Lost in Thoughts

New Laptop Review

2011-07-14T00:10:00.002-04:00

I got my Lenovo X220 over two weeks ago and I am highly impressed. I got a great deal in Borders reward and got 2540 i5 processor with IPS display, with bluetooth, fingerprint reader, etc. Everything with a 6% sales tax came to 850%. I added a 4GB ram bought from Amazon (32$) to the 2 GB already present making it a grand 6GB.

I installed Ubuntu through Wubi and am currently using it for most of my work. For those considering to buy a laptop, this is a serious option.

Pros :

1. Amazingly lightweight. (and apparently is very reliable, will not know about it now) My backpack is very light now and I dont even realize that i have a laptop on me.

2. Battery Life. Every review you will read about x220 will harp on the same feature. I have only a six cell battery and I could use the laptop for nearly 6hrs ( I switch between linux and windows and use the processor quite effectively) With more conservative use, it can come to 8hrs. I used this for an entire flight from San Jose to Detroit without having to recharge. Adding to that I came home and I had enough power for another half an hour work. If that is not sufficient, upgrade to a 9 cell battery and you can get almost 10 hours or more.

3. I really love the fact heat sinks are very effective. Unlike most laptops, they can be truly used as their name suggests. There is a mild heat but nothing burning or searing as with a macbook or dell. Also, in my two weeks of use, the notebook has been very quite and there is no fan sound or stuff like that

4. I really make use of the Thinklight (function+pageup). I think it is a genius to put a light and so even in dark i can quickly look into a page or find the right key or something like that.

5. The keypad was initially clunky but then you get used to the ergonomics and I started liking it. However, one flaw is that if you have sweaty hands, it tends to stick to the keypad when typing.

6. I have started getting used to the trackpoint and I feel soon I will be able to use it to perfection. There seems to be learning curve associated with this one feature.

7. It has a fast boot up (35 seconds) from first screen to finally using the laptop. This can be improved by using a SSD.

8. Great Wireless range. I get pretty good range for wirelessin my house to the parking lot.

9. I think having Ubuntu is making the experience even more amazing. The battery life in Ubuntu is nearly the same. I get better volume in linux compared to windows.

10. 180 degree view with IPS. Amazing display quality.

On the flipside

No laptop is without a flipside

1. The laptop is small. It is not the one that you have viewing movies (yes, it looks great but then not a movie experience)

2. The trackpad is the best outside of macbook that I have used in terms of responsiveness. However, the exception is the key. I think Apple has perfected the trackpad so much that I feel any other trackpad is not good enough.

3. The sound. Sound quality in windows was a misery. I was disenchanted immediately because of it. However, few tweaks to the audio setting and the sound was not louder. In linux I did not have the same problem.

4. Key Jumbleup : I particularly had a learning experience with the interachange of function and control key.

5. Cost : It has the features to justify what I paid. However, I had a great deal and in general the price is 100$ more. Does it justify the cost ?

6. No DVD drive. I knew it and I do not use a drive much and so it was not a hassle for me.

apple back to school

2011-06-15T00:41:00.003-04:00

having religiously followed Apple Back to School offer, I was disappointed when 9to5Mac reported that the offer is actually 100$ itunes store gift card.

More I think about it, the less sense it makes. In fact the only alternative I think is that the BTS is true for IPad purchase roughly half the price and proper justification of BTS offer. There will still be a traditional apple back to school offer with the ipod touch... will know tomorrow morning ...

In pursuit of complete democracy

2011-06-12T17:48:00.003-04:00

As I watch the events unfold in India, I cannot but help wonder about the spread of democracy. I harbor no sympathies for Baba Ramdev. Most of his ideas are impractical and in my opinion not the right way of doing things. I think his statement (though after the incident) about armed rising is incorrect and in fact any action in that direction is illegal. (For the record, I support the Jan Lokpal bill and a few reservations aside I support Anna Hazare's movement)

However, a citizen has a right to protest in a democracy and that is exactly what Baba Ramdev did peacefully in Ramlila grounds in New Delhi. Yes, there was a huge organizational power behind his protest. More people turned up than expected. The UPA government felt insecure in the middle of a Saturday night and sent in police to evacuate the place. The police used teargas and lathi to discharge the crowds. Close to 50 people were hurt amongst them women. One woman, 51 year old Raj Bala is in a critical state and might be paralyzed below her hip. Section 144 (which in my opinion is draconian) was imposed in the area.

This brings us to the central question : What happened to democracy in India ? Where is the freedom of expression ? Can the government intrude into a peaceful protest ? Is India heading for Emergency again ? A citizen has a fundamental right and as Nitish Kumar said "It is a major blow to democracy and an attack on the democractic rights of the people ... It is also an attack on the fundamental rights of the citizens.” The government made a further fool of itself saying the eviction was done for security reason.

I will go further into it in my next post.

Google Searches

2011-06-05T23:32:00.002-04:00

Never realized Google could do this. Searches in Google are sort of Markovian. For instance, let us say you search for "Newton", look at something and then immediately search for "Apple", one of the top result will be Newton platform from Apple. Big Brother is definitely watching out searches !!

US budget compromise

2011-04-13T00:15:00.002-04:00

Basically, Obama gave the reins of leadership to the Republicans and is now claiming victory. In avoiding cuts to Planned Parenthood, Obama has given away High Speed Rail, money for energy conservation, money for programs related to climate change, roughly a billion dollars from EPA to provide money for water/pollution cleanup while all together avoiding any cuts that is antithetical to corporate interest. There is of course, one defence cuts, but that is for environmental clean up efforts by the defense department.

Also, the Congress has agreed to remove Rocky Mountain Wolf from endangered list.

A little anecdote about Washington. If Democrats and Republicans play poker, democrats will lose even with a Royal Flush and Republicans win even with 2 as a high card... nuts ...

Case of two India

2011-04-06T16:09:00.004-04:00

The last week has seen two events which have captivated India. The more obvious one, being the World Cup coming back to India after a 28 year hiatus. This has been spun in every possible way ranging from how India has emerged from the old shackles and team India reflects this transition in every possible way. There is always the Sachin Tendulkar story on how one man carried the burden of India for so long. With the moment behind us, the nation has turned its attention to the other side of India and there is another man who is now doing the Tendulkar, Anna Hazare. Unfortunately his task unlike Tendulkar is even more daunting. Cleaning the Aegean stables of Indian corruption is unlike winning the World Cup is a more important task.

Despite all the economic outlook which has often been the mask of the inefficiency of Indian government in the past ten years, India is the leading source of black money. Indians have stashed 1.45 trillion dollars in Swiss banks more than all the other countries put together. [1] Incidentally this is around the Indian GDP [2] and is more than five times the external debt of India[3]. The worse part of the Indian's corruption landscape is that most of the corruption occurs bottoms up and over the past few years perception of corruption has grown higher. According to a survey carried out, 91% of the bribes has an origin in the government officials [3.5].India now ranks around the 90th position in corruptions perception index [4]. It gets even worse. As the classic saying goes "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? "According to a report by Transparency International- India, around 4000 crore rupees was paid for bribes for police.[5] Almost 80% of people interacting with the police have paid a bribe to the person whose duty is to uphold the law and in almost cases, the bribes were directly paid to the officers showing an institutionalization of the practice. All this despite the fact that almost 800 crores is paid for modernization of the police force [6]. Rubbing salt on the wound of Indian development is that even in case where there is money for development not tainted by corruption, it is not used in a productive manner and often gets lost in the labyrinth of Indian bureaucracy. The Hindu on a report by a Comptroller and Auditor-General of India (CAG) says that there is a one lakh crore of foreign aid which is just sitting idle instead of welfare projects. Indian government actually paid for not using this money.

What Anna Hazare has undertaken is a noble and much needed task. Corruption amongst government officials is now at such a stage that most corrupt politicians are brazen about it. There appears now fear of retribution for wrongdoing. The Lokpal bill aims to do exactly that. While the government bill lacks the teeth to prosecute the guilty, the Jan Lokpal bill proposed by the the India against Corruption movement aims to create an independent authority with the power to go after those who are corrupt even in the highest positions. Besides Anna Hazare, many other prominent personalities such as Kiran Bedi, Swami Agnivesh, Arvind Kejriwal, Swami Ramdev, Archbishop Vincent M Concessao besides others.

Much as disillusioned as one can be about the state of Indian government, we can take solace in the fight to get the Right To Information into law. Arvind Kejriwal gave an excellent lecture into the same.

The main reason for the success of RTI lies in the section 20 (1) which states

" Where the Central Information Commission or the State Information

Commission, as the case may be, at the time of deciding any complaint or appeal is of the

opinion that the Central Public Information Officer or the State Public Information Officer,

as the case may be, has, without any reasonable cause, refused to receive an application for

information or has not furnished information within the time specified under sub-section

(1) of section 7 or malafidely denied the request for information or knowingly given

incorrect, incomplete or misleading information or destroyed information which was the

subject of the request or obstructed in any manner in furnishing the information, it shall

impose a penalty of two hundred and fifty rupees each day till application is received or

information is furnished, so however, the total amount of such penalty shall not exceed

twenty-five thousand rupees: "

However, there are still miles to go before this act becomes extremely effective. However, the most important take home message is that transparency helps clean up bureaucracy. It helps bring about the sense of accountability in Government officials.

Please support Anna Hazare and others in this momentous moment for India.

House Reforms just yesterday

2011-02-18T15:50:00.004-05:00

What was passed on the house should have been more discussed by news media but as always the fad of the american media is to focus on the non issues. Let us look at cuts that were passed by the Republicans yesterday in Congress. I do not deny that cuts should not be there. I agree that there is a need to trim the government but this clearly is not the way to do it. I am not even an american citizen and even I do not see how this sort of issues can pass out so quietly without an outrage in any other part of the world. I think government has a role in regulation. I am from India where red tapism rules and I know how much the stranglehold on development it is, but the extent of measures that was seen in the congress is just horrific and pointless, to say the least.

Let us consider some proposal

1. house plans to strip funding for planned parenthood

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is a part of an international organization that provides reproductive and maternal health services and has a third of its funding from the government (about 350 million $). They operate 820 health clinics. A fact sheet shows

"In 2008, we provided nearly 11 million medical services for three million people, and helped to prevent approximately

595,000 unintended pregnancies. Seventy-two percent of our clients have incomes at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level." and also " Abortion Services — 3 percent of services in 2008".

I agree there needs to be a mature debate on abortion but one should not the entire gamut of operation to hostage for the reform of this three percent. I am saying legislate it and have a civilized discourse about abortion but dont stop funding it. Stopping funding to Planned Parenthood for the reason of abortion is similar to saying America's chief religion is judaism.

2. Net Neutrality

The congress ruled back funding the FCC to uphold the Net Neutrality Laws.The main issue here is that most people do not realize what this actually means. Let me try to illustrate, what this means, Imagine you want to buy a laptop online and you are looking around, your internet provider can make it such that only deals from websites which advertise in its homepage can be accessed. Or, say you want to watch a John Stewart show which is critical of the policy adopted by the company, no dice. So, congress is saying. hey if we choose what you need to see, it is wrong but if the companies do it, it is fine. I mean how the heck can this stifle innovation ? I mean this creates more big brother than anything. Your internet company can monitor the entire traffic and divert it to websites it wants you to see...

3. A measure to block the federal government from collecting Americans' library records failed

Hey... if I carry a gun around, you cannot question. But if I buy a book about carrying guns around, I will be watched ... enough said

4. Elimination Obama’s Unconfirmed Czars

President Obama has around 30 czars who basically advise him on several policy issues ranging from education to science. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) introduced legislation to cut funding to those who were not confirmed by the senate (around nine) The total saving from this is around 1.5 million I have three arguments which point to ludicrously of this.

1. From the view of savings, the total deficit in the Us budget last year was around 1.2 trillion and the savings here is 1.5 million. The percent savings here is .0001%. Let me put it another way. It is the difference between going from Washington DC to Philadelphia and Washington DC to the sun.

2. "We're just tired of him running this shadow government," - Scalise.... Dude, the president can get his policy from whomever be it the Ken Salazar or Joe the Plumber, that is the reason why there is a congress/senate is to make sure his policies are correct. Just because he has thirty czars does mean he has thirty extra votes to get his agenda through congress, but if there are an additional thirty minds that are working to solve the issues facing the country, I am totally happy with it.

3. Case three, let us look at it the other way. Every member from the house of representatives is given 800,000$ to hire 18 staff and four additional temporary, part-time, of shared staff while senators have a budget of 2-3 millions just for these staff. Why cant the president who is there sitting above all these get an additional 1.5 million for the same ?

I agree in each of these cases, there needs to be debate but to cut funding is simply a debacle. I see Washington i the hands of company lobbyist and misguided interest and as the outsider watching this unfold, I am really disheartened by the approach taken by the country towards tackling the problem

Two aspeccts of religion

2011-01-28T00:13:00.006-05:00

I don't normally write about religion probably because I am not too sure one philosophy is static enough to maintain a continuous course. I peeves me when people talk about culture as a static object. Any religion faces this eternal dilemma : dogma v inclusion. For instance, when the protestant movement was started by this exact conflict of ideas.

It is delusional for any religion to assume that status quo will maintain over the years. Let me illustrate this example in Hinduism. Hinduism, for the uninitiated is home to many gods. Even the chief god changes over time. For instance, when Hinduism was practiced (initial few centuries or maybe many centuries) as in the times of most archaic of texts, the Rg Veda, Indra was the chief god. However, the power of Indra gave way to other gods as the Aryans settled down into more organized societies and the natural wonder of thunder did not hold its sacred mysticism. Indra has a huge number of hymns, 280 times compared to Vishnu(6) and Shiva(5). (footnote:I hate the Aryans out of India theory without proof. I feel national pride is one thing but it should never be mixed with facts/science. ) Compare that with say Yajur Veda which has a dedicated Vishnu Purana and Bhagavata Purana. What happened ? what caused the tectonic shift in the concept of the main deity, probably the most fundamental facet of any religion. One word, Change. This is not to say Jesus will soon be replaced in Christianity. The main distinction is Christianity is directly associated with Christ. But, Hinduism is not about any one god. It is not Vishnu or Indra who make up the chief tenet of hinduism. Hinduism made them Gods, not the other way around.

Anyways, let us analyze the changes that caused these. First, nomadic lifestyle of the aryans changed to more fixed lifestyle of organized society. Organized society bought about a new class of dedicated professionals who could solely concentrate on the theology and philosophy which is not possible in a nomadic society where everyone has to contribute to the tribe. Change in lifestyle brings about change in religion. The problem is there is always a fraction of the group which is unable to bring themselves to adopt to this. Change can be gradual, over hundreds of years as in case of Indra, or over a few decades as in the case of sati being banned. We are seeing similar changes around us. We hear this culture war around us which range from silly as women wearing jeans to college being a drain on the integrity of our culture to something very serious like how to best remove the stigma of the casteist society.

For someone to say that culture/religion is a monolithic structure and one can and should never change it is utter bullshit

Ken Robinson

2011-01-10T16:27:00.001-05:00

Famines in India (contd)

2010-05-06T15:50:00.002-04:00

Ok ... resuming on the discussion of data from the previous post. The data I have is scanty. I have attached the list I have here. But I think it suggests pre british era, there were a lot of famines. In fact, I think by the end of the British famine, at least a better control of the famine was in place. However, whether it could been implement much before and the efficacy of it, I am not sure.
The major feature of the famine was the duration of it. I think the efficiency of moving grains present has mitigated this. Relief earlier was hampered by the countless divisions of small kingdoms and lack of proper cooperation between them. Also, science has improved tremendously to really understand and control the famines.

I really wanted to input this analysis that I read in "Indian Famines" by A. Loveday (1914). According to Loveday, there was a correlation between the when the years between two famines and the monsoon. It is remarkable in the sense from the barest analysis of the historical famines, he actually came close to El nino Effect. Today, we have all sorts of models of how this works, but I find it remarkable that 100 years before, there was someone who actually looked at periodicity of the data and made a meaningful guess...

After a hiatus

2010-04-15T16:02:00.004-04:00

Returning to Blogosphere ....

I am basically interested in famines in India. For the initiated, there was a shortfall in precipitation last year. Basically, there was poor management and though not serious, there was a shortage of food. I was curious as to how famines occured in the past. Also of interest was that most present day pundits claim the famines were at a peak during the British regime and was largely a folly of the foreign occupation. Much of the patriotic view was that India before the Raj was a land of milk and honey and the fragile land was shattered in the hands of the Europeans. This becomes really an irritant more or less as owing to the paucity of pre-colonial era data, the claims generally go unsubstainted. To get the data over the years, I started out with pre-1950 works by British authors. Remarkably, there were meaningful data that could be garned. Most of the information that I am stating is based on secondary references, as I do not have access to the primary records. Also, I have introduced my own biases into the discussion. Also, several places, there has been my discretion as to the years the famines lasted. Also, data points become better as the years become closer to when the British started systematically collecting data. So there are few data points initially, but more in the recent years. Most of the newer ones are more interestingly centered around Bombay. The graph shown below is sort of vague. But each point represents a year having famine (have not distinguished by the cause) and the Y-axis is the year. I will update it soon. I will make my analysis and other facts in the next blog.

Apr 1

2010-04-01T23:46:00.001-04:00

Fools' day today ... custom started with the war of french and english

Netherlands legalized same sex marriage (1st in thr world) in 2001... Birthday of William Sidis...
Literally the kind of guy who is generally overlooked.

William Sidis had an IQ of 250 making him one of the prodigies who ever lived... He joined Harvard at the age of 11 (because they refused admission at the age of 9) He invented a language having learnt 8 before his teen... he proceeded to know at least 40 languages by his death... he died at the tender age of 46, a misunderstood person, someone who was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time ...

March 31

2010-03-30T22:25:00.003-04:00

Two great guys were born on this day ... Rene Descartes (I think therfore I am) and Bragg (son, not the father)...

Apart from the normal wizards, there is someone really special who was born on this day ...Octavio Paz... A legend, sadly he is not really well known outside the circle
Consider his quote "What sets worlds in motion is the interplay of differences, their attractions and repulsions. Life is plurality, death is uniformity. By suppressing differences and pecularities, by eliminating different civilizations and cultures, progress weakens life and favors death. The ideal of a single civilization for everyone, implicit in the cult of progress and technique, impoverishes and mutilates us. Every view of the world that becomes extinct, every culture that disappears, diminishes a possibility of life"”

Such an awesome quote, talking about the diversities and about how culture is becoming more and more unified and yet there is that tingling something is not right about Globalization. Yet all that material satisfaction makes us crave for more ... such picture perfect wording ... he is awesome ...

March 29 and March 30

2010-03-30T17:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was sort of uninteresting from my point ... There was Robert Gibbs, the guy who gives Obama's talking points and random assortment of other celebrities ...

Today on the other hand has an amazing diversity of personalities ... Franscesco Goya, Robert Bunsen and for the cricket fanatics, Wally Grout (wiki gives another date but other references (more reliable ones)mention the current date)

Grout was one of the greatest wicketkeeper of all times ... Unparalleled, Australia never lost a series with him keeping... Died of a heart attack at an young age of 39... Robert Bunsen, the consummate lecturer and fantastic professor, designer of the bunsen burner was one of those quiet yet brilliant guys. Not many realize that he was one of the pioneers of spectroscopy. He refused to patent his invention (though cud have become immensely rich by it) preferring development of science to making money...

28th Mar

2010-03-28T00:55:00.003-04:00

Almost unknown to most people in the world, Francisco de Miranda. He was partly responsible for freeing Venezula and is regarded as the cause for Simon Bolivar.

Another interesting person whose b'day is today is Henry Schoolcraft, who though was born in New york is closely associated with the Michigan. In fact, there is a town, a village, college named after him. There is even a Schoolcraft Road (I use this road at times) which I think is attributed to him. In fact, one of the county in Michigan, Leelanau, is named modifying his wife's pet name, Leelinau. A geologist, adventuerer and ethnologist of Indian studies, he was later in his life a Michigan resident. His wife was also well versed with the Indian ways and was an inspiration for the Song of the Hiwatha.

march 27

2010-03-26T17:36:00.005-04:00

of course, the b'day of Roentgen (first Nobel guy), Pearson (all those numerous statistical test and whose footsteps Einstein followed) and Hartree (of Hartree Fock equation) but today also happens to be the day when Bruce was crowned the king of the Scots ...and the day when Concorde had its maiden flight. A once symbol of pride and wealth, it soon turned into a white elephant and had to be shelved for the economics of it...

But thinking about it, I am sure soon there will be concorde 2 ... speed of sound is not enough ...

March 26

2010-03-25T13:08:00.003-04:00

Continuing on the similar lines

Two famous scientist were born today...

Count Rumford was born this day (as Benjamin Thompson in Woburn Mass.) in 1753. He was quite a reckless fellow but amazingly brilliant. He escaped to Germany from US (where he had sided with Britain during the war of independence) leaving behind his wife and child. Rumford was a pioneer in thermodynamics (in his childhood, he thought he could build a perpetual machine) He was the first person to think of heat in terms of movement of particles. He discovered convection and curiosly thermal underwear and drip coffeemaker. Another interesting tidbit about Rumford was he manged to woo and marry Marie Ann Lavoisier, the widow of Antoine Lavoisier (the couple were probably the foremost chemist at that point in time) but soon divorced. The other most important position occupied in the history of science by Count Rumford was his selection of Sir Humphrey Davy to the position of professor of chemistry. The latter besides his own right to glory was responsible for the recognizing the brilliance of a young book binder, Micheal Faraday. The fabric of science weaves so elegantly...

The other person born more recently is Bernard Katz, the Nobel Laurate who contributed immensely to Neurobiology and Biophysics

Person to remember

2010-03-25T12:36:00.003-04:00

I think I should get back to blogging. I will start a new series on forgotten people who made a difference who were born this date some years ago...

Maurice Kraft was born this day in 1946. He and his wife Katia were pioneering volcanologist. Their photos and videos of eruptions remain spectacular to say the least. They were the first to arrive for any eruptions and the last to leave. Sadly, their death was also due to a volcano, Mt. Unzen. Along with several other people, they were caught in sudden lava flow in 1991. Incidentally, Maurice the day before he said in an interview to National Geographic "I am never afraid because I have seen so much eruptions in 23 years that even if I die tomorrow, I don't care,"

Incidentally, today also happens to be the b'day of Jack 'sparky' Ruby, the killer of the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (who had in turn killed Jack Kennedy)

Finally, the delhi high court ruling ...

2009-07-02T15:05:00.003-04:00

Finally, somewhere in India, homosexuality is recognised not as an illness but as a right of a human being. As a firm believer of equal rights, I personally think the time has come for the country to shed its age old Victorian skin and instead recognize the right to equality. The ironical aspect of the whole issue is that this is probably one of the few issues in which all the religious leaders come together in one voice. Culture and such quibblous arguments... The Constitution should protect the rights of people, not the culture (even if it were claimed that homosexuality infringes cultures) More than anything, I hate the "holier than thou" attitude of all these guys who comment on the value of culture.

Section 377 must go. It is high time for it. What someone is in his(or her) private life is no place where law can interfere (except of course if it causes harm to others) Consensual sex between adults, pre marital or post marital, homo or hetero sexual should not be a discussion at all. It should be left to the discretion of the concerned people. Yes !! Safe sex is a concern. It might seem at first sight, hypocritical to condone with whom a person has sex with, while advocating how the practice is carried out. A cursory look will reveal the difference, in the former, there is consensus between the two adults involved, while in the latter, there is a chance, that unknowingly a person can infect the partner with STD. I guess that is a no brainer.

