Intruders at midnight

Last Saturday I went to sleep as usual at around 11:30PM, hoping to get a pleasant and long night's sleep. At around midnight, as I was falling into deep sleep, there was a loud thud followed by banging on my front door. Before I could figure out what was happening, three people had made a rather forceful entry to the house, loudly shouting my name. I was surprised because I don't have too many enemies, especially in Austin. Ultimately when I gathered my wits and my shirt, wore it reverse in a hurry and walked out of my room, I got a huge smile on my face. It was Manju, Sandhya and Anoop Iyer with a huge birthday cake. I came to know later that Murali had also been a part of this heinous plan.

Yes, last Sunday was my birthday. I don't really celebrate my birthday. If I am in Bangalore I take my friends out for lunch because they don't let me skip that :-) But that was not how things would go while I was in Manju's town.

So in the next 15 minutes I had cut the cake and had cake frosting smeared all over my face, but Manju tells me he skipped the more rigorous portions of birthday celebration, which I believe often include birthday bums culminating in slight dislocation of birthday boy's hip bone. So thanks Manju and co for celebrating my birthday and sparing my body in shape. Yes, a dinner is due from me.

Manoranjani!

Last Sunday, I went to a program called 'Manoranjani', organized by Austin Kannada Sangha as part of Rajyothsava/Deepavali celebrations. It is an entertainment program organized by Association of Kannada Kootas of America (named so that it makes a cute acronym - AKKA). This was a fund raiser program to help educate poor children in Karnataka. The artists (entertainer is a new way to describe the profession) were doing it without any renumeration. While Ramesh added star value to the show, Sudha Baragur stole the limelight with jokes, most of which were new to me. She got a standing ovation that she richly deserved. Shylaja Santhosh was the comperer and she is easily one of the best in that job. Ramprasad and B.R.Chaya did all the singing. I had not known much about Ramprasad earlier, so I was pleasantly surprised to listen to his very good singing. Chaya was good as always, but she kept on insisting to increase the volume of her microphone, making her voice too loud, dominating over the musical instruments and Ramprasad's voice! Her husband Pani (I am not very sure about the name), who was the musician, tried telling her this, but a husband asking his wife to reduce her volume is as likely to succeed as Azim Premji convincing Deve Gowda that the infrastructure in Bangalore is crumbling.

The other noticeable thing in the program was the dinner. God bless the person who made that Bisi Bele Bhath. Kudos to the organizers for bringing such a wonderful program to a small city like Austin. I have one nag, though. Call me a nitpick if you wish. The president of the Austin Kannada Sangha, Ravi Kumar, while he speaks decent Kannada while off-stage, ensures he speaks only English while on stage. Ironically he gave us a lot of good information about the Kannada Sangha and it's activities, all in English. I found this really strange.

Lack of concentration

I think I am sufferring from a low concentration level now-a-days. Of late, I tend to have a number of things to do and since I keep context-switching all the time, my brain's caches remain mostly empty (not just cold). Of course the rains in Bangalore were really devastating. Yes, I know that India has offerred to open the LOC to help the earthquake victims in POK. I really wonder if Saurav Ganguly will ever come back into the Indian team. I am trying to serialize and organize my work so that this lack of concentration problem does not occur. High fuel prices are hitting all the economies of the world quite hard, not to mention India. I have started making very initial arrangements for my return back to India. But the way Indians won the match made me wonder if the match was fixed. Oh, so where was I? concentration. Yes, the concentration of orange juice I bought last week was very low. On the positive side, my skills in TT and foosball have improved dramatically. But I still feel Starbucks coffee is much better than Ritazza. Hey, what am I talking about? I must do something before this problem of lack of concentration starts to really hurt.

Linux geekiness scale

This is the Linux geek scale I came up with. They are in the increasing order of geekiness all through. I am sure it can take _many_ more additions. So suggestions are very welcome.

Update: Ananth's comments have now been merged into 'mainline' with minor modifications:)

Novice:
*) You say "Linux? What's that?"
*) You pronounce Linux as Linux, not Lynux.
*) You know Linux is something other than Windows!
*) You have seen Linux on your geeky friend's PC.

Beginner:
*) You know who Linus Torvalds is.
*) You ask "Are you running 'Linux 9'?"
*) You have tried to install Linux on your PC.
*) You know that what a distro is and you know the name of the distro you tried to install.
*) You know what KDE and Gnome are.
*) You know how to install software on Linux.
*) You know how to enable MP3 support in RH based distros.
*) You have argued with your friends that Linux is superior to Windows.
*) You have made at least one customization to your KDE/Gnome desktop.
*) You can differentiate between the kernel version and the distro version

