War

2061 AD. The Americans are at it with the Chinese. Both countries wanted the good life; Mother Earth could just not take it anymore. The Chinese had been growing at an astronomical 9% every year since 1979 – it did not take them long to give the Americans a run for their money in the battle for oil and water. The Indians were left far behind: 9% is way more than 7%, especially when compounded.

The Average Chinese got fatter; obesity became a problem – it was indeed a problem of plenty. The Chinese started to demand what the American demands now: high quality junk food; massive sales with prices marked down (after a massive mark-up earlier); a culture governed by little pieces of paper and plastic cards – and fingerprints and dna.

The convenience driven modern society started to attach DNA to bank accounts. Money could be withdrawn only if you had the right DNA on you. This would also require the correct finger-print, making the entire process of forgery very difficult, and the process of withdrawing cash a tremendous hassle. Some firms tried doing away with the finger-print verification, but that led to lots of barbers and spouses being sued.

Let us stop the digression. Let’s talk about what we set out wanting to talk about. Wars.

President Heorhe Shrub of the United States was a descendant of Bobby Fischer. Premier Hau Taul ( is a China-Man) of China carried a computer with the power of deep-blue in his shirt pocket. The Indian Prime Minister, Venkaraman Karim-Patel was born in Vijaywada, a southern city (medium sized) of 30 million. He was born into a middle class family. His family saw that he was an exceptionally talented chess Player – and made him skip school to explore the wonderful world of chess. Some 900,000 other children from Vijaywada went to a crammery (where they were made to memorize each and every game of chess ever played between 2 human beings), 10,000 made it to the Indian Institute of Chess, and twelve made it to the National Chess Institute. And finally, some 20 students from all over India played amongst themselves to determine the new Prime Minister of India.

Somewhere in 2020, people decided that war was pretty pointless. By 2015, the United States army stopped recruiting new marines: they had robots to do all the dirty fighting anyway! They started to pump more money into manufacturing new robots to kill people. The Chinese government had always been working on robots to fight and kill people. The Americans, on realizing that all their investment in new robots (that could kill) was pointless (as their enemies also had robots too), decided that enough was enough. The American corporations had to write of all the robots as a big loss (attempts were made of selling them as butlers – until some robots malfunctioned and shot their owners dead instead.)

The American Government (under pressure from loss making American corporations) got the two and a quarter main powers in the world: Itself, China and India to a round table conference in India. In the historic declaration (the Bhatinda Accord), it was decided that war be abolished, since it was no longer economically viable. A study conducted jointly by University of Chicago, Tsinghua University and Kanpur Dehat University was cited – showing a correlation between the military might of a country and the number of chess victories in a year. Chess was accepted as the new “war”. The premier of each nation would play chess against the premier of the nation they were warring against.

Nuclear Weapons were dumped on Mars. The Martians would never have a chance. They would blow themselves up long before evolving. Just like we almost did.

An intriguing side effect (which no one foresaw) was the re-emergence of Russia as a world power. Those unethical bastards probably cloned Kramnik. And the American corporates- curse them - they sell plastic chess sets made in India and China all around the world.

What's wrong with populism?

It is quite familiar to hear these cynical observations muttered by "educated" Indians.

"Politicians are only worried about votes".

"God save this country from populism".

Tell me, as a democracy, would you not expect a government to be populist? Would you expect a government to do what the people do not want? My friends, we are India, not China.

It is indeed spell-bindingly obvious that Arjun Singh has a political axe to grind with the reservation card. And the question I raise here is: if the idea of caste based reservations would have full-fledged support from the masses, why was is not implemented earlier? Was it not a travesty of democracy that something that has had so much support from the masses was not implemented? Wasn't the government guilty of not implementing this earlier, when the popular mandate out these was to implement it?

I feel proud that the hitherto downtrodden are benifitting from reservation; and that we're achieving 8% growth rate despite the reservation. (The reservation in IITs is more or less cosmetic. All of us IITians know that IIT is a decrepit system which churns out mediocre management graduates in the guise of engineers. Look at all the companies recruiting on campus. Citi Financial. KPMG. McKinsey. Stan-Chart. Capital-One. BCG. The only saving grace is the quality of the post graduate research at IIT, which is as good at it gets in India.)

I would like the commend the government in pursuing the reservation issue, despite negative coverage from the press. Populism is good. If you're not a populist, the people will vote you out. You're the masses' servant, not the rich man's. True meritocracy will result only when the poor are given a level playing field.

Popularity

Who is the most popular human being on earth? Interesting question.

Let's rule out any Hollywood actor: their popularity is very limited (to the developed world)... and there's way too many of them, so different people have different favorites.

Let's rule out anyone in the west, actually. There' s way too less people in the western world. If the question were "Which person's popularity can be transalated into the most money due to ticket sales and endorsements?", then perhaps western celebs would stand a chance. But not as things are right now.

So, of course, the possibilities are essentially either Chinese or Indian celebs ... with billion plus people. I have a gut feeling that the most popular person in the world is Sachin Tendulkar. I will make my case in the following paragraphs.

What do a billion people have in common in India? They do not have a common culture: the culture of the North-east differs from the south, the culture of the east and the west is different. Hinduism? There are more variations within Hinduism in India than there are between different religions at other places!

Democracy? Yes indeed; but the people of the North have never heard of Karunanidhi, the people of the west have never heard of Budhadeb Bhattacharya. Hindi Films? The big B might have more than a 300 million loyal fans (more than the productive population of the USA) but the average Apparao down south would have a tough time placing him.

Cricket is the only thing that unites India's diversity. India's massive talent pool of cricket is (often cruelly) refined and refined again into an elite squad: the men in Blue. And Sachin Tendulkar is the formost and the bluest of them all. A man who's antics on the field make many an Indian's heart beat faster. A person who drives bowlers to utter disarray on his day. A humble genius.

For he carries the hopes and aspirations of 1 billion people. He is among the few things that the people of this entire mass of people actually hold close to their heart.

And part of the problem is that. There's enough talent in India to produce 20 Sachin Tendulkar. If we search deep enough we will find a fast bowler that will put Shohaib Akthar to shame. A spinner who will spin 180 degrees! So, all the people of India look at Sachin - perhaps because they have no one else to look up to.

I'm not too sure about China, but I'm sure you see that Sachin has a strong case to be crowned "most popular man on earth".

Fire the Bastards

Striking doctors, no matter how "noble" the cause of their strike might be, should be tried for murder. Emergency health-care should be "strike-proof". Doctors do not make any point by going on strike. They should just be fired for going on strike, for they have put a lot of patients in the line of danger. The nation-dwellers cannot be hijacked by a few selfish personal agendas.

I commend the government for the strong stance that it has taken about these jokers going on strike. Issuing a show-cause notice is a strong move. A move that has the following written boldy upon it: the high and mighty have gradually stopped to wield controlling political power. Power lies with the people. It is a happy day for democracy.

For the real India that is going to take over the world (along with China and the U.S) is essentially not you and me. We're the rich, we're English educated. We, for all practical purposes constitute a state the size of Goa with an American style standard of living. I'm talking about the rest of India. The poor auto-walla in Chennai, the rickshaw driver in Kanpur, the paddy farmer in Bihar, the cotton farmer in Maharashtra, the fisherman of Bengal, the Mumbai slum dweller, the Andhra peasant, the servant maid in Delhi, to name a few. These are the 950 million faces that live modest lives right now, that might live better tomorrow. These are the people who will install air-conditioners in their houses in the near future. These are the people that will purchase pesonal computers. That will shop in large department stores, drive automobiles. (!*)

Any scientifically executed move to awaken this massive middle class is welcome; an intellegent reservation policy, perhaps.

The day that the rest of India starts demanding what the American takes for granted right now is the day that India takes over the world. Not the day that the emergency care doctor goes on strike. That would be the day that he deserves to be fired and tried for murder.

********************

I do believe that patriotism is another divisive ideology like religion, and oppose it in principle. But pragmatism makes me accept patriotism. I do make India-specific allusions here, because I am famililar with issues affecting the sub-continent. In principle I would love to dedicate my life to work that could uplift humanity in general, but that would sound too arrogant.

(!*) The planet does not have enough resources to support an American Style for everyone. Adam Smith's invisible hand will ensure that certian compromises are made; energy efficiency measures are incorporated - and essentially, gas-guzzlers are driven to extinction. But that's a different story altogether. A story that would make interesting reading. Perhaps, I could post bits of it in the future?

Reservations: Not such a massive evil?

Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop.

I'm sorry, Mr. Arjun Singh. I'm sorry I had you possesed by Hitler. I'm sorry I made your hand bleed. I'm sorry I made you say Behe? !hod. I've just read some literature (of sorts) about the Caste debate in India .. and I can see your line of thought (though not quite agree with it).

