Probability In Everyday Life

A few friends and I were discussing palmistry when the following bit of conversation happened

Friend 1: Macha, show me your hand again.. oh you have a simian crease!

Me: Hahaha, doesn't Simian mean monkey or something??

Friend 2: Best monkey man! But wtf? I can't believe we are discussing this stuff. How can you believe in this garbage?

Friend 3: But you know chicks like such stuff..

Friend 2 (with almost 0 reaction time): Does your Mom also like it?

(Silence)

Friend 1: Simian creases are damn rare da.

Friend 3: Balls. I know many people who have it. My dad and uncle have them. Its not rare at all...

I later found out that only about 3% of the population have them. What that lead me to understand is that Friend 3 might have a misconceived notion about something simply because he was exposed to outliers i.e. 2 people close to him having the simian crease without even knowing it.

I wonder how many wrong notions I have.. Hmmm...

Cheeky Tanjore Rock Artists

Every time I try my hand at some form of 'art', I'm always tempted to leave behind some Easter eggs. Be it some hidden message(there are quite a few on this blog if you look hard enough!) , random bits of code, an out-of-place diagram, anything.

Then one day while watching a documentary on the great Tanjore (Thanjavur) Temples I realised I wasn't alone.

The below is a picture of a embossed saint meditating

This appears quite prominently on the rock surface where it is found. Simple enough.

The below is a picture of a Cat meditating, with some mice looking up to it which appears at the bottom of the rock surface and is of a smaller size than the saint

Now we all know what will happen when the cat stops meditating, its definitely going to be hungry!

Talk about the warning of following a holy man blindly!!

What really amazes me is that both these rock carvings are found on the same wall in Tanjavur. Now we can never be certain if this was sneaked in or was officially authorised. Nonetheless these sculptures sure had a way of getting their point across.

Respect _/\_

No Rules!

I have this t-shirt with me since class 10 which I cherish a lot. Its a simple white tee with a little blue thrown around here and there. Here's what it meant it to me over the years

Class 10- Awesome t-shirt! This is gonna make me look cool!!

Class 12- No Rules, No Rules... Hey! its a contradiction. If 'No Rules' itself is a rule, its breaking itself! Ha, now who else would've thought of that eh? I sure am Smart

College- Man, what an awesome colour combination this t-shirt has and a great tag line branded with it. I should push for this to be the theme for the cultural festival's site. And 'No Rules', wow, what a simple and effective caption its gonna be!

Now- Yay! I fit into it again. My tummy's gone right back in! w00t!! :)

The Boon

boon-blessing: a desirable state; "enjoy the blessings of peace";

Ravi sat and stared into space for what seemed like eternity. His entire body was numb with inaction, unable to create any kind of excuse to move. He stared blankly at the wall for so long that the wall itself seemed to move all by itself, twisting a little, sliding a little. It was only when he blinked that the wall returned to normal only to start swaying again in a few seconds. Walls always seem to behave this way when the mind is adamant on staying blank.

Ravi had given up.

After what seemed like an eternity, Ravi suddenly sensed something stirring in him. It was a deep and powerful feeling of having been here before and done this before. A familiar feeling of safety and comfort of being in his mother's arms as a small child was what he could recognise as he drifted away into a state of half sleep....

"It is said that everyone is born with divinity in them and when taken to the maximum potential one can even become One with the divine. Irrespective of past actions, or even those from the future God is always close. However there comes a time in one's life when one is farthest away from this realization and God decides to come to one's rescue and offer one boon, however fantastic that might be. It would be the one time in an individual's life where everything would be magical and the whole universe would revolve around that person for the boon to be fulfilled. But be warned for it is only the Is that knows when one needs it the most..."

"Ravi, it is I, the one you know as God. It has been a while since you last spoke to me in the temple as a child. So, speak to me now my child, what can be done to help you from this deep dark hole that you have put yourself into? State your one boon so that all your troubles may vanish and that you can spread your wings and fly once again..."

"How much worse can this get? My life is pathetic enough and now I'm growing crazy as well?? Oh God, please just leave me alone and let me be"

"I see, that is indeed what you desire Ravi. Your boon shall be granted. Goodbye little one, till we meet again...... in another lifetime..... when you might learn better...."

Life As A New Graduate

Life as a new graduate in a company, on the 1st job is very clearly summed up here

When I Beat Christopher Nolan

To put it simply: http://thebecomeing.blogspot.com/2008/12/rollback-nightmare.html

:)

While on the subject of nightmares, I'd like to share something more:

The most bizarre nightmare ever

Every now and then we have a nightmare where we are failing, dying or even walking with no underpants on the main road or some other familiar location.

I can handle them

But then a few days back I woke up at about 2AM with my entire sense of reality upside down thanks to my nightmare.

In this particular one I was an XML file.

Yes, a damn XML file with every node representing a particular body part with the attributes providing specific metrics about them.

Now thats a dream which even Christopher Nolan wouldn't have thought of eh?

Inspired Man

Joseph was at his wit's end. He was 39 years old, unmarried and living on a waiter's salary. He didn't have any savings and was barely making his ends meet.

It so happened that Joseph was a brilliant musician but not a very successful one at that. He had a couple of critically acclaimed album releases in his early 20's but they hadn't really taken off in the charts. It wasn't soon before his label and band mates dropped him. But Bernard had pressed on..

