Big Bad Blog

Rethinking immigration

2011-11-28T20:06:00.000-08:00

Lets rethink immigration. The general perception is that immigration is a forward looking idea and is what is good for the country and the world as a whole. But wait, it may be good for the world as a whole, but not the country.

Assume that a country like UK is encouraging immigration. Immigrants are often from poorer countries. UK would have much better infrastructure built up by decades of tax collections by the hard work of its citizens. Why should immigrants who have no prior contribution to the economy of UK be allowed to enjoy these benefits? Is this really fair?

I agree that an anti-immigration policy may be looked upon as a protectionist environment, but this may often come in favour of the country itself, and in advantage of the other (poorer) countries of the world. Lets face it. The citizens of UK have the right to decide what kind of immigration polices UK has. However, in reality, this is not really happening. The political decisions of UK or any country are not directly being influenced by the opinions of the people.

We need a more participative democracy where every citizen has a measurable and direct say in every policy of the country. This goes for all countries.

The frustration against immigration is often the frustration of people not being able to set up their own policies. Most countries are still not a democracy, but a autocracy ruled by the policies of its political parties.

In the long term, yes, if people come from a country of similar standards of living, movement of people is beneficial for the entire world. But till then, we need to let these countries make the choice to what degree they would want it.

How culture and religion mix

2011-11-15T21:11:00.000-08:00

When someone asks you what religion you belong to, today most people answer with what religion they were brought up in. Most people have not given it a proper thought whether they actually believe in the god and philosophies of that religion.

Its quite understandable. Being brought up in a religion gives people a certain kind of culture which people empathize with, and mistakenly assume is what the question is asking for. Religion has become a symbol of culture rather than the values it actually tries to instill.

In reality, it is important that we need to follow what we think is correct, rather than what our parents do. I am an athiest, and I keep the mental difference in mind between having being brought up in a hindu culture and being an athiest.

But again, maybe only I think it is important that we make our minds up about this, and others don't really care. We'll all know after we die anyway.

A story of two families

2011-11-14T11:34:00.000-08:00

Stop thinking in terms of money. Imagine an isolated group (A) of 10 people. When will they be happiest? When they all work as much for each other. Noone is lazy. Everyone is employed. Some gather the food. Others cook the food. Others make shelter. Others paint and entertain others (in times of bounty).

However, it is not always easy for everyone to be employed. Assume there is a person A1 in the group who is very good at making pots which the entire family needs and loves. However, his pots can only be made if he can have a potters wheel which is difficult to make. Otherwise he is jobless. The remaining family works hard to cut wood and spend 10 days just researching and making this wheel. This is an investment, which provides employment.

Where does the money come in? Money is basically the medium of interchange. For example, Person A2 delivers person A1 10 litres of milk, and expects 2 pots back in return. However, A1 is tired (and a little lazy from all the attention), and says that he will give only 1 pot. He says that he will give another pot in the next season. However, who will trust the lazy but skilled potter? The potter writes an IOU note to A2. A2 trusts this note and waits for the next season for his next pot.

Slowly, it becomes a habit for people to write out IOUs when they are not able to completely fulfill their liabilities. A2, who now habitually delivers milk to A1 in exchange for the pretty pots, suddenly faces a scarcity of rice. He goes to A3 who is a whacky paddy farmer. A3 says that he is willing to give him 5 kilos of rice in exchange for some milk. A2 doesn't have any milk but gives A3 the note that he got from A1 for one pot.

Soon, the notes from A1 become standard currency. The lucky guy A1 becomes the chairman of the RBI.

With such an efficient financial system, people become specialised in their own thing. 2 member of the family A5 and A6 become involved in research. They try to find out how people can produce more within the same time constraints. This leads to increase in productivity and hence greater good.

Suddenly, this group of 10 people have grown to 100. A5, A6, A2, A3 all become head of different departments of the government due to their leadership abilities and their technical knowhow. Quality products are produced by the group of people for their own consumption.

Suddenly another family comes into the picture. They are a comparatively backward family. A group of 50 people called B. They also have a similar system, but they have had less success in mobilizing people into research and development. Over the years their productivity has stagnated, and their products dismal. Moreover the leaders of this group were not happy with people working. They believed that only they can control where these people work, and they never created enough avenues for these people to work.

A comparatively rich person in B called B10 wants the pots produced by A23 and A24 ex-apprentices of A1.

However, he doesn't know how he can pay for this. He says, I will give you my currency CB instead of 10 units of your currency CA which can buy me a pot. With this 50 CB, someone in our family will return you this favor some day.

But A23 and A24 say: What can we buy with your currency? Everything produced by your family is inferior. We need 50 units of CB for 10 units of CA. Even though 50 units of CB will buy you a lot in group B, the quality of this good was inferior so this was a good choice. Anyway, A23 and A24 kept this 50 CB, and once in a while got this return favor from someone in B. Happy with the business, they sold pots to other B people also, and earned 300 CB in money totally.

One day, A23 and A24 decided to visit group B, which was across the mountains. They realised that many people there were talented and can actually produce good quality goods for them. A23 and A24 used 150 CB to create 3 pottery wheels in family B. They paid B48, B49 and B50 to work for them and paid them 25 CB each for a pot. This was sold in their country for 50 CB (10 CA), and they made a huge margin, pushing their bitter rivals A 22 and A25 out of business. This is the growth of outsourcing.

Soon, more and more jobs were getting outsourced to the group B. Slowly B48, 49 and 50 became richer and started demanding more money. They got more money and started buying better goods, and the standards of living in group B improved. They started getting more free time from their hand-to-mouth existence and formed a pressure group which expelled the government.

Oh Now, A and B are identical. They even gave up their currency system. B has grown to 500 people now and are a better nation compared to A.

Now there are more heads to think, hence more capacity to research. Together maybe they can conquer another mountain? Solve the mysteries of physics? Ask, who is it really that created our story? Are we merely the figments of someone else's imagination ?

Full employment

2011-11-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

Imagine a family of 10 where only 2 people work. They would be not so well off. Imagine that 7 of them work. They would be much better off.

An economy is something similar. The more the employment, the better off the economy. The only difference is that here everyone in the family works for themselves. The more work done, the better off everyone's life will be.

An economy would always tend towards full employment in the long term unless political reasons prevent people from creating jobs. For example, socialism in India prevented people from creating their own enterprises. The government did not have the capital to create jobs for everyone, and India remained poor.

People in poverty couldn't pay attention to the governance of their own country, and corruption creeped in.

Now, india has so many unemployed people, that by the time they are all employed, India will become a very rich country.

Why short blogs aren't too bad

2011-11-06T11:32:00.000-08:00

Most blogs are fairly long. If it is very short (2-3 lines) it doesn't feel like a blog.

By virtue of being extremely boring, I do not think of more than 2 paragraphs to blog every week. For this reason, I am going to compress my blogs into snippets.

There is no use of rambling more and more about things that can be expressed better succinctly.

Got the idea from a friend's blog http://vinayakpathak.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/interesting-fact-4/ . Now that is the length of how much interesting matter my brain generates in a week too.

Also, its a good idea to write a blog. Years down the lane, you can think of how your thoughts have progressed (if at all ;) )

Whose life is it anyway?

2011-11-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

In life you are taught not to judge/make fun of someone based on things they have no control over. That's confusing because there are very few things we have control over. Let me explain.

For example, a person with a learning disability like autism may not do as well in life as others. However, he may be a motivated person, and overcome those disabilities and become an achiever to everyone's awe.

Think of the poor guy who couldn't overcome his disabilities. Is it really his fault that he couldn't get motivated enough? Motivation is also linked with hormones and the level of motivation is not something that one can control!

Do we really have any control over our lives? Or are we simply beings for whom initial conditions have been created, and drift across the world according to the environmental factors we are exposed to?

How do we find the true set of factors that we can control so as to say how well one has done with his life?

Moksha from an evolutionary perspective

2011-10-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a great while, and I am getting threat letters from all around telling me that it is high time that I made them laugh. I was surprised because I thought my blog makes people freeze with boredom.

At any rate I've decided that I owe it to my safety and security that I start blogging.

During my exam preparation time, since I had nothing better to do, I would start thinking of random philosophical stuff. The stuff that would make people freeze with boredom. Even though I wanted to blog them, I had exams, so I put them off for later. You're going to hear one of these philosophical ideas from me today. Brace yourselves, turn on your heaters, please don't get bored.

Religious leaders have for centuries tried to capture the essence of our existence and the world around us, and have atleast been able to gather the interest of people. People want to know. Why is our world like this? What is the purpose of our existence? What happens to us after we die.

One dude called Mr. Buddha said that (or recycled from Hindu (in turn recycled from Egyptian (in turn recycled from god knows which all regional local faiths and ideas)) we all strive to achieve moksha. Moksha is the hindi/sanskrit word for liberation. He believed that humans are continuously reborn after every death. Our lives on earth are just simulations running over and over. Only through our mental separation from every luxury, dependency, instinct and fear can we truely be indifferent and understand the meaning of life, hence achieve moksha.

We don't know whether this was a guess, but this was beautifully retold by another philosopher. His name was Mr. Duckins. Mr. Charles Duckins. Dawkings said that animals and plants are machines through which genes survive. Every gene which would give an additional advantage to a living thing in survival will be passed on because the living thing successfully survives and reproduces.
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We often think of genes as something that creates our physical characteristics. What we forget that our genes are responsible for every mental aspect of ours. Our emotion to achieve, to survive, to be comfortable and all created by our genes. We think of a motivated person as a good thing. But, why do we need to be motivated? To survive. Why should I care? Why am I more important than you? At the end of the day (or life) I'm dead. Who cares about my genes?

Just like the Buddha dude said, it seems, we must abandon all motivation, intention and care to survive. This will lead to our genes failing miserably, as you are ignoring the very characteristics which has helped you survive this world for 2 billion years. (This is of course, assuming that you don't expect to see such a change in the world that the least motivated person comes out alive).

Such a change in our attitude, will eliminate our genes from this world. This will eliminate a part of us in the offsprings that we could have had.

Hence the evolutionary interpretation of moksha is the removal of our characteristics (genes) from this world. Why has is started getting cold all of a sudden. Please don't freeze.

Economics of corruption: How it influences gold prices

2011-06-12T04:55:00.000-07:00

Some say that we were blinded to it for years. Some say that we chose to ignore it. Yet, no one can understate the level of inactivity Indians have leveled against all forms of corruption in India.

One of the many reasons why we chose to ignore it is that we couldn't measure the effects of corruption in any concrete way. We were always unsure whether it affected us "directly". I feel that the corruption may be affecting your lives in more adverse a way than you imagine. Do you think that millions of dollars of developmental money being shipped out of the nation will not affect the lives of its citizens?

I was surprised when I noticed a gold chain the other day. It was compact yet costed 50K. It is so compact that you need 10 million dollars to fill your washing machine (10 litres) with gold today. This makes it an ideal way to store black money.

In earlier days, money generated through corrupt means were sent out of the country to Swiss banks. Identity protection ensured that this money will not be tracked back to the politicians or bureaucrats involved. However, this method of storing black money is meeting it's end. Intense pressure is there to reveal the holders of these accounts.

While the government delays this happening, black money holders are probably now on a "rush" to transfer their money to other places, or be caught after the public loses its patience. And where will they transfer this money? No bank in the world is safe! Each of them need you to give them your identity. Storing money as cash is an acceptable alternative. However, cash loses its value quickly, and moreover is bulky - hence being prone to detection.

If you buy shares of a company, you can be questioned, how you got that money. The only alternative is to buy a commodity like gold which is not only compact, but also appreciates its value, isn't perishable and it easily available from numerous gold shops simply by paying in cash.

Some times people say that gold prices are rising because of the increased demand for gold from an India growing richer and affluent. However, the demand itself can be created as a result of viewing gold as a lucrative investment, and hence buying it. This can be fueled by an external source: Corrupt politicians and bureaucrats converting their swiss bank account money into gold to evade serious consequences in the future.

If corruption is the reason behind gold prices increasing so much, one has to be wary of investing in them. The reason is that once this is put to stop, gold prices will stop appreciating. Infact, if the gold of these policiticans is discovered, it will be sold and prices will dip. This will result in serious financial losses for a large proportion of Indians. This will be specially true for poor people, who store their money as gold, because they are not in the financial services inclusion net.

Aadhar - An enabler of national security

2010-10-09T06:58:00.000-07:00

Till now in India, there is no way to verify whether a person is a citizen of the country or not. This is strange, yet true.

There are a number of documents that the government can check to see whether you're an Indian. Driving License, ration card, passport, etc.

I remember watching an NDTV report. The report showed how anyone can create a new identity in India just through some money power. In this report, a person managed to bribe a government servant into giving him a new ration card. With this ration card, he got a driving license, and a lease agreement.

This is what terrorists do. They can easily enter the country illegally, and then settle in India making themselves Indian citizens. Apart from that there are millions of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh whose citizenship cannot be proven not to be Indian.

The end of all these problems will be Aadhar - the UID.

Every person in India will get a unique 12 digit number. Once this number is rolled out to everyone present in the country, new Aadhar numbers can only be created during birth, or when someone acquires Indian citizenship. A suspected terrorist walking on the road can be asked to furbish his Aadhar number, and his Biometric data can be checked to confirm whether he is indeed a citizen.

Many advantages of Aadhar have been cited, but I don't think there is any greater advantage than this.

Not giving citizens an Aadhar number is like not giving university students a Roll-No. It becomes much more difficult to identify them.

How a company is like a person

2010-07-25T05:48:00.000-07:00

The law states that a company is a legal person, and is treated like one. The only difference between a biological being and a company is that a company can live for ever.

This is only the obvious similarity behind a company and a person.

The other similarities seem vast. Companies invest significant time and money maintaining their brand value(s). So do humans. We contemplate before our conversations, do a lot of impression management, shop for clothes. There! both time and money.

Companies spend considerable resources optimising their supply chain. How can they minimise supply chain costs and deliver the most value for the least cost, in order to make a profit. For humans, their skill set and experience is their supply chain. By going to universities, by working no different projects, they "invest" in their supply chains to deliver better products.

We spend a large amount of time organising our mental and physical resources to do a good job. This is the parallel of HR which spends a lot of resources to organise the right people for the job.

We spend a lot of time planning our budget, trying to save tax, and record keeping. This is what companies do as finance.

Sometimes we ask consultants to manage our budget and tax. This is the parallel of outsourcing for firms.

