What does not change?

The monitor you are looking at probably refreshes more than the rate your eyes can recognize just to give you the constancy feeling of the text that is being displayed. Of course, I am assuming you are not printing this stuff out (a very safe assumption).

For a simple interface like a web-browser displaying junk of text, we need a lot of things unchanging - giving the constancy feeling which is very essential for us to "do" anything. How much does the universe have to "do" to give us the constancy feeling that we so much enjoy. "The only thing that does not change is change itself" - is a well known observation by some random old dude many centuries ago, though the constancy feeling that does enable us to observe and appreciate the change is equally (if not more) important. So what does the universe maintain constant for us to enjoy life? Which cardinal constraints should all physical and chemical reactions follow?

1) Energy: Energy is not lost or gained but remains constant in any reaction. Though, if you very small particles (quantum stuff), energy and mass are constant (because Einstein says energy and mass are interchangable).

2) Momentum and Angular momentum: Take a particles mass multiply it by its velocity (or angular velocity) and you get the momentum. Do anything (walk, jump, cry or die), you should conserve momentum as badly as you should conserve energy. It so happens, even the small stuff inside the atom needs to conserve momentum and angular momentum.

3) Charge: Charge is a property shared by all particles. +ve, -ve or neutral. Once a particle has a charge, it cannot magically loose it. In any type of reaction, if a charge comes in, one of the outputs should take the charge out. So the overall charge is same.

4) TCP: time reversal, charge conjugation and mirror reversal. This conservation happens only in quantum stuff. Take any quantum reaction,

a) take the outputs of the reaction and run the reaction backwards (time reversal)

b) Conjugate the charges (electron to positron etc..).

c) Run the reaction in mirror image. Every particle spins clockwise or anticlockwise, just swap them.

If you do all these, you should get the original inputs back! - theoretically of course.

These are the only things that are always there and give us the continuity feeling that we are so used to. So wat? Nothing, just typing junk as usual. Go ahead and do some real work instead of wasting time on pointless stuff on the net.

Hollywood Hollywood

I always thought road trips are those kind of things which everyone pretends to be excited about because it sounds cool. To my surprise my first driving road trip proved to be awesome fun and profoundly entertaining.

I am trying to break the pieces of the road trip into its constiuent parts - but as you all know the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts.. So here all the list of fun things I did last saturday in no particualar order

Aug-15-2009 7:15 am : Pretending to not hear my friend's wake up call to start the road trip.

Aug-15-2009 8:15 am : Continuing previous step with great resolve.

Aug-15-2009 9:10 am : Woke up and asked the simple question "Are we really going?"

Aug-15-2009 9:20 am: Driving my nissan maxima out of my house.

Aug-15-2009 1:00 pm: I travelled at 100 miles/hour for the first time in my car.

Aug-15-2009 3:35 pm: Ate "Soy chicken" in vegan world restaurant.

Aug-15-2009 6:00 pm: Figuring out how to go to Hollywood sign.

Aug-15-2009 7:00 pm: Illegally Hiking toward the hollywood sign.

Aug-15-2009 7:30 pm: Shot a "deeply philosophical" short film (run time 27 secs)

Aug-15-2009 9:00 pm: Sitting in Electirc Karma restaurant waiting for the "sambhar soup" which didnt come with the "Thali" that I ordered.

Aug-15-2009 10:30 pm: Walking in some kind of crazy hi-fi street where things are supposed to be fashionable (meaning expensive).

Aug-15-2009 11:45 pm: Took a picture of my patient friend near Staples building.

Aug-16-2009 12:16 am: Made a wierd left lane change in a curve making the trip adventerous.

Aug-16-2009 1:10 am: Driving back towards L.A to refuel the car.

Aug-16-2009 4:30 am: Found highway driving really boring because there is nothing happening.

Aug-16-2009 5:15 am: Me and my friend had no more topics to discuss and began to start repeating words, phrases, jokes, debates and arguments.

Aug-16-2009 6:25 am: I closed my eyes in sleep while travelling in 101.

Aug-16-2009 6:26 am: Woke up again still in 101 - still travelling in the right direction.

Aug-16-2009 7:15 am: Came home and slept till 3 pm.

Sweet lie or Hard truth?

We are confronted with the choice time and again in a civilized environment. There are always things that we do not want talk about. Lets say a very boring relative calls me up - I have to ask him how he is doing though I have no interest in his wellbeing and I have to laugh for his "jokes".

That part is simple because it is just a temporary mask - or is it? Where does the mask end and "the real you" begins. The way I see it, its much like onions, we have different masks for different people and most probably there is nothing inside.

