Why UK Supports USA

It suprised me that UK gave the US such a backing in the recent war against terror. UK has been relatively safe from terrorists attacks and wasnt even singed by the september 11 attacks. Infact the UK economy has been on the upswing since then while the US has followed the downward spiral.

One of the reasons I see is the way the EU or rather the rest of Europe came out against the US invasion of Iraq. UK has been losing its position in the EU, especially since it stayed away from the success that has been the Euro. France and Germany have taken over the power positions in the union (if I were a member of a group I would rather trust someone who is wholeheartedly with me than the I shall wait on the outside and watch guy). UK realized that it has lost ground, and it realizes that one way to regain its position is to bring something else to the table, how about the support of the US, another premier power, I am sure a deal for that was worked out between Blair and Bush before Blair came out so strongly in the support of Bush. Bush will back Blair in his dealing with the EU. These thigns are subtle, next time there is a discussion front between the EU and Americas, US will hint at UK being the mediator, and there UK is back in the EU limelight, other members will think they will have to go through UK to get to USA.

I also believe that the British have a proclination towards America, than France or Germany and the rest of Europe, maybe because America was formed mainly through British settlers or maybe after the world wars, London has always been wary about the rest of Europe. I am sure if you asked a bunch of British people, they will choose America over the rest of Europe.

There is this conspiracy theory that Bush has photographs of Blair, well thats just a joke, but you never know, international alliances have been formed for much less.

The big question is whats in it for London, it never had any problem with Iraq, not after world war 2, agreed the British did rule over Iraq, Iraq was demarcated by the British. I have a thought at the back of my mind that the British, power obsessed, since ruling most of the world before world war 2 and frustrated watching all their influence slip away in the new world have always dreamed of a greater role in world politics and have been trying to poke their nose everywhere to gain recognition. I dont think they have given up living in the grandeur of their past.

More later

Arranged Marriage

what is arranged marriage, a concept many are so amazed by. They ask "you mean, you will just meet this girl and marry her, agree to spend the rest of your life with her. You going to trust your parents to find you a bride......... ridiculous man, go find your own partner, get to know her, learn about her and then marry her, gooosh this is the 21st century, grow uppp dont be a loser".

Well I for one have the utmost respect for arranged marriages (if you are a single girl and reading this, disregard the above line, email me maybe we can work things out). I said respect, respect in the sense, I accept it as a decent option to find ones life partner, not endorse it as the only correct way to get married.

Arranged marriage in the simple sense consists of your parents searching high and low to find the girl/guy they think will be suitable for you and then convincing you that she is the one, arranging meetings with her, pressuring you to accept her and then print the invitation cards and washing their hands of you forever by pronouncing you man and wife. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Arranged marriages have progressed since the old ages, in its present iteration it is actually a very good preposition. When it first started off parents would match, and nobody else had any other say whatsoever. You actually met your spouse on the day of the marriage (my great grand parents / grand parents) and that was it. In its next interation you got to have a few words with each other and talk to each other for some time, though this wasnt enough to say you liked the person you met, you could veto something if you felt uncomfortable but the parents still had a big say (my parents generation).
In present iteration parents act more like introducers, they get you in touch with a girl they feel will be good for you, you then actually go out with the girl for a few, and in a short (emphasis on short) while decide among each other weather you want to spend the rest of your life together. This is nothing different from what you would do if you met a girl through a mating oops(ch) matching website.

So essential charecteristics of arranged marriage are, parents choosing based on their factors, short period to decide and kaboom marriage.

What many people are against are the criteria parents choose for finding matches for their kids. These factors are usually, family, status, religion, caste, education, wealth etc. Its far less to do with the personality of the girl/guy than to do with the family values, where many might argue that it is the girl/guy you will spend the life with not the family. But all things said and done, a person is more likely to be a reflection of their family values than what they are growing up among their friends. In the long run, nothing can replace a strong family upbringing, I see nothing wrong with the hypothesis that a decent child bought up by decent parents will in a majority of cases turn out to be good, otherwise if you are in the unlucky minority that got screwed, as my mother says, its your karma, you have to live with it.

