The world, how it works, surroundings, myself, etc.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Imposter Indiatimes on Sex Sells


I landed to this article titled "Too much sleaze spoils the song" on Times
of India, Indiatimes.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1025714,curpg-1.cms

Though yet another count+1 for an article in this
preserve-society-and-heritage category, the article shamelessly vomits out
the gossip, quite (conveniently) ignoring its own pages (www.indiatimes.com).

The author (VINITA A SHETTY) talks about the changing face of the Indian
music videos, that they get raunchier and sleazier day by day, and that
since nothing sells like sex, these upcoming music videos belittle the
already tiny clothes their cute ladies put up to harvest more are more.
Interesting however, is the fact that on the very same page where
authoress preaches DJ Doll being sleazy in Kaanta Lagaa and Sanober
gyrating provocatively to Meri Beri Ke Ber, the very same "sleazy" and
provocatively gyrating pictures are posted. Oh, they are just for
reference? I see. That's why the article had to span 3 pages so as to
envision the world with the sleaziness of all these girls!. And did we
forget that www.Indiatimes.com itself opens with a new semi-nude picture
enchanting your eye every day? Or did we miss the provocative pictures
that practically every page on this site displays? Now, don't tell me all
of your articles need a back-reference to the likes of Sanober's hips!

Grow up. Don't preach just for the sake of it. At least, follow as you
preach.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Indian ancient discovery and heritate: an example I found.


Often, unconsciously, we dismiss our ancient tradition as superstitious
and ignorant, but there do occur several instances when this view is
shattered.

I was going through some bioinformatics essay on Diabetes at nih.gov and at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=diabetes.section.5 I found
that the symptoms of Diabetes was discovered as early as 400 BC by the
Indian physician Sushruta. He described the sweet taste of urine from
affected individuals lending to black ants and flies attracted to the
urine of diabetics. This sweet taste of urine was key to its diagnosis.

Friday, February 18, 2005

The sparkle of diamonds


I landed myself to a diamond jewelery shop yesterday evening. Tanishq,
the shop, bore the enchanting dim of an exotic place. The ambiance was
just right. Several small counters were segregately placed at a number
of places. Soon we were attended by the salesperson at one of these
counters. He showed us an earring, 22 carat gold studded with diamonds
in the middle. I held the diamond earring in my hand and gave it a look
and that was it -- I was mesmerized. The diamond shattered light into so
many sparkling colors several of them into my eyes and I was sure that
I'd buy it. The only pinch was -- it cost Rs 6600/- I know I'll have to
invest several months of my TAship money to fork that amount but the
thousand watt smile that'd light up the person to whom I'll give this is
totally worth it. Now I just need the money.

Truly enough, Diamonds are forever.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

World: Big or small


Sometimes we feel the world is so big and huge that we can get lost so
easily. There's scope for so much randomness and anonymity and
haphazardness that nothing at all can be predicted; nothing can be
relied upon.

However, equally probable are the surprises that so often greet you.
Quite often you feel that something magical has happened and you knew it
happening; randomness wasn't truly unpredictable. I just had one of
these feelings. I had sent a mail to my professor Dr P J Narayanan and
was sure that I'd be getting a reply but when -- I could never tell. And
all of a sudden I felt as if a mail had just dropped to my mailbox and
so I fired up my mail client and lo and behold there it was. It wasn't
there for long. I somehow came to know that the reply had come.

WoW! -- the human instincts.

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Love

Love, the divine feeling, the inexplicable sense of being that surrounds
everyone of us, the one thing everyone really craves for, the one
language everyone unanimously comprehends unobscured. Love, the feeling
whose medium of expression we do not understand. Love, the word which
fetches 149 million Google results.

I won't be utterly surprised if it's discovered that love is the
ultimate cause that keeps life moving; that it is for love that one
lives, works, eats, dances, cries, laughs, or does anything else for
that matter. It could be quite possible that it is love that answers the
cause for existence.

A newborn baby cries. Why? Admittedly, it's all that he/she can probably
do. And a gentle hug from his/her mother suffices to calm it down from
the unrest. A lover yearns for his darling, impatiently, heart beating
loud. Why? A gentle sight of his beloved extinguishes all speculations
and serenity condescends in his heart.

To talk of historic stories and epics, several deeds and misdeeds have
been done for love and we all know about it. Taj Mahal, the singular
monument of love for a wife. Imagine how much grit it must have taken
for ailing Shah Jahan to create something in memory for his darling.
Nostalgic the presence of love is. Why does one want to remember things?
Isn't there love in that?

