The Curse of Heritage

So someone kissed Shilpa Shetty on her cheeks on stage the other day. And now arrest warrants have been issued against the two. Why? Oh, we have to preserve our "culture" and "heritage" you see. We have no food, drinking water or roads, but we MUST preserve our rich heritage. Study shows that 50% of Indian children go through sex-abuse but we MUST maintain the sovereignty of our diverse culture. Respected MPs are busy with illegal human trafficking -- who cares about these trifle matters? All we care about ever is to preserve our culture. Let nothing change. Stand still the time. Let the backward classes be permanently labeled as backward; go a step further, hand them free certificates of accomplishment. But we MUST preserve our culture. And we'll use force, dharnas, plundering, firing, mass-genocide or any other conceivable measures to safeguard our culture. If these fail, we're prepared to use missiles, nuclear warheads inclusive.

Suddenly, an actress, who no one really cares about, has become a symbol akin to Mother Mary whose virginity needs to be preserved. Suddenly she's a representative symbol of India's culture (recall the Big Brother tantrum!). If any of the culture and heritage drama is any worth, is it really so fragile that a actress's pomp could not only shake but challenge its very base? I mean, what's the whole tantrum about anyway? Are the people pissed off that a foreigner dared kiss Shilpa Shetty on stage while no Indian had the guts to do the like? Oh, I see. Can't say this in public. What a trick -- remodel the cause as an abuse to our heritage. Ahan.. I get the point now. And why was FTV banned? Oh, more foreigners. Yep, gotcha.

Such hypocrisy pertains not only to India but to the entire world. There are different levels its of operation, though and in India it operates at the very root. Any form of pleasure is taboo. How dare one ignore the oppressed and have moments of happiness! How dare one rest in peace while others have no food. So, what if someone has worked hard to earn his moment of peace? Sounds like communism, eh? Who do you think dictates the government anyway -- right or LEFT? Why do you think government employees are called "servants" -- they're just doing a "service", they have no personal ambition. Only the community holds supreme.

Reservation Issue: Love you SC

With the decision to reject OBC reservations in IIMs (at least) for the current season, the Supreme Court has pushed its hammer up MHRD's (read Arjun Singh's) all necessary body parts.
With Arjun Singh's logic-less limping efforts suffering a jolt, I have only one thing to say to him: Do humanity a favour. Please goo and die!

The judgment was ensued from pure logic. The panel asked just the right questions and gave just the right answers to the MHRD's lack of logic.


The judges had said that the creamy layer does not deserve any reservation.

SC asked the Central Government was that why should there be reservation in institutes of super speciality.

And finally, when the Centre said that this 27 per cent was additional seats which had been created so that no inconvinience shuld be caused to the General Category, then the SC said that these 27 per cent extra seats were created by the revenue generated by all the citizens of the country. Under Article 29, all the citizens have a right to this investment.

Rightly said SC. Love you.

The Royal Flush Evening

We (Kunal, SMR, Rawat, Parry, I) were playing poker yesterday evening and what a game it was. Especially for me, I mean.

The game closed with my Royal Flush and wiped up almost everything. Now, Royal Flush is not something you get in every hand. Or even every day, for that matter. In fact, it has a meagre probability of 1 in 649,739 *. That is, if you deal a hand every second (for argument sake), it'll take you 7 days straight before you could expect a Royal Flush. It has the highest value hand possible in poker.

It felt lucky.


PS:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_probability. Link courtesy Kunal.

Submit, Submit you Form

<form>
<input type=text />
<input type=submit />
</form>

It can't get simpler. Pretty much all you need to make an html form work on ALL browsers ALL the time, without being dependent on the phase of the moon or the price of tea in China or muhrat. Yet, of the limited number of ways to get this wrong, some website creators tend to know all of them.

Chances are they're are result of javascript abuse. If there's a need for driving licenses, there's an equal need for javascript-license. There are a couple of things in javascript you should not do just because you can. www.indianrail.gov.in is a handsome example of a painful website experience made traumatic with javascript abuse.

Anyway, the website I want to criticize today is that of Hutch (www.hutch.in). It has a login form. And it submits in exactly ONE browser. No points for guessing which one. And even on that lone browser, it won't work properly if ....(well, I don't really know what it depends on. my guess is it doesn't work unless your (age+weight+time_in_secs+7) % 22 == 0).
If you get through this ordeal (and I did), you have to be really good with all the pink colors which already make you feel unwanted, or else you'll get broken links, missing files, and what not.

