A Story of your Light

It was the first day when the planet's very primitive forms of life finally evolved, being able to capture light and feed on it. It took a huge chunk of time for the non living chemicals living in synchronized harmony as the first living cells to realize that using light as the source of energy was a highly economic and brilliant idea.

He was called the "Sun catcher", by the other cells that had a sharp jealousy over the serendipitous spark of genius that this cell unwittingly possessed. He caught the light, photon by photon and employed them in his ceaseless factory, designed for survival. It was the kind of perfect industry, that the humans to come much later, could never ever duplicate with any match in efficiency. Yet, the sun catcher never knew his/her/its greatness.

The photon that got captured the very first day in this industry, had to loose it's energy unwillingly. For else, the photon would be left lingering in the space with no purpose and no end. It succumbed to it's fate. The photon was now a slave, a white slave. A slave stripped of all it's energies.

The cell had the exploited energy in itself and used it for narcissistic sexual gratification. For the Gods saw no purpose as to why would the cell need to have a male and a female counterpart. The cells that lived then could never possibly sin, if sinning was to be defined in the words of the humans, who defined God and guessed what the God might not like on the basis of their limited mental faculties. The humans assumed they were right, for the animals were still too primitive to question them. And we humans who succeeded them, still carry the legacy of the animals, for we still haven't questioned anything.

The cells just could not sin. It was not in their design to sin. They just could have sex with themselves. The present day religions have classified that under sin too. So may be cells did sin afterall. But that was very long before Adam and Eve evolved, and much before they got named Adam and Eve, and became the characters of a book that would be read widely once humans learnt to read and write.

The poor photon was still nowhere to be seen. How can you see a being who has lost his identity. But the cell went on. She/he reproduced and went on and on. One fine day, death embraced them all. Earth had engulfed it all.

The photon, which was a miniscule mass of splattered blood of a distant star, was now deep withing the Earth's womb. Not strictly as a photon, as the physicists would love to disagree, but as an altered form of energy. Only this time with some mass and form.

Outside the womb, by then, on Earth's skin evolved a peculiar life form, resembling Adam and Eve, that was helplessly dependent on external energy sources ranging from petroleum to electricity. The ways to make these energy sources was invented by cells in the human's brain that never ever could talk to any photons.

Yet, the pains of the first few photons, somehow mysteriously got communicated to the cells in the human's brain. They invented ways to transform energy.The Earth's womb was poked in a key hole surgery, and the blood was sucked out. The coals were burnt to release heat, a distant cousin of the photons. Electricity was synthesized. Ironically enough, Man would die if he were to drink or eat this electricity. Yet, he couldn't live without it.

Metals have always had a place in this universe. They could burst stars in a matter of milliseconds, yet man could melt them and attach it to the hoofs of the animals he domesticated. They could let electricity pass through them, yet were not very friendly with light.

Hu-man ruled the planet by now. Neither the sun catcher, nor the first photon knew this.
Electricity was flowing through the metals. They ended up at a terminal, only to finally lose their identity and form. It was the end of a device humans called a "screen", and from the end was liberated the old white slave. The photon, having been enslaved for several million years now , finally saw the humans who have liberated him and helped him gain his identity again.

And he saw You, as you are reading this line from your "screen". In a grateful manner he hit your face with a photonic greeting and started his journey into the future.

Online Journal keeping : An outlook


The Premise...

A daring attempt on writing a journal online, hoping for a better service+secrecy+eco-friendliness started on September 3rd and ended on September 4th! In lesser than 24 hours.

The image below is the snapshot of the my twitter page, which almost captures the bitterness in its pure entirety.


The irony is when a paper pulp journal keeper is momentarily enthused in maintaining a journal online.

Why would someone vacillate?
Here are the reasons...

  • tagging your entries 
  • attaching pics
  • auto-save
  • secrecy:password protection
  • privacy:you can write everything you want, whose gonna read it anyways?
  • keeping certain entries Super-protected with passwords
  • printable, if need be
  • get the entries delivered to mailbox, at the frequency you choose
  • get a remainder to the inbox, replying to which you can update your journal
  • An android, i-phone app that can sync both your PC and Mobile app contents/entries
  • and so-on!


The Short Lived surprise...


After the account was successfully created, without much of a form to be filled in. I learnt that these features are available to only pro-users. Almost 50% of the available options in the list above are for the pro users. SO...the screen below is probably the screen you would see often!



So, to make it a little easier on your eyes and the mind, I am re-writing the above list with colors; and with the colors pointing to the differences in the "free" and the "pro" versions...

