Hair boss

I shampoo my hair everyday and whenever I tell people that, they stare at me with a look of disbelief and jovially say, "You're going to become bald!"

So, I went on a little treasure hunt to figure out what's going on

I'll outline what I've found. Shampooing CAN damage hair. Only damage hair, not directly cause hair loss. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, the main surfactant in most shampoos is the main problem. STS causes skin irritation. This is proven. But only in high concentrations and not for everyone. Irritation can cause inflammation which in turn can be linked to hair loss. Tests and research are all highly inconclusive. Irritating!

If you find you're losing hair during shampooing. It's normal. Hair that is weak is ripped out due to the chemicals.

So, is shampoo good or not? I'll shoot now. It depends! For some people, even a little shampoo can screw their hair life. For others daily hair wash is fine (like me). It's very important to find shampoo that suits your hair. Its different for everyone. Anti dandruff shampoos are very strong. This is all common sense of course.

Another problem I must address is how to use shampoo. Turns out the correct way to shampoo is to apply a small quantity to your palms first and do a preliminary washing sequence. Then apply another small quantity, massage into the scalp thoroughly and wash very thoroughly (I'll try to reference this). STS cleans by destruction. Get it out fast. It cleans up pretty soon.

Another amusing piece for me: Oiling hair does not improve hair. So much for all that Indian female talk about oiling one's hair! Oil only conditions the scalp. Nothing else. Largely unconnected with hair growth.

References:
http://www.ezinearticles.com/?How-To-Choose-A-Hair-Shampoo&id=296479
http://www.hairlossbuddy.com/20/sodium-lauryl-sulfate/
http://blog.fropper.com/times/2006/11/exploding_6_com.html
http://www.ctfa.org.nz/information/sls/cir_report_sls.html
http://www.healthy-communications.com/slsmostdangerousirritant.html
http://health.learninginfo.org/hair-care/myths.htm

Oh and a couple of little gems I found:
http://hedburgh.com/quoter.php
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2006/12/100_things_we_didnt_know_last_2.shtml

Yea, BBC is awesome!

Perspective Problem

Almost all of us have a perspective problem. We tend to think we are right and the other are wrong. So do the others.

This has become such a nuance that it's easily the biggest problem mankind faces (that's just a figure of speech, see? I really don't know anything for sure).

So if you don't understand why things become shorter when they move, your not seeing it the right way. And if you don't get why people like thrash metal, that's your view.

Most annoyances are from the perspective problem. If people don't understand you and you think people are uncaring and stuff. Then it's your perspective problem as well as theirs! Somebody has to come through. If you think rapists are bad, then it's your problem, because you think raping is evil. And if you criticize me for this statement it's because from your perspective you believe that I think rape is not a crime and in your POV I'm wrong. That was confusing.

The point is…well, there is no absolute point of view.

The working of sun signs

I never really believed in horoscopes. In fact long ago I made a post about this.

Recently, I found that a lot of things on horoscopes and this zodiac stuff are actually happening to me. So now I'm intrigued.

Here's my little theory of how horoscopes work (partially at least).

For the most part, children are influenced by their parents. This how we analyze a case. Now people are born at a particular time. We take 9 months before the person was born and from this we know when the parents 'did it'. Now why does this matter? Parents do it at different times of the year depending on their personalities which in turn affects the child!

So case the case of Leo. August. Nov-Dec. Winter. Parents are hardy. Hard working. Work through the cold and cracked lips. Ambitious. So is child.

Aries. April. July-Aug. Summer. They do it in the heat. So child is hot tempered. Energetic parents through all that heat. Leader like energy. So is child. So much enthusiasm in the heat! Yeap. So is kiddo.

So you can analyze every sign this way.

Bleary eyed writing

I've had people asking me "What yaar? No scraps at all! Scrap me now and then".

Yea, you scrap bag.

I've seen people compare their number of orkut friends with others and say things like,"I have 150 orkut friends and 120 of them are girls ah haha!".

Yea, you douche bag nerd. Shag!

'Orkutting', which even sounds pathetic, has become some sort of nut-case phenomenon.

"You don't have an 'orkut' account? Oh God! Which world do you live in?"

Errr, the saner one?

I REALLY have heard these things. And every time I feel like shoving a a pineapple up their rears.

Now, I'm not at all against the concept of orkut. The thing that doesn't taste good is how people think it's the greatest innovation since the bulb and how their so called 'social life' revovles around it.

A:"sup" (borrowed from a friend's experience)
B:"Sure, where?"(From here, my foreperience)
A:"huh what man whatever"(I hope u'v noticed the disuse of punctuations)
B:"Come on yahoo/msn"
A:"dude too lazy just chat here"
B:"ok so how are you?" (Must these next few lines happen in every conversation?)
A:"fine u?"
B:"fine"(Observe the failing quality of B's punctuations)
A1:"slging eh? Smashin all de tsts?"(for the academic oriented)
A2:"frkin eh?" (for the everything else oriented)
B:"no yaar"(Answering a yes would worse than blasphemy in the eyes of those blarmed religious fanatics)
…

Now this is a pathetic way to end. Really pathetic.

I started drafting this some days ago now I don't know what to write. So there.

I actually am starting to wonder why I am ending it this way. I KNOW I can do better than that, but perhaps the utter stupidity of that conclusion struck me. Or maybe I didn't really want to conclude it that way but I typed it anyway, then I started typing this and so now I have a rather saner ending which has nothing to do with the topic.

Actually it does have something to do with the orkut problem. People just start doing something without really wanting to and find themselves doing it. So they orkut.

Hah!

Ok now I got a decent ending which makes no complete sense but just utterly confuses you, the poor reader and me the poor writer who's listening to 'Mademoiselle Nobs' by Pink Floyd. Now this piece is interesting. It's got a dog which is howling and that's incorporated into the music, giving it a very…dogly quality. It's good.

Now I'll stop typing. I can go like this forever if I let myself do it!

EDIT: Orkut is still a great tool though. It just let me unearth a tonne of information that I couldn't possibly have got any other way.

Perfection Plasticity

I was thinking about perfect things feel plastic and unreal and how important imperfections are to add realism.

