from Vijay Babu

bye i m leaving da. if possible just inform in the blog that i m going to sivakasi for 1 week. Its possible..!!

Rini too warming up...

So.. we have one more.. rini continues to warm herself up bathing in bucketloads of music.. what about others...

Bangalore is warming up...

The coconut oil which was frozen when I left for Madurai last week is liquified now... Bangalore is warming up... and so are some of our people... to face the higher challenges in life and career... Jax, is commencing his MCJ course, Bala is looking forward to Brand Management... Bala, I had a look at the ICFAI site about the course.. seems impressive as far as the course structure goes... so its just the decision of spending that u need to consider... if u feel u can eke out the required fee and also confident of doing full justice to studying the course amid ur work right at this moment, then u can go ahead applying for the forthcoming academic year itself... Myself and Kavi will be starting our MCAD preparation soon... But I don't have an option of thinking if I can do it now or later.. its been made mandatory for me... and I have registered for my first (of three) papers for April... so I have 2 months in between to prepare whatever I can, and then need to finish the next 2 papers within 3 months after clearing the 1st paper... otherwise we won't get the fee reimbursed... Kavi too will be beginning soon... So.. anyone else looking to warm yourself up this summer...

book reviews

As I had said, earlier, all my book reviews will be available at QSS. I have posted a review of a book, "Blue Horizon" by Wilbur Smith there. I sat up till 3:30 am to finish the book. Update: I have posted the review of "Last Reveille" by David Morrell. I finished it yesterday afternoon.

technical writing...

Hi all, Thanks for your inputs regarding the resume. Also there seems to be a lot of TW opportunities available for the taking. Rini, I visited the link you specified. they don't seem to have a requirement in their opportunity list. As for today's Hindu, could someone send the details to me. The versions and opportunity listings differ from city to city. Could someone also check this company. Looks good, still better to be safe. Rini, I don't remember the name of the school. But I think it was not the school you had mentioned. I'll try to recollect if possible. Bala, the format of the resume is to mimic the XML format. It is not XML, da. It is pure XHTML. Putting it in XML sounds good. Let me see if that is possible.

resume

It is not for HRs to check and entreat me to join thier comapny. For them, I'll be adding a proper word and pdf resume for download. This is just a format I saw somewhere and liked. This is just for fun. you might see it vary over the days to come.

Ram, your help is required

Ram, Kindly check this link and tell me if this job is listed out in Infy's intranet, for employee referral.

kind of urgent

Dear all, I will not be able to access my postmark account today. So send your mails to xavierroyATtechnicalwriting.com. Ram, could you send me a mail there. There is something Kicha wanted you to do for me. BTW, I have added two new pages to QSS. One is an about page and the other is a resume. Check it out. Both pages are still works-in-progress. Tell me how it looks in your machines.

Soft drinks, hard truths

Kerala village plans unique protest against Coke Soft drinks, hard truths Hi all, This is not a cry from the conservatives. Just think mates. Instead of spending 10 rupees on a coke or pepsi we could opt for a tender coconut or some fresh juices that is not only good for our health but also adds value to our urge to make up an eco friendly living... Just think a moment I have made up a resolution and have said a no to soft drinks and in particular coke and pepsi. Bye for now. "A change starts from within"

student once more...

Today, got my id card for my MCJ Course. It sure feels kinda funny, playing the role of a student again.

maybe...

The number of IITs have increased. Good to hear that. The number of colleges and universities (including deemed univs) have increased. Nice. The UGC has mae it compulsory for faculties to pass either SLET/NET. Wonderful. But where are those bright graduates, the future architects of India? I can agree with the later part of the article - IITs being the only advanced educational model. There may be other models, like CEDs for example. But I feel that the refinement of the education model has to be from the grassroot level. There is no use trying to improve only the creme de la creme. We have been following a mish-mash of education patterns, some practices handed down by tradition and some copied from other influences. The education system should be more life-oriented, i.e. more education that would be useful practically need to be taught. I am not advocating total westernisation of education, but instead a ecletic adoption of best educational practices . I believe there is one such school somewhere in Chennai. I don't know its name. But the education system followed sounded good. Students studying there might not go on to be engineers or doctors, but they can handle the challenges of life more comfortably than thier peers in professional streams. BTW, western institutions have become great institutions over the years because the sense of 'alma mater' was high among the students. The students did thier best to build up the institution that had taught them, through whatever means they could, from monetary funds to physical labour. Somehow, I find that sense of giving back is mostly missing in our country. That could be a reason why the IITs (no, the entire education sector) looks hoary.The final words, "educators and lay people would consider India's future educational needs", is the point that one should ponder upon from the article. All said and done, it is interesting why this issue has come up with the elections just round the corner? Maybe this speech by Joshi is slated to appear in the election agenda? Maybe someone really cares... Maybe... Kicha, Thanks for sending the article by mail.

Explaining the laws of explanation (thought that needed no explanation)

The Laws of Explanation are simple. I guess everyone can guage thier meaning. The person who gave the Laws is Tim Bray, the founder of XML. He had postulated the two laws when he faced a particular problem understanding how a software worked. Here is the explanation he gave for the first Law.

When you’re explaining something to somebody and they don’t get it, that’s not their problem, it’s your problem.

The practical take-away from this law is that for anything that’s deep enough to matter, you’re going to have to do a lot of explaining, and you absolutely totally can’t afford to get impatient or irritated when it isn’t going fast enough, you just have to explain better.

This is difficult, but not all that difficult. People who can’t get their message across usually don’t get too far in this world, so anyone who’s making an impact almost by necessity combines the articulateness and patience to (eventually) get the job done.

The Second Law is

When someone’s explaining something to you and you’re not getting it, it’s not your problem, it’s their problem.

