Thursday 26 February 2009

Night is always darkest before the dawn

At some point in our life, we come to a situation when we face several difficult situations at the same time and we don’t know whether we will be able to get out of these successfully or not. At that point life seems like a long dark tunnel and we standing alone at the intersection where we see doors surrounded by darkness and we don’t know which door is the one which can lead us to the light.

Time is cruel. God is cruel, too. Time and god tests us to see our abilities and self believes at various junctures. We are nothing but the result of our past. The wrong decision taken in the past rebounds one day and number of those wrong decisions brings us to chaotic circumstances in the present. As a human tendency, we always believe that no matter what the current situation is, we will come out of this. We always hope for the best, and as night is always darkest before the dawn, we think that our future will be bright again some day.

Each of us is alone and each of us dies alone someday. Hence, we have to be prepared for any situation that comes in our life. Everyone has to pass this phase some point in lifetime. The only positive thing someone can have at that time is support from the closed ones. At that point we know who true friend is and who is really at our side. It is warmth and comfort of these people brings us out of our miseries. I really believe that there will be at least one door in the dark tunnel that can lead back to light. The path may be darker than we though but we will be able to cross it if we have support from our loved ones and if we have someone with us who really cares about us. I wish that no one come across the dark junction where he/she finds alone and no one there to support. I also wish I do not leave anyone alone in the dark when he/she asks for my help and I will be able to support the person.

Monday 23 February 2009

We always have a choice

We always have a choice to do right thing. Everyday we come across many different situations for which we will have to make decisions in order to solve personal or work related problems. There always be a right path to follow to solve those problems, and that path may be a long and stringent, but at the end, we always finish our task with complete satisfaction. With all these situations, we also see shorter and less painful unethical path involving deception and dishonesty. And, it is up to us to follow right path or the wrong one.

Some of us have principles towards each and every aspects of life. Strong dedication to those values makes us different person from others who don’t have any moralities. It is what we do define us. There always be people around us those will try to pursue us to choose wrong path and we will need to beware of these pessimistic minded people.

Those people who have ideologies in life, they should always try to stick to those ideologies. With pure commitment to values of life, we can be what we want to be. It is always strong-minded person who gets tough tests from God. God and nature will not test weak-minded persons, as they are not capable of any test. If you believe in any religion, stick to it. No matter what anybody convinces you otherwise, you do what you believe is right for you and right for the people close to you. If you are vegetarian, try to stick to it. If anyone asks you to eat meat, you can always deny that.

It is an honest person who always gets tested by dishonest people and these dishonest people want to see whether this honest person will stray from the honesty or not. Dishonest people do not have any rules and hence they can play dirty games. But, if you are a person, who believes in certain values and follow principles in life, please stick to your beliefs, because once you dishonour your values, you will never be able to go back to the stage where you were before. And the image you created for yourself will vanish forever from your mind and from other people’s mind, too. If you follow right path, then no matter what happens on that path, do not deviate. Try to walk on it and you will prove it yourself (and to others, as well) at the end that you have made a right choice by walking on that path.

Friday 20 February 2009

Extraterrestrial life

According to Darwinian theory, life on earth has evolved from the same common ancestors through the process Darwin called natural selection. We haven’t found sufficient proof regarding ‘same ancestors’ from whom we have all evolved. Some says that life has started here on earth as a result of chemical process on primordial elements while other suggests that life on earth has originally came from other planet from other solar system. We are still not sure whether there is any form of life available on other planet in the Universe.

Frank Drake, a famous astrophysicist who founded SETI programme, devised now famous and controversial Drake equation in 1960. Using this equation, one can find our chances to find any extraterrestrial life or to check whether there such life exists or not in the universe. Within scientific community, considerable disagreement on the values of most of the parameters for the equation exists, and hence, we have no clear value for our chances to communicate with civilised communities within our galaxy.

It is fascinating to think that what if the life on our planet is the only unique creation of the universe and no other form of life exists anywhere in the universe. If this is true than we are special, each and every other species on this planet are special because it took nature millions of years to form life as we see it now. It will be our responsibility to preserve life on earth because we as a human are the most intelligent species and hence we are more responsible to take care of our planet.

Thinking about other possibility, what if there is an intelligent life exists somewhere, may be in our galaxy or in other galaxy? Can we be able to communicate with them in our lifetime? By looking at recent technological advancements in radio telescope and astronomy in general, I don’t think that right now we have that much capability to probe in the distant galaxies or to understand signals from aliens if we are able to capture any.

To probe further:

http://frombob.to/drake.html

http://www.seti.org

Tuesday 17 February 2009

Looking from space

My colleague and me were talking about my next trip to India. Suddenly, he told me that instead of spending money in small trips to India and other countries, why not I should do saving and plan a big trip for the future. The above-mentioned big trip is really big. It’s not like a world tour or going on top of Himalayas. What if I can save enough money in next 2-3 decades and have sufficient fund to go outside of our atmosphere for 10 minutes and see earth from space?

