"The Alphabet of Manliness"

The book by maddox is finally out - check it here !
Just saw it today ... though have been anticipating its arrival for sometime now !!

*Edit* : May not be suitable for all audiences :-)

5 Years

When you complete every multiple of 5 years at Sun , you are awarded a plaque thanking you and a gift which you get to select from a catalog. 2 more months more to go before I reach the day Alok picked me up from Bangalore airport 5 years back :-)

No , this post is not about me, but about another collegue of mine.
Rajesh was the architect of the team I joined initially ... and since then has been my unofficial mentor ever since - I owe him a lot , guess much more than he will ever realise :-)
Anyway , last week his "5 years at sun" gift arrived - a really cool astronomical telescope.

The catalogue had other more 'useful' stuff - but Rajesh was adament that he will select only something which was totally useless and something which he will never buy otherwise :-D
Dunno how much he is going to use the telescope - but we took some cool pics with it ... you can hold the main barrel such that it appears as though you are holding a rocket launcher :-))

Here's to wishing many more gifts like this to Rajesh :-)
I wish I can say the same about me !

Old age

Logged into Orkut and it told me -
"
Today's fortune:
You are going to have a very comfortable old age.
"
Extremely interesting ...
assuming I make it to old age (by whichever definition) , what does this mean ?

* I will be financially comfortable ?
Not likely , considering that after 5 years of employment , other than my computers , books and stuff at home I have nothing else to show for it.
According to my mom , I have inherited this spendthrift nature from my grandmother ... so highly unlikely to be a financially comfortable old age unless I do the next Sabeer Bhatia and earn 10x more than him ;-)
* I will be comfortable with friends and family ?
Assuming my friends and family outlive me (highly likely) , I would love this to happen.
Maybe I will not be able to go on a roadtrip ;-) but would love to spend the rest of my life in the relaxing and engaging company of friends , reminiscing about past incidents , events and the like ... something I do already to a large extent anyway :-D

* I will be alone , but happy and contented ?
That would be awesome too , though to a lesser degree as compared to above.
I would love to have a quiet and peaceful 'rest of my life' in front of a calm and relaxing beach and sipping on coconut drinks :-)

* None of the above ...
If I remain 'comfortable' , it cant be too bad can it be ?!


And no , I do not believe in fortunes :-)
Yes , slightly bored of fixing bugs and ensuring spec compliance ;-)
It was nice fun to think of the really distant future though ....

PS : Does anyone like the video of 'In your eyes' by Sheryl Crow ? That would be nice too ... though in my case , first two sections of the video are not possible ;-)

Karan Thapar and Arjun Singh

Round 1is firmly in Karan Thapar's favour.
To say that he raped Arjun Singh would be to put it mildly :-)

Read it here !

To do and what I do

I dont suck so much now at counter strike ... and consistently get a kdr of > 1 even when playing pro's : which means , I kill more than one person before I get toasted :-P
Counterstrike source is one kick ass game as I keep saying time and again - playing against other people is more fun due to the unpredictability , and even more so 'cos of the excuses that they give after you '0wn' them and call them 'n00bs' :-P

I need to stop playing CSS so much and start looking at a bunch of things though ...
1) Work on a new opengl 3d engine - been promising guru about this for ages now already !
2) Work more on xmpp-im-client ... early design phase , so dont want to rush stuff.
3) Need to work on a new chess engine ... started but too lazy :-D Yep , primary focus for this engine is different - more on move ordering , pruning and search ...
4) I have tonnes of books to finish ! Have any of you read any science fiction books by Robert L Forward ? I picked up a few from Blossom this weekend ... sound promising.
5) I have a whole bunch of games to finish too ... the latest of which is Rise of Legends which I picked up with guru yesterday (it looks promising btw).

Chocolates !!

I am extremely found of chocolates , and am one of the few lucky ones to be extremely thin inspite of it ... so as you can guess , I indulge myself in an manner which can only be described as sinful B-)
I know , I know , there are other problems besides weight gain ... but the temptation is just too powerful - just like Coke is way too powerful a temptation for a friend of mine :-P
Bars of chocolates disappear at an astonishing speed when left around me ... A few years back , my breakfast used to be two or three bars of amul - daily ;-)

Enjoying some heavenly Hershey's right now - thanks !!

Reservations

Sensitive topic , and so I am not going to try to take sides here inspite of my inherent bias.
From my point of view , there are two things that most people tend to miss : the motivation behind reservation , and the goal of reservation.

