A stage for inner voices, opinions, ideas and experiences

The Sleep Guide

Posted by Harish at Saturday, May 29, 2010

I must say that before collecting the required information for this post, I did not know that there is so much stuff involved with sleep. The main reason for me to choose this topic is that during exams I observed the difference in attitude, behaviour, alertness, memory, practically everything related to a person getting differed because of the change in sleep pattern. I started to ask so many questions regarding sleep and for some of those, I have found answers. I present them before you here in this post.

What is sleep?
Sleep is a state of suspended activity in our body during which our voluntary actions and muscles are partially or completely unconscious. During this state we are less likely to respond to stimuli. This state is easily reversible compared to coma or hibernation.

Why do we feel sleepy?
Everyday we do a lot of work. Mentally or physically. These generates a hormone called adenosine. The more adenosine we possess in our body, the more sleepy we feel. The amount of adenosine a person is able to hold without drifting to sleep varies from person to person. When the breaking point is reached, the internal clock of our body called circardian clock is signalled. This clock is the internal timekeeping, temperature-fluctuating, enzyme controlling device. Honestly I do not know where this is present in our body but what it does is controlling the enzymes in the body to do various activities like maintaining body temperature, falling asleep etc. So when adenosine has reached the breaking point, this circardian clock tells the body to fall asleep.

What are the benefits of sleep?
During sleep, almost our entire body is at rest. During this time, the growth enzymes are triggered. The muscles restored to full energy and dead cells are treated faster. Besides, the neurons are treated. During this time our memory is organised too. The adenosine accumulated is cleared up. So basically the entire body along with the brain is restored to full working condition.

What happens if I dont get enough sleep?
I guess by now it is obvious what happens due to lack of sleep. Most of the time if we do an excessive night out, we feel nervous, sleepy, tired, less alert, unable to make decisions and memory loss (happens often in the exam hall!). The lesser we sleep, the more sleep debt we accumulate.

How to pay back the sleep debt?
When the debt is small you can pay it back by having a good weekend's sleep. Don't make this a habit by sleeping less on weekdays and more on weekends as it will lead to more problems like insomnia. When the debt is large, you might consider taking a sleep vacation. Take a few days off and sleep as much as you can. It might sound ridiculous at first but it really works and after that you'll feel very fresh and energetic. 

How much sleep is adequate?
This one is pretty standard and easy to find answer to.
New born – Upto 18 hours
1 to 12 months – 14 to 18 hours
1 to 3 years – 12 to 15 hours
3 to 5 years – 11 to 13 hours
5 to 12 years – 9 to 11 hours
Adolescents – 9 to 10 hours
Adults and elderly – 7 to 8 hours

What happens during sleep?
During sleep we undergo various stages of sleep. They are as follows.
Stage N1: This is the starting stage. The inital time when our eyes move slowly under the eyelids. Musles loosen up. From this stage we can be awaken easily. Usually this lasts for a maximum of ten minutes .
Stage N2: The eye movements stop. Heart rate slows down and our body temperature decreases. This marks the beginning of sleep.
Stage N3: This is the deep sleep phase. Usually lasts a maximum of 70 minutes in the night time and less during dawn and day time. It is tough to awaken a person from this stage. This is the stage of muscular recovery. Blood flow and brain activity decreases and more of the restoration work is done on the other muscles of the body. This is why when you are awaken suddenly from this stage of sleep you feel groggy with a severe headache because blood takes a while to enter the brain and for brain to get back into full action. 
REM Stage: This phase is characterised by Rapid Eye Movement and hence the name REM. During this stage, the restoration is concentrated on the brain. So less blood flows to the other parts, the brain cells and neurons are restored. During the restoration of neurons, they organise the memory. This is why we get dreams. This stage of lesser duration during night and may extend upto 70 minutes during dawn and morning time sleep. That explains why we are able to remember the dreams which happen in early morning and just before we wake up mostly.
These four stages constitute a sleep cycle as follows N1 -> N2 -> N3 -> N2 -> REM. The entire sleep cycle lasts for around 90 minutes. So whenever you are sleeping, try to sleep in multiples of 90 minutes to let the cycle complete properly and hence an efficient sleep.

How do we know if we have enough sleep?
If you dont sleep immediately after falling down on the pillow and get up without using an alarm clock, you are having adequate sleep.

How to get better sleep?
The things which affect sleep are stress, pain, illness, drugs, illness, lack of regular sleep schedule or an uncomfortable environment. Avoiding these will give us a good sleep.

Concluding Remarks
Sleep is one thing which we humans are not able to fully understand and appreciate. Lots of research is happening in this field. So whatever information that I have presented here in this post is with regards to the present time. In future, these ideas may be further developed into a mature understanding of sleep.

The Extent of the so-called “Social Networking” sites

Posted by Harish.S at Friday, May 21, 2010

Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, MySpace are some of the sites which are pretty famous among youngsters now. The concept of Social networking was born in 1990’s to keep in touch with friends and family but it has evolved a lot. As of now, they are used as a source of advertisement ad money making venture by luring in people to use their features. It has changes the face of the internet ad Facebook has become one of the most popular sites in the internet. This advent of extensive social networking bought a lot of problems along with it.

• People become friends without knowing each others.
• People waste lots of time on non-productive activities such as games, quiz, and so on.
• Privacy problems.
• Addiction to social networking.
• Cut-off from the physical world.

