Bear in mind that the pictures are somewhat large and take a little while to load (around 10 seconds unfortunately; my upstream speed is crap).

[View with PicLens]

Comments are appreciated

Ultimately, it serves as a way to make program code not just functional, but beautiful and artistic. Thus, we introduce a new criteria to programming. Your code must not only be elegant algorithmically, but must also be poetic and artistic (also, since program code consists of haikus, you need to represent your code in sets of 3 lines with the first and last lines having 5 syllables, and the second line 7. That is, conforming to haiku rules). CherryBlossom serves to blend the programmer and the poet into one entity (hopefully with amazing results).

Here is an example of “Hello World!” in CherryBlossom. I have opted to use a spruced up div tag instead of enclosing my beautiful poem in soulless sourcecode tags.

Trust me, this does print out “Hello World!”! You might think I’m crazy, but I’m not! Either tomorrow or day after, I’ll add a new page to the Projects menu and you’ll see how CherryBlossom works and you will also have access to the interpreter!

Earlier I pointed out that the needs of the individual do not come first. This is not such a big deal for people from my parents’ generation. Joint families were common in India even fifty years ago. However, people of my generation have grown up in nuclear families. While we still maintain our family ties and bonds, and while they are very strong, our view of the world is a little different. For us, our individual likes and needs are very important. I do not mean that we are selfish. It’s just that for us, priorities are a little different. We want our prospective mate to be someone we consider attractive, and whose personality that we like. Their family details are important, but not as much to a degree as their personal details. For parents, family background, religion, and caste are the most important. Though they do want their future daughter or son-in-law to be someone that their child likes, the family details are what comes first. This is the disconnect between Indian parents and their children, when it comes to searching for a boy or a girl to marry. This is also the disconnect between sites like shaadi.com and their users.

Matrimonial sites tout the ease with which one can find their soul-mate. They highlight the numerous success stories and the large number of profiles that are visible. All of this is true. There are many people who have found their soul-mates and there are a large number of profiles. But the problem inherent to all these sites is that they are not built for individuals. These sites are exclusively geared towards families (of boys and girls) looking to connect with families (of boys and girls). Yes, you can make a profile that makes it look like it comes from you, personally, but these profiles will have a hard time attracting attention. In fact, I had a huge argument with my parents when they put up my profile. I wanted to list it as coming from myself, while they wanted to list it as coming from the parents. I couldn’t understand their reasoning. I was the one looking for someone, therefore the profile had to come from me. Apparently not. It’s more “respectable” for it to come from a family, and it is the family that initiates the alliance. So there it is once again: the individual vs. the family. There are many other reasons why the site simply doesn’t work for people like me. Take the issue of photographs. India is a very conservative country, and families are extremely reluctant to put pictures of their daughters on a website. Couple that with the general ignorance regarding the working of the internet (they probably think anyone, anywhere on the internet can see pictures of their precious little princess), and you have a recipe for extreme paranoia. Therefore you will see a lot of profiles that simply don’t have any pictures, or where you have to request pictures, or where pictures are protected. Before I am accused of being too superficial, I think people are naïve if they think that looks don’t play a part. Perhaps there are people who don’t really care, and I salute you. But I will admit that I am not one of them; I need to find someone physically attractive. Anyway, that’s another argument. The other major issue is the issue of horoscopes. Indian families are usually very religious and can also be superstitious. Horoscopes play a huge part in the lives of many Indians; from starting on a journey, or looking for a job, all the way to getting married. Horoscopes are related to the Zodiac. I don’t want to go into the specific details, but it’s based on the theory that the arrangement of stars and planets at one’s birth has a significant influence on their life. So when you are looking for a spouse, you need to make sure that the “horoscopes match”. In many profiles you will see the following comment “Horoscope match is a must”. Some families won’t even consider your profile if your horoscope doesn’t match with their child’s horoscope. Being somewhat of a skeptic and also not being a fan of a deterministic future I find the whole thing funny, stupid, annoying, and bizarre at the same time. To be fair, not all Indian families think that horoscopes are important (my family doesn’t), but a lot of them do.

In addition to the two main points I brought up above, there are other little ones. Each profile has a host of different attributes about the family. Such as financial status (Lower-middle class, middle-class, rich, very rich, I’ve got my own fucking jet fool!), family values (conservative, moderately conservative, liberal, very liberal) and bunch of other stuff. Oh, yes, and as far as Nairs (the caste that I belong to) are concerned, some people also write what tharavad (ancestral homestead/family) they’re from. So the emerging pictures is this, and I reiterate: shaadi.com is not for a person looking for a another person. It’s for a family, looking for another family; it’s a problem for me, and I’m willing to wager that it’s a problem for a lot of people like me (as far as how we were brought up, i.e., outside India).

