Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
IIRC, the ISP published bogus routes, and the cooperating providers accepted the BGP-pushed routes for some strange reason. A very simple and stupid reason. Several transit providers ignore long standing best practices, and don't filter route announcements. And at least one of them (PCCW) was upstream of Pakistani telecom. And so they leaked out those announcements. And a bunch of other providers picked up those routes from PCCW, still believing them. There's a lot of very well developed routing best practices (just walk into any nanog, ripe, apricot etc meeting for discussions, tutorials etc on these, or troll through google). Pity is that some providers are just too dumb to follow these.
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
On Tuesday 26 Feb 2008 11:51:32 am Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: I mean, even if a big dumb 3rd world telco (like these guys, or like some of our own homegrown ISPs Off topic - but suppose an official Australian or other Western entity had made this statement, it would be dubbed racism and there would be a hue and cry in parliament (in India) and people would burn effigies of computers painted in some national colors on the streets. Or would people from these dumb 3rd world countires who provide the dumb employees for their telcos take it lying down? More interestingly - is there a caste system in the IT sector in which working for a foreign multinational telecom company makes an employee less dumb that the average MTNL or BSNL employee? shiv
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 01:39:33PM +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: A very simple and stupid reason. Several transit providers ignore long standing best practices, and don't filter route announcements. And at least one of them (PCCW) was upstream of Pakistani telecom. And so they leaked out those announcements. And a bunch of other providers picked up those routes from PCCW, still believing them. IIRC, there have been such incidents in the U.S. in the past, where a single party on dialup or cable modem could fux0r up their entire ISP. Try running a BGP daemon on your ISP's account, chances are, you can publish some bogus information as well. There's a lot of very well developed routing best practices (just walk into any nanog, ripe, apricot etc meeting for discussions, tutorials etc on these, or troll through google). Pity is that some providers are just too dumb to follow these. Look at the amount of best practices a voxel of vacuum has to follow to route electromagnetic radiation. In principle, routing packets from here to there can be done by very minimalistic decorations on top of that physics. The network is not nearly dumb enough yet. -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
Re: [silk] IHT.com Article: First transsexual celebrity, Rose, makes a TV debut
When I learn carnatic music, I ask the meaning of the song in the language (usually telugu, tamil, kannada, malyalam, sanskrit which i am curious about) taught or why a particular raga is constructed in that way, how and why its similar or not, comparison with Hindustani music, and a zillion other mundane questions; which has always always annoyed every teacher i've known till date. Not that this research interests me but its just sheer curiosity; which i satisfy via the Internet. Vid...I wish you could come and learn Carnatic music from me. I have not had a SINGLE student like you yet. They assimilate the info I give them, but they don't ask questions on their own...if I don't know the answers, it would be fun to find out together! Yes, I do like curiosity; not that one is going to do a research paper on the subject, just that one would like to knowI give the meanings of the lyrics, talk about stuff that excites MY curiosity...(eg...Mishram is so called because mishram is mixture...it is a mixture of 4 and 3!.. and I am unable to find out why Sankeernam, the word for 9, is so called...) Deepa. On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 11:28 AM, va [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Feb 16, 2008 3:48 PM, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Well, looks like Vijay TV has finally scraped up the guts to go beyond Tamil (or Hindi) serials/movies with their retrograde, biased and suppressive attitude towards women all in the name of preserving culture (whatever it means) are a waste of my time my zero paise worth on most serials/movies/etc. I don't know her; but I found this article very interesting. However, as a dyed-in-the-wool Tambram (Tamizh Brahmin) Mami, I find this strange phenomenon that I call pseudo-honesty amongst many members of my community. They are perfectly willing to watch these reality shows, and perfectly willing to make fairly objective comments ...as long as it is all in the abstract. Discussing *themselves* or people known to them? Fat chance. You see, they, and their friends, are all normal. That is exactly what one of my relatives said to me, Thank goodness, we are all normal people. The people on these shows are, Actually Hindu religion is truly free [0] [1] in every sense of the way and very open to (mis)interpretation, even if its followers are control freaks in the name of culture, honour, whatever [0] http://www.galva108.org/deities.html [1] http://www.galva108.org/hinduism.html That said, as far as 'discussion' goes, that stems from the dont ask questions culture. Forget such shows, it extends to every sphere of our life. I find people unwilling to even question what they teach or learn themselves. When I learn carnatic music, I ask the meaning of the song in the language (usually telugu, tamil, kannada, malyalam, sanskrit which i am curious about) taught or why a particular raga is constructed in that way, how and why its similar or not, comparison with Hindustani music, and a zillion other mundane questions; which has always always annoyed every teacher i've known till date. Not that this research interests me but its just sheer curiosity; which i satisfy via the Internet. Maybe folks are not interested, dont care about the meaning or construction but I find the attitude toward teaching/learning more disappointing than anything else. -- || vid ||
Re: [silk] IHT.com Article: First transsexual celebrity, Rose, makes a TV debut
