Complexity vs Efficiency

Ever wondered how much of our effort goes in general to increase the complexity of the system we are working in. People working day-in and day-out to achieve more and more efficiency in their work by increasing complexity of the same. It's amazing that we have reached a point in line of advancement where our notion of development in terms of building efficient models of working system is paralleled with the rise in their complexity and density. Take a self-test - Is your work adding to the complexity of the system to derive efficiency? And no wonder your answer would most probably be in affirmation.

Definitely it's possible and that's why it's happening and that's why the world is moving. The strong covariance between complexity and efficiency, moving the wheel of our so-called development is a clear-cut 'Yes' in everybody's mind. Intelligent routers - at the cost of high intricacies, better and more feature rich softwares - with more lines of code, futuristic cars - with self-controls and the list is perhaps endless for me to mention, but the question remains how long will this schema of progress continue to prove it's worth for our ever growing demands from the respective systems. Isn't there a limit to the complexity we can achieve in a system. Come D-day and we might as well realize that we have crossed the rubicon and there's no way to turn around. That the complexity has reached a stage beyond comprehension. That there are systems, but we don't have the clue to understand them. Our ingenuities forcibly stuck because there's no place to implement our ideas. And slowly and gradually our own creations will surpass us and our ability to maintain them, eventually leading our racing vehicles of development into a pitfall. The only consolation I speculate, for someone could be a step towards reducing the entropy of the whole universe by building complex and intricate systems. But certainly that doesn't help much in the much bigger picture of infinite universe and the longer run towards eternity.

I know it all sounds far-fetched and outlandish. May be !, but we never know. We have effectively progressed in the past few decades ( am talking of scientific progress) more than what our predecessors had in all the time before.


So can we move to an all together different track, and start our quest for increasing efficiency by means of simplifying the system? That clearly is a tough call, coz had it been easier we wouldn't have walked the other way round in the first place. Producing efficient systems which are simple is tough and increasing efficiency by simplification would be like dying. And that's why we would never get to see the next release of Windows backward compatible with the existing hardware as against its requirement of gigs of RAM and multiple processors. I guess somewhere during our evolution we have perhaps ingrained the idea of value-addition in terms of complicating things. The idea however has served well and continues to. We have had the most complex of theorems applied to the most complex of systems in order to achieve fractions of indispensable efficiency figures. But then that is how we have reached this very point where I can take a critical view point towards this hand-in-hand relationship between complexity and efficiency. And if not for this we wouldn't bother to look beyond the horizon and ask this question - Can we simplify things to achieve the desired levels of efficiency. Can we build systems which are simple and less intimidating, and yet can be perfect replacement of their counterparts?

Satan's of the Ring

And just before i could even type out the words that were raging themselves out of my finger tips, I was passed on this link . And nothing of what I would have written matched the way the article suffices to incarnate the monstrosity of this demented servant & master couple.

Reviewing the hiatus

Incomplete posts , unrelenting thoughts, borrowed phrases, crazy titles, and finally this. After a much longer typical hiatus though !
At least am not running away this time. Not eschewing what is destined. I tried not to be cliched this time but then that's why they call it cliched ;), because you end up sounding terminally verbose without your own knowledge, and gloating it like a piece of modern art.

Last few weekends, were not so obliquely different when it came to candidly pass them doing nothing just like Calvin would have loved to. However, with some futile violations of doing something in bits and pieces can be completely ignored. Like - reading Dan Brown's - Angel & Demons, and watching completely avoidable serials and movies.

Whatever it be I have decided to start up certain things on a war footing. Yes war footing. The first in the list - to build if not everything then only the UI of my web page on the domain I bought last summer for some very mystic reasons ( I fear not to tell them). And it's more cumbersome than writing this blog. With plethora of new web technologies available at your disposal the phrase - 'More is less' in fact actualized for me. Am still confused what to use - GWT (Google Web tookkit), YUI (Yahoo User Interface), Adobe's FlexBuilder, Ruby on Rails or perhaps something more obscure. Not that I have mastered all of them, but yes I have chalked out the options.
What remains is to find someone who can maybe help me in arguing/coding/discussing how to go about putting the thing in place.

