Tagged: culture

We are the web


[[http://wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html|Fascinating article]] on [[http://wired.com|Wired]]
>> //The scope of the Web today is hard to fathom. The total number of Web pages, including those that are dynamically created upon request and document files available through links, exceeds 600 billion. That’s 100 pages per person alive.//

>>//How could we create so much, so fast, so well? In fewer than 4,000 days, we have encoded half a trillion versions of our collective history and put them in front of 1 billion people, or one-sixth of the world’s population. That remarkable achievement was not in anyone’s 10-year plan.//

If you do the math, that amounts to about **150 million** pages of //new// contrent //**every single day**//. Even if we were to take 20% of that as a conservative estimate, thats still more than 30 million pages. Now //that// is truly staggering.

>> //What a shock, then, to witness the near-instantaneous rise of 50 million blogs, with a new one appearing every two seconds.//

A new blog **every 2 seconds**. Beat that!

But a little too far fetched at some points (IMHO):

>> //In 10 years, the system will contain hundreds of millions of miles of fiber-optic neurons linking the billions of ant-smart chips embedded into manufactured products, buried in environmental sensors, staring out from satellite cameras, guiding cars, and saturating our world with enough complexity to begin to learn. We will live inside this thing.//

>>//Today the nascent Machine routes packets around disturbances in its lines; by 2015 it will anticipate disturbances and avoid them. It will have a robust immune system, weeding spam from its trunk lines, eliminating viruses and denial-of-service attacks the moment they are launched, and dissuading malefactors from injuring it again. The patterns of the Machine’s internal workings will be so complex they won’t be repeatable; you won’t always get the same answer to a given question. It will take intuition to maximize what the global network has to offer. The most obvious development birthed by this platform will be the absorption of routine. The Machine will take on anything we do more than twice. It will be the Anticipation Machine.//

An interesting read, none the less. And finally, the omnious sounding conclusion:

>> //Three thousand years from now, when keen minds review the past, I believe that our ancient time, here at the cusp of the third millennium, will be seen as another such era. In the years roughly coincidental with the Netscape IPO, humans began animating inert objects with tiny slivers of intelligence, connecting them into a global field, and linking their own minds into a single thing. This will be recognized as the largest, most complex, and most surprising event on the planet. Weaving nerves out of glass and radio waves, our species began wiring up all regions, all processes, all facts and notions into a grand network. From this embryonic neural net was born a collaborative interface for our civilization, a sensing, cognitive device with power that exceeded any previous invention. The Machine provided a new way of thinking (perfect search, total recall) and a new mind for an old species. It was the Beginning.//

Transmission


{{ http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0452286514.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg?150×200|Transmission}}

Right before [[http://floatingsun.net/blog/2005/07/26/the-half-blood-prince/ | Harry Potter]], I finished reading [[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0452286514/amzna9-1-20/ref=nosim/002-7210026-9576015?dev-t=D26XECQVNV6NDQ%26camp=2025%26link_code=xm2 | Transmission]], a book by Hari Kunzru.

Its just an //average// book. Quite melodramatic, but low on technical details. Makes writing computer viruses sound like some obscure Japanese art which has a lot of “feeling” in it. I’m not saying there isn’t, for I haven’t written a virus myself, but probably because I’m from a CS background, the book didn’t appear convincing to me.

The plot is mildly interesting. No fascinating twists and turns, no deeper inklings, very simple and straighforward. I did feel that some of the characters and some of the events in the story held little or no meaning. The author tried to create an open ending of sorts, but I think most readers will end up with similar guesses.

So bottomline, it was a passable read.

On hypocrisy


This was supposed to be a comment to Nakul’s [[http://nakulmandan.blogspot.com/2005/07/hypocrisy-is-it-just-indians.html | post on hypocrisy]]. But it became fairly long so I though I’d make it a post unto itself and leave the link in the comments.

I will comment on the original article that was behind the post later; I first want to comment on some of the things Nakul said in his post.

**Idol Worship**

I will concede that each society has its own notion of a //God//. But labelling all such notions as //idol worship// is shortsighted. It might be the case in India (though I don’t think even that holds true). Further, all notions of God are not about //personification// (against, most are, but not all). And finally, simply because //YOU// have not felt or seem //him// doesn’t mean others have (just to be clear, **I haven’t**). To me, the definition of God is a very personal concept, and tied close together with your values, beliefs and faith.

