I never looked at you that way!!

I was leafing through TV channels today and came across this comedy show where a stand-up comedian expressed his profound observation regarding the way women behave when proposed by men. Here’s an extract with little improvisations from yours truly.

Typical response of a girl when proposed by a guy who has been her friend from quite sometime…

Girl: I thought we are just good friends…

Guy: Yes… we still are … and we make a good couple too

Girl: I don’t know what to say … I never looked at you that way… you see, you are a great person… I like you a lot…. but … I can’t mix relations with friendship…

Guy: Why can’t we work this out?

Girl: please don’t take me in a wrong way … you deserve someone much better than me …

---- Silence ----

Girl: See… I want our friendship to continue … it is very valuable for me… you have always helped me in difficult times … been there when I called you up middle of the night for help ….

Guy: …. (Disappointed)

Girl: Now don’t be so disappointed … I will search you a good girl for you…

Personally, I feel nine out of ten guys have experienced this situation in their lives. What freaks them out this same girl going out with a completely stupid guy whom she has met just 10 days back! I have never understood what goes through the girl’s mind… I have never understood that sentence … “I didn’t look at you that way”. This situation is like… you are in an interview for a job that you desperately need and this is what the interviewer tells you at the end of your interview …

Interviewer: Your resume is one of the best I have seen…

You: Thank you.

Interviewer: You make a great fit to our company … your attitude … your skill set is exactly what we need for this job.

You: Thank you.

Interviewer: But we won’t be able to take you for the job. We prefer a less suitable candidate.

You: Why Sir?

Interviewer: You see … You are a great person… you deserve a much better company that ours

You: This is my dream company sir… I would like to work here.

Interviewer: It is your humbleness that you attended our interview… I don’t think our company will do justice to your talents. If you want, I can help you in identifying suitable company for you.

How would you feel at the end of such interview… that’s how guys feel being turned down with that stupid reason… You know… it still confuses me… what does a girl mean when she says “I never looked at you that way”? It generates so many questions….

1. Does she look at each guy in different ways and identify potential candidates who will fit her specific needs?

2. To be precise, where does she look?

3. How to make a girl look at ‘that’ way?

I bet even the girl can’t answer these questions… this is my theory about girls …

While being as friend with a guy, 90% of the girls put up an external character. A character that is completely different from what she is in reality. Even though you hear stories about her ‘adventures’ from your other friends, you would rather trust the girl than your other friends… basically you went dumb in her love… all the while, the girl would be feeling stupid about you. Basically… she wants you to take advantage of her closeness… doing something exciting …. but as a dumb guy who is in love… you would behave in such a predictable way … and eventually when you propose… she just turns you down by saying “I never looked at you that way”.

Moral of the story – Before proposing a girl… make her look at you the so called “that way”. Do something exciting … take control… be adventurous… don’t be a predictive dumb idiot… God has given you brain… use it…. and then see the after effects…

And for all the girls who are reading this blog… I love you all!

Lovers and idiots

Believe me there are times when you have get so many thoughts and you find yourselves in such a helpless situation. I don’t know which thought I need to perceive. Books, papers, gym, robotic design, skateboarding, blogging, learning guitar … ah I am exhausted just thinking of all these. All of these get planned for weekend and when weekend arrives, I wake up at 2 PM afternoon, watch TV for a while (Today, I saw the movie called Rocky Balboa) and the weekend is over. Great! I can’t digest it so easily. I need to learn time-management.

The part of the problem is “being single”. The situation somehow makes you very careless and disorganized. At 22 ½, it’s really a wrong age for me for looking out for someone. I believe it’s the transition age… the age where you just want to have sex and nothing else. Of course, opportunities can be created and desires can be fulfilled but I want to rather go the orthodox way. Not because I like being orthodox but because of my nature. If I try it out once and say, I succeed and I like it … then I might get involved in doing it again and again, which I believe would do no good to my character in long term. I would rather go for that so called everlasting love… where two people make complete idiot of themselves and yet they like it. To be frank, even though life gives you lot of opportunities of being an idiot, there aren’t many opportunities where you would like to be one. Falling in love is one such opportunity where you want to be one.

Ah… Didn’t I just call all lovers as idiots? Let me take my words back. I spend couple of minutes thinking about it… I think they are most fortunate ones. The people who don’t have love are the idiots! Yeah, this sounds more convincing. They are idiots because… they are missing the creation’s most beautiful feeling … and there is no better reason than that. A feeling that can make even a dumb idiot sound more convincing than Einstein or Newton.... a feeling that can make even an useless idiot believe that he/she is most significant … a feeling that can make even a worse coward to take on the most powerful … a feeling that can make even a worst criminal confess his dreadful sins…. and vice-versa of all the actions that I just mentioned.

Basically, love is a very powerful weapon that can be used for one’s advantage or disadvantage, purely depending on the intellectual capabilities of a person. One reason why I earlier said lovers as idiots is because they neither using their love for their advantage or disadvantage. They are just living a stupid life! When you are in love, you can achieve so many things… you have the unconditional support … I don’t understand what’s stopping them. Maybe, what they call as love is not love at all. It might just be what they call… compromised life!

Having said that, it’s very frustrating though to be alone, typing this stupid blog which no one reads and hope of mercy from God. In a way, I am saving all these memories. Probably, when I am little old, I will read all of these again and have a good laugh.

Hopefully, the situation might change soon…it’s just that matter of time. I am looking forward for a gift from God very soon. INSHALLAH.

By the way, I saved some of my posts in another blog called http://mohdabubakr.blogspot.com and all my future posts would be posted both on http://nextnewton.spaces.live.com and http://mohdabubakr.blogspot.com

Obama – Commanding Respect through peace and dialogue

Often after the prayers at mosques, most of the Muslims in India participate in discussions on the world affairs and issues faced by Muslim community. These discussions take place in disorganized groups of ten to fifteen people and topics of discussions include liberation of Palestine, war crimes by Allied powers in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. These discussions have a huge influence on the mindsets of lower class Indian Muslims who don’t have access to Internet and English Media. On 13^th February, after the Salat-al-Juma (afternoon prayers performed by Muslim on Friday), I saw a group of young and old men discussing something and they all had a cheer on their face. It was a surprise for me as I never seen such a broad cheer on their faces. Silently, I joined the group to know the discussion and the reason for their happiness. A middle aged man was sharing the content of Obama’s speech delivered on National Prayer breakfast which he had seen on Internet. Each person part of the group was cheering every single sentence of the speech. This was the first time in my life time I saw an American President commanding respect in the heart’s of these people.

I have seen the anger towards George Bush Sr., I have seen the anger towards Bill Clinton and I have seen the anger towards George Bush Jr. but when it comes to Barrack Obama there is a radical shift in the opinions. Even a common man thousands of miles away recognizes the sense of friendliness in his talks. On National Prayer breakfast, Obama called out the Golden rule – the love for fellow human beings irrespective of their religion and color. While what he spoke wasn’t something unknown to people but the manner in which it was conveyed had a profound impact on everyone who heard the speech. Quoting the verses directly from Bible, Torah and Hadith and expressing his trust in peace and dialogue is probably one of the finest speeches delivered by an American president since long time.

There is a difference between commanding respect and demanding respect – while waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq tried to demand respect, Obama’s way of expressing his ideas on world peace and prosperity has commanded respect not just for himself but for the fellow Americans. Inherently, everyone understands the concept of peace - the problem arises when power induces arrogance among presidents and leaders. With thousands dead in Palestine and chaotic situation in Pakistan with Taliban taking over the western province, every move of Obama will be scrutinized and talked. The coming days will be the testing grounds for Obama on his capability to negotiate and establish peace and fight against terrorism. And as far as Taliban is concerned, clearly the momentum is towards Obama. Muslim communities across the world are not in the favor of Taliban’s extremist rule and Obama is going to have their full support in fighting against Taliban. But for the benefit of the innocent people living in western areas of Pakistan, if Obama negotiates a deal with Taliban in establishing democracy and human rights - it will become one of the greatest revolutions that have taken place in modern times.

February 20 3:05 PM

2009

Freedom to question - Continues

Thank you for all the appreciation most of you gave me for my previous post “Freedom to question”. Of course, there were few criticisms too. I posted an abstract of it in a public forum as a reply to a question why Indian students are losing out on creativity. Subsequently, after I posted the abstract, the following was the comment

“I would disagree with the timelines. There were significant pioneering contributions from India in the fields of science, astronomy  and mathematics till ~1000 AD and am sure those would not have been made if people during that time were not questioning”

I followed with a question…

May I know the pioneering contributions from India in the fields of science, astronomy and mathematics till ~1000 AD? I know about “zero” being discovered in India. What else was discovered between 0 AD – 1000 AD ?

While there were several people who answered about the contributions done by Indians, some of which I wasn’t aware of, there was one reply that was very annoying.

Are you Indian?  I am not even talking abt the mind, body soul kind… Just plain citizenship wise, born and brought up in india, are you?

This was my reply to the above comment.