Although I find the whole situation ridiculous and frustrating, I don’t think there is a difference between what I want, and what my parents want. We both want the same thing: a good girl, with a stable family, who can be a part of our family. The difference is how we want to go about it, and the compromises we are willing to make. I know that it is unreasonable to expect to meet someone who is perfect in every way, but we want someone that is at least reasonably close. For my parents, the family is most important, and so they think it’s alright to compromise a little bit as far as the girl is concerned (You don’t like the way she looks? Looks aren’t everything you know!). But for me, it’s the girl first and the family second. I don’t see this situation changing any time soon (for me, or for the many others in my situation). I’m hopeful that eventually I’ll find someone who I’m happy with and who my family is happy with. Although I will say this: going through what I’m going now, I’m pretty sure that I don’t want my children dealing with the same thing. So maybe, hopefully, things will be different within the next twenty to thirty years…

Yesterday, I saw Star Trek. I’ve been waiting for this movie ever since I heard it was being made. I had pretty high hopes for it and felt that the franchise needed redemption after the steaming pile of crap that was Nemesis (what an ignominious exit for the TNG crew). That being said, I was also a little cautious because although the morons responsible for Nemesis (Rick Berman and Brannon Braga) had no part in this, I was afraid that Abrams might dilute the “Trekkiness” of the franchise. Regardless, I was more than a little excited when I was finally able to get to see the movie. So here’s my review. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, don’t read ahead because there will be spoilers.

SPOILER ALERT

I won’t say that this is the best Star Trek movie of all time. It isn’t. That honour falls to Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country. But what I will say is that it simply is a freaking awesome and satisfying movie. Even though the storyline isn’t especially brilliant or deep, it is entertaining and a set up for things to come (i.e., sequels). What I especially liked about the movie was the fact that it catered to Star Trek fans without alienating non-Trekkies.

Regarding the characters, I have to say that I can’t find much fault at all. The first time I saw Zachary Quinto made up as Spock, it looked right. He looked like a perfectly believable young Spock. I also like Quinto’s portrayal of Spock. Though you do not see the gravity of Leonard Nimoy‘s delivery, it has to be realized that Quinto is playing a different Spock. The Spock we have seen is one who has reconciled and is at peace with his disparate Human and Vulcan identities. The Spock that Quinto portrays is a more conflicted individual. I was a little concerned about Chris Pine initially, but once I saw him act I realized I had nothing to worry about. Pine portrays Kirk well. Although it’s not Shatner’s Kirk, it is still Kirk. Pine’s delivery is reminiscent of Shatner’s without being over-the-top. At the same time, it is also fresh and cocky. When you see Pine, you know that he’s Kirk. Eric Bana does a good job portraying Nero, the Romulan villain of the story. His performance was passionate and intense; he worked well with what he had been given. That being said, I felt that Nero’s character wasn’t menacing and compelling enough. The character definitely pales in comparison to Khan or General Chang, but like I mentioned, I don’t think it’s Bana’s fault; it’s just the way the character was written. Zoe Saldana did a pretty decent job portraying Uhura. Uhura has always been an intelligent and sexy woman (in no small part due to the gorgeous Nichelle Nichols) and Zoe Saldana was the perfect choice.

Special effects… awesome! I love space battles, and this movie did not disappoint! What I also really liked was the attention to detail with respect to the exteriors of the shuttles. In the movies and series, the shuttles always look pristine, and rarely have much damage. This is odd considering that they fly through the harsh environment of space. In the movie, they made sure that the exteriors of the shuttles looked a little beat-up, complete with dings and scratches. The bridge of the Enterprise was different, as were all the information consoles. I have no problems with that (I guess some hard-core purists will, but then they just need to get off their high horses and be willing to compromise) because the 60′s design would be too dated.

Regarding canonicity, there may be fans who are disappointed. I know that I have issues with stories breaking or messing with well-established canon. But I didn’t think that the movie was “breaking canon”. A lot of people have said that Star Trek needed new blood – a re-imagining, if you will. This movie does exactly that. It does not ruin existing canon. What the writers did was imagine an alternate universe that is still recognizable, yet slightly different. The more I think about it, the more I like it, and it actually seems quite brilliant. The franchise was growing tired and no one at Paramount seemed to have a good idea for a new direction for the series. A reboot would have been far too drastic, so I think the authors came up with a much better solution. A “warm” reboot (if I can extend the metaphor), if you will. Do things over, but not too differently. The reason the story doesn’t completely break canon is because it is still based on actual canon (the actual break in the storyline flows smoothly from existing canon). Like I mentioned before, some fans may have an issue with this. But I don’t don’t. Well, that’s not completely true… I have a slight problem with the Uhura-Spock romance, but not enough to prevent me from enjoying the new direction. Anyway, as I was saying, I liked the movie and I have a good feeling about the new direction of Star Trek. I know everyone has been talking about how awesome this movie is, but I’m not saying it just to say it. I have some pretty high standards when it comes to Star Trek and this movie didn’t fail to meet them. Star Trek just got interesting and enjoyable again.