Something that might be seeing and believeing for me, might just be stupidity for you. I don’t believe human society is at a stage where one can give an unambiguous quantifiable litmus test for God. That would be the end of philosophy. Anyways, coming to the point — I don’t think its all bullshit. I sincerely believe that some people do believe and have felt what they think God might be. And I say good for them!

**Motherland**

You were not //just born// here — you were born and //brought up// here. Now **that** is something you can’t just ignore. You probably don’t realize it now, but I’m sure as hell you will when you go to London in a few days. I agree that people make too much of a big deal about brain drain. And I also agree that with each passing day we are becoming part of a larger society. All that is fine and I have nothing against going outside India looking for a better life (I think it just comes back to India in better ways if that happens).

All I’m saying is that there are many things that are part of you, your core values and beliefs that are in part simply because you spent a substantial portion of your life in a specific geogrphical portion of the earth. And that you don’t necessarily //owe// anything to that land or its people, but just spend some time thinking about things like how life would have been had you been born 50 years before Independence, or how things would have been had you been born in Africa or Europe or America or Spain for that matter.

There are fanatics and extremists everywhere. But feeling passionate about one’s country is neither irrational nor hypocritic. Its something to be proud of.

** Hypocrisy **

I wouldn’t go so far as saying that its a //human// trait. But its definitely a //societal// trait. For that matter, I find glaring examples of hypocrisy here in the United States every day. Women here got voting rights only in 1920 I think. And in the 300 years of US Congress, there have been only [[http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_and_teasers/Photo_Exhibit_African_American_Senators.htm | five African-American senators]]. Compare that to the vivid (though chaotic) representation in Indian politics. Despite all the talks of liberty and equality, your color is still something you can’t forget. I could go on an on.

But I think in the original article the writer was a bit too biased (or exaggerating to bring out the point). What I worry more about is that over the last 2 years (and going on) there’s an increasing dichotomy of societies in India. Microcosms of societies have formed in and around the metros (Pune, Bangalore included) while the majority of rural India gets left behind. What they do see however, is cable TV, internet and bollywood. The combined forces of these three media can be devastating, without appropriate education and exposure.

Lunch hours


As I’m settling down at HP, I’m realizing how critical lunch hours are in the industrial setting; atleast much more so than they are in academia. Its like high school all over again.

People mingle together, flock together. Groups are formed, loyalties are found. There’s gossip, there’s politics. Small little things that get said here and there turn up a few days later as major public announcements. You have to take care of what you say to whom, and always keep your eyes and ears open.

I don’t know what the numbers are, but it seems to me that a lot of the big stuff in a company—be it products or ideas or new recruits or other decisions—are made over innocuous lunches.

The Ancient Wars


Unarguably, the holy war of the geeks centers around the [[http://vim.sf.net/|Vi]] vs [[http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html|Emacs]] debate—which is the editor to rule them all?

No, this post is not about ending that war, or even trying to. This is just a response to my amazement at how deep rooted this war continues to be in our community.

So this wednesday as I was waiting in the hallway to meet with Amin, I heard him say something about Vi and Emacs to one of his students and how none of these editors even close in terms of productivity when compared to the mature IDEs (such as Visual Studio or Eclipse) for serious programming. I used to be a devout Emacs user for a long time (around 4 years) before I moved to Vim, and I’ve never been happier.

Naturally when I went in, I asked him about his take on Vi vs. Emacs. Turns out that Amin is a devout Emacs user, right from his undergrad days. Apparently in his time Vim was not popular, and Vi does kind of suck in a way compared to Vim. Being the good Vim lover that I am, I engaged him with all the neat things that my Vim setup could do, and he was genuinely surprised, and happily, interested too! So its quite likely that I might have to give him a demo of what Vim can do these days very soon :)

Here are some nice reads:

* [[http://thomer.com/vi/vi.html|Vi lovers page]]
* [[http://www.io.com/~dierdorf/emacsvi.html|Emacs and Vi]] (note the and, instead of the usual vs)
* [[http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/12/04/0326236|Newsforge article on the holy geek war]]
* [[http://www.tarunz.org/~vassilii/srom/|Suck-o-meter]]