I think arranged marriages receives a lot of flack due to its adherence to caste, religion and status values. That is true, but one must also consider that it is always difficult for different cultural values to mix especially if they are in the opposite without having atleast one member seriously compromise, and everytime there is a major compromise I belive its a fault or fissure waiting to break open. If one person is very rich and other poor, then their lifestyles are different, if one is a complete vegetarian and other loves meat, if one believes in traditional festivals and other is of a different religion and doesnt care. I am not saying its a recipe for disaster, some of the happiest couples I know are virtual opposites, but there are more reasons to break than stay together. Like anna karina says, all happy families have things in common, but unhappy families are each unhappy for different reasons. I guess arranged mariages are more pessimistic and hence conservative in their approach in this regard.

Another point of concern is the decision window, how much time is ok, well my take on this is, unless you live in with someone, for atleast a year any other time period doesnt help. Its only when people are thrown together to tackle life together that their actual personalities come out. Its easy when thigns are good, vacations are easy, no children to have a happy married life, but only when there are problems does the true strength of the marriage come out and no amount of gestation period could give one the taste of that. But still the question of more you know about the other person, the less suprises once married is a good supposition. But arranged marriage people say, marriage is a compromise (why compromise) and as long as you adjsut and go along everything will be fine.

I dont personally care which way the bride arrives, she drops from the gods into my lap, parents put her in a box and mail her to me, or I am struck by the true lightning of love at first sight or maybe come to love someone. But it sure is a strange concept, this marriage, and it sure is interesting as to how it is morphing and will continue to morph in its inception.

Nothing in this world is free

I use Bank One, and it gives me free online bill payment. Freeeeee. It gives me the power to pay my bills online, I can even send out check to friends etc and its all free, but free is an oxymoron if there ever was on. Nothing in this world is ever free or easy, nothing. What Bank One does is, it credits my account the money on the day it mails the check, it doesnt matter when my friend or landlord cashes the check, the money is out of my account when check is mailed, that gives Bank One the use of the money until the cheque is cashed.
This is float money, money they loan to other people or give to their investment bankers, and day traders to double and quadrauple. You might think my 100$ check is inconsecuential but remember at the least it is 100 X 10000 customers = 1000000 a cool million, a cool million that Bank One has as a float because it provides a service for free.
The service was not free in the first palce, I used to pay 5$ a month for the convinience, what Bank One did was use the 5$ to pay off the development effort involved in building the application and then once it was paid off it deceided to call it free to increase the number of people participating and hence the float. This is a great tactic, I guess this is what they teach in business school or pay their CEOs the big bucks.

In the big picture what I feel is nothing in this world is free, not the Nigerian who promises to share 23 milion, the email chain that promises you that money will rain on you because Microsoft is tracking it or the buy one get one free. Even beware of discounts. This was one of the first lessons I learn when I came to the US, I arrived as an innocent student (ok not so innocent but still) to Georgia Tech, and first thing I noticed was those credit card signers, all you had to do for a free t shirt was sign up, that was easy, I gave them all my information (consider i had never seen a credit card, and a t shirt was still a t shirt) and patted myself on being able to get a free t shirt, later I learnt, one credit card too many is a headache you dont want, one finance charge could have bought me 50 t shirts of the axchange kind. The rate they promised me was for first 6 months only after which the rate would quadrapule and they were anyhow going to sell my address and other stuff to some marketing agency which would bombard me with junk mail.
Here is more stuff, remember the add that says get one month of internet service free, hhahaha, read the asterix that says it will be $44.99 after the first month, the cell phone guy who promises you 600 free minutes, but then doesnt add, if you talk to your friend for 600 mins, the company will bill you for 600 minutes and bill him for 600 too, einstien could solve the space time conundrum with that piece of math.

Anyhow lesson learnt, observe anything that is offered as free, there is always an angle to it, always an angle to it, always, if there is a 30% discount, it has already been marked up 70%. Nobody is doing anybody a favour, buy one get one free, its old stock, needs to be moved. There is a story of two stores across from each other, when ever one guy had a discount on something the other would drop it lower too, people loved that competition, ate it all up. Later they found a tunnel between the two shops, when ever they needed to get rid of something, they would play that game and between them get rid of the goods.

