Blog

Last week I had (what I thought was) the rare privilege to have a conversation with Jimmy Wales, the reluctant-to-admit-so co-founder of Wikipedia.

It was all a part of the #NetNeutrality campaign to save the Internet. I built a Firefox add-on called Zero Internet which would simulate what happens to a poor mother of three (who can’t afford a data-pack) when she visits the “Internet” through Internet.org.

I submitted it to reddit, and for a few hours, it was the top post on r/india (which, to be honest, has been the rendezvous for sane Indian Internet users, and would have upvoted even if Deepika Padukone supported Net Neutrality).

Surprisingly, Jimmy Wales responded (with harsh criticism), both on twitter and on reddit, as if he was personally leading Internet.org. He said:

“This is deeply dishonest and makes me think you haven’t even done the most basic homework as to how this works.

In all cases, people who are using Internet.org are on data plans (often daily plans or plans with quite restrictive data caps). One reason Facebook has been successful at getting ISPs to go along with this is that it is viewed as a win/win by the carriers – it gets people online and using data.

For the very poor, if they can’t even afford a daily plan, then they don’t look at the Internet at all. At least this way they have something. For those who are a bit less poor, the program offers them a way to save money on data – they can look at some sites for free (like Wikipedia) and use their precious data for other things.

Your plugin gives a completely false impression.”

…which is quite contrary to what Mark Zuckerberg is making people believe (He says Internet.org is about bringing Internet access to those who do not have it yet) and also calling my add-on dishonest was dishonest. For poor people who can’t afford data plans, going out of the sites allowed by Internet.org is impossible. And that’s exactly what my add-on does.

So, on twitter, I went on a couple of rounds of arguments over the issue. And it turns out Jimmy Wales really, truly believes that Internet.org is the only way for poor people in India to access Internet.

Afterwards, Pirate Praveen helped me understand why I was feeling awkward.

“the problem is with your expectation. We want angels and devils so we don’t have to think. But everyone has both these aspects in them. Just because someone does a lot of good is not a reason to support them when they do something wrong. Attacking someone who is in opposing camp is easy. But standing up to someone in your own group needs immense courage and conviction. Every privilleged person thinks its their god given mission to help the poor and show their kindness. They do not want to acknowledge that their privillege is the result of historic oppression and they are part of the reason why they remain poor. They think poor people needs charity and kindness. What we really need is a conscious collective effort to end systematic oppression of people and that will need questioning of our own roles and privilleges. Accepting our role in creating the poor is much harder than feeling good about helping poor.”

In fact, I now have a tagline for Wikipedia (which I would have never thought about till last week)

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to *some* of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.”

NB: Jimmy Wales is an Objectivist. His life philosophy is based on that. And therefore any comment on where Objectivism gets it wrong is appreciated.

One of the many things I like in life is talking. I like to discuss things, dissecting events and analyzing situations. It gives me some kind of strange pleasure when there’s clarity in my mind on every way to think about an issue.

Say, there is a forward on the IM client that is obviously a hoax. The things that go through my mind include but are not limited to:

• Why is it a hoax?
• Why is it believable?
• Why do people believe in it?
• Why do people forward it?
• Why do even people who do not believe it forward it?
• Why do people who forward it not take it seriously when asked about it?

Following these thoughts to their completion makes me comfortable. It lets me classify the forward (the event) to a folder in my brain. The next time I see an event of the same kind, I know all the patterns surrounding it. And there is less need to think about it. This somehow simplifies thought.

But the first time a new kind of event occurs, I spend a lot of time thinking about it, characterizing it, judging it. Sometimes this involves talking with, arguing with people (although most people do find this annoying). But the process gives me clarity. And clarity is golden.

There are times when I see events repeat. I find it incredulously boring to talk about them when I have already gained clarity about it. That’s why I write things down. So that I can point people to my thoughts on the event. When they have a new way of looking at it, I will come back and discuss it.

Some issues have been discussed so much that any more of discussions on it would be like eating after you’ve finished a buffet dinner – nauseating.

Then there are issues about which talking is equivalent to whining. Things that can be fixed straightaway (or if not, that deserves to be attempted). Here, not doing what is logically the right action after discussion makes me nauseous. Therefore, sometimes, I shun away from the discussions altogether.

Those are the times when there’s nothing left to say. Everything left is to be done.

