Richard Stallman (RMS) talk at UC College Alwaye, Kerala

Richard Mathew Stallman aka RMS gave yet another of his brilliant lectures at UC College, Alwaye, Kerala. I was fortunate enough to be able attend the meeting. The last time he visited Kerala, I missed his talk and I did not want to miss it this time. As is usual with his talks, he talked about what is "Free", why should software be "Free", what is wrong if otherwise, about GNU and Linux and FSF and Linus Torvarlds. I am sure that somebody will post a transcript of the talk and a video of the talk online soon. I would however like to discuss more about my take on some of the points he addressed.

Before I proceed further I must confess that I subscribe fully to the philosophy behind FSF, GNU and GPL(all versions). I must do this first, lest I accidentally irritate and turn away a cursory reader who could also be a FSF fan(atic). I will list some of the points where I have slightly different opinions as compared with RMS and I am sure he would agree to my freedom to voice these opinions.

1. The freedom behind the software is more important than the software itself

Freedom is definitely important; but when it comes to matters of practicality and when there is no other alternative you have to be able to accept non-Free solutions to get your work done. Take, for example, the simple case of CAD software. I have been having this discussion with a few of my engineer friends, to make them to try out Free Software alternatives to the proprietary solutions that they already use. The sad truth of the matter is that, some of them had tried and all of them have failed. The specialized need of some of the tasks that they do, does not really help in the probability of one of the users of the task actually writing a Free Software version of the same software. In such cases, what can one do other than to use the proprietary system, and at the same time contribute efforts in building a Free Software that can do the same set of tasks.

2. Free Software should not include proprietary components at all

The issue raised particularly dealt with proprietary firmware and binary drivers that certain distributions of GNU/Linux use. It is true that all proprietary code and binaries have to be ultimately thrown out but if it comes to be the only way in which you can get a working system you should go ahead and use it, and at the same time push for opening up the proprietary systems, or creating free systems that can replace the proprietary systems. The only thing that a novice home user would have between him and his using GNU/Linux would probably be the non-availability of Open Source drivers for his hardware.

The freedom behind an open source driver would be the last thing he would have on his mind. If using a proprietary driver would help him switch to GNU/Linux why not? We can always make him switch to the Free version the moment it is available. One point that needs to be noted is that, the community should not give up on its efforts to create a Free version of the driver even if the proprietary version is made available for GNU/Linux. So the strategy here is simple - let the GNU/Linux market explode and then leverage on its size to call for opening up of proprietary drivers and for providing of GNU/Linux variants where they did not exist in the first place.

RMS uses an interesting reference to market forces in this scenario. Once people start using proprietary drivers in GNU/Linux systems it is possible that the demand for open drivers would wane and would not be as effective as it otherwise would have been. My counter argument would be that this lowering of demand would be negated by the much higher increase of the GNU/Linux market as a whole and consequently for the higher demand for the open drivers from the larger market.

3. RMS' opinion on non-GPL licenses and the "Open Source" Camp

RMS has been strongly voicing his opinion against non-GPL licenses and the "Open Source" initiative. In his opinion both play against the Freedom that the concept of Free Software highlights either directly or indirectly by helping those who are totally against the concept of Free Software. It is interesting to note here that the actual causal agent behind this is the same market force which he had used in the previous argument. Market forces and the demand for maximizing profit by business owners and share holders results very often in scenarios that do not strictly align with the concept of freedom as outlined at FSF's definition of free software.

More often than not, these forces work against the concept of freedom, and where money speaks market listens. Now that is not a good proposition. You have a philosophy which goes against (or looks to most people as something which goes against) the principles of profit maximization and you have the whole set of owners of capital (with very few exceptions) against such a philosophy. So how do you fight in such a situation. Simple. Use the old concept of divide and rule. When the enemy camp is strong, try to divide the camp and see if you can get some allies. This is exactly what the non-GPL and the Open Source camp is doing.

Bringing in more owners of capital to accept the less tougher option of Open Source first and more tougher of GPL later is much easier than getting them to accept GPL in the first place. So with increased numbers market will see the real value behind Free Software and slowly tilt in favor of Free Software as opposed to proprietary software. However the totally antagonistic approach that RMS is taking is not going to get a lot of supporters from the business owner set. Unless you penetrate that community there is no real hope of making significant impact in the user community.

Conclusion

Having said all this I hope that the highly honorably efforts of RMS and the FSF succeeds to their fullest possible expectations.

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Piracy is not fair, Neither is Monopoly

Microsoft recently went on an Anti-Piracy drive in Kerala. They have been following a multifaceted policy of learned ignorance, passive warnings and timed & throttled acts of aggression to tackle piracy and to push sales of licenses. I don't condone piracy, neither do I approve monopoly. I would like to explore more on the legality/fairness issues of piracy, monopoly and the relevance of FLOSS in this context.

Let me explain the adjectives used above; Learned ignorance - by allowing piracy to grow in the home user segment and thus use it to open and grow new markets; Passive warnings - by showing funny messages during upgradation or service pack installation; Timed - at reasonably predictable intervals; Throttled - they don't catch everybody.

Developing software is a business. The people employed in the business will have to be paid their due rewards. So software has to be sold and revenues generated from the sales. From this revenue, a share has to be used to pay the salaries, and the rest is rightfully for the owners take. Anybody using a software and not paying for it is effectively denying the right of the producer (the company and its employees) to get a return on their investment(of money and labor). So piracy is not fair. As simple as that.

