The Always-Outsider

State Bank of India vs. LLoyds TSB

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:27:13 +0000

So, here we have two banks. Both of which are majority owned by their respective governments. Both of which are old institutions in their countries.

I have an account at Lloyds in the UK. I have been trying to get them to send me statements for my accounts so that I can give them to the British High Commission in Delhi. Their response? “No”. Their response when I ask them to print them in the branch? “No, we don’t do that any more, it’s a new FSA regulation”.

This might be the sort of thing you’d expect them to put in writing if asked, or at the very least put up a sign that says that regulations may have changed. But no. In addition to the fact that they’ve arbitrarily changed all the regulations, the staff are also extremely rude and unhelpful, and are completely unwilling to offer any assistance to a customer of more than ten years. To me, this smacks of the typical profit centric mode of thought that the UK seems to operate under.

The ‘Customer’ is not a customer. If you are an account holder with a high street bank, you are the Product, not the Customer. The Customer is the bank itself, or the bank’s investors. Providing financial services to human beings is no longer a core business for these entities. Core to them is providing profit for shareholders, nothing more.

The SBI staff in New Delhi, on the other hand, were polite, helpful, experienced, and willing to understand my wife’s needs. The woman at the desk took the time to explain things to my missus, and even gave her security tips about being careful with her account details, pin number, etc.

Why is it that a major bank in the UK, supposedly the bankers’ capital of the world, cannot even ‘get’ the idea of being helpful?

Ode to my Mother

tanu — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:45:18 +0000

Oh my darling mother

As I lovingly call you Mee

You are my heart and you are my soul,

No matter how much

you love to tease, chide and scold.

Your touch, soft as lilly petals

And em-brace like a hearth

Your cheeks are like such rosy plums

And body, a maiden birth.

You care for us in your own way

And shout like Mrs Meera Ghosh

There’s surely no one just like you

For all the love you bestow’d.

Mee, you’re always there

To read my eyes and lips.

No matter how much I hurt you

You’ve always given me a kiss.

Your cotton-soft body and silky-soft skin

Always provide a safe niche to sit in,

When life’s forlorn, rude and mean

you’ve always made everything be green.

Mamma,I understand that you have faced many hardships

And that life was very rude and wild

But one thing I can surely tell,

Is that, you are God’s most divine child!

You’ve taught me to be a real woman

For all the qualities you have imbued,

Be it keeping secrets or being the buttress of support,

Or just simply loving my man to my very core!

Your thoughtful way of packing lunch,

And also handing water

When we all leave for our sojourn

Makes me a very proud daughter!

Mee, in a few short days, I’ll be long gone

And so shall the daily meals and chinese checkers.

But I am sure, the memories will live life long

In the hearts of us trekkers!

When the winter was coldest cold

you’d warm our chilly hands

upon the glowing kitchen stove

lovingly, you’d make us stand.

I still remember how you served doi

in litle kissan bottles,

dressed us up to go to school,

Brother & sister in hand-knitted sweaters

so punctilious and beautiful.

Mid-day sun burns your skin

as you set off for your irksome tutions,

to fulfill my desires and endless fruitions

You Inspire me to pen this pean!

Mee you are an innocent soul

For you actually have a baby’s heart

Tumi to aamar Mattu aar Meerabai

ey amar maa’r aadorer shaar.

Oodles and Oodles and Oodles of

Love

Manu

i don’t know….

tanu — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 04:48:57 +0000

Well you see, this classmate of mine asked me the other day at college to pen down some lines on the topic “What you don’t know?”It was,apparently,he,asking for his 18 year old son ,who is seeking admission in some college overseas and this topic forms a part of it..

So here i go,with some effort to render help..

I dont know why, after reading this essay topic, my first reaction was to seek help from outside in knowing what i dont know!

I dont know why the world throngs for pleasure when eventually what they seek in life, consciously or unconsciously ,is happiness?

I dont know why it is so hard to believe that there are some things in life that you just cant explain?

