Surviving Uncertainity

Events happen and they carry a connotation with them which is left to our own imaginations.These days i am reading 'Fooled by randomness' a book which stresses upon a simple fact. Everything is random and chaos and it all depends on the window we are in.Not an easy read and i am going through it at snail's pace. Events spanning for a shorter duration can have different outcomes than the longer ones.But being rational beings we try to find a pattern in it and we tend to confine ourselves to deterministic boundaries. More the uncertainty involved, more is it thrilling and more strenuous. One example is to compare the adrenaline levels involved in a soccer match against a test cricket match. Probably this is the reason Analysts or Bureaucrats have tough times as they have to deal with issues built on human pshycology in their calculations. But there is a limit to this analysis and predictions and sometimes one has to go by gut feel when things are too uncertain. In due course one should take care not to be a prey to ignorance. This can happen when one deals with lots of variables and finite chances of some slipping out if one is not careful enough. One example of ignorance can be:
In the movie Sholay every time Jay tosses the coin and Viru loses. Viru wasn't a victim of probability but a victim of ignorance which costed him Jay's life in the end. I believe the best one can do is to have his/her actions synchronous with contemplation and chances are that one may hit upon a better alternative while trying to simplifying it.

Some years back, i was listening to a Microsoft Engineer at a seminar in Mumbai. He had said " An Engineer should enter office premises with folded sleeves, to show his eagerness to deal with unpredictable". I was highly motivated and till date i never forget to fold my sleeves whenever i am in a full shirt. Being an Engineer, its our religion to make things look simple no matter how complicated or uncertain they are. We are unlike those theoretical scientists who will make others feel claustrophobic both with their pages of equations and their physical appearances. Neither are we are like poets and philosophers whose job is to make simple things look complicated while writing pages after pages on life, love, sunset, rains etc etc

This and That

I am getting paranoid about the fact that the ideas i write or intend to write are mine or not. Probably they could have been shaped from the grey matter of a book or they could be from various happenings which have creep ed into my sub-conscious mind. In all these instances the ideas aren't mine and i try to branch out on those borrowed seeds of thought. Basically i think of fitting them into two broader categories . They can be event driven or concept driven.

Event driven writings are free flowing where i just pen down by direct observations and my own interpretations. Things like describing a place, describing an event, describing a book, sharing my experiences etc fall in this category. I find it a healthy practice to chain my randomized thoughts and gives me immense satisfaction. At the same time i try not to kill the spontaneity while getting nervous about the interpretations of people on other side of the table. At the end of the day, these kind of writings are great stress relievers where you let go of your brain surges and occasional outbursts.

Concept driven are basically thought driven and where i try to get into a metaphysical level. It's like building castles in air after my vodka sessions. My feel good factor gets elevated and i feel like living in multi-dimensions as a hyper creature while writing for myself. I don't want others to read these stuff, as i too don't know what exactly i am trying to do. The paragraphs would contain nothing other than disjoints in ideas, sentences,utter chaos and lots of adjectives. But then i use it as a tool for dealing with something new and my dynamic range gets stretched. I find the same pattern in me when i meet new people, visit new places, work on something new etc. Honestly i believe this is a trait common to all daydreamers and they can be a nuisance for the society.

Whining Kid

My next door neighbor got a descent kid some months back. The kid has become a center of attraction for all members of the family, and also for other families nearby. Handling this kid is not that easy and one should be stuffed with good amount of phonetics while dealing with this baby. She is catching up with worldly matters pretty fast and is getting more smarter day by day. She understands her food routine and maintains a perfect balance between play and sleep. She comfortably hops from one lap to another without any reluctance. Things like new faces, grazing cows, stray dogs and house insects catches her attention immediately. But somehow i don't share a good equation with this baby. The reason being, she looks at me with unending curiosity every time i carry her and this makes me search for appropriate reasons for her insanity. Many a times she gives a loud cry in my lap and her mood suddenly changes when i pass her to another. This makes me more humiliated. This kid sleeps more during the day and has a habit of going for occasional night outs. Since i share a common wall with her, i usually have tough times on these occasions. My tolerance levels come down and her loud cries makes me insomniac.

