Trials and Tribulations

Moving ...

2007-05-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

Due to various reasons, I am moving this blog to Wordpress.
Here is the new link : India Syndicate

Please note: moving to Wordpress has not improved the quality of my writing...it is just a ego trip.

Can you google backwards ???

2007-04-06T17:15:00.000-07:00

For those of us who cannot think straight, someone created this :

Now I can google the net backwards and forwards...and backwards and forwards...and...uh well ! you get the idea.

Insurance insurance

2007-04-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

No...the title of this post was not a typo. Read on ..read on, I say !

Our first story comes from Richard Reich's blog:

Selling your insurance policy !!! eh ???

Here’s an area of controversy and concern. There’s a new industry that’s sprung up called the “Secondary market for life insurance”. Here’s how it works. It’s mostly for elderly or ill people. The origination of this started some years ago when terminally ill people who needed financial help turned to their life insurance policies and sold them to investors. They got a percentage of their insurance amount based on how long they were expected to live.

This intensifies my belief that everything has a market. Not only can you pawn on your own life, you can do so on others' lives too !!!

The second insurance story ?

Wedding Insurance ... yes !

Love may be priceless, but unfortunately getting married can be very expensive. If you have recently become engaged or currently planning the wedding of your dreams, you should see if wedding insurance is right for you.

Wedding insurance is a form of special event insurance designed to provide financial protection if you have to cancel or postpone a wedding because of death or serious injury in the immediate family, the bride or groom is called to military duty, a natural disaster such as a hurricane or earthquake occurs on your special day or other insured disaster.

I know what you are thinking --- but I am sorry.

One thing that is generally not covered, however, is change of heart.

Now, I ask myself: I know that love is priceless and so forth, but consider this: Suppose you had a girlfriend and you bought her gifts, flowers, chocolates. And then, after an expensive courtship, she ditches you and marries someone else. Is there an insurance policy that can recover your losses due to this unforeseen catastrophe ? If yes, how would one calculate the premium for such a policy ? Would they match horoscopes, tastes, eye colour ?

Think...think ....

Going in circles...

2007-04-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

Atanu Dey gives some background to the recent hullabaloo about British personnel taken hostage by Iran :

Ever since oil was discovered there at the turn of the 20th century, Iran has been the object of plunder and high politics. From then onwards, both Russia and the UK repeatedly tried to control the country. Then, during World War II, Germany needed Iran’s oil and, in order to prevent this, UK forces invaded Iran and opened a pipeline to Russia, then our ally in fighting Germany.

Then there are references to the Iraq occupation and the real reasons behind it:

Ever since the Germans tried to build a Berlin-Mosul railway a century ago, oil has been the main motivator of Western nation policy towards the Middle East, but most American and British people are totally unaware of this as they cheerfully pump petrol into their cars. They still don’t fully realise why Bush and Blair invaded Iraq in 2003 nor, in the latest foolish episode, why Bush persuaded Blair to trespass on Iranian waters in the hope of provoking Iran into excessive reaction, giving cause for powerful American response with, Bush naively assumed, world-wide support.

This may be too simplistic a statement of facts. Nevertheless, I think this holds true in most scenarios: think Afghanistan where the Americans , for so long, supported Osama Bin Laden when he was fighting the Soviets. Now he is enemy number one.
Closer home, the Indian Army helped train the now-dangerous LTTE into the efficient fighting unit that it is now. Today, we are hunting them.

The world, it seems, is going in circles. It would be mighty funny if not for the fact that millions of innocent lives are lost or destroyed in the process.

Who is the Knowledge Commission working for ?

2007-04-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

I did not notice this story earlier. It only came to me today while reading this post :

We have heard this story before. Remember the early 90's stories of Indian software engineers only working on low end maintenance projects? Or the early 2000 stories that only low end call center work is outsourced to India? What Dr. Bhargava says is likely to happen. The first that will test the waters are going to be younger educational institutions, those that have little to lose & a lot to gain. The Ox-Bridge/ Ivy Leagues will come in much later. But why should we quibble? Does the color of the cat matter as long as it catches the mice? If the new entrants offer value, they will have a market. If not, they will need to go back to the drawing board and rework their India strategy. Any one who is under the mistaken belief, that all a foreign university needs to do is to set shop in India and every one will flock to it, needs to read about the struggle of MTV, Pepsi, Coca Cola, Pizza Hut etc. to gain market share in India. India is an extreme value conscious market. You need to get your value proposition right to crack the market and the same will apply to higher education.

The things our Government would have us believe !
If only we, as citizens, took the time and effort to understand these issues, we could dent such efforts from our government.

For everything else, there's Mastercard !

2007-04-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

Priceless

How much is the square of 48 ?

2007-04-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

Do you know how to calculate squares of numbers close to 50 ?

Do you ? do you ??? huh ??

I will do you a favour : read this :

When Bethe and Feynman went up against each other in games of calculating, they competed with special pleasure. Onlookers were often surprised, and not because the upstart Feynman bested his famous elder. On the contrary, more often the slow-speaking Bethe tended to outcompute Feynman. Early in the project they were working together on a formula that required the square of 48. Feymnan reached across his desk for the Marchant mechanical calculator
Bethe said, "It's twenty-three hundred."

Do you know who is Bethe ?
See, how many things you learn just by reading this blog !!!

Grandma stops traffic on Bannerghatta Road...!

2007-04-05T10:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I wonder where the will and wish to do good comes from. Is it the youth ? does it come from our exposure to other cultures ? is it from our extensive education ?

And then sometimes, I think not.

Don't know what I am talking about ? Read this:

I was riding in a car on Bannerghatta Road. Work is finally getting done on that road to widen and pave it, so traffic was moving at a fast pace. As we passed an apartment complex on the left, I noticed an old lady with a red handbag making her way off the footpath and on to the road, probably in anticipation of a bus or to flag down an auto, I thought. But she did not stop moving. As our car passed her, she strode toward the middle of road, holding up her red handbag.

Read on...there are some things in this country of ours that just defy explanations !

Chalo India: Now, own Bollywood

2007-04-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

Cutting the Chai writes about Moserbaer putting video pirates out of business in this informative piece:

A DVD for Rs 34! That would definitely be a cause of worry of the Pirates of Palika, who peddle their stuff for Rs 75-Rs 150. A VCD's for a mere Rs 28. My neighbourhood DVD rental charges Rs 30 for a day. Looks like he'll have to think of competitive pricing soon.

Like they say, "It happens only in India" !

The horrible world we live in...

2007-04-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

India Uncut never fails to shock me...

Read this piece...I do not want to post any thoughts...I am left speechless.

If you’re straight, imagine one more time the dystopia gay Indians live in, where not just sex but love and companionship are elusive. Isn’t that criminal?

Thanks to Amit Varma for bringing this piece to us.
How insensitive can we humans be ?

Opening access to research

2007-04-04T18:49:00.000-07:00

Quite an old piece but relevant today:

Rising journal costs restrict access to scientific research. Martyn Bull reports on a campaign to get institutions to set up free internet archives

If the purpose of scientific publishing is to increase access to knowledge to enable further advances in science and technology, then researchers are not doing much to help. Too often they care more about the impact of publishing in a high-status journal than how many people might be able to read it.
.......
....
The report advocates radical change in the scientific publishing process to prevent escalating costs and restrictive publisher agreements choking access to scientific research. It recommends that authors disseminate their research for free on the internet by storing articles in institutional archives, as well as backing a switch from “subscriber pays” to “author pays” publishing.

The SHERPA initiative is arguing that scholars put their research work on university/institution archives so the general public can access them free of cost.
My question is: how then, do the research scholars make money ? It is correct that journal costs are way too high. However, I do not think making the papers themselves free will help.

What are your comments ? Is that the way to go ?

Banning cricket !

2007-04-04T17:47:00.000-07:00

Villages in Haryana ban cricket:

"We all have taken this decision and those who go against it will have to face social boycott. We've enshrined this in the Panchayat records of 28 villages," said Tewa Singh, head of Dadan Panchayat.
"We will stop playing it (cricket). We will play kabaddi, football, volleyball and wrestle instead," Pankaj, a resident of the village, said.

How about banning politicians, I say. Surely, politicians do more harm than silly, incompetent cricketers !
"Social boycott", my foot ! Who would want to have anything to do with such a society, anyway !!!

The thing with trust....

2007-04-04T17:32:00.000-07:00

Excellent post on a blog that is fast becoming my favourite:

At the bus, plenty of angry shouting, more stones flung, a window broken, three youths scream at us: "We don't want your peace talk, tell it to the RSS who did all this, now get out while you can!"

The thing with trust is: it takes a long time to build and once it is broken, it is very very difficult to get it back.

So, what I wonder is this: how do we so readily believe in God, whom we have not seen in all these years, but are not ready to trust our neighbors whom we have grown up with ? How do so readily trust our politicians who rain catastrophes and scams on us by re-electing them again and again, but are not willing to forgive our friends ?

I am worried...deeply worried.

Are you one of Nero's guests

2007-04-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

Chilling piece here from Alternative Perspective:

Emperor Nero's parties in his garden were attended by all the Who's Who of Rome. Often the the parties were in progress, but then the dusk fell, and night arrived. There was no light around for the guests to continue to enjoy the festivities. Nero came up with a innovative solution to provide illumination: the prisoner and poors were brought and burnt on the stakes party all around the arena to illuminate the garden... Tacitus (The Annals, Book XV, C.E. 62-65 ) noted:

"(they) were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle."

...and the party continued....

Of course, Nero, as most people know, was mad and cruel - and so, his conduct is perhaps not really so surprising - even if it was sensational.

But what about Nero's Guests?

They were, after all, the prominent elites of Rome - the intellectuals, the traders, the artists... sort of the "owners" of Roman culture and prosperity... (one would perhaps find them similar to our contemporary urban eduacated elites in temperaments and aspirations)...

It is important to understand the psyche of people - our own, actually- who could enjoy their wine and food, while the crackling light from burning bodies provided illumination to their delights...

as the party (i.e., the GDP, the Shopping Malls, the brands, GDP, SEZs, etc.) continues...

It makes me think: is our social responsibility not really an obligation ? Are we condemned to be busy with our own lives and not root for justice !
We are a suppressed and busy people. We barely have enough time for our own lives...we are too scared to rebel against emperor Nero.

Video karaoke, possible ?

2007-04-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

Ever remember when you went out for a movie with your friends and then you came to a sad scene where a friend made a funny comment and you all started laughing uncontrollably ?

Ever remember watching a cricket match and your friends shouting "Come on Kumble, dive man !" etc ?

I am dreaming of a software (or a hardware) which will allow me to record viewer comments while the video is running. Then when I get a chance to replay the video (through a DVD or a VCD), I would have the option of choosing either the original soundtrack or the karaok'ed soundtrack.

That would be a great way of enhancing the watching experience. It also has a nostalgic value: I want to recollect all those comments my friends made when we were watching a movie or a cricket or tennis match.
There is one more reason for this longing: I despise the cricket commentary on display these days. I feel my friends read the game better than the bloke speaking on TV. If I ever buy a DVD or VCD of my favourite cricket game, I would like to be able to over-write the on-TV commentary with that of my friends or myself.

What do my readers say ?

Google, Why ?

2007-04-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

Why does everyone want to work at Google ? Because, according to Fortune magazine, it is the best place to work in America.

And why is that ?

Check out this video :

Link via this piece from Digital Inspiration

No wonder, the search company gets 3000 new job applications each day - that's more than a million every year.

No wonder, indeed...!

Some kind of History

2007-04-04T04:54:00.000-07:00

Touching piece on the convictions for the crimes committed against Sikhs in 1984:

If you check around, you'll find your own crop of similar explanations. The Bhiwandi killings of 1970 and 1984, the Delhi killings of 1984, the Mumbai killings of 1992-93, the Gujarat killings of 2002: pick any one, plenty of your fellow countrymen rationalize it, using words like "retaliation", "justified", "lesson", "water under the bridge" and more. Why, on the day I read about the conviction of Gurpal's killers, I also read a report in the Times of India with this title: "For RSS, Gujarat riots are history."

There's no justice for so many ordinary Indians slaughtered, but it's "history."

History means so many things to so many people. For some, it is a distant scene: something that they watch as if they were watching a movie or a game of cricket. At the end of it, they can brush it off and get on with their lives.
But for some, it is a painful episode which keeps coming back like a recurring nightmare. It leaves an indelible mark on their lives.

It is time we started recognizing the value of human life.

Bad kids ? Train the parents

2007-04-04T03:07:00.000-07:00

Interesting piece on the Freakonomics blog:

The paper’s authors conducted a randomized study with 153 socially disadvantaged Welsh parents with children aged 3 or 4. Some of the parents were given a 12-week “intervention programme,” in which two professionals taught the parents how to reward, punish, and discipline their children. The control group of parents were wait-listed for this workshop.

The results showed that the children of the parents who took the workshop behaved significantly better afterward, at least in the short term. The authors make the point that, since childhood anti-social behavior is a strong indicator of adult anti-social behavior and criminality, the findings are potentially very important.

I personally do not agree with this view. I feel that the best parents are those with the best intentions in their heart. Of course, this has to be combined with that essential element called love. Parents have to stop thinking of their kids as extensions of themselves and treat them as individuals in their own right.

