Personalities

On inspiring people.

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GNOME 3.4 release party at MES, Kutipuram. A day well spent!

Looking back, some decisions of my life have been very well taken, deciding to attend the Gnome release party held at MES Kutipuram being one of them.

I came to know about the event from the SMC mailing list. Seeing a get together of top notch free software enthusiasts at a venue so close to my home was simply something that I couldn’t miss.

Let me put down the names of those who were there because that might be the first thing one would forget if kept unused for long.

There was Sajith sir, a teaching staff at MES, who had welcomed me on the mailing list. A very gentle and friendly person who was of immense support to the students there for anything regarding freedom.

Praveen ettan was also there who was the RMS of SMC while Santhosh Ettan was the Linus of SMC. Lol! Unfortunately Santhosh was not able to make it for the party.

Jishnu ettan was there whom everyone there referred to as “Guru”. I was wondering why this was so and I found out why it was so! If you see http://thecodecracker.com/, you’ll know why too.

Then Sadiq, Kiran, (Update)Nakul, Sooraj, Riyas, Nuh, Rahul, Anish, (Update)Anees and two girls were there. Guys, forgive me if I got your spelling wrong! After all, we were all together for only a short while and we were not spending that time refreshing names! But here is what we actually spent our time on…

It was a completely informal atmosphere where even though I felt a bit out of place at the beginning when everyone was just arriving, it took only a few minutes of interaction between everyone to feel right at home. Such was the free will everyone treated others with.

Trying to start the event, the organisers were dumbstruck at their carelessness. No Knife to cut the cake, no balloons and no cello tapes! On the double, two of them went out and bought all these. And boy did I start to shudder when one of them gave me a balloon to blow! I had never done that in my life! But could I let them know that? Of course not. So I held the open end to my mouth with one hand and pulled the other end so that it was stretched. And what do you know? When I blew it, it actually started to expand! I was surprised at myself and I was like, “Yo guys, here take this one too”. Sooraj taught me to tie it and now, that was the first important lesson that I learnt from this party!

The event kicked off about at 11am (scheduled to start at 10) after everyone goofed off and got over with the initial introductory jokes and cracks (not to mention hacks!) by cutting a Gnome 3.4 cake! Coincidentally, it was Anish’s birthday and it was he who cut it. We all had a few chit chats over eating it and finally when everyone was done with it, we all went to the front of the lab where the projector was all set.

Oh by the way, this party was being held at one of the computer labs at MES. Jishnu ettan started by introducing the features of Gnome 3.4 and few nice applications including a nice preview tool. I forget what its name is, but you can use it if you click on the file and hit “space+enter”. Nagul told us what Gnome was about too.

Then Anish introduced to us what SMC was all about, their projects and how to get involved. We stopped for a lunch break at about 12.30 till 1.30. Afterwards, everyone except Rahul, Sooraj and the girls, sat around for a hearty discussion.

It was serious as well as extremely funny how everyone interacted. Patent-wars and sue-chain was one among the main humorous topics of discussion. Then the serious discussion was on how the entire mentality of people needs to be changed regarding freedom. Praveen ettan chaired the discussion.

The need for copyright, whether it was a necessity or not nowadays as well as how people should support a good cause with donations was discussed. The situations nowadays at colleges and the lack of awareness among the students regarding free software was another one among the numerous topics.

For the question of why people don’t see free software as an alternative for their computing needs, the answer of piracy was put forth. If the proprietary software companies and copyright holders tracked the use of their services and products strictly, then people would appreciate the initiative of free software. As long as one was a thief who never got caught or threatened, why would he go for legally earning or using something? The quality of the open source softwares might be different compared to the proprietary ones but that is no reason to treat these as second-rate ones just because they are free and people are, out of their own interest, writing and developing them.

Ah, now that I read the above paragraph again, I see the free software/open source thing. That was discussed too as in using GNU/Linux instead of just Linux. A lot of other small topics were talked on and many of them let us have a hearty laugh together.

The discussion came to an end at about 4 after which we all went together to have tea. Afterwards we all shook hands and went our own ways, keeping in mind to pray and work for a better tomorrow.

Personally, I really missed Ershad at the gathering…

Looking forward to such free gatherings in the future…

Update: Photos of the party!

https://joindiaspora.com/posts/1498418

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“It is hard to get you excited”

This post comes from the words of a person who has been a great inspiration for me. I think everyone reading this post will be familiar with the name of Pramode sir. An awesome teacher as well an awesome programmer, it really fills you with a certain energy each time you talk with him. And sadly, I believe that lack of interaction with people such as him is what the students are suffering nowadays.

One Saturday, a bunch of us students from NSS including me were attending his workshop on Python and embedded systems. You can find the details here. During the class, he in his friendly manner was chatting with us in the midst of which he made a statement that frightened me quite a bit. And that statement is the title of this post.

He reached the point of making this statement when he saw that after running a code that made an LED blink on the expeyes embedded device, we were all sitting as if nothing great had happened. And when he made the statement, it suddenly struck me that the curiousness of wanting to know things and the excitement of seeing something was really low for the students these days.

And the problem is that all of us are already tapped out of excitement! Just think of it. From our childhood days onwards (nowadays starting from when one is 3 years old), we’ve been continuously exposed to all sorts of excitement. And that has not been in learning but in watching TV, movies, mobile phones, songs, games, etc. A blinking light on a stupid board is nothing compared to what Neo does in Matrix as far as we’re concerned!

As for putting the blame on our parents for this, well, I won’t say it out loud for I can find a million other things that I have to be thankful for regarding my parents. One being them not having that attitude of “Harrrrrrrrrisss! You scored less markksss! WHAT HAPPENED!?”.

But now we have an option to make a change. The kids we see around us, our niece, nephews, neighbour’s kids, whoever it be, if you wish to make things right for them, then you really can prevent them from being exposed to a lot of trash instead of sitting there and saying, “Dude, the world is bad. Even if I prevent him, he will be exposed to everything from other people. So why bother? Its not practical…”. And you can make up a million excuses for ruining that kid’s life. But yeah.. Why should it concern you huh? Its not like you have assumed the responsibility of the world or anything.

So hear me those who wish to be responsible for living in this world, do not think of what others would do. Make sure you do your part right. That is, help the young ones to keep away from the TV, all the music. Talk with them, listen to all the childish things that they might have to say, make sure you control your tongue in front of them, make sure you don’t encourage and laugh when they say vulgar jokes..

I mean it really is fun to hear them say things that an adult would say, jokes that an adult would say. But the question is, is the ruining of their innocence and curious mind worth the amusement? Think about it. Start with your self.

Here is an inspiring song that I’ve heard to this effect. Its called “Man in the mirror” by Michael Jackson.