Anoop John

A couple of days back I re-washed a dish which I felt was not clean enough to my liking. While doing that I thought of all the people out there who would not have bothered doing what I had done and then suddenly this struck me - whatever I was defining as cleanliness was still only a perception.

If you have not read Google's corporate mission then here it goes - 'Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.'. The way they had set out to doing this was to initially offer a very powerful search engine that made the world's information available at everyones fingertips. Now they were making money by guessing people's preferences based on the content they search for and by showing them relevant advertisements and acting as a shrewd marketing agent. Well they didn't stop there.

We must really be famous. News about our fame and riches have even percolated to the underworld as well. What else can you infer from the recent burglary attempt at Zyxware One. Oh, by the way, our office locations are now known as Zyxware One and Zyxware Two. Numbering not scalable? - Yeah I know. It would be funny talking about Zyxware Sixteen Thousand Three Hundred and Eighty Four :-). Back to the little robbery story.

I am a strict believer in the philosophy of the four 'R's - Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle. The story I had written a few days back about the death of a dear friend is proof for this claim. For that matter, that is not even the friend with whom I have shared the longest of my friendships :-). Humor aside the point is that it is possible to practice this philosophy. It might be a little difficult initially but it is just a matter of making up your mind.

I met her during the summer vacation after my 10th. I still remember the day when my uncle introduced me to her one afternoon while visiting my uncle and aunt at Kottayam. We had been very close friends since then and I look back with a heavy heart, the good times we have had together. She was more than a friend to me and she had a place very close to my heart. She had been unwell lately and this sad demise was in the offing but I never realized that it was going to happen so fast.

Most people who have some idea about economics would have heard of the malthusian law of diminishing returns which states that the marginal increase in production decreases as more of the contributing factor is used in production. But I am very confident that nobody has heard of "the law of diminishing efforts". That is because it never existed until now.

Update: I have got three places to move out to. So I am no longer looking for houses :-). Thanks for all those who saw the request and tried to help and all those who saw the request and ignored the request for help and those who saw the request and could not help. I got a house for rent near Kesavadasapuram opposite MG College for my computer sales and services outfit and a doublet house at Muttada for Software development and my residence.

I have been toying with the idea of somehow utilizing the countless hours wasted by the thousands of MCA students across the country, through their off-the-shelf MCA projects and paid-to-do MCA projects, to contribute to Free Software Development. I have aired this idea several times at different venues and with people high up in the IT department in the state but nothing has come off till now. I have decided to do what I can do to get the ball rolling regarding this. I have invited MCA students for doing their final year MCA projects at Zyxware. Through this initiative I am hoping to contribute to two or three selected Free Software projects this year.

I had the privilege to go and give a talk on Free Software to the medical doctors and medical students at Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology on Saturday. The talk was organized by Dr. Biju Soman who is an ardent GNU/Linux user. There were between 30-40 people who attended the talk and we distributed GNU/Linux cds to those who committed to try it out. It was very interesting to note that most people were very eager to try it out and I had to field a barrage of intelligent questions from the crowd.

The world is evil and it is not yet ready for a man like me. I have tried my best but I think it is not my time yet. I feel sad to be bidding adieu but I think I have to take leave of you all now. I would like to thank all of you who have helped me directly and indirectly in the past. If I have done anybody any wrong, I apologize from the bottom of my heart. I have never tried to hurt anybody intentionally, I have never tried to be unfair to anybody. I tried my best. All I really wanted to do was to give my best shot at changing the world. Anyway that is another story. I leave all my worldly possessions to my twin brother who will handle all my matters from today onwards. Adieu, brothers and sisters, and uncles and aunts, and grand fathers and grand mothers, Adieu.