I dont know why Satya-yuga is the best of yugas, the Vedas, the best of scriptures, the Ganga, the best of rivers, Kartika, the best of months.
And,then, you might just as well ask, why is midday the warmest part of the day? Why is midnight the darkest? Why do flowers blossom in the springtime?
Scientific answers might satisfy some people’s need for facts, but only a bhakta, a poet, a musician or an artist can truly explain the reason why peacocks call in such a melancholy way in autumn.So — some answers are according to _siddhanta_, and others according to _rasa_.
In England, Autumn inspires poetry with its delicate morning mists and dew-spangled spiders-webs, golden lazy sunshine and, later, the smell of bonfires and autumn leaves. According to Celtic lore, this is the season when the veil between this world and the ‘other’ is thinner than normal and it is the season of magic, of witchcraft and sorcery.But then again, i dont know..*

I dont know why the verdant beauty of the trees and bucolic countryside generate a vicarious thrill of our childhood when we almost never took notice of these things when we were actually experiencing them..?

I dont know why, in the process of searching for peace we frantically look for peaceful milieu, keeping the inner tumultuous fight intact?

I don’t why it is ok for a woman to cry and extremely weak for a man to do the same?

I don’t know why we are so busy in being a girl or a boy that we forget to be a human?

I don’t know why after an exam we always say we have done our best, when almost always we know that we haven’t given it our100%?

I don’t know why a persons death raises sudden interest in his life?

I don’t know why it is ok to espouse ones thoughts by reasoning and not by feeling?

I don’t know why we are so engaged in reaching the destination that we forget to enjoy the view?

I REALLY do not know why it is always preached and never practiced……!!!!????

I don’t know why an 18 year old`s father would be trying to collate ideas to help his child write an essay about the things “he” doesnt know;)))

*reference from my mother-in-law(Vaisnavi Devi Dasi)

Ten Years!

sethp — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:54:34 +0000

So, gurukuli.co.uk has just had it’s tenth anniversary:

Relevant dates: Registered on: 19-May-2000 Renewal date: 19-May-2012 Last updated: 24-May-2010

I haven’t even lived in the same country for that long! I’m officially an Old Unix Beard now

Missing NVRAM on generic bcm47xx router (Top Global MB6800)

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:36:58 +0000

I’ve been playing with a no-name router i picked up for free from a friend. This router seems to run an OS very similar to OpenWRT (linux 2.4 kernel, busybox, dropbear), though with a few annoying proprietary modifications. I am attempting to make OpenWRT work on this router. It has the following specs:

BCM947xx SoC
16 MB memory
8 MB flash
ADM9669 switch
Built-in RS-232 serial port
PCMCIA slot
USB Port

Manufacturer’s Spec Page

…Plus the usual assortment of LEDs and buttons (reset, ‘force reload’). I’ve asked the manufacturer for their modified GPL source, but have not yet received a response.

The problem I’m having with OpenWRT, is that I’m unable to get it to detect the switch, and therefore to initialise the PHY so that it can connect to the network, either on the WAN or LAN ports. This seems to be because the kernel cannot find the NVRAM to read the CFE parameters for these devices.

The first problem was that rather than having the 4 mtd ‘partitions’ we’re familiar with, it has *5* including a ‘backup’ copy of the NVRAM. this appears in the 128k before the NVRAM partition, and if an unmodified OpenWRT image is booted, is then misidentified as usable JFFS2 space. Upon rebooting, the CFE will then declare that the (perfectly fine!) NVRAM is ‘invalid’ and will overwrite it with the, now empty, contents of the ‘backup’! I resolved this issue with a quick & dirty hack to stop JFFS2 trampling on the backup:

Index: bcm47xx-flash.c =================================================================== --- bcm47xx-flash.c (revision 20769) +++ bcm47xx-flash.c (working copy) @@ -353,7 +353,7 @@

/* find and size rootfs */ find_root(mtd,size,&bcm47xx_parts[2]); - bcm47xx_parts[2].size = size - bcm47xx_parts[2].offset - bcm47xx_parts[3].size; + bcm47xx_parts[2].size = size - bcm47xx_parts[2].offset - (2 * bcm47xx_parts[3].size);

return bcm47xx_parts; }
Thankfully CFE is smart enough to recognise this behaviour as wrong, and on the next reboot will replace the contents of NVRAM with an *absolutely* minimal set of parameters (basically, the sdram and cpu clock, and a couple other minor things). From here, I can rebuild the router’s initial config (including network & switch settings) using the output of ‘nvram show’, which I performed in CFE *before* starting to play around with various firmwares. Annoyingly though, the CFE on this device seems to be missing some of the commands mentioned on the Linux-mips Wiki

So, I guess I have several questions:

Why does the kernel not recognise the NVRAM when running ’strings /dev/mtd3′ works fine?
Do any other devices have a ‘flash0.backup’? if so, which ones?
Can a different CFE from another, similar, device be flashed in place of this one? This device’s CFE version is 1.0.5(build on May 6 2007 09:56:08)

I have attached various useful bits & bobs for comparison below.

