Posted on August 25, 2011
Pendrive Linux My Love
The name Pendrive Linux has disappeared from the web scene but the http://www.PendriveLinux.com is there if you need some help for mounting any Linux distribution.
Long before I went in web search for 100 Linux distributions my only aspiration and last thing I wanted in my possession was to have a Linux booted from a 1GB Flash Drive.
Flash Drives were expensive then and our download speed was hopeless and only thing I wanted to bring home was a Globe Trotter and a Mandriva Pendrive Linux when I went abroad on a different assignment.
By that time I had got a Puppy Linux on a Flash Drive but all the efforts of preparing a Pendrive Linux were not successful.
Then of course in one of my friends room abroad I got my Pendrive Linux loaded well pass midnight and I still have it and it is still working.
All these were done on a Windows computer with Gemu (Gnome emulation) executive EXE file on board.
It was a huge achievement for me then.
But I ended up buying a Laptop without Linux for one third of the price then with hard bargaining and almost fighting with the dealer.
Doing this on a Linux was painfully long process for a busy person like me and I never tried it on Linux having got a few of my favorite Linux distribution in a few of the Flash Drives.
The again everything on FAT partitions and not on Linux partitions with boot, root, home and root permissions.
My bad experience with vendors abroad got me into firm resolve to promote Linux not in this country where use of pirated copies is the rule (which I detest as a simple Buddhist) and is Banana Republic's futuristic motto (Bana is daily sermon and Na is not following or listening but not a slippery plantain we eat to avoid constipation by listening to the Bana of the politician who do not practice virtues but the voter has to do that on daily basis.
I am glad to see most of the visitors are from abroad and many from USA and they get Linux and healthy dose of anti-capitalistic views which even Obama is pursuing for betterment of the down trodden masses.
My venture into Linux 100 was bumpy but and I am in a better position to talk about Linux and Cloud Computing.
All what you need is a CD/DVD and a Pendrive to be be cloud ready for a savvy or newbie guy/girl and not Android Craze or HP WebOS.
However the distribution I talk about need to shed some fat (client) and become thin clients.
Follow Me.
STEPS.
What one’s needs are CD/DVD and two (2) Flash Drive and little free time and one need not do that in one go.
1. Download Cloud USB DVD (1.2 GB).
2. Download your favorite CD/DVD of Linux distribution and copy as an iso file not as bootable Live CD/DVD.
3. Find a computer (ideally with USB booting to test your work) with a DVD writer.
4. Boot Up Cloud USB.
5. Use Boot DVD / USB creator; click and follow instructions.
6. Now you have a USB stick to clone many Pendrives.
7. Boot the Flash Drive with Cloud USB.
8. Go to UnetBooiIn click and follow instructions.
9. Load your favorite Linux CD/DVD containing iso file into the DVD/CD ROM.
10. Plug in your Second USB Drive
11. Give the path of the CD/DVD Rom as where the iso file is.
Wait a while and in the second USB drive you have a new Live distribution of your choice.
12. Then register your company and start selling your products (Live Linux Distributions on a stick).
But do not jack the price up like our Buddhist monks who sell Bana on a pirated copy of Microsoft CD.
I have not given the finer details which vary from distribution to distribution and why I used Cloud USB is that it promote Cloud computing in style including Ubuntu One and Dropbox and it has all the utilities (FAT Client though).
In my case I use Ping Eee which has more laptop friendly utilities.
Reproduction
He has been forgotten’: why humorist Art Buchwald should be remembered
He has been forgotten’: why humorist Art Buchwald should be remembered
This article is more than 2 years old
A new biography celebrates the sharp humour and difficult life of the Pulitzer-winning newspaper humourist, once known as ‘the wit of Washington’
David Smith
David Smith in Washington
Tue 7 Jun 2022 15.29 AEST
On the red carpet at the Kennedy Center in Washington in April, the comedian and activist Jon Stewart was asked if he would ever consider running for political office.
“Show business is a good training ground ego and arrogance-wise for politics,” he told the Guardian, “but the art of compromise and the different transactional natures of what they do is generally antithetical to misanthropes who sit in rooms and write jokes. It’s too tempting to blow up meetings.”
That night, when Stewart received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the presidential historian Jon Meacham said of him: “He likes to say that he’s not an activist, not a player of the arena, but only an observer. Well, Jon, we love you – but you’re really wrong about that.”
The line between player and observer is worth keeping in mind when considering Art Buchwald, the most widely read newspaper humourist of his time, whose memorial service was held at the Kennedy Center in 2007. Dean Acheson, a former secretary of state, called him the “greatest satirist in the English language since Pope and Swift”.
