Category: General

I suddenly remembered about it and thought I had missed “Mars Earth come closest in 60,000 years and hence see the red planet with your naked eye” day. Rushed to find Divya’s mail and re-read the article. (Yes, you will note that it’s linked to the print version of the article and like every good geek should know how much less of a pain it is to load.)

Good, I haven’t missed it and it is on the 27th of August. At its closest, Mars will be 25 seconds of arc in diameter, the size of a tennis ball at a distance of 528 metres.

The first time I heard of this was from that “what’s his name” plump person (who shows up a lot on PBS) at a planetarium and science museum in in Miami. It should be something, and I know you won’t miss it :D.

Also, now that my list of blog reads is growing, I NEED to get straw up and running and you need to get your blog system to pipe out nice rdf/rss xml or whatever it is that good sites pipe out that straw reads. Browsers are a fun way to read blogs but come on, look how cool straw looks.

With straw, the previously mentioned dashboard and gDesklets, I’m drooling a lot more, and life is pretty in GNOME land.

I mean literally. The sun never really did come out. It’s been drizzling lightly all day. The university is still closed. Oh, how I miss my broadband. Now I know that’s something I HAVE to order ASAP. The budget and things can go to hell.

Also, been alone at home for most of the day. I mean, actually alone. No roomies, no guests, no nothing. It feels very good, and liberating. If things don’t work out, and people have to fund two homes, I’d happily collect rent check (note, not cheque any more) portions and live this way, peacefully.

Music, music and more music seems to be the theme of the day. At this rate I am going to burn through all the albums I own in one sitting. And that’s a whole lot of sitting. Heaven.

I had some stickiness ploys and evil plots up my sleeve, but decided not to implement them just yet. I’m too lazy today, which just fits well with the whole theme of the “chill and do nothing” day. The power cut days threw me off. Got used to being off-line and idle idle.

Gasp! Need to snap out of it.

Power’s back. Woohoo! :D

But I shouldn’t be celebrating should I? The damn thing shouldn’t have gone in the first place. Few hours ok, a DAY ok.. MORE? First world nation, G7 member, yeah right. No food, no water, no power for over a day, life was complicated. People turned into cannibals and so on.

Ok, that was exaggerated, obviously. We just lost power. A very little food and some (don’t know how pure) water was available. (But many places, my aunts place included, had water delivered via pump systems dependent on power. No power, no water.) The funny thing is that ALL stores and businesses were closed. ALL. The UNIVERSITY shut down. Some fancy place, no back up no nothing.

Total chaos. Adding to the housing chaos. I’d like to reiterate. I’ve got space. Non-desis, non-males AND non-idiots gladly apply. I’ve had more than enough of this nonsense.

Each and every power socket at home is occupied. All the devices that died last evening are getting their life back.

Update: That last line was supposed to indicate the number of devices at home, from toothbrushes to computers that need power. Not scarcity of power sockets, before someone interested in the home decides otherwise because of that.

Ahh yes, it’s that time of year where housing plans (uncertainties?) cause unnecessary confusion in our otherwise quiet lives. It all started some time ago when my current roomies and I decided (or so I thought anyway) that we wanted to stay in the same apartment next year. Easy enough decision, this is a nice, quiet and large place. So, what do normal people do? They renew their lease for the next year, and go on to do the regular things they do and don’t think about this since it is done.

No, that my friends, would be normal people. My roomies, on the other hand, need to look out for another place to stay after they’ve already signed for one place. No, heaven forbid, not before, but after. Why? That way they can cause even more confusion and chaos. Not only do they look, but find another place and commit BEFORE they’ve sorted out this current obligation.

The reason? On the surface, it’s something like “Oh, we’re not sure of financial support even for next year. We need to go to a home which is more… sought after, so we can just leave (as in it’s easier to find a replacement) after next fall finishing our courses ASAP”.

Translation, we’re a bunch of desis living too far away (10 min walk) from the desi hub and we are not strong enough to resist the gravitational forces emanating from that portion of town. Our women neighbours did it. So, since we aren’t bright enough to think, we need to do it too. (BUT THEY DIDN’T SIGN FOR THEIR CURRENT PLACE YOU MORONS. THEY HAD TO MOVE.)

Normal people will listen to rational arguments. Larger, quieter, CHEAPER home. No, but not these people.

Either way, it’s not my problem, it’s theirs. Or they can just pay for two homes or whatever they have to do to honour both commitments.

Right now I am having fun with the people who are coming to see the place. Like the girl who came yesterday, seemed, I would say, totally dazed the whole time. It’s odd when they expect some standard of living, and here we are, waaay below that. I don’t have a problem with replacing these guys since they’re, well, just people. But, why screw around with something that’s worked? Why complicate a seemingly simple scheme of events?

I don’t know, and don’t want to.

Professor to two students: Ahh yes, I say we vote on whether we meet tomorrow.
Students A,B: (Nod)
Professor: I vote no, and my vote counts 3 times as much as yours A, or B’s.
Students A,B: (Nod)

No meeting the next day. Ah yes, democracy at its finest. :D

(Of course, it seems funnier when you go through this in reality.)

