SMART Minds Are Recursive Thinkers.

Do we think recursively? Or is language recursive in nature and hence leads to recursive thought? By the way, what is language? See this link. - Human uniqueness, learned symbols and recursive thought -James R Hurford.
PS: There is this blogger who claims that he thinks recursively. I doubt that he thinks, recursion is a far cry ;)

Long Time No Blog.

Well, 2 weeks since i last wrote a blog. And 2 weeks since i last came to office. Quite an interesting coincidence isnt it? :) ;)

I wonder what i missed more, writing new posts or reading others blogs and commenting. Whatever be the case, blogging is great time pass. It breaks the monotony of life (specially office life), gives us some time to think(about the monotony), a few moments of introspection , a few minutes for us to search the web for information related to what we are writing about(and to see if any company is hiring people for their blogging skills) etc etc.
Bloging is addictive. And like all drugs it gives the blogger a "kick" :D
And it is enjoyable to read other's blogs and comment on them, sharing ideas and opinions.
So, here I am back @ active blogging and for the "kicks" and other payoffs. I can only hope my boss doesnt see me blogging. If he does, i am going to get "kicks" of a different kind.

Tardus-Depressus-Infurmus

The Olympic flame comes to India. A reason for celebration. A time for recognition to be given to the sportspersons who have represented the country in the event.
I consider that getting to hold the olympic flame to be a honour reserved to the best sportspersons of the country. But if one has a look as to who were invited to hold the flame then one could see something was not correct. Imagine....

Aamir Khan: the most he has been associated with sports to my knowledge has been 2 movies about cricket. One flopped miserably.
Aishwarya Rai: if catwalking is a sport then...ok. no comments
Rani mukherjee: Hamming is not a sport. nor is crying in movies or gyrating to songs
Bipasha Basu: some of her movies have had some very hot steamy scenes. may be she's acting out the "world's oldest sport" as a TV commercial used to say.
Vivek Oberoi: atleast i could comment on the others. No comments. :D

What is the logic behind inviting these people? Star attraction? Maybe,since a kid said that she had come to see the actors and knew nothing about the flame. Unfortunate.

With such people coming, why should rahul dravid come under fire? Atleast he is a sportsperson. Cricket is also a sport. And Olympics is about sports and the spirit of healty competition not about specifics as to which games are in the
olympics and which are not. And what makes people think cricket was NOT in the Olympics? See:
http://www.fact-index.com/o/ol/olympic_games.html AND http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Summer_Olympics AND http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_at_the_1900_Summer_Olympics.

No i am not defending cricket. Prakash Padukone, All England champion, Ramesh or Ramanathan Krishnan, some fine tennis stars, PT Usha, the most famous Indian track and field athlete, Geet Sethi/Michael Ferreira etc were not invited. Why?

Don't their contributions however small, deserve recognition. If the Indian Olympic Committee itself doesnt think about these people, will the sponsors? And the next question, "why sponsors?". does the flame need to be commercialised?

For india, the flame was not citius-altius-fortius. it has been Tardus-Depressus-Infurmus.

So much for tolerance!!!

Hinduism is considered the oldest religions of the world. Hindu thought distinguishes itself by strongly encouraging tolerance for different beliefs.How else can one explain the fact that Hinduism allows one to be an atheist, theist or whatever "ist" you want to be.

The first Christian community in the world, that of the Syrian Christians, was established in Kerala in the 1st century. It was welcomed by the local Hindus and Christians there were always allowed to practise their religion in peace. Islam has flourished in India, we have a Muslim President now and Muslims are free to practise and preach.

Will Pakistan have a Hindu head of state? Unlikely.

In the morning it is the Azaan that wakes me up. Nobody objects to it in India. But if i were in foreigh land and were to play the Venkateshwara Suprabhatam at 5 30 in the morning, i think i will have to face one of the 2 consequences:
1) death
2) get sent back to India(at least i didnt lose my life)

Today the world's two biggest monotheistic religions still think their God is the only true one and it is their duty to convert everybody. Hinduism is probably the only religion in the world which never tried to convert others, or conquer other countries to propagate their own religion.

Why am I writing all this??? Follow this Link : timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/727538.cms

Has a company ever tried to put the image of christ or an image of the shrine at mecca on shoes and undergarments? Or has any company tried to write any scriptures from the bible or the quran on the same? I doubt.

