PixPin Awakening..............

Sorry for posting after so long, nearly after diwali and eid this is my first post. So what kept me away from posting ? Well apart from some tight weeks (even though i was all free) , i embarked a journey to see myself as an entrepreneur at the end of the road. Ya, all this time i was busy piling up some bits and bytes to design something that can bring another change (not big but small one) in internet user activities. Well that's a different story.........all i can say know is that my risk-benefit analysis are still an illusion. By the way, talking of ethics (as i wrote my ethics semester paper today..........its still fresh in me) i noticed something in Mike Martin's "Professional Ethics" that what Kohlberg's and Gilligan proposed about conventional levels of ethical states of individuals was long back portrayed same in Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead". If you have read this book i am sure you would justify that

Preconventional level - portrayed by Peter Keating
Conventional level - portrayed by Ellsworth Toohey
Post conventional level - portrayed by Howard Roark and Dominique

Well then again one can argue that what Howard Roarke portrayed was ethical egoism - "paradox of happiness".Hmmmm enough of ethics and i am gonna get over it.As of now i got few technical assignment to finish so as to decide the launch date.
Till then keep practicing what you are best at, Moral Autonomy.

Well any1 can post comments now....

Guys i have sort the issue of posting the comments....so even if you are not a blogger or gmail account holder you still can post comments..........just click on the "comments" below eack blog and then find your self the way.

The Fountainhead - Cornucopia of Objectivism

The Fountainhead, a book by Ayn Rand, which I use to avoid whenever I happen to buy or get some new books. So what now made me start reading this book is due to lot of people's glimmer? To be frank I used to have this attitude towards Ayn Rand's work "they are boring", I concluded this because when I was in my high school I happen to catch this book and later stopped reading it because it sounded too boring to me in fact it was too descriptive to me.
But now after so many suggestions I got myself this book and started today in the morning and believe it I read it whole day in my class hours too. The story is so aspiring that it eventually takes you off and makes you muse for what all is there in it. Well I just started it and hope to finish it before diwali (as its an agreement between me and the serendipity girl).
What this book contains is it teaches you how to redefine yourself and find your own identity (till where I read) and I will update as and on I read more of it and share what I learn. Before I end this blog I leave below an excerpt from the book, which makes you muse all over again.

“.... Every man creates his meaning and form and goal. Why is it so important -- what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why are anyone and everyone right-- so long as it’s not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic -- and only of addition at else? There must be reason. I don’t know. I’ve never known it. I’d like to understand"

Take 2

Well what I am goanna write today is a bit different than the usual long confusing essays (that I write), today I am just goanna pen down my responses to the questions that my younger bro asks.

Adil: Bhai what do you think of the latest flick of SRK "DON”?
Me: I think what farhan akhter is making is making his child fantasy come true. This guy grew watching that and now he has his own flavor of don for today's generation. I would have appreciated if directors like J.P.Dutta making it because the movie didn’t inspire them during their days as it did to farhan akhter. What we will be seeing in the new don is latest cars, skinny females, high skyscrapers, cool technology and blah blah. What we will be missing will be the essence of the whole story because when you get all those cool and sexy things on screen the story gets diluted; there is not much of story to see (and get carried away with materials in the movie). So I don’t have any expectations it to be a blockbuster but would watch it for time pass and nothing more.

Adil: Hmm bhai you aren’t anti SRK?
Me: Absolutely not. I think apart from acting he has more content in general. He is eloquent in speaking and answers the right way when questioned.

Adil: Apart from movies & SRK what do you think a youngster like me should concentrate on?
Me: I wouldn't say studies (though essential) all time but concentrate on your vision. What would you be after 4 years? An IT company employee, a entrepreneur or take up ms and then research...whatever but please frame your identity, its important and if you happen to fall into a relationship...see that it doesn't slip away from you.

Adil: Bhai don’t you think falling in love is crazy, not meant for a goal oriented kid like me?
Me: Absolutely not, I believe saying "I LOVE YOU” is the craziest thing (you can only say that when your not in your senses). But loving a person is not crazy, though our religion has different view about it, but try to balance both of your halves i.e. be a good a Muslim and natural human being.

Adil: Oh ok, I have a long way for that. What is your favorite book?
Me: "THE ICON” and you know why?

Adil: Ya Steve jobs, ok then what’s the difference between Steve and bill gates?
Me: That’s a good one. Both of them started their race almost at the same time but eventually gates cherished that’s because he values his friends and Steve doesn’t. Bill has been loyal to all his friends till now but on other side Steve thought friends to be like seasons. He gets acquainted with you and when you are no more in need to him, you are out. Steve simply doesn’t sticks he is more like a nomad. This is why Microsoft is on the tall stand.

Adil: Now I got that, it makes a point. Coming out of all this, why do you write blog?
Me: I don’t know now!! Maybe I write because most of the time it’s me and myself only, so I need to speak out and maybe that’s why I write blog. The other dimension of it is maybe I want to convey some message to people out there (like I am a real bad writer) and read their responses and evaluate myself.

