Dharm-k-shetre Kuru-k-shetre...

Dharm-k-shetre Kuru-k-shetre sam-veta yuyu-tsavah...

Chapter 1,Verse 1 of 'The Bhagvad Gita' translates to a question asked by the blind King to Sanjaya, "What was the outcome of the war ?" - past tense, for a future event! ( reminds of Stephen Hawkings' "Time Loops" ).
Either the king must have been really-really blind, or bhagvad gita may have been written to describe something other than a real-life battle-ground.

Strangely, so as it seems, the same question gets asked by our executive brain( read neocortex ), every time at the beginning of any decision making process. On being asked, various components of the brain report their causal states to the executive, and based on which a decision is made.

Now believe me, if you will, the decision-making-process, involving multiple independent agents is a strange beast. And when those agents have only partial information, the problem becomes too scary to be solved. No universal solution to such type of problem exists in real-time.
Every system(individual) has to approach the optimal solution, to such a problem, using some kind of heuristics.

Since, no universal solution exists, everyone has their own unique way to solve the conflicts they are going through, and its very tough, for any external entity, to gauge or even have a clue of what might be going on.

we all are the outcome of the continuous battle between various modules inside our heads ? Our state at any time is an equilibrium between multitude of utility functions. each of those functions driven by our varied emotions, desires, and expectations.

Try not to be rude to anyone, they all are fighting a war.

To forgive is Divine

Recently, while returning home from a late nite pool game with office buddies, I was misguided to a very strange locality. I never would have know this place existed, if my GPS wouldn't have misled me. This normally happens when its cloudy and the GPS is unable to lock onto minimum of 4 satellites(that is for latitude, longitude, altitude and direction).

Anyhow, after roaming for a while, clueless, and not knowing which direction I was heading, I decided to stop, ask for directions and also get myself a coffee(yes, I do it whenever I am confused, which is virtually everytime - a starbucks gold customer you'd imagine).

The place was seven-eleven, I parked my vehicle, went in, made myself a french-vanilla flavor with columbian base, asked the lady behind the counter, which way is the beltway and headed out.

As I was heading to my vehicle, with a sense of conquest(Alexander too would have felt the same after venturing into unknown territory, i guess). A 12 year old came-up to me, and asked me if he can borrow some money. I politely retorted, 'why ?'
he said he would like to purchase something to eat.
I looked at my wallet, the minimum I had was a 10 dollar bill.
So, I said, 'buddy, let me buy you. what would you like to eat?'
Just as he was about to say something, a short-statured lady arrived at the scene, with another kid by her side. She repeated what the kid had said. I asked, 'ok, how much money you need?'.
she said 3 dollars. I replied I don't have three dollars.
Before I could even complete my statement. She started cursing me, 'Y'all foreigners. encroach our lands, take up our jobs. You won't even help us, when in need...'.

I just stood there not sure what should I say.
After a short pause, I continued, ' Mam, all I have is a 10 dollar bill. If you wish, I can purchase you something for 3 dollars, but I may not be able to lend 10 dollars.'

I was feeling bit like a nebbish as this was an unknown locality, and some of the areas in DC are not very friendly, if you don't belong there. Nonetheless, I kept my calm trying to shove off the warning from my uncle and my friends that I should not roam around in strange places. but I couldn't refrain from my urge to talk back. something she said just stuck in my head and I had to reply back.

So I said, 'Mam, I don't know what you see me as. I am here in a foreign land, far away from home, and parents. I hardly know many people here. Sometimes I find everything strange in your country. The weather, the language and even the people. I am here not to take up your jobs, I am here to do the job in a better way, and earn my share by doing so.'

She was bit amazed, and I could see the stern look in her eyes fade away. I bought them a coffee, and two doughnuts for $2.50.

As I was about to leave. she said, 'this is not a good place to be, for you, at this hour, hush off'.
I boldly replied back, 'if I weren't here. How would I have helped you ?'

I could see her blush and say, 'God, Bless!'.

so what's there to Imagine? I am glad that you asked!
Most of the hatred in the world seem to have cropped-up from mere misunderstandings. A little forgiveness from both sides , if not eliminate, should surely tone hatred down. We better do it sooner than later - before it gets encoded as an idiosyncrasy in our DNA.

