From the Archives

I wrote this sometime in 2002, when I was still in Pune, and the US of A was a million miles away. I somehow stumbled on this (I've misplaced a lot of my writing from my pre-Blogger days). Thought it makes for interesting reading, especially because of the last line. There was a column called "Good Morning Pune" in the Pune TOI then. This was of course before its extreme makeover.

For some reason, as I wrote this piece, ending it in a way similar to the way thebengali@indiatimes.com did made eminent sense. I don't know anymore, since I am hardly ever objective about my writing. Anyway, here goes:

Have you ever felt you were part of a big chess game? I mean, that there are too many things happening that you are not in control of, factors beyond your control, unexplainable things that take away your very sense of security nay your sense of well-being or even your sense of being by itself? I do. All the time. I have reached a stage in life where I feel that for every move I make, there are a thousand ramifications and implications that I am barely aware of( forget
comprehending them). Richard Bach's "One" makes sense in more ways than one. The hazaar possibilities and "what If?" s that cross my mind, are all too confusing for me to make out.

It wasn't always like this. There was a time when I thought that my life is influenced solely by my actions. I mean I believed in God and all that. But it was more of a inherited thing (my parents are very religious, God bless them) than due to my own self-belief. But adversity and a long tortuous process of self-discovery (which included a brief period of atheism) has brought me here, a middle path where you claim control of your whole life without discounting for external factors. I find some people's beliefs that they control the strings of their destiny (favorite quote - "I make my own luck") to be a bit ludicrous. Maybe they can even predict that they wont be run over by a truck the next time they cross the road (after all, it doesn't fit in with their plans) .

The Truth (as I see it) , is that you can at least control your reactions to the circumstances around you. Account for the fact that things may not work out the way you want them to. God forbid, if they don't, you can take a decision to take life's hard punches on the chin and move on. Or maybe wallow in self-pity - although it will take you nowhere. In this age of layoffs and uncertainty though, the best thing one can do is have a back-up plan (maybe two) for the future in case one goes wrong. Because, as has been famously quoted, "Shit Happens".

Good Morning, Pune (or now, should I say "Piscataway"?) . All I say is, hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.

PS - I hope there is no copyright on the phrase "Good Morning, Pune". If there is, I acknowledge it.

Waxing Nostalgic

It is incredibly peaceful to be up at night with you being the only one up for a long distance around. An occurrence common during P.L.s in India. The TV on low volume, set to one of the two western music channels serving as background music, propping my feet on the sofa, I'd be up trying to understand the inner working of the transistor (a two-semester torment), or some nifty Fourier transform fu. Fourier, of course, being a favorite of the time-frequency warp came back to haunt us quite often in both continuous and discrete forms quite frequently (pun very strictly unintended, though Alhad would be proud).

Times have changed. I am still sitting with my feet propped up, albeit with a laptop. The music channel still runs in the background. A bit older, a bit less worried about subjecting myself to the vagaries of the University exam. A bit more mature, knowing that this, too , shall pass. That maybe the best is around the corner. Maybe it isn't, but I'll believe it is. After all, what is life, but your perception of it?

Indian sports roundup

BCCI says "We are in it for the money". We agreed all along.

"The ICC is toothless" says rediff. ICC agrees.

After trying her hand at editing the TOI, Sania Mirza sings on rediff radio.

What next, Hrithik cavorts with Sania, singing "you are my Sania"?

And yes, a spot of cheer in the midst of this media circus - the fastest Indian gets his spot in the sun against the world's fastest.

Un-f'ing-believable. The Tata logo on a F1 car? The Indian tricolor at Indy this year? Gotta make it there baby.Never thought I'd ever root for Jordan.

Yay!

COEP is back.

Ramanand reports from the trenches.

AwAz kuNAchA ? COEP chA

Correction thanks to Ramanand again

Apple, Google and a few million 'jobless' techies

I use 'jobless' here in the typical way most people from Bangalore or thereabouts use it - someone who is 'vela' or has nothing better to do.

Tech forums like Slashdot, and respected tech columnists from all major news portals have nothing better to do, but follow Google and Apple like fanatics.

Google recruiting fiber/backbone specialists? Maybe they are entering VoIP. Apple will enter the Video-On-Demand business next, since the Mini is their answer to the Media Center PC. The iPod Video is definitely next on the agenda. Google hired Firefox's leading developer? Get ready for GBrowser. Google hired Rob Pike, one of the original UNIX team from AT&T? Get ready for the Google OS.

Give me a break. Apple is secretive enough to shame the CIA. The only speculation from last year that worked was the flash-based iPod shuffle. This was based on real information that Apple was lapping up flash memory in semiconductor markets in Taiwan and elsewhere. The Mini of course was subject to a leak, and no smart guessing helped with that.

If just hiring a person with great programming, design and engineering skills causes a splash, it's extremely tiring. Of course Google registered GBrowser. They don't want someone squatting and causing them a copyright headache later that they pay thousands of dollars in lawyeer fees to settle. A few dollars a year to VeriSign takes care of the domain for them. Maybe they will come out with a browser. Doesn't make sense to me, but then I thought that 1 Gig of email space was a hoax.

This quote in the NYT left me reeling.

"Yahoo says, 'Where is the mountain? Let's climb it,' " Mr. Sullivan said. "Google says, 'Maybe we want to go up the mountain and maybe we want to go surfing.' "

Like Google got to be the biggest thing in search by employing surfer dudes with a bad attitude. They've surprised the market and upped the ante once in the past year with e-mail, prompting the storage glut we have now. They recently doubled the number of pages they serve, and are probably working on a bajillion different things right now, but just keeping it quiet. They managed an extremely complicated IPO recently, and more people, not less seem to be using AdSense every day.

I'm happy Yahoo and MSN are working on search, as we need more and more innovation, and it would be great to have more and better search options. But stop hounding Google. They are too busy working hard and having fun to really care.

And yes, I am waiting for the next big thing from Google to shake up the market too. Only, I am not speculating what it would be.

Update: I wrote this yesterday, but put off posting it. Google obliged: They are now a domain registrar, and they plan to give stock as reward to their best employees. Of course, they had to announce record results too.

Felt I had to react to Gaurav's post.

I get his point about TOI changing the media landscape in India considerably. Their diversifications are pretty impressive. They have been successful at it as well.

I still feel that a drop in editorial standards need not accompany it. Everything need not be an 'either-or' compromise. The TOI has survived for over 150 years. Editorial policies change, but not as drastically as this decade has seen.

"Adapting to the times"? Do we mean to say that we as a generation are less intelligent than what we used to be? There is a concept of market segmentation, that I'm sure Gaurav knows more about that than me.

Fortune is your regular business magazine. They probably cover a lot more technology or rather New Economy stories now, but they have a separate magazine (Business 2.0) to deal with it. While dealing with the leading edge of technology there are different requirements and a different audience, and the Fortune format was not flexible enough for both. If you read both the difference in format, and the target audience is obvious.

A newspaper has the flexibility of adding glossy supplements, or additional segments to meet specific audiences. The TOI was doing this pretty well with the suburban sections in B'bay and specific sections for cities like Pune and Ahmedabad catering to different audiences. There is no reason they cannot meet the LCD (lowest common denominator) crowd's expectations with this.

In fact, on fortune.com (or was it on forbes.com? I forget), the website wanted to monetize keywords so that they could link keywords in article text to advertiser websites. You can see annoying examples on some websites even now. Finding that it took away from the reader experience, they decided to do away with it, though it would have made them buckets of money.

If, in the TOI today, one cannot make out the difference between content and advertising, then is there a point left at all?

Isn't full disclosure something Indian publishers (read:TOI) understand? Many journalists writing about stocks actually disclose if they own stocks they are discussing in their columns. Is it unreasonable to expect that TOI disclose if an article or any publicity was paid for?

Admitted, a company's primary responsibility is its shareholders. Read my post on this issue a few months back. But don't most companies have a mission statement, which includes something about the quality of their products and customer satisfaction? By customer, I mean the intelligent reader, at one time the mainstay of the paper.

"Giving users what they want" is a slightly complicated thing when it comes to content. If a generation of readers is raised on a lower standard of journalism (as they are right now), they'll expect it to be normal. Witness Fox News' definition of news in the US. A whole lot of Fox News viewers have very interesting ideas of the Iraq War and the (non)discovery of WMD among other things.

I find the use of Ayn Rand's essay as an example frightening. 'Selfishness' and 'Greed' have been reduced to their basest expressions by other Ayn Rand readers I know too. If you are giving an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, you better have read "The Fountainhead", (a better book IMO) especially Howard Roarke's closing argument in the end. Is the TOI today closer to the first-hander Howard Roarke, or the second-hander Peter Keating? Isn't life about finding your highest ideal (to paraphrase Richard Bach?). And, isn't good journalism a journalist's highest ideal, if not that of his moneybag boss?

