PG was mentioning about the New Year party he was invited for. The party is priced at 5k per couple for THE night. He got a free pass, hence planned to attend and later had to drop the plan as his uncle happen to visit him. The discussion went on to note the cost of such parties and the worth of the same.
VY mentioned such parties are considerable only if we get free passes. JB mentioned the risks in driving during the late nights. Apart from the drunkard drivers and rash drivers, there will be eve teasers all over the city - drunkard eve teasers are still bad. I guess the city looses its safety belt and goes crazy. It is better to stay at home.
Have a small, controlled gathering at home, plan for some games, food and fun. With mild music in the background, I guess nothing outside can come close to it.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Difference in taste
SDP had come to the country on a visit. VY and myself joined him for lunch.
We were discussing about different restarants and the taste.
The food prepared by Indian restarants at US have a different taste compared to what we get in India. May be the ingredients are too refined and hygenic. Most of us prefer the taste in India.
Seems like the Chinese food available at US is closer to the authentic Chinese preparation. In India, the Chinese restarants are highly Indianized with spices of India.
SDP was mentioning the Shalimar, a restarant in SFO. Seems like it is a very small place and got a great ambience. However, the food taste pulls lots of crowd.
We were discussing about different restarants and the taste.
The food prepared by Indian restarants at US have a different taste compared to what we get in India. May be the ingredients are too refined and hygenic. Most of us prefer the taste in India.
Seems like the Chinese food available at US is closer to the authentic Chinese preparation. In India, the Chinese restarants are highly Indianized with spices of India.
SDP was mentioning the Shalimar, a restarant in SFO. Seems like it is a very small place and got a great ambience. However, the food taste pulls lots of crowd.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
The secret of an Oracle
Guess you have gone through the belief on future prediction.
Such belief seems to be a weakness, and a lack of self confidence in doing things.
Where there is a weakness, there will be business. Hence the astrology is a flourishing business, if done in the right manner.
Presenting my views on how a future-reader or a horoscope analyst can tell about our future. Trying to cover as per the reality, may be few points are over-stated or under-stated.
Telling about future is a really a trick, by practice anyone can gain. It is just like how a magician does the trick without exposing the truth to the audience. Future reading involves more of psychology, semantics of words and presence of mind.
Just listen to someone, may be a stranger for five mintues. If possible, try to open up his/her mind to let out the worries or issues troubling him. Just in five minutes you will gain a load of details about their habit, family background, their problem solving techniques, attitude towards life and n number of other inner, finer details. With that information, it will be easy to extrapolate their behaviour and what they will most likely do.
If a person trusts an astrologer kind of guy, then they will start believing whatever he says. That is a positive reinforcement of statements in the mind. Once the person is convinced of the future prediction, the mind start obsolving that fact into deeper part of the mind, may be at sub-consious level. For eg, if the prediction is made that business will pickup better from the month of May, then the person will keep repeating that in mind. By May, the person will be fully charged to do something in business; with such positive spirit it might be possible that the prediction comes true.
I guess Neuro-linguistic programming courses does something like this. If the prediction is positive, it makes everyone happy. However, when the negative predictions are made, it might put down the effort of people. The predictor might have given negative prediction just to have equal number of postive and negative predictions for his clients. (If he keeps telling only good things, people will loose faith).
Semantics too help in analyzing the thought pattern of a person. It tells why the person is trying peep through the future and more importantly, what he is looking forward to happen.
What about the planetary explanations, palm reading, face reading, naadi stuff, parrot-card, and zillions of tools and techniques? In my opinion they are jargons used by the future-reader to gain credibility. Also, to have the art of future-telling to himself rather than make it public.
Why do we need to know about the future? Why can't we enjoy the future as it uncover itself?
Had any astrologer won a lottery?
Why do people return to them inspite of umpteen number of prediction failures? (If a prediction fails, the astrologers have n number of sub-clauses to justify why the prediction had failed, or still worse .. blame it on the customer for not strictly following his prescription)
hmm .. I guess this craze will dissolve only when people shed their fear about future. Seeing the history, I am afraid that such a reformation is close to impossible. All around the world, at all times, from kings to papuer queued in front of the fortune-teller to know something.
