Pokhran

I’ll Never Own A Pet

Raj — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:11:31 +0000

There are people who eat meat. There are people who hunt and there are people who own pets.

I eat meat. I might hunt. But I’ll never own a pet. I’ll never buy a pet. The animal being owned hasn’t consented to being owned. It’s like slavery.

When people get pets, they expect that the pet will be good to them, will seek them out, be nice to them and so on. When that doesn’t happen they are disappointed. Because they feed the animal they expect something from the animal. To me it makes no sense. I will never own a caged bird. I will never get a dog and expect it to stay in my house.

I think owning and make it stay with you is a form or animal torture. The animal never asked to be caged or be kept safe from predators. We as humans can be killed in a million ways. That doesn’t mean we want to be caged and be fed by a higher form of life. Why shouldn’t this logic apply to a animal?

I will give a home to a poor defenseless animal a home. But I would never compel it to be with me. If it can fly, let it fly. If it can run, let it run.

In this age, I believe everything* should have freedom.
* Doesn’t apply to annoying parasites that make human life miserable. That rat or mosquito should be slaughtered on sight.

Listening: The Most Important Human Skill

Raj — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:56:03 +0000

I believe listening to be the most important social skill. Without that there cannot be a rich connection. If one does not seek to understand the other. Sure, you might meet someone and gain a liking for someone from first impressions. A relationship, even the most fundamental consideration for you as a person will come only when you are able to listen and fully try to comprehend what the other person is trying to say.

Sometimes listening can be a chore. But a lot of times it isn’t. The amount of effort you have to expend to be understood and understand will help determine who is like you. It helps identify those souls who can understand you without you needing to say or do anything. Those people who can pull words out of your mouth. Finding these people is worth all the waiting.

There is enough in this world to divide us. Language, race, religion. The last we need is one more barrier that is easily broken.

Listen. Seek to understand.

Expression is Expensive, Medium IS a Message

Raj — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 10:07:57 +0000

Expressing oneself is expensive. To express one-self involves lot of mechanical effort. Whether you speak or write or type or sign the act of expression seems to always take some physical effort. I believe there is a better way. To express one self shouldn’t have to involve

The tool we use to express our ideas play a roll in the formation of our ideas. The ideas recorded through speech will invariably have a different tone and quality than one expressed through typing or writing. This facet of human communication is something we often ignore.

Medium is the Message

A long time ago someone very wise said the medium is the message. I agree. But this saying has been badly misquoted and taken out of context. Those quoting this idea are big media barons who insist that a medium is just a medium. The medium is innocent. It is the message that we put in it that produces the varying effects in people.

This is simply not true. Being able to teleport from one idea to another like one is able to do in written material vastly differs from the way audio or video transmissions are consumed. The end result varies widely from the linear nature of these analog media. It changes the very impression that the recipient of those messages is left with when they receive the message.

The medium is not innocent. Your choice of the medium and the content you place in that medium is in itself a message.

The State Of The Republic

Raj — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:13:44 +0000

Today is republic day. We celebrate the republic coming into existence. Today is a celebration of sovereignty. Of our union’s continued ability to exist through all that ailed it in the last 52 years.

I am conflicted on whether it is the strength of the people, the resilience of the constitution that its creators thought of or whether it is the indifferent and absolute adamant tendency of the Indian to keep the status quo that has kept things going. From what I have seen it has been the latter. The notion that we continue to do what was done before we came into the position that we are in.

Over the years I have grown pessimistic about this republic. I wonder what it actually stands for and whether it is worth fighting for. If at this day and age after seeing all that has been happening around us if it is worth sacrificing something for the sake of the nation. It doesn’t seem like anyone would take a moment to notice or acknowledge all that you have done. It doesn’t seem like anyone would care in this country about all that you gave up for the nation.

A shocking indifference has grown thick in the minds of people here. The past decade has seen terrorism and corruption unlike anywhere else. The public of any other nation would have been up in arms in the streets protesting but not a lot of that happens here.

I don’t want to celebrate this republic. I just want to distance myself from it.

