Capitalism. Must buy!

The current credit crisis have got me thinking about how crazy our current financial systems are:

Here are a lay man's observations about how it works.

Why do we have to work? So that we can buy things

Why do we buy things? So that we feel happier

Why don't we stop buying things when we are happy? Because we are never happy / satisfied with what we have got and always strive to get the new "better" thing.

As a result we have to work more and more so that we have the money to buy the things we want.

This is the premise on which our economy is based.

So what happens if we can't buy things? First we will not be happy because we cannot buy things. Secondly people who make things that we normally buy won't be able to sell so they will be out of a job.

If people lose their jobs they will have less disposable income so they will not be able to buy things... and so the cycle continues.

So the whole economy will collapse if people stop buying. scary don't you think?

American National Debt Clock - A sign of the times

I was just reading a story on the the bbc website about how the US national debt clock couldn't cope with the size of the US's national debt. The electronic board had to be modified with the dollar sign ($) replaced with a (1).

The Debt Clock problem has a few similarities with the Credit Crunch problem...

1. People could see that the debt clock was reaching it's limit but they didn't do anything about it. Similarly a lot of people could see the problems leading up to the credit crunch but no one did anything about it.

2. Once the Debt clock ran out of digits the fix was a short term fix of replacing the $ with a 1.
Similarly the initial fix for problems of the credit crunch was to throw money at the problem rather than looking at the root of the problem.

Sikhi To the Max - Tips - Easy searching

I am not fluent at reading Gurmukhi so I have always found it difficult to use the Sikhi To The Max software.

Last weekend I was given an invaluable tip to make finding Shabads much easier. (Sorry if this an obvious tip but it has helped me so I hough I should pass it on)

In the search section of SikhiToTheMax click on the option 'First Letter (from start)'. This will let you type in the first letter of each word of a line.

For example: If you are looking for the Shabad with the following line in it

jis kae sir oopar thoo(n) suaamee so dhukh kaisaa paavai ||
When You stand over our heads, O Lord and Master, how can we suffer in pain?

Then all you need to do is type in the first letter of each word in the line like so

jksaqs

Press search and the above line will appear as the only search results.

This is so much easier and quicker than typing each word every time.

This tip will work for the online line and the standalone version of sikhitothemax.

The Sikh Course

The Sikh Course has been developed to tell people about the fundamentals of the Sikh religion.

Here is a quote from the website.

Discover the fundamentals of the Sikh faith in a FREE one day course. The Sikh faith is an unknown to many people and yet it is full of gems which can dramatically improve your life and the lives of those around you. To register and find out more, simply visit: sikhcourse.com

The next course is at the Chapeltown Gurdwara, Leeds, UK on 13th September 2008. It is well worth going.

Jonah Takalua

Jonah Takalua is a 13-year-old school boy in year 8 at Summer Heights High. He is of Tongan descent and lives with his father. Jonah, however acts up at school, treating his teachers with disrespect and bullying younger students. He is at serious risk of being expelled. Summer Heights High is Jonah’s third school after being expelled from two others in eighteen months for setting fire to a student’s locker and defacing a staff member’s car respectively. Jonah attends “Gumnut Cottage”, a remedial class for students at Summer Heights High who have reading difficulties and he is stated to have a reading level of an eight year old.

quote from http://www.jonahtakalua.com/

I felt compelled to write something about Jonah after watching Summer Heights High on BBC Three and Youtube.

On the face of it Summer Hieghts High is a normal, albeit a very funny, send up of various fly-on-the-wall documentaries. However throughout the series, it tackles many issues that affect urban schools and society.

Some of the issues that are covered through the Jonah Takalua character:

How Polinesian children are treated in Australian schools. (Generally how minorities are treated in schools)
How teachers are intentially or unintentially racist.
How school inititives for disruptive kids are shallow and not supervised properly.

There are probably more which I haven't picked up on.

I think the Jonah character struck a cord with me because I could see many friends and other kids from school in the character. These were kids who were very bright but did some stupid things and fell into a spiral in which they got into more and more trouble.

This is such a sad situation because the kids failed to live up to their potential and in some cases it could affect them for the rest of their lives. In alot of cases they were very talented like Jonah with his breake dancing and rapping.

On a lighter note the series has some great one liners in it and is very funny.

Thanks to Chris Lilley for this series and I hope to see more of Jonah in the future.

