I have ultimately realised that, if people  have the will to maintain more than one blog, then they can be successful and will regularly post in all of them. But, I just can’t belong to that league. Though I have been blogging for more than a year or two, I have created more than three blogs and it’s only in two of them that I properly post.

I have posted this before I think. One blog exclusively for Tech stuffs (Novice Investigator) that amuse me and another blog for all the amusing things that happen to me in my life (The Daily Stumbler). But then, the number of posts in individual blogs drop. There are greater number of visitors to tech, as there are far greater number of people who search for tech stuffs while very few hunt for anectodes and jokes in my life in Google.

I figured out that, if I blog at a single domain rather than two, then people who reach my blog via search results, will be benifitted out of my post. Also if they explore around my blog, then I will be having an opportunity to share the lighter side of my life with them. If they like it and strike a chord then I have a fair chance of converting casual visitors to regular visitors!

Whatever I said about might look possible only in theory and not in practice. But my heart says that it is possible. I go where my heart takes me.

Thanks to the Budding Bloggers Program, I now have my own domain (Open Thoughts). I got a very matching name for my blog in the nick of time, and I surely love it! From now on I shall be blogging over there and that shall include everything shareable from the phases of my life.

Pragyan is back. In it’s new form we expect to present the future of this world thorough our technical festival. With a horde of events that is sure to attract many more the next year. The online events have started and we have seen pretty good participation from several colleges in India and also abroad. In case you haven’t known and feel left out now, rev up and head on to www.pragyan.org Five more days and the curtains shall rise for a new episode of Pragyan.

Labyrinth, the Klueless style online event has been a hit with students. We expect a larger number of participants for the Second Set of Labyrinth that was released a few days back. With clever levels that shall have you hooked up to the internet and google (or a search engine of your choice), Labyrinth is worth a try, because at the end of the day you are going to have learnt a lot of things. Pragyan like every year has something or the other for everyone. For those just out of the hang over of Entrance Examinations, we have Principia. Then there is the Robotics based events, both workshops and competitions. Last year they went down well with the masses.

There are events for the Linux freaks too. Everyone wants to be unique, to be different from others. So won’t you wish to have your Computer and Operating System also customized so that it looks different from other’s Operating System. Try your hand at the Desktop Customisation (in Linux), competition at Pragyan, a subset of Tux Ventura.

The online events are for those who are unable to be physically present here at Trichy during Pragyan. To be fair with everyone, these online events permit students to be a part of this mega festival right from their homes or colleges. Thank the Internet! Oh wait, do you fancy the black hats? Have you felt of making the Internet a safer place by identifying holes and filling them? Then my friend, “Digital Fortress”, might be something you may wish to try out.

There are many more. As I said, something for everyone, to bring that special character within you so that you can play your role to change the future for a better one.

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I have encountered this paragraph in lots of tutorials on Website design. Though it was from some Latin article or speech. In fact it is nonsense. Ripped up and stitched from Cicero’s The Purpose of Good and Evil. 

Finally I have found what that seemingly meaningless text means. 

Cheers

Was happy to see the article, “India’s gift to Pakistan on New Year” in today’s Hindu. A gesture of goodwill. I appreciate that the officials had taken this step in spite the war threat. 66 Pakistani prisoners were repatriated to their home country yesterday. It is important to note that most of these people had to become prisoners because of carelessness, or when cheated with forged documents provided by people with vested interests.

I find people in many orkut communities blaming each other countries. The truth is that the people, the aam janata are not interested in any way in way or harm to the other country. But like a drop of poison spoiling the milk, there are some people who plant hatred in the hearts of the innocuous. They are present in both countries, or I should say throughout the world. They with the help of similar people elsewhere find ways to bring about hatred among others and enjoy, like wolfs.

Be honest and helpful. Don’t cheat. There are many other ways to succeed. One more resolution for the new year. Happy New Year, friends!

I came across this word, eunoia. It is a word with all the vowels of the English language. Infact it is the shortest such word. Another word which carries all the vowels is Mozambique, which is a African country. This word means to be in normal mental health. That does mean something good.

It looked like such a good word to be the name for a blog. So I typed eunoia.wordpress.com into the address bar, only to find a blog with a single post. It had been abandoned. Well eunoia is such a rarely used word that it would be difficult for people to remember and visit that blog.

Another issue is on how to pronounce this word. I have not confirmed the pronounciation, but now I pronounce it as you-know-e-yah. Sounds preety cool huh?! 

