Governor Sarah Palin's yahoo email id was hacked on Sep 17 2008. You can find more about the hacking here. This incident exposed the weakest form of password protection Yahoo practiced for years. The hacker used the reset the password option of Yahoo mail to reset Sarah Palin's email account to reset the password to a new password and then logged in using the new password.
Until this incident happened resetting password in yahoo was very simple. The three steps to hacking are as follows. Click on forgot password link on the mail.yahoo.com page after entering the username. Yahoo will ask you answer to a secret question. If you can guess the correct answer of this question then Yahoo will let you reset the password to a new password of your choice. How convenient!! As long as you know someone's pet's name or birth city or mom's maiden name this three steps will enable you to get into their yahoo mail account.
Unlike Yahoo, Gmail and other online accounts do not let anonymous users / hackers to reset your password. When password reset option is used in Gmail, Gmail sends a reset link to the users's secondary email account and Gmail requires the user to go to secondary email address to reset the password. This adds additional security to the system.
Within few days of Sarah Palin's password hacking incident I tried to reset my password in yahoo and found that it was a walk in the park for anyone who knew my first pets name, which includes almost every one of my friends!!! People at Yahoo must have been embarrassed by this incident that they finally decided to change the password reset option of Yahoo mail accounts. As the result of the change any reset attempt on my yahoo mail will result in sending a reset password link to my secondary email and thanks to Sarah Palin my email is more secure.
Although the governor couldn't convince enough people to vote for her she has certainly helped us in making our Yahoo email ids more secure.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The shrinking web
The launch of Apple iphone shook the smart phone market and has resulted in a fierce competition for dominance of smart phone market. On Monday Nov 10 2008 wireless research group NPD released a report revealing that Apple Incorporated’s iPhone 3G had become the top-selling handset throughout the United States
No matter who ends up being on top of this smart phone war, one thing is clear, consumers are getting a wide range of options accessing internet from their mobile devices and as a result almost all popular websites have developed mobile phone friendly web pages. The graph below published by Nelson shows the rapid growth in mobile access in US. If this trend of 30% growth in mobile users continues for 5 years, more than 150 million users would be accessing internet from web pages.
No matter who ends up being on top of this smart phone war, one thing is clear, consumers are getting a wide range of options accessing internet from their mobile devices and as a result almost all popular websites have developed mobile phone friendly web pages. The graph below published by Nelson shows the rapid growth in mobile access in US. If this trend of 30% growth in mobile users continues for 5 years, more than 150 million users would be accessing internet from web pages.
Currently all the top 10 websites in Alexa.com's most visited sites have a mobile version of their websites. As of Nov 2008 the top 10 sites are Google, Yahoo, Myspace, Youtube, Facebook, Live.com, msn, wikipedia, ebay and AOL. If this trend continues almost every website will have a smaller sized, mobile friendly webpage. Many of this websites will continue to have both wide screen and mobile webpages running in parallel so its not a complete shinking of all the pages of the web but if you consider the average size of all the webpages you will notice the shrinking.
If the last 5 or 10 years saw non-IT companies being aggressive in getting their web pages ready for the regular internet users and the next 5 years should see more and more non-IT companies developing mobile friendly pages not only because it is necessary for revenue generation but also for making their businesses visible to a wider population. It is also a good time for developer to finally have a compelling reason to use MVC ( model View Controller) and other architecture patterns which have the separation of visualization, business logic and data at its core.
If the last 5 or 10 years saw non-IT companies being aggressive in getting their web pages ready for the regular internet users and the next 5 years should see more and more non-IT companies developing mobile friendly pages not only because it is necessary for revenue generation but also for making their businesses visible to a wider population. It is also a good time for developer to finally have a compelling reason to use MVC ( model View Controller) and other architecture patterns which have the separation of visualization, business logic and data at its core.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Smart and Stupid government rescue plans
US and along with it the rest of the world is facing a severe credit crisis today. A large number of banks are facing credit crunch and are at risk of a being put through a "run on the bank" and a susequent collapse. Some of these banks are too big to fail. If they fail then they will have a domino effect and result in other bank failures and trigger a collapse in the economic activity by credit freeze or a cardiac arrest of the banking system.
