Dec 29, 2006
Links to cellphone software
Wonder why I've put those up? Yup, easy way to transfer them to my cellphone when I don't have the USB cable or when I'm at work on my Linux workstation. Just put the link on the blog, point my cellphone to it and download... works like a charm.
Dec 28, 2006
Maxwell's Demon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon
Maxwell's demon is an 1867 thought experiment by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, meant to raise questions about the possibility of violating the second law of thermodynamics.
Maxwell's demon is an 1867 thought experiment by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, meant to raise questions about the possibility of violating the second law of thermodynamics.
Tachyon visualization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tachyon04s.gif
Since a tachyon moves faster than the speed of light, we can not see it approaching. After a tachyon has passed nearby, we would be able to see two images of it, appearing and departing in opposite directions.
Since a tachyon moves faster than the speed of light, we can not see it approaching. After a tachyon has passed nearby, we would be able to see two images of it, appearing and departing in opposite directions.
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Wanderer
Places I've transited through in recent times (other than Noida and Delhi, of course):
1. Helsinki
2. Oulu
3. Lucknow (2 separate trips)
4. Rae Bareily
5. Allahabad
6. Durg
7. Kanpur
And for varied reasons too, work-related, wedding reception of a close friend and recruiting.
Used up 3 more of my lives: 2 road near-accidents, 1 actual-accident-but-not-quite-fatal.
Got myself an Xbox 360, NFS Carbon and Gears of War (phew... it does grow on you), another 300+ GB hard disk to help out my old, aging 250 GB one, new DVD writer, new Antec Nine Hundred case for my PC, new power supply for the old PC at home.
A word to the uninitiated, who wonder whether they need an Xbox 360. No. You don't. But if you do end up buying one, pair it with a good PC monitor, NOT a normal Indian TV. Doesn't matter if it's one of those giant ones that you pay for through your nose, if it can't do 1280x1024 or the HDTV equivalent, it's no good.
And a word for the initiated, who wonder about the Antec Nine Hundred. Yes. Totally worth it, especially if you don't go lugging your system all over the place.
1. Helsinki
2. Oulu
3. Lucknow (2 separate trips)
4. Rae Bareily
5. Allahabad
6. Durg
7. Kanpur
And for varied reasons too, work-related, wedding reception of a close friend and recruiting.
Used up 3 more of my lives: 2 road near-accidents, 1 actual-accident-but-not-quite-fatal.
Got myself an Xbox 360, NFS Carbon and Gears of War (phew... it does grow on you), another 300+ GB hard disk to help out my old, aging 250 GB one, new DVD writer, new Antec Nine Hundred case for my PC, new power supply for the old PC at home.
A word to the uninitiated, who wonder whether they need an Xbox 360. No. You don't. But if you do end up buying one, pair it with a good PC monitor, NOT a normal Indian TV. Doesn't matter if it's one of those giant ones that you pay for through your nose, if it can't do 1280x1024 or the HDTV equivalent, it's no good.
And a word for the initiated, who wonder about the Antec Nine Hundred. Yes. Totally worth it, especially if you don't go lugging your system all over the place.
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Dec 14, 2006
Nov 6, 2006
Slashdot.org
Would it have been possible to come across news like this without the Internet?
"A new U.S. study finds evidence for 'Snowball Earth,'
the hypothesis that the entire Earth was ice-covered for long periods
on several occasions, most recently 600-700 million years ago. The icy
conditions (Earth's oceans frozen completely with ice more than a
kilometer thick) ended violently under extreme greenhouse conditions — snowballearth.org
suggests the meltdown could have occurred in as little as 2,000 years.
Snowball Earth challenges long-held assumptions regarding the limits of
global change. Wikipedia has more on the hypothesis."
"While the only permanent solution for human-driven global warming
is developing renewable energy, a temporary hack to counteract possible
abrupt climate change is to build a giant sunshade in space.
The sunshade would be launched in small pieces by electromagnetic
launchers, conventional chemical rockets being far too expensive. The
sunshade could be developed and deployed in 25 years, would last about
50 years, and would reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth by 2%
— enough to balance heating due to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere."
"A new U.S. study finds evidence for 'Snowball Earth,'
the hypothesis that the entire Earth was ice-covered for long periods
on several occasions, most recently 600-700 million years ago. The icy
conditions (Earth's oceans frozen completely with ice more than a
kilometer thick) ended violently under extreme greenhouse conditions — snowballearth.org
suggests the meltdown could have occurred in as little as 2,000 years.
Snowball Earth challenges long-held assumptions regarding the limits of
global change. Wikipedia has more on the hypothesis."
"While the only permanent solution for human-driven global warming
is developing renewable energy, a temporary hack to counteract possible
abrupt climate change is to build a giant sunshade in space.
The sunshade would be launched in small pieces by electromagnetic
launchers, conventional chemical rockets being far too expensive. The
sunshade could be developed and deployed in 25 years, would last about
50 years, and would reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth by 2%
— enough to balance heating due to a doubling of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere."
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Oct 16, 2006
Double Roti
I am actually watching a programme on a TV channel about "rotis" that are doubling every seven days. And I am doubled up with laughter.
A word of warning for the gullible - the so-called "roti" seems to be a symbiotic mix of a bunch of bacteria and fungii, and may be contaminated with the more toxic relatives of these buggers. Probably not a good idea to ingest it unless you know how it has been cultured.
It's known as "Kombucha" or the "Manchurian mushroom", searches for these terms should throw up any extra information that you might be interested in. All said and done, it's not a miracle and it's certainly not a "roti"!
What I found amusing is that the people handling it can clearly see that it's texture and look and feel are nothing like a roti, yet they persist in calling it one. And of course, religion and god and faith jump into the fray and then discussing such things becomes impossible - because we are not supposed to hurt the feelings of the people of faith. Never mind that they don't seem to care about spouting rubbish and hiding behind "it's a matter of faith".
The disucssion goes something like this:
"It's only a fungus kind of thing, completely explained as merely being a culture that you grow."
"It's a matter of my faith in miracles and god. This will make the unbelievers and atheists turn towards god and that is a good thing."
One person was even asked whether anything "good" has happened to him (as is claimed by people). The best he could come up with was that his salary was received earlier than usual this month - he HAD to find something good that has happened to him and this is what he came up with. Another person said that there is nothing specific but that there is a general feeling of peace. Another one says that that there a now a *feeling* of prosperity in their house because of this "roti". People will go to any length to justify their "faith" (and dare I say, their ignorance?)
And I wonder why the TV channel didn't run a spot on the Kombucha when the info is so readily available? Are they afraid of busting this "matter of faith"? They certainly know what this is about, especially since an intrepid viewer called up and explained the whole thing and said he has sent them an email with references.
A word of warning for the gullible - the so-called "roti" seems to be a symbiotic mix of a bunch of bacteria and fungii, and may be contaminated with the more toxic relatives of these buggers. Probably not a good idea to ingest it unless you know how it has been cultured.
It's known as "Kombucha" or the "Manchurian mushroom", searches for these terms should throw up any extra information that you might be interested in. All said and done, it's not a miracle and it's certainly not a "roti"!
What I found amusing is that the people handling it can clearly see that it's texture and look and feel are nothing like a roti, yet they persist in calling it one. And of course, religion and god and faith jump into the fray and then discussing such things becomes impossible - because we are not supposed to hurt the feelings of the people of faith. Never mind that they don't seem to care about spouting rubbish and hiding behind "it's a matter of faith".
The disucssion goes something like this:
"It's only a fungus kind of thing, completely explained as merely being a culture that you grow."
"It's a matter of my faith in miracles and god. This will make the unbelievers and atheists turn towards god and that is a good thing."
One person was even asked whether anything "good" has happened to him (as is claimed by people). The best he could come up with was that his salary was received earlier than usual this month - he HAD to find something good that has happened to him and this is what he came up with. Another person said that there is nothing specific but that there is a general feeling of peace. Another one says that that there a now a *feeling* of prosperity in their house because of this "roti". People will go to any length to justify their "faith" (and dare I say, their ignorance?)
And I wonder why the TV channel didn't run a spot on the Kombucha when the info is so readily available? Are they afraid of busting this "matter of faith"? They certainly know what this is about, especially since an intrepid viewer called up and explained the whole thing and said he has sent them an email with references.
Oct 11, 2006
Firms accused of evading tax on sale of `light energy'
News from October 10th, 2006. The guv'mint thinks that optical fibres ...er... help in the sale of light energy. And "(t)he Commercial Tax Department has estimated a loss of Rs. 1,200 crore to the State exchequer". I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
A comment on slashdot really captures it all for me:
Like India REALLY needs more government interference and disincentive to investment. ... Good news for
all those US and European workers worried about losing their jobs to
offshoring! India is shooting themselves in the foot.
A comment on slashdot really captures it all for me:
Like India REALLY needs more government interference and disincentive to investment. ... Good news for
all those US and European workers worried about losing their jobs to
offshoring! India is shooting themselves in the foot.
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Oct 8, 2006
Astrology - Part 3!
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/astro/act3/astrology3.html
Some nice points:
Are all horoscopes done before the discovery of the three outermost
planets incorrect? Pluto was discovered in 1930, Uranus in 1781. Are they to be taken into account? Yes, No? Why, why not?
If the astrological influence is carried by a known force, why do
the planets dominate? "...the obstetrician who delivers the child turns out to have about
six times the gravitational pull of Mars and about two thousand
billion times its tidal force."
Some nice points:
Are all horoscopes done before the discovery of the three outermost
planets incorrect? Pluto was discovered in 1930, Uranus in 1781. Are they to be taken into account? Yes, No? Why, why not?
If the astrological influence is carried by a known force, why do
the planets dominate? "...the obstetrician who delivers the child turns out to have about
six times the gravitational pull of Mars and about two thousand
billion times its tidal force."
If astrological influence is carried by an unknown force, why is
it independent of distance?
If astrological influences don't depend on distance, why is there
no astrology of stars, galaxies, and quasars?
The URL also has a bunch of references that indicate that astrology doesn't work.
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Oct 7, 2006
Astrology contd.
Chaos makes a point about astrology in a comment to the last post. He says that the position of the planet will cause a difference in whatever forces one wants to believe in and that is why location and time are important.
However, my point was - why should the influence of the planets *at the time of birth* make any difference to how my life unfolds? Whatever force one chooses to attribute to any planets out there is *still* present. If it affects the babies being born right now, why doesn't it affect other normal people? And if it's forces of the celestial bodies that we take into account, what happens to comets? Don't they have any role in my life? What about the asteroid belt? And in the Hindu way of thinking, what are Rahu and Ketu, the "invisible" planets? http://www.goravani.com/lessons/RahuKetu.html
However, my point was - why should the influence of the planets *at the time of birth* make any difference to how my life unfolds? Whatever force one chooses to attribute to any planets out there is *still* present. If it affects the babies being born right now, why doesn't it affect other normal people? And if it's forces of the celestial bodies that we take into account, what happens to comets? Don't they have any role in my life? What about the asteroid belt? And in the Hindu way of thinking, what are Rahu and Ketu, the "invisible" planets? http://www.goravani.com/lessons/RahuKetu.html
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Oct 4, 2006
Astrology
I was having a discussion about why I consider astrology/palmistry to be junk. Then I came across this interesting statement - with reference to the fact that either gravitational or magnetic effects of the planets would make a difference to a person's life:
The doctor has a greater gravitational pull on a newborn baby than does
Mars. The doctor's cell phone has a greater impact on the magnetic
field around a same baby than does Jupiter.
Another thing I never understood is why the planets would affect me any differently than they would affect anyone else. Why would the fact that the planets were aligned in a given manner at the time of my birth affect me in the present? If it's gravity or magentic fields or anything else that the planets have that affects humans, it should apply to everyone equally at this point in time. Any opinions?
The doctor has a greater gravitational pull on a newborn baby than does
Mars. The doctor's cell phone has a greater impact on the magnetic
field around a same baby than does Jupiter.
Another thing I never understood is why the planets would affect me any differently than they would affect anyone else. Why would the fact that the planets were aligned in a given manner at the time of my birth affect me in the present? If it's gravity or magentic fields or anything else that the planets have that affects humans, it should apply to everyone equally at this point in time. Any opinions?
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Asking for a raise
Saw an article about this and it reminded me of other such things I've come across. Oft-repeated advice is to mention your accomplishments to the boss, the example always given is sales targets. Or number of customers. Or something equally easy to quantify.
What about us software folk? I certainly can't say that I wrote a million lines of code while the boss expected me to only write ten thousand - the boss would laugh in my face. Is there any quantity in a software guy's life that can be quoted as a justification for a raise?
What about us software folk? I certainly can't say that I wrote a million lines of code while the boss expected me to only write ten thousand - the boss would laugh in my face. Is there any quantity in a software guy's life that can be quoted as a justification for a raise?
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Bangalore Bandh
Fortunately, this is something that does not affect me directly anymore, what with me being out of B'lore and all. But I always find bandhs a bit strange. For the life of me I cannot recall any time where a bandh actually had some effect on the policies of the government. This current bandh is supposed to put pressure on the Central government to do something or the other about the Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute. I wonder how making a nuisance in Bangalore is going to make any difference to the Central government.
I wonder what the powers-that-were were thinking when they created states on a linguistic basis. Something like longitude is not open to subjective interpretation, but linguistic majority is something I wouldn't want to dabble in. What happens if some reasonably large area of Bangalore suddenly becomes Marathi-speaking? Does it become a part of Maharashtra?
This "states paradigm" has also led to the creation of the domicile concept. I ran headlong into it during my last few school years. "Domicile" for some states meant living continuously in that state for 4 or more years (or some such equally pointless number). If you are not domiciled in that state when you pass your 12th standard Board exams, bang- you're ineligible for the state's colleges! Unless you're a Central government employee's child or one of defence personnel, you're so out of luck. Of course, this runs totally contrary to the IT industry's norm of changing jobs every few years - so if your children are anywhere near the age where the domicile factor comes into play you should stay put where you are.
Back to the bandh... at least it was supposedly peaceful. For all practical purposes, it was apparently a holiday. Reminds me of someone who said that bandhs in Bengal were calculated to be around weekends so that people could have a long holiday. On the other hand, what's with bandhs and buses? News reports say there was "some" damage to BMTC and KSRTC buses. What does some damage mean? Who are the people who go around damaging buses at the least provocation? Why aren't they stopped? Protests is one thing, but damaging public property is a complete no-no.
I wonder what the powers-that-were were thinking when they created states on a linguistic basis. Something like longitude is not open to subjective interpretation, but linguistic majority is something I wouldn't want to dabble in. What happens if some reasonably large area of Bangalore suddenly becomes Marathi-speaking? Does it become a part of Maharashtra?
This "states paradigm" has also led to the creation of the domicile concept. I ran headlong into it during my last few school years. "Domicile" for some states meant living continuously in that state for 4 or more years (or some such equally pointless number). If you are not domiciled in that state when you pass your 12th standard Board exams, bang- you're ineligible for the state's colleges! Unless you're a Central government employee's child or one of defence personnel, you're so out of luck. Of course, this runs totally contrary to the IT industry's norm of changing jobs every few years - so if your children are anywhere near the age where the domicile factor comes into play you should stay put where you are.
Back to the bandh... at least it was supposedly peaceful. For all practical purposes, it was apparently a holiday. Reminds me of someone who said that bandhs in Bengal were calculated to be around weekends so that people could have a long holiday. On the other hand, what's with bandhs and buses? News reports say there was "some" damage to BMTC and KSRTC buses. What does some damage mean? Who are the people who go around damaging buses at the least provocation? Why aren't they stopped? Protests is one thing, but damaging public property is a complete no-no.
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Oct 3, 2006
Sep 28, 2006
Surveys
There is an AC Neilson survey on consumer optimism and confidence and opinions and other such things , the results of which have just been released. Indians are the most optimistic consumers, world index is at 98, India is at 131, Asia-Pac at 94, blah, blah and more blah. India this and India that. And how many people from India were polled? 506. Uh, oh, it's an ONLINE survey. Nice. And they have drawn conclusions about the country's consumer base from these 506 people who they found online. And they have published the results. And news outlets have picked up these reports and put them up for all to see, no doubt with optimistic headlines like "Indian consumers most optimistic" etc.
Art, especially the abstract painting type
Religion/spirituality
Surveys
Films/entertainment
What's the common thread running through all these?
Art, especially the abstract painting type
Religion/spirituality
Surveys
Films/entertainment
What's the common thread running through all these?
Geeks
What would a normal email from a good friend of yours typically say? Here's an example from my life:
Did you manage to install VISTA RC1 32-bit?