Original firmware dmesg output showing the 5 mtd partitions:

Physically mapped flash: cramfs filesystem found at block 1336 Creating 5 MTD partitions on "Physically mapped flash": 0x00000000-0x00040000 : "boot" 0x00040000-0x007c0000 : "linux" 0x0014e144-0x007c0000 : "rootfs" 0x007c0000-0x007e0000 : "backup" 0x007e0000-0x00800000 : "nvram"

OpenWRT kernel 2.6 showing only 4:
Creating 4 MTD partitions on "Physically mapped flash": 0x000000000000-0x000000040000 : "cfe" 0x000000040000-0x0000007e0000 : "linux" 0x000000120000-0x0000007c0000 : "rootfs" mtd: partition "rootfs" set to be root filesystem split_squashfs: no squashfs found in "Physically mapped flash" 0x0000007e0000-0x000000800000 : "nvram"

…I’m slightly concerned about the squashfs message. The router boots fine, though.

Comments on “No techs please, we’re British”

tanu — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:16:45 +0000

No techs please, we’re British

I had a read of this article, rather several reads of this article in order to understand the purport of the author’s words and intentions.

Although i must admit, the cause of this article is very noble but i would cadge to differ on the way the message has been conveyed. It just doesn’t come across as anything convincing or inspirational.
The fact that the author criticises her teachers and labels them as “idiots” is rather callous and puerile.
What is obviously reflected through such descriptions and poor vocabulary is the author’s own distrait, her anger at her own self, the fact the she was cozened to take up a career she was never interested in.
It is a sure frustration!

The point made about huge women participation in India in the said field and the reasons governing them, in the article, are stated as follows:

Money
Safety
Reassurance for parents

While i do agree that these are the necessities of life, but; are, and should , these be the reasons to take up science and technology as career choices?

Men take up these fields because they love it. It is something very innate of them; and then there are men who are the epitome of Art and Culture.
My point is, rather than trying to create a whirlpool of capitalists by citing money as the motives to take up various career options, what must be encouraged is the genuine interest and love for the subject, which is science, in this case.

The lady mentioned here, Priya Chandran’s taking up of this field has much to do with the milieu she has been brought up in, because of which her interest and love for the field are honest and genuine.
There are scores of households in India where children are forced to take up the various career options as dictated to them because of social status and prestige for the family.
By doing this you are not only killing the very spirit of an individual, but also, you are encouraging genocide. Why do you think suicide rate among the indian students is so high?
I am sure, for a person of priya’s stature,money is Not the only motivating factor because at the end of the day what keeps you going is your interest and mental food!

I would like to make a humble plea to all the people and especially the women (in reference to this article);
Please do not take up science and technology because there are a lot of men there and we have to prove our might there, rather take up the field because you love it and are an avid enthusiast!

Women have undergone a lot of hardships to gain what they have gained today and i am very fortunate to have been born and brought up in the 21st century. Hence, let us not kill the very spirit of women by making them think that they need to do a certain thing because men are surpassing them.
Please do not kill the very soul of a person(male/female) by making these comparative gender studies, etc.
These practices execute the very soul of a person and there is no prosthetic for an amputated spirit!
We must educate women in the right spirit, with the correct perspectives and a sense of self-worth, only then we can claim to be truly empowered.

Lets not give in to torpors. Lets defenestrate such thoughts. Lets discover our true worth and be the best of our-selves!

Response from the GBC Secretary

sethp — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:25:33 +0000

So, I did eventually get a reply. But it seems nothing is going to be done yet. Ah well. I’ve followed this up, but have yet to receive any response thus far. At least the GBC have admitted the lack of operational ethics on the part of Vedanta.

