aditya kumar's weblog

Bob Woolmer
1948-2007

You will be missed.

For the intermediate level of Minesweeper — 20 Seconds, beating my previous record of 24 seconds — that too while talking on the phone! I am amazing! Certainly in the top-10 of all time according to the unofficial records for this level!!

So I haven’t been spending much time on the internet updating my blog and not reading much of others as well. A few other things keep cropping up that need my attention and I have seldom had this sort of “break” or “time-off” from blogging. I can’t promise regular updates for now!

Anyway, I had this opportunity to attend a talk by Dr Vint Cerf, last Wednesday. For those who don’t know him, he is said to be one of the “Founding fathers” of the internet, as we know it. The thing about listening to people like him is that you can’t afford to miss out a single word, yes, a word of it. A talk of one hour can give you subject matter for months of research. Their words are short, concise and to the point. They know what they are talking about and more often than not, apart from the ideas being a brainchild of their brains, they have well researched content to back it.

Getting a little ‘geeky’, Dr Cerf is also credited for writing the TCP/IP protocol. The most important thing, I felt, was not the technicalities associated while developing a network standard but was the foresight which went into it, while its development was going on. I think that holds true for any “standard”. We’ve seen the Y2K problem and it is one of the best examples of what lack of foresight can land us in. Hence, the challenge was not just to develop a standard for packet routing on the network. The challenge was to make it a common protocol — such that any piece of hardware or software, irrespective of the environment it is set in, could make use of the protocol to communicate with other devices, which may be set in other, completely different environments. No matter what device you use it on, the expected results must be invariably the same. The result is that today most of the devices that you use to connect to the Internet use the TCP/IP protocol. That includes your mobile phone, laptop, the PDA, the MP3 player. Tomorrow it could be your refrigerator and your bread toaster. I am not kidding.

A single protocol, though, can’t be expected to solve all the purposes that it is designed for. Because needs keep changing, sooner or later, something comes up that the standard is not capable of standing. An ideal protocol, therefore, would be one that solves not all, but most of the purposes that it is designed for. In that respect TCP/IP has been a very successful standard, for it holds true even after more than 30 years of its existence. At the same time, it has had its own share of problems, one of them being that it is not as secure as we’d like it to be.

Apart from that, according to Dr.Cerf, if the planets didn’t rotate on their axis, we could still use TCP/IP for inter-planetary communication through space. Again, no kidding here.

I have always considered myself lucky to be on the Internet while it was in its infancy, at least in India. I made my first email ID, back in 1997 and we used to connect to the Internet using a phone line. I think that era is still not gone. Much before that happened, I spent a lot of time browsing the few BBS’es hosted in and around New Delhi. Most people today do not even know what a BBS is. At that time I used to hear that one day we would not need to connect to the Internet using a phone line. That we will be able to login on the instant messenger, chat for hours and go to bed while being still logged-in, because we will not be billed on a per-minute basis. Not a question of “if” but only a question of “when”.

I am glad that it has worked out much before than expected my many of us, including yours truly.

“You know, people think I bought this big house (because) I wanted to live in a big house. But the idea is I am from Delhi and everybody lives in big bungalows there. For a Delhi-ite it’s not a big house even though I am a middle class boy.”

Shahrukh Khan says it here.

Now, I find this strange, coming from SRK. Especially that part of the quote where he says that everybody in Delhi lives in “big bungalows”. I lived in Delhi for a good 7 years and now I realise that I was living in a bungalow. Wow.

Err…so he lives in a bungalow because he is from Delhi? And he is a middle class boy who lives in a bungalow that is not a big house?

Throughout this interview, SRK lays importance on the point how middle class his family is. This is nothing new, because I have never come across any Indian celebrity interview where they say that they belong to the upper-class. Or rather, don’t say that they are middle-class.

I sincerely respect SRK for his humble beginnings, his continued rise to stardom, his acting in Swades and most of all, his work ethics. But this? Strange.

Many people ask me, how do I find so much time to travel. Finding time is not difficult, if you want to. Okay thats not a practical answer. I have a few of rules I follow. First, Jump at every and any opportunity to travel that comes your way. Second, Take at least one long vacation in the year. Long vacation means far away. Say, from Bangalore to Kasauli; or to Kohima (that trip got cancelled, last year, thanks to whats been happening in Assam). Third, never be afraid to travel alone. I realise not everyone can do that, but I do it. Fourth, feel it big. How many times have you travelled, usually a short 2 day trip, and not really felt it? Short trips appear trivial. But if you observe, look closely, look at the people, the land that lays ahead of you, you will experience a thousand different stories. Be open to it all. And then you learn.

You feel your feet are happy when you travel, longing for more.

About my last month’s trip to Goa. The good thing about going to Goa, my ‘home’, with a bunch of friends, is that I have to show them around. I become almost like a tourist guide. Normally, I won’t go and visit any tourist place, say, a cathedral or so-and-so beach. I mean, going to home for 3-4 days — I’d rather spend time at home with family than look around. But guests change that. I go to places I have gone only with guests. It’s like my own, exclusive, pre-decided ‘package-tour’. So last month when I travelled to Goa with my friends, I ended up taking long walks alone on the sea shore, clicking pictures while the gang played ball in the waves. Lots of quality time spent in solitude and the result? — Some of the best pictures I have ever clicked. I think so, neverthless.

Pictures below. Comments, as always, welcome.

House beside the sea, Dona Paula

St. Catherine’s Cathedral, Old Goa

The Cross, The Sky

Classic Goa

The Sun, The Land, The Water, The Sky and a Cosmic nature thats common to all

Panjim Church, Panjim City.

Downtown Panjim.

A quick one, just to say– I am Alive!

It’s been quite some time since I updated my blog. I have been travelling, as one might expect — the last weekend was a long one.

About my trip to Goa, pictures and more, soon.

The airport runway gives me a high. Always has given me a high. Today it happened, quite literally.

The airport boundaries are guarded by long, fenced walls. In a quest to catch a glimpse of the runway and aircrafts taking off, I had to climb a tree off airport road — On one side heavy traffic and on the other side a tall wall with barbed fence.

Airports, like Bangalores, lie in the middle of the city. There are residential and commerical complexes around the boundaries of the airport. These places offer a decent enough view of the aircrafts that hover around. Yet, photography around the airport is prohibited. Why? This is the age of the internet and google Earth, yet, simple and harmless guys like me have to act like monkeys to get shots like these:

The above aircraft is an IAF HS 748 Avro, a medium range utility bird. Of course, the picture has been taken by me, after much hardships. Frankly, an ordinary photo. The sunlight was against me else the shot would have been better.

All said and done, I must say this business of clicking flying birds is not an easy one. It’s a real pain, at times, quite literally. And the Government doesn’t make it any easy for people like us.

There are less sights better in life than being in the cockpit of a cessna 172, 500 feet above and going down while ahead lies a runway and you’re cleared for landing. I tell you that from personal experience.