Buchwald is now the subject of a biography, Funny Business, by the historical researcher Michael Hill, who draws on his most memorable columns and unpublished correspondence. Its dust jacket blurb includes praise from Meacham for an “absorbing, illuminating, and wonderfully entertaining book”.
Columist Art Buchwald costumed as Benedict Arnold. (Photo by Dick Swanson/Getty Images)
View image in fullscreen
Photograph: Dick Swanson/Getty Images
Buchwald moved in elite circles that included Robert, Edward and Ethel Kennedy, the Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katharine Graham, actors Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and writers John Steinbeck and Irwin Shaw. But he always regarded himself as an outsider, the court jester who points out that the emperor has no clothes.
Speaking via Zoom from Fredericksburg, Virginia, Hill, 68, says: “He viewed himself as a satirist trying to wake people up about about certain issues. Good political satirists are important if not essential – and I think Buchwald would agree with this – to a healthy democracy. If a bureaucrat is doing something absurd, if a self-involved celebrity is doing something absurd, he felt it was his obligation.
“Buchwald made it his goal to always be anti-establishment. He was against anything that he perceived to be the establishment, but particularly the absurdities of the establishment. He didn’t care what political party it was: he was going to go after them. He felt very strongly about freedom of satire and freedom of speech and he was never going to be muzzled.”
Just after Bill Clinton’s election as president in 1992, for example, a friend approached Buchwald at a party in Georgetown and remarked that, now a Democrat was in the White House for the first time in 12 years, Buchwald would presumably go easy. Hill adds: “Buchwald said, ‘What are you talking about? This is my job you’re talking about. This is what I do.’”
Born in New York in October 1925, Buchwald had a wretched childhood. He almost never saw his his mother, Helen, an immigrant from Hungary, who was admitted to a mental hospital a few weeks after his birth and confined for the remaining 35 years of her life. With his father struggling to pay bills, Buchwald and his sisters were sent to foster homes.
“It left a horrible, dark impression upon him, which is part of the reason that he battled depression for the rest of his life,” Hill explains. “But the positive side of that, if there is one, was that he became very independent early on and he also realised that the only way he was going to be able to survive all the crap life was throwing at him was to be funny, be the class clown, which is what he did. He decided that I’m going to be a funny guy. So that became his goal.”
In the 1940s Buchwald dropped out of high school, joined the marines and served in the second world war. He got wind of an opportunity for veterans to go to Paris and study so bought a one-way ticket to Europe and talked his way into a job at the New York Herald Tribune.
He became the quintessential American in Paris, mingling with Ernest Hemingway and others, and writing popular columns such as “Paris After Dark”, “Mostly About People” and “Europe’s Lighter Side”.
Art Buchwald on Set of Mannix
View image in fullscreen
Art Buchwald on the set of Mannix. Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive
Hill continues: “He said later that those 14 years he spent there were the happiest years of his life. A lot of his friendships that were started in Paris carried over for the rest of his life, particularly Ben Bradlee, who was without doubt one of his closest friends and defenders.”
Some friends advised Buchwald against leaving the high life in Paris but he returned to the US in 1962. He soon established himself through a Washington Post column syndicated in 500 newspapers worldwide. In 1982 he won a Pulitzer prize for outstanding commentary.
Hill explains: “He was able to tap into the beginning of anti-establishment fervour and then, of course, with Watergate, you had a whole new period of not only rebellion but disillusionment.
“He helped people keep their sanity and laugh at things, laugh at the absurdity of politicians and what they were doing. It was a respite from the grim headlines of Vietnam and Watergate and so forth. People were able to take a break and read Buchwald.”
But the brand of humour was less crass or savage than some of Buchwald’s comic heirs. “He said at one point, ‘I don’t go for the jugular’. There was a line that he didn’t cross. He could be sharp, he could be pointed, he wasn’t afraid to go at it but he wasn’t mean-spirited or profane about it.”
Buchwald himself once explained that the key to his humour was to “treat light subjects seriously and serious subjects lightly”. No topic was too big or too small or too esoteric.
Hill continues: “If somebody wanted to have a fun offbeat way to understand the political, cultural, social issues of the 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s, go back and read Art Buchwald’s columns. He talked about everything. It was not only politicians and bureaucrats but it was celebrities, miniskirts, baggage claims at airports. He touched on everything.”