There has been many problems and crimes reported because of Social networks. Kids are being blackmailed, bad company, money fraudulent cases, stress and strain and various other problems. To quote some:

1. A girl form Bangalore has been blackmailed by two of her Facebook friends for money and she has been stealing it from her mom regularly to give those guys. One day she was caught red handed and a police complaint was lodged on the two guys who were just of age 16 and 18.
2. A Mumbai girl sits in Facebook for almost 5 hours a day and had some 1500 friends in Facebook. She was under an emotional breakdown because her Facebook boy friend broke up with her and attempted for suicide.

I can just keep on giving even my personal experiences of waiting time in Facebook during exam, my friend wasting his whole time in his home playing a game in FB rather than spending time with friends and parents. The development of technology should be utilized for a productive work rather than this kind of time wasting entities. But I also don’t tell that Social Networking concept is a goner. Everything has its own limits and we should use it in a correct manner. Last but not the least, to end this with a quote I choose a Tamil saying which says “ALAVUKKU MEERINAAL AMURTHAMUM NANJU” (i.e.) Honey also turns into poison beyond a certain limit.
Post your comments.

Has Justice Been Served?

Posted by Harish at Sunday, May 16, 2010

Today I read an article in the Hindu. It was by a carnatic singer from Chennai. He expressed his views about the death sentence given to the lone captured terrorist from the Mumbai attacks, Ajmal Kasab. This is one of the most discussed and debated topics in India for quite some time now. But after reading it, I realized that I had my own views to share about the death sentence and I could find no better medium.


The people who speak for the judgment mostly say that the grievances of the families who lost their loved ones should be answered. Another one is that we should fight fire with fire and hence death sentence is the only way. I don't think the second reason is correct but the first one is acceptable. Losing your loved ones is something very sad and that needs to be answered. It might give some relief for these people by putting Kasab to death but we should also have in mind that it will not bring back the lost ones. What is gone is gone forever. And also remember that though he might be bad his family would not have been. Putting Kasab to death makes them lose their loved one. We have already lost ours, to feel better we are making others lose theirs. Sounds sadistic to me.

Now to the other side. The people who speak against the judgment say things like killing does not differentiate him from us, who gave us the right to kill, keeping him alive in life sentence breaks him down and though he might not turn good he will at least realize his mistakes, or the famous one – we are a non-violent country. For all these, I have one answer. In the battlefield, if a soldier kills the soldier of the opposite camp we say it is right. This situation we are in is also war, against terrorism. Unlike the traditional war, here the opposite camp army kills our country peasants and not the military. Still we do what we have to do in war. The judge could have ordered a life sentence or torture but he chose death sentence instead. You might ask that the prisoners of war are tried and then sentenced. Before the trial or the judgment has never been fair for the war prisoners. We did him a favor by death sentence and not any form of torture.

I have just shared my views on the debate so far. If Kasab is kept alive, in future some terrorist attack may happen for saving him like in the plane hijacking of the past. Pretty much what the judge had said. I just want to add one more point to that. It is not right to put him to torture. His life is tormented enough already with him doing nothing to get into it. Let us give him a quick exit like in war and pray to Him that at least in the next birth he be born in a better place.


Open for comments.

What are we?

Posted by Harish at Tuesday, April 6, 2010


We live somewhere, we observe things around us. Things such as people, their behavior, character, events and inanimate things like the buildings and vehicles. We learn from our observations. As a mortal, I have been observing the things around me. I wish to present some of my learning in this post.
Let me start with the question “What is right and what is wrong?” The answer one might come up is “Anything that is right to a person’s conscience is right and whatever that does not is wrong”. One more possible answer is “Anything that is accepted by the society is right and others are wrong”. Both these answers are correct. At times these two things may contradict but still they are right from their perspective. The actions of a terrorist may be right in his conscience but the world will never accept it and hence it is wrong from the society’s perspective. When it comes to the society, what is right in one part of the world may not be right in other part of the world. A friendly kiss when people of opposite gender meet or drinking wine is right in France but it is not so in India. What is right at one point of time may not be right at some other point. Polygamy was legal during the times when kings ruled in India but now it is not. Society changes and so do its views and the distinction of right from the wrong.
As kids we learnt from our environment. We did not know what is right and what is not. We were an empty slate waiting to be written with rules and distinctions on what is right and wrong from the society. Gradually, this knowledge we acquire penetrates deep into us. After a few years, what we call as conscience tells us what is right and wrong and guides us. When we look into it from a clear sense, this conscience which we say to possess is nothing but a collection of lessons and rules we acquire from the society. This is why a terrorist thinks his actions are right but the world does not agree.  
When we grew up we had parents guiding us everywhere and in everything. They showed us what is right and wrong. But again, they form a part of the society from which we learn and they are nothing but a collection of learning from the society they grew up in. What we see in our parents is what has been decided by them to show us and what they feel is right based on their learning. We firmly believe the rightness of this knowledge we get from them and pass it on to our kids. So when a kid grows up, he gets the knowledge from his parents, which is nothing but the essence of the society they were brought up in and also the society in which he is a part of. Thus I may say that society models us.
After a few years of growing we start reading books and do other things which expose us to cultures, ideologies and societies from across the globe. We learn from them as well and again they have their influence in creating us. I think a friendly hug is right. But my parents think it is not. I think it is right because I have at some point been exposed to a society in which hugging is considered an expression and sharing of love. That had influenced me to thinking that it is right. But my parents haven’t gone through the same experience or had been to a contradicting experience and so they feel it is not right. This is just a small example I used to demonstrate how what we call as ‘generation gap’ is created.  In such cases both the parties are right from their perspective but wrong from the other. Other examples might be birthday bums, loud music, ‘modern’ dressing etc.
By now, you would have understood what point I am trying to prove here. We are nothing but an essence of the society. We agree on something because we have been influenced to agree by the society at a very premature stage of life and we disagree because of the same reason. Only when we do or act which cannot be called as influenced by the society we have come across, it can be truly stated as the characteristic behavior of us. Try to take a moment and think of how much the society has influenced your thoughts, actions, dreams, verbiage, in short you.  
Until my next post, take care!

