December, 2008

Vetti Peichu — No Comments
28
Dec 08

Rain perils and reporting – its déjà vu all over again in Chennai

Circa 2005

India Times reports Chennai Floods

(Chennai, Dec 4): More than 500,000 people were affected in this Tamil Nadu capital and its suburbs after rain-fed rivers and lakes inundated almost three-fourths of the city, even as the army was called for relief operations.

Officials said around 230,000 people were evacuated from their homes and lodged in relief camps across the state following heavy rains, brought on by a low pressure system over the Bay of Bengal, since Friday night.

Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha, who surveyed some flood-affected areas Sunday, said relief operations were being undertaken on a war footing. “Overflows in the Adyar and Cooum rivers are being regulated,” she told reporters.

Read more (of this on the India Times website) ..

Circa 2008

The Hindu reports Chennai Floods

Rain-related toll rises to 51 in Tamil Nadu

1. 36 lakh people affected; Rs.100 crore to undertake immediate relief work

CHENNAI: As many as 51 persons lost their lives and 1.36 lakh people were affected by the current spell of rain, a briefing issued at a Cabinet meeting has said.

Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi sanctioned Rs.100 crore to undertake immediate relief work.

As many as 1,380 villages were affected and 54,525 persons shifted to safer places. About 2,000 huts were partially damaged, 930 huts completely damaged and 68 heads of cattle perished.

Read more (of this on The Hindu website) ..

Now, insensitive as this might sound, that’s one way to measure progress, viz., increase in the number of people affected by similar rainy seasons that were almost exactly three years apart. Bravo! Pray someone is asking why this is the case at a more serious and accountable forum.

Shifting gears, I came across the India Times post (shown above) when I googled for Chennai rains in early Dec’08. Shame on India Times for having a post without a proper timestamp.

Reminded me of the United Airlines Stock plummeting debacle of Sep’ 08, when some wise analyst used an outdated report to rate UAL down. Result:

In the span of 10 minutes, 24 million UAL shares changed hands. The stock, trading at $12.45, crashed to $3, according to Nasdaq.

In the India Times story, there is no such fear. The only giveaway that the report is dated is the line on Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa, who all of us familiar with Tamil Nadu politics know is not the current incumbent. That said, Times could have done The Hindu (and, other papers) a favor by passing their rain report template so that all one has to do is change the number of people affected and the name of the Chief Minister every once in a while. The rest of the report, I am afraid, could very well be set in stone for the foreseeable future of Tamil Nadu.

Vetti Peichu — 2 Comments
18
Dec 08

Free Will and Destiny

Recently, I attended an Art of Living workshop in the Bay Area.  A big take away for me is the following excerpt from Celebrating Silence by H. H. Sri Sri Ravishankar:

Free Will and Destiny

“When people consider the Past as Free Will, they are filled with remorse and regret.

When they consider the Future as Destiny, lethargy and inertia set in.

A wise person will consider the Past as Destiny and the Future as Free Will.

When you consider the Past as Destiny, no more questions are raised and the Mind is at ease.

And when you consider the Future as Free Will, you are filled with enthusiasm and dynamism.

Of course, there will be some uncertainty when you consider the Future as Free Will, and some anxiety, but it can also bring alertness and creativity.

Consider the Past as Destiny, the Future as Free Will, and the Present Moment as Divinity.”

A few years back I came across this quote in an issue (Jan ’05) of Harvard Business Review. I believe it is by novelist John Barth and is as follows:

“The story of your life isn’t your LIFE, it’s your STORY!”

It was definitely intriguing enough that it continues to stay in my memory.  But I believe it is beginning to make (more) sense now.

In a way, if you look at the story of your life as your story, you can script it with Free Will.  If it is simply your life, then you run the risk of being relegated to the lethargic and escapist acceptance (and/or, the misery) of the preordained.

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tEch kNOwMAD — No Comments
16
Dec 08

Tip #1: Thumbnails from YouTube

Here is a quick tip on how to get thumbnail images for your desired YouTube video.

