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Showing posts from October, 2007

Barcamp Bangalore collectives registrations open

Well the registration for the collectives have began. If you think there is some topic to be discussed at barcamp, then go ahead and register. Here is how to do that.   http://barcampbangalore.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4 But before that I feel everyone must read this http://barcampbangalore.org/wiki/BCB5_Collective_Approach It explains you about what to expect from Barcamp and Collectives. Really its been written in an excellent manner by Shourya Sarcar . A must read for all Barcampers new and old timers both.

Theory of Success and Productivity!!!!

I today got this amazing story to read from the master of 'office humor', Scott Adams . Usually he would write the stuff in a very discrete and sarcastic way. But today he missed the bigger point. So here is that point for u. There are two ingeniously stupid researchers who have come up with something interesting. This actually is worth the igNobel or "No Balls" if not the Nobel Prize. Research 1 says that Happiness = success. Research 2 says that Sadness = productivity. Now if I say that both researchers are earnestly true then I can form some real good mathematical equations. Sadness = No Happiness. Since Happiness = success, Sadness = No success. Hmmm now is the fun, as Sadness = Productivity , we can say that, Productivity = No Success Now effectively, No Productivity = Success. This clearly proves that harder you work, less successful you would be and your appraisal will reflect that. So for more success work less. If you have worked hard

Those 8 Questions - Question 6

The dictionary defines "faith" as belief without evidence. It defines "stupidity" as unreasoned thinking. Is faith without evidence a form of unreasoned thinking? Seems so very obvious isn't it. But if you tell the same in case of Ram Setu, well it seems all too obvious. But amazingly this was the very thing I was trying oppose . I had talked about how important is faith for every Indian. So whats wrong with it. Well faith whatsoever it may be is something which you believe in and has not been disproved. Its not just a belief without evidence rather its a belief with no contradicting evidence or unexplained phenomenon justified by some means. Your faith in those changes as soon as you find a logical or scientific explanation. The planetary positions and sun being center of the solar system were explained differently before Galileo came up with the proof, that was faith. Yes at times when people start believing in faith without any logic or reas

Those 8 Questions - Question 5

Is consciousness anything more than a continual process of imagining, acting, observing the impact of the action, and imagining again with new information? The above statement to anyone would seem like the most correct at first glance. It would seem the most rational statement. But consciousness is being able to obverse whatever is happening around. Thats all. A person who is kind of disabled is also conscious. He knows what is happening around. He would do nothing but be conscious none the less. Funnily any person lost in his ego does the some action but can you really call him conscious. Well actually not because he is lost in his own parallel reality. By the time the ego starts taking the backstage, he would rather want to see his parallel world than the real world. So what is consciousness? I believe consciousness does not involve the step of imagining or acting. Its just observing is consciousness. If you can feel and understand the situation then its enough f

Meeting with IT Secretary, Govt. of Karnataka

Thanks to the blogging and the bloggers community especially Prashanth from Techbangalore.com I got invite to meet IT Secretary of Govt of Karnataka, Mr M.N. Vidyashankar. Frankly I wasnt much prepared for the conversation expect the fact I work for an IT company. Along with me were Hari , Arun and Prashanth . Mr M.N. Vidyashankar received us at his office. He started with great enthusiasm explaining us what Bangalore is for IT. He stated certain facts that showed how much IT meant for Karnataka. He was clear that IT could not be ignored at all, after all 26% of Karnataka's GDP comes from in there although to India's GDP it contributes a mere 4%. With 4.9lakh plus people employed by the industry it was bigger than the state which is around 4.5 lakhs. He told us that infrastructure crunch was the reason why around 18 months back heads started rolling. 10000 acre Knowledge City at Biradi is the outcome of that. Bigger plan is get 5 such self contained townships with over 6000

Planning towards Barcamp Bangalore 07 Winter Edition

Well the heads rolled this weekend again on what should be the Barcamp Bangalore 07 Winter Edition. A lot of hot debates and responsibilities being shared between people. Sponsorship, marketing, logistics etc being taken up. Besides these a few fundamental principles were formed for Barcamp Bangalore 07 Winter Edition. Firstly Collective based approach was to be repeated. Yes there was a hot debate on it with people getting into each others point well. In the end it was decided to continue with the "Collectives" Experiment. Second should we restrict Barcamp to Tech only. Last Barcamp had gone beyond that. There were collectives like photography, biking and unband. Certain participants felt that this was diluting the whole atmosphere from being a bleed-edge tech discussion forum to a milder, do-all discussion forum. So it was finally decided that we should make a Barcamp a forum to create a ecosystem where multi-disciplinary activities take place. I wish to see some new ag

Those 8 Questions - Question 4

Why would God be so unclear about what book or books  he authored? Well does God have no better work to do than to copyright and get royalty for them. He would right 'N' different books telling each of the regions duds a different stories. He would tell them a different story so that each one of them is confused about Him and they would never find the real truth about Him. Yeah really if you believe that God wrote all those books then this is the only explanation. Obviously God never wrote even one of the word in those books. It were mere imagination or exaggeration  of what they saw happening all around them. Their fears were tied to stories by the more intelligent ones so they could overcome their fears. If you believe too much in them, then I am sorry but thats what I believe. PS: This continues as a series of questions posed as explained here . Other related posts are: http://the100rabh.blogspot.com/2007/10/those-8-questions-question-3.html http://the100rabh.blogs

Those 8 Questions - Question 3

Would an omnipotent being need to think in the way that people understand it? Or is thinking unnecessary for a timeless, indestructible being whose preferences are the same as reality? If we say that its true then God is just another human. Well personification of God is there in almost all religions of the world. In a sense we actually reduce the complexity of being God just enough so that we can make some sense out of Him. But then the big question still there is that is reason for human life a conscious effort or is it merely a coincidence of right things being there at the right places. Its really interesting to think about possibilities and not concretely prove anything. Thats the thing that many people around the world, not just in India, are exploiting to make people believe that they have the sole ownership on the right way of life and God is with them. But then my next question is that, if God is with you then why are you still suffering and why you still ne

Are humans the product of a skilled or an unskilled designer?