Thank you for that comment. You actually helped me in putting my word in a more understandable way. For your kind information, I am born and brought up in ‘Republic of India’. By mind, I want to work for scientific development of India, my soul I get touched by all the disheartening issues happening in our country and my body (Genetically, I believe I am Dravidian but I am waiting for genome sequence to get decoded and then I might undergo a test to know my ancestral origins.)… oh yeah.. when I die, my body will be mixed in Indian Soil.  Do you want to see a photocopy of my passport or birth certificate? ;-)

-- Continuing the discussion

In my earlier post, I stated that there is no freedom for questioning in India, look precisely that’s what happened here. I asked a question but in return my nationality gets questioned. Of course, asking someone’s nationality is also a question and I am OK with answering it. But what I want to highlight here is the manner in which it was questioned. It is not a particular person’s mistake - it is more of our general instinct. When someone questions us, instead of giving answers, we either try to silence them or question them such that they never ask questions again.

Note, this has happened in forum consisting of some of the most talented people of India. Imagine how hard it is for an ordinary person to ask a question in a public forum in India. He/she would get roasted with all sorts of comments until he/she compromises and adjusts with the people around.

Asking questions and finding right answers is of paramount importance when it comes to nation building. For that matter, asking questions and finding relevant answers is of paramount importance even when it comes to developing great software. I am sure many of you had brain storming sessions where every nook and corner of the application is questioned and discussed before it goes into market. Why? Because questions propel us to find right answers. And right answers help us in improving. Merely following what has been told to you ultimately results in collateral damage to the whole system.

Coming back to my question that I asked, May I know the pioneering contributions from India in the fields of science, astronomy and mathematics till ~1000 AD?

There is a reason why I asked that question. Scientific contributions have always existed in the darkest period of history. What makes the difference is whether it’s a pioneering contribution or just another contribution? No doubt, ‘zero’ was the pioneering contribution and I am sure there were many more contributions that we have failed to recognize and evangelize them globally such that contributors receive their formal recognition.

Part of the problem lies with the fact that we mixed our science with metaphysical reasons. Also, when you formally call something as science, one should be prepared for scientific scrutiny.

Consider for example the field of Vaastu-shastra, when my house was being constructed, someone suggested that Kitchen should have windows eastwards because it is Vaastu complaint. I asked him “why is it so?” He gave me some metaphysical reasons which had no relation with science. So, I spent some time researching and thinking, is there any scientifically valid reason for Kitchen having windows eastwards? And believe me, I found answers - sunlight consists of UV rays that kills bulk of the bacteria/germs. The intensity of UV spectrum of Sunlight increases from morning to noon and later decreases. Kitchens are generally the breeding grounds for bacteria and germs and having a window eastwards will bring in the UV rich sunlight killing the bacteria. Note, UV rays have harmful effects on humans, that’s why size of the window and it’s altitude also matters. Now, the obvious question arises that whether Vaastu-shastra is a branch of science or branch or something else? I believe that it started as a scientific study, but somehow when people failed to market it as science - they mixed some metaphysical reasons to sell it. Similar marketing tactics were used for other branches of sciences developed in India. When people started questioning about the validity of certain things, we started the culture of not questioning our elders. And even today’s that’s continuing.

Point to be noted, I am not trying to hurt anyone’s sentiments here. All am I saying is, we need to question to find the right answers. And unless we live in an environment where people are allowed to ask questions, there is a little chance of being the best in world in coming days.

February 14 5:28 PM

2009

Freedom to question

During my engineering, I had an opportunity of visiting around 30 engineering colleges across Andhra Pradesh for papers at technical symposiums. My first technical paper was on ‘Analysis of Non Linear Schrodinger equations for Optical solitons’ which I presented at a National Level Symposium called Pragnya-2005 for which I received the best paper award. In the coming years, I touched upon different fields such as decoupling capacitors in VLSI, energy complexity in embedded systems, power frameworks in cellular communications, etc. One of the criticisms I always had from my professors was that I never attached myself to one field and I can only make big if I stick to one field. Probably, it was due to my curiosity and ability to question everything that propelled me to work on different fields. Sometimes, it was funny - I used to have long debates in class-rooms with professors on a particular question, disrupting the whole class. Sometimes, I was warned to keep quiet and I believe rest of the times, professors enjoyed debating with me.

While participation in every symposium was a unique experience, I often felt that there is something profoundly missing among the students. For most of them, a technical paper meant understanding something that has not been taught. Rarely, I got to see the ability to challenge a technical idea. Of course, their situation indirectly helped me in winning quite many ‘Best student paper awards’ but somewhere I felt guilty about it. Sometimes, I felt these students are too humble in accepting whatever they have been told than questioning why it is true. To make things worse, the attitude of being too humble has deeply affected their creativity. This problem arises not just at school or college but rather starts at home itself.

As per the values of general Indian family, children are told right from our childhood that it is not correct to question your elders and accept whatever they say. The unfortunate state is that, the child loses his/her ability to question about an issue/problem and over the period of time becomes non-creative. The non-creative child grows up and again preaches the same values to his/her children and this cycle has been continuing since past two thousand years. That’s precisely the reason why over last two thousand years, we have produces such less number of scientists and intellectuals. To make things more clear, let me categorically state certain examples

- Existence of superstition even today in most parts of India is an example of the inability of people to question its validity. “My forefathers believed, so I believe it too” … That’s the answer you find from these people when asked.

- Glorification of works done by ancestors is another habit of Indians. Just because, people merely follow what has been told to them than doing something creative, some primitive work done by ancestors becomes so sacred that it can’t questioned.

- Suppression of creativity in the name of religion, culture and traditions is rampant in most part of the country. People still treat scientific advances as foreign invasion on their religion, culture and traditions.

I can go on and on giving these kinds of examples. Believe me, most people reading this blog post would argue with me that “are you saying listening to elders is wrong?” than understanding that all am I saying is “a child should be given liberty to question the existing logic and come up with his/her own solutions if there exists a flaw”.

Imagine, the state of the same child who was forced never to question and challenge the custom/tradition/religion/culture goes to college/school, do you think he/she will question the teachers about validity of something doubtful in textbooks? How can you expect such child to challenge the scientific ideas when he/she isn’t given liberty to question at home? And all this makes, most of the Indian students become too humble to accept whatever they have been told.

Just another day, I was reading an interesting blog where there was an anonymous comment

“I don't know about ** in India but I work - as an Australian - for an Indian company. We did some 'cultural sensitivity' training when our company was taken over so that we would be aware of the differences. One of the key ones was the importance of hierarchy in the Indian culture. This means that the opinion/attitude/approach of the leaders has much more impact than it would in Western cultures. In general, if a senior staff member says something then people will go along with it even if they know it to be wrong. This would seem to tie in with a lot of what people have been saying here -even to the point that groups controlled from ******* are much more productive.

In terms of innovation; I had one of our Indian colleagues explain that in terms of the Indian education system. His point was that, with so much poverty in India, a large majority of the people are working to get out of their current social position. With few exceptions the most likely way to do this is through education but only the top graduates actually manage to do well. This leads to a great deal of competition in the system: to get into the right college you need to get good marks at the right secondary school and to do that you need good marks at the right primary school etc etc. To get good marks, you have to give the expected answers in all exams/test etc. You do not deviate from the lessons you have been taught or you may fail. Such an environment does not encourage thinking outside the box! I have seen many of the Indian staff grow enormously in their roles while seconded to this country. I cannot say the same for those that I need to deal with that remain off-shore.”

This comment fairly summarizes the point I am trying to convey. Without being too philosophical here, let me state the action items for all of us Indians who agree with me

1. Let us not restrain ourselves and following generations from questioning and challenging the existing ideas

2. In case, there is a flaw in any of our tradition/custom/religion/belief, let us have guts to accept it.

3. Let us try to be as scientific as possible. Science will not harm our culture but rather improves it.

4. We are known by what we are and not by what our ancestors were. Let us create a good identify for ourselves so that 500 years from now, when historians write about us, they write good things.

February 13 2:13 AM

2009

Judging at a paper presentation contest

Recently, I was invited as a judge at paper presentation contest (ADSOPHOS) by CSE department, MJCET. It was my first experience as an external judge and a good one too. I wanted to share with you some of the experiences I had in terms of judging the papers and presentations of the students.

The following were the four metrics that I was considering while judging the papers.

1. Student’s contribution to the paper

2. Technical knowledge in that field

3. Presentation flow

4. Student’s Attitude

While, I know one can come up with many more criterions, at that moment I could only think of these four.

Student’s Contribution to the paper:

The essence behind writing a paper is to present a new idea before the world. Somehow, because of our inability to produce many new ideas from last two thousand years, we don’t actually stress about it to the students. I know it’s unfortunate that we haven’t contributed much to the science from many centuries but now it’s the time. We constitute more than one-sixth of the world population and it’s our moral responsibility to constitute at least one-sixth of the ideas that develop the world. Without a debate, let’s acknowledge the fact that we have done enough to be proud and let’s change that in future. People come and go, but ideas remain forever. If you ask me, how can you expect a student to write about a new idea? Believe me, you can think of new ideas. It’s just that none of our ancestors have produced new ideas, so we don’t have that confidence. Sometimes, the time demand a change… the change is that you need to produce ideas.