Suicides Should Be Made Legal In India (And Everywhere)

Raj — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 04:36:01 +0000

To be born human is a great gift. To be born a fully formed, mentally sound human being is a miracle. A single person is capable of changing the world. Humanity is life working hard on reaching out to the universe.

That a single human can take his own life is a terrible loss of potential, the opportunity to improve countless lives for the better. Suicide is the end of a conscience. The end of the idea that is you. What’s left is memories, feelings and pain in other people’s minds.

Outlawing Suicides Does Nothing To Stop Them

The statesman’s approach to any problem of human suffering is to outlaw the act. For every single problem in world the legislator seeks to make something illegal. Sati? Wifes immolated on their husband’s graves? Illegal!

You will not escape the long arm of the law if you smoke in a public place.

Does this logic carry over to committing suicide? No. Someone contemplating suicide isn’t going to go “Oh! wait! suicide is illegal! I shouldn’t do it.”. They’re thinking “If I die, I don’t have to deal with this or anything else I can face, much less incarceration or a fine.”

Suicidal feelings are caused by a loss of hope and a purpose for living. Whatever thought or feeling made someone contemplate suicide the least of their problems is if they are going to prison. No one “attempts suicide” like I “attempt” to tie a boe tie. The intention is to “succeed” at the attempt.

Say, I am a farmer who’s had the misfortune of a failed crop. I’ve defaulted a loan. I am looking at spending the rest of my life working to pay off a loan which, even then CANNOT be paid off given the interest. After my whole life is over, there is nothing I would have done to improve my family’s lives. Being incarcerated is the least of my problems. I am leaving behind family, a wife and children who will be left to fend for themselves.

The fact that what I am about to do is illegal is the least of my problems.

The Law Says “If you try, make sure you die”

If you try to kill yourself, you will die. If you fail at that, you will go to prison. So what’s the intention of making a law that says suicide is illegal? To make sure that people try really hard and make sure they die if they do try to kill themselves? To make sure no one finds them in the act of committing suicide?

Is the intention to make sure people kill themselves with great success?

“If you fail, we’ll give you more reasons for trying again”

So basically the law tells the vulnerable and dejected that if you try to do it and you fail, we’ll shame you by sending you to jail in front of all your family and friends to add to your pain so don’t fail the next time you try.

The consequences people face for attempting suicide in India are appalling. Incarceration for up to one year and/or fine. Wow. More debt.

It is so easy to pass laws. It is something altogether different to try to solve the problem. It is very difficult and overwhelming to show compassion and sympathy.

The Right To Die CANNOT be “granted”

The Supreme Court has set aside its earlier judgment in P. Rathinam/ Nagbhushan Patnaik v. Union of India, JT 1994 (3) SC 392, wherein the Court had struck down section 309 as unconstitutional. In a country where one-half of its population still live below the poverty line, the right to die by suicide cannot be granted to any person.

Wow. So basically the logic goes that we don’t want people killing themselves. So what do we do? Not make reforms to improve their lives. We make laws to make their lives miserable if you fail to die while trying.

I just don’t understand where they get off saying the right to die cannot be “granted”. Was there ever a law passed granting me the right to have coffee, to take a leak in the open, to check out that girl? There is no “right” to be granted here.

The right to die cannot be granted.

That’s like trying to grand the sun the right to rise in the east.

Outlawing suicide is not a solution

Suicide isn’t like rape. Suicide isn’t burglary, public nuisance or pick pocketing. Every person involved is a victim here. The biggest victim is the “offender” themselves. It doesn’t make sense to aggravate the emotional pain of those who happen to survive a failed attempt. Last thing they need is the indignation and the pain of a indictment after whatever made them want to try to die.

The british who wrote the IPC have moved on to pass the Suicide Act. Sense seems to be increasingly prevailing throughout the world. Somehow the wind has skipped India.

Laws don’t prevent suicides, if that was the intention behind making the law. It only causes more needless pain and suffering.

What we need aren’t laws

What we need isn’t a way to punish or a deterrent. What we need is a way to heal. We need to address the common problems that incite people to try. Do something about farmer suicides in South India. I don’t know what. I am not a lawmaker. I don’t know what can be done. But someone out there has the means. All it takes is the intent and the will.

