Fight FOSS Ignorance

One of the major factors which help proprietary software vendors keep a grip on the market is ignorance on the part of the consumers. Newspapers, one of the key sources of information to the common man, to aren’t playing their part and in their state of ignorance, helping such organizations.

Recently, on twitter, i pointed out the proprietary bias shown by Times of India vs Open Mindedness shown by The Hindu “#timesofindia vs #thehindu Clear proprietary bias shown by #timesofindia http://3.ly/bvh
and http://3.ly/MQk #opensource #linux “.

I also came across many internet related news articles in the local paper Amar Ujala which uses the logo of Internet Explorer in all their web-related articles. It gives a wrong notion to the ignorant masses that the Internet and Internet Explorer are synonymous. So i pointed out this to the Editor, Amar Ujala through a letter, a copy of which I am pasting below. My motive is to inspire every reader to fight FOSS ignorance in whatever best way s/he can and spread the spirit of Open Source.

All the best to all.

The Letter
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Hello sir,

I am a regular reader of your newspaper an am highly appreciative of
the content matter and the quality of unbiased journalism of the
daily.

I would like to point your kind attention to a regular feature of the
web related articles published in Amar Ujala. Most of such articles
contain the logo of Microsoft’s proprietary web browser – Internet
Explorer.

Apart from being a free publicity for the browser and the company, it
gives a wrong notion to the lakhs of readers of the newspaper that the
Internet and Internet Explorer are synonymous. The role of a newspaper
is to create a better, an aware society. Using Microsoft Internet
Explorer’s logo in your articles gives the ignorant readers a notion
that Internet Explorer is what the Internet is all about, which is
totally wrong. A newspaper of your reputation should instead promote
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) which gives the users the freedom
to use them, without being under the restrictions of copyright laws.
Mozilla Firefox is one of the most popular Open Source browsers
available. Another Open Source browser, Google Chrome is doing well in
the browser market. Opera and Apple’s Safari, though not Open Source,
are still options available to the users.

My only concern is that the newspaper should not mislead the readers.

Hence I request you to kindly look into the matter and do something in
this regard as early as possible. I would like to get an
acknowledgment of this letter to you.

I would be highly obliged.

Thanking you

Yours sincerely,

–
Tanay Mathpal
Final Yr, Computer Engineering
College of Technology
Pantnagar

Fire

Fire

Many regard it as the earliest and one of the greatest invention of man along with the wheel. The invention of fire was the turning point in the history of human civilization. All of us use fire, in one or the other form in our lives, every single day. This usage is not restricted to merely the chemical phenomena, but has numerous other disambiguations. Let’s explore it in detail.

Chemically, fire is the rapid oxidation of a combustible substance to produce heat, light and other reaction products. A combustible substance, oxygen, a chain reaction and the required kindling temperature is what is required for a fire to start. These are collectively referred to as the fire tetrahedron. Extinguishing a fire requires the removal of any one of the above four requisites.

The Gujarat riots

The real life is not as simple as the chemical phenomena described above. In this world, a lot more other than the above four constituents of the tetrahedron are required to start a fire and even more is necessary to extinguish one. The communal fire that started in Kashmir and Punjab during the 1947 partition was fuelled by dirty political ambitions and the greed for power of some of the political brains back then. Since then, the fire has spread to other parts of this country and all attempts made to extinguish it have proved to be futile. The Godhra Train burning incident and the following riots in Gujarat were an extension of the same fire. Such violence and riots are symbolised by scenes of fire in every corner of the street as well as by sounds of gun fire. Gun fire is a synonym for death. It is an indication of war; of scenes of profusely bleeding men and women running helter-skelter for their lives and sometimes, in the process, achieving immortality, like the hundreds of martyrs of the infamous Jalliawalah Bagh massacre of 1919.

The Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate

But gun fire is not always so horrifying and deadly. A few months back, a few accurate fires from the gun of Abhinav Bindra won India her first ever individual gold medal in the Olympics while those from the gun of Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore had already given India a silver about four years ago. The flame of the fire of the Olympic torch bore a testimony to the achievements of these great sons of the soil. Lighting fire like the Amar Jawan Jyoti at Delhi is a means to pay homage to our valiant soldiers who dedicate their lives to the nation fighting enemy gun fire to guard our country’s borders.

