80 year old house

Could be more than that. (Localites claim that major renovation took place 80yrs back, house might have been constructed in the end of 19th century). The house is located in our farm. Compact one with required space for a couple to stay. The house looks rich thou the roof is tiled.

The wood work are unique and antique. The doors and windows are crafted carefully. The door is 'inserted' into the door frame rather than sticking out like modern day one. The keys are stylish and awesome.

The Main attraction is the entrance. There are three! For a house of such size, three doors seem to be a lot. Apart from the main entrance, there are two in the side. Opening all the doors give a nice ambiance.

Job you dont like

Let us say, you work for a company. As part of the job, you are asked to withdraw money from the bank. You collected the money in a suitcase and on the way back to your company. Now, all of a sudden, you got an enlightenment. You understood that you are working for a wrong company or a wrong cause!! You decide to quit.

Question here is, what do you do with the suitcase? Option 1: go back to the bank and deposit money to the company's account. Option 2: reach ur company, hand over the money to your manager and resign officially. Option 3: What if you decide to quit immediately upon enlightenment? How about leaving the suitcase on the middle of the road and going to your home?

The last option is what my wife did. She doesnt know what is wrong about that option.

Green sapling in drought condition

Just wondering what long term effect will inadequate resource on a young plant result into. Will the tree grow tough and strong against any environmental fluctuations or the tree will be weak and powerless on external factors? Guess there might be few more details and factors influencing the above case. For example, how much resource constrain is placed on the sapling? Is it about to die? What is the benchmark to compare against or in other words, what is the right tree growing conditions?

Would be interesting if there is a study in this line.

Morning walk

Today I thought of going out for a stroll. Didn't want to go for the long route, instead walked into near by area. That is the place I had been many times. It is a road winding down in the hilly area into a bunch of houses and a temple. Usually we go to the temple and return back. Never seen anything further. This morning I found that the road was cleared further after the temple. There was a road.

Walking through the road, I found many more houses that side, which were out of sight earlier. Further I went into the woods. Saw a group of peacocks, some six of them. Quiet a near sighting. While watching the peacocks, someone else was standing by and watching. It was a mongoose! When I saw it ran away.

A thrilling way to start the day.

the perception

While going through tough times, it helps a lot to have a positive mind set. If we bury ourself with all sort of negativity energies like anger, depression, repeated thought pattern, emotional break-down, worries etc, we are doing more harm to our mind and complicating the situation.

Instead, a positive frame of mind pushes us out of the situation fast. Winning or losing the situation depends on the strategy and many other factors. But having the right attitude acts as a shield to protect ourself from negatives. It helps to come over from sore heart and recover fast to normality.

Any more thoughts?

strange experience

How would you feel when you have to ask a favor from a person you lost touch for a long years? And that person in the foregone years, had expected something from you and you had refused at that time. That becomes tricky.

After going through such interactions, I feel how we view situation when we are at giving end and how we see things while asking or receiving. It is strange.

If god was a banker

Very few books fall in the category read-through-in-the-night. This book made it. I thought of reading couple of chapter before sleep, but ended up reading the whole book in the night. The story line was so catchy that there was no break point to leave the book down. Great book!!(Note to self: Never ride bike after a night out; couldn't open eyes while riding)

The book narrates the corporate world and the power struggle in it. Each chapter takes a twist+turn and carries a suspense till the last page. We feel sorry for Swami at many instances. Real life business practises are narrated when required. Adequate eroticity sprinkle to turn the heat on.

As with the recent book, the author, Ravi Subramanian, made his story run through Marina beach and Nariman point - which makes the Indian readers at home.

Few points that didn't vibe well in the book:

• Lack of Stability in characterization. All folks in the play are quite clear, except Sundeep. He swings between extreme intelligent, aggressive guy to a total stupid. Many a time he does senseless deeds and foolish decisions out of greed. All of a sudden, indication about his intelligence, skills of past or present are highlighted - as thou to compensate the black image furnished in earlier chapters. Then again it goes down and starts showing a foolish Sundeep. Not sure if this see-saw effect was intentional by the author.
• Too many names to remember. Most of the chapters introduces a new character. Some of them dont last over a para or two. Too many such names made me to skip all names and it was difficult to keep track of who is who.
• Flimsy ending. The last few pages were far from reality. An ex-employee, Aditya, being invited (he was flown from Mumbai to NY) to go through a sensitive case. Also Tedd & management confronting Sundeep and then giving options for his exist.As I haven't climbed any corporate ladder, I cannot confirm if these are feasible or not.

Overall, if you like a story line on money, power, sex .. this is a good book to read.