(eg...Mishram is so called because mishram is mixture...it is a mixture of 4 and 3!.. and I am unable to find out why Sankeernam, the word for 9, is so called...) interesting. Sankeernam meaning narrow, or constricted? in Tamil what is the name for words like this which are Sanskrit derived and not of local origin? for example, in bengali sanskrit derived words are called tatsama and the more local words tatbhava. On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 4:29 PM, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: When I learn carnatic music, I ask the meaning of the song in the language (usually telugu, tamil, kannada, malyalam, sanskrit which i am curious about) taught or why a particular raga is constructed in that way, how and why its similar or not, comparison with Hindustani music, and a zillion other mundane questions; which has always always annoyed every teacher i've known till date. Not that this research interests me but its just sheer curiosity; which i satisfy via the Internet. Vid...I wish you could come and learn Carnatic music from me. I have not had a SINGLE student like you yet. They assimilate the info I give them, but they don't ask questions on their own...if I don't know the answers, it would be fun to find out together! Yes, I do like curiosity; not that one is going to do a research paper on the subject, just that one would like to knowI give the meanings of the lyrics, talk about stuff that excites MY curiosity...(eg...Mishram is so called because mishram is mixture...it is a mixture of 4 and 3!.. and I am unable to find out why Sankeernam, the word for 9, is so called...) Deepa. On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 11:28 AM, va [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Feb 16, 2008 3:48 PM, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Well, looks like Vijay TV has finally scraped up the guts to go beyond Tamil (or Hindi) serials/movies with their retrograde, biased and suppressive attitude towards women all in the name of preserving culture (whatever it means) are a waste of my time my zero paise worth on most serials/movies/etc. I don't know her; but I found this article very interesting. However, as a dyed-in-the-wool Tambram (Tamizh Brahmin) Mami, I find this strange phenomenon that I call pseudo-honesty amongst many members of my community. They are perfectly willing to watch these reality shows, and perfectly willing to make fairly objective comments ...as long as it is all in the abstract. Discussing *themselves* or people known to them? Fat chance. You see, they, and their friends, are all normal. That is exactly what one of my relatives said to me, Thank goodness, we are all normal people. The people on these shows are, Actually Hindu religion is truly free [0] [1] in every sense of the way and very open to (mis)interpretation, even if its followers are control freaks in the name of culture, honour, whatever [0] http://www.galva108.org/deities.html [1] http://www.galva108.org/hinduism.html That said, as far as 'discussion' goes, that stems from the dont ask questions culture. Forget such shows, it extends to every sphere of our life. I find people unwilling to even question what they teach or learn themselves. When I learn carnatic music, I ask the meaning of the song in the language (usually telugu, tamil, kannada, malyalam, sanskrit which i am curious about) taught or why a particular raga is constructed in that way, how and why its similar or not, comparison with Hindustani music, and a zillion other mundane questions; which has always always annoyed every teacher i've known till date. Not that this research interests me but its just sheer curiosity; which i satisfy via the Internet. Maybe folks are not interested, dont care about the meaning or construction but I find the attitude toward teaching/learning more disappointing than anything else. -- || vid || -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - does the frog know it has a latin name? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
ss [26/02/08 14:33 +0530]: Or would people from these dumb 3rd world countires who provide the dumb employees for their telcos take it lying down? Oh I dont know. Having been at the receiving end of this dumbness yourself (in the form of slow / unreliable / overpriced connectivity, for starters) I suppose you can indulge yourself in a bit of techno racism and profiling More interestingly - is there a caste system in the IT sector in which working for a foreign multinational telecom company makes an employee less dumb that the average MTNL or BSNL employee? The local people working for places like nokia / samsung are just as bad as the ones working for the local companies (well, slightly less bad). The good ones get cherrypicked to head abroad. Or scout for high paying jobs abroad.
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
Eugen Leitl [26/02/08 10:13 +0100]: Try running a BGP daemon on your ISP's account, chances are, you can publish some bogus information as well. cable / dsl ISPs are used to kiddies injecting fake arp packets, bgp routes etc. And tend to guard against it. At least stateside. physics. The network is not nearly dumb enough yet. No. It wont be dumb enough to suit your highly advanced tastes in theoretical physics. Without possibly existing in some alternate universe. Engineering trumps physics every time.
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
Unfortunately (and I am not accusing you) there is a tendency to consider these people as being somewhat inferior in the same manner that IIT graduates sometimes refer to non IIT types. I wont consider them inferior. I have met some very technically competent people working for ISPs in the region (given I award fellowships for two large workshops, one asiapac wide and the other focused on the saarc region .. apricot.net and sanog.org) Especially the Pakistanis - there are several people in various Pakistan ISPs that strike me as much smarter than their peers elsewhere about these best practices Unfortunately, government owned telcos don't tend to retain smart people, and whatever smartness there is gets damped down by mediocrity and incompetence at senior levels. And any trips to foreign places, to attend even teaching conferences like these, tend to get sanctioned for less than competent senior management, who proceed to treat it as a paid vacation. Similar thing with government agencies .. saw a nice old gentleman whose ticket to a high level, expert conference had been paid for by a certain very large corporation. Senior official. Who didn't, unfortunately, know very much at all about the subject of the conference. And earnestly tried to show his interest by asking very simple, very basic questions. Sort of like the deputy director of a premier medical institution turning up at an international conference on cancer, funded by one of the large anti cancer drug firms, and then asking questions that'd count for 1 mark in a 10th standard biology exam. suresh
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
