Monday, January 2, 2012

Cool guys of our time ..


On this first day of this new year, I am here at my home and I had to suddenly switch on the heater this morning for the first time this winter (my home is barely into  the tropics). Just 5 days back, I used to sleep in my balcony under the winter sun with the fan on in the bedroom.This sudden change of weather and so much nostalgia in  the newspapers today (because the journalists don't want to work on new year's eve) makes me wonder what the coming year and and the years later that (if we reached  there at all (remember, the world might end in 2012 )) would look like.

Over the past year, I have passed most of my time watching these American TV serials (which I often regret) which fed to my interest in psychology ('Lie to Me') ,  Medicine ('House MD') and technology (all of them).. And I guess, these in-turn inspired me to watch these serials even more. In our hostels, where we don't have free  access to these TV shows legally and where we don't have any respect for copyright (yes, I said it!!); we sit in our rooms watching these serials with ear-phones and  isolation and concentration.. Without anyone realizing, it becomes more studying than watching them .. And often unconsciously than otherwise, we are learning a hell lot  about the society, the technology, the human behavior, the medicine than any person alive.. Seldom, they get transformed into action, desires and opinions.. I took a  lab course in psychology after watching(mightbe,Studying) 'Lie to Me' just to know more about Cal Lightman (Paul Ekman)... On visiting the lab, I saw a poster  describing the 6 micro-expressions and it felt like going to a famous museum .. That's Smooth !!

So last month, when I came home from Delhi, the warmth made me feel like spring.. And I decided to finish off a long pending sherlock holmes book.. I had not even  finished the first chapter when I realized that I have already been familiar with these characters .. Holmes and watson; House and Wilson, Lightman and his pretty  partner, all have been constant with the only variable : Context.. A smart guy with little regards for rules accompanied by a less smart guy who is with him for the sake  of adventure but protects and resists him when he is in a face-off with rules (a bit contradictory, isn't it?).. I guess this arrangement appeals to the smarter guy in  everyone .. We can go about analyzing this as a sort of conspiracy theory for validating similar arrangements in the real world or excusing the mistakes of people  responsible for them; but there is another important and common contribution of these serials ..

Sci-Fi has always been a boring researcher's more creative cousin .. The wow!! moment for me was when I was watching an episode of 'The Big Bang Theory - S05E04 @ 10  minutes' when sheldon finds out why the Large Hadron Collider was yet to find out the Higg's boson (god particle) .. Well, the episode was about 2 months old because  there have been signs of it's existence (reported by LHC) last month .. So, not only these TV shows put down the 'objectives' for the geeks in the labs, it educates the  'others' about the challenges and current trends in Research ..  geeks are cool!!

Another instance is where Dr. House wants to see what a hallucinating person is seeing.. Though this step itself is questioned by diagnosticians (a discipline which  does not exist in reality, but House is the HOD at his hospital ) .. The CogSci Lab in the basement of his teaching hospital has an equipment which roughly does this ..  Though this might seem like a Sci-Fi movie to be released in 2020 (again,assuming we reach there) , Neural Network theorists have developed Self-Organised Maps which  replicates the biological circuitry in vision .. Though Chase expects this technology to be useful on a wider scale only in 50 years, I think the actual time scale is  much lesser ..

And then comes MI4, as always, Tom Cruise uses some of most best tools he can .. Taking the security of the networks for granted, he jumps and climbs in Dubai and  Mumbai .. But the most impressive part of the movie for me are those lenses, which add relevant information to the incoming scene. It explains the reason for research  in making chips on flexible substrates as the lens must change the shape according to shape of the eye .. It must reduce and dissipate the heat generated efficiently to  protect the most delicate externally exposed organ of the body .. And then, it can either do processing on chip or have a good communication system and do all the  computation off chip .. Now, that is what I am talking about!! (Gossip : Apple has bought a large number of equipments which are useful in making chips on flexible  substrates)

Hence, from Neuromorphic chips which mimic nature to purely synthetic products like seeing inside the brain .. they are like post-modern aeroplanes and lasers .. and  something to look forward to while watching these TV serials ..Be it from Silicon Valley or Bangalore, the future is just round the corner!!

