Saturday, May 23, 2009

Mobiles , the new generation

We are pretty much done with Desktops , laptops are stable pieces of computation . PDAs are too costly affair for what they provide.
Certainly , i think that mobiles are the gadgets of the present times. I mean all the stuff just clubbed into one thing . It can be really one thing to look after.
Giants like Nokia , LG , Moto , Sony ...Apple , Google etc list is endless are just pushing limits on this small device which is changing like anything. I cant really talk about the technology details as i am bound by legalities , but i am sure ... Mobiles are going to change the future of people ... i guess they really are . Apple as such with ipod has made a revolution as there are developers all over the globe to give user some great experience on this device . I mean we as humans want different experiences .
Previously , these devices dint look as cool , but as the User Interface has evolved to colored screens and the devices capabilities has evolved like anything having efficient micro kernels to control them , they are awesome.
I always though they can't be as good , with small buttons and small screen sizes ..(pathetic) but the kind of access they provide and the usability at any place .. and low energy consumption , with the internet at there disposal ... this technology is going to make billions and trillions in the business market , and a company to take control over this will be making gold .
There were issues at the technology levels , and the way these companies have handled them , i am just amazed . The complexity is still there , but its engineered to the optimum .

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Elections ... me , the people

This is the election season , in which there are every party is talking about their usual agendas . I havent been following it much hectic academic routine , and saw few news papers and news channel . I don't have much to say , but few distinct points which i feel should be thought about . What is the intellectual capability of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi to be a Prime Minister candidate , or even about the Congress Party say they are "apt" for the post.
I haven't found Rahul Gandhi any way near appealing than his decent looks. I haven't seen them empathizing with the pain of general masses . Most of the Congressmen hog on the reputation of greats like Mahatma Gandhi,Jawaharlal Nehru , Indira Gandhi , who had reach to the rural India. They knew what India was at grass-roots and worked for it , rather just talk about it .
The there comes issue of Obama ? do we need one ? who is the closest in resemblance . Hey Indians! why do we always need an entity from the West on which we want to put an Indian stamp. Let us be us , not US . I they dint have any woman president as we had Mrs. Gandhi (PM) . The hot issue i wanna press about is Mayawati . Every one is so offended by her name , makes a mockery of her , that i find a serious lack of intellectual people who can talk about her unbiased that she is from an oppressed section of the society . Every detail of her money transaction is followed , but none buddy cares where the other politicians take money from . The names are never brought into the limelight , but if its Mayawati , she sure should be there .
I guess , i personally like her dominance as a woman she is. She treats IAS as civil servants , not as they generally are , very elite class. She tells them to toe the line . She single handedly put Raja Bhaiya behind bars under POTA when every politician feared him . For once , just think , how much a woman , from under privileged section is fighting . Every one says , she keeps building Dr. Ambedkar's and her statues every where . So let me ask , what is development. Its very subjective to the society we live in .
The Americans have their agenda , Iraqis have theirs , and we in India , have ours . So , talk about the Indians , we have middle class men which have TV sets at home , decenet salary to get children in school and we mobilize our opinion in media the most ( let it be cinema reviews etc.) . But what about the rural India ? people living in villages, the downtroddens who are not even allowed to goto schools cuz they are not supposed to by birth. Discriminated against everywhere. I read an article in 11th May newspaper , which showed how poor SP administration were castes girls were deprived of education for the fear of sexual harassment , which stopped after Mayawati came to power. I guess she gives a ray of hope to many .
The agenda of those poor people ( who are poor not only financially , but culturally , ...) is not a beautiful four lane road.The agenda is " SELF RESPECT" , "DIGNITY" . In our IITs , first year we are given general courses to get to a common platform , forgetting our background we came from in JEE.
This is similar , you need to give these people some room to develop , to think more than just about their daily wage . I guess may be Maya wati does it. And her statue on a road gives that hope to the worker working in pits . I dont get when people talk , about Obama they talk about his past , about how he was made , but no one talks about how Mayawati came ?. I dont claim Mayawati as Indian Obama by any means , but this post of mine is just an independent view on that side of coin where many people don't even feel like looking . I guess that section of society is not looking for any other section of society to represent them , like the Congress did . So , some other community person makes laws for the outcasts and deprived and the deprived cant make laws for upper section . I am finding logic now in one society having equal rights , and if every person on television can say , i have my aspirations corrected this time to vote and prove his point , then i guess its time for the lowest section of the society too , to get there aspirations/needs everything right . No more false votes , booth capturing and later farmers of India die when the IT sector booms for a fortnight and crashes one arbitrary night leaving the nation all perplexed .
I am not on any political party side , but all i want from my fellow Indian brothers is to be unbiased when they vote. Though they vote to any party , but should learn to appreciate people for things that they have done , the hard times they go through . This is not a flame post , its just portrays something which even the Indian media fails to portray clearly .
I am studying technology , but I know the roots of India lie in villages , not in metros with pseudo Indians . We need to get the whole structure right . One day ,we will .