The practical take-away is that you have to be totally courageous and truthful in saying “I don’t understand; please explain again.” Otherwise you won’t get the message and you’ll be the loser.

As far as I know, I felt that these two laws were somehow related to everything we do. Additionally, I thought that it perfectly matched what we had been discussing arguing discussing earlier. As for the Delta Law, I had given a small description about the Law below the law itself. So I don't think I should repeat myself. Hope you remember what "po" means. The Delta law was just another form of that po. I find this law very useful when I come up against a wall in my mind. This is more related to problem solving and creativity. The above two postings did not have any significance with the recent events. But Bharucha's Law was a quote I posted. I can't explain why. But maybe later. Manny, they are not about, 'unseen words'. It is about understanding the context in which the message is conveyed. A somewhat complex repostulation of the Theory of Communication (Claude Shannon/ Networks). Here is one more law I guess that might need no explanation.

Anything that can be misunderstood will be. - David G. Myers

BTW, could someone mail (postmark id) me a copy of the rediff article, not the link but the entire article? I cannot access Rediff at office. That was a good point on CED. I don't know about the quality of the course right now. But it definitely could not have got much better than ours. BTW, here is the link to Brahmos website. I had a couple of book reviews written down. But I decided to post it to QSS as it offers a category-wise listing. Here onwards, please find my book reviews here.

After...

...all said and done, there is a thing which still makes the difference. As I said we could have had 1000 CEDs for one IIT. But the difference would have been, as we had one IIT, it lasted for few decades and still there alive and on the other hand probably if we have had 1000 CEDs then none would have lasted longer as it happened with our CED. mrchhhhh!!!!

IIT

I was just reading the article in rediff.com about this IIT brand and its there now in our blog. Of course one cannot deny that IITs are really worthy feathers in India’s cap. But the irony is that all the birds of the same feather flocks together not for the goodness of our community but rather the IIT brains are patented almost by someone who can afford to it. And Its my opinion that instead of having one IIT we could have had 1000 CEDs. It was rightly put by Murali Manohar Joshi that the huge amounts spent on IITs did not yield the expected ROI. Reason being the product we produced was not realized for our benefits. I often wonder why the kind of bullet trains that was there in Japan was not here in India. It is not the lack of ability for such a country like India, which was able to produce supersonic BrahMos Missiles, to implement the bullet trains. Rather, the bullet trains may not be a viable means for today’s Indian Mass. The same is the case with IITs. Its not that we were not able to afford to employ an IIT product but rather the IIT product itself was not a need for today’s (or probably the near past) Indian mass. Of course it was the power of knowledge that makes what you see as today’s India. But as you see these developments was not because of the knowledge produced by the IITs. Rather it was due to the rest of IITs, which has the lion’s share for this upsurge in our development. I have seen people doing research in big heads like IITs and IGIDR still researching the Great Depression of 1930s and getting a hefty monthly grant for what they do like a conventional report generation. On a personal note, I feel that, for such huge investments and grants on IITs and other such premier institutes, The ROI should have been even more and who knows…had IITs been with a private professional hand, the output would have been different.

Is Brand IIT worth it...??

A very different view about our famed IIT... read full-story... What do u feel about this... But is the IIT model the only, and best, model for advanced education? Probably not. This is why I say the IIT model is aging. It is a fact that the IITs have not really kept up with the times........ ...........But as far as I know, not a single IIT has a well regarded program in any of the great new frontiers of technology, in particular in biotechnology. Nor in nanotechnology, in new power technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells, in any cutting edge area, really. Why is this? One reason is that they are insulated from the market, as they are guaranteed a Rs 75 crore grant from the government every year.

To see or not to see...

Why is there an avalanche of laws and theorems suddenly propping up in our blog... is it just a spontaneous flow or is there anything specific that needs to be understood (apart from their literal meaning) from these laws... If there is none, then just ignore my thoughts.. if there is anything, then please do convey.. Because I'm not understanding that...

Bharucha’s Law????!!!!

"To understand what people are thinking and feeling, look beyond what they say."

Does this sounds like seeing the unseen words jax...?

Bharucha’s Law

To understand what people are thinking and feeling, look beyond what they say. Language does not capture the full range and grain of thought and experience, and its unique power enables us as easily to mask our thoughts and feelings as it does to express them. - Jamshed Bharucha

In case you didn't know, this blog now has an Atom feed. IF you don't know what Atom is, read about it here.

Thinking nano...

Interesting point by Bala.. In this context, macroscopic thinking is not what is aimed at.. but the attitude of a customer and how a salesperson could prevail over him... Even in our daily routines our efforts are more at proving others wrong rather than substantiating why I could be right... Its simple human psychology... We always tend to feel we know just that little bit more than others and in our enthusiasm to demonstrate our efficacy we forget our good points and start targetting the other person's points should we feel them conflicting... But the ideal way to deal with the situation is to render enough leeway to the other person's ideas too and extrapolate it with our own points and refine an inference... Its never going to be easy to change what could already have been a "well-thought-out" decision by a customer... It pays to dispense with some of our ego and go down to the lees in making more sense of our points rather than offending his ego by snubbing his views... It does take more effort, time and patience to bring the subject under our sway, but its far more effective than the "blind denial" method...

Timex and Titan???