Adil: That’s crazy, how did live for about 12 years in hostel? I couldn't do it.
Me: You couldn’t do it maybe because you joined much late and then did like the way when compared to the day school. But for me I got used to it and I could only live like that all myself with my friends. And let me correct you I think till today its goanna be straight 16 years and I know what does that 16 years mean to me, I can account for each year. It will take whole life to speak about it because it had everything emotion, tragedy, comedy and action (still no climax and end).

Well after this my bro wanted to study (he is a major fruit) so we had to end this conversation and I believe if you think there is anything wrong with my statements or me please help me by correcting.

Shaastra

Well (Ya again, will work on that to avoid using it again) this year I made it to the Shaastra 2006. It has become a pilgrimage kind of act for me because from past three years I have been making visit to this holy (technical) land. What’s different this year? I never imagined that students from all over south pay a visit here to get the feel of the IIT-M campus and then at the end of the day bag some cool stuff and prizes. As usual day 1 was jam-packed and I was late again (being late form past three years for all days of Shaastra) to catch up any event. What I did this year was that I attended seminars by so and so of Indian technological band, to be frank in the past years I never attended these kinds of seminar thinking that some techno rishi out there will be speaking to his disciples in his own language which only those disciples can understand. But the myth proved to be wrong; these seminars could be understood by an average intellectual kid (like me, below average) also. So all the day I was doing was attending seminars or trying to get glimpse of events that were held nearby.
What’s different about the Shaastra is that the moment you enter IIT-M campus all students (non IITians) tend to behave like IITians and that’s funny. They burrow out the whole intellectual within them to just answer the prelims question and then get exhausted eventually giving chance to the IITians to reach in the final of the events. The irony here is that students believe that they can crack up but the thing is the potential what lies within an affiliated college student and an IITians is the major difference and I believe that is the reason why we witness events finals to be confrontation among IITians. Shaastra – the spirit of engineering, you know what makes me question is that why can’t we have our college symposium names in Hindi? My department symposium is called impulse but then again I believe we are losing out racial sense. That’s the reason why Shaastra seems to be cool to me rather than Impulse. As this is goanna be my last year of paying a visit to Shaastra, I feel sad because being the last opportunity I am not able to visit all days (due to my very low attendance). So what I have visited today makes me sum up my experience at the Shaastra and to be frank the seminars were awesome. These seminars weren’t the ones like my college favorite “APPA KUTTI” ones where we are forced to sit in the auditorium to hear, what was different out here was that there was more of practical sense, as the speaker was talking behind him they were these videos played in accordance to his subject. These videos were of experiments they conducted in their laboratories and this seems to be very exciting as you are just not hearing but seeing too.

Einstein - Simple & Confused

Can you imagine what Einstein would have done if he had access to Google?
I believe he wouldn’t have used his brain as much as he did without Google!!
Below is the collection of quotes by Einstein, which I collected, form various works based on him. Hope it solves the riddles of life and inspires you. Why I am putting them here is that it makes some points real simple while some confusing and that’s how Einstein was "Simple & Confused".

1 Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.
2 The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.
3 Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
4 In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
5 A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.
6 know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
7 The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
8 It may affront the military-minded person to suggest a regime that does not maintain any military secrets.
9 Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
10 Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
11 God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.
12 Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.
13 Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
14 As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
15 My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

From Ripon Handique

Mere bhai,i still can see
And feel you near me;
Through the mist you're there
As your memories are here.
With me are those ivy days
Where Mr. Mondal still says,
'Break up'.That evening,
When after dinner 2 rowdies sing.

I still savour,Jaani:
Halim,kabaabs and biryani.
And who can forget
The ball hitting the net?
The physics classes on motion,
The chemistry classes of our demotion,
The english classes that went over the head,
The maths classes when we were dead.

Not have i seen
Zephyr's realm of B-13.
Still remember those evening scenes
In those saturday,sunday canteens.
Spunky Tones against the Volkafilos:
Was that rivalry close?
Do you remember the Dorms' day?
'The best',they still say.

A Preceptor's Forebearance

Today I witnessed the most humiliating event in my life. Ya humilating, not a joyful one and at the stand was not me but my preceptor, my evs lecturer. This guy has been teaching for say about three months and his classes were meant for "masti". Masti in the sense he does take things light and we do take him light. Well as usual today's class was out of control and the best thing was the strength was not full even though it was not Friday i.e we didn’t have a major situation.
All these days this guy has been tolerating us and we were tolerating him, so what was special for things to go wrong today?
It was an incident were one throws a paper ball over him and coincidently it lands in his shirt's pocket (a good throw), witnessing this I was stuck dumb for some moment. In school days even I was juvenile and used to think I was at par in terms of mischief but today I realized how small I was. Along with this today I learnt what tolerance and forgiveness really mean.
Now you might think he would have got hold of the guy and see to that he is "****** up" but to everybody's surprise he gently asks to the class "Who did this by mistake" and the culprit rises and says "Sir it's me wanted to throw it out”. Then he gently asked him to take his seat back and he carried on. I believe for the audience this was not enough and things turned more chaotic after this and then he says, "I am sure you wouldn't have seen any lecturer like me & I am sure I haven't seen any pupil like you"
Well when all this was going on I could feel what tolerance and forgiveness is all about. People say its your heart to forgive and today I think what I have seen makes me believe its not the heart its the way you have been brought up. I have been so arrogant I never bothered to know his name and all I knew was he was my evs lecturer. Today after witnessing the great amount of realization I feel sorry for my staff at my higher school with whom I misbehaved. I wish I could get a chance to apologize to one and all for being so rude to them. And after all this the "EVS Lecturer" name is Mr. Muthulingam (which I found out today only) and I believe this was his last class for us and I am blessed to meet such a person in life and learn so much in no time and I really mean no time. Now things that I concluded after all this are:

