Are we already becoming part of Matrix?

Now a days sometimes I get this fear (?), are we becoming part of Matrix?

There is question in front of fear in brackets, I am not sure whether I really have this fear. But I sometimes fear that why I do not feel feared after thinking this.

Until 11th standard I hardly give much attention to Computer. Though I have seen first computer in home in 2nd standard I was not very much attracted towards it (286 with DOS!) - rather being a VERY costly thing my father rarely allowed me to touch computer.

Then came the time when I was in 5th - 6th standard and in this time I was very much addicted to games like Dave, Paratroop, Alladin etc (386 - 486 with Windows!). Spending 2-3 hours with computer everyday (off-course if I get access) was easily possible at this time. But again the games were mostly between me and computer at this stage.

Afterwards I think in 12th standard I first registered for email account with rediff.com. It was question for me what to check in mailbox? But afterwards I started getting some forwarded messages and ... - Internet became interesting.

For past 2-3 years, at least at home I use my PC mostly for connecting to Internet (PC, Laptop what with whatever machine to some Google site - Gmail/ Orkut/ Calendar...).

What all things google knows about me?
1. All my email - I think on today's date for at least million people in this world emails will give more information about themselves than what they themselves know!
2. All my chat history! - with whom, how long, what are the key words ...
2. Social networking sites - orkut knows all!! - which profile did I see. What forums did I visit? Who all are my friends in particular category?
3. Blogs are like public diary!
4. Google reader knows - what all things I read! What are the feeds I have subscribed to how much out of it I read. What are the keywords which I read most!...
5. Google web history know what all keywords I searched on particular date - out of which what all links I cliked!
6. Try google analytics - to get idea about how much information can a web page owner get about visitors!
7. If you play game on Internet then the site also knows much more about you. What kind of decision making you use in racing games? What kind of psyche you use in fighting games ...

I think we are becoming unknowingly but actively becoming a part of the matrix. Tomorrow if someone gets all my passwords - he knows much more about me that probably what I consciously know about myself. Suppose the one who has got your all passwords in a script on Internet - and it also knows how to traverse all this data and then how to predict you decisions? Probably the programs knows what is the program that suits me best and how to make me a prey so that I will do what the program wants!

Though what all I have written above is quite random and it is not directly related to Matrix. The thing is after Internet came in past @ 10 years your personal information has somehow got stored on the Internet which was not the case earlier. Now in next few years I think even children will be dependent on Internet for every small things. I am not very much aware of cloud computing but I think with cloud computing even your process will be running through Internet! Your documents will be also present on Internet (if you are using Google docs probably they already are!)

I am not worried about it - but I think we are leading towards Matrix - it may not be as much 'Matrix' as it is shown in 'The Matrix' movie but it could be more horrific to experience a small part of it than watching 'The Matrix'

Just to give you feel and also make myself fear, just think of Gtalk/ yahoo/ ICQ/ Skype/.. making all your chats publicly available to everyone (including your spouse, ex., best friends, relatives).
Wait it is not even matrix yet... Matrix is much beyond that - it is a program telling you that you are writing message to someone (and this someone is also program generated!). Forgive me if my concept of Matrix is poor (I have seen this movie only once - almost a year before, and I am probably not a very very high IQ person)

Probably the beauty of 'The Matrix' is people enjoy becoming part of it!

Not a good topic to write in blog right? After all it is written online!

Leave for strange reason

Yesterday unexpectedly I got caught up in rain. Distance from my office to house is @ 17KM. When I reached home I was completely wet. Jeans was completely wet and I hardly had any hopes that it will dry till morning. In morning I tried to iron it but then discovered that it's life is over, stitches are giving up their life. I went to wardrobe and tried my best to try whatever other pants I have. It was not very surprising that for past 6-8 months I am using only one jean :). I have gained 10+ kg weight in 2009!
Actually 3-4 months back I had brought one new formal pant but again that was with the hope that in next 1-2 months I will loose some weight - but I added 4-5 kg :)

Now it was question to me "How to go to office now?". I thought of different possibilities, and then gave up plan to go to office. Shops in my area do not open till 10am and altering the height generally takes 1-2 hour. So I decided to take leave.
The actual reason was very difficult to write in SMS (to manager). Finally I wrote following message - "Hi ---, because of some strange reason I can not come to office today. If required I will explain it tomorrow".

Random experience

Daughter of construction worker was washing rice few inches away from drainage line, few feet away rich dad was taking his daughter to school in AC car. Windows of the car were closed and both were wearing mask to protect from Swine flu.

09:09:29 29:09:09

Today date is 29/09/09
Today at in hh:mm:ss format at 09:09:29am, time and date was
09:09:29 29:09:09 :)

I forgot to see this in morning :(
Hope at don't forget at night.

09:09:09 09/09/09

Today is 09/09/09, today at time - 09:09:09 the time date could be written as-

09:09:09 09/09/09

Swine flu useful information

First of all I am not doctor, I am Mechanical engineer. Information in this post is copied from some email (sorry I do not know original author). I wrote this post because my Google searches with key words
Swine flu help
H1N1 help
Swine flu precaution
H1N1 precaution
Swine flu information
resulted in nothing but mostly news results and I decided to write post which is helpful and useful for all people.

IF YOU FIND THIS INFORMATION USEFUL - COPY PASTE IT IN YOUR OWN BLOGS OR EMAIL IT TO YOUR FRIENDS OR WHATEVER GOOD YOU DO WITH THIS INFORMATION I AM HAPPY.

Among household members (includes family, friends, relatives and those who visit your household (for work). Keep a close watch for the following symptoms:
* Fever * Cough * Sore throat * Runny nose * Nose block/stuffy nose * Body aches * Headache * Chills and fatigue

Infants in the family (less than 1 year old), in addition to all of the above symptoms
* Irritability * Inability to feed, * Vomiting

Take Note of
* If any of member(s) of your family has travelled abroad within last 10 days.
* If you have had any visitors from outside of India in the last 10 days?
* If any of them had any of the symptoms of ‘flu?
* What happened to their symptoms afterwards?

If the answer is YES to any of the symptoms then, the affected person must:
* Stay home, take rest and try to be as isolated as possible.
* Drink plenty of fluids
* Wear a mask.
* Keep a distance of 6 feet to reduce transmission of infection through coughing or sneezing
* Use disposable tissues if possible for cleaning nose and dispose used tissues in the trash
* Clean your hands each time you touch your nose/secretions from your mouth/nose.
* or use a hand sanitizer each time. Or else just wash your hands with soap and water. This has to be done meticulously EACH time!
* If you must use a hanky, put away the hanky each time in your pocket and clean your hands EACH time as above. Wash the clothes and hanky with detergent as usual.
* When you cough use a tissue or cough into your own sleeve while covering your mouth.
* Treat with Crocin for fever (more than 100F) as and when required. This will help with the fever and body pain or headache.
* Treat cold and cough with antihistamines – ‘Crocin Cold and ‘Flu’ can treat all symptoms of ‘flu.

Do not use any aspirin for fever. This is the general rule for ALL viral infections, not just in this era of H1NI1. It can lead to some dangerous complications.

For treatment of children
* Try to talk to your paediatricians.
* It is better if you would do so on the phone. Remember that going to a crowded clinic/hospital facility also increases your exposure to any disease including H1N1.
* Clean toys, surfaces and articles of affected individuals with bleach or alcohol. Wash your hands with soap and water after doing this.
* It is well-known that an untreated cold last for 7 days while a treated one lasts a week! (No difference at all as you can see!)

