$100 LAPTOPS for jumpstarting the Underpriveleged
They are manufactiuring special laptops with 1 GB harddisks and 500 MHz processors for the school kids. Read about it here.
Free Market using P2P – rooting our the very concept of piracy
Problem
The problem with P2P software is that they allow people involved to share media illegally. Due to this the record labels etc are incurring losses.
Solution
We need to integrate the ability to associate the concept of "paid sharing". Simply stated it means that you can configure your Kazaa, WinMX, eDonkey etc to charge a preset amount of money for allowing someone to download a particular file. This simple ability changes the whole dynamics of this problem.
The reason P2P is viewed as "dangerous" by the Record Labels is because of its inability for e-commerce. Due to this, every file shared using P2P is always illegal.
But if paid sharing is implmented an existing record label can also log into any P2P software and dish out new/old content while thier cash registers ring.
The consequences
There is only one problem in this solution. If Mr.X buys a song from Record Label (RL), then he would've to pay something, say $1 per song. Now Mr.X can either charge the same money for that song being downloaded off him, or he can sell it for lesser, say $0.5 / song. This might make his offer more compelling and Mr.Z might then buy the song from Mr.X and not RL.
Due to this, RL might lose on revenue as by each sale, they are actually creating a potential reseller.
The Solution
A possible solution to the above problem would be the "single sale full returns" approach. This approach says that the first sale itself should cover the complete cost price and all the profit that we ever intend to make. i.e. supposing a record company expects to make $10 million on a particular record, then they should sell the first master copy of the record for $10 million itself. As soon as their sale is made, their mouths are shut and they are happy and content with the "money they made".
Now, Mr. X, who has bought this record for $10 million will be able to sell around 10 copies of the record for $2 million each, earning him a hefty profit. The Mr. Ys, who will buy it from him, will sell further 10 copies each for $1 million each and again make a good profit.
This chain will continue until finally the distribution becomes inexpensive or completely free.
endnote
The above solution, if implemented, will solve the issue of piracy completely. Once the whole P2P world starts using "shared payment" then it can actually become a great business to have a broadband connection and be connected to various P2P networks.
The possibilities are endless, P2P auctions, P2P sellers with good 'karma', Banned P2P sellers, Big P2P buyers. The prices can be dynamic, everything should be totally flexibe and unpredictable - that's the only real solution to the problems we face.
Don't try to close the gates, just open them wide and flow with the tide.
Don’t Repeat Yourself
(Don't Repeat Yourself. Don't Repeat Yourself.)
Context:
Duplication (inadvertent or purposeful) can lead to maintenance nightmares, poor factoring, and logical contradictions.
Duplication, and the strong possibility of eventual contradiction, can arise anywhere: in architecture, requirements, code, or documentation. The effects can range from mis-implemented code and developer confusion to complete system failure.
The Mars Climate Orbiter was lost due to a semantic contradiction: part of the system was working in Imperial units, another in Metric. There was a duplication of knowledge (implicit units), and the duplicates were out of step.
One could argue that the most of the difficulty in Y2K remediation is due to the lack of a single date abstraction within any given system; the knowledge of dates and date-handling is widely spread.
The Problem:
But what exactly counts as duplication? Copy-and-paste is generally cited as the chief culprit (see OnceAndOnlyOnce, etc.), but there is more to it than that. Whether in code, architecture, requirements documents, or user documentation, duplication of knowledge - not just text - is the real culprit.
Therefore:
The DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) Principle states:
''Every piece of knowledge must have a single,
unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system.''
It's okay to have mechanical, textual duplication (the equivalent of caching values: a repeatable, automatic derivation of one source file from some meta-level description), as long as the authoritative source is well known.
Analysis of Perception and Feelings
There are many things that make us happy.
Is happiness a consequence of the things that make us happy? or is there another layer of control between perception of a happy situation and the actual feeling of happiness?