To: "Seth Tunstall"

Subject: Fwd: ::: Euro GBC ::: Enquiry
Lines: 91
X-Mailer: COM 3.85.5
X-Com-Textno: PAMHO19048487
Message-Id: <19048487@pamho.net>
In-Reply-To: <42ff07981002070701x6d556cbbgb016ed595140ed03@mail.gmail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain

Dear Jambavan

Please accept my humble obeisances.  All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Thank you for your concern, I have also raised questions regarding Vedanta
Resources operational ethos (or rather a lack of it) to the UK Management
Council and to the GBC and am waiting for some official definitive response.
Praghosa prabhu (UK GBC) did respond saying that a discussion on this and
other similar issues should be tabled for the next UK MC meetings.  Thats
all I can say at present. However I will forward your email to the UK MC.
As and when I hear something I will be in touch.

Hare Krishna.

Your servant

Varsana dd

Letter to the Euro GBC representative regarding Vedanta Resources and the Dongria Kondh

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:43:48 +0000

The Euro GBC are the ISKCON governing body commission for the Eurozone. They are responsible for ISKCON policy in this area and are based in Radhadesh, Belgium. I’ve written this letter to them to find out ISKCON’s position with regard to the destruction of tribal land, especially considering that Anil Agarwal is a very influential member of the London ISKCON community. I am waiting for a response, which will be published here.

http://www.eurogbc.com

Dear Dina Dayal,

What is the official ISKCON position in regards to Vedanta Resources’ exploitation and displacement of the Dongria Kondh tribe in Orissa, and the mining of their sacred mountain for Bauxite (aluminium ore)?

Anil Agarwal, the owner of Vedanta Resources, is an influential and rich member of the ISKCON community in London, and has his name on the logo of the Krishna Avanti school.

Does the GBC find it acceptable that ISKCON schools are being built using money that comes from the exploitation and displacement of Indian tribal people?

As a concerned devotee, and a member of the ISKCON community, I look forward to hearing ISKCON and the GBC’s official statement in this regard. Please find attached several websites with reference material.

Thanks,
Jambavan

Westerners caused this problem, we have to help stop it.

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:34:26 +0000

Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Here in the UK, we’ve had our share of motorway bypasses built over beautiful little 12th century churches or ancient saxon burial grounds or even just a little old lady’s back garden. Due to the outcry because of this it’s now practically impossible to build a new road or train line. The practice of destroying towns to build a road through them goes all the way back to Roman times and beyond.

Unfortunately, India’s rapid economic growth means that many more projects like this will be built. It’s so sad that Yamunaji is being treated like a sewer, but don’t forget that this is Kali Yuga, and as it progresses the holy places will get more covered by the material energy. “The material energy” does not just mean hogs in open sewers, it also means these soviet style poured concrete monstrosities.

It’s a sad fact of life, that as Vrindavan becomes more built-up and developed, that infrastructure will be built to cater for the new population. Perhaps rather than complaining about this bridge being built, one might campaign against the overall development of the area. How many of us enjoy the nice new upgraded NH-2 from Delhi to Vrindavan?

Many of the people who are up in arms are from western countries, and have bought or built houses in the Vrindavan ‘metro area’. Many of us have stayed in the luxurious new ‘guesthouses’ built recently in Chaitanya Vihar. Do those same people not stop to think that the concrete for those buildings must arrive in those dirty smelly lorries we hate so much. Those lorries need roads to drive on.

Much as we hate to admit it, we, the foreigners who come to live in Vrindavan, are the root cause of this bridge. We are the ones who made Vrindavan so popular among the suburban Delhiites and their new-found wealth. This means that we’ve got a bit of a responsibility to look after this place. We need to show the people who want to develop at any cost the massive cost that this will have on *their* lives, and how it will be them that suffers in the long run, as they no longer have any cute authentic little villages to go on their weekend trips to.

I don’t think we want Vrindavan to become another Chowki Dhani

Averages with rrdtool

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:38:17 +0000

RRDtool is insanely useful. If you’re looking after lots of servers like I have to, it helps to be able to graph various system stats both to placate management, and to plan for upgrades, failures, etc.

I got the following plate of multicoloured spaghetti by graphing the User CPU of a whole bunch of servers using SNMP, then averaging use across the cluster. It’s interesting to note that although individual servers will often spike up to almost 100% usage, once their process dies and drops back down to zero the others take up the load immediately, quite nicely illustrating how well the load balancer is working! This pattern is repeated across network interfaces and memory utilisation as well.

CPU Utilisation, Averaged across a cluster