A Simple Disciple's Life

BabyPlus - How Science can be created on demand

2012-02-20T17:52:00.001+05:30

Recently, I have stumbled on the mega-claims of something called BabyPlus, which is a glorified MP3 player for pregnant women to put on their bellies, with the objective of stimulating the child's brain development.

Sounds great. That inventor must be a real genius too... right? Er, not quite. The only Brent Logan who wrote a PhD thesis I could look up did so in 2001, much after this invention.

So I googled a bit more, and what do I find? A full debunk. A good read.
The killer thing for me? Double-citing both the paper published a the conference and the conference presentation itself. It doesn't get sloppier than this.

Agneepath

2012-02-13T00:06:00.002+05:30

Agneepath is the remake of the 1990 movie of the same name, a major hit starring Amitabh Bachchan.
This one is starring Hrithik Roshan and won't be the major hit this time. I seriously felt we could chop the cheapo love story and another 30 minutes of the movie and we'd be better off.
The first half is great, and the machiavelic plot of the main character is engaging. But it falls flat at some point, probably around the point that the villain discovers the hero has a sister, etc. Sort of a gaping gap in the story that just distracts.

Oh, and for those of us who don't know Hinduism much, the title refers to a mantra (recited in the movie). It means 'the path of fire', and it means destroying evil.
And if you don't know the Ramayana at all, I suggest you do your crasher course before seeing it, maybe watching "Sita Sings the Blues"

On Being a Sunday School Teacher

2012-02-13T00:00:00.001+05:30

I haven't updated for a while... sorry about that.

I was asked to help with the kid's class at church (known as Sunday School for some, or KKC for others), and I'm helping with older kids.

And oh boy!

I NEVER thought that taking care of 6 kids would be hard. Spending so much time on discipline is mind-blowing.

"Stop playing with the scissors and listen to your friend talking"
"If you're nice, you can draw something"
"Everybody else has finished, and you're not done yet... Can you please focus?"
"Who understands this passage? So, who was listening? So who will read it again?"

And so on and so forth.

I knew God would use this experience to teach me something. I am not sure what that is, but I'm sure it involves not loosing my sanity. ;)

Ye Maya Chesave

2012-01-08T01:38:00.001+05:30

Ye Maya Chesave is the first Indian movie I really enjoyed in a while. I really recommend it.

It is a realistic Indian love story. Boy likes girl, girl won't give the time of the day to the boy, boy harasses the girl until her defences break down, relationship form, and deepens, and family interferes.

The actors acted well, the songs are really good (thanks, A.R. Rahman!), and the story is 'real'. Oh, and an added touch of realism: when they are in Kerala, many people talk in Malayalam, and they put Telugu subtitles. Sweet!

Searching with YaCy

2012-01-04T22:05:00.004+05:30

YaCy is an interesting open source project, and I decided to give it a spin.

In the age of rising internet censorship, having an uncensorable search network is very attractive.

The installation is pretty simple, but would benefit from being added to Fedora's packages.

The results are still pretty slim, and the presentation may need an upgrade, but it sorta works. I think I'll keep using it as my default search engine for some time.

Oh, and it is easy to add it Firefox's search bar.

Trying to Buy a Linux Laptop

2011-12-25T22:04:00.001+05:30

So my old lappy is giving up on me bit by bit, and it is clear that I need to invest in a good replacement.

Of course, I am a Linux geek, and I want to avoid the Microsoft Tax and all the garbage of pre-installed software that comes with OEM systems.

The bad news is that finding a Linux computer isn't as easy as it sounds, and sometimes downright disappointing.

Now, lemme first say what I am looking for. I want a bit of processing power, so Intel i3 processor or equivalent is a must. 4 GB of RAM and 320 Gb HD is also a minimum. And I would appreciate a bill less than 600$.

When it comes to the big players, the selection is poor.
HP: We cannot buy those systems online. Huh??? Serious? Or if it does, you are sent to a retailer with no customization possible... so back to windows.
Dell: Underpowered systems... not gonna help me build LibreOffice any time soon.
Acer: their interface make choosing based on OS near to impossible. Man! So clicky clicky click... nope, no FreeDOS or Linux
Toshiba: Same as Acer.
Asus: At least their 'compare' feature is somewhat usable... only to NOT tell me what the OS is half of the time. But since I am comparing product families, I can do some good guesswork. If only they didn't have a gazillion products... And what a bummer... even the eeePC is with windows.
Lenovo: The website makes getting the data easier. But still no luck. And then I found out that they won't sell those directly anymore.
MSI: Meh

Specialty Shops, thanks to LXer and TuxMobil:
Linux Certified: USA stuff, doesn't seem to mention north of the border so much. Oh well.
System76: A bit on the pricey side, but notices Canada off the bat!
The Linux Laptop: Looks US-centric, again. And they are charging me to install Linux on it??? Dude!
Sub300/Sub500: Oh boy is the performance/price ratio plain wrong.
Zareason: Also a bit pricey, and some are out of stock.
EmperorLinux: Super expensive.
SWTechnology: Pricey
ERacks: Even pricier
GamePC: Even pricier... I need a better word here.
Alvio: underpowered
Puget: underpowered
PCsforeveryone: Decent interface. But 49$ for installing Linux? Duuuude! At least they make it simple to choose no OS.
PowerNotebooks: Make No-os easy. It looks like they are starting at i5 processors.
AvaDirect: Interesting starting prices, but underpowered. Decent hardware is expensive.
8Virtues: I like the no-nonsense website.
Alpha PC: underpowered
Think Penguin: I like the obvious jab at Apple in their names. It is attractive, but cranking it up to spec really hurts fast.

The leading contenders are, in my sense, System76, Zareason, PCsforeveryone. They are all above 600$, whereas my local store will send me Windows-infected hardware below that.

So I got myself a Gateway laptop for much below my price target and now I'll fight for a Windows refund

Catching Back on North American Movie Pop Culture

2011-12-19T06:48:00.001+05:30

So I am married with an Indian lady, and almost nothing that is my pop culture is in hers. How can we catch up? With a lot of movies, of course!

Here is a variant on the classical top 100, as I don't want the very scary stuff.

Feel free to suggest some in the comments.

Some classics:
Braveheart ✓
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark ✓
The Matrix (1 only!)
Star Wars 4 ✓ -5-6
Star Trek
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Leon the Professional ✓
Casablanca
One Elvis movie
2001: A Space Odyssey
Apocalypse Now
Blade Runner
Citizen Kane
3 Stooges ✓
Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times
ET
The Godfather
The Good, the bad, the ugly
Groundhog Day
Its a wonderful life
Lawrence of Arabia
Rocky 1
Saving Private Ryan
Schindler's List
Terminator 2
Wizard of Oz
Robin Hood

Children Movies
Snow White and the 7 Dwarves
Sleeping Beauty
101 Dalmatians
Lion King DONE
Finding Nemo
Toy Story
Alice in Wonderland
Beauty and the Beast
Alladin
The little mermaid
Monsters, Inc
Peter Pan
Bambi
Winnie the Poo
Jungle Book
Cindirella
Fantasia
The Incredibles
Tarzan
Pinnochio
Dumbo
Hunchback of Notre Dame
Lilo & Stitch

Some less classic
The Book of Eli ✓
House of Sand and Fog
All the Narnia movies
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Die Hard
Dr. Strangelove
Monty Python's movies
When Harry Met Sally
Inception ✓

Some Manga
Howl's moving castle

The Joys of the Passport Office

2011-12-16T05:42:00.002+05:30

This is an old story. As you know, the matter is resolved now... But it gives an idea about how hard it can be for the common people of India to deal with the government.

And this one story is about the 'simple' matter of getting a passport.

I've had the displeasure of going to the Regional Passport Office in Secunderabad a few times in order to help with my wife's passport. I would say that the entire things seems to be encouraging the thriving passport agent business to reach new heights.

First, don't bother going to the official website, print the forms and fill them in. They will turn you down and ask you to go buy their own forms. But then, maybe they won't even let you get their forms, but will force you to pay 400 rupees for some guys to fill them in for you. You find that 400 for filling one sheet is a lot, and guess that some of that will go to the aggressive guy who didn't accept your forms in the first place.

Now, you may ask for your application to be considered under Tatkal (=Express), but it seems that only agents can get that without you providing some serious proof that things are urgent.

So your application will be slowly gathering dust inside that big building. They have an internet inquiry, which may give you blank results, especially if your file is stuck somewhere. For better results, use the SMS enquiry feature (3 rupees each time).

If you make the "mistake" of marrying a non-Indian, then your file will go to the Legal Cell. But, actually, your file will NOT go there and gather dust.

So when your situation becomes urgent, you can show up with a document that states so, whether some company request letter, GRE exam booking, flight tickets, etc.

So you will wait in a very long queue at the Enquiry Counter. That queue is not lit for the most part and fans may or may not be working. You will have to watch your step, as there is a partially open ditch that clearly hasn't been clean for a few months waiting for an inattentive foot.
As you get closer to the counter, you will finally be in the light and you'll get a chance to sit. Of course, agents have a separate queue that is nearly empty.
That being said, you can try to jump the queue by offering some small amount to the ladies near the door of the Enquiry counter.

Once you reach the fellow at the Enquiry counter, he may see the great urgency of your need, and thus will take your document, put a stamp on your request letter (you wrote a request letter, right?), and tell you to come two days later.

Once you repeat the ordeal two days later, you will be allowed to meet the Public Relations Officier (PRO). Obviously, there is another big queue there. The PRO will himself have no clue about the details of your case, and will write on your request letter something about checking with the appropriate section (=department).

While waiting, you can make friends with your fellow queue-waiters and discover their personal tragedies. Some Muslims want to go to Haj and may not be able to do it this year. Another wants to study in the USA, and will write GRE exam the next day, and all her studying will be wasted because you need a passport to do that. And so on and so forth.

But all this has taken time, and by the time you're ready to ask questions to the person who can really answer them, you're smack in the middle of their late lunch break. While waiting for that person to be back from lunch, you see some of the security folks kick out non-employees, so you try to look busy and hope they won't care about you. You will also notice piles and paper all over the place, and guess that those are others' files who are finally getting processed.

You may also feel like using the toilet, and discover urinals that have an open ditch, which may remind you of roadside dhabas' toilets when you traveled by bus.

And, finally, the fellow who has to act on your file shows up. And then you will learn that the file never reached his/her desk, so you will be sent out to another department who will dutifully sift through piles of similarly dusty files to find yours, and then send it over. You will see the bureaucrat sign reception in an old-school register and wonder why that files are ostensibly managed by a computer interface, but that the whole internal process still works with pieces of paper moving from one place to another.

Your file will be cleared in less than 5 minutes and then you will escort the messenger who will bring your file to the next step. You may get scolded by the lady there because of some mess that the agents you were forced to hire did on the form, as if it was really your fault in the first place. After taking the lashing, your file will make its way to the local police station. And then you'll hope that the constable who will do your address verification is a good and hardworking guy, knowing full well that the odds are against that.

And then you end up thanking God Almighty that it only took you two days and that you weren't forced to pay a 'tip' along the way. And then you feel like you'll always apply Tatkal and/or use a passport agent in the future because you just don't want to deal with this ever again.

A few days later, after NOT seeing the local Police come to your house for verification, you may get a bit anxious again. Then you will go to many police stations, something that will undoubtedly bring great shame to you as good people like you NEVER go to the police station.

After a bit of poking around, you will be informed that, contrary to official policy, the file isn't sent to your neighbourhood's police station but to some centralized facility, the Saifabad Police Station. After going there, you learn that the file wasn't received by them yet. They will tell you that there is a way to get a duplicate of your file stamped at the RPO and you can bring that to them.

So precisely one week after the RPO staff told you that they were sending the file "right away" and that the police verification would happen "in 2 or 3 days," you repeat the ordeal and get told by the clerk at the Enquiry counter that your file will be sent "today itself". Asking what the Police folks told you you can avail, you get a flat no and you're back to square one.

After a few more visits to the Police, these guys tell you that it takes roughly one week for the file to reach them. The journey takes 15-20 minutes in a car.

While this is going on, you will make phone calls to all of your friends, relatives and contacts with the faint hope that one of them will be able to help you. You know that there are very few ways things move in India: 1) bribes 2) pressure from higher ups/politicians 3) exchange of favours 4) media outrage 5) making your own file move yourself 6) divine intervention. Since you did as much of 5) as you could, and that you refuse to engage in 1) because of your faith in God, and that you know that no media will bother about your case, so you forget about 4).

After 2) and 3) fail, you are left only with 6). You have been praying about this from the start, but now you are officially having no other option.

