Titbits and Not so general musings.

First post of 2011! A very happy new year to all regular and non regular visitors! :)
Posting after a  long hiatus feels very weird. Instead of a long, well thought out piece, I intend to post several small thoughts to get back into the groove.

• Conformism and related ideas.                                                                                                               

          Many a times I tend to see myself as too much of a conformist, a person who is influenced both by other people and by general trends, a bit too easily perhaps. Most of the times I am able to convince myself that most of these "beliefs/practices" I give into, generally have a good reason/logical foundation. However, there are times I feel like a bit of a wuss, and try to find comfort by trying to find out chinks in the ethos of anarchists, or more specifically, those who live by the credo of being different. Taking this thought further, one can see that such mavericks, who live by only their self beliefs, and not to please others, have arisen out of a general distaste with social pressures/politics. Hence,albeit in a roundabout way, they too have been influenced by the behavior of group, an implicit reaction of which, has been to tread their own path. So we see the non- conformists, in a way are conformists as well! :)

•  Corruption/Red tape saves our monuments.

           The other day in the bus as I saw the mess made by the recent metro project, I was reminded of how much time it had taken for it to go from the drawing board to actual groundwork( some 20 years). In the process, it had caused the closure of several historical places, from shops to gardens. In a way, the slow pace of development of the metro, had allowed us to enjoy those places longer than we could have, had the works proceeded efficiently and without red tape. One of the things which money and progress can’t bring back, is heritage of a place or the memories associated with it. One can now go from one modern city to another without making out much difference between them. Mostly this happens because progress tends to apply the same filter to all places. Ultimately, it makes all places look much the same. So thank our corruption for slowing down actual work, so that we still have enough time to cherish/save such important landmarks. :)


One parting thing I'd like to preach, which I've been practicing off late.

Be honest with yourself about everything. :)

Thats all for now folks!  Feel free to give me your ideas on current and past pieces.
See you soon with more.

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Chrome OS - Will it result in a paradigm shift?

Swami Nikhilaananda said:
"Pfffttt... all this hype about Web OS makes me wonder"

With the recent release of the Google Chrome OS, a web operating system, the whole world is geared up to see if there will be a paradigm shift in technology, in the way we use our computers and operating systems, and so on.

So, what's a web OS anyway?
If you use a desktop or a laptop, you make some changes in some files on your system. Then, the changes are only on your system. The files are saved on your system. A web OS however, stores your files on some thing known as a cloud, basically a central repository, and therefore becomes device independent - You will be able to access these files from anywhere.

That sounds cool, doesn't it?
It definitely does sound cool, but frankly it is not. Why you ask? Let me give you a simple example. In my company, we work on something known as a VM - A virtual machine basically. The actual system is centrally housed in the United States. I go to office, connect my laptop to the network, use Windows Remote Desktop tool and connect to the system in the US. I complete some work, close the session, shut down my laptop, and come back home. Once I reach home, I turn on my laptop, turn on the VPN, complete the connection and use Windows Remote Desktop connection to resume my work - The desktop of the Denver system again opens exactly in the same state as what it was in... Same as a cloud, don't you think?

We have always been using the cloud growled Larry...
Larry Ellison of Oracle has always said that cloud always existed and doesn't understand what the hype and hubbub is about. Frankly, nor do I. The Chrome OS is not going to be as revolutionary as it is made to sound. Yes, there a large number of great applications to use - But, I can do the same with Windows as well, just like what I told you about previously. Yes, there are some differences with the existing Remote Desktop and this one, in the sense that there will be a break in continuity the moment network goes off, whereas in Chrome OS, you can continue to work and the sync will happen when network resumes.

Hey, what about collaboration and simultaneous working?
Sure! But these things can be done with conventional operating systems using Chrome and its applications, or even with other browsers.

Conclusion
Chrome OS will definitely not result in a paradigm shift - Linux has a far far greater chance of dethroning Microsoft because it has a greater deal of power and is on the same lines as that of Windows. A web OS is for people, exactly as Google claims, who spend time on the web, sending emails, chatting, updating messages on facebook and blogging. And this will not replace everyone's systems - Sure, it will result in an add-on to the existing operating system, but nothing as revolutionary as claimed.

