My score is 94980 in first attempt.. What is yours

This post on Digg got me interested in the Ramps game and since it said Physics, being a Physics fan that I am, I started trying the game. Took me about 30 minutes to finish all the levels and end up with a score of 94980. So again, my score is 94,980. What is yours ...



Link for the game is

http://www.myfreegamespot.com/game/22548/Play-Ramps.html

Update: Image has been updated to hide the passwords :)

Update 2 Here is my second attempt at the game. I crossed 100k but couldn't still beat some of the scores posted in the comments.. :)

Redemption of a man's lost dignity - Chak De India

One man, Kabir Khan captains the Indian team and takes it through to the World Cup finals, where they meet long time nemesis Pakistan in finals. He thinks its just a matter of 70 minutes and all there was is to go out there and give his best shot. Little does he know that his pride, dignity are at stake just because of his religion. Hell breaks lose on him not because he misses a penalty stroke in the penultimate moments of the game just like a zillion people before him have, but because he is a Muslim in Indian team and because he happens to have the sporting spirit to congratulate the winning team. Accusations of his being sold out to the country where he belongs to, take an uproar in the media and with the aam junta and he is forced out of the team and his ancestral home with a label as Gaddar (The traitor).

Spending seven years in anonymity Khan returns for a redemption of his lost glory. His aim, to convert the silver medal that he had, to a gold in the world cup.. As he mentions later on to the committee in an intense way, he spends these seven years in preparing for the interview with the Association. The path to the World cup is not easy for the Khan, because of the politics in the Association and more than that, the diversity in the team which has lost the identity of a 'team' by itself. Its the dignity of the person at stake and yes he delivers big time..

Thats the story of Chakk De India in short, but the way it unfolds itself on the celluloid in the direction of Shimmit Amin is excellent. CDI works big time not just because of the powerhouse performances of the cast, but because of the intensity of emotions portrayed during the duration of the movie. A girl is willing to desert her family for the love of her game while another is willing to do 'anything' for the position of the captain. Another girl is out there to teach a lesson to her boy friend according to whom the National game of India is just a stick and ball game. And yet another is out to prove her parents that she can make a mark in the world of Hockey. And above all of them who will do anything to get his dignity restored..

CDI may not reap harvest of profits for the Yash Raj films but it will surely stand out as one of the best attempts by the production house ever. Though I personally dislike Sharukh Khan for his over the top performance I cannot help but appreciate his performance in the movie. He is restrained, a wide gamut of emotions overflowing in him during the movie, from a coach who pits his girls against the men's hockey team for a chance to go to the World cup to the person who inspires the same team against the six times champion Aussies with a powerhouse speech. Seventy minutes is all you have in your life that could make a big difference in your lives, he tells the players, and you could easily associate that to yourself in all the crucial moments in life. For example, 3 hours is all you have in IIT JEE to enter the premier institutes of India or to spend the next four years in colleges which do not justify their existence as the Engineering colleges of India.

The girls perform equally well, Bindia as the senior player who has a wonderful game, but would refuse to play as the coach says just because she is a senior player in the team and wants the things her way. Watch out for her intense portrayal when she offers herself to Khan for the captaincy of the team. Though Vidya as the captain doesnt have great scenes in the movie, she does leave her impact when you leave the theater. Balbir, who transforms from a person who doesn't have a restraint on her anger to the person who uses it properly against the Argentinians in the Quarters. Komal, the bubbly young girl who wants to teach the Memsahib Prreti a lesson by making the maximum number of goals but passes the ball to her at the last moments of the finals for the sake of the nation. And above all my favorite among the lot, Preeti Sabarwal who almost loses her breath for a place in the team and is out to prove her boy friend Abhimanyu Singh that she has a career of her own as an independent woman and doesn't heed to the whims of the star cricketer. She is my favorite among the lot not because she is a gora memsahib as mentioned by Komal, but because of the enigmatic look that she carries with herself throughout the film. A look that portrays dis interest in the pettiness of Komal, a look that shows her determination for proving her might to her boy friend, a look of respect for the coach while at the same time disliking his ways, a look that leaves you haunting even after the movie is over as to what was really going on in her head while enacting the role and what emotion she was actually trying to emote more than others..