Next in the pipeline is to gobble up the Dan Brown's novel series. For the first time I can recall, in my life I have read any novel as voraciously as this one. And I cannot be more eager to catch up with the rest of them. There's something about him, his writing , or perhaps with the subject itself which can leave you craving for more and with so much to contemplate. Simple and realistic fiction which can be addictive. I hope to get some time to finish up the series without any self-made inhibitions.

The last one is most probably the most crucial one - How to get 'there' from 'here'? That's a bit of abstraction though. Am just waiting for something to turn up. Never ever have relied on probabilities but this time, looks like I have to. No other option. Somethings have to be learned in a harder way.

Currently listening -~~~ "aa khushi se khud kushi kar le" ;) ~~~

Investment it is after all.

Shakespeare's eternal quote would befit all the time to come -
"All the world's a stage and all the men and women are but actors",
but the quote would perhaps take upon a strikingly different form in different eras- such as this, which I feel befits the capitalized and globalized world we live in today -
"All the world's a stock market and all the men and women are but brokers."

Investment is all what we do everyday. Isn't it?

At the end of the fag day, what we might look back and see is our investment in all manners, big and small to earn what we need to live. To live is to invest - not only money but time, effort, brain, goodwill, talent and beliefs. But then why should I be calling it an out and out 'investment' and not merely a normal way to live or carrying out our responsibilities disguised as jobs, hobbies, obligations etc etc. After all that is how we have been living ever since the day we know. Yes. But then somewhere down the line as our brains evolved , our dispositions switched towards making investments and see whatever we do not as the natural way of living but as a priced future option. Something I have both repented and enjoyed - often.

Our tendency has grounded to visualize and measure out everything ( and i mean everything) in terms of its potential to give back the desired outcome. We study hard to earn good marks then jobs and then salary. We work hard to climb up the ladder of our corporate hierarchy. We spend time reading to improve our language skills. We socialize and make friends to broader our network of acquaintances. And the only thing I can compare all this to - Our investment in stocks to make more money out of it.

Everything suddenly looks so motivated and intentional. Nothing remains natural and without a reason.

Nothing wrong till now. After all we need motivations and goals to move forward and reach out higher.

It's just that our learning have become a by-product of what we study.(Do a reality check on how many thing we voluntarily learn everyday without any future motivation or looking at its potential use).
Our proficiency and accomplishments have become a side-product of our struggle to be the root of the corporate hierarchy.(Figure out how much of your work is oriented in completing the targets set in the last appraisal cycle.)
Our feelings of content and surprise while reading have become ephemeral against our quest to be more skilled in language and to increase the book count.(The last book you felt close to you heart and which was finished seamlessly. Remember??)
Our best friends and confidants are just a result of the random probability of colliding with someone being worthy of from our friends list.(Check your orkut list and find out how many ppl you really have talked to in the last one year).

Nothing wrong even now. After all its just a shift of priority and that's a subjective human right everyone has in a democracy.

Maybe this transformation, is the characteristic of our times. Maybe there's nothing wrong in this shift. Maybe I am wrong.

I am not the understand the English :(.

Egzactly....!!

To someone like me whose inhibitions towards bollywood movies are more or less governed by the opportunity to watch them, what I have written above would definitely make (non)sense and unveil the context. For others there is this post. To begin with, this is yet again the same time of the year when India witnesses an educational turmoil in form of an examination which perhaps would be and remain an imagination for the rest of the world. I Imagine a satellite picture of more than two hundred thousand peoples giving a test at various corners of the country . Yes am talking about the CAT which was back last weekend and just like the festival of Diwali it left the smoke and thundering sounds as its aftermath. The only difference between the two - the proportion of those encashing happiness and those left somewhat burned and blistered. And the bomb which ripped apart everyone was the legacy of our 200 years of freedom struggle - The English language. or more technically the 'verbal' section in the jargon of MBA blues.