17 days after you were told the passport would be sent, the file is reaching the police station, and then re-dispatched to the police station that will do the verification. It happens that fast because the constables there know you well by now, since you're showing up all the time at their office to ask them the status.

You call the constable and gently ask him to please come over for the verification. After waiting for the whole day, you'll finally see him show up. After a big drama, he will leave your house. The next day, he will call you and you'll call over your in-laws so that we can give a good show that we are good people etc. etc. And finally the forms get filled and the thumbprint is taken, etc.

Now, your file is submitted to the police station, but it needs to be signed all the way up in the hierarchy. It doesn't matter that most of the people signing don't know any of the particulars of the case. It also doesn't matter that they won't read the file either. It just needs to be done, and there is a backlog there.

After winning the heart of the guys at the police station, you will be able to learn that your file was dispatched. But you may be disappointed to learn that it wasn't dispatched to the passport office, but to the 'main' police station, who will then re-dispatch it.

After learning this you might want to check your status on the website, but the answer will remain useless.

But, thankfully, God has heard your prayer, and something is happening that will help you.

The Regional Passport Officer (RPO - not the same as the PRO above) has put a message in the newspaper telling people that there is a lot of backlog and that he's trying to fix that. One just needs to show a proof of urgency and the passport will be done within 2 days. Word on the street is that there is 50000 files pending, and that the police verification bundles aren't even opened when received.

You may want to take advantage of this promise made my the new RPO. So you will stand in queue for many hours, only to get an appointment for the next Wednesday.

You will stand in a separate queue on that day, and a kind lady will eventually gather your documents and listen to your case. Nevermind the fact that you submitted all those already - nobody bothers to read those. After all this, she tells you that it should be done in a week or so. This is not quite the 2 days promised, but that's an improvement.

Of course, while waiting you will make more friends and hear more sad stories... someone had to re-submit after the RPO staff lost his file - and he doesn't get an express treatment as a 'please forgive us' measure. Other people had the police verification come negative for no good reason (read - they didn't give a bribe to the police officer doing the verification) and are trying to fix that situation.

After a week, you may learn that your file is under observation. What that means is unclear, but it doesn't matter. You can be happy to know that something happened and that your file moved.

At some point in time later, you will get a phone call from your landlord, telling you that the postman came with your passport and it needs to be delivered in person only. After rushing slightly, you will feel tempted to call all your friends and throw a party, because you finally have this magical document in your hands.

It took four months, countless phone calls, a whole congregation praying and a whole lot of begging. It could have been worst, and so you thank God profusely.

And that tells you why people try to avoid dealing with the government as much as possible. And it tells you why a culture of corruption has crept in government offices all over the country.

P.S. As a sidenote, I want to really really show appreciation to the new RPO, Dr. Srikar Reddy, for turning things around, as well as for implementing the Passport Seva Kendra (PSK - Passport Service Centre) in Hyderabad, which promises the whole process to be done within a few days, and with no soul-crushing overcrowding.

Lagaan

2011-12-16T05:15:00.001+05:30

Lagaan is an interesting mix of cricket and Indian nationalism in a single movie. Of course, with the mandatory love triangle :)

As with every Aamir Khan movie I saw so far, I greatly enjoyed it.

The story happens in the 19th century, at the time of the East India Company. The British are, as usually depicted in Indian cinema, abusing their power and cashing in big time. The story is about 'lagaan', an agricultural tax that gets doubled that year because the local Raja has begged the British commander to broker some treaty allowing his people to access a temple.

Of course, the people are not happy about that, especially since there is no rain that year.

The British commander is a prideful guy, and he decides to gamble a bit: he'll waive 3 year's worth of Lagaan if the local villagers can beat his team in cricket, but will make them pay the triple tax if they loose. And the villagers take the gamble.

The rest of the movie is about them trying to make sense of a game that has layers and layers of complexity built into it, trying to convince others to support them, etc.

Of course, there is a love triangle... one British lady falls 'in love' with the hero, who is himself about to get married to a village girl.

The dialogues are in pure Hindi, which means that even native speakers can hear words that won't sound familiar to them.

The storytelling weaves many threads together very nicely, and I enjoyed seeing an actual scenario after a few a-dime-a-dozen Indian movies lately.

Watch it, it is a must!

Singham

2011-12-16T05:05:00.002+05:30

Singham is one of those typical 'hero-style' Indian movies.
If you want to have a taste of it without paying, it is legally available on Youtube.

The plot is simple: an incorruptible village police inspector is transfered to Margao, Goa, after crossing a well-connected criminal.

Said criminal is trying to make him breakdown, and his police work is interfered by his superiors, who are in the criminal's pocket.

In short, it shows the kind of immunity that people can get through corruption.

Oh, and it struck me as 'Telugu people won't leave me alone', since two major actors are Telugu movie actors ;)

Bible Talk on Integrity

2011-11-29T05:54:00.001+05:30

I've been asked to take care of the Bible talk recently and I was scratching my head to find a good topic. The Bible is full of them, but what is it that the people in my group need?

Someone suggested integrity and I liked the idea. If something needs a bit of a reminding, that would be it. It may not be as 'in your face' as sexual sin and materialism, but certainly something that we need to talk about.

So here goes...

Q? How often do you have to do team assignments or projects in college? Tell us one example of a project that went bad, and why it happened.

Q? What are the things in a team that will irritate the others?

One common problem we can hit is if someone isn't 100% honest and ends up hurting the whole team. Examples?

"Ya, I did my slides for the presentation", but they're next to useless
"I started working on that section", and that is the introduction
Making excuses why they couldn't meet that objective this week
Copy-pasting half of a wikipedia article instead of doing actual research

What is Jesus telling us about that?

“Again, you have heard that it was said to an older generation, ‘Do not break an oath, but fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not take oaths at all – not by heaven, because it is the throne of God, not by earth, because it is his footstool, and not by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King. Do not take an oath by your head, because you are not able to make one hair white or black. Let your word be ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no.’ More than this is from the evil one. (NET, Matthew 5:33-37)

Let us slice that up a bit.
That quote is from the Old Testament. It was a commandment from Moses (Lev 19:12). It is one of those black and white things in the Bible. So let us take a step back...

What is an oath? What does it stand for?
The definition is:

"An oath [...] is either a statement of fact or a promise calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow. Those who conscientiously object to making an oath will often make an affirmation instead.

The essence of a divine oath is an invocation of divine agency to be a guarantor of the oath taker's own honesty and integrity in the matter under question. By implication, this invokes divine displeasure if the oath taker fails in their sworn duties. It therefore implies greater care than usual in the act of the performance of one's duty, such as in testimony to the facts of the matter in a court of law."

So, the basic idea is like this: since people can't always be trusted, I'll prove to you that you can trust what I'm going to tell you. And that proof is that I'm willing to let God punish me if I don't do X.

So, if we make this kind of commitment, should we do it or not? Obviously, and the Bible is telling us we should. But then, why is Jesus telling us not to?

Now, it happened that some people were trying to make oaths, but have work-arounds. Let us see an example

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple is bound by nothing. But whoever swears by the gold of the temple is bound by the oath.’ Blind fools! Which is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold sacred? And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing. But if anyone swears by the gift on it he is bound by the oath.’ You are blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and the one who dwells in it.And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and the one who sits on it. (NET, Matthew 23:16-22)

Why would anyone do this? Obviously, the goal was to give the illusion of commitment without actually committing to anything. Can you give me some examples of how people do this in 2011?

I'll let you know
Oh, I was about to start working on that
Oh what a nice gift... I'm sure it will match my brown shoes (which I never wear) nicely

So what is Jesus really telling us? Looking again at Mt 5:37, we do see that we are expected to be so consistently upright that people can take a 'yes' or a 'no' at face value.

How does that apply for our student lives?

Academic integrity: never cheating or copying; attributing sources
Accurate status reports to our teammates
Telling that you don't know when you don't
...

Bible Talk on Fear

2011-11-23T18:23:00.001+05:30

Here are some notes of the last Bible Talk I did on campus

Q? Are you afraid of some animals? What makes you scared of them?
Often, we are afraid because we know that they can hurt us... they can have poison, or big teeth, or rabies.
Q? Are you afraid of anything else?

What is fear? It is a distressing sensation caused by a perceived danger (paraphrased from Wikipedia.)
Fundamentally, fear is something good. It is about our survival. It means that if we are in danger from something with big sharp teeth, we better do something about it.

But more abstract fears, like fear of public speaking or fear of exams are a lot less meaningful.

Q? What is the inverse of fear? One of them is peace.
And the Bible has a lot to say about that...

Psalm 23: If we are aware that a mighty shepherd is there and watching over us, it is easier to be at peace.

Philippians 4:6-9 This is very rich... it talks about how we need to put our needs before God, remember what God has done for us, and feed our minds with good things.

2 Timothy 1:7 Letting the Spirit in us will help us have peace too.
Q? How do we let the Spirit's power in us?

But still... should we be afraid of something?
Yes, the primordial kind of fear, that one that is about protecting our lives from a wolf or a bus is still relevant.
But there is another fear that is very important, and that is the fear of the Lord.

Luke 12:4-5 Jesus is clear that we need to fear God. And that fear is multi-faceted, meaning both being afraid, as well as having real reverence.

And what those that mean pratically?
2 Corinthians 7:12 to purify ourselves from sin and grow in holiness. How? a) by being washed in the blood of Christ and b) removing sin from our lives so that we stay cleaner in between washes.

How to NOT Ask for Help in Open Source

2011-09-29T18:03:00.000+05:30

Here is a slightly edited extract of the IRC chat I saw today. WARNING: coarse language ahead.

In case you don't want to read the whole thing:

User barges in the dev channel and asks for a full-blown feature to be implemented
User does not listen to the devs who give some information to answer the question
User mocks devs who exchange some thoughts related to the implementation of the feature
User complains that the devs who are trying to help are wasting his time, when in fact he is wasting theirs.
User ignores the polite request to calm down
User gets kicked by a senior dev

Lessons:

Being humble really helps
Listening to the answers to your question is really simple and helps a lot
Insulting people isn't helping
Not everything in software can be done easily

