Hole in the ground

Apart from the many attractions that you find in Germany, the ones that can never be missed are the manholes that are laid along all the roads. Although they are aplenty, its hard to spot as they blend very well with the road. One noted difference between the manholes here and in India is their height (or depth) from the road level. This is almost zero here whereas you can have differences upto +/- 15 cm (or more) in India. This not only interrupts the beauty of the roads but also causes a lot of mishaps. I have seen many vehicles (especially 2-wheelers) skidding off these manholes and have also read about dangerous accidents in newspapers.

I sometimes wonder what is preventing us in India from designing a manhole in such a manner. I have observed them here in Germany pretty carefully and I found that they are made of a steel framework with a filling of concrete. Both these materials are available in India as well. Moreover we also have the technology to construct quality manholes. I guess the difference comes in planning the laying of the road. Usually the height of the manhole remains fixed whereas the height of the road-level keeps changing because they get re-laid constantly. Probably a simple solution to this problem would be a telescopic man-hole which can be extracted or retracted according to the changes in the road level. In this manner, the height of the man-hole can be kept in-line with the road and thus all those dangerous accidents can easily be prevented. I hope that the Government of India takes some serious action towards this problem because I feel it is very important. It is not just about making that ride to home or office more pleasurable but also safe.

The Weird Game ... (continued)

I've been tagged by Anu so I'm continuing this 'Weird Game' thing. Managed to list 10, but I'm sure there are more, so here goes....

1. First and most surprizing, "I HATE RAIN!"

2. In contradiction to point 1, I like the sound of falling water (don't prefer it to fall on me though).

3. I consider myself to be born again if I survive in the presence of a Wasp (or anything that has a nuclear war-tail).

4. My most favourite part in a chicken is ......the 'Gizzard'.

5. I can never remember the words in a song, how many ever times I listen to it, but the tune sticks the very first time.

6. I'm allergic to the smell of Jasmines.

7. I'm so forgetful to an extent that I consider my cellphone organizer as an extension of my memory cells (Even have my own name, number and address stored in the address-book).

8. I am a strong believer than printers will and must become extinct in a few years (e-paper wud be the best substitute).

9. Art (referring to paintings, especially the modern ones) is something that I have not yet succeeded in decoding. Have given up all hope completely.

10. (My friends consider this weird but I consider it environment-friendly) I use the blank space behind bus-tickets to write my grocery list.

Now that I've finished, there is another weird point. I don't know whom to tag next!

Flowery Grave

I need to walk from the train station to my office every morning and on the way I have to pass along a cemetery and a farm. I don't feel spooky during my walk along the cemetery because there are residents just adjacent the road, moroever, the look of the cemetery is so pleasing that it hardly gives you a sense of fear. If you click on the pic you can see an enlarged version.

One aspect to note about the graves in Germany is that an entire family has a single grave. Apart from the fact that they save space, it also creates a feeling of togetherness. Together in life and in death. Most of the graves are pretty old. There is one that has a birthyear of 1898 inscribed on it. Although the cemetery seems to house graves that are very old, it is well maintained. I have seen even elderly people visiting the graves and decorating them with beautiful flowers. It is truly a wonderful sight to see as I pass by the place every morning and evening.

Packing Pangs

Just under four days for my trip to Japan and I still haven't packed a pen. My room is in a big mess and I still haven't managed to cajole myself into this uphill, millstone-tied-to-leg-walk kind of stuff called packing. It just doesn't happen with me. I don't know if I'm a lone species on this planet. Maybe there are others, but I need to seriously admit that I'm no good at packing stuff for a trip. Even if I do manage to pack there is always something that I forget.

I remember a typical trip to Mangalore when I was in India. I made sure to pack all the important stuff. I reached the station at the last minute (as usual). Had to hurry to the platform and scuffle for my compartment. Finally the whistle was blown and the train started moving. After passing Arakkonam (thats a station on the way to M'lore from Chennai) I remembered that I had left my camera, perfect with batteries and case, neatly on my table. Luckily I managed with my cousin's camera, but just goes to show that I can never manage to go on a trip without forgetting something.