As you said the salesman might lose the customer. He might just move off to the next shop to buy Timex. If you looking at it from just the viewpoint of the cutomer and a sales person, it is the customer who wins. Maybe by following your approach, the salesman may gain a customer. But if you look at it from a macroscopic POV, the Tata Group wins both ways. As Timex and Titan are part of the same Tata Group. Was the usage of both brands done intentionally or a wrong choice of watch brands? If you purposely used Timex and Titan brands, what I said above holds true. If it was unintentional, just ignore the previous para and brush up on company information (just an advice). So it depends on what you see and where you see yourself. That is what I see from your post. BTW: Ranjini didn't you feel that the movie storyline was very similar to 'Dhalapathy'. You noted tinges of Mahabharatha. I noticed tinges of "Ronin". A Google search would allow you to note the allegories of the film with the story of 47 Ronin. What happened to "Virumaandi"? I expected at least a couple of reviews. As I was sick, I was unable to complete my review. It might be ready by tomorrow mostly. As for my banglore trip details, they are not ready yet. But on my train journey to Bangalore, I had a lot of spare time to write. I chose an hour's journey. It is just a description of an hour's journey. I started writing at 4:45 pm and stopped at 5:55pm. You can read it here. A funeral procession I saw while journeying, inspired me to write this. I still have got a few more of my writings I did on the train. I'll have to type them in first. I am a very slow typist.

Delta???

Rini, Just now I watched the movie last night. I thought I may be able to give a review by tomorrow. But you beat me to it. Ram, should your post title be related to the laws rather than to Delta. I expected a better answer to the question. Try again, Who is Tim Bray?

Party time...

Tomorrow I'm going for a project party... Yippeee...!! This will be my first project party in over 14 months of infy life... we don't have any project parties in my department (SETLabs) as we don't do projects in its literal sense and so there is no budgetary allocation for such parties... The current project I'm supporting will finally be giving me a taste of it... Kavitha has gone for atleast 3 parties in 9 months at infy and ram went for a party in his very first week... so this becomes very significant for me...!!

Robohelp and framemaker

I already have Framemaker. I am about to start downloading Robohelp. Don't worry. I am at iway. The speeds are amazingly fast as I had said to you earlier. You said you had some documentation on FM. How big is it? I am in Yahoo Messenger now. I'll be online probably for the next hour or so fiddling with the templates.

Jax, I have got that Robohelp and Adobe Framemaker software with me... I downloaded the trial version from the sites and having it in a CD. I dont know how could I send those files to you as they both combined comes to around 470 MB. Ok. If you have got any idea tell me so that I can send it to you.

The laws of Delta

I am officially on leave today. I am typing this after a visit to the doctor. Interestingly, checking my mail, I came across a quote that was sent to me. It goes like:

Delta's Law

There are three sides to every story.
The Greek letter delta is a symbol for change in formulas. This triangle can be taken personally to create a philosophy that can be used as laws. For example, the 3 points of a triangle create a possibility space for change. Two points in a debate provide nothing more than a tyranny of dichotomies, whereas adding a third possibility is always more interesting, and closer to the true complexity of life.

Does anyone have any opposing views that this law isn't valid?

Laws of Explanation

The First Law:
When you’re explaining something to somebody and they don’t get it, that’s not their problem, it’s your problem.
The Second Law:
When someone’s explaining something to you and you’re not getting it, it’s not your problem, it’s their problem.

So I guess it must be my problem on both counts. So much for playing advocatus diaboli. Since you guys wanted something interesting, the above two laws are from Tim Bray. Any guesses on who he is?

Obvious...

This blog is not the only source from which one can know things nor this is the only gateway to the outside world… rather the purpose of this blog itself is not to know all the things in its entirety… coz one couldn't... ofcourse getting views from others enrich one's knowledge... but also "Sometimes missing things leads to fortune actions..." see...others are peaceful "as others have missed to participate in this silly issue" My request is to remove all these from the blog and from archives as I want all others to miss all these nonsense... Bye bye Manny

I wonder why...

... I should be going to a girl I had never even laid my eyes on before in my life and say 'I love you' to her. I don't know about you. But I have never believed in love at first sight. Maybe you were talking about some other form of love here. I guess you might be speaking from experience regarding unseen words. Manny, I am glad that you know what a team means. As for the part about reaching out to the world, As you had said, I could have done anything with this blog. But I am interested in getting everyone's views before that, not two or three. Anyway for your information, neither Rini nor Srini was interested in enrolling Srini as a member. It was I who requested if we can have him. Since you asked why I haven't added anyone who had asked me to join this blog, I'll tell you the reason. What happened in the past few days is why. I had this plan for sometime as I had explained earlier. I was just wondering if I should tell everyone as a responsible person or just add them and then let you know. I guess now after reading the posts for the past few days, I wouldn't surprised if they decide not to accept the invitations. Surely I wouldn't after all this hullaboo. As I said in my post, you never knew what you are missing.

i am not interested in knowing what a team is all about from u jax... U said...

I have been getting mails from several people asking me to enroll them in the blog. These people were not from msitmmb. I have had requests from U.K., U.S., even one from South Africa and Australia, other than India. The people seem to be interested in joining the blog and participating.

Its as simple as that... why is that u did not have the time to add those to the team...? You cud have reached out to the world by then...ha ha ha ha ha ha... Then coming to the unseen words... Jax try saying "I Love You" to a girl ( cute pretty girl) whom you dont know and see what happens... Of course "I love You" is not an offensive phrase as such and could convey a number of meaning... But when said to a girl what wud be the predominant message conveyed....? ha ha...The slap in your cheek could say u the meaning... I can go on substantiating futher and i can address ur questions...but later...bye bye. I am retiring...

presumptions and misinterpretations

Manny, what does a team mean? "A group of people working towards a common goal". Is that right or do you have any other connotations for a team? As per my earlier post, the description suits the blog aptly. So I am not changing it. BTW, I noticed the lack of the word, 'msitmmb' in the blog description. I cannot see it. Can you? If people want to read unseen words and meanings, it is not going to be the writer's responsibility. Yeah, it was me who 'presumed' that everyone could belong in a group. Maybe I was wrong in that. Going by your "Ennamo ponga" post, I suppose I am not allowed to discuss anything about the blog with anyone else. Am I seeing a sort of NDA here? I cannot post what, say my girlfriend or parent feels about a particular issue, just because it is someone else's thoughts. Isn't that what you were trying to say? Coming to the point of one's views, what do you mean by 'one's view'? If you say, it is your point of view. I have a question, Is that an original thought? Did you think about it, all by yourself, without being influenced by others? (I mean by another person's views through any communication media.) If it was influenced by some other person, it never was your thought at all. I am going too philosophical here, I guess. As for the rest of my post, I feel it is relevant to the blog in terms of ideas, influences, and quite a lot of things. As you said it has been precipated by the recent issue, but this has been on my mind for quite some time. That was why I took two days to respond. But before that, I would like to hear from everyone.