[voice of the stupid oven mitt from the Arby’s ads]
It’s the end of the internet. No, it’s the end of the world!
[/voice of the stupid oven mitt from the Arby’s ads]

Google is not pinging. Noooo…

UPDATE: Oh, it must have been some problem at my end. It’s up and all is well. Nothing more to see here people, move along now.

I said move along. That was the end of this blog. Really.

I was talking to someone earlier today, and some really stark, not so nice, realizations hit me. To condense these and put it bluntly, I don’t think I can deal with failure very well.

The reason why I say, “I don’t think I can deal with failure very well”, as opposed to saying, “I don’t deal with failure very well”, is quite simple. I don’t fail. Now, normally, this would be a very good thing if I were some uber talented genius insightful type who goes on achieving whatever goals he could possibly conceive and effortlessly handling all challenges that get thrown his way. But that, obviously, is not the case. I instead do (and I assume a lot of other people out there do too) something else. I’ve decided to call this, adaptive goal setting.

This, in simple terms, is, go after only what you almost know for sure (no, you know for sure) that you can achieve. If it looks too hard at any time, suitably modify the goal in your head, rather than accept you couldn’t cope with what you had initially aimed for.

That’s it, my secret to “success”. Modify the definition of success till it matches actuality. What am I so afraid of? Who am I fooling?

An example of this had come up quite recently. A friend of mine is starting off on the arduous application process and wanted to read my SOP to “see how it looked like”. (I’d like to use the word “steal” or at least “inspire” here. But for some strange reason, people like taking, but don’t like being called takers.) I digress. Anyway, being in a helpful frame of mind, I decided to dig it up. I found it, and for some reason, read it before sending it to her. At that time, I was brimming with pride on how I had described my gradual specialization with time from early schooling to the extremely narrow corner of science I am at right now pursuing my PhD.

(Sure, branches of knowledge are infinitely dense like the real number set, and no matter how deep I go it’s still infinitely large to cover, but that’s not where I am going with this.)

Anyway, looking at it today, I know exactly what I was doing. I wasn’t specializing because I had “inherent aptitude” or was “inherently attracted” to these branches. I was adaptively modifying my goals. When I was a kid, I presume like many others, I wanted to know everything. Nothing short of comprehensive comprehension would do. A little later on, around 5, I started realizing that I am going to come no where close to achieving that. So, I slowly modified that to, I wanted to know physics and comprehend and rationalize any and all phenomena. Soon, that narrowed down to mechanics. You can see where I am going with this. And, right now I am in one subset of a subset … of that. I was specializing because I had to. The primary objective couldn’t be achieved and I was failing. (I was slowly realizing what a professor of mine said years later, knowledge is infinite, it is a pity our time here is finite to attempt to grasp it all) What could be done?

a. Try harder and still risk failure
b. Modify the primary objective and convince yourself that’s what it should have been

Obviously, since (a) had a probability of failure, and I am chicken, that was out of the question. So, choosing (b), I picked out subjects and their subsets which I was fond of. Now, being fond of and being able to “do them well” were closely coupled with positive feedback. So it, evidently, made choices firm. I gravitated towards something, worked on it, did well, liked it more, worked on it some more and so on. So, in a sense, this is dependent on “inherent” aptitude or fascination, but not terribly so.

Point being, I’ve continued to do this till, well, I’ve brought it down to a “manageable” size in my head. And the scary thing is I’ve been doing this for all aspects of my life. Will I know enough or be able to do enough to “succeed” in this “reduced primary objective”? No worry, if not, I just reduce it some more.

It’s sad. But it has, oddly, “worked”. Sure, I might have achieved a lot more had things been different. I might have, say, climbed Everest. But, hey, my (so conditioned frame of) mind goes, at least you didn’t die falling off some glacier trying. At least you’ve got this far. It has helped, quite directly, build confidence and so on, since I would say I’m inherently not exactly confident. Some people seem to be born with it. I need to try, do, succeed, feel good about myself and then build it. This helps.

It also hurts, in subtle ways. On the theme of, not living up to your “potential”, it tends to reduce living to mere surviving. I am content with little or nothing. There is no drive to ever do anything. To minimize this, adaptive goal setting tends to work in the other direction too, though not as often. If things seem too easy and the end seems “too close”, the goal can be made harder to be the driving force.

In the end, I’ve made my choice, and just wish that I were as happy as others appear to be.

So, just what is it that you do? Do you adaptively modify your goals? Do you try to bite of more than you can chew, crash and burn, learn from that experience and build character along the way? Do you try harder or laugh it off? Does it affect your self esteem? and so on …

I’d really like to hear some thoughts.

In major (enough) life news, I appreciated the opportunity to become a TA, but (I think quite skilfully) declined the offer.

My Free Software apparel’s been coming in slowly and steadily. I now own two shirts. Finally got my blender hat from the blender shop.

