W = T + F

I recently came across an article which used the popular WTF acronym to explain the nature of things. It says that what really happens, which is denoted by W is sum of T(what you want to happen, your wish, desire, plans etc.) and F, where F is a continuous random variable with infinite variability. F can create a positive or negative effect on T and thus determines the outcome W.  Our frustration lies in the inability to control F, which can either act in your FAVOR or it can FUCK up a situation. Simple but interesting indeed!
But, one will more commonly say what the fuck than saying whao, truly fantastic!

Thoughts on developing technologies

Which technologies will be huge in the next 20-30 years?

The following are only some of the guesses of half-educated, half-amused mind.

• 3D Printing(which will let you print a car!?)
• Near field communication for payment processing(bye bye cash & credit cards)
• Driverless Cars
• Artificial Limbs(My right hand needs a replacement)
• Biometric screening(remembering passwords is ridiculous)
• Weather engineering(some day you might have to vote to decide whether September 25th should be sunny)

Crossing A River

The other day I came across a guy at a bar who seemed to me a nut job. He talked about different stuff but the one that most appalled me was his description of religions by means of a story. It goes like this:
Persons of different religious background come across a river while on their way to somewhere and what do they do according to their belief system.

The Hindu brahmin sits down by the river and imagines 51 gods and derives 102 elaborate rituals to worship them and hopes that some day god will come and help to cross the river. Every night he goes to sleep crying to God to rescue him from this painful life.

The Christian brings 12 of his friends and dares to swim across the river but none of his friends follow. Before crossing the river, he explained the techniques & methods to his friends. But, they all wrote books(which sometimes became inconsistent) about how he used magic, help from God as the chosen one to cross the river.

The Muslim gathers wood and gets a friend and builds a boat. Once completed, they start fighting over who is going to sit at the front of the boat and ultimately the boat breaks down.

The Jewish gathers wood and gets a friend and builds a boat. They cross the river and drops his friend on the other side who gets people to the boat and makes money by charging them to cross the river in the boat.

The Buddhist gathers wood and builds a boat by himself. After crossing the river, leaves the boat tied to a pole on the other side for people who needs to cross the river. But, while coming back to cross the river on the other side, gets stopped to pay for the ride and gets beat up for asking for a free ride.

PS: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to a person living or dead is purely co-incidental.

Basic Principles of Gardening

So obvious, but, felt like worth noting the basic principles of gardening:

1. Weeds grow faster than plants/trees
2. Plants/trees need care to grow, but, weeds don't
3. If left alone, weeds take over the plants/trees

PS: Perhaps one can extend this concept to other aspects of life

Thoughts on recent shooting and hate crime related

The root of all hate crime, racism, and bias stems from our tendency to label people. Due to the millions of years of human evolution our brain is trained to create and maintain two boxes inside our head. One is labeled, 'Us' and the other as 'them'. There are properties associated with each. So, as we meet someone or something new, our brain immediately does a calculation and categorizes it in one of those boxes and applies it's associated properties even though that may or may not hold good for the person concerned. Organized religions , our belief system and the society in general only allows to strengthen these two boxes.

Probably it can be traced back to this event(borrowed from Michael Shermer's The Believing Brain). Many many years ago when the alone caveman went out in the savannah to hunt for food, the fluttering of the tall grasses in the breeze made him to conclude that there is a dangerous animal lurking behind because if he had assumed it as no danger and it turned out to be a dangerous animal it could have cost his life. It was always better and made sense to assume the worst and be prepared for it.

We live our life as a slave to this evolutionary mindset. Hopefully, someday we can break free from this dichotomy and free our mind and spirit. So, effectively, the more you fill up your 'us' box, the more you are in someone else's 'them' box.

Some random names

Don't ask me how I got these names! I just made it up. May be influenced by native American Indian tribal or African tribal names...


Uwuatu
Revazi
Bikuna
Zumilaki
Sivinayu
Pizutari
Niputari
Kipimoqi
Qivizani
Luvanya
Gizimuru
Joqimiri
Lolumiri

Some day if I can come up with a story, I might use these names, until then I just like to read them aloud!

