The Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes is one of those movies which received cold treatment from me initially but then made it so large that it has made me wait desperately for the release of its sequel. I always pictured the "Planet of the apes" series as one where humans replaced by apes are struggling for their life and freedom. The theme never attracted me because its difficult to believe that apes can overpower humans. Atleast the history doesn't suggest that way. According to my belief, the earth was earlier ruled by Dinosaurs, presently by humans and for future there are two options. -Either Humans will detriorate this earth to such an extent that nature will have to click the refresh button like bringing Ice age back, thereby taking away powers from humans, giving to others or -the Artificial Intelligence that can take it over, a concept that made roots stronger with Matrix trilogy. In any case, unlike Dinosaurs, this time humans themselves will be responsible for their decline. In the first case scenario, the next creature to be in power could be anything, may be existing one or a total new evolution. In second case, humans make AI strong enough that they will overpower humans. Other than these I had no other possibilities in mind untill I saw "The rise of the planet of the apes".The logic behind the uprising of the apes made total sense to me. It fits the equation perfectly. Humans could be responsible for the uprising of apes. With such an option, not just apes but any creature can overpower humans. The movie just give a glimpse of what can happen in future. The movie is worth watching for the performance of Andy Serkis (one who played Gollum in LOTR) who played Caeser here, the leading ape.

It is also worth to watch the movie for the impressive special effects that diminishes the lines between reality and effects.And if it interests some, there is Freida Pinto (one from slumdog millionaire) in the movie. She has moulded herself very well to fit in the small piece of performance. Finally, I leave it to everybody's imagination: Nature itself destroyed first rulers Dinosaurs, the one with the all the physical power. Humans, the second one with mind power, will be responsible for their own destruction. The next generation of ruler will both be strong with physical and mind power. So, what will be the cause of their destruction?

Fair to execute after 20 years punishment!!

Today's highlight is the news about the 8 weeks stay order on the execution of Rajiv Gandhi's assassin(http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2411422.ece?homepage=true)(Madras High Court stays execution of Rajiv case convicts for eight weeks ).While some people who feel these assasins should be executed are angry while there is another group who gave the sigh of relief atleast for 8 more weeks. After giving some thought, I got an altogether different view.
Just realized that its almost 20 years since Rajiv Gandhi's assasination. And what these assasins were doing till now? They were in Jail I guess and definitely must not be treated like king and queen. 20 years is a big time to spend behind the bars. 20 years is a "Generation". So those culprits have already missed one generation of their life doing nothing.
What they must be doing?Nothing more than thinking. Thinking about an incident that happened 20 years back. In initial days, they must be feeling triumphant for the task they carried out for their group who wanted Rajiv Gandhi dead.
With time passing this feeling must have subsidised and replaced with a guilt of killing a person. Initially they must have confronted their own feeling proving themselves that their act was right. But slowly this confrontation must also have been died down. I believe, now they are left only with this guilt. Now they might not be having any enthusiasm for life, no idea how to spend every next day coming.
Only thing remaining is feeling this guilt and waiting for the execution day. (It may be totally wrong but deep thinking on an incident for 20 years may should bring this change or else the culprit is insane).
I personally feel this is a torture.
Why should it take 20 years for an execution day to arrive(again prolonged by 8 weeks). They are getting double punishment of initially spending 20 years in Jail and then execution. If they were to be executed that should have happened immediately. Why it took 20 years?
On the contrary when I see that a terrorist responsible for deaths for ~2500 people in America was found out in another country and executed within 10 years, I feel sorry for our system. If a simple and straight case of finding culprits (in approachable range), running cases, getting decision, finalizing the decision through different sources and finally executing the culprits takes more than 20 years with still no assurance, then forget about other terrorists waiting for their execution.
There are two types: one where one gets scared of an insect and instinctively kills it. The story over. The second where one finds the insect troubling, put it in safe place (for the one) and then slowly tortures it either by pulling leg or breaking leg and doing similar stuff. By the time it dies(executed), it has already been through the hell's experience.
I think our system falls in this second type.
We call our system fair and non violent, but we forget our system is torturous for those culprits and their relatives.
We need to learn to end the story in time.