I started thinking about this when I was using Guitar Pro. It's a program which plays out the notes of a song on any intrsument you want. The timing and note quality is, well, theoretically exact. Funny thing is everything sounds like garbage on this. A 'perfect' guitarist wouldn't accent his strokes and it would sound like digital watch alarms. The imperfections is what gives 'style'.

Adding copper to gold and sulfur to rubber and boron to silicon makes it stronger, stronger and more conductive in that order.

In sports, each person has his own style. And they're not all that perfect. For example, the correct way to play tennis is supposedly to use the wrist. But during the game, it's observed most players,even top class ones, just whack the ball.

My point isn't that perfection isn't impossible. It's the perfection isn't always good. And that sometimes having certain imperfect qualities is good, in a real world situation ofcourse.

Perhaps it's because different people have different tastes, so they can get along much better with something that 'fits' them.

Perfection plasticity, because the first thing that came to my mind was plastic. No connection whatsoever.

So does coffee

Daniel went to the coffee mill,
Where he sat still.
He looked through the window sill
And wondered why people kill.

Bill! he thought, the hotel bills.
Yes, money, the whore bills.
Body of honey, jewellery bills.
Shining penny, Money kills
Yes, money kills.

~And sitting still
~Don't jump through window sills

Ignorance is not bliss

Ignorance is bliss some smart fellow comes along and says. Reasoning goes that knowing nothing will keep one happy as they will have to worry about nothing.

A problem occurs in the hearts of men: they desire to know. So, well, ignorance isn't that very blissful now. People learn things and now they're stuck. They don't have complete knowledge. In the end: unbliss.

In my reality, intelligence is bliss. Knowing how everything works keeps you in control. You'll be able to understand the world.

Suppose you were ignorant about something. Then something supposedly unexpected comes up. Then Mr. Ignorant won't be prepared for that event. Ouch. But if you were intelligent and you were expecting that 'surprise' event. Then Mr.Intelligent would be confident and be able to handle the situation comfortably: Control. Security. Happiness.

So there.

About me...again!

Ok, so now there is a place in NITK where we can actually get decent internet. It's a secret place which I will not disclose so as to still maintain the quality of the place.

I find myself writing a lot about how my life is going on nowadays. That was never the purpose of this blog. It wasn't meant to be a diary. This is going to be the last post about myself. For a good while atleast.

Basic state of mind: Angry
Outward behaviour: Usual, quieter
Inward state: Desire to do away with causes of anger, most predominantly, bad health and bad academic performance.
Action taken so far: Nil
Result: Back to square one state squared!

Ultimate Experience in Life

I was asked to write about my ultimate experience.

The problem is I can't recall anything that I can describe as ultimate. So I'll just write about what I consider to be an ultimate experience.

Ultimate experience is the knowledge that you are in control of your life and being able to choose any possible action to do at the moment without being governed by external or internal influences and making the decision purely on the basis of logic and control.
I can't stress how important this is to me. I have been passively trying to achieve that for about 3 years now and I still find myself doing something that I shouldn't be doing. For example, it's appalling to me that chocolate can exert such a powerful influence upon me that I actually buy 5 Kit-Kats and stash it in my drawer and finish them all off in 1 day(Yes, it happened).

So my ultimate experience would be the ability to be in complete control of myself.

First Impressions

'109 new mail messages' Firefox smacks into my face when I boot my comp in Bangalore. After one month of virtually no computer usage, my semi-decent comp in bang is geek-nirvana.

NITK has been great fun. Learnt a lot of new things.

One thing I want to write about today is how people aren't actually what they seem to be. I've met a number of people in NITK and in many cases I've made wrongful judgements about them when I met them. As time goes by, it becomes painfully obvious I was wrong. Pride and prejudice can be thick smokescreens.

There's for example this one dude who's geeky. One would expect him to be shy. But he happens to be one of the best speakers in class. One lecturer actually asked him to talk about something to the class when she had nothing more to do. He gets a lot of negative feedback. I, for one, least care about whatever he speaks about. But what inspires me about him is his detachment from other's opinions and his courage. For me, that's real courage, not suicide bombing, not going to war.

Then there's this other person who seemed arrogant and possesing way too much 'attitude'. Nope. Turned out to be one of the coolest guys I've ever met in my life. This fellow will go WAY farther than others.

Then there's a fellow who I thought was extremely modest and nice but turned out to be, quite frankly, an asshole in many ways. He's ok, but he's still an asshole in many ways.

The point of the fire is that first impressions are almost always a pile of crap. The thing is the phenomenon of 'first impressions' is a subconscious process. It happens, whether we like it or not. People can easily put up a front and get a good face for himself. It's hard to wipe it off sometimes.

That's all I got to say about that.

Getting a cold when it's sweltering hot outside sucks - major time.

Not dead

I am still alive. But I've been unable to blog because there's virtually no internet access in NITK. It's sad but true. Can't do anything about it. I had to come to Suratkal to make this blog post.

Life zooms past in S'kal. Not that I've been having an incredibly great time considering that I have been scrwed in virtually every test so far, getting WAY below average score. I have no idea what's wrong with me. It's 12:30 PM now and bet it'll be 12:30 AM tommorow before I know it and I still wouldn't have done anything much.

I can't think of anything profound to say right now and perhaps I'll draft a proper post about something and post it later on.

Life at NITK

So finally I got hold a sane computer which had a CPU in the Computer Centre and I'm taking the oppurtunity to make a post.

The weather here is really humid and I sweat like the Ghats.

Everyone was saying the girls weren't very pretty- well the girls are pretty enough for me.

The computer centre is a real pain since 99% of the computers are actually thin clients, so the speeds are ludicrous.

People here are awesome, all types-nerdy, cool, sporty, funny, weird, etc.

Mess food isn't as horrible as people made it seem. It's easily tolerable.

Classes are to start on Tuesday.

My beautiful 1 week old Motorola SLVR L7 got wet in the beach. DAMN! Plus, it happened on a Sunday and the damn service center in Mangalore is closed today. I hope it survives. My parents are going to kill me.

As of now, I'm really turned off because of my cellphone. *weeps*

And the atmosphere kinda...Bah, hell with the atmosphere. I loved my cellphone :((

Of Mangalore and other things

I had been to Surathkal yesterday to get admission. The problem with NITK, Surathkal is that being Karnataka's best Engineering college, it's infrastructure is worse than some of the local Bangalore colleges. The hostels aren't very nice, especially considering that three, in a single room too, is a crowd.