Such belief seems to be a weakness, and a lack of self confidence in doing things.
Where there is a weakness, there will be business. Hence the astrology is a flourishing business, if done in the right manner.
Presenting my views on how a future-reader or a horoscope analyst can tell about our future. Trying to cover as per the reality, may be few points are over-stated or under-stated.
Telling about future is a really a trick, by practice anyone can gain. It is just like how a magician does the trick without exposing the truth to the audience. Future reading involves more of psychology, semantics of words and presence of mind.
Just listen to someone, may be a stranger for five mintues. If possible, try to open up his/her mind to let out the worries or issues troubling him. Just in five minutes you will gain a load of details about their habit, family background, their problem solving techniques, attitude towards life and n number of other inner, finer details. With that information, it will be easy to extrapolate their behaviour and what they will most likely do.
If a person trusts an astrologer kind of guy, then they will start believing whatever he says. That is a positive reinforcement of statements in the mind. Once the person is convinced of the future prediction, the mind start obsolving that fact into deeper part of the mind, may be at sub-consious level. For eg, if the prediction is made that business will pickup better from the month of May, then the person will keep repeating that in mind. By May, the person will be fully charged to do something in business; with such positive spirit it might be possible that the prediction comes true.
I guess Neuro-linguistic programming courses does something like this. If the prediction is positive, it makes everyone happy. However, when the negative predictions are made, it might put down the effort of people. The predictor might have given negative prediction just to have equal number of postive and negative predictions for his clients. (If he keeps telling only good things, people will loose faith).
Semantics too help in analyzing the thought pattern of a person. It tells why the person is trying peep through the future and more importantly, what he is looking forward to happen.
What about the planetary explanations, palm reading, face reading, naadi stuff, parrot-card, and zillions of tools and techniques? In my opinion they are jargons used by the future-reader to gain credibility. Also, to have the art of future-telling to himself rather than make it public.
Why do we need to know about the future? Why can't we enjoy the future as it uncover itself?
Had any astrologer won a lottery?
Why do people return to them inspite of umpteen number of prediction failures? (If a prediction fails, the astrologers have n number of sub-clauses to justify why the prediction had failed, or still worse .. blame it on the customer for not strictly following his prescription)
hmm .. I guess this craze will dissolve only when people shed their fear about future. Seeing the history, I am afraid that such a reformation is close to impossible. All around the world, at all times, from kings to papuer queued in front of the fortune-teller to know something.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Divorce process in Islam
We had an impression that it is easy to divorce under Islamic rule. Folks suggested one should get converted to Islam in order to get a quick solution.
MS clarified certain aspects of this myth. Seems like there are n number of clauses and it is not an easy task as we all imagine. (Definitely not as easy as saying Talaq Talaq Talaq).
However, the wikipedia has mentioned husband talaqing without any other third person as witness, and controversy over allowing text message for talaq.
Seems like there are diverse practises and the exact process will depend on situation to situation. Also, theory might differ from the reality.
MS clarified certain aspects of this myth. Seems like there are n number of clauses and it is not an easy task as we all imagine. (Definitely not as easy as saying Talaq Talaq Talaq).
However, the wikipedia has mentioned husband talaqing without any other third person as witness, and controversy over allowing text message for talaq.
Seems like there are diverse practises and the exact process will depend on situation to situation. Also, theory might differ from the reality.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Indian and western languages
While reading the book Word Power, I was impressed with the etymology analyzing technique. Another surprise was to find Greek and Latin words to have similarity with Samskrit and other Indian languages. Tried putting few of the words here.
Most of the last column are Latin
eka each
onru, onthu one
dvi dual, two
tri tri, three
chatur quad
pancha pentashut
che sexa
sapta septa
asta octa
nava novem
dasha deci
Samskrit and Latin coincide amazingly for 11 to 29 (that is the last number I could find in the page :-)
vimshati viginti
Naama Name
naukaa nau (boat or sea thing)
upari up
adhaka under
jeevan genesis (life)
The 'a' prefix in Samskrit is to mean anti, for eg, avidya (without knowledge). Greek also used 'a' to mean anti, for eg, atom (that which cannot be cut).