Assuming that everything discussed so far is reasonably accurate, the next obvious question is what is there in the inner most level of the onion? Cant it be the real you? My best bet is the inner most layer in the onion is just a set of believes held so close to you that you cannot live without them. It just represents one of the stereotypical images at the heart.

In a nutshell, we are all stereotypes of one type or the other and we lie to ourselves about it by forming more and more layers around the fundamental.

Motivation

I woke up at 5:30 PM today evening after sleeping at 4 AM in the morning - a good 13.5 hrs sleep. I woke up twice in between at 10:33 AM and 12:15 PM and chose to go back to sleep because ... ?

The reason I went back to sleep is that I knew that there is no one out there that will know and feel my absence - in other words - anything that I would have done would have been so inconsequential that I figured out that they are worthless in mid-sleep. In essence I have been jobless for yet another day.

What happened to the fire inside me - assuming there is one still left? Have I been fueling it well enough? Have I given it a reason to glow? Or have I let the system-of-things-I-don't-particularly-like and the inertia-of-inaction give in to my fundamental spirit?

Its true that given a deadline I would not have been this lethargic - but shouldn't all motivation be self-motivation? Shouldn't I command myself instead of subjecting myself to a system which commands me to work? Do I have to loose free-will and subject myself to the system-of-things and run inside the system to ensure that I don't choose inaction out of lack of self-motivation?

Ok - Enough work done - I am getting back to sleep :)

Hello Stranger!

If you are extremely calculative and overly analytical and if you start to guess (and assume) the exact reasons why your friends are actually friends with you, you would realize that most of them have ulterior motives to maintain your friendship. Or, if you have some good friends, you may realize that those people are not friends with you for any particular reason(s). There is a strange sense of satisfaction that is derived from the fact that reasons for those friendships cannot be trivially articulated. This of course is a mere difficulty in expression probably due to lack of development of enough words for all possible emotions in literature and cannot be attributed to the "quality" of the friendship. But it can be safely argued that best friends usually belong to this inexplicable category.

We have a vague notion of differentiating friends from best friends using the limits of language and expression abilities. But this theory, even assuming is 100% true is not worth a penny. There is one more simple succinct theory on friendship (rather acquaintanceship) based on communication that will be worth a life times learning - which most people already know, but face great difficulty implementing. "If you need friends, you need to listen!" Seems trivial and easy but its not (at least to me).

Today I had to make a simple conversation asking for a small (probably useless) gift for a friend from a stranger. I was bold enough to initiate the conversation ( I am very happy about it!) but was so embarrassed in the middle of the conversation that I didn't actually realize the fact that the female said something synonymous to "yes- u can have it". In essence , I asked for something from a stranger for which she said yes (in spite of my record poor communication skills) and I didn't register that yes (probably assuming pessimistically a NO!) and walked away like(?) a total fool.

Irksome

Guess what! I found my super power.

I can irritate anyone in this world without even knowing what I am doing. I am kind of happy about this super power but for the simple fact that I cannot control my powers.. the same problem that many heroes have in the not-so-stupid serial "heroes".

I wish I am totally senseless so that I don't care about the damage that I create, thereby there will be nothing to live with or think about. If thats not possible, I wish I am totally sensible never doing the irksome things that I do. But if the later happens, I will have to be dumb for the most part of my life! I talk so much that sooner or later I will have to offend someone. I have been talking talking for so long that I really do not know what will become of my if I don't talk.

In conclusion, be warned about my super power!

hi 08

Lets welcome another set of 365 days of existence. Before I can realize 2 of them are already gone. I don't remember doing anything other than eating and sleeping in the first 2 days of this year. Its tempting to wish to spend my entire life with this level of laziness.

What do I expect from this new year? I want to surprised and excited about something this year.this shouldn't be just another year that I will forget.this should be a terrifying and fun experience.

Now that the requirement is clear what are the things that I am going to do to make sure that this year catches me of balance and keeps me interested in this game of life? I have no answers for that question. I am inherently so lazy and uninteresting that I am getting bored of myself.. I am becoming too predicable.. How to make myself more interesting?

Some one said "It takes 100 years for a person to be bored of himself".. why is this estimate wrong?

1 sem in Retrospect

Most of the things a human does are just imitation of things that are happening around him/her. One of the most important subconscious factors for me traveling from Ambattur to America, was that 50% of my friends back home did that.

But the more important reason is to explore the horizons of my knowledge.. it is not just tat.. for some stupid reason I believe myself to be capable of expanding the horizon of mankind's knowledge about stuff.. Though the very thought of doing something that great is too cool.. am i really up for it?