The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica earned itself a place in my list of “All-time favorite Sci-Fi shows” (alongside Star Trek: TNG, Star Trek: DS9, Stargate SG-1, X-Files, and Doctor Who (2004)) pretty much after the first season. During its run it was arguably “the best show on television”. Although the series faltered a tiny bit during the 3rd season, I have never seen such a well-written show with fully-fleshed out characters, a gripping story line, complex existential, religious, militaristic, and moral themes, and gritty, exciting action. The success and superior quality of the show is further supported by the fact that it attracted an audience that traditionally doesn’t watch Sci-Fi. In fact, many of my friends who don’t usually watch Sci-Fi (to the extent that some of them actually dislike it) instantly liked the show despite its obvious Sci-Fi underpinnings. The themes of the show were especially valid in a post-9/11 world. Here is a (by no means comprehensive) list of issues that the series tried to address:

• The effectiveness of armed insurgency or suicide bombing
• Personal safety (or the illusion thereof) at the expense of personal freedom
• Civilian versus Military rule
• The importance of wearing the uniform, military service, and upholding the oath you swear when you sign up (an aspect that particularly appealed to me)
• Divine intervention, divine providence, fate, and destiny
• An examination of the human condition in the direst of circumstances (when the survival of humanity is at stake)
• An attempt to answer the question of what it means to be Human

The series had a message that was so pertinent and so valid, that the cast was invited to a summit at the UN. To quote Robert Orr, the Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Planning, “You’ve got people thinking about issues that we try and get people thinking about every day.”

Ok, now that I’ve done more than enough gushing about the show, let me go onto the finale. I know that this subject has already been beaten to death since the finale aired, but I want to put in my two cents. The finale was frakking awesome ok? A lot of people are complaining that the finale didn’t address every single question that they had, and that there are some loose ends. Some of them are even complaining that the finale was a little too long, and even that the enter finale was a cop-out resolved by deus ex machina. Ok, they’re entitled to their opinion… but really? Yes, there were some deus ex machina moments (like Starbuck realizing that the opening strains to Watchtower were actually FTL co-ordinates to our Earth) that require a leap of faith. But that’s the point. I mean, what explanation were you expecting for Head Six and Head Baltar? Are they angels or demons? Schizophrenic hallucinations? No one really knows, and that’s fine. The point is that there we don’t know everything and that there isn’t an answer for everything.

You could make the argument that the writers had too grandiose of a vision, and that they had too many plot points, leading to some that were apparently unresolved. But again, it’s a matter of opinion, and it is quite subjective. For example, consider Kara Thrace. What is she? An angel? I don’t know, and I’m fine with that. She was apparently born with a destiny and with a task to perform. From the series you can tell that all her life she has been searching for a purpose. Her entire life has been an existential crisis and a search for relevance and validation. This search is finally realized when she finally leads Humanity to a permanent home.

The weakest part, arguably, of the finale was after they find our Earth. The surviving population is apparently content to leave behind all their advanced technology and start a pastoral life on Earth. This didn’t completely sit well with me. I found it a little hard to believe. One could argue that the human population on the ships haven’t really been leading a good life for the past four years. They have essentially been refugees the whole time. I guess you could argue that wouldn’t want any reminders of those difficult four years and would want to start completely anew. But I still have a hard time believing that the entire population would agree to that. In fact, when it became obvious that they had arrived on a pre-historic (150,000 years ago to be exact) Earth, I imagined that the population would probably split into two camps: one hanging on the the advanced technology, and another abandoning it completely. There would presumably be no contact between the two, and the technological group, to minimize their impact on Earth’s indigenous population would perhaps retreat to an island that subsequently gets destroyed by a natural disaster. It seems like a neater conclusion to the story. But this wasn’t the case, and even still, I don’t think it ruins the overall message of the finale or the series.

Then you have the final few minutes where we find out that the colonials landed on an Earth 150,000 years in our past. Though the finale could have ended with the scene where Admiral Adama sits on the hill beside President Laura Roslyn’s grave, talking to her while looking at the sunset, I think the final sequence presents a clearer message about the cyclical nature of human history, and about death and rebirth. I also liked how they pointed out Hera’s significance to Humanity and Cylons in the end, when it is revealed that she is Mitochondrial Eve. Finally, I also liked the conversation between Head Six and Head Baltar at the end where they compare our current civilization to the past human civilizations on old Earth, Kobol, and the Twelve Colonies (playing into the whole “cylical nature of history”/”death-rebirth” concept) but also note that there is always a chance that humanity won’t chose a self-destructive path again. I know that some people found the ending montage of the robots to be a little cheesy, but I think it was pertinent in the sense that humanity has always advanced faster in technology than in social maturity (Lee Adama talks about the same thing during the finale) and that we really need to be careful. With that, the series finally ended on a cautionary, though optimistic note.

