Re: [silk] An introduction

[Amit Varma]

Welcome Harnidh!

Guys, please google her poetry. She is being modest.

On 4 Aug 2017 11:36, "Rajesh Mehar"  wrote:

Welcome Harnidh, I follow you on Twitter.

I'm close to 40 and still not much yet. :-)

On Fri, Aug 4, 2017, 11:29 Deepa Mohan  wrote:

> Welcome, Harnidh.
>
> Are there any young fogies on this list?
>
> Deepa.
>

Re: [silk] An introduction

[Rajesh Mehar]

Welcome Harnidh, I follow you on Twitter.

I'm close to 40 and still not much yet. :-)

On Fri, Aug 4, 2017, 11:29 Deepa Mohan  wrote:

> Welcome, Harnidh.
>
> Are there any young fogies on this list?
>
> Deepa.
>

Re: [silk] An introduction

[Deepa Mohan]

Welcome, Harnidh.

Are there any young fogies on this list?

Deepa.

On Fri, Aug 4, 2017 at 11:24 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian 
wrote:

> Welcome to the mostly old fogies club
>
> It is rather quiet here these days, I’m sure you’ll change that
>
> --srs
>
> > On 04-Aug-2017, at 10:11 AM, Harnidh Kaur  wrote:
> >
> > I've been called 'obnoxiously enthusiastic', 'disgustingly excited', and
> > 'alarmingly energetic.'
>
>
>

Re: [silk] An introduction

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Welcome to the mostly old fogies club

It is rather quiet here these days, I’m sure you’ll change that 

--srs

> On 04-Aug-2017, at 10:11 AM, Harnidh Kaur  wrote:
> 
> I've been called 'obnoxiously enthusiastic', 'disgustingly excited', and
> 'alarmingly energetic.'

[silk] An introduction

[Harnidh Kaur]

I've been lurking around, reading and learning from all of you for a while
now. Apparently I can't get away with doing just that, so hello!

I'm Harnidh. I'm some sort of a poet and policy wonk, but I'm just 22. That
mostly means I'm not much, as of yet. Some people know me as Peglet on
Twitter. I used to be Patiala Peg, but then I stopped drinking as much, so
I became a baby peg...let. Peglet.

I've been called 'obnoxiously enthusiastic', 'disgustingly excited', and
'alarmingly energetic.'

It's lovely to meet all of you.

Regards

Harnidh Kaur

Lady Shri Ram College for Women '15
St. Xavier's College, Mumbai '17
Foreverawkwardandlearning.wordpress.com
+91-7718951383

Re: [silk] Fwd: Introduction

[Radhika, Y.]

hi Pooja! your email woke me from my normal apathy. I am trained as an
urban planner in the US (sans architecture background) but have rarely used
it since as I had a career in development aid (community development
specifically) for a long time. I am curious to know what opportunities
young planners like yourself have in India because my impression (and that
is admittedly a very old impression) is that planning is the territory of
the IAS! Do city corporations have planners? How do they work with their
regional counterparts? What is the master planning process if any and how
publicly accessible are these plans for input and information? For example,
I would love to see the master plan for my native city - Visakhapatnam but
don't know if VUDA makes it publicly accessible online.

Hope you don't mind the questions - they have lingered in my mind for
decades!
cheers.
Radhika

-- 
Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear
and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them
with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on
the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success.
Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream. ~ Lao Tzu
(courtesy -Peacefrog)

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to
creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and
gave to it neither power nor time. -- Mary Oliver

[silk] Fwd: Introduction

[Pooja Sastry]

 Welcome, Pooja is always a good season in West Bengal, and that ought to be
 true here, too!

 I know your dad as Nallu, but my delight at the opportunity to get to
 know a child as an adult in her own right doesn't change. Can you tell
 jokkus like your dad does?


Hi Deepa aunty! I remembered later that you know my dad by his home name.
Not yet ... the ones I can tell are his originals, but I'm slowly making up
my own now, which I try out on him.

Welcome Pooja. I too studied architecture -- but only for a while. I
 learned the error of my ways and moved on to serfdom in the IT
 industry. We have, therefore, nothing in common. :-) Welcome,
 nevertheless.
 When I studied architecture I was in the camp that considered
 architecture an engineering problem that included aesthetics as one of
 the requirements to be fulfilled. I annoyed (and was annoyed by) the
 crowd for whom it was Art (with a capital A).
 Where do you place yourself?


The former camp, definitely, Biju. It's why I moved to urban planning,
because all five years of architecture school were a blank in terms of
understanding Art. I felt much more at home in planning school, but also
made some sort of partial peace with architecture somewhere along the way,
which is why I decided I could practise it after all.