The motivation is pretty simple and when it was espoused , a very critical need for a fledging India : upliftment of the underprivileged - which was a large section of the Indian populace.
In my opinion , there are various factors which contribute to sections of society being underprivileged ... caste was percieved to be a dominent factor : though equally important are the economic conditions , the education levels , the opportunities available , the profession , local state of economy and society , etc.
There were a flurry of programs initiated in free India including land reforms , various welfare schemes , co-operative societies , PSU's , emphasis on primary education , etc - most , if not all are aimed at upliftment of the society as a whole and providing opportunities : a consorted effort at betterment of the Indian society.
Reservation was one of the many : it was never 'the solution' to a problem , but a means to an end : let me rephrase that , one of the 'many means' adopted to an end.
The noble end being , eliminate discrimination along lines of caste , creed or religion - equality.

In my opinion , the thinking was that if the said sections are given a little extra help , they will be able to get over the social and economic 'drawbacks' they face and gain a moderate advantage , enough to give them an even playing field when compared to the 'privileged'.
Given effective equal opportunities the candidates will in the end be able to achieve a standard of living higher than their current levels and so better themselves and their dependents : slowly achieving upliftment of the society.
To summarily dismiss reservation as a failed ideal would be injustice - it has had its part to play in the upliftment of Indian society : in giving adequate opportunity and in allowing a large cross-section of people to better their own.

But like all things , it is a measure with diminishing returns : we already have seen repeated discussions of 'creamy layer'. These are sections which are affluent enough that they should be taken out of the blanket of reservation - they dont 'deserve' the benifits of reservation : and essentially are taking away the chances of the needy.

But let us revisit reservation : it was a means to an end - so the amount of reserved opportunities should be an exponentially declining function , not a strictly monotonically increasing one that it has become now ! There should be constant re-think and feedback into the various aspects of reservation : whether it is brining the society closer to the goals of giving an even playing field to all , whether it is achieving the ideals of equality.
Let us not forget that by reservation , we are skewing the playing field by giving an extra advantage to some candidates : if it is not having its desired benifits , it would be better to cut back on it so that merit plays its appropriate role in selection.

In any given society , there is going to be inequality : utopia is a noble goal in itself, but practicality tells us that it is a dream goal - something we can aspire to achieve , but should be sensible enough to admit is an ideal condition.
'All are equal - some are more equal than the others' : we are in a democractic capitalistic society (inspite of what the Left parties want to believe ;-) ) and so we should accept the realities associated with that. There is always going to be disparity - like based on economic conditions , etc : heck , even the so called developed societies have them (not using as a justification - just observing).

After nearly 55 years of independence, if the Indian govt. wants to increase the reserved quota by bringing more sections of the society under the ambit of reservation , it is indeed a sorry state of affairs. It is in a way conceding defeat about the various other schemes that are/were implemented. I believe this is gross injustice , reservation had its role to play : but it is time to reverse the trend , not keep increase it.
There should be adequate oppurtunaties given to students from all sections to excel , not give them a 'seat' on a silver platter : at the end of the day , all candidates has to work atleast comparatively as hard and should be almost as deserving - else we end up with mediocrity. Reservation should be a way to decrease the disparity in social and economic conditions , not the skew drastically the amount of effort required.

This brings us to an extremely interesting point : reservation in private institutions amd institutes higher of learning. In both of these , the only criterion is performance and merit. There is a level playing field - aspiring candidates already have sufficient opportunities to pursue alternate paths and achieve comfortable levels in society (social upliftment is achieved).
I dont see any reason why reservation should be advocated for these : there is no discrimination based on caste/creed/religion and there are adequate scholorships (for education) in place to take care of economic disadvantages : so why this demand ?
The usual line of argument is pretty vapourous and essentially goes along the lines of extrapolating the benifits from already existing reserved categories. Other than by accepting the inferiority of candidates from a section of society (which is a laughable proposition) , demanding reservation does not have any merits : all other things being equal , candidates should be judged solely based on their merit. A very competetive selection process should not be an excuse to claim reservations !

