actuality.log

It saddens me to see how so many people underestimate how much our minds can grasp over extremely short periods of time.

Bwhahahahahahahahah. Just one more rather major hurdle, and I’m done jumping through hoops for a while. Then things like the picture of the day, verbose posts, generic nonsense and all that should be all back to normal levels.

So here’s the deal. I decide to work, but then I decide to check email. I fancy one mail on the FSF Friends mailing list and decide this is the best of times to unleash my wisdom and experience. Now all that is fine. It’s taken a while and my reply still hasn’t ended up on the list. Now I think it’s been “lost” and I don’t want to go away and hope it will be fine. I have to stare at the stupid mail client till it shows up. Sheesh.

And for whatever reason, I am pasting it here. Just so that I can feel someone read it.

Greetings.

Firstly, it’s nice to hear teachers at colleges taking the initiative. When I was in school/college (and still am for that matter), we weren’t explicitly told about the ideals and goals of these projects, but we were exposed to a good deal of them since there were (and are) labs running these software, and we were using them often.

But, (I don’t quite know whether to refer to you as Balachandran or Sir, so I am going with neither) I am sure once you talk to your students you will be pleasantly surprised how much they have already been exposed to GNU Linux and other Free Software, and how much they have figured out on their own and from other people. From personal experience, anybody who I’ve known to be curious or read any magazine related to computers or technology has popped in a distribution install disc and tried playing with it at home. This has been, again in my experience, in high school, when they have finally decided they are brave enough to partition their hard disk. Many of them have gone on to be full time users.

I think what I am trying to say is, a fair portion of the people, by second year in college have tried it, are using it or have friends who do. It would be nice if you could identify these people, and help them influence people they know to try it, or help them with installation or in other ways. This, I have seen is the easiest way to get people comfortable with it. My parents, for instance, don’t have an issue now with using Mandrake GNU Linux (granted their usual realm of usage doesn’t propagate too much beyond Galeon, gaim, OpenOffice.org and Ximian Evolution on a fairly standard GNOME desktop). But they wouldn’t have made an attempt to get it installed on a machine themselves. Once that is done and everything is set up to “just work”, they are comfortable without proprietary software. Anyway, enough of my personal experiences and to attempt to answer your question in a college setting.

My suggestions include (not all are necessarily feasible, I know):

* First, on the same note as above, organise a local user group for people who use these software, at a college or larger level, so that they can meet once a month or so and help/influence other people. (This is also a sort of social event for the geeky types. We need to get out more. At least this way it’s with like minded people to an extent.)
* If the primary work environment in labs is Windows based (which I am assuming it is) have the lab administrator install a fairly recent GNU Linux distribution on a separate partition and indicate to the students they can boot to it if they want. (Again, I am assuming you do not wish to remove the windows partition just yet). There is usually a rather common misconception that free software is harder to use, because it is free and used only by hackers. Once people try it, they could realize they were not entirely right. Plus there is usually a lot of cool stuff, the GIMP for instance, that can catch people’s fancy. I’d have to say, superficial as it may be, programs like the GIMP and eye-candy in environments such as Enlightenment (no “real” updates in ages) made it cool and fun to use. Which is actually quite important when you are in school.
* As a step leading to what I said above, replace (or install along side) standard windows software (such as MS Office, IE, Outlook Express …) and other proprietary software, with free equivalents (OpenOffice.org, Firebird, Thunderbird …). If people get used to, say OpenOffice.org on windows, and they realize it runs just the same or even better on GNU Linux, they will find it easier, and hence be more willing to make the shift. (Again, in my experience, environments such as Cygwin are generally of very different quality, so please don’t make it a users first experience. They will tend to assume all software on an “actual” GNU Linux environment performs that way.)
* Please don’t force the coursework, in your case (I am assuming programming) to depend on the nuances of a particular compiler or platform (graphics programming for instance). Teach them standard programming practices based on rigorous standards, so people can use the compilers and build chains of their choice. Again hoping this will allow people to delve into GNU software, such as gcc, gdb and make. It will be hard to say, yes, GNU Linux can do this and that, but please code in MS Visual C++ because your assignment requires some win32 specific headers. The same goes for using, say Word to type out reports. Introduce them to Latex or a similar program, which may be harder initially, but once they get the hang of it, the quality of their work will be higher. ( I am not a student in the field of computer science, so am not entirely sure what really goes into the curriculum. The same logic also applies to say, HTML/XHTML, SQL and whatever else the curriculum might contain.)
* As a practice, in general, following the same vein of the previous point, don’t use proprietary or patented formats as far as possible for anything and set an example. If you want to play them, say an audio clip of a talk, use an Ogg Vorbis file and not an MP3. Someone will definitely notice this, and ask you why. Then you can use that as an opportunity to explain the ideals, which I have reiterated as my next point.
* In classes, indicate the ideals and goals behind such projects. They will realize for themselves the technical superiority (or where it is lacking) of these tools in comparison with their proprietary counterparts. Once people understand the ideology, they will appreciate it a lot more. The ones so inclined will also contribute code, financially, bug reports etc.. to help these projects grow.
* And please don’t call it OSS.