[ some happinesss inducing event occurs ] ----> [makes us happy] ?
or
[some happiness inducing event occurs] ---> [the process of perception translates it into an internally measurable entity] ---> [ makes us happy] ?
Differential Web Pages
Anyone who has used an HTML based navigation system for a web-application of any sort realises that there is too much redundant information that has to be loaded each and everytime one navigates to a certain part.
e.g. when you are checking your Yahoo! mail:
The regions circled in red stay the same throughout our usage of Yahoo! Mail.
Now each time you click on a link, all those non-transient parts of the webpage too get loaded again. After each navigational click, we have actually reloaded all the 30kb or so of the webpage. The server treats each page of the application as expired-as-soon-as-rendered and so repeated browser requests will re-load the entire page.
Suppose you are waiting for some important mail (and you don't have Yahoo! Messenger). Then you sign into yahoo, wait at the inbox and keep refreshing the page every 5 mins. For each refresh, you are using re-downloading the 30kb of HTML (the images & css & js will come from the browser cache). This is the worst case of re-downloading redundant data.
As a more general case, around 20% of the webpage is always redundant. The redundant part mainly consists of the header, footer & navigational system.
Diff File: to a direct example to understand what a diff file is:
[file1]
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
[file2]
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog!
[diff_file:file2-file1]
(43)-(.)+(!)
(note: this is just an example to highlight the concept. An actual diff file would have a different format)
The only difference between [file1] & [file2] is the punctuation mark at the end of the line (43rd character).
So the diff file only contains the changes that have to be made to [file1] to get to [file2].
That's how web-pages should be.
The server should just send a diff file rather than the entire web-page.
So only the information needed would be transmitted and the rest of the web-page can remain as it is.
So coming back to the e.g we had started with:
You are refreshing your page every 5 mins to check for new mail.
If you have not got new mail, then the server will return a "null" diff file. finito.
No need to re-download the entire web-page.
Ofcourse, this needs the browsers to be able to read & apply diff files. Might take time. But this technology would respect bandwidth.
Aristotles Metaphysics
http://www.infomotions.com/etexts/philosophy/400BC-301BC/aristotle-metaphysics-77.txt
Just proves that there is nothing like time. Time can't change Truth.
The Tao
At this juncture.. its difficult to know.
Difficult to understand. The simplicity of what I know sometimes just raises the complexities of the lingering doubts.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm
The tao. The master. The way. Untroddable.
Life isnt a journey. Wake up to that. Wake up and see that time really isn't going anywhere. Come out of yourself and see yourself breathe. Laugh at yourself, for you breathe to live. How weak, conceited life is.
There is no life.
Myself
Myself
I want to get bored.
I try hard to. I don't try much. Or maybe I try to much.
I just don't remember when was the last time I felt bored.
Why don't I feel bored.
Maybe I should just lock myself up in a room for a year.
But I don't think that will bore me.
I live. I speculate. I think. As long as I think, I can't get bored.
How are the letters I type coming on to the screen? Why am I feeling soo sleepy? Wghy do I get tired? there are soo many things to learn, to know.
I have evolved from a ME who looked at the world as a store full of things to be learnt.
Now I have changed to a ME who loves everything in the world, but knows that its not possible nor necessary to know everything.
I am more content.
I know me, and so I know everything. I use my mind to forget what my heart knows. I need to do that to fit in.
when was I last wrong?
Its impossible to not think about all that I can think of.
But I can think about nothing.
I can stop thinking.
I can stop.
I can.
I don't.
Why not?
Should I be thinking about that as well?
The more you know, the more you know about how less you know.
Why is getting humbled so important to keep a human being sane?
I live through life, and I keep asking myself, "When was the last time I was wrong?".
If I can't answer it fast enough, then I know I am drifting away. I know I am entering the self-dug pit. The way I am, it needs a lot of conscious effort to stay the way I need to.
