Popularity or Talent shows: The new confusion.

On the Indian TV there are a lot of TV shows that linked with SMS and voting. There used to be one or two shows earlier, but now there are plenty. But somehow the Indian Audience, the TV industry etc is totally confused about the pattern.

There are two aspects of such shows. An actor or a couple performs. The Judges give some marks and comments. The public votes. Both don't match. Somehow based on the votes the candidate gets eliminated who gets less votes. So how to get back people who are eliminated. The magic wand is "wild card". 

Earlier days there used to be number of votes declared. Now a days that too is not there. So you really don't know whether number of votes were in hundreds, thousands or millions.

Overall something does not look correct in this format. First of all, if you are a judge in these shows, what are you judging? You see the same comments repeating. So why not have 5-6 points and show the marking. Secondly is assume there are 5-6 dances or songs on each episode. And a show runs for 20 weeks, 3 times a week, you are seeing 300 performances. Is there a learning coming out of this?

If you are a participant, it becomes do some dance and start the vote asking. Dial this number, or sms this number etc. What happened to the old winners. Were they able to launch their careers?

As audience it the most difficult part. You see one episode, miss a couple, see something here and there, and once in a while vote. Is it honest to the performer.

So then who votes? During the first Indian Idol, I voted a couple of times. After that never.

So this is total confusion. But then our TV shows rather than showing something meaningful, keep the audience involved in such shows. Will we get an Indian Playhouse disney, Cartoon network, Discover, History channel etc. Does not look like till my grand children become grand fathers.

What do you see?

Sometimes we have to lose focus to see things. In the 3d image below, you will have to lose focus. Don't focus your eyes but keep seeing the photo, and you will see a funnel. You may have to save this picture on your desktop and then see it.

चलॊ हम हिन्दी मै ब्लोग करे.

हमारी यह कोशिश रही बडे दिनो से कि कोइ ऐसा तरीका निकाले जिससे हिन्दी मै लिखा जाये. आखिर तरीका मिल ही गया.

सुरेश कुमार

Mouse.

We had the keyboard discussed now let us see the mouse. Mouse can be classified based on a few ways.

Connectivity.

Mouse can be connected to a PC using either COM (Serial), PS2, USB, Bluetooth, Infrared, Wireless. The famous ones are USB, as they are cheap and affordable. For me anything that is equivalent to a lunch cost is affordable. I have seen some Mouse which are priced $50 and above. Sheer waste of money, unless your application genuinely needs that dpi.

Keys.

Mouse can have anything from 1 key to 10 keys. One to four mouse wheels. But to be useful to 90% of the productive community worldwide the two button + one wheel is good enough, unless you are of the Apple type.

Size and Color.

Mouse use to come roughly the size of a squeezed tennis ball. With white as the only color. But today I have seen mouse the size of a small lemon to the large ones as big as a PDA. In fact they look more like a cat than a mouse. There are all colors and designs. It is a fashion statement.

Technology.

Mouse can be wheel type or laser type. The wheel type  were prevalent a lot during older days (a decade back). During my teaching days that time, a regular topic discussed in the meeting was how to save the mouse balls. :) The laser mouse is simple, efficient, accurate, and solved our meeting problem.

But then mouse was invented in 1968 by Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute

So are you old or is the mouse older. For me I was born after the mouse was invented.

The Solitary Reaper : William Wordsworth

BEHOLD her, single in the field,
  Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
  Stop here, or gently pass!

Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
  And battles long ago:

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
  As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
  And o'er the sickle bending;—

I listen'd, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

History of Keyboards (layouts)

While lots has changed in the PC's and are still changing, the keyboard and its layout have remained the same for more than 100 years (and we hear that technology changes).

There are three keyboard layouts that are accepted universally, ofcourse the first being on almost all PC's

1. QWERTY layout.

2. DVORAK layout

3. MALT keyboard.

QWERTY layout was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1873. DVORAK layout was invented by August Dvorak in the 1930, whereas MALT keyboard was devised by Lillian Malt.