In the interest of full disclosure: I don't read the TOI. Unless someone specifically links to a TOI article, I vote with my mouse.

Geek Yoda

do() || do_not(); // try();

As seen in the signature of a Slashdot user.

Lawrence Lessig had this great column on Wired a few months back. I've been meaning to link to it since forever, but it kind of got left out.

A great blurb:

"Think about our behavior over the past four years. We have cut taxes but increased spending, benefiting us but burdening our kids. We have relaxed the control of greenhouse emissions, creating cheaper energy for us but astronomically higher costs for our kids, if they are to avoid catastrophic climatic change. We have waged an effectively unilateral war against Iraq, giving some a feeling of resolve but engendering three generations of angry souls focused upon a single act of revenge: killing Americans. And we have suffocated stem cell research through absurdly restrictive policies, giving the sanctimonious ground upon which to rally, while guaranteeing that kids with curable diseases will suffer unnecessary deaths. In each case, we have burdened children - that one group that can't complain - so as to supposedly benefit those of us who do.

This is the shameful application of a simple political truth: The future doesn't vote."

I can't help but agree with him. And, Lessig does well in taking both sides (R/D) to task.

Of Teacups, Storms and Being Politically Incorrect

This is the most balanced of opinions I have seen over the past few days about the Harvard President's remarks that women may not be as mathematically and scientifically inclined as men.

Honestly, I think the issue got blown way out of proportion. This was a remark by an esteemed academic, no doubt. But it wasn't as if he made sweeping statements with nothing to back him up, or that he said women scientists weren't good enough. He cited real studies where women seemed not to be performing as well as men.

He did give the example of his daughter. That was a bad idea. Anecdotal evidence in such a scenario makes it a generalization, whatever may be his intentions. And if, in his experience, he has found that women he knows are unwilling to put in 80 hour weeks, it's his opinion and he can make it. Did I hear something about it being a free country?

The poor fellow had to apologize. Twice. It would have been funny, if the matter hadn't been so serious and the man so accomplished.

We still have a long way to go before women receive the same respect as men in many fields. Attitudes definitely need to change. But this definitely isn't the way to go about achieving this.

I dug up this article from BusinessWeek that I remember reading about two years back. It talks about how girls are getting better and taking the lead in all spheres of education. From being class president, to debating to dramatics, to being the ones getting into college, "boys are the second sex" now. For some reason, this doesn't seem to manifest itself in engineering and the sciences.

If they are doing so well at everything, what are the reasons keeping women away from engineering then?

Nature? Nurture? Social pressures? The fact that being in a man's world makes it likelier that a woman will be discriminated against?

Everyone has their opinions, and probably the answer is a combination of these. I agree with Dr. Summers and what the quoted NYT article states. We need more studies to get a conclusive answer. Maybe, on an average, guys ARE better at this stuff naturally (that doesn't preclude girls from being good at it. I've met enough girls smarter than me to say otherwise) . Is that such a bad thing? Women are apparently better at "people skills", and it is PC to say this. Again, this doesn't stop guys from being good with people.

If my opinion makes me politically incorrect, so be it. (dodges)

As Paul Graham says " There is something wrong with you if you don't think things that you don't dare say out loud." Touche.

Happiness,Inc.

One doesn't expect to wake up one day and find one's fundas on life validated by a Harvard professor. But here I am. All I think of Happiness And Life As I See It vindicated by Daniel Gilbert, Professor of Psychology at Harvard:

The Article

Choice quotes:

"Research suggests that human beings have a remarkable ability to manufacture happiness."

"Things do seem to turn out for the best - but studies suggest that this has less to do with the way things turn out than with our natural tendency to seek, notice, remember, generate and uncritically accept information that makes us happy."

This does put paid to the romantic notion that things will turn out fine. It turns out that things don't turn out fine, but people do. This places a greater onus on us (I like that, onus on us. Recursive alliteration ?) to make things work in our mind, rather than hoping that they'll turn out OK.

Bummer. The responsibility is killing.

Make way for the fashion statement of the month. It's ...sweaters. As the mercury went south all the way to the Antarctic here, the warm woolies are out more than ever, even in the warm confines of the office. A casual walk down the corridor shows more men/women in their fleece sweatshirts and turtle-neck sweaters than ever before in my brief time here.

This place is nowhere close to Pittsburgh on the snow quotient (proximity to the Great Lakes being a great factor there). But with the temperature touching 0 Fahrenheit here, the very few cold-lovers must be happy. Mainly skiers are happy with this kind of weather. No one else seems to like it much. To paraphrase an ad I heard on the radio,a snowboarder will be "Down in the garage, giddy as a schoolgirl,polishing his snowboard".

Waiting for the snow to thaw, and glorious spring to arrive. Not that I'd mind skiing (its on a list of things to do, this winter or next), or the snow so much. I don't mind this weather so much except for the fact that it is so goddamn disruptive. Going out means scraping 3 inches of snow off the car and driving 15 miles slower than the prescribed speed limit. No walking outside, unless you want to freeze and risk the loss of a digit (or a limb). No food places or coffee shops with outside seating. You are stuck inside unless you can lift yourself off your rear and drive 100 miles to the middle of nowhere, pay through your nose and ski.

Seeing people (read: pretty girls in summer. I leave the rest to your imagination) on the roads and outdoors is much more fun. Not to mention some real greenery, as compared to the really depressing dried trees I see outside my window right now.

Too young to comprehend, too proud to complain

I read someplace a long time back that one should not read important books at too young an age, as the impact of the book is not what it would be. (that is, IF you could really comprehend what the author meant)

Being a somewhat prodigious reader as a kid meant that I was reading books way before they were supposedly 'appropriate' for me. By the time I was in college, classics like "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" had already been devoured and swallowed whole by this voracious reader.

Swallowed whole is more appropriate I guess, because these books did not affect me the way they 'should' have, considering the impact they have had on readers worldwide. I simply didn't 'get' them. I did 'get' and love most of Ayn Rand's work, including 'The Fountainhead' and 'Anthem'. (I do think 'Atlas Shrugged' is about a thousand pages longer than it should be though.) And I loved, and still love Richard Bach and pretty much anything he puts to print, including his Ferrets series.

I also have my reservations about the whole "critically acclaimed" thing, with me not agreeing often with what the critics say. Heck, I am a software engineer who reads, so my opinion on what good writing is or should be hardly matters to anyone but me. But 'acclaimed' books like 'The Interpreter of Maladies' and 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel left me disappointed. I liked only the first story in "The Interpreter of Maladies" about the couple in a fight in the middle of powercuts in the US (yes, they do occur, VERY rarely where I live though). 'Life of Pi' began interestingly enough, but towards the end, the drama of the tiger and Pi in a boat loses steam, and I was really looking forward to the book ending.

Maybe its just me.

Now that I am on the right side of 25 and supposedly 'mature' enough( by what standards
I ask?), should I go back and revisit some of these, if only to see how growing older affects your insights and if there are more 'a-ha' moments, richer of experience that I am now?

Do Not Go Gentle Into the Night

Do Not Take the Easy Way Out
When it is the most tiring, push the hardest.
Let your thoughts be interesting, insightful and funny.
Never let your music be "Easy Listening".
Do not Go Gentle Into the Night.
Put up a fight.
There has to be something worth fighting for.
There has to be something worth dying for.
If there isn't, is this existence worth anything at all?
Keeping regular hours is boring
Sleeping at the same time every night is frightening.
This is the time to be passionate.
A time to make mistakes.
To take life's blows on the chin.
To live fully, to love unreservedly, and to laugh wholeheartedly.

The Fighting Temptation

The unimaginable has happened - a sub-$100 iPod. Small capacity - 512MB, but I don't need a freakin' extra hard drive. I only want a music player, which will play a few hours of music for me, and will be something that I won't mind shelling out money for. Will work with the nice iTunes interface, making syncing a breeze.

And this is it. Finally...




The iPod Shuffle

Strap yourself in for 6-month waiting periods on this baby.

R.I.P.

A colossus rests...

http://www.rediff.com/movies/2005/jan/12puri.htm

Movies to see

Good special over at rediff about the movies coming up next year (make it this year). A few
obvious pleasers: Johnny Depp and auteur extraordinaire Tim Burton combining after a sweet Edward Scissorhands and a dull but gorgeous-looking Sleepy Hollow to bring us the Roald Dahl favorite, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Time for a library trip to read up on the original? Or should I do it the LOTR way, the movies first, and the books later ? (actually, I haven't read the books yet)

Batman begins, this time with a Goth feel, more than the campy feel it's had over its past reincarnations. I did like a couple of the Batman movies (whats to not like about Alicia Silverstone in a catsuit) , but I think this revisitation to the franchise will be worth it.

