Random Walk of Life

At times when you like something very much, and you start revering the creator, and later you realize that the creator had stolen that thing from some other place, you really feel let down.

I liked Pritam Chakraborty’s music, from the time of his first solo success Dhoom. He followed this up with some really cool tunes for the Bhatt Camp. Movies such as Gangster, Woh Lamhe made him a composer to watch out for. And the latest track from Bhool Bhulaiyya was such a big hit, you could see people swaying to it at almost every other dance party.  Jab we met and Life… in a Metro - movies which we felt should have won him the Best Music Director award in the major award shows. And the latest song “Pehli Nazar” sung by Atif Aslam from Race - some of my lady friends go bonkers when they listen to this song.

Imagine how would they all feel when they realize that each one of these songs is a rip-off from some international artiste’s composition? In the older days when people accused Anu Malik of copying tunes, not many would believe it and would demand proof. But today, with the internet connecting people unlike anything before, and platforms such as Youtube providing access to world music, I wonder what gives confidence to people such as Pritam to pass off somebody else’s work as their own, that they expect to get away with it ?!

If the intention is to introduce world music to Bollywood, I am fine with that. Just make sure that proper credits are given so that people can appreciate the original creator. This has been done in the past.Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy had licensed the rights to Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman for the movie Kal Ho Na Ho.I guess it’s the producers of the movie who are ignorant. I am sure, they won’t mind negotiating with the original composers should they know that the song is so brilliant, rather than get involved in legal tangle later on.

Anyway, I don’t like making baseless accusations. So here’s the evidence. Decide for yourself

It’s been some time since I last posted something. Had been busy gathering data for the OLS paper and once that was done, got some time to look into the couple of months old CPU-Hotplug issue. There are some more items to be done there, hopefully will get some free time this month.

Read this post earlier today:
http://contentconsumer.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/is-ubuntu-useable-enough-for-my-girlfriend/

How easily people can confuse monopoly with standards.

When someone says Linux is not user friendly, I ask “Compared to what?” and they say “Windows”. My question is, what if someone who has worked on Linux all his life was shown a windows box? How will he/she feel about it?

Given the fact that number of schools today, in the name of “Computer Education” bias the young and impressionable minds by teaching them the basics of Microsoft this-or-that product and tell them, “Children, Windows is an operating system. Operating system is windows”, how justified are we in blaming everything to be a problem with Linux? I agree, there are a number of issues that can be improved in Linux. Whether it is the kernel, or the applications, there’s always that scope. But accusing that “Linux is bad because it does not behave like windows” is a stupid thing to do.

To give you an example, I have a young nephew who is not that much exposed to computers. His only knowledge of a computer is restricted to “Computer has a monitor, a processing unit, a keyboard and mouse”.

The last time he came home, I was working on my home PC which has Fedora 8 on it. He wanted to see how the “Computer” works. I showed him a couple of things. Simple things such How to use the calculator with different base systems, use Firefox to browse the internet, what games are available. And yes, I showed him Compiz Fusion. He spent the rest of the time browsing through my pictures and videos. Didn’t call me for help. Not even once.

Next time I met him, he told me about this “computer with a My Computer on the desktop” that his friend had. He told me how stupid was this browser with no tabbed features on it. How everytime he wanted to do something, it asked him thousand times “Are you sure you wanna do this?” and how irritating the whole experience was.

So, that brings me back to the basic question, does it make any sense in comparing two different operating systems, when you are already have a biased opinion in favor of one of them?! How can you expect such a comparison to be objective? Is the way to make Linux operating system a more user friendly one by mimicking what windows does, or by educating people about Linux?

I guess, these are things one needs to understand before doing Experiments on the girlfriend or grandma.

PS: One of my friends wanted to connect her windows laptop to my Hathway modem. When things didn’t work, she insisted on rebooting the modem. On doing that, things started working! Hmm.. must be a Bug Feature. Because on Linux, I just need to set the static IP using my Network Manager! It doesn’t ask me to reboot the modem

People who know me, know the fact that I like to keep my options open. Simply because it allows the freedom to defer any decision till it really needs to be taken.