(05:17:24 PM) Kicksyourballs: So how can I hack open office to remove the stopping of me embedding my fonts in my documents?
(05:18:19 PM) thorsten: Kicksyourballs: no idea 'bout OOo, but for LibO: http://www.libreoffice.org/get-involved/developers/
(05:18:42 PM) Kicksyourballs: So how can I hack open office to remove the stopping of me embedding my fonts in my documents? - does any one know HOW to do do it?
(05:19:48 PM) Kicksyourballs: Yeah I have been fighting this fight big time for a long time - I am only intereseted in a solution, or doing what ever it takes to achieve that result.
(05:20:17 PM) thorsten: Kicksyourballs: sounds good - so best not waste time in discussion, but get some code rolled to support it -
(05:21:32 PM) Kicksyourballs: a) I CAN code - and if I apply myself to learning how to do it, I can and will but I'd rather speed the process up by simply finding the part of the coding that says "NO FONT EMBEDDING" and remove / edit / alter it
(05:22:00 PM) Kicksyourballs: And then publically announce the hack.
(05:22:07 PM) thorsten: Kicksyourballs: wrong assumption. it's simply missing - and needs extra code to handle it, at a bunch of places ...
(05:22:40 PM) frob_tea: Kicksyourballs: could you also look for "NO MAKING EVERYTHING GREAT BUTTON" and remove it?
(05:23:26 PM) Kicksyourballs: Yeah well - this info is not exactly publically advertised - "OK so you think us stopping you from embedding your own fonts in your own work sucks - here's how"
(05:23:56 PM) tml_: thorsten: and leaving out half of the glyphs, it would no longer be immoral to embed (if the creator of the font doesn't want you to embed it) ?
(05:24:32 PM) thorsten: tml_: no moral judgement at all involved - it's simply considered permissible by case law it seems
(05:24:43 PM) thorsten: fair use, yadda yadda
(05:25:08 PM) Kicksyourballs: I am am not intertested in arguing the issue, or the pro's and con's or debating it - I want to embed my own fonts in my own documents - and this is how it is going to be: http://tinyurl.com/3oyjeuo http://tinyurl.com/6kyk3ps http://tinyurl.com/6l5vtet http://tinyurl.com/44z8yqa
(05:25:10 PM) tml_: don't some font formats have information in them what one is allowed to do with the font?
(05:25:16 PM) thorsten: tml_: yes
(05:26:03 PM) tml_: Kicksyourballs: screaming "Fuck Ubuntu" doesn't exactly improve your credibility, make us think "this guy must be a good coder"
(05:26:06 PM) thorsten: tml_: still, subsetting is considered acceptable - that's what's used in pdf exports all across the globe, and also MSO ...
(05:26:10 PM) Kicksyourballs: Do the people here expressing opinions actually know how to do it? If you do, share it - if not - don't waste my time.
(05:26:27 PM) tml_: Kicksyourballs: no we don't, we are just kicking your nuts
(05:26:28 PM) frob_tea: Kicksyourballs: it was already shared
(05:26:46 PM) frob_tea: Kicksyourballs: calm down
(05:27:12 PM) Kicksyourballs: Thorsten - I am not interested in what you think - either you have a solution or you don't. If you do, share it - if you don't don't waste my time.
(05:28:03 PM) tml_: Kicksyourballs: maybe you should join that other OOo -based project instead, they are much more friendly
(05:28:36 PM) Kicksyourballs: So this is where the dick heads hang out...... opinions about everything - solutions to nothing.
(05:28:45 PM) Sweetshark: Kicksyourballs: this is the wrong channel. Unless you have a patch.
(05:29:12 PM) thorsten: Kicksyourballs: starts to get inacceptable - behave, or leave.
(05:29:15 PM) Kicksyourballs: http://tinyurl.com/3oyjeuo http://tinyurl.com/6kyk3ps http://tinyurl.com/6l5vtet http://tinyurl.com/44z8yqa - Sure......
(05:29:29 PM) Kicksyourballs: Dumb Fucks.
(05:29:36 PM) tml_: lol
(05:29:48 PM) ***Sweetshark giggles.
(05:29:49 PM) tml_: "fix my bugs, or! I know where you live!"
(05:30:02 PM) Kicksyourballs: LOL
(05:30:29 PM) frob_tea: tml_ "and which school your kids are going!"
(05:30:57 PM) Kicksyourballs: The low IQ one handed typists are such fun... "Oh well I think this, I think that" - "Do you know how to fix it?" No then fuck off.
(05:31:30 PM) Sweetshark: Kicksyourballs: Why dont you join dev.openoffice.org and explain to them how awesome you find their native linux packages?
(05:31:55 PM) Kicksyourballs: Oh Oh I am a Open Orifice developer... I have opinions to everything and solutions to nothing.... I'll hang out here with my other cool buddies.
(05:32:24 PM) Kicksyourballs left the room (Kicked by dtardon (Kicksyourballs)).
(05:32:30 PM) frob_tea: dtardon: thank you
(05:33:23 PM) tml_: you just have to love Open Source enthusiasts
(05:33:28 PM) Sweetshark: dtardon: now that is dry -- not even talking to the troll once.
(05:34:05 PM) dtardon: Sweetshark, i'm not so good at talking ;)
(05:34:31 PM) Sweetshark: dtardon: but your kicking moves are quite hamdsome ;)

A Faster LibreOffice Build

2011-09-27T16:23:00.000+05:30

How about building LibreOffice faster? So I am giving another post about boosting your LO build speed, starting from scratch.

Short story: system libraries are your friend. Now, it is not super easy to make a build that is using 100% system libraries, but you can go a long way with this, and very easily too.

Reminder: I am doing this from Fedora 15 system with an Icecream cluster.

This is the procedure:
1. Clone the latest repository. If you are behind a firewall, use corkscrew

git clone ssh://git.freedesktop.org/git/libreoffice/core.git

2. Set up build dependencies

sudo yum-builddep libreoffice
sudo yum install icecream
sudo yum install zlib-devel libjpeg-devel poppler-devel sane-backends-devel curl-devel boost-devel cppunit-devel libpng-devel

3. Configure and Icecream

sudo vim /etc/sysconfig/icecream
sudo /etc/init.d/iceccd restart
sudo chkconfig iceccd on
icecc --build-native
mkdir ~/.icecc
mv <whatever icecc generated> ~/.icecc/icecc-env.tar.gz
echo "export ICECC_DEBUG=debug">> ~/.bashrc
echo "export ICECC_VERSION=~/.icecc/icecc-env.tar.gz" >>~/.bashrc

4. Generate make files

./autogen.sh --enable-icecream --with-gcc-home=/usr/lib/icecc --with-num-cpus=16 --with-max-jobs=16 --enable-symbols--with-system-libs --with-system-headers

5. Build

make; make dev-install

Setting up LibreOffice For Fuzz Testing

2011-09-26T17:49:00.000+05:30

I will assume that your VM is properly set up with the CERT BFF :)

Now, you will need to install Java, which you can download from Oracle.
To do so
1. Copy to your virtual machine's shared folder
2. Create the target installation directory, e.g. /usr/java
3. Run the unpacking, e.g. sudo /.../jre-6u26-linux-i586.bin
4. Add to your path: sudo vim /etc/profile and add PATH=$PATH:/usr/java/jre1.6.0_26/bin
5. Source the new setting: source /etc/profile

Then you will need a reasonably recent copy of LibreOffice. For instance, the latest bundle of debs. After you got that
1. Copy to your virtual machine's shared folder
2. Unpack: tar xvfz LibO_3.4.2_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US.tar.gz
3. cd LibO_3.4.2rc3_Linux_x86_install-deb_en-US
4. sudo dpkg -i *.deb
5. Add to your path sudo vim /etc/profile and add PATH=$PATH:PATH=$PATH:/opt/libreoffice3.4/program
6. Source the new setting: source /etc/profile

After you did all that, it is a good idea to power down and take a snapshot of your virtual machine.
Once this is done,
1. Unzip the scripts folder into the directory shared with the virtual machine
2. vim bff.cfg and replace as follows
program=soffice
killprocname=soffice.bin
preargs=
postargs=
seedfile=seed.doc
zzuftimeout=30
killproctimeout=60
gdbtimeout=30
valgrindtimeout=120

You should be good to go. Try starting you VM and the fuzz testing should happen automatically

CERT Basic Fuzzing Framework in QEmu

2011-09-26T17:46:00.002+05:30

Here is a follow-up post on how to use QEmu to run the BFF from CERT. Since the support for sharing files between host and guest OSes is not always there, I'm suggesting to use another method for that. In this case, I'll just copy the files in the VM.

I assume you already downloaded the files from CERT, so I will not repeat that.

1. Convert to qemu format
qemu-img convert DebianFuzz.vmdk -O qcow2 DebianFuzz-copy.qemu
2. Copy to whichever system will run it
scp DebianFuzz-copy.qemu myvmhost:
3. Login to that host and start the VM with network support and VNC
sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -m 512 ~/DebianFuzz-copy.qemu -vnc :1 -net nic -net tap
4. Connect using Remmina to myvmhost:5901
5. In the, VM connect to the network using DHCP
dhclient eth1
6. Change your apt configuration if needed
7. Install OpenSSH
su -c "apt-get install ssh"
8. Copy the data from your own box
scp -r mydesktop:~/fuzz-shared ~/fuzzing
9. Configure a symlink:
sudo ln -s /mnt/hgfs/fuzz /home/fuzz/fuzzing
10. Restart the VM
sudo shutdown -r now

While this officially runs 'fine', I personally have not been too happy with it. Things are slow, and the results we get are only in a log file. So that means hours of fuzzing and I don't even get a sample to test with!

Fear of the Lord

2011-09-22T22:25:00.000+05:30

The Fear of the Lord is an unpopular idea. We typically understand that God is all about love, and there shouldn't be any reason to fear, right?

Well, the Bible tells us to have a more balanced view: having both fear and love. How is that possible? Is it Stockholm Syndrome? Read on...

#1) The term is in both Testaments
One common idea is that 'Fear' is what the Old Testament is all about, and that 'Love' is what the New Testament is all about. Not quite.

"[...]but with a sincere heart, fearing the Lord." (Colossians 3:22b, NET)

Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria experienced peace and thus was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, the church increased in numbers. (Acts 9:31, NET)

Fearing the Lord is the beginning of moral knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)

So we see that fearing the Lord has always been a good thing.

#2) Why should you fear God?
Because of His righteous judgment. And because God delights in those who fear Him. And we can learn to delight in fearing God too.

I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do. But I will warn you whom you should fear: Fear the one who, after the killing, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! (Luke 12:4-5, NET)

The Lord takes delight in his faithful followers, and in those who wait for his loyal love. (Psalms 147:11, NET - Hebrew is in those who fear Him)

He will take delight in obeying the Lord. (Isaiah 11:3a, Hebrew says fearing the Lord)

#3) What it means to fear the Lord?
There are two Greek words used here: Phobeomai and Phobos. They mean terrify, but also respect, reverence, accompanied with the idea of amazement and astonishment (Key Word Study Bible, p. 1684). So when we read about the fear of the Lord, we need to keep in mind those dimensions as well.

Gather the people – men, women, and children, as well as the resident foreigners in your villages – so they may hear and thus learn about and fear the Lord your God and carefully obey all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 31:12, NET)

Fearing God means obeying His Word.

If you fear the Lord, serving him and obeying him and not rebelling against what he says, and if both you and the king who rules over you follow the Lord your God, all will be well. (1 Samuel 12:14)

Fearing God means serving Him.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; (Proverbs 8:13a, NET)

Continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence (Philippians 2:12b, NET)

Fearing God means to hate sin and evil things. It means doing everything we can to stay pure and stay close to God, and letting His Spirit work in us.

He declared in a loud voice: “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has arrived, and worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water!” (Revelations 14:7, NET)

Conclusion
Fearing God is a must for disciples of Christ. Jesus makes it very clear that we must fear God.
Fearing God is a good thing. It means to show a healthy respect for the Almighty.
The fear of God means that we will fight sin in our lives, to worship God, to give Him glory and to obey. We can (and should) pray for that (Ps 86:11)

Reflexions on the Historical Adam

2011-09-11T22:25:00.002+05:30

Whether you like it or not, the false issue of Creation vs. Evolution is the dominant intellectual roadblock on their way to a relationship with God.

So, here is my feeble attempt at helping my brothers and sisters in the faith dealing with our Biblical ancestor, Adam.

First things first. It is important to realize at the account of Genesis 2 refers to a local creation in Mesopotamia, whereas Genesis 1 refers to the universal creation. The fact is spelled out in nicely:

The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food. (Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the orchard.)

Now a river flows from Eden to water the orchard, and from there it divides into four headstreams. The name of the first is Pishon; it runs through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is pure; pearls and lapis lazuli are also there). The name of the second river is Gihon; it runs through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it runs along the east side of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. (Genesis 2:8-14 NET)

A further important point is that the text of Genesis does mention either directly or indirectly that other humans are there for Adam's descendants to mix with.

Then Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is too great to endure! Look! You are driving me off the land today, and I must hide from your presence. I will be a homeless wanderer on the earth; whoever finds me will kill me.” - Genesis 4:13-14 (NET)

Obviously, that means someone else that his two parents. If there were only 2 persons on the whole planet, it would be very easy to avoid getting killed.

And Adam had marital relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son. She named him Seth, saying, “God has given me another child in place of Abel because Cain killed him.” And a son was also born to Seth, whom he named Enosh. At that time people began to worship the Lord. (Genesis 4:25-26 NET)

Cain had marital relations with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was building a city, and he named the city after his son Enoch. (Genesis 4:17 NET)

In these cases, we need other humans around for these men to get married and have children!

On the non-Biblical front, this explanation fits with some scientific conclusions, such as the existence of a single language about 50'000 years ago, and the need of a population pool of thousands of individuals in order to have a reasonable mutation rate.

Objections and Questions

Objection #1: The most obvious apparent contradiction between we read so far and the Bible is in Paul's preach to the Athenians in the book of Acts.

From one man he made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth (Acts 17:26a NET)

Now, the common interpretation is that we are talking about Adam here.
There are different ways we can handle this while keeping the inerrancy of the Bible in mind:

The one man doesn't need to be Adam. It could just as well be the first proto-human.
Here the text mentions how the nations of the Earth came from one man. One thing that is interesting is that the text of Genesis 4 onwards mentions cities and the like. In a way, Adam could be seen as the father not of humanity, but of civilization.
The 'entire earth' could be the entire known world of the time.

The first one does not require a lot of analysis, we can take it as that. The second answer needs a bit of work to see if it fits with known facts. As for the third, it is intellectually tenable (and a good answer for some other intellectual challenges the Bible gives us.)

Let us give the second option a hearing...

The first constraint that we have is that Adam and Eve's story happened roughly 6000 years ago, so we have to see if the evidence fits around 4000 BC.

I am not an expert on the subject, but I see from Wikipedia that this more or less corresponds to the rise of civilization. The oldest civilization, Sumer, is from the same area as the Adamites, and was originally settled in the 5th millenium BC, with a start of writing in the third millenium BC. It is not clear when the rest of the characteristics of civilization came in the picture, but it more or less agrees with a 4000BC time frame.

