Break Point!!!

Been a long time since i last wrote about my college...so as the end approaches, i guess i'd better clear out the formalities, so here is a sketch of almost all the characters and terminology i think i deserve a place over here...(actually my sessionals start tomorrow, and as is customary, i'm getting all my creative ideas tonight):

1. Chemistry (Gay-mystery)

Don't remember plenty about him as mostly slept through his class after mid-sems, but from whatever i recollect of his lectures, most of his words end in '-ion' such as " The classification of lubrication by the definition of floccinaucinihilipilification..."...zzz... Popular theory says he is gay. (Well the theory is supported by his frequent blurb of  "Meet me after the class." Offense intended.) Must confess though, haven't learnt much in chem classes. (Apart from the teacher's sexual orientation of course.)

2. E-Mech

I just simply hate E-mech just simply because the teacher just simply repeats 'just simply' ad nauseum. He brings a sheet for attendance to the class which we are supposed to sign and Mr. Professor is a self-declared handwriting expert so we don't put any proxies. Well ok, that's a lie. He teaches painfully slow and hardly finishes one sum in a period. So we have decided to play "Kar le kar le ek sawal" as the background theme whenever he enters. As a positive point, he is very prompt about tormenting us and always arrives five mins early. 

And guess what, rumours say he is the HOD. Wtf!

3. The Dispensary Gang

The Dispensary Gang is the (downgoing) shittiest group in the Insti vulnerable to random accidents and disasters (Watch this blog for 100 amazing disasters@ BIT Mesra!!!)  always at the service of BIT Dispensary. They take turns in getting in and out of the dispensary (like a public toilet). Well here is the dramatic reinterpretation:

Eyewitnesses say one guy was as usual damaged. His friend was taking him to the dispensary (no pizes for guessing their adda). So by the time they reached half the way, the count had increased to two as the other guy too had an accident (destiny spares none!). And when they finally arrived, it was reported an ambulance had to be called in for transporting the crowd.

Now most docs would suggest Dettol, but their favourite antiseptic toilet soap happens to be Liril, which they use thrice a day, without fail, performing their victory dance, with chants of "Jhingalala HOO".

PS: Strangely, girls form an essential part. Even more strangely, most of them purely by chance (and simply) belong to that place on earth called WB (not in India, honestly!!!).

4. Ishtuud

The Dispensary Gang believes this is the past tense of Ishtand, but they are assholes, so who cares. (just like 'slut' is not past perfect of 'slit', but that's a different story.) Some also believe it to be the Biharification of 'Stud', but it is actually the improvised and evolved state of Stud. So the life cycle goes like:

Ordinary Guy--->Stud----> Shtud---->Ishtuud---->Ishtylish Ishtuud---->Ishtylish Ishtinky Ishtuuud (existence not confirmed yet).

Confused? They are the popularestestest and the coolestestest and they can do pretty much anything under the sun without breaking much sweat. Powers are exceeded only by the VC.

Some Ishtuud quotes:

"Sexxyyy!!!"

" Abhi hum kuch aur soch rahe hain."

"Theek hai!"

"Kahe !!!"

"Abe ke ."

The postion for Ishtylish Ishtuud is highly coveted and there is cut-throat competition. However at least three known Ishtuuds exist. 

Statutory warning: Don't try to be an Ishtuud at home, you may lose your life, or worse, sanity.

5. Truss

Truss is the new improved form of load. And as the custom goes, truss can be personalised as follows:

Suppose Deepika is a girl who is always loaded, (Name and gender changed to protect identity.) then truss can be measured as n(Deepika) such as 1 Deepika, 12 Deepika, 3/4 Deepika. The dimensionla formula is [M]^i[L]^i[T]^e.

6. RND Gang

 Little is known about the gang or its members apart from the name and the Anthem which goes like:

"This is my rifle,

And this is my gun;

This is for fighting,

And this is for fun."

Go figure.

