Parsimony

Who twinkles more ?

2011-02-21T15:55:00.001-08:00

If you see eve ensler at gate #8 and madhuri dixit at gate#9 which one
would you rush to. If you think you would rush to #9 , would you admit
it ?

--
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious" - Albert
Einstein (1879-1955)

You turned me into ....

2010-12-28T15:48:00.001-08:00

You turned me into ..... "somebody loved" !!
- The Weepies on: Happiness

The Hindu : Business / Companies : Vimal introduces anti-microbial fabric

2010-07-14T16:08:00.001-07:00

Vimal, the flagship textile brand of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) on Wednesday claimed of a 'pioneering innovation' in the textile industry of treating fabrics with a chemical that would arrest the growth of fungi and bacteria keeping it fresh and anti-odour even after day-long wearing in humid and warm climates like India.

Announcing this, RIL President (Textile Division) Anand Parekh said the 'DEO2' was entirely an in-hose innovation of RIL and "with cent per cent indigenous technology" developed at its Naroda facility on the city outskirts.
http://www.thehindu.com/business/companies/article515841.ece

>> pretty cool !! This definitely does something to improve quality of life much more than an app to remind me when to go to the bathroom !!

making the case for reading fiction

2010-05-18T10:01:00.001-07:00

We all teach kids lessons using the age old "once upon a time". Using mythology to teach morality or using examples to teach math, are further examples of how story telling shapes our thinking and our biases. The veracity of the story is not material to the process of learning. We would be poorer if we judged stories on that basis.

When you read fiction what you are reading and visualizing is something larger than the immediate images that hit you. When you watch the animation movie "cars" you see the character behind each car. You relate to their emotions and their "human" nature. You dont come out of the theater saying - man cars dont talk, what a bogus movie.Fiction helps to make the lesson interesting. Stories by being set in different times and locales educates us about how varied the the world looks when viewed at different points in space-time. One could make a case that maybe reading about true stories i.e. real life occurrences can just as enlightening. I would argue that an interesting story - well told could have a much more amplified response from your system.

So much of art is a reflection of worldly life, but we are touched by art in a way that reality does not. Of course we take this emotion back to our daily lives. Can we ever express in words what music can express. I think writing is also an art form. Authors of fictional stories are masters of an art that can evoke fantastic responses in us. Fiction authors also try to explore deep themes intentionally, and take you to the most interesting place on earth - inside the head of humans. They understand the human condition and beyond that are able to follow thought experiments on this complicated model. Human thoughts, emotions, feelings and the resulting actions and words are very complicated to explain in a technically precise manner. It can be understood by examples though. This understanding of the human condition can lead to a broader understanding of how the world works. The authors do a what-if analysis for us and express it in words that would evoke deep responses from us. Lets say you meet a person from an unfamiliar background - you could have read about them and their problems in maybe an autobiography. The fiction writer could just amplify this image for you by contrasting this life with a life in a fortunate situation by simply making the character travel to a different country. Through the eyes of this character you can then better understand what exactly it is that they "feel".

caliguli

2010-05-10T15:26:00.001-07:00

Images from caligula are still making rounds underneath my scalp - bouncing of my visual areas. I am thinking a lot of Indian kings must have led this lifestyle as well, wouldn't they ?

No aid for AIDS

2010-05-10T08:38:00.001-07:00

The last decade has been what some doctors call a "golden window" for treatment. Drugs that once cost $12,000 a year fell to less than $100, and the world was willing to pay.In Uganda, where fewer than 10,000 were on drugs a decade ago, nearly 200,000 now are, largely as a result of American generosity. But the golden window is closing. Uganda is the first country where major clinics routinely turn people away, but it will not be the last. In Kenya next door, grants to keep 200,000 on drugs will expire soon. An American-run program in Mozambique has been told to stop opening clinics. There have been drug shortages in Nigeria and Swaziland. Tanzania and Botswana are trimming treatment slots, according to a report by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.

The collapse was set off by the global recession's effect on donors, and by a growing sense that more lives would be saved by fighting other, cheaper diseases. Even as the number of people infected by AIDS grows by a million a year, money for treatment has stopped growing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/world/africa/10aids.html?src=sch&pagewanted=all

Gulf Coast oil spill fought with . . . human hair? | al.com

2010-05-05T13:12:00.001-07:00

Two local women have a plan to save the coastline by building booms with human hair scraps to absorb the oil from the BP spill.

Liz Ann Howard-Alvarez of Mobile and Amanda Bacon of Point Clear have created a grass-roots effort to build oil-absorbent barriers filled with hair, either human or animal, as long as it's clean, they said.

"These booms can be used by local residents to shore up and protect their property," Bacon said.
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/gulf_coast_oil_spill_fought_wi.html

A Toxic Fix to a Toxic Problem - Science and Tech - The Atlantic

2010-05-05T13:05:00.001-07:00

As the Gulf Coast's ruptured oil well leaks anywhere from 5,000 to 60,000 barrels of crude a day, responders are relying heavily on toxic oil dispersants.

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/05/a-toxic-fix-to-a-toxic-problem/56203/

Rumi : The Seed market

2010-03-21T18:31:00.001-07:00

Can you find another market like this ?
Where,
with your one rose
you can buy hundreds of rose gardens ?

Where.
for one seed
you get a whole wilderness ?

For one weak breath,
the divine wind ?

You've been fearful
of being absorbed in the ground,
or drawn up in the air.

Now, your water-bead lets go
and drops into the ocean,
where it came from.

It no longer has the form it had,
but it is still water.
The essence is the same.

This giving up is not a repenting.
It's a deep honoring of yourself.

When the ocean comes to you as a lover,
marry, at one, quickly,
for God's sake!

Don't postpone it!
Existence has no better gift.

No amount of searching
will find this.

A perfect falcon, for no reason,
has landed on your shoulder,
and become yours.

scripts that can be run over the web

2010-02-27T16:11:00.001-08:00

We need to give abilities to run perl scripts on the web.
Then people can just write small widgets easily and host them for themselves and share it with friends.
A simple widget to compute APR from APY or APR (post and pre tax).

Cesar Milan

2010-02-26T10:42:00.001-08:00

I think I really liked the "dog whisperer" show on Natgeo. But my bloody prudish mind would let me admit it to myself.
"Darr lagta hai mujhse kehne mein ji .... Dil to baccha hai ji ..... "

Why would I not like to admit that ? I know we dont think through before we act. But what if I wanted to conciously overthrow my internal decision maker. How do I stage a coup ? I don't even know where he sits and what he looks like !!

Curly braces

2010-02-25T19:53:00.001-08:00

Who invented curly braces. When you write on paper are you ever able to get it right ?
Do you ever use it other than in C code ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracket#Uses_of_.E2.80.9C.7B.E2.80.9D_and_.E2.80.9C.7D.E2.80.9D
Looks like mathematicians use it to denote sets.
I sat down for 5 mins to think of any other style of braces. The best I could come up with is o( )o

--
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious" - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Parallel universes

2010-02-19T09:00:00.001-08:00

WTF is going on ? There are clearly multiple worlds we live in. Are we fortunate to be able to do that -or- are we just suffering the burden of having to switch. There is a sense of one world being always better than the other - but also a sense of this bad world being the reality in some sense. So in a way the dark clouds will cover the sun soon even in the new world.
The mind makes its split personality of Dr. logic and Mr.emotion felt very strongly. Maybe this is what colors our view of the world as well. This is why we see 2 separate worlds. Maybe the heart wants to see another sunnier world and this is nothing but a mirage to help the logical side preen itself.
The funny thing is the heart comes in and tries to see the pain in this tropical bliss as well. Ofcourse it feeling like a mirage the heart doesnt have a lot of control. But wait .. shouldn't the heart be in more control of a mirage it has conjured up. So maybe its not a mirage after all. Its just us being colored by the majority around us. If the majority have positive attitudes, then we reflect that well. The true test of character then is to be positive independent of the surroundings. Can you ? Will you ?

why set goals ?