What should the government do? Should it stand by and watch the destruction of the market system until inflation reaches 2000% like Zimbabwe or do something to stop the bleeding and stimulate the system back to normalcy?
The government is the ultimate god father of our era and government should bring confidence to market place so that economic activity goes back to normalcy. How should government intervene ?
Should government be stupid enough to buy all the CDS ( Credit Default Swaps ) and derivatives which has no value and socialize the losses of the banks ? No absolutely not. Should it listen to a ex CEO Goldman Sachs for advice on rescuing wall street. No way! even eight graders should know better than that.
If financial system needs capital then governmet should provide capital by buying equity positions in the trouble financial institutions or like Warren Buffest negotiate a sweet deal with the troubled banks to get equity at highly discounted price.
lets take an example:
If Bank of America need 80 billion to write off bad loans then government should give it 80 billion but not by buying toxic derviates but by buying equity in Bank of America. This gurantees that government is buying a stake in the pofits and losses of the bank and is essestial providing gurantee that the banks won't fail which sould be good enough to restore confidence in the bank.
Let government buy into all major troubled banks and save them from credit crisis but it should never be stupid enough to buy only the bad loans at higher than market price instead it should get an equity for every tax payer dollar it spends.
It would be useful for our "god father' or the government to get out the market system in long term future when the markets starts to function again so that banks can be free to do what's best for them and government can focus on its core functions of national security, law and order, protection of enviornment and investment in human development and sciences which usually don't find any private investment.
I hope government would be smart with the tax payer money and not socialize private sector losses.
What should the government do? Should it stand by and watch the destruction of the market system until inflation reaches 2000% like Zimbabwe or do something to stop the bleeding and stimulate the system back to normalcy?
The government is the ultimate god father of our era and government should bring confidence to market place so that economic activity goes back to normalcy. How should government intervene ?
Should government be stupid enough to buy all the CDS ( Credit Default Swaps ) and derivatives which has no value and socialize the losses of the banks ? No absolutely not. Should it listen to a ex CEO Goldman Sachs for advice on rescuing wall street. No way! even eight graders should know better than that.
If financial system needs capital then governmet should provide capital by buying equity positions in the trouble financial institutions or like Warren Buffest negotiate a sweet deal with the troubled banks to get equity at highly discounted price.
lets take an example:
If Bank of America need 80 billion to write off bad loans then government should give it 80 billion but not by buying toxic derviates but by buying equity in Bank of America. This gurantees that government is buying a stake in the pofits and losses of the bank and is essestial providing gurantee that the banks won't fail which sould be good enough to restore confidence in the bank.
Let government buy into all major troubled banks and save them from credit crisis but it should never be stupid enough to buy only the bad loans at higher than market price instead it should get an equity for every tax payer dollar it spends.
It would be useful for our "god father' or the government to get out the market system in long term future when the markets starts to function again so that banks can be free to do what's best for them and government can focus on its core functions of national security, law and order, protection of enviornment and investment in human development and sciences which usually don't find any private investment.
I hope government would be smart with the tax payer money and not socialize private sector losses.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Innovation is the only way to increase wages
Have you ever wondered how wages rise? I am sure everyone wants to know when their salaries are going to rise but its sometimes trickier to understand why we get a raise and why average salaries are going up from year to year, decade to decade.
When I say innovation is the only way to increase wages I mean that innovation is the only way average salary for the workers can increase. To be more precise I am talking about real increase in wages and not nominal increase in wages which compensates for the rising living costs due to inflation.
What does increase in wages imply ? An increase in average wages above inflation implies that we as an economy or society is creating more wealth and therefore can consume more. If we need to consume more we need to produce more. How does the same society or economy produce more with same number of workers? Innovation. We find new efficient ways to do the same work and produce more with less input. We discover new energy resources and this can enable us to consume more but that will not definitely give the kind of increase in production innovation can provide.
Scientific pursuit has given as machines, business processes, computers, factories, cell phones, cars etc which increase our productivity and hence more wages and has enabled as to consume more. Next time you worry about wages its a good idea to remember all those people who found innovative ways of completing our tasks with less human and mechanical energy. Long live innovation.
