My day of reckoning!!!

What else....The semester exams begins today...I had been thru a few sems but never blogged about it..fair enough...This time its a different story altogether and the exams start with a brain-crashing mathematics....

The peculiarity of this subject is well documented by any tiny-totter to a no-holds barred scientists...

Trying my luck today. Will post regarding how i managed.

My motto: Maths...dont bother about grades. Just sneak through

Illusive sense of security?

The recent brouhaha over SRK detention brings to notice an important issue which finds resonance across everybody. That issue being the effectiveness of intelligence gathering. What purpose does a multi-billion dollar security apparatus serve if they can't verify who SRK is?

The point is how do we trust these guys and what use do they make of all our legitimate information?
The phone-tapping, scans, frisks, bgc etc. Do they server any purpose?
The unwritten rule seems to be everybody inclusive of highly respected Dr. Abdul Kalam (never mind, he is a former president) and SRK (who is he? lol) is a suspect. I am sure they even take the pants down of Barack Hussein Obama when he boards air force one. No one is bigger then the law isnt it?

Most concerning, is the fact the US security apparatus seems to be paranoid post 9/11. Of course, we are all appalled and share the same grief. We know how it feels when we are attacked. our sufferings are well documented pre 9/11. We had our parliament attacked, blasts everywhere, our own centre of pride (mumbai) held at gun-point for 3 days. Yet, though with seething anger, we have gotten back to normal lives with lessons learnt. But still we are not paranoid. We dont detain every boat in the arabian sea. Nor do we block all humans from parliament..lol

Of course, the US guys seem a lot less hawkish now under a pragmatic president. But the fact is,every international traveller is shit-scared of entering US lest they be part of a detailed security procedure. Its like a short detention camp at every port of entry.

The US is too good a country to let these hawks ruin their free spirit, openness and the pursuit of happiness which is the corner stone of their declaration of independence. A couple of minutes on their history is ample proof and would assure is that they will bounce back and be the sun-shine country that everybody in the world wanted to migrate and call home.

At the same time, its a lesson to all of the other countries, that merely getting a illusionary procedure to harass its own citizens does not serve any purpose.

We all dread of any events of national importance becos we know we may be stopped for checks, ID's and what not. A national celebration turns into a nightmare for every reveller. I had it first-hand this independence day.

So wishing for common sense and pragmatism.

Cloud Computing ----very cloudy

Dusting off my clustering skills after a hiatus of two years (had worked on building a cluster for nutch back then), i am starting work on a eucalyptus (open.eucalyptus.com) cloud on rocks cluster...

The definition of cloud computing is one cloud but i would still like to re-emphasize the utility of a level of abstracion and isolation on various levels like memory,cpu etc etc (one more definition to the trash)

will keep posted on the happenings as i go along...

mailing list pun

Found a nice page with lots of intended pun on mailing list etiquettes...Its hilarious but quite importantly gets the message across...
http://www.templetons.com/brad/emily.html

w-meter tool released

we released a new tool developed at our lab to the open-source community. Have a look at w-meter.sourceforge.net The tool is meant to do conformance testing and performance evaluation of wi-fi products

have a look at w-meter.sourceforge.net

Jai Ho!!!

Now that the elections are over, i heaved a sigh of relief at the outcome...its a pity that people are relieved at the prospect of a secular and stable government...The electorate have time and again showed that they are the boss of the EVM.

If you look at the election agendas we had for the past few elections, it changed from roti,kapda makaan to nuclear deal, internal security, terrorism...fair enough..its a testimony of the times we live in but also scary as to what we have made our world to be,....

The trumpeters of "loh purush" syndrome actually are thinking that mere fear mongering among the electorate will get them votes...but again kudos to the indian electorate....

I am proud of the fact a non-corrupt, learned professor is leading the country....

Jai Ho!

philosophy rant!!!

There has been a bloodbath on ilugc regarding petty issues like one ignorant guy using a .ppt in an open source conf, one's choice of posting in other languages and other stuff...all the more, there has been lots of mails reminding eah other of mailing list guidelines, etiquettes, common sense etc.,

Hypocrisy to the MAX i would say...forget about all these artificial rules, what about the natural rules like respect for each other, courtesy, tolerance, humulity and so on...

Much has been criticised about NRCFOSS and how everything that it does is not helpful to FOSS cause and so on. Grow UP!!! with out NRCFOSS, ilugc would not have had the same kind of visibility in TN atleast. NRCFOSS at AU-KBC has been humble enough to let these giys run the show and there is no penny credit given for this simple fact...any LUG guy knows how much sponsorship money NRCFOSS has contributed and/or arranged to run your favourite fossconf show in the world..

NRCFOSS has also sponsored so many of these highly learned community members to participate in workshops and conferences organized by NRCFOSS. Yet these gentlemen speak of government money being waste..i dont know whether its waste in consumption or waste in expenditure.....