CDI might not fit in the regular Bollywood dance and routine but it is definitely worth a watch. I am sure the film would bring the same kind of inspiration about hockey as was brought by Rang De Basanthi in the youth about the country as a whole, but guess what, just as days pass by, CDI will not be able to retain the inspiration just like RDB couldn't. I still remember seeing a lot of Yahoo groups formed by youth of India who got inspired by RDB, but that was all it could go to, before it became just any other thing. Sure, CDI will generate excitement about our national game Hockey, and might retain it for a year or two, but in the wave of cricket that sweeps the nation by its feet, the national game will keep trying hard to justify its identity in the nation, until the Association and the government decide to do something to retain the lost glory...

Getting things done - Using memory where it is actually needed

This post of my previous roommate got me interested in GTD (Getting Things Done). Being the lazy guy that I am, I didn't get to read entirely of the concept and how to use it, but during a quick glance at wiki there was one statement that caught my attention. "If you could do something in less than 2 minutes, you must do it immediately. Procrastination is not going to help you. Another thing of interest is the fact that you should spend your time and brain in what matters the most, in doing things, not in remembering them or in thinking about what needs to be done.

This got me thinking and I realized that I spend more time in recollecting similar things again and again and many times end up not doing it. For example, whenever I do my laundry, most of the times, I forget to put my towels for laundry along with my clothes, and I usually end up going for a second round that is actually not necessary ending up paying $2 more. Not only that, every time I visit Walmart, I spend more time thinking about what I need to buy, than the time spent in finding the item or in getting it at the counter. Inspite of that, I end up missing something or the other making another trip all over again. Then I thought about how my Mom used to do it when I was young. She kept a book and before going to the grocery store, she would think about all the necessary items, make a list of it and take it to the store thereby saving the time to think of things at the store. I wanted to follow this approach, but there is still a problem with this approach. Every time, you will make a list, and during the making you spend your memory thinking of all the items that might be necessary. A small but significant amount of memory is being wasted in this process. Also there is a chance of losing that note book or if it was maintained in a excel sheet, maintaining a lot of them and tracking them is an issue. I thought about this for a little while, and I zeroed down on an approach and this has been working pretty good for me.

Here it is..

List down all the items you would ever buy from a Walmart or a Target in an Excel sheet or even better in a Google Spreadsheet. Look at your past couple of months receipts if you think you are forgetting some. Spend some time in preparing this list, since its only a one time task. Once you feel that your list is as complete as it can get, keep it handy. Every time you visit a Walmart or Target, check against the list and note the items that you are currently out of.. What does this save you. It saves you the cognitive process of recollecting what items you are out of, since you have all the items that you need in the list and you are checking against it.. This does save considerable amount of memory that you could probably use for some other tasks :) This was my approach. If you think of a better approach or you have a better approach that you follow, please don't hesitate to drop a line in the comments..

This is not applicable to just the Grocery list. This is applicable to anything and everything. For example, you can make a list of all things that you would ever need to take to a laundromat, and when you get ready to go there, check against your list, and you know what you missed... If you are a consultant and keep shifting frequently, then make a list of all the places that you need to change address in. The next time you shift, all you have to do is to check against this list. Google Docs is the best place to save this information because, your computer might crash or you might change your system but you will still have all your lists safe. If you are thinking, what if Google goes down, then all I could say is, (though I don't believe this would happen in the near future) Bad time, you need to prepare your list one more time...

Also you can apply this to your goals in life. Make a list of all the things that you want to do. If you could do something in less than 5 minutes, don't list it, just go finish that task and come back. Once you have set up your tasks and goals, arrange them in short term, medium term and long term and also based on their priority. When you have some time to do things, you should use that time to do one of these rather than in 'thinking' what to do at that point of time. This does matter because time saved is time spent effectively.. After all, it makes no sense in spending time in thinking of the same things redundantly like preparing a list from the scratch everytime.... You might come up with a rapidly different approach to your issues, but at the end of the day, the idea is focusing on the tasks than in thinking about the tasks to be done over and over. Good luck...

Dil Hai Hindustani

What Indians think when asked what is one thing that is unique about India. A variety of things have been spoken in the video. Unity in Diversity indeed..

So what is one thing that you think is unique about India???

Favorite Food Restaurants in Dallas

I haven't done any personal posts in this blog so far. But one of my best friends' anneK tagged me for the favorite food spots here and so here we go. If this post bores you to hell, then you know whom to blame now. For starters, I currently stay in the Dallas / Fortworth area, TX, but I will be moving out in a couple of weeks, so I wanted to mention my favorite food places here before I leave. That I am an Indian and like Indian food is no big secret since you can easily figure that from my name and my posts. So please bear with me if you find bias towards more Indian kind of food.

