Take my word for it

Lord, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference

We just crossed a filthy festival in India. It is time to drown in one more display of filth, noise, garbage and nuisance. This is called “Durga Pooja” (aka Durga puja) and was once celebrated, only in Assam and West Bengal states of India. It is now common to see it almost all over India. This time, it will be the goddess of strength/power who will be venerated with all the din and noise she deserves. Streets will be blocked, to erect pompous “pandals” . Blaring noise will be played on loudspeakers, austensibly to promote devotion and prayers. The grande finale will, as usual, include processions in the name of immersion, where all lakes, rivers and water bodies will be poisoned. Add all the filth and garbage which will fill our streets, and with anti-social activities of the muscle-men behind all this.

Long live “religious freedom”. Too bad for you, if you do not agree.

I recently saw some cynical and illogical remarks from a learned friend about my
sunset webpage.

What should you do when someone says “Behold the beautiful sunset ” ? React with some cynical remarks about all that is not so beautiful around you ? Or complain about irrelevant and unrelated issues which people have not solved ? Why can’t people understand the value of appreciating the sunset ? Why don’t they learn to light a candle rather than curse the darkness ? Why do they criticise and belittle the person who lit a candle ?

In a way, this learned friend is much better than all the others whom I informed about this “sunset” web page, and who did not even care to give any signs of having seen it.

A big thank you to all others who watched and appreciated the sunset.

Accessibility ? I thought no one cares, until I bumped into Samarthyam. Now you too know !

So stop being indifferent.

You can also get more knowledgeable in accessibilty issues. Visit today
Partha’s accessibility website

Are you part of any email based mailing list ? Do you follow the discussions/conversations, on these email based communities ?

Recently, I came across a lecture on the perils of top posting: http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html . The person who posted this, used it for vehemently justifying the reason for his imposing bottom posting in the mailing list.

A longer lecture, which gives the whole picture, is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Posting_style.

In many practical situations, top posting makes more sense than bottom posting, both for the reader and the writer. Blindly and unconditionally condemning top posting is like putting the cart before the horse. It does not always make sense to post/view messages “chronologically” (as in bottom posting strategy) all the time. Imposing one or the other strategy blindly is a short-sighted policy which can cause more harm than good.

1. “Bottom posting” ensures that the last opinion expressed is at the very end of the message. This implies another irritating phenomenon. When some one adds a comment or opinion to the above, the comment \ opinion comes after the last opinion given earlier. Any body trying to get at the final opinion/comment has to go all over **again** all the earlier posts.

2. In many serious documents/publications, all the references are grouped and presented at the end of the document as a “Bibliography”. This avoids the need for the reader to read up all the background material before reading the main document.

3. When you watch the news, say election results, you want to know who won from which constituency. You do not want to know all the background stories about all the contestants, before you come to know about the results.

4. Imagine this scenario. You have a long thread “A” of discussion on a certain topic. A user X posts his opinion, views about A, using the bottom posting strategy. To read X, you have to go through all of A. Now comes Y with his view/opinion and bottom posts his view . To read Y, you have to go through all of A once again and then read X. In the end, you have a nightmare of posts.

5. By contrast to the above, in the top posted pile, you first read Y, and decide whether or not you want to to read X and A. Life become far easier now.

In short, it is a wiser approach to let the writer use his judgement and choose either top posting or bottom posting. Taking the context into account is more meaningful (and less myopic) than imposing one or the other approach blindly. After all, every coin has two sides.

May wisdom prevail. Amen.