Is it Black & White or just a Gray shade all the way !!!

B**b time

2011-12-25T01:27:00.006-07:00

All married men share my pain .................

Friendship

2011-11-22T00:03:00.004-07:00

Yaar ham tho hamesha dosth rahenge .............. (dear friend, we will always be friends) ........... you almost never say that explicitly but you mean it. I also meant it and I am sure someone else also shared the same feeling towards me. But the dialogue writer of this movie knew something more about life than I did.

So many great people,
some very good friends,
some so far away in distance and time.

After a point in life you really need to invest lot of time & effort and you need luck on your side if you want to maintain a friendship.

Once more

2011-11-21T23:49:00.006-07:00

Yup I did it once more. The last time I did it, I had just got married and this time I had a baby!!

It is the same storyline ............. "got busy", only the characters in the play have changed plus I started too many projects at the same time. Man, one life is too small for all the wonderful things that can be done :-)

What brought me back?!?!? this music on this infinite looper :-) Yup I am a Dil Chahta Hai fan

Tales of a grown-up

2011-08-18T14:15:00.006-07:00

A picture speaks a 1000 words,
A cartoon strip goes wayyyyyy beyond

*click on the image for better clarity
Credit for graphics goes to http://ragecomics.memebase.com/rage-builder/

Google Trends - I (Turkey time or should I say 'times')

2011-07-01T23:08:00.013-07:00

For those who are not aware of Google Trends (GT) please take a look at this and if reading a few paragraphs is too much for you then here is a one liner - GT gives you an estimate of how often a term is searched when compared to the total search volume in the form of a trend (or a graph).

It allows you to mine this information in specific geographical areas, languages, time frame etc. Such trends reveal interesting correlations such as this one ............ trend the search count for the term "turkey" in US (see plot below) ............ Why do people in US search for "turkey" a full four weeks after Thanksgiving? Any ideas :-)

Or you could ask, why do they search for "turkey" a week before Christmas?!? PS: The peak on Nov 21 is related to Thanksgiving preparation or curiosity (4 days before the event)

Once Upon a Time ...... [II] - Life and death are natural

2011-02-05T00:41:00.006-07:00

(Read the prologue here)
Life and death are natural and perfectly normal but thanks to technology and stable civilization, we have come to take life for granted.

There was a time when poisonous (venomous) animals and insects roamed, not only in your backyard but inside your house and if you were unlucky you might find them right in your bed!!

A farm worker in my uncle's farm was bit by a cobra; his presence of mind saved him - he chopped off the finger that the cobra had bit. My grandmom was stung by a scorpion while cooking in her kitchen, she almost died. Her neighbor's child was playing in the yard when he saw something interesting and picked it up, it turned out to be a scorpion, it got entangled in the baby's little fingers which was probably clenched because of the pain and the shock - the end was not good. Rewind just a couple of decades, mothers used to protect their babies not from flu or infection but from wild monkeys and hawks who would simply pick the little one.

"Horrible times" you might say but did people lead a terrified life back then?!? Were they afraid to venture out? Never in a mood to smile? Not enjoy the gentle breeze or a blossoming flower? Nope, they did all that and lived a regular life because life and death are natural, so are pleasure and pain. My grandparents accepted death at any age and in any form, with such ease that one would wonder if they loved life at all. Yes they did enjoy life and tried their best to improve its quality but gave death the same respect as life.

To, The Broken Heart (a.k.a. Are you a Computer or a Car?)

2011-01-05T13:18:00.004-07:00

Love is one of the best feelings that you can experience but it is ironic that something that can give you endless pleasure can also turn your life into a hell hole.

I have been in love, and just like everyone else, sometimes it was accepted and other times rejected . When things clicked even inanimate objects seemed to smile and on rejection a genuine smile seemed like a mockery. When the latter happens your heart will take over your mind and you will wonder whether it was your greatest loss. Sometimes it is true but most times it is not. When in doubt ask yourself, are you being a computer or a car?

