Theories of the Universe

Science sounds really crazy nowadays. We all know, or thought we know, that a bigger object can't fit into a smaller object, but now they are saying things like, "when a star implodes, it gets sucked in by its own gravity, and compresses itself into a sub-atomic size"(or something to that effect anyway)

I, for one, choose to remain deeply skeptical of theories such as the above. It is pure common-sense, that a object as big as a star cant shrink to such an extent.

So, I have another proposition. When a star implodes, it sucks itself like crazy, and there are huge Explosions within it, and with these explosions, the mass that it has gets converted to another form, maybe, energy. And this energy puts the star in a path to a vicious cycle, so that it attracts more rocks to come crushing into it, and they in turn getting converted

In fact, I would go to the extent of saying, that this is what Gravity is all about. For example, you are waiting in your car for a left turn (or for whatever reason), and as vehicles zoom past your car you feel the car swaying to fill the void created by the moving vehicle. The same way, the earth's core is converting mass into energy and making a void, and all matter surrounding it, including us, are trying to "fill" the void, thus producing the "gravity" effect

However, for this to work, one thing would be necessary -- that all objects are exposed to the vacuum. Merely creating a vacuum in a bottle and floating it in space is not going to make it attract stuff to it. The vacuum made by the planet core is far more special, in that the energy leaving (or radiating) from the planet has the effect of pushing us toward the place it is leaving from. Like people getting out of the elevator make way for those waiting to enter, and, in this hypothesis, they all want to get in at the same time and thus create a jam. It's complicated to explain. It's like breathing out and breathing in at the same time!

Rails of life

Do you know anyone whom you consider is "destined for greatness"? And what do you think set them apart?

What qualities in a person would lead you to conclude, that beyond any doubt, this individual is going to make a name for himself?

In my own experience, it is the quality of accommodative -ness. Of course, not just that, for if you do that to everyone unconditionally you will end up like a fallen banana peel

So such persons should also have an inner strength that leads others to respect them. The respect is therefore two way, and well received at both ends.

So how does that connect with my title "Rails of life"?

The thought occurs to me sometimes, that you do see people whose career gets cut short. Ordinarily it is an injury or disease. At other times, it is their own behavior and actions. Is there a way you could predict it about anyone? Not really.

The other quality, therefore, that is needed is some amount of steadfastness and dedication to one's objectives. And it begins NOW for everyone, and from now onwards through all the way to your rise. If you get complacent, or burn yourself out, you are not going to go all that far. Bad destiny is always lurking in there, waiting. No matter if you are a Michael Jackson or Amy Winehouse..

Of change

The Being is in a constant state of flux. You deal with matters every day, but the way you do that varies, both from moment to moment, and day to day. How often did you leave work exhausted from trying to crack a problem, only to come back next morning and move on from that point within the first few minutes? (Don't worry even if this never happened to you, because it can)

What does this imply about you, about all of us, and mankind in general?

It means our perceived productivity is merely an illusion. Now, am I going too far in saying that? I'll let you decide, but hear me out first

The way we think of ourselves, is shaped by the way our opinions are considered by others. It is shaped by how our work is received by the world. In many cases, the world is very discerning in what it chooses to be good or the best among the works, but it is not always the case. Many a talent has been nipped in the bud by inattentive teachers in overcrowded classrooms. See, how circumstance plays out?

Life is a big, complex chain reaction. And the sequence is set into motion for you perhaps even before you were born on this earth. And how can you control what came before you were born? And how about after? At 1 year of age, of 2, 3, 4, 5 ....?

Your influence increases so very gradually, and even that, based on many conditions, that may or may not come into being.

So that leads me to ask, who are those people gloating things like "you make your own destiny"? The answer, according to me, is that they are the people who never encountered the restricting circumstances at crucial times of their lives that shaped their destiny. Yes, they may present a thousand bad conditions to prove me otherwise, but it will still be true that their circumstances WERE kind to them at important points, and without such gracious providence they WOULD NOT be here gloating about their exploits

Ok, enough rants. What I want to say, really, is that no matter where you are in life, if you can read this, you do have sufficient influence in your life over your circumstance. And circumstance IS capable of changing in an instant, based on good, correct and informed decision making

What can be faster than light?

