Arbit Scratchpad

For Tanuka:

Be careful as a few ticket checkers can make mistakes causing unpleasant experiences. My repeated protests fell to deaf ears! I had to go and speak to Vasttrafik Securitas officers at Norra Hamnagatan (near Nordstan) and convince them of the wrong decision by the 2 ticket checkers. Epilogue: Västtrafik is the agency responsible for public transport services involving buses, ferries, trains, and the Göteborg tramway in the county of Västra Götaland, Sweden (plus Kungsbacka Municipality). The Vasttrafik public transport services are usually impeccable and customer friendly, no doubt about that - it is such incidents that create a whole lot of headache once in a while!

Here is a presentation on Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness, that was given as part of the Complex Systems Seminar, at Chalmers University of Technology: Consciousness as Integrated Information from Shamit Bagchi More details here:  http://integratedinformationtheory.org/

A topographic map is the ordered projection of a sensory surface, like the retina or the skin, or an effector system, like the musculature, to one or more structures of the central nervous system. Topographic maps can be found in all sensory systems and in many motor systems.  “Topographically” mapped visual cortical areas,such as primary visual cortex map Cartesian X-­Y positions in visual space using an approximate log conformal mapping (From The Conscious Grid). Images of concentric circles of radii between  and  around the origin under the (conformal) map . Large circles are mapped into parallel lines with increasing real parts. (Courtesy: http://functions.wolfram.com/ElementaryFunctions/Log/visualizations/4/) The maps are not a strict isomorphic representation of XY space. Also, neurons in such maps do not stand for “pixels” of XY space. Kohonen Maps are relevant as a first step in understanding such topographic maps. More here on...

Kohonen Self Organization Map  To map a 2D triangle (set of vectors) to a 1-D vector: Input to the Kohonen Map: Simulation - Ordering and beginning of Convergence: Final output (below) - end of Convergence phase: From a project done in Complex Adaptive Systems course 'Neural Networks' at the Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2014.

Any entity in the world around us, such as an individual human being, owes its existence not only to the simple fundamental law of physics and the boundary condition on the early universe but also to the outcomes of an inconceivably long sequence of probabilistic events, each of which could have turned out differently. - Murray Gell Mann

Was speaking to a personnel setting up a schedule display at the tram station opposite Chalmers Univ (Gothenburg, Sweden). There is actually a sensor on the tram/bus and one on the track and cables run throughout the tracks in order to display data in the stations. So exact timings about departure and arrival of different buses and trams gets tracked in real-time.  The displays have a modem inside and also send out data for the mobile apps and the website.

What is that song saying?  What is it trying to tell me?  May be I should ask that song...  But how do I?  Maybe I should write a song too..  And intersperse it in that song  Then my song will speak to that song.  And they shall converse.  Through new songs, we'd Speak to all those old songs...  And to their writers.  In dialects diverse and tunes Soulful, playful or inquisitive.

Leaves, shed at winter's end, Fell in droves on the windshield of my car that morning! They reminded me of those moments Since we met, When we were not together! One by one the leaves rained on; Yellow and dry, Like those moments When I wanted to be beside you! But couldn't... And now having left dusk behind After the day's office grind. Of some pang the memory of those leaves remind; I speed up, the engine lurches, As does my heart, wanting to be home Now - at warp speed; So it could be in your company. A sudden flash of that shady tree. Lush green leaves. Intact. And when I reach home In the dead of the night, I see sunshine, Forever mine! Valentine.

If not for music, I would be an atheist today! Such music subdues and disarms my militant, rebellious, argumentative, rational disbelieving mind completely! It is songs such as these that keep my eyes from drying up And my soul too! Music is the hotline to the divine. Naam Ali Ka Leke Tu Toh,  Naach Le Galli Galli Tu Le Naam Rab Ka Naam Sai Ka Ali Ali Ali Ali Isn't Sri Chaitanya also said to have had a similar experience:  'Dancing, laughing and weeping in rapturous ecstasies' Hats off to the passionate and heartfelt music and singing! Great energy in the voices too!! It comes from the deepest source And the listener is left thoroughly under the music’s spell, Sobbing uncontrollably in a torrent of spiritual emotions. As if every pore in the body is alive, the blood in the brain and the limbs surges, tingling! Is this? This IS true Bhakti Yoga – A Union with the divine! Patakha Guddi - Translation here .

Three days back I bought three Eggy Wraps from Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), Yelahanka Old Town. When I came back home I saw the paper carry bag had six pieces instead of three. Someone wasn't paying attention at work! Since I was having an upset stomach I hadn't planned to eat, however we all enjoyed the wraps... My wife kept nagging me for paying CCD the pending amount for the additional wraps, I kept postponing this although I was driving back home on the same route everyday. Today she'd called up in the afternoon and while hanging up reminded me to pay up for the other pieces we had all gobbled up and I told her that perhaps they were anyway charging more per piece & I wouldn't pay. She would hear none of it. I hung-up the phone without any intentions of paying. The elevated road on top of NH7 is so good that you just whizz past after getting off it right after the Jakkur aerodrome. So I was about to cross the CCD at Old town, Yelahanka when I was reminde...