  • tagging your entries 
  • attaching pics
  • auto-save
  • secrecy:password protection
  • privacy:you can write everything you want, whose gonna read it anyways?
  • keeping certain entries Super-protected with passwords
  • printable, if need be
  • get the entries delivered to mailbox, at the frequency you choose
  • get a remainder to the inbox, replying to which you can update your journal
  • An android, i-phone app that can sync both your PC and Mobile app contents/entries
  • and so-on! 
So..the solution?

I gave up on the idea of using a system that has been designed for online journal keeping. I mean, it all makes sense...why would it be free when the companies invest so much starting from the domain to the servers? The "pro" version is just justified.

I now have not given up on online journal keeping yet. But I prefer to use a faithful tool that has been there for as long as the Internet has existed : The E-mail.

How?

I just typed my entry for the day as an e-mail, attached the related pics, in fact one video as well (adding video in online journal keeping websites is still unavailable at large).

  • Our email accounts are no doubt private and secret. 
  • You can add pics and videos and also other file formats (ebook, podcasts, pdf, whatever etc)
  • you can color, bold, italicize the important words
  • auto-save and drafting, at times also future mail option comes in handy
  • one can also use the subject line: something like this : "Ram.N - Sep 4th - The Hangover Sunday"
  • So, if  need be, the mails can be searched, sorted and printed.
  • you could share it with anyone, if you want, to by just forwarding it
  • It's an email account. So you can use your phone of whichever OS, or a PC to update your day's entry
  • You can write your entry whenever you check mails. And for most of us, the "Whenever", is perhaps synonymous with "always"
Moral of the story

Lets not re-invent the wheel. The tools are all around us. Already dominant and efficient. Just a bit of lateral thinking, and there we are. "Web is what you make of it" ;)

Wish you a Happy online journal keeping. You already have an online journal by now don't you?!

Ledface Question: My answer


I recently discovered an interesting idea inspired website called Ledface.

It is based on collective intelligence (your knowledge and my knowledge, with an algorithm connecting it). Try it for yourself. Ledface is right now in testing/polishing stages, I joined with an invitation sent by the dev team, as I got to know them on twitter. I really loved the registration process. Whether you use the website or not, I would recommend you giving a shot at the registration, for it is a little thought about and crazy approach, that craftily uses the new age media to gather information from you. And there were just 4 text-boxes I filled; virtually no painful form-filling! and remaining steps were absolute fun. More like a game.

In the site, u ask questions, and get answers too. How different it will be from yahoo answers or the numerous numbers of forums crawling in the Internet with loads of crappy content... we do not know yet.

I tried a question...


There was one question that I answered in Ledface.
The question was "What does the science hold for the future?"
It made me brainstorm a bit, and I took a second to copy what I typed and here they are...
Cognitively enhanced humans, self-actualized robots, telepathic communication, telekinetic transportation, universal conscience, world-peace or total destruction, warmer/colder world & suitably adapted living organisms, cars running on levitation, electricity from human movements, one-world-one-language-one-currency, one language for humans and computers, man-made biological and robotic species.
Let's wait and see, what the above answer becomes with the magic of their algorithm;
Let's also wait and see, what Ledface turns out to be. I wish them luck and support.

Change is easy. A semi-scientific, partly design, partly analytical Journey

Let me begin with a praise, to the greatest of all technological/conceptual Inventions: The Internet.

After which, I shall take you through a semi-scientific, partly Design and partly analytical journey about technology, my memories and my takes on technology etc. Welcome...
An Ode to Internet... 
      "I was a kid, so was She. She was everywhere in her developmental changes, I was in India travelling a lot as my father works with a bank. I have seen places and she prevailed in all places.
I was young, so was She. She matured and became the daughter of every household. I matured and became the man of my home, just the way you grew up to be a respected man or a woman. 
I fell in love with this lady. She was wiser, she was accessible, she answered to everything asked and she made life easier. We made out big time. Behind every man's success there is a woman; and there she was for me, The Internet.
She lost her virginity when she turned Web2.0, she became social, and then... a socialite. She has now grown to be the extension of the human mind and intellect itself. I am happy that she will be holding my photos and memories, my blog-posts and the digital version of my paintings, designs for the ages to come, even after my death. In essence, my biological form may perish, but not my digital existence that she nourishes and holds with selfless love. 
From a kid, to a girlfriend, to love to Mother...what a journey!"

Yes, changes happen everyday. Change is the only Constant. When I read about the Indiblogger-Dell "Change is Easy" contest, probably very late compared to the early birds who had already blogged and managed to  get a handsome number of votes, I thought should I really blog about this, especially when it is soooo late?!

Nothing wrong! I felt. Some issues need to be blogged about, for the sheer joy of talking about them.
And what technology has done to our lives, is undoubtedly one among those "Gem" topics that needs to be blogged about.

About Internet...

