For now, here’s some music. This song has followed me around for the last 12 years, and when it is time for me to go away, I hear this song playing somwhere. It’s corny, but its nice.

In one year, I went from knowing nothing about the world, to interacting with hundreds of other people across the world, talking about different things, and experiencing new content every day. Ideas in the form of text, video (granted there wasn’t much back then), music. That desire to learn new things, and to “consume” content has not abated in the last decade and a half.

Last week, I was mentioning to a colleague that I had to “download” a particular album by a new artist since it was unavailable in the US (both iTunes, and in store), and the conversation moved to the ethics of doing such a thing.

How can one, in the world today, justify “pirating” a song, when there is so many ways of getting, said product?

In my opinion, the cost of virtual goods (videos, movies, music,  pod-casts, articles) are higher than their perceived value by the consumer.

With these assets on the internet, the cost of storage, distribution, and revenue generation is almost zero. Yet an album is still priced around $10-$20. In such an environment, scarcity is pre-dominantly artificial, whether it created by DRM or regional restrictions or pricing schemes, only serve to fuel piracy.

In my case, I would have gladly paid for it on iTunes, but it wasn’t available there. It was available on Spotify, but of course, that is not available in Canada (it’s only been 3 years since the rest of the world has access to it). So my choice is between being denied access to content I’m willing to pay for, or fire up a browser, find the torrent, and download it. Guess which one I chose?

Fred Wilson, says it better than I can ever hope to (seems like he had a similar problem, and found the same solution):

I understand their muscle memory in terms of the scarcity business model. But restricting access to content is a bad business model in the age of a global network that costs practically nothing to distribute on.

via A VC: Scarcity Is A Shitty Business Model.

We, humans are creative beings, and we will always seek the shortest, fastest, cheapest path to creative content. We can make it illegal, but we can’t stop people from reaching out to their fundamental impulses. Perhaps it is time we change the way we have organized how we make money from those impulses.

It is also the perfect curry to cook for smaller portions. If you are like me, and have to cook for 1 person, aka me,  all the time, it is a no-frills and no-freezer required recipe.

1. Fry all the onions until soft (5-6 mins) in high heat
2. add mined garlic, 1 tsp jeera, 1 tsp dania powder, and salt to taste, some tumeric powder (1 tsp for each handful of prawns), and chilli powder to taste (I use very little)
3. add some salt (increases the temp and allows everything to sear nicely)
4. cook for 4 mins or until the prawns are half-cooked
5. add diced tomatoes, and salt to taste (remember to taste the sauce before adding the salt)
6. sear for 1 min and then add 1/2 cup of water (not too much or you will over cook the prawns), and reduce heat, and simmer until the above consistency is reached.

cook some rice, and you have a decent meal!

Some pictures:

மழையில் நனைந்துகொண்டே
வீட்டுக்கு வந்தேன்
‘குடை எடுத்துட்டுப் போக வேண்டியதுதானே!’
என்றான் அண்ணன்’
எங்கேயாச்சும் ஒதுங்கி நிக்கவேண்டியதுதானே’
என்றாள் அக்கா
‘சளி பிடிச்சுக்கிட்டு செலவு வைக்கப்போற பாரு’
என்றார் அப்பா
தன் முந்தானையால்
என் தலையை துவட்டிக்கொண்டே
திட்டினாள் அம்மா
என்னையல்ல; மழையை!
source: Joy Junction

My translation, in the hope that it redeems the “theft”:

I came home drenched in the rain
‘Why didn’t you take the umbrella’
said my brother
‘You could have waited somewhere until there was a respite in the rain’
said my sister
‘you are going to catch a cold and cost us money’
said my father
With the tip of her sari,
as she dried off my head,
my mom was cross
not with me;
but with the rain.

Yes. We tamilians are melodramatic and sentimental sometimes … (well actually, all the time. Some of us, just learn to hide it better) Mom. Dad. Grandma, Shankar and Swetha. There are days where I really miss you guys. Today was one such day.

J.S. BACH BWV 1046 Brandenburg Concertos No: 1

Movements 1 & 2: http://youtu.be/idvduV2I3o0

Movements 3 & 4 : http://youtu.be/x8AEGLAyMOc

Strong Mercy by Rabindranath Tagore

My desires are many and my cry is pitiful,
but ever didst thou save me by hard refusals;
and this strong mercy has been wrought into my life through and through.

Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple,
great gifts that thou gavest to me unasked—this sky and the light, this body and the
life and the mind—saving me from perils of overmuch desire.

There are times when I languidly linger
and times when I awaken and hurry in search of my goal;
but cruelly thou hidest thyself from before me.

Day by day thou art making me worthy of thy full acceptance by
refusing me ever and anon, saving me from perils of weak, uncertain desire.

This poem, expresses a lot of what’s on my mind, at this ungodly hour (its 3:39 am), except for the last couple of lines. I didn’t want to editorialize a poem, and hence left it in place.

It’s that time of the year, in Vancouver, when it starts to rain and is expected to do so, incessantly, for the next 6 months (I exaggerate, a little).

It is better to be prepared for it, and enjoy it while it lasts (like so many other things in life — even the moments, that are not exactly the way one wants them to be)

So here are a few pictures, that show how beautiful and mesmerizing rain can be.

Don’t we all!

The sun is out in Vancouver ! Time to get out!

I had one such moment today, and after I had returned to Zen (some soul-searching and some google searching), I realized it quite simple.


$ gmake
...
...
some_file.h:42: badly punctuated parameter list in `#define'
some_file.h:64: badly punctuated parameter list in `#define'
Failed to compile
$


This was caused by the following:


file: some_file.h
-----------------
...
...
#define LOG(...) {\ printf (##__VA_ARGS__); \
}
...
...


This works in most modern C compilers. However, if you happen to use one from the 80s (I exaggerate a little – not by much), it throws the error as above. You can fix this as follows:


file: some_file.h
-----------------
...
...
#define LOG(ARGS...) {\ printf (##ARGS); \
}
...
...


Source : http://nixscripts.blogspot.com/2010/09/badly-punctuated-parameter-list.html