The real issue is whether to permit same sex marriage in view of the religion. Easiest allusion to make, the Indian constitution gives right to religion. Anyone can practice any religion without persecution or interference, in a similar way, a person can choose to be gay/lesbian without any societal interference. It is time, India, to put an end to another prejudice that is so prevalent in the society...

Science and Publishing

2009-06-20T20:15:00.005-04:00

I am a phd student ... supposedly indoctrined in the mantra of "publish or perish"... yes publishing is important, albeit, the fun in research is primary. I may not yet have been thrust into the hard edge of grants and tenures, still the naivete in beliving in science for the fun of it.I guess the peer pressure has not yet gotten into me. Yes ! publishing is important but then understanding is primary. At the end, when your paper finally comes out, it is important to understand everything that you have done from techniques to data to the biology (in my case)

As a scientist, there are two golden rules that are a must. One, probe deeper, you will see a whole world in every drop and two, the more important one, know thy limits. For instance, let me say I am trying to understand how to conduct force measurement in DNA. Whilst, I can know the theory behind what I do, the physics behind it, there is now way I will be able to work out the finest detail of how laser works. Crude example and I guess unclear. Yet, I hope to get across the message behind it. However I try there will be always be fundamental ignoranc. Another example, more an extreme case, while I am basically a biophysical researcher, my expertise will not be enough to qualify me to make a statement in atomic physics. For instance, if I need to include a filter to my image, I need to exactly know what the filter will do, the benefits and the limitations of it and not merely a replica of an existing paper

Also, any good researcher should build up on existing knowledge. It is easy to publish papers in bulk by merely varying the parameters of an existing reseach. But the ambition of a researcher should be more encompassing. I am always impressed by the briallance of the mentors whom I have worked with. While Chris and G would have no superficial resemblance, the way they can think is something that I will always admire. The latter has a more of the box thought process, an irregular search into the vast horizons of knowledge.a jaunt that can be followed only by pure reason and intuition. For an onlooker that would seem an incomprehensible path but the end result would be most profound. Chris on the other hand, has the torch of numbers while traversing through the dark abyss of unknown. I have seen him weaving simple numbers into a gaint argument of reason and give a product that would seem so obvious. These are people who really strive for understanding .It would be a crime if I donot include Yamuna into the discussion. Never have I seen someone who is so methodical and organised, two qualities that are mandated if one needs to be a succesful scientist. She is the best person to learn planning and executing an experiment. She is such a pro in it.

Started somewhere and ended it so differently, that is exactly what research is... while the main goal of a lab might be something, you get so distracted by nuances of your experiments that you end up with such delightful ideas that are way beyond what you can imagine.

BHC vs HRC

2008-03-01T02:10:00.002-05:00

youtube offers an interesting perspective of the democratic race

Look at the facts of         Hillaryclintondotcom                         barackobamadotcom

number of videos                      289                           743

Top Video Seen        I need your advice                   Barack Obama's response to bush
number of views                  649,957                                              1,297,416
Rating of it (no)                  2.5 (3916 ratings)                            4.5 (8806 ratings)
Posted                               9 months ago                                        1 month ago

No of videos over
     1,000,000                            0                                                        2

No of videos over
     100,000                             20                                                        43
Of those viewed over
100,000, avg rating                  2.9                                                     4.47
No. Above 4(5)                          0                                            42! (one was 3.5)
No. 2.5 or lower                        10(20)                       0

fact to note : Of the 2 of HRC's top video which were rated 1.5 (lowest) were the HRC challenging BHC to debate in Wisconsin which was viewed by over 164,000 people with 2623 ratings and interestingly the other is the present children ad (released 17hrs ago, the one on the picking up the phone) which has been seen by over 296,000 people and rated by 1761 of them !!! Even a kid can say that more of the young people are appalled by this. Interestingly the Obama response ad added 8 hours ago has been viewed 45,000 times and has a rating of 4.5.

UPDATE :There is something inherently intersting in youtube. When I saw it as a list mode, Ringing ad from HRC gave the following statistics : 296,861 views, 1772 ratings with an average of 1.5. The page itself gave the following statistics 296,861 views, 1774 ratings with an average of 1. The response ad from BHC gave the following statistics : List : 45,913 views, 605 ratings average 4.5 while the page 45,913, 595 ratings with an average of 4. I am not sure why the discrepancy comes.

Note : This is strictly only what is by the candidates itself, Other than what they have posted the most popular video of HRC is the one like 1984 where she is the dictator. This has been viewed 4.6 million times and has a rating of 4 on 5 by 10561 accounts !!! This speaks of her high negativism (another reason could be the inventiveness of the ad) On the other hand the most popular BHC video is "I got a crush ... on Obama" by Obama Girl which has been 6.6 million people, rated by 15,353 times and has a rating of 4. Interestingly this was posted in June last year. The fastest growing of course is the "Yes We Can" which has a viewership of 5.2 million in just less than a month with a rating of 4 by 28,809 people, has 41 responses and over 47,000 credits the latest just 3 minutes from when I chked last. It is the most discussed and one of the most viewed videos of this month.

I think Mark Penn and gang really underestimated the power of the internet ... You get the young guys out to help you in the grassroots, you can get a lot of work done. The raw talent harnessed by BHC's campaign is just out of the world. Remember, the media follows the crowd and the buzz of the internet and the yuppy generation is hard to resist

Blogged with Flock

Third one and the most serious

2008-02-21T00:17:00.002-05:00

One of the websites that appeals to me the most is wikileaks. It is a fundamental website which supports whistleblowers and helps in revealing secrets which are otherwise buried in dirt. It encourages open government.

It is to wikileaks fame that they "leaked" the prison manual from Guantánamo Bay detention camp. They have help defy the chinese government ban on censorship. That was all good. Then started the Julius Baer.
Julius Bear is one of those banks which operate in Swiss and had a Cayman island branch. When reports of the banks illegal activities appeared in wiki-leaks (on asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion), the big honcho tried to supress the leak. (which also included how the bank snooping on a former employee and how the employee's eight year old daughter faced trauma by what the bank did) When talks with Wikileaks proved to be unproductive (expected), the big guys decided to shut down the site and the technically naive lawyers got an Judge who clearly did not understand the working of the internet to remove the DNS www.wikileaks.org. What was even moronic was that after removing the domain name, the judge wanted the result to be e-mailed to the website (which was something like @wikileaks.org)

This is ridiculously funny as the original site content and the domain names such as wikileaks.in or wikileaks.be or wikileaks.org.uk are still functional and lead to the ip http://88.80.13.160/ The judge does not seem to comprehend that his judgement has no ruling over the internet which is essentially out of all these laws. What was even more funny was the lawyers from the bank apparently inserted an additional copyright clause to cover all document "whether or not such documents and information are authentic, semi-altered, semi-fraudulent or forged" As a fellow blogger was wondering how could forged documents come under copyright law !!! For even more funnier analysis of case can be found here https://s.p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/wikileak/censorship_threats_from_lawyers/

But then look at the whole judgement, it is blatant violation of the freedom of speech, an ridiculous judgement which is a violation of the first amendment. Lawyers these days get away with everything. We need to protect whistleblowers who defy every threats they have to make companies and government accountable.

Please Please do blog about this and spead the message

this was irresistable

2008-02-20T23:25:00.002-05:00

I found this as a comment in Fox News... just hillarious

"Comment by Ed
February 20th, 2008 at 10:56 pm

Hillary: “Barack, you’re all talk and no action”.

Barack: “Actually, we just defeated your campaign 10-in a row. I call that action.”

Hillary:”Your speeches are empty inspirational rhetoric. I’m in the solutions business”.

Barack:”If you want specifics, refer to my 62-Pg BLUEPRINT FOR CHANGE, written a while back. Had you bothered to read it, you’d find that your divisive solutions business is in fact covered by my proposed bankruptcy laws. Similarly, had you bothered to read specifics from National Intelligence Estimates you wouldn’t authorize dumb wars, right?”

Hillary:”I have 35 years of experience.”

Barack: “Doubtful. You’re a Junior Senator too you know, but since you’re getting ahead of yourself, here’s a Senior Citizen discount card to further cheapen this campaign. Anyways,I’ve worked in the streets of Chicago,in the Illinois and U.S. Senate. I’m also running a clean campaign w/out lobby support. So are we even now, Hillary? Besides, what GOOD is experience if its the WRONG experience. If that’s most important to you, then appoint Dick Cheney-Fidel Castro for V.P., not me…..”

Hillary:”You’re a plagiarist!”

Barack:” Actually, I’m a thief. I just stole your voters away and hope to do it again in 2 weeks…”

Hillary:”I’m ready on DAY ONE to run this economy heading towards recession!You’re not!”

Barack:” Hillary, how can you say you’re equipped to manage a multi-trillion dollar economy when you can’t even manage your own campaign finances and people!You know, how you campaign is how you govern…..”

Hillary: DAY ONE, I SAY!

Barack: Apparently you can’t read a calendar. Elections are in November, inauguration in January. There’s 2-months to get “ready”.

Hillary: I’ve got a proven track record of success!Where’s yours, boy wonder?”

Barack: “Eight years to get health care passed and nothing??? What makes us think you’ll be successful now? You voted to name a courthouse after Chief-Justice Marshall, or something like that, right? OK,for starters, I passed the 2006Coburn-Obama Transparency-Act. Since this became law, maybe consider making your Billary joint-tax returns more transparent.”

Hillary:”Anything else?”

Barack:”I propose seniors making less than $50,000/year won’t pay income-tax. Now, Hillary, as a Senior you might be covered!”

Hillary: “You only do well in caucus states!”

Barack: “Define caucus for me, Hillary”

Hillary:”You only win small red states.
I win B-I-G states!”

Barack:” I’m winning the United States.”

Hillary:”Talk is cheap”

Barack: “No, but your negativity is.”

Hillary: “CHELSEA 2016!”

Barack:” Game over Hillary, thanks for playin’…”
"

The New Kid in the Block

2008-02-20T17:02:00.002-05:00

I am all up for BHO. Before you draw opnions, it is not for the hope that he offers. Yes, I do enjoy the speeches and the rheoteric but then I am too steeped up in cynical thinking that I am not enamoured by it. Reality I believe is not idealistic.

Yet, why am I supporting BHO ? Look at the race. What he started out against : A candidate who was already crowned as the first women president of the US. A candidate who had the backing of the entire democratic party. A candidate whose last name resonated well with the general public (at least then) A candidate who expected nearly half the democratic (the fairer sex) to be hers for granted. A candidate who could raise millions and millions of dollars and had spent 36 million dollars for her senate reelection. A candidate who was said to be the most powerful women in the planet.A candidate who had more than a 30 point headstart. More than half the people thought her as the best candidate to win in 2008 (It was 17% for him) She had the best advisors in the party.He could not even take up the populist approach, for Edwards had wielded it. Yet from nowhere, he has fought and won many a battles and have actually gained a lead. That is not an easy task.

There are plenty of excuses and reasons. Media bias against HRC is there. I agree. There was this article, I think in NYT which talked about an interesting issue. Whenever there is a HRC picture, it will always be one of wild emotions while BHO was one of the calm thinker. There is a bias, but that is there only because the candidates project themselves that way. Bringing in a new theme, change, no lobbyist, people funded campaign, whew who would have thought those would work except someone who actually believes them.

I hate it when there are columns in every newspaper about two things 1) Afro American Vote : Yes, these days they vote predominantly for BHO. But then consider an year ago, he was still an afro-american, but Clinton was favored amongst them too. It has come a long way for BHO to earn trust amongst them (yes, he was aided by some media and the opposition's own traps) 2. Women : There are all these feminist who say America does not vote for a women. Shucks !!! Why was Clinton popularity high before the IOWA caucus. Yes, it is not that Americans do not tolerate a women. Male Chauvinsim does exists but that is not enough to bring her down. The opposing candidate had to be good. Yes ! I agree the yardstick with which you measure a women's achievement appears to be different from that of a man. She has to walk that thin line. But then, she was all set till this chap came and delivered. Do you think this would have happened had it been just Edwards and Clinton in the campaign ? Nah...

I am very impressed by the intelligence of the campaign. It was brilliant enough to recognise the importance of Iowa and South Carolina. Agreed, they did take New Hampshire a little bit easy. He has done the math right and looked at the importance of small states. Grassroot politics has come back. Even the Clinton campaign is talking about it in Texas. Most of the recent success is almost flawless in execution. I am not saying BHO is the next president of US. But then, he has impressed me with the brilliance

couple of other factors

2008-02-05T16:36:00.000-05:00

two other factors
One I did not reckon on the popularity of Yes You Can on youtube and other places, this video watched over a million times can help consolidate Obama's position amongst the youth

One factor that I neglected, which can add to HRC advantage is that most of my predictions are based on population 50 or less who extensively use the internet and not the other side of the society where she is strong.

End of the day, my predictions 55% of delegates to Obama and 45 to HRC

Super Tuesday

2008-02-05T03:08:00.000-05:00

Let me see how I fare in my predictions, democrats

Cal :
370 delegates : Polls say dead even contest.
My prediction 220 Obama 150 Clinton

Illinois will eventually by almost Obama

New York :
Though pundits are talking about an Obama wave, NY will be still good for Clinton handing her nearly 3/4ths of the delegates

Massachucetts :
Not a big state, but an interesting one it is essentially Clinton vs Kennedy endoesement. I think it will be dead even.

NJ:
Clinton wins 55 to 45

Georgia:
Again, it is going to be a nearly a tie but the other way, Obama 60 to Clinton 40, despite the predictions that Obama will win it hands down.

The most overlooked crucial parts of the super tuesday are the smaller states like Minnesota can help Clinton. These are more traditional voters who would prefer the Clintons. The excitement generated in the bigger states may not resonante in them and they will help HRC.

The X factors : Moveon.org's endorsement and the tears. Prior to the NH primaries I did correct my earlier statement that if HRC shows more emotions, she is not going to make it. (Incidently I did say "Expect more choking a tear filled campaign for her to get the nomination") Whether it was intentional or not, I will stand by statement : It has view by most men and lots of women as phony. Three fourths of the blog responses are in disfavour of Clinton (and incidently a lot of these people are from Cal or from small towns and what is more intersting is most of the people who supported her are generally from New York and other big cities)
This can quite mean that Clinton has played a bad card (again intentional or not) as these are her strongholds. What was even more suprising to me was compared to the NH incident, this time there was very less people who said "so ?" There were people who cried foul and people who said it was great she showed emotions (and that the inevitable claim that the new media is biased and likes to attack HRC)

Another 16 hrs and we will know...

Some of the best lines and other stuff that do not matter

2008-01-29T18:33:00.002-05:00

Reading the comments by various people over the US on the election news, some of the best ones are
1. IF HRC was big bouncer in a bar, then BHC is Bruce Lee
the follow up comment was that BHC was not bruce lee, maybe Chuck Norris

The following were comments after Hiliary moved for "fundraising" to Florida and people of NH responded as to whether they felt cheated

2.You know how you can tell Hilliary is lying? Her lips move....

3.Clinton lie? You don't say. It is more newsworthy to report when they tell the truth.

Someone on Obama snubbing of Clinton in the Union of state address (dunno why this is so relavant)

4. No class, Obama. Don't be that way.
-
I am pleased to report that the IRS accepts both checks and money orders," Bush said. "Just make it out to Haliburton."

5. And this is what passes for news these days?

The more sober news :)

IF elections were held on the internet, then BHC is a clear winner. The fact that HRC is in Florida may get her delegates on board for DNC. But a lot of people view this in a negative sense. HRC's bad public policy and for her sake hopefully right move for the DNC. (getting some many delegates in is a big deal) A lot of people at this also are of the view that BHC is more honest than HRC. The main problem that HRC has to deal with if she were to win the primary is the backlash she faces and the high negative vote. A lot of people say they would vote republican (esp if it is McCain) if it is going to be HRC. She needs to counter this. Another factor she needs to counter is the backlash of Caucasian male. Most think HRC cant be trusted. BHC also has the same problem with people albiet a lesser number of them, saying they will vote republican rather than him.

The "snub" did not play much into changing people's mind. Most people (more than half the people) feel the whole thing is blown out of propotion. A tenth of the people implied this reiterated their claims that BHC was a "child" (So they were evidently not his fans and never had been his fans. The suprising thing was lot of people (a quarter of them) also said not shaking HRC (or in their words"Billary" ) hands was the right thing to do and that they would have done that too.

Disclaimer : I try to stay neutral in this coverage of the fight. The advantage that I have is I am doing it more of my own interest of what people think and am not directly involved in this process. However, sometimes I am drawn by the power of BHC's words and hence say a couple of kind words on his behalf. And for the records, I do not support any of the candidates and I am most inspired by BHC.

Things that you dont generally read in news

2008-01-25T14:37:00.000-05:00

I was reading "In these Times", an alternative media source which I suscribe to and admire for bringing out issues which are generally never discussed in traditional media. The main issue, this month was Credit Card companies and the story had lots of amazing muck raised.

Look at the startling facts,
1. Americans own 700 million credit cards.
2. On an average, a borrower owes something close to 9000$ debt which means there is a total of around $900 billion in consumer debt in this country. Compare this to the $400 billion forgien debt owed by the world's 54 poorest countries !!!
3. In 1970 around 49% of americans did not have a credit card while today the figure stands around 7%
4. Next time you get a credit card offer through mail, check the postal reply address, it will be either in Delaware or North Dakota. The reason for this is that maximum intrest rate that can be charged by the bank is that of the bank's home state and not that of the consumer and hence most banks moved to the two states which has no interest caps.
5. The another concept that came as a suprise to me was that of Universal Default. Most card companies have this fundae. Consider the situation, say you have two credit cards, you pay your bills on time to one and you by chance miss payment to another, the first company can still rise your interst rate. On an average this is 27% !!!
6. An average american carries 7 credit card in his pocket !!!
7. In 80s the contract with the credit card companies was on an average one page long, today typically it is 30 page in six point font.
8.The credit card companies have contributed $25 million to the federal candidates and $75 million to the parties between 1999 and 2005. So forget any form of reforms too. For example in the 2008 presidential race, the consumer banks have contributed to nearly a million dollars for Hiliary Clinton and Obama campaign (each)

So, what is happening to all the banks ? Who hit the panic button ?

The problem is that till some 2004 the housing market was strong and could have been used as a collateral. However with the collapse of the market and the whole situation seems to be incident waiting to happen. Now, there are so many people under the water and no way can they pay the debt, so the credit card companies are going under the water too. The reduced profit and losses that are now synonmous with the banking industry are due to this. In short, the recession which is going to hit US (or has already hit) is good thing in the sense that at least that will restore some sensibility to the system (if only temporarily)

Phd Thesis ... how big should it be ?

2008-01-21T17:24:00.000-05:00

This came up after a small talk with C.(as most people around here would know, I prbly get a lot of thinking to do after I talk with C. ) I was wondering [idle mind is indeed a devil's workshop :) ] about how big and how much should a phd thesis have and that led me to think about a phd itself ? What is the purpose of a phd ? The problem in this era of competion and scientific controversies is that we forgot the purpose of a phd. PhD is STILL a "student life" and a degree where the student still hones his skills. What is that one gets out of a phd ?Essentially it is supposed to be the last part of education
imparted to the person.

In a phd, a student learns the essential skills reqd for him to go independent. After this, he is expected to know how to handle a specific problem of interest to him and probe deeper into him using the skills that he had attained in his career.
Phd is NOT supposed to be a quantitative degree. You can never compare one phd student to another. Grad life is essentially way by which people each having some particular talent look into their area of interest and because of each's unique perspective gets a different look at the problem. In many ways, science started and still is similar to the eukaryotic life.
Just as in cells, there is recombination so as to make each person different and hence a distribution helps in diversity and hence survival, science too evolved mentors (early science was more of self taught people) Mentors help in channelling efforts of students to particular areas, give ideas out of experience and helps the mentee evolve into independent beings. Which is why in many disciplines, the students do not work what their guide works on (it is only in science is it the other way) So, at the end of the graduate studies, there is new player adding to the strength of science. (But of course, the distinction is blurred, because it is not one fine day you wake up to find you can do well as an independent researcher)

I think in these days, a phd degree is becoming more and more of an unholy profession that we are inheriting. It is reduced to a battleground for funding. There are too many people for
too few patronage. This means that the position of the mentor becomes important. There is a new level of quantitativeness bought into a graduate studies, which is papers. Earlier, when a paper was written, it was only if it was very important. Due to the numerous fragmentations undergone by science, the value of a paper is going down. This resulted in some journals becoming important and some citations becoming a consideration. The fistfight for funding also implies it passes through red tapism, people who dont entirely understand context who control funding. (and in some cases, it is like comparing apples and oranges) and hence the volume of publications become important. What these criteria meant was that the mentor started impossing too much will on the mentee (not only to get his work done but also making sure that his work has more followers) and essentially
the mentee started doing wht the mentor said and not what he is interested. This is the sad state of science today, we are drawn into a vicious cycle.

And what is that that suffers : the meaning of phd.... alas it is no longer the degree where we become independent researchers, irony has it that we are more and more of a dependent r
researcher.

So, as to the earlier question, how much should be there in a defense or for that matter a phd thesis ? My opinion is, it does not matter. As long as the student is confident he can think
independently ...

Media and afterthoughts

2008-01-12T13:27:00.000-05:00

I am appalled by the media. I was reading the The Times, a UK based paper and saw this headlines.
"Clinton gaffe may cost votes in South Carolina"
and guess what that was about. It was about HRC making a statement
""Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. It took a president to get it done."

Hey I cannot believe such an irresponsible statement from HRC and what is worse is the lack of media coverage on it. The traditional media in the US had by and large ignored it. Till the NYT asked Rep. Clyburn, very few news bothered with it. As of writing this, there are only around 40 news stories about it.

And Mrs. Clinton, did you ever mention about Obama getting a free ride from the press ? I know probably she never meant it that way, but this kind of talk is utterly irresponsible and hurts, even to someone who is neutral in this elections. Hey, as someone had rightfully put, should "India owes its independence to Ernest Bevin, not Gandhi.". I had no problems when HRC said you need actions more than dreams when questioned about Obama's hope. Yes that is true. But when you look back at history and try to belittle (even though not intentionally) a great political leader in the stature of MLK, I am upset.

What is more upsetting is the lack of media coverage of this incident. Do you believe it, this happened before the NH primary, yet with all the talk about the HRC's emotions, the sexism in her meeting, this was ignored. No questions were asked, nothing was told, people silently passed it off as if it never happened. More I think about it, more I feel sick. Couple of blogs by Afro-Americans did bring out this point. But the mainstream media missed it. Missed, in the days when controversy reigns supreme, "missed" ? I am more skeptical about the authencity and the coverage of the media. This whole thing would have been looked around had it not been for Clyburn. Why ? I think the basic problem is to sweep racism under the carpet. I do agree that LBJ showed great courage and overcame adversity to help Afro-Americans, yet the era belonged to MLK. (I hope I have not taken anything away from LBJ, but I hope to emphasize the point that if it were not LBJ then, couple of years down the lane it would have been someone else, while MLK has inspired and will continue to inspire people. His message was powerful. I am not even from this land and I feel offended at that. Yet, no big guys report it. HRC's tears runs for pages and pages in google news, this one has barely a page.I must appreciate the Obama campaign (till now at least) for not making it a racial issue. But, then almost 5 days since and not a hint in news ? zero airtime ? I did not know the US that was this biased in reporting

Mrs. Clinton, even if mainstream media would not cover it, you should realize the irresponsibility of that statement

New Hampshire and since ,,,

2008-01-10T09:32:00.000-05:00

Sweet Vindication of my blog

I was right !!!
When I wrote couple of blogs before
"Obama was going strong till Clinton choked (literally) Then Clinton pulled back. Her strategy of meeting the people worked well."
the CNN and Fox and everyone else had already written her off. I did say a third of the people believed in Clinton and a third said the tears were fake. This was clearly seen in the vote nearly 39% of people believed in Clinton and I had said a there was a conversion albiet not much in Clinton's favor. I also said the change were not much. I was 3 or 4 in hundred which rised her above the poll prediction of 33 into some 36 or 37 which was much closer to the actual figures much better than what the polls predicted.

