G@V!N.

Moi mo lev paker mo rester!!! Episode 2

2010-04-07T09:19:00.004+04:00

Hi all,

Most of you are aware that the elections are to be held on the 5^th of May and you have heard the different composition of the different parties.
On one side we have (PTR,MSM and PMSD) and on the other we have (MMM, UN and MMSD).

Funny thing is that each of them is presenting the other as being 'un danger pour l'harmonie nationale et la paix sociale'.

Qui dit vrai?

What cracks me up is the fact that as soon as a party's negotiation with another fails, automatically the former starts criticising the latter. Another funny thing is that we have seen Episode to of the saga (...or should i say Sega) 'Moi le lev mo paker mo rester' from one minister who was once said to have a 'La Queue Chatte on his head' by a deputy, it started when he was denied the guarantee of being the next Finance Minister if ever the French alliance were in government.

On Sunday Mr X criticised Mr Y of being ungrateful and stealing his credit for the economic achievement. Then Mr X, accepted a 'ticket' to present himself as a candidate in a constituency. In my opinion this shows a lack of dignity.

To add to the saga or sega, this new episode should be called: .Moi mo lev paker mo rester ek mo ramasse mo la queue chatte.... What gets me on my nerves is that none of the parties involved had taken care to inform the population of their programme and what tehy intend to do. And yet you have stupid followers who have already started licking the boots of the candidates.

What we need in out so called democracy is the end of a regime whereby people vote for Mr M because he belongs to the same community or because his father was a good politician. Vote for parties because of programme. Vote for competent people, not the parties they belong to. WE have seen several examples of deputies hardly ever asking question, sleeping and reading magazine in the parliament. Is that what our taxes pay them for.

Dear readers, the chance is yours to show to these politicians that you need people who have your interest at heart and not their own. Vote judiciously for someone who create the best opportunities for you and your family. Pas vote deputEs ki pou fer ou vine marionette.

When you are ill and you need to choose a doctor, does it matter what is the religious faith of the doctor or what party he might belong to? Of course not. So why should it be different when you choose someone who will impact on your future and that of your children?

If you vote for someone and he screws up, YOU complain, however YOU are to blame, and if YOU do not vote, YOU do not even have the right to complain.

Vote judiciously and vote for people and not parties.

Ena Parti capave mette ou dans la clE ek ena lezotte capave casse ou leker....alors fer attention. lol.

Make it a point that whatever party wins, you should not be the one losing opportunities.

It's been so long since the last time, so let us Forgive, Forget and Remember.

2010-03-12T09:37:00.004+04:00

I am back after so long. Well throughout that absence i have learnt a lot and its about time to share.

I have been contemplating for quite some time about the objective of life. We are all here for a brief interval. What we do during this interval will determine how we are remembered. I have known many people who came in my life, left a mark and left. I have always heard that everyone is here for a reason and that their whole life can be summed up in how you can remember them.

Some can be remembered because they lived by the Carpe Diem motto, i.e. they cared only aboud the present and did not bother about the future.

Some can be remembered because they lived their whole life pleasing others, without focussing about pleasing themselves.

Some lived their whole life ensuring that they led people on the right track, but lost their own way.

Some people take a wrong step once, fall, and this fall leaves a lifelong scar. Though they might have learn a lesson (the hard way), the scar will always remind them of that one wrong step.

I have believed in and lived by the motto :'An eye for an eye', but this simply is not right. Because you will end up being exactly the same as the one who hurt you. Which is not what you would like, and this could be your wrong step. What happens if the scar is one somebody else?

Well I am learning to forgive. Some people focus on nourishing the grudge, and forget why there was a grudge in the first place. Time goes by.... that is time wasted. I do not want to be remembered as someone who was revengeful.

Everyone will have only one shot at everything, so better not waste it. If by misfortune you miss it, do not waste time. Learn your lesson, keep going and focus on not committing the same mistake again.

Let's forgive, forget and remember....this might sound contradictory, but let me explain.
We will forgive, forget the harm done to you and remember only the good times.

Oooh, by the way a good friend of mine release a video on youtube check it out here. Have a look and tell me if you recognise anyone!

What do you think?

A little bit of something!

2009-06-11T07:46:00.003+04:00

Hi all,
I hope that you are all doing great! I have been very busy over the last weeks and now i wanted to write a little bit!

I was busy with stuff, and some Python Stuff! Has some fun with client server applications and object serialisation in python! There was also a training held at AUF on the creation of dynamic web-pages using PHP and MySQL. Four colleagues and I went there and I have personally learnt quite a lot.

There is another workshop coming up and this time its going to be on Enterprise Security, I am already drooling just at the thought of it!

Here in our little paradise surrounded by devils, life is fun, we still have the daily half-hour comedy shows at 1930. I read an article on a weekly newspaper saying that our PM is having issues with the CEO of MBC over a parliament member's comment about cameras in a region where a (much-talked about) Macarena Party was supposedly held. What will happen when or if the whole of the parliamentary proceedings will be aired? I think we will either see just the images because all the speeches will be censored, or we will witness a weekly change of persons at the head of the MBC..... A quand la premiere television privE?

We have also big (sweet) talks about Maurice Ile Durable, why not encourage our minister to take smaller and less polluting cars? Why not use better buses? Why not have windows in all building instead of massive glass panes and than use Air-conditioning? Have a 'bonus malus' on old cars. There was an apparatus bought by the National Transport Authority some years back called an Opacimeter (Device which checks toxicity or exhaust gases of vehicles), should they use it on buses, I am sure that over 30% of buses would be considered as not road-worthy. All the ideas above are simple, as a result of this they do not lie within the reach of Advisers or Ministers.

Just a few words about the customer service at the local fruit-named ISP, it takes them 3 days and 3 mails (with the last one being very sarcastic and harsh) to reply to a customer request sent in their contacts and complaints mailboxes. And two days to write a 2 line letter? Talk of a fast customer service! They tend to abuse of the

I would also like to make a polite request to all people with suicidary tendencies who are contemplating the Pont-Colleville option. To avoid any disruption to traffic, please use the Southbound side in the morning and the northbound side in the afternoon because it disrupts the traffic flow. If you want to end your life, please do not worsen the remaining days of others.

A bas l'incinerateur!

Python Rocks!!!

2009-03-07T09:06:00.003+05:00

Hi all,
You might be aware that we are currently using Python as the programming language to teach students Programming Methodology, and its is going on very well. I am personally having fun, and i believe that i am not the only one.

I am also teaching Communication Skills this semester, and i am being given a golden opportunity listen to the students speak. Last week, I had requested them to speak about their Dreams and Aspirations, and if they had only a couple of months left what lesson would they like to pass on about their life. This was inspired from the Last Lecture from Randy Pausch Though most of them did the first part correctly, none of them has really learnt any lesson which they deemed useful mentioning. Well I have been accused too many times of being philosophical, many students dream of owning a brand new car, a big house and a 'nice hot chick', Is that all there is to life? Je crois qu'ils sont dephasés par rapport a la realité.

We tend to describe ourselves as being bilingual, but can we really speak and write French and English properly. I am very much disappointed when i hear reporters both on public and private media stations commit mistakes when they speak on air. Aren't their reports checked before they are read on air? No comments about their accents, it sounds as if they have lived in France or the US. But their grammar really sucks at times!! I was at the opening ceremony of the UniTech last Wednesday. The Director of Orange Business Services, Mr Patrice Despax outlined the motivation of his company to come to Mauritius inspite of our small population was the fact that that we are billingual and he also stressed on the face that we need too improve written French as well.

Since last week the Public Health Act came into force and it is not permissible to smoke in public place and im my opinion this Act has some loop-holes.

No person shall smoke a tobacco product while driving or travelling in a vehicle carrying passengers. What if someone parks his van next to a bus stop and has 10 persons smoking in the van. Technically the persons are not travelling, as the car is stationary. So what can be done??? Furthermore, the vehicle refers to a private location inside a public are...so...

Anyways!!!

I'm back after more than 100 days!!!

2008-12-29T23:16:00.003+05:00

Hi all,
I know!!! Its been a while!!! I have been busy with loads of stuff mainly work!! I did go through a nice little training session on Linux!!! Hurray!!! IT was in french - it was tough at the start, but we managed to get through it (alive). lol.... It was very interesting. The trainers were Niry Andriambelo from Madagascar and Shafeek Sumser who is from Mauritius itself!

It was so interesting and i have learnt a lot of stuff! Last week i went to Port-Louis and it was so irritating to see all those hawkers who were blocking the pavement and many people literally had to walk on the streets. someone will get run-over one day and then only will the government react. There have been places specially designed for them and yet this irresponsible folks still block the pavements. They claim that the spaces designed for them is far from the town center: They are operating illegally and yet they are choosy! This reminds me of the saying beggars can't be choosers. They sell cheap and poor quality stuff without any sort of guarantee and they do not even pay their taxes properly.

C'est un laisser-aller dégoutant de la part des authorités.

One other thing which got me on my nerves was the abuse that one minister does in particular, Well many of you might not remember the days when our honorable deputy prime minister came and cried on TV during the prime time (your know the 30-minute news whereby the goverment gets 20 minutes) when he swapped parties just to be in the government this guy always seems to be in a hurry to go somewhere. His 'motards' just cut straight across your way to stop you and allow his car through, i tend to think that he is always in a kind of emergency, like he's got chronic diahhroea or something...if thats is the case i would request the manufacturers of Mercedes to install a toilet seat in his next car. He has to bear one thing in mind, people need to get to work in time in this country, if he is not competent enough to plan his own itinerary, then he is definitely not good enough to take part in decision-making for our country. I will let you guess who that old guy is! Ok we will just call his Dr Honorable Chronic Diahhroea. In the next BR 22, i hope we have toilet seats installed! It is just disgusting to witness those double standards, the speed limit on the motorway is 90 km per hour and the driver of BR 22 easily goes over 120, and yet you have policemen who ride in front of him, who go even faster... Un abus de position revoltant.

Roule brite mort vite...i wish you this irresponsible driver!!!

I wish you all a very prosperous year 2009 and loads of happiness to you all and your families.

Irresponsible Students!

2008-09-09T21:21:00.007+04:00

Hello you all,
Looks like the previous post got popular!

I read something today, in fact it something i heard a couple of days ago about an Afghan student got sentenced to death for having downloaded an article on the role of women in Islam and distributed the article to his teachers and friends in his University (Balkh University). A complaint was lodged against him, and he did not even have the right to a lawyer. His name is Sayed Pervez Kambaksh , and he is aged 23. Human rights group of the UN are trying to convince Mr Hamid Karzai to intervene, but it so happens that as per the Independent Newspaper of the UK, the guy who passed that sentence, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, happens to be a key ally of Karzai. Some people are also pressuring Karzai to execute the sentence as soon as possible.

Picture of Mr Kambaksh (Source:Picture from Reuters)

Rahimullah Samander, the president of the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association, said: "This is unfair, this is illegal. He just printed a copy of something and looked at it and read it. How can we believe in this 'democracy' if we can't even read, we can't even study? We are asking Mr Karzai to quash the death sentence before it is too late." Source (Independent.co.uk)

With our Attorney General who happens to be a Human Rights thingy....doesn't Mauritius have a say in this??? For as far as I know , Mr Kambaksh is human as well.

There is a petition (which i signed earlier today)to urge the Foreign Office of the UK to do something, i think that if you believe in democrary its your responsibility to add your name to the list. What about UOM students are they to busy with elections??? They guy is a student as well!!!Par solidarité estudiantine, faites donc quelque chose!!! I even created the Support Sayed Pervez Kambaksh Group on FB

The full article is here:

Anyways!

Well I did a cyberlaws lecture today, and i was appalled by the lack of responsibility of some students (both guys and girls). Last week I had given them some thing to prepare on a comparison between Local Computer Related laws and the laws in the UK and most of them did not bother prepare.This is an attitude which i personally find:
1. Disrespectful
2. Disgusting
3. A true demonstration of the culture du 'ferfoutisme de certains etudiants'
4. Lack of seriousness in their studies

What they do not realise is the importance of the assignment!
Because we have to analyse whether our laws are adequate or not. But some of them do not have adequately developed brains to understand that. All i got as excuse for them not preparing was that they were not present when i gave the assignment, while others gave me stupid smiles, and still others gave me Hi-Sense gazes.

Result will definitely show, as they happen to reflect the amount of work put in, specially since its a weightage-5 module!

God Save us all!!!

Avinash goes away!

2008-09-01T20:41:00.014+04:00

Hi all,

Last week was the last week of my dear friend Dr Scheme, we went for lunch together at a wicked restaurant called Coco des iles at Roche-Brunes, and we had a wicked time, their interior decoration and artifacts they used to serve food is very original.They served rice in a coco-fesse which was cut in half, others had 'satini rekin' in a coconut shell.

They when i got back to uni i had the privilege to attend Dr Scheme's last lecture titled: Convergence of Technology whereby he talked about WEB 2.0, Apple iPhone, Semantic Web and...
See Below!

I found it very interesting and learnt quite some stuff. We had a good time and someone even asked me a question (as Avinash introduced me later in his lecture) concerning E-Commerce Payment Processing. Then we went at Avi's place for a beer and Christina made some delicious little snack and they kids were singing and reciting poems and i had a good time.

Friday was officially his last day and it did make me kind of sad when i saw him packing his stuff. Anyways he felt he needed to explore new horizons and i wish him all the best.

Friday also meant my first programming lab with some first year students, while getting them to test some programs, i was shocked to find out that some were struggling with questions to find area and volumes of geometric shapes. They probably relied too much on the list of formulae for HSC...how sad!!!

By the way, i sorted out my aquarium and look at what it now looks like!! Its so cool!

On Saturday, i while helping out some student, i got carried away while explaining Quadratic Equations, then i braked!!!! else i would have turned this programming lecture into a Maths class! I still believe that there is a teacher's contribution into making a student love or hate a subject!

So what do you think?

Last week we also heard about the 'Decoller Pas coller' campaign against pasting of posters and billboarding, what silly is that they got student to do that during college hours, i believe that they would be better off at school. They could have done that during the week-end. Let's hope and pray that this commendable initiative also last until the elections next year and that the authorities do not turn a blind eye when the political parties start putting posters on bus-stands and round abouts.

We are also hearing discussion about the reluctance of some teachers to work till 15 00, we'll this will delay their private tuitions! How will they manage???? Money they earn by selling their knowledge surely outweighs their professional conviction in doing their job in their respective schools!

So disgusting - To them, may be that education is no longer a service, but more of a business!

At times the parents are to blame as tuitions are fashionable and sometimes the students are at fault as they do not study hard enough at school and pay to learn the same things at college - that's if the teachers work at college (I was lucky, as I had marvelous teachers, and i am thankful to all of them). Especially Mr Kalachand and my tuitions teachers Mr Ram SATHAN and Mr Pourannen Sungeelee, i owe much of what i am to them!

A Teacher's job is not to teach, but to inspire. Isn't it Mr Meetoo!!!

So what is your opinion!

Python going strong!

2008-08-21T20:28:00.003+04:00

Hi all,
I have been very busy these days with preparing lecture notes and running around jumping from one lab to another and from one lecture room to another! As far as the Python lectures are concerned, I am enjoying every single bit of it...who could dream of being paid to have fun!

Anyways, i just hope i am able to kick in some programming logic in the students' heads!Most of us are thrilled by the performance of the Mauritian Magician, Bruno Julie, its just nice for a little country like ours to have a sportsman on the podium!

Unfortunately enough, there is that issue with Bert Cunningham, looks like some people are not to happy when cases of suspected corruption are brought in the limelight. How can a democratically elected PM say that a commission of enquiry will not prove beneficial to the nation nor to the institutions of the country. Using lame excuses like waste of money and the fact that there is already a body (ICAC) which deals with such things.

Perhaps our PM needs memory supplements (Or may be he is busy with those ministers 'ki p lev paquet rester?'), some of the cases brought forward by Mr Cunningham date as far back as year 2000, and our stupid system (reflecting the people who designed them) stipulates that the Independent Commission Against Corruption cannot enquire about cases prior to its creation (yet its called independent). Consequently those who claim they 'pas guette figure pou agir' have their hands tied. Had a commission of enquire been set up may be they would have been able to shed some light on those allegations irrespective of when these suspected frauds occurred.

In my opinion, there are some big shots who might be involved. What image does mauritius project in the region? A country where a man who is doing his job is getting treated like a criminal and whose competencies are not being recognised. Worse still, looks like some people at the MRA are scared to. The compensation meant to be given to Mr Cunningham amounted to Rs 6 million, yet this got reduced to about Rs 1 million because apparently he violated the conditions laid down during the negotiations. So did the conditions prevent him from pointing fingers to those he thought as being corrupt.

He also said that he submitted all the documents to the necessary institions for investigations and the said documents got lost....maintenant la question qui brule mes levres est: A qui profite cela???? definitely not to the honest tax payer.

Amazing! Documents incriminating some people tend to get lost so easily nowadays! Or people suspected of fraud always tend to get sick just before their hearings start! Wonder how our good folks who were named in the enquiry for frauds at MCB/NPF or Maurtius are doing these days,i hope much better since the cases against them have been dropped.

Sa meme appele l'ile paradisiaque sa!

Paradis Fraudeurs ek Triangeurs!

Bon Courage Mr Cunningham,

Allez Bruno, met li K.O! lol...:)

What do you think?

My first Python Lecture

2008-08-11T21:43:00.002+04:00

Hi all,
Today I delivered my first Lecture in Programming Methodology, i talked about computer systems, compilers, interpreter, and Programming Methodology.

While preparing my slides, i wanted to include some nice graphics and pictures so that it become slightly less predictable. For the first time, i used Open-Office to prepare lecture notes.It took me some time to work round the interface, but it was worth. I also saved a Powerpoint compatible copy just in case Open-Office was not installed on the PC i might be using.....this happened to be a very wise decision. Unfortunately, with the Powerpoint compatible format, the presentation had lost some of its 'bling-bling'. Text-boxes and Picture-frames were translated and ... The RGB projector had to be re-initialised as it was displaying upside down. Luckily a friend helped me out.

After that, i managed to start my lecture, nice little intro, little side notes about computers, scientists, mathematicians and i even managed to get a picture from the movie "Lost in translation" to explain conversion of High-Level to machine-level language.

The last part of my lecture was about the Butterfly Effect and Chaotic Systems, what a marvelous side note: Edward Lorenz, I believe that the Students need not learn things by heart, or just for the sake of knowing stuff, knowing about the persons behind the discoveries might help too. Another reference was made to Algebra and Musa Al Khwarism...

Then later on during the day, i had a lab session during which i managed to get them to use Linx and Dr Python, some other students used Kate+Konsole, but it was ok on the whole. Some students are very good, which i find encouraging. Though i had a couple of issues with some slight differences in syntax, i managed to get all the programs working.

