Logical Circles

Three Idiots

2010-01-03T08:27:00.001-08:00

Last Tuesday we planned to see the latest James Cameron sci-fi blockbuster Avatar.We decided upon the odd showtime of 10.15 PM in Fame Cinemas of South City Mall under the anticipation that very few will choose that time.This was because after 10.15 PM it's really night in Kolkata (unlike many other cities) and along with that we had the recent drop in temperatures.So we did not booked tickets in advance.When we got there we found that our assumption is totally wrong all tickets for Avatar is sold out.So five fooled idiots decided to watch Aamir's Khan's latest release "Three Idiots" running in another screen for which few tickets were still left.

The movie was hilarious and a good entertainment and Aamir seems to have worked very hard to get the details & mannerisms of modern day engineering grad student as he normally does in all his movies.At his age I would like to give him full marks on playing this role.But this movie also had a message to pass "The inefficiency & weaknesses of our grade oriented Indian education system".This left me thinking but that day it was almost 2.00 AM in the morning when the show ended.So had to rush to home and then to bed.Didn't got much time to think.
Next day onwards I started following this "Credit Controversy" between Chetan Bhagat and Vidhu Vinod Chopra,Aamir Khan and team in various news & social media sites.I have not read Five Point Someone so I will not be able to comment how percentage of the film is taken from the book and how much is not.But overall I feel if it's taken or inspired by Chetan's book his name should have been included as one of the authors not just "Based On..." in the end credits.The way Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Aamir & team has reacted on this issue particularly in the press conference is disgusting & distasteful.
Today I read Sagarika Ghosh's blog post From Three Idiots to a Nation Of Idiots and I feel she has raised some valid concerns in relation to the movie and it's stance on the education system.I am in full agreement to the point that our education system needs reform and change but that will not come by adopting unfair means and making fool of the system.I am seriously concerned that the movie might pass a very wrong message to some student segment though that might not be the intention of it's makers at all.
Ideally speaking we should study to know, to learn and gain knowledge rather getting good grades.Whereas the current education system we have gives a very prime importance to grades whatever be the way you get it.But this cannot be viewed in isolation from socio economic factors in India.Given our country's population & economic condition our education is not related to learning but rather related to a job and livelihood.So the rat race will be their in some form or the other as no one wants to be left behind.Everyone wants to beat the other; this is the root cause behind our ever flourishing Organized Private Tution system.
I still remember my first day in Jadavpur University, one of our professors was showing us around the High Voltage Lab in our Electrical Engineering Department and he asked us with lot's of passion and inquisitiveness "Why you chose to be Electrical Engineers?".After few minutes of silence one of our friends answered bluntly in Bengali "Computer Science pai ni tai" that is "Could not manage a seat in Comp Science that's why".He was no crazy computer geek but those were the hey days of IT Services industry and the gold rush was fully on.So quest for knowledge, drive for innovation takes a back seat as we pursue our "rat race" for survival.
To summarize, the movie was good, the message passed is relevant & noble but the way to implement the change is challenging, needs to be planned & well thought of.This has to happen slowly keeping in mind the entire mass of student with diverse cultural & economic background and varying IQ levels.

This Week - 7th December 2009

2009-12-13T07:54:00.001-08:00

This week has not been too much interesting for me.Too much drinking (almost 4 out of 5 working days) & freak outs.Now it has become a personal agenda of highest priority to cut down on that count.Anyway's,even in this freak week there were some interesting things that caught my attention.

Google Real Time Search

First came to know about the Google Real Time search from the mashable article on Monday http://mashable.com/2009/12/07/google-real-time-search/.Then it was not formally launched and you had append the following querystring parameter esrch=RTSearch manually to see the real time updates.These search results are pulled from various sources like Facebook, Twitter, and other news publishing site , Twitter being the primary.I think Tuesday or Wednesday it was part of normal Google search and URL manipulation was no longer necessary.
Google's closest rival in the "Search Wars", Bing has also launched their Twitter search which is now in Beta.
http://www.bing.com/twitter

