Hi,
In management, they say, the strategy of a firm should emerge. The management should only provide an umbrella. Similarly, I feel the theme for my blogs should emerge on its own. So without restricting myself to the theme I was following, lemme try new things. After two blogs on cats, I started thinking about cats and came across a very interesting trivia that a cat spends 30% of its life grooming itself. Well, I have some friends who do better than that. That was mainly because of the water problem at Chennai. Some of them spent their summers at Chennai and had to end up with some 20 baths in 55 days. One of my friends even kept a count. He says he had got enough time for self-introspection at that time, but doesn't understand how. I explained to him that his friends left him to self-introspect because they thought they have better things to smell. We used to have many monkeys running around our hostels that time. One of my senoirs would say a monkey would never ransack my room. His logic is a monkey comes to my room, looks at things, thinks it is already ransacked and leaves. One day I told him a monkey has ransacked my room. He apprieciated my observation because I could distinguish between the current mess and the earlier mess. Talking about monkeys, if a cat spends 30% time of its life grooming itself, I guess a monkey spends that much time grooming other monkeys. Grooming is a substitute for taking bath. I feel the soap-sellers should realise this before some smart guy like me comes up with a clean all product that would scratch you and can be used as a substitute for soaps.
Friday, March 05, 2004
About cows
Hi,
Let me slowly change my theme. In management, they say, the strategy of a firm should emerge, the management should only provide an umbrella. Similarly, I feel the theme for my blogs should emerge on their own. Since we have been discussing about cats, I thought I should divert into another species of animals. Once I participated in an extempore competition and I was prepared to talk about girls whadever topic they give me. The topic given to me had the word 'cow' in it. Well that is enough for me...
The other day I was alone in a restaurant and was looking around. There, opposite to me I saw a cow, a beautiful cow
Let me slowly change my theme. In management, they say, the strategy of a firm should emerge, the management should only provide an umbrella. Similarly, I feel the theme for my blogs should emerge on their own. Since we have been discussing about cats, I thought I should divert into another species of animals. Once I participated in an extempore competition and I was prepared to talk about girls whadever topic they give me. The topic given to me had the word 'cow' in it. Well that is enough for me...
The other day I was alone in a restaurant and was looking around. There, opposite to me I saw a cow, a beautiful cow
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Cat revisited
Hi,
First of all, my sincere apologies for not updating my blog for 2 days. Will make sure this doesn't happen often. One of my friends (Srikanth) came up with some dangerous logic to solve the 'perpetually moving cat' problem. I haven't understood it but I thought some of you can explain it to me in English. I am pasting it as it is. So here goes the disclaimer - "All crappy ideas given below are from a seriously lunatic friend of this lunatic. The blogger (me) is not responsible for any brain damage or insanity ensuing from reading these ideas or experimenting with them". So here goes the crap:
Well,
Regarding the cat with a bread stuck onto its back, there seems to be a lack of understanding of anything thats beyond 'seemingly-obvious' reasons. Here I crap!
Assumptions:
1) The cat cannot think (so do the guys who crack cat)
2) The bread is not one of those Indian breads
3) No number of assumptions can make life any easier.
Action:
1) butter is applied onto bread
2) its stuck to the cat's back thru some complicated procedure!
3) The cat is kicked onto its ass form nth floor (where n>2, n is an integer)
Theory:
The theory can be split into two conflicting sub-theories.
(1)
In the first one, it is assumed that the cat has no choice with regard to the landing style, and so does the bread-butter side.
Also, it is assumed that the earth (gravity) decides as to which will fall in which style. So, as far as the inputs to the earth's 'brain' go, it only sees the cat. It doesnt realize that there is a stinking piece of bread behind it. Thus, the cat lands on its feet.
(2)
Here, it is assumed that the cosmic powers or the imaginary repulsive magnetic fields of moon push the piece of bread and the cat downwards. We can use some fuzzy logic to solve this problem.