Now, for some debian apparel and my geek clothing buys will have to stop for a while. Time to focus on making, as opposed to the usual spending, money.

Point being, if you can code well, help free software projects out. Or if you can’t, at least try the software out and report bugs and so on. Or if you’re lazy to that as well, least you can do is donate. If that’s not their cup of tea either, buy things from them. The profits go towards a good cause.

Else, you’re just mean.

More on the software front, got some C source to compile and build along with the standard FORTRAN code FEAP is based on. The utility of this (not so trivial) achievement is still to be seen. Though anything that prevents me from typing one less .ne. or something instead of the (the correct way) != for “not equal to” can only be a good thing. Also, now that I am experimenting with notoriously extreme compiler optimization flags
(-O3 -malign-double -fforce-mem -fforce-addr -ffast-math -fstrength-reduce -funroll-loops -funroll-all-loops)
among other things, file sizes are getting obscenely large. Not benchmarked speed differences or considered stability issues.

And in other code related news, got the latest mono to build happily as I was desperate to see Nat’s dashboard in action. But sadly, all I’ve got right now is an empty window that pops up, with two buttons that don’t do anything, and needs to be killed because the close button is just for show as well.

Ah well, sounds like one of my apps. Anyway, it looks so good that I HAVE to get it up and running soon.

OK, now that I have your attention, let’s look carefully at that statement above: “I MIGHT be getting married soon.”

I might also be climbing Mt. Everest sometime soon, or perhaps, be curing AIDS.

I think you see what I am hinting at. Humble reader, let me introduce you to the power of words like might.

The central theme of this post is blog stickiness. Yes, it’s all-important. There is no point putting your fabulous work up if no one ever reads it, is there? And after maintaining countless sites with different degrees of success, and one eventually dead blog after another over the past 5 years or so, I’ve noticed things that make some blogs more readable, and hence more sticky, than others.

Here’s a short list of my observations in no real order. Feel free to add some more of your own in the comments area. (See, there’s one already!)

1. Make sure your blog has no topicality. Sure, this may sound counter-intuitive. You might feel, yes, if I keep all posts to that topic, tons of people who care about that topic will flock to my site. Not so. Tons won’t do squat, and all you’re doing is alienating the probably many more visitors who don’t give a damn about that topic.
2. Use magic words like ‘might’ and ‘probably’ often. Use these with grand things that you know won’t happen. But you never lied. You never said they will happen, you said, might happen. Yet for some strange reason, people don’t read mights as a might nots. Ah well, failing this, you could blatantly lie.
3. Be self derogatory and appear more insecure than you are. You don’t know how many arbitrary strangers—who don’t really care—pseudo try to sound helpful. Of course, since you never needed the help, just the reads, your job is done.
4. Use pictures often. Why? I don’t know, human beings just seem visual creatures. Large blocks of text put them off.
5. Which brings me to the next point, break long text into many many smaller sets with suitable cliffhanger moments keeping people come back for more.
6. Most importantly, don’t tell them when, say things like, “I will tell you in a little while.” How much in real time units is “a little?” No one knows. And since they don’t, they will become regulars and read often because they have to know (for some strange reason), and they don’t know when the big finale/next part/grand news is being released.
7. Link many random people, and guilt them into doing the same to you. Such linking will also result in suitable google bombing, and move you up on search engine ranking lists. If said linkees don’t seem to notice, leave ample notice in their blogs. Comment intelligently, subtly (or not) admire, praise and all that sort of thing. Be concerned, or fake it. In time, the community will be built, and stickiness is ensured!
8. I could go on and on, but I will stop. But before I do, I’d like to point out to this blog, for some of the finest examples of stuff I’ve mentioned above.

Follow these, and you’ll soon make me a regular. Good show!

And that children, is how it’s done.

And no, I might not get married soon.

Again, I’d love to hear your secrets… not.

Afterword: This is only here because it’s vaguely related to our topic of the day. As I was showering today, a bit of shampoo lather got into my eyes and they burned like crazy. After a long session of antics trying to get my sight back, I decided to go through the list of chemicals in it to see what could have caused such a strong reaction (not like I would know it even if I looked, but did anyway).

I noticed some potential offenders, but that’s not where I am going with this story. I noticed that that my shampoo contains weightless moisturisers. Now, what could this magic material be? Is it something that has no mass and hence no weight? Do Newton’s or Einstein’s gravity theories break down at this singularity? No, it’s a lie. I know for a fact it doesn’t moisturise. I also know, it has to have weight.

So where am I going with this you say?

Had I (and by that I mean normal moderately sane person) seen it at the store, I would have just moved on and bought something else. But if Joe Schmo did see this, (s)he’d go <homer>Mm-mm… weightless moisturisers, must haaave.</homer>.

Such, humble reader, is the power of marketing. The contents don’t matter, all you need the catch phrase and the super model to make the sale.

