Category: Personal

  • My Experiences at BlogCamp Mumbai

    While Mumbai has had a fairly good frequency of BarCamps in the recent past, BlogCamps have been few and far between. I don’t even remember how many blogcamps there have been so far. I was happy to hear the announcement for the BlogCamp at the BarCamp I attended the week before last.

    Getting to the BlogCamp was an interesting task in itself. I turned to Google Maps to suggest me a good way to get to the venue at Vidyalankar Institute of Technology in Wadala. The route that it suggested took me via a bus route that left me at a place called Shanti Nagar and had me traversing through the slums of Wadala and along the outer boundary of the Institute to reach the venue. Hmm.

    The crowd wasn’t as big as BarCamp but more importantly, it was an interesting crowd! We started the morning with a session by Rakesh Kumar on content strategies for your blog. He suggested that there were more ways to add content than just text – images, slides, video, visualisations etc. were now possible and made content more interesting and easy to comprehend for an attention deficit audience. He suggested ideas for having a time table for what to write about in the coming days. He suggested doing guest posts on other people’s blogs and also inviting guest bloggers on your blog to encourage a more diverse set of opinions on your blog. He suggested having a tone for your blog would be worth considering and building on.

    Rakesh really got the audience involved and the audience did have many questions. I think this set the stage for a very interactive BlogCamp, overall. I’ve hardly seen audiences involved in the talk as much as in this BlogCamp. Quite different.

    Ashutosh Bijoor was the second guy. He dazzled us with a beautiful set of pictures from forts and caves from near Mumbai. They travel to these places on their cycles beginning at Andheri or Thane. After breezing through Mumbai’s history and geography, Ashutosh told us a little about the group that he started. They call themselves the Mumbai Historical Sites Cycling Association (MuHiSiCA) and was started because the Archaeological Survey of India speaks only to organisations and not individuals. They research on places, cycle to forts and caves in and around Mumbai, clean them up, takes photos and then blog about it.

    We then had a talk on Video Blogging by Mihir Joshi. Mihir has a YouTube-based talk show called The M J Show where he talks to musicians and some Bollywood celebrities. He went to a digital content company called Ping Network to help produce the content for his shows. He suggests that companies exist that are looking for such content and are ready to provide help with production. He said that it was a route worth considering besides Doing It Yourself which always exists as an option if no one is willing to take you on.

    After a lunch consisting of Mountain Dew, rice, dal and potato curry, we went back in for a session on Indic blogging by Nikhilesh Ghushe.He started with getting the audience to get the Hindi equivalent word for words in English. Through the example, he sought to establish the nuances that one is able to achieve through the Indic languages. He said this provided the basis for some experiences and understanding that English gets rid of. He suggested that we miss a lot of this nuance even during consumption of English language news which does not understand nuance. He also says that not reading Hindi literature means we’re missing out on a large chunk of literature ourselves. Nikhilesh writes poetry on his blog and admits that Hindi is much better for poetry than prose. During a brief description of the history of Hindi literature, Nikhiles says that upto about the 1830s, Hindi did not have prose – only drama and poetry.

    The next session was by Alexander Gounder on SEO. In earlier BlogCamps, I have heard a hatred being expressed for people who do SEO for their blogs. Alex’s talk today seemed to suggest that the SEOers have adopted a more organic route on things now. The talk was way too technical for me for a nuanced reproduction here. I will link to any post that explains this better.

    The next session was by Mahafreed who did a session on Vine. Vine is a way to produce 6 second videos and upload them online. They’re like a Twitter for videos. Not interestingly, Twitter has acquired them. Placing a limitation on a technology helps bring out creativity and I think this is what makes Vine very interesting. We also co-developed the idea for a Vine.

    The last talk was by Anubha Bhat on why people should blog and on her own personal experiences of having kept a blog since about 2007.

     

  • My Experience at BarCamp Mumbai 13

    It’s been a long time since I enjoyed a barcamp so much and hence a write up. The event started at 9 AM and was located in Vile Parle. I’ve been to the same venue only once before and hence finding the location
    was a problem. A messup with a friend meant that I was left to fend for myself and depend on public transport. Sunday meant I did not want to depend on the train service because of a possible mega block anywhere along the line.

    I dropped in at 11 AM in the morning just in time for a talk by @anool on Maker’s Asylum. The talk was probably a good introduction to the arena of open hardware in Mumbai. People knew that there existed 3D printers and the concept but I think it was good that we saw some of the potential of what that could achieve. The guys there now have a small apartment in Bandra that offers some very basic tooling and are interested in growing a Maker community in Mumbai and growing their space. They are most likely to follow a subscription based model.

    From there I wandered around into a bitcoin storm that @oddtazz was brewing. I don’t know where he started but the people were interested more in how to get bitcoins and try to understand the concept. Perhaps a little bit of grounding in economics and a little more analogy would have helped the audience understand the talk but the questions showed the curiosity and fear that the Mumbai audience had for the topic of crypto-currencies.