Then got back home and watched TV, then there was a very very very short Powercut, when they released the power, i.e about 1 second later (seriously, it was wickedly quick), the TV, the DVB receiver, along with the Microwave oven got damaged and they are not switching on now!.I called 130 (CEB Hotline), and i am meant to call at the nearest CEB office to tell them about it....which i will not fail to do!!! Whose gonna pay for my 29" TV....definitely them!!! They have to learn the lesson about those shitty powercuts at random times.

So boring aint it, home without TV during the Olympic games!!!

Summer Time!

2008-07-30T20:30:00.004+04:00

Hi dear readers,
Well looks like Daylight saving will be applied this year. Daylight saving time, was first proposed in 1907 by a certain William Willett, it is intended to allow people to make the most of daylight hours during summer, and reduce the amount of energy spent in artificial lighting (and heating..though not really applied to our local context)

Benjamin Franklin, during his visit in Paris, proposed DST as a means to save on candles used in street lighting. Well, according to some research, DST has effects on traffic and criminality.How much this is true is hard to quantify.

The interested reader is more than invited to visit the wikipedia article How it works? Well usually in the last Sunday of october you are expected to move your clocks one hours backwards and in the last sunday of march, you are expected to move them forward....it is the exact opposite in the northern hemisphere because the seasons are reversed...

Well talking about the DST, i watched the parliamentary debates on TV earlier on. At some point in time one deputy was annoyed by a remark of another member from the opposite side of the house. The tone of the discussion worsened, and there reached a point where the speaker had to intervene to calm them down and request each member to withdraw their respective comments.

There is something disgusting which happened, the speaker said that the recording were inaudible as the members were seated and were not recorded. This is silly! Another things which highlighted the stupidity of the system is the fact that all remarks made in any language apart from english and french is not recorded, this explains why our deputies (notice that i did not say respected representatives, as they are neither respectful not do they represent me)...in other words, they can abuse themselves using creol and yet nothing is recorded. This might explain why parliamentary debates are not broadcast live on TV, as this will show to the population how their representatives behave.

Furthermore, when the speaker suspended the proceeding for 30 minutes to view the recordings, the cameraman made a 'gros plan' on the leader of the opposition as if to wait for any reaction which would used to present a (or another) bad image of him. I believe that the national tv station is meant to be impartial,but we know that about 15 minutes of the news is reserved for members of the government, whereby they would broadcast whole speeches at length, as if they news editors are unable to summarise they essence of the speeches. By now we have enough TV channels to broadcast the whole debates, but are all the elected persons ready (or civilised enough) for it. I am tempted to say that only time will tell.

Gavin

Why?

2008-07-29T20:40:00.002+04:00

Hi all,
I hope you are doing fine. I have just found my keys, i had lost them and i had everyone at home look for them.I was just going through my blog earlier on and i realised that most of you do not really comment on my blog when i get Philosophical. This is serious!

You have to get the essence of your life, and at times it pays to ask fundamental questions. Anyways, a chacun ses trucs.

I had a look at UOM's blog today and one of the things mentioned was the need to write the postings in proper french...its gonna be hard for many (including me).

Well today, we had lunch with our new colleague Prof. Stefan Brandle, who is a very nice gentleman from Indiana, he speaks french, English, German, and does understand Creol as well...He is Fulbright scholar and will he spending a whole year with us. We got him introduced to one of our local dishes: Roti Cari and he said he liked it.

We'll see with the other stuff...

Anyways take care of yourselves

G@V!N

Some Philosophical thoughts i want to share!

2008-07-25T20:34:00.004+04:00

Hi all,
I had a lovely and very profound discussion with a friend today and we talked about what motivates people. Well not everyone is motivated by the same things. Some people want money, others fame, others satisfaction, others fulfillment of their dreams,still others recognizance. And all this depends on choices we make. At the moment we make the choices, they seem meaningless, but when we take time and look back we realise their true importance.

I have always said one thing, do the things which make you happy and do not procrastinate! Because on one day in your life there will be no tomorrow. The best pleasures in life are free, how many of you have taken the time to admire the stars in a clear sky at night, how many of you have enjoyed the sight of the reflection of a full-moon in the lagoon, how many of have had their fingers grasped by a baby, how many of you have seen a rainbow and said to yourselves that the drizzle was worth it, how many of you have watched the sunset on the beach with people dear to your heart, how many of you have been so happy that they cried?

And yet we are 'A la poursuite du bonheur (avec la peur de la mort qui nous poursuit)'. Do we need to carry on this pursuit, or simply grasp it.

Avinash has the habit of saying that his job in not to lecture but to inspire, which I perfectly understand, as it is so true. When i was young(er) there were a couple of my teachers i admired, and this probably explains why I chose to be a lecturer, hoping that i might inspire at least one student in my career.

I was watching a documentary yesterday, and the last sentence struck me, it was the words of a Moroccan Nomad who said to the guy doing the documentary: "Vous avec l'heure, mais moi j'ai le temps cher monsieur",

Well unfortunately for us we are so much caught that we forget the most important thing in life which is: LIVING. We spend so little time being happy that when we reach that feeling we lose time understanding it and then we feel that when we are happy time flies and when we are suffering, time lingers....is it true?

Any one willing to share any philosophical thoughts are most welcome to express them....by the way i will be posting some pictures soon, just to show you that stars are not out of reach!

By the way i have reached 500 visitors on my blog since its creation...hurray!!!lol!

G@V!N

'Democratisation de l'acces a L'Education' ...yes but at what cost?

2008-06-23T09:22:00.005+04:00

Hi u all,
We have all heard that the government intends to provide access to Tertiary Education to all eligible students, and as per their definition, eligible students are those who have at least one A-Level....implies that with an 'E' in Maths is now eligible.

Should they really apply this measure, i believe that this will weigh heavily on the National Economy. A quick question i ask is: Do all jobs 'created' require the potential applicant to have a University Degree.

Furthermore, i believe that there is something more subtle going on....Let's assume that a School-Leaver is meant to be looking for a job, and given the current situation, finding a job is hard...Consequently, it could be that ensuring that most of the school-leavers join Uni implies that they will not swell up the unemployment statistics...What a Crafty Measure!!!

To mask the level of unemployment, get them to uni... They are just delaying the problem...

Several countries have faces problems when they educate too many people..They end up with over-qualified people, and worse still, since many cannot find well-enough paid jobs, the people then try 'Greener Grass Elsewhere', resulting in brain drain.

Reputable Universities usually have entry requirements as high as 3 B's....wonder where our decision makers are getting their inspiration from....for the one time they are not copying from Europe, they are making a mess of it all.

It is a fact that not everyone is has the ability to join university.. University Education is meant for people who really want to get it and who work hard enough for it.

I would not want to witness a bunch of Spiky-Hair, Piercing Loving, gum-chewing, and Techtonic obsessed teenager wearing Riped jeans being given something they have not worked hard enough to deserve. (Teenager ..yes..though they are 18 or more, i have doubts whether their mental age matches this high!)

What do you think?

Gavin

In a free world, who needs Windows and Gates...all we need is Linux (and a good bandwidth)!

2008-06-18T20:47:00.014+04:00

Hi all,

Last Poll Results!

'Un petit pas pour l'homme mais un pas de géant pour l'humanité'...This is what i said to myself when i installed Linux, Hardy Heron on the Office PC.

Hard to leave 14 years of a using Windows, it all started with Windows 3.1 on a 386 SX with 4 MB RAM, in 1994...and DOS-Shell...... Those were the days!

I already had a dual boot Vista-Linux on my Laptop, then i was so happy with it that i said to myself, that i might get more used to Linux if I used it in office, so i got a copy and off i went! Linux ready!

I had a little issue though, i have put the hostname 'Gavin' for my computer and then i sad to myself that i might change it to a funnier name, my friends had called their terminals Sugarbabe, Honey, Sexy... so i wanted to change the hostname to Pixie-Doux!

with the help of the owner of Sexy and Honey, i looked for the command to change the hostname, we came up with a sudo command...hummmm!! sudo, for once i am using it:

courtesy: http://elliottback.com/wp/archives/2006/09/03/sudo-make-me-a-sandwich/

So i typed:
sudo hostname Pixie-Doux

It seemed to work fine, but when i rebooted the PC, and tried
hostname
It gave me the old name, i.e Gavin, i tried something more radical, by trying to change the hostname file from the folder /etc/hostname by writing
sudo vi /etc/hostname

However, i think i had done something wrong, I even tried to change it as any 'Normal' person would, i.e System settings->Network Settings....

Then i did something wrong...but I do not know what, All the sudo commands I was typing were not getting executed, they were giving me the 'unable to resolve host Pixie-Doux' error message, neither were any changes i was trying to do from the administrator login.

Worse still 'amateur comme je suis', i did not have a root login on the system to login and revert to the previous hostname...quelle stupidité.

The owner of Sugarbabe then kindly advised me to have a root user created as soon as the problem was sorted....

It was time to call Dr Scheme, and as soon as i told him i needed some help in Linux, his reply was 'Ki zafaire tone faire foiré encore la?'

Anyways, la fin justifie les moyensm he booted the pc using the CD, then used some Hocus Pocus Commands at the console, and badaBoom! Everything was operational!

Then i quickly applied Zetwal's advice and created the root account by typing:
sudo passwd root

Can't wait to experiment more on linux! I have found the long lost pleasure of using commands!

Pas conner ki mo pou casser encore lor Linux...anyways, I learnt many things my breaking other things.....lol!

Gavin!

Alternatives to teaching programming methodology IN C++

2008-06-09T20:31:00.007+04:00

Hi all,

Right now i am unable to phone or send text messages from my Orange Cell Phone.....

This situation is so bad...At times, sending your text messages is simply impossible..How long do we have to suffer from the whims of Orange? Hopefully, there is no Fair Use Policy on texts or call time.... Anyways...I believe that Orange should have the decency to inform its customers using a text message that the network will be down...in case they have planned service upgrades.

I am faced with a fundamental question. Having myself learnt programming methodology in C++, I was wondering if we could use another language instead. Many times, i have had students whinging and whining about the complexity of the C++ syntax.

However in my opinion, the essence of programming methodology is not the language used for the implementation but it is in fact allowing the student to 'think' in a series of simple stepwise manner...i.e 'to think algorithmically'...subsequently, the use of a programming language to implement this thought becomes a trivial issue.

I have noticed that some students face difficulties imagining the different steps to be followed such that a solution is devised...I said devised...not implemented.

The implementation of a solution is trivial once you know exactly what are the steps that make up the solution. If our students find C++ tough..then i believe then we could look for alternative languages with more or less the same capabilities, because as I said it is more important to inculcate problem solving abilities and programming concepts than a specific language. We need to show them 'how to think'...and not 'what to think'...and definitely not 'what to think in C++'...coz some people tend to lose their thinking capabilities at the sound of 'C++'.

Programming is an art...the essence is the inspiration (The Aha moment!) and the expression are the codes...irrespective of the language used.

Would Romeo and Juliet be a less grand and less emotionally-stirring masterpiece if Shakespeare had written it in French (Assuming he knew French!)? Alors le langage n'importe que peu. L'idee ou l'inspiration est fondamentale, l'expression n'est que secondaire. Qu'en dites-vous?

Please vote and comment.

Mesures Reactives, et Operation Coup de poing!

2008-06-03T21:51:00.003+04:00

Hi all,

As usual, last poll results,

we were all shocked hearing what happened to that student at Quatre-Bornes while she was taking the bus to get to her exams....but we have also witnessed the reactive measures of the local authorities, the cleared the bushy tracks leading to the Shoprite bus-stop...Apres la mort, la tisane... do they always have to wait until someone gets killed or abused?

The very day i was disgusted to hear a member of the police force describing an operation against drink-driving and the carrying of weapons in cars and .. He termed his operation as being 'proactive policing'...Cher Monsieur L'agent, si vous voulez faire du 'proactive policing' efficace, faites cela un Vendredi ou un Samedi soir... sinon shhhhhh!!!! Et faites le de sorte a ce que tous ceux interpellés recoivent le meme traitement, qu'ils soient fils de fermier ou fils de ministres or deputés. Since I am fed up hearing stories of double standards, ou la politique de deux poids, deux mesures dans notre petite ile paradisiaque!

Great are the words like Operation coup de poing....bla bla bla......If the right people were at the right places by a vast 'Operation Coup de pied' ou 'Lev Paké Aller'...may be we will live in a safer country, right now I am not sure if the Commissioner of Police is back or if we still have an Actor....sorry an Acting Commissioner of Police in his place. Well with a salary of Rs. 110 000 , he'd better be back quickly.

We hear high rank police officers or ministers talking about safety and security...but these are just words. I wonder if they would allow the wife and or daughters be outside the house on the roads after six....

The safety in Mauritius is Questionnable! With the number of thefts, murders, rapes.... Furthermore, there are several cases of murder and... which are yet to be solved...famous case are interrupted due to the accused suddenly falling ill, or lack of proof...It is just disgusting that people get away with murder simply because of their connections... Inquiries are only dropped due to lack of proof....what the hell is that....is it really lack of proof or lack of competence...

Instead of Having Dall-Puri Police Officers (Since the walk in pairs, probably fearing the wind might carry them away, as they are soo skinny) or Ace police officers (coz now the new trend is to walk in group of four...4 Aces!!), or the SMF who are mostly sleeping right now, i believe we should have night patrols...these guys are paid from each and everyone's taxes...so they better provide a service! Some are twice my size, i wonder if they can sprint for 30 metres to catch a thief.....

My regular readers, you might have read in one of my previous post that some roads in my locality have been resurfaced due to a possible visit from the PM, the later did not turn up......and as per Mr Boodhoo, it was because it was agreed by the members of the organising committees that there should be no political speeches during the visit. Interested readers can read the full articles on Le Mauricien Newspaper Website...Quelle Deception ...les politiciens sont meme prets à utiliser des lieux de prière pour des discours à connotation politiques.... How lowly!

Anyways....i was not personally thrilled to meet him...but luckily the roads got resurfaced.

Anyways, i finished correcting most of my scripts, and funnily enough some people managed to fill a queue implemented using a linked list...how inventive!,

I need to inform you of a couple of things...

The Integrity of a message DOES NOT refer to the honesty of the person who has written it.

The Refresh rate of a monitor...is NOT a special mechanism which prevents it from burning.

The Resolution in computing terms has nothing to do with Decision Making,

And When it comes to Transmission media in Networks, there is not such thing as a Wireless Cable

Its amazing what you can come across!!!!

Two angels get called back!

2008-05-24T10:35:00.008+04:00

Hello dear readers,

Poll Results:

I know that some of you were craving for a posting. And I do agree that there hasn't been any for the last week or so! Well reason being my laptop broke down again and till yesterday, i was without one. The guy at LCI kindly agreed to give me a laptop on loan it is a G-Max, nothing compared to my Toshiba A-200, but it is still better than nothing.

Well those who are close to me know my favourite saying: 'Live every single day as if its your last day on earth'. Well i am saying this as a piece of advice to you all because you never know when you will die or when someone dear to your hear will.Two of the persons i know/knew passed away on Thursday, and i need to get used to not seeing them.

One of them was a girl,she was such a young, lively, and ever smiling person, that I am yet to accept that she is not gonna be seen anymore.

The other one is a guy, who was my friend since 1997, we had loads of fun and we was someone whom i really appreciated. He was always to the point, and lived every single day fully. Whenever had difficulties but he always surmounted them and he was a source of inspiration when it came to dedication and determination with regards to things he loved. . He was a very good person and a great guitar player. I will miss him. Though we have always met haphazardly at parties, and stuff or just on the roadside, it was always great to talk to him.

God Bless you my fallen angels. When you fell from the heavens we wanted you to stay, but unfortunately He called you back!

I cannot even imagine how hard it must be for the parents. But then I realised that they need good people in Heaven too. I am sure that people will tell them that they have to be strong and take care of themselves, and the others...when you are in this situation, I am sure that these are only words. I will only pray that God gives them courage to live through this extremely hard phase.

That is why it gets me on my nerves when people are mean and hurt others for no reason. When you are faced with this situation, you are just wonder about life...
What is life?

If without life, a body is a corpse, then life is everything that allows a body to do things that a corpse cannot, like talking, smiling, comforting, and.... For one second i wondered yesterday, This 'life' is so ethereal, you cannot see it, feel it or anything, but you can see its manifestation. We sure can try to 'define life' using scientific explanation... but IMHO, it is more subtle, or even magical. You can only feel it.

Life, just like Love....Life when you see the person u truly love and for a fraction of a second you miss a breath and you get the feeling that your heart has stopped beating for a microsecond, before it starts to beat faster. If this has never happened to you, then you have missed something essential!

Life is so complex to understand, that i only try to understand some of its philosophies. I personally take every day as a 'lifetime', I am born when i wake and die when i go to sleep at night, and i try to help as many people as I can throughout the day, (it's for good Karma...or so i heard..I do not want to be cockroach in my 'next life' Hihihi..being a human is hard enough!!!)

Anyways, now i know that some of us have an extra angel watching over us.

Well many of you might have seen the video below, from the Website of Le Défi

Well i believe that at times it really happens that students really behave as mannerless brats...unfortunately their parents still perceive them as 'babies'. Are we creating 'des Enfants Roi'...as termed by Francoise Dolto (you might not know who she was the mother of Carlos, the French singer who passed away lately).

This reminds me of an article I read ages ago on L'Express France, about how children should be seen, I would strongly advise you to have a look .

I belong to a generation whereby corporal punishment was not legal but kind of acceptable, if the teacher slapped, it was for a reason, and I was (probably still am)not an easy not, and i remeber the one slap I got once which changed everything, and I am thankful to the teacher for that one slap!

We have to bear in mind that the average students spend more time at school or college than at home, so i believe that it is at School that there is more potential to shape OR Re-Shape his personality. The respect students have is no way near as it used to be. With students not respecting their schools/ colleges as institutions, where are we heading. Will they ever respect members of the society.

Its just unfair that only one student got slapped in the video, because actually the one using his mobile phone in class should have got his share too... Because i am sure that mobiles are not allows in class....'Quel manque de respect envers l'authorité?'

A simple example would be those idiots listening to music on a really high volume in the bus or in public places without any consideration for others. These idiots should ask Father Christmas for 'B100DY Earphones'. The wearing of uniforms should be really enforced and with little of no variants. Furthermore, to me it seems that some people believe that evolution process did not provide them with enough 'holes' or orifice (or....... but i dare not say) so they make some more with piercings ...... well i am not against that but i think that the regulations in schools should be enforced. Well as an excuse they may say that it's fashionable...kindly allow me to tell that that fashion evoles, so what will they do when piercings are not fashionable anymore .... 'acheter mastik pou bouche trou'!!! Anyways... Pas moi ki bizin fer lecon a nous banne dirigeants!

Well I was pleasantly surprised yesterday, the roads not far from where i live are being resurfaced...i found it weird coz the National elections are due in about two years time....but then i happened to learn that the PM will be coming round my end next week. See if you need infrastructure in your area, like street lightings, road-resurfacing and pedestrian crossings, its way simple...invite the PM over for a function..and then everything will happen by magic. LOL...Sacré Pays!!!

