I got an iphone 2 days ago and there was a slew of unfortunate events and challenges ever since.
The first day, I was showing off my new gadget to my friends and accidentally dropped the phone on concrete floor - probably from about 3 ft high. The glass shattered to peices corner-to-corner, edge-to-edge. All my friends had their jaws dropped and in about 2 minutes couple of support guys quickly took it inside and showed to everyone and for the rest of that day I was receiving condolences from everyone.
I took it to the apple store same day and they were nice enough to replace it right away with another brand new peice. I brought home that new peice and then the wifi issues ensued. The phone successfully connects to my wifi using WPA PSK secured 802.11b\11g standard connection configuration. In about 2-3 mins the connection goes inactive. Any internet based app just sits there and does nothing with an eventual timeout message.
I tried variety of solutions including resetting iphone network (Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings), forget and re-identify network and lastly I took it to the apple store. The "genius bar" - terrible misnomer, they often dont know what they are talking about. They hooked me up with another new phone and said that if they problem repeats then they are not sure what the issue is. They said the issue might be with iOS 4 and that it is rough around the edges (whatever that means). They simply asked me to live with the problem and wait for 4.1 OS update.
I came back and poked around my router settings. Tried the wireless mode (802.11 g) and changed encryption to AES from PSK and nothing seemed to have made any difference.
Finally, I changed the channel from the default 1 to 4. Voila, I am now browsing internet at blazing speeds and the connection stayed on for nearly a day now without dropping once. I used the network speed test app and registered speeds upwards of 8.3 mbps download and 2.5 mbps upload speeds. Life is happy now... I love the new phone and the display is gorgeous!!
I am not convinced I understood the issue though. Because there are several other devices in the house that were able to successfully use my previous wireless router settings and work just fine (including a 3gs iphone of my wife, vonage phone and 2 laptops). So why this change worked is still to be understood.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Saturday, December 6, 2008
What's worse - Extremism or Justice?
It was a typical day, business as usual at work. The usual bug ridden software we work with, taking head-on the fast approaching go-live dates and one long hard look at what's the worst that can happen as a result of this dangerous concoction will surely send chills up anyone's spine. The party line however is "we're having fun"! So much fun that I get tired and am ready for a break. Yes, that's exactly what I did. Took a break, for lunch. I like to have my lunch with friends or colleagues, so I don't still think about stuff that makes me nervous.
Had our lunch with a few laughs and some rare insights from our "Indian Jew" (I call him that because this mallu can show you the best deal regardless of what you are set out to buy) into how to buy the cheapest possible SDHC card, 4gb for 5 bucks. Can you beat that? Well now you understand the nick name. Anyway, on my way back to desk I was distracted by the laptop speaker volume of a colleague and discovered that the terrorists hijacked some Hotels in Mumbai and some incidents happened at the train station and a hospital. We started reading about what happened and then realized the scale of the damage and the message that is being sent. No anonymity anymore, no secrecy... everything out in the open.
"Animals! Savages!!, god forbid them... what do they get taking innocent lives", we were all saying to ourselves and each other. There is a lot of anger in these terrorists, anger from hatred, anger from oppression, a very important emotion heavily misguided toward bad things. 2 days passed, indian forces have taken control of the situation. Damage has been done. A Country's pride is hurt, time and again, but never as bas as this time.
But it makes one wonder, what does it take to sacrifice his\her own life for a cause. How much of commitment it needs, but what's worse is, what does it take to murder 200 people indiscriminately, men women and children alike. Good thing they don't have to go to bed with that anymore, or I bet that would be hell.
Days passed and I am still recovering from the shock, digesting the facts and the after math. On my way to work, hearing NPR (b.t.w. it's National Public Radio, for the FM challenged out there) tuning in for more information on Mumbai attacks. There was an article being broadcasted on a slightly different subject. That is the process of death penalty and how another death sentence is coming up shortly for actioning in the state of Washington, walla walla state prison.
In washington state, if a person is sentenced to death - that person has two options to choose how he/she wants to die. Hang until death, or Lethal injection. This person apparently chose a Lethal injection. The radio announcer went on to describe how that works. There are 3 drug injections that will be administered. First one is a barbiturate, puts the inmate to sleep. It is an anaesthetic. Second, a paralyzing agent to paralyze all muscular functions including breathing. Third, the Toxic agent that interrupts electric signals essential to heart's functioning and therefore will lead to a cardiac arrest. Sounds fun so far? It turned my stomach as she was describing the steps.
They say, in some cases, when they analyzed blood of the inmate post-martum, they detect awareness levels well after administering the Paralyzing agent. What that means is that, the inmate can potentially feel what is being done to him, but cannot breath or signal anybody what he is feeling and how he wants to be helped, not that anyone wants to listen to him, but he just couldn't communicate anything if he wanted to. Unlike the victims of the terrorism, who had a chance for a split second, for a blink of an eye, that infinitely long moment that lasts between the terrorist aiming his gun at the victim and the bullets taking the life of the victim - to protect themselves, take chances and try to survive. But think of the fate of the inmate being "put" to death. No chance in hell, they can escape the worst. The worst part is everyone present on the scene know it. There are no chances, no excuses, no change of hearts in the last minute. Inmate shall be put to death and that he will be.