But if symptoms last for more than 4 days or if you think symptoms are worsening do contact your doctor for ruling out further infection or H1NI1.

NOTE:
* The affected family member and other members/contacts of the affected family member are ‘in quarantine’.
* They are obligated to stay at home and avoid contact with all other individuals for a period of 7 days – this is the duration of infectivity of the ‘flu.
* Even if the affected member in the family does not have the swine ‘flu, they should stay home for 7 days, counted from the day they started showing the symptoms.
If symptoms last longer than 7 days, they should stay home until they have been symptom-free for at least 24-hours.

IN GENERAL (during the epidemic)
* Stay at home as much as possible.
* Specifically, stay away from closed, overcrowded and indoor spaces such as cinemas, malls, enclosed shops, restaurants, classrooms and overcrowded places, wherever they might be e.g. overcrowded closed lifts etc. NOTE: Even with a mask it is not advisable to go to such places.
* Don’t visit friends, family or have any of them over to your house until the epidemic has subsided. Children should not be sent for tuitions/art/ sport classes till the epidemic dies out.
* If you MUST to go out, please USE A MASK.

(A routine surgical mask is more than sufficient and will protect transmission of germs from an infected person (recent scientifically proven data) – it does NOT HAVE TO BE ONLY THE N95 masks that you are hearing about on TV!)

Generation gap

For my age group it is very common that we have 180 deg. opposite view from parents. I think this is quite natural, because most of the times what must be happening is first we learn from our parents. When we go to school colleges etc. we understand that some of our parent's views are not quite correct.
Let it be whether to watch Mtv, Vtv or not or let it be whether to take alcohol or not or let it be regarding what kind of friend circle we should have. The problem is after thought/ discussions our views change because we are yet in the developing age. Probably for parents of age group 50-60 it is very difficult to get convinced on view other than theirs.

Up to age group of 20 we are bound to listen to their views, even if we oppose that opposition is to such a small extent that at the most it result in something emotional frustration for us. As we grow older I think the parents are the ones who suffer this emotional frustration.

It might sound like bad habit (but I do not do it on purpose), when I go for morning walk I get to listen to many of the discussions of people around. Many of the uncle and aunties are discussing same things.
Typically a group of women (age group 50- 70) discuss subjects related to their own daughter in law (some even discuss neighbours daughter in law!), or the the change in behaviour of their son. The couple is of age group 27 - 33 they discuss many times about the old people in home. Most of the times their complaints are something like - why do they interfere in our private matters. In 70% of the cases the husband is convincing his wife regarding the behaviour of his parents.
Those in the age group of 35-45 going for walk with partner generally are concerned about studies of their children. Mostly I hear discussions (more over complaints) about the academic performance of their son/ daughter. It is interesting that the children of age group 10 to 15 rarely discuss about their parents when they are in group.

Many of my friends and also me included have quite great difference of opinions from our parents in some cases. Let is be simple thing as which TV program we should watch or if we go to hotel then should we order Maharastrian dish or Punjabi or Chinese. The problem is we want to have same kind of food (since we want to enjoy food together) and at the same time we are not ready to give up our choice. Same things happen with TV shows I guess. Let parents watch TV and let me see my favourite show on laptop is probably simple solution but thing is probably we have this urge to watch programme together because we want to be together. We want to have same food in the hotel because of the urge that we want to have food together.
I think though we are fighting on these small things the reason behind these fights is we love our parents and vice-versa.

I do not know what is exact solution to solve this generation gap problem. I think some simple solutions me and my dad try many times is to adjust. Though I like to try new dishes in hotel it is good to adjust sometimes for dad's choice. Even my dad do not tell me to switch to his favourite program when I am watching something interesting on NatGeo or History.

This do not stop us from fighting - because in some cases both of us are not ready to compromise, but I truly think that there is nothing bad in having different opinions. We do not bother to fight on many such issues when we are at workplace then why to fight on simple stupid matters with our loved ones?

I hope that for everyone such fights should take role of cement in making the relations stronger than to take the role of friction which makes harm to both materials in contact.

Cheers!
Ashish

123456789

Today Nagendra Desu (Friend from Geometric software), pinged me in the morning around 11.30am and told me about this -

Today date is 07/08/09
At time 12hr:34min:56sec

Time will be => 12:34:56 07/08/09
i.e. 123456789

What happened to all those cases?

Few years back almost for a week many newspapers head line had news about Salaman Khan. The case was regarding Chinkara poaching. There was another case some other time on front page for accident in which some people were killed. Again Salman was got publicity for his connections with underworld.

Similarly Sanjay Dutt was in news headlines for many weeks for Mumbai bomb blast case. Another time he was again in news for connections with underworld.

I would have never known Laloo Prasad Yadav in 7th standard if news papers would not have hyped the fodder scam. Chances of me knowing about Jaylalitha were equally low if there would not have been hype again the income-tax case.

There are many other famous people and many such cases are pending against them. I think so called brave media gave them publicity and now all the braveness is lost (or it might be short term memory).

Now a days news channels talk about Salman-Katrina, sometimes about body of Sallu miyya. Sanjay is famous for Munna bhai (I think natural acting). Laloo Prasad Yadav is respected minister (and might become Prime minister some day). I do not know about Jaylalitha's new glory. Probably google could be of help here.

I am curious what will happen to Shiney Ahuja? - I guess he is going to be the next superstar (it is not my wish - merely observation).

God bless anterograde amnesia of media.

Shivaputra

When I joined Tata Johson Controls (my first company), on first day only I met Shivputra. To all new joiners Shivputra gives (at least used to give) one half photo-copied page for sign language. Shivputra is deaf and dumb but he is very good in expressing himself. If some one would have given him company uniform, he would have looked as handsome as engineers working in the organization.

Generally people with any kind of disability have some kind of negative attitude (inferiority complex) towards life. Shivaputra was totally different he always looked full of energy and enthusiasm. Mady (Madhav Khadilkar) learned his language very fast and helped me many a times communicating with Shivaputra. They used to talk(?) so fast that it was difficult for me to understand what they are discussing, but I could understand few things from their expressions and body language.

In TJC's building next to our office there was office of some air travel company (probably quatar airways). Some times I used to give lift to Shivaputra on my way home. I was waiting at COEP signal and something unusual happened. In car next to me there was a young air hostess and I could not believe why her car window is open and she is contiguously looking at me (what a happy feeling!!), (No no I was not so lucky - when I looked back my doubt was right) she was looking at (talking to) Shivaputra. Then afterwards I come to know that Shivaputra have many friends in Sohrab hall (old TJC office), from girls in Qatar airways to people working in hero mind mine.

Another surprising incident which I have not seen myself. in 2005 Endurance was one of the few high class gyms in Pune. Daughter of one of very well known businessman used to come to Endurance. She was one of only 6 or so owners of Mercedes Maybach (Rs. 5 crore car) in India at that time. When people come to know about this - many of engineers went to terrace to see this car. Engineers were very happy to have look of Maybach. Shivaputra went and requested (I do not know to drive or to owner) to see the car from inside, and even got opportunity to see Maybach from inside!!

Most of the time office boys in any company do their assigned work and keep chit-chatting in free time. Shivaputra shown some spark here as well, he used to ask us his doubts about using computer and Internet. Many people used to help him, Mady was the most helpful of those I guess. He learned how to type!! He have personal email account!! (I have lost touch with him and he did not reply to my last email so I am not sure if he using any other account now a days).

