Hello folks, I attended my first BOSUG meet last Saturday(13th June, 2009) at the Sun office(Divyashree chambers).  Though the turnout was less, it was really a nice meeting and learnt quite a bit. And of course had the chance to attend the session of Max Bruning and had a chat with Moinak.

Went to the meeting a bit late, because I had trouble identifying the building. Then took Sriram’s help and reached Sun’s office, just in time to attend Max’s presentation. At least, I was not too late. Max gave a talk on wrting a module for wacom tablets and told how they need to be treated differently from mouse. Well, to put it simply, in a mouse, you need to move the mouse pointer on the screen for delta x and delta y. But in a pen tablet, it is always absolute.(I understand my simplification is misleading though). He spoke about streams and the issues in integrating the module into the solaris OS. And I didn’t really understand the part on streams very much, the effect of attneding a meet without any background on the topics. The good thing about his presentation was that he put most things in a nice manner that could be understood easily, if we know some basics about the topic and he didn’t make it look very technical.

Then Sriram spoke on his experiences from CommunityOne that he had participated. He gave a brief update on the various events and incidents at the conference. Learnt that Belenix had a good following in South Ameraican nations. Also learnt a lot of other things for the first time during the various conversations that took place during his talk.

Then Moinak gave updates on the current status of KDE 4.2.4 integration in Belenix. His talk was really in a casual manner and really liked it. Also learnt a lot of things during his talk.

And above all, they provided nice snacks in between (No, please don’t tell I went only for that )

In general, the meeting was really informal in its approach and though it was my first meet, the people were really nice to me. Had a chat with Moinak, Anil, Shriram and others after the meeting as well. Hmm, time well spent

Hello folks, its been a long long time. Just thought of putting this tiny piece of info on GSL here. The GNU Scientific Library is a numerical library from the GNU. This is really useful for those who deal with complex mathematical functions day in and day out.

The GSL provides a rich set of functions that can be used in C/C++ programs. They provide support for almost all the fundamental mathematical operations. And the good thing is that if  we are working  on Mathematical topics involving a lot of calculations, we save a great deal of time by using this instead of implementing our own functions to solve them. Moreover, a very basic knowledge of C is sufficient to use this. So, even someone without a sound computer science background, can start using this with a minimal knowledge of C/C++.

A subset of features supported by the GSL includes Complex Numbers, Roots of Polynomials, Physical Constants and Differential Equations. They of course support a lot more and the full list can be found at the official site.

And for me the good thing is that this comes packaged in Debian.

Hello folks, A few days back, there was an OT thread in the ilugc, which eventually ran into the topic of data privacy and FOSS. A few people on the list were commenting that data privacy was of supereme importance in FOSS.(The original post).

       I had raised my views over there and wish to highlight them.

File access permissions:

In GNU/Linux, or any other UNIX, the default file access permissions are 755. This means that, the owner can read, write and execute the files. The users in the same group as the owner can read and execute only, and the other users in the system can also read and execute only. (The file access is actually the decimal notation of the bitmask for the r-w-x, where 1 means allowed. So 1-1-1 means read, write and execute and 111 in binary is 7 in decimal).

So this 755 permission by default essentially means that, anybody who has a login in that system can read and execute your files. So the concept of supreme data privacy is lost. Infact, with default settings,any user can read any file in a GNU/Linux system.

There are ofcourse ways to modify the defaul permissions and make it such that the owner can read-write-execute and others can’t do anything, by setting the permissions to 700 using the chmod command. To make this as the default property, the users can also make their umask to be 077. by default umask is set to 022(umask XOR 777 gives the file access permissions).

            There were references to RMS opposing could computing etc. citing that data privacy is lost. In my view,  the probable disadvantage of cloud computing is that data ownership might be lost. But from my understanding, there will be no changes to the privacy.

         Hello folks, It was the greatest test match I have followed in recent times. What a thrill it was. Not even a 100 Twenty20s can equal the thril of this first test betwwen India and England at the great MAC, Cheapuk, Chennai. 

       It was thrilling right from day one and it should be said that India pulled a victory from the jaws of defeat. Or Englad lost very badly from a great advantage that they had at the close of ay 4 and the beginning of the first session of day 5.

      Thanks to the start by Shewag and Gambhir and the firm partnership between Sachin and Yuvraj, that was unbeaten till the end, India now has the fourth highest successful 4th innings run chase, worth 387 runs.

      Hope this develops an interest in test matches among the Twenty20 loving poeple.

          Hello folks, Having joined Moto, I am getting in touch with the latest developements in the mobile phones and wireless communication sector. And the news of the World’s first ever LTE mobile phone chip is a positive sign.