"Puk you, Sir"

New SikhiToTheMax

The new version of SikhiToTheMax has arrived. You can download it free from here.

For anybody who doesn't know, SikhiToTheMax is software that includes a fully searchable version of Shri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Along with Gurmukhi, there is also English translations and Romanised script.

I was surprised to read that the original version of SikhiToTheMax was never officially released. It seems that everyone had a version of the software and every Gurdwara has it on the projector in the Darbar Hall.

Give it a go and see what you think.

ਜਉ ਤਉ ਪੇ੍ਮ ਖੇਲਣ ਕਾ ਚੇਊ (jo tho praem khaelan kaa chaao ) - Presentation

We have started to create presentations for the Gurdwara.

The first one we have created is about what you have to do to be a Sikh.

Right-click on the title of the post and choose 'save link as...' to download the presentation.

Sikhi Games - Hangman game

Kids at the Gurdwara love playing 'Hangman' with Sikhi related words. Keeping this in mind we have developed a Sikhi related Hangman flash game.

We created the flash game using a tutorial from http://www.lukamaras.com

We have packaged a zip file with the source code.

We have made a few modifications to the game as compared to the tutorial. The first thing is that it automatically fills in any spaces in words and secondly the word is shown on the screen when the game ends.

You can customise the flash game in two ways.

All the words to be guessed are stored in an xml file called 'words.xml'. These can be customised and added to by opening the file in a text editor e.g. notepad and changing the text between tags.

You can also change the greeting on the welcome screen by editing the file called 'guessword.txt' in a text editor and changing the text after the '=' sign.

This is a first version so your comments are appreciated.

Three Peaks Challenge - Snowden (The final peak)

We reached the final peak and I knew exactly what I had to do.

I had 5 hours to complete the challenge in the 24 hour time limit. The guys who had done it before said it should be easy to do it in that time. I was still a bit worried that I'd got this far and could still fail to complete the challenge within 24 hours.

I thought that Snowden was the most picturesque peak that we did. There's a lake that you walk around for the first half hour or so which is paticulary beautiful. The lake section is basically flat. Unfortunately this is not the case further on. The lake section finishes abruptly and you are left looking up a steep path with the Snowden summit a high and distant destination. There is no let up in the steep path and it changes into more of a scramble as you get closer to the summit. This was very hard going especially as the first half an hour was so easy in the lake section.

Tourists who had gone up on the train were running down in flip-flops and sandles with shorts and t-shirts, this just made my back pack and boot seem heavier.

We finally reached the top in about 2 hours. At the summit you could see for miles and miles around it was amazing. As I looked around the summit I could understand why people put themselves through such difficulties to get to these summits.

We quickly ate something and set off back down. One of the guys who had done it before suggested that we take a different route which would be easier on our legs. Unfortunately we took his advice.

The route was flatter than the path we went up on but we had no clue about how long it was going to take to get down. This was agonising as I just wanted to get down as quickly as possible. Two of us were together and we were both cursing the guy who had told us to go down this way.

Now, time was ticking and we didn't know how long was left to go so we were both getting a bit worried that we wouldn't finish on time.

Finally with 1 hr and 1 min left until the 24 hours were up we could see everyone waiting for us. Suddenly I could feel my legs again and we had a race to the van. We had done it.

I finished in a time of 22 hrs and 59 mins (The slowest in the group :-).

Discussion Group Shabad

This is a shabad that we went through during a discussion group (Courtesy of SikhiToTheMax ) You will need to download a font from SikhiToTheMax to see the Gurmukhi script

mwJ mhlw 4 ]

maajh mehalaa 4 ||

Maajh, Fourth Mehla:

mDusUdn myry mn qn pRwnw ]

madhhusoodhan maerae man than praanaa ||

The Lord is my mind, body and breath of life.

hau hir ibnu dUjw Avru n jwnw ]

ho har bin dhoojaa avar n jaanaa ||

I do not know any other than the Lord.

koeI sjxu sMqu imlY vfBwgI mY hir pRBu ipAwrw dsY jIau ]1]

koee sajan sa(n)th milai vaddabhaagee mai har prabh piaaraa dhasai jeeo ||1||

If only I could have the good fortune to meet some friendly Saint; he might show me the Way to my Beloved Lord God. ||1||

hau mnu qnu KojI Bwil BwlweI ]

ho man than khojee bhaal bhaalaaee ||

I have searched my mind and body, through and through.