Now, 2 cases arise:
(a) The bread piece's dimensions are larger than the cat onto which they are stuck. In this case, the only thing seen from the top is the bread piece, and the forces unite to make the buttered side get battered onto the ground.
(b) The bread piece is so tiny that only the cat is seen form the top. In this case, the cat lands on its feet.
So, in between them, the cat has to fall in a tilted fashion.
First of all, my sincere apologies for not updating my blog for 2 days. Will make sure this doesn't happen often. One of my friends (Srikanth) came up with some dangerous logic to solve the 'perpetually moving cat' problem. I haven't understood it but I thought some of you can explain it to me in English. I am pasting it as it is. So here goes the disclaimer - "All crappy ideas given below are from a seriously lunatic friend of this lunatic. The blogger (me) is not responsible for any brain damage or insanity ensuing from reading these ideas or experimenting with them". So here goes the crap:
Well,
Regarding the cat with a bread stuck onto its back, there seems to be a lack of understanding of anything thats beyond 'seemingly-obvious' reasons. Here I crap!
Assumptions:
1) The cat cannot think (so do the guys who crack cat)
2) The bread is not one of those Indian breads
3) No number of assumptions can make life any easier.
Action:
1) butter is applied onto bread
2) its stuck to the cat's back thru some complicated procedure!
3) The cat is kicked onto its ass form nth floor (where n>2, n is an integer)
Theory:
The theory can be split into two conflicting sub-theories.
(1)
In the first one, it is assumed that the cat has no choice with regard to the landing style, and so does the bread-butter side.
Also, it is assumed that the earth (gravity) decides as to which will fall in which style. So, as far as the inputs to the earth's 'brain' go, it only sees the cat. It doesnt realize that there is a stinking piece of bread behind it. Thus, the cat lands on its feet.
(2)
Here, it is assumed that the cosmic powers or the imaginary repulsive magnetic fields of moon push the piece of bread and the cat downwards. We can use some fuzzy logic to solve this problem.
Now, 2 cases arise:
(a) The bread piece's dimensions are larger than the cat onto which they are stuck. In this case, the only thing seen from the top is the bread piece, and the forces unite to make the buttered side get battered onto the ground.
(b) The bread piece is so tiny that only the cat is seen form the top. In this case, the cat lands on its feet.
So, in between them, the cat has to fall in a tilted fashion.
Monday, March 01, 2004
Perpetual Motion
Hi,
There has been tremeandous response from you guys. Thanks a lot. I promise I will show the same energy and enthu in maintaining the blog for the days to come. I have enabled comments for my blogs. Please thrash me. I actually got a very good piece from a friend of mine, Avinash Iyer (The higher you go the Iyer you become - as he claims). The piece he sent is very much in line with the current theme I am running. So I thought I would make it the topic for today. Here is the quote my friend has sent to me:
"We know that the cat lands with its feet downside when thrown into the air. We also know that the bread always falls butter side down when thrown into the air. So if we stick a peice of bread to the cat's back and then put butter on the bread, then we would have achieved a perpetual motion machine that will keep rotating above the floor at a constant speed, not knowing which side to fall down first?"
Lemme guide you to the link pmm. The above joke reminds me of one of our quant profs who keeps rotating around the desk while teaching, like the cat above. Guess he has a butter bread attached somewhere :-)). The above joke put two questions in my crappy head - if at all such a perpetually moving cat is possible according to physical laws, what will happen when the cat dies? Also, will the cat keep rotating at 'constant speed' as mentioned in the joke? Actually, the joke is well worded in that it does not attribute perpetual motion to any physical laws, it just says the cat keeps rotating not knowing which side should fall first. So maybe only confusion can lead to perpetual motion. Yes, I know what came into your mind just now - Is this guy perpetually confused? Yeah, you are right ;-)
There has been tremeandous response from you guys. Thanks a lot. I promise I will show the same energy and enthu in maintaining the blog for the days to come. I have enabled comments for my blogs. Please thrash me. I actually got a very good piece from a friend of mine, Avinash Iyer (The higher you go the Iyer you become - as he claims). The piece he sent is very much in line with the current theme I am running. So I thought I would make it the topic for today. Here is the quote my friend has sent to me:
"We know that the cat lands with its feet downside when thrown into the air. We also know that the bread always falls butter side down when thrown into the air. So if we stick a peice of bread to the cat's back and then put butter on the bread, then we would have achieved a perpetual motion machine that will keep rotating above the floor at a constant speed, not knowing which side to fall down first?"