Postscript:

The Chin Fu-King-Whatshitovsky Theorem of Unfulfilled Aspirations

"An engineering student in his nth sem will almost everyday decide to start studying from n+1th sem, n<8"

 

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Creative Inputs: Illad and Ynot

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More crap...

Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something
(In No Particular Order)
01) Grape Stomp02) Charlie Bit Me03) Chocolate Rain04) Dancing Baby05) Post Secret06) Charlie The Unicorn07) Mentos and Diet Coke08) Numa Numa09) Peanut Butter Jelly Time10) George Lucas In Love11) You're The Man Now Dog12) Yatta13) Star Wars Kid14) Bubb Rubb15) The Flying Spaghetti Monster16) Dramatic Chipmunk17) Homestar Runner18) GI Joe Pork Chop Sandwiches19) Fail Blog20) Skateboarding Dog21) All Your Base Are Belong To Us22) Winnebago Man23) We Like The Moon24) I Can Has Cheezburger25) Barney Vs. Tupac26) Shining27) Cute Overload28) Rick Roll29) Lazy Sunday30) David After The Dentist31) Powerthirst32) Christian The Lion33) Bert and Ernie Rap34) Lady Punch35) Leprechaun in Alabama36) Where The Hell Is Matt37) Boom Goes The Dynamite38) Breakdancing Baby39) Drunk Jeff Goldblum40) Scarlet Takes A Tumble41) Susan Boyle42) Gay Mount Everest43) Afro Ninja44) Cop Shoots Himself In Leg In Classroom45) Tron Guy46) "Leave Britney Alone"47) Laughing Baby48) I'm the Juggernaut Bitch49) Exploding Whale50) Take On Me The Literal Version51) Bill O'Reilly Flips Out52) Don't Tase Me Bro53) The Landlord 54) Breakdancing Baby Kick55) The Pet Penguin56) Ms. South Carolina Answers A Question57) I'm F*#king Matt Damon58) Will It Blend59) Spaghetti Cat60) Tom Cruise Kills Oprah61) Little Superstar62) Chad Vader63) Pretty Much Everywhere It's Going To Be Hot64) I Like Turtles65) Who Needs A Movie66) Jake E. Lee Shreds67) Hawaii Chair68) Aussie Party69) Hitler Plans Burning Man70) Montgomery Flea Market71) Look At The Horse72) Asian Backstreet Boys73) Leroy Jenkins74) Pinky The Cat75) Monkey Sniffs Finger76) Sneezing Panda77) Prison Inmates remake "Thriller"78) Techno Viking79) Ask A Ninja80) Best Man Trips and Ruins Wedding81) Best Wedding Toast Ever (Amy's Song)82) Kitten Surprise (how to break up a cat fight)83) Katana Sword Infomercial Goes Wrong84) Matrix Ping Pong85) La Pequena Prohibida86) Angry German Kid (translated)87) Evolution of Dance88) Ok Go "Here It Goes Again"89) Battle at Kruger (lions vs. buffalos vs. crocodiles)90) Daft Hands91) Human Beatbox92) Most T-Shirts Worn At Once93) Zero G Dog94) Cuppy Cakes Song95) George Washington96) Scary Maze Prank97) Gay Referee98) Tranquilized Bear Hits Trampoline99) Reporter Gets A Fly In The Mouth

Must say I'm rather impressed with my record. :)

Been a yawning gap since the last post...accompanied by an exponential increase in materials bloggable. My mind, right now is bursting out to tell the millions of adventures...and misdemeanours we have indulged in our one and a half month stay at BIT Mesra...there is the NCC fiasco, the new gang, the old mates discovered purely by chance and then, the big one, The Rise of The F.A.C.O.I.T.S. (...he he he!)...however @ the mercy of the sluggish net speed 4 first year students, it's highly unlikely to elaborate...so watch this space!!!

Of Carl Sagan, Clam Shells and Spirals...

Let us look at a mathematical entity called an "Ordered Pair".

