Showing Solidarity with 26/11

[update: Image now based on official Indian Flag Pantone colors]

A year has passed since the terrible events of 26/11/2008, when Mumbai was attacked by terrorists, and a billion people held hostage next to their TV sets for days.

And I still ask myself this question:

"What did _I_ do in this past year to help prevent the recurrence of such tragedies?"

Sadly, I don't have a satisfactory answer. Will need to introspect more.

and of course, there is the corollary:

"What will I do in the _next year_ towards that goal?"

While I seek answers to the questions above, here is what I have done for today. I have updated my profile pictures everywhere to the image below (thanks a lot to Raj for making the image)



So go ahead, feel free to right click -> save as, and use as your own profile pic.

/not sure what else to say.
-A

Play with My Version of Google Chrome OS

[This post is dedicated to MP on his birthday today, one of the coolest hackers I have known :)]

As some of you might know, Google released Chrome OS on Thursday (I saw the video on my ride to work on Friday morning, thanks to Rachid). Khanna (and Gmail RSS Feeds) pointed me to this techcrunch post on how to use it with VirtualBox, but they also had this nasty warning (bold emphasis mine).

First, a few caveats: we didn’t create the Chrome OS build ourselves — it was downloaded from BitTorrent. In theory it could possibly have been tweaked by some malicious hacker to steal your Google account information (this is unlikely, but who knows). There’s an easy fix if you’re worried though: just go make a throwaway Gmail account, and use that to play around with the OS. Also note that because this is running in a virtual machine, you’re probably not going to be seeing great performance (like that 7 second boot time). But it’s more than good enough to get a feel for the OS for yourself.

So, I set out to build my own copy of the image, since I do have a AMD 64-bit PC with Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic and 4GB of RAM :). All that was needed was to follow the instructions at the get and build page at Google's Chromium project, and it will all be done :).

Needless to say, there were some hiccups :). [read the Tech Notes below this post if you are interested]

How YOU can start playing with it

Anyways, if you are in a hurry, point your favorite bittorrent software to download this torrent file [certified legal and malice-free by me, Animesh :) ]. A detailed description of the torrent is at this page.
[don't know how to use bittorrent? Post a comment or email me for a direct link for this 800MB file]

After that, follow the instructions to use VirtualBox from this Techcrunch post.

Here are some Screenshots from my run (you should see something similar):

Initial Login Screen


Using Facebook


The Program Pane (or whatever they call it)


The detailed demo video from Google is reproduced below, in case you want to see the experience.

My Impressions

Here are some initial thoughts:

• The goals are pretty lofty - provide an uber-secure OS for the netbook, which starts in under 7 seconds, and resumes from hibernation in 3. On top of that, make it so secure that anti-virus software is not needed.


• As another requirement, they need to provide "richer" features to the users who are used to desktop apps [local storage, audio/video capabilities come to mind].


• Using it on the VirtualBox will not be able to demonstrate the speed part, but one should be able to test the offline-storage and a/v aspects, and to a lesser extent. the security.


• I like what I see so far, and maybe my happiness is amplified by the fact that I was able to build it myself from source. Who here can say the same about Apple Snow Leopard or Windows 7? :)


• I did not test out all the features yet, but it was a bit slow, and froze sometimes. Will post more after I have done some experiments :)


• This was also my first experience of creating and posting a torrent. I am seeding it, so please feel free to take it for a spin. Also, please try to seed (leave it running) once you finish downloading. Thanks.

So, what do you guys/gals think?

Tech Notes

1. The backup user is test@test.com and the shared pwd is googlechrome.


2. If you try to build it yourself, and choose to NOT download the source for the Chrome browser part, you will note that the path to the zip file that you should download in lieu of the source of the browser is broken. The one that worked for me was http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-linux-chromiumos/32516/chrome-linux.zip


3. If you try to build it yourself, after running build_image.sh , the image will give errors if you try the steps under "Check the contents of the image". Don't worry. Just proceed to build the vmware image and use it. That's what I did.