Debates - Logic and Emotions...

Swami Gulagulaananda observed:

"An argument without emotions clouding is a right argument"

An argument arises when there is a topic of discussion, and there are two sides to it - Each side will want to prove that they are right. Arguments are some times conclusive - In which case, something can be concluded. For example, murder mysteries, court cases, etc. Others are where there is nothing to be concluded - An example would be where opinions are concerned - I might find something nice, you may not. Here, there is no right or wrong, but there are still two sides.

However, there is one thing that is important - An argument is not flawed as long as emotions don't play roles in it. A debate is perfectly executed as long as people are logical in their approach. However, very often, emotions start creeping in - After this, personalities start getting attacked. A simple example would be where one person targets the other person's weakness... "Yeah, but when you went begging back to her, where was all your dignity huh?" That is an uncalled for statement in correct arguments. The purpose of an argument is to judge correctness - Not to win.

Often, people attack the opponent by making insinuations and tangential statements - Hinting something obliquely. And emotions creeping in is not just by making statements. It also plays a very important role in your way of speaking. Just yesterday I was talking to some friend of mine, who was talking about the irritating way in which a friend of his responds to a case where the other guy is wrong - You can say "Hey, that's not right because..." OR you can make a really disgusted face, make a mocking voice, indicating that the mistake is not a commonplace one thereby hinting that the other person is a fool, and saying "Haa what the heck is this? This isn't the right answer" With the former, the one who has made a mistake will analyse why it could be wrong, and thinks about the possibilities. In the latter, the ego of the person gets hit - Thereafter, he doesn't really care much about the correct answer - Instead, he will try to prove his point - Either by saying he is right, or by attacking personalities and using swear words. This is a poor way to proceed.

Unfortunately, another thing that we see is talking without facts - We end up making blatant statements, which are often unsubstantiated. We have no idea if it is true, but in the heat of an argument, loose comments are made. Another fallacy would be one where the location of arguments is not fully studied. Arguments in public is one that should be avoided (unless you are invited by Times Now :P) because, again, you end up trying to safeguard your ego because a lot of people are watching you...

An appropriate way in which a debate should flow is one where points are made, points are disproved, opposing points are made, and so on... An argument in which emotions start playing roles, raising voices, using swear words, hitting below the belt is a failed argument. Unnecessary rise in temperatures is involved. Another mistake is - Assumption. Certain meanings are taken although they might not even have been remotely intended.

Then there is the second type - Opinions. Every person is entitled to opinions. Now, unless the opinion is based on a false premise, such as anything misconstrued, one can never disprove that, and arguing against this is baseless and incorrect. A simple example is - A person says that doing MS is pointless because of very high costs involved. This is his opinion. Then another person tells him that getting funding is possible that will enable him to do it smoothly. Then, his opinion changes. An opinion of this kind can be changed, because he didn't know certain facts earlier. However, if a person says that he doesn't like a certain song, it is an opinion that cannot be altered. You cannot convince him because there is nothing there to convince. If YOU on the other hand like a song, then good for you - However, trying to say that the song is good would be pointless, because the first person clearly disagrees. An argument of this kind should be avoided as it results in nought.

My Experiments with the PC ...... BIOS flash going awry

Well this dates back to the time I was perhaps in my 2nd year of engineering.
My 6 year old monitor had gone bad. So I went out and got myself a cool 19 inch widescreen Samsung flat screen. I had initially planned to get only a 17 inch screen but decided to go for the widescreen one after checking the price difference between them.


So, I come in and plug the beauty to my CPU. The screen glows up and it looks awesome.
But there is something amiss. The screen looks all distended. "Hmm ... Got to do with the widescreen resolution I thought". I went and checked out all the resolutions available. None of them looked fine. On digging further, I found out non of the resolutions available were wide screen(16:10). My immediate thought was.."Driver update".

