I went into Scholar Preferences (top of the page) -> Bibliography Manager, selected the option “Show links to import citations into” and select BibTeX and saved preference. Now, for all search results, Google Scholar gives me a link for “Import into BibTeX”.  Hallelujah!

This was working fine till I installed Linux Mint 9 Isadora on my laptop and one fine day it just stopped working for me. Every time it would try to install the client, I would get an error message saying:

modprobe for tun driver failed

I searched for solutions online and I found this: http://mad-scientist.us/juniper.html
The guy is providing a custom script to help you install the client on your machine, but I realized that I did not have to go so far. I also found some people saying that the juniper client has had issues with openjdk on certain linux systems. So I went ahead and uninstalled openjdk from my box:
$ sudo apt-get remove openjdk-6-jre

Next I installed sun’s jdk and browser plugin:
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-plugin
I restarted the browser, went back to vpn.organization.com, and everything started working fine, even though I continued to get the modprobe error.

Your manuscript requires three blank, unnumbered pages: one at the beginning of your manuscript, the second one after the copyright page and the third one at the end of your manuscript.

Now, since my thesis was formatted using latex, it took a little bit of searching. The solution was quite simple, but not so easy to find. Thanks Night Walker.

\newpage
\thispagestyle{empty}
\mbox{}

Add the above block of code to your main document and you will be good to go. Essentially this creates a new page with an empty style, and adds an mbox with empty text.

So I took a backup of the database, a manual backup of the entire blog directory using ftp, and just followed the instructions. True to the word, it updated the web-app and the MySQL database in a matter of seconds. I really like this new interface, but I am still looking for desktop publishing applications that can simplify the blog post process easier for me because I hate to have to muck with the HTML code myself. So, I am going to experiment with a couple of publishing applications for a while.

But all that apart, people who went with the intention of meeting their favourite authors had a successful day, and that was perhaps the only worthy reason to go to the festival because the book festival did not have any book stalls (other than a jam packed Borders tent selling only very specific books).

Anyway, so I wen’t to catch a glimpse of  Rick Riordan since I am an insane Percy Jackson fan.I got to the pavilion atleast 15 minutes in advance while the previous author was still speaking. After some pushing and jostling I finally edged into the tent and escaped the rain outside. There was hardly any place to stand but I positioned myself so that I could operate my camera.

His talk was quite funny in general and he gave his eager fans a glimpse of what is in store for them in the upcoming months:

1. There will a second Camp Half Blood series of books (yes you heard it right!) coming up soon. I forget if he mentioned when it will be out, but he mentioned that there will be more of Percy and Annabeth to come although Percy will not be the main character in the new series and there will be a new generation of demigods. The new series will probably be based on the next big prophecy that we encountered in “the last olympian”.

2. May next year is going to be about Riordan’s next novel that is based on Egyptian mythology. Now that is something that sounds really exciting. Riordan even read the first few lines from this upcoming book that he says is currently with his editor now!

3. Finally he talked about the Lightning Thief movie that is set to release in February next year. He mentioned that the role of Chiron will be played by Pierce Brosnan and that of Medusa will be played by Uma Thurman. Now that is some interesting cast.

Since I am travelling currently, I will upload pictures soon.

But I was wondering what is it that allows an airport to host a free wifi connection. Large and prestigious airports like the O’Hare Int’l airport at Chicago do not have a free wifi connection. What is it that prevents them from doing so? What is the business model followed at the lesser known airports that lets them provide this service to travellers?

“What can we as citizens of a civilized society do to protect our interests? The cause of these terror attacks are varied in various places, but it is innocent people walking on the street who bear the brunt (and the people who go out to fight for us)”

And I have been thinking about this on and off. I have asked this question to several people. I am just plain baffled by the lack of responses or ideas. Varish said that it is time for the political system of the country to start acting tough. Really? Is this the time for the gov to start acting? The government should have acted way too long ago. Anyway, that is not even the point.

We all have conceded at some point that the government of ours is not doing much other than condemning the attacks and making vain platitudes. The dirty politicians will even turn this to their advantage so that they can gain political mileage for the upcoming general elections.