Who uses more Internet?

Firstly, sorry for the long absence. Didn't realize how quickly the weeks went. I will be off to Sweden (Uppsala University) tomorrow for 4 days.

Anyways, here is the reason for the post. I just read on the Google Blog today that the World Bank has opened up its data APIs, and since you know how I love debate based on facts rather than guesses, I figured I'll give it a spin.

And here is some interesting data for you all to see
[Internet accessibility per capita, USA, World, Pakistan, and India]



You can play with this data yourself here.

So, what say?

When Gabbar met Draupadi

4 years ago, in the fall of 2005, a band of theatre-lovers at USC got together and created "dibs", a skit about three desi students at USC who wake up after an open-bar party, and find a girl sleeping on their couch. Not being able to remember who got her home, each of them tried to tell the story of last night, and how she was charmed by him.

It had three song-and-dance sequences, loads of jokes, and a surprise ending (I wonder if a video was made).

The audience at the AIS Diwali show loved it, and we loved the high - and Vidushak was born - USC's own Indian comedy theatre troupe. Given that producing skits needed more long-term preps for one script, and "the hero's mom has a midterm" was not a valid excuse on performance day, we soon diversified into year-round improv comedy, while still doing one skit a year at the Diwali show.

I left USC in June last year, but have been extremely happy to see that the team has only improved - with more talent coming in, and leading the troupe to bigger successes.

The 5th and latest installment in that series is the skit "Piya Basanti", which does what B.R.Chopra and Ramesh Sippy could not - bring Gabbar and Draupadi together!

watch on!


You can watch all the recent videos (including improv) at the official Vidushak Blog.

Oh, how I wish I was able to be a part of it all again. Good times!

Happy Birthday Bhai!

Today (Oct 28) is my elder brother's birthday.

All through my childhood I have drawn guidance [and many punches and kicks :) ] from him, whether on nuclear reactions in school (he taught me about fission when I was in 5th/6th grade, since he was in 11th/12th), computers (he installed Red Hat Linux 6.0 on my box back in high school), or girl-matters (<no disclosable details here ;) >).

So bhai, as you chill out in Atlanta, and perhaps go Rock Climbing in Atlanta after a hard day of software-architechting, keep this song in mind....



:)

P.S. He will be here in Paris for a week from Nov 28. yay!

Happy Diwali

Obama Style


Bollywood style


and INRIA Style (click here to see whole album)

Inspired by a 16-yr old

I was pointed to a BBC story this morning by @ShashiTharoor, and was immensely moved by it. Wanted to blog about it, but was kept from it by work.

I would like to tell the story by quotes from the article itself:

[16 year old]Babar Ali's day starts early. He wakes, pitches in with the household chores, then jumps on an auto-rickshaw which takes him part of the 10km (six mile) ride to the Raj Govinda school. The last couple of kilometres he has to walk.

The school is the best in this part of West Bengal. There are hundreds of students, boys and girls. The classrooms are neat, if bare. But there are desks, chairs, a blackboard, and the teachers are all dedicated and well-qualified.

As the class 12 roll-call is taken, Babar Ali is seated in the middle in the front row. He's a tall, slim, gangly teenager, studious and smart in his blue and white uniform. He takes his notes carefully. He is the model student.

Babar Ali is the first member of his family ever to get a proper education.

So far so good. Lucky kid from poor family is able to raise enough money to pay for the transport costs (~1800 Rupees a year). Wants to study. OK. Heartwarming, but what is the big deal about this?

Well, this is.[emphasis mine]

The minute his lessons are over at Raj Govinda school, Babar Ali doesn't stop to play, he heads off to share what he's learnt with other children from his village.

At four o'clock every afternoon after Babar Ali gets back to his family home a bell summons children to his house. They flood through the gate into the yard behind his house, where Babar Ali now acts as headmaster of his own, unofficial school.