However this is for Twitter only.Let's see what Bing does to pull real time data from other sites like FaceBook etc.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I think I have stumbled across this book quite few times over the last ten years but never bother to pick it up and turned it's pages.May be because of "Zen" or "Motorcycle Maintenance" in the books title acted as a repellant.
This Saturday I was in office whole day for production rollout of our system.While random surfing came somehow landed in the following wiki article on MetaPhysics Of Quality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirsig%27s_metaphysics_of_Quality
The topic seemed interesting and bought this book from a nearby store.So far read first three chapters.Wonderful !!!.
But the title is really confusing.The book was lying on my desk and one of our team members thought it belongs to somebody else in our team,a guy who is a sort of "Kid in the town with a relatively new bike" :-)
Tweet Of The Week

http://twitter.com/bhavis/status/6422267433

This week was a no code, no movie, no interesting discussion, no nerd dinner week.All those are planned for the week starting tomorrow.

2012 The Movie

2009-12-05T23:46:00.001-08:00

Last Tuesday I managed to see the movie "2012" finally..
There are a couple of reasons for which I wanted to see this movie.The first and foremost is the theme of the movie.The prediction of apocalypse in 2012 as per Mayan calendar becoming true and human race is struggling for it's existence.Mayan civilization and particularly their astronomy and calendar always awed me with mystery.On top of that it was a Roland Emmerich(of Independence Day and Day After Tomorrow fame) movie.I was eager to watch how the master of disaster genre portrays the doomsday.

The special effects were amazing as expected.The destruction of California and Yellowstone National Park erupting like a volcano revealed the beauty of destruction in a magnificent way.In comparison the story and script seemed bit weak and incoherent to me.I really got bored sometime in the second half of the show.The treatment of global politics in this movie could have been much more interesting and intriguing but may be the director was not much interested in adding such a complex dimension to his plot.
However I came to know about the Charles Hapgood's Earth Crust Displacement Theory(ECD) from this movie.Prior to that I was only aware of the Plate Tectonic theory, which I came to know from my mother when I was a kid.I still remember that map of ancient earth few millions which she showed to me from one of her textbooks.It looked something like:

As per Plate Tectonics the continental landmasses in the Earth's lithosphere are moving and this movement is very slow causing perceptible shifts over span of millions of years.ECD adds on top of this and predicts that movement of the entire Earth's crust (lithosphere) in certain occasions is another possibility.This was supported by Einstein but is a highly debated and controversial theory.Anyway's nice to know
In this movie we see that neutrinos emitted from a Solar explosion is resulting in rapid increase of temperature in center of the Earth.This will ultimately lead to ECD.
After the water recedes and landmasses appear we come to know that Africa has risen above sea level and South Pole is now somewhere near old Wisconsin.:-)
Anyway just for the special effects I am waiting for an Imax version of this movie.
Tuesday we had a fire incident and office building was closed the entire day.So a disaster movie went well with the theme of the day.

Why Will I Go To A Community/Club Event

2009-09-12T20:27:00.001-07:00

I have been part of various communities and clubs in Kolkata for quite sometime now.Be it a cine club or some technology community events (at least once in a year) is part of the regular program.Sometimes we see a very good turnaround of the members/audiences and sometimes that is not the case.For the past few days I am just trying to find out what are the possible circumstances under which a person will come to this kind of gathering and why we normally miss some of them in these events:

I am an active member of the group and is one key persons of the organizing team.
I am an active member of the group but my activities are primarily online and I would meet others F2F
I am a member of the group, not very active,I have attended the last event and it was not bad.
I am not a member of the group but the focus of the matches with my hobby and I want to check out what they do.
I am not a member of the group but the agenda of the event seemed interesting, I received notification way ahead so that I can plan to attend this event,the mailer communications/reminders were effective... let me try this out.
..... This much I can think of let me know if there are more

I personally feel to attract the last group of individuals is extremely vital to the sustainence of the club or community.Because purpose of the community is to spread the word, get new members aboard,fresh ideas and perspectives.So if this section of the crowd is missing from the events it's the flaw of the event mangement and organizers and there is no point saying "People are not interested in whatever great we are trying to do"...

So we have to plan ahead and plan better and communicate to everybody about the event in an effective manner.

Technorati : Community, Events, General

Del.icio.us : Community, Events, General

Knowing - By Design Or By Chance

2009-04-07T13:15:00.001-07:00

Recently Nicholas Cage starrer Knowing has hit the theatres.I came to know about this movie from my Flixter updates.After reading the storyline I just can't wait to watch this movie.Not sure,when'll that happen.It deals with a very basic question of philosophy and science that has been a constant source of debate among scholars.To me a constant source of quest.Are we here today as part of grand scheme designed by some divine force or just by chance?Let me quickly try to explain the two school of thoughts.