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Quotes iLike 2

From the movie 'Eternal Sunshine of a spotless mind':

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

Alexander Pope, "Eloisa to Abelard"



From Ep 14 of 'The White Collar' :
"We feel free when we escape,
even if it be but from the frying pan into the fire." 
Eric Hoffer

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Autism Connects

Hi,
I saw about this competition which demands ideas regarding developing technologies that help kids with autism communicate. I gave an Idea and so, I present it here.




Idea:

In autistic kids, certain regions of brain are over working which results in their over-active nature and fascination for patterns.

In neurofeedback , what is done is that their brain activity is displayed to the subject seconds later they take place and the subject tries to consiously reduce the activity of that part. This sort of neurofeedback methods have been shown to work in the case of autistic patients. But the subjects need to be old enough to comprehend what the display means and what change is required. Also, in many cases, there is learning inability associated with autism which increases the difficulty of the above method even more.

A typical characteristic of autistic kids is their peculiar nature of social communication and obsessional difficulties. If a tool can be provided which can help them in communicating, this would greatly increase their integration in the society. Also, this tool must be easy to use and relevent even in small kids.

The diagonisis of autism can be made as early as 18 months but the therapy with neurofeedback can be given only when the kid is atleast 4.5 years old (and even later if the kid has learning difficulties). So, here I might try to suggest a method of communication which can be used as early as possible and which is based on neurofeedback methodology.



First the activity of brain is recorded using some attractive caps to which the kid does not hesitate (for this, give the kid time to get habituated to).

After that, the activity of the brain is recorded . Now, it has to be displayed in some form which the child is - 1.) Attracted to and 2.) knows which shape/state of the display is more favorable and which is less. For this, I would like to suggest an example of display .. As the autistic kids have a fascination for patterns and aligning colors and shiny objects, we can do like this .. whenever, the activity of the brain is reduced (As is the goal of the neurofeedback), we can display a pattern which autistic kids prefer. And we display change and unfavorable patterns whenever the kid is not trying and the activity of brain is not as desired. This way, we use the natural preference of autistic kids to describe the goal to them in neurofeedback.

Eventually, as the kid grows, he/she might develop liking towards something and that object's image, etc. can be used in the display.

Now, the goal is to use this for using this for social interactions.

One of the problems of autistic kids is that they do not hear and are unresponsive to names, etc. So, weather a child is listening or not can be determined by studying the activity in brain or by the behaviour . Either way, this can be reflected in the display described above combined with the level of brain activity.

Another problem is the problem that they do not recognise humans and do not make eye contacts (or quick strange eye gazes). This problem can also be targetted in a way similar to the above method..

Sometimes, they get irritated by the changes.. So, during the changes, the pattern displayed must be unusually (like the most prefereable ever) so that the change is compensated as much as possible. I doubt that this will work or not, and also, if it works, if it is advisable for learning or will it make the kid more and more dependent on the machine rather than improving his/her condition.

Sometimes, there is preference for some voices over others.So,there must be a feature to speak using other's voices or in voices similar to a known voice to the kid. This can be a great help for a complete stranger in communicating.

Autistic kids are known to merely imitate sounds in language rather than form their own sentences. The same holds for someone else's actions also. I am not sure if the kid might just merely replicate earlier behaviour to get desired display. This might be a problem if the display is only 'behaviour' based. So, taking brain activity into account might be useful for this case.


.......................................................................................
One can also find the idea at the competition web page (and comment there also) :
Autism Connects

Sunday, November 14, 2010

One of the best poems ever and my favorite...

Poem by Robert Frost (1874–1963).
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Bon Nuit!!!

