Being ‘I’ on the Internet

Tags

anonymity, anonymity on the internet, decent behaviour, lok sabha, mp. zuckerberg, second face

Randi Zuckerberg said earlier this week, “Anonymity on the Internet has to go away” during a discussion about cyber bullying. “People behave a lot better when they have their real names down,I think people hide behind anonymity and they feel like they can say whatever they want behind closed doors.”

What is it that motivates this. For starters the argument by the lady above holds good. However, lets look at what benefits this gives us.
First, it prevents users from vulgarities and prowlers and ending up getting unwanted e-attention.
Second, it allows for multiple identities creation, something like creating multiple emails for sorting out their subscription emails from their friends’ email.
and lastly, it safeguards from identity thefts and deliberate hacking, while allowing for sort of indirect whistle blowing.

She makes a valid argument that people do tend to misuse the veil of anonymity they get while being part of some email or social network provider. Profanity and slander are well disguised under userid’s like ‘shortmail’, ‘cooldude’, ‘smartgal’ and many others. While these are the obvious ones, there are a plethora of identities that do not identify the people themselves or come under an honest profile per se.

Randi’s argument that this would change however holds no water.
Remember few years back when Lok Sabha TV started up.(For non starters, this live telecasts proceedings from the house.). Our honourable MP’s put on a decent show initially when this started, giving all the feeling that it was for the better. Look at the later scenario. Does it indicate any thing that behaviour is improved or things have improved in the people representatives behaviour? I disagree. Anyone doubting it should look up the adjournments and vandalism witnessed by lots of TV viewers across the country.

Second, face to face is the highest possible way of eliminating anonymity. Do our streets reflect a decent behaviour in that perspect. Who hasn’t jumped a red light or jaywalked. The pinnacle was a street murder caught on traffic cams in TN few days back.

Does eliminating internet anonymity serve a real purpose, given the above counter argument I believe not. However, this is one thing that should not be dismissed so quickly. May be there is a better way of countering it than I can think of. Good luck to those who have a vision.

Year 2011 is on.

Tags

2011, blogging, new year, wish

This year is coupled with new events. The world cup of cricket is here in a month and a half. Don’t tell me emotions don’t flow there, oh and followed by the IPL, the chances get better. Then there is going to be the F1 race in India, where the BCCI may be a beggar compared to the money involved in the FIA. Here’s wishing, it is better for all of us – the common man.

Complacency costs….

Tags

cricket, india, mumbai, test

Mumbai were in top form throughout the tournament this year until they came to the knockout stage. A rain washed ground pitch and complacency cost them their place in the semis and this is by far a very poor showing from the team. A team which has an impeccable Ranji record and are by far a better team than many in the country.

This game though demonstrates the beauty of test cricket in which a single day or even a session can ruin the entire series. There has been a lot of debate around the possible demise of test cricket for the shorter form of the game the T-20. This match is one where the intricacies of test cricket are on display. People often complain that a 5 day match is too long to follow, but this is the game where cricketing skills are best shown compared to all other forms combined.

Perhaps the lack of following or the argument in favour of it stems from the lack of understanding of game itself. Every single session counts and each session is played with different tactics. Of course exceptions like a certain Virender Sehwag do come in who defy this logic, but they are just 1 face of the game. Usually, the team showing counts and every single player matters. To get a feeling, think of 1 of the 11 players getting injured on the first morning while fielding. It has happened before and the batting is reduced to 10 men, but that only adds to the drama.

This last year though has been good for Indian test cricket as whole and also for other teams around the world. Hopefully, this trend does continue and may the tribe increase.

God-fearing gunmen.

Tags

blog, god, gun

A new bill in the US for allowing concealed weapons in places of worship is a new development and very interesting indeed.