YouTube automatically generates up to 3 thumbnail images that are 130 x 97 pixels in dimension and in JPEG format. These thumbnails are accessible in the following URI format:

http://img.youtube.com/vi/videoID/1.jpg
http://img.youtube.com/vi/videoID/2.jpg
http://img.youtube.com/vi/videoID/3.jpg

Using the Power of Ten video as an example, you can get its videoID (BBsOeLcUARw) from the video URL and hence the thumbnail images as follows:

Video URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBsOeLcUARw

Thumbnails:

Powers of Ten - 1 of 3

Powers of Ten - 1 of 3

http://img.youtube.com/vi/BBsOeLcUARw/1.jpg

Powers of Ten - 1 of 3

Powers of Ten - 2 of 3

http://img.youtube.com/vi/BBsOeLcUARw/2.jpg

Powers of Ten - 3 of 3

Powers of Ten - 3 of 3

http://img.youtube.com/vi/BBsOeLcUARw/3.jpg

Bonus:

The bonus is you get a 320 x 240 image with the following (0.jpg):

Powers of Ten - 320x240

Powers of Ten - 320x240

http://img.youtube.com/vi/BBsOeLcUARw/0.jpg

tEch kNOwMAD — 3 Comments
14
Dec 08

Powers of 10

Get some macroscopic perspective on where you stand in the grand scheme of things when:

  • looked at from 10-times farther away (up to 100M Light years) every 10 seconds
  • looked at from 100M Light years, moving in 10-times closer every 2 seconds

After doing a macroscopic to-and-fro journey, go in the other direction to get a microscopic view by looking at the final destination 90% closer every 10 seconds.  Watch the legendary Powers of Ten video that presents just that:

A film dealing with the relative sizes of things in the universe .. and the effect of adding another zero.

Made by the office of Charles and Ray Eames for IBM.

Video source: YouTube | Powers of 10 ..::.. Image source: crainium.net

Personally, this (video) makes me WONDER at the profundity of the seeming “nothingness” that is at the macroscopic and the microscopic ends of our existential spectrum and (yet) that which encompasses within, all the things that are seemingly “something”, “nothing”, and “everything”.

Okay, I lost myself there .. in the previous statement.  Guilty as charged if I did you too!

Update (21Jan09):
Seems like the YT video has been taken down. See original video from the Powers of 10 site – http://www.powersof10.com/index.php?mod=watch_powersof10

Update (04Sep09):
Updated the YT video to this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2cmlhfdxuY

Check out the following Venice video on hulu.com:

Vetti Peichu — 3 Comments
9
Dec 08

Kindle a Kindal

I am not sure why but lately I have been fussing much over this word kindal.  To the clueless on what I am talking about here, it is a colloquial term used in my native language Tamil to imply any of the following: teasing, taunting, needling, poking fun, taking a dig, attempt at sarcasm, some combination of any of the previously listed.  Usage of kindal in the spoken language is so common that I dare say you will be hard pressed to find one contemporary Kollywood (read, Tamil) movie these days that has managed to avoid a single utterance of this word.

Now coming to why the term is haunting my head these days?  Could it be because of all the ad placements of Amazon’s Wireless Reading Device, Kindle?  Sure, I would LOVE to own one and yes, the two words sound similar.  So is that it or is there more to the connection here?

To find out, I started by researching the meaning of the word kindle. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary has the following:

Main Entry: kin·dle
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, probably modification of Old Norse kynda; akin to Old High German cuntesal fire
Date: 13th century
transitive verb:
1: to start (a fire) burning : light
2 a: to stir up : arouse
2 b: to bring into being : start
3: to cause to glow : illuminate

So did the Tamil Kindal come from the English Kindle? If so, when and how? Suppose that the following had happened:

Circa ~1930. Imagine Sir Ckolin D. Frick saying the following to Right Honorable Rai Bahadur Kandanar mAvadoo in one of their British Raj governance meetings on the subject of equal rights for womyn:

By Jove, mAvadoo, don’t kindle (that fire)!

mAvadoo is not one known to handle well pressure at work.  Same evening, at home, he takes it out on his wife kutcheriAmma:

That badava Rascal of your brother, I SAY, let him not kindle kindel (that fire), I say.

kutcheriAmma’s brother is Ambi, the opportunistic wastrel, who shows up where ever there is a gathering .. where cause is optional but having a vanity title a must-have for entry and participation. Kindled Kindelled and dangerous, now Ambi is.  Sets off he does as kI.Pa.Cee to the next rebellion that has no cause.

kI.Pa.Cee, ka.vi.cci, and ku.rye.sOli throw stones at stray dogs, set garbage trucks on fire, and shout slogans such as:

SeiyAthey SeiyAthey
(engalai) kindul SeiyAthey

(read, don’t kindle kindul us)

When arrested for their sheer nuisance value, news of which reaches the local kazhagam (read,  Ckouncil), “friends” kI.Pa.Cee knew he never had storm the police station shouting:

vellaiyanai kallAl kindal aditha kI.Pa.Cee-yay
Thamizhirkku pudu chchOl thantha ilaKKiya wA.Cee-yay

(read, Long live kI.Pa.Cee, who kindled kindal’d the whiteman with stones and gave Tamil Language a new word)

Now, fast-forward this transformation from kindle to kindal and you have something like this:

(sir) Ckolin –> Kandanar –> kutcheriAmma –> kI.Pa.Cee –> Kazhagam –> Kudi Magan (read, Ckommon Man) –> Kollywood –> Ckomedy –> Ckollege –> Kollywood –> Ckorporation –> Ckomputer –> Kudi Magan (moi, circa 2008)

Feel like singing it to the tune of Billy Joel’s We didn’t start the fire ..

