Ping Yourself !

    I had ordered a black t-shirt couple of months with this statement “There’s no place like 127.0.0.1” printed on it , thinking that it looks cool and until I realized that it’s not just cool , its profound.  It actually hints at the universal truth. Read on to know why...

                    

I bet everyone might have seen this statement almost everywhere from the geeks blog page to the t-shirt. As usual before I start off with why I intend to write something on this , let me tell you what is 127.0.0.1.

127.0.0.1 is the loopback Internet protocol (IP) address also referred to as the “localhost.” The address is used to establish an IP connection to the same machine or computer being used by the end-user. The loopback construct gives a computer or device capable of networking the capability to validate or establish the IP stack on the machine. So in a way , this statement means , pointing to oneself (computer in this case).

We all try to explore so many things in this Universe form the smallest of the things like atoms to the biggest of the things like galaxies and black hole and what not? We ( read as mankind ) are so much interested to know if water is present on mars (if so thank GOD these guys will somehow fetch it and i guess we won't have any drought issue unless some politicians fight on how much water is needed to supply)?  Or may be how does our universe look like ? is it flat , round ,spherical , or flat at top ?  Or how much oxygen is there on this planet “xyz”?

How many of us do really think about exploring ourselves ? How much one really knows about oneself? Who are you ? How much you mean to this universe?  Or the true nature of yourselves ?

                                                   

I would say that this statement “ There’s no place like 127.0.0.1” is very profound in a way that, it hints at self-realization. We always seek happiness in all the worldly things, some in Work , some in love , trekking , writing , singing ,dancing and the list goes on.. Above all , at some point of time in life we all feel to confide ourselves in someone whom we love , viz. mother , father ,brother , sister ,friend, girl / boy friend, wife , husband , son , daughter etc. One may feel that he / she finds solace in him / her. But how about the greatest creation of God (or say nature? ) ? YOU ! oh I mean ME ! myselves!

    Even Yajur Veda says “ yatha pinde tatha brahmande” - “so are you , as is the universe” , man is really the epitome of this universe.  We all go to the farthest place on the face of the earth to find out the truth. We all .more often than not look outside for happiness, look outside for help (spiritual ), not realizing that all this exists in ourselves.

    Also most importantly , this statement hints at the fundamental nature of the universe , that is “ singularity ”.  Just as the vedas describe -

As is the human body, so is the cosmic body

As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind.

As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm.

As is the atom, so is the universe.   

 

-    The Upanishads.

    So , now tell me are we any different from the very universe we exist in?

Whosoever has said it ,  has said it damn right ! “ There’s no place like 127.0.0.1 ”

                                                    PEACE !

The NFA called Life !!

By the way this new TataSky add caught my attention. While two friends having a conversation a guy asks his friend if its ok to take his sister out for dinner. To his astonishment the gals brother agrees. Poonchke to dekho poonchne main kya jaata hain? You never know what's gonna happen ! But if one would carefully analyze there are two scenarios : one , that the girls' brother would say yes ; second , that moment would have been the end of friendship and they would have fought.

So whats so special about this ad. Superficially this may seem to be any other event whose probability of occurrance would be very low.Its not the event as a whole that caught my attention, but for the tagline poonche main kya jaata hain? This emphasizes on the uncertainity in life. Many people lose many opportunities just because they didnt ask for that! We always weigh our actions on this very uncertainity. You never know whether this is gonna happen or that is gonna happen. But which one ? No one knows. 

During a leisure I got a little nostalgic and went back to the time when I was studying finite atutomata theory. I reiterated through the concept of NFA (Nondeterministic Finite Automata). Let me tell you in the simplest terms what automata is. Attomata is stydy of abstract objects. Lets say a switch. A switch can be any switch very abstract. But the finite thing that we know of switch is that either it can be on or off. This on and off are the states of this automata.

Automata can be wither deterministic finite automata i.e You know the action for a particular input. Eg If switch is on and if you press it it can go only to off state and vice versa. The other category is non-deterministic finite automata (NFA). In case of an NFA you never know to what state the automata can go on a particular input / action. 

                          

Life is very similar to an NFA , nondeterministic yet finite. Once can analyse this at a macro level level of the materialistic life. Materialistic life starts at birth and ends at death of this physical body. One thinks if I do this I can be that , I can go there , I can reach there and blah blah blah ... Life always accepts those actions that lead to the final state (just as a NFA) of the materialistic life (Death).No matter which peak a man's success scales or how low a man's moral can go, or no matter what a man can achieve or what he has as his prized possession, in the end when he says I wish I would .... have / haven't done that, it really signifies something. This something is infact very significant for a man thinks that the decisions/ actions which he wished he would have done or not; would change the course of his life.

