a misplaced neuron...

Familee genetics

2009-12-07T14:52:00.012-06:00

A friend gifted me with a DNA analysis kit being sold by National Geographic as part of their Genographic Project. They sell kits containing everything you need for cheek swabs, and you anonymously post two samples back to them in little sealed test tubes. Then they take between 1 to 4 months for analysis and post them online. I can then use the unique code of my kit to see the progress of their analysis and finally the results when they're ready. There are two types of tests men can opt for. There is the Y-DNA analysis which reveals paternal lineage because only men have Y-DNA. And there is mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis which reveals maternal lineage because everyone gets their mtDNA only from their mother. Sperm does not contain mtDNA, so only the mother can contribute mtDNA to a child. As a result, women can only do the mtDNA test, and men can do both Y-DNA and mtDNA tests. They only allowed me to choose one. So I opted for Y-DNA test which would reveal my Dad's ancestry way before his Dad's Dad. We're talking about tens of thousands of years ago. They classify the different kinds of Y-DNA among humans that exist today into what's known as Haplogroups.

So finally, after waiting 3 months, I got my results. Now that you know so much about DNA, :D there is a theoretical Y-chromosomal Adam who is the most recent common ancestor of all men that live today. And similarly a theoretical mitochondrial Eve that is the most recent common ancestor of all women living today. And no, they weren't married to each other, because they probably lived thousands of years apart. As far as we can tell from the DNA of people living today, these two lived between 50000 and 90000 years ago. The estimates vary among geneticists.

But most geneticists agree that every human living today is a descendant of a group of people (probably a tribe) that lived in Somalia (North-East Africa) and then migrated out of there eventually taking over the rest of the world and killing off (or to a limited degree, mating with) any and all competing humanoid species like Neanderthals or Homo erectus, until only Homo sapiens were left. By the way, Neanderthals and Homo erectus were sibling species of humans and not our direct ancestors. However, Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Homo erectus, all have apes as their common ancestor. But now we're talking about millions of years ago or more.

Anyway, this theoretical Adam's Y-DNA is in all men that exist today, but his descendants accumulated tiny differences (mutations) in the DNA sequence over the 50000 to 90000 years. These mutations allow us to classify all men that exist today into what's known as Haplogroups. I was classified as being in Haplogroup L which is somewhat unique to South India and the Indus valley in Pakistan. Here is the known distribution of people with Haplogroup L in today's population.

When Homo sapiens moved to Asia (from Somalia), we literally wiped out all the other humanoid species that were already living there. Kinda like how Australian aborigines or native Americans were almost completely wiped out in our more recent history. Wiping out of an entire species is not an uncommon part of evolution. It's not always because we kill everything that we fear. It's also viruses and diseases. For example, it's estimated that 95% of native Americans died because of diseases that Europeans carried into America. If you think about it, Europeans lived alongside farm animals and pigs which are like petri dishes for new viruses, while native Americans lived as hunter-gatherers in sync with nature. So the native Americans ended up being susceptible to the viruses that Europeans evolved a resistance to.

The wiping out of other humanoid species is basically how we got to where we are today. But since we know better now, and our constantly changing moral standards have caught up with the best of us, it doesn't happen as much. I'm pretty sure our moral standards of inclusiveness have wayyy improved thanks to the internet. But that's another discussion.

I hope all this wasn't too confusing. I tried to keep it simple and everything above was needed to understand the results of my Y-DNA analysis. Below is an image that shows the migration pattern of my paternal ancestors starting from the Eurasian Y-chromosomal Adam (The most recent common ancestor of all non-Africans) in North-East Africa.

At this link, you can find a comprehensive report that they generated for me about my patrilineal ancestry.

2009-12-06T00:26:00.006-06:00

(This is an old article I wrote back in college i.e. during my undergrad)

The Cochin University of Science and Technology, as we all know it, has given me more than everything I could ask for in an educational system… with a constantly reorganized curriculum that never fails to include even the most outdated technologies and with a faculty that always leaves me amazed in how they can… (Let’s just leave that there). To further express my gratitude to this prestigious establishment before I depart, I must say that - If it wasn’t for my habit of not including headings above my articles, I would have titled this one - “Ineptness exemplified”.

The 1993 “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip shown above, speaks for itself. The author, a brilliant American cartoonist named Bill Watterson, obviously had the right idea about his country’s educational system. And this system was unfortunately copied by almost every other nation in the world including our own. Ironically, the US educational system changed soon after, while we stayed on with the old ways. Today, students in India are still ranked according to the amount of useless information they can assimilate. So anybody with a good memory and lots of patience can ace an exam. (No wonder all the girls get away with the top ranks! Many girls have simply amazing memories and definitely more patience than men… no offense intended, if any!)

Getting back to our own university, I have to leave some crucial bits of advice to all my juniors and the juniors after them. That is, of course, after assuming that this administration is not about to change its ways in the coming decades. First off, never give the university exams your best effort… they simply don’t deserve it. Moreover, you’ll never make marks that way. You have to learn how to ‘cynically manipulate the system’. If you’re already conditioned to do so, the university certificates are as good as yours. But they’ll make you wait four years to get it!

On the other hand if you are not a natural achiever of inane marks, then there are some easy steps to success – 1. Study as much as you can a few days before the exam. 2. Learn a lot of new English words and more specifically, how to bloat up any small detail. 3. On the exam day, hang around the ‘natural achievers’ and find out what they’re studying. In this step, you usually make 50% of the marks you earn. 4. The exam has now begun. Each paragraph is a point. Write the point clearly in the beginning and expand it in the rest of the paragraph. Insert a poem in there for all they know! Writing an answer to-the-point will not fetch you any marks - I learnt this the hard way. 5. The exam is over now. Forget everything you studied and don’t calculate how many marks you deserve. It’s guaranteed to be a surprise, if not - a shock!

So that’s that. Five steps to success in the CUSAT university exams. You didn’t have to put in much effort or change your study habits. In fact, you didn’t even need ‘study habits’. You turn out to have plenty of time to spare for extra-curricular activities and still get through the exams. And at the least, you won’t have to say – “Education made me what I am today”.

Cease Fire!

2009-09-15T10:53:00.006-05:00

More than two years ago I was sharing an apartment with 3 other guys, and sharing a bedroom with one of them. For many reasons, that I have (thankfully) forgotten now, I really despised my roomie. I think we have made our peace now because we haven't talked in ages. But below is a letter I wrote at the peak of my hate towards him. I told him to write a similar letter to me, so that we could exchange letters and find common ground on our constant disagreements. But he never did. So instead of giving him this letter, I uploaded it on my blog, and let all my friends have a good laugh. Since I was in control of the router at home, I also blocked his laptop from my blog so he couldn't see it. A month or so later, he asked me why he couldn't access blogspot.com, and I removed this entry and unblocked his laptop from the website. Anyway, since the heat has definitely died down now, I thought I'd put it back up for old times' sake. Here it is...

Slurping down drinks purposefully and loudly.
Squishy chomping and chewing while eating.
Running inflatable bed's noisy electric pump without warning while I'm asleep a few feet away. Only to whack off later to Japanese porn, while I'm still in the room.
Closing our room's door to block the music from the other guys... effectively cutting all means of ventilation.
Transforming a light conversation into a full fledged argument.
And finally, scratching your balls, with arm down your shorts, in front of my face (And also others - who won't complain - but will talk behind your back). On the other hand, it has been a long time since this last happened. Sadly, the memory remains fresh.

Dear Ravi,

It's quite sad it had to come to this. But I think this is a much more civilized way of sorting out our differences rather than having wild frenzied arguments. Moreover, I was never good at debate or at putting across some good points during an argument. This is why I prefer to write. It's relaxing and involves much lower blood pressures.

Now first, we'll clear out some things that may get in the way of your ability to recognize your own faults... This letter is all about YOU. It's a sincere effort by me, your roommate, to fix the things about YOU that greatly annoy me. You must understand that this letter has nothing else to do with me. If you want me to fix my annoying habits (which I often try to do even without your request), then write your own letter. Until then, we're at war. Picture this letter as my request for a cease-fire. We can only achieve it if both parties consent.

So that's all cleared up. From the beginning (4 months ago), I had seen the need for us to be friends (not necessarily good friends, but friends as in the general usefulness of the term - that arguments can be easily avoided). Despite the fact that the "other two guys" gave me a pretty bad first impression about you before we first met, I still tried to stay in good terms with you. During the first two months, I never mocked your odd habits (especially the food habits). It was I who started friendly conversations with you when no one else would. It was I who gave you the benefit of doubt that you might just be a nice person. Soon later, I imagined we were close enough to exchange friendly jokes at each other. I was wrong...

