For the first time in ages, I am afraid. One of my worst nightmares is coming to life. And I don’t even have time to prepare - it will hit me in 18 days. The black death. Dark ages. The darkness. These are just some of the names given to my nightmare. You might know it as load shedding.

For ages I have been waging war against the powers that be. Or, to be more specific, against the Kerala State Electricity Board. For the longest time they have been trying to keep from me the very force that’s critical to my existence - this thingy called electricity. I have even tried to reverse time itself to escape from their clutches.

The Ultimatum

This battle has been a stalemate for some time - my powerful UPS battery was more or less a match for their constant power failures. But now they have broken through my defenses - they have given me an ultimatum - 18 days. 18 dismal days. 18 dark depressing days. 18 dispiriting, discoraging days of desperation. OK, OK, I’ll stop - stop hitting the monitor.

Yesterday when I was having coffee, my brother handed me a paper with the ultimatum from KSEB. He pointed out the relevent article…

Idukki has water for just 18 days

Water level in the Idukki reservoir has fallen considerably, raising fears that the hydroelectric project which supplies nearly 50 per cent of the electricity generated in the State will have to be shut down if the situation continues for 18 days, a top official of the Dam Monitoring Cell at Cheruthoni said on Tuesday.

Dam it!
(Sorry about the pun - it just came out - couldn’t stop it in time. This is no time for joking.)

I am sure KSEB cannot achieve this alone - I am sure they have some help(or lack thereof) from the rain gods - a known enemy of a fellow blogger. We bloggers have common enemies.

My Only Hope

Currently, I am trying to hook up my cycle’s dynamo to my computer. I would have hooked up a bike - but oil price are up - because of me. So cycle and muscle power it is. Wish me luck.

If you are not seeing any update on this site after 18 days, know this. I will not give up - I will go down cycling.

George W Bush, current president of USA, leader of the free world and the butt of many jokes, have made this statement to explain the present ‘rice crisis’ aka ‘food shortage’…

…It also, however, increases demand. So, for example, just as an interesting thought for you, there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That’s bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population.

And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.

G W Bush.

Until now, I introduced myself like this…

Hi, I am Binny V A, a freelance web developer on the LAMP platform.

But from today, I will introduce myself as…

Hi, I am Binny V A, the leading cause of food shortage in the world.

As a middle-class Indian who eats a lot of rice, I have been ignored for so long at the global scale. But I always knew that, someday, I would get the recognition I deserved. Finally that day have arrived - Thank you, Mr. Bush!

Just to be clear, I have nothing against Bush. As a matter of fact, we share some common interests. I have cat, he have cat(called India). As a matter of fact, after some research into cats and their brain controlling abilities, I am sure that its India(the cat, not the country) who is actually ruling the US of A.

Lately I have been wondering why there is so many cats on the internet. Now I understand - its their latest attempt at world domination.

Introducing… Toxoplasmosis

What would you say if I told you that cats are spreading a mind control parasite that lives in your brain and modifies your behavior. What if I told you that this parasite has affected entire human cultures. It even promotes suicidal behavior in lab rats. And its already affected 50% of the entire human race.

Its true - every word of it. I know that you think its a blown up conspiracy - so here’s the ‘[citation needed]‘ version of the above paragraph. Warning: Scientific Articles - this will put you to sleep.

What would you say if I told you that cats are spreading a mind control parasite that lives in your brain and modifies your behavior. What if I told you that this parasite has affected entire human cultures. It even promotes suicidal behavior in lab rats. And its already affected 50% of the entire human race.

Scary isn’t it? Who thought that a few cute cats would colaberate to cause the collapse of civilization? I, for one, knew it from the beginning. I am sure every cat owner in some point of their life have contemplated such thoughts. Cat owners have known for some time that cats think they are better than us. Winston Churchill knew this - as can be seen in this quote where he compares a cat to a swine…

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Boys, Girls and Cats

Put a guy in a room with a cat and he will show some restrain in displaying affection for the creature. But if the person in the room is a member of the fairer sex, the response will be something in the line of ’shooo cuteeee’. And I will not blame them - its just the law of Cat Proximity coming into effect. But due to this cats seem to prefer women over men - it can be seen easily if we look at the symptoms of those affected with toxoplasmosis…

Infected men have lower IQs, achieve a lower level of education and have shorter attention spans. They are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose, and are deemed less attractive to women.

On the other hand, infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men compared with non-infected controls.