1. Madras Pavilion: I lost count of how many times I would have visited this place, and one thing that pulls me towards it is the fact that it is completely vegetarian. Their buffet boasts some of the best South Indian varieties and their menu is huge too. Their take at the North Indian dishes is not so good, but as far as the South Indian food is concerned, they are more or less authentic. The weekend buffets offer a wide variety of dishes and God, do I curse myself after every buffet for adding more carbs to my flab.. If you are strongly looking for a Gobi Manchurian or smooth Aloo parathas, then the place to go is Udipi Cafe, a little distance away from Madras Pavilion

2. Zaks Thai Restaurant: Formerly known as Thai Frisco, their Thai menu is pretty good. Though their Pad Thai leaves you asking for a more tastier version, the other varieties like Red, Green or Yellow curries are pretty good. With a Spring Roll and a Side Salad offered with most of the dishes, the meal fills you up to a decent extent. Don't go for their yellow Big Noodles though. I am still regretting my afternoon's decision of choosing it for lunch.

3. Olive garden: I guess there is not much debate about this place around here to be one of the best authentic Italian cuisine chain around. Being a veggie, I have very little options here, and honestly I have never tasted anything other than a Egg Plant Parmigiana but that alone is enough for enticing me towards the restaurant at least once a month. I don't know how much of an apetite The Minnestrone soup with the smooth French bread creates as an apetizer, but I sure am not complaining. Oh, and how can I forget the yummy Tira Misu there. It's delicious. If you haven't tried it yet, then you do not know what you are missing.

4. Taj Restaurant: I don't remember their full name since I only visited it twice, but this is more or less like an Indian fast food shop. Tastewise, I would give it number 1 rating, because everything there is excellent and pretty inexpensive. But the vicnity and the maintenance leave me asking for more. If you want to get a very good Dosa or Upma Pesaratt, then this is the place to go.

5. Banana Leaf Thai cuisine: This is a slightly expensive Thai restaurant but the taste and the ambiance is very good. Watch out for their Pineapple fried rice which has so many fried cashews that would leave you wondering, how many calories you would have to burn that night to make up for it. If they would serve me any faster than they actually do, I would go there once a month definitely..

Now that you have my choices here and know where to look for me the next time my post offends you, let me sign off not tagging any more people to write about their favorite restaurants, because if they want to blog about their favorite food places, they don't need a tag from me to do so :)

Facing fears - essence of optimism for entrepreneurs

Growing up watching the likes of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf play great tennis in their hay days, the curiosity about the game in my mind only grew with me. While I wanted to try my hand at it in my childhood, I was always afraid of a remark from my friend. He said "If you play at a wrong angle, the game has the potential to break your nerves." God, did I believe that. Perhaps it's true and perhaps it's not. But that stayed in my mind and I never even attempted it. But seeing many people in my apartments playing it, I thought why would I be the only one to break my nerves. I played tennis for the first time yesterday, and boy, did it feel good. I felt I had more exercise than my daily walk on a treadmill burning 450 cals gave me. And also playing a game does makes the difference, because you are not doing it for the sake of doing it (like walking), you are doing it because you love to do it. And what great way to love some physical exercise other than a game like tennis.

The point here is not playing tennis or doing some daily physical exercise. The point is breaking the long associated fears in a person. if I did not take up a racket and stepped on the court, I would have died some 50 years later still thinking I would break my nerves if I played at the wrong angle. Or probably I would have done it some other time in these 50 years but I would have lost all the time in between. So I guess the right thing for a person to do is to actually go there and do it. Many of us hear many a thing from childhood which have such strong thoughts implanted in our minds that we should not do 'this' for this might happen. Until we do not try it once, we will have no idea or proof to base that upon. No, that doesn't absolutely mean that you should try jumping off a roof to clear your fear of heights :) I am only mentioning about smaller fears in life.

Many a time you hear many people say 'This idea will not work out' or that idea has no scope. Never believe them. Approaching any situation with blatant optimism is the right way. I once saw a guy wearing a T-Shirt which said 'I haven't failed. I only found 1000 ways that don;t work. That's the spirit we need to possess. Fear of failure should not stop one from actually attempting something. If we don't have optimism and belief in ourselves, we have nothing. You want to be an entrepreneur, ignore those thousand guys who tell you the idea you have won't work. Try it and check it, you might fail a hundred times, but the 101th time, you have an idea of 100 ways how not to fail. It was definitely not an idiot who said 'Try and try till you succeed.' Faith in yourself, your idea and your capacity to implement can only make you a successful entrepreneur. It's not just about entrepreneurship. It's about anything that appears daunting to you at the first look. Until you try it yourself don't let others' opinions dictate what you want to do. Time to break some fears isn't it!!

