Crazy little planet called Earth

Walking in Port-Louis the other day, I heard people speaking creole, french and english and this led me to start thinking … how many computer languages do I speak?

Just a couple I thought but as soon as I started counting, I ran out of fingers. So chronologically, these are all the languages I learnt (but that does not mean I remember all of them):

• DBase IV : my introductory programming language, big white characters on a blue screen
• FoxPro : the follow up to dbase. No more blue screens; now I have a windows based environment
• Centura : an OODBMS, learnt that while on placement at DCDM before coming to uni … what the hell is OO???
• C : oooohhhh a must for all so called computer scientists, feel the raw power on the machine – looks like I’m sitting on the registers
• C++: the normal follow up to C – C plus plus some features; my favourite these days
• SQL: if u r into databases,…
• Java: the defacto OO language these days, according to Paul Graham, it won’t last long
• VB : nice for interfaces and … that’s it
• VB Script : shame on me I learnt that
• Prolog / LISP: the AI languages, LISP is full of brakets but if you know how to use it, it’s awesome
• ActionScript : yooooooooooo – rocks and great for customizing Flash
• JavaScript: Client side scripting, believed to b the little brother of Java but just as powerful I think for what it is
• ASP, JSP, PHP : the server side languages – I’m more into PHP now but I enjoyed JSP … no comments for ASP
• HTML, VRML : takes a minute to learn
• Smalltalk: only recently discovered, old is gold
• Python : careful, it does not bite or sting or … quite the contrary it’s a very nice language
• Shell scripting : cool for being lazy on linux and laziness is an art for programmers

Well that seems a lot (21) at first sight but that’s normal for programers these days I think. You need to have the right tools for the job and the tools of the programmer r programming languages. Else as Avinash says “Kan ou ena zis marto, tou zafer resembler koulou!” (Translation: “When all u have is a hammer,everything looks like nails to u!”) and we are not in a nails world!

So I still want and need to learn more; for instance I need to learn AJAX and I’ve just started with POVRAY. So how many languages do you speak?

A Rockstar game is again in the limelight – Manhunt 2. After the very controversial Manhunt 1, Rockstar games have released Manhunt 2 and that game is attracting a lot of attention … not because it is extremely good but coz it’s “extremely violent” according to different rating boards.

The game will definitely be rated “Adult” or for mature audience but should it be banned? A statement from Rockstar game goes as follows: “The adult consumers who would play this game fully understand that it is fictional interactive entertainment and nothing more ” – quoted from the BBC website. However, BBFC director, David Cooke was quoted saying: “There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed.” – quoted from the BBC website again – all this is amidst claims that Manhunt 1 led to the killing of a 14 year old boy in UK.

So which is which? I’ll let you decide on that – there’s an early YouTube trailer below.

However, if this was a movie instead of a game, would it have been banned? As far as I know, movies like Ichi the Killer (for those who don’t know, it’s the most violent/gore movie I’ve seen glimpses of) is still available with a rating mature to those who want to see it. So why ban Manhunt 2 and not gore movies – games are not considered as work of art! So, they’ll just be banned instead of being adversely rated. That’s the sad truth.

However, is that not justified? Who can prevent a kid from playing a mature game – he won’t buy it, his parents won’t buy it for him but he can get someone else to buy the game for him and then he’ll play. It’s much harder to control than a movie at a cinema. So maybe banning is the only solution.

Yet, with the Internet, those who badly want the game will get it. So is banning justified? That’s a long debate

Yesterday I was at ebene cybercity for a debate organised by Infosys. After the debate I went down to get some lunch. Hmmm there’s a chocolate cake and cheese pizza at the food court, how nice! Well this was to be the worst pizza of my life … it’s something ressembling bread (20 mm thick) covered with a 1/2 mm thick topping. From a distance it looks appealing coz u might think that there’s at least 15 mm of topping but no, it’s only 1/2 mmm topping.

But hold on, is that really pizza?
So to conclude, if ever u are ebene and see something vaguely like a pizza, beware coz it ain’t a pizza!

I’ve lost my pen drive for about three weeks now – normally I lose it for one week and then I get it back but this time, it’s been at least 3 weeks since I last saw it. So I’m starting to think that it’s really lost this time and most likely I’ll have to buy a new one soon. However, should I but a simple pen drive or an MP3/MP4 playing device like an iPod?

So today, while I was in Rose-Hill, I checked on some MP3/MP4 playing devices when oh surprise I discovered that “iPods” are being sold for Rs 2800. They are supposedly 1Gb iPod nano but even then, Rs 2800 (even saw Rs 2500 in another shop) is very cheap! So are these the original ones?

I had a look at the accessories and the manual that comes with it and they looked “suspicious” – a bit low grade for something from Apple! Anyway, I’ll have to investigate further to either find my pen drive or buy an MP3/MP4 player.

Some CSE Alumni are going to hold a presentation at UoM soon. It’s going to be interesting for students who would like to join Infosys. For more information, click here.

P.S. : I don’t like posting things directly linked to my work here but this is an exception – I’m “organising” the event (and I made the invite ) .

Mauritius is a complex country and its people are even more complicated. Here we seem to live for appearances and while this may be the complete opposite of what we are. Yet, if only that was the only thing, I would understand but there are lots more; some people are like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde exhibiting two very different persobnalities in Mauritius and when abroad. What I say may seem hard to understand but I’ll illustrate that with some examples:

• A dholl purri paper is thrown out of a very posh BMW…
• Abusing soemone on our way back from churches/mosques/temples …
• A boy sleeps with many girls when studying abroad but wants to marry a virgin once in Mauritius…
• A very religious girl sleeps with a guy behind her husband’s back…
• We are always talking about (and praising) some countries like India, China,… but yet we all want to immigrate to Australia, England, …
• We all pray to God but we despise someone because he is of a lower caste/another religion/…
• A very independent working girl / boy bowing himself/herself to marry someone that his/her parents have chosen that he/she doesn’t like…
• Smoking and drinking till drunk and yet pretending to have never touched alcohol…
• Condemning racism (and the likes) and yet voting someone at the elections because he is “like” me…

I’m sure that most of you have witness one or more of these and personally I don’t know what to think of these. I’m tempted to find excuses but can life be all about excuses…

Some time back I posted an article on astronomy and I received some interesting response from it (better than I expected; so why not continue).

The birth of Venus by Boticelli

Looking North-West these days at around 7 p.m. you can’t fail to notice a bright “star” somewhere above the horizon, it’s so bright that you can’t miss it. Well this “star” in fact isn’t one – it’s the planet Venus, also know as the morning star or evening star (in ancient times, it was thought that these were two different stars). Venus never wanders too far from the sun and always seem to accompany it – that’s why it can be seen normally a short time just after sunset or just before sunrise. Many legends, in ancient times, refer to venus. It’s close association to the sun has always fascinated people and it being so beautiful might well be the reason why Venus is the Roman goddess of Love and Beauty.

Apart from Venus, there’s Scorpio, according to me one of the nicest constellations. For a start, it really looks like a scorpion, it has bright stars and there’s antares (also called the rival of Mars coz of it’s red colour – mars appears as a red “star” in the night sky), a red star, that is there too.

So if you are brave enough to face the Mauritian Winter nights, you’ll get the chance to see scorpio + there’s the added bous that Jupiter is right now in the constellation of the scorpion – so it’s two birds with one stone