The famed "approach road" from the rear glass of my car, as I left Vizag yet again on Dec 12, 2006. Probably one or two more trips home, and then township will no longer be home!
12.18.2006
Yet another goodbye..
The famed "approach road" from the rear glass of my car, as I left Vizag yet again on Dec 12, 2006. Probably one or two more trips home, and then township will no longer be home!
11.12.2006
the great escape
"Shatabdi express" runs as fast as trains can run in India. Given that almost all the train tracks are open for people and animals to walk over, it is not too uncommon for nasty accidents -- more often with people than animals I suppose: the latter seem to employ a better sense of judgement. A good example is this video. The couple just had to wait for probably 4-5 seconds, but no, the guy hops over the tracks and girl promptly follows. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
11.10.2006
at uds
I got the chance to volunteer at the ubuntu developers' summit today. It was pretty cool seeing all these guys discuss the future directions of probably the fastest growing linux platform in the recent past. Mark Shuttleworth even gave a talk yesterday, which I am sorry I missed. But looks like it was video taped and I am hoping to lay my hands on it soon.
10.24.2006
Finally!! Saved sessions in emacs
For a while I have been bothered by the fact that I have these multitude of buffers with two, three, four, or more windows with specified sizes in emacs and whenever I have to go home and work from there, I have to open up all those files.. so I was wondering if emacs had something like the firefox extension for saved sessions (which I believe I first saw on opera a few years back). Turns out that emacs does have it.. and believe me, its a gift!! Funnily, the GNU Emacs manual for the latest version does not seem to include this,... I had to find the manual for an old version to find out how this works. Anyways, without much further ado, here's the page explaining how it all works.
Leaving Nebraska
[Looking east on 168th and Pacific (10/22/2006 3:04pm)]Last weekend was my last as a resident of Nebraska.
I had mixed feelings: can't count the number of times I drove through this intersection hammered. Heck, Vishal even drove me home through this intersection once.
Here's one to all the good times. Glug.
A couple for Lincoln and UNL. Glug Glug.
And here's a few to the riverfront crowd. Glug Glug Glug Glug.....
10.06.2006
On our times
I was on a flight back to Omaha last weekend when I found a copy of the Oct 2 Newsweek in the seatback pocket. As is usual with most news these days, the ongoing wars in the middle east took up most of the space. But what caught my attention were 2 stories.
The first was about the resurgent militancy in Afghanistan and how after 5 years, things were actually getting more serious and nasty. But what really caught my eye was a chart that showed the amount of money being spent on the two wars and everything else surrounding them -- $540 billion. What was more ominous were the bars that signified the amount spent each year, and each bar since 2001 was increasingly higher than the previous. Can anyone count the number of better ways there are to spend $540 billion?
The second, more disturbing story was of two Vietnam war veterans, one of who served as a marine photographer. Both came back from that war with more mental damage than physical, but the marine was declared a 100% victim of post traumatic stress disorder. He came back to his wife and children and spent the next 20 years of his life getting in and out of psychiatric care. Finally, he started to attain a semblance of normalcy during the mid-nineties. But the wars in the middle-east, especially pictures from Iraq, brought his traumatic experiences back to fore and he was back in rehab. One afternoon, he called his old friend to come over and spend a few days together. His friend started off that evening but was tired and stopped at a motel for the night. That night, the marine woke up, hastily awakened his wife, pushed her out of the house, locked the door, and set himself on fire.
These new wars will ensure that there will be more survivors and sadder stories.
I read a lot about censorship in the middle-east, China, and even India. But I think the biggest act of censorship is actually happening right here -- in the US media. How many such stories are told on the 24 hour news channels and the primetime news bulletins? Not that they aren't happening, you just need to look really hard for them and the stories are all there,... sometimes on CSPAN or NPR, but that is it. It is as if people don't want to hear about the sadness that war brings.
People have somehow been sold the idea that the best way to tackle terrorism is by letting thousands die and let tens of thousands of others get maimed.
