UNIX turns 40!

The OS that most people start studying Operating Systems with is turning 40! I have known it for 13 years. I started off with SCO Unix in one of the computer training institutes. It surely wasn't love at first sight. In those days it was very common to see SCO Unix, because that was the only prominent UNIX that ran on Intel. Remember, Linux was hardly on the horizon back then. Later, at my first job my 'desktop' was a dumb terminal connected through a serial ports to the central SVR4 server. This meant it was complete text mode. We had to go looking for a Windows machine to see image attachments sent in e-mails :-) I suppose most people start their UNIX experience with Linux.

Hell is full!

I don't doubt him even for a second.

Geocities is closing down

Did you hear that Geocities is closing down? Unless you started using the Internet well after the Dot-com bubble burst, you are likely to have seen geocities web pages. If you were considered Internet-savvy back then, you would have a homepage on geocities. Or on tripod or angelfire... That was the "in" thing to do back then.

It appears like a number of people really hated those amateur homepages and are happy to see it closing down. Many of the pages there were made by total novice web-site designers who were doing it to make a statement. Agreed, the statement they made was mostly "see, I too have a tacky homepage." However, I will be very surprised if today's blogs, facebook homes and tweets are considered state-of-the-art after another decade.

If you are guessing why I feel so strongly about geocities, your guess is right. Though I jumped on the Internet bandwagon quite late, I too was among the "in" crowd of early 2000s with a homepage. Tacky floating background images, a guest book, links page, even the uber-geek Javascript. My homepage is still alive. It will be alive until Yahoo takes it down later this year. Until then it is good to visit once in a while and smile at what was considered cool back then.

How's the contrast?

That's my daughter.

How to get thrilled?

If you are like me, the most risky thing you do in a typical work day probably is consuming cafeteria food. The more adventurous ones among us try activities like rock climbing, parasailing and if you are really reckless, to the point where you don't care about your life, bungee jumping. So what should the former type, cafeteria food type, do to get a good rush of adrenalin once in a while? I recommend driving up the highway from Mysore to Bangalore on a Sunday evening. The thrills only get multiplied if you are not familiar with this road. This is not a joke, let me explain how it works.

It works best if you have a small and tall car like a Santro. Alternatively, choose a car with low ground clearance. Make a resolve to drive at at least 80kmph all along. Even more importantly, decide not to let any vehicle overtake you on the way and if for some reason someone does, to take revenge (overtake him/her) within the next couple of kilometers. Wait in Mysore till the sun sets and then, set out.

You will quickly notice that pretty much half of cars in Mysore are now headed to Bangalore. To be fair, it is a pretty nice road. Two lanes on either side with a smooth riding surface. So you will quickly find yourself driving at more than 100kmph. Just when you thought it is going to be a smooth drive, BANG! That was the sound of the new makeshift speed breaker constructed by haphazardly pouring some tar onto the road, hitting one of the vital organs at the belly of your car. That was fun, wasn't it? The impact has switched on the wiper and right-turn indicator. Please turn them off. You see, the speed breaker was created just a few days ago and was placed in a curve, so that you cannot see it from a distance. No, they did not think it is necessary to place any warning signs or paint the hump with a paint. You were driving too fast, so you deserved what you got. When combined with the darkness of the night and glare of high beam headlights from the other side of the road, the recipe is complete.

Did I say high beam headlights? As if there is another type of headlight? While it is not as bad as a median-less road, glaring headlights cause problems because the road has curves all along. There are a number of villages on the road and this means there are various types of cross traffic. Pedestrians (helpfully wearing black clothing, to add to the effect), stray dogs, bullock carts, bicycles with not even a reflector on them, motorbikes with not even a reflector (forget lights) on them, all crossing the road at one of the various cuts in the median. When combined with plants that have been grown on the median and the headlights from the opposite side trying to blind you, you are never sure what is waiting at the next turn. How thrilling is that?

Though the road is a 2-lane on either side, you have realized by now that some of the vehicles, especially tractors, can go on either side of the road in either direction. While it is not so thrilling to come across these during the day, it surely is during the night because either they don't have any lights or have very powerful lights pointing directly at you.

So you escaped all the hurdles and reached Maddur. Now get ready for the next challenge. There are a number of restaurants on the highway between Maddur and Ramanagara. Every car religiously stops at one of these restaurants, as if this is required by law. On a Sunday evening, every restaurant in this stretch is so terribly crowded, there is neither a guarantee that you will get what you want, nor the quality you expect it at. The thrill here comes from capturing a table and eating whatever overpriced food is available.