Do Indians suffer from inferiority complex?

Posted by Harish at Saturday, April 3, 2010


Inferiority complex is a psychological phenomenon by which an individual feels shy or humiliated when he/she comes across something which in that individual's perspective is superior to what is possessed by self in a metric defined by that particular individual.

Every moment of our lives, we seek out and compare ourselves in everything and with everything. The dress we wear, the mobile phone we use, the way we keep our desk at office, our hairstyle, personal ethics to everything under the sun. We do this to keep reassuring ourselves that what we have is good. The comparison that we do gives both positive and negative results. Positive results give us that reassurance we sought out for. But negative results are an area of concern. We might learn from it and try to improve ourselves. This is what drives constant innovation and improvement. But if we do not take it in the right sense, we fall prey for the pangs of inferiority complex.

From a different angle, it may be viewed that inferiority complex arises purely out of the lack of knowledge of what is good for us and what is not. Inferiority complex is prevalent everywhere across the globe and no specific race of people are immune to it. But for our purpose I stick to Indians. An average Indian feels inferior about many things like any other human in any country. But the problem arises if he feels inferior about the fact that he is an Indian. The strong urge to migrate to foreign lands especially the ones termed as 'developed nations' mixed with partial knowledge of only the brighter side of life in those countries creates this inferiority complex. Yes, there are Indians do suffer from such a cruel from of inferiority complex and there are Indians who don't.

The good news is there is a gradual shift towards the number of people who do not feel inferior about being Indian which is a good sign. But still there is a large percentage of people who are on the wrong side. The reasons they give might be the opportunities available abroad, scope for financial development, the infrastructure, the quality of whatever service that is offered, cleaner politics, government that takes complete care of citizens, cultured people, climate, lack of reservations etc.

These people who suffer from such an inferiority, adulate the western nations, their culture and language. They would do anything to migrate to these nations and even worse they feel disgusted to reveal their Indian origin. For all those people, I wish to bring something to the light. If one nation can withstand the test of time for several thousand years, still continue to exist with the same name, language and culture, there is something special about it. Still if you feel the same way about being Indian there is one thing that you cannot change and that is the fact that your mother land is India and you are an Indian. So ask yourself 'Does loving your mother go out of fashion?'

With that question, I end the post by saying that I am a proud Indian who wishes to take the goodness from across the globe wherever it might come from but remain Indian till the end.

Daksh 2010 was a big hit !

Posted by Harish.S at Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Daksh 2010, Sastra university's technical festival was a great hit. There were nearly 1400 registrations from 150 different colleges. Over 50 events were held in the span of three days from Feb 19-21. All the teams worked so hard to make Daksh a grand success. All the arrangements were good and everything went as planned. The highlight of Daksh was the infotainment stalls which were keeping people happy by organizing fun events. The college was full of people in all the three days. There was a great sense of enthusiasm in every Sastraite. Guest lectures were conducted in which eminent personalities like Mr.Gurumurthy , Dr.Swapan Das Gupta shared their thoughts.What makes Daksh more special is the laser show which took place in the ground on 21st night. It was a technical marvel to look at. Lights dancing to the tunes and vivid patterns stole the show. The happy lot will be TEAM DAKSH as all their hard work has paid-off :).

The APPLE frenzy

Posted by Harish.S at Saturday, February 13, 2010

Apple inc. has made it again. It invented new technologies like mouse wheel , iPod, iPhone and now the iPad. Though it never seemed a bigger prospect when compared to its previous products, it has created a revolution in the market again. It just didn't create a market share for itself , but also boosted the number of iPhone software developers by nearly 200%. The number of iPhone related projects have been increased to 1600 from 600 in just one month. Apple has repeatedly proved its worth by making a firm entry into the market with every product they release. One more achievement for Apple : Nearly one billion songs have been downloaded from iTunes. That is a big number. iTunes and iPod still continue to dominate music industry by all means. And for iPod users, you have a chance of winning a $10,000 Apple voucher. All you have to do is just download a song from iTunes before the song count reaches 1 billion or go to Apple site and register fr the draw. So lets wait until Apple unveils its next product.

Yahoo! presents CloudCamp & First India Hadoop Summit in Bangalore [23 days left]

Posted by adithya at Friday, February 5, 2010

WhereBangalore

OrganizerYahoo!

