My son's first exam.

My son is having "English" examinaton today. Written, Oral... Ok, we made him prepare for that. We were confident about his performance in the test.
Before leaving home for exam, he asks a question not so innocently, "Amma (Mother), what's wrong in copying?". Not exactly a good beginning.;)

A break

I feel my posts are becoming a sort of incomplete, non sensical rants. Let me take a break and change my track. Today I will talk about rearing children. Some observations.

1) Don't promise anything to children.
2) If rule 1 is violated, deliver on promises, and there can be no violation of this pinciple.
3)You prefer educational toys, kids prefer entertainment.
4)Kids don't discriminate between X priced toy and 10X priced toy. Now you know what to buy.
5)Show them the world, preferably one which doesn't tempt them towards toys.
6) A cartoon is a cartoon, there is nothing like good or bad cartoon.
7)The first things you do when you buy a DVD/VCD/Software is to make copy of that, even if you have bought pirated stuff in the first place. Because, for them optical disks at times fall into category of "roughly - handled" toys.
8)A brother is a brother till he doesn't encroach into your domain of "TV time, Parents attention and inventory of toys".
9)It is never too young to lie.
10)Fight fire with fire. And expect more fire.
11)Pour water over fire, nothing is guaranteed.
12) {Lion King, Finding Nemo, Tom and Jerry, Popeye, Bob the Builder..} Holy stuff. Period.

More when I realise more. :)

Companies

What does a business do? Provide goods or services to make life easy. And businesses make profits. What should be done with profits? Reinvest everything. And be accused of lack of social responsibility. How much should a company pay it's employees? And why should Boss recieve multiple times more money thn lower mortals. Supply and demand, I guess.
Why do we hate Bill Gates? (admit that some of us do) Because, he sucks blood out of many people and makes too much money. So what's that guy doing with all that money? He claims that, he is spending that money on AIDS , Malaria...
Ok, if Bill Gates cuts the price of his software by half, are we going to donate the rest half to some poor guy in Asia/Africa? And when he is not doing this, he must be parking his money in banks which pay him a grand 1% interest per annum. Don't we all need money to buy SUVs, Homes at a nominal interest?
Am I justifying the "status quo" and am I believer in "fatalism"? No point crying over the poor. Save those tears and start working. If you can , go ahead , or else, be silent. It's good or you.

"Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful?"

The title seems to be appropriate for my life now. Disclaimer: This is not about depression. This is probably about ennui. Yeah, regular events continue to happen.
But I am waiting for Godot. Ok, I didn't read that play nor intend to. I gather that the summary of the play is that "life is pointless". I don't consider myself qualified to issu such strong statements. But it looks pretty much same now to me.
Yeah, I am aware of things, that can change my present perceptions. But then, I am not in control of those things.
Rain may bring me happiness, but I cannot bring the rain.

Confusing

I will do anything for my friend. I will die if needed for my love. I will look after my parents well. I will help the poor. I will be good towards environment. I will be a Vegan. I will never lie. I won't discriminate againest any individual based on caste, color, creed,..

Am I mixing emotions and morals here? Why should I do anything for my friend? Is he/she not capable of helping himself/herself? Why should I die for my love? Why should I help the poor who are poor not because of me. Good towards environment, do I understand what that means? Vegan, then why de we raise chicken, sheep, cows And why dragon teeth, why? (sorry Amitabh Bachan, I had to imitate) Lying, I see no reason why I shouldn't lie when it suits me. Parents, yeah, I should set a good example to my children and hence look after my parents well. Discrimination, isn't that programmed into my genes. I liked girls with certain common features. I assumed that all dark, heavy set personalities are not to be messed with. (probably under influence of movies)

Where is this going? Emotions, morals, are they acquired or natural responses to allow the principle of "live and let live". Why are we (atleast I am) afraid to investigate these holy cows further? Do we come into this world with an empty slate know as mind and then allow the world to fill that? If it is so, world pushes such information into our brain that will ensure that we are not a threat to world's stability. And once we are sucked into system, we do the same to others, I mean our kids. We will ensure that, they remain no threat to others and hopefully to themselves.

Ok, this is confusing. Sorry for wasting your time.

F-16s and what we should think?

US has decided to release F-16s to Pakistan. We were informed that, probable deal will be for approximately 20 planes and each one costs $ 25 mil.

We also gather from various sources that, there are different generations of F-16s. Pakistan plans to buy 70 planes at a cost of 2.4 Billion dollars.

What will they do with 70 planes? When are we going to have a war and when will they be used?

And are we supposed to quake in our boots and how do we respond.

We are told that America intends to supply us F-18s and will try everything to make us world power. 18 > 16 , rejoice. Celebrate.

Why does Pakistan need the kind of fire power it has? Not for Afghanistan, not for Iran, not for china. I hope nobody disputes that statement.