Firstly, I'll tell you what I think is absolutely wrong with it: caste! Caste has been the number-one society destroyer that has plagued Hinduism (my parents' "religion") since times immemorial. By using caste as a critereon for reservation, all you are doing is re-ingniting those age-old sentiments of casteism. You are turning an oblivious eye to the real factor: poverty. But that's not your fault. Caste based reservations were around for quite some time.

A better system of affirmative action would assure seats to the poor: to those who need aid - and would not deny aid to a poor person from a so-called "upper caste". Rich "lower-caste" people should not be in a position to avail these freebies. But I can see the impracticalities associated with such a legislation, prominent among them being children saying "Damn, it dad! If you were not so rich, I would have been at IIT".

I will have to, therefore grudgingly accept the "populist" solution: that of caste-based reservations: purely because there is absolutely no other option. Unfairness to a handful of poor upper class people is better than unfairness to the infinitely larger lower class. O' great constitution writers, you were more or less right.

There's 24% of SC/STs in India. They have have an almost equal 22.5 reservation. They are so poor that they need all the upliftment that they can get. Then come the OBCs, with 50% of the population. They are marginally better off; they do not need so much "upliftment" as the SC/STs, and they have to do with 27% of the reservation; not 50%.

In an Ideal India later, where everyone is really equal, the so-called OBCs should constitute roughly 50% of the seats in educational institutions. Reservations go meaningless in the future.

This is a murky problem; there is more to it than meets the eye. Ostensibly, denying opportunities to the meritorious might seem criminal; might seem cruel. But one needs to overcome one's prejudices and perfrom an unbiased analysis of the same. These measures might very well cut down our current growth-rate in the short run, but they might go a long way in averting a workers' revoltuion in our country.

There lies a lot of talent in that hitherto undiscovered "backward" mass of under-acheiveing humans in India. Tapping into this potential is like tapping into a half of undiscovered India. Who knows? Maybe within those undiscovered masses lie the new Sachin Tendulkar, the new Homi Bhaba, and what the hell - the new Albert Einstien?

Why is it that these issues are raised only during elections? The fact that politicians do not raise the reservation issue during non-election years essentially tells the people that they really don't care two hoots about social upliftment - but care only about votes ..... which is the way democracy is supposed to function ... intentions are of little value. Only results matter.

With these reservations, our country might very well grow faster in the long run.

He wants to take care of us

There is someone up in the sky,
who wants to look after you and I.
He hates to let things go wrong;
He wants to keep us happy and strong.

He would like to give us shelter from the rain,
He craves to protect us from anguish and pain.
And He desires to protect the coast from the wave,
and from the mighty hurricane.

He wants no violence on his name,
Peace is his method, his aim!
He is the god that We beleive in;
Utter incompetence, his only sin.

Inheritance

There was once a little village -
Long before this day and age.
And within that lived a tribe;
It raised animals to survive.

Let's start with the family of Manmohan Singh,
He raised cows for a living.
Near his sedate and slow moving cow,
Bulls, his family would never allow.
To the calves, they would feed all the grass,
The milk bearing cows, they would starve.
The cows then started to perish-
The milk supply started to finish.

And then the clan of Jacques Chirac
Who made their life toiling with an ass.
The ass was to carry brick and stone-
To build many a happy home.
The ass, he would feed a lot daily,
Regardless of the work quality.
The ass started to work less and less,
But Chirac still kept feeling it in excess.

The weasel belonged to one Vladimir Putin,
Ostensibly, it looked famished and thin.
The weasel would smile at the dinos and the cows,
But would secretly snack on frozen chicken beside its house.
And eating the chicken gave it sharp teeth now,
It looks more the dragon it used to, less like a cow.
When it was a dragon, it had learnt,
How to breathe fire, how to get the village burnt.


And Hu Jintao had a fire breating dragon,
It was visible to no one.
He would sacrifice one from his family to the dragon every year.
His family would live in eternal fear.
Though the dragon would devour one every year,
Hu reckoned procreation was the cure.
Dragons can kill asses, can kill cows
And dinsoaurs too, if push came to shove.

George Bush had a pet called Fido,
a massive fire breathing dino.
The dino had everything cheap-
And therefore would just eat, eat and eat.
While a cow would just ruminate,
Fido would devour a little forest.
But there's no forest anymore now
Fido might just have to diet, you know.

A Love Song

'twas a dreary and rainy night,
On the damp road, there was not a soul in sight.
After a long and tiring work day,
Towards home he started making his way.

He was working on a new theory,
Something to do with Quantum Gravity.
He was thinking of equations in his head,
When he percieved a silhouette.

He was fed up of walking all alone;
Wouldn't it be nice to walk with someone?
He walked faster, to catch up with the silhouette,
Till all between them was not more than a step.

All of a sudden, he heard a loud sound -
and he knew what was coming around.
He had seen this before on TV -
How a tornado can sneak up on you and me.

And without further ado he knew what to do -
To an underground cellar he had to get through!
He leaped immediately and dragged the silhouette,
Into an underground cellar.

The slihouette turned out to be an angry young woman-
Abduction wasn't her idea of fun!
Then all of a sudden, they heard violent windy noises above-
her cynicysm turned to gratitude and love.

He hadn't seen her for a second - but he was in love-
Her face was beautiful, her voice -wow!
They hugged and kissed like a song,
Made sweet love all night long.

It was too good to be true he thought,
He was right, for true it was not.
He had fallen asleep on his books
after giving them many blank looks.

And then he awoke to a realization that was rude;
It was a dream, she was not true!
So, he set on his way home,
The atmosphere was rainy, one of gloom.

And he did see a damsel ahead-
- a silhouette.
And sure enough, he heard those sounds
A tornado was surely doing the rounds!

He grabbed her to the nearest cellar,
She was outraged - I don't blame her.
Not a sound came frome above-
no tornado - and certainly no love.

She took out her cellphone, called the cop-
And he is now doing time behind the lock!

Exploiting Democracy: A peek at the government's future plans

An internal communication within the ruling congress party was intercepted. It distresses one and all that these are the people in charge of the bomb and responsible for a nation that is responsible for the future of the planet in many ways.


Dear Madam Sonia,

Politicians until now have avoided taking some bold populist measures. With electoral battles getting closer every election, we are proud to see that our political party has some up aces up its sleeve.

Print more money

The main problem with India is that poor people are poor. They have insufficient money with them. If money is distributed to everyone, everyone will have money. So, more money could be printed in the mints - and distributed to the masses. Now, everybody can buy food, and everybody will be happy. And to increase the efficiency further, leaves can be used instead of cash! (Borrowing an idea from the Hitch-Hiker's guide).

There will be a few (most probably educated) detractors. They might claim that this will result in rampant inflation - and that the common man will be no better off. These arguments might seem convincing, but the successful politician learns how to deal with such sophistry. All one needs to do is to call these people elitists - and point out that these people do not have the interests of the common people at heart.

Legalize, nay, make compulsory copying in Examinations:

The masses are not intelligent enough to work hard for exams; they are more given into smoking bidis before the same. Since only a small proportion (the "elite") can perform well, it is unfair to discriminate against others - for no fault of their own. It is wise to propose that a level playing field be established in the examination hall by allowing the transfer of data from one answer paper to another.

Students unwilling to share information with others should be disallowed from taking the examination and should be imprisoned for a month. Such a fine will act as a deterrent to these anti-social tendencies.

Such policies have yielded extensive electoral success to the Mulayam Singh and the Rabri Devi governments.

Allow Encroachment

Occasionally, the Indian Railways tries to get rid of people who dwell close to the railway tracks. It is proposed that Indian Railways be forced to allow these encroachments. Any deaths that result can be banned from the Hindi / Local media, so as to stem the propagation of news. It is important to preserve the notion that the nation enjoys a free press, though - for any repression would hurt electoral fortunes.

The stories may be shown on English media, since the elitists won't vote for us anyway.

Land Reform

A cue must be taken from Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Rich land owners and home owners constitute a very small proportion of the electorate. The poor masses comprise a larger chunk. It is proposed that the poor be urged to usurp the land of the rich man - and that the constitution be amended to allow what would currently be considered an transgeression of the Indian Penal Code. The rich man will not vote for us anyway, being an elitist. It is the poor we are worried about.

Will these measures not dry up electoral funding?

Before embarking on any of these revolutionary measures, it is proposed that the party procure large orchards everywhere - so as to possess ample leaves - thereby doing away with the need for electoral funding of any sort.

Yours Sincerely,

Manmohan Singh

Prime Minster and Chief Populist
Republic of India

Mother India : An Eternal Beggar?

