Well, I came home to India a couple of weeks ago to my home-city of Chennai, and it so happened that this is one of the places badly hit by the Tsunami.

While it is definitely sad that the whole Tsunami thing happened, the way aid organizations, world governments and others are handling this is really quite disgusting.

It's become a blame-game of trying to find whom to blame - and nobody seems to care about the facts and how to prevent such things from happening again.

The thing is that this region has never experienced Tsunamis before. I've experienced a few small Earthquakes as a kid on several coastal cities in India, but we've never had to worry about Tsunamis. And for the most part, Chennai has been protected by Sri Lanka which bears the brunt of most of the tectonic activity in the ocean.

So the government did not feel that an early warning system was economically justifiable (the exact words that they used) - until now. And now, they're trying to find people to blame for this whole event.

This is a natural disaster, and natural disasters happen. You cannot really do anything and merely warning systems will not suffice. One needs to tell people where to go and what to do.

Mere warnings will result in rioting and looting and mass panic, and would genuinely cause more loss of lives than no warning at all. We need a system in place which can really handle this through proper procedures, channels and processes -- not merely just a warning system.

I wish our politicians understood this -- now you can be fairly sure that for the next N years, any tectonic activity around the oceans will be considered as Tsunamis and there would be mass panic.

We also need to worry about another thing - the spread of epidemics. We're scared of approaching the beaches of Chennai for the simple reason that these places had (and still have) a lot of carcasses and the whole place is rotting. The government needs to take care that the areas are well protected from any unwanted spread of disease.

That said, one of my very good friends from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands got married in Car Nicobar. Her husband is in the Air Force and apparently an entire Air Force base has been wiped off Car Nicobar. I've not been able to get through to her or her family (who are in Port Blair). I can only hope they're alright.

Update: Well, to make matters worse Andaman & Nicobar Islands have been experiencing even more quakes and tremors, and that's been scaring people from continuing with the rescue/clean-up effort. And no news yet from my friend :-/

For the past few days, Firefox on Windows XP would freeze everytime I opened up Slashdot. I wasn't exactly sure why or how, and thought it was a problem with Firefox, and would kill it.

And _then_ I realized that Slashdot has actually started embedding a Java Applet in the ads, and this freezes up FF on Windows.

I mentioned this in passing in this post, and it looks like I'm not the only one who's subjected to this.

I usually like the ads that Slashdot puts up and feel bad about blocking them -- but if Slashdot continues this, I simply don't care. Between my browser freezing up and me losing a good minute everytime I see Slashdot and blocking the ads, I'd simply block the ads. And no, I'm not going to disable Java on FF just because Taco & Co. decide to be retarded enough and add something ridiculous like this.

What next? Are we gonna have one of those ridiculous click-the-monkey ads?

Click the jumping monkey!
Click the jumping monkey!
Click the jumping monkey!

That'll be the day I'll definitely leave Slashdot.

Update

I guess someone did take notice that the Java ads are a big pain, and I don't see them anymore. Yay!

Good job, guys. And thanks!

I came across a user with the following sig today -

"Support the First Amendment: Read at -1."

Couldn't agree more :-) And that is why I sometimes troll, mehearties. Not to cause harm. Not to plunder and pillage the oh-so-innocent Slashdot editors. But to speak freely as I would want to. To show them how fucked up their system is.

They try to shut the trolls up by more restrictions. And by tightening the screws. But -- they forget that it would only make the serious trolls strike back.

Slashdot is becoming SO hypocritic by the day.

Look at it. It's become so bad that even expressing one's opinion is wrong. Moderation has become something where if the moderator does not agree with you, you're modded down.

I thought that was exactly what Slashdot's moderation system sought to prevent?

Consider Mac articles -- any anti-mac post gets modded flamebait, no matter how relevant. Consider science articles -- inevitably, the classic stemcell topic shall come up and people will flame away. The classic creationists vs. evolution argument. Or the science vs. religion ones.

Although I've been often at the end of benefitting from these (pro-Slashbot-think) --- I was really quite surprised at the amount of prejudice that goes into moderating these things.

