Vayu
Shortest blog I have written!!!
NBC Revelations - review -crap
Nuclear attack - it is real
Question: Do we have nuclear weapons being used anywhere in the world after japan?
Most people's answer: No. We have threats, but no one fights with nuclear weapons anymore. There are nuclear bomb tests but it is never used as a weapon in an actual war.
Correct answer: It is widely used by the american military in middle-east. They use depleted uranium weapons. These weapons function as normal weapons with except that they are not in the magnitude or intensity as a full scale atom bomb. The half life of uranium is around 4 billion years, so where ever they use it, those people and all their future generations are pretty much screwed. I read this in my campus news paper and I am not sure how accurate this is, however, this brings serious issued into consideration. the validity, truth and reason for the war. Not sure if they will use such weapons on this side of atlantic for any reason.
Idiots
I read
this in hindu. Complete morons, absolute F$%#(%@# a#%^#$^$# and other non-mentionable unparliamentary words. Why do they want to irritate people like this. We have given power and money and have put up with your corruption and nonsense so that you would let us be in peace and you come hounding back at us. Every single politician who stages a road roko during busy morning hours, disturbs traffic etc should be put in jail for one year, non-bailable or better.....shifted to gobi desert. Idiots.
Overweight
I am trying to lose weight for the past 3 months and it doesnt seem to happen. For my perfect..perfect body I have to lose another 10 pounds. My weight is stuck at 170lbs. I have tried dieting, gym, running,..believe me even getting sick. It just refuses to go. But cant give in now. summer is the best time to lose weight. So, I have decided to jog....just jog, no weights and stuff. Yesterday I ran for around 2 miles. Before the end of this week, I wanna cover 3 to 3 1/2 miles. Sometime back, one of my friends had told me that a mini-marathon is equivivalent to 13 miles. So should reach that. Also, eventually, I wanna try this triathlon. If I keep up with these and control my eating habits a bit, I should be able to lose those nasty 10 pounds in about 2 months. Only then lifting weights would make any sense to me. Frankly, I am SICK and TIRED of being overweight. No more to love handles.Period.
Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate - jones' law, thomas jones
Funny law, but quite true. I came across this, while reading my quantum computation book.
What can we do?
I have seen and been involved in so many conversations about the future and development of india (I mean friday night vetti talks!!!). However, every participant and their aspirations are just one, development of my country. I used to wonder what I can do. I cannot go like the guy in yuva and enter politics. Quite unlikely. And there are so many more like me who want to do some good. I think each of us can do something little, even if it is microscopic it is does not matter. Simple things like rain water harwesting at homes, sending money to educate one single kid, buying a few dollors worth of books and other supplies for a poor student, donating like $5 on your birthday...small gestures like these are more than enough. When changes occur at microscopic level, they sometimes bring macroscopic results.
Hinduism - a fiction?
When I went through sam's blogs as I usually do, I came across this article on adivasis and RSS. I am not quite sure what is the point sam wants to make apart from conversion hullabolla. Anyway, it is quite true that adivasis have their own gods, forest spirits and other forms of nature workship. So, quite naturally, by definition of monotheistic foreign religions, they are not part of hinduism. So, if RSS "reconverts" them back to hinduism's fold it is quite right to call it an conversion of a different kind. In that the author and quite possibly sam is right too. However, from my point of view, I dont understand the concept of conversion at all, whoever does that. Why is the overbearing need to tell someone that their god is right/wrong etc. It does not make much sense to me. Secondly the only difference between RSS and missionary conversion can be probably felt in culture of the people. Christianity inherently rejects anyother gods and has strict codes of worship. So, quite naturally it will kill the age old beliefs of the people. On the other hand, RSS conversion to hinduism would not (guess so!!!) do such a damage to their already fragile cultural and religious beliefs. Finally, from my point of view, God a, God b, God c etc does not make much sense at all. It boils down to what date you celebrate a festival, what kind of vocal inflections you produce in/about praise of that God, what stories we tell our children, what books we consider sacred and if god will save us one way or the other. Most of the religious practice today is selfish. All religions are man made, all religious texts are writted and edited by men. On a further note for RSS, if RSS has the same vigour for abolition of caste , I would greatly appreciate that. Dont see that happening, wonder why!!!!????
Facts about chennai /Tamil nadu- how hype puts others before it
We have been reading about how bangalore and hyderabad leads in IT industry in india and still being repeated often. For facts,
Tamil nadu is the second largest exporter if IT and ITES, second to karnataka.
Chennai is the most preferred destination of investements in software sector.
By 2008, chennai is expected to replace bangalore as the IT destination of india.
It is the most urbanized state in india, nearly 44% of its population live in cities.