I still think that the tears were in the wrong time and this is reflected in the high negative vote
for HRC. Most people (around a third as said in the earlier blog) said the tears were false. These people may not matter in the prelimnary but then in the big stage, this is going to be against HRC. I think she should not shed any more tears in this elections.

If HRC wants to win the elections, these are what she should do

1. Bring other people to share the stage with her. Do the Edwards' kind of job. Get some women to talk. Make poignant tales a part of campaign.

2. While the previous will help woo the women voters, you need to show the toughness. Go after the people in debates. Hope Edwards sides with Obama and make sure you show that you are fighting a battle in which everyone is pitted against you. That is a sure hit.

3. There are two kinds of campaigns you should make. One, where the average age of the population is high, make Bill talk and go for experience and all that jazz. Where the average age is less, esp in College towns, make sure you get some kid supporter to talk or an Afro American women or a hispanic women. Make sure to erode Obama's base by taking the polls to his doorstep.

4. Talk about the importance of a democrat president in WH and that you are the only person who can do it.

Tips For Obama

1. First, make a big media announcement that the Hilary Clinton's tears were not false and that anyone who questions them should be condemned including his own campaign manager. This will bring a lot of votes esp women. Make statements like emotions are a part of human nature and all that jazz. Be nice to her and make her attacks sound mean and dispirited. Remember the biggest advantage for you is the lack of negative votes

2. The biggest problem for you is the fact that details are missing in your campaign. (Nearly every one who criticise you have this as the only arsenal.Make detailed press releases on every issues. (Hey, there are only a few. Iraq, terrorism, social security and few others) Make it detailed and be sure to circulate it in all newspapers as news or ads.

3.Use Hiliary's issue against her. Question of electablity. Use the statistics of negative voting. Make sure you deny her the vote of people who want a democrat to win and so cant risk you.

4. Starting from next campaign, challenge the media to probe your life. If Hiliary says that media does not probe your life that very much, as her to do it. Tell her that your life is an open book and can be inspected anytime by anyone.

5. Be yourself, that is when you are best.

Tips For John Edwards
hope Obama wins and you get the VP post :)

Clinton and Tears

2008-01-08T19:12:00.000-05:00

Let me get this before the polls are out.

I read a hundred and odd comments of people commenting on Clinton's tears (statistically significant enough !!). Here are my findings

some 10 were ambiguous as to what they would be doing or still neutral

around a third believed that Clinton should get their vote

3 or 4 changed (good news to Clinton) after the tears

But what suprised me was nearly a third (prob more than that) believed that her tears were fake !!!

A quarter of people said this reflected her not getting thier vote.

What was even more suprising to me was that not many people were ready to change after the incident. Those who were Clinton's supporters continued to support her while those who were not said this incident made her even repulsive (two reasons, one it was an act or two, sign of weakness)

Many people also felt that the incident has been blow out of propotion by the media (which I agree too) and that it is trivial compared to other issues at hand. The finest line was by this person

"I like both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama very much, and I’m leaning Obama. My husband and I half-joked that this election would teach us whether the American media is more racist or more sexist. This press coverage answers that. A simple question, Hillary chokes up (certainly from being overtired) and delivers her usual spiel, and it’s made out to be that she started crying and then attacked her main opponent in an emotional outburst.

Answer: more sexist than racist. And shame on you. "

I think the problem with the tears (if they were) is that they came at the wrong time. Now, impression is she gives is that of a sore loser. Again I will have to go against my earlier blog, if she chokes again, she is a goner

That much is sure ....

More on the Elections

2008-01-08T13:34:00.000-05:00

Somehow it is getting to me. The news and the buzz about the elections. My two cents on the take.

I generally never read much of the articles on the elections esp the american ones. I take a cursory look (I dont trust the media much) and read every comment on them. That gives me a better idea of what the country is thinking about.

After reading some several hundred comments over different papers. Here is my verdict. (I am a cynic and all my comments are cynical)

1. Obama was going strong till Clinton choked (literally) Then Clinton pulled back. Her strategy of meeting the people worked well.

2. Clinton in tears does sway voters towards her. Expect more choking a tear filled campaign for her to get the nomination. But after that however I am not sure if it will work in the presidential elections.

3. Myth no 1: Obama transcends the barrier. Hmm superfically it is true. But ultimately I think not. He would divide it as old gaurds vs the newbies, each bitter about the other.

4. Clinton hopes to win rest not on the issues or the her supposed 35 years of experience but rather on the fear that she is the best qualified to win the elections. Instill the fear that there might be another Republican govt. Catch them indesicive with the question do you want to lose with Obama or win with me.

5. Most people do not read extensive text on the difference in the various issues at hand for these caucasses.

6. Myth no 2 that is prevailing in the country. Clinton is the person to vote for if Obama is voted for, he is an easy target for negative campaign by the GOPs. I beg to differ, esp after seeing the Harold (I think that was the name) Ford jr ad in youtube. I am sure such croonies
will have more of a field day with Clinton (Hey remember the Lewinsky affair from not long ago)
What can be a more sensational ad than that. You dont even have to think about it that much.

7. Note to Clinton's supporters : When people say, they do not like Hilary Clinton that does not automatically transform into sexist attitude. When Obama was not there, such a thought would never have gotten any air. But, when Obama pulls out his magic wand, every other candidate seems less likable. That is because of his personality. (I do agree that there is feminism issue (Iron my shirt), but not all people when they say they dont like Hilary, are sexist)

8. Hilary probably was the most human of all the candidates, she showed every emotion, anger , humor, calm, some tears, ...

9. Point 8 does not transform her into the democratic presidential nominee. In fact while some of it helps, rest of it only ruins it. The temper she showed when Edwards pooled in with Obama was uncharacterstic but similar to her tears showed some aspect of her which was never seen. Take the two of them together. I think (personal view) while a president should be passionate and she (or he) should also be stoic for a good reason. Optimism I think is the main attitude for a president. I think Obama scores high in that.

10. I get a good laugh whenever Clinton's supporters talk about the experience that is needed for the job and that Obama lacks it. Hey then Kucinich and Richardson have a better claim to job.

will talk more about it later

A hope for today

2008-01-07T09:01:00.000-05:00

I know this sucks ... but still Go Buckeyes !!! Much as I hate tOSU , I want OSU to crush the tigers at the game today, a solemn prayer for the bucks' win today.

Big-10 go for the big kill !!!

US Election and Me

2008-01-07T06:36:00.000-05:00

I am probably one of those people who are probably overlooking the US election with keen interest and to a much extent unaffected by it (I get some emails from the university hilary chapter, something which I did not even register for, yet keep getting it) I smile whenever I look at the issues at hand. So much like the brawl in India, yet so different.

So much coverage, all the paperazzi and issues that are covered, the issues that are not covered. To be frank, I follow the democrats, whose voice is at least more liberal compared to their counterparts. When I look at the democrats, the main war is between the enthu kid and the women hoping to make history.

I followed the WUMR democrat debate. I felt that the kid did better than the lady, but the person who made the most in the debate was Bill Richardson. Hey, both Edwards and Clinton seemed to change their tagline to change after Obama's dream run at Iowa. It was a golden 30 seconds for Bill, when he remarked that he had been in hostage situations that were more civil than the exchange that was going on. The even better line was the rheoteric, if experience a leper. I dont see how no other candidate has mentionned despite Hillary supposed 35 years of experience, only from 2000 was she an elected member. Yes, she was a president's wife, but all the works she does in that counts aa experience ? Obama is a great guy, with a charisma to match anyone and that is probably the most important thing in Politics, but still what I find in his speeches is the lack of details. (Someone had mentionned that those are found in his website, never bothered to check that) He is abstract and speaks out of his mind directly, somehow I am impressed by him. John Edwards, the lesser mortal of the top three has a good voice, a fighter but somehow he never connected with me. But of the top three, I think he was the most objective and had the best reasoning skills. Bill Richardson, my choice in the debate seemed to be the most experienced and mature and rest seemed to be fiesty kids. However of all people in the Democrats, the person whom I admire the most and respect the most and who would probably do US the maximum benefit would be Dennis Kucinich. It is sad that in this country so dominated by media, this man never recieves much attention. I do know his opposition to H1B visas is kinda against so many in the Indian community. It may affect the economy probably. But on the other hand, might be good to the average american, I have no clue.
But I think Dennis Kucinich will be the best president this country can have. Reality check, he not going to be. I really feel sorry for him and for America.

Benazir and after ...

2007-12-28T21:09:00.000-05:00

I have never been to Pakistan, never known anyone from there personally, yet what makes me write about this country. The simple reason that I am one of the billion people from India, the country next to it and whose name it is always associated with.

There is a lot of talk going on about Benazir and the bomb that took life away. Musharaf ? Extremist elements in Pakistan army ? Or the latest in the middle, Al Qaida. Hey, it does not matter. These things do happen in Pakistan every decade or so, of course I am exaggerating here but then I am sure as hell right about it.

Pakistan gets into such a turmoil and rises again (not exactly rises, but helped back to its feet, that however may be just because of the indianness in me) So what is there in this incident ?

Loss of a well educated , beautiful :) and corrupt(and power hungry, well who is not ?) leader for person. Gain for Nawab Sharif, irrespective of who had perpetuated the crime and for the third person in the mix, Musharraf it is quite a situation at hand. Speaking of pervez, he is not a bad guy. In fact I actually like the charismatic man. He has been doing a tough job. Hey, being the president of Pakistan is much worse than the guy who attends the complaint section in Microsoft.  He has to balance all the radicals on one hand and the expectancy in the white house. There are people who keep critcising him and people who are undermining him, people trying to usurp his position. He made his work no easier by trying to modernise the country. Do the previous statement show I am inclined towards the dictator ? Nah, just analysed the situation, I have no favorites, hey I am not one of the people who is caught in the situation. I am not in the situation.

Where is Pakistan going ? Hey, there is still the standoff between corrupt yet democratic setup and the army leadership (prob equally corrupt,but cant make that accusation)Pakistan has always been a see saw between the two. Now that musharraf has been in power for 8 years (?), so he may take the golden parachute ... There have been others ahead of him Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Father Bhutto and Zia Ul Haq who have been in similar situation.

Is Pakistan a live grenade... hey I am an Indian, so Pakistan is always a live grenade but realistically I think not. Yes, there are extremists and rogue elements who are in the watch for nuclear weapons all the time, but still I dont think it is still a tinselbox.  Media always
blow things up which is essentially their job.

What may appear contradicting almost everything I said earlier, I think we ought to scutinize the situation properly and study the developments. In  the grand scheme things, Bhutto is still a small fry.  She will be eulogised, made a heroine and all that will be written
will only elevate her status. But then the cascade of events however is something we may never be able to comprehend. When Princip put a bullet through the Archduke Ferdinand, he never knew he would trigger a war that would last the next five years, kill millions of people and end the Kaiser reign. A single murder never causes a world event, it only initiates what is already
almost in motion. In the absence of it, it would be delayed not cancelled. At the end of the world war 1, no one really remembered the Archduke. The Jan8th election is to be delayed. Apart from that prediction, probably I have no others. Yes, there is a right to be concerned, yet looking at history of the country, I think it is normal. It is Pakistan's internal affair and theirs only. But then I still stand by my statement, the death of Bhutto is not an important event.

After the Hiatus

2007-12-27T04:14:00.000-05:00

Yea yea ... i know I had a long break, and for the faithful few who follow my blog, it is small break and I am back...

The first thoughts was to write on this chappie called Anbumani Ramadoss, then second thoughts prevailed and I decided I will not write after a long time about a shady character, instead will write on something pleasant. And naturally on something I am doing a lot these day, movies.

I have fallen in love with Noir movies. Noir meaning Black in French refers initially to those black and white movies which have typically a crime and possibly a murder and a great and usually a great plot. Popular in the 40s, when a such a movie made several actors great. Typically revolves around private eyes and femme fatales, the movies always leave a sense of unpredicatblity in them. The movies have left their legacy over the years, Sin City and Taxi Driver being some of the well known ones out there in recent years.

I had about sixteen movies from the library most of which were noir or age old silent movies of Lon Chaney, known as the man of thousand faces. I was particulary impressed with The Unknown, a particularly brilliant movie with a brilliant script and probably the greatest actor who ever lived. (I must confess, this was the first movie I ever saw of Lon Chaney, but then it was enough to impress upon me the notion) A simple love story which I would have seen probably in any Tamil movie, but with its brilliant (i know I am overusing the word) irony.

If you are going to see the movie, do not read rest of the blog. IT IS A MUST VIEW MOVIE. Lon Chaney potrays as an armless knife thrower at a circus who is in love with the Circus's owners daughter, Loan Crawford. The triangle is complete with Norman Kerry as Malabar the Magnificent who is in intense love towards Loan Crawford. However Nonan (Loan) prefers not to have a man's arm on her and her confidant and best friend is Chaney. Chaney however actually is not handicapped and is actually a thief and since he sucessfully hides his arm is never suspected for any crime. The circus owner discovers Chaney actually has arms and is immediately killed by him. However, Nonan sees the arms of the murderer and sees the double thumb (a handicap which Chaney had hidden all his life) but not the face of the murderer. Chaney realizes that only way he can get to Nonan is to amputate both his arms. When he undergoes the operation and recovers from it, Nonan is attracted to Malabar and decides to marry him. How Chaney is consumed by his hate forms rest of the movie.

Issues and Non Issues

2007-10-27T06:51:00.000-04:00

Blogging after a long time, this issue was something which I feel is very close to my heart. My country and the issues currently in it.

Indians love controversies. It is controversies that keep us all diverted from the real issues at hand. Jingoistic attitude. Fight for religious, territorial and political grounds, when there are greater issues at hand. Let me take an example of each of these in the same sequence in which they developed. It all started with the Ram-Sethu/Sethusamurdaram issue. For those who are not aware of it, the issue is simple.

The Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project proposes essentially to make sure ships can directly pass through the Palk Strait, instead of digressing. The apparent benefit is a reduction of 350 nautical miles of travel. I am no expert in the matter. But apparently there is quite of bit of concern over the whole proposal ranging from Economic viability to ecological fragility of the region. But, the tendency is to pick the most controversial, yet least important part of the whole thing. The proposed site of construction is kinda controversial. It is supposed to be Adam's bridge connecting India and Sri Lanka. Religiously it is considered to be the region where Lord Rama in Hindu Mythology crossed over to wage the war against Ravana. It is quite akin to trying to tear down Basilica of St. John Lateran to build a road that will make economic sense. (That was the best analogy I could come up with and I am sure it is not up to it) Personally I have no issues religiously, though the other problems make me think about the viability of the project. Controversial enough to most people is not still enough. Indian politicians love to polarise the country. At least that is their job as mandated by the traditions of this great country. Down south, there is respected cunning old fox, Karunanidhi who has made quite a lot of name by just stirring the cauldron. Guess thats his nature. Anyways the man comes up with statements like "Who is this Rama? From which engineering college did he graduate?" and with claims that Valmiki said Rama was a drunkard. Again, personally I think the man has a right to make any statenents he likes and have any opinion he wants. However I could not help but wonder, if this man who is a self proclaimed atheist has at any point in time, said anything about any other religion apart from Hinduism, which is his favorite whipping boy. hmm ...

A controversial statement breeds more controversial statements. India is well known for its fiery womefolk. Uma Bharathi has made quite some name for herself in this regard. Oportionity never knocks twice. Having been suspended from the BJP, she could not make much headlines and when someone makes a such a statement it is windfall for these right winged hindu nationals. Uma Bharathi decides to go on the fast on account of that statement.
VHP too joins the bandwagon, more hatred campaign. A former BJP MP claims the need to behead Karunanidhi. Allegations, law suits and others are hurled on either side. And two weeks down the lane, the SSCP issue is synonymous with the Ram Sethu and the coral reefs and the fishermen of the Palk Strait are all but forgotten. The country cares more about the controversial issues rather than the real issues.

While this mudslinging was going on, it inevitably got a new twist. Someone dared to turn the rhetoric back on the chief minister asking him to which college did the the poet Thiruvalluvar go. Now this is the nerve centre for most tams. They can tolerate if someone berates the Gods but not when someone belittles their poets. And so, further xenophobic statements came into the picture with a well known actor even claiming Tamil Nadu for Tamilians only kinda statements. By this time, what started out as a issue that should have been sorted out in the blackboard snowballed into a controversy of regionality and the original problem is nowhere close to a solution. By this time, the whole issue was going dull, the nation lost its interest in this issue. The memory time of the country is a month at the maximum.

Next issue that came into the picture, the Tehelka expose of Gujarat Carnage. (Though to call it a genocide is giving it too much credit and another issue I am not going dwell on is the timing of the expose) Tehelka is a wonderful print media which has sparked a new wave of Indian journalism. Tarun Tejpal and others have sucessfully let us known how our politicians take money as bribe (one of those cases, where we say a thief is just one of us, but is stupid enough to get caught) Once they expose such a shocking scandal, nation is appalled and poeple talk about it for a couple of weeks, a couple of minnows go to prison for a short time and peace returns back to the country. Anyways such is the idea of justic of India. Tehelka decided that with Gujarat facing elections, it is high time rekindle the old fire. Narendra Modi in many cases is like Karunanidhi, always attracted to controversy, however his views are the exact opposite of the latter. Narendra Modi is a brilliant man. His leadership has taken Gujarat to new economic heights. However, he is a religious zealot. I would be lenient on him and say that his administration did not take much steps to quell the post Godhra tragedy. (Note, what I am saying solely refers to the incidents that happened after the Godhra incident) which is not exactly I expect the administration to do. Post Godhra communal violence claimed a thousand lives and still remains a scar. Anyways, these events can go for an entire book with everyone blaming everyone else. That is not the point here. The point is Tehelka prints a story which exposes a lot of right wing leaders admitting a planned attack on Muslim population. Hey I thought that was the basis of Narendra Modi's victory the previous election. More bellicose statements. Congress having lost some votes in the previous controversy decides it is time to recoup the losses and retaliates. More controversies. Knowing India, it will stay in public memory for a month and then it is all forgotten... who cares about the general day to day problems ... nah... they cant sustain headlines for a month.

The news about India's poor food management can make it through the press and stay in it for a day. It is all but forgotten unless some enterprising and really dedicated journalist like Sainath tries to focus the nation's interest on it. The Sensex may be bulllish at 18000 but does that feed the 46.5 % of the children under 5 who are undernourished. I know Infosys might be posting record earnings. It is important and I can never belittle it. But does the financial minister also know about the number of suicides of farmers happening in different states. If only the man had killed himself and claimed the reason to be religion/regionality and not just plain hunger. Then, all the political leaders would have made it a particular note to mention his name... at least for a month.

a dedicated blog

2007-10-02T22:35:00.001-04:00

this blog is dedicated to this very good friend of mine, C without whom grad skool would have never been the way it is... :) (and of course one of the few unique visitors to my blog !!)

Anyways asides from the dedication, I basically got to read about this topic, extinction of language. I never realized it but Sanskrit and Latin are actually extinct. In fact, more than half the languages are on the verge of extinction. causes : several of them, chiefly globalization
again has a major share. This is kinda good cum bad thing.

The prevalence of English as a mode of communication while does help in a lot of way in widelt different people coming closer, it also has this effect by which it makes foray into the local language. English language is more conquering than the british empire. Probably the reflection of the hegemony of the dominating empire. Even after the fall of the empire, the next empire in the hegemony,US continued the same base language but modified the slang. Prevalence of hollywood implies language continues to grow. But you rarely come across a "hello sir" but a "hi mate" . Is english going to be the all dominating language. I doubt itm probably in the near future yes, long term nah ...Latin was once an all powerful language so was sanskrit and now it is talked by a bunch of professors and no one else

Cricket Losing its charm...

2007-09-19T18:31:00.000-04:00

The kids cheered and danced as Yuvaraj kept hammering one after another into the stands. It was another of classic slogging with skill. Earlier in the series, Mubarak hits 46 from 10 balls... a carnage if you tell me. For a bowler, if it it less than 5 per over these days is good. Where is the fine gentleman's game going ?

Ask any kid, he wants to become a batsmen and hits sixers all around the ground. For an average kid, it is easier to hammer one out of grounds then to deliver another of those amazing balls which leave everyone in the ground puzzled. The "Gajji" is always treasured in the street cricket. Who, besides purists watch a test match ? I have lost hope in cricket. Cricket these days has become like the NBA. With all the stars who score, defense has lost its meaning. Nay, I prefer the good old Test match, where the true skill and the patience are revealed. Cricket is not just about hitting . It is much more than that. There is no point hitting 6 balls out of the ground and throwing the wicket in the next over. Yes, It does achieve its objective in TT. But look at the other half of the team too. Hey, cricket is also about bowlers. And bowling requires more talent than batting. Barry Bonds may be able to come to cricket and hit sixers (more complex than that, but I am sure, he can) but no way can even Ryan Nolan come close to class of Glenn Mc Grath.

However with TT having so much followers in the masses, it is tough to be a test cricket lover these days ...

long since I wrote a poem

2007-09-09T16:48:00.000-04:00

Eternal Bliss

She smiled at me
Before a veil covered the radiance of her face;
With no one else to brighten my path,
I grope my way in the dark.

The lone rodent scurried past me
Slithering in the bush,
He peeped; obviously
Frightened by the unusual presence.
I stand there
Staring at the openness.
Waiting
Loneliness, nay solitude
The blissful thing, I feel
Unmarred beauty
Youngness of the hour.

My unfettered mind
Reaches the sky and exceeds it too.
The distant barking
The rustling.
Civilization is all forgotten
And peace reigns supreme.

Thanks P. for reminding me abt this

wolverines vs the ducks

2007-09-08T19:46:00.000-04:00

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED ? cant people learn ?

Ron English better come up with some explanation on why the defense seems to be going bad right from the ohio state game last year. the michigan defense seems to so ill equipped to handle a spread out ducks. and dixon being in good form added much more to the worry.

If the defense sucked big time, the offense was no better. The offensive line had no answer to the ducks. To put the blame of Chad Henne will be cruel. There was no support for him what so ever from the team. Man am I pissed of at the players. I think Lloyd Carr should come down heavily on the team. It was a team completely lacking in confidence and the michigan pride just went down the drain.

I think despite all the errors Ryan Mallet and Brandon Minor committed on the field
, I see a good replacement for Henne and Hart in them. Proper grooming can really make them a good pair for the years to come. That was in my opinion only silver lining in the dark clouds that surround the michigan football. No doubt, Michigan will have an advantage against ND next game with both the teams playing more of a running game. yet it is to be seen how low the morale of the team is.

Wht a Joke

2007-09-01T04:29:00.000-04:00

Taken from "The Hindu"

CHENNAI: Two students of the Food Technology Department of Anna University were suspended on Thursday.

When contacted, Anna University vice-chancellor D. Viswanathan told The Hindu that the students were suspended on grounds of “campus indiscipline.”

Professor Viswanathan said he spotted two boys attired in trousers with several pockets and asked them why they were dressed inappropriately. “The boys claimed they were not students of the institution, but I found out later that they had lied and therefore suspended them for campus indiscipline,” the vice-chancellor said.