Then of course, there is a very interesting looking Sin City , a real graphic novel meets big screen, and one I am really looking forward to - "Be Cool". John Travolta redefines cool (when he gets up on the right side of the bed, that is), and him on the dance floor with the Bill Killing U in a Pulp Fiction after-party is to look forward to.

Favorite dialog: "Do you dance?" " I am from Brooklyn"
Well, Saturday Night Fever had his character based in Brooklyn too.

An interesting study - movies based in New York, versus movies based in any other city in the US. I think NYC wins 2 to 1 at the minimum. Maybe, someone more statistically inclined might be interested.

But, there is that one movie based across the Hudson River in the Garden State - Spielberg's new "War of the Worlds". Well, Tom Cruise was all over the papers when he shot in the Newark area for the movie. Which left Alhad, formerly from Los Angeles, California - Home to Hollywood in considerable mirth.

Quicktime Trailers at www.apple.com/trailers

Incredible Dilemma

Much has been written about "The Incredibles" and the philosophical questions it raises. I admit, I am not entirely uncomfortable with all of them myself. The character of Syndrome has a beginning that is not entirely unlike that of many geeks - super-intelligent with visions of heroism. While the do-gooders get their due glory, a rejected-in-childhood Incredi-boy becomes Syndrome, intent on turning the world into a celebration of mediocrity. The "everyones' special" refrain of parenthood today in the US is played on very smartly.

My audacious question is: is that so untrue? It's not my case that we celebrate mediocrity like the ridiculous ceremony for Dash's 4th grade graduation. However, as a generation that really knows no better , are we in a position to judge what gifts people are born with?

And what about hard work? Many gifts, including the holy grail of geekdom - hacking, are not purely birth-given. They are acquired through hard work, through all-nighters with caffeine and ramen noodles for company.Where does a world with the Incredibles(who don't really have to work at it) leave these people?

Time to watch the movie again.

Update:

Found this nice review, which partially agrees with my POV on the intelligence of Syndrome and the problem it raises within the whole premise of the movie.

In hindsight, I feel a bit silly. All this over an animated film. Well, at least I don't try to learn Klingon, and do a few million silly things that the Star Trek crowd seems to think cool.

Perspective

While in graduate school, I was going through a period of angst that was quite unlike my usually easy-going character. Various reasons including the usual - funding, money and the quest for employment were all part of the equation, and the overriding question was "Is this all worth it? "

Sid, a voice of reason in the most irrational of times had the answer as always. He said that working with underprivileged children at Akanksha among other things had given him an appreciation of life as we have it. Having so much and yet not being appreciative enough is a theme that has recurred strongly in my mind in the past few days since the tsunami struck.

Impossibly cruel, but true:

"Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you"

Various Artists - Do They Know It's Christmas?

The Return of the Prodigals

Even as Australia showed why they are the best, halfway across the world, a challenger rose. It's been a good run by the English. They have shown as much (maybe more) promise as the Indians did in the golden Australian summer of 2003, when the Indians almost did the unthinkable -beating Australia in their own backyard.

There are no reasons to think this run may last longer than the Indian one did. But, I feel that India were done in this year by what I believe was a combination of statistical anomalies. So many top batsman losing form at the same time combined with bowlers being injured at the same time did take its toll.

But England seem (I say seem, as cricket for me is what I follow online) better poised this time around. I am writing this as we still go into the fifth day of what has been an intense Test match so far.

This summer's Ashes promise a tough fight. I know the world's waiting for someone to give to Australia as good as they get, and I sure don't mind it being the limeys.

Observation

As I sit at a PC typing into an Emacs window, a thought strikes the mind.
Why is it that my code looks clean, and someone else's gobbledygook?

To wit:
Kya mera khoon khoon, aur baaki sabka paani hai?
Mera code maintainable, aur sabka spaghetti hai?

Help

As the world celebrated yuletide, thousands died, and millions wept.

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/

Memories

My U2 "Best of 1980-90" cassette broke two weeks back. Made me kind of sad. I dont have a CD player in my car, and my old cassettes give me good company during long drives.

A lot of my cassettes have special memories associated with them. Especially because as a student in Pune, Rs 125 on a cassette was a guilty pleasure. You couldn't buy these too often without making a dent in your "allowance money".Actually, I didn't have a fixed allowance, but my parents had a good idea of how much money I'd have to spend per diem in Pune as a indigent hostel student.

Not that they'd mind me buying music. But, with other indulgences including movies, concerts, (and dinner outside on weekdays when the mess food was bad, which was often) supported on the same budget, buying cassettes was a special occasion, something you didn't do on a whim.For instance, my Bon Jovi "Crossroads" was among the first albums I bought after starting engineering. It was in a hole-in-the-wall place somewhere on M G Road. Then of course, there's Scorpion's "Acoustica" bought at the MusicWorld near Blue Nile, just before a long train journey to Chennai.

The advent of MP3s changed that to a great extent.But, there is something distinctly boring about a Gig of songs with plain file names. Unnamed actors in a plain iTunes window.They don't speak to you the way a well-designed inlay does.

So, I am returning to the old days -with CDs this time around. I somehow missed the album covers, and neat inlays with lyrics and notes. Pearl Jam's "Ten" cover is enough justification for the love affair to begin again.

Woo Hoo!

Talk about good Christmas presents. My cousin just gave me 50 free credits on his Napster account, ones that he got on his Creative Nomad.

50 songs for the buying...

I've already used up 9 credits. 41 more to go before the year ends and they expire...

Addendum: Napster is pretty neat, though the whole environment reeks of a iTunes rip-off all the way. Well, nothing beats free and legal.

Tracks so far: 2 from Howie Day, 4 from Goo Goo Dolls (including the divine Iris) and 3 from Vertical Horizon.

I am the kid in the candy store.

Microsoft has been under fire due to the security flaws in their products lately, especially in Internet Explorer. Enough has been said about that. However, its latest move to acquire anti-spyware software maker Giant doesn't look good on its resume. The key to secure software is prevention, and Microsoft of all people has no right to complain of a resource crunch.
They have the money and the (highly skilled) manpower to throw at this problem. Absolutely necessary is a drastic reworking of the browser - a la SP2, where they let applications break, but put security first.

Even more galling is the possibility that they may charge for this software. The reason spyware exists is because of the bad security model that Microsoft used for IE. I don't say this - CERT does. ActiveX, and the whole "zones" model is completely broken. In a recent statement, Microsoft said that spyware was the users' fault, not theirs. Yeah right.

In most cases, maybe. But I've been infected by spyware without ever clicking "OK" on anything. It was due to streaming music websites (before you think of other, more "unclean" reasons). I'm not that dumb. I used Firefox then too, but my realplayer plugins didn't work cleanly on it then. Valuable lesson learnt: NEVER use IE-only sites, unless they are your bank or something and you have no choice.

Another pet grouse to get off the chest: For those who say that all of Microsoft's problems stem from marketshare, I call their bluff with two words - Apache and Oracle. I don't even remember the last time a major Apache server or an Oracle database (both market leaders by a wide margin) was taken out by a vulnerability. Slammer, of course is fresh in everyone's mind.

Complacency is one thing open-source can do well to guard against though. It wasn't so long ago that Debian's servers were hacked into just days before a major release, rendering the whole source of Debian vulnerable to tampering. Mercenaries are exactly that - they have no respect for authority or principles, making open-source software an equally good target if the incentive's right.

COEP(IET) Blues

I link to Ramanand's keen insight on what's wrong with COEP ( PIET, since they insisted on effacing any history we ever had) , and what can be done to fix it

I can't say it any better, so here goes

It's been interesting over the past few days to see the obvious influence of Andy Warhol on popular culture and art as it stands today. A trip down a good music store's aisle showed me at least 2-3 albums with covers influenced straight from one of Warhol's prints. Problem is, I cannot remember the album names, nor did googling help very much.

A typical example is linked here from the Warhol store:


Then I saw this. A tad on the expensive side, but a nice nod to pop culture as would be defined by Indian cricket fans.

Amit Varma writes in Cricinfo about choking, and how it is related to implicit versus explicit learning.

hmm...worrisome. Definitely worrisome for someone who's stumbled through life more or less on what is called "implicit learning" that is.

This may explain why for some inexplicable reason I've lost the plot at times I'm not supposed to, as also why I revel in the same ulcer-inducing conditions at a different time and place.