I digress as usual, basic point is never believe anybody or anything that says "I am giving you a good deal", dont believe any free money, its a scam, never trust a discount, always bargain.
Bargain eh!, I wish I could goto kroger or jewel and bargain, why do we take their prices for granted, there is always room for bargaining, I should try and see what happens. I bargain in all the small individual stores, but not at best buy or walmart walgreens etc, hmm never wondered thus, why do we always bargain in small stores but not in big stores, is it because they are not personal, or the decision maker is not at hand. Either way need to bargain. coming from a culture that functions on bargaining, I have come a long long way.

The Whole, the Part, Human Disease and Universal Law

Yesterday on the elliptical machine I was theorizing on the human body, basically all the human body is, is a combination of various organic compounds, essentially boiling them to different hydrocarbons. Isnt it strange how all those molecules forming our parts come together to create emotions such as hope, hate, anger, love, pain etc. Hydrogen doesnt know what pain is, Oxygen doesnt know the meaning of love, and carbon has no clue about hate but we do, we who are made up of these three things know and feel it all. well lets not say know, just feel, I dont know what exactly love is but I can feel it for sure. So does it mean some molecule in space, made of hydrogen oxygen and carbon also experiences pain hmm thats another interesting discussion.

I was thinking about the power of a whole, where the whole is worth more, worth is a bad term, we can say the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts, especially where life is concerned. All these atoms coming together to form something that has so much power, isnt this amazing. Well the reason I was thinking about the whole and the part is, we barely understand the whole, and we are trying to heal it (cure our diseases), and how do we go about this, by trial and error, the basest form of research. Treat with this chemical, oh oh it turns blue, ok lets try this now its red but it killed that cell so it should work, what about that red well its a good side effect, are there other effects, hmm lets give it to 100 people and see what happens hehehhe. (there is a more logical premise to the test, but still essentially its just about shooting in the dark).

Its like turning the wheel of the car, none or rather most of dont know the exact working of a car, but we know within reasonable margin of error how the car will behave when we do something. Margin of error in the sense the car doesnt exactly turn 3.2 degrees for 1.2 degree turn of the steering wheel everytime, but we adjust, there are other things hapenning inside we have no control over and we dont care, just take me the damn to the restaurant. Similarly when we take medicines we only know with reasonalbe doubt that we will react in a certain way, based on limited testing (what ever is the control group, every person is a different environment). Hence medical progress has been so slow.

What we need is to understand is how the parts are interacting, then we can design medicine for each person, presently we are thinking about genes and how they are the fulcrum of the human body, but inside those genes we are back to combinations of hydrogen carbon and oxygen, shoudnt we be understanding how they behave. Instead of predicting how a gene will behave, if we knew how carbon oxygen and hydrogen will behave we can treat anything by running a simulation of introucing a foreign virus.

What I am getting at is a simulation, a simulation of a human body, the parts of a human body. In this way we can introduce a poisen, see how it reacts, introduce some antibody and see how that cures, that would be the perfect way to come up with a medicine. We just need to build this simulation.

To build this human body simulation we need to come up witht the basic reaction, or the need to reaction for any chemical atom, carbon is not happy that it decides to bond with 3 hydrogen and an hydroxly is not angry to jon with something else. It is a deterministic element, so we need to come up with the rules, the rules of reaction, at a lower level and voila we can describe the human. We can cure anything, by understanding its orgin, rather than dealing with it at a level we dont know, what exactly is hapenning.

People are scared of people because they dont understand why people do things, once they can think from someone elses perspective, they know why they do things, the are no longer afraid, its ok now. Similarly with chemicals, once we understand why chemicals react the way they do we need not worry about them we can live with them.

This brought me to another hypothesis, there must be a simple, extremly simple, rather single rule that defines interaction between two bodies, is that at the level of molecules, atoms, electrons, quarks or jaguars we need to draw the line and figure that out, then we will have the supreme understanding of humans. There must be an universal law...........

