Arbit Scratchpad

What actually caused so many deaths - it was not night time; People could swim; People can cling or run from the waves; - was it so rapid or I have no idea about the force of water - fishermen etc can atleast swim; yet such horriying numbers of dead and missing. Death toll is already 80,000 plus overall - 15,000 in India itself. They were swept and drowned ? Data, List of organisations working, Donations etc: DETAILS OF QUAKE/TSUNAMI (Wikipedia) REPORTS (Rediff) HELP HELPLINES ORGANISATIONS WORKING DISSCUSSIONS (Slashdot) WORLD ACTION (CNN) GOOGLE BLOG

Artwork, Dec 25 2004 Quantum Physics and Advaita Philosophy propound the very same concepts. The fact that matter, mind and soul are one and the same - the Prakriti and Purusha -the wave-particle duality ... That state of God or Brahman attainable only through intense meditation to reach Nirvikalpa Samadhi, when the individual soul merges with the supreme soul - the soul of all souls.

The Software Engineer Mouse on Gimp, circa 2004. � Shamit Bagchi I did this some time back, dabbling with GIMP on Linux. I gave it the name 'Surreal' first, then changed it to the above name. Can you guess the meaning of the painting ... MODERN ART -> YUCK !

I had heard a lot about her, had thought and knew of her as a great component of the Carnatic form of Indian classical music. A singer said to be beyond comparison. I had not heard too many of her renditions; only had a vague remeberance that I had watched a movie some ten years back in which she had played the lead role and also sung all the songs. I love to hear Indian classical music whenever I can, Bhimsen Joshi, or instrmental like Chaurasia, Zakhir Hussain, Ravi Shankar etc. But it was only after her recent demise that I kept readng glowing tributes to the legendary singer who came across as a humble and brilliant performer. Then the day after her demise or two days later Doordarshan telecasted the movie Meera; in which she plays the role of Meera - an intro is shown where Sarojini Naidu is praising the effort and characterisation of Meera by MS Subbulakshmi . The movie actually portrays the life of Meera, the unparalleled devotee of Krishna. MS plays the role with aplomb and com...

I am still reading One Hundred Years of Solitude � a marvelous book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; it is a tale of one family as it proliferates, generation after generation. With its myriad characters, each with very similar Spanish names based in an imaginary South American town of Macondo. I got a whiff of some form of writing apart from that of Magic Realism that Marquez is acclaimed for. I would call it the concept of Repeated Negatives � wherein you emphasize and portray the negative behaviours and activities of people and how they become, from good, harmless men and women to direction less, mean, overambitious, egoistic, scheming and morally hollow tyrants. These negative qualities are repeated again and again in great detail and glowing prose, so as to actually in effect cause a definite dislike towards such characters. Apart from this the novel also shows in very mature storytelling, how people suffer from solitude,or loneliness even though they have or do everything in excess a...

I had enumerated the following as motivating factors in a job: Good work - challenging stuff ... Good friendly people - not challenged with an ego complex ... Good infrstructure maybe Good work ethics and mature software practices Creative assignments - strong team work and focus Good food too may be (all the discussion started with this ! - See last post) Further answering the other questions posed: What is challenging stuff?? Work that makes you think - has twists and turns - rather than just converting requirements into code. Including the brainstorming sessions in a group and design strategies. You are not just assigned something and thats all ... Not brainlessly and repeatedly doing something again and again - eg: lots of GUIs What is creative work? Creative would be something that is innovative in its own way - may be new ways of doing things. Learning/discovering/inventing on the job and through mentors about new techniques, new mechanisms, ...