What I expect from Jan Lokpal Bill

Sitting far away from India I have been trying to keep connected to different activities happening back in India against corruption.I am in favor of Jan lokpal Bill and I am trying my bit to support it by all ways I can. That includes supporting the times campaign in raising voice for strong lokpal bill to forwarding different related emails to watching and supporting (read 'clicking on like button in facebook') different related videos uploaded on facebook.

Frankly speaking, I am not a follower of Anna Hazare, but I am following Mr. Kejariwal and I like the methodical and perfect way of Dr. Subramanyam Swami. The way they talk, way they put their points supported with proof is something I appreciate. But since I follow them and they are following Anna Hazare, I am also following Anna Hazare.

There was an one video on youtube where Mr. Karan Thapar was interviewing Mr. Kejariwal and he pointed out that going on hunger strike is nothing less than a black mail.

Mr. Kejriwal was not successful in rubbishing out this thought. But there could few reasons for that.
1) The time given to him to answer any particular question.
2) Mr. Thapar sound very aggresive host whose sole reason behind interview seems to point out flaws in Mr. Kejriwal's total idea of lok pal bill and his method of protest. Apparently, that is his way of taking interviews, that I realised after checking his interviews with other people like Ad. Ram Jeth Malani. But they did not succumed to his aggresiveness and that brings us to the the third reason.
3) Mr. Kejriwal appears a soft spoken person who makes his point quietly. He puts it correct and methodically provided the listener is patient.So, people like Mr. Kejariwal won't suceed if they come across some aggresive personality like Mr. Karan Thapar or for that reason Kapil Sibbal. At such places Dr. Subramanyam Swami is the right person to speak.

Inspite of the fact that Mr. Kejariwal did not succeed in making his point,it made me realize Hunger strike is not a black mail. And as Mr. Kejariwal explained its a way to make somebody realize he is wrong and guilty.Besides,our constitution does not give many other possibilities to make government realize they are wrong. All the provided possibilities go through the system of government which gets stopped somewhere enroute.So, if you do not want violent protests, hunger strike is the only way.

While I am following all this stuff, I came across this note that appeared in "The Hindu". You may read it here:
http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/society/article2343100.ece

titled: "Aren't we the real problem?"

It speaks about how even we are involved in day to day corruption and how this lokpal bill won't be able to overcome such petty issues of corruption.
I am not sure how lokpal bill addresses such issues. But this note brought a thought in ly mind about "What I expect as a success of Jan Lokpal Bill".
I am a person who won't be involved in corruption knowingly. But I am a careless guy and try least to make use of brain in day to day activities. I rely a lot on belief in people and that sometimes get me involved in corruption.How?

I will give two of my experiences:

I was travelling in Bus in Pune. The ticket cost me Rs. 12. But I don't had change. I had a note of Rs 10 and then directly Rs. 100. I offered Rs. 100 note. Conductor asked me for Rs. 10. I gave him Rs. 10 and in return he gave me a ticket of Rs. 12. I asked him about it and he just said "Its ok" and moved on to give tickets to others in the crowded bus. I didn't get the answer at that time. When my stop arrived and I was about to get down, he rushed to me and asked for the ticket. It was such a short time to think with all crowd around ready to get down that I did not give the second thought and gave him the ticket and got down. Once on earth I realized that I just bribed him with Rs. 10 and saved myself Rs.2 with this act. Possibly he was aware that there won't be any ticket checker waiting at the stop to cross check and made some money for himself.

Another incident is one while I was travelling from Pune to Kolhapur in a rented vehicle. At one of check post, the ticket cost 52 Rs. We gave Rs. 100 and he asked if we need a receipt. Since it was a one way ticket and receipt was not a compulsion. We thought "Let's save some paper" and said "no" to the reciept. He returned Rs 50 back instead of Rs. 48 and our vehicle moved on. The transaction was bit odd and by the time we realised that by not taking the reciept we actually bribed that guy with Rs 50 and saved ourself Rs 2, we came quite ahead of the check post.

That is courruption under ignorance according to me. I never wanted to save 2 Rs for myself. But I believed the system and the person involved blindly and thus fall prey to the corruption. After these incidences, I started believing the movies in which some government officer is shown to accept some money not as a bribe but later on raided by the IT officers to prove him guilty of taking bribe.