The news just shows how decaying my alma mater is. The VC of course in a demented man with a false set of priorities and values. He certainly cannot understand the importance of freedom in an university. University is a place where the cream of ideas form. This institution has really gone from a premium institution to a place which seems so solely rely on its past glory.

In any university the most important thing is freedom and freedom of speech, religion and other such stuff is primary to foster the normal development of character in a student. A student does go through the activist part of his life in an university. In Churchill's words "If you're not Liberal when you're 20, you have no heart. If you're not Conservative when you're 40, you have no brain" In other words, the college era is the one where the student learns the importance of freedom. I cant imagine 1000 students wearing formal dress and dog tags indicating their name.

I still dont get the reason why a student cannot weat T-shirt to college. Why cant a girl express her fundamental right and wear a jean to college. It is ridiculous to blame it as unprofessionalism / not tamil culture. It is simply a policy of man who cant think straight. I am very sorry for the present student for they are going through a patch which shouldnt be the way it is. A bird clipped of its wings... that what they are... rather meek dog wearing tags ...

more crazy blogging

2007-08-25T04:30:00.000-04:00

I have been trying hard to think... kinda tough for someone with formal education like me. These days people with formal education are less privileged. They are raised in formal logic and reasoning that thinking outside of the box is heresy. Everything is so formal and there is this constant need of maintaining the line of reasoning as everyone else. Common sense is literally what is thought collectively by a group of people. No one these days bothers to reason why we think the way we think. Why is what we consider to be right, right. No, conventions need not be right. Nodding of a million heads need not mean a thing is right which is why democracy has its own pitfalls. Of course to make a million heads nod requires a hell of a PR machinery. But if these were not in place would tobacco industry have survived so many years ? A million heads would have nodded when Hitler threw jews into the gas chambers. The PR and advertising industries are very much doing the same job as what Hitler did. exaggerating facts, put in recogniazable faces and voices which induces people who completely lack the common sense and get them for the sake of their favorite screen persona. Money and power are two sides of a coin. Both are complete illusions, masking reality. Materialism is what is ruling us ...

What am I doing ? I am completely out of my mind ... I know I am blabbering ...
must stop ...

philosophical dabblings ...

2007-07-26T17:29:00.000-04:00

The morning was amazingly great with a dense fog covering the buildings, the birds chirping in the dew, the water from the sprinklers adding beauty to the already brilliant mist in the air. Day dreaming I rode in my bike to lab.... AND... the accident happened ... nopes this blog is not about the accident, thats a blog in itself. This is about enjoying the very few moments of life we have got, finding out joy in the simple things we do and such topics so easily bypassed in the daily life

It is about how people tend to talk about time. Planning and time and achievement and glory. Dont waste a single second on your life. Always be focussed on the goal, no distraction. All the common themes in management course, what a sheer waste of time.

Life is but a bunch of meaningless incident one happening after another. What he does not understand is that what ever looks as a sense of achievement now will often times be so meaningless. Money, power, all these material things are all but mere effervescent things which are meaningless distractions. In a quest for a better future what we do is ruin the good present. We run from reality. We know that the present holds a lot of vagaries, instead of accepting that, we try to postpone the inevitable. We plan and the plain truth, all plans fail.

I am speaking in a very idealistic tone and I am aware of that. I know practically it is not feasible for everyone to follow, and even if they did, it would not do an awful lot of good to the world. World is built by visonaries and people who worry about tomorrow. But being self centred as I always am, personal happiness in my case is more from the blissful carefree life, life where is no tomorrow. Life where I know beauty is taking time off at any given point to enjoy the beauty of the butterfly as it hovers around the flower. The simple joys of life should never be forgotten. Somewhere between the carefreeness I speak of and the materialism I dread is the thin line that should gingerly walked on, one step at a time.

Art Fair and the land long ignored

2007-07-20T00:12:00.000-04:00

Ann Arbor hosts the biggest art fair in the country. Couple of booths next to the Asha booth where I had volunteered was this booth by two ladies on helping Burmese refugees. Burma, now called Myanmar sits next to India.

Like many other countries in the world, Burma is prey to dictatorship. The group called State Law and Order Restoration Council (now called State Peace and Development Council) is one of the most opressive regimes in the world.

What was once a great exporter of rice, a land endowed with wealth in terms of forestry and precious gems (and oil) and with a literacy of nearly 80%, Burma was poised to be great economy. Unfortunately for the Myanmarese people, the trend has so drastically changed that this great land is now one of the poorest in the world. It is a designated least developed nation in the world and is believed to have a literacy of 30%.

It is such a sad place now and for once am ashamed of my homeland which does business with these thugs. I know the reason would be "If we dont do it, China will do it" It is an argument hard to refute, esp with Chinese growing influence in Myanmar and Thailand. Still, what the heck, millions of people without basic rights is worth fighting for. Principles should come before any other things. India should stand for democracy and basic human rights (Not that it is great in India, but still...) It is a case of Chanakya vs Ashoka.

Drug traficking is the other words, this land is now associated with. Burma, along with Laos and Thailand is called as the golden triangle for drug trade. Burma alone (I think so, am not sure about this) is the second largest producer of opium. The dense burmese borders provide ample cover for the illict activity to be carried on. But when the state refuses to act on these lawless gangsters, why need cover. Yes agreed the drug lord, Khun Sa (one of the biggies of dope peddlers) surrendered way back in '90s, yet he continues to live peacefully under the government.

Why is that the world sees despotism and dictatorship so preferentially ? Are the Burmese people lesser mortals who cant enjoy the joys of democracy ? As the years pass on since the Nobel Prize was given to Suu Kyi, she is still continuing the quest for democracy in this land... the Nobel Prize no doubt a great achievement, but yet seems nothing to help her quest.

A cynic looks at things again

2007-07-08T20:58:00.000-04:00

Taj is now claimed to be one of the wonders of the world as a millions of indians rejoice. Sheer nonsense, the way the whole concept and the implementation.

I would have got half a dozen emails, plus scraps and orkut messages to support and vote for Taj Mahal as a "new" world wonder. Thankfully, it is not an official one. I am sure to be accused of unpatriotic behavior. But when it comes to deciding the wonders of the WORLD, I think patriotism should have no part. Look at things in perspective, just because the number of people who has seen Easter Island statues are less and even less will appreciate the intricacies involved in such does not mean it is a less wonder than Taj (which I am sure most of the net users in India have seen)

And it is just not the Taj, take the Christ the Redeemer, there is no point in that being nominated a world wonder. Foolish, just compare 100ft statue weighing built in 1900s favored over the 200 ACRES of architecture in Angor Wat. In fact the central tower in latter is taller than the former.

The way a structure can be considered to be a wonder must be factored by the
1. complexity of the whole structure, It is easy to build a single stature say the Petra/ Statue of Liberty compared to say the whole complex of Timbuktu

2. the time it was built, To build the Sydney opera house now is much easier compared to say the stonehenge.

3. the conditions under which built, Take the Taj, for instance.. When Shah Jahan built the Taj he had the whole of India (even at tht time a populous country) with the best masons and architect in his pay and never had to worry for the labor. Compare that with the small island of Easter. The city is 63sq miles, a fifth smaller than NY. Yet with that limited resource availability, the easter island architecture is a still a symbol of mystery and awe.

What is worse is to see the glaring absence of some brilliant works like Nazca lines in South America or the Harrapan cities in Pakistan or the St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican or the Château de Versailles. Anyone looking at these must be tickled to death by the absence of such.

Thats looking at this purely on the basis of the merit. The cynic in me delves further. So how is this whole facade organized ? The system is told be democratic. Of course, there are two kinds of votes, in this. Free and paid. After the free votes, the paid votes are to be bought from the FOR-PROFIT (ref. TOI) organisation getting this, New 7 wonder. With Coffee mugs priced at 13$ and T-Shits at 23$, they certainly are minting it, even discounting the millions of SMSes.

Take the voting in India for example. Votes are cast either online or through SMSes. In India alone, 12 million SMSes and 18mil e-votes were filed. A person is allowed to SMS any number of times for the vote. Where does the poor Easter Island come in competition ? And financially it was a big money. For every one buck spent on a SMS, .15 goes to Govt, .64 to the telecom operator and the rest between the indian coordinator for the whole campaign and the media sponsors.

It is so easy whip up sentiments. Everywhere today there is sense of so called patriotism which is easily marketable. As brilliantly reported by Times of India,

"... radio jockeys and advertisements tried to whip up a fear. They said grimly that the Taj is lagging by millions of votes and that Indians must quickly do something about this. They said, if you really loved India and by that association, the Taj, you must vote. A commercial even had a blind boy asking Indians to vote. "I have heard it is beautiful," he said in a heartbreaking way. The N7W campaign proved how overtly and how easily nationalism can be exploited to make money for a few.
Meanwhile,the Taj is yellowing. The pollution around it is slowly destroying it. The Yamuna, on whose banks this monument has stood for centuries, is a national embarrassment. And Agra continues to be a miserable, filthy town, an unworthy host to a magnificent symbol of love. Saving the Taj will require the kind of heroic political effort that has not been witnessed in free India. And it is improbable that such an effort will be undertaken. When it comes to expressing vacant patriotism, Indians have always chosen the easier option. In the case of Weber's gambit, (the man behind the new 7 wonders org) lakhs of Indians had to just press some buttons. And they apparently did."

There amidst the gittering function in Lisbon, as Bipasha Basu exclaimed "Oh my god, it's the Taj Mahal!", I laugh at this brilliant money making machinery and the gullible masses who spent the time and money so that a business man who whips up sentiments stands profited.

enough of men ...

2007-06-30T12:14:00.000-04:00

bored about talking about humanity and all the civilizations when I know there are whole worlds that exists without them. Humans can draw no parallels to the brilliance of nature. Take the ubiquitous ant for example. I am sure some of you might be aware of some ants which cut leaf and carry them. In fact these ants called leaf-cutter ants does this not as a scavanger for food, but as a busy farmer. The food that they carry aids in the growth of a fungi, Leucocoprini which is the food and water for these ants. And it does not end there, to prevent an forgien fungal attack, they also have a chemical weapon, antibiotic from Streptomyces. With armies to gaurd, workers to help, there is an equivalent of the British Monarchy in everyone of these ants colonies. I can go on droning more on the brilliance on just the ants... but wait they are not alone, there are a host of other small insects which possess wonderful qualities.

Take scorpions for example, they glow under ultraviolet light. This UV fluorescence of these magnificent creatures is not completely understood. This for a creature which cant see properly. Truly marvels of evolution ! Everyone knows hummingbirds help propagate pollens in exchange for nectar. But there is a third party involved which robs from Peter and borrows from Paul. These tiny mites called Proctolaelaps kimsei feed on the nectar from the plants while using the hummingbirds as a method for transport when the plant is about to die. And Newton, mcuh before you could be think about apple, these tiny creatures started making use of it. Many insects make use of it and molt (come out of the old cuticle) by hanging upside down.

Take the case of the slimy millipedes. They may seem helpless but it takes a mongoose to bash them against rocks to break them and have an arsenal of chemicals against further attacks. Speaking of attacks remind us of all that war going on around the world. But warfare is taking another global propotion, frogs vs this fungi called chytrids. The latter is driving the former to extinction in many parts of the world. Another interesting fact in frogs is that male must remain with the female till the female actually lays egg as egg fertilization is external. In fact for the same eggs, a lot of males compete and there is often multiple paternity, speak of all the father waiting to be. And there is this species of them called glass frog which is actually translucent.

But glass frog can come nowhere closer to the katykids which are masters of disguise. In fact, some Katykids outdo any detective in disguise,imitate the lichens which are present in the leaf while other imitate semi dead leaves. And pursuing the same line of thought, there are a class of insects called Assasin bugs which as the name suggests, waits motionless and kills its prey in what can be akin to a lone gunmen waiting in the wild wild west. And there are thousands... nay millions such out there waiting for the discerning eye / camera to get their amazing behavious.

(all the above info is due to Piotr Naskrecki)

the champ

2007-06-29T19:30:00.000-04:00

Some say he is withering with age. some say he is sighting the ball well. Even when he scores a hundred, the cruel world of critics talk more on the number of balls which go past the bat rather than the brilliant cover drive. One might say the world is kind of cruel to him by increasing the standard for him... He does not care. Time and again, he stands like an emperor and gently caresses the ball to the boundary. Nay, no sound can sweeter than that coming from the willow of the Tendulkar.

Standing just over 5 feet, he must have no doubt be daunted by Pakistani attack, capitulating to him without a score to Waqar. The match ended disastoursly for India, losing by just 7 runs. Everyone else who played that match have retired. Many are eminent commentators now. But this kid is still going places. Nay ... he is still good. Look at the stats : Last 10 matches, 415 runs, averaging at nearly 60, with opposition mostly being Sri Lanka and South Africa (Both the teams being rated higher than India in ODI rankings) Yet critics would claim, he needs to be dropped. No other person can stand such pressure and yet everytime he pads up, gives that gentle smile. Yes none of his centuries are a part of the Wisden 100, yet each one of his many centuries are a legend by itself.

Off the field or on the field, Tendulkar proves cricket is a gentleman's game. He supports 200 under-privileged children. While Waugh arrives in Calcutta to support Udayan is widely reported, Tendulkar prefers the silence. Ever heard him belittle another person ? This humble man never rests in his laurels. Please stop the banter about his retirement for any lover of cricket can still see centuries arising from his bat and leave that desicion to him. If not anything else, we at least owe him that.

Ten things am I worried abt India

2007-06-27T16:19:00.000-04:00

10. Crowded Cities
Though, my reaction to this, this might be only a short term problem, this will be a major one in the coming years. With a major shift in the population from villages to towns, proper city planning is essential, which is at present absent in India. Though this will sorted out properly, the process is slow and during the transition there can be some issues which rise which might greatly slow down development. However, this might be mitigated by the development of second tiered cities and suburbs.

9. Soil Erosion/ Other Soil Problems

On the surface this may not appear a huge problem, but given that the alluvial soils are slowly losing its sheen, the dependence on fertilisers, already on the high will increase. India can do well to go back to the basics and try out the age old method of bio-farming

8. Dependence on Monsoon
At first, I was tempted to club this with the previous. However, realized as a problem, it is independent of the above. Indian agriculture despite all the leaps and bounds still has not found a way to remove monsoon out of the equation. Yes, borewells are going deeper and deeper today, yet this results in more problems than solutions. The huge Indira Gandhi Canal is one such method taken, still more are needed. Linking of the rivers is a wise though politically tough measure.

7. AIDS/Other communicable diseases

With a huge number of middle aged people affected with the disease, I think the awareness is not doing enough. Yes, it is a forceful campaign and has crossed many miles, yet i think for the gravity of situation it is not enough.

6. Higher Education
The lack of world class institutes, centre for higher studies is a hindering block. People might accuse me being an elitist here. But I think India puts too much emphasis on engg, rather than developing sciences. Basic research in India is missing. The problem with that ground breaking discoveries are not made in India. Mordernity does not lie only in lifestyle, For a country of India's talent, we need more fundamental research.

5. Loss of Indigenous Culture
There is a wealth of knowlegde in the different indigenous tribes,(I actually include all the indigenous cultural practices in India)These are vast treasure troves which may go missing in the future.

4. The problem of "misleading mass"
there are all these oppurtunists, starting with secularists (incl Congress, but more in the lines of PMK and DMK) fighting for the right of minorities to the right wing Bhajrang Dal and VHP advocating for the "hindu state" all the destabilizing forces trying to polarise people in the name of religion, caste and other such induced fabrication. I am not particularly a fan of MF Hussain, but burning couple of buses coz the old man paints a picture is completely insane. However, in the other side of things, the example of "so called upholding of Tamil Culture" by PMK or other such parties is also condmenable. The problem with these is, in a country like India, there are always a section of people whom you can please by these. Such talks appeal to certain sections of people, though destroy the country as a whole.

3. Growing too fast, too soon
Culturally, this is a dynamite. This is akin to the situation which Japan was during its industrialization. With most of the urban yuppies in a high tech job, the sense of Indianness is clashed (wrongly) with the Western (read American) style of living. This is not only affects the ideologies of the generation, but also provides a fertile breeding ground for the false right wing extremists who oppose all the pizza houses and such.

2. Regional Differences
This is always going to be a problem of a diverse country like India. Regional interest can beset country's interest. Though, it may seem alleviated by the constant migration between cities, the problem lies with xenophobicity that can be raised by power brokers in search of cheap votes. This is further a problem if the country continues to be ruled by melange of parties, one reason why I feel India should have had a US type of government.

1.Economics
A small name for a big term. However, am concerned mainly about two things: energy and unevenness of growth. Oil burden in India is a ugly reality. Too much of subsidization and ever increasing oil prices are a serious threat to the economy. The other part of the story is the uneveness of growth. India's growth rate is hovering around 10 per cent. However this is uneven. The services sector grew like 13% which is great. Hoeever what bought India down is its agriculture which was around 2.5% The agriculture sector is already a pampered sector which enjoys a lot of subsidies. However the small land holding and the variabilty in productivity means that this bloated sector is unable to keep up well with rest of the economy and acts more of a burden.

It must have come as a suprise to some that I have left out some of what people might consider obvious problems, namely disparity in growth, population explosion, pollution and other such. But in a later blog perhaps I will justify how these are not much of a hindrance at all

finally another one ...

2007-06-14T23:46:00.001-04:00

there was these couple of interesting articles in the Forbes website, one on the 10 biggest megacities of 2015 and the other on the densely populated cities of today.
The List

Megacities of 2015

1. Tokyo
2. Mumbai
3. Mexico City
4. Sao Paulo
5. New York
6. Delhi
7. Shangai
8. Calcutta
9. Dhaka
10. Jakarta

The densely populated cities of today

1. Manilla
2. Cairo
3. Lagos, Nigeria
4. Macao
5. Seoul
6. Dhaka
7.Bueonos Aires
8. Jakarta
9. Taipei
10. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Nothing much on the first glance .... but we can do some interesting analysis on the same...

Other than Dhaka, the list is mutually exclusive...Also, africa is overrepresented in the second list while underrepresented in the first... Cities are the harbinger of development. I know what most Gandhian and such socialists will claim that what is happening is that the rural self sustained poor farmers are becoming poor urban slum folks... it might be right to some extent. However, I would contend this problem is not true to countries like India. India's growth rate was hovering close to 10 percent with services and manufacturing i think leading the pack. However the much subsidized agriculture sector was the weakest link with a growth rate of around 2,7%. For Indian agri to grow at a much faster rate there needs to be lesser people doing more work out there.

The problem lies with countries in Africa... the problems in these countries is that the growth rate per se is negative and being highly dependent on forgein aid and people come to city more because chances of getting aid is more in the cities than in far off hamlets. It is need that dictates the migration not the opportionity. Most of Africa is vastly mismanaged and over-exploited. Africa the next couple of deacades is an important factor in world economic development and reforms. Management of resources is an key issue. However the biggest problem in this continent is the possibilty of quick-richness and power mongers. There are two extreme forms of governments in Africa, communism/military rule and dictatorship. Yes... these can be an ideal tool in combating many problems, (due to quick actions and faster desicion times in these forms of govt) However, it is less likely as generally personal gain far exceeds any philantrophist tendency. I am not very much in favor of Amartya Sen's idea that democracy is a panacea for the problem in Africa. However, discussing this would be far beyond what I want to discuss in this blog.

However back to the point... population and development and the doomsters and the statistics ...
of the 10 most populated cities, New York, Tokyo, shangai, Sao Paulo are those big cities with relatively high money flow,have enough resources to manage themselves. Delhi and Mexico City are the power centre of the respective countries and can muscle out their problems, the latter though has a grave challenge to which it has to rise. (Mexico City's woes pales problems faced by other cities. In another forbes report, it is predicted to be a dead city by 2100) This leaves the last three, Calcutta, Jakarta and Dhaka. Calcutta has a better future for a number of reasons, first despite the communists in the power, buddhadeb has really got some great investments going in the state, though it remains to be seen how this really gets going in this 'different' state. Jakarta, once the apple pie of economic development is facing the economic developement has fallen into bad books and despite the promise of reforms after the fall of suharto there seems to be not much respite. Dhaka may not rival Mumbai or Shangai in terms of money or Delhi in terms of power ... however with a six percent growth rate (economic) it is not doing bad. There are quite a few problems faced by these cities but there are quite important that the migrants can find jobs ....

Not true with most of the next set, the migrants add to the already decaying cities (not all those mentionned but quite a lot of them)... It is going to be tough problem in these cities. i will address this later ...bored of sitting on this blog for an hour now ...

the best song ever ...

2007-06-08T23:24:00.000-04:00

i never realised that there was a song which so seeming reflected my way of life ...

ulagam aayiram sollatume
unakku neethaan needhipadhi
manidhan yedhaiyo pesattume
manasa paathukka nallapadi- un
manasa paathukka ullapadi

Let the world say a thousand things
You be the judge of yourself
Let others say a thousand things
Take care of your mind -
Make sure it stays the same ...

amazing ... the very philosophy of life ... amazing ... damn every one else ... you think and function dont let others influence you ...

My fave 10 from Ilayaraja

2007-06-05T02:39:00.000-04:00

It is so tough to pick faves from his works. The ten songs that I pick are solely my prejudice and what I listen to a lot.

10 Song : KaNmaniyE kAthal enbathu
Film : AArilirunthu arubathu varai (1979)
Singers : SPB/SJ

has a brilliant start and some fundu lyrics. One of Rajini's great movies. Note the background score that accompanies the main song.
http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/tamil/s/movie_name.4269/

9. Song : Aatukkutti Mutta
Film : 16 Vayathunilae (1977)
Singer : Malaysia Vasudevan

Though Malaysia Vasudevan is not really one of my favorite songs ... he does not do a bad job... with Kanadasan lyrics and a traditional rural folk song this is a good song to listen to.
http://www.oosai.com/tamilsongs/16_vayathinile_songs.cfm

8. Song : Vanam Thothu Ponnal
Film : Devar Magan (1992)
Singer : SPB

Brilliant song and a equally brilliant movie. An enchanting and slow song. really takes you by your soul

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/tamil/s/movie_name.5431/

7, Song : Agaya Venilave
Film : Arangetra Velai (1990)
Singer : KJY,Uma Ramanan

KJY shows his classy voice in this. UR complements him well. rest of the songs in the movie do not really interest me.
http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/tamil/s/movie_name.4203/

6. Song : Mayil Pola
Film : Bharathi (2000)
Singer : Bhavatharani

The newest song of all ...I rank this higher than the other songs ninai charanadiyandaen (Bombay jayashree), Agni Kunju (KJY). Ethulim Ingu (Madhu Balakrishnan) for this has the overall greatness. I generally get an completely indescribable feeling . There is a fast beat in this relatively slow song. I personally think Bhavatharni (d/o raja) is not given much credit.

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/tamil/s/movie_name.4294/

5. Song : Amma Endru
Film : Mannan (1992)
Singer : KJY

Brilliant Lyrics and a brillaint song. Will really appeal to the heart if you understand it. KJY rocks.

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/tamil/s/singer.8034/

4. Song : ithu Oru Ponmaalai
Film : Nizhalgal-1980
Singer : Balasubramanyam S P

A great film in the perspective of music. The film had two music director. raja and MSV (the other brilliant song, Poonkadave was by MSV)Nizhalgal has three brilliant songs, this, Poonkadave, and madai thirundhu. Limiting one song per song, I put this one over Marai Thirundhu. tough choice.