To cut short the long story, yes, you need to contribute to the paper. Student’s contribution to the paper is the top priority in judging the best paper.

Technical Knowledge in that field

While ideas can be great, they need to be presented in a way they can be appreciated and implemented. For example, “going to moon” is an idea but “how to go there” needs knowledge in astronomy, aerodynamics, extra-terrestrial communication, material science, etc. So, when you write about an idea, you need to have knowledge in that field. Make sure that you read text-books and reference papers in that field as much as possible. While, presenting a paper, your knowledge in the field will help you in guiding your presentation in such a way that everyone understands it. You would also be able to defend your idea well.

Presentation flow:

The smooth flow of presentation is essential for people to understand your idea/paper. You should start with the objective of your paper, more towards a introduction, speak about your new idea and what you can achieve with that idea. There are many other ways, but you need to decide which flow suits your paper. You present a paper for 15 minutes and eventually if no one understands it, then what’s the use? If you are under an impression that if people don’t understand your paper, then you are great. I strongly suggest you to come out of that misconception.

Student’s Attitude:

Your attitude while presenting the paper really matters. While some students present it very aggressively and so do it very calmly. But make sure that you retain to one state. Being aggressive sometimes and being calm at time won’t help. Another aspect of your attitude is how you respond back to the queries. When someone shows a flaw or asks something that you are not aware of, then speak up about it that “you don’t know” or say “you will get back to him/her after little more research”. Don’t brag about your idea while presenting the paper. It appears really stupid. You are presenting Science not politics!

The following are certain observations I had while judging the student papers.

Observations:

1. Unfortunately, the faculty members at colleges are not guiding students properly in preparing the papers. Students are not aware of abstract, references and basic formatting aspects of papers. A paper is not a greeting card where you do decorations, it’s a technical document. It needs to be formal.

2. Attitude of 90% of the students is not up to the mark. While, I don’t expect exceptional discoveries in every paper but it is expected that every paper is written by the student in his/her own words. Do not simply copy word-to-word from internet. You need to re-write it in your own words and acknowledge the original researcher in your paper.

3. Read text-books. While internet is useful, it’s yet to replace the text-books. I was sad at student’s papers with titles “Embedded systems” or “Nanotechnology”. These student’s needs to be educated that embedded systems or Nanotechnology was so large fields and paper title should be specific. And what was worse is that, these papers tend to be basic overview of embedded systems or nanotechnology, which is nothing but the first chapter of any standard textbooks in this particular field. That’s why I say, read the text-books first.

4. Too many claims without explanation. This is one of the worst things I have noticed among students. They tend to claim so many things outside context that they are not aware of. Whenever they present an idea, they tend to brag about it so much that it doesn’t appear scientific anymore. Do not brag about ideas. Use technical data to define terms like large, small, tiny, etc.

5. Do not use photographs taken by foreigners. There was a paper on “Stenography” by some student and she extensively used photographs of American monuments demonstrate how secret information can be hidden within images. I don’t understand why students don’t apply some creativity. One can very well use images of India Gate or Taj Hotel to demonstrate the same. These are the small things that can really create an impact before judges.

6. Try to rehearse your presentation few times before your friends. Take their feedback. I have seen students presenting without any smooth flow. A smooth flow is essential while presenting a paper. This will enable audience including judges understand what you are presenting.

7. Highlight what you have done and what’s your objective. This is something in all the papers I have seen by the students. They keep speaking about the stuff done by someone else as if they have done and never speak about the stuff what they done. Even merely saying, I have reviewed following papers or I am presenting the ideas mentioned in these papers. And stating objectives such as, the objective of the papers is to make students aware of interesting developments in so and so fields. That sends out a strong statement about your honesty and attitude.

January 22 6:30 PM

2009

Clean India Movement - Objectives

Long back during my college days, I was involved in starting a movement called “Clean India Movement”. The purpose of the movement was to find solutions to the problems that our country is facing and educate people about the solutions. In a way, it’s cleaning the dirt within our country. The initial goal of the movement was to identify hundred major problems faced by India, find solutions to these problems and bring awareness among people through solutions. After lot of planning and effort, I hardly found people who want to truly support it. There were people who joined because it was fun or it was as if it’s charity. Eventually, all we did was nothing but few talks here and there with no results.

I still strongly believe that had we put sincere efforts in identify the hundred crucial problems - there was a possibility of bringing a change. Over the years, I kept thinking about the problems faced by our country and my aim was not to pinpoint the obvious loopholes but to bring out the unspoken root causes that are acting negatively towards the development of our nation. Let me give you an example on an obvious problem and the unspoken root cause of it. When we first started this movement, my friends suggested that we should bring awareness among people about “Smoking Hazards” and some of them even suggested that we should work for forcing the government to ban smoking. It did sound good then, however when I kept thinking about it, I found that there is more to it than that’s spoken. India is the world’s largest producer and exporter of tobacco. We are serving the world for manufacturing cigarettes and we get huge revenue from it. Millions of farmers get their livelihood by cultivating tobacco. Recently, I was reading an ad which said, smoking cigarettes kills more people than the causalities in terrorist attacks annually across the globe. Being the largest exporter of tobacco, effectively we are killing more people than those terrorists. So where does the problem arise? It’s definitely not with the people smoking! Now, what would you do to stop people from smoking cigarettes? No, doubt the solution includes the cultivators, the farmers, the people whose life is dependent on import/export of tobacco and the people who smoke cigarettes. I haven’t found any feasible solution yet to this problem and I know it’s going to difficult.

There are numerous such problems that we don’t probe into - we just look at them from the face of it and react. I might be wrong and you can debate with me for hours but ultimately what matters is identifying solutions and bringing awareness among people. It would require a collective effort by intellectuals, NGOs, educated people, public representatives, etc. I haven’t lost hope and I am sure some day, this movement will rise and we will collectively identify root causes of problems and resolve them. I pray to see that day to shed a tear of joy.

When something goes wrong, I see everyone around me act like everything is not working and within few days they would be back to routine. Me and my family … is that’s the end of your world? Have you ever thought about contributing something to the nation? I am not asking you for charity, I am asking you about your “Janm Kartavye”. And if your thoughts are like “it sounds good, but what can I do, our country is ruled by crooks”, well, you can do lot many things if you start thinking. Help the nation with identifying solutions to the problems we are facing and your efforts will not go waste. Identifying solutions to problems is like discovering a theory in physics, sooner or later you would notice that it will produce technology. If we succeed in identifying the problems and solutions, I am sure a time will arrive when you would notice that these solutions are being implemented.

November 28 12:11 AM

2008

The “Saawariyan” Effect

Wow… what a movie! I know, not many of you have liked this movie and yet I found the movie incredibly well made. It was true cinematic journey of words, backgrounds and characters. I was literally in tears at the end. I have always liked tragic movies, the movies in which at the end the hero doesn’t get the girl. Whether it’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam or Titanic, there is some mysterious appeal in these movies which totally take me into different world. Another movie which recently enjoyed watching is “Cast Away”. Well, enjoyment means shedding few tears here.

Talking about movies, I was suggested to watch “Beautiful Mind” by a very special person and I was told that it resembles my life. And when I saw the movie, I was literally in tears for most part of it. Human mind is unexplainably complex and volatile. The movie taught me how important are stable relationships in life and how important it is to understand a person. For most part of my life, I have lived under isolation and loneliness. No, I didn’t study at a boarding school or stuck at an island. It was more about not getting along with people emotionally. I never found myself into the environment I have lived.

When I was 10 years old, my father told me a proverb, “two men looked out of bars - one saw the mud and the other saw the stars”. My father always made sure that I look at stars than mud. It was only during my engineering I realized, I am the one who saw the mud. And then I got the idea of digging the tunnel, I came out, purchased a telescope and saw more stars than the guy behind the bars. While I was digging the tunnel, the other guy who was watching the stars learnt about falling in love with nature. He saw the beautiful moon, twinkling stars and the vast sky. And on one special day, he saw an angel in the sky. He instantly fell in love with her. Little did he realize that he is behind the bars. He wanted to meet the angel, he wanted to speak with her but he was stuck there behind the bars looking at stars. I believe he is still there behind the bars. And the other guy, which was me, successfully dug the tunnel, earned money to purchase a telescope and saw the stars. I saw the barren moon, burning stars and the near empty sky. There was never a moment where I saw an angel flying across the sky with the telescope.

As the life went on, I once again revisited the proverb once my dad told me. I was happy that I was the guy who saw the mud, dug the tunnel, came out, purchased the telescope and was exploring the skies and universe. Suddenly, a thought changed my life. There weren’t two guys behind that bars. There was only me inside those bars. It was my heart that saw the stars and it was my brain that saw the mud. My heart is still behind those bars and that brain is with that telescope that only finds barren moon, burning stars and near empty sky.