Well, that’s my two cents on the series finale. If I had to condense that into two words, I’d say it like I said before: Frakking Awesome!

How I Joined the Army, Went to War, and Came Back

About 8 years ago, I raised my right hand and took the oath of allegiance. I swore to follow and obey the lawful orders of my superiors, and to protect the United States of America from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I enlisted in the Arizona Army National Guard on December 19th, 2000. I was 19-years old at the time. Many people have asked me about my motivation for doing so; this was two-fold. Firstly, there was the issue of college tuition. The Guard offered to pay (at the time) 75% of my college tuition if I fulfilled my contract, and kept good grades. Secondly, I was attracted to the discipline of the Army, and I wanted to be part of something larger than myself.

After formally enlisting in December, I went to Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina on the 26th of May, 2001. Basic Training is definitely something I look upon fondly (now), but at the time it was definitely a very difficult and trying experience. I was never the overtly physical type while growing up. Hence, the completely physical aspect of the Military was intimidating to me. I had also heard stories about the Drill Sergeants, how they were extremely strict and demanding, and continually in your face. Basic Training is a strenuous physical, mental, and emotional ordeal. For most people, it is the discipline and lack of freedom that is most difficult. The Drill Sergeants control every aspect of your day. You do everything according to a set time-table, and you learn the value of punctuality and discipline. To the uninitiated, seeing what a recruit experiences at the hands of a Drill Sergeant may seem frightening, or even cruel. Recruits have to sacrifice some of their individuality and personal freedoms, and this is terrifying to some people. What Basic Training teaches you (other than how to be a soldier) is how to be part of a team; to place the welfare and well-being of your brothers and sisters-in-arms (and by extension, the nation) above your own.

To be very frank, the strictness of Basic Training didn’t faze me. I went to an Indian School, growing up. I found many similarities between the school environment in an Indian school and the environment in Basic Training (excluding the weapons, explosive, and other bodily-harm-causing implements). Both environments have a strong focus on discipline and respect. In Basic Training, the Drill Sergeants are God. To do anything, you require their permission. You speak when spoken to. If you want to go to the bathroom, you raise your hand. If you speak out of turn, or do not do what you are told, you get punished. Does this sound familiar to any readers who have studied in an Indian School?

The day I graduated Basic Training was a very proud day for me. I had endured one of the toughest experiences of my life. I went from a scrawny 104-pound 19-year old to a 125-pound, US Army Soldier. I was confident, disciplined, and words like “Honor”, “Duty”, and “Loyalty” were more than just mere words to me; they actually meant something now.

Over the next few years, things weren’t all that exciting. I went to AIT (Advanced Individual Training) at Fort Lee, Virginia in 2002 to qualify for my MOS (Military Occupational Specialty), which was to be an “Automated Logistics and Supplies Specialist”. To be honest, I didn’t know what my job in the Army actually was when I enlisted. My conversation with my recruiter went something like this:

Recruiter: Well, so what do you do in College?
Me: I’m trying to get a degree in Computer Engineering.
Recruiter: Oh really? Well this has computers in it!
Me: Oh really? I’ll do that!

At the time, I was really naïve and perhaps should have put a little more thought into it, but in retrospect it’s interesting how that one little decision shaped the rest of my life. The description of my job isn’t that glamorous. I essentially maintain a supply chain so that the mechanics in the maintenance section can get the parts they need to fix the vehicles in our unit. To this end, I worked on an archaic piece of software that was written in the 80′s and subsequently updated over and over again. When I found out that this was what I was actually doing, I felt a little… deflated. But eventually I realized that I was an important part of the system, and my programming and computer engineering background eventually did help me excel at my job, especially when I got deployed.

The next few years in the Guard were pretty uneventful. I attended and performed my duties at drill one weekend every month, and two weeks in the summer for Annual Training. Of course, things changed after September 11th, 2001. Twice after that, I was almost deployed; once to Luke Air Force Base, and then to Iraq . Though I understood my obligations, I was extremely unnerved and frightened at the prospect of putting my college education on hold. Through an intricate series of events not of my design, I somehow fell through the cracks and managed not to get deployed. I was able to continue my college education and graduate in the spring of 2004. When I finally did have to go, I felt that I was ready.