What’s needed is a change in attitude. A revolutionary way in the way people treat each other. Problems like high suicide rates, child labor are not going to go away by outlawing them. I hope some day we’ll have a leader who’ll be man enough to dare to tell their electorate to change their attitude.

We Tend To Own The Stuff We Make

Raj — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 07:08:55 +0000

I am currently reading the book The Upside of Irrationality. I highly recommend reading it as it is full of examples of what motivates people. I was interested in reading this book mostly because I wished to understand what motivated me and why I do some of the things I do. It helped to better understand me.

In one particular chapter the author talks about ownership of work that we create. Through a series of experiments the author and his fellow researchers derived interesting results.

Greater Labor, Greater Love

The more effort we put into creating or acquiring something the more we tend to feel ownership and gain more satisfaction out of it. We get more satisfaction out of cooking and eating vegetables that we grew ourselves than vegetables that we bought at the grocery store. We value furniture that we assembled ourselves than furniture that we purchased at a store.

We tend to value the soft toy that we made ourselves more than the soft toy we purchased elsewhere.

Is the Effort Really Worth It?

In making something should we spend so much of your own time doing a sloppy job of it when you can get someone else better than you to do the same thing. Are you really that good at home improvement? Must you try to

Should you really try to build that cabinet on your own? Must you spend your own money and time to acquire tools and the material necessary and then make a few mistakes with the wood.

Greater Labor, Greater Love, Greater Failure?

Could it be that this fallacy of seeking out the convoluted and less effective path is a hurdle in our ability to achieve. Could it be in our way to get the most out of life? Is it possible that the shoe rack you made yourself breaks in a few months after which you end up spending money on a brand new shoe rack using money that you could have been spent on something else more valuable?

What would I do: I would rather be working. I’d rather be fragging on a TF2 server. I’d rather be working on a new pet project. In most cases I would much rather be doing something else. I value my time a lot.

Longterm Ownership Satisfaction

That shoe rack your late father made will serve constantly remind you of him fondly. That cabinet you made yourself reminds you of a young ambitious you who wouldn’t give up at the first obstacle.

You must ask yourself: Is it really worth it? It depends on what you’re making.

I don’t think I will ever make my own vegetables. It’s not worth it. There is no long term satisfaction. It’s just for that one moment after I wash my hands. I may not even make my own juice. It won’t be as good as a juice I can buy. I will however make my own furniture some day. I will make my own software – which I do already.

You Love What You Finish

The author points out that we tend to own and love the objects that we made if we made them ourselves and finish them. But if we are unable to finish them we tend to not have as much ownership towards the object or project as we do for projects we finish.

To Get Satisfaction, Finish It First, Perfect It Later

The WP Autoresponder project I worked on was an unending series of tasks until one day I realized that I was adding more and more features as I was finishing them. I was trapping myself in the project. I finally put the foot down and got myself to release it on the WordPress.org repository.

As a creator of art or software you tend to want to perfect something before you release it. It is very possible that you will lose that initial motivation toward that project if you keep at it for a long time. This may not always be possible.

If you are making something physical you may not always have the liberty to add features or extend it further later. In such cases one may get the most out of himself through starting with the end in mind. In whatever you are making there must be a clear ending of what you are making.

We Believe Others Love It Too

The author points out that we love what we make ourselves so much that it changes the way we perceive it. It changes us. It changes the way we look at it and evaluate it. We tend to ignore the flaws and errors.

Get A Second Opinion

I make crappy software. I know that. In some level I just know that the software I make has errors. May be the menu option label I used doesn’t mean what I think it means. May be the procedure to perform some operation is not as obvious to others as I thought it is. I tend to believe that it is.

In the act of creation we cannot help but fall in love with our creation. It is not something we can prevent. It is hardwired into us and you cannot overcome it by willing it. Getting a second opinion from an unbiased knowledgeable person is essential for being able to create high quality work as a creator.

What say you reader? Would you make your own soy sauce?

WP Responder v4.9.4 Released!

Raj — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 01:10:13 +0000

Many users of the WP Responder have reported some serious bugs in the plugin. I have to practice being careful with the source code. While adding a new feature to the plugin I accidentally end up introducing two bugs into the program. It is not possible for me to do a complete test of the plugin before releasing it.