Life (materialistic one ) is highly non-deterministic , yet finite , starts with birth and ends with death and that's precisely the final state of this non-deterministic finite automata called life. However , from the spiritual perspective , it may not be the final state but may I know how many of us think beyond death ?  

                                                 To Be Continued...

 

That guy called God !

I see here and I see there,

I can't find him anywhere.

I see here and I see there,

I don't think he's anywhere.

One says he is himself,

The other says he is the elf.

One say he ain't there,

The other says he's everywhere.

One says even a form he sans,

The other, everywhere he spans,

One says he's just a feel,

Of life's ship , he's the keel.

One says he's everything,

The other, he's nothing.

I feel I can't jot down anymore about this. I think a lot of Ink has been spilled and lot of gigabytes or perhaps terabytes has been used up in defining God ! Of course I am no authority to say something conclusive about God (of course am adding few more kilobytes  perhaps megabytes to it) but am just trying to present my thoughts (as with anyone else) about it here. 

Even before I can enter this question let me digress. Have you wondered how do you what is called what? What enables you to understand and recognize things in this (materialistic) world? It's language ! One can never underestimate the power of language. No language is great or small. There is no point in fighting over the heritage associated with the language , that's what I feel. Language and it's literature and the heritage associated with it is highly debatable and cannot abate , so let's not get any deeper into this for now. 

The very first words that a human being learns, is in a language that has no name , no documentation available and only understood by the mother. E.g especially the words like aabu , jijji for water etc. there is no name for this language , it's not documented  , just it is passed on generations to generations by mothers.Everything that we learn and understand is backed by a language. From Sanskrit to French to English to Chinese etc. Even computers use a language for communications 0's and 1's or signals. That is the power and importance of language. What is important here is, not the name of language or word or language itself , it is to know the fact that rational abilities helps us understand the world. 

Let's come back to the track ! So many people from the greats like Sri Shankaracharya to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa ,to Swami Vivekananda to Sri Ramana Maharshi. Everyone has tried to explain what is God or Who is God. This indeed is very great service to mankind , because they have tried to explain the very force behind every event happening in the universe ; right from it's inception to all the events that are happening as of my writing and which will keep happening.

Knowing God or seeing God is an experience in itself , rather a life changing experience , which not only makes you feel powerful but also a feel of being cleansed. It's very difficult to accept the fact that we all have a highly materialistic approach towards life so much so that we even tend to have a rational approach and then we add some logic to the very existence of the entity , that we call God , for the lack of any other word. 

Though all these greats have explained about God , yet no one understands completely or precisely. Why? Not because these greats have not explained clearly, or not because they haven't seen God or they have never known God.To explain about such a divine experience of having seen the God, to a mere normal human being , they cant find the words.Because it gives a rational and logical essence to their explanation  To understand God , what one needs is not rational or a genius mind ,it's the cognitive abilities that is required. It helps us perceive rather than just see things. It helps us distinguish the materialistic world and the spiritual world rather than understand.

THE HIGH FIVE !!

       Imagine you gotta kill someone , What would you do ? What weapon would you be using ? Knife , an Iron Rod , Hockey Stick etc etc .. . Now what if you  gotta kill a group of people ? May be some guns ? (Just can't go shooting people with like Max Payne ). Now imagine you gotta kill the whole country ! What would you do ? 

From time immemorial right from Mahabharata to the one in Afghanistan people have been fighting for power. So many battles have been fought , so many people have been killed. Although it took a while, people understood that nothing can be gained that way.Greed is the driving force behind all these ; greed of Duryodhana to the greed of wealth that lead to war of Constantinople to the greed of the nations that colonized others , it's always been greed.

With the recent advances in technology and other industries like manufacturing and telecom and name it whatever you want and the changes in the economic policies of almost nations , the interdependence of one nation over the other has increased. No one nation can say to hell with you to other unless they are dang sure that they are self sufficient though this being a distant dream to any country today.All this is true but the greed still exists , it has increased evermore. 

Given the prevailing geo-political and the economic conditions, the best way to bring down a nation no matter how big or small is to target its economy. Trust me economy today is as good as a religion (see my previous post on this). Once you destroy this religion (read as economy) , that's it !

Just imagine you badly need some money so that you can come out of the mess and when the guy who you think can bail you out gives you money on a condition that you gotta spend the money just as the guy says then what is the use of such a loan or bailout? 

This is what the IMF and WB precisely doing with the countries that have recently joined the Industrial revolution or got freedom recently. How long do they need to dance to the tunes of the so called GOD (read as IMF / WB) ? Enough is enough and thats what the BRIC now BRICS has though and come up with an agenda. BRICS (Brazil , Russia , India , China , Southafrica) though have almost nothing in common at all expect from having a sense of being ostracized from the International economic framework. This agenda is the establishment of a New Development Bank.

