Yesterday, I got my third AT&T bill. It showed that I am charged for some “VOICEDIAL” (5$). I was charged for this last time as well. Last time, since I was busy, I didn’t ask AT&T guys about this. This time, it was second time, I was busy again, but I still went to the shop to ask whats this. They said that this is a service which we automatically add with upgrades. I remember upgrading my service with a text messaging plan. But I was never told about this service. I also got to know I was being charged for another service namely “Roadside Assistance”. I dont even have a car, why will I need that. Anyways, I said that I was not told about this. The guy said, if you were not told about it, we apologies. I wanted to say to that guy that he should “die” for being so much ridiculous. Even if he was told to do that, he should die for following such irritating behavior. You do a mistake knowingly, and then you say a monotonous sorry. Wow, and you are forgiven. What an ass sucking service. Not only that, you are expected to say “Thank you” when you are done. I seriously am planning not to follow this thank you, sorry culture of America. Its so impersonal. When americans thank me for some help, I seriously feel like do they really appreciate that I helped them for something. Because this “thanks”, since they say that for everything, has become so monotonous, that the feeling it should have is not visible (if its there at all). I have to say thanks to my friends as well. Why am I calling them friends for then.

Tipping System : So, while talking to Geetika once, she told me how waiters get almost nothing as their salary, and their whole income is based on tip. And I thought how horrible that system is. In India as well, we pay tip, but even if we don’t, the guy earns enough money to survive (in Indian standards, of course). Why not include the tip in food rates. This will surely give proper security to the waiter as well. Not only that, the customer will have a proper idea of how much is it going to cost him. This is really a bad system. And more to it, these guys who on one hand go for those “thank you”, “sorry” courtesy, they spit on your food if you don’t tip. What a horrible culture. Of course, exceptions are there.

I got my apartment rented from this office. But they wouldn’t provide me electricity and gas connection. I have to apply for it myself. Of course, its not an easy process. I got my verizon internet connection, I had few problems with the router DMZ settings, I called the customer care, and it took them 1 hour to say that they do not know how to fix it. To do anything, people follow set of predefined instructions. If you ask something not specified in those instrucions, you sure are not going to get any answer.

And focusing on “crook” part, US is a major reason for those horrible copyright/patent laws. I will write about it, when I get time.

I walk my own way,
the broken path on the west.
Little sunshine from the sunset spree,
that finished atop the mystic tree.
Lights up my way,
the broken path on the west.

Yesterday, while trolling on the streets on West Lafayette, I saw this lonely yet lively road. It looked mysterious. So, I started walking on that road. That road took me to this place. It was awesome. Houses with proper built, long courtyard, trees that let you breath yet gives access to full sight, grass properly managed, and the type which will make you sleep immediately. I wanted to put its pictures, but I didn’t want to insult its beauty. The sign board on that road said “No Outlet”, and I thought while returning back, who wants an outlet.

Anyways, I think I should start another blog which will just talk about my experience in America, that will probably conclude lot of things.

We have been cooking food for last few days. And the experience has been fine. I met my advisor, and we had our first group meeting today. I think I am gonna enjoy working with this group. I will be working on the Orion project, which is an extension of Postgres to support uncertain data. In the group meeting we discussed about the license issues. Lets see what happens. Oh, I also got my first paycheck as well(I am an RA here).

What has been upsetting me is that Purdue doesn’t give a shit about Linux. The wifi system they have is kinda baid for Linux. And the most surprising thing was that by default you dont get a Linux account in CS department. If you want an account to use Linux machine, you have to  be either enrolled in some system’s course or you have take permission from your advisor. I mean, how ridiculous it is. Its an academic system, and they are using Linux for teaching purpose, then how come they are not giving a linux account. Height!!

On a better side, I have been given a Gentoo machine in my Office. Yay! 2.6.14.6 i686 Xeon 3.06GHz.

We are getting a comcast connection. That seems to be the only service available at my apartment with proper services. I also have an at&t mobile now. 1-765-337-8090. Call me whenever you want. My apartment address is 2501, Soldiers Home Rd, Apt#67 C, West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906. And my office address is G18, Bay 5, HAAS, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. And like it used to be in IITK, if you want to meet me, meet me in my office . I haven’t decided my office timings yet, but I should more or less be available in my office in day time. lolz

My Purdue email id is rohitj@purdue.edu.

