Ignorance is bliss

I have wrestled with this idea for quite some time, and my opinions are still ambivalent. This thought recently popped up after finding out that parts of Men Vs Wild, the series on Nat Geo, were fake. I will never be able to enjoy that series again, there will always be that doubt, and for that matter on similar series in future, what a shame. But if I had not been aware ?

I used to love street food, still do, but gradually when the unhygenic aspect sinks in, I never had that fun, always conscious. What fun it used to be pani puri after school, but now :( The situation is worse when it comes to relationships.

When you try to understand a relationship, the rationale, put logic, prepare that equation, balance it, then thats it, you loose something forever, now the relationship will turn into something mathematical, that you can probably put in a paper and analyze,

In future when we develop superior models to understand human psyche, its not that hard to imagine a sw system taking all the inputs from the various sensors, and giving you a chart ! Or a text message alert on your cell that reads " Hey Tushar, She is 78.25% in love with you, thats up by 2% from yesterday, if you want a more detailed report, click this link,
Satisfaction Guaranteed, Your transaction will be safe with us" or something on those lines. Ok that was a bit fanciful, but not very hard to imagine.

When I first started reading psychology, it fascinated me to no end, I was aware that I might potentially devalue the humane aspect of a relationship, but curiosity got the better of me. I was convinced that there is a reason behind every action, whether someone is conscious of that reasoning or not, did not concern me, I was interested in just the logic. And sadly there is a reason,behind all that we do. But then I found I am loosing a certain sentimental value in relationships.

Probably the trick lies is not being ignorant but not to be 'super smart', relationships ought to have that sentimental value, I choose to ignore rationale and logic in relationships that I value, I don't want to make SENSE of it all, I don't have to, and it has been a wise decision so far. How it feels when someone surprises you, when someone sits with you and gives you advice, when someone cares, standing by your side. When someone waits for you and you abandon every logic and try to outdo with more love and caring than you got :)

Better templates

Blogger needs a better selection of template, I blog at multiple places and each one has a different temper, The one on travel I want to have it more lively, I do a lot of landscape cause of my inclination towards outdoor and trekking a template which brings life into those pictures a background which is roughened up a bit. basically more options in template , I am struggling to find one for my travel blog.

And anticipating how imp blog is going to be , a piece of us out there in the internet , we should be giving some more attention to its presentations. Was surprised that I had to tweak quite a bit to bring the tag clouds. it should be out of the box.

I am not complaining too much, the blogging infrastructure is quite good, but it can be made better.
My travel blog looks real shitty now :(.

Need to do some research on custom templates

List

A flash light is a must
A insect repellent, if part of the organizing committee.

List

What do I need through the course of a day, away from the comforts of home. While trekking during monsoons in peninsula India.

1. toothpaste/brush
2. a non Turkish towel, for it has to dry quickly.
3. a swiss army knife.
4. an umbrella
5. a cap
6. sunglasses
7. trekking shoes
8. 1-2 pairs of socks per day.
9. wrist watch
10.shorts and tshirt one each per day planned.
11. Sun block, water proof one.
12. Medicine pouch (antisceptic + bandaid + a small roll of cotton wool + diarrohea + dysentry tablets).
13. A backpack with two pouches to carry two bottles of water.
14. A rain coat to keep the backpack dry and some polythenes to wrap up the camera.
15. slippers
16. Camera
17. memory cards as required.
18. Cell
19. Cell charger (optional)
20. ipod + earphones
21. ipod charger (optional)
22. A small list of imp contact numbers.
23. A pair of driving glasses is a must, if any plan of night time biking.
24 A pair or a single walking pole.

This list will be refined further with experience

What do you see ?

NASA astrophysicists have discovered what they claim is something outside the observable universe exerting an effect on the observable. The material is pulling clusters of galaxies towards a region of space known not to contain sufficient matter to create the effect. They can only speculate on what the material is and how space might differ there: "In these regions, space-time might be very different, and likely doesn't contain stars and galaxies (which only formed because of the particular density pattern of mass in our bubble). It could include giant, massive structures much larger than anything in our own observable universe. These structures are what researchers suspect are tugging on the galaxy clusters, causing the dark flow.

Now sample this theory
The senses routinely perform two miracles, First each sensory organ acts to transform a particular kind of physical energy - the short waves of light, the molecules of sourness - into a different kind of energy, the electrochemical process of neural firing. This process is called transduction. Each sense has specialized receptors responsible for the transduction of external energy into the language of the brain. The eye transduces light, the ear transduces sound waves the nose transduces gaseous molecules.