Another example:
Asked him to get 2* 1GB sticks. But the damn thing won't overclock beyond 251 :(( .. Haven't tried to o/c with 2T ..
Us geeks are a strange kind. What does one normally do at 1 o'clock at night? That's right, figure out an xorg config to get Linux working with TV out, install Windows Vista on a desktop that does not have a monitor, reorganize the data on the external HDDs and charge the iPod and N80. And oh, for some reason Vista doesn't like my laptop.
Did you manage to install VISTA RC1 32-bit?
Another example:
Asked him to get 2* 1GB sticks. But the damn thing won't overclock beyond 251 :(( .. Haven't tried to o/c with 2T ..
Us geeks are a strange kind. What does one normally do at 1 o'clock at night? That's right, figure out an xorg config to get Linux working with TV out, install Windows Vista on a desktop that does not have a monitor, reorganize the data on the external HDDs and charge the iPod and N80. And oh, for some reason Vista doesn't like my laptop.
Sep 26, 2006
UPDATE: Vista opens up from Tirunelveli
Follow the link and weep.
Anyway, I had written an email to the person who had been mentioned in the article asking for more details. He actually responded, saying something like "I will send the details to sir". But no details have been forthcoming.
What conclusion do I draw? Searching for the name of the software that he claims to have built brings up nothing other than the original story and links to people who have proudly put it up on their sites. Nothing else. Wonder if anyone from Microsoft would like to comment on this.
Anyway, I had written an email to the person who had been mentioned in the article asking for more details. He actually responded, saying something like "I will send the details to sir". But no details have been forthcoming.
What conclusion do I draw? Searching for the name of the software that he claims to have built brings up nothing other than the original story and links to people who have proudly put it up on their sites. Nothing else. Wonder if anyone from Microsoft would like to comment on this.
Sep 24, 2006
=^..^=
Time spent with cats is never wasted.
- Collete
No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
- Abe Lincoln
If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.
- Mark Twain
How you behave toward cats here below determines your status in Heaven.
- Robert Heinlein
A cat is an animal who never cries over spilled milk.
- Collete
No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
- Abe Lincoln
If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.
- Mark Twain
How you behave toward cats here below determines your status in Heaven.
- Robert Heinlein
A cat is an animal who never cries over spilled milk.
Google posts court ruling on Belgian Web site - iht,business,Belgium Google - Business - International Herald Tribune
Google posts court ruling on Belgian Web site
In short, newspapers have suddenly discovered that search engines are searching the internet. For some reason, these newspapers think that if the "content" they provide on their news-sites does not appear on the google news page, they will get more hits. In other news,
Publishers aim for some control of searh results
which essentially says the same thing. "Content providers" want search engines to pay for searhing the information that they have put up on the web. Sounds strange to me. If you don't want people to see something then DON'T put it up on the web! If it's up on the web on a public webserver, why should specific people have to pay for looking at it? It's like standing in the town square and demanding that people pay up for looking at you!
In short, newspapers have suddenly discovered that search engines are searching the internet. For some reason, these newspapers think that if the "content" they provide on their news-sites does not appear on the google news page, they will get more hits. In other news,
Publishers aim for some control of searh results
which essentially says the same thing. "Content providers" want search engines to pay for searhing the information that they have put up on the web. Sounds strange to me. If you don't want people to see something then DON'T put it up on the web! If it's up on the web on a public webserver, why should specific people have to pay for looking at it? It's like standing in the town square and demanding that people pay up for looking at you!
Sep 20, 2006
Cricket
Welcome to rediff.com
I'm laughing my butt off.
In short, there was a cricket match between India and the West Indies today. India batted first, and put up a disappointing batting performance. At that point, a bunch of morons jumped up and berated everyone and their uncle for the low score. India then went on to win the match because of an even worse performance by the opponents. And hopefully those who posted their theories on the message board would have eaten crow.
I'm sick and tired.
Of armchair experts and media hype and frenzy. Of course, the hockey team has become a miserable outfit of late. But I wonder what qualifies a layperson to comment on how the team's fortunes can be turned around. Same for the cricket team. The message board is ample proof of how quickly the aam janata jumps at an opportunity to blast sportspeople. Yes, their performance hasn't been the best and they can do better, but unless you can stand up and perform in that sport I don't think you have any business to give advice. Lament, yes; curse, yes; show your disappointment, yes; but you have no right to give advice. How would you like it if Rahul Dravid walked into your office (or wherever it is that you work) and gave you advice on how to write software or make outbound calls or manage your employees?
I'm laughing my butt off.
In short, there was a cricket match between India and the West Indies today. India batted first, and put up a disappointing batting performance. At that point, a bunch of morons jumped up and berated everyone and their uncle for the low score. India then went on to win the match because of an even worse performance by the opponents. And hopefully those who posted their theories on the message board would have eaten crow.
I'm sick and tired.
Of armchair experts and media hype and frenzy. Of course, the hockey team has become a miserable outfit of late. But I wonder what qualifies a layperson to comment on how the team's fortunes can be turned around. Same for the cricket team. The message board is ample proof of how quickly the aam janata jumps at an opportunity to blast sportspeople. Yes, their performance hasn't been the best and they can do better, but unless you can stand up and perform in that sport I don't think you have any business to give advice. Lament, yes; curse, yes; show your disappointment, yes; but you have no right to give advice. How would you like it if Rahul Dravid walked into your office (or wherever it is that you work) and gave you advice on how to write software or make outbound calls or manage your employees?
Sep 17, 2006
Flashing in a party?
Misleading title again :) I faced a problem after I got my new Logitech G15 keyboard. I promptly unpacked it, plugged it into my laptop to see if it worked and then carried it over to the desktop with much fanfare. Unplugged the PS/2 keyboard, plugged in the G15 and booted up. Everything was fine, except that the mouse didn't work.
Now, I have a very nice 5 button PS/2 iBall optical mouse that has not given me much room to complain, so I wasn't about to give up without a fight. Plugging the PS/2 keyboard back in brought the mouse back to life, so it's obvious that the addition of the new USB keyboard was the problem, right? Back to google, and search after search brought up nothing. I finally found an IBM site that merely said that using a USB keyboard and a PS/2 mouse was not allowed on some model of theirs, but that hardly seemed to apply to me. Then it dawned upon yours truly that it may be the fault of unplugging the PS/2 keyboard rather than plugging in the USB keyboard.
Turns out that the version of the BIOS I had on my motherboard had a bug that would deactivate the PS/2 mouse if the PS/2 keyboard was unplugged. Fair enough. A BIOS update should fix that, since there is a later BIOS version that claims to eliminate this bug. Next choice - floppy based flash or WinFlash? I decided to go the WinFlash way, just because I am too lazy to unplug a floppy drive from an old desktop merely to flash the BIOS. So downloaded the BIOS, downloaded WinFlash, ran the update, rebooted.
Then, nothing.
Ooooooops... bad flash? That is a catastrophe, recovery is an involved process, that may or may not work. The status LEDs on the motherboard were all lit up and one of them was blinking. The solution is simple when I write it down, but it did take me some time to figure it out. Reboot, hold down the Insert key during the boot process and POST, then release it and hit Del to enter the BIOS settings, reset everything to normal settings, allow the OS to boot. Then you can always go and re-enter the OC'ed settings. I would have not had to go through all this had I reset the BIOS settings to normal before the flash, I think.
To jump to the end of the story, the flash worked and now I have a USB keyboard and a PS/2 mouse working just fine. Where does the party come in? DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D is the motherboard model.
"...the Opteron 165's overclocking prowess has earned it a rep for being more dangerous than Dick Cheney with a 20-gauge full of birdshot" says TechReport.com.
Now, I have a very nice 5 button PS/2 iBall optical mouse that has not given me much room to complain, so I wasn't about to give up without a fight. Plugging the PS/2 keyboard back in brought the mouse back to life, so it's obvious that the addition of the new USB keyboard was the problem, right? Back to google, and search after search brought up nothing. I finally found an IBM site that merely said that using a USB keyboard and a PS/2 mouse was not allowed on some model of theirs, but that hardly seemed to apply to me. Then it dawned upon yours truly that it may be the fault of unplugging the PS/2 keyboard rather than plugging in the USB keyboard.
Turns out that the version of the BIOS I had on my motherboard had a bug that would deactivate the PS/2 mouse if the PS/2 keyboard was unplugged. Fair enough. A BIOS update should fix that, since there is a later BIOS version that claims to eliminate this bug. Next choice - floppy based flash or WinFlash? I decided to go the WinFlash way, just because I am too lazy to unplug a floppy drive from an old desktop merely to flash the BIOS. So downloaded the BIOS, downloaded WinFlash, ran the update, rebooted.
Then, nothing.
Ooooooops... bad flash? That is a catastrophe, recovery is an involved process, that may or may not work. The status LEDs on the motherboard were all lit up and one of them was blinking. The solution is simple when I write it down, but it did take me some time to figure it out. Reboot, hold down the Insert key during the boot process and POST, then release it and hit Del to enter the BIOS settings, reset everything to normal settings, allow the OS to boot. Then you can always go and re-enter the OC'ed settings. I would have not had to go through all this had I reset the BIOS settings to normal before the flash, I think.
To jump to the end of the story, the flash worked and now I have a USB keyboard and a PS/2 mouse working just fine. Where does the party come in? DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D is the motherboard model.
"...the Opteron 165's overclocking prowess has earned it a rep for being more dangerous than Dick Cheney with a 20-gauge full of birdshot" says TechReport.com.
Black or White... what are you?
Black and White 2
That's what I'm playing nowadays. Good game, a bit heavy on the resources - takes up 50% of my dual cores and 50% of 2GB RAM! But runs like a charm with everything on high. It's a different sort of feeling, playing god. Here's a review of the game from GameSpot. Note: one of the first games I'm playing that require a minimum of a GeForce4, are the days of my very first video card over?
Next up, Call of Duty 2!
That's what I'm playing nowadays. Good game, a bit heavy on the resources - takes up 50% of my dual cores and 50% of 2GB RAM! But runs like a charm with everything on high. It's a different sort of feeling, playing god. Here's a review of the game from GameSpot. Note: one of the first games I'm playing that require a minimum of a GeForce4, are the days of my very first video card over?
Next up, Call of Duty 2!
Marrying for money.
No, I'm not doing that. Yet.
I'm talking about some government plan to give a cash award of Rs. 50 thousand to couples that... er... perform an intercaste marriage. For those not in the know, India is a country stuck in the middle ages, where society is divided into castes and all citizens are untouchables, and people die of starvation every day, we haven't heard about electricity and I ride an elephant to work. Back to the point, the reason an intercaste marriage is such a big deal is because it is probably unacceptable to the families involved and in most cases unacceptable to the society in which they live, especially in non-cosmopolitan areas. Marriage is still mostly a group decision, where the immediate family plays a very important part, and the society in which the family lives or wants to continue living indirectly influences the decision. The "wants to continue" phrase creeps in because if one takes a decision against that society's norms you may be forced to move out (to a bigger city, where nobody cares) or you may yourself decide to move away to avoid nasty problems. (While the concept of an "arranged" marriage may sound funny to most Westerners, it may be the only way geeks can get married!)
So since an intercaste marriage is difficult for a person to enter, the government (in its infinite wisdom) thinks fit to pay out money to a couple which does exactly that. The purported reason for the incentive is that intercaste marriages somehow promote social equality and help to "eradicate the menace of caste". A noble reason, certainly. While fifty thousand rupees does not sound a lot, it may be a big sum to the people towards whom this scheme is targetted, the rural folk where the village opinion matters in day-to-day life and where caste-based discrimination seems to be entrenched as a way of life. To me, it's neither here nor there, because I will not get into an intercaste marriage for 50 thousand bucks, nor will I refuse an intercaste marriage merely because "society" feels unhappy with it. My main crib is about where the money is going to come from. That's right, the only place the guv'mint can get money if from me and you, via taxes. And when I get to this point, I really have to stop and wonder if this is the best utilization of my tax money.
It's not just the 50 grand. There will certainly be some guv'mint machinery set up for dealing with these "cases", people employed for doling out the money, politicians going to remote villages so that they can get photo-ops while giving out the large cheque to suitably impressesed couples, people to check whether the receipients are "valid" and "eligible", records to be kept, accounts to be maintained. Would it be worth it? Being the cynic that I am, I see a future where people will insist on intercaste marriages to earn the gov'mint dole, where people will keep the caste system alive just so that they can get married to someone from a different caste. We already see a rush by people to get themselves registered as "backwards", we will now see a rush for intercaste marriages; neither of the policies will cause the general public to ignore each others' castes.
I'm talking about some government plan to give a cash award of Rs. 50 thousand to couples that... er... perform an intercaste marriage. For those not in the know, India is a country stuck in the middle ages, where society is divided into castes and all citizens are untouchables, and people die of starvation every day, we haven't heard about electricity and I ride an elephant to work. Back to the point, the reason an intercaste marriage is such a big deal is because it is probably unacceptable to the families involved and in most cases unacceptable to the society in which they live, especially in non-cosmopolitan areas. Marriage is still mostly a group decision, where the immediate family plays a very important part, and the society in which the family lives or wants to continue living indirectly influences the decision. The "wants to continue" phrase creeps in because if one takes a decision against that society's norms you may be forced to move out (to a bigger city, where nobody cares) or you may yourself decide to move away to avoid nasty problems. (While the concept of an "arranged" marriage may sound funny to most Westerners, it may be the only way geeks can get married!)
So since an intercaste marriage is difficult for a person to enter, the government (in its infinite wisdom) thinks fit to pay out money to a couple which does exactly that. The purported reason for the incentive is that intercaste marriages somehow promote social equality and help to "eradicate the menace of caste". A noble reason, certainly. While fifty thousand rupees does not sound a lot, it may be a big sum to the people towards whom this scheme is targetted, the rural folk where the village opinion matters in day-to-day life and where caste-based discrimination seems to be entrenched as a way of life. To me, it's neither here nor there, because I will not get into an intercaste marriage for 50 thousand bucks, nor will I refuse an intercaste marriage merely because "society" feels unhappy with it. My main crib is about where the money is going to come from. That's right, the only place the guv'mint can get money if from me and you, via taxes. And when I get to this point, I really have to stop and wonder if this is the best utilization of my tax money.
It's not just the 50 grand. There will certainly be some guv'mint machinery set up for dealing with these "cases", people employed for doling out the money, politicians going to remote villages so that they can get photo-ops while giving out the large cheque to suitably impressesed couples, people to check whether the receipients are "valid" and "eligible", records to be kept, accounts to be maintained. Would it be worth it? Being the cynic that I am, I see a future where people will insist on intercaste marriages to earn the gov'mint dole, where people will keep the caste system alive just so that they can get married to someone from a different caste. We already see a rush by people to get themselves registered as "backwards", we will now see a rush for intercaste marriages; neither of the policies will cause the general public to ignore each others' castes.
Sep 14, 2006
Pinky and The Brain
Welcome to rediff.com
Rediff had a decent sort of article on the very confusing topic of choosing a CPU for your next PC upgrade. Of course, they have tried to cover too much territory in a smallish, one page article - but that sets me thinking. There has been a feeling, over the years, of computer jargon being too complex for the layperson to understand. This is true for any technical domain, but since computers have become pretty much like TVs or DVD players do we really expect a prospective buyer to actually go through and decipher the words that we use while specifying CPUs and RAM and HDDs? How does one explain FSB, multi-core, 32/64 bits, HDD rpm, cache to a layperson? And why should said layperson care about all these?
If you clicked on the link, you'd have seen that it doesn't take you to the article, rather it points to the comments on the article. As of writing, there was only one comment, and a rather strange one at that. (http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2006/sep/13cpu.htm is where the original article is.)
I spent quite some time thinking about what the writer of that comment had in mind. Is it a case of him not being able to express what he means? Or is he really completely clueless? Or has someone led him up the garden path?
Rediff had a decent sort of article on the very confusing topic of choosing a CPU for your next PC upgrade. Of course, they have tried to cover too much territory in a smallish, one page article - but that sets me thinking. There has been a feeling, over the years, of computer jargon being too complex for the layperson to understand. This is true for any technical domain, but since computers have become pretty much like TVs or DVD players do we really expect a prospective buyer to actually go through and decipher the words that we use while specifying CPUs and RAM and HDDs? How does one explain FSB, multi-core, 32/64 bits, HDD rpm, cache to a layperson? And why should said layperson care about all these?
If you clicked on the link, you'd have seen that it doesn't take you to the article, rather it points to the comments on the article. As of writing, there was only one comment, and a rather strange one at that. (http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2006/sep/13cpu.htm is where the original article is.)