At least one stretch of the road, a couple of kilometers long, is usually closed on one side, making that stretch a 1-lane on each side, median less road. This means there is a huge congestion at that place. This is when the survival instincts of Bangalore's drivers kicks in big time. They will do anything, with no care for the physical health of themselves or the others, to gain, may be, a couple of overtakes. I won't be surprised if some of them are willing to drive through few sugar cane fields to get ahead of others. Please participate in this mayhem to enhance your fun of driving.

By the time Ramanagara is behind you, the traffic on the road has increased considerably. Add a few slow moving trucks and luggage auto-rickshaws to the mix and it is close to impossible to maintain a good speed. However, remember that you have resolved to maintain at least 80kmph because that is essential to get the thrill that you are looking for. After a high speed, high stakes game of driving for about an hour, you are ready to join the Bangalore traffic, which, to your surprise, is not any less on a Sunday evening than other days. This is when you start thinking "What are this many people doing on the road on a Sunday evening? If all these suckers were at home watching TV, I could have driven so easily and reached home by now". Eventually, you do reach home. The thrill ends. Until Monday afternoon, lunch time at the cafeteria :-)

ಮಹಾರಾಷ್ಟ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ ಕರುನಾಡ ಸೇನೆ?

Which city is MH-13 from? Sollapur?

Vehicle registration numbers

I have this habit of observing vehicle registration numbers. In the last few years, one can see vehicles from various parts of India in Bangalore. I am referring to private vehicles here, not those heavy trucks. While DL, AP, TN, KL are pretty common, sometimes you get to see exotic(!) ones like Nagaland (NL), Sikkim (SK) and so on. I have seen a TVS Scooty from J&K! Recently I saw this one from Lakshadweep.

An unexpected question...

We were having a snack at a darshini. For the Bangalore noob, a darshini in Bangalore is a simple, low cost self-service restaurant with high tables and no seating, just like the Shanthi Sagar or Adigas in your neighbourhood. My daughter was perched on the high table, visibly unhappy with the Rava Idly she was getting to eat while eyeing Gobi Manchurian that we were refusing to give her. An elderly gentleman, may be in his late seventies, walked in. My daughter has this habit of staring at strangers with wide eyes and blank face, not unlike how Mowgli must have stared at the first humans he saw. This invariably draws the stranger's attention, which leads to the stranger trying to talk to her. She then loosens up, ready to give a big smile or even a hand shake. This man, rather than trying to chat up the kid, asked us "ಮಗುವಿನ ನಕ್ಷತ್ರ ಯಾವುದು?" "What is the nakshatra (birth star) of the child?". We had as much expected this question as the shareholders expected the Satyam scandal. A number of people ask us what her name is, never her nakshatra. We somehow gathered our wits and told him her birth star and he said something like "It is a very good star, she will get very good education" and left the scene. While my wife thought it was strange that someone would ask this question, I was quite amused by it. This person did not look like a Purohit, he was just a person who grew up in a traditional environment and doesn't want to change with the changing times.

Most liked feature in web browsers?

What is your most liked new feature in web browsers in the recent times? To me, it was tabbed browsing till some time ago. However, this is not a new feature. It was there when I first started using the earliest betas of Phoenix browser (2002?) and even before that, in Opera. In the recent times, the feature I have liked most is the ability to search in the address bar for URLs I entered in the past. I think this came with Firefox3.x series and is also referred to as "Awesome bar" by some. Currently, Google Chrome has extended this functionality to search using any text in your previously viewed web pages. Even better, I would say, but Chrome doesn't (yet) run on Linux. If you know an add-on to Firefox that can provide this functionality, do let me know.

To lengthen the peak of our happiness...

No, this is not one of those spam advertisements that offers to improve a certain aspect of your life. No sir, this is much more nobler than that. As you know, the success of a certain movie has brought DIGNITY (yes, dignity in capital letters) to our Country. Now I am sure you are wondering "I only wish someone was striking a right chord to lengthen the peak of our happiness!" Worry no more, your prayers have been answered. No idea what that kid is doing there, though.

So who won?

So who won yesterday? Was it the group in favour of Valentine's day celebrations or the one against it? TOI making everyone believe that this was a game with the two opponents clearly marked out and only one was going to win.