Every function (finance, supply chain, marketing, HR) all have parallels in a single individual. This is truly fascinating. The both are bound together by the interest to survive.

Let us not forget, that the practices of the best companies survive. These are like their genes. Our organisations are evolving to find better and more efficient methods, such that their "selfish" practices servive. I am alluding to Charles Dawkin's book "the selfish gene". He himself writes about how evolution is the driving force of everything in the universe, not just living things.

Is it not fasicnating, when a 1000 people are working in a department of a company, they are essentially doing the same job as when a person thinks with millions of neurons. That is why the organisation is called a living, breathing animal.

Some questions and answers

2009-10-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

Do blind people dream? I was wondering if people that are blind their whole lives have dreams. If they do dream, can they see things or is it just sounds or feelings?
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Answered by aravindv
on 2009-10-08 15:30:26

(no votes)

Yes, research and testimonies of blind people say that they do infact!

Dreaming makes your recall memories that may be visual, auditary, olefactory, touch or taste.

We have visual dreams, because a large part of our memory is filled with visual images.

However, the memories of blind people are stored with inputs from other senses.

These memories are often connected with emotions, and blind people experience them too.

Infact, research says that

1) If a person was blind from birth he hardly has no visual impressions in his dream. He may however, for example : dream that he is walking around the house touching the furniture as he goes by and he feels happy that his children have come home, by hearing their voices.

2) If a person lost his sight during his lifetime, the amount of visual information in his dreams will depend on when he lost it. A person who lost his sight before 5 years may hardly have any visual dreams when he reaches 40. However, a person who lost his sight 5 years ago will still have vivid visual perceptions in his dreams.

This group of people may infact create visual memories through touching and feeling objects which they later recollect during dreams as visual perceptions.

This question has an analogue to animals like snakes , bats which have very poor or no sight. However, it has been researched that even the most primitive animals like fish experience REM sleep.

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Asked by izzybug752
on 2009-10-04 19:24:06

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Categories: Human Body.

Tags: sense, dreams.

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Why do humans prefer cooked food over raw? Having evolved eating everything raw, why don't we prefer that?
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Answered by aravindv
on 2009-10-08 15:59:54

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Cooking has more than one advantageous , even to the cave man.

1) Raw food, especially meat, carries parasites and organisms that can make you ill. Cooking easily kills these organisms.

Over decades, humans must have observed that people eating hot food are sick less often than people eating uncooked food, hence making this a social custom

2) Cooking makes the food tender. The proteins in food (especially meat) break down and makes it easier to eat.

3) In addition, the fire at the hut always kept the wild animals away, which was an added advantage.

All these factors made cooking very popular. Possibly, (though I have no evidence of it, and I even doubt it) humans have evolved a little to adjust to cooked food. This may not be true if cooking grew only 40K years ago. Other estimates say that cooking existed even before homo-sapiens (millions of years ago)

In this case, we have probably evolved our bodies, and digestive systems to the different ( and less taxing) demands of cooked food.

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Asked by johnnyray
on 2009-08-28 17:59:50

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Categories: Human Body.

Tags: Food, evolution.

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Why don't bananas explode? At school we have been learning about metals reacting with acid. I had a look at the periodic table and I saw that pottasium (K) was an alkali metal. I also knew that bananas are an excellent source of pottasium. So why, when I eat a banana, does the hydrochloric acid in my stomach not react and make me explode? Felix, 11, Norwich
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Answered by aravindv
on 2009-10-08 16:34:11

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I agree with mmm

Pottassium is not found in bananas in the elemental form, which is very reactive. It is instead found as a salt. Possibly as KCl or the salt of an organic anion.

Look at it this way. Pottassium is so reactive, that it already reacted with something in the banana and formed a very stable potassium salt. So it doesn't react with HCl in the stomach.

This stands for all other metals that the body requires, I believe. They do not come in elemental form.

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Asked by Flix
on 2009-10-05 19:26:19

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Last edited on: 2009-10-05 19:45:18

Categories: Human Body.

Tags: stomach, alkalis, Acids, banana.

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Why does it feel warm when someone softly aspirates on the skin and why does it feel cold when somebody tightly blows on it ?
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Answered by aravindv
on 2009-10-08 17:54:12

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Breath is released from your body at 37.5 C

The temperature outside your skin is normally lesser than that. So, the skin ought to feel warmer when you breathe on it. So why does it feel colder when you "blow" instead of "breathing"?

I thought a lot, and I can come up with two hypothesis.

1) There may be some perspiration/sweat/moisture on your skin, which evapourates when you blow on it. This makes it colder. This is similar to the effect of a hot wind. Even though the wind is hot, if it evapourates sweat efficiently, the net of the two effects may cool the skin.

2) The second reason is linked with human evolution. Wind has almost always been dangerous for cave-men. If you are out in the cold wind, there is a considerably increased chance of you dying out of cold.

The body recognises this, and we have evolved mechanisms to recognise pressure on our skin as wind. The brain exaggerates the cooling affect of air on the body if it applies considerable pressure on the skin, and tells us that this can be dangerous.

3) There may be another reason. There is always a warm insulating layer of air near our skin. The wind removes this layer, hence exposing the skin to the colder air outside. Even if the air we blow is warm, after it passes the body, it brings in the cool air from outside.

Student in Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

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Is This The End of Human Evolution? I have noticed, as others may have, that as a race humans have everything done for them; travel (cars, planes etc.), hunting (guns, breeding food etc.), and also there is no longer a need too compete for homes (we can simply build more). is there any need to evolve any further? have we reached our final stage in our long evolutionary chain?
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Answered by aravindv
on 2009-10-09 14:37:53

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Wow, this is a very interesting question.

Infact, it is agreed upon by the scientific community that evolution does happen quickly in small groups of people, when the pressure to change is high.

That is probably how the human species evolved from another primate in a small area in Central Africa around 200,000 years ago.

Infact, most species probably undergo times of large changes, and then times of relative stability in gene structure.

As of yet, we dont know of any significant threat to human existence, by such risks strike quickly and often without warning. In that case, humans would be forced to evolve or dissappear.

Small incremental changes also seem to be happening, in human society, but not fast enough because it doesn't seem to be a life-death matter.

Another possibility is that we will get to know our gene structures and how to manipulate them. Through this mechanism we will "evolve" , though this may itself pose risks to the stability of society. People would have to set quotas for increasing-- say intelligence -- in one generation, strict rules, and constant monitoring to see that the system of man-made mutations becomes successful.

This would mean that skies are the limit for us, as we can make these mutations and test them at a much faster rate, maybe even through computer simulations( and eliminate the ethical aspect of it). These computer simulations may themselves become people, and we will be like god. But thats not the point. Thats a completely different topic.

But yes, evolution as we know it is over, or will take too long for us to observe (in case there is any unforseen disaster forcing us to change)

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Asked by IsaacB
on 2009-07-26 19:11:23

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Categories: Human Body.

Tags: humanbody, evolution.

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Do blind people dream?

2009-10-08T04:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, research and testimonies of blind people say that they do infact!

Dreaming makes your recall memories that may be visual, auditary, olefactory, touch or taste.

We have visual dreams, because a large part of our memory is filled with visual images.

However, the memories of blind people are stored with inputs from other senses.

These memories are often connected with emotions, and blind people experience them too.

I found this site http://www.last-word.com/ which has interesting questions and answers.

This is my reply to one of the questions: Do blind people dream?

Infact, research says that

This group of people may infact create visual memories through touching and feeling objects which they later recollect during dreams as visual perceptions.

This question has an analogue to animals like snakes , bats which have very poor or no sight. However, it has been researched that even the most primitive animals like fish experience REM sleep.

English written in hindi?

2009-07-06T08:39:00.000-07:00

I decided that from today onwards, I will write two curious and interesting perceptions of mine, every day.

1) You often write hindi in english. Like, "kya kar rahe ho dada!". Some languages never had their own scripts, and so adopted english scripts.
It is possible for a single language to have multiple scripts (as seen with hindi today), both scripts used with ease.

Now, imagine that Hindi was the rulign language of the world. Everyone spoke in hindi. India was the country where the industrial revolution , invention of the steam engine, imperialism, modernisation took place. England is still a country which is backward, and struggling to become economically well off. Imagine that over the last couple of decades, England has been achieving good economic growth, and is becoming industrialised.

The english people take pride in the fact that they know hindi, over their counterparts the french, who know very little. Because of this the English are able to build a good outsourcing industry - a backoffice for the modern countries of the world, like India. Soon, orkut and messaging software become famous, and english people start writing English in Hindi (as all keyboards were developed in Hindi)

What would this feel like? In a nutshell, if I were to write English in the devanagiri script, what would it look like?

The next interesting thing of today, comes written like this, to test how readable this writing would be. Remember, it takes a lot of time to get used to a new script. Keep that in mind, before making critical judgements.

2) टुडे इ कामे बेक फ्रॉम वर्क स्त्रैघ्त तो माय हॉस्टल. इ स्टे ओं फ़लूर २. तेरे इस अ जर्मन गाए व्हो स्ताय्स ओं फ़लूर १. इ'वे तल्केद तो हिम ओंस, बुत नोट मोरे थान ठाट. टुडे इ नोतिसद ठाट हिस रूम'स लाक वास
अ नंबर लाक. इ वास फस्सिनातेद. हाउ कांवेनिएंत ! हे दोएसं'टी एवें नीद तो कीप अ के विथ हिम. हइ विल अल्मोस्त एवर फोरगेट हिस के.

I have to admit, it is very difficult to read this on the first try. But oops... I don't know how to read hindi :) . Yes, I know a little... thats it.

But I doubt that even a person who knows how to read hindi well will be able to go over this with ease. It will take a few days of getting used to the common words used.

I've posted the english version below for your convenience:

Today I came back from work straight to my hostel. I stay on floor 2. There is a german guy who stays on floor 1. I talked to him once, but not more than that. Today I noticed that his room's lock was a number lock. I was fascinated. How convenient! He doesn't ever need to keep a key with him . He will almost never forget his key.

This is my second interesting thing for today.

the washing machine incident

2009-06-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

The washing machine is only a few dozen rooms away from mine. Being the only washing machine of this 7 storey and 350 room hostel, it has plenty of users, and often you find it difficult to get a slot.

I had just come back from work. I had no clothes to wear the next day to work, so I had to wash some. I put my clothes in a bucket, and singing random songs, walk happily to the washing machine.

He stands there looking at the adjustments on the washing machine. He says, " Just a minute, sir". I say "no problem". He doesn't seem to understand. I remember the little tamil I know and say "parvale".

So he asks, "tamil sir?". I say no, "I'm from kerala".

A few minutes pass while I wait for his washing to get over. He asks what I'm doing. He tells me that he did his masters in computer science in iit madras. He tells me that he will be going to delhi to do a course in social work.

I am slightly taken aback by his naivity. He seems to have done his masters from iitm, but he still is much more comfortable in tamil, and calls everyone "sir". A few minutes pass, and the rapid spinning of the drying machine slows down into a lazy rotation. The guy collects his clothes, and is about to go on his way.

Suddenly I notice something in the washing machine. Looking at it carefully, it looks like a softboard pin. Only much larger. Puzzled, I pick the softboard pin, and hand it to him, and ask him, "Is this yours?"

He says thank you, sir, I am blind" . While I watch him walking away, he runs his hand along the side of the wall.

The analogy between airconditioning and warm bloodedness

2009-05-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

Earlier, from unicellular organisms to multicellular invertebrates to fish to amphibians to reptiles, all animals could not control the temperature in their bodies. It used to dance with the rhythms of the days and the seasons.

These animals would become sluggish when its cold, and active when its warm. They were productivity used to alternate with temperature. These animals are called cold blooded.

Enter the beta version: "Mammals". Mammals used a larger part of the energy they gained by eating, into keeping their body temperatures constant at 37.5. So they were able to tremendously increase productivity.
Why? because all enzymes and catalyst in our body's effectiveness, reduces "exponentially" with reducing temperature.

This had an even more significant effect. Only if temperature is kept constant at 37.5, complex brains can be developed. So, without this "airconditioning" of the body, my brain wouldnt exist to enable you to read a complex article written by an over active brain.

How is it suddenly that mammals evolved warm bloodness? Through evolutionary randomness one may say. However we have to remember that the disolved oxygen in water does not hold enough energy to allow any animal to be warm blooded. Let us examine this.

A snake eats only one meal in a month. Would you be able to survive on one meal a month? Keeping your body airconditioned (or warm blooded) keeps enormous stress on your body to power this airconditioning. The body constantly increases metabolism to keep it at 37.5 C which is normally way about outside temperature. Even a fat person with slow metabolism will consume much much more energy than a repilian counter part with the same body mass.

In order to metabolise all that food, the oxygen dissolved in water would just not be enough. Hence coming to the open air on land was a prerequisite for warm bloodedness and developing a complex brain like we do.

Is this extravagent spending of energy justified? Lets remember that there are more ants in the world than humans even today. How effective the genes of our species is a function of future events. Inspite of ants having such a simple body (compared to humans), they are much more in number. This goes for rice crop, as well as the trillions of uni cellular organisms in the world.

However, let us hope that through diversification, and shifting homes to other planets we as humans are able to survive into the long term.
Possibly conditions for radical changes in evolution are not possible on earth due to the absense of a mystery chemical X. If we were able to explore the universe, we would be able to find out. It would also provide back up for the species. If one planet is destroyed we have another. But whether the human species will genetically remain the same is again doubtful :)

In short "Who cares" like the buddha said

Why we like simple people

2009-03-09T23:29:00.001-07:00

Most people like people who dont think in complex and conniving ways, and who dont manipulate situations. Such people may even be preferred when it comes to chosing mates. People find such people 'cute'.

Why do such people have an advantage? There is a theory of the evolution of intelligence, which attributes intelligence to social interactions. People needed intelligence to understand the actions of others, and as people grew more intelligent, other people tried to outdo them.
This created an avalanche, and there was a sudden spurt in intelligence in people. 300 cc for chimps to 1300 cc for humans. This avalanche went against the general lack of resources for such large brains.

So wouldn't it be bad for a person to have a low degree of social manipulativeness? Yes it is. So, it is easier for other people to survive in his company, and hence the preference of having less socially intelligence companions.

Compared to a lack of social intelligence, a lack of other logical intelligence is less tolerated. Why?
I can think of two reasons:
1) Social intelligence helps a person gain out of the loss of another person in a social situations, hence less preferable to companions.
2) The high levels of social intelligence in humans may imply that additional social intelligence may be of lesser help than additional other forms of intelligence.

