I took a bus ride yesterday. It was that simple. I had somehow forgotten that there was a holiday and had scheduled some works with the government departments. It was a mistake. And, in the end I decided to take a bus ride to meet a friend. I've never used the bus during my earlier visits. The metro-train combination for Madhyamgram was convenient, easy and quick.

This time I took a bus. As is the habit with me I asked the conductor to call out when Madhyamgram Chowmatha (the four-lane intersection) came up. While he happily and with some mirth said that it was 90 minutes away, the co-passenger said that since he would be getting off a stop before it shouldn't be a problem. The WBITDC/JNNURM bus was pretty comfortable. It may have been carrying a lighter load than usual (and, the detour via EM Bypass due to Moulali-Sealdah being closed down for processions) could have contributed. By the looks of it the passengers were a familiar bunch. Perhaps they all travel together like they do in trains. Small talk, banter and snatches of words and phrases not usually heard in the city buses abounded. The day was nice, the journey long and, the window seat was mine. That was probably required to ward off the feelings of being let down by the snag in the scheduling of work - when one has a hard timeline to adhere to, any complications can either be taken in the stride (swalpa adjust maadi) or, just cribbed over. I had ended up doing the latter but half an hour in the bus did away with all the feelings of general unhappiness.

The bus was on time. More importantly, the short journey allowed me to see a bit of suburbia that I haven't had the chance to see in the intervening 6 years. Lot has changed. But then again a whole lot hasn't - read infrastructure (sanitation-sewage), street lights and so forth. And, the walk to dipankar-da's house was made with light trippy steps (as much as my girth would allow). We meet only when I am in town and conversations generally end up being more unstructured than what we have over email. Yesterday was no exception. And, with a wonderful mutton curry and some lovely mellow Earl Grey tea it was time well spent. And, probably because I was a happy camper did the return journey have all the links clicking together like clock-work (managed to snag an earlier train which led to obtaining tickets for the metro right on time and thereafter getting a seat for the entire stretch and, getting comfortably to an auto).

Sometimes just taking a journey to chat can make one feel better.

It is one of those things. You know that the good times won't last. You know that things are bubbling but when they do happen you feel bad. The impending going away of delicious takes away a nifty tool. The value was less in one's own bookmarks and perhaps more in the leverage of the network created within delicious and, the ability to search for interesting articles and bookmarks on similar topics. And, the ability to access bookmarks irrespective of the device one is using was just too awesome.

While I export my current bookmarks into an HTML file, I am faced with choices that don't really match up to delicious. Oh what a sadness ! Bloglines, delicious - what's next ?

And, I wonder about Flickr. I really do wonder because it has become integral to my photography workflow. The other choices like SmugMug aren't just there when it comes to (that same thing) - network and learning from the network.

But since when did you see a long line up of "firsts" crammed into one single day ? :)

1. Started off with not being able to recognize the early morning alarm for the flight. Would have probably slept through it had not Runa started mumbling about the alarm.
2. The Wings Cab was a bit later than usual.
3. Bumped my head fairly heavily when getting in. I am generally very careful while sliding my massive bulk into a cab. This time around I guess the rush and the queer interior light had me flummoxed. I have a sweet little lump just above my forehead and I guess that is part of the reason of #7
4. Waltzed through the security check-in etc formalities at the Pune airport. This is a new experience since it is generally a case of "open bags to demonstrate multiple cables, show off the lenses etc"
5. Saw a group of students (from some institute at Pune) doing a random and chaotic distribution of sweat-shirts. Turns out that the shirts had a funny message.
6. Figured that the students were on some field trip / excursion to Port Blair. The group sitting behind me had no idea where Port Blair was on the map (there we some murmurs about it near Lakshadweep) or, why they were going there. That was good fun to learn since for all the limited field trips we took part in as a school kid, we did cram up reading about the location.
7. I slept through most of the flight. That's a first. I never manage to sleep through and through. In fact I missed the food trolley in the first hop.
8. The flight did not have the "slice of fruit cake" which I like a lot
9. The "leading lady" (chief cabin attendant) was flustered beyond belief and stuttered through all the announcements. The other cabin crew gamely helped her along. That was wonderful to see
10. The pre-paid taxi cab line had 85 folks when I joined them.
11. I decided to book a Kolkata Radio Cab and it was a decent ride if one can waive of the expected price/fare differential. The cab was clean, the driver decent and drove safely
12. I slept more when I reached home
13. Kolkata is strangely cold

First things first. Photographs are here.

Praveen did an awesome job of coordinating logistics and arranging everything for the meetup. I guess that by now he keeps a checklist in his mind and ticks off items with incredible speed.