So if and when needed, american war birds will be used againest India. But then India has to become World Power (with the help of america , that is). So we will use F-18s againest F-16s and we will win. We will beg for food, but we will not sacrifice our strategic interests.

China, who's this new guy? Is china a threat to India? More sensible question will be "Is India a threat to China?". I doubt. China has Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Russia, Vietnam as potential enemies and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar was friends. Do they need another worry?

And what's going to be reason for future wars between India and China. Let us not get 1969 war or future wars based Tibetan plateau.

We spend 15 billion dollars ever yr on defense and I am sure lot of it must be going to Russians, Jews, French,....and if America has it's way, to America too.

Why is offer for F-18 a magnanimous one and not a commercial one? Why do we keep telling and hearing blatant lies. Ok, now don't take me for a socialist , Arundathi Roy type peacenik. I believe I am a practical guy and I deserve more practical view. We need to ask more questions and we deserve more accountability and answers to all questions bar none.

How do I?

Ho do I make money through blog. Hail Google Adsense. What are the kind of ads that get displayed? An educated guess says that (since I was lazy to investigate how adsense works) ads will be related to content of my blog.
So my blog's content should lead to interesting ads which compell visitors to click on those links. The most popular topics according to me are sex, money, jobs, baby shower, marital websites, electronic greeting cards, online payments, airline ticket bookings, chat, H-1 , Greencard info, cinema reviews, old classmates, photos...
Now don't ask me about the list. Accept that, some wisdom cannot be imparted.
So now that my blog entry has all the words, I want google to display all relevant ads and visitors to click on all those links and allow me to buy a house in Bangalore. :)
Ok, this is what many spam sites do, I mean including all keywords, so that their sites show up on every search result sheet.But it's gross. And what I did is display of intelligence. You are with me, right?

Bangalore, My dear Bangalore

I am in Bangalore for Nth time in N-1 days. I love this place. The temperatures, the good looking young people all around, great shopping ambience, soft natured service providers( I mean autowallahs, shop keepers..)
For some strange reason, track pad on my laptop fails when I am in this place. and it's so frustrating. I will have to learn all keyboard commands. I tried many tricks in the book, system restore, drivers uninstall/ reinstall, a tap on back (atleast radios work that way, right?)
Wisdom dawned upon me in dreams yesterday night. Today morning, I started using pen on my Tablet pc aka laptop. That sounded romatic. Truth is, somehow I discovered that possibility only today.
It's difficult to browse porn without a working mouse, oops, to blog, I meant.
Coming back to Dear bangalore, I did some shopping. For those who don't know my shopping habits, I bought some books, few cds and some packaged novel food stuff. Choice in this country is increasing all the time, and I am getting older.:(
After shopping, I voluntereed to save auto expenses and instead walk to my room. Ok, the purpose was to compensate for exercising. After 2 Kms of walk , a 0.001 mm of sweat layer has formed. Good, A complete day, fit for blogging next day.:)
Disclaimer: I do not belong to bangalore and neither is reverse true. I am happy in my village/ small town.

Super Heroes

Superman, Spiderman, Cat Woman, Xmen, .........What's their purpose? When you are a kid, to make you feel secure. Even if you are kidnapped by super villains, don't worry, these guys are good and hence logically will rescue you.
When you are an innocent teenager, to inspire you to do something similar to what they do, in other words, stupid stuff.
When you are grown up, to make you depressed about your ordinary life. You wasted a conisderable portion of life emulating them unsuccessfully.
As for me, Jackie Chan makes me cry about my life being wasted away, forget those super heroes.

Those Good Old Days

Which good old days? The movies were great, the music was great, the friendsips were great, the love was pure, fun was "FUN", people were honest, what's pollution?, kids respected elders, Lecturers taught, sunsets were lovely,......
What is Entropy? Disorderliness increases all the time.
If world was so utopian, why did the whole thing degenrate to what it is today? Who allowed that to happen?
The same losers who keep talking about the good old days. So is entropy caused by frequently nostalgic people. Probably.

Old man and the hut. 

I need money, lots of it.

The other day I have seen a family of 5 people and 2 goats living in 2 huts in middle of nowhere. No electricity and you can imagine the rest "lack of things". 5 members were a old man, his son(assumption), daughter in law, their 2 sons.( again assumption)
I talked to old man. They were sort of nomads. They plan to stay there for 2 months in that place.It didn't seem like they will be making any money above what they need to survive. They looked happy.
Why do I need more money? Because, I am jealous. Real estate guys, lawyers, politicians, police, bureaucrats, naxalites, my friends,...
And most of time I feel all these guys don't deserve the money they are earning. Ok, ok, How do I make money? Start reading self help books, invest in stock markets, do some contracts, stop my expenditure,...
But do I have enough time, aptitude, skills for all these?
Instead, I prefer the state of mind the old guy I met was in.:)