Shifting perspectives

2009-02-16T04:37:00.000-08:00

It happened when we watched IPL, it happens when you shift your domiciles, it happens when documentaries are shown of different animals in Natgeo.

Before watching IPL, I was sceptic of the fact that I will be able to take sides with any team, as none of them had anything in common with me. I surprised myself, by not only taking sides, but also constantly changing them: the more I knew about a side, i would shift sides, and cheer for its win.

Something similar happens when I shifted residing from one city to the other. In a couple of weeks, as I started getting to know them, I slowly wanted the city I was living in to improve. I liked it when somethign new came up in that city. I liked it when I saw the city becoming better than other cities.

Think carefully for a moment.

Presently, you know all about yourself. From the time you were born (well almsot that long ago) till now. Wouldn't it be obvious that you want your personal development? You always cheer for yourself, and want yourself to be better.

The only reason that you want to improve is that you know yourself so well. If you think hard enough, it will be clear, that you will want someone else's improvement as much as yours, if you think you are that person.

In reality you are just an aggregation of self-promoting memories.

Saints have thought so, and in a desperate attempt to understand this have termed this as ego.

Why would you be so interested in yourself, when in this "matrix" of a world, it would be equally useless to promote someone elses ego.

I sometimes tend to border around a nihilist who says that existence is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.

The same holds true for species. Would you consider the matrix like environment where humans are grown in power plants to power the energy needs of robots, much more unethical than how we treat animals as a processing plant for our energy needs? As a species, it may be alright to die, if those suceeding us is much better than us. We do not need to hold on to old memories.

But what should we expect after our death?

I like to think that I never die. I would like to abandon my own ego and live in the lives of every atom in the universe, which has a story to tell.

My future plans

2008-08-05T10:54:00.001-07:00

Would you like to know what my future plans are? Well, here they are:

10 min later: I hope to finish this blog

100 min later: I hope to go to sleep atleeeeeaaast by then :)

1000 min later: I hope to have studied or done something productive. Also I hope to not have gone 5 million times to Pujara ka dukan and bought junk food :)

10000 min later: I hope to have also saved the world from a giant asteroid. I also hope to have met my project guide

100000 min later: I hope to have done my midsems well, and hope not to have stopped attending classes after that.

1000000 min later: I hope to have got a job in a financial company(where I can rise up the corporate ladder like a train on rails :P) or started one of my own ventures :)

10000000 min later: I hope to have made some major contribution to this world, improved the lives of people, and gotten rich

100000000 min later: I hope to have ended my life with happiness and satisfaction (else I hope to have got enough money to fund research into immortality tablets and bought two of them :P :))

1000000000 min later: Dinosaurs roam the world...[1]

References:
1) Nostradamus k, Aravindadamus l,Fahdadamus m, et al, Journal of crap and more crap , Vol 1 page 10-15, 1998 BC

PS: btw... I don't know if nostradamus did say anythinga bout dinosaurs... but I'm sure someone will be able to interpret his poems taht way...:P

Energy consumption of our body

2008-07-29T12:10:00.000-07:00

If running can give forrest gump a new life, it will atleast make you happy.

1) You burn more fat when you`re walking than when you`re running
FALSE. For example, you may burn 30% fat and 70% carbs when you run, and 50% fat and 50% carbs when you walk, however, since you burn more energy while running, you end up burning more fat absoltuely.

2) A person who walks 2 km burns the same energy as those who run 2 km.
FALSE. When you run, you definitely spend more energy. The energy spent depends on the speed at when you run. It`s a non-linear graph. Even though the work done is equal on the body, muscular motions dissapate most of their energy as heat, when you run. A much more efficient way to travel 2 km is by cycling, you would agree..

3) It is necessarily to become breathless to lose weight.
FALSE. Infact, one of the tests that you are jogging well, is to check whether you can speak properly.
Breathlessness depends on the power that can be delivered by your cardiovascular system to your muscles(lack of which generates lactic acid). Losing weight is a matter of total energy expended.

I use this tactic: Jog at the speed I don`t become completely breathless, for the whole journey, except for the last 200 metres, when I sprint.

4) Weight training is difficult after cardiovascular training
FALSE. You have glucose reserves of around 2500 kcal in your liver, which is the energy used during one day. Until this energy is fully exhausted, you do not become actually tired. Till then you feel tired only because of lactic acid generation, which relieves itself in minutes.

Infact, in order to keep as much of glycogen possible in the liver, marathon runners load themsleves up with carbs the night before the race.

5) It is necessary to take high protein diet for weight training.
This is one question that I am asked often: What extra do I need to eat. Well, if you`re just beginning, I would suggest: don`t bother about it.
You already take enough protein to build your muscles, which is just converted into carbs (and the extra urea excreted). So, taking extra proteins will just make you fatter. However, as your muscle mass builds up, they need upkeep proteins, and a month into body building, you can start worry about it.

In short: Worry about exercising, not about eating, cause eating is the easier thing to do.

6) Your muscles will keep building up at a linear rate.
FALSE. After a certain mass, your muscle building reaches an asymptote. Then you have to concentrate on diet while maintaining workouts. It does increase slowly then...

7) You feel hungrier when you work out.
I have never felt so. Infact, I`ve felt like eating lesser.

8) If you stop exercising your muscle degrades very quickly
It depends on the person, but in my opinion, there is a lot of hysterisis.

9) I need to eat meat to be a body builder
False. You get all the proteins you need from pulses and milk. Infact, you will take some time to need more proteins than you already eat. You are not a grey wolf.

10) Massaging decreases muscle pain duration
There is no evidence, against or for.

11) Body building is bad for the bones
FALSE. body building increases bone density a lot. The only thing you have to care about is your back, and do care about it well. If you have chronic back problem, do consult the net before embarking on exercises wihch compress or bend it. Posture is very important, and your back should always be straight.

12) I am thin, so I should do weight training
FALSE. There is no need to run, but weight training can improve your looks a lot.

13) The sudden improvement I notice in strenght is due to the build up of muscle.
FALSE. The first reactino of the body in weight training is to improve the neural system aroundt he muscles, and during cardio vasuclar training is the improve power transfer mechanisms of the blood to transfer oxygen. These have decently quick effect.

14) If I starve I will lose weight
True. You lose around one third to half kilos of weight every day of starvation. However, when the urge comes to eat, it is much larger. People tend to oscillate around their reference weight (the weight they consider ideal). More radical weight loss plans have larger oscillations.

15)Don`t neglect lower body strength. It`s very essential. The best way to improve is to do sit ups. with or without weights. Dont`forget that your quadriceps are the largest muscle mass in the body. and can make a large difference in your metabolic rate, your walking confidence and stuff like that

16) More muscle mass means more metabolism:
TRUE. But the effect is not very signficant.

17) Making larger quadriceps lets your run longer.
I`ve not noticed a difference. Actually when you run long distance, your quadriceps are not used too much. It`s your calves and feet muscles. Even they are not often used to their full power.
Much more important for your long distance running is 1) Your weight 2) Your cardiovascular system 3) Your ability to think from your head

18)

disclaimer: Whatever info I`ve given here, may be right or wrong. However, I assure you that I believe that these are true to the best of my knowledge, but may be convinced otherwise later.

Limits

2008-07-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

Delhi's dedicated lanes for buses is the stupidest thing I've heard of. I cannot even begin to understand how reducing the number of lanes availabe for traffic is going to reduce congestion!

Yes, the possibility is increasing the number of buses in the dedicated lane, which would lead to a decrease in passengers travelling by private vehicles, which will take dozens of months to work out!

Let's not forget that BRT intends to buy convenience for bus travellers by selling space on the road, and hence creating congestion. This is alright in cities which are not congested with private traffic only.

2008-07-21T00:19:00.000-07:00

For a change let me write in my blog something more personal, rather than about wierd logic that one will never use...

I had a nice journey back to kgp... For almost a week, I stayed with my aparents... which was relaxing. For a change I tried to not go on the comp too much, I wanted to live more of my life offline...

And it seems to have worked well :) I had a good time at hartlepool... When the time came, my parents dropped me at the airport... I had a bit of extra luggage... but I managed somehow to get it past the check in counter.

I bought some dark chocolate from new caslte duty free, and then settled down waiting for the flight.

FAST forward, I'm in kgp, and 2 days are over

registration is over. classes have started. Not many- just 13 hours.

Death from a risk-insurer's perspective:

2008-07-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

This post is in reply to someone's question : Why do people NOT want to die?

You know... in economics... there is a theorem which says... that your utility(happiness) reduces with an increase in the variance of your expected wealth in the future.

Considering the whole after-death environment as your wealth, since it's variance is infinite , your have infinitely low happiness, into entering into such a state.

Although, on an average, your after death life, you may consider to be better than your present.

I hope I've been able to explain this succinctly, and effectively... :P

in a nutshell: Your shit scared of the uncertainty of death.

Let me introduce you to our risk mitigating policy (by Arab Insurance Pvt. Ltd.). Low installments... and quick and issueless after-death claims :)

Copyright of AnswerGuru productions

Pakistan is ahead of us :P

2008-07-06T02:36:00.000-07:00

There's going to be an India-SriLanka match today, the finals of the Asia cup played between 6 nations...

It's being played in Karachi, and is expected to start at 16:00 local time. So when does it start over here in UK? Well, I was under the impression that PST (pakistan standard time) is GMT + 5. (Indian standard time (IST) is GMT + 5.5).

Since British Standard time (BST) is ahead of GMT by 1 hour in summer, and none in winter, I thought that the match would be starting at 12:00 here or 11:00 GMT

"Match scheduled to begin at 16:00 local time (10:00 GMT) " - Cricinfo

Either Cricinfo is wrong or I am. The thing is Pakistan has also adopted Daylight Saving Time (DST) as a result of which Pakistan is GMT + 6 in summer! That's definitely wierd...

Infact... theres' a lot of confusion in Pakistan about it. The official govt. bodies and offices run on DST, which normal people run without it. The time with DST is referred to as "Musharaff time",

The funda of insurance

2008-07-04T04:33:00.000-07:00

This is a conversation I had with my brother Anand aka Bakth
me: insurance is slightly tough to understand conceptually...
1:05 AM Anand: yeh
me: people who study it.... often revert back to the question, " so why is it needed in the first place :) "
the fact is that... insurance wasn't created artificially and suddenly by entrepreneurs... it came about very organically...
from olden days...
1:06 AM ok... I could go on an on about this :P
Anand: haha
me: :D
Anand: i guess ull need to sleep
me: Basically...
yeah... just this more...
this is the funda of insurance ok....
Anand: k
1:07 AM me: a person has two parameters... he has wealth, and he has utility (happiness)
The wealth at a future time t is not certain for a person...
Anand: yeah

me: however, he can find "Expected Wealth"
whcih is the average of wealth possiblities...
Anand: fine
me: and "Variance in that wealth"
1:08 AM Anand: depending on the risks
me: yeah...
It is found that his Expected Utililty at that point in the future....
is most when Variance of wealth =0
at one particular Expected value of wealth
Anand: h
oh
me: :)
1:09 AM So basically insurance companies... though on an average....
take the same amount of money... as they give...
they increase your expected utility, by decreasing the variance
of wealth...
Anand: okie
me: but since they take and give the same... expected remains the same...
Anand: i understand
1:10 AM me: though there are many cases , in which people are not insurable...
Anand: so the money u ahve is the same
me: yeah :D
exactly...
Anand: but then they take care of ur big losses and so on
me: yeah...
Anand: so that ur wealth doesnt vary too much with time
me: yeah... exactly...
1:11 AM It's tough to understand exactly why utility increases when variance of wleath decreases...
but it's given very nicely in the economics actuarial textbook of india
and intuitively feels correct as well...
1:12 AM Anand: would be interesting to read
me: I'll tel lyou in short
the jist of what they say is that....
Anand: okie
me: if you lose x wealth...
and if you lose 5x wealth...
in the second case your utility decreases more than 5 times...
1:13 AM Anand: yeah
me: utility is almost like a log function....
it's slope keeps decreasing
utility vs wealth...

Anand: does it decreas that quickly
me: yeah...
infact... suppose you have 20,000 total in assets...
1:14 AM if you lose 4,000 it's ok...
but if you lose 20,000 you basically become bankrupt...
and you have a very low ( almsot infinitely negative utility)
which is very close to a log function
Anand: yeah thats right
1:15 AM me: so insurance basically...
takes 4000 from you every year....
instead of taking away 20,000 every 5th year...
Anand: oh hahah
me: :)
that's why so many farmer's commit suicide in madhya pradesh...
they don't have micro insurance...
1:16 AM they lost all of it in one go...
Anand: yea
me: there are many proposed utility functions...
log
(1- exp(-x))
very similar (but has an upper bound)
1:17 AM Anand: thats rite
me: quadratic... comes down after sometime :)
but the actual utility function of a person... has to be
what do you say...
found out empirically...
(is that hte right word )
Anand: eyah
me: it's a personal thing...
1:18 AM so that's why...
an interestin gthing is that...
at high values of wealth....
quite high... your utililty increases tremendously....

starts curving upwards
(unlike log and 1-exp which curve downward)
tha tis the reason why people like playing lotteries...
1:19 AM Anand: oh

Trains in uk

2008-06-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

Since I've been to the UK, I've caught a train.. hmm.. 22 times!! And two of those were illegally boarded :)

The stations I've been on are: Leicester, Luton, TulseHill, West Croydon, East Croydon, Streatham, St. Pancras (Kings Cross), Birmingham New Street, Derby, Uttexetor, Loughborough, Peterborough, Darlington, Thornaby, Hartlepool, York...

"Order, Order... I think it is sufficiently apparent that the witness has established his familiarity with the British train, and railway station. Please continue mentioning details which are pertinent to this case."

Uk being a smaller country than the US, people often travel places by car or train, and hardly ever by flight (atleast within england). More people take cars than trains... because
1) they're convenient
2) they cost lesser (surprising if you're used to indian train fares)

There are two classes in all trains (coach and deluxe).
Another surprising thing would be that the trains are operated by private companies. And there are many companies like national express, cross country and all... I don't know who owns the rails though.. whether they are owned by the government... or partly owned by private players...

The good thing is that they have common reservation places. If you ask for a ticket from A to B, if there isn't a direct train, they'll book you in 2 trains, even if they are of different companies...

Now, coming to the structure of trains....