Here is an excerpt from a conversation I had with a person a long time ago regarding Free Software. Free software is good for me, you, and society. This log is longer than it ought to be, but you just have to deal with it. The color coded html is how gaim stores its logs. Makes it easy to steal and paste right in.

(18:09:59) wahgnube: did you ximianize your GNOME?

(18:10:23) PULI: nope… rite outta the box

(18:10:34) wahgnube: ok, which distribution?

(18:10:47) PULI: Mandrake 9.1 (bamboo)

(18:11:05) wahgnube: ok, Mandrake is good, but pro KDE :P

(18:11:34) PULI: I give up… You win! (Y)

(18:11:52) wahgnube: meaning? is it faster / better feeling than kde?

(18:12:34) PULI: Frankly… the performance tradeoff is not so much… but the GNOME feeling is nice …

(18:13:13) wahgnube: ok, i haven’t used KDE in a while, just know that it looks and feels a bit more.. cheezy

(18:13:29) PULI: cheezy ….. elucidate

(18:14:00) wahgnube: it’s defaults are too gaudy or overdone

(18:14:07) PULI: mmmm

(18:14:40) wahgnube: gradients where you don’t need them. long and complicated menus. customization which people don’t usually need to change

(18:14:57) wahgnube: and font rendering is … wrong.

(18:15:17) PULI: But you can always tune it to your needs… it’s the case with any DE.

(18:15:31) wahgnube: true. but it can never be made to feel.. right.

(18:15:42) wahgnube: it always feels.. European and cold.

(18:15:46) PULI: I cud always say.. dump the menus… & go in for windowmaker… that’s nice too

(18:16:24) wahgnube: true, but there are some complex programs that make it aesthetically pleasing, like enlightenment. some of them are just complicated for the heck of it

(18:16:39) PULI: for windowmaker?

(18:16:55) wahgnube: i don’t find window maker.. enough.

(18:17:11) wahgnube: for that matter i don’t find metacity enough, but with theming, it seems ok

(18:18:27) PULI: hmmm.. so you’re in for eye candy… tough luck… i prefer the command line.. it’s fun… who cares for the interface anyways… but.. as you very rightly pointed out before… the question is preference… and what’s best for you… :)

(18:19:26) wahgnube: true, i prefer eyecandy. KDE just doesn’t cut it. GNOME is a lot less customizable these days, but still … the interface is feeling more and more.. correct.

(18:20:20) PULI: again… “more.. correct.” begs the question …. isn’t that personal preference?

(18:21:03) wahgnube: that’s the thing see… it’s getting to now be.. correct. tons of UI and usability things are being considered these days. programs follow strict rules and things defined by experts.

(18:21:29) wahgnube: even though gnome in general is more of a hotch potch mix of programsthan KDE’s all under one roof approach

(18:22:02) PULI: I did’nt get what you meant. In one simple sentence if you can please….

(18:22:32) wahgnube: KDE’s programs are … more uniform by the very nature of the developers and the toolkit.

(18:23:06) wahgnube: GNOME randomly dumps and changes which are their “default” programs to do things. they dumped e for sawfish and sawfish for metacity for example

(18:23:32) wahgnube: still, now, it’s getting to feel more.. “correct” and uniform than kde is

(18:23:51) PULI: Who’s talking about KDE/GNOME now anyways… was’nt the personal preference the crux of the discussion… the “personal preference” as in the choice that the specific liveware chooses to live with…

(18:24:30) wahgnube: precisely. i was saying, changability is good. GNOME has lost that. even with infinite “changes”.. KDE never feels as right.

(18:25:07) PULI: lol

(18:26:37) wahgnube: these screenshots for instance is as much eyecandy i can get. it still is very simple compared to what KDE’s theming can do. but i’m yet to find KDE theme combinations that is as aesthetically pleasing. more importantly, “feels” right. i mean stuff like fonts, and option menu lengths, and the default program choices.

(18:26:55) wahgnube: konqueror as opposed to galeon for instance

(18:28:20) PULI: hmmm…. it’s nice all right… but I guess your answer is not pertinent to our discussion… maybe i’m off track.. do bring me in..

(18:29:03) wahgnube: i don’t know. it’s just, the gnome people seem to be creative and skilled enough to pull of the right enough feeling simplicity

(18:29:21) wahgnube: as opposed to letting the user do whatever and still not being able to get what he/she wants

(18:32:13) PULI: agreed. However tell me… don’t you like the twm interface… simplest… ok.. that’s too much of an asking… let’s go one step higher.. try afterstep or windowmaker or even the fvwm2… they are not only lite but also… have most of the stuff “I” need… (for most practical purposes, two things that I would need would be 1. rxvt and 2. X) that’s good enough… when fvwm for instance provides you with the skeleton of the window (titlebar, maximize, minimize and close)

(18:33:27) wahgnube: true. i do prefer buttons and icons that are more a) pleasing to look at b) intuitive. I mean, i shouldn’t “know” what a button does, it’s picture should make it “clear”

(18:33:43) PULI: fair enough!