The rational given behind this is very convincing and needs to hold good in any sane mind. Places of worship are soft targets for terrorists repeatedly and they are instrumental in causing most discomfort in the minds of people not even directly affected by the attack. In India too, we can vividly recall attack on Akshardham or the Mecca masjid in Hyderabad or the repeated encounters in Kashmir where the terrorist hole up. This really holds the reason for the above bill to be present in India too. Usually lawmen are entrusted with the task of reactive procedures to relieve of this attacks.

however, is the bill going to be helpful in really preventing further attacks. Are terrorists (think suicide bombers) really going to have doubts attacking a place because there are people mostly amateurs, untrained in combat, carrying loaded weapons.At the most their preparatory efforts may be reduced on the premise that they can arrange for an extra gun from one of the folks already carrying one in the place.

But thinking on a level above, God is supposed to be the ultimate reliever of sin. He is the final destination that we seek solace and peace from. We all hear arguments whether God created man or man created God. God is created for putting in faith and trust. This seems to be lost when the element of distrust creeps in, in God’s house. Is it the beginning of loss of this faith. Only time will tell. I am mere God-fearing mortal.

Garfield – be a Jon.

Tags

garfield, jon, life, love, new, pizza, work

Garfield the cat is a famous character. The wise cracking, lasagna eating, Monday hating, cat napping cat. I think I missed some of the qualities in there. But anyway….

The life of Garfield is an esoteric one. He eats and sleeps when he wishes. I remember the episode in which he sleeps after eating on a stack of hay. This inspires a sage till then. He feels that someone who can sleep on a hay is at a lot of peace of mind. The sage feels that he has been inadequate in his search for peace by leading a life of ascetic, quickly changes his life to follow that of our protagonist. He also asks his student to do so, who is shown smacking his lips at the sight of his teacher offering him a pastry instead of the usual advice.

In real life this seems so unrealistic yet so desirable. Everyone would like to eat and sleep and rest all the while they can. But then there is a Jon who is behind this luxury laden life of Garfield. Some of us deliberately choose to be Jon, some are forced by circumstances.
Jon’s hard work and love for his pets G & O is undoubtedly leads him to complying to every one of their wishes.

Bottom line is that some of us will need to work hard, but the love for our loved ones should keep us going untiringly.

Lahore terror attack is unconventional

Tags

attack, blogging, cops, cricket, driver, terrorist

Yesterday’s attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers outside the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore was definitely a black spot on the face of the cricket.

Cricketers have been much respected in the Indian sub-continent; they are almost like semi gods here and only people who come close in popularity are few film stars. Cricket is my religion and Tendulkar is my God was a popular banner not long ago.

Terrorists usually target a particular place or people based on the returns that they achieve to get. An attack on Indian parliament meant a chaos in the governance in the country. Killings in the valley are for purpose of occupying the state of Kashmir which cannot be obtained in a legal way.

But killing of cricketers is a little puzzling in that sense. They don’t stand to achieve anything prima facie. Many cops have also been affected. Kudos to the driver who is being credited by the entire Sri Lankan team for saving their life.

The state of Pakistan cricket is already not good and this wouldn’t do it any better. However, this attack does mean that whatever recuperation had started to happen will be stalled again. It is very difficult to predict however, when the next test series will happen in Pakistan. This however, seems to be one more in line with the extremists agenda of curbing any progress and development in the region. Similar to preventing education in girls and asking for women to marry terrorists and so on.

Only time will tell whether this is bad or worse.

Rough Cops – a bane or a boon.

Tags

boon, cheats, cops, corrupt, deal, free, police, simple

Most of us have faced or encountered policemen of the wrong type.
Cops who have put their hand out for some petty cash and once you have helped them, put that into their pocket in the blink of an eye.
And more often than not we have hated them for we felt duped.
We felt that we got a bad deal.
Worse if the cop was not gentlemanly in his behaviour.

I am not supporting corruption, but think about it this way. The bad guys out there have no rules. And to counter them we need someone who is equally insensitive when apprehending them. This is the job of your neighbourhood cop. And he cannot be sensitive in his feelings for this might cost him his life. The US army has faced most loses in ground war; a place where the soldiers need to be most brutal and have no feelings or pain. This is a job for a soldier. He cannot choose to not kill or shoot or stab for that is his duty. We don’t criticise them, but rather call them brave. When then have double standards with the cops. Their job is equally challenging and risky. They need to be as emotionless as need a soldier on the battlefront.
So next time you find a cop not showing the necessary gentlemanly attitude, forgive him for that might be just what he needs to survive.
He is just trying to do his duty.