How do we come out of these kind of corruption practices?
One way is to become more alert in day to day activities.I will try to be alert for some time but my true nature will overcome soon. It is slightly difficult for people like me who prefer to believe people rather being critical. And this belief increases manyfolds when you have spent some big time outside India.

I think we need to have this belief in Indian community and I expect that Anna Hazare's Jan Lok pal bill should be strong enough to install this belief in Indian society also. For this reason, I

Facebook, Orkut – no more a fun

Few years back, when I got introduced to Orkut, it was a different time. I had not heard of Facebook then, in fact nobody around me. I was among the leading user of Orkut in my surrounding then. I injected this virus in many people's mind around me. It was thrilling then. Everyday used to begin with checking Orkut profile. New updates, scraps, updates in friends scrapbook. Beating head to refresh the memory of any possible person who at some point of the time was your friend and still exist on this earth. It was a good exercise trying to locate friends in different corners of the world. I even succeeded to catch hold of some of my school mates. Orkut then allowed only 12 photos to be uploaded on your account and we tried to make the best use of this by posting the best clicked photo till date. The photos were then receiving lot of appreciations. It was simple then like your own diary where you know all the notes written on each page.
Slowly Orkut started getting complicated. From your personal diary, it turned into a reference book where you refer any subject, searching it from the index. It turned liberal allowing more number of photos initially to 100 and now up to 10000, allowed to reply the scrap without visiting persons profile, showing the updates of all your friends on your front end. It no more remained a page governed by you, but by the friend activities. This started killing the fun. I guess the main motivation of social networking site was to spend some time for your “friend”. When you visit a persons profile to scrap him, check photos, you try to check other updates on his profile. It might introduce you to your common friend who is not in your friends list. Now these social networking sites suggests you all probable friends but that takes away all the fun you get from searching. It slowly started introducing online games which took people on a crazy ride. It no remained the social networking site but turned into a game zone.
In the mean time, I visited a place where people were not aware of Orkut, but mad about Facebook.
So with the sole purpose of keeping my those friends in contact, I opened an account on Facebook. I had few friends on Facebook for a long time till Facebook introduced a utility of searching friends. Many of my friends used this utility to reach me. Since I was not much active and least interested to check Facebook, only thing I used to do was to accept the friends request. I doubt if I visited even one fourth of my “friends” profile immediately after accepting them as friend. The worst part of Facebook was that I used to receive loads of requests related to Farmville, which I guess again is a on line game.
Recently, I realized that orkut has started fading out and facebook has taken over it in all the aspects. I see more and more updates coming from friends on Facebook and less on orkut. I feel only those people are still active on Orkut who were its initial user. I tried to make a shift from Orkut to Facebook. I started checking, updating Facebook account equally as my orkut account. But sooner realized that this transition is not smooth. I couldn't feel the high in Facebook as I felt with Orkut. It failed to absorb me even for a short time.
I am still a regular visitor of these sites and I might keep visiting these sites in future. But I also doubt that they become a history. I still see some of the fabulous photos my friends upload, but I don't feel the same as earlier to compliment them. I still receive the Orkut scraps or Facebook writings on the wall, but I fail to respond to the scraps and the writings promptly.

What is happening – Have these social networking sites turned boring or am I growing old?

What turned me into Scientist

Its a very old story. We need to go some 20 years back. I was then living in not so populated , not so overcrowded, but a very quiet city. I had some people around who made some thoughts generated in my mind. Those were a bunch of blind people, not together, but around me. I remember two of them prominently. He was blind and he had to take the support of his wife to go any where around. Some thing similar we see almost everyday at the railway stations. Then there was one who had this amazing stick which used to rest in his bag folded when he is not moving but on a move it used to guide him to whatever place he wish.
There were instances when both these options used to fail. First persons wife was not always available to guide him and the stick of the second not always showed the right path.
While I was seeing these failures, one day I met a friend who had just bought new shoes which glow a light when you jump or put pressure in a specific manner. Now I don't remember the technology he told behind it. But these two different observations initiated a chain of thoughts in my mind. I started thinking of a technology where blind people get some such shoe which will guide them and control their movement. I don't remember on what lines I was thinking then, but some kind of sensor which covers a spherical range of some 2 meters say is fixed with shoes and based on different type of signals sent by the sensor, user can take steps to avoid any kind of accident.
I tried to gather some information and tried learning few things which I thought could bring this plan in reality. But it all failed. I didn't succeed in it mainly because of lack of knowledge and also lack of access to knowledge then. With time, the thought was sent somewhere in the back of mind.
Something similar is in reality now with sensors used to guide Robots, or automatic chairs, or the vehicle on mars to run around sensing the obstructions coming in the way. But I still see blind people moving around with somebody's help or still the stick is assisting them. I heard of shoes that convert mechanical energy into electrical energy efficient enough to charge your mobile. But I haven't heard of shoes that convert the sound waves coming through the earth into signal indicating the movement of any vehicle coming towards you.