Assuming I established my point of how gruesome this is, let me stepback a moment and think about this. A regular guy commits a crime, may be a really heinous one, one that should be punished severely. He is sentenced to death by the judiciary system. But I fail to understand WHAT THE HELL GIVES US THE RIGHT to take a man's life. A society full of people get together and shamelessly admit it is ok to take a person's life because of what he did - and suddenly that is RIGHT, ETHICAL and JUSTICE. So really what we saying here is that killing is called a "murder" if the majority doesn't agree with the reasons, but the same act will be called "justice" if people can be convinced to lean the other way. Am I the only one getting the feeling that something of the size of pacific is seriously amiss here. It doesn't add up. This subject of Right and Wrong just doesn't settle in my mind - ever! I could never make peace with any explanation ever given for defining Right from Wrong.
How can we live in a society, wearing a smile and thinking everything is fine when the rest of them can decide whether you should live or not and that would be considered perfectly legal.
There are several people involved in carrying out a death sentence. One takes him into the room, One straps the hands, the other straps the legs down. There will be different people for administering the injections. The point being, the process is shared between many people, so that no one person feel guilty for killing a person on their own, even though they are just doing their job. I wonder why feel guilty if theybelieve in the system and believe in the judgement. The fact that the process is created this way, speaks a little bit about how much the lawmakers themselves believe in the "ethical correctness" of the concept of death sentence.
I mean most butchers will not feel bad about their jobs because they are taking life of animals everyday. So why feel bad if it is your job to execute criminals, unless there is a part of you that says this is not correct.
We boast a lot of knowledge of human psychology and give weird names to various mental conditions people have. Every criminal would probably be suffering with some mental disease and instead of trying to cure the disease, how is it fair to take a person's life?
I could never comprehend this. Can you?
-Sridhar
Had our lunch with a few laughs and some rare insights from our "Indian Jew" (I call him that because this mallu can show you the best deal regardless of what you are set out to buy) into how to buy the cheapest possible SDHC card, 4gb for 5 bucks. Can you beat that? Well now you understand the nick name. Anyway, on my way back to desk I was distracted by the laptop speaker volume of a colleague and discovered that the terrorists hijacked some Hotels in Mumbai and some incidents happened at the train station and a hospital. We started reading about what happened and then realized the scale of the damage and the message that is being sent. No anonymity anymore, no secrecy... everything out in the open.
"Animals! Savages!!, god forbid them... what do they get taking innocent lives", we were all saying to ourselves and each other. There is a lot of anger in these terrorists, anger from hatred, anger from oppression, a very important emotion heavily misguided toward bad things. 2 days passed, indian forces have taken control of the situation. Damage has been done. A Country's pride is hurt, time and again, but never as bas as this time.
But it makes one wonder, what does it take to sacrifice his\her own life for a cause. How much of commitment it needs, but what's worse is, what does it take to murder 200 people indiscriminately, men women and children alike. Good thing they don't have to go to bed with that anymore, or I bet that would be hell.
Days passed and I am still recovering from the shock, digesting the facts and the after math. On my way to work, hearing NPR (b.t.w. it's National Public Radio, for the FM challenged out there) tuning in for more information on Mumbai attacks. There was an article being broadcasted on a slightly different subject. That is the process of death penalty and how another death sentence is coming up shortly for actioning in the state of Washington, walla walla state prison.
In washington state, if a person is sentenced to death - that person has two options to choose how he/she wants to die. Hang until death, or Lethal injection. This person apparently chose a Lethal injection. The radio announcer went on to describe how that works. There are 3 drug injections that will be administered. First one is a barbiturate, puts the inmate to sleep. It is an anaesthetic. Second, a paralyzing agent to paralyze all muscular functions including breathing. Third, the Toxic agent that interrupts electric signals essential to heart's functioning and therefore will lead to a cardiac arrest. Sounds fun so far? It turned my stomach as she was describing the steps.
They say, in some cases, when they analyzed blood of the inmate post-martum, they detect awareness levels well after administering the Paralyzing agent. What that means is that, the inmate can potentially feel what is being done to him, but cannot breath or signal anybody what he is feeling and how he wants to be helped, not that anyone wants to listen to him, but he just couldn't communicate anything if he wanted to. Unlike the victims of the terrorism, who had a chance for a split second, for a blink of an eye, that infinitely long moment that lasts between the terrorist aiming his gun at the victim and the bullets taking the life of the victim - to protect themselves, take chances and try to survive. But think of the fate of the inmate being "put" to death. No chance in hell, they can escape the worst. The worst part is everyone present on the scene know it. There are no chances, no excuses, no change of hearts in the last minute. Inmate shall be put to death and that he will be.
Assuming I established my point of how gruesome this is, let me stepback a moment and think about this. A regular guy commits a crime, may be a really heinous one, one that should be punished severely. He is sentenced to death by the judiciary system. But I fail to understand WHAT THE HELL GIVES US THE RIGHT to take a man's life. A society full of people get together and shamelessly admit it is ok to take a person's life because of what he did - and suddenly that is RIGHT, ETHICAL and JUSTICE. So really what we saying here is that killing is called a "murder" if the majority doesn't agree with the reasons, but the same act will be called "justice" if people can be convinced to lean the other way. Am I the only one getting the feeling that something of the size of pacific is seriously amiss here. It doesn't add up. This subject of Right and Wrong just doesn't settle in my mind - ever! I could never make peace with any explanation ever given for defining Right from Wrong.