On Tuesday 26 Feb 2008 5:31:33 pm Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: The local people working for places like nokia / samsung are just as bad as the ones working for the local companies (well, slightly less bad). The good ones get cherrypicked to head abroad. Or scout for high paying jobs abroad. Don't want to indulge in complete speculative nonsense here, but I have, in various forum discussions came across similar discussions about similar situations unrelated to the IT industry that may have a bearing on the issue. I would just like to bring them up as thoughts thunk while thinking. Knowing that all generalizations are wrong, I will still go ahead and state that the typical engineer or techie who hunts for higher paying jobs abroad is one who has family encouragement to do that and family support to do that. In other words those who start off being socially privileged in the first place (often but not necessarily forward caste)go ahead and achieve greater things The less privileged people often have family pressure to 1) Start earning soon to recoup investment 2) Inability to put in that extra investment to travel abroad 3) Family presssure to stay on and to fulfil family obligations and not go away These people often do not already have others who have done the same thing in their extended family, and can very often be the only technically educated person in the family. There are other bells and whistles that may be associated with this, such as backward caste, widowed mother, only son with three sisters to be married, only educated person in the family, easily available job nearby in local mofussil town in a government establishment that gels in with all the other social commitments. The salary is often much higher than anyone else in the extended family earns despite being much lower than the multinational/foreign type job. Like I said similar situations exist in other industries and vocations, including medicine and industrial research and production. Unfortunately (and I am not accusing you) there is a tendency to consider these people as being somewhat inferior in the same manner that IIT graduates sometimes refer to non IIT types. shiv
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 04:03:15AM -0800, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: No. It wont be dumb enough to suit your highly advanced tastes in theoretical physics. Without possibly existing in some alternate universe. You're confusing engineering with physics. Engineering trumps physics every time. Do you think header layout is irrelevant for relativistic cut-through? -- Eugen* Leitl a href=http://leitl.org;leitl/a http://leitl.org __ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
Re: [silk] IHT.com Article: First transsexual celebrity, Rose, makes a TV debut
On 2/26/08, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vid...I wish you could come and learn Carnatic music from me. I have ... would love to :) not had a SINGLE student like you yet. They assimilate the info I give them, but they don't ask questions on their own...if I don't know the hehe, ...one of my students was the opposite, started coming in everyday and reached a point where i didnt have 3 hours for one session. Most times though I see some parents push their kids into 10 different classes without seeing if he/she has any interest/aptitude so the child is confused and pressured. Yes, I do like curiosity; not that one is going to do a research paper on the subject, just that one would like to knowI give the meanings of the lyrics, talk about stuff that excites MY curiosity...(eg...Mishram is so called because mishram is mixture...it is a mixture of 4 and 3!.. and I am unable to find out why Sankeernam, the word for 9, is so called...) hmmm... is that for 9 beats per talam* ? do you know any nadai pallavis that have this ? *for me 4 counts/beat is tough as is :-) -- || vid ||
Re: [silk] IHT.com Article: First transsexual celebrity, Rose, makes a TV debut
va wrote: On 2/26/08, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vid...I wish you could come and learn Carnatic music from me. I have ... would love to :) hehe, ...one of my students was the opposite, started coming in Any of you near Marathahalli or nearby? My six year old daughter loves music and instinctively hums along even if she does not know the song. And she has a wonderful voice that modulates very well, at least that's what my wife and I think. We are looking for someone close by who can show her the ropes. My daughter herself has expressed interest many times, although it might be just the thing 6 yr olds do. Venkat
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
Thanks Udhay. The article was extremely helpful for those of us coming to the matter from a non-engineering perspective. Quick question. The article said: YouTube took countermeasures within minutes, first trying to reclaim its network by narrowing its 1,024 broadcast to 256 addresses. Eleven minutes later, YouTube added an even more specific additional broadcast claiming just 64 addresses--which, under the Border Gateway Protocol, is more specific and therefore should overrule the Pakistani one. Over two hours after the initial false broadcast, Pakistan Telecom finally stopped. Why does shrinking the number of addresses create 'priority' as far as the BGP is concerned? Is there some merit to fewer addresses, as opposed to more? On a side note -- I'm totally curious if there's any legal implication for parties that are, as you all have indicated, lax in their enforcement of net standards? I mean, for one site, I can see it being as big of a deal, but what about the earlier example cited in the news.com piece about Turkey pretending to be the entire internet? That smacks of negligence to me. C On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 1:18 AM, Udhay Shankar N [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Gautam John wrote: [ on 09:58 AM 2/26/2008 ] http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080225-insecure-routing-redirects-youtube-to-pakistan.html What the heck does this stuff mean? It escaped? So anyone can 'escape' routing information to shut down the 'tubes? In essence, yes. Sometimes. This piece may be of help: http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9878655-7.html?tag=nl.e498 Udhay -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
Lawnun wrote: Why does shrinking the number of addresses create 'priority' as far as the BGP is concerned? Is there some merit to fewer addresses, as opposed to more? Something about specific routes being preferred. That's stuff you learn in cisco router classes. Oh, it didn't work - not for all the cases. What did work was when PCCW pulled the plug on Pakistan Telecom's entire AS. And then kept the plug pulled till the Pakistanis fixed whatever was causing them to leak youtube prefixes. Silly of pccw - they could easily have filtered out the bogus prefixes that were being announced by the Pakistanis, instead of their whole AS number. On a side note -- I'm totally curious if there's any legal implication for parties that are, as you all have indicated, lax in their enforcement of net standards? I mean, for one site, I can see it being as big of a deal, Umm.. nothing legal as in international prosecutions take huge amounts of time and effort. All for some engineer who could use some (re)training? Maybe not. They learnt a hard, sharp lesson though, the Pakistanis .. if you screw up on the internet you risk having your connectivity disrupted by heavier than necessary mitigation measures. srs
Re: [silk] IHT.com Article: First transsexual celebrity, Rose, makes a TV debut