Well... none of them have sleepers... All are day trains... You have chaircars...They are all airconditioned (heated).
Largest train I've seen : 6 bogies
Smallest train I've seen : 1 bogy :)
Width of rails: Standard guage (there are typically 4 seats in one row compared to 6 in indian jan shatabdis)
Speed: They go pretty fast... I estimate around 200 kmph(top speed)...
The train I went in between york and Leicester in one of the six fastest in the world taking average point to point speed into consideration...
Stations:
Stations are quite similar to indian stations. Some of them are big. There is lesser platform space... The station at St. Pancras (london) has 3 levels (lowest- local, middle -midland trains and upper Eurostar trains). The eurostar section was specially interesting. This is the place from where people board trains via the chunnel to Amsterdam and Paris. What caught my attention was the check-in counters (just like an airport) and security checks :) which I didn't expect at a railway station.

However, in india there are many big stations with 20 platforms and more... The stations in uk are arguably smaller in general. Of course, if you go to Uttexetor (the station near Alton towers) it is a tiny one :) just like a station you would see in a gaon in india :) There are many stations like this near hartlepool (where my parents stay) and in the rural areas.

Another interesting station was York(or was that peterborough?) :) What was interesting about the station was that it was not straight. The whole thing was curved :) Trains would come in and stop curved :) It was a very large station though...
Intimation at stations: The common place at every station has a TV which has detailed information on all trains. In addition, every platform has lcds which show the next train, and around 3 trains after athat as well. They even show all the stops of each train, and I find that very helpful.

Wifi: There is wifi in all national express trains. In addition there are plug points for laptops at every window seat, which is very helpful.
Toilet: There is one toilet cum baby diaper changer in every train ( and one in the deluxe compartment). They are extremely clean for indian standards :P

Advice: If you are going to travel often by train in uk, bring your international student travel card, and you can get 1/3rd off on all trains if you pay 24 pounds in the beginning. If you don't know anyone with cars, you probably will travel a lot by train, or bus, in which case also you get discounts with your card.

Also if you're visiting a new city, you can travel by train, and then for a small additional charge can get unlimited travel in the city...

continued....

2008-06-28T18:12:00.001-07:00

Anand: is it like this in all animals

aravindv: maybe...

I don't really know...

I guess the difference should reduce with gestation period...

Anand: are there animals

aravindv: apes and all have a pretty patriarchal society

Anand: where the male carries the baby

aravindv: where the dominant male

gets to have sex with many females...

hmm...

sea horses...

not any other...

infact...

female I thought was defined by this...

Anand: oh :P

is that so

aravindv: there seems to be no other definition...

the gender

which carries the offspring

and takes care of it..

(in case of mammal gives milk)

the group which do this

became female

Anand: k

aravindv: and the group which doesn't became male...

earlier they were both the same...

Anand: k

Why girls like personality and guys like looks...

2008-06-28T17:10:00.000-07:00

Aravind: just one thing

do you think

that girls go fmore for personality than boys?

Vinayak: umm

is having money and power equivalent to having personality?

Aravind: yeah...

personality is everything excluding your physical appearance...

Vinayak: then yes... definitely

Aravind: ok....

Vinayak: ok

Aravind: I was wondering why for long...

Vinayak: we do not go for personality at all i think

Aravind: yeah even I think so...

only for looks...

Vinayak: yeah

Aravind: we don't mind if the girl is a sweeper

as long as she's very pretty....

Vinayak: true

Aravind: the girl won't mind going out with the vp

even if he looks like a pig

though pigs are not very ugly

but that's another matter...

Vinayak: yeah :D

Aravind: :)

I actually thought of a reason

Vinayak: hormones?

Aravind: which seems most convincing to me till now

ofcourse... you may come up with a better reason

but I'm too tired to type it now...

I iwll blog it sometime...

hormones of course...

Vinayak: oh... now you've made me curious

tell me

Aravind: but then the question is

why do girls have those hormones?

that make them go more for personality

Vinayak: oh it has a simple asnwer

Aravind: not really...

Vinayak: the things that have those hormones are called girls

not the other way round

Aravind: basically these hormones helped them survive

haha :P

they had some evolutionary advantage

in short : girls have evolutionary advantage if they go for personality, more than guys have

now what is this evolutionary advantage?

Women

Men right...

if they want to spread their genes....

as much as possible...

the best thing for them to do is to have sex with as many females as possible....

that way they will have the best chances of

conveying their genes

brb

Vinayak: rigyht

Aravind: b

women

however....

if they have sex say 2 or 3 times...

they will get pregnant

and then htey can't have sex for 9 months....

so the best way for them to propogate

is to chose the best possible person(s) to have sex with

Vinayak: hmmm

Aravind: for those times...

Vinayak: That is very interesting indeed

Aravind: yeah...

infact...

I'm not even sure it's my idea completely...

I think this is hte accepted idea by scientists...

Vinayak: oh

I had read a similar article once

Aravind: I think I modified it a bit though...

possibley I read the same article...

because I remember reading one... andt hen i said brilliant!

you have come and given me the answer to the question I was desperate to know the answer to....

almsot as much as "who am I"

(no ... no way that much)

Vinayak: :D

yeah

Aravind: and you just came one day and gave it!

it's so sweet o fyou

Vinayak: hmm nice

do blog it

Aravind: k....

Story of a species :Coming up

2008-06-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

more more lots of funda

2008-06-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

more lots of funda...
If someone asks you: "Is the earth perfectly spherical?"... you know what to say :D

You say nooooooooooo.... It's not perfectly spherical... It' s a flattened sphere :)

Why?

The earth's cross section when cut through both the poles... is an ellipse....

Why?

Simple....

The earth was once a revolving mass of gas... which cooled down.... to a revolving mass of liquid :P

To save potential energy... the earth tried to organise itself into a sphere....

However.. we forget that the earth was rotating as well!

In short: the earth was stretched out at the equator....

In long: the gravitational force was weaker at the equator compared to the poles... due to the additional centrifugal force acting outwards.... so in order to save potential energy... the earth piled up less radius at it's poles (where the inward force was more) and more at the equator (where it was less).
You can analyse this from a force point of view ofcoruse... but that's now I feel as though I'm giving jee :P

Often many galaxies you see are flattened!! They are spiral in shape... and don't have any height... I've wondered for long.... The principle here also is the same.... It's easier to pile up at the sides than at the top... if you have a rotating system... with a common centre of mass... at the middle...

That's why saturn's rings are planar and don't form a sphere around it....

That's why planets I guess follow a mostly common planar orbit around the sun....

more lots of funda...

2008-06-22T15:04:00.002-07:00

Some winds are called permanent winds....

They flow from one point to the other point.... continuously :D hehe....

Now... I have a question... if they flow continuously....
hmm....
Arent' we leaving something out... Won't there be excess air accumlation in the receiving area? Cause they don't reverse their direction in winter or something.... I was sort of perplexed... when I was a kid....

Ofcourse... the answer is that... when permanent winds blow in one direction .... there is an opposite wind... that blows much above it (and is more spread out height wise) ... which makes it less windy... which replaces the air.... They are called air circulations

However.. since humans conveniently only remember winds flowing on the surface... since they affect us more....

lots of funda...

2008-06-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Why do most planets revolve in the same direction? Does it? yeah... they do...

During early stages of the formation of the solar system, we didn't have planets... Instead we had gas surrounding the sun and revolving around it, much like saturn's rings...

Planets were formed when these gases combined together and cooled down...

Infact.. it is said that saturns rings will also dissappear some day and form small moons....

This can be verified by checking if the gas in the sun itself revolves round it in the same direction...

That's for homework kids....

Another question:- Did you know that the orbit of the earth is not purely circular?
This means that during december, the earth is closer to the sun than in summer!
Infact... I was surprised to see online that the variations are not ... I repeat not negligible...

This means that even if the earth did not have a tilt in it's axis... it would still have seasons to a small extend... and would not be too boring....

This also means that the southern hemisphere has stronger winters... However, this is to a large effect cancelled out by the fact that the southern hemisphere has more water area... which gives a more equating effect on temperatures of land bodies...

What I think about kgp's rti dillemma :P

2008-06-20T12:50:00.001-07:00

Someone who obviously was not happy over not getting through jee filed an rti application, asking how the cut off marks for each subject were fixed.

Now, the cut off marks, though not officially declared by the jee conducting people (JCP), can be realised easily by checking the scorecards of people who have/haven't passed....

Setting these marks is completely, I repeat... completely the discretion of the JCP!

However, it is the right for the people to know what it is and how it's set.

If IIT kgp had said that the marks were set subjectively.... or randomly... on the whims and fancies of the professors... they still would have had no legal problems :), even though their credibility as good decision makers would fall...

Unfortunately when asked how the marks were set... they gave an answer. This answer did not even match with the cut offs that actually were correct!!!

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Didn't iitkgp guys even check to see if these match!!
They obviously new that this was not a small thing!

If they did realise that it did not match, they could have sent a different formula.

(Come on... there are 3 cut offs... and so a polynomail a*x^2 +bx +c =cut off
is enough to satisfy each of them :)... they couldn't even come up with something like this)

they didn't even check if it were correct!

Now, however! they are legally bound to compensate (in whatever way possible) to those students who were disadvantaged because of this....

The alternative is that Kharagpur can come out in the open, and tell the world how these marks were actually set. Even if it means that telling them that these marks were set on the whims and fancies of someone...

They will be legally free from compensating students disadvantage... however, they will have legal issues related to wrong information outputted by the rti application... but this is much lesser....

bye :)

Please understand that whatever is written below is only my opinion. I may be factually wrong in some statements...

coriolis effect...

2008-06-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

Lately... I have been fascinated by the dynamics of the earth, it's rotation, and stuff like that...

Most of us do not understand what coriolis effect is.
Most people however, do know that all cyclones move clockwise in the northern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the southern hemisphere....

Isn't this so very wierd... it goes against the neutrality of direction...I thought... so I tried to understand it better....

Imagine a rotating earth. The air (atmosphere) of the earth keeps rotating with it.
Now, imagine, due to some reason... air above the equator wanted to travel north wards...
Initially it was rotating at a particular speed at the equator...
However... as we go northwards... the speed (not angular speed) of rotation of land reduces... as it's radius reduces with respect to the central line it is rotating about.

Hence... the air moving northwards... in effect... is pushed ahead (wrt to the land)...
Similarly air moving southward is pushed backward....
This causes clockwise motion!

So many people feel that any swirling liquid goes clockwise int he northern hemisphere....
You assume that water drains into a hole clockwise if you're in the northern hemisphere...
Infact... series like Xfiles have taken advantage of this "fact". They became inclined to believe that there were alien life forms because water was draining anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere....

This however is a myth!!

Either Xfiles have got their facts wrong, or they wanted to scare people( who themselves may try draining water, and seeing that it doesn't always go clockwise in the northern hemisphere)

The fact is that for such large bodies... the coriolis force is large... since they cover a large distance... and there is no other competing force (like you can't have a giant hand pushing the water anticlockwise)

But for smaller bodies like water... this is very much possible...the intial direction of curvature (decided by curved bath tubs) decide the dirction of rotation.

It's only applicable for much larger bodies

Facts about the sun

2008-06-18T12:38:00.000-07:00

Imagine you're standing in the open in kharagpur at noon. Will the sun be overhead? The answer is no... Why?

One reason ofcourse is that the exact local time at kharagpur is not Indian standard time.

But suppose I ask you... imagine you're standing in the open at 12:00 noon in kharagpur time. Will the sun be overhead then? The answer again is no....

Kharagpur lies approximately at 23 degree N latitude...

Imagine the earth and the sun directly falling on the equator (at the two equinoxes).
So, at noon, the sun will be 23 degrees away from the overhead line.

However... in winter... this angle increases to 23+23; and in summer, this decreases to 23-23=0;

So, during peak summer... the sun is approximately overhead!

Infact... we learnt about tropic of cancer and capricorn in school... It has a wierd angle 23.5 deg...

Why have they chosen such a wierd angle? It is because , its is the inclination of the earth with respect to the sun....and a point on this line, would have an overhead sun in peak summer...

A point whose latitude is above this will never have an overhead sun!

If you look at the position of the sun with respect to your overhead line throughout the year... you will realise that it makes a sort of arc.... comes to overhead... then goes to 23 then goes to 46 and then comes to 23 and so on....

If your place has a latitude below 23 deg... it is more interesting...
the sun will not be overhead during peak summer!!
This means that the warmest times of a place... (disregarding other factors) within the tropic of cancer and capricorn, are not at peak summer! And for that matter, in a place like hyderabad... the coldest time is not peak winter! (only regarding angle of the sun)

Infact...the warmest time at the equator is during the equinoxes :D... and during both summer and winter, it is the coldest time of the year...

however, as intensity varies as cosx, there is obviously not too much of a difference between the highest and lowest temperatures of the year at the equator, compared to other places... hence we almost neglect the changes due to the sun

I haven't been able to imagine completely what happens after the arctic circle....

Now, the question arises....
does the sun actually rise in the east and set in the west at all times of the year?!
As far as I can imagine... the answer is yes...
The sun follows a semi circle with the earth as it's centre, originating in the east, going up inclined to an angle specific to season and location, and then comes back inclined to finally set in the west...

So... if you want to know the direction... it is best to check it out at the morning or evening... otherwise... you'll have to do fairly large calculations....

The pressures of being on a raised pedestal...

2008-06-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

We iitians feel that we're good for nothing... We try so many things, we do well often, yet we're left with the feeling that "it's not enough, others are doing much more".

On the one hand, this may be a good thing, and encourage us to do more. But mostly, it may lead to constant changing of paths which will make you reach the origin again.

For many years I thought that I could do many many things together... I can handle any amount of work load. I could excel in multiple fields. IIT kgp gave me the "encouragement" to become a jack of all, yet master of none.

Normally what happens outside IIT kgp is that, a person starts liking something a little. Then he does it more, and he starts liking it more,slowly he starts loving it, and in time this grows into an expert. So much so that, one day he may do something great in the field he is in.

We as IITians would have a greater chance than him to do something great in that field. However, we overflow with feelings of insecurity about whether the field we've chosen is appropriate. We keep changing tracks, looking at others, thinking that what we're doing is not enough.

STOP!

Love what you do! get addicted to it! Never ever think that someone's field is better than yours!

Yes, to clarify, you may think... that someone has achieved more, and grow jealous of him/her.

But never think that the field you're doing your work in is not good enough (and that being the reason why you are not appreciated enough)

Instead think, that if you put the same hard work, you yourself can achieve what he did in his field...

Instinctively chose what you love, and don't look back or sideways at others...