In early 2005, I was told that I would be deploying to Iraq. Needless to say, my family wasn’t very thrilled. They were understandably scared and worried about my safety. Many of my friends asked me to figure out some way to get out of it (one of them kindly offered to break my legs, so I wouldn’t be able to go). If I had done what they had asked, I don’t think I would have been able to live with that decision. The truth of the matter is that no one wants to go to war. In fact, I vividly remember my Drill Sergeant talking about going to war. He once asked us to raise our hands if we wanted to go war. Of course, all of us raised our hands up. He said, “Really? Then all y’all are stupid! No one wants to go to war! No one wants to die! We go to war because it’s our duty!”. Trying to get out of going to Iraq seemed dishonorable to me. I would be turning my back on my comrades and I would be violating the oath I took when I enlisted. I understood, and knew that it would be a difficult and dangerous experience, but I decided to do it any way, because it was what I had to do. It was my duty.

I left Phoenix on the morning of the 30th of August, 2005. It was definitely one of the most heart-wrenching and saddest days of my life. I wasn’t sad for myself, but I was sad for my family and friends. I didn’t want them to worry about me and I even felt slightly guilty at the emotional turmoil I was putting them through. But even though they’d rather have me back home, they all understood why I was going and why I had to go. I spent three months in Ft. Lewis, Seattle where the whole unit underwent pre-mobilization training. We left for Kuwait on the 18th of November. We spent about two weeks there before we actually flew out to Baghdad, Iraq.

I realize that most people, when asked to make up a list of positive experiences, don’t put “war” on that list (unless you’re an arms dealer). My year in Iraq was definitely a stressful and difficult experience that fundamentally changed me in some ways. But in a gestalt sense it was a positive experience for me; in some way it has characterized and validated my service. Prior to my deployment, I often had the feeling that I was simply “going through the motions” of being a soldier. But there I was in Iraq, doing what I was trained to do, supporting my fellow soldiers, and getting the mission done.

For most people, politics and war are inextricably intertwined. War is, after all, an action which is the culmination of a series of events based on some sort of political policy. This really isn’t the case with soldiers (or any military person). Of course, this seems paradoxical, or even nonsensical. After all, we’re the ones who’re participating in the war, so shouldn’t we be aware of the politics of it as well? Not really. Politicians decide policy, and in the case of war policy, the military carries it out. I was well-aware of the hugely political overtones of the Iraq War. I was also well aware of the arguments for and against the war, and I had my own views on the matter. But when you’re lying awake in bed in the middle of the night, listening to incoming mortars exploding all around you, shaking your flimsy tin-can residence, politics becomes largely irrelevant. People often ask me about my political feelings about the war and I decline to answer. They often ask me my views because of my experience, but this is the very reason that I don’t answer. People assume that because of my experience, my views have an extra legitimacy to them because “I was there”. By extension, they also assume that my political views define the character of, or motivation for my service in Iraq. It is hard to explain how or why soldiers maintain this “wall” in their heads. It’s not an attempt at rationalization, rather it is necessary for us to function properly in a combat environment. Trying to decide whether throwing the grenade that is currently in your hand espouses and promotes a libertarian or neo-conservative political world-view, while bullets are flying at you from all directions, is probably detrimental to your combat effectiveness. Hence the need to completely render politics irrelevant. When people ask me why I went, and why I served there, I tell them that I did it because it was my duty; because I wanted to support my fellow soldiers and because I wanted to complete the mission. I owe no further explanation.

Like I had mentioned before, my experience in Iraq was definitely stressful. I missed my family and friends terribly. I realized the value of the simple things in life, like not being afraid of being hit by mortar (for instance), while lying in bed, watching South Park on TV. Finally, imagine spending a whole year with your baseline level of anxiety ratcheted up to about 10 times its normal level. When we first got there, I was startled by every incoming mortar, but I eventually got used to it. I was initially stationed at the Green Zone, and got to visit the major landmarks in the area, like the Crossed Sabers, Saddam’s Palace, and the Al-Rashid Hotel. However, our mission changed and I came back to join the rest of the unit at Camp Liberty, Baghdad.

Our unit’s mission in Iraq was varied. We would usually be transporting VIP’s, prisoners, or supplies to different places in and around Baghdad. My job mainly kept me on base (and my family was extremely relieved because of that). To be very honest, there were times that I wished I could go “outside the wire”, instead of stay on the base. It wasn’t because I was fatalistic or crazy, but I enjoyed the adrenaline rush and also felt like I was doing something more tangible. I was able to go out about 10 or 12 times during my tour in Iraq. If you ask me what it feels like to be in imminent danger, I can say that it’s definitely an odd feeling. While I realized that I was in extreme danger, I didn’t feel scared or frightened. Only extremely alert and focused, which I guess, is how you would want to feel in a combat environment.