If nothing else, I regularly bring back stories such as that of the master
bathroom with two potties (for no other apparent reason except that they
can afford not to share one), or of the client who insisted on beams and
columns being taken off wherever he didn't like them until the structural
engineer gave up and stopped returning calls.

Thank you all for the warm welcome!

[silk] re-introduction (sort of)

[Giancarlo Livraghi]

A while ago Udhay suggested that some of us should re-introduce 
ourselves. Here I go - though this isn't an introduction. It's a bit 
of a history of how I got involved with Silk in the first place - and a 
a bit of news on a recent development.


There are many ways of things happening online. In this case, it started 
thirteen years ago. In June, 1996 I wrote a short note on the power of 
stupidity that was published by Entropy Gradient Reversals the US, 
picked up in all sorts of places, including a site called Serendipia in 
Israel - that somehow led to Silk. I've been lurking, occasionally 
writing, in silklist ever since.


In the meantime my work on stupidity expanded in several ways, including 
a book in Italian in 2004. The latest development is that now The Power 
of Stupidity is a book also in English.


It's all online in Google Books - and also in http://stupidity.it

A story of how it happened is in http://gandalf.it/stupid/intro.htm

Cheers

Giancarlo Livraghi

Re: [silk] Cory's introduction to _Little Brother_

[Rishab Aiyer Ghosh]

On Tue, 2008-05-06 at 10:08 +0800, Balaji Dutt wrote:
 Ah I guess I would a member of that unhappy club as well, although in time
 I've found that outlook's rules engine is almost powerful as Eudora's was -
 although not as secure, and definitely not as bloat free.

the main thing that kept me for a while from going to linux full-time
was, of all things, eudora. i weaned myself off it with evolution which
is (horrors) an outlook clone, and meanwhile found that eudora runs
quite well in wine.

 I suppose it's the axe to grind bit that keeps me using completely
 independent alter-egos for when I dip into the seamier side of the Internet,
 and those alter-egos loop back to each other (and have for about a decade or
 so now)..  What can be linked to me directly is mostly the stuff I'm
 comfortable associating with [1]

and i thought everyone did that :-)

if they don't know you're a dog, why on earth should they have to know
you're balaji?

-r

Re: [silk] Cory's introduction to _Little Brother_

[Balaji Dutt]

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 6:01 PM, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  I suppose it's the axe to grind bit that keeps me using completely
  independent alter-egos for when I dip into the seamier side of the
 Internet,
  and those alter-egos loop back to each other (and have for about a
 decade or
  so now)..  What can be linked to me directly is mostly the stuff I'm
  comfortable associating with [1]

 and i thought everyone did that :-)


Yes I should have known better than to state the obvious on a techie list
like this :)

-- 
Balaji

[silk] Cory's introduction to _Little Brother_

[Udhay Shankar N]

I think this is going to be an important book. I also think that this
intro does a great job of putting the book in context. The fight
against Big Brother gone mad is going to be one of the defining vens
of our age, and this looks like a worthy contribution.

Udhay

excerpted from 
http://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.htm

INTRODUCTION

I wrote Little Brother in a white-hot fury between May 7, 2007 and
July 2, 2007: exactly eight weeks from the day I thought it up to the
day I finished it (Alice, to whom this book is dedicated, had to put
up with me clacking out the final chapter at 5AM in our hotel in Rome,
where we were celebrating our anniversary). I'd always dreamed of
having a book just materialize, fully formed, and come pouring out of
my fingertips, no sweat and fuss -- but it wasn't nearly as much fun
as I'd thought it would be. There were days when I wrote 10,000 words,
hunching over my keyboard in airports, on subways, in taxis --
anywhere I could type. The book was trying to get out of my head, no
matter what, and I missed so much sleep and so many meals that friends
started to ask if I was unwell.

When my dad was a young university student in the 1960s, he was one of
the few counterculture people who thought computers were a good
thing. For most young people, computers represented the
de-humanization of society. University students were reduced to
numbers on a punchcard, each bearing the legend DO NOT BEND, SPINDLE,
FOLD OR MUTILATE, prompting some of the students to wear pins that
said, I AM A STUDENT: DO NOT BEND, SPINDLE, FOLD OR MUTILATE ME.
Computers were seen as a means to increase the ability of the
authorities to regiment people and bend them to their will.