2010-01-18T08:31:00.001-08:00

what is kamyaabi? why am I setting goals and trying to achieve them. At times I feel its an excuse to not ponder deeply the meaning of life. But today morning I read something in "the speaking tree" that kinda made sense. The author said that "there are four main purposes to human life. They are: Moral perfection, worldly attainment, fulfilment of legitimate deries and liberation. The first 3 values have meaning only when they are aimed at the fourth. The first three practices make our lives satisfying so we can devote ourselves to the most important fourth ideal." So it is necessary to be kaamiyaab while being moral - and always concious of the fact that there is a larger goal towards which we are working.

Haan woh theek hai .... but what is the point of this liberation. I think this world is actually pointless. So this liberation is actually liberation from "struggling to survive". If you do well in life while having a clean heart then you will feel happy (because you are conditioned to feel jiittery when you lie). I think if someone is brought up to be most comfortable when they lie and cheat - then this is what they would need to do to live a fulfilling life. Just that being social had evolutionary benefits - so we are trained this way. Bass is evolution ko samajh ke chalo aur apna kaam nikaalo .. woh to apna kaam nikal ke hi rahegi - there is no escaping her chungul.

Google pestering

2010-01-05T20:27:00.001-08:00

I hate it when they try to sneak in other tools when i am downloading the tools that I need. In the last 2 days I have been asked if I need "chrome with real player" and "google toolbar with acrobat reader". Why is google trying to sneak into my life when I am already invested in their tools.

The Hindu : Opinion / Cartoon

2009-11-17T15:25:00.001-08:00

http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/cartoon/article49930.ece.

News Blog Articles | Stereotyping Increases With Age | Miller-McCune Online Magazine

2009-10-04T12:36:00.001-07:00

I agree - as we age we should be more wary of people who talk in stereotypes.

http://www.miller-mccune.com/news/stereotypes-loom-larger-as-our-brains-age-1505

This process "appears to be a more general phenomenon of aging," they note, adding that some older adults "may be relying on stereotypes despite their best intentions to the contrary."

The second paper, published earlier this year in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition, contains a way around this problem. It describes a study in which older and younger adults read a story in which a central character was employed in a sex-stereotyped profession. In half the stories, the character's gender was consistent with the stereotype (a male plumber), while in the other half it was inconsistent (a female plumber).

Missed Connections.

2009-09-30T11:46:00.001-07:00

When I see work like this - I feel very happy and hopeful :)

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/craigslists-missed-connections-as-art/

"Some browse the "Missed Connections" section on Craigslist in the hopes of spotting a posting from the dapper gent they exchanged a glance with in the checkout line. Others read the listings purely for entertainment.

Sophie Blackall, an illustrator living in Brooklyn, N.Y., saw it as an endless goldmine of material "

http://missedconnectionsny.blogspot.com/
" Messages in bottles, smoke signals, letters written in the sand; the modern equivalents are the funny, sad, beautiful, hopeful, hopeless, poetic posts on Missed Connections websites. Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I'm trying to pin a few of them down."

[via http://waxy.org/links/]

state machine of life - do not encode in gray

2009-09-25T17:52:00.001-07:00

Himu (pronounced he-moo) couldnt hold back his tears now. He had his feet up, while on a comfortable chair on the balcony of his new apartment in downtown Chicago. His wife was on the phone with one of her old friends. Himo had just slipped back into the past - ably assisted by the glass of absolut vodka in his hand. His father always called him Himaayat, as did the INS officer who stamped his visa the first time he entered the US. But he felt more comfortable with a name, that did not mean or stand for anything. He had been successful in life but always worried about the future and felt anxious about the present. Wanted rituals to help feel sane, and at the same time felt anxious because he didn't feel the wind in his face.
He was now thinking about the one bedroom apartment in Mahim where he grew up till he was 18. His current state of relative bliss reminded him of the times when he spent some evenings staring out of this apartment on the 4th floor. People walking by - women going to the temple, fathers returning home from work, kids playing games, stray dogs busy trying to catch their tails. He could have spent hours in that state of reverie. The best place to be is where you can see others when they can't, he thought. If he could relate his current state with one of 30 years ago, did he really have to travel so much in life. What if he had stood there on his balcony, holding onto the grills, for 30 years - would he have "felt" any different today. Even if there was an accelerated simulator for life, he thought, I couldnt have controlled values to all the input parameters. But then like Kavita had said "We make life sound too complicated". Maybe life is just a handful of states of mind - and if you profiled anyone's life, we would all have spent very similar amounts of time in each of these states. Although we keep taking these gazillion different arcs into and out of these states of life.

Paulo but-ak gaya !!

2009-09-25T17:06:00.001-07:00

Whenever paulo wanted to stop being a glutton, the ghost of his mother would come in his dreams, and say "Yes thats the right thing to do. But maybe you should hold onto whatever you have for some more time. Who knows you might want it later and you might not be able to get it so easily. We need to be practical in life." Paulo would then begin cluttering the clean solution he had with more and more exceptions (if statements). Exceptions always make a design messy. Maybe thats why God had decided that she will not equip Paulo with a head to deal with exceptions. She could have built him with an extremely fast exception look-up table, but even she feared being not able to match the complexitty of the exceptions that Paulo might want to fit into this table. Paulo as usual is stunned into inaction and takes recourse in the sweetness dished out of Olga's kitchen. Not even being able to relish it wholeheartedly.

The United States' swine flu vaccines will leave millions worldwide unprotected. - By David Dobbs - Slate Magazine

2009-09-19T17:26:00.001-07:00

http://www.slate.com/id/2228700/pagenum/all/#p2

this robust and effective vaccine supply stands to sharply check swine flu in the United States, saving anywhere from a few thousand to 50,000 lives.
But what if we could save two to four times that many lives by vaccinating another 200 million to 300 million people worldwide?

The Paradox of the Knower | Futility Closet

2009-09-19T09:44:00.001-07:00

http://www.futilitycloset.com/2009/09/13/the-paradox-of-the-knower/

No one knows that this sentence is true.
That sentence can't be false, because that would lead immediately to a contradiction.
But if it's true, then omniscience is impossible.
Therefore there can be no all-knowing being.

tennis lessons

2009-09-17T14:53:00.001-07:00

Its interesting how tennis can teach you life lessons. When returning serves you can either slice the ball back or you can power it back. The second option needs you to move your feet and time the ball well so more energy and effort needed. But the first gives you very little in form of rewards cos a limp slice back will be simple forehand practice for the person on the other side. The other aspect of getting on top of the ball is that you move forward with the shot and your subsequent shots are more offensive.

