February 2006 Archives

This has always been an argued topic..whether technology is allowing more disadvantages than advantages?

Though I lean more often towards the technology side because I like what technology enables... for this article's purpose I am trying to explore the critical or disadvantageous side of things with some gadgets, online services, and the technologies.

The GPS...
GPS is for global positioning system, which is a set of technology and protocols which enables gadgets supporting it to find your position or actually the gadget's position relevant to a city, state or country, give you directions to a destination, and with some gadgets like 'skyscout' find where a star or planet is located on the sky from your position.

The critical factors:
Firstly, the most obvious thing is that this gives you the position of a gadget. Hey! that should be the idea, what's wrong with that... its only helping me.
Yes, simple enough this enables a new person to the city, who we will assume as a bad guy with your address, find directions to your place the fastest just by buying a GPS, or still worse notes down directions to your place from online free services like Google maps or Microsoft's "local".

If that's acceptable, here's more better technology.

New online services have come up in recent months which enables you to track a person by his mobile device.

All you need to do is register with the online service with the person's mobile number, borrow the device from the person for a while so that without his consent you can reply to the online service's confirmation SMS and delete the message from the inbox and outbox. All with the disguise that you borrowed the mobile device for making a call.

Once the confirmation is received the tracking system gets enabled, and on a website you can see a map with an indication of where the device is or indirectly where the person is. This could be a security risk, or sometimes slightly better... just a piracy risk.

It doesn't cost the person anything. Though it might cost you little for registering on the online service. Basically, the service was started for the demand of tracking children or family or friends in times of need.

Mobile broadband group which controls standards of services on mobile phones say that they recognize the vulnerability and have asked the operators to send tracking reminder messages at random times very often to the user of the device, so that if the person gets to see atleast one of the reminders, he can reply to the message to disable the tracking.

But risks are still there.. its possible with today's technology to intercept messages sent to a particular device and do something with it, rather than allow the message to be read in real form by the recipient.

Another service, I heard about last was ... some company is testing a service which tracks all mobile phone signals in an area to analyze the amount of road traffic in that area ... assuming that everyone driving has a mobile phone. Critics were saying, "Who knows whether they are tracking only number of phone signals or reading and taping my calls already.. that's privacy interference".

The RFID magic:
Its called Radio Frequency Identification, and is also a tracker technology, initially developed for only short distance tracking like movement of products within a supermarket. If you didn't know, its a small device which can be attached like a tag to product packages in stores to track the movement of products through the store.

Technologists claim, with this technology super markets can track what items a customer picks up, what display areas he/she often visits, and what's their buying or more often moving pattern within the store. This information can allow store owners to reorganize the store in a better way, to encourage customers visits mostly unvisited display areas, or buy what they want quickly and checkout.

A major critical factor is, customers may not like the idea of somebody tracking their movements in a store. Come on, after all you are there to buy something, and if someone is watching you walk to every place and know what items you are picking up, or dropping back, isn't it hacking privacy... if not security risk.

There were numerous protests, and the stores kindly resented from using the technology.

But then, the technology was still so attractive and cheap, people wanted to sell it out to the shipment guys, the package delivery guys, and all sorts of people to allow digital tagging of items which can be then easily moved into shipment terminals, carriage services, etc., So, the technology now allows tracking many things other than products in superstores.

What the heck, one person Amal Graafstra even implanted an RFID chip in his hand and tried enabling many applications, one of them is like an announcement system in his corridor telling him how many emails he has received when it recognizes he is entering...He later wrote a book RFID Toys

The critical factors:
Although the use of the technology is constantly growing even with doubts about the real value of data that it gives over normal barcoded tags in shipments, the RFID technology operates on radio frequency waves and is not prone to be tracked globally. This is not an advantage though, for globally positioning tracking bad guys can always use the big daddy GPS.

RFID works only short distances or sometimes just inches away from a source which requests information from the chip. Could be seen more often like a replacement for barcoded prodcuts, where you still show the RFID tag near a screening unit.

But its radio frequency, and so the technology can well me engineered easily to allow better ranges like 500meters to a few kilometers of a transponder that could track the RFID tag. If that happens, this will be the tiniest equipment which people won't notice, and will enable easy tracking.

Continued in next page link:
>ID Systems: Finger-print identification, Iris identification, Body movement recognition
>Tiny cameras
>The biggest risk of all: The internet
>Map services on the internet
>End-Note
>Related Links & Quotes

Don't miss this film.. if you felt India a little closer to your heart. Its an artistic impression of India's youth brigade.

