Ideas are Immortal

The struggle against Digital Restriction Management (DRM) is going to be the  most important step to secure the access to seamless information as required by an individual in future.

Personally, I have been apprehending this malice for quite sometime now.
And,by using a GNU/Linux Operating system and maintaining open standard data within our personal realms is the basic contribution each of us could be doing towards this campaign against DRM.

Going further supporting this novel cause, we, being the source of creative art, music, literature, technology and every other resource influencing our lives in digital format should stick to the principles of Open Standards, and shouldn’t succumb to any restrictive laws.

Public domain data is what will help the world in the longer run, and by encumbering ‘Access to information’ with selfish and perilous restrictions we are preventing a large population of the world from growing with the rest of us.

To know more about the Defective-by-design campaign and to do your part, visit

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/

The IT haunted World


My first ‘Workers Day’,after I have become a ‘worker’ got me more closer in understanding a threat which I have been personally apprehending about for quite sometime now.

IT in India, and more importantly the unhealthy work culture it has brought with it, eroding the lives of plenty of young IT and IT enabled Services professionals. A serious problem which has been accumulating over the past decade seems to be surfacing up now, after it has taken a rapid toll on a generation of Indians in IT. This is culminating into an awareness these days, with people in IT at least having started questioning the system which is grueling them.

One such effort is the “IT and IT enabled Services Employees’ Center” or the ITEC (http://www.itecentre.co.in/) ,which is trying to float a  forum for the IT professionals, so that a common platform is created to discuss and collectively contemplate the remedies for the issues each of them is having to put up with.

Using today’s occasion of ‘Workers’ Day’, ITEC had organized an awareness program about ” Extended Working hours in IT & it’s Effects on Employees”. With participation of about 40 IT professionals and other inclined enthusiasts including myself* participated in the event.

The program started off with a small video depicting the ever-stretching work in the lives of IT professionals, ultimately making them brittle.

After the video, one of the ITEC member briefed the audience about ITEC and its objectives, followed by an appealing but concise skit by few members.

The skit emphasized on the physical, psychological and social constrictions on individuals, which have become so ubiquitous these days as a consequence of hectic work. The skit completes with an expectant kid on her birthday, wanting to show her gifts, instead trying to wake up the two IT professionals, who unfortunately are her parents! A consistent undercurrent of remorse was present throughout, on the part of being an IT professional!

The notion of employees being just another material resource, to be fully utilized for the profit-motive of the employers was projected in a prominent manner in the open discussions. Also, the point of the policy about eight working hours even at IT was debated.

Personally, I feel the relation between IT and its employees to be paradoxical!

Quoting a point made by my mentor(not verbatim:),  People blindly aspire for and endorse the supposedly ‘elite’ status which IT entices.

Initially,people endorse the grueling bestowed on them ignoring all the hardships they are put through. Subsequently, when they are complacent enough about their lifestyle, it is then when they start to notice the ‘atrocities’. This culture of compromise at the start is the gain for the Employers, who try to accomplish their objective-More profits!

One pragmatic solution which came out, put forth by a member was about shrinking down the ‘Larger than Life’ lifestyle people aspire for, and by being ready to take risks to safeguard their personal interests.

ITEC has proven to be a good platform. With more conscious IT professionals involving themselves with ITEC, and raising their unified voice for the common claims is when the objective of this forum be reached.

*FYI:I’m not an IT’ian

Ubuntu 10.04 or Project Lucid lynx is out,and as I have already been updating on my ‘social broadcast accounts’ via Gwibber, it has undergone a metamorphosis-both technically and I’m afraid even philosophically!

Let me first jot down the glaring apprehensions about this metamorphosis:

• Canonical had been negotiating a deal of using Yahoo as the default search engine, instead of Mozilla Firefox in Ubuntu. Although, it has now released Lucid lynx with Firefox, in future releases it might well switch to Yahoo. This, in the Free Software community we realize to be a set-back, given the snow-balling popularity of Ubuntu. 

• The Release Candidate which i was testing is diverging from the open-standards struggle, by more inclined support and encouragement to proprietary media standards. Ubuntu with it’s growing foothold could well be the mediator to enforce open media standards in a gradual manner. Here again, we are going reverse ways. 

• Previously default bundled tools like GIMP,are not available in the RC 10.04(will update this statement if it is bundled in the final candidate).Although, these can be added later by ‘apt-get’ing them. 

These are the few important points, we as Free Software activists need to be aware of.