    In all my previous barcamps, I have not had any luck with my lunches. I either binge and overeat or under-eat and get headaches. This barcamp was different. I had a sumptuous meal that satiated my hunger but didn’t make me groggy.

    After lunch, the first talk was by @henna_khan. It’s been good to finally get to meet her. I heard good things about the morning session and I could identify her instantly as she was busy explaining eclipses animatedly with someone when I walked in for @anool’s session in the morning. Her second talk for the day was on the question of whether aliens existed. Her talk went through the idea of how big our universe was, the basic requirements for life and then recent searches for life and why probably they haven’t detected alien life yet. The audience at the end of the talk voted that they did believe aliens existed.

    I spent the time after this talk meeting up with other barcampers I knew and met a few new ones. I discussed with @anool the possibility of doing cansats again. Launching is a challenge in India, since launching amateur rockets isn’t allowed in India. We’re left with satisfying ourselves with a balloon launch. The talks that I slipped through involved euthanasia, CPR and medical evidence’s role in sexual assault and rape. There were announcements for a Blogcamp on March 9, 2014 (I’m happy this has been re-started again) and WordCamp on the weekend of March 15-16. Both, that I am looking forward to.

    The other thing about this barcamp is because it re-ignited some old fires – being on the open-manufacturing list, being involved with SEDS and also contemporary situations like banking. It tingled many parts of my brain and I had good food to sustain me!

  • Hello World!

    A previous attempt to blog here was spoiled by crackers who defaced this website. I remained wary of returning here and in the meanwhile blogged on the wordpress.com service. I am not yet ready to move here completely and still feel insecure.

    The months of October, November and December seem to be the time that I start off my new projects and there has been something urging me to get back to a self-hosted WordPress blog. Hence, I am here, again.

    I have been blogging since 2006 and this constant moving around has been in evidence since I started. In each one of my “Hello World” postings before this I have expressed hope that I wouldn’t move again and will use each blog as my steady space for blogging. I’ve hence experimented with WordPress, WordPress.com, Blogger, Typepad, Vox and Tumblr. If I counted all of my blogs they should number anywhere between 10 and 20. So, let’s see what happens if I don’t make the promise of sticking to this space, for a change?

  • How to Watch Poirot?

    As a school kid, we devoured Agatha Christies at the rate of two a week. Part of the secret was that we began reading the book at page 72 or thereabouts.

    We discovered this into our fourth Agatha Christie, the version of white cover Christies we had in school started around Page 72. Till then Christie spent her time describing characters, villas and the countryside, something that our young minds did not have the patience to wade through. The murder usually took place on this page.

    I believe a similar strategy would be needed to watch the show as well. The shows seem to be 2 part affairs. Having read all of the Poirots, it makes sense to watch only the second part. This would reduce watching to thrice a week and ensure I have some well needed sleep.

  • Transit to Work

    The BEST bus came to a stop. He climbed the steps looking at the rivets that seem to hold the rickety red colour bus together. He did not feel like going to work. He was forcing himself to do it. With measured steps he climbed in.

    As he showed his pass to the bus conductor who checked it on his device to verify that the pass was valid he moved on to an empty seat. He sat next to an elderly gentleman who wore a half shirt and trousers. Sitting down he wondered about the day ahead. He remembered the work that was due today and the large pending folder. He wasn’t stressed about it like he used to be since he now worked in a public sector bank. However, his experience in the private sector always made him uncomfortable about keeping work pending. It seemed like he was adjusting to the new work culture rather slowly.

    He was brought back to the present when the bus hit a pothole. Half the passengers in the back seats were tossed up. A few cursed in various languages. He just smiled.

    Slowly, the bus got more crowded and the crowd started pushing into him. The elderly gentleman wanted to get off at the next stop. He stood up and began moving through the crowd towards the exit. Some people grumbled as they made way for him. The bus was licensed to have only 20 standees. It said so in English, Hindi and Marathi along the gangway of the bus but it always carried more than that number at peak hours.

    A little while later, it started to rain. The glass shutters were pulled down to stop the rain from getting in. He was sitting next to the window.

  • High School Reminiscence

    My Gujarati friend got engaged to a Malayali girl.

    We were sitting in the first row in Math class in school discussing the futility of learning Matrices. Our Math teacher Mrs Thomas did not take kindly to our conversation.

    “Just do your matrices, what is there to talk about? If you have any doubts ask me!”

    We nodded and returned to our conversation. I was defending the need to rationally sort out the problems in one’s life with the use of Matrices.

    “Tell me”, said my Gujarati friend, “how will matrices help you decide who you are going to marry?”

    This was a question put to several math and science lovers in the past. These questions were well debated in the science forums online. I used the most famous argument.

    “There are matters of the heart and matters of the brain. One must choose the correct tool for solving the respective problems.”
    “Bullshit”, replied my Gujarati friend.

    Here the Internet forums failed me with a suitable response. I had come face to face with a formidable Science enemy. But, he was just my friend.

    “How would you do it? Choose whom to marry?” I asked.

