Some tech stuff

Office 2003 rox!!
So does Firefox - my tiny contribution towards reducing M$'s share of the internet browser segment :))
www.dropload.com rox too

well.. jus wanted to do some knowledge sharing..

Old Age

Old age is the only disease that you dont look forward to being cured of.

Learnings frm a movie, Citizen Kane.

George Castanza

In case the title of this post makes no sense to you, its the name of one of the characters in a comedy serial called Jerry Seinfeld. Given below is his funda of life... njoi!

The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes of a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What's that, a bonus?!? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you go live in an old age home. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, then, when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You drink alcolol, you party and you get ready for High School. You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities. You become a little baby, you go back, you spend your last 9 months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap.
Then you finish off as an orgasm!! Amen!

A.R. Rahman and thermodynamics

Well.. this was one of those learnings I had in my college days, that seem obvious now - but it was an amazing feeling to actually discover the learning for oneself.

It was in the first semester of my engineering days - a time when I actually did some mugging. :) Well, I was solving some thermodynamics problems along with a friend - even as we were listening to one of ARR's many hits. I wondered aloud as to how on earth does ARR come up with such superb music pieces. Pat came the reply from my friend - well, ARR wouldnt be able to solve thermo-d probs like us!.. Amazing insight!.. Prof RN of the college where I'm currently doing a diploma would have been proud of this student.
btw, another thing I liked about this guy was his name - Shahzad Faisal Muhammad Burhaan Arab; and each of the profs at our engg college would choose one of those 5 names to call him.

aah.. talkin of names, one of these days I'll probably explain the funda of my name ... yeah, I can c junta who already know abt it going "aaaarrgh" on the prev line.. but shall spare u guyz for the time being...

Nov 2

Well.. one of my passtimes used to be bush-bashing.. but having observed the campaign till now, looks like it wont make too much of a difference if Kerry gets elected.. the worst case scenario is of course a repeat of 2000 with the Supreme Court deciding the fate of the election. Given that the SC is still republican in nature, I guess that would result in an extended Bush-term.

In my opinion, a Bush win would hurt USA due to his fiscal irresponsibility, and because of the constant stream of body bags that would arrive from Iraq. It would also begin the end of the fall of the US empire - I say so because of Bush's proven hatered for multilateralism and his hangover from the Texan cowboyish attitude. A loss of USA's moral high ground would inevitably lead to the rest of the world wondering if the US is any different from the likes of Al Qaeda.

A Kerry win should see US becoming more multilateral - or at least to the extent tat it was pre-dubya. I guess there isnt much that he'd be able to do about the Iraq mess though. Bush has successfully created a haven for terrorists in the area with the world's second largest oil reserves.

Anyways a Bush win would more or less guarantee a democratic candidature for Hillary Clinton in 2008. She sure does seem to be a lot better than both Bush and Kerry.

Matrix fundaes

Some of you might have read this before.. u may then treat this as an opportunity to revise ur learnings :))

Here are some questions that Matrix raises – hope matrix aficionados respond!

1. How was 'Agent' Smith cracked?

Smith is essentially a virus in the system. In fact, he satisfies the definition of a virus as laid out by Smith himself to Morpheus in Matrix 1. Smith was unplugged from the Matrix and hence beyond its control. So were his duplicates too. When Smith got into Neo's body, Neo was still plugged into the Matrix. Hence the Matrix got access to a copy of Smith and released an antivirus through Neo's body to destroy Smith. When Smith and his copies were destroyed, his copies were converted back to the original form. Thats how we get to see the Oracle, Seraph and the girl again.



2. What was Oracle's role in all of this?

She orchestrated the ending, if not the whole process. By letting Smith get into her body, she somehow increased Smith's power to the extent to which the Matrix would accept Neo's offer to help (this part does seem a bit hazy). Thus she forced the Matrix to force a deal with Zion( or rather Neo) and let Zion live (at least for now).

But, if this is true then.... Oracle did not seem very sure about Zion surviving the day. In fact, she said she couldn't foresee that part ( or something to that effect). This is reinforced by the happiness she feels on seeing the birth of another day ( she had indicated a fear of having no tomorrow) Then how could she have plotted all of this?.. or was she just lying?



3. What is Neo's current state and what is the nature of the peace deal between Neo and Zion?

Funda 1: Neo is alive. He will be the machines' source of energy. So the matrix wouldn't need any human farms. Thus the Matrix and Zion can co-exist in their own domains forever.

Funda 2: Neo is dead. The truce is not permanent. More so, because the Zionites do not know about the peace deal brokered between Neo and the machines.



4. What is the state of the Matrix?

The portion about the cat indicates that there has been some change in the matrix. But what?

Funda 1: Matrix has been restarted/reloaded.

Funda 2: Matrix is finished. This school of thought(.. that sounds pseud :-) ) believes the cat shown was in fact, not one cat but 2 of them. Deja vu!.. So there was a glitch in the system. The glitch was that the matrix was shutdown.