The film got a standing-on-the-seats ovation in Indian Institute of Technology campus where it was recently shown with Actor madhavan and producers present for questions.

A.R.Rahman's music is just inside the emotions in the film...

I don't want to talk more.. close your ears and eyes to all reviews until you are in the theatre... so you feel the pleasure of the film.

The new Italian police car...Lamborghini Gallardo..max speed 320km/hr



The Italian car manufacturer Lamborghini donated a Gallardo to Italian polizia.

"The Italian highway patrol are using the Lamborghini to keep pace with reckless drivers"
"The superfast Lamborghini can also be used to transport vital transplant organs at high speed"

Another country where police have top-notch cars.. is Japan.

These ones are Lancer Evo IX. Looks like photograph of a police parade.. And some of them coming behind look like Honda's...looks like a Honda logo on a gray car behind..hardly visible.
You know Japan is the land with many GT-R and other sport compact police cars.

Cover letter: "I would be prepared to meet with you at your earliest
convenience to discuss what I can do to your company."
That's what we're afraid of .

Resume: "It is my professional objective to obtain a position which
allows me to make use of my commuter skills."
I think we can oblige.

Weaknesses: "Suffer from prickly heat in summer."
Sounds uncomfortable.

Cover letter: "Enclosed is my resume for your viewing pleasure."
We can hardly wait.

Cover letter: "You are privileged to receive my resume."
We'll try not to let it go to our heads.

Objective: "To mature in the field of human behavior."
Good luck with that.

Experience: "10 years of experience in fineancial budgiting and
transactions rigistering."
But limited experience with the spell-check function.

Cover letter: "Please overlook my resume."
If you insist.

Cover letter: "I'm submitting the attached copy of my resume for your
consumption."
Yum. :o)

Skills: "Grate communication skills."
Yes, but can you talk and chop at the same time?

Experience: "Responsibilities included recruiting, screening,
interviewing and executing final candidates."
Seems kind of harsh .

Cover letter: "Salary demanded - $65,000."
Would you like that in small, unmarked bills?

Strengths: "Ability to meet deadlines while maintaining composer."
Would that be Mozart or Beethoven?

Education: "B.A. in Loberal Arts."
Did you minor in ear piercing?

Cover letter: "I've updated my resume so it's more appalling to employers."
We're pretty shocked already .

Cover letter: "Seek challenges that test my mind and body, since the
two are usually inseparable."
Glad to hear it.

Cover letter: "My intensity and focus are at inordinately high levels,
and my ability to complete projects on time is unspeakable."
At these extremes, some things are best left unsaid.

Cover letter: "Experienced in all faucets of accounting."
That should help with the flow of information.

.........my goodnes.. i had a stomach-aching laugh at that. Hope you too had. Have a great day. -Harish

Studying technology, programming and most often robotics makes real processes that humans do everyday look like such great efforts.

When I was trying to do a voice recognition system for a client... and finally gave up with difficulties to take it up later ... I wondered how wonderfully easy we humans do voice recognition with ear and brain coordinating. To put in brief, to recognize a voice, I had to receive/record it, analyse the waveform with a stored pattern of waveforms and take the best match or highest percentage match, and identify the voice. Sounds simple but every level has complexities when you have to program it.. for instance the voice wave itself can have noise or other sounds along with it.. can be of different volume and tone since while we speak our voice has mixed tones and volume of sound. .. and all that overhead to point a few.

Wonder our brain does that in an instant. and it got self-programmed as we grew listening to sounds and learnt about them. Amazing creation this thing.. the brain. No wonder scientists are still still still trying to understand it.. we could understand things out-of-space..but not the brain yet.

The brain ... Must be the greatest creation ever.

Now coming back to the topic..Asimo.. (You also forgot is it :o)
Asimo is the name of a japenese robot brand by Honda. Asimo basically walks, climbs steps, and moves around obstacles. You should have seen this robot on TV. and it costs a few tens of millions of dollars. News is that about 4 or 5 of them are sold and operating in some businesses like restaurants.

Amazing.. what does it do.. walk around.

Do you really need this stuff at that cost to .. to just walk around. These businesses that use Asimo, obviously are not using it for the utility but the attraction that it gets as a robot. Pretty too costly attraction. You could send 100 customers to DisneyWorld and LasVegas on two week full paid trips i think..for the same cost.

Recently Asimo was again on TV.... because it learnt to climb steps without falling... yes just for that it was on TV. really. I have been climbing steps without falling every since I was 2 or 3..who bothers.

Robotics is good.. but Asimo being promoted so much is NUTS. All those industrial controlled robots which operate in nuclear sites, in automobile manufacturing units, in hospitals etc., are what can be good, useful robots.