Each day passing, I am turning more and more a feminist. Although I abhor extremism in feminism (I do not think calling every action of a man “sexist” is the right way to achieve gender equality), I cannot overstate the importance of visualizing the routine, systematized discrimination against women based on their gender alone.

In this address to the UN as its woman ambassador, Emma Watson says how it is important for men to be participating in women empowerment programs. By alienating men from gender equality programs, we are just increasing the gender gap. Read more at HeForShe.org

Yet, that is what some feminists do – give no respect to men, attack them on whatever they do or say.

Read about the dongle joke that spiralled way out of control. 

But all these are issues of fine adjustment. There are coarse course corrections to be made in countries like India.

“India’s Daughter” is a documentary that was released today by BBC. And it shows how vulgar the mindset of many Indians are. If you watch that documentary, you get avulsed not by the guilty defending himself, but by the lawyers of the rapists trying to define the role of women in society.

And to ban that outright is worse, from the Government of India. Anyhow, I have a few mirrors at learnlearn.in/indias-daughter/#mirrors

I’ve found myself guilty of (unconsciously at times) discriminating against my female friends many times in the past. Every time it is discovered, I try to never repeat the mistake. Yet, there is so much to unlearn that I still commit new mistakes. Anyhow, I am a feminist. I know that manhood and womanhood are just two colours of human beings.

Morality is a dilemma for many – “What is right for me is not necessarily right for you. Am I right in forcing you to see things my way?”

Christopher Hitchens and Shashi Tharoor debate for over an hour in the above video about which is more important – “freedom of speech” or “not hurting others’ sentiments”.

The dilemma is that if we concede to Tharoor’s argument and censor ourselves in whatever we say we will turn into a gun without bullet, and on the other hand if we follow what Hitchens says, to speak our mind out without worrying about the consequences, we will all turn into guns shooting each other.

After thinking about this issue for weeks, literally, I have come up with a middle ground.

First I’ll explain why it is necessary.

We should do what we feel is right because otherwise we are doing it wrong. It is mean on our part to see “wrong” and not react. Do not conform to majority opinion, or minority opinion, or anyone’s opinion because they could all be wrong. We do not know the absolute truth, or the absolute right. But what we do know is our “rights” and our “truths”. Be courageous to put it forth.

Now I am sure some of the readers will take it down the slippery slope and say that this argument favours terrorism – what they feel is right, they do. But I have not finished my point. Keep reading.

But what if I am not sure what is right? In such a situation just listen to all sides and form an informed opinion which you are ready to change if proved wrong later. It is fine to change your opinion. You could support someone and later oppose them if it turned out you were wrong, or vice versa. You could support an ideology and later oppose it if that is better in the light of new knowledge.

Okay, I know what is “right”. But am I right in forcing others into my “right”? They have their right to have their “right”, right?
True that. This is where terrorists are wrong. While asserting their right they are taking away the others’ right to live, learn, etc. We can do what we feel is right as long as we don’t deny others their rights.

Is that the ground-breaking middle ground insight that I promised? No. We have all heard “Your freedom ends where my nose begins”. But what we have not heard is how to swing our hands in such a way that it almost reaches the opponent’s nose and scares them, but does not touch their nose and cause harm.

It is this line that we must aim at. A war in which both parties shoot, but not at each other. Where do they shoot then?

They shoot into the consciousness of the society. I can explain.

You know that ethyl alcohol is a harmful substance. When you see a lot of people drinking it, you feel like the government should ban it. But by banning drinking – even when a person is not a government servant, not responsible for anything, or is a dead waste in the world – you’re essentially shooting at the alcoholics and denying their right to drink whatever poison they want to (Note: Of course there’s a question about suicide being legal or not). There is an alternate way. Though it is more difficult and long, it puts you in a moral ease. And that way is to shoot your argument at the masses and convince them collectively that alcohol is a harmful substance. Like what Dr Dharav Shah does.

You know that Bollywood/Tollywood/Kollywood/Sandalwood movies are produced by perverts who want to make money by tickling our dicks. You know that actors and actresses are selling their bodies off under the pretext of “doing it for the script”, “what the character demands”, and you feel the society is being exploited. But you shall not ask the government to ban these movies. You shall not tear the posters and make filming impossible. What you can do without consciousness prick is criticize them vehemently, call them what they are – hypocrites, expose their lies, and raise the society’s awareness about how they are being exploited.