I have decent grades, a job , an assistantship and a bunch of good friends. What more can I ask for? I want to study the subject for its own sake and not for the sake of grades.. which I do not do.. I want to do "something great" with life.. just dono wat!!

And there is this eternal loneliness that I am destined to feel within myself till death comes and frees me.

Love: The apprisal

Love is a an interesting thing...

it wouldn't be an overstatement to call it the most interesting and exciting thing in life..

Everything about love is pure and gr8 - just like being repeatedly described and exaggerated in the movies.

There is one downside of it - THE STARTING PROBLEM. Love like parental love, or brotherly love is generally always there (at least in my case :) ). Since the family love is always there - it is not that exciting and it does not have the starting problem! But the love in the context of lovers has this starting problem.

Its the ultimate appraisal.

I hate appraisals coz it has to judge at least one of the team mates as a loser, which can end up subjective to a great degree.

To prepare to tell a love is much like preparing for the ultimate Appraisal - The most common complaint about appraisal is "IT IS TOO SUBJECTIVE" - But in the case of decision about a lover, the subjective nature is inherent and cannot be complained about!

This problem is engulfed in a web of so many other issues like ego,fear that it doesn't surface that easily.

But without all theses problems the process of love will be so mechanical that it will not be exciting.. In other words, only when u r ready to risk it all - can u reach the fruit of being Happily ever after .. or ?

Absence

The non-existence of an entity.

I am concerned abt the transformation of existence to non-existence. This transformation is dealt with by loss, death.

One strange type of absence - denial is haunting me. u look at something and can clearly see that it is present- but still deny its existence - this is denial. Many practice denial in many forms.. some deny the existence of hatred in glorifying humanity.. some deny the existence of ambiguities in glorifying religion..

but can i deny the existence of a person (or the most important person!) in my life and carry on my life??

Obviously I CAN, as long as i am busy enough so that i don think abt my life!

The simpler way to answer the question is that there is no one important enough in my life to be the most important person. Writing the above statement gives me a (false?) sense of comfort and power.

The denial is denied by me writing this abstract.

Am i alive?

I am trying hard to figure out the answer to the above question. Defining the state of being alive as the ability to act at my will, i will have to face the fact that I am not alive anymore. You can predict my exact state of mind, sitting/lying position, amount of food waiting for digestion in my tummy etc..etc.. to an amazingly accurate level of precision given my assignment and exam schedules.

But still all your predictions about what I did last Saturday are bound to go wrong. There was too much work on a Saturday evening and all my room mates were immersed in their laptop monitors when a GR8 news spread. There was free food somewhere in college. This is too good a news coz no1 was interested in cooking and no1 ( at least) me was interested to stay in the gloomy room.

We started off to hunt down the spot and where we ended up was a dance floor like the ones they show in those movies! There was snacks instead of meals which diminished our hopes of getting our tummies filled. After entering a dance floor for the first time, and having never danced before, I was standing there in a corner trying to figure out what to do next.

After 5 minutes, nothing changed, the music was foreign to me - so was the entire place. After 15 minutes, I started to shake my body in seemingly haphazard fashion which provoked quite a few comments from my friends - negative ones of course :). I closed my eyes and let the music sink into my body. My thought process was so simple and so lucid. I danced for my own fun without even considering how i look to an external entity. Considering the fact that the room was dark and no1 is there really looking for me or assessing how well I am dancing - it was totally up to me!

The music consumed me - though I never even moved my hands or legs in any way closely resembling any acceptable definition of dance- but i danced !! I danced for so long that the night seemed endless and still I haven't learned a new step or found a new friend .. I was just lost in the beats.. I tried to imitate a lot of steps in vain.. but overall it was more fun than I was hoping for!

Take aways : 1)Never miss an opportunity to dance!
2)Do something crazy! Or else how will u know that you are "Alive"??

A reason to be happy!

I have done a lot of things.. somethings big somethigngs tooo small

Most ,if not all, actions of my life are insignificant and inconsequential by any reasonable analysis.

Its good to do things which make me happy.. isnt it??

Why is my happiness based on most trivial things and not on more secure REAL things. Is the pursuit of happiness eternal because of the ficklenss in happiness itself??

If only i need wat i want can i complain about not getting it!

Today I am happy for the simplest thing I did.. Wish the miracle always works.. or like everything else will it subside with time?

Death - The art of dying!

Death is a full stop to our life. When we reach a full stop of a sentence it is logical to look for the meaning of the sentence. But a life by itself has no meaning attributed to it - coz it means nothin but the act of staying from death.

