kindle

Having read so many reviews about the Kindle - seemingly by people who had only seen the demo videos published by Amazon - and read about it being likened to the iPod, I went and fished out an image of the first iPod and put it next to the first Kindle:

(Psst.... it had a mechanical scroll wheel!)
And we all know what the latest iPods look like.

I, being an ardent book-lover myself, am a little skeptical of undermining the rich feel of paper and the smell of new books and of turning pages. But the Kindle promises to be a lot more than a conventional book.
And a little bit of convenience is known to go a long way in transforming old habits.

one month

It's been a entire month since I last blogged.

I managed to catch jaundice a little more than three weeks ago and I've been under the weather since. The bout has been pretty severe with my blood tests through the roof, but I'm coming back to life now.

The major gripe has been missing Diwali. I had to cancel a trip to Calcutta but my parents came down instead and we had a low-key affair. Ofcourse, I couldn't eat any of the scrumptious food. I was way too bummed out all of that week to send the usual Diwali greetings, so here's a photograph I took from the last real Diwali I had:


Happy (belated) Diwali folks.

I did manage to watch Johnny Gaddaar (how did they get the dvd this soon?!) and American Gangster. The first is film noir and coming from Bollywood it is a very nice surprise indeed. I give it five stars. Watch out for Dharmendra spouting Indiana Jones dialogues! The second, too, is very good, notwithstanding the fact that I'm a sucker for dark mafia movies! :-) Oh, Hot Fuzz is brilliant too, very deserving of its 8+ IMDB rating.

Mostly I've been in bed and out of any sort of action. The doc tells me to keep it quiet for another few weeks and has already given me a list of things to avoid (eating and doing) for the next couple of months to make me have nightmares. Right now all I need is a machine that will look into my head and write whatever I am thinking. I have had way too much time to think and not enough (time or energy) to get stuff written.

The Economist and YouTube (watch this!) have been faithful companions for whatever time I can use my eyes before they start feeling the strain. I have been watching movies but it is so difficult to get hold of anything that is not standard Bollywood or Hollywood fare. So I've resorted to watch the older (and more easily available) stuff I've missed out - Indiana Jones, the Godfather sequels, etc. And I'm in dire need of newer music. By newer I mean stuff I don't have already. I'm more than willing to give the usual Dylan and Doors and U2 and Rolling Stones a break.

I tried listening to podcasts recently, to give my eyes a break. They're actually quite intolerable. No wonder they haven't become much of a rage. They are painfully slow and I have to concentrate twice as hard to listen as while reading. And while reading I can choose to glance through or skip back forth and definitely read faster than voice overs with their careful diction. Podcasts aren't worth listening unless they're just news headlines or something as brief as that.

I have much much more to write about - it's all crammed in my head. But I'll just take my own sweet time to do it, unless a brain-reading version of the Dictaphone comes about soon.

Cheerio.

untouchable and unthinkable

I recently came across an article in The Economist about the Indian government forcing businesses too to have quotas for backward castes. While railing about the existence of the caste system in India, the article goes on to blame it on the Hindu religion and cites the scriptures thus:

The caste system is possibly the world's ugliest social system. And it is sanctified by India's largest religion: according to the Laws of Manu, an ancient Hindu text, anybody from the lower orders who has the temerity to mention the name of a higher caste should have a red-hot nail thrust into his mouth; if he makes the mistake of telling a brahmin what to do, he gets hot oil poured into his ears and mouth.

Now, I am not a pundit in these matters but I am pretty sure the author of this article has not done his homework properly and seems to be only too eager for melodrama even if it is slander. From what I know of the Hindu religion, it is really a way of life and of science from the early day of civilization. Many layers of de rigeur practice have been added to it over the ages but one must not confuse social artefacts with religious instruction.

I am going to try and find out little more about what the Laws Of Manu actually say and whether they do recommend hot oil being poured into facial orifices and then give a piece of my mind to The Economist. If you have any pointers in this regard, it will be much appreciated.

