On Technology:
I am rarely happier than when spending an entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand. Its true. I've personally never found more joy other than the fact as to how much easier life has become by pasting my face to a computer screen for somewhere in the immediate vicinity of 6 hours a day. Now that I speak of it, it seems like a staggeringly large number. Its some time which can be better spent sleeping or, say, going on the hunt for Nessie(im sure Google with help speed up that process monumentaly).
On God-mongering:
I don’t like the idea of missionaries. In fact the whole business fills me with fear and alarm. I don’t believe in God, or at least not in the one we’ve invented for ourselves to fulfil our peculiar needs, and certainly not in the ones they’ve invented in America who supply their servants with toupees, television stations and, most importantly, toll-free telephone numbers. I wish that people who did believe in such things would keep them to themselves and not export them to the developing world. Something in the selling of religion is inherently disturbing. The fact that some person would go door-do-door selling a belief(i wont call it a faith, since that would be patronizing a non-existent entity) which he/she has either a. willingly accepted, b. has been told by parent/guardian/educator to accept or c. been forced into by some series of fortunate/unfortunate/non-relevant circumstances.
However that person may have come to follow his religion/belief/faith is his and his business alone. It, by no means, gives said person (missionary) to come parading his religion and trying to make a sale at my doorstep.
On Fears:
I've heard an idea proposed, I've no idea how seriously, to account for the sensation of vertigo. It's an idea that I instinctively like and it goes like this. The dizzy sensation we experience when standing in high places is not simply a fear of falling. It's often the case that the only thing likely to make us fall is the actual dizziness itself, so it is, at best, an extremely irrational, even self-fulfilling fear. However, in the distant past of our evolutionary journey toward our current state, we lived in trees. We leapt from tree to tree. There are even those who speculate that we may have something birdlike in our ancestral line. In which case, there may be some part of our mind that, when confronted with a void, expects to be able to leap out into it and even urges us to do so. So what you end up with is a conflict between a primitive, atavistic part of your mind which is saying "Jump!" and the more modern, rational part of your mind which is saying, "For Christ's sake, don't!" In fact, vertigo is explained by some not as the fear of falling, but as the temptation to jump!
This idea in itself is amazing. The fact that the human brain can within a split second go on war with itself to such an extent as to cause physical discomfort leaves a lot of room for us to blame the world's problems on human error. Think about this for a moment and try and imagine, that if the brain is able to contradict itself, how many wrong decisions must a man make in a day, and how many of above mentioned bad decisions must have been of monumental importance to only affect one person, but also the world, and maybe history itself.
Maybe Napoleon felt a weird sense of "vertigo" when he stood at the brink of the battle of Waterloo.
On Media:
It's important to remember that the relationship between different media tends to be complementary. When new media arrive they don't necessarily replace or eradicate previous types. Though we should perhaps observe a half second silence for the carbon record. - There that's done. What usually happens is that older media have to shuffle about a bit to make space for the new one and its particular advantages. Radio did not kill books and television did not kill radio or movies - what television did kill was cinema newsreel. TV does it much better because it can deliver it instantly. Who wants last week's news?
Generally, old media don't die. They just have to grow old gracefully. Guess what, we still have stone masons. They haven't been the primary purveyors of the written word for a while now of course, but they still have a role because you wouldn't want a TV screen on your headstone.
On Humans: (Quotes)
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
The great thing about being the only species that makes a distinction between right and wrong is that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along.
Epilogue:
It appears that i may have written several week's worth of blog-posts in one single blog. But I couldn't help myself, these ramblings have been in my head and written down wherever for a long time now, its been a long time coming and feels good to have in print. Or atleast in written base somewhere on the web.
P.S.> Sorry for the grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. Its 3A.M. and my eyes refuse confuse the squiggly red lines and my brain gives it as much passing thought as a fart in a windstorm.
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Listening to: Audioslave - Show Me How To Live
via FoxyTunes
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
A wrong view of the world.
We all think that this perfect world is created with a perfect purpose and somehow we all have a part to play in this whole game called life, and that somehow, in the smallest way possible, our life has some meaning and each person has a central role in this whole drama of living and this amazing planet we call earth.
Somehow i believe we all are sorely mistaken. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be. And to that effect our perspective is so skewed that we believe, we hope against hope that WE, nay "I", am somehow important. We believe that somehow we were meant to be here. We justify this logic by placing a phrase like "If the glove fits..." You have no idea how wrong we are.
. . . imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; it is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of object, a different class of matter; 'life', something that had a mysterious essence about it, was God given, and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes 'On the Origin of Species'. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the center of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well.
But keeping that in mind there's also the fact that the world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened, it's just wonderful. And . . . the opportunity to spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned.