Very similar daughter. Who is 3. And in Adyar, Madras. As silklist seems to be a hidden treasure trove of better than average music teachers.. Any of you near Marathahalli or nearby? My six year old daughter loves music and instinctively hums along even if she does not know the song. And she has a wonderful voice that modulates very well, at least that's what my wife and I think. We are looking for someone close by who can show her the ropes. My daughter herself has expressed interest many times, although it might be just the thing 6 yr olds do. Venkat
Re: [silk] IHT.com Article: First transsexual celebrity, Rose, makes a TV debut
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 10:38 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Very similar daughter. Who is 3. And in Adyar, Madras. As silklist seems to be a hidden treasure trove of better than average music teachers.. And slicha more knowledgeable listeners as well. C -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/ravages http://www.linkedin.com/in/ravages http://www.selectiveamnesia.org/ +91-9884467463
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
At 2008-02-26 11:57:19 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Why does shrinking the number of addresses create 'priority' as far as the BGP is concerned? Is there some merit to fewer addresses, as opposed to more? Routers give priority to more specific routes over less-specific ones. Announcing a route for 10/24 (aka the network containing 255 addresses from 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.255) is more specific than announcing a route for 10/16 (i.e. the 65535 addresses from 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.255.255). This is so that an ISP can say Send traffic for this whole network to me, while the ISP's customers can say Send traffic for my small part of the ISP's network to me (that is, if they run BGP at all) and it all works. -- ams
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
From the archives: http://lists.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au/pipermail/lore/2006-August/40.html ...then, suddenly, the internet stopped working. Network Operators everywhere sprang into action to discover the cause of the lack of traffic. And there it was. As far as the routing protocols were concerned, the entire internet existed in one location - some crappy Bay Networks router in AS7007...
Re: [silk] Youtube an .pk Telecom
Thanks Abhijit! That makes sense. The article wasn't quite clear enough, is all. On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:11 PM, Abhijit Menon-Sen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 2008-02-26 11:57:19 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Why does shrinking the number of addresses create 'priority' as far as the BGP is concerned? Is there some merit to fewer addresses, as opposed to more? Routers give priority to more specific routes over less-specific ones. Announcing a route for 10/24 (aka the network containing 255 addresses from 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.255) is more specific than announcing a route for 10/16 (i.e. the 65535 addresses from 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.255.255). This is so that an ISP can say Send traffic for this whole network to me, while the ISP's customers can say Send traffic for my small part of the ISP's network to me (that is, if they run BGP at all) and it all works. -- ams
Re: [silk] IHT.com Article: First transsexual celebrity, Rose, makes a TV debut
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 10:38 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Very similar daughter. Who is 3. And in Adyar, Madras. As silklist seems to be a hidden treasure trove of better than average music teachers.. ...or so we say, ourselves! :) I am in south Bangalore...and I also think that with the present-day pressure, the child could wait for a couple of years more before starting music training, and more so if it is vocal training, as the baby-high pitch will settle down a little. Do let the child listen to a lot of music, of all kinds. My daughter ultimately has no interest in Carnatic music, but plays the guitar and sang in the choir in Bangalore and at both the colleges she attended. I must say, I am also leaning more towards north Indian classical music for the sense of serenity it conveys, and the much better vocal training that the system imparts. Deepa. Any of you near Marathahalli or nearby? My six year old daughter loves music and instinctively hums along even if she does not know the song. And she has a wonderful voice that modulates very well, at least that's what my wife and I think. We are looking for someone close by who can show her the ropes. My daughter herself has expressed interest many times, although it might be just the thing 6 yr olds do. Venkat
Re: [silk] IHT.com Article: First transsexual celebrity, Rose, makes a TV debut
Most times though I see some parents push their kids into 10 different classes without seeing if he/she has any interest/aptitude so the child is confused and pressured. true,true,true,true! Deepa. On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 9:54 PM, va [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2/26/08, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vid...I wish you could come and learn Carnatic music from me. I have ... would love to :) not had a SINGLE student like you yet. They assimilate the info I give them, but they don't ask questions on their own...if I don't know the hehe, ...one of my students was the opposite, started coming in everyday and reached a point where i didnt have 3 hours for one session. Most times though I see some parents push their kids into 10 different classes without seeing if he/she has any interest/aptitude so the child is confused and pressured. Yes, I do like curiosity; not that one is going to do a research paper on the subject, just that one would like to knowI give the meanings of the lyrics, talk about stuff that excites MY curiosity...(eg...Mishram is so called because mishram is mixture...it is a mixture of 4 and 3!.. and I am unable to find out why Sankeernam, the word for 9, is so called...) hmmm... is that for 9 beats per talam* ? do you know any nadai pallavis that have this ? *for me 4 counts/beat is tough as is :-) -- || vid ||
Re: [silk] IHT.com Article: First transsexual celebrity, Rose, makes a TV debut
baby-high pitch will settle down a little. Do let the child listen to a lot of music, of all kinds. My daughter ultimately has no interest in Carnatic music, but plays the guitar and sang in the choir in Bangalore and at both the colleges she attended. She likes MS subbulakshmi (and used to react to it when Priya was pregnant with her.. kick harder for that, Mozart made her sleepy) And she likes a fairly eclectic selection of rock (deep purple / smoke on the water). And the ennio morricone themes for the clint eastwood / man with no name movies .. there's a good reason I got my cell's ringtone set to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly theme Thanks for the suggestions.
