Hari's Corner

I am currently developing an ultra-lightweight web forum/message board software using Python (CGI) and SQLite 3. I'm still working on the core features, but I have done enough to warrant some public screenshots of the early development.

So without further ado, here they are:

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And with a bang!

URL: LiteraryForums.org

If you still get the old link about my closing literaryforums.org, your nameservers have probably not been updated. Wait awhile and try again.

I don't want to sound churlish, but I really don't like electronic mailing lists. I haven't subscribed to a mailing list in ages, but recently I volunteered for a documentation project, which required me to subscribe to their mailing lists. Very soon, I got quite irritated by the flood of new messages in my mailbox every time I opened it: this apart from the usual "spam." It's become increasingly difficult to use e-mail for any practical communication because there's too much noise. That's part of the reason why I have a different (and relatively private) e-mail ID for my professional purposes.

It's 2012, web forums have been around for ages, and people still stick to a relatively primitive technology for online discussions, particularly for project development.

I don't deny that mailing lists are simple and easy to use. But they are annoying for some reasons:

1. Constant stream of new mails awaiting you whenever you open your mailbox. I know mails can be filtered and categorized, but as a POP user, I still find it annoying to have to download them.
2. Mailing list's digest mode is less annoying (though updates are still frequent enough), but make it practically more difficult to follow the flow of conversations and to reply to individual mails.
3. Past discussions or topics are difficult to refer to. Of course, mailing lists have a web archive, but those are clunky to read. A long mailing list thread can descend into several levels of quotes that make it hard to read.
4. People don't maintain a single standard for replying to quotes. Some people top post, while others bottom post. This makes readability quite hard.
5. Finally, mailing lists expose my e-mail to potentially hundreds of subscribers. I am not very comfortable sharing my e-mail ID with everybody. Using "throwaway" e-mail IDs specifically for mailing lists are inconvenient and an added hassle, particularly because I prefer to read mails from my mail client.

To be honest, others don't find these issues particularly bothersome, but I've been used to the unobtrusive nature of web forums where I don't face a deluge of mails in my inbox and I can always follow discussions or topics at leisure from a convenient web interface.

Web forums might have their faults, but to me, mailing lists, particularly in this era of spam, are no longer desirable forms of online discussions.

I've revamped the articles section of this site to use a Wiki instead of simple PHP pages. The main reason for this is because I want to update it regularly and use it as a kind of repository and "workshop" for my miscellaneous writing. A Wiki seemed the best option for such a project and I've chosen PmWiki for its simplicity and ease of use (particularly for a single user Wiki project).

Note that it's not a publicly editable Wiki. However, please do feel free to peruse the contents of the Wiki and point out any mistakes or errors to me.

The older content in that section can still be found at at old-articles.

Preliminary objections are generally a form of pleadings by lawyers around the world in common law jurisdictions. While the exact term of usage may vary across different legal jurisdictions, the fundamental principle is the same.

Preliminary objections are points of law or fact raised at the outset of a case or lawsuit by the defence without going into the merits of the case. In other words, preliminary objections take no account of the validity of the claims of the claimant or plaintiff.

Instead preliminary objections may be taken on the basis of the following:

• The jurisdiction of the particular court or tribunal to hear the case is lacking. Jurisdictional objections may be in regard to either territory (the Court chosen by the claimant/plaintiff has no authority to try a case in the place where the cause of action arose) or pecuniary (the Court chosen by the claimant/plaintiff does not have the authority to try the case because the value of the case in monetary terms is higher than the upper limit that can be tried by the Court).
• The suit discloses no cause of action. In other words, there is no underlying basis or dispute for which the suit could have been initiated.
• The suit is time-barred by limitation. For example, many types of civil suits may be barred after a period of three years from the time the dispute or cause of action arose. This limitation is imposed in many legal systems to avoid excessive abuse of the system and to prevent litigants who sleep over their rights from exercising it after considerable lapse of time. However, in some situations, courts may have the power to condone delay for legitimate reasons.
• The relief claimed by the claimant in the suit cannot be granted by the Court, either because it is barred in law or the Court has no jurisdiction to grant the relief claimed or otherwise infructuous.
• The doctrine of Res Sub Judice. In other words, another suit by the same claimant against the same defendant, disclosing the same cause of action, is pending before another court.

It may be noted that preliminary objections are narrow in scope and cannot raise substantive issues raised in the pleadings that may have to be determined by the court after perusal of evidence. The maximum relief that a preliminary objection can seek is a return of the suit (not a dismissal on merits) to the claimant/plaintiff with appropriate directions.

Understanding the nature and scope of preliminary objections is very important for practicing lawyers. Knowing how to raise a properly formulated preliminary objection, and when to raise it, can save a lot of time and costs for clients. On a related note, defending a suit is always easier than prosecuting as there are several ways by which a defendant can break down the claim of the plaintiff or claimant. Preliminary objections are the basic legal weapons that a defendant can utilize without expending too much effort.

Multiple OSes on a desktop or laptop sometimes lead to minor irritations like date/time coordination with the system hardware clock inconsistencies across operating systems.

I had a problem recently when I installed Slackware alongside Debian on my laptop. The hardware clock kept getting reset either by 5:30 hours ahead or behind, depending on which distro I was using. It appears that Debian expected that my hardware clock was set to UTC while Slackware rightly assumed the choice I'd made during the installation (i.e. clock set at local time). Changing the system time every login was getting irritating.

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