Being a daydreamer in class is not necessarily bad. Many a thing is learned not in class, but outside. And there are things that you learn INSIDE. These things are relatively unique to each individual. This also explains why each person likes to be explained in a particular way. This also explains why parents make better teachers (minus the exceptions please). Some examples of learning "inside" are -- bicycling, math, any art, technique, way of thinking, the list goes on..

So this happened when during the science class the teacher was explaining that nothing is faster than light. My mind went to the flashlight, and the interval between flicking it on and the light hitting the wall. What else happens so fast? I know there is something, I can feel it inside..

How about a rope? You pull one end, and the other end changes position instantaneously. Ha! I had found it. Something (probably) faster than light :)

For more like this, see also: http://asonsdiary.blogspot.com/2009/08/early-thoughts.html

A short story

Somewhere in a dark corner of the (a?) vast universe, was a little planet, just like our Earth. In that planet was a little civilization.

The people of the planet, through their ages, advanced enough in their knowledge of the sciences to build spacecrafts capable of traveling at several times the speed of light. This triggered in them exciting thoughts of exploring the universe

However, there are one problem. They didn't have enough people on their planet to cover the whole universe, or even a small part of it. So, to get the most bang for their buck, they did this: They split up into teams of one person each, and each one would take an independent direction, and report on their findings.

There was one more problem though. The distance they would require to travel would take entire lifetimes, and a person who once set out, was not expected to return back ever.

Among the explorers, was one person named Adam, and he discovered Earth. Seeing that it could possibly support life, he landed on Earth and witnessed vast amounts of land and resources. He liked it there so much that he decided to settle down there for the rest of his life.

Using advanced cloning technology, he made Eve for himself, and all the animals and plants, making genes capable of customizing themselves according to their environment. In fact, he altered himself to adapt to Earth's environment

And thus, the world as we know it, was born.

What is your favorite activity or hobby?

I heard somewhere the saying: If you do what you like you will never have to work a day in your life

So I did precisely that. I moved to a profession that I KNEW I would like. Time went by. But guess what? The picnic one day ended.

I used to enjoy my work, no doubt. But as I went on, small discontent-ments set in. It is true always, that the "devil is in the details". Take ANY job. For argument sake, let's say a fighter pilot. It is all so exciting and glamorous to be in the air force. So you earn the good grades, go through the physicals, and get through pilot training. And guess what? There is no much work, really. Your country is not at war, or doesn't really need air combatants at the moment. So how do you spend the time? Maybe you won't fight a single dogfight in your life. You will just go around in sorties and do air shows. After a while it is routine. Or perhaps you will not be happy at something. That your commander always makes you do the sorties he likes and never appreciates what you have to share. Or perhaps your colleague is selected for completing the super-class aircraft pilot training and you were stuck with backup pilot training on an old plane. This list is endless.

The key to enjoying work, is to detach from it emotionally. Make a habit to start and finish the most boring tasks without in any way being affected or losing your sense of humor. There. I said it. Your desire "not to work a day in your life" is plain wrong.

What life experience means

When was the last time you sought advise from someone else about what you should be doing?
And when was the last time you really heeded that and the advise didn't "bomb", i.e., proved good

Who is the best person to conduct your life?

When you are little, you rely mostly on your parents. You act like they tell you to. In turn, they have told you to act as per their experience as to what works for them

It is like this. You buy a spanking new pair of shoes, and the shoe feels tight in the beginning (maybe even bites), then it adjusts to your feet, and slowly takes the shape of your feet.

Suppose you were to hand over those shoes to your younger sibling, would it work?

Your parents' environment is the new pair of shoes. Their feet are their way of behaving. With time, the environment has jelled with their behavior, and the two have adjusted themselves so that it no longer "bites"

But what happens afterwards? They lend you their feet (behavior), and they try to become the "environment", so that they and you will get along.