Lawyer vs Scientist

The default state of our brain is that of a lawyer, constantly feeding data into our belief system. Picking and choosing data to fit our mental image of something.
Whereas, the trained/evolved state of mind would be that of a scientist, where data comes in as is and it helps in either accepting or rejecting our mental hypothesis.
So, ultimately, our inner struggle is to balance these two opposing and contradicting mental states. Some examples from personal experience. When my wife was pregnant, we used take walks in the mall and we will notice a lot of other pregnant women as well. Now that we have our son, when we take a walk now, we notice lot of couples with stroller and baby around the same age as ours. I was contemplating buying a jeep and these days I notice at least 4-5 jeeps on the road. They were all there, hidden in the random chaos of our daily life but what we notice and what leaves an impression in our mind is to a large extent our choice. There is no cosmic intervention but a sampling of events from an infinite number of random collections.

For example, when someone fighting cancer recovers through a series of chemo therapies and other diagnosis carried out by doctors, nurses and scientists what does he do? He thinks it's a blessing from God and donates to local church, temple, mosque,....strange! Should not he be donating to the development of science so that the same set of miracles can be passed on to others. I feel that we don't want to praise and truly be happy for another fellow human being from the bottom of our heart. That's why we always need a divine intervention to justify our actions.

[Inspired by: The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer]

An Advertisement Idea

A stunningly beautiful woman dressed wonderfully walks into a bar filled only with 'ugly' guys, dressed shabbily. Everyone in the bar says 'Hi' to her and all of them shows off their crystal clean and perfect teeth. When the woman responds back with 'Hi', she ends up showing her 'ugly' teeth, reducing the effect of her beauty and feeling unwanted.

Bottomline: Take care of your teeth, an ad for toothpaste, and general dental hygiene(special note to myself)!

Jack of all trades and master of many

America is a country of superlatives. Americans don't miss a chance to label something as the largest, brightest, tallest, biggest etc. etc. I remember seeing the world's tallest thermometer on my way to Las Vegas, in Baker, California. An inch of a place ready to brag about it's size of 'something'. Very nice.
There is a constant worry and fear that America is slipping away from being the most powerful nation in the world. I am sure that there is data to support that hypothesis. It's a good sign to know when you are slipping away. Being born & brought up in India, I know what complacency can do to you. A false belief of everything is okay and no need to worry is diabolical. A healthy worry or optimistic paranoia makes you think multiple times before making a choice. Anyway. Off topic.

In the increasingly knowledge based economy, ideas and innovation play a bigger role and while there is a depth of knowledge, there is also a breadth of knowledge. While it is very important that you have a sound understanding of a domain, but, it is becoming increasingly more important that you understand multiple domains (not the usual jack of all trades and master of none but more like jack of all trades and master of many). Leonardo Da Vinci was one such example. He was probably as much of a scientist or technologist as he was a painter. At some point, specialization kicked off, and we ventured into specialized domains. Now, the time has come to merge them back because, otherwise, just by looking at a part of the problem leads to an incomplete solution. So, I think it's okay to be not being number 1 in something but 2nd , 3rd or 4th is also fine. Because, the time, effort and in general resource required to be number one is way more than being 2nd, 3rd or 4th in something. But, the advantage may not be as much. There is a marginal difference in output gain but you will be in public scrutiny and intense pressure to be number one all the time. It might be a blow to ego but it's a good thing in the long run. Like the investment philosophy of diversification(not keeping all eggs in one basket), knowledge diversification will also works it's magic.

Climate Change - Negative to Positive Feedback Loop

If one had to explain climate change, one can easily use the feedback loop mechanism by saying that the world's atmosphere is changing from a negative feedback loop(self-regulating cycle) to a positive feedback loop(self-reinforcing cycle).

A good collection and explanation on feedback loop is here: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/ff_feedbackloop/all/1
So, what's the consequence? According to Wikipedia, "Positive feedback tends to cause system instability. When there is more positive feedback than there are stabilizing tendencies, there will usually be exponential growth of any oscillations or divergences from equilibrium. System parameters will typically accelerate towards extreme values, which may damage or destroy the system, or may end with the system 'latched' into a new stable state."


In the past, similar trend had lead to ice age and it can happen again if the current state of affair continues!