That’s why there is loneliness in my life and that’s why I like movies in which hero doesn’t get the girl. I know, once again this post turned out to be about my life! Seriously, when I started out writing this one, I wanted to write about movies and science… but don’t know why the words took their own direction…

November 10 12:48 AM

2008

From Rookie to Rookie of the Year...

...And there are times when you just feel lucky about the way you are. After being awarded "Rookie of the Year" by my team at ACE conference, I just feel how lucky I am being at Microsoft and what a journey it has been. To be frank, at my home, it's just another award among my dozens of others. But what makes it special is the fact that it's my first as a "Professional". It all started in early 2007, when one of my best friends, Kiran, asked his Uncle to refer me at Microsoft. Things worked and I wrote a written test for internship, went through couple of interviews and subsequently got selected for five months internship. Being an electronics student (I still like to keep my identity as electronics guy), it was a challenging task before me to cope up with the best minds in software industry. I joined MMS (Microsoft Managed Services) team as an Intern. My five months internship included tasks like understanding Data Protection Manager 2007 and developing tools in PowerShell for the same. Fortunately, the task was easy than anticipated. I developed around 13 tools within 3 months and tools turned out to be pretty helpful to the team.

But life is not as easy as it sounded. Almost at the end of my internship, I got to know that there are no open positions in the team. Just when I was thinking, lets return to my beloved electronics... I got a call from HR that my internship is extended for two months and I am supposed to join a new team called "ACE". Wow... that was a shocker! Lucky again. This time around, my job revolved around Performance testing of IT applications. The work demand was simple and quite. I did manage to learn and do End-to-End performance testing of ASP.NET applications and it worked. I was offered full-time employment at Microsoft's ACE team. The pay was handsome, I liked the people around me and moreover, I was in love with Microsoft's work culture. Which company would allow me to come to office at anytime I feel like?

Being a full-time employee at Microsoft brings in lot of responsibilities. The responsibility that you are now a member of a company that revolutionized the way people look at computers. Responsibility that you are now treated as creator of windows in your neighborhood and relatives and you are supposed to solve each and every windows related problem. With the Vista's arrival, my mobile was on continuous stress with every other friend, relative and neighbor calling me up. There I was, with XP installed on my PC, trying to answer, questions on Vista. They say, when you are brave, flukes work!

Performance of Web applications is a large field and I have to admit performance testing is just the tip of iceberg. Every project that I have taken up helped me understand new things, made me better and confident in what I am saying. One thing that I never hesitated to project myself as.... " I am Rookie ". I am not an expert in this field, I am learning each and every bit of it and hopefully some day I might consider calling myself as expert. Till then, I am just a student who doesn't hesitate to ask questions, no matter how stupid they might sound. Time and again, I have been reminded by few people close to me that I should restrain from being over-simplified and project a different image before people and team. That's how people project themselves in Professional world. I know, in professional world, a big fish eats a small fish, that's the logic that is supposed to work best. But somewhere, my conscious says, I should act truthful not just to the people around me but to myself. I think that's what defines "Open and Honest" policy of Microsoft. Someone told me that when you accept what you are and willing to work hard towards excelling yourself, you are following all six policies of Microsoft. You are being Open and Honest, you are taking up the big challenge in venturing yourself into new fields, you are being self-critical by accepting what you are, you are being respectful to the people who are better than or just like you, you are showing the commitment of learning new things and you are passionate to excel and make it large. Mind you, only a passionate person has guts to accept what he is. Ask a non-passionate person about himself, he won't reveal his true identity.

Having said all that, I know I write well! My ex-manager says "it's all about managing expectations", with all due respect to him, my philosophy is "it's all about delivering beyond expectations". I look back at life, I have not just saved memories for myself, I have given memories to others and I hope I continue to do so. I stand today with a promise that "journey has just began and big things are yet to come".

Keep an eye, Abu is here to make a name.

September 21 6:53 AM 2008

Life After Cosmos Redefined

To put aside the kudos I have received from most of the people who read Cosmos Redefined, life has been just the same before and after. The same old loneliness, the same old frustration and same old science, that’s how the life is even today and perhaps, will remain the same if I don’t take any innovative steps in my life. One of the important reasons why I need to change the way I am living is to increase my productivity in generating new ideas. At least two days in a weak go in reconciling my strength and getting over my frustration of being alone. My loneliness is very strange and it’s hard to explain why it’s loneliness in itself. I find silence in crowded buses, emptiness in packed seminar halls and nuisance in shopping malls and so on. Eventually, all these only leave me lonely and make me think is I the only person who is feeling this way?

Well, loneliness is not the only problem I am facing now-a-days. The feminine distraction is just getting all over my mind disturbing the scientific purity and configuration of my agile brain. To work on true science one needs a high amount of concentration and mental purity and unless these two characteristic properties, one might be working on science but won’t be able to generate any new revolutionary ideas. I always believed that the biggest achievement of great people is not the great things they have done but their ability to standby to a character that a normal person wouldn’t have shown in a given scenario of life. If you intend to do great things in life, remember that it has to be in your character. You slip away once; the truth remains “you slipped”. Especially when it comes to science, you have to deeply look after your character, make sure you are mentally pure every second and it’s only then you produce a revolutionary idea and command a name in the history of Mankind. Yes, it’s not an easy task to produce a revolutionary idea in science. Just think of the outcome if you successfully achieve the task, a name in the history of mankind, a name that would be remembered forever until the humanity exists, a name that would inspire millions of people across the globe, a name that becomes synonymous to respect for your community and your nation…

At this juncture of life where I have stood by my conscious and character, giving away to the temptation is probably the worst mistake I could do. It’s easy to say, oh, you are saying as if you are too sacred compared to us. Well, I am really sorry if I have made that impression on your minds by writing the above two paragraphs. All I mean from it is that if I do something that spoils my mental purity, it will destroy the process of continuous random thought generation which ultimately leads to no “new scientific idea”. Trust me it’s hard to concentrate at a quantum mechanical problem with so many distractions around.

After analyzing the situation quite deeply, I came up with a solution that could help in achieving my scientific purity of mind. The solution is very odd especially considering that my age is only 21 years and 8 months. However, the solution is achievable and if it succeeds then nothing can happen better than it to my lonely and distracted life. I guess you are getting the hints about the solution, so let me not dramatize it, the solution is simple and it is “I should get married”. What? That was my first reaction to myself when I thought of it. Here’s a guy who loses interest in a field of science every month or less, how could he think of something that binds him to one single person rest of the life. I had to modify the solution so that it suit to my life. I think I am already married to science. I am not a kind of person who is prone to attachments, there have been very few people who have made an impression on my mid other than my blood relations. Having thought that, I came to a conclusion that marriage is not a better option for me at this age.

So, what’s the solution then? I did try to think of other out-of-box solutions but nothing appeared to have the potential to work out in my life. First I thought of having a girl-friend, however, I don’t think that can work out because for God’s sake no girl would be interested in a guy whose biggest turn-on is quantum mechanics. Have you heard of Louis Pasteur’s story? It seems that he was so involved in one of the experiments; he forgot to attend his own marriage! I think I am that sort of guy and it’s literally impossible to maintain a girl-friend if you are so involved in science. Moreover, my conscious hinders me to this solution. Then an idea occurred that modifies the “marriage” solution which can fit into my life. Why can’t I just get engaged to a girl of my parent’s choice, spend couple of years understanding her and then eventually marry her. Wow, that sounds so fantastic to me but my friends say that can happen only in Bollywood movies.

Two years of time would be a good duration for both of us to understand each other, modify each other as per the each other requirements (I can work out for six-pack abs if she wants me to), discuss quantum mechanics from scratch, etc. What if she doesn’t like you after two years? Well, she can happily walk-out of it and marry someone else. What if I don’t like her after two years? Well, I won’t take two years of time to tell her that I don’t like her. You know, I have a gut feeling that this is good idea for everyone to try out. When you are engaged the biggest advantage is, its official so you can just be normal unlike the hundreds of idiots I see around acting crazy in order to impress their girl friends. I have told this idea to my parents, let’s see what best they can come up with!

Also, I just wanted to clarify few things here to my young audience. I do understand that now I have a responsibility of posting sensible things on this blog because after Cosmos Redefined, the number of people reading this blog has substantially increased. Let me say you this, whatever is posted in this blog is been well thought. Also, I am going to implement these ideas and hopefully I think I will be successful in making my life better.

May 06 12:10 AM

2008

Download Cosmos Redefined

From a long time I have been saying to you all about my ambitious book called "Cosmos Redefined" containing a Unified theory of Physics. I don't say it has turned out to be the great, however, I can say for sure that it's worth reading.

Some Highlights of the book:

Ø One of the biggest claims of the book is formulation of a Grand Unified Theory. Yes, it was the Einstein's Dream and seems like time has come to witness the dream to be fulfilled. This theory is referred as Construction Theory in the book.