Hi,
This is the first time I am writing directly on the blog and not pasting it from a notepad draft. [perhaps because its 3 in morning here in Nancy and I might be a bit tired].

So, today was a strange day for me. I had realisations for my actions of last week, I had realisations about myselves and the best part of the day [ Actually early morning of the next day] was my refreshing talk with Alexandre at 2 in morning on the road.

So, it all started with the irritating friends doing planning for the holidays of Toussants and the more irritating Skype. By the way, I noticed that the first person on your list is always highlighted in a group call. So, Skype makes him responsible for the White Noise. How Clever!! So, 8 hours of course in day and rain and chilling cold and the great above mentioned Amis.. And triggered by my actions of last week and the 'one thing' that had been on the back of my mind the whole week..

And the never shutting brain of mine.. Just yesterday I realised that my brain can shut also as I dint know when I slept and had a 'pure' dreamless night afterall . But the next day, Prof. Patney and Prof. SD Joshi came into my afternoon nap to remind me of the crimes I had participated in 2nd year..

And so, as the darkness of the night approached, I thought more and more and didn't know of what!!

So, here I go on the road at 1 in night to think of the things I was thinking.. So, I do the thinking walk which I had lost in college but well known at my home.. And I found many solutions [not exactly, but atleast categerosied the problems ] as the excuse I should give my professor why I didn't do the required thing in my project [that I dont agree with your Idea and I dont do things which I dint agree - lets hope I dare to say that!!] .. And how I tend to generalise things from single events and how this reflects well in forming my habits [because I dont try much] and also my project at LORIA .. But the thing at the back of the mind was still not satisfied..

And so, when I was trying to feel my fingers of legs to see if they are still hanging out there, I found this amazing stranger on the road 'which called himselves' (the direct translation of 'qui s'apple' ) Alexandre. He also was a distressed soul like me wandering on the lonely streets of Nancy. He was doing his PhD in BioChem (Why do I always find maggu people ??) from Strasbourg and he was here for his holidays at his parents. And the pradox - the guy wanted fresh air in 2 in morning in holidays - imagine his 'parents' !!.. Anyways, so we talked about many things .. from which french poodle he had .. to Why he should Visit India.

But the best thing happened when he asked, "Why are you here??" .. I said to 'Think' .. "And You?" .. He said, "Everything except thinking.." .. That's when I had this great realisation that I am not the only one in this crap-bag, but I am the only one who is not getting used to it.

And trust and hope that the best answer to the 'thing' at the back of mind would come only if I let time to give me the answer. Sometimes, you can't do anything about something but just leave it to take it's natural course.

So, with deep fresh air in my lungs and calmness of mind [And exitement to write this blog..] .. I left Alexandre without any contact whatsoever for future. Perhaps it was like the stories of Leo Tolstoy when god himself comes when you are lonely and deserted , or not.. But that guy was the same [functionally - [damn, ma tete]] , for me... I might not meet the guy again as it will soon be snow here and streets more lonely..

And so, with this, for my friends in IIT - "Enjoy the Rendezvous", for my friends in India, "Good Morning" , for the 'thing' at the back of my mind, "Hope you are sleeping well" ..and for me, "Bon Nuit!!"

PS: I hope this blog written live over the night is as revolutionary for me as was such a blog for Mark Zukerberg [the founder of Facebook, when he created an illegal site FaceMash] ..

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Simulating the Brain

Brain has always been a very interesting in difficult domain of Neurosciences and Biology. I currently chose a project course work on modelling the structure of Brain using the the currently proposed Re-inforced Driven Dimensionality Reduction (RDDR) model at LORIA-INRIA a computer science Research lab at Nancy, France.

So, while studying for the project, I realised one thing which the engineers are often not advised (i think) to do - reverse engineering. And this was exactly what I was doing. The brain given to me, a final functioning object (philosophically, created by Lord) was studied from different perspective to create a model of the thing and with the ultimate aim, of course, to replicate and improve it.

So, why this method?