No How deep do we go, thats another interesting question. Many many years ago we thought hey if he is human we can say what will happen if I give him a virus, then we said no no if I had his blood group I can predict it, Then it came down to different organs, now we are saying if we knew his genes, what if we can break that down to the molecular level, then atoms, then quarks, jaguars ...... it goes on, at what point do we say if we knew all the enteties at this level we are set. Rather set with a resonable level of doubt, remember it takes 80% of effort to desribe the last 20% of the system i.e. to compelte the system

I Digress as usual, I went from wondering at how the parts come together to form a whole bigger than the sum of the parts, to wondering how to cure diseases to understanding human being and a universal law to describe everything and the level of that law well what can i say another thoughtful workout on the elliptical machine

home entertainment: music

everything needs to be categorizable into moods, i dont believe in the concept of rock pop hip hop and bee bop, i mean thats also one classification, its a taxonomy created by the music industry, what people need is moods, is it a melancholic song for a sunday afternoon, or a lazy saturday song for a quite book, is it an angry song or an inspirational song, slow dance under the moonlight or a song to make love to at noon, and a song can be many of these things, so it should be categorized in all those moods.
hence i have a database to hold all my songs and the meta data for those songs, meta data i mean not only who sang it when and where but also what moods it belongs to, when can i play it where and for whom.
also the entertainment system should maintain how many times the song was played, the lyrics of the song, other people who like it etc
need to be able to genrate play lists, 1/2/...n song lists, play random songs play language songs
one interesting scenario is when i go from one room to another it should pick up the song when i left that room and continue playing the song in the other room, the easiest thing is to switch the speaker the song is playing on

home Automation: voice applications

I believe that the futuer of computer interaction is through voice, i hope that speech / voice will replace the keyboard as the major means of communication with a computer. I am not banishing the keyboard to the realms of the punch cards, but I see limited scope for it once voice takes off.
Many organizations have been working double overtime since centuries (in computer development time) with little success. I dont see effecient voice os's anywhere in the near future, but here is what I envision for my home automation system in terms of voice.
first I should be able to control the music thats playing with my vocie, i.e. I want a madonna song, I should just say so, britney should be a britney away, not goto computer search for song or open application, same with shutting lights on / off, turning appliances on or off etc. Also I want my computer to read out stuff to me, news, new emails or notificatiions, such as "adarsh you have 3 emails from angelina jolie, 10 junk messages from jlo and its your brothers birthdays today, remember to buy ........."

How do we achieve this,
voice input: there are a three ways, bluetooth and wireless 802.11 and cell phone.
cellphone: call a number, there seem to be a glut of telephony applications, which provide telephonic interactions, well this might be a way to control stuff at home from far away, such as shut heater off or turn on, etc this is not such a big priority as I am envisioning that I will be able to integrate home automation with a messenger which will be accesable through any internet enabled device.
bluuetooth: I think we can have a bluetooth microphone placed in a couple of places in the house, or in each room, which recognizes voice and sends it to a computer nearby which converts the speech to text and thereby to a command and the comman is executed.
Another thing is tohave a wireless device, say a pocket pc with voice recognition and then it sends it to the computer in the room which needs to do the bidding say "bedroom play nina simone" etc
what happens if its a very big house, then will need a microphone in every room or a portable microphone whichw e will need to take everywhere, not a bad preposition, but either way I think bluetooth would not be a good choice beacuse of the meagre 10ft limitation of blue tooth, though it would be a cheaper option to use bluetooth as its a more light weight protocol, and one way to overcome it would be to have a computer in strategic palces and they have blue tooth receivers and they would process information.
the ideal cazse would be an embedded microphone in my body, now that wouldbe cool, but too many ramifications, ramifications of health, wealth and other personal issues.