Say, that’s one theory – for now, that should suffice – on why impressions of the Amazon Kindle torment me as the Tamilian Kindal.  But why the in-my-head now?  Perhaps, it is in my nature to indulge in this past time and now is as good a time as any to evaluate this indulgence that generally evokes the kind of response summarized as follows:

vAzhkEYEla kindal irukkalAm
anA kindalE vAzhkEYE AyidakkUdathu

(read, there can be kindal in life but kindal cannot be your whole existence in life!)

Point noted.  Thank you.  Now, stop kindling kindaling me!

tEch kNOwMAD — 7 Comments
6
Dec 08

inderSTADT, a complete makeover!

It seems like I have fallen into a Thanksgiving pattern of revisiting and revamping parts of my digital existence to something more relevant and/or manageable.  Last year, it was the move from JAlbum to Flickr for publishing my digital photos online.  This year it is the complete makeover – cosmetic, content management, and hosting – of my web presence: www.inderstadt.net.  If you are reading this post then it means that the makeover mission has been accomplished.

Well done, yours humbly!

So why the makeover?

  • It was becoming increasingly difficult handcoding HTML and keeping the site up-to-date.  I needed a light weight web content management system (WCM).  Something a little more than a simple blog but well short of a true web content management system.  Don’t need some of the unnecessary overheads of the latter.
  • The custom Java bean extensions I wrote for my galerie application on JAlbum had aged considerably.  And, I was in no mood to write code to keep that galerie up.  As good as JAlbum served me as a photo publishing tool for 4+ years, it was not intended to be a community-based photo sharing environment.  I am still testing the waters on the new JAlbum hosting, which seems to be community-focused.  But, for now, Flickr is serving all my needs – publishing, sharing, mash-up, discovery, and value-added fremium services from its ecosystem partners (e.g., QOOP).  So I needed an environment that will mash-up dynamically with Flickr.
  • Make the Isai Dhanyasy section of the site primarily a dynamic, podcasting site.
  • Blogger dropped support for publishing posts through FTP to a site that is hosted elsewhere.  It seems like this might have been revived recently but my interest in Blogger was lost.  Hosted WordPress (from wordpress.org) in conjunction with a custom CMS theme gives me more freedom to do what I want.  And, no, there is no host-it-yourself version of Blogger.  It simply is not in their (Google) roadmap or DNA to offer that.
  • 1and1.com hooked me in 2003 by giving their home-hosting package FREE for 3-years.  I have been a PAYING customer since 2006 but it is now time to move on.  I do not have any negative feedback per se on 1and1.com.  But it seems like there are other hosting environments that are better in helping me meet my objectives (primarily, my specific WCM problem).  For example, if hosting your own WordPress is the way to go then I feel a provider like bluehost.com is more user-friendly, viz., ease of installation, administration, and e-mail support for comparable pricing packages.

What all is included in this complete makeover?

How much for the makeover?

  • I was paying $5/mo for the before version on 1and1.com.  The after version on bluehost.com now costs me $8/mo for unlimited storage and bandwidth.  A comparable package on 1and1.com would have cost me anywhere between $10 and $16 (with the right promotions and à la carte menu selections).
  • A one-time fee of $70 for the Arthemia Premium WP theme.  This one is completely worth it right from the word go!  Installation (so easy it was) of this theme magically transforms WordPress, from being just a blog, into this nifty and light web content management system
  • $25/year for a Flickr pro account
  • $24/year for a podbean.com podcasting account
  • In summary, $70 CapEx and about $12/mo OpEx

How long?

  • The galerie migration from hosting myself (JAlbum was just the publishing tool) to Flickr took about a month to reach 100 photos online.  Truth is I have become more selective in what images I publish online.  So from many thousands of photos, it is now down to a little over 500 on Flickr and that has been in a year’s time frame
  • Moving the rest of the site to the new Arthemia theme on WordPress took 3-4hours max.  Any hours spent beyond this was simply fussing along the lines of applying lipstick many times over, on an anonymous pig.
  • It did take almost a week to have my domain name transferred from 1and1.com to bluehost.com

and, ..