The funds of these 5 countries makeup for almost 25% of world's GDP! To establish such a Bank is surely an Herculean task given their problems in dealing with it's own group members.China shares territorial borders with India and Russia. We all know that in the recent past they have been engaged in a war also! Also China is opposing India's nuclear plans of late. Recently there has been a trade gap between China and India.  Russia has its own internals problems in dealing with the US friendly neighbors. On the other hand Brazil is very vigilant when its comes to Argentina. Despite these unfavorable circumstances , these nations have come together for a common goal, the development of the developing economies !

       However there are few important questions for which they need to find the answers. Here are a few of them:

1. Can they come out of US hegemony ?

2. Are they sure that this new Bank is not going to repeat what IMF and WB did?

3. How can they ensure that the regional politics and regional issues not going to impact on the function of the Bank?

4. You think this is going to nail the GOD's coffin?

5. How efficiently they can challenge the Western Liberal Democracies (so called) ?

Despite all these BRICS indeed is a force that is going to drive the developing economies to excel and come out of the mess.

Disclaimer : The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely the view of the author. The author doesn't intend to accuse any financial institution  or nation. Also the author does not hurt the religious or regional sentiments of the people of any geographical region.

Sensible use of social media .

Heyyy ! Awwwww chooo cute !! Ah u luk lik angel ! Wow what a pic where is it taken ? While banging (yeah you read it correctly) they keys of my keyboard , I hardly can see  the words  appearing on the canvas area of the ms word I have just typed in and you better know why (all are underlined red).  Social media, the hottest platform for the people to share and connect. Imagine to share a news if u still had to send a telegram with one guy having to key in the Morse code and then you hope for it to reach ASAP.  With the advent of such a platform (is it really the platform?)  not only communication has become faster but also we are , to an extent losing our space in life. Of course you are free to join or disjoin it anytime you want but the point there is not joining or disjoining it or advocating the use of it.

                Let me digress. When I say is it really the platform, I really mean it.  It’s not only me or you, it all the users of such a social media who acts as platform for the host company on which they can run.  In a way though such a site is, technically is deployed using a server and has an attractive home page and user interface and a mobile app for all the various mobile platform, psychologically it is we who act as the platform on which they run their business.

                Coming back to track, I am not against becoming a member of such a social network, for I wouldn’t have created an account on a social site.  One should always see both the sides of a coin. Of course even the social media has its own pros and cons. Of late people being reactive on social media think is same as being active. God help them ! In my personal opinion it won’t let people be what they are. It forces people to be someone else.  What makes me say this is that many people feel that they are not leading a good life only because they tend to compare their lives with of the others on the social networking sites.
           

                Also , of late social network serves as complaint box . Some indirect communication camouflaged as some quotes ( why don’t you sing kishore da’s dard bhare nagme and upload it on social site?)   Sometimes the posts even go to an extent to compel you to share it and like it even if you don’t want to . Like please share this god’s photo in 7 seconds and share it with 7 people you will have good luck. Boss in that case any Tom Dick and Harry would have gone to a cyber cafe asked the guy to open an account for him and share such umpteen number of photos and get good luck.

                One more funny thing that people have come up with. Share things like what does your birth date reveal? Had it been true then how easier it would have been to understand women ! (wow I wish it was real ). What’s your ex’s name starts with ? Boss why on the face of the earth would I want to broadcast it to the whole world ? Check out this app to know when and how will you die ? Is the site playing God with such freaking apps? What were you in previous birth? What the hell has that got to do with what I am now. Plan what you want to do in this life.

                So many malicious links have been discovered, still people don’t know where to draw the line. And posting where and with whom you are hanging out. It’s good to a certain extent but one should know where to draw the line. You just can’t post your hangout details with your boyfriend / girlfriend. If you are not concerned about your privacy at least be concerned about theirs.

                I again say that , I am not  against joining a social site,  but what I do advocate here is the disciplined used of the social networking site.

                

Disclaimer : The views /opinions expressed in this post are the personal views / opinions of the author. The author doesn't intend to discriminate defame any social networking site.

Is Economy the new Religion?

Ever since the big bang has ever happened, if there is one thing that has stood the test of time, then; in my personal opinion ; it is Religion. Yes, it needs no proof to prove this, just look back at the history. Be it any religion for that matter. One may say that there are so many religions that have perished. Agreed. But if you look at it and just introspect and ask yourselves what made it perish? It’s again another religion.