The main problem comes in when successive governments try to use reservations as populistic means to practise divisive politics : be it along the lines of caste , creed , religion , etc. The basic idea is 'vote bank' politics (since these sections are 'significant chunks' of the society - with a single 'policy' , the ruling party will become their 'messaih' and garner a votebank which will stand them in good steed for the next (and successive) elections).
The first such messaih who threw all decency to the winds for purely political reasons was V.P. Singh : out of the many recommandations in the Mandal commission , V.P Singh sought out the most 'lucrative' one (from an electoral point of view) and implemented that. The many other sensible ones were given a blind eye - this is a really sorry state of affairs.
Inspite of the huge hue and cry , the said decision became law and a large chunk of the 'general quota' went under the 'reserved category'.

The latest such messaih is Arjun Singh. He plans to take another HUGE chunk and put it under reserved category.
He knows he is one sure political grounds. The protesting students , doctors make almost no electoral impact : fraction of the voting population and too intelluctual to be swayed by political scheming. For the very same reasons , we are not seeing any political party coming out in support of the striking medico's. It would be political hara kiri to admit support - after all vote bank politics works !
I bet that whatever be the decisions taken in the next few days/weeks , it will be a stop gap measure to let people cool down sufficiently enough. The law is going to be here to stay.
As long as we do not have visionary leaders who can raise above partisan needs and vote bank politics , and have enough 'political will' we are never going to see any reversal in this trend.

Maybe , in the distant future , we will see an India where the goal of equality has been achieved to a resonably high degree and reservation has finally been abolished ... foolish hopes for the latter :-(

PS1 : I am not a thought leader in this subject - I do not have the qualification , experience or the knowledge/information to be one. This is a summary of my current line of thinking and is to be taken as a purely personal point of view.
PS2 : Flames accepted , but please dont get personal and excessively abusive :-)
PS3 : I know that it is not a very coherent , informative or enlightening prose , just something I jotted down after watching the current state of affairs on TV which as been repeating for past so many days now. So please read it with a pinch of salt.
PP4 : Too many PS's ?! :-P

Smell

I have noticed that of the various triggers , it is smell which triggers most of my nostalgic remembrances ... and the weird part if that it is not 'reproducible testcase' :-)
It just happens sometimes that I will smell something totally unrelated and voila , I will suddenly get transported to a different time : I will feel emotions from then , relive times gone by ... a different era , a different life.

Like day before when I walked out of the office just after a rain , the scent of wet earth triggered memories childhood of our old unpartioned ancestral home - the one I used to visit every summer vacation (which last approx 2 months). The whole school year was just something you pass so that you can enjoy the summer holidays ! Everyone would be there : cousins , aunts , uncles , revisiting relatives - a festive atmosphere always hung around that house.
When I was in class 1 (5 yrs old) and younger , we used to take the train to Trivandrum from Calicut. Those train journeys are something I will forever cherish.
The timings were just perfect , it would start early enough so that there is sufficient light outside and just late enough that I will fall asleep once it got dark : inspite of my overexcited state.
Each station on the way had to be recounted to me - about a hundred times :-D I still have no idea how dad knew all of them - in the right order !
Each and everything would provoke questions which he would patiently explain : sky , stars , mechanics of the train , the emergency chain , etc , etc.
Dad used to be in DP (the nascent computer division of LIC) during those days , so train journeys used to give 'unparalleled access' to him ... In retrospect , some of his devilish answers would have made Calvin's dad proud :-))
In the wee hours of the next day , we would draw closer to Trivandrum - seeing the model rocket near Thumba would be the dead giveaway that we are near our destination - the excitement of imminent arrival will drive up the frenzy pushing mom to angry outbursts >:-)
Even the auto journey would be memorable - the early morning air whipping on my face as the auto zips along empty roads to kowdiar : destination - my grandparents home , close to the King's palace.

The vacations would be a blur of games , scoldings , ICE CREAMS ! , fights , food , whirlwind visits to relatives , more fights and yet more scoldings :-)
The most 'dull' days for us used to be when it rains and rain it did !!
We call it 'thulla varsham' - rain used to start around 4-ish and last till 6 or later. The kids would get confined to the house - even making paper boats lose their charm after 2 hours of continuous pittar-patter. Ofcourse, we do end up doing the same the very next day again ... this is how all the notebooks used to end up as - the ones we carried with us for doing 'holiday homework' :-P

The first spray brings out that scent - the heavenly scent of rain on earth.
Now , it transports me to a more carefree life , where only worries in life was how to get away from the latest 'biggest disaster' - back then , it was the harbinger of temporary imprisonment , something I hated ... strange are the ways of life !