Whenever we look around the various objects and processes in the world around us we see a great symmetry and balance.Everything is in the right proportion to make life survive on this planet - right temperature level,right mix of gases in the atmosphere,trees and animals exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide in a cooperative manner etc.Moreover all these processes and forms are not only well designed but complex in terms of both structure and behavior.So when we try to find out the source of this complex and well designed scheme we may think of some other intelligence behind this.As we are intelligent the entity, designing the process of our creation and survival has to be done by some super intelligent or divine agent.Remember The Architect in Matrix?.
There is another school of thought which states life on earth had a very simple beginning.It happened all by chance.By sheer chance climatic conditions and several inorganic compounds came in contact with each other to form organic molecules.From which somehow originated single cells able to replicate themselves and propagate life on earth.This happened through step by step transformations applied on simpler forms whose output was driven by chance and randomness.The incremental changes were or still are simple and imperceptible but the cumulative outcome is a complex one over thousands of years.This idea is driven by Darwin's Theory of Evolution By Natural Selection.I am stating a nice example to explain this, taken from the book "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins.In a sea shore we can find that the pebbles are not arranged absolutely at random.The larger ones occupy different zones.This apparently might seem to be well designed but actually driven by laws of mechanics (collision between waves & pebbles) which is working out a order amidst randomness.Obviously the followers of other school might argue that waves and pebbles are just executing a a sophisticated algorithm designed by the Great One.
As of now there is no end to this debate.The first school of thought has actually made their job easy by introducing this all powerful super intelligent architect.For other team the job is tougher because they have to prove every bit of what they are saying:poor fellas have taken a scientific route.
In this movie Nicholas Cage plays a MIT professor who belongs to the second school of thought.He accidentally opens a time capsule at his son's school which contains accurate prediction of major world events in the past 50 years and also predicts about a global catastrophe in near future.Let's watch the movie to find out whether it's just another sci-fi disaster movie or we can know something from Knowing.

Music Wood Coalition Project - Green Guitars

2009-03-01T05:49:00.001-08:00

I think guitar is the most popular among all musical instruments in the world.Unlike most of my observations and statements this is not backed by any well researched (googled so to say) data.I think this way, because I feel so, of course based on my small world of friends and foes.Guitar is the instrument I love to listen and my inability to play it is one of the topmost items in the list of my have nots.Till date I have never thought about what impact it's manufacturing process can have on our environment or how it's raw materials are obtained.But today an article in Scientific American changed my perception about this.

Guitar as we all know is made of wood.Trees like spruce, maple, mahogany, ebony and rosewood are primarily used to make guitars.The type of wood used has a great impact on the tone and quality of sound produced by the guitar.So usage of alternative materials is difficult.This might lead to a very different sound altogether which will satisfy neither the players nor the listeners.So for the guitar manufacturers it's extremely crucial to make sure that these forests are not utilized in an unplanned manner with a short sighted profiteering mindset.Because once these trees are exhausted it will be very difficult to produce guitars with sound as we listen today.
Musicians and artists has always been a forerunner in alternative thoughts.In this particular issue the manufacturers of musical instruments also have shown a great vision and helped to preserve green in this planet (and preserve their own business as well).Back in 1996 Gibson one of the leading manufacturers of guitar announced to use woods "sustainably harvested" and certified by Forest Stewardship Council.Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a non profit organization founded by Greenpeace and other supporting organization to laydown the rules and standards for eco friendly and responsible forestry.Now it's not Gibson alone other manufacturers like Taylor, Fender, Martin, Guild, Walden and Yamaha have also joined them.Together we have the Music Wood Coalition project.This project is launched by Greenpeace to enforce the eco-friendly FSC standards in the manufacturing of musical instruments.
One of the major areas of concern is preservation and usage of Sitka spruce.These trees are found in the North American coastal rain forests and most of the guitar manufacturers depend on a company named "Sealaska" (in Southeast Alaska) for their supply of Sitka spruce.Greenpeace did a survey on the timber industry in that region and found that 80% of wood is exported to Asia for home building and rest is used in US for windows frames etc.The fraction used by musical instrument industry is very very less in proportion.This is alarming for the guitar manufacturers because their product quality is directly impacted by these woods whereas homebuilding etc. can be done using any other material as well.Moreover the practices employed by Sealaska is not at all compliant with FSC standards and friendly to the preservation of these forests.So to get Sealaska certified is one the major aims of this campaign right now.
All my best wishes to the Music Wood and Greenpeace.I am sure this campaign will be a grand success worldwide for musical instruments of all kind.
Sources:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=guitar-makers-making-music-greener
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/features/6225640.html#none
http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/the-troublesome-truth/Jun-07/27810
PS: I am supporting GreenPeace India for the past two years it will be great if you can also do the same:
http://www.greenpeace.org/india/supportus