What basically constitute a religion? It’s nothing but an organized collection of belief system. Any economy is basically the same. It’s nothing but the sheer faith / belief of people in the economy that runs it. Some people have faith in Keynesian economics, where as the other have faith in Freemen Economic theory. There are however who have faith in Communism. It is very much debatable so as to which is better and I will tell you it’s not going to end. Let’s consider dollar it’s the sheer faith in the dollar that has made it the benchmark currency for any trade. As Indians also we are too much worried about the dollar and rupee comparison.

            See the belief the eurozone countries have in Euro and the rest of the world in Dollar.  The governments of the developing countries have sheer faith in the IMF and World Bank and thus act as per their terms. After the rejection of the initial plan for the bailout, the Cypriot government finally came out with another plan to recover from the financial crisis. This plan involved levy on the depositors. So it’s not just that you say abra ka dabra! And you get money. You cannot just create money out of thin air!. If there is something that can create money then its debt.

                It is observable that how a devotee doesn’t want to hurt his / her god, similarly the governments don’t want to hurt their god (the investors) even though it hurts its population. It’s faith in the consumerism that fetches the major chunk of GDP to some governments and faith in their economy that even though the debt to GDP ratio is over a hundred percent they are able to sustain that.

Disclaimer : The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author , and has no intention to hurt any religious sentiments or ridicule any economic theory or any currency or any financial organization

Can Cyprus flu infect India ?

Cyprus has reached the heights of its fiscal imprudence. What’s going on there is indeed alarming. Imagine the public debt to be at par with the GDP of a nation. Or let me put it this way you are earning the same amount of money you need to repay someone or may be what if your monthly EMI is as same as your salary considering salary to be your only source of income ?

            Cyprus is the new not so proud member of the eurozone to apply for a bailout (Read as beg!).  Every nation on the face of the earth begs. But what’s so big deal with Cyprus? They don’t have the resources to repay if someone is going to bailout. Of course the IMF and some members of the eurozone have come up with a great plan! What’s the plan?

            Before actually talking about the plan let me tell you something. We all pay taxes! I know how it feels to pay tax at the financial year end.  In India we pay tax on what we earn yeah Income Tax! And we in India do live on our savings unlike in the Dreamland where the nations GDP is driven by consumerism (of some people if you know what place am referring to) where people don’t even know what savings mean. GDP is the market value of the final goods and services produced in a country. And GDP per capita is the indicator of standard of living!  So today you have money and you buy what about tomorrow? I will talk about standard of living in subsequent post. But for now let’s stick on to this. Tomorrow when you don’t have a penny on you then you got to sell what you have; as simple as it is. 

Let’s come back to tax. Currently Government pays interest for your deposits in the banks (at least in India). What if the government, tomorrow says, boy if you want to deposit your money you have to pay some amount of tax! That’s what IMF and some eurozone countries’ plan is. The Cyprus parliament however rejected this bill. But what’s the plan B? Let’s not talk about it since it’s their prerogative.

Let’s talk about if it really affects India. If it does then how and when? Basically for a nations’ public debt to be at par with the GDP the necessary and sufficient condition is that you borrow more than you can repay.  What leads someone to borrow so much? It’s indeed a food for thought.  Speaking in a microeconomic scale let’s see why someone borrows.

1.      You are really in need of that commodity.

2.      You need to just flaunt it.

The former condition is good, provided you can repay what you borrow considering the ROI that you can fetch out of that commodity. But the later is bad; this type of economic condition is driven by sheer consumerism. Consumerism is good to an extent but once you reach the ultimatum, it’s bad. Consumerist approach is indeed important to improve the standard of living but how much?

            Now though the financial condition of Cyprus doesn’t affect India directly, it doesn’t prompt us from giving it a thought and wake up. Thanks to the globalization that the financial condition of one nation or group of nations (EU) impacts the rest of the nations. So if tomorrow EU or US’ economy wobbles then am sure it’s going to affect us. I may even be wrong in saying that it may affect us, but considering the fact that the Global financial system is behaving so anomalously, I say that it may impact India.

            Sometimes it makes me think on what basis one can say that we won’t see the same condition in India in the near future. The banks have been shut down nationwide in Cyprus. Imagine if the same happening in India.

            One solution that I see in my personal opinion is that we need to cut down unnecessary imports. And implementing strict import duties on the unnecessary commodities. Also we can strengthen the manufacturing sector thereby providing the quality goods which are produced indigenously .Which also helps in reducing the unemployment problem and helps us to move towards the export based economy.

            More the pace with which we move towards becoming an export based economy; the Capital deficit tends to get normalized i.e. you don’t spend more than what you can earn!

                        So the mantra is save first, spend next!

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author and are completely unbiased. The author doesn't intend to hurt the sentiments of any nation.