Sunil Beta Baskar
lives in the pale blue dot	created this with GNUemacs

Beta's website

Documents

I finally have enough to have a separate page for documents. Hope you'll find something interesting to read out here.

Reading this Page: This page is organised with the newest additions coming on the top in each subtopic, making it easier for you to navigate to the newest documents. Some documents are simple HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) like this page, while others are presented in PDF (Portable Document Format). The PDF files require Adobe Acrobat Reader or a compatible program installed in your sytsem.

Quotes

Here's a page that lets you read Quotes which I found interesting and thought provoking. You might like some of them.

Popular Science

The Naked Ape

I have compiled a page called The Naked Ape (not to be confused with the book of the same name). It presents a mind map and some notes that outline known facts about human evolution.

Unification

I have compiled an essay Unification (partially inspired by the "Star Trek - TNG" episode of the same name.) This is about a realisation of the immediate goal for all of Humanity. A connection between the warring generals (Alexander, Caesar, ...), the presidents, the pacifist political leaders, a common goal they've all been after, something we should be aware of and something we should strive to achieve.

Caesar and the Caesarian

I once believed that Gaius Julius Caesar II, Dictator of Rome, was born of a Caesarian. Carl Sagan's book also seems to acknowledge this. Later I learn't from further research that it was not so, and none of the Caesars (those who inherited the cognomen), were born so. This essay Caesarian intends to present this as a short two page article.

Fiction

Star Trek TNG: The Fault of Dunmar (PDF: 101KB),[FANFIC] a short story based on Star Trek TNG characters. After 3 revisions helped by friends it's now worth a good read.

Tech stuff

Presentation on Opensource

After several painstaking hours of collecting pictures and piecing together a presentation on Open Source, I've made it readable online. A good read, I still need to get the nav icons in place. The source is in Kpresenter format which I had to compile to get working (KOffice 1.4 with KDE 3.5). This presentation is targeted at newbies or those who wish to be introduced to the free software and opensource community. There is an additional Oasis OpenDocument version of the presentation available here accompanied by an easy-to-use PDF. This is to make it simpler to deliver the presentation irrespective of the platform you use (when you aren't carrying your laptop.)

Kernel Building Presentation

Another presentation on Building the Linux Kernel meant for newbies who're interested in playing with the kernel (addressing 2.6).

Another "Reliance" rconnect + linux HowTo

This is another "connecting to the net with your reliance phone" HowTo, except unlike the earlier ones, this helps you use Reliance's scripts (rconnect-cmdline-1.0.tar) from their site. Download the PDF (128KB). This HowTo is far* from complete, but presently serves as a rconnect-cmdline guide.

Pixelview PlayTV Pro 2 with Linux HowTo

This is a HowTo for those who have Pixelview PlayTV Pro 2, Conexant 878A (or BT878A) chipset based cards and need some help in configuring and using them in a Linux distribution. Read on for the Howto.

Introductory Presentation on Project-Management

This is an introductory presentation on Project Management which will be followed with Case studies and some interesting material you'd like to read. This one is more of a schedule without dates which will follow shortly. To facilitate more people attending this, I will try and arrange a presentation coupled with an IRC session. Download the HTML (4.7KB). The source of this presentation is available as Magicpoint (4.0KB). Unless you wish to make modifications, I recommend the HTML version.

Schedule of Project Management Presentations

These Project Management presentations are sequenced 2,3,4 and 5. There is one on eXtreme Programming on Saturday which is completely OPTIONAL. It's just for those curious about it. Download the HTML (8.1KB) contains a brief schedule. The revised schedule is HTML (8.1KB) and obsoletes the earlier one.

Discerning *-Management and Project-Management

This lecture is solely for discerning the differences between different management terminology and the focus that "Project Management" refers to. I try to stress the fact that the military invented it. The military works because mammals of the holoecene period adopted a pack structure for better survival. Hence, similar hierarchical fundamentals work best. Download the HTML (7.6KB). The source of this presentation is available as Magicpoint (5.8KB). Unless you wish to make modifications, I recommend the HTML version.

Project Management - Formal Methods

This lecture is an introduction to formal methods, kind-of a history class. You'll have to attend the presentation to get a good feel of it where I try to add in quizzical stuff. "Trinity","Super","Manhattan" - connect them. Any amateur quizzer can do this. Then there's more like who made CPM, a chemical company. In addition there are now rendered slides of the presentation for the ungeeky who can't run mgp. Download the HTML (7.6KB). The source of this presentation is available as Magicpoint (5.8KB). Unless you wish to make modifications, I recommend the HTML version.

Reading Material for Project Management

This has a table of reading material and a tentative, how long I'd take to read the same material. I am an average reader (2 books a week while working). You can schedule and read them. There is an implicit sequence in the presented material. Geeks are expected to read in reverse. Download the HTML (6.6KB)

General

The War on Terror

After reading up some reference material, I've compiled a quick, but long essay detailing my views on the war on terrorism and how it should be pursued. I have tried my best to stay away from bashing nations for improper conduct whatsoever and tried to get to the root of the problem in my perspective. You may read a PDF version of the document. If you would like to follow some of the hyper-links, you can try the online HTML version of the same document. I have tried my best not to sway from the topic, but that has been inevitably done in some sections. Future edits of the text may be further refined.