We could have a more constructive approach. I mean, can we recreate the whole evolutionay history or simulate evolution? This way, starting from the different theories of origin of life, to the different theories of evolution and the development of brain, I can attack all the areas.

The main question is, but how do I model all this things?

So, there are three parties- the organism(s), the resources and the nature. And each have the Darwin's law which helps it function. The characterisitc of organisms is to have Variation and the motivation to produce 'plusiers' offsprings. The natural resources need to be limited and the nature has the respnsibility to do Natural selection by the survival of the fittest. But the characterisitcs which are transmitted to the next generation must be seen carefully so that it is not lamarkism (or even test lamarkism).

The main challenge is to define the above actors mathematically.
A world is defined with the initial natural resources.
An organism is a function that can sense, utilise, modify and produce natual resources (even fight wars!!) .
An organism (function) can reproduce other many (tendency to reproduce more) organisms (functions) with minor change in parameters (Variation) from which many functions will die young.
The growth function of organisms can also result in Variations.
The death function is executed by the nature (using Survival of the fittest).
The 'Competition' is realised by the nature by managing the resources which indirectly affect the organisms [Thats why people in developing world are 'better' than developed world].

This, I guess seems very similar to the Cellular Automata thing. So, can we make the cellular automata approach real world using parameters? And in this path, if we discover 'chaos' [by feeding in the numbers back like the MIT scientist in 1962], we need to change completely the nature we look at many parts of the world.

This is well, but what about the brain?

Well, one approach I think can be used is to reflect all the things at the level of brain and using the same 5 rules of evolution at different levels of brain (for example, between neurons to between brains) can we evolute brain?

We can have the resources for brain and the motivation is to aquire resources and expand itself and increase its population. The same for a neuron also. So, this is a two step thing - first decide the world for every level (world is the natural resouces and the acting nature at that level) and then give the laws of evolution to each of the actors of that level. And reflect this at all levels. This can be done for all the different systems, I guess.

Also, as there are cooperative and mutually benficiary groups forming in the nature, this thing can also be found at other levels , for example neurons where a group of neurons can combine to perform a particular function.

One assumption if of infinite computing power which I guess our computer scientists will be glad to give.

I hope we can solve many questions with this method of constructive analysis carrying onwards from the already done reverse engineering analysis (Darwin's laws and many other things). This is the way designers solve problem. Let's see if we have two world wars in this simulation also.


I found this video, I think it might be interesting to watch:



Here's another interesting link. The video is a bit long but after 17mins, the only thing you can say is: 'WOW'

Friday, September 24, 2010

The world is not enough!!

Bonjour,

So, this is the most I can be french in writing this thing. Alors, I have been in france for about three weeks now and without anything to do {except see you know who and do you know what..}.

And so I met the student junta here and started knowing them. And the first thing which comes to my mind whenever I meet a new person is- Please God, this person should be speaking English. But alas, I have been blessed very less.

This is how the scenario is - You find many (about 10-15 percent) Asian faces in the crowd and apart from the other 20 percent ERASMUS [the inter european exchange programme] and the other 10 percent from the other countries. Among other countries, one finds Brasilians, Turkish, etc and the countries which were once the colonies of france (from Africa). But where the hell are the Indians?

I think Indians just missed out this easy target.. Or the Indian ass is so lasy that they don't want to go out of the comforts of English or they have the Advantage of English and can always go to English speaking countries. Whatever the reason, the Indians are simply not here..

As french still have the Ego to survive in the modern globalised world without learning the language of the globe, they still dream of spreading their culture. So, they teach their language to the students from countries which does not use English at all. Voila, here are our friends Chineses and the brasilians and the kazaks and who knows. For them, learning French or the English is the same. They enter into industrialised academic system anyways. And here is where the closure starts, the intencive for learning french is less for English Colonised students and so, they never pursue the french language and the french education after that. Donc, applying the Hebbian rule [i got to know it just recently, so need to use it[the use is justified given my love for self similarity between society and neurons]] the relation between the france and the non english speaking countries increases and this time culturally and voluntarily. And so, the perception of the world for the french is the non english speaking counties a China and kazakh and turkey in Asia and Tunisia and Senegal and Morroco and Congo in Africa and Brrasiliaa in S of America. The unconventional love for the two induatrial non english speaking countries of Japan and France is also apparent.