What sayest thou ?

Everything considered, its the same story !

2007-04-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

A Bangladesh perspective to the slide in Indian cricket

The Bangladeshi Newspaper Prothom Alo said this win is a reply to the Indian's disrespect about Bangladesh. Bangladesh proved India that what is commerce to them is merely a game for them. The article concludes with the hope that India is put down on their feet with this shock. If they still cannot revise their opinion about Bangladesh they will be reminded in the coming tour.

This is typical sub-continent rhetoric. Everytime we beat Australia or South Africa, we talk about how India have shown these great nations their place. Bangladesh, unfortunately, is following that route.
I am reproducing verbatim, my comments on that post (do read the other comments -- I found them nauseating, at best):

It is funny how one win can make dreamers out of losers !
I have nothing but the greatest respect for the way the Bangladesh team beat India in the WC. It was a fantastic exhibition of tight bowling and sticking to the basics. I really liked the attitude of Tameem Iqbal in that eventful over from Zahir Khan --- hope to see more from this kid.

But, please hold on to your horses. You guys have a long way to go. You only have two wins in this cup so far: one against a lazy India and the other against a hapless Bermuda.
Please show us more before we start talking about how Bangladesh are better than India...let us please keep our feet firmly on the ground, shall we ?

Incidentally, I read this piece from Prem Panicker's blog only a couple of days ago. Do read it...

But unfortunately Bangla-desh, like it's more colourful neighbours India, has got mindless followers whose emotion often beats logic. The whole nation was over the moon since early hours of March 26, a very special day in the history of the country. It was quite understandable when we rejoiced the success against Bermuda that confirmed the Tigers of a place in the next round.
But wasn't that something like an excess what followed when many including the knowledgeable section started thinking of 'going all the way to the semifinals' or sweeping comments like 'winning has become a habit for us' or 'I don't want to take the win as an upset'.

All things considered, we are birds of the same flock !

Update: Found this piece about Bangladesh fans burning effigies of their cricketers , huh !

Does the Sun have a companion ?

2007-04-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

Intriguing theory here from scientist Richard A Muller.

Like a thorn in the side of mainstream researchers, Muller's Nemesis theory -- that our Sun has a companion star responsible for recurring episodes of wholesale death and destruction here on Earth -- seems to reemerge periodically like microbes after a mass extinction.
It's a theory that has many detractors. And it's a theory that has been beaten down and left for dead in the minds of most scientists.
Yet it is a theory that just won't die

The theory goes on to state that this star re-emerges every 26 million years to cause a shower of meteors on our planet causing mass extinctions:

Muller's idea for Nemesis came to him 1983. Luis Alvarez, then an emeritus professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, and his son Walter had recently put forth the theory that a giant impact had wiped out the dinosaurs. (This idea, like so many others that are now widely accepted, met with staunch criticism when it was introduced because it, too, was not mainstream).
Around the same time, two other researchers had suggested yet another controversial idea, that mass extinctions occurred at regular intervals -- every 26 million years or so. Scientists immediately folded the ideas into a new and breathtaking possibility: Impacts by space rocks were causing massive global species destruction every 26 million years.

I dream that when this "nemesis" reappears, it will sweep away all the planets from the Solar System and our earth will start revolving round this new star, instead of the Sun.
That way, we will all get to see new places in the universe !!!

Now, I ask this: how will that change you as a person ?
Are you ready for the joy ride ?

You saw it coming, didnt you ?

2007-04-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

Read on here

Discovered through the award-winning blog OuchMyToe

A new cricket league !

2007-04-03T06:42:00.000-07:00

I love reading Prem Panicker's blog:

Subhash Chandra, of Zee TV, has gone and done it: set the cat firmly among the BCCI pigeons.
Just moments ago, at the Taj Palace Hotel in New Delhi, Chandra did a Kerry Packer, and announced the formation of an alternate domestic cricket league in India.
The salient points:
#The league will comprise six teams of 14 players each.
#Each team will have four international players, and at least two players who have played or are playing at the national level.
#The remaining eight players will be picked from the brightest young talent available in India. "We have experience in talent-search in the entertainment field; we will use that same expertise to unearth cricketing talent," Chandra said.
#Each team will have a qualified coach, physio and psychological expert.
#The league will be floated with an initial corpus of Rs 100 crore; the prize money on offer in the first year will be $1 million.
#The league will have a professional media manager, and an ombudsman who will handle complaints either from the public or the players.

Read here for more info.

I am hoping that this will bring a revolution in Indian cricket. If nothing else, we will have something to switch to if the national team repeats its recent performances !

Dumbing down...

2007-04-03T06:12:00.000-07:00

Whenever I watch a hindi movie, or discuss cricket with my office colleagues, I am faced with what I like to call "dumbing down the topic".

In other words, I find that subtleties are conspicuous by their absence.
Consider a hindi movie: imagine a scene where a character tries to express surprise, horror, anger etc. Then, get back to normal life. The next time a friend gets angry, or surprised, try to note their expression: you will understand what I am saying.
There is such a thing as understatement. The bulk of our movies refuse to acknowledge that fact. Every emotion, every dialogue, every act is exaggerated. While this seems perfectly harmless, what it, in fact, does is that it takes away that "real life factor". When you are trying to tell a story about ordinary human beings (as opposed to super humans), you are trying to get the audience to identify with the characters. You want the audience to feel that they have met this character (or someone resembling this character) in their lives. You want the audience to say: "yes, this is exactly how xyz would react" or "this is exactly how my friend would talk" etc. This gets the audience involved in the story. They are not watching the movie from an outsider perspective: they are part of the action; they start to sympathize with such-and-such character and start to hate such-and-such character. As a director, you have set the platform from where you can run the plot.
The same thing happens when we discuss cricket. Maybe, I am exaggerating. Maybe, this happens only in my circle. I feel that people pass grand statements with all the subtleties removed. I feel this has partly to do with the kind of cricket commentary that we hear on TV. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that commentators from the sub-continent tend to describe what we used to call "aankhon dekha haal" in All India Radio parlance. They just describe what is happening on the ground. There is no word on the tactics being followed; there is no word on why a particular shot went wrong or why a particular bowler is consistently bowling wides down the leg-side. I feel, further, that commentators from Australia, England, West Indies etc do a better job with such things.
Now, why is that ?

Is this because we, as a nation, abhor subtleties ? Do we celebrate exaggerated emotions ? Do we, culturally, lack the ability to dissect things ?

What do you think ?

Why we don’t have product-making companies?

2007-04-03T05:56:00.000-07:00

I found this very elaborate and very thought-provoking piece:

Our obsession with stars and brands
I agree stars are important. It’s the obsession with those stars where I see the problem. We (as Indians) are obsessed with stars and brands. We don’t need to look deep to realize this about us. Our Cinema (unabashedly called ‘Bollywood’) and Cricket has many examples. The whole focus is on one or two individuals while the rest are completely unknown. It applies to our technology space as well. IITs are a brand. Therefore, anything to do with technology in India is referred to IITs while hundreds of universities and other institutes get no mention at all. If an IITian starts a paan shop, the heading goes, “The IITian left his cushy job to start a paan shop right across the street…” If they start some dumb political party, the article reads, “The IITians instead of going to US have sacrificed their careers to start a political party to better India…” A mere contraption of no significance from IITian gets the attention of starving media. This media is more interested in writing ‘This IITian has done…” than writing what he has actually done. The media is only feeding into our own obsessions. They reflect our sentiments- that of ordinary people, the families, and the societies
The same is true of our software-services companies. Why we did not look at other important industries is because these services companies were hogging the limelight for more than 20 years now. In fact, they are hogging the complete light while the rest of the industry is languishing in the dark. Bangalore, which is supposedly the ‘Silicon Valley of India’ (which I don’t agree at all), has lavish office spaces (look at Infosys and ITPL) which almost resemble a developed world. These are the same office spaces which have been glorified by the likes of Thomas Friedman (who has added more fuel to the celebration of our mediocrity). On the other hand, the same Bangalore provides extremely worse conditions to the industrial sectors where hardware and manufacturing houses are located. I have visited some of these manufacturing places- they don’t have roads, they are connected by muddy paths which have huge cracks in the middle, they don’t have water or electricity and this place looks like a remote village of India in the 16th century. The attention of whole of media, political administration, elite, institutions, investors, has been directed towards software-services companies while other industries do not get basic amenities. Software-services companies get lands at very low price; they get tax-holidays, exporting and importing is easy for them. Meanwhile, the manufacturing and other industry of India is putting with policies of old economy.

I posted a comment on that blog which I reproduce verbatim here:

You make a compelling argument. However, I beg to disagree.

If the software services industry is such a rage, it is for a reason. I am not suggesting that the service industry is better, or more profitable, than the manufacturing/product sector. However, the fact remains: manufacturing/product is a long-term thing. You need investments in time, resources, money, training today to get paybacks, maybe 10, 20, 30 years down the line. The service industry has more instant paybacks on investments. It is the nature of the beast.
We, Indians, who are on the verge of starvation, do not have the luxury of time.

However, all is not going crimson. We have a few product companies here (the auto industry, for example) who are making a mark. The turnaround is slow: but atleast there has been a start.

Having said all that, I do feel we need a more balanced education system that does not entirely focus on computer training for kids. Maybe, we need primary schools that run carpenting classes to kids to give them a taste for other skills.

What do you think ? Is the services industry a fad ? Do we need to re-look at the allocation of resources ? Are we putting all our eggs in the Services sector basket ?

When life gives you a lemon...

2007-04-03T05:34:00.000-07:00

The next time you feel hard-done by life, read this

I feel happy when I do not overstay at office in the evening and reach home on time, that is 7:35 p.m. Oh how happy I feel to see my wife and childrens. I hope they too feel happy to see me. If I reach on time, I get a royal reception from them, if I am late even by half an hour, I have lot of explanation to do.
After dinner, we, that is I, my wife and children go to our building's terrace for a stroll. Nowadays it is sooo hot during the day, the cold breeze in late evening just makes me happy and makes me smile.

Sometimes, the simple things in life are what make it so special.

So, shake off that scowl from your face, wipe off that frown and look forward to the simple pleasures that await you at the other end of life.

Watching the community

2007-04-03T05:29:00.000-07:00

My dear dear readers:

You must be wondering if I have sold my blog to someone else : where is the content, you say. Where are those long, silly, sense-less posts; where are those flights of fancy ?
What are all these mail forwards ?

Well, I have decided to stop talking for a moment and look around. I want to read what other bloggers are writing; I want to "soak-in the surroundings", so to speak.

So, hope you enjoy the little nuggets that I post from here on.

Stop hooting, will ya !

2007-04-03T01:58:00.000-07:00

Getting their act together !

2007-04-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon a wonderful photo gallery !!!

Getting Their Acts Together

-- Herman Krieger

Dig here for more

1960s version of Google

2007-04-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered what Google would have looked like if it was created in 1960 ??

Source here

Outsource your complaints !

2007-04-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

Are you the kind of person who spends most of his/her life complaining ?
Are you not able to find the time to complain about all the things that you would like to complain about ? Do you wish someone would do the complaining for you ?

Here is a way for you to outsource your complaining...check it out !

Fitness, anyone ?

2007-04-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

Go buy this book, if you like the sample pics:

Hey, it's Southern California. You don't break a sweat until you have to !

More pics here

EMI catalogue without DRM

2007-04-02T21:23:00.000-07:00

Good News !!! iTunes is slowly moving towards non-DRM music:
Link here:

By now you may have heard today's surprising news: EMI and Apple announced that the iTunes Music Store will offer EMI's entire catalog for sale without DRM! In a press release from Apple, Steve Jobs said, "We think our customers are going to love this, and we expect to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year."

Good news...from a dear friend.

Censorship in Iran

2007-04-02T20:22:00.000-07:00

Iranian Censorship at its best ...

The Economist, Apr 15 2006, pp26-27. Advertisement for LG. The woman is wearing a jogging dress.

National Geographic, Feb 2006, Cover. This issue of NG is about this phenomenon called love. The cover is a photo of a couple in embrace, not really kissing, but almost. On the uncensored cover, that is.

It is astounding that there are people who believe that this kind of censorship will actually work. It is even more astounding that such people are actually in government and their policies are endorsed by millions of citizens who voted them to power !!!

I guess that is the beauty of democracy...

Revamp ? Really ?

2007-03-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

It is official: the Indian cricket team has failed and we are all looking for an entire revamp of the way the game is played in the country.

The intellectuals are asking for a new coach, a new captain and a whole new bunch of players. Out with the old, they say .. and we lesser mortals are echoing that sentiment in our own humble little ways.

But I catch myself wondering sometimes : is the premature exit from the World Cup the only debacle this country has faced in its history ?Didn't we lose a war to China in 1962 ? Didn't we have our Parliament attacked not so long ago ? Didn't the Babri Masjid go down to hooligans in the last decade ? Didn't the country lose billions and billions of rupees to scams almost every year ? Anyone remember the train blasts in Mumbai last year ?