Re: [silk] IHT.com Article: First transsexual celebrity, Rose, makes a TV debut
On 2/26/08, Venkat Mangudi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Any of you near Marathahalli or nearby? My six year old daughter loves I agree with Deepa, give her a year or two :) Besides MS, do listen to other singers like DKP, Santhanam, NCVasanthakokilam, KBS [1] there are a lot more though. It helps the child develop an ear and hopefully develop their own style instead of copying their idols style ! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._B._Sundarambal On 2/26/08, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I must say, I am also leaning more towards north Indian classical music for the sense of serenity it conveys, and the much better vocal training that the system imparts. Absolutely, their aalaps are more detailed (or should i say more tough 8-)). Aruna Sairam has learnt both forms and I find her delivery, control and pitch admirable. Btw, does anyone know Dhrupad teachers in Bangalore ? -- || vid ||
[silk] Writers not welcome in India?
Debbie and I are in the process of applying for 10 yr validity tourist visas for India. Our applications are very similar, except I put down Software Engineer as my occupation and Debbie put down Writer. Big mistake. I got my ten year tourist (T) visa with no problems or delays. Debbie however only got a 3 month journalist (J) visa. She has asked them very nicely to reconsider, saying that she does not write professionally, and is just a mild mannered housewife. We will find out later today if they will deign to issue my shady potentially subversive sweetie a long term visa. They seemed concerned that she should not write about India and sell it for some reason. I know that there are third world dictatorships lacking a free press that are anxious to control access by foreign journalists, but India? WTF? -- Charles
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
subversive sweetie a long term visa. They seemed concerned that she should not write about India and sell it for some reason. I know that there are third world dictatorships lacking a free press that are anxious to control access by foreign journalists, but India? Err..you mean the same way the USA controls access by foreign journalists and makes them get special visas (even those who can otherwise enter with visa waivers)? Eg: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/05/usa.weekend7 FWIW, I think she'll probably get a 10 year visa (if not now, next time around, when you will presumably not put writer under occupation). It's just the govt's tendency to control things that is popping up - I don't think it is part of any grand design.. Oh, and welcome to the world of needing visas and being subject to the whims of immigration authorities..there's a lot of Indians with experience of the vagaries of INS visa policy who will sympathize with the experience.. Badri
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
I got my ten year tourist (T) visa with no problems or delays. PS - The issue may become moot soon, anyway. The Indian govt is planning to introduce visas-on-arrival for citizens of a number of Western countries: http://publication.samachar.com/pub_article.php?id=1268413navname=General%20moreurl=http://publication.samachar.com/samachartop25/general/samachartop25.phphomeurl=http://publication.samachar.com
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:26 PM, Badri Natarajan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: subversive sweetie a long term visa. They seemed concerned that she should not write about India and sell it for some reason. I know that there are third world dictatorships lacking a free press that are anxious to control access by foreign journalists, but India? Err..you mean the same way the USA controls access by foreign journalists and makes them get special visas (even those who can otherwise enter with visa waivers)? Tu quoque? The USA is certainly no paragon of visa issuing rectitude, but I don't understand what rationale there might be for the restrictions. Is it just tit-for-tat? I can respect that, I admire the Brazilians for requiring only Americans to get fingerprinted to enter Brazil. Eg: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/05/usa.weekend7 FWIW, I think she'll probably get a 10 year visa (if not now, next time around, when you will presumably not put writer under occupation). It's just the govt's tendency to control things that is popping up - I don't think it is part of any grand design.. Oh, and welcome to the world of needing visas and being subject to the whims of immigration authorities..there's a lot of Indians with experience of the vagaries of INS visa policy who will sympathize with the experience.. Some time over beers let me tell you my adventures baiting the US Border Patrol while living in San Diego. I'm no fan of US immigration policy... -- Charles
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
Not that this is gonna help you now...but I *always* ask the Visa Network folks for advice when filling out a visa form (for any country). They've seen it all, and they've seen it more recently than I have. They know for instance not to refer to any specific conference when applying for an Indian visa because the rubber- stampers will focus on those dates and not on your request for a longer interval. They might also have known about the Journalist / Writer issue. In the meantime...hope your appeal works. Have you tried giving it up to the Goddess of Parking (we call her Gladys in my family). She helps with job and apartment searches in addition to parking in SF, so maybe also visas? Danese On Feb 26, 2008, at 12:40 PM, Charles Haynes wrote: On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:26 PM, Badri Natarajan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: subversive sweetie a long term visa. They seemed concerned that she should not write about India and sell it for some reason. I know that there are third world dictatorships lacking a free press that are anxious to control access by foreign journalists, but India? Err..you mean the same way the USA controls access by foreign journalists and makes them get special visas (even those who can otherwise enter with visa waivers)? Tu quoque? The USA is certainly no paragon of visa issuing rectitude, but I don't understand what rationale there might be for the restrictions. Is it just tit-for-tat? I can respect that, I admire the Brazilians for requiring only Americans to get fingerprinted to enter Brazil. Eg: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jun/05/usa.weekend7 FWIW, I think she'll probably get a 10 year visa (if not now, next time around, when you will presumably not put writer under occupation). It's just the govt's tendency to control things that is popping up - I don't think it is part of any grand design.. Oh, and welcome to the world of needing visas and being subject to the whims of immigration authorities..there's a lot of Indians with experience of the vagaries of INS visa policy who will sympathize with the experience.. Some time over beers let me tell you my adventures baiting the US Border Patrol while living in San Diego. I'm no fan of US immigration policy... -- Charles