There's two conflicting effects that any reservation policy would have: a negative impact on the meritorious and a positive impact on the backward masses - for argument's sake assuming that the caste based reservation system is an appropriate way to judge one's backwardness - something that many people (including yours truly) vehemently disagree with.

Certainly, India's masses need upliftment and encouragement - some preferential treatment is necessary to level the playing field. Some amount of reservations could be an incentive to pursue higher education.

But in a nation of limited resources, denying education to the genuinely deserving will result in a severe under-utilization of Human capital. Lots of future Homi Bhabhas, Adbul Kalams, C.V Ramans, J.C Boses etc. shall be denied access to quality education. Mother India shall have to beg for Nuclear Technology all over again.

But this could be a blessing in disguise. It is a bloody shame that we Indians rely on politicians to set up institutes of excellence. Arjun Singh has no incentive to see India develop. He does not want so see a prosperous India. The average politician's vision is restricted to seeing himself in a position of power in the near future. Future is certainly never an issue - especially if all decision making offices are run by octagenarians who might conk off any moment. Development is a tough idea to sell to an electorate already so cynical of empty promises. Arjun Singh chooses populist appeasement instead.

On a more optimistic note, I believe there is an ample case in favour of private research based universities in India. Just imagine: Intel wants some academic research done on some fundamental cooling electronic cooling techniqes. It collaborates with, say, Texas A&M university. It gives a professor a grant of $2 Million to do it. And the professor has to buy experimental equipment, pay his electricity bill, give the university its hefty cut, hire some graduate students (and pay their tuition, fee and monthly stipend).

AMD also wants similar work done, but somebody in their ranks has heard of a univerisity in India that can do the same thing for $0.6 million - and that's inculding the airfare. After all, paying a graduate student Rs 20000 per month ($500) instead of $1500 would do in India; expert tecnicians would work for a fraction of what they would would for in the US. Sending eperimental apparatus to India shouldn't be too tough either.

So, the contention is that there is a massive case for research based universities in India. And once, these "universities" reach a critical mass, they will attract excellent faculty from all around the world ... maybe even from India (if there are any - the reservations notwithstanding). And good faculty means excellent classes. Slowly but surely, India can still emerge strong. The people can still prevail over populism. But that will take too long.

But the era of the IIT as an institution of excellence is over. It breaks my heart to see my alma mater fall into the all-encompassing rut of mediocrity that the political class craves to retain India in for all eternity.

The Exorcist 5: Hail Singh

Arjun Singh is India's Human resources minister, responsible for the 49.5% reservation disaster.

Arjun Singh woke up one day at 9:00 am and went to his bathroom. He took out his twig (he does not use a tooth brush) and started brushing his teeth. He then looked at the mirror and there was something on his lip. It was a moustache that covered (symmetrically) one third of his upper lip. He then opened his left palm, and saw blood marks shaped like a reverse Swastika on it.

He wanted to shout out in agony in Hindi. (Something like "Behe* ?hod"). But the terms "Das ist mir scheißegal." were inadvertently blurted out of his mouth. It was pretty weird; he had never spoken in German before. He had, actually, flunked geography in school and was under the impression that Germany was one of India's southern neighbours, along with Finland.

Singh, at first did not like his new moustache. He had seen a movie starring Charlie Chaplin long ago - but he had never caught the humour. The moustache made him look like that B-Grade comedian.

He tried getting rid of it (the moustache) using scissors, but the damn thing would not budge. He tried using a knife. The strands of hair did not break. He then realized that the only way get rid of it was to cut his neck. But he was not that insane ...... yet.

At 12:00pm, after a hefty lunch of Paneer Parathas (imported from the USA) and Chicken Tikka masala and prawn spiked with beef and pork, he went to his office. He was early: he would usually be in his office by 2pm. His secretary greeted him with a smile and said "Namaste Mantriji", the usual greeting. But a voice from inside told Singh to pause and correct her. He said "Namaste Mantriji not. Hail Singh with salute!".

Singh then started taking policy decisions. He scribbled "99.5% reservations" on his notepad .. and started doodling on the same. He drew a house, a cow (which looked like a sad dog) and a dog. While he was doodling so enthusiastically, his pencil inadvertently drew a vertical line tangetial to the first 9 in 99.5%, making it look like a badly written 4. He then told his secratary to get him some concentrated orange juice. The term "juice" almost sounded like "jews".

What has happened to the Arjun Singh that we all know and love? Why is he possessed by this monster? What has the ghost of Adolf Hitler done to him? Is there any hope for the country, which has been placed under such a racist and bigoted order? Will we ever know?

Adolf Hitler had done his homework well. After Eva Brown shot him during one of their fights, Hitler decided that he was going to teach humanity a lesson. Humanity was in profusion in both India and China. He saw that the Communist government in China was teaching its people a lesson on a daily basis, and did not need any external help. India, on the other hand, was threatening to become a world power, a power with immense talent and a high morale. A power with brains, that might one day steer the world away from global warming. What better way to stifle this emerging power than remove whatever meritocracy there remained? All he had to do was complete what the ghost of General Dyer (another misanthrope, who had lost his soul when he committed the Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre) had done through the Mandal commission.

But Arjun Singh's inadvertent doodles had reduced it to 49.5%, necessitating the emergence of Idi Amin's ghost in the near future. But that is beyond the scope of this analysis.

After almost killing any justice in Mother India by passing the 49.5% reservation, Arjun Singh took a hacksaw and cut his neck (to get rid of that irritating moustache). The law had inspired him to cut his neck to solve the problem of his disgraceful moustache. His last words were, you guessed it, "Das ist mir scheißegal"!

P.S This post could have been called "The Exorcism of Arjun Singh", but the movie was so bad.

Re-organizing My Life

Do you know how humiliating it is to not undertsand what others speak to you? Especially, when you pride yourself to be fluent technically, and you are unable to understand them? Don't you often crave suicide?

For that is what happened to me recently. I was in class one day, and the class was going just fine, until, the professor insisted that the stress tensor was deviatoric, and that some other tensor ( I forget which) was anti-symmetric, and that a system of non-linear points had either saddle points or fixed points and that some were attractors. And there was something to do with invariants of second order tensors too.

I also writhe in shame when I see central limit theorem of calculus be used (as it is used often in Mechanics). If you're talking about the poles of an expression, I would look for the polar bears. I fear imaginary numbers like the average man would fear an agressive canine. Though I am comfortable with the Gauss and the Stokes theorems, I am petrified of Parseval's theorem, of Ricatti Equations, of variational calculus, of topology, of Banach Spaces, (and even Hilbert Spaces, for that matter). I still cannot recall the binomial expansion of (1-x)^n.

Mathematics has been a subject that I have not been paying attention to all my life. I believe the neglect has become quite criminal now. But, thankfully, I am still a student. I can still set things right. I have a chance to improve myself from the mechanic who knows only how to use screw drivers, to a mehcanic who knows how to use pnueumatic and hydraulic tools. Lots of interesting courses abound in the courses.tamu.edu website. I should take at least four math courses, to set some damage right.

Temporal Dynamics of an Idea and its effect on excitement in a PhD student's life

Feynman is a Hoax

A Tribute to Conspiracy Theories and the Idiots who spread them

Just like Einstein, Newton and Shakespeare before him and Stephen Hawking after him, Richard Feynman is nothing but a lowly hoax.

Feynman painted many naked women, wrote a lot of books, flirted around with everyone, grew Einstein-like hair, gave T.V interviews, traveled all around the world, got his car stuck in a snowstorm, moved to Caltech and basked in the salubrious Californian weather and gave some stilted lectures (which, strangely, have become quite popular among the students of today). If he did all this in his life, then, pray tell me, how on earth would he have found the time to do any credible research? Feynman unscrupulously reproduced the work of another scientist, an unfortunate individual whose name shall remain unknown for all eternity. I mean, why on earth would a theoretical Physicist work on wobbling plates?

It is my personal conviction that he copied the research from another scientist ( the real genius), killed the guy and shoved his body into a landfill, just like Einstein, who plagiarized David Hilbert's (Hilbert: a man with a lot of problems, 23 to be exact) equations of General Relativity, Lorentz's equations of special relativity and someone or the other's explanation of the photo-electric effect. I am sure that the Einstein summation convention was also created by someone else: probably an ancient Indian philosopher called Bhatti or something.

There is a popular anecdote about Newton: he constructed a cat flap (an opening in the door to allow the cat to go through) for his cat. And his cat got laid and had kittens. And he made another cat flap: for the kittens. Now, tell me, how could someone, so obviously deficient in the cerebrum, be capable of making significant contributions to mechanics, astronomy, calculus, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, optics - and everything else? It is my conviction that all Newton did was invent a system of plagiarism using which he could take credit for any work done in that field. I am sure he invented one such system for each field that he plagiarized.