When I say innovation is the only way to increase wages I mean that innovation is the only way average salary for the workers can increase. To be more precise I am talking about real increase in wages and not nominal increase in wages which compensates for the rising living costs due to inflation.
What does increase in wages imply ? An increase in average wages above inflation implies that we as an economy or society is creating more wealth and therefore can consume more. If we need to consume more we need to produce more. How does the same society or economy produce more with same number of workers? Innovation. We find new efficient ways to do the same work and produce more with less input. We discover new energy resources and this can enable us to consume more but that will not definitely give the kind of increase in production innovation can provide.
Scientific pursuit has given as machines, business processes, computers, factories, cell phones, cars etc which increase our productivity and hence more wages and has enabled as to consume more. Next time you worry about wages its a good idea to remember all those people who found innovative ways of completing our tasks with less human and mechanical energy. Long live innovation.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
The unselfish "selfish gene"
Casual observation of animals seems to suggest that they all hunt, kill, defend and live for themselves but humans seems to be compassionate about each other or at least compassionate to immediate family which is unseen among animals. How is this possible if humans are results of evolution like other species? Shouldn't Humans be selfish like other animals? Human are compassionate and care about other humans so they must be different from other species and hence they must be created by god!!???
Are we betraying our natural instincts when we act selflessly to save our family and friends? Will a person unexposed to religious dogmas ever be compassionate??? Is religion necessary to make human care about each others' welfare??
Richard Dawkins in his famous book the god delusion has given a very compelling explanation for the above questions by explaining how natural selection and human evolution might have made humans compassionate and why religions do not have almost nothing to do with instilling love and brotherhood in us.
Evolutionary explanation for compassion and brotherhood. Humans unlike tigers and lions hunted in packs right from the early days when our ancestors were Chimps. Hunting and gathering food in groups required each memeber of the group to help out the other members of the group so that they could survive bigger enemies and also other tribes of hunters. Those tribes which believed in a common brotherhood and actively helping each other during conflicts will be more capable of winning wars between groups of humans. Humans were dominating most of the other animals due to their ability to make weapons and climb trees so most powerful enemy they had was other humans themselves.
The compassionate tribes and hunting packs of humans would have been more successful in overcoming wars and famine and disease while the selfish tribes perished resulting in a natural selection and procreation of those genes which were compassionate slowly but steadily the compassionate genes were more successful in moving to the next generation.
This argument clearly shows how humans could be compassionate at a group level due to evolutionary reasons without religious teachings although at individual level every one of us still has the selfish gene which would prefer its own survival more than anything else in the world.
Are we betraying our natural instincts when we act selflessly to save our family and friends? Will a person unexposed to religious dogmas ever be compassionate??? Is religion necessary to make human care about each others' welfare??
Richard Dawkins in his famous book the god delusion has given a very compelling explanation for the above questions by explaining how natural selection and human evolution might have made humans compassionate and why religions do not have almost nothing to do with instilling love and brotherhood in us.
Evolutionary explanation for compassion and brotherhood. Humans unlike tigers and lions hunted in packs right from the early days when our ancestors were Chimps. Hunting and gathering food in groups required each memeber of the group to help out the other members of the group so that they could survive bigger enemies and also other tribes of hunters. Those tribes which believed in a common brotherhood and actively helping each other during conflicts will be more capable of winning wars between groups of humans. Humans were dominating most of the other animals due to their ability to make weapons and climb trees so most powerful enemy they had was other humans themselves.
The compassionate tribes and hunting packs of humans would have been more successful in overcoming wars and famine and disease while the selfish tribes perished resulting in a natural selection and procreation of those genes which were compassionate slowly but steadily the compassionate genes were more successful in moving to the next generation.
This argument clearly shows how humans could be compassionate at a group level due to evolutionary reasons without religious teachings although at individual level every one of us still has the selfish gene which would prefer its own survival more than anything else in the world.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Lound conversations in planes and silent elevators
When groups of people get into an elevator they usually stop their conversations and become silent all of a sudden and the silence sometimes suffocates everyone there but no one says a word until they get out the elevators. I think this is good gesture which ensures that the elevators riders don't bother each other with details of their private lives. When the same group of people get into a public transportation system like a bus or a plane this rule somehow dies.
