The man who would be is KING

U.S. Patent No. 6368227

U.S. Patent No. 6368227
Covers the method of swinging on a swing. So if you are in the US and want to sit on a swing, get ready to pay royalties to 5 year old Steven Olson.
Doesn't come much as a surprise, given that someone patented fire and wheel.

I think i can apply for a patent on "A liquid chemical prepared by the complex atomic conjunction of molecular hydrogen and molecular oxygen, that supports and sustains the highly organized auto-cannibalizing system naturally emerging from conditions common on planetary bodies, and consisting of a population of replicators capable of mutation, around each set of which a homeostatic metabolizing organism, which actively helps reproduce and/or protect the replicator(s), has evolved and derivations thereof"

For more info on such patents and the flaws in the US patent system: IEEE Article on US patents

PS: How many patents does 6 year old Calvin have? His dad is a patent attorney.

Death to Subrata Paul.

An Astrological Predicament

There is this never ending debate if Astrology is a science or a non-science. It is funny, how one can think that one's life is governed by stars, planets and other cosmic bodies. People even go to the extent of identifying common behavioural traits under every sun sign. But I have a question to ask:
Let me assume that astrology has its credibility and is something to be believed. And that cosmic dust has more role to play in my future than the decisions I make. Now, as far as I know, astrology uses a predefined set of planets and stars and their locations in the sky.
But what about the stars and planets that have been discovered recently?
I mean, if Mars and Jupiter can influence the course of my life,
What influence does the asteroid belt that is in between them have on me?

Zaheera sheikh and her siblings have been changing their stances as witnesses in the Godhra riots more often than they change their clothes.
First it was she, then her elder brother, her elder sister and another brother.
Have they been bribed? Well that is what this NDTV news article claims.
If not money, atleast mirinda has exchanged hands. Arre bhaiyya, Mirinda ka
Taste aisa chaye character fislaa jaaye.

Hmmm, think the family can replace the Blue Man Group as brand ambassador's of the drink. ;-)

Get rid of the monstrosity named Internet Explorer.
Use Mozilla Firefox.


You need to use it to know how good it is and what it supports.

Around a week back, a group of students of Reykjavic Univ released a patch to enable the Linux kernel to suppiort C++. what does this mean to kernel hackers?Well firstly, most hackers dont code C++. they code C :)and Object orientation is a paradigm free of programming languages. Yes, C may not have support for concepts like objects or inheritance etc directly, but the same can be achieved by the programmer himself. (Ref: Object oriented programming in ANSI C) It may now be able to code with "Objects" itself rather than just following the paradigm in C.Even in C++, there are only a handful of things that need runtime support, RTTI, dynamic casting, exception handling etc. The rest of the stuff dont.

Still, it will be defenitely interesting to see how this patch gets used (Getting Linus' green signal is the first hurdle). Linux is a monolithic architecture. Can this development mean that soon we have Microkernel linux and exokernel linux-es?

Slashdot discussion thread

I fail to understand how some people can quit job in a company that is at the cutting edge of aviation and join a company that had its origins in exchanging love letters. ugh!

Anyway, congrats and all the best.

The Congress Govt removed the Governor of Tamil Nadu because he did not host an independence day tea party.

ROTFL

Why is the congress trying to prove its ineptitude over and over again? It made a mockery of the political-administrative framework (democracy) we live in, in Karnataka and more recently Maharashtra. So much of bickering as to who will do what in a yet to be formed government.

Anyway, we need to hand it to our politicians, than when it comes to politicking, they are top dogs!

The Bakra Story

I wanted to give some serious buildup to the link that follows. Couldnt come up with anything.
Peoples, Kindly read:
Ambar's Bakra Story

The Great Tam Bram galata

Tam bram marriages are amusing, very amusing. The various rites and rituals that are followed under the watchful eye of the vaadiyar are really funny.