Actually, this does make sense. I've looked back at times in my life when I've done well, and honestly, I have no f*&^ing clue what I was thinking of then. Which makes that success irreproducible. (Heisen-success anyone?). The heartening part is, it's happened enough times for me to know that it isn't all uncertainty.

But I do need to bone up on that "explicit learning" part he goes on about.

Read the article for sure.

Someday I'll fly

Someday I'll fly...

Someday I'll soar...

Someday I'll be so damn much more...

'cause I'm bigger than my body gives me credit for.

- John Mayer "Bigger Than My Body"

Rage against the system

A wonderful article about why today's metal and hip-hop music is so violent and depressing. Traces this right from Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder, thru hip-hop icons Tupac, Jay-Z and Eminem.

Eminem is Right

via Amit Varma's (of Cricinfo fame) wonderful new blog: The Middle Stage

Writing

When was the last time a piece of writing brought a lump in your throat, made you appreciate life all over, AND re-affirmed your faith in words like hope, optimism and bravery?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4058063.stm

I hope this does some of that. Ivan Noble is a writer for BBC who was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He has been undergoing chemotherapy and underwent surgery to be cured.However, his tumor is in remission now. He writes every week about his struggle with the disease, his pain, and
his hope for the future. All without sounding maudlin.

A toast to courage.

Hackers Part Deux

Paul Graham certainly has some interesting things to say. Actually, he says things that I've thought of at times, but never really articulated, because these things weren't all clear in my mind. (If they were, maybe I'd be a genius of his caliber) But his essay here on hackers is remarkable.

After my previous post on hackers, this makes for an interesting sequel. I've met people who fall in this category, and I know what it entails on their part to be that way, and though I am not half as good a coder, the attitude rubs off.

And this guy writes well: "At our startup we had Robert Morris working as a system administrator. That's like having the Rolling Stones play at a bar mitzvah." Amen to that.

For those who don't know Robert Morris, here's a blurb: The man wrote the first ever worm, which accidentally spread so far and wide that it brought down the Internet as it stood then (in 1988). He was sentenced to 3 years of probation. Finding the last refuge of true hackers, he is now a Professor at MIT.

Time to face the moojik

It's amazing when you realize that a decade passed you by, with an alarming lack of exposure to quality contemporary music.

I am referring to the blighted late 90s and early zeros, when we had the pleasure of MTV and Channel V with a disgraceful mix of boy bands and bubblegum pop princesses passing off as "Music" (this, in addition to a few dozen punjabi singers and the drivel they pass off as remixes). I didn't notice too much, maybe because I was hardly at home, and also because my hostel and friend network provided me with enough classic rock to sustain me through the blues of COEP.
A good ride on Internet radio over the past few months has left me with a long list of bands/singers from the last few years that I'd like to hear more of:

Green Day
Goo Goo Dolls
Matchbox Twenty
John Mayer
Sarah McLachlan
Evanescence

Great Quote

U2 frontman Bono at a Labor Party Conference a few months back:

"Excuse me if I appear a little nervous. I'm not used to appearing before crowds of less than 80,000."

"How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" - their new album is out today. USA Today calls it their best album ever. Tall claim that - beating "The Joshua Tree", or even "All That You Can't Leave Behind" is not going to be easy.

Top-down, bottom-up

I read We, the Media recently. The book is available at the website for free download.

This is an interesting and thought-provoking look at how new media is changing the equations on content and news.It talks of, among other things, the rise of of RSS news feeds, which allow you to have a greater say in the news you get, and its relevance to you. (similar to the push vs. pull case I made a few weeks back - it was probably before I read the book. Great minds do think alike.). Importantly, it talks of grassroots journalism, and the rise of blogs and things like the Wikipedia, online content that is driven from the bottom-up.

Adding to this theme, I now realize how easy and cheap it is for anyone to really get information out there today. Two technologies on the Internet make this cheap: the first is, of course, freely available blog sites like this one. The second one is BitTorrent. While most people associate it with downloading pirated movies, and software, it is turning out to be an amazingly effective tool for distributing content on low budgets. (I got my latest linux isos, and firefox downloads via bitTorrent - almost as fast, and a bit less server load for the orgs.)

Note: If you don't know about BitTorrent, do check the official FAQ. The protocol's darn impressive. According to some studies it accounts for one-third of the traffic on the Internet today

Imagine an incident like the Rodney King incident happening today. An ordinary person could get the word out, and if s/he has a digital video of it, it could be downloaded by millions without grief to his/her bandwidth bills, simply by posting a BitTorrent link online. With official media increasingly reluctant to take on the government in the US, especially on anything related to "security", this may be prove increasingly important in the future.

For an insight into how news-reporting is giving way to increasingly biased reporting, watch this interview footage from Outfoxed.

NOTE TO SELF: I am beginning to sound like a radical left-wing loonie here. But I 'd like to think I stand by facts, and I like my news like the beeb delivers it. Give me healthy skepticism over "You're with us, or you're with them".

Red, Blue and Purple

An increasingly fractured country?

The Republican and Democrat candidates this election looked increasingly similar on many policies including the war in Iraq and gay rights. However, most maps show the US in sharp relief, neatly dividing up the country into red and blue - with the interiors mostly red, and the north-east and the west blue (literally and figuratively, after the elections). But this link gives a very good insight. Using some neat map techniques, the US map has been transformed, so that population density and margins of victory are given importance too. And they used purple too.

The U.S. of A is nowhere as close to fractured as the mandate made it out to be.

In other news, Ramanand added me to his blogroll. The number of COEPians (even only among the ones I knew) blogging is pretty impressive. I'll get around to a list of blogs on the LHS of this page sometime soon. Maybe some stat counter too. (Ego trip? Maybe. What the heck)

And yes, South Park rules.

You will respect my authoritah.

The curse of the Bawa, and amending religions

An interesting article over at rediff. Talks about how the Parsis are dwindling in population. Having one good Parsi friend (from whom I have a lot of inside dope on the issue), this did make for a good read.

An important point (that at least I wasn't aware of) raised in this article is the difference between religion and ethnicity. Parsis are Zoroastrians, but all Zoroastrians are not Parsees. Complicated? Kind of. With these being synonymous in India (like Punjabis and Sikhism for most people south of the Vindhyas) , it's easy to make the mistake.

For those who come in late, Zoroastrianism is very rigid. Women who marry outside the religion, 'leave' the religion, and if men marry outside, the wife is never inducted into the religion. The children of a woman marrying outside can never take up the religion, though children of men can.

A non-Parsi is not allowed in fire-temples. This means that a woman marrying a Parsi will be effectively excluded from all religious rites involving her children, from the baptism to the funeral. Obviously, a woman married to a Parsee may not necessarily be very enthusiastic about allowing her children to take up a religion she won't be part of. There have been attempts to change this, but this has divided Parsi society right down the middle, with many people both for and against such reform. That there may not be much left to reform in a couple of generations is an entirely different issue.

This does make for a bigger philosophical question. Are religions rigid, strictly defined by the Holy Books as they stood maybe a few centuries ago, or can/should be they adopted to meet the needs of the time?

The whole gay marriage issue in the US, shifting social norms over the world, and a stronger awareness and assertion of women's rights make this question all the more relevant.

If the US has painted itself red and blue over same-sex marriage and abortion, India too has a strong debate over the Uniform Civil Code and rights for women in poorer, less educated societies, both Hindu and Muslim. Ridiculous cases like this beg the question: is faith an artifact of our mind, or is it ordained from above, something that is 'there', strong, unassailable, unchangeable? I personally think the answer will vary with religion too. In fact, interpretations of religions themselves may give you different answers to this high-level question.

Arguments may never end, and what is sinful and 'out there' today is normal tomorrow, but these are questions that need to be addressed. The answers may not be to everyone's liking, but they're important.

Firefox 1.0

I could not let the day go by without my review of Firefox 1.0 , the much awaited browser from the Mozilla community. It is arguably the best project in terms of ease-of-use to come out of the open-source community.

The upgrade from 1.0 PR was tried in multiple ways - install over an existing version of 1.0 PR on my laptop, and upgrade using the 'check for upgrade" in the options menu for my desktop in office. Happy to say that both went off smoothly.Unhappy, however to say that googlebar did not port over as smoothly.

Quick notes:

1. First loading is slower than PR. Dunno why. Once loaded, is nice and snappy.

2. Multiple tabs open smoothly, even for 6-7 bookmarks using the "Open in Tab" feature. Neat for opening all mail accounts , or all news sites at one go.

3. Nifty small features - search for eBay and Creative Commons part of the standard search options. Added IMDB and AltaVista to the list myself.

4. Neatest feature new to 1.0 - can open links from external programs (say, mail client) in new tab in the same window instead of a new window. Perfect for me at work, when I have multiple emacs windows open, and would prefer only one browser window for all web-related work.