Piracy is illegal by law in almost all countries. Piracy is equivalent to stealing software and is no different from stealing a bread from a store. Neither can be justified on the basis of the need of the situation. Not only is piracy unfair as discussed above, it is illegal and is not justifiable.

Although I agree theoretically with what is said on simplymalayalees forum, I have reservations about the way the argument is put forward. I run a software company and I agree that people will have to pay for the work done in creating the software. In a normal market when the traded volume of a given product goes up the cost of the product has to come down. It has not happened with Microsoft Windows. The cost has been recovered several times over. What we see here is the effects of the Monopoly Microsoft is enjoying in the market.

Again my opinion is not to legally fight the monopoly or to deny Microsoft the opportunity to make the profit but rather, concerned people should take necessary steps to invigorate the market by introducing alternative options. This is where alternative operating systems like GNU Linux and FreeBSD comes into the picture, and this is precisely what the Linux community is doing.

Microsoft has every right to make a business decision to not reduce the cost of their operating systems below what they are going for currently. If they had perfect competition (in fact any serious competition at all) there wouldn't have been a scenario where they wouldn't have to lower their prices at all. Prices would have been regulated on their own by the free market.

So that must mean that they enjoy some level of monopoly in the market. Microsoft has successfully managed to build their business. They built it so fast and so big that they effectively swamped out all, if any real competition existed, of their competition. Shouldn't they be allowed to reap the rewards of their efforts? Yes. But they should be punished if they had broken any laws of the land along the way.

But monopoly is never good for the market even though it might be very good for the monopolistic company. Monopoly gives the company total control over the prices without any bargaining power for the market. So what should the market do? Demand the monopolistic company to yield to their demands? The market has a much stronger weapon but it has not realized that till now. It is the power of demand. The market has been meekly yielding to the monopoly through cowardly acts of piracy where they promote the monopoly and effectively preventing any kind of competition building up in the market.

So if you feel that Microsoft is manipulating the market and exploiting it using monopoly then rather than complaining, and pirating, you should start using alternative options. As demand builds up for alternatives, companies will spring up to meet this demand and a more vibrant market scenario will appear. Already Linux companies are geared up to take up this challenge, but is the market willing to take the leap?

Gandhiji fought the British East India Company not by raiding their factories or stealing their coffers but by boycotting their products. This is the same strategy that people have to use to revitalize the Operating System market. As a concluding note, if you have the money and you would rather not bear the cost of uncertainty (in the time you have to wait until competition builds up) then you are totally free to go buy your Windows Operating System. Such an act would not be considered an act of cowardice or unfairness

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What is the purpose of your life?

Through the ages man has changed from a hunter-gatherer to the modern day specialized employee. In this process he has upgraded his needs and desires from the bare minimum necessities of prehistoric times to the ultramodern luxuries and fancies of the 21st century. You and me being part of this mad race have been doing this same thing and are destined to do this unless we stop and think. What am I really after? What is the purpose of my life?

A typical human life goes as follows - birth, childhood, schooling, college education, job, marriage, kids', rearing children, children's education, retirement, children's marriages, their kids, rearing grandchildren, death. This is a cycle that has been going on since the birth of mankind. But am I bound to do these things? What is it that I am after? Why should I follow this routine? What is the ultimate purpose of life around which these activities are intertwined?

Most people do not get time to think about these questions, being busy as they are in the various activities mentioned above or planning the various events mentioned above. Generally these activities and events themselves becomes the main objectives of their lives. Once that happens the relevance of the above questions vanishes for such a person.

So the process can be rewritten as follows. Going through childhood is not optional and I have to go through it. I have to have a good education because I have to have a good job. I have to have a good job to be able to support a family. I have to marry because I have to have a family. I have to have kids as that is what is expected when having a family. Then I have to prepare my kids to follow the same cycle I went through. In the meanwhile I have to progress in my career parallelly to take care of growing needs. Finally I retire from my job. Along the way my kids will have married and would have had kids of their own. I play my role in bringing them up. In the end I die.

Did I miss anything here? I am sorry, but I heard that man is different from animals. I don't really see how different we are from animals who follow almost the same general routine as above in their own ways. So what is the point? Isn't everything fine the way it is, as it is now? Why do you really want to have any other purpose other than the process discussed above?

Yes you are right you really don't need to have any other purpose but you should decide on your own that the above process is your purpose. People follow the above process not because they have embraced it as their ultimate purpose but because they have been taught to do so by generations of practice and has been embedded into the society as the default expected behavior.

People should at least think about what they want to do with their lives. Not everybody has to go outside the set boundaries, but those who think they can, and those who think they should, should. People bold enough to tread uncharted territories should. It is the efforts of such adventurers that have taken the world to what it is now. If people had just followed routines I would not be sitting here typing on my laptop but instead would have been hunting for my grubs in the wild.

Going outside the orthodox routines does not just mean breaking the conventional routines. It is about thinking and deciding about your course of action on your own rather than following a set pattern of actions. It would mean identifying and following your passion. It would mean setting and embracing your ideals. It would mean taking control over your life. It would mean defining your future.

So if you are still living a life defined and dictated by others, stop, think, decide, take control and march ahead. Your life would be happier, more meaningful and ultimately purposeful.

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An year since I turned vegetarian

It was exactly an year before today that I switched to vegetarianism. People who knew me were not entirely surprised given my liking for Gandhian principles but they kept on asking me as to why I did that. They put forth several possible reasons why I took that decision. I didn't say yes, neither did I say no. So why did I take that decision?