To talk about what Internet has done to our lives is beyond the realm of appreciation! It is like an attempt to appreciate 'Breathing', and the greatness of it! However lets go a step beyond and attempt it.

"While breathing stops once we die, our Intellect continues to exist in Internet, assuming a lustrous digital permanence" 
How can this beautiful Change, the manifestation of intellect of Mankind be ever described with mere packets of knowledge called "words"?! However, this no doubt is the biggest revolution that has touched human civilization. We can't re-write human history ignoring the Internet can we?
----I.M.P.O.S.S.I.B.L.E----

Computers...

Lets make an attempt to list all that have been replaced/reduced (for more efficiency) by the advent of computers, laptops and tablets (the distinction is becoming less perceivable day by day!).

Paper, pen, clocks, watches, time piece, postal department, pen friends, paper pulp books, paper pulp mails, millions of litres of diesel and petrol in transporting the above said etc!

However, technological evolution like biological evolution, keeps its oldest members alive. Technology never preys on older technology.

Q:How? 
A:Here we go...

  • We type a lot, does that mean we haven't bought a pen in the last month?
  • Typewriters are long gone. Take a look at your QWERTY keyboard. Are they really gone?!
    • NEVER: Technology evolves, sometimes in form, sometimes in soul. But they religiously abide by the laws of Skeuomorphism.

Lemme give a priming info about Skeuomorphism from Wikipedia...That should help you to relate better.
skeuomorph, pronounced /ˈskjuːəmɔɹf/ skew-ə-morf, or skeuomorphism (Greekskeuos—vessel or tool, morphe—shape)[1] is a derivative object that retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original.[2] Skeuomorphs may be deliberately employed to make the new look comfortably old and familiar,[3] such as copper cladding on zinc pennies or computer printed postage with circular town name and cancellation lines. An alternative definition is "an element of design or structure that serves little or no purpose in the artifact fashioned from the new material but was essential to the object made from the original material"[4]. This definition is narrower in scope and ties skeuomorphs to changes in materials.
Q: Alright where is the above mentioned in computers?!
A: Here we go...Again!

  • QWERTY keyboards in old typewriters and today's state of the art technologies.
                          


  • Stone tablets with engravings, are now the tablets we use, only this time made out of more subtle materials like plastic and silicon! 
"both of them were designed to hold information"



  • There is no pulp, paper or ink in today's ebooks. Its just well controlled flow of electrons and flip flops! Yet...how do the papers flip in ebook readers?!


                   

         






My One Good Old memory! (actually...that five years ago ;) )


It was about five years ago, in my college years, I got an acer laptop. A silver colored one. Dell was my desire, but it was expensive and I was a newbie to computers and my dad was a newbie on spending a single large amount on a youngster who never exhibited qualities of Return on Investment :)
(Of course, my dad is very happy with me now, though!) So... it was an acer.

My dream was a pure, white minimalistic Dell model (today's designer version didn't exist then).


I also bought a Faber-Castell marker pen, black. I also have a right brain (attributed to creativity) which is a bit crazy. One day, all the three namely, the right-brain, the marker pen and the laptop thought about adding value to each other and hence was born my first Designer laptop! I have added the picture for you here...




I often used to say...

" I used to taste colors and smell words, they called me schizophrenic and synesthetic;I now do the same and they call me a designer! "
I still remember the criticism designing on a lap-top won me in my college hostel! But, there was one brand which made a bold statement in just a year after that. "DELL". You can click the image below, if your Right-Brain tingles and you wanna buy one, it is hyperlinked.


And the guys told me..."Saala, Ram ka laptop tho tab se eisa hii hai!
I felt happy. Thanks DELL!


Given below is a Dell's take on Skeuomorphism.


Compare the above with the following...

   


"Designs, beauty, aesthetics and innovation is something only Human minds can comprehend and appreciate. When was the last time you saw a dog innovating the way it eats and exists!? 
This is the single and the most important factor that propels technology to keep changing, and evolving. I am happy that Dell has appreciated the element of design on otherwise boring Laptops, which have a reputation for being manufactured(not crafted) in Black or Solid colors like blue, green (claiming them to be major design changes)! 
When talking about change, we here are not talking about Climate-Change, or Global tectonic plate Changes! It just a smooth and comfortable technological change. Lets Embrace every one of these changes with uninhibited love and lets mature with technology, as it does with us 
Thank you!"

This article was written for "Change is Easy" contest by Indiblogger.in and DELL. 
If You liked the article please use the image below, to Cast me your votes. I could win something useful for a designer! Trust me it only takes a minute! I will give you "design" choices again...click on whatever you like...
"All roads lead to Rome, All the links lead to the same!"



_____End of Article___


We are what we read, below are some of the articles I remembered to share with you as I was writing this blog-post, have fun reading them too!