It consists of two numbers, say three and five which we shall write 3,5. The order of the numbers is important. We can think of lots of ways in which we can combine two ordered pairs. Two very obvious ways would be:

1,

3, 5 + 1, 2 = 3 + 1, 5 + 2= 4, 7

2,

3, 5 * 1, 2 = 3 x 2, 5 x 1= 6, 5

But the first method to be understood has quite unlikely rules:

3,

3, 5 # 1, 2 = 3 x 2 + 5 x 1 , 5 x 2= 6 + 5, 10= 11, 10

The reason for this is that the third one of these corresponds to a natural experience. That of cutting a pie into five slices and eating three of them, then cutting the next pie down the middle and eating half of it. The answer tells me that I have eaten eleven slices of the size I would get by cutting the pies into ten slices each.

The first corresponds to a much simpler physical situation, that of moving around a paved area in search of the slab under which some treasure is buried. This is the mathematics of vector addition. It is hard to understand why mathematicians have been able to handle the addition of fractions for the last four thousand years, w

hile the much simpler vector addition in the first example was discovered only in 1865.

The lesson to be learnt from the way in which the rules for manipulating fraction developed is that mathematics is first and foremost the servant of reality. Of all the ways in which we could combine two pairs of numbers, the one we use for adding fractions is dictated by the experience of the eating of pies and cakes.

The above is an extract from the article "Fitting Mathematics to Nature" by Bruce Harvey, one of my two favourite science writers (the other being Carl Sagan). It's not just a fantasy to wonder why fractions came more naturally to us than vectors; but the deeper question if scalars, the entity that prevails over most of our mathematical manipulations, really exist in nature.

Reading the Demon Haunted World (Sagan), it gradually sank down that there

is something similar about this entity called logarithm; partially because of my electronics teacher; as during one of his lectures, somehow amidst all the slumber it fell down into my ears "Sound is measured in bels and decibels because nature has got a logarithmic scale." Nature has got a log scale? Cupid Stunts!!! x-(

And as it happens, the fellow wasn't joking; and neither was i dreaming. Logarithm happens to be one of the most subtle and all-pervasive designs of nature.[Wonder how God functioned till Napier discovered it ;)] Music notes will always form a harmony when they are the overtones of some fundamental frequency, each being a logarithmic improvisation. And the masterpiece? The Log Spiral!!

This clean little gibberish manifests itself around us in ways much much more than one. Clam shells have spirals; almost perfectly logarithmic. Cyclones are nothing but wind and water bound into a log spiral. And the fellow wh's jotting this stuff happens to comes from The Milky Way; a log spiral galaxy. Water in a wash basin will almost always form a log spiral.

Wonder how much this simple equation rules our lives.

No wonder the best part of education lies outside schools. :)

PS: Now maybe you will be thankful that we evolved from a fish that had 10 forelimb bones in all, that today gives us our decimal system...and saves us the embarrassment of getting, say 9/26 in a test istead of 4/10, or maybe from the torture of countdown shows and list; which could have gone on to something like say 163?!! Watsay? (had we evolved from centipedes. Soothing. Isn't it?)

"Some notes are music, others cacophony; some designs are images, others chaos."

Arguably Asimov's Best...

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov © 1956

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:

Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.

Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough -- so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac's.

For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.

But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.

The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.

Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.

They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.

"It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."

Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.

"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."

"That's not forever."

"All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"

Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Twenty billion years isn't forever."

"Will, it will last our time, won't it?"

"So would the coal and uranium."

"All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me."

"I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."

"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up. "It did all right."

"Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for twenty billion years, but then what?" Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."

There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.

Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"

"I'm not thinking."

"Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."

"I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too."

"Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."

"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.

"The hell you do."

"I know as much as you do."

"Then you know everything's got to run down someday."

"All right. Who says they won't?"

"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'"

"It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.

"Never."

"Why not? Someday."

"Never."

"Ask Multivac."

"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."

Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?

Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.

Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

"No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.

By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.

---

Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright marble-disk, centered.

"That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.

The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've ----"

"Quiet, children," said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"

"What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.

Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspacial jumps.

Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.

Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for "analog computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.

Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."

"Why for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded."

Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."

"I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.

Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world."

"I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.

It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.

Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.

