My mom asked me to take a copy of her Aadhar card using the new HP Printer-Copy-Scan we got at home. My aunt, generally curious about new machines, joined me. Print is easy. You can see the page layout on your phone before printing. But for a copy, you have to place the card at the right place. It is a little tough when you need both sides of the Aadhar on the same side of the paper. The first time I tried, I printed Photo-ID and Address on either side of paper. One paper got wasted.
I learnt that the machine would print on the side of paper that is visible to me when I stand in front of it. With that new learning, I tried again. It failed. I printed it reverse.
I got irritated. I turned the paper and placed it back in the tray. I placed the card in opposite direction [When you flip the card, you should see the correct direction] and then hit on the Copy button for the third time. As the machine drew the paper in and started printing, my aunt mumbled, “దేవుడా ! దేవుడా! ఈసరి పని చెయ్యాలి!” (God, God, It has to work this time!)
Two failed attempts with a photo-copier made my aunt pray.
I printed it right this time.
Earlier this week, my brother and I traveled to Bengaluru by bus to attend the IndiaFOSS Conference. It was the first time both sons of my mom traveled together. It was raining heavily in Telangana off late. Naturally, my mom also prayed to God that we reach safely.
Obviously, God has no role play in getting a photo-copy right and Governments have more role to play in keeping us safe on roads. But given the uncertainty of outcomes, and silence of those responsible in getting it done, we are left with the God.
The more the uncertainty, the more the prayers. Farmers, families of patients in a hospital, filmmakers, etc., thus pray a lot. Some of these uncertainties can be answered through Science and Logic. Meteorological science can reduce weather uncertainty to farmers. But as long as uncertainty exists, seems like God is here to stay. Or we should be able to understand uncertainty better.
This is my old blog along similar lines: https://dsaikrishna.wordpress.com/2022/07/08/god-religion-philosophy-science/
So I was in IndiaFOSS to talk about the AQI bulletins data we opened. Here is the link (starts at 1:59:38).
I had a good time at the conference and Bengaluru. Thejesh, Kartik with whom I am running the Model Thinker reading group, Nemo and others, have run a very fun Open Data Dev Room. You can check other Open Data talks as well in the link above. Aman and Vivek’s talk about Diagram Chasing and Sivaraj’s talk on archive of hate incidents in India are my favorites.
In the maintrack, I liked the talk by Retired Justice Yatindra Singh about bringing Linux and other FOSS to Allahabad High Court. After listening to his efforts, the Windows 11 on my laptop seemed to mock me. The first thing I did after returning home from IndiaFOSS was remove Windows 11 from my laptop and install the Linux GNOME. I used the Fedora distribution. I loved the wallpaper.
I was editing a few explainer videos for UrbanEmissions. NotebookLM was used to generate podcast-like audio from the reports. I previously used Clipchamp on Windows to edit the video. On Linux, I’m using Kdenlive, a FOSS software. I’m happy that there is a lot of tutorial on YouTube. As I explored those videos, I learnt an edit template which inspired an instagram reel idea (It’s in Telugu). Let me know if you like it!
The audio reverberated after uploading the video for some strange reason. I should have prayed to God :/