I am thinking the best idea is a mix of both, a room with a computer should have a blue tooth microphone, especially bathrooms, living rooms bedrooms. One shpould also have a hand held device, something like a remote which would so the same, so that one can carry around if one is going to the porch or so, justlike taking a remote.

one low cost option, especially if looking for low cost, non voice, specific command remote, is something I have working now in myplace. I have an x10 remote, and a serial adapter on my computer which takes in x10 signals, so right now if i press a certain button it will play a random song, i could make it a little bit more specific by programing more signals, one can have over 200 codes, but who wants to remember so many commands, at some point fo time we need a voice controller or a voice remote.
now thats cool a voice remote instead of a button one, this will be a the first step in this direction, since basically we are talking about a remote here, a remote with more capabilities than ust o change channels.

home automation: personal assistant

i need a person who will manage everything at home, i think i am going to call her my virtual assistant svetlana, well anyhow back to main issue, i need her to be able to download news etc from rss feeds based on my preferences and then have it converted into mp3 for me to listen while going to work.
she should also read out news to me when i am in the shower or dressing up, ofcourse she could also play music i like.
she should keep track of birthdays and weddings, my meetings, my appoinmenets, trips.
she shoudl search for good deals and intimate me
take voice mail, and deliver it to me appropriately, either convert it to text and email them to me, or page me if urgent
order groceries, pay bills etc
no no i am not talking about a wife wash iron fuck etc, but that would be a nice name vwife, anyhow before i get beaten up by the girls, I need the computer software to be able to manage all the mundane things in life, and leave me to have more fun, its not too far away and I think it can be possible with the present tools we have, its just about brining this all together. I had a conversation with my friend greg ball about this long ago, he had similar ideas, lets see what he does, but there is room for an all encompasing architecture here

home automation: presence achitecure

each person signs into a room as he walks in and signs out as he or she walks out. each room will have user preferences, what should be done when that person enters the room, play song, read news, set room to certain settings etc
the best case scenario is each person has a chip which is automatically detected, and user is signed on.
I am thinking of using jabber, and presence as the room, so when adarsh walks into bedroom, his bedroom presence is logged in.
we will need to integrate this with general mood also, say its evening, on a dark gloomy day, or a bright sunny day in summer, then we can corelate to which song to play. ofcourse the person should be able to set their own mood.
requirements coming out from this meeting
1) lets look at jabber
2) program for multiple people (what happens when multiple people are in a room, should we automatically play romantic music when adarsh and his girlfriend are in the same room, what happens when girlfriend changes)
3) are going for a client server or a peer to peer network
4) need a better way to caputre requirements and turn them into design
5) need to decide on technology java, perl or something else
6) how do we manage rules

A Society of Forced Deliberations

We are a society of forced deliberations. We rarely do things because they can be done, it is more so because we need to do them, or rather society forces us to do them. No I am not talking about the daily chores of work, no wait, it includes the work chore, we do it because we have to, society tells us its good to have a stable job, we need money for retirement, not because we want to. I was more so thinking about things like family get-togethers, dinner with friends, a day with the family, a gift to a charity. How many of us get around a for a dinner with out extended family, unless its a festival, be it a christmas, a diwali, a death or a birth. Why do we need an occasion to do stuff like that, why should society say that Christmas is a time to get together with family, and we follow suite, what happens if we just say hey next weekend lets call all our family together for a nice dinner. How often do we just get together with friends, without somebodies birthday or an occasion to celebrate. When was the last time you met that friend, do you need a party to see him again.

I am also curious about whenw e contact people, I mean I know many people and I do the same too, that will contact me only when they need something, not otherwise, i that bad or ok, is the reason that important. Sometimes I know I can do something, or walk somewhere, but I still hitch a ride with a friend, not because I need it, but it will be a way to spend some time with that friend, how does that count. Its like maybe you know 1+1 =2, but you still ask your friend, is 1+1 =2, not out of doubt but just as a reason to toal to him or her.

Well if people were doing things by themselves, we neednt have come up with society to monitor and make rules, hmmm is that the reason there are rules in the world, a forced hand, forced right, is better than a free hand, acting out of free will.

Same to do with charity or donations, why do we have to wait for a tsunami to strike to help the poor fishermen in India, or a charity dinner to fork out the money for AIDS research, does a requisition pre-necessiate our every action. Cant we act without being forced, or is that against our nature. Do we need to be told what is good and what is bad. Are we a society of forced deliberations?