I spent quite some time thinking about what the writer of that comment had in mind. Is it a case of him not being able to express what he means? Or is he really completely clueless? Or has someone led him up the garden path?
Sep 9, 2006
AnandTech: PhysX Performance Update: City of Villains
AnandTech: PhysX Performance Update: City of Villains
One thing is clear, I won't be buying a Physics accelerator anytime soon. Dual core CPUs are probably good enough for me for the time being.
One thing is clear, I won't be buying a Physics accelerator anytime soon. Dual core CPUs are probably good enough for me for the time being.
Aug 27, 2006
You reclaimed your home. Now reclaim your destiny.
Certainly one of the best games I have ever played (if not THE best) - Homeworld 2.
The original Homeworld was named 1999's "Game of the Year" by PC Gamer, Homeworld 2 merely went one step further with the graphics and gameplay. You can imgagine how much I like this game when I say I'm still playing it in 2006 (it was released in 2003) along with games like AOM, AOE3 and HL-2. I'd completed the two games more than a year back, but I went through HW2 all over again and it was just as enjoyable as the first time.
The original Homeworld had a simple theme: a planetful of exiles discover their real home and a "hyperspace core". They construct a massive mothership and set off across the galaxy to reclaim their homeworld. On the way they encounter all kinds of dangers and enemies. Like all RTS games, you have to gather resources, build units and fight. The three dimensional nature of open space makes this a tad more interesting than the normal RTS's.
Homeworld2 carries on: the exiles reached home but a new threat looms - a warrior lord, who calls himself the Chosen One, is making his way across several star systems towards the homeworld. A new mothership must be constructed and the planet must be defended. But to do that you have to find the third hyperpsace core before the enemy does, and this quest takes you all over the galaxy.
"Long ago you returned from exile, but now fate will not be so kind."
The original Homeworld was named 1999's "Game of the Year" by PC Gamer, Homeworld 2 merely went one step further with the graphics and gameplay. You can imgagine how much I like this game when I say I'm still playing it in 2006 (it was released in 2003) along with games like AOM, AOE3 and HL-2. I'd completed the two games more than a year back, but I went through HW2 all over again and it was just as enjoyable as the first time.
The original Homeworld had a simple theme: a planetful of exiles discover their real home and a "hyperspace core". They construct a massive mothership and set off across the galaxy to reclaim their homeworld. On the way they encounter all kinds of dangers and enemies. Like all RTS games, you have to gather resources, build units and fight. The three dimensional nature of open space makes this a tad more interesting than the normal RTS's.
Homeworld2 carries on: the exiles reached home but a new threat looms - a warrior lord, who calls himself the Chosen One, is making his way across several star systems towards the homeworld. A new mothership must be constructed and the planet must be defended. But to do that you have to find the third hyperpsace core before the enemy does, and this quest takes you all over the galaxy.
"Long ago you returned from exile, but now fate will not be so kind."
Of bunny rabbits and mongooses.
Would you believe it? In the past few days, since I started taking a new route to the office, I've almost run over a rabbit and a pair of mongooses.
Well, not quite run over; the road's pretty wide and I saw these animals right at the edge. Not together though, I came across them on different days..
This new road's practically isolated, no houses on either side, not much traffic during the day or night, no traffic lights, no speed breakers - I often wonder what the road is doing there in the first place.
Well, not quite run over; the road's pretty wide and I saw these animals right at the edge. Not together though, I came across them on different days..
This new road's practically isolated, no houses on either side, not much traffic during the day or night, no traffic lights, no speed breakers - I often wonder what the road is doing there in the first place.
Aug 22, 2006
2 GB RAM
Got myself 2 GB of Transcend RAM. And when I plugged it in...
... it didn't work! Drove me crazy for a while and I had to wander around various bulletin boards for overclockers to figure out what I was doing wrong. To cut a long story short, http://www.pcstats.com/NewsView.cfm?NewsID=51110
CPC (command per clock) needs to be disabled, plug in the DIMMs into the orange slots to get the dual channel working, and voila! Done.
For the curious, I have a DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D board and an Opteron 165 running at 2.4GHz. The 7900GT helps. I'm all set for Vista's release!
... it didn't work! Drove me crazy for a while and I had to wander around various bulletin boards for overclockers to figure out what I was doing wrong. To cut a long story short, http://www.pcstats.com/NewsView.cfm?NewsID=51110
CPC (command per clock) needs to be disabled, plug in the DIMMs into the orange slots to get the dual channel working, and voila! Done.
For the curious, I have a DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D board and an Opteron 165 running at 2.4GHz. The 7900GT helps. I'm all set for Vista's release!
Aug 12, 2006
Genius Ergo 525 Laser Gaming Mouse Review Page 2: First Thoughts and Testing | Doomed PC
Genius Ergo 525 Laser Gaming Mouse Review Page 2: First Thoughts and Testing | Doomed PC: "On plugging in the mouse, Windows thought about it for a minute, as it always does, then the mouse came to life nicely."
I don't know, for some reason I found that statement a bit amusing.
I don't know, for some reason I found that statement a bit amusing.
Aug 9, 2006
Omkara. Too much hype about nothing?
Just back from watching Omkara. The short verdict, it's not a movie for the impatient.
Technically, the acting may be good, the direction may be good, the cinematography may be good, the dancing may be good, the singing may be good, the guns may be good; but what good is a movie that almost puts me to sleep? The other movie I wrote about earlier was MUCH better. Sigh.
Technically, the acting may be good, the direction may be good, the cinematography may be good, the dancing may be good, the singing may be good, the guns may be good; but what good is a movie that almost puts me to sleep? The other movie I wrote about earlier was MUCH better. Sigh.
Aug 6, 2006
The Hindu : Front Page : Vista opens up from Tirunelveli
The Hindu : Front Page : Vista opens up from Tirunelveli
Another link:
http://autofeed.msn.co.in/pandorav3/output/News/48b2e1f5-869e-4403-b09b-8a11fe86b412.aspx
Why do I find myself so sceptical? Because of the following:
"In all probability, Vista will incorporate Mahesh's creation, which is an image browser, image editor, web browser, system tools and disk manager rolled into one."
"For example, why a computer hangs remains a mystery to most. But Mahesh's product can display the reasons. It can also optimise the download speed of a broadband connection when needed."
To me this sounds like the typical layman reporter's take on a new "product". If this lad really has built something that MS feels should be integrated into Vista, I say "Bravo!" and "About time". But I want details. I want to know how exactly this product - "an image browser, editor, etc., etc." - is better than existing tools.
Another gem - "Unlike other OS, it can also display properties of all the drives in the computer simultaneously." Hmmm...
"It's a full fledged tool that would not only remove deficiencies in Vista but add never-seen features in the OS." Hmmmmmmmmmm...
I want to know more. Has this guy really come up with something revolutionary (that the reporter is simply unable to comprehend and convey to readers)? Or is the reporter being taken for a ride (and is simply unable to comprehend what he is being told and is taking it for granted that something wonderful is happening)?
Another link:
http://autofeed.msn.co.in/pandorav3/output/News/48b2e1f5-869e-4403-b09b-8a11fe86b412.aspx
Why do I find myself so sceptical? Because of the following:
"In all probability, Vista will incorporate Mahesh's creation, which is an image browser, image editor, web browser, system tools and disk manager rolled into one."
"For example, why a computer hangs remains a mystery to most. But Mahesh's product can display the reasons. It can also optimise the download speed of a broadband connection when needed."
To me this sounds like the typical layman reporter's take on a new "product". If this lad really has built something that MS feels should be integrated into Vista, I say "Bravo!" and "About time". But I want details. I want to know how exactly this product - "an image browser, editor, etc., etc." - is better than existing tools.
Another gem - "Unlike other OS, it can also display properties of all the drives in the computer simultaneously." Hmmm...
"It's a full fledged tool that would not only remove deficiencies in Vista but add never-seen features in the OS." Hmmmmmmmmmm...
I want to know more. Has this guy really come up with something revolutionary (that the reporter is simply unable to comprehend and convey to readers)? Or is the reporter being taken for a ride (and is simply unable to comprehend what he is being told and is taking it for granted that something wonderful is happening)?
Ridiculous review
This Darwaaza falls apart
Saw "Darwaaza Band Rakho" on Friday. Regardless of what the review on rediff (and other reviews in other places) says, this was a movie which can be watched at least once. It may not be the best movie or even the best comedy around, but it makes you laugh out loud - what more could one want?
Saw "Darwaaza Band Rakho" on Friday. Regardless of what the review on rediff (and other reviews in other places) says, this was a movie which can be watched at least once. It may not be the best movie or even the best comedy around, but it makes you laugh out loud - what more could one want?
Jul 31, 2006
No. 4
That's right, I've moved to number four on the NFS:MW list. Considering that I haven't touched my gaming PC for close to two months, it's pretty good! I spent a couple of hours last night and bumped myself up a couple of ranks.
I used to first play AOE2, and never thought I'd ever like any other genre. AOE2 let to Command and Conquer:Generals, and AOM. Then somehow I got hooked onto UT2004 (that's one heck of a game!) and the NFS series. I still don't think much of the earlier NFS games, they were very frustrating and bad-looking. NFSU, on the other hand was a revelation. That brought me to NFSU2 and NFS:MW.
I use a Sidewinder Freestyle Pro for racing games, and sometimes the Logitech Momo wheel (which I never got the hang of). The Sidewinder makes my thumbs hurt, which brings back pleasant memories of the Nintendo controllers long long ago...
(For those who came in late: AOE = Age of Empires, NFS = Need For Speed, NFSU = NFS Underground, MW = Most Wanted, UT = Unreal Tournament, and if you didn't know any of these you're probabaly reading the wrong blog! (just kidding))
I used to first play AOE2, and never thought I'd ever like any other genre. AOE2 let to Command and Conquer:Generals, and AOM. Then somehow I got hooked onto UT2004 (that's one heck of a game!) and the NFS series. I still don't think much of the earlier NFS games, they were very frustrating and bad-looking. NFSU, on the other hand was a revelation. That brought me to NFSU2 and NFS:MW.
I use a Sidewinder Freestyle Pro for racing games, and sometimes the Logitech Momo wheel (which I never got the hang of). The Sidewinder makes my thumbs hurt, which brings back pleasant memories of the Nintendo controllers long long ago...
(For those who came in late: AOE = Age of Empires, NFS = Need For Speed, NFSU = NFS Underground, MW = Most Wanted, UT = Unreal Tournament, and if you didn't know any of these you're probabaly reading the wrong blog! (just kidding))
Jul 30, 2006
Emailing a CV?
Welcome to rediff.com
This little article caught my eye while I was browsing through rediff. Nope, I'm not thinking of switching jobs. I was merely intrigued by what advice the writer would throw out regarding this topic.
Personally, I have never ever written an email sending my resume to a total stranger, unasked for. It has always been through consultants who call ME up first, or directly to friends in the target companies.
Somehow I found the few comments that the article attracted, ummm... amusing. Formality has mostly been given up in the IT industry, and since I have never had to interact in this manner with someone outside the industry I have no idea whether "received your contact info" or "owe your contact details" make any difference. Personally, I would probably end up writing "I got your email id from...". The other interesting thing was the "follow up call". I would be really pissed off if every sundry email sender started calling me to verify that the email was received!
Having reached this ripe old age (!) my experiences in CV writing and reading tell me:
1. Keep it simple, stupid.
2. CV = 1 page
3. Write numbers.
4. Write a list of skills.
6. Plain text.
7. Interpret what you have written from the hiring managers point of view.
This little article caught my eye while I was browsing through rediff. Nope, I'm not thinking of switching jobs. I was merely intrigued by what advice the writer would throw out regarding this topic.
Personally, I have never ever written an email sending my resume to a total stranger, unasked for. It has always been through consultants who call ME up first, or directly to friends in the target companies.
Somehow I found the few comments that the article attracted, ummm... amusing. Formality has mostly been given up in the IT industry, and since I have never had to interact in this manner with someone outside the industry I have no idea whether "received your contact info" or "owe your contact details" make any difference. Personally, I would probably end up writing "I got your email id from...". The other interesting thing was the "follow up call". I would be really pissed off if every sundry email sender started calling me to verify that the email was received!
Having reached this ripe old age (!) my experiences in CV writing and reading tell me:
1. Keep it simple, stupid.
2. CV = 1 page
3. Write numbers.
4. Write a list of skills.
6. Plain text.
7. Interpret what you have written from the hiring managers point of view.
Jul 27, 2006
Taxes?
You'll soon have to pay Rs 7,500 a year as professional tax - The Economic Times
More taxes. I've lost count of the things that I do for which I have to pay the government a cut. I like to think that I wouldn't mind so much if I saw that money being put to good use. But if what I read in the newspapers is any indication, much of my tax money is certainly not being used to help the country.
Most interesting statement in the article that I've linked to: "States want the additional revenues for meeting expenditure for creation of social infrastructure, including primary schools and hospitals." Who would be able to protest against such noble aims? Would anyone want to deprive the poor people of schools and hospitals?
Maybe it's time we started taking more interest in the expenditure statements of the government. I don't even know if the govt. issues a statement of income and expenditure.
Another thing I wanted to comment on was the recent overly-dramatized rescue of the child who fell down a shaft. While I sympathize with the family and applaud the rescuers, I see no reason why the govt. should announce an award of 2 lakhs for the kid. I presume there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of people who get into trouble of some sort every day. I don't see the govt. coming forward and giving what amounts to a windfall to all of them. I could understand and appreciate the govt. rewarding the rescue workers, after all they did a great job, but somehow I don't think the kid did anything out of the ordinary by falling into a shaft or by getting rescued. His family probably needs help for the treatment and other associated expenses, but I feel that's something for voluntary donations from individuals or organizations - somehow the govt. helping out in one particular case (merely because the media chose to give it wide coverage) doesn't seem correct. Which brings us neatly to the other point - why did the media give SO much coverage to this particular case? Live, minute-by-minute updates? Isn't that a bit overkill? What was so special about this case? Was it the fact that people all over the country were praying for the child in question? But isn't it true that people all over the country came to know about this child BECAUSE of the live, minute-by-minute coverage? Will someone now purchase the movie and novel rights to this incident and make the child richer? Makes me wonder whether the media would give the same attention if Chaos fell down a lift shaft and couldn't be rescued for a day or two...
More taxes. I've lost count of the things that I do for which I have to pay the government a cut. I like to think that I wouldn't mind so much if I saw that money being put to good use. But if what I read in the newspapers is any indication, much of my tax money is certainly not being used to help the country.
Most interesting statement in the article that I've linked to: "States want the additional revenues for meeting expenditure for creation of social infrastructure, including primary schools and hospitals." Who would be able to protest against such noble aims? Would anyone want to deprive the poor people of schools and hospitals?
Maybe it's time we started taking more interest in the expenditure statements of the government. I don't even know if the govt. issues a statement of income and expenditure.
Another thing I wanted to comment on was the recent overly-dramatized rescue of the child who fell down a shaft. While I sympathize with the family and applaud the rescuers, I see no reason why the govt. should announce an award of 2 lakhs for the kid. I presume there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of people who get into trouble of some sort every day. I don't see the govt. coming forward and giving what amounts to a windfall to all of them. I could understand and appreciate the govt. rewarding the rescue workers, after all they did a great job, but somehow I don't think the kid did anything out of the ordinary by falling into a shaft or by getting rescued. His family probably needs help for the treatment and other associated expenses, but I feel that's something for voluntary donations from individuals or organizations - somehow the govt. helping out in one particular case (merely because the media chose to give it wide coverage) doesn't seem correct. Which brings us neatly to the other point - why did the media give SO much coverage to this particular case? Live, minute-by-minute updates? Isn't that a bit overkill? What was so special about this case? Was it the fact that people all over the country were praying for the child in question? But isn't it true that people all over the country came to know about this child BECAUSE of the live, minute-by-minute coverage? Will someone now purchase the movie and novel rights to this incident and make the child richer? Makes me wonder whether the media would give the same attention if Chaos fell down a lift shaft and couldn't be rescued for a day or two...
Jul 22, 2006
Kensington SX2000 speakers for the iPod!
Bought the SX2000 yesterday, but managed to get the unit back home today evening. Awesome speakers! The unit has a 3.5mm plug so I should be able to use it for my gaming needs too (but I forgot to get the audio cable, and my 5.1 headphones are good enough for gaming).
http://us.kensington.com/html/7206.html
http://www.livedigitally.com/?p=803
http://us.kensington.com/html/7206.html
http://www.livedigitally.com/?p=803
Jul 17, 2006
Are ISPs blocking blogs?