Every reference of flatulence in relation to your primary diet of beans – offended you. At first, you remained quiet and took the offense without returning a friendly joke in retort. A passing comment on your obscenely tight clothes turned into a wild argument with insults thrown both ways. Every humble request from someone to stop one of your annoying habits was immediately taken badly by your pride. Your reply was normally a far fetched theory explaining your habit (eg: slurping a drink mixes saliva with it – which is healthy; another eg: Cleaning gravy from a table before it fuses into a stubborn stain is a big waste of kitchen paper towels). You must understand that such arguments might make sense to you. But to a "normal" person, it seems plain weird, and for the same reason - they have no counter-argument. A more recent reaction of yours is to retort by pointing out one of my bad habits that supposedly evens out the battle field. I realize that one or more such arguments ended with me saying something to the tune of – "It's a disgrace how your parents brought you up". I'd like to apologize for that... although I still stand by it.

You might have read the list that I wrote above describing those habits about you that really annoy everyone, not just me. I think I have toned them down to your advantage quite a bit, hoping that there will be no disagreements from your side, which might block your ability to see reason in these serious unresolved issues. Please browse through them and let me know what you disagree with.

On a final note, I understand that there is a chance (by your infinite arrogance) that you will bring this letter back to me and tear it up in front of my face.

I beg to differ.

Because by doing so, you would immediately become one of the only two people on my bad side. If you're curious, the only person who is currently on my bad side is already dead. But it wasn't me who caused it. He died in a motorcycle accident. He was squeezed between a speeding bus and a metal fence somewhere in Hyderabad. The fence ripped off his left arm and I believe he died instantly. I wouldn't know how an arm injury can cause instant death. But, it's a damn shame - the way he died.

Anyway, back to YOU. I simply hate having people on my bad side. I try my best to keep everyone on my good side. Or at least - everyone who's still alive.

Trust me... I'm trying my best to make this work out. It's your move now. What you do makes all the difference between war and peace. And war with me, can get very ugly.

Warm regards,
Cyriac

Of Sea turtles and Galaxies

2009-08-23T03:36:00.021-05:00

The most incredible sight that I have ever seen was two years ago at the Jurabi Turtle Center in Western Australia. Zoom into the map below, and you'll see how it is properly desolate from the lights and noise of human activity.

View Jurabi Turtle Centre in a larger map

Incidentally, what I saw had nothing to do with turtles. It was a sight in the sky that caught me unaware. After being shown a slide show on sea turtles, our group was taken to the beach. It was a moonless night, and we were told to turn off our cellphones and any sources of artificial light to avoid disturbing the turtles. But our eyes adjusted quickly to the starlight and we could just about distinguish the dark rocks and shrubs from the white sand. It was nesting season, but it took a while to find a turtle that came ashore to lay its eggs. After sneaking around for a few minutes and speaking only in whispers, the guide had us sit down on the beach while she scouted ahead to find a turtle. So I lay down on my back, and stared at the stars. I whispered around to the group when a troop of baby turtles crawled over my arms and towards the surf. It felt bizarre watching minute-old newborns not just taking their first steps, but running for their dear lives towards the relative safety of the ocean. After the excitement passed, I focused back at the stars. This was the clearest sky I had ever seen, being completely devoid of the air pollution that civilization creates. I noticed how some stars were peculiarly clumped together. They were more dense in some places than others. As my eyes adjusted to the vastness of the sky, I noticed that the clumps were close to each other and formed a line that went straight across the sky. And in a wondrous moment it hit me - Holy shit! That's the Milky Way!.

I wanted to shout it out, but I couldn't. So I whispered it to my younger sister sitting next to me. And instead of sharing my astonishment, all she could say was that she didn't want to acknowledge the vastness of space, because she felt it made humans less significant. And as a doctor, she was afraid to depreciate her value for human life. I scoffed at her. She couldn't spoil my moment, and I wasn't in the mood to start off a debate on how the vastness of space makes humans less significant. In fact, I see it as quite the opposite. As far as we know, humans are the only beings that can even comprehend the vastness of space. It makes me proud of how far humanity has come in understanding our Universe, but humble in how much we have left to discover. Yes, the Universe once made me feel insignificant, but it is an unavoidable truth that I eventually got used to, after a few existential crises. It's like gradually recovering your confidence after being tragically dumped by your lover.

So for my little sister, I want to once again emphasize the vastness of our Universe using the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image taken back in 2004. On September 24th, 2003, the Hubble Space Telescope, which revolves around Earth, was pointed to a seemingly empty spot in the sky which is just one-tenth the diameter of the full moon as viewed from Earth, or roughly a 13-millionth of the total area of the sky. At a quick glance, the spot looks completely black because there appear to be no stars from our galaxy that occupy this tiny area. So anything that can be seen in this area should be outside the Milky Way. Hubble collected the minuscule amounts of light from as far as 13 billion light-years away, for the next 4 months, and on January 16, 2004, the following was the result.

Except for a few faint stars from our galaxy, every single spot in this image is another galaxy. And the count comes to more than 10,000 in this single image. If we extrapolated this number evenly across the sky, and take into account the flatness of the Universe, then we can estimate that there are at least 100,000,000,000 galaxies (A hundred billion), each containing billions of stars, and each star potentially having a planetary system of its own. And that's only in our visible neighborhood of the Universe.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it... for a few days, or a few years, or however long it takes to put it into context.

Freaky Fridays

2009-07-31T20:14:00.005-05:00

Ok... So it seems I freaked everyone out with that previous post. Hey, I can't help it if my dreams are so messed up! Like I said - My dreams are epic dramas unrelated to my own life. My brain is obviously compensating for the dullness of life as a PhD student.

On the other hand, I can't complain about my research. I recently wrote an algorithm that replaced another, improving the speed from 23 hours to less than 2 seconds. The original algorithm involved an exponential number of comparisons with respect to the input size. So I wrote something similar to a Bucket Sort algorithm to have everything done in linear time complexity, at a major cost to space complexity. And having access to a computer with 8GB of DDR3 RAM, made it a piece of cake!

Yep, I like my techMology. On a similar note, I got access to the Google Voice application which gives me a free telephone number with unlimited texting and very advanced voicemail facilities. Here are some videos that should get anyone interested...

The dream

2009-06-08T06:18:00.012-05:00

I've only ever had one other dream that woke me up drenched in tears. And even after waking up, the vague memory of the dream left me with a heavy heart and a lump in my throat. Soon enough, my brain started removing the memory because the story didn't hold together. To this day, I cannot remember the details, except that it was about "being betrayed by Mum".

Not this time though. This time, I stayed in bed and kept running the story again and again through my head. Sure, I wanted to make the tears stop, but like everything, I'd rather know it than ignore it, even if it hurts me to the core. It's still a vague memory. I remember the climactic ending more than the prologue. So here's the most I can remember right now at 4:45am, Monday morning, 15 minutes after waking up. I want to write this down before I completely forget it. Now remember that the story has nothing to do with me. Try to see the story through the eyes of a bed-ridden, mentally challenged 12 year old boy. My dreams are usually epic dramas unrelated to my real life, but interestingly, they're almost complementary to my own experiences. They teach me of "what could have been". For the record, I love my Mum. Sure there is "hate" in the details, but you know what I mean.

For some reason, the opening tune from the Cello in this song by Nizlopi comes to mind -

So, there are two primary actors in this story - the boy and his mother. A third actor is mostly just heard as a voice beyond the threshold. She appears to be the boy's sister, most likely in her mid-teens. The story happens through the eyes of the boy. He can't speak and just mumbles most of the time, except for repeatedly saying "Mama" every time his Mum walks in. His bedroom has two entrances - one straight ahead at his feet, and another to his right. He usually keeps looking to the right, but his focus is mostly at the door at his feet because that's where his Mum enters from. The door to the right most likely leads to the living room, and that's where his sister's voice is heard from.

The typical daily scenes the boy experiences include - his Mum coming in with his food, feeding him with a spoon, tucking him into bed at night, sometimes weeping at his bedside. And at times, the boy would act asleep when he hears her cry, not knowing what else to do. In the meantime, the mother and daughter don't get along very well. The daughter constantly argues with Mum and drives her up to her last nerve.

During one particularly heated argument between the mother and daughter, the daughter says something that makes the mother completely lose it. Whatever the line was, it was extremely hurtful. The mother storms out of the boy's room, into the living room, and begins screaming madly. She's obviously been stretched to her limit. The boy watches his Mum walk back into the room, and dig among the clothes in the wooden dresser. She pulls out a gleaming silver gun.