It is really difficult to listen to people elaborating the tiny details of their lives loud enough for at least 25 passengers in the bus or flight. I recently had a horrible experience in a flight to Austin when a lady behind me started playing with the small kid of another passenger. She was so loud in here conversations to the baby that made me believe that either baby has hearing difficult or she wants everyone else in the plane to know that she would become and excellent mother if given a chance because she is totally capable of singing all the nursery rhymes loud enough for 10 or 25 kids..
If people could extend the elevator silences to buses and flights or at least keep the conversations quite know for 4 or 5 people around them then public transportations would be much better experiences.
It is really difficult to listen to people elaborating the tiny details of their lives loud enough for at least 25 passengers in the bus or flight. I recently had a horrible experience in a flight to Austin when a lady behind me started playing with the small kid of another passenger. She was so loud in here conversations to the baby that made me believe that either baby has hearing difficult or she wants everyone else in the plane to know that she would become and excellent mother if given a chance because she is totally capable of singing all the nursery rhymes loud enough for 10 or 25 kids..
If people could extend the elevator silences to buses and flights or at least keep the conversations quite know for 4 or 5 people around them then public transportations would be much better experiences.
Are men wired to be polygamous?
According to most studies including this one http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/infidelitystats.html more men cheat on their spouses than women. Is there an evolutionary explanation for this? The most commonly seen sociological explanation is that females have an incentive to stay faithful to one strong male in the group to ensure the successful growth of the next generation but one flaw with this argument is that this does not explain why the male would not care about the offspring's future and be loyal to the mother to ensure that offspring is safe and healthy.
Let's assume that in the beginning all males and all females are monogamous and then by genetic mutation (evolution) one of the males genes becomes a cheater and starts to have multiple partners. The cheater male gene then spreads in the population as a cheater male can have 100s of children while a monogamous male gene can only have 10 to 12 children if they stay with the same women for their entire life. What about cheating female genes ?
What is the evolutionary advantage of having multiple partners for a male that the female doesn't have? If a human male has 10 partners in an year then it possible for the male to have 10 children in a year provided the group can provide for the healthy growth all the children while a female can have only one offspring no matter how many partners she has so there is no incentive for the females of the human species to take the additional risk of finding multiple mates when it doesn't provide them more children. Cheater genes may die of due to additional risk taken by the cheater woman.
Natural selection from such a behavior will result in a population which becomes increasing has more and more polygamous males and monogamous females but this does not happen in reality and why?
An opposing force for this polygamous behavior of men could be the death of children who do not get enough care from the fathers and there by resulting in the decline of the polygamous genes. Polygamous genes would only survive only when the father has only few children so that the family or human group can support new born kids. This two opposing forces would then should find a balance where the polygamous genes remains polygamous but at the same time the degree of polygamy or number of partners is limited so that the survival of the children is sustainable.
If similar natural selection of genes where to take place in woman then woman would then become a serial monogamist because although woman doesn't have any incentive to have multiple partners at any one time they will have more children if they continuously have partners when first partners no longer mates with them and provides children. The serial monogamous gene can only survive if the number of children created as the result of the serial monogamy is limited so that the human group tribe can support the growth or survival of the children produced as the result of serial monogamy.
Let's assume that in the beginning all males and all females are monogamous and then by genetic mutation (evolution) one of the males genes becomes a cheater and starts to have multiple partners. The cheater male gene then spreads in the population as a cheater male can have 100s of children while a monogamous male gene can only have 10 to 12 children if they stay with the same women for their entire life. What about cheating female genes ?
What is the evolutionary advantage of having multiple partners for a male that the female doesn't have? If a human male has 10 partners in an year then it possible for the male to have 10 children in a year provided the group can provide for the healthy growth all the children while a female can have only one offspring no matter how many partners she has so there is no incentive for the females of the human species to take the additional risk of finding multiple mates when it doesn't provide them more children. Cheater genes may die of due to additional risk taken by the cheater woman.
Natural selection from such a behavior will result in a population which becomes increasing has more and more polygamous males and monogamous females but this does not happen in reality and why?
