September 11 - A day of remembrance

This day appears so vivid in my memory... Who can forget this day, when the nation of America was threatened, for the first time in its own shores? Who can forget when the symbols of economic prosperity of the world - the WTC are brought down by a group of evil men believing in bigoted ideology?

As a coincidence, on this same day in 1893 Swami Vivekanda spread his word of religious tolerance and equality of religions in the Chicago Conferance. On this same day in 1906, Mahatma Gandhiji started his legendary Sathyagraha that ensure peace and justice for a billion people and stood as an inspiration for freedom all over the world, right from Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela. And a great chain of events took place after this 9/11 is standing to put an end to the evil flames of religious extremism.

A number of conspiracy theories are set to make this disaster look like a government plot and they are as credible as a conspiracy theory that all governments on earth are controlloed by some aliens from Jupiter. People think that America is invicible and the terrorists are weak people who cannot hit at America, unless there is an American government angle to it. So, what about the countless people who die everyday due to bombs, in Mumbai, Kashmir, Israel, South-east Asia, Chechenya, Darfur, Baghdad...? Are all these US government plots? The truth is that a very vicious terror group has started to engulf the world and to understminate their power is the sure recipe for peril in the world.

It is very easy to criticise and find fault with the establishment, as though given a chance we could individually set right all the faults in the whole world. It is so easy to underestimate the complexity of running an establishment as people who had even not even made attempts to take leadership over a small group of dozen people, would know. It is so easy to cry that in retrospect, we should not have interfered in Middle East. But, what most people don't understand that the perils of America (and the world) came when US government tried to stand aloof from the problems in the rest of the world. When US didnt care that a new group of parties took over the government of Germany in 1930's, world had to pay with the World War. When US didnt care that a group of religious zealots are taking over Afganistan in early 90's, the world had to pay with Taliban (who brutally treated humans).

In reality, the world needs strong leadership who can guide us with the pursuit of freedom. China aids and supports all the brutal regimes in the world - Sudan, Burma, etc. and Russia is not better. Europe is weak to handle anything. And no other nation stands up to sholder the responsibility. So, without question we need a leadership. America probably may not be the ideal. But, we might have no choice. We need someone... Otherwise the world would skip into Chaos as happening in most parts of Africa and Asia.

On this solemn day, we should look forward to a world of freedom and democracy and put all the crazy conspiracy theorists to rest. World has too many problems and let us build stronger governments in this pursuit.

Indian passengers 'harassed' by Dutch - True or False?

Abstract: "What would you do when a dozen people talking in an unknown language, having the racial profile as South Asian, all Muslims, talking and passing excitedly on cellphones in a plane, changing the seats repeatedly, and don't repeatedly listen to the flight attendent's orders when Air travel world over has been placed at heightened threat level? Discomfort a few people for few hours or put your entire plane to risk?"

 

1. What happened?

Twelve Indians aboard a Northwest flight headed to Mumbai triggered a terror alert that caused the plane to be turned back to the Amsterdam's Schipol airport and led to the temporary detention of those alleged suspects till the enforcement agencies couldn't prove any case against them. The Indian government acted swiftly and immediately provided consular access and also intervention through MEA (Ministry of External Affairs) that led to the affected passengers freed within 30 hours of the incident. The incident caused a bit of friction between the Indian and Dutch governments and the Indian media also had a field day with claims of racialism, imperialism and things like that, and the embarrassed Dutch government, were now at the receiving end and were at a loss of words.

2. Indian Media's Reaction

This issue involves racial, national & religious diversity, privacy and the respect for individual property, the right of countries to protect their sovereignty, the over powering enemy lying everywhere and most importantly the role of individuals in maintaining propriety and decency and a respect for the great running of such a complex system as international travel. This issue thus can't be over-simplified and requires great deliberation, but I'm sure, as I'm writing this the Indian media will be shouting at the top of their throat blasting the Dutch.

After the August 10th bomb plot 'defoiling' (when British agencies uncovered a huge plot involving the 'usual suspects' Muslim fundamentalists trying to blast a dozen planes in the US-UK sector) - air travel had become a messy one. Nations are at a high alert (for the first time, US kept its threat level in Red, the highest possible one), everything from shampoos to laptops to ipods to all handbaggage contents are all restricted, and a number of planes have been grounded, delayed and reversed on threat suspicion (alteast 4 this week in the US and Western Europe). In such a scenario, when intelligence and enforcement agencies are clueless against a mighty and invi(n)sible enemy, when a slightest movement of carelessness can put the life of hundreds of passengers at a grave danger, a group of highly animated and excited Muslims doing suspicious things -  passing cellphones (when cellphone usage has been clearly banned in the airplanes) among dozen people, talking excitedly in an incomprehensible language (Urdu to make matters worse), having South Asian/Arab racial profile what would you do?