Thursday, February 5, 2009

In loving memory of,Professor Raghavan

There are very few people in this world who touch heart of every person they meet. He was one of them. Prof. Veera was very knowlegeable , passionate person .He had a lot of insight about the society , its socio-cultural background . Very punctual , humble person .He was one of those whom you can speak your true heart out and he will relate to you.
He will make you feel good about things, bring out points which u wont notice usually (even though i m a good observer).
He is one of the few professor who cared for students , not just for their academic life but also about other concerns and advise them to do the right thing , if not the best thing. He is the kind of person who can motivate you , inspire you and really make you a better person on any day .
He helped me in understanding society in a better way and gave me , and was very understanding , and used to reply cheerfully even when i was virtually ready to fight it out . I don't find people whom i can talk so frankly about , but he was really one of the best person i met.
There was nothing like a disability in him , like he was blind , but i guess he had more powers than ordinary being . He can make out how you are feeling .
He had real sensitive ears... I know cuz i tried to sneak in once , and he got me ! .Prof. RKK told me today , that he was very helpful and one of RKKs story goes like ,.. He and Veera taught english to one of IIT M's b.tech batch and Veera used to be instrumental in making students learn the subject and everyone appreciated there efforts together. One of the courses RKK loved to have taught.
I guess it was Cancer to be the cause of his mournful demise . I don't want to count how meritorious he was( which is so useless) , but the person he was , because at this time , its all that matters .

I had a feeling at the start of the semester to meet him , but just got carried away with the usual work, and now i wish ... had i met him :( .
For IIT M, it has lost one of its best professors .
Today , i am sad .
May his soul rest in peace .

Monday, February 2, 2009

Women ,women and Nandita das

There was en EML today by Nandita Das about "How Cinema effects Society" blah , on which she dint speak much but rather her experiences and the social activist she is.I felt about many things the way she does , or rather more strongly than her at places( but i am not an activist) .
She aptly said , that we fall back to be proud of things as " i m a Brahmin" , " i am a Marathi" , " I am a Bengali" etc , which we have not even control of ! . Its just lack of self esteem that people do it and divide society on wrong note .
One of the part which i can appreciate about is her stand as a women of substance rather as an "object of Affection/Lust" . She said she has an issue with " fair & lovely " kind of stuffs and she doesnt use them at all ( wonder she does for films atleast !).
I also think that women are not just for looking good and skinny , glowy etc , physical interpretation of XX genes with all their attributes but something more.Truly , girls who look around in mirror all time isn't a bravo.Actually, should be more dimensions to women than just appearance , after which world is going crazy about.These are society driven thoughts and concepts . Having shooted for "fair & lovely " kind of stuffs and she doesnt use them at all ( wonder she does for films atleast !).
I also think that women are not just for looking good and skinny , glowy etc , physical interpretation of XX genes with all their attributes but something more.Truly , girls who look around in mirror all time isn't a bravo.Actually, should be more dimensions to women than just appearance , after which world is going crazy about.These are society driven thoughts and concepts . Having substance is more important than just looks.
It reminds of the shift in status of women in history of India over the ages ,which is strongly depicted in the epics of the times like Mahabharat and Ramayan .
In one the women in society as lowly and rather helpless , while in the other she is more dynamic , speaks her voice
I wonder what todays women prototype them as ?
I think Nandita was as Rocking in Rockford(!) as she was today ... and thats more like it .
That said , to be part of social change , i should be doing more than writing a blog post ! Society has mutated a lot in the last decade than in last 50 years together , so i should ketchuptance is more important than just looks.
It reminds of the shift in status of women in history of India over the ages ,which is strongly depicted in the epics of the times like Mahabharata and Ramayana .
In one the women in society as lowly and rather helpless , while in the other she is more dynamic , speaks her voice
I wonder what todays women prototype them as ?
I think Nandita was as Rocking in Rockford(!) as she was today ... and thats more like it .
That said , to be part of social change , i should be doing more than writing a blog post ! Society has mutated a lot in the last decade than in last 50 years together , so i should ketchup

Sunday, February 1, 2009

You got Language Problem !