Related interesting reads...
http://bitly.com/inspiron
Pritish Nandy's Blog-post on Internet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeuomorph
http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=66232

IT companies, Ram and the English.

My dad just came into the room to see if I was alright, to his surprise I was writing a journal when I was supposed to be sleeping on a dose of Diclofenac and paracetamol for the headache. This headache I got due to the crash after a week-long downtime and mental turbulance. I crashed into clarity.

I do not know if diclofenac and paracetamol can bring about such introspective thinking, with such a noise that had I been somewhere near the Niagara, I still would have felt that the Niagara is a few decibels weaker. The crash I guess chose to manifest as a headache this time, for no reason. Thereby forcing me to shut the light, sounds, ears, mobile phone etc, in short...possibly everything that was ON.

When everything that keeps you glued to the external world is OFF, the internal world suddenly wakes up for a short period of time, when the thoughts are clear as crystals only until when they fade into another state called sleep, where all that was thought about gets organized and stored for future reference.
To hell with the future, I get up as the thoughts flow and channelize them to journal pages. The pages were being created and Dad comes in...pages stop getting created, someday the painfully long process will have to be redone (hopefully without diclofenac) and the pages will have to be created.

But...'Dad came in with the seed for this blogpost'


He tells me about a temple in India where they have discovered a room with treasures of old Indian Kings, with the gold valuing about Rs.1,00,000 Crores, and the diamonds and other precious stones are not even included yet in the valuation.

Dad adds his classic verbal touch by saying that the Britisher's must not have known about the existence of this treasure, else they would have swiped it all away long back, like the way they did with most of the treasures in India, and other countries they conquered, hardly with any bravery but with cunning strategies. We Indians do have our weaknesses after-all, and the best part... Britishers can try the strategy once again and we no doubt will fall for it, again!

As a parting gift the Britisher's gave us English and Coffee. To make up for the damages done in the olden days (but hardly Golden days), they now wield the soft-power with British Libraries sprung all across India, and also the world. Possibly for establishing cultural relations with Indians, and to sell the overpriced education of their "World Famous" Universities, which even their own Government denies to fund, to Indian students with mediocre intelligence and rich dads.

And what did English do to me?
I am blogging with it. and ....
My Job : with a software firm, in Bangalore, for the UK clients!

How the hell did I get the job?
I am an Indian, a person from the developing country. So you can pay me a fraction of the cost that you would otherwise pay a westerner. I, the Indian, will subject myself to 12 hours of work everyday for peanuts, yet will call my job a white collar job. And the bride's fathers are usually happy to know that his daughter will marry a dumbass who speaks with computers in a strange language with English alphabets/words and senseless symbols like $ <> @ & etc for about 10 hours in a day.
Father in laws beware...IT people have a reputation for killing their wives. Give your daughter to an author ;) or a painter. They are true romantics, trust me. Van Gogh gifted a prostitute his cut left ear.

I did my job for the UK client. It was three months ago. I am off the project, and off the company. Now putting my English to better uses.

Do not worry Daddy...

We in India have beautiful services based business models and enough number of unskilled graduates minted every academic year, to keep the IT industry flourishing for another good twenty years (only if Artificial intelligence doesn't awaken in these twenty years). By this time frame we and our companies will plunder back everything that they took. And after twenty years, there will be a great economic depression with India being the fulcrum. Chill daddy, I have planned my evil plans for those times.

Arranged Marriage: Simplified.

Arranged marriage is a term which needs not much description, but a lot of analysis.

But wikipedia sure helps! The first two lines are as follows:

"An arranged marriage is one in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship." - Wikipedia

In other words, arranged marriage is a form of marriage where your life/sexual/mental/spiritual partner, either a male or a female, as the case may be is chosen by someone other than you (and when it is someone, does it even matter as to who decides?). However, for the sake of defining lets say that the someone could be parents, the elderly, the wikipedia also says that it could be a trusted third party, or even a matrimonial site!


"I am from India, so probably my dear readers from The US, The UK, Russia, Africa, Singapore and Malaysia and Europe might find this a little confusing, or worse, irrelevant. Well, that's because you are reading across cultures. No problem! Have fun!"

How or why this happens, is rather interesting to think about.

1. It could be because the parents or the elderly have not imparted on their children, the right set of maturity and the discipline to decide their pair for life with absolute confidence and more importantly not basing their decisions upon superficial qualities of their partner.