5. Still cannot subscribe to all RSS feeds. Less forgiving compared to regular RSS Readers.

6. Wish I could save passwords for things other than websites on the password manager. I need like a dozen passwords for the various applications/sites in use in my office. Many of them are IE-only, which makes it very inconvenient.

Overall verdict? Highly recommended. Security is of course a prime consideration (just found a couple of tracking crap on my computer last week - am positive it came from a streaming site which was IE-only. Permanently off my list now). It just sets new standards in ease of use.

Take back the Web.

Film-making in my opinion is composed of two important parts: the first is the art of telling a story, of making authentic characters, and of a logical progression which makes a movie fit together as a whole. The second part is the visual part - what kind of vision can the director
impart on the screen.

There are directors who have a sense of one without the other, and vice-versa.


George Lucas fits into this mould - a grand visionary with a bad sense of story. Star Wars pushed the right buttons for me visually, but did nothing for me in terms of the storyline. The good versus bad allegories were lost. I feel I am being unfair on the movie as I saw it on video and not on the big screen which may actually skew my opinion a bit.

But Spielberg fits the bill of the complete director. Seeing "Minority Report" a few months back reiterated that fact perfectly. Again, I saw this on DVD. The idea of the world in the future was simply fabulous. Intrusive, in-your-face advertising based on biometrics, and the ideas of public transportation, plus the way Tom Cruise and the other cops orchestrate the thought projections was simply impressive. In addition to the eye-candy, the story-telling was what it needed to be. It was tight, and kept you hooked. I haven't been on the edge of the seat for a movie since forever. But this movie had me rooting for Cruise and the Minority Reporter (Samantha Morton) till the end. Her being pre-scient adds to the fun. Check out the neat scene where she makes him release the balloons at the perfect moment, to fool their pursuers.

The movie which kind of re-inforced my two-pronged view of cinema was "A Beautiful Mind". Showing schizophrenia on screen is a tough thing to achieve. However, Ron Howard does an incredibly good job of it (He did win an Oscar for his effort, so I am in great company on that judgement). He manages to convey how newspapers and seeminly innocuous blobs of text have
special meaning for Nash through the use of light and special effects very ... well, effectively.

Looking forward to watching "The Incredibles" for more of the same. (the word incredible probably appears on my blog an incredibly high number of times)

I am a sucker for good animation. Pixar's never disappointed me, though Disney's had some serious lemons in the past few years. (Sinbad, for instance).

So, Mr. Incredible, Dash, Elastigirl and Violet (that shows you how many reviews I've read online), looking forward to meeting you.

Ray of light

"Ray" with flavor of the year Jamie Foxx in the eponymous role makes you laugh, cry and sing along. With an incendiary performance by Foxx, a set of songs from his early days peppering the soundtrack, and very good direction, this movie is easily among the best this year. Foxx is a shoo-in for an Academy nomination, and I won't be surprised if the director and screenplay pick up nominations/awards too.

The story focuses on Ray Charles' early years, from his losing his sight in early childhood, to his arrival on the vibrant Seattle and then New York music scene. It's an uncompromising and yet celebratory look at the genius (and the man behind the genius, warts and all). His fight with drugs and philandering as he rose to fame make up the bulk of the story.

Although a tad on the longer side, a non-linear narrative, with the use of flashbacks to show the loss of his sight, and his mother's tough-love upbringing, makes this film eminently watchable. If you don't have a thing for the blues or R&B, this might just make you interested enough in Charles' music as it uses his songs to great effect to enhance the narration. The ending to me was a tad reminiscient of "A Beautiful Mind". However, I'd say it was more of a nod to it, since like "A beautiful..." , it was a decision to focus the movie on the part of his life that was the most difficult.

An interesting sidelight was the executive at Atlantic Records who notices Ray's talent and nurtures it. I don't know if such scouts exist in the record industry anymore. Maybe they do, because we still have good music being made. But the amount of bad (or simply mediocre) music on the airwaves means that these people are few and far between. With the focus shifting from music to the bottomline, the big labels are on their way down musically.

Incredible!

It's the only word one can use for India's victory in this match. All the grouses about the pitch are just whining. Like Durban or the WACA's "where's a lawn-mower when you need one" pitches allow matches to be played over 5 days.

Australians are too good a team to accuse of the sour grapes phenomenon.But they did miss Warne. Like we missed Harbhajan in the last game, and Pathan in the last two games. But one thing is affirming itself, that this test rivalry has been incredible over the past 3 years. Overshadowing the Ashes? hmm...that will have to wait till the next Ashes, since now Australia will have a new England to contend with.

Outfoxed!

A set of interviews from a now-famous documentary about Fox News and its "unbiased" coverage of the news and government.

Link is here. Licensed under Creative Commons' Sampling Plus license

Random observations on a New York weekend

Going to "the City" as everyone in a 100-mile radius of NYC refers to it, is always an interesting experience. The influence of the Big Apple on everything in the vicinity is evident from the banners at NJ Transit stations advertising Broadway shows and financial institutions.

Like the eager kid I used to be when going to Bombay(now Mumbai), there is a certain buzz of anticipation you feel as you approach the city. There is an effervescent spirit in New York City, that constantly reminds me of my nanihal, the city of dreams that Mumbai is. The City is (in my own words) a zoo, with the most interesting set of characters you will ever get to meet. Unlike the fairly sanitized interiors of the East Coast where two colors of skin abound (with a smattering of brown Indian software engineers and doctors), the city is a riot of colors, the quintessential melting point, where mainstream radio plays Punjabi MC with as much enthusiasm as punk rock.

The city prides itself on being culturally progressive.The kind of clothes most people wear is (in my opinion) a reflection of that. On weekdays, the dark, sober colors of corporate America seem to dominate especially in the business district. But venture out on friday evening and thereafter, and there is a distinctly eclectic blend of couture on display. People seem to pride on an a la carte approach to dressing , and on stamping their individual brand on what they wear. A refreshing change from sale-rack fashion for sure.

So, we did the usual and the unusual. An afternoon in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, looking at Mughal miniatures, sacrophaguses (or is it sacrophagi?) and an amazing collection of Monets, Renoirs and Rodin sculptures. And dinner at a place in Greenwich village selling Kathi rolls, quite like those we used to eat in Pune. Apparently it gets so crowded with drunken patrons from nearby pubs/clubs at night, that the owner has a bouncer to keep a check on things after 11 PM.

Then, it was onto a club with a Bollywood style theme night. The guy collecting the entry fee was wearing an Indian cricket jersey . On it, he had pinned on a Vote John Kerry badge. Talk of interesting combinations.

However, the number of non-desis at a Bollywood theme party at a nightclub was surprising. The party itself was a true Bollywood one, with theDJ playing bona fide 70s and 80s hits and not the remix trash that clogs Indian airwaves today . Assuming that these (non-desi) people are here with Indian friends is taking the easy (and plausible ) way out. But this proved not to be completely true.

The night's bill:

Dinner bill for 3 in Greenwich village - ~$30 (for 3 people - cheap!)
Entry at the club - $12 ea.
Catching a cab to get home - $15.
Hearing an American PYT say on the phone " Bollywood was awesome"? Priceless.

Today, New York...tomorrow, the world? Muwaahhhaa( evil Bollywood villain laugh)

A couple of interesting vides on the web right now - anti-Bush, anit-war. (Any way you want to see it). The animation on Eminem's video is good. Some of today's animation videos , - (Linkin Park's "Breaking the Habit" anime video comes to mind) are pretty nifty. My favorite though is Pearl Jam's "Do the Evolution". It's not for the faint-hearted though - lots of violent imagery.

http://www.systemofadownonline.com/vid/boom.htm

http://guerrillanews.tv/content/eminem_mosh.html

India needs a Schwarznegger

India needs Arnold Schwarznegger. No, I am not joking. The reason a lot of real reform and progressive measures get held up in government is because of vested interests. Everyone has their axe to grind, and axe-grinders are generally people who have supported the formation of the government. It isn't very different in the US. It's more sophisticated and they call it "lobbying". Arnold however, has been more successful as compared to others in pushing through some things, and it looks like he may be able to get more done than most.

Don't take my word for it. Read this Wired magazine article.

Having Warren Buffett as consigliori doesn't hurt, of course. However, he derives his power not from backroom politics, ( gotya as we would have called it back in the COEP days, or jugaad in my CMU days) but from his star power and charisma. He doesn't need senator or congressmen endorsements to survive. Which is the reason he can ram through fiscally and politically tough decisions, and get away with calling his opponents "Mickey Mouse men".

A government like that won't hurt in India. No vested interests means the best man for the job, and some great progressive measures (first on my wishlist: A complete overhaul of the judicial system) .