How can we live in a society, wearing a smile and thinking everything is fine when the rest of them can decide whether you should live or not and that would be considered perfectly legal.
There are several people involved in carrying out a death sentence. One takes him into the room, One straps the hands, the other straps the legs down. There will be different people for administering the injections. The point being, the process is shared between many people, so that no one person feel guilty for killing a person on their own, even though they are just doing their job. I wonder why feel guilty if theybelieve in the system and believe in the judgement. The fact that the process is created this way, speaks a little bit about how much the lawmakers themselves believe in the "ethical correctness" of the concept of death sentence.
I mean most butchers will not feel bad about their jobs because they are taking life of animals everyday. So why feel bad if it is your job to execute criminals, unless there is a part of you that says this is not correct.
We boast a lot of knowledge of human psychology and give weird names to various mental conditions people have. Every criminal would probably be suffering with some mental disease and instead of trying to cure the disease, how is it fair to take a person's life?
I could never comprehend this. Can you?
-Sridhar
Monday, June 30, 2008
Hierarchy is B.S.!!
It is utmost appalling the way we embrace the concept of Leadership and Management. The human society since the oldest of the times shows extensive employ of this concept. Everything is hierarchical, however much you try to stay away from it. People always have bosses, as if that is the only way to ‘get things done’. Higher salaries, employment perks and special parking spots to name a few, are nothing but the most rudimentary proofs, that all the progress human beings claim to have made, about equality, anti-discriminatory laws and all of that is a big bucket full of B.S. It is an insult to the sub-ordinate’s intellect to call him a sub-ordinate. It’s not like a CEO can do a programmer’s or floor-worker’s job as effectively, then why the sudden hype and the inevitable ‘big deal’? People will do what they are best at doing. Their intellects cannot be compared, because there is no reliable “conversion factor” or a universal scale to measure these different dimensions of acumen.
I was hearing a sermon from a popular rabbi recently. Not that I am Jewish or that I have any specific interest in any one religion, but it was one of those can’t-look-away-after-you-heard-the-first-line speeches. The Rabbi had a real knack for capturing listener's attention. One thing I noticed that is relevant to this topic is that, religion tells you to not judge anyone before you put yourself in their shoes. Then how can we call one person greater than the other, and seek comfort in a web of misapprehensions. What's worse is to aspire to climb the ladder and become someone one day who looks down on his nose at a bunch of dimwitted "believers".
I say, "You got something to say, say it! I will think over it and let you know. Don’t tell me you are greater than me because you are the CEO of my company or the owner of Microsoft…". Why is it important to me, if you can do your job well? and how do you know that I cannot do mine better than you can do yours? I can most certainly run faster than Gandhiji and probably lift more weights than Einstein. So I suppose I am greater than Gandhiji and Einstein in some aspects. I say in any specific example, it really depends on what we are comparing? It gives me the creeps when someone pulls a rank and makes that a way of life, a way to get by, because nobody gives a crap if it isn't for the rank.
People seek safety, leaders promise safety (or an idea of safety) in many different shapes. You follow a leader because you think he\she is going to lead you to a place that is better for you. Once you admit that this is it for you, that you cannot think for your own and might as well follow someone who makes an attempt to, following a leader is not an absolutely bad thing. But almost always, human nature's ass end will make an appearance sooner or later. Just because people follow you or respect you, you will start taking things for granted. Other people's feelings will bear less and less importance for you.
Please don't mistake me for venting, but this is a plague, an epidemic that is affecting the entire corporate world. Bureaucracy is a thing of the past. Red tapism should be punishable by law. This is a major cause for loss of morale.
-Sridhar Nallani
I was hearing a sermon from a popular rabbi recently. Not that I am Jewish or that I have any specific interest in any one religion, but it was one of those can’t-look-away-after-you-heard-the-first-line speeches. The Rabbi had a real knack for capturing listener's attention. One thing I noticed that is relevant to this topic is that, religion tells you to not judge anyone before you put yourself in their shoes. Then how can we call one person greater than the other, and seek comfort in a web of misapprehensions. What's worse is to aspire to climb the ladder and become someone one day who looks down on his nose at a bunch of dimwitted "believers".
I say, "You got something to say, say it! I will think over it and let you know. Don’t tell me you are greater than me because you are the CEO of my company or the owner of Microsoft…". Why is it important to me, if you can do your job well? and how do you know that I cannot do mine better than you can do yours? I can most certainly run faster than Gandhiji and probably lift more weights than Einstein. So I suppose I am greater than Gandhiji and Einstein in some aspects. I say in any specific example, it really depends on what we are comparing? It gives me the creeps when someone pulls a rank and makes that a way of life, a way to get by, because nobody gives a crap if it isn't for the rank.
People seek safety, leaders promise safety (or an idea of safety) in many different shapes. You follow a leader because you think he\she is going to lead you to a place that is better for you. Once you admit that this is it for you, that you cannot think for your own and might as well follow someone who makes an attempt to, following a leader is not an absolutely bad thing. But almost always, human nature's ass end will make an appearance sooner or later. Just because people follow you or respect you, you will start taking things for granted. Other people's feelings will bear less and less importance for you.