Hill’s favourite column is from 1964 and entitled “J Edgar Hoover Just Doesn’t Exist”, suggesting that the FBI director was a “mythical person thought up by Reader’s Digest”. It sparked a debate across the country about whether the assertion was actually true. Hoover and the FBI did not see the funny side.
Buchwald’s numerous columns mocking President Lyndon Johnson’s conduct of the Vietnam war ruffled so many feathers that the National Security Agency put him under surveillance. As the conflict worsened, Buchwald proposed sending in superheroes Batman and Robin (the Batman star Adam West saw the column and wrote to Buchwald promising to rush to his rescue if Johnson retaliated).
Naturally “the wit of Washington” also had a field day with President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal. “He said he wished Nixon would run for a third term because he was providing such great material.
Art Buchwald in 1977
View image in fullscreen
Art Buchwald in 1977. Photograph: Mikki Ansin/Getty Images
“He said he’d go after both sides but going after the left was a little bit more delicate because, if he did, they would say, ‘Aren’t you one of us? Why are you doing this?’ It didn’t deter him but he said it took a little bit more courage to take a whack at the left.”
Some of the columns are now eerie historical rhymes. In 1976 he offered “Art’s Gun Control Plan”, demanding a federal mandate to cut off “everybody’s trigger finger at birth” in an effort to curb gun violence in America. “The constitution gives everyone the right to bear arms,” he writes. “But there is nothing that says an American has to have ten fingers.”
In 1989, the celebrity tycoon Donald Trump launched an ill-fated airline with characteristic bluster and invited Buchwald to fly on it. Buchwald replied in a letter: “… thanks for all the free mileage you are handing out. As I understand, if you say the word ‘Trump’ in a gathering of over twenty people, you get forty-three miles of credit on your OnePass account.”
So what would Buchwald have made of Trump the president? Hill reckons: “He would have had the time of his life and maybe he might have been a little bit sharper with him.
“Buchwald would have fared pretty damn well in the social media Twitter age because he had a wonderful off-the-top-of-his-head wit. If he were alive today, he could win an all-out Twitter war with anybody. Like any great satirist, he could throw a good punch, he could take a punch and then he could throw a good punch back.”
Buchwald, who had three children, enjoyed playing chess and poker and smoked six to eight cigars a day – his “pacifier” – until quitting in 1988 on doctor’s orders. In the 1990s he finally went public about his long-held “dark secret” in a series of interviews revealing his lifelong struggle with depression.
He even went on tour with two friends, novelist William Styron and broadcaster Mike Wallace, who also battled the condition. They called themselves the “Blues Brothers” as they shared their stories in the hope of providing comfort.
Hill reflects: “He went public because he wanted to try and help other people deal with it. I know he heard from a lot of people who said him going public helped a lot. It was something he battled all of his life but again that’s part of what’s great about Buchwald: from early on he was always beating the odds. He wasn’t afraid of anybody.”
At one point Buchwald was everywhere with a radio show, a slot on the TV current affairs show 60 Minutes, a Broadway play, lectures all over the country and bestselling compilations of his columns. Yet 15 years after his death at the age of 81, as the torch passed to a new generation including Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and John Oliver, his fame has dwindled faster than expected.
“He’s dropped from the public consciousness and it’s a shame,” Hill laments. “He has, unfortunately, been forgotten. I hope this book will bring him back to life. I hope people in this tough time might get some laughs out of it too.”
My Objection to NPP and JVP
Buddhism and its Contemporary Application
If anybody wants to dispute that Buddhism has no relevance today, this short chapter is to dispel that myth.
Now
that the fundamentals of Dhamma are addressed in its own context what
relevance has it for today, tomorrow and in the future generations?
Only when we have addressed this question can one say that justice is done to the original tenet of Dhamma.
Dhamma
originated in India when animal sacrifices were the normal cult. Some
elaborate rituals based on the belief that god has to be satisfied to
derive ultimate salvation of human beings was the order of the day. By
these rituals some form of union with god in a metaphorical sense was
expected. The fact that these sacrifices can only be done by a chosen
caste is also another prerequisite. The head of the Kovil can only be
chosen from a particular caste put final nail to the democratic
representation in front of the gods. Only a chosen one can be the go
between the gods and the Harijans. An arbitrator has to be chosen for
the benefits of less fortunate.
It is here Mr. Ambekkar have had
misgivings with Mr. Mahathma Gandhi in the Indian Freedom Struggle. Even
though, Mr. Ambekkar ended up as the Minister of Law, Indian
Constitution failed to address the deep rooted division created by caste
consciousness. Even after 50 years of independence the root cause of
discrimination was not rooted out. By becoming a Buddhist in his later
years Mr. Ambekkar showed the way forward for Harijans in India. It is
pertinent as to what made him to change course and lead the freedom path
for the less fortunate.