When I was a 17, the world seemed like it was just going to get more
free. The Berlin Wall was about to come down. Computers -- which had
been geeky and weird a few years before -- were everywhere, and the
modem I'd used to connect to local bulletin board systems was now
connecting me to the entire world through the Internet and commercial
online services like GEnie. My lifelong fascination with activist
causes went into overdrive as I saw how the main difficulty in
activism -- organizing -- was getting easier by leaps and bounds (I
still remember the first time I switched from mailing out a newsletter
with hand-written addresses to using a database with mail-merge). In
the Soviet Union, communications tools were being used to bring
information -- and revolution -- to the farthest-flung corners of the
largest authoritarian state the Earth had ever seen.

But 17 years later, things are very different. The computers I love
are being co-opted, used to spy on us, control us, snitch on us. The
National Security Agency has illegally wiretapped the entire USA and
gotten away with it. Car rental companies and mass transit and traffic
authorities are watching where we go, sending us automated tickets,
finking us out to busybodies, cops and bad guys who gain illicit
access to their databases. The Transport Security Administration
maintains a no-fly list of people who'd never been convicted of any
crime, but who are nevertheless considered too dangerous to fly. The
list's contents are secret. The rule that makes it enforceable is
secret. The criteria for being added to the list are secret. It has
four-year-olds on it. And US senators. And decorated veterans --
actual war heroes.

The 17 year olds I know understand to a nicety just how dangerous a
computer can be. The authoritarian nightmare of the 1960s has come
home for them. The seductive little boxes on their desks and in their
pockets watch their every move, corral them in, systematically
depriving them of those new freedoms I had enjoyed and made such good
use of in my young adulthood.

What's more, kids were clearly being used as guinea-pigs for a new
kind of technological state that all of us were on our way to, a world
where taking a picture was either piracy (in a movie theater or museum
or even a Starbucks), or terrorism (in a public place), but where we
could be photographed, tracked and logged hundreds of times a day by
every tin-pot dictator, cop, bureaucrat and shop-keeper. A world where
any measure, including torture, could be justified just by waving your
hands and shouting Terrorism! 9/11! Terrorism! until all dissent
fell silent.

We don't have to go down that road.

If you love freedom, if you think the human condition is dignified by
privacy, by the right to be left alone, by the right to explore your
weird ideas provided you don't hurt others, then you have common cause
with the kids whose web-browsers and cell phones are being used to
lock them up and follow them around.

If you believe that the answer to bad speech is more speech -- not
censorship -- then you have a dog in the fight.

If you believe in a society of laws, a land where our rulers have to
tell us the rules, and have to follow them too, then you're part of
the same struggle 

Re: [silk] Cory's introduction to _Little Brother_

[Thaths]

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 4:13 AM, Udhay Shankar N [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  But 17 years later, things are very different. The computers I love
  are being co-opted, used to spy on us, control us, snitch on us. The
  National Security Agency has illegally wiretapped the entire USA and
  gotten away with it. Car rental companies and mass transit and traffic
  authorities are watching where we go, sending us automated tickets,
  finking us out to busybodies, cops and bad guys who gain illicit
  access to their databases. The Transport Security Administration
  maintains a no-fly list of people who'd never been convicted of any
  crime, but who are nevertheless considered too dangerous to fly. The
  list's contents are secret. The rule that makes it enforceable is
  secret. The criteria for being added to the list are secret. It has
  four-year-olds on it. And US senators. And decorated veterans --
  actual war heroes.

  The 17 year olds I know understand to a nicety just how dangerous a
  computer can be. The authoritarian nightmare of the 1960s has come
  home for them. The seductive little boxes on their desks and in their
  pockets watch their every move, corral them in, systematically
  depriving them of those new freedoms I had enjoyed and made such good
  use of in my young adulthood.

snip

I hope Cory's book is instrumental in creating a new generation of
civil libertarians and cyber activists (a la what _The Hacker
Crackdown_ did to a previous generation). However, I cannot help but
nitpick Cory's comment about 17-year-olds understanding the peril.
While they may know the dangers of surveillance by TLAs, I am amazed
to find the naivety with which my young nephews and nieces happily
live their lives publicly on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Orkut and a
dozen other social networking sites. I wonder if the public exposure
(and recording, indexing and preserving forever) of highly personal
lives in social networking sites today is merely the next incarnation
of injudicious flame wars on Usenet of my generation. Somehow I cannot
help but think that there is a difference between the two. Nobody
could accuse Usenet of getting a nerd laid.