I didn’t truly realize the importance of my MOS until my tour in Iraq. Since our unit’s mission consisted a lot of convoying, the maintenance team was extremely busy ensuring that the vehicles were in a fully mission-capable state. A vehicle that breaks down outside the wire is extremely vulnerable, and so we had a huge responsibility to ensure that this never happened. My job, as mentioned before, was to ensure that the maintenance team had access to the repair parts they required. Most people in my position simply use the software provided. However the software being archaic, and having been written a few short weeks before the invention of the wheel (I am being sarcastic, of course) was not very user friendly or intuitive. Tasks that should be simple took forever to complete. The interface was obtuse, and the designers had made some seriously brain-dead decisions. Reporting was even more tedious. Most other units there would painstakingly write up a report every morning manually and send it up to the TOC (Tactical Operations and Command). Not content with this state of affairs, I resolved to completely streamline our operations. I essentially wrote my own programs that automated a lot of the data entry and reporting. Tasks that normally took hours now took only a matter of seconds to complete. In addition, I was able to send out extremely accurate reports because I figured out how to interface with the Army software’s database. I never once in my life thought that I would be putting my degree to use in Iraq. I never created any of these enhancements in the expectation of some sort of reward. My driving force was to ensure that I did everything humanly possible to guarantee the safety of my friends and the success of their mission outside the wire. Towards the end of the tour, I was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for my efforts.

Due to the nature of my job, and the fact that I mostly stayed on base, I wasn’t able to interact very much with the Iraqi people, or catch that much of a glimpse into their lives outside the base. In my experience though, most of the Iraqi people I did meet were extremely friendly and hospitable, with a sincere desire to see their country succeed. This is not to say that all Iraqis liked us. More than once I saw people on the street make obscene gestures at the convoys as we drove by. That, and the IED’s (Improvised Explosive Devices) clued us into the fact that we weren’t universally liked. A lot of Iraqis actually worked on base and ran shops that sold different kinds of merchandise and also a whole lot of bootlegged DVD’s (one of the first Iraqis I met was a kid on the street who wanted to sell me DVD’s). They would arrive at the base in the morning and leave in the evening. They were required to have escorts at all times as well, and this was how I was able to meet a lot of them. The lower enlisted (I was specialist at the time and hadn’t been promoted to Sergeant yet) had to perform extra duty, and one of these was “escort duty” where you had to escort Iraqis or TCN’s (Third-Country Nationals) around the base. I can recall my first time performing escort duty as especially poignant. The person I had to escort was a 12-year old boy who helped the garbage truck collect garbage around the base. He spoke excellent English and I asked him why he didn’t go to school. He told me that his father had been killed when insurgents blew up a mosque he was praying at. Since he was the oldest member of the family, he had to quit school and earn money.

The year passed by quickly (although at the time it seemed to drag on forever). Soon, the unit that would replace us arrived on base and we quickly started training them. We had gone from counting-down months to counting-down days. Finally, the day of our departure arrived. We flew out of Iraq at the beginning of November. We stayed in Kuwait for two days before flying out to the United States. As the plane left the tarmac, everyone on the aircraft started cheering; we were glad to be finally leaving the Middle East.

The day I finally landed in Phoenix, Arizona was one of the happiest days of my life. My friends were there to greet me and I was relieved and ecstatic that I was finally back home. Getting back to civilian life took some work. My friends told me that I was a little more subdued, and quiet. My family complained that I wasn’t that social and didn’t want to talk. The truth was that I really didn’t feel like talking about anything, really. Sudden noises would startle me, and make me think of an incoming mortar attack. As the months went by, I finally got used to being a civilian again. For the most part, I was my old self, but with a host of new memories.

As I write this, I have less than a year left in the military. My ETS date (time of separation) is December 18th, 2009. When I am discharged, I will have served 9 years in the United States Army National Guard. I have decided not to re-enlist, even though I know that I will miss the Guard terribly. Even though there were difficult moments I had to deal with, I know I will miss the camaraderie and the discipline. I have decided to focus completely on my civilian career, and I feel that 9 years is a decently long stint in the Guard. Even though I will be out of the military in a year, it will forever be a part of me, and will also be something that defines me as a person. Joining the military was one of the most pivotal decisions of my life, and it has turned out to be a rich, rewarding, and wonderful experience all the way. It has helped me grow more as an individual, and has built up my confidence. It has taught me the meaning of the words Loyalty, Honor, Duty, and Courage. Even though I may not wear the uniform in a year, in my heart I know that I will always be a Soldier of the United States Army.

Hackers like to hack. This is not a bad thing. In fact, “hack” originally did not mean “break into goverment/financial systems and do bad things”, and a “hacker” was not an unsavoury individual who did the aforementioned “bad things”. A “hack” originally meant “an elegant and clever solution to a problem” (although, it paradoxically also means “crude and ugly solution to a problem”), and a “hacker” is a person who comes up with such solutions. Most programmers call themselves “hackers”. The media term “hacker” is actually described by the term “cracker”. Hackers are constantly tinkering with things. Usually they are trying to make things better, but more often than not, they end up breaking it. However, in the process they learn very valuable lessons about how not to break something, and then immediately find another way to break it again. In all seriousness though, what we learn are the limits of the system, and how the system works. Hackers don’t like unknowns and black boxes. They want to know what makes things tick.