What is the result when a person has gone through a lot of conflict within his environment? Perhaps he grew a thorn, or his environment did. And THAT's how your parents' life influences yours

Time for a little course correction: let me pull back in place the tangent -- what life experience means. It means, you have a way of interacting with your environment, in such a way that you can predict the outcomes.

But it's not as simple as that. The depth of its meaning is proportional to the mastery you have on this matter, and several different ways of examining the concept, and I'll try to leave it at that...

Exhilarating Kung Fu scene

I often recall one Kung Fu scene that impressed me more than anything else, including Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon. But don't remember the name of that film

The scene is like this. There is this old, blind woman, whom the Chinese government wants to arrest. If memory serves right, she was one of the rebel Shaolin monks.

What ensues is that a couple of soldiers try to attack and overpower her, but the gallant thin old lady, with only a thin little stick, proves more than a match for them despite being blind.

So the officer commands more soldiers on her, thinking this is taking "a little longer than expected". But we find that the woman is too much even for half a dozen soldiers. Now the general loses some patience and orders a dozen men more into the fight. But lo! there is no sign of her being overpowered! Now that was the last straw for the general. And so he sends in armed soldiers. And guess what? They are thrown back too!

It is one amazing fight and I wish I had a recording of it on my hard disk. If you recall that movie, do drop me a comment and let me know.

What happens at the end of that fight? The general calls in the archers! Now, that's a no-brainer to say she's gonna get killed. Or is it? No! The woman's senses are too keen, and picks up the trajectories of the arrows -- and swipe, swipe, swipe .. the arrows are swept off in precise movements of her stick. HOW can you beat this lady?

Let me know if you find out anything about this movie

Of Vicious Cycles

I am surprised sometimes, at the amazing regularity at which I can observe the "Monkey closed fist syndrome"

"Monkey closed fist", if you need an explanation, is about the story of the monkey that clenched a fistful of gram in a jar, and couldn't take its hand out because the fist was clenched

Often, our resistance to something becomes the reason why it happens. Thank self-fulfilling prophecies

An everyday example, that I have missed till recently in life, happens when we meet some new people.
When we meet a new person, we start from ground-0, and try to understand the person, his qualities, his motivations. Needless to say, this can be an important situation in many, many contexts.
When we meet a person who holds any kind of power over us, we often are in Porus's shoes when be was captured by Alexander the Great. Asked Alexander: How do you want to be treated?

This conversation, I have observed, is very familiar to us at a subconscious level. The car salesman, or the Driver inspector, or your job interviewer -- they all want to know how you should be treated, and do so accordingly

And THIS is the reason you should have a positive self image. You beget what you ask for, subconsciously

Ok, getting out before I rob the post of its succinctness

Of weakness and strength, and rule of opposites

What are you really good at? And how did it come to be?

The story of J C Owens, (at least as I remember it) is that of a polio stricken urchin in Africa going on to becoming a star athlete and breaking running race records

Many a thing in life begins with a period spent in weakness. The story begins with one of hopeless and pathetic dependence, progresses to recovery, resolutions, effort, and overcoming. And once in the position of strength, the character has enough motivation in her to continue and complete her mastery over the situation

To see the weakness in a strong person; to see the strength in the weak person, requires special insight

Sometimes the story is about bringing out such strength in a person in times of profound depression

But exactly what am I driving at? I dont know ..

I guess, this is another page from life learnings. And hope you enjoyed reading

Mystery of Sleep

As usual, I will begin with an aside here..

Whenever I think of my baby, I find in me a curious ability to get under her skin and visualize how she is feeling. How about you?

When pondering over today's topic of Sleep, I thought of a time when the baby was just refusing to sleep. The thought was so deep inside that I knew, the baby sometimes wonders why it has to sleep. And I wouldn't be too far off if I suggest those were my thoughts too (at times) when I was at that age

It all would depend on how engaged the mind is. You could be up all night doing something that deeply engrosses you, quietly working away. Or in a lecture you may find the opposite.