The prefix vi in Samskrit has 16 meaning based on the context and the root word it joins with. Two common meaning it derives are negation and intensification. Examples are placed at Beautiful names. The Latin prefix "in" is a close cousin of "vi". The words indecent, injustice for negation and invaluable for intensification are note worthy comparison.
Guess an detail analyze of these two language might throw some more light on the similarity. I tried google to find any such work. Nothing noted in the first page of search.
Most of the last column are Latin
eka each
onru, onthu one
dvi dual, two
tri tri, three
chatur quad
pancha pentashut
che sexa
sapta septa
asta octa
nava novem
dasha deci
Samskrit and Latin coincide amazingly for 11 to 29 (that is the last number I could find in the page :-)
vimshati viginti
Naama Name
naukaa nau (boat or sea thing)
upari up
adhaka under
jeevan genesis (life)
The 'a' prefix in Samskrit is to mean anti, for eg, avidya (without knowledge). Greek also used 'a' to mean anti, for eg, atom (that which cannot be cut).
The prefix vi in Samskrit has 16 meaning based on the context and the root word it joins with. Two common meaning it derives are negation and intensification. Examples are placed at Beautiful names. The Latin prefix "in" is a close cousin of "vi". The words indecent, injustice for negation and invaluable for intensification are note worthy comparison.
Guess an detail analyze of these two language might throw some more light on the similarity. I tried google to find any such work. Nothing noted in the first page of search.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Belief in predictions
We had a discussion on belief people have on horoscope. I was thinking in that line and try to reason the unshakable faith.
Any living being is programmed to seek happiness and to avoid unhappy situations. Any complex feelings and interaction can be brought down to these two instinct. Fear is one of the factor bringing such unhappy feelings. Fear of repetition of past unhappy moments, fear of loosing the current happy occasions and fear of untold future.
Uncertainty of anything is an uncomfortable thingy for human. I am very much comfortable coming to my office and going back to my home. I don't have any odd feelings; in fact these two are my second nature and hence not in my mind while dealing at these two places. If I had to go to a new place, I might feel awkwardly uncomfortable, very much aware of my conduct there, will check how people see me. That is due to the unfamiliar environment which made me out of normal behaviour.
Also, uncertainty is risk. There is a chance of success and failure. We would like to gather as much of data as possible so that the risk factor is reduced in order to increase the probability of success. In other words, we would like to reduce the uncertainty factor.
Sample questions : "Has anyone visited xyz place recently? Can you help with good accommodation referral, travel condition, place of attraction etc .. ". This is for reducing the uncertainty.
The future being uncertain, we would like to 'see' something over the time-line and gain something. For eg, if a cat crosses my way, today will be bad. We try to associate something happening now or before and predict something in future. If some good prediction is made, we feel confident to do some activity; otherwise that activity would have left us in double-minded dilemma.
If someone claims to tell our future, we are skeptical initially. However, we wish the person can predict accurately. With such biased expectation, we evaluate a fortune-teller or a future-reader. How the person gains the credibility is dealt in a future article.
Thou the prediction may not be correct, still we would like to consult with such people, just to make sure things are fine. Also, to know something about the future instead of marching ahead without any data.
Can future be predicted? Is there a fool-proof method to know something ahead of time?
Watch for the future article :-)
Any living being is programmed to seek happiness and to avoid unhappy situations. Any complex feelings and interaction can be brought down to these two instinct. Fear is one of the factor bringing such unhappy feelings. Fear of repetition of past unhappy moments, fear of loosing the current happy occasions and fear of untold future.
Uncertainty of anything is an uncomfortable thingy for human. I am very much comfortable coming to my office and going back to my home. I don't have any odd feelings; in fact these two are my second nature and hence not in my mind while dealing at these two places. If I had to go to a new place, I might feel awkwardly uncomfortable, very much aware of my conduct there, will check how people see me. That is due to the unfamiliar environment which made me out of normal behaviour.