Anyway, I hope I pack all the important stuff this time. This is evident from the fact that I have started thinking about packing 4 days in advance. I do have a lot of places to visit this time so the first thing that's going in would be my camera. Just to give you a hint I would be travelling through Frankfurt, HongKong, Tokyo, Zhuhai (southeast China), Bangkok, Chennai and finally back to Cologne. All this over 3 weeks, phew....now that's gonna be a crunch, I guess. When in Tokyo I hope to visit a place called Akihabara which is a famous place for all kinds of electronics. Will update you on that soon. Right now, gotta get packing :-( !!!

Fly High

No, its not about airplanes or rockets but the very common and most irritating specimen of all...the fly! Two of them happened to wreck all havoc in office today. Normally you don't see them around in Germany. Infact you hardly see any insects around for most time of the year except summer. That's when those creepy crawly creatures come out of their homes for a bask in the sun and a whiff of fresh air. I guess these two flies happened to visit our office this morning.

It started off as a strange buzz around a corner and suddenly we saw these two dark balls flying around. I could faintly hear them say "attackkkkk". I need to sincerely apologize that even two engineers in a room ain't no match for those two flies. They just kept buzzing around and pissing us off. We tried to retaliate but failed. I'm no match when it comes to swatting flies, I even got a poor rating of less than 30% in an online fly swatting game (guess I don't even have a brain that compares with a fly). In case you wanna try it out as well, click here. Ultimately my colleague managed to destroy one of them, but the other escaped. Maybe he is hiding somewhere to trouble us again on Monday.

My ordeal with the flies made me realize what a wonderful creation it is. So much of computing power locked into such a tiny space. Flight-dynamics, collision avoidance, landing and take-off system, environment scanning, predator response and many more systems hard-wired into their structure. I wish we could learn something from it. Most amusing fact is that such a tiny creature can manage to be a real pain in the neck at times. Goes to say that when it comes to getting noticed, size doesn't matter!

Laws of Robotics

It was both frightening and amusing to read this article on robotics sent to me by a friend. It specified the dangers involved with the use of robots in our daily life and also upon the implementation and meaning of the three laws of robotics as prescribed by Asimov. The three laws seem to be so tightly bound to one another. From first sight, it felt like if they were implemented in a robot, it could never do any harm, however the article stresses the point that it is impractical. Moreover it also opens up the issue about a rather perverted use of robots (which I had never heard of previously), strange but true, for sex. Yes, I think they are also going to replace human being to do that as well. It really comes to a point of closing the gap between what is real and what is virtual. I guess the issues that need to be addressed regarding robotics is not just concerning safety, but also regarding the social impact. Having studied robotics during my master's and worked in the automation field, I always imagined that robots are going to help us live an easier and better life. However, the mind of man has zillions of ideas hiding inside its crevices. Some good, many bad!

Just as Asimov proposed laws for robots, I would like to do the same for humans.

1. Humans may not injure other humans, or, through inaction, allow humans to come to harm.
2. Humans must obey orders given to them by their conscience, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. Humans must protect their own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Taking everything a step further, a time would come when we would need a modification of these laws as well:

1. A human may not injure a robot, or, through inaction, allow a robot to........

I guess evolution would take its course!

Follow Back

I was on the phone with my friend from Hameln (The city of the story 'Pied Piper of Hamlin') last evening. Just a friendly chat during the weekend. We happened to discuss events of the week and also happened to touch upon a philosphical note regarding our current status in life. We completed our course from the same university in Germany and both of us are working now in our respective fields. He said, "I think I'm currently enjoying the best period of my life in so many years." To that I said, "Wow great! So what about marriage?" To that, he said that he was not interested in interrupting this life that he was experiencing atleast for another two years. "We have this stereotypical mentality that a guy/girl must finish studies, get job and immediately get married, get kids and start family. However, if you notice the western world, people take their own time and in turn tend to be more mature parents. Of course not many relationships work out, but the ones that do, appear to be good," he said.

We tend to follow people around us. Very few think about living a life of their own. Its more like living for others. See what that guy has done, see what this girl has done seems to be the talk everywhere. We hardly sit down and think what We desire to be as. Rightly described in an online TV that I was seeing on winamp shoutcast, we tend to be like sheeple i.e. sheep people. Just like sheep that follow each other, we have the tendency to follow others. My friend said that my article on the tram incident reminded him of his childhood dream of becoming an artist. It seems he used to be very much interested in drawing and painting and always pestered his mom to get him color pencils and paints. However he was forced into engineering. Life has been good for him so far, but he said, "Maybe I would've been happier if I became an artist."