As usual, comments welcome!...
G@V!N

P.S. It drives me mad and sad when I hear people, who in my opinion are either intellectual dwarfs, or emotionally deprived or plainly immature and dysfunctional take a picture from a blog and forward it to someone else just for the sake of gossiping or start an argument..it is just cheap...there is more to life than creating trouble for others... Anyways...a chacun ses plaisirs!!

Pro-Active or Over-Reactive!

2008-05-14T20:36:00.011+04:00

Last Poll Result:

Yesterday, i accidentally watched local news..they were fighting..sorry arguing - or probably discussing about the importation of 'Du riz Ration' from India.

To me this is a useless debates because many people do not really consume it('Du riz Ration'...I would like to thank my newly appointed Editor, Tantine Polo, for this clarification. ....)..may be we should look for other sources of import for rice if we really want to find a solution to the predicted shortage of rice. And what annoyed me was the fact that once more the speaker (who rarely speaks) was nearly sleeping while many Assembly members were chatting and reading (some aloud).

Mr Speaker Sir, I have a suggestion. It would be appreciated if the Honourable Members of the House could post their questions and answers on a website and we could all read...its is annoying to look at someone read...because i can do that too...and on top of that, on TV, there are loads of censoring happening.....sorry may be i should have said montage or editing.

May be the members of assembly should be introduced to blogging....this would facilitate the proceedings of the assembly. Many ministers have no clue about their 'dossiers', and any one with the intent to asking a question will need to send the question(s) beforehand, and the minister would have an adviser or P.S. prepare an answer. The Minister would then simply read it aloud.

Does someone need special abilities to read aloud....?
I tend to think 'No', so do we need Readers in the Assembly...i tend to think 'No'...so why are my taxes wasted then.......

If ministers were good enough why not have debated like in the House of Parliament of the UK, whereby anyone can ask any question at any time to anyone in the house.... And on top of that the whole debated would be broadcast on TV...

Beacoup seront prets a sacrifier Tulsi, Sindoor, Luna et ... pour voir ce qui se passe dans le parlement.

Some answers to questions asked were like 'Quand mo ti la mo ti fer sa, et to ti dire sa....Quand to ti la to fer pire... bla bla bla'..... worse than kids fighting for a sweet, or toy!

Well today we were meant to have torrential rains and thunderstorms... So based on these forecasts, our Minister of Education decided to close the schools early to avoid the happenings of the 26th March 2008... Very wise, except that as usual..Meteo ine Faner! We have recorded only 74 mm of rainfall ...way far from the '100 mm' . 26mm difference and the schools were closed, and last time...because of a couple of millimetres..students went to school and lives were lost....Someone found a logic in that?

There is no logic in that. Then the other decision about allowing civil servants to get home early because of the rain and power failure...how much does a decision like this cost?

Let me tell you then: Several millions of Rupees. Our third world....sorry our 'developing' country cannot afford that!

Well due to the forecast bad weather afternoon exam sessions we canceled, and we had to get home. Imagine all UoM students + all civil servants trying to get back home at roughly the same time... So bad...may be we should work on a 'plan d'évacuation d'urgence' because right now our transport system sucks! Traffic Jams ......

This situation also allowed us to witness something: Some Bus Operators (according to the radio 'Certains Operateurs Individuels') were refusing to pickup students, whilst some others were asking for cash fares off the students.... This is so dis-honest! Hopefully the Authorities will do something about it...Mais ne dit-on pas que l'exemple vient d'en haut?

Seeing the situation on the bus-stops, some students and I decided to walk to Rose-Hill from where it would be easier for us to get a bus...what a walk that was..we had a lovely time chatting, and joking around.

We all reached home safely, this picture was taken on top of a bridge between Reduit and Ebene - it was a shortcut which got to Rose-Hill quicker. We all managed to get home safely (as most of them are currently online on MSN).

Unless we review or issue a Plan D'evacuation D'urgence, the next time a natural calamity strikes or a wrong forecast by the Met Services (though this seems more likely :-)) is issued we will face major problems in getting people from their workplace back home or vie-versa.

Our Mobile networks ware jammed as people were worried and were trying to find out how their dear ones were and how they were doing. Messages and calls were not going through. Welcome to the Cyber Island!

Well lets get to something else:
Today was the programming paper...lovely paper I'm tempted to say but, some found it hard. The exams were a little bit troubled by one or two little power failures, but on the whole it went on fine...can't wait to finish correcting now (I have not yet started this process by the way!)

I know some students tend to be creative in exams lets see what masterpiece they come up with. The funniest one i came across once was that the refresh rate of a monitor is : 'A special mechanism which the cools down the monitor and prevents from overheating'.

Well..we'll see this time!

I will also request you to pray for the families in China who have lost a dear one.

What shocked me was the fact that the Chinese Prime minister is not opening China's frontier's to foreign aid...its either because of National Pride or sheer stupidity...I think all help might be useful, and this is fuelling controversies about China and the Olympic games...but that will be for some other post..lol.

Spent some time discussing with someone, X, today about whether or not it is ethical to put some other person's lecture notes on one personal website....I strongly disagree unless prior permission has been obtained. This constitutes an infringement of copyright. But X said that knowledge is universal..which i agree, but deep linking a url in a webpage is not nice, and not legal either. Nor is the downloading of lecture notes/resources , harbouring it in one's personal server and providing a link to that resource from one's website. Come on Mr X, respect the work of others..at least ask them, i would personally not refuse...but hw many wouldn't..... unless you ask, you'll never know!

Hopefully with the heavy rain, the price of vegetables will not increase to much as a sharp rise in the price of vegetables like carrots will not be easily bearable!

As usual comments are welcome.

Gavin

Exhilarating!

2008-05-09T09:35:00.002+04:00

Hi all!
I know that many students are currently taking exams at UoM, I hope that that they are not finding it too hard!

Well yesterday, i managed to get my biometric reader, the M2-Hamster Plus, working, its is cool and right now, its working in a stand-alone mode, and the speed of identification and verification is not bad at all. The only saddening thing is that the whole integration kit will word on a server running windows only.....how miserable is that......I hope to find a way of introducing some linux in the whole process!!!.I have been thinking about a few stuff lately, and one of them includes the use of graphs to map keyboard latencies and use statistical metrics to derive similarities in typing patterns. Another one would be to use pressure gradient and vectors using a a graphic tablet to identify people online. Well these are just ideas for the time being, i believe its worth investigating.

I managed to RIP some CDs yesterday, now this operation is done very quickly using Media player. Not so long ago (3-4 years back), ripping a single song would take about 5 minutes, at that time i was using a software called Audio Grabber 1.8....'comme quoi, on n'arrête pas le progrès'. By the way yesterday some of you might have seen the my MSN display message: 'In love with Music, biometric and sooo much more...' well i found my long lost wireless headphone...
Now finally i will not be disturbing anyone at home with my music........

By the way little server was admitted to Intensive Care yesterday, its graphic card needs to be replaced along with its hard disk..... then hopefully it will work fine once more....looks like little server will soon turn into a Biometric Template Comparison Server......i just need some time for this......The only thing i am worried about is whether the Celeron 500 D processor will be powerful/quick enough. However 'qui ne tente rien n'a rien!'

Well I am off now...hoping there are no embargoes on Carrots and Polos!!!

:-)

Coriolis forces, Induction Chargers, Photoluminescent Paints and ElectroMechanical UPS

2008-05-07T13:49:00.011+04:00

As usual, the title says it all!

Currently many students are busy with their exams and unfortunately...the number of scripts we have to correct is increasing by the day!

I was online sometime ago, and i noticed a funny display message, please see below:

If you cannot see it properly it reads: 'Why is it zat all zose lecturers have a smile and seem happy....If only they knew how zey are being cursed'

Come On!!!

Anyways, I hope there are exceptions to that statement!!!!

I had a very nice little conversation with Yash yesterday...in what started as a theological discussion on Agni ('The Hindu God of Fire') who consumes all the offerings made during prayers, and brings them to the actual Gods. Since all the offerings are burnt, the delivery service is quicker than FedEx. I know this comparison will shock some of you...

Well lets get back to the conversation with Yash, we were talking about forces, inertia and ... then i told him about a phenomenon i read about sometime back. Its called Coriolis forces, its due to the rotation of the earth about its axis.

This is why a whirlpool in a basin, and cyclonic winds spin in opposite directions in the north and south hemisphere.

You can read more about it. Avinash also told me that in one episode of James Bond, he used this technique to know in which hemisphere he was. Our conversation led us to Eco-Light and Photoluminescent paints.. Just think about it people - lets assumed we used photoluminescent paints on our buildings, we could consequently decrease the power used for street lightings in towns by switching on the lights later.

We also talked about electromechanical UPS using a magnetic field to decrease power loss due to frictional forces. I also told him about my MSc Project Supervisor Professor Norman Revell, one of the brightest persons i met, who wanted to make a universal charger to charge mobiles, cameras, wireless mouse, coffee.... using an induction charger which looked like a mouse pad and which was USB powered. Unfortunately, Professor Revell died last year, a big loss to me, because he was a very inspiring person, and participated tremendously to MSc Project, by his sharp supervision and he helped me get in touch with industry people from Polaris UK and also a very famous researchers from Oxford. Rest In Peace Professor Revell. God Bless you humility and kindness

Well I met someone interesting lately, and its Miss Carrot, she is very good company and she is very funny. We fight a lot...no we argue a lot...no! no! no!..rather we discuss a lot. Its always nice to chat to people with different perspectives...it opens up the mind..and as someone once said....The mind is like a parachute: It works best when it is open! Anyways, Miss Carrot is very nice and funny!!! She has a lot of imagination and gosh she is sharp, and impulsive!

I am looking forward to doing something soon: put a feedback form online as one of my 'famous' poll questions.....i think i will do that on the 30^th of May....at least the students will be able to tell me what they think, and i will disable moderation for that day, that is the comments will appear instantaneously on the blog ....well that 'instantaneously' might mean after minutes ....we are still in a third world country when it comes Internet Speed...come on Mauritius Telecoms......sorry Orange.....it is so unfair....The fair use policy is sooooo unfair.

About a week ago, I was watching the news on TF1 and the french Minister of Education Xavier Darcos, whereby he suggested a 'besoin de la France de se recentrer sur les fondamentaux'. Please read this article..its very nice. The french were used to being very good in Maths, but looks like its changing and their Minister is worried about it...they are willing to decrease the content of the syllabus of other subjects to devote more time to Maths and French Language. I was in the bus this morning and there was a form 4 girl who as unable to find the roots the equation below by factorisation.

Y=3 x²+8x+4....where are we heading....may be our syllabus needs to be REVIEWED and and to me reviewed DOES NOT MEAN SIMPLIFIED.

If a country like france is doing it and taking the right steps when they see a decrease in performance, may be instead of removing stuff like Iterative methods like Newton-Raphson and ......may be we should do the same! Else our students will keep getting worse...and i am worried because they need to pay for my pension

Lol....many of you might still be waiting for the politics section...unfortunately, i have not watched the news lately.

So see you soon!!!

Programming Marathon!

2008-05-03T08:27:00.004+04:00

Well,
Most of you should have seen the different political rallies of the 1^st of May. Once again we have seen the bias of some media in the coverage. Certain political parties got 20 minutes of news coverage whilst others had a total of 5 minutes. Futhermore, in the news...the slips of the tongues of some speakers were elegantly erased during the 'montage'. Fortunately i listened to the speeches live on the radio and once again had a laugh at the lack of competence of some.

Unfortunately it seems that when one is not in the good books of the MBC, all the slips of the tongues are broadcast...just like that leader of the opposition party who is not in the parliament (wonder who leads them there...) his slip of the tongue pic pic pac pac was in the news.... he nearly said TIC TAC (just like the sweet), or Tic Tac Tic Tac...(like a ticking timer for a bomb....).

IMHO, some people capitalise on the position of their parents...as this is often the case in local politics. An one particular rally, the political preference of our dear President was often cited...just as if they wanted a snowball effect for his son.....

'Incompetence, quand arreteras-tu de ronger notre arène politique?'

Our attorney general rightly enumerated the different reforms to legal system...outstanding.... I got a quick little question though..can't we have a 'health centre' or dispensary in our courts of justice, i have seen may people suspected of financial fraud go through the legal system unpunished simply because they were 'ill' some even went to court on stretchers...may be in the court was in a clinic or vice-versa we could have given 'un semblant de justice'...worse still...this has set precedence to other suspects in the same case where suddenly they were ill (Wonder if this condition is called 'une maladie de convenance')....... may be instead of having magistrate in the courts...we should have doctors shouting 'ORDER!!! ORDER!!!', and as punishment people could be given injections or could be hanged using a stethoscope.

Yesterday was a challenge, 4 hours of revision for Programming in ELT2...'Qui dit mieux?'...lol
Hopefully this will help the students for their exams. We went through most of the chapters and unfortunately for me, the data projector kept overheating and shutting down..this was slightly getting on my nerves. At some point in time i went to get a white board marker and a 'duster'.

I nearly lost it when a bunch of students started chatting among themselves and i calmly addressed them..luckily they understood et 'Le silence qui regna par la suite était digne de celle d'une cathedrale'.

When i got back home, i had a quick little tour on MSN, i was amazed by the display message of one of my friends who turned 26 yesterday..it was 'Today's my birthday, I bought a PSP to feel younger', well Gio... no comments.

I then started having a look at the assignment of some students...it seemed obvious that some had copied from their friends, or they could have someone who did the program for them... Many programs did not have a structure, some hardly used functions, and repeated the same block of codes again and again...but the most shocking thing was that someone used GOTO in the programs...we are in 2008...have you not realised that? I bet the use of better programming constructs would improve the readability of the codes. Anyways.....

Anyways, I am eagerly awaiting feedback from my students to know what are my weaknesses, so that i can improve my lectures next year.

After Soooo Long!!!

2008-04-29T20:09:00.007+04:00

Hi all, i know its been a long time!!! I missed you too!!!

Well I finally managed to get my Biometric Reader last week and there was kind of a little problem with the payment...the accidentally charged my credit card for $ 562 when in fact i manged to strike a deal off them at $ 312...luckily they rectified that mishap...and i am having fun through the documentation of the M2-Hamster... it can easily integrate with any SQL compliant database, and uses a template server where all the matching is done before giving access to the Application/Database Server....i am eager to try all these out!!!

During the Programmig lecture on Friday, i showed the students an application of Graphs (as an Abstract Data Structure) in belief mapping... whereby they can identify core beliefs and supportive beliefs. I am sure they do not realise the use of this, and they will probably never put that tool into practice...but it helped me at times.

The topic of my programming lecture was Graphs..and i tried to bring as many uses f graphs as possible. Apart from Artificial Intelligence, route finders...another use of graphs is in those social networking services like facebook, where they count number of friends, suggested friends, mutual friends...... anyways...who said programming was not cool!!!

As all weekends...the last one was long, and enjoyable...two of my friends/colleagues got married and we went to have diner at their place. Then on Sunday, I watched a little cultural show for the Tamil new year on TV, the minister of Arts and Comedy.....nearly said that Varusha Pirappu (New year According to the Dravidian Calendar) is the celebration of the Chinese new year!!! What a joker!

Later on, some friends came round for a BBQ...thx Anwar for your BBQ lighting skills....

Admirez l'expert!!! I bet I would still be trying to light up the fire had you not been here...

Dr Scheme happened to get on very well with my dad, and it was enjoyable...except that li pas ti p arrete vide dans mo verre!!!....he knows what i am talking about.. i'd better not reveal!!!

Looks like someone is listening carefully to my dad...or is he getting ready to say something..... Sudha...get your flowers!!! Ene dialog Le Vers Cresson pou lever la! lol

I think the kids have a wonderful time...especially when i told them that football is allowed in my living room!!! (as usual mum had securely put her porcelain vases away!!...just wish she'd put them away forever!!!...lol)

Well i am back to basics.... well Visual Basics actually...got an old book back, SAMs Teaches you Database Programming Using Visual Basics in 24 hours.... y not!!! Best of Luck Sams!!

Just watched the news...Looks like bus fares anre going up again...by 28% next Monday...well i know the price of Petrol has gone up...but i think that the Free bus fare to students is weighing heavier that expected on National Expenditure! So the extra cost is passed directly to us! Could we expect otherwise.....arrete rever camarade!

I find it unprofessional that our MPs get questions before hand and simply have to read in the assembly....any one could do that...even an educated 10 year old...is that 'L'age Cerebral' of our PM??? lol...Looks like he needs some training on Nintendo DS using Brain Training by this famours Japanese Doc. (Dr Kawashima if i am not mistaken)!!!

While he was READING ALOUD.... someone else behind him was reading a magazine in silence.. Looks like the Responsable de Communication du PTR is in dire need of education! But how can that be..that person was the minister of education some time back!

Anyways!!

Well as always....feel free to comment!

Riders

2008-04-23T09:02:00.005+04:00

Hi all,
Poll results, 16 out of 18 voted that We become old when we let ourselves believe that we are!

Astounding but expected results! So to all of you who think they are old, you probably are not.

Anyways, this posting was meant to be for yesterday, i had typed something really nice...and then, just when i clicked on post....'La connection à haut debit a fait des siennes'... J'étais rouge rage..well do not forget that I am an Orange customer!!!

One thing no one is really talking about is that Emtel, which is the main competitor of CellPlus( ...sorry Orange) is rather quiet....lets hope there is not Rebranding there also...whereby, Emtel would go Orange too!!! lol!

Emtel, has the potential to be a decent player when it comes to ISP. With its 3.5 G network, which offers a decent speed (1.8 Mbps), it could be a serious competitor. May be it needs to review its marketing Strategy to decrease its cost. In Scandinavia for instance, a mobile operator has done something very interesting:

People are given free Internet connectivity provided they install a small (and rather low cost) emitter/relay on their rooftops. The Electricity supply is paid for by the customer, and the only investment by the operator is for the antenna and maintenance.

Consequently this allows the operator to setup a 'wide' network providing enhanced coverage of an area. Then people would just connect to the network and pay for the usage. The 3.5 G doongle offerred by Emtel is currently at around Rs 6 000, which imho is expensive. Should they reduce the hardware cost as well as the price for the different 3.5G packages, this service will quickly gain popularity.

Well on Monday, many of us got delayed going to work because of traffic jam on the motorway from Phoenix to Port-Louis. There were several excuses...sorry explanations for these:
1. Broken down bus
2. The third lane was not open
3. The guys and gals who came for the SADC comference were going back.

Whatever be the case there is one practice which i do not agree with: that's the wastage of resources.