Even though death cannot give meaning to us it sure gives us a kind of motivation to live. Death is assured- so we do not have to continue our stupidity for eternity!

My encounters with death are few and far between as I have never been that much of a risk taking person. All the events described below are some of the situations where i have tried to surrender my soul to carelessness n stupidity!

1) In park town railway station,I was crossing the railway track by foot even though I knew I was breaking some laws here. I was also sendin and receiving sms in my horribly used torn apart mobile phone. Concentrating more on the phone and not on my steps I fell down across the track as if I was prostrating myself before some idol. I was quick to recover and walked past the track as if nothing had happened.. well nothing happened anyway!

2) One dark rainy night,I was a pillion rider in my best friend's bike with him. He was uncharacteristically slow and careful in his driving. We traveled a lot without any destination as we usually do. When we were returning back home, the bike slided on uneven road and we were laying in the middle of the road. Seconds later a tata sumo parked itself, and I learned that these things have tires twice as big as my head! That was again a bad anecdote - coz nothing really happened again!

3) I completed doing gre,toefl,applied to univ, quit cts, cleared visa,tried hard to fall in love- but failed, flied to florida, enrolled courses and jumped into the swimming pool. I am good at walking in swimming pool pretending to swim than actually swimming. I tried to swim in the deep and was hoplessly drowning when one of my friends came to my rescue. I was alive again- nothing happened!

In either of the 3 cases (and in a few more which I cannot quite recollect), if something had happened- u couldnt be reading such a wonderful blog!!

In each of the above scenarios, I ask the question of what would have happened if I were dead. I see answers like people who like me very much will be sad(for a few days or so). The next question that comes to my mind is, what would happen when i really die in the future? Again I get the same set of answers- nothing different.

Just because death is the last act in life do not expect a conclusion there. Life is not a long journey where the road leads to paradise- its just a series of small picnics to enjoy and forget about.

denying "nothing"

A baby is born. We tell it tat its going to gradually learn how to talk walk cry lie read write ... all by just imitating what everybody around it does..

Then we tell it , to learn all the "nuances" of life by "experience" by which we mean, it would get screwed in all walks of life.

Then we tell it , but by this time the weird brain of the baby starts working and it wont listen to anything anymore... The baby (not a baby anymore) will not listen to what anyones got to say and will make its choices through free will (even though everything it knows was learned through imitation).. But we got to tell it something right? How do we do it???

This baby will not listen to us if we are in the realms of reason because the baby itself is in that realm and the first question it shall ask is "Why should i listen to it?" So we cannot convince the baby by putting in something tats "reasonable"

If we should have any say, it is only possible by confusing the baby. Now then there are a million ways to do it.. Bring in some real scary terms like god,honor,freedom,revolution,equality,humanity, .Neither do we nor the baby understands these stupid words.. but these words are the only way for us to exercise a fleeting control on the baby..

so.. without these confusing words the baby can know that everything is meaningless

With all these confusing words the baby can lie to itself that everything is meaningful.

Both ways the fact remains that the baby is not and will not be any closer to the ultimate truth!

Word of experience

Dont feel happy. Thats the root cause of all real and imagined troubles. Whenever u are faced with a sense of primitive joy ( the same feeling a kid gets when given a bag of choclates).. ask the following questions

1) Who / What is making me happy?

2) Will this prolong for the near future? If not, what will be the course of my actions? If yes, how long in the future do i have this secured?

3) What is the "real" source of the happiness?

4) Do i really really wanna be happy because of this?

After asking all these queries, there will be no "trouble" left, because u would have sucked out the happiness from the whole scene - which is exactly what you should do..


The reasons that i learned the hard way

If you are made happy by an external source, u r always liable to loose it and everything else u had with it.. u ll be in a state from which all ur fundamental assumptions are lost and questions like why all these things are "happening" to me would arise.

The reason is u invested ur source of happiness in the wrong place

Well. if u follow everything i had jus said u would become the biggest killjoy ever walked the surface of earth- so... the only take away from all this crap is

Invest ur money carefully
Invest ur love more carefully, coz thats wat counts!

I need some 10 lakhs in 6 months

Hi,

Is there a legal, ethical way for an ordinary person to earn 10 lakhs with hard work and intelligence (i ll borrow it!) in 6 months.

This question is more real than hypothetical as I need the money badly! Assuming some1 is reading all this crap, I call for constructive suggestions on this issue.

Koushik

Two months and 10 days in retrospect

Q:
1.Two months and 10 days after joining the work force of cognizant.. What have I achieved???