Sony is also into this.. making robot dogs. Funny dogs they should call it instead of 'Aibo'. That again costs a few 100 thousand dollars I believe. But atleast sony has "cheaper" robot options for the show purpose, than Honda's Asimo.

Very truly.. Very often, We market things out of the way..
Aslo, we realize technology is so complex .. easy things are becoming difficult, costly and still attractive.

More reading:
Start from how the name 'robot'.
Learn about popular robotic author Isaac asimov - author of 'I, Robot'

In Bangalore, India, the software hub, the corporation body has started a contest.. 'Spot the Pothole' contest.

Fed up with complaints on potholes in the city, the corporation body made a contest idea and announced that anybody who sees a pothole in the city roads will win 100 rupees for each hole spotted.

The interesting fact is .. this amount will be given to every winner deducted from the pay of the engineer who contracted that stretch of road.

The scheme worked!!

The city's Corporation made note of all holes and filled them up making all key bangalore roads pothole free, .. in a crowded city where potholes in roads was like normal all these days.

But seems like no 100 Rupee winners. Because *Conditions apply... Conditions were, every pothole spotted should be 8inches by 8inches in diameter and have depth of 2 inches. Also, it should be on a road stretch announced part of the contest. :o) Whatever heck!

Mexico has a mummy museum. Not actually 1000 or 3000 year old mummies. Here, dead bodies from graves are taken and preserved in a state to make it a fashionable museum for horro freaks. All mummies so displayed have mouths open, eyes open, and have their hands stretched towards you looking very much like those seen in the film 'Mummy part 1 and 2'

This museum was on show as the No.6.... in Discovery Travel & Living channel's 'Best 10 destinations in Mexico' show.

The interesting fact is... I heard on the show that there is a rule around that place in mexico or closeby, wherein if relatives fail to pay rent for the tombs continuously for 5 years, the body can be dug out and displayed.

But.. wondering will the body not have decomposed fully to bones in 5 years. does it take longer than that. Could this information be a hoax.

Anyways.. there's a mummy museum if you someday tour Mexico. And all these place in Mexico have strange, kind of, non-western names.. This museum I think is in a place 'Guanajuato' in Mexico.

More Reading:
The Mummies of Guanajuato

Searching for a listing of what all these rankings are about for tennis players.. I landed up on the WTA website which ranks all the world's tennis players.

I found some interesting layout of information, or, actually resumes of tennis players. I started comparing resumes of my favorite womens tennis stars with an indian tennis star Sania Mirza.

Maria Sharapova: Resume
Kim Clijsters : Resume
Sania Mirza : Resume

Bottom Line: Comparing their resumes.. firstly disturbed me on my career.. ofcourse not in tennis... in general. All these people were younger than me by age, and have achieved so much in their career I just keep admiring.

I also keep noting facts about indian cricketers who are younger than me .. Irfan pathan, 21 year old, (6 yrs younger than me :( made cricketing history recently by taking hatrick wickets in the first over in a test innings.

What are you STILLLLL DREAMMMMMINGGG HAAAAAAAAAARISH.. is the voice i hear sooo often these days. No! dont ask me.. i am not giving you link to my resume.

Lufthansa Airlines

Passengers on a Lufthansa flight heard this announcement from the captain:"Ladies and Gentlemen, I am sorry to inform you that we have lost power to all of our engines and will shortly crash into the ocean".

The passengers were obviously very worried about this situation but
were somewhat comforted by the captain's next announcement.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we at Lufthansa have prepared for such an emergency and we would now like you to rearrange your seating so that all the non-swimmers are on the left side of the plane and all the swimmers are on the right side of the plane.

After this announcement all the passengers rearranged their seating to comply with the captain's request.

Two minutes later the captain made a belly landing in the ocean. The captain once again made an announcement:

"Ladies and Gentlemen we have crashed into the ocean. All of the swimmers on the right side of the plane open your emergency exits and
quickly swim away from the plane.

For all of the non-swimmers on the left side of plane... -Thank You for Flying Lufthansa- ".

-------------------------------------

Delta Airlines

At the airport for a trip, I settled down to wait for the boarding
announcement at Gate 35. Then I heard the voice on the public address
system saying,

"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Delta Flight 570 will board
from Gate 41."

So my family picked up our luggage and carried it over to Gate 41.

Not ten minutes later the public address voice told us that Flight 570
would in fact be boarding from Gate 35. So again we gathered our
carry-on luggage and returned to the original gate.

Just as we were settling down, the public address voice spoke "Thank
You for participating in Delta's physical fitness program."