And where is Uncle Sam and our Queen? Well, they have the whole world in their eyes as the non english speaking learn english as easily as they learn french.

And so who the real winner is?? Yes, it's of course China.. They are everywhere .. They learn English or french , they just evolved into different species some 30 years ago when the china started induatrialising..

And what about Bharat Mata? Yes, her children are undiversifying into english speaking parrots from the many Indian languages they used to speak. So, the gift of Britishers, the English is not a boon for Indians against Chinese as it has limited our Vision of the world to only English speaking nations..

Merci bcp for reading...


PS: If you don't believe me, just try to remember how much you know about the english speaking nations of the world and the non english speaking nations..

Monday, August 9, 2010

Reductionism

This is a very very very weird and useless reductionism.. but i thought it would be fun to share something like this..

This thought stuck to mind in my french class when some guys were trying to sell a 'time machine' ..

Off late, we have seen many movies like butterfly effect(s), and more in which the HERO tries to change how the course of events unrolled by going back in time and changing things like the decision taken, etc..

As far as I know, whenever we take a decision, we take another path in another parallel universe..

Donc, "to traverse accross the parallel universes, we just need to construct a time machine"..

Kaisa laga yeh aarbitapa??

Friday, August 6, 2010

Tipping Point in the Brain

First of all, the title has been stolen. Some days ago, I read an article in Scientific American about the 'Tipping point' in brain. The article was very enlightening and quite interesting. In a nutshell, it stated that there are instances when the regular communication between neurons [which is like every two people talking different things with each other in a crowd of many-many (really very large) people] is 'paused' and all the neurons synchronize (cohere) and are concerned with only one message. The voltage measured using electrode array increases. Also, the voltage at different parts of the brain increase and look similar - depicting that these regions are synchronized at that instant of time. This was compared to the idea of 'tipping point' wherein an idea requires an enough(critical) number of people to be spread to after which the idea just spreads like a BOOM. So, the author points out how society is also a pseudo-neuronal network.

Well, I felt this conclusion to be very cool. But is this speciality of similarity only between brain and society, or can it be between other groups of many objects that interact with their small subgroup of neighbours but also show peculiar wholesome characterstics. One example that I can think of is - lets take many atoms in a tube. So, the atoms interact with each other within a small region of influence. Now, if we have small pulses of synchronized motion, then if the motion is hard enough (enough speed and number of atoms) , then the pulses may become a trend - a tipping point effect, I guess.
Who knows such tipping effects might be taking place at all levels and this is the ultimate scalability and self similarity of nature?

Also, as tipping effect, can we attach other characterisitcs that are similar to brain and society? One of the major puzzules is consiousness. People have always talked about the consciousness of a society - But it was always discussed in philosophical or economic way. We can now talk about consioussness in more scientific way after this 'Coherence' effect in brain.

Another nice but wierd analogy which could be found is the 6 degrees of freedom in the society. According to it, we know every other person on earth via 6 people in between on average. (Like A knows B, B knows C has 1 degree of freedom between A and C). So, is this true for brain? This could also explain why there was almost instant synchonisation between geographically distant parts of brain. This explanation could save the terms used by the author the article like 'long neurons'.



Another important doubt that arises in my mind is about the use of word 'pause' used in the article. What does it
really mean? Does this mean that they revive their activities once the message has been processed? If the revival is not exact, does it mean that the message affected the talking between individual cells that was going on? So, if the talking between the cells was taken to be independent of message before it came, then where is that talking place now? If nowhere, then it means that independent talking only gave rise to the message. Dude, what the hell is happening up there?