Lined up in his back yard the children sing the national anthem. Standing on a podium, Babar Ali lectures them about discipline, then study begins.

Babar Ali gives lessons just the way he has heard them from his teachers. Some children are seated in the mud, others on rickety benches under a rough, homemade shelter. The family chickens scratch around nearby. In every corner of the yard are groups of children studying hard.

Babar Ali was just nine when he began teaching a few friends as a game. They were all eager to know what he learnt in school every morning and he liked playing at being their teacher.

Now his afternoon school has 800 students, all from poor families, all taught for free. Most of the girls come here after working, like Chumki, as domestic helps in the village, and the boys after they have finished their day's work labouring in the fields.

800 students!! Holy Fscking crap!

The article goes on to say that there are a total of 10 teachers there now, all students at other schools or colleges, all voluntarily contributing their time.

The article also says that these kids do not have a roof to study under, so when it rains, classes stop.

But unlike (you and) me who was happy when school was off due to rains, these kids are surmounting HUGE odds to study, and to teach.

Seriously, read the article. There are videos there too.

Oh, how I wish I was able to take 6 months to a year off to do something like this :-|.

P.S. Another interesting post was made by Abi recently about the new NCERT books, which are making science and maths education more fun and relevant in Indian schools. Good to see some progress there.

Step into my Apartment

Here is a video I took of my apartment when I had moved in, some weeks ago. Finally, with my home internet line working properly, I was able to upload it.



The added coolness comes from the fact that the apartment is on "Boulevard Colbert" ;-)

Good Times

Yesterday was a good day by most counts.

First, the France telecom guys showed up (after their crazy SMS to me two days ago that they will come on the 9th of November at 00:00hrs!).

Turns out that the wire was disconnected in the circuit box outside my apartment. They attached it, and my Internet works! :)

The Second (and perhaps the biggest) piece of news was that my journal paper to the IEEE Transactions on Computers, which was under minor revision, has finally been accepted without any more changes. Now just a week more to upload all the files, and it will be done :).

Thirdly, I realized that neuf now allows free phone calls (using the VoIP phone that comes as part of my DSL plan) to INDIAN LANDLINES also!

Fourthly, I finally installed 64-bit Ubuntu Linux on my new desktop, (pre-assembly picture here) and can properly use its 4GB of RAM and 500GB Harddrive. And yes, portal is running well on it :). See screenshot below.



And the final good news came last night, when I realized that the free channels that come with my IPTV (again, part of my DSL plan), include Zee Music! Finally, auto-playing new bollywood video songs in the background :).

Life, in short, is good.

-A
P.S. Tonight is nuit blanche, and I will be meeting Barman and Dalal from my ITBHU days. More good times :)

My Eye: Latest Update

[Those who are not aware about the context of this post, please check here for an older post with more detail]

Am writing this from the train to Versailles, my eyes still dilated.

Met Dr. Cassoux this morning. She is a retinal surgeon specializing in my ailment, and came highly recommended by my ophthalmologist, Dr. Zeghidi. (Huge thanks to @k_sam for accompanying me.)

After looking at my retina, she said, like the previous retinal surgeon, that my loss of vision is due to the scar itself, and in her opinion, it will not be wise to perform surgery, given how little it will possibly achieve for the many risks in the operation.

So yeah. I'm f*&ked.

But wait, there's more. Apparently there is a high chance (50%) of this infection's relapse, and she recommended I take an antibiotic (Bactrim) once every three days for the next two years to bring that risk down to 20%. 

Well, I guess that is a good motivation for me to eat right, exercise, and meditate to keep my immune system strong.

-A
--sent from my Google HTC Magic--

Iftar

Nebil was kind enough to invite Oleg and me to join him in Iftar today, the ritual breaking of the fast in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

After a usually-argumentative metro ride, with Nebil telling me about the virtues and rules of Islam and my maintaining that I dislike _any_ organized religion (except perhaps the church of the FSM :)], we reached Belleville, the Tunisian part of Paris. (yeah, we have pretty much the same argument every day at lunch time, and had been missing it due to his fasts)

The streets were full of vendors selling all sorts of stuff, which people were purchasing on their way home to break their daily fasts. And that is when I saw something that made my eyes widen.