I will explain how: When you are stuck in a traffic jam, you most probably stress out, you probably get late, and you do not operate at '100%' efficiency. Furthermore, when your are stuck in traffic, your engine is kept on, so you unnecessarily burn fuel. This is a waste of money.
On top of that we are increasing the emission of carbon compounds (Greenhouse gases), Sulphur compounds, and Tetra-Ethyl lead added in fuel causes damage to lungs.

I have just attended a little talk by folks from Orange Business Services, and they also provide Telepresence services...Should we organise teleconferences, we would save on fuel, thus reducing our 'corporate carbon foot-print' as rightly pointed out by the speaker.

Wouldn't that be cool- instead of wasting money and jet-fuel we could organise all these international conferences as tele-conferences. For the people who attended the conference on Poverty in Africa...we are acknowledging poverty on the one hand and wasting money on the other, lets use technology to save money!!!!! .

Talking about carbon footprints:
All those people who attanded the SADC conference used Mercedes and other 'grosses cylindrées' to move around- i think they use a lot more fuel than any other cars. Furthermore, something else they were assigned riders to provide them priority on the motorway. Well there are two explanations for this practice:

i. our leaders want to show that we have a good transport system - fast and efficient (though we all know the truth)
ii. they have wrongly planned their journey and need to do a 30 minutes journey in half the amount of time.

Well one other thing was the fact that the cars they were using had number plates on which the names of the country was written. I personally saw two of those. I do not remember what was written on the first one, but on the second one it was Mozambique. This is illegal i think, If the representatives had difficulty remembering the correct number plate they could have put flags belonging to the respective countries.

The Use of Riders (Motards!)
To many of our ministers, the use of riders ( paid from tax-payer's money) is common practice. They would stop traffic on motorways or round-abouts to allow the ministers through...unless they have chronic diarrhea whereby they urgently need to go to toilet- this is not admissible. Its should not be the case that because of someone who is irresponsible in planning a trip you get delayed going to work. Someone please quote the part in the Road Traffic Act whereby it is written that ministers have priority. I believe that we could make better use of these riders to regulate traffic, to escort ambulances, fireman's trucks... anyways...since this is a logical and practical suggestion, i am sure that it lies out of the range of the brilliant minds of our advisers paid at Rs 150 k.

The riders are paid using each and everyone's taxes! so lets make a fair use of them!

Orange, Apple and Ice-Cream

2008-04-18T21:25:00.009+04:00

Hi all, I must confess that the poll results are very very surprising, I was not expecting such close outcomes!

I have not personally voted, after thinking about it....I still have mixed feelings! I believe that it is subjective though...if someone wishes to live only for his passion, it might be obsessive.

Yesterday we had the opportunity of listening to CEO of France Telecom at UoM, very bright guy (a juger par ses accomplissements) and brilliant businessman (a en juger par ses stratégies).

Well I believe he is a brilliant businessman mainly because he has a clear vision regarding the future of his organisation, he is sharp in his responses, his 'strategies d'intégration'...

Orange actually donated Rs 2 000 000 to UoM, which is a good initiative. Lets hope they CEO comes in and regularly repeats this deed. Regarding a question about when the iPhone would be available (and fully usable) in Mauritius, Didier Lombard explained the strategy of Apple which was that of a geographical deployment.

In Europe for instance, iPhones are fully usable only in UK, Germany and France. This clearly demonstrates the Apple's Strategy of exploiting markets where there are big mobile phone users. In Mauritius, though we are rather heavy mobile users, the market size is comparatively small....But as Didier Lombard mentionned...'Il y a de l'espoir'.

Another colleague enquired about how Orange intended to cater for the fact that on average, people in Mauritius pay less for mobile services a compared Europeans. He outlined the fact that there was a tension between Orange's QoS and the amount of money people were willing to pay.

In other words...would Orange decrease QoS parameters to match the amount of money locals are willing to pay.

The answer of the CEO of France Telecom was very diplomatic.

Today, i had a wicked time at Uni, though i know my students had a tough time understanding Tree operations like delete and insert....when they code it, i am sure that they will sort these out, and they will call the destructor for the class doubt:

~doubt();

Well someone made me ask myself a fundamental question today....

Quand devient-on vieux?

Well the obvious reflex action...was to see what did the word young mean, contrast it with the word old and then come up with an answer:

Wikipedia defines 'young' as: Young refers to the quality or state of youth.

It then defines 'old' as : Old may refer to Old age .

Unfortunately it related old as a state or a thing which may refer to age...

For once i tend to disagree.... being young or old has nothing to do with age! It is a subjective thing...rather a perception, or even a state of mind.

Can we be young at sixty and old at thirty? I am sure that many would simply laugh...others would just smile!!!

To me, a person starts growing old when he stops being young... :-)... funny you might say... Let me explain it differently:

Starting from the assumption that its relative state and that it is a state of mind... I would say that a person gets old when he sees 'the others' as being young.

Note that a simple change in mindset would make all the difference... What if i change the sentence to... when he sees 'the others' as being youngER. This would imply that the person sees himself as young too......

IMHO it is all about perception!

Anyways... a good friend of mine organised a little ice-cream party today to celebrate his promotion. The Ice-Cream was wicked and we all enjoyed it. He was very nice and he impressed us by the speed at which he would prepare them.

Enjoy the sight, and imagine how nice it tasted!!!!:

The flavours included Kulfi, Citron, Amande and Chocolate ...along with caramel syrup and other nice little things which enhanced the look as well as the taste.........

Well i would like to say a big thanks to him.

Just after the party, some people stayed back for an informal chat and I must admit that it was worthwhile. A very wise person has shared his knowledge or should I say wisdom with us....

The discussion started rearding wedding love and....and then it gradually got into Theology and Hinduism, and we unanimously appreciated the discussion.

Well being quite passionnate about some 'little stories' about Gods, Saints, the 'Why's of rituals', and .... 'J'en ai eu pour mon compte!'

It ressembled a crash course in basic Hinduism! As i am used to saying...It was Wickedly COOL....What made it more interesting was the fact that constant reference was being made to the contemporary lifestyle, and what are the universal lessons which can be learnt from Holy Scriptures (Vedas, Bible, Quran, Gita, ....) irrespective of their origins!

As i have said before:

Religion is just a set of names.
Lets just have faith (irrespective of the name of the Entity in which we have faith)

Despite being an engineer, that person made it very clear of the lessons which we should learn.

Interesting parallels were being drawn between Science, Religion and our life.

I would like to voice out my apreciation and admiration to that person!!!

I know for fact that all those present share equal admiration reagrding the clarifications which that person brought ...though the appreciation of some might be more equal that others, G.Orwell in Animal Farm!!!)

I will let you guess who that person is!

Comments Welcome!!! (as always!)

OOH Lord........ It is now 23 00 and Google Mail is down!!!! How will I survive!!!

Passion or Obsession?

2008-04-15T19:29:00.011+04:00

Well many might wonder why the choice of this title!

I was wondering a couple of days ago, whether it is normal that a guy spends hours solving a programming problem...or looking for and fixing a bug.

Then I asked myself...Could the passion I have for programming turn to obsession (or has it already?)...well i cannot answer.

Discussing that with some friends today...i got a variety of answers! Some said..the obsession is the passion, others said that that's the fun of it...and others said keep going...it cannot kill you!

As some readers are aware, i am always inclined to optimising codes in C++ implementations. How far will this take me?

Well actually yesterday's posting was simply something i wrote one day while I was still at Accenture...i.e about one year ago..and i found it lying in one of my folders.

Anyways, the reason for no proper posting in the last few days was that i was stuck with a programming bug and i finally managed to solve it with the help of a student (Thx Kervin!!!).

It was about adding a node to a binary tree.

void BTree(TNode * T, TNode *K)//where K is the node to be added
{

if (T-> getKey()< K- > getKey())//We will add to the right subtree of T
{
if (T-> getLeft()!=NULL)
{
insertTree(T- > getLeft(), K);
}
else
{
T- > setLeft(K);
}
}

else//We will add to the right subtree of T
{
if (T- > getRight()!=NULL)
{
insertTree(T- > getRight(), K);
}
else
{
T- > setRight(K);
}
}
}//function

There was another implementation which i studied when i was a student, but this one seems easier...even though the other one achieves exactly the same operation.

The fact that i was stuck for hours with the fact that i had an extra recursive call
in a function similar to the one i obtained from wikipedia (Passionate reader, please read!):

void InsertNode(struct node *&treeNode, struct node *newNode)
{
if (treeNode == NULL)
treeNode = newNode;

else
if (newNode - > value < treeNode- > value)
InsertNode(treeNode- > left, newNode);

else
InsertNode(treeNode- > right, newNode);
}

It seems to me that he is passing a pointer by reference (how subtle is that?, and since it is a structure, no member function...i thought of that too...how cool..., so, InsertNode need not be a member function of the class BTree..HIHIHIH!!! )....

I tried it, but i did not manage to get it working. Well i agree that he made use of a structure...but that not the issue...i will have to try it again tomorrow!

Well...right now..i am asking myself a question:
Can we be obsessed about our passion, or passionate about an obsession!

Comments welcome!

The stare.

2008-04-14T21:59:00.001+04:00

There she sat on this old dusty bench. In five years, she had taken the toll of ten. Sitting on this dusty bench she was indifferent to the persons running around on this busy Monday morning. Lonely in this mad crowd, now and then she would lift her head to reveal those eyes ravaged by this blank stare. It surprised me how eyes, without any expression, could express so much by expressing nothing. .

Her radiance had faded and next to her was a man holding a white plastic bag which was transparent and I could see a little box of powdered milk.

She seemed to be asking herself how she got where she was. In her early twenties, she was writing or had already written the last chapter of her life and sound asleep in her arms was a baby, ignorant of the turmoil haunting her mother. If I could ask the baby a question, it would be: ‘How is someone who is lost, help you find your way through life?’

UoM students help the victims of the torrential rains

2008-04-10T21:15:00.015+04:00

Hi All,

Hope you had a wicked day dear readers!

Some of you might wonder about the poll, well why the subject?

I was reading the papers on Sunday and there was an interview of SOMEONE on L'Express Samedi of the 5^th April, that SOMEONE said: 'Je ne me laisserai pas dicter par la rue'.

I have a question: 'Serait-ce que la voix de la rue n'est pas importante car il n'y a que leurs voies qui comptent?'

Well the question on my poll was: 'Do you believe that La voix de la rue est la voix du peuple? '

If you equated 'Voix de la rue = voix du peuple' (as i did), an coupled with a quote from Alcuin (Charlemagne's lead advisor on eclessiatical and educational affairs): , i.e. Vox Populi Vox Dei

By Transitivity, the 'Voix de la rue would have been the voice of God '....I'll not get that far not to be accused of blasphemy!

However:
Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit

Which when transliterated to English gives:

those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness

Which can be true because the behaviour of someone in a group is different from that same person in isolation!

Well, in our country, people are by nature quiet except when a major thing happens, i.e. mainly when lives are wasted/lost ? Then you have something which ressembles a micro-riot, whereby people express themselves in what i believe is 'La voix de la rue'.

We have to differentiate between 'LA voix de la rue' and 'UNE voix dans la rue'.

Is it that what 'the people' think does not matter?

Vox Populi, Vox Dei = The voice of the people is the voice of God.

I think Vox Populi sounds fainter than the Vox Consuasor (voice of the advisor) to someone's ears. Based on the poll results, it seems that: 'Le voix de la rues n'est pas celle du peuple'.

Well I have a question for you....'Qui sont-ceux qui s'expriments dans la rue alors?' Awaiting your comments!

We are lucky to be in a democratic country, i.e. we can express ourselves freely and openly...but what use is that if we are never listened to?

Everyone has witnessed the demonstrations to boycott the route of the Olympic Torch in Paris because of the 'embargo one free speech' in China. In the Chinese news, the fact that there was a demonstration against China's policy was not mentionned in any news report in China???

As the coverage for the path of the Olympic Torch, we had a picture of the torch next to a picture of the Eiffel Tower.

Call that censoring!

OK! Lets stop it there! Just in case my blog is censored! lol!!!!

7 packets gaufrettes, 4 packets biscuits cabin and 2 gros sachets du thé! This was our little contribution for the victims of last weeks torrential rains. (All these were bought from Jame's and the Cooperative, which are two shops which are not far from uni)

I would like to first thank my friends (Spiderman, Bahamas 1908, Avi, Christina and me) for contributing and congratulate the students of UoM (inlcuding Zoro Jackpot, Tigroo and Coldplay) who put up this initiative!

The black part is the head of one of my friends who preferred remaining anonymous because she claims not to look good enough on the pic!

I finished correcting another batch of Programming papers! Pheew!

Only three more batches left! Finally i got someone who scored 100% in the test!!! So ...there is hope!

I would like to invite all readers who have a different opinion (on any posting) to comment and then we will discuss... Previous readers who have commented are aware that all comments are published within 12 hours! So no censoring happens here! So feel free to voice out!!!

Long Tiring Week-end!

2008-04-08T20:28:00.023+04:00

Hi All,

Poll Results!!! I was expecting more honesty, how come no one came to uni to have fun! :-P

Well, its been a while since i last posted something, the reason being that i was terribly busy!

I managed to finish my exam papers today and handed them for moderation.... I am still left with loads of scripts to correct.

Well on Friday, i invigilated for Avinash's Test...It was soo cool! The paper was probably one of the best i saw...a proper paper for Uni students. The questions are a bit like those in Programming with Pearls....It takes a very good understanding of the logic to implement the solution smartly. Anyways!!!!

On Saturday, i was quite busy! And i had a party to go to at night!!! Had a wicked time...as i always do at parties!

However, the best day was Sunday...my SBM mates organised an outing to Plaine-Champagnes, and Le-Mornes, and it gave me the opportunity to meet those old folks (they are young however!) The whole Ops Team from Level 4 was there as well as SBM support, and my dear 'Kaspikan'! Elle se reconnaitra!

When we arrived at Plaine- Champagne, we all rushed to the trees bu twe had to venture quite far in the forest to get the 'Goyaves de Chine', one of the girls got stung by a wasp!!! Poor Wasp!

I managed to get a couple of goyaves and that was enough to satisfy me!

We all got in the bus and headed to Le Morne! The 'ambiance' the bus was very cool!

Though it was hot inside the bus we were well-equipped with 'Cans of the Mythic bird' and

The view was wicked! Have a look at the pictures below: My Nikon 4600 is amazing:

We were singing and teasing (no need to tell who was leading!!!) Then when we got there! As usual. i watched Montagne Le Morne and thought about the slaves, i even sang Sega Le Morne in the bus (its my favourite).

Then we had lunch, drank coconut water and headed home!!! I was tired!

On Sunday, the Programme La mer organised by the some Uni Colleagues was cool! Except that (a usual) only (some of) the youngest members (Avi n co., Bahamas 1908, Pascal, Spiderman and Raj.....i am preserving their anonymity...lol!!!) were there, may be we should add a clause in the invitation (Avi, you know which one i am talking about..)

I bought a brand new Volleyball and while playing on the beach, i accidentally hit an old lady on the head (i hope this would put her ideas in place!) the ball ended up in tents, near people... I think people are safer when we are in our offices behind our laptops and PCs.

The we played UNO and dominos and knocked out some 'Cold cans of the mythic bird' 'La Chaleur Oblige'. The consequence was that we had to go to the toilet...well i was shocked!

I wonder what idiot wrote this down....he has made a 'faute d'orthographe': Les contravenant seront traduit en justice.

If he did French till CPE and passed, he would have realised that he should have written: Les contravenant seront traduits en justice. Lets just call that erreur de frappe: this term is trendy these days!

Anyways, the dialog of the day!

'Anou all boire ene la biere cotte Ya-Oune'...Slip of the tongue, isn't it Avi, ki zaffer ine cause sa hein???

We then went to Raj's place for a 'visite de courtoisie', had a long and interesting chat with Spiderman n co! lol...

Avinash and I decided that we should give the Nobel Prize (thx mandela!) to the guy who invented/discovered the 'Mythic Bird'.....he should be given the G.O.S.K title, i think he deserves it more than many other ppl who already have this 'badge'.

Then went home, and when i woke up this morning, check the view!

Then got ready and off i went to work!

I gave the students a lovely assignment today!!! Simulation of Harbour Traffic using queues! I hope they enjoy it! Let's make them use their brains a bit more.

Disappointing or Worrying?

2008-04-02T09:05:00.009+04:00

Hi all,
As usual the results of the last poll,

26 % chose Yes
73 % chose No.

Now the cause of the choice for the title of this posting!

As you are aware, I 'teach' Programming Methodology, and since i had already informed the students about the fact that they might be having a test in the lab in week one, i decided to give them the test yesterday...

I took a question from a past exam paper off a colleague and gave that question as a test. It must be understood that the question was one of three give in a three hour test. The students were give two hours to complete that very first question, and out of 15 (the remaining 15 bunked), only four managed to finish it on time. The others ...well no comments.... I was even shocked by the attitude of some students who were chilling out in the lab probably present only because of the shade and air-conditioning in the lab...because obviously, they were not working - or even pretending to work.

The situation is alarming. I know that some students are working hard, but are they working hard enough. I believe that if a Computer Science students is having problems with Programming Methodology- he will have major difficulties in Year 2 whereby 75 % of the modules do involve programming in one way or the other.

Being quite cross at the outcome of my test, i was talking about it to the Florist of the faculty... and he wisely pointed out that the students nowadays are not what they used to be. Now most of them are over-pampered brats, who have been spoon-fed throughout their life, they come to uni because its is fashionable to do so, or their parents forced them to do so!

We have reached a point where students come to lecture halls without having read or prepared to topic, some do not even bother to print the slides... Computer Science is one of the most challenging fields where only there categories of people belong (the 3 categories not being mutually exclusive)
a. hard-workers
b. people who are passionate
c. people who are good at it (smart-workers)

Its not a field in which you study just to work at one of the Cyber-Towers.

Furthermore, yesterday was marked by Avinash's posting on his blog mentioning that he is founding a new religion and quitting his job at UoM... Well...what a big loss...best of luck founder of Avism!!!

Well since part of your blog was about religion. i might add my bit to it.
People try to mix culture and religion and this is wrong...the culture of a person include (but is not restricted to) the traditions a person follows as a result of his origin.

For instance, a mauritian, irrespective of his religion, celebrates Christmas.
An indian (from India, obviously), irrespective of his religion celebrates Divali.

For instance the culture of all Hindus in Mauritius includes the celebration of Divali. However can the same be said of all Hindus in India?

Now as i said sometimes the culture of a person can also include things done traditionally in the country of origin of that person (or his ancestor). e.g. many Hindus in Mauritius celebrate Sankranti (Le festival de la moisson), coz farmers in India pay homage to the Sun God for a good harvest... however when they indentured labourers came to Mauritius, though the situation was different, coz the harvest was not their own, they still celebrated..so culture has got an element of 'habit' i.e if your ancestor were doing it somewhere, you can perpetrate that where you are and this gets termed as your culture.

Culture can be expressed in language, dressing habit,moral and social values, music, art, cooking, means of interaction...