Fire created controversy in many parts of India

No Hindu marriage is complete without fire

Fire is an integral part of many of the ancient cultures, notably the Greek, Roman, Chinese and our Indian culture. It is one of the five basic elements that make up the human life and it is the fire within a person that determines his/her passion for anything and everything that s/he does in life. Fire is also linked to the sexual energy possessed by a person. The Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das starring lesbian themed 1996 movie was hence aptly named Fire by Deepa Mehta. This is also one of the possible explanations of the usage of the adjective hot for the sexually attractive ones. For Hindus, no religious custom is complete without fire. All sacrifices are made to Agni or fire as it is considered as the messenger of other gods.

Fire - the IM Client for Mac OS X

In commercial organisations, fire is used in a totally different context. No employee would ever like to face the disgrace of getting fired by his/her employer. There have been exceptional examples like the current CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs who, after getting fired from Apple, used this energy from that fire to reignite his passion for his work and get back his position and status. I wonder if Fire – the first Instant Messaging client for Mac OS X that could access IRC, Jabber, AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger and Bonjour – had any such similar history behind its name!

I was a bit busy with my college activities for the past few days so couldn’t blog anything but now that i’m free, i’m back to business as usual and hope that every reader likes my writings and very soon this blog spreads like wildfire on the web.

The Final Destination

I have no intentions to write about the famous Hollywood movie out here. I have made this point clear in the very beginning so that if you are a movie fan and have stumbled on to this piece of writing searching for some film reviews, you may navigate away from this page lest you curse me at the end of the write-up!

Ok, so the final destination which i want to discuss here is not only the final destination but also the common destination for all of us – DEATH. It is the ultimate truth, a mystery which no man or woman has ever escaped, yet it is a mystery. I call it a mystery because of one simple reason. No one of us knows what happens after death. This uncertainty about death is what makes everyone of us so scared of it. No one wants to die, even those who want to go to the heaven, do not want to die for it! But the point is, can we ever get to know what happens after death? There have been many cases of Near Death Experiences (http://www.near-death.com, http://www.nderf.org) recorded in the past but none of them gives a clear picture to us what actually happens to a person after death. There is one thing of which we all are sure, the body of the person is immaterial and it stays back on earth. But is there something called the soul which goes back to somewhere called the heaven (or hell) and is reborn in a new body? Or, as per Hindu mythology, it takes birth in an altogether new yoni, that is, in an entirely new species?

Whatever be the truth about death, about which research is going on at various parts of the world (see the links above), we all know that this final destination is also the most unpredictable one. This unpredictability about death is ironically the best part of it. It gives us reason to always strive for higher goals in life. A famous saying, Live every day as if it was your last, is nothing else but the optimism and positive approach towards death. So celebrate life every day before you reach the final destination – the eternal truth.

Suggested links: Video and text of Steve Job’s Commencement Address at Stanford in 2005 in the third part of which he discusses about death..

We owe our life

The two shows which i watched on National Geographic in the past two days left me awestruck. They showed me a strange irony of nature. The irony of the true identity of an animal which was later solved after pondering over it for sometime.

Yesterday, the program was on one of the deadliest predators of the wild – crocodile. It showed how fiercely the crocodile can attack and kill large animals like a full sized zebra, and even a buffalo. It showed the massive strength that a crocodile possesses. It’s unique body engineering can allow it to exert a stupendous force of more than 2,000 lbs through its jaws without causing any damage to its skull. The strength is well attributed by its intelligence and the ability to hunt its preys even in the most extreme conditions. All these factors along with many more such special qualities have enabled the species of crocodile to survive through 10 crores years of evolution while many of the other animals could not and got extinct. Crocodiles are, thus, well established among the top predators of the animal kingdom.

But today i saw another program which revealed a totally different side of that master carnivore. It was based on the story of a crocodile family. It beautifully showed that how after mating, the father played the role of guarding the nest against possible dangers while the mother ensured that every egg is hatched and each young one learns the nitty-gritties necessary for survival.

Once the eggs hatched, the mother crocodile held each li’l croc one by one in her mouth and, to my surprise, brought the deadly jaws together! I considered it as yet another display of the animal instincts of the crocodile, that for satisfying its hunger, it didn’t even spare its own young ones which she had protected since many months in those delicate eggs. But, it was not the case. The mother had carefully kept at least 10-15 children in her mouth to take them to their new home, in the river nearby! It is beyond the scope of the limits of the art of explanation that how the 15 of the most delicate and tender li’l crocs were in the safest abode on earth inside those deadly jaws which were synonymous to death and carnage just a day ago on the same television screen?! She then carefully took them to the river and taught the young ones swimming by flooding her mouth with water. It was one of the most mesmerizing scenes that i had ever seen on television. It made me wonder, what a crocodile really is, the deadly beast which can tear down any living species on earth to pieces with its powerful jaws or the caring mother which can, most carefully, hold 15 of her children between those very jaws!

