Waste of time.

Blogging. For me is. Thus, no more. Bye.

Pics from India Trip July 2007

Pics from India Trip July 2007

Motta Boss

I think that's what he should do from now on. Brilliant Character.

An Ode

Remembering Nash.
The two I like.
One could rhyme, the other reason.

After a long hiatus...

I guess I should write something in my blog even if the readership is the ownership.

News is that I moved with Sreejith in his new house and its an awesome place. Extremely spacious and modern and comfortable and swank. I have a separate room for office and a separate one for the bed so its nice. So now I'm hoping I can invite some interesting people home. You know, for good conversation and some tea. [...ahem]

Its the west side of town and around 6 miles from school but its only a ten minute drive so its perfectly fine. Ihab told me he is going to find an opening for me at Sandia labs. He is impressed with the latest results we have. Of course, Taha has given me an open offer for a post doc with him, so things are looking up. But, I need to graduate! This problem of working in one department, doing research in nanophotonics and optimization but doing a dissertation in causal inference within the stochastic modeling framework is beginning to look a bit funky now. Am I not supposed to be spending all my time on my dissertation ? (Which means I shouldn't be writing this blog now anyhow. .. well. )
But OK, point is, I need to graduate and go into the real world and do real work and get real recognition. Grad school is just an excuse for all the above (most of the time anyway). But a good excuse nonetheless.

Other news. Gauri got married. Strange that she forgot to mention it in any conversation and the frequency of conversations also died off. I guess she has her reasons. I feel that people get married and friendships fade off, especially friendships with the opposite sex. I understand that. I'll probably do the same. In fact I have done that with old friends. Not that I got married but just walked different paths and didn't have the time to care. I wish her well and all happiness. Very few women in the world I truly care a hoot about and shes one of them. Congrats Gauri and Bon Voyage.

I guess I'll dedicate the rest of the post to such friends of mine. Long gone. but not forgotten. Friends I hope I will run into unexpectedly one day and that would be like an awesome moment.

-- random jump into hyperspace --

Today we used Fermat's little theorem to show that Primes is in NP. (Well of course, Primes is in P, we know that since 2004) but showing Primes is in NP isn't very obvious either. Pretty awesome certificate actually. If I understood right, if you consider the modulo group of size p-1, where p is being tested for primality, you can give a Pratt's certificate of its prime factors. Ah.. but to prevent cheating I have to give Pratt's certificate for all its factors, since their primeness is also under question. Freakin' recursive certificate that boils down to a O(n^2) where n (number of digits) ~= log p. I don't quite get all the details of the proof yet. But this group theory stuff is all very cool.

-- jump back --


Back to news.
....
..
I feel like some coffee.

End of Blog.

The smugglers.

Last night I had the most vivid, interesting and original dream. I still wonder how my unconscious mind came up with this particular turn of events. So clear, so lucid. Well, I might as well narrate the dream.

"Its a bright sunny day in southern India, near Chennai, Tamilnadu. Around 11 am by the position of the sun I'm guessing, as I don't have a watch on my person. I am walking down a curving village road, with coconut plantations on one side and wide green expanses of paddy on the other. I am somewhere between the city of Chennai and Muttukadu, a fishing village. The road that I am walking on is somewhat parallel to the main highway, East Coast Road. I can hear the highway, faintly. Occasionally, depending on the breeze, I can smell the sea. But not much though, the breeze is intermittent and weak. It's basically a typical hot day in Tamilnadu.

A big part of my childhood was spent in Kottivakkam, and I have been around the many villages nearby. The idyllic, yet industrious and suburban and they give rise to interesting conrasts. I, myself, am a living, walking contrast. I am dressed in a light cotton vest, 'banian' as they call in back there, a lungi and sandals. A lungi is a male sarong, popular among the locals, especially the fishermen. I am carrying a single strap shoulder bag. I am city bred normally dressed in western clothers, but I wanted to be dressed like a local, I guess, but its not working because the locals immediately notice that I am from the city. I don't exactly know why I am walking towards Muttukadu dressed like this but I know that I am on some sort of experience adventure, a quest and I am pretty much open to what happens on my trip.

I am nearing the next village on the road. I notice a teenager, (looks around 17) lurking under the shade of a tree, smoking a beedi. There's some sort of a coconut godown nearby, so I'm guessing he works there. He watches me as I walk past. I acknowlege his presence with a nod and keep walking. A few paces further, I hear hurried footsteps behind me. The boy gestures me to stop for and comes over. "Can you drive a car?", he asks, in Tamil. "Yes", I reply. "What kind of car?", he continues. "Any kind.", I reply amused. "Ok, wait here.", he says and rushes into the coconut godown across the street. I can see through the door that he picks up a phone, dials a number and mumbles something briefly into it. Finishing the call, he rushes back to me and explains, "There's something you can help us with.". I kinda nod with the meaning that I'd be glad to help. "Follow me", he says.