Please don't mistake me for venting, but this is a plague, an epidemic that is affecting the entire corporate world. Bureaucracy is a thing of the past. Red tapism should be punishable by law. This is a major cause for loss of morale.
-Sridhar Nallani
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Fear!!
Fear - in the process of human evolution, until today, the Man's most primal emotion, it's the most basic instinct, isn't it? There are basic necessities like food, water and clothes etc, but when it comes to emotions, I think Fear is the most basic.
There are other important emotions like Anger, Joy, Sadness etc but I think each one of those things can be expressed in terms of Fear. I think:
Anger: The 'Fear' of things not happening that way you want them to
Joy: Lack of 'Fear'. See happiness is different from Joy - Joy is a state of no emotion, but I 'd like to think of it as state of having no fear. This needs another blog to explain, so I'll let it be.
Sadness: The 'Fear' of facing life or society because of something that happened (mostly in the recent past). How does the Sadness fade? I think it is because you learn to overcome the 'Fear' of dealing with that mishap that made you sad
I find that it is a very interesting theory as I expore it more and more. I mean, think about all the ways in which it can affect your life...
I went to my doctor for a regular checkup recently and one of the things he checked was my Blood Pressure. It shows higher than it should for my age. He has been noticing it for a while and then he asked me to make changes to my lifestyle (yeah right! like that ever happens, right?) and eventually he had to face the fact of the issue - put me on medication. 1 pill daily after dinner. I am fine with it. It's just like a desert - except this one stinks, but that's no problem.
He said it was because of the stress my body is taking. I was going, wait a minute, am I working in the 32 degree cold weather out in the rain somewhere? Am I digging mines for a living? I mean what is it exactly that is stressful about my job. Drive a car for 45 mins on the road listening to my favorite tunes, go sit in a comfy leather chair with about 4 different controls for my personal comfort, lean back, slide up\down, tilt forward\backward.... and then comes the real hardwork - slide the mouse on my desk and keep clicking everywhere. Type a lot of emails, hit the keyboard keys and then the occasional "coffee-breaks" :p.... ok ok I know by now you know where I am going with this. That does not exactly qualify for hardwork.
Then what is stressing me out?
I'll tell you what is stressing me out. It is the 'Fear' of me coming under a 100 ton semi truck carrying raw meterial to Boeing assembly plant, all the while I am driving (which is about One and a half hours a day). It is the 'Fear' of not knowing when all hell will break loose at work because my deliverable has too many bugs or has not gone out in time, it is the 'Fear' of the grumpy old lady co-workers snapping at you for no reason at all, and then ofcourse the ultimate 'Fear' of losing your Job for any reason.
I think these days, not even coming under the Semi truck is as scary as losing a job and having to pay mortgage on a huge house, put the kids through school. The worst thing is that this 'Fear' is with us all day all night. Could there be any better results, if not Hypertense, it will be the Diabetes or Cholesterol or something else WILL get you.
I now understand that our bodies are not really biologically evolved to take food 4-5 times day at regular intervals - they are evolved to eat like there is no tomorrow when you get the chance and then live without food for another couple of weeks. We are over nourishing it and then running to the doctors with the resulting problems.
Well, it's 12:00 in the night now... gotta follow my doctor's advice and get some sleep!
- Sridhar
There are other important emotions like Anger, Joy, Sadness etc but I think each one of those things can be expressed in terms of Fear. I think:
Anger: The 'Fear' of things not happening that way you want them to
Joy: Lack of 'Fear'. See happiness is different from Joy - Joy is a state of no emotion, but I 'd like to think of it as state of having no fear. This needs another blog to explain, so I'll let it be.
Sadness: The 'Fear' of facing life or society because of something that happened (mostly in the recent past). How does the Sadness fade? I think it is because you learn to overcome the 'Fear' of dealing with that mishap that made you sad
I find that it is a very interesting theory as I expore it more and more. I mean, think about all the ways in which it can affect your life...
I went to my doctor for a regular checkup recently and one of the things he checked was my Blood Pressure. It shows higher than it should for my age. He has been noticing it for a while and then he asked me to make changes to my lifestyle (yeah right! like that ever happens, right?) and eventually he had to face the fact of the issue - put me on medication. 1 pill daily after dinner. I am fine with it. It's just like a desert - except this one stinks, but that's no problem.
He said it was because of the stress my body is taking. I was going, wait a minute, am I working in the 32 degree cold weather out in the rain somewhere? Am I digging mines for a living? I mean what is it exactly that is stressful about my job. Drive a car for 45 mins on the road listening to my favorite tunes, go sit in a comfy leather chair with about 4 different controls for my personal comfort, lean back, slide up\down, tilt forward\backward.... and then comes the real hardwork - slide the mouse on my desk and keep clicking everywhere. Type a lot of emails, hit the keyboard keys and then the occasional "coffee-breaks" :p.... ok ok I know by now you know where I am going with this. That does not exactly qualify for hardwork.
Then what is stressing me out?