The story fast-forwards to a scene when everything is quiet. The boy can no longer hear his sister screaming from the living room. He sees his mother sitting beside him on his bed crying. She's pointing the gun at him, but can't seem to pull the trigger. The boy mumbles "Mama, no." and he slowly gets a hold of the gun and pulls it from his mother's hand. She suddenly realizes the situation and quickly gets off the bed, taking a few steps back. She finds a second handgun, and points it at the boy's chest.

The scene now looks like this, still through the boy's eyes - the mother is on the bed with her gun point-blank on the boy's chest while the boy feebly clutches the other gun at the mother's throat. He keeps saying - "Mama, no. Mama, no...". The situation gets more tense when the boy places his finger on the trigger. The Mum panics and sets off a round through the boy's chest. The boy is still conscious, and now softly mumbles "Mama...". His finger shivers on the trigger. He still can't bear the thought of harming his Mum. He looks at her longingly, releases his finger from the trigger, and rests the gun on the bed. Three more bullets sound and that's when I wake up, tears trickling down to my ear, an enormous lump in my throat, and a heart as heavy as stone.

Sweet!

2009-04-18T23:47:00.005-05:00

A Google maps car recently drove by Rolla MO. After giving up my hunt for an image of a friend picking his nose, I settled with finding my car parked in front of the EE building:

View Larger Map

I can't see the plates, and I know that at least one other person in Rolla has a Black 1994 Nissan Sentra, but this one has the faint shadow of a badminton racquet behind the back seat. That's good enough for me!

Capitalism

2009-04-05T17:06:00.004-05:00

The Cola Wars were raging in India since the mid-1990s. And they produced a ton of incredibly entertaining advertisements. Here is one of my favorite ads:

As hilarious as it was, I was surprised that it never aired in the US. But I quickly discovered the reason. When I told a friend here about the ad, he didn't burst out laughing like I expected him to. Instead, he just grinned and said that Coca-Cola just sold twice as much as Pepsi did. This caught me off guard. I had never thought of it like that, even though I had seen the ad years before he did. To me, the additional cost of the Coke cans seemed irrelevant, when contrasted with the visual of the boy stepping on them to get the Pepsi. So my friend's reaction was rather confusing. Obviously, he was more capitalist-minded than I was, as are most Americans. I'm guessing that the ad got similar reactions from sample audiences in the US, and Pepsi decided not to air it here.

However, it did air in India and it worked quite well at dissing Coca-Cola. I remember how most of my Indian friends found the ad hilarious. No one came to the capitalist conclusion and sided with Coca-Cola just because they made more money. But I want to dig deeper into the cause of this enormous rift between peoples. Is it upbringing? Is it society, culture, or education? It could just as well be a combination of all of them. But it comes down to a hugely differing order of priorities - What is more important to you? Your Pride? Or your Money? And how much of one would you trade for the other?

Humanism

2009-01-20T01:47:00.011-06:00

I've often been accused of not being Indian enough. I couldn't disagree more. I always find myself trying to reason with someone of another country who has a poor opinion about India. And when an Indian badmouths the country, it just pisses me off. But the truth is that I'm a human before I'm an Indian. I don't give an unfair advantage to people, just because they're fellow Indians. Instead, I'm an undying follower of Individualism which is kind of an oxymoron because individualists don't like to follow. It didn't take me long to realize that this is a popular point of view shared by many other people. They're known as World Citizens. They can also be called humanists, i.e. someone that would place more importance to being affiliated to humanity rather than their country, their religion, or even their own family. A subset of this is secular humanism that rejects the supernatural and spiritual, and instead relies on rationality to derive it's morals. Perfect! I never thought that I would find a group that I could relate with so well. Unfortunately, we're a minority and being individualistic by nature, it's difficult to rally support for such a cause.

Us humans have an uncanny ability to see things from another person's point of view. The science behind this involves so-called mirror neurons. When you see or hear someone experience something, the same neurons that fire in their brain also fire in yours, allowing you to "virtually" experience the same thing. As a simple example, when you see someone get hit in the crotch, you immediately know the feeling. In a more complex example, when you hear that a friend of yours got dumped, you immediately feel his/her pain. What's odd is that this mirrored feeling is selective. If it was not a friend getting dumped, you do not feel as bad. And if it was someone you hated, you might actually be happy about it.

Now, all of this seems so obvious. We already know this. What's the big deal? To a computer scientist like me, the process (or the algorithm) is more important than the outcome. This is why we're still studying the human brain and very slowly getting to understand the unnecessarily complicated ways that it accomplishes what we take for granted. Starting a conversation with a stranger at the airport and keeping it going might seem trivial for most of us, but in the eyes of a neurologist, it is an immensely complex social interaction that humans seem to have mastered over thousands of generations.

But it comes down to this - we are all capable of Humanism because it is in our nature. But hate and spite, partiality and nepotism, patriotism and nationalism, preconceived notions and uninformed opinions, hinder our ability to see that everyone is human.

More "Famous Quotes" by ME!

2009-01-16T10:59:00.015-06:00

See earlier quotes.

"'Remembering' is the key to good memory... also Post-its"

"All good scientists must have critics inside of them. Can I be yours? :D"

"I have what's known as Imagination-Enhanced Photographic Memory. It's like photographic memory, but most of the memories are imaginary."

Sorry, can't think of anything else to blog. :(
But on the other hand, I have been working on this - http://mstgpu.blogspot.com/

Answers

2008-07-27T16:55:00.006-05:00

Creator

One of the first questions that our childhood curiosity brings about is - How did everything come into existence? Unfortunately, before our impressionable little minds can even put together such a question, we are taught about the creator. About a being that has always been - a being that created the universe for us, and then carried on to create us. Does this really answer our question? Should we not ask about the origins of the creator? If it is possible for the creator to have always existed, could it not be that this Universe has always existed and therefore does not require a creator. Maybe what everyone thinks of as a creator is just the Universe itself. We may not be able to relate as much with the Universe as with a creator. Or maybe our original question was incorrect. Instead of asking - “How did everything come into existence?” we should ask - “Was there ever a beginning?” Even with the Big Bang theory, we are left asking - what was it like before that, or more accurately, what was it like "before" time existed. Maybe we’re stuck in an infinite loop or maybe we’re going down an infinitely long string of time. It would be truly disappointing if we can never definitively answer the question of our origins. But settling with the theory of a creator is just slowing down our search.

Belief

“If you don’t believe in god, then what do you believe in?” is a common question that atheists are faced with. It is a tough question - not because it cannot be answered easily, but because the person asking the question is in a radically different state of mind. To put it simply - god fills a void. In our symbolically linked minds, god represents the unknown and the supernatural. We associate god with that which cannot be explained by reason alone. We can place our hopes in god to intervene in events that we cannot control. This is what confuses theists about atheists - “If you don’t have god in your life, then what do you have?” In contrast, an atheist would try to fill that void with reason alone, or not fill the void at all. An atheist would try to use reason to explain events that appear supernatural. An atheist’s hopes lie with family, friends, and in the success of humanity as a species. But can atheism ever be as satisfying as believing that there is a friendly being watching over you and over those whom you care about? Probably not. But in my experience, I'd rather have the truth than a false sense of security. So the question that truly differentiates a theist from an atheist is - are you satisfied with a partial conviction of understanding everything, or do you require a complete conviction of everything that you do understand?

Death

At some point in our lives, we all struggle with the question of death. What happens to us when life ends? We all know what it feels like to exist - to live. But what does it feel like to “not exist”? Few realize that each one of us has already experienced non-existence… think about before you were born, before your parents ever met each other, before their parents ever existed, before humanity. What was it like back before you existed? Life went on without you. You couldn’t affect change in the world. You couldn’t experience the beauty of nature. You couldn’t meet new friends, travel the world, or fall in love. Is this what death feels like? I think so, which means I should accomplish and experience as much as I can during this brief lifetime. And if possible, leave behind a legacy, or maybe just kids - like most people do.

...of Popes and Paedophiles

2008-04-15T18:07:00.000-05:00

I saw this article today about Pope Benedict visiting the US...
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1564528320080415

From the article is his statement on recent sex scandals surrounding several priests in US -

"We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry," Benedict told reporters on his flight. The Church will screen candidates for the priesthood, he said, "so that only really sound persons can be admitted."

Screen the candidates eh? That reminds me of this good old joke...

