Amazing Grace

I was having lunch and browsing news sites Wednesday afternoon and came across a small headline: "Dog survives gas chamber" or something close. I got curious. I clicked to see the video. There was this picture of this little dog and I could hear the commentary from the lady in the humane society (pound) who was saying that this dog survived 30 minutes in the gas chamber. I have heard someone say that before, if puppies don't get adopted for quite some time, they are "done away with". How morbid! But I never took the time to research that and I thought that was a statement without merit. The video I saw disturbed me greatly and I am sure must be upsetting to every other person, dog lover or not.

The lady also went on to describe other graphic details, such as "... there was another dog which was on top of this dog with fluids oozing, and Grace only foamed at her mouth..Once I saw that, I knew I had to keep her with me for life...." If only this lady had decided to adopt the pup 30 minutes earlier, the dog would have had a totally different fate. Its odd that they call animal shelters "humane societies". While what they do is the opposite of their definition "Characterized by kindness, mercy, or compassion ". I looked online this time and googled the topic. I was amazed to see the numerous sites regarding this topic and requesting petitions. An example is http://network.bestfriends.org/animallawcoalition/news/5838.html

Makes you wonder the value placed on a living thing's life - how disposable living things are (even human beings) - you breed them per demand and you gas them if they are out of style or in some way "defective". I don't know why the "human" society condones this.

Inglish speling

Recently the top-brass incharge of primary education had a brain wave - to disregard importance of spelling. A policy decision was made, not to penalize students for errors in spelling . A good article appeared in the local paper which runs as follows:
Marc Twane wunce sed that he wood knot trusst anywon hoo alwais spellt the saim wurd in the saim wiegh becos that sujjested that the purson lakked spontanietee abd helld veri rijjid veeuse on thingz. Langwij shud bee abowt kommunikashun and knot abowt hao two spel oar knot spel wurds. Sow it is gud that a sujjeshun has bin maid that stewdents will knot hav marx dedukted four rong spelings. what the stewdent iz beeng tessted four is nawlej off the subjekt . People whoo insist on korect speling ar intellekchual fassists and must be rezizted at awl kost. Buy mayking us awl spel in the saim weigh they ar putting langwij intwo yewniform. Langwij democrissy shud alow yew to speek and spel the weigh you lyke and let uthers speek and spel the weigh they lyke. This is not lead two anarkey and kayoss. Aftur awl, yew manijjed two undastand this perfekly wel, rite?

sudoku vs soduku ( A sequel)

Was talking to our local sudoku solver this morning , which made me think of a sequel to my
bunion vs banian. I decided to write a converstion between our sudoku solver and his dad over phone. There are usually misunderstandings over phone even for normal talk...here it goes..


ennada kanna, enna pannitiruke?
sudoku pottutiruken , appa.
soduka ? indha nerathileya ?
idhuku ennapa neram kallamellam , onnu lendhu ombodhu varikum therinja podhume..
ennikiteva soduku poduva
ennamatten, mansuleye ellam yosichuppen, ella kattathileyum podanume.
kattathileya? oh! kai viralla poduvennu solriya .Appo kal viral..
Aiyo appa, nan sudoku vilayatta pathi pesaren..
O oh! ippa soduku vaichu vilayattelam vandhirucha
Amam pa ! India la kooda sudoku romba popular_nu sonnanga
India la romba naala ellarum soduku super_a poduvangale. Unga amma idhula expert theriyuma
Amma_va? Wow ...Eppo kathukutanga
Idhula kathukaradhuku enna irruku ? Kai_a oru madaku madakina podhume..
Enna joke_a? Ellarum kailadhane podanum , aduthadhu pencil_la podanum_nu joke adikadheenga.
Ilada kanna, kaluleyum podaleme , adhan sonnen....unga ammaku kooda nee dhan moodugula soduku eduka help paniveye...

And enlightening occurs to our sudoku solver...:-)

What a day!

It is quite amazing how the government body called the INS keeps us guessing. They are true example of what customer service should not be like. Way back in Feb this year, we knew from one INS window that our fingerprints were outdated and the processing was halted till we updated it. I was told to call the fingerprinting office for an appointment. The lady who answered the phone apparently had a bad day and she told me "You don't call us, we call you". I was just wondering what would happen if we said that to our clients?