Take for instance, seeing Arundathi star at say 10 am in the morning. The vaadiyar points in a certain direction and everyone looks up and nods in affirmation. There are other very notable events in a marriage; singing sita kalyaana vaibhogame the moment “paatu” is uttered, the sudden shouts “gatti melam gatti melam”, visiting the nearby “kovil” in a car, though it is right next to the marriage hall; the umbrella, the fan, the walking stick and other paraphernalia given to the (poor?) groom, the list goes on.....
Above all this, the poor groom has to endure liters and liters of smoke.

And this is just on the day of the muhurtam. Hindu marriages span a full 2-3 days. Phew!

And then there is that thing called the “Reception”. God knows who is being received. All one is interested in (at least I ) is who the caterers are and what the menu is ;)

It is interesting to note what people are doing while the marriage is going on. If one observes, there are a specific set of activities that each age group is involved in. The less than 14-15 yr olds are playing, running around all over the place in the marriage hall. The 15-20 yr olds are getting seriously bored badly, coz they are too old to run around and too young to go out alone (even in a group). The 20+ yr olds are either accompanying the 30 yr olds who are running errands or looking at 20+ yr olds of the opposite sex. 30 yr olds are either running errands or not to be seen at all; they have gone out to improve business in the nearest “potti kadai”.
The 40 and 50 yr olds are literally running the show, managing everything, the 60 yr olds supervising.
Any age group above that is sitting, trying to identify people, relatives or strangers irrespective and attempting to dig out long forgotten relationships with them. Most of the time they are successful.

Well, there is one tam bram marriage coming up shortly, lets see if things are any different.
Btw, my best wishes to the bride and the groom.

"Anthro" Agassi

Playing a sport for the first time is an experience. I dont think it would be much different than the first steps I took as a kid or the first words I spoke. Well, obviously one doesn't remember those. And I dont know whether one would like to remember the day one plays a game for the first time. Its kind of a mixed bag you see.
I have mostly, played cricket with some basket ball and volleyball and badminton interspersed in between (for want of a cricket bat or ball or both actually) for most of my life.
Playing tennis and playing cricket are just as different as... well...playing tennis and playing cricket.
In cricket one is advised to play the ball from close to the body. And instinctively, I did exactly that, get close to the ball to play it. And due to that, I matched my more experienced colleague stroke for stroke. There was hardly anything different between my style of play and his. Just that what he hit fell in the court and what I hit went over the enclosure.
Anyway these are just early days. And given my abilities and talents; well.... get ready peoples, a new star is rising on the tennis sky.
Look out for the next senior citizens tennis champion!!!

Hmmmm........

If the text in the image is not readable -
This is a model created by ccientists from the RAND to illustrate how a home computer will look like in 2004. And this model was made 50 yrs ago.

Begs a simple question to be asked: Have we come along in a "big" way or in a "small" way?

From men to BOY

I happened to notice recently, a few posts on blogger (not necessarily recent), with Calvin as the subject.
Ishwar
Ambar-The Jovian
Epiphany
Sanjeeth
And the usual Google site search

I found Calvin fan following among my team mates at office; Calvin images on websites discussing esoteric concepts like AVL Trees and Chaos Theory (where I didn't expected to find it).
Makes me wonder, what is it in the strip that makes it so popular.
Is it the antics of calvin? his alter egos? his knowledge of things ?(the way he explains gravity before telling mom tht the lemonade jar broke) The one upmanship between Calvin and Dad ?(his Dad popularity polls)

I feel the actual reason is that each person sees himself as calvin when he reads a strip. He sees Calvin doing things that he didnt/couldnt do as a kid. Come to think of it, maybe Bill Waterson put in the comic strip exactly what he wanted to be and do as a kid himself.

The last strip was in 95 but there is an agelessness it. And (luckily for us) as calvin feared, he will remain a 6 year old all his life ;)

P.S.
For calvin fans, here is a gr8 calvin collection ; and here is an RSS Feed.
This image that I have as my wall paper never fails to bring a smile on the face of anyone who sees it.

Musings over the weekend.

