smr’s blog

from couple of months i am trying to solve a confusion of mine. what kind of life do i want to live ?
do what others want me to do or what i want to do.

Upsy wanted me to do ms but is very afraid of my entrepreneurship insticts. and parents and relatives are waiting for me to join a decent job.

I dont really have any problem with a job. I will be more than happy to live with a 10 to 5 job with a decent payoff and be able to spend a good time with my family, and i really want to do that. i dont either have any strong problems with having a (non assholic) boss. I think the only thing i am most afraid of is to do some stupid work all my life. i want to live a creative life. I am also sure that there are many jobs around which would qualify for all these conditions. but i dont know why i still want to avoid a job. am i in the state of Van Wilder ?

Creative Life. Well.. i am not sure who i exactly mean by that. it can vary from just being in touch with the latest developments in technology to being involved in developments in cutting edge technology. i probably want to keep walking in this line and reach as far as i can.

But why the hell am i thinking about it so much. i guess thinking only complicates the life. and the most simple life of earth is of the biggest asshole. like couple of days before Nir was talking about the three architects from Fountainhead^[1]. One guy who will never do any thing assholic in life, another who know what assholic is but do it for a happy life, and third who cant tell how big an asshole he is. Though level of complexity of their level is different, they all are equally happy about their life. Because its relative to their own level of thinking. This phenomenon is best put in words ‘ignorance is bliss’. I am not supporting an asshole here, neither i want to be one, but i want to know what does one get by thinking so much. this is precisely what does the choice of red pill of blue pill means. “whether reality is worth pursuing?”^[2]

the bottom line is ‘the world is not real. its interpreted. inside our brain.’^[3].

And when i am saturated with all these thoughts, PG writes How to do what you love, to solve my confusion or to increase it, i dont know. atleast not in first reading.

The exestential approach helps me but i still have many open questions on which i need to ‘think more’.

“apni marzi se kahan, apne safar ke hum hain,
rukh hawaon ka jidhar ka hai, udhar he hum hain.”

going to watch Matrix again. now.

^[1] Nir is impressed with this book, and on his reviews i am soon going to read this book.
^[2] Matrix Philosophy - Blue or Red Pill?
^[3] i will write someother time what i exactly mean by that. but its a major part of my philosophy.

todays links -
* Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It… (via Nir)
* How to Be a Good Graduate Student|Advisor (via Nir)
* No sutta without fire
* Fundoo C++ fundas
* PG / How do Do What You Love

a few old links -
* Software Engineering, Not Computer Science
* Do Programmers Need Seat Belts?
* wankr collaborative m* network (cool one)

update:
* found that Guy’s last point in The Art of Bootstrapping is a lot related to what i wrote.

wcvgip
accv
and lots of work

this was a working week.
i mean no blog reading, no net surfing, no slashdot, and only work. didnt even check all mails on students server and not even coffee.
its the raship project. did complete restructuring of project. from code design to GUI design. all great things. and now when it is done, it feels so good. It was real fun/thrill thinking about the system all through, various things like what all interfaces to provide, how do various components talk, making a decent GUI and CLI etc etc. a real good experiance.

Yahoo! blocked my account ( aguy_likeme ). so wont be able to be online on Y! Messenger for couple of days till i create another. I did nothing recently, probably for some old stuff i did on geocities. they say violation of geocities TOS.

Upsy gone to home on vaccations. so no talking from about 2 weeks. miss her. and its more than a feet of snow at home. miss home.

have lots of pending stuff to read. people in the cyberspace keep writing nice things. hope tomorrows day will be enough for what i missed in last 7-10 days.

time to sleep with a blank mind.

coz of bad eyesight one is not allowed to -
* be a pilot.
* join navy / be a marine engineer.
* even join police force and army in many cases.
* sometimes even get a driving license.

and still dont qualify for the ‘handicapped’ quota.

in school days i use to be frustrated about this criteria. after my middle school days.. i had the dream to join merchant navy. and i got specs in 10th. and later found that i was nomore eligible to be a captain in merchant navy. though i got another strong reason later not to join merchant navy after i started thinking like a family man.

the point is - why the hell ? what difference did it make. with my specs on, how am i different that a guy with 6/6 sight. why does this rule exist at all? why is the requirement “eyesight 6/6 without glasses” and not “eyesight 6/6 with or without glasses” ?

in 10th when i tried papa’s specs, and found “wow! the world is so much clear.i didnt know”. my eyesight was not defected since childhood, it started gradually sometime after 8th. i think its coz i use to watch tv from so much close. there use to be lots of disturbance around, and i needed to concentrate. so in 10th i started with -0.5 each and now its -3.0 each.

and btw.. i feel better with my specs on.
a proud chashmish.

todays links -
* Classic Texts in Computer Science
* don’t let the cups drive you…enjoy the coffee instead
* The Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists
* The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs
* What I Learned at MIT
* how Steve Jobs grabs media attention
* Introducint Windows Vista. i’m impressed.
* IndiaOne : 70% cut in STD rates likely. wow!.

The idea -
whenever a page is viewed, javascript reads the google adsense links and automatically perform an asynchronous open on it. This is equivalent to a click on the link, without even showing the target page.

well.. i didnt know javascript much… but knew what exactly i wan to do and the basic funda of asynchronous stuff (the AJAX). and there was google search to help me hack google adsense.

The story -
* adsense script puts the ads in a iframe. after trying for a while i discovered that javascript doesnt allow me to read the contents of another frame.
* but i was able to access the src url of the iframe. so thought i would fetch the iframe url first, and then get the url from it, and then open that url.
* again.. after trying for a while i was able to figure out that javascript doesnt allow me to send me a XMLHttpRequest (asynchronous open) to a url outside the domain of the parent url.

these restrictions in javascript are there for security reasons, and ruined my dreams of free bucks.

can anyone around think of any better ways ?