But then comes another objection: if the Adamites brought civilization to the world, how come that Central and South American peoples such as the Aztecs and the Incas had such an advanced civlization? The current models point to a migration previous to 10'000BC after all. I think that there is enough room for contemplating a sea-borne migration that reached a little later.

Question #1: If Adam's sons could marry local girls, why couldn't Adam do the same? This is something that the Bible doesn't tell us anything about. Here are some options:

There could be a symbolic reason for this. Adam and Eve had the first recorded marriage after all. When we get into symbolism, the sky is the limit :)
Adam might have been somewhat different from the other hominids in the area, and God wanted someone who was exactly like him. This idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds, as our human ancestors have an history of inter-breeding across species.

Question #2: If other humans were around, will they go to Heaven or Hell? The Bible isn't explicit about this, but it does tell us something important.

So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned – for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam (who is a type of the coming one) transgressed. (Romans 5:12-14, NET)

I do not understand that passage much, except for the part that Sin entered our world after Adam. So these pre-Adamites can either be

Soulless animals, in which case there is neither Heaven nor Hell for them. That would make Adam and Eve the first spiritual beings.
Humans with a soul, but living in innocence. In such a case, they would go to Heaven, as their conscience would not accuse them (Romans 2:14-16)

On Indian Visas

2011-08-28T19:26:00.005+05:30

Don't let the Embassies' websites fool you, there are a LOT of visa types one can get in India.

I got this from the "Application for Visa Extension/Return Visa/Multiple Visa Entry/Exit Permission", from FRRO Hyderabad.

The types are: Tourist, Business, Employment, Entry (x), Student, Journalist, Official, Yoga, Diplomatix [not my typo], Medical, PIO, Medical Attendant, Missionary, Research, Provisional Student, Return Visa, Stateless, Others.

You read that well, there is a 'Others' too!
One of the annoying things is that there is almost no documentation online about these visas, and how to get them.

But that begs a question: do we really need all of those? Can we merge Yoga, Medical, Medical Attendant and Entry (x) into Tourist?

Do we really need the Return Visa?
What about the Missionary Visa? After all, a lot of missionaries in India are... Indian citizens!

Monsoon Blues

2011-08-25T17:08:00.000+05:30

We had a very weak monsoon rain lately, so it was time for Nature to 'catch up', and it did so insanely this weekend.
One fine morning, at 1AM, some boys rang our bell and told me "Sir, your car is moving".

Looking at the river that replaced my street, I did not venture.

The next morning, it was time for the damage report. Have a look:

Monsoon Vs Car

So, water and mud inside, and some crazy pressure on the suspension/alignment. I got things cleaned up and inspected easily enough, but still!!!

Monsoon is an interesting season. It is when the country gets the water it will run on for the next year. A weak rainfall means that people are going to die of hunger and that prices will go up. Too much rain means floods, and that can be very destructive.

Of course, this creates other disruptions in every life. Electricity will often go down during the rains, and the phone line may take a hit too. Traffic slows down and sometimes stops.
Some people have their houses flooded, and need to spend hours during the night in damage control. This sort of stuff.

If you plan to visit India, avoid this season. Your trip may not be so enjoyable.

Young Earth Theory

2011-08-25T12:48:00.001+05:30

One of my friends told me about Hovind's Theory and I thought I couldn't hear something worse. A chunk of ice from space splitting conveniently enough to cover both the poles? You gotta be kidding me! For extra laughs, have a look at the over-simplifications at the Creation Minute.

Anyways, I did a little searching and found what looks like The Ultimate Resource against foolish Young Earth Theory defenders: How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments? by Dave E. Matson.

Now, for my dear brothers and sisters in the faith, I have a little tidbit for you: you can, and you must, believe in evolution.
You can because the Bible doesn't mention a mechanism by which Creation has enabled God's decrees, so it doesn't rule out evolution. And the story of Adam and Even does not have to happen on the 6th day, but more reasonably happens much later, after a chunk of soulless humanity has spread.

And you must believe in evolution because that's the best model put forward by science. Any if one wishes to put aside science, then one must also put aside the benefits of science. So that means turning off that computer, removing those factory-woven garments and hunting for the next meal without a rifle (extra points for doing it with bare hands).

As a sidenote, a better understanding of Genesis is available in a book highly recommended by a (scientist) friend of mine: The Science of God, by Gerald Schroeder.

BSNL: Disconnecting India

2011-08-24T09:58:00.000+05:30

BSNL is a well-known acronym for Bharath Sanchar Nigam Limited, one of the two government phone companies. Think of it as the Bell Canada of yore.

A while back, BSNL/MTNL was the only phone company most of Indians would have access to, and the queue for having a phone connection was pretty long.
After the liberalization, things got competitive, and now BSNL has improved its service dramatically.

That being said, it remains horribly backwards compared to the rest of the industry.

I had my phone connected the same day, and my Internet (ADSL) connection came a few days later. For a while, things were OK. The internet was mostly working, and the noise on the line wasn't too bad, so we were more or less able to use it.

But then came the monsoon season. Every time it rains, the line will be dead for some time. If it is not dead, it will have a lot of noise, so that we can't use it.

The customer service is disappointing, but less than one would expect from a government agency. While you have to go to a customer service centre to get some things done, and that the staff there are less than hardworking, there are some operations you can do by phone and on their portal.

Sadly, even that takes a hit in practice. Sometimes, customer service phone number won't connect. Also, the complaints you register tend not to get resolved in the system, so that you can't register complaints again.

Being very unsatisfied with the service, I thought of not paying the bill. This was very easy, as they didn't send me the bill last month. I didn't think much of that, and saw on the current bill that I didn't pay. They gave me a tiny penalty for late payment and gave me a due date of the end of the month. No problem.
But then, one fine morning, I hear a robo-voice telling me that the phone is disconnected due to non-payment. It is very interesting that the bill tells me I have another 2 weeks to pay and there is no threat of disconnection on it.

The very next day, a technician finally came (after months of constant complaints) and fixed the phone line. Now it is crystal clear and it has survived some pretty nasty rains.

BSNL: seriously? You fix people's phone lines after your disconnect them? Is "sadistic" or "evil" a requirement for employment in your organization?
Anyways, thanks for helping me making the decision I should've done months ago. I am not turning back.

Ala Modalaindi

2011-08-21T19:48:00.002+05:30

Ala Modalaindi is the first Telugu movie that I saw that doesn't have the exact same story as the other ones.

The story is simple: boy meets girl, feelings start, but then it gets complicated. One is engaged, but breaks up, then the other gets a girlfriend, then breaks up, etc. etc. etc.

I laughed a lot. There is an actual story and the characters make me feel like liking them.

Varudu

2011-08-08T15:24:00.001+05:30

Another review for yet another action-oriented Telugu hero movie.
Varudu is about a nice guy who has an arranged marriage with a girl whom he doesn't know what she looks like.

She gets kidnapped right in the middle of their wedding, right after seeing her for the first time. And the rest of the movie is about getting her back from the bad guy.
The only interesting thing in this movie is learning about the over-the-top pre-marriage rituals for the very rich people around here.

A Fast(er) LibreOffice Build

2011-08-03T12:11:00.032+05:30

So I have finally managed to build LibreOffice from the source. In order to cut a lot of compile time, I have set up a small build cluster. And this is how you would do the same. This is how I think I did it (but I don't guarantee anything... too many intermediary steps). If anything is missing, please let me know in the comments.

sudo yum-builddep libreoffice

sudo yum install icecream

Once you reach that point, set up your Icecream cluster properly. I won't mention steps on the other machines

sudo vim /etc/sysconfig/icecream
sudo /etc/init.d/iceccd restart
sudo chkconfig iceccd on
icecc --build-native
mkdir ~/.icecc
mv <whatever icecc generated> ~/.icecc/
sudo vim ~/.bashrc

export ICECC_DEBUG=debug
export ICECC_VERSION=/home/<your home folder>/.icecc/icecc-env.tar.gz

Now, you are ready to build

./autogen.sh --enable-icecream --with-gcc-home=/usr/lib/icecc --with-num-cpus=16 --with-max-jobs=16 --enable-symbols ; make

Next step: I'm going to find out how to accelerate this build using even more system libraries.

CERT Basic Fuzzing Framework in VirtualBox

2011-08-01T16:40:00.000+05:30

So CERT has released an ever-improved version of their Basic Fuzzing Framework (BFF) and you might wanna play with it.
But then, you discover that it is distributed as VMWare image. Maybe you work in a company that would like to avoid spending for a license, or you might be a free software zealot.

So here is how to use it with VirtualBox OSE. I hope I didn't mess up some of those instructions...

1. Install VirtualBox. In Fedora 15, you would enable the RPM Fusion repositories and then run

sudo yum install VirtualBox-OSE

2. After downloading the Debian image from the link above, unzip the file
3. Set up a new virtual machine with the vmdk file you installed
4. Set up a shared folder named fuzz and make it auto-mounting
5. Run the virtual machine
6. Get the VM Guest Additions as follows:

wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.4/VBoxGuestAdditions_4.0.4.iso
sudo cp VBoxGuestAdditions_4.0.4.iso /usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso

7. Mount the additions ISO clicking on Devices > Install Guest Additions and then

sudo mount /dev/cdrom2 /cdrom

cd /cdrom ; ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run ; cd /

sudo umount /cdrom
8. Set up the user to use the Virtual Box group as the default group

sudo usermod -g vboxsf fuzz

9. Add a symlink where the framework expects the shared folder to be installed:
cd /mnt/hgfs; sudo ln -s /media/sf_fuzz fuzz
10. Restart the virtual machine, and you should be ready.

Mass Violence in India

2011-07-15T12:30:00.000+05:30

With the news of a coordinated terrorist attack in Mumbai this week, I thought of my friends outside India who don't know much about what is going on here. So I am summarizing about the kinds of mass violence we see in the newspapers. By mass violence, I'm talking about multiple homicides from the same origin (either in planning or in execution), and so I'm not including accidental deaths like temple stampedes, derailed trains, and the usual murder case (which happens everywhere on the planet).

I'm only going to give examples of 5 years ago and less. Otherwise, that would be too many links.

#1 Officially State-Operated Mass Violence
This first category is when agents of the State bring violence to the civilians. Recently, the Supreme Court demanded the disbanding of SPOs (Special Police Officers) in Chhattisgarh who were supposed to hunt down Maoist insurgents but did a lot of 'collateral damage'.

The same happens with paramilitary forces of the Central goverment. The first references to come to mind are the Assam Rifles in Manipur. Almost the same situation happens in Jammu-Kashmir, but with a mix of military and paramilitary forces (from memory: the Army, Border Security Force and the Central Reserve Police Force). They are protected by a law that prevents all prosecution against them, unless an authorization is granted by the government - and that never happens.

#2 Unofficially State-Operated Mass Violence
The second category is when the government uses their own private forces to hurt the people. This happened not too long ago in Nandigram, when Communist cadres tagged along with the police and went trigger happy against protesting villagers. Again, there has been no accountability for this.

#3 Inter-communal Mass Violence
This type is often orchestrated by politicians, and it aims to bring one community to unleash destruction to another. In 2007-2008, Christians in Orissa received a nasty Chrismas gift in the form of murders, rapes, burn buildings and dismemberments. Again, there has not been any real punishment for the perpetrators.

#4 Revolutionary Groups-Operated Mass Violence
Insurgent groups typically gain support in the aftermath of #1. The most famous of such group is the Maoists, who are leading an insurgency against the government (and not really winning much). These will typically target the agents of the State and infrastructure like cellphone towers and railway tracks.

#5 Externally-Sponsored Terrorism
This is the one that give diplomats headaches. The acronyms we see normally around those cases are LeT and ISI. The 26/11 Mumbai attacks were one of those. The perpetrators were trained in Pakistan and there are some hints of a backing by the Pakistani government.

#6 Internal Terrorism
There are a few bombs that detonate every year in various cities in India. They are unpredictable. They are typically the work of radical 'muslim' groups. I put that word between quotes because I know enough Muslim friends who will tell me that such terrorists are not Muslims at all

The last three are typically getting the headlines and big budgets are set up to react against them.
My impression is that the first three bring a lot more people to the graveyard than the last three, and that they get conveniently swept under the rug. If anyone knows any hard numbers on these, please let me know!

So now you know why I'm not too preoccupied by the terrorists.

Why I replaced Ubuntu with Fedora

2011-07-02T16:46:00.000+05:30

You will remember my fanboy-esque previous post about how Ubuntu Linux just works and now nice it is.