I'll tell you what is stressing me out. It is the 'Fear' of me coming under a 100 ton semi truck carrying raw meterial to Boeing assembly plant, all the while I am driving (which is about One and a half hours a day). It is the 'Fear' of not knowing when all hell will break loose at work because my deliverable has too many bugs or has not gone out in time, it is the 'Fear' of the grumpy old lady co-workers snapping at you for no reason at all, and then ofcourse the ultimate 'Fear' of losing your Job for any reason.
I think these days, not even coming under the Semi truck is as scary as losing a job and having to pay mortgage on a huge house, put the kids through school. The worst thing is that this 'Fear' is with us all day all night. Could there be any better results, if not Hypertense, it will be the Diabetes or Cholesterol or something else WILL get you.
I now understand that our bodies are not really biologically evolved to take food 4-5 times day at regular intervals - they are evolved to eat like there is no tomorrow when you get the chance and then live without food for another couple of weeks. We are over nourishing it and then running to the doctors with the resulting problems.
Well, it's 12:00 in the night now... gotta follow my doctor's advice and get some sleep!
- Sridhar
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Stuck in a maze... or a video game?
Do you know how far is your office from home? Do you know how many square feet is your house? What is the time now? How heavy are you, did you lose or gain any recently?
Each and every question above seems like a very reasonable question. Distance, Weight, Time seem very measurable. But are they really that easy to measure? We'll come back to this one.
But did you ever wonder why are we not able to know the ultimate truth? There are dead ends to every lead that may attempt to explain the universe. Our scientists are studying new phenomena heads down, but will they ever make so much progress enough to answer it, is something we may not find out in this lifetime.
So I am going to pitch a theory that I want you to try and disprove:
Human beings are all Objects inside a video game program that a superior being has created. The characters have more intelligence than our average video game, obviously. Every video game imposes constraints on the players freedom. Just like, playing the latest version of Socom or Call of Duty, you cannot navigate beyond your war zone's perimeter, you cannot call off your mission in the middle etc. Similarly, there could be governing rules for humans:
1. They cannot leave Solar System
2. Everything outside of Solar system is probably only just an illusion and it is not there in reality.
3. Our life is short enough for us to never be able to decipher the governing code.
may be some more rules, but these are enough to do a lot of fun thinking.
So what is wrong with that, why can't that theory be true? I don't see why not. The illusion of certainity is what is confusing us. The theory of relativity rules out the possibility of simultaneous occurances. Not that it is not possible to have things happening simultaneously, but it is impossible to measure it.
Consider a little experiment, where you are standing in the middle of bus that is going from left to right. You place 2 peices of paper, one at the drivers seat and one at rear end. You have a laser lighting device that you turn on which sends laser towards both directions and you can tell that both the papers lit simultaneously, right? well, that depends. After lighting the peices of paper, the light ray that is coming from the rear end meets your eyes somewhere in the middle because the light is coming from Right to Left, whereas you are moving from left to right. And the light from paper near the driver's seat is racing to catch up with you while you are moving away from it. Therefore, you THINK that Paper at the rear end lit first compared to paper near front end.
But if you are standing on the road witnessing these 2 occurances and the laser was turned on the same way as above, you will see them in different orders depending on whether it is approaching or departing from you. This means the time difference between any given two events can be Simultaneous, Greater than zero and Lesser than zero all at the same time, depending on the relative position of the observer.
The theory expands a lot more and finally tells that that distance is not the same for all view points, time is not the same for all viewpoints and even weight is not the same! Weight increases with speed, and at velocity close to that of Light, it is close to infinity. This is proven mathematically. This means, you need infinite force to move even tiniest of masses to take it as fast as light, which you won't be able to generate anyway. But until you move with velocities comparable to light, you cannot travel in time, cannot go outside of solar system and live to tell the tale. With so many constraints - how the hell will we ever come out of this maze?
This ties into my theory of the governing rules of the super video game that we are all a part of. The video game character's life is simply not enough long to get to the bottom of this.
Coming back to our social scenario, we have a lot of issues to worry about in a day-to-day life. We have needs, things that seem equivaent to typical hurdles for players while crossing levels and accomplishing missions. You have rewards in real life just like those video games when you find a secret or cross a level.
aahh.. what's the use... this theory goes on forever... forget it! I am convinced that we are never going to get out of this Matrix - not without the help of some genius, going forward from where Einstien stopped.
-Sridhar
Each and every question above seems like a very reasonable question. Distance, Weight, Time seem very measurable. But are they really that easy to measure? We'll come back to this one.
But did you ever wonder why are we not able to know the ultimate truth? There are dead ends to every lead that may attempt to explain the universe. Our scientists are studying new phenomena heads down, but will they ever make so much progress enough to answer it, is something we may not find out in this lifetime.
So I am going to pitch a theory that I want you to try and disprove:
Human beings are all Objects inside a video game program that a superior being has created. The characters have more intelligence than our average video game, obviously. Every video game imposes constraints on the players freedom. Just like, playing the latest version of Socom or Call of Duty, you cannot navigate beyond your war zone's perimeter, you cannot call off your mission in the middle etc. Similarly, there could be governing rules for humans:
1. They cannot leave Solar System
2. Everything outside of Solar system is probably only just an illusion and it is not there in reality.
3. Our life is short enough for us to never be able to decipher the governing code.
may be some more rules, but these are enough to do a lot of fun thinking.
