Fruit of Insomnia - A Nursery Rhymesque poem.

Twas a midsummer's night,
And every other person did sleep;
Everyone except this humble one,
And I did try counting sheep.

The stars in the sky did glitter,
and the sandman's work was done;
But while everyone else got their forty winks,
I did not get even one.

The world did seem to be silent,
except for some snores;
I thought I'd sing myself a Lullaby,
And I sang till my throat was hoarse.

I closed my eyes and awaited,
for the sleeping to ensue;
But then I heard a very loud cry,
and it went 'Cock-A-doodle-do!'.

Now,The sun was back in the sky,
and the day was indeed bright;
Yet,now I was filled with hope,
Perhaps I shall sleep tonight!

Of things that could have been

Yesterday has gone away,
and tomorrow remains to be seen;
All that is left are memories,
and visions of things that could have been.

The choices have been already made,
and the changeless chain has been set in motion;
One cannot change or alter and affect,
that which is cidevant causation.

Present-day's preferences' precipitates will persist,
long after the future is but the past;
Yet,one cannot discern if those choices,
are those that shall last.

Yesterday is etched in stone,
while today's choices are umpteen;
One should work to a better tomorrow,
than worry about things that could have been.

On the digitizing of taste.

Modern computers have come a long way since their early mathematical calculator days,and their usage has made our lives a very pleasant experience.Using a computing device and an internet connection,we can do things that would have been considered impossible only a few decades ago,such as have a 'real',eye to eye conversation with another person on the other side of the earth. With the use of robotic arms,it is even possible to physically manipulate objects acorss the globe. We are now in a world that is becoming smaller,thanks to the advent of high speed computing,and high speed internet. Yet,there are certain aspects of our living experience that we have not yet attempted to 'replicate' virtually,one of the most important of them being our gustatory sense ,more commonly known as the sense of taste.

One's sense of taste may not seem to be a very important part of our life experience(Atleast,not as important as one's visual/ocular sense),but that definitely is not true. Our sense of taste can act as a comforting element,can be an antidepressant,and when acting along with its closely related cousing,the sense of smell,can trigger memories of long ago.Taste can also help us identify harmful chemicals,and identify the differences between two similar looking substances etc. Thus,digitising of taste would have a lot of potential uses,if realized.

One way that this can possibly be done is by considering the four basic (or five,depending on which part of the world you're from) tastes -Sweetness,Bitterness,Saltiness and Sourness (And Umami) as 'primary' tastes,with diffferent rations giving different composite tastes,not unlike how different combinations of the different primary colours give rise to the other colours.One potential problem with this prospect is the vast number of combinations possible.With only three primary colours,the total number of colours identifiable on a computer is 16,777,216,and the number of composite tastes would obviously be much greater than this number. Also,the effect of food's texture on taste would not have been considered then,though it is an important consideration(Ground potatoes taste different than sliced potatoes,for example).The second major challenge that exists is the construction of relevant transducers-What use does the digitising of tastes have,if one is not able to actually tap them in the real world ? The conversion of the 'taste' of an object into digital signals itself can possibly be overcome by emulating the way that the human body itself does it - Maybe by constructing an artifical tongue and associated set of nerves.The complimentary system though ,would be much more complex to realize.In a presentation that a associate and me gave on this topic 4 years ago,when in college(The presentation proceeded quite bitterly ,no pun intended),we speculated the usage of directly interfacing with the
taster's nervous system,but obviously this has its own risks,and is definitely not a simplistic system.

If one were to construct a taste-digitizer system,it would only be a matter of time before personal computing systems such as Macs,PCs and smartphones incorporated one within them.Restaurants and food companies would even be able to put up the 'tastes' of their products online,for people to relish and compare with the competitior's products.People would be able to try new and exotic cuisines from the comfort of their homes,and cookery shows would acquire a whole new dimension.I even envision a smartphone app that would probbaly show you how different combinations of different ingredients would taste like.It would also be able to bring people 'closer',in all new ways.Of course,apart from these uses,it owuld have potential uses in law enforcement corporations etc to identify drugs,and to identify if a certain product is contaminated etc.

I'm very excited at the prospects that the future holds,and hope to see the evolution of such a system sometime soon. Let us all look forward to what the future brings with it.

Parallel universes away ?

One can say that no moment of one's life is greater than any other,for each of them has shaped our present in their own ways.Yet,there are certain moments in the past that one seems to remember better than any other.One tends to ponder how different the present may be,if only he had acted in a different way in those moments,than he has.Certain choices ,made differently might have resutled in one being muuch more happier ,and certain other choices would probably have resulted in a more duller/sorrowful present.
Sometimes,I'd like to think that there are instances of me ,in other universes,taking a different choice than I have.The thought is a very comforting one to have,indeed.I wonder how my life has turned out to be,in those other 'planes of existence' and hope that those 'other mes' not too unhappy with life there.
Either way,Whether or not I'm happy with the results of choices I took in the past,I've learnt to be accepting of them all,and hope that the future will be filled with more of the good ones than the bad.
Thus,here I'm,looking ahead,with hopes that the future is filled with good choices,and wishing the same for all!

Also,if you have any such moments,and don't mind sharing them with the world,do tell us.We can talk about the things that could have been

The origins of Jingoism ?

