Don’t be Too Quick to Judge

 

 

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Don’t be Too Quick to Judge

via Thought Clusters by Krishna Kumar on 3/14/09

Sometimes, people can be too clever by half. When it comes to knowledge of understanding other people, everybody thinks they are an expert. They think they can understand the motivations of others based on one or two interactions when, in fact, they are drawing upon stereotypes and are making wrongful assumptions. People who are quick to form impressions of others set themselves up for failure, especially those who are disposed to mistrust of others.

A jaundiced and cynical view of the world pushes away people who want to help. It attracts people who want to feed the venom of hatred and bitterness. It keeps problems festering and avoids dealing with issues before they become serious. It prevents one from taking advantage of opportunities. And above all, it destroys something human in us, the ability to empathize with others.

I am reminded of "Good Will Hunting" where the Matt Damon character, Will, makes an infuriating remark about Sean Maguire (played by Robin Williams), a therapist trying to help him, after seeing a picture of Sean's. As reply, in one of the most moving movie speeches ever, Robin Williams explains why Will is wrong to base his judgment on one single observation of his life.

Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.

If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. 

You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help.

I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you.

You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my […] life apart.

You're an orphan right? [Will nods] You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some […] book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

I wonder how many times we have labeled, condemned or written off someone because of one incident, one misunderstanding, one assumption. That is one thing which has to change if we are to make our relationships (business and personal) work.

Krishna Kumar (http://www.krishami.com)

 

 

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Busy more than ever....and sick too !

Achhoooo !!!!

That was the first thing I said on my first day to office in Finland. God !! its cold. The temperature stays between -10 and -3 all the time. Have to get into layers and layers of woollen clothes here. And I thought I would be on vacation here. And the work , its piling up faster than the snow here.

I have made lots of progress on the new integration I am working on. Think Ill put it up as a separate post in here.

Meantime, looks like fever has caught me. Serves me right to wander in that snow all the time.

Acchhoooooo........

Final destination : Helsinki

Two months ago, i said yes to a chance to go to Finland, to work at client location for a second time. Today I landed my long flight from Chennai to Helsinki, and landed at my final destination : Helsinki. Thought i would write down a few words about my trip here. Maybe, just maybe, some one might be reading.
Feb 7th, 6 pm: Flight is at 1:20 in the morning. But got to be there at least 3 hours in advance.So i start preparing and packing. Only 4 of my initially 8 room mates remain. We had enjoyed a nice dinner the evening before, so today its just goodbye.
8 pm: Im at the airport. The so called Chennai International Airport. Well, its improved since the last time i saw it. Traffic (read people) inside the ariport is better controlled. The mumbai incident has caused security to be beefed up once more. Visitors are not allowed to come in like before. Its fun to be there at the departure section. People waving near and dear ones goodbye, some are actually crying, some are joking around. But I am informed that the check in for my flight will open only at 10 pm. Great !! Now I have to waste out two hours even before check in. And then another three hours after it. Talk of productivity. Anyway, I head for the waiting corner and take out my phone. Lets call up some people.
9:40 pm : Not bad, I am improving my time wasting skills. I spent the last 1 hour 40 mins entirely on the phone. Called up family at home, friends spread here and there. Prasanth had broken into another one of his long sentimental speeches. Tomci is much more cheered up, because he has his own reasons too. Brother getting married soon, he tells me. Well, now I make it to the check in.
10:30 pm, i cant believe it took me this much time to walk from ground floor to the one on top. Lots of seats there, but none to lie on. I must say the whole section is cleaner and better than before. Looooots of foreigners, mostly Chinese and Korean, with a few Americans thrown in. Theres a bakery kind of stall there, called port lounge. But everything is so expensive, the cheapest item is that battata vada kind of stuff, the thing we get on the street chat vendor for 2rupees, and here its priced a two digit number. Three german (i think) business men in suits and holding laptops go up there, and return holding three batata vadaas. Poor things are obviously wonder struck at the international prices.
The plane is late, and i was half expecting it. Happens all the time. Boarding commences at 1:30 in the morning, and it can take off only after 2:30 at least. I get an aisle seat, a welcome change from the window seat i always get. All this time i wonder if I will be able to do all those techical things i am being sent there to do.
3:30 am: AAh, dinner time. Excellent meal, it was chicken, but i dont know how it was cooked.But tasted excellent. Lufthansa has an excellent entertainment system, lots of movies, songs and documentaries. But its difficult to stay awake at 3 in the morning to go through them.
4 am : zzzzZZZzzzZZZZzzzZZZzzzZZZ