An Amazing Conversation - Is God there? - Atheist Professor vs. Theist Student

I cam across this forwarded email which had this amazing conversation between an atheist professor and theist student. Searched about it on net and found several interesting versions and discussions about it on online forums. The conversation is as below:

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An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem science has with God, The Almighty.
He asks one of his new students to stand and.....

Prof: So you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.

Prof: Is God good?
Student: Sure.

Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student: Yes.

Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him.
Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't. How is this God good then? Hmm?
Student: (Student is silent.)

Prof: You can't answer, can you? Let's start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student: Yes.

Prof: Is Satan good?
Student: No.

Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From...God...

Prof: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student: Yes.

Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.

Prof: So who created evil?
Student: (Student does not answer.)

Prof: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?
Student: Yes, sir.

Prof: So, who created them?
Student: (Student has no answer.)

Prof: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son...Have you ever seen God?
Student: No, sir.

Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student: No , sir.

Prof: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?
Student: No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't.

Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student: Yes.

Prof: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your GOD doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my faith.

Prof: Yes. Faith. And that is the problem science has.

Student: Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.

Student: And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.

Student: No sir. There isn't.
(The lecture theatre becomes very quiet with this turn of events.)

Student: Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don't have anything called cold.
We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that.
There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat.
We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)

Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Prof: Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?

Student: You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something.
You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light....But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it?
In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?
Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?

Student: Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: Flawed? Can you explain how?

Student: Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God.
You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can
measure.
Sir, science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one.
To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.
Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor.
Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Prof: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.

Student: Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
Prof: (The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize
where the argument is going.)

Student: Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavour, are you not teaching your opinion, sir?
Are you not a scientist but a
preacher?
Prof: (The class is in uproar.)

Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's brain?
Prof: (The class breaks out into laughter.)

Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain, felt it, touched or smelt it?.....No one appears to have done so.
So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable
protocol, science says that you have no brain, sir.
With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

Prof: (The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Prof: I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.

Student: That is it sir.. The link between man & God is FAITH. That is all that keeps things moving & alive.

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Pretty interesting conversation isn't it.. Click below to find some interesting comments on the above conversation that I picked up from an online forum from some atheist vs Theist guys..


CLICK HERE
.

VizagDude

But, I am not that convinenced on the example that the student gave to explain FAITH. Though, none of them saw the Prof. brain, there is scientific proof that the HAS one and every human being does as well and thats good enough for me. I know if rquired (u know what Im sayin...), I can see it, touch it, feel it.So, that does not explain FAITH to me.Correct me if Im wrong.

TT

science doesnt go with teh belief of God itself, its just an explanation in terms of science against science, but when u say scientifically u can touch and feel the brain, then everytime u r in peril and think abt God, u r actually touching and feeling God..Does that answer ur qn bhai??

VizagDude

I agree that sicience does not go with the belief that God exists. Personally I am not an Atheist. But just for the argument sake, what Im trying to say is... the Student was not able to convinence me that example of the Brain and Faith. And what you answered is totally different.

Painkiller

if faith is such an irrefutable thing, what if someone has faith that there is absolutely no god?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

id also like to add this its from douglas adams hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
(the discussion is about babel fish, which when inserted into the ear can transalate any language into your own)
"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything
so mindboggingly useful (like a babel fish) could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching
proof of the non-existence of God.
"The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I
exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am
nothing.'
"`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it?
It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so
therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
"`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly
vanished in a puff of logic.
"`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to
prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next
zebra crossing.

TT:

ur logic is correct bro, faith of a human being is created with his beliefs in various things and when arguments like this converstaion prop up showing that God mite be there, an atheist mite as well believe it r probably stop arguing based on science....

Trigger_jam

I don't think it reached any surprising conclusion. All it showed was that both science and religion were built upon faith but as far as proving/showing/explaining the existence of god it failed. You don't need faith to know you exist. You need faith to believe otherwise.