WHAT?!?! ....... read on ........... both a computer and a car are extremely useful, actually a computer can do more stuff for you than a car but have you noticed how differently they are treated? Initially both get the same attention and respect, like you would take pride to mention it to your friends. But things change overtime, slowly but surely the computer is looked down upon as an archaic piece of equipment, it gets to hear comments like "oh it is so slow", "it gets so hot", "it is so heavy", pretty soon you are probably just waiting for the next good deal to buy a new computer.

On the other hand a car gets a personal touch, gets cleaned - at least from the outside, undergoes maintenance and gets complimented for doing its job. People are more forgiving when it breaks down or when it does not perform like it used to. More importantly there is touch of nostalgia when it comes to a car.

The poor computer takes care of more tasks, gets zero maintenance and on top of it gets berated and thrown out at the first opportunity. Long story short, no one, NO ONE bids adieu to an old computer.

So make sure you are a "car" for your sweetheart and not a "computer". Anytime you feel like the poor computer, just move, it is not worth your while.

**** This post was supposed to have been posted many ago :-) Currently I am in a state of 'better late than never' ****

Once Upon a Time ...... [I] - Food

2010-11-25T00:06:00.010-07:00

(Read the prologue here)
There was time in 1980s in rural south India when each family grew their own food. I am talking about all the stuff. Rice was grown in your own field, pulses or beans typically came from your relative's field in another village, fruits were a delicacy except the ones that could grow in your backyard. You guessed it right, most people farmers.

There was only one store in the entire village and the only things you bought there were candy, 'fancy bindi', thread, carbonated water (soda), and other local products (mostly perishables).

Now I cannot imagine life without a grocery store!!! I not only demand the type of food I want but when I want it irrespective of the time of the year. Even better, I can get the food delivered to my house to spare me the inconvenience of going to the store. And when one of our friend tried growing food in their yard this is what came out................................. and how many people can be fed with this cob?!?!?

Once upon a time .........

2010-09-24T21:06:00.002-07:00

I am starting a new series titled "Once upon a time" to document the numerous experiences of life at a different time. I would be playing the part of a story teller. Of late I have come to realize the importance of a story teller in our lives. The story teller is the last vestige that connects the current times and current state of mind to a long lost time. We should have more story tellers and even better would be the culture of documenting and reading history for there is much to learn from history. History repeats itself because people forget history.

I realized its importance when my dad suffered a heart attack recently and suddenly it struck me that in single stroke of fate all the stories that only he knew would have simply vanished from the surface of earth; some real moments lived by real people, simply gone for ever.

So in this series I will write about my experiences and the stories that I have heard. They will be a mix of both unique and ordinary events because life is made of such a mix.

As put beautifully in the "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring".............

And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth.

I don't want that to happen.

viva la Hypocrisy

2010-07-19T21:32:00.006-07:00

Are you still working?

2010-06-03T00:03:00.008-07:00

Ahh...... those innocent times!

Three ages of a man

2010-01-24T20:18:00.012-07:00

Asymptotic nature of a graduate student's pain

2009-12-12T02:07:00.007-07:00

Hold on, there is hope........ albeit on the other side of the Pinnacle of Pain!

I wonder .............

2009-11-18T23:27:00.013-07:00

How much truth can you take?

2009-09-17T19:49:00.023-07:00

As a kid I once asked my mom, "Won't it be great if the shops sold a machine that would let you read another person's thoughts!?", she thought for couple of seconds and replied, "I will simply refuse such an offer". 'Woalla' I thought, I had proved for the n'th time that parents are pretty lame, ha ha ha. As Stewie the Great has said 'Victory is mine'. Who in their right mind would refuse such a wonderful machine and off I went to do my victory dance, out of my mom's gaze, of course.

And then the psychedelic whirlpool spins on the screen fast forwarding my life by 20 years; now I am married and if I were to be presented with such a machine, I would have double thoughts!!
"Way to go, what a U-turn" clap clap clap - says my alter ego while doing its victory dance!

What would you do? Do you really want to know EVERYTHING that other people think? Let me rephrase the question, do you want YOUR thoughts to be read by your partner/stranger?? ahha now it rings a bell. Put yourself in the following situations;

1] You are a guy in the 'available' phase and you come across a group of girls, what would be your thought process?