QWERTY

DVORAK

MALT

Switching from QWERTY to DVORAK is a matter of going to control panel->keyboard->changing layout, for MALT keyboards you will need additional hardware. It is more "ergonomical".

Shakuntala Devi

This is one of her books I read many many years ago. She is a Mathematical Genius. Then for many years I did not hear anything from her. I thought she has migrated to some other country or is busy in some other projects. She was in Singapore some days back and had a seminar. My daughter told me that she had visited her school. Old memories flashed. I had bought her book from Higginbothams. The stall was on Vijayawada Railway Station.

Some of her photos of past and present. She looks just the same.

Then

Now

Relates Sites.

http://www.shakuntaladevi.in

Watches

In my school days there were very few of the students who used to wear watches. My dad had gone to US in those days and he had got one electronic watch. I was one of the firsts to wear an electronic watch in the school. I was searching of the important things that happened in the history of watches.

1500s=The first pocket watch was invented in Germany

1884=GMT recognized as the basis of time zones in England.

1956=Rolex has the first day-date display in the watch.

1962=First Quartz watch (Swiss made). Battery Operated.

1972=LCD. Liquid Crystal Display (Electronic) Watches.

Since then we have variation in the models. Essentially there are mechanical watches, automatic watches, quartz watches, Kinetic and electronic watches (battery operated and solar). Some extra features like FM/AM Radio, Temperature, GPS, Bluetooth, MP3 Player, Remote control, USB connected watches have been launched. I have yet to see any watches with integrated mobile phone. Watches in Phone are so prevalent, but phone in watches not yet. Or is it that I don't know?

How can we discuss watches without talking about HMT and Titan. My father is still a HMT fan and wears an HMT, I on the other hand wear a Titan.

Guru Nanak Jayanti and Children's Day

Optical Illusions

In many email chain letters and many presentations, I have seen these two pictures/

How many people you see, How much time you took to find out, where are they etc etc.

Do you see an old woman or a young woman and what did you see first, and seeing front or seeing back etc etc. I think thousands of presentations had the speaker impressing the crowd with these photos.

Basically all this means that the presenter itself had been disillusioned with these images. And he or she used these images to understand more. Next time you see these images in emails or presentations, ask the sender/presenter. What did these images bring a change to their lives? And you will be surprised on listening to their stories. I use this a gauge to judge presenters.

Computer Memory

Decided to write some technical history today.

Computer memory can be broadly classified into 3 categories

a. Based on Vacuum tubes. 

b. Based on Ferrite Ring (called as Core memory). This was invented by Jay Forester.

c. Today's, semiconductor based LSI (Large Scale Integration) chips.

The revolution in memory technology came from Jay Forester. For a period of time, the core memory was used in 90% of the computers. No wonder we have the "core dumped" , the famous message we see during compiling C programs.

So what about SDRAM, EDORAM, DDR, DDR2. Will clear this mystery in the next post.

Suresh

BR Chopra Passes Away

BR Chopra was one of the top film makers of Bollywood Movies. Masala, Masti, Magic, Epic, he tried and succeeded in everything he made. Mahabharat, the epic TV serial on Doordarshan was his defining entry into the small screen. We were glued to our TV sets those days.

Top Movies by BR Chopra (Must SEE)

A Happy Diwali

Wishing for Peace and Prosperity and Stability.

Diwali Greeting

It is Diwali time. Brightness wins over Darkness.

Righteousness wins over Cheating. World needs peace and the message of Diwali is relevant today as it has been all these years.

Wishing you all a Happy Diwali. This picture is from my brother Mukesh.

Nobel Prize

US is on the lead for the Nobel Prize.
Chemistry they have it all. (though one scientist is from Japan)
Physics is shared between USA and Japan.
Medicine is shared between France and Germany.
Literature is French.

Peace and Economics are due on 10th and 13th October respectively.

I searched the site (www.nobelprize.org) to find the Indians or at-least those born in India who have won the prize.

