26Jan/07
India got it's freedom on 15th August, 1947. It is referred to as the Independance Day.
The constitution of India was formed on 26th January, 1950. It is referred to as the Republic Day.
Both days are national holidays in India.
26th January 1950 is one of the most important days in Indian history as it was on this day the constitution of India came into force and India became a truly sovereign state. In this day India became a totally republican unit. The country finally realized the dream of Mahatma Gandhi and the numerous freedom fighters who, fought for and sacrificed their lives for the Independence of their country. So, the 26th of January was decreed a national holiday and has been recognized and celebrated as the Republic Day of India, ever since.
[via Tajonline]
Today I feel a lot can be learned from this 57 year old Democracy constituting of 1 billion people. Specifically, the electronic voting system in India is a great showcase of simple genius.
To mark the ocassion, the Indian Students Association at Umich held a flag hoisting ceremony. Only 20-30 Indians were brave enough to show up in frigid weather. They missed the laddoos 
11Dec/06
Does having playlists of mp3s in random order mask the "full album" experience that we used to have a not so long time ago? Back in the tape days, I would have complete albums which I would play and get used to - discovering more songs, hearing the artists' (or music label's) version of what they value and in what order.
Anyone who has heard albums like "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd would probably feel unhappy when they meet people who have only heard an individual song from that album. Unless one has experienced the continuity of the entire album, the heart-beats and voices in between songs, one can not fully appreciate why it was one of the longest running albums of all times (It was on US Billboard Top 200 for 741 weeks).
But today, more and more people are listening to only individual songs. I always felt like an old purist debating the sanctity of the complete album, but I just became aware of how our listening behavior can actually destroy the concept of an album altogether. This gentleman has explained how the science of economics will catch up with our listening experiences.
Maybe individual songs could be priced in such a way that it would be cheaper to download a complete album; that would be one incentive to make people still download all songs from an album. Or maybe people can use one of the subscription services from Yahoo or URGE. [I am working on a comparative review on Yahoo Music Unlimited 2 Go and URGE All Access To Go. I have used them both, but currently am siding with URGE for reasons I will explain in the review]. These services do allow complete album downloads and URGE seems like a savior since it really retains the flavor of the complete album; it even throws in an album review from All Music Guide in the mix.
I sincerely hope the album does not die. But I am not sure if I am simply resisting a good new-age trend or am concerned about the loss of an experience which is too valuable to forgo.
23Oct/06
Jimmy Wales is asking people to come up with ideas and suggestions about what premium content they would like to be freed up and made available in the public domain if they had the money to do it.
Dream big. Imagine there existed a budget of $100 million to purchase
copyrights to be made available under a free license. What would you
like to see purchased and released under a free license?
Seems very interesting.
29Jun/06
Darfur is Dying
A very touching and potent way of highlighting the problems in Sudan. A free flash-based game that puts you as one of the thousands of people living a life of unrest.
8Aug/05
4Aug/05
This is a field that is maturing fast and it is very significant.
Fossil fuels (gasoline, petrol) are getting over. We need to find alternative sources of fuels. Until we find total replacements for the present fuel sources, we need to work on increasing the efficiency to help complete utilization of whatever is left of it.
Hybrid cars are a very good example of it.
Most fuel engines (pistons & cylinders) are tuned for high efficiency at average-speeds (say 40-60kmps - correct me if I am wrong, I am not an Automobile Engineer). So we tend to waste a lot of fuel when we start a car or are running it at low speeds in urban traffic.
An electrical engine(electromagnet & motors) on the other hand is efficient over a wider range of speeds, including the very low speeds. But we can not carry such heavy batteries in our cars to go just 100 km.
So what do we do? We combine both fuel engines and electrical engines. We use the electrical engine at low speeds, and fuel engine at higher speeds. So fuel is utilized most efficiently.
Aah, but where do we get the electricity from? Do we stil use batteries? No! We use regenerative braking. Everytime we break the car (which happens most in Urban traffic), instead of using friction to stop the car, we generate electricity (maybe using induction - again correct me if I am wrong). We store this electricity in a buffer fuel cell, and use it to drive the electrical motors at low speeds.
So we have effectively increased the milage by a large amount.
Read more about it at 
Or read the complete information at Howstuffworks "How Hybrid Cars Work"
And then there are organisations like NRDC which are asking people to break the chain - of dependance on fossil fuels. Read more about it here.