2. Or it could be well the extension of the generic template based on which we live our lives. The generic template is as below: [ this is not an exhaustive list, you could add designs from your template as well, as comments ]
The template begins...
  • Baby is born, name it. But name it by only those names that are within the realms of your religion, caste, creed, and family. A Christian can't name his daughter Mrishti, can he? No No No..! thats against the English grammar rules! 
  • Baby has grown, School it. Force it to get centum (a.k.a 100%) 
  • Don't relate to the kid and don't try to comprehend him/her, but just ensure he/she studies to become a doctor or an engineer (any professional degree). 
  • Study to become an engineer, choose any field that interests you. But you better accept the IT job you get as placement offer in your third year of college (with one year still left to complete the field of interest, you sure know that you will end up in IT, a field totally irrelevant). 
  • If not placed? Parents will get you a job. 
  • What if you can't love? Parents will get you a guy/girl. 
  • What if you are able enough to love? Parents will still get you a guy/girl. 
  • Why IT? Who else pays you so good? And hence IT. 
  • Why Arranged marriage? Who else pays you so good? And hence Arranged marriage. 
  • Get huge sums of dowry from the female party, and claim that the male is the "Real male" in the relationship. Feeding her with her own money! She knows by now what a jackass you are. 
  • Carry on the strained relationship till the end of your lives (death or divorce), whichever comes earlier. 

A few more thoughts...

The diagram to the right is a Maslow's pyramid, it has its purposes in the end of the blogpost...

  • You get 'arranged' married, and spend your first night with a woman/man, whose biological smell you are not sure of. How is this any different from an intercourse with a sex worker? 
  • You like it or dislike it, you got to spend your remaining years with her/him. 
  • Your body instinctively, biologically and sexually knows, who's your identical genetic match for sexual intercourse, and the ultimacy in marriage is producing a healthy progeny (kid(s)). How did your relatives, who chose your pair know that?! How wise! 
  • You definitely can't divorce her/him. Why? Because it may be a disgrace to the long held respect your family has gathered over so many years, by being the great-ones who have compromised their own and possibly their respective partner's happiness for the sake of family pride and the well being of the societal setup. 
  • What is a society? You, me and similar things put together. 
  • So if you are unhappy with your partner, won't that be a flaw you are creating in the society? 
  • Or lets say, years of living and maturity have imparted onto you the ability to the able to forget the past and move on fast into the future. So how do you handle it? Do you fantasize being with your lover, every time you are entwined with your spouse. Oh, is that why people close their eyes when they kiss?! 
  • How can someone other than you know your ups, downs, mood swings, your dark side, possibly the fact that you are a serial killer or a rapist, or someone who's ultimate idea is to get knocked up in a drunk state? And how can such a someone choose your partner. More importantly, how do you think this will hold good? 
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs The link leads you to Maslow's Pyramid. In an unhappy arranged marriage, the basic needs will fumble. Then how can a society comprising of such fumbled entities ever have a stable Pyramid in place? 

Have a happy arranged married life.

Not so Grand Design

The Nature's way of attesting your existence on Earth, is your responsibility/ability to leave a progeny on Earth. But this concept has got twisted with the evolution of medical care and technology. If you are someone prone to catching diseases, chances (without medical care) are that sexual routine would be hindered due to the disease. However with medical intervention, we can safely surpass the genetic defects and make a progeny; with similar diseases. Before medicines, such genes just got eradicated. 


But who are we to question this Grand design. We made weaker humans, only to clear this Earth off the unduly dominant human species, only sometime later. So this, definitely is not our concern.

Fasting against Fasting against Corruption

"Fasting against corruption" by Everyone, Everywhere.
What can the Government do?! "Fast till every one fasting against anything/something, ends their fast"!
Simple isn't it?!
(Click to Enlarge)


The Hindu Bangalore Edition "Mummified" - 1/6/2011

This is "The Hindu", Bangalore Edition on a Wednesday morning. The newspaper was, is and will always be celebrated for its clarity, crispness and the quality of News. The Hindu is one of few dailies that holds onto the brave old school journalism.

The Hindu has a code of their own and still thrives with an DNA that has neither mutated nor evolved with the modern schools of journalism.

Well, all the above defines what the daily "The Hindu" is. This blog-post was written because there was something very deviant from the normal "The Hindu" behavior. The Bangalore (a state in Karnataka, India) edition had one entire page of AIADMK's scheme to give free rice (Tamilian's staple food) to every home in Tamil Nadu. The DMK was famous for their dead cheap rice, and now the scheme evolves with elections into "rice is free". How many Governments across the world does that? But I just hope that it doesn't spell 'Kaput' to the breed famous for hard-work : The Tamils. My uncles and their competitors alike, who run Lorry service businesses complain that they don't get workers. ROFL...How would they?!

Conclusion : None made. I am usually sleepy in the mornings. Good time to blog, but bad time to be judgmental.

:BioFlukes:Rebooting Research

:BioFlukes:Rebooting Research

This post marks the official launch News of the much awaited Life Science research information repository website "BioFlukes.com"

Check out the Website and be a part of the Bioflukes' endeavor at "Rebooting Research"... Welcome!

