Shoot!

I’ve been caught “shooting” with a camera and looked upon as ‘terrorist’ material. Not once or twice, but 4 times, at 3 different places, by different people. Friends with “pro” cameras (or pro-looking ones) have been stopped on quite a few occasions being mistaken for reporters. I’m not talking of those instances. I am counting the times when I’ve been in “real” trouble and was treated as a potential terrorist. Four Times.
The last time was special, since I was robbed of cash by a Public servant in the ‘Khakhi’, who was apparently doing his duties! I leave the cribbing about corrupt men and lost cash for later. It obviously didn’t feel nice, being treated in that fashion.
And that, just for having a camera and trying to learn the art of “shooting” pictures. Thankfully, it was something that I could, shut off (along with my mouth) and throw into my backpack.
What of people born to parents who believe in a particular god. People suspected for what their parents named them. People suspected for dressing the way their fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters dress.
Wonder when the world ‘ll grow up…

Filed under: Ramblings , camera, photos, police, shooting, terror

Stress and us

[Cross-posted on the FOSSEE Blog]
Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you, if you walk into our lab sometime and mistake it for a game zone in your neighbourhood. You are indeed in “the” lab. If you came looking for Prof. Prabhu you’ll have to return. You’ll only find PR vowing to see the end of baali, for having a nice time pawning him. You won’t find me around – I’m cloaked and busy creating havoc. Unless, of course, you are the seer KD. Watch your step extremely carefully or you won’t know when and how fuchmed’s GM hit you. And don’t dare venture anywhere near madrazr, jumping all around with a shockwave, unless you are capable enjoying some real nasty shocks. Well, the team is busy in one of it’s two SB sessions per day. SB (short for Stress Buster) sessions are intense 15 minute rounds of bzflag – 3D first person tank battle game.

Hope you didn’t start thinking, I’m just goofing off here, doing nothing at all. If it’s not already clear, SB sessions are exactly what they are called – Stress Busters. Just to refresh ourselves and get back to work, with greater force. What then, am I doing for the rest of my time?

Mainly I’ve been developing course content that we have been working on, called Software Tools, Techniques and Practices. I have been working on a session for elementary LaTeX and basic Linux tools. I’ve also been attending classes of Digital Control and trying to Python-ize the Matlab/Scilab code that the course uses.

But, that’s not all. I’ve helped a guy restore a Joomla site on Day-1. I screwed up a brand new installation of a server with some real skill; then expect to be screwed but get some encouragement with the words, “It was a good learning experience for us.” Seen a Debian server upgrade from Etch to Lenny in under 10 minutes. Installed an instance of twiki and struggled to configure it. Helped a Humanities Scholar with LaTeX. Attended a workshop on Instruction Design. Restored Qmail on an old Fedora 3 server. Goofed around in gimp, for a CD cover and a T-shirt design. Chipped in with bits, for mutating Ubuntu into “LivePython”. Did a bit of css and javascript tweaking… The list goes on!

Now, don’t you think we deserve the SB’s?

Filed under: College, Libre, Programming, Ramblings , bzflag, fossee, iitb, stress