I have had an interesting rapport with 'English' ever since the first day of my school. That of unnerving each other. I wasn't built to learn it. If there is something of which I have remained paranoiac all through my life, the answer would come out in a jiffy - English. Somehow I have never been able to make it up to the required levels of English. I hated English as a child. I hated learning the words which looked alien to my mind. I hated making a separate notebook for grammar all through my school days. I somehow remained disjoint from the whole class when it came to English. My second lowest marks would be in English subject (the lowest being in the social science - I luv to hate this subject till this very day ). My library book would travel along in my bag to home, remain untouched for the whole week and then back again to library on the day of the return. The only time I managed to lead in English for a quarter of year, I was almost about to flunk in one or the other subjects. In short English never became my cup of tea.

And in turn English would put me in the background of activities. Devoid me of any deserving limelight. Give me a taste of my incompetency and make me hate it more and more. Nevertheless in recent past ( i.e. the last two years) I have to my surprise been attracted towards English. I have pulled up my self to appreciate the beauty and potency of this language. I have learned to how to take a stand like a connoisseur when it comes to English in all its various forms ( except for the poetry which I still feel is something highly subjective and the subtlety of which can be understood by its writer, and sometime even he/she cannot). The rivalry however still continues to this day. :((

I have invested quantum of time contemplating why is it that English plays a vital role in all my setbacks, and then like a spark of nirvana it occurred to me that perhaps I am here to redefine (???? OK...refine) the standards of English, and be known more as a legendary figure of English language rather than of any programming language. But that may take all together a new incarnation to accomplish. And untill then perhaps the powers that be - would make me struggle again for this new independence I seek from the paranoia of not being an 'anglo-indian'.

Quote me not !........never..........ever

I like reading quotes. I have been particularly interested in them for quite some time now. I have read the worst and the best of them. I have also believed in the fact that no matter how exhaustive I become in my reading of the quotes, there would still be some under the graves, which are better than the 'best' and worse than the 'worst'. Not unless I hit upon this one today. which perhaps I think is the worst and the biggest loser quote of all times.

"All success begins with spreading your W.I.N.G.S - believing in your Worth, trusting your Insight, Nurturing yourself, having a Goal, and devising a personal Strategy. nd then, even impossible dreams become real."

To a normal eye - this outshines as one of those inspirational quotes which can push people to die for their success. For me this is nothing more than- BULL****. A made up crap. Something written for the sake of writing. Something you can honestly forget the moment your swing your eye balls. Something which can work only for those who don't really want to work. Miles away from the reality and into the futile core world of hyper-philosophical or gyan-darshan. Who's a** can benefit out of such verbose and useless quotes, glamored and enamored like those fugacious Chinese products, which are good for nothing other than creating a mass infatuation.

Call me names for putting it all like this, but I just can't help despising this one. For there are reasons which are quite in parallel to why I hate those stinking K-serials on the idiot box. For first, it looks like something straight out of an evil mind. Someone wanting to confuse people and alluring them with yet another stupid excuse for not working their ways out towards success.


Some people would contemplate after reading - Aaah..am most probably not trying to believe in myself (come on even bush would have believed in himself for all what he has done so far) or I better nurture myself (with what and how only god knows !!), and do I have a goal as yet, I think I better search out(read as waste time) for yet another one....and what not.

So grossly hollow that you can't get a quark of wisdom in them after closely analyzing them and that is why I hate these category of unquotable quotes, meant to be deleted for ever from everywhere - net, books and most importantly from our minds..!

"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Little 'Bloggers'

I am sure Nobody would not have heard/read/listened this -

"While Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, Government is sound asleep, the People are being completely ignored and the Future is full of Shit."

Though it's part of something more trickier and more johhnier ;) , than what it looks here, it says it all and if not read it down.

I know it's one of those things someone puts on the blog, when he/she is suffering wildly from writer's block. Not that am a writer, but yeah sometimes I feel like one,but quite unlike the the ones who feel complete and ingenuous in their writing, tracing every filth they get on board of various tabloids across the net just in order to make yellow journalism more yellower.