Some One-liners

• Finding patterns in things is creativity, but, finding patterns in everything is madness
• Memory and imagination are only separated by experience
• The best form of communication is where no message is exchanged but both the intended sender and receiver understood the content
• One always has two options, be part of the signal or be part of the noise
• If marriage & sex were taken out of the equation, love would be a truly beautiful thing
• Strength: The ability to restrain oneself by virtue of knowing that one is powerful
• Intelligence: Information that has not become public news
• One's approach & attitude to life depends on whether he/she thinks the best days are ahead or behind
• There is no Cinderella, only her sisters everywhere
• There is no prince charming, only the ugly frogs everywhere
• Ability to communicate well is vital, but, ability to feel connected is visceral
• Culture & tradition are not a backpack that you will have to carry it around everywhere
• Conflict arises not because one party is right and the other party is wrong but because both parties are right(from their own perspective)
• 3 bottlenecks in professional environment - People, Processes and Programs(software)
• Mediocrity admonishes things(or people) which(who) are both better or worse than them
• Mediocrity finds comfort only in another mediocre
• It is better to be stabbed in the heart than in the back
• Confidence and being opinionated are always misconstrued as being egotistic
• It is easier to make war than peace because it is easier to break things than to put/keep it together
• Idea is a half baked cake, only after it is executed to become reality it completes the full cycle
• When knowledge & confidence is low, but, fear & insecurity is high, it leads to hate & ignorance
• In a rule/exception paradigm, if there are lots of exception happening that means that either the rules need to be re-written or people are abusing the rules
• Process, compliance & security - three most commonly overused, abused or misused words to get work done or to create a roadblock
• Mid life(crisis or not) - Growing old but feeling younger!
• A true conservative mopes over someone somewhere is having fun and he/she is missing out on it.
• The force which tries to maintain the status-quo is always stronger than the one which challenges it.
• When the voice inside is saying something different from the voices outside, it leads to agony.
• The reason non-verbal communication is more powerful is because we are socially conditioned not to speak our mind that easily.

Shade and Shadow

When standing in the Sun, your body casts a shadow, but, will it ever become a shade?

Trouble of ignorance

Problem: Ignorance
Solution: Awakening
Path: Knowledge


Ignorance => Desire & Hatred => Negative Deeds => Suffering

War - Inside & Outside

For some people(including me) there is always a war inside their head. It is a deadly battlefield of arguments & counter-arguments. Logic & reasoning constantly fighting with belief systems. May be that's why outside their head and around them they want to see peace, serenity and beauty.

But, I can see how it could be reversed for some people, where inside their head there is no battle. They feel that it does not matter what they think it's all pre-determined by 'someone' and we are mere actors in a play where we do things that has been written for us. There is no point thinking too much and losing sleep over it. Their mind is peaceful and serene, just like the way I want my outside world. However, for these people they would like to see the battlefield and war outside for a constant need of adrenaline high! Exactly the opposite of what I would like to see. Aggression comes from a perceived sense of insecurity or superiority.
It may be a bit far-fetched, but, if every one stopped believing in God, perhaps there will not be any need to fight or war!!

FOXP2 and evolution of language

The amazing and beautiful FOXP2 gene, which is a key element in the language development of human. Check out this link for more info: http://www.evolutionpages.com/FOXP2_language.htm

It is amazing to note that the human version of FOXP2 gene differs from mouse in just three amino acids out of 715!!!  But, I think it supports the other hypothesis that when Dinosaurs were dying these rodents went underground to save the mammal chain of evolution intact and thus the rapid development of species variety in post-Dinosaur era. So, someday mouse might be able to talk! Dr. Dolittle will indeed become a reality!! I don't think I live to see that day :-(
I will satisfy myself with this Netflix advertisement in the meantime:-)
http://www.tellyads.com/show_movie.php?filename=TA14313

Evolution of computers

The sophistication of a touchscreen phone sometimes makes me wonder how the basic building block is ultimately binary math, 0's and 1's! In just 80 or so years computers have evolved so much. Now, I can appreciate why 'some people' have hard time grasping evolution of life in earth and needs an external factor like 'GOD' to make sense of everything. Because, to put your thoughts around 13.7 billion years since the origin of our universe and make sense of the present moment is mind-boggling!!

Creation vs Creator

Liberals are humbled by the creation and the conservatives are humbled by a(the) creator. 

Conservatives argue that when you see a beautiful painting, you invariably think about the painter. While this argument holds good intuitively in many aspects of life but not to the creation of life itself. Latest research in physics show that the big bang happened without any external agent starting it. What is before big bang or start of time is similar to when people used to believe in a flat world and wonder what happened to the oceans around the edges.