That is why I am releasing a new version of the plugin- v4.9.4 that fixes almost all of these problems and adds a few new features:

Automatic Subscriber Transfer – Automatically deactivate a subscriber of Newsletter A when they subscribe to Newsletter B. Ideal for separating buyers from prospects.
Delete subscribers in mass
Delete subscription forms in mass
Subscription Form Widget – Put subscription forms in sidebar using widgets!

What Happened to WP Responder 4.9.3?

After I released v4.9.3 yesterday, a blogger had sent me an e-mail pointing out a bug that didn’t allow subscribers to unsubscribe from the mailing list. This is a critical problem. For most other bugs, I would leave it to the next version. But this is something that can get your server blacklisted. Thus, the early release.

Download

You can download the latest version of the plugin at the WP Responder Website.

WP Responder v4.9.1 Updates

Raj — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 08:54:40 +0000

I have been getting a lot of e-mails from users of WP Responder reporting that they are seeing bugs in the plug-in. Most of the time it is something they are doing wrong. But other times there is some problem with the plug-in that I did not foresee when developing the plug-in.

Some bugs that I have been hearing about:

Autoresponder Sends Multiple E-Mails: The autoresponder feature seems to send multiple follow-up e-mails to the same person.
New Broadcast Doesn’t Work – I am told that the new broadcast feature in WP Responder doesn’t seem to work.
No Menu Options – After installing WP Responder you are not able to see any menu options to start using the application. I suspect this is because you are using PHP4 instead of PHP5. WP Responder has been developed to work only on servers running PHP5.

You can rest assured knowing that I am testing and removing bugs from WP Responder as much as possible. Just like any other software, there will be bugs. Rest assured that I will be removing all of these errors in the coming version(s).

To be honest with you, if you are reading this article right now, you are a better person to test this software than I am. It doesn’t matter who you are. I don’t mean to say I am very poor tester. At my vocation, I am a software tester. The reason – Because I am the person who developed this application, it is not as easy for me to discover the bugs in it. As a developer my goal is to make a program work. Not to try and make it break which is what testing is all about. – to start with the assumption that there are errors in the application and then to try and remove them.

You would be doing me a big favor to me and yourselves if you can find and report as many bugs as you can. You can e-mail the bugs you find to this address:

flarecore@gmail.com

In other news

Your favorite plug-in developer received his order of a very expensive book on WordPress plug-in development and another on marketing:

That’s the DELL laptop that created WP Responder for you. Seriously! No other computer was used other than that laptop to create WP Responder. A lot less time will be spent hunting the WordPress Codex and spamming the WP-Hackers mailing list for solutions to problems. :-)

More WP Responder Release Updates

Raj — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:28:23 +0000

I spent the better part (actually all of it) of my weekend on finding and removing bugs from WP Responder. There have been more problems in the plugin that I previously thought. I just couldn’t get myself to release the plugin knowing that these bugs exist in the plugin.

Some other bugs I have recently found and removed:

In the new e-mail broadcast page, clicking on disable WYSIWYG editor and then click on enable again creates an additional text box below the WYSIWYG editor.
All kinds of email delivery such as broadcasts, blog posts, post series, autoresponder series are delayed by [offset of the timezone at which you - the user is located].
When the subscriber subscribes to your newsletter the Subscription Confirmed e-mail does not have the link to the manage subscription page (reported by a user).
When you schedule a broadcast and then try to reschedule it, it always says you are trying to schedule the broadcast in the past.
When you schedule a broadcast with HTML disabled and then edit the broadcast again, the HTML is shown to be enabled.
When you select the attach images option in the new broadcast page, the settings is not saved and is set to enabled always.

What’s New In WP Responder 4.9.1?

I know I said there will be no new features in the plugin but a little foresight demanded that I implement these two features.

Update Notifications

Some of the users of WP Responder have been downloading the plugin from the WP Responder website. Some of you have been downloading it from the WordPress plugin extend website. Currently it is not possible for me to issue updates on the plugin to all of you. So I have implemented a new feature to automatically check for a new update periodically with my server and then notify you by e-mail when an update is available.