Yes am pointing my finger......ok..my fist, on all those bloggers who are complacent in being the next blatantly screaming 'read-me-please---for-god-sake' portal owner, through their blogs. They will regularly post the wild and wackiest of news picked up from the plethora of pathetic news sites and google out fact and figures to somehow make the whole news look like the event of the century. I have seen a sudden surge in the no. of bloggers posting news items picked up seemingly from the last result page of google search, and contrive a mind candy for their regulars, like yet another potboiler story of a soap, as if those sucking K-serials were already not causing enough pain, of every kind.

The question being does that serve purpose? Does that not violate the original idea and concept of blogging?

Well yes and no.
No, because this is the age of remixes and remakes. So these bloggers are no less than their show-biz counterparts in deriving their 'inspiration' from what is happening in the world today. I think blogging has indeed picked up a new show-biz culture paralleled by enormous fan following and the desperateness of the readers waiting for their super-writers to release a new post. Huh !! as if they had choices. ( I think the proverb should be changed to - 'Readers are not choosers')

And Yes because we know it all, the blogging was just a modern approach of maintaining personal diaries only differing in their access to the public as against a method of generating revenues (thanks to google's non-sense adsense), archiving remakes of sensational news, or of showcasing discoveries of obscure facts which essentially only goes to tell the readers about the writing abilities of the associated authors and nothing else.

Ok I know, if that starter on the top of the page still looks alien to this whole post and has been consistently troubling, let me give an explanation. (Just and extempore attempt ... [;)])

"While the bloggers are screwing the idea and concept of blogging, the blogspot is sound asleep, the reader's choices are being completely ignored and the future of blogs is full of shit."

Sounds convincing ? isn't it ... :D

ready for a beating....anyone??

The last post will continue in the next post ;)......Procrastination redefined...:P. OK it's just that I don't feel like writing, I feel like avenging someone for something...and that someone can be anyone...;). This is perhaps due in the wake of incidents such as these :

The 9/11 being repeated in not it's whole entirety but on a much lesser scale only goes to show that Osama has now his competitors within the US. He's offloaded of the burdens of downsizing the high skyscraper in the states. Pun intended -Of Course !!, and I wholeheartedly extend my condolences for those who died in this mishap. Longing to see this world as a safe place to live in...

The more bolder and more armed media of India, capsizes the Orkut community - I hate India. Now can someone explain if it's not paranoia but something else that makes our media in general to run amok and be instigated by a handful members of a community of eternal Indian haters i.e. Pakistanis - Ggod, bless them, their country and our media.

And the Star-struck pune-ites were no less fanatic in chasing Angelina Jolie's all-black tinted glass Innova, than poor farmers of drought-struck areas chasing relief helicopters for food packets. The result : a chaser getting knocked down by the cab containing jolie-pitt, the couple being pulled in a for a case in court and new channels coudn't have asked for more. But who's to be blamed really? The so called 'roads' of pune, the driver of the cab, the chaser or more interestingly jolie herself. And what does this showcase : desperateness, indecency, frustration, or simply our innate instinct of getting wild.?
Can't help feeling for those two poor souls... :(

as always praying .............\_/

Lost in Transportation... - I

How many different modes of public transport have you used in a single day? 2, maybe 3, or a max of four. But my trip last weekend to Goa via Bombay ( yep, i still prefer 'Bombay' over 'mumbai'..in some contexts ) was more than a myriad of transport switches. The whole thing went something like this...I biked from my office back to the flat, picked up an auto from there to airport, boarded the flight off to bombay, caught a 'mumbai' local train to churchgate, took a yellow-black taxi to go to my friend's office, and finally got up on a bus off to Goa. Huh..!! so much for a day isn't it. Though the list is not exhaustive, but it still covers almost all of the feasible conveyances which anyone would take during a trip, only that it was a bit uncommon in a time span of a single day journey.