* I got a strange sense of sadistic pleasure when my MD blasted the HR. I have no idea why he got it. I felt happy!!!
* Developers need to be treated better by their employers.
* Developers cannot work under unreasonable deadlines, specially when a team is involved. Managements need to understand that what comes up as a result is a working but hotch-potch software. And it will take double effort in the clean up later.
* There is NO ego bigger than that of a software developer. How else would you understand the rationale behind using an 1-MB software component on a 32-MB embedded system.
* The worst time to drive in Bangalore is on Saturday night, when it is raining, especially given Bangalore's reputation as Pub City of India.
* What does the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike ( the Bangalore city corporation) do if a building violates sanctioned building plans? It breaks the building's windows!
* I was watching the Italian F1 GP. A outrageous thought : What if Bangalore were to host an F1 race, on city streets, Monte Carlo style. I can't stop laughing at my own thoughts.

Can this be true?

For obvious reasons, let me not question the credibility or the validity of the test* nor that of the result. Let me bask in the glory, however shortlived, of the result that I obtained. Let me savour the moment!!

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Related Tests : Which OS are you?
*The site itself claims that the "What Famous Leader Are You" test is NOT a serious one.

Recipriversexclusion?

Look around you and I bet you will see someone sporting a mobile phone in their hand. Smart, small, sleek sexy phones with myriad ringtones, games, screensavers and what not.

But what is noteworthy is the fact that advertisements of mobile phones hardly speak about the phones abilities as a medium of communication. Ads talk about high resolution camera, motion camera capabilites, WAP/Bluetooth enabled phones, radio, MP3 player, media streaming capabilities etc etc etc. So simply put, the phone is described as being anything but a phone. This I think is a perfect example of recipriversexclusion.

The most bizarre of mathematical concepts, a recipriversexclusion, a number whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself.

Update: The mobile phone can now be used as a railway ticket booking device also. The Indian Railways has announced a scheme where one can book tickets via SMS.

Happy Belated Birthday Linux

Yesterday was Linux's birthday. By Linux I mean the core kernel alone. It was on Aug 25, 1991 that Linus put the first message about Linux.

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID: 1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Hello everybody out there using minix -I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big andprofessional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback onthings people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)among other things).I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work.This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, andI'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestionsare welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably neverwill support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.



Linux is now 13 years young ;)
See also : Understatement of the century

The Don either means a new brand of underwear or a purgative. -- Anonymous.

Work is worship!!

I am here at work. Disillusioned with the industry in just a couple months; seeing nothing of what I was expecting from it when I first joined. :( Dunno what i will do for the rest of my life.

Now I think, how it would have been had I not chosen this industry and was in a different one.

Would I be in the same state of mind? What wouldI be thinking at this point of time, if I had pursued a childhood dream? A dream at an age when computers were unheard of and the most dashing profession around was that of a bus driver. The driver was the "hero", driving a fast and huge vehicle vrooom vrooom, twisting and turning and applying screeching brakes.

Hmmmm.

More important, if I had suggested my choice of profession to my parents, what would their reaction be? In many western countries, children are out of home in their late teens. they take up jobs and save money for higher education. Here, on the other hand, the structure is quite the opposite. We tend to depend on our parents till atleast our graduation. Sometimes even for higher education.

Our parents would have the shock of their lives if we were to tell that we wanted to work our way for our higher education. Imagine, how would "society" react if a professor's son/daughter were to take up the work of a carpenter or painter. Shock? Surprise?

Let us assume the professor has been exposed to the western way of life. Inspite of it, his/her reaction would be just the same as a person who is not.

Why?

We live in a tight social structure and people dont seem to accept change easily. One one side there is all this talk of western culture invading india and that the social structure is eroded etc etc, we dont seem to see some of the positives. One thing to admire is the dignity of labour. No one who comes from "respectable families" in our country would work as a waiter or newspaper or milk delivery person . Atleast none that I know of.

It takes an open mind to accept the idea and allow something that is "against" the usual way of life here. How many of us (the current generation of "smart alecs" and "know it alls" would encourage this?

PS: I asked a few of my friends "If u were a big shot in the society and ur son got the job of a carpenter / waiter for the sake of earning for higher education, what wud ur reaction be?"

I got a few "no problem" (and a few "no way!") responses from friends I asked; that they would encourage their children to earn for their education. But then, times change and so do people.