Useful DOS Commands related to Internet and Network

nslookup: This command has many functionalities. One is for resolving DNS into IP. Lets say you know the website URL but you don’t know its IP but you want to find it out.
Eg. nslookup www.google.com (www.google.com is the website for which you want to find out the IP)
Now, another really nice function of nslookup is to find out IP of specific Mail Severs

    nslookup (enter)set type=mx (enter)yahoo.com

This command will give you the mail server IP of yahoo.com. You can use whatever server you want and if it is listed on DNS, then you get the IP. Simple, isn’t it? You can send a spoofed email to your friends using the IP address of the mail server.

    net view
    net use
    net use \ipaddressipc$ “” /user:administrator

(this command will allow you to connect to the target as administrator)
Now if you want to connect to the target and browse the entire C drive, then use this command:

    Code:
    net use K: \computernameC$

(this will create a virtual drive on your “my computer” folder)
Please not that this command will only work if the target PC/laptop has not set a Administrator Password.

    net user
    ping
    
This command will allow you to know if the host you pinging is alive, which means if it is up at the time of executing the “ping” command.

tracert : This command will give you the hops that a packet will travel to reach its final destination. This command is really helpful if you know the route a packet takes before it goes to the target box.

arp : This command will show you the arp table. You can find out if anyone has done arp poisoning in your LAN using this command.

    arp -a

route : This command will show you the routing table, gateway, interface and metric.

nbtstat
netstat
This command will show you connection stats

    netstat -a (this will show you all the listening ports & connection with DNS names)

    netstat -n (this will show you all the open connection with IP addresses)netstat -an (this will combined both of the above)


ipconfig : This command will show you a lot of useful things like your IP, Gateway, DNS in use, etc. This command will give all that info but for all networks you might have it.

    ipconfig /allipconfig /release (this will release your IP)ipconfig /renew (this will renew your iP)

How to Install Hadoop (2.7.3) on Ubuntu (16.04 LTS)

As I am planning to learn Hadoop, I wanted to install Hadoop (2.7.3) on my Ubuntu (16.04 LTS) and I followed the steps mentioned in the documentation on the Apache Hadoop website. I encountered few problems which are mentioned below, spent some time finding solution to them.

Below are the steps I followed and the description of the error is at the end of this post and also I have mentioned what I missed and what caused these errors.


Step 1. Download Hadoop installation file. For Hadoop 2.7.3 version I used the following link 

http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/hadoop/common/hadoop-2.7.3/

         And download a file named "hadoop-2.7.3-src.tar.gz"

        Update: The link is no more valid as it has been archived, you can find hadoop-2.7.3-src.tar.gz file from : https://archive.apache.org/dist/hadoop/common/hadoop-2.7.3/

Step 2. (Assuming you have downloaded the file into /home/<username>/Downloads folder

$ tar zxf hadoop-2.7.3-src.tar.gz

This will extract the files into a folder  "hadoop-2.7.3" .

Step 3. I moved the file to /home/<username> folder (many suggest to move it into /usr/local but I prefer to keep it here, may be once I learn more about linux I might get into that, as of now I am fine with my current setup.)

mv hadoop-2.7.3 /home/kiran/

Step 4. Install the ssh and rsync

 $ sudo apt-get install ssh
  $ sudo apt-get install rsync

Step 5. Edit hadoop-env.sh file located at

            /home/<username>/hadoop-2.7.3/etc/hadoop/hadoop-env.sh

 Find this line : export JAVA_HOME=${JAVA_HOME}

replace ${JAVA_HOME} with the location of java to find where the java is located execute the command "whereis java" and you will get the path. For me it was located at the below path

       /usr/bin/java

 I replaced the ${JAVA_HOME} with "/usr/"

Step 6. Prepare to start the Hadoop cluster

Assuming you are within hadoop-2.7.3 directory type the following command

$bin/hadoop

This will display the usage documentation for the hadoop script. This means you are on the right path :)

Step 7. Configuration

a. Edit the file hadoop-2.7.3/etc/hadoop/core-site.xml , between <configuration></configuration> paste the following and save

 <property>        
    <name>fs.defaultFS</name>        
    <value>hdfs://localhost:9000</value>   
 </property>

b. Edit the file hadoop-2.7.3/etc/hadoop/hdfs-site.xml, between <configuration></configuration> paste the following and save

    <property>
        <name>dfs.replication</name>
        <value>1</value>
    </property>

c. Edit the file hadoop-2.7.3/etc/hadoop/mapred-site.xm, between <configuration></configuration> paste the following and save

    <property>
        <name>mapreduce.framework.name</name>
        <value>yarn</value>
    </property>

d. Edit the file  hadoop-2.7.3/etc/hadoop/yarn-site.xml, between <configuration></configuration> paste the following and save

    <property>
        <name>yarn.nodemanager.aux-services</name>
        <value>mapreduce_shuffle</value>
    </property>

Step 8. Setup SSH

  Check if you can ssh to localhost without passphrase by executing the following command

$ ssh localhost

If you cannot then execute the following

  $ ssh-keygen -t dsa -P '' -f ~/.ssh/id_dsa
  $ cat ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
  $ chmod 0600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Step 9. Execution and testing the setup

a. Format the HDFS, assuming you are in hadoop-2.7.3 folder

 $ bin/hdfs namenode -format

b. Start NameNode and DataNode deamons by the following command

 $ sbin/start-dfs.sh

Now you can browse the NameNode by browsing to http://localhost:50070/

c. Create the folders required to run the MapReduce jobs by following commands

$ bin/hdfs dfs -mkdir /user
  $ bin/hdfs dfs -mkdir /user/<username>

d. You can stop the deamon by the following command

 $ sbin/stop-dfs.sh

e. You can start ResourceManager and NodeManager deamon by the following command

$ sbin/start-yarn.sh

Now you can browse the ResourceManager by browsing to http://localhost:8088/

f.You can stop the deamon by the following command

 $ sbin/stop-yarn.sh

Background story
I missed the configuration step and encountered the following errors

475 ERROR org.apache.hadoop.hdfs.server.namenode.NameNode: Failed to start namenode.

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Invalid URI for NameNode address (check fs.defaultFS): file:/// has no authority.

If you encounter this error check if your configurations are correct or not.