Lemme guide you to the link pmm. The above joke reminds me of one of our quant profs who keeps rotating around the desk while teaching, like the cat above. Guess he has a butter bread attached somewhere :-)). The above joke put two questions in my crappy head - if at all such a perpetually moving cat is possible according to physical laws, what will happen when the cat dies? Also, will the cat keep rotating at 'constant speed' as mentioned in the joke? Actually, the joke is well worded in that it does not attribute perpetual motion to any physical laws, it just says the cat keeps rotating not knowing which side should fall first. So maybe only confusion can lead to perpetual motion. Yes, I know what came into your mind just now - Is this guy perpetually confused? Yeah, you are right ;-)
Sunday, February 29, 2004
I stink therefore I am
Hi,
There was a Rexona deodorant ad I saw some months ago. It is in a cowboy kind of setting. Two guys are escaping from those bad guys carrying guns over their shoulders. When they approach their hut, the two guys will lie down and act as if they are dead. The bad guys smell them and take away the guy who doesn't use Rexona deodorant because they infer from his sweat smell that he is not yet dead. I thought an apt caption for the ad can be "I stink therefore I am (alive)".
Now coming to business, lots of guys actually don't know what "I think therefore I am" means. Many think it means - it is thought that keeps us alive. One of our professors (one of those spiritual kind) gave us the same interpretation. But the actual statement - cogito ergo sum - made by Des Cartes means something else. It actually means "I doubt therefore I know". Des Cartes came up with two basic questions - "Can I feign that the world does not exist?", "Can I feign that I do not exist?" The answer to the first question is - yes you can - because, the world around you maybe your imagination or something is making you believe that this world exists as you know. Now in both the possibilities, you are accepting there is a thing called "I" that thinks. In the first, you assumed "I am imagining", in the second, you assumed "I am thinking". And both the questions arose from "doubt" which is also thought. So, I am accepting only one fact - that 'I think'. Now this would mean I am accepting that something called "I" exists. Hence the statement "I think therefore I am". So, this is the only statement you can say with 100% confidence, according to Des Cartes.
Too philosophical...aah....
There was a Rexona deodorant ad I saw some months ago. It is in a cowboy kind of setting. Two guys are escaping from those bad guys carrying guns over their shoulders. When they approach their hut, the two guys will lie down and act as if they are dead. The bad guys smell them and take away the guy who doesn't use Rexona deodorant because they infer from his sweat smell that he is not yet dead. I thought an apt caption for the ad can be "I stink therefore I am (alive)".
Now coming to business, lots of guys actually don't know what "I think therefore I am" means. Many think it means - it is thought that keeps us alive. One of our professors (one of those spiritual kind) gave us the same interpretation. But the actual statement - cogito ergo sum - made by Des Cartes means something else. It actually means "I doubt therefore I know". Des Cartes came up with two basic questions - "Can I feign that the world does not exist?", "Can I feign that I do not exist?" The answer to the first question is - yes you can - because, the world around you maybe your imagination or something is making you believe that this world exists as you know. Now in both the possibilities, you are accepting there is a thing called "I" that thinks. In the first, you assumed "I am imagining", in the second, you assumed "I am thinking". And both the questions arose from "doubt" which is also thought. So, I am accepting only one fact - that 'I think'. Now this would mean I am accepting that something called "I" exists. Hence the statement "I think therefore I am". So, this is the only statement you can say with 100% confidence, according to Des Cartes.
Too philosophical...aah....
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