I was reminded of Howard Zinn quoting someone in Original Zinn -- his conversations with David Barsamian (a book from which I am going to quote extensively and which I really ask everyone to buy and read even if you may not agree with what I write here). He says that we are all just engineers, businessmen, plumbers, and doctors; few of us if any, are really citizens anymore. Citizens, he says, have the responsibility of keeping their governments under check, make sure that their leaders remain accountable to the decisions they have been elected to take, and organize and rebel when bad decisions are made.
What moved me beyond anything was the Afterword. Barsemian included the full text of the speech Zinn gave at Spelman College in May 2005. Zinn was fired from Spelman in 1963, where he was chair of the history department, for "insubordination." He had supported his students with whom he had been active in the movement against racial segregation. In May 2005, he was invited back by Spelman to receive an honorary degree and to give the commencement address.
Here are parts of that speech (I hope will motivate at least some of who read this to buy and read the whole book):
The first was about the resurgent militancy in Afghanistan and how after 5 years, things were actually getting more serious and nasty. But what really caught my eye was a chart that showed the amount of money being spent on the two wars and everything else surrounding them -- $540 billion. What was more ominous were the bars that signified the amount spent each year, and each bar since 2001 was increasingly higher than the previous. Can anyone count the number of better ways there are to spend $540 billion?
The second, more disturbing story was of two Vietnam war veterans, one of who served as a marine photographer. Both came back from that war with more mental damage than physical, but the marine was declared a 100% victim of post traumatic stress disorder. He came back to his wife and children and spent the next 20 years of his life getting in and out of psychiatric care. Finally, he started to attain a semblance of normalcy during the mid-nineties. But the wars in the middle-east, especially pictures from Iraq, brought his traumatic experiences back to fore and he was back in rehab. One afternoon, he called his old friend to come over and spend a few days together. His friend started off that evening but was tired and stopped at a motel for the night. That night, the marine woke up, hastily awakened his wife, pushed her out of the house, locked the door, and set himself on fire.
These new wars will ensure that there will be more survivors and sadder stories.
I read a lot about censorship in the middle-east, China, and even India. But I think the biggest act of censorship is actually happening right here -- in the US media. How many such stories are told on the 24 hour news channels and the primetime news bulletins? Not that they aren't happening, you just need to look really hard for them and the stories are all there,... sometimes on CSPAN or NPR, but that is it. It is as if people don't want to hear about the sadness that war brings.
People have somehow been sold the idea that the best way to tackle terrorism is by letting thousands die and let tens of thousands of others get maimed.
I was reminded of Howard Zinn quoting someone in Original Zinn -- his conversations with David Barsamian (a book from which I am going to quote extensively and which I really ask everyone to buy and read even if you may not agree with what I write here). He says that we are all just engineers, businessmen, plumbers, and doctors; few of us if any, are really citizens anymore. Citizens, he says, have the responsibility of keeping their governments under check, make sure that their leaders remain accountable to the decisions they have been elected to take, and organize and rebel when bad decisions are made.
What moved me beyond anything was the Afterword. Barsemian included the full text of the speech Zinn gave at Spelman College in May 2005. Zinn was fired from Spelman in 1963, where he was chair of the history department, for "insubordination." He had supported his students with whom he had been active in the movement against racial segregation. In May 2005, he was invited back by Spelman to receive an honorary degree and to give the commencement address.
Here are parts of that speech (I hope will motivate at least some of who read this to buy and read the whole book):
My hope is that whatever you do to make a good life for yourself -- whether you become a teacher, or social worker, or business person, or lawyer, or poet, or scientist -- you will devote part of your life to making this a better world for your children, for all children. My hope is that your generation will demand an end to war, that your generation will do something that has not yet been done in history and wipe out the national boundaries that separate us from other human beings on this earth.
Recently I saw a photo on the front page of the New York Times, which I cannot get out of my mind. It showed ordinary Americans sitting on chairs on the southern border of Arizona, facing Mexico. They were holding guns and they were looking for Mexicans who might be trying to cross the border into the United States. This was horrifying to me -- the realization that in this twenty-first century of what we call civilization we have carved up what we claim is one world into two hundred artificially created entities we call "nations" and are ready to kill anyone who crosses a boundary.
Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it leads to murder -- one of the greatest evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred? ....
... My hope is that you will not be content just to be successful in the way that our society measures success; that you will not obey the rules when the rules are unjust; that you will act out the courage that I know is in you. ...
Another of my students at Spelman, Alice Walker, .... wrote in one of her first published poems:It is true --I am not suggesting that you go that far, but you can help to break down barriers, of race certainly but also of nationalism; that you do what you can -- you don't have to do something heroic, just something, to join the millions of others who will just do something because all of those somethings, at certain points in history, come together and make the world better.
I've always loved
the daring
ones
Like the black young
man
Who tried
to crash
All barriers
at once,
wanted to
swim
At a white
beach (in Alabama)
Nude.
That marvelous African American writer Zora Neale Hurston, who wouldn't do what white people wanted her to do, who wouldn't;t do what black people wanted her to do, who insisted on being herself, said that her mother advised her: Leap for the sun -- you may not reach it, but at least you will get off the ground.
By being here today, you are already standing on your toes, ready to leap. My hope for you is a good life.
-- Howard Zinn.
9.28.2006
what do i do for a living?
I received an email from a colleague today. It talked about software's annoying characteristic of deteriorating over time, across changes. This, he wrote, was as much a part of the business of creating software as are computers. He then went on to stress the importance of developer testing aka unit testing. He mentioned how developers spend less than 20% of their time writing unit tests according to a recent industrywide survey. He encouraged, in fact, insisted that developers write unit tests that ensure coverage of all changes and additions, and review older unit tests for regression.
The key to being ahead of the competition, he wrote, was being nimble, and that meant having short release cycles. But if software was not well-tested, if developers did not write unit tests, or there were no automated regression tests, developers would be afraid of making changes. Even if they did dare to make changes, those would take longer to get tested, or worse, lead to failures.
How logical! Being a testing freak, I was ecstatic to read someone else speak the same words I have been crying out loud during my whole professional life.
But that was just the cake; here's the icing. The colleague who wrote the email was the vp of engineering & research.
For anyone wondering what I do here, this should quell any doubts about its importance!
The key to being ahead of the competition, he wrote, was being nimble, and that meant having short release cycles. But if software was not well-tested, if developers did not write unit tests, or there were no automated regression tests, developers would be afraid of making changes. Even if they did dare to make changes, those would take longer to get tested, or worse, lead to failures.
How logical! Being a testing freak, I was ecstatic to read someone else speak the same words I have been crying out loud during my whole professional life.
But that was just the cake; here's the icing. The colleague who wrote the email was the vp of engineering & research.
For anyone wondering what I do here, this should quell any doubts about its importance!
9.23.2006
View from Vancouver
I flew back from Vancouver today, having gotten my work visa renewed. It was a breeze. Somehow I have started to really believe in the system -- that if you do everything right, you do end up being given the benefit of doubt inspite of the current xenophobic undercurrents.
This is the second time I was in Vancouver, and this time, the city revealed itself quite a bit more than my previous visit. (Well, I have to admit that it is the other way round -- this time, I actually took the time to explore, unlike the last time, when I was there with Keerat who was preoccupied worrying about getting deported because of I had lost my previous passport!)
Vancouver has its share of shady alleyways, but what was chara
cteristic was that one moment, you are in a thriving business district, the next, in a rundown alley, and then again back into the hustle, all within a few blocks. I actually dared to mark the transitions by retracing my steps for a few blocks, but somehow never figured exactly where they occurred. I should say though that even the roughest parts of the town weren't all that bad; most people seemed to mind their own business and for the most part I think I was invisible. I think I walked close to 15-20 miles in the 3 evenings that I was there -- it may not sound like much to a seasoned traveller, but it was enough for me to start appreciating a bicycle.