Today was our lucky day to go back for our fingrprinting. There was a bunch of people before us. The gatekeeper (like St.Peter at the gates of Heaven) looked neutral, not like the usual gruff persons I have earlier met. He even cracked a joke violating their code-of-ethics of being rude, morose and robot-like. I was bewildered. I saw another lady standing in the corner waiting to answer questions visitors had and she even had a smiling face! Things kept getting stranger and I began to doubt if we were in the right place.

Inside there was a lady struggling with her two kids who were barely in her control. They were screaming, crawling and sometime jumping up and down. Except for their intrusion, the place was quiet and uneventful. The lady at the counter seemed like a grouch and obviously had enough of the nonsense and screamed at the poor Mother to be seated. By now, I began to be confident we were where we were supposed to be. I thought, there goes....

But then...The line moved faster than I have ever seen in any govermental office. The lady at the counter exchanged pleasantaries and we were quickly ushered to record our fingerprints. Upon completion the recorder even called out for QA to come on over and ensure all records and information was accurate. Surprise after surprise, thigs went on so smoothly, much better than I had ever expected. What a day! I was inspired to cheerfully write about my experience.

Can machines think

Here's a scene. you are in a room asking questions. You get replies. Following is the conversation:
u : What shall we talk about?
Reply : I can talk about anything. Ask me anything.

U: If I have a right angled triangle and two sides are 3 and 4 what is the third one>
R : Oh! we are into Phythogoras theorem. The answer is 5.

U: Good! you know some high school geometry. Can you tell me what is square root of 145.
R. Slightly greater than 12.

U : Thats really smart. What is your view of the recent war in Lebanon.
R. I think it is highly unfair. However, with different types of people inhabiting closely in a place, affiliations to different issues can cause human irritation to be high.

U : Vow!! Mind-boggling statement. Is it a good time to invest in stock market.
R: The market is the worlds biggest casino. If u are ready for risk, go ahead and invest.

U: Have you seen "Alaipayudhe Kanna".
R: Sorry, I am not an encyclopedia. Being in america i dont know what alaipayudhe means!


Well , the question is can you tell if the replies are from a computer or from a human being. based on comments we will proceed towards the actual issue, can computers think?
prof

New Members- Introduction

I started this blog last year with the intention of writing some articles of my own . While talking to a friend, it was decided that we can all form a group to make it more interesting. Since the group has expanded and just so that we can see more people blogging to get more variety ..(wink wink, mindframes , time to compete ..) I think we should get to know everyone.. there are some contributors who have become too lazy or too busy ..Time to write about yourself.. I will start with mine..

Profession: 9-5 engineer working in the mixed signal domain....Yep ! As boring as it gets...
I love: watching TV, movies, reading books , listenting to good music ( any type except metallica)
I hate: hypocrisy , arrogance, sarcasm. ( doesnot necessarily mean I lack these traits:-)
Best moment in life so far: When I realised I had fallen in love
Worst moments in life so far: Dealing with surgeries and the emotional turbulence.
How do I define myself: happy-go-lucky .... trying to take life one day at a time..and living for the moment.

Story telling

As I was driving to work, I was listening to an interesting program on National Public Radio (NPR). It was about a story telling contest and this program had the winner of the contest come and tell his winning story. I'm not big on listening to stories, but I really had nothing better to listen to and the lethargy of finding another channel conspired to keep me from switching away.

The winner came and he had a very intersting style of narration. It was a very slow and child like way of talking that initially had me disinterested. The story started 2 days after 9/11, he spoke about waking up feeling shattered and he was telling about the general mood of disbelief at that time in NYC. This particular morning, he was walking along Battery Park (I think) and he was sharing about how the skyline of NYC looked to him with the missing buildings. In a very slow and determined way - he didn't skimp any details as he shared his sorrow and the pain of the people surrounding him. Their need to comprehend what was happening.