(18:33:47) PULI: ….

(18:33:56) wahgnube: like to my mother or someone. they are using gnome at home. they didnt need to be taught anything

(18:34:33) wahgnube: if i give them fvwm, it will not be the same thing. sure, small boxes which one can barely see do the job. sometimes, that’s not enough.

(18:35:45) PULI: again … I agree… but..but..but.. the thing “I” want is… not all that… “I” know what “I” want…. you know what you want… if you can now see.. it’s the “I” :D

(18:36:54) code-fu: of course. but there is also something that the “average” person needs. i personally detest rxvt or some terminals. yes, they do the job, some just don’t cut it for people coming from say, an OS X experience.

(18:40:21) code-fu: that is not to say i didn’t use them at their time. i’ve been using free software for a long time now. i just, try to use the most ergonomically correct ones my current system can run.

(18:40:32) PULI: lol… it really amuses me… but… again… you’re back to practicality… which is no doubt good…. but… differs markedly from my view… I look at it not from a newbie’s angle.. neither from an “average” persons angle, as you put it… but….I what I like here in this linux world is the fact that you just mentioned…the Xperience that one can have, more precisely the Xperience that one can choose, and the Xperience that once can ‘define’… more than the XP that one has to remain stuck to!

(18:41:40) code-fu: yes, but XP is not an option see. I don’t use free software for their “betterness” or technical merit or any such thing. i use it as a matter of policy and freedom. this is a very big difference in thought

(18:41:57) PULI: I agree.

(18:42:17) code-fu: many people use it, i think you too, for technical merit reasons.

(18:42:32) code-fu: or ability to run, say GUI’s on older machines and so on.

(18:42:40) PULI: Could you expand -> technical merit reasons

(18:42:57) code-fu: meaning, better quality programs, stability and so on

(18:43:22) PULI: True…. to some extent….

(18:43:36) code-fu: suppose, you need to, say, run simulations or some such. sure, fancy gui’s don’t matter as much as a rock solid system. so you dump XP for, say linux. right?

(18:45:17) PULI: I wud dump Xp for linux… simply because I can do all that “I require” on linux… then where does “XP” fit in the picture… Simulations aside… the truth is that with the freedom that linux offers, one can do many things… many many things…

(18:46:04) code-fu: true. but I dump windows, even though linux cannot do all that I need it too. just as a matter of policy, see the difference?

(18:46:15) PULI: hmmm

(18:46:50) PULI: lol … I sure do… it’s more of what I said earlier in this conversation…. “personal preference”

(18:47:07) PULI: in a different context of course….

(18:47:23) code-fu: true, my personal preference is freedom over practicality. it’s more of a religion now.

(18:47:56) code-fu: and within that framework, i don’t see the issue with getting as much, say eye-candy or friendliness i can derive.

(18:48:36) code-fu: because, it’s not that bloated or eye-candy is wrong, but “closedness” of software that’s wrong

(18:49:55) code-fu: that’s different from saying, if there is as simple, a system, that can do all i need it to do, and is easy to use and cheap/free. i will use it.

(18:51:27) PULI: I totally agree with you on the last point…. however to face the facts… how does one realize the objective (money) -> lots of things linked with it without doubt… without closed source… it’ll take eons to change that… moreover… it’s more of a speculation but… linux is still popular only because windows is still alive…what’s your opinion on Lindows then.. why did it never become popular… “closed source”?

(18:53:00) code-fu: i wouldn’t say lindows isn’t popular. nor is it ‘not free’. i don’t think they violated the GPL or any such license. they just don’t “free” portions that they write. that’s in their power. it’s also in my power NOT to choose them because I value the open ness more than some pretty “click and run” program than Lindows can give me.

(18:53:34) PULI: Very reasonable….

(18:53:44) code-fu: the objective, isn’t always money. the objective, is a free society. people should realize, free software is just one step.

(18:53:57) PULI: towards….?

(18:54:05) code-fu: a free society

(18:54:12) PULI: as in….?

(18:54:13) code-fu: computers control a LOT of things today

(18:54:29) PULI: oh!…. now I get the picture….

(18:54:31) code-fu: I wouldn’t want all of that to be under some closed proprietary system now do you?

(18:54:47) code-fu: it’s a big picture issue.

(18:54:54) PULI: but… is’nt thinking so deep… too far-fetched….

(18:55:35) code-fu: someone has to now, don’t they? unless few people do, and try to convince others, people might not realize it themselves.

(18:56:24) PULI: Someone… or Some community?

(18:57:32) code-fu: Ok, let’s assume, XP does EVERYTHING you want it to. it’s also, insanely easy to use. it is free, monetarily. it is just.. PERFECT. for you. now the only drawback is, it also, say collects info about your machine and randomly sends it off to some third party. now, i am not saying it will happen. i am saying it CAN happen. who’s in control of your system. you or MS?