This doesn't mean i hate kids. It's just that i should learn to adapt with them and i will like to parent as many kids as possible some day.

Trip to Ganga

The trip was a good opportunity to flex my muscles against nature's tyranny. We started at 3.20 am and reached the destination after 6 hours. Our rafting started at around 2.30pm the same day and it went on for two hours. We made a quick acquaintance with lingos like raft, paddle, rapids. Rapids are places where water flow gets turbulent and makes rafting quite thrilling. Our captain gave us instructions regarding safety, ways of propelling the raft and a lot more. Swimming in flowing waters is much different from swimming in still waters and this is what i realized after swimming hopelessly for 2-2.5Km. I jumped off my boat the moment we received orders for swimming. Initially i crossed a rapid enthusiastically with water splashing over me from all directions and went far ahead. But i had a tough time to move against the flow while waiting for my raft and was getting drifted with the flow inspite of my efforts. The camping was in a scenic place amid the valleys and i earned a perfect good night sleep after watching the moon rise. By the late night water levels had changed drastically and they returned normal the next morning and i still cant figure out the exact reason. We camped there for a night and rafted the next day as well. The snaps attached can describe better. One captures the flower garden on a roadside restaurant 'cheetal grand', the other one captures rafts crossing a rapid called by name 'return to sender' and the third one captures the moon rise in valley.

Nascent Trials

Working on something new has its own pleasures. With no past anomalies encountered, things taste different. I am required to understand a piece of work within a stipulated time which people have taken some months to build. It is generic for people who are used to it and for beginners it's a bit cumbersome. One gets to listen harsh words, the morale gets shattered and one may end up breaking his spine. A few words of Prayer and careful enquiry into your neighbours may help you to navigate through troubled waters. But once you are through, the world seems so different to you. Now you are better equipped to pass on these troubles to your subordinates and gradually you become a man of bigger tummy, lesser mind and unlimited powers. Given the things are with me right now, i don't think i will able to escape this catastrophe.

Work apart i have other stuffs to do for the first time this weekend. I will be rafting in white waters of Ganga and with summer changing its stand, i may carry a blanket on board. Lets see how the adventure goes...

Tiny Hole in Pant Pocket

A long weekend and i was caught up with a sudden desire for roaming around in the streets of the capital before watching Delhi-6. A quick ride to some of the notable places like Purana Quila(for south asian band festival) followed by trips to CC,India gate and CP. After that i sank into the comforts of resting in a dolby theater to watch the movie.

Eversince RDB i had a great respect for Rakesh Mehra and this was the motivation for going to Delhi-6. The movie sounded realistic to me while trying to strike a balance between various happenings. Be it the insane kala bandar spreading panic or the stubborn cows managing the traffic, or the special effects of Hanuman getting airlifted, all these were depicted quite convincingly. But the climax of the movie was beyond my expectations. It was horrifying to see the main protagonist confused between life and death before coming at a decision and many thanks to his lady love. One scene takes you to ether where all the spirit dwells(this place too had technology penetration!) and the next one takes you to ambulance where he fights for his breathe. I dont know whether they lived happily there after or not but certainly i was confused at the end.

