On Twitter

"And the Twitterverse is getting more crowded by the day because late-adopter dolts like me finally get it."

for all it's worth...

From: JV Singh
Date: Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 6:05 PM
Subject: Thank you
To: feedback@ndtv.com


As a concerned citizen, i am grateful to you for your responsible journalism. Thank you for your restraint and the editorial decision you took of not showing specific operational details live.
- Jang Vijay Singh

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: JV Singh
Date: Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 4:38 PM
Subject:
To: feedback@ndtv.in


Please do not show pictures of specific positions that the security personnel have taken - like the grenade launchers. This could jeopardize the operation.
-- Jang Vijay Singh.

Kites!

Reading 'The Kite Runner', i re-lived my schooldays and had been aching to fly one sometime. Every year, during school, kiteflying was a mega-event during Independence Day, and the festival of Rakshabandhan. Independence day is 15th of August every year and this year, Rakhshabandhan happened to be the next consecutive day, a Saturday.
Anyway, my day of kite-flying just happened and was totally unplanned on a short trip home over the extended Independence Day weekend.
Current score:
No. of loots: 2
Number that got looted: 2

A Singing Supermarathon

A new Guinness book of WORLD RECORD ! (sic)

I was in Vashi (New Bombay) the day Viraag Wankhade (or is it Wankhede?) started singing for his "Guinness book of world record" (sic) I almost half-laughed my way out of the mall that day. But a news flash on NDTV just conveyed that he actually succeeded!
India is seriously a land of 'ajubas'. I mean this guy actually kept singing for 6 days without food, water or sleep. Am really curious about whether he skipped nature's calls for these 6 days...

The singing supermarathon started on the 20th of April at City Centre mall, Vashi. The title of this post comes from the banner hanging in the mall that day (picture on the right)



When i personally met this guy about a year ago in his recording studio in another vashi mall (Center one) i could bet i had never met a more 'generally disinterested' person ever. Guess he was just conserving all his passion for this...

Stock advice

No prize for guessing - what is wrong with these 'expert opinions'?

A long drive

Views of the Mushi Dam

The video below captures the drive up that mountain on the left of the picture. The views are breathtaking, the air is pure and clean and for once, i'm not irritated by the rain! A beautiful day, a romantic drive and one of the best dates ever!

By far the best and most scenic (and a little dangerous in terms of road safety)place i've driven in is still the 'First view of the Vale' (No place on earth beats Kashmir's beauty) - Will post a video of that soon.

Driving on...

A Lizard Having Dinner.

The way a message is delivered...

"The way a message is delivered is often more important than the message itself."
Delivering messages, or 'communication' as we know it, can be of many types:The verbal or face to face communication, and variants thereof, such as sign-language communication, mass communication such as public speaking, and teaching. Last but definitely not the least in this Web2.0 era of email, instant messengers and outsourced jobs is the written communication.
The profound truth of the issue statement, stands true in whichever method we choose to deliver messages. The way a message is delivered forms a major fraction of the overall communication that takes place. This is a scientific fact.
Starting with one-to-one communication, and considering a very basic example - A person can convey significantly different meanings using the same words - by using different facial expressions. Verbal and facial cues actually are part of the message, not merely the words. This statement especially stands true where verbal face-to-face communication is concerned. A very small fraction of human interaction actually comprises of the words actually spoken.
Nowhere is this phenomenon more pronounced than in the case of teaching. The same textbook facts, printed in black and white, can either cause children to go to sleep (maybe cram up the facts later for the test) or ignite the spark of scientific curiousity in them - simply by the way a teacher conveys those facts. An example of a teacher par excellence is Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, the President of India. Just by the way he speaks passionately to school children about Science and how scientific power is going to make our country great, has inspired many children to pursue a scientific career.
That hearing impaired people can be 'spoken' to, the mute can 'speak', and the blind can 'read' is possible because of standardized ways of delivering messages that have been developed over time. An Indian classical dancer tells a complete mythological tale while performing her art. These two examples illustrate the power of different kinds of information delivery methods.
On an abstract level, what, after all, constitutes a message anyway? Is it the words uttered or written by an individual? Are those sound waves the be all and end all of the message? If that would be the case, then the human race would not be the great amalgmation of civilizations and cultures it is today. There would be no art and no humour. What would the actors or stand-up comedians be good for? All that anyone would ever have to do would be to make words with their mouth or write them. The reason we have richness of literature, theatre, cinema, humour is that human beings are able to colour empty messages and put feeling into them. A satirist is able to use those tones and body language that we really can't say if its just the words that make the audience peel with laughter!
Written communication, emails, Instant messages, where the advantage of facial expressions and body language is lost, one would think that the core 'message' of facts and words would be paramount. Well, here again, the way our message is delivered, the way words are arranged, 'what' words are chosen to convey the same message, what 'emoticons' are used in that offline message to a lover, all have a bearing on the overall communication.
A and :) could show the offshore techie writing computer programs for us, how we appreciate his staying up till 2 AM, Indian time, for us and a :-* would make a lover's day and these would convey more than the mere 'message' ever could.