Mangalore is a wierd place. I'd been to a Bharat mall and noticed that while the girls are very stylish(dress-wise), the boys were, well, pretty boring. Another thing about Mangalore is that stuff always smells. That's probably because of the humidity and so un-ventilated areas smell. It's nauseating.

I took a 'Special Rajasthani Thali' and it was horrid. There was enough oil in it to power a small city for a day and enough tastelessness to paralyse an American(their food is tasteless too). I was stunned when a family sitting next to us just ate up the whole damn thing. I ate only curd rice and still felt like puking. If Pilani has food like this I'll pass even if they offer me money to come there.

Self esteem & happiness

I've just realized that to really enjoy life, one must feel good about oneself. It doesn't matter if that person is a cobbler or the world's most popular man if they feel themselves as shit. But scum who feel that they are good will perfectly enjoy their life no matter how terrible it is in other people's point of view.This point is so profound, I wish I had realized this earlier.

There are total rascals who seem to be completely happy with themselves, just because they do what they like. Most of us are drawn away by society and we start to do things that clearly aren't 'US'. Classic peer pressure. It's implicit. Everyone wears jeans, even if it isn't exactly comfortable(good jeans are comfy, btw). Most people are like sheep, they follow the herd. Anyway, that's not the point of this post.

It doesn't matter what you are doing as long as you are happy and that means you should feel good about yourself. There's absolutely no way you can be truly happy if you get up daily, thinking about how useless you are. It's impossible. Rather, even if you have a big load of shit to rake, but you are supremely confident about your ability, then you can rake all that shit, with a smile on the face even.

It's a darn shame I had to learn this the hard way.

PS: Blogging frequency will be low until around mid-August. :(

College Hunting

Long time since I've blogged but lately I've been pretty stressed out because of the whole college thing. The problem is that my parents don't want me to go to BITS, Pilani because it's far away but I won't get a technology related course in a good college which is close by. If I get a IT course in NIT, Surathkal I'm grabbing it.

Another thing getting to my nerves is that there are so many different things that I should be doing and I am not keeping track of them and I keep forgetting stuff. Some sort of amnesia maybe.

If theres one thing I'd like to see change in the Indian education system, it would be the admission. I'm so annoyed with having to have 6 billion different ranks and 6 billion counselling sessions each with a plethora of dropouts and reservations, it's absolutely confusing. I say just have ONE damn exam for ALL colleges WITHOUT ranks and just a SCORE. That would make life so simple and get rid of a lot of stress.

Random Thoughts

I stare at the piece of C++ code involing pointers and arrays that makes no sense to me. "Argument char* argv[] is a pointer to an array of char*? But char* blah[]={"as","bs"} is an array of char*...?". Then I'm told that we can't pass arrays, only their addresses. So we play with them differently(in different scopes). I could have finished this problem quickly. But I didn't. I have to understand it. It is imperative for my sanity.

My mother is online telling me how bad my ranks are in CAPS. She says I won't get admission in any good college in any good subjects, which are sadly the same things I like. But I don't care. I just know I'll end up fine after 4 years. It's just a gut feeling. Four years later everyone will shut up.

CET results are out. I haven't gotten a good rank. Not like it matters. I'm not interested in any of those colleges. As long as I'm not surrounded by arrogant, stupid, ridiculus folk, I'm fine in any decent college.

It's 11 AM. I get up around now. Now, it's 1 PM. Wait, it's actually 1AM. Day almost over already? What did I do so far?

I'm talking with a friend. He's the smartest fellow I personally know. "Any problems?" he asks. "Try mathschallenge.net", I reply. He's online on GTalk. "Great. I'm going to beat you", he says. I feel that familiar tinge of competition. The urge to be the best. A feeling I haven't felt in one and half years. And then it dies away. I hope I haven't toally become numb with all this meaningless studies. There's still hope, still hope.

Not so Busy

I won't blog until June 4th. I have a ton of things going on.

• Two more exams
• Results, scores and ranks galore
• Grandfather got a bypass surgery, need to help around the place
  
• I'm in a very bad mood for the past one week

See you ppl then.

Update:
Okay, I'm not exactly busy. Actually, I just wish for things to zoom forward to June 4th. A lot of things are currently 'out of place' and very 'fuzzy'.

AIEEE: Karnataka rank-174, AIR- 10,648
BITSAT Score-323

I'm very annoyed about te above because people normally less clever than me are getting better ranks. And some people who are usually smarter than me are getting worse ranks than me.

The IITs: Damn them

[draftish post][rant]
Okay. I'm really angry with the IITs. Although I admit there are some really smart people there. Most of them are nothing but hard workers.

This is essentially a response to Prady'u't (:D) post and his comment there.

On Java:
exactly. It's a jack of all trades. It can't do anything right.And it's based on a VM for God's sake. I dumped Azureus because of it. I've disabled Java on my browser. It's just too slow for me. It may be easy to make programs with but they are rarely efficient. If Java is so great, why don't they use it for Linux? And anyway, there were many people involved in making Java, and the IITian was only one or two(I've never found how many actually).

MIT:
7 *7 = 49 + 11= 60 out of 4000? And how many of those say IIT was better?

Ceramic thingy:
When I said weird, I meant that it was an relatively insignificant thing. People keep discovering new ceramics and drugs and most are just trial and error. Besides, with thousands dying due to hunger and war, having the government spend lakhs on making an IITian isn't worth it to save hundreds and to exalt one.

Board of Governors have no power. Why doesn't the Board stop the Govt. from doing the reservation thing then?

//And statements like “IITians just go wherever the money is.” are outright disrespectful and based on false pretence of understanding.

[superrant begin]
Sorry, why do most of them choose to take MBAs then? They might have done a non-engineering course and let people who REALLY like engineering to take up engineering in the IITs. Honestly, most of them know that they can't compete in a real world where brains are required. Every self-respecting engineer knows that management requires almost no brains, only big mouths.
[/end superrant]

Another thing is that IIT makes its admissions based only on merit(okay, and caste). But to become a real success, it takes more than that. It takes passion, ambition, determination, innovation, social skills and creativity. I believe that by focussing on merit, IIT is taking in a lot of dud heads who just want to be rich. I can't believe the number of people I'm seeing who just want to get some 'decent' degree from a good college and just want a good 'job'. IITians can't be any better.

