Tag 8!?

Finally I made it, Badri!

It's actually interesting to read about random things that happened in some body's life! But its hard to pick 8 random things in my life!?!?! I tried hard and picked these...

• Getting lost in the middle of the night with my classmates in the tea plantations near Ooty on the very first day of our trekking expedition to Mudumalai is definitely one among them. It happened when I was in my 11th standard.
• I went directly to a University setting after my high school. Few weeks after joining, took part in the university hostel strike just because we were asked to be a part of it. Not knowing why me and my friends are sitting in the middle of the road in the name of strike is funny when I think about it now. Imagine 6 guys who just completed high school and the rest in the gang being at least 3-5 years elder to us and very large in size too. I was the eldest among the 6 people. Now imagine us sitting in the middle of the road that goes from Madurai to Kambam with people shouting to the hostel authorities and police, in their night dress and some having their toothbrush and tooth paste with them. Add to this setting, few buses and trucks behind us. We were sitting there wondering whether the next place will be a jail or police station!?!? Luckily the strike got over in few hours with our demands accepted (at least for that moment).
  
• I failed in computer science in my high school but ended up learning computers to earn my bread. My friend who wanted to be a computer engineer ended up becoming a Mechanical engineer which I wanted to study. But now I wish I studied economics which I thought to be the most boring subjects of all in my school days.
  
• I watch a lot of movies. Favourites include - The Shawshank redemption, 12 Angry men, Forrest Gump, Rear Window, To kill a mocking bird, Matrix trilogy, all Pixar movies and short films, Ice Age, Mahanadhi, Nayagan, Anbe Sivam, Parasakthi and much more.
• Read only one book so far - The Fountainhead. Two books are half way through and another one 75% complete.
• Love to go on treks and on adventure trips. If I have enough money would love to set foot on all continents of the world (Landing on airports cannot be counted).
  
• Interesting and yet funny moment was getting caught by the teacher for sleeping during the class. I was sitting in the first row right in front of her. She did not see me sleeping as she was holding the book close to the chest. At the end of the class when she folded the book she found me sleeping. :)) She woke me up and I looked at her half sleep. She was teaching history on a hot summer day!
• Another interesting rather difficult moment was when the entire guys population of the computer science department was against me for asking questions in the class conducted by the most beautiful lecturer of the department. The bad part was I was not the one to ask the question that made her cry.

Done! It is really hard to think of things that happened in the past and write it in an way that some one could read! Badri I completed the assignment!

Tagging...

Badri
Prakash

Best goals in soccer!

Funny bumper sticker!

Funny bumper sticker!

The funniest bumper sticker I have seen so far is this:

FRODO FAILED!
Bush has got the ring!

Open music ?!?!?!

I think it will be correct if I say this to be "OpenMusic". Atleast I liked the idea of people collaborating on the web to make nice music. I heard about these music sites through NPR news. Listen to one such remixed song - "Peace and hate" by The Submarines using one such sites www.jamglue.com - by simply clicking on the "Peace & Hate" link. Wanna remix? click on "REMIX"! Have fun and enjoy the music!

I referred to the web for the term "Open Music" and found many hits but these two caught my eyes - http://magnatune.com/info/openmusic and http://openmusic.linuxtag.org/. Wondering whether I can use the term "Open Music" to this anymore?!?!?!?

Peace & Hate by thesubmarines

Loose Change 2nd Edition Recut

Dylan Avery, Korey Rowe, and Jason Bermas bring you the most powerful 9/11 Documentary yet. Updated!!!!

Ignorance or Arrogance?!?!?!

I read a blog in Information Week - Indian Schools Ditch Microsoft For Linux, Kill Golden Goose. Its about Kerala's decision to teach Linux in schools instead of Microsoft. I was astonished to the extent people read this simple decision made in a school district in Kerala. I mean its like any decision made in any school district in the US. The article and people who has commented it reflects not only their ignorance about other countries and cultures but also their arrogance (in some). The blog and the comments, reminded me of a line in the movie "The Last of the Mohicans" - "...do not try to make them understand you and do not try to understand them. That is because they are a breed apart and they make no sense...".

The proverb - "The fish would have not gotten into trouble if it has simply shut its mouth" - proves to be true for the author of the blog.

Quality of Engineers?!?!?!

Please dont get misguided by the title. I read a few articles from EE Times and from www.embedded.com. Instead of writing my opinions I thought I will blog the links of the articles and let your opinions flow.

According to me the article gives signals about a more serious issue at hand - our quality of education and the whole system behind it. Our colleges and universities churn out engineers every year. For the colleges, they are after the money rather than the quality. And some have some horrible rules and regulations which will stop the free thinking mind to grow and become a part of the template that college puts forth. The government does not care about any of these.