Why bring all that up ? Because I think the cricket team --- or any team for that matter --- is essentially a reflection of who we are as a nation. We are a nation of over-stressed, under-paid, under-privileged, cowardly, lazy, un-enterprising, safety-seeking individuals. We do not seem to be able to break the shackles of our society so easily. Even in this day and age, there are only a handful of people in our country who defy the societal norms and break free --- look at our movies for example. How many new formats, new stories have we used in the last 20 years ? I can still watch the same movie that my dad watched as a youngster: only the film crew has changed. There are very few new, unexplored subjects that our film-makers deal with even today. It wouldn't be all that bad if not for the fact that we actually watch these movies in the millions. Messrs Shahrukh Khan and Karan Johar keep re-making their own movies every year and we greedily lap it all up !

I ask myself: what advances has our Parliamentary system brought in ? I see the same bunch of greedy, self-serving, risk-avoiding politicians that my dad used to talk about when I was kid. God, even the reservation policy has been there for the past 50 years ! How long did it take our government to bring in economic reforms ? How many archaic laws has the government modified to reflect the present ?

And we want to revamp our cricket team !
Suppose we do revamp the team. New coach, new captain, new (younger) players. The old players are asked to retire. The new guys come in with new enthusiasm, a bold new approach to the game. After a few years of stumbling around, they start winning matches; they start beating the big boys; they reach the finals of the World Cup. And the ads start going "Hoo ha India..aaya India". The public calls them the "ambassadors of a new, young India"; "the face of a new fearless India that is ready to capture the world". The expectations rise (you see, we are now a would-be super-power; we cannot lose); the pressure builds; cost of failure sky-rockets; billions of dollars are invested on each player in the team. Slowly, the players start caving in to the pressure one-by-one. Then what ??? Well, we all know then what, don't we !

Success is a double-edged sword. You can either be rich and famous or you can have a life; not both. You cannot have your cake...and so forth.

If the Indian team is rebuilt tomorrow and they somehow start winning again, can we, as fans, promise that we will not start applying pressure ? Can we, as fans, promise not to be vulgar in our appreciation (a la the "Blue Billion" ) ? Can we, as fans, promise to try and learn more about the game than about the players' personal lives ? Can we take the odd defeat or two without asking for heads to roll ?

I don't think we need a new cricket team. I think we need new fans. We need a better attitude as a nation. You know why the US and Australia produce so many successful sports persons ? Because sport is celebrated there. Kids do not go the ground to play so they can become multi-millionaires when they grow up; they play because they love the game; because the parents know that sports teaches them valuable lessons that textbooks cannot (of course, I am exaggerating; there are folks in these countries too who put pressure on their kids. But I am trying to make a point).
When the Indian Olympic Committee talks about "tapping the sports talent in rural India" , it scares and sickens me. Why can't we let kids be kids ? Why do we have to look for a way to make money even from their simple lives ? True, training is necessary. You have to groom sports persons; but please, let us give them space; let them enjoy their lives while they still have time. We, cannot. We have to find out the best way of making money, more money and put our kids and youth through the drills; be it cricket, the IITs or the call centers. And, since these are such great avenues for making money, we want more people to be able to enjoy the benefits (a la reservations, more cricket coaching centers, more accent-coaches etc). It doesn't matter to us that not everybody is built to do these things. It doesn't matter to us that we are all different individuals. No: we cannot accept that. Our kids have to become super-star cricketers, or get into IITs...etc. Life, what life ? This is the only life we know.

When Rahul Dravid started his international career, he was a purist. He loved (and enjoyed) his game. He was happy. But we, as fans, could not accept that. Why can't he improvise ? Why can't he play more cross-batted hoicks ? Why can't he reverse-sweep (after all, even Wasim Akram can ?). Sachin Tendulkar simply adored the game when he started. He would train for hours and hours to battle every short coming, every chink in his armor. Now, he doesn't know what the press will criticize him for: for playing too cautiously or for being too reckless !
We killed these great cricketers. We squeezed out the cricket from them and all we have now are super-stars with long records. We are more cricket statisticians than fans (my opening batsman has more runs than yours).

As I watch the England and West Indies teams struggling in this World Cup, I wonder: do we really have a bad cricket team or do we have too many greedy fans ? The most endearing memory for me after India's loss to Sri Lanka: I wake up on Saturday morning and switch on a news channel. The reporter accosts an elderly couple leaving the ground. They promptly shout: "We need youngsters, we need more youngsters". Now, how ironic is that !

Time...in due course of time

2007-03-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

Time is a continuum and there is no such thing as probability.

Why do I say that ?
Suppose you step out of your home for a Sunday morning walk. You get out of the front door, pass the gate, cross the street, go past the milk booth after walking exactly 255 meters, go past the bus stop after another precise 210 meters, reach the intersection on the main street exactly 400 meters from the bus stop..and so forth. There is no probability at work here. It is not as if you are not sure if there is a bus stop on your way and it is not like there is a 55 % chance that you will see a milk booth on your way.

Now, the same is the case with time. You travel in time (albeit in only one direction : the future). There are milestones on the way (events that take place). There is no "probability" about events. They do take place. Its just that we do not know about these events for sure. In our first example of the morning walk, it would be analogous to our first walk in the neighborhood. The first time we step out of our house (the very first time, mind you !), we do not know if there is a milk booth or at precisely what distance it is from our home. But that doesn't change the fact that the milk booth is there for sure ! (All references to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle need to be held at an arm's length for now, please).

Our normal lives are the same. As of today, we can only travel in time in one direction. Hence, it is analogous to saying that when we step out of our home for a walk, we never return to our home again. So, we cannot trace our path, we cannot retrace our steps. We cannot study the terrain and familiarize ourselves with it. Once we cross the bus stop, we can never ever get back to the same bus stop; of course, there would be similar bus stops further ahead in our path. Also, if we are careful enough or retrospective enough, we would find a trend : something that tells us that there is a bus-stop every 1500 meters (or something to that effect). Given a knowledge of this pattern, we are able to "predict" when the next bus-stop is due: this is risk-management in its most rudimentary form. But all this does not, for a moment, make any difference to the actual number of bus-stops in our path. It is not "fate"; it is just geography.

The second factor about our lives is that we all travel in time at the same rate. As of today, no one knows how to travel through time "faster" than the rest of us; no one has found out how to "reach" the future before the others. As a result, there is absolutely no one who can "go to the future" and inform the rest of us about the pitfalls in the path. Also, for the same reason, no one has an unfair advantage on this front. We are all equals in our ignorance of the future (unless events are "fixed": like sports events, for instance).

The third factor, is that we cannot take a break in our travel in time. Everyone has to keep moving. Time does not stop. Or, to rephrase, we do not stop traveling through time. (I somehow feel it is better to say we are traveling "through" time rather than "in" time which gives readers a sense that I am talking about time-travel sci-fi). This boils down to saying that you absolutely have to take the Sunday morning walk: you do not have the option of staying back at your home.

What if we could travel in time ? What if we could travel in time in both directions (I am assuming, for reasons of simplicity, that there are only two directions in which we can move on the terrain of time) ? What if we could take a break in our movement through time ? What would be the consequences ?

First of all, is it possible to travel "in" time ? I think it is. I think it is just another skill that humans will master in due course of time (pun unintended). It is like flying: it took us time, but we finally learned how to do it. The same will happen with time travel, I feel.

OK, so what would be the consequences ? I don't think they will be as drastic as they are made out to be. When we have the option of retracing our steps in time, more of us will be able to re-visit their youths, their childhoods. We could do more things by trial and error: if the first time some initiative does not succeed because of some unforeseen event, we could go back in time and restart from scratch: only, this time, we would cover for this "unforeseen" event.
If we hurt someone by acting harsh or speaking rudely because of the "heat of the moment", we could go back and reverse the whole affair.
We could reverse death. Or could we ? I feel death is outside our time travel area. Once a person is dead, that person cannot travel anywhere, let alone time. Death is the closing point.

All the above seems to suggest that life would become more predictable. However, I believe, humanity craves for the unknown. There is some kind of pleasure that we get through suspense that keeps us going towards uncertainty. I think after the initial excitement over time travel wears off, people will go back to the old way of an unpredictable future because it is so alluring. It is in human nature to seek the unknown: no one likes the dull and predictable life.

What about ethics ? Is there an ethical question involved in time travel ? Will the church not stand up and say that is against the writ of God to predict the future and stop the inevitable from happening ? (remember, the church still has issues with abortion ?)

One last question before I close this long post: Suppose, we learn how to travel in time in the year 2055. Would someone travel to the year 2007 ? If they did, would they be able to travel back ? In 2007, we do not yet know how to travel in time, remember ? Would the knowledge also travel in time with the person ? If it did, we would learn time travel in 2007 from the first person to travel back from 2055. We could then repeat this exercise over and over again and eventually the Neanderthal man would learn time travel, about the wheel, about computers..everything that we know today and will know in the human future. That would be a mess...a huge mess.
This is exactly the kind of conundrum that we do not yet know how to solve.

Alpha: Beta, dude. What's the plan for the long weekend ?
Beta: The wife and I are traveling to 1492 to witness Columbus discovering America. What about you ?
Alpha: I am traveling back to the last weekend and staying there.
Beta: Damn ! who will I play golf with on Monday morning !!! ???

Two is better than one !

2007-03-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

Hey...what if we had two brains instead of one ?

There --- the most shocking question ... right at the top of the post !

I believe we should have two brains. I am aware that each human brain is made up of two halves which perform different functions. However, what I want is a whole new brain right next to my existing one. Well, it doesn't have to be "right next" to my existing one -- for all I care, it could be near my armpit. What is more important, though, is that it should be completely independent of the existing one. Imagine what I could do then : I could watch TV while reading a book. I could read blogs and generally surf the net while working at the report my boss asked me to complete.

I could watch a movie and a cricket match, simultaneously !

The most dramatic impact the second brain would have, however, would be on my behavior. Every time I got angry and was about to do something that I would regret later (like abusing my boss in an e-mail to the entire staff !), my other brain would realize this and work on calming my first brain (now, which of the two brains is the "first", really ?).
When I start to get too sad, the second brain would gee me up. When I start thinking too well of myself, the additional brain would bring me down to earth.
How convenient !

Going by how much I use the one brain that the Lord did give me, some of my friends would suggest that an additional one would not make much of a difference.

However, I could write two blogs simultaneously..I could write the post and comment on the post, at the same time...I could.......................sigh !

I am gutted !!

2007-03-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

It is 5:30 AM on 24-March-07, a Saturday. I just got up and read the news of India's defeat to Sri Lanka. I am gutted.
I just wanted to record my disappointment while it still hurt. I am absolutely gutted guys !
I do not feel frustrated at the end of it all. It is sad, though, to have to bid farewell to cricket stars that I have grown up admiring. The one last hurrah from Sachin, Saurav and Rahul was not to be !

I think it is a great lesson for all of us Indians. It just goes to show that it is no good being strong...you actually have to use your strengths. You actually have to show the heart.

And, above all, it is just a game...so, please let us hope, we dont see ugly scenes on the streets tomorrow.

Fuzziness in Life

2007-03-21T16:53:00.000-07:00

People tell me that science and developments in medicine will help us prolong our lives and take us closer to immortality.

I don't believe that. I believe that death is inevitable; and that death is necessary to keep the human race going. Keeping the same batch of humans alive for centuries together will stagnate thoughts and ideas (not to mention evolution).

However, I do think that developments in medicine will allow us to take away the fuzziness in life. Human beings, today, die (and grow) gradually: at least most of us do. We are born small, weak and incapable of doing anything. Then we slowly grow to our full height and strength. We grow to our full mental capabilities. We are at our peak at the age of 22-25. Then the decline starts. Sure, there are exceptions, but the percentage of such exceptions is low.

Most people start losing bone density, physical flexibility and strength, mental sharpness
as they go through their thirties, forties, fifties etc. By the time most people reach 80 (assuming they live that long) they are too weak and incapable to do anything meaningful (like I said earlier, there certainly are exceptions, but the percentage of such exceptions is too low to make a difference).

I feel that this gradual development and de-generation of human beings takes a heavy toll. It is a huge waste of time. If you do not take advantage of your twenties for some reason, your chance is gone. Also, aging takes such a huge toll on the psyche of individuals: most people lose their self-confidence and start considering themselves a poor image of what they were 10, 20, 30 years ago.

I think we should focus our medical developments on removing this waste of time. People should be able to take birth in a fully developed state, live for 20, 30 years in that state, and then die suddenly while still at the peak of their abilities. There would be no waste in development or de-generation time. Of course, people will miss their childhoods, but if you had to choose between 10 years of childhood and 30 years at the age-equivalent of 22, would you not rather choose the latter option ?

What does the child in you say ?

Of Smart People

2007-03-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

Long years ago, in my first year out of college and in a job, my boss sat me down for my first performance appraisal.
Looking deep into outer space, he told me "Young man, you are intelligent and hard-working and sincere and honest. But what you lack, is a street-smartness, a kind of ruthless cunning that you need to succeed in this brutal world".

Ever since then, I have asked myself: how do I get this street-smartness ? Can I ever get it ? Am I doomed ?

It was then that I realized: street-smartness is not an attribute of your brain power. It is a subtle product of your conditioning. The more you are taught as a kid to be polite and kind to others, the less ruthless you turn up as a grown-up. A so-called "soft" person could be as smart as a quick-witted, smooth-talking conman. The only difference is the sub-conscious approach to human situations.