Thaths
-- 
Bart: We were just planning the father-son river rafting trip.
Homer: Hehe. You don't have a son.
Sudhakar Chandra Slacker Without Borders

Re: [silk] Cory's introduction to _Little Brother_

[Udhay Shankar N]

Thaths wrote, [on 5/5/2008 9:07 PM]:


I hope Cory's book is instrumental in creating a new generation of
civil libertarians and cyber activists (a la what _The Hacker
Crackdown_ did to a previous generation). However, I cannot help but
nitpick Cory's comment about 17-year-olds understanding the peril.
While they may know the dangers of surveillance by TLAs, I am amazed
to find the naivety with which my young nephews and nieces happily
live their lives publicly on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Orkut and a
dozen other social networking sites.


One way of looking at this is as follows:

If one wants to prevent people from knowing some particular thing about 
you in an age where both ubiquitous onlines presence as well as 
ubiquitous search/surveillance technologies are realities, then one 
approach is to just make so much data available that it becomes 
difficult to pick out the embarrassing bits.


Example:

http://www.google.co.in/search?q=%22udhay+shankar+n%22num=100

Unless you are specifically looking for it (i.e., you already know what 
you're searching for) you will not find my n00b usenet posts in this mix.


Udhay
--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] Cory's introduction to _Little Brother_

[Thaths]

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 10:23 AM, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  On Mon, 2008-05-05 at 21:47 +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote:
   http://www.google.co.in/search?q=%22udhay+shankar+n%22num=100
   Unless you are specifically looking for it (i.e., you already know what
   you're searching for) you will not find my n00b usenet posts in this mix.
  if i was looking for your early posts i wouldn't have to know what i was
  looking for already. i could just specify a date range. i don't know how
  to do this on google, but altavista still works:
  http://tinyurl.com/553la4

The daterange: query parameter is the equivalent Googleism. However, I
have so far been unable to get results equivalent to your Alta Vista
query. Possibly because Google did not exist pre-May 5th 1998 [1]. If
I bumped up the end date of the range to May 5th 2001, I am able to
get results[2].

  the difference between me putting my information out on facebook, say,
  and having the state or corporations track my spending and travel
  habits, is that _i_ decide what information i release and when in the
  former case.

True. There is an element of choice in what (and when) one chooses to
publish online as our twitter or facebook feed. The TLA mining of
data, OTOH, is done mostly involuntarily.

My concern with my younger family and friends is that they do not seem
to realize that their flirtations, flame wars and flickr will be
easily searchable five years from today by their future employers.
Back in my day having an online history corroborating one's resume was
a good thing. What our online trails becoming more and more personal
in nature, I wonder if leaving this trail is wise.

Thaths

[1] http://google.weblogsinc.com/2005/09/07/googles-7th-birthday/

[2] 
http://www.google.com/search?hl=enclient=firefox-arls=com.ubuntu%3Aen-US%3Aunofficialq=%22udhay+shankar+n%22+daterange%3A2444239-2452034btnG=Search
-- 
Bart: We were just planning the father-son river rafting trip.
Homer: Hehe. You don't have a son.
Sudhakar Chandra Slacker Without Borders

Re: [silk] Cory's introduction to _Little Brother_

[Rishab Ghosh]

On Mon, May 05, 2008 at 10:52:55AM -0700, Thaths wrote:
 My concern with my younger family and friends is that they do not seem
 to realize that their flirtations, flame wars and flickr will be
 easily searchable five years from today by their future employers.

bernhard and i have had many discussions about this, so maybe he'll chip in. 
when the entire cohort of your nephews is looking for jobs, future employers 
won't be able to discriminate against them due to their facebook pictures; 
indeed, someone _without_ such a documented personal life may be seen to have 
inadequate socialisation (what were _you_ doing while your friends were 
partying and getting drunk? sitting alone somewhere... maybe you can't really 
work in a team?)

-rishab

Re: [silk] Cory's introduction to _Little Brother_

[Thaths]

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 9:17 AM, Udhay Shankar N [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  One way of looking at this is as follows:

  If one wants to prevent people from knowing some particular thing about you
 in an age where both ubiquitous onlines presence as well as ubiquitous
 search/surveillance technologies are realities, then one approach is to just
 make so much data available that it becomes difficult to pick out the
 embarrassing bits.

That is a possibility. However, it is merely a matter of a better
search algorithm to fish out the juicy bits.

  Example:

  http://www.google.co.in/search?q=%22udhay+shankar+n%22num=100

  Unless you are specifically looking for it (i.e., you already know what
 you're searching for) you will not find my n00b usenet posts in this mix.

