anger, power..

so this is the age of the internet, connectivity, between people, quickly, right now. whats the use of it? to know that some friend of mine went on vacation? i wait for a time when we will use this, like the arab nations, to actually put it to use. to rise up. in indignation, in anger. not revolution. but just plain righteous anger. not leftists. not rightists. just for justice. and the end of evil. or the death of the evil ones.

hate hate HATE Apple

So I finally thought lets check what all the hulla is about and lets try making an iPhone/iPad app. But no, I can't. I have to have a Mac for that. And then, on top of that, for access to all support, I have to pay Apple 99$ a year! Man, this is perversion of the highest order. How would any developer react if they were charged for developing in C? But this is exactly that! Arghhh. I can't believe Apple actually has developers, that too very very good ones, working for them! Doesn't it prick - no, tear asunder - their conscience to be working for a monster like Apple. Apple seems to have gone way way beyond Microsoft in fleecing customers for every small new feature and keeping a tight hold on every little idea that comes from them. Doesn't this go against the very grain of sfoware engineering the very idea of which is to build on the work of others and share?

And need I mention their ugly policy of tying the hardware with the software. AARGHHH

But then what good will this do. Even my techie friends have stooped to buying iPhones and Macs.

democracy in India ...

means being tolerant.. of injustice, corruption and murder...
means having a PM who lies about being a resident of Assam to get his RS seat and who betrays his own community by saying the Congress didn't have a hand in the 1984 Sikh riots..
means you are in a country where contempt of the government makes you seditious and can lead to life imprisonment...
means calling the biggest criminal force in the world the police...
means having criminals as politicians...
means being so busy with your own life and your own rat race that you become impervious to the rampant injustice around you ...
means having two political parties to choose from both of which have committed genocide..
means being proud of "India shining" when young Kashmiri students are killed by our beloved security foces...
means being proud of "India shining" when a goverment sponsored mafia drives out hundreds of thousands of tribals from their homes in Bastar...
means being frustrated.. frustrated.. frustrated

democracy in India ...

means tolerant.. of injustice, corruption and murder...
means having a PM who lies about being a resident of Assam to get his RS seat and who betrays his own community by saying the Congress didn't have a hand in the 1984 Sikh riots..
means you are in a country where contempt of the government makes you seditious and can lead to life imprisonment...
means calling the biggest criminal force in the world the police...
means having criminals as politicians...
means being so busy with your own life and your own rat race that you become impervious to the rampant injustice around you ...
means having two political parties to choose from both of which have committed genocide..
means being proud of "India shining" when young Kashmiri students are killed by our beloved security foces...
means being proud of "India shining" when a goverment sponsored mafia drives out hundreds of thousands of tribals from their homes in Bastar...

Fooling (almost) all the people all the time

Discussion on Egypt today in office. A colleague mentioned his surprise at the reaction of the US. I said I wasn't - US's reactions are very much in keeping with their interests and past actions. Which is OK - every country preserves its own interests. My colleague was indignant at the US - saying the US keeps professing democracy etc. Again, I told him, thats expected. No country is going to admit they only care about themselves - though that is precisely what (almost) every country in the world does.

They call me a cynic. Surprises me that I have to be "cynical" to see the obvious truth.

Mad@yahoo

Just logged onto my Yahoo account after ages ( months ). They'd deactivated my account so I had to go through some pain of reactivating it. I say OK - chalta hai. Then they tell me they have deleled all my emails. That is bloody not OK. Bastards.

So I guess if Yahoo can do it, Google can do it too. Why should I trust the bunch of them? I definitely should download all my email on my own filesystem. Ok. Looks like some Thunderbird/Evolution research time.

Lalit Bhanot's head

From http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100922/jsp/sports/story_12966666.jsp:
Asked why the rooms of the Village were not cleaned for the visiting athletes, the high profile OC official came up with an outlandish statement.

“These rooms are clean to both you and us. However, it may not appear so to some others. They want certain standards in hygiene and cleanliness which may differ from our perception,” commented the high profile sports administrator, who is also the secretary of the Athletics Association of India (AAI)."

Pictures of the rooms referred to above are at http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/commonwealth_games/delhi_2010/9025907.stm

I want Bhanot's head. We, citizens of India, deserve his head. Nothing less.

Right vs effective... contd

But then again, what is man? A function of his genes, upbringing, desires and circumstances? principles? pride? self-respect?

Right or effective?

Someone recently said we should concentrate on being effective, rather than being right. She pointed out that growing up, we are taught to be right - at home, in school, at university; but at work its more important to be effective.

Its a question which has been troubling me since then. She is right - to the extent that her philosophy seems to describe what most people seem to do - concentrate on being effective rather than being right. But really, what is being effective? Is it an euphemism for compromise? People compromise. They grow up and they compromise. They give up on their principles - maybe they never had any in the first place. These are all good people - they wont want to hurt anyone, they want to be right but they end up effective - which is a good thing. Or is it?

Why do we become effective? What makes us compromise? Maybe because we start having and wanting things; and we become afraid of losing or not having them and therefore we think "I want to be effective". As Buddha said, desire is the source of all suffering. Or maybe, all compromise.

If you have nothing to lose, you would never compromise; the more you have, the more you want, the weaker you are.

Gandhi is a case in point. He never compromised. India might have been free in 1922, but after Chauri Chaura, he called off the non-cooperation movement. He wanted non-violence and he would have it; even if it meant India wasn't to get freedom for 27 more years. Again, in 1947, he didn't want prime ministership; he never really seemed to want anything than to live by his principles and he never budged on them.

I dont know. Everybody is so afraid, so diplomatic, so "correct". Where are the people who care about being right and are not afraid of saying it? Humanity has grown stronger; unfortunately humans seem to have become weaker.

Strength, in the end, is everything.

Once

I could once smell the sky
I could once dream
I could once live
and I could once breathe

Argh@Neil Nitin Mukesh

Neil Nitin Mukesh. An Actor. Is he? I'm watching Jail and every scene with this guy makes me want to cry. Have they no standards at all for acting? Isn't it supposed to be a profession? If so, how does someone who so obviously has no clue about acting get to act in (and thus completely fuck up) so many films?
Right now I have this outpouring of frustration but I don't think it can be translated into words. It would be more appropriately translated into something much more physically violent (maybe like hitting the director on the head for inflicting such acting on us?)

P.S. Oh well. I shouldn't be that harsh. If John Abraham can make a living out of acting, so will Neil Nitin.