Total Empathy

2009-09-12T10:48:00.001-07:00

There are times when you need help in the form of - total empathy. i.e. you want someone to feel the anguish and anxiety that you are feeling. And you want to "know" that they are feeling your pain. When you dont get that - from someone you expect to deliver - you get very very angry !!

This seems to be very human. But most of us dont realize the value of this, when we are not on the demanding side.

Even after the anger loses steam, the scar remains deep. Why is that ? I hope we evolve more socially helpful body mechanisms? Maybe 10 generations from now, we will be able to heal sooner or not even feel the need of other humans. Asimov does imagine such future worlds. Lets hope we get to live his dreams. Meanwhile I can deify such ideas with repeated recollections. Also I can try to deliver when the need arises for someone close.

Easy Math

2009-09-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

Funny

Easy Math - Free videos are just a click away

Personal Tech: Got a Burning Question? Ask the Net

2009-09-04T12:14:00.001-07:00

Very nice !!

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2009/09/03/technology/circuitsemail/index.html?8cir&emc=cir

I've used Aardvark several times apiece for professional and personal queries, and I've been astounded by its utility every time. The answers are on my screen between 60 seconds and five minutes after I've asked them: private, targeted, and generally accurate.
When I was working on a column about U.S. cellphone ripoffs, I asked: "In Europe, are both senders and receivers of text messages and phone calls billed for each message?"
Ding! Paul from Fleetwood, England responded: "Depends what you mean: country to country or domestic?"
I responded: "I was thinking domestic." His answer: "Domestically, it is only the send who pays for both texts and calls. This is the case in all EU countries."

The Hindu : Sci-Tech / Internet : Divorce at the click of a mouse in Brazil

2009-09-03T10:29:00.001-07:00

I think it makes sense. I don't think Indians have the balls to bring such laws into effect. As a people, we are 2 degrees away from accepting facts of life.

http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/internet/article14586.ece?homepage=true

The Brazilian Senate has approved a bill that would allow consensual divorces to be filed and resolved on the Internet.
The Senate's official news agency says the bill would speed divorce proceedings, allowing couples to split without lawyers or having to wait in line in court.
Couples could file for legal separations, divide property and decide alimony via the Internet as well, according to the bill approved Wednesday by the Senate constitutional commission.

viscerally disturbed.

2009-08-31T00:21:00.001-07:00

The smallest bad news has such a bad effect on all my senses. I begin to lose interest in topics I am usually interested in - feel like I am carrying this big cloud of negativity in my chest and throat. Every thought seems to have become heavy and burdened. I can sense it when I am trying to play hard and get it out. It poisons everything. This is worse when I am unable to act on it.

el dorado in my head.

2009-08-28T10:53:00.001-07:00

I think I would be very happy if I lived in my head.

GSM, black boxes, and iPhones: the tech that drives Zipcar - Ars Technica

2009-08-28T00:20:00.001-07:00

Sounds pretty cool - If I could find one every morning and every evening I could actually save the hassle of maintaining a car - and save money spent on buying a car.

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/08/gsm-black-boxes-and-iphones-the-tech-that-drives-zipcar.ars

After making the reservation, I walk to the car of my choosing and wave my Zipcard over a sensor on the windshield. The car unlocks and I grab the key, which is attached to the dashboard, and off I go. When I return the car, I wave my card again and the car locks. The company bills the reservation straight to the credit card I have on file.

The tech behind it

When a reservation is made on the Internet, a package is sent over GSM to the chosen car and stored in a ring buffer until the driver shows up with his or her Zipcard, which is equipped with an RFID chip. The cardreader mounted in the windshield reads the RFID signature to authenticate the holder of the card and sends the message to the computer in the car. From there, the computer asks itself three questions: Am I the right car? Is it the right time? Is this the right driver?

India Together: Put your money down, boys - 15 August 2009

2009-08-26T14:15:00.001-07:00

how big of a problem is this - do we need "freedom" from tappawallas ? Maybe we should just simply improve the post offices in India. They suck big time.
If we make it possible to load/unload cash onto a cell-phone (like a debit/cash card) - Then have an app to transfer this from one phone to another - I wonder how security would be handled here. In the literate world passwords would do the job - but maybe biometric sensors (in combination with the cellphone numbers) might do the job. Who takes the initiative. If the state gives a contract to someone like Nokia to make special and cheap phones and maintains these ATM centers at the post offices ?

http://indiatogether.org/2009/aug/psa-moneydown.htm

Why should people use him? Why not a bank or post office? "Several do use banks, but most of us have never had a bank account," point out those sitting around the Tappawala. And, he adds, "people feel intimidated in a bank." And the post office? "Even if you are literate, which most migrants are not, you cannot fill out your money order form in Surat in the Oriya language. Getting someone to write it in poor English risks having your money order going astray."

Orissa has recently seen a few postmasters making off with crores of rupees in savings and money orders entrusted to their care by mostly illiterate people. Migrants feel more secure with the Tappawala as his family usually lives in their village or in one nearby. "But we have a security problem," says one. "Once identified, there's a risk." Tappawalas have faced lethal attacks on that cash-carrying stretch from Berhampur to Ganjam's interior villages. Maybe that's why most of them insist they've "retired." They're silent about when they did so. But their money talks

Christmas truce - joyeux noel

2009-08-20T23:43:00.001-07:00

This is the true human spirit that shines through here. This is what prompted us to evolve into "social" animals - prompted us to use our brains and develop them. Kids should be shown such things in school and taught to value humanity more than stupid geographical and cultural stereotypes. Education in India is seriously lacking in teaching us such basic principles. So many educated people we meet everyday carry such deep biases against people within their countries itself, just because they talk and behave differently. Its a national shame for a place like India.

I like the scene where they show the priest talking nonsense as if ordained by god to spread war on earth. Chooo saala !!

http://www.sonyclassics.com/joyeuxnoel/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

The "Christmas truce" is a term used to describe several brief unofficial cessations of hostilities that occurred on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day between German and British or French troops in World War I, particularly that between British and German troops stationed along the Western Front during Christmas 1914. In 1915 there was a similar Christmas truce between German and French troops, and during Easter 1916 a truce also existed on the Eastern Front.

some souls are screwed

2009-08-20T21:40:00.001-07:00

Can there be people who never see happiness ? There are. The sad thing is that nothing can be done to help them. Guilt, misunderstanding, underdeveloped faculties - all of this just screws their lives. I believe about half of my fellow Indians are blighted by such states of lives. The condition threatens to engulf more of us - if we try to help the unfortunate. Being strong and realizing that living life involves certain pains is important.

audience this

2009-08-20T19:07:00.001-07:00

It should not be too difficult to come up with a browser application that does the following

Setup:

Browser reading an article someone sent.
iPod or any other MP3 device attached. If not attached will make a playlist for the iPod.

In action:

user will right click and say "audience it"
tool will convert the article to sound and send it along with the images on the page onto the attached iPod.
In addition the tool can create a list of relevant links based on googling key words in the article.
Ofcourse it will download the page into some open source page viewing format as well. So my ebook reader can read it at my leisure.