This is not to say that all polite people are kind to their fellow human beings or all glib talkers are cruel -- but there definitely is a pattern.
I think it is some kind of sub-conscious choice that people make on how to use their gifts. But then, maybe it is the same with intelligence. Intelligence is not probably some gift. Maybe all human beings have the same capacity for intelligent thinking --- only, deep inside, some are willing to use it, while others choose not to.

Maybe, it is the same with animals. It is not that they are not smart per se. Probably, they just pity us human beings and humour us by acting dumb !!!

What say ?

P.S: This is the 100th post on this blog. 100 posts in two and a half years... not bad, eh !

Far off worlds

2007-03-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

I look at the night sky and see a star close by a quarter moon. And I wonder ...

When I was a kid, our family would sit in a circle and eat dinner..those were the days devoid of the noisy television shows.

Ocassionaly, I would look out the window and look at the stars out in the night sky and wonder. I used to imagine that among those tiny stars, somewhere, was a world very similar to ours.
I used to imagine that there was a family similar to ours, eating dinner at this very moment. I used to wonder if the kid in the family was also looking out at the night sky (for some reason, I just assumed that it was night there too..) and thinking the very same thoughts that I was thinking.
Was it possible that the kid was also me and not some other kid in another world. Was it possible that this "far off world" was a reflection of our own earth. What were the odds that someone had put up a huge mirror and that we were looking at our own reflections in this mirror ?

Was it possible that someone had, with a clever and elaborate mirror arrangement, made the universe look infinite (remember what the interior decorators say: to make a room look larger, put up a big mirror along the wall ?) ? Are we looking at the reflections of our own solar system all around ?

Or is it even more elaborate ? Has this "someone" put an even more clever arrangement of a million mirrors around me so that everywhere I look, I see images of myself --- some taller than me, some shorter, some fatter, some thinner and so forth ? Maybe, you do not exist. Maybe you are just a distorted image of mine like those images that we see in the weird mirrors in science museums.

Sound plausible ?

The retun of the Individual

2007-03-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

I dream of a day when there are no companies. I dream of a day when there is no democracy, no government. I dream of a day when there are no courts, no lawyers.
I dream of the day when the individual returns. The individual that existed before civilization. The individual that existed before social hierarchy took over. That individual has been buried deep into the debris that we now call society. I dream of the day when that individual returns.

Each of us is unique. Why then, do we have to follow the same rules ? If our values are so different, why are we all expected to have the same mission in life ? Why do our ideals and goals encroach on each other s's space ? Why do the strong force the weak to follow their path ? Why do some get to draw boundaries on this earth when others want to roam free ? Why does a government get to tell its people that killing themselves is a crime even if they are suffering immense pain ? Why does the government get to take away my hard-earned money in the name of tax and give me potholes in return ? Why does a group of people get to decide what to do with my tax money ?
Why do a bunch of extremists get to decide who Kashmir belongs to ? Why do a bunch of communists get to decide what to do with the farmer s's land in Singur and Nandigram ?

I personally believe that the rule of the individual will be more peaceful. Of course, we all have to be more mature than we are now...but then, how hard can it be ?
Imagine a world where there is no government. You do not pay taxes, you have no rules to follow. Whatever good you do, comes right from your heart and not because you have to. You respect the other person's freedom since you value your own.

A living being's needs are minimal: food to eat, water to drink and some sleep. Society
gives us all kinds of ideas: can I get to lead a bigger pack ? can I own more land ? can I make more money ? can I get more power ? it never stops. The strong succeed in fulfilling these "ambitions": the weak either perish or lose their individuality.

Why cant it all be different ?

The free flow

2007-03-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

I have this dilemma: do you always play to your strengths; or do you develop your weaknesses when your strengths fail you ?

Think of an artist: a painter. Painting is his strength --- he dreams up myriad colors; he speaks in hues and shades; his brush sparks thoughts that strike deep into the sub-conscious.
Then, suddenly, one day it is all gone. He is standing there, brush in hand, paint at bay, the canvas poised. The dreams, however, are not coming. The inspiration is gone...what does he do now ?

This is a common specter. They call it "writer's block". Even the best struggle for inspiration at times. What do they do then ? Do you sit there till inspiration returns ? Do you focus hard ? Do you walk away, admitting that your days in the sun are over; that God has taken back the gifts that he gave you. Do you lose your self-belief in the bargain ?

I see this everywhere and it is interesting how different people react to this situation. Artists, writers, musicians...they all tend to prefer taking a long break to get their inspiration back. Sports persons prefer to watch videos of more successful times to get it back. Sometimes it works; sometimes, it looks like it is gone for ever.

How would you react ? Given, we are not artists. Most of us have day jobs that do not seem to need any inspiration. But, ask yourself: are there times when getting out of bed in the morning is such a chore ? Have there been times when you hate the prospect of having to sit at your desk all day ? What have you done on those days ?
Do you wait for the free flow of things to return or do you toil away manfully ?

License to watch TV

2007-03-14T15:50:00.000-07:00

I could not confirm it but this is what I heard on radio yesterday: Broadcasters are demanding that pubs take permission before streaming cricket matches on widescreen TV sets to patrons.

This gave me an idea: Will we come to a point where, when a broadcaster or a TV channel shows a cricket match or a movie, they will charge per "seat". By seat, I am referring to the way software licenses are sold: you pay for each installation of the software.

So, when I watch a movie telecast by Sony, I will have to pay for two seats : my wife and myself. At my parents' house, they may have to pay more since there is a bigger family.
The biggest challenge for the broadcasters would be to verify how many people are actually watching the show. If a bystander on the road halts to catch the score for a moment in a TV shop, will the shop owner have to pay for the extra viewer ? Will there be corporate licenses or deals with such shops or pubs and such like ?

What do you think ? Is this a good way to milk innocent people ? Or are there other more devious ways to take away freedom ?

Women in sports

2007-03-14T15:19:00.000-07:00

Last night I switched on my television set hoping eagerly to catch some action between Australia and Scotland. What I got instead was Mandira Bedi sitting in a room full of ex-cricketers and one Mr. Charu Sharma ! Now, this is one of the most disconcerting sights on television. I will tell you why, in a moment. What I want to talk about is: the role of women in sports.

How important is the role of women in sports ? It is very important. For one, sports teaches us a lot about life. Sports helps build character; sports provides recreation; sports is the best way of staying fit while having fun at the same time. In a world where women work harder than men, it is absolutely essential that women get seriously involved in sports.
Now, when I say "involved", I mean as sports persons --- not as eye-candy for viewers. That is why watching Mandira Bedi is so disconcerting. She knows next to nothing about the game --- all she knows is a few names and that there is a toss before the actual game begins (now, dont get me started about the toss !!!). Her comments are most rudimentary, plain and naive. What is even more frustrating is that she has not bothered to learn anything about the game since the last world cup when all this tamasha started.

Women have always been there in other sports. EPL on ESPN is an example. NBA Inside Stuff was another. I do not know if it added value to those programs since I do not really care a lot about soccer or basketball (what's with so many people fussing over one lousy ball !). But cricket is different. As it is, it is very difficult to find commentators who make sense on TV. The Harsha Bhogles and Richie Benauds are very rare. Bringing down the standards further is glib-talk from people like Charu Sharma and Sidhu (one of the worst horror shows that I ever watched on TV was one of those pre-game shows featuring Mandira Bedi, Krish Shrikant, Mohinder Amarnath and Sidhu -- dread !)

This has been a long time coming. The reason why non-sports channels like Sony and Zee are taking to cricket is the perception that the typical Indian cricket fan does not care about the subtleties of the game. He or she is only hoping that the Indian team wins. You only have to look at attendance for non-India games in the Championship Trophy to get an idea. That kind of following cannot be good for any game. It will eventually strangle the game.

People are saying that this is the beginning of the end when it comes to money in cricket in India. Commercialization of cricket has gone to its worst extreme. People have exploited every which way of making money out of the game. Very soon, there will be an overkill of the game. I predict that you will get to a situation very soon where you will have the option of either an India Vs Aus test match, India Vs Aus ODI or India Vs Aus Twenty20 --- all going on simultaneously ! That is the day people will change the channel and watch Hum Aapke Hain Kaun instead !

I do not want to preach doom, but I think we have succesfully killed the gentlemen's game. What do you think ?

Ponting, where is thy arrogance !

2007-03-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

Ponting gets defensive here. I wonder if this is a fall from the arrogance that the Aussies were displaying only till a month ago.

Sunil Gavaskar apparently feels that the on-field behaviour of the Aussies has not been in the same class as their performances over the past decade. While, I have not read Gavaskar's comments in original, I do not know if Ponting needs to get defensive about it and point to India's performances. I mean, I dont think Gavaskar would have even tried to make the comparison. There is no comparison to be made. The Aussies have been undisputed champs for most of the last decade or more --- the Indians have never even gotten close.

Criticism stings most when your self-confidence is low. While it will be a far-stretch to say that the Aussies are suffering from low self-belief at this point, they certainly are a little vulnerable these days. A couple of months ago, faced with the same comments, Ponting might have just shrugged his shoulders and said "yeah well...we are sorry...whatever...". Now, he has to point to India's test record.

India are going down under later this year....Mr. Gavaskar will launch into a counter-attack, I am sure, if India so much as take a first Innings lead in a test match there !!!
Aussies, beware !

A quick apology

2007-03-09T16:52:00.000-08:00

It has been brutally been brought to my notice (during discussion and emails from my readers) that my blogs are taking an approach and trying to drive it home without exploring all the facts. This violates the basic tenets of journalism and open-minded thinking.

I had posted this piece a long time back...but it seems I do not always remember my own edicts. I would like to apologize to my readers for taking this approach.
I promise that in future, my posts will have a little more research to back them.

Again, thanks for putting me on the right track ...

Where I blog and why ...

2007-03-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

I have taken to blogging in a big way. I do not have readership but I sure am enjoying the writing experience !

I had initially started with just one blog: Trials And Tribulations. But over the past few years, I have felt the need to start more blogs. The content on this blog has been coming from all subjects: science, computers, philosphy etc. I was not feeling comfortable having everything under one roof. Hence, I decided to spread the content out. The following are the other blogs I publish:

Madman's Diary:
This was started at about the same as Trials..but somehow, it didnt take off. The idea when I started this blog was: I would write about my experiences and how I chose to intrepret them. I thought that in itself was a reason to have a seperate blog.

Computer Education:
I started this about a month ago to help me in my effort to learn more about computers and how they work. The content here has been hard to build since I am not knowledgeable in this field. Also, the challenge was to make this an engaging blog and not just a feedreader for other technical websites. I may still have failed in this endeavour, but atleast I am trying.

The Free Spirit:
This is, by far, the most ambitious blog so far for me...which is why I had requested a friend to co-author it with me. The blog is about Freedom in general. It will try and address the issue of freedom and its true meaning in our day-to-day life. It may have some software undertones and issues discussed in this blog may be more specific to the software industry. We will, however, try to keep the bigger picture of individual freedom in mind.
Currently, there are no posts here.

Though I have tried to compartmentalize my posts into various blogs, I still find it difficult sometimes to decide which post should go into which blog.

I am always looking for feedback from readers (I estimate that I have 3 regular readers !). I am looking for ways to make the blogs more readable, the posts more engaging and the experience more lively.

But I am still learning. So, please bear with me.

Where is Microsoft going ?

2007-03-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

One of many anti-Microsoft stories on slashdot.

To sum up the story, Microsoft had put up a promotion site for students to buy their Office suite at a 93% discount.
But when folks go there, Microsoft's own anti-phishing software warns that this may be a phishing site !!!

What is going on with Microsoft, I say ? As a college student, I always admired everything that Microsoft created. (It was not actually until I was in college that I used any of their products, but you always heard great things about them even before that !). The Windows operating system looked such a neat piece of software when compared with the rest of the command line horror stories that you heard about as a novice. As college kids, we had a choice between Windows and the comand line Unix. It wasnt really a tough choice with Windows winning hands-down.

Innovation after innovation came out of the MS stable every passing day. They were creating a new paradigm for computing. Unix, in its old form, would never have reached the home PC market. Moreover, MS had the entire suite of products: an OS, a browser, an Office suite, a media player and so forth. You did not need anything else to run your PC. In short, they had shut out all competition.

But once you overrun competition, it is the beginning of the end for yourself. It looks like complacency and arrogance has stepped in for this great company. Probably, all great companies go through this phase --- it happened to Apple in the mid to late nineties, it happened to IBM, it happened to Bell. You see the same pattern in sports: in cricket, West Indies were a major force in the late 70s and early 80s. But then they went through an unbelievable slump. (maybe it is happening to Australia now !)

Maybe, all this is good for MS in the long run. Maybe they will learn from this and tighten up their belts and pull up their socks.
But I am waiting (as I am sure are millions of others) to see if this happens with Google. Would love to see how they would handle it then.

The End before the beginning

2007-03-03T10:26:00.000-08:00

"I should have never left the group" Pottu could hear himself mumbling. There was not a soul in sight. There was a sudden silence in the jungle. It was a clear day and he had expected all kinds of sounds : the birds chirping, the toads crackling, and all kinds of insects humming. But, the silence was everywhere.