When you can't remember when was the last time you were wrong, you are in serious trouble. Please make an effort to be wrong. Make an effort to recognise and be open to the fact that you can be wrong. Make an effort to remember all the times you have been wrong.
You are on the right track as long as you are doubtful. If the track has become safe and predictable, then you need to panic. You are on your way to death.
Death has nothing to do with the heartbeat. It has everything to do with the heart. The heart as we define as the centre of self. not the clinical heart.
You are dying, when you are not experiencing, all the emotions.
If you are always worried, anxious, upset etc, you are dead.
If you are always happy, positive etc, again you are dead.
The latter seems hard to believe, we have been taught to recognise it as a good trait.
But, sorrow & pain are very important. They keep us alive. They provide a yardstick for all the happiness our conscious self craves for.
LIVE. Be ALIVE.
When you are reading, its your conscious self reading and comprehending. The subconscious cannot be directly reached through text.
Consciously, we need to be positive, happy & good. Hence, all conventional education disperses good thoughts.
Bad thoughts are necessary as well, but they are indirect consequences. They don't have to be taught.
Our ancestors have struck the right balance. Humanity's survival thrives on the battle between the good and the bad. It doesn't thrive on the good. It thrives on the battle between good & evil. Take the evil out (as if you can - its inconcievable) and humanity is over.
And yes, its true. But if you are reading this, its your conscious self, and your conscious self is not supposed to be aware of this. And your subconscious already knows what it should know.
So I am not really supposed to be writing anything here.
What is the writing serving? Its helping me?
Do I need help?
I need unhelp. If I can get that. But first I need to define what I mean by "unhelp". And I will proudly assert that I am unable to define it.
I derive a lot of satisfaction in stating I dont know, and there's no way I can know; in short - I cannot know.
I love saying that. Coz there are very few things I can talk about that way.
Most things can be rationally classified as "knowable". I don't know many things. But I can know if I really really want to. But there is one thing (which is everything) which just cannot be known. I love that the most. I hate that the most. I that.
I that ( Subject + Object). There is an incomplete predicate in this sentence. There is no verb. I am not stating any relation between "I" & "that", no verb.
"I that".
This is the closest I can come to express how I feel as of now. This is a glimpse of reality.
Reality knows no logic. Hence its interpretations are logicless.
I worship logic, yet I that.
I dont know how. But I dont care.
I just that.
And life suddenly changes:
its no longer a long winding road with my past behind me and the future up ahead of me, with those high mountains and trees and birds and great sights all along it.
Its only Me.
Now. word by word, alphabet by alphabet, I am taking birth, living my life and dying.
Did you know me?
Will you know me?
Do you know me?
Do you have any memories of tomorrow?
confirmations
Conformations
http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html
Yes. It all makes sense.
I have seen it. Felt it. Been it. And I don't know why LOVE is the only word that seems to be able to accomodate this feeling.
Thought unifier
do not know which is the best place to put this up.
Maybe unification in my thoughts and work
What I now propose to work on is a radical
way of thought. Thought has long evaded written record coz of our
inability to document it.
I am a philosopher. I think for a living. for my own
living. I cant live without thought.
I belive in my beliefs.
One of my beliefs is that whatever I know is not mine. I am just
materially stating something which is a subset of the Truth as a whole.
That Truth that cannot be stated. Maybe it makes me
style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">humble
ferent way. I dont claim that its god who has finally endowed
me with the ability to state such things and its all His doing. I dont
separate god from me. He is not a separate entity which rules and
governs me, or even creates me and people like me. He is me. God is me.
god is you. God is everything I see, feel and percieve.
When I speak, I speak of him? No, rather, I speak Him. I speak
style="font-weight: bold;">God.
So, my thoughts, my philopohies, might be radical, might be different,
I may be an 'original' thinker. But I am not. My mind is just borrowing
knowledge from my subconscious which has somehow tapped into the Truth.