----------------
Listening to: Audioslave - Like A Stone
via FoxyTunes
Somehow i believe we all are sorely mistaken. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be. And to that effect our perspective is so skewed that we believe, we hope against hope that WE, nay "I", am somehow important. We believe that somehow we were meant to be here. We justify this logic by placing a phrase like "If the glove fits..." You have no idea how wrong we are.
. . . imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; it is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of object, a different class of matter; 'life', something that had a mysterious essence about it, was God given, and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes 'On the Origin of Species'. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the center of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well.
But keeping that in mind there's also the fact that the world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened, it's just wonderful. And . . . the opportunity to spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned.
----------------
Listening to: Audioslave - Like A Stone
via FoxyTunes
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Lead India
I found myself utterly and completely bored out of my skull. So i happened to come across a very ancient tome of scientific "knowledge", The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Yes, i accept ive stumbled upon this book a bit late for most people considered, but better late than never.
So i decided to post in my blog for once about this revolutionary book and some parts of it which have actually touched me, not in the physical plane but skimming at the emotional surfaces. For those of you who haven't read this book as yet, please go and get a copy. Trust me you wont be at all let-down in any manner. The book's premise itself is the most amusing theme ive ever come across; the destruction of the earth to make way for an intergalactic bypass. And then as you go further on you discover intresting bits of trivia, like the Earth being actually a 10 million year old supercomputer with the sole purpose of calculating The Question To The Ultimate Answer, and how humans are only the third most intelligent life-form on earth.
It goes without saying that you need to keep your brain on the back-burner if you thoroughly wish to enjoy this book. Its full of such nonsensical ideas that they eventually all fall into place and then you start thinking - What if? And this is where all the problems start and incidentally also where they shall end. Well you'll know what i mean if you do go on and pick up the book.
Now here ive come across a slight problem, haven't I? I seem to have written more of a book review than a proper blog, and in the way ive lost the whole reason i set out to make this post. It was to quote a simple and effective paragraph in the book which successfully throws light on why the current political situation is in dire straights. Yes a science-fiction-comedy-suspense book is hardly the place for political awakening, but who am i to overlook when the idea itself is so appealing.
So here is the theory that i came across, which had me thinking about the causes of the world's current problem's and interestingly about the importance of the current Lead India campaign.
> There's a theory in the Hitchhiker's Guide that mentions why the President of the Galaxy has to be a mere face and why the Ruler of the Universe is a retarted old man with the memory span of a goldfish.
It quite simply states the reason to be somewhere along these lines :
Ultimate power will surely corrupt a single individual, and whoever strives for it is sure to be corrupted to reach such a position of power in the bureaucracy, it has thus been observed that whoever wishes to rule the world can never be fit to do so as his judgement will be clouded by his want for his seat of power i.e. his want of ruling the world.
However, if there ever is such an individual who can rule the world uncorrupted is one who does not wish to rule the world in the first place, only then can a person be free of corruption and take a correct decision in the right direction. Now the problem here is that if he has to be free of corruption then he should never WANT to rule the world.
Herein lies the biggest problem of the universe, whoever wants to rule the world can never be considered fit to do so, and whoever is fit and qualified enough to rule the world will never want to rule it in the first place.
Thus what we have in the political system right now is number of bumbling corrupt old men who want power and hence cannot be qualified to hold it, and those who do not crave for power will never enter the political field.
Lookat this theory and now look at the highly effective Lead India campaign, and you can see how these become relevant, and now we realise how the campaign in itself becomes vital to the faith of the people in the political system.
So i decided to post in my blog for once about this revolutionary book and some parts of it which have actually touched me, not in the physical plane but skimming at the emotional surfaces. For those of you who haven't read this book as yet, please go and get a copy. Trust me you wont be at all let-down in any manner. The book's premise itself is the most amusing theme ive ever come across; the destruction of the earth to make way for an intergalactic bypass. And then as you go further on you discover intresting bits of trivia, like the Earth being actually a 10 million year old supercomputer with the sole purpose of calculating The Question To The Ultimate Answer, and how humans are only the third most intelligent life-form on earth.
It goes without saying that you need to keep your brain on the back-burner if you thoroughly wish to enjoy this book. Its full of such nonsensical ideas that they eventually all fall into place and then you start thinking - What if? And this is where all the problems start and incidentally also where they shall end. Well you'll know what i mean if you do go on and pick up the book.
Now here ive come across a slight problem, haven't I? I seem to have written more of a book review than a proper blog, and in the way ive lost the whole reason i set out to make this post. It was to quote a simple and effective paragraph in the book which successfully throws light on why the current political situation is in dire straights. Yes a science-fiction-comedy-suspense book is hardly the place for political awakening, but who am i to overlook when the idea itself is so appealing.