Ø Discovery of a new fundamental quantity of nature called as "Chakr". "Chakr" along with Space and Time constitute everything that is available in the universe. The planets, the stars, the galaxies, the atoms, the elementary particles, etc are made up of Chakr, space and time. You need to read the book to know more details about it.

Ø Discovery of a new branch of mathematics called as "Calpanic Numbers" which is used to for the first time to answer some of the mysteries in physics. The book uses Calpanic Numbers to define Big Bang, Black holes, dark matter, dark energy, etc. It was my childhood dream to see Indian Alphabets used as scientific constants. I have used Sanskrit symbol "ka" for denoting Calpanic Numbers.

Ø The book is written in simple English so that anyone who has little knowledge about science can also understand it. Yes, there are many equations used in the book, that's just to prove that what I am saying has mathematical support.

Ø Starting from the dimensional formulas for basic quantities to derivations of Schrödinger's equation, Planck's Radiation formula, relativity, E = mc^2, etc has been obtained from the new theory called as Construction Theory.

Ø Through Construction Theory, I have provided a scientific framework to unify quantum mechanics and general theory of relativity. This solves a long running rivalry between the two greatest theories in the history of physics.

There are many more new things and elegant ideas present in the book. To know more about them, you need to read the book. The book can be freely downloaded from my blog http://nextnewton.spaces.live.com, there is a "Public Folders" icon, Click it to download. I have published limited number of paper bound copies as well. I am also giving away some copies as gifts to the people who give constructive criticisms, reviews, extend my ideas through research, prove my ideas wrong etc.

Do take some free time to read the book and if you like it do forward the information to your friends, relatives, enemies, anyone in your address books and whomever you want to, after all science is meant for everyone.

Regards,

Mohd Abubakr,

mohdabubakr@hotmail.com

February 27 6:47 PM 2008

About the cover-page of COSMOS REDEFINED

It was hard-time for me designing the cover page of my book. I spend hours and hours thinking, making designs on MS-paint, Adobe photoshop, powerpoint, etc. I wanted something to appear classic and elegant. There were few things back of my mind and I wanted cover page to reflect that. Writing COSMOS REDEFINED has been an extra-ordinary journey of my life. It involved isolation, courage, determination, fight-back, break-downs, love and lots of EUREKA moments. The major part of life was in isolation, I think I created that isolation myself. And I wanted the cover-page to point out that isolation. Yes, that isolation can be hurting at times, but it was for a cause. The cause was to understand the secrets of Universe, the way God created this universe and so on.

I finished formulating the main theory way back in 2005. I wanted to publish the book in Sep’ 2005, a century later to Einstein’s historic publications. Sometimes, in life you plan but it doesn’t happen. It was the same case with me. Nobody was ready to listen to the words of 18-19 year old boy. People tried to silence me by asking million questions on existing literature. When I went around professors, asking them for time, all they had was text book questions for me to solve and prove my knowledge. Then I started submitting papers to journals, only to received rejected mails from the editors. I had a point in my papers, but I failed to write in a very scientific way. One of the worst problems of Physics community is that they have made up so many benchmarks that a person from non-physics background find it extremely difficult to match up those benchmarks. When I say benchmarks, I don’t mean the standards in terms of knowledge but in terms of formatting, vocabulary, notations, etc. Anyhow, I don’t want to get into this debate. I took some time out for shaping my career, published few IEEE papers and got a good job to sustain in this commercialized world. In India, people give you respect looking at the figures you earn, damn I hate those people from bottom of my heart.

So, in all I wanted the cover page to reflect my journey in life. I spend few days making designs, asking friends for suggestions and searching my frozen chambers of brain for new ideas. When I was just about to give up, something flashed. It was an old painting that I did during my intermediate (11^th Standard). I searched for it and finally found it, for some time I was lost in those memories of paintings. For those who are unaware of this, once upon a time I was a good painter, I won quite a few competitions and like always I gave it up as it was taking me away from my beloved science.

The painting shows a man, wearing a hat and a coat, it reflects the detective nature. The dress code of the man shows that he is on a mission to find the secrets. The tent, the mat, the little water bowl and the brunt logs shows his isolation and dejection from the world. The tree with no leaves reflects the dryness in his life. He uses the telescope to look at stars in the night and that gives him hope. There is curiosity in the atmosphere which is motivating him to unravel the mystery he is working on. The empty area around him indicates his limitations and reach. He is alone, isolated and determined. And finally, from the darkness, arises the sun. For a moment, his eyes couldn’t handle the light coming from the sun. He puts his hands over his eyes to have a look at the gigantic ball that rising in front of him. The bird flying across shows the glittering hope that has taken birth in him. This is exactly how is felt when I formulated Construction theory by unraveling some of the nature’s secrets.

January 22 12:07 AM

2008

Kalman Filter

Given a physical system, whether it is an aircraft, a chemical process, or the national economy, an engineer first attempts to develop a mathematical model that adequately represents some aspects of the behavior of that system. Through physical insights, fundamental “laws” and empirical testing, he tries to establish the interrelationships among certain variables of interest, inputs to the system, and outputs from the system. With such a mathematical model and the tools provided by the system and control theories, he is able to investigate the system structure and modes of response. If desired, he can design compensators that alter these characteristics and controllers that provide appropriate inputs to generate desired system responses.

In order to observe the actual system behavior, measurement devices are constructed to output data signals proportional to certain variables of interest. These output signals and the known inputs to the system are the only information that is directly discernible about the system behavior. Moreover, if a feedback controller is being designed, the measurement device outputs are the only signals directly available for inputs to the controller. Hence in such situations we use certain special filters to investigate the data, one such filter is Kalman filter.

In 1960, R.E. Kalman published his famous paper describing a recursive solution to the discrete data linear filtering problem. Kalman filter is simply an optimal recursive data processing algorithm. There are many ways of defining optimal, dependent upon the criteria chosen to evaluate performance. Kalman filter is optimal with respect to virtually any criterion that makes sense in analyzing a system since it incorporates all information that can be provided to it. It processes all available measurements, regardless of their precision, to estimate the current value of the variables of interest with use of (1) knowledge of the system and measurement device dynamics, (2) the statistical description of the system noises, measurement errors, and uncertainty in the dynamics models, and (3) any available information about initial conditions of the variables of interest. For example, to determine the velocity of an aircraft, one could use a Doppler radar, or the velocity indications of an inertial navigation system, or the pilot and static pressure and relative wind information in the air data system. Rather than ignoring any of these outputs, a Kalman filter could be built to combine all this data and knowledge of the various systems dynamics to generate an overall best estimate of velocity.

The word recursive in the previous description means that, unlike certain data processing concepts, the Kalman filter does not require all previous data to be kept in storage and reprocessed every time a new measurement is taken. This will be of vital importance to the practicality of filter implementation. The “filter” is actually a data processing algorithm. Despite the typical connotation of a filter as a “black box” containing electrical networks the fact is that in most practical applications, the “filter” is just a computer program in a central processor, As such, it inherently incorporates discrete time measurement samples rather than continuous time inputs.

For further reading on Kalman filtering and its mathematical background refer to http://www.cs.unc.edu/~welch/kalman/ (links to the tutorials are also available on this website).

November 04 1:19 AM

2007

What is Viagra ?

Now if you are wondering, what's hell on the earth that made me write a blog entry about "viagra", please don't wonder, I will explain you in detail. Well, I have been receiving lots of Spam mails recently on my Gmail Id. Not sure how the spammers predicted that I need Viagra, its such a wrong prediction but still they spammed me with hundred odd mails on lots of information on Viagra. Of course, Viagra happens to be a good scientific topic to do research on, so I thought of doing some research on Viagra. Things like, what is viagra, why do people feel shy when someone speaks about Viagra, I just wanted to know the exact reasons. Curiosity, my friends, it has always allowed me to understand lots of things. Let me say you, this post can really help you in gaining vital information about Viagra and probably in future if you find someone needing information on this, you can pass it on. Also, I will be describing all the terms very scientifically to reduce the embarrassment of all my blog readers. Common, I am not committing a crime by writing this blog, after all I am trying is to pass on real scientific information on Viagra, irrespective of whether you like or not. As a scientist I have the liberty of speaking truth over shyness.

Viagra is a chemical drug named 1-[4-ethoxy-3-(6,7-dihydro-1-methy l- 7 -oxo-3-propyl-1H-pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-5-yl) phenylsulfonyl] -4-methylpiperazine citerate also called as "Sildenafil". Viagra just happens to be the commercial name of sildenafil sold by a company named “Pfizer”. Molecular formula of sildenafil is C₂₂H₃₀N₆O₄S. The basic function of Sildenafil is to increase the blood pressure in the vessels carrying blood to and fro the lungs. This generally causes shortness of breath, dizziness and tiredness. Now, one question in your mind must be what made Sildenafil so famous whereas it’s just a simple drug that increases blood pressure. The answer is very scientific and very much related to our lives, of course, if you have a deficiency.