Intelligence Amplification over Web

2009-01-17T22:29:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I bought a copy of Richard Dooling's "Rapture For The Geeks:When AI outsmarts IQ".This book discusses about technological singularity which is one of my topics of interest.The idea of machine intelligence surpassing that of their human creators seemed interesting to me when I first saw Terminator back in school days.The term technological singularity was not known to me then.I have not yet completed reading Mr. Dooling's book but the discussion on Intelligence Amplification in context of Web 2.0 helped me to understand the term in newer and better way.

The term Intelligence Amplification dates back to 1956 when William Ross Ashby mentioned about "amplifying intelligence" in Introduction to Cybernetics.This actually refers to enhancing or amplifying human intelligence with help of computer aided tools.For details you can refer to this wikipedia (one of my most used IA tools) article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-Computer_Symbiosis.
Now let's think about the Web 2.0 or the so called read-write Web.This is not at all a technological breakthrough to me.I completely agree to the fact that Web 2.0 is basically Web 1.0 in technical terms.But it is a major breakthrough in terms of usage of the web platform.I was a reader in Web 1.0 and now I am a reader as well as writer in Web 2.0.It provides me the power to consume as well as contribute (of course if I am willing to).I am interacting with hundreds of people in the cyberspace with their virtual identities and profiles exchanging information with me.So with advent of Facebook,Orkut,WordPress,Twitter etc. collaboration in terms of information exchange has attained a new height.Above all is Google, the most highly used and effective cognitive device which is helping me to find what I am looking for.
In the last paragraph I have purposefully used the term information and not knowledge or wisdom.This is because what I am getting from Web is actually information which needs further processing to enhance my level of intelligence by assimilating it into my knowledge system.In other words, bits of preprocessed information (as it is some wise man's viewpoint) which needs further processing by me before it becomes part of my system.The question now arises is how pieces of information makes me more intelligent as there is no change in the system (my mind,brain or whatever) that is processing it.Yes it does because now collection and organization of information has become much faster and cheaper.So obviously it takes a lot of load off from the processing system which can now be engaged into tasks of higher quality.Assume I am living a hunter gatherer lifestyle.Tired after day's hunting I would have preferred to sleep after having the raw meat of the prey or at the most after burning it a bit.But if I am able to gather the food and ingredients at ease, I will think about cooking a good dish with taste and aesthetics.
That's all I wanted to discuss about IA for now.Let me get back to Mr. Dooling's book,I feel there is something more interesting ahead.

Finally Sunday To Rashomon

2008-12-28T10:57:00.001-08:00

Last Friday night I watched Francois Truffaut's Finally Sunday in UTV World Movies.It is a black white movie with a brilliant combination of film noir and comedy with a tinge of romance.This is the story of Julienne Vercel who is the prime suspect of his wife and her lover's murder and Barbara,Julienne's secretary who tries to prove his innocence.One particular sequence in that movie left me thinking for the past one week.This is the scene where Julienne tells Barbara that his wife's death has become inconsequential in the context of solving the mystery to prove his own innocence.