Change the description

I am not afraid and so do all I hope... But Jax please change the blog description and make the blog public... It wud be apt as per ur previous post goes... This blog description below wud have made me and some others feel the way they are now...

"just a team weblog about our work, lives, hopes, dreams, disappointments, disasters, and any other issues that we get time to discuss on."

For the rest that u have discussed....I hope its irrelevant to the present issue and its neither ranjini nor the others who wanted srini to be included in the blog but its u who presumed that he cud be in our group...It is not a no to srini but in generic terms this means something in general though the reason for this issue cud be out of srini... ok Bye bye

No wonder...

No wonder Sriprasath left this group...!! ~~~~~~~~~~ The way to become boring is to say everything. -- Voltaire

Are you afraid?

I want this blog to be closed for non MSITMians.

Hey wait a minute. Who said something about this blog being only for msitmmbians? I never mentioned it when the blog was started. Did anyone else specifically mention that this was only for msitmmbians? I don't think so. I just checked the archives. I found no body saying that this is a limited membership blog.

I am not participating just because the topic is interesting and the discussion is good. But because it is we discussing good topics.

Bala, if this is the core reason for your objection, I guess you might have selective amnesia. We have a group called msitmmb for discussing. We have had discussions in them in the past. So why don't we continue using it. The members are limited to only those who had studied M.S. (IT&M) between 2000 and 2002 at Madurai Kamaraj University. It is everything you want except of course the participation part. Why do you need a blog when you have a group? The raison d'etre for this blog is to be a medium where everyone can post thier views and be subjected to criticism/praises. Since a blog is put onto the Internet, everyone has the right to praise or criticise it. I hope you understand what I am speaking about. It works quite wonderfully. Let me give an example. A few months ago, I posted a link to a CSS House. The designer had mailed me saying that I had projected misleading information. I said that I may be right and sent him a few screenshots. Accordingly, he used the screenshots to improve his design. That is what the web is about - improving people and lives. I recall having telling a few of you that I have been getting mails from several people asking me to enroll them in the blog. These people were not from msitmmb. I have had requests from U.K., U.S., even one from South Africa and Australia, other than India. The people seem to be interested in joining the blog and participating. At first, I had my doubts about them. But on frequent correspondence with them over a period of time, I found that the blog would do great with them participating. I recall a mail I had sent to the 'msitmmb' group. I used the following words (with special emphasis):

"If you want to become a member, the only requisite is 'active' participation. The blogger group is not a form of elite group where only a few are welcome."

Everyone agreed to it, if I remember. Now what happened to you? Selective Amnesia?

If we had no faults, we should not take such pleasure in calling attention to other people’s. - Francois La Rochefoucauld

Incidentally, reading of what a few of you had to say about Rini posting a few of Srini's comments. I feel that what you say is not appropriate. I had posted quite a few citations and quotations like the one above. So do you object saying that I am using someone's observations, instead of my own? Can someone clarify this point? So let me be clear on a few points.

1. The blog was never meant to be only for msitmmbians. Those who want to cater to only a select few like your classmates, please use the msitmmb or mail them individually. Do not post it here.
2. Since the blog is on the Internet, I feel anyone has the right to complain/congratulate anything being said on the blog. If you cannot stomach that thought, it is your problem, not some one else's.
3. Everyone has the right to substantiate what they say. The sources can be from anywhere,from websites, books, other people (both living and dead), as long as they cite the source and do not alter it to suit thier purpose.

Since I brought up this issue in the first place, I did it in the hope of improving everyone. I never thought a few had this idea of the blog being a elite group. They may not know what they are missing out. because there are things you never knew you never knew. I don't know if the blog has helped anyone else. But it surely helped me in understanding quite a lot of things. I expect it to do so in the future too. I don't want to enclose myself within a small limited circle. I want to reach out to the world. A blog is a wonderful tool to do so. That was one of the reasons why I started "Quod scripsi scripsi". I am not afraid of being criticised for my thoughts, my ideas. I can accept it from anyone. That is why I have enabled comments in that blog. The question is "Are You Afraid?"

Ennamo ponga....

There is nothing wrong in presenting ones views as long as he is a member of this blog. If I go on and present the views of the non-bloggers with whom I have my contacts, then it would be like taking our parliamentary affairs to the United Nations Security Council!!!!!!! This is a simple matter…but still a matter of privileges… Hope you people should be remembering a day when our Chitra Mam wanted to be a member of our msitmmb group during the end of our course. We said “NO” to include her in the group, though she wanted to come in our group in order to keep in touch with us…isn’t it… Bye bye then guys and gals…

open or not?

Bala, I guess you can post a list of reasons why this blog should be open to only msitmmbians? Others can post thier views as well (Should the blog be open to only msitmmbians or to everyone?). It would be better if we can list the reasons down. It would be easier to discuss them point by point and also we would not be reiterating the same again and again. I'll post mine soon, mostly by today.

links updated

Hope they are OK now.

a dream come true

Sorry to disturb the discussion in the middle. A long time dream of mine has finally come true. A Movable Type blog. I had been waiting to try it out for a long, long tiem, well almst a year to get my hands on a blog running on MT. After a couple of tries, I finally got a free hosting at Weblogs.us. Pongal seems to be a start of a good month. Initally, I am transporting my "Quod scripsi, scripsi" blog from Blogger to jaxsays.weblogs.us. I have not transferred the entries there completely. Just to keep you informed, I have posted a poem there. Hope you like it. Please update your bookmarks to the new site. Bye and have a happy Pongal. Jax.

