A renewed perspective of Education: A few good Professors

I am attempting to crystallize my non-technical learning after 3-ish semesters of a Master's program. My main motivation to do this is to contrast my opinions and ideas with an earlier post which was written while I was working after my Bachelor's. I hope to revisit this and learn my motivations a few years later. I hope my experiences as a Teaching Assistant have also led to a few "other side of the fence" views.

I am going to organize the post into what I feel are a few components of a good learning experience.

a) An education system that races to the bottom has a hard time producing excellence. The most important realization I had was that the very act of expecting the impossible and having it delivered is how things should work. I remember a Professor of mine saying that year after year they increase the difficulty on Labs hoping that some year students complain, every year the students beat expectations. The particular assignment here was writing a library that performs certain computations in as few operations as possible, one year a student broke the scoreboard (the highest possible score) by using Vector instructions, another year a student manipulated float instructions to do faster integer ops and so on. Essentially the course staff are constantly playing catch up to how good the students are, they do this by leaving room to learn themselves.

Another important feature of this process is that the course staff never says something is hard, once the expectations are set that a goal is feasible, human beings find a way. The context in which we view a problem becomes important. If everyone around you is racing to find a better solution and the challenge itself is by no means trivial, it automatically forces intense learning. If a student ever feels like they are exceeding expectations, they stop.

b) Creating a problem that requires creativity is much, much harder than the problem itself. Consider an Assignment, lets take a CS course to be more precise, the assignment needs to adhere to these goals:

• It needs to be non-trivial, as hard as possible.
• It needs to provide a vast design space.
• It needs to have an evaluation scheme that recognizes and rewards that creativity.
• Fostering competition among the students is a good property.
• It needs to be interesting and fun!
• Providing learning in other aspects apart from the problem itself (team skills, tools, dealing with tradeoffs and failure).

This stuff is hard, really HARD to come up with. An instructor needs to be steps ahead of all participants. If the problem is simply hard, but has no way of acknowledging a kickass solution, there will never be a race to find the solutions. All these things need to be perfectly balanced. If you see a well executed assignment, there are some insanely smart people behind that.

c) A level playing field is extremely important. If a student ever feels that pure hard work is insufficient or not correlated to his/her performance, the mirage immediately evaporates, there is no recovery from that. A course needs to be designed with rules, a well thought out deviation policy and it needs to constantly learn from its mistakes.  If a course ever tolerates cheating or unfair advantages, the damage is permanent. Every decision needs to be made keeping in mind all students.

d) The goals of education are always towards the betterment of, well, everything. The instructors wield control over what the students end up liking and doing. It is important that instructors are aware of this and working towards it.

My takeaway from the "meta" aspect of the college experience is a renewed confidence in traditional learning, an understanding of why education needs the smartest people to gravitate towards education to complete the loop and a much required lesson in thinking about thinking.

UT2004 Linux - Internet Grayed out

At long last I got my hands on UT2004 (Steam Summer Sale!), and I wanted to play on ubuntu 12, it finally worked (no audio still, working on that, will update) (the guide I used as a base)

1. Install the game on Wine
2. Get the CDKEY from ("wine regedit" on the terminal) /HKEY_LOCAL_SYSTEM/Software/Unrea*/CDKEY
3. mv ~/.wine/drive_c//steamapps/common/ ~/UT2004/
4. Download and extract the patch, and exctract it to ~/UT2004, it will ask to replace a bunch of files
5. Add ubuntu universe repository to /etc/apt/sources.list "deb http://ubuntu.mirror.cambrium.nl/ubuntu/ hardy main universe"
6. sudo apt-get install libsdc++5
7. cd ~/UT2004/System
8. ./ut2004-bin-amd64
9. If there are any dependencies resolve them following this guide

 Now when I started the game under "Join Game", "Internet" was grayed out, so I did this

1. sudo vi /etc/nsswitch.conf
2. in the "hosts:" line move dns to arrange the line like this "hosts: file dns " 

After this it worked fine. Hope this helped.

The Colossus

Burned and broken,
Twisted and trampled,
The blaze of a thousand suns around him,
the soil reeked of a madness untold

The colossi circled,
it was time,
Conform, they told him,
Pulling at cords only they knew

Comforts and instincts of a lifetime simmered below the surface,
The warm lap of acceptance lay right there,
The hearth, the bed, the porridge seemed enchanting, soporific almost,
A lifetime of lasting rest lay before him

But something inextinguishable had sparked,
Colossus, what are you, if not just rocks and rust,
You are merely the result of slow decay,
If being human meant being thus, then damn god and his creations

The sword shone, and cut through rock,
In one swift motion the cord was cut,
He lay there unable to accept what he had done,
All that remained was a cold barren land

After what seemed like centuries,
A thought germinated,
The fear of the unknown evaporated,
Giving way to an unquenchable thirst