However, in India , we cannot do with just a PM like that. We need 273 mini-Arnolds, to keep him in power as well. But even one popular person at the helm with nothing to lose, and things might get interesting.

The case against pirated software

There are a lot of tools that we need, which do not come standard with Windows. Common ones include CD burning software to burn ISO images, an FTP client, a SSH/SFTP client, Office productivity software, firewall software, and importantly anti-virus software. Some of these may come standard with the computer you purchase, but most of this is stuff you need to install yourself. There is an obvious temptation to just head over to Kazaa, or BitTorrent, and get pirated copies, or get eval copies and keys / cracks off astalavista.

However, over the past couple of years, there are an increasingly large number of genuinely free - meaning free as in beer and/or freedom options available for a lot of this software. This in itself makes a case for not using these. Head over to download.com to find pretty good free versions of software you need.

But enough of me moralizing. The REAL reason you should not download this is that the potential for malware is fairly high. It is trivial for someone to totally mess up your system by making you install malware Nasty 2.1 when you think you are installing Nero 7.1. Why take the risk? It is increasingly not worth it, when there are mature, stable pieces of free software available for most reasonable uses online. Except for MS Office and Symantec AV (I have this from an academic license from school), everything else I run is freeware/open source. And absolutely everything I run is 100% legal. No piracy in software.

here's a list to give you a better idea
Windows XP home - came bundled with my laptop
Browser - Firefox
Mail Client - Thunderbird
Firewall - ZoneAlarm free version
Music Player/CD burner -iTunes
DVD Player - Intervideo (came bundled with my laptop)
CD (ISO) Burner - DeepBurner
FTP/SFTP client/server - Filezilla (GPL - from sourceforge)
Photo manipulation - GIMP - it's overkill, since I use it mainly for lowering resolution on digital photos.

Additonally recommended - AVG
Spybot search and destroy
Ad-Aware

Get all these off download.com - fast mirrors help the case.

I rest my case - except for Windows itself (I need that for VPN access to my office), and Office XP ( for legacy reasons - many documents don't work well with OpenOffice), I've reached the point where my dependency on paid software is reduced. It makes eminent economic sense, as I am getting off the latest and best upgrade treadmill that companies want you to be on. I am not a gizmo freak, so the support for the latest USB/FireWire knick-knack isn't important to me. Support for a digital camera, whenever I buy one will be, as will be support for sound and wireless. For my present and short-term future requirements, this seems to be working fine.

If you feel you are the cat's whiskers when it comes to coding or something, hop over and land a hand at one of the open-source projects. Find one that fits your interests and skills, and maybe you'll feel justified for taking all that stuff for free :-). And even if you don't, it's perfectly legal. Though it's amazing to see how so many people seem to be giving back.

No, I don't work on any of those projects. However, I do documentation for the Internet Archive

Push vs. Pull Media

I don't come home and watch TV( I don't own one, and don't plan to buy one for the next few months). My entertainment comes from music, reading news online, reading books from the library and online, and watching movies on my 15'' PC monitor. (that may be a big factor in me eventually buying a TV) . I 'pull' in media I am interested in - no one shoves it down my throat. This includes finding music on the radio/web that may be interesting, and then buying or downloading it off iTunes (Though I prefer free off archive.org :-)). I want no one to control what I can read/listen to. Having a TV, to me personally at least is an invitation to passivity. I'd pretty soon get to just channel-surfing, and watching the countless reality shows/sitcoms TV puts out.

I hope there are more people out in the world doing this. The consolidation of media in the US - especially TV and radio has left a major gap where there was thoughtful entertainment once. Mainstream radio offers no critiques of music, just the latest and cutest from manufactured pop (and now hip-hop) acts. There is no value left in being different or edgy any more. If Ashlee Simpson defines alternative rock (that's what plays on Yahoo!'s "Adult Alternative" station), God help us all.

Yay for Homer!!!

A poll of the most popular TV character for Persident chose Homer Simpson as the next Prez.

Link is here

Nice role model that for people all over the world. A relief is that Martin Sheen of West Wing at least made it to second place. But Phoebe from Friends making it to the top 10 indicates where the Oval Office stands in terms of intelligence, in the minds of TV viewers at least.

Smart, Gross Humor

I got a chance to see South Park- The Movie last week. After having to bear absolute drivel like American Pie and Eurotrip in the past 2-3 years (not to mention the few dozen such teen "comedies" I completely avoided seeing), "South Park, bigger, longer, uncut" was a pleasant surprise.

South Park - The Movie, to those familiar with the TV series would come as no big surprise. But, for me, who hardly watches TV, it was a pleasant change. Sure, it has the usual 'grade-school humor'(as a reviewer put it). However, it has a lot of pointed references, that are even more relevant in the world we live in than they were when the movie was made. The incessant moralizing over the f-word, and the hypocrisy when it comes to violence, are all present. The South Park gang fart, puke and swear their way through morals-bound America at war with Canada over two "immoral" movie stars (modeled on the SP creators themselves). It's metaphor at its grossest. And it works.

Only, you need real stomach to forgive some of the regular South Park jokes ( Stan throwing up on his girl-friend everytime he meets her). But something in the movie clicked with me.

Watch out for South Park references, as I catch up with older series on DVD/P2P.

Of Iconoclasm and Hackers

I always thought being contrary was a quirk I had. I've never tried to curb it, but this consistent instinct to not confirm is an itch that I keep trying to scratch. I don't seem to succeed much at it though. Like a few million others, I ended up in the computer industry. That I did by choice and for the love of it (unlike many people I know) is entirely incidental. As is the fact that I decided to come to the US not because of a major fascination for all things phoren, but because I really wanted to get some education at an institution where I'd have fun learning. Add to that, the fact that I'm in New Jersey, the biggest adda of desis in the US. I think it would have been cool to have been the only Indian in town in a place like say, North Dakota. But maybe not. Life is complicated as it is, without adding to "I don't having a place to buy rotis from" to the list.

Do I sound confused? I think not. As Devendra would say, I am a Libran, and this is my primary characteristic. A Libran's favorite phrase apparently is "on the other hand", as he tries to balance out the two opposing trains of thought in his mind.

Forget it. Back to being contrary...

Paul Graham, says that this is an attitude hackers have. I am not a hacker by any standards (yes, I code, but hacking is on a different level. ) This man here is a hacker. But, I guess,I belong to that mindset. Or, I'd like to think I do.

However, I feel that his new book Hackers and Painters, should make for a good read.

How you doin'

I was wondering today if I'm putting pressure on myself to write everyday just for the heck of it.

However, it's fun to kind of put down something extremely evocative. Maybe I'll read this when I'm 70, and get a slice of what I was going through back then. In that case, I should probably make this a very personal blog, a catharsis. A public display of my rawest emotions.

Sorry. Not interested. There are better places to put my emotional constipation on display. This here is dedicated to the Yankees (how you doin'). I don't follow baseball, and I don't even know if the (New York) Yankees are winning against the Boston Red Sox. But listening to all the pep songs on radio makes me say that. Let me say that again:

How you doin'

I'd rather dance with you

I notice that a lot of my posts over the past few days have been music-related. It's just that my antennae are really tuned in to music just now. This here is an amazingly sweet song. The video adds to the allure, sure, but this song to me is reminiscient of "Lemon Tree" - that song so defined life back then -

"I'm sitting in here in my boring room
It's another lazy sunday afternoon,
I'm wasting my time, got nothing to do.
I'm hanging around, waiting for you,

But nothing ever happens."

And, on the topic of music, Robbie Williams' Best Of CD is out in the UK today. Fat chance of getting it here, only horribly pricey imported CDs. Robbie Williams somehow never really took off here in the US, despite trying quite hard. In fact, he had a special CD release for here.

Amazing, but this country is really an island, with no clue of some of the really good stuff outside.

And yes, U2's new CD is out next month - 22nd November. It's titled "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" . Love that title.

I'm looking forward to them touring the US next year. They have a tour to promote their new album, and I'm almost sure they'll play here. Something to look forward to next summer.

U2 + Apple = cool

Its criminal. No brand should be allowed to be so cool. U2's new ad for iTunes + iPod is stunning. The familiar white earphones, combined with the distinctive U2 sound absolutely sizzles( Check: Album release date). If you have iTunes installed, check out the extended version. No wonder Apple sells for such a premium. People would kill to be seen wearing those white earphones. I think I'll get a pair of white earphones for my sastaa portable CD player, just to appear cool.