Key Dates
Event is on: February 28, 2010

About CloudCamp:

CloudCamp is an unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas. With the rapid change occurring in the industry, we need a place where we can meet to share our experiences, challenges and solutions. At CloudCamp, you are encouraged to share your thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing. End users, IT professionals and vendors are all encouraged to participate.
Register for CloudCamp Bangalore & Hadoop Summit, Feb 28, 2010

About India Hadoop Summit:

Yahoo! India R&D presents first India Hadoop Summit, a dedicated track at CloudCamp, will bring together leaders from Hadoop developer and user communities. In this event you will find participants from Yahoo! India Hadoop team, Industry leaders and top universities.

Speakers will cover a rich variety of topics including the current state of Hadoop development and deployment, PIG, Data Mining, performance optimization of Hadoop Cluster, testing in Hadoop, real-world case study and, Hadoop in Academia Research.

At India Hadoop Summit, you will be encouraged to share your ideas, thoughts and experience in several open discussions. Please use the tag "indiahadoopsummit2010" in your tweets, posts, and photos.

Location:
Will be announced soon.

For details regarding schedule please visit above site.


Website : http://tinyurl.com/yj9mk28

Email address: blr.clug@gmail.com

THE HUMAN MIND

Posted by Harish.S at Tuesday, February 2, 2010

The "HUMAN MIND" is one of its kind. There is no such thing as complex as it. Great psychologists have wondered how the mind reacts to various situations and it still remains a mystery to all. It eludes all possible theories by acting in a new way everytime they try to find a pattern. We all have tried to ask ourselves certain questions about our own actions for which we ourselves dont know the apt answer. Why do we react wierdly at times? Why are we not aware of ourselves when we are not in control of our mind? Why do we develop certains tastes whic halways differ from others? Why are people different even though they have same organ called the 'brain'. What is responsible for all these? We never know the answer to all these questions. How ever sophisticated a technology becomes it is still no match to a human brain. One such instance of this : Massechusetts Institute of technology developed a super computer named "DEEP BLUE" which was considered to be 99% efficient in playing the game of chess. But that lost to Garry Kasporov in a game of chess and garry lost to Indian chess veteran vishwanathan Anand.
"DEEP BLUE WAS NOT BLUE ENOUGH".
Thus life goes even without understanding the basic thing of a human being: THE MIND. Let us wait till some one unravells that mystery.
Awaiting your comments.

DAKSH 2010, NIRMAAN - Purificador de agua

Posted by adithya at

Greetings!

Daksh, the technical extravaganza brought to you by SASTRA University is back with a bang!!!

Daksh aims at providing a podium for students from all over the world to compete and also to whet their technical skills. It is a package deal of workshops, guest lectures, entertainment shows and numerous events spread over all branches of engineering and management, which is bound to leave you enthralled. We invite you to make the best of this deal, to experience engineering and to Come, Learn, Get Dakshified!!!

This year around, the Nirmaan cluster of Daksh is up with newer and more exciting prospects. Construction, has been merged with fun, knowledge and experience to bring you
"PURIFICADOR DE AGUA", an event related to the making of a working model of a Water Treatment Plant. It is out here to test your basic construction skills along with your creativity and ability to work with different materials.But that is not all!!! It tests your Marketing skills as well. Wondering how??? Check out the following link for all your answers.
http://www.daksh.sastra.edu/events.php#nir-3-puri-5

So all those out there who think you can work this out, and be on the trail for the cash prize of Rs.25000, register now!!!!!

Send your queries to nirmaan@daksh.sastra.edu
For further details visit www.daksh.sastra.edu
contact : 9840700236

Come. Learn. Get Dakshified!

See you soon,
Team DAKSH.

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The plight of 'Mahatma Gandhi' in South Africa

Posted by Harish.S at Thursday, January 28, 2010

When I was thinking about what to post today, I read the previous post about Nehru. Suddenly these incidents came to my mind and I feel every Indian needs to know this.

  • We all know Gandhi is a barrister. AndGandhi went to South Africa in 1890 to lend hands in solving a case on trading. Barristers were respectful and influential persons in those times. But in SA Indians faced severe racial discrimination. Gandhi during his early face of life faced severe difficulties than those he faced in India during 1930's. In SA Gandhi was harasses in every way possible because of his strict life style and strong mind. Gandhi was not even given a single room in any hotel when he reached SA for the first time because he was a colored person. 'BLACK' people are not allowed to use any service used by the so called 'WHITES'. This situation prevailed in SA for many years together.
  • Another instant of hardship for Gandhi happened when he was going from Johannesburg to Natal where he was thrown out of the train for travelling in first class. Whites are only allowed to travel in fiirst class in SA. Gandhi being a barrister insisted on first class ticket and refused to get out of the train. So he was forcefully removed by the guards and he travelled in a tram to the place. Another time when he was traveeling in first class in same route, he got the same treatment but another white person stopped the guard saying that he has a tiket and has all rights to travel in first class and he has no problem in travelling with Gandhi.
  • Gandhi faced severe oppositon in getting approval to practice law in SA for the only reason of him being a black. He had to undergo a rigorous process to get approval which nearly took him two months his one year work schedule.
There are many instances which i can keep on telling about the difficult situation Gandhi has faced in his early days as a young barrister. These struggles has sowed the seeds of severe determination and hardened mind. Even though there are lot of negative aspects which we can tell about Gandhi, the way in which he fought for Indians in South Africa and India is really commendable. "No one is perfect except GOD". GAndhi is also human, so mistakes are obvious. The fact we should see is his determination not to repeat it and to live for the motherland. He is rightly called the 'The fater of our Nation' and 'Bapu' which is a hindi wod that means 'father'. Till this world exits Gandhi will be the symbol for peace and non-violence.