The ones who can really make a difference are thrown in a non-competitive environment and they eventually rot. Sadly, most IITians don't do what they were meant to: make wonderful things that are hard to make. It's a completely unfavorable shift of balance.

Now before somebody jumps on me and slashed my face, let me make my point clear. IIT is wasting resources training people who don't have potential. Even worse, these people are raised to great heights. A lot of people who don't deserve to be there get in somehow(study 14 hrs a day for 2 years, okay smartie). They get undeserved attention. My main problem: they don't deserve it. They aren't that great and stop pretending like they are!

They are just normal people who are good at solving problems at a particularly unstable part of most peoples lives. They aren't that great at solving problems. It's not like they can solve the Millenium problems. Infact, if I had any money, I'd bet that none of the Millenium problems will be solved by IITians.

Before commenting for this post: If you have a problem with anything that I say, please provide a sensible reason. No lousy and vague stuff. Especially if you are from IIT, because then, you'll simply be proving me right.

EDIT: Okay. IITians are great. Neither does it mean that there is no non-IITian in India who isn't smarter than IITians.

Banning The DaVinci Code?

I was watching NDTV this morning(great achievement for me) and I was surprised to see that The DaVinci Code movie might be banned in India. I think it's absolutely ridiculous that any movie be banned.

Quote from NDTV.com
"I&B Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi said a decision on banning The DaVinci Code will be taken after various Catholic groups express their opinion. "

Lamers! If they ask those Catholics, they'll obviously get a negative. Besides Catholics are a minority. Why not take a poll from random people?

I think that no movie, book or any other type of 'media' should be banned. It's okay to restrict it to particular age groups, like restricting very violent games to adults, not that anyone follows it. If they want, they can ban Catholics from watching the movie. That way all the Catholics will be happy. Although, I think that beats their point.

I've read the book and it's nothing big. It just says that Christianity is a load of bull or some such. But I always knew that, except, in the general form: [Insert Religion here] is a load of bull.

I'll watch the movie even if it is banned. At any rate, it shouldn't affect me because I watch all movies at home and I can always download it.

And please don't comment about how people can follow whatever religion they want. Ofcourse they can. I respect their choice.

EDIT: Looks like it won't be banned even after the Catholics opposed it. Hah!

Nicer than usual

I just noticed people seem to be MUCH more nicer on the internet. So, I started thinking about it. Here are a few reasons I could come up with:

• Time: You get time to think before you type. So you type nicer things.
• Perception: You want to be treated nicely. So you take things more positively by default on the internet, because your subconscious does not have the body language information to correctly decipher intent and the thoughts of the other person. Heh.
  
• Smartness: On an average, people who use the internet are smarter. Smart people know that they need to be nice.

That's all I can think of.

Fake smilers

I took this test just now. It's a test to see if you can identify fake smiles. I got 15 out of 20 correct, which, is very good. I do consider myself good at body language. Not that I've taken any course or read any books, except random articles in magazines. I can usually tell when something fishy is going on. Not always but much better than anyone else I know can.

People put on fake smiles all the time. I don't like it atl all. I'd prefer much more if the person was honest and not smile at all. Atleast I'll know  for sure if something I did was ridiculous. I get fake smiles all the time. And I throw them back too. Especially with teachers. Much less often with friends. Sometime, it's okay to chuck a fake smile/laugh. For example, if a teacher is desperately trying to liven up the mood in a class. Or if a friend is trying to be funny by narrating a dumb boring incident and you find yourself sitting there for hours, then, laugh! -- to satisfy the empty ego of your friend. But otherwise I'd prefer it if others were honest to me. Ofcourse I have no idea how others would want me to do.

Technorati Tags: fake, smile

Quotes

I collect quotes. That is a weird hobby, but yes. Ofcourse, you can tell me to go to a quotes site. Naw, my head will explode. Anyway, I don't care who said something good, I just bother about the quote.

Here are a few quotes:

• "Aquila Non Capit Musca" meaning "The Eagle does not catch flies"
• "Destiny, Choose!"
• "Religion is the opium of people"
• "Time is what we want most, but what we use worst"
• "Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts"
• "Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing"
• "You 'I can' is more important than your IQ"
• "Do or Do Not. There is no Try"
• "Life is a verb, not a noun"
• "Live by principles, live through actions"
• "You can't conquer the game if you can't conquer yourself"
  

My AIEEE score is around 264/540. Which is not so good. I should deserve a 300. Aw, well. My fault.

Hell here

The last coupla days have been like a living hell. Forget dying to check hell out. It came to me.

I had the AIEEE on the day before yesterday, which didn't go well at all. I didn't even go into my 'exam mode' while writing theexam. I just sat there as if it was just another useless test. Anyway, I just played a load of computer games, okay, just one game: Elder scrolls 3: Morrowind. It happens to be a good game, the latest in the series, called Oblivion doesn't work on my old comp *sigh*. At any rate, I was rather pissed the whole day.

My internet was dead for the last two days. Just shiat! I called up those BSNL fellers and they said there was a problem and the Internet would be back up by the evening. Atleast it did come back. And the fellow even called up today to check if everything was okay. That was nice of BSNL.

And today, there are no power. There was no power in Bangalore for the whole damn day. What's worse? There was enough heat outside to vaporize an ocean. And in the afternoon, there was enough rain to fill up that vaporized ocean. What happens then? All the hot air from the morning gets trapped under the clouds and air becomes moist making it a very bad day. Couple that with no cold water and no internet, and TADA! Hell here.

What chu bwag abawt?

I have no idea what to blog about. Actually, this is a big problem with blogs. I need to update it regularly. Which means I need a topic. But, I can't really find anything interesting at the moment. Sure, there's the reservation thing for dalits, but that's boring. Actually I'll say everything I want to about that topic in one sentence. Ready?

It's lame to blog about.

And then there's the usual global warming ghalata and this fellow dying here and those fellows getting blown up there. There are hundreds thousand of religious idioticities. Scott McNealy's Microsoft jokes and crappy Vista security suicidal(for the user) features. That annoying Saint Bernard next door that barks at the exact moment I get a phone call and that stupid ant which was trying to get in my underwear. The big and the small. I don't want to blog about any of them.