There are several reasons one can come out with for supporting vegetarianism. I can cite a few here. One plain and proven fact is that vegetarian foods are healthier than non-vegetarian foods. Vegetarian food is also much lighter on the digestive system and leads to much smoother digestive processes. It has been said that humans are more adapted to eat vegetarian food than non-vegetarian food. Interestingly vegetarian food is also much cheaper than non-vegetarian food.

There is also one not-so-obvious benefit to vegetarianism. Vegetarian foods exert much lesser pressure on the environment than non-vegetarian food. Pound for pound, calorie for calorie, vegetarian foods require much lesser area of cultivation, much lesser environmental resources than non-vegetarian food. The per acre output of vegetarian foods are much higher than that for non-vegetarian foods.

The pressure exerted by non-vegetarianism is not limited to land but also to aquatic ecosystems too. A news report that came out recently in the news papers indicated that human pressure on the biodiversity in the oceans through excessive fishing has brought several species of fish to irrecoverable levels.

Given a choice I would stick to this environmental pressure advantage of vegetarian foods as my favorite. But none of these were the real reason why I shifted to vegetarianism. Not that these did not affect my decision making. They did, but the one main reason was my abhorrence to smoking and drinking (alcohol).

Some of my friends have had taken to the habit of consuming alcohol, and some others smoking, some to pan, and some to combinations of these. I have always been a big opponent of both these habits. I have always fought against these habits because of the obvious reason of them being unhealthy and the not so obvious reason for my loathe to these because of the way these substances affect human psyche.

Alcohol consumption results in a decrease in a persons control over his rational self. Smoking results in a uncontrollable dependence on tobacco to maintain normal life and additionally to control the persons psychological sensations of sadness, happiness, fear etc. I feel that both these are acts of surrender of ones rational self. This is the aspect that I totally dislike about these habits.

Of course these habits also increases the probability of an earlier death to a person addicted or used to these habits. Earlier than it otherwise would have been if they had not been used to these habits. I have seen highly educated people take to these habits in spite of knowing this danger. I guess it is like mountaineering for these people. Mountaineering, like smoking and drinking, increases the probability of an earlier death, for the people engaged in that. Only difference would be that the moment you stop the hobby the probability vanishes while it doesn't for these habits.

It was during last December that I had another set of heated discussions with a few of my friends to persuade them to stop these habits. As usual I couldn't make them change their decisions. I realized then that, I probably did not really feel how these guys felt, having to stop something that they like, and, having no real reason to stop, other than the risk factor I mentioned before, which they had probably decided to accept.

This is where Gandhiji's principle of Satyagraha influenced my decision making. Gandhiji always took to renouncing things that he liked as a way of coercing his opponents into agreeing to his terms or as a way of teaching people around him the values and principles like his fast at the Tolstoy farm as a penance for the children's mistake. There is another of Gandhiji's findings that I would like to cite as an influencing factor for my decision. It is his conclusion that control over food is the first step to control over will.

So I had to give up something that I liked and something that I would have to struggle to give up. That is where I came up with this idea about giving up non-vegetarianism. So en-route to a hotel to have a massive non-vegetarian dinner I announced my decision to my friends without citing the reason. I had to eat non-vegetarian food that night as my cousin with whom I was staying was caught unawares but since then I have stayed clean.

I did not announce the reason why I took the decision because I did not know how long I would be able to stick to the decision. Like my other experiments with my life this is a work in progress as I am never sure when I will fail in this pursuit or when I will change my decision. For an year I have held on to this decision. I had a tough time initially resisting the temptation but now I think I have got used to it. The smell of fish is probably the only thing that still tempts me.

Interestingly two other people in my family have taken to vegetarianism recently for their own reasons. One is my sister who took to it around 3 years back and another is my cousin Thomas(Appu) who took to it a few days before I did.

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Life without throw-away plastic bags

Government of Kerala has banned the use of plastic bags thinner than 30 microns in the state. From what I see around me the ban is still a 'work in progress'. The simple reason why retail stores do not want to move on to thicker plastic bags is that they do not want to spend more money on the plastic bags.

The incremental increase in cost per bag might be low but the total incremental expense incurred in going for the thicker bags is not. Additionally since shop keepers normally buy their plastic bags in bulk they will have to bear total incremental cost upfront and this makes them reluctant to make the shift. Moreover this additional cost has to come out of the retailer's profit as they will not be able to transfer this to the cost of the products they sell as the per bag cost increment is low and any price rise will not be justifiable.

Alternative options like paper bags, jute bags are expensive and would not be viable for any products that do not sell at high margins. They might work out fine in textile showrooms, luxury products stores, gift showrooms etc but not in a grocery store or a vegetable stall or a milk stall. So how do you make the shift? Implementing the govt rule might be very expensive in the short run. Is just a shift to thicker bags enough?

The idea behind moving to thicker plastic bags is that the thicker bags can be recycled as opposed to the thinner ones. But they have to be recycled for the ban to make any sense. Throwing the bag along with the household garbage does in fact cause more problems than throwing away the older thinner bags.Plastic is non bio-degradable and remains in the environment and cause different kinds of problems ranging from clogged drainages to creation of potent carcinogens when burnt.

Unless people seriously understand the reason why the thinner bags were banned and realize the importance of reusing or recycling plastic bags the ban would just be a waste of public money by enforcements and private money by loss of profit. In addition to enforcing the ban government should also focus on conveying to the general public the reasons behind the ban and importance of recycling and other good environmental practices.