This article is original and not plagiarized. If you need to kill someone for spreading this trashy libel, it is me. Feel free to be as abusive as possible in the comments sections of this post.

2040: An Introduction

Bansi Lal lived in Mumbai, India's largest metropolis. An urban agglomeration with 60 million people, the area housed more people than an average-size country. Only Tokyo, New York and Beijing had more people. And Mumbai was growing the fastest of them all, being the most tropical of the lot.

Bansi Lal worked as a news presenter: holographic images of him were beamed into the living rooms of several Indians while they had their breakfast. He spoke in a mix of English, Hindi and Tamil - a mix quite common in India at this point of time. He would present the news with confidence and passion. Looking at him, you would understand why he was India's highest paid anchor.

He had gained popularity in the Sri Lankan war, braving the supersonic bullets to get his spectators the story. It is said that many a maiden's heart was beating faster when he was doing this bit of field reporting. He had won India's heart thus. And the network gave him prime time breakfast news.

Today was a quite a good day, as far as mishaps were concerned. A hover-car had collided with a train, killing three - and that was about it. Bansi sailed through the story with aplomb. His was a cheerful heart today: only three accidental deaths in a city of 60 million per day was something everyone could live with.

Mumbai now was a town of hope. A town of development. A town of tomorrow. A town with a greater future than the rest of the world. It had more sunlight than the great cities of the United States, Europe, China and Japan. It had more skilled manpower than the sunny desert cities of the middle east and the vast expanses down under. Its main rivals were other Indian towns (especially Chennai and Hyderabad), Mediterranean towns of Madrid and Los Angeles. Mumbai had expanded by 2040 to cover what was once the metropolis of Pune, the town of Aurangabad - and as far north as Daman.

Something remarkable had occurred over time. Something that changed the face of the planet in the preceding 30 years. Something that helped the planet avert the energy crisis and tide through global warming. Solar energy.

perseverant research had been happening at the academic level - throughout the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. The best brains in the world were working on solar cells; on harnessing solar energy for the future. Photovoltaics were always a "promising" technology. They were never economical.

Never economical, until that fateful day that fuel prices hit $140 a barrel (2005 dollars). Gradually solar photovoltaic cells started disappearing from store racks. More started being manufactured. Advertisements were being played on local and national television. India started becoming a "solar" country. The grid would supply power only at night or on rainy days using coal power.

It was ironically that disease that had blighted humanity since times immemorial - religion - that had brought forth the current prosperity. Hatred between two prominent religions in the world resulted in an oil crisis. This also resulted in a hectic funding of scientific research in solar energy. Indian universities focused on an innocuous sounding plant called "Jathropha" which was instrumental in the production of bio-diesel.

Jathropha was taken to en-masse by the farmers. This had a multi-pronged effect. Since the average farmer started to earn more, only a few farmers were left who were willing to grow food crops. This resulted in the use of more efficient farming methods. Yields in India started being comparable to the rest of the developed world. And the other farmers formed a vital link in the supply chain of India's new fuel: solar bio diesel.

And almost overnight, India was transformed from a fledgling, energy hungry third world country to a sophisticated self-sufficient democracy. Development started occurring at a scorching pace.

But this is not the story of Mumbai. Or India. It is the story of Bansi Lal. And it is as much a story of romance as it is a story of hope. A hope for a better future.

What makes the USA tick?

My temporary flight to the U.S.A is not merely to enrich my knowledge of Heat Transfer, but is really a journey of discovery. I did set myself an ambitious target: find out what makes this powerful economy tick. Find out what makes the USA the most powerful nation in the world, financially and politically. And six months into my stay here, I think I might have struck upon the answer.

And the answer is as inoccuous as trash. The secret to America's success lies in extra packaging. In wastage. In excesses that would give any a third world country a mocked feeling. The answer lies in that mountain of junk mail that fills your post box daily. In that ton of rubbish that the newspaper boy delivers on weekends. In that ton that the garbage man takes out daily.

Just the other day, I was to recieve a tripod stand for my camera. It was a mini tripod stand, and was built more on the lines of the average human thumb as far as size is concerned. I ordered it on amazon.com; I really do not know why. So, a week later, a rather tired looking Fed-Ex guy knocked on my door and delivered a box (built more on the lines of a wooly mammoth than a thumb). It was a cubical box with a side of roughly 35 cm. I thought I recieved a television or something. I opened it up excited. I was hoping that Amazon made a mistake - that they sent me a T.V instead of the tripod stand.

But Amazon seldom errs. It was the tripod stand, alright. But there were a lot styrofoam peices within the box (impact absorbers?) , making the search for the tripod stand akin to that of a needle within a haystack. After sweating a few beads of sweat, I managed to ioslate the tripod stand. It is small enough to fit in my pocket.

Electronics in the U.S.A are sold in appetizing packages. These packages might look good from afar; they might catch your eye in a department store. But to open these packages, you will need a very sharp kinfe, scissors, gloves, a very strong set of teeth, a huge trash can, band aids - and even the kitchen sink. I have spent agonizing hours trying to open (often unsucsessfully) mp3 players, ear-phones, mobile phones, thermometers, battery cells ... the list really is endless.

It's something like this. Suppose a small package was used to, say, ship the tripod stand. Suppose almost everyone else in the U.S.A used appropriately small packages, like they do elsewhere in the world. Then, Fed-Ex would not be able to charge extra. Their entire business model would fail. There would be no "shippers". And without shipping, there would be no Amazon. No ebay. And essentially, internet would not have grown so fast. (As an aside, there would be no outsourcing to India. India would probably be in some sort of License Raj still, globalization failing to have taken root). This is not to mention, the nullfication of the current demand for trucks by Fed Ex.... the McDonalds frequented by the drivers will suffer .. the uniforms will not be sold ...

America has lots of resources. Lots of land. Very few people. This wastage is a way of saying to the world: we can afford to live extravagantly. And today's business (the consumer-suck up model) forces us to live extravagantly, even if we got scruples.

America seems to mock the world: You can't live extravagantly. Ha - Ha.

Note that I have not used my favorite 3 letter word in this post: oil. Saving it all up for a future post.

India is moving in the right direction

You know a developing country is well on the path of development when most of the following is true.

• When the biggest danger facing the nation is identity theft as opposed to mass genocide.
• When the political wars are between subtly left leaning parties and subtly right leaning parties, not between the Ku-Klux-Klan and the Maoists. **
  
• When privacy and the environment make headlines, not rampant debilitating corruption and debauchery
• When gay rights becomes an issue, as opposed to just rights
• When television plays a lot of "tasty pet food" advertisements
• When new religions and gods are concocted (such as Scientology and FSM)
• When South Park (or its equivalent) can be aired
  
• When people think twice about using pirated copies of Windows
• When mature anchors like Prannoy Roy and Barkha Dutt are replaced by cranky, opinionated Bill O'Rielly and Lou Dobbs
• When everyone is concerned about their privacy, yet their government knows everything about their income.
• When people are concerned about robots reading their email and placing advertisements on it
• When late night comedy shows (featuring pompous know-it-alls) have more than a "niche" audience
• When MTV starts playing indigenous crap
• When every city has a sport team - and people actually come to watch games.
• When international sport is not given a damn for.
• When a locally made version of "Who wants to be a millionaire?" is immensely popular
• When the poor suffer from obesity (thanks to McDonald's) and do not starve to death
• When majority of the people drink brewed, as opposed to instant coffee.
• When people love their pets, but eat equally large animals
  

As you can see, India is almost there.

** American politics, in my opinion is a sad joke. It is really pathetic to see people so passionate about being either Democratic or Republican. Both the parties have a rather minor difference in ideology... Something like the Congress and BJP in India. In this respect, I would dare suggest that India has developed more than the US. Lots of leaders who leave the BJP just fit into the Congress, and vice versa. There is no "ideological" difference. Of course, what drags India's development down is the left, which has proven to be stubbornly ideological, often pulling down governments whose ideology they disagree with.

IITs, their utter irrelevance and why we need more of them

The impact that IITs have had on the world is well known - right from New York to Los Angeles; From Bismark (North Dakota) to Orlando. But it is their impact on India that is marginal to say the least. It is my conviction that they are utterly irrelevant to India.

Yes, you might get the odd IAS officer, the odd professor, the odd engineer who works for the government, but that is about it. Four years of rigorous mechanical engineering - and the best job that you can hope to end up with is a line-in-charge at either HLL or ITC. Though I have nothing against such a job, there is absolutely nothing "techy" about it. And hence the exodus from India to the US of A. (Why not Europe? The U.S. has been the traditional destination, and welcomes skilled labour of any sort).