Anyway, now that the dust has settled, I picked up today's newspapers. I subscribe to two newspapers, Vijaya Karnataka in Kannada and Times of India. Incidentally, TOI bought VK a couple of years back, so both are now owned by the same parent company. However, there is a big difference between what these two reported about yesterday.

VK version:
"ಬಿಗಿ ಬಂದೋಬಸ್ತ್ ನಡುವೆಯೂ ಪ್ರೇಮಿಗಳ ದಿನಾಚರಣೆಗೆ ರಾಜ್ಯದ ಹಲವೆಡೆ ಅಡ್ಡಿ-ಆತಂಕ ಎದುರಾಯಿತು.
...
ಶ್ರೀರಾಮ ಸೇನೆಯ ಬೆದರಿಕೆಯಿಂದಾಗಿ ಪ್ರೇಮಿಗಳ ದಿನಾಚರಣೆ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ರಂಗೇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಲಾಲ ಬಾಗ್, ಕಬ್ಬನ್ ಪಾರ್ಕ್, ಕಾಲೇಜು ಕಾರ್ನರ್, ರೆಸ್ಟೋರೆಂಟ್, ಪಬ್ಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರೇಮಿಗಳ ಎಂದಿನ ಕಲರವ ಕಾಣಸಿಗಲಿಲ್ಲ."

which roughly translates to:
"In spite of heavy security, there was disruption to Valentine's day celebrations in many places of the state.
...
Due to the threat by Sri Rama Sene Vantentine's day celebrations in Bangalore was pale. Lal Bagh, Cubbon Park, college corners, restaurants and pubs did not see the usual level of revelry."

TOI version:
"Love and peace thrived in perfect harmony in Bangalore and other parts of Karnataka on one of the most-anticipated Valentine’s Days ever. Bangalore was swathed in red and pink. Thanks to the police which put away potential disrupters, including Hindu Rashtriya Sena chief Pramod Mutalik, behind bars and the civil society which decided to push back hard against moral policing, V-Day came up smelling roses.
...
By evening, the boulevards of MG Road and the sidewalks of Brigade Road, Residency Road and other high streets were chock-ablock with youngsters, out with friends and love interests, in throngs. Pubs began to fill up as the sun came down and restaurants reported brisk footfalls. Star eateries, which had sold out their V-day specials, saw couples — young and old — enjoying their romantic dinners serenaded by romantic music and covered by discreet, high security.
...
The scene was similar in other parts of the state, though the scale and colour of the festivities were a pitch lower than Bangalore."

Wow, isn't that strange? Two newspapers from the same publishing house, reporting on the same incidence, being so different in their reports? One thing that is very clear from all this is that TOI, though it owns VK, doesn't have much control over the contents of it. May be they want to give this kind of independence to VK, but my bets are that with the kind of people who run VK, it won't be possible for TOI to control the contents of VK too much unless they kick out a lot of the editorial folks.

Weather and food habits: epilogue

Recently I had wondered "Why do we like to eat spicy food when it gets cold, but overall spiciest food habits are seen in hottest places on earth". I got two responses from my friends.

Hariprasad said: Its almost as if we are too used to the 'hot' weather and cannot tolerate a deviation from the same. That's our natural state, kind of. So, when the weather gets cold, we are actually 'uncomfortable'. Since we can't do much with the weather, we wear warm clothes and eat hot food trying to 'restore' normalcy, at least in our body."

Ego said: "My Friend wanderlust had the following answer: "it's because in hot climates, food spoils easily unless you preserve it with spices. check it out... the more away from the equator you go, the blander the food.”"

Both explanations sound logical and they are not exclusive of each other. I guess the answer is a combination of these two. Hence I guess I sorta know the answer now. Thanks folks!

Pataguppa bridge

I mentioned a place in the backwaters of Linganamakki dam in my previous post. So where is this place and what is the interesting history behind this place?

The submerged bridge I mentioned is Pataguppa Bridge (ಪಟಗುಪ್ಪ). If you visit the Wikimapia page, zoom out a couple of times so that you get a good idea of how it looks. The place looks like this on Google Earth:


This place is along a road that used to run from Hosanagara to Sagara towns in Shimoga district. Long long back, before our parents were born, this was _the_ road between Hosanagara and Sagara. Later, in 1930s, they built a dam called Madenur (ಮಡೆನೂರು) dam in this area. This dam submerged significant area of land around this place and cut off this road link. Hence they built a bridge at this place to keep the road connectivity on. Remember, this was built during the Raj. It was built completely using stones.