It is bad thing that I forgot to keep contact with Shivaputra (few times I tried to contact him on orkut and email) after I left TJC. God bless Shivaputra.

There are many other incidences I remember about Shivaputra probably blog is very small place to write those memories. I hope at least few of my old TJC colleagues will feel good after refreshing their memories about Shivaputra.

As I was writing this blog, I remembered few thoughts from the book "The Power of Positive Thinking" -
- Today many are handicap because of mental illness of self doubt (may not be exact sentence).
I think all those mental illness can be cured looking at the example of Shivaputra.

If you have read this blog till end - please pray for Shivaputra at least once, so that tomorrow many other people can look at him and will get cure for their mental illness.

Time killer

Note here : Abc means anybody who is on my Gtalk or Yahoo messenger list.

Abc : Hey how are you?
Me : Doing good what about you? (even if I am actually feeling utterly bad)
Abc : Doing good.
Abc : So what's new? Anything special?
Me : Nothing special, you tell me.
...
// Some lines of repetition of old topics (and most the times the content least concerned to me or Abc)
...
Me : So what's new? Anything special?
// Again some non-sense
Abc : So what's new? Anything special?


If you do not believe me then just check your chat history logs. What is written above is template (probably I studied too much of C++ last week) for all chat files in history.


template2

Kernel Sable

Few days back I was returning from company on Saturday afternoon (I rarely work on weekend and I hate working on weekend). I do not remember the reason but instead of coming from my regular route (Dapodi - Aundh - SB road ...) I took Khadki road. Because of new road work I had to take some small road and I am bad in understanding roads (I always take wrong turns on this Khadki road).
I was not sure whether I was on the right road but generally in 3-4 attempts I get correct road. At some corner there was old man (70+) carrying 2 huge bags. He requested me to stop and I gave him lift.
I asked this elderly man where do he wants to go. He started giving me instructions - go straight, now take left, now right, take this small road - finally we were in front of one house which was bit away from the main road. I was bit scared thinking that is this any new technique for robbery. I stopped my bike some distance away from the bungalow. He insisted to go further. But I completely ignored him. I asked him to get down (the place was quite remote and lonely, so I was afraid to take risk).

To my surprise he said thank you and did hand shake introducing himself as Kernel Sable. I felt bit guilty for not dropping this elderly retired army officer exactly at his place.
To my surprise he was carrying medicines for two months (which I thought might be two bags filled with drugs or some other illegal thing ;) ) and some ration for week.

I think this happens with many people (might be all), we think in quite negative way about some person or some situation and the reality gives us positive shock.

Different experiment

From the 1st June I tried some new things -

1. I stopped opening Orkut and also stopped going online on Gtalk
Result : Tremendous increase in efficiency and concerntration

2. I took 1 week leave from office (13 June to 21 June) and stopped attending phone calls (at least stopped calling others except for urgent work).
In first 2 days of leave I felt very relaxed and now on 8th day I am feeling like relaxation for month.

Can I live without tea?

I am used to morning tea for more than 20 years. From past 9-10 years I am almost addicted to 5-6 cups of tea per day. But recently I am realizing that I waste great amount of time and health for tea.

Let me first write what are the advantages of tea
1. Morning tea makes me (and other tea addicts) feel fresh. We get great enthusiasm for starting day.
2. For people in IT companies who do not move from their desks for hours it is good habit to go for tea - because your muscles get some change.
3. At tea stalls (taparis) you can develop many friends. You will get to meet people from all departments at taparis like development, application, sales, HR and what not
4. Generally if you go to any tea tapari near company you will get to know much information about the type of project that are going on in your company. What are the things other people work on. Also if in area like Hinjewadi (IT Park in Pune) you will also get to know about projects and work environments in neighboring companies.
5. When I go for trek I have observed that if I take 1 cup of tea before simple trek like Sinhagad, I need no water for 3 hours (I do not understand why cold-drinks or lemon water do not give this effect - might be this is completely psychological)


Now let me come to disadvantages why leaving all these +ve points I am thinking about living without tea
1. I think teeth are worse affected because of tea. Because -
a. tea is hot - much more temperature than body temperature
b. tea is sweet (I am not talking about black tea or tea without sugar) - sugar is bad for teeth :(
2. I also think from my past company I have developed habit for tea after lunch and now the problem is I do not feel comfortable without tea after lunch and same is the case with morning tea - I do not feel fresh without morning tea. Any addictive thing is bad :(
3. I take tea 5 times a day
a. for morning tea I waste 10 minutes of study
b. for second morning tea I need to leave home 10 mins earlier because I do not want to waste office hours for tea
c. For afternoon tea I waste 15-20 mins because generally tea addicts are accompanied by smokers and cigarette takes around 10 mins to finish and time for going to tapari/ waiting at tapari takes around 10 mins.
d. Again since I am addicted to tea after lunch it wastes 20 more minutes
e. Same thing in evening - after leaving company I waste 15 mins at tea stall - so I unnecessarily come bit late home.
4. In past I have tried to save time for tea (point no. 3) by taking tea available in company. But whichever companies I have worked for they always provide machine tea - and I have opinion that it is *very* bad for health. And I do not at all like Black tea or block coffee kind of things
5. Tea is probably bad for weight - 5 cups of tea means 5*1.25 = 6.25 spoons of sugar :(
6. I pay 3*5 = 15 Rs per day (minimum - actually at CCD 45 or 55 Rs per tea). So for a month I pay around 450 Rs and for a year around 5400Rs :(

Looking at the negative I have decided say bye bye to tea. Let's see if I could do this. This will save more than 1 hour per day!!

Why I am vegetarian

Lots of times I have faced this question - "but why you do not eat non-veg food?"
Most frustrating form of this question - "but is not it that vegetables are also living things"
The most comedy form of this question - "do Indians (Hindus) think that something bad will happen if you eat non-veg!"
The most sick form of this question - "is it the case, that non-veg food is not allowed at your home"
Non-sense form of this question - "Why do you consider egg as non-veg?"
Stupid form - "why do you drink milk then"

Let me answer some questions so that at least the people who read this blog wont ask these stupid questions to me or to other vegetarians.

1. I do not eat non-veg because it is my choice (simplest form)
2. Religion related - I do not know what exactly Hindu religion talks about non-veg food.
I used to eat non-veg food up to 10Th std (@ 16 yr age).
Once I tried to cut chicken (not a living one - just small pieces from large ones) and after this experience - I could never think of eating non-veg food looking at the blood and the cruelty with which the butcher kills chicken/mutton etc.
I really started feeling that how will I feel if somebody cuts me into pieces? (Probably I wont feel anything after death but might be there is something called as soul)
3. Nobody will question me (from my family) for eating non-veg food, because it is my choice. Probably the people who ask this question are the ones who face questions at home or are required to justify every action at home.
Only thing is my dad wont allow me to read some of the religious books like Gurucharitra.
4. Regarding Egg - it is my personal opinion that egg is also non-veg.
5. Regarding Milk - no animal gets killed for milk.

After marriage should we live away from parents?

Now a days me, Ketan and Abhay meet almost every Sunday at CCD. Though there is no limit on how much we can discuss software development, office, old memories and trip plans which 98% times fail. Abhay somehow started with a good idea and started brain storming on one of important topic.

All 3 of us are of age group 25-26. The topic was 'should we live with parents after marriage?'