Mr. Gandhi used the Buddhist Avihinsa
theme for the freedom struggle but failed to gear it for the greater
cause which was Mr.Ambekkar’s vision for his fellowmen. His sacrifice of
the Hindu religion has caused greater stir than the freedom struggle
that ended. Even after 50 years this rumbling is in the air.
Dhamma
is not a dogmatic system of adherence or an elaborate system of rituals
and prayers. It is a way of life. It talks about the purity of
thinking, speaking and acting accordingly. It is a religion of kindness,
compassion and equality of all including the sexes.
In one
central theme of Avihinsa three objectives were satisfied, from the very
beginning. All beings are treated equally including animals and there
is no need for a superior caste to make rituals in animal sacrifices.
Animals were free to live and they were not considered food items. This
was one of the reasons why Buddhism did not last long in India and for
the success of Moguls in India.
The change from hunter, chaser to a food gather was effectively made.
Dhamma
doubts the existence of a super race, super caste and lesser caste.
Deep divisions still continues in India. Strangely enough this division
is seen in Sanga in Sri-Lanka.
The third offshoot was the
evolution of Vegetarianism in India even among the Hindus. The cow
becomes a sacred animal. Instead of animal sacrifices food items
especially fruits and flowers became the form of offerings which we
continue even today.
These are the three positives.
The
western scholars have failed to grasp and highlight this aspect of
Dhamma which is a peaceful way of life and existence. They went on
scholarly exercise to illustrate the Dukka (should be
unsatisfactoriness) and the Suffering theme and focused on what is
called the negative aspect of Dhamma. By looking at a Buddhist monk who
renunciate all worldly things and belongings and stating that the Dhamma
way is negative in outlook is the biggest mistake western scholars have
made.
It is positive in many ways and promotes peace and harmony in this world where anger, hate, mistrust and violence are the bane.
One
does not need to be a monk to preach non-violence. There is no room for
division and war in a civil society that follows simple way of Buddhist
life.
That is why Dhamma is more relevant in the 21st century world outlook.
We
have not changed the way the world shaped itself from one political
upheaval to another after the Second World War. Instead of large scale
war based on super race (Aryans) and the discrimination of the Jews, we
have small scale perennial wars and terrorist based activities
inundating the world order.
Even outside the ethnic war there are
sentiments of caste and this is where the Buddhism has failed in
Sri-Lanka to strike a chord of balance in thinking in Tamil Diaspora.
Some sense of supremacy is tagged with the race, religion, colour, caste, rich, poor and even amongst the priests and monks.
There is ascendancy for the rich in front of the gods but not for the poor.
Like jealousy supremacy is a disease.
There is also a treatment in Dhamma for this disease.
Linux Distribution Passwords
'I
think it is absurd to ask for a password for a Live Linux session but
some distributions do ask for a password for root and user.
1. For Tiny Linux
root and root
guest and guest
2. Debian
No user or password on a Live session but one has to do that during installation.
Both root and user passwords are necessary.
3. Netrunner Linux
live and live and no capital letters
4. Arch Linux
I do not know
May be root and no password and you may be required to create a user and a password.
5. Pearl Linux
User custom and password blank
It has changed to live and no password
6. wattOS
User is Guest password is blank
7. Peanut Linux
Log in as root leave password blank
8. Mayh Linux
User Myah and password Myah
9. AVLinuxMX
User is root password is root
10. Simply Mepis
user demo password demo
11. Samity
user demo password demo
12. In some distributions it is user and no password for live.
User and no password
Here, I have reproduced a read me file of Pearl Linux since I could not find the user name and password.
It is an Ubuntu Derivative which has a macOS appearance and is 1.5GB.
At the login screen please type "custom" as the user name hit enter then for password lease that field blank and hit enter.
Found a small issue with the fonts not looking correct and I thought I deleted the .iso but I guess not.
All you have to do if you already downloaded Pearl is go into system
settings and change the font from Veranda 9 to Ubuntu 10 and this is
important,
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.
I must say this was run by British Council Library in Kandy which is now defunct.
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.
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 neuron networks.
Person with any age with firm resolve can do that.
This subconscious repetitive acts can be easily extended to one's password.
I DO NOT use a VISA card now.
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.
Step 5
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 not have any access.
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 practiced 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.