An opposing force for this polygamous behavior of men could be the death of children who do not get enough care from the fathers and there by resulting in the decline of the polygamous genes. Polygamous genes would only survive only when the father has only few children so that the family or human group can support new born kids. This two opposing forces would then should find a balance where the polygamous genes remains polygamous but at the same time the degree of polygamy or number of partners is limited so that the survival of the children is sustainable.
If similar natural selection of genes where to take place in woman then woman would then become a serial monogamist because although woman doesn't have any incentive to have multiple partners at any one time they will have more children if they continuously have partners when first partners no longer mates with them and provides children. The serial monogamous gene can only survive if the number of children created as the result of the serial monogamy is limited so that the human group tribe can support the growth or survival of the children produced as the result of serial monogamy.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
How can US reduce wars around the world
War is an expensive business, I hear 2 billion US dollars are spent every week in Iraq war now (Sep 2007). US is running a huge trade deficit but it is still spending huge amounts of money on war why?
Who benefits from war? Whenever there's crime the first question asked is " who benefits most from the crime?" and many times answering this simple question can solve many crime mysteries. Well for war the answer is simple, the companies who make weapons benefit from the war more than anyone else.
Imagine an industry that doesn't have any customers in peace and suddenly find trillions of dollars worth of revenue in times of war. Wouldn't that industry be interested in having wars every once in a while? Hell yeah. Weapon manufacturing companies would try all possible means of creating wars between nations, or wars inside nations also know as "civil wars".Look at this for sample revenues for 2002 http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/top10fy02.html
I'm huge fan of capitalist system and I believe capitalism brings efficiency to everything it touches. In case of war and weapons capitalism helps the world to make most modern weapons in the most efficient way and when a war is real and necessary countries with private weapon manufacturing like US has advantage over countries like India where weapons are manufactured by government controlled companies. Government run weapons companies are inefficient and produces low quality weapons.
The sad part of private war companies is that they have to lobby constantly to keep the industry alive. If there's no war then there are weapons, if there are no weapons there's no revenue no profit. So for war companies civil wars in Africa, Israel Palestinian war, the Iraq war are necessary for providing them revenue. War companies will spend billions of dollars at Washington to lobby the congress, senate, republican and democratic party to make sure that wars keep happening. Its just a simple argument and I don't we need any evidence to prove that these lobbying is real.
How can this negative effect of war capitalism be reduced? Simple naive solution is to prevent congressmen, senators and presidential candidates to from taking contributions from weapon manufacturing companies but this policy will not be effective because investors in wars companies also invest in other non war companies and therefore this non war sister companies of war will lobby for the war companies. An effective solution to this problem would be to take back all the weapon manufacturing from the private companies. Government should take over all war companies including, all kinds of weapons, logistics and ammunition companies. Once government takes over the production of weapons and logistics of war there won't be any lobbying for war, billions of dollars of lobbying money will be saved, trillions of dollars spend in wars will be saved more importantly millions of human life will be saved.
Sometimes capitalism can work against us and war is a good example of that.
Who benefits from war? Whenever there's crime the first question asked is " who benefits most from the crime?" and many times answering this simple question can solve many crime mysteries. Well for war the answer is simple, the companies who make weapons benefit from the war more than anyone else.
Imagine an industry that doesn't have any customers in peace and suddenly find trillions of dollars worth of revenue in times of war. Wouldn't that industry be interested in having wars every once in a while? Hell yeah. Weapon manufacturing companies would try all possible means of creating wars between nations, or wars inside nations also know as "civil wars".Look at this for sample revenues for 2002 http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/top10fy02.html
I'm huge fan of capitalist system and I believe capitalism brings efficiency to everything it touches. In case of war and weapons capitalism helps the world to make most modern weapons in the most efficient way and when a war is real and necessary countries with private weapon manufacturing like US has advantage over countries like India where weapons are manufactured by government controlled companies. Government run weapons companies are inefficient and produces low quality weapons.