And he picked up the sabre, and set off

Remodelling Education in India

I have written and thought a lot about the greatest problem plaguing India today, the great educational divide, the fact that we expose our children, our greatest resource, to inadequate, or worse no education. This list covers the crux of the issue:

1. Our education system is designed to give students information, and that's it, we don't tell them what to do with it, or how it helps make the world a better place, this approach should change to giving them base information, a foundation, and then teaching them how to source more information and most importantly how to apply it. For example when the student is faced with Calculus, the first question he should ask is "Why should I learn it, and where does it apply?", rather than "What weight age does it carry, and how to solve this exercise?"
2. The above point applies to those students who are already in school and whose parents consider it important enough to send their kids to school, however there we ignore a vast majority of the population, of parents who look at their kids as extra labor during harvest season. Here we can use the power of incentives to tweak the situation.
3. The third major issue is teachers, the teachers who are currently in our system are born out of the same system, and will continue to institute what they think the system should be, which is sub-optimal.

 A new and exciting development in India is the UIDAI scheme, which aims to electronically link every citizen with a bank account and his/her biometric data, at the core of things, what we have is an inalienable and incorruptible way of linking every human with a bank account. The scheme has its limitations, which might be the result of bad implementations on the field, but in the end they have 110 million numbers issued (1 in 10 people in India, the number still shocks me). This is Ingredient 1.

Now we have huge invest-able fund in India, in the form of NSCs (National Saving Certificates) and the Public Provident Fund. If we look at humans as investments (I know that is a very heartless way of looking at things), an amazing investment opportunity is our children. Imagine a child's parents are given Rs. 300 per month the child attends school, and this amount is to be paid back by automatic contributions to the NSC fund and the PPF once the child earns. The education is of course free. Now, the gaping hole will be cheaters, parents who enroll fictitious children and send their real children just for attendance (as happens in the mid-day meal scheme). And of course the middle men, now this is where Ingredient 1 comes into play, we have an incorruptible way of dispensing funds to parents (straight to their bank accounts, which are accessed bio-metrically). To prevent the parents cheating, the child has to take weekly standard tests (else the funds will be cut off), and his\her performance will determine the increment\decrement in funds, as well as the teachers salary. So here the teacher has a strong motive to ensure his\her class performs well, and the parents have an incentive to keep their children learning.

The first problem is closely linked to the third, because the teachers teach the subjects a particular way, the way they were taught, we solve the third problem partially in the above paragraph, the standard tests, the tests will be designed along practical lines. For Example, when teaching the area of circles, we can have a word problem which involves tree rings, we can cover percentage growth as well as geometry in this case. These tests will be designed by psychologists (they can closely mirror the PISA tests). Another area they can be tested is their ability to source information, they can be asked a question on Organic Chemistry and given an internet enabled device and asked to search for the answers and formulate them from blocks of information. And since we linked the teacher's incentives with performance, automatically the teacher teaches to equip them with this information.

Catharsis

Wander through the mists I must,
Not knowing that which all know,
Her icy breath upon my neck,
Chased and hunted through the fog

Pure rage engulfs, as the icy shards close,
A catharsis is nigh, says the banshee,
For you are stripped of all the superfluous,
You now lie naked before me and yourself

The revelation strikes,
All the know is meaningless without self examination,
For we are not merely vessels or vassals,
we are ephemeral clouds of consciousness

A consciousness born of senses,
To rise above the ashes,
And smell the burning past,
The amalgam seeps, breaking form

The sphere shatters,
All logic breaks, the spinning top falls,
Her cruel laugh pierces the icy winds,
Winds so cold, all that remains is me

A sweeping calm spreads across the fire and ice,
An eerie calm, while the echoes fade
You are reborn, anew

The Education Divide: A call to arms

I have followed PISA scores in the past, India has never participated in PISA before, when I heard Barack Obama stating that Chinese students are beating Americans at math, science and reading, I always assumed Indians would too, after all don't we have millions of students appearing for competitive exams each year, don't we all study nights to become good "engineers", as mummy and daddy want?

PISA is an international forum for assessment in math, reading and science (I checked out the sample questions, they are quite simple with no cultural bias, so those claiming cultural biases can keep their mum), PISA is given a large sample space by the government of a country, after which they randomly select schools in that region to administer the standard test. Traditionally US has finished somewhere in the middle, beaten by most other first world countries and China and few other Asian  countries (notably Japan).

 "An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will." 
-Thomas Jefferson

Education is paramount to keeping the progress in India on track, I already had a bad opinion of our generation (based on the observation of a larger non-university set), after looking at the PISA scores I feel like a curtain was cruelly lifted and the world view I saw was very far removed from the reality. I feel enraged that our students are deliberately kept in the dark through means like vernacular learning, bad teachers and inadequate funding. I have subtly pointed out in past posts that languages spoken by smaller groups of people across the world need to be eradicated, and a universal standard language needs to be adopted, this will standardize all channels of communication. These results are a huge reason to do so.

