Education

A new look and orientation

25 July 2010 By Avinash Meetoo 2 Comments

I have just upgraded my weblog to WordPress 3.0 and, as you can see, I have decided to use the new default theme, Twenty Ten, but with a circuit diagram as the header image to reflect the new subtitle which is “A blog on Technology Convergence.”

In parallel, I’ll continue to blog elsewhere on different topics. For instance, I blog on Knowledge7.com about Information Technology, Computer Science, Personal Development and Career Advancement because, well, this is what Knowledge Seven Ltd is all about. I also blog on Elections.mu on politics in Mauritius including the Government’s strategy for IT in the country as well as for our education system. Finally, I also write articles on Open Source onÂ Lugm.org, the official blog of the Linux User Group of Mauritius.

To be frank, I blog less often now. But I try to make my articles more insightful and useful. So it is as demanding as before.

You will notice that I have enabled the CommentLUV plugin on Noulakaz.net in order to enhance the interaction between you who regularly leave comments on my blog and me. I also have fewer Google ads on the blog because I am not doing Noulakaz.net because of Google’s money.

In fact, and I wrote about this before, I have been blogging for more than 6 years now because this creates the opportunity for me to interact with more interesting people.

Thanks to you all.

Announcing Elections.mu

20 April 2010 By Avinash Meetoo 2 Comments

In two weeks, all adults of Mauritius will have to go and vote for those who will have the responsibility to run our country for the next five years. Over the years, many bloggers (including Christina and myself) have written posts on politics but we didn’t really have a political blog in Mauritius where anyone (if serious enough) might become a contributor in the spirit of citizen journalism.

This is why I am very happy to launch Elections.mu today: the first political blog in Mauritius. Visit

http://www.elections.mu/

and spread the word. If you want to become a contributor, just send me an email at avinash AT noulakaz DOT net. Thank you!

On killing book reading

2 March 2010 By Avinash Meetoo 7 Comments

As I suppose you all know by now, the British Council has decided to close its public library in Mauritius. This decision, which, as far as I can tell, is based on economical reasons, is very debatable as this will prevent people who like to read to have access to English books.

I have very fond memories of the British Council library. I was a subscriber when I was a kid then again when I came back to Mauritius in 1998. I remained a subscriber until two years ago when I decided to stop subscribing for two main reasons:

The library, which was originally a real library with real books and a very studious atmosphere, became a mÃ©diathÃ¨que with Web-enabled PCs, LCD TVs showing English movies, etc. From total silence, the place became noisy… But, more problematic, someone there decided that most books should be kept somewhere hidden and only retrieved when asked for. This made stumbling by accident on a book more or less impossible.

See, I became a Computer Scientist in large part because, at the British Council library,Â I stumbled by accident on one book when I was a kid. That book was the formidable Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley:

I read that book when I was 14-15 and fell in love. I discovered that very special type of literature called computer programming. From there I read books on algorithms, data structures, computer architecture, etc, all of them obtained at the British Council library. I can’t imagine what my education would have been without them…

A second reason why I stopped subscribing was that I felt that the subscription fee was becoming too high. I think it was around Rs 1000 per year which is waaaaaaay above what a normal Mauritian can pay. For the record, other libraries in Mauritius, and especially Charles Baudelaire library (which is the French alter-ego of the British Council library) charge substantially less per year.

If I were cynical, I would say that this was a deliberate decision by the British Council to have fewer and fewer subscribers until closing down would become the only viable thing to do.

But I prefer not to be cynical (once), this is just a result of very bad judgement.