Despite all this, Hutch AP is amongst the 5% of service providers who manage to cross TRAI's minimum service performance metrics. So, I ain't complaining.

Shitty bank

If you have an account with Citi-bank, you'll realize how much pain in the a$$ it really is.

The trouble started when I opened a Citibank account for my monthly salary credit. Little did I know then that it would become a frustrating experience within a matter of days. First off, a Citibank agent helped me open my account and thanks to the fantastic training she must have gone through, she managed to get my account name and date of birth, the two absolutely essential information, wrong in the records. It took me about 3 months of phone-calls and online complaints to fix the name. Talking of online, their UI is a nightmare. It has more flashing ads (for their own) than anything else. It's a treasure hunt to locate their contact phone number on their site (and no, the ATM card doesn't have this already. what a shame!). I set aside all work one fine day and put in all my time to locate their phone number, and I did. I called up only to find that the number was wrong. I think it took a few months before they fixed it. Talk of online availability.

They deducted Rs 500 for a card I did not ask for. Then when I asked them to disable it, they disabled my only ATM card instead. I could still login online, which is good because I could transfer all my money to some other bank and just forget about the whole trauma. But now, they seem to have disabled online access too. So, I can put IN money. But I cannot take any OUT. Talk of security -- could anything possibly be more secure?

I could have banked on the phone. But since they managed to record my wrong date of birth, they won't recognize me anymore (it's one of the things they ask you to confirm your identity).

More highlights:

• There are exactly 4 Citibank ATMs in Hyderabad. And no, I cannot withdraw free-of-charge from other ATMs.
• If you need to call up Citibank, it just notes down your request. They tell you that they'll call back within 48 hours (yes, yes, that's 2 days). But they don't. Instead, they call back after 3-4 days, if at all. Talk of 24x7!
  
• Make an online complaint and you'll get back a template response. While we are at it, I must mention that their online complain form takes in no characters other than a-z and 0-9. Characters like (, ', ", %, $, are taboo. Therefore, you cannot write: it's.
  

Moral of the story: if you ever want to open a Citibank account, think again. If they approach you instead, run for your life.

The only thing integral to the bank's image is its name. Rhymes well with "Shitty".

Back to Hyderabad

I returned back after a 3-month trip to Mountain View in Silicon Valley last Friday. I broke off for 2 days at Singapore. As I summarize the trip, the things that I remember most prominently are:

• People in the US are generally self-centered and focussed. This is a good thing.
• Rules have a reason. Following them makes sense.
• If someone hates US, he is either myopic and jealous or blind.
  
• Driving a white 2-door G6 Pontiac at 160 km/hr
• The place is insanely costly. If you don't earn in dollars, you cannot survive.
• Medial services are extremely costly. Hospitalization will cost you a fortune
• There's no one on the roads to show you directions if you get lost
• There are no small shops in the US.
  
• Don't argue with cops in USA
• Park only when you are damn sure it's not a "No Parking"
  
• Beauty and brains CAN go together. Really.
  
• US has pathetic TV/radio ads
• Afro-americans wear only 1 size of T-shirt - XXL+
• Americans are generally bold and loud.
• People don't work or sleep or weekends. Instead, they go skiing, camping, surfing, etc.
• Wine is just another drink
  
• A$$holes are everywhere
• There are approx 40% asians in the Silicon Valley (note: asians comprise about 40% of the world population)
• Many americans don't know much about anything other than their line of work.
• You're a veg? What's your source of protein?
• Red/Pink == gay
• There's only 1 fundamental right: Freedom
  

On Necrophilia

Necrophilia (nekros: dead + philia: love) -- love with the dead. Essentially, necrophilia implies sexual attraction towards the dead (corpses).

If you are left gaping with "What? Really!", that's exactly how I felt when I started researching this topic a few days ago. My findings were bizarre to begin with and took time to sink.

Necrophilia is a paraphilia characterized by sexual attraction to corpses; the broad definition envelops all amorous propensities towards things that are dead -- corpses and carcasses alike. Some necrophiles like fresh corpses, some like it decayed, while there are some who like to make love to carcasses. Things get gory when necrophiles get to hunting for their dead, by digging up corpses, stealing them, or even by killing. Thankfully, most necrophiles don't. There are numerous instances of misdemeanor with corpses in mortuaries and morticians are a common suspect.