These results were taken from Tamil Nadu and Himachal pradesh, 5000 students from english medium schools sat for the tests, now the problem is that most states switch to english as a medium of instruction only after primary school or middle schools, and the state governments encourage this as they get a voter base fiercly divided on linguistic lines, basically brainwashing them from primary school. As a result of this when these students facesay science and history in english, they are baffled, and this leads to de-motivation and poor performance and will result in stunted academics, as the tests show.

A simple solution to this problem is to universalize the medium of instruction.

This issue should be of paramount importance, pushing aside middle-class non-issues such as the Lokpal Bill, the country needs to get enraged and fast, because as we speak our next generation of half-baked engineers and politicians is being eduated to be as bad as we are. 

The Power of Mortality

Steve Jobs in his Stanford address mentions that one of the most powerful tools he uses to get things done is, ponder over death, the realization that we are all here temporarily has the amazing power to clear away the mundane. I believe in everyone's life there comes a time when they realize that they are nothing but frail pieces of matter that will dissolve. This can be brought upon by a near death experience or by the death of a loved one, or the realization simply strikes. At this point you can take two paths, ignore the event and push the thought out of your life, and resume with the routine, or you can pause and meditate over this fact. Most people choose the former, I decide to experiment with the latter.

My observations were, first there is a feeling of extreme hopelessness, and perhaps anger at that hopelessness and a strong desire to forget about it. This phase can severely disrupt activities as it will inevitably lead to the question "What's the point?". This is followed an urgent need to get as much done as possible (in pursuit of an imaginary bucket list perhaps), this can last weeks and will lead to decisions which will be completely out of character. The third phase is reflection, which is that you will reflect upon and regret many of your actions (especially in the distant past), at this point popular wisdom will instruct us not to regret, move on and live in the present (and so forth), however I am of the opinion that this is a great fallacy, as the ability to regret is one of the fundamental things that make us human, not feeling regret is a sure sign of psychopathy, when we feel regret, we are feeding the positive loop of not repeating actions that have bad consequences for the people they affect (including oneself), and may also provide a form of closure.

The reflection moves on to analyzing important people in one's life, one's parents, one's relatives,one's friends and so forth, followed by a desire to reach out and right past wrongs, help people, and reassure oneself that one is not alone in this cold dark universe. This has a positive on both parties, as it is a back-stroke for the ponderer and a reminder to those being analyzed that they too are not alone. After this is the most important phase, acceptance, acceptance of one's finiteness, of one's goals, aspirations, relationships, and mortality. This will result in inner peace and harmony. And then the ponderer can begin using this acceptance to get things moving.

Whenever we are faced with a decision, or a task, we can always pause and reflect, this will automatically clear the choices which are not ideal, and lead to optimum solutions. Basically enable us to lead fuller lives and grant meaning to our actions.

The tin-man's fallacy

barren barks, leaves fall,
sadness I do not see,
New beginnings all around me, a stolen stare, a nervous glance,
to observe, to understand, to articulate,
while the cold wind kindles a long expunged fire deep within

the tin man quickly fades,
making way for a new beginning,
this I know not, but fear it I must, as it is new,
stone walls built over millennia come crashing,
pessimistic rational arguments break

we debated this remember,
the meaning of life is nought,we concluded,
efficiency must triumph over humanity, logic will prevail,
for long I have sparred with you, found a system that enables me to function,
mirroring a laugh, observing loss to understand sadness,
dismissing tears as the great human fallacy, obstacles in the way of progress

all those debates, the soul searching, the conclusions, the rational system broke,
for the tin man fades, giving way to the human,
tin man, I now understand an embrace, compassion, humanity,
they cannot be rationally expressed,
for that is their very essence

in this cold, logical world,
a beginning and an end

Facebook Timeline: A Lifebook? And how to view your timeline now!

The internet is buzzing with posts about the new Facebook feature, timeline, first of all what is it? Timeline is a chronological ordering of all your activities on facebook (and more, more on that later). But isn't that what the wall is for, the problem with the wall is that it is very current, a month old post is lost to the sands of time (unless you go on clicking the more posts button). Also the wall only shows what you post and what people post about you, so if you are the kind of person who updates their status once a month then it will be impossible to gloss over what happened on your wall. The timeline solves this with new kinds of posts, such as significant events, leaving a job, joining school, breaking an arm are some examples. This gives the whole thing a very organized chronicaly feel.

I was recently reading a book called "Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything", the book describes a state of mind which everyone has experienced, loss of memory because of consistently repetitive days, days which meld into one another completely, same lunch, same people, same routine (what we commonly call a rut). The author says that the best way out of this is to surround oneself with unique and new activities everyday, for the sole purpose of generating new memories, even simple changes like taking an unexpected walk can hasten this process, this leads to the formation of a mental rolodex of memories which are ordered chronologically, so you would be immediately able to recall last month with all the new things you did. Timeline builds on this and allow you tangibly create a list of all significant stuff you did for all posterity (of course you can hide posts). You can at an instant glance at all the fun weekends you had based on the pictures and events, how many new people you met. You can drill this down to individual posts, or take a high level view, looking at all the graduations, the location changes, the jobs, the relationships all beautifully arranged in a timeline. Its as though you have a personal historian.

