Thursday, July 28, 2005

Amazing apathy

The road users of Bangalore show an amazing contempt for the traffic rules of the city. It is well known that pedestrians care a damn about following traffic rules while crossing roads (or for that matter walking on the footpath), it is horrible to see motorists blatantly violate traffic rules.

And the *most* blatant forms of these violations happen early in the morning. Till a cop reaches the spot and _forces_ people to follow the signals, the signals are an electronic display which people look at, admire and move on. And if you happen to be one of those who dares to stick to the rules, you are scorned upon, abuses are heaped on you, not to mention that ridiculing look from almost all other drivers.

Any signal would qualify here but if you want to have special fun, visit the Family Mart junction on Kanakapura Road or the Deve Gowda petrol bunk near Padmanabhanagar before 8am.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Trying out the blog-by-email thing.

This may turn out to be more convenient for me.
-----

I recently got to witness first hand the tricks that the police play
to extract money from the public. Dad, Mom and Puttu had applied for
new passports and it had come to the police station for verification.
The inspector (or whoever it was) had kept away Dad's application
inside the cup-board and kept saying he will finish it later. Though
he prepared documentation for all three, we could see only 2
applications. Apparently, he needed to dig out the third application
and that was "extra work" for him. Hence they need some "fees".

I must also add that the atmosphere inside the station is just too
suffocating! Hardly a place where you would feel like you'll get
justice.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

My attempt at "micro" mode photography



Shot this at my home at Nellitheertha.

Friday, July 15, 2005

Linus' comments

There is a huge discussion going on making the timer interrupt frequency selectable from the default 1000Hz now. Yesterday, Linus got involved in the same. The result - some amazing comments on lkml :-) I am posting below some of his non-technical comments. Enjoy maadi!!

======================================================

- I have to say, this whole thread has been pretty damn worthless in general in my not-so-humble opinion.

- But if somebody is doing this because they think "jiffies" are evil, then that somebody is being a total idiot. Jiffies aren't evil.

- The stupid way is simpler, but anybody who doesn't see what the problem is has some serious problems in kernel programming.

- Jiffies are here to stay, and they are here to stay for some very very fundamental reasons. If you hear somebody arguing for removing jiffies, you should piss in their general direction, and realize that they don't know what they are talking about.

- And I claim that you _cannot_ do better.

- Dammit, I want a real user who says that he can noticeable see his DVD stuttering, not some theory. I'm incredibly fed up with the theoretical whining.

- Really. I dare you guys. First one to send me a tested patch gets a gold star.

- I'm -right-. I'm always right. This time I'm just even more right than usual.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Temple under renovation


They are rebuilding this ruined temple from scratch at Talakad. They are going to use the same material for the rebuilding process. The renovation is expected to take 4 more years.

Preserving/Promoting a language

I asked Ananth to join me in growing kannadagaade. He has readily agreed. I think its worth jotting down my thoughts on this whole issue of linguistic patriotism.

I attended Bhoomi Jaatre a few months ago and ended up giving my email ID to some campaign there. A few weeks later, I got added to one of those Kannada yahoo groups. It took me only 3 days to realize that this was one of those similar groups. Bashing other languages is their primary goal. Comparing how other languages are inferior when compared with ours (in terms of history, script, etc etc) was what was happening.

People even came up with amazingly stupid ideas about promoting Kannada. There was a call for people to buy only local "English" newspapers and boycott Times, IE, etc. Come on folks!! Grow up!! We can't grow kannada by condemning other languages. And are we inferior in any way to be suppressing other languages to promote our own? Are we scared ??

Lets do some serious constructive work to promote Kannada. The internet is a wonderful piece of technology. Lets make full use of it.

These thoughts are what led me to create Kannadagaade. Hopefully, we will be able to build a huge collection of Gaades with their interpretations and meaning. These golden sayings are the true heritage of the Kannada language.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Amazing Carving


Check out this photo. The bangles have been carved out of a single stone. I saw it sway when it was windy. Shot at Talakad near Bangalore.

Monday, July 11, 2005

One more trip to Nellitheertha

I had been to Nellitheertha during the weekend. Driving a qualis was a great experience, especially in the ghats. Some amazing work has happened at the nelli temple. The ceremonies over the two days were awesome. I shall soon put up my photos at my fotopic site.

I am too tired today to write more....

Friday, July 08, 2005

I am now a Rotaractor

I joined the Bangalore West Rotaract group yesterday. I was "inducted" into the team at a formal event yesterday. I was surprised at the formality of the whole ocassion but learnt that's how it has been for many decades now. Suresh Hebliker was the chief guest. He spoke very passionately about the water problems facing the world. I realized that there are simply too many problems in this world.

As a side benefit, I got to eat Idlis and Vadas from Veena stores at Malleshwaram. Awesome taste!!! Comes very close in competition to "Brahmin's tiffin room" at Chamarajpet.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Me created a website

At http://www.nellitheertha.com/

Although it was quite an effort to get the webpages ready, its brought me great satisfaction. Its been my wish since many years to bring out a website about my village temple. I believe a wonderful place like the Nellitheertha temple needs more visitors. The website is my way of popularising the place. More visitors to the place will automatically mean more revenues, more improvements making it a better place.

Starting today, an 8-day Brahmakalashotsava festival is happening at the temple. Would have loved to be there but can't get leave at my new office. Most of the folks from home will be there during the weekend.

There is news that a nearby place called Kompadavu will be taken away by the MRPL guys as part of their expansion plans. Its really sad that these folks don't bother a bit about the environment before taking such steps. Also the culture and history associated with the place means nothing to them. By sheer luck, Nellitheertha has avoided coming under their radar. I hope that never happens.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Everyone writes the same stuff about Grid

One thing I have realized after having started my massive reading exercise on Grid Computing - everyone writes the same stuff. Its still a vastly unexplored area.

Nearly 35 members of our family went on a picnic yesterday. Shivanasamudram - Talakad - Kollegal. The excitement on everyone's face when we reached Kollegal was seen to be believed. Most of them got nostalgic. "Bhatta's" friends arranged a party for us :-)

I think you will see a massive degrade in my blogs for the next few days.

I am nerdier than 92% of all people. Are you nerdier? Click here to find out!