29 Sept 2007

KTorrent Troubleshooting

Some torrent files may confuse KTorrent and it may go into an infinite loop consuming all CPU cycles but essentially doing nothing. I had a similar experience just a few hours ago. How did I solve it? I used the command ktorrent --debug to see what it does. Reading the debug output helped me find the directory* where KTorrent stores the current torrent files' information. I just removed the directory of the torrent that was causing trouble. Voila, KTorrent is back again to normal! [*] $HOME/.kde/share/apps/ktorrent/tor*

27 Sept 2007

Have I become allergic to governments?

Crap! What are these people doing? A few months ago I had to pay 1000 rupees for all my flight tickets in the name of tax. Air Deccan sold tickets for 150 rupees onwards and the government took a whopping 1000 rupees. Now the tax is increased to 1500 rupees. I come in the "rich people" category of the Indian government and I don't have any of that "IT-exemptible savings" so I end up paying 30% of my salary in the name of Income Tax. Whatever I spend the remaining 70% for, I have to pay taxes (again). For petrol I buy, more than 70% of the price is nothing but tax. Wherever I go I pay 12.5% VAT. All this for what? For these idiots to stop me on the road and make me bribe them for not wearing a helmet. And, these laws are for the benefit of me (i.e. the people). I don't understand one thing -- who are they to decide what's good for me and what's not?