Enlightened ... There are no special effects.

There have been a few tweets from Google about teaching technology to parents.  My brother and I had made a few attempts, but my parents were least interested.  My father wouldn't try anything other than solitaire games and my mother is happy with her books.  I used to feel that she must be thorough with all those stories, but at her age she must be forgetting a lot. Now coming back to teaching technology, I didn't want to try again, but my father gave a chance.  He complained about the cost of his cough syrup.  I thought I could explain it.  I could visualize the travel of that fifty rupee note from my father's pension account. Preparing for a long story, I started - "Appa, are you proud that I am earning so much?"  He didn't see any sense in my question.  He appeared confused, "Why?  I'm always proud of you.".  I continued, "Good, let me tell you how I make so much money and that will answer your question on the price of cough syr...

I wasn't a big fan of predictions, but I surprised myself at deciding to learn Astrology from my neighbor.  I flirted with palmistry when I was in college.   Going all the way to learn Astrology is not something I could have predicted with my limited knowledge on palmistry. It is one of those impulsive decisions I am known for.  Last year, I decided to try my hand at learning to play Veena, it has been going on fine so far, except for the occasional guilty consciousness for not practicing enough, only when I see Rajesh Vaidhya on TV. Coming back to my Astrology, I started with all earnestness, met the teacher on a Vijyadhasami day, gave a token guru dakshina, bought his book and two big workbooks - one as a notes book and the other as a record note.  I  called up my parents to send my horoscope and everyone's they know of.  I searched for the horoscopes of Rajini, Jayalalitha and even Karunanidhi.  Who cares if he doesn't believe in it! ...

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...