2] Your spouse had made something that he/she is usually good at but today is an exception and he/she has been having one of those 'blue' days. And the inevitable question pops up, "Honey, what do you think of it?"

3] You are asked, in person, for a 'honest' feedback by your colleague or worse, your manager.

4] Your son/daughter is going out on the 'numero uno' date.

so on and so forth........ to be succinct I would say, "watch the movie What Women Want" and apply it to men also and then on you.

The ultimate question is how much truth can you take? Would you rather see the raw thoughts or the final product after the raw thoughts have been 'cooked' by experience and seasoned by language?

Moral of the story;
For kids - do not underestimate your parents. They too were young and smart like you, then grew up to become 'lame'.
For (most) grown up people - if you ever get such a (currently-2009) hypothetical machine then - as unfathomable as it sounds - DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT turn it on yourself. It might surprise you :)

I am Back - after - Vanishing from the Social Radar

2009-06-21T13:54:00.003-07:00

Never thought I would say this but "here I am", exactly 18 months after my previous post. I apologize to all those who follow my blog; I feel very very dumb :-(
So what happened........... I got married :-D Now now let me be fair, this gap was not all because of marriage, I am also to be blamed for the huge gap.

Now that we have put it behind us, hopefully, let's move on. This post was supposed to be my next blog topic sometime in early 2008; "Vanishing from the Social Radar".

What is "Vanishing from the Social Radar"?! It happens to a person who otherwise is pretty normal when it comes to socializing and then for some weird reason he/she decides to get married. So the person gingerly goes off to get married, then you hear about the wedding and may be see the pics, thanks to Orkut and its tribe. Then the person along with the brand new spouse is sent off on a Honeymoon (sometimes not) and then ........ "it" happens; hey not that thing, this is still a G rated blog, you pervert!

The sequence of events that follow are somewhat like this ............ you never hear about the couple's return from their Honeymoon, the pictures do not get posted in time, any queries are met with a coy reply like 'oh, there were too many pics', or 'ohhhhh we have to sensor them' (I hate this reply; as if you have done something different from the rest of us!). Then they miss out on casual gatherings but do manage to show up on formal ones. Earlier phone calls were made at the drop of a hat and now it is reserved for birthdays and anniversaries. Soon your calls (for attention) are met with the same reply, 'no time at all yaar, don't know how the days are flying', and then it dawns on you that you are actually talking to an answering machine and not your good old pal?!?!? And that my friends is the typical "Vanishing from the Social Radar" act.

But lets be fair to them, especially since I am also guilty of it - 'newly weds' do undergo many new and wild experiences, things that you thought were straight forward will start acting super weird. You may argue that we all have faced new and wild situations, so what! However, trust me, the marriage is a whole different game; the number of variables increase dramatically and to add to it, the variables start interacting as if they were on crack! Worst thing, only others can see this effect while you, the person involved, cannot. And for the deniers, I would say, 'ignorance is always a bliss'.

However it is not all gloom and doom, there is some good news. After everything is said and done, THEY do come back and lets call it, The Return of the Newly Weds!!

Is it Love? Is it Affection? or is it C43_H66_N12_O12_S2 ?!?!

2007-10-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in every person's life when he/she is at the threshold of making a major life changing, universe churning, decision in life where invariably he/she pauses and ponders on timeless questions like 'what is the purpose of life?' etc. However these are not questions in any sense but a path which if undertaken will lead to either a self satisfying realization and contentment or life long confusion and misery!

For me the time has come to ponder on one such question, 'What is love?' and to avoid all that I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I jumped straight into science to seek the one true answer, given the researcher that I am. And the answer is ....... Oxytocin, a mammalian hormone, whose overdose causes an optimal level of attraction and trust between the male and the female, which needless to say encourages our species to procreate. Yeeeeehaa I got it :-)

But wait a minute, if I were to express this reality while marriage or confessing my love or bonding then what chances do I have to play my role in the grand scheme of things known as evolution?? (trust me the answer would be something like....... infinitesimally small); hhhmmmmm there is a fundamental flaw here.