Let me take a dig

First off, I will do a groups (usenet) search instead of a straight up
web search. Usenet usually has juicier bits:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22udhay%20shankar%20n%22num=100um=1ie=UTF-8sa=Ntab=wg

Looks like your divorce from Eudora is a long and painful one starting
circa 2002:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.mail.eudora.ms-windows/browse_thread/thread/c79691f379ab929b/9656e92ae9f59f19?lnk=stq=%22udhay+shankar+n%22#9656e92ae9f59f19

Hmmm. What a strange fascination with Amazonia

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/browse_thread/thread/24c4f339e67d86a4/92c4f2b69a5b9d0a?lnk=stq=%22udhay+shankar+n%22#92c4f2b69a5b9d0a

U A test message to sci.logic. You must not have heard of misc.test?

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.logic/browse_thread/thread/2074a359a023f9f1/0930f85088e8f6fe?lnk=stq=%22udhay+shankar+n%22#0930f85088e8f6fe

Tut, tut! Spam on usenet. What next? Green card lottery?:

http://groups.google.com/group/biz.marketplace.non-computer/browse_thread/thread/c8b019064d292946/7715932902f62e10?lnk=stq=%22udhay+shankar+n%22#7715932902f62e10


Lookee here, an early reference to silk on usenet:

http://groups.google.com/group/muc.lists.new-lists/browse_thread/thread/f3c2b70f11741677/7d725da9d29d1752?lnk=stq=%22udhay+shankar+n%22#7d725da9d29d1752

etc.

I agree that there isn't anything truly damning. But it took me less
than 10 minutes to dig the above. Someone with more time, a better
profile of the subject, an axe to grind and a subject that is active
on social networks can turn up better stuff than this.

Thaths
-- 
Bart: We were just planning the father-son river rafting trip.
Homer: Hehe. You don't have a son.
Sudhakar Chandra Slacker Without Borders

Re: [silk] Cory's introduction to _Little Brother_

[Balaji Dutt]

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 2:10 AM, Thaths [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22udhay%20shankar%20n%22num=100um=1ie=UTF-8sa=Ntab=wg

 Looks like your divorce from Eudora is a long and painful one starting
 circa 2002:


Ah I guess I would a member of that unhappy club as well, although in time
I've found that outlook's rules engine is almost powerful as Eudora's was -
although not as secure, and definitely not as bloat free.



 I agree that there isn't anything truly damning. But it took me less
 than 10 minutes to dig the above. Someone with more time, a better
 profile of the subject, an axe to grind and a subject that is active
 on social networks can turn up better stuff than this.

 Thaths


I suppose it's the axe to grind bit that keeps me using completely
independent alter-egos for when I dip into the seamier side of the Internet,
and those alter-egos loop back to each other (and have for about a decade or
so now)..  What can be linked to me directly is mostly the stuff I'm
comfortable associating with [1]

-- 
Balaji

[1] I say mostly because I'm sure there is mildly embarrassing (in a awkward
teenager sort of way) stuff out there that I've forgotten about.

Re: [silk] Cory's introduction to _Little Brother_

[Udhay Shankar N]

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 11:40 PM, Thaths [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  U A test message to sci.logic. You must not have heard of misc.test?

  
 http://groups.google.com/group/sci.logic/browse_thread/thread/2074a359a023f9f1/0930f85088e8f6fe?lnk=stq=%22udhay+shankar+n%22#0930f85088e8f6fe

  Tut, tut! Spam on usenet. What next? Green card lottery?:

  
 http://groups.google.com/group/biz.marketplace.non-computer/browse_thread/thread/c8b019064d292946/7715932902f62e10?lnk=stq=%22udhay+shankar+n%22#7715932902f62e10


  Lookee here, an early reference to silk on usenet:

  
 http://groups.google.com/group/muc.lists.new-lists/browse_thread/thread/f3c2b70f11741677/7d725da9d29d1752?lnk=stq=%22udhay+shankar+n%22#7d725da9d29d1752

  etc.

  I agree that there isn't anything truly damning. But it took me less
  than 10 minutes to dig the above. Someone with more time, a better
  profile of the subject, an axe to grind and a subject that is active
  on social networks can turn up better stuff than this.

Sure, but

1. I *told* you where to look by mentioning usenet
2. You *still* haven't found the embarrassing stuff. :-P (No, I'm not
going to tell you what it is)

Udhay


-- 
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] Fwd: Introduction

[Hassath]

On Feb 8, 2008 12:21 PM, Srini Ramakrishnan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 [...] Thanks Hassath and Abhijeet
 for accepting my explanation and apology.