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
Tu quoque? The USA is certainly no paragon of visa issuing rectitude, but I don't understand what rationale there might be for the restrictions. Is it just tit-for-tat? I can respect that, I admire the My point was only that it isn't that unusual even for democratic countries to impose special immigration requirements on media. Some time over beers let me tell you my adventures baiting the US Border Patrol while living in San Diego. I'm no fan of US immigration policy... Sounds like fun..:-) My (personal) experiences of US immigration have actually been quite good..some places (in South America particularly) make it ridiculously difficult even if you actually jump through all the hoops. Atleast for the US (for tourist visas anyway), if you tick all the boxes and jump through the hoops, you'll most likely get your visa - the system is pretty streamlined now.. Eg: Ecuador does not require visas for citizens of most Western countries, but requires visas for Indian citizens (so far, quite standard), but there is a special rule that people of the *Sikh* religion need to get visas, irrespective of their citizenship. There's some pretty bizarre stuff floating around.. B
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
Tu quoque? The USA is certainly no paragon of visa issuing rectitude, but I don't understand what rationale there might be for the restrictions. Is it just tit-for-tat? I can respect that, I admire the My point was only that it isn't that unusual even for democratic countries to impose special immigration requirements on media. Some time over beers let me tell you my adventures baiting the US Border Patrol while living in San Diego. I'm no fan of US immigration policy... Sounds like fun..:-) My (personal) experiences of US immigration have actually been quite good..some places (in South America particularly) make it ridiculously difficult even if you actually jump through all the hoops. Atleast for the US (for tourist visas anyway), if you tick all the boxes and jump through the hoops, you'll most likely get your visa - the system is pretty streamlined now.. Eg: Ecuador does not require visas for citizens of most Western countries, but requires visas for Indian citizens (so far, quite standard), but there is a special rule that people of the *Sikh* religion need to get visas, irrespective of their citizenship. There's some pretty bizarre stuff floating around.. B
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 1:39 PM, Badri Natarajan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My point was only that it isn't that unusual even for democratic countries to impose special immigration requirements on media. As may be, but are all writers media? When asked she said she wrote for her personal blog and was not employed as a writer, and still they gave her a journalist visa. With regards to restrictions on journalists, I found this paragraph in the article you cited particularly relevant: How dare you treat an American officer with disrespect? he shouted back, indignantly. Believe me, we have treated you with much more respect than other people. You should go to places like Iran, you'd see a big difference. The irony is that it is only countries like Iran (for example, Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe) that have a visa requirement for journalists. It is unheard of in open societies, and, in spite of now being enforced in the US, is still so obscure that most journalists are not familiar with it. Thirteen foreign journalists were detained and deported from the US last year, 12 of them from LAX. Countries like Iran, and India? Some time over beers let me tell you my adventures baiting the US Border Patrol while living in San Diego. I'm no fan of US immigration policy... Sounds like fun..:-) My parents were not amused that I was using their car for it... but I now know that the US Border Patrol uses Porsches among other cars. All I did was drive along the closest paved road to the border, and turn my headlights on and off briefly. I was then followed, stopped, and threatened by uniformed Border Patrol agents driving a fascinatingly eclectic collection of unmarked vehicles. Eg: Ecuador does not require visas for citizens of most Western countries, but requires visas for Indian citizens (so far, quite standard), but there is a special rule that people of the *Sikh* religion need to get visas, irrespective of their citizenship. There's some pretty bizarre stuff floating around.. That's totally bizarre. Though I was amused by this sign in a Bangalore bank: No weapons are allowed inside the bank except for kripans by Sikhs. http://www.flickr.com/photos/haynes/871162228/ -- Charles
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
Badri Natarajan [26/02/08 20:32 -]: I got my ten year tourist (T) visa with no problems or delays. PS - The issue may become moot soon, anyway. The Indian govt is planning to introduce visas-on-arrival for citizens of a number of Western countries: I wonder if that will lead to reciprocity in visa issuance relaxations from those countries. Reciprocity is one of the major principles in visa issuance guidelines by the way. Either that or they might just reduce the visa fees to a token amount.
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
Charles Haynes [26/02/08 14:05 -0800]: On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 1:39 PM, Badri Natarajan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My point was only that it isn't that unusual even for democratic countries to impose special immigration requirements on media. As may be, but are all writers media? When asked she said she wrote for her personal blog and was not employed as a writer, and still they gave her a journalist visa. Which has bitten at least one dude who thought to get in to speak at a US security conference, from Germany. He put down workshop instructor or something on his immigration form, got put on the next plane back. And bitched about it on politech and /.. And then got all this pointed out to him. Ditto bloggers who claim to be journalists.. they've got bitten by this as well. If there's something that looks like it is independent work and may earn money in there you'll get a work visa. Or a drastically limited tourist visa. It is kind of universal, this .. Just tell Debbie to put housewife or something on her next application like others say. This is not a restriction on journalism. It is a restriction on working. That's totally bizarre. Though I was amused by this sign in a Bangalore bank: No weapons are allowed inside the bank except for kripans by Sikhs. http://www.flickr.com/photos/haynes/871162228/ A small knife with a short blade, typically blunt and without an edge (it is issued to sikh kids in a ceremony kind of like a bar mitzvah, so that'd make sense). Same thing applies to inflight regulations.