Castanza

Guys, there is no God there is only Google. That conversation fits a telugu masala movie. that is not real class room stuff, it is just another tirade of believers against the non-believers. you can find the remaining part of the story here at this link. http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/brain.htm

TT

depends on how u look at it dude, u found out a website that gives u the other side of the story as it states in the start itself it has different versions. Check these sites for the version that I have posted.....

http://www.sconsig.com/inspirations/faith.htm

http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/christian/faith.html

http://gwenc.myblog.com/7717.html

I can give tons of those sites which do mention this side of the story.

So the moral of the story is THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF LOOKING AT A GLASS WITH WATER

U MITE LOOK AT IT AND SAY IT IS HALF EMPTY WHILE I CAN LOOK AT IT AND SAY IT IS HALF FILLED. the optimistic way of looking at it......no offense bro, just bringing up my side of the point.....

Dhaavak

Of course faith is necessary in realization of God. However, God realization is not illogical. This creation is a proof of God's exisrence. Albert einstein, who was himself a thiest had an atheist friend who belived in the Big Bang theory that everything just evolved out of nothing. Gases compresiing and decompressing etc. So whenever Einstein would ask him that if there were no god then where did everything come from, and he would always say it was just there. So one night Einstein mad a really cool looking model of the universe with planets in orbit and everything and set it in their lab. When the friend came to visit him the next day and saw the wonderful model of the universe he asked who had built that wonderful replica of the universe. Einstein replied: 'I don't know I woke up this morning and it was just there'. The friend asked numereous times but Einstein's reply was the same. Finally Einstein just told his friend that if even such a small imperfect model of the universe cannot come into existence on its own then how could this creation which has so much order and precision just evolve out of mere gaseous combustion. The freind was finally able to understand the fault in the theory of The Big bang.

Harihar2006

this argumet is not factual...

for a fact the statment that evoloution is not seen is not true...it could be seen every minute in viruses and bacterias etc...

also to sujjest that creation is possible only cos sone things are not seen is not acceptable... nealy all tyhe foundations of nucler physics are not seen and are only a model proped by observation of traits...

and prediction based on the model holds true and therefore the model in genereal is accepted ...

also the child does not answer the questions of evil abd suffering beging around if a creater had his way... and also as to why is it not stopped by the creater...

i hope atleast someon could answer me this question as to why the creator has alooved so much suffering to go on and for somepeople who do all evil do carry on with impunity...

also there is nothing called light as well...it is the presence of enegy whithin a certain frequency ... when the frequency chages the energy will take a different form...

also in darkness there is energy...( for example night vision thermal imaging...) the only thing is that it will not be in the frequency of light...

then it is safe to argue in darkness the essence of light is infact there...( the roort enegy of sufficient will produce light)

so basically the argument goes to the bhuddhist phylosaphy...

in strict theory where there is darkness there is light as well as darkness...depending on what state the energy is... in total darkness if one rubs hands tight and sees through a night vision you will see bright light...


buddhism does not believe in a creator...it also has some complex explanations about life and matter...

this principle is discribed in the complicated set of preachings of buddha called the "abidhamma" ...it is known as the theory of uncertaincy...which goes on to explain the atom the begiing of life and many other interesting nd complex physical issues....

basically budhissm does not accpt the logic which goes set= (A,B) : if A is taken off ... what reamains is B...

it says that as A and B could always be in a state of constant exchange while maintaining its equilibrium what that remains could be either at the time of extraction...

A , B or something inbetween but no less than (A+B)...

in the same sense and with modern science...it cannot be agrued that darkness is the mere absence of light...

or eveil is the mere absence of good...!

the argument which i put forth was for the first time ever in the world put forth by the enlightened one...

in western logic there was no place for an intermediate state...(check the A,B example) it took about 200 years for them to accept the intermediate state theory which was forced on them by the quantom physics observations which could be explained in no other way...

if some one wants to know more please feel free to ask also you can find more about abidhamma in many sri lankan buddhist web sites...

p.s - a nother aspect of the car argument is this...

according to abidhamma what we call an object is only a perception it is infact not true contrary to what the child and the professor said...

if the same car is broken in to pieces and thrown on the ground no one will call that car...! do u....? despite being the existence of all the pieces that made the car...

so what that was present as a car if u take it in a strict physical sense was not a car buit simply an accepted perception...when the perception is gone the car too is gone...!

this principle is refeered to by lord buddha as "sammuthi" or accepted perception... in elglish...also accepted perception is never the sole truth...! just like the exaple of car...

please feel free to ask if u want more information...