More stories on BioFlukes and news coverage will follow!

:BioFlukes:Rebooting Research

First few drops...

Sitting in the room, with a book in the hand, the ceiling fan circulates a fresh set of air with the scent of the rain's first few drops.

The mind so absorbed in the book awakens to the exterior virtual world, and hears the big drops falling from the skies on the concreted face of Earth, committing suicide by shattering itself, for she expected that she would soon be a part of the juice in a fruit, but later realized that she will be flowing into the city's drainage system and will be nurturing bacteria and mosquitoes.

What does the human me do at once, run outside and protect the partially dried clothes on terrace, snatching the few probabilities of happiness that the rain drop destined to drainage, could have had.

Saved the clothes and what next? Wish I could get drenched and feel myself alive again, but my day is too packed for that. Sorry rain drops, better luck next time!
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7

The Books as I see them

   
        Books have always been called man's best friend, true it must be, for friends have a peculiar knack of telling you what you need to hear and more importantly in the right time, and most often (but not always) in a way that does not heavily scratch our ego. Good friends are hard to be found nowadays. Ever wondered why you call your office co-worker a "colleague" and not "friend"? The simplest explanation is that he/she is a potential competitor to your career growth, just the way you are one for them. Robin Sharma, often says that if you ever have the curiosity to know as to what will you be five years from now, all you need to analyze is the people you meet and the books you read, for they have a very profound influence on what you will turn into in your immediate future.

        The reason the books command such a respect in a reading human's feelings, can be explained in a few comfort zones that the books help us to stay in. Firstly, we read books by our choice, ranging from the topic to the author, it's all our choice. Secondly, unlike friends books don't try to convince you until or unless you decide to get yourself convinced over a issue; for we often take a book to make a decision, among the two or three options that we already got in mind.

        Many authors have spoken lot about books, I feel a different love towards books. Let me explain how do I feel about reading and keeping books. Books are written by humans, the type of humans I prefer calling "the working men of the highest order", just because the works are the outcome of the influence of his/her higher faculties, which includes the physical system and the intellect .The latter is not an essential component involved in the products of a normal working man, the product that could be a line of laid bricks, or pounds of raw heaped iron, all of which require not much of intellectual prowess being employed for the outcome.

The science behind this.

Undoubtedly, books are the outcomes of an intensive generation of ideas and thoughts brought about by the author (which, even if Artificial Intelligence comes alive, I doubt if the robots would ever be able to do), and ideas don't generate out of nowhere, it clearly has it roots in every single moment the author has spent observing, learning and comprehending the events of life (both his and others, and most often through other books too!). So here it is worthwhile to notice the point that with every progressing generation of humans, the lustre and clarity of the intellect and of the ideas become progressively sharpened in resolution, as it is the truth that unfolds every single day and with numerous authors, numerous perspectives are added on to it.

        All these explanations now positions me aptly, to explain how I see and perceive books. I see the books to be a fragment of the soul or intellect or the life of the author, because a book captures the entire thinking process of an author, that which formed its pattern over a considerable period of time. Now all this gets permanence in a book in a humble two-dimentional simple print in a very consice manner. So literally the author has crystallized his entire soul and intellect, in his book. So when you have yourself sorrounded by books, you have the fragments of their souls all around you.

And that my friends, is how I see the books around me.

Antiseptics for washing hands?!..ha ha...no-no...win-win

A few months ago, one of the very active members of TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) Maitree team and I were having a discussion over a coffee. The doctor in front of his name was not an addition due to a Ph.D; he's a doctor who deals with human body. However, whether his job in TCS is biological or technological, I do not know. But what I know is that he is a biology person at heart, for I could see that his outlook on all that existed in TCS, was hugely biology inclined and inspired by life.

At the discussion, he made a crisp comment about the usage of antiseptic soaps and soap solutions in our washrooms and even in our homes. He felt it was an overkill. But me being a Biotechnologist, could comprehend his concern with another dimension added.

We often use antiseptic soap solutions for washing hands after every meal, bath with antiseptic soaps, mostly to play safe/safer/safest! Here, I would also like to bring in my another persona, which is that of a business-man. The business guy in me says, that it is a long term win-win situation.
 
How? : When we wash and bath, mostly after having stayed in air conditioned rooms and offices, or even in clean homes, we don't actually carry a huge load of pathogenic micro-organisms, that needs a heavy antiseptic treatment. But we still do it. On the contrary, Nature has designed or may be the organisms have evolved, in such a way that organisms beneficial to us humans are more often than not weaker (less resistant to antiseptics) than those that are harmful. So everytime we use a good quantity of soap (unnecessarily beefed up with antiseptics), we add a considerable quantity of antiseptics into the waters, which finds its way into the ground water and also in the soils.