Here are my thoughts -
Why should we live with our parents:
1. Emotions
In today's use and throw culture we hardly give attention to emotions. When I think of how much love I got from my parents I can not think of making them live alone (in my case now it is only my father). In most of the cases parents are of the age of 55-60 (at the time of their son's/ daughter's marriage).
They are already going through great paradigm shifts in life,
- generally this is age for retirement.
- this is also the age when most of the parents face health problems like joint pains or diabetes etc.
- just sometime before we are dependent on parents for money and support and scenario changes 180 deg in 5-6 years.
- after retirement they must be facing problem of loneliness
- for single parent the case is still difficult because they do not have anybody to share their emotions.

2. Breaking the good old systems
I have firm opinion that good systems take time to build and once broken they are difficult to fix. I am proud of Indian culture where family (actually joint family) system has evolved over the years.
Let me consider some practical advantages of living with parents
- You will always have a 100% reliable person at home. You need not to manage your time for servants as they can come any time of the day.
- 4-5 years after marriage when you have kids, you and your wife can continue your careers since your parents can take care of your kids.
- If your parents face some medial emergency it will be difficult for them to look for help without you. It will be much more quick if they face problem at your home.
- For those who invest in shares etc. your parents can act as investment consultant for you - it will be good time pass for them at home to keep track share market and parents are more reliable than brokers.

3. Finance
Living in separate houses means that paying for two houses and paying twice for every basic need of house.
- If living separately means buying 2/3BHK + 1BHK flat then I think it would be great to have a single 7-8 room luxury flat.
- If living separately means buying 2 TVs, 2 Fridge, 2 Washing machine then living together can at least save 1 fridge and 1 washing machine.
- as I said earlier by living together husband and wife can continue their career for more time.
- earlier point of investment consultant

4. Synergy
If synergy means
1 + 1 = 3
then what does 2 + 2 means?
In some families
2 + 2 = 3 (either wife or husband or either of parents is unhappy)
or in some other families
2 + 2 = 7 (this case from actually 3 + 3)

I will try to answer some of questions.

1. For many years, your parents life has always revolved around you. Give them a break.
Perfect - arrange for some short and long trips for your parents. Try to manage some family get together. It need not be 8-10 years break, 1-2 months is good in my opinion.
If your live separately from parents for 8-10 years (and in this period both parents as well as your family develops completely different way of living) then it is next to impossible to make healthy relation again.

2. In these modern times is it wrong to expect your wife to want to live with your parents?
No it is not wrong.
Fortunately still today's date we marry to girls who also belong to planet earth. This means that your wife will also have parents, and she will also expect some one to take care of them.
I will say that if your wife do not have brother then you should live with your parents and your wife's parents.
This also depends on your maturity while choosing wife.

3. In a husband-wife scenario, there are a lot of times when you definitely do not want your parents to be around
Well but as I said if you live in big house then this problem can be solved to good extent.
I myself value privacy very much - simple solution I choose is I tell others that I need privacy. I think similar thing should be told to parents if needed.

I think the answer to all above discussion is simple. Whether you can live with or without your parents more happily depends on -
have you developed a Fevicol ka majbut bond with parents or is it a abrasive bond - more you try to come closer more it hurts?

Though I am confused to some extent while writing this blog, I can say for sure that at least we should try living together first the second option is always possible.

Neutral thinking

**Note before writing this blog - This blog speaks about something I always felt in life but I think I got words to express these thoughts after reading of Know thyself

I always I like to (love to) read books. I was reading Dale Carnegie and Shiv Khera for quite some time in my college days and continued with some of the books talking about the positive attitude even after college. Though reading books by Dale Carnegie like "How to win friends and influence people" or reading something from Normal Vincent Peale like "The power of positive thinking" makes you happy for the moment. If you loose contact with these books chances are you will forget this superficial positive thinking course.
Why? either of the positive or negative thoughts makes you think of the partial side of the object. I have belief that half truth can never make you really happy, it can take control of your conscious mind for some period of time but it will never be able to satisfy your sub-conscious mind (rather soul). It is as simple as if I keep looking at the positive part of the number line I am never looking at the complete number line - I am only looking at part of it, and to face the real world we can not ignore negative numbers.

What I believe could be the ideal way of looking at things is 'Neutral thinking' i.e. Neither think positively nor negatively - just observe the things as they are, and never 'how they should be?'.

How can neutral thinking help me?
Neutral thinking could help everyone because then you do not get positive or negative surprises or chain of inter-woven positive and negative thoughts. This is because I am not thinking about something - I am just looking at it. When I think with positive or negative perspective then having the perspective of looking at the subject makes the subject hard to digest - because then you do not look at the actual subject - you just look to verify or you make fool of yourself my making your mind convinced about the thought which is not real.

When I say that I am born to win then it makes my mind constrained to think of victory as the purpose of life, is winning the purpose of your life? Does winning matters more or the joy of play? I am convinced that for me the joy of playing matters much more than winning. What if I loose? - I need not think that I will win next time - but I should look forward for the joy I will get from the next play. Though I have used the word joy here I think really what I mean is 'feeling being an alive part of the play' than just a stupid player who plays not for himself.

So decide what you want to be optimist, pessimist or just an observer.

Learn good things from others

Just some time back I had dinner with my friend (+ philosopher + brother) Madhav (aka Mady). We were talking about natya sangeet and I started criticizing one great singer with examples pointing to his personal life. Mady did not said that I am wrong, he just said that if we have to take examples from others lives or if we want to talk about others personal life then we should look at the good things they did in their life rather than the bad ones.

In Delcam me and one of my colleague always used to have verbal fight regarding Aamir Khan and SRK. I always attack the subject of SRK with comments like "he is not more than ta ta pa pa and ka ka ka ka Kiran" or "he is not worth watching". One fine day I faced question inside "do I deserve to talk about SRK?", "Who gives me rights to talk any shit comes to my mind against anybody?", "Do I have ability to act at least 1% good as that of SRK?, have I ever faced camera?". After that I always tried to kept mum on this topic (rather I promised I will never talk about SRK again on lunch table and forgot my promise once - hope this will never happen again). I think it would be worth observing why SRK is so much popular - definitely it is because of hard work. SRK is the person who came from non-filmy background family and reached the King Khan position. I will not discuss his personal life in my blog but if you search for SRK on google I think his personal life is great.

We Indians say lot of times that western culture is bad culture and western people have bad personal life. I think we discuss it so much that when Indians go to west most of the times they take bad things from west and forget to look at the good points. I was in UK for 6 weeks, I could see that people come early to office and they leave early (mostly 9am to 5pm). I hardly found anybody working after 7pm. But the other side of the story was in day time I never saw them browsing personal emails or orkuting or chatting for long hours or taking long lunch break. I think we should look at the positive side of the western culture. I was talking to one of my Guru's few weeks back and we were discussing about western culture, his comments made me think - "In India people do not take divorce because of the social pressure they might face or because they think about their kids future, rather western people are bold enough to take divorce and find better match for them" - definitely I do not want to learn that "divorce is good" - but think about the attitude western people that - they do not cheat their mind.

Imagine how great we can become if we take good things from everyone we come in contact? I do not say that follow others but take good things in them if you like it and if you do not like something then do not make your judgment go beyond your mind. Life will be wonderful if we start looking at the positives in everyone we come in contact with. From today I will try to make note of at least 5 good things in the person with whom I come in contact.