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
I wonder if that will lead to reciprocity in visa issuance relaxations from those countries. Reciprocity is one of the major principles in visa issuance guidelines by the way. Either that or they might just reduce the visa fees to a token amount. Yes, but it is only one of several factors. I haven't seen the list of countries, but I think visa on arrival will only be introduced for your usual set of Western countries. Those countries simply will not start issuing visas on arrival to Indians (too many concerns about illegal immigration etc) but hopefully, yes, cheaper visas and some relaxation in the rules. In particular, it would be most useful if they exempted Indian citizens who are resident in one western country from the visa requirement for another (as Switzerland very sensibly already does). And gave multiple entry and longer term visas more easily (like the UK/US 5/10 year visas). Visa on arrival (initially at least) won't apply to other countries, but despite that, there's generally a move (slow but sure) towards liberalizing visa rules for Indians even elsewhere, as countries start to realize that Indians aren't just potential illegal immigrants, but also tourists, businessmen, etc. For eg, Indians were only granted visa-on-arrival privileges to Mauritius from late 2004 (I was one of the early people to use it in early 2005 and was subjected to some pretty detailed questioning). At any rate, there is a benefit for India even in unilaterally relaxing pointless visa rules. After all..the global passport system was only established around the time of the first World War I think..and the visa regime (I believe) only around the 60s and 70s (coinciding with the post-colonial era and large scale migration..) Badri
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
On Wednesday 27 Feb 2008 1:39:41 am Charles Haynes wrote: Debbie put down Writer. Big mistake. I got my ten year tourist (T) visa with no problems or delays. Debbie however only got a 3 month journalist (J) visa. I hope Debbie gets her visa, but I guess you don't know that writers are the baddies of the season in India. Like writing on US visa application form Need to learn how to take off and navigate aircraft in the US Further questions that Debbie might need to answer regarding writing: 1) Are you a secular writer or a communal writer? 2) Have you written anything to hurt the sentiments of the minority community in India? 3) Are you a writer of literature that can rip apart the secular fabric of the nation? 4) Have you drawn any cartoons? 5) Have you written for any cartoonists? 6) Name one city in India 2000 Km away from where you would like to live in which you can be give a safe house in case your writing is a political liability (what with elections coming up soon and all that) shiv
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 4:48 PM, ss [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I hope Debbie gets her visa, Thanks! It turns out that living in India for a year may have taught us useful skills in dealing with the bureaucracy. Rule 1, if you don't get the answer you want at first, be persistent. Keep asking. Fortunately we didn't have to invoke rule 2 - if you still don't get the answer you want, ask a well connected friend for help. They just issued her a 10 year tourist visa. but I guess you don't know that writers are the baddies of the season in India. Live and learn! It's still surprising to us where some of the mines are located. Like writing on US visa application form Need to learn how to take off and navigate aircraft in the US ... landing instruction not required. Further questions that Debbie might need to answer regarding writing: 1) Are you a secular writer or a communal writer? 2) Have you written anything to hurt the sentiments of the minority community in India? 3) Are you a writer of literature that can rip apart the secular fabric of the nation? 4) Have you drawn any cartoons? 5) Have you written for any cartoonists? 6) Name one city in India 2000 Km away from where you would like to live in which you can be give a safe house in case your writing is a political liability (what with elections coming up soon and all that) 7) Are you now, or have you ever been a feminist? Are you or any members of your immediate family from Bangladesh? I suggested she say she wasn't a journalist but a pornographer but she wisely declined my suggestion. -- Charles
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
Congrats! I was *so* happy to get mine last year. Feels so comforting to know I can go to India any old time. D On Feb 26, 2008, at 5:03 PM, Charles Haynes wrote: They just issued her a 10 year tourist visa.
[silk] Copyright this
Intellectual property's social value may trump copyright law. By Dallas Weaver February 20, 2008 Jon Healey correctly points out that the debate over intellectual-property theft is complex because we are often dealing with non-real properties. These properties cost nearly nothing to produce, and an infinite number of people can use the same property at the same time. And yet, we still want to treat them as if they were real property. Significantly, some of these non-real properties have major effects on human welfare. Take, for example, the formula for oral rehydration therapy, a mixture of salt, sugar and water. Although it could potentially be copyrighted, it has saved more lives in the Third World than almost anything else. The world is lucky that this formula is in the public domain, not copyrighted and subject to use charges that people who need it couldn't afford. The present system treats these copyrighted works as a funny kind of real property with no carrying costs, taxes or significant fees. Without carrying costs, copyrights remain in force almost forever - even though, over time, the demand for the copyrighted material can fall to almost nothing. As the demand decreases, the value may remain, but it becomes effectively unavailable to, as the Constitution puts it, promote the progress of science and useful arts. Witness all the copyrighted books, scientific journals, audio works and visual works that are out of print or otherwise unavailable because copyright law prevents the new, low-cost methods of distribution from being utilized. In the scientific field, this has devastating effects on the advancement of human knowledge - which is just the opposite of the intent of copyright law. As a member of a scientific journal's editorial board - and as a senior citizen - I see reams of manuscripts that just reinvent the wheel. Because the whole scientific enterprise has become so complex that non-electronic research is effectively impossible, many young scientists don't know and can't find out what has already been done from older, copyrighted, paper-based literature. This results in a huge waste of resources. The same can be said for copyrights in creative areas such as music and writing, in which older works with limited distribution could be built upon to promote the progress of science and useful arts. A solution to determining which works are in the Mickey Mouse category of copyrights and which are in the more socially valuable oral rehydration therapy class of work is not feasible for a government bureaucracy. However, if all copyrights were taxed at a fixed (but significant) amount per year to maintain the copyright (all registered through the copyright office and searchable), there would be a significant carrying cost and most of the copyrighted material would revert to public domain and become available to