Blue or black teeth

I finally got fed up of using the infra red connectivity to connect to GPRS and finally went to brigade road and got myself a bluetooth dongle which now enables me to access the net wireless but now new problems are cropping up, surprissingly not the usual "security hazard, compatibility issues etc." but a rather simple one: battery drain now both my laptop as well as my cellphone are discharging much faster and so the time i can spend wireless has come down drastically.The irony is this is supposed to be an advancement in technology but the same step is stepping back in time in terms of battery time available to me! One step forward two steps back or what ?

The Cafe way

Imagine staying in a bar beyond the closing time, you know typcially know what to expect from the waiters:
If you are a regular visitor-"Sir, the cops are prowling in the locality looking for drunk drivers to hoodwink, Better move out fast"
If you are not a regular- The waiters gang up and give you mean stares, some of them will clear the tables and continue to go to sleep on them, finally one of them will typically come up to and tell you with a stern "Saar, We are all very sleepy and tired so beat it!"
Now imagine staying up beyond closing time at a cafe- The waiters may not know how to convey the same to you effectivly, so I thought why not come up with a poem which they can use to effectivly communicate with errant customers:(preferably sung shairi style)
"Aap ko cafe moka diya"
"Cafe moka diya aap ko"
"Aap ethar se expresso edar se nai niklo ge tho"
"Expresso se aap edar se nai niklo ge tho"
"Cafe latte melega aap ko hamare tharaf se!"

Online again

I can't describe the relief I am feeling right now that I can go online with my GPRS again. This time though I have to use the Infra-red connection, so I am forced to be veery careful and composed in my typing lest I disturb the link, Im sitting on my bed and typing this you see...simple, anyway the funny thing was I spent about 2 hours RTFMing which didn't get me anywhere, so I tried my usual "Try, try, until you succeed" trick, and here I am, Thank you God!... Perseverance and patience in bucket-loads too. Well the show has to go on, will start posting again!

Fighting nature

Yesterday I was watching a programe on Discovery about defence related technologies which have derived their concepts from those occuring in nature, These included wierd stuff such as making bullet-proof aromour for soldiers from spider webs by genetically crossing the spider and the common goat to to produce milk which will have a residue similar to the spider web which is then spun under ideal humidity and light conditions to get the threads required. The programme also included other seemingly futuristic concepts for defence and the programme ended by concluding that for every offense stratergy thought of there will always be a defense stratergy already present in nature.
This made me think : Offense and defence occur in nature itself, we adapt these concepts from nature and use technology to make them happen. So it can lead to one conlusion, which is that "Fight! It's natural!"

Navagrahas, ancient Indian astrology and origin of life

Ancient Indian astrology has always facinated me, The basic underlying principal of this ancient science being based on the movement of the nine planets (Celestial constellations) with refernce to the movement of 27 stars (Nakshatras). It goes on to say that these movements control a person's destiny, thoughts and deeds. The very fact that the first book on Indian astrolgy was written by a authour called pita maha in about 3,000 BCE itself is mind boggling! The concept that the movement of the nine planets and stars influences one's life leads me to think that maybe it was based on the concept that all of us are part and parcel of the universe.
This thought was reinforced by a program that I was watching early morning on Discovery channel about scientists who were trying to find the origin of life by tracking the life of stars and also by tracking the movements of gammas rays and nutrons in outter space. The programme went on to say that life originated in star nursuries where stars are born from gases and other particles which clump togather because the pressure is so great that there occurs nuclear fusion. Stars whose mass grow too big too fast burn out much faster than normal stars and their life spans are typically only one million years or so. As a result of the stars burning out or dying, the gases and particles collapse onto themselves and form a black hole during which two jets of gamma rays are released and the sprinkling of these all over the universe gives rise to what we call life in various forms. It happens to be a coincidence that these came togather in the correct proportions to form what we call the earth and life as we know it. Now the basic jist of the whole matter is that whatever you see around you, living and non living are all composed of the same star dust! In other words all of us are actually made of celestial and stellar particles! The two things at hand Indian astrology as well as our cutting edge science speaks the same thing! Now isn't that a wonder?

The rise or fall of the women species in India? You tell me

As I sit in this coffee shop in Bangalore, I begin to notice something not unusual but rather surprising: Other than 2 girls sitting here, all the others are smoking away to glory. At the same time the guys here are just watching them puff away to glory and saying nothing about it. Not even the fact that there are a lot of guys around not smoking. The trend I have been observing when frequenting these coffee shops is that the number of guys smoking as a percentage of the crowd has either remained the same or has gone down, the number of girls and ladies smoking up has risen drastically. Now let me also be very clear about one thing here: I have absolutly no problem with women smoking.

Here are some more interesting observations:
When a stag or group of stags come into the same place and light up, they can be forced to extinguish their cigarettes if a single lady complaints, but the same does not work the otherway around, WHY? If a lady or a group of ladies walks into a place, they call the shots as to whether the men around can smoke or not, WHY? women consider themselves the weaker sex yet they can do anything anywhere, including yell profanities at the guy sitting with her and get away with it but if a guy even talks a wee bit too loud will be reprimanded into "decent behavior" by anyone of the female species around,WHY? Are we in India particularly the bigger cities reaching a point where we are giving rise to a new breed of smoking, bad mouthing,females and a group of males who can be suppressed at the whim and fancy of the females around. What about equality, respect for other people and decency?Is this the sign of a advancement or a sign of decline?

The art of blogging

Ah if only one could think a blog posting and it would instantly get posted, now that would have been convinient!, In the past few days there have often been times when I was thinking "man,I have something great that I want to post" but as usual there have been slips between the thought and actions, alas...

said and done

If people meant what they said,
If people did what they thought was right,
If people believed in what they said,
what would we have?

New political system

As I was reading the papers today morning I saw articles about coalition politics, sharing power and portfolios and a queer thought struck me! Here are a bunch of power hungry individuals who are so engrossed in their own selves that they are not able to comprehend the chaos, confusion, delays and losses that are happening as a result of their indecision and adamant attitude, In other words nothing moves unless they make up their minds to allow things to happen!; and going by what their kind of individuals they are, I doubt it if the decisions they ultimatly are going to be weighed for their pros and cons. So the point is if the end result is the formation of a incompetent government with vested interests why go through the process of elections, campaigning, voting etc.?
Create a parallel government in the existing bureaucracy which will take care of genuine issues which affect the masses and leave a percentage of the not so important portfolios and issues to be scammed, schemed or inappropriated by the politicians, since this is an integral part of democracy ie corruptions, power wielding goons etc.

Architecture & Interior design - A reality check

The reality of Architecture and Interior design consultation is a dramatic departure from what one expects at the time of graduation:
Respect and recognition as a professional !
No such luck, Almost every single day and every single client has to be enlightened about the existence of this noble profession and also that a consultant and contractor are different!
Follow ethics - No mercy here "competitions" for commercial space designs are all about who gets first to the powers that be and "convinces" them about their "design capablities" and soon, suddenly the competition is over.
Well I just realised that what was today has slowly turned to tomorrow, more tomorrow or today, whatever!