All right! Enough trash talk. We know that the government is not doing what it is supposed to. So I ask the question again. What do WE do? We are the educated elite of the country. We cast those votes. We elect those representatives. Is there something we can do to help? I feel we are totally lost on that question.

I suggested doing a signature campaign amongst the student and young professional networks in and out of India. We could send those signatures with a message to our respected Prime Minister. My good friend asked me whats the point behind a signature campaign? I said, “we need to make sure that the government understands that the educated elite of the country, both in India and abroad needs to see some real action now, and not just empty promises.”

Then he asked me a question to which I did not really have an answer: “Doesn’t the government already know that it has to battle terrorism?” . Just that any Indian government does not have the guts to take the right steps which are against their own self serving motives. And even we the people are to blame. Everytime there is an attack on teh city, we say that Mumbai is unbreakable. We are the most resilient city in the world. Hell we don’t want to be resilient! Why is it that all these pains and agonies are forgotten a couple of days after the bloodstains have been washed? The sacrifices of the security forces and the pains of the people disappear into oblivion and we settle down into our old routine. This continues till the time there is another attack. Oh yes, don’t be fooled into thinking that they are done.

So I was set into thinking what would the damn signature campaign achieve? It would probably serve the purpose to make it clear to the government that we are pissed off. But doesn’t the gov already know that? Like Jayu said “they cannot be that detached from public sentiment”. So how do we make them do it? In an ideal democracy (oh and we are very proud of the fact that we are a democracy) the people are able to hold the gov accountable for their actions and inactions. Why can’t we do that in India?

“Electoral power is supposed to be the form of public control over its govt in a democracy. Here it gets sold for free sarees and rice during election time. The educated middle class has a very small say in the overall process.”

So this is my sincere message to everyone reading this post. This general election, PLEASE GO AND VOTE. Cast a responsible vote. Our only goal should be to cast aside all our feelings of mutual distrust and communal agendas and questions of religion and reservation, and elect a government that would actually ensure that our people don’t get slaughtered on their own street.

The only other weapons that we have are the RTI and the PIL. But only the legislature has the right to ammend the constitution. The courts can only direct the legislature to do something. So let us wield the only real weapon we have. The right to vote. Let the current government understand that they have to prove a point to us, and that we are watching. And let them consider this a threat: we will not vote for you if we do not see results.

Note to all the readers: If you have any ideas, post a comment.

But there was something very different about what happened today/yesterday (depending on which part of the world you live in). All this while the terrorists were hidden; they planted bombs clandestinely and ran away. This time, they had the guts to walk into my city, fire at people, lob grenades, hold people hostage and gut some of the main spots in the city. What is noticeable is that these terrorists have targetted places that are frequented by westerners. Colaba is an area that has a good density of foreign tourists and the Taj hotel (where one of the bloody gunbattles are being fought) plays hosts to several foreign tourists and business delegates. This is not just an attack on India. This is an attack on all the good people of the world who want peace.

There were reports of these terrorists dragging people out of the hotel and asking for their passports to look for people from the US, UK and the like. I don’t know if this is confirmed news (it was definitely aired on one of the news channels broadcasting the events, so I took it at face value).

A few questions strike me:

1. Why is it that we are not able to prevent such blatant attacks on our home? Is our intelligence system so bad that we had no clue?

2. What do these terrorists want? Perhaps we could make a deal with them if we are too scared to go out and settle scores (atleast that seems to be the case to me a lot of times, and a lot of people will agree)

3. What can we as citizens of a civilized society do to protect our interests? The cause of these terror attacks are varied in various places, but it is innocent people walking on the street who bear the brunt (and the people who go out to fight for us)

The situation in India is unique, as compared to other countries that face the threat of terrorism. We have several internal problems and have a very troubled history, marred by communal conflicts. The scars of such conflicts are magnified by terrorist masterminds who turn troubled youth into blood-thirsty monsters. In the very early days of terrorism, terrorists used to be foreigners (I will not name the country, but we all know who I am talking about). As time progressed, terrorists started to come from interiors of the country. These are dissatisfied youth, who have been affected by communal clashes, who are brainwashed by the big terrorist organizations, trained by them and sent back into our country to cause misery to innocent people.