ALso with out a simple understanding of the objective of FOSS LAB server, people are crying out at the uselessness of the utility....paining to see iluustruous guys join the noise generator...

if only people dont forget analytical reasoning and common sense, we would live peacefully and have a good SNR ( Source code to Need Ratio)

Toll Free?

Had a pleasure trip last week towards ECR with my family..Enjoyable to the max but the journey of 150 Kilometers from my hometown to ECR, chennai took me across five toll gates.....yes five toll gates and a cool 150 around bucks to get thru all of them....Really odd to find out that taxing the few, more and more seems to be the mantra now!
If you are an indian tax payer, you wonder if anybody is paying more than you in the whole planet....Tax on all food items purchased (all our super-duper departmentals have no choice), tax on phone bills, electricity, water, house, vehicle registration tax, insurance, roadtax, toll tax, to even tax on eating your favourite sandwiches to teas....plus on the official front, professional tax, income tax, fringe benefits (which bird goes by that name is anybody's guess) and whatever you have left and want to spend, you cant do a single penny officially without paying an associated tax, unless you were indulging on a road-side dhaba or some non-fancy restaurant (namma hotel maams aka bismillah hotel or something), be ready to be taxed...
If all that is scary, there is more to come when you even think of starting a simple business...you cant sell a single biscuit packet without paying a tax....what with all the STPI and SEZ, its common middle class guys like us who bears the brunt of this skewed taxing rules....after all this the finance minister gives a breakdown and claims that 20% of our national income comes by debt....if only there is an end of corruption...!!Ah!
No wonder the rich dont pay, ( they only deposit offshore in some tax-haven), the poor dont have a means to pay....its only us who are left to fend for ourselves....Hope some sensible finance minister coems into the cabinet next time and takes a realistic approach to solve our taxing tax.....

Laloo - The quality that matters!!!

Its amazing how one can easily fill the hearts of everybody watching with a sense a humour that one can feel as though calming amidst a tornado!!!!

I was watching laloo videos on the net regarding the budget and it struck me to see him enact his wizardy over the entire session. (believe me...these guys are not too easy to please)...so spellbound are the listeners, that they have nothing to do but? Laugh What else along with the  rest of the nation....

No matter what the CBI, opposition, detractors and "others" say about him, laloo, to me stands for optimism. The reasons are simple....no need for brouhaha over his past legacy and his so termed tainted rule and all elitist opinions about him, he has stood the test of times.....

of course, lots of good things were happening before in previous administration of railways, but this gentleman is a cut about the rest. For his courage (propogating secularism), determination (fighting CBI cases), intelligence (remember his master piece in making his wife the chief-minister), managerial skills (railways turnaround folklore), his bone-tickling speeches and his indomitable spirit....I am his FAN!!!!....just for his incredible quality to charm his way through detractors.....

PS : care not to explain if there are not convincing for others and for people who have other opinions about laloo...everyone has an opinion, so do i

Here comes the fun!!!

            I have always been amused by what people can do when in the face of serious consequences. Like the feb 14 drama played out and promises of free marriage to any guy being around a beautiful woman. (enticing but really damn bad and a bad joke from me too)
            Everyday, we see news of "this day" or "that day" but the greatest thing is nobody bothers about others choice of celebrating a particular day. That is the whole point...we just leave people to be on their own and not force our will upon them
            sadly this whole debate about feb 14 shows one thing. The inability of the people to accept other's choices and the inability of the affected parties to let go.
            A "pub roko" cannot be fought by a "pub bharo" campaign. If anybody bothers to even listen, both are not our (Gandhian) way of doing things. When the apartheid dogs threw him out of the train, he did not launch a train bharo campaign. Its high time we donot flame up these small incidents into something unpleasant.
            "There is always a better way of doing things"

OBAMA!!!

Back from a long hiatus....
work, laziness or anything else i don't know and can't comprehend...but still i am back.

Stranger things have happened these days. but none stranger than "the skinny guy with a funny name", whose journey has inspired one and all and continues to take people into a sort of dream people desperately need in these hard times.

The one thing that sets apart the Yankee from the rest of the mortals is this belief of "we can". How else could one explain the low savings rate, over consumption and other luxuries?

But the real issue which is being missed is?

Obama was the best qualified person for the job. I dont give a penny to this african-american heritage business. Lets not take the credit away from OBAMA, the man himself by layering his qualifications with race.

Having said that people are inspired by him, one should also not be too ignorant of everyday happenings around us which we tend to neglect and which are far more inspiring.

All around us who are geniuses in their own right. From the daily wager, for whom the presidency is one day's wage and to the millions who eke out a living around the world. These too are inspiring for me. The daily struggles, the constant threat of hunger, disease and all sorts of deprievation. Still they are alive! Long live the human spirit !!!

And hightime we start appreciating these stars also.....