In one's final year at IIT, one has to make a choice. Does one want to be true to one's passion; one's subject, or does one want to stay in one's country? If the latter, opportunities abound in Finance and other management related fields. Research has not yet caught on in India.

But we desperately do need more institutions of excellence. In my opinion, the recent conversion of a university in Cochin to an IIT is a step forward, since that shall mean a higher priority to research and an admission to the undergraduate programme via the JEE, which has proven to be an excellent filter of talent (the coaching classes notwithstanding).

India is booming. It is almost certain that the research work in India tomorrow will be way higher than what it is today. Soon will come a day when our indigenous industry will be able to support world class research ... the day when the average PhD from an Indian university will mean a lot more than it does now ..

The day that 30 met 328

When finally, 328 from 243 was free;
328 thought it would just walk into prosperity.

But the ride was tough, the road was bumpy;
Most from 328 were still of 243 wary.
So, 28 adopted a "social democracy";
- and was plagued by rampant beauraucracy.

Forty five years later, an economist,
328 from the shackles set free.
328 started to grow enormously -
Enough to catch the attention of 30.

328 opened up, started to drink oil,
Started to make cars and drugs on its own soil.
And one fine day in a desert,
328 created a fungus.

30 started to spit venom;
Started to treat 328 like scum.
But 328 had problems of it own,
186 and 136, to mention some.

Though 328 dreams to be a 30,
Most of 328 is lost in poverty.
Although, lots of 328 diffuses to 30;
density gradient, you see.

328 does a lot of work that is dirty
For the rich - especially 30.
But 30 still shunned 328,
For creating the fungi.

30 and 328 seem to be in love again-
Peace brokered by "mutual economic gain".
Harness the fungi for peace, they did say;
When 30 came to 328 today.


[ You might need some help decrypting this.]

A new blog

Just as the velocity of a fluid particle in an arbitrary reference frame can be split into two parts like:

I propose to split my blog into two parts. This part (muzzlevelocity.blogspot.com) shall be the part with the spin; the part with the opinion, the part with the arrogance, the part with the attitude. The other part is the simplistic, non-layered day to day journal, where emphasis shall be on mundane, day-to-day experiences of the notorious PhD life, and not on comprehending the complexities of this world. This part lives under the domain name http://mymundanexisitence.blogspot.com

Purists among my readers will spot a cliche in the name. The alphabet "e" is shared by both mundane and existence, making it a rather lame title. I hope that does not deter them from visiting the blog.

People might argue that I am running low on material to fill up one 'blog, so, what right do I, the author, have to inflict the world with yet another of these monstrosities. I anticipate that people would have looked at Victor von Frankenstien the same way when he had just created his "creature".

The material for the new blog will be something more on the lines of "I had my coffee today. Then I went to class. I walked, nay, cycled on the road. The day was warm.". As you can see, the title (The Mundane life of a grad student) is quite apt. The reason for the new blog, of course, is to laugh at myself and my stupidities in the future.

I am also in favour of the odd technical discussion in the same. I believe this new blog would be a nice way to archive my "ideas" as I work on my PhD problem. Of course, I am assured that plagiarism will be impossible, since no one reads my blog anyway!!

Nondimensional Nightmares

Non dimensionalization has been the heart of Fluid Mechanics / Heat Transfer for more than a century. Elegant generalizations have been made by Fluid Mechanists, ranging from Osborne Reynolds, Prandtl, Nusselt to Stefan. Non dimensionalization has been man's most elegant attempt at trying to grasp one of Nature's most confunding yet awe inspiring phenomena: the behaviour of fluids.

Non dimesnionalization is a trademark of any Fluid Mechanics text book: rather than talk of velocity, diameter and viscosity seperately, their cumulative effect is described by a simple parameter. The Reynolds Number. Similarly, the Nusselt and the Biot Numbers. These numbers have been tested by experiment and by theory. They play an incredible role in today's experimental work: humongous dams can be simulated in the laboratory for dynamic similitude; aircraft wings can be brought to minute airfoil dimensions, again with dynamic similitude.

But, of course, Non Dimensionalization comes with a price. No doubt, you do generalize if you non-dimensionalize properly. But everybody isn't Einstien. There are those who - think of an effect - say radiation in a pipe. They realize that Radiation would play a significant role in improving the heat transfer within a pipe at high temperatures. Say 3000K. Now, if you show me a pipe that can carry water at 3000K - then I will show you the abominable snowman playing chess.

Of course, our man (the 3000K guy) decides to do some "numerical" modeling. He writes a finite difference code, solves the problem, optimizes it (perhaps optimizes the flow rate of water?). He is also aware that "3000K" will get him rejected from any peer reviewed Journal. So, he does what Reynolds did: Non - dimensionalizes. He divides it by the speed of sound multipled by something else, divided by the surface area of the duct .... you get the drift. The utter irrelevance hides behind the cloak of "non-dimensionalization".

And viola: he has a Non Dimensional Number! He calls it G or something - the "Radiation Parameter" - and assigns it a deceptively low value of 0.002. He never mentions the 3000K in the paper. He mentions the 0.002 instead. No peer rejects this: all the reviewers think this is marvelous new work. This gets accepted and published.

And years later, some unsuspecting PhD student like me spends a lot of money in printing out this verbosity, reads the utter bilge, gets fiercely upset and blogs his discontent. The frustrated PhD student also vows to mention typical values of various dimensional parameters if non-dimensional results are ever presented in his publications.

He should have gone to India

Michael Jackson would have been safer in India than in Bahrain. Bahrain is an Islamic country, and might sentence him to death if the accusations that he molested children are essentially proved to be true.

Had he gone to India, then the decrepit judicial system of the country would have:

1. Set the date of judgement in 2050 or something, by which time he would be dead

2. Acqutted him (beacuse of insufficient evidence, when in reality he would have bribed some politician to bribe some judge to get his acquittal).

3. He would have been imprisoned for a while before being let out on bail ... but since nothing would ever have the chance of being proven against him, his dignity (whatever is left of it) would have been salvaged.

The Indian judicial system is nice on paper - but there is no way of really testing it out. Getting justice in one's lifetime has become impossible in this country. A method for the speedy disposal of improtant cases is the need of the hour. For development is impossible without a robust justice system.

You can kill in India and not expect to be tried for a long time. You can be arrested for no reason at all and not be presented in a court for almost forever. The only way out is to befriend the politicians and see if they can "pressure" the judges to let you out easily.

On the Hilarity of Curvaceous Caricatures: A Spectral Approach

ABSTRACT
It has been noted that certain cartoon series such as Tom and Jerry (Quimby Era) [1], Mickey Mouse [2] ,Bugs Bunny [3] and Count Duckula [4] are more likely to produce chuckles from the average non-philistine spectator than Tom and Jerry (Jones Era) [5] - and anything else on either Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network today. In this work, a frequency domain methodology to arrive at a correlation between the funniness (the probability to produce a chuckle) and the spectral densities at higher frequencies has been described. Quantitative results have been withheld, since this information is very sensitive and might lead to the development of funny cartoons by countries within the axis of evil. It is undesirable to have happy enimies, for happiness results in a lifted morale.

INTRODUCTION

The spectrum has been around ever since that day when Fourier dreamed up his series and transform. The fourier transform is widely used in a discretized from in software such as Winamp to show the frequency content of an unstationary music (mp3) signal and also in critical space applications. (I'm sure it is used somewhere in space, right). Two dimensional fourier transforms are used by Net Nanny (possibly) to block po rnographic images - and they have also been used in the JPEG format of pictures, making possible the entire internet.

The spectrum has been exploited in movies such as G hostbusters and Ghost and numerous Indian movies too, which employ scenes of the supernatural. Turbulent flows show a cascading behavior in the spectral domain, something that seemed to be lost behind the noise in the time domain.

Cartoons have been around for a long time, and are universally accepted as examples of man on the pinnacle of his naughty creativity; right from the first Tom and Jerrys to the lump of mucus that graces the screen in those Mucinex commericals. Characters such as Dr. Von Goosewing and Daffy Duck send the average human into peals of laughter. Yet modern cartoons (the entire gamut of shows that cartoon network has to offer now, for one!) are unlikely to make anyone with an IQ exceeding that of a crushed pea laugh. South Park is more likely to make people Vomit than laugh, though the Simpsons has its funny times every now and then.

Common sense would tell us that it is just creativity that is lacking. But we beg to differ. Be believe that there are sinister forces afoot here. We postulate that the curvature of the edges of the cartoon is indicative of the funniness - the straighest edge resulting in a drag. We use a frequency domain method to estimate the harmonic content within an edge: the lower the harmonic content, the funnier the cartoon. We expect a straight line between funniness and power at higher frequencies.