Twelve priests are about to be ordained. Their final test is for them to line up in a straight row, totally naked, while a beautiful, big-breasted nude model danced before them. Each priest had a small bell attached to his penis. They were told that anyone whose bell rang when the nude model danced in front of them would not be ordained, because he had not reached a state of spiritual purity. The beautiful model danced before the first candidate, with no reaction. She proceeded down the line with the same response from all the priests until she got to the final priest. As she danced, his bell began to ring so loudly that it flew off and fell clattering to the ground. Embarrassed, he took a few steps forward and bent over to pick up the bell... Then all the other bells started to ring.

Kandoth's Obnoxious Surveillance System

2008-03-03T01:39:00.001-06:00

I came up with this story as an application for a project that I'm currently working on. It's about a video surveillance system with fully rotatable cameras. How can it maximize coverage of an interesting event while still maximizing coverage of the total area? With the algorithm that we plan to make for it, the cameras are going to behave exactly how I expect them to - obnoxiously.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marico had been putting in a lot of extra hours lately. Her boss was bugging her about the upcoming visit from their most important client - Buy n Large. It was around 10pm as she finished up the plot line for the presentation on their newest WALL•E series of cleaner robots. Now, it would literally take her office computer a whole half hour to generate the presentation from the plot line. Her little laptop could have done it faster. The company’s under-funded IT department was obviously trying to get their point across. It was best to just go home and tweak the final presentation tomorrow.

She folded up her laptop and snuck it back into her handbag. Why do they still call it a laptop? No one really puts it on their lap. And it’s not like anyone uses a keyboard anymore. As Marico got up to leave, she spotted Lyse still at her desk. Lyse was the friendly intern that everyone took advantage of. You’d only have to wave at her, and she would get you a fresh cup of coffee with a big smile on her face.

“Hey Lyse, did you hear that BnL is thinking of buying us?”
“Wow! Is that good or bad?”
“Well… after they buy Texas Instruments, they’re going to be our only client. So it really makes no difference if we merge or not.”
“I heard that they monitor all their employees for suspicious behavior. And anyone who steps out of line doesn’t just get fired… They disappear!”

Lyse had been reading too much news off the undernet. It was a well known haven for crazy conspiracy theories ever since BnL acquired most of the world’s undersea cables and bought major stakes in communication companies, literally taking over most of the internet’s infrastructure. This had brought about concern on the neutrality of the internet. Of course, this was quickly forgotten. But stories on the undernet continued to circulate - about people who got low credit scores because they criticized BnL in public chat rooms. Or stories about how competitors of BnL complained about constant connectivity failures. But this was all just paranoia, mostly among the youth. BnL couldn’t possibly be that evil.

“I’ve never heard that one before. Anyway, don’t stay up too late.” said Marico, the diplomat.
“I won’t.” and Lyse beamed her giant smile. Marico couldn’t help but smile back.

The car was in the basement garage - the ugliest part of this aging building. At 10pm in the night, the enormous garage was empty, completely void of life, and unnervingly quiet. The elevator swung open and let Marico in. It then began its journey down from the 95th floor. There was a new camera installed in the elevator. The earlier one could identify employees and make sure that they get off only at their authorized floors. It would also warn people who accidentally got off at the wrong floor. This new camera was installed straight up on the ceiling rather than at a corner, which was odd because it wouldn’t catch faces as easily. But it was pointing straight at Marico. As she moved to the back of the elevator to sit on the railing, the camera turned to keep her in view. Curious as always, she moved to the front of the elevator and the camera turned again to point at her. Then she quickly ran to the back of the elevator and to the front again. It didn’t miss a beat. This camera was pretty quick. The lens rotated and seemed to zoom in at her. Then it sounded like it snapped a picture.

“Cool!” She didn’t think that her company could afford this kind of technology. Maybe it was from all that money coming in from BnL.

The elevator finally opened at B8, the garage. The lights closest to her flickered on automatically. The rest of the garage however, was still pitch dark. The energy crisis had forced the company to cut down heavily on power usage. Marico noticed more of those cameras on the garage ceiling. Two of them were already focused straight at her. One of them turned to view a car driving away. But as the car moved out of view, the camera turned back to look straight at Marico. At this point, it was just getting silly. Why couldn’t they just use fixed cameras that covered the whole area? Surely, it couldn’t be more expensive than these.

Still curious, she dodged into the dark and behind a pillar to see what the cameras would do. They simply turned away and pointed elsewhere. But a few more lights flickered on near Marico, revealing a camera straight above her, and wildly snapping pictures. This wasn’t good. The guys at security might already have been notified by the surveillance system.

“Hehee… Automated Surveillance Systems - That makes a cool acronym.” Before causing any more trouble, she walked up to her car. It seemed like there were more cameras looking at her this time. She tried her best to act casual, finally got into her car, and drove off.

She pulled the car up to Frank, the security guy at the garage exit.
“Hi Frank. New security system, eh?”
“Yeah. Installed yesterday. This one up here is getting on my nerves. But here’s a tip ma’am - don’t act suspicious!”

2008-02-11T10:10:00.000-06:00

It all started with this invite from an undergrad, Jessica, to an event called “Xtreme Bible study”. She didn’t know who would be interested, so she collected random student IDs from the University’s public directory and sent invites (aka spam). I found this out when she replied to my response, which was meant to figure out why I was on this list, and also to subtly mock the whole event. Jessica was apologetic, which made me feel bad, and I ended up helping her use the free student newsletter. But, in the crossfire was a graduate student named Corey, who was rather offended…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jessica A (S&T-Student)
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 3:16 PM
To: [around 40 random students, including me]
Subject: Monday Night Bible Study

Hello all, I am a Missouri University of Science and Technology student
This is an invitation to come to bible study. This is an xtreme bible study class, so if you are really interested in learning all that God wants for you, and you are ready to get a deeper understanding of Gods word. This bible study class is for you. If you know anyone else that will be interested in coming to bible study, PLEASE tell them. Remember, we are here to do Gods will. Attatched is the Bible study flier. Like I said, If you know anyone that will want to come to bible study, please forward this email to them.
Bible study is held:

Xtreme Bible Study
Date: Monday
Time: 8:30 - 10:00pm
Location: Burgess Room (Havener)

Please don't be shy, the door will be closed to preserve quietness,
but please just come right on in. We will not bite :)
Please don't let this semester go without getting a word from God

Proverbs 3: 5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

Please email me if you have any questions
Thank you, Have a Blessed Day
Jessica

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Kandoth, Cyriac (S&T-Student)
Sent: Sun 1/27/2008 7:35 PM
To: Jessica A (S&T-Student)
Cc: [the same 40 students, including a dude named Corey]
Subject: RE: Monday Night Bible Study

Hi,

I’m just curious - How did you get all our email IDs? Am I on a christian mailing list? Or have I been shortlisted as “possibly religious” or “most likely to convert“?

Thanks,
Cyriac
(Strictly Agnostic)

--
Cyriac Kandoth
Dept of Computer Science
Missouri S&T

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Corey J (S&T-Student)
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 8:26 PM
To: Kandoth, Cyriac (S&T-Student)
Subject: RE: Monday Night Bible Study

Why did you have to CC me? Thats fine if you have a problem with it but don't back up my e-mail for your own personal problems.

Corey

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Kandoth, Cyriac (S&T-Student)
Sent: Sun 1/27/2008 11:54 PM
To: Corey J (S&T-Student)
Subject: RE: Monday Night Bible Study

Hi Corey, I’m really sorry about that. It was just a joke. Also, I really was curious as to how she shortlisted our email addresses.

~Cyriac

--
Cyriac Kandoth
Dept of Computer Science
Missouri S&T

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Corey J (S&T-Student)
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 11:22 PM
To: Kandoth, Cyriac (S&T-Student)
Subject: RE: Monday Night Bible Study

Ok that doesn't mean send more e-mails to further describe yourself, also if you are agnostic you are obviously an idiot!
Also this doesn't mean send me another e-mail, it means leave me alone!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Kandoth, Cyriac (S&T-Student)
Sent: Tue 1/29/2008 10:46 AM
To: Corey J (S&T-Student)
Subject: RE: Monday Night Bible Study

Other than for the fact that I’m sending you yet another email, how does “being agnostic/atheist” make someone an idiot?