You can also refer the Apache Hadoop Documentation for installation, executing the test jobs and further explanation : http://hadoop.apache.org/docs/current/hadoop-project-dist/hadoop-common/SingleCluster.html

Replacing OpenJDK with Oracle JDK in Ubuntu

You can completely remove the OpenJDK and fresh Install Oracle Java JDK by the following steps:

1. Remove OpenJDK completely by this command:
   

   sudo apt-get purge openjdk-\*

2. Download the Oracle Java JDK here.
   Note: download appropriate file, for example if your system is x64 Ubuntu (i.e, Debian) the download file is named like this: jdk-8u51-linux-x64.tar.gz
   To find which version is your OS, check here
3. Create a folder named java in /usr/local/by this command:
   

   sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/java

4. Copy the Downloaded file in the directory /usr/local/java. To do this, cd into directory where downloaded file is located and use this command for copying that file to /usr/local/java/:
   

   sudo cp -r jdk-8u51-linux-x64.tar.gz /usr/local/java/

5. CD into /usr/local/java/ directory and extract that copied file by using this command:
   

   sudo tar xvzf jdk-8u51-linux-x64.tar.gz

6. After extraction you must see a folder named jdk1.8.0_51.
7. Update PATH file by opening /etc/profile file by the command sudo nano /etc/profile and paste the following at the end of the file:
   

   JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/java/jdk1.8.0_51
   PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:$JAVA_HOME/bin
   export JAVA_HOME
   export PATH

8. Save and exit.
9. Tell the system that the new Oracle Java version is available by the following commands:
   

   sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/java" "java" "/usr/local/java/jdk1.8.0_51/bin/java" 1
   sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/javac" "javac" "/usr/local/java/jdk1.8.0_51/bin/javac" 1
   sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/javaws" "javaws" "/usr/local/java/jdk1.8.0_51/bin/javaws" 1

10. Make Oracle Java JDK as default by this following commands:
    

    sudo update-alternatives --set java /usr/local/java/jdk1.8.0_51/bin/java
    sudo update-alternatives --set javac /usr/local/java/jdk1.8.0_51/bin/javac
    sudo update-alternatives --set javaws /usr/local/java/jdk1.8.0_51/bin/javaws

11. Reload sytem wide PATH /etc/profile by this command:
    

    source /etc/profile

12. Reboot your system.
13. Check Java JDK version by java -version command . If installation is succesful, it will display like the following:
    

    java version "1.8.0_51"
    Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_51-xxx)
    Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 25.51-xxx, mixed mode)

That's it!
Note: We Assumed that the downloaded file is named jdk-8u51-linux-x64.tar.gz and used this name in all the commands used in steps 2, 4 and 5. It may depends on the type of O.S, processor type (i.e., 32bit or 64bit)

Source: Stackoverflow.com
Reproduced here so that I don't have to find it again, I can simply refer back to my this blog.

Installing Adobe Reader on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Adobe stopped Adobe Reader support for Linux so it is bit of a challenge to find and install the Adobe Reader for Linux. Here I describe how to install it on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Step 1. First install gdebi

sudo apt-get install gdebi

Step 2. Install required libraries

sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-0:i386
sudo apt-get install libnss3-1d:i386
sudo apt-get install libnspr4-0d:i386
sudo apt-get install libxml2:i386
sudo apt-get install libxslt1.1:i386

Step 3. Download the Adobe Reader DEB package

Adobe Reader 9.5.5 enu

VB Script to Know Windows XP Product Key

If you ever loose your Windows XP Product Key (CD Key or Serial Key), you can find it through registry. But the value will be encoded, so following code will find the key in registry and decodes it and shows it in a message box. This way you can get back your Serial Key.

Create a Notepad file with title "ProductKey.vbs" and write the following code into it and save the file. If you double click the file, it will show the product key.

******************************************************
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))

Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset =52
i = 28
Chars="BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
Do
Cur = 0
x = 14
Do
Cur=Cur*256
Cur=Key(x+KeyOffset)+Cur
Key(x+KeyOffset)=(Cur\24) And 255
Cur= Cur Mod 24
x=x-1
Loop While x>=0
i=i-1
KeyOutput = Mid(Chars,Cur+1,1) & KeyOutput
If(((29-i) Mod 6)=0) And (i-1) Then
i=i-1
KeyOutput="-" & KeyOutput
End If
Loop While i>0
ConvertToKey=KeyOutput
End Function
****************************************************

Some Useful Terminologies

CAM (Camera):
A cam is a theater rip usually done with a digital video camera. A mini tripod is sometimes used, but a lot of the time this wont be possible, so the camera make shake. Also seating placement isn't always idle, and it might be filmed from an angle. If cropped properly, this is hard to tell unless there's text on the screen, but a lot of times these are left with triangular borders on the top and bottom of the screen. Sound is taken from the onboard microphone of the camera, and especially in comedies, laughter can often be heard during the film. Due to these factors picture and sound quality are usually quite poor, but sometimes we're lucky, and the theater will be fairly empty and a fairly clear signal will be heard.

TS (Telesync):
A telesync is the same spec as a CAM except it uses an external audio source (most likely an audio jack in the chair for hard of hearing people). A direct audio source does not ensure a good quality audio source, as a lot of background noise can interfere. A lot of the times a telesync is filmed in an empty cinema or from the projection booth with a professional camera, giving a better picture quality. Quality ranges drastically, check the sample before downloading the full release. A high percentage of Telesyncs are CAMs that have been mislabeled.

TC (Telecine):
A telecine machine copies the film digitally from the reels. Sound and picture should be very good, but due to the equipment involved and cost telecines are fairly uncommon. Generally the film will be in correct aspect ratio, although 4:3 telecines have existed. TC should not be confused with TimeCode , which is a visible counter on screen throughout the film. Click here to read more about telecine.

SCR (Screener):
A pre VHS tape, sent to rental stores, and various other places for promotional use. A screener is supplied on a VHS tape, and is usually in a 4:3 (full screen) a/r, although letterboxed screeners are sometimes found. The main draw back is a "ticker" (a message that scrolls past at the bottom of the screen, with the copyright and anti-copy telephone number). Also, if the tape contains any serial numbers, or any other markings that could lead to the source of the tape, these will have to be blocked, usually with a black mark over the section. This is sometimes only for a few seconds, but unfortunately on some copies this will last for the entire film, and some can be quite big. Depending on the equipment used, screener quality can range from excellent if done from a MASTER copy, to very poor if done on an old VHS recorder thru poor capture equipment on a copied tape. Most screeners are transferred to VCD, but a few attempts at SVCD have occurred, some looking better than others.

DVDSCR (DVD Screener):
Same premise as a screener, but transferred off a DVD. Usually letterbox , but without the extras that a DVD retail would contain. The ticker is not usually in the black bars, and will disrupt the viewing. If the ripper has any skill, a DVDscr should be very good. Usually transferred to SVCD or DivX/XviD.

WP (Workprint):
A workprint is a copy of the film that has not been finished. It can be missing scenes, music, and quality can range from excellent to very poor. Some WPs are very different from the final print (Men In Black is missing all the aliens, and has actors in their places) and others can contain extra scenes (Jay and Silent Bob) . WPs can be nice additions to the collection once a good quality final has been obtained.

Retail DVD/Bluray:
DVD's/Bluray's which are available in shops.

--------------------------------------------

Video Standards:

PAL / NTSC:
PAL and NTSC are two different video standards, the former being European, and the latter being American. PAL has a slightly taller screen (256 lines non-interlaced, non-overscanned) as opposed to NTSC (200 lines), so if you see the bottom portion of a program's screen getting cut off on your American machine, chances are the program was written for PAL, and is running on your shorter NTSC screen. PAL and NTSC differences are somewhat less important to European users; since their machines default to PAL, running an NTSC program is no more than a minor annoyance having the screen only appear in the top portion of the display.