Parathas!

Yes, the multi-layered flat bread we make in India from unleaved flour cooked with a dash of oil.

And it tasted very similar too (Oleg bought some to share). And then another shock.

Bhatooras!

Yes, the deep-fried flat bread made from leavened flour and eaten classically with chholey.

We then went to a Tunisian Jewish store, which sold pretty much the same stuff as the other stores in the area, with the difference being the presence of wine, and that of Kosher foods. I got some Harissa, which I am looking fwd to using as a mirchi-substitute.

The iftar meal itself was also interesting, and very different from the desi stuff I used to have at Salahuddin uncle's place as a child [I _so_ miss those pakoras and chana :-( ]. The start was with dates and fermented milk (very similar to the buttermilk I have had in India, and the fermented milk in the Netherlands), which was automatically followed by a soup of rice, chickpeas, and lamb stock flavored with turmeric and coriander/cilantro leaves. This was followed by bric, which you can think of as a flat samosa filled with an egg and fish. Pretty interesting, and heavy.

After this traditional fast-breaking meal (apparently this is an every-evening affair), we were nearly full, but ordered a lamb dish that was more baked than roasted. It was amazingly well-cooked, and the taste reminded of lamb curries made from the Shaan brand of spices here. We topped it all off with some Boga Lime cola, the Tunisian version of Sprite/7up (and the inspiration of the name of Obi-wan's steed). Interestingly enough (and lucky for me), there were no beef dishes at all in the restaurant, since apparently the Tunisians consider beef to be "cheap meat", and prefer lamb.

We had planned to have tea afterwards, but the super-heavy downpour forced us to cut our evening short. Ah well.

Another evening well spent, utilizing this unique opportunity I have here. Makes my belief stronger that traveling and sampling other cultures is absolutely essential, and that world peace will come through dining together :).

New Maxims

Woh kehte hain na, sabr ka phal meetha hota hai.

Jhooth kehte hain!

[They say that the fruit of patience is sweet.

They lie.]

By most measures, this last week has been miserable.

For one, the eye situation is no better, although I _have_ gotten responses to my digital scans from some Doctors whom my friends contacted for me [HUGE thanks to them]. But nothing greatly positive. And then there are other, crazier things, about which we shall not talk here.

But I guess the part that has been bothering me the most are maxims such as the one above, which make very strong claims, which are not true, at least not to the extent they claim.

For example, there indeed _are_ instances when too much patience can mean you lose out on an opportunity, for no fault of your own than this "virtue" of patience.

As another case, take the following

Good things happen to good people.

or its much stronger cousin

Bad things do not happen to good people.

WTF?! That is _such_ a strong claim. How about saying

Bad things can happen to good people, but usually they have a strong social net of similarly good and understanding people to rely on, and that helps reduce the recovery time.

which, in my opinion, is much closer to the truth than its simple, absolute version.

Yes, I understand the above is hard to fit on a bumper sticker or a motivational poster, but some of us here are trying to lead more logically rigorous lives!

Well, enough of my rant. Have _you_ seen maxims that you think should be altered/improved/deleted?

And to end, I leave you with the song of the day, my favorite one from Ek Chalees ki Last Local (must watch, for desis and non-desis)

My Futuristic Hotel Room

I am staying at the Citizen M hotel in Amsterdam, while attending the ESEC/FSE conference (I am presenting a demo here tomorrow of our sensor network toolkit).

My hotel here has won many design awards, and a look at the room explains why. [Note that the rooms are manufactured off-site, and plugged in to the main building. They also have a Philips moodpad to control the lights/sounds/TV of the room.]

Here is a video I took yesterday, as I arrived.



