Enlightened ... There are no special effects.

Disclaimer:  This write-up is supposed to introduce you to the procedures and is not a legal advice.  Always consult a lawyer worth his salt before signing any documents.  Feel free to contact me to suggest corrections or need more clarity. We were busy during the first half of this year in two real estate transactions - the sale of our apartment and then the purchase of an independent house.  After that, we got a number of queries from our friends on the procedures; so, I thought of documenting the experience. I'll skip all the steps involved until the buyers and sellers have met and agreed on the transaction.  Let's focus on the procedures alone. The seller will have to give the buyer copies of the following documents. The sale deed that is the proof of your purchase Encumbrance Certificate for at least about 30 years.   Parent Documents - Documents that trace the ownership of the property / its parts for the past 30 years.  In ad...

Thanks to Endhiran and its translations in Telugu and Hindi, there will be more talk on what all can a Robot do or can't do in the days to come.  As a below average student of computer science, I set out to think through what are the possibilities.  Here is my serious below-average analysis of the possibilities. The Sense of I My favorite topic.  What do humans mean by their sense of self?  There is  physiological self, that is one's identification with his/her body.  And there is the psychological self - that one identifies himself as a Hindu, Tamil, Communist, Educated, CEO etc.  I believe both are possibilities with machines.  I use the term machine to refer to the Robots with their knowledge base and their decision support systems. Physiological Self of a Machine:  The physiological self is to present to protect itself - that an organism is not simply a collection of sensory organs, but something that coordinates actions between th...

I was lying down staring at the ceiling fan. The fan had a circular metal piece at the center and it had the radii with ridges.  When the fan is on, I can't see the ridges, but all of us a sudden I felt I'm able to see the ridges for a fraction of a second.  I realized I could see the ridges when I was blinking my eyes.  I wasn't sure whether the vision of ridges precedes the act of blinking or the other way around. The theory behind the persistence of vision is still being debated or debunked.  Instead of banking on a theory, I have my own explanation. As the fan center rotates at more than 24 cycles a second, the ridges are not visible.  We can compare this to the movie watching experience where 72 or more still images are produced per second to create an illusion of motion.  When I blink, as the last image captured by the eye is processed by the brain, it doesn't have a succeeding image to perceive a rotating circle.  So, the last image is exper...

From an email I sent to my brother: Dear Bro, We started talking about moral correctness coming in the way when you want to worship.  Let me start from the childhood and work my way through on this topic.  Don't expect smart one-liners or punch dialogs.  This is logic. Have you ever wondered on whether a 2-3 year old kid cares about God, deity etc.  Ignore the knowledge thrust upon them.  They really do not have an opinion about God.  In fact, they do not need an opinion about God.  Because their consciousness hasn't evolved fully and there is no "I".  Their consciousness isn't limited to their physical body.   What adults think of consciousness is often their own identity.  Everything you think you experience is through this identity.  But what is this identity made of?  In the beginning it just starts with a name - your name.  Then you start identifying with your family, village, city, region, country etc.  Th...

In response to Ram's blog  Perceptions of Indian Developers in the West On comparing the capabilities of developers, here is a typical experience. We took over a significant but small piece of software couple of years ago.  It was written by one person in C, way back in late 1980s.  Let's call him Adam.  Adam had used an environment that was available then.  He had no version control and no documentation.  It had been backed up on another server.  That was the only version available outside of Adam's machine. Though the organization was particular about software development standards, this one was left as is - for fear of breaking anything or antagonizing Adam or both.  It was a program that was closely guarded, possibly not out of any insecurity, but just circumstances.  It was using Adam's own data structures, could have been rewritten to make use of databases and other libraries.  But not done, for no one saw value in...

வியாழக்கிழமை.  காலை ஒரு மணி நேரத்தை வாரந்திரப் பத்திரிகைகளில் வீணடிக்கும் நாள்.  இன்று கொஞ்சம் குறிக்கோளோடு பத்திரிகைகளைப் பார்த்தேன்.  நித்யானந்தா விவகாரம் அடங்கியதால், அதைப்பற்றி எதாவது வித்தியாசமான கண்ணோட்டத்தைத் தேடினேன். ஜக்கி பற்றிய இரண்டு கட்டுரைகளில் எதுவும் சிறப்பாக இல்லை. அதனால் நான் சென்ற வாரம் எழுதியதை கொஞ்சம் விலாவாரியாக தமிழில் எழுதலாம் என்று எழுதுகிறேன். நித்தியானந்தா போன்ற விஷயங்கள் தினம் நடந்து கொண்டிருக்கிறது.  சம்பந்தப்பட்டவர்கள் உங்களுக்கு அயலார்களே. நீங்கள் மதிக்கும் ஒருவர் இப்படி நடந்துகொண்டால் நீங்கள் என்ன செய்வீர்கள்? அது உங்கள் குருவாகவோ, கடவுளாகவோ,தலைவனாகவோ, நெருங்கிய உறவாகவோ அல்லது நீங்களாகவோ இருக்கலாம். உங்களை கலங்க அடிக்க, ஒரு நிகழ்ச்சி தேவையில்லை. செய்தி போதும். அது அதன் வேலையை செய்ய ஆரம்பிக்கும். நீங்கள் கோழையாக இருந்தால் செய்தியை மறுக்க ஆரம்பிப்பீர்கள்.  அப்படி ஒன்று நடக்கவில்லை, இது திட்டமிட்ட சதி போன்றவை இந்த ரகம்.  சமீபத்திய மறுப்பு, கம்ப்யுட்டர் கிராபிக்ஸ் சதி. நீங்கள் அடாவடி பார்ட்டியாக இருந்தால், மறுக்...

Ram had written about one side of the Nityananda event.  I want to focus on another aspect of it - coping with your faith shaken up.  To start with spirituality is not about "them" but is about "you". The followers of Nityananda must be really troubled by the recent events.  It doesn't matter whether the event was real or doctored.  The very information is enough to trouble them.   When Dayanda Saraswathi's  belief was shaken up , it triggered the creation of Arya Samaj.  Another extreme event was a family suicide in Trichy when they realized a sick member of their family can't be cured by their belief.  There are more common cases like some of my agnostic friends who have faith in the legal system.  They do get shaken up when they learn that the system is not all that clean.  They contemplate relocating to another place where the system isn't so badly corrupted. At times of crisis, it is hard to keep the faith because of the flow o...