Other important tags for movies / DVD's:

COMPLETE:
A release is COMPLETE when it's a DVD5, so it didn't need any adjustments and therefore is untouched.
Most dvd's though are DVD9, so they need to be compressed to DVD5. DVD5 is much more wanted since all dvd player can read these dvd's, and almost every dvd burner can burn them. DVD9 discs are less popular, they are more expensive and not many people can burn a DVD9. When a release is DVD9 and not compressed, DVD9 is added to the release title. When it's a DVD9 and it's compressed nothing is added to the release title.

LiMiTED:
A movie is LiMiTED when it has a limited theater run. Generally smaller films (such as art house films) are released as limited. The scene considers a movie limited when it has a generally opening in less than 300 UK theaters, or in less than 500 USA theaters. In the scene jargon, it's ussually called 300 UK screens, or 500 USA screens. Officially, it's not the opening weekend's number of theaters that counts, but the peak of the number of theaters. For example; when a movie has 275 UK screens in the opening weekend, and 1 week later it has 325 screens, it's not limited.

iNTERNAL:
An internal release is done for several reasons. The most common reason is because it has already been release before, and with iNTERNAL in title, the release won't be nuked. I happens quite often with DVD's. Also lower quality theater rips are done iNTERNAL so not to lower the reputation of the group. An iNTERNAL release is available as normal on the groups affiliate sites, but they can't be traded to other sites without request from the site ops. Although some releases are iNTERNAL, they still can be very popular. Apart from DVD's also other types of warez are done internal. For mp3's the tag is different concerning internal. For mp3 releases it's releasetitle-year-Group_iNT. That way the internal release won't be calculated into the group's stats. This avoids mp3 groups from doing a lot of internal releases, since they would just do that to get better stats. Some groups rename iNTERNAL to iNT, since this much shorter.

Subbed:
In the case of a VCD, if a release is subbed, it usually means it has hard encoded subtitles burnt throughout the movie. These are generally in malaysian/chinese/thai etc, and sometimes there are two different languages, which can take up quite a large amount of the screen. SVCD supports switch able subtitles, so some DVDRips are released with switch able subs. This will be mentioned in the NFO file if included.

Unsubbed:
When a movie has been release subbed before, an unsubbed release may be released.

Custom.Subbed:
A release can also be custom subbed. Movies often are released earlier in the USA then they are released in Europe. These movies mostly contain a few subtitles, the ones that are spoken in the USA. European groups can create custom subtitles and add these to the dvd. For example, when Dutch subtitles were added to a NTSC DVDr: Madagascar.2005.Custom.NL.Subbed.NTSC.DVDr-Group. Offcourse, it's not just European, also Japaneese movies can be subbed english for example.

Dubbed:
If a film is dubbed, it is a special version where the actors' voices are in another language. Dubbed versions of English-language films are for people who don't understand English.

STV:
STV stands for Straight To Video. These movies were never released in theaters, but they were immediately released on video/dvd. Therefore, a lot of sites do not allow these movies.

SE:
SE stands for Special Edition. Like the name says, it's a special dvd edition of a movie. Often special editions contain extra material like trailers, interviews, making-of.

DC:
DC stands for Director's Cut. A director's cut is a specially edited version of a movie that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit of the movie. It is often released some time after the original release of the film, where the original release was released in a version different from the director's approved edit. 'Cut' is synonymous with 'edit' in this context.

DL:
DL stands for Dual-Language, meaning the dvd contains more than one audio language. Synonym: ML.

FS / WS (Aspect Ratio Tags):
These are FS for FullScreen and WS for WideScreen (letterbox).

Language Codes:
The language of the movie and the language of the subtitles can also be mentioned in the release name. Sometimes the language is fully mentioned in the release name, such as DUTCH, NORDiC, GERMAN and iTALiAN. Sometimes it's shortened, then the ISO standard country abbreviations are used, those are the same which are used for www-domains, for example: NL (Dutch), NO (Nordic), DE (Germany), IT (Italian). For the full list of country abbreviations, click here. When there are multiple languages or subtitles, MULTi or MULTiSUBS is mentioned.

Extended:
Sometimes movies are released again on DVD because now the movie is extended. They have put back deleted scenes. For example, E.T. was produced first in 1982 and years later it was brought on DVD again, but now digitally remastered and extended.

Digitally Remastered:
Digitally remastered means that an older not-digital movie has been re-editted, remastered and is released on DVD. Some really old movies look very bad compared to the new digital movies. Then they remaster it to make it look better, edit it, recolor it etcetera. Remastering generally implies some sort of upgrade to a previous existing product, frequently designed to encourage people to buy a new version of something they already own.

Rated/Unrated:
Rated means a movie is censored, unrated logically means uncensored.

Recode:
A recode is a previously released version, usually filtered through TMPGenc to remove subtitles, fix color etc. Whilst they can look better, its not looked upon highly as groups are expected to obtain their own sources.

R1, R2, R3, R4, R5, R6 (Region Code):
A DVD gets released in a certain geographical area, or region. This was designed to stop people buying American DVDs and watching them earlier in other countries, or for older films where world distribution is handled by different companies. A lot of players can either be hacked with a chip, or via a remote to disable this. The regions are:
Region 1 - U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
Region 2 - Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
Region 3 - Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
Region 4 - Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
Region 5 - Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
Region 6 - Peoples Republic of China
Region 7 - Reserved for future use, MPAA-related DVDs and "media copies" of pre-releases in Asia
Region 8 - Airlines/Cruise Ships
Region 9 - Expansion (often used as region free)

R1 and R2 are considered the best quality.

More general important tags:

PROPER:
Due to scene rules, whoever releases a certain release the first, has won that race. For example, when a group releases the CAM version of Titanic the first. If there is something "wrong" with the release (poor quality, out-of-sync, audio errors etc.) and another group has a better/correct version, it can release it and add PROPER to the release title to avoid being nuked. However, the source must be the same as the original release. For example: A poor quality CAM release by group A and group B releases their CAM release PROPER. A Telesync release doesn't PROPER a CAM release, because the source is different. PROPER is the most subjective tag in the scene, and a lot of people will generally argue whether the PROPER is better than the original release. The reason for the PROPER should always be included in the NFO.

Repack:
If a group releases a bad rip, they will release a Repack which will fix the problems. It's similar to PROPER but then done by the same group.

Rerip:
A previous rip was bad, now it's ripped again properly.

READNFO:
When something important is mentioned in the NFO or as a replacement for PROPER, READNFO can be added into the tag directory.

NUKED
A film can be nuked for various reasons. Individual sites will nuke for breaking their rules (such as "No Telesyncs") but if the film has something extremely wrong with it (no soundtrack for 20mins, CD2 is incorrect film/game etc) then a global nuke will occur, and people trading it across sites will lose their credits. Nuked films can still reach other sources such as p2p/usenet, but its a good idea to check why it was nuked first in case. If a group realise there is something wrong, they can request a nuke.

NUKE REASONS :: this is a list of common reasons a film can be nuked for (generally DVDRip)

** BAD A/R ** :: bad aspect ratio, ie people appear too fat/thin
** BAD IVTC ** :: bad inverse telecine. process of converting framerates was incorrect.
** INTERLACED ** :: black lines on movement as the field order is incorrect.