"So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now."

"Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase."

"What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.

"Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"

"Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"

The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units."

Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."

"Now look what you've done, " whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.

"How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back.

"Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."

"Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)

Jarrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."

He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer."

Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."

Jerrodine said, "and now children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."

Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.

---

VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so concerned about the matter?"

MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."

Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.

"Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."

"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."

VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."

"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --"

VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."

"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."

"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."

"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"

"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"

"I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we'll have another filled in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?"

VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."

"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."

"Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."

"Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."

"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."

"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.

"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."

VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.

"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."

He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.

MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite it's sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.

MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"

VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."

"Why not?"

"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."

"Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.

The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

VJ-23X said, "See!"

The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.

---

Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity - but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.

Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.

Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.

"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"

"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"

"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"

"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"

"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."

"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."

Zee Prime said, "On which one?"

"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."

"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."

Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the originals Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.

Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"

The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.

Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.

"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.

"Most of it, " had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."

Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.

The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.

A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."

But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.

Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And Is one of these stars the original star of Man?"

The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF."

"Did the men upon it die?" asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.

The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME."

"Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.

Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"

"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."

"They must all die. Why not?"

"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."

"It will take billions of years."

"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"

Dee sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."

And the Universal AC answered. "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.

Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

---

Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.

Man said, "The Universe is dying."

Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.

New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.

Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."

"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum."

Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."

The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and Nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.

"Cosmic AC," said Man, "How may entropy be reversed?"

The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man said, "Collect additional data."

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT."

"Will there come a time," said Man, "when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"

The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."

Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"

"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.

The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."

Man said, "We shall wait."

---

"The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.

One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.

Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"

AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in hyperspace.

---

Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

And there was light----

Piracy is Sexy. Period.

We all make choices throughout our lives...to be or not to be...the red pill or the blue pill...cigarette or gaanja...err..sorry got a little carried away. But one thing we are unanimous about is Pirated software, music, movies...and come on admit it...even your browser and your OS are pirated...if not, well then I'm afraid Uncle Gates swindled you. Because intellectual property is bullcrap and Piracy is the order of the day.
A software when stripped down to basics, is a piece of information. And denying information is exploitation. Everbody in this free market survives by denying something to a select few and supplying to a few others. But something like a browser or a calculator or photoshop could be as vital as your dail bread. It could cost your life or worse, your job!! Panic!
When lawmakers in the US failed to curb narcotics, they improvised upon the present solutions : legalize it! Yes. You can have shops selling hashish in your backyard. But unfortunately, software is not weed. There's lobbying, big people with bigger egos and then more lobbying. But where there's a will, there's GNU! So no losing hope right now fellas.

PS: A friend says i got some awesome writing prowess...well show our enthu then. Comment hard and sharp. I'd love a good debate.

"Failures are the stepping stones to success. Mine are few and far between. Maybe that explains my lack of success!" ;)

Another Google-y!

Well, Technorati tells me that Google has announced the development of the Chrome OS, targeting mainly netbooks, which, going by the minimalist design of the Chrome Browser, is going to be a killer, for sure. I'm a big fan of Open Source software, though sadly with not much experience apart from a little Unix fiddle, but if there is a code app with 'free' written on it, I have it! (Maybe that's the reason I am typing all this in K-Meleon, which i am sure you don't know is what.)

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

For now, neither Microsoft needs lose its sleep, nor has Linux got competition; but indeed, Google Labs is one of the best things to have happened to the impulsive Open Source Geek. Keep up the good show Larry!

As a farewell note, here's some more lip-service to Google:

http://lifehacker.com/313530/top-10-google-products-you-forgot-all-about/

BITs and Pieces

After hours of headbanging discussions, incessant internet surfing and chat sessions, and days of travel there's finally a stamp of approval on Mission Admission: BIT Mesra- Ranchi is where I'm going to (Ta Da!) and the branch, of course, is ECE (coz i dint fill nethng else!).

Well I was in the University a few days back for the provisional admission process and with no fake modesty, was awed by the campus. So here are a few picy details.