Once consumers decide to cut down on their use of plastic bags the demand curve will fall drastically and this can lead to the desired effects of the ban. Ever since I started living on my own, i.e. since April 2006, I have been successfully following a no-plastic-bag policy in my house. I simply stopped getting plastic bags when I buy anything. Instead I carry durable, reusable, heavy duty bags when I go shopping. The bags I have are made of plastic and have lasted for the last 1 1/2 years. If I forget to take the bag I carry the goods back to the car or back home (if from a nearby store) in my arms as a punishment for forgetting the bags :).

Remember - plastic is bad for several reasons - environmental problems, health problems, civic problems. So avoid plastic as much as possible, reuse if unavoidable and recycle if not reusable. And yes - it is possible to avoid it almost completely as I have successfully demonstrated with the small experiment with my life since April 2006.

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Global warming - A reality

Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri were awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace prize for their efforts in fighting global warming. This was a bold move by the Nobel committee and has highlighted with enough significance the importance of tackling this anthropogenic problem. Up till now this issue was floating around in different round table meets, different international conventions. Nothing major has happened with US and China - the two biggest contributors to global warming - not taking any serious decisions or efforts to reduce their emissions.

But is this an issue where decisions/actions have to be taken only by the heads of countries or international organizations. No it is not. On the contrary, this issue calls for the concerted efforts of all the citizens of planet earth. One might ask how he/she can make the Chinese Premier take a positive stand regarding this. No you might not and you need not. All you have to do is play your part in fighting this problem.

Now what are the ways in which you could be contributing to CO2 emissions?. Simply put, every action you perform and every resource you consume costs the environment in terms of the amount of CO2 emitted due to your action or emitted during the production of that resource. There are two ways in which people contribute to CO2 emissions. By increasing the amount of CO2 emitted(positive CO2 emissions) - say for example by burning fossil fuels. The second way is by reducing CO2 absorptions - for example when you cut down a tree you reduce the total CO2 absorption capacity by as much as what a tree can absorb.

Consider for example you taking the elevator. Elevator consumes energy and producing that energy would have resulted in some CO2 emissions. You might argue that the electricity came from hydro-electric power. But every unit of hydro electric power you consume takes out as many units of clean energy available for use by everybody and puts a demand of as many units of non-clean energy that resulted in CO2 emissions while being produced.

Take another example - automobiles. In this case the translation to CO2 cost is more direct as you emit CO2 directly when you drive your automobiles. As with the elevator, wherever you consume energy there is a CO2 emission associated with that. Now coming to tangible items - when you use a sheet of paper you are contributing to global warming by having created that demand for that extra sheet of paper that created the requirement to cut down a tree somewhere on earth and contributing to negative CO2 absorptions. If you argue that the paper was recycled the counter argument would be that recycling takes up energy that in turn has a CO2 emissions cost.

Like paper, any other resource you consume/use/dispose (eg: food, clothes, plastic) has a CO2 emission cost. Even if you recycle resources there is still a CO2 emission cost, although it would be much lower than the cost of creating the resource in the first place. So what is the solution? What are the ways in which a common man can play a role in fighting global warming?

Effectively every human action contributes in one way or another towards global warming. This is the problem and the solution is also in this statement. Moderation is the simple way in which anybody can fight global warming. Moderation in terms of consumption of energy and resources. Increasing efficiency of processes, reusing & recycling resources are auxiliary steps that can help in this fight. We cannot altogether stop consuming energy and resources. But we should try to limit our consumption as much as possible.

Contrary to the theory of consumerism, an application of moderation would be the most beneficial aspect to global economy as a whole. The cost of global warming will become too high to be negated by any levels of economic growth resulting from crass consumerism.

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Will I buy from reliance if they are as guilty as accused

Reliance Group of companies - combined set of companies owned by both Anil Ambani and Mukesh Ambani - is the largest corporate conglomerate in India. Even though the group has been split into two between the brothers, for coherence sake I will be referring to the combined group as Reliance in the discussion below. From a humble beginning in the late 60s it has grown into the behemoth it is currently. It is one of the few corporate success stories that have caught the attention of International Business World.

As with any big company Reliance (the group of companies) also had to face several allegations during its growth. Normally, in the case of any company, a good percentage of these accusations would be results of corporate rivalry or mere jealousy. But there has been quite too many accusations to be merely ignored as jealousy induced ones. I for one person do not know the reality behind these accusations. But I have to consider the volume and seriousness of some of these accusations before I make any kind of judgment regarding them.

My issue here is not whether Reliance is guilty or not, rather another independent problem. Suppose I come to the conclusion that Reliance is guilty based on whatever evidence I get. Now I have to answer another question. Should I avail of Reliance services or not? Simple isn't it. Not quite. If the answer is in the affirmative then I would indeed be indirectly promoting Reliance and would be promoting whatever they are doing and whatever I had judged to be as wrong.

Now why can't I just decide to not avail of Reliance services if I am convinced that Reliance is guilty of whatever they have been accused with? Here comes the ubiquitous issue of money. Reliance Services are among the lowest priced services that are available in the market. My company - zyxware is not yet a customer for reliance. Recently I have been shopping for health insurance for my employees. I have been reviewing the offerings from the different health insurance providers in India. Guess who is the cheapest - Reliance General.