The sad part of private war companies is that they have to lobby constantly to keep the industry alive. If there's no war then there are weapons, if there are no weapons there's no revenue no profit. So for war companies civil wars in Africa, Israel Palestinian war, the Iraq war are necessary for providing them revenue. War companies will spend billions of dollars at Washington to lobby the congress, senate, republican and democratic party to make sure that wars keep happening. Its just a simple argument and I don't we need any evidence to prove that these lobbying is real.
How can this negative effect of war capitalism be reduced? Simple naive solution is to prevent congressmen, senators and presidential candidates to from taking contributions from weapon manufacturing companies but this policy will not be effective because investors in wars companies also invest in other non war companies and therefore this non war sister companies of war will lobby for the war companies. An effective solution to this problem would be to take back all the weapon manufacturing from the private companies. Government should take over all war companies including, all kinds of weapons, logistics and ammunition companies. Once government takes over the production of weapons and logistics of war there won't be any lobbying for war, billions of dollars of lobbying money will be saved, trillions of dollars spend in wars will be saved more importantly millions of human life will be saved.
Sometimes capitalism can work against us and war is a good example of that.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Slums are good for the economy
Slums are good for the economy. The portion of land which is currently a slum is best utilized as slum. Had it not been slum it would have been some piece of land owned by the government which is left uncared and unproductive. If government had some need for the this piece of land then the land would not have been left unoccupied and uncared.
Slum land could have been more productive if it were private property but then if the land had been a private property there wouldn't have been any slum in the first place. So slum lands are more or less unoccupied government land.
Though slums make barren lands productive by giving houses to working masses in city. It creates lots of visual pollution and unhygienic life. For all the other disadvantages of slums its necessary to make sure that there is no barren , unoccupied land in cities where ppl are disparate to settle down.
Slums can be removed from a city just like weeds from a garden. Make the land private property of the slum dwellers or remove the slum dwellers and use the land for construction for the government or sell it. Just as the best way to remove weeds to cultivate thick grass or plants so that there is no clear land for the weeds to come up.
If the land is given to the slum dwellers then they will make as productive as other property surrounding it by construction there or by selling it to people who can make it productive.
Slum land could have been more productive if it were private property but then if the land had been a private property there wouldn't have been any slum in the first place. So slum lands are more or less unoccupied government land.
Though slums make barren lands productive by giving houses to working masses in city. It creates lots of visual pollution and unhygienic life. For all the other disadvantages of slums its necessary to make sure that there is no barren , unoccupied land in cities where ppl are disparate to settle down.
Slums can be removed from a city just like weeds from a garden. Make the land private property of the slum dwellers or remove the slum dwellers and use the land for construction for the government or sell it. Just as the best way to remove weeds to cultivate thick grass or plants so that there is no clear land for the weeds to come up.
If the land is given to the slum dwellers then they will make as productive as other property surrounding it by construction there or by selling it to people who can make it productive.
Absence of god impossible to prove
How can anyone conclusively prove that God doesn't exist. Its not possible as long as all possiblities of Gods existence is proved to be wrong.
Forget all possiblities ,its not possible t0 just prove that God doesn't exist in each and every points in the space (universe). Even if we find a method to check the presence of God a point in space the time required to cover the entire universe is unlimited (non deterministic). so the problem is unsolvable.
Well the funny thing is that its also impossible to prove the absence of elfs, fairies under the garden, Aalis's wonderland, or a flying tea pot. The burden of proof for presence of god is then clearly with proponents of god. Will they be able to prove it ?? I don't believe so.
Forget all possiblities ,its not possible t0 just prove that God doesn't exist in each and every points in the space (universe). Even if we find a method to check the presence of God a point in space the time required to cover the entire universe is unlimited (non deterministic). so the problem is unsolvable.
Well the funny thing is that its also impossible to prove the absence of elfs, fairies under the garden, Aalis's wonderland, or a flying tea pot. The burden of proof for presence of god is then clearly with proponents of god. Will they be able to prove it ?? I don't believe so.
Life is a dream
There are hundreds of different philosophical views on what life is and many people have their own versions of what life actually is. Is it a drama as Shakespeare said or is it a game like Sai Baba say or is it a spiritual journey as many of the religions preach or is it just electrical impulses interpreted by the brain as the movie matrix depicts or is it Maya as Buddha has taught.