So let me say what I feel, which by the way is not a mere bio-chemical reaction but a mysterious outcome of a complex state of existence known as consciousness. Love is a very powerful and a wonderful feeling, often denounced as the nemesis of logic. Love by itself it too powerful and wild and as a result useless. Just as any powerful element, it needs to be channeled in the right direction to yield spectacular results (I am not talking of kids here!!, naughty naughty) and the institution of marriage is this very channel. Sure the enigmatic world of marriage will change a one way road into a two way road, but hey that is exactly what marriage is, union of two individuals; so do not expect anything more or anything less.
With these deep philosophical words, I would say that I am ready - any takers?

Disclaimer: Repeated use of such heavy wordings can lead to nausea, excommunication, isolation, and misery. For best results use it sparingly on an unsuspecting stranger.

People or Packages ?!?!

2007-07-29T12:21:00.000-07:00

I am sure that at some point of time we all must have felt something similar to "hmmm...... everything is great about this person, it would be better if only s/he did not have this, this and this". Isn't it amazing that every once in a while we try to customize the one person whom we love the most (or someone who loves us the most).

The reality is ....... People come in packages............ There is a finite set of human attributes whereas there are infinite possible combinations and the bad news is, qualities come in groups, you cannot have one without the other.

The irony is that a relationship develops by interaction of only a small subset of qualities in either person. You get attracted or put off by those few interface level qualities. Once the person passes this 'circumstantial' test then we start making forays into uncharted territories of each others characters and only some relations survive the voyage. Actually it is good that not all relations make it through or else the human society would be a very complex place to live in.

Here is an example to give you a drift of where I am going......... a fast paced person who takes quick and rational decisions cannot be expected to be emotionally sensitive or at least his/her emotional threshold will be uncomfortably low. I could go on and on pointing out the obvious, hence I will sum it up with a story from ancient Indian (south Asian) epic - Mahabharath. A princess is able to appease the Gods by her immense devotion and faith. In return the Gods grant her a wish and the princess asks for a husband who is knowledgeable, charming, exceptionally strong, and couple of other good attributes. This sent the Gods musing since even they could not find a mortal who possessed all these qualities so they influenced the events such that the princess got married to, not one prince, but five of them each a champion in one of the requested qualities!!!

Moral of the story, why not look at a person as a package and not fantasize of tinkering with the basic package to meet out needs and fantasies. However as a cautionary note, this should not be used as an excuse to avoid learning/changing because remember change is omnipotent and omnipresent, no change means no life.

ohh MIGHTY cell !!!!

2007-01-18T23:05:00.000-07:00

Can there be life without a cell phone?

PS: Cell phone is a ....................... 2 way wireless communicating device which also happens to have a built-in 2 MP camera (still and video with sound and a flash!!!), mp3 player, Bluetooth (wireless for a wireless), 1 GB memory card, games, calendar, alarm clock, stop watch, radio and in some cases internet connectivity, operating system, GPS etc ................. and possessed by about 1.5 to 2 billion people [I personally think it is the people who are 'possessed' by the cell phone and not the other way around].

Anyhow back to the point, say hello to the genesis of the cell phones........the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, world's first mobile phone to receive FCC acceptance in 1983. And check out some of its cool features {with comments from an imaginary current day's salesman};

** just 10 inches high {feel free to use it for self-defense}
** only 800 gm (28 ounces) in weight {built in mini-dumbells}
** {quality time of} 35 min talk time with 10 hrs charging time !!!! {ohh boy}

Well that was life :) once long long ago. As you can see it was a really "mighty cell"

The bearded guy is Dr. Martin Cooper, a former general manager for the systems division at Motorola, who is considered the inventor of the first portable handset and the first person to make a call on a portable cell phone in April 1973.
The first call he made was to his rival, Dr. Joel Engel, research head of Bell Labs.....impressive impudence.