--
Cyriac Kandoth
Dept of Computer Science
Missouri S&T

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Corey J (S&T-Student)
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 2:51 PM
To: Kandoth, Cyriac (S&T-Student)
Subject: RE: Monday Night Bible Study

Well if you have to ask you need to pay better attention to your surroundings. Well I will explain this a little to you but I am most likely speaking to a wall on this subject. This is due mainly to the fact that most people that makes this claim, strictly agnostic, already have their minds made up and anyone who has a religion is an idiot when compared to them. But if you read the Bible everything that is happening right now with respect to current events is predicted by the Bible. Also anyone who looks around and thinks evolution made this is gravely mistaken due to the fact that we do not care any DNA traits from apes. So this leads to the question what have we evolved from? Nothing we have evolved from nothing, we are our own men and women. Especially when it comes to taking God out of everything, this is also predicted by the Bible.
Also when you don't think there is a God do one thing for me think of not existing, then tell me there's not God. Also if there was no God why would the word GD (Godd@#$) be so popular, why would people feel the need to state this horrible word? Also to think there is no divine intervention is also retarded, one huge case in point is World War 2. The Germans had over whelming odds going their favor including jet power and some of Russia's best Rocket Scienctist. At one point he had most of Europe under his control and we still won against him.
Also another thing that I thought made you rather dim was the fact that you were repling to an e-mail sent to you by somebody that will just delete you e-mail address in the first place. Also anyone can fine your e-mail they probably just went through and added you, sorry get over it.

Corey

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Kandoth, Cyriac (S&T-Student)
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 5:57 AM
To: Corey J (S&T-Student)
Subject: RE: Monday Night Bible Study

Cool! I love a debate. But, only as long as we keep it civilized. And thanks for not tagging me as spam (yet!).
I think you have “agnostics” confused with “atheists”. An agnostic would never say - “There is no god”. Instead they try to stand the middle ground without taking either side until they see more evidence. This makes the average agnostic much more open-minded than atheists (who have obviously made up their minds). Here is an old article of me “standing my middle ground”.
From everything I’ve learnt and seen over the years, a god just seems really improbable, but not impossible. The god according to the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) is especially hard to believe in. They contradict a lot of things that we know about today, not just evolution. The god(s) according to Hindus and Buddhists are easier to believe in because they speak more of a concept on how to live a good life, rather than of a supernatural being who will forgive all our sins.
All religions, on the other hand, did serve their purpose well. They brought people together under one authority, and made them less violent. But only as long as everyone followed that Religion. And that’s where the tables turned and violence came in. E.g. the crusades, the Spanish conquest of Americas, the extermination of indigenous people in Australia, ... these are all actions by human beings who twisted the concept of god into violent zealotry. Religions started will the aim of doing good. But all of them have ugly history.
You appear to have quite a fundamentalist view on your faith. Simmer down man. There is a lot of information out there, and scrutinizing everything with a mechanistic point of view can be very enlightening.

~Cyriac

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s been more than 2 weeks and he hasn’t replied yet. He might have had enough, or more likely, he’s tagged me as spam and has never read that last email. But anyway, religious folk like Corey prove that it is possible for a person to be so close-minded that they accuse others of being close-minded to their point of view.
I blame parents for indoctrinating children with religious ideals before they even get a chance to think for themselves. These kids end up so heavily dependent on prayer and hope, sometimes even more than facts or reason.

Review - "I am Legend"

2008-01-03T13:48:00.001-06:00

Everything was just fine and dandy until the last few minutes of the movie when everyone went - "WTF just happened?". I had read through tons of reviews before actually going to the movie, and was sort-of prepared for what was coming... but not this. I had expected the movie's religious overtones, but the ending was pathetic and un-necessary. The rest of the movie however, is really worth a watch. I won't include any spoilers here... but if you've been to New York City, then you'll realize how bizarre it looks when completely void of human life. Will Smith's acting is very average, and definitely not his best. In fact, all of the actors in the movie were rather unimpressive. There's not too much action, but if you're into suspense or horror, then this one's for you.

Now, about the religious overtones... The two messages that the movie was trying to put across were -

1. "Science is bad"
In the movie, scientists genetically modify a strain of the measles' virus producing a cure for cancer. However, the virus mutates, becomes airborne, and infects humans and canines turning them into rabid, violent creatures that like to eat other humans but not themselves. This provokes Will Smith's character to at one point say - "God didn't do this. We did."

2. "God works in mysterious ways"
One of the pinnacles of the movie is when Will Smith loses his cool, and starts shouting at the overzealous female lead... He reiterates all the death and suffering caused by the virus, which took out at least 99% of all humans, and ends by screaming - "There is no god!" maybe 3 or 4 times. With the way he shouts it, it's obvious that he's not an atheist, but a theist going through "a phase". At the end of the movie he notices a subtle coincidence, which grants him a certain amount of reaffirmation in his faith. With this, the movie tries to make the statement that god works in subtle and mysterious ways.

Now, here's the part where I object. I'd love to just tell the movie to go fuck itself, but I guess I need to make my case before that. So let me apply a little reason into the statement - "God works in mysterious ways". It's statements like these that make people stop thinking any further and instead cuddle up in that warm fuzzy recharge of faith. When confronted with this statement, the brain has two options - to ask "Why?" or to accept the statement at face value and use it to reaffirm one's faith. Gazuga from the Urban Dictionary likes to say - "It is nothing more than a veiled confession of ignorance from someone who will say anything rather than question or confront their beliefs."

In fact, think of the implications of that statement. It pretty much means that there is an almighty, all knowing, all-seeing deity watching over our every move. And instead of putting this immense knowledge and power to use, he plays little pranks and tricks on our puny little lives in order to test our faith in him. How insecure does a deity need to be, to become such a pompous prick?

And then there's the stab at Science. Flawed research caused all this suffering, god didn't. This apparently all-knowing all-seeing deity just stood by and watched while billions of people were eaten alive. This reminds me of the days when my mom blamed me for my bad grades but thanked god for my good grades. Unfair! Why don't scientists just stop all their research and let god's will be done... Let millions of people die of malaria, HIV/AIDS, cancer, or tuberculosis. They are nothing but pawns sacrificed in god's grand plan.

Things just make so much more sense with god out of the equation. All you need to do is replace god with the wonder that is our Universe and with the human impulse to discover something new about it everyday.

The case for morality

2007-12-25T15:36:00.003-06:00

I'm often stumped by the question of morality. How is it that we all appear to have the same definition of what is right and what is wrong? Or is that true at all? People definitely seem to have different degrees of right and wrong. A person might allow 10 innocent men to suffer rather than let one guilty man go free. Someone else might allow 10 guilty men to go free rather than condemn one innocent man to a life in prison. Regardless of these extreme differences in opinion, we all seem to have the same idea of justice... the guilty must pay for their crimes, and an innocent man must not be punished. If we peel off all these complex layers, this particular example comes down to a single idea - Fairness. We definitely share the same idea of what is fair and what is unfair. It is closely linked to the idea of equality, which can be very clearly defined - If someone else gets access to X, then why not me? Or in rare cases, you might think - If I get access to X, then why not everyone else? Either way, it is based on the same idea of "Fairness".

In the same way, most of us appear to be of the same opinion that murder is a crime. But there are an infinite number of wordplays around the definition of murder. Killing, in general, is not considered a crime if the cause is considered just. There again, lie a multitude of definitions for what is a just cause and what is not. The debate over capital punishment is a good example that "killing" does not have a clearly defined moral standard. This goes back to same idea of what is fair (justice) and what is not (unjust). First degree premeditated murder, however, is almost universally condemned. But this idea that "Murder is a Crime" is not as clear-cut as "Fairness". In any case, we all seem to have an innate aversion to taking someone else's life which brings us to another apparent universal moral standard - Empathy.

Something like stealing comes in many flavors. Robbing a bank out of greed might be universally condemned, but robbing a bakery because of hunger invites forgiveness. Here again, we see empathy. We are all capable of empathy, but tend to suppress it when we need to put our own priorities before someone else's. That aside, the capacity for empathy seems to be a universal. Which brings us to our second apparently universal moral standard - the "Capacity for Empathy". The following is an interesting video that tries to explain why we tend to ignore this innate capacity.

Daniel Goleman: Why aren't we all Good Samaritans

Now, let's sum things up... We have two apparently universal moral standards...

Fairness - which includes equality, justice, tit-for-tat, etc.

Empathy - which includes an inherent restraint from taking someone else's life, a capacity to show mercy, etc.

But what if we put these supposedly universal moral standards to the test? Morality has never been a universal constant. Our moral standards haven't always been the same during our recorded history. Women haven't always shared the status of equality that they enjoy today, rape is no longer used as a tool of war (if you exclude the genocides in Africa), cursing one's leader is no longer punishable by hanging... the list goes on... morality is an ever changing set of ideas that changes so slowly over the generations that we fail to take notice. This gradual change has separated us from the selfish world of natural selection. We have defied our own instincts by cooperating on a global scale. Fairness, equality,... these are all relatively recent inventions. More people are using their capacity for empathy today than ever before. Our connectedness allows us to relate with one another from across the globe. As you will see in these next videos, the case for human morality is an optimistic one.