NTPEL lectures on Youtube

Hi friends,

If you want any lecture series on particular subject try searching youtube.
NTPEL (National programme for technology enhanced learning) - have recorded number of lectures from IIT professors and they have made them available on youtube.
I am posting few links here -
1. For Computer graphics - 43 lecture series
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=338D19C40D6D1732
2. Internet technologies - 40 lectures
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=04D5787E247DC324

If you find any other such good link - please post them in comments.

Cheers!!
Ashish

Astrology - my views

7-8 years back I started studying astrology.

First I started with study of Kundali, but I could not learn much that time. What I understood at that time was study of kundali is based on the positions of the planets in sky their effect on our life. Few year later I started studying palmistry, I could learn palmistry much easily. Palm reading is easier for new comers than Kundali (at advanced level both might be equally tough).
I saw hands of more than 200 people in 2-3 years. I could see that different people have different good and bad things in life.

Sometimes my reading was perfect sometimes it was totally absurd. Most of the times when I could not read hand I used to tell the person that I do not understand your hand.

I stopped palm reading almost 2-3 years back after death of my mother. According to my reading I thought she will have life of about 50 years and she died at 48, I did not feel any shock when she died. Rather when my father called me saying mother is serious I went to Lord Shiv's temple to pray for my mother. I had institution that she is no more. After that I thought that palm reading made me unhappy much before actually she died.

I had also read hand of few others and told them some of the bad things that will happen in future like accidents and divorce etc. and when that actually happened I felt bad, I used to think that, by telling them about bad things in future I removed their joy of present.

Some remarks before I write negative side-
1. Like any other science astrology and palmistry is also science. Ancient Indians studied these sciences to good extent and lot of knowledge is available on today's date on methodologies to make astrological predictions.
2. There are people even on today's date who also know the detailed reasoning behind the predictions they are making. It is very much similar to how an engineer reads engineering drawing or architect reads plan drawing.

Negative side of astrology (rather negative side of the way it is used) -
1. First and most important reason why people should stop use of fal jyotish (prediction science) excessively is that
i. People forget the power of present. This is worse effect.
ii. People forget that they are the god/ architect/ designer of their own life.
iii. If you know the future in advance then you can not enjoy present. Then you can not observe life - you can just verify it.
2. Sometimes even though there is no problem with somebody, but astrologer will tell him/her for some big Pooja or will advice them some costly stone. I firmly believe that stones should not be used to solve problems which come because of your karma. Face the problems - do not find easy solutions, when wrong stones are used person using those stones might have to suffer a lot because of it.
3 . Sometimes they tell the predictions just to make the listener happy.
4. Remember you are paying fees to someone who is taking away joy of your life. Do remember that whether the prediction is positive or negative it takes away the joy of your life - simply because you loose the newness of experiences. Your mind becomes prejudiced.
5. It creates a mental block in your mind because of which your attitude shifts from 'can do it' to 'should happen'.

The positive side of astrology -
1. There are scholars who have studied astrology to depth and have found methods to find predictions about weather. I think this can be very useful if we verify the results scientifically. The predictions should be verified with the statistical data and then this can be used as a help for farmers. I know some might think that why not to use satellite etc. methods. my answer is
- astrology is also science. It do not require you to spend any money on the infrastructure. Just use it as guide line - I am not telling that do not use other scientific ways.
2. One more use I think of astrology is for deciding child's name. This is the only science I know which has reasoning for "what's there in name".
3. Though I do not completely agree astrology could also be used for making decision regarding marriage. I have firm belief that those who choose option of love marriage should not at all verify things from astrologer this is wrong. Regarding others who do arrange marriage and the boy and girl do not know about each other, for these people astrology is useful science.

Friends I know that you are going to criticize me a lot. Do write your comments, your views. But before you write any question I have some requests-
1. I have learned astrology methodically, I (almost) do not understand the reasoning. So do not ask me basic questions like - prove that it is a science or prove that predictions made by astrology are correct.
2. You might have experienced sometime that somebody gave your wrong prediction
- true, the reason was the astrologer failed to analyze. Remember when some satellite goes out of control we do not say that science is wrong, rather the scientist who designed it failed to study some parameters.
3. You might tell me that Ashish you are in 21 century and talking like 400BC. I won't mind. I have verified the truth of this science from my own experiences.
4. Why do we require it for weather prediction, marriage decision etc.
- Fine if you don't want it but then why do you either want satellite results (afterall this is also a way of prediction) or partner compatibility tests (they are also statistics based - there are no proven formulae)?

Use Open Source

I think I do lot of criticism in my blogs - thought of writing something new.

I would like to share with you my little knowledge about the world of open source. I should also mention thanks to my couligue Chetan Verma and Great friends Ketan Deshpande for introducing me to many of these programs

For those who want to know "What is open source?" - I will suggest them movie/documentary "Revolution OS".

Operating system -Linux
Thanks to Linus Torvalds for giving us truly free operating system.
I use - OpernSUSE 11.0, I think Fedor10 is also good (I have not tried this much)
Good thing about it - when I started working with OpenSUSE, I do not feel like working with XP. You can use every thing like -
- Internet
- auto detect camera
- auto detect USB
and other things which you generally need.
Takes me to next software

MPlayer
If you want to take total control while watching video like
- Change frame rate
- Adjust lag between sound and video
- give post process quality option
and feature like this then MPlayer is for you.
Though VLC is also good option I personally do not like VLC much.

GIMP -
GIMP - GNU Image manipulation program
Try this if you like to edit images (even if you don't like you will start liking it after playing with GIMP).

InkScape -
InkScape is program for creating SVG (scalable vector graphics). I personally like to play with InkScape- quite simple to use but very powerful. People with CAD background will find it quite easy. Good thing about SVG images is the quality remains same even if you scale it 100 times.

WinMerge -
Open source utility for solving merges. Earlier I was user of araxis - but I think win-merge is equally powerful. If you want to compare 3 files at a time then try KDiff3.

Emacs -
My favorite editor for coding. Customise it to suit you requirements.
Best thing is you can make it's background completely black - your eyes won't feel stressed even if you spend 10hours in front of computer coding in Emacs (I personally even use black background for Visual Studio 2005 - but the feel is not as good as emacs)

Dia -
Simple and useful software for creating flow-chart diagrams and network diagrams.

OpenOffice3.0 -
I agree this is not as great as Microsoft office, but this is free!! And you can create PDF just by clicking on one button.

Voilet UML Editor -
Simple and very useful for creating UML and class diagrams. If you want advanced features then you might need StartUML - I am happy with Voilet since this is easy to use and solves my needs.

GCC -
I have not learned this yet - but heard that this is good and powerful compiler.

Mozilla Firefox -
I have tried almost all web-browsers like - Internet explorer (worst), Safari (amazing), Opera (good) but Mozilla Firefox is "The good one". Just look for it's customization options - choose your favorite theme and enjoy.

Pidgin -
Do you want to use single application for numerous chatting accounts like - yahoo, Gtalk, ICQ and what not - use pidgin. You can login into all your accounts and see all contacts from single application window.

It is possible that I might have forgot to mention many other good open-source projects. If you want to know more, go to http://sourceforge.net/

Only I am ideal

I do not remember how the subject on the lunch table went to police. As always there were some who were saying that people join police service only to get extra money, and there were few who felt that not all the police are bad and there are few noble in them as well.
In the start I was in the group saying "all the police are corrupt".