My next blog post will be something interesting or fun. Fun for me, ofcourse. If it HAD to be fun for you, I'd have to ram my head into a water bottle filled with super glue or something extravagantly stupid and post the video here (and on YouTube! OH! Those yap-mouths).

Study Weariness

I'm bored of studying. Three years of learning math, physics, chem and other stuff that really aren't that interesting have driven me half-crazy. What's worse? I held up all other non-curricular activities so as to study. Contrary to what I thought would happen, I got a major brain drain.

It's funny how things and thoughts have changed over these three years. I used to enjoy solving problems. But now, I want to run away from books. I still have some 5 exams more to go in the next two months.But I don't seem to care much, no matter how much I keep telling myself it's important. I'm pretty much f***ed at this point. My scores have dropped by 30%(relatively speaking), not good. I don't want to know the straight line parallel to a plane and passing through a some point. Nor do I care whether some compound gives some other compound when something is added to it. Also, I'm not as funny as I used to be. Just great. A dying score, and a dead sense of humour(due to dryness).

The only good thing that came off all this is that I've learnt an important thing: never to overdo anything and to exercise moderation in everything.

Technorati Tags: brain drain, studying, IIT

Perspective and Control

Warning: self-help type topic

There are four types of people when it comes to getting things done. The combinations of high,low perspecitive and high,low control. The perspective a person has is essentially his/her planning skills and foresight. They can look at things from the future, from the past, and The control is the ability to focus on the current task.

A lot of us are high perspective, low control types--we dream a lot, but never get our arses off the bed. "I'm going to do task 1, then task 2 , then I'll be a rank 2, etc..". It's a sad case. I've seen high control, low perspective types. These things chug madly, guzzling anything thrown at them. Yup, they are like things. They have no real dreams or ambitions or plans. They can move in circles blindingly fast. They can't get the bigger picture of things. They never are satisfied. Then there are the low control, low perspective. "Go with the flow, dudes!". Yea, right. Flow of what? The air--which flows quite a lot? What everyone needs to be is high control, high perspective. That's when you REALLY chug forward and get where they want to. They are the Masters.

Now, I don't know what to do with the double lows. But for the single lows, I've devised a quick fix. Get your high a bit lower and then raise the low. If you have high control, take a while off to plan and dream. You'll be much better off in the long run. If you are high perspective, then stop planning and get some work done. You can work on increasing both later, but for now, to be more efficient, shift your ' ability points'.

I am a high perspective, low control. It's like I have Attention Deficit Disorder.At any rate, I decided to kill the planning. I've eliminated all 'goals'-yearly, weekly, everything.The formal planning is removed. But now I maintain focus on what I want and need to focus on. I use my Projects List a lot more nowadays. If I feel satisfied at the end of the day, then good. Otherwise I'll know I need to be doing more. No need of tracking it. My subconscious already does that for me. That's that.

The Futility of Debate

I think that debating is a utterly useless activity. Most of the time, nobody changes their mind. You might as well be searching the gutters for ruby rings and expensive things.

Most debates go something like this:
"God does not exist"
"He does! He created you!"
"No. I am a result of chance, years of evolution and conception"
"God created light and the universe"
"Nonsense. We just exist."
"Nonsense"

So, there. It's just a moo point for each other. There's no point in deabting if nobody changes their opinion. Nobody wants to. Nobosy shifts to the other person's POV. Rarely, a person might just do something he was being asked for. That's it. You could have bribed him, and used the saved time to go earn back your money (ok, THAT is a moo point, too--no, not the whole passage).

To conform or to be unique?

I've been thinking about a couple of things for the past few hours, here's a little theory I just made up.

People have two desires which can explain a lot of behaviour. The desire to conform to norms and the desire to be unique. Now these two seem like opposites, and they are.

People do the same things that their peers do. They do it in a 'group'. Ofcourse, no formal groups are made, infact, no group is recognized. One person wears the latest clothes, and the other does the same. It's something like peer pressure, except peer pressure isn't the cause for the desire, but rather an amplifier. Individuals also want to be special, different: the desire to be unique.

These two desires manifest themselves in two different ways. The desire to conform(D2C) shows itself in more generic, large scale-type things. The desire to be unique(D2U) is clearly shown in the specifics of the behaviour. Heres a simple example: Everyone wants cellphones because their friends have them and they are considered cool(mostly by others, but rarely themselves). So, they get them. D2C. But each person gets a different cellphone, a better cellphone. A contest! 'My cellphone has a higher resolution','Mine has bluetooth'. It's also interesting to notice how often people look at a particular feature, THEN find a use for it. Not the other way around. This is show-offing. It's not bad. It's a part of us.

Another example: Everyone believes in God and worships him. D2C. But the competition is in the scale of the worshipping, celebration,etc. 'We had a big(ger) Ganesha', 'We had more types of food', etc. D2U.

Now, notice people. More successful people have a larger D2U, they do things their way. They are leaders. less successful people have more D2C. They are the mob, the followers, they conform to the leaders. People with more D2U are more competetive.

Now, notice the roots of D2C and D2U. D2C comes from the social requirements of humans. You want people to talk to you, to accept you, therefore try to do what they do. You bunk classes because they do. You spin in a temple, because they do. Your parents buy you stuff because other parents do, not because it's useful. D2U comes from the self esteem requirements of humans. You buy a cool cell phone because you want to show that you are 'better'. Parents buy you a cooler bike than your friends, because they want to show your friends' parents that they are better parents. There are a ton of examples.

The way people behave generally tries to satisfy both D2U and D2C. Think about it if you want.

Technorati Tags: D2C, D2U, peer pressure, competition

What 'mourning'?

Warningeth: Ranting ahed. Tread carefully, or thou shalt be denied Christ

An actor called 'Rajkumar' died yesterday. Therefore, there has been a lot of *ahem* mourning going on in Bangalore(and the whole state, I guess). All the shops are closed. The cable operators have cut off all TV channels except news and Kannada channels. All kannada channels are showing Rajkumar movies(which ALL suck, funnily). There is no public transport and most of the shops are closed. I'm glad that atleast the internet is working. I don't want to sadly stare at the story of the maniacal exploits of a demented, over dramatic actor who looks more like a woman and therefore was able to seduce the hearts of gay men who deny their homosexuality.
Wherever that came from...