RESULTS

Censored. Only harmless pictures allowed.

Goosewing, Dr Von: Deliriously Mindbogglingly funny. Observe curves.

Cat, Tom: Chuck Jones Era. Observe sharper nose. Distinctly unfunny.

Federal Law forbids further discussion.


Conclusion

Cartoons with sharper edges tend to be way more boring than rounder cartoons.

Refrences

1 .... 10 : Google.com: googling referenced term suffices.


Warning

It is strongly recommended that this study be taken with a pinch of salt and be quoted exclusively to quoters' risk. Author shall not be liable for any hurt egos.

Kicked out by the great firewall?

I think I might have solved the riddle that has been plaguing me for a very long time. Why do very few people read my blog? And why do fewer people comment on it?

I think the answer lies in my using the terms "Tinamen Square" in a few of my posts earlier. This would, in all probability, have resulted in my blog being kicked out by the Great Firewall of China, therefore, reducing my "market" by roughly 45 millon users.

No wonder, there's been scarce activity on the comments section of my blog of late. However, I, the optimist that I am, would like to look at the silver lining. The fact that my blog is probably blocked in China essentially means that it has been read by a few of the 30,000 odd Chinese censors. It is a gratifying feeling, since they would have had to delve real deep into this blog to catch the sensitive parts! So, I do know that a few people have read a lot of the 89 posts that precede this.

But then again, the pessimistic side contends that this could have been done by a computer. And alas, that is more realistic.

A Farmer's Plight

When I was younger, many years ago
Could seldom finish my food, I would throw.
straight Into the dustbin
When Mum wasn't looking.

When Mum would find out,
she would be displeased and shout
"You're so lucky, you have food,
other Indian children have to chew on wood!"

Such a poignant picture she would paint,
That I would feed guilty and faint.
I felt responsible for the poor being poor,
I decided to shun this wastage forever.

Kissan was a farmer I never did know.
And he now is no more.
He had taken his own life,
He had slit his neck with a knife.

It had rained well that year,
And when rain was not needed, the sky was clear.
There was not an insect, no pest
Kissan had a wonderful harvest.

He thought he was going to be rich,
but life can be such a bitch.
Everyone grew lots of food -
He would have earned more in a flood!

No one wasted food, you see-
We were careful, you and me.
We did not buy more from the farm,
The lack of demand caused the farm alarm.

And when everyone was careful with food,
Purchase no one would.
Kissan could not repay is debt,
He decided to face the bullet.

How can such a noble deed,
make an innocent man to death bleed?

Shooting and Killing

Once upon a time one small boy
Stepped on the foot of a big fat man
The man then fell on his knee
And suffered momentary agony.

Angered by the gall of the boy,
The man swore he would destroy
The boy and his family,
And he did so mercilessly.

He took a gun and shot them all,
In cold blood he saw them fall.
The fat man wanted the world to know
Don't mess with me, or your blood will flow.

The fat man then made many a gun,
He would give to some, and others he would shun.
And when other people tried to make them on their own,
The fat man would talk foul and frown.

And often, he would talk of dangers of the gun,
Scare the living daylights of everyone.
Others should not have the gun, he would say,
They might accidentally blow people away.

Foolproof Cryptography based on Navier-Stokes?

Here's the outline of an encryption algorithm that has no hope of being cracked.

Suppose you got a tank of water and some dye. When the water's all steady and stagnant, introduce your message in the water - scribble it in english using GRE words using a dye in the water. And then, shake the tank. Remember how you shake the tank, of course. Shake it like crazy. Make it turbulent. Let the dye mix up.

And at a precise instant, note the concentration of the dye at every point in space, the pressure at every point in space, the velocity at every point in space - and send that information as your "encoded" message.

In the "cipher", describe the geometry too ... essentially, describle all the final conditions and the problem. Cracking the code would essentially mean solving (DNSing) the time - reversed N/S ( the same as the original equation, with a negative viscosity instead!That makes it unphysical, for this spontaneously destroys entropy in an adiabatic system).

Basically the only people who will be able to "decipher" this information will be people who have access to an excellent DNS code and a Deep Thought (of the H2G2 fame) calibre computer. Such encryption shall lead to a DNS race between governments of the world - in the spirit of the current Nuclear Arms race. Larger chunks of national budgets will be awarded to DNS.

In the unlikely evemt that these efforts should culminate in a "crack", fret not. Use GRE words in the original message; it shall stay un-understood, though deciphered!

Inequities 2: Karim and Yusuf

In the town of Mumbai lived Karim
Abject poverty he lived in.
He drove a taxi for a life,
With the cab he fed his son and wife.

He struggled fifteen hours a day,
- for he needed every inch of this pay.
School isn't cheap, you know
English medium especially so.

They lived in a slum in town,
In a place rented, not their own.
It had a leaky roof,
And a landlord who was aloof.

Of Karim Yusuf had been a friend,
But their friendship came to a premature end,
WhenYusuf flew to a place far away,
namely the US of A.

Yusuf worked as a cabbie in New York,
Only 9 to 5 he needed to work!
He would get enough to eat and drink,
and a nice deposit in the bank.

He managed to buy an American House,
Just with his 9 to 5 income.
He married and American girl,
His was an American world.

And in pride, Yusuf would oft exclaim
" Why is America so rich?It's quite plain
It's just toil and hard work,
Karim is poor because he's a lazy Indian jerk!"

Free Speech and all that crap

(This is regarding the insensitive cartoons of Prophet Mohammed)

I believe there's nothing more dangerous than a blind believer in "principles". European media, especially the ones who have published those pictures after the original outrage - you're a bunch of bull-headed morons.

It sounds very nice when you say you "believe" in free speech. You are sure you are right about this, and believe that everyone should "respect" this right. So, you go and insult something that others hold very close to their heart. Free speech, after all.

If you're allowed to hold blind convictions, hold that "free speech" is the most important thing in the world, then you would be a hypocrite to condemn any reaction that follows.

This naive arrogance on the part of the European Media has caused hurt and aggravated the Islamic world. If the Europeans cannot respect the sentiments of the people in the Islamic world, the Islamic world will not respect the sentiments of the Europeans. Anarchy will prevail; and that is something the world can do without.

Principles and religion have been the downfall of man. Pragmatism and tolerance should replace principle. Since there are immensely many ways to look at a fact, having confidence in one's assessment of the same shows a kind of arrogance that proves almost fatal when negotiating with another culture - a culture that is largely different from the one one is accustomed to.

How the second law has been violated

All my life, I've been trying to come up with instances that "defy" the statistical reality that is the second law of Thermodynamics. I believe that my search has finally come to an end.

Most people would probably have heard of the Maxwell Daemon - the "door" that allows only the "faster" (and therefore hotter) molecules from a cold area to a hot area, and "slower" molecules from a hot area to a cold area, therefore, creating a machine that defies the second law. People have puzzled over this for a very long time - and some conclude that it is impossible to construct such a daemon. Its existence, like that of the Lochness Monster, Yeti and Bigfoot is suspect.

But America has a Maxwell Daemon of its own. The INS. America is a rich land: lots of water, food and beer for all; lots of cows and pigs to kill and eat; lots of cars to drive; lots of petroleum (oil) to burn. Countries like India, on the other hand, are not so lucky - lots of people starve to death, lots of people cannot have a full meal, lots of people live in utter poverty in slums.

But India does have lots of good brains. Lots of IIT and IIM graduates. Lots of equally skilled people from other colleges - right from Bihar to Kerala. And these guys, inevitably, after gaining some education of sorts, start dreaming the American dream. The INS allows them through willingly ("America should not lose its competitive edge"), but does not allow the beggar and the "unskilled" worker. And the denouement is the following: the Per Capita Income of Indian Americans is 1.5 times the American average - the people from one of the poorest countries in the world are the richest ethnic group in America.

There's lots of Indians in the Silicon Valley. Almost all universities in the USA (even MIT, Stanford, Princeton and the like) have a sizable proportion of Indian professors and students. Often the biggest Academic names are Indians. Lots of big companies have Indians on their payrolls. Hardly what you would expect from one of the poorest nations in the world.

But Zurek (2003) would say "Hey, the INS is doing some sort of work, right? So it isn't really a violation". But I would rationalize by saying that human beings aren't molecules. Especially me. I'm fat.

REFERENCES

W. Zurek, Maxwell'’s demon, Szilard'’s engine and quantum measurements, arXiv:quant-ph/0301076 (2003)

Inequities

His was a poor penniless life,
Yet had to support a daughter and a wife
He would labor two jobs a day,
feed his mouths to feed, pay his bills to pay.

She led a pretty and prosperous life,
Never had to struggle, no strife.
She had a daughter, too, a cute little thing
Who to one and all joy did bring.