In a nutshell... today, IITians need to
1) pierce their egos, realise that they are not damn good... jus tslightly above average, and they have to put in a hell of hard work to achieve any sort of success
2) stop feeling insecure that others are doing better things that you ...
3)be optimistic and happy all the time... :)

About Super Continents

2008-04-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

We often hear that once, all our continents were together... and we say... "really huh..." a bit surprised... but actually not really that bothered.

The other day I was reading and I realised that that's not the complete story!

It is an almost sure fact it seems, that the continents which are drifting apart today, will come together again one day, and form a supercontinent again. It will be called Pangea Ultimata, which sounds like some beauty contest.

The story does not end there. It seems that these continents will once again drift apart and form (possible different) configurations of our world, which will again rejoin to form a supercontinent.

Infact...300 million years ago... our continents came together in what was the Pangea. They had come apart and then rejoined from the supercontinent called "somethingsomething", 600 million years ago.

This process repeats every 400 million odd years... hmm... nice...

On top of that the sea keeps shrinking and increasing due to ice ages, and we have a pretty hip hop planet for creatures which can live for an enormous amount of time...

when the lights go off

2008-02-14T05:41:00.000-08:00

Recently, you may have noticed, lights go off sometimes in kgp for a minute or two, time and again.

I really love it when lights go off like that :) You really feel very relaxed, more relaxed than you feel when you try to relax when the lights are on.

Now, why is it that I can't feel relaxed when the lights are on? You always have a feeling of guilt that you could be doing something else.

On the other hand, when the lights go off... There! you can't do anything! It's not in your control!

You can just lay down, relax, and enjoy the darkness :)

Forces acting against curriculum flexibility

2008-02-14T05:40:00.001-08:00

Forces against curriculum flexibility

As of today our curriculum is flexible to a certain extent. We do have the freedom to choose between different electives and breadths. However, in our minds we really do not exercise a fair choice.

This is mainly because of the difference in the potential to get good grades in the different subjects. Student flock to those subjects in which easier grades are available. Now, you may say that you won't do that or don't do that... but when the time comes, it's all a big stampede, and you end up gonig with the others.

Making the program more flexible will only end up in a larger list of untaken programes.

The real flaw is that grades are largely instructor dependant. Some instructors give As and Bs, while the others give Cs and Ds. What we require is a completely objective scheme of grading, which has nothign to do with the instructor. We need completely relative grading in all our breaths and electives.

That way instructors will have to give a particular grade say A to the same proportion of class, whatever the course may be.

Some Tips

2007-06-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

Some points on how to not let your cycle get stolen at iit kharagpur.

1)Always lock your cycle even if you're just going to the shop to get a Real Litchi juice.
2)Take care not to leave your cycle outside closed shops and restaurants.
If you feel that the restaurant is going to close then drag the cycle to the nearest hall.
3) A cycle hardly ever gets stolen from a hall, and never from the academic area. Within a hall keep the cycle close to the security gaurd (but that isn't necessary)
4) Using two locks for a cycle makes losing it impossible, but then it makes handling your cycle very cumbersome!
5) Take care during hall days, treasure hunts, fests and days when there are a lot of people around.
6)Take care while parking the cycle at night.

Why do we die? An logical analysis

2007-06-22T03:21:00.000-07:00

People sometimes wonder why they die. Why do we need to die? With an evolutionary perspective a species whose members didn't die and live on for ever would be less likely to be extinguished. Right? Wrong... In the remainder of the blog I will tell you why....

First let's establish the fact that the age you live to is by and large genetically determined. Yes, there is a large impact of environment, but then you never live till 200. Instead you live from 60 to 90 years. Your genes decide that you have to die in this interval. Now why would genes want you to die?

Consider you computer. You have at the most 1 year, before you have to reinstall the OS. Most people reformat it every say 2 months or so. Why does this have to happen? The thing is that the disk and os gets impure... as in ... programmes dump their wastes in OSs , registries go bad and the so on. This is largely an accumulative process. Today my comp has a lot of wierd messageboxes comign up when I open windows that I didn't have earlier when I installed it.

People were similar. As they grew older they started losing limbs, getting bones fractured . There comes a certain age when having a new born baby would be better than having a man of that age. The new born baby will not be productive but then he will be productive in a few years. When the baby is born he will have done no work. As he grows older his average productivity increases as he never did any work when he was young. Hoewver, after a certain age, his average productivity starts reducing, since he starts doing less work. This is the age genes tell us to die at.

The reduction in productivity is possibly also due to another reason. When we have food we have a lot of unwanted stuff along with it. The urinary and excretory systems makes sure that we excrete the larger portion of it. However, a small amount keeps accumulating which makes us less productive and better dead. That is why simpler organisms like plants have no genetic age limit. Even many reptiles I hear have no genetic age limit.

So, it was actually beneficial for humans and many species to have their members die off at a certain age.

Remembering names

2007-06-16T22:07:00.003-07:00

I have a big problem remember names. Of late I have solved it partially, but then I'm still unable to be as fluent in quoting names as others have.

An embarrassing situation happened recently when I went to my Maths Prof under whom I'm doing a project. We were discussing on how to solve a certain problem. He asked me which book I used in his course on probability and stats which I had taken the last semester. I was out of words, and after a lot of struggle I said, "Hines" which thankfully was the right book. That happened inspite of the fact that I had studied from that book a few days before that!

I even forget the names of my wingmates... it goes to the back of my head and stays there.... and doesn't come forward even after a lot of persuasion.

2007-06-16T22:07:00.001-07:00

After a long time

2006-12-10T04:23:00.001-08:00

39 posts , and the last post was on 27 oct. That's a long time. I hardly remember the last post, or when I made that...

oh! ditch this ... I'll go see what woodstock is all about:D

After a long time

2006-12-10T04:23:00.000-08:00

39 posts , and the last post was on 27 oct. That's a long time. I hardly remember the last post, or when I made that...

oh! ditch this ... I'll go see what woodstock is all about:D

Rules and systems

2006-09-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

There are two sorts of people... those in the system and those above it.

Rules are created for those in the system by those above it.

Once while reading a map... I felt... oh this is so easy... it's so easy to go from one place to the other in a map, but when you're actually on the road, it's pretty difficult.

When you are above the system you know what is going to happen becauase you know the root of everything.

Those in the system are in their own world believing that all rules are for their own good... maybe they are... rules are for the good fo the people in the system...

whatever...

Why are we so selfish

2006-09-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

What makes us so selfish that we feel so scared when in matrix and all they said that robots have taken over the universe.

Anyway, by that time you will be dead... why are we scared about others...

but that's not the point....

that's just not the point!

This is another case in which we have trouble finding the invisible line which is there between those we dont' mind being alive at thta time, and those we don't want at that time. Because every human is genetically different from any other... just like we will be genetically different from robots..

so where do we draw the line... yet another drawing the line problem

Is it that as long as the people concerned belongs to our own species... we will sympathise with them?

if we begin geneticlaly modifying our genes, till when will we consider them to be us?

bye

After a long time...

2006-09-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

Of late, I have been thinking of everything using probability.

You may be good at something, maybe better than someone else, and you may put your effort, but still lose, while the other person may have won.

This is just a single event.

If many many such events are conducted, you will ultimately end up the averaged out winner, as it is given: you are better than him (which means only that the probability of you winning is larger than him winning).

If life is large enough... provided you're active enough and participate in enough events, you will end up the winner. Sometimes life is not large enough...

Entrepreneurs are sometimes like that. They may be good. But even the best don't get through without failing 4 or 5 times... But this number may be much smaller than someone who isn't as good as him.

People in the world are like molecules in a gas. We can't make laws for all of them. Some of them are low energy ones, others are higher energy. Strive to be the ones with the higher energy

There is always a probability of something happening. The world... you never know... what is going to happen to it?

Some people tell me that we'll have too less of the ozone layer and people will die... When it becomes an urgent situation, it's natural, that people will act, and
make something like UV free clothes or something. But they will make sure that we will survive... atleast temporarily.
The actions they take to save humanity that time will rebound, and nature will give another threat, maybe larger (eg. the UV free clothes result in excess something in the atmostphere, which is a larger problem), and then humans will do something else to save themselves.

There is a race between both humans and the environment... there are two graphs... which one will be above the other, at the end?
The thing is... who will win in this race?

To increase our chances or survival, we should think smart... expand to other planets and all...

That should be the priority of the hour.

Should you be personally involved in saving the environment?

Confusing:

On the one hand, you know that it will slow down nature's force against us, but on the other hand you know that nature's force will come one day or the other. It has to, we can't coexist with everything on this earth.

To be a bit harsh... we dont' need animals, and trees... we feel we need them because we have seen them since we have grown up. But actually we dont' need them. We can lead perfectly happy lives with oxygen creating machines, (ofcourse, the ones you presently think of are bulky and really tough to carry around... but why dont' you try to imagine some technology that is really sleek and gives you oxygen)

Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur

2006-09-04T22:44:00.000-07:00

Also known as E-Cell, or ECell, it is a part of sponsored research and industrial consultancy (sric).

It's webpage is at www.ecell.iitkgp.ernet.in

Some of it's events are concipio, E-summit, and other lectures,innovation challenge (industry poses problems to students) and workshops

like those of Mrs. Vani Kola, and TiE President Mr. Shoummo Acharya

The Wall Magazine "The Entrepreneur" can be viewed from the above site as well

Wear and Tear of the Hair... Some Logical Deductions

2006-07-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

Does your hair keep growing for ever? Or does it stop after a certain length? Girls would surely know that they stop after a certain length. For boys also, the hair on their hands, fr. example have stopped after a certain length.

Now the question is. Hair is produced by the hair follicle at it's root. How does it know when the stop production of the hair,after a certain length? At a certain length, does it measure it's weight, and say,"yeah... I think that's enough", and stop production?

Highly improbable. Then how does it know when to stop production. The fact is that it doesn't. It just keeps producing hair, which factually, is at a constant rate. However, hair degrades at the other end I assumed, so that it stops at a certain point. I assumed that hair degrades at it's tip and drops off. However this degradation should not be constant, as then the hair would never stop growing(or stop shrinking).

This degradation should be positively propotional to the lenght of the hair. Hence more the hair, more the degradation, and at a certain point, it reaches the rate of production at follicle, and hence growth stops.

Now the problem is that, if the degradation of hair is propotional to the lenght of hair, to some power, then how does the tip know the lenght of the hair. Only then can it degrade propotional to the lenght at it's tip?

Hence the only possibility is that there is hair degradation along the whole lenght of the hair.

Now, there is a problem for weak thinkers (which I was myself). I felt if hair degrades along it's whole length, it would drop off all of a sudden, at a certain time. But this is not true. This is because hair is also being produced. Assuming that hair degradation is proportional to length to the power 1, then a perfect cone will be produced.

Hence, I assumed hair is conical. Now, if the breadth of the hair near the follicle is larger than the breadth of the hair at the end, my assumptions would be right. Hair is NOT a cylinder. It is a cylinder when we approximate it over a short lenght. For example, the hair of a boy is something like a cylinder, but more like a frustrum(head hair).

However, I didn't ahve a microscope, but through pictures of teh structure of hair I got from online, I realised that the hair is actually something which peaks and tapers off towards the tip.

I am too lazy to blog down my ensuing deductions, so I'm leaving now,
that includes:- 1)conical itself? or something else?
2)width of hair and rate of growth,
3)width of hair and stage of growth,

cya

Evil Cortex (Stolen)

2006-07-11T04:41:00.000-07:00

I used to wonder what cows and all used to feel like. Wouldn't they feel like asking a question? Won't they have ANY logical feelings at all? Will they just do everything mechanically? I found this hard to imagine (literally). I couldn't believe that there could be anything which couldnt' think. I wondered what it would be like for us to be the same.

One day I was dreaming... I dreamt of myself in a biiiig house... I didn't know why I was there, but I accepted it. That is the key word. I accepted whatever I saw, without a question. Yes, the basic instinct of fear(of not knowing where I am), and anxiety and all were all there, but I couldnt' ask myself a question.
Similarly in dreams we accept wierd stuff for what they are... we dont' question them.

Hence when we dream...we are like cows... if you want to know what a cow feels like when it roams around, just remember a dream... you didn't question anything(like why is this happeneing)... We just roam around with basic feelings of anxiety, happiness, elation, fear, and mixtures of basic instinct

Ofcourse, cows being mammals are a bit advanced... when we dream... I think we are actually like alligators and all...

This gave me a hell lot of confidence... now I believed that I knew what an alligator felt like... all emotions, and no quesitons.

The next thing.

In effect the logical part of our brain is switched off when we sleep and dream. Now, it has happened to me , that suddenly I say, "hey... that's not possible.... ", and then I realise that I'm dreaming. This happens when your logical mind wakes up.
From this point, you either wake up, or you realise you are dreaming, and hence you can control your dream. Has this ever happened to you?

ok lab is going to close... I'm going...

Nothing to write

2006-06-25T22:10:00.000-07:00

I am at this place presently where I was around 3 years ago... long time ago...
looks like the same... Feels like yesterday...
Ofcourse, I was a lot more tensed with my jee preparation... I couldn't roam around the beach... I wonder if the tsunami affected these areas... I forgot to ask my old landlady when I visited her...

I often come up with these posts in which I don't have anything to write.... Then why do I start?
Am I confused? I am confused whether I am confused or not... but I don't think so...

I think I'd better change my blog's layout... It's getting boring... I can't bear seeing the same thing every time I open it...
I liked it when I first came...

I'm waiting to get back to trivandrmum.... chennai's boring me now...

I........... dentity

2006-06-11T05:26:00.000-07:00

I've not done any professional course in sociology...so I dunno whether this concept is given importance ... but I feel it surely isn't given importance in gnerael affairs of the country

We once banned casteism...We said that noone could differentiate anyone based on caste
We once became secular...We said noone could differentiate based on religion
Ineffect, we said that regligion could exist, only thing is that noone could differentiate based on it, so maybe that also means that castes could exist only thing noone can differentiate based on itIs this right?If castes as they are are totally banned.... WHY do we have to declare our castes in various documents? just like we declare our religion...