At the end of the day, I am still talking about a Uber Cool, Smart and Fast Operating system, which easily beats all its counterparts in the proprietary domain, which is also Free ( here in the context of price:)
I’m still a big fan of Ubuntu, and here’s a list of go-go’s in the latest avatar of Ubuntu:

• Faster than previous releases. 
• Love the default theme, and aesthetics ( pre-loaded wallpapers are some of the best pictures you would have seen)
• Comprehensive Ubuntu Software Center, cataloging all the tools in a comprehensive manner

• Newer tools like Gwibber(Social Broadcast messenger),Empathy ( The IM client) and more

• Ubuntu One account to float your data online (A step towards reaching out to ‘the  cloud’)
• The ususal sleek 3-D desktop effects, which have gotten better #compiz

• Openoffice.org 3.2, quicker and better [Had forgotten about the Sun take-over,Oracle splashes on the startup screen :(]
• There is more concerned approach towards Universal Accessiblity issues and Localization. Ubuntu Software center has good projects in this regard. 
• Also, after Hardy Heron (Ubuntu 8.04), we have the Long Term Stable release or the LTS with Lucid Lynx with support for three years. 

And, loads of other things to keep you stuck with the lynx.

I’ve been using Ubuntu since almost three years now, and I’m yet to feel complacent about it.

Lucid lynx is better, wrong at places, but never to be ignored 🙂

Happy Birthday Lucid lynx 🙂

Nothing exists without purpose. Sometimes, true purposes, with time get scrambled by ageing and lose their authentic context.

I can quote, and you might also be able to relate to lots of examples to substantiate this argument.
For instance,I have spoken about the misconception of the concept of ‘God’ previously.It could be one.
Transcending in similar lines,let me tackle another close conceptual associate of the idea of God –Spirituality. I should better be attributing Spirituality to be the source out of which the concept of God was churned out, but as a misinterpretation!

Spirituality, by today’s definitions, is a quest of something that is essentially not in our humane realms. It is a not a subjective entity, but an elaborate process of attaining a certain state of mind, where the mind is supreme, or enlightened.

Essentially, Spirituality as I have understood, was a mechanism conceptualized to nurture the ‘self’ to realize one’s own potentials. Simple.
In attempting this,and to give the mind a better picture of what it is aspiring to become, a slightly exaggerated idea of the ‘objective’ was depicted, to serve as a signpost, or like a vade mecum. But,this exaggerated idea, with growing senility of the society, has come to be known as today’s ‘God’.

With so much of misconception shrouding the true sense of Spirituality, it definitely had to become the lucrative business it is today, attracting hollow humans.

Spirituality simply is a tool / a process / a methodology, helping the mind to realize and perpetuate one’s potency, while mitigating the flaws.

Until we try to ‘Know Thyself’, we will continue to be slaves to every big thing that has gone wrong in the society!

‘Rustic’ is the word which kept ringing in my head while listening to all the tracks offered by A R Rahman in Mani Ratnam’s Raavan.

The album as a whole, I should say Raavan has a typical Mani Ratnam-Rahman sound to it. Six excellent tracks emanating from this combination for Raavan are more towards being script-dependent, than making the album self-sufficient by itself . Like in every album by ARR, all the tracks have something to brag about, with some ingenious lyrics by Gulzar 🙂

1.Beera: Almost has a tribal sound to it, as if it were composed in an attempt to emulate the tribes of Eastern India. The lyrics are full of praises to the protagonist, with a feel of vanity to it.
2.Behene de: Another excellent collaboration between ARR and Karthik in this song. This is that one song of every AR album which would keep resonating in your head. You actually feel the ‘flow’ this song is about.
3.Thok di Killi: This is the most interesting song with a good tempo all along, with some intriguing lyric in it. I am yet to decipher the entire context and implication of these radical lines in the song. Sukhwinder sing takes the song effortlessly through it’s phases, making it another good track in the album.
4.Ranjha Ranjha: Surprise track of the album. Superb vocals by Rekha Bharadwaj complimented well by Javed Ali.Every time she sings ‘Ranjha Ranjha’, the song penetrates deeper and deeper into you.
5.Khilli re: Slow and soothing track of the likes of ‘Saanwariya saanwariya’ from Swades. Will catch on in the later stages of my album-listening routines.
6.Katta katta: Cheeky track with funny lyric. Genre of vocals used in this track are real good, and it culminates into a new kind of a song from the house of AR 🙂

One major disappointment for a die-hard fan of AR like me, is that AR hasn’t sung any of the tracks. Remember ‘Tere Bina’ from Guru? 🙂
Nevetheless, second album of AR for the year after VTV will stand out as a good one as well:) Still waiting for the Tamil version-Expecting some crackling lyric by Vairamuthu.