His daughter wanted a toy doll one day.
He worked harder; overtime; so that he could pay
And buy her the doll, she would be so happy,
The gleeful smile on her face, he would see.

Her daughter wanted the doll too -
She was so busy at work, so, purchase she forgot to.
She recalled on the way back, but the shop had passed,
So, she desperately exclaimed "Please get me a doll God!"

He worked in a sewer that day,
Started home with the doll in his bag,
He tripped and fell, and in the darkness the doll was lost.
And he went home, depressed and distraught.

While she was driving home in her Merc,
she saw something secluded on the sidewalk.
"Ah, the doll! My prayers have been answered,
God is great, he has listened to my word!"

She started believing in God all the more,
And decided to spread his word to the poor.

Ethical way to eat meat

I am a vegetarian primarily because I don't want to hurt the animal which is dying. Being a vegetarian has been an ethical choice - a humane choice. I do not want to be cruel to the animal by creating pain for it.

I suppose there are a lot of people in the world like me. People like us, of course, cannot help but feel their mouths water when they see ads for steaks and the like advertised on TV. And guess what, there IS a hope for us! This 'hope' can be summarized in a four letter word: CIPA. Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhydrosis.

It is a rare genertic disorder in Human beings which shuns pain. Children with CIPA are known to bang their heads against walls - and essentially be extremely careless. That what you would expect when Nature's feedback system is overriden. Apparently, only 17 people in the United States have CIPA.

So, essentially, the crux of what I am saying is, do research. Develop a CIPA injection .... can be injected into cows, chickens, turkeys, hens, donkeys, horses and other animals ... and then the guillotine treatment. The animals won't feel a thing ... and Presto! You got humane meat.

We can extend this to include Euthanasia. An extremely sick person can be given this CIPA injection and then be, say, electrocuted, for all practical purposes. I, however, do not recommend the CIPA injection be administered to a criminal before executing him, for the lure of a painless death may encourage suicidal maniacs to go on a killing spree, something that everyone would like to avoid.

How Efficiency Can be a Pain

I've been an avid net junkie and a Firefox devotee for a very long time. I was one of the first to install Firefox. I felt happy when it was doing well.

Back in the old days, when something wasn't working well, there was one sure way to make it work. Start it again. Uninstall and reinstall the program. Start with a clean slate essentially. But of late this comforting "backup" has come under fire.

Firefox goofed up finally. It's not loading any bookmarks on my toolbar; there's a grey space below the status bar and it's not behaving as nice as it used to.

So, I tried looking up forums ... but there were no discussions regarding my problem. I decided to do something that usually works, viz. install over it. The new version of firefox that I installed over it, of course, installed perfectly. When I started Firefox the next time, the same problem. Frustrated, I uninstalled the progam and reinstalled it.

And guess what? The same problem all over again. Essentially, I think there's something wrong with my settings somewhere ... that's what is killing the progam ... and these stupid settings are saved when the program is uninstalled and restored when reinstalled.

I think modern programmers, in the guise of making things more convenient are conspiring to make the lives of the computer user tougher. I have a feeling they are in cahoots with brain doctors or something.

The next time I see a program which gives me such trouble again, I would really like to tell the programmer to stick his keyboard where it hurts.

Living with a tough name

Pronouncing my name is not a treat - even for a masochist. If you're not from Andhra Pradesh, pronouncing my name will take a lot of perseverence. And I am not that important to be persevered about.

Back in India, I never really lived in Andhra for more than a couple of years. I had more friends who were not from andhra. So, when I inflicted them with "*@#!*(" they felt deceived. Some took the easy way out, calling me "Rap". Actually, all did, except some professors.

The problem with such a difficult last name of course was that I was treated like something of an outcast in class. Almost everyone else's name would be pronounced right: and an embarassing mistake would be committed ("*?") when it was my name that was to be spoken out loud. I was a lone outsider for most of the time in India. The Deepak Yadhavs, the Sunil Kumars and the Murali Krishnas were the "in crowd". And I would be down in a corner, alone.

Bank clerks would have a tough time trying to get my name right. So would Railway reservation clerks, Airline tickets agents, passport office clerks, post office people...... Some would listen to my name in disbelief and give the impression that they did not approve of the Andhra system of nomenclature. You would think my name was a curse in their native language. Does "Rallabandi" mean SOB in Marathi or Tamil?

Ironically, coming to America has changed all that. To the average American, "Deepak" is as tough as "Rallabandi". Since they can't ostracize the entire South Asian community here (who'll run the Silicon Valley then?), they have no option but to concede. Thus, I automatically gain acceptance. I can live with respect again. Possibly the only place outside Andhra that I can live with respect in. Come to think of it, Rallabandi means "stone-carriage" in Telugu. How much "respect" is that going to earn me in Andhra?

India's Jewish Mother

People in the "enlightened" west shudder at the thought of governement controls. Actually, not as much shudder as hold in disdain. Infringement, they reckon it is.

But India is a country where some so called "Pundits" in Delhi or some pompous fool heading a maniac-fanatic cult (such as the RSS) tries to govern the way India acts. I am talking of the moral police that are harassing citizens everywhere. Men and women when together are frowned at. (Western values "permeating and polluting" virgin India). Obviously, these idiots have never been either to Kajuraho or Ellora. And to make humanity run out of options, Homosexuality is sneered at too, which makes acceptable the company of eunuchs. And there's not too many of them around.

Put your leg up on a table or chair somewhere, someone will come and tell you that the heavens are going to fall on you. Oft, rudely. (Perhaps, this is a rather unjustified comment. Things are costly, back in India. People value whatever resources they have, oft meager).

So, certainly, coming from a such a society, is does not surprise me that Arjun Singh is throwing water on the International Aspirations of IIMs.

People in the government, there are better things for you to worry about. A five letter word, Bihar comes to mind, obviously. Not that slums elselwhere are fantastic. Not that people don't live in utter poverty and misery.

Leave the IIMs alone. Let them spread abroad. They are not using any taxpayer's money. As a matter of fact, tax them even more. And use that to alleviate poverty. Make sure that the corrupt hands of Laloo and the like don't get to touch the money.

Of Ideas, Humans and Bathtubs

I remember reading in a recent issue of Time or Scientific American (I forget which), that ideas come to people when they’re either in the bathtub or in the gym. I could not help but agree with this; Archimedes came to mind, exclaiming “Eureka!” on the streets in a state of embarrassing undress having discovered his principle while indulging in a bath. Umpteen other examples can be cited of people hitting upon a sudden stroke of genius either while bathing or while in the gym. As a matter of fact, I got the idea for this post while bathing!

I believe that this tendency of humans to think while in their baths shall be the solution to all of the third world’s problems. A country like India, stuck in a stagnant rut of corruption and poverty requires creative solutions to its day to day problems. Creative methods to make money. Creative policies.

So, the panacea to this problem would lie in building more bathtubs. It is my strong belief that funds that would otherwise be used to educate the illiterate by building schools be used to build public bath tubs. And public gyms. People on utilizing the same, shall, no doubt, be struck by at least one stroke of genius per head per day, thus alleviating the whole country from the aforementioned poverty.

Perhaps a considerable amount of the defense budget could be spent on building bathtubs for leaders so that they can come up with creative solutions for the Kashmir issue. And the music directors of these Hindi Movies sure need all the bathtubs that they can get.

On a different plane altogether, I believe this tendency of “good” ideas to materialize during a bath (or a workout) is merely a manifestation of Murphy’s law. What worse time to get an idea than when making a note of the same is next to impossible!

Hail Murphy.

Of Mosquitoes And Nations

His Omnipotency found the planet Earth drifting out of control, and decided to decide what to do about it. He recruited a troupe of mosquitoes and sent some to every nation he thought was of concequence to "test the waters". This is the story of those awful winged critters and how governments reacted to them.

China:

The mosquitoes had a tough time flying over the great wall of China, but they never forgot that they were God's critters. They, after a lot of toil, made it to the other side. The females started stinging people as they went around. This did not go unnoticed. A few government officials were monitoring the mosquitoes, and they made their reports to the overlords at Bejing. A few journalists also saw the mosquitoes and were about to report the same in the next morning's news papers.

Of course, the government killed all the journalists and never ever admitted that there was anything wrong with the Nation at all. Anyone who missed the journos was told that they died of mosquito bite. The head of the state hailed the Mosquitoes (only privately, though) as a gift from God to reduce the population. Since these mosquitoes were not capable of killing anyone, the only way the population was in control was by the state when it killed the "enlightened" journalists.

