I can

Recently, while I was cleaning up my room for the upcoming Diwali festival, I found a nice piece penned by someone for Saurabh. Now, its not a Longfellow-style classy poem or it doesn't say something that would turn us selfish mortals into angels. But, its nice because it is small simple and wise. (uuuhhhh.. that rhymes!). Hell, its not even a poem, its a "piece"!

Here goes:
If you think you are beaten,
you are.
If you think you dare not,
you don't

If you'd like to win,
but think you can't
It almost certain
you won't

If you think you'll lose
you're lost

For out in the world
we find success begins
with a person's faith;
Its all in the state of mind!

Life's victories don't always go
to the stronger and the faster
but sooner or later the man who wins
is the man who thinks "HE CAN"

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

small simple and wise, isn't it? :)

Update: In case you didn't read the comments, vedang pinged to let me know that the poem/piece is actually composed by Walter D Wintle.

The search for a music player..

Since the death of Amarok 1.* series and the rise of the new 2.* series, it has been painfully difficult to use Amarok. Although I accept amarok has restored much of its lost glory, there are still a lot of areas where I miss the old amarok. So, started the search for a new music player. I tried Rhythmbox, SongBird and a host of other music players, but each one lacked something or the other. Here is a list of what I expect from a music player (besides the basic library and playlist management features)

1) A good lyrics plug-in which runs inside the main player window. Rhythmbox has a plugin, but it is non-configurable and spawns a new window. Amarok had a nice lyics plugins. (Wiki-lyric was the best).

2) Global shortcuts. This is a MUST. I should be able to play/pause/next/previous while the focus is on some other application. It is very helpful when working. New amarok global shortcuts, but it doesn't work. Rhythmbox, songbird don't even attempt to do it.

3) A "--enqueue" like option on the command-line. (eg. rhythmbox --enqueue <song>). This way I can add an entry in the right-click context menu which says "Append to playlist"

4) Search filenames. Many songs don't have valid IDv3 tags. (Especially Marathi and Hindi songs). Then, it is very useful to search them with their filenames. Old amarok had this facility and I was addicted to it. None of the players I reviewed later had this functionality, including the new amarok.

5) File browser within the player. Useful to add songs. Rhythmbox lacks it. Songbird, amarok have this.

6) Good randomisation algorithm. I am in love with the amarok randomisation algo. rhythmbox's algo sucks. With 2000+ songs, it still repeats a small subset of 100 songs fairly enough which is irritating.

Optional but nice to have features:
7) Edit IDv3 tags. Implemented by almost all players I reviewed.

8) Fill the screen with some data or the other (Like artist info, lyrics, songs like this, suggestions from Last.fm, etc)


If you know any nice music players which atleast has 4-5 of the first 6 features, please leave a comment. Currently, I am using SongBird. It is a close replacement to Amarok with loads of plug-ins and functionalities.

Forget some more ..

Zarin pointed me to this poem. I think it is awesome!

Update: Turns out Zarin herself penned this piece. That makes it brilliant-er!

I forgot how to worry,
and never ran out of happiness.
I forgot how to argue,
and everything around was quiet.

I forgot life is unfair,
and made every moment worth living.
I forgot the word revenge,
and enemies ceased to exist.

I forgot dreams are'nt real,
and lived in blissful fiction.
I forgot how to complain,
and dissatisfaction vanished.

I forgot that I'm human,
and work finished in a jiffy.
I forgot that I'm a slave,
and masters never lasted.

I forgot to have expectations,
and life became numb.
I forgot feelings are real,
and oceans never flowed.

I forgot how to breathe,
and life became heavenly.