So what is wrong with that, why can't that theory be true? I don't see why not. The illusion of certainity is what is confusing us. The theory of relativity rules out the possibility of simultaneous occurances. Not that it is not possible to have things happening simultaneously, but it is impossible to measure it.
Consider a little experiment, where you are standing in the middle of bus that is going from left to right. You place 2 peices of paper, one at the drivers seat and one at rear end. You have a laser lighting device that you turn on which sends laser towards both directions and you can tell that both the papers lit simultaneously, right? well, that depends. After lighting the peices of paper, the light ray that is coming from the rear end meets your eyes somewhere in the middle because the light is coming from Right to Left, whereas you are moving from left to right. And the light from paper near the driver's seat is racing to catch up with you while you are moving away from it. Therefore, you THINK that Paper at the rear end lit first compared to paper near front end.
But if you are standing on the road witnessing these 2 occurances and the laser was turned on the same way as above, you will see them in different orders depending on whether it is approaching or departing from you. This means the time difference between any given two events can be Simultaneous, Greater than zero and Lesser than zero all at the same time, depending on the relative position of the observer.
The theory expands a lot more and finally tells that that distance is not the same for all view points, time is not the same for all viewpoints and even weight is not the same! Weight increases with speed, and at velocity close to that of Light, it is close to infinity. This is proven mathematically. This means, you need infinite force to move even tiniest of masses to take it as fast as light, which you won't be able to generate anyway. But until you move with velocities comparable to light, you cannot travel in time, cannot go outside of solar system and live to tell the tale. With so many constraints - how the hell will we ever come out of this maze?
This ties into my theory of the governing rules of the super video game that we are all a part of. The video game character's life is simply not enough long to get to the bottom of this.
Coming back to our social scenario, we have a lot of issues to worry about in a day-to-day life. We have needs, things that seem equivaent to typical hurdles for players while crossing levels and accomplishing missions. You have rewards in real life just like those video games when you find a secret or cross a level.
aahh.. what's the use... this theory goes on forever... forget it! I am convinced that we are never going to get out of this Matrix - not without the help of some genius, going forward from where Einstien stopped.
-Sridhar
Monday, November 5, 2007
The never ending ladder...
My day began with yet another frustrating 7:30 am corporate meeting, which almost seems like a reminder of my helplessness - the voracious urge to cope with the challenge of an early morning rise to make it to the meeting on time, just for once in my life, but yet realize that even if I did wake up early, it is possible only for the previleged few who live in a 10 mile vicinity to our company's office building in Olympia, WA - unlike me who is atleast 45 miles away (well, I think it's 50, but I tell myself it is just 45 miles).
So having given up on the hope to be there in person, I called into the bridge line that I carefully made a note of in my PDA phone the previous night. My phone connected into the meeting, and I said "hello!". My voice got totally absorbed in the usual cacophony of the early morning meeting, lots of hungry stomachs and sleepless minds trying to ignore their problems by joining the steady noise like discussion, with a couple of very young children furiously playing with their Dads' cordless phones, one singing rhymes into it while the other was learning words. I think by the end of the meeting he even managed to say "papa" or something similar to that.
The meeting coordinator - the young project manager, finally broke through the shackles of hesitation and borderlining the boundaries of social courtesy, said out firmly but being as polite as he could, "If you are not talking in the meeting at the moment, and if you have a mute option on the phone, would you please use it because I am hearing all kinds of sounds?". It was received promptly by most of the people on the call with a cell phone, suddenly the noise fell by about 10 decibels. But there was this father of a young kid who did not have a mute button, but does not want to tell that he does not have it, because then everyone would know who it is to begin with. So he chose anonymity ....Understandable I guess.
There wasn't a lot for me in that meeting, so wasn't for some other participants - it was meant for project wide awareness, a typical corporate meeting during a project crisis. Then I started slipping into my thoughts everytime I detect an unfamiliar topic being spoken about. First thing that struck my mind, why the hell was I trying to be here in person? I am struggling to get some facetime, but seems impossible given the agenda. I like technical stuff, talk about network protocols, infrastructures and database solutions and I love to participate, but not so much about a project progress report out of a dully designed excel spreadsheet or even worse a Microsoft Project plan... I say "No, Thank you". But then the career path of a successful individual is up the corporate ladder, right? As we climb higher and higher, all we are left with is pretty much Excel spreadsheets and Project plans. I began to think if that is probably why they are generally paid better than the lower level technicians - to survive the pressure, routine, boredom and the resultant physical ailments like hypertension, diabetes etc.
But hey c'mon it's not all that bad... there is some good to it. You get to lead a few people, contribute for the bigger cause etc. "Bigger Cause", hmm.. what is it? What cause is so big, that it needs a huge team of people to work their asses off, put in days and nights and weekends, sacrifice any bit of personal lifes they have left, be subject to their spouse's wrath one too many times.... what is that "big cause". Oh, I know - that big cause is a major shareholder of the company making major profits. And the funny thing is, what I just said is not a big secret - every random Joe completely realizes this. Then, what is really the motivation for a person to work hard.