Actually, the lecture example can happen due to a very different reason - maybe you are deeply pondering over what is being said, and your thoughts connect to various linked ideas and you lose yourself just thinking, so much that you are not listening any more


Ok, so what am I driving at? I am saying, that Sleep is one sneaky bas****. Yes, that's what it is. It happens to most, if not all creatures on earth. And a lot of them sleep when the sun is down and wake up when the sun is about to arrive (I will discount the millions of humans who dont wake up strictly according to this. Humans are special, in the sense they dont respect the laws of nature and always trying to work around it - but I will leave that for another day)

If we lived in a bigger or slower planet, our sleep and wakeful times would be adjusted accordingly. Where's the proof, you say? There is no proof. It is an extension of the limited ideas in my head. Again, another day

So the Sun dictates our lifestyle. Really. This is profound when you think about it. We are like battery operated devices switching on and off according to some pattern defined by the universe around us. We are zombies that go to work when it's day and retire to bed for the night. day after day, night after night

We are a phenomenon of this universe

And how did this phenomenon start? If I answer that I would indeed deserve the Nobel prize or more

But, back to sleep. When we sleep, we dream. Dreams are ideas in our mind, but in a twisted, mangled form. It's like accessing the hard disk of a computer without consulting the file locations. The hardware running without the operating system being on. The television left running when the programming ends (remember those days?)

And how do we wake up? A lot of people have difficulty sleeping, yet no one has trouble waking up! When does our operating system boot up? And how does it remember what garbage the hardware has been throwing out from the hard disk? The memory cache! The RAM memory. We are looking just like a comuter. Or is it the other way around?

How similar we are to devices. It makes me wonder. Yet, I am amazed at the profound-ness of sleep

Of small and big pictures

It's a corporate joke that your boss always wants you to look at the 'big picture'. What does that mean?

The words 'look at the big picture' expresses several ideas
- you are looking at something that you should not
- there are small things and there are big things
- there is a picture. use your imagination
- you are not looking

Now, this is very good material to make a joke for the book: "English is a wonderful language"

Using simple words you are effectively, under-handedly communicating some really vile ideas in a most innocent manner

Here it is again - a jump of logic. How is this supposed to be 'vile'? Imagine, you are little and you are walking by with your parents on the railway platform, and you see this really dastardly begger, with no hands or feet. How would you react? Your little heart would probably go out for that person. You might even be scarred
And you are made to walk by and do nothing. And later one day someone explains to you about the big picture: If you encourage these people then more people will come out and beg

How does this big picture look to you? To me, it is 'vile'. How? again lets see what it is telling us:

- you are looking at something that you should not
> Ignore these pathetic people

- there are small things and there are big things
> You see a beggar. But this person is not a simple beggar. He has designs of making money without working. And this is done by chopping off his body part by part

- there is a picture. use your imagination
> People are out there who want to do the same. They will blind themselves, cut their limbs off, eat dirt, but WILL NOT work

- you are not looking
> You have no idea how lazy people can be

I leave it to you to judge

What fights matter

How to lead life?

This question is as open-ended as they come. What do you do with a problem of plenty (plenty of alternatives in this case)

What you do depends on your nature, your way of thinking. Your thinking is shaped by your past experiences and feedback. Feedback is what others around you give you.

The same must apply to others, too. Your feedback might be important to them - sometimes more than you think, in fact, but that, is a topic of its own, just like the several preceding sentences.

I delay my posts waiting for the right idea, but when I start I am flooded with dozens of others. Everything seems linked to each other. And yeah, where was I? A problem of plenty?

Let me narrow down the scope by defining 'lead life'. Leading life means you allow what is desirable to your heart to happen and avoid the undesirable. Or rather your conduct of yourself so as to have this effect

Now... this definition when followed will inevitably lead to conflicts and tension. Why? Because, fundamentally what you desire may be in demand and you may often find yourself in a situation where you are pushing and jostling fruitlessly with a crowd

And then there are those times when you need to put a firm foot forward and stand your ground.