DUPE
Dupe is quite simply, if something exists already, then theres no reason for it to exist again without proper reason.

Important tags for mp3 releases:

TV: Audio from television material
Radio: Audio from radio material
WEB: Audio downloaded from an online music store
VLS: Vinyl Single (1-2 tracks)
EP: Vinyl Maxi-single (2-5 tracks)
LP: Vinyl Full-length Album
CDS: CD Single (1-2 tracks)
CDM: CD Maxi-single (2-5 tracks)
CDR: CD-Recordable (CD-R)
DVD: Audio from a DVD. Often cabaret shows or concert/music dvd's.
DVDA: Audio tracks which come on a DVD as a bonus. The DVDA part can't be played by normal DVD players.
MD: Audio from a MiniDisk
TAPE: Music from a tape
Promo: Promotional
XX: Imported
RETAiL: Retail
Liveset: A record of a DJ mixing live. Mostly recorded using:
- DAB: Digital Audio Broadcasting is a system used to broadcast radio programmes.
- SAT: Music broadcasted via satellite channels.
- CABLE: Music broadcasted by radio channels via cable radio.
Bootleg: Illegally recorded and pressed record. Often live recordings, sometimes studio out-takes. The name comes from people who hid a microphone in their boots!

Labelcode/Catnumber:
This is a code which is like a unique code for every music cd/vinyl/etc. The code isn't just some number, but it contains values which are recognisable. For example: Catnumber: WNRD2371 is a cd from WieNerwoRlD Ltd.

Clean: The music is censored. Generally sexual or violent words, which are replaced by 'bleeps' or stripped.
Explicit: The music is not censored.

Now some tags just for movies/TV rips:

Sources:

DVDrip: A copy of the final released DVD. If possible this is released PRE retail (for example, Star Wars episode 2) again, should be excellent quality. DVDrips are released in SVCD and DivX/XviD.
VHSRip: Transferred off a retail VHS, mainly skating/sports videos and XXX releases.
TVRip: TV episode that is either from Network (capped using digital cable/satellite boxes are preferable) or PRE-AIR from satellite feeds sending the program around to networks a few days earlier (do not contain "dogs" but sometimes have flickers etc). PDTV is capped from a digital TV PCI card, generally giving the best results, and groups tend to release in SVCD for these. VCD/SVCD/DivX/XviD rips are all supported by the TV scene.

Formats:

VCD (VideoCD):
VCD is a mpeg1 based format, with a constant bitrate of 1150kbit at a resolution of 352x240 (NTSC). VCDs are generally used for lower quality transfers (CAM/TS/TC/Screener(VHS)/TVrip(analogue) in order to make smaller file sizes, and fit as much on a single disc as possible. Both VCDs and SVCDs are timed in minutes, rather than MB, so when looking at an mpeg, it may appear larger than the disc capacity, and in reality u can fit 74min on a CDR74.

SCVD (SuperVideoCD):
SVCD is a mpeg2 based (same as DVD) video format which allows variable bit-rates of up to 2500kbits at a resolution of 480x480 (NTSC) which is then decompressed into a 4:3 aspect ratio when played back. Due to the variable bit-rate, the length you can fit on a single CDR is not fixed, but generally between 35-60 Mins are the most common. To get a better SVCD encode using variable bit-rates, it is important to use multiple "passes". this takes a lot longer, but the result
s are far clearer.

XVCD/XSVCD:
These are basically VCD/SVCD that don't obey the "rules". They are both capable of much higher resolutions and bit-rates, but it all depends on the player to whether the disc can be played. X(S)VCD are total non-standards, and are usually for home-ripping by people who don't intend to release them.

XViD/DivX (Digital Video Express):
DivX is a format designed for multimedia platforms. It uses two codecs, one low motion, one high motion. most older films were encoded in low motion only, and they have problems with high motion too. A method known as SBC (Smart Bit-rate Control) was developed which switches codecs at the encoding stage, making a much better print. The format is Ana orphic and the bit-rate/resolution are interchangeable. Due to the higher processing power required, and the different codecs for playback, its unlikely we'll see a DVD player capable of play DivX for quite a while, if at all. There have been players in development which are supposedly capable, but nothing has ever arisen. The majority of PROPER DivX rips (not Re-Encs) are taken from DVDs, and generally up to 2hours in good quality is possible per disc. Various codecs exist, most popular being the original Divx3.11a and the new XviD codecs.

CVD:
CVD is a combination of VCD and SVCD formats, and is generally supported by a majority of DVD players. It supports MPEG2 bit-rates of SVCD, but uses a resolution of 352x480(ntsc) as the horizontal resolution is generally less important. Currently no groups release in CVD.

Additional source info for TV Rips:

HDTV (High Definition Televison):
Digital recording from a source stream at either 1080i or 720p at a bitrate from 19,39mbps or higher.

PDTV (Pure Digital Television):
Other resolution digital recordings from source streams at a bitrate of 10+mbps or higher. It is a label given to files that were ripped directly from a purely digital source, having less resolution than HDTV. This is accomplished by using a TV tuner card capable of receiving Digital Video Broadcasts or C-Band.

SDTV (Standard Digital Television):
Digital recording or capture from a source stream at any resolution with bitrate under 10mbps.This includes DirecTiVo but also captures from digisat or digicable with analog capture cards.

TVRip (Analoge TV Rip):
Recorded from analog TV, lowest quality of all TV rips.

More TV info:

Season/Episode code:
A code which shows the season and episode of a tv show.
For example: S01E12 is season 1 episode number 12.

DSR (Digital Stream Rip):
Digital stream rip is a rip that is captured from a digital source stream, such as a HDTV or DVB transmission.

DVB (Digital Video Broadcast):
The standard for direct broadcast television in Europe and the US Based on MPEG2 Compression.

DSR (Digital Satellite Rip):
Recorded from Digital Satellite, quality is similar to PDTV.

PPV (Pay Per View television):
Pay television programming for which viewers pay a separate fee for each program ordered.

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(Console) Games, 0day and Applications

(Console) Games, 0day and Applications don't have a lot of extra tags. Offcourse the app's version, and other tags like repack and proper can be used.

AIO
AIO stands for All-In-One, means an all-in-one software pack. For example: Microsoft Office, which contains Word, Frontpage, Publisher, Access etc.

RTM
RTM means Release To Manufacturing. This release is leaked before it's available in stores. A RTM version of a software title is the final retail version, the one that you will be seeing in stores.

VLM
VLM stands for Volume License Key. This means that the cracked application is already licensed, and therefore doesn't require an activation after installation.

Crack Type
For example crack or keygen.

Machine
On what machine is it compatible, such as Nokia phones, PDA etc.

OS
With which operation system is it compatible. For example Windows / Mac etc.

PlayStation:

PS2
A copy of a Playstation 2 game released to CD.

PS2DVD
A copy of a Playstation 2 game released to DVD.

PS3
A copy of a Playstation 3 game released to DVD.

MULTi3 / MULTi4 / MULTi5 etc
This means the release contains multiple languages. The number at the end indicated the number of languages.

PlayStation Portable:

UMDRip
This applies only to Playstation Portable (PSP) games, and it means that some stuff was ripped from the original game because that stuff was not required or was ripped to save space. For example languages or movie files.