Normally Death in spite of it's inevitable nature is related to tragedy and dealt with a gloom and morbidity or with glory and sympathy (say heroic death of a martyr for a noble cause).This is not the case for thrillers or murder mysteries.The subject of death in this case is transformed into thrills within the frills of mystery.Let me take another example from movies.When we watch the scene of Normandy Landing in Saving Private Ryan though the death of each and every individual does not but that large scale mass killing affects us as a whole.But how do we react to Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves in Kill Bill volume I?
The point here I am trying to make has nothing much to do with death or movies.It's the question of perspective from which a particular subject is being presented or rather perspective or viewpoint from which a particular subject is being observed.In my earlier post on Mumbai Terror attacks I was trying to get into the root cause of terrorism as an observer who is not personally affected by the massacre.If that was the case may be I would not have blogged for another few months or the subject would have been memories of some lost one.There are two important factors in this example.First case where I am observing an incident about which I have no prior knowledge and I am trying develop a viewpoint based on external information and my own rational thinking.In this case the way that information is being presented and delivered to me is very critical.In the second case my own personal emotions override all other facts and my viewpoint is narrowed down without considering much of external data.In this case whatever information and thought process I already possessed is very crucial.
Now be it the independent viewpoint of the observer or somehow influenced by other external agency existence of absolute truth is lost in the crowd of multiple interpretations.I strongly argued in favour of absolute truth in post on Uncertainty Principle and I will still stick to that point as I feel it's our limitation to interpret and process information with absolute correctness.But in most of the incidents of our daily lives, truth is always true with marginal errors of observation and that's why everyone does not have same conclusion.
It was last Friday when this thought triggered in my mind now it's Finally Sunday and may be I am concluding with Rashomon.

Mumbai Attacks & Terrorism

2008-11-27T23:31:00.000-08:00

Now it's more than 37 hours since it all started in Mumbai Wednesday 9.30 PM in the night.One of the most fierce terrorist attacks in the history of the country with 125(if not more) reported dead and 327 injured.The hostage situation still continues in Taj Mahal Hotel,Oberoi-Trident Hotel and Jewish centre at Nariman house.
I came home quite late on Wednesday night and was not at all aware of what was going on in Mumbai.Yesterday's local morning newspaper caught my attention.But somehow the report was not very detailed explaining the magnitude and gravity of the situation.Throughout the day in office we were going through the blogs/twitter and online media to get a detailed description of the events.

Everyone has condemned this attack as usual in their own ways.Some have blamed the politicians & government,some have praised the resilience and spirit of the Mumbaikars,some cursed our neighbouring country,some expressed concern on India's economic future etc. etc.May be everyone is correct to some extent from their own perspectives.I was pondering upon the question is this terrorism a modern phenomenon a new threat which has appeared in the international scene for past 10-20 years?
I feel that the term "Terrorism" and it's external manifestation might me new in the post world war times but it's very essence is not.We have always seen in the history of mankind that forces of creation and destruction are always evolving side by side and hand in hand.When Roman was basking in glory and riches barbarians were grumbling at their gates;when Rome weakened the gates were broken and Europe lost it's way in the Dark Ages.When we learnt that earth is round and about new sea routes and lands there were explorer,missionaries and merchants but along came the pirates.May be the problem is that Mother Nature and system we have built does not provide equally for all.Everyone driven by it's genetic behaviour want's to survive.If not with a pen then why not with a gun?.
The point I am trying to make here is:this is not a new problem or latest threat it was there and will be there in one form or the other.These incidents should not be viewed in isolation and are not just related to any specific regional and communal issues.So we need to device our strategy and plan accordingly to fight this situation driven by our own survival instincts or we will be gradually outplayed by these forces into a state of chaos and horror.I think the stand and strategy Israel has taken against terrorism is something we should take a close look at.But our challenge will be to implement a similar surveillance and intelligence system in a country so densely populated.Anyway we need to get back to the whiteboards and chalk out something rising above partisan politics and communalism.

Uncertainty Principle - Few Thoughts

2008-10-18T08:37:00.001-07:00

The "Uncertainty Principle" proposed by Werner Heisenberg in 1927 states that we cannot precisely measure both the position and momentum(velocity) of an electron.This is because we normally observe things as light(photons) bounce back from that object.To observe a tiny particle as an electron we need electromagnetic waves of smaller wavelength like gamma radiations.Now photons of the gamma radiation colliding with a tiny electron can alter it's position and momentum introducing a factor of uncertainty into the measurements.