Nostalgic Syndrome

Sleep less
Work latenight
Breathe coffee
Cook noodles
Sing your school anthem
Write a piece of satirical prose
Listen to Enigma
Read paulo coelho
Watch hindi version of ghajni and make your memory go bleak
Plan your day in hurry and randomness
Dream of pursuing crazy goals like skydiving, parachuting
Spell out more words of wisdom

Baked Cheese

The country of ours has a great diversity in culture and supported by huge differences in food habbits. Starting from Idli and wada in south to Parantha and tablets(rajma, chole etc) in north.Every time i go home i never miss out on few food items. For me its a change which i always crave for. One of my all time favourite is 'Chena Poda' which translates to baked cheese. The softness and the taste it provides is simply superb and the aroma it carries will prompt you to go for more. Look wise it appears as an orthodox cake when freshly out from oven and one can take a hunch that typical B-day cakes of today are a evolution of it. The beauty of it is its simple, uncomplicated and non-glamorous without any toppings. Over the years it's elegance is still preserved. The Cheese gets a thorough pasting and is pushed into oven after being wrapped with leaves of Teak and those leaves are primarily responsible for the taste and fragrance. Equally important is the oven and the taste gets doubled if the oven is non-electric. Next time i go home i will try to suffice my theories with pictorial evidences.

Height of Ignorance

As per reports hundreds of lives were lost in recent Mumbai attacks and this act of blasphemy has been happening there for the Nth time. Some of our leaders have stepped down claiming moral responsibility... quite interesting at least now they are talking of morality. May be they are just trying to shield themselves from polemic issues and not wanting to subject themselves to lampooning and the agonies of the affected persons still remains unattended. This has been a wake-up call for the foreign ministry of both the countries. Instead of addressing the subtle issue, they are busy libeling against each other and our neighbour is thinking of diverting its troops towards Indian border. Its utterly crazy and such crappy ideas cannot be expected from a democratic government. In a way they are nurturing this ravenous beast and have turned a blind eye to recent bombings in Islamabad,Peshawar and blood shed in Baluchistan. Certainly in the days to come history will repeat and this government will be a mere puppet in the hands of this faceless creature.

Life's Lessons

A forwarded ppt worth sharing and hopefully will help us in preserving some of the idealities in a highly non-ideal world...

My Integrity Shakened

Working on Sundays has a different charm simply because with no enough homo-sapiens around i have all time and concentration of the world to focus on my TFT monitor. More importantly you have some recipes cooked up to tackle your Monday phobias and your week has got started ahead of others. Yesterday in between work i went to a small canteen inside a hospital premises to have food and i was the lone customer at that time. A man in his fifties with a broom appeared and he too sat down with me after discharging his duties for his tea. Out of curiosity he asks me "are you a student here?" A slight altruism and mistrust creeped in me and i didn't bother to tell him about my whereabouts, so i nodded back with a "yes". " First year?" Another big "yes" supported by again a big lie "got admitted this July " ....."which college?" Least expecting this one i took some time to spell out a name and luckily it matched with the one where he was working before taking up a job in the hospital. He went on explaining me about those days on how he had build up reputation there and his rappo with the student and tips good enough for procuring his bidis for the day and many more on faculties, politics etc. In between any question put to me, my answer was in terms of yes or no. In course of time i started to enjoy his talks and asked for more clarifications whenever i felt like. While we parted he gave me a piece of fatherly advice "do read well to live up to your parent's expectations". I was dumb struck and felt heavily embarrassed to see his innocent assumptions built on my blatant lies. My integrity was completely lost at that moment and i could feel the fervency of the just had discussion fading away with a weakness engulfing me. We often tend to go by our instincts and they can be misleading at times. Nevertheless i hope to bump into him some other day and assuming he still remembers my face i will have to gather courage to spill the truth...

Quite Unreasonable but True

You dont have to find reasons to be happy. This was a good revelation from my genesis mates. We need not be happy always though we seek for it all the time. we dont have to be successful all the time in our attempts, though the learnings from it are to be preserved. To come out of vicious loop of reasons and justifications, one has to unreasonable and then only one can attain bliss. Else it gets quite tough to come out of one's own internal rebellion for striving. Haven't thought about it before and will like to add more on this one...