Council for Secular Humanism

2009-08-07T20:22:00.001-07:00

Shouldnt such guys be tried in some internation court of justice,

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5#

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible's satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn't a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

DNA origami - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2009-08-07T18:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/nanodna/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_origami

To produce a desired shape, images are drawn with a raster fill of a single long DNA molecule. This design is then fed into a computer program (such as SEQUIN) which calculates the placement of individual staple strands. Each staple binds to a specific region of the DNA template, and thus due to Watson-Crick base pairing the necessary sequences of all staple strands are known and displayed. The DNA is mixed and then heated and cooled. As the DNA cools the various staples pull the long strand into the desired shape. Designs are directly observable via several methods including atomic force microscopy, or fluorescence microscopy when DNA is coupled to fluorescent materials .

Andy Kessler: WSJ: The Bernanke Market

2009-07-15T14:27:00.001-07:00

http://www.andykessler.com/andy_kessler/2009/07/wsj-the-bernanke-market.html

I remember once buying the stock of a small company and I couldn't believe my luck. Every time my fund bought more shares the stock would go up. So we bought even more and the stock kept climbing. When we finally built our full position and stopped buying the stock started dropping, ending up at a price below where we started buying it. We were the market.

Bill making free education fundamental right gets cabinet nod- Hindustan Times

2009-07-02T09:57:00.001-07:00

Awesome !!

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=HomePage&id=75c3325d-3eea-4f50-a411-df38f441efec&Headline=Cabinet+nod+for+bill+making+free+education+a+fundamental+right

The Act provides for 25 per cent reservation of seats in private schools for poor children in neighbourhood. The government would reimburse the money at government rate towards these seats.

The Bill prohibits payment of donations or capitation fees or interviewing the child or parents as part of a screening procedure.

notes from neitzsche

2009-06-27T10:07:00.001-07:00

... So far everything that has given color to existence still lacks a history; or, where could one find a history of love, of avarice, of envy, of conscience, of piety, or of cruelty ? Even a comparative history of law, or merely of punishment is completely lacking so far. Has anyone yet conducted research into the different ways of dividing the day and the consequence of a regular arrangement of work, holiday and rest? Does anyone know the moral effects of food? Is there a philosophy of nourishment? Have the experiences of living together been assembled; for example the experiences int he monasteries? Has the dialectic of marriage and friendship been presented as yet? .....

=======================================

For one thing is needful: that a human being attain his statisfaction with himself- whether it be by this or by that poetry and art; only then is a human being at all tolearable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is always ready to revenge himself therefore; we others will be his victims, if only by always having to stand his ugly sight. For the sight of the ugly makes men bad and gloomy.

========================================

iran on India

2009-06-19T21:47:00.001-07:00

Iran has so much to teach us Indians about orderly debate and articulate speech. Even the people on the streets to be so much more articulate than our politicians. I began wondering what stops them from making their make in areas like software. Well maybe ahmedinijad is not letting the light shine through into the engineering colleges. Which might not be completely true we have so many successful Iranian academics and engineering professionals here in the US. Ofcourse strained relations with the US - but does that mean you have to be chummy with the US to be able to make technological progress. Or is the very premise of my argument - is it that all the progress is being put to mostly military use.

Church and State

2009-06-19T19:15:00.001-07:00

:) I had composed this long back. I probably had some thoughts to add to it - but know I dont even remember the source for the following. They are clearly not out of my head.

The contemporary crisis in Western Christendom created an audience for Hobbes and his ideas. In the midst of religious war, his view that the human mind was too weak and beset by passions to have any reliable knowledge of the divine seemed common-sensical. It also made sense to assume that when man speaks about God he is really referring to his own experience, which is all he knows. And what most characterizes his experience? According to Hobbes, fear. Man's natural state is to be overwhelmed with anxiety, "his heart all the day long gnawed on by fear of death, poverty, or other calamity." He "has no repose, nor pause of his anxiety, but in sleep." It is no wonder that human beings fashion idols to protect themselves from what they most fear, attributing divine powers even, as Hobbes wrote, to "men, women, a bird, a crocodile, a calf, a dog, a snake, an onion, a leek." Pitiful, but understandable.

And the debilitating dynamics of belief don't end there. For once we imagine an all-powerful God to protect us, chances are we'll begin to fear him too. What if he gets angry? How can we appease him? Hobbes reasoned that these new religious fears were what created a market for priests and prophets claiming to understand God's obscure demands. It was a raucous market in Hobbes's time, with stalls for Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Quakers, Ranters, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchy Men and countless others, each with his own path to salvation and blueprint for Christian society. They disagreed with one another, and because their very souls were at stake, they fought. Which led to wars; which led to more fear; which made people more religious; which. . . .

Fresh from the Wars of Religion, Hobbes's readers knew all about fear. Their lives had become, as he put it, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." And when he announced that a new political philosophy could release them from fear, they listened. Hobbes planted a seed, a thought that it might be possible to build legitimate political institutions without grounding them on divine revelation. He knew it was impossible to refute belief in divine revelation; the most one can hope to do is cast suspicion on prophets claiming to speak about politics in God's name. The new political thinking would no longer concern itself with God's politics; it would concentrate on men as believers in God and try to keep them from harming one another. It would set its sights lower than Christian political theology had, but secure what mattered most, which was peace.

whats the f@@king point

2009-06-19T18:48:00.001-07:00

If every one is to live for themselves and the only reason to be here is just so that people arent inconvenienced then whats the fucking point of it all. All this - living to be able to marvel at the world and the nature of it all just seems to be bogus. That feeling is like any other strong emotion we feel. I see no reason to base lives on a trivial emotion.

humsafar

2009-06-02T10:50:00.001-07:00

jeevan ke har mod pe mil jaayenge humsafar,
jo door tak saath de dhoonde ussi ko dhoonde nazar.

bequest test

2009-05-30T17:01:00.001-07:00

When you are about to stop living, thinking of having to leave your life's work as a legacy to anyone else can be very haunting, can it not. Specially if you have tended to this all your life with meticulous care and have been a reasonable success at it. I dont know, maybe if you have gazillions saved up in the swiss banks then maybe you could be re-assured that a large fraction of it will be put to relevant use. But for the common man it is a daunting task - one of the worries he/she will probably take their last breaths with. Is there a way to convince them ? The only way I see is for them to accept the fact that it was never theirs and that their work is done and they dont have to worry about it anymore.
How about the pressure this puts on the beneficiaries ? Ah thats the price you ought to pay to see the cattle egrets fly back home while you sip coffee and ponder why you are here.

friend<

2009-05-28T13:56:00.001-07:00

life throws bad stuff at you, but if you had good people around you, you would be able to take it well and move on.
The problem is when you dont know how to surround yourself with good friends.
Is this a problem everyone faces ?

Yoko Ogawa: The Housekeeper and the Professor

2009-05-27T08:01:00.001-07:00

http://www.oldmustybooks.com/2009/01/29/yoko-ogawa-the-housekeeper-and-the-professor/

Yoko Ogawa made mathematics alluring with this delightful book about a mathematics professor, his housekeeper and her ten year old son. None of the characters have names, though the son has a nickname (Root), given by the professor. Interestingly, the protagonist, in my opinion, is the Professors short term memory. After a devastating accident, the professor only has 80 minutes of short term memory. This means, every single morning, the Housekeeper has to re-introduce herself to the Professor before she can go into his house. One would think there would be no way to build a relationship with this sort of setback. This book shows its possible.