Magical eraser feasible

Looks like Science is in the right path towards human imagination. Whatever we could think about, technology pounce on that and makes it possible.

The selective memory erasure I blogged about is feasible, it seems.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22187/

Freakonomics

I wanted to read this book for a long time and happened to buy this recently. Real life scenarios are narrated in puzzle like manner and the answers surprise us. To apply our scientific mind on trivial matters produces interesting results. For example, to study the business dealers' business or a sumo wrestlers' life style etc are nicely covered in this book.

For a long time I was suspicious about the manner society names their children. Example, a name Ramalakshmi Ammal seems to be from a far gone era. May be a catchy name at that time. Many of the upper society folks named their daughters, later on the lower sector started using that name. Upper society had to move to a new set of hype names, say Lakshmi or something.

Freakonomics explains the naming trend and many other topics. Good read.

Barbers change

Heard about latest SRK movie? It was named 'Billu Barber'. The barbers' association demanded the name be changed on the context that the word 'barber' is derogatory. They prefer to be addressed as hair stylist or hair dressers. (Not sure what they call their association).

The word 'barber' seem to have gone through a phase of euphemism. It is going out. The word got enough negativity that it got to be pulled off. Another classic word in Indian context is about addressing the SC/ST community. Olden day nomenclature went with 'Sudras'. That is a big no no. Gandhian era gave a name as 'Harijan', to mean god's people. These days people get offended with harijan. Preferable word today is 'dalits'.

I guess there is nothing wrong in words. It is the context and meaning we fix the words. Many neutral words gather negativity and slowly the neutrality usage drops out. Only negative context associates with the word. After a while, we start looking for a new word to mean the old thing.

It is highly probable that the word 'style' becomes negative charged because of these barbers, oh sorry .. the hair stylists.

The Transport office saga continues

The officer asked me to come and collect the letter for the followup from City A. However the concerned officer was not in the office when I went there. That was a lucky thing to happen, as they skipped the letter part. Now they dont need the letter from city A!! I had to carry the paper from one building to another. There was a small record verification in the other building. Not sure how they managed to store info in a slim register. After few signatures, rubber stamps there, I came back to first building. Submitted the documents. I have to go there in 15 days to see if things are done. I cant check the status through phone or through agents. My physical presence is wanted.

Hopefully I dont have to go there further on.

Searching at RTO

After buying an other state vehicle, we started the vehicle transferring ritual. City A (which in other state) had to issue no objection and other artifacts. After going through many to and fro transaction, we are almost in the final stage. The last task is to apply for a vehicle number change.

I took all required documents and originals. The officer went through the papers and told that he would have to look for the acknowledgement card from City A office. He was going through a bundle of postcards. Then another. I couldnt compare his search with the database queries and indexing techniques. After failing to find, he shifted his focus on one or two office files. I was hoping that we wouldnt have to dig through the pile of sacks that were tied up.

Since he couldnt get that postcard, he is going to write a letter to City A office. I am suppose to follow up with that office to get this acknowledgement.

This office was quite a big one to hold lots and lots of files, bags, and more files. I am sure they have not heard about the words like work flow model, computers, paper-less office etc.

How sprinkler works?

For those who are interested to know the working mechanism of a water spraying sprinkler. You might have seen this in the gardens where these sprinklers keep rotating and water plants in its surrounding.

The last pic has the close-up shot. There is a central axis holding the apparatus (the axis is protruding in the top as a small white pyramid). Two nozzles are provided to throw out water. (The nozzles have bolts and the main nozzle can be seen with the inscription '27'). Above the nozzle is a strange spoon like structure; this lever is attached to the axis and allowed to rotate around the axis. The lever is bound by a spring.

Ok, let us check them in action. Water flows with considerable pressure from the bottom of the tube and comes out through the nozzles. The main nozzle, which is the bigger one, does the important task. While pumping out the water, water splashes on the edge of the lever. As per the design, the water force makes the lever move away in anti-clock direction. Due to the coiled spring, the lever is pushed back its original position. When the lever comes back, it hits the frame of the nozzle .. making the nozzle structure to move clock wise. This completes one particular angular motion. Again the water is sprayed on the lever, again the lever winds back and springs forward .. this continues to make the sprinkler rotate.

It is amazing to see it in action.

bug in minesweeper

Found an interesting bug. After I completed the game, the clock was still ticking. The scoreboard had gone to -1 instead of 0. Somehow the counter had gone wrong.