Afterwards when I thought deeply about this subject, I could understand following points.
1. We comment negatively on police, politicians and other government employees because many times we see lack of will, enthusiasm and corruptness in these professionals.
2. Everybody can see people belonging to these profession doing wrong things very easily. Since they come directly into contact with all of us.
3. Really speaking in India salaries of government employees (including politicians) are very very less.
4. Politicians. police and many others in government jobs handle much tensed situations than general people like me and you come across.
5. We always want someone else to blame for all problems in this world and these are the professions against which we can unanimously raise our voice.

Now why do I think that they are not that bad? - because the tag of good/ bad/ better/ best/ worse can be attached only to a person. I can not make statement like all politicians are bad, or all police are bad. Forming a generalized opinion is really wrong thing on our part. Like you and me they are also human beings.

Are we really good people?
1. We choose careers like Dr. or engineer or architect because these are noble professions - are not the careers like police, politician also noble? We do not join those careers why?
- Many of us are not ready to work on those lower salaries
- If salary is not problem then we give reason of safety. These profession involve risk of life.
- If not both above then some people say that only corrupt people can fit these professions... why? are not these professions really the reflection of society? It is you and me who form this society.
2. How many of us stop on road when we see some accident? How many of us try to raise voice against loafers in public places when they are disturbing some girl (who is in noway related to you)?
3. How many of us help blind person to cross road? How many of us give good tip to the waiter if we get good service in hotel? How many of us give 2Rs to the mechanic working on petrol pump for filling air in tire (Petrol pump of at least BPC have board free - air)?

I know most of you and me will give negative answers to above questions (be honest).
We don't want to perfect ourselves but we expect perfection from everybody else.

Coming back to the subject of politicians and police. I think anybody whoever gets power, have probability to make it's use for right or wrong purposes. Is not it true that we also see good and bad bosses in companies? Is not it true that even we see good and bad people in our relatives?

The question of good or bad should not be tied with any profession. no profession is bad. It depends on the professional whether s/he wants to use his powers in good way or in bad way. We always think that I am right and there are problems in people around us, think in opposite direction only I am wrong and everybody else is perfect (what I want to say is there are always 2 sides to the coin).

Next time when you will comment on police or politician just ask 2 question to yourself first
1. Why I did not choose this profession, to make corrections in the system
2. Am I an ideal/ perfect human being?... can I expect it from others?

Why should I meditate?

I did my first official course for learning meditation when I was in 7th standard (I guess). That was part of Children Siddha Samadhi Yoga. After that I did RCRT (Rapid comprehensive review technique) in std 9. I do not remember much experiences at the time of CSSY, but I remember during RCRT me and few friends of mine (Jashan Parekh and others I don't remember) we used to kill flies when others used to meditate.
Afterwards I tried meditation many a times, but most of the times whenever I started with very high aims like I want to see God and all... I could not continue for more than 10 days (not very sure about number of days).

Now today I decided to start meditation again but this time I am sure that I will continue it for long time.

Earlier I used to try meditation, but really speaking - even for CSSY and RCRT teachers used to expect a lot from us (I do not blame teachers - I know most of the teachers were good). The problem was they used to expect that when they say meditate for 10 mins we will meditate like Buddha. Come on, I think even it was not possible for them. So we used to do time pass, because if I go and ask for help general reply of teacher will be "concentrate!!... others can do it why can't you?". Now since I can not see 100s or 200s Buddhas around me on today's date. I am confident now that others though did not complained, they were also waiting for that 10 min time to finish.

After that when I became somewhat old (20-25) I tried meditation mostly to solve problems and to see God. Most of the times my problems were solved and I think I had chance to talk to God. I could not continue again because once the problem is solved I used to forget meditation (you know I am very busy ;))

So why I am writing this and why do I want to start it again?
I thought about it scientifically. Let me give few analogies to explain.
1. In fluid mechanics I learned that steady flow and turbulent flow. Similarly I think our mind gets 100s or 1000s or sometimes 1000000 (basically very large number) of thoughts every moment (turbulent behavior) and we try to go beyond many of them at a time. In turbulent flow of fluid, fluid particle is acted upon by many random direction forces. The flow as such has undermined direction. Now if I meditate I try to bring my thoughts in my control (though the dictionary meaning of meditation may not mean it - I am writing my ideas). So making my thoughts flow like a steady flow - direction of thought can be in control.
E.g. Let's take example of solving some algorithm, if I could tell/ direct my mind to think about nothing else but only that algorithm then I could get the better result.
2. In thermodynamics I learned that entropy (measure of inefficiency) is the reason for inefficiency. Again this entropy comes because of randomness. If I consider my mind as a machine who's output is thoughts then when I meditate I reduce the randomness in mind, so mind works efficiently.

I think this time I have good scientific reason behind meditation. I am hopeful that I will continue meditation 2 times a day, at least for next 30-60 days. I promise here that I won't take lunch if I do not meditate in the morning and I won't take dinner if I don't meditate in the evening. This condition is just for 45 days. After 45 days I don't know but at least update the results here in comments.

How should I meditate -
1. Focus your mind on anything you want. It could be 'C++'. It could be 'Project tasks'. It could be 'plan for next day'. It could be 'social topic'. Sit for 10mins without loosing focus from this topic/ subject.
2. In the evening I should meditate about what do I did today. Was there possibility for improvement? What are my plans for tomorrow.
3. In the morning I should meditate about what all things I want to do today? How can I make my today better than past?

Cheers!!
Ashish

The positive side of recession

Now a days whenever I meet any old friend he asks me what is the situation in your company. We talk on it for sometime and then I see my friend is quite scared about the situation.

I think they are serious because they think that they will have to sit at home, then people will ask questions? What will happen to bank loans? Oh our future is in danger.

When I think about recession, I feel very happy. I will be happy to sit at home. After ~3.5 years I will get full freedom. I do not have to worry about meetings. I do not have to wake-up thinking of office timing. I can see the sunrise and sunset everyday. I can go on terrace and see the sky for long hours as I used to do in BE prep. leaves. I would like to see the birds in the sky for hours.
I will use time at home as study leave. I will start studying new subjects. I already have 20-30 books which I want to study as early as possible. I will get time to learn those, I want to learn linux I will learn it. It is opportunity to get spend time on health. Great is not it!!

Yes there is one problem if recession continues for more than 3-6 months them I will have to find source for income. I guess I could teach school children subjects like maths and science (I will enjoy this a lot and will surely get around 2000Rs per month). Then I will start taking software projects on my own. Otherwise even I could do some consultancy -by doing this I will get what I deserve, this is my loooong due dream.

Few more things I would like to do if I get opportunity to sit at home -
1. I want to become good cook (presently I am poor cook)
2. I will go to FC road and SB road to make myself believe that world is beautiful.
3. I would like to complete my next level of Japanese language - I laugh a lot when learning Japanese.

Job is not 'the most' important part of life. You will at the most loose your present job. God might have better plans for you and me.

Cheers!!

With minimum knowledge and maximun understanding

There was time when I wanted to know everything in this world. I wanted to read book on each and every subject, but always had my own opinions on the subjects. My friends in school and few in college know that I used to apply my own thoughts in most the cases.
After that I came to industry. I learned that there are procedures to do everything. I learned that I need not think on every complex thing - I should just know the recipe to do the work. I learned that every time I need to apply my mind, it will be good if I could just ask seniors.

Now ~3.5years industry experience I know procedures, I know I should ask others when in doubt, I know there are ready made recipes to the complex problems. But then have I lost my identity?

Why should I read books like "Seven habits of highly effective people"? Can't I invent methods for my own?

Why should I learn from others how to behave as good person in society? Is my mind/ brain dead?