The rides look simple when i say, "i picked, boarded, got up etc etc on different modes"...but each of them has its own story behind the the groovy scenes...so I would start with my bike..
The most important thing i feel for a biker is to ensure that he doesn't run out of fuel and be stranded in an place without a pump ;). It turned out as I was returning from a place in the outer of the city that the bike had run out of fuel...I was already under the impression that the bike was running on reserve fuel, so those jerks from my bike's fuel starved engine gave a 'jor ka jhatka' to me, and only when I pulled out my hand for the reserve knob I happily realised that I was wrong and there was enough reserve to take me back home.

Searching for the auto next, to hop to airport was torturous. I was amazed as I came out of the flat with a 8Kg bag on my shoulders, at the scorching sunny daylight at 2 in the afternoon. The whole morning it was lightly clouded with no anticipated signs of a ray of sun for the whole day. But as luck would have it, the conspiracy was mid-way, and the drivers of the very few autos which were there, refused to earn in lieu of the relishing siesta they were having. Eventually had to walkdown almost half-a-kilometer to catch one of the empty moving autos. :((

At the airport, I was there well before the departure time of my flight. With a single bag as cabin luggage you can be more than comfortable in hanging around at the airport without bothering to keep an eye on your heavy luggage pieces. Certainly being there well before time, saved me from the serpentine queue for the boarding pass and I proceeded for the security check-in. There a CISF security in-charge put me on hold at the check point for I don't know why, becaue I dont think I was looking so pathetic to be put on hold for an informal interrogation. The in-charge asked me where did i work, how much did i earn and all sort of impertinent questions. Having answered them with a broad smile on my face he asked me to move on. As I moved to pick up my bag, the bag scanner pointed out a small bottle of scent I had packed in my bag which eventually I had to throw away in the dustbin kept there. And thus came the end of one of my longest kept bottles of perfume and of course one of the most cherished ones. :((

I took my bag and rushed to the wating lounge. After a boring half-hour wait, the boarding was announced. Seeing the length of the line, I decided to hold on and wait till the line gets shorter. You can do this except for an Air Deccan Flight which is a free seater, and wherein people would not mind even running on the taxi-way to get their coveted seats. Any how, seeing the last few passengers in the line I moved and waited in line for my turn for the last security check. When I reached at the check point, the guard pointed out the missing security check stamp on the tag attached to my baggage. This probably happened as I collected my bag unaware of the missing stamp, because of the perfume bottle. I kept cussing myself for making a fool of myself, as I moved to get that stamp on the tag.

The journey continued in the part - II

A Reflection

When a lucid and limpid voice, with and elegant yet vivid tone, hits your ear, you are bound to stop, to find out and to hear what that voice has to say....and add to that when the subject of that voice is even more philosophically alluring, you just can't afford to evade.

Well, this is what a friend of mine, infact today confronted me with. Something which I would have missed otherwise. Though it's a mere excerpt from one of the scenes of 'Lageraho Munnabhai' - one of the founding movies of the new age bollywood cinema I should say, it is in essence a gross reflection of the kind of lives we live today.

Will all due acknowledgement to the dialogue writer of the movie and many thanks to my friend for typing the voice back into text, which I have quoted below, here it goes -


/*--
Un sab ke liye jo daude ja rahe hai shaher main
shaher ki daud me daud ke kerna kya hai
ager yahi jeena hai dosto, to fir merna kya hai?

pehli baarish me train late hone ki fikra hai..bhul gaye bhigate hue tehalna kya hai

serial ke kirdaaro ka sara haal hai malum aur ma ka haal poochane ki fursat kaha hai

ab ret pe nange paon tahalte q nahi..ye to aap hi jaane per dil dahalta q hai?

internet se dunia se to touch me hai lekin pados me kaun rehta hai jaate tak nahi

mobile landline sab ki bhermaar hai lekin jigri dost tak pahuche aise wo taar kaha hai

kab dubate hue suraj ko dekha tha..yaad hai

kab jaana tha ki shaam ka gujarna kya hai

saher ki daud me daud ke kerna kya hai

ager yahi jeena hai dosto to fir merna kya hai?