However, in the last couple of years, I have observed that this has a common side effect: A totally scattered mind which is trying to multitask between hundreds of things at the same time!

In the process of ensuring that I had my options open, I found myself surrounded with so many options that all the time was spent in hunting for the most favorable one. Irony is that, the same time could have been used to act on one of these hundred options!

Today morning, I read this article titled “Pitching with Purpose” which talks of Focus and Self-Discipline:

“Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear — and doubt.”

All this while I thought of discipline as something that bound you or constrained your natural flow. But this article gives a totally new perspective.

Opening Mood: OLS paper got selected!
Opening Song: None

Funny thing! When luck doesn’t favor you in love but the loved one gets lucky, you celebrate with them, wearing a mask of sanity, the price for which you pay by burying your own loss. Until one fine day, when there won’t be any difference between the mask you are wearing and your own true self!

Someone rightly said, “…Love is a one way street. Love like respect, isn’t something you get; it’s something you give.” [1]

However, the same person said “.. Strong men make their own luck” [1]

Oh well!

Closing Song: None.
Closing Mood: Gotta hurry to keep an appointment

[1] Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram.

Opening Mood: Fresh!
Opening song: Innocent Man - Billy Joel

Okay, for the past three days, I have been wearing formals to office. Yes, you heard it right, formal shirt (not a smart-comment T-Shirt), a pair of formal trousers (not faded jeans) and formal shoes (not my black puma!).

Before you start reading too much into it, let me tell you why!

I cleaned my wardrobe this Sunday, and I found that I had seven pairs of formal clothing, which I hadn’t seen in the past one year or so. Well, I might have seen them, but I conveniently turned a blind eye towards them. And most of them are in such good condition, as if they were new. That’ll tell you how often I must have worn them! So, I just decided to try them on for a week before putting them off again

And then, this funny incident happened.

One of the managers in my team asked me today, “what’s the matter with you? For the past few days I’ve been observing you in formals. What’s going on?”

I told him why I wore formals.

And he quipped, “I don’t believe it! One cannot go through a transformation like this all of a sudden. Something must have happened that must have prodded you to dress up like this! Is there something happening in your life?!”

Okay, that must have meant that I’m getting serious and all that. Or probably more! But lemme assure you, it’s nothing of that sort. Wearing formals was a simple mindless action.

What I find funny here is that, people believe everything must have a reason! Well, should there be one? I don’t think so. At times you want to do something just for the heck of doing it. That’s precisely what happened.

So, I guess, I’ll have to blame Aristotle for biasing human thought like this

Closing song: Scandinavian Skies - Billy Joel
Closing Mood: Cpu-hotplug lock issue is back. Again!

Opening Mood: This is insane!
Opening Song: None.

Like I mentioned in my previous post I was out for the whole of last week and am catching up with the happenings. One of the hilarious things that came to my notice is that one of my friends, lets say K, who usually boasts of his HUGE appetite has claimed that he/she can eat 4 Death By Chocolates in a single stretch.

I love chocolate. If something can keep me awake a whole night after a night out is a bar of dark chocolate. But I have my limits and last time I checked it was 1.5 large cups of Death by Chocolate (DBC), a popular ice-cream offering at this joint named Corner House. So naturally I was very much excited about this claim. So we had a bet:

• If K can have 3 DBC’s at a single stretch, we shall sponsor the 4th one.
• If K can finish the 4th one, we will reimburse all the four and any subsequent DBC that K might want to have (owing to his large appetite) and K wins a cool thousand bucks for his/her feat!

Subject to following conditions:

• K should have a normal diet for the earlier part of the day, i.e no skipping breakfast or lunch.
• K should be in a perfectly healthy state after consuming 4 DBCs for atleast 2 hours. No, puking is not allowed.
• Should K give up in the middle, we’re entitled to two big treats on any days at Corner House of our choice from K.
• Should K withdraw from the bet, we’re entitled to a big treat on any days at Corner House from K.

Just out of curiosity, I created this poll on what people think is their DBC limit. and what they think is any person’s maximum DBC limit.

