Barcamp London 7

It’s been ages since I’ve blogged here. Just a quick note to say that I’ll be attending the BarCamp London 7 unconference(24-25th October).

What is a BarCamp?

“BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event.”

- barcamp.org

You can find more information about BarCamp London 7 here.

Let me know if you are attending as well.

@anup

What is the biggest difference between reading something on the internet, and reading a book ? When you read a book, you’re more focused, in the flow and probably relaxed; whereas when you’re reading something on the internet you tend to skim the text rather than read it, constantly distracted by the (hyper)links, which take you away from the page you’re reading, thereby breaking the flow. Also, while reading/surfing the net, you tend to flit from one link to another, and most probably never return back to the original article. Most of the people (if not all), tend to read in this fashion on the net. This is one of the consequences of the internet. It has redefined our generations reading habit.

This fact is analysed in excruciating detail by Nicholas Carr, who has written a perceptive essay on this topic, aptly titled: ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid‘. I urge you to try and read this article in one sitting. It is a long article, and if you’re anything like me, you might get fidgety after the third or fourth paragraph, and would try to find the smallest excuse to stray away from the page, by clicking on a link to another article, or check your inbox, or refresh your feed reader. Nicholas Carr’s views on this behaviour are insightful, and really tell us how the internet might have rewired our brain to be constantly distracted. Now, this could be my interpretation, but honestly when was the last time you read a 2 page article without being distracted by your email, or messenger, or probably a link in the article that interests you.

Think about it !

<The image used above has been taken from moriza’s photostream on flickr>

(image source: www.exclaim.ca)

It is only fair to assume that many readers aren’t aware of the exact definition of the term – Net Neutrality. So I will start with a brief summary of what it means. Wikipedia has an excellent discourse on this topic. In essence it can be summarized as follows :

Network Neutrality — or “Net Neutrality” for short — is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet.

Put simply, Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.

Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It protects the consumer’s right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

-source : www.savetheinternet.com

For the past few weeks, I’ve been reading about how big telecom and broadband providers are trying to be the gatekeepers of the internet. They want to gain control over the content that flows through the internet, with the sole purpose of making more money. In the UK, Virgin media is in talks with with content providers about paying to have their content delivered faster than others. In an interview with the Royal Television Society’s “Television” magazine, CEO Neil Berkett said that, ”this net neutrality thing is a load of b****cks”. Even in the US, major broadband providers have been contemplating about the control over the internet. Some of the I.S.P’s in the U.S. have been accussed of blocking/delaying bit torrent traffic. Their rationale to regulate the torrent traffic is, that the peer-to-peer bit torrent traffic causes strain on the bandwidth, which in turn delays other relevant content traffic. So, instead of improving their infrastructure( like installing fibre optic cables), broadband providers have decided to restrain the existing flow of internet traffic, which is ridiculous and unacceptable. CNET.com has another very interesting article about the fallacious arguments used by the I.S.P’s to defend their actions.

Net Neutrality is not a new term or priniciple. Net Neutrality has always been the implicit backbone of Internets architecture. It enabled small players, and the long tail of business to thrive and succeed. If you take away this neutrality, and start segmenting the internets traffic into tiers, you basically end up raising the barrier for small(but creative and innovative) players, who could be the next Google or Amazon or Facebook. Internet has always been a level playing field for everybody, where the most creative, talented, and hardworking people succeed. If net-neutrality is compromised, it could also prohibit ‘freedom of speech’, wherein the ISPs could start filtering content(blog post, article, news item) which is detrimental to their interest. This sounds hypothetical at the moment, but could soon become a harsh reality if Net Neutrality is abolished or curtailed.

7. xiao xiao: Not very challenging if you’re a hardcore gamer, but should keep you occupied till you wait for your capuccino at the local Starbucks.

6. Bloons : This one is simple, yet addictive. The goal is to pop minimum number of balloons with the limited amount of darts given to you to pass each level. The trick is to maximize the damage caused by a single dart shot.