Shortly, we reach a small clump of commercial establishments. We are just off the highway and this is a place for the local entrepreuners to make a quick buck out of the traffic on the highway. The businesses are all semi permanent in construction, typical of the area. with the exception of the sole restaurant there, which is made of concrete. A sign outside reads 'Meals ready. Idli, Vada, Dosai, Pongal.'. Theres a bicycle repair and rental shop, a tea stall next to it and a hut, with a woman selling tender coconuts. The boy briefly speaks to the bicycle mechanic. He turns around and pulls up a wooden stool for me to sit on. "Michael." He introduces himself as. "Ram", I respond. He offers me some tea, which I accept. The tea arrives. Quickly he says, "Look, there's a car that we need someone to drive, from the coast to a place in the city." I say, "Ok, right now?". He says,"Yes, it's nothing. All you'll have to do is drive the car there, and bring it back. I can't drive and neither can my son, Peter. But we will come with you.". I spend a few moments contemplating this strange request, questions running in my mind. Sensing my thoughts, Michael looks me in the eye with a slight smile and says, "There's money to be made.". Now, that intrigues me even more. What seemed to be a request now seemed like a business proposition, with a little mystery to it. I smile, and ask him, "So, what am I transporting?". Hesitating for a moment, but then realizing that I'd have to know anyway, reponds, "Crocodiles."

He continues, "Two of them. From the swamp near my house. Me and my son caught them last night. Quite inadvertently, actually. I was out on the swamp the help my neighbour, get his fishin beat out into open water. As I returned I heard some swishing noise in my backyard. Figuring it was something not very friendly. I rushed to the safety of the steps on my backdoor and turned the light on. There they were, two of them. A big one and a small one. Mother and child I presume. The small one had his eyes closed and his mother just lay there, watching me. Perhaps he was sick or wounded in the swamp somehow and its mother had brought him to the safety of the shore, where humans walk around and other predators don't. Luckily, they were inside the fence and I had already bolted the fence when I walked in. They're still there. But I don't want them there for long. I know a place where they will buy them in Chennai. They make expensive leather out of it. Atleast five thousand rupees each. I can get my friend's car, an old Ambassador. You have to drive it. We will have to tie them up, get them in the car and take them there. Keep out of sight of cops. We can split the money equal shares for all three of us."

I think for a moment and then say, "40% for me 60% for you and your son. Extra for the driver.". "Fair", he replies and we shake hands."

I wake up smiling.

As we evolve, so does our violence.

If a few people have to live in peace and harmony, many others will have to pay the price through hardships, pain and suffering. I think the utopian concept of a whole world and all of humanity living in peace and the optimists striving to meet that goal is a very flawed concept. The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that nature did not mean for Peace to be.

Let's start by looking at the small scale of things. Look at creatures in the wild, small ecosystems, where we start seeing the semblances of a society. Is it peaceful ? Yes, in a lot of ecosystems we do see the serenity of a perfect ecosytem. But is there zero conflict ? Of course not. Each life form preys on the other to survive. To live and propagate, one species must cause the death of another. Even flora do this, by trying their best to utilize the resources around them, and deprive a competing species of it. In the long term view of things, an equilibrium is attained. But local wars are fought. Battles are won and lost. The equilibrium is established. Sooner or later a change occurs. A new species arrives either by mutation, migration or other means. A disturbance in the equilibrium is created. It takes a while before equilibrium is established again.

Humans are not very different. Atleast I don't see humans transcending this phenomenon. We are all creatures driven by survival. And each of our species, sub-species, races are all driven by survival. Our concern for the wellbeing of our fellow creatures on the planet is peripheral. And if we do care, its cos we know its good for us. One can observe the same phenomenon if you view the boundaries along regions, nationalities and religion. Competition, survival, conflict and an establishment of an equilibrium. I think this is inevitable. Equilibrium is what we perhaps mistake as peace. Note however, that equilibrium is never fair. Some species or group will always dominate over the other. It may so happen that with the passage of time and of opportune events, the tables may turn and the values of the variables in the equation of equilibrium may drastically change, but it is essentially the conflict that lies in between these forces that establishes the equilibrium in the first place. Conflict in the context of human society, could be many things: tribal violence, war, diplomacy, politics, economics, trade. But conflict is the mechanism that drives the system towards equilibrium. We cannot get rid of it. In fact its time to accept it and perhaps smoothen it.

War for example, is a very rough and inaccurate method of establishing peace. Although in certain situations, it might be the most efficient and effective means. Trade and diplomacy is probably better, because there is a minimisation of bloodshed. But then, why does bloodshed have to be minimised ? It is only death. And death ushers in new life. Death usually ushers in better life, because it is the unfortunate and the weak that have been decimated. The stronger survived. They deserve to. They have just followed the basic laws of nature. They cannot help it. America pre-emptively struck Afghanistan and Iraq. I don't buy that it was a war against terror. Its a war to preserve the American lifestyle. They need oil and cannot tolerate the kind of fear that struck them on that fateful Sept 11. It would be interesting to see what kind of equilibrium will be established.

Have we also noticed that as we have evolved, we have only managed to learn to kill more efficiently, be violent more explosively, destroy things and life faster. In fact, our scientific research, based on funding statistics, we spend way more on defense and military than medicine and conservation. Why ? I think there is a deep ingrained subconscious undertanding that military strength will protect us better than peace. Medicine too, I actually wonder sometimes, how fair is it, we just make it more difficult for any species to prey on us since we have advanced means of protecting ourselves and repairing damages. So in the long run, its not difficult to envision a planet thats almost completely human. We'd manage to make things to feed us and basically have samples of species in zoos or museums or something. That would suck. But can we escape it ? Is our huge brain/body ration a curse ?

Thoughts ?