My dad got me my first computer in 1990. I didn’t do much on it at first other than play games. I actually started writing code in 1992, and I haven’t stopped. I’ve been hacking around since then, and in the process I’ve learnt a lot of many cool things. Over the years I’ve experimented with various OSes and programming langauges, and in the process broken and hosed many computers. But each time I learnt something valuable from them… mostly. One of the cooler things (I didn’t learn anything from this really, it was just a bug) I did was writing a self-replicating Perl script that kinda ran wild on ASU’s Solaris server. There were so many scripts running around that it brought the server to a crawl. I eventually figured out what was happening and managed to kill all the processes. Anyway, my point is that people like me like to tinker around. We don’t mind if we break stuff while doing it, because we’ll figure out a way to fix it. It’s the “figuring out” part that makes us happy. So what does all of this have to do with Apple, Hipsters, and Hackers? Well, in Neal Stephenson’s book he describes two kinds of people: Eloi and Morlocks. An Eloi is your average internet user; they view computers as appliances and tools and nothing more. A Morlock, on the other hand, is your average hacker. The computer is definitely a tool, but it is a tool that can be used to create other tools. The workings of a computer are usually a mystery to an Eloi, but not so for the Morlock. Before Mac OS X, most users of Macs were of the Eloi variety. The Mac was a beautiful and stylish magic-box that did wonderful things. The inner workings were a mystery. You couldn’t easily get inside and tinker with it, but that wasn’t really an issue because Eloi don’t care about things like that. Morlocks gravitated more towards the PC world. Sure, PC’s were clunky and definitely not as stylish as a Mac. Plus, a lot of them ran Windows which many Mac fans claimed was a clunky and cheap copy of the Mac OS (in truth, everyone basically copied Xerox PARC). However, they could be opened up and tinkered with. At this point in time, there was also this thing called Linux, which was an interesting piece of software (at the time). Linux is basically just an operating system. What most people mean when they say they “run Linux”, is that they run a distribution of Linux. A distribution consists of the kernel (Linux), in addition to a bunch of userland tools (programs that actually let you do something). The cool thing about Linux was that it was free. You could go download it and install it on your computer and it would run. What was even more interesting was that it was made by volunteers. People actually took the time to sit down and write code to improve and enhance the operating system. Running Linux in those days was a chore. Most distributions came with a GUI (X with a window manager), but sometimes things didn’t work quite right if you had an obscure monitor and video card. Getting things to work meant going to the command-line and writing strange, arcane incantations and if the Gods were pleased, your hardware might work. But that didn’t bother the hackers, because it was fun trying to get things to work. In addition there was also a certain elitism about it. Running a Linux box meant that you had the time, patience, and above all, intelligence required to go through the mental contortions required to get a working system. But intellectual elitism is nothing new for hackers since all hackers have a bit (ok, a lot) of hubris.

Ok, so where am I going with this again? Seriously, I have a point. Things changed when Mac OS X came out; it had a command line. The command line is very important to us hackers because it lets us look “under the hood” of the GUI. True hackers always go to the command line to do serious work. The command line is a place where a pithy one-liner can replace a series of windows and buttons. To the uninitiated, the command line is a scary place where confusing and dangerous things happen. Just like a magic spell, you had to write obscure words and symbols to the computer, in the correct sequence. If you were lucky, the computer would derisively spit out an error. If you weren’t you probably broke your computer. If you were really lucky, the computer accepted your commands and did what you told it to do. The point of the commandline is that you get God-like power (mostly; to truly be God you had to be root). While this power enables you to be extremely efficient, it also enables you to do destructive things equally efficiently. The GUI shields you from the hard edges of the underlying OS. The cryptic command line is replaced by friendly windows and buttons. When the Mac OS got a commandline in Mac OS X, hacker types were suddenly interested in it. You now got the legendary stability and the “it just works” attributes of a Mac OS with the power of a commandline, and that too, a UNIX commandline (OS X’s kernel is essentially based on BSD, which is a direct descendant of the original UNIX). Which brings me to the main point. What I’ve noticed over the last few years, especially after graduating from college, is that even though I love to hack around and test the limits of a system, most times I simply want a system to work. I want to spend less time fixing the system, and more time fixing my own code. I have also noticed that I’m not the only one with these sentiments. Many of my fellow nerd and hacker friends own Macs and develop on them now. I considered getting a Mac as well, but it was a little over budget for me and I couldn’t justify the cost at the time. Macs provide a very good mix of power and stability, and that is extremely attractive to a developer. You can still hack around on the Mac (and you could probably break it), but most of the time you know it’s something you did that broke the system, than just a quirk with the system. In my personal opinion, I think Apple’s decision to include the command line in OS X was brilliant (their other good move was moving over to the ubiquitous x86 architecture). In fact, if you look over the sales chart (courtesy systemshootouts.org) of the Mac from 1997 to 2008, you can see how their sales remained more or less constant from ’97 to ’02, after which it really started taking off. OS X was released in 2001.