Go for Nuclear

I was really happy to read the news that nuclear power is receiving so much of attention nowadays. Found this in The Hindu today. When you consider the fact that coal and oil reserves are soon getting depleted and renewable energy sources are currently not being utilized to their full capacity, nuclear energy is the only option to keep the world going. In fact it is the only way to get energy really quick and also not pollute the earth, something that cannot be achieved with the coal and oil.

The article also mentioned the fact that Nuclear Engineering courses in the US are getting filled up rapidly. I guess the students are smart enough to realize that they have a good opportunity in the future. Moreover, they would be contributing towards a cleaner environment by eliminating or atleast reducing our dependance on other forms of energy.

There could be many of you who may not agree with me saying that nuclear energy is dangerous. Well, all I can say to this argument is that 'Fire' was considered dangerous thousands of years ago, but today, we have learnt to keep it within our control to a large extent. Today it will be nuclear energy. What we need are good methods for safely using this new form of energy and keeping it under control. I would like to see the fields of nuclear science and engineering developing to much higher levels. We need more nuclear plants for producing power than to blow up places. More energy would lead to more progress. More progress would in turn benefit the economy, which ultimately would benefit all sections of society, especially the poor. Wouldn't that be worth the risk?

To all you nuclear scientists out there. The challenge is here and NOW!

Unable to access blogger

I was not able to access the blogger site for the past 4 days, so couldn't post anything. I don't know if this was a global or local problem, anyway, its fine now.

Weird Behavior

I was waiting at a tram-station yesterday to take a tram to my friend's house. As usual, I was sitting down on a bench and enjoying the scenary around. There were lots of people walking around. The stopping is called 'Neumarkt', a popular city-center in Cologne (similar to the downtowns in US). As I was waiting I watched a man (probably in his 50s) walking towards the stop along with a kid (probably age 6 or 7). The kid was eating some bread and suddenly a small slice of it fell to the ground. Immediately, this man stamped that slice so hard that it got crushed badly. After the man was done with his deed, they moved on.

In a few seconds a pigeon came swooping down near this slice and started pecking on it (Pigeons are common here just as crows are in Chennai). In just about a minute other pigeons noticed this and came down to investigate and grab their share. However, I noticed that this pigeon who was handling the bread was not letting others to come anywhere near it. I could say she was a selfish pigeon. Soon there were two more, and another three and some more and finally there were like more than 15 pigeons around. This time the first pigeon was not able to control the place so she just gave up and everybody started having their share. However a startling fact was that nobody was fighting for that slice now. Everybody had their piece and in peace.

A few seconds later, the man and his kid came back to that same place, and I noticed something really weird. This man chases away all the birds and stamps the bread really hard this time, kicks it and then leaves.

I just sat there dumb-struck at the behavior of that man. What could have been running in his mind? What is the meaning of his actions? Was he the follower of "Live and let die"? I didn't get any answers to these questions. I didn't have time to think about this further coz my tram had arrived.

Navi Nut

We ordered a new portable navigation system last week for the VW Golf at the office. Its a Becker Traffic Assist with a 1GB SD card. We received it this morning and were checking out its features. Everything was fine, except we didn't find any map of Europe inside. I checked out the DVD that came in the package and found that it had the maps. The device had to be connected to a PC via a USB cable. I plugged in the cable to the device, connected it to my laptop and started the software to transfer the maps. The map for the western part of europe was about 900MB and the transfer was pretty slow (can't expect much from an SD card). I wanted to simulate the environment of the car so I placed the device at an one end of the table and my laptop at the other end. Then placed my chair near the device to give a feeling like I'm actually seeing it inside a car.

The transfer was so slow that after about 3 hours of transferring, it was just 60% percent complete. I got impatient and wanted to explore the screen a bit and I started fidgeting around. I tried to change the language from English to Flemish (never heard about that language) and once I did that the screen went ......plink! The device restarted. I went down to my laptop and the message "Error output!" stared me on the face like an angry bull. I was like ....Oh nooo!!! All the effort down in the drain. Had to start all over again, but I didn't think it would be possible by the evening. I just disconnected everything and placed it on my table.