We all have an identity. This leads to a feeling of belonging. It however also leads to this feelin of prejudice... that a group of people with another identity may be better or worse than we are.
This feeling differentiates people...
It is possible for people to profess love between these identity groups.... but this needs to be done so continuously that it's very tough ... too tough to be practical.
Instead we should look to eliminate this identity.

fr example... people from various places and 'castes' come to study in iit and other engineering colleges. Once they reach here... they lose all their prejudices... they dont say ... I love all castes and all... they just LOSE their identity. This is the best possible solution, as (atleast for castes) this identity is unproductive and of no use for the future.

another problem is there... in documents when caste is asked... there is a problem on how it is decided....

whose caste would you take? father's or mother's?
1) father's? that means society is patriarchal? isn't that a violation of male-female equality, that the kid should have the father's caste?
2)we can choose our own, just like religion? In that case... we can choose an SC and hence get reservation easily

Somehow the assumption is made that father and mother will not have had inter-caste marriages and hence this problem would not arise in general... ofcourse in the ipc there would be crystal clear rules... ok... then I guess its' all right.

But that's not the point.

Before I came to India, apart from knowing my caste's name, I didn't know anythin about it. I hardly felt any sense of identity....

"
They say castes are banned in india

Then why is it that this identity increased when I was in india!!!!?
"

The only reason why the identity was retained initially after independence was because we needed to uplift those who were in the gutters... but till today the legislature has reinforced this identity in people... in order to divide and rule by caste!

Saying that noone will be differentiated on the basis of caste is not enough. We should say that there is NOTHIHG called castes! There is a difference.... yes... a universe of a difference...

Moral Aspect of Accents -2

2006-05-26T23:35:00.000-07:00

hmm....
write this later

Moral Aspect of Accents -1

2006-05-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

A language may have different accents.
Ok... lets' start from a higher point.
There may be different languages in a region. Many people are proud that this means that the region is multi-cultural, and all that... There is another aspect, that many people haven't thought of.
When there is lack of communication between two regions, the people stayin htere, develop different words and slowly their tongues start speaking in different languages. Hence, it is lack of inter-communication which results in multi-lingualism.... This was mostly due to physical barriers like mountains and all. Most people (atleast in india) will think that india is the only place where this is true. If you look carefully, another example is europe... infact there are many many examples... almost the whole of china... I dunno... not sure... speaks mandarin or chinese or whatever... but Japan speaks another language.

This lack of communication, the cause of multi-linugalism is nothin to be proud of hence mulit-lingualism is not.

When today, barriers have been brought down by telecom and all, people start gettin the same language... and I think this is a good thing.

Voluntary control over eye lens -2

2006-05-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

I can give you an example to start with.

Have a window which also reflects light.
There is a spot on the window (why didn't I call it a mirror). Look at the spot. Now feel what you're doin when you look at the picture in the window

Your eye lens relax sloowly. Not very fast. I've read somewher ethat crows and all can do this really quickly, almost instantaneously.

Yeah but you all know this. But observe(feel) your eyes wand all when this happens... you still wont get any idea what happens.

Ok then listen to this. When you think about something, you may be lookin at somethin but not focussing. At this point, your eyes are at infinity. Many people fail to get the exact idea... but i fyou think youll get it.

Another pproblem which I haven't given enough fundin to solve (enthu to the brain). is like... when you decrease focal lenght (and make it blurred), you can feel every intermediate focal length, and realise that this exists
But then it's tougher to do that with a relaxing eye..... anyway forget it

I have somethin else to say

Actually, I remembered this topoic when I was driving.

There is a lot of talk goin on about perfipheral vision and all. What actyually, is it?
Actually, the retina is ofcourse not a point.... it has a small area. Light falls on it from all angles. The brain concentrates on a certain portion of this. In genreal the brain prefers to focus it's lens also towards this image. However, in ceratin cases, the brain also focuses on things which lie at the edge of the retina.
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Sometimes it happesn that we want to concentrate on something that we arent' directly focusing our eye lenses on. Infact, we always do. We always are wary of things in our 'peripheral vision' . In the older days, it used to help huntesr and all stay alive.
In these days, if we see girls , we may not like to look at them directly, but we may see what they are doing, through our peripheral vision. Some of my friends in school days and all used to confess that their concentration used to automatically shift to their peripheral vision when girls are around.

Of course this is not the best of visions, because our focus is on the object ahead of us. It's possible that when we try to concentrate on some object in our periphery, our brain does try to adjust focus to bring it as near to that peri ojbect as possible. I haven't thought much.

Somethin to do with peripheral vision and girls being around. I think it's a bit uncommon among boys to use their peripheral vision in this way. It's only that th epossibility interested me.
I've read somewhere that girls use more of their peripheral vision than boys. Ok make that men and women. I don't know why I still keep usin boys and girls. May be due to evolutionary factors.

Oh yeah... what was the topic was gettin to. Oh yes... If I get stressed, or pressurised during the driving
I noticed that my vision becomes more centred (ie the brain concentrates more on the centre of teh retina). On the other hand, in a relaxed time, it's quite peripheral also.

An excellent example in this regard, would be our concentration while we write an exam. pre-JEE days, when I used to get tensed durin the exam, I used to realise that there is a certain thing which has really changed about my vision, but I couldn' pinpoint what that was. A few days ago I think i realised that. Then in the exam , my vision would become centered, and to look at different things would be difficult
We have to evolve much quikcer... but that ofcourse is another issue.

Yeah... the great advantage of peri vision is that you konw your way around. You konw that the pencil box is to the right... and all... hence in an exam when if you get stressed and get a centrered visino, you have to move your eyes and neck a lot to see where things are. Another thing is tha tyou can almost always look only 1 question at a time. You have no idea what the other q is.

I realise taht I was pretty tensed durin exams and all, I don't know if other people felt the same way.
It didn't effect social or sciene papers as they were just rutification, but it certainly affected my math 11-12, as I couldn't think in such situations.

Fortunately for me, I already had built up linklists or algorithms for most sums, that would be there in my head.
However after Nov 2003, I did a lot of JEE papers and increased my confidence. Then I lost this centering problem. I started doin math and all really well, in exams. It reappeared after the boards for some reason I still dont have a concrete idea about.

One year in kota removed this centering problem from everythin in life. Anything. I never get nervous now.

Voluntary control over eye lens

2006-05-24T05:59:00.000-07:00

When I was young... I used to notice, that I could voluntarily make objects blurred with my eyes... I don't know how many people have noticed this. But I think most people can do this. First look at an object, say a pencil box. Then make it blurred. I used to wonder why and how it becomes blurred during my childhood.
Most of us hav3e heard that our eyes changes it's focal length to view objects at different distances. But most of us can't pinpoint when this happens, or haven't observed this happening. It's a rather vague thing taught in school that we have to ruttify.
When I grew up, mayb eit was during JEE coaching, that I really started thinking. It suddenly struck me, that when I voluntarily blur objects, what I'm really doing is decreasing the focal length of my eye lens, to a lenght lesser than necessary to view the object I was focussing on .
To test this I did the following experiment:
1) I took my finger to a certain distance (preferably as much as possible ) from the eye.
2)Then I looked at it with my eye
3) then I blurred my vision of this finger.
Now... I effectually deccreased my focial lenght, so I can' see the finger
4) now, when I brought the finger towards myself, at a certain point, it became clear again!!
Hence... I realised that that was the focal length to which I had contracted my eye lens

Now there was a problem

If the eyes could reduce focal length... it could certainly increase it too.... and I had never observed this happening.This is a lot tougher to understand

I thought a bit and got the answer.

in kerala once again

2006-05-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

maaan... dunno what to say... exams are over and time's flying really easily.
Tehre's nothing interesting I can type about... so I'm leaving

Neural connections-02

2006-04-07T03:31:00.001-07:00

Now, I don't feel like writing about this...

Today we had EC test... I coudnn't have got a more peace experiment. maaaan . I didnt know how to spend time. In 5 minutes my kam was done.
But life is hectic... This whole week was filled with tests.

Ohyeah... that brings my mood back.
I just remember that I now have begun to understand telugu now, because some of my best friends are endras(from Andhra).
Now normally when we want to learn something in a new language. For example... I want to know what 'cow' is in bengali. I ask, what is cow? The person says x. So, I think, 'x means cow'. When we think like this, we fail to get the direct pointer from x to the image of the cow. Instead we get a pointer to the word 'cow' in English, which in turn points to the image.
After continuous usage, this problem is rectified with a direct pointer.
I discovered this while learning french in (9-10).
Hence, while learning french, I used the technique of direct pointers... basically imagining the visual image of the word while saying it., instead of thinking that it is equal to the word in English.
This helped a lot. Infact, I was pretty good at french in my school days. I am pretty good at learning new languages. It comes naturally to me.

Anyway, coming back to my history of memorisation. After 6th, when 7th came, I realised that the work-load has increased a lot, and if I still needed >90. I would have to memorise it. What I iddint' observe is that even prevously I used to memorise it visually(when the teacher says, I imagine). But I thought that memorisation only means textual memorisation.
Once I started memorising things textually, I started getting used to it. It raised your confidence in class because you knew the answer to anything 'word to word'. You didnt' really ahve to think. So, as it happened, I started 'mugging' history and almost every subject other than math. I was decently good at it.
That went on till 10th. 10th was probably the year in which I worked my hardest... ie put in the most no of hours per day.
Then came 11th. I suddenly realised that remembering things textually gets me nowhere. In general studying gets me no where. If I study for 1 hour a day or 5 hours a day, I get the same marks. That is because other than textual memorisation I didn't have any other technique of studying.
The good thing is that during classes, my visual memory took over and even though I studied hardly anything, I still got marks. But I was still worried... I asked myself, is this normal? I experimented with many techniques, but I didn't find a way to study. After sometime that year, I gave up on studying all together. What was wierd was that the marks remained the same. I felt like a genius.
What I already realised is that I wasn'st using my brain to it's potential. And that I needed to find some mechanism where I would be using my brain further. That's how the lure of JEE preparation pulled me so much. The problems were demanding, and I had to use my brain to a larger extend.
What was even better about this was that the no of hours I need to put in was minimal.

ok... this is getting boring again.
Let me shift the conversation back to something relevent to the topic.
I will re-explain how logic works .

Suppose I wanted to write something.
My brain will remember write. Then it will go to 'how' pointer, which points to the visual image of you writing, which itself has many elements like pen and paper. and then you .hmmm..... that's not that good an example.
ok now I'll get going

Neural connections

2006-04-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

Some people when pulled stretch like a rubber band... they stretch and stretch until they break. Other people people break like buscuits, all of a sudden, they may hold more strength, they may not... but when that happens it happens all of a sudden. The second kind are more dangerous, as you don't know when they are going to break.
When we have an object in memory, which can be considered as a node in a linked list, they have several pointers to other locations.
One may be labelled as 'what?'
for example... cow.what points to animal
Not only animal, it points to various other things

Now, imagine.. someone only told you that cow is an animal.
Initially you only have this connection. that cow.what is animal. Since animal.what points to something else, so cow points to other things like non-living. When the brain, realises this... it makes a direct pointer.
Hence, we know that cows are herbivores, are non-violent and sweet. Of course, we know that cows are sweet because, cows point to something else which points to sweet.

When we are questioned(sometimes without realising), like... cows are what?... then we think along one what pointer, follow another what pointer from there, and all the things that are on the way, are answered by us to the rperson who asked the question, and are later put on a direct pointer, for future use.

Other pointers include 'why', when where, and so on. These are inherent references which come to us when we are kids.

When we are kids, we are curious. Many pointers like the 'why' or 'where' pointer may be left unconnected. That's why we ask a questions. This is a natural process of learning, which is all so important when we are young and many pointers are left unoccupied, and if so may lead to some problems for the child in his daily or future activities.

Some other interesting things:
When we say 'cow' we actually read the word, which is stored in a memory location. The word's what pointer takes it to the visual image of the cow. For normal people it's from there that the other thinking processes start.

In the sentence I gave in my last blog, there are basically two ways of remembering it.
suppose I give the sentence
"The cow travelled to calcutta on a steam engine"
and you want to learn it byheart... Then there are two ways of doing it. One by textual memory, and one by picture/visual memory. For years people have debated on the existence of such a difference. The answer is that fundamentally both the memories are stored alike.
When you learn it textually, you learn the words, and make pointer to the next word and repeat it as I said last time.
In the latter case, you actually learn the pointer associated with the word. You store in this list... the visual images of a cow travelling to calcutta on a steam engine.
You basically don't memorise the words, but the pointers associated with their 'what' functions.
I've explained the technique of memorisation in the last blog.

Neurons can make thousands of connections.
The advantage of a visual memory is that, it's tough to understand. You have many pointers to the word 'chocolate'. One it's looks, one it's smell, one something else it may be associated with, like 'hall canteen' When you make this list... instead of pointing the pervious image to just the image of a chocolate, you also point to all the characteristics of a chocolate, which in turn point to a chocolate. In effect, their is a much lesser chance of getting stuck
Some people make characteristics of their own when they are out of them. They remember, 'chalk is late' or something like that, which associates itself with this again.
Hence they create alternate paths for the same destination. This can be done is many many ways

For example... the whole sentence may have an alternate path.
But I guess I can't explain all that..

Till 6th I had mainly a visual memory. I used to listen to classes, and visualise everything going on, and there was hardly any need to study on my own. It's natural for all of us to use visual memory. It's the most natural thing, for years we have visualised lions coming into our caves and stealing our children. or going hunting and like that...

However, in school we have a very big tendency to get into textual memory. Most of the poems can be by-hearted that way. Moreover, once you konw it, you know it. When you want to learn a lot and lot of stuff, then you can't afford to use visual memory.
The main problem is that most things are not interrelated, like you may learn about raja ramohan roy, who has a visually learnable story, and then another story, like about 1st war of indepence which is again visually learnable
But when you want to learn many such stories like this, they are difficult to connect.

In 5th and all, I used the 'year' to my advantage. I visualised that this happend in this year, and the next thing, 'this' happend this year, and this helped me interconnect them STILL VISUALLY. This a a great random achieve ment. But I guess many people used it.

Later, in 9th and 10th and all, these years got interconnected and difficult to have a liner chronology. What could I have done?

I'll write about my personal history later, as I think I still haven't still conveyed the idea of where logic fits in.

When someone asks, cow is good?
you remember 'cow' then you think of it's 'what' pointer and see if it fits.
Then your eturn a high or low logic. The questions may be more complex. If you ask if a cow's head is good. You go to the cow, see the pointer to it's head, and then see what and return.
Now, when you ask questions to yourself, like, can I eat the cake on the cupboard. Then you first ask yourself, 'can I reach it' using the height pointer, and if not, then you try for other RANDOM combinations 'can I reach it using table', 'using chair'. Once this random combination is once realised by you, then you directly put in connection, hence making you remember this logic.