The complexity of simplicity

Where did I come from..? Why am I here..? Where am I going from here..? Why does the Universe exist..? These are hardly the tip of an ice berg... submerged deep inside is the rejoinder to these imposing questions... and every attempt to reveal the concealed always leave us with another new vaccuum to encounter... Over the centuries, the human mind has been so much impounded with presumptuous attitudes that the closer we try to move to an answer the farther it gets... Questions keep cropping up about the most fundamental pillars of our belief systems and how they have affected us and continue to affect... The basis of any human's belief system - be it an atheist, agnostic or a believer - is just his/her contemplation of what constitues a "better" living... and this contemplation is in turn ruled by all the presemptuous attitudes I mentioned earlier... The resultant is a menacingly assorted ideology of what could make his/her life to be "perfect"... and again, "perfect" is a relative word... its an iterative progression between what he/she feels is needed for a "perfect" living and where the presemptuous contemplations of the forerunners have left the person standing. A difficult phrase to comprehend..!! Lost amid this mystification of life, the human psyche craves to move towards a calmer, more compassionate, more tolerant and more patient humankind, in search of a logical assessment and approach to our limited understanding of Divinity and Reality... The search may lead some to a logical conclusion, which may not be scientific.. some may never ever reach a convincing conclusion... some may choose to just adopt other's conclusion... and such conclusions compose their belief system - the system they exercise on, to try to unravel the mystification in ways that every unique individual may be most comfortable with... Its not in figuring out where one belongs among this three.. or where one should ideally belong... but in living true to their "conclusion" and appreciate the "conclusion" of others... After all, irrespective of someone feeling good or bad about others "conclusion" the ever-concealed truth of where we came from, where we are going et. al. are never going to change...!! Hopefully.. the after-life (if there is one) may answer it all...!!

my two paisa worth

Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?

If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think whatever you're told.

Thought this essay would be a little useful to everyone involved in the current discussion. Rini, If Srini is willing, You or me can add his name to the members list. Hope it's ok with everyone.

To Jax/Bala

Dear Bala/Jax, i need ur contact numbers at cbe. urgent. buzz me when u come online...I will be online till 6.00 PM. Mahendran

Reply to "Reply to kishore`s words......"

I think I have tailed off the scope of my points.. let me make it clear... Starting on a lighter note.. rini, my title was not "the hunger for beauty" but it was "The hunger of Beauty".. whatever it meant... jax and ram, I meant to use "hunger" as a metaphor for any strife - which could be anything from a handicap to old age to anything under the sun... so there is no question of "motivating" beggars... What practical purpose does the toil of a Poet / Author ..to bring a piece of good poetry really serve? Very valid...!! But the question just begins at this place... if the poet "earns" millions with his poetry, what does he do with that.. does he admire the beauty of a million with costly furnishing of his house or does he also "intend" to utilise a portion of it for social activies... In the same lines, what does the religionist/spiritualist do apart from his material manifestation of his inward vision... what steps does he take to help lesser fortunate ones also enjoy such a spectacle... shouldn't they enjoy too..?? What practical purpose does our Living really serve? How does it helps to feed the hunger of the poor? I may not be able to tell anything on the purpose of "our" living.. but atleast "my" living would certainly bring a satiating smile to as many faces that I can manage (not forgetting my family responsibilities)... that would be the purpose of "my" living... And... just a curious question... What is the purpose of God...??

recent posts and calendar

I have mixed up a concotation of Javascript to solve Ranjini's suggestion. Now if you hover over the links in the recent posts section, the alternate title will display the nickname of the poster. Take a look at Quod scripsi, scripsi. GO to any month in the archives. What abou the calendar present there. Can we use it here? Your ideas are welcome.

on true communication

So Kicha, you say that free access alone would not bring communication, but instead it is up to the individual. Maybe the factor is willingness to participate. I feel that communication can take place only when people are willing to tell something akin to thinking out loud. If they wish that they want others to know something about thier life they will communicate. The 'something' I speak about could be anything: personal anecdotes, work-related, hobbies, in fact anything they wish to. Amazingly I see extremes in communication. I find people who never speak at all in public are vehemont communicators in private. People you wish would close thier mouths for a few minutes never speak at all in an electronic conversation. Seems to be good topic for a research paper. Why does this anomaly occur? Relating to the group/blog, a few point that Kicha made echoes my thoughts. Now, consider in real life, a group of five are discussing. When after a time period, some one begins participating less and less in the discussion. The others try a couple of times to involve the person, but to no avail. Then they start ignoring the person. Has anyone seen an example of this in an electronic discussion? More later, P.S. I am unable to access my postmark id from today morning. So I may not be able to mail anyone. If it starts working again, I'll resume the communications. Those in the know about Lifetree, I will mail you all later.

True communication...

Very thought-provoking quote... It does seem so true with respect to our blog and our group... But in this case the factors are not restricted to the access to communication medium alone... I can give quite a few names who do have unrestricted access to the medium but still are reluctant to participate... Equal access to communication medium is a vital factor.. but not THE factor... a lot depends on the attitude of the person as well.. does he/she really want to get it going... if they do, they would try to eke out some time somewhere and participate even though they may not be as active as a few others.. but if they don't want to.. then give them months of unrestrcited access to hundreds of equivalent media and still u r not going to extract a word out of their mouth...

Things done so far...