1. In college the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate one another
2. The highest result of learning is forbearance
3. For a lecturer to tolerate is to teach nothing

Well after reading this I am sure there is goanna be a violent roar but guys this article is not to humiliate us but to honor one such person who never humiliated us. After few years I am sure we are going to regret, the way I am at this moment. So laugh and be merry till you don’t hurt the one standing in front of us "The Preceptor".

What should I be - Altruist or Misanthrope?

Looking at the people who live around me, I ask myself in what aspect should I take them? Staying in residential school for 12 years of life, where you have been thought the lesson, service to mankind is service to God and where you also learn that its no good world its “dog eat dog” world. So how am I to decide how to treat people around me?

I know the answer is simple that is treat them as they treat you but the point is human beings are complex and what they do at once they may not do it again being the circumstances different. So how am I to test them, should I observe them or should I just follow what my heart (black and white) tells me?

After passing out from my school and when I took up a professional course, I realized its better to parry off the lessons thought at school. I am saying this because when I started living a solitude life I started meeting people of various kinds “extroverts, introverts and abiders”. I learned that the lesson thought at school were good to understand but not to be followed. Though I have mixed feelings to the lessons thoughts but I don’t think it’s possible to practice it in life and expect the same from other side. The people around you are just here to mean business, some take the friendly path whereas some the other way.
Exceptions are always part of human anthropology and I would say people who are that are my parents and my best friends (like in my case). I think that friends are means as well as no means to learn.

As Sidney Sheldon says “…. to be great in life you need to have enemies….” I totally agree with him because it’s your enemies who make you aware of your faults. But then should I make everybody s my enemy. Hmmmm….. This puts me in great confusion, a writer of that caliber cannot be wrong even if he is maybe not at this. In country like India where the every day you meet someone new and every walk of life is a tough challenge (more competitors), how am I taking people into considerations? Should I follow the Gandhian philosophy? Or should I follow the Big Brother’s policy?

To all my ambivalence, I fell one has to understand the other.

“…The face is a mask over a mirror.
What are we looking for? What seeking?
Each of us twists like a haunted river,
Nor do we linger over another's grieving.
Tell me of yourself, that I might become clearer
Your words are my eyes, your passion my breathing.
The face is a mask over a mirror.
What can I give you? What gleanings
Of yourself can my poor words deliver?”

OSS Seminar

Well (ya again "Well") today I had to give a seminar to my immediate juniors on the topic "Linux”. As usual I plan something and I did something. Just after my lunch (which is usually a boring session in fact sleepy) I structured my seminar in this manner:

1. Introduction to OSS
2. Evolution of Linux (Richard Stallman & Linus Torvalds story)
3. Structure of OS
4. Comparison with Windows
5. GUI aspects of Linux
6. Linux as a tool in engineering projects

When I entered their class, as usual it was chaotic and then when I started I lost the structure, which I framed (I messed up) but still then rushed through everything. As usual you have people who listen and people who makes you listen (irritate). One thing I learned today was the audience I usually used to address where my classmates but here it was different and definitely along came different responses (reactive ness varied).
Well another thing about this class, which I addressed, was different, I mean really vibrant looks for example one guy keeps looking at me as if the next moment he is goanna tell me "u r recruited or fired". He had that look on his face, as if analyzing me and I seriously like that because when you are up there talking someone is analyzing you and I try to prove it to him "you are dumb”. I know that’s weird correlation that’s why I love it. Maybe its because he gave a look that was similar to the look that usually STEVE JOBS gave to his peers and I was their to say "Hell" to him.
Well I pray that whatever I spoke was worth because I didn’t go there to do any proving but to guide as a fellow student. At last it was a whole new learning experience and I believe next time I make it down I should be ready to face various responses. The good thing that happened at last was one guy from this class walks up to me and says "It was aspiring" and that makes me feel much better and I think I like this crowd.

(Notice: Variation in likeness about the audience)

The links I gave out were:

www.google.com/linux
www.freshmeat.net
www.sourceforge.net
www.slax.org
Search for matlab central file exchange in google
www.kernel.org
www.fedora.org
www.opensuse.org