Round Round Around

An acquaintance of my brother once had an argument with his computer science professor. When the professor threatened to complain to the Head of the department, he frivolously warned her that he would throw both the Head and professor in an endless 'for loop' and let them revolve forever. Now, thats a good one!

Brick Walls

Few people attempt difficult tasks purely because they are difficult. They want to jump over the brick wall and land in the beautiful world awaiting on the other side. Sometimes, success in jumping the wall itself is the most sought after part.

We all heard late Prof. Randy Pausch. He said, "The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people." In my case, the brick walls sometimes tend to forget that they are there to stop others and not me :)

Absolute Logic

I have a burning question. Does reasoning depend only on our experience? I came across few ideas that support this notion. For example, researchers say that our brain works by means of input to output mapping. Of course, this mapping is very complicated and with changing experiences, the mapping also changes. If this is true, logic is probably relative.. right?

One interesting example: It is argued that we can't see a world having other than three physical dimensions in our minds. Apparently, we can see a 2D plane in 3D space, but can't imagine the whole world to be in 2D. This puts serious limitations on our ability to imagine. May be there is some credit to the quote by J.B.S. Haldane after all.

Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

Gold & Fire

It reminds me of the following quote that justifies every hardship we face in life.

Gold is refined by fire.

I took this photograph on the night of Ugadi, Telugu new year in 2009 at Ocean Beach, California.

Enemies & others

Living icon of nonviolence, Dalai Lama once said,

"It's your enemies that build your tolerance and patience on the road to your enlightenment."

I am not worried about enemies. There are few people whom I can not love no matter how much I try. I wouldn't be surprised if they feel the same way about me. Yet, we are not enemies. I am worried about this relationship or lack of it (the connectedness). I wish someone had said something about this.

Vegetarianism

I have been trying to find out if it is practical for all the humans to be vegetarians. I read many qualitative statements mentioning how animals we consume eat more food than we do, if we chose to eat that food instead. If it is true for majority of the animals we consume, it is a powerful argument. There must be some research done in this regard and I am still looking for that data.

There are other angles to this issue. On one hand, we have people disregarding the wellbeing of animals in 'animal farming' and on the other hand, we have the concept of 'edible pets' (Yes, there are people that raise animals like pets and at the end of the day, cook them).

Philosophers Paul & Linda McCartney said, if slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. But, I don't think treating animals with love and dignity before killing them is the solution.

Anyway, I am asking why we should eat animals instead of asking why we should only eat vegetarian food. I am looking for a convincing answer for why we should be non-vegetarians.

Maverick

There are numerous examples in History of people being wrong. Be it earth being flat or blood passing through the body like tides or even judging other category of people like Nazis did, people were collectively wrong.

Many years ago, there were rumours that a wierd biped creature is tramping Delhi streets during the night time. Instances of attacks all over the city by this creature were reported in the news. Typically, people sleeping on their roofs would wake up in the middle of the night with painful scratches on their bodies and would spot this creature running away. This continued for few days. Then, doctors declared that the scratches on victims bodies were inflicted upon by the victims themselves.There was no wierd creature, it was mass hysteria. That was the first time I felt that I should not believe in something just because most people believe in it.

The only way not to be influenced by what people around you think is to critically reason everything you hear.

Stanford: Hoover Tower

I think Hoover Tower has become Stanford's face in the recent past, trouncing other monuments of the University such as memorial church, main quad, etc.

I took this picture couple of days ago (in August'09).

Aim at Stars

I don't know why we were told that if we aim at stars, we will atleast reach the moon. Perhaps the previous generations faced too many setbacks to daresay that we can reach our goals.

After all the developments of our century, I can't help but think that if we plan right and implement it,

we should be able to achieve our goals. So..

If you aim at stars, you will reach stars.

I read a funny statement that goes something like..

Aim at moon and if you miss, you will reach stars.

:)

New Frontiers: Men Wanted

Sir Ernest Shackleton released the following advertisement for his Antarctic Expedition.

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.

Apparently 5,000 people responded almost overnight. I think we need more of that kind, to open up Space Exploration.

Explorer Bill Stone said, "There was once a time, when people did bold things to open the frontier. We have collectively forgotten that lesson". I hope we will explore oceans and space at least as thoroughly as we had explored land. Along with the technology and financial backing, we need right kind of leadership. Courage is a very important quality. Here is a quote by Lord Chesterfield:

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to loose sight of the shore.

Sending crew to moon without return propellent, mining the moon to get fuel for return journey and to set up a fuelling station to ease interplanetary exploration - this is indeed loosing sight of shore.

It's a multi-disciplinary World

We have done such a great job in dividing education into different disciplines that most students don't even consider learning other disciplines, let alone mastering them. Even those who realize the complexity of the World's problems offer collaboration among 'experts' as the way to go. Here is a statement by one such person:

Big problems don't come in disciplinary packages. If we're going to solve them, it's going to require diverse expertise working collaboratively. – Dean Deborah Stipek, Stanford.

I have different take on this. I can't forgo the pleasure of knowing everything that I have access to. My contention is that if anyone doesn't like a subject, it is only because they didn't learn it properly. I see no reason in constraining our expertise to one specialization. So,

Big problems don't come in disciplinary packages. If you want to solve them, you need diverse expertise.

Lake Tahoe

My first experience with snow: On December 26th, 2008 at Lake Tahoe, CA.

The snow experience was as spectacular as I anticipated, matching my expectations of the feel I had imagined while watching movies. This photograph made my day. It is undoubtedly the most beautiful snap I have ever taken.

Everyone calls me by my name

One morning, I replaced all my e-mail passwords with a strange beautiful word I concocted. Actually it is not even a word, it is a random combination of few alphabet. After couple of minutes, my boss gave me a task, the kind that has to be finished immediately. So, I started working on it and half an hour passed before I realized that I forgot my new password.

I had applied for admission in few grad schools in US and they would intimate me of their decision through one of my e-mail accounts of which the password I just forgot. With unflinching composure and confidence, I clicked on 'forgot my password' link and the websites sent new passwords to the other secondary mail accounts whose passwords were also replaced with the new word. Still without panicking, I used the option of answering secret question one website offered and the question was 'What's your pet name?'. Now, I am really in the soup because I never had any pet name. Everyone calls me by my name.

Pale Blue Dot

No need to say anything..

The Ideal

If I have to choose one principle as the Ideal I want to conform to throughout my life, what would that be?

In everything we do, we should strive to minimize the cumulative energy that is spent on that task by everyone including ourselves.

This means completing the last mile in every journey we embark upon with same level of energy we had during the rest of the journey. In some cases, it may amount to going one extra mile to help others who would otherwise have to spend too many resources to start from where you left off.