Joseph now had a one of chance to prove his worth. He had been given the chance to write a song for an upcoming big budget movie. The story was a love story about 2 lovers who never saw each other but yet had fallen deeply in love with each other. Bernard worked day and night on his song. He toiled to write a love song like nothing before. He spent many days and sleepless night pouring his heart and soul into the song till the song reflected his entire existence. It was Bernard's masterpiece.. and he knew it! After much thought he named the song "Love Boat River", a metaphor for everything that life was to him. He proudly submitted the song to his producers and started his long wait.. to fame and stardom!...

-------------------------------

In some bar,

Person 1: What is this shit?

Person 2: Its a new song man, "Love Boat River"

Person 3: Haha, what a stupid name. What senseless loser gave it such a name. And it sure has a weird tune. Its nothing like the other romance songs. There's something missing in this yaar, a sense of melody and beat

Person 2: But its so unique and new. I kinda like it!

Person 1: You have bad taste and c'mon you always like stuff which no one else likes. Its just your way of being 'cool' isn't it?

Person 2: Umm, umm.. yea.. lol ..

Person 3: Bah, what a shitty chorus. Why do they even play such songs on the radio. Bad pathetic music. I wonder when the next Bieber song will come on, at least it has an awesome melody........................

"Love Boat River" stopped coming on the radio within a week of its release.

I wonder what happened to Joseph's soul..

Murder

[The effects of reading too many comics and a lot of code]

[late at night]

*woooot woooot wooooooot*

*pitter patter pitter patter pitter patter*

[lone car on the road]

*screeeech*

[get out of car]

*tip tap tip tap tip tap*

[take out keys]

*click*

[look look]

[push open door]

*creeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaak*

*tip toe tip toe*

[push open door]

*tick tock tick tock*

*tip toe tip toe*

[wonder wonder fetter fetter]

.

.

[raise knife]

.

.

.

[lights on]

*Surprise! Happy Birthday!!.... *

.

.

*silence*

[....]

THE END

Soldiers Of Tomorrow

[A post after a long time! And its more the economist in me which is doing the talking. Also this post is more generic than country specific]

When I was little I was enamoured by the armed forces. They had the fastest jets, sleekest ships and the most rugged looking tanks and jeeps. Soldiers I thought were the backbone of a country, ready to lay down their lives for all of us and seemed to me to be the coolest people in the world. For a large part of my school days I wanted to be a scientist for the armed forces and work with all that awesome technology.

And then I grew older.. and hopefully smarter...

Now I think that the armed forces are useless. With there being nucler weapons, no country would dare launch a full a scale occupation of any other country (unless you're Saddam Hussein and dumb enough to not suck up to any of the nuclear powers before you had a weapon yourself) for threat of nuclear obliteration. So why have the armed forces?

I can think of the following reasons:

1) Disaster Relief

2) Border Patrol

3) Counter Terrorism

4) A signalling mechanism to satisfy investors about the stability of a country

5) Reduce Unemployment (A current dismantling of the military machine would lead to an influx of so much labour that a country's economy would collapse)

Now I don't see why points 1 & 2 cannot be left to the hands of smaller and more specially trained teams or even completed automated!

But I still see soldiers, brave soldiers protecting our country from the greatest villains of the coming century, such as

1) Disease

2) Economic Inequalities

3) Ignorance

Yes, I'm talking about social workers. The unsung heroes of the modern day world who fight against those enemies whose one agent (HIV?) kills more humans than all the wars in the world combined. They are battling not in far off lands using big machines, but most likely in your neighbouring street and with their bare hands. It is indeed a great shame that billions of dollars worth of weaponary is being procured by countries all over the world just to build machines most of which are never really used due to fear of all out nuclear war. I can only wonder how much good these resources would bring if channeled to the proper agents. Why we might even be able to bring down the prices of green technology making them far more affordable and accessible! I truly feel that the possibilities are endless if the resources wasted on the armed forces are put to good use

The Silver Screen

It was one tiring night at about 9PM when I was returning home from work. I got on the good ol' 342F and as the bus rattled along I slid into an empty seat and searched for my music player to listen to a good 3-4 songs of Cream before I reached my destination. Then to my horror, onto the bus came a gang of bratty boys full of jokes, laughter and random 'kalais'. They were making a huge ruckus, but were having fun nonetheless. It felt just like being back in college.

I wanted to punch them all square across the jaw and throw them off the bus..

A couple of days later, it was again a tiring night at about 9PM when I was returning home from work. I got on one of those private buses and as the bus rattled along I slid into an empty seat and searched for my music player to listen to a good 3-4 songs of Cream before I reached my destination. Then to my horror, the TV on the bus turned on with the speakers at full volume. It showed a random scene from a movie about a gang of bratty boys full of jokes, laughter and random 'kalais'. They were making a huge ruckus, but were having fun nonetheless. It felt just like being back in college watching that scene from the movie.

I didn't mind it, in fact I quite enjoyed it..

It was only after getting off the bus that I realized my hypocrisy. Why was so intolerant of those boys who got on the bus but didn't mind the exact same thing happening on the TV. From my point view, both ways, it should have simply been 'entertainment'!

Are we biased to let our guard down and accept easily what we see on TV? I wonder....