----------------------------------------

British Airways

"This is Captain Sinclair speaking. On behalf of my crew I'd like to
welcome you aboard British Airways flight 602 from New York to London.

We are currently flying at a height of 35,000 feet midway across the
Atlantic."

"If you look out of the windows on the starboard side of the aircraft,
you will observe that both the starboard engines are on fire.

"If you look out of the windows on the port side, you will observe that the port wing has fallen off."

"If you look down towards the Atlantic Ocean, you will see a little
yellow life raft with three people in it waving at you. That's me your
captain, the co-pilot, and one of the air stewardesses. This is a recorded message."
------------

There was a man who had worked all of his life and had saved all of his money. He was a real miser when it came to his money. He loved money more than just about anything, and just before he died, he said to his wife, "Now listen, when I die, I want you to take all my money and place it in the casket with me. I wanna take my money to the afterlife."

So he got his wife to promise him with all her heart that when he died, she would put all the money in the casket with him. Well, one day he died. He was stretched out in the casket, the wife was sitting there in black next to her closest friend. When they finished the ceremony, just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said "Wait just a minute!" She had a shoe box with her, she
came over with the box and placed it in the casket.

Then the undertakers locked the casket down and rolled it away.
Her friend said, "I hope you weren't crazy enough to put all that
money in the casket."
She said, Yes, I promised. I'm a good Christian, I can't lie. I
promised him that I was going to put that money in that casket with
him." "You mean to tell me you put every cent of his money in the
casket with him?" "I sure did," said the wife. "I got it all together, put it into my account and I wrote him a cheque."

Note: If you read the above joke.........if you are an unmarried young guy, ... then you just got a bad omen becos you read this.. You will get a wife like this only...

he he... that's a shaabum.. a bad omen..
i am sooo happy to have pulled you into this omen.

ha ha ha.. lol.. still rolling.
Don't get irritated... hold it.. Have many great days guys. :o)

Previous elections(2 yrs back) in the state of Tamilnadu in India to elect candidates for central government administrators raised a lot of representation from various bodies that unfair practices were followed.

This was to favor the state's ruling party's candidates in winning the elections. They lost though, winning a very few seats contested.

The unfair practices were mass removal of names of people in a particular pattern like people who were teachers, cristians,etc.,

The representations claimed that...this was done becos the ruling party during its rein had made decisions unfavorable to these people...so didn't want these people to vote trying to make the contest easier and chances brighter.

Based on these representations, election commission of india had been investigating, and deliberating on the charges made.... and came up with an interesting decision for the coming elections in the state which is to select a the next selected state government for Tamilnadu.

The decision is to transfer all government officials who are prone to favor any candidate or influencial politicians. As per this decision, election commission would solicit transfer of any official who has worked in the same place for more than 3 yrs, or is working from his native place where he has always lived. All officials who are linked to the elections, be it the Inspector general of police, or the Election observers, or whoever.

Hope this works. and the elections are fair.

Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated yesterday 9 Feb 06, that he would soon invite the leaders of Hamas to visit Moscow.

Putin said in a news conference that Russia is maintaining contacts with the Hamas organization and intends in the near future to invite the leadership of this organization to Moscow.

News source: washington post

This was unexpected by leaders in the west, and Israel is concerned about this decision.

Hamas is an organization which once vowed to wipe israel of the map after isreali attacks killed a top Hamas leader and the killing was seen as a victory by israel and the west. Also, the west, especially the US recognize Hamas as a militant organization of high terrorist activity.

Russia... I thought succumbed to economical pressures to ally with the US after the devastating split in 1980-90's, the consequent turn of events, and cold-war casualities it had earlier to that.

But putin's announcement yesterday sounds a signal to me that, russia is happy making its own decisions unlike some european and western countries which allow US decisions to become their opinions.. and ally closely with the US for economic and power benefits.

The US indirectly acknowledged sometimes having a hand in destabilizing russia from its status into a industrial power and union in the 1990's. Russia could have become more powerful than the west (& Europe included).

Remember, Russians were the first to fly into space... to start a space station, and all that. Technologically and industrially Russia was clearly on its way to the 'SuperPower' status in the 1980's which could have pushed the west from that status.

Russia seemingly is interested to help Hamas in its current hurdle .. of setting up a government in palestine. If this goes well for the Hamas and palestine... people of palestine would be happier, since they voted for a change and have given the reigns to Hamas.

Read more:
Is Democracy stupid? that it allowed Hamas to gain control of palestine

Turin winter olympic games named "Torino 2006".. are ON.. opening ceremony today 10 Feb 06.