To err is Human

Being a computer engineer and after my introduction to computers in 1996, I have, since then, spent, on an average, 8-10 hrs daily with these mindlessly retarded, senselessly numb and mentally incompetent invention of humankind. The book-keeping equates, the time spent talking to computers, to approx.~39,420 hours from my limited lifetime. Not to mention the time spent dreaming about these computers during my initial years of fascination. off-lately these mind-paralyzed paraphernalia have become a nightmare(popping up every now and then with their deadlines), and, alas, this doesn't end here.

Although this sounds like a curse, it would be unjust not to reflect upon some of the positive aspects of my interactions with the ultimate invention.

I call this ultimate because I, personally, think all subsequent inventions will find their way only via these naturally unintelligent logic boxes. Some may disagree, as there is a school of thought, who consider that our belief in the present-day-logic is blinding us from the true reality.

The very important intuitive contribution to my awareness brought about by these binary idiots, is the differentiation between two aspects of my existence. The one aspect which is computable and the other which is non-computable. There are various different levels defined for consciousness between these two extremes, and this particular question is tackled by a separate stream of computer science now known as Emergence Theory.

To pursue meaning of computability, I'll refer to this masterpiece by Alan Turing. It has been one of my most favored antiques( which is also the foundation of computation as we know it) : http://readdle.com/s/1009943/40459.pdf

One of the very disturbing assumption( atleast for me ) in this document is the fact that human memory is necessarily limited.

Imagine This:

If human memory is limited, why all new-born infants( with presumably no-memory at all ) should cry? Are they all hard-wired to cry as soon as they are born? or do our memories extend beyond our known limits ?

Forgetful Science

Its been found out that a normal human being remembers only 95% of events from the last day. This amounts to 5% of forgetfulness.

Imagine this:
If you are a normal human being and if you have something(someone) completely occupying your mind today.
How long it takes for you to forget completely.
1st day 95%
2nd day 95% . 95%
3rd day 95% . 95% . 95%
...
and so on.

amounts to ~ 280 days for complete erasure. whoever said: its tough to forget your past!

-- added 15th Feb --
so lets ask ourselves. was meeting them a waste of 280 days?

The Anatomy of Hope By Nancy S. Green, establishes the concepts of 'experience synthesis' and 'experience decay'.
The transition, from the time when an experience is introduced to the point in time when it decays completely, helps us model our persona and provides a key ingredient to our power of making choices.

And maybe someday we will find , that it wasn’t really
a Wasted time

on the edge

MSFT's recent bid for YHOO has created so much uncertainity that the deal now looks in favor of GOOG. Uncertainity => fleeing investors => $40 Bn loss in terms of Market Cap for MSFT, already, since the day bid was made.
Lets look at some short term probabilities:
- YHOO rejects the offer ( high )
- AOL may make a similar bid ( very low)
- YHOO partial tie up with Google, where Y! outsources its search ( low)
- YHOO stays independent and opens its search to larger audience ( medium )
- Wait for MSFT to place another bid of $40/share ( high)
- MSFT makes a higher bid leading to further erosion of Market Cap (low)
- Hostile takeover at current price ( medium )
- Antitrust prevents the final deal ( medium)

where medium=0.3-0.4, High = >0.5, low = <0.2
Doing the Math: the probability of the final outcome(i.e. MSFT-YHOO ) = somewhere between low to medium ~ 0.3.

Is the deal worth waiting for ? we will find out tomorrow... or may be not!

Open Sesame

I managed to venture across this article while digging for my past:
http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/industrymarket/focus/2005/105122501.asp
This article is almost three years old, published approximately at the same time, when embedx stalled its operations. The generalized verdict by the author didn't fail to amuze me. Capital infused by an Angel Investor is just the bootstrap. The real problem lies in our own market, and its perception of anything tagged 'Made In India'. Embedx was not a software company, it developed its own hardware, just so you may want to know.

Imagine this Mr. Writer!!
Did embedx pave the path for future incubation projects at IIMB? Venturing out at a time when starting a product development initiative in India was not more than a bad dream. I would say a nightmare, which was dreaded by even those who were well established(in terms of cash and or experience).