That explains it!

I am sure, that someday, I will have to answer to children. They will look at my pics and ask, "Why were you always single, Sir". Himachal / single, Goa / single, Artic / single, Moon / single. And I would say, dear children, "thats cause I was always in the middle. Now middle in not always a very populated place. Being children, you all know the dinosaur theory and would like to throw that against my explanation, but you see..." For older people, I will have to explain the dinosaur theory.

Well you see 'older' people, a dinosaur or particularly the huge brontosaurus dinosaur, is huge in the middle and thin at both ends. Similarly, for most of the things if you find yourself in the middle, you would be with the majority. It could be the middle class, the middle of rank list, etc etc.

Well but in this case, the middle has very few people. Thats because, the single dinosaur theory does not apply here, rather twin dinosaur theory applies. So there is this oriental dinosaur which is following this occidental dinosaur. Both these dinosaurs have huge tummies or large middles. But there they meet somewhere, thats just me. So standing I am, its kinda a very thin middle. Suppose people wanted to assemble into dinosaur formation, perhaps to understand better. First, they would have to stand on top of each other.

It would start with one western guy in the front. Then next to that guy, there would be 2 guys, one over the other. This would go on, until we have used up half of the western people (a few billion). Then the human dinosaur would go down. Similarly, at the very other end, far back, an Asian guy would stand. Next to him, would be two Asian guys, one over the other. And so on till half the population is used up, then this one goes down too. They both meet in the middle.

And interesting fact is that the Asian dinosaur would be much larger than the western dinosaur. There are so many more people in Asia, you see, even though westerners are taller people. And none of them dinos are green here, ha/ha, like the Martian people dinosaur. Then the in the middle, you would find me in the middle most spot. The good thing is that there is not so much of pushing here and I get a lot of sunlight too.

So I am not climbing either of dinos on my left or right. I suppose that sooner or later someone is going to slip down to the middle. One by one, its gonna become quite a party here and I would be in the best spot.

Some other things that dont obey the one dinosaur theory,
1. A Hyderbad bus - people prefer hanging on the doors
etc... thats all for now...

A story with depth - about following up on your project

Use 3 screens to make a 3D display - that's the vision with which the idea originated. "I somehow always strike those solutions that get overlooked by big shot researchers, because hmm they probably skip the first few pages of the books." About this idea, we could move a point in the 3D space on left, even a box, further the space itself is a box; hence by induction, any 3D display should be possible. "I will put a my space ship there to claim this frontier in science." Its so fascinating and different than other 3D displays, which feed separate images to either eyes. With this technology, just put the phone in that cool angle and you are good to explore the galaxy in 3 dimensions. Even a kid can understand that. I soon came to know, that this funda had already been used in a Hindi movie. That's when I realized, everything wrong in my fundamentals about 3D.

Having spent atleast over a week on the idea, I had produced 3 great works of art (one displayed above). I did try my best, but luckily this idea didnt travel through many mouths to surface as in the list of most funded government grant areas for the year. It was time for cover up, one of my major goof ups of 2010.

Not that I couldn't use one, but the original vision gets replaced as cool attention grabber, like this - "While the image looks really stunning, it is not entirely what we proposing. What we are proposing looks a little more geekier, a little more alien – without much delay, ..." there is more to this story. I raced my head to understand, how conventional 3D display systems work. Well there are these kinds,

1. Binocular effect by placing images in 2 layers, one over the other (used in Fuji 3D TV sets)

2. Those that use one screen, but feed different images to eyes filtered with colored glasses (as in PVR)

3. Real 3D displays, for example, which have LEDs embedded in a cube

4. Parabolic mirror based ones (are huge)

5. And... the 3D spects ... these look cool

Since these were already done, I decided to device a 3D display, where the screens would be placed next to each other. Something like the alien device below,

".... an odd geometry and an even number of screens will provide a 3D display – high resolution with images that jump out of the screen ."

If I had a company, I bet the stocks would have gone up. I verified it with an interesting experiment done with my thumb. This is back to the basics - remember evolution really took off when we started with thumbs OR when we started rating peers with thumbs up and down creating a social network - which much much later also gave birth to internet.

Not without an Experiment

This is an experiment to prove our concept.

1. Put your head at a distance of about 6 inches from the monitor, facing the image of the toroids.

2. Defocus your eyes to see 3 images of toroids, instead of 2. The center one is the 3D image and the images on side are 2D residues or noise (both my terminology).

3. What we would like to do is to place a thumb or a coin between the image and the head, such that it acts as a filter and removes the images 2D residue/noise images (leftmost and rightmost).