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/tamil/s/movie_name.4934/

3. Song : Uravugal Oru Thodur Kadai
Film : aval appadithan - 1978
Singer: KJY( i think )

This might take people by suprise. This is a very little known film. Perhaps one of the best films. This movie was taken by a student of MFI, Rudraiah. Rajinikanth, KH and Srividya. and some brillaint music by IR. this is a very poignant song. could not find the musicindiaonline link.

2. Song : Kathu Kuyilae
Film : Thalapathi (1991)
Singer : Balasubramanyam S P, Yesudas KJ

When there is one great singer and Raja there is a good song. When there are two of the greatest singers of all time and raja, you can always expect a brilliant music. I would rate this higher than Rakamma from the same film despite later getting a mention in the BBC's top ten song.

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/tamil/s/movie_name.4357/

1. Song : Yamunai Artilae
Film : Thalapathi (1991)
Singer : Mittali

I will break my rule for not having more than one song for this movie. Mittali claim to fame through this one song. Short,sweet and mesmerising. there is that inherent pleasant feeling everytime I listen to it.

http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/tamil/s/movie_name.4357/

Others which really missed out are
Oora therinjikittain - Padikadavan
Manram Vantha - Mouna Ragam
Vizhiyle Mani - Noorauthu Naal
Eeramana Rojave - same name
Kalyana Malai - Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal
Kanne Kalai Maane/Pongatru - Moondram Pirai (very sad to miss this)

hatred

2007-06-02T21:02:00.000-04:00

another of those bleak post... coming out of me being in an melanchonous mood with nothing to do except chew some thought.

Behind every propaganda of hate are two people, one there for power and the other there for money. The two exploit the hapless people who are twisted into believing they are doing the right thing by hating their fellow members of the society. Hate begets hate and the viscious cycle continues.

It is so easy to get the mass to hate someone. Suppose, if needed I have to start a hate campaign against something very mundane, hmm, say Pizzas in Bangalore. so two of us, one in it to capitalise on the market that is driven by this objective,(can be any rival food manufacturer) and the other wanting to capture power by the anarchy that is caused join an easy partnership. First start of a couple of newspaper report which talk of general health decline in Indian cities. Then in a regional newspaper, start a sensational report on serious illness by the intake of pizzas. It would be fantastic if it is a small boy preferably in the eigth grade, someone who belongs to middle class and wants to be a great rock star. Then unleash a report from some organisation which has a great name, say regional institute of food testing (RIFT) who cares about the people working in it are henchmen. For the public, if it is report from such an institute and the guy whose name is there in the report has a Dr. prefix it is fine, who bothers to see that the chap has specialized in greek arts. Next unleash the next arsenal in the kitty, xenophobia. say pizza is a firangi and stuff like that. Break a couple of shops and shout slogans like "jai hind" and stuff like that. Wear a bandana while breaking the store. Such thugs will be painted as nationalists and compare them to Bose. You will have half a population under your control

This is one reason, why I hate the hype given to most freedom fighters. Not because they do not deserve it. It is because it is so easy to missuse the name of a great man. All politicians claim to adhere to one of those legends. the higher politicians, Nehru/Gandhi, most of the next rung politicians will stick on with Kamaraj/Shastri/Savarkar/Tilak, the so-called reformist Ambedkar and if he intends to vandalise property will be a disciple of Bhagat Singh/Bose. Cynical you might say but thats how things are. will write more later

The New Inequaltity

2007-05-31T08:19:00.000-04:00

There is a new form of inequality developing in the present age... a discrimination that is hard to decipher at first ... the concept of big brother...

Look around us. The shots are called by the big corporations that seem to be undeterred by any government, people or judiciary. It seems easy for a huge multinational coorporation to bully an innocent citizen, strip him of his privacy and accuse him for a crime he may have mistakenly committed while these honchos despite all their misdemaneour are still scot free and unaccountable. These guys are forever covered by the nebulous cloud of laws and by laws which occur in the fine print that you can never see. Take most drugs that are in the market, advertised such that they are panacea for all ur troubles, yet there will be this small tagline, common side effects may include dizziness, irritation, heart attacks and what not ... all such sham...

Or take for instance, most insurance firms, you never beat these guys in making a bauble appear like a mountain which seems to cover everything you can have except the illness you are harboring at this moment. I see a bleak future for the life of a common man. Poor chap ... nothing is going to be personal for him... his insurance company will know from all his personal data that he has a high chance of heart attack, any company might get his interest by just search history, where he goes will be monitered for security reason and he loses the power to question any of the above because the law is exploited to the fullest... Lawyers do not know the laws, they just know how to bypass them. where is freedom ? where is privacy ? where is choice ? These are times I feel Ignorance is a bliss ...

nostradamus and today's world

2007-05-25T03:48:00.000-04:00

nostradamus had he been alive would be the richest author in the planet outselling Rowling, Dan Brown and others put together. Man today is flooded with a mix of violence, religious rightwing extremists, extremely busy schedules and irrational beliefs that provides a perfect market for a man for Nostradamus. Am trying not to be cynical... but the world is indeed becoming stupider (I mean brain dead) Look at the world around you. You will find people who are completely out of touch with reality. People with common sense are an endangered species.

The mass media is a big catalyst in this and any bad news spread faster than light (hey Einstein, they have finally discovered it is not light that is the fastest) Since people are really dumb, mass paranoia really sells a lot. Take for example in 1938, when thousands fled their home when a radio
show said there was an interplanetary conflict and people from Mars were gassing Earth. Hysteria is what drives the world today.Watch TV for 10 minutes and you will udnerstand the humans need for sex and violence and hysterical prediction (mostly half baked facts) Take a typical ad, Take a typical, hmm say skin cream ad, it will protect your skin from harmful UV rays which will otherwise damage your skin... prevention of something harmful quoting some vague scientific study is what drives advertising today.

Conspiracy put together with promise of worldwide anhillation will get you all the publicity you need for the entire life. An average man is so steeped up in his work that he has to put extra effort to actually know about what is necesscary (eg. there are a lot of people who would badn hydrogen dioxide because it kills several thousands of people every year) The problem is there is lots of information that most people prefer not to look into it. The result, any tom,dick or harry gets into the podium and says evolution is not true cos it is not mentioned in the book has a huge following and good money. The people in this century have really lost touch with reality. It doesnt take a genius to exploit this... and the best part is it can be done legally... want to know how ?

1. be a Diet guru: say the usual stuff, eat less, excercise more and cycle to work and buy fat free food... the idea is to package it properly... make it something like "Get thin in one month" and you will make the headlines in the new york times as the most happening person.

2. try to get some financing for a movie, you dont need story, all you need is 15 minutes of hot sex for the male species, 1 hr of bazookas and guns to impress the kids and 15 minutes of romance to get the female audience too and put ina couple of dogs witches along with Aniston, and Mel Gibson you have a winner. Make sure Jesus makes an appearance and you have a blockbuster.

3. write a management book :title something like how to climb the corporate ladder ? best of management tips or something to that tune. this is very similar to the first.write stuff like work smart not hard, use allusions and example and make effective use of bullets and numbers... randomly sprinkle highlighted texts. Next get some random guys with MBA to comment on it and put it in the front cover... you will make a lot of dough.

4. Start a religious unit: Irrespective of what you religion is, you can always get rich this way. Start a radical right wing group... attack policies ... something like "people should not use toothbrushes because it is not said so in the Bible/Koran/Gita or watever" and such completely out of the world things... you can become popular and you can even start influencing federal policy desicions

These are the easy legal ways of getting rich fast solely benefiting on the stupidity of the people ... am reminded of a Dilbert in which Dogbert becomes rich by annoucing 1000$ income a month for a year for doing nothing for people who invest 13000$ in his fund....

cynical I may be but that is what is happening around me...

oxymoronic world

2007-05-22T03:10:00.000-04:00

We speak so much of species getting extinct ... the list is endless and yet there is the other side of things ... too many guys of a species (no no I am going to talk of human over population) in some places.... What made me think about this other side was the recent report in BBC that wolves eating sheep in the Alps. Environmentalist dismiss these as just attempts by the farmers to get  a
compensation from the government. Of course though this may be true in this case, it may not always be the same when we consider other growing menance.

The most common complaint is the growing mosquito population in many regions. This is regarded as a valid threat and despite the large number of steps taken is remaining a big thorn. Many such problems are introduced by human beings. Take rabbits in Australia for example, these descendants from 24 rabbits originally introduced as pets. This became couple of million in just 10 years.  Now these supposedly cute creatures in the absense of predator has to
just displace the native  herbivores and occupy their land.  These gobble all the food and leave none
nothing for the others (selfishness of Bugs Bunny) In fact, the idea of controlling rabbit population has been in Australia for sometime. Shooting rabbits, using ferrets, concept of rabbit proof fences, traps, were used and nothing worked ! So now they are trying to develop viruses which can kill the rabbits and save what is left of the ecosystem... The equivalent of rabbits are the goats and locusts which destroy acres and acres of vegetation. While the former is not considered a threat as it is easy to control them and are useful, the latter are a threat in Sahara.

There are lots of other interesting scale, not the kind of pests that the locusts and rabbits are, Consider the population of 3500 elephants which were left without a job in Thailand after they were banned from transporting logs in Thailand. More woes continued for the Thai elephant owners when the government banned elephants from Bangkok. There are reports in India of elephants trying to eat crops. In fact, when the authorities claimed that destroying illict liqor in India was a problem of elephantine propotions, they were not far off... In Assam, a group of pachyderms invaded a illict liqor brewing area and destroyed it completely and drank the existing liquor... they sure would have a very tipsy night...

It is not just the land that is a problem... water and air have their own share of problems... Take the walking catfish, which were introduced in Florida which have multiplied so much and so quickly that naturalists prefer a florida without them. These interesting creatures (though not a great pest) can survive without water and can move from one pond into other by walking ! The air invaders are the killer bees... These are descendants of some south african bees which escaped custody of brazilian scientists and by cross breeding with the local honey bees and they conquer new areas at the rate of 200 miles a year and have completed acquistion of south and central America and are now making forays into the US. Not very well in news, these are quite a menance.they can practically nest in anything and attack on any mundane reason and it is amazingly tough to escape them. Suprise Suprise ... dont jump into the water if you are attacked by killer bees... believe it or not ...they wait for you to come out !!!

Amazing isn't it ... there are always two sides to any case... there are lot more creatures whose population increase seems to be causing a big problem ...

Solitude and the other things in Life

2007-05-22T01:11:00.000-04:00

This one was generated mainly prompted due to the long discussion of love lives with Burf last night after that Chicago trip. (And Ash, I will still maintain my position : the way I live is (A.'s keen and perfect observation) unstructured. I value freedom and solitude a lot in my life. No one should/can dictate the way I want to live my life.)

The way I discover myself is plain silence... It is fine if there is any kind of music ... there can be people but not people whom you know... strangers are welcome you know the kind of people who come out of the blue and want directions to a random place that I never know (strictly empirical)

Take that random book or that random song of MS/Illayaraja. Kind of thing that stirs the heart and makes you in peace with myself...try talking to myself ...
try to make sense of what I am doing and where I am going in my life ... I like solitude and not someone to disturb my peaceful life ...

break 2 - 11:28-another half an hour to go

2007-05-15T22:15:00.000-04:00

think I have broken my left hand ... okies ... lemme think ... tough thing to do ...hmm ...hmpf...

11:30 : still no thought ... such a dry night ...

11:32 Eureka : 10 things that I need to do before I die

11:35 (hard to think still !!)

10. learn more on the middle ages in Europe
9. Read about national parks in US
8.find out about chicago and what to see there
7. Not yet thought about

11:40

6. figure out a way to clean water something like a sponge
5. figure out when the last bus is
11:45
4. think about ten things to do
3. Image the gel
2. Catch the last bus (accomplished aim 5 and 6)
1. Eat dinner

hurrah it is nearly 12 now ... can start working ...

nothing to do

2007-05-15T22:07:00.000-04:00

10 in the night
Nothing to do but to wait for some random pieces of DNA to separate...

hungry ... no food for the past 24hrs ... hmm no food at least for the next two hours ...

bored ... Nothing to do ...visited every Tom Dick and Harry's blog, read about Dayanidhi Maran's tenure in some 15 different Newpapers, spied around different labs in the sub-basement hoping to locate some human activity ...None detected... looked around the lab for a hidden alien that was supposed to have landed in Ann Arbor ten years ago ... where else can such a thing hide other than the lab. hmm ... the only extra-terrestrial thing seemed to be that foul smell ...no hold it ... I think it is just the first pizza that was ever made.

Chat : No one interesting to talk ... beggars can't be choosers .. chat with every random person ... alas no one seems to have time to talk to an old friend these days ... hmm i guess not when you have not spoken to them for just under a couple of hours...damn no signal in the sub basement and cant go out ... rain outside ...

finished blogging too and what shall I do ? I guess next blog

Justice ?

2007-05-04T03:10:00.000-04:00

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the case of Alistair Pereira, here is a quick recap...

There is this rich bloke's son aka Alistair Pereira over a year ago who after having consumed copious amount of liquor takes his Corolla for a ride in the platforms of Mumbai and runs over 7 pavement dwellers (and injured some more). Now what this chap, a college dropout having excess bills to flaunt deposited Rs. 500,000 or 10,000$ cash to the court as a penalty (Intrestingly this money was paid within minutes after the judgement (oin april) and the fine was passed !!!) and is sentenced to 6 months in prison !! Where else can it happen but in India. He was charged of Negligent driving. The trial of a crime was such a magnitude was completed in 5 days !! In fact, the prosecutor did not even question the other occupants of the car. This looked like another case in the country where the justice seem to cushionthe rich and neglect those unknown voices from the bottom half of the economy.

Then the big clamour was raised with the media looking for a good story.

So under severe pressure, the matter went to the high court as a suo moto case. The High Court severly chastised everyone (the prosecutor, the police and the other investigators) on the way the investigations were carried out. The accused as always tried the delaying tactics. His lawyers were not present and said he was out of the country. The grim repartee from the Judge "In such a big city, you can’t find a lawyer for yourself?" and there was another remark from the judge when the accused left the court yesterday, “You don’t have courtesy to bow to the court!”

I am particularly interested in two things
1. this blog in CNN-IBN
http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/rakshashetty/9/38502/dial-m-for-murder-p-for-perspective.html

Here the author argues at first glance flawlessly that all though Perriera's crime was heinous, it was done unintentionally and just because the cover page of any newspaper would look good with crying families of labourers in tattered clothese would look good, doesnt mean he should be charged with something higher than that,

Problems with theory
1. A major one, Alaister did not run over people who were sleeping in roads, they were sleeping in pavements. The author says that people can sleep "Anywhere, but where they will be under the wheels of a car!" Till the time I checked rules last, wheels of a car are supposed to be on the roads and not on the pavements, which I must remind the author is not where people drive normally.
2. If the car had a mechanical fault or problem, the punishment can be acceptable, nopes, the man was drunk to the nose ... And it is again illegal to drink and drive. When indulging on an already illegal action, running over someone does in no strech of imagination amount to rash and negligent driving.
3. At least if the accused shows some sign of repentance then fine. Nopes ... he is involved in another accident when the investigations for this one was going on and this was again drunken driving. Also this brings me to my next point

the unrepentful Alistair Pereira
http://www.mid-day.com/news/city/2006/november/146589.htm

He has no remorse in the fact that he ran over people killing them. "It is just an accident" as a matter of fact. 6 drunk people in a corolla and driving through Mumbai and that too without a driving license !

No ...am too lost in thoughts to say more ... rich brats with endless cash and insensitive columnist with no sense of whats going on !!!

top ten

2007-05-03T18:50:00.000-04:00

10. dont you want to watch me shave - C
9. checking my email - E
8. fugu and AFS -K
7. did you get the mail da ? -K
6. why chamaree why ? -C
5. i am sure but no -S
4. We bought a new coffeemaker -K
3. I made rice and coffee -S
2. dont you imagine me naked -C
1. my frnd got the DSLR -cop

C - 3
K- 3
S- 2
everyone else - 1
cop -1

my two cents on rural indian economic development

2007-05-02T05:34:00.000-04:00

I may be no Chidambaram to balance the nuances of the running of the country, but still my viewpoints on the country's rural developement

1. Population :
There is lots of concern these days that most of the farmers are moving to the cities. I am not really concerned about it. I think this will balance out the population. A little high school geography here Industries are divided into three. Primary : essentially things like agriculture, fishing,dairy farming etc. Secondary : industry and factories. Tertiary : Service oriented industry

A country is developing iff the number of people in primary industry is much less than other two. The reason. Let us assume there is a 1000 hectare arable land in a village. Now if the village has a population of 200 of which 100 are farmers. Now if per hectare we produce 1 ton of rice (round numbers are easy). we get 1000 tons of rice. But if there are 100 farmer, each of whom says needs .1 tonne for himself. Then 10 tonnes are consumed by the village itself. However if 100 villagers give way to 1 fellow who controls all the 1000 ha., then the consumption of the village will be 1 tonne, (assuming there are 10 workers in the farm) thus we get 90 more tonnes. Simple economics...

2. Literacy
The problem with most indian village is the spread of education. We need more teachers to go spread education. I think TN has worked great wonders in this field. Most of the other villages need to follow the schemes (despite the other vices of the tamil politicians) from the southern states. Education is one of the most fundamental of the economic progress.

3. transport and communication
No matter where you are, it must still be reachable by proper means of transport and communication (read internet). Cell phone coverage is becoming better and better. India also has the highest growth of Internet users... much much more than China. I think Dayanidhi Maran is doing a fantastic work in the latter... with more and more roads being laid, I think this is one field where things are definetely improving. I always view this to be most critical parameter and the nation is doing fine. More Cheer for the consumers as the govt annouced recently about an ambitious project to provide free broadband internet for all Indian citizens. (Times of India, dunno when )

4.Say 'No' to the Terminator and other such technology
Indian farmers must be encouraged not give up the traditional varities of crops for those produced by biotech firms aka Mahyco-Monsanto and other such wolves in sheep's clothing. Look what has happened to American bananas. Coming from India, I am missing the varities of bananas that India offers.Here there is just that green banana. It is a sad thing that has happened here. Nature farming should be encouraged.

yawn ... feeling sleepy ... will complete it later ...

More Memories

2007-04-27T01:26:00.000-04:00

Prompted by C.

I hate crowds. I like this cold weather in Ann Arbor a lot. I like privacy and the greenery around me. I hate the greedy power moghuls back home who for political mileage would espouse the dirtiest and slimiest causes ( I personally think some of them would beat machiavelli in his own game. ) Yet of all places I can think of, nothing appeals to me like Chennai.

Chennai despite all that happens still has that easy going nature with me. Much synonymous with my nature (possibly cause i was born and lived there all my life practically) okay folks this folks is to argue that Chennai is the best place in the world. I know most would never agree with me. The hot weather , the pesky rick drivers and the intolerable mosquitoes is enough to deter any brave souled adventurist. But Chennai is beyond all this... The other side of Chennai is just too irrestible. Take a peek.

Early morning Kolam and the coffee with The Hindu headlines. Loud Suprabatham from the neighbor's house. the random "eppadi pa irrukae ?" by the Paalkari (the women who delivers the Aavin milk packets) and the Keerakaran (the person who brings fresh spinach everyday). The few minutes chat of news ( a medley of topics ranging from local temple to World Bank and of course cricket)with appa...picking the flowers that bloomed that day and the morning poojas. the hot pongal dripping in Ghee and chat with Amma about what happened in college the previous day...

And then the bus ride to college. the noisy, ramshackled rickety old buses (I was lucky, the bus that I used to take was better than others), crowded with enough people to fill a huge lecture hall all squeezed in such that there is no place to be except the foot board of the bus. Yet the fun used to be in it. All the random profane insults that used to fly across the people. I have had some near death experiences in it but nevertherless everytime I step into a MTC (Metropolitan Transport Corporation)bus there is always a sense of new experience flows through me. You can have such amazing conversations. I once had one with this chap who when learnt I was in life sciences started telling me about a random theory he had on how life should be lived according to the Hindu religion (yeah there is nothing related between the two. yet he had some theory on it. I dont remember it now) or that female who was in my college about the random book she had read on UFO kidnappings.

Evenings are a pleasure to live in Madras. I think it is because of the temple visits and talking to all the random mamas and mamis who always inhabit the temples at that time. It is more than just a religious jaunt. There is always a social occasion. A typical conversation would be about the sons and daughters living abroad (read US of A). Read next blog for an example. and stoping at the different shops and having that friendly chats with the shopkeepers. Each person (we are talking about the male folk in the household) I think used to select the friendly shopkeepers. I generally used to talk to this owner of a shoestore, to an assistant in the grocery store and to my family barber. One thing that I should say is the loyalty to a shop. For example, we (Appa and Me) have always gone to the same barbershop for the past 25 years. First the owner used to cut our hair and after his death, his son is the one does it. We would as long he is there in the locality never change our patronage. Same goes for vegetable vendor. Amma always has her favorites. Spinach will be from that old lady who sits in front of a stationary shop and other from a different store. And the old lady for her part will always have one kattu (one portion) of it left for us... it is so amazing to walk from temple to home which is like 500 metre without stopping to speak to at least half a dozen people. There is that friendliness and warmth which I think I will miss anywhere else in the world.

The pleasant slokams and the night news and random telephone chat with relatives and dinner when all of us generally argue randomly in many cases just for the heck of it. These are fun arguments and leg pulling. More gossips and the interesting happenings of the day before Appa retires to read his paper and me to check my mail or bug my sister and Amma to finish the remaining house chores... all this in the midst of the lovely smell of Parijatham which blooms in the night time... Home Sweet Home

Greenest Movie of All Time

2007-04-22T03:51:00.000-04:00

The Answer : Padayappa

I watched it for the 200th time tonight. Agreed as in most tamil movies, there is an excess of indulgence. Rajni's larger than life image, Sivaji's overacting, Ramya Krishnan's hoarse voice, Soundarya's inability to act, Sentil in that stupid costume, Lakshmi's not so great sentiments ... not really a combo for me to say this one is better than Ben-Hur, Airplane, Seven Samurai and Dr. Strangelove !! Yet it is much better than all the above put together. Of course, only a tam would understand the brilliance of the movie.

For the basal level story, wiki does a good job. A.R's music was brilliant though I would still prefer the background of Illayaraja in two other great movies of Rajni, Thalapathi and Mannan. (There is no other tamil movie song which can be as soul rendering as "Amma Endru Aazhaikadha" in Mannan or " Yamunai Arthilae" in the other) However, AR does not do a bad job. As with many other Thalai's movie, lyrics are great. K.S Ravikumar is just stunning with his direction.

Any interested readers are directed to Youtube where there will be plenty of clips which can be amazzingly brilliant !!

More Bird Watching

2007-04-17T18:38:00.000-04:00

So I decided to leave behind all the miseries of the exam paper and the sad incident at Virginia Tech and decided to put my mind on the right track. So I took the stroll around Lake Lila. I as always ran around the lake and took some time off.

Then I noticed this kid with his grandparents bonding with the geese. I joined them and this time the gander actually allowed us like two feet from the nest. The kid seemed to enjoy it while the gander looked apprehensive. Then the kid's granddad advanced forward and the geese warned them away with some threathening noise. The three then lost interest in the couple and went away and I decided to move a little distance away and watch them.

So I went back to about 6-7 feet from the nest and sat down. There were some interesting things today.
1. the two accepted me as harmless intrusion to their life. The male seemed comfortable to leave the vicinity of the nest and start eating. In fact it came even closer to me something like two feet away without any qualms.
2. The Eggs : Finally the female got up to adjust the egg. There were two eggs that I could see and the mother goose I think flipped over the eggs and sat down again continuing the near movementless wait.
3. The gander seemed to be restless while the female was very still all the time (This I had noticed earlier)
4. Finally what suprised me the most was that I think the gander after eating went to sleep !! It sat down and put its beak into the feathers and the head drooped. However, the eyes continued to blink.