When I first opened my timeline I was shocked to realize how much I had forgotten about how many things, I had forgotten so much, and looking at it all at once brought about a kind of "life flashing before your eyes" feeling (the kind people describe after a near death experience), it was a shocker, and all at once my mental rolodex was spinning recollecting everything. Yes there are privacy issues, but the sheer awesomeness of seeing such an arrangement of your life as though from a third person was amazing. I can see this really catching on.

Now how can you see your timeline before the official rollout on October 1st, 2011. Follow these steps:

1. Type developer in the fb search bar, go to the first link.
2. Grant permissions, click create an app.
3. Create any app (give any name) and click next.
4. Once the app is created click open graph and follow the prompts.
5. Go to your homepage and you will see an invite to try out timeline.

Biostar Board: Two devices one IDE port

Gist: If all BIOS option and all configurations in the 40 Pin and 80 Pin cables fail, try using the jumpers.

I got a Biostar N68S3B for a HTPC which I wanted to build with very old hardware, to cut a long story short, I had two IDE devices (a DVD drive, and a IDE Hard Disk) and only one port. I have largely only worked with SATA devices so I had to do a little research on how to get it to work, it is possible to get two IDE devices sharing the same Bus with a Master\Slave arrangement.

First off there are two types of IDE cable, 80-pin and 40-pin, I had both, the 80 pin connected my HDD and the 40 Pin connected my DVD drive to my erstwhile motherboard.

The main difference between an 80 Pin and 40 Pin cable is the one pin that is blocked in an 80 Pin cable (this is done so that the cable is installed with the right orientation). Now the IDE is supposed to recognize Master\Slave based on position of the cable (The cable has three connectors, the lowest one goes to the board and the two which are close together go into two devices).

1. 40-Pin: The Master device goes into the middle connector and the Slave goes into the end.
2. 80-Pin: The Master goes into the end connector and the Slave to the middle.This cable is also color coded, the blue end goes into the mobo, the grey end into the master.

While adding the devices to the cables I had to move the DVD drive closer to the HDD as the cable length is quite small. These were all the configs I tried:

1. 40 Pin connector with DVD as master and HDD as slave and vice versa: The bios didnot detect the Slave in both cases and booted from the master, booting from the HDDresulted in a BSOD in XP.
2. 80 Pin connected with DVD as master and HDD as slave and vice versa: same result asabove.
3. I tried force detection by defining which device was a master and which was slave(assigning type in BIOS IDE section), this resulted in a POST error.
4. Disabled SATA on the BIOS completely, no effect.

After tinkering a lot with the BIOS, I decided to give the jumper pins (pictured below) a try, turns out LG (the DVD drive manufacturer) does not follow standards with the jumper positions, after two trials, it turned out the pushing the cap on the middle jumper pins configured the DVD Drive as a Slave. After this the IDE drives worked.

Using the N900 (or any linux machine) to control windows applications like iTunes

First of all the possibilities of the technique described here are limitless, you can literally control all aspects of the Windows environment (remote and local) from the phone or any linux machine, including organizing your videos automatically to managing remote SQL Servers, this opens up everything.

I have been looking for a decent remote control for iTunes for a long time, but I haven't been able to find one (on Symbian I used the Salling Clicker), few days back I stumbled on a way to do it via the terminal on Maemo, so here goes..

First off powershell on windows can control a lot of applications (which expose their API to PS, in case of itunes the scripting interface is exposed), the code for doing this on PS is:

$rr = new-object -com itunes.application
$rr.play()
$rr.pause()
$rr.newttrack()

There are a ton of other functions that I am still exploring, these are the basic ones that should get you started..

Now getting to the interesting part, how to open up the interface, simple, SSH, the most versatile remote terminal, just install the package openssh on the N900 (first add the development repositories, or testing too) then use:

sudo gainroot
apt-get install openssh

This should install the SSH client as well as the server (yes you can connect to the phone from Putty or a native linux terminal).

Next you need the powershell server from here, its free, install it on your PC, run 'Start Server' and click start server (play button).

On your phone do the following:

ssh @ipaddress
password:

That's it! You are in, absolute control!

My post on TMO.

Munnabhai MBBS: A Non-Medieval Review

I saw Munnabhai MBBS after a long time again, this time via centrist-modern eyes. When I saw the same movie as a child I just saw it as a harmless comedy movie, and the fact that so many adults around me endorsed and praised the film is appalling to me now. I shudder to think about all the other Indian movies, which must be portraying negative values, sexism (bordering on misogyny) to Indians.