So, how does the bad businessman in me find a win-win in this!?

It's simply because all these unnecessary antiseptics, prevent us from getting infections and diseases, while also managing to kill the beneficial organisms in the environment. This slowly reduces our immunity against microbes that co-inhabit this world, which we must actually share with them. And while our immunity gets progressively weaker, the pathogenic (disease causing organisms) organisms get stronger as their immunity against the antiseptics become progressively higher with every cycle of their reproduction. And these guys reproduce real fast! Because, by the time we complete one session of intercourse, they will have produced millions of off-springs! And what worse, all of them stronger, while our kids are weaker!. So isn't this a win-win situation!? Your kids will buy stronger soaps, and their kids even stronger ones!!!

But the biotechnologist and the environmentalist in me writes this blogpost with a weird kind of paradoxical pain.

Too Technical?!

Usage of antiseptics for hand washing and bathing = wearing a helmet while sleeping, fearing a fall from bed and an injury.

Don't worry Nature has taken care of our immunity, nothing can possibly go wrong that easily. Relax...use a normal soap, or just water. Our fore-fathers did that, and managed to stay alive for me to be writing and you to be reading/commenting this blog.

Man....! Win-win....oh...just shut up you...

With love, Insomniac.

I kinda like this time. Silent, productive, other minds are sleeping, hence not emitting disturbing human mental waves that destructively interfere with those of the few minds that thrive at peace and calm.

I love these nights. A constant reminder of the past and the reality; a black post-it note that clings on for about 50% of each day, trying in vain to remind the sleeping minds and bodies, of a Universe that existed before the diverging dust and debris started their journey.

So after all the fun and frolic ends, it will be the night that will embrace us all.

But who is night to embrace me?! I declare ..."I chose you", remember...and its not the other way round!

love,
Insomniac

Lovely Biotechnology

 Waiting to start them all over again!

Carrying the license to play God...in a humble manner!

George Smoot on the design of the universe : Review

I Felt that this TED video was worth sharing in this blog, for I have noticed that, some minds whose thinking tries to break out of the biological limitations of the skull, and thoughts run beyond the limitations of flesh bone and lust, visit this blog often. This video is for all you such people

P.S : If you felt the description above was overtly flamboyant and an overkill, and you are someone who is possibly convinced that such people are wasting the limited carbon on the planet by assimilating it in their biomass, don't waste 19 minutes watching this video! Go watch porn!



Till the last drop vaporizes!

The statistics and history have shown that it was the war times that fuelled many a innovations to come alive. Penicillin, harley davidsons, instant noodles are examples of it!

I was confronted with the challenge challenging the very existence of humanity, in a war of two most dominant species' on earth! Man and Mosquito...

The challenge was to make the last drop of available mosquito repellant liquid in the magazine@canister to vaporize for the chemical warfare against the mosquitoes to be efficient.

Thats when I came up with this innovative war strategy to efficiently utilize the little ammunition I had to be able to survive the cold, bloody war night.

Humanity won!
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A feedback Based Iconic Interface for smart devices

Note : The important stuff of the blog starts after first three priming paragraph! So please don't loose cool yet!

A few months ago, LG mis-conducted an online competition for designers. The designers were asked to come up with a totally new rethinking of the technologies and their designs that we have presently. The example design put up on their website was something like a fan with a remote control. I felt there was something about this initiative, that was worth a praise and also worth a try. So I gave it a shot.

The funny part was that, I missed the deadline to upload the entry, and when I saw the webpage, it said I could still upload cos the deadline was extended (Good for me!), hence I uploaded happily. The date was extended once again after a few days again! I waited, waited and waited...then there came a time when I stopped checking the website for results! Not very professional isn't it?!?

This experience somehow influenced me when I bought my android phone, though I liked LG optimus, I had this compelling feeling which never allowed me to buy it, I rather bought Motorola Backflip, and I love it!


I mentioned that I uploaded my designs right? Yes, these designs were a set of ideas that had been rolling in my right brain for quite sometime, but I did not develop an app for it, cos my left brain is not that of a coder's! In this blog-post I am uploading the two image files that explain the design concept, plus the mathematics that the design should run on.

Concept : When we use the touch screen based smart devices, the most used icons should progressively increase in size, while the least used icons decrease in size proportionately.
How : There is an incremental and decremental logic for the icon sizes to change, which works very similar to tag clouds where, the frequency of 'hits' on a particular word leads to the increase or decrease of its font-size.

Designs :  Well...You can always click to enlarge!  ;)


If you find this idea cool, please work on it! and Send me the link to the app, am waiting to see my idea in action!