Steven Pinker: A History of Violence

Robert Wright: How cooperation (eventually) trumps conflict

Conversation with an 8 year old...

2007-11-08T23:22:00.001-06:00

50 years from now, I'll be surrounded by a world I cannot comprehend. I'd be sitting on a park bench listening to ye olde rap music playing from a cell phone that broadcasts audio directly to my brain. The phone turns down the music when it realizes that the 8 year old kid sitting next to me is trying to tell me something. I know this kid. He's one of those curious types who think older people know the answers to everything. I wonder if he's one of my grandkids?

"Why do people lie?", he asks. Yup, he is definitely one of mine.

"Well kiddo... When people want something they can't get, then they do whatever it takes to get it - some of them lie! Back in my days, there was this famous lawyer named Jim Carrey who used to lie a lot just to win cases. And he made a lot of money for every case he won."

"Wow! And no one else found out?"

"That's the thing about lying. If no one else knows the truth, then they'll believe anything you say. Especially if what you say is better than the truth. People like happy stories. And most of the time, the truth is just not happy enough."

The kid pondered over what I said. He was way too introspective for an 8 year old. He just sat there with his feet barely touching the ground. He was leaning over and staring at the ground while kicking his feet around in the tall grass.

"So... would people rather believe a lie than know the truth?"

"Hmm... most people would. But some people would look further. You see, everyone needs closure..."

"Famous Quotes" by ME!

2007-09-26T09:17:00.001-05:00

"I'm the kinda guy who likes to say that I'm the kinda guy who likes to look at things from a third-person perspective"

"Humans fought TOOTH and NAIL to get on top of the food chain, and GODDAMMIT... I'm not letting their sacrifices be ALL FOR NOTHING!"

"... and that's why I'm a non-vegetarian."

"What's the point of reincarnation, if you can't remember anything?"

"If you don't believe in Science like I do, then you can just fuck off! No wait... come back... I'm sorry!"

"All good scientists must have critics inside of them. In fact, everyone should have one!"

(More to come... as soon as I remember them)

The stupidification of the USA

2007-08-26T14:01:00.000-05:00

Evolution? Why is it still a question?

Blue: Are the people who are convinced that humans originated through a process of evolution. These include the people who try to reconcile their Faith with the Theory.

Yellow: Are the people who are undecided on their stance on evolution. They refused to answer.

Red: Are the people who wholly deny that we "evolved" from ancient beings. These are usually creationists.

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-evolution.html

I don't understand this. How much more simpler should the Theory of Evolution be? Once life started, there was no stopping it. If Life was to continue existing in this constantly changing world, there was only one direction it could take - to improve and modify itself... through a long... REALLY long game of trial and error. And there is so much evidence to back it up, that the only thing creationists have left to attack is the very basis of Science - the requirement for evidence. A theory is absolutely useless without evidence. Even the existence of God is a theory by itself... with absolutely nothing to back it up... except for that tiny little feeling that creeps up your spine everyday telling you that you're special... you are the center of the universe and everything in existence was created especially for you.

Here is the best that Science can do to help you see reason...

Utopia

2007-07-15T03:42:00.000-05:00

This world is enormous and there is enough to amaze every single person for the rest of their lives.

In comparison to the Universe, our 70 year lives are nothing but fleeting specks.

To assume that a mighty Creator is looking out for just us, is sheer arrogance.

We should be grateful that we are even part of this Universe and capable of experiencing it in all its glory.

Grow up and see the big picture. The small things will never worry you again.

And after accepting your marginal significance, we grow one step closer to Utopia.

What ever happened to investigative journalism?

2007-05-17T09:09:00.000-05:00

I'm addicted to News. From local events to international affairs, I've always been obsessed with knowing it all. Some of my most watched channels are BBC World, NDTV 24x7, CNN... and sometimes even Fox News. There's actually a term for someone like me - An "Information junkie".

But, when I came to the US of A in Jan 06, I was literally blacked out from the rest of the world. The only way to get news from anywhere else was off the internet. So, I had the BBC and Reuters send me daily emails with their top headlines, and even had them alert me with breaking news. Unfortunately, I was never a big fan of "reading". Video and audio are a much more efficient way to assimilate information. I wasn't satisfied with online radio broadcasts of BBC World, or with NPR news - which is set to automatically play off my clock radio every morning at 7am. Even though I never wake up that early, I still listen to the broadcast while half asleep until the buzzer rings at 9am.

Since Jan 07, I moved into a studio apartment where I get free cable TV. So, I ended up watching the American media, mainly - CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and even - "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" - a comedy show which sometimes puts the news into a broader perspective. When the other news channels will dare not touch a controversial issue, the Daily Show dives right into it, and coats it with a fresh layer of humor. It's the kind of humor that makes you laugh out loud at first, but then you end it with a big sigh when a sad realization kicks in - you realize that Jon just pointed out a depressingly serious flaw in the system. It takes a really broad-minded person to enjoy that show.

The most intriguing thing about the American corporate media was how much information they withheld from their own public in order to protect the credibility of their governing administration. Sometimes I found that C-Span or PBS were covering issues of corruption or infringement much more than CNN was. In a profit oriented media market, the reason for this would seem obvious. However, it's never as simple as "ratings". I found various occasions when the BBC or some other non-American news agency reported something that was never seen in the American media. When I delved further into this, I recovered a very disturbing BBC documentary on the USS Liberty incident back in 1967. Regardless of the incredible amount of circumstantial evidence and the witnesses that point to a conspiracy, not a single American news agency wanted to get a piece of the story. They could have easily raked in ratings with a story like this. But, only CNN did a story in which the entire blame of killing 30 US Navy sailors was placed on Israel. But later, CNN retracted to the older story of calling it a case of accidental friendly fire. The case was closed and not a single American I've met has heard about it.

Everyone I've met from the "rest of the world" (except those who intend to migrate here!) accuse Americans of being arrogant and ignorant. Even I did. I guess we all assumed that - since they were a democracy, every American had a partial responsibility for all of their country's double standards and prejudicial foreign policies. But when I finally came here, it became quite clear that the freedom of press in America was not being used as effectively as it could be. Nearly everyone was being kept in the dark and being pumped with the notion that their version of democracy was infallible. And it didn't help that most Americans are patriotic to the core. Unfortunately, that patriotism is the very thing that keeps some of them from wanting to know the dirty details of their governing administration. Then again, it's not nice of me to generalize all Americans as being the same. I have a few close friends who do not fit the bill.

(to be continued... if the CIA doesn't rub me out)

Futurama

2007-04-10T04:44:00.000-05:00

I had blogged a post earlier titled -
And God said - "Earth? Which way is that?" This was in fact a line picked out of the TV show - Futurama. It's an amazingly smart and creative animation about Fry, a 20th century guy who's accidentally frozen in a cryogenic facility on the eve of the new millennium. He wakes up 1000 years later on the eve of the next millennium... in the 31st century. Here's the clip on how that happened -

(sorry, it was removed by Google.. copyright issues)

If you haven't heard of it, get off your ass and rent the DVD. Anyways, back to that quote made by the "Almighty"... I'll explain the context. Bender the robot (also Fry's best friend) gets accidentally catapulted into empty space. As he floats through space, he bumps into an asteroid with tiny lifeforms that settle down on him and develop into a civilization, naming Bender as their God. He plays good God and fails at that. He plays bad God and fails that too. In the end, the civilization ends up destroying itself with nukes. Eventually, Bender bumps into God himself who is depicted as a nebula of stars speaking binary language... a giant computer in the middle of the universe! This is their conversation...

Bender: So... do you know what I'm going to do before I do it?
God: Yes.
Bender: What if I do something different?
God: Then I don't know that.
Bender: Cool... cool. I bet a lot of people pray to you, huh?
God: Yes, but there are so many asking so much, after a while, you just sort of tune it out.
Bender: You know, I was God once.
God: Yes, I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.
Bender: It was awful. I tried helping them, I tried NOT helping them, but in the end, I couldn't do them any good. Do you think what I did was wrong?
God: Right and wrong are just words, what matters is what you do.
Bender: Yeah, I KNOW! That's why I asked if what I did... Oh, forget it!
God: Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent upon you, and if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safe-cracker, or a pickpocket.
Bender: Or a guy who burns down a bar for the insurance money!
God: Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing. When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
Bender: Does that mean you wouldn't send me back to Earth, even if I PRAYED to you?
God: Earth? Which way is that?

No matter how many times I think about it, that last line always cracks me up. Still, it makes you think... The universe doesn't exactly revolve around us.

Behind that smile of content...