You can find the poll here -> http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=lo073kc9y2xif4g394813

The Poll responses when I last checked were as follows :

A) None, I hate chocolates.
B) One, but thats it.
C) Two, I am feeling sleepy now.
D) Three, I like chocolate.
E) Four, Burp, i am full!
F) More than Four, I am superhuman

A) Yes
B) No

I will be updating these results as and how my time permits. So this is not real time

Please do take the poll since there are only 2 questions and it hardly takes 15 seconds of your time.

Hey, being a good friend, I think it’s my duty to let K to know what he/she is attempting after all

Closing Song: None
Closing Mood: Waiting for your responses.

PS: K prefers to remain Anonymous. So even if you want to take a guess on his/her identity, please don’t mention him/her in the comments.

Opening Mood: Read Read!
Opening Song: I’m shipping up to boston - The Departed

Celebrated a booky-booky birthday last weekend. Got four books as gifts

The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book - Bill Watterson

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

Shantaram: A Novel - Gregory David Roberts

Thanks Kev, Shuaib, Dhaval, Pooja, Balu for the books! And thanks Mili for the suggesting them.

Sacred Games: A Novel - Vikram Chandra

Thanks Cheezo, Leena and Varun!

And I happened to step inside Landmark! So, two more!

When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel Of Obsession - Irvin D. Yalom

Just for Fun: The story of an accidental Revolutionary - Linus Torvalds with David Diamond

And while walking on C.M.H road, happened to see this book being sold on the street! Someone must have sold it on a Kg basis after an arduous semester. I paid just two hundred bucks for it!

Parallel Computer Architecture: A Hardware-Software Approach - David E. Culler, Jaswinder Pal Singh, Anoop Gupta

I say this is an awesome way to start a New Year!

Closing Song: None
Closing Mood: Angrez Sucks. Whatever made it a cult movie!

Opening Mood: Good Morning, and I’m still grumpy
Opening Song: None.

I saw him at the coffee house yesterday. It’s been more than a year since we last met. He hasn’t changed a bit. Dressed in a loose T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans, he looked casual as ever. He saw me and the next moment, he was at my table. So typical of him, I thought!

“Wassup dude! Howz life? How’s that Linux thing of yours goin on?” , he asked.

I told him about my work, and the interesting stuff that was happening there. He listened to all of it with great interest.

“So, it’s not t O(1) anymore, eh?! Nice. Will check that out sometime.” He said.

I asked him about his work, and life.

“Going on! I am enjoying it. Nothing to do with what we studied back in college. But doing good.”

I felt happy for him. Finally the chap had found something which has managed to hold his attention for this long. Good for him!

“I’ll be quitting next week. There’s this other cool thing I read about the other day. Will be working on it!”

I guess he loved the expression on my face, when he said that. Because he gave me that wicked smile.I asked him if he had any definite plan about this other thing.

“Nope! It’s still in a very nascent stage. Will fiddle with it for a while.”

I really couldn’t believe it!

This is one of those people who has real potential to change the world. Instead of realizing it, here he was “Wandering! Yup, that I am. And I like it. I feel extremely light.”

Fear of the C-word?, I asked him.

“Not at all! It’s just the futility of commitment. I don’t see the point in it. Simply cannot understand how can I make a promise to accomplish something, when there may be thousands of interesting things on the way. I can’t just ‘let-go’ of these things. I will be interested in stopping and having a look around. And may be, one of these things’ll drive me on a different path, which may never meet the first one. And, I don’t wanna keep anyone waiting for me!”

I gave a puzzled look that demanded further explanation.

“Dude, I don’t want to be defined by some one thing that I do in life. I’ve seen it happen before. You show your interest in something, and people around you create an image, associating you with that thing. And in course of time, you yourself accept that image, and feed it further. One fine day, when you discover something else which is “fun”, the same people tell you that the “fun” thing doesn’t fit your image or it’s extrapolations. And thus, you automatically become a member of the society’s “Repressed or Rebels Club”. The moment you let something define you, you are enslaved by an obligation to do well in that. Sometimes it happens without your knowledge. And you start thinking - ‘But this is what I wanted to do all the while! So I should be happy.’ Just that my idea of happiness isn’t preceded by conditionals.”

I started laughing. I understood what he was talking about. I got up. This meeting was over.

He was still sitting there, smiling.