Rajan : "My lack of imagination is so glaring. My image of the professor was a much more disorganized, unhealthy and weak. The lady too wasnt a young japanese girl as shown here. I think I was using my Indian sensibilities."

Dalit in the Boardroom | Outlook

2009-05-10T21:43:00.001-07:00

A team of technical and financial experts is advising Saroj on the revival. MK Gore, Managing Director, says investors have poured Rs 154 crore into the company. While Saroj holds the majority stake in KTL, many from the powerful sugar lobby in Maharashtra also hold equity. "I have secured substantial funding from friends and associates, including a Gujarati non-resident Indian in the UK," she says.

Saroj, who hails from Akola, had her first brush with Mumbai's shanties when she moved to the city as a child bride, at age 12. She abandoned the alliance and was taken back to her village. Driven to despair by her wretched circumstances, she attempted suicide, but survived. "At that very moment, I decided that if I have to live, I would achieve something, and live life on my terms," she recalls.

Determined to make it big, she returned to Mumbai a few years later and stayed with an uncle. Working in a hosiery company, she eked out a living earning a meagre Rs 2 a day. But it was in the rough and tumble of Mumbai's underbelly that she acquired her raw aggression, determination and earthy approach to conducting business.

http://business.outlookindia.com/inner.aspx?articleid=2675&subcatgid=386&editionid=73&catgid=1

Interesting how people can rise like this in business. When you stay in Bombay for a month or so you can clearly see that people with patience, energy, guts and the will to lower a bit of their moral standards can make a lot of wealth. I wonder if someone can or already has studied this phenomenon about the effect of big cities on people's abilities and achievements.

Higgs Boson: A Ghost in the Machine - TIME

2009-04-03T18:20:00.001-07:00

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1729139,00.html

Working from Higgs' theory, scientists postulate that initially weightless particles move through a ubiquitous quantum field, known as a Higgs field, like a pearl necklace through a jar of honey. Some particles, such as photons — weightless carriers of light — can cut through the sticky Higgs field without picking up mass. Others get bogged down and become heavy; that is the process that creates tangible matter. "The Higgs gives everything in the universe its mass," says David Francis, a physicist on the ATLAS experiment. Pointing at CERN's grand geological amphitheater of the Jura and the Alps. "None of that is possible without the Higgs."

India Together: Making news in the Northeast - March 2009

2009-03-24T14:25:00.001-07:00

http://indiatogether.org/2009/mar/med-northeast.htm

Sharmila has been on an indefinite fast for over eight years, demanding an end to the imposition of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, in her state. The controversial law (AFSPA), which gives sweeping powers to the military, has been in force in Manipur more or less continuously since 1980. This is despite long-standing popular opposition to it within the state and the recommendation in 2005 by a central government appointed committee chaired by Justice B P Jeevan Reddy that it be repealed. She has spent most of this period incarcerated in the security ward of the government-owned Jawaharlal Nehru hospital in Imphal (officially in the custody of the Central Jail, Sajiwa), being kept alive through force-feeding.

The Village (2004)

2009-03-22T23:07:00.001-07:00

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368447/
Fascinatng movie that I watched this weekend.

For One More Day - Mitch Albom

2009-03-22T22:59:00.001-07:00

Read this last weekend. Its a fairly good and quick read. Good story telling.

link to emails from unix.

2009-03-20T16:55:00.001-07:00

we should have ways to link to emails from comments in source code files. It will make documentation a bit more interesting in the so called "execution driven" companies.

BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In pictures: Delhi prison art

2009-03-17T12:09:00.001-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7939470.stm
Very nice pictures, arent they ?

A painting by convicted prisoner Pawan

Why TF

2009-03-13T10:27:00.001-07:00

Why are we stupid enough to give credence to the myth of community.
The same person can also talk of being yourself.
They dont go together for the most part.

tobleralone

2009-03-12T16:19:00.001-07:00

feeling alone
recently I heard about alone = all + one.
I can see its unhealthy
I cannot help being alone.
company seems to be just another garnment.

David Bodanis - E=mc2

2009-03-12T14:04:00.001-07:00

I am half way through it and I am loving it.
they made a documentary too : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/

http://www.davidbodanis.com/pages/emc2_pg.html

By the end of the astonishing E=mc2, a dedicated reader will...feel quite at ease dining with Nobel Prize winners. It's a lucid, even thrilling study. I didn't know I could know so much.
- Fay Weldon, Book of year, Washington Post

aaaaaaaaaaa

2009-03-12T10:28:00.001-07:00

I need a patent office job in Bern !!

standing down on principles

2009-03-11T10:19:00.001-07:00

I am troubled by the fact that standing up for principles, can become a hindrance to effective relationships.
If you stand up in an uncompromising fashion for a principle that you believe in, you can and maybe will not be able to take advantage of some good opportunities.
When you have a conflict of principles even with someone as close as your nearest family, should you just make them happy. Wont the principles become meaningless if you did.
I am still not willing to compromise on them. I dont think I'll be able to live it down.

Abusing wife common among GenY men: Study- Hindustan Times

2009-02-23T18:14:00.001-08:00

What can women do ? Police complaint. Maybe shame the husbands in their societies or should is that not possible ?

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=India&id=091fb616-0865-4711-8be2-43183973f9bf&MatchID1=4932&TeamID1=7&TeamID2=8&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1247&PrimaryID=4932&Headline=Abusing+wife+common+among+GenY+men%3a+Study

If you thought that Generation Y Indian men considered women equals and didn't try to control their wives by battering them or forcefully having sex with them, think again. A six-state study has found that physical and sexual violence is widely prevalent among married youth.

Eighteen to 30 per cent of married women aged 15 to 24 reported physical abuse by their husbands at least once. Fifteen to 24 per cent of the 13,912 women surveyed had experienced violence in the last 12 months, according to the study, which was jointly conducted by the Population Council in Delhi and the International Institute for Population Sciences in Mumbai. Bihar recorded highest prevalence of physical violence and Rajasthan the lowest.

Rushdie and the importance of fiction

2009-02-22T13:19:00.001-08:00

I am on chapter 2 of Rushdie's "Shalimar the clown". This is where he describes Kashmir and the characters' lives in that setting when the valley is still peaceful. What struck me was how nicely he describes them. Any Indian (maybe not all) is very comfortable with the idea that we can find thoughtful, intelligent, strong people amongst any geographic, economic, religious section of our country. However for people outside of our country, I would think its easy for the stereotypes to guide their understanding of us as a people. Although books analyzing India from all aspects as written by Amartya Sen or Shashi Tharoor or Edward Luce or AL Basham make a lot of sense they never get into the head of an Indian. Salman Rushdie and his ilk do that humanizing job and I think they are doing us Indians a great great service. Any person reading this can immediately connect to an Indian on basic human feelings, emotions and thoughts.

Anyways the importance of fiction just hit me hard today morning.

I am very impressed at the moment :)
Its a shame I havent read more of him so far.

Stimulus bill requires RSS feeds of how the money is spent - Boing Boing

2009-02-21T10:04:00.001-08:00

Wow - this is cool. We should check to see even if our young guys like Rahul gandhi and Omar Abdullah can adopt tech well. Where is the incentive though. The incentive is probably recognition from the public for efficiency. Or am I being too naive again.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/21/stimulus-bill-requir.html

Now this is a pretty promising step on the path to open government: the new stimulus bill has a requirement for RSS-based disclosure of funds dispersed:

For each of the near term reporting requirements (major communications, formula block grant allocations, weekly reports) agencies are required to provide a feed (preferred: Atom 1.0, acceptable: RSS) of the information so that content can be delivered via subscription.