2007-02-18T01:26:00.000-06:00

Us humans are so bloody selfish... Everything we think about is of ourselves and our closest relatives or friends. Sure, it makes sense from Darwin's perspective. But what pisses me off so much is how we barely realize it. For example, in a serious relationship - both people only want self-assurance. Both want to be absolutely certain that their partner loves them. Whether they love their partner, is of secondary importance. If that's not selfish then what is? And here's a fact - the average woman feels this way more than the average man does. Ooops! Touched a nerve? Here's another thing that the average woman doesn't understand - the concept of "Average". It means - there are definitely women who are much better than average. If it wasn't for them, the average would be way lower. Makes sense? Probably not!

I forget why I'm really pissed. A while ago I was in one of those moods where I start thinking about human behavior and keep going until I get so pissed that my head starts hurting. What worries me is how people can be so shallow. It's like this - picture a graph plotted over time, measuring how close we are to answering the biggest questions about life... shit like - why do I exist?... and what makes us different from the animals? Zero - being "completely clueless", and 100 - meaning "we have the answer". So you get this graph which makes big peaks nearing 100 at the invent of a religion, astrology, etc. Over time these tend to wear down and move slowly towards zero. You see smaller peaks when clergy engineer rejuvenations of their religions, with miracles planned/unplanned. Then scientists like Darwin come along and cause the graph to shake and almost collapse to zero... meaning - some of us stop trusting our religion and start all over again. That was the birth of agnostic science. And for those people following it, they're only at around 15, way down in the graph and very slowly making their way up. The religious folk on the other hand, happily crowd around 85 with their cooked up answers and history books. How can they possibly be content?

I dunno... I always hated simple answers. Where is the basis? Where's the evidence? Oh wait... I don't need evidence? Some of the most successful religions are based on blind faith. Why is that? Are we so easily fooled? Or are we looking for a quick answer so that we can just get on with life? I bet that's exactly what it is. Crap!... now my head hurts.

Here's something else to think about - People are stupid, gullible and easily manipulated... a person, on the other hand, is clever, self-aware, and introspective.

Be a person... don't be so easily influenced by others. At the same time, be concerned about how other's feel. It says a lot about you.

Oh, and here's another thing I figured out - Everyone hates self-righteous pricks... you know... the way I sound like, especially in this blog. Here's the thing... I could be wrong. And I'm well aware of that. But, would it hurt for you to at least consider it and make up your own mind?

I, photographer.

2007-02-01T20:10:00.000-06:00

"India is my country, all Indians are my brothers and sisters..."

2006-11-14T23:22:00.000-06:00

Damn! India has been invaded so many times in the last 5000 years, that people would think we're just a bunch of pussies. And although it's only partially true that India never invaded another country during this time, we're like a bunch of incompetent bums with no drive. I mean c'mon... Isn't there anyone (except me) who will laugh maniacally at the idea of world domination? Anyways, theres no point in complaining now. All the opportunities were gone by the time I was born. As long as people think that revolting against their supreme dictator is "cool", there is no way to have a stable dictatorship. In older India, this was all too easy. Every other decade, the common folk were just waiting to find out whose butt to kiss next. Nowadays, we're slowly learning that we can actually affect a change in government. Yeah, that's right - "slowly". There are still people around who think that marking 'X' next to this guy's name means that he won't beat me up as badly as this other guy... rather than thinking - this guy gives electricity, this other guy gives water, and this other lady offers free castrations.

India did however have plenty of internal spats within itself. Everyone who was someone wanted to rule a chunk of land. Now, remember that long before democracy (no offense), "India" included all combinations and permutations of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, etc etc.

(I forgot where I was going with this... gimme some time until I figure it out)

Righto... as I was saying... Indians had been divided up so many times that it's difficult to precisely say which permutation or combination of regions were collectively called "India". But, we were an international hub for pretty much everyone with at least a boat that could travel along the coast or drop by via the silk route. So, I think that today's India is an ethnic mix of almost every single ethnicity in the world. Statistically, I'd assume - mostly ethnicities of the East. Which brings me to genetics... cross-cultural marriages naturally generate more intelligent people if not crazy ones. This could account for the eventual differentiations of castes among the predominantly Hindu population. I'm talking totally out of backward reasoning from today's facts... I have absolutely zero Googlical/Wikipedical evidence backing these claims.

It's pretty much the same thing that's happening in the USA and Europe these days... especially in the USA. The world's best minds move to the USA and each generation appears to get better and better at anything they do. Evolution notably works best in a completely disparate environment. And quickly too.

Hey, I'm not encouraging cross-cultural marriages. I wanted to show how apparent evolution can be. It's right in front of our eyes. Earlier, the "tribe elders" cleverly forbid cross-cultural marriages because of the small but reasonable likelihood of getting a kid which doesn't turn out so well. Even so, they handicapped evolution by placing limiting rules to certain kinds of marriages. In America however, most kids are allowed to love with free will, pretty much following instinct... just the way evolution likes it. No wonder America does so well (despite also having the craziest population). They have only been around for 230 years and evolution has already worked it's magic. Multiply that a couple million times and humans evolving from lemurs doesn't seem so confounded.

So, to all those people who still have trouble believing evolution created man, suck it in! If it makes you any happier, God invented the process of evolution and maybe even saw it through. If the ultimate goal of the universe is to "sustain life", then there must have been someone who set that rule. As far as science cannot explain, lets say that God did it. Of course, that's all contrary to my beliefs (read "Religious Bull"), but hey... whatever makes you happy!

And God said - "Earth? Which way is that?"

2006-09-03T22:53:00.000-05:00

If you do a favor for someone without telling them, they'll never notice. So, always make sure you let everyone know or see the good things you do. Preferably - be subtle.

It's funny how even the most worldly and open-minded of people tend to apply stereotypes. Wait, did I just make a stereotype myself? Nope. But, I guess it's only natural for people to generalize... it makes things easier on the mind.

It's funny how failure and success can sieve out your good and bad friends respectively. The best friends are those with whom you spent most of your entire childhood. Which is why, I suppose, your siblings are always there for you. "Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few, you should hold on" - Baz Lurhmann. Now, you start thinking - "which of my friends should I hold on to?"

What the heck am I talking about? You see what happens when you force me to blog? I mean... Dudes! Gimme some space here...

Listen to John Mayer's recent album - Continuum. The title song is "Waitin' on the world to change". All the songs are pretty impressive. My favourite is "Gravity". You can use the link on top of the blog to hear it for free... 'cause I have a LEGAL subscription to Real Rhapsody! MWAhahahaaa... who's the man with the money eh? ME! Yeah thats right, ME! And if you like the album, be sure to actually buy it!

In memory of Agent Smith

2006-07-30T22:57:00.000-05:00

I have a tendency to side with the villainous characters in movies... Gary Oldman in Air Force One, Alan Rickman in Die Hard and as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, Dennis Hopper in Speed and Waterworld, Christopher Walken in Nick of Time, Dr. Evil in Austin Powers (until he turned good in part 3), and of course – my favorite - Agent Smith in The Matrix. I never figured out why I side with them... but I have a hunch it’s got more to do with me than their performances!

Despite that their performances were amazing; I still can't find anyone else who in their right mind would side with them. It's just sad how most of the public gives so little credit to these actors... just because they took on villainous roles. What’s wrong with being the bad guy if you’ve got character? I mean - the most memorable lines from The Matrix trilogy wasn’t from the crazed philosophical Morpheus, or the psyched out blabbering Architect. In fact, I don’t remember Neo saying more than 5 words in a sentence. I felt that Agent Smith’s lines were not given the credit they deserved. I’ll never forget this one - “Human beings are a disease... a plague of this planet.” “And we... are the cure!” The way he says “Mr. Anderson...” is just too cool to despise.

Hang in there buddy. I know you always felt lonely and left out. Don't worry dude... I've got your back.

And then, there was Dr. Evil... with his revolting charm and irrevocable commitment to world domination, however absurd his scheming brilliance was. Kudos to Mike Myers for inventing this character. Here is a really cool excerpt from him in the movie - when he introduces himself to a support group...

"The details of my life are quite inconsequential.... Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize; he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament... My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon... luge lessons... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets... When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really. At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Wilma ritualistically shaved my testicles — there really is nothing like a shorn scrotum — it's quite breathtaking... I suggest you try it."

Well... that’s all I have to say about that. This was my last ditch attempt to keep people from saying that I didn't blog all July.

Take care y'all... And if you want good advice, listen to "Sunscreen" by Baz Luhrmann...