I would say 'perspective' is the missing piece of the puzzle. We never think education as an investment. Even an uneducated would know that if he/she invest some money in the bank they expect the money to grow and yield some income to them. But when it comes to education we never see it as an investment. Parents see it as a responsibility to get education to their children. What is the return on investment? Students start worrying about their life only when they reach the final year of their education. I wouldn't want to go into every little detail that contributes to this big problem.

Take your time to read these articles and throw in your 2 cents.

The following link is the source article ("State of the Engineer: The young and the restless") that has spawned a chain of responses in EE Times and embedded.com:

http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=192202043

Here are two of the responses:-

1. "Over my dead body":

http://www.eet.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=192300023

2. "Don't look at India as low-cost talent" - by a Manager in India who also has experience working in the US:

http://www.embedded.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=192300881

The Butterfly Effect!

Hmmm... Its be a while since I sat down to write. Well quite a hibernation! Awwwwwwwwwwww... excuse me! One thing that got me during these days was the bombing of the trains in Mumbai and the fight in Lebanon. If I try to look at the situation from the lives of the innocent people who became the victims, I wonder what a life we live. We claim ourselves to be the civilized. But are we? I sometimes feel that earth would be better of in all respects, if one species has not come into being - the humans.

Its very hard to take an ethical stand in a land torn in war and communal riots. But one thing made sense to me was - the butterfly effect. For somebody's business and political interests (The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil), innocent people lose their lives and livelyhood. Actions of few people in some part of the world has a huge impact on somebody's life (Israel and Turkey plan energy pipeline). Everything is about money and power. Every company has to keep its share holders happy. Any share holder who buys some stock cannot think about the entire consequences of his small action. He/She is buying stocks to make money so that they can lead a decent life. I am not trying to say that whoever is involved in the business of stocks is responsible for everything thats happening in this world. The power of the money and the greedy nature of the humans is the root cause for most of the mess around the world.

Environmental degradation due to industrialization is another good example of butterfly effect. All these thoughts drove me to one question: What is correct? How can you lead a life without impacting others - not just humans, but any living thing on earth? I guess these subtle impacts is what making life a big challenge?!?!? On the contrary, what if, we do not know what money is??? Will that make this earth a better place??? The most logical answer that we can come up with will be: "we cannot say it conclusively". Its very hard to think in that line of thought as we have become very much dependant on it. But one can say this: "Some problems, if not all, are definitely due to the obsession that some has over money".

Well I got something to write about!?!?!

For long, I've been thinking about what to write in a blog?! Many things have crossed my mind - why not something philosophical or politics or some environmental issues or some personal experience. Once I was very much pushed to write about Condoleezza Rice's explanation for not apologizing to bombing a Pakistani village thinking that some terrorists in their "Most Wanted" list are hiding there. But you know, I did not have access to a computer to write about it Image (I know, I know, its a lame excuse but its the truth). Even now I actually dont have anything specific to write about. So I thought why not write about what exactly went through my mind to start my blogging.

Many things cross my mind when I drive to work or while I drive back home. Often, I have started wondering what purpose do I serve now? Life seem very mechanical and many questions comes along with it. If I start asking the question "Why?" to everything, it leaves me with a lot of questions many making a lot of sense. One of the questions, about which I have been thinking quite often is "Is our mind really capable of doing more?". I guess, right from our birth, we are trained to get the sense of time. Our brain gets into a mechanical rhythm. I wonder what if, we don't know what time is? Many of the words that we know, will not have any sensible meaning. I guess our mind might be working more efficiently than it is right now. When we concentrate on something more seriously then we don't realize the time factor. We infact lose the sense of it. And we dont get the usual fatigue if we concentrate. So I think the control actually lies in our mind. All these years, we are trained to fit to some schedule. Day in and day out, we are into some mechanical routine. I guess thats why some people go to some forrest and start meditating to get a feel for how really it will be to have a life without the sense of time. There are constant reminders about time all around us.

The eyes are a very important input device to our brain. If we shut it off and try to see through our mind we will get this feeling "Oh my God! what a confusion I am???". After a few minutes, you realize, "... you know what, I ain't gonna worry about anything...". That very moment you get a strange sensation yet very relaxing. I would attribute that relaxing sensation to the absense of our constant reminders and the routine. Sometimes, it makes me feel that, I will be able to do all those extravagant stunt shown in the movie Matrix. It infact makes sense to me that if we are not trained about the sense of time or the sense of any physical thing, then our mind would be capable of doing things that we think we are not capable of doing - like jumping some 30-40 yards, for example.

Its a never ending quest - trying to understand why do we need this sense of time and how we came about discovering or inventing it. I guess, whoever thought about this figured that it will help understand the chaos of life, by sticking it to a common reference frame. I guess, the quantification of the never ending axis of time into conceivable packets has made it hard for us to get us out of it!?!?! I getting sleepy. I'll be back with some more of my questions and confusions...