Anyway, first off: about Dacter(that's what THEY say) Rajkumar. He sucks at acting. Okay, maybe he PRETENDS to suck at acting, so therefore he is a good actor. But to hell, lizards pretend to sleep better. He doesn't act, rather over-dramatizes tjhe whole scene, making everything look satirical or parodical. It's like he's trying to play Shakespeare, but has drunk 3.142 litres of martini, but can STILL somehow remember his lines and not act drunk. Out of the shooting set, he does yoga, sings....something, and gets kidnapped.

Now, the people: most people don't really give a cow's butt(those are small) either. Infact, they don't want to have any holiday and want to do their normal daily stuff. The reason why everyone is doing this nonsense is because they are scared that some crazy Rajkumar fan will come over and destroy and loot their shop or that they will get into trouble with those road romeos. See? People shouldn't bother much. It's absolutely ridiculous for a holiday to be declared just because an actor died. Especially when he was some 78 years old. The government is playing along because they don't want trouble. They don't want people pooping in front of their homes. Ah, but, yes. Look! An internet cafe near my just opened their doors! That's good. And if they get attacked by a homosexual Rajkumar faction, I promise I'll watch.


Technorati Tags: idiotic, rajkumar, mourning, karnataka

Real Happiness?

There are these 'gurus' and 'saints' who go around claiming that by praying, meditating or following certain practices, they have attained true bliss. They say they have a calm state of mind and they are never unhappy.

Now, I don't believe them. I'm not saying they are sad, I'm saying they aren't happy. From my point of view, I have no idea how someone can just sit at a place for 2 hours straight and be happy about it. Maybe they do have a peaceful mind. Doing that once a week might make you happy. But living like that would be like... sitting in the toilet forever. The last thing I want to do is sit around(or on top) for the rest of my life...

My theory is that these dudes(yea, dudes) have somehow eliminated emotion from their brains and therefore, they think they are very happy. I say this because I don't see how everything can make a person happy. If one thing makes a person happy, the opposite should make a person unhappy. If it doesn't, the poor guy MUST have lost it. There is no way TV can make you happy and no TV still make you happy, all else being equal. That is madness.

Ofcourse, they may be unhappy on the inside and they may just be pretending. But being angry and still being able to put a smile on your face is really hard. It makes you want to pull your hair as opposed to pulling others legs.

What's your opinion?

I have just one more exam- Kannada(Second Language). Aw, crud! I make better chicken tikka masala and gobi manchuri than kannada answers(How the hell does one make chicken tikka masala anyway?). Ofcourse, after that I have to write some 6 competitive exams from IIT-JEE to the local entrance exam(K-CET). And IIT-JEE is just 5 days away. Eeps.

Try me now

Alright, I wrote another poem. Eeks...English exam in less than 32 hrs!

-------------------------
Try me now, you loser,
You're just a poser.
You tried to bring me down
And succeeded, that a crown?

Lies, deceits and
you masking my trait
When I'm in a pit and
I'm just easy bait.

Try me now, you loser,
When I'm standing on my ground.
You're such a poser,
Why is your mind so unsound?

Lies you told,
In such a smart-ass way.
You are so bold,
To tell me you had lied, today.

Try me now, you loser,
You may even win.
What I feel of you, poser,
I can't even describe to begin.

That fort you built,
That glory you gained.
I beg they bring you guilt,
And make you oh-so pained.

Try me now, you
I'm too strong to fall
I will win, poser,
And have the last laugh and all.
-------------------------

And...I'm starting to like Sum 41 a lot. Their songs have very catchy tunes.

Rising Tied

This is my first serious shot at writing a poem(song, whatever). I got the idea from the hip-hop song "Petrified" from Mike Shinoda's side project The Rising Tied. I liked the rhyme in the song. This has nothing to do with them. It's all my own stuff.
Go!

Rising Tied

I'm rising tied,
As I rose, I vied;
Through the mist,
With a fist,
'N nothing in me!

The nothingness,
The foolishness,
The emptyness,
Acrimoniousness.

I'm rising tied,
As I rose, I cried;
No tears, no dears,
Sweat in my ear,
And even more fear!

No chance, no oppurtunity,
Time not in scarcity.
Future in front of me,
I want to get of me!

I'm rising tied,
So hard, I tried.
I wanna survive,
Let the bastards die!

I'm rising tied,
With the rising tide.
I'm being tided by time,
D'ya like my rhyme?

I'll break the bond,
I won't despond,
And I will survive,
In this world so wide.
Never to fall.
Yes! I've heard my call!

A story from my past

Warning: Long story. Badly written. About gay molestation.

I wish I could have told this to someone in person first, just to get some pity. There's no one here now...

I read an article recently about Inverse Paranoia. In this, you think that whatever people do, they do it so that it's good for you, no matter what.

Now I'm a total paranoid. I'm suspicious of every person and their actions. I keep finding little mistakes and insults that they make to me and sort of 'live-record' moments. It's a good thing in a way, I can remember what people say years after it's said. I can't count the number of times when I remember what a person had said in the past but that person denied saying it later and even accused me of lying and 'taking advantage' of them. But I'm drifting away from the topic.

I as wondering about why I was such a paranoid and why I am so shy(which, incredibly, I seem to be getting over quite fast recently. Yay for me). One memory which I had completely forgotten came back to me. I remembered what had happened to me: I had been molested as a child.

Memories, feelings came rushing back. It explained so much. I couldn't believe it hadbeen locked away from myself by my head for so many years. I can't remember when it happened. But whatever happened, I remember in good detail. Here's the story, told in full:

It was a Sunday. A bright, summer sunday. It was the holidays. I was wearing my favorite matching blue t-shirt and shorts. I was really young(3rd grade?). My grandfather wanted 500 grams of white cement. So, my mother suggested sending me to get it, so that I could practice walking alone on the streets. It was my first time beyond that 'limit'. I was excited. I knew the route adn the shop, but I had never gone alone. I took the money and walked away confidently. My mother told me to be careful (while crossing the road).