Still not sure you are right enough to do such good things for the society? Think of this. Collectively our society thinks very less. Its opinions are heavily shaped by the mainstream media and easily biased by glamour and money.

It is a place which cannot understand sarcasm, takes words by the face value, and listens to celebrities (politicians and actors) – whatever shit they say.

It is a place where emotion rules over logic, and superfluous thoughts and ideas triumph over deep, far-sighted visions on any day.

And if you read so far be assured your “rights” and “wrongs” are better than those of 95% of this society.

Mozilla is asking all of us to throw parties all over the world from July 15 to September 15. Webmakers all over the world are responding by hosting “Maker Parties” wherever they can.

I did one too.

This is a report for the sake of other webmakers.

To begin with there was me. I have been getting a lot interested in the web ever since the Firefox 29 launch party in Bangalore a few months ago. Also, I was learning web developer’s power tools like yeoman after getting stuck with optimization of saMMsCRIthi ’14 website.

And there was Swathi. The moment she heard about maker party she was excited and wanted to host one at her home. Since she had WiFi all we wanted was some participants.

After postponing the event twice about 10 people were all set to attend on August 31, Sunday. I registered the event only two days before the party. And therefore there was no point asking Mozilla for some stickers or banners. So Swathi took colour prints of the webmaker logo, firefox logo, etc and made some awesome goodies on her own!

The awesome self-made goodies by Swathi. Note that the maker party stickers on the left had double sided sticky tape behind it so that they could be stick-ed anywhere.

Since our event was from 12 noon to 7 in the night, Swathi also had to take care of lunch. Thanks to her awesome mom for the nice food!

I’d remixed a teaching kit and made this kit
for a small maker party. But it was very boring what I came up with.
So, most of the activities were planned an hour before they happened.

I reached the venue at 10 am, well in advance to make sure everything would work fine, but that wasn’t necessary because the host had taken care of it all. All I had to do was get the WiFi password and make sure it was connectable. 10-12 I made a small webpage for the event which was useful in demonstration of some activities too.

Luckily not all 12 of the people who wanted to come did come. Therefore everyone could sit in 2 couches + 3 chairs in one room.

See how cramped everyone was. But that made working together easy.

Around 1 we started with the IP by hand activity. I believe that people should understand the chain of events that happen whenever they do anything, and if they do they can easily understand everything else surrounding it. So the participants assumed the roles of browser, router, ISP, DNS, internet backbone, server, and domain name registrar. And then we sent IP like requests with originating address, to address, etc in a piece of paper.

Immediately after that I could explain how the router works, how our 6 computers were connected to each other even if we removed the wire connection from Airtel. We went to 192.168.1.1 and learned how to configure the router. Then we went to 192.168.1.2 where I had the local version of the event webpage running and I explained how a server works. We pinged each other on the local network, we pinged google and was surprised at how different people got different IP addresses to ping (although we were all connected via the same internet connection). I explained the various load balancing issues involved.

After that we started learning browser shortcuts. This could have been planned better with some competitive activity between teams. Instead we were just opening new tab, closing that, searching google, etc without using the mouse.

An ultra-small quiz was held when we were all on India wiki. I would ask a question based on some sentence in the page like “Who ruled Gangetic plains from 606 to 647 CE?” and the teams would ctrl+f to find the answer.

Then we had lunch.

All plates were clean when we were done

Following lunch I talked about domian name, URL structure, https connection, certificate. And the importance of making sure these are proper when we’re banking or shopping.

Then we solved 3 privacy challenges. There could have been more challenges using the myriad privacy settings in facebook to hide things from people.

Then I gave a small intro to all the tools available in google using the more -> even more page. We started typing on a Google doc, all of us at the same time.

Then we used google search tricks, to uncover secrets about the participants and people we hate. We would use queries like:

• “name of person”
• name of person site:rguhs.ac.in
• “name of person” +mysore

Since most government details are put online (without any consideration of privacy) we could easily find some interesting stuff.

To introduce the need for HTML I asked everyone to draw a small webpage for themselves in a piece of paper. They made nice shining pages. Then I asked them to reproduce what they did in notepad. Everyone would get stuck at line 1, because there’s no center align in notepad. Once stuck, I introduced thimble, and the need for mark up. With the concept in their head, all I had to tell them were “h1”, “p”, “a href=””, etc , and they soon started asking me the tag for inserting images, the attribute to restrict image size, etc. And they made these. I missed telling them to tag the makes and now it is difficult to find the beautiful makes.