I sat down watching it sleep for sometime. Then decided to leave. When I got up, the sleep was apparently disturbed and gander looked at me with what I feel a disapproving eyes and as I left went back to its previous state.

KID

2007-04-12T17:04:00.000-04:00

Again, evolution makes headlines ... This time it was the Pope who though did not actually embrace intelligent design claimed that evolution has not been scientifically proven. His quote as taken from The Times reads “The pope [John Paul] had his reasons for saying this. But it is also true that the theory of evolution is not a complete, scientifically proven theory” [It can be recalled that Pope John Paul II said evolution was “more than a hypothesis."]

With everyone jumping and opinions flying across without an shred of evidence [not to forget half of the world's most developed country believing in faith and not science], I have decided I should too jump into this. So I propose the KID- Krishnan's Intelligent Design... A theory that is perhaps no different than most of the intelligent design theories that are out there. Of Course, I need to put the disclaimer notice :"Intelligent design does not imply God is involved in this."

The assumption of this theory is simple and is designed to answer the fundamental question of "why and how are we here ?"

Assume life is a mobius strip. It goes on and on. So you never know where you started and you will never know where it ends. But then so is earth ... a mobius strip ... Nopes Folks... Earth is nothing like that what they taught you in school ... that oblate spheroid (round thing for those don't get the meaning of oblate spheriod) was just a farce put up by physicists who could not explain gravitational field on the basis of the earth's shape being a mobius strip. In fact when common people started suspecting that the earth might not be spherical, the physicist changed tactics and distributed photos of earth "purported" taken from space. Now we think that Niel Armstrong did not go the moon but spent time in Disney land and/or had a honeymoon in some Moroccan Village during the same time.

Anyways, since earth is a mobius strip and life is a mobius strip too... relative to each other it is a straight line which means that we thinking we are going on an arrow of time pointing in the direction of evolution [though it is not, this just means that all that gigatons of evidence we see in support of evolution is just an artifact because both life and earth are mobius strips !!]

Since most of the scientists know that earth is a mobius strip, it should be fairly obvious to them that life too is a mobius strip, but because science is not able to accept that 400 years of physics is wrong that they have come up with this cover up. So according to KID, evolution is correct only in one frame of reference which is what all the evidence points to. But then what confuses most people is that because both earth and life is a mobius strip, it is a continuous frame of reference. Let us move on to some interesting questions.

What is extinction then ? Extinction is an interesting phenomenons which can be brilliantly explained by this theory. Now, consider two species say dodos and humans... lives of both are a mobius strip,however each is a discrete mobius strip. So with reference to a common mobius strip, the earth, they appear to be coexist in a certain time frame after which they don't. Have difficulty following this... lemme explain in clearer terms. Consider you are going in an endless highway at 40 miles an hour, you notice there is ahead of you a car that is going at 38 miles an hour. Then for a period of time you will have the car in your sight after which the car disappears. Because the car disappears from our sight, we assume that car has crashed earlier. With respect to our frame of reference, we call this is extinction. Hence no species actually dies , it just vanishes into the horizon and being a keen F1 fan, I am also tempted to say, if we wait long enough we might actually lap the dodo which gives rise to lazarus taxa [Lazarus taxa are taxons that disappear in one fossil records only to reappear in another fossil record]

Which brings us to another question - Fossils ? What are they : Pretty simple - the answer again lies in F1. When a car goes over a road it leaves a tire mark on the ground. Similarly, what we see as fossils are just the thread marks of species that have zoomed past us. Of course, during one part of human history we did see dinosaurs.... after all earth is only few thousands year old ... This is one part of my story which is accepted by a lot of people. For a more detailed explanation check this website ... I found it particularly good [:)]
http://www.av1611.org/kjv/mevolu1.html and if you want more fantastic reading ... http://clearevidence.blogspot.com/

That's a gist of the whole thing called life ... if you don't really get it or want more details... I am planning to write a book " KID for Dummies" or "Krishnan's Intelligent Design: An Essential Companion" Anybody ready to finance me ?

Sniper -- Shashi Warrier

2007-04-07T01:42:00.001-04:00

I have started reading a lot of Indian authors, (people whom I have never read earlier, not the traditional Vikram Seth and Arundhati Roy ) these days ... The latest collection I picked from Hatcher were
Clive Avenue - Trimurthi
The Truth About Bharat, Almost - Kaveri Nambisan
Sniper - Shashi Warrier

The three books were really outstanding. Elegant works. My favorite (though biased by the subject) would be Clive Avenue, though the Sniper stood out of the list. I have never seen much Indian authors tackle action packed stories effectively. Shashi Warrier's Sniper impressed me as a professional Indian literature really a page turner. I have been read several thrillers and I think this one is a thriller as any of the Ludlum or other Western authors..

The story is about Eswaran, an army officer who is after a sniper in Nagaland. Eswaran's daughter is brutally raped, set on fire and murdered. The story is about how Eswaran tries to hunt the man responsible, the unknown "grey" man, man wth a huge political clout and influence. Shashi Warrier has made this a very interesting read. Though a bookworm, my reading habbits have declined in the past year. However, these Indian authors have really kindered back the reading habbit into me again... great work guys ... keep it up

Dearth of resources and the waste of resources ...

2007-04-06T15:50:00.000-04:00

I am an avid reader and one of the things that I read a lot is poverty and famine. Many regions in this world are habited by people who generally never even more than a square meal a day. It does not have to be Somalia or the poor famine ravaged parts of the Sahara. Take Andhra Pradesh for instance... Every year newspapers report dozens of farmers who commit suicide as a means to escape the jaws of poverty. Hunger is a terrible thing... It gnaws life slowly away from you.

Constant hunger and abject poverty leads not just to person becoming sick physically, he also tends to anarchy and to satiate his hunger, can easily become prey to the lure of easy money. Any little food that is got becomes a valuable treasure chest in these regions. However, constantly poverty and starved are constantly interchanged which is not true (despite the constant co-localization of the two) It is possible to be poor yet not starved. Many villages in India are a testimony to this. These people have enough to eat from the farms they grow. However because of the small land holding s are never going to make it up the economic ladder.

Take the whole of northern Africa for example. The place has a growing list of problems starting from Sahara to the growing AIDS problem. Whatever crops are grown, part of it must be surrendered to the various elements of nature, starting from locusts to flash foods and what is left can hardly feed a few.

Across the Atlantic, there is this other regions quite comparable to the area of the Sahara desert which dwells in excess. There is a lot of waste here. food, water, power, gas , you name it ... a third of the population overweight and a sixth obese. American life means you get to choose from 18 different type of cereals for your morning breakfast, there are those dozens of Wendy's, Subways, Taco Bells which are all waiting for orders during lunch. Starbucks, Stucchis, Tim Hortons etc waiting to serve you for the afternoon tea and all those amazing restaurants which cater to various palette and taste. Cuisine as exotic as Thai and Mongolian are pretty common in most cities.

One end of the ocean, man is forced to eat rats and other possibly any other things that he can lay his hands on. The other end, people talk about taking their cats to the dietician. Some 4000 miles and the disparity is so obvious. One thing I can be sure about US is the people here are so ignorant of the wretched condition of the people outside of the country. They tend to waste things esp food. The problem is the ignorance. Most people are so blissfully unaware of the situation outside their home... ignorant that what they waste in one evening on some meaningless occasion might have been an equivalent of food for family for two days living the midst of the civil war in Somalia.

I am not saying by not wasting you are actually going to feed them. But when you are wasting food ... remember the 500 million malnourished people who also inhabit the earth alongside you and may be next time the urge to waste food would reduce...

wither my country wither

2007-04-06T01:08:00.000-04:00

India, as per the constitution is a secular state. Of course the meaning of which means all the people are regarded as the same in front of the law or the government or such and that no discrimination would be made with respect to the same. However, India is far from a democratic country in a true sense.

This reminds me of proposal 2 in the state of Michigan. Even in the United States, the concept of reservation exists albeit in a more fruitful sense. Proponents for and against this proposal will be aghast on hearing what I face back home. Let me give you a background

India for centuries has had a caste system. Initially, this was set up a method of classifying people into one of the four kinds, Brahmins or the people who are learned and can interpret the law, the ksathriya or the ruling class and warriors, the vaishyas or the merchant class and the shudras or the rest of the people (farmers, blacksmiths and others) The concept of casteism had it roots when people observed it was easy to pass on knowledge of their trade to their own sons and daughters more than to a third person. However, it was fine to migrate from one class to another. But then, this system was misused and abused a lot and shudra class became more or less wretched both socially and sometimes even economically. Then the british came and soon independence was got. However, the stigma of the society casteism and its allied evils was struck. When India got independence, the great leaders of that time wanted to fix this disparity and hence out of the many suggestion that were to ease the transition of the socially ostracized people into normal people in the society and to reap the benefits of democracy the idea of caste based reservation was proposed whereby some percentage of seats were reserved for those who were socially backward. Imagine a student who is say a farmer's son with a lot of interest and skill works hard and wants to make a decent living as a engineer or a doctor. However, all things considered, the guy is actually studying under a streetlamp some worn out dog eared shabby textbook and can possibly never compete with a equally studious city guy who has possibly the luxury of his own study room and all the related materials in this area and possibly the best possible teacher. No they are not in equal footing. This was why the concept of reservation was announced. So even if the farmer's son were not to get the highest marks, he did have the potential which meant that once the city guy and the villager are given equal footing, both of them would perform equally well. at least that is what is in theory...

So how does the reservation work. India is now divided into various caste based on 1931 (and still continued today) census. There are the forward class (mostly the brahmins and some others), the backward class, the most backward class, the other backward class, the scheduled caste and the scheduled tribe (phew !!)... this was supposed to be categorized as per how underprivileged they had been and how backward they have been with respect to the society in general. For example, if there were a tribe in the Andamans, it is most likely that they are not that well advanced in the society as say a farm worker in Tamil Nadu. So the first line of polarisation comes in the definition of the se castes. Who belongs to which one ?

India as you might know is divided into lots of state and each state has its own reservation policy. However, the big however ... how much ? Tamil Nadu my home state has 69% reservation believe it or not...of the 100 seats available only 31 seats are based only on merit. So if a college has only 20 seats totally, only 6 seats are there for merit. Continuing the previous story, let us assume that the farmers sun and the city fella both went to the same medical school and both became successful doctors... now a generation has passed and it is the time for their kids to make career choice. Now arent they on a equal footing. But apparently not or that what the constitution of India says. The guy who father was a farmer son is entitled to reservation...
while the farmer's grandson has a share in the 69% of the seats (plus the 31% general), the city fella's son has to slog his way to make it to the 6 seats that is allowed on open competition. In a country with a population of a billion people it becomes significant. Let me take for example, the computer science engg in Anna University. There are say around 80 seats for which around 150,000 students compete each year. In which only 24 seats can be aspired by the city fella's sun. Lemme assume that the farmer belongs to the scheduled caste, then the grandson has around 30 seats to contend with, 24 in the general category and 8 in which he is pitted against two kinds 1) people whose fathers where like his, moved into the city and bought up in wealth and comfort and 2) poor farmers' sons (as his father had been). Now look at the whole concept of reservation by case 2, the fellow whose father is a farmer vs a fellow whose grandfather is a farmer. Obv, the fellow whose father is a farmer is unable to compete with the latter (because of his background) and hence will not be able to achieve his dream (which is incidentally blocked by someone of his own caste) and hence might as well have to go back to his farm.

On the other hand, the farmer's grandson has a more easy life. In general, he does not have to work hard to achieve success. He can merely play his caste card and get off more easily than his classmates who are unfortunately forward caste.

Everyone knows that the reservation policy implemented as such will never uplift the downtrodden who actually need help. It will benefit those who do not need the boost whereby losing the motive behind the process. However, the way the present rulers see it is bring more reservations to compensate for it. What good will it do ? There are more than a dozen reasons on why reservations at its current scenario would never work ... that was just one of them...

I am growing sick of this blatant abuse of state by the set of ass licking power mongers who have been ruling the state and the country. A senseless bunch of idiots, everyone of those who are in power and in opposition whose parochial nature of looking at things (read holding power) means that they really cant think beyond vote-bank politics as a yardstick for their political activities. They can never remove the stigma of backward caste (nor do they want to) and remove the evils of the society. India is perhaps the only country where people would voluntarily prefer to be a backward class. It reaps lots of benefits. Not a single soul in the entire political system has the guts to point out errors in this flawed system, for if they do they are soon excommunicated from the political fraternity. Where is democracy and sensible leaders ? Wither my country Wither ... For despite all the progress that is made, the actual story is all hushed up ...

The two hours of solitude

2007-04-01T18:29:00.000-04:00

It was a great weather today. I had no work. I decided I will spend the afternoon outside. Took a couple of pics of the ducks after which I took out Githa Hariharan's Ghost of Vasu Master and decide to enjoy the sun and read the book basking in the glorious sun. Hardly had a flipped a couple of pages, there was this irresistible urge to book the down and sit in the bench overlooking the lake without doing a thing and thats what I did.

Perhaps the biggest bane of science is that it confines man to the four walls. Ever since I came to Michigan (and even before that) I had this addiction. I needed to check my mail perhaps every ten minutes. This resulted in me spending my entire stay till now in Michigan in the artificial illumination of the tungsten coil. There were always some excuse. lab work, did not sleep last night (very common one during weekend), a good movie or simply chatting with someone. I simply could not pull myself to saying I am actually pretty jobless now that I can afford stay watching the idyllic scene outside of home. So today I was, the Githa Hariharan tossed aside, watching the ducks move aimlessly in the pond. The more I thought, more I felt about the degrading life of the men today.

Who has the time to sit out, completely unconcerned about tommorow, doing nothing except gaze at the ripples in the water. No ! Man simply must keep worrying. In my case, I have to worry about my rotation, my research work, my life and what not. Suddenly as I watched the couple of geese jealously guarding their nest, the movement of kinesin in the microtubule seemed insignificant. As I approached the nest, the father goose shrieked loudly and adopted a stature of "come closer and I will bite you" so I went back and sat on a desk nearby with my entire attention on the pair. A while later, a woman carrying a baby accidentally strayed closer and the father goose actually flew in an aggressive mode towards the woman and when she retreated, it went back and snarled at her.

Watching them made me realize how many years have passed when I had last spent my time like this. Unconcerned about the supposed greater responsibilities in life with all the time in the world to do what I wanted to do, to spend time breathing fresh air.I looked around the lake and saw two kids throwing stones onto the water... I was too like that, but soon the societal pressure makes you one who cant leave the comfort of the four walls and enjoy the nature.The first drops of rain fell, the kids continued to throw stone, unconsciously I smiled, I never felt much better in my life in the recent past

support for capitalism

2007-03-27T17:23:00.000-04:00

I was told by C. that I have strong viewpoints and that I have either agree or disagree but never the middle path. I agree ... another issue

Coming from a socialist country, it would be suprising that I follow a capitalistic view. This has nothing to do with the fact that I am now in US of A. I think a capitalistic economy in a long run is beneficial to people. Yet capitalism must be suplemented with free democracy to reach this effect. Capitalism mixed with neo-darwinistic ideals (the so called social darwinism) is perhaps one of the most flawed theories possible.

I will write more on the former. Capitalism and democracy are not the best of theories that are circulating around. In fact for a utopian world, communism would do better. However, we must bring into consideration that communism is never a practical ideology. There is always going to be power which is concentrated on the hands of few guys sitting on top of the ladder (Not that I say in a democracy the power is distributed to each and every man (though theoretically it is, not practically) but compared to communism there is a broader base) lemme not get into that argument ...

Capitalism allows competition. This is I think the biggest selling point in capitalism. When one guy sells, he dictates the terms (look at Windows or Ipod) When there are dozens of them, the necessity of each companies survival depends on both the economics and the quality of its products. Economics now involves the fine balancing act between the cheapest price and the best quality. This would involve paying its workforce higher or giving better perks. (elaboration : Motivation level of workers by higher payments results in more stuff with given cost and allows better innovation due to the possibility of earning greater perks) I

Lemme give an example. Lets us assume a country in the middle of nowhere. In this country for the first time, a company say X starts producing televison sets. This company employs 200 workers. Now, if this were the only company in the region, the market base of the country would be more elite people who can actually afford the high cost of the TV sets. For them producing little of them with a huge profit margin would suffice. Now to get to the huge margin, they do not increase the pay of the workers. Now lets us say, seeing the profit margins of this company, ten others venture into the area. Now the market is not big enough to hold 11 companies. So the companies start to roll out cheaper models and cut the profit margins to expand its base to the more upper middle and middle class people. So, they cut the number in their workforce from 200 to 80. But there is this big problem faced by the company, of the 80 guys whom they thought had great hands and made the best possible TV set, 20 went to other companies to do the same job as they were paid more there. So they increase the average pay of the worker and gives perks to the better performing employee. So we see instead of 200 low earning employees, there are now 80*11=880 guys working with better pay. Now because they get better pay, they get more money to spend and they go upwards in the consumerism scale. These workers are now say in the lower middle class. They start buying say TV's themselves so as to project themselves as middle class. Now consumerism is a gigantic cycle. Since even the lower strata of the people are buying TVs, the sales goes up implying everyone in the factory is paid more (start with the company director, the manager, the worker[the upper, the middle and the lower income strata]) Being paid more implies more to spend.... and everyone benefits

thats a very rosy picture that has been painted ... but as with any theories there are quite a few problems with this ... no time for it. But my opinion is given a scale of time ... capitalism combined with democracy (did not say where this playes a role, but it does play an imprtant one_ is the way to go

The news which most of US missed

2007-03-26T20:04:00.000-04:00

With Iran top in the International Agenda and Alberto Gonzalez taking prime time in the news, most of US must have missed (or not even bothered about) LTTE air attack on Sri Lankan airbase.

It may not appear very impressive in the front page of Washington Post but it holds significant importance. I come from Tamil Nadu and though am a tam am not impressed by the wanton show of aggression. Killing can never justify any wrongdoings (am not going to comment on the social background in the battle between LTTE and Sri Lankan army, for I am neither affected by it not have seen it and all that I have heard are news items) But the killing fields do exist. There is this isolated bombings and dastardly activities which result in the death of innocent civilians.

After the IPKF came back from Sri Lanka, I think it was Major Sunderji who wrote about how one could not trust even women. One army officer had gone into a house and seeing no one save for a lone woman turned and was promptly shot by the woman who had a gun concealed. This really shows the amount of violence that has spread into the minds of people over there. Why is that people dont realize economic progress can never be achieved by throwing bombs after bombs and that too at a large casualty to civilians.

The problem with hatred is when it is passed on to the next generation is passed on without proper reason and the skewed logic twists the young gullible minds into a burning cauldron desiring for revenge over something very trivial. One might ask about the so called Indian freedom fighters who were extremist. I would say the same logic applies to them too. If a person kills an innocent citizen irrespective of come what may, he should be condemned. The problem with the world is more and more people are increasingly drawn to a world where gore is fancied and blood is sought. A kid is bought up in the world where violence is glorified and rapists, murderers and serial killers share front page with the Pope, Abe Lincoln and Gandhi.
Which brings us back to where we started, the LTTE air force in their first air strike kills 3 soldiers. The ravages of war...

"It is a measure to protect Tamil civilians from the genocidal aerial bombardments by Sri Lankan armed forces. More attacks of the same nature will follow," said the rebels' military spokesman, Rasiah Ilanthirayan. - BBC

Despite the Solhiem efforts and Norway abetting in the peace process, this politically fragile regions seems more and more thrusted into war. The supposed ceasefire does not seem working. 4000 people killed in the past 15 months is no small figure. Add that to the million or so people who are displaced from their home. The scores of people crying out for peace, those who have lived their whole lives without a day of not seeing a death from a bullet, those who have to abandon any dreams of going to a school just because they were born in the place where schools are torn down due to the ravages of war... why cant you Mr. Prabakaran and Mr. Rajakapse see the fear in the eyes of innocent people who cant help but pray for a better place f not a land of milk and honey at least that where they need not have to duck and dodge the bullet for the rest of their lives.

I am talking just about this 25000 square mile island, the situation is no different or even worse in many other parts of the world. Humanity needs to emphasize more on pacifism. In the past 10000 years in history, there has only been around 300 years without a war, statistically insignificant. Where in this sanguineous world will one find the placidness the perhaps utopian dream that exists in the mind of any pacifist.

the WoW science

2007-03-23T08:11:00.000-04:00

Lets admit it ... there is 'wow' science and there is 'oh' science. The former is the one which when said to an mandarin in another field (say a life scientist is talking to a physicist... both are intellects however in their narrow niche) induces a wow in them. Take the case given above, life scientist talking to a physicist, says "I am doing cloning" or "I am looking at extinction patterns in apatosaurs, a type of dinosaur which lived 100 million years ago" will induce a "omigod" feeling in the other person.

The physicist on the other hand can induce an even greater wow effect by using terminologies like "coupled differential equations", "femtosecond energy transfer", "black holes" and others. While the former gives the "sci-fi" effect, the latter introduces the "nerd" effect. These are two ways of inducing the wow effect. Being in biophysics program, I have this unique perspective by which I can understand some physics and some biology and am actually "supposed" to be in the "cutting edge" of both.

Lemme give you an example. I was talking to this chap who is in the engg school and lives nearby. I was telling him my work involved looking at transport of proteins in cell. This provoked a 'oh-okies' reaction. I realized I hadnt sold myself well and I need to really sell my work and the best way to do it was to introduce the 'wow' effect.He, then asked me what the physics in biophysics was. This was my opportunity. I said we study optics, stat mechanics and (then the killer word) quantum physics. This really excited him . But I wasnt done. He was like wow and wondered what was the use of quantum. I seized the opportunity and said that in my previous lab I had worked on "single molecule femtosecond pump probe spectroscopy to measure electron transfer in biological molecules such as pigments in the eye" This will introduces the "WOW"

In fact most sciences if sold properly does introduce the "wow" effect. It only depends on the storyteller. I had earlier said about the 'wows' of life scientist. Let me say decouple it into simpler language.

"I do cloning"
This is the work that is published in a million papers over the past 15 years. Almost any lab that handles the simple bacteria "E-Coli" does cloning. Cloning is anything hi fundu like what is potrayed in the movies. Cloning simply refers to putting a piece of DNA (which can be purchased from any of a hundred companies for a few dollars) into a bacteria, a process that will take half an hour of lab work and leaving the bacteria to grow for a day. It is just a hype.

"I am looking at extinction patterns in apatosaurs, a type of dinosaur which lived 100 million years ago"
This simply means I am going to Arizona and dusting the sands over there to see if I can spot a bone.

Same applies for physics. Trust me, 99.99% of the scientist are no way even close to the kind of scientific research that is depicted in hollywood or in fiction.

But still it is neat specially for a graduate student like me when speaking to old friends who are now in business schools to portray such intellectual superiority after all this is the only way we can respond to the wow caused by the money earned by them

Number of Sxixers this world cup

2007-03-20T17:14:00.000-04:00

the statistician in me made me do this ... there might be some minor errors but overall the picture is clear

West Indies vs Pakistan 7+2 =9
Aus Vs Scots 9+0=9
Canada Vs Kenya 2+2=4
Sri Lanka vs Bermuda 3+2=5
Ireland vs Zim 2+1=3
Eng vs Kiwis 2+1=3
South Africa vs Neth 18+1=19
India vs Bangladesh 1+5 = 6 (shame on India)
Pakistan vs Ireland 0+2=2
Aus vs Nether 13+2=15
Eng vs Canada 3+4 = 7
India vs Bermud 18+2=20
Zim vs WI 1+6=7
Scotland vs SA 3+4=7
New Zealand vs Kenya 11+4=15

131 sixers in 15 matches close to 9 sixers every match .... Only two innings, one by Pakistan (vs Ireland) and Scots against the Aussies have gone w/o a sixer...

