Who? Me??

This is a follow-up post of my previous post on Perspectives and Co-ordinate geometry. Each individual’s perspectives form the different axes on which the individual perceives the world – and judges the world, so you have (happiness-sorrow axis, good-bad axis, moral-immoral axis, ethical-unethical axis, and so on). Each of these axes define who you are, your values, your beliefs, et al. If I were to map each of these axes against the society’s axes, then we can plot an individual on the society space (its an n-dimensional space, mind you).

Now, get this. The origin of the society (the norms dictated by the society) represented by (0,0,..,0) would be at a certain distance from your own origin say (1,2,1,-4,…,3). The vector (going outwards from the origin) which connects your origin to the society’s origin is your vector of existence. Every individual has his vector of existence. The people who are afraid of society and peer pressure have their origins closest to the society’s origins. Carefree people tend to be away from that origin. The more deviant you are to the society, the further you would be from the origin.

What makes a society? You, me and everybody. Thus, the society is a summation of these vector misalignments. And that my friend defines the origin of the society. Over a period of time, the origin naturally shifts – it shifts because many people change their origins (values, beliefs, etc), thus ensuring that the society also goes through that same shift (although much more gradually). A fact that would have been a taboo for the society would be a norm today. Take mini-skirts for instance or gay rights. Society changes its norms, because the collective changes their norms. The origin has shifted!!

This is going to be a philosophical post, don’t say that I did not warn you at the beginning. But, I have came across an a-ha! for myself at work. This just does not apply simply to Good v/s Evil, but it can be applied to life itself.

Good and Evil are two sides of the same coin, that means, if I were to have an axis (similar to say X-axis), then Evil will be on the left hand side of the Y-axis and Good will be on the right hand side. Thus, Good and Evil are opposites. Now, my friend, what do you do to eliminate Evil? Think. Don’t move ahead and read the answer, please think. Think Co-ordinate Geometry.

You delete the origin (0,0), you take out the Y-axis. You take out the definition point at which Good starts being Evil. You take out that Evil-defining-perspective (Y-axis). I am defining each axes as a perspective on life, and thus, a way of defining (aka constraining) your perspective. Take out the Y-axis and now you have only a degree of Goodness left.

Now, ask yourself – what happens when you take away the X-axis? That translates into a change in your perspective. A shift which fundamentally changes the way you look at things, look at the world. How much more of the co-ordinate geometry concepts can I apply on this? Does this make sense to you? Would appreciate some feedback on this.

On my way home from work, I was having this conversation with a colleague. He made an interesting point, the change in our thinking if we were to legalize corruption. The concept is simple – Declare your black money, pay a nominal amount to the government and you get to keep it for yourself.

I am not thinking through this completely here, but would require your help as well. But here are some points which came to my mind -

• The IT department has to be more thorough and catch all defaulters; that’s a tough task but that is the only way the corrupt people will be encouraged to come forward with their black money
• People will be encouraged to be corrupt, since there is a legitimate way to declare that income!!
• Government gets an inner cut on each bribe it’s official takes!! A kind of a plough back system!!

What do you think?

Addendum -

Seems this is a crazy hair brained idea as any. Read the comments to know more!!

On this occasion of Ram Navmi, my family and I ended up discussing Lord Ram. My sister made this funny remark about Ram being the perfect politician, and then proceeded to compare him to Hillary Clinton.

I won’t explain further, what are your thoughts on this?

• There is a 30% quota on all engineering seats in Mumbai, reserved for girls
• Women have a higher tax bracket of 1.8 L.p.a
• Free education for girls in all public schools
• Have you tried getting a facial? Or your limbs waxed? A bikini wax?
• Or delivering a child?
• Or handling cooking and other chores alongside your job?

I sometimes wonder why they don’t call men the weaker sex?

The Indian Media Revolution has brought forth this host of reality shows on different television channels. Life is stranger and more interesting than fiction. MTV Roadies is just one more of these shows … my wife watches it regularly. In fact, so regularly that even I have started watching that damn show.

For people who already know about the show, the first show was a big hit with the youth … bikers especially. Somehow the attitude expressed by the show has transmogrified into something else now.

What I see nowadays on the show can be summarized in one word – immaturity. I didn’t realize that teens can be so stupid and immature. The participants scheme, plot, make idiotic plans … think that they are oh!so powerful and determined to prove themselves. But for what for Chris sakes? They only end up proving idiots of themselves. I sometimes feel sad for the first Roadie, Ranvijay that he has to put up with this.

Then again, I haven’t seen the first season.

We recently shifted to a new office. The eTail team has grown so fast over the past two years, that it became imperative for our division to shift to a new office. The postal address boasts of an impressive area – Banjara Hills Road No. 12. I say impressive, since it is by far the most expensive area to live in .. with showrooms and plush restaurants all over the place. Little wonder why the top management decided to shift here, aside from the fact that the office was the only Vastu-compliant office readily available at that time.

The office seems good, but sadly lacks in all the aspects of infrastructure … no Class A internet provided here, public transport to a minimum, cellular networks barely reach here, this place is good for one thing … seclusion. Lack of network reach here makes for highly boring times … I did not know how much chattering I do on my cellphone until I came here.

I think I have an overdose of George Lucas here. Watched the complete series. Then installed SW-Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords. Saw lightsabers in my dreams last night.

May the farce be with you!! (Chennai style!!)

Ever since we have discovered the internet, we have found this unending source of pirated software .. be it the latest games, operating systems, software, graphics packages, movies, music, what not. We simply download and use. Have we thought about how it is affecting the creator of that content? Not just financially, but rather, the thought of knowing that there exists a Prasad Ajinkya in the world who is knowingly using content/media created by that particular artiste/programmer. No, I have not thought so in the past, and certainly would not have thought about it in the future had it not happened to one of my close friends.

Today I was just browsing through Digit Magazine’s August DVD (the one that’s free). In it were different wallpapers that they had shared for everyone’s use. One of the wallpapers was this … Now take a look at IRIS-2005 flash intro, it has been painstakingly made by my classmates – Amit, Jhasketan and Sanchit. Jhasketan had drawn those figurines on a tablet, it was then imported into Photoshop, colors and effects were added, and then it was imported into flash. I saw the entire creation process right in front of me … these three guys put in days and nights on this. Try juggling that with a day full of lectures and quizzes, and it becomes a handful.

Now after 3 years, I see it being ripped-off, straight out. There are no acknowledgements mentioned, so that the thousands of Digit subscribers can unknowingly use the same wallpaper on their desktop without even saying a simple Kudos! to the three artistes.

Life is not fair. Shame on you Digit.

PS – Can you tell which is the original?

Related Links –

http://blog.dsignbeyond.com/2008/09/plagiarism.html

http://jainuine.blogspot.com/2008/09/plagiarism-by-digit.html