Monday, August 2, 2010

Quotes iLike

One might have heard about artificial life created in Lab by The Craig Venter Institute.
It was the first time that bases were assembled as wanted and a complete living organism was formed. And the mother of this organism : A computer!!

Well, what I liked most about the development was how the Quotes which were watermarked in the codon (To show the organism was really synthetic..) truly reflected the significance of the development. Here are the quotes and 'feel' them for yourself..

“TO LIVE, TO ERR, TO FALL, TO TRIUMPH, TO RECREATE LIFE OUT OF LIFE.” – James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man;

“SEE THINGS NOT AS THEY ARE, BUT AS THEY MIGHT BE.”-A quote from an Oppenheimer biography, American Prometheus;

“WHAT I CANNOT BUILD, I CANNOT UNDERSTAND.” – Richard Feynman.

src: http://www.openculture.com/2010/05/james_joyce_encoded_in_artificial_life.html

Sunday, June 20, 2010

What a dream!!

I feel that what's true about dreams is that you have a nice one when you sleep at the most unexpected hour. I had an aWsome dream on sunday morning (well, it was 1'o clock but I hadn't had lunch so it was morning for me). I was reading a novel when I fell asleep on hostel reading room couch (Yes, the novel was that boring).

I remember that, I was worried that I had not been studying for the project and we had to meet the prof tommorow. But when Murari came to wake me up to go to insti lib for studying, I had a big smile on my face.. I think that was the most eleted I would have been in the summers yet.
I dreamt that our hostel had got new residents like every year, but just that this time, they were girls!! Yes, gorgeous darlings and each one as awsome as the other. I also had a small fight with one of them (that was the most fun part).. Also, we had a cafe (you may call it a pub if you like) and again, beautiful creatures were hanging out there.. Then, I had to go back to hostel as I had to prepare for the french exam which was due at alliance and and I had already accepted that I am not going to learn any french as I had missed THE week. So, here I am back at hostel and I see this beautiful girl.. I just stare at her.. She did not resemble anyone I knew, but god, my imagination is so gooood.. But I had to run to insti gate to get a rickshaw (and I mean auto here... we tell them rikshaw back at home ) for the classes. This was the only bad part of the dream when I had to argue with the drivers for reducing the price (though, as always I didn't know the actual rate.. but definately the driver was telling much more).

And here comes Murari.

I was then wondering what did that sudden and unexpected dream mean? It reflected as my concerns lately, the hectic french classes, the irritating auto drives to alliance and my crush!! ... But why didn't I see the face of my crush? I felt all the qualities of crush in that girl.. Maybe, it's just that when my feelings are personified, they look like her.. But why didn't I see the face of my crush??

Also, what about my project?? Why didn't it become a part of my dream? There should have been some event like meeting Prof. Manish Sharma.. But Alas.. Je desu... Or is it that all those things that occupy enough of my consicouss mind just don't surface up when I let it loose.. Is it that my brain just keeps my subconsiouss thoughts in a safe vault and just that the tought is absent in subconsicouss mind when it's in consiouss mind.. Or was it that conciouss thoughts set the MOOD of the whole dream and the sub coniouss thoughts just was a special event just reinforcing the mood setup by the consioussmind...

GOD, this is a nice puzzle...
I hope I have such dreams again and that I could look into my brain....

All the quantised quantities and the bits...

If the physical quantities are used to designate bits 0 & 1 because they are now understood to be quantised, can quantised distace be used in some way?.. Say, realising the good old 'ABACUS'....

What say??

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Ahhhhh ?

Well, this is the best feeling that I have had in this week.. After all the those torturous french 5 hours per day

classes and all those escaping from the heat, this is the best reward that any person can get at the end...

All my prayers which I sincerely used to say every afternoon and every eveing while travelling for the classes for

the past one week [exactly, it's 5 days] have finally been adressed..