Upgraded to the latest driver available on the Asus website (my mobo maker). It would not work. Tried different versions..Nothing would work. It did not take me long to realize that nothing would do. Every piece of hardware comes with the firmware that makes it possible for it to talk to other hardware and upper layers of software. Dirver only enables you to speak to this firmware.
In my case, I was running a mobo with on-board graphics and the BIOS did not support widescreen resolutions. And no software upgrade on my OS would fix it.

This meant I had to look for a BIOS upgrade. Asus had stopped releasing updates for my motherboard long back . Even the last BIOS released did not support widescreen resolutions. As you would expect, there was this guy in Finland who had patched the BIOS to support widescreen resolutions. I downloaded it right away.

Now came the difficult part.
I had never done a BIOS upgrade. Back in those days, a BIOS upgrade was considered a thing you would never do.
But I thought, what the hell. This is one part I have never tried on my PC. Come what may, I want to enjoy my new monitor. I am gonna upgrade to the new BIOS.

I was too eager to give a deeper thought.
Off I was to the Asus website, to download the flashing utility.
There were 2 options : Windows flashing utility
A DOS based flashing utility.
I chose the Windows utility. Took a backup of the current BIOS.
I chose the patched BIOS and selected "FLASH".

Next on the screen :


1. Erasing current version a.b.c.d .... Complete
2. Flashing new image version w.x.y.z .. Complete.
3. Verifying image .... Verification failed!.

"Oops..Maybe something went wrong. Let me try it again", I thought.
I did the sequence n number of times. And it would say the same thing everytime.
I knew I was in deep trouble. Atleast I was running Windows and my BIOS would not be rquired till the next reboot. So I started googling for solutions. After 3 hrs of surfing, I realized there was no other go apart from flashing from an external programmer.

And I eventually pressed the shut down button. And as expected, my system would not come back from the next boot.
I called up the supposedly best Computer Service guy and explained what happened.
He asked me to get the system over. I clearly told him that I just needed an external programmer to re-flash it.
But after 3 days of waiting, this guy tells me. Sir, the Display Chip is damaged and that is why the system is not booting up.
I argued enough to explain what the problem was.
I was cursing myself for taking the system to him.
I got back the system immediately.

I then called up Asus support . Atleast the engineer there clearly understood the problem. But due to my misfortune, my mobo was very old and they did not have any programmers or my mobo model.

If they had one, I could have something called hot swapping.
So, what exactly is hot swapping.
Well it is basically taking the bios from a non-booting system where the bios flash went bad or was the wrong version and reflashing it on a working system that has a compatible chip.

I even went to the extent of calling up the vendor who had supplied my PC to check if anyone else had got the same system around that time so that I could flash my BIOS chip on his system. I reached a dead end again.

Eventually, I had to contact a person who was involved in Chip level service to get it flashed.
The fix was a matter of 5 minutes. All I needed was the external programmer.
And I had to shell out 500Rs for it .

Later I came to know that most of the old motherboards shipped with faulty programmers.

So the next time around you want to flash the BIOS of your old system, ask yourself ..
"Do I really need this BIOS upgrade??"

Well, if you are running a reasonably new machine, there is no reason for worry.
Asus motheroards now ship with something called Crash Free BIOS and Gigabyte mobos have dual BIOS chips so that you can boot from the other when 1 crashes. And every motherboard vendor now has one or the other thing to handle Bios flashes going awry.
In fact, I have flashed my new Asus P6T Deluxe several times and never ever faced an issue.

I have to mention that I have left out many specifics in this article to keep it concise....

A Dependency Is A Major Weakness

Swami Gulagulaananda said:
"There is no greater weakness than dependency"

I'm sure most of you are aware of this by experience. A dependency is something that will always pull you down. It is something that makes outcomes of certain events uncertain, and makes certain otherwise strong individuals weak.

This post discusses about dependencies in general, and also why auto rickshaws in Bangalore continue to be a problem.

So, what's a dependency?
I am sure that such incidents would have happened with you or you would have been around or heard about incidents such as the following. A group of children are playing cricket, and one of the children brings his brand new bat. This is the only bat for the group of children to play. When the kid who brought the bat gets stumped and becomes out, he refuses, and says he wants to still bat. The rest of the children disagree, and tell him that it's the next person's chance to play. At his, the kid says that he is going to go home, and take his bat along with him.