5. Blocks: Another “rack your nerve cells” game. The aim of this game is to get the block to fall into the square hole at the end of each stage. Sounds simple, well go ahead, and try it out for yourself.

4. Portal : A tiny fan made flash based version of the cocept of portals used in Halo. To be specific, you cross each level by smartly using your portal gun to reach the exit door. Very clever !

3. Flow: It is a beautifully simple and surprisingly addictive Flash game built by Jenova Chen. It was also rated as one of the best indie games of 2007 by Wired.

2. Desktop Tower Defense: This is a not-so-simple, but also not-too-difficult strategy game. It kinda live action puzzle game written for fun in flash. You have to stop your enemies, or “creeps,” from traveling all the way across the screen.

1. Orisinal – Winterbells : Very simple, aesthetically pleasing, and addictive at the same time. Use your mouse to make the cute bunny jump on the bells floating in air. The higher you climb, higher your score , and needless to say more difficult your climb will be.

There you go, you now have seven reasons to procrastinate that important task you were supposed to complete yesterday.

To summarize, India has potential but no drive. It has an excellent talent pool, but no risk-taking gene.

Do read the comments as well, some of them are quite good.

Just a quick post to wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year. Hope you all have a great year ahead.

As usual, make new year resolutions, then break ‘em .

Start your new year with this thought, Being Anxious is good for business. Take care, cya next year.

P.S: The above image has been borrowed from Persons photostream on Flickr.

According to Wikipedia, Gender Bias or sexism is commonly considered to be discrimination and/or hatred against people based on their individual merits, but can also refer to any and all systemic differentiations based on the sex of the individuals.

Sexism can refer to subtly different beliefs or attitudes:

• The belief that one gender or sex is inferior to or more valuable than the other;
• Female or male chauvinism
• The attitude of misogyny (hatred of females) or misandry (hatred of males); as well as
• The attitude of imposing a limited and/or false notion of masculinity on males and a limited and/or false notion of femininity on females, or vice versa.
• A feeling of distrust towards the opposite or same sex, most frequently operating at unconscious level.

Bias against women is the most common form of Gender Bias. This bias has been acknowledged and tackled by organisations everywhere. There are rules and policies in place, to prevent any kind of bias, based on the sex of the individual. They try to ensure that success or progression of an employee is sex agnostic, and will be based on merits rather than prejudices. But, unfortunately there is no way of enforcing these policies at an individual level across an organisation.

There could be couple of male chauvinists, who’d rather be happy to see female colleagues miserable, or it could be the other way round. It is quite possible to come across a feminist who’d treat males like garden pests. But then, I’m talking about two extremes here. In the real world, sexism is often subtle, and more exacting than we would like to imagine.

I’d take two examples here, first we will imagine a scenario involving a female gender bias. Mr. X and Miss Y both work hard on a project, and complete it before the deadline. X gets a promotion, but Y is placated with a small raise. Reason, big boss is sexist, he abhors women taking charge of corporate desks. So, he unabashedly favors X over Y.

Another example, again Mr. X and Miss Y toil day and night to meet a mission critical project deadline. This time Miss Y is promoted, and Mr. X is given a small award to shut him up. This time, big boss is a female who is feminist to the core. These are again obvious cause and effect scenarios. Sometimes, the discrimination is subtle, like being excluded from group activities in a male dominant group. Assigning the complex technical project to your male colleague, just because the PM assumes that males are more competent at solving complex problems. These are few examples, which portray sexist attitudes. I’m sure there are many more.

At the risk of making a very general statement, I think that female bias is more rampant than male bias. The cause can be easily traced back to our thinking in a male dominant society, that men are superior than women. But attitudes are changing for the better now, we’ve come a long way in terms of our views about womens place in society. Our society rightfully treats a women an equal to men. They are encouraged to take up careers which were predominantly male oriented : military, marines, police force. Even the business world is crowned with female high achievers.

I’d be interested to know if this will increase male bias in the future. What are your views ?