Are ISPs blocking blogs?
Ridiculous. ISPs seem to be blocking entire domains because some government agency gave them a 22 page long list of sites to block. Strangely enough, that list is "confidential".
Ridiculous. ISPs seem to be blocking entire domains because some government agency gave them a 22 page long list of sites to block. Strangely enough, that list is "confidential".
Jul 1, 2006
Safe and sound
As the old cliche' goes. But tired. Slept the whole afternoon. Of course getting a vegetarian meal out here is difficult, made do with some sandwiches and an omelette.
Jun 29, 2006
Jun 26, 2006
Shelley The Republican » A True History of Linux
Shelley The Republican » A True History of Linux
I read a few posts on this "blog" and I simply CANNOT decide whether it is serious or the writers are merely yanking someone's chain.
If it's a serious site then I am amazed that such clueless people exist.
If it's a farce then I am amazed at the way they manage to troll readers, they've really brought it up to a fine art.
I read a few posts on this "blog" and I simply CANNOT decide whether it is serious or the writers are merely yanking someone's chain.
If it's a serious site then I am amazed that such clueless people exist.
If it's a farce then I am amazed at the way they manage to troll readers, they've really brought it up to a fine art.
Jun 25, 2006
Worst game ever?
I got the King Kong game along with my 7900gt video card and yesterday I actually got down to installing it. I'm not really a fan of movie-games and I didn't expect much from this one. I got even less.
It's SLOW. On a 7900 and a dual core Opteron running at 2.4GHz and 1GB RAM, this game is dead slow. And I was running at the lowest resolution possible. I can't believe I would have some setting wrong on such a system that would make me exit from the game and switch it off altogether in disgust. The other gripe I have is that the load times were huge. I was delighted at first when I saw the progress bar zipping away, it reached the end, stopped, backed up one step and then started again from zero! After enduring one such load, all I got to see was the scene where the characters get off the ship and row to the shore; then another load screen starts.
The first time I ran the game, I had a Sidewinder gamepad connected and somehow that managed to put the game into a tizzy. My character wouldn't stop looking at the sky! I had to quit from the game and disable the gamepad and start the game again. For some reason, the display was very... shaky is the best word. And slow. Looking around was painful.
I continued on anyway, hoping things would get better. Then I saw my entire party of "friends" climbing up some steps and vanishing. They didn't climb all the way up and over the steps, they disappeared halfway up! I followed them up the steps and got killed. I don't know what killed me or how, but it happened consistently - walk up some steps and you're dead. I then tried climbing up while crouching and surprisingly got all the way to the top, and then I didn't know what to do. I could hear people shouting for me, but I had absolutely no idea about how to proceed. There was a crack in the rocks from which I could see some spider like creatures, but I wasn't allowed to enter that area.
I gave up and returned to playing NFS MW.
It's SLOW. On a 7900 and a dual core Opteron running at 2.4GHz and 1GB RAM, this game is dead slow. And I was running at the lowest resolution possible. I can't believe I would have some setting wrong on such a system that would make me exit from the game and switch it off altogether in disgust. The other gripe I have is that the load times were huge. I was delighted at first when I saw the progress bar zipping away, it reached the end, stopped, backed up one step and then started again from zero! After enduring one such load, all I got to see was the scene where the characters get off the ship and row to the shore; then another load screen starts.
The first time I ran the game, I had a Sidewinder gamepad connected and somehow that managed to put the game into a tizzy. My character wouldn't stop looking at the sky! I had to quit from the game and disable the gamepad and start the game again. For some reason, the display was very... shaky is the best word. And slow. Looking around was painful.
I continued on anyway, hoping things would get better. Then I saw my entire party of "friends" climbing up some steps and vanishing. They didn't climb all the way up and over the steps, they disappeared halfway up! I followed them up the steps and got killed. I don't know what killed me or how, but it happened consistently - walk up some steps and you're dead. I then tried climbing up while crouching and surprisingly got all the way to the top, and then I didn't know what to do. I could hear people shouting for me, but I had absolutely no idea about how to proceed. There was a crack in the rocks from which I could see some spider like creatures, but I wasn't allowed to enter that area.
I gave up and returned to playing NFS MW.
Jun 24, 2006
Xbox 360
Someone I know at work wants one. That set me thinking, because he claimed that the specs were much better than the price warranted. Twenty thousand odd rupees, and you get a triple-core 3.2GHz CPU, a decent enough GPU, 512MB RAM, etc. etc. and I spent almost that amount in getting ONLY a dual core Opteron processor. Where's the mismatch?
Of course I know that consoles are not meant for general purpose computing, but the PS3 will apparently be able to run Linux as well. And all said and done, the only general purpose computing I do at home is games, browsing, playing music, watching movies; all of which modern consoles can do (after a fashion). If at all there is something consoles cannot do, one always has a cheapo PC/laptop lying around to solve the problem. Is there a need for the dual core Opterons and the 7900GTs?
I tried to verify the difference between the PCs games and the Xbox, but a lot of them are released for both platforms. With support for HDTV, consoles are not limited to low resolutions either. Since I've never seen any console in action I cannot comment on the quality, but websites assure me that the Xbox's (360, not the original one) graphics quality is as good, if not better than high end video cards'.
Availability of games? I buy my PC games from legal sources so console games would not be that much more costly either. I believe the Xbox 360 has a VGA connector so I need not buy an HDTV.
Non-standard peripherals? Aha. HDD is probably not user replaceable. Can I plug in a 250GB SATA disk instead of the measly little thing that MS provides? Probably not. Can I use my Logitech Momo racing wheel with the Xbox 360? I have no idea. Can I plug in an optical mouse and USB keyboard and play strategy games? I have no idea. Can I post to my blog? I have no idea. Consoles in earlier times were simpler, they played a specific category of games and did nothing else.
Will someone with an idea respond and let me know the facts?
Of course I know that consoles are not meant for general purpose computing, but the PS3 will apparently be able to run Linux as well. And all said and done, the only general purpose computing I do at home is games, browsing, playing music, watching movies; all of which modern consoles can do (after a fashion). If at all there is something consoles cannot do, one always has a cheapo PC/laptop lying around to solve the problem. Is there a need for the dual core Opterons and the 7900GTs?
I tried to verify the difference between the PCs games and the Xbox, but a lot of them are released for both platforms. With support for HDTV, consoles are not limited to low resolutions either. Since I've never seen any console in action I cannot comment on the quality, but websites assure me that the Xbox's (360, not the original one) graphics quality is as good, if not better than high end video cards'.
Availability of games? I buy my PC games from legal sources so console games would not be that much more costly either. I believe the Xbox 360 has a VGA connector so I need not buy an HDTV.
Non-standard peripherals? Aha. HDD is probably not user replaceable. Can I plug in a 250GB SATA disk instead of the measly little thing that MS provides? Probably not. Can I use my Logitech Momo racing wheel with the Xbox 360? I have no idea. Can I plug in an optical mouse and USB keyboard and play strategy games? I have no idea. Can I post to my blog? I have no idea. Consoles in earlier times were simpler, they played a specific category of games and did nothing else.
Will someone with an idea respond and let me know the facts?
More on traffic
Regardless of my outburst about the PM advising motorists to be polite, I must point out that he is not quite off the mark. My comment was about the PM making such remarks when he and his kind are obviously not in touch with the common man's life and what provokes the incidents one sees on the road.
But it is clear that there are idiots on the road and I come across them all the time. There is one particular traffic signal which is completely disregarded by almost everyone. Sometimes I feel foolish, waiting for the signal to turn green when traffic flows all around me, in all directions. Getting through the crossroads is a big hassle even when I have the green light, because people simply don't care. I am sorely tempted to simply walk up to one of these folk and hit out at them. As it is, I try to convey my anger by frowns and gestures and loud honking when I have the right of way, but I don't think anybody is bothered much by all that.
What is it that makes otherwise decent (and I am going out on a limb here) people behave so oddly on the road? I assume that they wait at all other traffic lights since I don't see the same problem anywhere else. So what's different about this particular set of signals? Are they some mystical lights that only I (and a few other fools) can see? I have never had to wait more than 30-40 seconds at this crossroads. I don't understand the big hurry.
But it is clear that there are idiots on the road and I come across them all the time. There is one particular traffic signal which is completely disregarded by almost everyone. Sometimes I feel foolish, waiting for the signal to turn green when traffic flows all around me, in all directions. Getting through the crossroads is a big hassle even when I have the green light, because people simply don't care. I am sorely tempted to simply walk up to one of these folk and hit out at them. As it is, I try to convey my anger by frowns and gestures and loud honking when I have the right of way, but I don't think anybody is bothered much by all that.
What is it that makes otherwise decent (and I am going out on a limb here) people behave so oddly on the road? I assume that they wait at all other traffic lights since I don't see the same problem anywhere else. So what's different about this particular set of signals? Are they some mystical lights that only I (and a few other fools) can see? I have never had to wait more than 30-40 seconds at this crossroads. I don't understand the big hurry.
Where are your manners, PM asks motorists
Where are your manners, PM asks motorists
Apparently, the PM has no clue what the ordinary people of the country go through; but then again, he's a politician, what was I thinking?
Apparently, the PM has no clue what the ordinary people of the country go through; but then again, he's a politician, what was I thinking?
Jun 20, 2006
IBM and Georgia Tech Set Silicon Speed Record
Georgia Tech Phd student Ram Krithivasan examines a 'frozen' Silicon Germanium chip inside a cryogenic station at the Georgia Electronic Design Center in Atlanta. IBM and Georgia Tech today announced that they have broken the world silicon speed record with a chip that operates at half a trillion cycles per second, some 250 times faster than chips found in conventional cell phones.
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/photo/19844.wss
Of course, this probably just means a single transistor switching at 500GHz, not that you'll have a 500GHz CPU tomorrow.
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/photo/19844.wss
Of course, this probably just means a single transistor switching at 500GHz, not that you'll have a 500GHz CPU tomorrow.
Women in the armed forces?
I found the ongoing controversy about whether there should be women in the armed forces a bit ... amusing.
A career politician lashing out at something a career soldier said, and the politician implying that the soldier doesn't know anything about the army and should leave policy to the politicians.
Well, OK, it didn't happen quite like that; but the above is what it sounded like to me.
Gender equality is a funny notion. Especially when people start taking the equality part a bit too seriously. If we were all equal then there wouldn't be any debate over equality, would there? Everyone would think the same way, behave in the same manner, and do exactly the same things.
Prejudice is perhaps a better word. Making decisions about a person's worth or capabilities or shortcomings based on a generalization.
But here too we hit a wall. Generalizations can come in handy. "Indians live in India", would not be completely accurate, but making that kind of assumption about an Indian is perhaps valid (till he tells you otherwise).
Here we come across the gender based generalizations - "women are physically weaker than men". Is that always true? Certainly, women weight lifters and wrestlers might be physically stronger than many men. But a few exceptions do not invalidate the usefulness of the generalization. The trick is to decide how much is a "few", how many are "negligible". "Men refuse to ask for directions"? "Women can't keep secrets?"
One wonders how many of the strident female voices shouting for equality would be willing to take over all the roles of men. Being the sole bread winner, putting up with a nagging spouse, er... come home drunk and beat the spouse and kids, etc.
Jesting aside, I see so many women who prefer to live in comfort off the earnings of their men, and perform the "household" chores like a dutiful housewife. Interestingly, most men don't even have that choice.
Should women be "allowed" to join the armed forces and participate in combat? I don't know. It would be a fearsome sight indeed, a line of ladies charging down the hillside with guns and war cries. On the other hand, I can see how a handful of females in a million strong army could pose problems. In our jargon, they would be corner cases and would need special handling.
Case in point - call centre cabs. They apparently have rules about a girl not being the last person to be dropped off. Corner case with special handling. For safety's sake. Why don't I see anyone protesting this? Don't women have the "right" to be treated as any other poor geek and be dropped off at the nearest traffic light? What happens if the whole cab is full of girls? What happens if the cab is full of girls and one man?
Gender equality? Would the girls at work accept being hit on the back like I do with the guys? Would they stay back till 1 o'clock in the night to finish off some code like the guys do?
I would suggest trying to improve the participation of women in the normal work force before hitting out at the army. And reservations for women are NOT what I mean!
To be very crude about it, men have proved over millenia that they are stronger, faster, more agressive, perhaps dumber (at least dumb enough to accept orders without question) and hence thoroughly suited for fighting each other. If women want in on the fighting, they should prove themselves (that means more than being shrews at home). The question of treatment of women PoWs is still open.
A career politician lashing out at something a career soldier said, and the politician implying that the soldier doesn't know anything about the army and should leave policy to the politicians.
Well, OK, it didn't happen quite like that; but the above is what it sounded like to me.
Gender equality is a funny notion. Especially when people start taking the equality part a bit too seriously. If we were all equal then there wouldn't be any debate over equality, would there? Everyone would think the same way, behave in the same manner, and do exactly the same things.
Prejudice is perhaps a better word. Making decisions about a person's worth or capabilities or shortcomings based on a generalization.
But here too we hit a wall. Generalizations can come in handy. "Indians live in India", would not be completely accurate, but making that kind of assumption about an Indian is perhaps valid (till he tells you otherwise).
Here we come across the gender based generalizations - "women are physically weaker than men". Is that always true? Certainly, women weight lifters and wrestlers might be physically stronger than many men. But a few exceptions do not invalidate the usefulness of the generalization. The trick is to decide how much is a "few", how many are "negligible". "Men refuse to ask for directions"? "Women can't keep secrets?"
One wonders how many of the strident female voices shouting for equality would be willing to take over all the roles of men. Being the sole bread winner, putting up with a nagging spouse, er... come home drunk and beat the spouse and kids, etc.
Jesting aside, I see so many women who prefer to live in comfort off the earnings of their men, and perform the "household" chores like a dutiful housewife. Interestingly, most men don't even have that choice.
Should women be "allowed" to join the armed forces and participate in combat? I don't know. It would be a fearsome sight indeed, a line of ladies charging down the hillside with guns and war cries. On the other hand, I can see how a handful of females in a million strong army could pose problems. In our jargon, they would be corner cases and would need special handling.
Case in point - call centre cabs. They apparently have rules about a girl not being the last person to be dropped off. Corner case with special handling. For safety's sake. Why don't I see anyone protesting this? Don't women have the "right" to be treated as any other poor geek and be dropped off at the nearest traffic light? What happens if the whole cab is full of girls? What happens if the cab is full of girls and one man?
Gender equality? Would the girls at work accept being hit on the back like I do with the guys? Would they stay back till 1 o'clock in the night to finish off some code like the guys do?
I would suggest trying to improve the participation of women in the normal work force before hitting out at the army. And reservations for women are NOT what I mean!
To be very crude about it, men have proved over millenia that they are stronger, faster, more agressive, perhaps dumber (at least dumb enough to accept orders without question) and hence thoroughly suited for fighting each other. If women want in on the fighting, they should prove themselves (that means more than being shrews at home). The question of treatment of women PoWs is still open.
Jun 10, 2006
Traffic shaper
I've been using cfosSpeed, which is a traffic shaper. I've been searching for something like this for quite some time now, but I never found any software to be quite what I wanted. Basically, I wanted a shaper that would be able to prioritize my HTTP traffic so that my browsing would not be affected while a download was in progress.
cfosSpeed seems to do that, and it seems to get me a faster response while browsing even when there are no downloads going on in the background. They claim better responses for online gaming, VoIP, and other such applications, but I haven't tried that out, and I probably won't. All in all, a good bit of software - it's shareware and I might just end up buying it at the end of my 30 days trial.
cfosSpeed seems to do that, and it seems to get me a faster response while browsing even when there are no downloads going on in the background. They claim better responses for online gaming, VoIP, and other such applications, but I haven't tried that out, and I probably won't. All in all, a good bit of software - it's shareware and I might just end up buying it at the end of my 30 days trial.
Much awaited N80 review.
It's been a few days since I got the N80 and it's time to put down my thoughts on the device.
Awesome.
The screen hits you first, because that's what you see first. Crisp, bright, colourful. Waaay better than any of the normal phones you see around you, and certainly no worse than the high-end PDA-phones that you come across. It's a slider phone, the first one that I have had, and nothing to complain about in the slider mechanism. Camera is decent, flash is probably OK too, but certainly not comparable to a "normal" digicam. On the other hand a digicam can't make phone calls.