The Tell-Tale Brain by V.S Ramachandran : Review



My rating: 5 of 5 stars




V.S. Ramachandran is celebrated as the "The Marco Polo of Neuroscience" by Richard Dawkins! One Genius can't be wrong about the other! can they?!




I found this book at Odyssey book store in ITPL, Bangalore. Not wasting a moment, bought it! Priced at Rs. 499/-- this I definitely felt was more precious than Eclipse or New Moon or even Lord of the Rings, which also are priced more or less the same.





Ramachandran is first among the many who diverted my lines of thinking into a more neurological, psychological and cognitive pattern. This book tagged "Unlocking the mystery of Human Nature" is definitely bound to pull many more able brains to this wonderful, yet relatively unexplored field of Science.




The teasers(which this book hardly needs) in the book cover's third paragraph inside reads,"The brain remains a mystery to us. How can a three pound mass of jelly that we can hold in our palm imagine angels, contemplate the meaning of infinity, and even question its own place in the cosmos?" Sounds interesting? Igniting a spark? Go ahead, make an investment.

His Robot Grlfriend, by Wesley Allison : Review




My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Good start and pages went all good and sexy, but after chapter 6 the author/ daffodil/ even reader(me) couldn't know where the story was headed to and why, and the end followed my declined interest to finish the book. Down to Earth imagination!



View all my reviews




My website, REFRESHED!

Hi peeps,

It's great fun to be writing this now and then; as it gives me great happiness and fulfillment, to be informing you that my personal website www.nram.co.in , is now friendlier, more organized and sensible with respect to the information structuring. But this is what I feel it is, the website is for you to see, hence verdict is yours!

   You are welcome...
   --Ram
   www.nram.co.in 

Abbreviation Psychometry : A thinner slicing into a person's psychology.

     It all started when my father once asked in a 'father testing his son's knowledge..' tone "What is OD?". That was three years ago when I was in the second year of my college. I swiftly replied "optical density", he was shocked and a little irritated for he expected me to say "over draft". Well, I was then a biologist in the making, while my father was a banker for about twenty years. No wonder our take on the abbreviations differed.

It doesn't have to be with two people necessarily. After my college years, there is this company in India called TCS which had extreme faith in 120 of us from our entire batch of God knows how many students, and they offered us employment in our third year of college just when recession was stating to catch up! As I was waiting for the job call from TCS after completion of my Undergraduate study in Biotechnology , Government of India's ministry of Science and technology had for the 2009 batch, called the students for its fantastic initiative called BCIL(Biotech Consortium of India Limited) which gives students a paid internship in leading Biotech companies across India. I was learning big time in Biozeen for about four months.

That's when I was repeatedly using certain abbreviations like DNS (dinitro salicylic acid) and SIP (sterilization in place), CIP (cleaning in place) etc. When I joined TCS after that and started to learn web designing, which had always been my crush kinda hobby during my entire college years, the same (DNS) got reprogrammed in my brain as "Domain Name Server"!

This by itself is not a great thing to write a blogpost upon, rather its too trifle a matter! But what I felt is, this shift in the way certain abbreviations and symbols are processed by the brain, could give a very detailed inference on what and who a person is.

Like for example red could mean love for a lover, while it could also mean blood for a serial killer! These are the takes of two persons of the same symbol. But it could also be that it meant love for the person, till the day he became psychologically destabilized due to a failed relationship and it then started to mean blood! Eeewwww, but you get it right!? This is what psychometry has always been trying to analyze. To make a thin slicing of a person's psychological state is what psychometry aims at.

What I am here trying to convey is that the thin slicing can be made thinner by understanding what abbreviations mean to a person. This could lead to deeper understanding of a person's inclinations to various subjects of his/her professional or personal expertise, (@in short.. one's actual field towards which his/her brain is more aptly fit to be productive) in his/her present psychological state.

Now, the idea is open. I would love to see cognitive Neuroscience brains work on this, for I already am!

Ramrevatube ...ha ha.Yeah That's my youtube channel name!

Hi all,

Had you noticed, there is a little addition to the pages on top panel! Yeah, there is "My Youtube Page" added.
Just a place to keep a few videos that are worth more(yours) than just two eyes(mine!). Welcome there...


Spanish speaking monk from Argentina.

It was just another evening, out of nowhere a person comes to me. Dressed up in cotton khadi attire which seemed to laugh at the corporate synthetic attire of mine, and with a soul that had no fear nor expectations which was reflecting in his bright brown eyes.

He introduced himself to be a person from Argentina and that he speaks Spanish, and wants to spread the words of his Gurus and handed me this book.

Shame, I dont know his name. But, whats in a name? We all descend from Om.
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The Tell-Tale Brain by V.S Ramachandran...Lovely Book



Just bought the book I have been waiting to read. feels soooo good. my best investment i would say is this...

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