2. Is this life changing me for the better -- making me a "professional"??

3. Am I learning anything ???

4. Is this life worth emulating?

A:

1)
achievements!
I have made a lot of friends after joining my team and I assume people around me like me (or at least able to tolerate me!)...

So.. This new "GANG" is my only achievement.

I have done what I was told to do for all this time-- but that hardly can be classified as an "achievement".

2)
Am I a professional?

Though it is tempting to shout out YES, the fact remains that I don't have most of the characteristics of what I expect of a professional!

I talk a lot (as usual) mostly when I am not supposed to talk!

I am way too candid and talk watever I can think about!

Well.. Other than this factor-- I guess I am as pro as everybody else-- but still wud like to have an objective opinion of this metric!

3)
Am I learning anything?

Its important for a person to learn something coz-- when the learning curve ends- ur youth ends-- u become one of those stereotypes!

so keep learning some stuff if u wanna stay young.

I learnt a few stuff in java and little about the process.

But the overall job does not require vast learning as much as it requires repetition of simple tasks.

4) Am I worthy?

Ofcourse not!

I am not a pessimist or a person who cannot see the powers I possess. But the fact remains that whatever I do for work doesn't even remotely link to my purpose of life.

Our whole account converts one format of data to another. Does it seem like a noble task???

proffessional

I am proffessional!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

finished training in cts...

now going to work tomo..

following wherever my life takes me to and my heart commands me to.

Whats my destiny?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

some 'events' in the past one month

On 24th may 2006 16:35 PM

Well..this is not exactly 1 month from now.. so wat??

This was the last exam i had to take.It was Parallel Computing an elective paper.

As usual i took more than 50 minutes for the first question hoping to catch up later...which i didnt do. At 16:35 .. i had 25 minutes left before they kick me out of the room and i had to answer for 52 marks! I has wrote for 2 hrs and 35 minutes only to answer for 48 marks (3*16).

This was the last exam.. and seemed like there is going to be a BIG TWIST(ofcourse not a good one) waiting for me!

I wrote with so much speed that even i couldnt read wat i was writing...

Well..some examiner made some sense out of it.. and i PASSED ( i really donno how much i scored ..should be above 60...)

Out of the exam hall, i started to run...


I ran .. ran .. and ran... the atmosphere was filled with people wishing congratuations to each other and people rejoicing at the fact that they had accomplished what they came to the college for...

I ran....

I was a little excited about my accomplishments inside the exam hall and explained it to every1 who would listen to me ... thou it was still difficult to find any1 with ears for me!!


I ran.... very happy that i dont have to get back to these places EVER! (I havent yet gone to my college after that day.. not even to collect the certificates)..NOT that i hated that place.. I really dono for sure what i feel about my college..anyway it doesnt matter....

I ran.... ofcourse not caring who looked at me .. coz its their problem not mine... to bear with me for 1 last time!

I ran through the corridor to the canteen.. I STOPPED on my way to the canteen to see that my bag was open and i dont have purse. My friend was walking with me (somehow managing to keep phase with me).. I gave my bag and all it contents to him...

Now i had a problem. I had a train to catch at 10 PM that night to some hillspot!

I cant miss the bus (which leaves at 5 30 PM) and safely get home and then leave for the railway station.

I turned to run towards the exam hall to get my purse..

But I was stopped by my friend before even i started ..

He gave me my purse back! I had just given him the purse with all the contents of my bag to him..

The canteen forced me to give treat to a few friends and ....

movies

MOVIES MOVIES

Other than eat and sleep my days are filled with non stop movies in this vacation.. i mean "study holidays"....
What type of movies do i like?
well.. its difficult to answer that question...to answer right away
What type of movies do i hate?
I hate stupid tamil movies in which no one has even a vague idea of whats being filmed.
(Example..All vijayganth,prabhu films )
I hate super cool high budget hollywood movies in which we all know whats going to happen and just wait to get it over with.
(Example.. Undersiege, Outbreak)
Now lets get back to the previous question.
I like movies which cannot be properly classified as belonging to a particular type.
(Example.. Pulp fiction, Love actally)
I like weird movies in which the total story or the choice of characters are done in the crudest possible way.
(Example.. Being john malkovich,Meet the feebles)
I like the coolest drama pics ever made.
(Example.. 12 angry men, A clockwork orange,hamlet)
I like almost any properly made thriller.
(Example.. Se7en, Eyes wide shut,coldblooded,Identity,Bourne Identity,Touch of Evil,Village)
I like any comedy pic which makes me laugh.
Woody allen is the best.(Annie hall,Love and death)
Monty python series.
Adam sandler..