The official website says,
"An outstanding show that will keep two billion spectators glued to the screen: on February 10, 2006 starting at 8 pm (Turin), the strong emotion of the Opening Ceremonies of the Torino 2006 XX Olympic Winter Games at the Stadio Olimpico."

http://www.torino2006.org/
Torino games photo gallery

The 16 day games will end with a closing ceremony on Feb 26th 2006 also at 8pm (Turin).

Fact about African participant:
You would ask what is an African doing in a winter olympics seeing Kenyan Philip Boit practicing.. Africa has no place in its geography for skiing.. so being the only sprotsman from the whole of Africa, his participation is on a high here.. and so are the expectations.
Returning home after winter olympics.. this guy is sure to be called the 'cool' sport in Africa.
Africa at winter olympics

“Acute and smart criticism is what has fostered the progress of human thinking in all fields from philosophy to the sciences and the arts. Criticising and questioning lies also at the basis of the methodology used at the fundamental stages of professional academic life, such as the defence of PhD dissertations or the publication of papers and books.”

--that's as read from a blog... interesting!

Here's the link to the page: The quest for Earnesty

I love this blog where I found this link.. the writings of Daniel Mark Harrisson.

Panruti corporation office, TamilNadu, India... proves all my idea about indian government offices, and government office employees..Wrong.wrong.

Read about the office, its people in the link below.
Panruti corporation office makes a difference

Come April 2006, and the "Company Affairs Ministry" in India will be launching a e-governance portal which is part of launches in one of the phases of a e-governance project going on for years.

The project was started years back (I don't really remember), but finally looks like the most important phase of the project is set to completion and they are launching it soon.

The union minister of company affairs though announced only one advantage of the new system, (there must definitely be many other obvious things coming into shape with the new system.. .. politicians here will take time to change).

"You can register your company online, pay the registration fee online, and that reduces the time of registration of a new indian company from the earlier 168 hours to 42 hrs".. they said something like this.

I really don't know what they meant by 168 and 42.. but definitely to register a new indian company (without bribing anybody), you will take months. Government offices in India work on only one logic bribe-oriented execution.. In my experience there has never ever been an occassion where I could get something done from a government office employee without bribing him/her, though what we ask them to do is their normal job for which they are employed. Even the fellow who distributes company registration forms in local centres, actually sells it for Rs.25/-... I later found out that the form was actually meant to be given FREE as per norms.

Considering such a tradition of Government offices, especially the 'bureaucracy' (gentle term often used in India in sense of 'delay due to lesser bribes'), its very nice to hear they still have this e-governance project (without dumping it after years realizing money out of it like the way all projects are generally handled by the government).

BottomLine: Hopefully, after April 2006, the system works and people have success registering their businesses easily.

Definitely there are lot of businesses in india which are not registered. And I feel the government woke up on this only because the new system would generate more leads to realize taxes from previously unregistered businesses... And not for any reason like helping dismantle bureaucracy.. not yet.. not yet. India will take another 30 years .. becos all those oldies who are holding the stick of bureaucracy have to die which should take 30 yrs for a 50 yr old government employee to leave (us) in 'peace'.

Five Indian institute of technology graduates, take what could be considered the most unusual decision in India... they start a political party after graduation.

While their pals take up MNC jobs for handsome pay packages, these guys have called it off strongly against the usual odds of family and friends not supporting unusual decisions.

Name of the political outfit:
They call it 'paritrana' meaning "permanent removal of pain".

Read about them, the party, and the wereabouts of these bold decision makers, probably future shakers of Indian politics.
Economic Times news link

In my opinion:
Whether this could be called the start of an era in Indian politics or not, i dont know... but the stigma attached to the idea of students joining politics, is definitely going to go off if these 5 succeed in making their presence felt in Indian politics.

While indian politicians have always kept the stigma alive by calling politics a big circus...the deepest pit full of sewage and all that... kudos to Indian cinema which has for the past couple of years come up with movies all of which were focussed on the possiblity of students bringing change.

I am ashamed
I dont know about other indians, but the decision of these 5 students puts me to shame for all these days where I just see movies, walk-around road pits, drive-around unmindful traffic signal hoppers, ... etc.,

finally unmindful of the responsibilities I had towards the country to do something for it... or in taking the pain to shout at people who spit, who shit, who almost treat the roads of India like its a big black-tar-covered network of flat dustbins.

In 'star wars' terms: May the FORCE be with these 5 students., and may they have all the wisdom to handle politics and politicians, upholding it with good deeds.

Thanks to you guys.