I have not tapped into it completely. But we as humans have
collectively experienced the truth. Just that the expereince gets
broken down and we experience it individually in small parts. And those
small parts arent enough to satisfy us. We do like the first rains. We
do like the sunset. We do like the baby's smile. But we want more. We
cant seem to be content with the knowledge that after all this is a
part of the ulimate thing we look for.
I propose something. I am a coder by skill. I
code. I write programs. This part is generally listed in my weblog. But
the nature of this is more philosophical. And hell, coding is
philosophical in nature.
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">We all
is right...what is wrong.
em to know it.
just dont want to consciouly give it much thought.
I propose to have a system which helps many users contribute to a
thought which derives itself from various other thoughts. Its a complex
cross-linked system. I have the brains to think of it, and the
programming brawn to make it. But it will take quite a lot of my time.
style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">But I have all the time
in the world.
e on that later.
sense
sometimes things just dont make sense. Those are the best times. thats when u are totally alive. relish those moments.
sometimes things make a lot of sense, those are alive moments as well. cherish all extremeties equally. those extremities are essentially just the same.
i have chosen a path. a way of life. its not a way leading anywhere. in that respect its not a way at all. its a state of being. its a stand i take. we do not necessarily move through life. we just live life. life isnt going forward or backword. its just that our understanding is conditional, and conditional knowledge utilises cause-n-effect which eseentially requires time to atleast apparently be increasing/decreasing.
our ordinary perceptions themselves are based on time. its difficult to understand or relate to the timelessness theory. but thats the only ting which seems true. my heart accepts it. its true.
Valentine’s Day?
Valentine's Day?
the world. futile. things dont need to make sense. they never need to make sense.
What do you mean by things making sense. When something makes sense to you, it means that you are able to understand it. Why do we need to understand everything? It again has its answers in evolution.
Life is all about survival. Everything we do, from breathing to being polite to our elders, or laughing or enjoying or feeling sad or angry, all of it springs forth from our sense of survival.
Initially brawn was the gateway to long survival. But in due time, as man evolved (i dunno what prompted man's evolution along this direction) he realised that knowledge is also a vital component to survival. The more we know, the better out chances to defend ourselves. But knowledge on its own becomes too volumnous to retain. An easier way of knowing things is by understanding them. If we understand something, then we are able to retain it better, and use it better.
Since then, man has had this unqenchable quest for knowing things. but the more we probe, the more complicated it gets.
So I believe the biggest curse on a human is his ability to ask 'Why' !
Imagine. Life wud have been so much more simpler if we didnt have the mind to ask why. But in that case, our minds wouldnt have been evolved to appreciate the simplicity of existence.
So we come full circle. The best way to deal with such things is to not want to deal with them. Take things as they come. And listen to your heart.
In today's world we believe that we are all individuals seperate from each other. Thats the modern understanding of this entity called human.
What this understanding masks is the fact that we really are not discernable. We all are just functional parts of the whole system. Just like there are billions of cells keeping us alive. They are individuals, but yet they achieve the common purpose.
How does a cell know what it is supposed to do? THe DNA holds instructions for it.
How does a human know what he is supposed to do in life? The heart holds the knowledge needed.
The heart is very different from the emotions. The heart is not the voices in your head. The heart is the things that we just know.
You know there are times when you just know what you have to do. Thats when your heart is speaking. If you dont ever feel this way, then probably you have forgotten yourself. It wouldnt be your fault. The modern world, though recognising a person as an individual, does not recognise man's emotions. I am talking about technology.
The only places where technology rises above the material is where it sees that to market itself, it has to take care of two things:
It should feed the lazy attitude of man.
It should be aesthetically pleasing.
These are the only human yardsticks as far as technology goes. Mental states, the mind, the emotions are of little importance for technology to progress. Technology is founded upon 'abstract' observations and knowlegde. There is no room for emotions in Newtons third law of motion. A very real law would state :
When an observer, whose state of mind falls in to the category of a general cross-section of people who will read this law, sees an action being performed, he finds that for that action to take place, and equal and opposite reaction is also taking place on the body doing the action.