I am awaken for breakfast by an airhostess. I forget to note down the time, so i gobble up the omellete in front of me and go back to sleep.
Plane lands in Frankfurt at 8 am local time. The delay in the beginning is still there, should have landed at 7 am. The airport is familiar to me, so I navigate myself through the complex corridors and escalator system. Up the escalator at the far end, through immigrations, down the stairs, stuck in the long queue at security screening, down, then a right and the elusive left to the long corridor to terminal 2. Not bad. Last time I had got lost and actually went through immigration twice !
9:15 am local time: Here is where I catch my next connecting flight to Helsinki. This time, there are more indians per row than europeans. I can make out at least 4 others from my same company, but in different projects. Its getting cold in here.
1 am, Helsiki time: We are about to land in Helsinki Vantaa airport. The sight is 100% new to me : Snow !! The entire ground is colored in white, the runways cut through them like black cuts. The trees are barren, and no vegetation at all. When I descend the plane, its obvoius that the heaters are on everywhere in the airport. After I collect my checked in luggage. by the way, its still in one piece, and walk through the doors, a blast of ice chilling wind greats me. My coat is not doing a good job here. There is lesser light for 2pm of the day, but the ice all around the place reflects all of it. The roads now have to be cleared of snow everyday, or no vehicle can pass through.

My friend Anto meets me at his door, and tells me that snow looks nice at first sight, but the more you go through it, the more you will hate it.

Let's see. I plan to make a snowman near me house, where I am sure it will be fully covered in snow. People like me dont get this chance everyday, or every year.

Siebel 7.8 to Oracle BI publisher integration.

Hi all,
I am trying to integrate Siebel 7.8 application with Oracle BI publisher for reports generation. Here's the deal : Users will not log in to BI Publisher at any point. They will click a button and an outbound integration from Siebel to Oracle BI should happen and the resulting pdf should pop up in Siebel.
Has anyone out there tried this out or know how this can be done ? Oracle BI does not have a concept of IO and the only WSDL it generates is very generic.

Story of 3D gaming.....and how it inspired me.

Jan 7^th, 09

 

Dunno if it’s real or just my feeling that everyone here is still in a holiday mood. Work levels have gone down and most of my colleagues battle for the few headphones in office to listen to some online music. Guess what I did in all this ? Went back to my first love, programming. Low level and graphics programming. For Christmas I had visited my friends Shibon , and he showed of his skill at a cool FPS game. That brought back memories of my own idle college days, when I too coded out of pure desire, and not for the pay at the end of the month. Between passing out (almost) and getting the first job, I had almost a year to kill, and during this time I kept myself busy in pure graphics programming using native system calls. My efforts bore fruit when I finally created a standalone 3d graphics engine out of pure C and assembly, no graphics drivers involved. You may find it here : www.geocities.com/ranjith_ravi/.

 

Well it all started way back while I was still in school, and played Wolf 3d and Doom. I was amazed by the programmers ability to code such kewl graphics renderer, and I wanted  to do so too. I read about John Carmack, the guy who single handedly changed the face of computer game industry, and gave us games like wolfenstein ,quake and doom. His story reads like a dream, a self taught programming wiz kid, who had great vision and ideas and liked to disprove others. He implemented texture mapped orthogonal surfaces and raster scanning at a time when others where creating pac man and Mario clones for the pc. He was the co-founder of id software, and the company makes games even today, turning its creators to millionares. And all this when he was just 18.But I didn’t have access to the kind of technical data and info which I could use for a similar goal. This is one of the little reasons why I chose to pursue an Engineering degree in Computers. Funny thing was one of the core subjects was computer graphics and it had all he algorithms to create a 3d graphics engine. My coleagues where more scared and less inspired. I had the skills and all the information, but no one for help.

 

 

Another great programmer of the same type was Ken Silverman In comparison to the boys at Id software, Ken literally worked totally alone. And his engine powered a lot of other 3d games like Duke Nukem. His story is greatly untold cause ,well, he didn’t socialize much. But had his own ideas too. His build engine would be used to power many more 3d computer games later. Anyway, I was hooked. I started collecting everything on the topic, and finally I got time, after leaving college and having nothing to do. I  am bad with dates, but I think I started something around December of 2005. Although the algorithms where all in one textbook, the assumptions made by the author did not allow me to directly implement it. I decided to see what a real programmer had done. Carmack had released the source code of Wolfenstein 3D to open source years ago. I downloaded a version and started learning his technic. Till that day, I had considered myself a kewl coder, but once it read Carmack’s code, I knew I was a  baby scratching the surface of coding. It took me weeks to understand how it all went together. I also had to switch to 32 bit C compiler, since lots of textures where to be loaded into memory. I chose DJGPP compiler for it. One month of coding later, I had learnt to implement 3d polygon manipulation, and plotting them on the screen. And at the end of one months, I had my own rotating cube in 3d, complete with hidden surface determination and texture mapping. It would take me another month to implement the portal rendering system to have my own 3d walkthrough. I was amazed by it all, cause Carmack had himself did all this in weeks, and even after months, my code had memory leaks and crashed often. But hey, it was pure fun, to create entire virtual worlds and be able to travel through them.