It has been said that we should go and see different places in order to widen our knowledge and turn imagination of other lands in reality. We often see documentaries about mountains, sea life, polar landscapes, earth from space, etc and often the sceneries in those films are mesmerizing. If those sceneries can have last long effect on us then what will happen if we are able to see those things on the spot? I think that that will be an experience which we cannot forget for a whole life.

Going further on this imagination, what if I have enough money in the future to afford space visit and see our lovely planet from sky? I think it will be something amazing and those who have done this are amongst the luckiest people on earth. Just imaging it makes me wonder about the earth, the beauty of our oceans, marvellous landscapes we have on continents, etc. I think if someone will be able to do this, it will change his/her perception about life, about earth and about the nature.

Scientists are saying that if current technology progress will be continued for next couple of decades, it will be possible for general public to visit moon. I would like to think that this is true and I will be able to travel to the moon before I die. But when I imagine myself standing on the surface of moon and looking back to the earth, I think my first thought will be that how small as a human we are. Although we have built skyscrapers, we have built pyramids, we are the builders of gigantic dams on rivers, etc still we are a tiny compared to the universe and we are nothing but a dot against nature’s other creations.

Wednesday 11 February 2009

Growth is life

‘Growth is life’ is a tagline of India’s largest company, RIL. For a company that has achieved tremendous growth in a little time in various diverse businesses, it’s very hard to find better tag line than that. But, I see this sentence more suitable to me, as an individual person. If at any point in life if we think that we are satisfied with something, e.g. money or career, it means that we have stopped progressing. But, we always should ask for more. It’s not about greediness; it’s about development.

For me, growth in every positive prospects of life is important. I want to learn new technologies, learn new skills, and learn new techniques etc that can help me perform my job more accurately and quickly. To keep up with technical skills development, I also need to develop my mental and physical strength. Growth in those areas is helpful to become better person. I am always eager to learn about religion, philosophy, logic, science, etc because only growth in all aspects of life will make me diverse from other individuals. Some people do not want to learn new skills, while some are satisfied with their career path and some even do not want to cultivate themselves to become better person.

We may not be able to do develop in all above-mentioned things at the same time but if we decide to learn these things and put a little bit effort, we will be able to achieve significant success.

Tuesday 10 February 2009

Data security and privacy

Internet has made our lives easy. Most of our professional and personal work depends upon network and computers. But how can we be sure that various service providers have provided enough security to our data? Our personal details are store into Banks, councils, credit card providers, utility companies, etc systems and previous data thefts incidents in many of these industry suggest that our data is not secure with them. Even governments in various countries have failed to protect public information going in malicious users’ hands.

Most of new electronics devices come with embedded software; even our Digital TV viewer or refrigerators are now coming with various software inside to make our life easy. These devices store lots of our personal details. Now, how can we be sure that information stored inside these devices are secure and even companies those who have made these appliances can not access it without our permission? People buy their mobile phones from Internet and local phone shops. How can they be sure that those phone are not cracked with malicious software? It only takes a few minutes to load malicious code inside any mobile phone and cracker can use all or any particular information without user noticing anything suspicious.

It is now possible to track a person using his mobile phone. This can be done either by network location algorithm or using GPS, which now comes with new phones anyway. With the help of new software services like Google Latitude and Loopt, people can see where their friends are at any particular time. This may be a nice feature for parents to keep track of their children, this may be a nightmare for others and raises a serious questions about privacy.

Quantum computing is on the horizon, which can crack most of security algorithms almost instantly, and lack of trust for most of current cryptography algorithms that are being used in internet, it is worrying to know that our personal information is not safe and our privacy is not guaranteed anymore. Recent demonstration of basic flow in Internet itself shows that even researchers and scientists don’t trust technology for any sensitive data transfer and unless we will not able to solve these basic issues, current situation may go worst.


To probe further:

http://www.loopt.com/

http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct08/6818/

Monday 9 February 2009

Love



Love is one of the most complex feelings a person can ever experience. Although it is one most the most common expressions, it is very hard to define and more importantly, most difficult chemical (and emotional) behaviour in heart to understand. I am going to express my views on love that can be present between a couple, man and woman. Although being naïve in this subject, I strongly believe that it is love that completes us, and marriage and life with loved one accomplishes the purpose of our existence.

Love is not a single emotion; it’s a mixture of different feelings in our heart and brain. It is so complex that when person is in love, even he/she won’t immediately feel that. I believe in mature love, meaning love happened after certain age. This age depends upon person to person. Most of us see crush or infatuation as love in early age, especially in teenage. I am sure that love is very mature phenomenon and hence I don’t think that at teenage any of us have that much maturity to develop such a strong feeling for any person. Nevertheless, there are chances of this early crush to be developing as a love.