Just because I disagree with someone does not mean they would have to be modded down. If anything, their opinons are just as valuable and interesting as mine.

A poster, who shalt remain unnamed said this - "Any pro-Bush post gets modded down. This place is seething with left-wing liberal hippies, who see conspiracy in every nook and corner."

I was like, duh, you're over-reacting. And then guess what? I realized he wasn't - more often than not, offtopic anti-Bush posts are left unmodded while the pro-Bush guys get modded down to oblivion -- hmmm, isn't that a little unfair?

(note -- I don't really side with either, I'm merely observing and nothing more)

What's happening, Slashdot?

Noise to signal ratio is on the rise. Moderation is so broken and haphazard these days. Prejudice and groupthink prevails, rather than commonsense. Dupes everywhere. The Over-rated and Under-rated mods are so frequently abused. Editors who do not listen to the comments we send in, even if you are a subscriber and point out an error during the preview.

Mmmm. Matt Damon! Fuck yeah!

Two comments of mine have been mod-bombed to glory.

Here they are - one and two.

Just look at the Over-rated mods. Blatant fucking abuse, both were at +4. Kinda smart that they choose the funnies, because funny is an opinion unlike something like interesting or informative. Bleh.

Until Slashdot fixes this, I'm going to mark ALL Over-rated and Under-rated mods on Meta-mod (unless there's a very good reason not to) as Unfair.

I think this offending comment is the cause of it.

And now, Slashdot doesn't let me post anon - why? Apparently because there's a lot of bad posting from my IP. WTF?

FUCK. Karma down the drain.

Update (updating in JE for obvious reasons)

FK tells me that there are no Overrated and Underrated in M2 - great, now that he mentions it he's right. Absolutely brilliant and wonderful.

Yay, why do I feel this seething rage? What the hell were Taco and gang thinking of anyway? Funny, maybe Signal 11 did have a point or two about the moderation system.

F.Grump -- both were modded up to +4, and in a matter of 5-10 minutes, they were modded down to 0 and 1, each.

Well, I do sleep. Not without company though :-p

Hmm, as always, yet another Slashdot story rejection. Reasons unknown.

Anyway, apparently the German auto giant BMW has sued AskJolene.com - an adult search engine. And why? Because searches for the word BMW turns up porn sites with pictures of people, hmmm, doing stuff on BMW cars.

And they've been sued for trademark violations for that.

You can see the actual cease and desist letter.

Strange. And fucked up in a very literal sense.

Wow, I've never trolled this way in a long long time.

So, there's this article on cell-phone jammers being installed in France. I make a comment saying that it would be a bad thing, because I'm in a job where I would need to be available 24/7 - and if there were jammers, I would not be able to go watch movies. I merely said that between not ever receiving calls and putting up with the occasional beep from some stupid user who wouldn't switch his cellphone, I prefer the latter.

Boy, I was flamed to kingdom come.

So here's the Slashdot consensus -

Even if I keep my cellphone in vibrator alert, even if I did not disturb anyone and watched the movie - only to leave when I got an SMS or a call, I'm doing something wrong.

Apparently, I would need to change my job.

Apparently, if I'm a parent who may get a call from the baby-sitter if something goes wrong, I should not ever go to a theater.

Apparently, because of the obnoxious few who let their cellphones beep, even those of us who leave our cellphones in vibrator modes are evil. Because the slight buzzing noise is disturbing. As is the light that comes off a cellphone.

Just so that the whiney crowd here can watch their movies undisturbed.

I'm quite honestly appalled. I mean, I get just as pissed when people have their cellphones ringing in the middle of the movies. But jamming cellphones altogether? That's stupid, because that would really mean I cannot ever visit a movie theater.

Just shows how little of a life of responsibility these guys have. Haven't they ever had any serious professional or personal responsibility or what?

And oh, here's the offending thread.