Dada and his ideas

Ganguly's been much-maligned in the past few months. It's a bit harsh for someone who brought India to a competitive level after they'd been really down for a few years. His form as a batsman right now leaves a lot to be desired, and there are jokes about making him a non-playing captain, a la the Davis Cup. This article however makes a good case of his motivations. I myself find his treatment of Akash Chopra not quite exemplary, and I still don't know why we can't find a better wicketkeeper than Parthiv Patel. But Saurav Ganguly knows what he is doing. At least a billion people hope he does.

News for me. Stuff that matters

While cribbing all this while about the egregious quality of the Times of India, and looking for a Real Indian Englilsh newspaper, I kind of forgot the old suspect - the Indian Express. Revisiting it was a pleasant surprise.

A real emphasis on news and analysis. A nice array of columnists - Sucheta Dalal, Arun Shourie, Thomas Friedman. I am shifting affiliations - the TOI is not receiving too many of my pageviews now.

I don't remember doing anything so drastic. Not even when I stopped using IE for Mozilla anyway. I mean, a browser is a 3 year, maybe 4 year habit. It's not disruptive. You click on a different icon for accessing the same pages. But a newspaper is a lifetime association. But the TOI online has left me with no choice.

My only grouse - not just with the Express, but with many major Indian websites is the pop-ups. It's bad manners, and I think the websites themselves should know better than to force the latest matrimonial website, or online degree in our face. The surprising thing is, a couple of these escape through Firefox's pop-up blocker. Talk about Indian ingenuity.

The buzz in my ears

"I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately
All I have to do is think of me and I have peace of mind
I'm tired of looking 'round rooms wondering what I gotta to do
Or who I'm supposed to be
I don't want to be anything other than me"

Off Gavin DeGraw's now quite well-known song "I don't want to be" (it's apparently the title track of some TV series, which kind of catapulted him to fame last year). The guitar riff's pretty neat and kind of draws you to the song quickly. Thats whats been buzzing in my ears all day - I've already heard this song at least 5-6 times.

He has a weird reference to a prison guard's son, but then I read somewhere that he IS a prison guard's son. Neat trick , weaving that into a song.

The democratization of writing

The arrival of blogs has let a lot of people, including yours truly go public with their opinions on all things under the sun. Atrocious writing, lack of knowledge, lack of an audience, nothing stops us intrepid bloggers from soldiering on. Try the next blog link on the top of my page, or that of any blogger blogs you visit, to see a surprising variety of blogs - in different languages.

This throws up the classic paradox. Freedom of speech is always a good thing. But, with the rise of blogs, the chances of encountering bad writing on the net are also on the rise. Many blogs are simply opinion pieces, but blogs are being increasingly used to mobilize more people and push agendas.

And speaking of pushing agendas online, Wired magazine recently carried an interesting set of articles on how right and left wing bloggers are working on increasing their candidates' online visibility (something ought to be done about their credibility too) in the forthcoming elections in the US.

However, this blog deserves to be banned, for the absolutely atrocious drivel on it. This article on the blog was linked on the front page of the TOI. I don't know whether to laugh at the sheer asininity , or to cry that my dear newspaper has stooped this low in terms of quality.

Conflicts of Interest

The past few months, there has been a lot of news on corporates not doing the right thing...et al. Moral dilemmas come are part of the score. David Lamont, my business management professor at school emphasized that "The primary responsibility of a company is to make money for its shareholders who are its owners". But what if this means it is not treating its employees well,
or if it is gouging its customers?

Its a difficult question to answer. Wal-Mart is supposedly doing the wrong thing by not giving its employees enough pay or benefits. Any company not paying its employees health benefits in the US should cease to exist, simply on grounds of cruelty.That includes some of our dear Indian blue chips, who send people to client projects, expecting to fend for themselves if they fall ill.

But,shareholders are happy, aren't they? comes the countershot. I read an article in the WSJ a few months back, which talked of how this was causing Costco, and other discount retailers to reconsider their benefits packages, because the stockmarket was not rewarding them enough as compared to Wal-Mart, which has better margins because of the poor benefits it offers its employees.

Where does this stop? Do we ever stop looking beyond the next quarter's earning results, and look to do the Right Thing (I'm sure there is a trademark on that phrase - I saw that somewhere). No one's talking of sinecures here - only reasonable benefits in this messed-up health system, where the costs of visiting the doctor are enough to give one an ulcer.

The Internet Archive

Even though I've been hearing about this project at a number of places, I never really went to the website. This week, I decided to, and it was quite a discovery. It's amazing, and one of the first things that came to my mind was: access to a computer with an Internet connection, and this site, and others like it, can transform thousands of schools in the world into ones with the best libraries ever.

But,but,but, my personal favorite section? The Audio archives. Not many big artists have freely available records yet, but high quality live concerts from up-and-coming artists like Gavin DeGraw, which they allow free downloads and non-commercial distribution of - the ones before they become famous, of course. After that, money takes over.

On a more serious note, this is one more compelling reason for India to invest in computers and connectivity for schools at a much greater rate. With access to such resources, we could bypass a lot of the financial constraints for good libraries, etc. at schools. Of course, there is a dearth of good teachers, and even a lack of building facilities in many schools right now.

TOI blues

My observation about Times of India's quality going down drastically is not the sole isolated one. Several people agree (anyone with a reasonable level of intelligence would notice this, of course). A good link to follow is this blog run by a bunch of puneites , called PuneTimePass . (Disclaimer: I knew one of the authors while at college there, though saying I knew him well would be stretching it: a lot) An even better link, that I found on this blog is this one. Particularly sickening is the whole notion of 'selling' news coverage. Even without doing that, the quality of the paper, and the portal as well, has gone too far south. When an editorial makes a mistake between 'lose' and 'loose', ('loosing' our marbles ,are we?), and the paper itself makes this mistake more than once, it is time to get concerned. It almost appears as if all the good journalists have moved (drawn, not by the lure of the lucre, but by their integrity) to other papers. The other problem, especially in Pune, seemed at that time to be the lack of alternatives that were even as good as this one. Indian Express didn't make the cut (at least in Pune) which left us in a bit of a bind.

Famous CMU alumni

This link here has a list of well-known alumni from CMU. Geeks abound, including the venerable James Gosling, creator of the Java programming language. However, the real surprises are the artists, including Ralph Guggenheim, one of the producers of Toy Story. Rob Marshall, the director of Chicago has been celebrated, but Holly Hunter or Josh Groban, pop-star are perhaps not as well-known. Well, it's a relief to know that we produce a diverse range of nuts.

The Wall

No, this is not the obligatory PF reference. ( A college-mate back in COEP used to say this - every quiz event had to have one Pink Floyd question - the obligatory PF reference) .

This is a nice article about the ICC cricketer of the year, Rahul Dravid. A classic case of what hard work, persistence and some sheer bloody-mindedness can bring a good player - greatness.

I've always liked Rahul Dravid. Since he hit that six off the backfoot off Allan Donald, I thought he had something about him. Thats why all the jokes about him not playing quickly enough used to get to me. I mean, this wasn't Ravi Shastri, scoring a 100 off 150 balls. He wasn't your typical slogger, thats all.

Then, in the past three years, he has shown that "de parvus grandis a cervus erit" - from "small things arise great ones." The constant hard work on the little things, (running singles, his lovely pull and hook shots, his fitness, his 'keeping) is paying off.

Importantly,his aforementioned bloody-mindedness in staying at the crease for hours at end, runs scored or not, has won us matches. Adelaide, Rawalpindi, and ones in the past too. He has saved the team even more often.

An interesting observation: generally his first 50 runs take more than a 100 balls (closer to 150), the next 50 take less than a 100, and generally the next runs come at around 4 an over. If he stays long enough (which is quite often nowadays) he is scoring runs at 3.5 an over. Justin Langer put it in the right perspective - its almost like he is meditating at the crease.

Here's to our man - we lost today, but it won't be often again if this man and the team can help it. Lets see if the Final Frontier still stands.

Commencement

My department at CMU has been kind enough to put up a load of photos of my commencement ceremony online. Nice work!!

Free FTP server

Just what I've been looking for! Filezilla , a free FTP/SFTP client/server. Much better than using a cracked version (never liked doing that), or one of those severely crippled trial versions.

Groovelily

A few days back, I saw an advertisement for a concert of this band
Groovelily somewhere. They have some free mp3s on their website for downloads, and the fact is, they are pretty good. Good enough to have a major release. Heck, I am a regular joe music listener. I don't know better - they can't seem to land a major record deal because the suits think they are not 'marketable' enough. I'd think a group with its own US military ad, an electric violin, two lead vocalists and some intelligent, questioning lyrics might get a better deal than Lindsay Lohan, the singer. Ah...the sweet ironies of life.

"We are not evil"

How do you make that a tagline for your brand?