A single thought of a gentle kiss on the forehead from one's mother
spreads the lips in way of a smile and further thoughts sure elongate it
to a grin. An eye-closed remembrance of the first time one saw one's
beloved sends the heart doing several beats faster than normal and a
strange but soothing calmness and serenity looms large in the mind and
heart.

Love, the whatever which has a presence in everyone and everything
however small of big, however busy of unemployed, is yet so little
understood. Poets try to replicate the soothing feeling in words. They
sure know how bitterly words fall short of expression in their composition.

Love reigns supreme.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Who are we? --Sankrant Sanu

I've just now returned from a singularly distinct and existentiality
provoking talk by Sankrant Sanu at the Seminar Hall in the institute. He
had been one of Dr Sangal, our director's, students. As a consultant and
freelance writer he has this website www.sulekha.com

It was befitting what he talked about..totally.
He began with how the West world chooses to study us Indians and dictate
terms, history, rules, vision, for us. And how carefully manipulated
their-presented facts have been as the once rulers of India to shatter
the self-esteem of the people. They, through their historians,
propagated that India, per se, didn't have any solidarity or the sense
of Indian-ness by itself and that it were the Britishers who
consolidated all the fallen pieces into one India. How more untrue could
they be when the West, England and United States included, themselves
have hardly a history to boast about. They themselves are hardly
one-and-a-half century old to boast about the solidarity of their nation.

Sanu went on to bring out the need to realize the latent talent amongst
the people and that our system, most of it a follow-up of the British
system forcefully huddled on our back, needs to improvise into a
confident and sustained self. We hardly need to blindly follow their
ideals and dismiss all our traditions as superstitious just because we
don't understand their relevance. This exactly had been deliberately
maneuvered.

The closing sentence from Lord Mccauley's proposal on their colonial
efforts revealed that the damage or loss of ownership to our traditions
and thereby the self-esteem had been clearly proposed as the necessity
to achieve what they wanted: a dominion colony. It's bewildering.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

The reason of being

An oft brewing question in my mind, the existential justification, takes
the better of me today yet again. Why do I exist? What is the purpose of my
life? Why do I do what I do? Why do I work? Why do I hope? Why do I eat?
Why do I survive? Why do I live?

I do not buy that survival is the ultimate essence of life. There has to
be a purpose, a reason, which would quantify the purpose of our
existence. It need not be anything complicated. It could be decently
simple. But what is it? Surprising, isn't it, that we (humans) carry on
with our daily chores, quite ignorant of your ultimate purpose? We don't
know where we are headed. All that we know is that we are moving --
directionless. Or are we still?

Humans are able to foresee immediate purposes and plans with easy
deftness, however, the successor to all these errands is bluntly
unknown. How could God manage to keep us in such illustrous illusion --
make us move without telling the direction? Isn't it something like we
set a rabbit to motion in a maze-like confinement. The rabbit doesn't
know where it has to go, in what direction to proceed. But it still
keeps going, appearing to be looking for a way out. It doesn't have any
direction or motivation. Perhaps, to think of a direction in the
maze-like confinement doesn't even make much sense. Is it the same with
us humans as well? Doesn't it make sense of asking of our directions?

Also interesting is the fact that we cannot satisfactorily explain what
life is. Every moment of time, however small, we experience life, but we
don't know what exactly it comprises of, what it wants -- directions.

Einstein said: I do not belive that the good Lord plays dice. I just want
to know his thoughts. The rest are details. -- How true!

Friday, January 21, 2005

What You'll Wish You'd Known

I came across this very exciting and interesting article by Paul Graham.
It talks about thoughts while growing up. Of course, it interests more
because I could relate my life a lot to it. No wonder because he talks
about my fascinating idols -- Shakespeare and Einstein.

Just read it: http://paulgraham.com/hs.html



Monday, January 03, 2005

Communication problem

Just how impossible communication can get with certain people, I just
realized again today. As a mess committee member for my institute, I had
gone to talk to Mr BLN, the so-called caretaker for the hostels and
messes. I wised to discuss with him issues about the Jan 2005 mess
functioning. But we ended up in a deadlock. He wasn't at all able to
understand what I purposed and everything I suggested he understood that
to be a demeaning to his authority. No wonder he's dug himself to become
one amongst the most hated persons in the campus. Every few minutes he'd
end up mouthing "You should not talk like this.. You should do this..
blah blah". I, per se, still don't realize what horrible it was I told.

In the end, the inevitable happened. The communication process broke
down. I smashed out of his dungeon.


