Parallel Thoughts

Large Hadron Collider – Explained

srikanta — Sun, 06 May 2012 01:19:36 +0000

This video by Scientific American magazine gives a simple and fluid explanation of what happens inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva.

You see the world as you are!

srikanta — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:40:08 +0000

More often than not we end up being a critique of a person or a an idea. Eventually our perspective is influenced by how we are rather than how we think. Below pic [found on FB] depicts the same.

Fate & Destiny – A conjoined twin

srikanta — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 06:38:21 +0000

A thought provoking mini story I got via an email.

Death came to a guy and said, “My friend, today is your day!”
The guy said, “But I’m not ready!”
Then death said, “Well, your name is the next on my list….”
Guy: “Okay, then why don’t you take a seat and I will get you something
to eat before we go?”
Death: “All right…. ”
The guy gave death some food with sleeping pills in it. Death finished
eating and fell into a deep sleep…..
The guy took the list & removed his name from top of the list and put it
in the bottom of the list.
When death woke up, he said to the guy, “Because you have been so very
nice to me, I will start from the BOTTOM of the list….”

Lesson for the day: Accept whatever is written in your destiny. Destiny
will never change, no matter how much you try…..

Communication skill – An absurd Indian thought

srikanta — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 10:35:39 +0000

How many times have we been seen and judged through the lense of communication skills. Our parents, professors, peers, etc everyone has done this from our younger days. But unfortunately this is seen through a narrow vision. An absurd thought is that a person is only good in communication skills if he can speak well in English. In this process the underlying concept of communication is lost. So the important question is, does someone needs to be labelled as a good communicator if he is just good in oral English ?

This question is more so important for a country like India which has more than 30 languages and also upto 20 official languages. Majority of the mass still leave in villages where English penetration is minuscule compared to the traditional languages. So just by discriminating them by virtue of their English speaking morphed as a communication skill is demoralizing to say the least.

Its quiet often seen that a differently abled person who has lost his voice communicates more and with lot of fluidity with his counterpart. Will he then be bracketed under not having good communication skill just because he can’t speak English ?

Yes this is how absurd our thinking is in India. This Anglo colonial thinking should change for the better.

The thought for this post was inspired by a tweet from @pavanaja

Foundation of life from strings to universe

srikanta — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 08:00:13 +0000

A brilliant flash which describes the scale of universe from the strings to universe level.

Credits : Anonymous

Indian bus stop – An economic hotspot

srikanta — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:44:57 +0000

This post is inspired by the observations made during the numerous hours spent waiting for a bus.

India throws many surprises to its inhabitants yet certain things can be observed only through acute observation and patience. Bus stops are a routine place of visit for most of the working Indians. For few more, it is their office and sometimes their only home.

The amount of activity which is centered around a bus stop is mind boggling.

1. Any building beside a bus stop is an ideal location to establish a bakery or a hotel. As it sees hundreds of footfalls daily, the revenue earned and the investment put is highly substantial.

2. A lonely guy with a thatched roof sits with a bunch of needs and leathers. He is personified by this quote – A stitch in time saves our mine . He is none other than the person who repairs our shoes and chappals. He transacts enough daily to earn his leaving.

3. A person in khaki with a three wheeler stands next to a stop. He hopes to catch a customer who has just missed a bus or in a tearing hurry to reach a destination.

4. A personal with a four wheeled cart makes hot dosa and sells it with idli and vada.

5. If its a summer season, someone sits next to stop with truck load of watermelon.

6. As the sun sets and moon rises, the we can find an open kitchen where delicious Chinese noodles and manchoorian is dished out.

In a day, bus stop plays host to lots of financial transactions. Profits are made and losses are suffered. When one sees the picture at a macro scale, bus stops are a huge economic hotspots.