Now it's the turn of the other children to be stumped. If they ask him to get lost, they end up with no bat, and cannot play. If they allow him to play, he is obviously taking undue advantage by using the bat as a leverage.

Dependencies exist everywhere
Just look around. A man tells his wife to do something. The wife refuses. The man says that he is not going to give her any money, because he is the earning member of his family, and she is just a housewife. She has no other source of income, and finally has to yield to his whims, whether or not she likes it. He uses money as a leverage, while she succumbs to dependency.

Many software applications don't run properly, because certain dependencies (files) are missing. You then have to start hunting for ocx and dll files, register them, etc. If there were no dependencies, life would have been smoother.

Coalition Governments are perhaps a perfect example. For the government to sustain itself, a lot of people need to be kept happy. If they are not happy, they will walk away, and the government collapses. As you can see, as long as the government is dependent on them, there exists a weakness.

A group of people, A, B, C and D decide to work on a project. A, B and D might be very efficient, while C is not good. The work is divided among themselves, and the sequential stages of work is completed by them, in that order. Now, the project will never get completed, as long as they are waiting for C to complete the work.

Autorickshaws in Bangalore are rude, overcharge, don't come to places you ask them to, use rigged meters, etc. And yet, when it is raining, or when you are running late for a meeting, you pay more and hire an autorickshaw. This is because you don't have another option. And so on... There are countless examples for this.

How do you battle dependencies?
The only ways to fight dependencies, is either to be independent or to create alternate solutions - not as simple as it sounds.

You first need to develop a mindset against it. A strong will to not succumb to dependency. And I am saying this, only in places where it is not impossible. For example, when I have to cover a distance of four kilometres, and there are no buses in sight, I walk. And I am talking about times when I don't have meetings, or any time limit. You might ask "What's the big deal in doing that?" The answer is simple - A person such as an autodriver develops an attitude to refuse to go to a place where you ask him to, or develops an attitude of overconfidence or arrogance or complacency only when his stomach is filled. He has the idea that - "If not you, someone else". Every time you walk manageable distances, you are denying him of some money, while it is not a major hit to you. Imaging what will happen if this gets multiplied by a lot of people - Auto drivers will start feeling the pinch. They cannot afford to refuse getting hired.

Have a look at BMTC buses - There are two types, the normal ones and Volvos. The bus conductors and drivers of normal buses are inherently rude. They talk roughly all the time, and the reasons are that they see a lot of people and the buses are overcrowded all the time. They are able to meet the targets set by BMTC - this is because the fares are lower, and so, many people board the buses, and targets are met. So, they even have the audacity to skip bus stops leaving eagerly awaiting commuters high and dry. Volvo buses on the other hand can't afford to do that - Their fares are higher, and so, very few people board them. If they create a negative attitude, existing commuters may find alternate ways. If that happens, they cannot meet targets set. And this is the reason why they stop even when someone stops them.

Apparently auto drivers in Mumbai are very polite. This is obvious - People there go by local trains largely. They also have buses, autos and taxis as other means of transport. If they are not being competitive, they lose out. In Bangalore, if not for BMTC buses, there are no alternate means of transport for Bangaloreans that take them to the interiors. So, auto rickshaws continue to show attitude problems.

KFC(C) Fou(w)l Play

Swami Gulagulaananda said:

"When you see a dog in the manger, throw a stone at it"

The Kannada film industry has put a limit on the number of theatres showing non-Kannada movies. The reason? People are watching more non-Kannada movies than Kannada movies. So, basically, if the plants in your garden look like they are dying, then go and wreck your neighbours' garden - Why? Hell, I don't know. Somehow, the KFCC is managing to make their idea not sadistic at all...

The idea of movies, people and popularity is simple - Make a good movie, give proper publicity and people will watch it. Why will they not want to watch a good movie? Instead, pathetic movies are made, that get pathetic reviews - Whichever star you pick (As you know, Sandalwood has every actor named like "[Put star Title Here] Star" which could be golden, silver, bronze, crazy, wacky, rebel, mutineer, or whatever... the movie never seemed to get more than one star in ratings, no matter how many super stars you put.