The entire movie seems to be anti-modern. Some examples include, the way the protagonist seeks the affection of the deans daughter, "I think I like you, therefore I assume you will like me and find me acceptable, and I will speak to your dad". What about what she thinks? Is that solely governed by what her father thinks. In another instance, a kid who is suicidal is "taught" by Munna, that women are objects in a barrel of fish, and he may dive in anytime and have his fill. And one more, a guy with cancer is "taught" that he should spend his remaining time ogling at strippers and generally treat women as objects.

The female protagonist (Chinki), in order to spurn Munna's affections, and to stymie his further moves asks one of her friends to pretend being her and "scare" Munna. She dons a provocative dress and dances with a few guys and this "scares" our hero. The woman he is supposed to like is "indecent", I quote from the film here, Munna "advices" the father after meeting his "promiscuous" daughter, "You should keep your daughter under control, I can understand that you are a single father, but still" and this was accepted as "decent". Shouldn't a woman choose who she marries or dates? Or what clothes she wears? She is not property. Does she have no will?

The whole movie oozes bad values. In order to gain admission Munna kidnaps a doctor's father (and plays carrom with him, to paint a rosy picture I guess), who should be terrified, and gets the doctor to write all his exams for him, under severe duress. This endorsement of "chalta hai, side se le lo" is rife in Indian pop-culture. Most people are swayed by this and believe that if a man should be "accomplished" (buttload of money) he should be willing to grease rails all over and perform all sorts of misdeeds, and this we see in practice (scams anyone).

It is the rallying call of media everywhere that the Middle-Class must participate in politics, however I am of the opinion that what is reflected in our government now is what we are (the majority at least), we all believe one may do anything to get ahead (and in the process elbow each other into the ground), we all participate in and propagate these ills via our day-to-day behavior, and at the end of the day if we go to the temple to wash our sins (break a few coconuts, pay some money, again) "god" has forgiven us and we can retain our holier than thou status.

It is this, I am always right, our ancestors were always right attitude that should scare any sane person. You need to witness this brand of arrogance to understand it, Glenn Beck is not even close. We believe our ancestors were mathematical geniuses (and slave traders on the side, we forget that), we believe they achieved "divinity" long back, all we need to do is interpret it from shlokas. Many of us believe, the entire western civilization is copied from us, and that we were fantastically rich and living in a utopia(with slaves!!) before Vasco came and disturbed us.

System Tools 2.20: Malware/Virus

I just had my first scary encounter with malware in Windows 7 (was used to it XP), shattering the illusion of Windows 7 being secure in fell swoop.

Origins: This installs via a Javascript

Symptoms: No taskmanager, no cmd, no run as administrator, cant install stuff, control panel access (basically you are screwed) and a message keeps popping up that some file is infected followed by a prompt to enter your credit card number and BSOD.

Solution:
1. Boot into linux (even via live cd), mount your C:\, go to Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\
2. Open the exe in Open Office Writer.
3. Cut any string and paste it somewhere else in the file (to keep the same size but change it to prevent it from installing)
4. Boot in windows and voila
5. Additionally (after all this) you can do this:
http://www.techjaws.com/how-to-remove-security-tool-virus/

USB OTG/Hostmode N900

The N900 was recently granted USB hostmode by MohammedAG and Team (thanks a ton guys), this opens a whole realm of possiblities. First off the requirements:

I bought the following adapter:

EBay India

Then Install "Enhanced Kernel" v45 from your application manager.
Reboot your phone (should not be connected to PC!!), upon rebooting you will be greeted by a terminal, hit any key and type "run noloboot" quickly. Once booted install H-E-N (note you would need to enable extras devel repo on your app manager). Once installed connect the adapter to you PC cable, and connect any storage device). Click on High Speed USB, the on VBUS on, finally on enumerate, your device light should get on, if it does not the Kernel is to blame.

Once that is done click on "Mount" and the device should show up in you file manager (if it does not as it did with me, go to the terminal, type "root" and "mkdir /media/flash", "mount /dev/sda1 /media/flash", it should show up then)

I also tried a Logitech MK250 Wireless mouse+keyboard, inorder to get this working you will additionally need Blue HID from app manager, once installed reboot phone and connect the wireless reciever, the keyboard would work, and to get the mouse cursor, just fo to app menu and run "mousecursor". It should show up. BE WARNED: Scrolling behavoiur will change in browser after this.

Now run along and hack away!!

Palm Games on the N900!!

For those of you living under a rock, the one place where the N900 was lacking has been filled, i.e good commercial games. As of now almost all Palm WebOS (a platform which has EA and gameloft on board) work unchanged on n900, for instruction visit here, and to get all games (for those of us living where webos based phones don't sell) , try this (ill be seeding it for a long time). Cheers and game on!!