          LG has announced that it has created the world’s first ever LTE chip. For people who or not in this domain, LTE is the abbreviation for Long Term Evolution, a 4G technology aimed at high-speed wireless broadband and AIPN(All IP Network). It has promised really high data rates and the chip has not disspointed with 60Mbps download and 20Mbps upload rates. Also, theoritcally, mobile handovers are possible even while travelling at a few 100 kmph!!!

          Good time for movie addicts. Once the phones are out and the service is in, no more full night downloads are required. Theoritically, a 700 MB movie(one Compact Disk) can be downloaded in less than  a minute. Well, technology is fast developing and lets grab it with both hands.

          Hello folks,  a blog after a long time. This time it is the reflections of my thoughts as a result of a look-bask of four years of engineering. I agree that I might be at fault and am not attempting to push the blame around. But the complaint this time is the quality of Maths and Physics in the syllabus. 

         I had always believed that an engineer must be good at Maths and Physics, apart from his/her discipline. Actually in fact all engineering disciplines grew out of these 2 fundamental domains.

        But during the four years of engineering, I never was happy with the mathematics/physics that we had. In fact our(at least the BE CSE) knowledge of contemporary Physics is close to zero and that of application of Mathematics is no better.

        Most of the universities with engineering concentrate only on pass/fail of the students. No importance is given to understanding of the subject. I confess that I still don’t know one practical application where multiple integrals or partial differentiation is currently being used. All our lectures were centered around scoring marks in the exams and not on understanding the subject.

      The state of Physics is still worse. The only Physics course we had in our first semester was on some traditional concepts and after that we never had anything on Physics. I really don’t know how people understand architectures of computers without knowing much on the underlying Physics.

        Hope that the situation changes soon and people realize the importance of Mathematics and Physics to engineering courses.

I have been having a nightmare for the past few days, since I got an account created for me in one of our company’s local server. The trouble is that the server running a nice operating system has only “vi”.  I really don’t know why when every other server has both vi and emacsAnd for someone who is used to emacs alone for the past few years(about 3 to 4 years ), moving to vi is a great nightmare. And the fact that it has no other editors, not even nano or pico is really troubling me. I often end up pressing Ctrl+e or Ctrl+A and something wierd happens.

And since it is not even vim, but plain old vi, it has made me start a frantic serach for possible ways of using vi with emacs key combinations. Any help from anyone ?

    Hi folks, another long gap. I had been trying to work with Py3k, but in vain. I had not updated myself even to Python 2.6, when I read about the release of RC1 for python 3.0(Py3k), and its documentation I was totally stunned to know that everything right from the basic “print” statement to the use of strings has changed. When I weent through the “What’s new”, I just understod that my knowledge has been just repositioned to 0(Though I need to agree that it was always close to zero ).

      Looking at all these, I am certain that all my previous code will shout hundreds of errors when I use the python3.0 interpreter with those code. Also, I had the habit of working with the python interpreter shell for quick needs. And now am getting errors very very frequesntly with that. Though I had been reading about the huge changes between the 2.x versions and the (then)impending 3.0 version for the past few months, I didn’t realise how grave it was until I started using the new version.

    Luckily, they have a converter that will convert code from the 2.6 version to the Py3k. And it seems they had made 2.6 with an hint of the appraoching storm. So, I think the best way to convert any old 2.x code of mine,  that I might want to use, to 3.0 is to convert the code to 2.6 first and then to 3.0 using the converter.

     Oh God, I think I have a new language to learn before I can say “I know something in Python”.

     The ‘Omlette” post of the FOSS.in list made by Mr. Atull Chitnis triggered me to write this post. I may be too dumb in not knowing what Mr. Atul Chitnis’ contribution to FOSS is. But definitely the omlette post was of the wrong tone, though its intentions were good. If you find this post harsh on you, I am really sorry Mr. Atul Chitnis.

{For those who had not gone through the post, here is the link,  http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/foss-in/message/5219)

      When Atul made his “Omelette post” to the foss.in mailing list, it created a huge uproar in it. The reason was he had called “translation” and “packagin” as low-hanging fruit. Then, after the large protest that it created, he made another “clarification” post through which he stressed that he was correct and that it ws the mistake of the list members that they didn’t know english. At point went to say that he is well versed in English and FOSS. Is that an outburst of his ego ? Does he mean to say that others are inferior to him in english ? Well, not just Atul, anyone who converses in english is that, it idioms are lifeless and depend much on the tone of the speaker. This is one good example of that. Though the idiom is not deregatory, the way he used it, that is, his tone was definitely demeaning. May be he is good at english and its idoms and other great tools. It is just that he doesn’t know how to talk or express.