The modus operandi of cats are simple - spread the brain parasite to the rest of the human population, and then control the humans to do their bidding. There are records that proves that this method have succeeded in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians treated cats as gods - and I think the reason is a cute, cat created, zombie parasite.

Recognizing World Domination Behavior

If you have a cat, please keep your eyes open for these signs…

• Sits on your newspaper in the morning and carefully reads the coded message that Garfield sends out every day.
• Used to sleep on top of TV, now monitors CNN 24 hours a day.
• Notably absent from home during surprise feline invasion of Poland.
• When you enter the room, Snowball and the other members of the Tri-Cateral Commission stop talking and begin playing with yarn.
• Behind the couch you find a forged passport, plane tickets, and nine suicide bombs.
• What you thought was “heat” is actually a four-legged goose step.
• Well, *somebody* subscribed to alt.cats.world.domination.
• Autopsy of the last mouse left on your doormat reveals “tattoo” to be blueprint of the UN Building.
• Constantly petting that bald man he keeps on his lap.
• Kitty Chow spilled on the floor spells out “Drop the car keys and leave the door open or the dog gets it in the head.”
• Then — dead mice in the kitchen. Now — dead third world dictators in the basement.
• Judging from the kitchen, he seems to be working on some kind of “land mine” technology.
• Fluffy is now sleeping only 21 hours a day, down from 23.
• Has recently been acting somewhat… aloof.
• What your cat lacks in charisma and good looks, he makes up for with his ruthless handling of rival software companies.
• Somehow, you’re now subscribed to “Feline of Fortune” magazine.

In closing, here is a message from my cat…

Yes, he has laser eyes - bionic implants.

We are organizing a BarCamp in Cochin. Before you get excited, let me put your mind at ease - its not that kind of a bar. There won’t be any lawyers there. What, that’s not the ‘bar’ you have in mind? No, it is not that kind of bar either.

So, why do we call it a BarCamp? That’s a funny story. You see, there was this guy called O’Reilly. He created a conference called Friends of O’Reilly - also known as the FOO Camp. The people who where not invited to that camp came together and created another camp called BarCamp. Because we geeks like the word ‘Foobar’. So foo and bar - ain’t that funny? Yes, we geeks are very funny people. Positively hilarious - that’s us. Have you heard the one about GNU? That’s one of our favorite jokes.

Sure, we could have called it Programmer camp or developer camp or something like that - but that’s not very humourous. We want things to be witty - we take our jokes very seriously.

Are you a geek?

If there is anyone in this audience who thinks that the above mentioned things are normal, then you are a geek. Congratulations! As a prize, I invite you to attend the BarCamp. That is if you are in Cochin at February 3^rd. Fill out this form to register (RSS Readers may not be able to view the form).

If you are coming, please try to find me in the crowd. Finding me is easy - just ask everyone you meet wether they are a Schizophrenic - the one who says yes is me.

More information about BarCamp Kerala

All my friends have deserted to the other side. Even my family is moving away. The world around me is falling into this trap - here is a graph that shows the demise of our civilization…

Just decades ago, the MWM(Malayalies Without Moblies) was at 100% - now it is at 2%-3% range. And most people in this range are babies. And they belong in this range only for a short time - from the point of birth to the point when the father hands him a cell. So, most people belong to this range for about 4 seconds.

So why not buy a mobile? Because mobiles are about connectivity - and I am not. Having a mobile chains me to any idiot who have access to a phone. Why would anyone want that? Now, if only I could take a hammer to my land phone. My family would be suspicious - so I will have to make it look like an accident. Or a suicide.

In spite of my wishes I have been exposed to over 200 hours of deadly advertisements about mobiles. Usually after this kind of exposure, the human brain shuts down - and that often results in people buying mobile phones. I am still an owner of a functioning brain(I think - therefore, I think I am) - but I don’t know how long I can hold out.

I have no illusions about my fate. Before long, I will be one of them. I will be a brainless zombie who carries his remaining brain cells in a cell phone. My only hope is that the internal strifes within the Mobile community divides them before they take over the world. Even now there is a class struggle within the Mobile owning community - two new classes have been formed. Now there is a new endangered class - Malayalies with just one mobile.

I have a condition. It prevents me from doing a lot of physical activities. People closest to me know about my condition - and now I want to share it with you. I have a condition - its called laziness.

I don’t like the term lazy - it has a negative connotation. I prefer the term ‘Interest based priority arrangement system’. Basically, if I am interested in something, it winds up at the top of this queue. And if I hate doing something, it goes to the other end. For some unexplained reason, many people don’t agree with me when I say that this method is the most effective productivity booster…

Others: “You are lazy”
Me: “You say that like its a bad thing!”