ikau ipAwrw pRIqmu imlY myrI mweI ]

kio piaaraa preetham milai maeree maaee ||

How can I meet my Darling Beloved, O my mother?

imil sqsMgiq Koju dsweI ivic sMgiq hir pRBu vsY jIau ]2]

mil sathasa(n)gath khoj dhasaaee vich sa(n)gath har prabh vasai jeeo ||2||

Joining the Sat Sangat, the True Congregation, I ask about the Path to God. In that Congregation, the Lord God abides. ||2||

myrw ipAwrw pRIqmu siqguru rKvwlw ]

maeraa piaaraa preetham sathigur rakhavaalaa ||

My Darling Beloved True Guru is my Protector.

hm bwirk dIn krhu pRiqpwlw ]

ham baarik dheen karahu prathipaalaa ||

I am a helpless child-please cherish me.

myrw mwq ipqw guru siqguru pUrw gur jl imil kmlu ivgsY jIau ]3]

maeraa maath pithaa gur sathigur pooraa gur jal mil kamal vigasai jeeo ||3||

The Guru, the Perfect True Guru, is my Mother and Father. Obtaining the Water of the Guru, the lotus of my heart blossoms forth. ||3||

mY ibnu gur dyKy nId n AwvY ]

mai bin gur dhaekhae needh n aavai ||

Without seeing my Guru, sleep does not come.

myry mn qin vydn gur ibrhu lgwvY ]

maerae man than vaedhan gur birahu lagaavai ||

My mind and body are afflicted with the pain of separation from the Guru.

hir hir dieAw krhu guru mylhu jn nwnk gur imil rhsY jIau ]4]2]

har har dhaeiaa karahu gur maelahu jan naanak gur mil rehasai jeeo ||4||2||

O Lord, Har, Har, show mercy to me, that I may meet my Guru. Meeting the Guru, servant Nanak blossoms forth. ||4||2||

This was the first time I had done anything like this and I got a lot out of it

The highlights of the discussion for me were the following:

Getting a chance to analyse Gurbani.

Finding out about patterns like the question and answer pattern which is so prevalent in Gurbani.

Seeing how the Gurus could could tell you the problems you face in your life and how you can solve them, all in a few lines of poetry.

Some of the dodgy translations we came out with for words.

'Praanaa' should be 'Breath' but we thought it was 'old'.

Finding out that Monty Panesar's real name was madhhusoodhan and it that it's another name for God.

Sri Hemkunt Sahib Ji - August 2007

Went to India in August 2007 (I know I was crazy to go in August, but I just forget how hot it gets).

I went for two weeks. One week was spent going to Sri Hemkunt Sahib Ji. Here is a map of the journey (blue line)

View Larger Map

It was quite tough because of the tight schedule, which wasn't helped by the odd land slide along the way!!!

We set off during the night from Panjab and got to Hrishikesh at about 1.30am. We slept for a few hours at a huge gurdwara complex. We all got up for a bout 6.00am and set off for Gobind Ghat. This was as far as the car would go. From now on it was all going to be on foot.

We had a good nights rest (at a gurdwara complex again)and woke up at about 5.00am. The first part of the walk was to Gobind Dham. It was a 13 km trek along the river Ganga in some beautiful scenery. The path was mostly good and not too steep. It took a full day to do the walk to Gobind Dham.

The next day we woke up very early at about 4.00am because the plan was to get to Hemkunt Sahib Ji and then go all the way back down to Gobind Ghat. It would be very tight. The trek from Gobind Dham to Hemkunt Sahib Ji was very tough. It was 7km steep path with very few flat sections. The air was getting thin and we were noticeably more breathless. We finally reached Hemkunt Sahib Ji at about 10am. It was a clear crisp morning and we could see for miles. We did our dips in the lake and did Ardaas. It suddenly became overcast so we decided to make a move and set off back down.

We had to rush down and try to get to Gobind Ghat before it got dark. Unfortunately a group of us had to do the last 3km in darkness. There were about 20 of us walking, as fast as they could, down a broken path sharing the light from one persons torch. That was an experience I won't forget in a hurry.

Fortunately we all got down in one piece and the next day we set off for home.