With the rains outside and the cool wind that this blowing outside, it's now easy to forget the past week ..and

gather courage for the next week... For the first time, I stood in the rains with full consiousness and realised

how much there is to Feel... How much there is out there which we pass on but never feel it.. Either we feel so

lame to feel those things or we just dont have time for it...

This is the best pleasure that any one can get with the minimum cost.. I just think if only a feel of a woman's

hair is as pure and delightful as the feeling of wind blowing accross the face with such moisture ..

Well, I dont want to sound crazy or conservative but just as I don't want these miracles of nature to change, I

even ont want the Indian villages to change... That day, just before coming back here, I was cycling along the

canals [which were dry, damn guj govt..].. but I had a similar feeling.. wind so warm and fresh was blowing over

the rice and wheat and tobacco and the coconut trees.. I stopped my linking park now making noise in my ears and

just stopped there for some time.. I saw a small girl playing with a calf and teenagers going to take milk from the

dairy [or going to give, I am not sure of that].. and all that CRAP which I used to memorise in school about the

villages.. But dome things were different.. But a Hut [if u tell a home having TV, kitchen, electricity, Tata Sky

but having asbestos roof and unpainted brick walls a hut ] had an old man coughing on a bed in the yard.. But then

I realised how wrong every one has been about development in the villages.. It is true that our villages are

developing and that too at a fast rate.. But the lifestyle of our villages and thanx to our village women, the

homes have not even changed a bit.. I mean, we, who live in mis sized towns gotta learn from these homes how to

welcome development and be the same person we were 10 years before.. And yes, to those who condemn development- our

villages are still very beautiful

On my return trip, I happened to pass slowly in front if the temple.. and saw grandpas and grandmoms with their

kids and groups of wives of societies followed by groups of their children and then groups of young high school-

college girls and groups of boys in bike.. I felt what NRIs feel when they come back.. Did I leave this world when

I shifted my home , or when I was shifted to 10th grade??.. Well, now I long to return to that world ..

I just hope I can return to that world again.. or just have glimses of it sometime later..

Friday, May 28, 2010

The QCA paradigm

Yeah, I really think this is gonna be the new paradigm. When I first discussed to project with murari, I thought it's just some sort of an extension or modification of the existing thing.. But then I learnt it was related to cellular automata that I had come accross like Comway's game of Life, thanx to stumble upon..

But then, I learnt about the ambitious ideas to implement it using the Quantum devices..That was when I got a 'feel' of how great a thing that it..

Just imagine a small, high speed and low power using device using the Quantum and classical mechanics so splendidly..

Yes, this might not be an end but this could be a quite elegant transition from classical mechanics used for computation, to a really quantum one..

Lets, see what cellular automata is -


It consists of a regular grid of cells, each in one of a finite number of states, such as "On" and "Off" . The neighbours determine the state of the cells in the next generation. And changing the generations and using simple rules helps in computation..

So, in quantum CA, we have blocks that have 1 or 0 determined by Quantum states. Also, the interaction between the cells is determined by laws of physics - but in this case, the interaction , in majority of cases confirms with our classical physics that is a bit more intuitive..

Hence, what we have got is quantum units that interact classically.. So, we can exploit the advantages of these units - like small size and power benifits, and at the same time not going away from our classical understandings and keeping our designs simple and intuitive..

As of now, we are able to arrange those blocks to make simple building blocks as wire, majority gates..

What we are working on is basically physical implementation of the building blocks and analysing it's error probabilities (it's quantum afterall, you can rely on it ..but only with a certain probability!!!!) ...

Lets hope we can Rock!!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Too much of love....

At last it's over!!...

This weekend has been a terrible one for me so far. This was simply because there was too much of LOVE in my life - just being involved in it (neither giving and taking).

I have never felt this way ever before. It used to fell so sacred and pure just by thinking about it. But alas, it was all past - just one of my fantasies during adolescence.