{This is the first blogpost from my android WordPress app}

Time lapse video of earth from ISS

srikanta — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:29:09 +0000

A stunning time lapse video of earth taken from International Space Station (ISS) from August to October 2011. Aurora Borealis, lightning and light emission from big cities and around rivers are the ones to watchout for in the video.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Mindset matters a lot

srikanta — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 07:27:10 +0000

Thanks to my prof, Ravindra Moodithaya for sharing this.

Spirituality through Java

srikanta — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 16:38:20 +0000

A fickle mind is one which works overtime by multi tasking and thinking through different issues at the same time. This cross culture thinking attitude of it leads to many interesting analogies. And the title of this post is a product of the above scenario.

While attending a training session on Java and its properties of inheritance, the instructor explained the concept very well through a simple example. At that moment, my mind happened to be processing issue on spirituality and mix of thoughts turned out to be an interesting cocktail.

What hit my mind was how the concept of god, different gods and its related ideologies are directly related to the
concept of Inheritance in Java. As we know god in one but in many forms. Java language seems to have an explanation
to this variant in the following ways:
God -> Object Class
Variants -> Main class
Avatars -> Child Class with extra methods added or overridden

Humans and java programs share the same story. In java world everything seems to be entangled in JavaVirtualMachine(JVM). For humans its world/galaxy/time & space. We both dont have the option to leave outside them and are totally limited by their boundaries. A program can never run outside a JVM, the only option it has is to terminate. Not much difference with humans either.

Sometimes its really amazing to see the mind understand a concept and juxtapose it on another.

HR goes to heaven!

srikanta — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 17:26:04 +0000

One day while walking down the street a highly successful Human Resources Manager was tragically hit by a bus and she died. Her soul arrived up in heaven where she was met at the Pearly Gates by St. Peter himself.

“Welcome to Heaven,” said St. Peter. “Before you get settled in though, it seems we have a problem. You see, strangely enough, we’ve never once had a Human Resources Manager make it this far and we’re not really sure what to do with you.”

“No problem, just let me in,” said the woman.

“Well, I’d like to, but I have higher orders. What we’re going to do is let you have a day in Hell and a day in Heaven and then you can choose whichever one you want to spend an eternity in.”

“Actually, I think I’ve made up my mind, I prefer to stay in Heaven”, said the woman

“Sorry, we have rules…”

And with that St. Peter put the executive in an elevator and it went down-down-down to hell.

The doors opened and she found herself stepping out onto the putting green of a beautiful golf course. In the distance was a country club and standing in front of her were all her friends – fellow executives that she had worked with and they were well dressed in evening gowns and cheering for her. They ran up and kissed her on both cheeks and they talked about old times. They played an excellent round of golf and at night went to the country club where she enjoyed an excellent steak and lobster dinner.

She met the Devil who was actually a really nice guy (kind of cute) and she had a great time telling jokes and dancing. She was having such a good time that before she knew it, it was time to leave. Everybody shook her hand and waved goodbye as she got on the elevator.

The elevator went up-up-up and opened back up at the Pearly Gates and found St. Peter waiting for her.

“Now it’s time to spend a day in heaven,” he said. So she spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and singing. She had great time and before she knew it her 24 hours were up and St. Peter came and got her.

“So, you’ve spent a day in hell and you’ve spent a day in heaven. Now you must choose your eternity,”

The woman paused for a second and then replied, “Well, I never thought I’d say this, I mean, Heaven has been really great and all, but I think I had a better time in Hell.”

So St. Peter escorted her to the elevator and again she went down-down-down back to Hell.

When the doors of the elevator opened she found herself standing in a desolate wasteland covered in garbage and filth. She saw her friends were dressed in rags and were picking up the garbage and putting it in sacks.

The Devil came up to her and put his arm around her.

“I don’t understand,” stammered the woman, “yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a country club and we ate lobster and we danced and had a great time. Now all there is a wasteland of garbage and all my friends look miserable.”

The Devil looked at her smiled and said … … … …. …. …. …. …. “Yesterday we were recruiting you, today you’re an Employee”