Very Interestingly only English did not follow the rule of the thumb that the winners hit more sixers.In the match Eng vs Canada, the latter notched up one more than the later and there was of course the other Eng vs the kiwis where they scored more sixers only to end up in the losing side.

Teams and Sixers
Team For Against

Australia 22 2 ... consistent and clearly the world champs
NEtherlands 3 31
Scotland 3 13
South Africa 22 4 ... why these guys are good
Bangladesh 6 1
Bermuda 4 21
Sri Lanka 3 2
India 19 7.... not very impressive considering the sixers given
Canada 6 5
England 5 5
Kenya 6 13
NZ 12 6
Ireland 4 1
WI 13 3
Pak 2 9... a shadow of their form
Zimb 2 7

Indian Cricket Team

2007-03-17T22:07:00.000-04:00

First things first, I did not see even a single ball ... however having seen Indian cricket for quite sometime it seems quite predictable. It was amazing, two teams , India and Pakistan trying to beat each other to be mediocre at the best. Lemme just look at the Indian team ... there is more than enough to complain on Indian team let alone my neighboring one.

On paper, Indian team would be one of the dream team, a team which any coach would like. Tendulkar, a guy who requires no introduction and has no parallels, a wall like Dravid, an explosive batsman like Sehwag and of course the in form Dada making a comeback. With a roster like tht, Yuvraj Raj looks mediocre despite being a meritorious player. Looking carefully, you would notice something, no bowlers mentionned. Bhajji is of course perhaps one exception who should have been there. However despite the Munaf Patels and Zaheer Khans, India sadly has no good pace bowlers (by good bowlers I mean deadly enough)

This is perhaps more because of the public perception, Indians perfer guys who can hit boundaries and are not very appreciative of bowlers at least not speedsters. Ask someone around whom would you prefer, the pinch-hitter Dhoni or the warrior Kumble, most would say Dhoni despite Kumble being a better cricketer. Kumble will rarely be remembered for the number of wickets he gets, only way people think of him is the wipe-out of the Pakistan team in Ferozshah. Selfless cricketer, he would be would be way ahead of others. So Indian team is often lopsided in its bowling.

Bowlers may come and bowlers may go, but the top order will go on foreever!!

/* any bowler refers to people in indian team except harbajhan */
Indians dont have a consistent medium pacer bowler since Srinath. Indian bowlers in these days if they perform one day are proclaimed great. There is no consistency in any Indian bowler. So if there is a batting failure, the bowlers cant do a thing. The bowling attack of India is spineless. Look at the trio of Kapil Dev, Madan Lal and Roger Binny with Zaheer, Sreesanth and Munaf Patel... sad to say no one near comparison. There should at least be one threatening guy and others proper enough to support him. Restricting Windies with a total of a 180 and odd runs in the 1983 may have been quite an isolated incident, but I think the bite of the pace was there.

I think that was not the only case. The Indians take every opposition as if there are Aussies or South Africa. Look at how South Africa took on Holland, no respect or mercy. Indians are pretty much incapable of it. Lemme quote Dravid after the match,"Their bowlers kept it really tight and they didn't let us get away." Pure nonsense !! If Dravid thinks Bangladesh bowlers to be tight, then how the heck does he expect to "get away" while facing the Aussies. I dont think it is the best thing a guy who probably more has runs than the whole of the Bangladesh team can say. Does Dravid mean that while lowly rated Bangladeshis have bowlers who have exceptional talent of threatening probably one of the 'best' batting team while India, which all its pomp and ado and claims about winning the world cup cannot threatening three teenagers who with all probability would be asking their opposition for autographs after the match. Bull !!

The sad truth is that despite all this, I think India would win the next two matches and would most likely go into the next round. There would be a loud applause for the 'brilliance' of the men in blue and centuries scored by the top order will go into the record books but the basic defects in the system would only be patched and never rectified... As a disillusioned Indian fan for nearly 15 years now, all I can say is

"...my Father, let my country awake..."

more random thoughts

2007-03-12T23:55:00.000-04:00

My thoughts must be closest thing to randomness in this universe !!!

In anycase many people seem to misunderstand the purpose of education be it a school degree or undergrad or even grad level ones. There is this school of thought that the purpose of education is to find a man suitable for a job. I beg to differ....

My Philosophy
I think the way education should be looked at is to find a job suitable for a man. There is whole whale of a difference between the two. I mean the purpose of education is to make a person realize himself better. I should teach him what he is good at and what he likes doing. That is pretty much important. Education, I think is not restricted to what you learn in ur degree. I mean for a grad student (by grad students, of course I mean the ubiquitous phd guys) should not be just his work, in my field, science 24hrs ("I walk science, I talk science, I sleep science"
) It should be a passion for the field nevertheless does not mean it should restrict him only to it. It should make him a complete man (forgive my chauvinistic bias) A good student should not only restrict himself to the courses and lectures and work, he should also have more interest which are not exactly career based. I mean there is no point saying I am doing single molecule studies for my phd and in the free time I do some bioinformatics stuff for some company. It is necessary to develop at least another altogether different activity as a hobby and
to devote sometime to it. What is the point in saying I go to school at 8 in the morn, work at school till 6 and then reach home, do my homework and do some extra reading on my work and sleep at 11 and the itenary continues day after day. No ... That is too robotic. I mean there is no point in education if it builds a robot out of a man. I have been through such a rigor and I perfectly think (in a retrospect) that it is a great thing, the outside world would think your close to God, you are the invincible guy and the big shot of the class... but I personally think it is really not worth it.

Of course, by being so (workaholic) you get a lot of career benefits. In the present academic world which cruelly and perhaps disturbingly measures success by means of ranks in school level, GPA in undergrad level and number of papers in grad level, this really gives a huge boost. You might be the toast of the school/department/PI. But what about yourself... I think you would miss the whole world outside you by confining yourself to the small space that you have drawn around yourself in the name of academics. There is a dozen beauty to enjoy outside. You just need to step outside. Be it a fresh snow near the pond or the flock of ducks which sail above my apartment everyday or even the smile of that random kid who travels when I go to work, it is priceless and that is just the first level. There is more, the good parties with friends, those random junkets around Ann Arbor or the passion for music or any of the myriad little things done in the other hours I regard more than my science.

Afterall, whether what I can do in science is more to satisfy curiosity and not happiness !!!

nothing to say

2007-03-07T17:59:00.000-05:00

I sit in front of the blogger for half an hour and yet nothing productive turns out ... Need of imagination

Down the skool times... Opening up my memory ... Part 1 : Primary Skool

2007-03-05T20:19:00.000-05:00

I basically have no idea of what I did in kindergarten ... vague recollection of Vivek jain in my class and my grandma coming over to pick me up ... I also remember I got the 2nd prize, a small book which stills lies with my other trophies ...

Then I changed school... my haven for the next 12 years, a part of me that will remain indelible... wherever I go I am a Vanavanian ... I still remember my first day at school ... I had this notorious forgetfulness (which still remains) and I distinctly remember the first day I went to school, I left behind my bag... I remember my first annual day at Vana Vani when I told me parents you will see me on stage getting a prize the next year... (my sister I think got a prize for being 2nd in class and I think this prompted me to make this statement)... I think I had to wait for couple of more years before I actually got it. I remember couple of my teachers... Some people you can never forget ... Prema mam, Margret mam, Alphonse mam... I particularly remember an incident when I got slapped red hard for making too much of din after the games hour. There was also this hindi teacher, Annapoorni mam who also taught me till I think 5th standard. Our arts teacher was Jabamani (I think thats how it is spelt though am not sure) who was another nice teacher. Noori mam (aka Shaukat Ali mam) was the games teacher who was at first daunting and then turned out to be a gem of a person... I dont remember much of my classmates from 1st ... I think Madhu Raj Putra was one of them...I still remember another friend of mine Cheechu and in the frog race the two of us finished last ... (Proudly)

Then 2nd standard was slisha different ... I was in class 2c ... and it was here I met Abhi, the good friend of mine since then ... I remember Abhi, Raja Prabhu and Absin... I am able to recollect our lunch time ... Abhi with his curd rice and lemon pickle and I with curd and mango pickle ... ah ... days of innocence ... (Suprising thing was even Abhi was not a KD then [;-)] ). It was either in first or second did I first start of my general knowledge quest...not much materialised in 2nd ... Another detail I remember is that my class teacher name was Viji mam... (She still remembers me. When I was leaving to the US, I went back to school. She felt I hadnt changed an iota and advised me to say gayathri japam everyday)... 3rd grade got my interest in math ... Kanthimathi mam used to give us stars for working out a problem right and the impetus to get more and more stars prompted us to enjoy math ... I think it was in 2nd or 3rd we started playing cricket with palm bats and palm seeds as balls... interesting cos I remember in some match I got some 100 or something and abhi got some 200 and the way we were going we should have broken Tendalya and Kambli ... it used to be fun ... 4th and 5th standard I dont remember much ... I remember Alzebra and my first taste of history and geography something that will obsess me for the next 8 years.
I remember Punithavathy mam taking maths for us and I also remember these classes actually resulted in my interest for sciences ( I remember Sivapackiam mam took science for us . She is now the primary school head)probably the very reason why I have ended up in grad skool... hey wait ... I remember this other fact there were three Vijaykumars in my 3rd std which used to be cause of confusion for the rest of us... (I think the initials were G,K and M) Cant think of who else was there in my class... I think Abhi and I were separated and put into different sections I am not sure when cos we were found constantly talking to each other. I still remember my 5th class cos I that was the last time volunteered to do something ... like speak in the assembly and read news in the assembly and so on ... never again will I do that voluntarily ... (I did do it a couple of times and those were cos I was forced to do so)... hmm wait there was this others there too whom I forgot to mention. Aravind, I think this tall girl whose I think was Prabha and of course Hemanth Koushik (the "guy" who knew all things), Prasanna and Nisha Prem, I remember Shylaja though cant really put when she came into the picture...I remember Parimala mam asking me to borrow notes from Madhu who was the stud from 3A. Was talking to Sriram yesterday ... he apparently joined in 4th but really came to know him only from middle school and more in high school.

Of course I remember Durga mam and how I started appreciating poetry ... started off with Daffodils and Wordsworth in 4th or 5th. I cant really pass off my primary without mentioning my tryst with quizzing. I was a finalist in Maggi Quiz competition which was a big thing in the school. That really did boost my standing with the teachers. I won a Hotshot camera and a lot of maggi packets ( I remember complaining cos I dont like Maggi) , but that firmly established my hold in quizzing community of college.

Couple of people whom I must mention during these days who did not take classes for me butleft a lasting impression. First of the three, was this tamil sir who used to come in a TVS50 with some 3 kids and used to constantly stare and scold us. I forgot his name.The then head of primary school, Vatsala mam who always looked authoritive and had a great influence on me. Last but one of my favorite teacher, Jayalakshmi mam who was such a sweet teacher.She has this smiling face and always reminds me of optimism in things.

I cant thank all the teachers who taught me enough. This is the first of the many part blogs intended to do some soul searching and find all those were wwith me all through my school life...

What I dont get in the US ...

2007-03-05T19:34:00.000-05:00

I miss home for this one reason. At home, I had this wonderful gift... whenever i lie down I sleep ... irrespective of anyother outside condition. I would think the same is not here cos I feel strange about the eerie silence that is generally seen in my place. I need the noisy India to be happy... It gives me a strange kind of warmth which Uncle Sam is not able to provide me. There is some kind of bond, something which I had talked about earlier which is there in India but not there in the US.

I miss quite a bit of things... I miss my daily temple visits... I miss the friendly next door shopkeepers ... I miss my bike... I miss that crowded 21L bus in which I used to travel to college... I miss street cricket ...I miss all those things which superficially might apprear trivial...

I still remember the times we used to play hide and seek with my cousins... cricket with random guys whom I have never before met in my life... close friends ... all those childish behaviour... all those feuds ...coming to think about it ... the then proud and now a trivial achievement. Still remember I think in my 7th grade, we really felt a great deal when Mrs. Chandra Rajaram our then english teacher thought our bench had a great deal of work... It looked a landmark then ... recollecting those innocent bygone days make me wonder would I think about my grad life wen I am perhaps at the half century mark ... I still remember the day when there used to competition for who gets maximum number of stars in the maths notebook ... this was in my third grade... I remember I got 2nd max number I think around 80 or so and my best pal Abhi (One great fella who has struck with me all life till now) got a few more than me... I still remember the way Punithavathy mam introduced Alzebra to us in our fourth grade ... brings smiles into my life... All those days in the geography room where we used to have all the friendly discussions with Shanta mam and Brinda mam over the lunch period ... Still remember Thylambal mam taking history in middle skool... Sriranjini mam chemistry ... Man those were the golden days ... hmm while writing about it i think i will write a blog on memory down my skool time ...

Grad Student

2007-03-05T03:49:00.000-05:00

THE VEERASAMY POST IS BELOW

It is quite an inspiration to all those who are thinking about grad studies and by that I mean PhD. Not an easy thing not at all let me assure you that.

I am now a grad student for the lemme think yeah just a year but that is the way it is ... Never count your years in grad skool. It is one of the most unproductive times in the life.... The pay is not great the working hours are long (by working hours I mean time spent in the lab and any thought that is remotely academic) and the hazards of work are even greater thant those suffered by guys working in the asbestos factory. I mean you will influence everyone around you in a very negative way.

Think of it. Normal conversation with amma ( I mean my mom and not Amma)

Amma : Ennna da ... nalla saparaya ? enna vella velllikku thungaraya ? Romba tv parkadey
Me: Nee tension ahadey ... only media I see I see is LB... hee hee (LB is the media for growing bacteria)...

Of course my mom has left me to my antics long ago .. AVK (avuthu vetta kazudhey) She knows that there is no way she can cure the craziness for that is a part of my life... (am not sure about arts grad guys... are they also like this ?) Of course my craziness is at its peak when conversing with friends and co workers ... I was telling my roomie also a grad student on how our home is like a cell and we spent the next half an hour trying to make different parts of the cell and then further drew a diagram of it in the board to make things clear and further discussed it with a mutual friend (also a grad student) on the feasibility of it and made an analysis of the whole thing....

Life to an outsider might look meaningless ... If I talk with any of my former undergrad classmates (most of whom are doing their phd) topic somehow always veers to the research ... in some case it is mild.( as in how is TA, how is lab ,,, enna work and so on) and in some case can result in a full fledged discussion lasting for hours...(samples vary... it can be how neandherthal DNA varies from homo sapiens to membrane potential to IISc condensed matter physics department).. Even jokes are acad oriented ... consider this ... This was one of the most hilarious one to a guy in the life sciences ... "If I were an enzyme I'd be DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes."... to a normal guy this would make no sense...

See ... never get an impression of a guy with specs and lab coat and working with different colored chemicals, four and twenty hours a day and has no personal life save for the occasional old boys blackboard discussion on meaningless equations writtern all over the board... bull that is the hollywood science guy for you... though am sure all the PI wish students are like that... there are no longer scientist who know all out everything from rockets to polar life forms to ubiquitin.... Mostly you will find researchers who work on the effect of a drug on the intracellular protein in the metaphase state... a possible goobbledygook ... but should convey the meaning ... it is too specialized... Nopes ... all of us do have personal life ... however the problem is the personal life is mixed with acadamic life ... I got a rubik cube as a present for my sister's son who is one year old... my sister was puzzled... she was like it says 8 years onwards and why now ... I felt a bit embarassed when I said the reason ... see now he will play with the colors outside the rubik cube and then once he grows up he will try solving it ... that is the way a grad student thinks ...

Yeah we have parties ... we go out ... in fact most of the time we ooru sottify only ... however there is always an acadamic tinge to whole thing... no no we donot visit museums and science fairs and stuff like that... I mean when we go to a beach instead of saying enjoying the sunshine typical response would be I am trying to synthesize calciferol ....and in fact we actually look at all the food preservatives that are added to canned food and see if it is fine to use the way per se in the cans or use fresh water... I have gone to temples to get the mud under the temple lamps for isolating lipase producing fungus... We have fun ... but a different fun... In a sense an unique kinda fun ...

Veerasamy

2007-03-02T22:16:00.000-05:00

Much has been discussed. I am not going to write about the story line... there are extensive blogs I would particularly refer to pravunplugged and dandanaka both at blogspot for more exclusively on the story, the former if you want the overall view of the story with some amazing description and the latter which is an extensive 8 post treatise on the subject( Hats of to you guys) ... but yes I need to publish my views too. One word ... SUCCESS

Who cares about the Lagaan or Rang De Basanthi... if India needs a Oscar winner, it needs to send Veerasamy to the big show. The movie is a definite oscar winner. apart from TR's amazing acting and all the brilliant storyline, of course only one oscar can be given to the movie, it has to go the cameraman (which was perhaps the only role TR could not do) I know the choice is a controversial cos TR cud have got for being the best director or best producer or best music director/composer(omigod... I am sure the most memorable song of the decade is "Vechiiken na Vechirekaen...)or best actor or dialogue and story writer (who else can think of name of heroine as "Salt Kottai Sarasu") , the PR man, tea boy or of course as the only one who perhaps struck the VEERASAMY poster all over the town.

My case... Imagine to capture TR and Mumtaz in a single shot and tht too in a duet... I think it is pure genius. Of course all the hardships of putting two elephants into one close frame will give any famed National Geographic photographer the nightmares... but look at this ... am impressed...

Of course I know the buffalo is no match for Thalai or for that matter Mumtaz herself... and speaking of buffaloes reminds me of the most referred part in the movie... mumtaz and TR in a tub filled with milk reminds me of two buffaloes... rumors has it that TR was actually highly influenced by watching buffaloes sunbathing under the sun in Coovum and in fact wanted the scene to be in Coovum... but because the Corporation of Chennai was so much into its Singara Chennai project ... the could not further
contamination of the already dead river. In any case this is another of Thalai's amazing imagination. I think this really parallels another movie (am not sure which one and please brace yourself ) in which TR is dressed as a butterfly and the heroine is the flower... now that is imagination for you. Back to the subject of the cameraman ... I think the most convincing argument, he was the guy who had to take all the closeup of TR with a sleeveless and anyone who has seen TR in the sleeveless would agree that the cameraman must have been a masochist.

Highlights of the movie includes Meghna Naidu who has to for some unknown reasons (TR's wisdom) fall in love with Aziz. O man, this chap can be the next great comedian... forget Vivek or Senthil/Kounder or even the great Nagesh... you just need to see him for you to start laughing and the movement he opens his mouth to profess his love to Shiela (the other debutant apart from Aziz), a dead man can come back to life... Another issue in grapevine
search for Arun(the character eventually played by Aziz) was real hard. TR had to search for a brain dead person who had to say no to Meghna Naidu and instead fall for TR sister who was by then infested with lice and rabies (being TR sis is not a easy job)... Of course Mumtaz had to balance a thin line between glamour (aka revealing navel) and not showing off her extra 600 pounds in the midsection... That really needed talent... and she pulled it off amazingly well... maybe because in most scenes she is kinda dwarfed by the gigantic pressence of TR. Other noteworthy roles are by "Rouse Rani", of course Santhanam and his camera, the minister who decides to dance in his undraayar ( I personally think that was the only more cheri dance then wat thalai can perform)...One of the best fights, suprise surprise did not involve TR, instead was between Meghna Naidu and Shiela and when Aziz comes to stop it, he looks amazingly funny, a feeling that cannot be described

For those who love details... the rare closeup shot(the most challenging foto) of thalai reveals his hair is actually combed... rather mowed and dyed. This was supposed to be the most expensive shot in the whole history of tamil films... 10 loggers from Amazon basin, world foremost pathologists were all hired for this operation and around 100 liters of dye was actually used to get that brown tint in the hair.

The only disappointment in the movie I think is despite TR being a lawyer, there are no courtroom dialogues for which the vintage TR is best remembered. But the pechu thiramai of TR is classicaly revealed in the scene between TR and the minister/RouseRani in Rouse Rani's bedroom. Too memorable....

Too much Ramblings ... need to find something else to write on ...

Times Change, People Change

2007-02-11T00:22:00.000-05:00

An often written topic ... I feel I need to write about it. Yesterday to be precise I was chatting with this old friend of mine S. She was my classmate I think from 6th grade or something. We were not greatest of friends yet yeah we knew each other.

I was an introvert those days ... (maybe even now, I can hear "What ?" everywhere, yeah but that was true.) Never used to talk much. Kept pretty much to a closed group of friends. I was more the studious type and what I knew was pretty much confined to school,my IIT class, home and the occasional random quizzes I used to attend.( before u can dream about it, lemme get one thing straight I am not a topper, never topped in my entire life. I read but do not study)

Talking to S made me realize how much of school life I had missed. I do not have much contact now with people from my school. I have forgotten a lot of names save for those on orkut. The other day (I mean 4 years ago, when I was barely a year out of school) I met this classmate of mine in the train and I had forgotten her name and I had to continue (much to my personal embarrassment) the entire conversation for an hour without reffering to her by her name. A very similar incident happened I think in third year of my undergrad when this other friend of mine, N dropped in at College and I could not then remember her name. She saw my predicament and was like "you forgot my name right ?" I had to wriggle out of it.

Chatting with S. really made me feel so bad. I had never talked in length to her at school as far as my memory can strech about things like I did today.I knew her well alright. She was a very enthu person who involved herself in a lot of activity. She was the Cultural Sec (or was it the magazine sec ? )Yeah I do remember the Gujarat Relief Fund and a few such things but not really much. Pretty sad how little I participated in class activity. I was given the post of the assistant school pupil leader and I very magnanimously rejected it ... Do not ask me why now ? But the reason I did it then was I thought I had to study for my IIT.

I do not regret the desicion much or nor do I regret dwelving into the books too much in my younger days. Those were what tht made wht I am 2day. Maybe I should have spent a wee bit more time interacting the people around me... get to know them better

after a long time

2007-01-22T17:07:00.000-05:00

hmm ... busy days these and am not able to visit these pages quite often. In any case, thought it was high time I wrote a blog (esp to all those faithful readers, think it is two of them)

I love to visit temples. Been a passion all through my life. I belong to this sect of Hinduism called vaishnavism. This branch there are 108 holy temples, the beauty presiding deities of which have been sung as hymns by a group of poet-saints called Alwars. This compilations of the hymns is called Naalaayira Divya Prabandham. These are considered to be equal to the vedas.

Now, of the 108 temples, two are supposed to be exist "in a spiritual realm",(I quote wiki directly... no other elegant way to describe it) and the rest are scattered mostly around Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Besides these two states there are 10 in the rest of India(which includes the Thirupati,Ayodhya,Mathura and Dwaraka) and 1 in Nepal, namely Saligram. Madras and its suburbs have nearly six of them.

The sad part is many of these are in a state of neglect and badly need repair. Some are located in the midst of forests and not approachable easily. While others are amazingly well off with Thirupathi being the second most visited religious place in the world after the Vatican. In many of these old temples, there are elegant work of art which remain sadly unnoticed. I have been to temples where most of these elegant paintings and sculptures are slowly being ravaged by the passage of time. In many temples there is no electricity and many of them have the same priests.