The male organ of human Copulation has to be filled with vascular sinuses and should be capable of becoming distended and rigid as the result of being filled with blood during the course of copulation for a certain period of time. Some unfortunate men (!!) have a deficiency called as “erectile dysfunction” which reduces their ability to retain rigidity in the phallus during human copulation. Here comes Sildenafil as a rescue to such people to enjoy their lives. Sildenafil increases the blood flow to the human male phallus during human copulation. To be more scientific, Sildenafil improves pulmonary arterial hypertension by relaxing the blood vessels in the lungs to allow blood to flow easily. I guess, that’s the best way I can describe the Sildenafil without using so called “non-aesthetic terms”, in fact, I should add this paragraph on Wikipedia. Wow, I read the paragraph again, it has turned out great compared to the descriptions given across the other websites.

To clear out few things, Sildenafil doesn’t increase sexual urge, doesn’t cure erectile dysfunction and doesn’t prevent sexually transmitted diseases. It’s just a normal drug made extra famous by certain impotent people. Some of you might be thinking, how does sildenafil look like, is it a tablet, syrup or syringe? Sildenafil is sold in markets under the registered name “Viagra” as tablets. The tablets come as 25mg, 50mg and 100mg; consult a doctor before you take any of the different versions of tablets. There are few side-effects of Sildenafil but there cannot be anything worst than suffering from erectile dysfunction, so I suggest you to take it, cause you got a life, live it. But don’t take Sildenafil in large quantities (10 pills for an ever lasting night) as it can cause you a heart attack as well, anyhow that’s the worst case for the people over 40-50 years old. I really don’t think there is anyone who is above 30 reading my blog at present. By the way, according to Einstein’s relativity, an object experiences lesser time when it is riding fast but the actual time is more than what is observed, so don’t get dissatisfied by your life cause it was really quick, it may be due to relativity and unnecessary don’t take sildenafil.

What else should I write more about Viagra/Sildenafil? Damn, don’t ever think that I have consumed or seen it anytime. By the way, as per one of the Spam mails I received, “Viagra are blue tablets”, so now you know the color of viagra. So, let me conclude this blog article this way, don’t be shy in acquiring knowledge but yes, you got to have control over your senses. Life is a very valuable thing, don’t waste it reading non-sense available over net, science is the best source that you can trust upon. As a scientist, it is my responsibility to provide fellow human beings with right information as much as I can; this article is one such honest attempt.

November 04 4:11 AM

2007

A business model for politics

My last blog article invited as many as 400 viewers within two days, Can you believe it!! Now, I am convinced that there is huge demand for Sildenafil. Though I am not a good blog writer, however seems like I have all qualities of being one. Add a little spice to science and there you go, people are really interested in knowing science. It is unfortunate that science has been presented before students in a very boring way. Believe me, there are lots of exciting stuff going on in science. Alright, I will stop my same old lecture about science though I should say "SCIENCE MAKES LIFE BEAUTIFUL", some of my friends should find that phrase very familiar.

Now-a-days, I find myself very confused about various aspects of life. Sometimes I find my life very stagnant and sometimes its on a ride. It is very difficult to understand the state of mind, the oscillations of mood and occurrence of events. You never know how the mind gets deviated to little things happening around, its just happens before you could realize. The other day I watching TV, I saw a commercial about "Tea" company, all of a sudden I was thinking about politics, how to change the political system in India. In the commercial, our dude interviews a politician and I should say the concept is awesome. I find it very odd that in our country we vote to political parties without even knowing the details about the candidate who is standing in elections. We are least bothered about the consequences of choosing a wrong person. May be that's why our nation is in deep waters, we have a so-called "democracy" and at the same time you find people saying "yahan par to goonda raj chal raha hain bhai". It is such a pity situation and what is more worse is that people are least bothered about it. How can we all be so irresponsible? It is the huge responsibility on all the educated people to choose talented, qualified and responsible people to run the government and educate the illiterates about the same. Where can we find talented, qualified and responsible people who are ready to take up the job of running the government? I deeply studied this subject from last two days and here are my solutions to it. They might be bit odd but once you apply your brain and thing over it, you will find lots of sense in them.

The so called 'politicians' or 'people who run the government' are not supposed to be treated as 'national leaders' and people who have done great sacrifice for the nation. In my opinion, country like India doesn't need politics, we need "developers" who can develop India, who can bring a smile on a hardworking farmer's face, who can achieve in booming our economy much higher than rest of the countries, who can make India a Super Power in terms of charity, power and peace, and so on. But here you are living in a nation which being ruined by politicians who play with the lives of people for the sake of money. Each party washes their dirty linen in public, throws all kinds of allegations on each other and ultimately they do almost nothing to our nation. Somebody asked me this question, why do you say politicians have done nothing to our nation, look at all the progress, isn't it due to our politicians. Well, the first few lines following paragraph is answer to such a question.

Imagine a 'TREE', the tree grows without any artificial help due to sun's light, rain from water and natural soil but you can nurture the tree in a better way by taking care of it. By supplying nutrients, by regularly watering, removing dried leaves etc. In a similar way, our nation is like a tree, and whatever development we are finding around is due to natural causes not due to the hard work of politicians. Forget about nurturing the nation, our politicians have added negative growth to the natural development. As I said earlier, we don't need politicians, we need "developers". The developers, who can nurture the nation, add positive growth to the natural development and make our nation a very prosperous one. Well, in proper words, we are assigning the job of developing the nation in the hand of "developers". It is a job with responsibility and I am sure there is enough talent in India to do this job efficiently. The problem is that, you and I do not give the people who can develop the nation an opportunity. I have business plan to run the nation and I am sure someday this sort of business models will be executed in our nation.

The business model introduces a term called "Professional Politics". The model presents a new consultancy company that can develop the nation by providing intellectual property for the development of the nation. The company is not meant as a replacement for the political parties, however the company does have its own employees contending in elections. Here comes the twist, as per Indian Constitution, an employee of some company cannot hold a government post (office of profit). Hence, the company won't be registered as a private company; it will be registered as an official political party. The difference is in the structure and attitude of this party. Giving a corporate structure which each person has his own commitments, responsibilities, growth structure, scope for innovation and last but not the least to run the company cum political party in profits. I will give the brief details about why can't it be a non-profitable political party, why a consulting company structure suits and how the commitments of each person is defined in the company. In the following discussion I shall be using the word "company", though on record (officially) it refers to a political party.

The success of the company lies in its achievements and profits. A political cum corporate company shall run into profits as it has to recruit outstanding brains for the development of the nation, it has to have a proper internal role defined structure and all this would require money. Next big task before the company would be achieving the development of the nation. Actually, this task is far easier than we imagine it to be. Fortunately, the natural development of the nation is always towards positive direction, all it is required from the company side (political party) is to enhance the natural development to the next level. This would require the company to have strategists, technologists, designers, campaigners, leaders, bureaucrats and collaboration with different technical companies. If you look at current political scenario, there aren’t many technologists, designers and strategists in political parties. The ministers themselves are not equipment with sufficient knowledge and the political party doesn’t have a proper support staff to support the minister. The support staff of current political parties includes the people who can arrange stage dramas, protests, crimes, rallies, etc. This is really a very unfortunate state of the nation. With a professionally structured party, it can recruit young students straight from colleges and private companies to provide intellectual property for the nation.

How shall such a party run into profits? Having a thorough professional political party will help industries and private companies to advance in the market. Such political party will definitely attract more amounts of funds than any other party. It is well known that our present political parties extract huge money from industrialists and remaining money from corruption. A professional political party will bring transparency; it will show to the people on record, how much money it has received as funds from different companies and institutions.

I have a gut feeling that this idea will work out. I have just presented a crude structure of the model. Lets see, may be after a decade I might start a similar business.

November 07 12:37 AM

2007

Life, love and Me

Life is pretty strange with full of twists and turns. It lets you frame new ideas, new future plans and new relationships. Oh, Yeah, this blog post i will shed some light on my craziness in framing new ideas, new future plans and new relationships. Ofcourse, new relationships have been very rare in my life and have been very occational. You will find new ideas in every moment of my life, from framing theories to bizzarre hair-styles. Actually the problem is that, when i stand before mirror, i say myself, i have seens this face before, i can't change it but i can change the hair-style. That's how i end up having a different hair-style every day, sometimes i change the hair-styles multiple times a day. One of my friend recently asked me, what makes me so crazy, why can't you be just normal ? My reply to him is, "being crazy is my normal state". Ofcourse, i always see that my crazyness doesn't effect negatively to anyone around. Coming to framing future plans, well, I totally rely on Allah for this. You never know, where your life leads you. I never thought I will in software industry, i was a pure hardware guy but i ended being in the most succesful software company. I have been said by many people that "being in Microosft is a big acheivement in itself and I should consider myself lucky for having made it so far being from non-computer background". Thanks for the suggestion, however, I disagree. I have got a huge challenge ahead of creating my own identity in a ever changing software industry and I don't consider I have acheived anything so far. May be, after few years, when i Live search my name "Mohd Abubakr" and the results say "Nobel lauriate, Von Neuman Prize and Field Medalist Mohd Abubakr"... that shall be what i call as acheivement. I know that I have always asked for more from God and God has been kind. And I am sure that God will certainly give for a person who asks with a good heart. Yes, if people say I am begging before God too much, then my reply is Yes, I am a begger before God. God has created me, given me all that I have and shall be giving me all that is good for me in future. Hmm.. seems like I am getting little too emotional here, I will control myself to move to write something that sounds more interesting to you.