*Content has not been altered in any way. This is how it was written in the first attempt - with its spelling mistakes and all..

Wisdom - knowing what to look or overlook?

"Wisdom is rightly attributed not to people who know what to look for in life, but to those who know what to overlook"*

Wisdom lies in both kinds of people. It all depends on the circumstance - 

there are situations where looking for specific things is wiser while in others it might be wiser to overlook certain
things.

Wisdom is the ability to respond most effectively and positively to any circumstance that life
puts a person in. Those who come out of each experience better than before are wiser.
To face his or her circumstances, a person goes through considerable processing of their
own 'model' of the world. This model is the way a person interprets his or her surroundings.
For the purpose of this argument, I would compare this model to a GRE question.
If getting through life were getting a multiple choice mathematics question right
(although real life, I concede, is infinitely more complex), a person might start by simply
solving the given problem (just like looking for something specific - the answer)
to arrive at one of the answer choices.
Another might start with eliminating the unlikely choices first (analogous to overlooking certain
things) and quite likely, arrive at the correct solution this way.
In many questions/problems, either of the two approaches on its  might not result in the desired
outcome, as the synergetic, or simultaneous application of both might. Sometimes, of the 5
answer choices, one might eliminate two, but, would need the other approach - the solution
aproach - to arrive at the correct choice,  with 100% surety.

There are people who have fixed goals in life - something they seek and work towards achieving.
And then there are those who are not fixated on limited pursuits but rather go through life
picking and choosing  according to their needs - rather eliminating things that are not according
to their taste. The two kinds of people mentioned in this issue statement - those who know what to
look for and those who know what to overlook - are essentially like two different kinds of problem
solvers, or I should say, techniques of problem solving. The first kind of problem solving is a
step-by-step application of an algorithm until the solution is arrived at. The second kind, start with
eliminating the most unlikely solutions and proceed in a similar manner until a solution is achieved..
Now, for a given problem, usually only one of these approaches, or both applied together, is
going to give the quickest solution.

Wisdom, thus, lies not in any one of these approaches, but rather in applying the correct approach.
People, going about the business of life are essentially trying to navigate a complex model - solving
problems one way or the other - trying to come out stronger and better. Wisdom, thus, is not rightly
attributed to a person who goes about life merely overlooking - but to one who chooses to look or
overlook according to circumstance.


(C) 2007 Copyright   Jang Vijay Singh.
All Rights Reserved for the content above (except sections mentioned below)

* Source of this issue topic is the powerprep software published by ETS (www.ets.org) 

Some good articles i read today:
1. "Execution in the kingdom of nouns"
2. Can Your Programming Language Do This?
A programming paradigm called MapReduce which Google is using to build Skynet

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Mapa, Papa and Geetu had a bit of a celebration today - just a small family, friends and neighbours' get-together with some Gurbani recitation. Its been almost 10 years now since we finished building our new house and moved into it. Feels overwhelming to think I can look back clearly on events of 10 even 20 years ago. Phew, all this time gone by, it seems in a breeze.

Incidentally, "The one with everyone's 30th birthday" episode of FRIENDS was on TV today; must be its 1346th rerun but still cracks me up every time :D