Do I qualify for a game tester? :-)

Eleven minutes

This book is about how an innocent girl morphs into a prostitute. The author, Paulo Coelho, explores about the world of the prostitutes, how makes them keeps going, the dreams they carry etc. Through the lead, Maria, we come to know about the customers she has. In spite of being in high post, earning good or well to do status, men have the fear of failure and fragile inside.

We had read about love and sex in many books before. Here is yet another view.

(Not sure how many google searches will be wrongly directed to this blog due to those two famous and looked out words)

Retreat

The revenge of the nomad
Chapter 3. Retreat

Ramraj slowly healed out of the trauma. Took months for him to move around. All emotional feelings had died away from him. He became analytical and view his life from different perspective. He realized someone with muscle power is going to dominate. At the same time, he can sharpen his intellect to overcome the physical forces.

With that in mind, he schemed a master plan. As a first step, he wanted to eliminate Mr Rao's right hand, Das. Das is the brain of Mr Rao. Rao consults him for all activities and executes his task thru Das.

Ramraj started to observe Das's routine. Instead of trying to bring down Das by himself, Ramraj was passing the information to Rao's arch-rival. Weak moments of Das were studied and on a chosen day, men surrounded Das to hack him down.

The arch-rival, Mr Valliesh, was happy to hear about this. As per his estimate, Mr Rao would soon fall apart from his business empire.

Mr Rao was also analyzing the events. He happen to know that Ramraj had helped Valliesh.

Ramraj expecting trouble, travelled to a far place.

End of chapter 3 out of 7.

To be continued.

Magical eraser

What if our brain memory is erasable. If we can opt for selective cleansing. For example, all my experience of being in a beach are removed. Now my visit to a beach would be very fresh and new. The first time experience in a beach would be relived. That would be awesome.

People may use it to clear off their traumatic experiences. That is a double edged sword, with advantage and disadvantage. The issue is to loose such experience and being vulnerable to go through again.

Information flow in future

While hearing about molecular computing and nano memory cards, one would wonder how the future would be. Definitely different. Here is a preview.

You return home and settle at home. Want to know how organic is the tomato you bought. Pick one of them and use your TV remote as a scanner. Immediately picks of the universal identification number of the tomato and starts pumping data after data about the tomato. The shop it is been purchased, the date it is been stocked, the vehicle it came in .. You could use the remote to drill down the pouring info. The farm of the tomato is show live. The fertilizers used in the past, the chemical composition, the Dept of Agriculture's stance with respect to that fertilizer, What not ..

It is amazing to know the interconnected and data relatedness we can end up in.

Thou this kind of info access is technically feasible, I guess the legality over personal space, business confidentiality etc will hide these info.

The beast

Never came across this one before .. the cell surrounded by 8 mines!!! (circled in the image)

Got it correct and finished off the game too. Felt slight nervousness after unveiling the big shot. There was a pressure to complete the game successfully.

That was quite an experience after playing for years.

The land shark

The revenge of the nomad
Chapter 2. The land shark

Cacophony Rao is the villain of the story. He got his title for his loud and shrill voice. People are fearful to face his screaming shout more than his violent behavior. His family owns enormous wealth. In fact, most of Vijapura city belongs to them. Among multiple business they do, they are famous for real estate. Mr Rao make profit out of layouting land and selling for a margin. He also pockets out of forgery and threatening people to transfer their land. Our hero, Ramaraj, had bought a site from Mr Rao. After five years, this particular layout had appreciated a lot. Mr Rao couldn't digest the fact that his layout is no more with him and it is valued high. He started with usual way of bringing muscle power and trying to retrieve the land back from the purchasers. He was willing to pay them back the money they had given 5 years back.

Obviously site owners were unhappy. They protested, without much use. Many gave off the site fearing the consequences. Few people like Ramdas were trying to save their valuable. They can never acquire a site as the land price had raised up beyond reach. Their only chance is to hold on to what they have.

In order to clear off the problem, Mr Rao applied the ultimate weapon. He choose one of the protesters and made a hit. Alas, it happened to be Ramraj. Ten or fifteen gundaas came to Ramraj house in the mid night. They smashed opened the house and hit the couples with heavy iron and sticks. The attack went on for 30 minutes and both suffered a major injury. Neighbours dare not to intervene, they called for the police after the tough guys left the place.
Seethalakshmi couldnt bear the beatings and she breath her last on the way to hospital. Ramraj had to be administered in the hospital for months and slowly his body parts recovered.

Did police took action? Nope, Mr Rao took care of the matter through money. Beyond that his brother, Karan Rao, is an influential politician. None of the government bodies function beyond Karan's power, atleast in the Vijayapura vicinity.

continued.