If I go for any other company other than Reliance, I will inevitably end up paying at least 10,000 Rupees more than what I have to otherwise. My business self asks me to go for Reliance to get the cheaper rates. My ethical self argues that I would be promoting Reliance if I do so. My logical self has an interesting argument - if I ruin all my money on trying to defend my ethical self, I would end up having no business self to support my ethical self.

So the question under discussion is not whether Reliance is guilty or not but instead whether people can/will make financial sacrifices, or for that matter any other sacrifice like extra effort, when sticking to ethical policies. The answer cannot be given in black and white. Different people would allow their endurance to crumble at different magnitudes of the sacrifices involved. It however has to be noted that people can change this limit of endurance for the sacrifices by conscious decision making and practice. But before that they have to identify with the need to stand by their ethics and values. For that they have to have a strong value system which can be used to make their decisions. And for that they have to start thinking about such issues.

I have not decided on the Insurance provider yet. I have to talk with a few more people about the pro's and con's of the different providers and their services. I might even end up going for Reliance. But the issue had got me thinking about the philosophical problem involved. If people start applying their ethical and moral values to their everyday decision making, they can slowly start implementing some of the things that they believe is right. By practicing that, ultimately they would/should be able to stand by their values at any cost. I hope I can do that as I slowly evolve my system of values and framework of ethics through the experiments I run with my life.

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People really don't remember anything or is it just me

I have this problem (not really sure if it is a problem) of not remembering incidents, places, people, conversations etc. I have been like this since I can remember (which is not that much). I don't have any problem in remembering equations, dates, sentences, stories etc. I don't remember the color of the houses I have lived in but I can draw out the layout of the houses I have lived in. Funny isn't it.

People look at me with sympathy when I say I don't remember a lot from my childhood. It is as if I really did not hav a childhood. Not that I don't remember anything at all. I remember specific incidents that had left a big positive or negative impression on my mind. Then I have faint recollections of some disjoint set of events scattered through out my life.

Since this is something that I have to deal with regularly, I have been thinking a lot about this. When you say you remember a person what do you mean? For me, if I close my eyes and try to bring into my mind the picture of somebody, I can't, I really can't. It would just be blank. Now if I try to recollect something that is more regular in geometry like say a red ball. If I hold the ball in my hand and then close my eyes I won't be able to picture the ball, or even the color red for that matter.

This does not mean that I can't remember anything. Suppose I see a set(a small set) of objects and then you introduce another small set of objects which I had not seen earlier I would very easily find out the objects that I had seen initially. This means that when my mind sees the combined set, it is able to pick the ones that it had recorded initially. I would be able to successfully do this experiment with multiple sets of objects and with variations of color or size or geometry.

I can identify all my personal belongings but I wouldn't be able to bring an image of any of them to my mind at will. I remember all my friends and relatives whom I keep in touch with each other but I can't bring an image of them to my mind if I don't see them or their picture in front of me. It is as if I don't have the APIs for internal display of the stored images in my memory.

Or maybe I got this all wrong. It is not just me but that this applies for all people. When people say they remember stuff they might just be stating the fact that they will be able to identify the person or object when they see the person or object again.

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Be true to yourselves

Gandhiji's life was a pursuit of truth. He had never claimed to have reached any level of perfection. It was always an ongoing experiment, and thus he named his autobiography "A Story of My Experiments with Truth". For Gandhiji, a primary aspect of truth meant - being true to ones own convictions. This is the aspect I would like to delve on further.

By the above definition, truth doesn't have to be absolute or perfect and it could be something that moves towards perfection with each pursuit. This is interesting because it opens up the possibility of following truth without perfect knowledge. Following absolute truth is difficult as absolute knowledge is impossible. So being true to oneself would allow oneself to follow truth without waiting to acquire perfect knowledge.

The theory sounds very simple but the practical implementation of it is very difficult. Take for example the simple case of not lying. I am not sure if there is anybody who would want other people to lie to them. So people do not want others to lie to them. This would imply that they do not like lying. But when it comes to not telling lies to others, there wouldn't be too many people who would get a clean chit on that count. In fact there wouldn't even be too many people who would try their best to not lie at all. Even when they have in their minds the negative attitude about people lying to them they would still go ahead and tell lies to others. Telling lies is a simple example but, it was selected because it was one specific aspect that Gandhiji tried to maintain a clean record on.

If instead people try to be true to themselves they would not commit most of the mistakes they make in their daily lives. It must be noted that this deduction can be made even after considering the fact that nobody has perfect knowledge. It is a logical extension to the premise that people are convinced about the importance of knowledge (even if it is knowledge according to their own limited definitions). So if somebody is convinced about the requirement of knowledge he/she would try to acquire it and having acquired it, it would help in reexamining their established convictions. If there is any contradiction with their existing convictions they would find it easy to change their conviction to match the new knowledge. This last part again assumes that they will remain true to their conviction about the requirement of knowledge.

Nobody is perfect. Gandhiji was not perfect and he himself has confessed about his imperfections. This was highlighted by his statement about his convictions. He stated that he would always try to be true to his convictions. He did not claim that his convictions were always correct and he said that his statements at some point of time in the future could possibly contradict his statements at some point in his past. But irrespective of that he would be true to his convictions in the future as he was in the past. This is probably one of the best preemptive philosophical bails one can get but yes this statement conforms with his pursuit of truth.

