Sunday, March 16, 2008

Driver, where you taking us ?

Its a special day for me, my birthday :) ... nothing much happened today except I was able to pray in the famous Dakshineshwar temple here in Kolkata, after a long, slow walk from outside the temple premises to inside. It was a surprise for me as I had expected it to be an easy-going affair, I would be done in about half an hour, I had thought ... it took more than 2 hours, which I am thankful for, as it could have been more.

So, here I am, 26 years of my life complete today and I am in a strange state. I feel happy, I feel sad, I feel confused, hopeful and sometimes I feel blank. It seems that this has been triggered because of my thoughtful, introspective mood that I entered yesterday night. There are so many things I have thought about since. Family, friends, studies, career ... And each of these topics makes me feel a lot of things as I have said earlier ... happy, sad, confused, hopeful, blank.

I am not however, going to discuss (most of) my thoughts here. I rather thought of writing out some of the thoughts that I have for my blog though :)

Well, this is a summary of what I think I would do with my blog this year :
1) I feel like I need to write more articles that are geek-ish ;) ... what I mean to say is that, I want to write more articles that are not of a philosophical/intellectual mode ... I would like to put more concrete articles this year.
2) I would like to put a lot of small math posts that would be relatively easier for people to grasp and fun too.
3) As for programming, I would like to pick specific language features from those I know and discuss what I know and maybe that could help some new people ... maybe also invite the wrath of experts :D ... but I am ready for that, that's the way to grow !
4) Put more material on data structures as used in Linux, material on Linux scheduler and Linux memory management.
5) Some algorithms that are beautiful and less-known.
6) Cryptography - Posts introducing readers to basics of cryptography, encryption schemes, some practical and wonderful aspects of cryptography.

Hope, I can do justice to this list this year. Happy blogging to all of you and happy birthday to me ;-)

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

A whining post

Missed February 2008 in my blogging career, busy with exams and other stuff. I have three to four topics on which I would love to write something as soon as possible. However, it looks like even March is going to be unsparing. So, with not much time at hand, I thought of writing a post where I would list many of my recent dislikes (it feels so good to criticize ;) ... and hence I call this a whining post :)

Well, here they are in no particular order or importance :

1) Indian cricket team has created history in Australia with their sensational 2-0 thrashing of Australia in the triangular series finals. Moreover, they won the historic test in Perth which had become a holy grail of sorts for the Australians. And, the fact that India did this was even more breathtaking. The sad part is India could have won the test series also, had it not been some 'obnoxious umpiring' in the Sydney test. What irritates me now is the attitude of Indian media and some Indian fans. There are still a lot of people who dismiss Indian victory as fluke ... c'mon now, what do you want ? Indian team came back after a major mental setback in the Sydney test to beat Australia, in nowhere else but Perth ! isn't that awesome ? Beating world champs in ODI versions 2-0 in triangular series finals emphasized the domination of Australia by India. The drama by Indian media is sickening, ridiculous, irritating, over-hyped, emotionally exploiting and what not ... the post-victory shows on leading news channels like Aaj Tak and Star News was senseless. They were blowing things out of proportion, I mean let the team relax, don't play with the sentiments of people for your ratings ... these same channels will not leave a stone unturned the next time Dhoni and gang fail ... the way they projected the clash between Harbhajan and Symonds, Hayden was shameful ... yes, Australians are bad losers but you got to be sensible with national broadcasts. The Indian media looks to me like a bunch of a**holes who flush the ethics with their shit.

2) I love Ubuntu, this is the most satisfying Linux distro I've laid my hands upon (well, definitely some people won't agree but that's ok with me, you got your reasons to stick with your distro, have fun). However, there are somethings I would like to be improved. Firstly, and I am talking about Ubuntu 7.04, why is the shutdown so ugly ? On Windows XP, the application windows get closed one by one in a clean manner, the shutdown on Ubuntu is like a mad rush to wipe out the window graphics from the screen (you get white rectangles all overlapping, some colours too and then suddenly to the black screen, the sound is broken and sometimes there is no sound !). I have done a bit of searching and come across some links that I am not sure are talking about the same problem ... I would post about this if I can get it fixed. Secondly, why isn't there a group by name or group by type option in the Nautilus window manager in GNOME (even KDE doesn't have it) ... this is a comparison to Windows XP but that feature helps to make the folder view look more organized.

3) There's this hand gesture that I see all the time when I am at some rock band show (be it in Bangalore or Kolkata) that really irritates me. A lot of young people do it, this is done basically by closing your two fingers just before the little finger along with the thumb, so that the index and little finger are pointing forward ... it's meant to show your appreciation to the band, but I intuitively feel that most of these people are bullshitting, they don't even understand the music. I am not a big guru of music but I would rather stay calm and clap when I have enjoyed some good music from the band ... it makes more sense because you are more likely to be awed and happy by a good/excellent performance rather than 'yo man'ing the performance ;) ... and I find more support for my theory because you can find these people behaving in the same fashion over a crap performance.

4) The obsession of newspapers and media with politics and celebrities is disgusting ... what do millions of people who are working hard for their meals every day care about Britney Spears' baldness, Paris Hilton's exploits or Kareena-Saif romance ? Go to hell ... I wish there would be a lightning some day that would crack on each of these media people and these narcissistic celebrities who occupy unnecessary attention.

I feel like I would spit out a lot more whining if I continue ... so I am cutting it short now and switching to work.