:-) But now that you have our address, do something useful with it.
Send us a nice postcard at least!
-- 
- Hassath

Re: [silk] Fwd: Introduction

[Deepa Mohan]

 we have conversations in public, in private, and in secret. All
 three are quite separate. The public is what we say to a crowd; the
 private is what we chatter amongst ourselves, when free from the
 demands of the crowd; and the secret is what we keep from everyone
 but our confidant.


Indeed very insightful, Udhay. Had not thought of the distinction
between private and secret, before this.

Deepa.

[silk] Fwd: Introduction

[Srini Ramakrishnan]

I'd sum this as unintended consequences of a curious break from stressful
work. Also known as curiosity killed the cat. Thanks Hassath and Abhijeet
for accepting my explanation and apology.

*I am now going to crawl away into a corner where I don't read too much
email, it clearly can't be good for me.*

Cheeni


-- Forwarded message --
From: Srini Ramakrishnan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Feb 8, 2008 8:40 AM
Subject: Re: Introduction
To: Abhijit Menon-Sen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


[+hassath]

On Feb 8, 2008 7:39 AM, Abhijit Menon-Sen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 (Cc: to silk dropped.)

 At 2008-02-07 12:55:58 +0530, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  However there are characteristics to the introduction that smack of a
  computer geek.

 BTW, it isn't that I've dumped my extra motherboards on her side of the
 desk, if you were wondering. She's building a couple of new machines to
 experiment with something.

Umm... but I never had that doubt in the first place. Wait! Is the
unspoken question here something like why are you such a male
chauvinist / immature jerk / unevolved person ? Hell no!

Wow! Yeah, I was quite surprised when there was a lot of quiet silence
and weird replies from people. I didn't understand it at first, but
then I figured that people were misunderstanding whatever I had said.
So, allow me to clear the air.

a) Hassath's gender didn't even explicitly figure in my head until
after I saw Jace's email. Jace's email made me realize that I and
perhaps others had been assuming Hassath to be male, when there was a
possibility that it might not be so. How male chauvinist of me to
assume all geeks were men. I censured myself. But, why did I, who
should know better leap to this conclusion? I explained to myself
(mostly) and to the list my logic - the probability of a computer geek
being male is higher. Ah, relief, I was merely being logical, not a
male chauvinist.

b) Five minutes using Google revealed me the first signs that Hassath may
indeed be a woman, and hence my notice to the list of my possible
mistake. Also a case study in how logic failed; but in a completely
logical experiment, there is no need to apologize for betting on the
majority outcome. Whereas in this particular social context my
analysis is considered a faux pas. *sigh*

Including the address was just to highlight that highly personal
information like an address is easily found, but it still doesn't tell
me much about Hassath. Especially about the social context of the
discussion. Now the address is public information, easily found via a
whois lookup, so I didn't think it would matter to include it. But
then of course exposing the address of (anybody, but especially a woman) is
generally considered
an invitation to all sorts of bad things to happen to her, I
understand, I apologize, but it was unintentional. My logical brain
met a social context where it began looking weird.

IMO, it was a game, of the harmless sort to fill out the incomplete
picture that Hassath sent out. As Jace mentions, let the curious
resort to the interweb.

Now of course, I prefer transparency to opaqueness, hence I've
included Hassath to apologize if there were any misgivings.

This situation could have easily played out in a non-public space
following the same logical course, but exposed to a public list after
the the social context was better understood. In 20-20 hindsight, this
seems better. Given my preference for transparency over opaqueness
this is perhaps not going to be my first reaction, nevertheless
something I should mull over.

Finally, perhaps best would have been to curb my curiosity (I am
curious about anything, a stone on the road can make me curious enough
to climb a tree - such things have happened to me) and wait for
someone, maybe Hassath herself to complete the picture.

I think some of this explanation should go to silk, if you feel
comfortable with it, I'd like to forward this email to Silk as well.

Cheeni




  However,
 
  Hassath Hassath
  7B, Pocket B, SFS Apartments
  Mayur Vihar Phase 3
  Delhi
  Postal Code:110096
  Phone:+91.9811152926

 I don't get it. What was the point you were trying to make here? (i.e.
 However, ... what?)

 -- ams

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Dave Long]

(btw i'll be in geneva may 14-16 or so - want to meet up?)


Currently booked the 14th, but 15 or 16 May sounds great.

Anyone else in the vicinity?  (should be a nice time of year for the 
lake and I believe there are some good short-hop offers for GVA)


-Dave

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

I'll be at the ITU for a security conference on the 15th and most of the 
16th - probably have to head back on the 17th morning (6 AM or so flight 
GVA-FRA and on to MAA) -  (http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/cybersecurity/)


Can probably do dinner on one of those two days though

Dave Long wrote:

(btw i'll be in geneva may 14-16 or so - want to meet up?)