Freedom is sweet indeed

2006-11-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

I finished my doctoral program last week and finally joined the small band of people known as the philosophers; the first thought that came to my mind was "Freedom is sweet indeed". No wonder some people are ready to sacrifice everything, even their life, for a taste of freedom. Although I was supposed to be enjoying the student life all along for the past 5 years, I could not shake away an omnipresent feeling of restraint on my mind; and quiet strangely I had become used to it. I realized what I was missing only when I defended my thesis.

Over time people tend become indifferent to their curtailed freedom because of one of our primal survival instincts - adaptation. We all, as living beings, have mastered this art of adaptation and it is indeed a very useful trait to possess. Usually adaptation starts out as a response to an unsolvable problem in the environment but for some of us it ends up becoming a habit. Only a select few, the free thinkers among us will be restless, as restless as an eye with a mote wedged between the eye and the eyelid. These are the ones who will put their foot down and refuse to adapt beyond a reasonable point. They will bring out in action what all others were only dreaming or wishing. It will be up to those handful to realize, inspire and lead the rest of the mass. And those in the masses will need to take the critical step of catching the tide and breaking free. An alliance of a free thought and a mass of liberated minds can do wonders.

PS: Picture - courtesy MS Word clip art.

What !! Acroot ? ohhh Orkut !!

2006-09-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

I think the title would summarize my introduction to this new online 'thing'. For those of you wondering what an "Acroot" means: a walnut is known as acroot in Hindi (north Indian language). The picture shows a bunch of them and is taken from Wikipedia.

So officially now I am an 'orkutian' which adds Orkut to the ever growing list of internet 'things' ..... mail id, chat id, some people have multiple ids!!!, website, blog, forum, photo viewer webpages etc. This effectively means more time on the computer which will surely lead to increased chances of back sore, neck problem, carpal tunnel syndrome, straining your eyes and other health problems that are summed up nicely (and ominously ) in this link.

And the best part is how fast the social relevance of such things change over a short period of time; 6 months ago I heard, "Did u hear about orkut?", which soon became, "Everyone is joining orkut" and the last straw which pushed me into panic mode and subsequent signup was, "WHAT !! You are not in orkut ?" - It sure sounded like "What !! You are not vaccinated ?". Sure, peer pressure is real.

In the end Orkut or acroot looked like a mix of chat, networking, matrimonial / dating service, forum / blog, mail, communication service and yeah a fortune cookie !! My first day's fortune: "Your present plans are going to succeed". Cha.... I wish I had a good one ready :(

It is funny how there are so many sites which claim to merge all the needs in site and ultimately we end up having accounts in so many sites. I wonder, is it the power of consumerism or too much time on the internet !?

PS: While filling out my profile I realized one interesting point; The field where one needs to fill in a website takes a maximum of 60 characters. This makes me think, what is the limit of the http name for a website ?

TAG TAG TAG - The 'Dream Gadget'

2006-08-31T22:28:00.000-07:00

Okay I am also into this tag game through blog thanks to Anuradha. And henceforth I will have explicit heading for such things, to differentiate from my regular posts.

This dream gadget has been my childhood dream and I am sure many people will hate me for this ..................

[1] "Power inlet enabled body" so that one can plug ourselves to the power outlet and get the required energy, no need to cook nor waste time in eating food !!!!!! But there should be an option where we can eat sweets and ice cream through the God made way, haaaaaaaa ha ha ha.

Ok ok if this is too much to ask then how about this .......

[2] "Automated cooking and washing" so that stuff like vegetables can cut themselves and jump into the cooker and cook themselves. And after eating, the dishes can roll or fly to the sink and wash and dry themselves and park themselves in the shelves, neatly !!!!

You are doing a PhD??? BUT WHY!!!!!!!!!

2006-07-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

Someone recently uttered the title of this blog and it 'knocked' me into the real world where people give you strange looks if you are doing a PhD. The entire span of my doctoral study can be summed up chronologically by three nouns; idealism, realism, antagonism and, God forbid, for some people the list can be extended with alcoholism and zombiism!!