4. We have invented a terminology – the filter test – that we will use in next step. If the filter (thumb or coin) placement satisfies the filter test, the noise would be eliminated. The filter test :-

i. With left eye open (and right closed), place the thumb at point such that the leftmost image gets covered with it.
ii. Vice versa, with left eye open (and right closed), we only see ‘left eye view’.

5. This step describes how to place this filter object (thumb or a coin) at its right place,

i. We are seeing 3 images right now because – we have defocused our eyes in such manner (refer to step 2)
ii. Place the coin is such a manner that the left most image gets covered
iii. Now you should see 2 images, leftmost hidden by the coin and rightmost faded.
iv. Now we need to move the coin back and forth, while still covering the leftmost image, such that the rightmost image disappears under the coin too.
v. At this point we are left with the center 3D image
vi. Some snacks for thought Another funny observation is that - we see 1 toroid, while there are 2 in reality; and we actually see 2 coins, while there is only 1. However note you may not be able to use this trick in the real world while paying out bills.

That was the experiment, where we made a 3D image from 2D images. I should also list out the limitations (hmm... opposing thoughts is a safety measure for evolutioning into self obliteration) :-

1. Head and phone have to be kept at a fixed distance from each other. This is because filter object needs to block left eye from viewing right eye image and vice versa.
2. We cannot move head independently of the phone and see a 3D display. This is same as above point again.
3. Works better with small screens.

Proposed experiments for readers

For those who where able to train their their eyes in last experiment (to see 3D), there is some interesting stuff that you can do.

1. Take 2 phones with cameras

2. Try focussing them on a far object and making 3D (just like above experiment)

I am tempted to give more details, but am restraining, as a science blog without some mystry like being spoonfed vegetables.

Finally, after the experiments and the blog, I feel a little bit motivated buy 3D glasses from ebay...

Funny things that couldnt have happened to me outside India

1. Year 2006 = I was serious about two things - research and gender equality

Hey was reading some old stuff (mails chats) today (nov,09) and I came across a piece (an old mail) where I explained to a girl, that I was earlier pissed off with her because I thought she wanted to go out with me and she was behaving in what seems contradictory ways - too moody -,,, but now when she explained that she didnt mean to give me such a signal,,,, I totally agreed with her that such confusions happen and we cant do much about them and that I should no longer stay pissed off. I wrote a small mail and reffered this paper - which I found very interesting in the context (at that time)

Fuzzy Logic in a Post-Modern Era:

Serendipity and Causality

http://www-bisc.cs.berkeley.edu/BISCSE2005/Abstracts_Proceeding/Friday/FM2/Mori_Ghomshei.doc

For my choice of papers, I would have made a nice enough prof too.


2. Year 2009 - November - Flute playing experience

Time is a major constraint these days, work sucks time (i though only black holes suck time, but that was like a 1200 or so days back). Learning flute needs time. So what I do is that I play at times, such as when I am commuting, in a cafe etc etc. So this time I was playing in a crowded Irani chai cafe near my place (tea is 6/- bucks, that crowded), practicing a few songs I know to myself. So an uncle who had been sharing tea break with his friends, and listings to music for sometime,,, turned back,,, with a 5 buck coin in his hand (i noticed the shine)... He looked at my direction with appreciation, and am sure, wanted that coin to go with me... :-) thats the story ... I gave a short (hard) squint eye look and the guy stopped and turned back to walk outside ... I played some more flute.

B'day blog - my 28th year

This is an 'I' blog. I have avoided them till now and tried to write generically. But this ones so much about me, it has to be an 'I' blog. An 'I' blog goes like, I like this, I hate that, Iiii. Thats why I avoid them. I am not that confident with using I. I am comfortable with using I, when I make simpler statements such as, I am a good person, but I am gonna f*** you if you play me as village idiot, but I am a good person. Read between the lines dummy! I might possibly be giving an impression of confident, competent, successful etc corporate ladder climber right now, but if you go over the list below, you might think, so theres another unsure dreamy dumb-ass, whos response to aggrevation would most probably be to fall sleep. On with the blog and over with the prologue.