"What is this ?" , the mumbling resumed. It was more of an exclamation than a question. Pottu could hear his heart beat faster and louder. Strange how his breath sounded. Pottu had never heard himself breathing. He never thought that breathing created any kind of noise. It was suppposed to be a quite activity. But in this silence, he could hear it. And it was growing louder every moment.
He turned around to see if someone was following him. No one.
He looked up in the tall deodhar trees. No one.
A moment passed. Then one more uneventful moment.

A sound. Finally ! Pottu almost let out a sigh of relief. But the silence was back with a vengeance. And this time, it grew even more intrusive. His heart had somehow started beating a lot more quietly. His breathing was almost noiseless now. The mumbling was down to a very faint whisper.

What was happening ? Where was the noise ? "And why is it getting darker already ?" he whispered to himself. The light was fading. The sky remained clear. No clouds. But the sun was distancing itself from Pottu.

A moment passed. One more. One more....

It was a lot quieter and darker now. Pottu couldn't whisper to himself.It was almost as if his thoughts dissolved before forming. The fear was melting away noiselesly.

Moments passed...but slowly.

Thud ! Pottu felt a blow on his body. Which direction it came from, he had no idea. He could see the trees falling quietly. Almost in slow motion.

There was darkness now. And peace and quiet.

It had ended !!!

The shoe also fits the other foot !

2007-03-03T09:59:00.000-08:00

"With great power comes great responsibility"

Story from Cricinfo.
This story has been beaten to death. But the point remains. As a major power in world cricket today, the Indian sub-continent has great power. But it has not realized its responsibility yet.
The story quoted above humbles us (as part of the sub-continent) --- it stares at our hollow pride and sniggers at us.
Does being a financial heavy-weight in the game make the sub-continent teams immune to the laws and the spirit of the game ? Do we not always whine about how the developed nations act unjustly ? Are we not copying them now that we have the power to make a difference ?

This justifies my belief that all human beings are alike; all communities are alike. Its just a matter of which foot the shoe is on. It is not done to say that such and such a race is violent by nature or such and such a nation is benevolent and peace-loving. It is all a matter of circumstance. Given the oppportunity, we can all be devils.

I am worried...deeply worried.

Now: Open Source People

2007-02-26T16:43:00.000-08:00

Linking to this story from Slashdot.

The story talks about how surveillance cameras are being developed to be smarter so they can alert security personnel to suspicious persons real time and not after the incident.

The last line of the story is what bothers me. If I go to a country like the US and do something suspicious (most of the things that first time visitors to America do seems suspicious to security people there !) I may be tagged : by a surveillance camera no less ! Also, cameras can be developed to look inside my jacket to see if I am hiding a bomb. "Inside my jacket" !!!

Now, what is the need of spending money on all those expensive clothes next time you go to the US of A, I say !

Now, why didnt I think of this before !!!

2007-02-24T23:25:00.000-08:00

Just got this brilliant idea...wait listen me out guys !

I think human beings live multiple lives at the same time. Not as in they have multiple personalities. But as in they are living as seperate individuals. Different human beings with seperate bodies, seperate brains but one unique soul. The soul is the operating system which shares memory for different lives. The soul is supporting multiple lives like the kernel of the operating system. We are all only able to access the application-interface of the operating system without knowing what is running underneath.
When one application is terminated or crashes (one life ends), it is replaced by other new apps (lives) or time is freed for the other applications to use. This time-sharing is done so efficiently by the operating system (soul) that we hardly ever notice. When we do notice, we get a sense of deja vu that we are all so familiar with ...

Maar dala...maar dala...too maaaaaaaaaaaaaach !!!

Question for all patent lovers

2007-02-24T19:34:00.000-08:00

What would you do if someone patented the login page on the internet ?

If you think that is a stupid question from an idealist moron, read this

Ads galore !

2007-02-24T05:38:00.000-08:00

On my way back home from work on Friday night I saw a BEST bus. The exterior of the bus was painted KLUB green --- which is normal these days. BEST has been renting out its bus exteriors as ad spaces to boost its revenues. What I did notice for the first time, though, was inside the bus, the handles which allow standing passengers to hang on to the bar were decorated with the ad of a famous FM station. Now, this opens up possibilities.

I suggest that we take a step further. Passengers should be asked to hold out placards depicting various ads in exchange for a discount on their bus fare. Maybe, if some of the passengers could recommend a product or two to their co-passengers on the bus, they could get a bigger discount. Once you board the bus, you could be asked to chose from a bunch of products that you would like to endorse for an incentive. For example, women could be ask to pick up a piece of jewellery and sport it while they ride on the bus and hold a sign informing others of the item they are endorsing.
BEST could decide to slot the products they would be endorsing. Non-AC buses could be used to endorse mundane products like soap, toothpaste etc. AC buses could be used to endorse more sophisticated products like cell-phones, cameras etc.
Now, if only I could patent this brilliant idea of mine.......

No more...no more !

2007-02-24T03:50:00.000-08:00

Everything must end someday !

Tag here to someplace more interesting

2007-02-23T21:18:00.000-08:00

In case you havent been following this case, it is taking an interesting turn.

In case you dont know what I am talking about, go read all the previous posts on this blog.

Status of IT industry

2007-02-22T17:39:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I remembered a conversation I had with a friend in college. This was way back when we both were in our final year of Engineering. I was lucky enough to land a minor job in IT whereas this friend of mine was going to join a manufacturing unit as a junior engineer. The pay was about the same.
We were taking a walk in the hot sun mid-afternoon to get something to eat since our hostel mess was closed for the day. Suddenly, for no particular reason, he remarked about our futures. He pointed out that in a few months time, I would be happily sitting in front of a PC in a posh air-conditioned office whereas he would be slogging away in the heat on the workshop floor.

Now, why that struck me was that the level of responsibilities was the same in both jobs, the pay was same, the qualifications of the candidates were the same. So, why the difference in the working conditions ?
Way back, when the IT industry was still taking its baby steps in India, computers were fragile. We were told that we needed to have air-conditioning, humidity control, dirt-free environments etc to keep our PCs safe. This could have been a good reason for housing them in posh, clean air-conditioned offices.
These days, PCs are much more rugged. They are weather-proof, dirt-proof, humidity-proof and have better self-cooling mechanisms. Why, then, do we still have posh offices for the IT industry while most manufacturing units are the same. (I do understand that the working conditions in various industries have improved a lot...but still there is a gap) ?

This might have something to do with the status-factor attached to the IT industry. IT-ians are well-paid (as compared to similar positions in other industries), are much better-looked after by the society (dowry rates are always a good indicator of the value of different career streams)

But this is on the wane. There was a time when the IT career option was open only to Engineering graduates. The big four of IT (TCS, Satyam, Infosys and Wipro) never asked what type of skills were required. They just assumed that only engineers would fit the bill. That was when IT was new to India. The outsourcing freak had just started. Then came the BPO storm and blew away in its winds all other industries. Now, you need not aspire for that Engineering/Medical seat. You can complete your graduation from any college/university that is ready to offer you a seat (these days even a 12th class is a good enough qualification) and you had a very good chance of landing yourself a call-center job. All you needed was to learn how to roll your "R"s and stretch your "A"s in true American fashion.

As more and more IT and ITES work is outsourced to our companies, the quality of work we do has gone down (by quality, I am not implying the quality of the output, rather the nature of the work itself). As more and more of us are required to lend a helping hand, more and more folks from smaller towns and freshers with humbler educational credits are taking up these jobs.
Let us also look at another angle. The primary reason why work was being outsourced to India was the cost-effectiveness. With increasing salaries in India and the rate at which the cost of living is growing, this cost-effectiveness will take a definite hit. There will be more viable options in other countries. That could lead to one of two things: The Indian IT & ITES industry will slow down or the salaries will have to come down. Under both scenarios, we can forsee a future where the halo around this industry will start to diminish. What then ? What turn will the social status of IT-ians take ? Will they still be the stars of our country ? Will an alternate and more attractive career stream take over as the numero uno ?

These are questions whose answers will unravel inthe next 10-15 years. But does India have the ability and promise to create another such storm ?
We will look at this in future posts.

I am sitting on a goldmine !

2007-02-21T16:56:00.000-08:00

According to this an average human being gets about 12000 thoughts per day . Wow !

Now, assuming I am an "average human being", I too will get around 12000 thoughts per day. If I take one percent of those thoughts to be blog-able, I should have atleast 1200 post possibilities (remember, we are still talking per day here !)
Again, assuming I do get around to putting words around even 1 percent of those thoughts, I would still have 12 posts per day !!!

That would mean that I would end up being the only person with enough time to read my blog...

Hence, I have decided not to pursue that line of thought.....

What should we believe ?

2007-02-21T16:15:00.000-08:00

I have written earlier that theologists make space in their observations for God. I have quoted Bertrand Russell as if I knew him and his arguments intimately.
But I sit and wonder this morning: Arent atheists also making space for unproven scientific postulates in their beliefs ? They are ever ready to believe that there are atoms and electrons so tiny that we cannot see them. But they have a problem believing (or even accepting the possibility) that there is a God who we cannot see. We talk about mathematics which is mostly what we human beings made up. Mathematics is our way of intrepreting nature. We create equations, we draw theorems in an effort to reconcile what we see. One of the biggest problems of mathematics is that atleast some part of it works purely with numbers without any other rope with the external world. Now, numbers are what we created. So, could it be all wrong ?

Now, there. I have taken both sides of the argument. I do not know what to believe.

Whenever, I have an argument with someone over the existence of God, I say this: Neither of us really knows if God exists for sure. We just chose to believe one of the two possibilities. There are , of course, very strong reasons for doing so: these could be emotional, logical, cultural etc. But like everything else in the world, these beliefs could change. And like any other personal belief, it is a good idea to keep questioning it and not be dogmatic about it.

Freedom: Where are we headed ?

2007-02-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

We have talked about freedom and patents earlier. There is a growing debate in our society on whether we should allow a few people to bind the world down with patents or let the creativity flow by keeping everything free. This is a crucial juncture in our civilization. A lot depends on what we decide. There are two things that can happen now:

Let us first look at the scenario where everything is patented:
There are very few ideas being generated because the source of ideas are not free to be used. For example, you could not read my blog and then build on some of the points I raise here because I would have patented those points. And I would choose to charge anyone who wants to discuss those points. So, slowly, the world could come to a complete standstill. There would be no competition in our markets. (to take a very simplistic example: there would be only one tea seller in the entire of Mumbai because he/she would patent the business model of selling tea on the roadside). To take a most pessimistic viewpoint, Humanity would stutter to its end.

Let us now look at the other scenario where we are free to use and build on other's ideas/products:
At first, there would be anarchy. People would steal others' ideas and pass them off as their own. There would be no way to make out who created what. But slowly, the dust would settle. People would start coming up with creative ideas (mostly because the market does not like repetition or repackaging: take hindi movies for examples). More importantly, people would start building on each others' ideas. They would start customizing everything: software, appliances, designer clothes. There would be a million versions of every new design as soon as some one created it -- and each version would be unique in its own way..improving over the original, building on it.
Where would that lead us as a society ? We would be more tolerant of each other (as no one would really own anything and there would be no lack of trust). We would have goods custom-built for us. There would be more individuality.
Also, the creative freedom would mean faster development.

I want to write more...but I want to take a pause and let all this sink in. Am I taking this too far ? Am I making the "society without patents" thing look more endearing than it really is ? Are patents really that bad ? Can a "free society" really be that good ?

Your comments are requested...

What happens after "The End"

2007-02-20T16:06:00.000-08:00

Everytime I watch a movie (and this is specifically true about Hindi movies), I have this intriguing doubt in my mind when we reach what we call "The End". I wonder what happens to the characters and their lives after the story has ended.
Do they really live happily ever after ? Do they quarrel ? Do they live the same lives ? With a typical mainstream Hindi movie, the story builds up to the climax. During the movie, events unfold at a livening pace. Characters act and react very quickly (atleast relatively speaking). So, does this pace slacken after the end ?

Someone should take all the stories, all the characters that have been immortalized in our movies (e.g. Sholay, Dil Chahta Hai, DDLJ) and just make a movie (or a documentary) about the lives of the characters after the movie. Sequels are just no good: they again go through the process of building up a story and it is just too tiresome.

What say ?

I eat humble pie !!

2007-02-20T01:10:00.000-08:00

I eat humble pie as my favourite cricket team, Australia get whitewashed by the Kiwis.
(See my earlier post here to see why I eat that pie)

But I have plenty of excuses to give -- the Aussies are missing their major players. McGrath is not the same bowler that used to bowl six deliveries in the corridor per over. The rest of the cast are just getting a taste of what international cricket is all about. So, in a sense, the series was really Kiwi seniors Vs Aus 'A'

I had the opportunity to watch the 3rd ODI live and this is what I felt:
The Aussies put on a nice, if uncharacteristic, batting display (uncharacteristic because their scorecard is hardly ever dominated by one man) Hayden got 181 n.o

Even during the Kiwi chase, they hardly did anything wrong. They took their catches, fielded brilliantly and there weren't too many loose balls.
So where did it go wrong ? I still think the attitude is there, the confidence is there. The bowlers lack that tiny bit of extra skill, extra experience, extra bite in their armour. You can feel that little extra judgement missing in their tactics (you didnt see many fielders crowding the bat when the Kiwis were 44/4).
Those things will come back. They may not come back in time for them to win the World Cup, but they will come back as the new guns get more and more exposure at the top level.
I think Australia have been playing with an unchanged team for almost a decade. These are the kinds of things that happen when you overhaul a major team overnight. But that is OK...maybe the rest of the cricket World will enjoy this small break from Australian domination.
But they will be back...