It has the highest yield per acre in agricutural produce.
It has the second highest literacy rate in india, only after much smaller state of kerala.
It has one of the best social indicators and human development factors in india, comparable to the rest of the developed world.
It has the lowest child mortality rate, highest woman literacy, lowest birth rate etc.
It has the largest leather exporting capabilities in india.
It is the home of world bank's only second office outside its headquarters.
It is the fourth biggest metropolis in india.
What you dont percieve if you visit the city or read about the city is....
not many high rise buildings inside the city - reason: High rise building have a purpose, compensation for the lack of space. Chennai has lot of space and government carefully avoids giving permission for high rise building, lest resulting in the congestion like bangalore.
Orthodox-reason: That is the nature of the city. People would rather save money than to spend it on travel, clothes or eating out. What matters is the work ethics.
Silicon valley, technopolis, knowledge gateway- these mean nothing many in chennai. If you ask them, they would simply shrug the shoulders and say whats the difference. To many from state (not just chennai), computers is a household name. you can find cellphones/internet even in villages. They actively encourage their children to learn computers irrespective of the fact what careers they might take. It has one of the largest concentration, pool and impact of software professionals in india. It products one of the highest numbers of science/technology/engineering graduates in india.
What is true is , it is NOT is the first place. This is probably the reason for the "hypers" not showing much attention to chennai. Unusual and unlike every other state in india, the growth is wide spread and not concentrated.
Typical RA (grad)
Being one and one who has seen many, I can picturize an indian RA here in US with pretty good accuracy. Firstly, you can see him walking across the corridor (sometimes with items like papers, coffee mug, water bottle, pencil, key chain with lot of keys and other assorted items) for no apparent reason. He does this deligently several times a day. For a naive or a new person, he is busy doing something. He typically starts his work(if you call checking emails!!!) around 10am or later. He staggers though his lectures, lunch, smoking(if he is one) and several pieces of unregulated talks with his fellow RAs. If he is in a flurry of activity, know that he has a meeting with his boss that day. He is the person who keeps janitors company late in the night, when he supposedly does research (read google search!). On rare occasion you witness him in all his splendor, talking about his research. However, dont be cowed by statements like, "convex function which is entirely not postive definite", "asymptotic response of reliability curves for dual CMOS" or by his philosophical ramblings about the relative merits of simulation using cadence when compared to mentor graphics, know that he is just kidding. Eventually he figures out something, sometime, from somewhere in his research and produces a thesis. In in all he is quite harmless, tries to work hard but eventually a typical india grad student.
7G rainbow colony
I happened to see this movie days few backs albeit in telugu. It didnot matter much since there were sub-titles. My friend said he liked the movie and somehow I couldnot reciprocate in kind. Something about that movie was irritating to me and I couldn't figure out what. Eventually I did understand why I felt that way about this movie. Firstly, the hero was a useless bum. That's exactly how they portray him. Even his success has to come at the expense of a girl's future and life, it stinks. Secondly, in stories of this kind, the girl's prospective husband has to be bad, else how can you justify hero's actions. If we replace that bad guy, by say madhavan's character in "Alaipayudhey", not sure how many would have found the hero's love acceptable. The girl was shown studying and initially uninterested with the guy. Not sure how much sense it is to distract that girl from her studies. May be she would eventually have had a productive career. But for this guy's interference in her life she would have settled happily in her life. Now, coming to this hero, he has total disregard for his entire family, his future and pretty much everything except his own happiness even if it is at someone else's expense. Only in movies he would get parents, girl-friend and a job. It is not what each person can do or even how much each person does in life. What finally makes difference is how much wealth each person's work creates. So, except for the fact that this movie is taken very well, it would be a gross misjudgement to call it a good movie.
Wonder why???!!!!
Why is that women go into periodic self-control loss resulting in a major setback of man's budget. Not that men are full of scruples, but women tend to do it in a much convincing and charming manner. Have you ever been in a shopping mall with a woman. The minute (rather second!) they enter the mall, they tend to have this dreamy haze over their eyes. Instinctively, they become telepathic with rest of their kind. Be it your wife, girl-friend, mom, sister, daughter......all of their bitter, life threatening rivalries vanish the second they enter the cloth store. I really cant understand the pleasure they get in changing 17 different tops with equally varying bottoms (skirts, capri, pants...i dunno..seems a lot) and discussing in all earnestness about the relative merits of rose background with red flowers or white background with yellow flowers (for all I know, both are horrendous). After spending a satisfying 4 to 5 hours heart renching discussion about every available dress in the shop and about every available dress each of them have ever worn, they depart ....huh!, well to the cosmetic shop. Till this day, never had the guts to enter that tavern...it is too rough, i heard.