Among the nominations Gandhiji, Nehruji and Sanjib Chaudhary (CJ Supreme Court) were nominated. Surprisingly Gandhiji never won the prize. It puzzles me to this day.

In 1913 Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore won for Literature.
In 1930 Sir Venkata Raman won the prize for Physics.
In 1968 Har Gobind Khurana for Medicine
(He took US Citizenship in 1970)
In 1979 Mother Teresa for Peace.
In 1983 Subramanya Chandrasekhar for Physics
(He became US Citizen in 1953)
In 1998 Amartya Sen for Economics

Bright Minds.

Trip to Ayuthaya.

Last Sunday, I decided to go to Ayuthaya. There are many ways to go there. But I decided to take the route that is taken by common people. A taxi would have cost any where near to 2000 Baht or more. And would be going-seeing-coming back.

I took the BTK train to Moh-Chit station. The train ride with good AC is really refreshing. Next I got down and took a bus number 77. I should add here that, one of the security personnel there was very helpful. He told me to take either 77 or 3, which will take me direct to the Bus Station. Any way, the bus ride was nice. It cost be 16 Baht. Once in the bus station, I took the Bus to Ayuthaya. It was again AC. Ride was nice, and in 90 mins I was there. Once in Ayuthaya, I took a motorcycle and went about seeing the place.

You can read some information on Ayuthaya here.
1. Amazing Thailand. Tourist Web site. (http://www.amazing-thailand.com/Ayuthaya.html)

I took many photos on my Casio-Exilim. But I am posting those I took on my Nokia 6300 camera phone.

Enjoy.








Peace in world.

Shoes

I had gone to buy shoes yesterday and wondered, that what is their history? Who wore the first shoes. Since when did shoes become a fashion from a necessity? What are the materials used to make them?
I my home town in Rajasthan, India, shoes are made of camel leather. They are quite different. We call them mojri. And during old times, the shoe or mojri as we call it, would eat into the legs. We had to oil it.

Mojri looked like this.



Picture has been borrowed from rediff. Also it is interesting to read the history of shoes here.

Smallest

I was surfing the net to find the world's smallest countries. I found a link here.
If you add up the population of the 17 countries listed here, it is still less than a medium sized Indian town. I am surprised how people feel and live in such small countries.
The link is here.



Next I started to look for the smallest people. I found a site about Primordial Dwarfism. It is essentially a rare case where people grow very slowly. Much better than me I think the video shows it all. I searched further and found this site. There was reference of an Indian there. This caught my attention. His name is Aditya "Romeo" Dev. He is a body builder and recognized as the smallest body builder both in Guinness and Limca book of records.

A picture is attached.

Jodhpur - Stampede

It is indeed a sad day in Jodhpur.
Reading news reports, the toll of the people who have died has already crossed 100. For Jodhpur this is a very big number. There has never been such a tragedy. The Chamunda temple is on one corner of the Mehrangarh Fort. The route to the temple is narrow. The temple itself is not so big. On the first day of Navratri there is anyway a very large rush. 20 years back during my college days, I too used to go to the temple. There used to be quite a large crowd on the first day.

20 years on, devotees have increased ten fold, but the temple size remains the same. Everyone wants to rush. Ever one wants a glimpse.

Thailand - Beautiful Temples

Thailand has some of the most beautiful temples I have seen. The Buddhist temples are just breath taking. So is the river. The size, the flow, the people, the boats everything. Where ever rivers have flowing water, culture has developed. Temples, places of culture, literature and fine arts have all evolved around rivers. No surprise, in India, rivers was where civilization flourished.



The picture on left is of "Wat Arun". In Thai, temple is called Wat. Arun means Sun in Sanskrit. The above is temple of dawn. During Sunrise, it looks just marvellous.



The picture on left is Wat Rakhang. Rakhang means bell in Thai. Legend says that during excavation of the site to build the temple, a large bell was un-earthed. That's how it got its name



More updates later.