Tutorial Series

Apart from the update notifications I have also implemented a tutorial series feature. The plugin will automatically send you a series of articles by e-mail showing you how to use it and get the most out of it after you activate it. Optional of course.

When Will I Release This Plugin?

Some time this week. There is still a lot of testing to be done. I anticipate the testing and debugging to be finished this week completely.

I want this plugin myself!

Here’s the strange thing. I am dying to get started using this plugin. This plugin is beginning to get awesome even for me. There is so much I can do with it. I am sure you are looking forward to it too.

Look forward to it! Stay tuned!

Release Of WP Responder 4.9 And The Next Version

Raj — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 04:38:48 +0000

I released WP Responder v4.9 last week. And it has been one swell week ever since. Since I released the version 4.9 of WP Responder last weekend I have found many more bugs. Please read on.

Plugin Directory Name Mayhem

I was very optimistic and very happy with the WP Responder release I made last week. Little did I realize the number of bugs that were in the release as a result of the unforeseen directory name. You see, I wanted to make sure that those who wanted the plugin will be able to find it without any difficulty so I choose a really long name that is very descriptive of the plugin’s features.

Last year when I started making this plugin I implemented many features counting on the plugin being stored in:

 /wp-content/plugins/wpresponder/

When submitting the plugin to the WordPress directory I used the really long name. They replaced the spaces with hyphens and made that the directory name when creating the SVN check in account. That is not the only problem in this plugin. The WordPress MU installations may not use the above mentioned path for the plugin directory.

Drag And Drop Of Widgets Interface Fail

The drag and drop widgets interface are found to not work when WP Responder 4.9 is enabled. This is because jQuery UI seems to get loaded into the page when it is not required causing a clash. I have removed this bug in the upcoming version.

The solution for the time being:

1. Deactivate WP Responder.
2. Use the plugins interface to modify the widget layout
3. Reactivate WP Responder

Other Known Bugs Are:

Preview email button doesn’t work – The preview email button in the New Broadcast page will not work as a result of the plugin name mismatch
Customization of recipients doesn’t not work – Again because of the plugin directory name mismatch.
Images in the WP Responder dashboard will not load – ditto.
Deletion of a mailout will not work – Once you create a email mailout you will not be able to delete it. Same reason as above.
Import/Export Subscribers – Import and Export of subscribers will not work.
Some Short Codes On The New Post Page Don’t Work – The [!delivery_date!], [!post_url!] , [!post_date!] short codes do not work.
Activation Errors: You will see a message mentioning that the plugin generated 2096 characters of unexpected output.
Unsubscription doesn’t work – The unubscription and subscription management URL in email broadcasts and the other outgoing email will not work as it points to a URL that doesn’t exist. Readers will not be able to unsubscribe.
Subscription Confirmed e-mail doesn’t have a unsubscription link – When newsletter subscribers verify their email address, the email that is sent immediately on confirming th email will not have the required subscription management option.

All of these bugs will be fixed in the upcoming version.

WP Responder Works Only On PHP 5+

I received a few emails from users who have seen some basic syntax errors when activating WP Responder. These are because the plugin uses some features of PHP 5. Particularly the SwiftMailer library which is used by WP Responder to send all e-mail works only in PHP5.

WP Responder doesn’t support PHP 4.

Please get your web hosting company to upgrade your server. PHP4 is no longer actively developed. There are even many security bugs that are well known but will not be patched. The core PHP project members have stopped working on PHP 4.

What Have I Learnt From All This?

To use subversion. A plugin developer gets this for free in the WordPress repository.
Do not hard code the path to the plugin.

What is coming up?

WP Responder 4.9.1 will be released in this weekend
A new website will be available at WPResponder.com

I am working on it

You can rest assured that I am identifying the problems in the plugin and am removing them. Instead of making a hasty release with a whole new set of bugs to remove, I am working on making the next one a stable release. For now I am working on removing the bugs in the existing features before moving on to implement new ones. So the next version will not have any new feature. Nevertheless I am sure you are eager to start using the WP Responder plugin even with its current feature set.

Stay tuned!