What I find most interesting when I visit a new city is pick up the local newspaper and find out what is making the headlines. Splashed across the front pages of a seemingly popular daily was the revelation that the average number of vehicles on the greater Vancouver area has increased by 28,000 per year, every year in the last 5 years. Various local luminaries and gentry alike had something to say about how much more of a pain it was to commute to work everyday. (I have no idea how the former group came to this conclusion.) The average commute time seems to have increased from half an hour 15 years back to 2 hours, which did not suprise me, but the reporter seemed that later piece of revelation with a gasp. Another reason I like to follow the local news is that you end up running into this surprising little facts. How many people knew that Vancouver is hosting the 2010 Olympics? I guess that is hardly a little fact by any measure and secondly, I may be more ignorant of current events than I thought; nevertheless there was a fair amount of literature on the trials and tribulations of the local populace resulting from preparations for that event. The newspaper seemed to ponder extensively, even sounding a tad disappointed, that there was little opposition from environmental, social, and trade-union groups about the adverse impact on the city following an event of such magnitude. Another fact that I did not know, which the reporter seemed to earnestly propose, was that the City of Denver bailed out of hosting the Olympics in the 80's! Anyway, the conclusion of that cover feature was that most of the unions and community welfare groups were "bought" and that everyone was planning to take a vacation during the 4-5 week of expected mayhem.
The other thing that I found interesting was ofcourse the nightlife. To be fair, I expected a city like Vancouver to have a respectable amount of activity, but even then I was unprepared for what I saw. I had to catch a flight out early in the morning, so I dozed off at midnight and woke up dizzy and hazy at 3 a.m. To my surprise, the street was as lively as it was during mid afternoon. There were a whole bunch of people milling around, although I suspect most of them didn't know that, and the metro buses were actively ferrying people to and away from downtown. It was surely a world away for someone like me who has until recently called quaint little Omaha, Neb home.
Being the fanatic for Indian food that I am, I found a nice little Punjabi food joint called the "Flavours of India" or something similar; the mom-and-pop restaurant was clean, and the food delicious. I asked for the "spicy" version on my first day there (yes, I went there at least once on all three days) and was myself startled by the the heat! Food was pleasantly good wherever I went, and never had a problem finding a vegetarian meal (yeah yeah, go veggies!) Coffee joints were everywhere and Starbucks was everywhere. There was in fact an intersection on Robson and Thurlow I think, where there were two Starbucks joints! Wasn't sure what to make out of that. I did my best to avoid the big coffee chains; instead, I would highly recommend a Blenz Coffee House that is on Robson and something (south of Thurlow) that has free internet access and freshly brewed coffee into the wee hours. Another reason for my moderate dislike towards Starbucks is that they charge for internet while right next door, a local joint is giving away free wireless internet just so that people could be there: eg., Blue Moutain Cafe on near Howe/Nelson: the young asian hosts were very friendly and the guy actually made me a very nice panini. I think I drank 4 cups of coffee while using the internet there just so that I remained in the good books of the hosts! It was very good coffee though.
Walking in the business district during the daytime was a pleasure. It was very New York like, but a lot more cleaner and cozier. The imposing Museum of Art seemed to be a favorite hang out place. They were in fact unloading a huge mural of sorts when I was walking past, almost the length of an 18 wheeler, and I was surprised to find security personnel in dark suites and ear plugs watching everyone go by -- in fact, I had to make an about turn soon after I crossed the area and sure enough, got an long look from one of the security people who looked very much like the sour old lady who screams a lot in "Austin Powers: The Spy..." movie.
Ofcourse, the waterfront - Canada Bay - is a must see. Sea planes landing and taking off in the bay with steep, green, cloud-covered mountains in the background is a sight to see. However like most cities, you have to be right at the waterfront to get a glimpse of anything, given that most of the prime property at along the shores is crammed with sky-scrapers.