Now get ready for another eye-opener. Necrophilia is not unusual. There are books, papers and poems on the topic. Evidences of necrophilic activities appear in several forms, although the intensities vary. Examples:

• The recent Nithari findings where dozens of skeletons were recovered. This is what sparked my curiosity in the first place.
• Heard of vampires, demons and ghosts in the context of Lord Shiva in Hindu mythology? Well, that's necrophilia.
• One Dr Carl Von Cosel, scientist, inventor organist and necrophile, found the woman of his dreams in Elena, a patient dying of tuborculosis. Heartbroken at the death of his beloved at 22, the doctor paid for a lavish funeral and she was buried. In a few years, he stole her body to his airship. For the next seven years, he held her body together with piano wire, put glass eyes where her real ones used to be, made a wig of her own hair and, piece by piece, strenthened her skin with wax and silk. He treated her with lotions and potions and electrotherapy. Amongst his resurrection tools was a million volt tesla coil. He serenaded her with his home-made organ and slept beside her.
• Ed Gein was so fond of having the dead around him in his house that he hunted over 15 women to add them to his collection. When discovered, they found numerous body parts: four noses, several bone fragments, nine death masks, a heart in a pan on the stove, a bowl made from a skull, ten female heads with the tops sawn off, human skin covering several chair seats, pieces of salted genitalia in a box, skulls on his bedposts, organs in the refrigerator, a pair of lips on a string, and much more.
• more, more, more, more, more, ...
  

Rob's site has a believable reasoning for the roots of necrophilia as a part of evolution. At a time when at average life expectancy was 20-30 years, there were more dead than living. It must have been hard to give up one's loved one after he/she died. Love lingered on.

Also intimidating is that most of these necrophiles don't believe they have done any wrong, that their acts are governed by their natural instincts much like the regular attraction of a live man and live woman.

As if life doesn't already exist in so varied forms, death too wants its share. I cannot figure out for sure whether I'm curious, frightened, enlightened or plain awe-struck.

Oh Lord! Pardon my Sin

I committed a huge sin. Even thought I was fully aware of it, I couldn't do anything to stop it. I was rendered powerless.

It all started when I went to Fry's to buy a laptop. I bought a Sony VAIO T2250 (1G RAM, Centrino Duo 1.73 GHz x 2, 120G HD, DVD RW, 15.4") for $874. Now the sin part -- the laptop came with Windows, a Vista variant, to be specific. I appealed to the Fry's personnel to give me a laptop which didn't come with Windows. There's none. I repeat, the whole of Fry's (a store with thousands of electronics items) didn't deal in a laptop which without Windows. In fact, there's no windows-less desktop either.

Helpless, I'm now waiting to take a dip in the Holy Ganges. It has purification effects, they say.

Damn you Wisdom Tooth

The story begins 5 years ago when two pairs of wisdom teeth set foot in this world. They were born in Jaw street, one pair in downtown, the other in upscale uptown. Being molars, they were destined to the dark parts, near the premolars. They had a playful childhood without much work to do in the inner bylanes; they didn't have much sunlight either. Off and on some crumbs would make way to them and they would have a nice time nimbling over. Such merriment was detestful to the gums residing in the neighbourhood.

"How dare stupid little molars have no work and all play!"
"How dare they be called wisdom-teeth, while we turbid gums!"

The gums conspired to outgrow their colonies. They began spreading their appendages to such extents where it'd almost block the growth of the poor molars. Very soon the molars had difficulty coping with the cramped up space. Lumps of gum would get in between the meeting of the uptown and the downtown wisdom teeth. It caused pain, yes.

The above is a story a dentist narrated to me after having charged me $150 making my toothache worse (he didn't have painkillers either). Well, he didn't craft it as a story, but yes, this is the gist. And yes, damn you wisdom tooth. Just kill the gums!

Mystery Spot

Imagine a hilly-region about 50 metres in diameter. Also imagine that it's spooky enough to defy some basic laws of physics, that gravity behaves anomalously; a billiard ball placed on an inclined wedge rolls up the slant, two people standing on opposite sides of a level surface appear to change height. Mysterious, huh? Well, that's Mystery Spot and it exists for real in Santa Cruz, CA. No one has been able to explain the phenomenon observed.

A free pendulum makes an angle (about 17 degrees) with the normal, as does this guy hanging from the door. There's a small story about this place. More spooky pics here.

Renouncing my Religion

Convinced that religion of all forms is primarily BS, a mistake in the making for centuries now, and having dragged it along unconsciously for 23 years myself, I've decided to let go. I've decided to abandon my religion. I have no religion anymore. If there are any "religious" rites that my religion ordains before such acts of renunciation, I'm unaware of it. And I couldn't care less.