I am not a Buddhist nor a spiritualist .What is a dream and why do we call a dream a dream and real life real. A dream is something of very short duration say 10 minutes while our life is comparatively long say 100 years or 876060 minutes. In life, life can be experienced by the five senses and can be measured by scientific instruments similarly in dream, dream can be experienced by the five senses of the character in the dream and the scientific instruments “available” in the dream. The effect of the dream is limited to the dream only once you wake up your life has no effect on what kind of dream you have had similarly once you go out of life or you life end there is no effect of your life on your state after life .Just as a the dream ends without a trace your beautiful life ends without a trace of the person who lead the life.
So the real difference seems to be just the differential in the duration of time we spend in our dream and in the real life. Spiritualist may disagree with me because I don’t refer to soul in dream and life but ironically it is much easier for a spiritualist or anybody who believes in soul to convince himself of the irrelevance of our glorified life and why it is no different from a dream or a nightmare. If you believe in soul then you can now clearly imagine a situation where the soul has several lives one after another of different duration in different parts of the universe and many other lives are of duration of 10 100 solar years then the life we spend on this planet as humans would certainly as irrelevant as a dream .The planets and the stars revolve and rotate at the same place as before, universe keeps on expanding irrespective of what kind of life we lead.
For non spiritualists who believe in things that can only be measured scientifically life is a dream because when one person finishes his life just as he finish his dream he no longer can feel the life he had with his five senses neither can he use the scientific tools he had in his life to feel his life he had.
Well what difference does it make to our lives whether it is a dream or it is an important affair as most of us like to believe? Is it not better to end a life when one find it to be a nightmare, if life is just a dream or a nightmare? Well we could do that but the sad truth is that even if we end the nightmare we go through, there is no assurance of a beautiful dream after it so what best we can do is to try to convince ourselves of the irrelevance of the nightmare and have hope in the nightmare we go through that our nightmare has brighter, beautiful future. For all people who run hard among the rats to be the first it is always better to convince ourselves that it is just a dream and no matter how hard we try to decorate it, it has to end .We can have a life like a dream if we can convince ourselves that life is a dream and all the heartburn and stress and strain is just part of our attempt to glorify our humble existence to satisfy our mysterious ego.
I am not a Buddhist nor a spiritualist .What is a dream and why do we call a dream a dream and real life real. A dream is something of very short duration say 10 minutes while our life is comparatively long say 100 years or 876060 minutes. In life, life can be experienced by the five senses and can be measured by scientific instruments similarly in dream, dream can be experienced by the five senses of the character in the dream and the scientific instruments “available” in the dream. The effect of the dream is limited to the dream only once you wake up your life has no effect on what kind of dream you have had similarly once you go out of life or you life end there is no effect of your life on your state after life .Just as a the dream ends without a trace your beautiful life ends without a trace of the person who lead the life.
So the real difference seems to be just the differential in the duration of time we spend in our dream and in the real life. Spiritualist may disagree with me because I don’t refer to soul in dream and life but ironically it is much easier for a spiritualist or anybody who believes in soul to convince himself of the irrelevance of our glorified life and why it is no different from a dream or a nightmare. If you believe in soul then you can now clearly imagine a situation where the soul has several lives one after another of different duration in different parts of the universe and many other lives are of duration of 10 100 solar years then the life we spend on this planet as humans would certainly as irrelevant as a dream .The planets and the stars revolve and rotate at the same place as before, universe keeps on expanding irrespective of what kind of life we lead.
For non spiritualists who believe in things that can only be measured scientifically life is a dream because when one person finishes his life just as he finish his dream he no longer can feel the life he had with his five senses neither can he use the scientific tools he had in his life to feel his life he had.
Well what difference does it make to our lives whether it is a dream or it is an important affair as most of us like to believe? Is it not better to end a life when one find it to be a nightmare, if life is just a dream or a nightmare? Well we could do that but the sad truth is that even if we end the nightmare we go through, there is no assurance of a beautiful dream after it so what best we can do is to try to convince ourselves of the irrelevance of the nightmare and have hope in the nightmare we go through that our nightmare has brighter, beautiful future. For all people who run hard among the rats to be the first it is always better to convince ourselves that it is just a dream and no matter how hard we try to decorate it, it has to end .We can have a life like a dream if we can convince ourselves that life is a dream and all the heartburn and stress and strain is just part of our attempt to glorify our humble existence to satisfy our mysterious ego.