Communication problem


Just how impossible communication can get with certain people, I just
realized again today. As a mess committee member for my institute, I had
gone to talk to Mr BLN, the so-called caretaker for the hostels and
messes. I wised to discuss with him issues about the Jan 2005 mess
functioning. But we ended up in a deadlock. He wasn't at all able to
understand what I purposed and everything I suggested he understood that
to be a demeaning to his authority. No wonder he's dug himself to become
one amongst the most hated persons in the campus. Every few minutes he'd
end up mouthing "You should not talk like this.. You should do this..
blah blah". I, per se, still don't realize what horrible it was I told.

In the end, the inevitable happened. The communication process broke
down. I smashed out of his dungeon.


Monday, December 13, 2004

CVIT party

It was CVIT party in the evening today. The venue was Indulge, Cyber
Pearl Building, Hi-tec city at Madhapur. It was organised by the CVIT
for the CVITians to celebrate the setup of the new sophisticated CVIT
lab. Though the new lab has been in place for about 5 months now, at
last, this party had been fixed after a long wait.

It was rather fun. First of all, all we people congregated and did what
technical people like us would do -- just stand! Slowly, the environment
started to become livelier with MNSSK Pavan in his characteristic
sarcastic and enthusiastic maneuver trying to jostle everyone around. He
had indeed been prepared with some chits, etc for Dumb Charades to which
we eventually moved on to after a few songs from some volunteers. The
Dumb Charades was the best part, as always is this game.



test 2

 

Saturday, November 06, 2004

Test blogging thru mail


Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
-- Albert Einstein.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Last minute preparation.


Strange and singularly remarkable it is how work expands to fill the
time you have for it. In other words, given you have anything to do,
you'll keep postponing the work till the minute beyond which it can be
fatatl. And it is again at this oft-encountered do-or-die situation that
one makes a pledge to be more organized but the story goes on and on.

I have my Pattern Recognition (PR) test on Monday. Though I did attend
the classes, at least one read of the book is the least that is
expected, but I've not done even that till now. I've not been able to
flip one page of the book since morning. And yes, I'll go to the movie
screening tonight at the instt too.

Humans are funny. It's so interesting to observe the patterns. God knows
when we'll be able to express the patterns or at least be able to
differentiate the patters from one another so as to perform
classification of several things. Oops! Did I utter PR!
--

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Squirrelmail attachment: File corrupted and size getting increased (doubled): Actually PHP prob.

I spent a considerable amount of time before I could figure out the
solution to my Squirrelmail problem. My attachments were getting corrupted
for even slightly heavy files. Interestingly, the file size was getting
near to doubled.

Solution:

I hunted and figured out that it wasn't actually a squirrelmail problem in
the first place. The problem lies with Apache (it's a apache 2 bug)
I had to comment out the following lines from php.conf:
#<Files *.php>
# SetOutputFilter PHP
# SetInputFilter PHP
#</Files>

This following link helped:

http://codewalkers.com/archives/phphelp/123.html


I had already gone all nuts (not expected PHP to behave like this). This
solution was really a relief.



Friday, August 20, 2004

The Cat Who Fought.


Imagine a picture on a wall with a strong and determined cat murdering a big long snake. Its authority is questioned by a little girl who's answered by her Grandma.



Tired of playing the day long,
And bored of the oft heard princess song,
Alice put the picture's occupation at stake,
And demanded -- "This cat it slaughters the snake!"

To the picture on the wall her tiny fingers pointed,
The authority of the cat had she daunted,
"We don't want hatred far or near,
Why does this cruel cat hang here?"

Little Alice had struck a pragma,
As she questioned thus to her Grandma,
Who stood agape at her innocent thought,
Sure it was befitting what she sought.

Not that she despised the picture's air,
She just looked for an errand here or there,
On which to put the blame of her mind,
Suggested - "A dustbin the picture should find."

Grandma, having resolved to correct her activity,
Continued to bring out the cat's gravity,
Chose to disclose her through a song,
Of the fateful night when all went wrong.

"In your mother's arms you used to roll,
With chuckles and giggles answer here call,
Through her velvety locks your bright eyes shone,
No one denied you - you crowned the throne."

"In days to come, you learnt to talk,
They were afraid - you had learnt to walk.
Riding on curiosity, you'd set to motion,
Without your parents' slightest notion."

"They'd hunt around, have a tough time,
And teach you aloud - never cross the line.
With absolute innocence you'd nod your head,
And get outside - you'd have no thread."