Never before, I had given myself a doze of love so powerful. And the result? I got immuned to it. I just freakin' stopped 'feeling' things!!
(I think this could develop into an immunization technique againt love).

So, for all those people who want to fill in their pockets with shining metal, here's the most fool proof technique..

On a extended weekend, just when you are all weary and tired, start watching this 'beautiful' movie - 'Sleepless in Seattle'. But Caution : Don't pre-read it's reviews. And as the title starts falling (this was the best translation of gujarati which I could make :( ), hold your breath and let the testosterone (i dunno if it's adrenaline or testosterone) flow gushing through your arteries and be prepared to be thrilled.

By the time you are finished watching the movie, you have learnt four things - 1.What bullshit?? 2. The child was so irritating .. and 3. Estrogen has dampened the spirits of Testosterone. 4. Who your next deaktop wallpaper is..

So, after wasting three hours of your precious sleep, you settle for 7 hours of sleep and wake up in the morning.

Again, you want to read a love novel (this time you have read the reviews - so you are cutting your arm yourselves) so that you repair the damage done (not by the movie - but you realise how much you have been damaged after the movie). So, you read the 'fiction' for 'self-help' . When you complete the novel, you have gone into a chronic depression (what does that even mean??)..Now is the time you do the thing that gives you 'real' pleasure.. Yes, that's what every single (and lucky!!) boy does -- you open up your laptop and start which occupies your computer's screen 70 percent of the time.. You start the best thing that works on your 'ancient' lappi - ROADRASH..


The final Conclusion Of the experiment : You killed the heart and the heart is happy!! .. QED..

PS : M going for filing this patent at the earliest..

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Why is harry potter so appealing???

The answer to this quation might sound trivial but i guess it is not so. I started reading hp8 in the starting of the year

(Pretty late to complete harry potter series!!) but it so happened that I had to leave it for a month or so (But how can

anyone leave it uncompleted??). When i thought of completing it, i was too lazy to start all over again so, I just flipped

through the pages and tried to recap the story.

That was when i realized why this story had attracted me (nd i guess oder people) so much. it's said that the harry potter

appeales to the imaginitive kid within us. But i think it is the suffering man within us that is attracted with it.

Ridiculous that is sounds, it is surprising to see how much of our social and political set-up (World's a stage..) is

reflected in it. The attempts of the ministry to cover up the crime to prevent people from panicking, The dark forces that

discriminate people based on origin and kill them, the schooling system (Even harry hated to go to classes..) all connects

with us in a striking similarity. The most important feature is that it does not harm our perception of world in any way. It

just tells us that we are just one part of the living world ignorant of the wizards which have their own problems to deal

with. Hence, it makes it easy for our mind to concieve the picture of the new 'heterogenous' world without making any

deletions to the existing picture but just adding a few INDEPENDENT (yes, we don't know about their existance simply because

they r hiding from us) communities (Isn't this the same reason for the exitment about the illuminati and masons? ..). Doesn't

this seem different manifestations of Descartes' dream doubt??... (sounds a bit philosophical :) ).

On a more phychological (sry if spelling err!!) level, this appeales to the struggling modern man inside us. But the

question is, do SOLE heroic charcters like harry exist even now?? .. So, the exact parralism i am trying to explain seems to

fail . But in my defense, i feel that harry just refers to the reader (atleast i think so as i have a scar on my forehead and

we share the same b'day...). It gives the reader a new hope to fight the the war againt you-know-who (this really is 'you

know who' in our context!!).. I could exagerrate this by saying that the people who complete the book once they start it are

either voracois readers, or just weak hearted people (in which case i m none..)..

Hence what i feel is hp is just like riddle's diary that gives us what we want to read......

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Arbitappa

So, here goes my first 'Arbitappa' observation..
Why should we not eat an 'apple' when we are ill??

Ans: Because 'An Apple a day keeps a doctor away.' and if we keep the doc away when we are ill, who would cure us???