My apartment-mate at where I stay currently is a Chinese, and he doesn't have any religion. Neither do most other people in China and I didn't even know. That's 1.5 bn people, straight. One of my T-shirt reads "Come to India.. 1bn people cannot be wrong"; if this is true, 1.5 bn people are almost correct in not having a religion. My earlier apartment-mate, a Japanese, had told me that most people in Japan don't have any religion either.

A lot of bloodbath has taken place in the name of religion. Most don't understand why God was invented and yet would go any lengths to water his palettes, as if he's a sick sadist hungry for pomps of drums and incense sticks. A sizable population breathes with the hope of being able to please god as means to salvation, whatever manna that is. I refuse to comply with this insanity. I refuse to recognize an illogical stream with justification no greater than age-long adherence by the multitude. I refuse the madness. I refuse my religion. I refuse all religions.

My First Journal Paper: TVCG

I received confirmation yesterday that our Display Wall paper titled "Garuda: A Scalable, Geometry-Managed Display Wall using Commodity PCs" has been accepted to IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG). (Co-authors: Nirnimesh, Pawan Harish, Dr P J Narayanan). The paper underwent a series of correspondences, as is normal for a journal, before it was finally accepted. Thanks to Pawan for carrying out the numerous iterations after I left IIIT. The paper will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal.

I tend to believe that this is the first TVCG submission from India, as far as I know of (Jagmohan confirms me this, and I know he can be counted on his meta-researching abilities).

So, yay!

Macworld 2007

I attended Macworld 2007 held at the Moscone Center, San Francisco. I know people who lined up all night to catch Steve Jobs speak in flesh. And what a scene he showed.

I used to like Apple; I'm a fan now. Apple demoed the Apple TV and some exciting new features from Leapord, the next version of Mac OS X. But the most exciting thing was iPhone, and it literally had the audience sitting on the edge of their chairs, leaning forward.

A music player, a phone and a kinda computer -- all in one. If all the promised things comeout as wonderfully on the ground
as it looked in the demo, iPhone will be a must-have thing. And if
Apple's track record is anything to go by, it most-probably would. The multi-touch screen is exciting -- not a new concept -- but I'm sure it'll work like a charm, the ipod way. Who can imagine a phone with just one physical button? And a touch screen without the stupidity of a stylus. And 802.11 n wifi, 2 MP cam and Bluetooth 2.0.

So excited.

From USA

I'm on my first trip to the US. I reached Mountain View, San Francisco on 4th Jan and have kept my eyes open since then. There are a lot of new things to see, and I'm just getting started.


The Journey

There's a finite limit to the number of times a plane journey is exciting before it gets monotonous and dull. How many hours can one spend looking out of the window to see the white clouds below and sky-blue sky above, and nothing else! Things get uneasy when the flight is long. Mine was about 23 hours on Singapore Airlines. Tired of watching movies and sleeping, I spent some time teaching myself the art of classifying chinki airhostesses into more than one class.

There sure was one thing funny about the flight, though. I woke up the morning of 4th Jan two times -- once in Singapore and again in San Francisco. The journey began at 0030 hrs and ended at 1100 hrs local time. Essentially, therefore my 4th Jan was 37.5 hours long. I was forced to compare this to time dilation, a phenomenon which occurs when you (or someone else for that matter) travels at speeds comparable to that of light. No, they're not the same. Contact Albert Einstein for details. I'm sure that the return journey will be even more fun, when time will shrink!


The place

You must have already heard the rhetoric of the place being neat and clean, so I'll not repeat the illustration. From where I stay, I can see lots of trees and the day is good today coz there's sunlight. It's cold out there nevertheless. Swanky cars and SUVs flaunt the place. Driving a rented car is cheaper than keeping a chauffeur. People are costly.

As I said, I've only been 2 days here, and I am still exploring the place. First impression is freakishly awesome. I passed by Orkut yesterday; yes, the guy himself. Later, I saw Sergey and Eric Schmidt too.


The Asians

There are a lot of Indians. Chinese too (or are they Japanese? Taiwanese? argh!!). On a small stroll yesterday night, I could locate as many as 3 Indian restaurants (a couple of Chinese too). So, yes, all the fear about Asians taking over the world is kinda true. I had been reading the newspapers today and on an average almost every page has a news about India and/or China. Funny, they remember about the ongoing Kumbh festival back there in India. I'm sure I wouldn't have known about it had I been in India this time. Naked sadhus dancing around? Not that interesting, I'd say. Newspapers have a lot of word about the "Incredible India" campaign. This explains the foreigners you find everytime you go on a trip in India these days.