Nehru-The philanderer

Posted by Viswanathan Karthik at Wednesday, January 27, 2010

DISCLAIMER: This post has been written with the sheer motto of passing on information (and improving one's writing skills) and does not harm or disfigure any political figure.


We all know Jawaharlal Nehru as the first Prime Minister of India, that's what text books and history books tell us. More interestingly he is still the longest serving PM of India. Nehru was on of the very few who supported the partition of India. During his tenure, was to hold a referendum with the Pakistani officials in 1948 but dragged it on till 1953, then reluctantly withdrew from holding the referendum. If the referendum was held then, there would be no wars with Paksitan, no terrorism nothing. It was due to the absence of this referendum that news channels have so much to boast, foreigners always have a second thought before coming to India ("OMG, I hope there are no bomb blasts"), politics has become a business and all that one can think of in his mechanical life. But why was the referendum called off? He had the UN to his support too. Nehru, during this period of time was busy romancing Lady Mountbatten, so he had no time for the country. There is a saying,"Behind every successful man the is a woman". It says some random woman can change a man. Here's how the formula goes:

Lady Mountbatten->Nehru->Kashmir issue

After an hour of googling found out that Nehru was a very good philanderer, and Lady Mountbatten was not his first extra marital relations; he had a son to some other lady who is in an orphanage!!
The above photo shows the plight of Mountbatten when Nehru was coquetting Lady Mountbatten. So friends and readers please think, the next time you fall for someone see to that you don't take the wrong decisions.

Awaiting your comments....

Twittermania!!!!!

Posted by Harish.S at

Twitter has become a buzz word in the present world. Internet was being used only for transfer of information in late 90's. But now a days the number of users have multiplied and internet has become a space of booming business. More people started using social networking sites to keep in touch with their kith and kins. Then came a site for updating status messages only. First I thought that what's the use of a site only for that purpose. But it has turned out to be one of the most upcoming site of the year 2009 and Twitter identity has become an important part of the technical world. Every celebrity is now in twitter and there are loads of dumb people who are always ready to follow what the stars do. This has become an amazing way of publicity for everyone. Twitter has proven useful for many communities: vendors to advertise their portfolio, celebrities to increase their publicity. The most interesting fact is that twitter has helped to generate huge funds for the relief of earthquake victims in Haiti. Also, it has paved way to jobs where a person needs to twitter to promote,market and support a product and the person is paid on the basis of number of tweets made. This has proven the use of technology and science for useful purposes and has shown the power of internet. Twitter has made a firm stand in the internet and everyone is in "Twittermania"

The Right Path

Posted by Harish at

Every once a while we stop in our fast paced lives to check if we are going in the right path. This term called ‘right path’ is tough to define. It is tough to define because every entity defines it in its own way. But one thing is for sure. At the end of this right path that we intend to travel with all our energy lay the tree which yields the fruits of success and happiness. For every entity, an organization or an individual this tree is the inspiration to go on. It is the inspiration to rise up from every failure and keep moving towards this destination with more effort and energy than before. Any path that we are sure to take us to this tree is the right path. We define the right principles by what we call core values which guide us along the right path we have chosen. It is using these core values we can check if we are on the right path. We check if we are going in the right path in three occasions. One, if we are very proactive we stop once a while and check if we are on the right path. Two, we fail miserably at something which takes us to success. And the last occasion is on special occasions. One such day is today. The Republic Day of India. As a nation, we must check if we are what our core principles say we are. As a nation of over a billion people we strive to become the largest super power in the world and still remain a democratic nation. There are countless arguments that our nation is not going in the right path because of so many factors such as corruption, over population which remains untapped, crime rate, selfish leaders, thoughtless laws, pending cases in courts, poverty, internal fights over linguistic issues, over caste, creed and religion, useless education system, the bottom of the pyramid never getting benefited and so on. I agree. In short it may be put as our nation is not going in the direction our ancestors wanted it to go. It is true. It may seem like our dreams of becoming a super power will remain a dream. This is not the first time our nation has been in this state since Vasco da Gama found his way to India. There are two things which we can do now. Either keep lamenting over it, sit idle and let the devil drive our country right into hell or as a citizen, do our part to the nation and show what happens when a nation of a billion people fight back. And by the wish of good will, every time in recorded history we have chosen the latter and have succeeded. We have chosen to fight back with more strength and more commitment. As a citizen, we are not expected to great things. We can help the nation go in the right path by doing simple things such as following road rules, keeping the environment clean by making proper use of the dust bin, preserving places of cultural and tourist importance by keeping ourselves from inscribing our names on them, spreading the knowledge and love we have to others who do not have them, paying taxes, phone and electricity bills correctly and on time etc. There are some serious issues which we find hard to fight like corruption. But as a citizen, if we give our best to the nation, then by the laws of nature it will be reciprocated and the nation will give its best to us. This time it is our turn to make the choice which our ancestors made in their times. On this day I request you to ask yourself what choice you have made. To save the nation and come out as the largest super power Earth has ever witnessed or, go down as individuals. Now go out there and show the world what a billion people which joined hands can do! Happy republic day everyone! Proud to be an Indian!


Do comment about your choice. 