At some point, reality hit me: the Unity interface crashes from time to time (especially when Chrome and SpiderOak are running). Trying to change to the 'classic' interface gave me a bad surprise: the annoying scrollbars introduced in Unity were still there (that behaviour will be changed in version 11.10). This is when I got angry at Canonical/Ubuntu/Shuttleworth for ramming down a choice down my throat. That is when all the criticism I read before clicked in place, and I left the state of denial I was in.
What kind of project abiding to the spirit of free software would force all of its users who want an upgrade to use their half-baked technology simply because a serious competitor (gnome 3) was coming? That's sophistry: no true open source project would do that. So I went to the other popular distribution, Fedora 15, which has very strict policies in place to offer only free software by default.

It makes things a bit less magical. One has, for instance, to search a little bit for the library required to play encrypted DVDs. Also, LibreOffice and flash were not there by default, so there was plenty of packages to install. Being a hardcore geek, I don't mind too much. But Ubuntu's focus on making things easy has produced something I hope that Fedora will imitate soon: an installer that will yield a system that 'just works'.

Mann

2011-07-02T13:24:00.000+05:30

I am generally a big fan of Aamir Khan, as my friends know. He was the leading actor in so many of the Hindi movies that I enjoyed watching. And he knows how to act reasonably well, unlike so many Bollywood 'heroes'

I recently saw one of this older movies, Mann. I have to admit that, at first glance, it is one more of the typical Bollywood romance movies that involve a boy changing his ways after "falling in love" with a girl in less than a week. The fact that they were both engaged and would decide to put all of that aside is almost standard for a Hindi romantic movie. But they have put a twist in the plot (no spoiler!) that make it more interesting.

Short comment: entertaining romantic movie when you don't want to use your head

Building LibreOffice: What Nightmares are Made Of

2011-07-02T13:17:00.000+05:30

It is no secret that I started helping out with fixing bugs in LibreOffice, that fixed-up and overall much improved fork of OpenOffice.org.
Started is a good word. After managing to do one patch, I somehow messed something up and I had to rebuild it all. I started on Monday. By Friday, I still didn't have a working build.
Why? Well, it is about 9 million lines of code meant to be compiled on pretty much every computer that is reasonably recent. The amount of switches on the autogen script is mind-blowing, and it has a mix of C++ with Java and Python. The build tool is coded in perl, and it is being migrated to proper makefiles.
Some of the dependencies are downloaded from the internet and patched as part of the build process.
Etc. etc.
I have been told that the best case scenario, using a icecream cluster and ccache is a 45 minute build.
Every now and then, a module will not build nicely and some manual intervention is required. Or you will run out of disk space (we are talking about 10+ Gb!). Or there is a bug specific to your platform that needs a magical patch not yet committed to git.

That sort of stuff. It is a beast, in the words of leading maintainers.

I also literally had a nightmare about this building process. And I can safely say that I hate C++ more than ever!
I encourage everyone to join and help. But you need to be very very patient!

On the + side, I'm fast becoming friends with the maintainers on IRC. I also learned many things about software builds. I see more than ever how you need to make your software very easy to build if you want contributors. This is why I am a big fan of Buildr, which makes things simple to package, test and release.

Checking the Status of your Icecream cluster without icemon

2011-06-29T15:53:00.000+05:30

I started playing with Icecream, a distributed build system for C/C++ projects.
One of the irritating things is that icemon isn't really working (and it is not available in Fedora in the first place).

So, lo and behold, here is a little bit of script-fu to allow you to do the same.

O Kébek

2011-06-16T11:05:00.000+05:30

Someone commissioned a national anthem for Québec, and they came up with this:

Now, it seems like features like "being able to remember it" was not high on the priority list.
I compared with a few other national anthems, and this one would be the longest I saw (assuming we count out La Marseille's chorus).

Compare with O Canada, which has 10 easy-to-remember lines.
La Marseillaise is roughly 50 lines, counting out the chorus
The Star-Spangled Banner is about 30 lines.

And remember that those anthems are often truncated in practice because no average joe will remember it all.

It is a nice poem, I will give it that. But it doesn't have that oomph of a national anthem.

My guess is that Calixa Lavalée is spinning in his grave a lot this week.

Now, let's listen to a real iconic Québecois songs that will do just fine instead.

Royal Bank of Scotland Going Down the Drain

2011-05-20T13:50:00.000+05:30

RBS took over ABN Amro in India some time back. They were hoping that the merger with HSBC India would be approved by the RBI, but that isn't happening any time soon.

Since March, NetBanking was disabled for making payments, and customers had to use their Debit Card instead (sometimes having 2%+ penalty).
Apparently, that option will be closed on 31st May, which means that RBS customers will NOT be able to do any electronic payments at all. There is an exception, of course, for customers with their credit cards. Which is not many people, since they pulled out of that business during the financial crisis.
The justification? Too much phishing.

As a security guy, I am a bit surprised... why not instead implement... ahem... effective security measures? Maybe they could just give a phone call to their HQ in the UK and ask them 'How are you guys doing it?'

Instead, someone somewhere said something like 'Meh, why spend money on protecting our customers? Lets just shut down the whole thing instead.'

This is funny in many ways... the RBI wants to limit how much foreign banks can do in India, in order to protect its own banking sector. Yet, we're seeing a foreign bank having worse offerings than many local banks.

After stopping issuing credit cards in 2009, stopping online transactions in 2011, I think we can predict RBS India to shut down its operations in 2013.

Magadheera

2011-05-20T13:35:00.000+05:30

Magadheera is, in many ways, exactly what one would expect from a South Indian hero movie: it has a cheapo romance, two guys fighting over the same girl, random songs unrelated to the story (even one in Switzerland!), and an absolutely insane level of violence.

The idea is that, 400 years ago, the hero, the villain and the heroine all died tragically and their love could not be. So, they all reincarnate in this life to put an end of this 'unfinished business'.
The only hint the hero has about all this is that he will have sparks flying and flashbacks the moment he touches the heroine.

I could talk for a long time about this movie, but I'll just summarize my comments as follows: please turn brain off for ~3 hours. Why? There is a bunch of historical inconsistencies, a lot of deus ex machina moments, and actors that are both South Indians and North Indians in the same movie. You can tell that the focus on skin fairness is going a bit too far when that happens!

Lets try to have some positive: the fight scenes are epic, the images are stunning, and the bad guy is so evil that you can't help but be happy when he dies.

Ubuntu 11.04 'Just works'

2011-05-02T09:55:00.000+05:30

The latest version of Ubuntu, Natty Narwhal, was released a few days back.

I installed it at home and I have to say that I finally had what I consider a user-friendly installation process that 'just works'. I'll explain the quotes... my lousy MacBook has this problem of just dying unexpectedly, so I haven't had the time to really test it enough to know if the webcam works out of the box.

If you used Linux before, you likely had to do a fair amount of tweaking after you installed, and I'm not talking about the fancy stuff that power users do. Things like installing Flash, MP3 support and the like needed some decent know-how to get done (think medibuntu and RPM Fusion). So, it failled the 'just works' test.

The latest Ubuntu makes this a whole lot easier. One of the features is to download the 'extra' packages that I mentioned above, while running the installer. Of course, you need to be connected to the Internet for that, but that's not a big problem in the typical use case. So the result is that I had a system that was ready to be used without any tweaking. I just had to open up the Software Centre in order to add a few applications that my wife and I are using often that I can't expect the average user to want (Arista Transcoder? Xiphos?).
Of course, the MP3s are playing right out of the box, and I was able to start some Flash video.
And I didn't have to do any configuration for my printer to work too.

Also, did I mention that it comes by default with useful fonts that make the screen lookable at?

When installing on the Macbook, it automatically detected it and allowed me to brainlessly create a 'sharing' (FAT32) partition between the two OSes.

So, essentially, it was the first painless Linux install in my life (and I'm a power user). I hope that this ease of installation will encourage more people to make the switch and have a (more) liberated life.

Of course, I'm not expecting the most hardcore geeks to like it... VIM doesn't come pre-installed ;)

Trip to Kerala

2011-04-28T11:08:00.002+05:30

I had the chance to go to Trivandrum for a work-vacation... I went along with my darling and I loved it.

Trivandrum is a nice starting point, but few things are there to see.

Alleypey is overrated. The boat trip is nice, but if time is tight, it can be skipped.

Munnar was the highlight. I wish I had more time to enjoy there.

Kochi looked promising, but time was too short. Oh well.

Kerala Trip - Public

RBI Arm-Twisting the Indian Banking Sector

2011-04-28T10:23:00.003+05:30

One thing I like about India is how the government can really force banks to do the right thing.One example is how they have forced them to disclose the service tax they'll take on FOREX, so that you won't feel randomly cheated on every transaction.There's the raw data:

<= to R 100 000 : Max of 25.75 or 0.103%

R 100 000 to 1 000 000: R 103 + 0.0515% of (X - 100 000)

R more than that: Min of R 566 + 0.103% of (X- 100 000) or R 5150

Welcome to Dongmakgol

2011-03-06T21:15:00.000+05:30

Thanks to Creaking Projectors, I had the chance to see Welcome to Dongmakgol, a beautiful Korean movie.

The story is that soldiers from both North and South Korea (and an American pilot) end up in this super remote village in the middle of the mountains. They somehow put their enmity aside and become one with the villagers in time.

I strongly recommend it!!!

Brindaavanam

2011-02-28T15:19:00.000+05:30

Brindaavanam is a typical action+romantic South Indian movie. The violence is over-the-top, the songs feature quite a bit of the actresses skin, etc. You know, the typical stuff.

What redeems this movie is that the story is interesting... a lady sends her boyfriend to pretend be her friend's boyfriend, so that she can be spared a forced marriage to a bad guy. And to the lies, more lies come and add up, to the point that the situation isn't sustainable.

I'll spare you the ending, but lets just say it isn't encouraging people towards godliness...

BSNL in Almost 48 Hours

2011-01-31T21:38:00.003+05:30

In India, the government has a reputation for being slow. BSNL, being the government phone company, is no exception. I have to say that I've been pleasantly surprised.

Well, they are still making it hard to get the phone line and internet connection... show up to their office, get forms, have a form missing. Show up again to get the form, and submit it a 3rd time.

But once that was done... same day we had the phone line set in the house (In India, not every home has a phone jack built-in). The next day it was activated. The third day the internet was set. W00t!

EDIT:
Actually, the line was noisy and was getting on and off randomly. It has been useless for ~2 weeks until we complained in person at the Customer Service Centre. BooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOh!

Kedgaon Retreat

2011-01-20T06:10:00.000+05:30

Last weekend, a bunch of us Hyderabadis went in Kedgaon, Maharashtra. We were telling people we were going to Pune, cuz nobody knows about that place (and its in Pune district too!).

The train stopped for 30-45 seconds max at that station, and you could see more than 30 people on 3 train doors trying to get out as quickly as possible. The locals trying to get in the train didn't like us ;)

Calling Kedgaon the middle of nowhere is not a big exageration. They do have something else than fields, but aside from that Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission (and its retreat centre - where we went), there is not much there. That there is a field and cows grazing next to the station's fence add to the feeling.

The retreat itself was nice. I saw some sins in my heart exposed, like selfishness and lack of surrender and trust in God on some domains of my life. We met brothers and sisters from Pune and Kolapur, who were the organizers. There are some amazingly talented disciples there. I'm thinking of those 4 Kolapur sisters who danced and sang beautifully for us.

The life of the founder of that mission is pretty amazing. She was the first to translate the Bible in Marathi, and she is known to be praying in face of every difficulty that came her way, trusting God to take care of it (which apparently happened a lot too!)

The Bible Jesus Read

2010-12-25T15:02:00.000+05:30

Title: The Bible Jesus Read
Author: Philip Yancey
Publisher: ZondervanPublishingHouse
ISBN: 978-81-7362-251-9

Philip Yancey brings us through Job, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and The Prophets. I have to say that I really appreciated the different insights that he put forward, especially in Job and Ecclesiastes. One of the strengths of the book is to help the reader move from the first impression about a given Bible book to a better understanding. He uses a few analogies along the way and they deliver.

To illustrate: many people believe that Job is about suffering, when it is about pure and non-motivated faith. Some think of the prophets as only predicting things to come, but they spend a lot of time expressing things that are happening now, and expressing the mind of God. Some view the Psalms as an official worship song book, when its about pouring your heart to God. The best, for me, was to view Ecclesiastes in alongside nihilist writers, and the unavoidable comment: in times of trouble and injustice, people's mind is on seeing things change. But when everything is well, and that people are bathing in wealth, then it becomes easy to see a great pointlessness in all of human endeavours.