UMDMovie
The Playstation Portable (PSP) is also capable of playing movies. Though a PSP can't playback DVD's or CD's, only UMD discs. So movies for the PSP get released on UMD discs.

PSXPSP
This is a PSX (Playstation 1) game playable on a PSP (Playstation Portable) using custom PSP firmware.

USA, JAP, EUR
Especially PSP releases, but also other console releases, are sometimes tagged as USA, JAP and EUR. These are alternative regions, and they replace PAL and NTSC. USA are off course the United States of America, JAP is Japan and EUR is Europe.

256MS, 512MS, 1GB and 2GB
These tags only apply to PSP releases, and they show the required size of an UMD disc. UMD discs can contain 2 gigabyte maximu. When a game is 100mb it fits on every UMD disc, but when a game is 900mb it will only fit on 1GB and higher UMD discs.

--------------------------------------------

Movie/TV Rips, WEB Rips and WEBDL

DVD-Rip DVDRip Very common
A final retail version of a film, typically released before it is available outside its originating region. Often after one group of pirates releases a high-quality DVD-Rip, the "race" to release that film will stop. The release is an AVI file and uses the Xvid codec (earlier DivX) for video, and mp3 or AC3 for audio. Because of their high quality, DVD-Rips generally replace any earlier copies that may already have been circulating. Widescreen DVDs used to be indicated as WS.DVDRip.

DVD-R DVDR,[13] DVD-Full, Full-Rip, ISO rip, lossless rip, untouched rip, DVD-5/DVD-9 Very common
A final retail version of a film in DVD format, generally a complete copy from the original DVD. If the original DVD is released in the DVD-9 format, however, extras might be removed and/or the video re-encoded to make the image fit the less expensive for burning and quicker to download DVD-5 format. DVD-R releases often accompany DVD-Rips. DVD-R rips are larger in size, generally filling up the 4.37 or 7.95 GiB provided by DVD-5 and DVD-9 respectively. Untouched or lossless rips in the strictest sense are 1:1 rips of the source, with nothing removed or changed, though often the definition is lightened to include DVDs which have not been transcoded, and no features were removed from the user's perspective, removing only restrictions and possible nuisances such as copyright warnings and movie previews.

HDTV or DS Rip[14] DSR
DSRip
DTHRip
DVBRip
HDTV
PDTV
TVRip
HDTVRip
Very common

TVRip is a capture source from an analog capture card (coaxial/composite/s-video connection). Digital satellite rip (DSR) is a rip that is captured from a non standard definition digital source like satellite. HDTV or PDTV or DTH (Direct To Home) rips often come from Over-the-Air transmissions. With an HDTV source, the quality can sometimes even surpass DVD. Movies in this format are starting to grow in popularity.

Analog, DSR, and PDTV sources are often re-encoded to 512×384 if fullscreen, 640×352 if widescreen. HDTV sources are re-encoded to multiple resolutions such as 640×352 (360p), 960×528 (540p), and 1280×720 (720p) at various file sizes for pirated releases. They can be progressive scan captured or not (480i digital transmission).

VODRip VODRip
VODR
Common, becoming more common

VODRip stands for Video-On-Demand Rip. This can be done by recording or capturing a video/movie from an On-Demand service such as through a cable or satellite TV service. Most services will state that ripping or capturing films is a breach of their use policy, but it is becoming more and more popular as it requires little technology or setup. There are many online On-Demand services that would not require one to connect their TV and computer. It can be done by using software to identify the video source address and downloading it as a video file which is often the method that bears the best quality end result. However, some people have used screen cams which effectively record, like a video camera, what is on a certain part of the computer screen, but does so internally, making the quality not of HD quality, but nevertheless significantly better than a Cam or Telesync version filmed from a cinema, TV or computer screen.

BD/BRRip BDRip
BRRip
Blu-Ray / BluRay / BLURAY
BDR[15]
BD5/BD9 (also known as BD25/BD50) Very Common, becoming even more common
Similar to DVD-Rip, only the source is a Blu-ray Disc. A BD/BRRip in DVD-Rip size often looks better than a same-size DVD rip because encoders have better source material. A common misconception among downloaders is that BDRip and BRRip are the same thing. They differ in that a BDRip comes directly from the Blu-ray source, while a BRRip is encoded from a pre-release, usually from a 1080p BDRip from another group. BDRips are available in DVD-Rip sized releases (commonly 700 MB and 1.4 GB) encoded in Xvid or x264, as well as larger DVD5 or DVD9 (often 4.5 GB or larger, depending on length and quality) sized releases encoded in x264.

BD5 or BD9 are also available, which are slightly smaller than their counterpart DVD5/DVD9 releases. They are AVCHD compatible using the BD folder structure, and are intended to be burnt onto DVDs to play in AVCHD compatible Blu-ray players. More recent types, probably associated with the use of newsgroups and cheaper storage at home, are complete Blu-ray copies (images). They are commonly referred to as BD25 or BD50 and may or may not be remixed (but not transcoded). (Remixing is keeping the original video, but eliminating audio tracks, and/or adding audio tracks in other languages.)

BD/BRRips come in various versions: the m-720p (or mini 720p), which is a compressed version of a 720p and usually weighs around 2–3 GB; the 720p, which usually weighs around 4–7 GB and is the most downloaded form of BDRip; the m-1080p (or mini 1080p), which usually weighs a little bit more than 720p; and the 1080p, which can weigh from 8 GB to sizes as big as 40–60 GB. There are also mHD (or mini HD) versions available, which are encoded in lower resolution and are smaller in size.

WEB Rip WEB-Rip
WEBRIP
WEB Rip
Common, WEB-DL is preferred
This is a rip created by capturing video from a screen, either broadcast or using a service like Hulu or Netflix. Quality can range from mediocre (comparable with low quality XVID encodes) to excellent (comparable with high quality BR encodes). Essentially, the quality of the image obtained depends on internet connection speed and the specifications of the recording machine.

WEB-DL WEBDL
WEB DL
WEB-DL
Common, becoming more common
This is a movie or TV show downloaded via an on-line distribution website (web download) like Amazon or iTunes. The quality is quite good since they are not re-encoded. The video (H264) and audio (AC3/AAC) streams are usually extracted from the iTunes or Amazon file and then remuxed into a MKV container without sacrificing quality.

An advantage with these releases is that they mostly have no network logos on screen, just like BD/DVDRips.

A nice article on Privacy

I came across a good post about Privacy titled " The Birth and Death of Privacy : 3000 years of history in 50 images"

I recommend people to read it.

https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/the-birth-and-death-of-privacy-3-000-years-of-history-in-50-images-614c26059e#.7qhp67srz

Politics won't fix it

By : Alutha Jamancar

 

Politics won't fix what ails our world. Politics is designed to move various existing solutions in and out of favor.

 

The reality of the world as we have known it, has lost its "stickiness," its cohesiveness. It is expiring. We can't patch it up, fix it up, make it better, or swing the clock back to an earlier era.