      Without delving much into what Atul knows and what he doesn’t, I though of having a post on what all I think as a significant contribution to FOSS. First of all, every contribution is as important as every other one. Just like most graduates feel that testing inferior, there is a thought among a few people that jobs like distro specific packaging and translation is not that as great as writing a kernel. On the otherhand, the reality is that the person who translates a document or a man page into his/her native language knows much more than the person who implemented it, atleast from my view point. It is because, the person knows the intricacies of the software and in addition to that has a literary mind to translate a document from english or some other language to his/her own language.

      Coming to packaging, not everybody on this earth can compile, solve dependencies and install software on GNU/Linux. most people want to have it just like the windows world, that is a “Next… Next.. Finish” kind of installation. And when people feel that packaging for distros is not as great as actual coding, the software the those “geeks” code will be used noly by them and the geek community that surrounds them. It will never the reach the common man, who was the original intended user.

     I do agree that contribution in the form of code directly to the projects and kernel are of importance. But that doesn’t mean localisation, translation and distro specific packaging are not important. After all, when you target the third world audience, it is the latter that takes up higher priority.

     And coming to the language used in mailing lists… In a country like India(or any other country where english is not a native language), where you *should not* and *cannot* expect everybody to be an expert in english(yes, we are excellent in grammar, but we believe in simplicity. I personaly feel that there is no necessity for all those blows and whistles of idioms in a FOSS mailing list. You may be a excellent programmer. But keep it at that. You need not show off your english skills), you are supposed to send an email in simple english. For example, since FOSS.in is an ‘Indian” event, shall I post to its list in Hindi/Tamil/Kannada/… and complain when the non native sepakers of that language in the list don’t understand ? So, it must be uderstood that all users of a mailing list must write in such a way that the intended people get your message easily. If your intended target is just the elite english speaking community or the Hindi speakng community of the list, then please mention so.

       Hi, this might be the most bitter post that I have ever made till now. For the first time life I felt ashamed of being an Indian/Hindu. To the best of my understanding the Orissa govt. did nothing to prevent the attrocities of the terrorists under the saffron hood. This is not the first time that communal violence has marred the glory of the nation. But this is the frist time, the very basic religious ethics has been violated.

      I have been a devout and strict hindu all my life(which of course is just 21+ years now). And I admit that I don’t know much about christianity. But with my little understanding of the religion, I think nuns are roughly equivalent to the seers or “mahants” of hinduism. I now ask those ba***** raped a nun in Orissa, would they ever tolerate such treatment to their religious heads or sanyasis(I mean the true sanyasis, who still do exist unknown and unobserved by the media) ? This is just terrorism under a safrron hood. 

     No body is a sane state of mind would attack a helpless young woman, and not any woman, but a nun in a church. If these f***ing people claim that they are doing all these to protect Hinduism, they are supposed to wake up from slumber. They are bringing lots of disrepute to a great nation, a nation which in the past has earned the name, “Unity in diversity”. And they are doing a false propaganda of “forced religious conversion”. I wish to question those ignorant fools as to where the hell in their scriptures are they asked to promote violence against people of other faith.

    Just as the terrorists who bomb various places in the country are not people of islam, but people who belong to a religion called “terrorism”, these people are not fit to be hindus, but must be dumped as terrorists. They must understand that just as living in India is a right for them, so it is for those innocent christians. What ever the religion of the person might be, He comes under the law of the land, and the law of this land says that “ALL RELIGIONS ARE EQUAL” and that “NO DISCRIMINATION SHOULD BE MADE BASED ON RELIGION” (Yes, I am indeed shouting).

    I hope that those people come out of their slumber soon and understand the gravity if their own misdeeds. I hope against hope that these people mind their own religion and if they want to spread the message of their religion, let them do it among the people of its own religion, but after they understand what the message really is. 

   Indian constitution allows all its citizen to practise a religion of his/her choice. And if those fools don’t know that, let them read the constitution of their land before reading and mastering their religious scriptures. And above all, a message to people of all religion: There is no purpose/use in merely reading and learning the religious scriptures by heart. It fulfils its prupose only if you start living by them. And to the best of my knowledge, no religion promotes violence and everything calls for peace. Either you fools understand this basic truth or leave the country in the hands of its peace loving people and get the hell out of here.

People must know that this is not a anti-hindu or pro-some religion post. I am as good a hindu as any other in the world. But I know how to respect another’s religion. Atleast thats what i learnt from religious lessons that I had. People must understand that religions are a tool for reaching a higher spiritual state, which of course can be reached even without religion(I don’t know how to). They are definitely not tools to promote violence among people. For athiests who now claim that religions must be abolished, this is my answer: just like a useful tool in the hands of terrorists can become a deadly weapon, religion in the hands of mindless will result in violence. It is those fools who must be punished and not the religion.