We can think of a man walking through a pitch dark street.As he turned on his torch he saw a stray dog walking away.But it might so happen that the dog was sleeping,disturbed by the beam of light woke up and walked away.So to certain extent we have altered the state of the dark street which we wanted to observe.
Uncertainty Principle back then (and even now) raised a lot of controversy and debate in the communities of scientists and philosophers.Heisenberg took an example of electron in the quantum realm to explain his theory and stated this uncertainty in measurement of some typical conjugate variables some scholars found a much far reaching impact of this theory.The Newtonian world of classical mechanics is deterministic.In that realm using the laws of physics we can predict the position and behaviour of all particles in the Universe at a given points.This concept of uncertainty and randomness shattered down the deterministic worldviews.Einstein never accepted this probabilistic behaviour of nature and that was reflected in his famous quote: 'God does not play dice'.
Uncertainty Principle has also led to an introspection into the basic nature of Reality.Reality or Objective Reality is something that exists beyond our perceptions and independent of human observer.Some deny the very existence of this reality as a conclusion from Uncertainty Principle.Reality as per those school of thoughts is what we observe and there is no reality without a conscious human observer.Somehow I cannot agree to this.It is true that our observations is altering the state of the object we intend to observe.So this is a limitation of human knowledge and understanding.Our current scientific theories and methods are not accurate and fails to provide a true view of reality.The world we see around us is not the real one but constantly emerging out of interactions of a conscious observer with it it's surrounding.It is the world we bring forward through a complex chain of interactions and events.This idea forms the building blocks of modern Systems Theory where focus is shifted from parts to the whole, from objects to their relationships.Systems Theory is a great tool to analyse and understand the observable world but that should not mean that what we cannot see does not exists.

Paleolithic Cave Paintings - A 20,000 Year Project - The Stream of Learning.....

2008-10-06T14:36:00.001-07:00

Prehistoric cave paintings... by hearing this term the "Bison in Altamira Cave" comes into my mind.One of the earliest signs of human creativity.I still remember that black & white picture in my sixth standard history book.Looking at that picture I used to visualize a shadowy dark cave with almost extinguished fire in the centre,group of men dressed in animal skins,talking in weird languages,painting bison in that psychedelic studio.Later I have found several references to this painting including Satyajit Ray's last movie "Agantuk".This has been always a topic of interest and wonder to me.

I was always puzzled by the question why they suddenly started painting?Fighting for his own existence against all odds of nature with his primitive tools and intelligence, was painting necessary to survive,sustain the animal instincts.Certainly not.The answer is difficult to find.But it's for sure that these paintings mark the beginning of mankind achieving a higher level of consciousness,ability to communicate and bring forward worldviews of their own.
Today an article related to prehistoric cave paintings caught my attention.It states that experts have now come up with a new technique for precise dating of this paintings known as Uranium Series dating.As per their studies it took around 20,000 years to complete these paintings as we see them today.Does it mean that it took so long just to complete these paintings.Given the form and content it does not appear to be so.I think they were preserved and maintained by so many generations.Just the way we do it in our art galleries and cathedrals today.What those paintings meant to them?.Some form of art or something religious or something else.Whatever be the case the preservation over a span of 20,000 years clearly points out there was a sense of tradition.So along with initial sparks of creativity,these paintings also signify growth of belonging to the roots emotion in mankind.
The different layers of those paintings by artists at different times symbolizes the gradual process of evolution and development of human knowledge.Nothing is original so to say.We always build upon what was there already.Sometimes when we don't find answers using the teachings of the past we try to question some of the axiomatic assumptions and alter them a little.This is the "paradigm shift".Some notions of the past can be wrong in the light of modern knowledge and understanding.But that should never be rejected as irrelevant.
Renaissance gave us the perspective in the three spatial dimensions,twentieth century artists then added one more to it.But the existing three prevailed..

The article can be found at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/05/eacaveart105.xml

Few thoughts on language

2008-10-01T15:05:00.001-07:00

"Today late afternoon in the illusive shades of the twilight I saw a beautiful lady dressed in white.Someone like the Lady of Shallot.What to say.. Belle de Jour?.I am just not able to find right words to describe"
The above statement is interesting but vague.It tells something at the same time hides away many things.Many of us has come across such a situation where we do not find the right words to express or find that the words we have used are not enough to express what we actually felt.Also there are many occasions where we say something and it gets interpreted in an absolutely different manner.So what ever be the language the words fall short or becomes vague to portray our thoughts in satisfactory and unambiguous fashion.