(18:57:42) code-fu: people, are the community

(18:58:32) code-fu: to avoid such a scenario, i’d rather use, say a buggier, slower, more bloated piece of free code that doesn’t even fulfil all my needs

(18:58:44) PULI: Logical and fitting! :)

(18:59:27) code-fu: this is the thing which the “Open source” people, linus torvalds etc. It’s not always about “technical” merit. somethings are more important.

(18:59:40) code-fu: things which they miss i mean

(19:00:14) PULI: and the things which you never missed… ;)

(19:00:40) code-fu: for eg, linus torvalds uses proprietary software for, say kernal source control. now i say that’s basically wrong, no matter how good that program, bitkeeper, is better than say, CVS

(19:01:03) PULI: k

(19:01:54) code-fu: bah, that was kernel. no, i am just saying. I saw it, and I don’t mind appearing like a fool telling other people.

(19:02:27) PULI: no comments on that!

(19:03:27) code-fu: which is why i keep saying now everything i choose is becoming one of these religious style issues. somethings, I place more than “technical merit”. what i mean by “technical merit” i clarified earlier

(19:03:56) PULI: :)

(19:05:24) code-fu: coming back to the whole kde gnome thing. KDE was initially on QT, even though it was non-free, JUST BECAUSE at the time QT was better than other free alternatives. something i guess i cant forgive.

(19:05:55) PULI: but QT was easier for the developers to work on… don’t you think?

(19:06:00) code-fu: true.

(19:06:27) code-fu: they were looking for good, easy software to work with. i was looking for free software. these are not the same goals.

(19:06:53) code-fu: they choose whatever they want, their right. my right not to choose them. same as the lindows example

(19:07:26) PULI: where’s the practicality here?

(19:07:30) code-fu: their right to go on to say why they felt that choice was better. my right to convince people that is not in their best interest, necessarily

(19:08:47) code-fu: the only reason why KDE is free today, atleast on GNU/Linux, is because of the formation of GNOME. if people hadn’t seen this, started GNOME etc.. we would ALL use KDE instead of GNOME because it is easy to use and say, good.

(19:09:13) PULI: ……

(19:10:11) code-fu: that, would be inherently flawed. people will be taught to believe that technical merit is more important than their freedom. freedom to learn, freedom to modify, freedom to know they control their computer, freedom to copy and help their neighbours and so on

(19:10:34) PULI: ppl can think…. I think!

(19:11:32) code-fu: true, but people today have no problem using XP today don’t you think? only if they knew what they were really giving up in using it, they will not necessarily be as comfortable using it.

(19:12:09) PULI: but.. i dunno if all this will really work… it’s an attempt…

(19:12:56) code-fu: like i said. the issue is not kde-gnome. linux-windows. bloatware-simplicity. it’s about a free society, and small steps to try to make sure.. it doesn’t go away.

(19:13:25) PULI: it won’t!

(19:13:37) PULI: :)

(19:13:41) code-fu: choice is important. preferences are important. usability is important. practicality is important. freedom is more important than all of these.

(19:13:47) code-fu: i am not so sure.

(19:14:00) PULI: Why the uncertain note….

(19:15:53) code-fu: because, tomorrow if windows longhorn or whatever, comes up with it’s hardware “authentication” scheme so that you can only use a specific sort of hardware … they control everything. because, the mindless drones (average people conditioned to believeing there is no world outside MS) would still spend a lot of money, and buy THAT machine just so that they can run windows. why? because they KNOW it’s easier than window maker. but dont realize that’s not the point

(19:17:47) PULI: I get what you mean… it somehow translates in my mind to a movie like scenario… something analogous to Terminator II ….. what… will this kind of a thing really happen…. it should be avoided… I’m serious… but how.. I am able to grasp the gravity of the situation as I can now SEE ppl here doing what you just mentioned….

(19:18:35) PULI: the monopoly game again….

(19:20:12) code-fu: yes, not just monopoly, it’s the concept that.. will you buy a .. say car if they said you couldn’t see the insides? they guarantee it will work, but it might not. and you are not allowed to fix it. also, randomly, the brakes might fail causingdeath, but they make you sign initially saying it’s not their fault

(19:20:50) PULI: that’s insane… no doubt about that…

(19:21:23) code-fu: if everybody can see usability, ease of use, eye-candy… all of that aren’t the issue, more probability they will TRY free stuff. more users, more devs. more devs, better software. that’s free.

(19:22:14) code-fu: and everybody can’t / won’t see. they need idiots like me to keep trying to convince them.

(19:23:23) PULI: true… but idiots ;) lol not fair….. :) but how many are going to buy this logical explanation… there must be a way to illuminate….

(19:23:47) PULI: rather than to light one by one

(19:24:07) code-fu: there isn’t as far as i can tell. i just go through the whole deal, and hope they can see the light. i am a lunatic yes, but atleast i know i see the right thing.

(19:24:49) PULI: ok :D

(19:25:35) code-fu: very few feel this way. i partly blame open-source and other such technically based arguments. they feel, linux is better than windows cause its say, stabler. is it really? does winXP really crash that often? i think not. is mac os X a bad OS? i think not.