Currently booked the 14th, but 15 or 16 May sounds great.

Anyone else in the vicinity?  (should be a nice time of year for the 
lake and I believe there are some good short-hop offers for GVA)


-Dave

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Eugen Leitl wrote:

On Thu, Apr 27, 2006 at 04:17:10PM +0530, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:

I'll be at the ITU for a security conference on the 15th and most of the 
16th - probably have to head back on the 17th morning (6 AM or so flight 
GVA-FRA and on to MAA) -  (http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/cybersecurity/)



If any of you ever passes through Munich (again) -- you know the drill...
 


I wish :(  I typically fly out of FRA rather than MUC (courtesy 
lufthansa having only one flight a day - to FRA - from MAA)

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Dave Long]

(AMS: if you do post an introduction (mid-troduction?), please,
please, whatever you do, don't run it through dd conv=swab first)


Now why would I want to do that?


ote cnuoaregp oelp ehw otoehwrsi eowlundt'b toeh rotS FT Whttai  timhg 
tebe saeitst  oispmyll oo kpu :


thpt/:a/smw.wio.gr /

D-va e

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Deepa Mohan [26/04/06 22:58 +0530]:


  Btw  Is bluewin.ch   a switzerland domain?



Yes, it is a broadband provider in Switzerland. Which is where Dave lives.

srs (btw i'll be in geneva may 14-16 or so - want to meet up?)

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Abhijit Menon-Sen]

At 2006-04-26 22:58:25 +0530, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Can someone elucidate what sort of code this is? this is going to bug
 me until I find out!

It's just every pair of bytes reversed:

$ echo 1234|dd conv=swab
2143

$ echo mohandeepa|dd conv=swab 
omahdneeap

The swab is for swap bytes.

(But please don't ask me to explain /why/ such a thing as conv=swab
exists. Alas, it's not only for obfuscating mailing list posts.)

-- ams

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Deepa Mohan]

to encourage ople who otherwise wouldn't bother to ...I get stuck there again...and do give the unscrambled URL please!!On 4/26/06, Dave Long 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (AMS: if you do post an introduction (mid-troduction?), please,
 please, whatever you do, don't run it through dd conv=swab first) Now why would I want to do that?ote cnuoaregp oelp ehw otoehwrsi eowlundt'b toeh rotS FT Whttaitimhg
tebe saeitstoispmyll oo kpu : thpt/:a/smw.wio.gr /D-va e

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Madhu Menon]

Abhijit Menon-Sen wrote:


Lurker? Me? Au contraire, I post to silk regularly.

In the bad old days, one could get away with posting without a prior
introduction; there wasn't even any public ridiculing or anything.


You *still* haven't introduced yourself, mate. 



--

   *   
Madhu Menon
Shiok Far-eastern Cuisine
Indiranagar, Bangalore
http://www.shiokfood.com

Chef's Notes: http://www.shiokfood.com/notes/

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Srini Ramakrishnan]

On 4/24/06, Biju Chacko [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
-- b (who just checked whether he introduced himself)How exactly did you check? I tried the yahoo groups search, that sucked big time. Then Google, and it gave me a list of posts by me, but I can't seem to sort it by date. 
I've been adding and deleting keywords from a vague memory of my introduction, but so far no success.Cheeni (who's still searching for his introduction)

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Madhu Menon]

Savita Rao wrote:
What exactly happens to people who show up on Thursday without having 
introduced themselves??

apart from public ridicule, that is.


You will be forced to eat my food. ;)


--

   *   
Madhu Menon
Shiok Far-eastern Cuisine
Indiranagar, Bangalore
http://www.shiokfood.com

Chef's Notes: http://www.shiokfood.com/notes/

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Savita Rao]

perfect. No more incentives needed.
savita

Madhu Menon wrote:


Savita Rao wrote:

What exactly happens to people who show up on Thursday without having 
introduced themselves??

apart from public ridicule, that is.



You will be forced to eat my food. ;)

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Deepa Mohan]

ah, this solid exchange, while I was meeting Udhay, has made me feel QUITE comfortableabout Thursday. And since I have not seen the intros of any of you...I will stock up well on my public ridicule Public Ridicule Preferred are now doing well, ahead of the Sensex. 


Er...you mean the food and booze bills aren't always separated? I,too, believe they should bethemadman(I only know you in your LJ avatar), please take note!

Deepa.