--*/

Sumptuous, food for thought,isn't it. [:)]

Taking out time for 'time out'

I always wondered how can anyone become so busy as to not be able to even update his/her blog, reply to emails, chat with his friends, make calls or perhaps even realize what the time is in his/her watch. I know, this somehow projects me as a slug or jobless person, but no I always did my work, always had something or the other to engage myself with, but strangely it never happened that deadlines constrained me so much as to live on the edge. I believed that taking a 'time out' was always so easy if you know how to manage your time, because I never explicitly had to do manage my time. Time was always there, for anything and everything. I was never so hard pressed that I could not squeeze in or make space for other activities.

But well, this was true uptill some time back, when I somehow managed to see that it is not only possible but very often that one needs to push in him or herself for so many things simultaneously. And now I have to curse myself especially after getting attuned to take a easy sail in the sea of time all this while, for not being to able to do all that stuff, such as update blog, chat with friends, make calls etc etc. Am not apt to multitasking, but I have made it a point that by the end of it, I learn how not to let things go out of the hand when there's just no end to the tasks pouring in.

'Time is at a premium', has always been the motto, and surely will continue to be, the only change however is this sudden surge in the amount of premium, my time is worth, and the speed of time itself from 1 second per second to surprisingly a few hundred milliseconds less per second for me, and to calculate which I seriously don't have a grain of time with me.

Time up :( .....so long...........

And the answer is

To the question put up in the last post :- 'C', and you've got to believe me for it's the most precise and best answer among the choices. Yes, there's a logic and rationale behind it, which is too subtle for all our ingenious and ingenuous minds, so as to promptly strike of C as the most plausible wrong answer to that question. However, the explanation goes something like this:

--
Choi's statement is a comparison among individuals: If my parents have earned doctorate and your's didn't, then Chod says that the odds are better that I will earn a doctorate than you will. Choi's claim goes no further. He doesn't claim that children of doctors are guranteed to earn doctorates, and he doesn't even claim that they are likely to earn doctorates. He merely claims that these children are more likely to earn doctorates than their counterparts who do not have a parent that earned a doctorate. So even if only 5 percent of doctor's children earn doctorates themselves, Choi's claim is still correct as long as fewer than 5 percent of children whose parents didn't earn a doctorate went to earn a doctorate themselves.

Thus the irrelevancy of Hart's 70 percent figure, which gives us information on a different goup -- those who already earned their doctoral degree.


Because she has shifted the scope, the data Hart presents can be true and still have no bearing on Choi's claim. An example :Suppose that there are 10 people in the world with doctorates. Choi merely claims that children of these people are more likely to get doctorates than children of other people. Hart comes along and says that of the 10 people, say , 8 of then(70%) come from doctorate-less parents. Does that alter Choi's claim in any way? No. All other factors being equal, the children of those doctors could still be more likely to earn doctorates, even if most doctorate holders don't have that particular heritage. Because of this, Hart's considration doesn't contradict Choi's claim in any way, and we can therefore say that Hart's statement is consistent with it.


--

Choi & Hart

Dodge this ;) !!!


Choi: All other factors being equal, children whose parents earned doctorates are more likely to earn a doctorate than children whose parents did not earn doctorates.

Hart: But consider this: Over 70 percent of all doctorate holders do not have a parent that also holds a doctorate.

Which of the following is the most accurate evaluation of Hart's reply?

(A) It establishes that Choi's claim is an exaggeration.
(B) If true, it effectively demostrates that Choi's claim cannot be accurate.
(C) It is consistent with Choi's claim.
(D) It provides alternative reasons for accepting Choi's claim.
(E) It mistakes what is necessary for an event with what is sufficient to determine that the event will occur.

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?

Here are some wise answers ;)
----------------------------------


Plato: For the greater good.

Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.

Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration,
as a chicken which has the daring and courage to
boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom
among them has the strength to contend with such a
paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the
princely chicken's dominion maintained.

Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its
pancreas.

Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered
within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and
each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial
intent can never be discerned, because structuralism
is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Timothy Leary: Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment
would let it take.

Douglas Adams: Forty-two.

Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road
gazes also across you.

Oliver North: National Security was at stake.

B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its
sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a
fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while
believing these actions to be of its own free will.

Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt
necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at
this historical juncture, and therefore
synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself,
the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the
objects "chicken" and "road", and circumstances came
into being which caused the actualization of this
potential occurrence.

Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed
the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Aristotle: To actualize its potential.

Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-
nature.

Howard Cosell: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing
events to grace the annals of history. An historic,
unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt
such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to
homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence.

Salvador Dali: The Fish.

Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from
the trees.

Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.

Epicurus: For fun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Johann von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken
was on, but it was moving very fast.

David Hume: Out of custom and habit.

Jack Nicholson: 'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored)
reason.

Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?

Ronald Reagan: I forget.

John Sununu: The Air Force was only too happy to provide the
transportation, so quite understandably the chicken
availed himself of the opportunity.

The Sphinx: You tell me.

Mr. T: If you saw me coming you'd cross the road too!

Henry David Thoreau: To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow
out of life.

Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Molly Yard: It was a hen!

Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.

Chaucer: So priketh hem nature in hir corages.

Wordsworth: To wander lonely as a cloud.

The Godfather: I didn't want its mother to see it like that.

Keats: Philosophy will clip a chicken's wings.

Blake: To see heaven in a wild fowl.

Othello: Jealousy.

Dr Johnson: Sir, had you known the Chicken for as long as I have,
you would not so readily enquire, but feel rather the
Need to resist such a public Display of your own
lamentable and incorrigible Ignorance.

Mrs Thatcher: This chicken's not for turning.

Supreme Soviet: There has never been a chicken in this photograph.

Oscar Wilde: Why, indeed? One's social engagements whilst in
town ought never expose one to such barbarous
inconvenience - although, perhaps, if one must cross a
road, one may do far worse than to cross it as the
chicken in question.

Kafka: Hardly the most urgent enquiry to make of a low-grade
insurance clerk who woke up that morning as a hen.

Swift: It is, of course, inevitable that such a loathsome,
filth-ridden and degraded creature as Man should assume
to question the actions of one in all respects his
superior.

Macbeth: To have turned back were as tedious as to go o'er.

Whitehead: Clearly, having fallen victim to the fallacy of
misplaced concreteness.

Freud: An die andere Seite zu kommen. (Much laughter)

Hamlet: That is not the question.

Donne: It crosseth for thee.

Pope: It was mimicking my Lord Hervey.


Constable: To get a better view.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Picked up from here.

Imagine

By John Lenon :-

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...



Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...



?You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one



Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...




You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one


Peace ...

Italy takes it all...

I am not going to write about yesterday's world cup final, because I am fed up, both, hearing and reading about it almost everywhere now and thereby increase the redundant informational content of the universe.

I am not going to write about yesterday's world cup final because, France, my intuitive selection for rank 1, lost [:(].

I am not going to write about yesterday's world cup final, because zizou's capricious last minute act of headbutt (keeping all the logical and rationales behind), was an uncalled death of sportsman ship and in my friends language 'game ki haar'.


I am not going to write about yesterday's world cup final also because,
for the second time in the history of FIFA world cup finals, penalty shootouts had to be used, which I believe, perhaps relegates the glory of a 'team game' such as soccer, relinquishing the fate of two nations and hundreds other in their support, on the potentiality of two mans men and a ball.


And I am not going to write about yesterday's world cup final, because there were other great finals happening which need to get the limelight.



But yes, I am going to write about world cup 2006 because, it bids farewell and extends warm welcome to some great legends of world football.

I am going to write about the world cup 2006, because even though only 10% of the total world's population could manage to watch the Italians toasting with the golden cup, it united the whole world beyond nationalism, racism, like nothing else could.

And I guess I have written about the world cup of 2006, because never before in all those 25 years of my life, I have followed a sporting event in such a religious manner (except for the cliched cricket world cups).