Nokia N900, My Preciousssss

I haven't had time to update this blog for the past few months, the main reason for this has been my (at times torrid) affair with the piece of silicon and plastic created in the fires of Mount Doom. Ok a bit of history, my first smartphone was the 6600 (I am used to carrying bulky black bricks), that phone consumed an entire summer break, I was obsessed with doing everything I could to make maximum use of it, configuring it as a webcam (although I had a 256 kbps line at that time), running N-gage games, writing python scripts for it etc etc. Then the iPhone came along with the obsession with touch, and my trusty 6600 crash and burned in a washing machine (I mourned for a few months), so I decided to have a fling with Esopos take on the iPhone, the 5800.

The first day with that phone was a brutal shake, the certificate manager denied access to almost all sis files I attempted to install, and then it occurred to me, Nokia wanted me to go to the Ovi store and shop for my siss. I was shaken (although I got through the certificate managers, still having to do so hurt me), hardware-wise the phone did not disappoint, although the speed of the phone paled when compared to ANY adversary.

After a year of this sham I was exhausted and wanted to move on, I had locked my sights on Android, but I always had a fleeting paranoia about google (which was proven correct later on) (yes I know I am blogging on google, but I will not surrender to the overlords when they come for me), just out of sheer morbid curiosity I checked out the N900 (also I had just chucked my laptop for a desktop, finally, so I needed a portable computer), I was infatuated by its first and only advertisement, that is around the time I came to the realization that I loved tinkering more than the results, and that was all I expected out of a device. Over the next month I thoroughly went over maemo.org and was swept away at the almost Thor like power of the device, it was everything I wanted.

After a week I went to the Nokia priority store, the phone was outta stock, after a few more days of waiting (I HATE waiting for something I really want), I finally got it. I wasn't able to get myself away from it even for a few minutes, I was commited for ever. Earlier I mentioned torrid, this would be because sometime negative posts on maemo.org would get me down, and I would join the dissenters, but then something new would surface and I would be lost again.

Here is a list of stuff (that I remember) I have done to BlackBird (my name for her):

0. Controlled my Air Conditioner (Had lost the remote)
1. Installed Android and dual booted (lotta games).
2. Installed Ubuntu and dual booted.
3. Programmed the phone via FrankenCamera and wrote some code to click the perfect pics, I was able to control stuff like exposure time, aperture speed etc. Lot of fun.
4. Installed Meego via u-boot.
5. Got palm games working (full 3D openGl games).
6. Quake 3.
7. Flashed her a coupla times.
8. Currently coding a coupla apps on QT.
9. VNCed to my PC.
10. Used TV out to watch few movies at home. (next I am going to attempt using pen drives, and connecting a bluetooth mouse and keyboard and use it as a TRUE computer)
11. Wrote some scripts for good backups.
12. Boosted the FM transmitter.
13. Skype video calling (The Indian SS want to ban it, to them I say #@!$ you)
14. Used it as a webcam via gstreamer.
15. Streamed music from it via Gst.
16. Used it as a hearing aid by sending mic signals to earpiece.
18. Wrote scripts for sync.

I cannot begin to describe or fathom the mammoth potential of the device, I am never restricted by the device, only by imagination. Waiting for 3G to truly unleash it.

I have convinced myself that this is the best phone ever and the last of the free as in free speech type device (cause Nokia will try to lockdown meego), so I have been contemplating buying another one and locking it in a safe in case of apocalyptic like situations (or what happened to my 6600).

Why Should we Encourage Piracy?

The Indian government must encourage piracy. Now the usual arguments of what about the creators of that which is pirated, how will they survive and so forth form in your mind. Let me make a rational stand for my argument. Imagine a pre-internet India, or lets go back a bit further and  to a pre-liberalization India, the only channel on TV was the heavily edited DD, newspapers were used to be stifled (emergency) and the only access to western civilization was expensive imported books (on which heavy excise was charged, just imagine books having to be smuggled), I remember my father telling me that the only reason he had access to excellent books during his childhood was beacause he grew up near a bunch of embassies and had access to those books. This was a government trying to keep its citizens in the dark, working for inefficient organizations. .

Then the floodgates opened in 1991, and India was suddenly exposed to the world to what it really was, an archaic broken organization. It took 7 years for the internet to really get going. Now a beautiful quality of the internet is that it eliminates artificial barriers (like excise), and is designed with the sole purpose of equality, in fact my fascination with the internet extends to thinking the idea of open protocols if applied to govern humans in the "real world" would finally lead to the long sought after utopia, but I digress, back to the topic, when the internet arrived, there was a slow but marked change in the awareness levels of people.


This equality of the internet allows anything that can be digitized to be shared free of cost, books, music, art, all pillars of an informed civilization made available to all. This has an almost socialistic effect on the distribution of knowledge. A guy could have access to literature dating from 1900s to the present in a hut, that kind of power will have repercussions, if the internet is used properly it could eliminate all the so called "tech lag", between third world nations and the rest of the world.

