Manufacturing might

I am amazed at how good China is in manufacturing everything that was ever to be made. Especially toys. Pretty much every toy you can buy - both in stores and foot paths, are now made in China. I bought a little plastic bird, fitted with a motion sensor, a speaker and a little 'button' cell, so that it chirps when it senses any movement near it. They can make it in a huge factory somewhere in China, ship it all the way to India, possibly Chennai, transport it on road to Bangalore, distribute to stockists, resellers and foot-path vendors and they can still sell it for a meagre 20 Rupees. What should be the cost of manufacturing the toy? At what price can they sell this toy in the town it is manufactured at? While this is terrific, what is even more amazing is that if you want to replace the battery in the toy, you will need to shell out 40-70 Rupees. Do your math now!

Bangalore? Bengaluru?

Bangalore is on it's way to become Bengaluru. There are people who like the change and there are people who don't. There is yet another class of people who cannot make up their mind either way. They spell it "Bangalooru" :-)

A feature I wish for

I sometimes connect my laptop to an LCD monitor at work. The monitor supports lower resolution than what my laptop supports. Hence I often keep switching between two resolutions on my GNOME desktop. When I switch to higher resolution, all my windows retain their old size (pixel-wise), so they turn out to be too small. I need to manually resize each window to my taste.

What I need is a way to set the size of the window to be relative to the size of the desktop. That is, I want all my terminal windows to be around 75% of the width of the desktop and 100% of the height of the desktop, excluding the taskbars. I want my pidgin IRC client to be 50% in width and 75% in height. Is that even possible with the existing GNOME desktop? If not, is it possible with any other desktop on Linux? If not, I wonder whether any other OS has such a feature.

Weird problem with Linux file system

How big is the problem of your hard disk drive getting full? If it is anything like what happened to me, LOTS. I am still trying to come to terms with all that happened on my laptop.

Like any self-respecting geek, I run Linux as my primary desktop. In fact I have 3 Linux distros installed on my fairly small hard disk. As a result, most of my disk partitions are filled to the brim. Sometimes I need to delete stuff from my disk even to make way for even a 300MB file. On my Fedora9 partition, I have both root and /home on the same partition. On one of the unfortunate days last week, while I was compiling some code, the partition reached 100% full. I wasn't alarmed, after all, how bad can this be? But it was going to be quite bad.

The first thing that I noticed was that bash command history did not work. The next bash shell I spawned did not show a proper prompt (PS1). Little investigation showed that my ~/.bash* files did not exist any more! I frantically started looking at my $HOME to noticed that a number of small files, like my custom scripts directory, were missing. I don't know what else and how much more I have lost. Didn't I back up my entire home dir? Yeah, right.

I know, this is NOT what you expect and people will tell me this cannot happen. Unless I am trying one of the bleeding edge file systems. But I was on good old ext3. I did not find any hint about this in kernel messages. I tried googling for this, but this problem is very difficult to phrase and my attempts did not hit anything. I wonder whether anyone who reads this blog has hit such a problem or have any idea what might have happened. One more thing: I am NOT willing to try to recreate this problem ;-)

Scripts I use

These are a couple of scripts I use to convert files between media formats. The only advantage of using these is that I don't need to remember all the crazy command line options.

rm_to_wav.sh
--------------------
basename=`echo $1 |awk -F. '{print $1}'`
mplayer -cache 32 -ao pcm -ao pcm:file=$basename.wav $1


wav_to_mp3.sh
----------------------
basename=`echo $1 |awk -F. '{print $1}'`
lame -V2 $1 $basename.mp3


Usage:
-----------
rm_to_wav.sh filename.rm
wav_to_mp3.sh filename.wav

FOSS.in 2008

FOSS.in conference is over! As I mentioned in my previous post, I gave a talk there. What do I feel about how the event went?

First, the bad things.

This year's conference had an unique, unprecedented build up. It all started with this Atul's post. It turned out to be very controversial and it put off a lot of people, especially abroad. I am not guessing this. I met a few people at Linux Kongress this year, who personally told me that they felt unwelcome at FOSS.in this year and hence refrained from sending a talk proposal. The organizers provided some clarification towards the end of the year, but the damage had been done.

Next, the global economic meltdown meant finding money for sponsoring the event was going to be tough, because very few companies were willing to spend money on this. This meant low propaganda for the event, leading to much lower anticipation building up to the event. All this led to much smaller number of delegates this year. Someone who had been to FOSS.in 2007 would immediately recognize the difference.

Now the good things.

FOSS.in organizers did a lot of things right, especially as the conference approached. First, they corrected some of the misconceptions in the minds of people, especially with this post.