The downside of having a meet in the office is that one is tempted to sneak in and out and that is precisely what I ended up doing. The only session that I did sit through extensively was the one of Santhosh and Hiran. Discussing the gaps in user experience when accessing Wikipedia and other websites in local languages and even from non standard browsers, they did a nice analysis of the three foundations - display, input and rendering/printing. Additionally, discussing about the status of work that is being done under the umbrella of the Silpa Project it was probably the most interesting conversations that I've sat through in a while. And that was reflected in the conversations initiated by Erik immediately post to this presentation touching upon the need to build a collective that produces useful tools, widgets and APIs that are of immediate consumption to all and, also work across platforms.

The group photograph is here.

Along with a whole lot of people I have been waiting for the Notion Ink tablet. In spite of the delays, the somewhat pretending-to-tease-but-actually-vague nature of the blogs and so on. I haven't used a tablet for a long time and certainly cannot afford an iPad or, even a Galaxy Tab at this stage. So, when the announcement finally came I was a bit disappointed and I don't think I am going to put a pre-order for it.

Here are my preliminary reasons for arriving at that decision:

• No idea what the actual device looks like and performs. Curiously enough, there are no photographs or, videos (unboxing and others) that are generally associated with a product launch and availability. I can appreciate the need to keep things wrapped up but unless I see the tablet doing fancy things it would be difficult to put money on faith on the technical specifications.
• Having to pay money up-front without knowing about device availability and of course this bit about the Pixel-Qi screen being sold out. I would have rather preferred to place a pre-order, confirm when the device SKU is available and thereafter pay up. I know that I gladly accept pre-order pay-ups when placing them on Flipkart but there is a significant difference in the quantum of money involved.
• None of the reviewers/sites I read up to know about devices has a review of the device. And, this is odd. I find it an impediment to my purchase.

I hope that at some point all these would be addressed and perhaps I would be able to buy it off the shelf. I think I'll wait till then.

There are mornings when you wake up and see the room flooded with sunlight and the little wisps of fog outside being sliced and diced by the sun rays.

Today was one such day.

There's a lot to be thankful for. Just that we sometimes forget to realize that our going to sleep each night and waking up the next day to see the smiles of the ones we love or, hear their voices is a gift. And, we need to take a moment to cherish such presents.

Just returned from the Pune Wikipedia Meetup at SICSR. A quick summary would be that it went well. The room (#707) was full, there was evident interest in the concept of collaboration, knowledge sharing and communities. The students who formed a large part of the audience had just started doing their first edits on Wikipedia and hence the experiences shared by Srikeit were timely and relevant. 

Anticipating that there would be a bit of a squeeze I reached the venue early enough to learn that the speakers were running late. With a myriad set of meetings to participate in that isn't a surprise any day. Anyways, they came in soon enough and Harshad kicked off the proceedings with a short and quick introduction of the team of speakers. Erik and Danese then took over in encouraging a participatory discussion as opposed to a straight-up speech (the room is well suited to classes but not for easy conversation in discussions :)). Anyways, the underlying concepts were repeatedly emphasized in various ways - the need to "give something back" while "coming together and collaborating". Well illustrated with videos, anecdotes and, involving other projects like Wikieducator, OpenStreetMap, Crisis Commons, PediaPress, Kiwix and so forth. The last bit was interesting because it precipitated a set of questions around off-line Wikipedia accessing devices and, the methods and means to update the content with the changesets.

As would be obvious, the discussion veered towards credibility of the articles, the process and tools of editing and administration, checking of vandalism and so forth. In between there were some interesting points made by the students who have started to discover this means to be able to contribute in every little way possible viz. editing and contributing content, contributing pictures (for example, I am always amazed that this somewhat off-the-cuff picture of aloo paratha has some use), contributing sounds and so forth.

The meeting ended a bit abruptly than expected. I guess the late hour and the schedule of appointments was the root cause. With some hurried distribution of swag and an exhortation to meet in a month's time (perhaps to organize the party celebrating 10 years), the meeting came to a close.

Pictures are uploaded to Flickr.

It is incredibly easy to feel bitter about something. Actually, it is easy to be bitter about anything :) What is difficult is to be able to train oneself to look for the bright spots, the moments-of-joy areas within something that you could feel every justifiable reason to be bitter about. And, once these are discovered, it is an uphill climb towards purging the soul of the sour feelings. 

Feelings that aren't constructive do little to help in self development.

The step zero back from the abyss of such personal hell is the writing down in pure and simple terms as to what caused these feelings to be developed. And, then estimate their importance in one's life. This form of reasoning generally helps in an increased comprehension about the need to keep a balanced head. And, a demand to be happy.