I was walking by the side of a 'Main road' when a stranger, a big man, shaven, neatly cropped hair came and asked me where 13th cross(not sure) was. I was obviously perplexed: why would he ask a little kid? I wasn't sure, but I looked at the cross numbers and saw them decresing down the road- 17,16... I told it's obviously down the road(it was the direction I was going). So he said he wanted me to show me to the place. By then, I started doubting this man. Not of anything evil, but I thought he was a total fool. I walked with him for a while. He asked me where I was going; I told him. I kept an eye on the road signs.16.15.14...The road turned left. No 13. It was further away. But my route continued leftward and the shop was nearby. I told the man to go down the road. He said he was new and said he would come with me to the hardawre store instead. I was scared by then. At the store, I asked for the white cement. The store owner noticing that a kid was asking for cement, when a full grown, adult man was with asked whether the man was with me. To my surprise the fellow said,"Yes. I'm with him. I'm his uncle". I was now petrified. I had no idea what to do. I had heard stories of kids geting kidnapped and all. I wanted to telling the store owner I didn't know who that ass was, but I was too scared.

I went back with him and tried to make him go away by convincing him to go on his path. Instead he said,"Lets to a park and talk first. You are a very nice kid. After that you go home and I'll go to my place". I can remember my mind go-BUZZ, SCREECH. Everything just was blank. I was really scared. There were people everywhere, but I was too scared to shout for help. He led to a neraby park, near where he first came up to me. Took me inside and made me sit on a bench and he sat next to me. He asked me a few things, I can't remember what, i was too scared. I can clearly recall scanning the park for other people- there was an old couple, a dirty sleeping man, some women walking on the side roads. He then stopped asking/telling me whatever he was and then smiled.

The smile, It'll forever be stuck in my memory. It was a disgusting smile. And then he did something that forever changed me. He kissed me, on my mouth. He pulled me towards firmly and put his big mouth onto mine and forced my lips open. My teeth were sealed shut. I can still FEEL that slithering tongue licking my teeth and his dirty lips rubbing around my mouth. He was pushing into my mouth, almost forcing me to open it. At that time, I had no idea what the hell he was doing. He stopped after what felt like an hour. And gave that smile. What maddox calls the pedosmile(The similarity is incredible). It was a totally disgusting experience.

I was confused and scared. I wanted to run until I fell and still run anyway. He told me to meet me at the circle tommorow and I promptly said 'okay'. I never went there for many weeks. He took me close to my house and I foolishly even told where my house was. He left me out of eyesight from my house and went away.

After this incident, I've never been the same. I've been untrusting of everyone since. The weird thing is I had forgotten about this for such a long time.

The 4 things tag-Evolved

I was tagged by Praddy. The good tag evolved before it came to me.

4 things I waste my time doing:

• Thinking about what to do
• 'Gathering' stuff to read on Internet and never reading them(I have over 400 bookmarks)
• Trying to study, but not studying
• Listening to music(damn addiction)

4 movies I can recommend to anyone

• The Lord of the Rings
• Star Wars(okay, everyone doesn't like this)
• ...not seen many movies
• Eh, still not seen any more, move on

4 Places I love

• Bangalore
• Anywhere in New Zealand(not been there)
• California- Bay area
  
• Mediterranean Europe(not been there)

So far, you can see that I imagine a lot

4 TV Shows I will remember

• Ninja Fighters (or something like that, introduced me to anime)
• Travelers (introduced me to documentary type stuff and got me addicted to Discovery)
• Pokemon (The good old days)
• Crystal Maze (can never forget the mock-ups of this we used to make)

4 people I won't forget(note the won't)

• My neighbours, Ashwin and Sachin (best days of my life, never comes back)
• A teacher named Stella (she made to think very differently, I'd be nothing without her)
• Math teacher named Malathi(made me actually enjoy maths for the first time, never looked at the same way since)
• I said 4

4 Foods I love

• Chilli Chicken(Fried, although I'm against non-veg, this is an exception)
• Pizza, with hell a lot of cheese and Pepsi/Coke
• Chats
• Burgers

I'm a junk food lover, but I eat the healthy stuff most of the time. (I'm at home trying to study most the time, you sees?)

4 people I would kill, MUAHAHA

• Osama Bin Laden, for crying out loud. Death to you, bitchbrain. The sight of his ugly elongated face makes me sick.
• Pervez Musharaff. He wears a uniform, for God's sake? And he wears glasses! And he calls himself a leader of a 1/2 mad nation!
• Eh, Can't think of anyone else...
  

4 ... I'm tired.

Perfect major...eh?

You scored as Engineering. You should be an Engineering major! Engineering 100% Mathematics 100% Dance 92% Psychology 92% English 83% Journalism 83% Linguistics 75% Theater 75% Art 67% Philosophy 58% Anthropology 50% Biology 50% Chemistry 50% Sociology 33% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

Something I've always known. I'm a Mathematician and Engineer at heart.

Technorati Tags: major, perfect major, college

I hate Anti-Americanism

If you are Anti-American, you are also selfish, jealous and anti-democratic. I'm tired of hearing people talk about US-invade-iraq-oil, US-conquer-world, US-kill-us-all. Bah! People never look at the good things America is doing/has done for the world. Everyone hates and is jealous of the best.
America has contained Communism, is leading the war on terror and it's consumers is the only reason for a boom in the economy of countries like China and India. Well, I agree that US made a mistake by going to war on Iraq, but everyone makes mistakes. It's what makes them human. America is the only nation that has the will, power and capability to take on terrorism. Let's see India or Egypt go off to war in Afghanistan. Nobody looks at the pressure on Bush. Every damn problem on the planet from Iran to shitty shuttles is thrown at his desk. He's a human like you and me.
The US is actually taking steps to reduce pollution. Not many other countries are doing that seriously. India continues to pump out megatons of noxious fumes in the atmosphere at an ever increasing rate. And these silly Indians make all pomp and show that they are great and are the next super-power. It takes more than 4 big cities to make a super-power.
I'm not Americanist. I am Anti-Anti-Americanist. Anti-Americanism is for losers.


Technorati Tags: americanism, anti-americanism

Things I want in my life partner

Everyone has their dream life partner. For me, the following are characteristics of key importance, in decreasing order(of importance). But they'll probably change as I'm still a teenager and my mind has only recently starting to go 'calm' and 'mature'.(And it feels good! Teenage life was such confusing hell, hopefully people will be saner in univ)

• Open Minded- She has to be open-minded, to new ideas, styles, everything.
  
