Carthik Sharma

Or should it be the other way around? Anyways, I am running into Zope and Python a lot these days. Hey, if there is a language named after the Monty Python show, then one has gotta learn about it, right? But where does exploration end, and mindless wandering begin? What can X do that Y cannot, and what is better, incomplete knowledge of both X and Y, or complete knowledge (is it even possible?) of one of the two?

For now, I have decided not to venture into unknown languages — indeed, what seems more important is to get on top of the Ph.D., and to become all-knowing when it comes to fault-detection, and repair of hardware, the more autonomous and fault-secure, the better. Indeed, once I am done with a small task at hand, to do with a conversion, I might just dive back into net-hibernation for a short while.

Filed by Carthik at 1:41 am under Yours Truly No Comments

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So I went to pephoto.com since they offer prints of digital photos at 9 cents each. I have a huge bundle of photos that I have been wanting to print for quite some time now.

I downloaded their client software, in which one can drag and drop the photos, and in the end, was I amazed to see that the total cost for the batch would be $200+ !! Yeah, there were about 2340 pictures I wanted prints of.

I have to figure out a cheaper way to get the photos printed. Getting a printer and printing them at home doesn;t quite cut it, cost-wise. The cartridges+paper ensure that the cost per photo is a lot higher than 9 cents per print. I thought maybe I am just greedy, and want too much for too little, and then I thought I should ask my invisible friends — So, ladies and gentlemen, got any leads or ideas as to how to get cheap(er) prints?

Filed by Carthik at 1:30 am under techknow 4 Comments

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A cousin wrote to me after a long time and sent me this photograph of a sunset that he had recently captured.
So things haven’t changed much at home, in two and a half years, or so it seems.

I remember the vague feeling of despair, of silence and impending doom that used to accompany the call of birds headed home, in the evenings when the temple bells rang, and I stood at the door watching the sun set and feeding the mosquitoes, wondering why all the days were the same, and how despite the sky being different each evening, every sunset was the same, and brought the same wistfulness upon me.

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Sasi asked me what non-fiction books I would read, given the chance, in the near future. So I put this list together, listing a few personal favourites. Some I have read, but wouldn’t mind reading, whereas some I haven’t. A couple of these are books I have half-read.
Ah Sasi, easy does it:

1. Bill Bryson : A Short History of Nearly Everything : Pretty simple, and basic, but interesting reading.
2. James Burke: Connections : Wonderful connections between some amazing things.
3. Romila Thapar: A History of India Vol.1
4. Romila Thapar: A History of India Vol.2 : Just so we know where we are from, if just cursorily.
5. D. Hofstadter: Godel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid : I can never seem to finish this. Mentally taxing, but and interesting, involving read.
6. Hau: The Sound of the One Hand: 281 Zen Koans with Answers : Saw this at a bookstore once, spent 10 minutes with it. Returned the next day, and didn’t find it there. Have wanted it ever since.
7. Jorge Luis Borges: Selected Non-Fictions : not quite non-fiction but very challenging. Borges essay and short stories are complicated works of art.
8. Richard P. Feynman: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character : Read it a while ago, want to read it again.
9. Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene : want to see what was in it that made Douglas Adams an Atheist.
10. Martin Gardner: One of
    • The Colossal Book of Mathematics: Classic Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problems : A must-read, or so I’ve heard.
    • A Gardner’s Workout: Training the Mind and Entertaining the Spirit : Seems interesting enough to me.
    • The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener : Try it out for size.

Filed by Carthik at 3:31 pm under Yours Truly, Science 5 Comments

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Raise your laptop over your head, put it flat on the floor, tilt it sideways while leaning halfway out the window—get out the divining rod if you have to. You might get a reputation for being some sick laptop yoga freak, but isn’t free Internet worth it?

The things people do to access the internet!

Probably nothing new in this How to Steal Wi-Fi article at slate, but it’s funny, well written and has links to a bunch of useful pages. It also claims it is not illegal to hitchhike on your neighbour’s wireless.

A loved one has discovered the joys of borrowed access recently, and I hope this helps, if just a little.

I can see 4 wi-fi networks when I am at home, and three of them are open, and worse, I can login and manage their networks. I have often opened the bittorrent port on the ‘linksys’ network (blessed be that neighbor) at night.

Change your wireless routers password, at least, so people go looking for a router with an unchanged password. Our own network is open, but the password’s been changed.

via Meredith.

Filed by Carthik at 3:30 pm under techknow 7 Comments

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http://scholar.google.com is going to be something to watch (via Mark )

Feedster Advanced Search has me dancing! Just what I wanted, since about a month ago (via WLTC). I have to set up a few advanced searches and subscribe to them, and never again worry about missing out on the news.

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At least I have more choices when it comes to renting cars now. I don’t have to beg Enterprise to rent me a car, and I don’t have to lie to them about driving to Key West and then drive outside the state.

Is there any privilege/action that has an age limit that’s higher than 25? 25 is the last of the “age”s I have waited for. There is no reason to look forward to birthdays anymore. Of course I haven’t forgotten 65, the age when I will hopefully retire, buy a trailer in Florida and sit smiling all day long in a toll booth on the Turnpike. That, ladies and gentlemen, is one of my bigger fears — having to work after I retire, and having to work at a “dumb” job, which a machine can do better. It’s too early to talk about 65 anyways.

Filed by Carthik at 2:52 am under Yours Truly 2 Comments

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The UCF Groupwise server seems to be down. I need to login and retrieve a file, but can’t. I have also had several other problems accessing mail using Thunderbird, my email client. Old emails mysteriously get downloaded again, and get tagged as new, and then I have to delete them.

UCF has a really weak and sorry IT infrastructure. It is almost entirely built upon Windows technologies.

What other university website do you know of, where the “www” subdomain returns a different page from the example.edu page. ucf.edu and www.ucf.edu are not the same.

I tried setting up my website at http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ca851813 before I outgrew it, since it just didn’t work, most of the time. The default index page on that server is “home.html” and not “index.html” which is kind of arcane.

I wonder why unlike some other universities, UCF is not so welcoming to open source technologies and products. Someone at the GOLUG said that when they tried to generate some interest for the LUG among the university engineering professors, the response they got was, “No, we really don’t want to be associated with evil hackers, now, do we?”.

The university-wide online management system, based on PeopleSoft even returns a”You are not using Internet Explorer, and you can expect to die, or rot in hell” error if you try to login using anything but IE.

The other day I called the writing center for some LaTeX related help. They were confused at first, and I guess they thought I was some crazy Indian screwing up the English language, and so I spelt it out for them. They said they will get back to me after they find someone who is an expert at using LaTeX. A half hour later I got a call saying no one in the writing center had heard of LaTeX before.

There are so many instances, that occur almost on a daily basis, that makes it more difficult for me to work efficiently (not that I am really industrious), like for example WebCT, which I have to fight with as a part of my job as a T.A. Setting up a website for a course is hell, if you don’t have your own private server/hosting account.

Oh well - I just had to let go of a little steam. UCF would make a perfect case-study of how open source technology can make life easier and simpler, and more economical, too.

Filed by Carthik at 1:09 am under Research 6 Comments

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