"A picture paints a thousand words...."
Yes.We use pictures and other symbols are also used to reflect our state of mind and worldviews.Sometimes we use pictures and words both to supplement each other as well.Even this vast repository of symbols falls short for us sometimes to communicate our feelings and realizations.So as Wittgenstein said "what we cannot speak about we must over in silence..."
This I feel is a great obstacle in order communicate with and understand each other.Language is an important ingredient of the gradual unfolding of life in this earth and particularly the society of many living organisms.This is the key for us to interact with the nature and society,to cooperate,to transform,to evolve and emergence of our worldviews.A glue that ties the parts together with whole. The disparity in ability to communicate among different groups and individuals further aggravates the situation of confusion and misunderstanding.
Language is also vital in the process of learning.It helps us to learn,know,open our "doors to perception",to develop the sense that we will dissolve into the whole where we have evolved from.If there is an eternity and ultimate truth won't there be an ultimate language to express them without ambiguity?.I think there won't be any.Realization is the only resort and everybody has to walk those last few miles alone in silence.

Rainbows End

2008-09-23T13:58:00.001-07:00

Presently I am reading a science fiction novel called "Rainbows End" by Verner Vinge.The story is set in a post singular society where books are obsolete,laptops are backdated, people are networked via wireless devices attached to their clothes(known as wearables) and smart contact lenses.But the central theme of the story remains a global terrorist conspiracy and personal struggle of the protagonist to adapt to this changing world.So it's about a world where the gadgets have got somewhat advanced and human beings are trying to utilize and adjust to that.Society has evolved technologically but the human beings have not changed fundamentally.

This is a great science fiction with a thriller undertone.But I would have been very happy to read about human beings also evolving physically as well as mentally.Physical evolution of human beings can be something like the regularly used gadgets becoming part of our body itself.Some sort of mutation we see in those X-Men movies.A gradual evolution towards becoming a cyborg.But what will be the nature of our psychological evolution?This I am not very sure of.May be our learning capacity will increase and we will able to see beyond the three dimensions.Are we going to become more selfish or altruistic?.Will the basic questions regarding our self,being,dreams and consciousness be answered,or we will lose sight of those questions itself.
Whenever I think about this I naturally get confused.Few words of a very good friend (Somdeb) comes to my mind.
"Think of two monkeys sitting on a branch of tree and chatting million years back.Descendants of one has evolved to become a man ridiculing those of the other,now captured in a zoo.Similarly both of us discussing evolution in the middle of night and think what might happen few million years from now....."
This is the most tragic part of evolution.Survival of the fittest.Space is infinite and time is eternal but as it passes it does not provide for all.

Dismal Week ,Few Interesting Findings

2008-09-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

This week was a rather dismal one.Project issues/problems.Bad news from the financial markets.Future of IT industry looks uncertain and gloomy.Today another massive terrorist attack in Pakistan.God knows how many seals are still left to be opened.
So bored with all these bad news,movie channels repeating same old stuff I started random search using Google and some blog directories(the greatest cognitive tools I have found till date)

While doing so I came across some interesting postings:

In Indiblogs.net I found this beautiful blog on philosophy and psychology.
http://lifedeathandacross.blogspot.com/

I have been always a great fan of functional programming as a concept.A paradigm which focusses on the evaluation of functions rather than data and state.For the past two releases C# has incorporated lot of functional programming concepts for example lamba functions.But still not a fully programming language.I knew about F# launched by Microsoft Research quite a while ago.I installed it but never got time to take look into it.Moreover it was not integrated with the IDE.The new CTP release is integrated with VS 2008 and the specification is also there.I wrote my first F# code and it looks cool.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/fsharp/default.aspx

Also found the poem "The Lamplighter" by RL Stevenson.This was one of my favourites when I was a kid.
http://www.bartleby.com/188/131.html

So that's it.Now need some sleep after random rambling through the cyberways...

ColdTrail - A Thriller From IceLand

2008-09-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple of months I have become a regular viewer of the UTV WorldMovies(http://www.utvworldmovies.com/). Apart from the movies of world reknowned French,Italian directors,I can find good movies from various parts of the world about which I knew very little.