Religious bull

2006-06-15T03:48:00.000-05:00

Oh, how easy it is to mess with people's ignorance. It just takes a book to make people believe. Be it the Bible, the Quran, the Da Vinci Code... It's just absurd how some people try to reason out their faith. This is exactly why I became agnostic and dedicated my life to science... to find out the frikkin truth for myself rather than have it handed down from history books or the bible after centuries of modifications by people who wanted to die with a grin on their faces. I wonder how big the "track changes" log would be if the Bible was written in Word document format.

And then at the other end, there are the scientists who call themselves athiests. Shmucks who think they are the pinnacle of scientific open-mindedness. What they can't understand is that they're still being close-minded to the existence of a God, the unusually powerful effects of Faith and the small set of phenomena that they dismiss because it can't be explained by current science. Being agnostic means you're still open to the possibility of a God, or any idea that sounds irrational... and trust me, I know! If you manage to spend a whole summer reading up on quantum physics, you'll understand exactly how weird the world really is. There's a whole lot that science cannot yet explain. And if we keep limiting our beliefs, we're not going to get science anywhere.

Sure, I've been religious before and I still remember how easier things were back then. Faith felt amazing i.e. maintaining the illusion that everything you cannot control is in the hands of someone friendly and powerful. But then, every once in a while, you see things that make you lose faith (even priests do) and go back to church to get a recharge. I wanted more than that.

I can't really frown at the people who survive on Faith. I know how powerful it can be and how easy it is to wield compared to science. Using Physics to explain everything is way too complicated for say... an architect or a doctor (Heeheeheeee!). But really, if people just ignore the implications of Science then there is no way to get through to them, except by taking advantage of that ignorance itself. Ahh... ignorance is bliss after all, as in, other people's ignorance is my bliss.

This post is dedicated to my two loving sisters...

the elder one... an architect/athiest and the younger one... a doctor/die-hard-jesus-fanatic.

Home is where you make it

2006-05-06T21:43:00.000-05:00

In my 22 years on Earth, I have shuffled between 6 different schools. From there I moved on to an engineering college and now, a University. In all these places, I have referred to just 6 people as "best friends". Over this time, I have driven around 22 different cars, which would include 19 different models (I sincerely counted! They all belonged to different people who supposedly "trusted" my driving abilities). I shouldn't forget the 5 different computers my family has owned. And finally, I have referred to around 9 houses as "home".

I have enjoyed most of it. But I choose to forget most everything during and before 10th grade... which was at around age 14. After that, I moved to a place I much prefer to call "home" - the city of Cochin in Kerala, India. Everything about the place was perfect. In the morning, the streets bustle with noise and activity. People shuffle around in their white mundus and colorful saris hoping to catch the best deal somewhere. Bright red buses drive inches away from them at horrendous speed and they hardly flinch. These people are on a mission, in their own little private lives, with their own big objectives.

The city bustles throughout the morning and eventually dies down in the sleepy orange afternoon. People looking for that extra buck hang around in their shops, hoping to catch the richer folk who prefer to come out in the quiet of the afternoon. Things liven up after the evening chai. The cooler evenings bring shoppers back out and the bustling continues through the dark. Soon, hot and heady but harmless middle aged men wander around talking about their days of glory. But beyond 11pm, the streets are empty except for the people returning home after the late movie. At home - is where they shall be until daybreak, when it starts all over again.

Ahhh... serenity in disorder. I love Cochin for that. At a glance, it looks like a mess! But on closer look, it all works out just fine. You'll probably know how I feel if you remember the final scene in the movie - Crash. There is a small car accident, the drivers get out and an argument follows, people gather around, the camera looks down at them and pans away as if uninterested in the small event. It's then that we see the big picture. That everything worked out just fine. For some reason, whatever you do, it always works out just fine. It has nothing to do with fate, but everything to do with your point of view.

Most of all, I miss ricocheting through the narrow roads of Cochin. Manouvering through heavy unorganized traffic was never a bore. It was relaxing. People shout at each other frustrated with themselves. The 3 wheeler auto-rickshaws squeeze their way ahead. Countless two wheelers cut ahead of you and use the side walk to get to the front of the jam. The traffic cops are no better. They strain to find the arbid businessman driving his sedan with a cell phone held to the ear... a 100 ruppees in a single stroke! I drive through with my window rolled down, noticing the little discrepancies, smiling at the screaming drivers, the two wheeler winding around in front of me, the roaring red bus behind me... Everything falls perfectly in place. Damnit! I miss home.

Literally!

2006-04-02T21:28:00.000-05:00

So there I was - lying flat on my back, dazed and delirious, pondering over what to do next. I was half conscious, my feet were partially numb, my arms were nowhere to be found, I couldn't tell if both my eyes were open or just one of them. Then it slowly came back to me... today was a Sunday, sometime around 4pm. My surname is Kandoth, first name Cyriac, got 2 sisters, 23 cousins, 5 graphics cards, and the normal number of parents. Phew! This was the closest I ever got to amnesia. Finally, I gathered the courage to get my ass out of bed and make some coffee.

I'm not kidding. Its not easy to wake up in the morning when your dreams plot against you. For example, look at Bill Watterson's strip down here...

...it's happened to me way too often. I actually dream that I've woken up, brushed my teeth, read Google news, and when I go to the next room to wake my roomie - before I say a word, he opens his eyes looks at me and says - "Wake up man! Don't you have class in half an hour?"

Right. Gotta go now. To complete the journal part of my blog - Spring break just got over. It was fun. I made a lot of money. Partied, slept well, met new people, etc. Ciao!

Ahhh... Shucks!

2006-03-14T17:15:00.000-06:00

Ohhhkay… so maybe I started off a little weird on that last post. Of all the junk I could write in a blog, I went off on a tangent with some hallucinated gobbledygook. So I have resolved to start afresh now, but the previous post is going to remain so as to remind me of what not to do again. I also spent a lot of time on that one.

I call this one – “Ahh… Sucks to be human”. Just kidding… Humans are actually quite okay (considering the fact that I am one myself (with a convoluted sense of humor (and a not-so-okay fancy for parenthesis))). You see what I mean? I just can’t seem to act normal. I mean, ever since I started talking to myself… (Kidding again… but really…)

Okay, where was I? Humans. Nothing but a bunch of schmucks obsessed with socializing with each other. They have been gifted with a remarkably advanced cranial device which is wasted away by allowing countless feelings and hormones to bog down its most efficient patterns of function. On the other hand, some feelings can be fun. (Insert cheesy toothy smiley here)

If I could scorn down over us humans by just pretending not to be one, imagine what some genuine aliens would think…
“Hey, my alien compadre, these humans are crazy!”
“You think? You should see them when they try to eat.”
“Hahahahaa! Yeah amigo, it’s like… like through holes in their faces!”
“Oh and… and how about when they try to mate.”
“Oh yeah. That’s so weird. It’s like they enjoy it or something.”

Then again, where is my sense of humanity? So I’ll stop now before I contradict my own statements again. So long suckahs! Come around later and I’ll tell you how to take off an under shirt without removing your jacket.

Rambler on the roof

2006-03-12T00:46:00.000-06:00

In this particular rambling, I actually come close to explaining a human consciousness. Other than that, its… well… a rambling.

Right… here I go… Let’s first assume that the ultimate goal of the universe is to sustain life. This is a debatable topic, but we’ll take it for granted as of now. It does explain the motivation of evolution. Evolution and the fight for survival, could in turn account for the development of the human brain. With this path of reasoning, the buck stops with the human ‘mind’. Why were we bestowed with a mind that was capable of philosophical thought? Philosophy, by itself, does not seem to have any practical purpose. In other words, why is it that there are departments of “Applied Sciences” and “Applied Mathematics” but we rarely hear of “Applied Philosophy”? One possible explanation is that philosophical thought is an inevitable result of creativity. Creativity was initially necessary for human survival. Today, however, it is being used in making our lives more comfortable, controllable, systematic, and more (or less) easier. This gives us a whole lot of free time. Add this free time with the infinite perspectives that we got from our creative abilities. We now get inventive ideas and develop thoughts such as “why do I exist?” or “who created the universe, and for what?” So there it is! I believe that these kinds of thoughts lead to a sense of “consciousness”. In other words, consciousness is just a bi-product of our creative minds. It is more a figment of our imagination than something that has major implications to our existence in the universe. Don’t let this burst your bubble, because this is only my point of view. I could be wrong. I try to stand by science and its system of stating theories and proving them with experiences and observations. A theory is not necessarily a “truth”. It is simply the most widely accepted notion. If a better theory comes along, I immediately renounce my current beliefs and readily acknowledge the new theory. I’ll admit - it sounds a little underhanded, but it works!