Free software == stealing
The preachers of free software are none but communist and socialist of the new world they dont believe in right to have private wealth. It's a great thing that many people are ready to give away their software for free and such people are noble men but forcing everyone to give up ideas and codes they have created is nothing but stealing..
free software should be promoted like pro bono service of the lawyers or free medical service . It can be a part time thing for software engineers not their only aim in life.
free software should be promoted like pro bono service of the lawyers or free medical service . It can be a part time thing for software engineers not their only aim in life.
globalisation != imperialism
Many opponents of globalisation consider it as the new face of imperialism and use it as a recurring theme in their speeches against globalisation. Globalisation is actually the antithesis of imperialism. If imperial powers wanted to centralize the and monopolizes the means of production in the world and exploit the nations without technology or capital globalisation demands that the means of production be located at the most economically efficient location.
This means globalisation will result in the spread of production units from the labour expensive western world to the labor cheap nations in the developing world. If imperialism ensured that rich nations remained rich by controlling production units globalisation will ensure movement of production to poorer nations until the labor becomes equally expensive or rather people become equally rich .
This means globalisation will result in the spread of production units from the labour expensive western world to the labor cheap nations in the developing world. If imperialism ensured that rich nations remained rich by controlling production units globalisation will ensure movement of production to poorer nations until the labor becomes equally expensive or rather people become equally rich .
Free software not good
I don't want to spark an Linux versus windows here but i just wanted to point out to my view that the fundamental idea ,the philosophy that software must be given away for free propagated by Stallman and others.
There is no way that this world or software developers r gonna benefit by giving away the software developed for free . If some day more and more people start believing in it and some day if there is legislation for giving away software for free then it would be the end of software development at the pace with which it is growing today. Don't assume that the day will never come coz if we cud have so many communist nations few years back then even this is a possibility.
The question of open source or closed source must be completely left to the developer of the code coz he is the best judge in finding if an open source will make his software stronger ,secure as some people claim and at the same time ensure he gets his intellectual property rights. If someday Microsoft or oracle or java ,to name a few, feel that their interests are better served then let them open up their source code.
It will only be discriminatory if software developers are forced to open up the source code through a legislation as most of the other industries still have the right to keep their trade secrets secret .
There is no way that this world or software developers r gonna benefit by giving away the software developed for free . If some day more and more people start believing in it and some day if there is legislation for giving away software for free then it would be the end of software development at the pace with which it is growing today. Don't assume that the day will never come coz if we cud have so many communist nations few years back then even this is a possibility.
The question of open source or closed source must be completely left to the developer of the code coz he is the best judge in finding if an open source will make his software stronger ,secure as some people claim and at the same time ensure he gets his intellectual property rights. If someday Microsoft or oracle or java ,to name a few, feel that their interests are better served then let them open up their source code.
It will only be discriminatory if software developers are forced to open up the source code through a legislation as most of the other industries still have the right to keep their trade secrets secret .
Collapse of communism in China
I want to predict the collapse of communism in china by the year 2012. Democracy is necessary to ensure for the working of a free and fair market economy .
In china there is no accountability for the officers of the communist party and the governemt officials will be hoarding wealth in the name of communism and one day the truth about the uneconomic incvestments made by the government and private will come out and the economy will collapse and thus end communism in china.
Right now as there is no free press and no body knows the truth about what's going on in china. If kingdoms survived it was because there was no alternative and coz in a kingdom the king was the only spendthrift and he ensured that the rest of the system remains free of corruption to a certain extend.
In china there is no accountability for the officers of the communist party and the governemt officials will be hoarding wealth in the name of communism and one day the truth about the uneconomic incvestments made by the government and private will come out and the economy will collapse and thus end communism in china.
Right now as there is no free press and no body knows the truth about what's going on in china. If kingdoms survived it was because there was no alternative and coz in a kingdom the king was the only spendthrift and he ensured that the rest of the system remains free of corruption to a certain extend.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)