1 rotten mango can spoil the entire basket

When I was at school, I was taught a lesson.

A father tries to teach a son a lesson about bad company by bringing 2 baskets of raw mangoes. Then he puts 1 more mango in each one, only that one of them is  ripe and the other one rotten. After keeping the baskets closed for a day when he opens them up the next day, the basket in which the ripe mango was put  contains all good mangoes and the one that contained the rotten mango now contains only rotten ones.

That is all the mangoes have now gone bad because of a single bad mango.

The lesson  is true in life as well. This is the lesson he teaches his son.

This is also true in software. A product can go bad because there is just one person who is bad or incompetent. He is contagious. He gives rise to more incompetency in the team to save his own place and hide his own flaws. This can in turn result in spoiling the entire software development. Especially, if the person is in charge of something. We have all seen such cases in our own life.

But here I am talking about a very big product, which has just undertaken this journey. I am talking about the product that is most widely used by software professional all around the globe. A product that is ubiquitous across all operating systems for the last 10 years. This is the most downloaded product and the company which owns it is surviving primarily because of the money it earns on this. But now a manager in this team has undertaken to ruin the complete life of this product. In 2-3 yrs time this product will stop earning money that it does now and the company will dry out. I think we all know what product I am talking about.

Many developers are eating their daily bread from this, this is a warning to you. Please update your self in the next 2 years for something different

IT rues

Indian IT industry has improved a lot, or so is the thought.

However, there is another side to it and that has been widely accepted as well for some time now.  People (read experts) have argued that for most of the time now, indian software engineers have been doing a yes man job. Work is passed on from foreign countries be it a MNC company having an offshore office or a client paying an indian software services company for getting their work done.

This has been the channel for growth of the industry. The growth is in numbers rather than maturity.  Thousands and lakhs of young engineers are satisfied with their needs for  daily bread (and if I may say beers) and luxuries are being fulfilled by their salaries. An aspiration is to become a manager at some stage and rest as they say is history.

However, looking at abroad markets we see that there is an on going analysis for what direction the market will move and appreciate.

These sense is not prevailing in Indian engineers which needs to change.

Satyam buys out Maytas

Tags

blogging, deal, dlf, maytas, satyam

A deal was approved yesterday, by Satyam to buy out Maytas.

However, the public opinion of the shareholders and analysts alike both resent the deal and are against it.

Maytas is also promoted by the same family members of Mr Ramalinga Raju’s family and close relatives. This is the main cause for concern in this deal.

Satyam says it is trying to diversify its business, but analysts believe that investing this kind of money in a family owned business is detrimental to the core business of IT and is not in the best interest of the shareholders.

A lot of MF’s also say that they will go to any extent to stop the deal from going through.

Mr Raju had a long conference call with the shareholders that grilled him on a lot of question. his main driving point was that they see value in the business and share holder will realise in the long term that this is a profitable deal for them.

Some of the questions that Mr Raju however kept on dodging were.

1. Who are the promoters of Maytas?
2. Wouldn’t it have been better to return this amount of money to the shareholders, instead of investing in another non related business?
3. Had you considered buying out any other company particularly any IT firm to expand the core business instead of venturing out in an unknown and unrelated territory?
4. Why buy or invest in a sector that is facing impact of the slowdown?
5. Why buy maytas, when this kind of money could have bought DLF or Unitech or something equally big?
6. Amravathi constructions, a wholly owned subsidiary of Maytas, how do the books look on that?
7. Who is money going to – Maytas the company or the promoters pockets?

There were a lot of questions like this that Mr Raju chose to avoid.

Only time will tell whether there is any vested interest in this deal or is it what it is made out to be.