1. The title has been adjusted/resized and padding added
2. Recent titles lists all post titles. But it is hard to identify the author. Currently, I am playing around Javascript to work out a method.
3. Padding added to the post, so that it does not touch the borders
4. Archives have ben changed to monthly. But I guess they may take some time to download, due to a large number of posts

Anyone else having any ideas, blog your suggestions. More changes are just round the corner.

Let it begin

Just came across this quote. The quote is known as "Rushkoff's Law of Media".

True communication can only occur between people with equal access to the medium in which the communication is taking place.

It set me thinking. I wonder how far this law or its implications can be true with respect to our blog and our group.

wondering...

A very good question. One I have pondered upon quite many times. I find it easy to drop money to a poor person than to drop in the church. At the same time, I wonder if I am doing right or wrong. Giving them money so that they can eat or allowing them to remain in drudgery. There is a Chinese proverb:

Give a man a fish to eat; he'll not be hungry for a day. But teach him to fish, he'll never be hungry in his life

This has always been a problem when I think of giving alms. So I usually avoid giving money. Instead, I try to give them clothes or other materials, rather than money. I am waiting to hear of anyone has faced such a dilemma.

The hunger of Beauty

From rini's post.. The whole entrance was painted in gold... This brings to my mind one more aspect of life and living that I often ponder... Its been a part of the Indian tradition (I'm not very aware of other ones), to have the idols of gods to be embossed with gold and jewellery costing to a few good deal of rupees... I truely wonder what big significance they might be having... a decoration is needed and a costly decoration might also be.. But why can't some portion of these be channelled towards the needy... The idols do look awesome and do give a serene feeling for all the spiritual hearts.. but I would prefer bread for a person on the steet rather than personal serenity... A lot of temples and trusts taking care of such temples do have the practice of providing food and rendering a helping hand to a lot of people.. but still a very huge amount seems to be spent on the beautification of the temples and the idols which beyond a limit seems to serve no practical purpose... Lord Venkateshwara in Tirupathi, wearing a diamond studded crown worth 50 lakh rupees sure looks wonderful and does give a refreshing feeling to all the thousands of people craving to have a peek at Him... But how does it help my hunger...

a treat to watch

A decade old dream was about to come true, A four year craving about to be satisfied. I shifted my weight to position my body better in the chair. The room was dark. As the screen began to clear from black, I was high. The music, haunting yet uplifting filled my ears. The next three hours was the ride of my life, my emotions riding a rollercoaster. At the end, I felt as if I had lost a good companion. 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' - Seems to be a lofty pompous name for the title of a movie. The book was a wonderfully scripted work of art. The movie went one better. It brought the book to life. There are critics who say that Peter Jackson has taken some liberties with the book in the movie. They always say that. Even personally, I was disappointed by the absence of Christopher Lee as Saruman. Setting those things apart, LOTR:ROTK was a rich feast. A feast for everyone. There was quite a lot of technical wizardry behind each frame in the movie. The locations were a treat to watch. It is difficult to believe that places like these really exist. The extensive sets, especially Minas Tirith was breathtaking. The characterisation were so beautiful. The transformation of Smegol into Gollum, which formed the introduction, was just a prelude to what was to come. The beautiful picturisation of the The battle sequences, Osilogarth and the siege of Minas Tirith were not as long as the battle of Helm's Deep in TTW. Yet they were a showcase of amazing battle scenes. The yearning of Eowyn for Aragorn was subdued in the movie, but Tolkien's strongest woman character was just reduced to mouthing insipid dialogues and brandishing a pretty little sword. The funnny thing about the movie was that the bad guys were not given any importance. They just came and left without much ado. The scene where Faramir goes to battle against all odds was touching, but the sub-plot was jarring. The music score by James Horner was totally amazing. Must try to get the soundtrack of the movie. This movie is definitely worth watching more than a couple of times. Totally I was satisfied with the trilogy, not like the Matrix trilogy. The movies were enhanced by technology, not dependent on it like the Matrix trilogy. I have planned on taking a day off and watching the LOTR trilogy back to back. Go and see it. I wonder what Tolkien would have said if he could see his beloved Middle Earth come to life in the movies.

views...

jax, I too think the positioning of the name of the author doesn't look appealing despite its logically correct placing... may be, the "by jax" could be aligned with the title and time of post appearing a little below it or below the post... The font also could have been smaller by design rather than requiring adjustments to IE Text options.. may be some other standard font like arial with a lesser size might be handy.. check on that...

missing titles

The title of the post and the post info ( by XXX and posted on YYYY) are perfectly aligned with the title on the left and the post info on the right. The case of the post info hanging in the middle may occur only when someone forgets to give a title to thier post. Keep your comments coming in...

Movie Reviews

Over the past three days, I watched the following movies. Here are my reviews of the movies.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King I guess I need not give a gist of the story. The movie warrants a detailed post. I'll put it later.
• The Hunted In the green woods of Silver Falls, Oregon, Aaron Hallam, a trained assassin AWOL from the Special Forces, keeps his own brand of wildlife vigil. After brutally slaying four deer hunters in the area, FBI Special Agent Abby Durrell turns to L.T. Bonham-- the one man who may be able to stop him. At first L.T. resists the mission. Snug in retirement, he's closed off to his past, the years he spent in the Special Forces training soldiers to become skilled murderers. But when he realizes that these recent slayings are the work of a man he trained, he feels obligated to stop him. Accepting the assignment under the condition that he works alone, L.T. enters the woods, unarmed--plagued by memories of his best student and riddled with guilt for not responding to Aaron's tortured letters to him as he began to slip over the edge of sanity. Furious as he is with his former mentor for ignoring his pleas for help, Aaron knows that he and L.T. share a tragic bond that is unbreakable. And, even as they go into their final combat against each other, neither can say with certainty who is the hunted and who is the hunter.
  