The book's end points to Jesus, who makes the prophecies come to life, gives a real purpose to human life and answers the itching question do we matter to God? by a resounding yes!

Now in Marriedom

2010-12-25T14:39:00.001+05:30

It has been more than a month and, seriously, I barely had a break since them.
Getting married is an expensive and stressful project, even if you try to do it on the cheap, and my wedding was no exception.

The week before the wedding, I had a decent amount of overwork trying to make the chaos fall in place. In the end, it is the experienced church administrator who handled everything on that day.

Our wedding day was wonderful, and I have to say that I'll always keep fond memories of it.

Wedding Album

And I must say that things have been hectic after too. I never knew that I needed so many cooking vessels in the house! I really believed that I was living in a wife-ready apartment. Oh boy I was wrong!
My wife has spent a lot of energy reorganizing the place to make it a nice home, travelling great lengths so that we purchased what we needed at the lowest cost and so on.

She is a great blessing. She is full of life and of joy, and she really respects and cares for me. And did I mention that she is feeding me well too? And, even better, she is a spiritual woman who makes sure we pray twice at day together.

I am more joyful now, and you can even catch me humming a tune in the morning. My character is improving too. I feel incredibly blessed. God has made a great miracle in my life and I am truly thankful for it.

FRRO Hyderabad

2010-12-22T12:15:00.000+05:30

I have to say, what a 'different' office! Taking a part of the old airport's terminal and making it a govnerment office stands out!

Putting the aesthetics aside, however, I have to say that it is a major improvement over the FRO. Dealing directly with the decision-maker in the Central Government is sooooooooo much better than going through a lot of middlemen.

I got my visa extension done in 7 days. 7!!! Isn't it amazing?

De FRRO Hyderabad

The End of Reason

2010-11-13T20:56:00.000+05:30

Here is a short book review.

Title: The End of Reason : A Response to the New Atheists
Author: Ravi Zacharias

Publisher: Zondervan (April 29, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0310282519
ISBN-13: 978-0310282518

Summary:

Ravi Zacharias essentially responds to books by the 'New Atheists', especially Sam Harris (author of The End of Faith). By the new atheists, Zacharias refers to this movement of aggressive atheists like Harris and Dawkins.

The book is essentially a more or less topical deconstruction of Harris' thesis.

Comments:

Ravi Zacharias is a well-known apologist and I had high expectations. I had never read any of his books before. I was very disappointed.

The structure of the book is not very well done, making it hard to easily organize the arguments for future reference. It leaves an impression of 'oh yeah, he's right', but its harder to be more specific than that.

Overall, I saw very few new things that would help me in the defence of the Gospel. The only significant point I recall is that the 'new atheists' are really a fringe in the atheist community and they are not universally well-received. Some will go as far as stating on the record that they are ashamed to be atheists because of them. That's a 'wow' statement!

In short, give this book to your friend if he read Harris and was shaken by it. If you've never read any apologetics before, that's an easy intro to the topic, so it could serve as a warm-up.

Border

2010-11-13T20:42:00.000+05:30

In terms of 'classical Hindi movie', Border would be one of the famous ones.

Border is the story of some unit of the Punjab Regiment that were sent to guard the indo-pakistani border in Rajasthan, west of Jaisalmer (see map). Of course, it is in the anticipation of the 1971 war with Pakistan.

View Larger Map

They are assisted by a few jawans of the BSF and their camels and they are stuck in the desert for a few months, fortifying the outpost and trying to find spies and informants.

In short: the BSF rocks... the main BSF jawan is a Rajput who knows the terrain and the local language and it makes a huge difference for a bunch of Punjabis who never saw the desert before.

And then the war breaks out. They are 120 infantry, with some minimal anti-tank weaponry, and there comes a column of tanks and infantry. HQ tells them to retreat, but gives the commander the last call. They decide to stay.
They call for an air strike, but the planes don't fight at night. So they have to hang in there until morning.
The rest is a mix of courage and insanity, with people leaving their covers to assist a fellow soldier and stuff like that. The craziest is when the BSF Jawan is wounded by a tank shell, goes out of the trench with an anti-tank mine all the way to the enemy commander's tank and manages to put that mine under its tracks and make it blow up. I don't know if that's movie or reality, but that's 100% crazy.

It is a pure patriotic movie that aims at inflating national pride and lauding heroes. I do appreciate the song near the end that calls for an end to war. But I can't help being amazed at the fact that the director managed to squeeze in 2 love stories in the middle of a war movie!

Bottom line: if you like war movies, then you'll like that one.

Strange Rains...

2010-11-13T20:22:00.000+05:30

Something weird is happening with the weather this year. We're having rain even in November. The rainy season should be well finished now, and yet we are in a state of uncertainty on whether to bring the umbrella or not...

An Indian Engagement

2010-10-11T07:34:00.000+05:30

Where I'm from, getting engaged is a private matter. I have a few friends who went from singlehood to marrieddom while I was around, so I got their inside story :)

Essentially, boy takes girl out on a date. That date is nicer than usual. At some point, boy goes on his knees, open a little box that contains a diamond ring and asks "Would you marry me?". Girl says yes, both are happy. And when both get home, they tell their family and friends. Or something close to that.

Of course, some will have a pre-process of asking for the girl's hand to her father too.

In India, family values are so strong that the boy isn't asking only the girl's father, but her entire family too! And then, the engagement isn't a private matter of two people walking on the beach and a ring moving from a pocket to a finger. It is a 'function', which means 'big party with protocol.'

I got engaged this Saturday with a wonderful Indian lady named Swapna. Her name means 'dream', and she really is a dream come true. I'll share our story another time.

Engagement

The whole thing has been surreal. I am not sure I am not dreaming this up. Not so long ago, I was crushed by the rejection dealt by another woman. I then decided to drop the checklist approach for bride-selection and to go by faith instead. And then God moved things in a mind-blowing way.

About 2 weeks ago, we met her family. Normally, it is a meeting of both families. In my case, I had a surrogate family in the person of some of the church leaders who joined for the meeting. I already mentioned it in an earlier post.

Saturday, I came with the same surrogate family. The whole day was intense: I met with a brother in the morning for d-time, then it was shopping-shopping-shopping, gift wrapping, buying this, buying that, prepare sharing, iron clothes and off-you-go.

Only to be told to come a bit later, as they weren't ready. Gotta love IST (Indian Stretchable Time)!

Thankfully, that gave me some more time to work on my sharing. I wanted something extra special for her.

We finally arrived there, and socialized with the guests on my side, as well as one of her family members. We were having something as close to a private thing as possible in this culture: with merely 40 guests, we were almost insulting a whole bunch of friends and relatives. Since we didn't have a lot of space, that falls in the 'what to do?' category :)

And then she came. My heart skipped beating and a truckload of hormones (I'm guessing serotonin) got released in my brain, seeing her great beauty.

I invited her, gave her flowers, and she came with her family members.

Then the ceremonial part started. We had songs, prayer, and a short message. The message was about breaking the pattern of the World, which is what we are doing.

Now, my reader may ask "what is the pattern of the World that you were breaking?" To answer, here is a primer about Indian marriages: the families will essentially look for your carbon copy in the other gender. That means someone from the same religion (+caste and subcaste for Hindus), of the same cultural group, with the same job (or same level of job) for the same kind of employer (MNCs are on top, big companies follow, then its no-name companies), with the same kind of education, and from a family that is at the same social status. For example, they would naturally seek a medical doctor lady for their medical doctor son, but could settle for a dentist. And a family would be OK if their IT professional son in IBM marries an HR or Accountant lady working for Accenture, but if she is working for a small outfit (say, Nayanaguda Infotech... ever heard of them?), then that could be an issue. Each family is different, so there will be case-by-case basis too.

Once the match is found comes the question of dowry. In India, the girl's family must pay a dowry. Nevermind that it is illegal to do so, dowries remain routinely asked and given every day in this country. The sums are typically colossal and funded from loans that can take years to repay.

Some people do break the rules, and those are called "love marriages" in contrast to "arranged marriages". Love marriages are typically frowned upon in Indian society. It does happen that the families boycott the event.

So, we were breaking the pattern of the World big time: IT Professional working for one of the world's largest companies wants to marry a lecturer in a local college. Then comes the fact that he's not even a Telugu boy, and he's not even Indian! And then, there is no dowry, neither in money nor in kind. Our union went against pretty much all the traditions of Indian weddings. And I must credit Swapna and her family for having the openness to not only allow our relationship to be, but for blessing it as well.

Once the message was finished, I was asked to share about her. I read a small poem (not sure its 100% kosher poem - I must've broken a rule or two here):

Carried by the wind, a dove

Gracefully, by the cove,

Caught my eyes, circling by me

Capturing me by her beauty

Her feathers, shining like the sun,

Almost making me blind.

She stands above anyone.

She would not leave my mind.

Her song spoke of a love

Too strong for words alone

For somebody Above.

Her flight brought joy & smiles

And gave eyes to the blind.

Never tiring, no matter how many miles,

Because she was lifted by the wind of a Supreme Mind.

Her black eyes saw my heart

And looked beyond appearance.

She planted a seed of love

That is now growing to a tree

And its roots are changing me.

Now my heart belongs to you and God alone.

At which point I fell on my knees, produced a red rose and said:

मैंने प्यार तुमसे किया | मुझसे शादी करो गे ?

Which translates as:

I love you. Will you marry me?

Her answer was yes. The most beautiful yes I heard so far!!!

Then she shared about her family and about me. She told me that she truly loved me, more than words could express. You have no idea how much those words mean to me.

Then we exchanged gifts. I gave her a saree and she gave me a shirt and trousers. She was very happy with my gift. I took some time shopping for this gift, and I really wanted to give her the best I could find. Her smile was as good a payback for my efforts as it gets!

Did I mention that she has a killer smile that makes me go ga-ga?

After the ceremony was over, we took a lot of pictures with all the guests (that's a warmup for the 200+ guests we'll have for the wedding. Something tells me we'll have sore feet and a hurting lower back that day) and then we finally got to eat together.

After some more socializing, I left and waved everyone goodbye. They were standing by the gate waving me goodbye. I was happy, I felt blessed.

I am still on a cloud. I feel unworthy of being blessed with such a spiritual and beautiful woman as my bride-to-be. I love her and want to spend my life with her. We have roughly 6 weeks to go before our wedding, and I just can't wait for that blessed day to come. I long for our love to be coming to fruition, and I long to put that ring on her finger. I long to share my life with her and, hopefully, see her beautiful smile every day.

All-India Youth and Campus Conference 2010

2010-10-08T14:02:00.000+05:30

Contrary that what you may believe, that conference wasn't an All-India conference, but All-South-Asia conference!
We had ~900 single brothers and sisters from a wide age group who gathered south of Chennai. We were divided in 3 groups: campus, youth, and special fellowship. In my case, I was in the special fellowship group, meant for those who are seeking their life partner (or have already found it :) ).

While the other groups were busy playing various games, we were busy helping our brothers and sisters' matchmaking, or, when freed from this role, talking to each other. It was great! I got to know my wife-to-be so much more.

In the morning, I would pray by the beach with a brother. We heard a lot of sermons. One that struck me was challenging us to stop having a 'small living', but to live big for God.

AIYCC 2010

At this point, I will encourage you to look at the pictures I'm linking to. We had a great time in the train too, as you can tell. We were playing cards, making jokes, singing, eating together.

A Good Analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian Situation

2010-09-27T20:41:00.000+05:30

I have the chance of reading an interview with Richard Falk, the United Nations Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Israeli-Occupied Territories of Palestine.

Here is a juicy quote that boils it down well:

I’ve just made a report to the U.N. which argues that the prolonged occupation combined with the expansion of the settlements amounts now to de facto annexation. There’s no longer just temporary legitimate occupation after 43 years. Israel has been establishing more or less permanent settlements throughout the whole of occupied Palestine. It is more realistic to look at it as a situation of de facto annexation, de jure occupation. So you have this tension between what is the factual reality and what is the supposed legal situation. At the present time I’m very sceptical [whether] inter-governmental diplomacy can achieve any significant result. And the best hope for the Palestinians is what I call a legitimacy war, similar to the anti-apartheid campaign in the late-1980s and 1990s that was so effective in isolating and undermining the authority of the apartheid government.

Joyful Human Thunder

2010-09-26T22:27:00.000+05:30

Today, there was a special announcement during the church service. In fact, I never heard the congregation get so excited in 2 years.
What was it? The official announcement that I'm getting married to Swapna.
You know, THE Swapna from Hyderabad? The super-spiritual woman who can move mountains, who loves God with all her heart, who works at her ministry hours every day despite a busy schedule, and who has a killer smile that makes me almost blind.
Did I mention I'm getting married? To her? Truly, God does great miracles even in the 21st century!!!