U.S.A

The invasion of the mosquitoes was shown on all Channels on TV, right from MTV to C-Span. Bill O'rielly expressed outrage at this, and Stephen Colbert said that bears were worse. The army was rushed in, tanks were fired, a nuclear bomb was dropped on each of the mosqutoes obliterating the same (while they were still on international waters, exposing Cuba to deadly radiation) except for a few which were retained for research on stem cells.

Iran

U.S reckoned that Iran was harboring the mosqutos and decided to attack them. Ahmednijad, of course, denied that mosqitoes could ever cause malaria (stating that all the malaria cases in the world were a myth). To prove this, he slept in a room with only mosqitoes in it. He died of dengue fever the next day. The US attacked Iran the next day, trying to find the mosquitoes. But since a bomb had been dropped on Ahmednijad's mosquito filled room obliterating his deceased body and all the mosquitoes, they could not find the same. Of course, a debate ensued in America regarding bad intellegence.

India

Some mosquitoes went to the southern Metropolis of Chennai and were immediately killed by the high temperatures and Humidity. Some went to Delhi, where enthusiastic journalists conducted sting operations of them, adding some irony. The mosquitoes were then broadcast on National TV. They were remanded in judicial custody, and their trial date was set 50 years later. Some mosquitoes went to Bihar and bit two people, one lower caste and another upper caste. Of course, a civil war erupted between the Ranvir Sena and the Maoists. God was pleased with the mosquitoes for this. He had been trying to get rid of these organizations for a very long time.

N. Korea

A massive famine was averted in North Korea. This was hailed as a blessing from God. Mosquito fries became very popular. Since cooking killed pathogens, if any, the only worry that Kim-Jong-Il had now was corpulence, and of course, the US nuking him for "breeding agents of bio-terror".


Africa

The mosquitoes added to the already prevalent malaria pandemic in Africa and killed the entire aids ravaged continent.

God was so upset with this that he took a Gun and shot himself. He then went to hell, wrecking the entire balance between good and bad.

Indian Weather

Almost an NRI of sorts, I decided to get back in touch with my roots by looking up the weather in Motherland. And I was in for quite an ordeal. I clicked on ndtv.com and tried to check out the weather in India. I went to their weather site and clicked on Delhi. Minimum 8C. Nothing worrisome. Normal, I reckoned. I checked out other places too. Pune showed a low of 18! It felt a little suspicious, but I let that go.

Then I came to the main page and saw the headlines. Delhi had its coldest day in 70 years. Frost. 0.2 C! What the hell was the 8c doing on the weather map? Pune was enjoying a brisk 8C in the morning. Not Delhi, as I found out later after digging the IMD website. NDTV (Pranoy Roy et. al.) should really do some serious thinking before they try to pass this crap in the name of weather.

Talking of crap in climate journalism, one must not forget to mention the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). Their website bears a dilapidated and decrepit look, reminding one of the internet when it was new. (www.imd.ernet.in). If you dig in deep enough, you will find Doppler and satellite imagery of sorts buried under mounds of verbosity. In the US, these are always standard. Clicking a concealed link in one of the pages will lead to the "current weather observations" table, in which the "current" temperature of cities (selected at random) is shown in an HTML table. The saving grace, of course is that these observations are accurate. But really, the presentation disgusts one and all.

Compare this with the American noaa.gov website. Kind of reinforces the notion that America is way more developed than India, doesn't it?

Freakish weather was, once upon a time, attributed to God. Now, it is the omnipotent El - Ninio. If there isn't ample reason to blame the El~Nino or the La~Nina (if the weather-girl in the news channel can't pronounce it, that is), then the Western Disturbance over Pakistan caused it. Makes poetic sense too - the hostile neighbor sending harsh weather.

I just mentioned weather girls. Weather girls are girls (as their name suggests) who look symmetric (and pretty?) and know as much about meteorology as I do about the string theory. And I don't know much. They are aired on TV channels, keen on enhancing their ratings.

India needs a more sophisticated weather information system. Period. Something like the weather channel in the USA. Or at least the NOAA website! Lots of farmers are being harassed by the unpredictability of our immediate weather. Better forecasting systems would go a long way in helping the farmers out, during the monsoon and the winter. Not to mention hurricanes (cyclones in India) and floods. Why not do it when we can? Why should we rely on age - old
methods ("rules of thumb") to predict the climate, when sophisticated methods can be used?

The IMD does seem to have some sort of information available. But in my opinion, they need to hire more experts and certainly improve their communication. Lots of lives can be saved by this. And India will be another centimeter closer to being a developed nation.

Looking at the USA, this surely can be done. Do something, Dr. Singh!

Blogging in the open

A lot has been said of the bitchiness of a certain Mother Nature. But one must give her credit when credit is due. She has conjured up more or less a month of flawless comfortable days in winter, the maximum seldom dipping below the 16C (60F) mark. And this has meant tremendous opportunities to walk around, bask in the mild winter sun and blog in the open.

Certainly, this pleasure comes with a hefty price tag to some other people. Mother nature is not being a bitch to me right now because my home in all probability is not in flames. Other people here in Texas or Oklahoma are not so lucky. A bitch to them she is.

The previously blogged about trip around Texas has got me moderately obsessed with photography. This winter, Texas saw three people (a couple of geeky guys and cute girl) armed with cameras roam around taking photographs ranging from the provisionally exciting to the awfully mundane. Some of the best, it is assumed, shall pop up (mutilated and photoshopped?) here.

I'm pretty bad at photography, and am a believer in the point and shoot philosophy. The subtlelities of exposure and aperture control have yet to diffuse into my eternally dense brain. Needless to say the photographs I take suffer with an apalling lack of creativity.

So, what does the coming semester have in store for me? A couple of exciting courses, for one. A new roommate, qualifying exams for the PhD and a trip to Purdue. The course on turbulence sounds promising. I hope I get to get my hands dirty with the math this time ... the previous course back at IIT was more qualitative than quantitative, nevertheless probably the best course I ever underwent.

I hope not to be disillusioned like I was the previous semester. The courses are better this semester. I shall start research this semester too .. things are actually looking up this semester. I have a gut feeling that I will start liking my life a lot more henceforth.

Another thing that needs to be done this semester is, of course, getting the driver's license. The problem, of course, is that the DMV is across the highway, and there's no way to get there. Some more of that beggary will have to be performed ... perhaps sometime next week ... I need to beg someone with a car to take me there.

Anyways, in hope of better days ahead, I'll sign off now.

Back

Not that I went anywhere of consequence. Let's just say that I have been suffering from a bad case of writer's block. (I know, calling myself a "writer" is taking an optimistic liberty But I hope the reader is in a forgiving mood, and shall take this in his/her stride and not think too much of this momentary lapse of reason.). After almost an era I'm back on the hot seat, blogging away to glory - or to shame, as one anonymous commentator would have it.

Since I have no real issue to rake up right now, I'll talk about what I did (or what I did not do) in the last few days. Read this if you can't afford those costly insomnia medications.

But before go into that, a small social note here. Don't you get the feeling that someone is taking your brain, squeezing it dry, stamping on it and feeding it to a dog when you see someone use 'ur' for 'your' and 4 for 'for'? I believe it is the leading cause of mental anguish for all English Speakers, an endangered race anyway. Anonymous, take notice.

So, what did I do these holidays? Well, some friends came over. Met them after a long time, a joyous reunion was effected. Some adventures in the kitchen ensued - often led to success in moderation. A car was rented, and the sole driver was exploited. State parks were visited, freeways were traveled the wrong direction upon. Photos were taken, fun was had - more so in the drive than in the actual destination.

The Houston space center was visited. An 18 year old cannot explain rocket science to a bunch of eternally cynical IITians. A favorable impression did not form. But photos were taken, as they always are, and some fun (of sorts) was had. Of course, extortionate amounts were paid to the starbucks guys for coffee, and queues reminiscent of a ration shop back in India had to be stood in only to be ripped off.

College Station was walked around, a couple of movies were watched, one of which could have been called the highlight of the trip. The movie, a musical, insisted that Hitler's full name was Adolf Elizabeth Hitler, and peals of laughter were consistently expunged into the air in the duration of the movie, for the plot was ridiculous. The Producers. Check it out sometime.

And now the friends have gone home. So, loneliness has come by again. And this time, I am spending my time cannibalizing many Mr. Peanuts. Self shall become one of those rotundas that airports boast of. A sort of inflated feeling persists even now. Lots of jogging seems not to help.

Woe is me.

What to do with secrets.

Do you have a secret that you're trying to supress? Is it trying to burst out of you? Are you scared that you will embarass yourself thoroughly by blurting it out in public? I have a solution to this irksome problem.

Emails are too risky. Too many people are trying to hack into your account. And twelve digit paswords are a little too tough to remember.

Blog it!

No one will ever know. No one ever reads blogs anyway. I would know. No comment for the last month.