  My comments: It was wonderful. Can watch it more than once. This movie reminds me of David Morrell's works. It was ironic, reading a novel and watching a movie that were so similar.
• Confidence: A con man gets into big trouble when unknowingly tries to scam an accountant that works for a mafia kingpin. Now, he has to pull off yet another scam to pay the mafia off before they get tired and decide to "collect their losses." Confidence is one of those heist films with plenty of twists, a lot of characters who are guaranteed to back stab at least once and flashy direction to put everything together. It is quite clear that by the end of the movie.
  
  My comments: It was interesting, humorous and twisting. Can watch it once or twice (if you like the dialogues).
• The Identity: Caught in a savage rainstorm, ten travelers are forced to seek refuge at a strange desert motel. They soon realize they've found anything but shelter. There is a killer among them and, one by one, they are murdered. As the storm rages on and the dead begin to outnumber the living, one thing becomes clear: Each of them was drawn to the motel, not by accident or circumstance, but by forces beyond imagination, forces that promise anyone who survives a mind-bending and terrifying destiny...
  
  My comments: It was a nice thrilling horror movie. Can watch it once.
• Ennaku 20 Unnakku 18: I guess this film does not need any story line.
  
  My comments: Yet another copy of Serendipity. The only best thing about the movie was the music. There were mistakes galore in the movie as expected from a Tamil film.
• Janasheen: The newspapers seemd to say the movie was good. So this was my first Hindi movie for quite sometime. I don't know what the title means. Maybe someone can elucidate on it.
  
  My comments: It was a typical Hindi masala film. The usual baddies, songs in foreign locations, fights ad romances and infuriating makeup and dresses. THe one thing I liked in the movie was the bike race. It was filmed beautifully. I don't know if it was an archived footage or it was shot for the movie.

At last,

After eight days, someone has noticed that the layout has changed. Coming to Ranjini's points:

1. Font Sizes: I feel an explanation for the font size is required. I have used 'em' as a font size measurement. An 'em' is the size that a capital em, 'M' occupies on your screen. This is a relative unit of measurement. If you resize your text size, using the "View > Text Size" option in IE or "Control + or Control -" in Mozilla browsers, the text size reduces or enlarges. This is not possible when a fixed measurement unit like pixels are used. I'll reduce them as requested.
2. Font Style: Different fonts were used only to distuinguish between items like Dates, Titles and Posts. A serif font like Times New Roman or Georgia is used for the Date. Sans-serif fonts like Verdana, Arial, Trebuchet are used for the rest of the items. Since the fonts installed in a system may differ from user to user, I have used only the common fonts.
3. Style Switcher: The Style Switcher is ready. But I didn't want to put it up till I got this stylesheet ready. Since any changes made in this will be reflected there, I decided to wait a little bit.
4. Archives: Since I was using an unordered list, they appear as a really long list. Monthly archives seems to be a good idea as you had suggested. Will try and see how that works. I had an idea of using a archive section just like the one you see when you login into blogger. But it would take some little programming work in Javascript. If any of our prog. geniuses can help me out, it would be really wonderful.
5. Blogrolling: Actually, I was thinking of eliminating it. The current blogrolling section is an external script called from Blogrolling. Since Javascript slows down the page a little bit, I was thinking of transferring everything to a manually maintained link. This would also allow everyone to have a list of favorite links/bookmarks. Need to discuss about this in detail.

Other minor corrections are in place. This is a work in progress as I had mentioned in my post. So WYSTMNBWYST.

A Legacy called Steve

After Sachin Tendulkar held a catch at deep square leg he had just run a few paces when he stopped and with a hitherto unseen uniformity started clapping his hands... and so did everyone in the Indian cricket team and so did the entire 40,000+ audience at the Sydney Cricket Ground... for, he had just sounded the final gong to draw to the close a legacy... a legacy called Steve... Stephen Rodger Waugh had a rather ordinary start to his career with 18 runs in his first test.. little did he think that he would play for that many more years to come... He was not a naturally gifted batsman as his brother Mark, but he had his own imaculate style and an indomitable grit that won many a lost match for his team. The world called him the "ice man" when as a young 21 year old lad he bowled splendid emotionless spells to help his team win the '87 World Cup... But the real steel in him came out in the 1995 away series in West Indies.. where he braved some fierce bowling and stood ground with a finely carved century to beat the Windies in a series for the first time in over a decade... When he took over the mantle from Mark Taylor, he had already a strong team at his disposal... all he had to do was to continue the momentum set by his predecessor.. but he had a rather sombre start drawing against West Indies... his captaincy drew flak from the media... but it was not before long that they had to eat their own words... He has always been seen by the cricketing fraternity as a man for the crisis... The unbeaten 120 against South Africa in the '99 World Cup, is probably the best One Day innings I ever watched live... and his famous words to Gibbs when he dropped him in the middle that innings "mate, you've just dropped the World Cup" is still etched in every mind.. Steve could never have been so true.. Gibbs did drop the world cup... He was class apart from his other counterparts.. his personal definition of the so-called Aussie sledging was different... neither does he have the theatrical histrionics of Brett Lee when he takes a wicket nor has he ever been as noisy as their "famous" slip cordon... When Ganguly was hit on the head by Lee... amid a lot din from the slip cordon he went close and asked "Are u fine Saurav..?".. He also did his bit of parenting too... when the little kid, Parthiv Patel's typical adolescent gimmick at him made him softly tell "Learn to show respect, Parthiv. You were in nappies when I started playing"... just like he would advise his son... The greatness of this man is not just on the field... But he has done his bit with the Udayan foundation in Kolkota that takes care of the orphans and children of lepers.. one could see the glow in every child's eyes there as Steve pays his routine visit.. the banner "We love you Steve" held by a small girl when he stepped in, says it all about him... A cricketer par excellence and a human beyond the ordinary... The sun might have set.. but the shine remains...