 

It is not the case that one political party or the other has gone mad and is to blame. Everyone – despite evidence to the contrary – did not suddenly take 'stupid' pills in the course of the last 5 years. The tribal agreements, paths, emotional & psychic watering holes that sustained us, have disintegrated before our very eyes. There is shock, disorientation, & a reflexive clawing at tattered remnants of culture, of safety, of familiarity. As we cling to those remnants & point at the 'other,' the remnants continue to disintegrate.

 

We are alone. Nobody did this to us. It happens. The model of the world, our world, is expiring. A model – this kind of model – is a collection of myths, of stories, we repeat to one another endlessly. Some of us agreed with the myths, some rebelled against the myths. All of us defined ourselves by them. And those stories, those myths, are losing their cohesiveness. They have aged, and are rotting. They will need to be replaced.

 

We do the replacing naturally. We moved from nomads to city-builders. We moved from tribal groups to elaborate empires. We moved slave- & property-owners to free-thinkers. We moved from empire to dark ages, from renaissance to industrialized workforces, from colonies to self-governing nations. The movement is never automatically from dark to light. We have had many dark periods in our long shared histories. Each transition between "world models" or continuums was disruptive by definition, and tumultuous at best. Cherished identities & roles disappeared, livelihoods vanished, new roles – and new rules – appeared, often times seemingly at random. Power, control, and authority shifted, splintered, and re-formed.

 

This is what lies ahead. And politics won't *fix* it. At the rate of disintegration, it won't even forestall it anymore.

 

There are immediate stop-gap measures that can be taken – get food to a town in Somalia where 3000 children are starving. Fight for rights of workers to have safe workplaces. Work to create easier access to the internet for distressed populations. And if addressing any of these short-term problems are what you feel called to do – great. But creating a new continuum – a new model of reality – is the overriding priority going forward. Otherwise that 3000 turns to 3,000,000, struggling workers turn to rioters, and distressed populations become managed by gunships. That is the future that beckons, if we fail to create a more compelling continuum. If you aren't working on that new continuum, you had better be supporting someone who is – and who is effective.

 

So stop looking to political leaders for solutions, and stop bickering with whomever you disagree with. Neither will help you face … or create … the future.

* * *

 

Our personal identities are wrapped up in the stories we persuade the world to tell about us — to "agree with," essentially. Lack of privacy … means we lose control of our narratives, our own mythos. Even today, people are struggling with sharing formerly privately-held political views … on the internet. They are often … finding themselves forced to defend or abandon … previously closely identified ideas and stands. Who they are … who they associate with … who they tolerate / admonish / admire … is now undergoing a rapid kind of axe-grinding.

We are forced … in the gaudy lights on the internet … to be more starkly defined, less nebulous. One scandal, one 'perceived' black mark … and you are discarded and scorned by one of the many zeitgeist mobs roaming the digistratus.

The richness, complexity, multilayeredness … of Jung's Self … is being flattened. We are — using the ongoing erosion of privacy — reducing ourselves to Ones or Zeroes.

Pretty much every historical figure admired today … was also a scoundrel in certain circles. An unrepentant mess.

We are trading our mess for plastic & vinyl, and are the worse for it.

Quotes about ancient Indian contributions

"Without the study of Samskrit one cannot become a true Indian and a true learned man."
    -- Mahatma Gandhi

"If I was asked what is the greatest treasure which India possesses and what is her finest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly that it is the Samskrit language and literature and all that it contains. This is a magnificent inheritance and so long as this endures and influences the life of our people, so long will the basic genius of India continue. If our race forgot the Buddha, the Upanishads and the great epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata), India would cease to be India ."
    -- Jawaharlal Nehru

"Samskrit language, as has been universally recognized by those competent to form a judgment, is one of the most magnificent, the most perfect, the most prominent and wonderfully sufficient literary instrument developed by the human mind."
    -- Sri Aurobindo

"Samskrit has moulded the minds of our people to the extent to which they themselves are not conscious. Samskrit literature is national in one sense, but its purpose has been universal. That was why it commanded the attention of people who were not followers of a particular culture."
    -- Dr. S. Radhakrishnan

"The language of Samskrit is of a wonderful structure, more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin and more exquisitely refined than either. Human life would not be sufficient to make oneself acquainted with any considerable part of Hindu literature."
    -- Sir William Jones

"Samskrit was at one time the only language of the world. It is more perfect and copious than Greek and Latin."
    -- Prof. Bopp

"Samskrit is the origin of modern languages of Europe."
    -- Mr. Bubois

"Samskrit is the unsurpassed zenith in the whole development of languages yet known to us."
    -- Wilhelm von Humboldt

"The intellectual debt of Europe to Samskrit literature has been undeniably great. It may perhaps become greater still in the years that are to come. We (Europeans) are still behind making even our alphabet a perfect one."
    -- Prof. Macdonell

"Samskrit is the greatest language of the world."
    -- Max Muller

"India was the motherland of our race and Samskrit the mother of Europe’s languages…Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all."
    -- Will Durant

"If Samskrit would be divorced from the everyday life of the masses of this country, a light would be gone from the life of the people and the distinctive features of Hindu culture which have won for it an honoured place in world-thought would soon be affected to great disadvantage and loss both of India and of the world."
    -- Sir Mirza Ismail  

"We are deeply indebted to the Indians. They have shown us how to measure and count. If we had not known their invention of zero and the facility it affords in counting we would not have been able to make any new invention at all".
    -- Albert Einstein

"However grateful we may be to Hindus who had discovered the decimal calculations, this is definitely not adequate for what they deserve. Such a method did not flash even to the intelligence of the greatest mathematicians of the west like Archimedes, Aparonious and many great men of Greece".
    -- Laplace

"Contacting all types of people and studying the names in the languages indicating the numbers, I have not come across anybody counting beyond 1000. Even the Arabs have stopped there.... But Hindus have gone much further and named numbers of eighteen digits also".
    -- Al Beruni

"Pythogorus theorem is found in Shulabasutra as Brahmagupta's theorem, two centuries before Pythogorus".
    -- Dr. Fiebout

"What was called in Surya siddhanta as Trikonamiti a type of mathematical calculation, was well developed in India before the Greeks had known about it. Besides, the theorems there were not known in Europe even two centuries ago".
    -- Elphinstone

"I have many evidences to say that before 1695 when Gottfried Leibniz, a German philosopher, found the binomial method of counting, India had achieved remarkable progress in this field".
    -- B. N. Newton

"Land of religions, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, grandmother of legend, great grandmother of tradition. The land that men with intellectual bent desire to see, and having seen once even by a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of the rest of the globe combined."
    -- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries."
    -- Julius Robert Oppenheimer

"Indian philosophers' subtleties make most of the great European philosophers look like schoolboys."
    -- T. S. Eliot

"The Indian way of life provides the vision of the natural real way of life. We westerners veil ourselves with unnatural masks. On the face of India are the tender expressions which carry the mark of the Creator's hand."
    -- George Bernard Shaw

"There is space in its philosophy for everyone which is one reason why India is a home to every single religion in the world."
    -- H. G. Wells

"Wherever we direct our attention to Hindu literature the notion of infinity presents itself."
    -- Sir William Jones