Are Humans perfect. Well the answer obviously is no. As Scott Adams would like to say "If God is so smart why so you fart". If you look carefully at the human body you would obviously marvel at the creators skills. So calling the designer unskilled is actually sad if not wrong. That would definitely be the view of a pessimist soul. But if think logically even the best of professional  fails make things perfect. So you can forgive our creator for all that is there which is not perfected. With the presently available information all I can say is that our creator is studying us. He wants to make never version of humans as he has been doing for all these years. Since humans are not perfect he will surely create something better. When is the question yet to be answered. Let see when that happens.

Barcamp Bangalore 07 Winter Edition Kickoff

Barcamp kickoff meet was there at India Coffee House at MG Road. I reached there just in time to find the Barcamp regulars Arun, Hari, Jace a.k.a. Kiran(I found out that day), Srinivas and Keshav among others whom I kind of met for the first time. Since I was there before others could join in, I had a little chit-chat with them. One thing was clear to me at that time, Collectives or no Collectives would be the hot topic. Soon more people joined us, among those who I remember are Vinoo, Manasi and Kiruba. Well actually there were too many to remember and without the list from Hari I dont think I can recall all names :-( Another important mention that I would make here is Aditya who joined us on phone. Well as I had predicted Collectives or no Collectives drove the discussion. Most of us made it amply clear that collectives are required but we need to buck up the communications part. Another suggestion was to make the collectives instead of folder like, make them tag like. But frankl

Why Vodka?

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One stupid and innovative Australian tried to commit suicide by drinking an antifreeze compound. Just as diamond is used to cut a diamond the doctors found the antidote in alcohol. Alcohol is an antifreeze . But very soon the chemist was out of stock. So they used Vodka instead.  This incident leaves me wondering, was vodka the fav of the gentleman in question or the doc, so that he could have some for free. Then again why not beer or rather Fosters(Oz for beer). Why not some good quality wine or a vintage whisky. After all wine, whisky and vodka all have same quantity of alcohol. Another thought is that may be all this is a publicity stunt by the Vodka maker who are accumulating losses. Is Vodka really cheap out there that the docs preferred vodka to anything else. Whatever be the case one thing is for sure, that poor chap is going to have a real bad hangover. Where are the anti-hangover pill makers, you have a good customer here or may be a Model(provided he gets over the ha

Google guys are just too good

I think you guys must have had a real good experience searching on Google. No wonder they have a very good algorithm but then that too us susceptible to spam so you cant really have 100% reliability on that. That was the question that made me think that googlrithm is more complex than what it seems. And yesterday night I got that light from my thinking bulb. At first when Google introduced Google Sitemaps and Google Analytics. No one would have suspected it to have any consequences on search. But now I realize that the assumption is perhaps wrong. So heres my hypothesis on how Google makes it happen. Well every webmaster now by default goes to Google Sitemaps to get his site in the list. The webmaster would get information like his indexed pages, when his page was indexed and what searches picked up his pages and at what rank. It also records for which searches his site was visited. Great now you know who visited your site for what result. But then Google also knows. From here Google

If you suspected you were deluded, how could you find out for sure? : Those 8 questions answered

So the big questions is how would you find out if you were deluded. I tried to solve this problem in the same way as I do with my computer science problem. Relate to the problem in a different manner. Try and imagine that same problem in a different perspective. So in this case I replace a delude self with a blind man. Now if one fine day due to some neurological miracle he begins to see. But the catch is that what he is seeing is imaginary most of the time. Now this guy will never be able to find out what is that he is watching is not imaginary. The way out, is that he can ask someone else about the correctness of the situation. But what is the other person too is having a kind of hallucination. And if there is too much of faith involved then the logic and truth are doomed for life. Ultimate solution could be testing the facts for truth yourself. Now take for example there is a magical act. How do you test for truthfulness. Well only tools that you have are openness of your mind and t

Those 8 questions

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I read this book called Religious Wars by Scott Adams. It was a rather interesting take on the current world situation. The usual humor writer whom we associate with Dilbert has now given a rather different view. Seems like he has grown old finally . He posed the following questions. 1. If you suspected you were deluded, how could you find out for sure? 2. Are humans the product of a skilled or an unskilled designer? 3. Would an omnipotent being need to think in the way that people understand it? Or is thinking unnecessary for a timeless, indestructible being whose preferences are the same as reality? 4. Why would God be so unclear about what book or books he authored? 5. Is consciousness anything more than a continual process of imagining, acting, observing the impact of the action, and imagining again with new information? 6. The dictionary defines "faith" as belief without evidence. It defines "stupidity" a