Little hammered in the head by all the booze last night / my bday, I am using Gedit to write a blog. I am another guy who is in-these days, because so is linux. * I think its okay to subvertise linux - i love its black screen shortcut * shiver * So it gets colder at nights in Hyderabad. I tried a number of things this year, lets say they were all missions, which were successful or failures or are still going on. Its a mildly funny list of many diverse activities, see

1. Kayaking - mission aborted - left after I fell overboard and found myself surrounded by islands of floating animal dung in the city lake. It was horrifying. its another funny story, how i was persuaded to show my kayaking prowess on the particular day, when possibly, a huge pipe of some kind, burst somewhere under the lake.
2. Sketching - mission aborted - I sketched a few times, I draw like a kid. Dint get much practice, as i think you cant do it when on move, hmmm... unless its a girl that you are drawing... but then as subjects i prefer objects, locations and landscape; to people.
3. Flute - operation underway - yeah.. old hindi songs, whistle along, as i up and down to work, and play to my grannies, and play it for the mommies
4. Business plan for a car accessory - mission in salvage mode - I have changed the title of business plan to suit a magazine and sent it as an article.
   
5. Paper to IEEE journal - mission failure - It got rejected just as earlier papers. The trick to use sophisticated words didnt work, they soon realized that its too basic. Some of my other friends filed patents this while. It might not be that big a deal to have a patent on your name, who knows.
6. Hip-hop dance classes - operation underway - Well i just started and have injured no bones till. I think this thing will go a long way and make me cooler for a longer time. Well, other than that I am still looking for a comeback to a friend who called me 'wannabe' uncle-bhaiya :-)
7. Electric rickshaw project - mission failure - oh! I really wanted to make an electric rickshaw, I need more focus, possibly come back here again, after I am comfortable taking up some garage type of projects
8. Android SMS application - mission failure - never really tapped a finger seriously on the keyboard
9. Organic farming - operation underway - like other projects am slow on it. the major risk being this project is undefined in objectives.
10. Make a windturbine at home - operation underway - i think, i need to enlist another troop with me and visit the jumme-rat (chor market on thus night in old city) to buy some junk that we can put together
11. Art related business plan - mission close to failure - hey but I can really appreciate art now, and dont find it boring at all. Infact I find it inspiring. I still got one trick left under the sleeve.
12. Becoming a vegetarian - mission failure - i would not succeeded even if i stayed in vashnoo devi or rishikesh; and hyderabad is none like those places.
13. Finding a girl friend - mission failure - now, i have been quite aggressive on this front and tried a couple of really fresh/innovative ideas... finally the guy is taking charge. i came up with a walking service idea, wherein i would walk single women back to their homes after work (same route). I am a better cupid than a lover, because it got some other singles together. Things that dont work for me are - location, sunset, sunrise, new ideas, orkut, LDR, etc etc. No birds hit, the score is 0 and still the thought of commitment issss sssccccaryyyy... to the extent that the bones stifen up and I am put into a timeless still.
14. Learning telgu - operation underway - bagaundi progres... Telgu is known as Italian of the east. My other northy friends dont dig that, but they might not know better. It sure is a sweet language.

I am not anywhere close to becoming an entrepreneur. I thought I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Then I thought I want to do something, where I get to do a lot a experiments and if possible apply them to solve problems. But that can be an entrepreneur. I even dont know, if the above list qualifies or dis-qualifies to become an entrepreneurs. Because there are so many books out there, written by really smart people who have done it. Lets not get into that, they always make me ponder, hey this guy is right... i shouldda said NO to some activity or the other. Theres something with the word NO and these people. I can imagine them stepping into a class full of MBA students, and chalking a word NO on the board, stretched over one end to the other. They they turn back to class, say, "Thats what you need to master. Now I am leaving for a cross-country cycling in Himalayas. You all need to think about it in all the periods that I am scheduled to take for this semester. Thats an example of efficiency..." I can even imagine the students writing a huge NO on their answer sheets...

I have a new job function, other than all these missions. I have been in customer apps team for sometime. In simple terms, which seems to please everyone except my mother, I call it my companies call center. The customer contacts us with a bug or a query on the some use cases for the product we sell (that means a bunch of software modules), we buffer the requests and process them. In 30% or so of the cases, we go back to the development team and have them work on it. There is a lot of customer interaction and internal interactions, I think, something that would do me good. This is an aggressive role, somewhat ante to how I usually think. Perhaps the experience would fill a gap that needs to be bridged. The challenges are, working on a use case means working on multiple software modules, maintaining a balance b/w do-it-myself and passing-tracking-it, and having a vision for tomorrow. One day it looks simple, and the next day, I am stuck in office, cursing the tools or documents, etc with customer issues. Anyway, I am not in line of fire path yet, so its overall a chill.

Its been a good year, though I think I have aged a little faster than other years. I need to be more careful going ahead and keep a check on my dog habits. Possibly cook a bit more myself and get better at buying/stocking stuff. Thats all for the year, and I am 28. Hopefully I will be as young or younger, still next year. :-)


Love you all!!!