Also, uncertainty is risk. There is a chance of success and failure. We would like to gather as much of data as possible so that the risk factor is reduced in order to increase the probability of success. In other words, we would like to reduce the uncertainty factor.
Sample questions : "Has anyone visited xyz place recently? Can you help with good accommodation referral, travel condition, place of attraction etc .. ". This is for reducing the uncertainty.
The future being uncertain, we would like to 'see' something over the time-line and gain something. For eg, if a cat crosses my way, today will be bad. We try to associate something happening now or before and predict something in future. If some good prediction is made, we feel confident to do some activity; otherwise that activity would have left us in double-minded dilemma.
If someone claims to tell our future, we are skeptical initially. However, we wish the person can predict accurately. With such biased expectation, we evaluate a fortune-teller or a future-reader. How the person gains the credibility is dealt in a future article.
Thou the prediction may not be correct, still we would like to consult with such people, just to make sure things are fine. Also, to know something about the future instead of marching ahead without any data.
Can future be predicted? Is there a fool-proof method to know something ahead of time?
Watch for the future article :-)
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
software design
Here is an interesting article on how software design are quoted. Funny.
Electrical Engineering vs. Computer Science
Got the link from our internal newsgroup.
Electrical Engineering vs. Computer Science
Got the link from our internal newsgroup.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Horrorscope
Do the stars control the destiny of people?
Why would a gigantic, non-living object, staying trillions of light years away from me, worry about my business prosperity? Does Venus has a database to keep track of personal love life of billions of people? Also it need to adjust the love level of all the billions of people(only people?) on a regular interval of time. While taking decisions, will the planets refer the same horoscope tables we use?
Anyway, it is pathetic to observe the belief people have in these predictive systems. Have heard about people waiting for the right time for their business and only to find that the competition had eaten their share of market.
There are two forgery happening in the matrimonial market. Could be the groom side or the bride side; after knowing the other's party's horoscope details, pass on the 'horoscope' that would match. Still worse, there are people carrying multiple copies and pass the suitable profile.
The second malpractice is to use the horoscope as an excuse to reject a profile. That is a good excuse anyone would accept and not questionable. The reason is that thou the horoscope may match, there could be some other astrologer having a different opinion.
If we brand the above as cheating, what do we say about girls agreeing to cut open the womb to pick the new born at the right time rather than wait for a natural birth?
Someone known to me was complaining about the horoscope match. She was mentioning that she did a blunder in life of marrying a person by believing the good matching as sufficient criteria.
Rarely people question about the divorce rate inspite of the best matched profiles. Apart from divorce rate, why isn't the horoscope helping to filter out drunkards, womenizer, loofers, criminals etc?
On the other hand, there are folks thou they like a boy or a girl, they put a halt on further proceeding due to the horoscope blocade.
Anyway, I am sure not to get back my horoscope, which is destroyed completely. I would not go for such stupidity for my kids.
This topic reminds me of the famous Indian proverb, "Fate can be overcome by intelligence".
Why would a gigantic, non-living object, staying trillions of light years away from me, worry about my business prosperity? Does Venus has a database to keep track of personal love life of billions of people? Also it need to adjust the love level of all the billions of people(only people?) on a regular interval of time. While taking decisions, will the planets refer the same horoscope tables we use?
Anyway, it is pathetic to observe the belief people have in these predictive systems. Have heard about people waiting for the right time for their business and only to find that the competition had eaten their share of market.
There are two forgery happening in the matrimonial market. Could be the groom side or the bride side; after knowing the other's party's horoscope details, pass on the 'horoscope' that would match. Still worse, there are people carrying multiple copies and pass the suitable profile.
The second malpractice is to use the horoscope as an excuse to reject a profile. That is a good excuse anyone would accept and not questionable. The reason is that thou the horoscope may match, there could be some other astrologer having a different opinion.
If we brand the above as cheating, what do we say about girls agreeing to cut open the womb to pick the new born at the right time rather than wait for a natural birth?