I can write pages and pages about my or anyone else's PhD experience but the apt lines were uttered by my advisor. He once said, "Finishing your doctoral study is like a sexual climax, when everything starts to happen at the same time", and I honorably add, "with the only difference being that you would love to go through a sexual climax time and again but never ever dare to 'finish another PhD' !!!!!!"

As a dedication to my doctoral 'climax', I am listing a few satirical as well as some good lines that I came across during these 5 years of graduate study;

1] First my favorite: "You are doing a PhD??? BUT WHY!!!!!!!!!"
2] PhD = Permanent Head Damage
3] BS => Bull S***; MS => More S***;PhD => Pile it Higher and Deeper
4] PhD = Poor Hungry Doctorate student
5] "Breach what you preach"
6] "Women make possible impossible"
7] "Either you should know the solution or know someone who knows the solution"
8] "The laws of physics do not stop working during the weekends" (there goes my weekend!)
9] Experiments work by Black Magic
10] Outcome of an experiment depends on the frequency of rotation of a pulsar in some distant galaxy
11] Lab equipments are distant cousins of Marvin (the severely depressed paranoid android with GPP in novel/movie 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. The picture in this blog post is that of Marvin taken from Wikipedia)
12] PhD = reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-search (search again n again n again ....)
13] An experiment is as good as its instrumentation and a simulation is as good as its assumptions
14] "Let us get to the hurdle then think about it" (very useful most of the times)
15] When I say,"Hi, I am doing a PhD", the replies........
"ooooooooohhh"
"OHHHHHHHHH"
"hooooooo ha ha ha, now I can say that I have a mad scientist as a friend"
"Oh you must be a genious, I wish I could do that" (OFCOURSEEEEEEEE nobody means it)
"Acknowledge me when you get a Nobel prize"
"Why don't you advice my son/daughter"
"Your life is set, you will have no problems" (yeah RIGHT !!!!!)

Whose scale are you using today ?

2006-06-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

"This is not important for your life" or
"You should do XYZ to be happy in life" or "Listen to what I am saying or else you will suffer later, I know how things work"
and the list is endless.............

I am sure that you must be familiar with one of these lines or its variant, thanks to the social nature of we the human beings. All the development and knowledge that we have around us, is a result of the accumulated knowledge of all the human beings who existed before us. Hence, it is natural to look up to the people who have 'walked the path'.

Now imagine a hypothetical situation; sometime in the past, if people had suddenly decided (quiet retardedly) to simply follow what their predecessors had said or done, and in the process stopped contributing to the prevailing knowledge. It would have resulted in a horrendous blunder ...... we would be stuck in a time capsule!! Imagine you and your friends in a time like the 'medieval ages', where the judiciary was not separated from the monarchy, women empowerment was unheard of, plague epidemic and comet sightings were connected etc.

Each person measures life with their own perspective, and in the process, builds up a scale to measure situations in life and thus acts accordingly. When such a person 'gives an advice', he/she is essentially handing over a copy of his/her own scale to you and asking you to measure your life with it. How can you measure the 'importance' or 'value' of something, when you are using someone else's perspective? This is no different to a case where you are trying to figure out the length of something, and someone offers you a weighing machine!!! What use would a weighing machine be (in such a situation), however accurate it may be?!?!?!

So, when you go out today, or face a situation, or seek advice, or worse .... when you are forcibly given advice ..... stop and ask yourself, "Whose scale are you using today?".

Also, for courtesy sake, be cautious when it is your turn to hand over a 'scale' :-)

The Red light

2006-05-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

By now most of you must have had the experience of facing the dreaded red signal of a traffic light. I bet the most common reaction would be in the lines of "Ohh God" or "Ohh s***" (it is interesting that God and s*** get used interchangeably while cursing !!). Recently I was cycling on an old rusty bike, in the midday Arizona summer (104 F / 40 C), with a heavy backpack while trying to get some paper work done (thanks to the omnipresent bureaucratic red tape) and I almost got through from home to school, crossing three signals, when at the fourth traffic light I saw that dreaded red signal......my first reaction, 'OHH NOOO ... not nowwww'.

