Haha 4096 people

Here starts the journey, I found out the 2048 game way back, got the 2048 block and uninstalled it without giving much of mind to it. Then there comes my roommate making a helluva noise about some new game he found out that was trending, lo and behold it was a deja vu. However, this time I decided to go after the prestigious 4096 block. This time it was more of a strategically decided path and the end result is here.

Observational Musings

Travellers are the ones who hold knowledge from all over the world due to their to and fro motion like a vibrating tuning fork. Well I wouldn't begin to say I am anything other than stupid, however I do have travelled a lot. And no, I don't mean those small motion from the PC playing games to the fridge to get a snack, or the many times I walk without a single thought in my head. However the small excursions outside do tend to count, if you let your mind flow and be open to all the experiences and the information just waiting to be snatched from the vast bank of knowledge that is our environment. You just have to be humble and respectful to tap into the sacred nature bank.

Observe the small frivolities like the path of an ant, the movement of leaves, how people react with each other, and you are gaining a wealth of knowledge by just observing. Listen to the quiet humming of the bees, the rubbing of leaves on their fruits, the not so distant rumble of the construction works, the noise of the vehicles, and there within lies a knowledge far greater than any single traditional education let alone a book ever hope to capture in the small pages of its entirety.

I wouldn't say I am anywhere near the sage of the six paths(ya, I know, naruto reference right there, for the people who are shouting that out, bear with me, as I said not the sage of the six paths, ya tried to do a little recursion back there). However, to be able to be one with the harmony of the nature, and hopefully scrape a little bit of the top of pot that is overflowing of the brim, is what any of us could truly hope for in our small extinguishable candle, that is life.

Not asking you to give up on your life, hell for all I care, get drunk like a Irish supporter, party hard like the American teens, love like the Europeans, and succeed like the Asians. All I am telling is that start paying a little attention to your surroundings, to the beauty that god has gifted our planet with, be exhilarated with joy. All I'm saying is that take off a little time to just be yourself, walk alone or with friends without a noise and discover things just off the edge of the cliff.

Go into unchartered territories, find those crannies and nooks and mark them your own, explore, but most of all respect the nature. As, it can be a loving mother at one moment, and the wrath of god the next.

Mozcafe - An event organized

Its been a long time since I last saw you people. I was suffering through a writer's block both on my blog and the book I have been working upon. However, an event happened recently that made me get out of the block. So, let me tell you what led to this.

On 23rd February of 2014, we worked on a method to introduce the people of Allahabad to the wonders of open source. A seminar was organized for the event at IIIT Allahabad. The Mozilla foundation helped us along the way, by the way of goodies to be distributed and the budget to be used. So, I send my thanks to them for helping us make the event a great success. Without them, we would still be looking for sponsors, and what-not.

The idea was implanted in our minds after a few from our college went to the Kitchenmaker event in Allahabad hosted by ReMo Shahid. Already a lot of people from our college had registered to be FSA's at Mozilla Foundation, so we got together to find the future course for the college open source culture. A club was formed there and the general course decided.

The first mark to cross off on our list was the Mozcafe event, which we had decided to host in February. After getting permission from the college authorities and Gymkhana, the auditorium was assigned to us for 23rd. There were many practice sessions going on and I have to thank another of our clubs, the ALC Club for hanging with us through the thick of times and not getting frustrated with the long hours they had to put in too due to us.

Lo and behold, the time was upon us, it was 23rd February. Let me tell you, when you are working hard trying to achieve the best possible, that's the moment you feel true ecstasy. We had to go to take the food from a vendor before the event. Thankfully, the order had already been placed, so being a geek I can say in algorithmic terms it took the time complexity of O(1) rather than O(n).

Then the gunshot was heard, and the event started off. First up was Shahid presenting a start to the wonderment of open source and let me tell you, was it invigorating!!! Various goodies were distributed to participating people, and volunteers were running here and there to give mic to the person who wanted to answer. In all, it was a merry time. Next it was upto Charul to tell us about the process for applying to the prestigious GSoC program, that had many of us thinking about certain projects to make for the future, and how to get selected in it.

With the changing market that is the smartphone business, open source is the leading Operating System contributor. Mozilla doesn't want to be left so far behind in the race that it won’t be able to catch up. Therefore, with the launch of Firefox OS, it is taking a step in the right direction. Though far from perfect, it is a good platform to work upon and develop stuff. To impart us with the knowledge about the working of the OS, and tell a DIY about the getting the OS, Jatin was welcomed onto the stage.

However, it would all have been incomplete, without the talk of Aditya and Rahul, who were to tell us about version control, and how to contribute to the various projects that are continuously being worked upon throughout the world. GitHub, the leading social network for developers to contribute to the same project has helped since its inception to bring a project under a common roof. Though not to forget other leading ones such as Mercurial and SVN, but they are more corporate level works, than the open source of the world.

Now to learn blogging like this, and how to get the maximum views on your blog, people were treated to a feast on blogging by Ankit. SEO and other such terms that we have heard about, but never learnt how to use were unraveled in his talk.

Finally ideas were collected from the people about how they want to contribute to the world and an Idea Board was formed from it, and was it cool. Some ideas were so good, some trolls were included in that made us laugh right off the bat. Finally two of the best were selected and goodies were given to them. Also, some people came up on the stage to share their personal experience of the event. It was quite humbling to say the least.

And here I take leave. Take a moment to see the video below, and relive the moments with us of the day gone by, but etched in our memory like it was yesterday.