And don't even get me started on the songs - The only good thing about Kannada songs, is that the music is really good these days. But the lyrics makes me puke... every single day. And the radio stations in Bangalore don't know when enough is enough. With their crappy clichéd catch phrases (sakkath hot maga,whatte fun, aithalakadi morning, etc.) they play songs with hopeless lyrics day in and day out. When I started going in Volvo buses, I used to see many people listening to songs from their phones and iPods, and I used to find it strange - Hey, the radio is on, and it's playing refreshing songs with their refreshing RJs. After a really short time, I got it. Most RJs are really annoying, boring and overzealous, jumping to conclusions all the time, and the songs are worse.

The point I am making is this - Yeah, I do agree that you need to have a variety of songs. But the stuff that is being churned out by the industry doesn't qualify to be called as songs. And for all the ruckus that they raise about being true to Kannada, most of these songs have non-Kannada words in them very often. And the Kannada they speak is sub-standard, with no difference existing between alpapraanas andmahapraanas. If you disagree with me, here are some lyrics -

• Swalpa soundu jaasthi maadu, thumba oLLe songidu, ondu roundu hodedu nodu, bhoomi thumba saNNadu
• Yaakoooo, thumbaaaa, bore uuu, erade eradu steppu kuNidu bidoNa...
• ardha litre petrol iththu gaadinali...
• thale baachkolo powder haakolo...
• haLe paathre haLe kabbiNa haLe paper...

This list will be made longer... (You can contribute) And they have the audacity to arrange for best song awards among these... Reminds me of the IgNobel prize.

The point is not that - The point is, instead of making better movies, they are blocking other movies from screening. This is highly unfair. It is very similar to Auto Drivers who drive away private vehicles and other means of public transport after some time at night, so that all the business comes only to them - So that they can charge one and a half, or double! Dogs in the manger you say? Don't succumb to them - Do what I do... I boycott autos completely. You should never allow mediocrity to prosper. So next time you see a rabid dog in the manger, throw stones...

Life is a short mystery...

Swami Gulagulaananda said:

"I continue to wonder what exactly is life... It's the strangest thing that I don't quite seem to comprehend. And then there's death"

We all live lives - We have dreams, ambitions, wishes, desires, friends, work, parents, relatives, loved ones, enemies... We laugh, cry, shout, shove, fight, beat, run, fly, eat, sleep... And then we die.

Frankly, till date, I have never understood what life is all about - We all took birth, we live a life filled with some or all of the above, and then there is death, which will hit everyone.

Some people say life was an accident - that due to some random events, life just appeared. Possible. Some say that God created life. Possible. Whatever may be the reason for life, one thing continues to haunt me - What is the purpose of life? If you say that life was an accident, get over it, then I disagree because if it was, then there should not have been such an instinctive drive in all of us to survive and plough through. In the end, death will hit all of us, then why should the strong desire for survival exist in each of us?

Just imagine you're writing an exam, and the teacher says that all of you are going to fail the test, no matter what you write (Reminds you of VTU?). Will you have the motivation to study hard? When the end result is known, you will definitely lack the desire to work hard - The mindset would be that - "I'm going to fail anyway, why should I work?" And similarly, if you know that you are going to die, why do we all struggle so hard to live? Are we hardwired to do something, that we seem to be missing?

I'm not being a cynic who says - "Hell, we are all going to die anyway. So, let's not work hard to achieve something in life. What's the point?" No, I am not saying that. I am asking you to think and ponder over it. It is interesting, as an intellectual problem - Perhaps, the strangest mystery that keeps me thinking so often. What is death? The absence of life. So, what's life? What is missing between a person who's alive and who's dead? Why should a person die?

We often take certain things extremely seriously, and often forget to respect and enjoy the smaller things in life. Every minute of your life is precious - Believe me, you will not get to do this again. Live every moment, cherish every moment - You never know when it's your number next...

I continue to believe in - Study and work like you are going to live forever. Don't develop an attitude that you are going to die, and it's pointless. Just stick around. Some day, you never know, Swami Gulagulaananda might answer your questions :-)