I still don't know if anyone understood... no not the words... but the picture visually... and the idea

2006-04-05T22:45:00.000-07:00

And again... nooo! I'm goin to write on some other wierd notions and hypotheses and conclusions that I have:P

But here I go again!

It was always a lot debated Memory vs Intelligence. After a lot of thought... I seem to have got to the roots of the mechanism, though in too much a similarly amateur way, but enough for my personal understanding.

Sometimes you think of something, and think over it till you think that it's not possible for you to break into the answer. But you think another day, and suddenly it all dawns on you. Something to do with the way you start? The logic you expect in the beginning.

In short it's too difficult for me to write it completely as it's difficult to explain, and when I finish explaining, everyone will be like... naturally.. .we all knew that...

The problem with most people is that they ASSUME that both memory and logic are different processes, and they can't be compared. This leaves them with the lack of freedom to mix the two which ... blah blah

Ok
"There are two sorts of memory for most people."
If you memorise the previous sentence, you can say it by heart, then you are using the first. This is a quick sort of memory , with no "understanding".
Think of a linked list:P One word points to the location of the next word and you say it in order. That's how it's stored in yoru brain. It is quick
Dancing involved similar steps. You just feel the next step coming. They are in general single links, and if one is brokent he whole process ends, but is much quicker than the other form.

Such neurons, are isolated from the rest of the neurons, and they are not used in any other situation.

If you try to memorise, "Why are there three sorts of memory for all people". In this case, the 'people' in the first and second sentences occupy different memory locations.

ok... whatever... I've to finish my compsy lab assign... bye everyone

Just another day?

2006-03-20T22:53:00.000-08:00

Tick Tock Tick Tock
Just another day?

Something about mental strength: It comes to people when it's least expected of them, and when it does, it makes them know exactly what to do, inspite of anything they are facing.
It's deceptive. You think you may have it, when another situation, and another day make you realise that you are still mortal, just one of those other persons... noone better... you are still a child... That's when you rely on others.
Thats' what friends are for.

On it's relentless march across the sky , a smooth one... not stopped by anyone... it has a purpose... it goes on ...

Tick Tock Tick Tock
Yeah, just another day.

2006-03-18T21:57:00.000-08:00

Another fine morning I've sat down to blog... yes ... another blog from the depths of my imagination... yeah... if you're scareed you'll fall take your parachutes...

but then how do you fall from depths?

that's like... if you turn the world upside down, then you will?

SHUT UP

sorry... that was my concience... however that's spelled...

why do people write pomes?

While chatting with my friend today I thought of a new kind of literature
I get the best thoughts when I'm thinking

I think this is a greaaaaaat idea
why don't we all write articles which have words mutated in them so that their sounds are mutated to reflect our mood?

bhatever... now I've gotta give an example... I know what I'm talking about, but a GOOD examples doesn't strike my mind... anyway.. someone's calling me on my fone... gotta go

Do you have 10 minutes?

2006-03-10T22:20:00.000-08:00

My 1/2 hour journey from home to school in the morning, was always filled with pleasant music, my brother's friends engaged in conversation and pulling legs.
I hardly ever uttered a sound, but I found the chit-chat very interesting, and sometimes thought-provoking.

Once one of my seniors said something interesting. He asked us if any of us has looked at a clock for 10 minutes. He said that he did it the day before and it was tough.
Try that. Look at every second go on, dont think about anythign else... think... aah that's one second... aah... that's another...It is really very difficult. You really see those TEN minutes passing by second by second.

Now, what is it there in time that makes you feel that sometimes it goes fast, and sometimes, it doesn't move at all. How does the mind track this rate?

Some people tell me that people have a biological clock...according to me that's partially true. It tracks time in the long term... like it changes your body physique when you are 10 and 20 and 50 years old.
There again there is no single device called the clock. It is the result of chemical changes, in different parts of your body, that your physique changes.

In the short term, I the mechanism for judging the passage of time becomes even more difficult, for the mind.
Why is it that we still haven't evolved a mechanism to check accurately the passage of time... clocks aren't difficult to make, you can have something in your body similar to quartz and all which helps you do this. Maybe it was never needed. We always had the sun, and an idea of incident radiation as a measure of approx time. Or maybe it was too tough to get the resources to make a clock like this.

I had to get up at 5:45 every day during my school days to get ready for school. Sometimes, I used to be tired before going to sleep. I used to feel that I got up instantaneously as soon as I laid down.
On another occasion, fr eg. I have a fever, I feel that time goes by very slowly , because due to continous rest which means excess sleep, I can't sleep any longer, and keep waking up and having dreams.

Taking note of the above two observations, I made a hypothesis. I told my father that I know the secret behind the passage of time in the mind. I told him that the more you remember, from a certain period of time, the more you think that the time has gone by slowly. This is true in case of sleep. The more you dream in the middle or wake up, the more you feel you remember the sleep. Otherwise, it's just laying down at one time, and then getting up at another.

But what about classes? During interesting classes, when time goes quickly, or say, a movie, you remember most of what happened. I think the brain has different mechanism for judging passage of time in different situations. In general, if you want to judge the rate of the passage of time during an activity, find the amount of the activity which is it's this. The more you remember this anti-activity, the more slow you feel the time has passed.

In general, the mind expects an activity to go on. If the activity is disturbed, it makes a note. When you think...'has time flown?' in your mind, the no of disturbances get registered. But does that work for the 10 minutes clock problem?

I don't have a full explanation to this topic

Have you noticed... that if you concentrate on the time ticking, the times seems to go slowly. But if you concentrate... like... really hard... on the ticking of the clock... and don't speak much to yourself in your mind... then you feel that time has gone by really quickly

Maybe the mind clock takes a note of the conversations the mind makes with itself in order to track time... Yes... I think that's it
For example... when you're completely immersed in a movie,you hardly think to yourself... you are busy registering the sequence of the movie...

I think the mind actually counts the no of time it thinks to itself, when it wants to know how much time has passed. When you enjoy something, you concentrate on it, you dont' think much to yourself.

But then what about day dreaming?

Maybe the mind expects and finds interest in a certain activity. And the mind just takes note of the anti-activity that's going on. Whatever...

When I normally make a theory, I see one problem... solve it ... and go to another example... see if it fits, macroscopically, if it doesn't I go into it microscopically and see what is happening... then I make slight changes to the theory to see that it fits.
With this topic, my mind seems to be completely jumping to another theory during every example

The other day I fell down badly while cycling. I was on MMM road, and took the bend near the LLR gate. I was riding my friend's cycle, and his breaks are really strong. He just needs to press it a bit and it breaks. whereas I can ride my cycle with my breaks pressed to the handlebar. What happened? I slid on the road as like someone skating on ice.

I suddenly started a blogging spree. I thought I'd just write one blog and then my brother says he wants to know about my latest views on socialism also, and there I go...

If aliens could see humans (and not comps) through infra red devices or something... they would think that my fingers have gone crazy.

I really type very fast... when I type people around me sometimes stare... some peole ask me... "Can you type without looking at the keyboard???". when I heard that first over here, I wondered what there is that's great about that. But to think about it, i don't know when I started typing without looking at the keyboard, but when that happened, it happened so smoothly that I didn't realise it.

If you want to type increase your typing speed there are only two things you can do

1)
Learn to type with your 10 fingers... and stick to that very well, because you keep getting the urge to deviate.
While swimming, I have a constant urge to swim in a way which is right the opposite of what our instructor says. I may swim well this way. But that isn't the way, I'll be able to swim my best in.
Its' something like that. 10 fingers are better than 2 or 4 fingers

2)start chatting online... or maybe even blogging:D

Capitalism or Socialism?

2006-03-04T01:29:00.000-08:00

When I read about the economic liberalisation of India in 90 or 91 , that made me a person completely for capitalism.
I felt that that is the best way out. After examining Malayala Manorama Yearbook I made many conclusions which I felt that time would be really good for India

1) Make export grow and import decline... I felt it was those countries with a good trade surplus which prosper. My logic was that the total money in a country is going to remain constant and the only way to change this was by trade. As years pass by with a trade deficit, India becomes poorer and poorer.
2)Make population growth zero. No new people would come in and so there won't be any more heads to employ and there wouldn't be any more consumers to feed and it would be cool.
3) Make India completely capitalist. Why? because it worked during liberalisation, didnt it? 'Look at the other countries which have liberalised' Hasn't it done wonders to them too?

Till 8th, my views hardly changed.
Later I wondered why Russia worked so well under Soc. I arrived at the reason that the population density is very low.
I made the following conclusion:-
Population density is low:- socialism eg. (Russia, Oman <10)
Anything higher:- capitalism
When Oman liberalised it's economy, it gained not much out of it.
When there are few people, the government is able to establish things for them, but when there are so many mroe it becomes much more difficult.

I dont' feel satisfied that I've blogged enough... by still this was a part of my thoughts in those times.

I don' say that all of them are wrong. I've modified some, changed some others and left others as the same. Of course, when I mean right, I assume that what I'm thinking now is right.

Until we are soc. we need to contain population. Because it becomes more difficult for the government to manage otherwise. Till when should we contain population. Till it becomes > 10 people/sqkm. By that time we should become cap. and then population works to our interests. The more people there are, the more consumer base, the more the workforce, the lesser the labour costs, and so on. Cap. thrives on the population and for the population. It's the rawest law of nature, to go where demand is.

For example,
If you examine wages across the world, you will notice it that it is atleast 4-5 times higher in Europe than in India. If India becomes cap. (allows free flow) it allows free use of it's labour force, and so the demand for labour in India will also rise, corresponding with a fall for demand in Eurpoe. This allows equalisation of labour wages, which ironically is the philosophy of soc.

Cap. is so natural that it's something like the leveling of water in a pond, if water(investment) is added in one part, it's changes propogate across the pond.

Investments increase GDP, and the total GDP is taken into account while looking at how powerful the country is. of course this is a very raw thing to say, but I have other things to say so I can't elaborate.
For example, South Korea is richer (atleast percapita) than India, or may be even Neatherlands is, but India is in a better position to assume control as a global power only because of it's higher population which enables a higher saturation GDP.

What is saturation GDP. By the time a country becomes developed, the population stops increasing. For some time, the productivity increases, with more machinisation, but there comes a point when there is a limit to machinisation. The no of poeople required for a job is reduced by robots but then there is someone needed to control them, or adjust them, or maybe even make them. We have till now failed to create a fully independent system of production which includes few or negligible human labour.We have reached a saturation point for machination...

I have said a bit about this in one of my previous posts. One way of course is to expand into not so developed countries or outsourcing. What happens when all countries are more or less equally developed productivity wise?

The world is waiting for a break through or revolution in automation. Once this happens the no of people engaged will tend to zero compared to those involved now. We will be a species deficient of work, surviving on the work of machines. Here, socialism will play a good role. Ensuring that people get equal shares of wealth, most of them have little role to do in production.
Yes, socialism is a system of the future.

But is it not natural like cap.? Isn't it created by us? Where is the inner urge to share wealth? This is open to the reader. Vaisey, I call this 2nd degree naturality... but of course that is another topic

whatever...

Something about nothing

2006-03-02T04:28:00.000-08:00

When we were kids we read in our economics text books that kerala is socially developed, high literacy, low infant mortality, low birth rate and stuff like that.
When people expect to go to kerala they expect really cool buildings and shopping malls and all that.
When they go to kerala they become confused.

Everything looks almost the same as it is in other states. The people look similar, the condition of the dilapidated roads, the I-badly-need-a-coating-of-paint-and-I-look-as-though-I-was-built-pre-independence buildings, the garbage on the streets.
Even schools,and hospitals, the buildings which represent social advance don't look better. People wear lungis and not jeans, they talk mainly in malayalam and not in english, and "not even in Hindi".

It was difficult for me to appreciate the state with a sociologist's point of view. Infact, during my early ages, before 6th when I hadn't read books on economics, I really hated travelling to kerala. 1-2 Months of survival in a place which doens't have any A/C, dirty roads, disgusting toilets and so on. I used to wonder why people are given a 'hometown'. Why can't the world be our home?

Can we associate patriotism with regionalism? In our minds there is a thin line of difference between them. This line demarkates the intensity of the feeling, and some other factors. Normally when we think about regionalism we think of a group of small people from a small community somewhere in semi-rural India who are very concerned about their development. In this case our scrutiny is veyr sharp. Even slight inclination towards your own community is supposed to be regionalism. But when we think in terms of our nation, there is a very large level till which we can appreciate this. This was because for India it was necessary that we stand united so that we can fight off imperial forces. Today this need is antiquated. In order for India to succeed we need to look beyond our borders, globalise and expand.

Why can't the world be our home?

We fight for it's survival and we are its' citizens. This idea will come more into our perspective in an imaginary situation of an alien attack. Other cases include: if we expand our boundaries, and let peole settle in other planets... in this case we would be regionalistic about the earth and consider the other planets to be our enemies. It seems that this spirit or competition or shoudl I say this urge to form enemies with those who pose as a danger to our resources is inbuilt in us, even though this may not give us any long term advantage. We will have to evolve.

Getting back to kerala, why is it that it's considered a good state and all? It depends on your perspective. If you're rich kerala is the worst state to be in. If you're poor, it's probably the best.
Now when I mean rich, I don't mean really rich. If you're just slightly well off, it's a really bad place to be in.

Think of a person (just once more) who gets 18,000 Rs a year. That's just 1,500 Rs per month. To put that more into perspective that's lesser than 15 rials:P. Most of us spend more than that in one month. And that excludes our room rents and khana peena. And this is an average person, the average being calculated after including everyone who is rich. For such a person, the services given by the government, the medical facilities, schools, trained doctors is really cool.

This time the thought struck me that kerala is actually what India would have become 40 years after 1990 if it hadn't liberalised. Social development would have continued, but people would have remained largely poor. This visit was one after 3 years and so I noticed quite a few differences.

People have changed their mentalities. They are ready to accept the fact that socialism hasn't worked. The new buildings coming up have the same looks that are present in the rest of India.

Socialism is a system of hte future, but unfortunately we ar estill in the present. I have a few nice thoughts about this, but I think I shoudl blog them down later, as I think I'm getting boring now

When I started blogging, I did that because I had a mixture of feelings and thoughts that would escape me really quickly. I wanted to blog them down. If I wrote them on paper and thought that only I would read them, then I wouldnt' take the pains to write htem down seriously.

Anyway I've gotta go now, my hands are paining.