The lion will roar again !!!

Disseminating ads

2007-02-19T22:05:00.000-08:00

I am watching the SetWet deo add in between the NZ-Aus match. This is how it goes :
Guy A is proposing to his girlfriend in an open-air restaurant while guy B walks in and takes a seat close by. Guy B is wearing the SetWet deo. The girl misses the proposal since she is so distracted by the deo that guy B is wearing.

Eternally curious about all things, I ask my questions:
Is the ad trying to tell me that wearing a deo is more impressive than proposing to a girl ? Does this mean that guy B is better than guy A just because he is wearing a better deo. Will the company never ever come up with a better deo than the one that guy B is wearing now ? What will happen if it does ? Will guy C steal guy B's girlfriend then ?

I understand that only morons ask such questions. But then, only morons should make such demeaning and meaningless ads.

Whoof --- weight off my chest now !

Is Knowledge infinite ?

2007-02-19T18:48:00.000-08:00

This is one question that strikes me when I browse through the web every morning. Of the total time I spend on the web, probably 50% or more is spent clicking on links. This gives the impression that there is a whole of information out there.
Assuming that atleast 10% of information/data is actually new knowledge, we can come to a conclusion that there already is a vast amount of knowledge assimilated on the world wide web (We will ignore, for the moment knowledge that comes out of books, magazines, talks, lectures etc)

Also, there are new webpages being created everyday. So, more knowledge everyday !

Can this be true ? Can knowledge be infinite ? Human beings have a finite life span both individually and as a civilization. So this sounds implausible. Maybe most of this "knowledge" is just thoughts. Maybe all knowledge is finite and all this information overload is a maze. Maybe we have to find our way through this maze to get to that finite, stable, robust and never-changing knowledge. Atleast that is what religion would like us to believe.

What say ?

Eklavya : Where is the story ?

2007-02-17T23:45:00.000-08:00

Thought I will write this down fast before first impressions evaporate.
If you go watch this movie, you will love the picturesque locales of Rajasthan. You will be swept away by the dramatic forts and the colourful ways of the people. You will be stunned by the dramatic possibilities at the fort complete with mashaals and lanterns.
But when the movie is over, you will sit and wonder : where is the story ?

The story is set in Rajasthan. Eklavya is the guard charged with the duty of protecting the Rana or king and the royal family. (I am just wondering if he was the only guard on duty, though !). The royal family consists of an impotent Rana and the offspring -- a mentally challenged girl and a foreign-based son. It unravels that the guard was also commissioned to procreate the next generation of the raj gharana in view of the Rana's inability to do so himself. This is known to the Rana only at the Queen's deathbed. It is also transmitted to the son via a posthemous letter from dear mom.

Events unfold from here. At least that is what we were expecting. The story was almost like a Panchatantra tale blown up to accomodate myriad characters which would have been an excellent excuse to rope in more star-power. I could count atleast 3 characters as absolutely redundant -- I will not name those here (do not want to spoil the fun for you).
Mr. Bacchhan, as usual, acts with his eyes. The brooding, longing look haunts you long after you have left the hall. The character is well sketched out, is well dressed (a great deal of attention seems to have gone into the turban and beard). The mannerisms, the way of saluting, the language: everything is spot on.
What is not spot on, though, is the rest of the cast. Saif Ali Khan tries too hard to be morose, Vidya Balan does pretty much what she did in Parineeta, Jackie Shroff we will not talk about. Jimmy Shergill has a tiny-tweeny role and before you know what that role is, it is over. Boman Irani somehow manages to bring in a semblence of feeling into the script with his portrait of an insecure Rana. Sanjay Dutt surely has better things to do.
Overall, the "action-packed" movie that was promised in the trailers never happened. The only piece of action (near the railway crossing) was poorly choreographed and moved in slow motion to its death. There was no sense of suspense, excitment or anticipation in it. You would have thought that a story set in the historical forts of Rajasthan would have a more alluring plot than this.

There is one thing that I still am unable to understand. Mr.Bacchhan keeps throwing his dagger at each and every object that he fancies. But, somehow, it is always returned to him without him putting the slightest effort to look for it. And it is always spotlessly clean. Wonder what that was all about !!!

One Night@ The Call Center -- a review

2007-02-17T17:09:00.000-08:00

When you feel the urge to read a quick story with no morals, you tend to pick up books like these.
I had read this author's Five Point Someone a few months ago and thought I had a book that guarenteed a no-preachy story. I will not berate this book. I have wasted my time in the past with worse books. But...

The book is a story about a night at the call center with six people (I could not come up with a more original line -- you dont need to read this review to know that, the book's title states that !)The book tries to drag you into the arena that is a "call-center". You come out dazed. Time seems to have frozen for the author and the six characters in the book. I never thought so many things could happen in one night -- but then what do I know about call-centers or about writing books !
The story is told in first person through the eyes of one of the "voice-agents" Shyam. Each character has a past that somehow does not add up to their view of a "good-life". We have a girl who has just said "Yes" to a NRI marriage proposal, a married lady who has left the free life to be part of her husband and his orthodox parents, a bike-loving kiddo who hates "racists and Americans", a prospective model who spends her day-time looking for contracts and a I-am-no-good whiner who seems to be losing more self-respect each passing minute.

The story rumbles along. It is funny at times. But there are also phases where you just find it too fantastic to be believable. The schemes that the kids hatch towards the end are almost out of a hollywood movie (you remember Swordfish -- where our protagonist hacks into government systems by painting pictures on the screen ? He is furiously typing away without so much as looking at the keyboard his eyes fixated at the monitor where somehow strange images are expected to show his success rates !)
The book gets all preachy sometimes -- there is the ranting against the "dumb-Americans", there is the nag of "an entire generation up all night serving dumb Americans". You would thing you were watching CNN-IBN's Face The Nation (if you did not know, this is the programme where psuedo-thinkers waste your time with obvious comments and obervations on various aspects of life)

Any modicum of interest in the story is probably due to the fact that it is about 5 young people -- the issues are more identifiable. The characters are sketched adequately. The dialogues are believable. Where the book loses its ground is towards the end. The last 50-60 pages could have been replaced with a bollywood movie and a Stephen Covey book.

But read it..everyone needs to be preached to every now and then. It apparently took the author two years to write the book, it took me two hours to read it and 20 minutes to write a review. That should give you an idea of the emotional depth of the book (or the intellectual depth of this reviewer !)

Criminals in Parliament ?

2007-02-16T20:13:00.000-08:00

A noble initiative here

This post from Hawkeye talks about banning people who have been charged with a crime carrying a sentence of two years or more. I am quoting verbatim below to ensure you get the exact message:

In my opinion, it is extremely necessary for any person formally charged with a crime carrying a sentence of TWO years or more by a competent Court to be barred from contesting elections. A person who has been charged by a competent Court should be barred from contesting election even if he has not been convicted. We all know that the due process of law in India can easily be subverted and cases drag on for decades without conviction. Hence the Committee’s recommendation of disqualifying a person only after being convicted of a crime carrying a sentence of 5 years is very wrong, and goes against greater public interest.

Now, apart from the fact that this plays into the hands of experienced politicians (read corrupt politicians) who can manipulate things so an honest candidate is charged with a crime that will bar him from contesting the elections, I do not understand why it isn't easier to NOT vote for criminals when they do contest the elections !

Are we, the public, so weak, so meak, so blind, so careless, so stupid etc that we will vote for a candidate who is contesting the elections from our favourite party irrespective of his ethical/criminal background ?
Further, is the party more important than the candidate ? Is a party which grants tickets to criminals worth voting for ?
Given the efficacy of our judiciary, are we to assume that all persons charged with crimes are actually criminals or are incapable of doing a honest job ?

There are possibly some flaws in my argument above. Please let me know what those are ?

The First Cause Argument

2007-02-15T09:46:00.000-08:00

The First Cause Argument states that there is a cause for everything. Something caused your birth, which in turn was caused by something else and so on.
Assuming we knew all the facts, soldeiring on in this way, we would reach the beginning of the universe or the beginning of time. What is the cause of this ?
The Argument states that the cause of this (or the first cause) would be God.

In his engagingly witty essay "Why I am not a Christian", Bertrand Russell says -- and I quote verbatim :

If everything has a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in this argument.....
There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a begining at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to a poverty of our imagination.

I am duty-bound to argue againts Mr.Russell's logic. But I think I fathom a point here which irritates me.
Mr. Russell is asking us why we make exceptions in our laws, in our logic, in our sciences to accomodate God. Why do laws apply to everything other than God. Everything must have a beginning but we cannot imagine God having a beginning (or and end, for that matter) !

Strange, isnt it !!!

Patents, DRM and where is freedom !

2007-02-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

A full-fledged post on freedom in various forms is coming. For the time-being I will leave you with some links (that I borrowed from a very kind friend of mine):

Software Patents and Literary Patents
Richard Stallman on Software Patents

The idea for this post was trigerred from a mail that I had received (from this same kind friend) urging me to sign a petition asking drug giant Novartis to drop a patent case in the Indian courts.

I was wondering how Open Source Software companies make money considering that they give away their software for free. Is there a business model here that the drug industry can follow ?
Does freedom come at a cost ? or is it possible to get freedom with a better business model ?

It is a simple equation: Drug manufacturers need money and patients need affordable treatment.
Can we solve this equation ?

Like I said, we will discuss freedom in more detail in coming posts.

Of Songs and other divinities

2007-02-15T09:17:00.000-08:00

There is this new craze in our movies : Stars singing songs. I think it is a very encouraging sign. I am fervently hoping for the day when they would all slowly take to playback singing as their main profession and leave the acting field. I can then peacefully enjoy movies while skipping the songs.

Latest in the craze is Mr. Bacchhan himself. He sings a song for Nishabd.
Now, some of my friends might say that he sounds like a drunkard in the song. Some might say that his voice is too low pitched to be used for this song. Yet some more friends might say that this is a straight life of a U2 song. But what does Mr.Bacchhan care !
I shudder when Mr.Bacchhan sings "Kuch dekhoon to yaad aate ho, kuch pehnoon to yaad aate ho".
What is this world coming to, I say !

Infinity Puzzle 4

2007-02-15T09:02:00.000-08:00

Another infinity puzzle on software.

Every software written by a half-decent company would undergo a number of tests or reviews before it reaches the market or its intended clientele.

Imagine a scenario where you are the author of a piece of code. Once it is complete, you request your peer A to review it. A reviews it, points out some defects, you close those defects and send the code out to the market.
Things look good till your customers come up with a major bug. The fingers are pointed at you -- the programmer. You then direct these fingers to A who had "signed-off" the piece of code. Your company's quality team is all over the place asking for heads to roll. They appoint someone -- let us call this person B -- to review the review process that A followed.
B reviews A's review process, points out a few things which A corrects, and things are all hunky dory again. Atleast till the next cycle of release of your programs. So A reviews your code again according to the inputs that B gave him. You again go to your customers with this newly tested code.
Two months down the line, there is one more major bug. The beating up starts again. Now it is the turn of B who had reviewed the review process. The head of the quality group -- let us call him C -- himself gets down to reviewing the work of B.
So, now you have a situation where A is reviewing your work. B is reviewing A's review process and C is reviewing B' review of the review process.

Can this go on for ever ? Will this chain be short-circuited anywhere ? Will there be a point where the company management will say --- "Lets put a stop to all this and let us all start testing the product itself instead of reviewing each other's work" ?

Infinity Puzzle 3

2007-02-15T08:54:00.000-08:00

Long long ago when I had freshly gotten out of college and stepped into my first job, my first boss asked me a question:
Can an error-handler contain an error handler ?
For the uninitiated, and error handler is a part of the software code which looks for errors in the rest of the code and massages them so the program keeps running with minimal losses.
Now, I do not know the answer to this question. Some programming languages allow this kind of nesting and some do not. But tell me this:
What if we had a piece of code and wrote an error-handler inside it. What if we then decided that this error-handling code itself was prone to errors and we wrote, in turn, another error-handler inside this smaller part..and so on and forth ?
How far can we go like this ? (assuming that the programming language does not offer any restrictions of its own).
Could we go on for ever ? Would we reach a stage where the error handler itself would be as small as a single statement ? Is there any guarentee that a single statement is not prone to errors ?

The Other India

2007-02-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

The Other India

I cannot believe we humans are capable of love. We are capable of affectation, yes. We are capable of infatuation, yes. But love ? Well, love is something else. We do not understand it -- at least I do not believe we do.
If we can calmly eat our dinners while watching news clippings from the Nithari story, we cannot be capable of love.
If we can calmly turn the pages of newspapers when we watch pictures of malnutritioned kids, we cannot be capable of love.

Love is a many-splendoured thing. It is capable of many amazing things.It can bring light into our lives --- light into our closed, dingy minds. This life, we havent experienced.
If we can walk calmly past a hungry begging child on the street, we havent loved.Not if we are the type who spend our anniversaries in Kulu Manali, not if we buy and gift heart-shaped chocolates, not even if we buy diamond rings.