Secondly, they communicated effectively with the speakers to ensure the workout sessions, which was the most unique thing about this year's conference, were planned pretty well.

Third, they showed the openness to Linux kernel talks, thus alleviating one of the biggest complaints from my team at work. In fact they stepped back and let the people who know about kernel plan sessions related to this area.

They ensured that the conference ran smoothly by ensuring that a lot of little things were taken care of well. Food was good, biscuits served with tea were even better. Little things like running around and getting us more extension cords for workout sessions, ensuring that logistics at the conference were handled well go a long way in enhancing satisfaction in the minds of attendees. I also liked the "Show me the..." theme.

There was live streaming of talks from the main hall, which was another cool thing.

The talks themselves were pretty good, but I think they could have been better. I really enjoyed the closing note by Kalyan Varma. While his photos were obviously very good, it was clear that he had prepared a lot for this talk and it showed in the class his talk exhibited.

Finally, there were far too many good things about the conference than bad ones. The event was an overall success. Talks, workouts, logistics, everything was a success. Lower turnout compared to last year was expected, hence I can't say that was a failure either. I don't know what the organizers are thinking about FOSS.in 2009, but I hope they retain the format of this year and just polish up some of the rough edges. I hope the people who participated in FOSS.in 2008 will come back with much more enthusiasm next year and get their friends involved. The Linux kernel people will surely be more interested about the conference next year. I hope we will be able to advertise the event much better next year, which hopefully will bring in much more sponsorship money. This conference is surely one of the better organized FOSS conferences in the world, I hope it only gets better.

My talk at FOSS.in

Hey, I will be talking at FOSS.in today! The talk can be heard live online. Just point your media player to http://radioverve.com/foss.in.pls!

One of my best photos

I obviously have thousands of photos of her by now, but this one most deserves to be here on my blog as well.

My crazy thoughts

For lack of a better one, this blog post will go with this stupid title. These are some random thoughts that have run through my mind. Only when I tried to express them in writing did I realize how vague these thoughts are.

Lets say an air plane crashes somewhere in the world and 50 people die. Lets say another 50 people die in a train or bus accident. Guess which of these gets the maximum coverage in our news media?

Lets say 20 people die on a particular day in a bus accident in Bangalore. Let's say another 20 individuals die in various isolated (lets say, 10) accidents across Bangalore on the same day. Now guess which of these becomes the major news story in news papers and news channels and which doesn't?

Lets say 20 people die in a bomb blast in some city. On the same day, more people would have died due to reasons like deadly diseases in the same city. Which one becomes the 'breaking news' that evening? More US soldiers die in motorcycle accidents than in Iraq. While there is a huge hue and cry over the latter, the former hardly ever gets mentioned.

Let's consider another scenario. MNS activists beating up a North Indian in Mumbai is a much bigger news than dacoits breaking into a house in Mumbai, killing it's residents and running away with valuables. Isn't that strange? Hari has wondered why Article 355 was not imposed on Maharashtra Government because it did not protect the North Indians from miscreants. I wonder how different it is from protecting the locals from dacoits. If the purpose behind the crime determines it's significance, there are a number of such hate crimes which don't hog any limelight.

A techie doing anything, including committing suicide is a much bigger news than a non-techie doing it.

Well, I don't just blame the media for this. It is how most people think as well. A lot of people may think this is just normal. However, it intrigues me to know that the value of life (or death) depends on the mode in which it was lost and what the profession of the person was. The world is a strange place.

Photo from Deepavali

One of my better photos from this Deepavali. I was randomly exposing it for 2 seconds and I happened to catch this firework by luck. No doubt there is noise because it was at ISO200, but what else can you expect from a puny Canon A520? The view is from the terrace of my home, looking north towards BTM 2nd Stage.

Speed limit for tanks

Remember, if you drive your tank to Hamburg, please follow the speed limits! Yes, the German traffic cop won't mind if you drive a war tank right into the market street, as far as you are driving within speed limits. I wonder whether shooting at the building all around is allowed. But then, if I am really driving a tank, do I care?

PS: Some intense googling revealed that these are weight limits, not speed limits. It still doesn't make complete sense, but much better.

Car car car!!!

It was not as if I did not know about it, but still, the sheer percentage of high-end cars on the roads of Hamburg was impressive. If it was not a Mercedes, it would be an Audi or BMW or Skoda. Volkswagens were a dime a dozen, somewhat like the Alto on Indian roads. Most of the taxis were Mercedes and so were the police cars. There were very few Japanese or Korean cars to be found. The only American brand that I could easily sight was Ford. Unless you count Opel, of course.