Well the first thing to notice once you have travelled some 20-odd kms from Ranchi is, well, nothing! The area around is like any other suburbia in hinterland. But once you have made inroads into what they call the BIT More, it gradually unfolds.

The lush green canvas catches one's eyes and moments later, concrete structures (hostels to be precise) emerge. And then, you are gradually led to the main administrative building (MAB), which is indeed a masterpiece of minimalist architecture. Just two storeys high, In fact, it is wide enuf to make sure it gets out of your ocular expanse from any angle you view. The MAB houses the chore engineering disciplines, viz Elx, Electrical, Civ and Mecha.

Taking a look around, see the few hostel buildings, trees, the R&D Department, more trees, the Bank and still more trees. The Campus, with all apologies to former and current BITians, is fit enuf to make a Wildlife Sanctuary. (It's 800 acres, for God's sake!) And I was the unlucky guy, who embarked upon exploring it, and you can be sure, by the evening, i was one tired man.

The ECE department spans an entire block, which gives me a nasty premonition of tough times ahead! The Hostels are more than decent, considering they give 24*7 LAN connectivity and a single room from the first year, not many instis in India do that, actually none that i know of. There are rumours of a Wi-fi zone but not much was revealed to me.

And talking of Insti Culture, well obviously there's plenty of it as the incomprehensible song blaring out from some final year hostel revealed. By the way, a BIT alumnus happens to be the top brass at Standard and Poor's, so there's something about this place, soon there will be more first hand accounts, Peace!

RIP: MJ (Wtf!)

Been a long time, but first things first, so here's the obituary (All Apologies.):

So Michael Jackson is dead...well he has almost been dead all these years...so to be precise, he's back in the news because he is dead. And guess what, they are burying him without his brain (like he had one), which i am sure will be preserved as the masterpiece that doled out Bad and Dangerous to the world and spurned an entire industry (cult, to be politically correct.)

But with all the hardsell going on with this guy's death, it seems very likely that he will be beatified soon...hold your breathe...St. MJ is here!

The Media guys have made sure he looks exactly the genius he was allegedly to be and not a child molester. (Oops!) Get real folks, just the fact that he's dead does not make him great. True, he's innocent until proven guilty, but nothing will cover the bizarre antics he displayed, sometimes bordering psychopathic. He sure has got his fans who will swear by the misguided genius, yet, MJ was what he was. And that has been proved since Nirvana kicked his ass in the early 90's.

So fact of the matter:

Kurt Cobain rocks, MJ sucks. (More so after they are both dead. LOL.)

www.post-gazette.com/pg/09191/982862-109.stm/

26/11 Pangs: Did It Hurt Gafoor?

Well here's the news: Hasan Gafoor, Commissioner, Mumbai Police, has been transferred or 'Shunted' speaking in the regular Bureaucratic jargon. Taking a Peek @ facts:

1. Terrorists struck Mumbai.
2. Would have been no big deal, had it been some obscure temple in Banaras, but since it was Mumbai, which houses one of the two things India is known for abroad, Bollywood; it so happened that somebody's head was wanted.
(In case you are wondering what the other thing is: Outsourcing)
3. Obviously, Pakistan can't be touched.(Uncle Sam won't like that.)
4. So who will be the scapegoat?
5. Why of course the top cops! So A.N Roy, the DGP, had to go.
6.Nobody remembers the Mumbai attacks anymore.
7.Hey, hold on, a committee has been set up, Right?
8. Guess we will do away with the commissioner too, no sweat!

Fine! That quite put it into perspective, right?
But what about these two things: 1.Ethics, 2.Accountability? Police guys have been relegated to obscurity, where they might be dealing with Red Tape-bound hassles, but why did the Political leadership fail to find it's weak links? Why didn't the HRD Minister resign? Or the CM of Maharashtra? (He did finally resign, owing more to the pressure oopar se than anything else, at a time when they realised the electoral fortunes of the High Command were at stake.) Ironically, my sister's text book wants her to know that Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned from Railway ministry when a random accident took place. Overkill? I will fight tooth and nail it's not. And c'mon, let's just see a fraction of that coming from these guys.
The other point worth mentioning is the current state of Indian Bureucracy. Leaving alone Corruption talk, even asking for humanity, level-headedness and character seems too much. Do we have a system that takes only invertebrate people? Or does it manufacture them? Why can't they stand up and demand the same fate for their Khadi-clad mastrers, as they are ordered for? It's an early childhood memory that Grampas would cajole and inspire kids to be IAS and IPS officers or (sic) 'Collectors'. Wonder if this 'Collector' word was taken too literally.