As I said earlier, I find ‘Interest based priority arrangement system’ a great personal productivity booster. I do all the items at the top of my to do list without fail. And I enjoy doing them - I look forward to doing them. How many other productivity gurus can claim that? GTD is nothing compaired to my system. You will understand why after you take a look at my todo list for today…

• Sleep
• Eat
• Sleep
• More Sleep
• Coffee
• Sleep
• …

Four Point Method

“Wow! What a great system!” you must be saying to yourself by now “How do I implement this system in my own life?”. No fear - here is a four point method to use my (patent pending) system in your life…

1. Carpe Diem

Think of what you would like to do right now. No, don’t write it down - we are very lazy, remember? Now do it. If you want to sleep, find the closest bed and imitate a corpse. If you want to play a computer game, do it. After that, think about the next thing you want to do - then do it. Then start over again. Continue until dead.

2. Avoid Distractions

Other people will try to turn you away from this path. Parents telling you to study. Bills asking you to pay them. Bosses ordering you to work. I find that turning up the iPod volume until the music drowns out all the other voices helps in avoiding these distractions. Learn to ignore them and you will be fine.

4. Let go

And last but not the least, you don’t have to complete everything you have started. If you don’t like doing something, you can just

We had a run in with a snake a couple of days ago. By ’snake’ I meant a real snake - not a lawyer(thank goodness for that). Anyway, we have a zero tolerance policy towards snakes.

My cat spotted the snake first. It was lazily surveying the serpent thinking whether it needs to get into a rat-sharing arrangement with the snake. This is when my brother spotted it. He was the one who raised the alarm.

Soon my father and I joined the hunt. My father had a reputation of being a ’snake slayer’. He used to tell tales of the many snakes he killed in his youth. Conveniently, all this alledged snake murders happened before me or my brother were born - so we have no ways to verify his claims.

Together, we soon drew our battle plans - I was Ariel reconnaissance. I was to get on the terrace and try to spot the reptile. Before long, we concluded that it was hiding under a bunch of leaves. Armed with this intelligence, we began the concussion bombing. That is, we threw bricks at it.

When sustained bombing did not produce the intended result, we turned to incendiary bombs. We lit a few old newspapers and dropped it on the hiding place. Don’t worry about the newspaper - it was Malayala Manorama. Burning is the best use for that publication - perhaps even the only use.

After a few minutes, the snake decided that the current location was too ‘hot’. It beat a strategic retreat to another location. We tried following it - but it slipped through our defenses. There is a network of underground tunnels under our house that rats share with this snake. Once it gets into any of these caves, the chances of catching it approaches zero fast. So we decided to give up the search.

We are waiting for it to release a video footage from one of its underground bunkers to the media.

A few days back, I was lazily browsing the net - when suddenly I discovered that I have Schizophrenia. No, I did not get a hallucination that my dual monitors suddenly changed into a two headed beast. Nor did I hallucinate about anything else. What happened was that I stumbled upon a page about schizophrenia. To my shock, I had all the symptoms described in that page. Not just me - all the programmers I knew had Schizophrenia as well.

Before continuing, if you don’t know what schizophrenia is, here is a definition from the highest authority(Wikipedia).

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental illness characterized by impairments in the perception or expression of reality, most commonly manifesting as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions or disorganized speech and thinking in the context of significant social or occupational dysfunction.
Wikipedia

A list of symptoms for schizophrenia is available at the page we talked about. You may want to check it out if you suspect that you have schizophrenia. Or you can read that list here - with my commentary about it. You will be laughing all the way - up to the minute you discover that you have Schizophrenia.

Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Deterioration of personal hygiene

Check

Depression

No I don’t have this. But if I go through this list and finds out I do have schizophrenia, I will begin having this.

Bizarre behavior

Does sitting in front of a computer for 15 hours a day count as bizarre behavior? You betcha!

Irrational statements

“IE’s ActiveX control ‘XMLHTTP’ and XMLHTTPRequest(W3C Standard) can be used for Ajax Programming“
I don’t think it is irrational - but schizophrenics rarely think their own statements are irrational

Sleeping excessively or inability to sleep

Check

Social withdrawal, isolation, and reclusiveness

The basic traits of a programmer

Shift in basic personality

I don’t know whether there was a shift in my personality - I don’t remember a time when I was not into programming

Unexpected hostility

Try getting between a programmer and his computer - you will learn the true meaning of hostility.

