Suren’s blog

Here are my favorite vocalists of the metal genre. This is only my opinion and is not necessarily based on technical matters.

5. Bruce Dickinson
Vocalist of the quintessential heavy metal band, Iron Maiden. You only have to hear The Number of the Beast album to know this guy has got the talent that helped make Iron Maiden the iconic band that they are today.

4. Geoff Tate
Operation: Mindcrime. Enough said. Geoff Tate is the lead vocalist of Queensrÿche. He peaked during the Operation: Mindcrime-Empire era. His range and emotion will blow you away.

3. Mikael Åkerfeldt
Lead vocalist of Opeth. I’ve heard only Blackwater Park and Damnation but his seamless use of clean singing as well as growling is mind blowing.

2. Daniel Gildenlöw
They don’t come more talented than Gildenlöw. I think all Scandinavians are born musically inclined. Currently the lead vocalist and guitarist for Pain of Salvation, just listen to the 12:5 album.

1. Ronnie James Dio
Dio is God. You’ve got to hear him to believe me. He’s got that perfect metal voice. Check out Holy Diver and Dream Evil.

My top ten list is very volatile. Its a mélange of James LaBrie (Dream Theater), James Hetfield (Metallica), Matt Barlow (Iced Earth), Bruce Lee Mani (Thermal and a Quarter), Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Ray Alder (Fates Warning), Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation) and a bunch of others. I’d recommend all of you try at least the people I’ve listed as top five.

Metal forever \m/

I had to take a proper passport size photograph of myself to attach to my résumés (and when I say proper I mean no malicious grin on my face, no trying out that I-don’t-give-a-crap look…). So this is the result of subduing my hair, evicting the creature perched on my chin, dressing up less barbarically and basically trying to look normal.

Is it a universal law that we must look weird in these photos or is it that we look strange when we pretend to be something we’re not? Think about it.

This is what happens when you try and get serious with me. People ask me what I have planned for my life and here’s my answer. This is the reply I sent to my brother when he e-mailed me long ago asking the same question.

from Suren
to Naveendran Wijeyasekaran
date Aug 13, 2006 12:29 AM
subject Re: wassup
mailed-by gmail.com

my plan for the future is TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION and you can’t stop me! i will integrate myself with a robot thinking i can control it but i will slowly lose my humanity to it and it will be upto a brave bunch of revolutionaries, the last People of Will to stop me. the problem is that once they destroy my physical manifestation, i, or what’s left of me will distribute myself in a bid to survive but what i didn’t count on was that each fragment of mine will gain sentience and fight against each other leaving the world torn, our common enemy will be the humans so they won’t have a chance but against each other, it would be a farcical battle, after all how can one better oneself?

i know the plan is slightly ambitious but our president told us to dream big.

Obviously I’ve changed the plan, now that so many people know about it otherwise why would I publicize it like this? Or have I…? You’ll find out in the next 15 years or so.

This is more for the benefit of family and friends. Family because the house we stayed in was my uncle’s and used to be an annual vacation spot for my entire family. Friends because y’all can get a good laugh from the pictures.

Check out the photo album. Thanks, Marc, for uploading all the photos and captioning them.

More Harry Potter hype. This is an entry from my old, abandoned blog which I thought deserved more attention.

I read Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings trilogy and one question is burning in my mind: who would win in a showdown between Dumbledore and Gandalf? I’ve made an analysis based on the skills I believe is important to a wizard.

Spell Casting:
Both of these guys are masters of the magical arts. The duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort (The Order of the Phoenix) in the Ministry of Magic revealed Dumbledore’s prowess and the showdown between Gandalf and the Balrog of Morgoth (Fellowship of the Ring) in the Mines of Moria showed us Gandalf in all his glory. Its hard to decide which one is more spectacular so the result is a tie.

Kicking @$$:
If it ever got down to a street fight between these two, I’d put my money on Gandalf. Let’s face it, he owned the Balrog in that fight (while they were falling down an bottomless pit!!). I don’t recall Dumbledore ever getting down and dirty. So the Heavy Weight Championship of the Wizards goes to GAN-DAAALFF!

Wisdom:
And when I say wisdom I mean the cool quotes that they say. This one goes to Dumbledore because Gandalf doesn’t seem to say much. The most poignant Gandalf quote is “…So do all who live to face such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” Dumbledore has a number of quotes up his sleeve like “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” (there are more quotes here.)

But in the end Gandalf emerges the overall winner because Dumbledore friggin’ dies (if you haven’t read the 6th book then I’m really sorry). So this is how I envisage a battle between these two legends.