As I said before, life is strange and believe me it is stranger than it gets. That fact that some stranger comes into our lives and we tend to live our rest of our lives with that stranger makes it even more strange.  No matter what, life teaches you very soon to frame relationships, the relationships of love. The new born baby who isn't much aware of the existing world learns quickly to love his/her mother. That's the first lesson that life teaches you, loving your mother. I have read numerous articles that say a new born baby recognises his/her mother. I will glad to read a scientific definition for this, any bio guys, can you help me out. So, i was saying, life starts teaching us forming relationships right from the moment we are born.  I heard many people saying, it will take time for me to trust someone, it will take sometime for me to commit. Always i found this strange, you don't find relationships, the life finds that relationship that you are about to make. No matter how strong you are, let me say you this, its your life that has taken you towards framing a relationship. I know, I am sounding very confusing here, actually i find it fun in confusing people, some part of the paragraph, you will find it as really meaningful, then all of a sudden it just goes out of your reach... Actually, I just let my fingers type whatever my brain says. I give my brain full control to type whatever it feels, express it to the world, i don't care how many people are reading my blog, whether its 400 or just myself, what matters me most is I have let my brain speak out.

I say this as "Freedom theraphy", actually all of us need this freedom theraphy. We all should let our brains speakout, let us not confine our lives because we are bothered that someone is looking at me, people might laugh at me, bla bla bla. Look, this is your life, you got all the freedom to live it as you like, no one is stopping you other than youself. The other day I was watching "Jab We Met", its a cool movie, there are lots of possitives that I learnt from that movie. One of the message of the movie is "Life is all about Living it to the fullest and don't complain". Every moment in our life is special, say now you are reading my blog, even this moment is special, maybe after reading this you might just fall in love me or just end up hating me for wasting your valuable time . To be frank, there are more chances of the second scenario else I wouldn't have been single so far !! .  Oh, comon, love doesn't mean that only one damn thing, there are different versions of love you see. If you think, oh this guy is so nice, let me change your opinion, by versions, I mean you can get love as Trial demo V1, V2 life long run with few disabled features and V3 for life long with complete features.  Which do you want from me ? If your anger on me has damped down, then let me explain you some philosophical meaning of what i have just said.  Generally, many of us go through these different versions of love in our life. I am sure many of you people might have experienced a Trial demo V1 in your lifes, some others might be going through "lifelong run with disabled features V2" and few lucky ones are experiencing "Lifelong run with full features V3". By now, you must have got what i meant by V1, V2 and V3. Unless a rare case, we all are interested in V3 but the normal tendency is to give a shot at V1. You find it good, you convert it into V3. However, I have seen many people ending up with V2. There are together for lifelong but most of the features of life are disabled. Features live love of parents, respect in society and the most importantly mutual respect for each other. What's your life when your life partner doesn't respect you ? What's the life when you are away from your ageing parents ? There are so many questions that we don't think and end up making a comprimise with life.

Love is a strange as life is. Sometimes it takes seconds to realize that you love someone and sometimes it takes a lifelong. More than realization of love, what is more important is how long does it last. Isn't it ? Do you know in Sub-atomic particle studies there is something called as "Strange Quantum Number" and the measure is called degree of strangeness.  I think there is huge need to apply it to human beings as well. Everyone of us have a degree of stangness in ourselves. Wow, wait a minute, I just got a brilliant idea.

Let me define something called as "Strange Human Number", it signifies the degreee of strangeness a human exhibits in decisions of life. The less the Strange Human Number, the more predictable you are, the higher the Strange Human Number, the less predictable you are. One can set the lower limit for the "Strange Human Number as "0" which means a particular person is absolutely predictable. It is very rare to find a person whose actions can be absolutely predictable, it can be treated as a ideal case for an artificial robot. Wait a minute, how can you scale the strangeness of a person ? I guess me we need to define another Human Number as well. The "Known Human Number", it signifies the degree of best reference measurement of strangeness a human has already exhibited in decisions of life. I am falling short of ideas now, let me postpone this for my future blog articles.

November 10 12:33 AM 2007

Tracking a Mysterious girl

And here comes the new blog article. Well, from physics, pharmacy, philosophy, politics... and finally I break the "P" sequence, yes; this stuff is about being, Bond, James Bond. Yes, detectives have always thrilled us and as a kid I always enjoyed reading detective novels. I started with Sherlock Holmes, Hardy boys and Nancy Drew. The coolest thing about these characters is that they take you into a new world of excitement, thrill and mystery. When I was kid, I use to always visualize myself like a detective who is solving some kind of mystery but the only problem was life around is so normal that there aren’t any mysteries going on. I remember one major assignment I got as a detective was from my teacher, I was suppose to track the thief in our class who steals pencils from my classmates. Wow, you should have seen my excitement. You won’t believe, I even purchased a magnifier to track the fingerprints and when my friends asked me about it, I used to say them, “it’s a big secret, I am on a mission”. After all my hard work, I found the thief, actually it was easy, I knew the thief from before and I should confess I did all the over actions to fulfill my fantasy of being a detective. I should have told of to the teacher that so and so guy is doing is when she asked me but I felt the good doing it other way around. I mean, where would I get a chance to observe the fingerprints of all my classmates, act as if my eyes are good enough to do finger recognition, wow, that’s actually funny today, but then when you are 8 years old, that’s got to be cool.

After a long interval, I am switched back to my detective days. Recently, I finished reading John Grisham’s The Client, courtesy of my newfound chat friend. It’s a murder mystery and a well-written book. Now, all I needed was a mystery, a mystery that I can solve. Before, I can search around that mystery; I found something beautiful and inviting at Orkut. It was a personal album of a girl, whom is found by random browsing on Orkut. In my view, she is probably the most beautiful girl I have seen, there was innocence in her face, passion in her eyes, a naughty smile on her lips, or in simple words just good enough to make a scientist go crazy to track her. Now, the detective in me was reborn, I had to track this girl, know more about her. Actually Orkut is so odd, people don’t put her their names, instead they write all sorts of crazy “status names”. For that matter, I have put up my first/last name as “Proud to be Quantum Mechanic”. So, now all I had was few pictures (which I didn’t download, common, I can’t do that, I am not so cheap), I don’t know her name and the challenge before me was not scrap any of her friends to know her. This was an interesting self-assignment, the more I saw those pictures, the more I was getting attracted. I just wanted to know about that girl, oh, common; my thoughts are as pure as they are ever. I really don’t understand what actually motivated me to do so, it became sort of my top priority for me to actually track that girl.

So what do you think, was Abubakr successful in tracking her? Give a guess and read on the blog. I should say so far I have partially tracked her. The good news is that I have talked with her twice on Yahoo Messenger. The process of tracking was difficult; it required lot of research and time. First I read carefully all her scraps, damn half of them were the scraps of stupid guys who say, “hey, me… so and so, want to do friendship with me”, it was so boring to read all that, I wonder what goes through the ladies mind when they read such scraps and more than that I wonder what goes through the mind of people who scrap those. Well, one tip to actually instigate a girl to reply you back is “hurt her ego”, she will jump to reply you back”. Anyhow, once I read her scraps, I only I got it clear that this girl doesn’t indulge much in spending time on Orkut. Now, there was a huge twist, in one of the community, I found that she has hundreds of posts to her name. This was quite mysterious to discover because it was pretty obvious that she doesn’t talk much through her scraps. The community had more than 30 topics with more than 10 topics having more than 1000 scraps. Wow, that was a tedious exercise to read all those scraps. I mean I don’t think even a guy who loves her would have done so much, but yes I did it. There were some bizarre things in that community such as she is having an affair with a guy but that guy wasn’t even in her friends list. There were few things that I can’t even mention. Now, here starts my detective work. I first started plotting graphs about how many scraps he posted in that community each day, I compared the number with the number of post she received in her profile. There was something missing here, either she was deleting the posts from her profile or she wasn’t receiving any scraps to her profile. There were many things that I noted down, it was all like a FBI agent tracking down a fugitive. I know, looking at the pictures so many times a day was having some effect on my mind, but it was so thrilling that I went on.

Now, I started interacting with the members of that community who are not in her friends list. At first, I didn’t strike the right person, lots of time was wasted in talking to people who didn’t provide any concrete evidence. Then I finally found a guy, who tracked down her cousin; now the secrets were coming out, like who she is, what she does, etc. Meanwhile, she did one mistake, she scrapped her yahoo email id to one of her friend. All I could do was write her a mail, actually the mail was so stupid that nobody would have replied to that. The next thing I did was talking to the guy who claims to be her boyfriend in that community. It was difficult to make that guy vomit the truth, but he was so calm. He told me that he going to marry that girl and they are in love from one year. That was pretty informative as I got to know that this girl is about to get married (big blow to my stupid mind, who was slowly getting attracted). I sent her an offline on yahoo messenger saying congrats about her boyfriend and some regular stuff.