Here are some photos of the journey

Purab Aur Paschim -Twinkle Twinkle

I was inspired by Mr Singh's post about a new film and how it was similar to Purab aur Paschim, the classic film by Manoj Kumar.

I decided to upload a song from the film. It's the nursery rhyme 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' with a desi twist.

Here you go...

Sikh Guru's Family Tree

I came across a site called Geni. It's a site where you can map your family tree.

I thought it would be good to map out the Sikh Gurus family tree. So that you can see exactly how each of the Gurus were related.

The tree starts with Guru Amar Das Ji and goes all the way to Guru Gobind Singh Ji. I have started it at Guru Amar Das Ji because he was related in some way to all the Gurus after him.

I have setup a general user called Gur Sikh. To view or edit the family tree log on at Geni.com with the email address 13gursikh@googlemail.com and password 13gursikh.

I have only added Gurus and their Mothers and Fathers to the tree. It would be nice to have all the Gurus relatives on the site.

It would also be good to have all the gurus on the site some how.

The resource used to create the family tree were SikhiWiki and info-sikh.

Please edit the tree if you see any mistakes.

How to get up earlier in the morning

During the last few weeks I have been trying to get up earlier in the morning.

Unfortunately I have been failing miserably.

The pattern seems to be as follows. Every night I tell myself that I will wake up earlier so that I can do things like Path or finish off things that I didn't finish during the evening / night. I set my alarm for 6:00am. During the night I wake up at various times during the night, usually about 3:00am. My mind tells me that it is too early to get up and I go back to sleep. Then I wake up again around about 6:00am. I look at the clock and think of a million different reasons to stay in bed. I go back to sleep.

I eventually wake up at 7:30am - 7:45am, just enough time to get me to work before 9:00am.

So why is it that I can't get up early to do my own work but can get up when I know I have to get up for my job.

I have talked about this with my brother and cousins (Nandeep & Juggy).

I think the main strategy is to get up as soon as you wake up, this should stop the discussion that you have with yourself about the pros and cons of getting up, and to do something productive with the extra time that you have.

The few times I have managed to get up earlier, I do feel much more awake. It is just that it hasn't happened enough.

Many people say that there is something special about waking up early. They seem to be more connected to God and the Universe at that time. (Between 3:00am and 6:00am is generally considered to be Amrit Vela in many religions including Sikhism).

If anybody has any tips for getting up earlier then please let me know

Sikh Photos Blogger Widgets

I have modified the example Blogger widget on Blogger Buzz. So that it shows Sikh Photos.

Add it to you blog by clicking the button below. I have an example in the sidebar.

The next step is to make a general widget that shows any type of photos that you want.

<br /> </a><div id='flickr_badge_wrapper'><script type='text/javascript' src='http://www.flickr.com/badge_code_v2.gne?show_name=1&count=3&display=latest&size=t&layout=x&source=all_tag&tag=sikh'></script><span id='flickr_badge_source_txt'>More <a href='http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/sikh/'>Flickr photos tagged with Sikh</a></span><br clear='all' /></div><br />

Remotely controlling you music (Win XP)

I found this trick by accident.

Overview

The following procedure will allow you to play music on your computer without having to be in the same location. The music can be controlled from one location and it will play in another location.

1. Set up your music output computer so that you can remote desktop to it.

2. Set up your remote control computer / laptop so that you can remote desktop to the music output computer.

3. Start playing some music from your music output computer. I have tested it with WinAmp (This has to be done from the computer itself and not through Remote Desktop).

4. Remote Desktop to the music output computer from the remote control computer / laptop while the music is playing. You must log on with the same username and password as you used to log on to the computer locally

5. You will notice that the music continues to play on the music output computer rather than being outputted to the remote control computer.

6. Now change the track that is playing on the music output computer. The track will change and will still be outputted to the speakers on the music output computer.

I don't really know what use this is but I'm sure it has a use. Maybe a Remote Disc Jockey (RDJ) craze will sweep the nation.

If anybody needs more information about any of the steps then let me know

Standalone You Tube Viewer (C#)

I wanted to do some work with API's and Web Services so I decided to create a standalone You Tube Video Viewer. I used C#.Net 2.0 to create it. The source is freely available to modify if you want.

Some of the features of the You Tube Viewer are:

Works independently of your browser.
Search facility built in
View thumbnail and description of video before playing
Fully re sizable

There are probable other You Tube Viewers available, I just wanted to give it a go.