3Jul/05
They are manufactiuring special laptops with 1 GB harddisks and 500 MHz processors for the school kids. Read about it here.
20Dec/04
Click here to read it.
An interesting article with a very clear stand on the issue.
28Nov/03
Clinging to life - why?
I have always admired the way we cling on to dear life. Everything we do springs forth from that desire to survive.
Some actions are dictated by the desire to preserve our own lives. Others are dictated by indirect needs to preserve the lives of our loved ones. Still other actions are dictated by an even indirect and almost unconscious desire to preserve mankind. Infact all the the things we hold are precious are precious to us because them being precious helps us preserve our race.
Ofcourse, we realise that survival of our race depends upon the survival of our surroundings..so ideally our compassion extends to everything around us.
9Aug/03
Cannibals - Mark Knopfler
"Daddy, is he a goodie or baddie ?
Daddy, why do people go to war?"
"Once upon a time there were cannibals around,
There are no cannibals anymore!"
31May/03
understanding the human brain.
The human brain is a very nice example of interdependance.
Everything that our brain percieves is based on everything else
it percieves.
Whatever our brain knows depends on everything else our brain
knows. You cant tell red from green unless you know them both.
BUt if you know only green, then you dont know green. Coz u
cannot identify red, so it will all be green to u, and all look
same, means nothing is really making sense. So you cant even
percieve green unless you are aware of the perception of red.
Hence
Whatever our brain knows depends on everything else it knows.
The problem here is that it makes the brain very self
sufficient. Since the brain relates everything to what it already knows, there is no absolute data in the brain. all the data in the brain is relative. So it can possibly be elevated to any altitude wihtout any change in functionality.
Maybe it might result in changed perceptions (enlightened people) or it might not cause any noticable change.
One thing is quite clear, after certain experiences in life, we think about things in the past and see them in new light. The incidents are a part of the past, they havent changed. We have thought about those incidents but never seen them in the way we see them now. The new experiences in life has given us an edge which throws new light on the same old experiences and now we are seeing it in an entirely different light. Hence, we can safely conclude that whatever we remembered about our experiences in life werent stored at an absolute level. Based on our state of mind, we are able to see them through different points of view.
THis is what gives human minds the extremely superb edge over an AI. We can summarize so well. We can percieve so well. And best of all, we can translate our knowledge to accomodate new insights.
WOW.
thats all i can muster.
Maybe AI is branching forward in this direction. But like the so many other things i want to research and verify, i dont have the time right now to google it.
So the human mind doesnt store anything absolute. Then why is modern science trying to find out the absolute quantity from which everything else is derived. Is 'c' really a constant. Maybe its not.
Its said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Neither mass, nor impulse, nor any information.
But what about precognition. That does exist. That information gets through BEFORE the incident happens. Negative velocity.
I think faster than the speed of light. Maybe different roles apply to thoughts.
2Oct/02
Gandhiji
father of the nation.
he is not dead. I can sense him. I feel him around me. he wasnt merciful. he wasnt humble. he wasnt good. he was Himself.
His whole life was his experiments with truth. truth. being real. he believed in himself. coz he believed in the world. he found himself unified with the whole world. he was superior in mind and thought. he had transcended from analytical analysis of truth to intuitive feeling of truth. was anything a miracle to him? why did the whole nation follow him? did he ask anybody to follow? he was being truthful. he just showed poeple a way. a way to think. to feel pride. to be aware of the higher pattern of things. it takes great faith to give up ur own life. those people werent fools. they werent being swindled. they knew what they were doing. they knew. there was no cause. no effect. just abidement of truth. its a way of living. not a means to an end. its the journey that makes it important.
when i see around me. there are people who dont even know who he is. they know nothing more than what the history books tell us.
they say he was a jerk. an old seminude guy who was so egoistic and stupid. they say he duped the people. they say the people make too much of him. its ok he sacrificed so much for the nation. but then look at what he did to his wife and children. do i need to blame them for feeling the way they do? are they at fault for despising him.
no they arent. they are people. people dont like to think. they like to come up with things. they like change. 50 years he survived. thats enuff. people dont want to decorate him any more. slandering is 'in'. its hip.
well. my faith in what i believe in is not derived from what others feel. i know him to be a mahatma. he really was.
salute to you dude!