Tried out the bluetooth to transfer data from my previous phone, worked flawlessly. Also managed to use the Wifi to connect to my laptop and used the phone's browser to wander around the web. That was a nice experience too. Setting up the WLAN took some time, but that was on the laptop. Once set up, the phone recognized it immediately, but refused to browse. Turning off the firewall helped, so it wasn't the phone's fault really. It even managed to find a very weak WLAN signal from someone else's network.
FM radio is great, had a hard time using the inbuilt tuning, but works like a charm when you type in the correct FM frequencies. Looks like the tuning feature is only for fine tuning? Looks like the radio can't be recorded, but I guess that could be fixed by a firmware update - looking forward to that feature.
Music player is great too, limited only by the available space, 128MB mini-SD card doesn't look too big in front of my 60GB iPod. But it's nice to have a music player with some good songs on the memory card for times when the iPod is not around. Sound quality was good to my untrained ears - as long as it sounds OK, I don't care.
The phone's HTML browser is pretty good, you have to see it to understand what I mean. It simulates a little mouse cursor that can be moved around with the directional keys and it highlights any links over which it passes. Works very well.
All said and done, I like this phone. Cost was, of course, astronomical, but I, for one, think it's worth it. For people who just like their phones to be able to make phone calls - this device is absolutely not meant for you, go away.
Awesome.
The screen hits you first, because that's what you see first. Crisp, bright, colourful. Waaay better than any of the normal phones you see around you, and certainly no worse than the high-end PDA-phones that you come across. It's a slider phone, the first one that I have had, and nothing to complain about in the slider mechanism. Camera is decent, flash is probably OK too, but certainly not comparable to a "normal" digicam. On the other hand a digicam can't make phone calls.
Tried out the bluetooth to transfer data from my previous phone, worked flawlessly. Also managed to use the Wifi to connect to my laptop and used the phone's browser to wander around the web. That was a nice experience too. Setting up the WLAN took some time, but that was on the laptop. Once set up, the phone recognized it immediately, but refused to browse. Turning off the firewall helped, so it wasn't the phone's fault really. It even managed to find a very weak WLAN signal from someone else's network.
FM radio is great, had a hard time using the inbuilt tuning, but works like a charm when you type in the correct FM frequencies. Looks like the tuning feature is only for fine tuning? Looks like the radio can't be recorded, but I guess that could be fixed by a firmware update - looking forward to that feature.
Music player is great too, limited only by the available space, 128MB mini-SD card doesn't look too big in front of my 60GB iPod. But it's nice to have a music player with some good songs on the memory card for times when the iPod is not around. Sound quality was good to my untrained ears - as long as it sounds OK, I don't care.
The phone's HTML browser is pretty good, you have to see it to understand what I mean. It simulates a little mouse cursor that can be moved around with the directional keys and it highlights any links over which it passes. Works very well.
All said and done, I like this phone. Cost was, of course, astronomical, but I, for one, think it's worth it. For people who just like their phones to be able to make phone calls - this device is absolutely not meant for you, go away.
Jun 9, 2006
Jun 7, 2006
Jun 2, 2006
Filing I-T return? Don't attach Form 16
Filing I-T return? Don't attach Form 16
Bad, bad move. Now I have to remember everything I bought so that I can tell the IT dept?! How about small amounts I give to people? Or large amounts that I give or get from my family? Aren't they happy enough with keeping track of how much I get?
Bad, bad move. Now I have to remember everything I bought so that I can tell the IT dept?! How about small amounts I give to people? Or large amounts that I give or get from my family? Aren't they happy enough with keeping track of how much I get?
May 31, 2006
May 30, 2006
Orkut is a strange beast...
For one thing, it says that "Today's fortune" for me is: Your luck has been completely changed today.
I don't understand this. Was my luck doing nicely and it has now taken a turn for the worse? If I was doing so-so what does "completely changed" imply? Am I going to be better off or not?
On a more serious note, I notice that people seem to have made orkut an extension of their normal lives. They communicate with people whom they already know in the real world. It may help as a meeting ground for faraway people, but rarely have I seen complete strangers becoming friends. Correct me if I am wrong.
The other funny thing about orkut is the scraps. People seem to be using them as a message board. I find that strange because they could as well have used email to communicate. What's the point of using scraps, which are anyway open for all to see?
I don't understand this. Was my luck doing nicely and it has now taken a turn for the worse? If I was doing so-so what does "completely changed" imply? Am I going to be better off or not?
On a more serious note, I notice that people seem to have made orkut an extension of their normal lives. They communicate with people whom they already know in the real world. It may help as a meeting ground for faraway people, but rarely have I seen complete strangers becoming friends. Correct me if I am wrong.
The other funny thing about orkut is the scraps. People seem to be using them as a message board. I find that strange because they could as well have used email to communicate. What's the point of using scraps, which are anyway open for all to see?
May 22, 2006
The hell of elliptical billiard balls: Interesting facts about Gabon
The hell of elliptical billiard balls: Interesting facts about Gabon: "One of the main opposition parties in Gabon is the National Rally of Woodcutters (Rassemblement National des Boucherons), which I think is the coolest name for a political party EVER. "
:)
:)
May 19, 2006
God wrote in....
I was taught assembler
in my second year of school.
It's kinda like construction work --
with a toothpick for a tool.
So when I made my senior year,
I threw my code away,
And learned the way to program
that I still prefer today.
Now, some folks on the Internet
put their faith in C++.
They swear that it's so powerful,
it's what God used for us.
And maybe it lets mortals dredge
their objects from the C.
But I think that explains
why only God can make a tree.
For God wrote in Lisp code
When he filled the leaves with green.
The fractal flowers and recursive roots:
The most lovely hack I've seen.
And when I ponder snowflakes,
never finding two the same,
I know God likes a language
with its own four-letter name.
Now, I've used a SUN under Unix,
so I've seen what C can hold.
I've surfed for Perls, found what Fortran's for,
Got that Java stuff down cold.
Though the chance that I'd write COBOL code
is a SNOBOL's chance in Hell.
And I basically hate hieroglyphs,
so I won't use APL.
Now, God must know all these languages,
and a few I haven't named.
But the Lord made sure, when each sparrow falls,
that its flesh will be reclaimed.
And the Lord could not count grains of sand
with a 32-bit word.
Who knows where we would go to
if Lisp weren't what he preferred?
And God wrote in Lisp code
Every creature great and small.
Don't search the disk drive for man.c,
When the listing's on the wall.
And when I watch the lightning burn
Unbelievers to a crisp,
I know God had six days to work,
So he wrote it all in Lisp.
Yes, God had a deadline.
So he wrote it all in Lisp.
Apparently, "all credit to Julia Ecklar", but I really don't know who wrote this...
in my second year of school.
It's kinda like construction work --
with a toothpick for a tool.
So when I made my senior year,
I threw my code away,
And learned the way to program
that I still prefer today.
Now, some folks on the Internet
put their faith in C++.
They swear that it's so powerful,
it's what God used for us.
And maybe it lets mortals dredge
their objects from the C.
But I think that explains
why only God can make a tree.
For God wrote in Lisp code
When he filled the leaves with green.
The fractal flowers and recursive roots:
The most lovely hack I've seen.
And when I ponder snowflakes,
never finding two the same,
I know God likes a language
with its own four-letter name.
Now, I've used a SUN under Unix,
so I've seen what C can hold.
I've surfed for Perls, found what Fortran's for,
Got that Java stuff down cold.
Though the chance that I'd write COBOL code
is a SNOBOL's chance in Hell.
And I basically hate hieroglyphs,
so I won't use APL.
Now, God must know all these languages,
and a few I haven't named.
But the Lord made sure, when each sparrow falls,
that its flesh will be reclaimed.
And the Lord could not count grains of sand
with a 32-bit word.
Who knows where we would go to
if Lisp weren't what he preferred?
And God wrote in Lisp code
Every creature great and small.
Don't search the disk drive for man.c,
When the listing's on the wall.
And when I watch the lightning burn
Unbelievers to a crisp,
I know God had six days to work,
So he wrote it all in Lisp.
Yes, God had a deadline.
So he wrote it all in Lisp.
Apparently, "all credit to Julia Ecklar", but I really don't know who wrote this...
More comments from readers...
I haven't written anything here for some time and I have the usual reasons. But I found a comment left behind for one of my earlier posts, which goes something like this:
Blogger: Post a Comment: "smrti said...
I guess what you said as 'fair fight' is not always fair when they always remain 'reserved' for the privileged. Let us just make it a fair fight by not closing it against those who come from less privileged classes"
That's a new one. "Reserved for the privileged". Pray tell, which positions, by law, are closed for the "underprivileged"? And don't give me the old baloney about opression by the upper classes.
It seems that whoever is in power opresses the rest. The "underprivileged" are in power now and are slowly converting into the "privileged". Who would have dreamt that entire communities would be up in arms for the right to be labelled "backward".
Blogger: Post a Comment: "smrti said...
I guess what you said as 'fair fight' is not always fair when they always remain 'reserved' for the privileged. Let us just make it a fair fight by not closing it against those who come from less privileged classes"
That's a new one. "Reserved for the privileged". Pray tell, which positions, by law, are closed for the "underprivileged"? And don't give me the old baloney about opression by the upper classes.
It seems that whoever is in power opresses the rest. The "underprivileged" are in power now and are slowly converting into the "privileged". Who would have dreamt that entire communities would be up in arms for the right to be labelled "backward".
May 10, 2006
Responding to a comment
Someone called Prashant left a comment on one of my posts. (Actually I didn't know that people other than Chaos and Veera actually read anything out here. I do get a few hits but they mostly seem to be either misdirected or aimless wanderers...). He specifically took umbrage (is that too strong a word?) at a couple of lines:
"In fact, I would go so far as to say that they are probably overpaid. It's essentially a low-skill job,the only prerequisite being a decent knowledge of English"
I am not sure why we software engineers think we are inventing some rocket science while the rest of the world is doing some low intellectual jobs. Alok, don't you think, if you put any grad student through couple of weeks of training and ask him to follow the so called six sigma processes, he will do as good as any of us. So all I am saying is we software engineers, who beat our chest and behave as though we solved Fermat's last theorem the moment we were born, sorry guys, but we are not demonstrating any great skill by writing a piece of code. Yes if you architect solutions, architect new chip design or a compiler or a new product, then you are great as that requires ingenuity and skill, but what percentage of software engineer population does that 5% ..max 10% . For rest of them,coding is mere looping through plethora of design documents and translating English to some machine understandable language. So don't you think rest of us are "low-skilled " coolies ourselves as we accuse others to be. So lets be very careful when we speak of other professions...especially it would be very nice if we can refrain from making comments like "they are probably overpaid" ..it probably speaks more about us than them.
Dude, I'm pretty sure I don't know you. I have been known to wonder on more than one occasion whether software people actually deserve the kind of money we get. I know the kind of people employed by software firms and I can state categorically that a majority of them are overpaid. But if someone is willing to pay them that kind of money, who am I to decide whether they actually deserve less or not? Sigh.
Do I think any grad student put through some training and made to follow 6 sigma process would be as good as me? Um... in a word, no. I may not have solved Fermat's last theorem on my own, but I do think the kind of work I do is pretty decent. Maybe you picked the wrong guy. Do I think ...blah blah blah... as good as an average-to-below-average software guy? Maybe. But most likely, not.
From my point of view, someone who reads through documents and translates English to C would definitely rank as low-skilled, relatively speaking, of course. But I would probably still rate him higher than someone who answers the phone and reads through a prepared script to try to sell credit cards to strangers. Oh yes, there are BPO operations that require some level of technical competency but I certainly wouldn't hire them to write code for me.
You also seem to have a chip on your shoulder, you lashed out without trying to understand what I wrote earlier - perhaps a re-read of my post would help. Perhaps me re-writing my points and opinions clearly would help too.
1. Call centre jobs mostly seem to require a decent command over spoken English (or maybe some other language).
2. Call centre jobs are not something that requires very high levels of technical skills, since I do not consider spoken English to be such a skill.
3. In fact, I wouldn't rate it very high on the list of non-technical skills either.
4. I, personally, consider the salary paid to call centre employees (especially the starting salaries) to be more than what should be considered reasonable.
5. I do not consider BPO employees to be exploited. If they wish to work under those circumstances, for that salary, they should be allowed to, without the rest of the world jumping to their "defense".
6. I think that employers in the BPO sector are not doing anything illegal, immoral or deceitful when they employ people to do that kind of work, for that amount of compensation.
Hope that makes the earlier post clearer. Actually, I'm pretty surprised that someone who sounds as decently educated as you would fail to appreciate the fact that being overpaid is what makes an industry or job lucrative! Do you think investment bankers are overpaid? I certainly do! It may be because I do not appreciate the hard work in reaching that point, their extreme intelligence and the endless hours of gruelling labour that they put in... naaah... they're overpaid :) If you want to know my opinion on software folks, investment bankers and ahem... MBAs, leave a note.
"In fact, I would go so far as to say that they are probably overpaid. It's essentially a low-skill job,the only prerequisite being a decent knowledge of English"
I am not sure why we software engineers think we are inventing some rocket science while the rest of the world is doing some low intellectual jobs. Alok, don't you think, if you put any grad student through couple of weeks of training and ask him to follow the so called six sigma processes, he will do as good as any of us. So all I am saying is we software engineers, who beat our chest and behave as though we solved Fermat's last theorem the moment we were born, sorry guys, but we are not demonstrating any great skill by writing a piece of code. Yes if you architect solutions, architect new chip design or a compiler or a new product, then you are great as that requires ingenuity and skill, but what percentage of software engineer population does that 5% ..max 10% . For rest of them,coding is mere looping through plethora of design documents and translating English to some machine understandable language. So don't you think rest of us are "low-skilled " coolies ourselves as we accuse others to be. So lets be very careful when we speak of other professions...especially it would be very nice if we can refrain from making comments like "they are probably overpaid" ..it probably speaks more about us than them.
Dude, I'm pretty sure I don't know you. I have been known to wonder on more than one occasion whether software people actually deserve the kind of money we get. I know the kind of people employed by software firms and I can state categorically that a majority of them are overpaid. But if someone is willing to pay them that kind of money, who am I to decide whether they actually deserve less or not? Sigh.
Do I think any grad student put through some training and made to follow 6 sigma process would be as good as me? Um... in a word, no. I may not have solved Fermat's last theorem on my own, but I do think the kind of work I do is pretty decent. Maybe you picked the wrong guy. Do I think ...blah blah blah... as good as an average-to-below-average software guy? Maybe. But most likely, not.
From my point of view, someone who reads through documents and translates English to C would definitely rank as low-skilled, relatively speaking, of course. But I would probably still rate him higher than someone who answers the phone and reads through a prepared script to try to sell credit cards to strangers. Oh yes, there are BPO operations that require some level of technical competency but I certainly wouldn't hire them to write code for me.
You also seem to have a chip on your shoulder, you lashed out without trying to understand what I wrote earlier - perhaps a re-read of my post would help. Perhaps me re-writing my points and opinions clearly would help too.
1. Call centre jobs mostly seem to require a decent command over spoken English (or maybe some other language).
2. Call centre jobs are not something that requires very high levels of technical skills, since I do not consider spoken English to be such a skill.
3. In fact, I wouldn't rate it very high on the list of non-technical skills either.
4. I, personally, consider the salary paid to call centre employees (especially the starting salaries) to be more than what should be considered reasonable.
5. I do not consider BPO employees to be exploited. If they wish to work under those circumstances, for that salary, they should be allowed to, without the rest of the world jumping to their "defense".
6. I think that employers in the BPO sector are not doing anything illegal, immoral or deceitful when they employ people to do that kind of work, for that amount of compensation.
Hope that makes the earlier post clearer. Actually, I'm pretty surprised that someone who sounds as decently educated as you would fail to appreciate the fact that being overpaid is what makes an industry or job lucrative! Do you think investment bankers are overpaid? I certainly do! It may be because I do not appreciate the hard work in reaching that point, their extreme intelligence and the endless hours of gruelling labour that they put in... naaah... they're overpaid :) If you want to know my opinion on software folks, investment bankers and ahem... MBAs, leave a note.
May 9, 2006
Even more on quotas!
How do people come up with harebrained solutions so quickly? Solution to reservation problem? Increase the number of seats!
How about this? Have as many seats as there are people on the planet! Then everyone will be an IIT or IIM graduate and everyone will have nice cushy jobs.
For the benefit of those who might actually agree that it's a good idea - the reason these institutes have a reputation is BECAUSE everyone cannot get into them.
How about this? Have as many seats as there are people on the planet! Then everyone will be an IIT or IIM graduate and everyone will have nice cushy jobs.
For the benefit of those who might actually agree that it's a good idea - the reason these institutes have a reputation is BECAUSE everyone cannot get into them.