Dont let Valentine's day fool you --- love is not in the air. It definitely is not in our hearts.

We are too stiff to love.

Indian team for Cricket World Cup

2007-02-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

Friends:

I am starting my very own news-channel from today.
For a very brief period (we will call this the "incubation period") this channel will focus on cricket.
One thing that this channel does not vouch for is original content. I mean, with all the sources around me, who needs to be original --- original people are such a bore anyway !

So, to our very first story (coconuts breaking in the back-ground !).

The selectors have picked the 15-member squad for the World Cup in the Caribbean.

(Ticker scrolling at the bottom as the news reader reads this: "Is this the best team to beat B'Desh ? SMS 'Y' or 'N' to 5555 or call 055-5555-5555 and say 'Pollstar' to express your opinion")

The team:

(go to cricinfo and read the team sheet -- this is not a tagging service for heaven's sake !)

Quotes from our captain Rahul Dravid:

"We have picked the best team available on the basis of current form and promise" --- still can't believe Anil Kumble and Sehwag fall under "current form" or "promise" category !

"Some of the players selected themselves" -- who, we might ask, are those players --- definitely must be Harbhajan and Anil Kumble and Sehwag and.... because no one else would have selected them -- not even Kumble's dog !

On some of the senior members being 'slow' in the outfield -- "I think the experience will help the team in the WI" --- yeah... this team has a lot of experience in losing. It will definitely help the team find better, newer, more unique ways of losing. Maybe we will even lose to South Africa and England ...Siva ! Siva !

(Meanwhile: TV screen shows clippings from recent matches of the following :
Pathan getting hit for a six over , yes, midwicket.
Harbhajan bowling six wides down the leg side in one over.
Dravid getting bowled through the gate; and
Kumble getting run-out
Repeat the above 20 times each ....
)

Lets take a quick 20-min break...after the break, we will have analysis from our expert panel.
Keep polling in on our question for the day:

"Is this the best team to beat Netherlands " (are they in our group ? will we meet them in Super 8s ! questions...questions..sigh !)

)

Cricket --- Blah blah

2007-02-08T17:41:00.000-08:00

This post on cricinfo

I love finding mistakes in other people's works .
Consider this section:
"Tharanga had been kept quiet after his initial flourish, and his ill-judged attempt to pull a delivery far too close to the body only ricocheted on to the stumps. "

You only pull a ball that is close to your body. No sense in trying to drag something from wide outside the offstump or going down leg side. There is something called pivoting and something called momentum

"Sangakkara was in no mood to be kind either, and a peachy cover-drive and deft cut left Sreesanth with figures that would have embarrassed a part-time trundler."
We can cut this out please. This kind of writing belongs in a novel not in the review of a cricket match. Too much literature..too many similes. Its almost as if the writer wanted to write a novel but settled for sports writing instead.

"Dravid then turned to Harbhajan Singh, but his very first delivery flew off the edge for four."
Duh ! So ?

I know I am being overtly critical. But I was hoping cricinfo would serve up a much better fare. You read match reviews and hope to learn more about the game from knowledgeable folks. Otherwise, you could have just comforted yourself with a Harry Potter -- you know what I mean ?

Cricket question 1

2007-02-08T17:31:00.000-08:00

To all you cricket buffs out there, here is a question:
Imagine that a cricketer mis-behaves during a match. The match referee calls him, the player pleads guilty and is suspended for two matches.
During nets the very next day, the player gets injured. So he cant play in the next two matches anyway.
So, what happens to the ban ? Is it suspended till the player is "fit to play" again ? Does the ICC hand out another punishment in lieu of the one that cannot make sense now ?

P.S: I would like to state that I have no mental problems as some of you have been hinting recently !!!

Reverse Evolution

2007-02-07T17:45:00.000-08:00

I was just thinking this morning : is reverse evolution possible ?

There have been cases where scientists have re-constructed pre-ancient genes (a la Jurassic Park). But what I am referring to here is reverse evolution of human beings.

At the rate which we are advancing technologically, soon we humans will not have much to do. We already have house-hold appliances to do the cooking, cleaning for us. We have robots and modern machines to help build things for us in our factories. We have computers to do the calculations for us.
The progress in AI promises to help create machines which can also do the thinking for us.

Imagine a scenario (maybe hundreds of years away from now) where an average human being does not have to do anything. He/she will just need to sit around watching robots/machines go about their daily routines.
We would have become physically wasted due to lack of activity. Since the robots are doing the thinking for us, we are not obliged to use our brains anymore. With dis-use comes dis-ability. Soon, we will lose use of our bodies as they are currently designed. Our legs will become so weak (due to generations of idly lying around) that we will no longer be able to stand up straight. Over a few generations we would revert to being quadrapeds.
With machines dominating us, we will become dumb and lose all sense of knowledge --- science, mathematics. We will lose all sense of art. In short we will lose all that now distinguishes us humans.

In such a scenario, will we de-evolve into apes ? Will intelligent machines be the new humans , catching their creators and putting them on display in zoos ?

Questions...questions...sigh

See here and here for more related concepts and stories.

ChaCha...go searching !

2007-02-06T18:03:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of new kids on the block, and I would like to think that Google finally has some competition (silly me !).

One of the challengers is Chacha which is outsourcing its searching to actual people looking into databases for you.
Since I believe in tagging and not writing anything myself, here is the story for you.

Look for more exciting search engines here

Questions arise: is chacha outsourcing to India ? Will my next job be to help people find what they are looking for ? what about privacy/confidentiality ?

Questions..questions sigh !

Links, links everywhere !!!

2007-02-06T17:54:00.000-08:00

I am seeing URLs, tags, hyperlinks in my dreams..(see, I cant even write a single line without a hyperlink !)
Not too long ago, I was reading about the possibilities about tagging thoughts. Imagine this:

You are giving a talk. Every word you say is tagged to its meaning/description/usage patterns/origins/other meanings to Wiki
Your audience could go click on any of those words/phrases that catch their fancy and , in the process, completely ignore you !

Gone are the days when I could read a newspaper editorial start-to-end without clicking on anything in the middle. Good old days...sigh !

These days, when I walk, I watch out for blue underlined things lying on the street -- you see, I dont want to accidentally get transported to another universe by clicking on some "hyperlink" (gosh, that could happen ??)

The SLOW Movement 2

2007-02-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

It is 6:30 AM..and I have to get up and start the daily grind.
I feel like lying around though...is this what the SLOW movement is all about. Just lying around, trying to "live" the moment, trying to "soak-in" the day before we push our bodies out of the sleep and rest that they could do with...
But wait, I still want my cup of "instant" coffee..I still want my internet connection up and running..even as I write this I am thinking of how I can get more people to read this post. I cant lie around without thinking up new ideas for a post...

Paradox, this life of ours....
We are all the same...running furiously towards our deaths and every now and then we curse our lives for being so fast.

Who can argue with people who can never see themselves..only the faults of others ???

No 'Parzania' in Gujarat

2007-02-06T08:32:00.000-08:00

Seriously, Gujarat must be the state which gets the lowest number of movies in a year. Some films are banned because of their perceived content (Parzania), some are banned because their actors said something (Fanaa)...

We are the kind of nation that bans "The Satanic Verses"...so, who's to complain ?

Romans in China ???

2007-02-05T16:51:00.000-08:00

This interesting story...

Now they are doing DNA tests to solve this mystery once and for all.

Link via slashdot

Bengal's Kevin Pietersen

2007-02-05T16:19:00.000-08:00

This post about "Bengal's Kevin Pietersen" -- Manoj Tiwary

I believe Mr. Tiwary is pretty good..going by his scores this season. But do we already need to start making comparisons with Test players ? Cant we just say he is good for so and so reason ?

Are we so helpless as cricket observers that we cannot do without similes ?

Sigh !

In conversation with Alpha and Beta 2

2007-02-05T15:56:00.000-08:00

Alpha (India Uncut):
On Losing a Limb

Beta (Trials And Tribulations):
Sirjee:

Pardon my silliness...but your logic sounds crooked to me...

"I'm staggered, but what the hell, if people want to cut their limbs off, they should be allowed to do whatever makes them happy. Why be judgmental about people's desires when they don't affect anyone else? No?"

Taking this one step forward, if people want to kill themselves "when they dont affect anyone else" they should be allowed to, right ? so...where does this end ?

Personal freedom does have its limits, no ?
questions, questions....sigh !

Alpha:
I support the right to commit suicide, btw. If I want to take my own life, no one has a right to stop me, least of all the state.

Naturally my friends and relatives can and will and should try to convince me otherwise. But that's where it ends.

Value of Money Vs Cost of Money 1

2007-02-05T15:52:00.000-08:00

Value of money Vs Cost of Money:

“Value of money” corresponds to inflation and “Cost of money” corresponds to the state of the markets.

For example,

I buy a house for Rs 10 Lakhs today. For this, I procure a loan of Rs 8 Lakhs at an interest rate of 8% per annum.

Fast forward to two years from now --- the price of the house has gone up (appreciated) by 10 %. So the new value of the house is Rs. 11 lakhs. Now, the interest rate on my home loan has also gone up by 10%. The new interest rate is 8.8% per annum. Hence the cost of my home loan has gone up since I need to pay more interest for the same amount of money than I did two years back.

Now, as an investor, I want to know if the value of my money has gone up or come down vis-à-vis the cost of my money (or the money that I invested)

Let us take another angle to this:

Suppose I have a salary of Rs 300 per month today. The price of the “basket of goods” is (to simplify) Rs 200.

Fast forward to two years from now --- my salary has gone up to Rs 400. On the other hand, the cost of the “basket of goods” has gone up to Rs 300.

Now, how do I know if the value of my money (can afford the same basket of goods while saving the same amount of money as I did two years ago) is compensating for the cost of my money (I spend one month of my time to earn this money..Has the level of my financial independence improved by staying with the job?)

Questions:

Is it possible, under any specific circumstances, for the two values to be the same?

This is debatable.

Is there a co-relation between these two values? E.g. cost of money goes up when value goes down?

There could be. Taking the example of my house --- the cost of money (interest paid on the home loan) has gone up. Think of the impact this will have on people who want to buy a new house. They will be discouraged with the increased interest rates. Maybe, a 10% increase does not matter much…but consider what happens if the interest rates increase by 20%, 30% … People will be less interested in buying a house. As a result, there will be fewer prospective buyers for my house (if I decide to sell it to get rid of the expensive home loan). Hence, the value of my money may no longer be Rs 11 Lakhs.

On the other hand, if the interest rates on home loans (or loans in general) are going up, you can be sure that interest rates on other financial instruments such as Fixed Deposits, Post Bank funds etc have also gone up. This could trigger an increase in the value of your money (i.e. you are getting more bang for your bucks lying around in banks and post offices than you did earlier)

It is a zero-sum game out there. The total money in the market remains the same at all times. Money changes hands only due to the perception flow in the market.
But the above is only a hypothesis. I am not an economist.

Alas !

Dimensions -- First Draft

2007-02-05T15:51:00.001-08:00

Dimensions:

I am trying to set forth a new hypothesis through this document.

I want to clarify certain points before I start this exercise:

This is not a mathematical hypothesis. As such there is no mathematical treatment. Wherever I have used numbers, I have used them for the sake of convenience and ease of demonstration rather than as equations.
This does not take into account already existing scientific/mathematical treatments of this topic (e.g. Penrose's singularity theorem, Hurst exponent, Poset Dimension etc )
This is not a philosophical treatment of this topic either. It does not attempt to massage any of the existing philosophical work on this subject.
Any co-incidence with similar existing thought processes is purely incidental and not a work of conscious plagiarism.

Existing ground:

Dimension (as defined in Wikipedia):

In common usage, a dimension (Latin, "measured out") is a parameter or measurement required to define the characteristics of an object—i.e. length, width, and height or size and shape. In mathematics, dimensions are the parameters required to describe the position and relevant characteristics of any object within a conceptual space —where the dimensions of a space are the total number of different parameters used for all possible objects considered in the model.

The key words that I want to delve into in this document are:

“parameter or measurement required to define the characteristic of an object”

The key “parameters” that we have chosen as dimensions today are space and time. Words like length, size, shape etc are space-specific; words like past, present, future etc are time-specific. There is yet another set of words like velocity, pace, acceleration etc that are derivative in nature i.e. they are derived by forming calculations on the space and time dimensions of an object.

Definitions and Assumptions:

These are the definitions that I will employ during my hypothesis. If the reader’s definitions of these terms are at variance with those mentioned below, this hypothesis will not be able to answer the challenges coming from such quarters

Object: A physical entity, something that is tangible and within the grasp of the senses.

Characteristic: A distinguishing/unique feature of a person or a thing.

Hypothesis statement:

Each object has an infinite number of dimensions and even a minute change in any of these dimensions will result in the creation of an entirely different object.

Suppose there is an object A with the following co-ordinates (a1, a2, a3……an). Suppose we change one of the dimensions from a1 to b1. Then the object at the co-ordinates (b1, a2, a3….an) will be an object B which is different and unique from object A.

Let us define what the dimensions are that form these co-ordinates a1, a2 and so on and forth.

