Daniels Republic http://danielsrepublic.com/country "It took evolution 65 million years to evolve me and you want me to be like the rest of them?!" Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:58:18 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Protected: first post from the new house! http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/02/first-post-from-the-new-house/ http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/02/first-post-from-the-new-house/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:58:18 +0000 daniel robinson http://danielsrepublic.com/country/?p=1906 http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/02/first-post-from-the-new-house/feed/ 0 Protected: marriage! :) http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/02/marriage/ http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/02/marriage/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:30:48 +0000 daniel robinson http://danielsrepublic.com/country/?p=1902 http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/02/marriage/feed/ 0 another t-shirt idea http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/another-t-shirt-idea/ http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/another-t-shirt-idea/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:42:19 +0000 daniel robinson http://danielsrepublic.com/country/?p=1898 rode till tvs today. what’s with cycling and ideas for t-shirts.  got this one today.

]]> http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/another-t-shirt-idea/feed/ 0 Afghanistan Soldier Irony http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/afghanistan-soldier-irony/ http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/afghanistan-soldier-irony/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:02:33 +0000 daniel robinson http://danielsrepublic.com/country/?p=1888 the irony of afghanistan soldier episode in news these 2 weeks doesn’t escape me. the double standards of all the people who react so strongly to it!

nobody raises one word when a fully living man is shot dead by the soldier! and preaches dignity when something is done to the dead body! ironic.

]]> http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/afghanistan-soldier-irony/feed/ 0 T-Shirt for Cyclists http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/t-shirt-for-cyclists/ http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/t-shirt-for-cyclists/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:22:46 +0000 daniel robinson http://danielsrepublic.com/country/?p=1883 went cycling some distance today. why do bigger vehicles always play with smaller vehicles! no courtesy! they just want to scare you or something.

makes you feel “only idiots honk at cyclists” so put up a t-shirt design for it.

]]> http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/t-shirt-for-cyclists/feed/ 1 pro-industry poster http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/pro-industry-poster/ http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/pro-industry-poster/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:07:10 +0000 daniel robinson http://danielsrepublic.com/country/?p=1877 wanted to design this poster for such a longtime! 

]]> http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2012/01/pro-industry-poster/feed/ 0 mtc origin destination http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/12/mtc-origin-destination/ http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/12/mtc-origin-destination/#comments Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:54:06 +0000 daniel robinson http://danielsrepublic.com/country/?p=1873 i wonder myself sometimes why i am so obsessed with mtc data. atleast something is coming out it :) the english version and the tamil version are hosted here.

the tamil was really tricky. though it is merely in its final form a unicode file. getting till the tamil version of the file was a challenge. intresting how things look once you have crossed it.

 

 

 

]]> http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/12/mtc-origin-destination/feed/ 0 Takshashila Chennai Talk http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/11/takshashila-chennai-talk/ http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/11/takshashila-chennai-talk/#comments Sun, 06 Nov 2011 14:55:21 +0000 daniel robinson http://danielsrepublic.com/country/?p=1860 Just back from a day long session of talks on various topics in Takshashila, in IIT Research Park. It was really intresting to hear so many learned minds and to be in the midst of them.

3 talks were really intresting and the style, different in their own sense:

  1. Suryanarayan (On Srilanka)
  2. Tenzin Lhadon ( A Tibetan experience)
  3. V Keshav (On Cartooning in Politics)
Mr Suryanarayan gave a wonderful insight into the Fisherman problem between India and Srilanka. You would never expect this to be the ground reality, since most of our opinions are formed based on the media and what the government of the day tells us.
Tenzin Lhadon

Tenzin Lhadon at Takshashila

Tenzin Lhadon a Tibetan student, left the most profound impact on me and also the rest of the audience. She started of by thanking and appreciating and also expressing her indebtedness to India for supporting their movement. Her talk was interrupted by moist eyes and choking throats whenever she talked of what China tells about his Holiness Dalai Lama and all the tribulations that the Tibetan people go through fighting against the mighty Chinese.

Not sure if we deserve all the things she was crediting us with, i am sure India has been a great support. Another point she made was also very thought provoking: (I write as she said it)
” India has allowed us to Join its universities as equal Indian citizens and not as a foreign national” She was so moved by that gesture!
i kept thinking if she was actually talking about the same India in which i was living. its a coincidence that the other person who made me feel so was also a Tibetan. Identity and Human rights is all they seek. The talk was probably the most emotional i have ever attended. It is true that we take so many things in India for granted.
The next talk was by Mr V Keshav, the legendary cartoonist whose columns now appear in ‘The Hindu’. He was talking about the challenges that a cartoonist faces.
This was followed by  talk on ‘Autorickshaw Economics’ by Karthik Shashidhar. He had good views about the Auto Rickshaw industry in Chennai, not sure if everybody agreed though! as he advocated more usage :)
Having worked with Raj and the Dhanu, i kept thinking, why do people want to regulate somebody else’s life! (That gyan was given to me by an auto driver)
Anyway i got a design to complete and an assessment to prepare for.
]]> http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/11/takshashila-chennai-talk/feed/ 1 why is satellite data in india not available under rti? http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/10/why-is-satellite-data-in-india-not-available-under-rti/ http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/10/why-is-satellite-data-in-india-not-available-under-rti/#comments Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:41:15 +0000 daniel robinson http://danielsrepublic.com/country/?p=1852 here is my question: should not the data that is captured by irs satellites(bar the ones that have security implications) be available to Indian citizens under the RTI? after all the missions have been funded by the state hence by the people.

currently this data is available at an exorbitant cost (Data Price). The interesting thing to note is that the satellite keeps acquiring data and stores them in the ground station. only when the data is necessary/ ordered by any partner, is it processed and distributed.

it would be logical to charge if:

  1. the sensor was making any path modifications
  2. or high pre-processing was done to the raw data (this would then justify only the processed data cost and not the raw data cost)
both is not true in most cases, what is interesting is that even the archived data is charged (only data older than 3 years is cheaper (50% off))

i looked around for other satellite data and found this  link 1 & link 2. both are live data feeds from the Landsat available for public use.  if the success of facebook / google maps has taught us anything then it is the power of crowd sourcing! giving data out in the public helps better insights rather that the standard organizational approach.
—
cond.
i raised this questions with my former professor mr srinivasa raju; he responded to this accusation by informing that the landsat data was priced till as recently as 2005 and only after the mission started failing did they release it for direct public use. accepted and corrected. he also further mentioned the Bhuvan initiative. there are shortcomings but the it is really brilliant.
]]> http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/10/why-is-satellite-data-in-india-not-available-under-rti/feed/ 0 mtc chennai drivers are the safest? http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/09/mtc-chennai-drivers-are-the-safest/ http://danielsrepublic.com/country/2011/09/mtc-chennai-drivers-are-the-safest/#comments Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:06:45 +0000 daniel robinson http://danielsrepublic.com/country/?p=1846 i read an article recently, which read, mtc kills 143 people on the road every-year! daring was the article and had its justifications. but look at this way, for a vehicle that transports on an average 1400 people a day and does around 250 kms a day! the average, casuality rate caused by an average bus rider would be way lower than the rest of transport modes in chennai probably next only to the railways!

i would say! great way to go MTC! should appreciate them for that!

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