There are several theories about motivations, but I like this one the most. This is the theory of a famous psychologist called Maslow. He has developed a theory of heirarchical needs. It goes something like:
Actually, I observed my own level of happiness for sometime and I realized that when I get the next milestone accomplished in my life, I feel happy and stay happy for about a day at the maximum and then it doesn't mean much anymore. I am already looking forward to the next big thing that I can and invariably should accomplish to feel good. When I am working hard to get there, I am feeling good only because I am feeling closer to my next milestone. See where I am going with this? Happiness is not constantly there, but it's there only when something good happens to you. And then it gradually dies out.
So, does it matter how high you climb up the ladder? Does it really make you happier? Actually, I think it is the other way around. Meaning, when you are an important person, for you to be even slightly happy something big must have been accomplished. There won't be too many of those, compared to smaller and more easy achievements when you are a small time Developer, for example.
Not to be a total geek, but when I try to analyze my happiness pattern it appears like below:
The "equally happy" line means that you have steady supply of good things that are happening to you and so you are just as happy through out the timeline. You could have more and more good things happening for you (which is a bit unlikely for anyone) and then you would have the green ascending line pattern going for you and the other way around is to have less and less good things happening for you and that means you are less and less happy (very easy to happen if you take it easy for a briefl while). I think if you keep working hard, then there is a good chance of good things happening to you at a steady rate and which is why there are always those "hard workers" at every place.
So that is probably why some of us like to work hard, so as to stay happy at work place. But the real observation is that it won't make your life much more better just because you're at the top. Infact, you are giving enough rope to hang yourself doing that. But it does not seem very logical if you are not thinking with such a mathematical mindset.
What do you think?
:`)
-Sridhar
So having given up on the hope to be there in person, I called into the bridge line that I carefully made a note of in my PDA phone the previous night. My phone connected into the meeting, and I said "hello!". My voice got totally absorbed in the usual cacophony of the early morning meeting, lots of hungry stomachs and sleepless minds trying to ignore their problems by joining the steady noise like discussion, with a couple of very young children furiously playing with their Dads' cordless phones, one singing rhymes into it while the other was learning words. I think by the end of the meeting he even managed to say "papa" or something similar to that.
The meeting coordinator - the young project manager, finally broke through the shackles of hesitation and borderlining the boundaries of social courtesy, said out firmly but being as polite as he could, "If you are not talking in the meeting at the moment, and if you have a mute option on the phone, would you please use it because I am hearing all kinds of sounds?". It was received promptly by most of the people on the call with a cell phone, suddenly the noise fell by about 10 decibels. But there was this father of a young kid who did not have a mute button, but does not want to tell that he does not have it, because then everyone would know who it is to begin with. So he chose anonymity ....Understandable I guess.
There wasn't a lot for me in that meeting, so wasn't for some other participants - it was meant for project wide awareness, a typical corporate meeting during a project crisis. Then I started slipping into my thoughts everytime I detect an unfamiliar topic being spoken about. First thing that struck my mind, why the hell was I trying to be here in person? I am struggling to get some facetime, but seems impossible given the agenda. I like technical stuff, talk about network protocols, infrastructures and database solutions and I love to participate, but not so much about a project progress report out of a dully designed excel spreadsheet or even worse a Microsoft Project plan... I say "No, Thank you". But then the career path of a successful individual is up the corporate ladder, right? As we climb higher and higher, all we are left with is pretty much Excel spreadsheets and Project plans. I began to think if that is probably why they are generally paid better than the lower level technicians - to survive the pressure, routine, boredom and the resultant physical ailments like hypertension, diabetes etc.
But hey c'mon it's not all that bad... there is some good to it. You get to lead a few people, contribute for the bigger cause etc. "Bigger Cause", hmm.. what is it? What cause is so big, that it needs a huge team of people to work their asses off, put in days and nights and weekends, sacrifice any bit of personal lifes they have left, be subject to their spouse's wrath one too many times.... what is that "big cause". Oh, I know - that big cause is a major shareholder of the company making major profits. And the funny thing is, what I just said is not a big secret - every random Joe completely realizes this. Then, what is really the motivation for a person to work hard.
There are several theories about motivations, but I like this one the most. This is the theory of a famous psychologist called Maslow. He has developed a theory of heirarchical needs. It goes something like:
- Self-Actualization
- Esteem
- Love\Belonging
- Safety
- Physiological
Actually, I observed my own level of happiness for sometime and I realized that when I get the next milestone accomplished in my life, I feel happy and stay happy for about a day at the maximum and then it doesn't mean much anymore. I am already looking forward to the next big thing that I can and invariably should accomplish to feel good. When I am working hard to get there, I am feeling good only because I am feeling closer to my next milestone. See where I am going with this? Happiness is not constantly there, but it's there only when something good happens to you. And then it gradually dies out.
So, does it matter how high you climb up the ladder? Does it really make you happier? Actually, I think it is the other way around. Meaning, when you are an important person, for you to be even slightly happy something big must have been accomplished. There won't be too many of those, compared to smaller and more easy achievements when you are a small time Developer, for example.