On my last evening, I went into what seemed to be the Canadian version of Barnes and Noble called Chapters. I fully expected to see the same covers on the store front and aisles, but heavens.. was pleasantly suprised! Most US bookstores are filled with endless volumes on the merits of the current wars more often than not and memoirs of anywho filling up the aisles for a day or two. But I thought the Canadians had a healthy appetite for looking at things differently from their next-door cousins. The current affairs section prominently featured several titles on the ongoing wars in the middle east with catch phrases ranging from measured skepticism to outright frustration. What I found especially interesting, and which I decided to buy is "Original Zinn - Conversations on History and Politics" by David Barsamian. I have never read Zinn but heard of him enough to pick up the book and must say that it has been a while since I have felt so drawn to a book that I finish reading half of it in a day. Barsemain's queries such as, would the United States have invaded Iraq if it grew grapefruit and bananas, and Zinn's characterization of the US action in the middle east as the savage wars of peace are questions and responses that are barely seen on US media. The book is peppered with references to similar minded authors that I plan to make a note of and start reading.
Overall, I was just surprised how much difference there was between what the Canadians and the Americans read. Maybe that topic should be for another day.
This is the second time I was in Vancouver, and this time, the city revealed itself quite a bit more than my previous visit. (Well, I have to admit that it is the other way round -- this time, I actually took the time to explore, unlike the last time, when I was there with Keerat who was preoccupied worrying about getting deported because of I had lost my previous passport!)
Vancouver has its share of shady alleyways, but what was chara
cteristic was that one moment, you are in a thriving business district, the next, in a rundown alley, and then again back into the hustle, all within a few blocks. I actually dared to mark the transitions by retracing my steps for a few blocks, but somehow never figured exactly where they occurred. I should say though that even the roughest parts of the town weren't all that bad; most people seemed to mind their own business and for the most part I think I was invisible. I think I walked close to 15-20 miles in the 3 evenings that I was there -- it may not sound like much to a seasoned traveller, but it was enough for me to start appreciating a bicycle.What I find most interesting when I visit a new city is pick up the local newspaper and find out what is making the headlines. Splashed across the front pages of a seemingly popular daily was the revelation that the average number of vehicles on the greater Vancouver area has increased by 28,000 per year, every year in the last 5 years. Various local luminaries and gentry alike had something to say about how much more of a pain it was to commute to work everyday. (I have no idea how the former group came to this conclusion.) The average commute time seems to have increased from half an hour 15 years back to 2 hours, which did not suprise me, but the reporter seemed that later piece of revelation with a gasp. Another reason I like to follow the local news is that you end up running into this surprising little facts. How many people knew that Vancouver is hosting the 2010 Olympics? I guess that is hardly a little fact by any measure and secondly, I may be more ignorant of current events than I thought; nevertheless there was a fair amount of literature on the trials and tribulations of the local populace resulting from preparations for that event. The newspaper seemed to ponder extensively, even sounding a tad disappointed, that there was little opposition from environmental, social, and trade-union groups about the adverse impact on the city following an event of such magnitude. Another fact that I did not know, which the reporter seemed to earnestly propose, was that the City of Denver bailed out of hosting the Olympics in the 80's! Anyway, the conclusion of that cover feature was that most of the unions and community welfare groups were "bought" and that everyone was planning to take a vacation during the 4-5 week of expected mayhem.
The other thing that I found interesting was ofcourse the nightlife. To be fair, I expected a city like Vancouver to have a respectable amount of activity, but even then I was unprepared for what I saw. I had to catch a flight out early in the morning, so I dozed off at midnight and woke up dizzy and hazy at 3 a.m. To my surprise, the street was as lively as it was during mid afternoon. There were a whole bunch of people milling around, although I suspect most of them didn't know that, and the metro buses were actively ferrying people to and away from downtown. It was surely a world away for someone like me who has until recently called quaint little Omaha, Neb home.Being the fanatic for Indian food that I am, I found a nice little Punjabi food joint called the "Flavours of India" or something similar; the mom-and-pop restaurant was clean, and the food delicious. I asked for the "spicy" version on my first day there (yes, I went there at least once on all three days) and was myself startled by the the heat! Food was pleasantly good wherever I went, and never had a problem finding a vegetarian meal (yeah yeah, go veggies!) Coffee joints were everywhere and Starbucks was everywhere. There was in fact an intersection on Robson and Thurlow I think, where there were two Starbucks joints! Wasn't sure what to make out of that. I did my best to avoid the big coffee chains; instead, I would highly recommend a Blenz Coffee House that is on Robson and something (south of Thurlow) that has free internet access and freshly brewed coffee into the wee hours. Another reason for my moderate dislike towards Starbucks is that they charge for internet while right next door, a local joint is giving away free wireless internet just so that people could be there: eg., Blue Moutain Cafe on near Howe/Nelson: the young asian hosts were very friendly and the guy actually made me a very nice panini. I think I drank 4 cups of coffee while using the internet there just so that I remained in the good books of the hosts! It was very good coffee though.