But when you are a record label, one of the more disliked entities around for most people serious about their music, its almost a battle-cry. Magnatune seems to be trying that with their "try-before-you-buy" methodology.

Seriously, though I have my doubts about this working (you need enough people to CARE about buying their music versus downloading it off some p2p network), this is a step in the right direction. If more people are to try this, and it actually works, we actually might have a different distribution model for music, something we need desperately in this time and age.

It actually saddens me to see the kind of collections people have, with absolutely no F%$#ing clue of the value of it. gigs of mp3s, and no appreciation of the music that one has. I know almost all of the songs on my laptop, whether free or paid for, and if I don't, I am in the process of listening to them and learning more about them. All this free downloading is taking some of the thrill of going out there and buying your music away. Building one's music collection was a painstaking job at one time, with distinctive CDs/ cassettes, great inlays, lyrics and liner notes adding to the excitement of owning the media.

Now all my CDs (even ones I bought on iTunes ) look the same - shiny silver of the blank CD, purchased last Thanksgiving with mail-in rebates equal to purchase price. Music is about substance, but the style... that's what makes it special. Where would the Doors be without Morrison's charisma, or the Beatles without the boyish charm of all of the Fab Four?

The case against copyright extensions

Good link to a number of articles, arguing against the extenstion of copyrights. As is quoted, Elvis is dead, who's making money off his recordings?

On a sidenote, isn't anyone surprised at the hype the new Star Wars DVDs have got? The movies are nice, but that's about it. (Unless you saw it as a kid, and were really blown away by it - which is where most of the target audience is, i guess.)

George Lucas for all his savvy, hasn't done much of significance in terms of films (7 major films, five of them the Star Wars series, plus the Indiana Jones and maybe a few other scripts). Comparisons to Spielberg are inevitable, but I think Spielberg's a true auteur. George Lucas may yet get there, if he stops playing with his toys, and makes some real movies like his American Grafitti, which (though not one of my favorites), still manages to capture something of that time and age.

DIY

O'reilly is soon to come out with a new magazine for Do-it-yourself hobbyists and tinkerers, called "Make" . An interesting proposition. O'reilly, with its name, should bring a new credibility to this hobby. Though I am not much of a tinkerer myself, it is something that needs more promotion. Practical, fun projects can do more to further interest of science and technology among children. This country needs more people to be interested in technology and science.

Discretion, the better part of what?

Anyone interested in security should definitely read one of Bruce Schneier's CryptoGram newsletters. He offers a refreshing insight as to how most of the security measures, taken post 9/11 offer just an appearance of safety, reassuring us that things are hunky-dory. One of the points he raises, took me off on a completely different tangent. He says, that having security guys check IDs is dumb. They will only block people on the ridiculous no-fly list, but they should be trained well and given more responsibility.

For the past 15 years or so, since liberalization began in India, I think this is exactly the kind of power that we've tried to take out of the hands of the government officer. The rules are clear, and transparent. No discretionary power in the hands of anyone. One in breach of the law is out, and one complying is in.The struggle in India is on, and we might yet win.

Slight hitch. The law, or the powers that be, mess up. Case in point: No-fly list. The Hon. Senators and ex-pop stars are getting caught.(OK, this one's a bit goofy) But don't forget the unwashed masses who don't get any publicity after being booted off the next discounted flight they were trying to board. Not much can be done here.

I had the pleasure of experiencing NJ's DMV in a similar way. I go all the way to Trenton in the morning negotiating weekday rush hour traffic to get my license transferred from PA to NJ, only to find that I could have done the same at my neighborhood DMV. Only, they forgot to update the website(that's a totally different story). I pay my money, get my mug shot, and then, the computer's on the blink. Not a problem, it should get fixed anytime. I wait for an hour. No one has a fscking clue as to what is going on. I am told, I can get my job done at My Neighborhood DMV.

Next day, MN DMV says, your file opened at Trenton can be only closed there, so go back there. They were polite, but that does not make my drive back any shorter. Common sense, anyone?. Just give the poor sod his license, since his paperwork seems in order. For all their well-meaning courtesy, they couldn't . The system isn't engineered to handle a file opened in Trenton, the computer going down, and restoring the file in South Plainfield. All those transactions in my Distributed Systems class begin to make sense now. Only, when the system went down, or was down, the transaction should have been rolled back. Maybe Raj should have been designing the system. (bad joke,forget it)

Anyway, the point is , when all power has been invested in the computer, you take away the brains and the discretionary power an official has. Which is a good thing for corrupt places like India right now, because you are putting things in the hands of a neutral authority. But, when the system fails, there should be enough procedures to account for that, so that Your Neighborhood government official isn't left with that "deer caught in headlight" look in his eyes.

Indiatimes Gas

Indiatimes claims it is the largest Indian website in terms of the number of page views. Big deal. Typical BS, what you'd expect from them. The Times of India, at one time the best newspaper in the country, and the Economic Times, still the country's best financial daily, are relegated to sub-domains on the Indiatimes portal. If you separate these, it would be interesting to see which website has the top page views. Other top rated sites include, interestingly, Shaadi.com, our friendly neighborhood marriage portal. I don't know what is more ridiculous, the singles ads for these pretty girls in Piscataway that appears as a side-bar on my TOI session(I'm sure they don't exist), or that they chose the absolutely gorgeous Nauheed to model for shaadi . Well, showing an absolute nerd guy and a plain looking software engineer type girl wouldn't have worked.

The Right to Read?

I'll say this,Richard Stallman has come off as being fanatical to me more than once, but hell, he is a visionary. The Right to Read is so eerily foresighted (he wrote it in 1997, mind you). Which brings me to my new topic of interest. Creativity and how it is being undermined by corporate control today. Oppose the Induce act, all!! Or, at least change it for heaven's sake, so that it allows some cool dudes to put out far-out technology that I'd find useful.(though people can use it for illegal stuff, for all I care). I hate sounding like a left-wing fanatic, but I find it increasingly true that the US Government is selling out to corporate czars, especially in intellectual property issues. I mean, the kind of software patents being issued are getting more and more ridiculous by the day. Anyone heard of prior art?

Suspicious...

This just came up when I was talking to someone from India... isn't it
interesting how the prices for telecom services in India seem to be
dropping by the day, while prices seem to be stable in the US? I mean,
it's true that companies offer more for the same prices. But before
Virgin Mobile USA launched, there were no real pre-paid guys on the scene. Now, everyone
from AT&T to Cingular to T-Mobile is scrambling to introduce their own
pre-paid service. I haven't checked, but I am sure that their phones will be
locked, making switching between even GSM providers impossible.

heck, that is the problem with most American companies. Goddamn control is
what they want. All the free-market spiel they put out is just that - marketing BS.
All these guys are really interested in is protecting their own cosy
oligarchies. We need some serious competition here. Virgin, how about
introducing a thriving market in used cellphones, with even cheaper
air-time, and nights and weekends free?

Firefox turns 1.0

Mozilla Firefox finally gets a version that's almost 1.0 . The preview release is out, which means it won't be long before 1.0 is out. The best part is RSS integration into the browser itself. Thunderbird has RSS support too, which is brilliant.

Creative Commons

Lawrence Lessig has some fairly interesting ideas on creativity, and IP laws. His book Free Culture explains how, today, culture is being bound, and it rests in the hands of the powerful
few. I agree with this, and find the whole monopolization, dumbing-down and "safe-ness" of media mind-numbing to say the least. India had this problem due to the monopoly of Doordarshan on TV. However, cable changed all that. We're seeing more of that in the print media now. Times of India is going the yellow way, (and boosting circulation to be the largest newspaper in the world), and though regional newspapers still hold on, how long before they succumb to the lure of the lucre? We need more independent thinking, not less.

Open Source software alternatives

This link has information about open-source options to your regular
software.Old, but still useful.


http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/table.shtml

Real Player

Helix Player is GPLed. Good news for the Linux community, as you can then
use it for real audio and other stuff on Linux. Multimedia availability for
Linux will go a long way in making it easy for desktop stuff.

See here
for download information.

Storage Galore

This is insane. From no storage, I go upto 2.1 gigs in like 3 days. First Gmail . Then Yahoo! gives away 100 M and now Rediffmail gives away a GB. Somebody send me email, fast.

Gmail

Congratulations to me. I just moved up one more step in the echelons of
geekdom. After orkut, I finally get my
gmail invite. So here I am ajayvb AT
gmail DOT com .

There's more than one way to do this

I've been meaning to do some more useful stuff with Perl since forever.
This seems like a good way to go about doing it.

http://www.ebb.org/PickingUpPerl/

Firewalls for dummies

This one's a good article on getting started with using iptables for
securing your linux box.

http://linuxgazette.net//103/murray.html