On thinking over it, i realised that the irony was not a mystery. The truth for me was personified in the kitchen room, preparing lunch for the family. The truth was – the love of a mother. The motherly love of a crocodile can defy the strength of the jaws of the killer beast. The realisation was yet another proof that a mother, through her love, can challenge every odds in the lives of her offspring. This fact does not need any explanation or detailed analysis by me or any expert of any field. All of us have experienced it in our lives! After all, we owe our lives to our mother.

Merry Christmas

On this very auspicious occasion, i wish Merry Christmas to all the readers. 25^th of December is wordwide celebrated as Christmas – the birthday of Jesus, the son of God. Billions of people around the world eagerly wait for this day and as i write, are celebrating the holy day – the birth of Jesus Christ. But before i proceed with my blog, let me throw some light on the life and name of the divine person referenced above – Jesus Christ.

As the legend in the New Testament goes, Jesus was a shepherd who was born of a virgin, the Virgin Mary, in Bethlehem on 25^th of December. He had 12 disciples with whom he went about to different places delivering sermons, leading people to right paths in their lives and performing miracles. He was later crucified to death. After three days he resurrected and went to heaven.

So where does ‘Christ’ fit in here? Christ, meaning the anointed one (origin: Greek Khristos), is actually just a title which was given to Jesus as a mark of respect for his miraculous deeds. In the time period around 1 AD, the assumed life period of Jesus, there are historical records of about 20-25 contemporary historians like Aulus Perseus (60 AD), Livy (59 BC – 17 AD), Pliny the Elder (23 AD – 69 AD), Plutarch (46 AD – 119 AD), Valerius Flaccus (1^st Century AD), among others. In their writings, we all expect to get a detailed historical account of Jesus’ life and works. But quite shockingly, not even a single one of them mentions any historical figure like Jesus living around at that time!

There are more than thousands of evidences which prove that not only the life of Jesus but the entire Christian religion originated and is totally based on political ambitions of some of the power hungry people in Europe who gave this world the establishments like the Church and a forged historical account like the Bible which do every bit to ensure people trap themselves in the shackles of religious slavery. According to Thomas Paine (1737-1809), “The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration actually paid to the sun.”

I am not being religiously prejudiced. In fact, every religion of the world and the associated customs, whether in Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, you name it; are nothing more than a means of ensuring political domination by a certain sect of people who know that what they ‘preach’ is nothing more than a farce. A famous saying goes thus, “Religion can never reform mankind, because religion is slavery.” I do not condemn any saying or preaching of Christianity or any other religion. I am just trying to be rational as i support the idea of getting moral liberation through religious beliefs and practices, and not get forced or indulge in religious slavery. I reiterate, i believe that all religious sayings and customs are correct and true, only when they do not force people into religious slavery.

I also do not condemn celebrating December the 25^th as Christmas Day. Christmas is the day to celebrate the life of Christ – the anointed one, not necessarily the life of a mythical figure called Jesus! We need to celebrate Christmas as the life of the person who made a true impact on the lives of each and every one of us, born on this very date – Sir Isaac Newton.

Sir Isaac Newton, or Newton as we love to call him, was born in the year 1642^* on December the 25^th. One need not be a rocket scientist to know the impact of Newton’s life on this world. No one was particularly surprised when the History Channel named Newton as the second most influential person of the past millenium after Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press. The works of Newton in the varied fields of Mechanics, Mathematics, Optics and even Alchemy helped in solving many of the mysteries of life. The ongoing works in the fields of astronomy and space exploration are a gift of Newton’s genius to this world. There is no doubt in my mind that Newton was the real ‘anointed one’, the real Christ, not Jesus.

So let’s celebrate Christmas. Let’s celebrate the life of Christ – the anointed one………….. the anointed one that is Newton!

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Note: I sincerely apologise for hurting the religious feelings of the reader but on pondering for long on the topic, i realised that this is what the truth is. Merry Christmas!

All feelings expressed are my own. Quotations and historical evidences referenced from the Part I: The Greatest Story Ever Told of the documentary movie Zeitgeist (http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1166827/, wikipedia).

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^*According to the Julian calender, put in place by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, Newton was born on December 25, 1642. But according to the Gregorian Calender, the one in use today, his birth date is roughly around January 4, 1643.