3. Law Enforcement Agencies' Dilemma

As most passengers felt, I believe that the enforcement agencies took the right decision and detained the suspects. After all, a combination of such things are not a day-to-day thing and should also enable people to act with more propriety when they move with other cultures. Values in one culture may not be the same in another. And race and religion matter a lot - whether you like it or not. How often do you see a While Female strapped with bombs blast a train, car or a plane, and how often do you see an Islamic Male doing the same thing? The numbers are stupendously different and thus people ought to be treated differently. A white female (or even a white male) cannot be treated in the same way as  an Islamic male for security purposes, due to a wide range of probability difference. This is like a corridor in the house and a freeway comparison - you cannot cross the freeway in the sameway as you would cross a corridor, just because of the fact that the difference in the probability of threat.

When the infamous 7/7 blasts were happening in London, I was stopping over at London enroute Schipol (the airport where this harassment incident happened). I was pulled over by the security just before boarding the plane as my profile as an Asian matches the criminals in the incident. I was briefly questioned and even after finding a small knife (absent-mindedly left in the office bag by me) they handled the situation calmly and left without a major incident. I could either shout that they pulled me over and pressurized me just because I was an Asian and cry all kind of racial crap. But, the truth is they were doing an admirable job and a few minutes of different treatment and an hassle of extra check is worth the safety and security they ensure me during the travel.

4. What we could do to reduce our ordeal?

The best thing the people could do is avoid all kinds of suspicious talk and you have to be 5 times more careful if you are non-White and South-Asian, and 10 times more if you are a Muslim. You have to respect the probability of attack that you could bring and use newspapers to find out how many of your folks threaten the security worldwide. Basic tips to reduce hassle:

1. Avoid any sentence that involves the use of banned words like bomb, guns, hijack, etc
2. Try to talk in a common language of the land (most probably in English) or quietly in your local language, if you are amidst a large group of people of various races
3. Don't carry any stuff that could even vaguely resemble a weapon (like water guns)
4. Don't over-portray your religious or ethnic stuff. It is not illegal, but it raises the level of suspicion, after all most crimes in the world are committed by religious zealots
5. Most importantly, listen and obey the officials in charge (airport authorities, flight attendents... depending on the location) ASAP.
6. Know your rights and ask for expert help (like consulate access or lawyer consult) when in deep trouble

Many of these information can't be put by the agencies due to the imagined racial equality and other rights groups, but as we know that the reality is always different from the ideal, we need to be pretty careful about what we convey to others (spoken or otherwise) and to avoid the ordeal as these 12 folks, be civilized and have proper sense of decency and sensibility and know that air travel is not as simple as it looks like.

References:

• India lodges strong protest over Schiphol episode
• Rules or bias- The question is in the air
• Arrested Indians treated inhumanly
• India says Dutch regret arrest of men on US plane

Pluto - No longer a planet

In an interesting move, a large body of astronomers collected under the aegis of IAU (International Astronomers Union) decided to demote the status of Pluto to a dwarf planet, instead of regular planet. It means our solar system has only 8 planets and not 9, as we studied till now.

The declassification seems to have been done in view of a majority's concerns of Pluto being a largely frozen surface and dissimiliar in composition to the other 8 planets, and 3 other bodies in the solar system - Charon 3, a satellite of Pluto, 2003 UB313, and a huge asteroid between Mars and Jupiter qualify to become a planets, if Pluto (with relaxed admission norms) continues to be accepted as a planet.

Lots of rewriting of school textbooks needs to be done, around the world :)

How do you feel, having to lose one interesting planet from our system?

References:

World mourns poor Pluto's plight

Pluto Loses Designation, Sues IAU

Is 8 enough- Reaction mixed to Pluto's demotion

Pluto No Longer Considered a Planet

Banning Coke and Pepsi? You must be kidding, my dear Indians

I read the reports of Indian states banning Pepsi and Coke, with great dismay. Not that I don't support the use of healthy drinks like Coconut drink and properly purified fruit juices (do they exist in Indian??), but I don't think banning Coke and Pepsi has any scientific validity.