I am still in a state of unbelief. This is too good to be true. I wonder if I'll wake up a day and see that I dreamt the whole thing.

Meeting her family on Thursday was an experience! There must've been 10 people from her side. I went with two couples from the church, and most of the talk happened in Telugu and was handled by them. I only answered some questions to reassure the family that I am, in fact, a good guy and very much committed to be faithful to her. That's pretty easy to reassure them because I am both :)

When asked what I wanted, I told them (in broken Hindi) that I only wanted 3 things: her, their blessing, and their love. I saw an immediate reaction in the family. Its like if, at that moment, they accepted me and agreed that I would make a fine son in law.

So I am in the interesting status of 'engaged-to-be'. Our relationship is official and family-approved, and we're agreed to marry. So why not say 'engaged?' That is because Indian culture warrants an 'engagement function' with the families in order to make the engagement official. Also, because Indian culture warrants a big party whenever something good happens in your life :)
This is in sharp contrast to my culture, where engagement is a surprise a man gives his girlfriend and happens in a private manner. It then gets communicated to the family in an (one would expect) exuberant form ("Ohmygosh...ohmy...goodness!Mom...ohmygodohmygodohmygod... I'm getting married!!!!")

We're both going to the singles' retreat next week. Our last one (maybe except as chaperones). Its going to be a great time for me, I'm sure. I'm looking forward to meet brothers from all over the country, many whom are my friends. The extra edification will help too. God willing, we'll both deepen our friendship as well and get readier for a new life as one flesh.

Please pray for us and all the preparations. Also, please pray she gets her passport fast!

King Abdullah II of Jordan

2010-09-26T07:00:00.000+05:30

King Abdullah II of Jordan was on the Daily Show. And it was nice to hear a moderate voice talking about the opportunities and the pitfalls ahead for the Middle East. I couldn't find a link to the interview only, so you'll have to scroll a bit. Sorry about that.

And the rest of the interview is here:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Exclusive - King Abdullah II of Jordan Extended Interview

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

I found very interesting his observation that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is really at the center of their politics and concerns right now. And it is giving power to a lot of baddies. Also, his concern that the lack of stability is preventing the governments to create opportunities for a lot of well-educated young men and women who just want a normal life.

Web Privacy Closer to Disappear

2010-09-24T11:37:00.000+05:30

Someone had the idea of trying to re-generate cookies from as many ways as possible. And it works in Javascript too!!! This is called the evercookie.
It is an open source project, so the genie is out of the bottle. I somehow foresee a lot of people using evercookies in the future.
I hope someone programs an evercookie wiper soon!

Retreat in Vishakapatnam

2010-09-15T23:07:00.000+05:30

The last weekend, I joined about 35 other brothers and sisters from the AP churches for a retreat in Vishakapatnam (aka Vizag).

Our guest speakers were Felix and his wife, who are leaders in Chennai. We spent one day in the Araku Valley and saw some nice sights there. The other two days were lessons and fellowship.

I learnt about dealing with feelings of failure in the Christian ministry (when brothers leave the faith and nobody, etc.) and the need for boldness, as we are covered by God's authority when we use the Bible properly.

Have a look at some of the pictures. P.S. My camera is giving me trouble, so that means less pictures. Don't buy from General Electric!!!

AP Retreat 2010

The Book of Ruth

2010-09-14T11:59:00.000+05:30

I recently watched The Book of Ruth, as I got that DVD at a OM super discount.

They spent a lot of time in the early verses, essentially drawing the degenerating family situation and the sons dying, etc. They added relationship elements as well as tensions that were between that Hebrew family and their heathen neighbours.

Of course, everybody knows the ending, so there is no surprise.
I think they made some cultural/historical elements clear to the audience. But clearly the New Testament quotes in there were out of place.

It is an overall passable movie in terms of entertainment, and it has a little bit of faith building value. Its biggest utility, in my opinion, is to help disciples with little knowledge of the Old Testament know it better.

AIESEC IC and AIESEC Global Alumni Congress

2010-09-14T11:05:00.000+05:30

I have had the joy of living in the same city as those two events. I got to join as partner representative for my company's presentation. We even made our own dance :)
Then I attended one day of the Global Alumni Congress. We had a superb India Night that evening, and the speakers were encouraging us to get creative and get bold!
Here are some of the pictures:

IC 2010 + AIESEC Alumni Conf

Safe Food in India

2010-09-13T19:47:00.000+05:30

I got an email from Greenpeace India about their update to the 'Safe Food Guide'.
The title is a bit misleading... it is only about GMOs. So, if a product is full of lead or arsenic, this won't tell you.
This is useful for people living in India who want to avoid GM foods out of concern about their safety (or whichever other concern).

Personally, I'm much more concerned about pesticides and other forms of contamination in my food...

Even More Backdated Updates

2010-09-09T06:22:00.000+05:30

Update #1: Hampi

I recently went for a short trip to Hampi, Kanartaka.

Hampi

The place is nice-ish, but that's not a necessary detour for the ruins themselves. But a good guide who would tell you much about the history could make a difference.

Frankly, the logistics to get there are pretty lousy. No direct buses from anywhere, and the buses to get there are the less-than-luxurious kind. There is no government shop either, which helps a lot making sure that tourists don't get ripped off. The Karnataka government has much work to do for raising the profile of this place.

Update #2: studies

I am one IP agreement away of being able to start a PhD in Montreal soonish. God willing, this will unblock soon.

Update #3: Heart Matters

I had asked you to pray the last big update I gave you. Well, the prayers went answered and the relationship busted very quickly. I had asked God to either open the door wide or close it shut. And close it He did. And I am so glad! While on the surface we had stuff in common, it didn't take a lot of digging to realize that we were as incompatible as two people can be.

God had a better plan for me. A plan that He is making into a reality in an astonishing way. I will tell you more very very soon. Please keep on praying.

Update #4: Stability

Things have gotten better lately, as the political agitations have been on-again,off-again thing. And even when there is a bandh, we don't even notice it, or barely do.

Update #5: Work

My project is slated for a major deployment. By major, I really mean MAJOR. Something like I've never done in my career. Many departments to synchronize with, code to keep on writing while this is happening. Suddenly, one of our focus areas is ease of deployment and ease of upgrade.

A short rant on the Israeli raid

2010-06-06T13:48:00.001+05:30

Here is a quick rant... I took some time to look at the whole 'israeli raid' thing. Lets put it that way: no angels on either side. But I'm a bit annoyed at people's overreaction on this. I have the impression that some people took the 'OMG Israel evil' line without doing any analysis.

Let me summarize my thoughts: the raid shouldn't have happened in the first place. That was IDF's mistake. But since it did, I'm giving a lot of blame on the activitists on the ship. When you're dealing with special forces, a Gandhian approach is highly advisable. Let me repeat that: if you are dealing with a bunch of elite soldiers armed to the teeth, you should do this: a) duck for cover and b) offer passive resistance at the most.

The activists had prepared themselves for the raid. You could claim that the iron bars were improvised weapons one grabbed on the spur of the moment, but that doesn't fly when we talk stun grenades, slingshots and pepper spray. Also, if you walk around with a big metal bar and throw something at a IDF commando, don't be surprised if you get a bullet in the head. More on that later.
Have a look at the IDF footage. Even if the soldiers interviewed were lying and evidence planted, you got some scary images.

In particular, look at those two:

On the IDF side, you have to wonder who's the guy/girl who coordinated the assault. Did they sleep during their strategy class? The IDF ships approaching the vessel were thrown stuff at, including stun grenades. Don't get surprised when some of your commandos get attacked BEFORE they even finish reaching down. I'm no military commander, but I think this situation demanded a LOT of flashbangs before you put any of your commandos down.
And I'm not the only one thinking along those lines:

Some people were accusing the IDF of sending grenades first. I haven't seen that. Maybe I just haven't seen the right video. If that is true, that's a pretty gross human rights violation right there. But I doubt they did that, because I have problems believing that a bunch of guys would be patiently waiting for commandos to come down the ropes to beat them if they just had received a few grenades their way. We're talking about a ~15m antipersonnel blast radius here.

The biggest DOH here: why did they even raid in the first place? They were in international waters, and they were underwhelmed... Can't you wait until the ship reaches territorial waters and wait for it with a much bigger force?
I am an armchair analyst, so take my word for what its worth... Now, for the other armchair analysts who are bound to criticize me: don't come up with this slingshots vs bullets argument. First, because I know for a fact that you can use a slingshot with metal balls to hunt small animals (my dad has that equipment), so that's a real threat. Second, because we are talking about a combat situation with microsecond reaction time: nobody has time to do any threat analysis. If you're attacking a commando, expect a bullet back. Consider yourself lucky if you got a kick in the gut or a rifle's stock in the face.
It looks to me like both sides wanted a fight, and they got it. Shame on IDF for assaulting a ship in international waters. Shame on the minority of crazy activists who transformed their vessel in a small warzone.

Lots of backdated updates...

2010-03-09T02:40:00.001+05:30

Here it is in short:
- I was back home for the holidays and had a great time
- I watched a ton of movies in movie festivals (American Chai, Sita Sings the Blues, Cleo de 5 a 7, Auroville, Jules et Jim)
- I attended some concerts organized by the Hyderabad Western Music Forum
- I've been doing better spiritually and I've been more involved in the church
- I'm building a relationship with an awesome sister in the USA

The last two will benefit from prayers. Please don't hesitate.

Political Agitation

2009-12-11T04:24:00.001+05:30

This week, we had a few days of political agitation. The issue was the splitting of the Andhra Pradesh state so that the northern part of it would become a separate state. That part is called Telangana.

The leader of that movement was fasting to death, supporters were making demonstrations, shops were closed, etc. A few of my teammates were unable to come. Church on Sunday was migrated to house churches.

Now, its over. The Central government has decided to grant the request. The rest is a matter of how and when. Splitting a state, establishing a new capital, making elections... this is going to take time to set in place.

Trip to Chhinwada

2009-12-11T04:08:00.001+05:30

Oh man! I spent a few days in southern Madya Pradesh, for a friend's brother's wedding. I did a little bit of sightseeing too.

Quite a trip it is! I had to take a bus from Hyderabad to Nagpur, then a jeep from Nagpur to the city. That's roughly 10.5 hours.
Things were OK, but a bit below expectations. I wanted to do much more sightseeing than that. Nevertheless, it was good to be out from the city.
Things were hectic for coming back. My bus was canceled because of the political agitation in Hyderabad. But my travel agent managed to get me and my friend in another bus, and we made it to Hyderabad early enough on Monday to avoid the agitations then.
See the pictures here:

Chhinwada

Canada Best for Expats

2009-12-07T23:17:00.001+05:30

I was claiming that Quebec was the best part of the world for a long long time.
The latest study by HSBC gets pretty close to validate that!

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of 'SixthSense' technology

2009-12-01T21:09:00.001+05:30

Absolutely amazing work! Have a look at the presentation online.

Detailed Description of the Mumbai Attacks

2009-11-28T00:27:00.001+05:30

Sixty Hours of Terror offers a good description of what happened during 26/11 and the next few days of terrorist-fighting. A good read if you haven't followed the details on TV.

Moved to the Latest Kubuntu

2009-11-25T22:54:00.001+05:30

I installed Kubuntu 9.10 on my computer. And I have to say, I'm finally back to being satisfied with Linux.
- I had problems with the video drivers, which were making using my computer irritating.
- And the flash video works painlessly on all sites I've been to, whereas it was a bit broken before
- Adding MP3 support and the like happens smoothly at the beginning, a real joy!

English Shellcode

2009-11-25T22:51:00.001+05:30

This is crazy! Have a look at the paper:

http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~sam/ccs243-mason.pdf
English Shellcode, by Joshua Mason, Sam Small Fabian Monrose and Greg MacManus shows how you can encode a malicious payload into spam-looking, but valid, English prose.

Whitelisting just got more difficult...

Gamer

2009-11-22T01:48:00.001+05:30

This looks really awesome:

Teens not as sexually depraved as we think

2009-11-14T01:32:00.001+05:30

Here some interesting tidbits from a report in La Presse:
- 50% of 18 year-olds are virgins
- First time is part of a couple relationship in 83% for boys, 85% for girls
- Average sex partners over their life: 4

That is still too much, agreed, especially considering the impopularity of marriage in Quebec, but that's reassuring in a way... the world is not as dark as we think!