Getting there (It gets interesting now):
*) You know where Linus Torvalds works.
*) Your PC boots into Linux by default, not Windows.
*) You have tried compiling your own kernel.
*) You know what LD_ASSUME_KERNEL is.
*) You know how to get on to #kernelnewbies
*) You ask a question on #kernelnewbies without someone invoking "lxrbot rules"
*) You use your own kernel on your PC.
*) You have posted a mail to LKML at least once.
*) Your post on LKML was not flamed at.
*) At least one of your patches was accepted into mainline Linux kernel.
*) You find a lengthy discussion about comparison of rpm and deb formats, pretty interesting.
*) You think vi vs emacs war is holier than Iraq war.
*) You think KDE and Gnome are too earthly, so you use Metacity or something more geeky.
*) You use underscores to highlight words (_thisway_)

Geek (not Greek) god:
*) You have uninstalled Windows on your PC.
*) When someone asks you a Linux question, like "I cannot connect to the Internet" or "I cannot login to my system", your response is on the lines of "Have you tried this with latest mainline kernel?" or "Did you compile your kernel with CONFIG_XYZ option?".
*) You know the difference between Ubuntu and Debian.
*) You believe "mutt" is the greatest invention after sliced bread.
*) You are capable of retrieving you box even after hozing the bootloader
*) You have tried one of -mm or -rt trees on your PC.
*) You have successfully compiled your own glibc and installed it on your system.
*) You have successfully submitted a patch to libc-alpha list.
*) The default runlevel on your desktop PC is 3 because you think anything with UI is too dumb.

Seven years in this industry!

On 12th of this month I completed seven years in software industry. It doesn't seem like a big deal now, but I still remember the early days when I used to look at people with 5 years of experience and think they were 'super-seniors', as if I was never going to be like them. Time flies and it flies concord, not Boeing :-) Looking back, I think I was expecting to learn a lot more in 7 years when I started off.

Anyway, it is time to look back at these years and wonder - "Whoa, I am growing old!". To my contemporaries - just think about this : most of the people coming out of colleges now don't know that Internet without Google could exist - they take Google along with roti, kapda and makaan as basic necessities. Going further, most students in high schools and colleges probably don't know that STD phones didn't exist a few years back and there was something called trunk call. They think trunks are only for elephants. Most kids in primary schools aren't aware that there could be a world without mobile phones! Looks like generation gap doesn't really need decades now, it happens in 10 years. People like me _almost_ belong to previous generation already. :-(

Human behavior

I read an article about some riots in the US today that set me thinking about the human behavior.

We are used to seeing people not following rules, accepting (demanding) bribes, being corrupt, rioting, behaving rudely in public and so on in India. We tend to believe that most of those behaviors are fundamentally native to our people, something that makes Indians, Indians. When we visit developed countries, we appreciate the way they keep their country clean and the way they seem to be more honest, following the rules, polite and so on. However, some incidences and circumstances bring out the devil in people in all countries. Think of the riots and cops going around looting houses in New Orleans after Katrina. Think of Government's decision about handing out huge contracts to companies they prefer. Consider for a minute why people drive so horribly in New York and honk at will. Think why the subway entrances in big US cities are not even as clean as our Majestic bus stand.

I think many people are fundamentally scums, irrespective of which country they are from. The chances of these scums exposing their real behavior is inversely proportional to them being caught in the act and being held responsible. This chance is _very_ low in India, so there is nothing to deter these people from being that way. The same people behave much better when they go to, say, Singapore because they know that their a**es will be kicked if they don't behave. The same rule applies everywhere. Secondly, the number of such scums in a society depends on how the society is built up. I guess some of the western European countries have had the best such societies for many generations, so crime rates are lowest there, people keep their country clean, bribery and corruption is lowest and so on. We in India, over centuries, have built a society that does not reward good behavior nor punish bad. So it is a fertile place for people to grow up without many of these good qualities in life. These things can't be changed overnight. I think it will take a few of generations. I hope we start at least now.

Duh!

Here is a proof to show that Linux on desktop is coming along really nicely. Today I was able to see something that I have seen only on Windows, that too not in recent times. Error messages of this type used to be common on Windows, especially if you used any software from Netscape. Looks like Linux desktop is going in the right path, just a matter of time before it catches up with Windows.

(Click on the pic to enlarge it.)

Coconut oil in your petrol tank!

Some university students in Newzealand claimed that coconut oil can be used as fuel in automobile engines. If that ever reaches mainstream, our cities are going to smell like Kerala-style restaurants! A whacky solution to the pollution problem as well.

This immediately brings to my memory one Ramar Pillai, who, around 1997-98, claimed that he could 'make' petrol out of just herbs/shrubs. Now that was some news! Here was an idea that could solve India's fuel woes as well as parthenium menace ;-) But alas, his trick was busted after a few days, but he maintained that his 'trick' was 'genuine'. I read a news after a few years that the Pillai guy continued to happily use his own herbal petrol in his TVS50. If he could _really_ make fuel out of some flora, I would expect him to at least become rich enough to drive a Merc.