[Official page on room info, including flash tour is here]

Pretty unusual and futuristic, isn't it? Half of us here from INRIA love the room, while the other half hate it.

So, what do you think?

cheers,
-A

Vers Amsterdam!

Yes, I am back in the Thalys/TGV, going to Amsterdam for a conference. Will be back on Sunday. Ciao!

-A
www.animeshpathak.in
--sent from my Google HTC Magic--

Eye Update

Context
In case you don't know about this yet, read the first and second posts on this issue.

Latest Developments
This past Tuesday, I went to see the eye surgeon, who did a full eye-scan, including visual acuity test and the whole shine-light-into-eye-after-dilating-pupil torture :-).

The Good News
She said that she will not be doing the surgery. No forceps will find their way into my right eyeball.

The Bad News
She said the above because she believe that surgery will NOT help my case at all! As far as she is concerned, I should go home, do nothing, and be watchful in case I have a relapse of toxoplasmosis and things get _worse_. Given she only spoke French and my knowledge of the language is not top grade, I was not able to ask her super detailed question. But the short version of the story is: "The scar from the toxoplasmosis in your eye is right on top of your fovea centralis (center of retina), and we cannot remove it by operation." (To be fair, she _did_ do her best to explain to me, and to keep me calm, despite the language barrier.)

Next Steps
Of course, I am not taking this lying down. I will be meeting my ophthalmologist soon, who had initially recommended surgery to me, to ask why there is a disagreement between him and the surgeon. I will also get an appointment at the eye hospital in Paris where PGR's dad was operated. And finally, I will get digital copies of all my scans on a USB key, to send them over to friends.

What _you_ can do
If you know someone who can have a look at my case and give a second/third/nth opinion, let me know. I will be happy to send over my scans.

The "Healing Prayer" Angle
Some of you have asked me if I have tried the healing-by-prayer approach. Given I am an agnostic, I don't think that will work for me, especially if it involved _me_ believing in an almighty God. I do, however, believe in _you_, and your love/care for me, and therefore won't stop you if you want to ask your favorite super-being for help :-). As far as I am concerned, I will focus on eating right, exercise, and meditation - the stuff I _know_ keeps the body strong and helps it heal.

That's it for now. See you later! ;-) [I think this particular smiley properly represents my current right-eye-blurry vision status]

Long Years Ago

we said that the time has come "to redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially".

Not sure how much we have redeemed it in the last 62 years. As for myself, I must say I have fallen short on various ends - NeverForget needs a lot more to be done, but at least Sanjha Choolha is in good shape (thanks to D, mostly), so something is happening on the desh-seva end.

Anyways, time to get back to work. Will keep you all posted about the eye, about which so many of you inquired (thanks for that).

Jai Hind!
-A
P.S. Something to remember those days:

Eye See You

This is what my right eye looks like right now (after dilation of pupil, so that the doc can see inside). After looking inside, the doc said that my condition is worse than before, and eye surgery is strongly recommended.

Will meet the surgeon next week.

-A
www.animeshpathak.in
--sent from my Google HTC Magic--

Where Joan of Arc was Burnt

-A
www.animeshpathak.in
--sent from my Google HTC Magic--

Something Funny is Coming to Indian Internet

I have talked earlier about the fact that it is time for India to have its own "Daily Show", and it seems that Abhigyan (of the Movers and Shakers fame) and Varun (my good friend from ITBHU, of the daily tamasha fame) were listening :-).

So here it is, Jay Hind (facebook page). They start (online only) on August 15th. Their first guest: Savita Bhabhi!



I hope this fills the void in good satirical Indian TV.

The Protection Thread

or Raksha Bandhan is an ancient Indian tradition, and I am missing my sisters today :-|.

On the bright side, I got one rakhi in post yesterday, and many e-cards and e-mails today, so life is not so bad :-).

To my sisters, I give this:



miss you all.
-A (bhaiya)