The second part of the miracle is in teh sensory and brain system. here there is a second transformation the billions of electrical explosions and chemical secretions of 'neural firing' becomes trees and cakes, silverfish and laughter, emotions - the conscious world of human experience.

These two miracles occur every moment of our lives and are so contnious and routine that we are naturally unaware of them. We are on our way to understand how the first mracle works but completely mystified by the second.

My explanation to the first problem is, there might be something wrong in te second transformation we just assume too many things in our observable world, we havent questioned the second transformation that much, we ought to. The first transformation is all about science as we know today cause and effect, the second is more subjective , not boolean, perceptions.

Or is this the consciousness of GOD, I try to open up, imagine break the shales, not governed by the conditioning of senses, through the last 28 years, not conditioned by the books I have read, what do I see ?

Strange as it may sound, today I am quite sympethetic to the collapsed giants of the wall street. If you ask any one, this is the big news these days so everyone is aware, as to what happened, the answer would be recklessness, too much of risk. Hardly anyone will use words like too much of ambition, dreams or confidence. These words are two sides of th same coin, we just choose them based on the result. If AIG would have come out with spectacular results then the CEO would have been described as an ambitious guy, a candidate for some magazine's cover page. I am sure the fall guys now would have donned the cover pages of various magazines in the past.The methods, the race itself has hardly any value in front of results, numbers. Yet it is the methods, the process, the race itself that builds up the numbers, the results.

In a way one is always alone, he , his thoughts his dreams. If a majority of outsiders/ society at large sees some benifit out of your success than you are a hero. They seldom even peep into your methods, the result is all that matters. If on the other hand your utility (for them) goes down or worse goes into negative, you will find yourself at the wrong end of the barrel, this is instantaneous.

What ever happens in your life, you, your soul, your process, your methods, your personality, your dreams are always going to be with you. People, relationships, unless you are very lucky to have real values based relationships, they will be fickle, once the stimuli is gone, it will start decaying. And your mind will create notions, theories to protect your conscience against this uglyness, the betrayal, its natural and to an extent necessary as well. Coming back to The results, well let the society bother about them, let the others take note of it, let the insignificant others take note of it. You should not worry about it.

This theory needs to be developed further, refined. I am discovering new reinforcing thoughts on these lines in day to day life.

Window

Security is one aspect that needs to be thought about, If I am not in house ona vacation , travelling I shouldnt be worrying too much with this window design.

Window

It should have a view an uninterrupted one where one can wake up, sit by it with the morning newspaper or a book, watch the rains outside, so glass shutters, cushions and curtains. I should be wide enough for two people to sit facing eachother, The glass shouldnt be frosted, it should be plain. No elaborate design on the shutters a minimalist look. A small flower bed on the outside along the window would be desirable.

The uninterrupted view implies, it shouldnt open up to someones area, definitely not a house, on our present house, it culd be in the front facing the road, facing east implies hot afternoon sun doesnt get in. I shouldnt be able to see anyone from there, just me and my thoughts. A circular shape means some of the shutters can be kept open when it rains. Also one can draw the curtains sit and read something while someone is sleeping.

The light arrangement should be soft and control should be available near the bed,near the window and near the door when you enter. Its should be soft white light. There should also be a plug point and a switch to control the main lighting in the room. There should be a ceiling fan.

The sitting area there can be continious along the window edge, and should be such that one can recline and sleep there, this idea has to be developed further. A small cofee table. The area under the sitting can be used for storage.

Curtains have to be heavy enough to block the light, but not very rich enough to block the light.

The picture portrays a very rich setting, it should be minimalist and yet provide all the functionality above.

Google Calendar Integration

This should ideally be coming from Google itself, or for that matter any IM client, My IM client should be able to use an online calendar service and provide me notifications.

Through the IM preferences/settigns I should eb able to set my preferences.

Google Calendar Integration

Here is the mandate: communicate with google calendar service, read the username, password and public url from a properties file.A small light weight client to work with rather than the web page.

a) The s/w would be written in java, cause thats teh only language I am pretty comfortable in.
b) An api to create an event, date, time and a brief synopsis. and a flag if it is to notify regularly.
c) What is regular interval is controlled by the user through a properties file.
d) An api to tell if the event instance is to be set as completed .

This is teh backend code

The front end will be a swing application in the system tray.
Context menu will have show tasks, which will pop up a window showing the contents of that day.
The window will allow the fwd/backward buttons and a input box for entering the date.
On right clicking an event there will be an option to complete the task.

Notification service
This will derive the notification frequency from a properties file, query the calendar and notify the user if time to event is < 'before' setting in the event and event is not complete.