book review

Here are a couple of books I read last week. "Along Came A Spider" was my first James Patterson novel. It was also his first novel featuring Alex Cross. Though the novel was not that great in terms of the storyline, the characterisation was impeccable. Those characters were totally real-life. I loved it. The book was an amalgam of a kidnapping story, multiple murders and psychos with a few insanely infuriating twists thrown in. It was made into a movie, starring Morgan Freeman as Alex Cross. Now I am looking forward to meeting Alex Cross in "Kiss The Girls". David Morrell's "Testament" began with the line,"It was the last morning the four of them would ever be together." After that it was one of the most shocking story of what it means to be hunted. For journalist Reuben Bourne the nightmare begins when he breaks a promise to cast a paramilitary white supremacy group in a favorable light-a fateful decision that will shatter his life. A basically peaceful man with a paradoxical attraction for violence, Reuben suddenly faces an enemy driven by an obsessive, unrelenting hate. Now to survive this ordeal, he must lead his family on a desperate flight into the wilderness-a world as harsh and unforgiving as the fanatics who hunt him. The story has a totally unexpected shocking ending. I really did not expect the novel to end like that.

a deserted desert?

The desert is never dead. Life is always present. Thouugh it may not be visible on the surface, it is ever present beneath it. The seasons keep changing but the order in which they arrive never change at all. Some planters might have left, some biding time. As they should know by now, there is a time for sowing and a time for reaping. And there is always a time between reaping and sowing. Perhaps it is that time now... awaiting the rain to fall...

A Semi-arid desert

It was an interesting patch of land. Initially, there was not much to say about the lengthy strip.. no one knew it could ever be of some use to someone in the first place... then, time moved on and there were some early planters who observed this barren patch could be of some use to them.. and they started planting.. but with a little caution at first... It did not take much time for them to realise the potential that lay buried underneath this scratchy surface... they just had to wait a little longer to see the richness in their hands.. just as the good people that they were... they took this exciting discovery to the outside world.. and soon there were more planters and more richness coming their way... people learnt the secret of differentiating wasteland from rich land.. and inturn succeeded in finding more such lands and more planation and more cultivation and more richness and more prosperity... As the days moved on.. the initial patch of land seemed a sensation no more.. for it was not the only thing around now.. there were many such... the people sure were growing richer but this land that was the first of its kind and a noble servant for a handful of planters now seemed to be losing its lustre.. its initial discoverers have seen more of its kind and have too much already to think about and are in no big ideas patting this patch as they did in the early days... It now needs some real "change" to make this already semi-arid desert into the lush fertile terrain that everyone loves... If u understand what I'm talking......

the first few days

It felt that someone had hit the replay button. Last year started in sickness. This year, it was a repeat. Spending the day at home sick is no fun indeed. The beginning of a new year, the air abuzz with enthusiasm and eagerness for the new year. The first time I went out in the new year was to relatives’ and friends’ homes. That was my only sojourn for the next couple of days. By late evening, I was sick and bed-ridden. Memories of the previous year flashed across my mind. It was ironic. New Year’s Eve, I was standing in the church braving the elements, while my friend nearby complained it was cold and wore a jacket. Twenty hours later, it was my turn to shiver in the cold. The next couple of days were spent indoors. Unlike last year, I didn’t have to suffer much. Just a feeling of frustration on not being able to go about my regular chores pervaded my thoughts. For the first time in almost three days, I emerged out on Saturday, planning to spend sometime in the sunshine. It was not meant to be. The skies were gloomy and dark. Rain looked certain. So I returned home with a mood as black as the skies above. Another day gone in the new year. I had not even done anything worthwhile yet. Is it the shape of thing to come this year? Three days later, yesterday was really the first day of the year for me. I went out to play early morning in the cold, protected from the chill by a thick windcheater. A good couple of hours play brought back the vigor for the new year. Somehow, I have put the past few days behind me. Now let us see how the new year is going to turn out to be.

My New year

It was a wonderful new year day for me. Simply because, I did nothing all day.. and yet did a lot of things...!! The previous night, I went to a hotel with my house-mates and we were up there at the stroke of new year.. and came back home around 1.30AM... slept a few minutes later and woke up early in the morning at 9AM... It was a holiday for me... Everyone else had left for work... and there was no cricket on TV to bring out the couch potato in me.. I was all alone at home.. all to myself... I relished the sound of a staggering silence... there was a calm I never experienced in a long time.. the solitude was ecstatic... I spent time in bed introspecting on my recent past few years.. sequels of my disappointments, successes, promises, thought-waves reeled in front of my eyes... I praised my triumphs, thanked for my achievements, prayed over my failures and chuckled my naughty nit-wits.. I sat with the "Speedpost" book and started reading a few pages... and that only added to the already brimming delight... the way Shoba De had described her childhood and the comparision to her children's childhood sent ripples of thought of my childhood... its amazing how mothers could be so similar... we do owe a lot to this gracious species called mother... It was late in the evening when I finally decided to peep into what the idiot box had in store for me... as I switched on... MTV was up, and I saw a black-and-white picture of a railway station, where Palash (of Euphoria) was standing with his guitar... that brought a wide smile to my face.. one of my favorite songs was just starting... "Mai Re" by Euphoria... and the song kept up its hum all through that evening as I looked up to drawing the line on one of the most blissful days of my life... How better to start a new year...!!

Belated Wishes

Wish you an extremely prosperous, recession-controlled, economically-stimulated, interest-rate-reduced, employment-filled, portfolio-rebounding, debt-free, bonus-filled, war-free, air-safe, terrorist-free, friends-filled, family-growing, healthy, joyous, cheerful, and most importantly, a Business-generating, Revenue-rich New Year.