In the old days, Mac users were a tight-knit, elitist bunch who sneered at their less-fortunate Windows-using cousins. Most times, it was with good reason. The Mac OS was stable and polished, while Windows was a clunky GUI bolted on top of a command line. To be fair to Microsoft though, Apple didn’t have to put up with exotic hardware since they had complete control over it. The demographic that Macs attracted was mostly the artistic or hipster bunch. In recent years, the demographic has increased to include some people who also liked the supposed “coolness” of the Mac. If you owned a Mac, you were different. You were part of a “cool”, “hip”, and “artistic” minority. Apple played this up, marketing the Mac as not only a stable alternative to a PC, but a cooler alternative too. Today you have more people than ever using Macs. From a sorority chick who uses it because “OMG it’s like so pretty!” to a programmer who likes it because “OMG d00d it’s lyk teh UNIX!!11!” Apple has successfully bridged the gap between two extremes. In future years, I think Apple will continue to grow stronger, and the sales of Macs will continue to rise, providing a viable, proprietary alternative to Windows. I’m not an Apple fanboi; I like FreeBSD (perhaps why I have a soft spot for OS X) and Linux more, but I think Apple deserves respect for making an excellent OS that’s friendly to hackers and hipsters alike.

I rarely listen to mainstream music anymore. I find it to be completely boring. Of course, there are a few catchy tunes now and then that are good for a listen or two, but there is nothing that captures and captivates the mind – nothing that you can listen to over and over again and hear something new each time. Gone are the complex chord and rhythm changes and meaningful lyrics. Instead, mainstream music has devolved into predictable chord-progressions, simple rhythm structures, and inane, uninspired lyrics. In fact, it’s almost embarrassing when you realize that songs from some bands sound almost exactly the same. Try listening to the choruses from Dirty Little Secret and Swing Swing by The All-American Rejects, or for that matter, any song by Nickelback. I won’t say that these bands lack talent, but the fact remains that their music isn’t exactly stellar.

If you really want to compare, take a look at these lyrics from Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd. These lyrics come from the second chorus:

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

Haunting. Nostalgic. Beautiful. You’d be hard-pressed to find anything this profound from music these days. The entire song is a conversation (of sorts) between a doctor and Roger Waters. The non-chorus parts of the song are sung from the point of view of the doctor, and the chorus is from Waters’ point of view. The song and the entire album is built upon a set of themes. It’s a little too long to go into now, but if you’d like, take a look at this analysis of the song, and this analysis of the movie and the album. It’s very hard to find a complex, self-referential, and thematic work like that in mainstream music today.

The bands that I listen to now include Coldplay, Muse, The Shins, The Strokes, Modest Mouse, Pinback, and Sigur Rós (just to name a few). A quick tangent on Coldplay. Many accuse them of sounding too much like U2. I’ll admit, I did that too initially, because Chris Martin did sound like Bono. But this is only true of their early works. Bono’s voice evokes in you a sense of pain, longing, aching, and hope. Chris Martin’s voice is much mellower. Furthermore, their later works may sound superficially like U2′s, and this happens only if you concentrate on Chris Martin’s voice. But the music is very much different. Anyway, you may not have heard of some of the bands above. If you have, kudos to you! If you haven’t, I urge you to listen to them. I try to listen to music from independent labels because I do think that they sound better, are more innovative and have their own sound and character. Major labels mainly support bands that will get more air play, that will top the charts and that can get the most number of 12-14 year-old girl fans (I’m sure an accountant at one of the big labels has come up with a formula that translates this number into a dollar amount). The latter seems the be the major metric these days for the success of a band, and the first two seem to have an inverse relation to the quality of music these days.

Now that this decade is almost over, I’m left wondering what exactly would define this decade in terms of music. The 60′s and 70′s both had amazing rock bands in addition to disco (which defined the 70′s in some sense). The 80′s of course, has 80′s music, replete with synthesizers and synth-drums. The 90′s is definitely grunge and alternative. What about the 2000′s (or 00′s)? I can’t find any particular genre that defines it. If you go by mainstream, the only thing that defines music for me in the 2000′s is terrible, music-as-a-commodity stuff. But if you go by independent music, you’ll find a bunch of rich, innovative (and definitely fringe and avant-garde) music. Their success definitely has to do with the growth of the internet. Bands no longer need labels and radio to promote them, and this only highlights the fact that good music these days doesn’t come from big labels (corporations that just want to make money), but they come from small, independent labels that just want to make good music. But that’s another topic to explore.

looking back i see
new fall with new promises
one, never fulfilled