Hmm, Slashdot keeps rejecting my stories, no matter how important they seem -- maybe it's Michael taking personal vendetta ;-)

Anyway, here's the scoop:

As a part of its shared source initiative, Microsoft will allow governments around the world that use MS-Office to have controlled access to the source-code of Microsoft Office 2003. More details can be found in the PC World article. Details of Microsoft's existing shared source licensing programs can be found here. Is this a sign of Microsoft giving a harder look at adopting some kind of Opensource model within, owing to pressure from the OSS community?

Weird as hell -

The Luminous Toilet Seat

Ever wanted your toilet seat to be lit up while you relieve yourself? How about it blinking away when you close it? Or better yet, how about running lights?

En"lightened" toilet seats.

Am... kinda spellbound.

Right now, it looks like we are going through the equivalent of technological dark-ages. What's worse is that we do not even realize it.

Lately, almost all laws and business practices seem to be leaning towards stiffling innovation and make profit through stagnant business models, rather than innovate. Need examples? They are all around you. Media. Software. Hardware.

Look at one of the latest drafts of WIPO, which I will quote here -

Article 16, Alternative V: ...
2. In particular, effective legal remedies shall be provided against those who: ...
        (iii) participate in the manufacture, importation, sale, or any other act that makes available a device or system capable of decrypting or helping to decrypt an encrypted program-carrying signal.

Nice, eh? See Prof. Felten's blog for more.

Why has innovation stopped? Sure, it happens a little, but when was the last time something ground-breaking happened? The golden age of science is drawing to an end. All that we do today is use existing technologies and make them better -- but there are no new technologies. When laws and economics tend to put down technologies and new ideas, they might actually be killing a lot of ideas that could potentially change the world. I particularly like Prof. Felten's argument in this regard.

Between tinkering and innovation, I vote innovation. Tinkering is nothing but imitation, making an existing technology better. But you do not have any new technologies. You just work on what's already been built.

We have stopped having technologies that change the world, radically. Rather, we have reached a phase of calm acceptance that big businesses and governments do what they please. And in the process, real science is being killed.

Who the HELL cares about the ethical problem of cloning or stem cell research? It saves lives, for crying out loud. It's a new science, and something that will open new frontiers. And it will help bring progress, in some sense or the other. Technology is always double edged -- it depends on the people using it. Banning a technology because of what people might do is stupid -- raise better children, do not stifle technology.

When was the last time we went into space? For all the millions being spent on dumb movies and celebrity worship, if only a *fraction* of that amount was spent on science, we would make serious progress. How often do you hear kids say that being a scientist was cool? Or being a physicist was cool? We have the wrong idols. The people who make it big, the people who earn the society's attention and the people who get all the cool things in life are not the genuine contributors, but those that stifle science. Those that make people sit in their couches and while away their times, rather than inspire them to go out there and make a difference.

My dear friends, welcome to the Dark Ages.

Here's an interesting piece -

Word count in the national conventions.

It shows the count of the various words that the democrats and republicans have used against one another. Quite interesting, and shows the priorities too.

My personal favourite is the fact that "girlie men" gets its own little bubble ;-)

This was inspired by the_mad_poster's rant on Eye for an Eye.

I have just one bone to pick with same-sex marriages -- nature would definitely not allow so many same sex couples to exist. It seems to go against evolution, since if there were indeed so many homosexuals, those genes would die out.

Either those are dormant genetic attributes that are being brought out now, or they are nature's way of rebuttal against the current social setting.

No matter what, although I do not have anything personal against gay and lesbian marriages, it just seems out of place simply for this reason - how will you procreate?

I had read a book a while ago, which portrays a highly developed society where a particular state is entirely Christian - they have the ability to look at the attributes of a child before s/he is born, and determine such things as if the child is homosexual, physical and mental attributes and the like. And in the whole of the state, the only community that has homosexuals is Catholic - because while all the other communities abort their babies the moment they realize they are gay, Catholics do not, because the Pope has stated that abortion is one of the highest sins.