Now you would have realised the 'culture' is a mixture of several things. Religion however can be thought of as being more complex! However to me religion can be summed up using set-notation.

Since all religions preach one thing (Love & tolerance), they have one thing is common.

They only differ in the names they give to God/Prophets.

In my humble opinion, different religions are different sets (mathematically speaking) holding one or more names for God (as their elements).
Now some of these sets are conjoint and some others are disjoint.

Some of the fights and wars in the world are because of these different names, but didn't Shakespeare say (in Romeo and Juliet) :

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet."

I wonder if i could change it to:

"What's in a name? That which we call God, by any other name would preach love and tolerance.".

I know its does not sound as good as Shakespeare..but thats a start!

Gavin loses a Nintento Wii tennis competition at Game!

2008-03-29T20:42:00.014+04:00

Hi all, I went to uni with the hope of finalising an exam paper....as i said I went with hope...

Vote Results (25 voters...not bad!...i hope no one cheated and voted twice..lol)!

I think its clear! The Met Service and the Ministry of Education failed in their functions!!

I believe that the Minister shares responsibility for the death of Laura, because he has the authority to call a day off for students because of any reason...bad weather being one of them! Now is is hiding behind the recommendations/advice of the MET-Service (whose incompetence does not need to be proved!! )

Well got to uni, finalised some stuff, then went to Editions De L'ocean Indien (on top of Cafetaria at UoM), as there were sales there...i bought books on Apache, Linux, BioInformatics..... I hope to get enough courage to read them.

Well then i went for lunch with a couple of my Programming Students, and we chatted a bit. Got back to office,

Then since i was in a spending frenzy...i went to buy a little USB DVB TV receiver, and a little USB HUB coz i am running out of USB ports on the PC at work.

The Receiver!

After that, since 'Liverpool's next player' had a Nintendo Wii Competition at Game, I decided to go n support...Allez Kyan!!!! When i arrived at Game, Avinash n co. were there except that three

contestants did not turn up and they were looking for participants.

The Nintendo Wii Console!

I thought the first prize would be a Wii, so it put my name down...since Kyan did not want to play, his dad replaced him...and there we were....having fun on console playing a TENNIS Game.

We were being so crazy that i was secretly praying that no CSE students were around...they would have said...'guette sa banne grand bénés la'

Avinash v/s Ace-Boy

Avinash and i were having so much fun, we each won our matches (3 sets) and made it to the Semi final, however unfortunately he got beaten. So in the finals, there was me and that other guy. He had an excellent serve, no one really figured out how he could ace the serves.

He aced me a couple of times...but when i served, no one could take a point off me... I was tooo good!!!

He served for the first set and won 40-30, i won the second set 40-0 (i was serving), then in the third set, he aced three times and won.

Nothing really serious you would say...but hey....He was a six year old boy and his name was Yen-Yen.. So i got trashed by a six year old (Happened, i used to get trashed in Need For Speed by my little nephew, he is 7 yr old)!!! But i had sooo much fun!!!!!!

The winner, Yen-Yen, the little Ace-Boy!!!
Congrats little man...well done!

The disappointment was the fact that the first prize was not a Nintendo Wii, but a V360 Motorolla Phone.

When i got home, i installed the DVB Tv Receiver, it took me some time, but i works...i can watch the TNT channels on my PC.

p.s. The guy doing the commetaries on the match was talking french so badly that i am sure Moliere, Baudelaire, and their friends wanted to come out of there graves to slap him and give him french Lessons....

La concours, Telephone avec un camera equippé (pas integré la hien equippé line dire).... those were just a few of his master-piece!!!

Cancelled Tests! What a shame!

2008-03-28T22:05:00.010+04:00

Hi dear readers!
Since there were no students on campus yesterday, we went to play pool and we had loads of fun...

I hope you are doing fine and that you are not too scared by the fact that we have just gone through a panic situation which really questions our ability to deal with natural calamities.

I got an inivation on Facebook yesterday to join a group for a petition to sack Go-Cool!!! Well best of luck!

Today was nice except the fact that there is something which i really did not appreciate.

We received a mail from the Registrar UoM about the showcase a couple of days ago, see part of it below

'The target audience being mainly UoM students , students from all Faculties/Centres/Departments may be released as from 11.30 a.m. on Friday 28 March 2008 to attend the event.

It would also be appreciated if any class tests scheduled on that day could be postponed to a later date if students so request. '

However there was a poster on campus, see below...for the time being omit the blue part written using a marker..... just a student rightfully voicing out his point of view...which so happens to be mine as well!

Well, there is a difference between students 'may be released', and 'there will be no classes'.

This caused some disturbance, the Registrar's e-mail specified that tests should be cancelled if requests was received from the students.

However some students did not even care to inform let alone request for cancellation but they even lacked the decency to inform their friends that they intended to have the test cancelled. So we have had students coming in for test when they had been 'cancelled'.

Should you look at what is written on the poster, you will see that a student has asked Is the showcase is more important than test?

I believe that the most logical may should have been the following.

If the students wanted to have their tests cancelled, they should have had their Class representatives REQUEST for it. It is so irresponsible and unconsiderate to just assume that the test would not be carried out, and then the students end up coming to uni for nothing.

I even had a student who told me that she took 3 buses to get to uni, just to learnt that the test was cancelled...

Come on students.... if you want to be treated like adults, then act as adults.

Futhermore, i believe that the poster tends to me misleading, and seems to override the words 'may be released'.

Well instead of organising so many concerts, play, shows, ... i believe that the students could invest this time in studying. I do agree that the student also grow when they participate in these events...but it seems that it is always the same group with participated, and the 'spectators' use it as an excuse to be out of class.... I tend to believe that a Uni student is big enough to make his own choices based on his priorities.

It is much like the whole Uni comes to a stand-still when an event is organised... how far is this acceptable?

Well....wake up students!!!

Instead of organising events, for entertainment of students, i think the Students union should endeavour towards the work for improvement of students conditions...these may include cameras for security and deterrent to thefts, better books in libraries, better and reasonably-priced food on campus, more computer labs with better computers or less virus infections...(you know what i am talking about), access to better online resources from digital libraries.

We are living in a culture, whereby if you do not ask you do not get...

Anyways, i went with Avinash to have a look at the Media Lab, the new MACs are sooo cool!!! I think i might got one as soon as i manage to save enough..the Graphical interface is soo good!

We got carried away (as you might have expected) exploring the MAC, that we forgot to have lunch...our lunch happened to be at 15 00.

Then we went to have tea at the 'Méchante Miss's Place', then went to Avi for some 'Mythical Bird', after which we wathced part of Snatch, well the part i watched was too cool!!! It is a typical English film with the accents and everything... As we were all hungry we went out for diner and the food was sooo cool!

A student of mine (C.D.Fowdar) quoted J.Albers :

Good teaching is more a giving of the right questions than a giving of the right answers. Well this is so true!

I would like to know your views about the cancellation of classes and tests due to events and shows...just as it happened today!

3 dead, 3 missing...and they are passing the ball around

2008-03-27T08:26:00.010+04:00

Hi all,

First the results for last poll:

Yesterday, was a really bad day 'meteorologically speaking'. There was a tropical depression which had adversely affected the local weather and it was rainy and windy throughout the day.

Early in the morning the several people were expressing their concerns about whether or not there should be school. However our Meteorological Service said that there was not enough rainfall to issue a rainstorm warning and consequently all the little students went to school!

So i got to my office and started working through the day. At eleven I had to go and meet someone from Mauritius Telecom, as i needed some about their SMS voting product. I am looking at the possibility of implementing a service whereby we can get a better feedback from students in large cohorts, as we all know that some of them are quite shy in asking questions.

I am thinking of the system being as follows:
At regular intervals in the lecture slides (say every 'n' slides), there will be multiple choice. The student is required to work the question during the lecture, and choose an answer which he will note down somewhere. Lets assume we will have 'm' questions in all.

Then around 10 minutes before the lecture, the students simply has to take his phone and send a message in the following format:

'<'Module Code'>' '<'Week number'>' '<'Student ID'>' '<'A,B,D,A,C,B...'>'

Where A, B, D, ... are the answers to the m questions.

Having discussed with someone from the Marketing Department of cellplus yesterday , the option is feasible.

We now need to convince management that this is a feasible and interesting option to increase interactivity in our large cohorts, and that it will give us real-time data about the degree to which the students have really understood. It follows the same idea 'in principle' of the clicker used by other universities.

So i need to write up a little report on the specification for submit to Mauritius Telecom.

Anyways that how i spent half of the day!!!

On my way back to Uni: I think the picture below speaks for itself:

When i got there, i learnt that the test got cancelled, called some of my students to inform them.

Well at about half past two, we received an e-mail informing us that uni would be closing at 15 00.

I got a lift home and on my way i took pictures on the way.

I am sure that all sensible Mauritians a deeply shocked by the fact that the Meteorological Services were not proactive enough, and this coupled with our minister's Go-Cool attitude has lead to the loss of three lives.

In his interview, the minister said that there are 350 000 students attending our schools and colleges daily and its sad that 'one' of them died". Well one is already too much. The life of one person cannot and should not be expressed as a percentage... can you say that 1/350 000 is negligible...well statistically yes, its very close to zero.

But not if this is a life expressed as a percentage. A single person's life is invaluable. So dnt talk about numbers...we cannot talk of collateral damage when it comes to life.

As many ministers do, he looked for an escape goat, and said they were acting on recommendations on the Meteorological Services.

Passer meme boule banne imbéciles

We have to accept and admit that there are short-comings in the system.

Is it only now that the meteorological station along with the ministry has seen the need for metrics other that rainfall measure to call a day-off for students. Other metrics could be wind speed, visibility, and soil permeability...

So you see dear students...only when people die do changed happen. Only when accidents happen do they remove bull bars from 4*4, only when a child gets run over that they put speed humps...

Enough it enough. I remember on the day when the cyclone warnings got cancelled at 08 45 (and caused immense traffic jams) during the evening news, the presenter gave credit to the director of the Meteo Service..saying he got diplomas and degrees from here and there. Well Mr the Director, looks like the degrees are not helping you. I do not remember hearing you yesterday either explaining or even apologising....

Well on the day the warnings got canceled, the Director said that one of the parameters was the Economic impact of a cyclone warning. And also the security of people on our roads. The water yesterday morning was definitely worse than that when we had a class 2 or even class 3 for someof our previous cyclones.

I believe that failing twice in less than a year along with the consequences it bears...its too much.

People died for F$#@% 's sake!

At around six the rain stopped and not a single drop of rain fell at my place from 18 00 yesterday to 06 00 a.m yesterday (i wanted to measure average hourly rainfall, and my raingauge remained empty)... Did the Met Services not say that the depression would be at its closest point at midnight....well it it were at its closest point, then i presume we could have expected winds and rainfall...but well, this is what a logical person would say!

The funniest thing i heard on radio yesterday was during an interview:

Les previsions meteo ne sont pas fiables a 100% a cause des imprévus..

Prevision ..... imprevus.... i fail to understand the need to have previsions abt unpredictable stuff!

However, hats off to the private radio stations..they did a wonderful job in connecting people, and inform people about flooded rivers, obstructed roads. missing people...!

Please Vote!

Yesterday!

2008-03-26T09:19:00.005+04:00

Pheew what a day!

We will start with a funny picture:

Nothing funny, you might say... What would happen if you parked your car on double yellow line, + Have a look at his reverse indicator lights, only the left indicators are working.. the right bulbs are probably gone!!! the policeman in that car could issue a fine... who would issue him a fine ?

I spent time looking for a Biometric Reader with a SDK. I came across one from a company called M2SYS. The normal price is $ 499, for developing countries it is $ 399, I got a deal from the guy for $ 250... Still rather expensive. The whole of my book allowance will seem to go in that.

There is another one from Microsoft, which I have borrowed from a colleague of mine, it is around $ 40 from Amazon, however the SDK is not included... Looks like i will go for the Microsoft one and learn to develop the applications.... i know it will be hard, but it will not be impossible....

We had a pretty good day in spite of the rain. we were meant to go and play pool but the others postponed! I played a couple of frames and lost..I played against a guy who was so fluky! He potted balled which even Ronnie O'Sullivan would not have been able to pot, and when this happens, I get stressed! They call such acts 'acts of God', so consequently playing against a guy who was helped by God, I had no chance to win!

Then a 'plan brite in lever' it was to go and play badminton , we went and I was meant to go and play until 17 00, however the game was so enjoyable that I stayed till six, since i was meant to go to temple afterwards, I got home slightly late, and when my dad came and pick me up , the car. On our way to the temple the alternator (a little part which constantly recharges the battery when the engine is on) failed and the car just stopped with no headlights, indicator lights.... nothing requiring electric power worked, and since the engine stopped the hydraulic system for the power steering also failed..... He called a friend of his and the latter came to help us out.

When i got home, I got so wet while we were trying to fix the car, and also when I have to empty the fish tank (which actually had turtles in there) , as it was nearly overflowing due to the heavy rain.

After such a long day, I was so knackered to post anything yesterday...

Keep Voting!!!

Holi, Easter, Dal Puri and Programming Test

2008-03-24T20:21:00.010+04:00

Voting Results: 16 voters
14 votes i.e. 87 % said i was good enough as a Lecturer and that i should keep 'reporting for the blog alone'
1 vote i.e. 6 % said that I should remain a Lecturer as I could be worse as a reporter (I know its you Gun....GRHHHHH!!)

I was shocked by one voter though!
1 vote i.e.6 % said that I was a crap lecturer...Well i am open to any suggestion for improvement buddy.

Well I have not posted for a while!
Was busy! Well lets take it since Saturday.
First of all i would like to thank all of those who posted comments and voted.
Please note that your comments are very valuable.

As you might know, on Saturday Holi was celebrated. I came across the a mythological explanation on http://www.holifestival.org/significance-of-holi.html, see below.

Holi gets us close to our religion and our mythology as it is essentially the celebration of various legends associated with the festival.Foremost is the legend of Prahlad and Hiranyakshyap. The legend says there once lived a devil and powerful king, Hiranyakshyap who considered himself a god and wanted everybody to worship him. To his great ire, his son, Prahlad began to worship, Lord Vishnu. To get rid of his son, Hiranyakshyap asked his sister, Holika to enter a blazing fire with Prahlad in her lap, as she had a boon to enter fire unscathed. Legend has it that Prahlad was saved for his extreme devotion for the lord while Holika paid a price for her sinister desire. The tradition of burning Holika or the 'Holika dahan' comes mainly from this legend.......

Well thats the 'cultural' part. I was deeply shocked however by the misbehaviour of certain UoM 'students' on that day. We might even talk of a 'culturally'-excused misbehaviour. To me no misbehaviour is excused or excusable. We had a bunch of delinquents not far from the cafetaria who were throwing coloured powder haphazardly on random people. And if i am not mistaken, some of those idiots were drunk. I think that these delinquents should respect the choice of some people not be part of that celebration. I saw many students who stayed in the cafetaria, scared that they might have their clothes smeared in coloured powder.

This is disgusting when you see students students afraid of being harassed or I would even call that 'abused' by some brainless thwats. Who would even put colour on a poor dog! Where are we heading?

I know Holi is meant for joy, celebration etc. etc. But where is it mentioned that this joy, happiness and celebration should be at the expense of others? I think Holi festival should be celebrated off campus not only because of the mess it causes, but for the potential dangers that the irresponsible people cause others. What if while trying to dodge a 'Holi Kamikaze' someone slips and badly injures himself! Sheer irresponsibility. Some stupid, consideration-lacking, irresponsible, brainless student(s) even 'graffitied' the walls.

'Unity' ....idiot, written on a wall, its just a word, written in your behaviour, i believe its much better

Futhermore, there is the problem of the consumption of alcohol on campus, or the presence of drunk students who cause problems on campus. This is getting common, and i hope they get caught and bear the consequence from of the Disciplinary Board. some should be expelled just to serve as an example to others.

Ok forget that, my dad always tells me that there is worse than people without intelligence, and these are people with 'intelligence' who do not use it. Guess he is right!

Well, so much for Saturday, ysterday was Easter Sunday, so the son of God came back from the dear! Those of ou who had had the opportunity of wathing The Passion of Christ, can u imagine a human going through the torture.... talk about faith!

If i were the son of God, I do not think i would have been able to go through all this. This might explain why my name is Gavin!

I was watching a film the other day and there was a rally against abortion in the film, and one of the guys had a poster on which it was written, 'What if Jesus was aborted' - can you imagine the consequences.

Seriously, do you realise the consequences, first there would be no Christianity, and worse still, CHRISTMAS WOULD NOT EXIST!!!!, Since Jesus would not have been born.

Well yesterday, i went to Shoprite as i was runing out of Vegetarian Stuff!!!! Got back home and we all watched a movie called 'Sivaji, The Boss', thought it was without subtitle we more or less understood the essence. There was a problem identified in the film, and it was that of corruption in India, an in many other parts of the world. Rajni Kant, was able to beat up a lorry load of gundas - come on you could not expect otherwise....lol... With one punch 5 of the baddies flew... Anyways!!!

I was online till midnight yesterday trying to solve issues students had about programming...I gave them a hand since they had a test today, and while some were on their last minute revision, others were learning, and still others were discovering stuff n their lecture notes. God Bless them, hardworkers...burning the midnight oil for some marks!

So today, i went for lunch with Jeen, there was no way i could let her go back to Kangaroo Land without meeting her! Since she fancied something really Mauritian, guess what - Dal Puri Dewa!! Well she seemed to have enjoyed it. If people had half her determination and dedication at work, the world would have been such a better place. I will miss her, she is a wicked friend! On my way back to UoM, i bought 'Goyaves de Chine' for my fellow 'Lekip Salad Mangue!' We had fun eating that exotic fruit with salt and red chilli powder! Doesn't that make your mouth water!!!

Then i had to run up and down the stairs as i had some stuff to get scanned and a friend of mine was kind enough to bring his scanner at work. The slightly before 16 00, i ran to Elt 3 as there was a Programming Test today. I know the students were shouced to see me. At some point in time, i had to go to room 3.* where Management with IS people were having their test as well, I was greeted with smiles.... They seemed happy to see me!

Back to ELT 3, while walking around I saw some students giving stupid answers, some were even over-answering the questions. When asked to give a class interface, they were giving the interface, plus the implementations of all the methods...come on for 3 marks....use your brains!

I believe the test was very easy and straight forward, but the results will show me lot! If they still fail this test...then they have to start worrying.

Please vote!

Sentiments mitigées!

2008-03-21T21:55:00.016+04:00

Where to start?

Well the wise answer is:

From the begining.

Today was the last day of Teaching and Learning, :'-( sniff sniff!!!. We have the 4 assignments to hand in on the 1st of December 2008.