My First 3 Months at Google

It has been over three months since I joined Google, and pretty much the same time since I last wrote here. A lot has happened in this while professionally and personally and I just want to begin by mentioning that it has been amazing, to say the least.

Ever dreamed about a place where you are pampered with luxuries, surrounded by god-like techies, goddess-like babes, and you don't have to worry about trivial things like clothing & mmm.. food? And you know that there are only a few others like you. Open your eyes, it's Google.


Life @ Google
Disclaimer: If you hoped that I would leak out some secrets, I'll disappoint you. Everything that can be said about the company is available elsewhere on the net and for the rest, I'm not supposed to.

There wasn't really a training. Things started with fun and it lingers on. Initially, I got assigned to a project which I didn't really like. I had a small chat with my manager (who's a cool guy, btw, and works like hell) and within a few minutes, I was working on a new one, a one I did like. I stayed at the Google guest house for a fortnight while I used to keep running to and fro from IIIT as I was still trying to finish my thesis defense then (it's finished now, btw. I'm an MS. yay!).

I have a Mac laptop (Macbook Pro) to work on and it's beautiful. It's my first (significant) tryst with a Mac. Things are integrated pretty well and it they (almost always) work. I'll still rate linux above Mac, though. I definitely like some of the softwares on the Mac -- iPhoto, Photo Booth, Quick Silver. iTunes and QuickTime are pathetic, however. Besides, the mac, I have a dual-monitor linux workstation and my desk in office, just in case the laptop screen feels too small.

The speed with which things get done by at Google is intimidating, and I'm not just talking about the technical things but also about the administration, HR thingies, etc. Think about Google search and you'll have an idea of the kind of speed I'm talking about. The prime reason I joined Google was because I found Googlers to be happy. And now I'm happy too. Besides, it feels nice to know that you are being taken care of.

We have cabs for pickup and drop from office to residence daily, which is a nice thing coz this gives us some more sleeping time: in the cab, that is.

There have been a couple of parties since I joined. One was a booze party at Bottles and Chimneys and everyone soaked. It's funny to see engineers dance, especially when they are drunk. The other party was the (pre) holiday party recently, which included dance, besides food (of course).


I'll quickly run by some other things that have happened all this while.

• Visited New Delhi for visa for Taiwan. Everything was in a terrible rush but I turned out lucky.
• Visited Taipei City, Taiwan for presenting my paper in Pacific Graphics, based on my MS thesis work. Google sponsored the trip. Taiwan is a nice and clean place. The main railway station is as clean as IIIT. The mass rapid transit (MRT) system is nicely streamlined. I clicked a few pics with my new cam. People speak Chinese and don't understand much English. So, if you are traveling to Taiwan, be prepared to seek help (in sign language) from some lovely ladies on the streets. This trip also includes the joy of first overseas travel. Singapore airways is astounding and Singapore airport is heavenly -- they have XBOX gaming joints and movie theatres there!
  
• Visited Chennai (& Mahabalipuram) for US Visa. I had been pre-warned about Chennai so I had kept my hopes to a minimum. It turns out that Chennai can be tolerated for one day (but no more). Mahabalipuram is an OK place for a few hours.
• Leaving for the USA (for 3 months) in Jan.
• Graduated. I'm a "Master of Science by Research (Computer Graphics)" now.
• Bought a digicam (Panasonic DMC-LZ3 with 1G Transcend memory for ~Rs 12K)
  
• Lost my drinks virginity somewhere near South-China sea
• Visited Patna during Diwali. Patna is progressing gradually. Nitish Kumar, the new CM, is hardworking and ambitious.
  

Greenphone: A phone to yearn for

Finally, there exists a phone which I want. Ever since I lost my last phone (an year ago), I didn't get a new one partly because none of the ones available had features which this yet-to-be-released Greenphone has. For eternity, phone-makers have been assuming consumers to be stupid and users can't modify things on the phone lest the warranty should void.



But now Greenphone is there to change things.
For one, it runs on linux, you can reflash the bios to load a custom kernel (why? just coz I can), you can rewrite any of the apps therein without locking-horns with the supplier and create new apps using Qt library (QPE to be specific) -- essentially, a phone which I can truly and completely own.


Trolltech co-CEO Haavard Nord stated, "With Greenphone, the sky is the limit when it comes to creating and testing new applications on a powerful mobile device platform."