You may wonder why this post is titled Thoughts So Beautyful. Because eunoia also means beautyful thinking. A beautifully thought and constructed word that is the smallest word to house all the five English vowels and which also expresses the beauty in the thought process which lead to its existence.

I read this in Futility Closet.  This is the blog of this week (#BOTW#). Before giving the proof for -1 being a positive number, let me say something about this blog. I stumbled upon it long back. This is not a to-be-followed-seriously blog, but a blog to give life to tired grey cells. A huge collection of anectodes, puzzles, humour, history, science and math. 

A very SFW (Safe for Work) blog that gives a good break to your taxing office routine. The collection is wonderful indeed.

What FC says about Itself

No matter how much you love your job, you can’t work for 10 hours straight.

That’s why there’s Futility Closet — 3,000 anecdotes, epigrams, illusions and wonders; puzzles, prodigies, sublimities and horrors.

Read a few and get back to work. We’ll keep finding more.

– Greg Ross, proprietor

Now for the proof. 

Let X = 1+2+4+8+16+32+…. (an infinite series)

since there is no chance that there will be negative numbers in the series, hence X should be positive. I agree to this.

Now multiply both sides by 2. Then we have the following.

2X = 2+4+8+16+32+…(another infinite series)

here the right hand side i.e. 2+4+8+16+32+…. is equal to X-1 from the first relation. OK. Seems to be true. Yes, it is correct.

So, mathematically 2X = X-1 is true and this results in X=-1.

From the first statement it is agreed that X is positive. So since -1 is equal to X, hence -1 is positive. Huh?

Still pondering.

When it slipped, I wasn’t aware. Then it slided, and stalled. I still didn’t have any clue, no one informed me. Then one day they said, the economy is toppling and tumbling. And then they said, there is an economic crisis. “The Economic Crisis of 2008 “. The housing bubble burst! The this, the that. Suddenly there was so much activity and action. One question, “Where did the money go?”.

Finally when things looked settled and governments rolled out rescue plans and solutions I got interested in this. I came to know there happens to be such bursts from time to time. I found an answer for that. Now it was time to delve into finance and find the culprits. So, “Where did the money go?”

Money, Money, Money
So I wanted to know who is enjoying the money of the world now. Well, the money never existed. Huh? Yes, we can’t speak in terms of paper and metal. It’s value, that makes it money. So speak of value. The value dropped and resulted in this financial crisis! My friend Arvind (very common name, so nick-name=Froggy) explained me this in HIS OWN WORDS. He boasts of being a part (and parcel) of the Writer’s Club of our College . In his words, it is like this.

People take mortgage loans from Banks for building houses.
They build house, but are unable to repay.
Bank now plans to mortgage the house, instead of the cash to be paid.
But unfortunately the VALUE of money goes down.
So Bank is now at LOSS.
Bank got money from Investment Bankers.
Investment Bankers at LOSS.
Investment Banks made of Investors.
Investors LOSE. Try to pull out. Find themselves POOR.
So many Banks affected.
Banks in trouble, Government help expected.

There that was the scenario.

Or was it? (There are several articles out there telling you what happened. I tried reading them, but it is written in business language. Hard to digest. So my style of answer.)

My mom gives me a different account. Look at how it twists.

People take mortgage loans from Banks for building houses. Say like 10 lakhs.
People make house of 1 lakh. Use 9 lakhs for other profits.
They turn defaulters. Due to twisted Bank security policies, they escape.
Now Banks mortgage the house. 9 Lakhs lost.
From here it is the same story.

It trickles down to all other branches of the economy and economies of all other countries, thus making it a Global Economic Crisis.

Now my understanding might also be twisted. Have a different story to tell? The comment box is waiting for you!

I am not very sure how and when this game invaded our hostel. But suddenly one day, I find friends forming groups and playing mafia. With serious fun. For the ones not initiated let me give a detailed introduction about this game, which is based sometimes on logic and sometimes not. (In the beginning applying logic is ridiculous, but as the heat gets on the players are expected to play logically).

The game is played among a group of 10 or more. Using cards, the players are designated as a mafia or a villager. Two of the players are designated as a cop, and as a doctor. There is also a moderator who distributes the cards. The players are expected not to reveal what role they play. In the beginning everyone poses as a villager. The aim of the villagers is to eliminate the mafia, while that of the mafia is to attain supremacy by killing the villagers. The mafia have to pose like a villager so that the other villagers do not take him to trial.