(19:25:57) code-fu: the point fools like me try to make, is that, it doesn’t matter. the point is it’s free.

(19:26:45) PULI: doing what you like is happiness…. liking what you do is freedom… :P

(19:26:52) PULI: or is it the other way around ;)

(19:28:01) code-fu: no, you don’t have to be “happy” for freedom. i might choose to use Latex rather than powerpoint to make a presentation. (which i did in my last conference). i caused myself more pain, yes. was i happy, probably no. did i do the “right” thing, i’d say yes.

(19:28:23) PULI: Nice.

(19:29:10) code-fu: did i get fancy avi’s in it, no. could i have used it, probably. is that so important that i will give up freedom and use powerpoint? no.

(19:31:31) PULI: But look at it practically…. let me give you a typical situation I face here….. I do my reports, articles etc.. all on OO and when I have to send it over to my supervisor for his perusal… there we go.. poof… i have to reboot to windows, check again whether the document is ok… there are always some minute formatting nuances that OO misses… or word misinterprets…but.. that’s the fact… I recheck in word.. & then I send it… why? simply because.. my supervisor (lots of ppl actually) all swear by M$.. a major brainwash…

(19:33:02) code-fu: true. but do I check, no. can i check, no. does it come out messed at times, yes. do they care, yes. does it affect me, probably. but none of that is the issue. i still did the “right” thing. and, i use pdf for everything so it’s less prone to need checking.

(19:33:51) PULI: fine… but here… he always has corrections in my report.. ALWAYS… where does pdf help me? :(

(19:34:24) code-fu: meaning? you use latex or whatever and pdf your reports. he corrects it in acrobat if he chooses to.

(19:34:57) code-fu: you can use OOo and pdf your reports too, not a problem.

(19:35:49) PULI: lol…. too much of an asking… if he runs word it’s an acheivement… he’s so happy with windows… that he won’t hear a word about other OS’es…. bottom line.. word works for him… and he expects his students to follow something that he is comfortable with…see the situation…

(19:36:36) code-fu: “word works for him”. that’s exactly the attitude i’m trying to change. you and he have to realize, something “working” good enough is not the issue.

(19:37:07) PULI: lol.. but FREE software is not his area of research interest :P

(19:37:24) code-fu: but his freedom is important to him, whether he realizes it or not.

(19:37:36) code-fu: it’s bigger than “free software”.

(19:38:01) PULI: whatever…. the thin line that we draw is earased alomst immedieately….

(19:38:23) code-fu: ok, when did you first start using gnome or kde?

(19:38:29) code-fu: for arguments sake

(19:38:32) PULI: 98

(19:38:44) PULI: or 99

(19:38:49) code-fu: i mean version numbers.. ok.. 98 is around 12th grade?

(19:38:52) PULI: I’m not so sure

(19:38:57) PULI: yup

(19:39:07) PULI: 1st ar wud be appropriate

(19:39:16) PULI: yr

(19:39:30) code-fu: ok, i’ve been on them since probably a couple or so years earlier. kde close to 1.x and gnome more like 0.1 or so. kde is not free

(19:39:47) PULI: ok………carry on…

(19:39:50) code-fu: kde is a fully useable de. gnome crashes if you move the mouse too fast.

(19:39:59) PULI: ok…….

(19:40:01) code-fu: i still used gnome.

(19:40:05) PULI: ok………..

(19:40:46) code-fu: there is a distinct difference in thought here. somethings work. somethings are “good” as a whole.

(19:41:04) PULI: I used to get the gnome-session manger has crashed unexpectedly… very often… being average at that time.. all I new was KDE

(19:41:07) code-fu: good for who? for society as a whole. not A company

(19:41:47) code-fu: yes, i am talking about times beforethey even had a file manager and so on. used some makeshift command line midnight commander thing

(19:41:57) PULI: yup

(19:42:13) PULI: gmc

(19:42:17) code-fu: why? because it looked and felt better than fvwm. it was freeer than kde.

(19:42:20) PULI: i remember

(19:42:45) code-fu: i still do the same sort of choices.

(19:42:53) PULI: hmmm… so before the linux fog…. tell me.. did u consider using FreeBSD?

(19:43:01) code-fu: no, definitely not.

(19:43:04) PULI: why?

(19:43:11) code-fu: not now, not ever if i can help it.

(19:43:25) PULI: why? it’s not very different….

(19:43:53) code-fu: it is not … their license is different. see apple, they can “take” freebsd and make a closed OS which they can sell. linux you cant dothat.. see the diff?

(19:44:09) PULI: interesting

(19:44:16) code-fu: you’ve automatically lost your freedom to study and learn and modify

(19:44:51) code-fu: people say GPL forcing you to release your code makes it less free. it PRESERVES end user freedom.

(19:45:57) code-fu: i have thought about this stuff quite a while before becoming so fanatical about one kind of software, because i feel it’s in the best interest of society as a whole.