India Together: Whose economic crisis is it anyway? - 15 February 2009

2009-02-21T07:50:00.001-08:00

Sainath doesn't mention anything new. However a couple of random thoughts came to my mind.
- We in India blame the government for all its inefficiencies.
- The brightest amongst cannot think of democratic methods to make the government more efficient.
- Whether its a thin republican type government or a big-fat democratic type government, apathy to the "other" classes/castes seems very innate to us.
- Bill Gates' idea of creative capitalism seems cool - but I don't see how to engineer such thoughts into the majority of the society. There has to be some memetic masala that will help us.
- At an extreme tangent: Given our cultural heritage of inheritance and caste do you think as a society we could be as philanthropic as the americans ?

http://indiatogether.com/2009/feb/psa-crisis.htm#

In India, too, job losses are now finding some mention. When covered in the media, it's mostly about jobs in the IT sector. Or those lost in related fields in the organised sector. While these are not small, only a handful of reports look at the awful hit taken, for instance, by migrant labourers. Millions of these are people who left their villages seeking work when there was no other option. They found it in construction, in laying roads and other poorly paid work. And, keeping afloat in oppressive conditions, many still managed to send something back to their families. Now, as one of them told us: "There is nothing to send back to the village and nothing to go back to the village for." And what about all those small farmers who moved towards growing cash crops for export markets that have collapsed? And do we get to ask questions of the policy experts who brought it all to this point?

Malcolm X (1992)

2009-02-17T22:44:00.001-08:00

Just saw Malcom X It was an education. Really liked Denzel Washington in the movie as well.

YouTube - RALPH STANLEY-RANK STRANGERS

2009-02-17T13:48:00.001-08:00

:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWazA6SznPE

(via: ttbook.com)

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Vibrations 'could save elephants'

2009-02-15T09:49:00.001-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7890919.stm#
It's one of the most fabled talents in the animal world – elephants' ability to "talk" via rumbles in the earth.
Now zoologists in Namibia are trying to harness these seismic social calls - to lure rampaging males back to safety.

"Although this is maybe used to help the elephants it seems cruel in a way to me.
Imagine how noisy we have made their environment by our cars and vehicles if they can pick up rumbles in the ground at distances of 10km. "

Essays: 'Darwin the abolitionist' by Adrian Desmond | Prospect Magazine

2009-02-08T22:35:00.001-08:00

Interesting article via MeFi. Somehow it feels like the author is taking away the sceintific aspect of Darwinswork completely as if the theory was conceived as a political statement or a moral statement with no grounding in science and experiment.

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10581#

Shackled legs, thumbscrews used to crush the fingers of errant female slaves, a six-year-old boy horse-whipped for handing out water in a dirty glass: these sound like scenes from a modern horror story, but all were seen by the young Charles Darwin on his travels with the Beagle around the slave-owning continent of South America. You will find no mention of them in the proudly reasoned, scientific pages of On the Origin of Species. Glance at Darwin's journals, private notebooks and family background, however, and you will find a man immersed in the rhetoric and fervent belief of the anti-slavery movement. Was the public man of science influenced by these private passions? In the light of painstaking archival investigations into Darwin's letters, papers and notes, I believe the answer is a firm "yes." Although he never admitted publicly to so political a motivation, anti-slavery sentiment was the handmaiden of Charles Darwin's great intellectual achievement—the theory of evolution.

Re: Amazon’s Kindle 2 Will Debut Feb. 9 - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

2009-02-08T14:22:00.001-08:00

This ties in with the previous post I made. Interesting read on the free software and ebooks available such that even the kids using the OLPC can benefit. Imagine going back to India and helping kids learn with the OLPC. It'll be an experience. With so much freedom the kids will probably have more questioning and freer attitudes.

http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/with-some-polis.html
There are free books to be had, though. The Internet Archive currently has one million books available for free, and the nonprofit continues to add to its library at a rate of 1,000 books a day. There are also thousands of free books available through sites like Gutenberg.org, Manybooks.net and Feedbooks.com.

Amazon’s Kindle 2 Will Debut Feb. 9 - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

2009-02-08T14:09:00.001-08:00

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/amazons-kindle-2-will-debut-feb-9/
Mark your calendars, e-book fans: Amazon.com will introduce the next generation of its popular Kindle reader in New York City on Feb. 9.
I am not at all impressed with this device. It just seems so inconvenient to have to buy all the material from the amazon store. We get books from the library, from friends, and thats part of the reading experience for me atleast. If I borrow a book from a friend I will associate the reading experience with him/her. Browsing the public library is a good way to expose ourselves to newer stuff. I dont know, call me old-fashioned but this is not cool at all. Instead of liberating me this gadget is tying me down.

YouTube - The Newshour Debate 'Will Ram Sena pay for it?' Part 1

2009-02-01T12:35:00.001-08:00

:(
the images in the background are very sad.
The course of the debate conducted on this channel is also very sad.
The idea of something like the Ram Sena spreading across the nation is very scary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXhQkVjdBMQ&feature=related

'Richard Dawkins interviews Nicholas Humphrey' by RichardDawkins.net - RichardDawkins.net

2009-01-03T11:02:00.001-08:00

http://richarddawkins.net/article,3484,Richard-Dawkins-interviews-Nicholas-Humphrey,RichardDawkinsnet --- This is the full uncut interview originally filmed for Channel 4's "The Enemies of Reason." Nicholas Humphrey is a Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics. This video is brought to you free online by The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Thought for the day

2009-01-02T08:22:00.001-08:00

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there -- lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

[source: awad.org]

History project

2008-12-25T20:56:00.001-08:00

Maybe one day kids in school will be able to learn history by experiencing it. I was reading about Kabir and Ramanuja. Apparently they were active in India around the 14th-15th centuries. Then I wondered what else was happening around that time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15th_century). But it would've been cool if there could be something like the "2nd life" where kids in school could go live a virtual life in these times. Maybe they could be given "Virtual Reality" gear so they can feel and smell stuff. I think this will be such an enriching experience. Technologically we are not too far from this.

Imagine doing this in school with your classmates. Wont you be waiting to get back to class. Will kids want to "drop-out" from such experiences. I mean can doing drugs or canoodling with the opposite gender beat such experiences. They would have a medium to express anything that they want. All their energy can be easily channeled. The schools will look more like montessori schools wont they?

Tagore on non-cooperation. - letter to Charles Freer Andrews

2008-12-21T12:01:00.001-08:00

excerpt from Tagore's letter, drawing a parallel between vedic v/s buddhistic philosphoy and support for the non-cooperation movement in 1921 in India. I find this a new insight into the vedic thought process.