Since we are on this topic, the Government of India mandates the reservation of seats for the backward classes in premier academic institutions across the country. And now it is trying to force private sector companies to do the same for jobs. Is this not a case in point to do away with quotas in the educational system too, if even after a quality education they need systemic assistance to find work?

photos

With Yahoo Photos moving all my photos to Flickr (in a very commendable way) and making my account pro for a short while, I was inspired to upload long pending photographs. Here are some of the ones I liked:


Sunset from Deception Pass near Seattle



Sunset sky near the Big Sur



Somewhere on Highway 1. This shot was by fluke but I love the composition.



Inside Muir Woods. This was just like what I had imagined Middle Earth to be, even the sounds.



Golden Gate Bridge. I saw someone nearly jump down from it!



Street of Calcutta. Pure old world charm.

free burma

I am a day late. 4th October was the day to express support for the brave people fighting for a lot of things we take for granted:



Read more about their struggle on The Economist.
You can sign up too. It's never too late.

decisions, yet again

It is not important to worry about what you want to do as long as you are sure of what you do not want to do.

Backward thinking does help tremendously. I used to worry a lot about the forward angle and worry about finding it so easy to figure out what I do not want and never be able to quite figure out what I want. But it is quite the opposite. Knowing what you want to avoid is a certainty not to be passed out on.

From http://umang.livejournal.com/36819.html about a year ago:

In the locality of the here and now, all decisions can only be baseless. We can hardly comprehend the vast array of the multiple factors that affect us and our lives. Yet we fret over decisions so much, spend so much time and energy on them. And then we claim to have made informed decisions. The truth, my friend, is that us folks of the third rock are masters at self delusion.

But it is good that we do not have access to all the factors that we should pay heed to. The overwhelming vastness of possible choices and outcomes, coupled with the fact that no one knows what they really want is terrifying.

So we trudge along, pretending to have made the right decision looking forward ten years into the future, and believing so even ten years hence thus having the magnanimous capacity of accepting what we are dealt out.

now

One comes across people mentioning The Power Of Now so often that it has almost become clichéd. But last week I had a chance to experience it first hand.

The remote control of my DVD player had conked off suddenly and none of the showrooms seemed to have thought about that eventuality. So I would have had to go to the service centre sooner rather than later. But I also managed to get the phone number of a person who manufactured these remote controls locally and would deliver it to my place. I was rather skeptical of buying something I knew had a good chance of conking out after a week and paying for it when I knew I should be getting a replacement for free from the service centre, being still in warranty. So when this guy called up to check a day after I had gotten the details from him, I was going to say no - I was ready to wait a couple of more days and go to the right place and get the real thing without having to pay for it.

Then this man said he would bring it across to my place and he would do it within an hour or so. And that changed the entire equation! I quickly enumerated reasons to not wait and I did buy the remote from him.

I realized that had this guy said he would deliver it the next day, I would have said no. The immediate can be very, very forceful.

past sin

There are innumberable jokes about Microsoft error messages and their writers, but this one takes the cake:

auctions

"Hurray, I won the auction!" said John.
"What you 'won' was the right to pay more for something than everyone else thought it was worth", said Mary.

what's your story?

Everybody has a story. What's yours?

Well, everybody does not have a story, not yet anyway. But everybody needs a story. Because that's the only way you can engage with someone or something.

Some people's stories are the work they've done. Or are doing. Some stories are about the books one has read or the movies one has watched. Some write their stories first, and then make them happen while some just see a story weave out by its own. Some people's stories are other people and some other people's stories are other stories.

Apple's (or the iPod's or iMac's or iPhone's) story is that of Steve Jobs' - iconoclast, maverick, successful, ultra-cool. Ferrari's story is the colour red. New Zealand's story is The Lord Of The Rings. Roger Federer's story is the poise. Shilpa Shetty's story (at least for a while) was the racial slander. Vijay Mallya's story is the glamour. A friend's story is the latest exasperating thing that happened to her. Another friend's story is his experiences of a new culture...

So, what's your story?

wonder years

So I got hold of the first season of The Wonder Years recently and I didn't think I'd like watching it again after all these years. What is it - 10 years perhaps? I thought it would be too childish. And I have never had so much fun watching anything as I did watching Wonder Years again.