Many of you might have noticed that the area around the Engineering tower was abnormally busy, the floor was being cleaned (Jet-Washed s'il vous plait, Karcher a la rescousse) and there were potted plants all around.... ELT2 was being 'renovated' or shoud I say 're-vamped'... the reason is that out PM had to attend a function in ther at 16 30 today. The glass panes were getting wiped, the ramp leading to the Engineering Tower was moped several times today.

Jet wash in action!

Please bring in the potted plants people, the ramp must be decorated with plants coming from the UoM farm

They even did some landscaping, and planted a new tree - see the middle of the roung grass thing, there was not tree in the middle this morning, may be it just appeared as the PM was coming!

Everything was ready on time, the frst to arrive was the Deputy PM, escorted by two motards payed by my taxes, and followed by car full of what i call 'door' openers, because the only thing i saw them do was to open the door. The guy opened the door for Mr Deputy PM and the lady opened the door for Deputy PM's wife to get off... Stupid waste of taxpayers' money.

Serrer Ceinture peuple admirable!!! Ou deputy Prime minister pas conne ouver so laporte loto... ok lets give them the benefit of the doubt: May be there was child lock and the doors could not be opened from inside!!! Both were welcome by our Vice-Chancellor!

Then i left to see my students and when i came back, i heard that the PM was already in and all i could see was his car (actually one of his cars) parked next to the ramp.

By the way, there were 5-6 'motards' in all. And two of them went for a coffee in the UoM cafetaria.

Well the reason why I am telling this because all this wasted money could go elsewhere.

To prevent us from using the two following things:

AND to collect water leaking from the roof.

Avis de deces!

Todays Bad news!!!
Around 13 00 today, power went off in my area, nothing serious you might say.... well it is for me:

Do you remember the Vivaldi Dancers, since the powers went off the filter pump could not work and they all died........f%!"£"$ IRREGULAR POWER SUPPLY!!! caused the death of my goldfish!!!

Deces de me 5 poisson rouges agees de 2 mois, aussi connus sous le nom de 'Vivaldi Dancers'. Le convoi mortuaire sortira de leur domicile (l'aquarium de ma chambre) pour aller a la poubelle.

Forget the 'avis de deces', dont you think i would be better off as a reporter than a Lecturer ? Please vote!

A victim goes to Radio 1.

2008-03-19T20:15:00.009+04:00

Well one of the victims of yesterday's thefts went to 'Casernes' to file a case and the stupid, unprofessional policeman (as are some of them!) told her that it would take a week before the case filed in Port-Louis to reach Moka, and it would be better if she filed the case in Moka.

Either the policeman forgot his brain (if he has one) at home, , or he has no people skills, or we are still in the dark days. This is typically Mauritius, we talk about Cyber Island, Digital economy and stuff, and it takes a week for a case to move from the police head-quarters to Moka. Anyways its probably because the Comissioner of Police is on holidays!

Or is it that the 'motards' are busy escorting , ministers... whatever be the case, it is inadmissible.

By the way, its frustrating when you have your car stopped by a 'motard' and then you see a Mercedes or BMW whizz by followed by another 'motard'. So you take the necessary precautions by leaving home early to get through the traffic, and you have a minister who wakes up late as he has probably been to a 'tax-payer financed' diner on the eve and still want to move from Vacoas to Port-Louis in 20 mins at 07 30 on a weekday.

Simple calculation.
Fuel for 2 BMW or MERCEDES
Fuel for 2 motor bikes
Wages for 2 drivers and 2 policemen 'the motards'
Wages for the 2-3 bodyguards

The bare minimum these would cost is Rs 1000 per hour, though we all agree it does costs more.

Assuming we have 15 ministers needing these facilities for 5 hours a day, and 5 days a week we have;

15*5*5*1000= Rs 375 000 per week

FOR 1 MONTH : 375 000*5 = Rs 1.5 million

And thats the bare minimum, do not even be surprised if it is twice the amount.
and you 'peuple admirable, Serrer meme ceinture'.

I have been to England and seen Tony Blair several times when left Downing Street to attend functions, he had 1 car, 2 motards, and 1 driver and 1 bodyguard. Yes we have to learn!

So rather naturally, the girl who seemed to me as being 'de nature tres calme' actually lost it and went to complain in a private radio station, namely Radio1.

Well i bet loads of people heard it. Futhermore, it also happened that the student in question also informed the student's Union about it. She told me that their response was that 'this is not the first time, and thatthey had informed management about it and nothing has been done'.

Well Student Union people, i think that it is your right and duty to follow up on a request you made to management, as you are customers to this university and you have rights as students ad well as obligations to the fellow students who elected you as their representatives. So simply telling that this has happened before and that your request has not been attended to is a lame excuse.

Well lets forget that, I had my 3rd Teaching and Learning session today, and its was quite good, though i did not enjoy it as i enjoyed the previous 2 sessions. May be because, it covered stuff i already knew, about 'Benjamin's Bloom Taxonomy of Learning outcomes...'

So anyways lets hope tomorrow's session is better!!!!

Well i got back home and while i was watching the news (well you know, that is that 30 minutes programme, out of which 15 or 20 minutes are allocated for our PM) on MBC, there was this news report about the lunch organised at the State House for our laureates, and in his speech the PM said that he was proud to be considered as a role model and that he askes the folks to come back to Mauritius when they finish.....

Hey where are we heading?

I would urge his advisers, especially those who are paid Rs 150 000 monthly- Please wake him up and tell him: ' Navin, Arrete Rever Camarade!'

I know all the RCC laureates of 2001, and 7 years later, none of them has come back. Yet all of those interviewed, just like those interviewed today said they will come back after their studies.

By the way, now even the President is talking about world-class education, and the minister of education was talking about increasing access to tertiary education by 45 %....

Well when we talk about world-class, we focus on quality and not on quantity - i am ready to advise you people, for only Rs 50 000.... lol :-)

Anyways i have talked enough got a homework to attempt for teaching and learning.

As usual, comments are welcome! And do not forget to vote, i have added a polling facility on the blog now!

p.s dusing the Unitec coverage on the news, the MBC made a mistake, When 'presenting' certain Mr Patrice Despax, instead of writing 'Orange Telecom', they wrote 'Orrange Telecom'.... Well just say erreur de frappe - ok?

Purses stolen near CSE labs!

2008-03-18T19:14:00.019+04:00

I'm not in a good mood today, the reason is because three of my students had their purses or bags stolen today. These thefts occurred while they were having their lab sessions in MCID.

I would thus kindly request all you readers to keep your valuable stuff (purse, mobiles, jewellery...) with you when you are in the labs.

As a temporary solution, the Dean of Faculty and the Head of Department have agreed that you will be allowed to bring your bags with you in the Labs. Please take extra care with your stuff.

I do comprehend that it is disgusting when your stuff has been stolen or others have gone through you things...so i can only tell these three students of mine that no crime or evil action goes unpunished.

Anyways, I went for my second Teaching and Learning seminar today, and since i had forgotten my spectacles, i went to the front row. Linda's slides are so cool, in fact she allowed me to realise that several little things which we can do can greatly improve the 'quality' of our lecture and make it mre enjoyable to our dear students. I can't wait to put her advice in practice and make our students benefit.

She also did some 'mini tests' in class, and i managed to solve all the questions correctly.... I think i manged pretty well simply because some of the others think inside the box, and since i have a 'Ronin' (Japanese word for a wandering spirit) , at times (though very rarely) i come up with 'different' ideas.

This is something soem of us might train for...thinking 'out of the box' our education system is so rigid that at times we get the impression that we are told how to think, and this hinders or even suppresses lateral thinking and creativity.

Linda had those interesting slides about the 'clicker'

A clicker is a little device which allows people to 'vote' or choose answers, its easy to use to allow

students to vote, and you can even carry out MCQ test in large cohorts rather easily and anonymously.

Each little clicker communicates with the PC or laptop using RF which uniquely identify each clicker, and a little receiver has be to attached to tohe computer to pickup the signals.

The application software can be integrated with presentation packages and can generate reports (as shown below) about results , which will give a clear indication whether or not the students have really understood...

We might think of a similar system using mobile phones, whereby students can send text messages containing Question number and chosen option to a number and we would only retrieve the reports later to gauge the level to which the students have really grasped the concepts. I might call ppl from Emtel or Cellplus tomorrow to find out if such a method can be implemented.

However, while looking for the pictures for the clicker in Google, i came across this image about use of mobile phones:

It seems a very interesting device, we might all have seen them in use in TV shows like 'Who wants to be a millionnaire?' or other shows where the audience actually votes for things.

By the way try reading this:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Were you able?

According to a researcher (sic) at Cambridge University, it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole.

Imagine my lecture notes with letters jumbled all around!

Anyways, see you tomorrow.

Diner at the Meetoos!!!

2008-03-17T21:44:00.008+04:00

Well today i had a very enriching day... we had our first PGC in Teaching and Learning lecture, it was carried out by Dr Linda van Rydeveld, she is from Tshwane Uni in Pretoria, South Africa.

I was very much impressed by the way she introduced the topic and shared her experience- her first couple of slides were about perceptions. The parallels she drew between what the lecturer wanted to explain and what the student are actually understanding were very nice. What was even better was the fact that she was sharing her experience when she was a student.

The first 'assignment' was something about the qualities of your most memorable teacher, i was thinking about all the qualities of Mr Pourannen Sungeelee, my Physics tuition teacher.....but it was tough...this guy is sooo good.

To share a little story... when i sat for my exams in Year 9 (Form 3), i actually failed in physics, and since i was taking it for my O'levels, i badly needed some extra help...and since a Royal College student who has failed in his exams was considered as an outcast, all the teachers I was asking were coming up with lame excuses.

Finally I got to meet Mr Sungeelee, and as soon as i told him that i failed in Year 9, he said- 'Mo pou aide toi' (I will help you out).

Tuitions were on Saturdays at 13 00, and he agreed to give me extra coaching on Sundays as well, after badminton training.

What makes this man an exceptional person is the fact that he was passionate about Physics and Maths, and always had those stories about discoveries and uses of Physics concepts. H was even Philosophical. He was actually extremey inspiring and dedicated to one thing: He always had this sentence about him not caring if 'did not learn Physics', he was more interested in us actually 'Knowing Physics'. It took me some time to catch up, but end of the line, I got a '1' in physics,
came of 5th in Year 11 and got an A for my A-Levels.

Call that Performance, but that is all thanks to him, his effort and invaluable guidance. God bless you Ton. If there is one of my teachers I have most admiration, it is by far him, and even when we meet now and again, we have very interesting conversations about the 'Philosophy of Science'
Well to get back to today's teaching and learning thing, I came up with the following qualities for a good teacher : (How may of those i possess - my students will be in a better position to answer that)

1. Dynamic and/or wise
2. Passionate and/or in love with his subject
3. Approachable and/or Friendly and/or entertaining
4. Inspiring
5. Humble
6. Ability to demonstrate how the concepts we are learning/investigating are being applied elsewhere
7. Devoted to sharing his knowledge and/or passion
8. Ability to accept that he might be wrong, or is not knowledgeable in a field

I was talking to colleagues last week and i told the that i was very lucky to have such a teacher, simple 'coz he was different. God bless you 'Ton'.I loved his lessons so much that i even went to tuitions when i was not scheduled to. My love for Physics and Maths is greatly due to him.

Most of the concepts explained by Dr van Ryneveld were innate in him.

Anyways, after i finishe my TAL lecture, we went for lunch, and the day went by very quickly.
At 17 15, we were in the common room and Avi asked me if i fancied some 'cold cans of the mythic bird', i said yes, but little did i i know that it would be having diner at his place. I had a splendid time with his kids, and the '4th colour of the Mautitian Flag' Island was very nice with ice cold Orangina.... After some drinks (come on- you do not expect me to say how much) we went in to listen to his 'much talked of ' sound surround system i.e Christina's Christmas Present... the kids were having a very good time singing and dancing around, then it was music time and i must confess that Avi is very goood at playin music using his KAWAI 16-bit Synthesiser, he was amazing me.

After his creative moments, it was time for diner and then got back home.

I had a quick glance to the papers 'et la' The P.M. sacks the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the latter said that it was already a thousand days since the PM said that he will change the lives (I presume he meant improve) of Mauritians, and that he was mot satisfied as nothing concrete was done. Come on, Mr the Minister, did i it take you 900 days to realise that???? I know i am not a sining star, but are you insulting the intellect of those who are brighter than me?

I think you are late in realising that, may be you were too much engrossed in foreign affairs to see what was actually happening locally.

Anyway so be it...looks like you will soon join the opposite political party soon...as usual....Politicians are like Chameleons, they change their colours according their environment.

Tomorrow will be the 2nd day of TAL, i think that for my assignment, i will take a Psychological approach 'teaching' Programming, with mind maps, belief mapping and core belief creation or shifting..seems a difficult task but it is worth the try.

Comments welcome!

Love in C

2008-03-16T21:09:00.002+04:00

Hi there,
I just got a very funny e-mail from one of my MIS students and i would like to share that with you lot...its is soooooooo funny.
----------------------------------
/*C Program to Propose a girl*/
#include#include
#include
#include
#define Cute beautiful_lady
main()
{
goto college;
scanf("100%",&ladies);
if(lady ==Cute)
line++;

while( !reply )
{
printf("I Love U");
scanf("100%",&reply);
}

if(reply == "GAALI")
main(); _/* go back and repeat the process */

else if(reply == "SANDAL ")
exit(1);

else if(reply == "I Love U")
{
lover =Cute ;
love = (heart*)malloc(sizeof(lover));
}

goto restaurant;
restaurant:
{
food++;
smile++;
pay->money = lover->money;
return(college);
}

if(time==2.30)
goto cinema;
cinema:
{
watch++;
if(intermission)
{
coke++;
Popecorn++;
}

}
-----------------------

See people.... C helps...

Take it easy!

A day at the seaside!

2008-03-13T08:25:00.009+04:00

Hi all, we had a lovely conversation about Maths, Music, Physics and Philosophy on Tuesday Mr Dhookit...in his wisdom... pointed out that we are nothing more than stardust...such profound words were sparked by Avinash Talking about the SUN and Nuclear Fusion thereon.

As he rightly explained, we are made up of Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen and Oxygen.
However everything originated from the Sun, Supernovas and... , implying we are nothing but stardust... I even made it funnier by saying that we are all stars.

I know the title of the blog sounds a bit like a STD 6 Essay...but that was how i spent yesterday yesterday.We met at Shoprite and then headed to Pereybere..we all had a wicked time...while some were playing Dominos 'and cheatin'..... i will not mention their names coz 'truth hurts'... but anyways we had a very good time, and in the heat of the day, the 'cold cans of the Mythic Bird' were more that welcome, after some talking, eating, and drinking...it was time for us to enjoy the blue lagoon, we had a wonderful time with the little fairy and Liverpool's 'next Gerrard'.

After spending some time swimming, we got back on the beach and then rented a Kayak for a little 'tour' in the lagoon. It was very nice except that the wind and the current were annoying as we had to constantly reposition the Kayak.

At around 200 m from the shore-line, it felt so nice and relaxing, .
We had a very interesting conversation about people and comfort zones.

When i was working at Accenture, someone from the HR department once told me that the really like people who are confident enough to move out of the comfort zone as this is what brings innovation in an organisation. However most people tend to work and build/limit a comfort zone around them and then never dare move out of that zone. However in a dynamic and fast evolving field like Information Technology, one cannot even dream of creating a comfort zone because by the time you finish building it, you will have only outdated stuff therein. May be we need to have 'The Eleventh Commandment': - 'Fear the divine wrath, you, Computer Scientist lying in your Comfort Zone'

Some people can even not only lie in the comfort zone, others can also lie about their comfort zone..

As Avinash pointed out there is a very big difference between a real Computer Scientist and someone who has :
1. studied 'only Computer Science'
2. 'studied Computer Science only'
3. only studied Computer science.

I will leave it to your interpretation to identify the fine subtleties in these three options.

When we got back onshore, there was a 'Marchand Glacon Rapé' around, and me and Avi had two each. Fer nou 'rapelle kan nou ti zenfant'

Then we were thinking about where to go as some of us wanted a good cup of tea ... the options were limited... in fact there was only one option, and we did not dare!!!

We then headed back home and I reached at about 19 00,

Well, as soon as i got home, i could feel the effect of the Kayaking on my shoulders...as i said... I am not 17 anymore!!!!

With an excruciating shoulder pain, i went to bed only to wake up at 06 30 with a crap weather.
Just wanted to get back to bed, but 'la conscience professionelle a pris le dessus...'

On the way to work, i heard out Prime Minister talking about 'Le Mauricianisme' thie word is not even in the dictionary...how can we ever understand what he means by this word unless he shows us what it means.

I heard that celebrations at Champ de Mars finished at 04 00, and that the 'sense du patriotisme de Mauriciens a été demontré'....

Good Joke!!!

I will take it further- how productive at work will be the 'patriot' be on the 13th of March after partying till 04 00.

Definitivement, l'usage des mots 'patriote' et 'Mauricianisme' est tres subjectif.

Counselling our PSEUDO-PATRIOTS!

2008-03-10T20:33:00.008+04:00

Hi all,
I attended the counselling session today amnd looks like there will not be too many CSE students next year - hopefully quantity won't be much of an issue, consequently we might have quality....lol . I was helped by two CSE students namely Sundeep and Kritee who were really helpful as i believe a school leaver would be more at ease with them than us.

The thing was that these two were so 'cool'ly dressed that students thought our stand was that of Fashion Design and Textile.

'Prenant connaissance du contenu de la brochure.'

I would like to sincerely thank them for their presence. Well done folks! Really appreciated.

It's just a shame that you had a lecture afterwards and had to leave.

Today's most surprising facts are the following: There was a parents who was looking for a course for his daughter...and the daughter was not there...I have heard about voting by proxy-but this one is worse. Its something close to 'YOUR choice of a career path by PROXY' - cotte nou p aller camarade?

Worse still there were those 4-5 girls who had no idea about what they wanted to do as a career and they were in the counselling - i bet that since they are dis-oriented, a career orientation session would be more helpful to them - to give you an idea about how serious it was, they had no clue about 'WHAT FACULTY THEY WANTED TO JOIN'........aint that worrying - well all the taxes you we pay end up 'educating' those kids....Don't you dare tell me you don't pay taxes...whats the VAT you pay on your Phone Cards....

Hey oui... 'Quelle jeunesse!!!' But i am worrying about my old days...coz they are the ones who would be paying my pension...and my free bus fare...lol.

Well tomorrow I have a lab session with some students and I am anticipating a high rate of absenteism... The excuse they will come up with if the megashow and flag raising ceremony...They will try to come up with a cheap excus using a word they don'e even understand the meaning - and this word is patriotism.

I would like to repeat the wonderful words i came across on Avinash's Blog who quoted SRK in one of his interviews:

“Patriotism is when you do your best to succeed in whatever field you are. It has nothing to do with holding the flag of your country and singing glorious songs.”