I have had many memorable experiences in these junkets. Be it the 11km walk upto Tirumala, or the beauty of the early morning suprabatham seva at Oppliappan kovil or the caves in Thirumeyam or the simply the brilliant chakrapongal of Parasarathy temple in Chennai, some of my most treasured memories will be in these places. They remind me constantly of the simple joys in life. The sheer enthusiasm of the crowd in Thirumala, the tamarind tree at Alwar thirunagari or the serene face of the varadaraja at kanchipuram, it is worth going to all these places.

Waiting to go to India to embark on another roadtrip. anyone coming ?

suprised

2007-01-07T23:17:00.000-05:00

am supposed to be one of those guys who has worn the roads of the internet by travelling through it so much ... yet am constantly suprised by the amazing things that it can do ... I had long wanted to here some old MS songs and that was a pleasant suprise I not only got that I also got a huge treasure trove of old classics ... simply amazing

more thoughts

2006-12-31T05:22:00.000-05:00

thats wat happens when you are pretty much jobless on a sunday morn 4 o clock and you watch the execution of a man ...

This one is on pacifism. I had the adage, an eye for an eye. (lemme make things clear) This is in response to Saddam's execution. Yeah right, Saddam was a dictator who had killed the kurds, led his country to war on more than one occasion., led an oppresive regime which persecuted many. True, but does that justify his execution, I think sadly not. Forget the political motives, the supposed oil and all that. It is plain that different people are treated differently.

I mean look at the differntial treatment of Pinochet and Saddam. Pinochet had no qualms addmitting to the various crimes he had committed cos he know people will support him, take for instance margret thatcher was a firm supporter of him. He had good friends everywhere. Why compare Pinochet and Saddam, take Saddam now and Saddam, 20 years ago when he was a darling of the west. Hey who cared in 83 when he massacred the kurds. Hey but today that is crime that he has commtted.

Forget all the above arguments. that is not the point I am trying to make. The point however is that depsite all the crimes that a person commits, there is no way you can put him to death. I mean yeah it is inhumane to commit a genoicide. However, the main point is if Saddam killing people is inhumane so is killing him.Is justice achieved by killing him ? Nopes !! What good does it do... does it bring back all those who are killed back to life ? No ... Those who claim that putting such a murderer to death deters others who would do such a thing are equally wrong. If that has been the case, by now there should be no thieves, no rapists and no murderers
let alone despots. No by enforcing a stringent punishment for crime never stops crime instead creates a stranger allure for doing the same. It paves way for more sophistication in crime.

Another point that I would like to bring forward is the mordern czars of industries are equally responsible for crimes, may not be in a direct sense,however in a more indirect way, they are responsible for crimes too and in the name of globalization they arent punished. Let me give couple of examples, the bhopal gas tragedy, still no justice to the victims, these guys too killed people yet they are not in the same league as Saddam. Why ??

Another and even more serious contender would be the Coca-Cola company. The company is alleged to have hired mercenaries to kill union leaders in various locations around the world. And let me quote directly from wiki

"

In January 2004, the New York City Fact-Finding Delegation on Coca-Cola in Colombia confirmed the workers' allegations. They found:

To date, there have been a total of 179 major human rights violations of Coca-Cola's workers, including nine murders. Family members of union activists have been abducted and tortured. Union members have been fired for attending union meetings. The company has pressured workers to resign their union membership and contractual rights, and fired workers who refused to do so.

Most troubling to the delegation were the persistent allegations that paramilitary violence against workers was done with the knowledge of and likely under the direction of company managers. The physical access that paramilitaries have had to Coca-Cola bottling plants is impossible without company knowledge and/or tacit approval....

"

These are but two instances where perpetrators of the crime would never receive punishments. "Justice" has never been a fair word in the world. I doubt if it would ever be

The madness in the place around me

2006-12-31T02:54:00.000-05:00

Much as I appreciate Uncle Sam in a lot of ways. I think grad education is great, the way the road system is organized, the general cleanliness and many more things. But there are something not so great about this place.

1. lack of emotional attachment
I dont know, this was more a feeling that I felt the most here. Hmm, people are friendly but very formal. I am not sure if I need a polite "good day" every day... hell back in India, relationships were very personal. There is some warmth in the way you speak to someone you know which I feel is missing here. I am not sure if it something which is just what I feel or if it is a general thing

2. Credit Credit Everywhere and Not a single penny to save
The way America works is through credit, mortgage and through "easy" installments. I really laugh whenever I see an add, "more you spend, more you get to save" I mean I am actually amazed by the way these things are packaged to induce more spending. In general the way these work are you buy one you get the second one at half the price (say). Now why shud I get the second one in first place except for the only fact that it is offered at half the price. Sheer Nonsense I was bought up in a traditional way of looking at my finances. I dont buy things for credit, I mean I hate the very idea that I owe someone, a more personal thing. Another reason is that it again induces you to spend more even when you cant afford it. Mortgage is a even worse concept.Having something that expensive a real pain around the neck. It gives a false sense of prosperity when you are actually in debt. "easy installment", hey u actually pay more to stay at the same place. I prefer hard cash compared to vague allure of impending saving. It might not get me very far, but I know at the end of it, am always in safe ground.

3. Insurance and Health costs

The biggest craze here is the healthcare sector. God this country seems to have every kind of illnes and every second ad in the TV is that of some pharma company trying to sell meds from "male enhacement" to "preventing cold during the day", what the heck and each of it try to sell their products as if without these drugs, the guy loses his entire life. The worse part is every drug is "clincially proven" What the heck, as a research guy, I know what statistics is and statistics is always skewed towards the viewpoint that we want to it to be. The popular cult adage "Scientific experiments results in cancer in rats" very well reflects this situation. The problem again is consumerism and good market study. I havent seen menopause being such a great "phenomena" for study. Man these people are crazy. With so much demand in the health sector, the cost obviously go up and the next market is insurance to pay for the healthcare costs.

Education is another section which I will not discuss much. I think the way american system is built is both good and bad and I have not given much thought into it. might reserve it for another blog

Whats the point in New Year

2006-12-30T18:09:00.000-05:00

hmm ... am sure not many people (most I would say) would disagree with me. I am a skeptic, a skeptic of most of the celebrations that seem to i should say plague modern times.

Hey, wats the idea in a new year, one more year the human civilization's survival ? I might sound like a pessimist,but no I feel the hype given to these is more due to globalization. Look at it, christmas season happens to be the maximum spending time for this part of the world. There is the so called christmas spirit promoted by most of the shopping malls. Now whats the point. See the idea is this, a guy has a product to sell. Now to sell it, he needs a good marketing strategy. Normally he sells 100 of these in a month, but package it with the deals like "no payment till april 2008", "buy one, get one free" he tried convinces the buyers to buy something that he never needs, see the deal is this. The idea is this, you see say a external harddisk and you know you may not use it much, yet you see that the price of it just 50$, hey you get interested, you know if you dont buy it now, the price would become 75$, so you get it. Thats consumerism packaged in the name of christmas spirit and idea of giving.

I am not much against the idea of new year or anything, but more on the cynical exploitation of this by most these guys. This is in fact better compared to the more mordern concoctions such as father's day and mother's day. God, they make the parents-kid relationship so impersonal. I mean is it only on such as day do you remember your parents. I mean these are crazy. Whenever I feel I can get some present for my parents and hell I need someone to remind me to give a present to my parents. hell !!

There are similar fests back home too. Akshaya trithi is something like this except that it is more towards the gold business. hell !! dont these guys know India is the maximum importer of gold. Diwali shopping is mad too. God try surviving Ranganathan Street during the rush ... That is the true survival test.

Mad is what I will describe it.

the story of the ....

2006-12-22T03:47:00.000-05:00

It was a low cloudy night. The lone woman walked down the village road. A cold wind swept through the street raising the dust. As she looked up, the moon continued to play hide and seek with her. "Not a good sign" she thought to herself as she hurried towards the house the only one where there was a small light near the window sill.

The mother was in pain. More than anything she seemed scared. She was a first time mother and the poor thing could not but think about the contractions which were growing by the minute and then cutting the longer story short .... amidst howling of the distant wolves out came the baby...not certainly the most handsome of them all he was the normal looking baby.But the people around him, all the wise old men around the baby knew better.

It was a child, another of the those misnomers to the society, one who would choose not to work in some sensible place such as field or stable or would not even rear cows. one of those who wouldn't pursue a decent profession like blacksmith, the village priest or even a owner of the village brothel( the last one was a heinous crime but it was at least not as disgraceful) No He would choose not to be one of these. He would become an outcast, socially disgraced from the rest of the men. Through his childhood, he would have to bear all the shame everytime rest of his classes gathers to jeer around him. All his life he would be treated as an leper, a fond rejection from the more sensible men. His only solace would be his fellowmen who all had the same destiny, offering comfort to one other, as one drowning man would offer another. "It is not my fault " he would ponder the rest of his life "It was Insahallah who made me what I am" However what comfort would it offer him.

With a deep sigh the father looks at the newest addition to the village, with a quizzical look in his face "Why ?" and he looked out, the sun seemed to appear in the horizon as another of the future grad student was born in a village far far away from civilization.

Mst thank Akash for his valuable start... and the rest of us , the world as i look around for inspiration ...

a book for everyone to read

2006-12-16T01:48:00.000-05:00

I finally chanced reading a author with whom I happened to agree almost nearly. The book was "idiot proof" http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781586482473
i am pretty much impressed by the author... I am not completely in agreement with Wheen esp in some economic issues and I think he has overlooked a few things, But apart from these forgivable errors, it was the best non fiction book I have ever read. Reading it I had to reevaluate a couple of my views on globalization and on a couple of personalities esp on the iron lady of england

hmm besides that his amazing arguments about the loss of reasoning and logic in most people these days are quite on par with the views that I have. Oh god ... I am not going to further write ab t it ... u guys get it and read it. It is worth every cent

after a long time

2006-12-09T03:08:00.000-05:00

yep ... it has taken some time for me to get to this. this is based on the trip to ann arbor museum. A particular exhibit that really enthralled me - the saber toothed tiger ...(even though i have dwelt more on the "false"sabre tooth... all pics are that of sabre tooth

it is possible to take an advance level course on this magnificent animal...first and an important issue ... wen i am talking about saber-tooths, i am refer Machairodontinae, which is a subfamily of the felidae. In fact, despite the popular perception sabre toothed tigers are not more related to the tiger than the normal cat.

First sight there are two types of saber-tooth ... the scimitars and "dirk tooth",the latter being the more popular one and the two are pretty much different from each other.

so, where did these guys come from ... ? fossil evidence show there was this cousin of these, the pseudo sabre tooth's, the nimravidae which were present some 50 mil years ago. even though these are not related to the sabre tooth's genetically, physically they share in common with the animals in question, the most prominent being the canines. However they more resembled badgers and wolverines than cats.

these false toothed tigers lived from sometime till 5 mil years ago spending around 45 mil years. There are some very interesting aspects that can be considered. all these "saber developed" tigers represent some 6-7 types each of which arose separately and died out separately, sometimes being unique to some locale.

Also sabers can be classed as before into "dirk-tooth"(with the highly elongated teeth) and the lesser long but ones with sharper and serrated dentures, the scimitars. In fact the former started the trend of getting bigger and bigger canines, see pic below,

One of the nimivads had such long canines that it had to open its jaw by 115 deg to make it effective, normal felines which we look at awe can open it by 70 deg.

am kinda getting tired of para style writing ... will put in points.

coz, the dirk tooth specially relied on springing on its prey, think some primitive rhinoceros and mastodons, and digging its teeth, hoping maximum damage, they did not rely much on speed. hence the legs were not developed for speed and brain was not big enough compared to scimitars, which had a better of these senses. Also compared to modern cats, these guys could see better in dark !!

So wht happened to these creatures, too much specialization... These guys were trained to hunt big mastodons,mammoths and rhino, with changes in climatic condition the prey dwindled, however the predator could not expand the food horizon due to the specialization of its weapon and hence slowly died out

Detroit Zoo

2006-11-28T04:16:00.000-05:00

After having bad experiences at so called zoos in India been to many of them, the visit to the detroit zoo was quite an experience. you can see pics at my picassa web album. any case thts the point that I am trying to make.

The zoo did not have many animals. There were enclosures for butterflies,birds,artic creatures (more specifically arctic fox,seals and polar bears ),otters,frogs and such. Small yet well maintained compared to Indian zoo large and not that well maintained. This was my first superficial observation.

A penentrating insight was why does an Indian zoo have so many animals, a very simple reason, India has a lots of creatures and eventually some surplus which finds it way to village or city has to be caught and sent to the nearest zoo. Most of the creatures in detroit zoo , save the wolverines and some others were not native creatures of the country. In many cases, they are surving species from the wild at other parts of the world. It is easy to think that the US zoos are maintained very well. But just consider this fact, the detroit zoo spent something i think like 15mil$ (thanks for spotting the error, chams) on the arctic enclosure. simple conversion to Indian monry is 75cr rs which would make the zoo (still) richer than most cities in the country. Indian zoos cant afford to spend that much and it is not worth it too.

There are other better causes even in conservation to spend that much money on. Many species in India are not even documented. Importance lies in trying look at these before they become a species that once inhabited India.Take for instance the Gharial, hardly a few left in wild. While most conservation effort looks at the more "big" animals such as tigers and lion, they often times neglect "small" guys out there are also dying indirectly (i.e. not by poaching) but due to gradual reduction of their ecosystem. It is easy to neglect these, but dangerous. Many of these beautiful creatures may go missing but for some sustained effort to protect them.

what is time ?

2006-11-19T08:03:00.000-05:00

people say it is weird i dont sleep in the night and instead sleep in the day ... think it is perfectly fine ... what is this concept of time ... it essentially evolved from the fact of dividing life into cycles when there was daylight and when there was not. rest of it details though unresolved ...

for the early man he cud function only in the day ... night was a mysterious period when he could be attacke d by the animals ... left him with a feelin of insecurity.he attributed this to many things..man might have been technologically advanced in those days too with the fire but still fire per se was an object of awe ... the extent to which he could control it was not much... small light in the literal jungle of darkness. even now thts why darkness is attributed to evil and light to good and the phrases shine light into my ignorance and such.

the present man is not limited by this... the powerful halogen lamps that don the steetlight... the magic called electricity the world has changed very much.

another bull, my health will get spoiled ... pooh ... if i sleep properly at some point and eat properly i am sure my bidy would not have a problem... just change the time i sleep not the hours ,,, hey nothing at all

i am fine the way i am ... i have been so and i wiill be so ...

regionalism

2006-11-17T18:24:00.000-05:00

again the discussion came about...I am completely capitalistic,nationalistic and liberal fellow. I saw this movie Iruvar. Good everything, though i did not quite believe some of the ideas circulated in it.

For example, I am in full support that Tamil as a great language and I am firm follower of Tamil tradition, but it is complete bullshit to proclaim Dravidian movement. not learning Hindi, the extreme regionalism exhibited by junta here is completely sad. I think the way the world is going, there is globalization everywhere and the talk about regionalism is crazy. we are in dire need of an India, where the first thought that comes is national cooperation rather than regional sentiments. The idea is more economic and commercial important. A company must be in a position wherein its interstate trade is not hampered by regionalism. though at present that is not the case in India, the way regionalism is projected, i greatly fear that.

I am of the firm believer in capitalism. I am not against socialism. but i am of the firm belief that both economic and social upliftment can occur only by capitalism. Yes there were the dark days of capitalism where in the dark mills in UK resulted in creating a few elites overnight and the majority working dying by the day. Of course this is no longer the case if you look at most developed country. The natural evolution of capitalism will result in a betterment of people. However the socialism projected by most of the Indian politicians may cause a temporary relief to the people but the long run will not be productive and in fact may become counter productive. Socialism by itself is not at fault. By theory it is a good in fact a panacea for all human ills. However, theory will not project per-se into real life scenario.Socialism is utopic. If any theory fails, the problem lies with assumptions.The same holds good for socialism too. Socialism folds faith in man tendency to be social.But with the exception of the few men who are philantrophists to the core, most human tend to become selfish when there is some situation that affects them. It is easy to close our eyes by citing the few good men who lived in this plannet. but they were few and far between.Most men (swallow the bitter pill) are selfish and when you violate this assumption of the socialist theory, you will obviously not get the desired result and in fact in this case (stated without proof) will do more harm.

Feeling too tired to continue this. I know I have made quite a few foes in the world ... dont care a damn... comment ...

lemme reason why

2006-11-10T02:59:00.001-05:00

till say a week ago, it was always this ... I used to lie down in the bed and the next will be blissfully asleep unaware of wht the world is doing around me.

The past three-four days have been crazy. I am unable to sleep when I lie down. kinda crazy. not that i am not getting sleep, once i slept which is typically 1hr after i lie down, i am a log for the next 6 hrs, at least very inert. the same thing tonite ... am blogging as i am not getting that sleep.

wonder why ... logically analysing this ...the common thing is either uncomfy bed, timing that i have been going to sleep or for the first time in my life, i am actually thinking about future. the last one is something i can actually dwell upon. I am a guy who lives his life for the minute. i dont care wht happened a couple of minutes ago, nor do i care what will happen in a few minutes... a very take it easy guy. i am very self centered in the sense i dont mind helping people... but i really have to give my piece of mind to people. I am one of those guys who have a opinion on many issues in life and i personally think i think the most logical (which i still hold is correct). anyone disagreeing with me is a fool and cant think illogical. I really dont care a damn about what others think about me. I am of this opinion. since i hold everyone to be a fool, everyone should reciprocate the feeling. (In fact people who dont do it are fools!!) Anyone even remotely close to me will know how sarcasstic i can become and how irresponsibly rude (there will be a big line waiting to testify) all that prose to prove i am a very carefree person.

point made, the past four days has been this thing i am not sure what to do for my next lab rotation. this silly thing is not a major thing in life, yet I am not sure if this is what is causing it. i really dont care about whom I am rotating with ... also i think i have made my desicion, yet am not getting much sleep ...

dunno why ... logic fails

browser warfare

2006-11-08T20:30:00.000-05:00

Hah ... finally gotten into words what i was thinking yesterday

There are quite a lot of browsers in this world. so which one to choose or rather which are the ones I have used and I have found to be more rational

I started using browsers since microsoft launched their IE 4 or something and initially it was a nice war between netscape and IE. Perhaps the only time in my life I actually liked IE...With the arrival of IE 5 (dunno why know) netscape 4.6 was never in the browser and tht was the last netscape I ever used. I am yet to try the new one . but you know with a biased mind... you will never judge a product very well.

Then came the new kid in the block, Opera which bet IE hands down.I was using Opera for a couple of years. Slightly irritating ads in the top of the browser. but nevertherless was a nea experience.Then came the big guy, Mozilla and its protege, firefox. There was no turning back. Now I consider anyone who uses IE whatever as one who systems is screwed up or someone whose memory is too low or a simply sad state of affairs in which a better product is being sadly neglected due to ignorance.

However, I have been quite adventerous in using other browsers too. Being a Mac Fan I have used Safari which is perhaps the only Apple product I have less satisfied about. I actually like Camino, but there is always a deja-vu of using firefox.

A heavy user of linux, I was actually using konqueror against epiphany or galeon or firefox or mozilla. I still think Konqueror is one of the most underrated browser. I am waiting for Konqueror 4 i think. Then having heavily fiddled one day on the comp, we somehow disabled startx and we were in no mood to debug. Hence we started using Lynx and my gawd, tht was the most awesome experience. I have also used Links and W3m but not enuf to write about it. These were more for the heck of it and not actually fiddling around with it.

Anyways my guide to browser use would be

if you are a linux freak... u wudnt bother reading this ...u shud knowing ur stuff.

a linux beginner --- kiddo use Lynx (esp if u dont have all ur jpegs and stuff... i know couple of guys are screaming "internet is for graphics and songs ... hey not necesscarily"
if u need to see a couple of pics use W3m or Konqueror... but of couse u will not be getting ur gmail in ur standard view start using mozilla or firefox ... always there

A Mac User : Camino or Firefox ... second choice : Safari

A windows user : (Yikes) being decent folks Firefox ... u dont want to do what the entire world should do use Opera and if you are working in Microsoft or u need to download Firefox use IE.

MORAL OF THE STORY : NEVER USE IE ...

thought for the day

2006-11-02T03:45:00.000-05:00

two laws are obeyed in the universe : the second law of thermodynamics and murphy's law and I am doubtful about the former

shud have thought abt this earlier ...

2006-11-02T03:27:00.000-05:00

random thoughts again... this was provoked by aneesh ...

Whenever i talk to some people, i am amazing sarcastic. the rare instance i am not, i am plainly rude. there is this nice friend of mine who has actually withstood this for more than four years now and yet talk to me. I really dont know how this amazingly lady puts up with the constant "polambals" of mine. (She still picks up the phone if I call her)

This blog is intended to thank her for all her patience ... thanks Janu

who is a scientist ?

2006-11-02T01:42:00.000-05:00

thought photos best go into picassa and decided keep my blog to just the random thought process that go on in my mind.

The thing that seems to keep coming back (prob due to the number of movies I watch ) is the way hollywood (or for that matter many books) potrays a scientist. u get it ... the random absent minded guy wearing thick glasses, perpetually wearing a lab coat mixing liquids of different colours and injecting them into mice or apes and always creating something that has the potential to destroy/benefit mankind... heck if u had thought so ... thts exactly the point i am driving at...

there are too many urban legends abt the scientist of today... As Akash Ba rightly puts it, the biggest mistake Einstein or Newton did was to create such an image...Heavens no ... most scientist are not absent minded. many dont wear specs and most of us dont use test tubes with coloured liquid and worst of all, most of the research done today are not exactly the earth shattering discoveries which the hollywood heros must recover coz they have fallen into the hand of baddies...

Now, a real scientist is this guy who has half a dozen grad students working under him, spends most of his time on how to make a project get better grants, teaches the "grad kids" and most research that he does is understood by only a hundred people around the world working in the same area of research. I am being very cynical over here. But. it is better to be cynical than to be the one in hollywood.

The reason for that is numerous, Numero uno. whenever i tell someone i am doing a phd ... people are like "oh that means it is the end of personal life ... u will be too busy with research all the time" BULL in fact compared to any other grad course, phd possibly offers you the amazing time to do different things in life...

Second, I went to my school reunion after my undergrad and as always the discussion of career comes and i tell junta that i am going to my phd in umich, the junta are like ... we can understand it, u were always that absent minded bloke in the skool (they said a variation of it... am not able to remember it exactly and they were amazingly sober when they said that) Heck wht has my absent mindedness got to do with science...

Doing a PhD is of course a very big commitment... u see guys arnd u who seem to earn more and settle off in life much before you...but does not make a grad student the man who has dedicated his entire life to the science.( I know my boss will like such an idea)

Motto :
$s= PhD
$t = Geeks
$s ne $t

got the msg ?(intended)

Lock System At Niagara

2006-10-24T23:13:00.000-04:00

This is one of the most fascinating things I ever saw during the trip. Even though I was aware of how locks works, there was an incredible awe in me when I actually saw it in action. The niagara lock system is one of the many found in the world. It is a very simple idea put to a brilliant use

photograph 1
As the ship appraoches, the first of the bridges open up to let go of the ship. We can see in the distal background,a ship with the bridge opening up.

this is one of the better pics...

The ships comes ...

The Lock opens

The Ship... one of the better pics

ship arrives at the lock and has a one man reception(actually there was also the Courtney over there)

The bridge in the meantime is opened to traffic

The Ship passes through the gates of Mordor

Once the ship is completely in the doors closes and the water level rises inside the lock as shown in the photographs

Once the ship is lifted up, see above the gates are opened and the ship can leave from the other end (see below)

Then the second bridge opens up to allow the passage of the trip and then the lowers down to allow the ship to pass thro to the interior (i think) of Canada...