My colleague came around and said, "Let me try." So he took the device to his desk, connected it and started transferring. However this time, he reached 25% in less than 30 mins. He started bragging about it to me. At one point, I got infuriated at his comments and shouted back – "That's not fair! You've kept the device so close to your computer!!"

Paperless

Wish that word came true. Unfortunately, not everyone is comfortable about going Paperless. I am a staunch believer in conservation and practice it to the utmost extent possible. When I was at home in Chennai, I remember using the local bus-tickets for writing the grocery list when going to the market. The rear side of the ticket will be blank and this space can be used to scribble something. I believe that if I cannot eliminate the cutting of trees, I can atleast work towards reducing it.

I happened to be browsing around for some tool to place notes on my desktop. Suddenly, I felt like a fairy waved her magic wand and .....poof... I found this. Wow, such a simple and easy tool. Best of all, I can reduce the use of the paper based Post-its. My desktop looks neat as well without all those colorful notes hanging out like ears. Moreover, all the notes are so legible (good way to hide my bad handwriting). I can also include pictures and setup reminders for any to-do tasks. And all of this, right from the desktop. What could be simpler? The free version doesn't offer much of communication features, but I'm pretty happy without it.

I wish everyone could switch to digital media for storage so that we don't need paper anymore. That would ensure the existence of our forests and in turn - us.

Mother Nature's Fury

It was sad to hear the news about the earthquake in Indonesia yesterday. My deepest condolences to the people who were directly or indirectly affected by the catastrophe. 3000+ lives lost in an instant. The news made me both sad and angry. Sad at all the suffering and angry at the helplessness of man at the feet of nature. I don't think any of those people deserved the kind of fate that occurred to them, moroever, caused by mother nature. Sometimes it really scares the daylights out of me to know that we can't do anything about it except stand there and watch the destruction. Absolutely stripped of any kind of defense against such incidents, earthquakes have the tendency of leaving a permanent scar in the area that they attack. It's pretty puzzling to know that we have the technology to forecast the weather above the ground for the next 10 days, but don't have any such system for forecasting what happens below.

I was thinking about a system to reduce if not eliminate such earthquakes and decrease the damage caused due to them. An earthquake occurs when the pressure caused due to the collision of plates beneath the surface of the earth is suddenly released. We already have a map of the various faults beneath the earth and also the places where the different plates collide or overlap. If we know that there is intense pressure activity at some point along a fault line, we could try to release that pressure by evacuating the area near the fault and using explosives (probably nuclear) to cause a disturbance and thereby triggering a premature release of the built-up pressure. The task of deciding the best location to place the explosives and the area of evacuation would just be a matter of using geology, mathematics, physics and engineering. I'm no geo-science student, so my idea could be totally stupid. I was just thinking from an engineering point of view. I got the inspiration for this idea when frying pooris. Most of the times I noticed that the steam that builds up inside the poori suddenly erupts from a crack on the skin which occurs at some random point. However, I noticed that if I made a small incision at a specified point, the steam would escape from there and nowhere else. If you imagine the poori as the earth and the steam as the pressure, then I'm sure you would realize what I'm talking about.

We may try as much as we can, however, I guess certain things in life are just not within our control and we need to accept this fact. However, it is highly unacceptable to realize that we are still living at the mercy of nature. I would like to see a denial of that statement in the near future.

Practical Poetry!

Just happened to get into a romantic mood, and these lines flowed out of my mind like a stream emerging from a glacier (Oh my God, guess I'm possessed by a poet's spirit today). Anyway, this is to my love, so here goes:

If God had given me three wishes,
I would make use of only two.
First to get me a job in the same company as yours;
And second, to give the third wish to you!