Thanks to Bollywood/Hollywood and experience from my friends, I have come to know the truth about a woman, and it’s that a woman is a very complex equation. Each girl has different set of parameters for life, life-partner, marriage and of course, for love. Those who have understood to find those parameters and solve them have finally solved the biggest mystery of life. As a boy, I think male person has very straight forward requirements from their life partner and unless a person is introvert, a girl can easily read boy’s feelings and make her decision whether that’s a right person or not for her.

It is a time on which we all depend for love to come to us or us to find love of our life. In order to understand a person, we will need to give time for relationship to grow and see whether that person wants the same things from life as we do. Although everyone is free to make their own decision for love and marriage, we still live in the world where either from male or female side there are always some constrains and sometime complex situations also happens where love tests both persons strength. As it has been said, a path of true love is never smooth, lovers must be ready for tough tests if it required. And, I strongly believe that if two persons have true love for each other, at the end, it is always love that wins. And, also, the beauty of love is that, it always grows even after marriage to the loved one and only death of both persons ends the journey of love.

If you are one of the lucky people who has already found your true love, first congratulations and second don’t lose that person. And, if you haven’t found your true love, yet, it is not because that person doesn’t exist but it is because that person or you might not be ready for an adventure. If we can wait few days for our exam results, a month for our salary to be credited in bank, few months for our next vacation, I think we should wait a little longer for our love to find us.

If people are right, then marriages are decided in the heaven and it’s up to us to find that partner. Hence, keep looking for that person and make sure that you will be able to read signs. And if destiny brings that person into your life, make sure that you tell your feelings. Destiny will not help a person who is not courageous enough to make the first move. If love has come to other people’s life, then I guess you are not an exception and you will find your true love one day. So, whether you are single or with partner, make sure that you make most out of this Valentines Day.

Friday 6 February 2009

Diet

My colleagues at work and most of my friends here in Southampton, follow non-vegetarian diet. Because of me being vegetarian, topics of vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism often comes in our discussions. I know that none of us are going to change their diet based upon these discussions we still enjoy discussing it. My main point about food choice is that irrespective of source of the food, we eat whatever we eat based upon taste rather than from where it is originated.

Typically, our diet pattern comes from our family and at least we stick to it until we grow-up. Its very rare for a child to be a vegetarian in non-vegetarian family, and vice-versa, unless child has some sort of disease in which he/she is not allowed to eat certain things. Those who grew up as a vegetarian, only becomes non-vegetarian if they like taste of meat or under extreme circumstances, if person moves to another region or country where it’s difficult to find vegetarian options and/or high cost of vegetarian food. But, according to my experience, most of those people who became non-vegetarian were due to meat’s taste and they couldn’t resist it. There is nothing wrong with it and a person has own choice to eat whatever they like as long as they don’t eat human! However, most of non-vegetarian people justify their view saying that they eat meat because it fulfils all body requirements that might be very hard to find from vegetables, fruits and non-meat products. That’s totally wrong. People eat food because of its taste and there are always meat alternate foods available to get necessary ingredients that are necessary for human body.

Personally, I like to be vegetarian because I don’t see any reason why I should eat meat? When I can get all the vitamins, protein, fat, carbohydrates, fibre, etc from vegetables, fruits and dairy products, I don’t see why I should eat meat. Main argument at this point I receive from non-vegetarian people that cows and calves suffers a huge pain in the whole process of milk productions in dairies. I agree with that and I insist that we all should do our best to make sure that dairy owners take care of cows and calves and other animals, too, even if it means that we have to pay higher prices for dairy products.

Thursday 5 February 2009

Environmental protection

In recent few years, the subject of environment protection has been discussed more than any other topic and it is the one of the most written topics in magazines and newspapers. Nowadays, each company, either small or big, is now taking environmental issues seriously and trying their best to reduce any material wastage and trying to recycle things as much as possible. As a public, each one of us is trying our own bits to protect our environment and that will ultimately secure future for next generations. But big environment agencies are failing to show true commitments to the issue. Recently, UN has suspended world’s biggest auditors of clean energy project after finding ‘non-conformities’ during their inspection at its headquarter, in Norway. This raises a serious question about how much can we trust these big auditors and agencies that are doing wrong business and hence wasting taxpayers’ money.

Since the discovery of CFC’s (Chloro Fluoro Carbons), compound that was a main source of refrigerants between 1960s-1980s, affect on earth’s atmosphere, especially on ozone layer, public became aware of their role as a polluter. When in late 1990s scientists found that due to carbon imbalance in atmosphere, earth’s temperature is raising and causing greenhouse affect, we understood how an excess CO2 is dangerous to the environment. Since then, numerous projects have been started to tackle greenhouse affect and public is also supporting governments effort to reduce carbon emissions.