However I have long suspected it is always in the interest of a large organization to keep the people in the dark, as uninformed people are easier to manipulate (think of how the villagers in India are misled by politicians), this interest would definitely come in the way of really opening the floodgates. Edit: Now we see the government trying to actively censor the government, proof that they fear an informed populace.

And coming to the question of social responsibility and who pays for all that is pirated, there are two ways, big media aligns itself to this new mode of distribution, and switches to an advertising based model, or moderates costs based on the consumer, that is based on the purchasing of the customer (in a region) the rates change, yes there is a large scope for abuse, but then I am talking about media conglomerates embracing the internet, so I am allowed to be inventive.

Painting credit:
Reaching enlightenment - John Bencko

The Human Internet

Knowlegde is Power. This is an old adage that applies to some extent today, I say some extent because as openess and transparency increased, Information was obtainable by everyone and what became important was how to collect and use it. This process started with Gutenberg and today the torch is carried by the Internet. However now our instincts are getting in the way of progress.

Esoterism has always been a human tendency, we have such strict protectionist privacy laws, we have such a large minority support system. A very good example would be the family system. Basically the concept was (still is), if someone was related to you by blood, bonds of trust were formed and information was shared without obstacles. In a tribe like setup this was very useful for dissipation of information to who needed to know it (a primitive version of "need to know basis"). At that time human populations were isolated and war mongering was frequent (still is on a larger scale, for the sake of argument lets assume we stopped being blood thirsty), therefore dissipation within the tribe was sufficient, and this concept continued into the modern age. However I find it out of place and the time is ripe for a change.

One example of a mini universe in which the "before" and "after" effects of this experiment can be seen is the formation of the Internet. In the early days of networks, there existed many protocols of communication (proprietary), each unable to communicate with the others, everybody wanted a monopoly in information flow. However this led to outcry from the users, after which the IETF was formed to form standards. Once standard protocols were laid out, the manufacturers had no chance but to comply, because if they did not, no one would buy their product, thus the Internet was born in its present Avatar. Today the Internet is a massive repository accesible by anyone and lead to a great equalization between the plebs and the lords, simply because control of information was lost. However to access this massive repository certain sacrifices are made. The Internet is like the wild west, no enforcement, gunslingers everywhere, which may not be a bad thing, however can lead to damage. Also there is loss of privacy. we all lose some of our privacy when we use the Internet in all its glory.

Now let us expand this same setup to a larger field, our species itself. Lets standardize the protocols, eliminate the differences (language mainly). Let us abandon our human instinct of closeness and choose to shed our past. If we standardize the way we communicate, all information will be available, it will be an ultimate equalization (a realization of socialism, minus the headless czars and dictators). It will be a utopia in the truest sense. I just want you to picture everyone revealing their deepest darkest secrets (including you), will it really be such a bad thing? If everyone equally ascends to this level of thinking, we will just realize how similar to each other we are, and information will flow once again. The dream of uniting as a species, not nations, and eliminating petty boundaries will be closer to realization. The people in power will always attempt to keep us divided for their ends. Let us choose to abandon our privacy and our heritage. Let us eliminate the things which make us different, as they are artificial.

Why I believe the Maoist movement deserves a closer look, and not our usual Indian shrug

There is no such thing as a bloodless revolution, and there is no form of centralized governance which does not wrong anyone.

With these thoughts let us stop for a minute. Stop. Now think about what you know about the maoist movement. In all likelihood, your (mine too) exposure is limited to numerous "accounts" in newspapers and on "live TV" (forgive me for being so cynical about the media, ill explain myself), and of course the all pervasive death numbers. We like to feel patriotic on a sunday morning, picture this, wake up, read the paper "oh my god! 46 died.. tch tch what a tragedy.. what is this good for nothing government doing.. what if I was there?" and the rant goes on for some time, we all feel nice and fuzzy about having a nice political "debate".... Do you really care? Have you really bothered getting out of your boxy suburban flats (I know I haven't) and looking, really hard.

You want to know why the government sucks? Its because you suck, I suck, we all suck. The government is nothing but a reflection of ourselves, I would say a rather rosy reflection too. Who creates the government, we do!! who moronically votes the same family for 60 years, we do!! all in the name of the omnipresent "chalta hai!!". Just stop. Stop shitting on the grass, and commenting how filthy everything is. We all made it so. We all are equal stakeholders in this business of misery, but we just love to pass on the blame don't we. "the politicians are thieves", "caste politics suck", "this country is going to dogs", "terrorists are killing us!!", "lets crush minorities", "the slum next door, who cares, we get cheap labour rite", and on and on. Get up and clean your own shit.

And in this way we have created the monstrosity called India Inc. The desi Wall Mart. All hail, India Shining. Now what we don't realize is by being our lazy, retarded selves, WE are wronging a lot of people. How many of you knew 200000 farmers commited suicide in the last 5 Years, and these are Bharitya Sarkar figures (they do their own little coverups though), when you compare 46 to that figure, you see how many people we are wronging. If you are an Indian I know what you will say next "How dare you compare death figures, human lives are human lives, chii chii", all I can say is you seem to care when a lady is suppressing her jubiliation on TV, and reporting deaths, but when 200000 is thrown at you it is just another statistic. You are such a hypocrite, I am such a hypocrite, we all are such hypocrites.