Why did I decide to write about nostalgia ? Mother hen is back , was chatting with her and her hubby until wee hours of 1 am :-)

Google Analytics

I have always been curious as to who visits my blog.
I started writing it to share with friends and pretty soon I find people I have never met before reading it ... and surprisingly , I enjoyed that :-)
Though I hardly ever wrote anything here to cater to needs of anyone (yep , I did promise something on sol10 long back and never wrote anything !) I have always been curious as to who visits my blog.

Most blogs I visit , I hardly ever say a peep ... so if there are lot of readers like that , it is going to make it tougher to estimate who really reads !
Someone send 'Google Analytics' invitation code (no idea why , I dont use adwords anywhere) - and after much debate , I have added that code snippet to the blog.
Please be assured that I will not be using this blog for marketting , as a revenue source , etc , etc.
Also there will be no attempt at profiling a reader or violating your privacy in any other way (Google Analytics assures me that I cant even if I wanted to , so there :-P). The intention is purely to satisfy my curiosity as to who reads this blog :-)
As soon as that is satisfied , I will be promptly removing the js bit from the template.

9/11

I seem to be going hyper with blogging tonight ;-)
Just finished watching 911 Loose change second edition ... wont comment much about it except to say it is very interesting.
This video was mentioned and forwarded by way too many sensible people for me to ignore it - typically I tend to not waste so much time with a conspiracy theory , but do take a look : it is worth it.

Blast from past

Last weekend, while having dinner I noticed someone staring at me through the corner of my eyes.
Focussing , the person was bringing out all sorts of weird associations which I could not really place. The face was strongly familiar and yet I could not place my finger on who it was.
I gave this really really small and unsure smile and he responded - and the smile gave up the person - it was Prasanth from college !! (fondly called GP). Well , not just college , I was his classmate from school :-D
I went over and found his wife , Eapen and Dinu with him.
It was nice fun catching up with them - all of them looked slightly different in ways that I cannot really place , and yet they were the same :-)

They were recollecting some incident which happened when we were leaving for home the first time after joining college (which would be 2 weeks since joining ;-) ) ... something which happened almost 9 years !

Though for a really short time , it was nice fun talking to them ....
I have met Dinu a couple of time before (shame on me - I work in the same building as him :-( ) and GP and Eapen only once before in Bangalore (shame , shame :-(( ).
So many good friend with whom I seem to be losing touch - so sad.

Which brings us to a strange observation I made - there is this unusually high percentage of my friends from college who dont seem to have quit their first job since leaving college !

Things I try to read every year

There are a few things which I regularly make a point of visiting. No , there is not much change in their content.
The idea is to reinterpret their meaning based on what I have learned over the year.
Some/most of them throw some new light , and things I did not understand well suddenly seem very enlightening.
Different and interesting facets are revealed when I look them through each year.

Here is the list of things I am yet to complete or need to re-read again this year :
Tom Van Vleck Software Engineering Stories (Interesting - reading it for first time this year)
The Annotated XML Specification (I have never completed this :-( ... though I attempt each year)
The Eight Fallacies of Distributed Computing (So enlightening !)
Bit Twiddling Hacks (Just to not lose touch of some basics).
Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One (The implications are astounding - ex: refer to REST).
HTTP RFC's : old cookie spec , 1945 , 2068 , 2109 , 2616 , 2817 (I 'dislike' this still ) , 2818 , 2965 , ... some of the design choices are irritating and some are beautiful : and I keep changing my opinion of them :-). Yes , I do read the obselete'ed RFC's too - sometimes it is interesting to see what changed , how it was worded before and why that changed !

Things I should be reading and dont ... basic networking RFC's (yes , I am pathetic :-( ) , security RFC's especially authentication , authorization , etc.

When I talk about reading above , I dont mean brush through them sort of thing.
I wont be bothered about the actual details (like the grammer , etc) , but try to understand the principles , design choices and tradeoff's (esp this) involved.
Hence reading for work does not qualify since the primary focus then would be in implementation details ...


Do you have a list ? Would be great to know it !

Welcome Vijaya

Here she starts to blog ...
I have read a couple of her articles before and I hate to admit it , they were good >:-)
So this blog should be something to watch out for - hope you continue blogging well after your discomfort is gone !
And no, I dont agree with most of what she has written in her first post , including (maybe 'cos of ;-) ) the mild dig at some of our blogs :-P
All said and done , make our life more interesting Vijaya !