But current winter in Western Europe, which is one of the worst winters in decades, and very hot summer in Australia shows that we are very far away from any temperature stability in the world. Although developing nations are emitting more carbon in air than they should, carbon emission reduction from people is huge in proportionate and there are big industry leaders which are also cutting their emissions. But it is governmental and international environment protection agencies’ wrongdoing not solving this issue. These big agencies are abusing their power and making under table arrangements for carbon trading. Carbon trading is a huge business now and in terms of total revenue it comes after stock market and oil trading. Hence, the principle of carbon reduction has been gone and all these environmental protection agencies are making money out of carbon trading.

If earth’s current temperature will increase for another decade or so, we will see some more hazardous weather conditions and unless and until UN and governments in each country doesn’t do their part to cut emission of carbon dioxide, I do not see any chance of greenhouse effect going within next two decades. We will need to start using more renewable energy sources in everyday life like solar energy, hydrogen power, tidal forces, wind energy etc to put less burden on power generation from oil and gas and we also need to make sure that environmental agencies are performing their jobs properly.

To probe further:

http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0901/carbon-swindle-0901.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_emission_trading

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/dec/12/thegreatcarbontradingscam

Wednesday 4 February 2009

Prayer

Those of us, who believe in god, pray to god to bring success and happiness in life. As it has been said, god always fulfils the wishes if prayer has come from pure heart. But those who are atheists don’t pray et al and they think that there is no god or external force and sees prayer as a form of begging. But to do prayer, one doesn’t have to believe in particular god and can be done in good faith for him or for sake of others and one doesn’t have to ask for anything to god if person doesn’t want.

When we were kids, our parents used to accomplish our requirements and they used to give us gifts in exchange of our good behaviour. In the same way, for an adult person prayer can become significant part of life and he/she can treat almighty as his/her parents. We always come in the situation where we don’t have self believe to handle it and we often seek help from others. Now, at this point, if we are lucky, our friends or relatives will help us to solve it. But, if you believe in god, this can be main source of positive energy at this stage when you need it most and if you have faith in god, he will give you strength to overcome all the problems by following right path.

In order to do prayer from heart, one has to believe the existence of god and keep faith in him. It’s not possible to ask for results and then to believe in god. Atheists take this point very seriously and argue that they will only believe in god if there is some evidence of its miracle. Well, that’s not possible and that’s never going to happen. It’s not that god doesn’t show miracles or god doesn’t complete person’s wishes, but atheists will always have argument against it and there is no need for god to come to earth to prove them wrong. Every human being believes either in god or the non-existence of god. If everyone believes in something, then why not believe in god than being atheists.

One can also remember god even if he/she is not in trouble. I see prayer as a way to connect to the source of positive energy. Whenever each of us prays, we generate positive energy and it flows from us to main source and that energy can be used when we need in the future. At the bad time, when we have more negative energy inside us, by doing prayer, we get positive energy back from the source. The god is a source of this energy and he governs input-output of it. Those of us who do not believe that the god exists, they will be able to perform prayer because it doesn’t have be done for particular god. One can pray by considering sun or nature as a form of positive source for human life.

Monday 2 February 2009

My KISS (Keep it simple, stupid!) theory

Life is simple, if we can see it that way. But, unfortunately, most of us, including me, try to make it very complicated. I always try to prepare a plan for the future. I always think in profound manner for things like career, job, education, marriage, money, family, etc and make preparations for all those. And because I know that there is an odd of one of my plans failing, I also think about the options that I can use if something or someone doesn’t behave according to my inclination. But, life doesn’t have to be planned and I think I should leave few things for time and let me make decisions at that instance.

We want certainty in our life but nature is cruel and hence no matter how many efforts we put to create full-proof plans, uncertainty always comes in our life. At that point, if the person is so used to live life according to his rules, he gets puzzled in this uncertainty and his mind floats around everywhere. This has happened me to, as well. There were few moments where situation didn’t work out the way I wanted and because I never had a backup plan because I always thought about the outcome to be in a certain way, my mind was packed with reactions and took me a while to recover from the situations.

I am not suggesting that we shouldn’t plan for the future. We should and we must. We always have responsibilities, even if we live alone or we live outside from our home country. Some people have more responsibilities than others but we always care about people around us and hence we always think about the future and plan according to it. But, sometimes, its better to leave certain things for the future to decide and not make any arrangement before actually that situation comes. This uncertainty makes us more aware of the circumstances and decision taken at those moments, though very quick once, develops self-confidence.

Therefore, think about the future and make some plan as well. But, remember, each plan makes person’s life more complicated and life doesn’t have to be complicated. Life doesn’t have to be like a flow chart, and hence, leave certain small and sometimes major situations for the future to come up with. Try to keep life simple and I am sure that that life will be more enjoyable.