Much later, in 1960s, the Linganamakki dam was built. This was the big daddy of Madenur dam, so it submerged even more land, pretty much half of Hosanagara Taluk, including the Madenur dam. Yes, a whole dam was submerged. In summer when the water level in Linganamakki dam comes down, one can see the Madenur dam even now. It is still intact, even after being submerged in water for so many years! Along with the dam, the bridge too went underwater! Hence the Government increased the height of this bridge, by erecting stone pillars on top of existing bridge and building a road on it supported by iron beams. The bridge was still going underwater for a few months during rainy season, but was usable during other times of the year. This went on till some time in the 1970s, when the top half of the dam, the one built on iron beams, collapsed under the weight of a truck. There were thoughts of repairing the broken bridge, but they really needed a new bridge, one that is remains above the water even when the dam is full. However, the pleas of people who lived in this area fell on deaf ears. The road link was permanently lost. All the buses and trucks that used to ply on this road started taking another, longer route to travel between Sagara and Hosanagara. Population of this area dwindled, only the core residents remained here and rest of the world started forgetting this area.

This is how the bridge looks now. Observe the lower bridge, which is still intact even after more than 70 years.


Now, decades after this bridge collapsed, the Government has finally begun building a new bridge here. It will mean there will be a lot of heavy machinery in what has been a serene place so far. They will huff and puff, pull down a lot of trees, dig out a lot of mud, project will get delayed numerous times and eventually there will be a new bridge. This road will come alive again and the lives of people living here will change forever. Again. All this will probably take 5 more years, but hopefully it will happen.

BTW, I have not visited the Madenur dam so far. I surely want to go there this summer, when the water levels are low enough to explore this place.

Some more photos from this place are here.

The magic of a spectacular sunset

There is nothing like sitting on the ground watching a spectacular sunset slowly taking place. Last week, as I sat near a submerged bridge in the thick of Malnad region, on the shores of backwaters of Linganamakki dam, built across Sharavathi river, mother nature was putting up a great show. Everything was right about that place and time: A huge water body with tree stubs in it, dense forests on both sides of water, a few birds merrily singing along, eager to reach home before it gets dark, a lone boat, doing the last round for the day across the water, a handful of friends sitting along with me, but nobody speaking a word, just soaking in the beauty of the moment. It was magical.

Once the sun sets, the night falls surprisingly fast. Within a few more minutes, it is all over and time to go home with memories. For the sake of memories, I did take a few pictures. I did try all manual settings on my compact camera, leading to some really nice shots. The first one below is in pretty high resolution.

Weather and food habits

A couple of weeks back it was pretty cold in Bangalore. There used to be a bit of wind throughout the day, adding to the cold. The floor in my home - all granite, had gotten pretty cold, making me curl up my feet under me when I sat on the sofa. I was munching on some spicy snack and gulping down piping hot filter coffee, saying to myself: "This is the ideal weather to eat hot and spicy food like pakodas, bhajjis and so on".

I don't know what is it about the cold weather that makes people go after spicy foods. As I started thinking about it, I realized that this is not a universal phenomenon. In fact, just the contrary is probably true. Think of places which are well known for spicy foods and chances are, they are some of the hottest places on earth. Mexico, India, Thailand. Even within India, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan. On the other hand, most people in cold climate, like Europeans, prefer non-spicy foods. Even within India, Kashmiri food is pretty sweet, isn't it? Of course, there are exceptions to these rules. Especially in India, where there are exceptions to pretty much every rule. However, I can surely say, in general, cold places are not well known for spicy foods. So what is the relation between the weather and food habits? I did some googling, but could not spot anything obvious quickly.

If you know, please do let me know.

Spam taking over the internet

I read recently that 95% of all e-mail in the world is just spam. I can readily believe that. I am pretty conservative about giving out my mail ids on the internet. In spite of that, gmail tells me I receive more spam than genuine mail. I used to use a mail id on an obscure website long time back. The only reason for using their mail id was that they were giving me 100MB of storage, whereas everyone else was at 2-4MB range back then. I had not visited that mail id in years. Last week somehow I remembered this id and curiously logged into it. While I was not looking, this mail id was slowly and steadily accumulating around 30 spam e-mail ids every day. Everything from offering me millions of dollars for free to offering me online degrees to selling me the blue diamond-shaped pill at very low cost. Some of the mails claimed that they arrived long before I, for that matter, the internet, was born!

Update: Yes, I know why it is 1969. After all, I have worked on UNIX!