How to recognize those moments? What fights really matter for you and for those for whom you are fighting? And when is it really time to give way instead of trampling on someone else's rights? After all, conduct should not be anything other than good and just

The answer lies in being honest on the inside. Recognizing what you are, your merits. AND recognizing the situation, other people and making a good judgment of where you stand. Yes, and that is the sign of wisdom

The Dynamic Personality

Childhood is a rich time

A child is in the process of formation. The foundations are being laid for future life. What a child wants to become, it can shape NOW.. and the child is doing just that

What you put into her head, she's gonna accomplish that in life. When you wield such power over someone's life..... do we want to go here? The power can sometimes be corrupting ........

Ok... what was the topic again? "Dynamic Personality".. Oh yes, I tend to forget a bit so I apologize!

A child is a very free individual. Free as in free of responsibility, much consequence, mentally free and inclination to experiment. A child can play any roles playing with her dolls. She can fit into any personality. It is all imaginative, and she can use any role in her life too, at whim

As she grows up, she adopts a bit of this, a little of that, according to where her life seems to be headed...... and as life sort of stabilizes, she has a practiced personality to deal with the life she got


Much of her choices are of course not original. She may see other people, and try to copy them. If her mom yells at the servant and she sees that servants are to be yelled at because thats how the work is getting done, she may apply significance to the "yeller" role and will record it for future use

Now as adults we have learned of many new behaviors. But we are still unable to change our patterns. In fact we are hard pressed to recognize them

But once we see the light, we are desirous of changing. But we find ourselves "locked" in our behavior.

The solution in this case, is to get a bit more imaginative. Get a partner, and do a role play. Imagine a situation. Converse with your usual behavior, and let the other person play the supporting role, ie, the environment. Then try an alternate role, and see how the 'environment' changes. Keep trying until you learn what is more likely to work for the environment...

About the Sun

First, a bit of vomit..

I mean, I am repeating here what I heard or read somewhere, without digesting - it may or may not be true

Fakirs, tantriks and certain other people, mostly in the philosophical field, drink intoxicating drinks, or do some kind of drugs (Ganja, Charas etc). By this they would go on a "trip", mentally.. and make them to think unusual and out of the box thoughts.

Now let me begin

BTW I mentioned the above, because what I am about to write has occurred to me without taking any drugs! I don't know how I do it but here it is

Visualize the Sun. What is burning in the sun? It's a whole lot of Hydrogen.

Is there Hydrogen on Earth? Yes, Of course. And since it is a light gas, it probably is found in the upper layers of the atmosphere

So our picture of hydrogen on Earth is, First the Soil, then other gases, then Hydrogen, then the lighter gases

What in case of the Sun?

What if?

Soil, Really, really, cool gases, hydrogen

The gravitational power of Sun is of course several hundred or million times more than Earth. It is natural that it would attract much more gases...

And like a gas burner, something caused the hydrogen to flare up.. maybe it is just the extreme pressure causing extreme heat.. or just a volcano.. and there is created a warm world protected by an extremely hot outer atmosphere.

All this is too crazy.. but perhaps a good theme for a Harry Potter or suchlike series

Where did we really come from?

Life fails to make sense for most rational thinkers

Are we really improvised models of insignificant life that started functioning by accident?

Too far fetched..

Then why do we take ourselves sooooooo seriously?

In this day and age, we are all familiar with DNA, which is a blueprint of the various cells our body is composed of

Who needs a blue-print? Who works with blue-prints? The answer is almost sad and unfortunate

What is the BIG difference between us and the machines we create? I say it is the sophistication

The machines we make are modeled on our own functioning. For example, like us, a computer has a short-term and long term memory

What goes to say that 100 years hence, we wouldn't be building a machine as sophisticated as us, or more? After all, we are good imitators. What prevents us from re-harnessing DNA to create absurd beings that are neither living nor dead, and capable of inhuman stamina, super-fast thinking and deadly strength?

I am going a bit out of the topic here. I want to allure to the fact that, the more we find out about how the specii work, the more it matches a machine

What then gives us the right to take ourselves with such great seriousness? We should knock it off..

So you think you are very bright?

As grown-ups we know there are situations in life that can leave us stumped. No matter what your current standing in life may be, you have definitely been in not-so-enviable positions.