It was still unique and I identified so much with the narrator this time round. The last time I had seen Kevin and Winnie I would hope my heart out that my life could be as interesting or fun as theirs. And now as I watched it again, I realised that my childhood had been very very similar - I just hadn't noticed then. I don't think I've ever become really nostalgic about my childhood or school. I have missed it and thought about it - but not this way. This time for the first time it all seemed really far away, almost surreal. I think I felt old for the first time in my life.

blogging

It's been a long time since I last posted something. I've been busy and a lot many thoughts have collected in mind waiting to be put down. And now I don't know where to begin.

The first problem I'm going to have to deal with is the chronological nature of blogs. There needs to be a writing/expressing/communicating platform that is not forcibly chronological.
Any ideas?

changing forces

In the 19th century, Britain was the super power - because of its military might. Its riches and stature were a result of conquering new lands and new people.

Throughout the 20th century, America has been the super power by virtue of its economic might. Its military might and influence across the world stem largely because it is a very, very rich country.

Now forces are changing again as we head into the 21st century. India and China are gearing up to be the new super powers and because of new factors - their population. The sheer enormousness of the number of Indian and Chinese is going be responsible for making them the most powerful countries in the world. The respective governments, regardless of ideology, should keep their helping (or meddling) hands aside and just take on the role of an enabler. They can do this by building the necessary infrastructure needed for such large populations to thrive. And the populace will, on its own, achieve the military or economic greatness or whatever is needed to become a superpower.

the last mughal

Every time I finish a book, I am left with this feeling of emptiness I am unable to explain. So right now I am comfortably ensconced in my beanbag and looking up aimlessly at the ceiling as if soaking in the book. But I'm sure it's nothing quite as fanciful as that.

Today I finished The Last Mughal. It is a large book and I have taken some time to finish it. This is the second of William Dalrymple's books I have read (the other one being the City Of Djinns) and I've quite liked both. In fact, I think I must plan a trip to Delhi and see it as the books show it - walk through Purani Dilli and imagine the sights and sounds of a splendour long forgotten. And I think I will do it later this year when the summer begins to give way to more comfortable days.

I have recently developed a fondness for history - something I could never have imagined when during my struggle to stay awake while reading history textbooks. And as Dalrymple takes us through the first and most harsh awakening of a new identity for the subcontinent, he brings to light many interesting things.

Indians, by and large, have a complicated conservative orthodoxy that we jealously regard as an age old heritage that seems to me to be only a couple of hundred years old. I think we were a very liberal people.

To quote from this book, "The profoundly sophisticated, liberal and plural civilazation championed by Akbar, Dara Shukoh or the later Mughal Emperors has only a limited resonance for the urban middle class in modern India."

Looking into the period before the Mutiny, there are many aspects that make me more and more inclined to believe what I am saying now: Muslim and Hindu festivals were celebrated by people of both the religions with equal joy and excitement; even the East India Company officers mingled and assimilated into the culture of the sub-continent, learning their languages and taking interest in its literature, inter-marrying, even living in the same fashion. It would be unimaginable now for rebelling hindus to flock to a court as symbolic of Islam as the Mughal court to ask for patronage if only in name so they could have a common cause to fight for. But they did in 1857.

The British probably succeeded to rule India wholly in body because they were able to rule in spirit - by forcing Indian outlook into narrowness. And that still lives on, misunderstood to be a golden heritage, in our minds. As an instance of what I'm saying, their policies of divide and rule sowed the seeds of fundamentalism that is the plague of today. Infact the Taliban, and thence the al-Qaeda, is said to have emerged from fundamentalist madrasas risen in an effort to eschew everything that was alien after total demolition by the British.

funny cartoons

The daily cartoons in the newspapers here are very shabby.

Here are some of the funniest cartoons I've come across:
http://www.cagle.com/

Especially the ones about the Queen's visit:

remembering wisdom

Something my father keeps telling me that his father used to tell him:

Pay as much as you need to for things that matter, and as little as you can for things that don't. And never borrow money to pay for something that goes down in value.