promote the progress of science and useful arts. As intellectual property and copyrights become an even more significant part of our economy, and as copyright holders (not necessarily the creators) make claims of stealing as though it is real property, it should be taxed. Relative to copyrights' significance in our economy, the amount of revenue from this source should be in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year. With a proper tax system, publishers like the L.A. Times or scientific journals may maintain a copyright for only a year or so before letting the content revert to public domain and letting Google and everyone else utilize the material for its small, but socially significant, remaining value. The human enterprise could continue to build on itself in these creative, sustainable and non-resource-consuming ways, with copyrights only applying to a small subset of this enterprise. It should also be noted that some of the most valuable and significant intellectual property and creative works can't be copyrighted. For example, Mickey Mouse is copyrighted, but E=MC2 could not have been. Which was truly the more significant creative work? Dallas Weaver is a scientist and consultant. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-weaver20feb20,0,1675278.story
Re: [silk] Copyright this
Dallas Weaver is a scientist and consultant. ... and one of the multitudes lacking in clue on the nature, and distinction of copyrights and patents. Mr. Weaver doesn't grok that copyright is limited in scope and nature, and offers no protection to Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, [1] -- that's strictly the providence of patent law. In fact, most of the examples he cites are issues of patent, not copyright law, and are in the public domain precisely because they're both obvious and for the most part, outside the scope of patentability. His subject cases fail, rather than make, his argument. I will give Weaver one thing -- we do need more carrying costs to copyright law. In the days before Berne[2], copyright law, like patent and trademark law today, had such carrying costs in the form of formalities, and the world, imho was better for it. Fix that, and the pendulum swings back, regardless of the extent of the term, the power of Disney, nearly anything else[3]. [1] http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wnp [2] http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/index.html [3] I say nearly because DRM has the potential to be longer-lasting than any finite copyright term. (Finally, this: http://xkcd.com/386/) On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 12:12 AM, Gautam John [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Intellectual property's social value may trump copyright law. By Dallas Weaver February 20, 2008 Jon Healey correctly points out that the debate over intellectual-property theft is complex because we are often dealing with non-real properties. These properties cost nearly nothing to produce, and an infinite number of people can use the same property at the same time. And yet, we still want to treat them as if they were real property. Significantly, some of these non-real properties have major effects on human welfare. Take, for example, the formula for oral rehydration therapy, a mixture of salt, sugar and water. Although it could potentially be copyrighted, it has saved more lives in the Third World than almost anything else. The world is lucky that this formula is in the public domain, not copyrighted and subject to use charges that people who need it couldn't afford. The present system treats these copyrighted works as a funny kind of real property with no carrying costs, taxes or significant fees. Without carrying costs, copyrights remain in force almost forever - even though, over time, the demand for the copyrighted material can fall to almost nothing. As the demand decreases, the value may remain, but it becomes effectively unavailable to, as the Constitution puts it, promote the progress of science and useful arts. Witness all the copyrighted books, scientific journals, audio works and visual works that are out of print or otherwise unavailable because copyright law prevents the new, low-cost methods of distribution from being utilized. In the scientific field, this has devastating effects on the advancement of human knowledge - which is just the opposite of the intent of copyright law. As a member of a scientific journal's editorial board - and as a senior citizen - I see reams of manuscripts that just reinvent the wheel. Because the whole scientific enterprise has become so complex that non-electronic research is effectively impossible, many young scientists don't know and can't find out what has already been done from older, copyrighted, paper-based literature. This results in a huge waste of resources. The same can be said for copyrights in creative areas such as music and writing, in which older works with limited distribution could be built upon to promote the progress of science and useful arts. A solution to determining which works are in the Mickey Mouse category of copyrights and which are in the more socially valuable oral rehydration therapy class of work is not feasible for a government bureaucracy. However, if all copyrights were taxed at a fixed (but significant) amount per year to maintain the copyright (all registered through the copyright office and searchable), there would be a significant carrying cost and most of the copyrighted material would revert to public domain and become available to promote the progress of science and useful arts. As intellectual property and copyrights become an even more significant part of our economy, and as copyright holders (not necessarily the creators) make claims of stealing as though it is real property, it should be taxed. Relative to copyrights' significance in our economy, the amount of revenue from this source should be in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year. With a proper tax system, publishers like the L.A. Times or scientific journals may maintain a copyright for only a year or so before letting the content revert to public domain and letting Google and everyone else utilize the material for its small, but socially
Re: [silk] Writers not welcome in India?
On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 1:05 AM, Charles Haynes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My point was only that it isn't that unusual even for democratic countries to impose special immigration requirements on media. As may be, but are all writers media? When asked she said she wrote for her personal blog and was not employed as a writer, and still they gave her a journalist visa. Does the average immigration official even know what a blog is ?
Re: [silk] Internet access for senior citizen in special care facility
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 12:11 PM, rene wrote: If i bought an off-the-shelf antenna how easy is it to hook it up with a standard dlink, linksys type wifi router ... ? Linksys Router (I only know the WRT54G series) have a somehow unique Antenna connector, it's called TNC-RP (stands for reverse polarity TNC). See an image at http://www.i-tec.it/catalog/images/rptnc.jpg (Most of other available routers have a SMA-RP connector, which is smaller.) Thanks for this and all the other advice... i have a working setup now similar to what is described above. Some issues related to legality are still pending from the local council authorities... but its a small town so shouldnt be a major problem. thanks ashok