When Circumstance decides to have its say what can a person do?

Circumstance affects us in the strangest ways. We seldom realize where it is hitting us from. It could be as simple as a bus conductor or government or police official reacting to a spat with his wife and making hell for you

Yet when we see a person who is not faring well, we seldom think: oh, there might be some circumstance in his life. We quite narrowly dismiss it as some foolish person who didn't see the pitfall as clearly as we did, and congratulate ourselves

And again when it happens to us we look around for some respite and some mercy....

When will we ever learn?

When was the last time..

This one is for those moments of existential dilemma: why am I alive, and what am I doing that's in any way significant

What you may be undergoing is actually a mental rejuvenation. You must, from time to time, move away from the scorching heat of intense mental activity. If you don't, then eventually you may force a point where you are mentally so tired that you will begin to see negative thoughts more often

What your mind may be actually telling you, is that it needs an oil change real bad..

All is well if you have been with me so far.. but now I am going to the other extreme. It is for you if you have lost the part of you that brings you to your office desk everyday and makes you work and give your very best

When was the last time you didn't feel like stopping?

Like when you were young and were out playing with the gang and your mom was yelling out to you to come home and you were refusing

Do you remember any of those sentiments?

Suppose you were in the stock exchange in a day the Bull went crazy - didn't you wish the day would never end?

Describe to yourself the sentiments on that day when you didn't feel like stopping what you were doing - and record it for the day the opposite sentiment strikes.. I think, a nice blog idea..

Browser as a weapon

Being a techie I can't help getting into such a topic even in a blog like this. But then, this is a blog of my thoughts. And, had it existed 10 years ago I might even have described AJAX (in concept) in it

My post comes from my own experience with testing web applications by firing http packets at it (not a lot of that, but enough)

Any hacker knows (and probably most users realize) that the browser is a window to the Web Server. What happens inside a web server is a result of what you send to it via your browser.

The code in a Web Server, if written carefully, should do all the data validations even if already carried out in the browser. However it is quite common for a Web Programmer, especially a novice, to just do the validation in Javascript on the browser and take the incoming data for granted in the Web Server

In case you didn't catch it, the keyword in the previous para is "Javascript" - as in "disabling Javascript"..

However this is not even the beginning of what I would like to express here.

When a Developer writes a code for the Web, he uses the commonly available browsers. He may be the best coder in the world, but he will certainly miss writing the proper code for a browser that he does not know exists!

Imagine this: A spy agency downloads Mozilla source (or makes a browser of their own, for that matter). Now, this browser would not work the same way as regular ones. The regular browsers allow the programmer to dictate how it should behave. However, this browser would be fully under the control of the user. If the user wishes, it would validate some data, and skip others - to mention the tip of an iceberg. It could do session substitution, and in a jiffy have access to all your mails. It could pose as literally anyone, provided knowledge of ongoing sessions are available to it. To what extent are the web servers security-aware? No one has an account of that - or am I wrong?

For the techies, let's do a session - What features would you put in a hacker's browser?

What does it "FEEL" like?

What does it feel like,
- being the outer rubber on the tire of a moving car? How tough a tyre must be? How convenient for a car? How did they hit upon the rubber idea? Where did they first find rubber? Is there any substitute for it? Metal is noisy and wont go smooth..

One for the recruiters:
What does 7 years feel like? Yes, I don't have *Recent experience in a language. But I have n number of years in it, and am an expert of it
Or let me put it this way. You spend 7 years in prison. In the 9th year, I ask you, How was prison life. You most likely DIDN'T give which answer?
- It was terrible. I missed my family. My wife deserted me. My kids turned to drugs. My daughter turned preg at 15. I got regular beatings in prison. These 7 years were pure unforgettable hell for me
- It was the worst part of my life. I wish I had never been involved in this crime. It's a worse punishment on earth than the devil could have given me in hell
- It is an indelible part of my life. I lost everything. True, I gained a few friends and won a lot of sympathy, but I will never forget this experience till the day I die
- Prison? What are you talking about? I am a moron, and don't remember where I was yesterday


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