On 4/24/06, Savita Rao [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
perfect. No more incentives needed.savitaMadhu Menon wrote: Savita Rao wrote:
 What exactly happens to people who show up on Thursday without having introduced themselves?? apart from public ridicule, that is. You will be forced to eat my food. ;)

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Dave Long]

Took me about half an hour to
find my first post (would have been quicker, but I kept getting
sidetracked by old silk threads)


Being sidetracked by old threads is one of the good things about email. 
 Instead of an introduction from ams, how about a best of silk 
threads list from 2002?  No doubt he'd have some early posts among that 
lot.


-Dave

(AMS: if you do post an introduction (mid-troduction?), please, please, 
whatever you do, don't run it through dd conv=swab first)

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Abhijit Menon-Sen]

At 2006-04-24 15:35:16 +0200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Being sidetracked by old threads is one of the good things about
 email. 

Yes. That's why I want a complete-ish copy of the list archives. I was
thinking about using http://www.archiveopteryx.org to provide a nice
IMAP/webmail archive. Silk would be a good test case.

 Instead of an introduction from ams, how about a best of silk
 threads list from 2002?

Sounds like a lot of work.

But here's a single message from 2002:

From: Ramu Narayan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 17:46:56 +0530

Just discovered that one of my bookshelves has been invaded by white
ants, or termites, or woodworms, or whatever they're called, and
they've been in residence for a while now. The little buggers who
chew up books, walls and furniture. They seemed to have climbed up
the wall angle, reached a bookshelf mounted at ceiling level, and
proceeded to work their way left to right. Far from gorging
indiscriminately, they've been very selective. They destroyed all my
Jack Vances (including complete Demon Princes), skipped a Mickey
Spillane which had no business being there, ate several Simenon
anthologies but ignored single novels, started on a Cordwainer Smith
and abandoned it, made a thorough meal of all my Brian Stablefords,
ate one Updike (Bech: A Book) but skipped the four or five that
followed, and played merry hell with John Sladek and Norman Spinrad,
but only the SF titles.

The only explanation I can find for this erratic behaviour is that
most of the titles on their menu were DAW. Something in the ink or
paper? Does their eating a particular book represent appreciation or
criticism? Not that I care. I've had to junk about 40 books with
much mourning and gnashing of teeth. Now will someone tell me, do
they eat computers?

Ramu

 (AMS: if you do post an introduction (mid-troduction?), please,
 please, whatever you do, don't run it through dd conv=swab first)

Now why would I want to do that?

(Welcome to the world of long(er) lines, by the way.)

-- ams

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Biju Chacko]

Hi,

On 21/04/06, Nandkumar Saravade [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  I am Nandkumar, based in Mumbai.  I am a police officer, currently working
 with NASSCOM on deputation in the area of cyber security.  I write an
 occasional blog on LiveJournal (http://saravade.livejournal.com).

Welcome!

I think it'll be interesting to have the inputs of a police officer on
Silk. For example, a current hot topic of conversation here in
Bangalore is fixing blame for last week's riots.

The goverment blames 'anti-social elements' ie Bangalore's equivalent
of British football hooligans. The infrastructure-moaners are blaming
the government for poor planning (as usual). The conspiracy theorists
are blaming the opposition.

Me? I blame the lack of adequate nightlife.

But what do you (and others) think?

-- b

Re: [silk] Belated introduction

[Nandkumar Saravade]

  "Biju Chacko" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Hi,

On 21/04/06, Nandkumar Saravade [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  
  
 
  
  
The goverment blames 'anti-social elements' ie Bangalore's equivalent
of British football hooligans. The infrastructure-moaners are blaming
the government for poor planning (as usual). The conspiracy theorists
are blaming the opposition.

Me? I blame the lack of adequate nightlife.

But what do you (and others) think?

  

'Anti-social elements' is a favourite phrase in many a situation. So,
don't read too much into it.

Not having first-hand information about the happenings after Rajkumar's
death became known (and not being in to watching too much TV either), I
can only venture some extrapolations. 

One important element seems to be the shifting venues (and lack of
adequate information about this situation) for allowing the fans to pay
their last respects and the lack of proper crowd control arrangements.
However, one must not underestimate the sheer glee experienced by the
marginal elements in the society to disrupt the mainstream for what
they feel is 'justified cause.' People in authority are always a
favourite target for venting the anger against the system on such
occasions when the law and order breaks down, as the poor policeman
discovered at the cost of his life. 

Again, these are observations from a distance and I will be happy to be
corrected by the better informed people on this list.

Regards

Nandkumar