There are two modes in the game – the light mode and the dark mode. These two modes form a round. There can be several rounds during a game. The dark mode is the mode that opens the game. During this mode, all the players are asked to close their eyes by the moderator. The moderator then asks all the players posing as mafia to open their eyes and unanimously point at someone. The mafia do not have any idea of who is the cop, the doctor and who are the villagers and can point at anyone. The one at whom they point is in danger and could be killed at the end of the round if not saved by the doctor. After the mafia has pointed at someone (they have to make sure they don’t make any noise so that their identity is not revealed. All decisions are taken by sign) the moderator asks them to close their eyes and then asks the cop to open his eye and point at someone. Now the cop has the permission to point at someone and hence know from the moderator if the person whom he pointed at is a mafia or a villager (thumbs up for mafia). But the cop can point at only one person during every round. Hence the moderator is expected to know the roles played by each player, at least who are the mafia.

Next after the cop closes his eyes, the doctor is asked to open his eyes and point at someone. The purpose of the doctor is to save a villager whom the mafia might have pointed at during that round. It might look that it is illogical in the beginning of the game. Mostly the doctor saves himself so that he isn’t killed during that round. If the doctor doesn’t point at the same person whom the mafia have pointed at (of course it can be possible by sheer coincidence only in the beginning, but as the game proceeds, the doctor can know who could be the next victim.) then that villager is declared dead when the dark mode completes.

So, after the dark mode, everyone open their eyes and if a man is killed is announced. He now can’t play any role in the game. He is dead and can’t speak anymore but can only watch the game. Now comes the light mode. Here the players speak and make accusations against some player or the other. The aim of the players playing mafia is to mislead the villagers into eliminating other villagers, falsely accusing them as mafia. The cop on the other hand has to identify the mafia during the dark mode and is expected to convince the villagers and eliminate the mafia during the light mode. It is expected to make accusations on the basis of some logic or other. It can be based on body language, silence, actions, eye movements etc.

We found a golden rule. Every new player is bound to be a mafia . Well, at least that was what happened during my first game of mafia. As we advance through the rounds the game becomes more gripping and interesting, if every player plays his role good enough.

Try playing the game with your own groups of friends. It’s a fun way to make a good evening great!

Just back from my native place, I was fiddling with the internet. I hadn’t blogged for a week now and was also cut off from all the unfortunate mumbai events and other news. So, I thought of reading up on news articles on the occurences, so that I would blog about some mundane affair. I have been thinking of several wierd things and also bought a Business Magazine!

I never had any interest in Busines and Stocks before. Suddenly I wanted to know about the 2007-08 economic crisis, reasons and results. That’s when I thought it would be nice thing to check out Youth Curry. Well, this post is not about Youth Curry, but about a blog reviewed there. Thanks to Rashmiji, I found this hilarious and funny written blog.

The blog is The Secret Journal of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. There are several sarcastic posts mixed with humour and images that go really well with the content. So I searched about this Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, which gave me links to a famous Indian investor with of course the wikipedia entry. Back again at Youth Curry, I realised that some anonymous blogger was blogging under the name of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. It was a fake blog, meaning it wasn’t authored by RJ. But the blog is well spiced with humour. The posts look like serious but end up hilarious.

It will leave you ROFL. But there is one thing you need to be to really enjoy the humour in each post. You have to be an Indian, or someone who knows about the current state of India and Indians well. Like Daniel Lyons, author of the now dead Fake Steve Jobs blog, lets expect the author of this interesting blog also be exposed one day.

Do read this post about the brave actions of Noida police during the attack on the Taj.

Vikas Hazrati’s blog Connexxion:Connecting Life with Technology is the blog that caught my attention this week. Stumbled on it when searching for a solution to my Ubuntu Upgrade Woes.

I was typically fascinated by the Quick Tips. Short and Crisp. Easy to understand and simple solutions to most Ubuntu problems. There are several other interesting posts to read and ponder upon. Genuine and clean blog.

Most posts are technical and relating to computer architecture, network security, linux tips and tricks. We can say this blog is a technical one, but there are also posts like “The Changing Face of America“, that is about how America has changed in the eyes of the author. An excerpt from the post.

….Global Equilibrium would mean that the developing nations would move upwards and the developed ones would move in the opposite direction till a state of balance is reached. The transition might be slow but the process is already making progress……

The meaning of C O N N E X X I O N (connexion) : a relation between things and events, bringing ideas or events together. (courtesy: definr).