  • The result is what you see as you read this post
  • For me personally, the move has been completely worth the effort and monies so far .. knock on that proverbial wood!
  • From a publishing standpoint, I like the ease of use, the multi-modal, and mashed-up nature of the site
  • Arthemia Premium theme has been a revelation.  Besides the WCM feature, I have used the theme as is, cosmetically.  I like the visual architecture of Arthemia
  • Discovery and SEO options are much better now
  • Can’t be happier!

See below for some before and after screenshots of the site.

Before:

Home page before makeover

Home page before makeover

About page before makeover

About page before makeover

After:

Home page after makeover

Home page after makeover

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tEch kNOwMAD — No Comments
4
Dec 08

tEch kNOwMAD

Etymology: tEchnology + kNOwledge (or the lack thereof) + (drives me) MAD; more suitably, see technomad

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam diam lorem, luctus ut, viverra quis, scelerisque at, nulla. Vestibulum enim risus, luctus vitae, vulputate et, tincidunt et, sem. Nunc nibh neque, mattis sit amet, tempor eu, feugiat non, metus. Donec magna. Donec quis nulla. Sed suscipit faucibus lectus. Nunc pretium elementum odio. Nullam condimentum eros ut tortor. Nullam hendrerit, purus at eleifend faucibus, sapien risus blandit urna, sed fermentum velit turpis eu turpis. Suspendisse potenti.”

Before you pounce on me, let me clarify that the above is not placeholder text in dont-make-sense-to-me Latin that I forgot to remove.  It is how most technology looks like initially to me before some start looking like the below (my precious):

(image source: technabob)

There are lots of brilliant (and otherwise) minds answering tech questions online, posting reviews, and analyzing/forecasting trends.  This section – tEch kNOwMAD – is going to do none of that .. at least, not as its intended mission.  Instead, it will be but an attempt at documenting technology tools and use cases that solved my own particular problems in staying connected and maintaining an online presence.

Or simply, some musings along the way in my never ending journey from the state of lorem ipsem to the (im)possible iPhone halo!

Jambajaar Talkies — 1 Comment
2
Dec 08

the Visitor

I watch the movie “the Visitor” from the comforts of my Silicon Valley home. Couple of days later Mumbai is attacked by terrorists. Do not look for a connection between the two, for there exists none.  That said, the movie presents what could be seen as very early phases of our (US) journey toward an eventual Orwellian Society.  The attacks in Mumbai could be seen from one vantage point as the result of (India) having seriously false pretenses to a utopian future.

the Visitor is a very poignant movie that raises questions about racial profiling, dehumanization of the plight of aspiring immigrants, and finally, the possibility of participation from the average American to improve this plight. Orthogonally, it so subtly and beautifully presents the pain that a life of no moorings and no passion can inflict on a person. As the lead protagonist (played by Richard Jenkins) says:

I haven’t done any real work in a very long time. I pretend, pretend that I am busy, that I am working. .. I am not doing anything.

Here is an actor who we might recognize as having seen in scores of movies and yet not be able to name one.  That notwithstanding, a subtler and yet such an impactful performance I have not seen in a while.  Richard Jenkins is the listless Prof. Walter Vale, who over the course of the movie finds a cause and a passion to possibly start living again.

Without going into a full review, one of which you can see on the IMDB site, or adding to the list of spoilers, a question that seems to be asked in the movie (also, summarized by the tagline Connection is Everything) is what do we become when we lose the connectedness to the humans around us. Is a person entering (or wanting to enter) your country a mere document record on a computer? Is the peson, however useful or not he might be to your society, not a person anymore if he does not have the coveted A# (read, greencard or the like)?  Though nothing along the lines of seeking asylum or facing deportation, I can however relate firsthand to being treated as a mere number from my own experiences with immigration.

The preview clip above ends with:

you can live your whole life .. and never know who you are .. until you see the world .. through the eyes of others

.. and, this is shown somewhat metaphorically by Prof. Wale taking easily to an exotic percussion instrument, after years of sleepwalking to nowhere on a piano.

Some noteworthy moments in the movie:

  • There is a scene toward the end when the large backdrop of the US flag fades into a blank white canvas and a minute or so later, the subway drumming of Prof. Wale blacks out with the moving train. The visual messaging to me was that our lives exist somewhere in between the black and the white.
  • Hiam Abbass (as Mouna Khalil) is classy and charms you every time she is in the frame. Surprisingly, I did not squirm at the mushiness of the suggested habibti angle – as reel as real it is not – between her and Prof. Wale.
  • “How do you know what it feels like to be here inside (the detention center)?”, asks Tarek Khalil

Changing subjects, I expanded my horizons.  Learned about Fela Kuti.  Per wikipedia:

Fela was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.  HMV ranked him #46 on a list of the top-100 most influential musicians of the 20th century.

Let the Visitor make you take part!  (visit www.takepart.com site.  seems to be a good mission)