The reason I state this is because, in several societies (especially conservative Asian and European ones), there are almost no gays - because the society forces them to marry, and the tendencies abate (mind you, I'm not saying this is right or wrong, merely observing a fact). I believe that over generations, it slowly becomes dormant, upon dilution in the genetic pool. Now given a sufficient opportunity, these dormant genes may just resurface, bringing out so many homosexuals.

However, the consequence of that would be that we would notice a sharp rise in the number of homosexuals, followed by a sharp fall, because there can only be so many dormant manifestations of such a gene -- if it was a lot higher, evolution as we know could not have happened.

A puzzle to ponder :)

Saw this on BoingBoing. A bunch of Swedish folks who operate a BitTorrent site got a lawyer's notice from Dreamworks. Priceless reply!

As you may or may not be aware, Sweden is not a state in the United States of America. Sweden is a country in northern Europe. Unless you figured it out by now, US law does not apply here. For your information, no Swedish law is being violated.

Please be assured that any further contact with us, regardless of medium, will result in
        a) a suit being filed for harassment
        b) a formal complaint lodged with the bar of your legal counsel, for sending frivolous legal threats.

It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are fucking morons, and that you should please go sodomize yourself with retractable batons.

You can find the article here.

No, this has nothing to do with DaytonCIM's journal entry on religious dilemma.

The Southern Baptist Convention decides not to ask Christian parents to pull their children out of public schools in favour of religious education.

Whew, what a relief. Good to know that things aren't going the fundamentalist way. However, the SBC does want a constitutional amendment against gay and lesbian marriages, and has over 16 million members supporting it's motion.

Read the article here.

Hmmm, if this is the case in one of the world's most developed countries, I do not see why we should not allow fundamentalism to flourish in other nations.

Hey, pot - kettle - black. You know?

Cygnusx brought this to my attention.

Read http://prudentpolitics.com/content/view/61/2/

Here is a particularly interesting quote -

"Well, I'm sure someone will argue in favor of "getting the rich," but the numbers speak for themselves. Our economy is blowing away Europe's, and North America is turning out more millionaires than the rest of the world combined."

How very true. The only unfortunate outcome is that the it still seperates the haves and the have nots and brings about a wider chasm, however that in no way brings down the fact that the economy as a whole is doing better than the rest of the world.

Take other countries - say India for instance. What India is experiencing now is just a temporary boom of outsourcing, and this is bound to stop sooner or later. At which point, it will affect the economy as a whole. The current ruling political part is a little leftist, so that will only hinder the previous administration's plans of making all public-sector enterprises privately owned. A large chunk of Europe is a little too security minded in the sense that they are averse to taking risks. I think one of the only reasons why US is so successful is because it not only encourages risks, but also rewards it much better than other parts of the world.

And in the long run, given a world economy that's turning from bad to worse, the US may not be as economically healthy as it used to be, but it sure as hell is healthier than the rest of the world.

Today, I'd gone cliff jumping with a bunch of friends. For those that do not know, it's jumping off cliffs into the water below, usually around waterfalls. Think bungee jumping without the rope :)

There was a particularly dangerous cliff, that was about a 100 feet high, and I took a leap. Unfortunately, my hands were spread out and I landed badly, with severe cramps in my arms and legs.

I tried coming out, hoping I'd see the air and the light, but I did not. I could not move my arms or paddle, and I was suffocating. For a while, my friend Sabrina thought I was just trying to pretend, and my friends were just laughing out there.

Just one guy, Rob, felt that something was wrong, and swam to me. He pulled me away to the land, and I was so damn sure I'd die before that. I probably spent 20 seconds under 40 feet of water. It was so amazing to see the sun and the land :)

Thanks a lot Rob, I owe you one! If you hadn't come for me, I probably would have drowned.

For those brief moments, I saw my life flash before me. It was... unbelievable.

Ironically, a quote from Good Will Hunting came to mind at that moment (possibly because I was watching it a few days ago) --

Real loss is only possible when you love something more than you love yourself.

Well, how true.

One thing that stuck me was, a lot of people claim to be your friends and make void promises, but the real ones come through at the unlikeliest of times.

Those that held on, thank you.