The Simple Word – ‘Friend’

As promised, here’s my blog on ‘friend’. The intent of writing this blog came while writing the previous blog on Masking. This is one topic on which i ponder the most and have spoken on and written about in the past too and i am sure writing on it will surely be great fun for me. So where shall i began… well i’ll begin from a very old and famous saying on friend – “A friend in need is a friend indeed”. There is no doubt on the validity and relevance of this saying but i have certain reservations and many points to add on to this definition.

There may be numerous instances in life when we are in dire need of something or some help. If there is a person in our life, whom we consider our friend, and because of one reason or the other s/he is unable to help us in that moment of ‘need’, does that eliminate him/her from being called our friend? In my life, it doesn’t.

Few years back, i got to see a poster bearing a very small and simple definition of friend – “A friend is a person with whom you dare to be yourself”. This definition was one of the many definitions of friend which had i read and heard but after a lot of thought process, i realised that this one was definitely special and had a deep impact on my mind. This definition links directly to the phenomenon of masking. I may even say, “A friend is a person with whom you need not wear any masks.” It is also often said that a friend is the only relation which one gets to choose by himself/herself. This saying too complements the definition on the poster as only we can decide that with whom we need a mask and with whom we don’t. This is nothing else but the comfort level that we feel while we are with that person.

A friend need not be someone with whom we study in our class, work with in office, play with in our neighbourhood, et cetera. Even one’s father, mother, boss, junior, employee, or anyone else can be one’s friend. A friend in life is definitely the most prized possession and being someone’s friend is nothing short of an achievement. With only a friend can we share our life – our moments of happiness, of sorrow, our confessions, our affairs, our anger, our laughter, our tears, and what not…. everything… and when i say everything, i MEAN everything. We can act to be ourself with many people but the key word in the definition is dare. While acting, we are always cautious and take every care not to commit any mistake in revealing our inner self but while with a friend, we need not be cautious and can dare be what we truly are! Just think about it and you’ll get to know your friends.

We have made living something as simple as life very complex and this is the reason that a simple word, a simple relation like friend is becoming so difficult to understand and comprehend. Hence, some literary great had to give this famous saying. “If you find one friend in life, you have found a gem. If you find two, you have found a treasure. If you find three………… sorry, you can’t find three!” In this highly manipulating and masked world, this saying holds relevance more than ever. I reiterate, its very simple – “A friend is a person with whom you dare to be yourself”. If you agree, try to apply it in your life like i do. I’m sure it’ll help.

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Dedicated to: My friend.

Masking

We all love watching wonderful graphic designs spread all around us – on the web, on different posters and advertising banners, on greeting cards, and where not? We owe it to the great designers who toil hard to make our digital world beautiful. One of the key tools that these designers use is masking. Masking is essentially just another way of making a selection.^[1] The fields of masking and vector masking have varied applications that help the designers in bringing out the very best in their creativity.

But the term masking is not limited just to the designing world. Masking has got applications in the lives of each one of us. Living through the course of life, we all learn the ways to very cleverly mask the traits of our personality in different ways depending upon the place and situation we are in, lest we commit a faux pas. Two major masks which everyone of us carry with us are the ones which govern our behaviour as a part of a mob and as an individual. Apart from these two, each one of us carry different set of masks just like different designers use different masking techniques to make their creations look the way they want them to. We mask our traits which we carry with our friends^[2] at out home and vice versa. Carrying a single mask while with friends doesn’t always help either. Depending on the people we are with, we need varied masks. The most stringent and necessary masks are needed with some special people, on some special occasions. I can’t imagine myself without any masks in front of my boss or even my girlfriend (if i ever get any!) on my first date. As i talk of boss, the irony is that even more characterized masks are needed while in front of one’s juniors! The types and uses of such social masks are endless.

Being a socially successful person is nothing else but a measure of one’s capabilities in masking. The master of masking is always the one with the biggest social circle. As a school child, i read many moral stories and poems concerning social masking and almost all of them condemned the practice. They asked and taught the readers to ‘be what they are’ with everyone as it is always beneficial in the long run. But today i ask all those authors a question, among all the people we meet daily, with how many do we have a long term association that we need to care about the ‘benefits in the long run’? Ours is a fast changing world and most of the association have with people are essentially short term and this is where masking comes in handy and allows us to present a better social behaviour. I may sound a bit radical but what i am writing is what practicality is.

There’s only one class of people with whom we can think of living without caring about masking. That class is of our friends. This ‘friends’ out here is totally different from the one mentioned in the second paragraph. More on ‘friends’ in my next blog. Till then, happy masking to one and all!

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^[1] Definition of masking referenced from ‘Photoshop CS2 – All in One Desk Reference for Dummies’ by Barbara Obermeier.

^[2] More on the term ‘friends’ in my next blog.