The phone also has a QVGA touchscreen, WiFi, bluetooth, 1.3 MP cam, mini-USB and extensible SD slots (apart from the builtin 128 MB flash and 64 MB RAM) on a 312 MHz processor.

The phone is expected to start shipping in September. The pricing hasn't been released yet but with the above features, it doesn't appear that it'll be cheap. Since the phone is first of its kind, Trolltech would do a good job of keeping the phone affordable not only to sell in large numbers but also to ensure that developers get hooked.

So excited!

11.14 Review

I saw the movie 11.14. Here's how I'd like to review it.

Code:
void* thread0(void* arg)
{
// do something
return arg;
}

void* thread1(void* arg)
{
// do something
return arg;
}
void* thread2(void* arg)
{
// do something
return arg;
}
void* thread3(void* arg)
{
// do something
return arg;
}

int main()
{
pthread_t thread0, thread1, thread2, thread3;
//! Create all threads
pthread_create(&thread0, NULL, thread0, NULL);
pthread_create(&thread1, NULL, thread1, NULL);
pthread_create(&thread2, NULL, thread2, NULL);
pthread_create(&thread3, NULL, thread3, NULL);

//! Join all threads
pthread_join(thread0, NULL);
pthread_join(thread1, NULL);
pthread_join(thread2, NULL);
pthread_join(thread3, NULL);

//! Print time
print gettimeofday();
}

Output:
11:14 PM

CVIT gets a 7950 GX2

Cribbing about low RAM on your system? Have a look at CVIT.

CVIT today acquired a GeForce 7950 GX2 which has 1GB GDDR3 VRAM (the RAM on the video card, that is). Earlier CVIT used to get the 2nd level of graphics cards but this one is the fastest graphics card that there is, on a single PICe slot. It came for Rs 35K. The difference between this card and a "regular" one is that this actually is two graphics card PCBs coupled tightly side-by-side. Naturally, this card cannot go on just any PC (actually, there are only 2 PCs currently in CVIT which can handle this card), so a new system will be bought soon.

Looking back, I still remember the system with mere 32MB RAM that I had when I was in my 1st year.

Server Room Correction #3

We had a "knowledge transfer" session in the Server Room, as it was decided in an earlier meeting I had with Dr Bruhad. Apart from Dr Bruhad, Dr Pudi too joined in. All Server Room staff (except Mr JP) were present. To my surprise, some unrelated people were present too (Sambabu, Phani Kumar).

Routine jobs at the Server Room will get more organized. Expect basic things like backup, response-to-queries, help-page, wee-bit responsibility, etc to come up. Nothing can happen overnight. So, be patient. Sending a mail to sysadmin-(at)-students.iiit.ac.in should be good enough to get your problem registered. If need be, Cc it to bezawada-(at)-iiit.ac.in and rest assured that your problem will be looked at (you'll get a response).

If you have been following this section, you must would remember about the 3 types of jobs in the Server Room that I had talked about. 1) Routine, 2) Devel & 3) Security-related. Today's session was aimed at covering the first of this. Although I didn't have the least idea what a "knowledge transfer" session was supposed to mean, I had a list of trouble-shooting test cases prepared. (Why is it called "knowledge transfer" by the way? Wouldn't "knowledge mirroring" make more sense, given that nothing is really transferred?) Not much discussion was required on these issues. Dr Bruhad asked for setting up help-pages, FAQs etc.. all manageable stuff.

I hope the 2nd and 3rd points are tackled too.

To my surprise, discussion on wireless took up most of the time, even though none of that was planned. Nothing was concluded. I won't write anything about this since I'll end up using words which I don't like to write very often.

Personally, I have a very mixed opinion about the nature of today's meeting.

Slow Internet? Check weather

Is the internet performing a bit too sluggish? Check the weather outside. If its raining, the slow internet is due to our wireless connection to the ISP. The radio waves somehow don't do well with humidity.

Come to think of it and quite funny correlations can occur between technical performance of computers and environmental factors.

• Internet graph can be used as a rain-gauge -- the lower the bandwidth, the stronger the downpour. (Wonder what no-internet might end up indicating.) Imagine, the newsreader citing monsoons as 3.14 Mbps!!
  
• Room temperature can be predicted by the swearing-frequency of a gamer. How? Well, the hotter it is, the worse his graphics card will perform. So, the gamer will feel more irritated and swear more. With minor adjustments here and there, a mapping function can be devised.
• A novel way to kill geeks: Bring down the internet for 3 days straight. All geeks will either die of anxiety or will commit suicide.

I'm sure there are more such correlations.