So here is the theory that i came across, which had me thinking about the causes of the world's current problem's and interestingly about the importance of the current Lead India campaign.
> There's a theory in the Hitchhiker's Guide that mentions why the President of the Galaxy has to be a mere face and why the Ruler of the Universe is a retarted old man with the memory span of a goldfish.
It quite simply states the reason to be somewhere along these lines :
Ultimate power will surely corrupt a single individual, and whoever strives for it is sure to be corrupted to reach such a position of power in the bureaucracy, it has thus been observed that whoever wishes to rule the world can never be fit to do so as his judgement will be clouded by his want for his seat of power i.e. his want of ruling the world.
However, if there ever is such an individual who can rule the world uncorrupted is one who does not wish to rule the world in the first place, only then can a person be free of corruption and take a correct decision in the right direction. Now the problem here is that if he has to be free of corruption then he should never WANT to rule the world.
Herein lies the biggest problem of the universe, whoever wants to rule the world can never be considered fit to do so, and whoever is fit and qualified enough to rule the world will never want to rule it in the first place.
Thus what we have in the political system right now is number of bumbling corrupt old men who want power and hence cannot be qualified to hold it, and those who do not crave for power will never enter the political field.
Lookat this theory and now look at the highly effective Lead India campaign, and you can see how these become relevant, and now we realise how the campaign in itself becomes vital to the faith of the people in the political system.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
To All Idiots with an Opinion
So i wake up today after a hard nights gaming and what do i find? Front Page Sunday Times of India has a write-up screaming how Games cause people to murder each other... And even worse... how games have semi-naked animated women running around... Boobs jumping et al... My dear god what corruption of the Teenage mind.... God forbid he ever gets a peek onto MTV or any movie channel...
The one thing that drives me mad about all of this is the people who write such crap have never touched any of the games they mention... or any game in their lives over all... Its a wonder they know the meaning of Massively Multi-player Online RPG... an MMORPG in gamer terms... Its worse that they label Max Payne, NFS and Half Life among the list of MMO's.... where did researching before writing go?? Is all the research and all the hunting for a story lost in printing something to fill up the pages?? I'd hoped better from a respected paper like TOI... which I for one read daily without a miss... The point they try to make on Page 5 is that gamers play Porn (read Hentai) games to get their kicks... Why would anyone in their sane mind take the effort to download a 1GB + porn game when 30% of internet traffic is directed towards porn sites(yes we can use statistics to our advantage as well)... If u think Teenagers are getting corrupted by games then think again... there are so many factors causing this that if u wanna set out a cry against Games and MMORPG's in general youd have to wage war against any Media that shows a Bit of skin, real or pixelised...
In another reading session before another instance of lack of research came to view... Pune Times quotes that Resistance : Fall of Man is banned in the UK coz of extreme voilence... Although the level of voilence i found was lesser when compared to Die Hard 4.0... It makes me itch to point out to the author of this beautiful piece of shit that Resistance is not banned for voilence... its banned for showing a Church where the main character fights aliens... the graphics are realistic and the cathedral based on the real life replica... The reason for banning is over-zealous religious fanatics... a whole another topic for me and everyone else... lets just not venture there for the time being...
As a parting word let me put this down for u Priyanko Sarkar... I am Viraj Chouhan... im a 20 Year old Gamer... ive been gaming all my life... ive played Every type of game in existence... I have as yet not killed even one person... or greviously injured anyone for that matter... there are a million other gamers like me... so before u go and start blaming the worlds ills on us gamers... keep in mind we Outnumber you and people who think like you... Dont Fuck With Us...
Im just one of those Idiots with an Opinion like you Priyanko... I have never met you... and hope not to... I dont know how much experience you have in your field of Journalism... But... I know i have loads of experience in my field of Gaming... Enough to criticise what you have written without a shred of evidence... So... if you happen to be a young newcomer with a thirst for a story to feed you your daily bread... judging by your writing... i dont hold much hope for journalism's future in your hands... and if your happen to be a middle aged person with eons of experience to your credit... frankly, you should know better...
The one thing that drives me mad about all of this is the people who write such crap have never touched any of the games they mention... or any game in their lives over all... Its a wonder they know the meaning of Massively Multi-player Online RPG... an MMORPG in gamer terms... Its worse that they label Max Payne, NFS and Half Life among the list of MMO's.... where did researching before writing go?? Is all the research and all the hunting for a story lost in printing something to fill up the pages?? I'd hoped better from a respected paper like TOI... which I for one read daily without a miss... The point they try to make on Page 5 is that gamers play Porn (read Hentai) games to get their kicks... Why would anyone in their sane mind take the effort to download a 1GB + porn game when 30% of internet traffic is directed towards porn sites(yes we can use statistics to our advantage as well)... If u think Teenagers are getting corrupted by games then think again... there are so many factors causing this that if u wanna set out a cry against Games and MMORPG's in general youd have to wage war against any Media that shows a Bit of skin, real or pixelised...