Brahma-vidya in India has for its Object mukti, emancipation, while Buddhism has nirvana, extinction. It may be argued that both have the same idea [under] different names. But names represent attitudes of mind, emphasize particular aspects of truth. Mukti draws our attention to the positive, and nirvana to the negative side of triuth. Buddha kept silence all through his teachings about the turth of the Om. the everlasting yes, his implication being that by the negative path of destroying the self we naturally reach that truth. Therefore he emphasized the factof dukkha, misery, which had to be avoided and the Brahma-vidya emphasized the fact of anandam which has to be attained. The latter cult also needs for its fulfilment the discipline of self-abnegation, but it holds before its view the idea of Brahma , not only at the end but all throught he process of realization. Therefore the idea of life's training was different in the Vedic period from that of the Buddhistic. In the former it was the purification of life's joy, in the latter it was the eradicating of it. The abnormal type of ascetism to which Buddhism gave rise in India revelled in celibacy and mutliation of life in all different forms. But the forest life of the Brahmanas was not antagonistic to the social life of man, but harmonious with it. It was like our musical instrument tanpura whose duty is to supply the fundamental notes to the music to save it from going astray into discordance. It believed in anadam, the music of the soul, and its own simplicity was not kill it but to guide it.

Artless Mercenaries

2008-12-14T20:00:00.001-08:00

Rabindranath Tagore in one of his letters from Rangoon :
Once upon a time men used to say that Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and plenty, dwelt in trade. They visualized her not only as splendid but also as beautiful. For at that time man was not yet separated from trade, there was a communion between the weaver and his loom, the smith's hand and the smith's hammer, the artisan and his work of art. The heart of man used then to express itself through trade in varied forms of richness and beauty. how else could Lakshmi have acquired her lotus throne?

It does seem as if we have all become mercenaries. However a more relevant question for me is: what of the man with mediocre abilities, who wants to express his heart in this complex heartless system?

Diary: Faith Benefits

2008-12-13T11:11:00.001-08:00

Teaching kids to have faith in a God might be an essential survival skill. At this point even though I can rationally reject the popular concept of God, I can still be comfortable with the idea of being able to find refuge with someone larger than life. I think I am able to do this because I was at some point a strong believer. Maybe if someone raised their kid to pooh-pooh the idea of God in all its forms, the kid would be really "lonely" at times.

This "idea of God" is a good companion, because its an image from within our own brains. This image cannot do anything to betray our trust, because we just wouldn't allow it to. So suddenly now God sounds like an imaginary friend. I think they would serve the same purpose. However personally I am not able to find safety in the idea of an imaginary friend. I become very aware of the fact that I am the creator of this fictional friend. Whereas with the God character its been implanted in there without me being very aware of it. So now rationally even though if you think that God is the sum-total of everything thats beyond the understanding of human brains, then I have a face for it. I can leave stuff up to it, cos I know at times victory against the will of god will come slowly and with a lot of patience.

:)

less

2008-12-13T00:18:00.001-08:00

Nothing to lean on.

Mind it

2008-12-12T09:10:00.001-08:00

Its our mind, and that alone, that chains us or sets us free
-Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

"War Between the Sexes:" The Co-evolution of Genitalia in Waterfowl

2008-12-12T07:43:00.001-08:00

http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=2050 --- According to the study, in various independent lineages of ducks females developed more elaborate oviducts as males evolved longer phalluses. In other lineages females lost oviduct complexity as the phallus evolved toward smaller size. Why all this dynamic evolution? Brennan hypothesizes that the female waterfowl have evolved these unique anatomical features as physical counter-measures to evade male attempts to assert control over reproduction. "Despite the fact that most waterfowl form monogamous pairs, forced copulations by other males — the avian equivalent of rape — are common in many waterfowl," said Prum. "The length of the phallus of a species is strongly correlated with the frequency of forced copulations." "In response to male attempts to force their paternity on females, female waterfowl may be able to assert their own behavioral and anatomical means of controlling who fathers their offspring," Brennan said.

Evolution of convolutions in the Mallard oviduct (left) and phallus (right) may give the female duck an anatomical means of controlling who fathers their offspring. Bar measure cm. (Courtesy of Patricia Brennan)

Cat droppings a lucrative business in Philippines

2008-12-07T09:21:00.001-08:00

One of the most expensive coffee's is extracted from the dung of an animal called the "Civet" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civet)

Exotic Dung Coffee

Kopi Luwak, also known as caphe cut chon (fox-dung coffee) in Vietnam and kape alamid in the Philippines, is coffee that is prepared using coffee cherries that have been eaten and partially digested by the Asian Palm Civet, then harvested from its feces.

[Videos]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvyc41gEIrA&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjeAckIlBAk&feature=related

The rampaging elephant- Vir Sanghvi

2008-12-06T23:25:00.001-08:00

[Vir Sanghvi @ HT] --- The frustration is understandable. There are no quick fixes. But on both scores, there are long-term solutions available and we must work towards them. The problem with our political system is that parties have no mechanism to allow talent to rise through the ranks. So Indian politics is a squalid, corrupt family business. I found it strange that nobody in Bombay made this point. Instead, they listened to young dynasts who appeared on TV to lecture us. Such is our class bias that if politicians speak good English we think they are okay. And politics never changes. Similarly, the only way to fight terrorism is through covert operations and better intelligence, not through carpet-bombing. Our intelligence agencies are demoralised and faction-ridden. They need more money and better leadership.

Fox Searchlight - Slumdog Millionaire

2008-12-06T22:09:00.001-08:00

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/slumdogmillionaire/ ---

What a mind blowing movie !!

thought

2008-12-04T14:49:00.001-08:00

One of the ways, faith in god can help maintaining peace is by taking away the need to avenge oneself. People can leave it up to God.

quote

2008-12-04T11:10:00.001-08:00

context: all the religious violence in the world.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate, and Hate leads to suffering.
http://www.quotiki.com/quote.aspx?id=7443

Indian Press

2008-12-04T08:43:00.000-08:00

I am not vexed but genuinely confused. India has good writers who can write very good opinion pieces. India is considered to have lots of IT talent. India definitely has the wealth. But our newspapers are of such a low quality. Are the monied being purely greedy or lethargic ? Or is the volume of the english news Publication in India such a negligible fraction of the Hindi news. And Hindi has been neglected by our country as a "pride in being anglicized" policy.

India Uncut - published by Amit Varma

2008-11-29T09:27:00.001-08:00

http://www.indiauncut.com/ --- I am reminded of Barack Obama's words about the killers of 9/11: "My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with such serene satisfaction."

--
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious" - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Medvedev faces hard sell in Latin America - International Herald Tribune

2008-11-22T19:21:00.001-08:00

a) why is Russia so keen on being super power ? Why cant they just focus on strengthening themselves domestically ? Is it that power is addictive or is it that the politicians are using this form of nationalistic pride to get into and retain power ?
b) Obama is raising so many hopes world-wide its amazing, isnt it ? if he is a successful leader which all signs seem to be indicating. It'll be an amazing ride for the people of this great country.
c) Just reading this article makes you see that so many people and power centers have a lot to gain with higher oil prices.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/21/america/russia.php?page=1 --- But when Medvedev reaches the region next week, he will find it drastically altered by events - and in some cases, less receptive to his overtures. Plunging oil prices and the global financial crisis, which have hammered Russia particularly hard, have raised questions about Russia's reliability as an economic partner, while Senator Barack Obama's victory in the presidential race has raised hopes throughout Latin America of a new era of improved relations with the United States.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Four philosophical questions to make your brain hurt

2008-11-20T09:23:00.001-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7739493.stm ---
It's World Philosophy Day - an opportunity to contemplate one's very existence and whether computer monitors really exist, says David Bain.

man made ?