TT

gud argument there in terms of budhism, well talking abt the evil part of ur argument, lets think abt it like this, lets say if there is no evil like the mishaps which claim lives, and if every1 starts living forever then the very balance of the whole universe is lost, like we learn in our elementary classes, if we look at teh cycle of insect-frog-snake if insects are not eaten by frogs, the world will be full of insects, if more insects are eaten and less frogs are eaten by the snakes, the frogs grow and if more frogs are eaten, the population of insects again grows, i hope u got the point, what i mean 2 say is what is being looked upon as evil like the mishaps killing people mite be a balance of nature or GOD to achieve a harmony. Lets put it this way, if there is no evil and every1 starts living for a life cycle of average expectancy, then the alarming growth of population wud leave no land for human beings in the near future. Also we can think of it in terms of Punarjanma of teh Hindu philosophy I donno if Buddhism supports it but what I can say is tho people are good in this janma, they mote have committed sins in the previous janma, i dont say i am not a sinner but this mite be an explanation for the evil too...

koolhead

god...hmm..i like him...

there is no difference between good and bad, death and life, love and hate, curse and bless, poverty and wealthiness, evil and devil.....HEAT AND COLD....

these all are just a state, without one, the other has no meaning. they are like a glass- half filled with water..one can say this state either as HALF EMPTIED or HALF FILLED..both are correct...in fact both are same..but difference will be in views and every different view will lead to different results....LOVE or HATE...both are correct...in fact both are same..but difference will be in views and every different view will lead to different results..amazing..isnt it?

when i die, i lose my body..but what abt my thoughts? i cant imagine that i will disappear in this universe forever.....even not knowing my own presence....even not knowing that i ever existed...this cant happen....i wont let it happen..thats why i must believe in god..thats why i must believe in love...

ponting

The point of "heat" vs "cold" is also meaningless if one uses the concept of entropy or order/disorder in molecules. The professor-student conversation is not the greatest I have seen, having myself been engaged in some debates as a strong-headed atheist. I can now see the futility of such discussions
as "Science" has had to correct itself several times on a number of (mis)conceptions and is yet to answer many questions, some popular ones being the apparent absence of "missing-link" in evolution and many aspects of the origin of the mind-boggling universe. Now I have come to understand that just as "faith in God" can be the ultimate thing in someone's life (I don't have any right to say what that thing is), science likewise can be a spritual experience for some people with its ability to evolve, modify and discover,
(almost) always showing potential to benefit mankind in some ways.

TT

science says that entropy or the randomness of the universe is increasing but if the randomness of the universe is increasing everything shud start occuring in random, sun shud be able 2 rise in east r west r north r south, but it does rise in the east, earth does rotate in and revolute in the same way, and there are a lot of patterns if one observes closely, what i wanna say is that there are a lot of flaws in the heavy topic of science itself as u said, science takes that part of anything that it can explain and leaves the rest to bay, so y dont we justify the student taking that part of the argument which justifies his argument like science does....

all said and done, i am science student and believe in the discoveries of science as much as u do, but at the same time, I believe that God r a Spiritual Force runs the entire universe maintaining its balance.....

Castanza

TT,
In all of the three links that you posted there was nothing that continued after the professor's reply to the student's logic that I posted. I never found anything that proves logically that there is God. As someone said in a later post we can't prove that there is God by logic. Actually it is easy for the people trained in Logic and philosophy to cheat us by proving either way.
And how would the concept of believing in God be optimistic when "He doesn't save us from rushing in tidal wave"(from the story).
As it is said in the story God is a concept based on "belief", so no believer should ever try prove God's existence by logic because it is bound to fail.
Thanks brother for starting the discussion. But you should have posted the rebuttal that I posted with your first posting.
(baala vinodam vinnaarooo baallaalaara ee pooota.. )
Have fun,
George Castanza.

TT

gud one castanza bhai, actually i am neither an atheist nor a complete theist, i just believe that there is a spiritual force that runs the world in harmony bringing it in2 a balance. Like I said in my previous post, if the tidal waves dont hit and people do not meet their end in some way r the other, then the harmony of the nature would be destroyed (plz refer 2 my previous reply) the balance wud be missing, I am not saying people should be killed, but every1 cannot die in a heartache r in sleep, so death r the absence of life shud come in some form or the other, r may be we can believe in Punarjanma as I said, people who mite have sinned in previous birth mite have been facing teh consequences now, otherwise how wud we explain the fact that people come put of great mishaps safe and sound and call it being miraculously saved and stuff like that. Again, I am not saying that people shud be killed, its only an optimistic way of looking at it, every1 has 2 meet their end in one way r the other may be that was the way they were destined 2......

neway this is turning out 2 be an interesting discussion....