Sleep Disorder

This is a short four(4) pager on sleep disorder. It just explores the surface of common therapy for such disorder and skims the surface of possible aetiology.

Origins of Freemasonry

I have compiled a brief history of freemasonry comprising a mindmap with descriptions. Initially, I worked on this to satiate my own curiosity regarding the origins. As the document became more comprehensive, I decided to string together a series of facts to help anyone who wishes to seek the origins of freemasonry. The document brings to light the known history of freemasonry and suggested ancient origins.

Nine Eleven

Here's a short article on my comments on Nine Eleven (pdf: 65.5KB), and a possible emergency cry on what might need correction (or study) in the near future.

When beggars choose

A short essay on "When Beggars Choose" (pdf: 29.1KB) illustrating the plight of the beggary problem in Indian cities.

Working with email

I've written a short essay on the role of e-mail in the organization (pdf: 72KB). You will need a PDF viewer (like Adobe Acrobat Reader or GNU Ghostview) installed on your system.

El Mariachi

This is a short glossary on El Mariachi. For those interested in either the guitaring or the movie series.

Travel Plans - (Feb 26 to Mar 9)

This is a short set of maps of travel plans for a holiday trip to Kerala. The first requisite would be to travel to Thanjavur dump the luggage, checkup the car quickly for any damages and avoid critical errors. The route beyond kerala is as yet to be worked out. Visit Plan Abstract and follow the "Next" links for the maps. The maps are in PNG format, so if you use a browser that can't see PNG, please try and get Firefox OR Mozilla. Also feel free to visit my public calendar for a daily schedule of things happening.

Travel Statistics - (Pune-Bangalore-Thanjavur)

Alive, after an exciting, "uneventful" 1200km drive, I have finally hosted figures and graphs of the travel. Anyone driving the same route can guess the quality of the roads, and the safe speeds they can take. I was driving a "Maruti Alto VXi EPS" with about 300 kg extra load, hence the lower mileage figures. This also included a bad stretch of road. Here's figures for Pune-Bangalore and here's figures for Bangalore-Thanjavur as PDFs compressed with gzip because of larger file sizes and resolutions. Halts were brief and only for food or snacks, as the car was more than comfortable.

Indices and Collections

Book Collection

Here's the Print Book Collection (PDF) and (HTML) of all the books I've collected in pune. Hopefully I will be adding a few more in a couple of months. Here's the catch, those of you who borrowed books from me, please make an effort to locate and return them to me. Those whose books I have borrowed, I am quite sure which ones, I'll return them some day you choose. Anyone with the slightest doubt on whether they have lent me their stuff and haven't received it back, please send a mail. Best thing, come over to my house and peruse the collection for your book. Updated again on the 21st with details of the books that can be clicked.

Video Collection

Here's my Video CD/DVD Collection (PDF) and (HTML) of all the videos I've collected in pune. Hopefully I will be adding a few more in a couple of months. Here's the catch, those of you who borrowed CDs from me, please make an effort to locate and return them to me.

Audio Collection

Here's my CD/Audio (No MP3) Collection (PDF) and (HTML) All of them are movie soundtracks, or classical instrumentals, sometimes accompanied by tenors. My knowledge of classical music is severely limited, to enjoying them. I do not claim to understand the nuances and variations played. If you do have a instrumental, classical, western classical piece of music, I'd request you to lend it to me to keep a copy. The converse being true. None of these CDs will be available as take-aways.

Art, Drawings and Photographs

Pencil Sketches

Here's the first gallery of my pencil sketches. Hopefully I will be adding a few more in a couple of months. I've tried a bit more of pencil sketching; you don't have to be an artist to notice that I am a bit more impatient at times, but I try my best.

If you'd like to take a look at more sketches, visit my "flickr" gallery here.

Pune, Codito and the flood

On Tuesday (03-Aug-2004) the river running alongside my office was (almost on) the verge of flooding, thanks to heavy rain over the past week. Check these photographs (thanks to Patan for them.)

Morelinux iTech 2000

Updates to the galleries, adding one more y2k photogallery from the MoreLinux days. You get to see some of them who turned up that day!

WARNING: Most of the content linked through webspace provided by www.codito.com has been moved to my website.

Copyrights

All indexes and collections of books have been duly purchased from bookstores and none of them have been 'pirated' (in the intellectual property definition of the word.) This does not imply that I sympathise with Copyrighting, Patenting, but as long as there are laws governing them, I choose to follow them.

DISCLAIMER: This website has nothing to do with the Greek Alphabet 'Beta' or Sony's Beta video cassette format.

Created on Wednesday, 20th July 2004