To wrap things I spoke about Mozilla and the open web.

That web which makes you read this. Without which life would have been much more difficult. Which is consistently denied to many people in certain parts of the world. Which is under-utilized in most places sheerly due to ignorance. Which is scary for some, which is the only way to communicate for some. Which is the one biggest reason the world feels so small.

Mozilla is all set to sell Firefox OS smartphones that costs $25 (~₹1500) in India.

Who is Mozilla?
Mozilla is to Internet what WHO is to world’s health.

Mozilla is a community of “Mozillians” from all over the globe with a common mission – to build a better internet.

Most of us know Mozilla as the non-profit organization behind the mighty web browser – Firefox. But Firefox is just a small part of what Mozilla does. Mozilla plays an active role in promoting the openness of web, bringing down disparity and bridging the digital divide, and empowering citizens all over the world for innovation.

They do this through building products that transform the way we interact with the web, through educating the world about the web, and by influencing policy making in matters related to the web.

A screenshot of the mozilla.org homepage

What is Firefox OS?
Firefox OS is an operating system for your mobile device, an alternative to Android, iOS, Windows, etc.

It is built using the same set of tools that is used to build the web – HTML5 and other open web standards. This makes it easier for people to develop applications for Firefox OS. In fact, any website on the web can become an app on Firefox OS – because they are built using the same tools.

What this means for the end user is that there will be a lot of apps – a lot of apps – that runs on Firefox OS.

How is it different from Android, iOS, etc?
There are differences at multiple levels.

Everything in Firefox OS is a web app. In fact the entire user interface of Firefox OS is a web app. The camera app is a web app. The dialler app is a web app. These are all written in HTML5, css, and javascript, like the websites are written.
In other operating systems, you write apps in different languages, like java, C#, etc. And this brings on the additional complexity of having to know those languages.

Firefox OS needs very little resources. It runs on very low-end phones. The minimum hardware specs required are low, and the cost of devices in turn becomes low.

But the most important unique feature of Firefox OS is that it is adaptive!

3 screenshots of a Firefox OS phone showing how it is adaptive

When you search for soccer, you get all the apps from all over the web related to soccer, and so on.

Cool! Where do I buy a Firefox OS device?
Like all other phones, you buy Firefox OS phones from shops! 😀

Update:
So, do I need an internet connection always on to run Firefox OS?
No! Actually, there are two kinds of apps in firefox – hosted app, and packaged app.

Packaged apps (like dialler, sms, cut the rope game) work offline (though they can connect to the web if needed). All the resources they need are already downloaded when you download the app initially (or when you buy your phone, in case of default apps).

Hosted apps (like facebook), are hosted at their own websites. Hosted apps are usually used only when the content that is shown in the app is regularly changed online (think of news, social networks, etc).

For all practical purposes, Firefox OS needs internet connection only in the cases the other platforms (android, iOS, etc) need internet – to update the system, to install new apps, to browse the web.

“Orkut is dead. Facebook murdered it” – read the name of a facebook page which had millions of likes around the time I started using facebook.

If we can fall in love with social networks, Orkut was my first love. And like all firsts, Orkut was very special to me.

Everyone on Orkut had a scrapbook. It was like the facebook wall. Anyone could write in your scrapbook, and anyone could read your scrapbook (unless you’ve changed the privacy settings, of course). Back then, there was no ajax or continuous scrolling. One could see only 10 scraps at a time, and had to press “next” to see the next 10.

Scrapbooks used to easily fall prey to worms every now and then. One such Brazilian worm fondly called “Bom Sabado” (Good Saturday) spread when people clicked on a link in one of their scraps. It would send everyone a “Bom Sabado” scrap. Incidentally, this was asked in a tech quiz while I was in Class XI and I answered it right.

Communities were central to the Orkut experience. They used to have polls, events, and forums. Discussions in these forums were probably the first time I came across rationalism, and a lot of other beautiful stuff.

For a very short time, I was the moderator of Dr APJ Abdulkalam Fan Club which had over 2,00,000 members at that time. I was also the moderator of a cricket community for a long time, although I didn’t have much interest in Cricket.