The Om symbol is used like some kind of a fancy tattoo without knowing the importance that it has to Hindus. It is the "pranava mantra"(the primordial mantra). Om(Aum) which consists of 3 sounds, embodies the essence of the hindu trinity in my view.

This is obvioulsy NOT the only incident. The movie Eyes Wide Shut supposedly had verses of the Srimad Bhagavath Gita in the background in the climax, featuring a group sex scene. (See this link ). Disgusting!!! Why? Didnt Kubrick get any verses from the Bible? The Gita speaks about the righteous way of life. It tells us our duties, irrespective of whether we believe in God or not.

Such audacious disrespect to religious symbols.

Now, some one who is reading the article will follow one cliched argument "Hinduism gave us scriptures like KamaSutra, see the Kajuraho carvings, phallus worship is practised" etc etc etc.....

Phallus worship is practised not in India alone. Just because the Kama Sutra was written in India, it doesnt mean that the Gita needs to be read in a orgy scene; read the Kama sutra itself!

Belief and disbelief in religion is left to oneself. I accept and respect that. But disrespect to someone else's beliefs is defenitely unacceptable by any standards.

I am proud to be a HINDU and Proud to be an INDIAN!

What is on the other side?

I happened to be reading The Emperor's new Mind by Roger Penrose.
Penrose talks about the big bang being considered the start of the universe (Chapter: Cosmology and the Arrow of Time). He says that the Big Bang and the subsequent expansion of the "universe" created the space that we call the universe(This he represents pictorially as an expanding balloon). And it is an accepted fact that the universe is expanding continuously.

So my question is "If i were on the edge of this expanding universe, then on one side is the universe as we know it. What is on the other side?"

any Answers?

Deccan herald Web site talks about toxic dust that accumulates on monitors and the related health isues. I dont know how true it is, but if so, it is one more the list of illnesses that PC users are prone to. :(

Open Source-Open Trademarks too?

Vollwaschmittel is a detergent popular in German speaking countries. The company does not use Linux as a technology term and has been immune to legal action from Linus.

More Linux trademark trivia:
Trademark SN: 1916230 is owned by Linus Torvalds, registered for "Computer operating system software to facilitate computer use and operation." The assignment of the trademark to Torvalds occurred after an attorney, one William R. Della Croce, Jr, in 1996 began sending letters to various Linux distributors claiming to own the "Linux" trademark and demanding 10% royalties. The distributors rapidly pooled resources, appealed the original trademark assignment and had it reassigned to Linus Torvalds. The licensing of the trademark is now handled by the Linux Mark Institute.

Shoulder Surfing

This is in a way a sequel to LoudMouth's article titled Amnesia or what. To put it in more apt terms it is actually more of a "cause-effect" relationship.

CLAIMER : This is NOT a fictitious article. It is hence not a figment of my imagination. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely intentional. I am writing this with the cleanest of conscience. What I say is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

What do you do when you are tired of working for a full day? Well you read a blog. And LoudMouth had shouted at the top of his voice (through email) telling us of a new post.

So that is what I did, read LoudMouth's latest post.

Shoulder surfing. For the uninformed, it is the act of standing behind a person and seeing what the person is doing, simply, by following the content on the monitor. Not a very gentlemanly(or lady-ly) act.

My browser was showing text in a small font and I was tired of staring at the stupid CRT screen the full day. Hence, I increased the text size to 120% and sat back to read. Little did I notice that I had fallen victim to shoulder surfing. One person, a female colleague of mine had followed the post and its comments(including mine).

The re-reading (of my comment) was interrupted by a single question "who is that?". Assuming that the "who" meant taran (who had posted a pretty stupid looking photograph of himself), I started telling about LoudMouth. "No no, who is the person that this LoudMouth is describing? Who is that guy?"

Knowing who "the guy"(a fellow blogger) was, I hit "the guy"'s blog. I then had to stop work while my colleague read through most of "the guy"'s posts on my computer.

I then proceeded to show a close up photograph of "the guy", showering praise on him and his intellectual abilities, his research publications and his fan following.

What I saw next amazed me and left me and another colleague of mine shocked. There seemed to be a blush on the cheeks, a glow in the eyes. The facial expression said it all.

LoudMouth had played match maker unintentionally( and I had played my part too). And all it took were one post by LoudMouth, an idiot who could not watch his back and a few posts by "the guy". This was not love at first sight , it was love on first "read".

Shoulder surfing, it seems, had bridged hearts.

I don't write as well as "the guy". I am hoping against hope that someone would read my blog (including this) and maybe, just maybe.....