2005-11-07T13:02:00.000-08:00

I wud have sat in takshashila for 6 hours by the time I leave... 2 hours for surfing and the rest 4 hours for AutoCAD. It's freeeeezing here. When will they switch the A/cs off. Yesterday night it was just 17 C. There's so much to think about...:D but so little of it wanna blog.

loyal readers of this blog, I may not be blogging for a few weeks as I will be immersed in end-sem preparation. Please survive on water and basic rations.

dilbert is too cool! have any of you read the origin of dogbert strips? :D cow army....http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/news_and_history/html/dogbert_origin_strips.html
well... that's the link

ok bye I've gotta and start cutting cones in autocad

Life goes on....

2005-10-25T23:28:00.000-07:00

We got our desks yesterday.... I feel very studious:P Have gotta be... or will get screwed up this sem.

It has started gettin mildly cold over here. Hope it gets really cold. I think I'd really hate the summer over here.. It'll be hot and sticky.... but then next sem our lecture halls will be air-conditioned... but don't forget we still have to spend some of our time in our rooms... we can't sleep in takshashila

whatever...

Is it worth it?

2005-09-23T01:31:00.000-07:00

Of Course Not!

Typed as fast as possible

2005-09-21T22:57:00.000-07:00

Man, what can I say.... words escape me before I begin typing. Even though I'm pretty fast in typing, attending Ninja's classes in Bansal has made my thoughts travel really quickly. Dont' tell my roomie this though. He feels that I'm a complete bird brain and take an hour to think over 1 sentence.

When I used to attend classes in Bansal, I used to go by cycle (a typical 5 min walk to the insti.) On one day I went walking. One of my friends saw me and started walking with me, chatting. He asked a question, soon after we'd left my house. I don't really remember what happened, but he says I was silent through the whole journey and that I answered the qusetion only once I'd reached Bansal.

Now in this case, chances are that I wouldnt' have been thinking of the question at all during the journey. I would have been in a dreamstate thinking of something or someone, with the question at the back of my mind. When I reached bansal, though I would have realised that the question is still there, thought and given the answer.

The same thing used to happen while chatting with particular friends back in school in muscat. I have no idea why this used to happen only while chatting with them. Time gaps of 2-3 seconds while answering simple questions were common.

Oh yes... there is so much going on in my mind that I'm unable to type all that, One subject leads to the other and another while in that time I'm hardly able to finish 2-4 words on teh blogsite. But I guess this happens with everyone.

The brain probably arranges these memories in groups. Often you think of an incident, and say, yeah.... "that incident" and go on. However, if you want to blog it, you've got to write a hell lot. The above incident that I described took very little time to get registered in my conciousness , and it lead to another thought. But But I was forced to sit and write about this.

blugblugblugblugbloooooooog

2005-09-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

I like the title.

Midsems and other things...

2005-09-19T02:19:00.000-07:00

IITKanpur has 2 midsems. When you hear the word 'mid' you feel thatthere will be only one. It's wierd... Did IITK earlier have only 1 midsem? Ofcourse,bythe 1st two semesters you'll have lost all idea thatthis is wierd as youwould have got usedto it.

In IITD it's called minors and majors. That'sfine. Butyoustill may confuse that with your major/minor stream.

We in IIT kharagpur are lucky onlyto have only one midsemester exam. But we're unlucky to have around 30-33 hours of classes(1st sem).

Wehad electrical onFridayand we had chem today . We have english tomorrow.

All of us enjoy success. We get a feeling of elevation. Whcih is more enjoyable... a group of small successes or a big one? The question is controversial but I have an interesting example of the first type, manyofyou would have hardly thought of this.

Why do mostpeople like music? How many times do youneed to hear a song to start enjoying it? Formost people it's 4-5. It's after this no that we truly start enjoying it. Why do we enjoy music. What exactly is the process?

Whenyou listen to the music you've heard for morethan 4-5 times, youknow every pattern or every note that is going to immediately follow. Whenyou are able to predict this you geta feeling of success. Thsi releasesthe chemicals inthe brain which make you feel good.

Ifyou haven't heard it enough times youwon't like it.

There aresome poepel however,who actually admire the words ofthe song. This admiration doesn't bringyou the elation that you get whenyouhear the song.

I could be wrong, butI couldn't get abetter explanation . Comments welcome

Small Big and Other Spheres

2005-09-17T02:33:00.000-07:00

Before 8th standard, all I knew in school were the people in 8 A. I used to spend 5/24 hours of a day with them. Forget the students in other standards, I didn't even know a dozen people in other sections(if they weren't my brother's friends).
I was happy in this sphere of comfort. I didnt' even realise that my world was so small.

Then it happened. We were schuffled the next year. I went into 9B. I felt like a gas expanding into vaccuum. In my class almost all faces were new. There were many other sections were there were so many other people, including my old friends. The new freedom I enjoyed due to a larger sphere gave me a whole new sense of confidence.

Then it happened again. I was forced to go to India for JEE coaching. Suddenly the same thing happened. You know... you have those games where youc an'ts ee beyond what you haven't explored. Then all of a sudden you get the see-all charm and you see the whole map. I experienced a similar feelign of joy during these two expansions.

Is there another sphere out there? If so should I leave everything I love ? Is it worth it?

And yet another post

2005-09-15T01:54:00.000-07:00

Many people over here have false notions about currencies. They feel that if Currency A is stronger than B then A is a more prosperous country and has as stronger economy than B. The conversion factor at a certain time is analogous to the conversion factor betw. units of measurement, in science.At the time hte currency is formed or whatever, the authorities have the freedom to set any convenient unit.
What matters is whether this factor is increasing or decreasing. if A/B is increasing with time that means country As economy is strong.
After say years of a weak economy, however, the currency may depreciate to a value when you'll have to measure the currency in thousands or millions. However by this point it woudl have become inconvenient to change the currency.

I have often wondered why growth rates in developed economies are declining, mind you, I'm not talking about the base of growth. It is obvious that if a certain fraction say x people work and their productivity is p then average wealth of the people is px. At most this value can be p. In an undeveloped country, economists work on the x, trying to increase the no of people who are employed and hence increase wealth. There reaches a stage when x reaches a good value close to one. This is the time to increase the p. ie productivity.

This is where developed nations have failed to a large extent.
Now it's tough to increase productivity. A man can only work for a certain amount of time, and at a certain rate. That's when automation comes into the picture. Machines can do what many men can hence increasing p. However, machines need humans to coordinate them, and so then larger the system of independent machines which serves us, the more we prosper. But we find it difficult to create such machines. There is still a lot of human labour involved in production.
In outsourcing, the developed country increases p and the developing country increases x. But the problem is that developed loses x. Now, people fail to look at the bigger picture ie. (px).

A few years ago when I heard about hydrogen fuel cells, I became inquisitive as to where we'll get the hydrogen to power it from. I asked some people and they were like, "water... there's plenty of hydrogen in it". Then I ask them how we get the hydrogen from water. They say electrolysis or something like that. Then they realise that there is no net energy gain even in an ideal situation if you have this system of electrolysis and then combustion.

Few of us laymen know from where this hydrogen is goin toc ome . I read somewhere that this hydrogen will come from hydrocarbons after some mechanism of seperation. They will manage to seperate basically the carbon and hydrogen. Carbon is the thing which produces Co2. This also tells us why lower hydrocarbons (which are often used as liquified gases ) are better. They have a higher percentage of hydrogen. Moreover, they can be seperated more easily and so don't have toxic impurities.

However, if we were to use hydrogen for fusion then seperating it from water wouldnt' be such a bad idea. The energy derived from fusion would compensate more than enough for this. As it is it woudl be good if there is lesser water on the earth.

That reminds me of something I heard 2 years ago. Someone told me that the water that they used in singapore was made by cleaning the used water from the city state itself. Many people felt hesitant to drink the water. This completely changed my view about the water cycle... which was previously sometihng I mugged up in geography years earlier to get the much coveted >90%. I realised that all the water cycle does is purify the water for us to drink. This basically takes place in the step of evapouration, and then it's supplied to our homes by rains. We can do this process anywhere. Desalination does exactly that, and singapore is doing that in a better way, by not letting their water to become more impure by letting it get mixed with salt water.

Our body needs a supply of water only for two reasons. It has to get rid of it's wastes and it needs some mechanism to cool itself down. Now, if we were able to make some mechanism by which the water can be purified and returned to the body we won't need any more water.

ok whatever.... I'm going.... I can already hear protests against me...

About Chilling out : a layman's perspective

2005-09-03T21:44:00.000-07:00

I've been intrigued for long about how the body manages to keep it's body temperature at the level it is at body temperature (BD).

I remember, when I was a kid, I asked my father why people shiver when they have fever. He told me that temperature of teh body rises, and this makes you feel that the outside is cold. I found this rather strange but I couldnt' pin-point the concept which was altered in my mind, when my father replied. Years later, in Kota, I realised that previously I used to think that skin-nerves measure the absolute temperature outside while in reality they measure on the difference in temperature.

It is obvious that cold-blooded animals have a completely different mechanism for measuring outside temperature (OT). As their BDs are close to OTs there is often no difference in temperature(T), and they probably use some sort of chemical which changes it's form regularly with temperature inside them. Or maybe they go to the nearest chem lab and read the thermometer.

Now let me pose an interesting question. How many of you feel comfortable at 35 C? Why is is it that most people feel comfortable in the 23-27 range? At 35C the outside and inside are at thermal equilibrium, so that way 35C should be the most comfortable temperature. The thing is tha tmost poeple fail to realise that the body is actually producing heat inside and it needs a means of expelling it. now by newton's law, difference in temperature is prop. to heat expelled. Hence, it is at this difference(35-25) that normal body processes can function at optimum rate, and yet keep the body from over heating.
Feeling comfortable is not about thermal equilibrium with outside, it's about keeping your body at 35C. And since the body measures only difference in temperature, if you have a fever at 37C then 27C will be most comfortable for you.

Now what happens when OT is much below 25C? Let us remember that the body still needs to maintain BD at 35C. I am not sure what happens. I think the body increases it's metabolic rate and hence maintians it. An example is shivering. We also go for more insulation. which decreases conductance of the body-outside interface.

What happesn with OT is above 25C? we start sweating, and the sweat takes energy to vapourise and hence takes the heat produced metabolically, away from us.

But now, something interesting is the role of fans and wind speed in this process. The lesser the relative humidity, the easier the rate at which sweat evapourates.(Ideally any water body anywhere will keep vapourising until 100% relative humidity is reached-which is equilibrium).

However, often since air is stagnant, there is a layer of high-relative humidity air just above our skin surface which decreases further sweat-evapouration. Wind removes this layer, and enables the blah blah Ive written above. I've often wondered whether a high wind speed makes you feel less cold or more cold. The answer is that it can make you feel both. That's because there's another second important function of wind is the bring near-skin body temp, closer to the temperature far off from the body ie increasing rate of convention. remember, it's the close-to-skin-temperature, which actually determines the rate of heat escape.

For any temperature, sweat-evapouration decreases body temperature. However, there is a limit to this. This limit is essentially the rate at which body can produce sweat. If there is wind which enables sweat to evapourate any faster than this rate, it's of no use.
But there is harm in higher wind speeds if OT>35 . In this case the second factor comes into play. But increasing wind speed above the limit mentioned above, sweat-rate fails to increase, but if OT>35 then the temp just near skin tends to the temperature very far from it, and hence making heat intake by the body more and more efficient, and quick as heat intake doesn't decrease outside (just outside skin) temperature.

So, if OT>35 then we should increase fan speed only to a certain limit above which it is counter productive. An example of this is loo, where high windspeed forces quick intake of heat, and keeps close-to-skin-temp close to the OT. The sweat is unable to bear the combined burden and your body temperature is forced to increase.

However, if OT<35 but OT>25 , you can increase your fan speed to whatever you want. And ofcourse if OT<25 switch your fans off and snuggle up with your girlfriend(or dog, if you're in the lucky majority) to increase insulation.

Am I getting boring?

2005-08-26T03:49:00.000-07:00

I think my brain is rusting, and heeeelp.... it's raining. Rain over here, is wierd. Not only over here, also in Chennai. In both these places, I've observed that it rains mainly in the evenings, and afternoons. It hardly rains in the mornings. I wonder why this is so.
So much so that I don't think twice before leaving my umbrella in my room while I go for classes in the m orning. Today I made the mistake of leavnign it in my room for my afternoon session. Tghat's why as soon as it started raining, as it does everyday at this time, I jumped into the mech dept. CAD lab.

Oh yeah... my brain. I'll give you an example of how it is rusting. The other day, my bathroom mate, karthik told me his marks and rank in screening. I heard it and analysed and extrapolated the marks vs rank curve in my brain with the help of a little more otehr data, but I didn't realise that I would ahve received a screening rank! I would be naturally curious to know this but that tiem I didn't realise that mine would have come out as well!!

My sim is over and I am trying to finish my Rs 100 hutch to hutch local free before getting an new one. However, tragically it never seems to finish.
Hey! Hutch to Hutch STD is only 1 Rs with a monthly fixed charge of Rs 25 extra. That's pretty cool for people who have hutch friends networks.

Has it ever happened to you that youve typed a looong looong mail and just whenyou were going to press the send button, XYZ happens and you find yourself in the previous page and when you forward it the letters gone!! Ofcourse it has happened! That reminds me tomorro w is a saturday.

Bye the way, q to kgp people. what is the digital library for? I entered it and the dep. librarian asked me why I was there. I told him that I wanted to search for info. He asked me what. I told him about 'tennis elbow'. At that point he told me that the digital library is not for surfing. I told him that I wanted to search for it in the insti-online library . He said there is nothing about tennis elbow there and elbowed me out of the room!! It remains a deep mysetery what the room is supposed to be used for.

Am I getting boring?

cow

2005-08-12T01:02:00.000-07:00

cow

IIT Kharagpur

2005-08-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

I arrived at night.... and yeah... now I''m feeling hungry, I'll complete this later. I think BIGBADBLOG is going to the dogs.

School of Law comign up in IIT Kharagpur

2005-08-12T00:58:00.000-07:00

Dear bloggers,
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1198557.cms
thank you

hi

2005-07-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

Hi , not busy day, but I can't write much, because my uncle left to work WITH his laptop. Anyway, the urget o come online made me travel almost 500 metres to nearby locality , but I spent my time chating wtih some friends and anand(brother).

Anyway, this isn't supposed to be my personal dairy, so I don't think I shoudl bother writing everyday.

First blog

2005-07-05T13:14:00.000-07:00

Here is my first blog. Hope this is interesting.