When I go to slum area - I think I am not safe, is it only because of the knowledge of slum area which gives me these prejudice thoughts?

When I write code I know that how should I write good code. Won't it be great if I think every time before I write new line of code.

When I look at any person, I form my opinions about him, only because I know. No hence forward I am happy with bare minimum knowledge but I want to live. I don't want to memorise past experiences I want to enjoy new ones.

I don't want past to drive present. I don't want my future to be drawn with the colours of past.

I want to live every moment. I don't want to apply mind thinking what it is. I want to apply my mind thinking what it can be? I want to see the colours in this world I did not see before. I want to understand the experiences never experienced before. I want to feel the moments which have their own identity.

I don't want to be a part of matrix. I want to create my own identity. I want to be what I am.

Little girl

I think I write too many blogs now a days.

Today's topic is some what different. I was coming from office to home around 8pm, as usual I stopped at magazine stall near Karve Statue to check for latest issue of Digit, unfortunately I did not find this month's digit's issue great but something unexpected happened. A small girl (might be in 2nd or 3rd class) came to the stall owner and asked him

Little Girl : Uncle please give me 1 Rs to call at my home?
Shop keeper : Do you have phone at home?
Little Girl: Yes
Shop keeper: Why do you want to call?
(the reason was quite expected) she was waiting for her mother and was quite upset because nobody from her home came to take her (from some class).
Shop keeper(in quite abnormal manner): give me your home number
Little Girl: which one? I have mobile as well as land line at home
after saying this she left the book stall and the wife of shop keeper came there, they kept talking about how she run away. I felt bad, my problem was I have beard and in my software industry dress code I look quite similar to some Daku. So I did not tried talk to her for help at first, but then I realised that I was wearing helmet and when I looked around I could see her at quite near distance, I offered her 2 Rs to call at home and asked her to take 20-40Rs if she want to go home by Auto Rikshaw, she told me that she is afraid to go home alone and asked me to go with her. Remembering the fact that I am still having helmet to cover my Daku like face I asked her that I will drop her to her home if she is comfortable. Her home was quite nearer to my home (only 1-2 Km) so I could easily find her address. I felt quite tensed while driving to her home, what will happen if I go wrong? Finally I dropped her exactly in front of her building.

She asked me to come to her home, but I did not dared to go to her home. What will happen if her mother looks at my beard and dressing? she might scold her daughter for coming home with stranger. I just told her that don't go home with strangers in future.

After telling her don't go with strangers in future, I felt sad in mind that - why do we need to say this? Is it really such bad situation in this world? Was not it possible for the shop keeper just to say no for 1Rs (The little girl had car [with driver] at home - her mother would have given him 100Rs for that 1Rs - let us forget about it for moment).

But after all it was also true that person like me would not be able to sleep if he do not help such little kid, and I know there are many other like (even better than) me.

Cheers friends - do not keep beard unnecessarily.

"Stop Forrest stop"

Forrst Gump is one of my 'The Favorite' movies. I remember one scene from the movie when the actress (don't remember name in movie) says Forrest 'Run Forrest run'. The impact it makes is amazing, Forrest is able to run without the supports for his legs.
When I see people around me running and I sometimes think to stop them and ask "But why are you running?". I think many of them do not know why are they running. The most common answer I think they will give is "Because everybody else is running".
Me: but why everyone else is running?
X: because one has to run, without knowing why.
Me: But why are you following them, if you don't know why they are running.
X: That is what I am doing from the time I am born.
Me: so you do the thing that everybody else does.
X: Why - what do you do then
Me: I am trying to find that out. Trying to get our of the rat race. (Pause) What do you think you will achieve running like this?
X: Well I am sure that you won't achieve anything without being part of the race, at least I am running with them.
Me: But I don't want to be a part of the race, when I do not know where it is heading, I do not know why everybody is running and I don't know what will we achieve at the end of it?
X: What do you want to do then?
Me: Is not the life possible without race?
X: I never thought of it.
Me: Neither do I, but now want to do it.

I may not be a good story writer to narrate what I wanted to say (neither do I care - I am writing these blogs for myself)

But I see same unspoken conversations happening around and within me many a times.

If you do not believe me that we are part of rat race then I will give you following examples (at least they prove to me that I am {was?} part of rat race)
1. I want 25% salary hike because even the dumb as* in the office is getting 20% (I failed to ask myself does I deserve 25% - my reason is - even the dumb as* is getting 20%)
2. I don't understand how could I get 56% when the dumb ABC has got 63% (I should have asked what I wrote in exam - why should I think that if 63 for ABC then 70 for me?)
3. I should have a laptop - man all of my friends have it (do I need it? - rather for many the question is do I know how to use it and what is it's use?)

Life would be much much easy if simple answers like - manager is agreed to my reasoning, university agreed with my reasoning or I bought laptop whether I need it or not.
It becomes a habit. By becoming a part of rat race we set our standards based on what people around me are and not on what are my capabilities?

That is why I was thinking now it is time to say "Stop Forrest stop", stop to have a close look at your life, stop to think what you want to do, stop to search who you are, stop to listen to your own mind. Do not run in the rat race where nobody knows where s/he is going. Do not run in the rat race where everybody is living somebody Else's life (without understanding why). Do not run in the race where you forget the basics of life. Do not run in the race where you forget yourself. Do not run in the race which makes you stop dreaming. See your own dreams Forrest, do not make others ideas your dreams.

What will be use of "stopping to think"
1. I won't have to keep confirming from 1000's that what I am doing is right (because I know it is right)
2. I know what I am going to achieve with what I am doing (because I have planned for it and was working to achieve it)
3. I know the road I am traveling (I know what road I am traveling because I have chosen this road)
4. I will be in control of my life.

So Forrest please stop to talk to your mind, let the world run...

Knowledge is inter-related

I do not know who said this first - "Knowledge is inter-related", I heard this most of the times from Dr. Vijay Gokhale sir.

When I learned "Fluid mechanics" first our teachers/ books used to give analogy of Electric current to understand flow of fluid.
Voltage is analogous to head
Flow rate is analogous to current
so on...

Before that in 11-12th class I had taken Electrical technology as optional subject, in ET class our teacher used to tell us that - to understand how current flows take example of water flow (fluid flow :)).

After that almost 6 years after studying fluid mechanics and ET etc. subjects I went to class for UNIX, and Gokhale sir told us "Unix Operating system is analogous to mother", study of study operating system is study of mother!

In my engineering days I read one book on Thermodynamics (Authors - Cengel and Boles) - in this book the concept of entropy and process efficiency is explained by giving analogy or ordered person (low entropy so more efficient) and dis-ordered person (more entropy so less efficient). I have not understood some other theories but some authors prove entropy with help of statistics.

Coming back to the original point - "Knowledge is inter-related".

I think some long long time back there must be a concept of scholar who is expert in every field (rather I will call him as a generic expert). Then as humans became more and more knowledgeable they started feeling a need of subject expert. Then the generic expert started getting known by the profession they are specialised in. People started calling the expert in health and medicine as Doctor, expert in machinery and construction as engineer and the experts who were interested in social service became politicians. Then I think people started differentiating in between these experts and they formed opinion that Dr. only knows about health and medicine and the engineer only about construction and machinery, time passed and in the run of time these experts really became subject experts, they forgot that they are scholars. Dr.s stopped studying engineering (it was not their subject) and engineers stopped learning things related to health and medicine.