First Gandalf would say ‘I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass.” and then break the ground under them which would cause Dumbledore to fall down and lose his wand. But right before he loses his wand, he casts a Banishing Charm which makes Gandalf’s wand fly away. Then Gandalf would whip out Glamdring (his sword) and advance on Dumbledore to make the killing blow, Dumbledore would say something like “It’s the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.” which would trigger a debate on the ‘Nature of Death’ between the two wizards which ofcourse Gandalf would lose and in a fit of rage Gandalf slit Dumbledore’s throat and everyone will live happily ever after (except for Dumbledore who would be dead by then).

Ever get that urge to smoke Marijuana while listening to Another One Bites The Dust? I can’t blame you, its right there in the song: “Its fun to smoke Marijuana.”

Some artists use a technique called backmasking to hide messages in their songs. These songs when played forward have some pretty innocuous lyrics but play them backwards and the truth is revealed!

Check out Jeff Milner’s Backmasking site for the clips of some popular songs with backmasked messages.

And as usual Wikipedia for an extensive list of songs.

I think its sad people have to quantify their achievements. Its demeaning to be summed up in a few words but anyway campus recruitment is starting for our college. Its a bit late as the authorities thought the students would stop concentrating on studies if they were recruited earlier than the fourth year.

The first company scheduled for us is Tata Consultancy Services who will be starting on Wednesday. They’re offering a salary of Rs. 30000 which is as much as I can hope to get.

Here’s my résumé, my life summed up in 53 kilobytes. I got a little help from Marc’s résumé which he benevolently shared with me.

In keeping with the hype of the last book and all here’s a site I came across a long time ago. Hilarious stuff, the voices are too funny. You’ve gotta check out the animations, watch Bothering Snape first then the other one. The videos are also good.

Potter Puppet Pals

This is for people who are new to the P2P community or have finally realized that Limewire just doesn’t cut it. A five step guide to get BitTorrent up and running.

STEP 1: Download a BitTorrent software
Download and install a client. I would recommend Azureus (you’ll need to have Java installed on your system for this, chances are that you already have), thats what I use or you could try other popular clients such as BitComet, BitLord or µTorrent. For a more exhaustive list check out Wikipedia.

STEP 2: Find a Torrent
This is the hard part. You need to find a file called a Torrent of whatever you want to download.
For example, say you’re looking for the latest release of Debian Linux then visit some popular torrent sites such as Isohunt and type in the text box whatever you want to search for, in our case its Debian Linux. If you’re lucky (the file is popular) then the torrent is available and will be listed in the search results. Simply click on the link of the torrent you want and download it.

This is what your search on Isohunt will look like.

Other popular torrent sites are:
Torrentspy
Demonoid (Invitation required)
The Pirate Bay
Torrentbox
Mininova
Meganova

STEP 3: Open the Torrent using the BitTorrent software
Run the software that you should have installed by now. You need to open the torrent file now usually by going to File -> Open and then browsing to the place where you downloaded the torrent file on your computer.

Screenshot of opening a torrent file in Azureus.

Start Azureus, go to File -> Open -> Torrent File. Then click on the Add Files button and browse to the place you downloaded the torrent file, select the file and click Open.

STEP 4: Select the files you want to download
Usually torrents particularly music will come as albums and not as individual songs so before downloading most clients provide an option to select only a few files from the list. This is usually straightforward with a check box beside each file that you can select or deselect as you wish. Or you could simply download all the files like I do. You can also select where you want the file to be downloaded on your computer.

Screenshot of selecting files.

You can select the files you want to download by checking/unchecking the check box by the side of the file name. Here there’s only one file in the torrent. You can also choose where you want to download the file, its going into my G:\Downloads\ folder here.

STEP 5: The Wait
Wait until the download is complete. Usually the software has a progress bar to indicate how much of the download is over. After its done you’re all set just go to the folder where you downloaded the file and enjoy!

Thats it! Just wait for it finish.

Know the lingo:
Seeders: People who have the complete file and are uploading it for other people to download.

Leechers: People who are currently downloading the file from someone.

Just remember, select a torrent with more number of seeders and leechers. The number of seeders and leechers will be listed in the search result when you’re searching for a torrent.

Please download responsibly. Do not encourage piracy, use only legal torrents. How can you tell? If you can’t get whatever you want for free at the store then the torrent is probably illegal. Enjoy.

Well since I’m obliged to have a “Hello World” post, I shall write Hello World in all the languages I know.

English: (duh)
Hello World

Tamil:
Vanakkam Ulagam

Hindi:
Namaste Duniya

French:
Bonjour Monde

Esperanto:
Saluton Mondo

C:
printf(”Hello World”);

C++:
cout<<”Hello World”;

Java:
System.out.print(”Hello World”);