As a former student of an instituiton with a large mixed student population,I have had many opportunities to witness jingoistic tendencies among people.The region from which one hails from,the primary language that one speaks,one's religious beliefs and even the kind of music that one listens to can all be hailed as reasons for people holding chavunistic attitudes.Passive jngoism always seems to be at play,and usually turns active after a trigger-Even something as trivial as a region-specific sporting event can act as a reason for violent confrontation between people belonging to different 'groups'.
It can also be clearly seen that fanaticism exists everywhere,and at every level-From small gangs and cliques to large nations with aggressive foreign policies.The number of people who do not identify themselves as belonging to any one group at any level are few and far apart.(It can also be argued that a group of two or more such people can be considered a group itself.)
Groups at any level also seem to possess the following traits :

1.Consensual agreement among its members for certain issues,even if the members do not agree with each other for other issues,seen as irrelevant to the functioning of the group itself.

2.A tendency amongst most of its members to regard their group as superior to other groups on the same level.

3.A tendency among most of its members to be aggressive to any member formerly part of the group,but is not anymore.

4.The members of a group at one level are all not necessarily part of a single group at another level,but the ones who are,tend to form sub-groups within a group.

The reason why groups exist is definitely not a singular one,and one reason surely cannot satisfactorily explain their prescence,though I believe that groups arise because humans are naturally pack animals,and in the absence of a rigid pack system,we tend to blend into what is the closest equivalent.In pack animals such as dogs and wolves,agression towards non-members of the pack is sometimes observed,and the parallel to this in human society may be jingoism.

Astrology website experiment! - PRANK!

It was yet another boring night when I was Googling random stuff (as always),I came across this website that talked about astrology,solving problems with gemstones etc. After seeing that their 'basic' package that involved a reading,a solution,and how a 'premium' package can be helpful,I decided to pull a prank on them- I wanted to enter details of a totally fictitious character and random dates and events and send it across for a 'basic' reading.Due to total lack of creativity to come up with any other fictitious name,I entered the name 'Bruce Wayne'( The alter-ego of the Batman,for all those who just awoke from your cryogenic preservation).As for the dates,they were completely made up by me. There was also a column for entering details about any significant events that have happened so far ,and I entered details of events that did happen to Batman in the comics,such as his parents being shot down by a mugger,his back being broken,the death of Jason Todd(The second Robin) etc. Also,I created an email id specifically for this purpose - 'brucewaynerich@gmail.com',as I did not want to use my own email id (I'm a major spamophobe :P).

Today,I finally got a reply from the website.It reads as follows:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rakesh Singhal <lifescape@lifescapeastrology.com>
Date: Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 8:54 AM
Subject: Re: Advice from Lifescape Astrology
To: brucewaynerich@gmail.com


Hello Mr bruce wayne,
a man who by heart is well wisher of society , colleagues and friends is getting worst from the same elements. your chart is likely to be included in our future training programmes.
your objectives are my objectives too, but before that, you need to be financially well off. you will do well in business, and in case there is any doubt, you remove them.
please wear emerald. keep in touch, and send us your observations after one month of wearing emerald.
yes, points mentioned by you can be read from your chart.
wish you good luck,
rakesh singhal

------ Original Message ------
From: webmaster@lifescapeastrology.com
To: lifescape@lifescapeastrology.com
Sent: 2/4/2011 12:00:08 PM
Subject: Advice from Lifescape Astrology

First name: Bruce

Last name: Wayne

Gender: M

Date : 19

Month : 2

Year : 1967

Hour : 5

Minute :

Town: Gotham city

State: NY

Country: USA

Email: brucewaynerich@gmail.com

Email 2: brucewaynerich@gmail.com

Eventdate1: October 1975

Event1: Parents killed by mugger

Eventdate2: June 1988

Event2: Partner dies

Eventdate3: January 1993

Event3: Back broken by a thug

Eventdate4: September 2008

Event4: Cheated by current girlfriend

Profession: Business

Problems: Bring peace to Gotham city and strike terror into the hearts of criminals

Casestudies: Yes

This clearly proves how true the website's claims are. I urge anyone who is reading this blog to try a similar thing with other such websites.Lets hunt these morons out!

Here is the image of 'Bruce Wayne's natal chart' that the website sent me:

Here's the excel file that I got from the website that has the details of the above chart in a spreadsheet:

bruce wayne.xls - 21.0 KB

Here's a pdf copy of the original form:

Gemstone Advice.pdf - 24.7 KB

I only have one thing to say to the website in question,and to other 'practitioners of astrology' : FAIL! :D :D

The real 'secret'

If one were to look at any list of bestselling books of the last ten years, one can see that a good portion of the ones noted are what are known as 'self-help' books. One thing that's common to these books is their purported nature of showing the reader how to make the 'best use' of his/her life and turn out 'successful'.Some of the more recent ones even go as far as saying that it's possible to obtain anything that one wants by merely wishing for it.Another common feature of these books is the usage of pseudo-scientific terms such as 'Quantum consciousness','Collective subconscious' etc and the usage of non-existent phenomena to highlight the author's attempt at explaining what according to him/her is the nature of the working of the world.The blurbs on these books all seem to claim that the ideas espoused by the book in question is mankind's key to understanding the universe.

The authors of all these books want to point out that our lives so far has been empty and meaningless and that they are the ones who will rescue us from the mundaneness that we have created,and turn us into 'highly successful people',who know 'the secret' of being good at everything.

If the books have helped anyone become succesful at what they do,it is the authors themselves,no doubt having got considerably richer with the sales of the books.

It leaves one to wonder if people have become so insecure about themselves,that they need someone else to tell them how to go about their lives.

One just needs to pause and think to know that the world around is beautiful in its own regard. Surely,the stars in the sky are enchanting,even without a 'God' to hold them up.The way nature works is a marvel,even without a 'spirit' to drive it.And it surely is common-sense to know that one can have what one wants/needs,by suitably working at getting it.

Our ability to reason and understand is what drove our species to have considerable mastery over much of the world,and ignoring our voice of reason will not be a good thing at all.