Presenting India - for those who think it is a land of snake charmers !!

Here's an interesting conversation from the movie Namasthey London in which Akshay Kumar replies to an English man who writes off India as a land of snake charmers

"Namasthey, Sir my name is Arjun Singh. Because of 5000 year old culture, we Indians bow and say Namasthey like this and say Pranaam. When we greet one another we fold our hands in namastey because we believe that God resides in the heart of every human being. The kind of culture in which a lady of catholic origin gives up the chair of Prime Minister for a Sikh, and a Sikh takes the oath of Prime Minister from a Muslim President to hold the chains of a nation in which over 80 percent of the people are Hindus. Your mother tongue English is more spoken in India than anywhere else in the world. And probably you do not know that a lot of words in English have their origins from Sanskrit. Sanskrit's word 'Maatr' became Mother in English, 'Bhratr' became brother, 'Giamiti' became Geometry and 'Trikonnithi' became Trigonometry. It may interest you to know that in our land, we have 5600 news papers, 3500 magazines in over twenty one different languages with a combined readership of over 120 million. It is pretty large when compared to your nation. We have reached the moon and back, but yet you people still feel that we have only reached as far as the Indian rope trick and you care to still see a snake on our hands. In the count of doctors, engineers and scientists, Gentleman, we are only behind two other nations in the world. This was a talk of the brains, now let's talk of strength. The world's third largest army is ours. What is yours. And even then I fold my hands in humility before you and bow and say namasthey to you because we don't consider anyone to be smaller or weaker than us and we don't believe we are above or beneath any individual. Namsthey. "

Jai Hind. Jai Bhaarat..

If interested, check out other facts about India which are from a forwarded email by clicking below
CLICK HERE
.

ACTS TO MAKE EVERY Indian PROUD



Q. Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?
A. Vinod Khosla


Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today's computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm


Q. Who is the third richest man on the world?
A. According to the latest report on Fortune Magazine, it is Aziz Premji, who is the CEO of Wipro Industries. The Sultan of Brunei is at 6 th position now.

Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world's No.1 web based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia

Q. Who is the president of AT & T-Bell Labs (AT & T-Bell Labs is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, Unix to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravalli

Q. Who is the GM of Hewlett Packard?
A. Rajiv Gupta

Q. Who is the new MTD (Microsoft Testing Director) of Windows 2000, responsible to iron out all initial problems?
A. Sanjay Tejwrika


Q. Who are the Chief Executives of CitiBank, Mckensey & Stanchart?
A. Victor Menezes, Rajat Gupta, and Rana Talwar.

Q. We Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives.
There are 3.22 millions of Indians in USA (1.5% of population). YET,
38% of doctors in USA are Indians.
12% scientists in USA are Indians.
36% of NASA scientists are Indians.
34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.
28% of IBM employees are Indians.
17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.
13% of XEROX employees are Indians.


Some of the following facts may be known to you. These facts were recently published in a German magazine, which deals with WORLD HISTORY FACTS ABOUT INDIA.
1. India never invaded any country in her last 1000 years of history.
2. India invented the Number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.
3. The world's first University was established in Takshila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
4. According to the Forbes magazine, Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software.

5. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.
6. Although western media portray modern images of India as poverty striken and underdeveloped through political corruption, India was once the richest empire on earth.

7. The art of navigation was born in the river Sindh 5000 years ago. The very word "Navigation" is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH.
8. The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars have last year (1999) officially published that Budhayan's works dates to the 6 th Century which is long before the European mathematicians.

9. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11 th Century; the largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Indians used numbers as big as 1053.
10. According to the Gemmological Institute of America, up until 1896, India was the only source of diamonds to the world.

11. USA based IEEE has proved what has been a century-old suspicion amongst academics that the pioneer of wireless communication was Professor Jagdeesh Bose and not Marconi.
12. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

13. Chess was invented in India.
14. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted surgeries like cesareans, cataract, fractures and urinary stones. Usage of anaesthesia was well known in ancient India.
15. When many cultures in the world were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilisation).
16. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.


Quotes about India.
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.
Albert Einstein.

India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend and the great grand mother of tradition.
Mark Twain.

If there is one place on the face of earth where all dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.
French scholar Romain Rolland.