To go back in history - in fall 2003, an obsure Delhi-based NGO called CSE (assused as blackmailers or praised as watchdogs, respectively by the two sides of the warring parties) published results stating that Coke and Pepsi had high levels of pesticide content, much more than the European and American levels. Pepsi and Coke sales fell down drastically and it was welcome finding then and forced the companies to adopt better standards and in short a strong voice for the consumer. In 3 years, they did a lot of better their product in recommendation of the findings. But, again this year CSE published one more finding and again they stated that Coke/Pepsi contained 'high' levels of pesticide. The results seem to be pretty scientific and I'm not questioning much on the results. But, people can play with how they present a finding. I'll give you a fictious example:

"In a major car race, America and Russia competed, in the height of the cold war. The race was intense and America won and the Russians lost. But, the Russian newspapers published it as - 'In a major car race, where teams including America and Russia competed, Russia bagged the second place, while America just got the second from the last'"

The fact that the Russian newspapers published was true, but the way in which it was presented was unethical. It seemed as though America lost and Russia won, though the fact is otherwise. Similarly, the CSE finding also includes results where milk and fruits and drinking water contains many times more pesticide content (and hence harmful) than Coke and Pepsi. Should you advice people to stop drinking milk and eating fruits? Then, the outdoor air in India is so polluted and ladden with million type of germs and toxic material like asbestos, lead, zinc and carbon monoxide. So, the next advice would be to stop breathing??

But, Indian governments, in keeping up with their reputation, banned all colas (and not the indiscriminate use of pesticides). Crazy... Thatz what the whole issue is. People don't accept the fact the fact that they allow farmers to indiscrimately use fertilizers and pesticides that pollute the land and the water bodies and the local industries indiscriminately pollute its air and river bodies. And, as always, they scapegoat a major company and use some obscure results to enforce a ban.

Pepsi and Coke are a major boon in a country like India, where you can't trust any natural thing. You can drink water right out of the taps or wells, you can directly eat fruits from vendor or drink those horribly unhygenic cane juices. Fruit juices in most parts use unhygenic parts and/or contaminated water/milk. What do you want me to do? Drink those 1000 times more polluted cane juices and tap water, instead of highly pure Coke, Pepsi (for Indian standards --- European and American standards don't have much meaning in a country where 500 millions stays hungry).

Indians, come on and be realistic. I'm not saying that Coke and Pepsi are healthy drinks or they don't contain pesticide residues. But, you should always choose the lesser of the evil. If you get clean water and coconut drink, make it the first priority. If you have certified fruit juices, make it second priority. But, without that Coke/Pepsi is your first choice. Don't let the anti-American lobbies and biased and vested interested politicians to dictate you on the matters of health.

What I did in the last 2 months

Since, I was not blogging I must have been doing something in the last two months. Oops, nothing meaningful comes out. Anyway, I'll summarize what I did.

First, and most importantly I defended my thesis (on June 5th... google for what happened on June 5th) without offending my dignity. So, they allowed me to pass and here I am - Balaji Viswanathan, M.S. The defense was slightly strenuous and lots of technical and math questions. Pretty grilling indeed.

Then, my OPT got delayed. It happens that my OPT application (required for students to work in the US, fulltime, for a year without a valid work visa, after they complete their graduation) that I applied in April is not processed  yet. However, to have some sympathy for the applicants, the USCIS allow for the issue of a temporary work permit (valid for 3 months) when the OPT is not processed even after 3 months of application. So, here I'am working with this temporary work permit, though fortunately my H-1B is approved, recently.

I was supposed to start working on June 19th and made all preparations, right from booking an apartment to booking air ticket. Alas, the work permit caused a 1 month delay and left me wondering. I made a "brilliant" idea of using this time to visit India (in spite of the warnings from my company's Legal team stating the risks of coming back to US, since I have finished my MS and have no legitimate reason to come back).

I burnt my pockets and extended my credit limits and went to India. I happily attended the 3 marriages -  2 of my cousin's and one of my close friend's. I went for a tour-de-temple and had fun in enjoying Cauvery (a river in South India) in full spate. Also had a laser surgery to bring my eye power to 0 (so that I dont require any more wearing of glasses and lens). I also spent a lot of time shopping, going to my secondary school and high school and college and had nice talk with all the teachers there.