In another reading session before another instance of lack of research came to view... Pune Times quotes that Resistance : Fall of Man is banned in the UK coz of extreme voilence... Although the level of voilence i found was lesser when compared to Die Hard 4.0... It makes me itch to point out to the author of this beautiful piece of shit that Resistance is not banned for voilence... its banned for showing a Church where the main character fights aliens... the graphics are realistic and the cathedral based on the real life replica... The reason for banning is over-zealous religious fanatics... a whole another topic for me and everyone else... lets just not venture there for the time being...
As a parting word let me put this down for u Priyanko Sarkar... I am Viraj Chouhan... im a 20 Year old Gamer... ive been gaming all my life... ive played Every type of game in existence... I have as yet not killed even one person... or greviously injured anyone for that matter... there are a million other gamers like me... so before u go and start blaming the worlds ills on us gamers... keep in mind we Outnumber you and people who think like you... Dont Fuck With Us...
Im just one of those Idiots with an Opinion like you Priyanko... I have never met you... and hope not to... I dont know how much experience you have in your field of Journalism... But... I know i have loads of experience in my field of Gaming... Enough to criticise what you have written without a shred of evidence... So... if you happen to be a young newcomer with a thirst for a story to feed you your daily bread... judging by your writing... i dont hold much hope for journalism's future in your hands... and if your happen to be a middle aged person with eons of experience to your credit... frankly, you should know better...
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Let The Blogging Begin
So the craze claims another victim... the blog-craze taking over the world wins another soul onto its side... So how shall one begin?
Mebbe in British English:
I Humbly Welcome you to my humblest online Diary...
Pray dont be bored for various adventures await u in the pages that follow !
Or the more modern Englsh:
wlcm 2 my blog...
hope u njoi my writng s mch s i njoi writng it...
Not much as far as a first blog goes... but bear with me... im new to this sort of... "Stuff"... as afore mentioned... my first time was too soon for me to get used to this... so early in the game anyway...
But... where to begin i ask myself as i stare into the faint glow of my monitor, straining my eyes as they will me to sleep...
Maybe i could start with myself... a self-confessed Gaming Addict... a little-appreciated Writer... and a brand-new blogger...
So whilst u analyse me... through my blog... let ur brain roam free... and Let the Blogging Begin !
Mebbe in British English:
I Humbly Welcome you to my humblest online Diary...
Pray dont be bored for various adventures await u in the pages that follow !
Or the more modern Englsh:
wlcm 2 my blog...
hope u njoi my writng s mch s i njoi writng it...
Not much as far as a first blog goes... but bear with me... im new to this sort of... "Stuff"... as afore mentioned... my first time was too soon for me to get used to this... so early in the game anyway...
But... where to begin i ask myself as i stare into the faint glow of my monitor, straining my eyes as they will me to sleep...
Maybe i could start with myself... a self-confessed Gaming Addict... a little-appreciated Writer... and a brand-new blogger...
So whilst u analyse me... through my blog... let ur brain roam free... and Let the Blogging Begin !
Yay ! First Blog
So... this is what the first time feels like...
Its exactly how i pictured it would be...
Me... my comp... late night... just after a good movie... yea it feels just about right...
Tonight is the night i lose my blog-virginity... Now i am a MAN !! Respect me mortals for now i am among u...
Lets get the creative juices flowing(completely figuratively).
So life throws another event in my way and i pick up where i had taken a pause and procceed as she directs...
This time my event wont be so well encompassed in words... as i had hoped it would be...
The brain doesnt work as smoothly as one would suppose in these situations... but i guess this will have to do for now...
Everythings not lost and theres time to spare... maybe ill be more excited to write later on...
Its exactly how i pictured it would be...
Me... my comp... late night... just after a good movie... yea it feels just about right...
Tonight is the night i lose my blog-virginity... Now i am a MAN !! Respect me mortals for now i am among u...
Lets get the creative juices flowing(completely figuratively).
So life throws another event in my way and i pick up where i had taken a pause and procceed as she directs...
This time my event wont be so well encompassed in words... as i had hoped it would be...
The brain doesnt work as smoothly as one would suppose in these situations... but i guess this will have to do for now...
Everythings not lost and theres time to spare... maybe ill be more excited to write later on...
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