Upgraded to Kubuntu 9.10

2009-11-10T00:55:00.001+05:30

Yes, I have made the upgrade! I'm glad I did. All these annoying video card glitches are gone, and my flash player works for Colbert Nation! It was fairly simple to set up the flash and MP3 support too! Its a nice step forward!

Alphanumeric Shellcode

2009-11-10T00:52:00.001+05:30

I'm surprised that this didn't make the news... some guys came up with alphanumeric shellcode on ARM processors. That means that some filters can be bypassed. So some buffer overflows that were thought as safe are not exploitable.

If you're really interested in the technical details, its there.

Domestic Violence in India

2009-10-29T18:01:00.001+05:30

Have a look at "Working women face more domestic violence in India: Study".

The survey was limited to the Bangalore area. It would be interesting to have the same survey done in other parts of the country. I would also like to see the distribution relative to education and socio-economic level. I'm guessing that wealthier and higher-educated couples would be less likely to have domestic violence

AR Rahman's Concert

2009-10-25T18:09:00.001+05:30

I attended AR Rahman's concert in Hyderabad this Saturday. The attendance was estimated at 50'000. The tickets were costing between 500 Rs and 25'000 Rs. Surprisingly, the higher the price, the more the sections were filled with people.

I felt that the 500Rs section was so empty...

Anyways, the profits will go to the flood victims. In case you didn't know, we had major floods in AP a few weeks ago. My company organized a donation drive about that, and gave about 25'00'000 Rs.

Back on topic, the concert was great. Since most of the songs were from movies he made the music for, it didn't connect as much as the others around me. Still, this composer is great, and the performing artists did a good job. We had fireworks during Jai Ho at the end. And there was this huggggggge screen at the back that was used very creatively during the concert. It gave great ambiance. Money well spent.

Reverse Brain Drain

2009-10-20T15:21:00.001+05:30

It looks like the Indians and the Chinese in the Silicon Valley are returning home, and its because of a mix of personal matters and better opportunities, says a recent survey.
Of course, it doesn't cover the case of Quebecois IT professionals coming to work in India ;)

Trip to Chennai

2009-10-20T01:18:00.001+05:30

I went to Chennai and Mahabalipuram this weekend. Just for sightseeing.

I put some pictures online.

A small stockpile of classical music

2009-10-15T04:15:00.001+05:30

MusOpen is the start of a repository of open classical music on the Internet. Please note that it still misses a lot of stuff from Wikipedia and the Pandora Records collection.

But still cool! Have a look, learn something new :)

Retreat in Bangalore and Dates

2009-10-15T03:51:00.001+05:30

I recently went to a church retreat in Bangalore. It was pretty nice. It gave me some room to think, and I realized that I had been holding back a lot on my commitment to God. So the experience was uplifting.

In parallel to that, I was supposed to have 4 dates. I stayed an extra day and booked a flight for that sake. 2 sisters canceled at the last minute! Of the 2 that are left, I had 2 dates with one and 1 date with the other. I'm not too attracted by any of them, truth be told. But I'll go a second time to Bangalore to give this a final chance.

I had a date prepared in Chennai. She too chickened out. The common problem is that sisters don't want to marry a foreigner. As far as I'm concerned, such racial thinking belongs to the 19th century, and those who engage in it are retards, and it doesn't belong in the church. We are all one in Christ. We are individuals, and not representatives of a given sub-species (or whatever you want to call it). Further, we have to be ready to go anywhere and do anything for God. So how is it acceptable to be afraid of leaving your backyard? Instead of tackling the concerns and insecurities head on and be concerned of matters of character and compatibility, the Indian church is letting this retrograde and immature thinking go unchecked.
A brother was telling me he was denied dates in the US because he's Indian. I see from this that retardation is not constrained to India, but can be anywhere in the world. This is sad, unspiritual, and needs to be weeded out from the church with upmost dedication.

End of rant.
P.S. I now officially have no hope of getting married in India. Miracles can still happen...

Ramoji Film City and Brrrrraaaaiiiiinnnnnsss

2009-09-23T21:33:00.001+05:30

On Monday, we had a holiday, and I visited Ramoji Film City with a colleague from Mumbai. It was OK, but many steps below La Ronde in Montreal.

Yesterday, we ordered fried mutton brains for dinner. Yummmmy! I guess that makes me a zombie :)

Visa Extension Work Done

2009-09-18T13:24:00.001+05:30

Just a quick update...

It took me 1.5 days to get this done, but it is done...
On Wednesday, I had to rush to the office to get a document from HR, then rush back to the Foreigners' Registration Office (FRO) to get the forms. Then off to pay the challan for the fee (they take cash only, and there is no ATM near by) and then finally get all my documents attested (I didn't have enough cash... the ATM nearby was not working and the nearest ATM was 15 minutes of walk away...) I was back home tiiiiired. I went to bed at 19:30.
On Thursday, I went to the FRO early, I got the gentle welcome of the frontline officer who looks like he doesn't like his job. Then go inside to stab all my documents so that I can tie them in a nice little bundle. Then come back, give the bundle and start waiting.

Now, I have a piece of paper that says that my stuff is in process. Yay.

Men Getting Dumber Around Good-Looking Women

2009-09-04T23:58:00.001+05:30

Now its scientifically proven, men don't perform cognitive tasks as well after chatting with a pretty woman.
Of course, everybody already knew that. The interesting part is that the result is not symmetric: women are not affected by men's good look.

That's why the Bible teaches women to be modest (1 Peter 3:1-4, 1 Ti 2:9), but never told the same about men. God isn't sexist, he's just accurate!

Its that time of the year...

2009-08-26T22:54:00.001+05:30

Festival galore in India!
First, we had a Jain festival this week, Paryushan.
Then, its Ramzan, better known as Ramadan. The mosques aren't enough to contain the believers praying in the evening, and I saw some praying in the street next to the mosque yesterday evening.
Oh, and we have Ganesha Chaturthi and there is plenty of temporary Ganesh shrines all over the place, except in my neighbourhood. At least there is ONE advantage in being in a predominately Muslim area ;)

Why I'm not in Grad School

2009-08-26T22:49:00.001+05:30

'nuff said

Troubleshooting Flowchart

2009-08-26T16:15:00.001+05:30

Simple generic-purpose flowchart on how to get something to work on any computer program, courtesy of XKCD.

Batch of Updates :)

2009-08-25T17:30:00.001+05:30

- I went to the Singles' Retreat in Delhi... major waste of time and money. There was some encouragement from the messages, that is true. My search for a life partner was not fruitfult, sadly. I'll post some pics soon.
- Working on a paper that is due at month's end for a conference in Chennai.
- Witnessed two baptisms last Sunday. Amen!!! One new baby brother and one baby sister :)
- Had a rock solid moment of discipling with the leaders and it was great! I've been challenged clearly and they (finally!) told me that I needed to improve some things in my character if I want to get married. Hope is back :)
- My work is progressing slowly but surely. We should reach a milestone this week.

Major Stuff Happening

2009-08-07T03:13:00.001+05:30

Ok, lets summarize this

- I've taken the decision to stop attending leader meetings in the church... I am not doing so well spiritually, and it would be hypocritical to keep on pretending like I've been doing for some time now.
- I've had friends coming over from Mumbai and I got to show them around, I finally got to see some of my city! 'Veiled Rebecca' in the Salar Jung Museum is an amazing sculpture!
- I'm getting good feedback on my driving
- My car is majorly scratched, courtesy of the kids in the neighbourhood and of my lousy parking skills (and my lousy parking)
- I am considering yet another scheme to start a PhD... the saga isn't over! Essentially, try to do the research now and be officially registered as a student later.
- I've given my notice to my landlord. I'll be gone on Oct 1st. I've started looking for apartments near the national park, so that I can do jogging in the morning!

The Maker's Schedule

2009-07-28T20:48:00.001+05:30

Very good article about different ways of scheduling. I agree with that the author says: techies need long uninterrupted moments to tackle technical problems. A couple of uninterrupted hours of work mean wonderful productivity.

And also some tidbit of advice, extending on what the author say: bunch together all the little things that are distracting and do it in one shot, so that you can focus on the real work after.

Yes, they landed on the moon

2009-07-23T22:01:00.001+05:30

In case you've heard conspiracy theories, here's something to help you see that indeed, people went on the moon, and it wasn't Michael Jackson :)

Interesting Security Solution

2009-07-21T22:19:00.001+05:30

So obvious, yet I didn't think about it first!

http://www.passwindow.com/

Got a New Car

2009-07-21T02:06:00.001+05:30

Yes... you've read it well!

The lousiness of Hyderabad's public transit has finally driven me over the edge. I've gotten a car with some financial assistance, and I'm driving to work now.

You can say that my pragmatism has finally triumphed over my idealism.
As luck would have it... I've gotten it just after the price increase.

At 50 Rs per litre, it makes it easy to do math, but it really hurts the budget. (That's 1 USD or 1.25 CAD, approximatively... can you say heavily taxed?)

I've gotten to the RTO get this thing registered today. I'll soon have my license plate.

The car is a Chevrolet Spark. It claims to have good mileage, but I've yet to see that in reality.

Finally, a Court with Sense

2009-07-17T22:23:00.001+05:30

Its finally official: marriage is not the same as a de-facto relationship.

Of course, the matter is going to be appealed.
In my opinion, these relationships have already too many rights given to them. If you want to live together, you should get married. End of story.
It takes about 5-15 minutes to do that at the courthouse and its not too expensive, so nobody really has the right to complain...
In India, its even cheaper... just tie the yellow thread (AP) or exchange the garlands (North India) and the matter is over. Then you need the pandit to give you the certificate. Done!

Why is it that people confuse tradition with principle? You don't need a fancy banquet to get married. There is no financial reason not to get married. It boils down to a 5 minute thing that makes your couple legitimate and protected. I have many friends who want to wait until they are more settled in life before getting married... what stupidity!
And in the meantime, they'll live together, and every time they'll sleep together, they'll add one more sin to their already tall pile of sins. All of it for what? Impressing people? Some stupid tradition they don't care about? Fear of commitment?

In the article, they mention that the man who was with her didn't want to get married, because he didn't believe in the institution of marriage. Interestingly, he got 3 kids... looks like someone believed in the institution of family... Go figure.

Now Officially a Polluter

2009-07-17T04:11:00.001+05:30

I got a car. I did.

Yes, me. The environmentalist. The guy who was recycling every piece of paper.

No, not even with LPG, I wasn't able to afford it.

So I'm polluting to go to work and to come back. And doing errands. And soon for meeting brothers and the like.

I'm a bit ashamed. But there was little way around it. I can't live close to both work and church, the trains suck and the buses are overcrowded. I've dealt with it for 9 months. I've been thinking about it since month 6...

God willing, He'll bring me to another city or country that will have fantastic public transit. And recycling. Maybe I'll be able to atone for my destruction of the world somehow at some point.

I hope.

Flow-based packet switching

2009-07-15T17:23:00.001+05:30

Very interesting article. The concept is simple, it saves enormous power and would allow data centers to actually shrink in size!

A Radical New Router

Save More Than Fuel

2009-07-13T16:46:00.001+05:30

Good website, with simple advice to get the best mileage from your car

http://www.savemorethanfuel.eu/

Air New Zealand Pushing Nudity

2009-07-09T17:49:00.001+05:30

If you didn't know we live in a dark world yet, here's something that might be a wake-up call:

Air New Zealand has safety measures explained by naked stewards and stewardesses with body painting! How ridiculous and depraved!

If I don't watch the safety instructions when I fly, that's because I fly enough to know them by heart! I don't think that the airlines should worry about that...

Joseph Kony and the LRA

2009-07-07T05:32:00.001+05:30

If you've never heard about this issue, then its really really time you watch this video.

Indian Economic Survey

2009-07-07T02:51:00.001+05:30

Times of India, 3 Jul 2009
Economic Survey 2008-09: Over 60% Indians live on Rs 20/day

Stats About The Québécois

2009-07-02T22:45:00.001+05:30

Two survey summaries worth reading (use Google Translate if you can't read French).

Essentially, the vast majority of Québécois won't care to celebrate Canada Day. But they still like Canada, think its a great country to be part of, and don't see Québec separate anytime soon. The editorialist says it nicely: they love Canada with their heads, but not with their hearts. Whereas, for the rest of the country, both are engaged.

Geek Clock

2009-07-02T22:42:00.001+05:30

Now, THAT is neat!!!

Advice for International Career Moves

2009-06-29T04:21:00.001+05:30

I found this article. Nothing I don't know already, but I think it may be useful for you :)

How to manage a working move abroad

Cleaning Up a Country In a Day

2009-06-29T03:17:00.001+05:30

I have to say: wow!