Walking in the business district during the daytime was a pleasure. It was very New York like, but a lot more cleaner and cozier. The imposing Museum of Art seemed to be a favorite hang out place. They were in fact unloading a huge mural of sorts when I was walking past, almost the length of an 18 wheeler, and I was surprised to find security personnel in dark suites and ear plugs watching everyone go by -- in fact, I had to make an about turn soon after I crossed the area and sure enough, got an long look from one of the security people who looked very much like the sour old lady who screams a lot in "Austin Powers: The Spy..." movie.Ofcourse, the waterfront - Canada Bay - is a must see. Sea planes landing and taking off in the bay with steep, green, cloud-covered mountains in the background is a sight to see. However like most cities, you have to be right at the waterfront to get a glimpse of anything, given that most of the prime property at along the shores is crammed with sky-scrapers.
On my last evening, I went into what seemed to be the Canadian version of Barnes and Noble called Chapters. I fully expected to see the same covers on the store front and aisles, but heavens.. was pleasantly suprised! Most US bookstores are filled with endless volumes on the merits of the current wars more often than not and memoirs of anywho filling up the aisles for a day or two. But I thought the Canadians had a healthy appetite for looking at things differently from their next-door cousins. The current affairs section prominently featured several titles on the ongoing wars in the middle east with catch phrases ranging from measured skepticism to outright frustration. What I found especially interesting, and which I decided to buy is "Original Zinn - Conversations on History and Politics" by David Barsamian. I have never read Zinn but heard of him enough to pick up the book and must say that it has been a while since I have felt so drawn to a book that I finish reading half of it in a day. Barsemain's queries such as, would the United States have invaded Iraq if it grew grapefruit and bananas, and Zinn's characterization of the US action in the middle east as the savage wars of peace are questions and responses that are barely seen on US media. The book is peppered with references to similar minded authors that I plan to make a note of and start reading.
Overall, I was just surprised how much difference there was between what the Canadians and the Americans read. Maybe that topic should be for another day.
9.19.2006
7.02.2006
Anyone see me?
For some reason, it has taken me a while to embrace the (seeming) blog revolution. The question that pops up is, "who would read about me?" I was listening to NPR or some other radio station the other day and heard someone talk about the dawn of the video tape. They were comparing it to the initial days of the video camera; when anyone with anything to show would tape themselves and try to sell them through some channel (I don't remember how.) Soon after, people just got bored of watching other people publish their idiosyncrasies. Maybe that is how blogs would become!
But then, I also read about how blogs have revolutionized closed but tech savvy societies like China, where there is pretty much a socio-cultural revolution riding on the popularity of blogs.
Wherever we may end up with blogs, it seems safe to say that it is not showing signs of waning any time soon. So here I am jumping on to the web log bandwagon.
Solong..
P.S. Quantum is cool, eh? I guess I am trying to manifest by high school fascination with physics through a web log!!
But then, I also read about how blogs have revolutionized closed but tech savvy societies like China, where there is pretty much a socio-cultural revolution riding on the popularity of blogs.
Wherever we may end up with blogs, it seems safe to say that it is not showing signs of waning any time soon. So here I am jumping on to the web log bandwagon.
Solong..
P.S. Quantum is cool, eh? I guess I am trying to manifest by high school fascination with physics through a web log!!
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