    He was thinking, hard. Then the bell rang. The school bell, of course. As everyone packed their books in to rush back home, he smiled.

    “I do not care which country the girl comes from. The only thing I care is that she cooks delicious food that I love.”

    Many years passed and it was yesterday that I got a call from him. He had gone to the US, studied computer science and worked at Google. He had met a Malayali girl there and they had shared rooms. They were engaged and had come to India to get married. I was invited out for lunch at our old haunt, Geeta Bhavan in Chembur.

    He complained about the deteriorating quality of pav bhaji. I asked him whether she passed his cooking test of bride selection. She was amused as we recollected that conversation in Thomas ma’am’s class.

    “Yes”, he said.
    “He fell for me just tasting my vegetarian cooking,” she said. “He hasn’t even tasted my Calicut biriyani or marines I!”
    “I was on the Gmail team. She was working with Google Plus. When integration with Gmail was considered, she was sent to our team. That’s when we met. She was looking for a place to stay and I someone to share my rent with. I asked her if she wanted to stay at my place. She agreed. The paneer masala she cooked on day 1 was so delicious that I offered to not take rent from her if she cooked and taught me to cook.”

    As the conversations continued, I was reminded of our school days and that matrices class. You see very few people who knowingly or unknowingly follow through with their childhood utterances.

  • एक हिंदी लेख

    लिखित हिंदी से मेरा लगाव पाठशाला के दिनों ही समाप्त हो गयी थी । परंतु आज तक मुझे मेरे पाठ्य पुस्तक कि कहानियाँ याद हैं । काश कि मैं उन दिनों कि तरह आज भी काहानि पड़ पाता ।

    कल मैंने एक नया iPhone 4 ख़रीदा । उसमें हिंदी लिखने और पड़ने कि प्रक्रिया इतनी सरल थी कि मैंने हिंदी पड़ने के साथ-साथ इन पन्नों पर लिखने का भी निर्णय लिया । शुरूआत मैं मेरे लेख ़अधुरे लगेंगे पर मेरा इसे सुधारने का सदा प्रयत्न रहेगा ।

  • एक हिंदी लेख

    लिखित हिंदी से मेरा लगाव पाठशाला के दिनों ही समाप्त हो गयी थी । परंतु आज तक मुझे मेरे पाठ्य पुस्तक कि कहानियाँ याद हैं । काश कि मैं उन दिनों कि तरह आज भी काहानि पड़ पाता ।

    कल मैंने एक नया iPhone 4 ख़रीदा । उसमें हिंदी लिखने और पड़ने कि प्रक्रिया इतनी सरल थी कि मैंने हिंदी पड़ने के साथ-साथ इन पन्नों पर लिखने का भी निर्णय लिया । शुरूआत मैं मेरे लेख ़अधुरे लगेंगे पर मेरा इसे सुधारने का सदा प्रयत्न रहेगा ।

  • Never Say Never Again!

    By the title, I did not mean the famous James Bond movie of the same name but something a colleague at work told me was his life philosophy. He described this philosophy to mean that he would never say “I will never…” in a sentence but would only respond in the negative to a given situation. What he means is that in another set of circumstances he might not have responded in the same way.

    I, on the other hand have responded several times to situations by taking extreme stands. I either wholeheartedly agree or wholeheartedly oppose an idea or a course of action I am taking. This is true in situations where I am passionate about the subject. It doesn’t apply to my relationships with other people, though.

    To give you an example, I quit Wikipedia late last year vowing never to return. I had issues with some members with the Indian English Wikipedia community members. I think I believed in the movement passionately enough to think that it would collapse if such individuals made up the movement. However, I soon re-joined Wikipedia realising that the movement was not defined by these few individuals besides how much I enjoyed actually editing it.

    Late last week I announced that I would be quitting Twitter. I observed how my brother was caught up on his phone and how little attention he paid when my parents or I spoke to him. Sometimes, he did not even realise that we were talking to him. I envisioned myself as something even worse than that when I do this.

    However, when I announce my intention of quitting, it is half hoping that announcing it will help me stick to the resolution of quitting a platform. The situation changes and makes it even more difficult for me to return because of the thought of my announcement of quitting a platform and how I would appear to people. It would seem to people that I am the sort of a person who makes decisions and does not stick to it.  Not everybody might think like this but my perception of this being a thought process is so strong.

    Which brings me back to why the philosophy of never say never again. I will try and not announce that I am quitting the platform. So, with that huge post, I am happy to report that I am back on Twitter!

  • Stock Taking Stop

    This post on this blog is a stock taking stop.

    I was writing on my own personal blog, pradx.me until recently. That platform was hacked by Bangladeshi hackers (or rather crackers). This made me feel uncertain of doing a self hosted blog. I need to learn more about backing up my spread out blog posts over several platforms onto a single one. I chose blogger.

    Over the past few days, I moved all of my posts from various platforms onto Blogger. I continue to make this move till date. I want to eventually move all of my posts onto pradx.me. But, not before making sure that I can do all the things needed to secure my blog posts from being lost to posterity. Till then, I will continue to post here.