An Interesting Comparison

Posted by Harish at Tuesday, January 26, 2010

I was driving my brand new Yamaha R1 along a beach at over 300 kmph. The road was long and empty. I could feel the sea breeze on my chest. But my machine was a beast. It kept itself above the 300 mark with little effort. Soon I reached my house. It is not just any other house. It is a big farm house. Pretty much like what you see in the movies. I enter through the gigantic main gate and drive past the lush green meadows. I park my bike in the garage beside the silver Rolls Royce and get down. As I walk down the corridor my pet Labrador comes running to me. I push open the wonderfully carved teak wood door. From a distant hill I hear a voice. It sounds very familiar to me. It was my college roommate’s. The voice said, “Get up idiot! It’s 8:30 already!” Oh boy! This is the third time of the week I am going to be late to first hour class. I rush through my morning chores, skip breakfast as usual wondering if the last time I ate breakfast in college was in first year and run to class. I am fifteen minutes late. The canned response I get from the lecturer is ‘”next class.” After that there is no arguing but to move away. He just doesn’t understand that a budding engineer with big dreams and ambitions is waiting at the door step to start his pursuit of knowledge and he is just getting plainly dismissed off. I came down to the chota canteen to get myself some noodles and sit at the stone bench opposite to my department. It was a hot and tasty snack. My mind started to think about what to do for the week as I planned to sit there for the rest of the hour and hopefully make it to the next class on time. The following weekend I had my mid semester exam. Before that I had to submit an assignment, give a seminar for 2 out of 10 marks of internals, some record work, prepare slides for project review, pay mess bill, some fine for a random reason which would be added with it for every student and… As I was trying to recollect I saw a goat passing by. Yes a goat. It is a common domestic creature in my college. It caught my attention suddenly. It went to the nearby shrubs and nipped a bit. Then went to the nearby tree shade, sat down and started enjoying the weather. Out of the blue I became so jealous of the goat! The life it had! I mean think about it for a moment. It has no worries at all. No assignments, no exams, no attendance, no boring lectures, no mess bill, no pressure and not even a deadline to meet! It can go anywhere, eat and sleep anytime. No mess food! And still no one questions it. It is not even made into a meal like in other places because I study in a Brahmin college. And here I am sitting before it trying to recollect when I had my last breakfast! Aargh! I have become so jealous of a goat’s life! I wanted to become a goat! For the sake of living a lazy carefree life! I even prayed to God that in my next life I should be a goat in my college and sit next to a frustrated engineering student like this very same goat. And then something happened. Nothing big actually. The bell rang. So I had to rush for the next hour only to spend the rest of my day in class thinking what all I can do as a goat in this college in my next birth.

Awaiting comments!

It Happened to Me Once

Posted by Harish at Saturday, January 23, 2010


It was 2 AM in the morning. I was chatting with my friend in GTalk about the movie I saw the previous evening, ‘Unnai Pol Oruvan’. It was such a wonderful movie. Many of who have seen the Hindi version claimed that was better. But I was not bothered.  I loved this movie and I was telling him about how it was. Every scene of the movie was green in my mind. The movie was literally flawless. As I was narrating him the story, my phone started ringing. I looked at the caller ID read ‘Private Number calling’. This was the first time in my life to see such an ID showing up in my mobile. It was such an unusual call at such an unusual time. But by the look of it, I was sure that call is not going to bring good times. Probably because of the movie I just enjoyed. The volume kept increasing and so was my pulse rate. My mind started making umpteen numbers of connections and calculations about the call. Who might it be? Could it be some terrorist like in the movie? What could be his motives? Will he threaten me about some bomb hoax? Or will I have to play the part of the reporter like in the movie? Or will I have to run for my life after the call? Or could it be something even worse? As I was hallucinating myself in these situations, the phone kept ringing. It was very strange. The night was very silent and calm. I was completely normal and when I saw the caller ID everything changed. I suddenly felt like I was the only person around in a lonely forest. I could feel my heavy breath and the sweat dripping on my forehead. Undeterred, the good part of my mind convinced me that it should be some routine procedural call from the service provider. So I picked up the mobile and answered it.  Initially there was a horse noise. After a short pause I heard a voice. It said “Salaam malikum bhai!” Though the voice was very calm I felt the depth of evilness in it somehow. Maybe the sixth sense in me started working. The voice sounded like that of a murderer. So sinister it was. Just these three words uttered by the caller kept echoing in my mind. As it echoed more my heart was beating with increasing speed every second. Adrenaline was rushing through my veins. My spine became so chill all of a sudden, fingers started shivering and tongue became completely dry. I tried to speak but my vocal system was paralyzed to function. The good part of my mind was trying to boost me up with everything it could but sadly it was no match for the other side this time. Somehow I managed to ask the caller “Who is this?” After a brief pause, the caller responded “Listen to me bhai. I have something to tell you.” That was enough to set me in super escalated hyper mode. I immediately cut the call in a reflex, gulped down half a litre of water, put my mobile into my drawer, took the ipod and ran out of the room and to the terrace. My mind went completely blank and I was in goose bumps. In an attempt to calm myself down I played my favorite songs at full sound. Gradually after an hour I was back to normal physically though I was still terrified. As I was walking around I saw one of my friends having a talk with his uncle in the US. The call got cut for some reason and when it came again and I looked at the caller ID. What I saw there made my heart skip a beat. It was written ‘Private Number calling’! I was completely convinced that a terrorist from some foreign land had called me up. I immediately ran back to my room and took out my mobile. There was no number in the received calls but just a blank entry. I wanted to call up the police and ask for Z-level security. I did not care what that meant but as long as it saved me from whatever that terrorist had in mind for me I wanted it. When I looked at my laptop which was still on, my friend whom I was chatting with left a message and went offline. It said “Dude. You need to know that when I call your mobile using Skype all you get is private number calling!”    