No theme song... but a good show going

I have a splendid lifestyle, only for my dear and lavish estate. It extents as far and wide as a man would want to walk, run or jog. It has stretches of green lawns dotted with longer eucalyptus trees in the inside and shorter trees along the walk. There is a small stream with a bridge for crossing it. All that you might need to live a life with memories of those moonlit times. One day, when I have a grey'st beard and am as mad as old, I would do stand up comedy for children - maybe as old as the ol' Al me - in the parks we would have picnics and buffets. So please keep my city pollution free and green.

Every Sunday morning, after a refreshing tea with a flavor I have not had the time to inhale or sniff during the week, I want to tap my feet and boink my head to a football. Hmmm... I did almost forget to put the pencil back between the pages of an autobiography that I am reading these days – ‘ wings of fire ‘, can write a blog just on that title - just before rolling crape bandages around ankles. Perhaps I could have caught up with some political news, but when you try to read too much, your head could turn into a large pen holder with a pencil, a pen, a balm in a tube, a torch and a motley of all odd things... thiszz para 1

A combined spirit of men and boys keeps kicking, while one by one the sun swipes at least three cricket teams off the ground that rightfully, first belongs to a 'nearby' village panchayat, then the hockey players, then the footballers and lastly the lazy cricketers. A couple of goals scored, and a weeks misery lost, I love my Sundays.

Maybe we inspire the birds to chirp and ... hmmm... naah thats both too damn stupid or girlish... he he... time for the theme song, " where everybody knows your name... " borrowed one from Cheers...

The beauty of truth

This blog is about magic. And a blog, unpredictable as emotion turns me into an insomniac on a very normal night.

Trick of cards and illusions have fired a lot of imagination over the centuries. Not by magic but imagination, a fire breather in Kabul got transformed in a Chinese dragon. The transformation took place because people had to come up with strange professions in absence of machines; such as story tellers who would travel during day and drink at nights, and collect tales for patrons.

That time is history and but the magic is still there. It is right there showing itself meekly to anyone who really wishes to see, in there a forest of people. If I wrote a handbook on magic, the neatest way would be to do magic with words... Words spoken truly and which can describe some uncertainties and simplify all complexities. A good light dialog, at least once in a week sounds magical to me. And why I cant do that magic, is probably a question that many believers waste their precious time over?

There is life, life is magic. Going by the definition that it defies rationalizations and yet produces results, there is magic everywhere in this forest. It makes this forest beautiful, which would otherwise become frightening and ever dark. So let that magic happen and make it easier for others to speak true words in not very long sentences, perhaps proactively by speaking out. (of course time is major constraint in today’s world)


Do the real magic now.

To act on the understaning

An example, to perceive other people as resources is a way of understanding society too; and it is responsibility of those who perceive people (most easily in their day to day transactions) as a resource, to use the resource of people properly and without misuse. Of course those who perceive others as resource must have no objections to being perceived as resource. To perceive human beings as resource is not as simple as $23 a barrel of oil. This will insult everyone. The true nature of human resource is to be understood to create an environment it which this resource can be utilized, developed and refined.

Above is another interpretation of society or our working environment. To understand atleast one interpretation is important, if we don’t want to be overwhelmed by some chain of events, etc. Different people need to understand the system in different words and thus many interpretations come into being. Contradictions in different interpretations mean that they arise not from one theory. But unlike physics, where two contradicting theories cannot coexist in one universe. hmmm... also in physics the unification has not been solved and so my above statement would stand to be incorrect for now. But existence of two theories which are both correct and they exist with contradictions, means there is another level of generalization awaiting us and more interpretations.

The work of theorists is to form interpretations and the work of others is to understand one of the interpretations and apply it in their domain. Often those who are applying, get confused in trying to understand many interpretations of the same thing without clearly understanding the similarity or why many interpretations exist. They confuse each interpretation and think of them to be theories.

The first time I realized that I was making the above mistake, was when I had learnt many and was planning to learn more programming languages; without ever asking myself why are there so many of them. I guess students are the ones who get caught in learning too many interpretations without understanding that they are same in theory.

When I moved into more theoretical areas or the next level, I have started realizing the same, many interpretations exist. Even realizing it, I find it very pleasurable to understand how each interpretation is similar and yet useful in its own way. This time, I think the important question to ask is why are certain interpretations in the center (with the theory) and all students read them, while other interpretations find themselves more aloof and left to be known to only those who have read breadth and lengths of the subject. At present it seems like, simplicity, generality, solution of other related problems, etc are the reasons.

For me, it is about time I should be solving problems rather than enjoying horizontals. Just to be determined about what one must do, is a good application of the theory that one forms from experiences.