ಡಬ್ಬದ ಹೊರಗಿನ ಯೋಚನೆ

ಮಕ್ಕಳು ಯೋಚಿಸುವ ರೀತಿಯನ್ನು ಊಹಿಸುವುದೂ ಕಷ್ಟ. ಇದಕ್ಕೊಂದು ಉತ್ತಮ ಉದಾಹರಣೆ ನನ್ನ ತಂಗಿಯ ಮಗನ ಡಬ್ಬದ ಹೊರಗಿನ ಯೋಚನೆ (ಅದೇ, "thinking outside the box" ಕಣ್ರೀ!)

ಒಂದು ದಿನ ಶಾಲೆಯಿಂದ ಮನೆಗೆ ಬರುವಾಗ ಒಂದು ಒಂಟೆಯನ್ನು ನೋಡಿದ. ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೆ ಸಹಜವಾಗಿ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ವಿಷಯಗಳ ಮೇಲೂ ಕುತೂಹಲ. "ಅದೇನಮ್ಮ?" "ಅದು ಒಂಟೆ ಕಣಪ್ಪಾ".

ಮಾರನೆಯ ದಿನ ಅದೇ ಜಾಗದಲ್ಲಿ ಮೂರು ಒಂಟೆಗಳು ಹೋಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದವು. ತಕ್ಷಣ ಅವನ ಬಾಯಿಯಿಂದ ಹೊರಟೇ ಬಿಟ್ಟಿತ್ತು: "ಒಂಟೆ, ಟೂಟೇ, ತ್ರೀಟೇ" ("one-tay, two-tay, three-tay"). ಹೇಗಿದೆ? ಹೊಟ್ಟೆ ಹುಣ್ಣಾಗುವಷ್ಟು ನಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ನನ್ನ ತಂಗಿಯ ಸ್ಕೂಟಿ ಬೀಳದೆ ಇದ್ದದ್ದೇ ಆಶ್ಚರ್ಯ.

Petrol bunk: part of Bangalore's history?

Last Friday, as I pulled my car into my usual BP Petrol bunk (Yes, we call them petrol bunks in Bangalore, not petrol pumps) on Hosur Road, I noticed something different. I usually fill petrol at Venkateswara and Co, which is on South-bound Hosur road, just before Silk Board fly-over. This place is the most reliable one on my way home. They have never tried to cheat me either by not making the meter zero before beginning or distracting me while petrol is being filled (you know, "Cash or Card, saar?" types). The owner is usually right there, ready to jump in and ensure that the staff don't cheat. This day, the whole place was lit up with colorful lights. There was a little podium made at one end and flower bouquets were placed all over the place, including on the pumps. The owner, all excited, was roaming around instructing the staff to make final moment touch-ups to the decoration. It looked like there was going to be a speech of something.

I picked up a chat with the cashier while my car was being filled. He says "It has been 50 years since this petrol bunk was opened, sir. That's why the celebrations". I can't believe my ears. "50 years?" I say with a lot of exclamation in my voice. "Yes, golden jubilee. The current owner is a third generation owner of this place". The cashier said the news in a matter-of-fact way. I am sure he cannot feel as excited as the owner for this event. After all, he works there for a salary and the owner being strict may in fact be a hinderance for his income.

As I drove off, I kept telling to myself: "Man, 1959. Really? What was there in India back then?" Was Premier Padmini there, at least? This page says NO. Was Ambassador there, after all, it has existed for ever? This page says Ambassador started in 1957, so it was barely there. So there were pretty much no cars at all, except may be a few imported ones. Even Tata trucks hadn't been around for too long. Secondly, this place was well outside the city. Hosur road was probably there, but it wasn't going up to Madras back then. There was no Koramangala and no Indiranagar, forget about BTM. So this place must have been one of the extremely few petrol bunks in Bangalore back then. This is incredible that they have been selling fuel for that long. This place is a part of Bangalore's history!

First rain of 2009

I have this tradition of recording the first rain of the year I see in Bangalore. Today (Jan 8), it rained. Well, okay, it kinda drizzled, but what the heck. This is probably the earliest rain I have seen in Bangalore. Another interesting observation: I have seen it rain in Bangalore in most of the months of the year. Probably all, with the possible exception of February. I wonder how many cities in India can claim this.

Start early!

To ensure the next generation is well versed with Linux, not some proprietary OS, it is important to give them an early start. How early? 1 year olds are perfect.