2008-11-19T20:44:00.001-08:00

2711270118_c3425428d9_o
Originally uploaded by zimzimzimizmi

People have problems accepting this. This is so frigging beautiful. What kind of mental bias prevents you from seeing this ? When does education not open your mind ? When it is delivered through a system seen as a means for upward mobility ? The heading says "man-made ?" I wonder if other species have so much variation amongst them and do they have racial biases. They who think more instinctively and fear the unknown as a means for survival ?

Free LCD TVs (Santa Comes Early) | Popular Science

2008-11-19T20:26:00.001-08:00

Imagine seeing this in Churchgate station. I think when I was in bombay I wouldnt think too much about it. But in this country a lot of people know what a luxurious life is and they can feel happy when they see this.

http://www.popsci.com/gear-amp-gadgets/article/2008-11/free-lcd-tvs-santa-comes-early --- Commuters in Grand Central Station got a morning sugar shock of eye candy when Sharp unveiled a 26-foot tall Christmas tree made by stacking 43 of its Aquous LCD televisions. The panels, growing in size from 19 inches at the top to 52 inches at the bottom, are wired together to display coordinated video shows, such as a waterfall that spills from the top panels and splashes down on the bottom screens, or snowflakes that float down the length of the tree. It currently cycles through nine patterns created by Japanese video artist Tsuyoshi Takashiro. To keep things fresh, Sharp will replace the originals with about 10 new patterns in December.

Report finds that East European migrants don't harm economies - International Herald Tribune

2008-11-18T22:26:00.001-08:00

http://iht.com/articles/2008/11/18/europe/migrate.php --- Since the big expansion in 2004, the number of citizens from the new 10 nations residing in the old 15 countries has increased by roughly 1.1 million. Totaling around 900,000 in 2003, it now stands at about 2 million - a fraction of the approximately 80 million inhabitants of those countries. Many of the more prosperous Western members of the 27-nation bloc imposed restrictions on their labor market. Four countries - Denmark, Belgium, Germany and Austria - still apply some restrictions to workers from the new 2004 members.

How to Run a Con | Psychology Today Blogs

2008-11-15T20:04:00.001-08:00

http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-moral-molecule/200811/how-run-a-con --- Why did this con work? Let's do some neuroscience. While the primary motivator from my perspective was greed, the pigeon drop cleverly engages THOMAS (The Human Oxytocin Mediated Attachment System). If you've been reading The Moral Molecule, you will remember THOMAS from earlier posts on robot brides, couchsurfing, and why we touch each other. THOMAS is a powerful brain circuit that releases the neurochemical oxytocin when we are trusted and induces a desire to reciprocate the trust we have been shown--even with strangers. The key to a con is not that you trust the conman, but that he shows he trusts you. Conmen ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable. Because of THOMAS, the human brain makes us feel good when we help others--this is the basis for attachment to family and friends and cooperation with strangers. "I need your help" is a potent stimulus for action.

Hope

2008-11-15T19:37:00.001-08:00

In the last 2-3 days I heard 2 different kinds of quotes about hope. In the movie Charlotte Gray before she is sent over to Paris they ask her "What is most important hope, faith .. ". That struck me. If you are going into a combat zone, and very stressed by the war. Hope is what will keep you alive. It seems like an animal instinct (although I dont know if they are capable of hope).

I saw fight club last evening and
Narrator: And then, something happened. I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.

They both seem to be right. But I think the second one has more truth to it. Hope brings in a lot of expectations along with it. De-coupling them is not an option.

depressing pic

2008-11-15T19:36:00.001-08:00

[via reddit]

YouTube - Awesome CNN Hologram Interview

2008-11-05T09:58:00.001-08:00

I didnt know this was commercial. I didnt even know academics or Cisco invested in this. This is news to me.
CNN video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js6b31_p5cc ---

Cisco presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcfNC_x0VvE

[source : http://waxy.org/links/ through MeFi]

Why humans are so quick to take offense

2008-11-01T21:56:00.001-07:00

[slate]

You could say our lives as social beings are ruled by the three R's: respect—the sense that proper deference has been paid to our status, reputation—the carefully maintained perception of our qualities, and reciprocity—the belief that our actions are responded to fairly. In other words, high school may be the most perfect recapitulation of the evolutionary pressures that shaped us as a species.

France. Sex. Problem? - NYTimes.com

2008-10-31T11:29:00.001-07:00

I would've liked to be brought up in a society with this sense of "equality" (if I could use that word). This can change humanity as a whole can it not ? If we have a different (more equal) status of women in every day life, then maybe we all will be more tolerant of other identities. But somehow this seems to be not so close to reality. I wonder what brings about such revolutions ? It definitely cannot be something "silent" as the article seems to suggest. Or can it be ?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/fashion/30cliente.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all --- The posters were advertising "Cliente," a popular movie that revolves around clichés about prostitution and gigolos in France. Judith, the client, who is played by Nathalie Baye, one of France's highest-paid actresses, is not a pathetic, lifted rich woman of a certain age and nothing to do. Rather, she is a hard-charging, 51-year-old television shopping-channel anchor and director who, after her marriage falls apart, wants good sex without strings and is willing to pay handsomely for it.

If we could, would you - Remember-to-Forget ?

2008-10-25T09:54:00.001-07:00

[erasing memories] New and old memories have been selectively and safely removed from mice by scientists."While memories are great teachers and obviously crucial for survival and adaptation, selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives," says Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, brain scientist and co-director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine."Our work reveals a molecular mechanism of how that can be done quickly and without doing damage to brain cells," says the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cognitive and Systems Neurobiology.

Audio on this topic @ radiolab : http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/06/08

[via mefi]

jyotirgamaya

2008-10-06T23:06:00.001-07:00

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Beaked whales - into the abyss

2008-09-30T09:53:00.001-07:00

Another in the series of awe inspiring acts of the evolutionary process.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7641537.stm ---Clicks are generated when a structure just below the blowhole known as "monkey's lips" smacks together.That generates a wave radiating spherically outwards, which is transformed into a directionally forward-focussed plane wave as it passes through a fat "melon" - an acoustic lens.So the sound - too high-pitched for a human to hear - shoots out in front of the whale, and if it hits food, such as a squid, a portion is reflected.The reflection was thought to travel to the whale's ears, via its lower jawbone. But the scan suggested a more important route is under the bone.Top of head for transmitting, bottom of head for receiving; a neat system.The sound reception part appears to be very complex, involving fat bodies that focus sound and air sacs that reflect it."Air sacs are perfect acoustic mirrors," says Ted Cranford."The whales need to be able to isolate their ears from each other in order to maintain their directional sense, and one of the best ways to do that is through air sacs."

NASA - NASA Mars Lander Sees Falling Snow, Soil Data Suggest Liquid Past

2008-09-29T14:32:00.001-07:00

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080929.html --- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds. Spacecraft soil experiments also have provided evidence of past interaction between minerals and liquid water, processes that occur on Earth. A laser instrument designed to gather knowledge of how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars has detected snow from clouds about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) above the spacecraft's landing site. Data show the snow vaporizing before reaching the ground.

Dan Quayle was too smart for his time huh?

[via /.]