Technika 10 - Ethical Hacking Workshop, Birla Institute of Technology Mesra,Patna Campus

Posted by adithya at Friday, January 22, 2010



OrganizerBITS Mesra, Patna


Technika 10, Birla Institute of Technology Mesra, Patna Campus - Ethical Hacking Workshop. Be ready to know all the Hacking techniques under one roof. This workshop is designed to provide the right knowledge to the aspiring Hacking and Information Security geeks. Workshop has been designed by Kyrion Digital Securities in coordination with Birla Institute of Technology Mesra, Patna Campus and has been segmented as follows:

Overview of the Workshop What necessitates the computer security is that, people think it to be 'Cool' to be able to 'Hack', but its 'Cooler' to be able to secure systems. To make you 'cooler', here Kyrion Digital Securities come with an exciting plus informative workshop. The workshop will feature talks by some distinguished experts on security and even the practical demonstrations. The focus of the workshop is to learn how to protect us from the menace of hacking. During the workshop, the primary aim would be to introduce you to the current popular attacks and explain the techniques to counter them. Don't worry it would not be a "scriptkiddie" material. The other focus of the workshop is to enable you to build up future systems. It includes making you aware of the current shortcomings which give rise to bad security systems. As it is quite a vast topic to talk about, we will be giving an overview of what constitutes 'ideal secure system'. This course would equip students to counter the potential attacks. Also, the aim would be impart technical know-how of how to make the Internet transactions safe and secure. This would be a founding stone for India to emerge as a Super Power in times to come.

For any query, please feel free to contact:

Kyrion Coordinator

Name: Tajinder Kalsi

Phone: +91-95559-44466

Email: tajinder.kalsi@kyrion.in



Email address: kyrion.in@gmail.com

One More Problem Due to Overweight!

Posted by Harish at


Adding to the list of problems caused due to obesity is the recent announcement by Air France. They have said that from next month, obese customers can reserve two adjacent seats for a comfortable journey with the second seat at a 25% discount. I really wonder how the mind of an obese person works. How will the person feel when he/she can't get up or sit down or bend down or heck even walk around for that matter without getting drenched in one's own sweat! How bulky and heavy will he feel? They will have to manage a host of other issues that comes free with obesity ranging from being the object of ridicule at every place to coping up with a host of diseases that obesity causes. Time and again they try to slim down by following various methods like taking up tablets, going to the gym regularly even if they had hated physical work all throughout their lives etc. Some even go the extent of surgery. I feel sad for them. So much of work, attention and time you need to give to your body which a normal person will not generally. I always asked myself this question 'when such announcements come, won't it hurt the ego of overweight people?' Though it is done for the benefit of everyone I always asked myself this question because it is one more reason to make fun of your overweight friend. But there are some advantages with being slightly obese. They look cute and adorable. They are smooth, round and soft where. You can find only curved edges on their body! Girls and kids love them! When all of this congregates what kind of a mind set is formed? An embodiment of confidence and courage to fight all the negatives of it throughout lifetime? A carefree attitude to just enjoy the brighter part of it and just accept the dull side? A completely asocial nature? Its mind boggling! Whatever be it we always love our overweight friends and its true!

Censoring the WEB

Posted by Harish.S at

Another post regarding the censorship issues relating to the web. I have posted the problems faced by Google in china previously. Internet was introduced to enable free flow of information throughout the world and it has succeeded in doing so. But there are some countries which are prohibiting people from the right of freedom to browse by "censoring the web" .The list of top ten countries where stringent censorship exits are :

10. Pakistan

Pakistan started censoring the web in 2000, when the main target was anti-Islamic content. Over the time, it seems, they liked the possibility to control the Internet traffic, and have been increasing the scope of their censorship system ever since.

9. Burma

Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is a country characterized by severe human rights problems, so it would be hard to expect an open and reliable Internet adoption. It is estimated that less than 1% of its population has access to the web, and this happens via a handful of cybercafes, and always under tight surveillance.

8. Yemen

The Yemen government is very hostile to the freedom of the media in general, and the Internet is no exception. Political and social issues are always under their radar, although the digital infrastructure for the censorship here is not as advanced as in some of the other countries on our list.

7. North Korea

North Korea has managed to accomplish a really tough task given our time: they kept the Internet outside of the country borders! For a country that has no independent media at all, however, it makes sense.

6. Syria

The Syrian government admits that it automatically blocks websites with pornographic content and with politically sensitive information. In reality the situation is much worse, and many journalists from around the world consider Syria to be one of the most repressive countries as far as the Internet is concerned.

5. Cuba

The Reporters Without Borders organization considers Cuba “one of the world’s 10 most repressive countries” when it comes to online content.
The local access to the Internet is so controlled, and the punishment to dissent so severe, that they managed to create a state of self-censorship, where people don’t even try to access prohibited material out of fear.

4. United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates is one of the most connected countries in the Middle East. Despite that fact, the country tries to control heavily the flow of information on the web. Virtually any website containing ideas or information that goes against the political, moral or religious values of the country is blocked.

3. Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia introduced the Internet on its country many years after other Arab countries, exactly because they didn’t know how they would be able to control the content. Today they have a complex censorship system in place, and they even have laws criminalizing the access to websites that violate Saudi laws or Islamic values.

2. Iran

The censorship of the web in Iran started several years ago, and today they are one of the most efficient countries on this respect. The target? All non-Islamic websites, making Iran probably the country with the most extensive web censorship in the world.

1. China

If you think that The Great Wall of China was already an incredible thing, you should take a look at what critics from around the world call “The Great Firewall of China.” China has undoubtedly the most sophisticated censorship system in the world. In the past they have been able to block all sorts of unfriendly websites, and even to silence movements like the pro-Tibet protest as if they never existed.

End of Scrabulous

Posted by Harish.S at

We all use facebook. It is one of the most popular social networking sites in the world. The unique aspect of Facebook is its application database. An application called scrabulous was among the most used application. But because of legal problems and privacy breach, facebook decided to remove it from the site and filed a case on January. The application was created by two Indians. Though it can be presently used in India, proceedings are going on to remove it and all the odds are stacked against SCRABULOUS.

Google - 'Hai Baaton Mein Dum?' Contest [10 days left]

Posted by adithya at Wednesday, January 20, 2010


WhereOnline

OrganizerGoogle and LiveHindustan.com
Key Dates
Contest ends on: January 31, 2010
Winners shall be announced on: February 28, 2010
Eligibility
Open to residents of India above 13 years of age.


Google and LiveHindustan.com bring you the 'Hai Baaton Mein Dum?' Contest. If you've ever wished that there was more great content in Hindi online, here's your chance to spill your heart out about the things that matter the most to you: entertainment, sports, travel, health and politics. Brick by brick, you'll be building the web in Hindi, sharing your knowledge of these topics and showing your flair for this beautiful language. So, go ahead and create your Google Account here and click the 'Submit your entry' button next to the topic you want to write about. The Essay must be between 100 – 1000 words.

You stand to win some amazing prizes like laptops, gift vouchers and free internet subscriptions! There is no limit to the number of entries per contestant. Only entries in Hindi will be accepted.' Let your imagination run wild and spread the joy of sharing your thoughts in Hindi on the web!



Yahoo! Hack U 2010i

Posted by adithya at


WhereHyderabad & Bangalore

OrganizerYahoo! Software Development India Pvt. Ltd
Key Dates
Hack Day at IISc Bangalore begins on: January 21, 2010
Hack Day at IIIT-Hyderabad begins on: January 22, 2010


Yahoo! India is organizing Hack Day 2010 in IIIT Hyderabad & IISc, Bangalore. It’s hacking season again! After a raging success at IIT-Delhi and IIT-Mumbai last winter, it’s time for hack lovers in your campus to team up and emerge with cool and interesting hacks! Bounce off ideas, suggestions or just engage in plain chit-chat with Yahoo! web experts and participate in sessions full of learning, hacking and fun!Interesting tech talks, hacking tips and lessons, and hands-on coding workshops await you. Make the best use of it while it lasts!

Schedule :
IIIT Hyderabad on Jan 22nd - 24th, 2010
IISc Bangalore on Jan 21st, 25th - 27th, 2010

Please visit the given website for more details.



Email address: blr-hacku@yahoo-inc.com

Browsers : Internet's eye piece

Posted by Harish.S at

Internet has become so common such that not even a single day passes without using some sort of its services like mails, chatting, blogging, social networking, etc. But have you ever thought about the tool you use to surf the internet - "THE BROWSER". Do you know how it works or what it is based on? How much secure a browser is? Is the browser you are using is better than others? What all you can do with it? We never care for such things as long as we are able to surf the internet using the old crap installed in most of the operating systems.
A browser is rated by WEB STANDARDS PROJECT using the Acid3 test. The acid test basically that tests how well a browser follows certain elements from web standards, especially relating to the Document Object Model and JavaScript It actually tests how a browser runs CSS, DOM objects, Web2.0 modules and gives a score for 100 based on the performance. These are the scores of Acid3 test of some of the popular browsers:
1.) Google Chrome 4.0.295.0 - 100/100
2.) Safari 4 - 100/100
3.) Opera 10 - 100/100
4.) Mozilla Firefox 3.5.2 - 93/100
5.) Internet explorer 9 - 32/100
Source: Wikipedia
From the above pictures we get that Chrome, Safari and Opera have 100/100 but it is not that all are of same standard. It just implies that all the browsers have passes all tests in Acid3. Chrome out lasts every other browser in terms of speed and captures the 'Numero uno' spot. Also I would like to add a detailed performance report on popular browsers where Google Chrome is the clear winner.

Click the image to see a large preview of the scores and comparison.
Test has been done on basis of 6 performance aspects namely: JavaScript speed, CPU speed, DOM selection speed, CSS rendering speed, page load time and browser cache performance. Chrome leads in four of the six categories and thus comes first ahead of others. Chrome is called the new baby in the field of browsers but it has showed us that it is a lion in terms of performance.
Along with performance there are lot of other factors which influences people to use various browsers such as add-ons, themes, plug-ins, etc. The race is on and every competitor is trying to become better over the other. In the end we the end user is benefited by these as our browsing experience increase day by day :) . Enjoy surfing the internet.