"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. It was as if an empire spoke to us nothing small or unworthy but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us."
    -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In the history of the world the Vedas fill a gap which no literary work in any other language could fill. I maintain that to everybody who cares for himself, for his ancestors, for his intellectual development, a study of the Vedic literature is indeed indispensable."
    -- Professor F. Max Muller

"In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life; and it will be the solace of my death. They are the product of the highest wisdom."
    -- Arthur Schopenhauer

"I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganga --- astronomy astrology metempsychosis etc., ... It is very important to note that some 2 500 years ago at the least, Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganga (Ganges) to learn geometry. But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe."
    -- Francois Marie Voltaire

"India has created a special momentum in world history as a country to be searched for knowledge."
    -- Friedrich Hegel

"It strikes everyone in the beginning to form an acquaintance with the treasures of Indian literature, that land so rich in intellectual products and those of the profoundest order of thought . ."
    -- Friedrich Hegel

"The Greeks loved so much Indian philosophy that Demetrios Galianos had even translated the Bhagavad-Gita. There is absolutely not a shadow of a doubt that the Greeks knew all about Indian philosophy."
    -- Roger-Pol Droit

"There is no language in the world, even Greek, which has the clarity and the philosophical precision of Sanskrit" adding that "India is not only at the origin of everything, she is superior in everything intellectually religiously or politically, and even the Greek heritage seems pale in comparison."
    -- Frederich von Schlegel

"The Veda was the most precious gift for which the West had ever been indebted to the East."
    -- Voltaire

"The vastest knowledge of today cannot transcend the buddhi of the Rishis in ancient India; and science in its most advanced stage now is closer to Vedanta than ever before."
    -- Alfred North Whitehead

"To the Indian Rishis the divine play was the evolution of the cosmos through countless aeons. There is an infinite number of creations in an infinite universe. The Rishis gave the name kalpa to the unimaginable span of time between the beginning and the end of creation."
    -- Dr. Fritjof Capra

"The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion."
    -- Herman Hesse

"In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny."
    -- Henry David Thoreau

"India - the land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all are known to the seers who founded the Veda."
    -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"The Vedas and the Upanishads are India's proudest and most ancient possessions. They are the world's oldest intellectual legacies. They are the only composition in the universe invested with Divine origin and almost Divine sanctity. They are said to emanate from God and are held to be the means for attaining God. Their beginnings are not known. They have been heirlooms of the Hindus from generation to generation from time immemorial."
    -- Hans Torwesten German

"The Vedic literature opens to us a chapter in what has been called the education of the human race to which we can find no parallel anywhere else."
    -- Professor F. Max Muller
  

"The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19th century). "The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and even the Jews, derived from the Hindus their knowledge."
    -- Jean-Sylvain Bailly

"The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19th century). "The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and even the Jews, derived from the Hindus their knowledge."
    -- Jean-Sylvain Bailly

"Hinduism the perennial philosophy that is at the core of all religions."
    -- Aldous Huxley

"How entirely does the Upanishad breathe throughout the holy spirit of the Vedas! How is every one who by a diligent study of its Persian Latin has become familiar with that incomparable book stirred by that spirit to the very depth of his Soul!"
    -- Arthur Schopenhauer

"Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws; moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledge they teach but there are always scrupulously careful to take into consideration the possibility that by reason both the agnostic and atheist may attain truth in their own way. Such tolerance may be surprising to religious believers in the West, but it is an integral part of Vedantic belief."
    -- Romain Rolland

"The Gita the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue."
    -- Julius Robert Oppenheimer

"Hinduism is synonymous with humanism. That is its essence and its great liberating quality."
    -- H. G. Wells

"India has left a deeper mark upon the history the philosophy and the religion of mankind than any other terrestrial unit in the universe."
    -- Lord Curzon (Viceroy of British India 1899 - 1905)

"It was only my first meeting with the Indian philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless."
    -- William Butler Yeats

"It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by ten symbols, each receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value, a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity, the great ease which it has lent to all computations, puts our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions, and we shall appreciate the grandeur of this achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity."
    -- Pierre Simon de Laplace


"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still."
    --  Carl Sagan "Hinduism the perennial philosophy that is at the core of all religions."
    -- Aldous Huxley

"How entirely does the Upanishad breathe throughout the holy spirit of the Vedas! How is every one who by a diligent study of its Persian Latin has become familiar with that incomparable book stirred by that spirit to the very depth of his Soul!"
    -- Arthur Schopenhauer

"Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws; moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledge they teach but there are always scrupulously careful to take into consideration the possibility that by reason both the agnostic and atheist may attain truth in their own way. Such tolerance may be surprising to religious believers in the West, but it is an integral part of Vedantic belief."
    -- Romain Rolland

"The Gita the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue."
    -- Julius Robert Oppenheimer

"Hinduism is synonymous with humanism. That is its essence and its great liberating quality."
    -- H. G. Wells

"India has left a deeper mark upon the history the philosophy and the religion of mankind than any other terrestrial unit in the universe."
    -- Lord Curzon (Viceroy of British India 1899 - 1905)

"It was only my first meeting with the Indian philosophy that confirmed my vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless."
    -- William Butler Yeats

"It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by ten symbols, each receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value, a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity, the great ease which it has lent to all computations, puts our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions, and we shall appreciate the grandeur of this achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity."
    -- Pierre Simon de Laplace


"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still."
    --  Carl Sagan   

Emperor's New Cloths

 (Copied from other source, just writing it here to keep myself a copy as a reminder, my mother once told me this story when I was a kid.)

A translation of Hans Christian Andersen's "Keiserens nye Klæder" by Jean Hersholt.

Many years ago there was an Emperor so exceedingly fond of new clothes that he spent all his money on being well dressed. He cared nothing about reviewing his soldiers, going to the theatre, or going for a ride in his carriage, except to show off his new clothes. He had a coat for every hour of the day, and instead of saying, as one might, about any other ruler, "The King's in council," here they always said. "The Emperor's in his dressing room."

In the great city where he lived, life was always gay. Every day many strangers came to town, and among them one day came two swindlers. They let it be known they were weavers, and they said they could weave the most magnificent fabrics imaginable. Not only were their colors and patterns uncommonly fine, but clothes made of this cloth had a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office, or who was unusually stupid.

"Those would be just the clothes for me," thought the Emperor. "If I wore them I would be able to discover which men in my empire are unfit for their posts. And I could tell the wise men from the fools. Yes, I certainly must get some of the stuff woven for me right away." He paid the two swindlers a large sum of money to start work at once.

They set up two looms and pretended to weave, though there was nothing on the looms. All the finest silk and the purest old thread which they demanded went into their traveling bags, while they worked the empty looms far into the night.

"I'd like to know how those weavers are getting on with the cloth," the Emperor thought, but he felt slightly uncomfortable when he remembered that those who were unfit for their position would not be able to see the fabric. It couldn't have been that he doubted himself, yet he thought he'd rather send someone else to see how things were going. The whole town knew about the cloth's peculiar power, and all were impatient to find out how stupid their neighbors were.

"I'll send my honest old minister to the weavers," the Emperor decided. "He'll be the best one to tell me how the material looks, for he's a sensible man and no one does his duty better."