After coming back, I picked up my stuff from Baltimore and bidded adieu to the place where I did my Masters. Then headed to Seattle on the 3rd of July. There I went for July 4th celebrations and then did time pass by going around Seattle and learning to drive and reading the historic novel of Sivagamiyin Sabadham. Then on July 24th, I joined Microsoft as a Software Design Engineer in the Windows core team. We are working with developing tools for Remote Procedure Calls. The work is cool and having fun with learning Microsoft's work culture and environment. I'll put a detailed post on the non-confidential information about this great campus, soon.

Then, last week I bought a bike and using it to ride it to office.

 

Thatz it from me for now. Will update you guys later.

Back to Biking

After a gap of 2 years, I'm again back to biking thanks to the biker-friendly area of Redmond. I was a pretty much enthusiastic cyclist between the age of 12 to 21 and pretty much used cycle during all of my high school and college. I had a pretty good race bike in my college and drove it more than 10K miles in 4 years. I loved it a lot and miss it greatly. I've always dreamed of driving around the world in a bike (though it might never come true, I can at least try to go for longer bike tours).

I recognize that biking is a win-win situation for all the parties - the biker, the road users, the community, the government and the mother nature. By getting enough outdoor exercise the biker saves time in the gym and keeps himself fit always. The constant flow of blood to the brain in long, casual rides helps in thinking a lot. And more, it saves lots of money over riding cars. For the other road users, it saves a lot of space (imagine a rider on a SUV compared with 10 cyclists riding in the same space. Though, it brings a slight inconvenience due to slower speeds, on the longer run it is always beneficial to the other motor vehicles. The community benefits by lesser pollution and lesser wear and tear of the road. The government benefits by greater energy security (even if there is an energy crisis, the bikers can keep moving), lesser dependence on basic services (of highway system, metallic industries etc.) and lesser gasoline consumption. And finally, we do a great service to the environment by using lesser materials (20 to 50 times less than a big car) and fuel.

For all these reasons, I'm back to biking and doing my commute of 6 miles from my home to office in this. In the morning, I do 3/4ths of my commute by taking the bike in the bus and in the evening I use the bike trails to come home. The bike trails involve going along a lake, crossing a small river, crossing a major park, going along various sporting facilities, climbing down a small hill and moving alongside alongside a freeway with vehicles going at jet speed. In short, a very interesting and thrilling ride.

For this ride, I bought an amazing race bike (see the picture on the left) and it is similar to my older bike used during my college. So, I love it even more. With its carbon-fiber parts and 27-gear system, I got it at a much lower price (after bargaining a lot) of $900 including accessories.

I want to go on longer tours too. To start with, today I went on a tour around the major towns of Redmond, Kirkland and Bellevue at lunch. One enthusiastic MS biker organizes it every week and due to overcast conditions no body turned up today except the author - the 'brave' one. We went on a hilly track and I was gasping and that 22 km ride in lunch sapped all my energy as I was riding after 2 years of inactivity and have never driven on a hilly terrain.

But as it happens, I shall always stay 'brave' and go for more tours like these. Let me put future posts on other tours that I'm going to take part in it. Wait and see to see a great cyclist-blogger in me.

I'm back to Blogging

Hey Guys... Sorry for the long hiatus. I'm now goin to restart my vigorous blogging habit. I'll write detailed posts on what was happening in the last 2 months to me and to the world, in general.

In short, my status changed from a Masters student to a Software Design Engineer in the Windows core team of Microsoft with me successfully defending my Masters thesis in June.

I was pretty lax in my communication (through blogs, orkut, mails and phone) and now I'm gonna pack all my energy to get me back to the communication forest.

World moving toward mediocrity

This is one topic that is troubling me for the last few years. Is the world moving towards mediocrity? Every era had its share of great persons in every field and the process of producing the greats kept on getting accelerated ever since 15th century. People like da Vinci, Newton, Keppler, Bismark, Adam Smith, Shakesphere... kept on arising in various fields and created various fields and revolutionized the entire society.

By the dawn of 20th century the process was in extreme speed. The world was seeing doyens like Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Neils Bohr, Alan M. Turing, Richard Feynman, Marie Curie, Max Plank, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Swami Vivekananda, Wright Brothers, Marconi, Edison, von Neumann and Claude Shannon.

But, can you name any living person now or any person born in our era (after 1930) who could belong to this hall of fame, of the world greats?