Another Day, Another Collage 

Corruption and Clarity

Ok, by now, everybody is tired of corruption. That is, all non corrupt. Somebody,please define corruption. Bribery is most obvious form of corruption and hence most infamous.
The word is used so frequently, (by likes of me, atleast) that we don't look beyond some self erected walls of perception.
What about nepotism, racism, casteism, religious bigotry, arrogance born out of education (sometimes subsidised)? I wonder, if I have come across somebody who is free of all these things? Probably I didn't look hard enough.
Are we asking for moon, when we wish for corruption free society? Probably we are not made to be sterile. We will have to live with numerous bacteria inside us, copious amount of perverted thoughts inside our brains, corrupt practices around us. Adapt or spend lot of resources on pointless struggle between your "ideals" and "reality". Ideals need not be natural.
Enough if this vague talk. Started reading a Novel today. Came across the following thing which sounds true.
"Nothing was ever achieved by loss of sleep".

Sentiments

Sentiments.

I guess 95% of Indians are sentimental. Don't ask me, how I arrived at that conclusion. It has to be right, given the circumstances Indians grow in. Family, extended family, cinema, mythology, history,.. every important aspect of Indian life is full of sentimentality. Then, why 95% and not 100%?
I believe some become de-sentimentalised. How? Through their education, experiences, exposure to world outside India... When some of us realise that sentiments can be excess baggage, we drop them.
What's better? Being sentimental or being non-sentimental and hence as logical and rational as possible. Hmm, it depends.
Being sentimntal doesn't help with outsiders, intelligent girls, work.
Being non-sentimental doesn't help with family, relatives and 95% of your fellow Indians.
Atleast I can't see one state being very clearly better than other. What am I? Non sentimental, with no obvious advantage of being so.

What can?

What 10 Kms walking can do for you?
a) It will leave you exhausted.
b) Your mind stops working around 6th Km.
c) Your concentration will be super high in the last few kms.I mean on destination.
d) Your appreciation for your classmate who did a marathon increases multiple fold.
e) Your confidence level raises at the end of it.
f) You realise importance of water for Nth time in life.
g) You start thinking about bragging rights.
h) You plan to work out everyday after this to continue to feel good.
i) You blog about your effort.:)
j) You feel you have wasted all the time you have spent in your office, away from nature.

And so on and so forth.
Basically, yesterday I had walked 10 kms for some site inspection on river bed. It was fun. I have photogrpahic proof for that. Will post that soon.Later, friends.

Bluetooth

Ever wondered why "Bluetooth" is named so? It seems he was the guy who unified Denmark and Norway in 10th Century. And everybody knows where these mobile standards, names .. come from.
Ok, this is not meant to be blog for General knowledge. I am actually kind of burdened with too many protocals on my gadgets. Bluetooth, WiFi, Infrared, USB, GPRS,... What shall I use to browse net over my smart phone? How do I transfer images captured on my phone to Laptop?
Can I play a chess game with my son over Infrared or WiFi? How do I transfer and then make sense with data from my GPS? Each question has an answer. But do I have capability to assimilate all this and then take advantage of all these things. And then, what? go for "World Domination".
Yeah, I have got remote chance, if I stop this here and start reading " Manual for Nokia 6600".

Privacy

Ok, now that I have announced my blog to world,( Hyperbole) I have new issues to deal with. A friend was asking me, If I really want to blog. I guess, I understood his question. It's single word "Privacy".
Do I want to reveal everything about my life? Do I want to let others know my habits, online and offline? Do want to expose my ignorance? ...lot of such questions.
It's unortunate that, we live in a kind of environment , where there is no real freedom. If I speak my mind and If I recollect my memories, my existence itself will be at stake. I mean offline existence.;)
So I guess, I will be moderate in my expression, gingerly making my way through minefield called society. Yeah, I will be making mistakes, hurting others and at times myself. But then, it's worth commiting blunders than wondering what it would be like.:)
So I continue with this.

Collage 

Inspired

I knew about blogging for a while as evident from my previous posts. But I have decided to be regular , meaningful and sensible in my blogging habits from now on. (No, not another resolution) Reason for change in attitude. Got inspired from a friend.( And hence the title)
Let's move on to topics.
I took apart a webcam to make it see Infrared light after reading about such experiment on web.
The idea is to take out IR red filter out and then insert a filter which blocks all visible light. (basically a black photo negative will do). I removed screws , and then fiddled with some enclosures. But the lens and the filter are in a metallic enclosure and I have no idea, how to take the IR fliter out. So what next? Reassemble everything? No, not yet.
I had seen for the first time, what CMOS sensor looks like. I had searched for IC numbers and their info on net and foun a bit aout web cams. Basically, webcams are combination of lens, sensor,
raw picture processing chip, memory buffer, power supply unit, USB module. That can be imagined by any tech savy person, but then I derived pleasure from that little learning.
I will post images of diassembled web cam soon.
Later.