-- Flavin

Overheard

I was travelling back home by tram this evening when I overheard a really sweet conversation between a small girl (age 3 or 4) and her mom. It took place in German, so I'm translating it here:

Girl: "Mommy, Who drives this tram?"
Mom: "Its driven by a nice man called the tram-driver ('Bahnfahrer' in German)"
Girl: "Mommy, can I also become a tram-driver?"
Mom: "Oh yes, sweetheart, you certainly can."
Girl: "What do I need to do for that?"
Mom: "You have to go to the office of KVB ('KoelnVerkehrsBetrieb', the local transport authority for Cologne) and tell them that you are interested. They will give you a form to fill up. After that, they will conduct some tests that you will have to pass. Then comes training, and finally you will become a tram-driver. You will also earn money at the end."
Girl: "Mommy, can we get that form today?"
Mom: "No darling, you have to first grow up and then we can do that."
Girl: "Oh ok. Then I will grow up soon and become a tram-driver. But, I am a girl. Can I do the job of that nice man?"
Mom: "Oh yes, nowadays girls do a lot of jobs that men do. They drive trams, work with machines, build houses, and do a lot of other things. So you can do the same as well."

(....Tram stop arrives.)

Mom: (Kisses her child) .."Come my little treasure, lets get down."

Wasn't that a sweet conversation?

I imagined how the same conversation would be if it was an Indian kid and mom. Just the thought of it tickled my ribs.

(Indian version)
Girl: "Mom, Who drives this tram?"
Mom: "One poor man, who has no better job!"
Girl: "Mommy, I want to become a tram-driver when I grow up."
Mom: (Slaps girl on cheek) "...Shut your mouth and sit quietly. Think about becoming a doctor or an engineer, not a stupid tram-driver."

+2 Results are out again

Today, many students who wrote the +2 exams in Tamilnadu must have felt like God on the 7th day of His creation. "Phew! Finally done with it and lucky to get away with good marks!". It wouldn't have been so for a few others. Atleast the statistics don't paint a good picture. It seems the pass percentage has gone down to 74.5 compared to 76.8 last year. The reason cited was the change in syllabus last year.

Another interesting fact to note during these exams is that the girls always top the charts. The pass percentage of girls this time is 77.1 compared to the boys who stand at 71.7. This is not just the trend this year, but has been the same for almost all the years. Girls always outshine boys when it comes to studies. But, I just gave it a thought. Why doesn’t the same percentage reflect in the employment statistics? I consider this a serious question. I know many girls who have such good educational backgrounds, but have not been given a chance to utilize the knowledge. Most of them ultimately end up in managing a home and taking care of family. I wouldn’t say this is bad, but we need to think about a feature called ‘Opportunity Cost’.

Let me explain. We know how difficult it is to get an admission into a primary school, secondary school, college, university, etc. The statistics show that girls perform better than the guys, hence manage to get admissions in their preferred institutions. Also consider the fact that a school/college/university with a 100 seats normally gets around 10,000 applications. So, ultimately 9,900 students are denied an opportunity. If we consider these 100 students (assuming 50 are girls), we can easily conclude that not all the girls in this batch would go ahead and seek employment. Most of them would ultimately land up as a housewife (I don’t say all but most). What it means is that, the genuine candidates who wanted to obtain education for seeking employment were denied of an opportunity. If the parents were clear about the future of their children then why make them get all these degrees?

I feel that the investment of time/money is not really being utilized. But what pains me more is that such people are grabbing away the chance from people who are in great need of it. We need to put in an effort to foresee the future to some extent. We need to understand that our actions are not only going to affect our lives but also the lives of others. I do not mean to say that girls should not take up education or employment. That is definitely not my intent. I would be happy to see an India which has more girls in schools, colleges and offices. This blog just voices the cries of the many girls who were denied an opportunity by others who took up theirs and ultimately landed up without doing justice to their education.

Rain Rain Go Away

Another dull Monday morning today, and what better to make it even more dull than my worst enemy..'Rain'. Supposed to be summer now, but these rain-clouds keep blowing around and pissing (excuse my language) on my head. Sometimes I wonder why would this city ever need rain when every inch is covered with tarred roads or concrete.

Wish mother nature had some better plans of keeping rain away from people like me. May be there should be a special kind of equipment in every city which could attract these clouds over them and squeeze the rain out and fill it in tanks. How nice that could have been. The rest of the city could enjoy the wonderful sunshine and at the same time also have its water supply.