However, not everyone in Hamburg can be rich. Hence I was bound to see some low-end cars as well. The ones that used to catch my attention were the ones sold in India. I first spotted a Suzuki Swift and then a Hyundai Getz. So the claim by these guys that these are global cars is kind of true.



Next, I found a Chevy Spark, named Matiz. Oh, so there are people who buy Chevy in this country.










But I was not ready for the next big surprise... I spotted.... a Hyundai Santro Xing. Yes, a Santro!! It was called "Atos Prime" here. Seeing the humble Santro rubbing shoulders with the likes of Alpha Romeos and Audis has increased my respect for my own Santro.

Funs of machine translation

Google may be one of the best at what they do, but even they cannot translate natural languages perfectly. This is fine most of the time, but leads to some hilarious bloopers once in a while. I saw a fine example of this a few days ago while I was researching about Germany. Take a look.

Original German text:
Wir möchten uns für Ihr Interesse an unserem Unternehmen bedanken und begrüßen SIe hier auf unseren Internetseiten.
Translation by Babelfish:
We would like to thank you and welcome for your interest in our enterprise they here on our Internet sites.
Translation by Google translate:
We apologize for your interest in our company to thank and welcome you here on our web pages.

Proof in the picture below.
P.S: After going on a trip, it is now so customary to blog about it, that it almost seems like a rule. Hence I am going to write a bit about my Germany trip in the coming days.

Linux Kongress

I will be speaking at the Linux Kongress conference next week. My talk is related to the real-time Linux kernel. This is the first time I will be visiting Germany and I am looking forward to it. Please wish me luck.

This is not fair!

No, not fair at all. Absolutely not. Just when I was wondering why newly joined employees in my office behave so differently from the way I used to behave back then, I see this article which says there is a generation gap between junior and senior students in the same college, who differ by just 2 years in age. I wonder what these kids would think of me... may be same as what I think about ancient Egyptian civilization.

2 years? Is that all it takes to create generation gap? It is as if the Orkut generation is different from the Facebook generation, which itself is ancient compared to the Twitter generation. What about people who started off with Yahoo Groups? Listen to me people, a generation is around 30 years. Or at least 20. Not 2. Okay? Do you listen?

Chitranna Chitranna

ನಾನು ಸಾಧಾರಣವಾಗಿ ಸುಮಧುರ, ಮಂದಗತಿಯ, ಉತ್ತಮ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯವಿರುವ ಹಾಡುಗಳನ್ನೇ ಕೇಳಲು ಇಷ್ಟ ಪಡುತ್ತೇನೆ. ಒಮ್ಮೊಮ್ಮೆ ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ತದ್ವಿರುದ್ಧವಾದ, 'ಗಲಾಟೆ' ತುಂಬಿರುವ ಹಾಡುಗಳೂ ಇಷ್ಟವಾಗುತ್ತವೆ. ಆದರೆ ಇಂಥಹ ಹಾಡುಗಳು ಬಹಳ ದಿನವೇನೂ favourite ಆಗಿ ಉಳಿಯುವುದಿಲ್ಲ. 'ಮುಂಗಾರು ಮಳೆ'ಯ ನಂತರ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಸಂಗೀತ ನಿರ್ದೇಶಕರು ಅದೇ 'ಫಾರ್ಮುಲ' ಅನುಸರಿಸಿ ಮಧುರ ಗೀತೆಗಳನ್ನು ನೀಡಲು ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸುತ್ತಿರುವುದರಿಂದ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ನನಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟ ಆಗುವ fast beats ಇರುವ ಹಾಡುಗಳೇ ಬಂದಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಆದರೆ ಕಳೆದ ವಾರದಿಂದ ಚಿತ್ರಾನ್ನ ಚಿತ್ರಾನ್ನ ಹಾಡು ನನ್ನ ಮನಸ್ಸನ್ನು ಹಿಡಿದಿಡುವಲ್ಲಿ ಯಶಸ್ವಿಯಾಗಿದೆ. ಇದರ ಟ್ಯೂನ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂಥರಾ ಆಕರ್ಷಣೆ ಇದೆ. ಎಲ್ಲಾ ರೇಡಿಯೋ ಸ್ಟೇಷನ್ ಗಳೂ ಈ ಹಾಡನ್ನು ದಿನಕ್ಕೆ ನೂರು ಸಲ ಹಾಕಿ ಇದರ ಮೇಲೆ ವಾಕರಿಕೆ ಬರುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡುವುದು ಗ್ಯಾರೆಂಟಿ. ಆದರೆ ಅಲ್ಲಿಯವರೆಗೆ ಈ 'different' ಹಾಡು ನನಗಿಷ್ಟ.

