kinshuk sunilit aint no, dessert if therez no caek

Folks

I have been working on this idea and concept for some time now. Since, my early open source game-dev days (early 2004), I have felt the need for having a pan-india indie game development community. Me and Yadu kept discussing it for so long, its hard to even recall. This all happened while we kept jumping projects on Sourceforge.net and then Launchpad.net.

November 2008, saw the setting up of a mailing list on Google Groups. I called it Indie Game Developers India (InGDIn) community. With no active promotion taking place, the community kept growing at a snail’s pace to the present day 32. That was until yesterday.

On September 2, 2009, Yadu and I, we have finally come up with the InGDIn Community formally. Currently, the website is under development – so we have an active presence on Facebook. See the InGDIn Page on facebook and become a fan as well (just to stay updated). InGDIn is also on twitter now! Follow us!

To propel the whole idea forward, and give us momentum, we have also come up with the idea of DiningCamps (organised by InGDIn). The objectives of DiningCamps are three-folds:

1. Create a platform to interact and network with people interested in game development – create a talent pool
2. Create a platform to showcase one’s work, find team members, investors and publishers – create an indie marketplace
3. Have loads of fun while doing the above both

A lot of stuff has still to be planned. Check out the event page on facebook – DiningCamp 04.10

A lot more will follow… keep your fingers crossed!

Have fun!

A compilation of some statistics about my domain: kinshuksunil.com for 2009, First Half.
These are very small and insignificant numbers, but at least they are milestones I am progressing forward from :)

The Source for these statistics is Awstats. I have started using Google Analytics, absolutely, from June 20th only. All subsequent stats will come from it.

VISITORS

Unique: 12991 (6 Month Average: 2165)
Page Views: 35655 (6 Month Average: 5942.5)
Hits: 361009 (6 Month Average: 60169)

OPERATING SYSTEMS

Windows (All Versions): 60.8 %
Linux (All Distributions): 33.6 %
Mac OS (All Versions): 5.3 %
Symbian (All Versions): 0.3 %

BROWSERS

Firefox (All Versions): 49.1 %
Internet Explorer (All Versions): 26.5 %
Opera (All Versions): 8.9 %
Chrome (1.0.x): 5 %
Safari (All Versions): 3.6 %
Nokia Mobile : 1.6 %
Sony Mobile: 1 %

SOURCE COUNTRY

India: 56.4 %
USA: 23.7 %
Brazil: 5.2 %
Phillipines: 4 %
Russia: 3.6 %
UK: 3.6 %
Canada: 2.7 %

I was away on a family trip for the last 5 days. A long pending tasks before commencing the journey was to clean my bathroom, which I finally managed to do some twenty minutes ago. While cleaning, I gained enlightenment – understood some life’s reality due to the very process of the cleaning. I share some five lessons from that enlightenment. Remember, cleaning the Toilet is an allegory to the real life here.

1. Its easy to be shitting around, but when you have to clean your own shit you start getting responsible with it.
It is very easy for anyone to spread the dirt – back-bite, bitch about, scams and spams, etc but when you have to clean your own mess you start realizing what a pain it is. End result, the next time you shit, you know how to do it in a responsible fashion so that you can do the cleaning up later and not get dirty.

2. Don’t mess up with stains that you cant clean, you will only get dirty.
OK! When you start the cleaning up remember there are some stains, some grime that you cant clean. You just don’t have the skills yet. When such is the case don’t mess with that stuff, you will only get dirty and achieve nothing. Similarly in life, you are not supposed to do everything and work at everything. Know your domain or you will be nowhere.

3. Not all grime can be cleaned by you, leave the tough ones for the experts.
Refer to point above. Not everything can be done by you. You don’t have all the skills – you are good at something but at the cost of being not-so-good at something else. Don’t waste your time and efforts doing stuff someone else can do better than you. Concentrate on what you can do best, let the rest of the stuff be tackled by specific experts.

4. If you make mistakes, some scarring will always happen.
It was never a good idea to let the dirt settle over time. When I let that happen, I make a mistake. The better approach would have been to be pro-active (being lazy doesn’t help) and run a continuous process of cleaning which wouldn’t let stains set. Now that I made the mistake, no matter what I do, I wont be able to get rid of everything. Some scars will always remain. So in life, think before you act. Watch out, before you make a mistake. For once you have committed it, there is no turning back and damage control won’t be complete. Some scarring will always happen.

5. No matter how well you clean it, it will never be 100%.
No matter how well you clean the grime, some one will be able to find faults with it. No matter how much time and effort you put into things, there will always be people who are not satisfied, who criticize. It will not do good to waste your efforts in pleasing them. It is not humanly possible to please everyone. So don’t waste your resources trying it. Learn to move on and learn to heed only to those who count. Don’t get dejected, disappointed. And next time, make a better attempt. Learn, Grow, and Evolve.

Now that the sermon is over, let me rest. Coming up next are tidbits from my recent trip and a rant on how infrastructure still sucks in India and what can be done about it.

Kinshuk

07. KANDISA
Indian Ocean 
(Kandisa)

Kandisa Aalaha, Kandisa Esana
Holy God, Holy Strength

Aalam, Aalam, Aalam
Truly, Truly, Truly

Aamen, Aamen, Aamen
So be it, So be it, So be it

Sliha mar Yosef, Almadbaha Kudisaha
Our father, Joseph, at your Holy Altar, Humbly I Submit

Angene Dhanusa, Nyahave Dukharana
May that be forever in Memory, Heart and Mind

Kandisa Aalaha, Kandisa Esana
Holy God, Holy Strength

Kandisa la mayo sa, Ezraha ma ‘layn
Holy immortal, please have mercy on me

source:
translation http://wapedia.mobi/en/Kandisa
music http://www.last.fm/music/Indian+Ocean/Kandisa/Kandisa
—
An aremaic prayer sung wholesomely by the Indian Rock/Fusion group ‘Indian Ocean’. Spiritually fulfilling, this prayer has a calming effect on me and everyone who has listened to it (in my knowledge). Perhaps I will review this song someday. Its been long since I last blogged.

I am not sure the lyrics/translation is completely correct.

OSScamps are organized on the lines of bar camps and serves as a dais for Tech professionals, geeks and geeks-to-be to discuss, debate, comment and share their knowledge through demos, presentations and interactions among the campers. It’s an endeavor to gather and collaborate on open source technologies and tools.

The OSScamp Pantnagar community, initiated at OSScamp Delhi September 2008, has announced their maiden unconferece at Pantnagar (Nainital) area. The unconference is scheduled for January 31st – February 1st 2009 in the scenic views of  GB Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar, at the Department of Computer Engineering, College of Technology.

For more details:
event:  osscamp.in/event/osscamp-pantnagar-february-2009
talks: osscamp.in/category/talk-camp/osscamp-pantnagar-february-2009
regsiter: osscamp.in/node/103/signup