Also seen at sethgodin.typepad.com.

aswan (part 4)

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Now that we've planted our feet firmly in the ground, let's try and see what it could mean if all this were possible.

There would be millions and millions of code snippets floating around each doing some small specific task. Think of these as genes. Many code snippets would be doing the same thing and the community would evaluate these and tag and rate these. The better ones would automatically become more popular. If one considers these as genes competing with each there, only the fittest survive.

Tags and descriptions provide us with a fair idea of what the purpose of the code snippets is. These also make it easy to search for the code snippet you are looking for. Now, if we could represent this description of functionality in a formal manner (a Functional Description Language, perhaps?) it would be really very easy for each such gene to announce what it can do and for really very easy for someone to say what they want done. In fact, a computer would be able to match one with the other and making available code (in terms of functionality) easily accessible.

And so one could define entire components in terms of smaller functionalities that the computer would fetch for you and piece together – a software that create software.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

aswan (part 3)

[Part 1] [Part 2]

As I envision this forum of co-operation and collaboration, I see that there are a number of problems associated with this model.

Firstly, in trying to be a rewarding system, it has suddenly given incentive to benefit unfairly or hurt others. A malicious user may copy the code snippet posted by someone else and submit it as their own. And it would be difficult to verify the origins. As a solution one could propose that relying on the community in such scenarios is a good option but there should be some way to solve disputes in a fair manner. You don't want any user to think he/she has been sold a lemon.

Another problem is that most of the code we write, we write under strict intellectual property frameworks put in place by organizations we work for. I don't see large or even mid-sized corporations wanting to take the risk of allowing developers to make some of their code public. There would be too much control needed to ensure that IPRs are not breached - one errant developer could put the company at stake.

I haven't figured out a solution yet, but it would be truly amazing if we could collaborate at this level, at a global scale.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

aswan (part 2)

[Part 1]

What can be shared are pieces of functional code that are generic, re-usable, commonly used and do not encapsulate business logic. And, most importantly, it need not be complete in itself. Notice that I say “code”. I am sure I will not use a chunk in binary created by anyone just because they claim it does what I need. It is important to have the code so I am assured that I can fall back on myself in case things don't work, and because I can tweak it to suit my needs.

Am I talking about Open Source? In a way, yes; but it is not free. No, I'm not thinking of a SourceForge clone where you have to pay for the projects. There are two large differences: Firstly, I don't want entire projects. I just need pieces of code that fill up holes in my system by providing certain functionality like the ones mentioned earlier. Secondly, I don't mind paying a little bit for it, perhaps even a little more if there is some a sense of confidence for that code.

Looking at it from the other end, since I've already written the two utilities mentioned above, I don't mind sharing that code with someone who needs it. I don't expect to be paid much by the first few people using the code. After all, they have no idea how reliable or useful it is. But as more and more people use it, they have the cumulative sense of usefulness and quality due to the people who have used it before. If my code has proven itself to be good, I would expect to be paid somewhat more by the later users because they already have some assurance for it.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

aswan (part 1)

I can't even count how many times I've written code knowing fully well I really don't need to. Once it was a utility to read a tab-separated file and insert the data into a table with the same name as the file and column-names specified by the first line of the file. Simple enough, except that I had to do that in a language I didn't really know and took half a day. Another time it was a no-frills quota management system for a number of clients trying to access the same resource. Not as simple, but by now you're probably wondering why I am cribbing about this being code I needn't have written so let me explain that first.

I needn't have written all that because I AM SURE SOMEONE ELSE HAS ALREADY WRITTEN IT. These are really common, non-intelligent pieces of functionality I am talking about. When such a large populace is sitting at their desks writing code, what are the chances that most of it isn't being duplicated. So I think, how about having a way for someone to share their code as functional pieces. I don't mind paying a bit for saving my time from drudgery. And if there are enough people like me, economies of scale will step in to make it cheaper for all of us while at the same time ensuring that the original code writer gets his due.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]