On today's date when I go to Dental surgeon he cant give me medicine on heart and the heart specialist cant be consulted for kidney disease. Civil engineer do not know about automobiles and automotive engineer is dumb in problems of Power plant.

I think computers are bridging this gap now a days. Unfortunately they are also distinguished as Mac OS for artits, Linux for developers, UNIX for administrators, Windows for layman and so on.

I think a day will come when all these diversed experts will find need to learn the others subject to become a scholar. For example if I am mechanical engineer working on sit-system crash analysis and I udnerstand the rib-structure very well!! and the same mechanical engineer if s/he understands the FEA algorithms which are doing the simulation behind the scenes!!! and s/he also understands the one should be proactive - no need for managers in this world!!.
A day will come when religious scholars will understand that what is said by Shree-Krishna in Bhagwad geeta is same as the what Jejus said in Bible and what Mohammad paigambar said in Kuran. There will be no war on the name of religion!!

I hope and I pray that day will come.

I search

Hi all, I know most of my friends are used to my statements like - "I have taken leave and sitting at home in search of truth" or "I am reading something and think that it is helping me in my search for truth". I know many of you find it funny, sometimes I think same. Is not it funny to search for truth?

Why do we have to search for things which are within us like truth, happiness, love? Are these things external? or is it the thing that we have lost them in search of comfort and short cuts to success .

I remember my old good engineering days when I used to think quite a lot about engineering fundamentals. My ideas of engineering design and analysis were quite different. I used to think that I want to get the real knowledge of the subject and to achieve this I used to buy 5-10 reference books for the fundoo subjects like Mechanical Design, Strength of materials, Theory of machines, Thermodynamics and so on. On today's date unfortunately (or rather fortunately) I am working in software development and when I look at Mechanical engineering, sometimes I am able to find the design intent very easily. Now I do think that it was not wrong to read 5-10 reference books for the subject, wrong thing was reading 5-10 books without completely understanding one.

After wards when my journey started in software engineering, I did not repeat my past mistake I took only one book at the time. First one was Denis Ritchie for C programming. When I started with COM and failed to understand it I took Bjarne Stroustrup, but this was strong dose for me and could not understand this book, so decided to learn Thinking in C++ volume one, this was quite helpful and after this fortunately the language in Bjarne Stroustrup was quite understandable, and after Bjarne Stroustrup's book COM books were quite understandable.
When I did some reading of COM books like Don Box and Dale Roggerson (these are names of Authors - books are Essential COM and Inside COM) I thought that I am expert but then I got opportunity to meet Dr. Gokhale and he made me rethink about it. The truth was - "I was practically almost 0". So sir (Dr. Vijay Gokhale) suggested me simple thing - solve all the problems in C++ FAQ book, without looking at a single solution and this worked quite well. Before solving these FAQ questions I failed in 2-3 interviews (this was shock to me earlier I never failed in interview) and after solving the FAQ book (only about 25% to 35%) I gave 3 interviews and was successful in all of them. So I was not wrong in reading but I lagged in the practical side of the study. After that I did same kind of study of subject called "Data structues" studied it from Tanenbaum and then without referring the book wrote code for all (almost) kinds of lists, stacks, ques and little bit for trees and performance in interviews went to great from good.

I think in this C++/ software engineering learning journey the experience I gained is more important in the aspect that "how should we learn?".

Is not the same kind of mistakes we do in our daily life. We buy book like "How to win friends and influence people" and so on and so forth and at the end we understand that what I am doing something superficial and then get towards the books like "7 habits of highly effective people" which talks about paradigm shift and the basics that we should accomplish first. And then after 1-2 years we realize that I have read it but how much am I following out of those learnings? Sometimes we even hate those books thinking that I wasted my time reading it. We think so because we failed to practice it.
I think the reason we think negative is sometimes we go ahead with assumptions which are far away from reality and we ignore the truth about those assumptions because we want success at any cost and the hunger for success makes us ignore the reality and when we face reality then we become helpless and go into negative mode.

So what should be the answer to minimize the entropy (disorder) in life -
1. We should do the things, understanding the whats/ whys and hows about it.
I will give here simple example - when I was new in software development and I used to work on any development I used to find a way to do it, Once I get some way of doing it I used to say that my work is done. Then TL used to tell me from his experience that why should I do the same things some other way (I used to wonder why). As the time passed I started understanding that to be a good developer one has to answer these questions
i. "What am I doing?" is important because if I do something other than "what" I was supposed to then what is the use of doing it (unless i have done something next to Newton or Einstein). If I keep my focus on what then it is obvious that I am going to get the expected (because I am doing what was expected - required)
ii. Why is sometimes more important than what. Sometimes we keep on doing something and then this why comes - I have done this development to get this result - but "why" do I did it in the way I did? Was there any good alternative? "Why" I did not thought of that alternative if it was better?.
Sometimes the answer of why can be even more useful when - "Why am I doing it when somebody else has already done it - why not to use it as it is or with modification - why to duplicate?"
iii. How am I doing something is sometimes very important in long term. Many a times this how is ignored in the inertia or doing things faster but time comes and we understand that what was working is not extensible. The Architecture is very rigid and do not allow us any flexibility in making design changes. The reason is we failed to answer the Hows in while doing it.
So to be a good developer I need to continuously keep my eyes open to answer these Hows - it is not just what I do but also important that How I do it?

2. We should do the things when we are quite confident that I love what I am doing
I used to work in mechanical industry earlier and was quite good in work (off course because I used to love my work and understand it too) when I came to software industry and was struggling in the initial days I understood that it is not important how much money you get from this profession it is also important that "Do you love what you are doing". Fortunately after getting my basics clear I definitely love the job of software developer - it gives me opportunity to think in the shoes of God - since as a developer I am something similar to God for the product I design.

3. Don't do things for others - do it for yourself
Many times I hear complaints from friends that "I have to sit in office - because my manager do not leave office earlier", I think sitting long hours in office is wrong if you are doing it to please somebody else. It is not important to please somebody else. Our life is really quite short and it is practically almost impossible to keep pleasing everybody - accept this in case of boss as well. Doing your work with your best is important. We get paid to do the job not to please managers/ bosses. Fortunately in my last company and current company I got the bosses who care about work and not about the timings.
I do not say that stay late- stay there if you want to do so. I remember I used to sit in office for complete night when I started with software job. My problem was I wanted to develop software as good as I used to design mechanical engineering products, so to learn things fast I used to go to office on Saturday morning and then studying the code till I feel sleepy I used to return on Sunday afternoon at home, I never felt tired by doing so - the reason was simple "I was doing it for me" not for anybody else.

I think I am speaking only about work - but is the personal life really very different?
Let me find can these 3 points help me equally in personal life

1. What Why and How
- Yes I should understand what am I doing about the things which matter to my family/ myself
- Why is equally important - I go for outings with family because it makes me and them happy. If it does not then I should not go.
- How - How I spend time with family is equally important, How much is the quality of that time, spending time with family will really be great if your actions and words come from within.

2. Do things only when you love doing them -
To have long term and strong relationships it is important that I love the people/ myself - if I don't then the relations cant be really strong and long termed.

3. Do it for yourself, don't do it for others - -
When we think that "I am doing it for somebody else" then we are thinking that I have to do it and it is responsibility and there is no alternative and so on. Doing so does not every time make you happy, rather it can make you run away. Doing it understanding the importance of it in my life makes me do it for the future I have seen with these actions.

I will write again on this. I know it is not complete but I am happy that I wrote it.