Rest Laterz

Now then we had windows server 2008, we wanted to use it. So, I was given the task of using it for thin clients and for whatever purpose it can be used. And considering that I didn’t have anything to do, and since it was a family work, I started working on it. Working on Windows Server reminded me of days when I was shifting from Windows to Linux (those were the days of FC4, and hence pretty difficult it was to use linux and that even behind proxy). It was pretty difficult shift. From linux where everything could be configured using a configuration file to windows where everything has to be done with a bloody mouse. From linux, where you never restart your machine to Windows where you reboot the machine doesn’t matter what small thing you have done. Its darn difficult.  I accept a lot of time was wasted because I was learning how to use Windows Machine (Working on a machine made for dumb people makes me dumb), but still is windows any good for server purpose? I accept Windows XP is a good OS for general people ( of course I am ignoring that it was made by an evil company and that it’s closed source).

And more to it, Windows Server recommends that you run each service on a different machine. Are you kidding me? I have to have different machine and different licenses of Windows Server for each service? I run Terminal Server, Licensing server, Domain Controller, SQL Server, DHCP server, VPN.  6 machine… haha

And then, the computer has to have a very particular sort of name. And not only that, different MS products may not accept those names. If you change your server machine name, other services might not change the name. And hence different services will respond with different names.

I was installing SQL Server 2008, and it refused to install saying some “collation not found” error. I tried changing it, but it will crash with some random error. Even fresh installation doesn’t work properly, and they say that installtion on linux is difficult. My windows server on which I tried installing sql server is freshly installed, so I didn’t expect any errors.

If you want to run terminal server for remote desktop, you have to buy Client Access Licenses. And these licenses will come directly from US, and hence takes a month to arrive. Such a conservative system.

I have no idea what to do. Shifting the company from Windows to linux shouldn’t be that difficult, but people are afraid. If anything good happens, I will post here.

• I am alive.
• Nostalgia has been replaced by load of technical work. Thank God!!
• Proposal for NERD (a new magazine in IITK which is going to talk about research and development and FOSS and Free Culture) has been approved. The magazine will be released under a CC license (probably CC-BY-SA). Final Compilation of the articles is going on.
• I am admin for some Windows machines now. Can not make the company shift to open source, its impossible. And its a family affair, so I can not deny the work. But this made me believe it even stronger that shifting from windows to linux is as difficult as shifting from linux to windows.
• finally made a flickr account. http://www.flickr.com/photos/rohitjiitk/ ….. there are 1-2 photos from my small, yet dangerous hike near a national park
• I have got an XBox. Its bulky, so I can not take it to US, otherwise I would have installed xebian on it. I do not know what to do with it.
• Finally a family trip seems to become reality. We are going to Manali and Rohtang Pas. A 5 day trip, with all luxury.
• Lot of Mangoes …. after 2 Mango-less summers. ….. and before 4-5 mango-less summers
• Finally met my old and gold friends Aakash and Sachin
• The “personal” stuff here, no more exists.
• deleted my orkut account. Only gmail left.

Anyways, I now plan to run my own server. Where (yes, this is the first question)? Not sure. When? Not sure. Will decide very soon. Till then I am using NearlyFreeSpeech.net . Because of the tight schedule, I couldn’t do this before. NearlyFreeSpeech ’s services are rather impressive. Leave emails, for which they don’t provide any near decent solution, rest of the things are quite good. I will be charged for what I use. I think if I remove my photo section (which I have as I don’t have enough net speed) my cost would be pretty low as compared to Bl(oody)uehost. Also, they didn’t ask for passport copy or license copy for ssh access. That was nice. The concept of “site” is pretty nice. You can make as many “site”s as you want, and you can ssh to the site individually. I had some glitches with php file write permissions, but it was settled soon. Their  control panel is way too decent. They have put the neccessary things only. Not like cPanel where you find lot of random stuff which you never use. I hope to have happy time here.

There might be some broken links in this site now. Please excuse me for that, I am in process of fixing some broken links that I could find.

Now, “Movie” is surely copyrighted. bheekling uploaded that temporarily by mistake. He has removed.
This is my response to bluehost. Let us see what happens. :

I think its important that’s why I writing it. I am anyways going to post it
on my blog as well.

Note : I haven’t read what all people have been saying on this thread.
(apart from 3-4 posts from some people I know)

I was discussing with it with some friends, and came to some good
conclusions…..