The moral of the story is simple; whatever you do or say - examine it within the light of your established convictions and if you see a contradiction, reexamine both your conviction and your action/statement, decide which is correct based on any new knowledge that you have acquired and then try to correct your conviction or your action/statement so that you would not contradict your convictions in the future. An attempt to adhere to this simple concept could take you a long way in the pursuit of truth.

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Simple things that can make driving much easier on Indian Roads

One of the several things that I liked about US was their road system. US has an excellent road network that interconnects all their cities and towns. Driving in the US is far more easier than driving in India (except for some exceptions - like peak hour New York city traffic) not just for their good roads but also for the fact that most people in the US obeys basic traffic rules.

There are three specific reasons that I think that have contributed to this effect. One is that people are brought up with reasonably good civic sense. Most traffic rules are just implementation of some basic fairness system and anybody with a good civic sense (and a rational mind) should be able to deduce these laws. Another reason is that the rules are executed reasonably impartially and violations are punished with just fines. Additionally the licensing system is very fair and uncorrupted, and provides a system of eliminating people who do not know driving or the traffic rules from getting their licenses.

The first two factors really do not play any significant role in the Indian traffic system. As far as the third factor is concerned, our system is corrupt to the core and anybody who goes via the 'right channels' and 'pays the right fees' can get any license without really having to know traffic rules or even basic driving capabilities. I personally know quite a few people (girls mostly) who do have licenses but do not know driving. There was also this recent bust of corrupt officials in Traffic Department of Kerala by Malayala Manorama by getting them to issue commercial driving licenses without even knowing how to drive a heavy vehicle.

I am highly optimistic about the three problems above. All three can be solved with some dedicated efforts from the citizens. It will probably take a long time. But it is possible. There is however one aspect that can easily be rectified in the short run, i.e. clearing up the ignorance of the common Indian driver. A percentage (not sure of the size of it) of drivers break rules and cause inconveniences to other people because of a simple reason - they do not know the rules. A subset of these people would have broken the rule even if they had known about the rule. We cannot do anything about this set. However the remainder would not have broken the rule if they had known about the rule.

If there is a concerted effort at the school level to put in place a system where students are taught the fundamental principles behind traffic rules, simple ethics to follow while driving, logical rules for deducing some of the traffic rules, some basic road sense then the above issue can be solved to a certain extent. This is one area that is worth pursuing. Maybe some time in the future I would like to try my hand at that. Driving in the Indian roads has been one of the most frustrating things that I face on a daily basis. So I should at least see what I can do about that :).

Here are some of the basic driving principles which when followed would make driving much easier and safer for other people on the road (principles because I am not sure if we have rules that correspond to these).

This is not a comprehensive list but rather an indicative list. 1) Do not park near intersections where you can cause inconvenience for turning vehicles. This alone causes so much of the traffic jams that happen around busy intersections in Trivandrum. Not only would you cause obstruction to turning vehicles but in turn they would cause obstruction to onward and ultimately oncoming traffic and causing traffic jams

2) Do not park on the wrong side of the road - you will cause inconvenience to oncoming traffic when you are parking and also when you are taking the car out from the parking spot.

3) Do not take U turns in busy roads. Turn to a by-lane on the left, take a U turn there (or turn around by reversing into further by-lanes), come back to the main road and then take a right. Otherwise you would cause obstructions to traffic behind you when you start your U turn and cause obstructions to oncoming traffic when you finish the U turn. In the prescribed approach you cause only a minimal obstruction to the traffic behind you and besides you have the option of waiting for an intermission in the traffic before you make the right turn. Also you will be able to reach normal traffic speed while joining the oncoming traffic much faster this way than with the U turn.

4) Do not park at no-parking zones. If you do so you would inevitably be causing inconvenience to other people. The no-parking zone was put there for some purpose in the first place.

5) Do not go slow in fast lanes. You would be causing inconvenience to traffic behind you and would be forcing them to take extra risks in trying to overtake you.

6) If you are going slow, keep to the left of the road. Why should somebody going faster than you wait behind you just because you want to go slow.

7) Always keep left if you have an option to. That way you will ensure that the road utilization is very high and also provide the least inconvenience to onward and oncoming traffic

8) Do not stop at no-stopping zones for the same reasons as for the no-parking zones.

9) When you park, make sure that you are not wasting any parking space, and that you are parked as close to the kerb as possible and that you are not obstructing any other parked vehicle or a driveway or a by-lane.

10) Never overtake along the right side of a vehicle which has put a right indicator. Similarly move to the right of the lane if you are turning right since you should not expect people to overtake you through the right once you put the right signal.

11) Likewise never pass along the left of a vehicle which is turning left. So when you are turning left do not expect a vehicle to go through your left and hence keep to the left side of the road.

12) Give way for faster vehicles. You wouldn't gain anything by not doing so and he would gain something by you doing so.

13) Always stop at stop signs at intersections. Merge into the traffic or cross the traffic only during an intermission in the flow. If you don't you will be causing far more total inconvenience to a large number of people than the slight convenience you gain by not doing so.

14) Give way to oncoming vehicles turning right. This is true especially in narrow roads because if you don't it is highly likely that you are going to cause a traffic block for yourself down the road. Letting the turning vehicles turn will ensure a reasonably smooth flow and prevent deadlocks.

15) Avoid right turns in heavy traffic whenever possible. Alternatively go take the next round or turn left into a by-lane and turn round and wait for a respite in the traffic and then cross the traffic.