In our quest to be succint, we kill even the slight thin chance of the heart being able to influence what we materially percieve.
Me
The human mind learns by relation.
To learn something new, I relate it with something I know. That way I can learn
anything new. If the amount of overlap is more then I retain it better.
So that means, probably everything I know must be related in some wierd way to
the first flash of a red toy that my eyes registered. Say I saw a red bell.
registered. then i saw my mom. not red. larger. registered. and so on.
but what did i relate the red toy to? i related it to my mom as soon as i saw
her.
so the relation is interdependant. I wud find it very difficult to retain an
absolute image of a red toy, had it not been for something else i remembered by
relating it to it.
So that means that relational memory works both ways.
So it becomes tough to understand things you cant relate to. I have drifted
into a different state of consciousness since 2 years now. Life looks
different. Its like a huge paradigm shift in my relational database. The same
things appear different. Since I have experienced it I know its possible. It takes a lot to ignore the atoms inside everything I see. I find it difficult to be oblivious to the iron hand of the system around us. I feel blissed to be a part of it. And i feel glad to have the heart I have. And my heart makes me feel glad. There is no want. no room for any want.
Its impossible to be able to relate to the me I am. I would have considered myself a freak 2 years ago.
I just look at myself from an aquaintance's point of view.
this guy is always smiling. Always busy. doing something. And he always helps. Why? Whats the big picture here? What does he have in his mind? What is he thinking? Whats the intention behind this?
These people lose out on knowing me. They cant understand me. because they cant relate to me. I am the red toy they need to relate everything else to. Only then they will be able to retain the red toy.
there are some people..some of my close friends who have great minds. they are able to "know" me .. without being able to relate to me. I wudnt be able to do it.
There is only a one line defination for me. I do what i feel.
CO & Buddha
A lot of people wud hate me.
Here I am, I know everything. Almost. Enuff to get me 55/100 even if i write the paper right now. Both, Object Oriented Programming & Computer Organisation.
And I have time to study more. But I won't. I can't. I am unable to. I am not in the mood. It doesnt interest me anymore. Its not a challenge enuff, coz its surmountable. I have not surmounted it. Its just surmountable. If i know i can do it, I dont feel like doing it anymore. I need that uncertainity to drive me to do it. Thats why I do things whose outcome is uncertain. What good is doing somethin you already know. It should serve some purpose, and the dynamic variables shouldnt be under your direct control. Thats what life is about.
Life is so interesting coz we arent in control of it. Thats why its life. If we cud control it, it wudn't be alive.
We still havent understood how to bring something to life.
But we know how to kill. Man has always known how to kill. But Life is uncertain. Thats why we value it.
Uncertainity springs forth from the uncertainity principle we studied in physics. We have never been told the importance of it. Infact, its a yardstick. Imagine the degradation of education, when somethin from which life springs forth is presented as a cold, gray, ugly formula. It has no relevance to anything real. The books we study have even abstracted Einstein. Newton cud be abstracted. He was rational. Einstein was the first person to be able to forcefully tell the world that there was somethin fundamentally wrong with the science we had grown comfortable with. Since then, things have changed. People have tried but failed to prove most of his things wrong.
What matters is not what he ended up saying. No, that doesnt matter. The way he thought, the way he saw things. that was the key. what his theories ended up being is just a consequence of his existence. his existence didnt depend on their coming forth. he lived in what he spoke of. he was "with it".
we need to find it. rather just wake up to it. just realise it around us.
Budhhism says " every human is born a Budhha. He just forgets how to be Budhha."
Buddhism is all about remembering what we really are. Knowing what we really are. Buddha wasnt a person. He was a gateway to 'reality'. That entity, the completeness is called Budhha. He personified it in the material world of us mental mortals.
We spend our whole life trying to be happy. If we cud just spend some time trying to understand what happiness is all about we wud look at things a lot differently.