The solution has to be two pronged:

1. Deal with the external elements who propagate the terrorist ideas and fund such endeavors. This can only be done when like minded countries cooperate with each other to end global terrorism. This is because all global terrorism is interlinked and is funded and propagated by the same set of big organizations.

2. Deal with the internal elements. Bust the sleeper cells. Throw out the hidden extremists. Enforce the rule of law so that the gullible youth is not misguided by these scumbags.

All this has to be implemented around a framework that is designed to prevent such future occurences. A working intelligence system (do we really have one?), a proper disaster management system, adequate security measures at hot spots. I know people say that it is difficult to police a country of billions. But this is the price we pay if we don’t. After the serial train blasts, we installed faulty metal detectors at some stations (the ones on the entrance of CST station barely worked), and assign 2 police constables at each major station. Did that work? We never thought that the outside of the station could be vulnerable too. Perhaps we thought that these terrorists are gonna keep planting train bombs. Do we even have trained people who are capable enough to design solutions to handle these problems? All this infrastructure has to be put into place.

The last thing I want to see is these stupid political parties trying to gain mileage out of this mess by pointing fingers at each other.  I will be very very pissed off if a party calls a Mumbai bandh or a Maharastra bandh (or any such extension) to gain public attention. Such measures gain nothing and simply cause more distress to the already troubled people. I want to see some action. I need these terrorists killed. I don’t want empty promises. Are you listening? Oh and if there is something I could do……..let me know. Right now I am limited to watching the news, writing pissed off emails and angry blog posts.

The past 3 weeks were spent in setting up my new house, shopping, eating, sleeping, shopping, opening bank accounts, roaming around campus, shopping, waiting for my new laptop to get delivered, and other miscellaneous things not worth writing about. This makes me feel that I have done absolutely nothing productive in the past 3 weeks. Oh yes, I have this big obsession about productivity and using my time effectively (but I end up wasting most of my time anyway and then fret about it in posts like these).

One noticeable difference between life in Bombay and life here in the US is that I do not have to use public transport as extensively as I had to while in India. My university runs a shuttle service which takes me to most nearby places, and not just to and fro. That having said, it is quite difficult to go even relative far off places without a car. Bombay suburban transport system rocks. Yes, I said Bombay and not Mumbai. You would be surprised….people here do not know Mumbai, and I like calling it by the old name. It got a classy zing to it.

As it is apparent, I am suffering from a writer’s block. Suggest me of something to write about.

When we were deep into our fried chicken, an attendant walked over to our table and asked “Is that your bag sir?”. We turned and saw that he was pointing at a bagpack placed on a chair adjacent to our table. It was a good looking bag, one big enough to stuff a laptop into it…the kind we usually carry to work or college. We replied that the bag did not belong to any of us. The attendant nodded and walked away…..probably to ask some other people.

Typical of a bunch of guys spending a lazy evening, we started making jokes about the bag holding explosives, left there by someone with ill intentions. We started debating why someone would like to blow up a joint like KFC with such a low population. Someone said that a bag of that size can hold enough explosives to blow up more than just KFC. After a while the security guy also walked up to the bag and stared at it for a while. We looked at each other and muttered that we should get out of the place now. We were joking earlier, but now it was over 10-15 mins and the owner of the bag was still not found. I ate hurriedly and rushed into the washroom to wash my hands and take a leak (hey, I know there was a bomb ticking in there, but like I said I had to take a leak). I was planning on how I would move when I get out of the washroom, take up bag and rush out. I cursed myself because I did not ask my friends to take my bag and move out.

When I walked out into the dining area again, I saw two guys walking out of the door: one of them was carrying a big bagback. I walked closer to our table and saw that the bag that was sitting so conspicuously was now gone. I went over to my friends and asked them whether the owner of the bag was found. They smiled and replied in the affirmative. I was relieved, but now disappointed that I had to rush through my last piece of chicken without being able to savor it properly.