India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.
Hu Shih
(former Chinese ambassador to USA)

ALL OF THE ABOVE IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG, THE LIST COULD BE ENDLESS.
BUT, if we don't see even a glimpse of that great India in the India that we see today, it clearly means that we are not working up to our potential; and that if we do, we could once again be an evershining and inspiring country setting a bright path for rest of the world to follow.
I hope you enjoyed it and work towards the welfare of INDIA.

Say proudly, I AM AN INDIAN.

iGoogle lets you add more than 6 tabs - screws up on moving content from 1 tab to another

Earlier Google Home, now known as iGoogle added a feature quietly, that lets you have more than 6 tabs on your iGoogle page. Earlier there was a restriction on the maximum number of tabs you could have - 6. After creating 6 tabs, you would not find the linke for "Add a tab". I just noticed that in iGoogle, even after having 6 tabs, you can find the link for Add a tab. Moreover, iGoogle also has a new feature, that now adds content automatically to the tab based on the tab name you give. You can do this by checking the check box "I'm feeling lucky. Automatically add stuff based on the tab name". These are indeed very good features. Because earlier I wanted to add more than 6 tabs for a variety of feeds and I couldn't. Also I needed to hand pick my feeds, but now the tab name gives an indication to iGoogle on the kind of content I want.

But there is one place where I would say iGoogle screwed up. Earlier it was very easy to move a particular feed from one tab to another. Just hold the title of the feed and drag it to the next tab, and the feed moves from the old tab to the new tab. Now, I don't know if they removed that inadvertently or screwed up something in the code, but I can no longer move that. This is very irritating because, when you have a tab and feel that it has too much content, you would feel to move some specific feeds to another more specifically named tab. But now you will have to remove the feed from the older tab, add it again in the new tab. If the drag and drop feature from one tab to another wasn't there before, it would have been ok but I don't get the logic in offering a nice feature and later removing it...

Any guesses anybody??

Gandhi/Nehrus - when will the dynasty rule end?

As a child I always liked Rajiv Gandhi, I don't know why, may be he looked like a prince though he was bald, or may be he had that charisma that children would fall for!! I still don't know..

Call it Indira or call it Nehru or now call it Sonia, or now even Rahul, the country has to go through this family, never really understood why, looks like this is a monarchy in rule voted by OUR own people. Does India lack in individuals who hold the caliber of any of these?? Nope, absolutely not, its just that Gandhi or Nehru tag at the end which makes them win the elections and rule the country!! Am I a supporter of BJP. Absolutely not!! I am a supporter of intellectuals taking the country ahead..
But isn't it high time to come out of the notion as to what Indira or Rajiv have done... In a country in which you have to go through such difficult exam as IAS to rule a district, the entire country is ruled by people who come from a DYNASTY.. does anyone really know what Rajiv Gandhi studied or now even Rahul Gandhi has? That clearly is masqueraded in the sympathetic wave created for the family.

As long as people vote looking at the PERSONS rather than POLICIES, as long as people vote for CASTE rather than REMOVAL OF PROBLEMS the country will remian the same. So the question is how do we show the progress that we have. Thanks to able intellectuals like Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram the country is making progress, but alas they still have to lie in the shadows of these GANDHI's and carry on their WHIMS.
Way to go India, my MOTHERLAND....

Can't Rahul Gandhi learn about the lives of people in the rural areas by becoming an IAS officer instead of becoming an MP. Can he become one ever? Oh, I forgot, why does he have to, when he is a Gandhi. Now, one may say, the PAs and Secretaries offering advice to them and other ministers are all officers of IAS cadre. Now, let's say an officer X does offer some good advice for the progress of the country, how many ministers would come forward to implement the same, when they are busy doing 'collections' during the short tenure that they have..

It is high time, we have graduates as MLAs and MPs and Ministers. Without minimum education level set for the 'people's representatives' how do you expect them to solve the problems of the country, when they can never come up with a solution. I am tired of hearing the argument, that a common man, aam junta, cannot become a MLA or a MP then, why not? most of the educated people are common people too, they come from these areas of poverty too, at least they will have a minimum knowledge of what can be done for the country. It is time that intellects become leaders and rule the country towards progress. It is time that parties like Lok Paritran get their fair share in elections and become representatives of the people. Watching movies like Rang De Basanti and forming yahoo groups is not just enough. It is time people start 'thinking' before they vote. The vote should not be for Gandhi or Nehru or for Congress or BJP. The vote should be for progress and development of the nation. Will we ever see the light of that day ever? One can only hope..