Let there be an object A. Let there be a point O with co-ordinates (0, 0, 0…..0). Let us assume for the sake of convenience that the number of dimensions is finite and equal to a number ‘n’.

Let point O be the “zero point” or “start point” for our hypothesis.

Let there be a point O1 which is at a distance of 1 meter from point O. (for the sake of simplicity, we will assume that this distance is towards the north in the horizontal space). Following our conventions, the co-ordinates for this point are (1, 0, 0….0)

Now let there be point O2 which is at a distance of 1m and a height of 1m from O.

Following our conventions, the co-ordinates for this point are (1, 1, 0….0)

Now let there be point O3 which is at a distance of 1m, a height of 1m and a time of 1 hour from O.

Following our conventions, the co-ordinates for this point are (1, 1, 1….0)

Now let there be point O4 which is at a distance of 1m, a height of 1m, a time of 1 hour and a temperature of 1degree centigrade from O.

Following our conventions, the co-ordinates for this point are (1, 1, 1, 1 ….0)

Taking this forward by a few points we can come up with similar “parameters” or “characteristics” of objects like pressure, weight, colour, stability and so on and so forth.

We will assume (again, purely for the sake of convenience) that we have finite number of such “parameters” or “characteristics” or “dimensions”. We will assume that there is a point ‘On’ which is at a single unit of all dimensions from O such that its co-ordinates are (1, 1, 1 … 1)

Now consider object A which is initially at point O.

Let us change the dimensions of this object A such that it is now at point ‘On’.

This hypothesis states that the object at point ‘On’ is not A, but B – B being unique and different from A.

Violence in movies

2007-02-05T15:32:00.000-08:00

A feature from the promising new newspaper Mint

The feature is centered around two recent movies which have their genesis in real life --- Parzania and Black Friday.
Parzania, directed by Rahul Dholakia, is a real-life story wound around the Gujarat riots -- about a Parsi couple looking for their lost son amidst the violence.
Black Friday, directed by the indomitable Anurag Kashyap, is about the 1993 Mumbai Serial blasts.
Read the feature to get the full impact. But I will quote a section here that hits the bull's eye:

Kashyap believes that violence made digestible and glamorous as it is in slick action films, is dangerous. “I have a problem with violence that is shown in diffused light, with techno music, as choreographed kung fu. Because that is highly watchable violence and it tells the audience that it is okay to kill. Hard violence makes you cringe, but it also brings home the horror of the situation,” says Kashyap.

How true...in the name of entertainment, movies glamorize everything these days...if only they could expose the real side of things every now and then, people would leave the movie hall with a better understanding of their real world.

Amar Singh interview with Karan Thapar >>> Devil's Advocte

2007-01-29T17:51:00.000-08:00

Transcript of the interview

Quite frankly, the whole interview was absolutely disgusting. I mean, come on guys !

Most of the interview was spent on Mr. Thapar trying to pin Mr Singh down on the Nithari incident and Mr Singh, in turn, trying to point out other gruesome incidents across the country to show UP is not the worst place on earth and his party's government is not the worst around.
But what was most disgusting for me was this section of the interview (I am quoting here directly from the transcript..I hope this is not piracy)

Karan Thapar: Don't talk about Assam, we are talking about UP. His minister gave the impression that it was chhoti moti, that minister happens to be his brother. Should he not have gone to Nithari and said 'I am coming to personally reassure you'?

Amar Singh: Let me tell you. On behalf of the Chief Minister, I went there. I gave them residential plot, Rs 5 lakh each, job and they are happy.

Look at Mr. Singh's reply..."I gave them..." what is that supposed to mean? did Mr. Singh pay for this out of his own pocket ? Isnt it our hard-earned tax money ?
Even if we forget the fact that Mr. Shivpal Yadav was as reckless (or is it heartless) to call it a "Chotti-Motti baat", it is still very disgusting (I believe I have used that word ten times now). These politicians have already started to believe that tax-payer's money is theirs to spend as they wish. If Mr.Singh can gift a Bentley to Mr. Bacchhan senior on his birthday, he can just as well pay the compensation money out of his own pocket (if he feels that compassionate towards the victims). The idea is not to say the victims shouldn't be paid...the point is the penalty for this crime should come out of the pockets of those who are directly responsible for this.

Still find it hard to believe I pay every day for the thousands of horrendous crimes that take place in this country everyday while our politicians roam around in their Bentleys and Mercs to one stylish party after another. But my pain is belittled by the suffering of those whose kids die at the hands of these brutes and the police doesnt even register their complaint !!!

I feel worried...deeply worried...

The SLOW movement

2007-01-29T16:53:00.000-08:00

The SLOW movement
I have a feeling I will post more on this on a conntinuos basis on this blog.

The first question that came to my mind when I read about this was: If people start working less number of hours, will it impact the quality of services that we enjoy on day-to-day basis ? If my TV is broken and I call for the service guy, will he take his own sweet time to come and help me (while I miss crucial games in the cricket world cup !) ?

I want to write more on this in the near future as I want to understand what a "slow" life would mean to us individually as human beings and to the society at large.
Perhaps slow living does not mean lousy professionalism..maybe it means enjoying what you do...doing things because you love them and not because you need to do them for money.

Maybe, that is the gist of living life...doing things that we get joy out of directly. These days, we do things so we earn more money, so we can buy stuff, so they can give us comfort, so we can be happy --- in other words, enjoyment comes (if at all) indirectly... the consequences of your actions (in terms of enjoyment) are delayed..and it is getting worse every day, every week, every year.
Gone are the days when we used to get instant joy, satisfaction, contentment out of doing things...and those things were simple, like feeding/clothing our kids, sharing jokes with our parents/friends, reading books..
These days, we just put up with our lives, our jobs, our colleagues so we can save enough money to make our retired lives easier....

Your comments please... !

Fire Engines in Mumbai

2007-01-29T06:29:00.000-08:00

This morning, on my way to work, I saw a screaming fire engine trying to find its way through the rush hour traffic.
It brought my heart to my mouth...what if this was the fire fighting team on its way to fighting a fire at my home ? to save my beloved ones ?
The traffic didnt budge an inch...no one on the road even attempted to make way for the fire engine. No one as much as looked at the fire engine. A couple of truck drivers did glance around to find out what the noise was all about but that's about it.
Worse, even the traffic constable didn't bother to help the fire engine find its way...Luckily, the team found a by-lane that they took...I am hoping this was some kind of shortcut to the place the team was supposed to reach ... and I sincerely doubt if the by-lanes themselves are any less congested than the highway. (calling the Western Express Highway an express highway or even a highway seems to be the biggest and cruelest joke to me !!!)
Several questions come to mind...what if this was an ambulance trying to reach the patient or carrying a critically ill patient to medical help ? Would the response from the traffic been any different ?
How are fire stations located ? do they cover a small, easily-reachable area considering the usual congestion on our roads ? are they strategically located near high-risk buildings (such as factories, restaurants, schools etc) ? has any thinking been done about these ?

The worst sight for me today was the atmosphere inside the fire engine --- all the fire fighters had a calm, serene look on their faces. You could say that they need to be calm (and anyway, there is nothing they can do about the traffic, can they ?)...but if my house were on fire, I would be seriously disturbed by those looks...it was almost as if they didnt mind stuck in traffic...(I have seen cars honking more than the fire engine did today...I have seen rickshaw drivers try going across traffic more than the fire engine did today...I feel its the attitude that counts...)..

I am worried...deeply worried....

Cricket : BCCI politics at a new low ???

2007-01-28T17:03:00.000-08:00

If this is true, it is truly disgusting !

I hope I am over-reacting..and this is just a co-incidence.

Pune drops out and Kolkotta gets to host the first one-dayer between India and Sri Lanka. This, just after Prasanna Mukherjee was elected as CAB (Cricket Association of Bengal) President -- after Mr.Dalmiya resigned. Hope this is just a co-incidence and does not indicate any dirty politics on the part of BCCI.

Television Subscription

2007-01-28T07:52:00.000-08:00

Television Subscription

This raises a lot of questions....in fact I found the comments more informed on this article than the article itself.
Other things aside, rudimentarily speaking, I see the following content broadcasting options today:

Cable television:
The idea is you pay for the content...but you pay a la carte...i.e you dont pay for specific programs..you pay for a bunch of channels and hope it covers your requirements.

CAS:
The idea is, you pick which channels to watch..so you have better control. The flip side ? --- if there is a new channel (Nimbus, anyone ?) that recently bought out the rights for your favourite sports show, you have to shell out more money.

DTH:
The idea is pretty similar to CAS..only you dont have to put up with the cable guy. Instead, you pay the satellite company. And, of course, you pay for the equipment.

Movies:
Yes, I have known movie halls that broadcast cricket matches for a fee !!!
The medium is interesting...but there are drawbacks -- in the sense, you have to go to the hall, pay for the ticket (and the customary popcorn) and put up with hundreds of other people to watch your favourite show (I do expect movie halls to broadcast TV shows in the near future) --- I almost forgot...since it is a pre-scheduled show, you will have to make yourself available on show time.

Lets see...what other optiions do we have ?
I think AppleTV, Movies-on-demand, cricket on the internet...

Can you think of any more innovative ideas ??

How to live longer 1

2007-01-27T20:39:00.000-08:00

Noble Prize Winners live longer

I am only hoping this blog wins the Nobel Prize for "outstanding contribution in the field of killing time".
Am counting on your votes and support.

Infinity Puzzle 2

2007-01-27T19:59:00.000-08:00

Suppose you have two glasses. A and B
Glass A is full of milk and glass B is full of water.

Suppose you take a spoon of water from glass B and mix it into the milk in glass A. Next, you take a spoon of the mixture in glass A and mix this into glass B.

Suppose you keep doing this till infinity...
Will the two glasses hold equal amounts of both liquids ? Will the liquid all evaporate ? Will all the milk be transferred to glass B and all the water to glass A ???

In conversation with Alpha and Beta

2007-01-27T19:53:00.000-08:00

Alpha :
SecondLife
Will we cease to exist in the real world after some years ??? Are we already avatars in the virtual world for some higher species which chose to create this virtual environment for their entertainment ??

questions...questions....sigh !

Beta:
No and We'll never know will be my answers to both your questions. This is not something new to me actually. I used to have a colleague in New York who also had a significant virtual presence. His real world behaviour sometimes reflected his life in the virtual world. For example, one day he came to work very upset because "someone stole his weapons" the previous night!!! Ofcourse they aren't real weapons, but they "belong" to him. He has been playing some game for some months, where he has a team, their aim is to kill a monster, they have team meetings, strategies, commitments etc etc.
He also goes so far as to "purchase weapons" on eBay for his virtual use!!!
I guess life's getting complicated and some people will definitely need counselling to help themselves back to the real world!!

Irreducible complexity

2007-01-27T19:45:00.000-08:00

Irreducible Complexity

One more corner in the debate about our existence. Who is this "higher entity" ? God, super humans, a more advanced species ???

Contrast this with Darwin's theory of natural selection...

Thoughts from Dalai Lama...

2007-01-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

Refreshing, aint it ?

Cricket : Indian tail

2007-01-27T04:43:00.000-08:00

As I watch the Indian innings fold atleast 100 runs off course in the 3rd ODI against WI, I am more amused than frustrated.
I always felt this...there seems to be an air of inevitability about Ajit Agarkar's batting. It looks like he expects to get out every ball...and is absolutely stunned if he is not. I missed his batting in the 2nd ODI..must have been a very different Agarkar than the one I know. He justs winds up a huge backlift and then brings it down as if he is not sure what shot he wants to play.

Anil Kumble must be the biggest experts on run outs...getting run-out i.e. He wants a run irrespective of whether he has hit the ball or not...irrespective of whether the ball has gone to hand or not --- if the ball has been bowled, you gotta run !!!

Looks like I have run out of players to make fun of....lets look at tail-enders from other teams in the coming posts...so keep watching this space..

Cricket commentary >> How to

2007-01-27T03:22:00.000-08:00

This is how you describe good batsmen:
1. Has a good solid defence
2. Plays very late.
3. Watches the ball until the last moment.
4. Plays close to his body
5. Waits for bad balls
6. Never takes his eyes off the ball.
7. Never misses an opportunity to score runs.
8. Ready to graft it out in the middle.

This is how you describe a good spinner:
1. Is not afraid to give the ball air.
2. Uses the crease well.
3. Turns the ball a long way. (can turn the ball on a glasstop)
4. Is able to extract bounce.
5. Is able to get the ball to dip.
6. Has a great loop.

This is how you describe a good fast bowler:
1. Is able to get the ball to move in the air and off the pitch.
2. Does not give the batsmen width to play their shots.
3. Has a good bouncer, slower one, yorker etc etc.
4. Is immaculate in line and length.
5. Has good pace.

Did I miss any more cliches ? I am sure....
Wait for the next post on how to describe bad batting displays, bowling spells and great wicket keeping....right here ...on this blog !!!

So keep reading...

Degaussing...and more stories

2007-01-18T17:24:00.000-08:00

Degaussing is a process of randomizing magnetic fields ..this is apparently used for destroying information stored on CD/Floppy/Hard Disks and other magnetic storage media.

It was used in the past to help protect ships against magnetic mines.