Not to be a total geek, but when I try to analyze my happiness pattern it appears like below:
The "equally happy" line means that you have steady supply of good things that are happening to you and so you are just as happy through out the timeline. You could have more and more good things happening for you (which is a bit unlikely for anyone) and then you would have the green ascending line pattern going for you and the other way around is to have less and less good things happening for you and that means you are less and less happy (very easy to happen if you take it easy for a briefl while). I think if you keep working hard, then there is a good chance of good things happening to you at a steady rate and which is why there are always those "hard workers" at every place.
So that is probably why some of us like to work hard, so as to stay happy at work place. But the real observation is that it won't make your life much more better just because you're at the top. Infact, you are giving enough rope to hang yourself doing that. But it does not seem very logical if you are not thinking with such a mathematical mindset.
What do you think?
:`)
-Sridhar
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
I sure am not talking about Clint Eastwood's wild west cowboy blockbuster. This is a concept that caught my interest, about how gradually we develop inveterated opinions about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly things in the world, while those are entirely relativistic terms and it seems almost impossible at the first thought to accept that the way we live may be totally unacceptable to some one else in this world.
You probably know what I mean when we consider arranged marriages, sexual orientations, laws, customs, traditions accross different parts of the world. But then who are we to question other's beliefs, right? Is there such a thing as an absolute Truth, absolute Right and Wrong?
I think not. I think anything and everything is relative. You can spend some time and come up with the most abominable thing you can think of and I am sure there is a way to justify it.
When I think more about it, then it occured to me that it is the majority's opinion about what is good or bad. In fact, even better description would be to say it is majority's convenience resulting out of your actions, most of the times. The society, over time, tried out all combinations of behaviours and the path that gives least trouble to everyone else is the "best" path. I guess it fits the purpose Man being a social animal and all.
So what happens to one's creativity when we take up the "best" path? I can't help but remember how my wife runs for the nearest peice of wood like the wood must be scared, whenever I say anything remotely connected to a bad omen like death etc. She touches it and says "touch wood". What's more she is making me touch the wood these days. That way she is naturally controlling my urge to discuss anything out-of-whack with her. I am still working on a plan to discuss our life insurance policies with her, which probably will only happen after our rates increase due to old age. But that's a digression we don't need now.
I fear that we will become products of a society that likes nothing to change. Change is dreaded by most of us, because change brings the unknown and we are scared of the unknown. We worship the unknown (which is also called God in a sense, read my other article "Is Atheism Logical" for more details) and pray that the unknown does not turn out bad for us.
I feel that Beliefs, Traditions, Customs, Orientations are knowledge hinderers. They constrain our thought process, kill our creativity and stunt out ability to ask the right questions. Right remains right and so does wrong, while everyone else is busy in keeping it that way. One may say it's a way-of-life, but why do you need a way of life - only because you don't want to rethink your priorities. Nothing wrong with that, but in the process, more often than not we end up inheriting priorities from the culture we are in. They are not YOUR priorities!
So what's wrong in living like that? Accepting everything and taking a guided tour through life? Why do we have to reinvent the wheel, when smarter people have already tried and are willing to share their experiences in the name of religion and laws and what not. Do I think I can do something that they could not? I don't feel that I know the answer to that question, but it seems very difficult to follow a rules book for some reason.
-Sridhar
You probably know what I mean when we consider arranged marriages, sexual orientations, laws, customs, traditions accross different parts of the world. But then who are we to question other's beliefs, right? Is there such a thing as an absolute Truth, absolute Right and Wrong?
I think not. I think anything and everything is relative. You can spend some time and come up with the most abominable thing you can think of and I am sure there is a way to justify it.
When I think more about it, then it occured to me that it is the majority's opinion about what is good or bad. In fact, even better description would be to say it is majority's convenience resulting out of your actions, most of the times. The society, over time, tried out all combinations of behaviours and the path that gives least trouble to everyone else is the "best" path. I guess it fits the purpose Man being a social animal and all.
So what happens to one's creativity when we take up the "best" path? I can't help but remember how my wife runs for the nearest peice of wood like the wood must be scared, whenever I say anything remotely connected to a bad omen like death etc. She touches it and says "touch wood". What's more she is making me touch the wood these days. That way she is naturally controlling my urge to discuss anything out-of-whack with her. I am still working on a plan to discuss our life insurance policies with her, which probably will only happen after our rates increase due to old age. But that's a digression we don't need now.
I fear that we will become products of a society that likes nothing to change. Change is dreaded by most of us, because change brings the unknown and we are scared of the unknown. We worship the unknown (which is also called God in a sense, read my other article "Is Atheism Logical" for more details) and pray that the unknown does not turn out bad for us.
I feel that Beliefs, Traditions, Customs, Orientations are knowledge hinderers. They constrain our thought process, kill our creativity and stunt out ability to ask the right questions. Right remains right and so does wrong, while everyone else is busy in keeping it that way. One may say it's a way-of-life, but why do you need a way of life - only because you don't want to rethink your priorities. Nothing wrong with that, but in the process, more often than not we end up inheriting priorities from the culture we are in. They are not YOUR priorities!
So what's wrong in living like that? Accepting everything and taking a guided tour through life? Why do we have to reinvent the wheel, when smarter people have already tried and are willing to share their experiences in the name of religion and laws and what not. Do I think I can do something that they could not? I don't feel that I know the answer to that question, but it seems very difficult to follow a rules book for some reason.
-Sridhar
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