Aid for one-handed steering

Anyone who drives in Bangalore's peak hour traffic will be good at steering with just one hand. The left hand is busy with changing between 1st and 2nd gears. Unless of course you drive an automatic. If we are going to do one-handed steering, we might as well make it easy. Now-a-days these knobs that cling on to a side of the steering wheel are becoming popular. It somehow caught my fancy and I bought one.


The knob turns internally, making it super-easy to make any complex turn, even a sharp U-turn with just one hand. It is also useful on a straight road, because it makes steering much easier. So far, I have liked it. If you have been thinking about buying it, I suggest you go right ahead.

How not to place your advertisements

This was an example of not planning the placement of your newspaper advertisement properly.

On Page 23, there is this news:
On Page 24, some more about this topic:
And on Page 26, this advertisement:

Buying a mobile phone

It is that time again.... time to buy a mobile phone. My old cell phone is still alive, but it doesn't have much life left in it. It is a trusted Nokia 3230. It was a prized possession when I bought it in 2005. It was a fashion statement. Now, looking back, I cannot figure how a phone that is as slow as that (a full 45 second boot-up time + 15 seconds for menu to get activated) could become such a big success. This phone has absorbed a lot of physical impact, like falling and rolling from Savanadurga hill, being dropped to ground innumerable times and so on. It has bruises all over to show for it's adventures. However, what gravity could not do, water did. It fell in a wash-basin when the tap was on!

I am a really slow decision maker, so I may not buy another phone just yet. I am not really too much electronics-crazy. However, we males have this strange brain model that makes us want a gadget that we don't need. This phone has a speakerphone with sub-woofer and home theatre support? Wow! That phone runs Linux? Can I run bash on it and run my python scripts? Tri-band phone is a necessity even though I never carry my phone abroad. That sort of creature we males are. No wonder handset manufacturers love us!

Thankfully, reality strikes us when we look at the prices. 31 freaking K for that snazzy new touchscreen phone? If I were spending that sort of money I would expect to get a laptop, not a cellphone. 25K for that phone that syncs my e-mail to the phone? Oh... I don't really need to see my mail on my mobile.... Eventually you settle for something that is still more than what you need, but less than what you want.

I have looked at the specs of a few phones. I am looking at a range of phones from Nokia 3600 the Sony-Ericsson P1i. I wonder which one I end up buying eventually. And when.

Update: I got my trusted 3230 resurrected by spending Rs. 650 and convinced myself that it can do everything I need from a mobile phone for now.

Jharkhand (Part 2)

It must have been a while since I wrote 2 posts on consecutive days! Here is part 2 of my Jamshedpur trip highlights.

We went to Bistupur main road a couple of times. This is the Brigade Road of Jamshedpur. Pretty neat.

We were looking for a vegetarian restaurant and were directed to one on Bistupur main road (where else?). This happened to be the place known for South Indian food. However, the restaurant seemed to be run by a North Indian, hence we decided to do what I have learnt over the years: Eat the local food. By the time we got rotis and subji on our table, we looked around the hall and saw everyone... I mean literally every single customer in the restaurant... including the locals, sardars, huge families... was eating dosa. Wow, I am sure the restaurant staff were laughing their guts out because we ordered rotis in that restaurant. We too quickly corrected ourselves and switched to a dosa.

Oh, by the way, we were in Jamshedpur because we were visiting NIT Jamshedpur. It seemed like any other NIT that I have visited. Pretty good facilities, pretty good students, good experience. What surprised me was how far from the main road was this place. It seemed to be connected to the main road by narrow and bad roads. This being a pretty old institution, I am not sure why they did not build it closer to the main roads or provided wide enough roads. I suspect the roads were wide, but were encroached upon over the years.

On the day we were leaving Jharkhand, our train was at 6:15AM. When we came out of the hotel at 5:30, we were surprised to see the amount of sunlight. We had gone more northwards and eastwards from Bangalore and it was the summer in Northern hemisphere, so I was expecting early sunrise. However, I was surprised to see the number of people already on the road. The town seemed to be more active at 5:30 than Bangalore is at 7AM.

Our return journey was in a train, so we were not going to experience the roads again. A couple of things in the train reminded us again about the amount of impact naxals have in this area. As we entered our coach, we saw a commando - in full gear with a machine gun, strolling in it. Later, as the train passed through a certain area, they closed and locked all doors from inside and pulled down all the window shutters. Wow!

After watching more paddy fields, we were back in Kolkata.