 

Nowadays game designers can create entire games without writing even one line of code, lots of RAD tools and engines available everywhere. And pure 3d grapphics remains a hot research area. I understood that I cant go any further than this, I had neither the time or money to pursue it.

 

Later I was trying to implement my 3d engine in OpenGL, and had got the primaries through; that’s when my first job came flying through. I have never had the time to continue my interests again.

 

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He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died

another article i came across.

 

 

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He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died

via mental_floss Blog by Chris Higgins on 12/31/08

Editor's Note: This was our most popular post of 2008.

Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There's no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found.

In 1979 the photos start casually, with pictures of friends, picnics, dinners, and so on. Here's an example from April 23, 1979 (I believe the photographer of the series is the man in the left foreground in this picture):

By 1980, we start to figure out that the photographer is a filmmaker. He gets a letter from the American Film Festival and takes a photo on January 30, 1980:

Some days he doesn't photograph anything interesting, so instead takes a photo of the date. Update: this was an incorrect guess; see the bottom of this post for more info on these date-only pictures.

Throughout the 1980s we see more family/fun photos, but also some glimpses of the photographer's filmmaking and music. Here's someone recording audio in a film editing studio from February 5, 1983:

The photographer is a big Mets fan. Here's a shot of him and a friend with Mets tickets on April 29, 1986:

In the late 1980s we start seeing more evidence that the photographer is also a musician. He plays the accordion, and has friends who play various stringed instruments. What kind of music are they playing? Here's a photo from July 2, 1989 of the photographer with his instrument:

In 1991, we see visual evidence of the photographs so far. The photographer has been collecting them in Polaroid boxes inside suitcases, as seen in this photo from March 30, 1991:

On December 6, 1993, he marks Frank Zappa's death with this photo:

The 1990s seem to be a good time for the photographer. We see him spending more time with friends, and less time photographing street subjects (of which there are many — I just didn't include them above). Perhaps one of his films made it to IFC, the Independent Film Channel, as seen in this photo from December 18, 1996:

Throughout early 1997, we start to see the photographer himself more and more often. Sometimes his face is obscured behind objects. Other times he's passed out on the couch. When he's shown with people, he isn't smiling. On May 2 1997, something bad has happened:

By May 4, 1997, it's clear that he has cancer:

His health rapidly declining, the photographer takes a mirror-self-portrait on June 2, 1997:

By the end of that month, he's completely bald:

His health continues to decline through July, August, and September 1997, with several trips to the hospital and apparent chemotherapy. On the bright side, on September 11, 1997, the photographer's hair starts to grow back:

On October 5, 1997, it's pretty clear what this picture means:

Two days later we see the wedding:

And just a few weeks later he's back in the hospital. On October 24, 1997, we see a friend playing music in the hospital room:

The next day the photographer dies.

What started for me as an amusing collection of photos — who takes photos every day for eighteen years? — ended with a shock. Who was this man? How did his photos end up on the web? I went on a two-day hunt, examined the source code of the website, and tried various Google tricks.

Finally my investigation turned up the photographer as Jamie Livingston, and he did indeed take a photo every day for eighteen years, until the day he died, using a Polaroid SX-70 camera. He called the project "Photo of the Day" and presumably planned to collect them at some point — had he lived. He died on October 25, 1997 — his 41st birthday.

After Livingston's death, his friends Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid put together a public exhibit and website using the photos and called it PHOTO OF THE DAY: 1979-1997, 6,697 Polaroids, dated in sequence. The physical exhibit opened in 2007 at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College (where Livingston started the series, as a student, way back when). The exhibit included rephotographs of every Polaroid and took up a 7 x 120 foot space.

You can read more about the project at this blog (apparently written by Crawford?). Or just look at the website. It's a stunning account of a man's life and death. All photos above are from the website.

Update: I've made contact with Hugh Crawford and his wife Louise. Apparently the pictures that are just dates aren't Polaroids — they're placeholders for days when there was no photo, or the photo was lost.

Update 2: After hitting the Digg homepage, the original site has been taken down by the host. Hopefully it'll be back up overnight; in the meantime if anyone has a mirror of the original site, please leave a link in the comments (you have to leave off the http part).

Update 3: The original website is back up! Hugh has managed to restore service, and it looks like the site is now cached across multiple servers. It's still a little slow due to the huge amount of traffic, but at least it works. Go check it out.

Update 4: Jamie Livingston has been added to Wikipedia.

Update 5: Many people have asked about the Polaroid SX-70 camera. Check out this Eames film explaining the camera.

If you'd like to leave a comment, click here. To hear a CBC Radio One interview with Chris Higgins about the article, click here.

 

 

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