Many a times , we talk about what is a better approach to teach concurrent programming and a group of people say , lets just start teaching concurrent programming from the start and forget about sequential programming and it will help make students better programmers as they will think differently . Similarly , about the question that should C really be thought first or we start with python as its easy and later when students are comfortable with understanding constructs , teach them C and let them do memory management carefully by themselves .
For the first part of the question ... i was just reading about linear vector spaces for Quantum Mechanics and it struck me that , how about we start teaching kinderGarden kids , complex numbers as they are the super-set of Real numbers and then teach them real numbers. It will be a whole new approach for them to understand this world (much like teaching concurrent programming from the initial start !). So is it an absurd answers from me ? you can argue better .
Though there are universities in the world going ahead with teaching students concurrent programming before they even know how to write the Gawd program of "Hello World " in C . Lets see the results ! I mean when u dont know how one thread works exactly , how are you going to deal with a pool of them ? may be you can ? may be not !
And about the beginners language , i personally feel C is the one to be taught in the initial sems , though there is a lot of buzz of Java , but then one can't understand the subtle issues in programmng when you hava garbage collector to do work for you and you might be stuck in a prototype O-O Prgramming paradigm . I guess the conventional approach is best . To add , once Prof. RKK also agrred that C is a must, than Java . Well as far as i know , IIT-K , IIT-B professors have gone ahead with Java and IIT-M is still stuck with C. To be very precise , we are not in IIT , to learn the most exciting language , but understand the underlying science behind it , for which C is best suited .
I wanted to write about it as Prof. has brought it up in lectures quite a number of time and students had a varied opinion from it , i thought i should be also clear in black and white about this debatable topic

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Heavy Metal

What is \M/etal ?
another form of expression ?? huh !
the best part of it is , you can't define it ! you can just hear it , feel it... and it hits you straight at your heart. It is about peace and love (though rarely ) . It has a dark story to tell .Its very rough ,hard and very metal.
It is one form of music which is to stay forever .(and blessed it doesn't talk about girlfriend , boyfriend crap and all that surrounds ). It has different subject matters to talk about , and it deals with them ruthlessly .
It all started with Black Sabbath , and the evil record 'Black Sabbath' , released on Friday 13 , 1970 . It
started in Burmingham , with the slaughterer Ozzy on vocals and Tony's evil guitar who can call on Satan any day(though it was because of his injured finger !) . Its been the music of the working class .It has those heavy
sounds of metal factories , the baseness and bluntness , anger and everything.
Heavy metal is always related with horror , very dark , very real , very straight . It is about rebellion without cause.
It is about freedom , not being tied by anything . It talks about the darkest moments of anyone's life. This music can read the `Gospel of Filth' without any hesitations and you will respect the description.
Road map to \m/etal music bands was basically laid by Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin in the early seventies.
\M/etal has its roots very much in Black Sabbath , Judas Priest , Iron Maiden and later \M/etallica .
Judas Priest was the first all in all \m/etal band who embraced the hard-metal look with leather jackets , and metallic belts.. unlike KISS (suckers) , who turned pop , disgrace to \m/etal .
Iron Maiden , took British heavy \m/etal to new heights.
Those who think punk movement started \m/etal are wrong in more than one way because punk with disco almost tried to kill '\M/etal' at one time .
If Black Sabbath started \M/etal , Metallica was one band , who reinvented \m/etal . With there long and ever different riffs , Metallica produced records way ahead of any band at that time .It was Lars and Hetfield , two
close friends who made music , what it really is thrashing away all those posers and fake bands like 'Poison' , 'Bon Jovi'( sorry but true). They loved the music they made. No flamboyance , no pretense . Bare plain truths spitted with ever faster riffs .
Thrash \m/etal is one major form of \m/etal ( as later some n kind of \m/etal bands spurted out from nowhere ... melodic metal , grunge metal , glam (Gay LA Metal - by Mustaine :P ) metal , melodic death metal , spooky metal and what all metal ).
The deadliest and evil music ever recorded was by Slayer - ` reign in blood ' , 39 minutes of pure hell .
Megadeth (my all time favorite ... I picked up guitars just to make the most bitchin' sound like Dave ) and the weakest of the " The Big Four "- Anthrax .They made metal faster and heavier . This was americanized Metal .
How about the metal symbol "\m/" - Corna , also called the evil eye , devil's horn etc .
Dio used to show it during concerts like Ozzy used to show "V" when he was in Sabbath , and now it completely defines metal .It resembles the triple six (666) ,in the book of revelation , the demons symbol !
From Sabbath , Zeppelin ,KISS ,Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Motorhead, Priest , Van Halen , Def Leppard ,Metallica and ...
everyone has contributed to Metal in their own way ... and above all the most loyal fan base of all . We called the \M/etal heads , headbangers embrace it as one kind of religion and identify with this form of music .
Metal is here to stay forever though at times its future has been seriously in grave but it always rises as phoenix .
\M/etal is very blunt , straight , confronting form of music .
\M/etal is about respect and credibility .
\M/etal is the real deal .
\M/etal relieves you from Frustration.
\M/etal tells you to fight against Society .
\M/etal pisses people too !! .
\M/etal wards off your fear of pain
It tells you to kick back and fight .
It is kick ass like no other \M/usic .
\M/etal is mystic , occult , strange but still familiar
It doesn't make the culture obscene, disgrace women as s**ts as hip hop does .( i can't help saying it )
Though i am influenced by \m/etal and identify \m/yself with it , but i can appreciate and it Ravi Shankar as one of the the greatest musician , and some of the Doors song pain my ears , like anyone else would be after Slayer's
bloodline ( and bloodline is one of my all time favorite :) )