I paid our bill, picked up my stuff, plugged in my iPod and bid him adieu. Led Zep’s voice filled my brain.

Stairway to the heaven. Man, people sure *do* wanna buy that thing! I started walking back home.

Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run.
There’s still time to change the road you’re on.

Closing Song: None.
Closing Mood: Wide awake.

Opening Mood: Recovering from flu.
Opening Song: Leaving Home - Indian Ocean.

Today, as India celebrates its 60th anniversary of Independence, I am trying to put into words what freedom means to me.

Freedom, is a very basic and pure ideology. An ideology so powerful that many fought for it, many died for its cause. For many, Freedom was about living a life which was free from oppression, where you did not have to justify every action of yours to some one else, where you could live your life in the manner you chose to. This is my understanding and I feel that it was for this “freedom” that many struggled.

I am not comparing our degree of freedom, using interrogatives like, “Have we completely achieved that yet?” or “Are we there yet?”. Nor am I seeking to shed more light upon imperatives like “This freedom was hard earned. It’s our duty to protect it”. Their relevance might be paramount in various contexts, but in the context of pure freedom, they, in my humble opinion are nothing but contradictions. The moment we start trying to put “freedom” into words, it’ll stop being free! It’ll be bound by the very words which “define” it, making it something definite! So what am I trying here? Come to think of it, writing another haughty article on freedom like this one, is only adding to that bundle of contradictions!

<snip snip snip>

We all know what Freedom means, don’t we?! So, why bother to define something that is so pure and primitive? Why not just live for what it is, without justifications?!

Happy Independence Day to you all

Closing Song: Melancholic Ecstasy - Indian Ocean
Closing Mood: Enlightened!

Opening Mood: Good. Just watched RDB for 2nd time.
Opening Song: Ya Ali - Gangster.
Date: 22nd April, 2007. 5:00 P.M

Life presents us with so many opportunities to spend our time in a joyful manner. We should learn to identify and exploit them. I believe that having fun in what you do is very important, because that’s the basic purpose of our living - the pursuit of happiness. (I will watch the movie someday)

When I joined work after college, work had become my only priority in life. Primarily because it was (and is) exciting. So exciting that I was ready to forgo everything else. My colleagues, mentors, friends criticized this attitude of mine. But I had no complains. Not until I noticed that I am missing out on some of the other good things in life. Were these other things important ? I guess so, since I started noticing that I was missing out on them.

Probably we all need to grow in several dimensions and not just one. That’s how we appreciate our journey as a human being.

Question was, what do I do?!. In college there was always something or the other to do. But what about in Bangalore (or should I get into the habit of saying Bengalooru) ? The answer turned out to be simple. A new city, a new culture meant a lot of new things to learn. I wanted to learn them. I still do. Which meant going out and exploring stuff. But not everybody around me, thought the same way. So I was kind of on my own. Besides, I found out that relaxing during weekends wasn’t or rather isn’t my cup of tea. I don’t enjoy sleeping those extra hours just because I have slogged my ass off during the weekdays. The so called “slogging” doesn’t make me tired. So I wanted to use the weekends to “do” something, which allowed me to learn and also have some fun!

So I did two things which were in my todo list since a long time.

I bought a bicycle! Yup, after five months of planning and procrastinating, I finally bought it. And now, I just love riding around the city on it. Keeps you fit as well. And gives you a means of exploring things on your own! Found out so many areas around my home which otherwise would have gone unexplored. The experience is good. But it’s not without risk either. I realized that one has to be very very careful while riding alongside the bigger vehicles. But one can more often than not avoid the busy roads and ride on the internal roads.

Then I joined Salsa classes. This place called Swingers in Indiranagar which teaches Salsa and a lot of other stuff. It’s a lot of fun shaking a leg and it ain’t all that difficult either! Already 3 weeks into the classes I find striking similarities between salsa and math. Both just flow in a smooth rhythmic manner.

Wondering what next! Drums ??! Probably. If I get time from the GRE/GATE preparation. So:

echo Learn drums >> todo.txt

Closing Song: Kya Mujhe pyaar hai- Woh Lamhe
Closing Mood: In mood for some cycling now!