Sometimes, when I have an idea,or a thought, or some ‘neural noise’ which I need to dissipate out, words flow out easily conveying the same to the rest of you. Although, in a less effective manner than the authentic source. There are also times, when I might have to force the words out to imply even the quite obvious.

This, I believe is a result of two things: One being my own mental state i.e., the synchronism between the various sectors of my gray matter. Second, about which this post is about-the inherent inadequacy of words, in expressing the quintessential in an effectively wholesome manner. This inadequacy is manifested at various levels in different individuals, not dependent only on the diversity of their vocabulary, but also on the extent of interlinking between their ‘neural sparks’ (thoughts) and ‘archived neural blocks'(words embedded in memory).

Now, if you are thinking of raising the point of ‘Creativity’in this forum -Yes, it does play an important role.

Expressing intricately obscure neural sparks is facilitated by Creativity either by providing a different frame of reference in articulation (metaphors, similes and the other kinds of exaggerations), or by gifting people with other ‘flowing’ skills in the form of art and music.

The extent of inherent constraints in art and music is lesser than that of literature; One reason being that they can be uncontrolled, and can reach a ‘sublime’ chaos, which is tougher to accomplish in literature.

But again, the power of Literature lies in it’s residual levels of abstraction when compared to Art or Music, which in their sense can be as abstract as the Universe itself!

“Capitalism: A Love Story” is Michael Moore’s documentary dissecting the 2008 US economy meltdown, which had adverse affects worldwide. In this documentary he rightly attributes this collapse to the failure of Capitalism.

While watching this documentary few of my own questions were answered, and also gave rise to many more important questions.

At a personal level, I happened to approach the idea of “Free Market, Free Enterprise” from the views of Ayn Rand – The one influential philosopher of Individualism. Although, I used to endorse her portrayal of the system, I have begun to realize that ‘it isn’t as it was supposed to be’.

Growing disparity in any society can never do good to the society. Like in today’s scenario, India is polarizing in an accelerated manner. I still might have not understood the economic or the political systems comprehensively to criticize it authoritatively, but I can very well see the flashing mistakes being made.

I, at a personal level am in quest for an answer to this flawed system which is impaired and ineffective.

Michael Moore ends the documentary suggesting a people’s rebellion against the
demon of disparity and exploitation.
Again, I am still unsure of its effectiveness.

I do not want to conclude the post with my opinion, while it is still in the making. But, a line from the documentary could end it well.

This is capitalism. A system of taking and giving…mostly taking!

Little small things in life are the small little sources of super big happinesses. 

A simple,but effective secret of life preached by a sweet friend,who practices it thoroughly.


Little things like the days, dates, messages, expressions, attire, colours, words, utterances, silly faux pas, and other nuances of daily interaction if treasured,can in due course of time grow in their value, to give us sweet joyous moments of sharing and heart warming reminiscence.

Today,I was engaged in one such lovely interaction, although it was unidirectional, for, I have grown to ignore such meticulous observations.

This has well convinced me to assimilate the influence of this ‘Beauty’ of Small things into me, to feel more attached to the moments when spent in a special manner.

Constant worrying and cribbing about mega things shouldn’t make one grow numb to the micro and nano moments of joy.

After being conceived before about two and a half years by a bunch of students, and with actual work starting just before an year and half only, today, India’s first Pico-Satellite, which also happens to be the first small satellite( weighs less than a kilogram),made indigenously by undergraduate students with support from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has been handed over to ISRO. This will be followed by the launch, to put the satellite into the orbit,carried by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from Sriharikota.

Today was a day, which was one of the dreams the team had dreamt of, and brings great joy to all involved.

The ceremony was presided over by, His Excellency Dr. Hans Raj Bharadwaj, Governor of Karnataka and eminent scientists including Prof. U.R.Rao,and others.

It was a proud moment to all the team members of Team Studsat. All the hardships the team has undergone to reach the current state should be a source of inspiration to all students,who, in the words of Prof.U.R.Rao would
 “Dare to dream,and dream to dare”.

Also, quoting Dr.T.K.Alex, Director ISAC,” The next PSLV will carry two extremes: a 700kg satellite and an 850gms Satellite (STUDSAT)”, he also added ” STUDSAT is a cute satellite”.

There will be more elaborate chronicling of all the ups and downs of the team soon,when the satellite has been put into it’s orbit.
For now,

Hats Off to all the team members of Team Studsat…

“Our heads are held high,
Not gazing at the sky,
But, beyond it!”

http://teamstudsat.com/