Well to some of you, you might be singing tomorrrow...but is that really the best thing you can do for your country....think about it. You country needs 'programmers' so be in the labs tomorrow and we might sing glory to thee for 5 mins and then get better in programming for the remaining hour and 55 minutes... the choice is yours.

Are you flag holding singer or a true patriot!

JUST BE HONEST FOR ONCE....TO YOURSELF!

Sur ces belles paroles, je prends congé de votre aimable compagnie...

G@V!N

Tel un phénix qui renaît de ces cendres, Gavin goes Linux!!!

2008-03-08T19:11:00.013+04:00

Hi all, sorry for not posting for a while!!! Well there are several reasons (or i might even say excuses) for that. Well 'la resolution de la semaine' was to go for Linux as OS, early on Thrusday, I asked Anwar to give me a hand for the installation, since the CD he had was not installing for some reason, we requested Pascal to help us out, and he actually gave us the last version of Kubuntu, i.e Gutsy Gibbon. After it was installed, i was amazed by the sheer speed at which the laptop could boot up!!!

Though my sound card and my Wireless LAN are not currently working, and i have spent the last two days and nights downloading packages, i will get my way round that... and as they say : Where there is a will there is a way! Well, i am looking for the 'way' right now... though i am typing from my Desktop which is still running XP...... for how long - God knows!

By the way I heard our valued Minister of Arts, Jokes and Comedy on one of the private radios - saying that he personally attended all the rehearsals for the celebration of our 40th Independence day, this implies we might have two scenarios:
1. All his 'moments' would be perfectly intentional - i.e. he said something funny because he had rehearsed for that
2. He rehearsed so much that he cannot 'possibly' go wrong - but we know he will

Whatever be the outcome - i am sure we will have a good laugh.

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to meet D.Lan, a manager at GOOGLE, who came to UOM to explain about how Google and UOM could collaborate, and because it was GOOGLE, we had a very very short PL lecture....how sad!!!

Yesterday, was the first of three counselling days, and i had prepared the flyers for that, and noticed some mistakes in the flyers today.... to late. Unfortunately, the posters which Avinash had so painstakingly prepared, were for some obscure reasons not printed. Shame! Shame! Shame!!!!

Had a nice conversation with someone from the department about conseling:

The Topic: Shall I 'counsel' them, or tell them the whole truth?

To many, the counseling session is to encourage people to take up A programme at Uni- my definition would be to help them choose the programmes based one criterion only:
Help them find the course which they like or which is more suited to them.

Counselling is providing advice - and advice even be something like 'Do not choose a course in haste, take your time, consider your options and aspirations, choose something in a field you really like, and then go for it'. I also met some parents who were anxious about the future of their child, and the 'reflex' question was :

Eski capave gagne travail ek sa cours la?

The most down to earth and honest answer is : Ek tous cours capave gagne travail, li depende ki quantiter ou bon dans domaine la.

Some people have degrees and yet are not experts in the fields, others have absolutely no degrees and yet are proffesionals.

If we had a course: BSc Fer Dal Puri, would any 1st class graduate of that course be able to beat Dewa or Chapo la Paille..... i doubt...these guys are good in their fields, and its not the BSc Hons Fer Dal Puri which will guarantee you a job.

To get a job there are ONLY two options:
a. Backing Politik - as is often the case in many places, including 'notre p'tite ile paradisiaque'
b. Being better that the others, or even the best!

The choice is yours....
If you choose option one, start sticking posters (even if its against your political ideology) on bus-stops walls for the Political Rallies of the 1st May, and hopefully the guy will remember you when you knock at his door, begging for a favour.

If you choose option two - stop reading this blog and get to your books, your tests are scheduled for week 10, i.e in two week's time.

Well now the bad news! - one of the black goldfishes died today... he got sucked in by the filter (He probably saw finding Nemo and wanted to do the same)...RIP little fish..you will sadly be missed!

After work today, went for some prayers, after which i headed straight to Shoprite for a meal- Debonnairs Large Hot Vegeterian Pizza and Garlic Bread (I think they have lessons to learn from me when it comes to preparing Garlic Bread)

Ok i'd better get going now! Catch u later!

MahaShivarathree

2008-03-05T20:51:00.009+04:00

Well there is something funny about the name of this festival - to me it is ambiguous.

Maha - means Great

Shiva - well I know, its the Man himself i.e. the Lord, or as i prefer 'Nataraja' King of Dancers

Rathree- is derived from the word 'raat' which in Hindi means night

So, does Maha-Shiva-Rathree mean

1. The Great Night of Shiva, or

2. The Night of the Great Shiva....

I personally prefer the second translation... sounds better,

On the way:

Nearly there:

Finally there:
Whatever be the case, I went to Grand Bassin today..... my cousin told me that it all started with a Pandit who had a dream about a lake with a little island in the middle, then he set out for a walk to look for that place....most probably, the guy should have come across Mare-aux-Vacoas on his way.... imagine the face of the guy when he found out that there was no island in the middle of the reservoir. This would have implied that he would have had to keep on walking...poor guy.

Well it might seem funny, but in those days there were no roads of street lights and stuff.... spooky forests all around - call That an act of faith!!!

Anyways this is a great festival and I went to Grand Bassin, and the place does have something 'different'. It was all foggy and this made it kind of mysterious.

Off we go, as we turn round, it seemed as if the statue was wavin good bye though the 'hand gesture' in fact meant that we were being blessed.

I prefer to think it is a 'good bye see you next year', see for yourself!!!

After all the prayers and pujas, we went to another temple called Amma Tookay Kovil at Camp Diable, the Kovil is in the middle of sugarcane fields....its is so nice.

The fact that we did not have any breakfast was starting to be felt... so on the way back home, we stopped at La Flora to have a roadside lunch along with other pilgrims.

Then got back home and rested. Tomorrow will be a very busy day!

Goldfish on Vivaldi!!!

2008-03-03T20:11:00.005+04:00

Hi all, had loads of work today and we had that poster thing for CSE to get out of the way, plus the preparation of test papers has started... p commence chauffer la!!! Before i couls realise - it was 14 00 and i did not have my lunch yet. Went to cafetaria, and found nothing else than CHOLESTEROL and tea. Well, beggars cannot be choosers!! Had about Rs 10 worth of Choloesterol and had a YOP - as you might have guessed... it was a Yop Rumba!

Then got back home and bought some goldfish on the way....
Question : How long will they survive?
Answer: God knows!

Had to wash the little aquarium and check if the pump was working - luckily it was!!! Pheew!!

They look happy and alive, as per the video below:

Well i heard our Minister of Arts and Culture on the Radio today, he was talking about independence and cracked a 'joke' of the sort : 'Quand banne indiens ti sorte dans l'Inde, zotte ine emmene zot culture'..

Cher Monsieur le Ministre, b si Indien pas sorti dans L' Inde, cotte zotte pou sorti? L'Afrique

Well already 40 years, and we could have developed more i am sure, if we had more competent leaders! (Notice the subtlety of the words - should our leaders be more competent, or should we have a greater number of leaders who are competent. Choose your own interpretation!!!)

We all claim to be patriots - this reminds me of a posting of a friend of mine on his blog, and the posting had those wonderful words:

“Patriotism is when you do your best to succeed in whatever field you are. It has nothing to do with holding the flag of your country and singing glorious songs.”

However, many of us are just holding the flag and singing Glory to Thee..., and the Chinese Governement has given 200 000 flags - so my dear singing flag holders enjoy yourselves!!, and enjoy yourselves with the Rs 10 ,000, 000 budgeted for the celebrations, I have heard that there will be fireworks and stuff - our country has so much money that they will waste it in fire and smoke!!!

Anyways!!! No more comments.

All revise zotte Glo -o-o ry to Thee!!! Motherland of motherland of mine.....

Motherland p vine pou etranger -so we need to come up with a new National Anthem. I got the first few line already:

Glo-o-o-ry to thee,

Motherland of motherland of theirs (it belongs to the foreign inverstors)

Sweet WAS thy beauty, sweet WAS thy Fragrance, (now its a concrete jungle with smoke and dust)

Around thee we gatherED,

As one people, as one nation in FEAR, INJUSTICE and MISERY

Beloved country may God SAVE US, for ever and ever!

Your comments are welcome!!!

Blocked in the Parking at Winner's St. Pierre!

2008-03-02T21:03:00.009+04:00

Hello you all jolly folks,

Went to uni yesterday to work a bit, had to go to the printing room and there was a dead lizard on the printer - it probably got electrocuted in the connection box. It looked as if it were fossilized.

Later on went for lunch after which we decided to go and see a friends new born baby! Since its was 'ene plan brite' we went to Winners to buy some stuff to bring along... however, when we got back to the parking, an unconsiderate driver had parked just behind us and this was preventing us to move out of the parking space.

I went in to ask the guys to make an announcement... comble de malchance- the microphone was not working.

We waited for 30 minutes in the parking - the guy did not come! Then the car next to us moved out and then we were able to manoeuvre out. Then went there, had a good chat and then got back home - Internet is working, Yahoo.com, microsoft.com and facebook.com are not accessible.
Called up MT and 23 00 and had a very lively conversation with their technical support (as is often the case when i talk to these folks) and they told me that requests from a whole range of IP addresses were being rejected by some US servers - yet we call ourselves in Cyber island.

Well probably Cyber because of the 'Cyber' Towers at Ebene, and Island coz we are isolated and cut off from the rest of the Digital World.

Anyways - "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." (Romeo and Juliet - W.Shakespeare)

There was a posting some weeks back when i wanted to find the length/size of a dynamic array, i have hunted on different forums for a solution and tried various tricks and it does not seem to work - some even said that there is no easy solution - so should anyone hears about anything please let me know. I do not want to use Vectors by the way!

Well, today Nio visited me today in the new house!!! That was a lovely surprise - he just called and told me he was around - explained him how to get here - he managed except that he turned left when i told him to turn right - is that surprising - well for those who know him well, the answer is NO! As usual my parents were happy to see him after quite some time! Then he left and i went up and Miracle- Facebook is operational, ran a couple (actually 10) races in petrol head and that was it!

Got to go, by the way Miss Tokaiiiiii is complaining that Baby Jasmine is already sucking her thumb - well thats is normal - what would be abnormal would be if she were sucking someone else's thumb....

See you soon !!!

The smiling gardener, Mine Bouille Gros pois, and Microsoft gets fined!!!

2008-02-28T21:51:00.015+04:00

Hi all

Well this is something that i want to share with you people, there is a guy i know, he should be in his late 60's and has worked in the Highlands Sugar Estate for a about 35 years and is now 'retired' though he does little side jobs like gardening and stuff.

This is someone who is happy doing his job... first he is always early to start working, ever smiling and second, he is always in a good mood even after hours of labouring in the scorching sun... we all aim at becoming successful in life, how many of you work for happiness- we work hard till we are 60 - retire and then die some years later. All we have done is surviving - not living.

We were having an interesting discussion today about Pension Funds and stuff. By the time I retire, i belive that i would be needing no less Rs 50,000 as monthly pension to be able to live decently- bearing in mind the decreasing purchasing power, inflation, and economic blablabla!!! Implying that i would have to invest a lot of money now in a pension fund. Then when i am 6o (if i reach that far) i will get a monthly pension. Hopefully, i will enjoy it for a while - but what if i die 59 or 61- would that be worth? Ok let's be unrealistic by being pessimistic!!! Or as someone said, prepare for the worst and hope for the best!!

I believe that we have to enjoy every single day and be happy in what we are doing - Always do stuff you enjoy. This is something i tell the students very often - they usually enrol on a course and then realise that it is not what they like , and they struggle for three years to get that degree and then they will spend their career doing something they derive no pleasure in doing. Most parents want their kids to go to Uni, get a degree and get a white collar job - but is that all??? What about the satisfaction-some jobs simply require customisation of software, others documentation , testing.... but do these really satisfy a young graduate? Well thats very subjective.

Is working in an office a great job- well not necessarily. You might always have people pressuring you, you get stressed.... you are unhappy... and you might die early, without getting that pension. ;-)

Did you study so much to be unhappy in your job? Well this is the sad reality for many! Tight deadlines, delayed releases, faulty software, programs returned coz they are faulty, and on top of that, the Team Lead/ Manager asking you to perform at 150 %. We know what its like, we've been there, and done that?

Compare that you you doing a job u like - passion will drive to to perform at 200%, and you will take everything as play, the deadline will be the end of play-time- Don't forget ; A man who does something he likes never works. Like me! :-)

Would you still be able to have a genuine smile on your face after 8 hours of coding if you do not like programming- i doubt. If you can actually do that, then would that smile be genuine or an attempt to look happy! (Being Happy and looking happy are two separate things)
Should that be a fake smile- who are you fooling! You can answer that!
Always do things you like, this applies to University as well.

Had a lovely time today and the day went by quickly! I had an interesting time with Management with IS guys during and after the lecture and i hope they understood what was explained. I also managed to solve that recurrence relation and i am quite happy about that... my brain is still functioning. I spent a lot of time debugging a ' linked list addlistorder function' in the lab when in fact the wrong function was being called... be careful people!!! I will start charging for helping you debug!!! Miss 'I dreamt about Programming' went to Grand-Bassin today, and I bet she asked Lord Shiva to help her out in Programming!!! Anyways a chacun ses trucs!

Some people - instead of saying 'give me a phone call to remind me' are saying 'give me a function call to remind me'- Programming is getting up their head - that a good sign - they will either get better at it or go nuts about it!!!

By the way had Mine Bouillie Gros pois today - here is a picture - isn't that appealing?

The mean was not enough to change my mood - I am still really annoyed with that Vista-XP networking thing - Windows Sucks!

Mais voila le recomfort: News of the day:

1. EU fines Microsoft record $1.4bn
2. EU Knocks Microsoft Out with a New € 900 Million Fine

People from Microsoft will not say 'They are fine, cos they have been fined!!!'

Bien bon pou zotte!! Zouer monopoly encore apres alle paye fine!! Help me out with XP-Vista networking, and i will give you 1€ - 'Every little helps!!!' you may say its not much: Bear in mind - I come from a developing world country though politicians call it otherwise - and we have no subsidies when we buy WINDOWS OS -costs of which are high!

Haha! Pay the bill Bill !!!

I am fine and Ms is fined!

Bien bon pou zot !

Networking between Windows XP and Vista!

2008-02-27T11:38:00.003+04:00

Hi all, there hasn't been any interesting posting in the last two days.... and the reasons being 'Microsoft Windows is Crap!' I have been trying to connect my laptop to my desktop at home.
The Desktop is wired to a wireless modem-router, and the Laptop can connect to the Internet Through that router. I wanted to connect the Laptop and the Desktop for File and Printer Sharing.... Very simple! .... in theory!

In practice: I am still not able to do it. The reason : To be able to 'see' the PC running XP, we need to have what we call a Link Layer Topology Discovery Responder installed on it. After the installation, both machines can see each other but from one, we cannot access the other - which defeats the purpose of networking. Still desperate, and much more annoyed, I had a look on other forum and they pointed out that there may be another problem - Firewalls.

I temporarily turned both of them off but still no success. Another forum pointed out that XP runs something called NLTM and Vista uses NLTM v2...so we need to 'downgrade' that feature and then hopefully it should work.

The sad and frustrating thing (as is the case with loads of Microsoft Software) is that no where on the Microsoft Support network is the solution mentioned.

I am still struggling and if by tonight this still does not work.... then i would have taken enough crap from Microsoft.

Its a free world and i do not need Windows and Gates.

A funny posting i came across on a forum yesterday is as follows: What a sensible person calls a bug or a system limitation in Windows - Microsoft calls that same thing a 'new feature'.

Aaaaaargh!!!!!

2008-02-25T22:57:00.007+04:00

The Walking urchin.................................

Anyways!!!

Had a lovely time today in the Programming Revision with Management with IS and i even learnt something new and i need to implement that. There is a key word in C++ called Friend.. wonder what it does!

Today, was Coldplaygurl's Birthday and we had an enjoyable chat, i even got sweets... Got home and i have just finished struggling with XP and vista to try to set up a wireless network between the two of them for file/printer sharing.
XP sees Vista but Vista is blind! Will need to sort that out tomorrow. As promised, i am posting the pictures of yesterday's afternoon at the seaside.

Pictures:

------------A horse at la ferme ---------------

-------Calamindass!! ! Simply Bindas!!!

---------An Urchin Shell -----------------

--An urchin in an Urchin --------------

--------Lighthouse at Albion (Pointe aux Caves)--------

-------------My Snorkelling Stuff and my coral!!!!---------------

Wicked Weekend!!!

2008-02-24T20:40:00.005+04:00

Hello all, its been quite a long time since i last wrote somthing on that blog...
Yesterday was Saturday, but that is not a discovery... went to Uni to do some studd, catch up with Scheme... and finish labsheet 2. That printer gave me a hrd time as i constantly had to check if it ws printing correctly... the paper was getting jammed for some obscure reasons. Then I made an attempt to implement Newton Raphson in Scheme and it worked..... Je sais, je sais... who cares!

Then got back home rested a bit then it was time for Ghost Whisperer...not bad... in fact Jenniffer (is it 2 n's and 2 f's in Jenniffer... i do not care) Love Hewitt is too cute in it. Then went up and was kind of idle. Finished the races on Facebook's PetrolHead application and then ... since i kinda like C++ i wanted to try the Newton-Raphson method on C++.

Mais la le choc - et la honte - Gavin Sathan does not have a C++ compiler installed on his home PC and his copy of Visual Studio is in the office.... que faire... quand le demon de la programmation vous tente... a situation exceptionelle - mesure exceptionelle ( ou meme mesure desesperé )... i managed to find the old Turbo C++ Compiler fon the back of a dusty drawer and installed it... when it launched it...

That lovely blue screen appeared..... journey through time.. i am back in 2001. I started coding and managed to implement Newton-Raphson in about 20 minutes, the funny thing is that, i had to code a function to return the absolute double precision value since the one in math.h truncated values to integers or floats (if you are lucky!) and i was having problems with precision of non integral roots... with that done... i went to bed all satisfied!!!.

Woke up... it is Sunday...already!!! ....Pheew!!!.. I am looking forward to go to the seaside as i really fancied a good dive (for those who do not know, i love snorkelling)... As usual, the state of the corals at Flic-en-Flac is deteriorating and we are finding less and less fish and other marine animals in the lagoon...

I wish people could see the extend of pollution (shoes, plastic bags ,bottles,t-shirts, and other clothes which i dare not mention ;-) ) and eutrophication resulting from algal bloom. Only then would they hopefully undertand the extent of the damage

I wanted to catch a fish.. but that proved really hard as the sea was rough. Managed to get an urchin and a baby lobster (it was purple and relly tiny) though... what was funny was the fact that the urchin was in the shell of another urchin...I'll post the pictures and video of the urchin walking on the roof of the car tomorrow.. that was nice. No worries... i am not cruel, both the urchin and the tiny baby lobster were released unharmed exactly where they were caught..... I however... i do not know if they are still alive coz when i released the they were... but they could have been eaten up by other creatures...jokin... hope they are ok... for now... i dnt care if tomorrow they get run over by a car or anything.