Some thoughts on aliens, life beyond ours

Given the size of the universe and the high likelihood of life, the chance that a civilization exists at the same level as human is very small. If there are civilizations smarter than human, they will be so advanced that there won't be any chance of stand-off(so, no Star wars type fighting). If they want to, they will easily overpower us, but, they will probably have won over their aggression, so, will try to co-operate with us(like the E.T variety!).

One would wonder if smarter civilizations exist, why don't they visit us or attack us. One can answer this by asking a question. Do we humans care what a mole hill in Madagascar is doing? Do we care to visit them? NO. Because, they are insignificant. Similarly, we could be insignificant too for a very advanced alien civilization.

Fear of machines/technology

Technology is intimidating. Imagine the awe when the cave men accidentally discovered fire by rubbing two stones together. But, over time they learnt to put better usage of fire.

Fast forward many centuries and imagine just before weighing machine was invented. People will argue over how much a piece of something would weigh. A subjective and speculative decision making process was replaced by an objective and accurate weighing machine.

Fast forward more and imagine just before watch/clock was invented. People will argue over the current time of the day by looking either at a shadow cast over by a tree or some other patterns one might have noticed. A subjective and speculative decision making process was replaced by an objective and accurate watch/clock.

There could be many more such examples.

So, whenever I hear that machines will take over our lives and Hollywood blockbusters making money by using people's instinctive fear or insecurity, I feel sad.

From Pyramid to Circle

I looked into my crystal ball and had this moment of realization that human social institutions are mostly hierarchical, pyramids of sort. There is a chain of command which decides the tasks to be carried out, information that needs to flow down etc. etc. Democratically elected governments, corporate org structure are only some of the examples of pyramid structure. There are umpteen drawbacks of a pyramid model. The rigid hierarchy does not allow enough flexibility, it is designed similar to ecosystem of the earth where higher in the food chain guarantees better survival, it uses force or coercion to maintain the structure, only possible growth is downward which increases the distance between the top and bottom of the pyramid. A tourist attraction today, but, pyramids were built by pharaohs for preserving their body(and ego) after death by torturing and persecuting people to make it.

However, it need not be that way. Circles or spheres model circumvents all of the above problems. It is flexible, non-hierarchical, allows growth and variation, designed similar to planetary systems, no artificial force is required to maintain the system, individualistic(as a single isolated point) as well as small to large groups(depending on the number of points in circle) are allowed, growth allowed in all directions with or without overlaps. [ Will revisit for some concrete examples]

Happiness is living inside a bubble

Because people who seek truth & beauty don't care being unhappy.

Random Thoughts - Tail Tale

How did early humans loss tails? Did they lose in one generation or over many? By Darwinian theory, probably there was a time when some primates had tails but others did not. How might have they interacted with each other? Did one tease the other with tail ends?

Random Thoughts - Software as a service vs On-premise

Can software as a service(Saas) & the traditional on-premise software be compared with painting & photography paradigm? Painters still paint and people who can afford still buys painting but for the most of us we take photographs and buy them when we like it(since it is more affordable). Similarly, corportes who can afford will continue investing in the on premise software model but the rest will move on(if not already) to Saas.

Co-exist in multiple space points

Time travel is a dream of science fiction writers. But, to me, more than time travel the ability to co-exist in multiple places at the same time seems more exciting. This yearning is the result of liking too many things. I would like to be at home in a family moment and partying with friends with dance and drinks and read up a novel while enjoying some fresh air at the same time. Now, we do all of these in series, planning and managing our time. We cannot do these activities in parallel, all at the same time.

In fact, quantum particles can do exactly the above(the building blocks of life, animate and in-animate). Feynman sum of history as explained by Stephen Hawking:

With each trajectory Feynman associated two numbers, one for the size – the amplitude – of a wave and one for its phase – whether it is a crest or a through. The probability of a particle going from A to B is found by adding the up the waves associated with every possible path that passes through A and B.

But, at the macroscopic level, like the human existence, only one of the above infinite paths get close to a probability of one causing us to exist at a specific moment(me writing now and not somewhere else doing something else).
So, effectively, in order for us to co-exist in multiple places, no one activity can have a probability of one! So, no one can for sure say that you did a certain activity! May be you were at the club, may be you were not!

More 2x2 Tables

I continue to find 2x2 matrices an easy way to explain certain thoughts. Here are two more.

One explains the education and schooling paradigm, where a person who went to school, may or may not have been educated and vice-versa and the other time & money paradigm.

Where do you stand?