16) When you are waiting to cross an intersection make sure that you cross only during a respite in the traffic. Do not inch into the intersection and restrict the traffic. If you inch into the traffic you will be inviting the vehicles to cross you by moving right and thereby create the possibility of a traffic obstruction to traffic in both directions.

17) When you are waiting in a traffic jam, DO NOT try to overtake the vehicle in front of you. Not only that you wouldn't reach anywhere by doing that but also you would be creating a deadlock by blocking the oncoming traffic.

18) This might sound funny - yes you should not violate a one way rule even at night. The thing is oncoming traffic would never expect a vehicle against the one-way direction and could be very dangerous for you and the oncoming driver.

These principles are simple extensions of a few fundamental principles

1) Other drivers on the road have as much right as you do. Corollary - You have as much right for the road as anybody else.
2) Do not cause inconvenience for other people on the road for the sake of your luxury. Corollary - You don't have to suffer inconvenience for the sake of another person's luxury.
3) First come - first serve, so yield for the guy who came first. Corollary - demand if you are the first.
4) Right of way for the one on the right so yield if you are on the left. Corollary - demand if you are on the right.

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There is luck, but nobody is lucky

Luck is an unpredictable parameter that can bias results of experiments to produce highly unlikely outcomes. Any circumstance in day-to-day life can be called an experiment with some outcome. When somebody digs a well and lands a pot of gold, people would say it was sheer luck. Luck can go both ways - you could have good luck as above or you could have bad luck - like when getting run over by a car.

So luck could be mathematically defined as an incalculable parameter in an experiment where a highly unlikely outcome occurred. More simplistically it is a phenomenon that causes occurrences of low probability events. Now that we have defined luck we can take a look at another related term - lucky. A person is called lucky if he has luck acting in his favor more often than not and unlucky if otherwise.

Somebody being lucky would then imply that when he/she is the actor in an experiment the outcome would more likely be favorable than not. Consider a simple experiment as tossing a coin. If somebody is inherently lucky he should have a higher than expected percentage of successful outcomes when a coin is tossed n times. Additionally even if the experiment was repeated a similar result should be observed. As a corollary an unlucky person should see a higher than expected percentage of failures.

But the above explanation about "being lucky" does not sound reasonable. If the coin was tossed by a third person, how in the world would the lucky person have possibly affected the outcome of a toss. If this possibility have to be accepted then we will have to accept a metaphysical relationship between the person and the coin. Under a system of rational, physical analysis this does not sound very plausible.

Thus, even though we have defined luck, we have concluded that you can't be lucky nor unlucky. So those of you who have been blaming your luck, do please stop doing that and those of you who have been attributing outcomes to luck also likewise.

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There is no point in worrying

One of the worst afflictions of humankind is its proclivity for worrying. The malady affects almost every individual of the human species alike. There are extreme medical treatments for extreme cases of this illness (eg: tranquilizers, depressants). However there is a simple psychological treatment for this disease. The symptoms could range from reduction in efficiency under mild conditions to depression and hallucinations under the extreme conditions.

Psychologically worries are caused by negative thoughts, often repeated thoughts, mostly revolving around helplessness, inevitability, uncertainty, inability of the person under the given set of circumstances. The issue is normally aggravated by a vicious cycle of worry causing repeated reexamination of the issue under an even more negative frame of mind. The obvious results of worries include - loss of peace of mind, fall in concentration, decrease in ability, decrease in confidence, development of a negative frame of mind and ultimately depression. These are in addition to the physiological results that could range from increase of blood pressure to even a cardiac arrest.

A person can worry about anything and everything on this planet. The items and issues that he/she worries about can be broadly classified as items/issues the person has control over and items/issues the person does not have control over. Everybody gets infected by the worry germ once in a while. The rational person should, however, be able to identify and classify the cause of the worry, at the onset of the worry itself. Once the classification is done, it is a matter of simple decision making to set one's mind to not think about the item/issue the person is worrying about, if the item/issue is beyond the persons control. In the second scenario where the item/issue is within the person's control he/she should take necessary actions to bring the item /issue under his/her control and to obviate the cause for the worry itself.

Most people lose the ability to think coherently at the onset of the worry and hence derail at the first step of the solution itself. This is however a matter of practice. Start with small things you worry about and do away with the worries using the above strategy. Slowly tackle bigger worries. Pretty soon you will reach a carefree state of mind where you don't worry about anything at all. It is a very liberating feel once you reach that state. The moment you start your way out of your worries you will feel the sudden change in the quality of your life.

Let me explain with some simple examples. Worrying about not reaching office/school in time when waiting for your bus/riding in your bus - no amount of worrying could bring the bus a second earlier, You could instead try catching an earlier bus the next day. Worrying about rains - take an umbrella. Worrying about exams 1 month before the exams - study well and you wouldn't have to worry at all. Worrying about exams 10 minutes before the exams - worrying will only increase the chances of your making mistakes. Worrying about your performance at your job - Increase your ability/capability and performance will follow.

In simple words - if you can change it, change it, else stop worrying about it.

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Can reason exist without faith?

I consider myself a highly rational individual. I like to take my decisions based on reason than on anything else. People normally allow a lot of emotions, sentiments, and habits affect their decisions. It is not that emotions or other factors does not affect my decision making but rather I try to limit the influence of all these factors from my decision making.

This might sound pretty simple and straightforward but on the contrary it is a very tough task. Sometimes, when you have other people involved in the decision making or when other people are affected by the decision made, taking a purely rational decision might even become impossible.