May 8, 2006
chaotic moments
Chaos talks about how someone feels about the people working in the BPO industry (call centres from my point of view). Incidentally, there was a similar sentiment raised by some folks in some nameless TV programme many months ago. The nitty-gritty being that the employees of call centres are being exploited or "with how deficiently the BPO folks are paid".
I have a very simple response to it - if you think it doesn't pay enough, don't join it! Nobody is forcing people to work in the BPO industry, if they don't like the work hours or the pay or the people or the nature of the job, then they are free to leave and join elsewhere. I cannot understand why other people must feel pity for them and think that this exploitation must end.
If there is coercion, deceit, dishonesty or illegality involved, then I can understand that some people being up in arms against it. Do call centres not tell their prospective employees what kind of work they will be doing? Or that it involves sitting in shifts and that there is a quota of calls to be fulfilled?
Why don't I see BPO employees staging a protest about the inhuman working conditions? I think these people are sufficiently educated to understand whether they are being taken advantage of.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that they are probably overpaid. It's essentially a low-skill job, the only prerequisite being a decent knowledge of English (and if you were to hear all the Westerners complain, it would seem that most of the call centre employees don't even have that basic skill!).
I have heard people complain that the BPO employees lose their sense of identity, are cyber-coolies, have no social life and are forced to work abnormal hours. Hot damn, why don't I hear these people complain for us software folks as well? I seem to have similar problems as mentioned above!! (Not really, but I wouldn't expect the complainers to know any different.)
If you want lesser number of work hours, no night shifts and a social life then don't expect employers to pay you as much as they pay the guys who are willing to work more and late.
I have a very simple response to it - if you think it doesn't pay enough, don't join it! Nobody is forcing people to work in the BPO industry, if they don't like the work hours or the pay or the people or the nature of the job, then they are free to leave and join elsewhere. I cannot understand why other people must feel pity for them and think that this exploitation must end.
If there is coercion, deceit, dishonesty or illegality involved, then I can understand that some people being up in arms against it. Do call centres not tell their prospective employees what kind of work they will be doing? Or that it involves sitting in shifts and that there is a quota of calls to be fulfilled?
Why don't I see BPO employees staging a protest about the inhuman working conditions? I think these people are sufficiently educated to understand whether they are being taken advantage of.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that they are probably overpaid. It's essentially a low-skill job, the only prerequisite being a decent knowledge of English (and if you were to hear all the Westerners complain, it would seem that most of the call centre employees don't even have that basic skill!).
I have heard people complain that the BPO employees lose their sense of identity, are cyber-coolies, have no social life and are forced to work abnormal hours. Hot damn, why don't I hear these people complain for us software folks as well? I seem to have similar problems as mentioned above!! (Not really, but I wouldn't expect the complainers to know any different.)
If you want lesser number of work hours, no night shifts and a social life then don't expect employers to pay you as much as they pay the guys who are willing to work more and late.
May 1, 2006
Abuse of Yoga
Abuse of Yoga
Christian yoga?! Gimme a break. Wonder why the same people are up in arms about copyrights and stealing from other people's books?
Christian yoga?! Gimme a break. Wonder why the same people are up in arms about copyrights and stealing from other people's books?
Quotas... again.
I run the risk of turning my nice blog into a reservation debate. But I really can't help it.
I was watching a TV programme which was "discussing" this issue and I noticed that the new weapon in such arguments is the screwing up of the word "merit". When anti-reservation folks shout that reservations affect the quality of students being taken in or employees being hired, the pro-reservation people sneer about the "meritorious" students from the upper-class and question the quality or otherwise of the non-reserved classes.
Even though this was touched upon in an earlier entry here, I want some place to shout back myself! Dudes, get this straight, reserved seats = non-meritorious candidates, period. I don't give a damn which class they are from, if they are coming in on the basis of anything other than a fair fight, I consider them of lesser quality than the rest. This is true of all quotas, I similarly look down upon management quotas, payment seats, NRI quotas, and all the rest.
The reserved candidates should be happy taking one single opportunity in their quotas. If someone has already got into a college on the basis of his caste, he has used an opportunity to "level the playing field", why does he need another quota to get a job? If he really is "meritorious" as opposed to the upper-class students, and was getting screwed because of his background, surely that deficiency has been rectified by getting him into college, giving him free education and books and calculators - all that's left is for him to prove himself to be as good as the rest. This merely illustrates why reservations don't work, giving something for free entails the risk of the receiver expecting more. The value of that which is given free is lost, the receiver no longer appreciates what he is getting, he starts taking it for granted and then starts expecting it as a right - "I deserve a lifelong secured job without necessarily doing any work, because I belong to this caste. Then I deserved promotions because of my caste. Then I deserve free education for my children because of my caste. They deserve jobs because of my caste."
On the same TV programme, someone who has availed reservations and has become moderately successful in life was asked whether his children would also study on the quota that he himself used. He did not say "no", he said "I'll leave the decision to them."
I was watching a TV programme which was "discussing" this issue and I noticed that the new weapon in such arguments is the screwing up of the word "merit". When anti-reservation folks shout that reservations affect the quality of students being taken in or employees being hired, the pro-reservation people sneer about the "meritorious" students from the upper-class and question the quality or otherwise of the non-reserved classes.
Even though this was touched upon in an earlier entry here, I want some place to shout back myself! Dudes, get this straight, reserved seats = non-meritorious candidates, period. I don't give a damn which class they are from, if they are coming in on the basis of anything other than a fair fight, I consider them of lesser quality than the rest. This is true of all quotas, I similarly look down upon management quotas, payment seats, NRI quotas, and all the rest.
The reserved candidates should be happy taking one single opportunity in their quotas. If someone has already got into a college on the basis of his caste, he has used an opportunity to "level the playing field", why does he need another quota to get a job? If he really is "meritorious" as opposed to the upper-class students, and was getting screwed because of his background, surely that deficiency has been rectified by getting him into college, giving him free education and books and calculators - all that's left is for him to prove himself to be as good as the rest. This merely illustrates why reservations don't work, giving something for free entails the risk of the receiver expecting more. The value of that which is given free is lost, the receiver no longer appreciates what he is getting, he starts taking it for granted and then starts expecting it as a right - "I deserve a lifelong secured job without necessarily doing any work, because I belong to this caste. Then I deserved promotions because of my caste. Then I deserve free education for my children because of my caste. They deserve jobs because of my caste."
On the same TV programme, someone who has availed reservations and has become moderately successful in life was asked whether his children would also study on the quota that he himself used. He did not say "no", he said "I'll leave the decision to them."
Apr 24, 2006
Slashdot
One of the reasons I visit slashdot every so often is comments like this one:
by devkM:
Complaining about people complaining before they even complain...
preemtively metacomplaining
My term, I coined it!
HA!
by devkM:
Complaining about people complaining before they even complain...
preemtively metacomplaining
My term, I coined it!
HA!
Jonathan Coulton » Blog Archive » Thing a Week 29 - Code Monkey
Jonathan Coulton » Blog Archive » Thing a Week 29 - Code Monkey
Nice. Must visit and listen. Not for MBAs though :)
Nice. Must visit and listen. Not for MBAs though :)
Apr 23, 2006
Average starting salaries for college grads are up - Apr. 19, 2005
Average starting salaries for college grads are up - Apr. 19, 2005
This is for US colleges, of course. I wonder if similar data exists for Indian colleges and if it's available on the web somewhere. Please point me to it, if you know.
We (a couple of friends and I) were having a discussion the other day about how starting salaries for freshers (that's our term for people just out of college, starting their first job) have been changing. My observation was that they may have increased a bit since the time I was in the market, but not by too much. But the freshers have become too demanding, and they expect figures that are too high. Comments?
This is for US colleges, of course. I wonder if similar data exists for Indian colleges and if it's available on the web somewhere. Please point me to it, if you know.
We (a couple of friends and I) were having a discussion the other day about how starting salaries for freshers (that's our term for people just out of college, starting their first job) have been changing. My observation was that they may have increased a bit since the time I was in the market, but not by too much. But the freshers have become too demanding, and they expect figures that are too high. Comments?
The other side of merit & Mandal II- The Times of India
The other side of merit & Mandal II- The Times of India
Amazing. The byline of this article in indiatimes says "(Vivek Kumar is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University)". This is one confused prof, I think!
He doesn't like the fact that "Whenever the issue of reservation comes up for public debate, the entire Dalit and backward community is painted as devoid of any merit without caring about the fact that a majority of them survive without reservation". Not true, my dear prof. It's the people who get into schools and colleges and then into jobs without having gone through the same rigorous selection process as the other "normal" candidates, whose merit is being questioned. And again, it is relative to the people who have gone through the selection process, they may very well be better than the "normal" candidates at the very bottom of the heap.
I would have imagined it was a very simple situation, which even a professor of sociology should find possible to understand. However, he then goes on to crib about the state of the country and how it has been a garbage dump since the beginning of time - and tries to pin the blame on what he calls the "meritorious upper-class". Gimme a break! Quite apart from the fact that India was a large economy and a wealthy nation in historical times, I think that the historical failure (or otherwise) of the people in power has nothing to do with the issue at hand. (Actually, in the same vein that he writes, I could easily say that the situation would have been much, much worse if the "meritorious upper-class" has not been in power.)
He makes one point which makes it difficult to believe that he has any touch with reality. That of IIT/IIM graduates wanting to leave the country even before they... er, "pass out" is the phrase he uses, "graduate" is what I prefer. He says "Why is that career becomes more important than service to nation to many IITians and IIMians, who wait to go abroad even before they pass out?" Service to nation? In the tradition of "ask not what the nation does for you, ask what you do for it?"
Does he find it difficult to think of these people making contributions to humanity as a whole? Going to places where it is possible to conduct research in ways that this country refuses to enable? Or simply to a better life, the chance to earn some money so that their families back home can live a bit better? Why is he under the impression that everyone in the elite institutes of India are filthy rich brats? Or does he really think that all the so-called backward castes are philanthropists and given a chance to "pass out" of IITs would then proceed to make this country Utopia?
On the second page, he blasts doctors. Why do politicians go abroad for treatment if the "upper-class" doctors are so good? Does that reflect badly on the doctors or on the politicians, I wonder. Of course, all the "videshis" coming to India for medical tourism are idiots.
Similarly, sports, filmdom, exports, he bashes them all. To hear him say it, you'd think that all people belonging to upper-castes are somehow dysfunctional, that they've made a mess of society and the economy and sports.
Sports... no gold medal in the Olympics despite having no reservations. Hello? Sports is more or less controlled by the government, which does have reservations. The real reason, of course, is that we do not take sports seriously, it's not considered a viable career option by many; and quite frankly I think we have bigger problems to solve than getting a medal in the Olympics.
Films? Yes, it's a closed ecosystem. But, it's closed for EVERYONE, even the so-called upper castes. As I understand it, you need a sponsor, even if you are an "elite Brahman".
"None of the top industrialists is a first generation industrialist." So? What do you expect them to do about it? Throw away everything that their fathers built so that some prof somewhere can feel good about it? I guess a certain Mr. Murthy is not an industrialist, so he probably doesn't qualify for being first-generation?
Simple question? Even assuming that all his upper-class bashing is justified, how will reserving jobs help to change the situation?
Finally, he says: "That is why a number of social scientists have argued that the rewards in the educational and economic system are not based on merit. The educational and occupational attainments are related to family background and a number of circumstantial parameters rather than talent and ability. That is why people with the same educational qualification do not get the same type of jobs and those in the same jobs do not get equal remuneration."
Dude, NOTHING in this universe is fair. Certainly family background and "pedigree" matter. (If you want to have a level playing field, see my earlier post about the child pool.) Luck matters. Being in the right place at the right time. Taking the right risks, utilizing the correct opportunities, knowing when to say no, when to say yes. If you don't like the fact that a person's family background should matter, how can you ever be a proponent of reservation policies, that effectively say that since I belong to a certain community I deserve something that another person belonging to a different community does not?
If you insist on having some form of "social justice" then make all education completely free, in all institutes. Make all textbooks, equipment, tution, food, accommodation free, so that anyone can access education. That's probably an acceptable playing field. But don't chop off a person's legs because he is taller than you are and you want a level playing field.
Amazing. The byline of this article in indiatimes says "(Vivek Kumar is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University)". This is one confused prof, I think!
He doesn't like the fact that "Whenever the issue of reservation comes up for public debate, the entire Dalit and backward community is painted as devoid of any merit without caring about the fact that a majority of them survive without reservation". Not true, my dear prof. It's the people who get into schools and colleges and then into jobs without having gone through the same rigorous selection process as the other "normal" candidates, whose merit is being questioned. And again, it is relative to the people who have gone through the selection process, they may very well be better than the "normal" candidates at the very bottom of the heap.
I would have imagined it was a very simple situation, which even a professor of sociology should find possible to understand. However, he then goes on to crib about the state of the country and how it has been a garbage dump since the beginning of time - and tries to pin the blame on what he calls the "meritorious upper-class". Gimme a break! Quite apart from the fact that India was a large economy and a wealthy nation in historical times, I think that the historical failure (or otherwise) of the people in power has nothing to do with the issue at hand. (Actually, in the same vein that he writes, I could easily say that the situation would have been much, much worse if the "meritorious upper-class" has not been in power.)
He makes one point which makes it difficult to believe that he has any touch with reality. That of IIT/IIM graduates wanting to leave the country even before they... er, "pass out" is the phrase he uses, "graduate" is what I prefer. He says "Why is that career becomes more important than service to nation to many IITians and IIMians, who wait to go abroad even before they pass out?" Service to nation? In the tradition of "ask not what the nation does for you, ask what you do for it?"
Does he find it difficult to think of these people making contributions to humanity as a whole? Going to places where it is possible to conduct research in ways that this country refuses to enable? Or simply to a better life, the chance to earn some money so that their families back home can live a bit better? Why is he under the impression that everyone in the elite institutes of India are filthy rich brats? Or does he really think that all the so-called backward castes are philanthropists and given a chance to "pass out" of IITs would then proceed to make this country Utopia?
On the second page, he blasts doctors. Why do politicians go abroad for treatment if the "upper-class" doctors are so good? Does that reflect badly on the doctors or on the politicians, I wonder. Of course, all the "videshis" coming to India for medical tourism are idiots.
Similarly, sports, filmdom, exports, he bashes them all. To hear him say it, you'd think that all people belonging to upper-castes are somehow dysfunctional, that they've made a mess of society and the economy and sports.
Sports... no gold medal in the Olympics despite having no reservations. Hello? Sports is more or less controlled by the government, which does have reservations. The real reason, of course, is that we do not take sports seriously, it's not considered a viable career option by many; and quite frankly I think we have bigger problems to solve than getting a medal in the Olympics.
Films? Yes, it's a closed ecosystem. But, it's closed for EVERYONE, even the so-called upper castes. As I understand it, you need a sponsor, even if you are an "elite Brahman".
"None of the top industrialists is a first generation industrialist." So? What do you expect them to do about it? Throw away everything that their fathers built so that some prof somewhere can feel good about it? I guess a certain Mr. Murthy is not an industrialist, so he probably doesn't qualify for being first-generation?
Simple question? Even assuming that all his upper-class bashing is justified, how will reserving jobs help to change the situation?
Finally, he says: "That is why a number of social scientists have argued that the rewards in the educational and economic system are not based on merit. The educational and occupational attainments are related to family background and a number of circumstantial parameters rather than talent and ability. That is why people with the same educational qualification do not get the same type of jobs and those in the same jobs do not get equal remuneration."
Dude, NOTHING in this universe is fair. Certainly family background and "pedigree" matter. (If you want to have a level playing field, see my earlier post about the child pool.) Luck matters. Being in the right place at the right time. Taking the right risks, utilizing the correct opportunities, knowing when to say no, when to say yes. If you don't like the fact that a person's family background should matter, how can you ever be a proponent of reservation policies, that effectively say that since I belong to a certain community I deserve something that another person belonging to a different community does not?
If you insist on having some form of "social justice" then make all education completely free, in all institutes. Make all textbooks, equipment, tution, food, accommodation free, so that anyone can access education. That's probably an acceptable playing field. But don't chop off a person's legs because he is taller than you are and you want a level playing field.
Apr 22, 2006
"You can't wish away reservation" ?
That's the title of the article. The author seems to think that reservations in private industry is a good thing. The argument seems to be that since the government has failed in its aims of providing social justice, it's now up to private companies to take up the "challenge". It's an "idea whose time has come", apparently.