Now I want you to imagine a set of circumstances which will force you to get out of your happy little rat race, in your happy little cubbyhole, pick up a country made rifle, declare undying allegiance to a red flag, and start killing army personel. Must be a very drastic set of circumstances right? borderline apocalyptic I guess. Thats what 60% of our "great" nation's population goes through everyday, but the magic is, wait for it.... you can't see it, cool rite? You see our "great" ancestors have programmed us to look "beyond" pain, and kick a guy in the ass anyway, and snatch his food. heh. We trade in human suffering everyday, we thrive on the blood soaked labour of others, and we still have the gall to snatch the last pound of food from the dusty broken hands of someone, spit at him, laugh and call it a democracy. heh. You think its all roses? wake up and smell the ashes.

I consider the Maoist movement a small reaction to the atrocities we commit everyday. I do not support their actions, however I just don't think a buncha farmers, live ones that too, holding placards is going to have an effect. Even dead ones dont garner much attention , because these dusty guys aren't "newsworthy" enough for the corporate whores of India. No sir, we need action, guns, bombs, that kinda thing, very arnoldy you see, instant sky high TPRs. But when the real call to the media comes (emergency anyone), its tail-between-the-legs time. Basically our press is a bunch of reality TV hosts, "burn baby burn!!". No one can blame them too, they give us what we want. India has become one big colosseum, everyone is baying for blood/entertainment. Just open TOI, I saw an article about dental hygene, with two blondes in bikinis brushing their teeth (they had to cover all the angles, firangi, lesbian, wet bikinis and yes lets not forget teeth), and we hail this as the harbringer of "education" to the "civilized". Once again almost all institutions are mere reflections of ourselves. And when the dusty-ones decide to vote, off-with-their-fingers time, we have kept them all uneducated, oblivious and cozy, after all why should they learn all these "complex" things, let em live the "simple" life and commit suicide.

Now I implore you to judge them in an unbiased manner, against the corrupt money grubbing theives we all are (look deep, nope deeper, remember when you bribed that guy.....ya that guy, you got it).

There is a war coming, make no mistake, the only question is what after? do we want stalinist russia, or laloo in-charge or are we all willing to share and not spit on each other? Thats up to you, me and us.

The true nature of Change

During the course of my internship, I finally sat my butt down and started doing some serious work, and some observations I made will shape my thinking/decisions for a long time.

Firstly, I realized change is unavoidable and is the inherent nature of things (atleast things I work on).

Next I came to believe my associations with objects (and of other people i presume) are of two types, I will call them logical associations and emotional associations. Logical associations are of the buy-sell variety, ex. I buy shares of a company just to make a quick buck later. Emotional assocations are when an object ceases to become an object and adapts a personality or when you associate it with a human emotion, ex. You buy shares in a company you helped build for 10 years, then the association with the same shares is that of years of hardwork which went into the company. In this case you would not be so willing to sell them for a small profit.

Now, emotional associations can be dangerous as they can bring out extreme reations in people. While logical associations will always elicit the same question, is this a gain or a loss to me, or will this lead to the goal it was designed for? For example, imagine staying in a home all your life, associating various key moments of your existence with it, assuming its existence as a security blanket, only to have to sell it, this would elicit sadness, a sense of extreme loss and irrational quotes to the buyers (which would inevitably lead to no sale, or a very disapointing sale). Now picture a land shark, he buys/sells 5 to 6 lots daily, do you think these reactions are elicited in those transactions, no, because all that is thought of is, is this transaction profitable?

Therefore, I have to come to conclude we need to detach emotional associations during transactions, because this will lead to overall rationality.

Coming to the nature of change, I was working on two parallel projects, one which aligned to my interests, and evoked a sense of discovery and learning within me, and one which simply had to achieve a goal and the means did not excite me. This situation lead me to work with great zeal on the former, and also lead to the formation of uncalled for emotional associations, I associated it with the joys of learning something new in this case. The latter project evoked no such reactions, and was just that to me, a project, nothing more nothing less. This project was poised for change from the very beginning, and the requirements seemed to change everyday and I had no problem scrapping stuff, as it was all for the achievement for a goal, the means itself had no intrinsic value.

However I was resistant to change on the first project from the very start, I would huff and puff, and attempt to build a house of cards on what was done, but not remove it. Towards the end, the first project greatly suffered due to my unwillingness to scrap. The second project on the other hand faced no such blocks, and will achieve its goal. Thus, clearly stating to oneself that the end is imporatant and not the means (in this case), and under any circumstances not developing emotional associations, will automatically poise anything to be flexible to paradigm shifting change and lead to overall ascent of human thought.