Deterioration of social relationships

What part of “programmer” didn’t you understand?

Hyperactivity or inactivity — or alternating between the two

Coding like crazy / waiting to compile. Need I say more?

Inability to concentrate or to cope with minor problems

Great - first symptom that is a negative

Extreme preoccupation with religion or with the occult

Despite what you might be thinking, Emacs *is* a religion.

Excessive writing without meaning

What do you think programming is?

Indifference

Once I am on the computer I really don’t care about anything else

Dropping out of activities — or out of life in general

Been there, done that

Decline in academic or athletic interests

I hated studying - all subjects except computer.

Forgetting things

The main reason I love my computer is that it can be used to store information - so that I don’t have to store them in my head.

Losing possessions

I rarely lose anything - all the files in my system are indexed - all files are just a ‘locate’ away. Or a beagle search away.
What do you mean “possessions outside the computer”?

Extreme reactions to criticism

Have you ever sat in a code review session?
“How dare you call my code inelegant?! Die, fool!”

Inability to express joy

Inability to express joy when the unit tests are failing. Or when working with IE(Internet Explorer).

Inability to cry, or excessive crying

Excessive crying(or swearing) is another symptom of working with IE

Inappropriate laughter

Have you heard geek jokes? We are all about ‘Inappropriate laughter’. For example, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”

Unusual sensitivity to stimuli (noise, light, colours, textures)

If you are a designer.

Attempts to escape through frequent moves or hitchhiking trips

Attempts to escape through the Internet

Drug or alcohol abuse

Does coffee count?

Fainting

I have not fainted while programming yet - but I came very close while reading The Daily WTF

Strange posturing

Programmers have only one posture - L with a downward bend - you decide wether its good or bad.

Refusal to touch persons or objects; wearing gloves, etc.

If you are a programmer, other persons refuse to touch you. The fact that you have not bathed in the last three days might explain that.

Shaving head or body hair

No comments

Cutting oneself; threats of self-mutilation

I have threaten to mutilate my computer - with an ax. I was using Windows back then.

Staring without blinking — or blinking incessantly

Really - this is too easy.

Flat, reptile-like gaze

Yeah - got that too. Try staring at a monitor for 15 hours a day.

Rigid stubbornness

“VI is the best editor - and nothing you say will change my mind”

Sensitivity and irritability when touched by others.

What?! People are not irritated when touched by others? That’s news to me.

Peculiar use of words or odd language structures

Have you heard two programmers talking? There is a reason behind the saying ‘its all geek to me’. You may have heard it as ‘Greek to me’ - but that is the old saying. Its updated - the new saying is ‘its all geek to me’.

Yes - I definitely have Schizophrenia. I have 33 out of 35 symptoms in the list - I would say that’s pretty conclusive. I am for my first hallucination anytime now - it should be interesting.

Update: Portuguese Translation!

I just bought a ViewSonic 19″ Widescreen monitor. And a nVidia 8600GT graphics card. Then I spent six hours configuring the dual monitor setup exactly as I wanted it in Linux. The easiest way to do this is to convince yourself that the way it is configured is exactly what you wanted yourself. Never think that you can enforce your views on the machine. If you have to do it, this algorithm will come in handy…

while ( result == unsatisfactory ) {
	telinit 3 (shutdown display)
	edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf (The file that configures the display in Linux)
	telinit 5 (restarts display)
	set result = unsatisfactory (The result is never what you need. Never)
}

It is configured in Windows as well - I did not do that - that is the work of my brother. He knows that I am not going to configure it in Windows - and he wanted to play the latest games. Bijoy’s(my brother’s name) system has nVidia 6200 - and he has started complaning that the latest games looks like radioactive white goo on his system. He is hoping that I will graciously lend my system for him to play. He is in for a rude shock one of these days >:-)

Anyway, I have started to use this dual monitor setup. There are some side effects - I have this inexplicable urge to look at the new monitor and say ‘My preciousss…’.

And, by the way, my dreams have changed. Now I want three monitors.

Binny VA is an expert freelance programmer from Cochin. He currently runs a lot of blogs related to technology and programming details of which you can find at his homepage. He is also an editor at DMOZ directory (TCL/TK). We thank Binny for sparing time for this interview.

Technology/programming blogs by Binny VA

The other bloggers interviewed so far are…

• Kerala Blog Roll by Manoj M Prabhakaran
• Nishant’s blog by Nishant Hariharan