Okay, back to coconut dudes of NZ. They claim that this is a possible answer to rising fuel cost woes. Well, I for one am totally against this whole idea. Do they know that we are already paying 12Rs for a coconut in Bangalore? If your family is from the west-coast districts of Karnataka, you know that pretty much all of the daily foods have coconut as an ingredient. So anything that can take the cost of coconuts up, I am against. Also, if cost of coconut oil doubles, what are Indians going to use in their hair? Petrol? And make it easy for bride-burning in-laws?

A stock-market tip - time to buy shares of parachute coconut oil company!

Summer's over!

Today, for the first time, I had to turn the AC at home from 'cool' to 'heat'! So summer is finally over! I can't believe the speed with which things changed. Just 10 days back we were seeing all-time high record temperatures in Austin (107F-42C) and today (50F-10C) it feels like all that was a distant dream. I know I am extremely under-prepared for the winter. When you suddenly realize that the warmest clothing you have is a half-sleeve polo shirt, you know it ;-)

Technology for the sake of technology

Don't get me wrong. This is not a rant about everything related to technology, nor am I a technophobic. Though it may seem to be so, it is not directed at anybody in particular ;-)

The promise of technology has always been to make our lives better. But what I really abhor is people getting so blinded by technology that they forget that that all this is supposed to make our life easy and better, and just believe that if anything is new and funky, they need it! You know the type - "Your camera has 10 megapixels? mine has 11!", "I can watch NDTV on the (crappy little) LCD screen of my mobile phone.", "I can sync all my e-mails to my PDA from my laptop and (with squinty eyes) see all mails on it." This is exactly what the companies selling all this stuff want. This is what the Governments say helps improve the economy, through 'solid retail activity' and 'consumer's confidence in economy' or something like that.

Again, don't get me wrong. There are millions of products of technology that have improved our lives, but almost all of them come with myriad features that are just of snob value. When I buy something I try not to be blinded by the feature list, instead ask myself how many of those features do I really need. I don't need to browse the web on the tiny screen of my mobile phone. I don't need to see my e-mail on a PDA - my life is much simpler so far. I don't need 300 channels on my TV. A car that can zoom from 0 to 60 in a couple of seconds doesn't have any advantage in Bangalore. I don't need a watch that can show time at 50 cities of the world. When I see a product whose instruction manual looks like 'War and Peace', I know to stay away from it.

I have seen a person who had a fundoo home network, it let him log into his home computer from office and then turn off/on lights at home. He couldn't answer my simple question - "Why?" I think these are the type of people that inspire thoughts of toasters that can get on the Internet. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who are unable to use all the rich features of their gadgets is increasing, approaching 100. But these are the same people who jump at the next version of the gadget which has EVEN more features!

Whats the color of your sox(cks)?

Ananth has written in his blog something about various colors of sox(cks) available in the US, and people paying thousands of dollars to see them. The whole thing seems to be related to this game called baseball. This is in fact my reply to his blog, so read his first!

Well, all I know is my white sox(cks) sometimes turn red when soiled, and remain red sox(cks) until they go to laundry, when they turn white again. If I yank(ee) them too much, they get torn and go out with trash! This sox-yanking costs me a few dollars, not even close to $1025 :-)

So isn't baseball the game where they hit full-toss balls out of the ground? I know what Ananth will now say - full-toss balls travelling at 90mph in the general direction of your nose! And is this the game where the whole (and ONLY) US competes for the world (or universe?) title?

Another weekend post

I watched another Kannada movie, "Joke Falls" today. Chauffeur-driven car (thanks to Manju), a good movie and good food at Sarovar, and you know your Sunday hasn't gone wasted! With this movie, I have now watched more Kannada movies (in a movie hall, not at home) in these three months in Austin than in the last 3 years in Bangalore. Thanks to Austin Kannada Sangha for bringing a number of Kannada movies (both of them!) to Austin during this time. They have improved their website as well, things WORK now! What they could do better is ask the volunteers selling tickets and the ones who make announcements (about Rajyothsava celebrations, incidentally) in the movie hall to speak in Kannada. There is no need to prove that you know English and I can pretty much guarantee that every person who is watching a Kannada movie obviously knows Kannada!

I have started borrowing books and DVDs from Austin public library, so evenings are pretty eventful now. Lack of TV pinches once in a while, but for most of the time I don't miss it at all now. But here is a guy who would miss the TV if it was taken away from him for a day - the guy who set Guinness record for non-stop TV watching! His first name is Suresh, but he is not Indian. He apparently watched TV for 69 hours and 48 minutes, with 5 minute breaks every one hour. I know what you are thinking - you could beat it, right? But I guess the challenge here is not falling asleep for three days straight. But you have not heard the funny part yet - why does he do all this - this is straight from CNN website: "to raise awareness of suffering children" These are things that make you go "Huh?". Probably the children suffering due to excess TV watching? Oh, I now remember - I too watched a couple of DVDs this weekend. The purpose was to "raise awareness about suffering children and poverty in Africa" :-)