I could come up with a few more if I really thought about it, but I will wait to see how people feel about this existing set before I do.

Just another student and FSF associate member from the month he started earning,
Me

balachandran c wrote:

> Hi friends,
>
> I have an opportunity to teach a few courses to computer science students at Engg. college tvm. I would like to know your opinions/ideas on introducing the students to OSS. Though I havent had much interaction with the students yet, i believe that most of the 2nd year guys are not familiar with Gnu/Linux.
>
> PS: Im new here
>
> Balachandran Chandrasekharan

Finally left home for a bit. Spent the last couple of days preparing myself to convince myself to think about getting things ready to work for tomorrow’s test. No matter what people say, I will NOT call it “final exam”. Test does just fine, and just makes it seem a lot more approachable. Anyway in all this getting notes and what not in order, I figured I had stored a bunch of things at work which I hadn’t taken home.

(I know I have issues with starting work upto some 16-24 hours before I have to be done. Stopped fighting it.)

Had to leave to get it. And that sucks, because it’s snowed quite heavily and being outside in general, sucks. For some reason I just remembered scenes (or are they dance sequences.. it doesn’t really matter) from desi movies on tv where the scantily clad heroine has fun rolling around in the snow on some mountain side. Yeah right. I wonder how much they pay her to risk death via hypothermia.

Too tired to type. Been reading things most of the day. Pleasant surprise. Found that a paper I read had my name listed in the citations for a paper I had “co-authored”. Was happy. So here’s a bonus (and totally unexpected) picture of the day.

So the deal here is that black wall like thing is not a wall. It’s a foothpath sidewalk. And yes, somewhere behind the camera was me in the cold in some odd position trying to get this.

Woke. Worked for a bit. Had the usual research meet that ran for a lot longer than usual. Worked for a bit. And now I’m feeling done for the day.

No, that wasn’t odd at all. I lied.

And wohoo, apparently my handwriting does not suck. And there shouldn’t be any more pictures of the day for a bit. I ought to get some things “up and running” in my life. Yes, far more important things than photography. Well, ok, just one. And I know I cheated.

Click it to read it in all it’s glory. THE COMIC DOES NOT REFLECT MY VIEWS ON ANYTHING. I just find it insanely funny, and the only reason to pick up the paper each day.

Convinced myself yesterday to complete the necessary paperwork to get an MS. (It took me long enough to convince me it was worth the 20 minutes, or so I thought it would be, of pain.) Did it today. Ran over to the academic services people here just to find out I had waited too long. I wasn’t late, considering today is technically the last offical day this term, but I also had to travel to some relatively far of place to hand it in myself, since they would use mail otherwise, and it wouldn’t get there in time and all that.

So I did that too, in the cold and the rain. Both of which are irritants, but things that I have gotten used to. Either I’ve gotten used to, or these layers of body fat gained over the past year or so are being put to good use. I knew they had to come in handy some time. :) Got back in time for the end term ME Grad Student mixer/party/free food thing. Mostly it’s just a free food thing.

Anyway, when I was out earlier, I saw some people doing it and I just hate it when I see people running in the rain to avoid getting wet. Just what the heck do they think they are doing?

Let’s assume you are a rectangular plate in cross section for simplicity. You need to get from point A to point B, and it’s raining.

              (      )       (   Cloud    )

               . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . .

               . . 0 You.. . . Rain drops ..

               . . | . --->  . . . ..  .. .

                . .| . . . Running . . . .

              A____^________________________B

(You need to learn to imagine. Yes, you have shortish legs, or a really small skirt, and no hands, or hair (or nose or eyes or..).)

For all practical purposes, as you are moving between A and B, the rain is NOT GOING TO GET ANY LESS OR ANY MORE INTENSE. The flux of the rain is downward, and you are moving towards the right, which gives it a relative velocity with respect to you at an incline. Anyway, number of rain drops that hit you, and hence how wet you get, is directly proportional to your area of cross section, the rain’s flux. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW FAST YOU RUN. If you walk slowly, you’ll get wet to a certain extent, as the drops hit you with some rate. If you run faster, MORE HIT YOU in a shorter time. Meaning you’ve spent less time in the rain, but YOU AREN’T ANY DRYER WHEN YOU REACH B.

WALK DAMNIT.

I realized the whole flat plate assumption thing was a bit extreme. I didn’t really get into using elementary dot products and areas. Oh my god. I didn’t realize that’s bothered me SO FISHING MUCH over all these years. Either that or it’s people running in general.

WALK DAMNIT.

Took this today. It’s a bit blurred. But in my defense it was cold and I couldn’t really keep my hands steady. But didn’t really take out my camera too much considering it was all wet outside. Not a good idea.

Just saw this cheesily cute movie with Marisa Tomei. (If you’re reading.. “it was a cheesy movie, but the weak one didn’t change the channel cause she’s cute”, you might be right. But I didn’t say it.) It was called, hmm.. happy accidents. Even the use of profanity in it was cute, in a B cheesy sci-fi romantic comedy sort of way.

It was “just” when I started typing this post an hour ago. I had this irresistible urge to take a nap, and I didn’t bother to resist. Irresistible remember? Sleep is good. I think I am catching up on last night. Anyway, did something yesterday/today that’s made me feel all icky and gross for a bit. Lazy and undriven as I may be, I don’t “just do” stuff. Or do stuff that I know is.. substandard. I might not do, but seldom do it not cool. And yes, I like using 17 sentences where 1 would suffice, you word miser you. If you noticed that, that is.

It’s been a while since it has come down to this, but after mucking around most of last night (and day, getting nowhere) with some relatively complicated stuff trying to get something working, I sort of broke around 7 am. I crashed, missed class. Woke later and decided to turn in whatever I did do. Not really bothering about general correctness or coolness, which was as a serious lapse in quality control. Like I said, I feel icky. One more of these normal human days. They suck, and breaking is not fun. It makes you feel all lack of persistency, and uncool.

Things have been pretty messed up at work. I mean literally, not just this breach in quality control. The network people are overhauling connectivity related cabling. Which is good and all, except that it is taking a lot longer than one might imagine it might take. And it’s not just cabling, other infrastructural modifications related to it are being added too. The whole place is quite topsy turvy. Don’t they realize we, read I, have productivity issues even without these added irritants? And sustaining power and connections has been a joke with people randomly moving things around trying to find the nearest working sockets. Sigh.

Got home early to catch up on some shut eye and paperwork. it’s obvious which of those I haven’t bothered to get into. I have amassed like a billion bills to sort out with roommates over time. For a long time, I guess it was me who owed other people, so they’d eventually calculate and ask me, so I didn’t bother. Now I realize they owe me a ton of cash. And I’m too lazy to even calculate how much and ask them. I hate being the responsible one, paying all the bills and things. Finally decided to fill up this form to request for an MS. It should take 10 minutes, and I hope I do it. I am sure it’s not a bad thing to have a degree. You know, just as a piece of paper that reminds other people you’re evolving intellectually.

Ahh yes. That felt good. Literally sleep typing. Just a whole lot of unnecessary verbosity, not worrying about the picture. But, it’s not like it was forgotten. Oh no. So here it is. Forest type places need leaves. Unleafy forest places are quite plainly unforesty.

I am a weak weak human being. I’m so much more than weak, it’s pathetic.

My beef with “reality tv” has been pretty well documented. But damn it, there is something about this Joe show that made me furious. That’s a bad thing, definitely bad. You have to be smart enough to realize it’s JUST A FISHING SHOW and get on with your daily life. Not getting attached means not caring, not not liking. I’ve seen a grand total of 3 episodes, including today’s final, and yet it’s resulted in so much more reaction than all the other “trust us, we are real, un scripted shows in which one person gets to pick their perfect partner from 30 or so others in front of the entire world”.

Anyway, I’m assuming everybody is familiar with the concept. Pick 20-30 random geeks, and mock them while they are made to believe they have a shot at this arbitrary, yet attractive, ex-cheerleader? Now what’s interesting is I’ve seen people use words like “over qualified” with these guys. THERE IS NO SUCH THING PEOPLE. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH KNOWING STUFF. JEEZ, GO READ OR SOMETHING.

I shouldn’t scream so much. So that’s the plan anyway, generally tune in each week to watch people who are so out of their element screw up. Ok, I had a problem with that, but I was consoled when I figured finally one of them would be able to show this person who they are and all that. Well, that’s not it either, somewhere in the middle, I missed the episode, but caught my second one just a bit after, they introduced these model type men to the mix. Not model type, models. So now the poor average folk try even harder.

THEY’RE FISHING FUNNY AND SPONTANEOUS AND CARING ENOUGH DAMN IT.

Ahem. Anyway, they do, and at the end, the woman, as usual, is “inspired” by them all, but picks a model and rides into the sunset. And the geek who lost was totally totally graceful and all nice about it.

Aww, just like we all wanted and hoped for all along.

And so here’s where I’m so much more pathetic losery than most. I know these things irk me. I know I have 10 more hours work left on things I will be turning in tomorrow. (And I still do, but that’s a different story.) But yet, I magically come home in time. I turn the stupid tv on. And try out this lame movie on comedy central mocking? jews. It was so unfunny, I ended up here. And watching it. And screaming like I am now.

God damn it, it’s just a show.

Been extremely busy all day. Didn’t get too much done, but worked. The comman man in me tells me that’s what counts. Common man. Sheesh. I wonder how they do it.

Saw the prettiest thing today. Oh yes, and this too.

Got to run again, well not literally, but I am a tad hungry. Haven’t made the time for anything or anyone, sigh, and food just wasn’t too high up on the list of priorities.

Guilty enough wasting most of the day so far. Caught up on a small bit of pending emails. Hacked away on the disclaimer and dropped it down from over 12KB to just over 6KB. It doesn’t sound right at points as a result, but contains all that I want it to have, I think.

Will get to work, soon. Or so I think. Sheesh, why is it so hard to start?

On the picture front, it’s not always grass that’s covered with frost. Cars too. I could have saved one of these pictures for tomorrow, but hmm, I just HAD to put it up too. Yes, it’s irritatingly cold outside. I just hope there isn’t a stupid blizzard thing to further complicate the 18 degrees Fahrenheit absurdity.

Woke extremely late. Didn’t do too much during most of the day. Which is somehow magically legit cause it’s Saturday. And unrelated, V’s stuff have finally reached. Expectedly, Appa’s not really keen on him playing with any of it before his exams are done. Which is a good thing, he’s not me. ;)

Not that I’m entirely certain he won’t work around it.

Thought about working on newer site hopefuls, but hit quite a few blocks. All relating to me being a lazy slacker. Cycled through a few themes, and while many of them looked a lot better than the current one, they didn’t feel right. This has a grey/dark hackery feel, which all the “happy happy” white and bright coloured ones couldn’t pull off. Going to attempt a first pass at a new site that’s not too different from the existing one (at least on the surface) and then see how things go from there. Currently pressing needs include a newer photo gallery page. As people have noticed, this is clunky and cheap-hacked. Anything else ought to be better. Something.. something more dynamic. Which brings me to my next thought, this site was never intended to be a medium of showcasing pictures. Just arbitrary boring bodies of text I cared to type out from time to time.

And this picture a day thing being a lot harder than I had originally anticipated, requires having to post botched images too, just to have something up. And interestingly, it doesn’t bother me. But something else is. As I’m updating this log, I don’t seem to remember/concentrate on the events of my day (however uneventful it was). It’s becoming more, pictures up (botched or not), I’m done. Hmm. This is NOT A PHOTOLOG. Need to think about separation. Even if it means my grand evil plans relating to people reading the text while they are here for the pictures will be self-foiled.

Here is today’s anyhow. Disembodied Signage. A botched night picture.

Left work kinda early last evening. It was cold. But I needed a long walk to clear my head and generally get some thinking done. It was actually quite good fun. I ended up getting quite lost in the middle. I hadn’t realized it earlier, because I wasn’t paying particular attention to where I was going, and more importantly, I have less sense of direction than a blind pig normal person. Didn’t panic or any such thing. Just walked around in semi darkness (yes, the sun sets at some 4) arbitrarily. Ended up eventually at this auditorium with a piano concert starting. Stayed for a while. It was very good. Then resumed my think-walking in the cold. It really helped. However, after a rather long time of not dropping anything valuable, I dropped my camera during the walk. And I wasn’t even using or planning to use it. Sheesh. It seems ok.

Got back home rather late. Caught quite a bit of Adult Swim before I slept. There is just something about adult cartoons designed to fake being kids’ cartoons when they really are kids’ cartoons in the first place. Complicatedly sweet.

Today was as usual. The sem is nearing to an end and that pile of work still just sits there. Started on a wee bit today morning, just to stop quite soon. There was this student run breakfast thing, and the general activity and chaos in the usual work lounges killed the newly spawning productivity. Lunch was oddly interesting. Spent it with this student who’s finishing and all reminiscent. Rather enlightening.

And yes, the sun beginning to set early is not always a bad thing. Here is this rather symmetric cloud and moon pattern. It totally reminds me of Pacman. Totally

Sigh. Have you ever tried so hard not to fish things up just to end up fishing up the most important things in your life? Why do such sequences of events occur? Is that even remotely normal? I am not too bad a human being. I don’t actively aim to con or hurt anybody. I just want to be.. not hurtey and not unhappy.

It doesn’t seem fair. Being a geek sucks. I want to be expressive and articulate and not have to rely on ESP to make my thoughts heard.

Between feigning working and hurting people, I was not really in the mood to use my camera. Hastily played around with an earlier image to get this, my right eye.

Come to think of it, I am not in a “yay I want to update my log” mood either. You can burn up positively built up karma faster than you know it.

Generally idled most of today. I have such a huge set of things piled up to do, I have no idea where to even begin. So I didn’t. It’s going to kill me, real soon. However, rather than “just idle”, I built most of GNOME 2.5, complete with a new GIMP. Anyway, inspired enough to work on and update the Text Effects page. Cheesy, but fun! While I’m shamelessly plugging stuff, I might as well get it over with and plug the relatively cool redirect page, for people who might have missed it earlier. Yes, that’s a picture of my screen.

And of course, today’s photograph. It is moderately frost covered? grass.

Click me for a larger version of the same picture.

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