So the honest old minister went to the room where the two swindlers sat working away at their empty looms.

"Heaven help me," he thought as his eyes flew wide open, "I can't see anything at all". But he did not say so.

Both the swindlers begged him to be so kind as to come near to approve the excellent pattern, the beautiful colors. They pointed to the empty looms, and the poor old minister stared as hard as he dared. He couldn't see anything, because there was nothing to see. "Heaven have mercy," he thought. "Can it be that I'm a fool? I'd have never guessed it, and not a soul must know. Am I unfit to be the minister? It would never do to let on that I can't see the cloth."

"Don't hesitate to tell us what you think of it," said one of the weavers.

"Oh, it's beautiful -it's enchanting." The old minister peered through his spectacles. "Such a pattern, what colors!" I'll be sure to tell the Emperor how delighted I am with it."

"We're pleased to hear that," the swindlers said. They proceeded to name all the colors and to explain the intricate pattern. The old minister paid the closest attention, so that he could tell it all to the Emperor. And so he did.

The swindlers at once asked for more money, more silk and gold thread, to get on with the weaving. But it all went into their pockets. Not a thread went into the looms, though they worked at their weaving as hard as ever.

The Emperor presently sent another trustworthy official to see how the work progressed and how soon it would be ready. The same thing happened to him that had happened to the minister. He looked and he looked, but as there was nothing to see in the looms he couldn't see anything.

"Isn't it a beautiful piece of goods?" the swindlers asked him, as they displayed and described their imaginary pattern.

"I know I'm not stupid," the man thought, "so it must be that I'm unworthy of my good office. That's strange. I mustn't let anyone find it out, though." So he praised the material he did not see. He declared he was delighted with the beautiful colors and the exquisite pattern. To the Emperor he said, "It held me spellbound."

All the town was talking of this splendid cloth, and the Emperor wanted to see it for himself while it was still in the looms. Attended by a band of chosen men, among whom were his two old trusted officials-the ones who had been to the weavers-he set out to see the two swindlers. He found them weaving with might and main, but without a thread in their looms.

"Magnificent," said the two officials already duped. "Just look, Your Majesty, what colors! What a design!" They pointed to the empty looms, each supposing that the others could see the stuff.

"What's this?" thought the Emperor. "I can't see anything. This is terrible!

Am I a fool? Am I unfit to be the Emperor? What a thing to happen to me of all people! - Oh! It's very pretty," he said. "It has my highest approval." And he nodded approbation at the empty loom. Nothing could make him say that he couldn't see anything.

His whole retinue stared and stared. One saw no more than another, but they all joined the Emperor in exclaiming, "Oh! It's very pretty," and they advised him to wear clothes made of this wonderful cloth especially for the great procession he was soon to lead. "Magnificent! Excellent! Unsurpassed!" were bandied from mouth to mouth, and everyone did his best to seem well pleased. The Emperor gave each of the swindlers a cross to wear in his buttonhole, and the title of "Sir Weaver."

Before the procession the swindlers sat up all night and burned more than six candles, to show how busy they were finishing the Emperor's new clothes. They pretended to take the cloth off the loom. They made cuts in the air with huge scissors. And at last they said, "Now the Emperor's new clothes are ready for him."

Then the Emperor himself came with his noblest noblemen, and the swindlers each raised an arm as if they were holding something. They said, "These are the trousers, here's the coat, and this is the mantle," naming each garment. "All of them are as light as a spider web. One would almost think he had nothing on, but that's what makes them so fine."

"Exactly," all the noblemen agreed, though they could see nothing, for there was nothing to see.

"If Your Imperial Majesty will condescend to take your clothes off," said the swindlers, "we will help you on with your new ones here in front of the long mirror."

The Emperor undressed, and the swindlers pretended to put his new clothes on him, one garment after another. They took him around the waist and seemed to be fastening something - that was his train-as the Emperor turned round and round before the looking glass.

"How well Your Majesty's new clothes look. Aren't they becoming!" He heard on all sides, "That pattern, so perfect! Those colors, so suitable! It is a magnificent outfit."

Then the minister of public processions announced: "Your Majesty's canopy is waiting outside."

"Well, I'm supposed to be ready," the Emperor said, and turned again for one last look in the mirror. "It is a remarkable fit, isn't it?" He seemed to regard his costume with the greatest interest.

The noblemen who were to carry his train stooped low and reached for the floor as if they were picking up his mantle. Then they pretended to lift and hold it high. They didn't dare admit they had nothing to hold.

So off went the Emperor in procession under his splendid canopy. Everyone in the streets and the windows said, "Oh, how fine are the Emperor's new clothes! Don't they fit him to perfection? And see his long train!" Nobody would confess that he couldn't see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool. No costume the Emperor had worn before was ever such a complete success.

"But he hasn't got anything on," a little child said.

"Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?" said its father. And one person whispered to another what the child had said, "He hasn't anything on. A child says he hasn't anything on."

"But he hasn't got anything on!" the whole town cried out at last.

The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, "This procession has got to go on." So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn't there at all.

Mikhail Gromov on Education

"Look at the number of people like Abel who were born two hundred years ago. Now there are no more Abels. On the other hand, the number of educated people has grown tremendously. It means that they have not been educated properly because where are those people like Abel? It means that they have been destroyed. The education destroys these potential geniuses—we do not have them! This means that education does not serve this particular function. The crucial point is that you have to treat everybody in a different way. That is not happening today. We don’t have more great people now than we had one hundred, two hundred, or five hundred
years ago, starting from the Renaissance, in spite of a much larger population. This is probably due to education....

...The question of education is not obvious. There are some experiments on animals that indicate that the way you teach an animal is not the way you think it happens. The learning mechanism of the brain is very different from how we think it works: like in physics, there are hidden mechanisms. We superimpose our view from everyday experience, which may be completely distorted. Because of that, we can distort the potentially exceptional abilities of some children. There are two opposite goals education is supposed to achieve: firstly, to teach people to conform to the society they live in; on the other hand, to give them freedom to develop in the best possible way. These are opposite purposes, and they are always in collision with each other. This creates the result that some people get suppressed in the process of adapting them to society. You cannot avoid this kind of collision of goals, but we have to find a balance between the two, and that
is not easy, on all levels of education.

There are very interesting experiments performed with chimpanzee and bonobo apes and under which conditions they learn, or even how you teach a parrot to talk. How do you do that? The major factor is that it should not see the teacher. You put a mirror between you and the parrot and then you speak behind the mirror. The parrot then sees a bird—it talks to a bird. But if it sees you, it will learn very badly. That is not an obvious thing. The very presence of a teacher, an authority, moves students in a particular direction and not at all the direction the teacher wants them to move. With all this accumulated evidence, you cannot make any simple decision. If you say “do this and this,” you are wrong for sure. Solutions are not obvious; they can only come after analyzing deeply what is actually known and by studying the possibilities. I think the answers will be unexpected. What children can learn and what they cannot learn, we don’t know because we don’t know how to conduct experiments to be ethical and instructive at the same time. It is a very nontrivial issue, which has not been studied much."