Must apologies that it has only been tested on Win XP. I am not sure if Mono on Linux is compatible with .Net 2.0.

Let me know what you think

Three Peaks Challenge - Scafell Pike ( Scare Fell)

The walk up Ben Nevis was a real experience. All the way down I was debating with myself about whether I should continue with the challenge or not. I decided to wait until we got to Scafell Pike to see if I wanted to continue.

We set off for Scafell Pike, the second peak in our challenge.

The drive to Scafell was done overnight. We all tried to get a bit of sleep (except the driver) to recover from 'The Ben' but it was difficult having 6 people in a VW Sharan all trying to get comfortable at the same time. I didn't think I got any sleep but everybody said I did so I must have got some.

We reached the starting point for Scafell Pike at about 1 - 2 am in the morning. This was too early to start because under the rules you are not supposed to start before 4 ish in the morning as this can disturb the locals. We decided to stop the clock and get a bit more sleep.

It got to about 3 ish and it became apparent that we couldn't sleep any more. We saw some people in a camp site near by, they were preparing to start the hike. We decided that it should be ok to start our hike.

It was still pitch black so everybody checked their head torches. I felt pretty good after the sleep and rest in the People Carrier so I decided to carry on. I made a concious effort to pack a lot less than on 'The Ben' with only a sandwich, a small lucozade bottle, my water pack and a sandwich.

We started the hike with a walk through some farms and then got on to the hike proper. It was decided that we would take frequent stops and walk together because it was dark and no one knew the proper way up.

Scafell is supposed to be the most difficult of the 3 peaks because of the terrain, the fact that you don't see the summit until the very end and there is some scrambling involved.

I was feeling really good as we went up, I tried to stay with the leader as much as I could.

There were a lot of stops because navigating in the dark was really hard. This helped me in a way as the frequent stops allowed me and everyone else to rest.

It was starting to get light so we decided to have a drinks break before the last stage of the hike. Surprisingly I was still feeling good.

Scafell's terrain was mostly small rocks until we got about three quarters of the way up. Then it turned into big boulders. I didn't like this section because it meant that I had to lift my legs more than a millimetre in order to jump over the gaps between the boulders (By this time my style of walking was more like sliding rather than discreet steps, so this was difficult).

I was near the back of the pack but still walking strong, we were all fairly close together. There was a peak fairly close to one side, a few of us thought (probably hoped) that it might be the summit. It wasn't to be...

Finally we saw the summit. The bad news was that we had to go down a steep path and then climb back up a path to get to the summit. I wasn't happy when I saw what we had to do.

We were going down quite a narrow ridge and I could see a fair way down the sides of the ridge. I thought that one wrong step could mean disaster (It wasn't that bad but it felt worse when I was there).

The final scramble to the top was quite scary because it was steep and there was loose stones all the way up.

As the sun was rising we reached the top. It was a very nice moment.

A group of girls was coming up the summit form another path. They were running up !!! I was amazed at that. They were doing the 3 Three peak challenge as well. One of them took our Summit photo and I took the Summit photograph for them. We had a quick chat and then the girls were off. We set off soon after.

Again the transition from uphill to downhill was major pain. The jogging technique helped as before. There was some great views as we walked down and I started to see why people do this kind of thing.

My knees felt sore, but were hurting less than then when walking down 'The Ben'.

We got to the bottom of Scafell and even managed to race the last bit (We regretted it when we got to the MPV).

The second peak had been completed and we were on the last leg and on our last legs :-) Next it was on to Snowdon.

Kranti Videos on YouTube

I've uploaded some videos from Manoj Kumar's Kranti.

I don't think it's up to the standard of his earlier films like Upkar, Purab Aur Paschim or Roti Kapada Aur Makhan but when you have Dilip Kumar and Manoj Kumar in one film then it's bound to be a quality film.

My favourite song in the film is Channa. The best part of the song is when the Dilip / Rafi combo kicks in. They both take the song to a different level.




The other songs I've uploaded are:



Lui Shamasha





Zindagi Ki Na Toote Ladi





Ab Ke Baras

Sikhs and their Castes

I found this video on You Tube.

It shows how Sikhs are stuck in the Caste system more than most other people, even though they are supposed to be totally against the Caste system.

It's funny and has a great message