(19:46:12) PULI: it appears that you have read the “GPL license agreement” in detail… have you?

(19:46:46) code-fu: yes, a few times, and different versions. i have read a lot of talks and articles on the concept of “freedom”

(19:47:00) code-fu: i have a copy of the GPL pinned up in my space

(19:47:22) PULI: :) is’nt that community enough to keep this revolution alive….

(19:47:50) code-fu: their message is being lost. I contribute financially, and by word of mouth.

(19:47:55) code-fu: that’s the least i can do.

(19:48:19) code-fu: do you get the difference between free bsd and the gnu system? and how i see it?

(19:49:09) PULI: I appreciate your concern and your idea… yes.. I do… I may not have understood all that you meant today… but surely.. I know. there is somthing out there… that needs attention…. :)

(19:49:39) code-fu: just spreading the word like i always try to do.

(19:50:42) PULI: I’ll save a copy of this conversation… & have it uploaded to the newbie2linux site.. maybe that’ll help .. someone somewhere might see the light… hope you don’t mind….

(19:50:57) code-fu: no problem. more people read it, the better.

(19:51:20) PULI: thanks!

(19:51:36) code-fu: what’s the URL? i’d suggest everyone to go to GNU’s website for more information and inspiration

(19:52:52) PULI: http://www.geocities.com/newbietolinux/ . it’s been a long time.. since I had to upload lots of stuff ansd restructure the site… I put the old version back on… will take a few more days for me to get it ready again… sure..

(19:52:59) code-fu: or the links in the “free software philosophy” section of my links page.

(19:53:03) PULI: k

(19:54:54) code-fu: if i may, i might try to sound like RMS and say use GNU/Linux as opposed to just Linux, because it’s the GNU project that stands for all these values, not the devs of the Linux kernel.

(19:55:11) PULI: Correction noted!

(19:55:45) code-fu: it’s not a “correction”. it’s in the hope that the person you’re talking to will go.. what’s GNU, and you can spread the word.

(19:55:57) code-fu: and help them see the light too.

(19:56:01) PULI: :)

(19:56:24) code-fu: what have i contributed on that site? why’s my name there?

(19:56:33) code-fu: oh, beta tester

(19:56:37) code-fu: don’t remember doing anything

(19:57:10) PULI: lol… if it was contribution that always mattered….. there are some things that cannot be explained with words…

(19:57:47) code-fu: so, when can i expect to see this conversation up there?

(19:58:26) PULI: in 2 days time… I wud do it immedieately… but I want to incorporate more GNU stuff before all that…. :)

(19:58:43) code-fu: ok, and what’s your msn client right now?

(19:58:50) PULI: gaim

(19:58:52) PULI: :)

(19:59:05) code-fu: ok, so it will save it with colour coding and html and so on

(19:59:17) PULI: yup.. I sure hope it does….

(19:59:33) code-fu: yes it does, i saved it here to make sure this build didn’t disable it or some such

(19:59:42) PULI: ok

(19:59:51) PULI: Nice talking to you…

(19:59:57) PULI: Catch you later

(19:59:57) code-fu: sure, later then.

Been extremely butterfingery over the past month or so. Dropped stuff too many times to be just random occurances. Something is wrong with my psychomotor skills. Here are some stats:

Object – Times Dropped – Current State

Laptop – 3 – Functional, with seemingly minor hints of structural damage
Camera – 1 – Functional
Primary pair of glasses – 2 – Non-functional
Watch – 2 – Non-funtional
Crockery – Too many times to count – Seemingly fine, for now

Damnit, I can’t afford this nonsensical set of events.

this book. I read portions of it at Amazon and boy does it seem dead on.

“Just being around people can be overstimulating to introverts. Their energy is drained in crowds, classes, or any noisy and invasive environment. They may like people very much, but after talking to anyone, they usually begin to feel the need to move away, take a break and get some air. When overstimulated, the introvert’s mind can shut down, saying, no more input, please. It goes dark.”

This totally explains my need for a forced downtime after any socially involved event. OMG. Did I mention I had to have it?

Removed some of the “ad-style” linkage. Removed the 3Dwm link and moved it to the links page as it had nothing to do with anything apart from being a cool concept. Removed the Ximian desktop link because they were bought over by Novell and I don’t like that. Why? Just doesn’t feel right.

Sonique was bought, it died. Winamp was bought, it’s pretty much dead. Mozilla was bought, it is dying. Can’t lose XD as well.

Added some 20 odd links to the links page, most of it being music or math stuff.

I think the next page I plan to work on in the near future is the work page, tentatively resume v2.

I just finished seeing Life is Beautiful (the English dub). I was happy. It started of funny, I got happier. I laughed. It then got a whole lot more depressing, fast. Now I am in tears :(.

Such things shouldn’t be affecting me. I am me. (Sniff Sniff..)

I mean, (since it was set in Germany, and I know some broken German now) Ich weiß, daß ich grau und unpersönlich bin aber ich traurig war.

Gah! Is this what we have been doing all along?