Okay now, let us hit pause and reflect for a moment; what did I do when I was NOT stoppped by the previous three traffic lights?.....I did not think about God or s***, hmmm. Right then the skies opened up, suddenly things became nice and pleasent, a mysterious mist surrounded me and God walked down a golden staircase with a revelation.......he he he ........ that was a joke, except the revelation part. The truth my friends is that we take the green signal for granted (and never think about it) and the red signal as an unfortunate or evil intervention (and keep brooding about it).
NOTE: I am not preaching or canvasing for God or divinity.
My observation is that 'failure' in any form or size tends to leave a much more deeper impact on our minds than 'success'. Take a look at your lives and try estimating the ratio of the amount of time you spent enjoying or relishing the good events to the amount of time you spent brooding or complaining about the bad events in your life. And my guess is that if this ratio is greater than 1.0 then your life has been satisfactory and happy, otherwise it has been a miserable one !!

The first three green lights or the last red light in my bike trip; was it an act of God, was it a boon or a curse, was it part of a bigger plan, was it just random, or was it luck?......I can keep going. The answer is, choose what you like from this list of God or luck or coincidence etc, they will all average out in the long run but pay atmost attention to the 'ratio'; as long as the 'ratio' is greater than 1.0, life is going to be great. As someone has correctly said, "It is all in the mind" ..... and I add ..... "whatever the red light might be".

P.S. If your ratio turns out to be exactly 1.0 then either your calculations were wrong or you are a singularity !!!

Lena Soderberg - Image processing standard

2006-04-29T02:06:00.000-07:00

For all those who are familiar with image processing or those with a technical acumen, you would be familiar with the "Lenna" or "Lena" picture which is the most widely used standard test images.

Now, WHY THIS PICTURE ??

For the curious mind, 'Lena' or 'Lenna' is a digitized Playboy centerfold !!!, from the November 1972 issue (I assume that you know what a Playboy centerfold is). Lenna is the spelling in Playboy, Lena is the Swedish spelling of the name.

Here is the original picture, "all of Lenna" ....he he he...... ( WARNING: It contains nudity :d )http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/714/2863/1600/Lenna_full.0.jpg

More detials about its origin ..................
Here's an excerpt from the May 2001 Newsletter of the IEEE Professional Communication Society by Jamie Hutchinson.

"Alexander Sawchuk estimates that it was in June orJuly of 1973 when he, then an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the USC Signal and Image Processing Institute (SIPI), along with a graduate student and the SIPI lab manager, was hurriedly searching the lab for a good image to scan for a colleague's conference paper. They had tired of their stock of usual test images, dull stuff dating back to television standards work in the early 1960s. They wanted something glossy to ensure good output dynamic range, and they wanted a human face. Just then, somebody happened to walk in with a recent issue of Playboy. The engineers tore away the top third of the centerfold so they could wrap it around the drum of their Muirhead wirephoto scanner, which they had outfitted with analog-to-digital converters (one each for the red, green, and blue channels) and a Hewlett Packard 2100 minicomputer. The Muirhead had a fixed resolution of 100 lines per inch and the engineers wanted a 512 x 512 image, so they limited the scan to the top 5.12 inches of the picture, effectively cropping it at the subject's shoulders."

And here is my lovely Lenna in 1997.

4...3...Ignition ... 1 ...Launch ......... Ladies 'n gentlemen, the bird is in the air.

2006-04-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

Yahoooooooo.....I also have a blog now.....(now I am blinking) ...... ok .... sooo ....hmmm..... I always wanted to start a Blog but will I have time for it ? The answer is, "How will I know whether I will have time or not, untill I start!!". Then, "What is the best time to start such things", the answer is "Of course when you are a student, how will you get time and the inspiration once you join the cut throat corporate world or the real world!!" (Actually my parents have been prophesying the 'coming of the real world' since I was in high school but I am yet to meet it!!)

So let me STOP thinking and start acting !!

And yeah, the reason why I call my blog "so gray" is that I feel that most things in life have a gray shade, i.e. they are not Black and White !!!