So what is a rational decision? A rational decision is a decision based on reason. And what is reason? Princeton's wordweb defines it as a fact that logically justifies a premise or a conclusion. So a rational decision is based on already proven theories and facts that further validate the theories. So applying a system of pure reason somebody else will be able to validate the decision to be true under the given rationale.

A rational decision is very likely to be the right decision under normal circumstances. Nobody makes decisions with an intention to make it wrong. So those people who take decisions based on other factors other than reason make them under the belief that these decisions are going to be correct. These decisions can therefore be classified as faith based decisions. They will believe that their decisions are going to be correct because the system that validates their decisions while they are being made is a system based not on rationale. Under their faith based system their decisions will be validated to be true. Somebody else subscribing to the same faith based system will be able to validate the decision, but this would be very unlike, if somebody applying a system of pure reason tries to validate it.

From the above reasoning we might be deceived to get to a conclusion that a rational system would be better than any faith based system. However on closer examination we can see a more interesting aspect. Take any rational system, it would have a set of fundamental axioms. These are theories that are considered correct because they have been proved to be correct in all observed cases and they have not been disproved by any cases. Rational systems are built around these fundamental axioms. So if you have to accept the system to be correct then you have to assume that the axiom is correct. So your rational decision ultimately depends on your faith that the axiom is correct.

It could be argued that axioms have not been disproved and that the probability of a rational system going wrong is far, far smaller than that for faith based systems. Yes these arguments hold, but my point is just that even rational systems have to depend on faith. So at some subliminal way you are still depending on faith even when you are supposedly making purely rational decisions. I rest my case.

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Let me take A breather

When I started this blog, I decided to blog every day. Very soon I realized that it was not possible and decided to blog every week. I was doing pretty well initially until my business responsibilities caught up with me. I was still trying to post every week but I seldom got any of the articles to completion. Today I have more articles in the draft mode than in the published mode.

I had a pretty hectic 3 months till date. There were two major events during this period. One was the first project by Zyxware Technologies. The second was the marriage of my sister. Both are over and I should theoretically be back on track.

The software developed was a web based application to track diseases like Malaria, Chikungunya, Dengue etc. The application was released under the GNU GPL on Oct 5. The release caught the attention of the media for two aspects - 1) The possibility of open source applications speeding up the automation process in our government establishment, 2) The boldness of the decision to give a software, which could sell for reasonably good amounts of money, for free.

My sister's marriage was on Oct 13th 2007. It had been a long awaited event for some time now. Now that it is over my parents are relieved to have fulfilled one of their big time responsibilities. Conspiracies are underway to tie the knot around my neck too. All the life saving skills I have learned till now should help me evade it for some more time, hopefully.

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Why should you fight evil?

Should you even fight? A simple question isn't it. Most people answer in the negative and continue on with their lives leading a very passive existence. It is as if one can lead a life independent of what is going on around him. A little insight into economics will prove otherwise. I could easily give an ethical reason why we should fight evil but a more rational explanation should make more sense to more people.

The point can be illustrated with some real life experience from running the computer sales and services division of zyxware over the last one year. Normally we don't give credit to customers. The selling price of our PCs just about cover our operational cost and a fair margin. So if everything goes well we would have a nominal operational profit that would help in the growth of the company and justify the investment of the capital. Anything below the margins we currently take wouldn't justify our operations and the whole thing would cease to be a profitable venture and should spiral down over a period of time.

However with customers whom we know personally or who were recommended by close friends we used to give credit considering their financial difficulties or giving in to their requests for credit. This is fine with us and we increment the total cost of the PC to cover the additional capital cost. This is required as the capital remains dead until the customer pays us back and we have to have the nominal profit at the end of the year for sustained operations. There are no problems in the process till now. But here we are putting our trust on the customer.

Now suppose there are a few defaulters who does not pay us in time. They would keep the capital dead for more time than was already estimated for during the costing and this additional cost would eat into the total margins for such transactions. Not everybody would default, only a small percentage does. Suppose we give credit to 100 customers every year and 10 of them default leading to a reduction in margins of let us say 'X'.

Like I mentioned before we cannot afford this reduction, so this has to be recovered. If we know beforehand the people who are going to default we could just charge them X/10 more to cover the reduction in margins. But, we don't. So the only practical way would be to charge every body who comes for credit X/100 more to cover this. We don't like doing this and so we have simple stopped (almost completely) giving credit to all our customers. It is too much of a risk for a company like ours whose primary vision is to be a change in the society to try to help a few people and risk ruining the company.

The above is a simple example that shows how the good (the 90 people who does not default) pays for the bad (the 10 who default). This applies to lot of other areas in our daily life, take for example tax rates - tax rates are high so that the total revenue of the state remains sufficient to cover its costs. If people default on taxes then this should be recovered from people who don't. So if all of us pays our taxes then the rates would have been much lower. Another example is cheating in business - when there is cheating there are losses on one side, these losses have to be recovered from the business itself and the only way it is possible is to recover it from people who don't cheat.

Effectively, anywhere there are malpractices or cheating or unfair gains there are costs and these costs will be covered by the people who does not do malpractices or does not cheat or does not take unfair gains. So when good does not fight evil, it is evil who wins always and good who loses always.

The moral of the story is simple - the next time you see evil and does not fight it, remember, you are paying for it. The small corollary is that - you don't have to pay if you join the evil - but don't worry that is what the law of the land is for. At some point the law will catch up, so evil never pays ultimately. Also if you fight the evil, the law will catch up with the evil faster.

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