Anyways, this is not getting nowhere. A trial has been started which will go on sine die. Committees will Probe issues, then new committees will probe older committees and still newer committees will probe committees that probed other committees. (Care to find out what happened to Godhra victims? Or '84 riots' victims?) Status quo will be maintained.

And yet another news occupied a non-descript corner in an interior page in some local newspaper: " 17 Cops Slain by Naxalites in Jharkhand and Orissa".
Nobody reads. Nobody cares.

Role Models

• Che Guevara, because
  "At the cost of sounding ridiculous, let me say that a true revolutionary is guided by love."
• Steve Jobs, because
  "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish."
• Neo, because
  "There's no spoon, only you."
• Kurt Cobain, because
  "...Light my candle with a daze..."
• Virendra Sehwag, because
  "I play the ball. Not the bowler."
• George Orwell, because
  "Under the spreading Chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me..."
• Forrest Gump, because
  "Life is a box of chocolates...you never know what you gonna get..."
• Yehudi Menuhin, because
  " 'I'd give my life to Play the way you do.'
  'I did.' "

The Calvin and Hobbes Classics #1

Well here's the first of what you can call one of my regular columns over here: a striP of Calvin and Hobbes. ExPect to see more of these later. The images may be CoPyright Protected but like I care... ;-) (Bill Watterson hated merchandising after all...right?)