What Mr. Sethi seems unable to understand is the reason behind the opposition to reservations. Does he honestly think that anyone is going to sit and welcome the potential loss of opportunity? Would he be overjoyed if he was fired from whatever job he holds (if he does have full-time employment, of course) so that it can be given over to someone else who has not had the same opportunites as he did? Would the politicians supporting it willingly give over their chairs to someone else who has led an "underprivileged life"? Would the rich give away their wealth because possibly, maybe, theoretically, some ancestor of theirs, had oppressed someone else to obtain his wealth?
Education and employment are the two things that can make a person's life better without him being outrightly dishonest or criminal (the third factor being luck, of course). As far as I am concerned, I cannot condone any effort to take even these opportunities away from me or my family.
Apart from the emotional factors above, there is also the question of suitability, which the author seem to have no clue about. If he runs a business, would he willingly go out and hire random people from the street so that they can have equal opportunities? Would the air force recruit physically disabled and mentally unsound personnel to man their jets, just because historically such people have been discriminated against? I accept that discrimination against the so-called backward classes has been much more subtle and has a different context; but I also maintain that blindly giving over jobs and seats in schools/colleges is a very bad move. As far as companies go, I have yet to see any overt discrimination on the basis of caste or religion. We are hard pressed to find qualified candidates suitable for the job at hand in any case, and I hardly think any employer would be foolish enough to pass over a good prospective employee because of caste. Even with the existing reservation at the college level, I have not seen anyone checking out the caste of a candidate; qualifications, skillset, past experience, suitability for the job at hand are the overriding factors, how he got into his college is not relevant. Yet.
Like another author on rediff; in school, I had no clue about the castes and religions of my fellow classmates - unless the name made it very obvious about the religion part. I only read in textbooks about the varna system and that there were 4 castes in society. I read briefly about the reservation policy and the opposition to it. It did not matter much to me then, but I do remember feeling even then that it was not a very fair way of doing things. I learnt a bit more about castes when I was in college, probably because I met more vocal people there, from both sides of the fence. My choice of friends there was based on purely intellectual abilities, personality, "wavelength"; and to this day I have no idea about the castes of most of the people I met in college. It was during this time, that it slowly dawned on me that there was perhaps more to the caste system than the 4 varnas I kept reading about. I heard about subcastes, and the concept of surnames as castes, and I still find it confusing at best.
I have been working for several years since I graduated, and never have I had occasion to wonder about the caste of any fellow worker. I have never been concerned about the caste of people whom I met in my daily life
I don't know if my life has been totally removed from reality, whether it's completely opposite of what most people go through. I do know that if we do bring in reservations in private companies, the first question an interview candidate will be asked is "WTF is your caste?"
What Mr. Sethi seems unable to understand is the reason behind the opposition to reservations. Does he honestly think that anyone is going to sit and welcome the potential loss of opportunity? Would he be overjoyed if he was fired from whatever job he holds (if he does have full-time employment, of course) so that it can be given over to someone else who has not had the same opportunites as he did? Would the politicians supporting it willingly give over their chairs to someone else who has led an "underprivileged life"? Would the rich give away their wealth because possibly, maybe, theoretically, some ancestor of theirs, had oppressed someone else to obtain his wealth?
Education and employment are the two things that can make a person's life better without him being outrightly dishonest or criminal (the third factor being luck, of course). As far as I am concerned, I cannot condone any effort to take even these opportunities away from me or my family.
Apart from the emotional factors above, there is also the question of suitability, which the author seem to have no clue about. If he runs a business, would he willingly go out and hire random people from the street so that they can have equal opportunities? Would the air force recruit physically disabled and mentally unsound personnel to man their jets, just because historically such people have been discriminated against? I accept that discrimination against the so-called backward classes has been much more subtle and has a different context; but I also maintain that blindly giving over jobs and seats in schools/colleges is a very bad move. As far as companies go, I have yet to see any overt discrimination on the basis of caste or religion. We are hard pressed to find qualified candidates suitable for the job at hand in any case, and I hardly think any employer would be foolish enough to pass over a good prospective employee because of caste. Even with the existing reservation at the college level, I have not seen anyone checking out the caste of a candidate; qualifications, skillset, past experience, suitability for the job at hand are the overriding factors, how he got into his college is not relevant. Yet.
Like another author on rediff; in school, I had no clue about the castes and religions of my fellow classmates - unless the name made it very obvious about the religion part. I only read in textbooks about the varna system and that there were 4 castes in society. I read briefly about the reservation policy and the opposition to it. It did not matter much to me then, but I do remember feeling even then that it was not a very fair way of doing things. I learnt a bit more about castes when I was in college, probably because I met more vocal people there, from both sides of the fence. My choice of friends there was based on purely intellectual abilities, personality, "wavelength"; and to this day I have no idea about the castes of most of the people I met in college. It was during this time, that it slowly dawned on me that there was perhaps more to the caste system than the 4 varnas I kept reading about. I heard about subcastes, and the concept of surnames as castes, and I still find it confusing at best.
I have been working for several years since I graduated, and never have I had occasion to wonder about the caste of any fellow worker. I have never been concerned about the caste of people whom I met in my daily life
I don't know if my life has been totally removed from reality, whether it's completely opposite of what most people go through. I do know that if we do bring in reservations in private companies, the first question an interview candidate will be asked is "WTF is your caste?"
Apr 20, 2006
The caste factor: Show me the numbers
The caste factor: Show me the numbers
Something in a rediff article that I actually agree with. Of course, I have no interest in actually doing any research for numbers, like the author of the article seems to have done. But the point remains the same, government help to people should not discriminate on the basis of ANYthing other than need. It's like the beggars at the traffic lights - do any of the people who actually give alms go into the background of these beggars? Come to think of it, is there supposed to be a reservation policy for beggars? 60% of the alms that you give should go to OBCs or something like that?
Something in a rediff article that I actually agree with. Of course, I have no interest in actually doing any research for numbers, like the author of the article seems to have done. But the point remains the same, government help to people should not discriminate on the basis of ANYthing other than need. It's like the beggars at the traffic lights - do any of the people who actually give alms go into the background of these beggars? Come to think of it, is there supposed to be a reservation policy for beggars? 60% of the alms that you give should go to OBCs or something like that?
Apr 19, 2006
No room for reservation at Wipro: Premji
No room for reservation at Wipro: Premji
I think the best way out of this would be to create a child pool. Whenever a child is born, it must be introduced (dropped?) into the pool. Another child, randomly chosen, perhaps born a couple of days earlier, should be given in lieu of the child contributed to the pool. This way there will be total equality, since everyone will have a chance to be brought up in a good family and what you end up as will be purely based on luck. The children in the pool, while waiting for being removed from it, will be cared for by the government.
Brilliant idea, no? But somehow I don't see it being welcomed with applause and open arms...
I think the best way out of this would be to create a child pool. Whenever a child is born, it must be introduced (dropped?) into the pool. Another child, randomly chosen, perhaps born a couple of days earlier, should be given in lieu of the child contributed to the pool. This way there will be total equality, since everyone will have a chance to be brought up in a good family and what you end up as will be purely based on luck. The children in the pool, while waiting for being removed from it, will be cared for by the government.
Brilliant idea, no? But somehow I don't see it being welcomed with applause and open arms...
Apr 17, 2006
Up and running
Interesting weekend, if only for the fact that I finally managed to get my Opteron up. Minus a case, which means I had to set it up on my table next to the AthlonXP's box, all bare and forlorn, cables sticking out and drives lying in a circle.
I was missing two parts of the puzzle, some of you who have read my earlier rants would remember. A graphics card and a power supply. Initially I was prepared to even put in a lowly PCI card just to get my system running, but strangely enough, even that wasn't available in most of the places I went to. I looked at the next cheapest option, the 6200TC - but that was way too expensive; especially considering that I would have thrown it away when I got a "proper" card anyway. So I bit the bullet and am now the proud owner of an MSI 7900GT! Certainly amongst the top 3-4 GPUs available today - 7900GTX, X1900, X1800, 7900GT... Of course, it was expensive, much more than what I ought to have paid, I think; but what the heck.
My run-ins with the computer shops continued, this time around in Nehru Place. Why do people have the idea that video RAM is the only parameter a buyer would be interested in? Or is there a large scale scam going on in which the humbler GPUs are sold off as being superior to their elder brothers because they happen to have more video RAM? But I saw this feeling towards RAM size outside the shops too, among my less-fortunate friends (i.e. clueless newbies). A lot of people refused to understand why I was spending the equivalent of an entire low-end PC just on a card to display video.
The other item I wanted was a power supply. Now, considering that I am running a dual core Opteron and a 7900GT, I certainly didn't want to go for a no-name box. I went from shop to shop, in increasing frustration, only to discover that nobody had even heard of Antec. I expected better from Nehru Place - Mercury was the most respectable brand they could come up with. In sheer desperation, I called up a friend to ask about the CoolerMaster distributor in Delhi. But as luck would have it, I finally saw a shop with a CoolerMaster PSU in the display! To cut it short, I went in and bought a 450W CoolerMaster and found possibly the one shop in Nehru Place that had a person who knew that the Opteron165 was a dual core, and who recognized the MSI 7900GT from the box I was carrying.
Back home, I cannibalized my AthlonXP for a hard disk and a DVD ROM drive, not to mention the monitor, keyboard, mouse and UPS. Got it up and running and saw that when it runs it really RUNS! My motherboard is meant for overclocking and has sufficient options so that I was soon running my Opteron at 2.1GHz while the RAM ran cooly at 390MHz. Considering my cheapo RAM had been the bottleneck in all my previous OCing experiments, this motherboard is manna from heaven.
The Nvidia drivers decided that my 7900GT could actually run at 531MHz and not the stock 450, but I thought I wouldn't push my luck too far. I still have to get a decent case, with lots of fans. Threw a couple of games at this thing, everything runs with everything maxed out, as they say, with extremely decent gameplay. What more could I ask for?
I was missing two parts of the puzzle, some of you who have read my earlier rants would remember. A graphics card and a power supply. Initially I was prepared to even put in a lowly PCI card just to get my system running, but strangely enough, even that wasn't available in most of the places I went to. I looked at the next cheapest option, the 6200TC - but that was way too expensive; especially considering that I would have thrown it away when I got a "proper" card anyway. So I bit the bullet and am now the proud owner of an MSI 7900GT! Certainly amongst the top 3-4 GPUs available today - 7900GTX, X1900, X1800, 7900GT... Of course, it was expensive, much more than what I ought to have paid, I think; but what the heck.
My run-ins with the computer shops continued, this time around in Nehru Place. Why do people have the idea that video RAM is the only parameter a buyer would be interested in? Or is there a large scale scam going on in which the humbler GPUs are sold off as being superior to their elder brothers because they happen to have more video RAM? But I saw this feeling towards RAM size outside the shops too, among my less-fortunate friends (i.e. clueless newbies). A lot of people refused to understand why I was spending the equivalent of an entire low-end PC just on a card to display video.
The other item I wanted was a power supply. Now, considering that I am running a dual core Opteron and a 7900GT, I certainly didn't want to go for a no-name box. I went from shop to shop, in increasing frustration, only to discover that nobody had even heard of Antec. I expected better from Nehru Place - Mercury was the most respectable brand they could come up with. In sheer desperation, I called up a friend to ask about the CoolerMaster distributor in Delhi. But as luck would have it, I finally saw a shop with a CoolerMaster PSU in the display! To cut it short, I went in and bought a 450W CoolerMaster and found possibly the one shop in Nehru Place that had a person who knew that the Opteron165 was a dual core, and who recognized the MSI 7900GT from the box I was carrying.
Back home, I cannibalized my AthlonXP for a hard disk and a DVD ROM drive, not to mention the monitor, keyboard, mouse and UPS. Got it up and running and saw that when it runs it really RUNS! My motherboard is meant for overclocking and has sufficient options so that I was soon running my Opteron at 2.1GHz while the RAM ran cooly at 390MHz. Considering my cheapo RAM had been the bottleneck in all my previous OCing experiments, this motherboard is manna from heaven.
The Nvidia drivers decided that my 7900GT could actually run at 531MHz and not the stock 450, but I thought I wouldn't push my luck too far. I still have to get a decent case, with lots of fans. Threw a couple of games at this thing, everything runs with everything maxed out, as they say, with extremely decent gameplay. What more could I ask for?
Apr 16, 2006
Left will take on UPA after polls: Karat
Left will take on UPA after polls: Karat
After the polls? Why? If the guvmint is doing such a bad job, why wait? Or do they expect things to change after the polls? Or do they think that attacking the guvmint will make their voters angry? Does that not mean that the voters are happy with the guvmint?
After the polls? Why? If the guvmint is doing such a bad job, why wait? Or do they expect things to change after the polls? Or do they think that attacking the guvmint will make their voters angry? Does that not mean that the voters are happy with the guvmint?
Apr 13, 2006
Rajkumar's fans on rampage: 1 dead
Rajkumar's fans on rampage: 1 dead
I find this reaction very difficult to understand.
Was participating in such things really worth it for the person who was killed? What did the people who "went on a rampage" get out of all this? Was it necessary to go around buring buses and cars? If they did it for the actor who expired, do they think he (had he still been alive) and his family would have been very pleased at what they did?
This is not an expression of grief. Maybe anger, most likely simply bloody-mindedness.
I remember well the last time Bangalore was held hostage by people of this kind. And I'm happy that I've managed to get out of that place.
I find this reaction very difficult to understand.
Was participating in such things really worth it for the person who was killed? What did the people who "went on a rampage" get out of all this? Was it necessary to go around buring buses and cars? If they did it for the actor who expired, do they think he (had he still been alive) and his family would have been very pleased at what they did?
This is not an expression of grief. Maybe anger, most likely simply bloody-mindedness.
I remember well the last time Bangalore was held hostage by people of this kind. And I'm happy that I've managed to get out of that place.
Apr 11, 2006
Regionalism
Regionalism Plagues at work
Can't help but feel that the shoe is on the other foot now... I've faced exactly this kind of situation before, only difference being it was when I was in college. Oh, and it wasn't Marathi people ganging up against me, it was Tamils! Bengalis have done the same thing to me at work in the past too, so it looks like a pretty universal thing. Surprisingly it happened in the Netherlands too, but that's understandable since they're probably not used to having people who don't understand the usual language around.
What's really strange is that you don't need a crowd for this to happen, 2-3 people of one language vs. 1 of the othe kind is sufficient.
Can't help but feel that the shoe is on the other foot now... I've faced exactly this kind of situation before, only difference being it was when I was in college. Oh, and it wasn't Marathi people ganging up against me, it was Tamils! Bengalis have done the same thing to me at work in the past too, so it looks like a pretty universal thing. Surprisingly it happened in the Netherlands too, but that's understandable since they're probably not used to having people who don't understand the usual language around.
What's really strange is that you don't need a crowd for this to happen, 2-3 people of one language vs. 1 of the othe kind is sufficient.
Apr 3, 2006
Shopping
Can anyone tell me why shopping for computer parts is so difficult in Noida? I want a new video card and a power supply, so I just went around a couple of shops to get an idea of the availability and prices.
The first guy wrote down the fact that I wanted a "PCIe video card" and then made the customary call to some invisible guy who actually keeps the parts in stock.
"Do you want a 256MB video card?" he said. Ummmm... I guess so, but that's hardly the first question I expected.
"Uh. Yes, 256 MB."
"He wants 256 MB, what's the price? No, the real one. Not the one with the BIOS mod to display 256 MB... which company? ATi? OK. Radeon? OK."
He beamed at me. "ATi video card, sir, 256 MB. Radeon."
Riiiiight. "Radeon what?" I asked him.
"ATi Radeon, sir. 256 MB video card!"
I tried explaining to him about models in the Radeon line, but he was insistent that he had the 256 MB ATi Radeon. I finally gave up on him.
"Ditch the card. Do you have Antec power supplies? 480 watts, or more?"
"Ant.. what?"
"Antec."
"A-N-T-E-K"... he wrote down and made the call to the invisible guy again.
"No such thing as Ante-k, sir. We have Antrix.. er.. Antrex... something." He frowned and then asked the guy on the other end "Isn't that expensive for a power supply?"
"I would really like to have an Antec, or a CoolerMaster, or ThermalTake..."
He blinked. "I'm giving you the best power supply, sir. No local companies."
"OK, ditch the power supply. Do you have any Transcend or Kingston RAM?"
"We can get it for you tomorrow, sir."
The first guy wrote down the fact that I wanted a "PCIe video card" and then made the customary call to some invisible guy who actually keeps the parts in stock.
"Do you want a 256MB video card?" he said. Ummmm... I guess so, but that's hardly the first question I expected.