Time for Twist, the girl says that she doesn’t know that guy and explained me the real story. The next day I find all the posts from that community erased because she wasn’t aware one of her cousin was using her id to post some stupid messages in that community on her behalf. I chatted with this … say “Our mysterious Lady”, for three hours, though I had an all important meeting next day, man, I went late to the meeting since I just got 4 hours to sleep. Anyhow, “our mysterious lady” is a very nice and talented girl. Got to know so much about her within hours.

Now, here comes the reality. Actually, the mystery lady is very open minded and very friendly, but don’t know for some reason she doesn’t want to do friendship with me. Forget about the hard work that I did in tracking her; I think I know so much about her and yet she doesn’t consider myself worthy enough to be my friend. I know, someday she is going to read this post, I do hope she accepts me as her friend.

Oh, yeah…, isn’t she lucky that Abubakr is asking her for friendship?

November 14 12:13 AM

2007

Charge Migration in DNA

From the last few days, I have been studying the charge migration in DNA. My request to the biologists is that please don’t hate me for trespassing in your field. My curiosity is in understanding the DNA structure from the electronic point of view. Over the years in the scientific literature, there have been reports of DNA acting as quantum molecular wires for transmitting charge, the DNA nano-devices and what not! I guess, all these announcements by my fellow researchers are interesting enough for me to get excited over this new field. However, the reason for my curiosity in DNA Charge Migration is something else. Recently, I was chatting with the mysterious girl, oh yeah, she is talking with me now. We talked about some biotechnology stuff related to genetics, the recent discoveries etc. I know, you must be thinking, what sort of jerk Abu is. Did he do friendship with mysterious girl for discussing genetics? Guys, I have rule in my life, everything that I shall do, should be related to science. I can’t waste time on ordinary stuff. I feel the mysterious girl indirectly took me into a new world of Genetics. There is so much to discover, so much to think and so much to contribute to the humanity in the field of genetics. Well, I can talk about all other non-sense with her, do some good time pass and call it as “attitude”. But somehow I can’t digest it, there are millions of people wasting time in doing time-pass, I am not one among those millions. Anyhow, let me explain you now about charge migration in DNA.

For my traditional electronics and computer science oriented readers, I would first like to give some basic knowledge about DNA. Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) is a big molecule that stores the genetic information in the cells. The chemistry behind the DNA is that it consists of three major components, a heterocyclic base, a deoxyribose sugar (pentose) and a phosphate (phosphoric acid). The sugar molecules and the phosphate molecules form the backbone of the DNA Structure. I am sure you must have seen the Double helix structure of DNA in many movies, cover pages of bio-related books, etc, if not just type DNA in the Live Search, you shall find it. The heterocyclic base consists of four different types of bases namely, Guanine (G), Adenine (A), Cytosine (C) and Thymine (T), famously referred as AGCT sequence. A and G are purine derivatives and C and T are pyrimidine derivatives. I really don’t know what this purine and pyrimidine derivatives are, my speculation is that they belong to some class of organic chemistry. Now, comes the coolest part of DNA, the framework that connects the different heterocyclic bases is hydrogen bonding. Wow, it’s been a long time since I studied hydrogen bonding, believe me it’s an interesting thing to read. I think I am re-invoking my lost love feelings towards chemistry. To the people who don’t know my connection with chemistry, it’s my favorite subject, the only subject I loved. Oh God, I need to learn how to resist myself from thinking about love, now-a-days I am thinking about lot of philosophical stuff. I think scientists are very romantic at their heart; it’s just that they allow the brain to take the control over their lives. Don’t invoke my feelings baby, I am a die hard lover! … Aaaah! … Let me drag myself back to DNA.

The coolest thing about Hydrogen bonding in DNA is that, it can occur only between G-C and A-T. So, that’s the reason you have DNA sequences like GC, AT, GG, AA, CC, and TT but not AG or TC. Understanding the DNA sequences is again an interesting piece of study. Long back, I did some work on DNA sequences at Pentagram research center under Prof. E. G. Rajan. I was involved in developing a MATLAB program for application of Rapid transforms for DNA sequences. Somehow, the work didn’t turn out to be phenomenal, so I left it. I think Rajan Sir will be very angry with me regarding that work. Well, I hope he will glad to know that I am back to genetics with study of Charge Migration in DNA

Now, coming to actual thing, charge migration in DNA refers to transfer of electric charge along the sequence of DNA i.e. the sequence of A, G, C and T. Due to radioactive radiations or through external charge supplies, a additional charge might get added to the DNA. It is important to study this field from the biological damage point of view. However, the recent studies have reveal possibility of nano-technological devices can be framed using the charge migration concept of DNA. Basing on the type of sequence, a DNA can behave as semiconductor, insulator or conductor. The ionization energies of different heterocyclic bases are different. If you go down at sub-atomic level, the charge migration in DNA can be derived from the framework of quantum mechanics. I guess, I should be dancing now, the reason, yes, the Quantum mechanics. Controlling my excitement, the charge migration occurs through electronic transitions among states near the chemical potential. This charge transfer characteristics can be determined through the properties of highest occupied molecular states (HOMO) and the lowest un-occupied molecular states (LUMO), referring to hole transfer and electron transfer. HOMO and LUMO, got to give credit for the creativity of the scientist who framed these acronyms.

Well, don’t you think this much info is enough for a single blog article? I don’t want to go too deep into the subject because of two reasons. Reason one, I don’t want to scare you and reason two, even I don’t understand further than this. Actually, beyond this is full of quantum mechanics with lots of lovely equations. Long back, I told this phrase to one of my friend; just feel like repeating over here, “the beauty surrounding us is due to the symmetry in the equations, which we often neglect”. Try to think deeply over that phrase about the context it was quoted.

November 28 1:37 AM

2007

Thoughts to build on...

'Thoughts' that human brain generates are not only mysterious but sometimes very misleading as well. Your whole character is based upon the thoughts produced by your brains continiously. Everything that you do, everything that you say is nothing but the implementation of some of your the thoughts. The mystery of thoughts is that you are never sure what thought are you going to produce the next moment. However, based on your character one can guess the range of thoughts you can generate. Scientifically we can say that "Character" is similar to a complex system that generates future outputs based upon "past inputs". Human characters are not as simple as we visualize it to be. If the characters were simple, our lifes wouldn't have been full of emotions. The simpler the character is, the lesser the emotions are. I don't know why I am sounding so philosophical today. But let me not deviate from the topic at least today, my general tendency is to start from origin and end up at infinity !!

People judge your character based upon your "Public thoughts". Public thoughts are the actions that you have done in your life publicly (known to people). However, it is misleading to believe that actual character of a person is based upon so called public thoughts. Human brain generates millions of "private thoughts". Some of these thoughts we reveal it before the people we are close with and many we confine it to ourselves. The actual character of a person is based upon the combination of both public thoughts and private thoughts. Every decision that you make, every future step that you make is based upon the public thoughts and private thoughts. Let's do this scientifically since i am best at science.

Public Character ( Cp) = F ( public thoughts)

Actual Character ( C ) = F ( public thoughts, private thoughts)

Where 'F' is the judging function. Judging function is again dependent on the person who is judging.

The above equation can also be represented as

Public Character of X in Y's point of view ( Cpxy) = F( public thoughts of X, public thoughts of Y, private thoughts of Y)

Y can never determine the actual character of X unless Y = X.

"You are the best judge of yourselves". And yes, finally we have the scientific proof for that. It is impossible for 'Y' to know all the private thoughts of 'X'. Private thoughts are continious and even if you decide to share it with some person, the only way this could happen is that "you keep on saying simultaneously all the thoughts generated by your brain" to that person. Considering all the natural scenarios, it is impossible for you to simultaneously speek out all your thoughts to some other person day and night. By the way, those crazy love birds who at this moment are doubting this fact, let me say you "private thoughts" are generated even when you are 1 sec old.

Well, you can see from above that things are getting complex, but that's how complex we all are. We know people around us by their public thoughts and we aren't sure what there private thoughts can be. That's the reason so many people get misunderstandings, breakups and all sorts of crazy things happen between them.  I am not a Love Guru, let me tell you, when you say you know a person, think again and if you are still not convinced that you are wrong, just have a look at the mathamatical proof given above.

Life is not about knowing a person, life is about making yourselves known to others. Wow, i just realised something special. If i can't be a scientist, I can be a good philosopher!! Once the people know you more, they will be able to get close to knowing your actual character. That way, there is a possibility of strong relationships. Anyhow, like many people say, relationships are based upon trust and faith. Sometimes trust and faith by others can modify your private thoughts and you might become a real good human being.

October 26 2:08 AM

2007