Voodoo Economics

I read this one on the Internet some time ago, and couldn't resist copying down, it's a little tedious to read but if you can be patient enough, it's great information:
Once there was a little island country. The land of this country was the tiny island itself. The total money in circulation was 2 dollars as there were only two pieces of 1 dollar coins circulating around.
There were 3 citizens living on this island country. A owned the land. B and C each owned 1 dollar.
B decided to purchase the land from A for 1 dollar. So, now A and C own 1 dollar each while B owned a piece of land that is worth 1 dollar.
The net asset of the country now = 3 dollars.
Now C thought that since there is only one piece of land in the country, and land is non producible asset, its value must definitely go up. So, he borrowed 1 dollar from A, and together with his own 1 dollar, he bought the land from B for 2 dollars.
A has a loan to C of 1 dollar, so his net asset is 1 dollar. B sold his land and got 2 dollars, so his net asset is 2 dollars. C owned the piece of land worth 2 dollars but with his 1 dollar debt to A, his net residual asset is 1 dollar. Thus, the net asset of the country = 4 dollars.
A saw that the land he once owned has risen in value. He regretted having sold it. Luckily, he has a 1 dollar loan to C. He then borrowed 2 dollars from B and acquired the land back from C for 3 dollars. The payment is by 2 dollars cash (which he borrowed) and cancellation of the 1 dollar loan to C.
As a result, A now owned a piece of land that is worth 3 dollars. But since he owed B 2 dollars, his net asset is 1 dollar. * B loaned 2 dollars to A. So his net asset is 2 dollars. * C now has the 2 coins. His net asset is also 2 dollars. * The net asset of the country = 5 dollars. A bubble is building up.
B saw that the value of land kept rising. He also wanted to own the land. So he bought the land from A for 4 dollars. The payment is by Borrowing 2 dollars from C, and cancellation of his 2 dollars loan to A.
As a result, A has got his debt cleared and he got the 2 coins. His net asset is 2 dollars. B owned a piece of land that is worth 4 dollars, but since he has a debt of 2 dollars with C, his net Asset is 2 dollars. C loaned 2 dollars to B, so his net asset is 2 dollars. The net asset of the country = 6 dollars; even though, the country has only one piece of land and 2 Dollars in circulation.
Everybody has made money and everybody felt happy and prosperous.
One day an evil wind blew, and an evil thought came to C’s mind. "Hey, what if the land price stop going up, how could B repay my loan. There is only 2 dollars in circulation, and, I think after all the land that B owns is worth at most only 1 dollar, and no more."
A also thought the same way.
Nobody wanted to buy land anymore.
So, in the end, A owns the 2 dollar coins, his net asset is 2 dollars. B owed C 2 dollars and the land he owned which he thought worth 4 dollars is now 1 dollar. So his net asset is only 1 dollar. C has a loan of 2 dollars to B. But it is a bad debt. Although his net asset is still 2 dollars, his Heart is palpitating. The net asset of the country = 3 dollars again.
So, who has stolen the 3 dollars from the country?
Of course, before the bubble burst B thought his land was worth 4 dollars. Actually, right before the collapse, the net asset of the country was 6 dollars on paper. B’s net asset is still 2 dollars, his heart is palpitating.
B had no choice but to declare bankruptcy. C has to relinquish his 2 dollars bad debt to B, but in return he acquired the land which is worth 1 dollar now.
A owns the 2 coins, his net asset is 2 dollars. B is bankrupt, his net asset is 0 dollar. (he lost everything) C got no choice but end up with a land worth only 1 dollar The net asset of the country = 3 dollars.
End of the story… but…
There is however a redistribution of wealth. A is the winner, B is the loser, C is lucky that he is spared.
A few points worth noting…
When a bubble is building up, the debt of individuals to one another in a country is also building up.
This story of the island is a closed system whereby there is no other country and hence no foreign debt. The worth of the asset can only be Calculated using the island’s own currency. Hence, there is no net loss.
An over-damped system is assumed when the bubble burst, meaning the land’s value did not go down to below 1 dollar.
When the bubble burst, the fellow with cash is the winner. The fellows having the land or extending loan to others are the losers. The asset could shrink or in worst case, they go bankrupt.
If there is another citizen D either holding a dollar or another piece of land but refrains from taking part in the game, he will neither win nor Lose. But he will see the value of his money or land go up and down like a see saw.
When the bubble was in the growing phase, everybody made money.
If you are smart and know that you are living in a growing bubble, it is worthwhile to borrow money (like A) and take part in the game. But you must know when you should change everything back to cash.
As in the case of land, the above phenomenon applies to stocks as well.
The actual worth of land or stocks depend largely on psychology.
…….who is responsible for this? Is it me or you? Or the policymakers or the regulator or the false banking system or the government or all of us?

And now imagine the total rise in the worth of the land if any two guys would start a war of attrition?

Windows Errors in Haiku

Here's an interesting e-mail forward doing the round nowadays:

Microsoft Windows Errors - in Haiku
The Web site you seek
Cannot be located,
butCountless more exist.
-----------------------------------------------
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
-----------------------------------------------
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
------------------------------------------------
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
--------------------------------------------------
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
---------------------------------------------------
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
-------------------------------------------
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
---------------------------------------------------
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
--------------------------------------------------
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
---------------------------------------------------
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
---------------------------------------------------
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
------------------------------------------------
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
---------------------------------------------------
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
---------------------------------------------------

Curtain Raiser

Check 1..2...3...
Alright so Blogger works...well so does Tumblr...and Worpdress...and what not...but the Point is that I now have a Piece of the information suerhighway and my utterly craPPy musings will be showered on you at regular intervals...(Amen!). So the first thing i gotta do is add the feeds from the half a dozen (content-free) blogs I have created with a multitude of highly forgettable URLs...but i can manage that...more to come...do subscribe. Peace!

P.S.-notice the caital P's? well the keyboard has got some serious comPatibility issues with this alPhabet thanks to which I now know the utterly useless fact that the ASCII code for P is alt+0080...and the on-screen keyboard is a Pain in the...ahem...you know where...so...well, such is life.