0) So, the first problem is that students here do not know what they want
from this place. They do not know what they want from life. They do not
have right information. Students when come here don’t know nothing about
nothing. So, we should have a questionnaire/review system. A system which
will ask students to answer some questions. People wouldn’t evaluate it,
but this questionnaire will make students think. Student will think want
they want from themselves. Students will think whats right and whats wrong.
We can have this questionnaire thing every semester. This will not only
make them think, they will tend to ask questions about possibilities they
have.
0.1) First supporting point to the fact that student don’t think of their
future and they don’t think logically is that lot of students are going to
financial jobs, without even knowing what finance is. I can surely say 90%
of people are going to finance without even thinking what their future is
gonna be, and without knowing what exactly they shall be doing (If you are
one of those who is going for a finance job, and think I am wrong, please
don’t reply. I don’t time to explain you why you are wrong.)

1) Student interaction : I find that people coming out for different
festivals are more or less same. You will find same guy working in Megabuck
and Techkriti. These big festival are big, but they are not attracting many
students (IITK students) as participants. We need something else so that
people will come out. We need a way so that people from different years
could come and talk at *same* stage, rather than with senior-junior ego.
1.1) I strongly propose that we should have a good place where people could
come and hang out. CC Canteen isn’t an enough place. We need a place where
I could sit for long time, where I could “hang out”. CC canteen isn’t a
place where you sit for long time. And anyways the kind of food we get here
isn’t good enough. CR sucks. I don’t remember even a single visit to CR
when I didn’t shout at the workers. This “good” place will serve in many
ways. A big problem with IITK life is that there is no happening place
around us. We need a happening place in or around IITK. These “happening”
places help you in lot of ways. All your tensions from acads/parents can be
removed. And you stand on a stage where there is no senior and there is no
junior. These places will trigger interaction. Someone suggested dance
place, but I don’t think thats possible. So, a normal food court sort of
place with probably good music would be a good idea. A place where students
will get good food, and also a good place to sit. A place where they will
come to have fun. Do you know of any place where you go to have fun apart
from your room where you sit in front of your computer. And also, remember
the kind of sucky and *unnutritious* food you get in mess. Seriously, why
do we need mess when it can not serve nutritious food. One main reason why
I am not doing a PhD from IITK is that I know my life will be sucky for
next 3-4 years. I will have to spend my time inside a small area with no
place where I could go to enjoy myself.
1.2) Why don’t we have a proper air conditioned SAC Rasoi. Make it a common place to hang out. Let it be a little bit extra expensive, but make it proper. Every now and then we have domino guys coming, why don’t we have a proper Rasoi in SAC instead. We have such a huge place about rasoi as well, we can utilize it to the best.

1.3) Mixed hall system in which 1st, 2nd and 3rd year students live together
is a good option. They get interact with each other. You may say that 1st
year can anyways interact with 2nd year, but its not good enough. 2nd year
students are *stupid*. They know nothing. I remember my first year when I
used to ask my seniors (2nd year mainly) what I should do to go for MS. I
remember their replies, it was all bullcrap. 3rd still knows something. I
wonder if all four year students could stay together. Can we

2) Happy Hours : CSE started a cool thing. We have a regular weekly meeting of faculty and students. Faculty and students interact informally about different issues. We talk about personal stuffs as well. We should have such happy hours thing in every department. This way faculty-student interaction will increase (which right now is very less). Not only that faculty knows a broader and better picture of the IIT world. They can talk better about what students can do. They have the right knowledge. Students can clarify their queries. Also students wouldn’t feel alien.

3) BTech Hons and BTech Minor : I got to know that IITB has this system now. You have a set of options. You can do BTech Hons, which is a bit harder than normal BTech, and you can do BTech which is 4-5 course less than normal BTech. You can decide to switch between them whenever you want. You can also do some courses in other department and get BTech Minor in that field. This way, you don’t have to spend time on wasteful difficult courses, and can spend some quality time on courses that you want to do. And if you find that you don’t want to be in technical field anymore, you can always opt for just BTech, and get a degree and then can join MBA/finance job whatever you want. This way the load can be decreased for those who are not able to /don’t want to take extra pressure.
3.1) Also, stop calling BTech as four year degree. Its a Btech/MTech, thats it. When you get your degree shouldn’t be important.

But for eff’s sake, do/suggest something “constructive”. Rather than just asking for decreasing academic pressure. Yes, stupid courses and stupid instructors are there, but why are we not able to ignore that? Parent?, to hell with them if they are not able to think constructive.

rohitj
PS: Last year, my views were different. I wouldn’t say they were wrong, but weren’t very broad enough I guess. So, if you find my views switched, my apologies.