Walking around in the rain with a raincoat or umbrella, the splish-splash of the watter puddles, the chocolate sludge, the spray from vehicles zooming by, oh gosh, its a horrible time. You must've known by now that the rain is an unwelcome friend in my life.

Call Center Movie

Yes, that's actually the name of the movie. A friend sent me the link and I found it to be very interesting. It's a short comedy film which brings out the tough situation that a person in the Bronx faces when his call gets routed to a Babu in India. This guy in India keeps getting calls from customers and at one point of time, he is unable to face the pressure. To check out how he handles the customers (specifically note the use of different call-center lingo) you've got to watch the movie.

Death of the Internet?

Feeling shivers down your spine? No, this ain't a page from a nightmare, but a fact of the future. The big shots are planning to control the internet. The same thing that happened to the cable TV system sometime ago is gonna happen to the internet, i.e. Conditional Access. What you access is going to be controlled based on the whims and fancies of the people who offer the connection to you.

After reading about it I felt like someone just shoved a gas-mask over me with a valve-controlled tube supplying air from outside. I've become so dependent (I know many have) on the internet that it's almost second to oxygen in terms of importance. I definitely wouldn't want anyone controlling the air that I breathe, so why should anyone do it for the internet? Moreover, the internet is not owned by anyone, so why this change all of a sudden? Has someone discovered a business case out of all this?

Anyway, I feel anything that affects the internet today is almost on par with a global catastrophe. Not convinced? Then check this to know more.

Sparking Static

Zzzzzzaappp.....Ouch! That is probably the 1724th time that I've been zapped by this phenomenon called Static Electricity! He is the first guy who wishes me every morning when I touch the office door handle. That reminds me of Peter from Office Space (1992 version), when he gets so irritated with the zapping from his office door handle every morning that he finally decides to drill the whole handle out. I wish I had that much liberty to do that.

I don't remember being affected so much by static when I was in India, it's only after coming to Germany that I had to meet with this crazy stuff. That's partly due to the fact that Germany is a cold country, so we need to wear warm clothes most of the time and those are good agents for collecting charges when they rub against each other/the body. The shock is not harmful as plugging your finger into the socket at home, but it does scare the daylights out of me. There have been instances when I've hurt myself by banging my elbow somewhere due to the reaction to that shocking experience.

I planned to eliminate this misery so I read through the internet about a way to prevent the sudden reaction and found that it could be minimized if I held a conducting object which made contact with my body over a larger surface area. I planned to check this out, so the next morning, before I could touch the door handle, I took my key from my pocket, held onto it firmly and approached the handle very carefully. Just as the tip of the key was about 2 mm away from the handle, I saw a bluish-white spark zapping between the key and handle. I was like Yeeeiieeekkkk! But, wait a minute, I didn't feel anything. Yippeeeeeeee, I felt like proclaiming what Archimedes proclaimed years ago.

I imagined my problem was solved, but I was proved wrong in a few minutes. I imagined that I got discharged completely, so I went in, settled down at my desk and went to the coffee kitchen. I touched the tap and Zappppppp...Eeeoouccchhh! Oh my God, I wasn't completely discharged after all. I touched the tap again and this time nothing happened, obviously I got discharged at the tap. I got my cup of coffee and went to my desk. I touched my laptop and Zaaappppppp....Yeeehhaaaaaa! At this time, my mouth was brimming with filth that was waiting to be dumped out. This was getting to be crazy. Oh God please save me!

Through trial and error (the way engineers work) I found out that my laptop and the tap in the coffee kitchen are oppositely charged. So if I get discharged at one place, I get charged at the other. My understanding was proved right by the key technique. I was amazed (shocked infact) to find out that my key sparked both at the laptop and the water tap. This has just gone over the limit now.

Solutions to the problem? Well, I would consider wearing rubber gloves, however I hate the stink of rubber. Wish I had some special kind of goggles (or something like that) with which I could see 'Charge' and determine if it is the same charge as my body or not. It could possibly include colour coding to determine the potential so that I can know if its gonna be mild or strong. Anyway, till some bright Spark comes up with a good idea, I've got my good old key to save me. If anyone has a better idea please do share it coz I would like to know about some permanent solution.....Zaaaaaappppppp........Yiieeeooouucchhhhh. Sorry, my colleague just discharged himself through me.