I was by now completely engrossed and was holding the wheel rather tightly as I navigated through the dense 880N traffic. The narrator by now had seated himself and he continued telling all that he had been through the last two days. Suddenly he sees a garbage truck in the distance and for some reason this draws his attention. As he continues to observe the truck- he realises what was happening. The truck was cleaning up the flowers, candles and photographs of the missing people. He continues without increasing his narration speed, but in a higher pitch, that he was immediately filled with rage. How could this be happening? Wasn't it too early to continue as if nothing happened. Didn't he deserve a few more days of mourning- didn't the people of NYC deserve that? Why were the cleaning up the candles so soon? Not knowing exactly what he was going to do, but knowing that he had to do something- he rushed towards the garbage truck.

By now, I had completely lost track of where I was in the traffic. For some strange reason, I was there with him in the park and I could feel the rage that he was feeling and I could feel the tears that were welling up in his eyes.

As he neared the truck, he said that he realised what was really happening, as the garbage truck moved along, the workers were carefully unwrapping the candles from plastic bags and placing it in the pavements. He narrated on as he tried to makes sense of what they were doing, it had apparently rained heavily the previous night and the city workers had taken the photographs, the candle and the flowers and wrapped them individually to prevent them from washing away. Now this morning they were putting it back in its original place. When he first saw the garbage truck he had mistakenly assumed the clean pavement as something the garbage truck was clearing away- when in fact that the direction the truck was moving towards filling it back with last nights content.

He described how he couldn't control his joy and how he cried shamelessly. By now I had reached work and my car with engine running was patiently waiting for me to finish the program and switch it off. My eyes were now completely moist (inadvertently) and hearing that the truck was actually putting back the candles, I couldn't help but give the best sheepish grin I could muster as I looked around and stepped out.

I could understand now why he won the competition. His was not a story that had a moral or a point... it was just his ability to tell a story and for that short time I lived it. I saw what he say and I felt what he felt.

E-book Fair

http://www.worldebookfair.com

A little late - but the world e-book fair is available for free between July 4th and August 4th. (seems legal, but if not, do let me know!)

Please see if you can add some to brainwaves list from here!

Summer Reading List

I normally don't buy or read a book unless it is prescribed by a friend or colleague. In recent times I did not get to read anything. So, I thought of using our blog to share a summer reading list. It will be nice if the book is recently (< 3 yrs) published (not a strict rule ofcourse)

Let me start first and rest can update in the comment section.

Book: Life of Pi
Author: Yaan Martel
Synopsis: A boy name Pi Patel's journey as told by Novelist.
Comments: Awesome is all I could say. Resisting my temptation to comment more to avoid breaking the story pieces

Books: 3 of Dan Brown's novels (Angels and Demons, Deception Point & Do-I-have-to-name?)
Comments: Something to read when you are traveling or when you want to relax

Books: Couplehood & Babyhood
Author: Paul Rieser
Synopsis: VERY funny look at couplehood and babyhood
Comments: This is one book I can safely recommend to people and give it as gift.

Book: Dancing Wu Li Masters
Author: Gary Zukav
Synopsis: Advanced physics in layman terminology
Comments: Very interesting read. Lighter version of "Brief history of time"

Preserving Culture ?

This is a topic that I hear very often, not just in the Indian-American context, but also in the general media. And, usually, it is associated with watching a bunch of people who still wear very "traditional" clothes and singing "traditional" songs. One definition of Culture is as follows: "the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations". It is a very good definition in my view. And, I understand why our ancestors persisted in following the older generation. Fundamentally, there was no documentation on each and every situations and how to handle them..;).. In the modern age, when information is just a click away, or rather, a google away, what value addition does culture really provide?

I understand that history is a reminder and reflection of how we got to where we are. But, should we live history in order to appreciate it? If we look at every aspect of culture in great detail, we will find that they were formed based on the socio-economic framework that existed at that time. A lot of them do have some sound reasoning. But, on the other hand, the concept of dowry, living in a single big-family etc., are examples where the reasoning is highly debatable for current situations. Given the global outlook on ideas and thoughts, I am not sure if there is any meaning in boasting about individual culture and tradition. Though it may have some aesthetic historical value, I am not sure if it has any real value. I am not proposing a global culture, but at the same time, I think the idea of global culture will soon evolve over the next few generations. What do u folks think?