Limits of Analogy

Today while taking the morning shower i was recollecting about my recent trips to Mathura. The cramped lanes and houses made me draw an analogy with transistor scaling.Whenever i come across a unbalanced person, my mind seeks to compare it with a under damped system and peeps into associated instabilities. If you come across blogs of any circuit designer,you will find most of time he ends up teaching you circuit design rather than explaining his thought! i read blogs of people from different fields and most of them possess this noble virtue. They are too much into their daily dosage and sub-consciously have their own way of looking at things.But i wonder how much of these metaphors adds relevance for a common man, given that a post gets successful if it attracts non-voracious readers from all corners of the planet. And by no means the post are meant to be people specific who share a common latitude. Irrespective of the various analogies cited, they tend to converge at some point while trying to address the core. Continuing on the 2nd example cited, a software developer may try to map the mental picture of an unbalanced person with a complicated algorithm involving a descent hierarchy of data structure. A market guy may talk in language of economics whereas a biologist will possibly use Darwin's theory for a lucid analogy. But the bottom line is that these multi-faceted analogies do indeed have the same soul and are in perfect harmony with each other as they share the same seed of thought.

Cold War 2

This morning i read a statement which goes like this: "There exists never a good enough reason to cause a fight between two entities no matter how close or opposing they are. ...Justice should be granted such that both parties should be satisfied at the end." I have been following the RG conflict. I call Russia Georgia tussle a kind of recombination-generation mechanism. Georgia is a tiny democracy a spin off from soviet and is under US shield. Russia is adopting a rationale of protecting the small states to kill Georgia's dominance. The world saviour US is poking fingers over the issue to ensure smooth passage of oil from Caspian to west. The missile shield from US to be implemented in Poland is a plagiarized version of star wars and is yet too far from implementation. The world is again heading for the Cold war era and this time the situation is more perilous. The non-US forces may come together and given that all are potential nuclear players, the I-day will not be too far.

a slice of Cynism

Myriads of problems to look into and striving for something more is what drives people to get cynical. The rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer and the divide gets broadening. Somehow i am getting a feeling that the world is heading for a famine looking at the example of Zimbabwe.(as per reports a sandwich sells there for 30 million Zimbabwe dollars) Same is the case with Afghanistan where you have to shell out approx. 400L local currency for having food in a good restaurant. The fossil fuels are depleting and prices soaring every other day. What will be the fate of oil stacked nations after their reserves gets depleted? Given all these will be there until the dooms day, how are we going to cope with it. Most of my concerns are for the generations to come...

Other examples where i find some similarity is economic bubbles in various markets. For instance the US housing bubble or the .com bubble in 90s. The control lied in the hands of few individuals and the whole system collapsed as soon as it was made generic. The steel industry now is going through a golden phase and thanks to 2008 Olympics. The whole supply chain is making good bucks out of this fiasco. But how long? After some years, there will not be any mountains, no forests, the rivers will change their path and many more turbulence to set in...

Winds of Change

From the presentation 'An Inconvenient Truth' a statement reverberates in mind most of the time: its easy and most obvious for people go from denial phase to a break down phase while forgetting to peep into the intermediate state which asks them to think differently. It long time since my last blog and now i understand how time can eat up one's enthusiasm unless you are not possessive about it. All these days i have scanned thoroughly all the FM channels getting myself goofed up with different flavors of music starting from Pink Floyd Linkin park Guns N roses to latest Hindi tracks and oldies as well. Man i curse myself for not being able to distinguish Kishore from Manna De and i was under a deep misconception. Now i have learnt to enjoy the voice of singers like Bhupinder and Manohar udhas. Good to see my Hindi dictionary piling up! My boss gives me a puzzled look whenever he finds me in office during late evenings. I succumbed to it after playing hide and seek with him for some time and this has resulted in a time table shift in my daily activities. The monsoons have set in, the grass is green, grasshopper chanting, and the daffodils swaying away in the cool breeze. All these along with a cup of tea makes a holistic view from my terrace and energizes me for the day.