A couple of years after I quit it to concentrate on class 10, I met the owner of that community in a super-fast train following a series of bizarre events. Me, +Nishan Ansari, and +Rajendran Sir (our Physics teacher) were travelling towards Kannur from Calicut after a medical quiz organized by the Calicut Medical College. We reached the railway station just in time for Rajendran Sir to barge ahead of the queue and get a ticket for the Mangala Express waiting on the platform. In the hurry we got into a reserved compartment. The ticket examiner let us sit there till the next stop. As soon as we got down at the next stop and got into the general compartment right next to it, I realized I didn’t have my Nokia 3120 Classic with me. I ran back to the first compartment to see if it had fallen where we were sitting. Rajendran Sir followed me, but Nishan stayed back in the general compartment. The train had begun moving when I discovered that the phone was inside my own bag. In short, we had left Nishan alone in the general compartment and come to this compartment for no reason.

And then, while we were standing at the door reading Nishan’s SMS about how his compartment was filled with cigarette smoke, a man with long hair that stood out like it does when you touch a Van de Graaf generator, emerged from the toilet side, and shook my hand asking if I was Akshay. He revealed himself as Unmesh Menon, aka Arcadian, the owner of the cricket community I was talking about. He was on a family trip to Kerala temples during his holidays between the PhD course he was doing in Optics at some German university. And that became the strangest coincidence in my life till then, and it remains so.

Orkut allowed us to see who visited our profile. Pretty much like how LinkedIn allows it now. This was both good, and bad. Good, because you could find out if someone is looking at your profile, and bad, because you can’t stalk at other’s profile.

There was also testimonials – you rate people and write a paragraph about them. And crush detection – you could tell Orkut if you have a crush on someone, and if the other person does the same to you Orkut will notify both of you about your crushes.

Above all, Orkut gave a huge prominence to our “about me”, much unlike facebook. Maybe facebook ditched that because “How would you describe yourself?” is a tough question in interviews.

I signed up and operated Orkut for a long time using a dial-up connection provided by BSNL. I think BSNL still provides this dial-up facility. All you had to do was connect your phone line to the modem of your computer, and then create a new dial-up connection with *99# as the number, our phone number as the username, and “bsnlten” or something as the password. The billing was based on the duration we remain connected and not on how much we download.

When I made it impossible for anyone to reach my home over phone, my parents had to get a broadband connection. And after that, I’d shuttle between school and Orkut all the time of my life.

On December 21, 2010, all my online accounts were cracked. My facebook account was defaced, my username changed to asdofpakishthan, (from asdofindia). My Google account was deleted, along with this blog, and so was my Orkut account. I could repair the damages and recover almost everything. Except the poor Orkut account. A new Orkut account was created automatically when the Google account was restored, and the old account was lost forever.

And for me, that was the end of Orkut.

Google decided to say bye bye to Orkut yesterday. And I have no data to take out from it.

Cliché, yet human beings are social animals. We can not live without social validation of our thoughts. That is why we communicate. That is why we debate, fight, and struggle hard to prove ourself right. Heck, that is why I write this post even.

Maybe this is an evolutionary trait. If we do things that are accepted by others, they cooperate with us. And then we copulate.

A less rudimentary way of looking at it is that our brain likes to have an accurate and complete idea of the world around it. It keeps updating its world-view to fit facts and observations that keep pouring in.
Lose a tooth. Now try to keep your tongue away from the hole that leaves. Impossible? Because the brain wants to make sure what it thinks is missing is actually missing.

When the knowledge is incomplete, the brain seeks feedback to make it complete. If you see someone moving, you look up at his face to know who he is. If you hear something fall, you turn around to see what it was.

When it comes to ideas, brain seeks feedback from other brains. This is what I called validation. We express ourselves so that others agree/disagree with us so that, in turn, we can strengthen/correct our idea. That is why authors love feedback and artists perform better when audience applauds.

Social networks make this process easier.
They bring people together on a single platform so that people can exchange their views, and give feedback on others’ views. They let our brains relax and feel at home.

This also makes them an essential part of the internet. The internet is analogous to the world. The users are us people. And the discussions on social networks are the conversations we have in real life. It is difficult to lead a life without communicating – in the real world, and on the internet.

Orkuts will die. But social networks will live on.