The world during the period of 1870 to 1930 saw so many inventions and breakthroughs. Extrordinary breakthroughs in Physics came in the form of Quantum theory, Electromagnetic theory, electricity, radio transimission, Semiconductors, Superconductivity, Radioactivity and Relativity (... I cant recount every great thing) and great inventions came in the form of telephone, radio, x-rays, electric motors, automobiles, airplanes, microwaves, movies.... How many great things have we invented in our era?

Where do we get to see physists like Einstein, Bohr, Marie Curie, Linus Pauling, Nichol Tesla, Feynmann and Mathematicians like Kurt Godel, Ramanujam, David Hilbert, Max Plank, Turing, Claude Shannon, in the current era? Where do we get the great economists like Keynes and Fisher or psychologists like Freud? Can you name atleast one great inventor of current time, whose work could be compared with Edison or Bell or Wright Brothers or Neumann? Why didnt we have such great persons in our era? Why the flame of the greats got almost extinguished by the 1960's? If we ask a person in 1940 about the list of top 10 all-time great physists, the list would countain atleast half from their own time. But, what about now? Can you name atleast one current physist who could be placed in the all-time list?

How many great breakthroughs in Computer Science are brought after its first 20 years? We are using almost the same model of Turing and most of the concepts (right from databases to algorithms to networks) are just refined, polished and engineered, but nothing revolutionarily new is produced that is comparable to the works of the first 20 years. Why didnt we do much in space sciences after 1960's and why didnt we produce any great airplane in the last 40 years?

In the previous era, world saw extrordinary leaders in the form of Winston Churchill, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Nehru, Mao, Hilter and Stalin (the last two are criminals against humanity) who commanded uncomparable control over their regions. There were extraordinary literary persons like Emerson, Mark Twain, Ayn Rand and Bernard Shaw.... There were these uncomparable aggressive businessmen like Herny Ford, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Alfred P. Sloan (the man who broughtup General Motors) . Where are their successors?

While we should expect the process of producing great things should have accelerated in the last 70 years, with the revolutions in communication and transportaion and globalization, it is dissapointingly low. I suspect that there is something that is fundamentally wrong. The great instituitions like MIT, Princeton, Cornell and Stanford are no longer producing great things that can change humanity. The papers are more of engineering improvements than revolutionizing things. The professors produce more of good works than extraordinary breakthroughs.

Fundamentally, there is an enormous pressure to perform. Students have to worry about careers, PhD candidates have to worry about graduating, professors have to worry about tenures and later a decent publication career. And this produces the fear that acts against the guts to produce something new. If a physics student proposes for something like a work of general theory of relativity or if a computer science student produces a new computing model, it will most probably be rejected and the admission committee or later the professor might advice the guy to work towards more ahievable goals. And the student might not have guts to go further and work against all odds and might even quit researching.

Thus, we are caught in a circle of mediocrity and we need great force to break this cycle. For this to happen, the current era people have to realize that history would call us the era of mediocrity and to avoid that we need to do something revolutionary.

Human rights activists are Stupid

I read with great interest the story of a 4 year old running for 65 kms in India. It was so amazing and being from a country which seldom produces olympic medals, I was thrilled. I always believed that India's greatest sporting talent remains hidden in rural India, which is untapped by all the sporting bodies. Thus, 90% of India, wherein almost all the potential remains, is underutilized due to red-tapism and poor facilities. Thus, this kid's achievement is a big thing as he is from that 90% India. But, immediately the insane humans rights activists are agog.

I always felt that the world's insanest human beings were within the forums of human rights. Those crazy fellows who dont dare to condemn crime empathaize with teh criminal instead of the victim. I never found any human rights activist voicing concern for a victim, though almost always they voice for the criminal who victimized the poor fellow. Now, those lunatics have immediately jumped to criticize the boy's coach and even threaten to implicate with child abuse and planning for murder. What the heck is this?

The human rights activist have not sounded anything when that boy was sold for $20 by his mother. They dont do anything to rescue the poor children from bonded labor, young girls from devilist girl rackets, they do nothing to change the condition of malnutrion and disease problems. But, when a success story is produced they jump to criticize the coach.

Once again, I'm convinced that the human rights activists are lunatics.

Blog in action soon

Sorry for not keeping my blog updated. I'm submerged in Thesis work and so having lots of articles at the draft stage that have not crossed the stage for publishing. Updates will be there by next week.

Take a Break.