Possible flaw in funda 2: If Neo brokered a deal with the matrix, then would the matrix have agreed to shutdown?

5.On a philosophical note, if programs have feelings like love (as shown by the girl's parents) and jealousy (Persepherone, assuming she is a prog) and also enjoy sexual activity (Merv), what is the distinguishing factor between machines and humans?

The answer is in Matrix1- specifically, Morpheus' fundaes to Neo. "All programs are based on a set of rules (and hence have their inherent limitations). Some of these can be bent, while others can be broken." Net funda is that the distinguishing feature of humans is the ability to break all rules and extend our limits beyond the horizon!!!



6. One more funda I came across somewhere on the net. It seemed to provide a more feasible answer to question below. Agent Smith's purpose was to kill Neo. Thus Agent Smith invaded Neo's body, Smith lost his purpose. No program can exist without any purpose in the matrix. Hence Smith was removed from the system.



Miscellaneous

1. What is the state of Merv and Persepherone ?

2. Niobe and Morpheus were shown hugging each other towards the end. Granted, it probably wasnt much of a hug. But if it was, then what happens to Commander Lark?

3. When Neo and Trinity went to the Sentinel Head Quarters (or whatever the place was, where they went), they could have just raised an EMP and killed all the sentinels and whatever other electronic device was in the area. That should have solved the problem right?..

Feel free to revert with any comments or extra linkages... :)

Maniratnam

Well, one world would suffice to convey my opinion of Maniratnam - God!.. or so it was till I saw Aytha Eluthu / Yuva.

A person who gave birth to numerous god-level movies - including, but not limited to Agni natachathiram, Roja, Iruvar, Nayagan, Kannathil Muthamittal .. oh heck, the list jus goes on..

But what he did with AE was unpardonable. Having detailed the problem plaguing current political scenario, he flounders in providing a final solution to the problem. In my opinion, the consistent message sent out by Hindi and Tam movies (and I would gez this holds for other regional languages as well) is that the problem facing us is huge but the solution is always over-simplified. I'd say that Mani owes it to his audience to ensure that the solution part is also realistic. Some would say that then it would be more of an art film - rather than a commercial success. My response would be "Life is Beautiful". If you havent yet seen it, plz do. The movie presents the holocaust experience in a touching manner. So also is "Schindler's List" - which incidentally is based on a true story. There are a whole lot of Jews called Schindler Jews - who descended from those who were on Schindler's list.

Finally my point is if you are imaginative enough, you can actually produce a realistic film on any issue.

btw, hadnt intended it that way, but noticed it as I wrote it - u've got to be imaginative to be realistic!!.. interesting learnings!!

Nuclear proliferation

Well, there are seven countries in the world currently that have declared that they have nuclear weapons - India and Pakistan were the last two to do so. Israel follows a policy of nuclear ambiguity - i.e while it is widely believed that Israel has multiple nuclear warheads at its disposal, officially the country refuses to confirm or deny their capabilities. For all practical purposes, it can also be counted as a nuclear power. Not to be outdone, North Korea, Iran and South Korea seemed to have joined the race to get there - going by recent news reports. And given that India managed to conduct Pokhran tests a few years ago in spite of the presence of US spy satellites, it can be expected that it is possible for other countries to do the same.

So I've got a theory of my own - that the A bomb will be dropped on a country either by an enemy state, or a non-state enemy (a terrorist org) within the next 20 years.

For once, I hope I am wrong.

Thank you, Mr.Navin Jindal

Well, I guess there'd be a long list of people that I'd like to thank for various reasons... One of them is Mr. Navin Jindal, an industrialist who fought for the individual's right to hoist the Indian flag.
Jai Hind!

Success defined...

One of the most intriguing philosophical questions that racked my brain during my college days was - how is success defined?

I finally cracked it on a sunday nite. It was the day before the second EM Waves quiz and I was supposedly mugging for the same. I dont quite remember why I did it - but I just took out a diary and started scribbling on the above mentioned topic - lo and behold, i found the answer after filling some 4-5 pages. Success is what one defines it to be. My success is as defined by me - and me alone. To hell with what others think!! :)

Needless to say, I got screwed in EM waves the next day... though it was worth it!

Pigeon hole principle

Well, this has been one of the most astounding piece of learnings I've had in my life..

The Pigeon hole principle states that if you have to fill n slots with n+1 objects, there necessarily has to be at least one slot that has more than one object.

I luv this mainly coz of its simplicity ... and more importantly coz of the amazingly profound implications it has and the wide range of math problems it can be applied in...

Introduction

Well, I've finally done it.. having resisted - for quite some time - the temptation of going online with my philosophy, I've finally decided to do it! I will not be introducing myself.. I'd assume that you either know me from the real world, and if not, u will learn about me through my blog postings itself.. so y post nething on wot i've done in my life, when instead that time could be spent more purposefully on what I've learnt in my life .. and btw, the title of this blog is copyrighted by I-first gang, especially GML. Gap rox!!