"Uh. Yes, 256 MB."
"He wants 256 MB, what's the price? No, the real one. Not the one with the BIOS mod to display 256 MB... which company? ATi? OK. Radeon? OK."
He beamed at me. "ATi video card, sir, 256 MB. Radeon."
Riiiiight. "Radeon what?" I asked him.
"ATi Radeon, sir. 256 MB video card!"
I tried explaining to him about models in the Radeon line, but he was insistent that he had the 256 MB ATi Radeon. I finally gave up on him.
"Ditch the card. Do you have Antec power supplies? 480 watts, or more?"
"Ant.. what?"
"Antec."
"A-N-T-E-K"... he wrote down and made the call to the invisible guy again.
"No such thing as Ante-k, sir. We have Antrix.. er.. Antrex... something." He frowned and then asked the guy on the other end "Isn't that expensive for a power supply?"
"I would really like to have an Antec, or a CoolerMaster, or ThermalTake..."
He blinked. "I'm giving you the best power supply, sir. No local companies."
"OK, ditch the power supply. Do you have any Transcend or Kingston RAM?"
"We can get it for you tomorrow, sir."
Apr 2, 2006
Cribs
No, not the ones in which babies are meant to spend time in. Complaints just doesn't sound as cool as cribs.
Why is it that nobody I come across seems happy? They may have their ups and downs, but they mostly seem vaguely dissatisfied if not actively unhappy. Is it because we set expectations too high? Or because we see good things happening to other people and wonder why w have been left behind in the dust? The realization that life could have been so much better had things gone a bit differently... if only my luck had been a bit better, if only I had worked a bit harder, if only I had taken that risk, if only people around me weren't such losers... I could have lived an entirely different life!
But it's a sad state of affairs when I have to go around telling people to lower their expectations so that they can be happy.
Why is it that nobody I come across seems happy? They may have their ups and downs, but they mostly seem vaguely dissatisfied if not actively unhappy. Is it because we set expectations too high? Or because we see good things happening to other people and wonder why w have been left behind in the dust? The realization that life could have been so much better had things gone a bit differently... if only my luck had been a bit better, if only I had worked a bit harder, if only I had taken that risk, if only people around me weren't such losers... I could have lived an entirely different life!
But it's a sad state of affairs when I have to go around telling people to lower their expectations so that they can be happy.
Mar 24, 2006
New gadgets
1. 60 GB video ipod
2. Opteron 165 (dual core goodness!)
3. DFI Lanparty mobo to go with the Opteron
Now what I need is a good power supply and a good PCIE graphics card, and I'm all set... to do what? Uh... play the same games that were running nicely on my Athlon 2600+ and 5900?
Never looked at it this way
2. Opteron 165 (dual core goodness!)
3. DFI Lanparty mobo to go with the Opteron
Now what I need is a good power supply and a good PCIE graphics card, and I'm all set... to do what? Uh... play the same games that were running nicely on my Athlon 2600+ and 5900?
Never looked at it this way
Mar 13, 2006
Crazy tax laws?
Do you have to pay advance tax?: "You can increase the amount of advance tax you pay in the next two dates. But you will have to pay interest of 1% per month on the outstandings. It may sound unfair, but that's the way the law stands."
I never did understand the concept of advance tax. I don't pretend to understand the rationale behind income tax in the first place, but let's gloss over that for now. From what I understand of advance tax, it seems that you need to estimate the income you will have in the coming year and decide how much tax you need to pay and pay that tax in 3 installments. And if you earn more than you estimated, then there is a penalty to be coughed up.
Riiiiiight. So I get screwed by the government if I am unable to predict the future? Go figure. And what happens if I earn less than what I predicted at the beginning of the year? Does the government pay me interest on the extra tax I paid?
Why do these people enjoy making life miserable for others?
I never did understand the concept of advance tax. I don't pretend to understand the rationale behind income tax in the first place, but let's gloss over that for now. From what I understand of advance tax, it seems that you need to estimate the income you will have in the coming year and decide how much tax you need to pay and pay that tax in 3 installments. And if you earn more than you estimated, then there is a penalty to be coughed up.
Riiiiiight. So I get screwed by the government if I am unable to predict the future? Go figure. And what happens if I earn less than what I predicted at the beginning of the year? Does the government pay me interest on the extra tax I paid?
Why do these people enjoy making life miserable for others?
Mar 11, 2006
Suicide and exams
There has been a spate of student suicides recently, coinciding with the onset of the exam season. This isn't a new phenomenon, and various people discussing it isn't new either.
What seems to be new is the fact that all and sundry are suddenly saying that excellence in formal education is not an indicator of success in the real world. I read an article in the newspaper about this, and they had rounded up all the celebrities who had done badly in their school days to speak up about this. They used to do this earlier too, but the tone suddenly seems to have changed from "it's not the end of the world, you can do something else and be successful" to "bah, education is for wimps, those who are good at studies are tunnel-visioned, those who are bad at studies have all these other good qualities that we find attractive"... And I didn't come up with the 'tunnel-visioned' word, it was actually used by one of the "celebrities" in the newspaper article. If I understood him correctly, he said that he doesn't hire first-class graduates since they are 'tunnel-visioned'.
These people then go on to say that success in the real world depends on courage and self belief and perseverance and other such nice words. If someone doesn't have enough courage and belief and perseverance, not to mention brains, to get through something as silly as a board exam; how do these experts expect him to be successful in the real world using these same qualities?
The first thing that children in schools should be taught is that they are not the center of the universe, regardless of what their parents seem to think. They should also be told that there are certain roles in society that can only be fulfilled by someone with excellent academic knowledge in addition to all those other fine qualities, and there are other roles where just the other fine qualities are enough to get by. If they can't do maths, it means they are deficient in that area, just as those who can't play football or do pushups are deficient in that area.
Spare students the shock of entering the real world after having being coddled all their lives. Tell them how it is as soon as possible.
What seems to be new is the fact that all and sundry are suddenly saying that excellence in formal education is not an indicator of success in the real world. I read an article in the newspaper about this, and they had rounded up all the celebrities who had done badly in their school days to speak up about this. They used to do this earlier too, but the tone suddenly seems to have changed from "it's not the end of the world, you can do something else and be successful" to "bah, education is for wimps, those who are good at studies are tunnel-visioned, those who are bad at studies have all these other good qualities that we find attractive"... And I didn't come up with the 'tunnel-visioned' word, it was actually used by one of the "celebrities" in the newspaper article. If I understood him correctly, he said that he doesn't hire first-class graduates since they are 'tunnel-visioned'.
These people then go on to say that success in the real world depends on courage and self belief and perseverance and other such nice words. If someone doesn't have enough courage and belief and perseverance, not to mention brains, to get through something as silly as a board exam; how do these experts expect him to be successful in the real world using these same qualities?
The first thing that children in schools should be taught is that they are not the center of the universe, regardless of what their parents seem to think. They should also be told that there are certain roles in society that can only be fulfilled by someone with excellent academic knowledge in addition to all those other fine qualities, and there are other roles where just the other fine qualities are enough to get by. If they can't do maths, it means they are deficient in that area, just as those who can't play football or do pushups are deficient in that area.
Spare students the shock of entering the real world after having being coddled all their lives. Tell them how it is as soon as possible.
Mar 10, 2006
India needs more PhDs?
India needs more PhDs. Here's why!: "In other areas of engineering, the picture is no better. Most of us know that except for the Indian Institutes of Technology and a few other institutions, the quality of undergraduate training is poor although the intake from the 10+2 system is good. Basically, we not only need a large number of graduates, but also good quality graduates. The recent U R Rao committee report has highlighted this issue clearly [3]."
I think the reason for this is quite clear. Teaching just isn't seen as a worthwhile career option. Neither is it considered worth it to "waste" another few years in higher studies in India.
People don't want to pay large sums of money for education. Which means that the people teaching in these institutions can never be paid as much as in industry. Which means that the best brains who pass out of those institutions will never go back there to teach or for research. Why would a PhD in Computer Science go back to teach when he can make a fortune by simply joining a software company?
Strangely enough, people crib about the high standards of education in schools and colleges, especially about exams and entrance procedures. How, in the name of the FSM, do you expect more PhDs if you are going to make Maths an optional subject in school?
"If a state like California can have ten University of California campuses giving comparable undergraduate education, certainly a country of one billion can have at least 20 IITs or IIT-type institutions!"
Such things already exist and are called the NITs. One must understand that all the UC campuses are not considered on equal footing by the student community, at least they weren't when I was a student.
Perhaps what needs to change is the economics of education. We weren't allowed to take "optional" courses because there weren't enough students to fill a class even though the teachers were willing to teach only a handful of us. And I hear similar stories from every college.
And it goes without saying, keep the politicians' grubby paws away from these institutions.
I think the reason for this is quite clear. Teaching just isn't seen as a worthwhile career option. Neither is it considered worth it to "waste" another few years in higher studies in India.
People don't want to pay large sums of money for education. Which means that the people teaching in these institutions can never be paid as much as in industry. Which means that the best brains who pass out of those institutions will never go back there to teach or for research. Why would a PhD in Computer Science go back to teach when he can make a fortune by simply joining a software company?
Strangely enough, people crib about the high standards of education in schools and colleges, especially about exams and entrance procedures. How, in the name of the FSM, do you expect more PhDs if you are going to make Maths an optional subject in school?
"If a state like California can have ten University of California campuses giving comparable undergraduate education, certainly a country of one billion can have at least 20 IITs or IIT-type institutions!"
Such things already exist and are called the NITs. One must understand that all the UC campuses are not considered on equal footing by the student community, at least they weren't when I was a student.
Perhaps what needs to change is the economics of education. We weren't allowed to take "optional" courses because there weren't enough students to fill a class even though the teachers were willing to teach only a handful of us. And I hear similar stories from every college.
And it goes without saying, keep the politicians' grubby paws away from these institutions.
Mar 8, 2006
Another one bytes the dust
Recycle Bin
End of a blog. Maybe not the end of the author, but perhaps the end of his role as a blogger.
How do I get more hits?
That question gives me fits
Search engines sent me mindless gits
And my blog kept dying in bits
So one day Veera said "bye".
Kicked his blog out to die
Got back to his debugger with a sigh
(Maybe his writing was a bit dry?)
Another one bytes the dust
The "Recycle Bin" has gone bust
So kill the blog if you must
And go to my other blog if you... uh, you know...
End of a blog. Maybe not the end of the author, but perhaps the end of his role as a blogger.
How do I get more hits?
That question gives me fits
Search engines sent me mindless gits
And my blog kept dying in bits
So one day Veera said "bye".
Kicked his blog out to die
Got back to his debugger with a sigh
(Maybe his writing was a bit dry?)
Another one bytes the dust
The "Recycle Bin" has gone bust
So kill the blog if you must
And go to my other blog if you... uh, you know...
Mar 7, 2006
I've been saying this all along!
Selling the India IT story, to Indians: "Citibank North America CIO Mitchell J Habib is a suave, consummate speaker. He made a rather energetic presentation to delegates at Nasscom's India Leadership Forum 2006 in Mumbai a few weeks ago.
'I am the client,' he said, pacing up and down the stage. He used a slick, animation-rich power point presentation. He explained exactly what he was looking for from Indian companies. He asked Indian IT companies to stop touting their CMM levels."
'I am the client,' he said, pacing up and down the stage. He used a slick, animation-rich power point presentation. He explained exactly what he was looking for from Indian companies. He asked Indian IT companies to stop touting their CMM levels."
Mar 1, 2006
ATMs
Looks like the service tax on ATMs is only when the bank charges you for ATM usage, e.g. when you use another bank's ATM to get money. Thankfully they still haven't decided to tax my own withdrawals!
Feb 28, 2006
All about new tax proposals
All about new tax proposals
No new taxes, no changes in the income tax laws, etc. etc. But what's this? "Services tax net to be increased which include ATM operations.."
WTF? Now I have to pay tax to use the ATM to withdraw my own money? When my bank charges me to come to the branch, how am I supposed to do any transactions at all? Where do they get hare brained ideas like this one? Or have I got the proposal wrong?
Increasing the service tax net is fine, but I would really like to see a reduction in the personal income tax rates. Tax on purchases is OK since that way everyone has to pay it, but personal income tax is only paid by the salaried class who have no choice in the matter. Get rid of all the idiotic exemptions and have a flat rate of tax on all purchases.
No new taxes, no changes in the income tax laws, etc. etc. But what's this? "Services tax net to be increased which include ATM operations.."
WTF? Now I have to pay tax to use the ATM to withdraw my own money? When my bank charges me to come to the branch, how am I supposed to do any transactions at all? Where do they get hare brained ideas like this one? Or have I got the proposal wrong?
Increasing the service tax net is fine, but I would really like to see a reduction in the personal income tax rates. Tax on purchases is OK since that way everyone has to pay it, but personal income tax is only paid by the salaried class who have no choice in the matter. Get rid of all the idiotic exemptions and have a flat rate of tax on all purchases.
Feb 15, 2006
Microsoft driver bug saps Core Duo power | TG Daily
Microsoft driver bug saps Core Duo power | TG Daily
In a nutshell, a bug in the ACPI driver supplied by Microsoft causes power to be drained if devices are left connected to a USB port. This happens for the Napa platform with Core Duo processors.
Quoting from the article:
"While the Sonoma notebook only lost 17 minutes of battery running time (2:51 total) with the drive connected, the Core Duo notebook's running time decreased by a stunning 76 minutes (3:08 total). In short, the power drain from the device attached to the Napa system reduced running time by 347% (76 minutes / 17 minutes) of the power drain for the same device attached to the Sonoma system. With a USB device connected, the Napa notebook with the USB device connected ran only 8% longer than the Sonoma rig."
Subtle...
In a nutshell, a bug in the ACPI driver supplied by Microsoft causes power to be drained if devices are left connected to a USB port. This happens for the Napa platform with Core Duo processors.
Quoting from the article:
"While the Sonoma notebook only lost 17 minutes of battery running time (2:51 total) with the drive connected, the Core Duo notebook's running time decreased by a stunning 76 minutes (3:08 total). In short, the power drain from the device attached to the Napa system reduced running time by 347% (76 minutes / 17 minutes) of the power drain for the same device attached to the Sonoma system. With a USB device connected, the Napa notebook with the USB device connected ran only 8% longer than the Sonoma rig."
Subtle...
Should govt curb courier cos?
Should govt curb courier cos?
Great move. Now I'll have to start sending bricks along with my letters, just so that I can use a courier?
Great move. Now I'll have to start sending bricks along with my letters, just so that I can use a courier?
Feb 7, 2006
Feb 5, 2006
MBAs
I share, to a great extent, the feelings expressed in that post. I think that's because I've never really come across an MBA who said something that made me go "Hmmmm.... that's interesting, I never thought of it that way." Most often, it goes something like "OK, same old, same old. You could have said that in a one line email."
It is indeed fortunate that my industry is too technical to allow non-techies to be technical managers (DUH!).
Maybe it's because we've never encountered these species in their own domain. I daresay they're good enough in finance or HR or whatever, places where techies would probably feel lost.
It is indeed fortunate that my industry is too technical to allow non-techies to be technical managers (DUH!).
Maybe it's because we've never encountered these species in their own domain. I daresay they're good enough in finance or HR or whatever, places where techies would probably feel lost.
Making life easier...
... for students. That's the latest trend that's caught my attention. Lowering the load, both physically as well as in a mental sense. Making subjects optional, especially Mathematics. Removing the marking system and replacing it with grading. Ensuring that nobody fails. Lessening the importance of the Board exams.
When all this started, I kept on thinking that it's a good idea. I mean, I would certainly have loved to have less homework, not do Math and have no schoolbag to carry.
But then I began to wonder (yes, I seem to do that a lot).
Would I have studied anything at all if it was optional? If everyone was made to pass exams, why would anyone take the trouble to learn? Why are we so hell-bent on making things easier for the kids when the world is getting tougher to live in by the day? The result of all this coddling would probably be young folk who whine at all the unfariness of the real world, who think they deserve everything without working for it because that's the way it was in school.
When all this started, I kept on thinking that it's a good idea. I mean, I would certainly have loved to have less homework, not do Math and have no schoolbag to carry.
But then I began to wonder (yes, I seem to do that a lot).
Would I have studied anything at all if it was optional? If everyone was made to pass exams, why would anyone take the trouble to learn? Why are we so hell-bent on making things easier for the kids when the world is getting tougher to live in by the day? The result of all this coddling would probably be young folk who whine at all the unfariness of the real world, who think they deserve everything without working for it because that's the way it was in school.
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