Someone known to me was complaining about the horoscope match. She was mentioning that she did a blunder in life of marrying a person by believing the good matching as sufficient criteria.
Rarely people question about the divorce rate inspite of the best matched profiles. Apart from divorce rate, why isn't the horoscope helping to filter out drunkards, womenizer, loofers, criminals etc?
On the other hand, there are folks thou they like a boy or a girl, they put a halt on further proceeding due to the horoscope blocade.
Anyway, I am sure not to get back my horoscope, which is destroyed completely. I would not go for such stupidity for my kids.
This topic reminds me of the famous Indian proverb, "Fate can be overcome by intelligence".
Monday, December 04, 2006
Movie review : Barnyard
First let us go through this story template.
Father is very brave, heroic, has noble values, protects the citizens. Father wants his son to gain skills and take the position of the father in due course. The son is playful, and not inclined to take the tradition.
There are villain groups waiting to topple the father's regime. One day, due to the negligence or non-performance of duty of the son, the father is killed. Son feels guilty and runs away or attempts to run away.
The citizens pled the son to take incharge, as they will be attacked by the enemies. Son takes in charge, destroys the enemy clan, rescues the folks who got kidnapped earlier etc etc ..
Oh, I missed the heroine. In between, the son meets the girl and falls in love. It is the heroine who gives the confidence to the hero to face the enemies and take in charge.
If the father is a lion, and the story happens in the jungle with all the wild beasts, then the title is Lion King.
If the father is a don of sharks, and the story happens deep down the ocean, we have Shark Tale. A twist in the story is to kill the brother instead of the father.
Go to a barn, let the father be a bull who protects the barn animals, we end up watching Barnyard.
At a distance galaxy, there is a father planet revolving in its solar system. This planet keeps the other objects in the system in tact and protects from harmful meteoroids (the villains). The son planet (actually a satellite of the father planet) is playful, doesn't like to take up the job of the father planet. While guarding the solar system, the father planet is bombarded by a storm of meteoroids and asteroids. It was supposed to be the turn of the son planet, but he was roaming around with his friends at the neighboring planetarium (a place where planets meet). Alas, the father planet is thrown out of the orbit into the deep abyss. The son planet thought of shifting to milkyway galaxy. His girl planet(?!) persuade him and divert his energy to fight against the evil meteoroids. Peace prevails.
This is a story of a feature movie, Planet Particles.
Father is very brave, heroic, has noble values, protects the citizens. Father wants his son to gain skills and take the position of the father in due course. The son is playful, and not inclined to take the tradition.
There are villain groups waiting to topple the father's regime. One day, due to the negligence or non-performance of duty of the son, the father is killed. Son feels guilty and runs away or attempts to run away.
The citizens pled the son to take incharge, as they will be attacked by the enemies. Son takes in charge, destroys the enemy clan, rescues the folks who got kidnapped earlier etc etc ..
Oh, I missed the heroine. In between, the son meets the girl and falls in love. It is the heroine who gives the confidence to the hero to face the enemies and take in charge.
If the father is a lion, and the story happens in the jungle with all the wild beasts, then the title is Lion King.
If the father is a don of sharks, and the story happens deep down the ocean, we have Shark Tale. A twist in the story is to kill the brother instead of the father.
Go to a barn, let the father be a bull who protects the barn animals, we end up watching Barnyard.
At a distance galaxy, there is a father planet revolving in its solar system. This planet keeps the other objects in the system in tact and protects from harmful meteoroids (the villains). The son planet (actually a satellite of the father planet) is playful, doesn't like to take up the job of the father planet. While guarding the solar system, the father planet is bombarded by a storm of meteoroids and asteroids. It was supposed to be the turn of the son planet, but he was roaming around with his friends at the neighboring planetarium (a place where planets meet). Alas, the father planet is thrown out of the orbit into the deep abyss. The son planet thought of shifting to milkyway galaxy. His girl planet(?!) persuade him and divert his energy to fight against the evil meteoroids. Peace prevails.
This is a story of a feature movie, Planet Particles.
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