Fourth One

The three passives Resistance Capacitance and the inductance forms the pillar of basic electrical circuits. With the discovery of Memristor the fourth one, the circuit basics has to be re understood. People say it can explain the broken link between electric charge and magnetic flux and have realized by introducing defects into the titanium dioxide crystal. To put it simply the titanium dioxide crystal lattice is very sensitive to the applied voltage which excites the dopants to move and thereby changing the resistance. (Dopants are basically impurities added to the insulator which alters their crystal structure and makes them suitable for conducting current). So when we use it next time, it will start with its previous crystal arrangement and thus has a memory feature. This is a good news both for memory and signal processing world. The circuit basics has to be revisited and the common man should be able to plug its properties into basic circuit theorems and be able to validate it. Till date nobody felt the need of such device except memory and thus it opens various area to explore. The challenging part would be to invent new application for this device which can reach out to people.We have to wait and watch how much of it is yield friendly and its appetite to shrink. Given all the things gets going as per predictions, the circuit design activities will see a new dawn and many more concepts will get invented.

Ack: News of Invention of a new device at HP labs in 2008
Initial findings of the same by L.O Chua at UCB way back in 1971

All time highs

Real life do go through a series of crest and trough. Now its already thirty past seven and i am applauding myself(perhaps this is my only business) for playing a blame game with my solaris machine for the whole day. My circuits are not that big, even then my simulations are taking hell lot of time and i am being accused of brutality. At the end of the day i find a few loyal aficionados waiting for my design to perform miracles. But had it not been the machine then it would certainly be the turn of my circuit to dump my intellect. My circuits are like pretty girls who are always in the process of eternal soul searching, and thus passing on their feasibility from one hands to another. Suddenly you find yourself in a deep shit and none of the worldly phenomenon do come to your rescue. This is where you start to believe in the concept of 'maya' as explained in Bhagwad Gita and you become a staunch Philosopher. Most of the time it helps but in some cases you have to resort to biology as the last option. You get to argue that metabolism has gone unstable and hormonal disorder has killed both your expertise and your circuit. The experts whose opinion were much awaited,too talk on the same wavelength and the good part of it is the dynamics flows on your side.

Green Dishes

Couple of days i was gifted with an opportunity to explore northern parts of the country. The place is green and hopefully will retain its colour till the real estate boom explodes. The roads are wider but i am quite nervous in riding as the public doesn't adhere to the rules. Forgot to mention that dishes served here are also in green(still i miss sambhar,idli and utthapam) and the motto being to keep the surroundings green. The day time has been a nightmare for me due to scorching heat. The common saying is Sun God adopts a Gaussian profile starting from April till July. So i am yet to face the peak. But then a cool breeze in the evening soothes my skin and a bruised heart.Needless to mention that the language in this region is like a fringed benefit and Eco-friendly buses make my transport more pleasurable.

Art of Netting

A long vacation indeed and one of the many ways to beat out the heat is to mimic the aquatic life. Much of the inspiration was drawn from the adventures of Pi. The day started with the idea of hunting fish on stagnant waters and gathering a group of people to carry out the activity. I too joined them with a big fishing net made up of fine threads and decorated with wooden pulps and stones. The stones for keeping them in tact with ground and the pulps to give them a direction. The water channel was tapered and L shaped, it was quite difficult to maneuver the net in those topographies, and to add to it the ground beneath the water was uneven and rocky. Five of us got aligned on a straight line and i had to keep myself at one extreme so that i don't have to land into uneven surface and deep waters. We adjusted ourselves to cover the entire width of the water channel and we started to move towards the other end. The guys in the middle had to dive deep to ensure the stones at the bottom don't get stuck and has to be synchronous with the pulp movement. We could see small fishes escaping to the other sides as soon as they find a gap, but the bigger ones had to succumb to the fine net. Some where in the middle we found the water depth is more than the net height, where a large number of fish happily escaped through a good clearance.The adventure went on for three hours and finally we managed to reach the other end of the channel.