
Use elements that one never forgets (unless one has Dementia).
Birthday is an easy one to remember.
 
Use only two numbers from it, not all.

Step 4
Unfortunately this cannot be used if one is English but I will give some hint for them too.
For Sinhala U Mata Banna, or Muta Mata Gahanna Hithenawa or Even Puke Ariya are good enough relatively used rephrases one can remember in trans-literate content, which the English Search engine might have trouble in figuring out.
From that phrase  one can choose four characters (even more if the phrase is carefully constructed) easily.
For English user, one good example is to go to alchemy and remember few Elements from the Tables.
Elements like Argon, Neon, Nitrogen,Bromine could be used at lib.
Or even one can use pentagon, hexagon, octagon or any other scientific or mathematical elements.
 
Again one only remembers four characters.

Step 5
If one has ever used a password before which one has remembered with repeated usage, use the same in the middle or rearrange it and put it in the middle.
 
Which will easily give you at least six characters.

You already got 12 characters now.
 
Use two capital letters easy to access from the keyboard as the leader or the end of the password or leader and end, depending one is right or left handed.

Step 6.
If the web site requires you to use an alphanumeric pick an alpha numeral to satisfy them.
You got 16 in all and 14 probably is adequate.

Step 7
Do not tell your method to anybody.
Do not share your password even with your spouse.
One day you me be divorced!
That is real and if you have time read my book on “Myths, Miracles and Marriage”.
Usually perfectly normal people become paranoid after getting married.
That is my medical experience.
It is often the people who are near and dear (sometimes, so called friends) who steal your password, not a rouge who breaks in for quick takeaway and getaway.

Keep the record of the method in a secret hiding place that you only have access.
In case one day you forget.
The best place to Hide is your brain.
Not even a brain surgeon would have any access.



When resetting the password.
When you change the password, drop two and take two from your birthday.
Pick four alternative block of four from your catch phrase.
Jumble your original password or add a new one.
Follow the rest as required and one may be able to go on till eighty to ninety since you practised your own method and is almost specific to YOUR BRAIN which a hacker may not be able to penetrate or crack.

Unless you are one of twins there are no two people alike.
Even in them their are subtle differences not due to genetics but the brain behaves differently, even in twins.

Foot Note
But beware your doctor with a short memory or who is cash strapped who might steal your birth day or the catch phrase that you utter to him every time you visit.
Remember doctors forget their passwords more often than their patients.
They will never tell you.
That is why they record every word you utter and then get the vital diagnosis
wrong.
In this computer age doctors have become robots (unlike good old days) and not real humans.
If they ask you do you forget your passwords
Straight away say NO.

The stupid guy will ask you to state the password and put it in his computer memory which is not protected from hackers.
Even the nurse can steal it, if she/he is inclined.

I trust my doctor does not apply to passwords when you do visit him/her, next time, round.
That includes me too.
I might do that, catch your password, certainly not to steal but because my brain is getting absent minded I might put that in my computer, easily accessed even by a little kid.
Do not worry, I do not practice now by choice not by design anyway.
You are safe with me, my dear.
Posted by at No comments:

Hackers, Holidays, Homing Folder and Homing In

January 22nd 2018 / 22-01-2018

Hackers, Holidays, Homing Folder and Homing In

Definitions

Hacker (term), a contentious term used in computing for several types of persons

C1. Hacker (computer security) or cracker, who accesses a computer system by circumventing its security system

C2. Hacker (hobbyist), who makes innovative customization's or combinations of retail electronic and computer equipment

C3. Hacker (programmer subculture), who shares an anti-authoritarian approach to software development now associated with the free software movement

Hackers and Holidays
I refer to the category C1 in here since this is the holiday time and all the developers with FOSS mentality are holidaying and enjoying the Christmas, the shady guys become active by default during holidays.

I won’t go into detail of how to manage your security which has to be the responsibility of the individual.

If one leave the back door open, thieves will walk in.

You have two back doors unlike in a house.

1.The biggest of it is YOUR EMAIL with a loose password.

2. Unsuspecting back door is Your Browser with cookies to spy on your likes and dislikes

3. The deadliest is the combination of the two thieves.

YOU sign in and forget to sign off.

The second thief, the browser keeps a memory of your log in and often the encrypted password.

The best security I advise is not to have an email and not to browse the WEB but take a nice story book of your liking or get  your Amazon’s Kindle or Noble eBook and read during the holidays.

If you cannot resist both of the above vices, I have a few tricks up my sleeve for you, with the hacker’s mentality in me ignited.

Have two browsers or may be three with Amazons silk included.

Go for a light weight browser, Midori,  Ice Weasel type for your simple activities.

Then have any Gorilla Type of browser with your liking.

Then you have to do your own hacking.

Go to the properties and take all the cookies out or decommission them for good.

I have tried all the other methods but this the best remedy, I have found for the holidays.

I of course do a full format by the end of December of in January.

With so many Linux distribution in store already downloaded, I have to toss a coin and select the first five.

If you are PARANOID (It is a disease many of us, especially westerners have when they come here on holidays and do not recognize as it is and become non-human) what one has do is to download a live Linux CD with TOR (to RAM) in it and use it at lib.

There are many including Pollipix.

If you are in a country with a dictator running the day to day affairs these are an added security.

Do not PLEASE use the D.O.D's L.P.S (Light Portable Linux) even by accident an it is only for Russian Secret Service KGB developed by American CIA .

This distribution is worse than your email and the Gorilla browser and it sends all your transactions to a web-eavesdropper without your knowledge.

HOME FOLDER
This is where all your junk is.
What you do with your junk is your own pejorative.

Best defense mechanism is to not to have a home or home folder but become a vagrant or a vagabond.

Homing In

Switch off the computer.
Go to the up market.
By some wine, beer, cookies, chocolates, music CD (NO VIDEO PLEASE) and anything else you may think that Santa Claus won’t bring for YOU and
Home In and enjoy with your dear ones.

Unfortunately the holiday won’t last long, so make best use of it now.

For me because of our industrial action, this is the shortest holiday we have had for a long time, I can remember.

I made another mistake beginning of this year.

That is to blog a piece a day which I kept till now except one day.

I am glad I missed one in the very beginning so that I got out of the regimented or the religious enthusiasm.

Both are bad for your health and the sense of humour.

I am hoping to dream a lot and I will be back with some dreams (only if I dream some good ones).

Till then Good Bye and special thanks to Linux Guys/Girls who made 20th birthday of Linux in September a happy occasion for me to write few books on Linux, too.
In its 21st birthday, the KILLER organization called Cloud Computing will emerge and only UBUNTU is ready with this challenge.

Special thanks to Ubuntu for Ubuntu One and UNITY desktop.

I am waiting to buy a Tablet but this is the only godforsaken (Ceylon) country where they try to open private universities but have not allowed (unofficial ban) Amazon wireless service for me to read a Kindle (not even my books in Kindle) Fire this Christmas when I am bored with our Media (both private and government).

Reason for this unofficial ban of Amazon probably is due to the Education Department won’t be able to donate the books (20 years outdated-some of them especially IT and Science) they published with religious vigor to unsuspecting students.
Posted by at No comments:

Debian on a USB Stick

Thursday, September 26, 2019
Debian on a USB Stick

Making a Bootable USB stick (USB 2) with Debian 9.8.0 is humanly impossible.
1. I tried it with the latest DVD (First out of the 3 DVDs).
2. It has enormous amount of packages and does not fit in with a 16 GB stick.
3. Writing took nearly four (4) hours and aborted with failure to install software.
4. I tired to (thinking that it might help to recover).
It did not (probably no space left) write a Grub file.
5. I could mount Debian on a USB 3 64 GB stick (no installing) with MultiSystem Software.
6. I tried UnetBootIn and failed.
7. Now Linux does not support writing a Grub file on a USB stick.
My advice is to use SSD external drives.
I have several and discarding all Old USB sticks.
Alternative is to try other Linux distributions on USB sticks.
AVLinux supports booting from a USB stick.
I do not know whether Peppermint, ElementaryOS or PinguyOS support USB booting.

It is time to say Good Bye to USB 2 sticks, except for data writing.
I am not sure one needs a swap partition for SSDs but all the same reserved some space for swap.
SSD does not support Master Boot Record and one cannot install a second Linux distribution.
I have Debian on my Mater SSD but I reserved  J.F.S partition for a second distribution. It is unusable.
New technology does not support Old very but productive methodology.
My old turntable drives with terabyte capacity have three or four distributions installed with over 500 GB left for my data (films, photos, books and record of my Document Files).
One does not need cloud to store data, especially if your Internet connection and supply is pretty slow.
It is true in my case and I work only past midnight.

The technicalities behind it are tricky, but MBR is constrained by the capacity and limited number of its sectors—only 32 bits are available to represent logical sectors. You can find out more on Microsoft’s TechNet blog, but it means that MBR can only use up to 2TB of storage space. Anything larger than that, and the extra disk space is marked as unallocated and unusable.
 
GPT allows for 64 bits, which means that the storage limitation is 9.4ZB. That’s a zettabyte, which is one sextillion bytes or a trillion gigabytes. In practice, what it really means is that GPT has no real-world limit. You can buy any capacity drive and GPT will be able to use all of the space.
In short: MBR can support up to 2TB; GPT handles up to 9.4ZB.
Posted by at No comments:

Monday, January 27, 2025

King Asoka

King Asoka
Chandragupta was the father Bimbisara.
He established the North Indian Territory.

Bimbisara
Three sons of different mothers
Eldest Susima
Youngest Tusia

Asoka was the second. 
He was a warrior from young age.
Captured Taxila.
Later Udeni
He fought his brothers and became the King.
Married Devi from the Maurian clan who was Buddhist.
Chakravathi or Kings of Kings was the model then.
Kalinga was a brutal battle.
Instead of being victorious he repented on the carnage that ensued.
The horror and remose made him to change for ever. Educated and very sensitive Asoka sworn not to bear arms again.
Conquer the world through Dhamma was his ultimate message to the world.
He studied Buddhism.
His guru was Bhikku Gupta.
He was accepted to the the Sasana.
He erected Edits all over India.
Law and Order was his message to the people not dictatorial control.

Right not Might was his Goal.
He was pious but was a forceful emperor.
Benevolence to all living beings was his mantra. Sacrifice of animals for food was his name.

Third Buddhist Council was held in Pataliputra.
He sent missions to all over the world including Greece. The name Yona is Greek word for Buddhist converts.

Asoka
Mahinda
Singamitta 


Monks Sona and Uttara were sent by King Asoka from Magada to ? Thailand.
Thai people were originally from China. They move out due to oppression by Chinese Huang King.
They finally reached Thailand.
Thai means to be FREE.

Buddhism came in 1500 after Buddha.
Swarnabhmi
?Cambodia 
?Myanmar 
?Laos
?Thailand

King Kaniska
Mahayana Buddhism reached Sumatra.

But most likely Buddhism reached Thailand from Ceylon.
Therrvara Buddhism was established by Buddhist monks from Ceylon.

Upali and Ariyamuni Theras of Thailand reestablished Buddhist Sangha, Siyam Nikaya in Ceylon in 1753.during King Keerthi Sri Rajasingha. Then, the Buddhism in Ceylon had declined without any Upasampada Bhikkus.

In Thailand King has to be  Buddhist.
Last hereditary King became a dictator and was ousted by a military commander.
The current Kingship was created by this military commander who was devout Buddhist.
Thai people are very disciplined and respect their military. The military never allowed foreign conquer for many centuries.
Thai follow strict Theravada Buddhism.
Posted by at No comments:

Rebirth and Dhamma by Bhikku Bodhi

Even though, I have extracted this from Bhikku Bodhi's talk, I have added my own subtle insinuations.
Hence, I am responsible (not Bhikku Bodhi) for this piece and of any inconsistencies contained within.
 
There positions regarding Destiny after Death
1. Materialistic view is  that at Death material form and mind disintegrate leaving behind elements. This view deny existence of life after death or Rebirth.

2. The second belief is that there is one human life here and after death, one is born in either heaven or hell.

3. The third is the belief in Rebirth.
There is a chain of births before and after.
In Hinduism the belief is there is a permanent Soul that transmigrate from one to the other. 
The simile is that the Soul like casting one set of clothes after another, cast one body and get holds with another body.
The Soul remains intact.

In Buddhist teaching is fundamentally different to the Hindu View.
There is chain of events from one birth to the other. There is continuity.
There is Repeated Becoming or repeated existence of life forms. There is however a continuity from one Bhave to the next Bhava.
There is causal link but there is no transmigration of soul form one life to the other. 
This thinking leads to a paradox.
If there is no entity called Soul how one moves from one life to the other.

There are five factors.
One factor is the body formed of five senses.
There other is the four Mental Formations.
These two are intimately bound together and behaves like a single entity.

This is explained by the two currents of existence.

One is the existence of the body form.
Body is not a static entity. It goes through life of being born, childhood, adulthood, disease, disability and death.

Other is the mind form.

The mind is not an entity which is static. Like a stream it moves from one mind object to another mind object. Unlike the body it is fast and very fluid. This rapid transition of thought moments make us to believe that it as a substantial entity or self or soul. 
There is no ego entity.
But this perception is considered wrong but instead it should be viewed as 4 rapidly occurring mental events.

1. Feelings (contact with object of perception)                     Vedana
2. Perception                  Sanna
3. Mental Formations    Sankara 
4. Consciousness          Vinnana 
Better term I use is "Awareness" of the moment to moment change, instead of Consciousness.

Citta and Cetasika
The complication in Abhidhamma is the Cetasikas. 
There are 52 Cetasikas. Any open enquirer gets bog down in this scenario.
Citta is translated as thought and supposed to be having 7 Cetasikas, two of them are Vedana and Sanna.
Vedana and Sannna are taken as separate components while other Cetasikas are described in relationship to Kamma (Kusal or Akusal good or bad) or the effect on the bearer.
Passsa                Contact
Cetana                Volition 
Ekaggata.           One pointedness 
Jivathindriya      Mental Life
Manisikara          Attention 
Yoniso Manisikara means proper attention

Vicaya means Investigation, it often used with Dhamma Vicaya.
Vichara means deliberation.


I hate the word subconscious.
Even in sleep mode the mind is very active not at rest as implied in the word subconscious.

These four aggregates arise, persists for a brief period and vanishes without leaving behind any trace.

Uppada arising
Chitti persisting for brief moment 
Banga vanishing

Collectively it called Chittha.
When one Chittha breaks down another Chittha begins in rapid succession.
It is called Chittha Santana.
Because of the continuity of the Chittha Stream we grab hold it as one entity, self, or ego but there is no substantial entity as such. It is an illusion of some sort but this firm bondage to the Mental Formations is the energy that drives us to through Sansara.

At death the Chittha cannot sustain and death consciousness (Chuthi Chittha) moves to another life form instantaneously as the Rebirth Consciousness (Patisanshi Chittha).
It is a process and it is called Rebirth in Buddhism.
This Patisanshi Chittha carries all the experiences of the life just ceased and all the impressions of past lives before that as a continuum. 
Therefore, all the good and bad Kamma of the life continuum is inherited by his or her owner.
Stream of consciousness is not a single entity but a continuous process.

Rebirth is like flame of a candle just wanig off at the bottom of a candle lighting another candle. Flame or the light passes from one candal to another. Life stream or consciousness passes leaving behind the dead body.
No Cha So Nacha ancho.
Not the same but not so different.

That is the essence of Buddhist Teaching.

Posted by at No comments:

Hypnotist with a Strong Man

Posted on June 5, 2011
Hypnotist with a Strong Man
 
This is just to illustrate even a Hypnotist cannot down a strong man.

But a weak man with legs across the aisle can down a top actor / hypnotist down to the level of concussion.
He was not mindful of himself and how could a man like him help others to be mindful?
That is my opening question.

But to make Micky out of all hypnotists, below is a true story acted by none other than 1st year Medical Students of the yesteryear.
Today’s students would take a leaf out of this story, who go for some bizarre training, without critical thinking.

My friend who succumbed to this indignation  is now in Australia in full retirement, if he sees these few lines of recollection, hope he gives me permission to bare the facts but the name withheld by consensus.

He was a dignified soul in our batch and was not in our halls of residence.

He was our batch representative popularly elected without a challenge.

I was the go between in the plot with diplomatic astute to convince the guy that one of our batch mates could hypnotize anybody with a strong mind.

We practice this in our halls of residence when everybody else is  in sleep and the time was well past midnight.
Suffice to say most of the strong guys in our hall of residence went through this ordeal.

On the day we prepared a room (not mine) for our show.

One of us went and pulled the main plug supplying electricity when the go signal was given.

Slowly but surely show went on.

We were dressed in trousers to begin with unlike today and one by one we changed to sarongs surreptitiously and our strong man was in a corner with hands clasped in the warship mode.
Since this was the last show of hypnotism we took unusually a long time with lot of blah blah form the performer.

Then the final signal was given to switch on the electricity.

He was not happy at all even though the performer could not hypnotize him.

Why?

He had being worshiping our backside (sarong raised up) for nearly half an hour in the darkness and he realized only when we switched on the lights.

(We all had raised our sarong showing our back to him and he was not at all pleased).

He controlled his anger in good stead and we promised him that we will never tell the story to our female medical students and told him he was not the only one who went through this ordeal.

In other words he was baptized in the real world like Japanese karate men who never take the eye off from the focus of attention.

My apology above is if any of my female batch mates sees this now will guess who the guy was but he was not the only guy who was baptized (not hypnotized).

So anybody who closes one’s eye for the wish of any gullible performer would go through this indignation by his or her will.

I wish I could perform this to some of our TV showmen / women and politicians in power who are blinded with ego.

I hope the hypnotist who was the Fall Guy and not mindful to his own steps got the message wide / wild and clear and not to be a SHOWMAN to poor souls with weak minds.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)