Today I watched an IceLandic movie named ColdTrail.This is a great thriller set in the frozen and misty landscape of Iceland. It begins with the murder of a person in a tunnel like place.In the next scene we find Baladur(Þröstur Leó Gunnarsson) covering a scoop news of daughter accusing celebrity father of molestation.Next is the meeting with editor Baladur has his sensational news and one of his collegue has another:Mysterious death of a night guard in a remote dam which local people feels is an act of ghost.Obviously father molesting daugther sells well and becomes the headline.That day Baladur comes to know from his mother that the person killed at the dam is his father.Baladur raised by a single mother is angry & confused.He starts his own investigation to know more about his father and how he died.In the meantime the sensational sensual scoop news backfires on Baladur as police finds that it was nothing but a false acquistion from a troubled teenager.Baladur quits his job as a journalist and goes to the dam as the new nightguard.
The dam in winter is like a remote castle with few people as guards and operators.Freyja(Elva Ósk Ólafsdóttir) provides supplies to these people and manages her farm downhill.You need a snowmobile to go upto the dam in winters.This is a combination of bike and sledge.I liked that it's slick.In the ice,darkness and mist plots and subplots of mystery are spawned with both natural and supernatural elements in it.
The style of making is quite Hollywood like.Both the veteran actors have worked very well.Only the presence of a supernatural element seemed to me as the most weakest part of the film.It could have been avoided.In epics you have to rely upon god for rescuing your protagonists from an impossible odd situation.The presence of the spirit in backgound seemed to have played a similar role.At least in my opinion it does not add any extra suspense.
Snow clad mountains have been favourite for song picturization for most Bollywood directors.Thrillers are the area where Bollywood is mostly inspired from others.ColdTrail can be a good inspiration I believe :-)
You can the watch the trailer at youtube:

Silver(Moon)Light - Cross platform CLR

2008-09-07T03:58:00.000-07:00

In today's Kolkata .NET User Group we had a very good discussion on Silverlight the latest User Experience technology launched by Microsoft.This is a cross browser and cross platform plugin to deliver rich media content and enhanced interaction capability to the users over web.In very simple terms we can think of this as something like a Adobe Flash Player.

The term "cross platform" immediately caught my attention.Silverlight 1.0 was shipped for Windows and Mac.But it relied on the Javascript/AJAX based programming model.Okay,Javascript/AJAX based programming does not require much of platform dependent functionality.In that case what we need is a different binary so that it can be installed and executed on Mac OS.BUT NOT A DIFFERENT VERSION OF THE CLR.
But Silverlight 2.0 is going to provide support for code written in languages like C#/VB.NET and also the base class libraries.But this cannot execute without a CLR.If Silverlight is cross platform then we need CLR for different platforms as well.Right?
Yes that is the case.I got a detailed information on this from the August 2008 MSDN article which talks about CoreCLR for Silverlight.This CLR is a version of the CLR designed specifically to suit the needs to Silverlight Web Clients.The functionalities which does not make sense are not present e.g. some of the classes related to CAS is not present as it is not used in Silverlight.CoreCLR provides support to various platforms through Platform Abstraction Layer.At present it will support only Windows and Mac OS on Intel platforms.There is partnership with Novell to support Linux through the Mono project's Moonlight runtime. There will be support for Silverlight on Nokia Symbian OS and Windows Mobile®.>
The details can be found at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc721609.aspx
http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Scott-Guthrie-Silverlight-and-the-Cross-Platform-CLR/
Can we expect full fledged versions of CLR for other platforms also in future?

Steve Jobs and Calligraphy

2008-09-07T03:19:00.000-07:00

Today we had a session on "Windows Presentation Foundation" and "Silverlight" as part of the monthly Kolkata .NET User Group meet.While discussing about various graphics related stuff and fonts somebody pointed out about Steve Jobs contribution about the fonts in PC based software and his inclination on calligraphy.I was not at all aware about this.So coming back home first thing I did was googling with Steve Jobs and Calligraphy.

I found mention about this in the commencement speech he delivered on June 2005 in Stanford University.After dropping out of college he took classes in calligraphy where he was first introduced about different typefaces,techniques and subtle artistry of calligraphy.This was apparant useless course to take up at this point in time.But 10 years later this ideas became the foundations of the typography design of first Macintosh computer.As windows follows the same thing we can say Steve Jobs calligraphy lessons forms the founding stone of today's PC fonts and typography.
You can find the entire speech in the location
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
The following part of the speech has really touched my soul:

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

You can watch the video of the speech as well: