- January, 2006
-
I like that old time rock'n' roll
Yesterday night I was surfing through the idiotbox to see if there were any good cartoons playing when I came across the series Recess playing on Disney channel (or it might have been Nickeledon).
In the part that I saw,one of tha characters, Vince (an athlete) had come to realize that his brother whom he had always thought to be a cool , was actually a geek. Vince was devastated by this discovery and was sharing his anguish with his friends. He thought it was only a matter of time till genetics kicked in and he too would transform into a geek.
I am not sure how old the serial was, my rough estimate is 4-5 years old. It made me realize how at one time geek was a derogatory term. However being a geek is an fashionable thing now. People whose only claim-to-geekdom is that they have a Moveable Type blog (updated hourly) proudly proclaim to be a geek.
Just take those old records off the shelf I'll sit and listen to 'em by myself Today's music aln 't got the same soul I like that old time rock 'n' roll Don't try to take me to a disco You'll never even get me out on the In ten minutes I'll be late for the door I like that old time rock'n' roll ----- Old Time Rock & Roll - Bob SegerI too like the old definition of geeks - the ones that write php/perl/pyhton one liners, who know the language specs (or at least the urls where the specs live), or those who know arcane geometrical and calculus formulas and so on. Someone who know their subject deeply. In my opinion, blogging and podcasting(and other web 2.0 shiny objects) are so shallow subjects that even thought you may know the nuances of them well, I will not consider you to be a geek. But that is just my opinion.
Defined tags for this entry: geek stuff, My take on life -
Reflections on 2005
Thanks to Sachac for pointing out this list of questions to review your year.
What did I learn this year?
Let me see. On the technical side I learnt quite a lot.
- a bit of Perl
- quite a lot of MySQL
- new things in PHP, especially related to web services and graphs
- lots of new stuff related to high availability and failover
- lots of new stuff in troubleshooting
On the non technical side, I did not learn much
- I finally read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
- I started taking steps to manage my time well. I am following the Getting Things Done forums and mailing lists, picking up great tips from them but have yet to read THE BOOK. It was this year that I learnt about emacs-planner for managing tasks
- I read a few management type books, they are not that bad
The lessons of life that I learnt this year
- I am much better than I think I am
- Family support and good friends are the most important assets that someone can have
- Don't try to get stereotyped
- An idea does not have to be big, it has to change the world
- It is a good idea to write and publish about every new thing that I learn.
What did I accomplish this year?
Quite a lot, if I can say that myself
- Got selected to be a part of Yahoo! Bangalore
- Moved from Delhi to Bangalore and established a household here
- One of the interns I mentored got selected to become a regular employee
- Got published in webzines
- Kickstarted the PHPC Gazette, which is still in its infancy but I am sure something good will come out of it
- Wrote articles on my website that proved useful to a bunch of people
- Spoke on Y! webservice at Freedel
- Got a good year end appraisal
- Discovered Terry Pratchett
Which accomplishments am I proudest of?
- Getting selected to be a part of Yahoo! bangalore
- Kickstarting the PHPC Gazette
Knowing what I know now, what would I have done differently in the past year?
Let me see.
- Written more articles
- Written more code for my favourite free software
- Read more Terry Pratchett
What will be my greatest lasting memories of this year?
- Getting selected into Yahoo!. Absolutely something that I will always remember.
- Moving to Bangalore from Delhi
In what ways did I contribute?
Not in as many ways as I would have liked to, just in small ways
- Helped my previous colleague in taking over from where I left off
- Started the PHPC Gazette
- Submitted one patch for AMO. I should have done more
- Answered a bunch of questions on php-general, linux-delhi and some other mailing lists and IRC channels.
- Supported my brother and sister for this year
What were my biggest challenges or obstacles?
- Not enough time management
- I am not punctual
- I am not caring about my health, even though I am aware that it might give me trouble later in life
What obstacles did I overcome?
- Reduced the time I spend in the office from 16 hours to 9 hours, though this change took place only in December
- Established a household in a new city
How am I different now than I was at the start of the year?
- I am more confident than I was when the year started
- I am more willing to voice my disagreements, both in person and over email
- I have stopped saying RTFM to questions now
- I am fatter
- I know how to better manage my time now (but this is still a ongoing struggle )
What am I most grateful for?
- The support of my family
- My job
What else do I want to reflect on?
I should have contributed more to Free Software projects than I do now, and by contributing I mean more in terms of code. I need to figure out a way to fit exercise in my schedule and lose weight.
Defined tags for this entry: My take on life - November, 2005
-
Anti consumerism
Originally posted posted Thu, 13 Nov 2003
I came across an interesting essay, Consumer Angst, today. It mirrors very well what I feel about products that try to ride on advertising instead of innovation. Take Microsoft, also known as the evil empire, and Linux. Everyone (well almost everyone) agrees that Linux is more scalable and robust than Microsoft < insert your Windows version > . Yet, there is this amorphous resentment, this inclination to trust a glossy advertisement more than an impartial report by your IT department. Well, my bile seems to be spreading all around and getting out of hand, so I will return back to the essay.
The reason I like the essay is that instead of ranting (like me), he fleshes out the issue very well. Here is an excerpt from the essay
Here are some examples of the minor lies that are included n advertising to support the big lie:
Another of my favorite quote (and especially relevant in an argument between Linux and Microsoft) is
"New!" - How can something be simultaneously new and absolutely essential to survival? Or, given the thesis that new is better, the advertiser should honestly list the ways that the old new product failed us, thus setting the stage for inevitable disenchantment with the new new product."It costs more, but it is worth it." By implication, things that cost more are worth more, and by negation, things that have no price also have no value. This is an appeal to reject the entire natural world out of hand.
Defined tags for this entry: My take on life -
echoes from an abandoned blog
Before I got myself the rajshekhar.net domain, I used to have a blog at journlaspace.com. I have stopped posting to it completely (I use the JS account to read the blog of siome of the people ), but there are still a few good entries in it. Over the next few days, I will bring them into this blog. This suddent spurt in posts should not be seen as a burst of creativity
Defined tags for this entry: My take on life - October, 2005
-
some observations
Geek Pick-Up Lines: Part 3 - Also collected from part 1 and part 2
- No matter how I sort things, you'll always be first.
- You put the SPARC in my workstation.
- By looking at you I can tell you're 36-25-36, which by the way are all perfect squares.
- My 'up-time' is better than BSD.
Some good parts from a speech by John Gilmore
- I want a guarantee -- with physics and mathematics, not with laws -- that we can give ourselves things like real privacy of personal communications. Encryption strong enough that even the NSA can't break it.
- We also want real privacy of personal records. Our computers are extensions of our minds. We should build them so that a thought written in the computer is as private as that thought held in our minds.
Defined tags for this entry: My take on life - August, 2005
-
why is prostitution considered 'wrong' ?
A question that has been on my mind for a long time was put in by my friend Mary (he is the sysadmin at Sarai). Let me give a bit of the background. When I was in Delhi, a bunch of us fellow-geeks used to meet almost twice a month to talk about our hacking projects, our current work (all of us were happily free of NDAs), have a good dinner and generally get into debates about topics that would be considered a taboo (or inappropriate by most people). Once when we were joking about how prostitution is legal in Thailand and what procedure would the government be using to collect the taxes (I mean, how will they cross check the receipts), that Mary popped the question "Why do you think prostitution is wrong ?" . My first reaction was "It is not the right thing to do" - however, I realized that pushing my judgement of what is right and what is wrong on someone else is not the correct thing to do. I have been thinking of why I consider prostitution to be wrong - it is a profession - a service is provided and a price is paid for it.
This question again came to the front of my mind when I read this blog post by Joshua Newton. He writes about the An autobiography of a sex worker by Nalini Jameela. He posts the following quote from the book
Some see brothels as a space for sexual perverts.
They are wrong. Why do people of all walks of life come to us? Parents prevent our sexual desires in the beginning. Then teachers in schools. Then moralists in churches, mosques, and temples slap rules. When you grow up, police and courts take up the role. They spread the rule one man for one woman. Yet people seek out prostitutes all over the world in all ages. What does it prove?
So are you against moral structures?
No. Men dictate the morality of this age. They use wives or sex workers to their ends. We dream of a new dawn of morality. Sexuality like food and shelter is a terrain of human tastes. It is still to be developed into a plateau of endless tastes and forms. Morality should not suppress. It should be liberating. When sex work turns into one among many human service sectors, you will stop suppressing yourself and others.I have not read the book but this book is definitely on my to-read book
Defined tags for this entry: My take on life - July, 2005
-
being drunk and listening to Nirvana
There is absolutely something heavenly in being drunk and listening to Curt Cobain. The lyrics start to make senseDefined tags for this entry: My take on life
Page 13 of 17, totaling 115 entries