"They were scared, had their plans sorted,
When long and huge, a snake had been spotted.
They devised early, a cat was brought
To keep you busy was all they sought."

"You played with the cat and looked content,
You took it withal wherever you went,
You didn't roam out for days indeed,
The plan had worked, your parents were pleased."

"Then came a night when the winds were cold,
You were playing and weren't on hold,
Your fancies took a dazzling turn,
When light at a distance you saw one burn."

"Your knees and hands carried you out,
There was no one to see you, no one to shout,
When you paddled your way and the stars shone,
You cat followed - you weren̢۪t alone!"

"The strong winds blew cold as ice,
The venture wasn't cheap - we pad a price!
Coz right where the out gate creeper hangs,
A big long coral snake carried its fangs."

"Innocent, excited, naive and blaze,
You crawled over doped in craze,
To where the reptile's nest lay,
You had wronged - one could only pray"

"But alert, seasoned, agile and deft,
Your strong cat attended you since the moment you had left.
And before any mischief dawned your head,
The long snake charged eyes all red."

"The snake ran fuming; you were its prey,
Erstwhile your cat had smelled the fray,
Made up his mind of however it be,
Would contest the poison till it flee."

"Thus flared up the clash and fierce it was,
As your cat pounced upon it under its claws,
But the fiend was long with hisses slipped,
And the friend was bit - it was whipped."

"With troubled motion the cat redid its hold,
Gobbled the snake's head - yes, it was bold.
The combat had caught your eye's gleam,
Frightened, alarmed, aloud did you scream."

"Before long, the song was sung,
A crowd gathered, the dead snake was sung,
The life of the girl had the cat cherished,
Fought till breath's last before it perished."

"The might was narrated over and again,
Of how the brave cat fought in the pain.
To tribute the courage against the hiss,
Was crafted this picture to hang where it is."

"In years to come your fiend looked at you,
From the picture on the wall you almost threw,
Sing of its bravery, not of malice,
Acknowledge its deeds - what do you say Alice?"

"True for sure I had a friend,
Whose selfless deeds I couldn't comprehend,
The picture must remain here and not be banked,
I love you, my friend," Alice thanked.


My poems at http://students.iiit.ac.in/~nirnimesh/myPoems.html


Purpose of studying something.

What is the purpose of studying something? Knowledge? Well, yes. To the
extent that one is able to absorb enough ability to
read/write/understand things in written, studying, as in schooling, is
quite necessary and vital too. However, isn't it that the ultimate aim
of all this is to be able to "apply". One learns algebra, for example.
But the reach of algebra does not settle down to passing an exam and
moving forward to the next class with another myridad set of such
subjects to be digested, studied for the exams and to be forgotten
later. Sure algebra must be taught, no say against it. However, the
perspective has to be more resulting. One needs to absorb the abstract
nature of how things work in that domain and apply it to another one to
result something.
Let's say one reads a research paper, puts in considerable amount of
effort, hard effort. But in due course of repeated studying of the
research paper, one's mind gets tuned to that paper, with the thinking
getting limited to the first and the last pages of the paper. Hence, one
should not overdo. In terms of Pattern Recognition systems, this could
be called overfitting in which the (PR) system learns just a bit too
much from the training data (the research paper in this case) and gets
too nicely suited to it that it fails to correctly classify novel inputs,
which actually was the aim in the first place.


Friday, August 06, 2004

My hostel mess.


Whoever named it, it for sure suits to a T. I was so so angry at my
hostel mess one day that I could not help writing a firing mail to the
administration. Well, things did happen after this. Situation didn't
remain that bad at least.


Here's what I wrote.

Dear Sir/Ma'm,

This is with regard to the newly installed OBH mess and related
state
of affairs. And please please don't regard it as just another
resentment.

This is not the first day for such thoughts but it's sure the last straw
for me. I try to summarize why:

- Some days ago, it was promptly declared (without prior notice)
that
the OBH mess would remain non-functional for 2 complete days. Hours
before the lunch time, we received notification saying that arrangements
had been made for all (around 800 of us!!) to have food in NBH, and most
would have to stand while they eat.
- I didn't have money, nor the inclination to go upto Indira Nagar
in
the outpouring rains at food time, on the 2 days.
- The caterer and mess had been changed and after paying well in
advance
our Rs 5000/- for the mess charges, we expected the mess to be a delight
(the music system, flower pots, and the curtains in the mess pointed to
it). However, what we instead got is a blow in the face.
- Mess has inadequate (rather, hardly sufficient) food. This was
at just
around 9:00 when I went to the mess. The queue elongates from the mess
counter to the mess-entrance. Needless to say, it typically takes around
20-35 minutes before one touches the plate.
- Though the OBH mess was functional from 1st Aug, I've not had
proper
food in the compulsory mess since yesterday.
- The Sunday biryani was without any curry (vegetable).
- Tonight, used/dirty plates lay stray right near the entrance
with no
one to carry them away (an open invitation to files?)
- Far insufficient number of tables/chairs in the mess. I've seen
some
of us actually standing and eating (plate in hands!!)
- Whatever few number of tables were arranged, they remained
uncleaned.
- Unending fight for roti(s).
- Hardly anyone to get us water. (okay, an old story)

Some of us tried to talk to the caterer, and we got the answer that the
management/administration has _NOT_ provided them enough number of
utensils and enough number of tables/chairs!!

I understand that the new mess takes time to settle, but I'm sure you
won't take it as an excuse for utter non-performance. We do expect the
administration to plan out things for us, don't we?
I'm sure if our parents come to know of this state of affairs regarding
the mess (including no food), they'd take strict exception to it. I know
I might have sounded a bit sour but dear Sir/Ma'm I couldn't help it --
I'm hungry.

Please try to work out something.


Dear Director Sir,
We didn't ask for any soothing music in the mess. All we plead
is
clean,timely,edible food. We, as humans, require food. Is that really
too much to ask for?


Please, please help.

A student.
On behalf of a large number of us.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Some Quotes.


Some Quotes from today's Times of India.

It is better to live as long as you want rather than want as long as you
live. -- Socrates.

It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final.
-- Roger Babson.

True love somes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear
bells, get your ears checked. -- Erich Segal.

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who
face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. --
Douglas Everett.


Who are You?


I came across this very good and encouraging, thought-provoking article in
The Times of India today.

Who are You?
------------

In the 17th century, the French philosopher Reni Descartes came up with
the explanation for it all: I think, therefore I am. I remember this
statement being the source of debates in philosophy classes. It was the
existential 'which came first' story the chicken or the egg.

Years later, I feel that his statement really is a fill-in-the-blanks
statement. 'I think, therefore I am.' In other words, 'I think I am angry,
therefore I am angry, I think I am tired, therefore I am tired, I think I
am busy, therefore I am busy.'

Let's go back to Descartes and fill in the blanks. I think I am too busy,
therefore I am too busy. So the usual conclusion to this thought is I'm
too busy to go into the garden this morning thus I don't go. [I think I m
too busy to go into the garden, therefore I am too busy to go into the
garden.]

What this does is, for one, tell your subconscious mind to keep looking
for that answer, and two keeps the door open to the answer coming through.
If you keep saying I can't remember, well guess what, your subconscious
goes, 'ok, can't remember,' and it goes off to lunch and stops trying to
remember. End of story. On the other hand, if you say 'I m remembering'
it will stay 'on duty' until it finds the memory you're asking for. In the
same way if you're searching for the solutinos to a problem, if you say to
yourself 'I don't know what to do', I think I am unable to find an answer,
therefore I am unable to find an answer -- there again you've closed the
door to the answer coming through. Saying 'I am able to find the answer'
opens the gate wide for the answers to come to you. We can replace those
dead-end thougths and statements with some that leave the door open for
solutions. 'I think I am able to discover the answer, therefore I am able
to discover the answer, I think I am capable of finding a solution.' Now
some of you might be saying this is simplistic. Well, yes it is, and
that's the beauty of it. We humans seem to have a tendency to complicate
things, when things really are simple. First a thought, then an action.
First a belief, then a consequence of that belief. A thought, then a
result to that thought (action or inaction).

We have disempowered ourselves by thinking 'small thoughts' or dead-end
thoughts fulled by low self-esteem, images of unattainable goals (to be
like the 'slimmer-than-life' model on TV), and thoughts rampant with
self-criticism (or criticism of others). Thoughts that are self-defeating
[I think I am a failure, therefore.]

I think I am not smart enough, therefore I think I am unattractive,
therefore I think I can't do this, therefore...

The belief or thought we have sets the tone for our actions, for the life
we create. If there's one thing that can change our lives, it's to change
the nature of our thoughts, of our beliefs. We are not powerless. We are
powerful beyond measure.

It's up to us to fill in the blanks with the reality we desire, not the
one we don't. We can change our reality. We can make a difference in our
lives and in the lives of the people around us and in the world.

-- Marie T russell.

--
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
-- Albert Einstein.