And not for the least, I guess I have wriiten all this because the unremmitting memoirs of these last 30 days, will remain forever with me....

(Brazil & Superman) Returns....

They are in to the hearts of billion around the world. They both are the supernatural heroes in the mind of people - one in reality and one in fantasy.They both have the formidable capability to twist 'n' twirl, and jump to reach their 'goal' in time. But, despite this parallelism, the return of these two, last weekend, had sent contrasting vibes flowing across the population of the planet - that of joy and of rue. One returned back to its homeland, with moist eyes, the other to the Daily Planet office, with yesteryear memories. Superman returned with a much awaited applause and Brazil with a much awaited defeat following the 12 successive wins in world cup finals after the last FIFA world cup.

To the dismay of half the world and my exultation( coz i ranked France no. 1 in a sweepstake), Brazil gave up on the 'effeminate' French team, fighting tooth and nail, to preserve its dignity and defending championship, only to return home empty handed this time. Like the inevitable rise and fall of a civilization, Brazil had to descend some time from the apex they've occupied for a period now, and is simply following a natural path of observing the rules set in nature - that which rises, has to fall. I am not asserting this loss against France as the pre-cursor to the downfall of sambian supremacy, but only that it may just be the right omen for the Brazil to analyse that indeed its for real.

Superman on the other hand did return with a grace, and charm,maintaining its valor and bridging those 28 years of hangover it spelled way back in 1978 with the release of original Superman. Brandon Routh dressed in simple skin tight attire, as was 28 years back, and with a drooping serpentine mane on the forehead, was stunning and equally enchanting for the adults who liked him in the first place, as he actualised on silver screen, the punch line of Adidas that indeed - 'Impossible is Nothing'. Far from the reality in the fantasy world, this invincible legend has not lost to its adversaries such as Spiderman, Batman, Neo, or even our local Indianized superhero Krissh, because the rules of nature I guess don't apply to the fancy land.

Two legends, two stories, and two different returns. Lets hope this world cup has more of this sort in store for us as the hollywood I am sure would have.

Zidane VS Ronaldinho

Can't beat'em...never..

My Game is Fair Play

Football world cup fever is on the surge and so is the enthusiasm of the ubiquitous soccer cult. People all over the world are supporting their nations except for the people here in India, who like me have no other choice but to rejoice on the winning jubilation of other countries. People here are content dribbling the larger look alike of football with their mahindra jeeps as a gesture to symbolise their passion for this sport. Stores in Bangalore even managed to put up a gigantic football imported from Thailand for display. Yet again to show how much love, a population of billion can spare for a sport, wherein its hard to find a team of handfuls out of those who would qualify to play from their side in world cup.

The last time ever an Indian team was noticeable in the world cup league was in the year of 1950. Then too the team had to withdraw from the matches because FIFA did not allow the Indian footballers to play bare feet against the rules. Since then it seems that Indian team has boycotted playing under the auspices of FIFA in world cup for continuously 14 times. And only time has to tell , if ever our team returns on the ground of a world cup league match after qualifying from the asian sub-group team of 4 countries namely (INDIA, OMAN, JAPAN and SINGAPORE).

Indianfootball.com proudly hosts a page on India's qualification matches (tagged as 'India's passage to Germany' ) with these countries. To disprove off the miserable and pathetic show put up in the qualifying matches by the Indian team, the page mentions that :

>> India finished third in a though group, which was won by Asian gigants Japan.

Gigant Japan, sounds hilarious. A strength of hundred million is gigantic for a strength of billion. That definitely is not a fair play on part of the indianfootball.com. With each kick targeted on the goal post, my wish to see indian team doing the same on that field has only risen, and risen to a point where I cannot withstand seeing India not play in the next world cup. But the efforts in that directions are still fruitless as greatbong puts it here. So, all in all for India the game is a far cry and not a fair play for a longer time.

NUMBER 10

The King of Football- The legendary 'Black Pearl' in action. The background score is definitely not to be ignored.