After that, i went for the traditional De L'eau Coco and then headed to Albion Lighthouse. Once more i took some pix and i'll post them tomorrow.

Well I just upgraded my car to a Mitsubishi FTO in PetrolHead.. here i come!!

Anyways ... I have said enough for today...

Take it easy

Jeen ends up at Port-Louis!

2008-02-21T20:14:00.013+04:00

The weather outside is too good!! its windy and dry.. jusk like autumn in England.... Those were the days! Had a wonderful day today! Met Jeen and she was late (by 30 mins)as she missed the exit to come to Reduit on the Motorway and had to go all the way to Port-Louis!

Then we had lunch and got back to the office where we had a good chat. i was also trying some C++ code while whe was talking ...which was (i admit) kind of rude... but she is a wicked mate and understands me quite well... The destructors of the linked list were givin me a hard time!!! but manged to work through it ok... then went for the Lab session and i personally enjoyed myself. Mr X was totally right when he said : "Choisis un metier que tu aimes, et tu ne travailleras pas!"... There is wisdom in that man.

Did not have much time to talk to the friends today!!! the time went by really quick. I am looking forward tomorrow for 2 main reasons:
1. Tokaiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!! will be having her baby!!!
2. I have my scheme lecture as well as Programming Methodology.

At least i know that i will have some good news tomorrow, and wonder what's gonna happen in that lecture. All i know is that i am gonna have fun...as usual. Tomorrow, its 'Linked List Returns'!!!!.... the title is like that of a horror movie ....hahhahhhah!!!

Well many of you might have forgotten, but today is the 9th anniversary of the death of Joseph Reginald Topize... alias Kaya

His song 'Chant L'amour' means a lot to me! and i find it is very inspiring
I managed to get a small article about him, part of which is copied below. Click on on his picture to read the full article.
*************************************************

Le 16 février 1999, le mouvement républicain organise un grand concert gratuit en faveur de la dépénalisation du gandia, rue Edward-VII au Réduit, quartier proche de Rose-Hill. 5 groupes sont à l'affiche, dont l'inévitable KAYA.
Valayden ouvre les festivités par un discours en faveur de la dépénalisation des drogues douces, affirmant : "mo pou amène dépénalisation, sinon mo pas pou dans gouvernement", comme l'a rapporté la presse locale. Valayden demande ensuite à la foule de voter à main levée quatre résolutions réclamant cette dépénalisation et lance un appel au Premier ministre Navin Ramgoolam pour que les personnes incarcérées pour possession de "gandia" (environ 2000, soit 75% de la population carcérale, pour des condamnations allant de quelques mois à deux ans) soient amnistiées.

Totalement enjouée par ce meeting la foule se presse et atteind rapidement les 2000 participants. Survoltés, de nombreux jeunes parmi lesquels des rastas, allument impunément leurs joints, provoquant les agents de la Special supporting, qui munis de gourdins, n'interviendront pourtant pas.

Ce n'est que le surlendemain que l'état et les forces de polices décident d'interpeler 5 personnes identifiées comme ayant fumé ou incité à fumer du gandia pendant le concert. Parmi eux, KAYA, qui avoue avoir fumé ce soir là et se retrouve illico presto incarcéré à la prison d'Alcatraz, centre de détention traditionnellement destiné aux gros dealer et criminels.
Une somme considérable de 10 000 roupies (2500Fr) est alors demandée pour la remise en liberté de l'artiste. Sa femme, aidée par ses musiciens et certains membres du MR (pas Valayden), réussit à regrouper la somme et s'apprète à mettre fin à une histoire une fois de plus ridicule et discriminante.

Cependant, suite à diverses maladresses des avocats et surtout à un manque de soutien politique du MR pour le faire libérer rapidement, KAYA ne peut pas sortir ce samedi 20 février et doit attendre le lundi pour être remis en liberté.
Seulement KAYA ne sera plus jamais libre, sa femme ne le verra plus jamais vivant, il est retrouvé mort dans sa cellule, le matin du dimanche 21 février.
Rares sont ceux qui croient à la version officielle, selon laquelle Kaya, en crise de manque, se serait brisé le crâne en se jetant contre les murs de sa cellule. Une contre-expertise demandée par la femme de KAYA, menée par un médecin-légiste réunionnais, le Dr Ramstein, viendra d'ailleurs contredire cette thèse et montrer que la victime a été battue. Elle n'a pas été, pour reprendre le « Margouillat », victime d'un 'accident de mur'... la suite on la connait!

SOURCE: http://www.jahmusik.net/oldies/kaya.htm
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He was a great artist, it is just sad that a man who could 'Chante l'amour' ended up as collateral damage in a fight between politicians.

Interferences!!!

2008-02-20T20:26:00.007+04:00

Hi all!
I have always been a fan of wireless perihpherals for my home and office pc, all of these operate pretty much on the same frequencies 2.4 Ghz... my wireless noise cancelling headphones, my wireless mouse n keyboard, my wireless network card and my Bluetooth adapter.... unfortunately some of these devices mutually interfere and cause a delayed response time. For instance, when the Bluetooth adapter is on, the wireless mouse and keyboard don't respond normally.... its something like hitting a key and the character appearing on the monitor after 2 seconds... Which is very annoying.

Wireless b and g network are even more funny.... they have that scaleback mechanism whereby your bandwidth decreases due to interference without you even being aware of it...crap isn't it... Mobile technologies and its limitations.... that could be the title of an assignment. lol. If you are interested in finding out why they interfere, click here!

I had a lab session today (today was the last lab session in CITS...i will shift in MCID as from next week....pheew what a relief!!)and we went through linked list (...once more), and we even hard coded the implementations for adding a node and displaying the list... i found it fun... except that the implementation was not working for some students and they were meant to send me the code after havin tested theirs. However I managed to come up with my own implementation and in case theirs does not work... They might have to use mine.

Then i was too knackered to tidy up my desk and left it as it is with Lecture notes for Scheme, Labsheets and the file i.e. in an organised mess 'in which i will find all my stuff quickly tomorrow morning'.....(see below!!!)...

First thing tomorrow - Desk Cleaning...lol!

When i left my office, i had my YOP Rumba in the cafetaria.... as usual, except that i met some students and we had a nice chat.

Then got back home and.......

See you tomorrow lads!!!

Asterix & Obelix aux Jeux Olympiques, Scheme.

2008-02-18T20:35:00.009+04:00

Hi all,
I went to play pool today, and i must admit, i kinda lost the touch...need to get back into shape soon... gone are the days where i used to be a pool shark in the Atrium of Middlesex Uni along with the Booze Crew(see pictures below)

The Atrium where i spent the best moments of my Uni days in UK. The bar is in the background and the seats next to it were reserved for us...I will never forget our Friday Sessions, we ruled the Atrium and Dave was a Mate. We even had our say in what type of music would be played, and we even had Bhangra put on when we wanted to dance!!!

The mates, ooh my God i miss you all!!! Raj, Mo, Dina and half of Reeshi :-)

Well watched Asterix Today! Not bad at all for a french movie...;-) Then managed to finish some of the Scheme examples in the lecture notes....though the tail recursive version of Fibonacci gave me some hard time..... luckily 'The Schemer' was there and helped me out.

Looking forward to complete labsheet 3 tomorrow!!!

Some of the students are complaining about the labsheets being 'difficult' i hate that word when used in the programming context... in programming nothing is difficult... they are only challenging, and unless they adopt this frame of mind.. they won't ever enjoy it.

Best of luck you all, programming gets easy once you have an idea about the solution... coding helps you to implement, test and refine that idea. So start lighting the bulbs floating over your heads!!!

:-)
G@V!N

I am missing a wonderful night at 21-22 with Nitish and my SBM m@te$

2008-02-16T20:00:00.004+04:00

I had to go on Yahoo Answers on how to get chewing gum off jeans... freeze the jeans (put it in the freezer) and peel off the hardened/solid chewing gum.... I'll kill that idiot who has put chewing gum on that seat in the bus... Those jean were at 40 pounds in Next.

Today's good news: Priya should be having her baby next Friday... which will make Mo a daddy..get ready with Nappies and feeding bottles Daddy Kool!! Try to keep that kid off the Atrium lads or else he/she will end up like one of us.... i.e. dysfunctional humans.

Went to uni today and had my lecture as on every Saturday morning. Today's topic was on classes. I managed to tricked the students into trying to access the attributes of an interface whereby everything (including the member functions) were private.

Then went to see the staff v/s student pool tournament..... there were some interesting frames though.

After that i went back to the office and then tried to find out how we could find the size of a dynamic array in C++, the first attempts are always tough, but i am sure that the last one will be fruitful!

Anyways... at least now, i got something to think about over the weekend apart from the second labsheet for scheme.

There is a sizeof(array) function and it works wickedly well for static arrays... but i am still facing some problems with dynamic arrays... need to think differently.

However i can't think too much right now, coz i am having a terrible headache... which is so bad that i was unable go to 21-22 with my friends..... :'-(

I tend to believe its because i am not using my specs in the office n in the labs... i am still not using them right now... bad habits die hard.... Next week's resolution- Wear my Specs in office n labs!!!

Yesterday's Joke of the day: To come to uni you need to be 'a brain' not that thing you use to sit on.(I am sure Avinash was referring to chairs....)

I saw the smurfette today and transformed into the pink panther:-
But who is the smurfette!!! You find out!

And she dreams about Programming!!!!

2008-02-14T08:40:00.017+04:00

Well yesterday was pretty tiring and nothing much happened!!!

I realised one thing though:

There are two mindsets to adopt while programming:

1. Make the implementation of the solution so simple such that there are obviously no flaws
2. Make the implementation of the solution so complicated that the flaws are not obvious.

Some people are adopting the second mindset!!! How Sad ...... for me.....!!!

I cracked up when one of my students told me that she has been working so much on a labsheet that she has even dreamed of programming.... I dnt know how to interpret that. Well since she did not say that 'Programming gave her a nightmare..' I'll assume that you only dream about pleasant things. So I prefer to assume that she is enjoying programming!!!

Had only one lecture and that was tiring enough!!! And on top of that, met Tigrooooo!!! Hoo Hoo Hoo, who was in a bad shapes and it worries me coz the state she was in is really bad. I sincerely hope she get well soon and starts bouncing around.....
Please get better n come back, i have no one else to tease!!!:'-)

Take care of yourself Tigrooo! HOo HOo HOo!!!

Got home at about half past six and hey... I had my microwaved Nachos with Peri-Peri and Mozarella..... it did not taste as good without Jalepenos... But anyways!!! Was still better that nothing.

Then went for the usual MSN/Facebook Session....... nothing much apart from that!!!

I did try the returning array/strings thing and i came up with the following code and it worked fine on Visual C++

#include<iostream.h>
#include<string.h>
class tnt{
private:
int* a;
char Name[10];
public:
tnt();
int* getA();
void get_ary_A(int b[]);
void getName(char chr [10]);
char* getptrName();
};

tnt::tnt()
{
a=new int[5];
a[0]=56;
a[1]=2;
a[2]=8;
a[3]=9;
a[4]=14;

strcpy(Name,"Gavin");
}

int* tnt::getA()
{
return a;
}

void tnt::getName(char chr[])
{
strcpy(chr,Name);
}

char* tnt::getptrName()
{
return Name;/*return the string (pointer to char)*/
}

void tnt::get_ary_A(int b[])
{

for(int g=0;g<5;g++)
{
b[g] = a[g];
}
}

void main()
{
tnt channel;

int* A;
int B[5];

char gname[10], gname2[10];

channel.get_ary_A(B);
A=channel.getA();

channel.getName(gname);/*pass string to fn and it behaves as if its passed by ref*/
cout<<endl;
cout<<gname;
cout<<endl;

strcpy(gname2,channel.getptrName());/*returning the pointer to the array and copying result in a string*/
cout<<gname2;
cout<<endl;

cout<<"Using the pointer\n";
for(int i=0;i<5;i++)
{
cout<<A[i];
cout<<endl;
}

cout<<"Using an array passed by ref\n";
for(int j=0;j<5;j++)
{
cout<<B[j];
cout<<endl;
}

}//main

Have Fun!!

G@V!N

The Smurfette, Pain au Raisin, Rummy and Returning arrays from Fns.

2008-02-12T19:43:00.002+04:00

The pairs of extra brackets in Scheme are actually not 'extra' they are needed as per syntactic rules... that's one troubling thing down the line.....

Had a programming revision class today, and at times I got gazes like those in the HiSense Advert on TV. Some were so annoyed that they started throwing the CPUs around..... We have 4 CPUs accidentally falling off their racks... 'Comme Quoi certain(es) expriment leur frustration dans les laboratoires'.. fortunately no one got hurt, but i think the target was.........me... Nah kidding!!!!

So if you work in the CITS lab someday, and your PC is not working... it could also be the case that some Management with IS student used it before you!!! :-)

My lunch break today consisted of 'Pain au Raisin & Fanta & Yop Rumba!!!', for dessert i had a game of Rummy in the Cafetaria. Lost the first game and won the second one in just 2 turns... too good... (Definitely not a balanced diet!!!)

Hey by the way i saw the 'Girl in the Orange top' today except that she was a Smurfette, and she had matching earings. She's blue.. di da di da di di dou.. di da di dam di di dou (....Eiffel 65 moment...)... anyways!!!

When I got back to my office the (supposedly) 'Méchante Miss' did not keep my share of mangoes.... sniff sniff snifff!!! :'-(

Now let's get interesting... i discovered quite a few thing today.... Visual C++ made it hard for me to return a string of text from a member function, but i used a pointer instead... thats the first part.

Anyways for those who cannot understand, we use the following to return a string of text

char * x::get_name()
{
return A;
//where A is a string of text
}

Then in main we can have strcpy( Z, c.get_name() )
//where c is an instance of the class x.

Now we'll assume that an attribute of a class is an integer array, how can we return this array to the main function?????

One option would be to return the pointer to that array but thats not really cool.

Could we not have someting like

int [] X::get_array_A()
{
return A;
//where A is an array
}
But then we would have to copy the whole array A to another array....

AAAHAAAA!!!! (That was a genuine Aahhaaaa moment!) What if we pass an array as parameter in the function as shown below

void X::get_array_A(int copy_of_A[])
{
for(i=0;i<...;i++)
{
copy_of_A[i]=A[i];
}
}

Since arrays behave as if they are passed by reference, when the values of copy_of_A change in the function get_array_A(), the new values will be reflected in main... sounds Brilliant and Crafty but i need to test it........

Come on you could have thought about that!!!!!

Will let u know tomorrow if it really works....

By the way plan 'Mine Bouillie Gros Pois' demain... cool!!!!

G@V!N

Scheme!!!!

2008-02-11T20:44:00.000+04:00

Well, I tried a few problems using Scheme, most of them worked out wickedly well, except that i do not understand why we have to make use of a second pair or brackets using a let* as shown below

(define....
(let* ((V (* 3.14 r r h)))
.
.
.
)
)

I dnt see the need for the brackets in red, because (let* (V (* 3.14 r r h)) looks logically correct, unless there is some concept that I missed.

Anyways your help/comments are much welcome!!!

Looking forward to the next scheme lecture!

Anyways, I have been longing for homemade 'microwaved Nachos' lately, got my Doritos, Mozzarella Cheese, Salsa/Peri-Peri dips, but i cannot find Jalepenos!!!!!!! which is very very annoying. I tried Ebene Way, Shoprite, SuperU..... someone help me please.....

By the way we had a 'mangue + di sel-pima' programme today...... just before tea-time.... haha lucky us!!! And they say you are a 'Méchante Miss'... how dare they!!!! You know who u are!!!

Anyways see u tomorrow!!!

Btw, anyone knows what the following means:
'Lorem ipsum vim ut utroque mandamus intellegebat, ut eam omittam ancillae sadipscing, per et eius soluta veritus' ?

'Mine frire, Bouillon Meefoon & Chips '

2008-02-09T22:20:00.000+04:00

For those of you who are used to reading through my facebook, well you were aware that last week there was that episode whereby the 'Girl in the Orange top' said 'Bonjour Monsieur!' to me but I could not figure out who the girl was, well i finally managed to remember.... i bet you lot are hoping that i will tell you. But as crafty as i am, i won't.

Today I did around two hours of revision, and there were about 60 students.... I hope they did not waste their time. Then met 2 of my ex-HRM students and went to Cafetaria till 13:26 when Anwar called. since we were meant to go for lunch. 'Plan ti supposer Mine bouillie cari Gros pois', but we ended up going to Quatre-Bornes, just to realise that lotus was closed- Chinese New year. So we ended up at Jango's 'Mine frire, Bouillon Meefoon & Chips '.

Then back to home and set the resolution to work on Scheme, but i left Dr. Scheme in the office.....Believe me! i really need Memogen!!!
Looking forward to the Sunday ahead.

Can we teach people Programming Methodology by 'teaching' them Programming?

2008-02-09T08:28:00.000+04:00

I believe one cannot teach Program Methodology by teaching only Programming.

Programming methodology deals with the analysis, design and implementation of programs (John E. Howland, Trinity University, Texas).

Programming (often shortened to programming or coding) is the process of writing, testing, debugging/troubleshooting, and maintaining the source code of computer programs (Wikipedia),

Programming is the process of expressing an algo/flowchart/psedocode in a computer language.

By definition, these terms (Program Methodology & Programming. ) are different!

I believe that if we fail in imparting the analysis, design, and implementation skills, we cannot 'produce' decent programmers.

The key would be to help them acquire problem solving (analysis & design) skills which can then be expressed using any language (whether its a natural or Programming language).

Should the person not be able to express the solution in a natural language let's say 'English', it would be silly to teach him to program in any language.

However the main situation I am witnessing, is the fact that some people are failing to fully understand the problem leading to major difficulties when it comes to conceptualising a possible solution.

As a matter of fact it one cannot conceptualise, this implies that one cannot express the idea- this results in one's inability of program.C'est un problème de fond!!!

We are now in a paradoxical situation - can we teach people to think or is it something they have to learn by themselves?

IMHO should i try to 'teach someone to think'- this would be a failure, because i will only be able to teach that person to think like I do, what about his brain, to a certain extent I would be suppressing his creativity and decreasing the number of 'Aaaaha' or 'Eureka' moments . What fun would there be in that?

G@V!N

Avinash doing PL!

2008-02-08T21:55:00.000+04:00

I had some problems with imperative languages and the integer rounding off, resulting in failure to generate Cipher text using RSA. Talked to Avinash abt it, he told me about Scheme.
Went to the first Scheme Lecture today... it was wickedly cool.. even started reading the prescribed textbook (...which is surprising...) and came across the wonderful words below;

It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program.
What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?
-- Alan Perlis, Epigrams in Programming.

Cracked up with Avi's joke which goes:
Computers are rational... unlike women!!!

Anyways Scheme... here I come!!!