Though I became a scientist, I chose a different path and landed in a field which can not help to work on this subject. But I will be very happy if I meet blind person aided with some such technology and walking around without any assistance. Does somebody think like this?

Inside Man

Imagine a situation where you enter a movie theater to watch a hollywood movie. You are inside the theater initially adjusting to the darkness and then with the seat to get comfortable. Soon, the Universal studios appears in front of you. But something is weird here. You hear some bollywood hit falling on your ears. Then you realize this is a famous song “Chal chaiyya chaiyya” from some Shahrukh movie I can't remember the name though at the moment. Guess it is “Dil Se”.
For a moment, you get confused if you are watching a hollywood movie or a bollywood movie!!
If you want to experience such a situation, do watch Inside Man. The movie begins with this song with a van moving in the streets of I guess Manhattan. They have used almost complete song with slight remix. Believe me, it sounds weird. Either the song selection was wrong or a hindi song altogether does not fit in those frames. After watching movie, I was wondering if the song had any connection with the movie theme too or the director just liked it and so used it.
This weird introduction though made me sit through whole movie and watch it.
Now, I won't write about the movie. It is a watchable movie but does not take hold of you. To cut the story short, a perfect (!) bank robbery plan with some hidden agenda.
But I definitely liked two things in the movie. The beginning and the end. The famous “Chal chaiyya chaiyya” returns again in the end.
All in all it was totally weird to listen “Chal chaiyya chaiyya” with no Malaika arora and shahrukh dancing on train, but listening the song after such a long interval was really worth.

Yawning after a sleep!!

My blog has been in sleep for a long time.
To my surprise, the blog received more number of hits when it wasn't updated regularly.
I wanted to work on the blog but you may call me lazy or busy, your choice, but it kept on getting postponed.
Some of the widgets had stopped working and I wanted to check what went wrong with those. But I was totally off the blog till recently when suddenly there was an overflow.
My few friends started blogging and I got their links to read. Then, there was a competition on a topic. Coincidentally I already had one post ready. So, I just submitted it. Later on, I got a mail saying the entry should be fresh and I should include a link of their page in my blog so as to consider my post for the competition. Well, need not mention but I didn't do any of those things and so I guess am out of the competition. Writing this make me realize that I just missed the chance to earn few thousand dollars I guess. I am feeling so bad now!! Hell!! But I got some new readers instead.
Anyway, the point was these things brought me back to the blog. Since I don't have anything interesting to write at the moment, I decided to work on the blog rather than any post.
So, first thing I checked was the widget showing comment updates. Some thing went wrong and it totally disappeared from the page. At the moment it seems working properly, but am waiting for any new comment to appear in it.
Secondly, one thing I was very curious was about the polls taken on different pages and blogs. Wanted to know how it is incorporated and how actually it works. Finally I succeeded in including this widget in my blog. Have generated a test poll question and waiting for votes like the Indian politicians in present scenario. I don't know if this polling thing really makes any sense sitting on a blog. But I will watch it for some time. If found interesting, will keep it on.
There is one more thing I want to include in my blog. I got the idea from some blog I was reading and immediately liked it. Will update this post if successfully included in my blog.
Well, these were some uninteresting words I put down on my blog and you can skip except for one interesting observation I came across. Among all the posts till date, the post on “Ashadhi Ekadashi” got maximum hits and it is way ahead of all other posts on the blog, nearly 5-6 times more hits.
Isn't that interesting!!