• Frivolous-She needs to be a happy person. Mainly because I want to be a happy person.
• Helpful- I want her to help me with my problems and I want to help her as well.
• Beautiful-Quite obvious. But she shouldn't be too beautiful. Anyone 'too beautiful' doesn't seem beautiful at all to me for some reason.(For example, I think Aishwarya Rai looks horrendous). She should be more cute than beautiful.
• Good listener and talker-Need something for old age.
• Not the same career as me- I don't want to be with another engineer. I'd prefer a journalist or artist or from another one of the more creative fields.
• Good lifestyle and attitude- No smoking, light drinking(everyone loves girls gone wild), good partying, extroverted, laughs a lot, positive mind, forward-moving, self-improving person.
  

Yep, intense. I'll find her.
Ah, don't snigger away. People change.

Piracy here in bangy

The piracy situation here in Bangalore actually makes me laugh.
99% of software/movies/music is pirated, excluding free and OEM stuff ofcourse. Just go to one of the local VCD-walas and you'll be blasted by a ton of original look-alike DVDs, CDs, etc.
"Ey! Iddu original DVD enappa?"[Is this an original DVD?]
"Howdu saar. Original. Illi hakilwa?"["Yes Sir. It is an Original. It says so here"]

Ofcourse, no original DVD says it's an original and has a footnote "Made by the EL1M1NT0RZ".

Worse, most people don't really care if it's original, fake, or pirated as long as it's cheap and decent quality. People aren't concerned about loss to the real creators and legal problems(which you can do away with a couple of hundreds anyway).

Oh well.

Technorati Tags: piracy, bangalore

Task throttling

Some people, like me, take a preposterous amount of time to get some things done. For example, I take about 20-30 minutes to have a bath. Now 1/2 hr a day for a bath is crazy. So, one day I was late for school. What did I do? I task-throttled.

Now task-throttling is a technique to speed up work. It can't speed up all jobs. Only things that require us to do a lot of different seeming things, like getting ready or cleaning up. I don't know if it works for everyone, but it worked for me.

Here's the idea: You mentally set a mini-task to do within every 10 seconds. Say, you are cleaning up your room. You think to yourselves, "Gather all dirty clothes from the wardrobe". And you try to do that under 10 seconds.Now 10 seconds meaning not 10 seconds in actual life, but 10 seconds in your mind. Say you can't get all the dirty clothes for whatever reason. You are counting down 10 seconds in your mind. You just slow down when you realize you can't do it. You protest: "Ah crap! then I can take all the time I want". Well, you try to push down the time to absolute minimum and keep counting, even if you are saying 1/2,1/4,1/8...

Why slow down and not restart the 10 secs? By restarting the 10 secs you feel you weren't able to complete the task. That kills motivation. You want to feel like you CAN do it.

How does this speed things up? By allowing you tofocus on a single task for a limited amount of time. I was able to cut down my bath time to 10-15 mins.

Obviously this technique can't be used for intellectual work. Can only be used to fuzzy-type physical work. You should give it a shot and see if it works. Or you might be naturally effiicient.

Technorati Tags: lifehack, gtd

My GTD System

GTD, for Getting Things Done, a time management technique, has made a big impact on the geek community. As for me, serious usage of this technique only began today.

I spent almost 12-15 hrs setting up my system. I have made certain additions to the system, most notably, goal lists. Most of my system is based around the Moleskine notebook and index cards. I'll launch off into a description of my system.This post as such is intended for someone who already knows GTD.

I use my Moleskine Pocket Plain Notebook(PP) as my main inbox. I've slapped a bunch of Post-its at the back and all my reminder style stuff go there. Any receipts pieces of paper and other 'hard' things go into the Accordian. I also have reserved an area of my desk as my physical inbox(which I must upgrade to a proper inbox). All my Action lists are on index cards. I've made @study, @move, @comp, Agendas, Waiting For, and Someday/Maybe lists and all of them are in my Moleskine, kept in a convenient triangular 'pocket' I made at the front and back. Less used lists are in the Accordian.

My project lists are a bunch of 3x3 post-its in my Moleskine. Each post-its defines the Outcomes and Purpose of each project. For my calender, I use a simple calender I got from my local stationary store.

So I don't write anything in my Moleskine? Well I do write my higher goal lists(quarterly, annual, mission statements and core values). It also functions as a sort of mobile journal. It also has a bunch of other stuff like quotes, gtd flow diagrams, daily logs and lettering charts.

Well, that's my GTD system summarised. I hope I haven't missed anything. I actually haven't gotten much time to use much GTD. I will be doing a lot of stuff in the coming week, so let's see what happens. As for today, I bumped into an old friend and spent almost all my free time talking to him.

Oooh yah!

Yay. I got my 3 Moleskines. These are super cool notebooks. I got a Plain Pocket Notebook, a Daily Diary/planner and a Memo Pockets Notebook. Check them out here.

What's so great about these seemingly normal notebook? One, it has a elastic wrap thingy which keeps the book together. It's also got a pocket at the back. The paper is very good quality. and most importantly there is a certain sacred-like quality about the notebook.

On Human Choice

Lately I've been wondering whether humans really have any influence over their own life. Sure, you may say that you can choose to read this post or not and that you certainly have a choice. But I was thinking if that choice was already made long back. What choice you take will depend upon your character. You may make some decision but that decision is taken because you are a certain type of person, and you are that certain type of person because of all the influences, the sights, sounds and ideas that you were exposed to in your life that made you the person you are now. You have some characteristics because of your genes. All these things are out of your control. Further going all those things are influenced by something else and so on but it must end somewhere. Maybe that's God. God, whatever it is, sets a stage and says,"Big Bang!" or something. Everything clicks. Do we have ANY choice? It may seem so. You may now start deciding against certain choices to prove that you can choose. But again, I(or something/one else) influenced that. And a ton of other things influenced me to write this.

But despite that theory of mine, I think, as far as we are concerned, that we DO have a choice. That's what sets an intelligent being apart. Between an stimulus and a reaction, we have the option to choose. It may be artificial to some extent. But once armed with that knowledge, once we realize that we can choose our reaction, we start making better reactions.

I was blaming other things and persons for my problems a lot lately. Not openly though. I was giving myself excuses. But today I've realized that whatever anyone may do, I can't change that. I can make a difference by changing myself. Even if the whole world goes to hell, I can choose not to go. And that is an encouraging thought.