amachwe

About respect…

I feel respect is more important in any kind of relationship than merely liking a person.

Likes and dislikes tend to change. A person you dislike today you may end up liking tomorrow.

Respect is a whole different story. Respect is gained over a period of time and once lost, is hard to regain.

Relationships cannot survive without mutual respect. It forms a deeper bond which can sometimes hold a relation together even when like has turned to dislike.

So remember people respect should come before love!
🙂

The other day I read a news item about the US forces killing 40 Taliban fighters somewhere in Afghanistan. A question came to my mind almost immediately: How many Taliban fighters are there out there? I always thought Afghanistan was a sparsely populated country. Where are all these people being killed coming from?

Then I realised a fundamental truth which I should have realised a long time ago: There is a piece of ‘Taliban’ within us all. ‘Taliban’ is more a thought process than the name of a terrorist, pro-radical-Islam organisation. We all have had ‘Taliban’ like thoughts of intolerence, hatred and sheer blind stupidity in our minds and hearts during our lives.

Every time we have ever shown intolerence for other religions, sexual preferences, skin-color, height, weight, language, region etc. is a time where our mind was thinking ‘Taliban thoughts’. Every time we ever acted without thinking, in the flow of negative emotions, we are allowing the Taliban fighter within us to take control.

The dividing line between good and bad is very narrow and fuzzy.

Sometimes it only takes a gentle nudge to cross it and allow the ‘Taliban’ within us to guide our thoughts and hands.

At the same time we all have good within us. We all have a Buddha within us. We all are capable of love and care, both receiving and giving of it. Then let us try hard to bring out the Buddha within us.

Next time you feel like punching someone for any reason remember to throw away the Taliban in your thoughts and bring out the Buddha!

The multi-Billion Dollar Scam: Selling unsustainable dreams…

The real estate sector is booming in India. Areas just outside the four metro cities have seen land rates shoot up like a NASA rocket.

A textbook case is the suburb of Gurgaon touching the southern border of New Delhi. Till 10 years ago it was a dusty under-developed area with bad infrastructure. It was not a hot favourite for house-hunters and real-estate developers. How can I say all this? I had relatives living in that area and have been visiting them since I was 11-12 years old. I have seen that area develop as I was growing.

Then came the multi-national corporations, the call centers and the big brandnames. These were followed closely by the shopping-mall culture and a major empowerment of the young working Indian. All this meant that within a short span of time on a 4 km stretch of the Meherauli-Gurgaon road there were 6 shopping malls standing shoulder to shoulder.

While individually these were no where close to their western counterparts, taken together they formed a solid block of shops surrounding on of the busiest roads connecting Gurgaon with South Delhi. Within months the Meherauli-Gurgaon road became a nightmare for regular commuters. Being stuck in traffic for hours became normal.

Yet the property prices in Gurgaon kept increasing. New real-estate projects started springing up all over the place. There were buildings but no roads. Homes but no water or electricity. The boom was fueled by the ITeS boom in India and rise of home loans where young professionals starting their first job were able to buy flats and land. People made a lot of money selling dreams.

But what is the reality? Infrastructure is still trying to catch up with Gurgaon. Non-existant transport facilities are being supported with a new metro system. But what about water?

What about sustainability?

A crore’s worth of property is not of any use if you do not get water when you want to have a bath or electricity when you want to sleep. While power shortage can be removed (if your children are lucky then maybe in their lifetime) what will we do about water?
Study sees dramatic drop in Indian groundwater – longterm prospects are anything but bright for a good supply of water.

With a declining water table, unpredictable rains the long term forcast for Haryana points towards it becoming an extension of the Thar desert.

What will happen to the billion dollars worth of real estate? The investment in our future will be equal to a pile of sand?

Lack of sustainable development and blind destruction of the natural shield that is Haryana does not give a solid foundation to any kind of long term investment (for e.g. property investment).

The above factors make the real estate boom in India a bubble waiting to burst. When this bubble bursts a lot of people will be left with shattered dreams.

Few people though, will be left with a load of money they made selling unsustainable dreams.

The World and I

Does the world exist around us or do we exist in it?
I think the answer to this question reveals a lot about a persons thought process.

Most people will obviously ask what is the difference between the two views. What is the choice that we are being given in the question?

The fundamental difference in the choices is the net flow of influence. Do you end up influencing the world around you or are you influenced by it?
For most people there is no net flow because situations where the world dictates you are balanced by situations where you dictate the world.

In fact if there is no net flow then you are doing well in life according to me.

Why not us?

Netherlands from air looks like an island. Instead of roads in between fields they have canals. The entire country is built on water.
UK is famous for its BAD weather. It is cold and damp.

Both countries today are counted amongst the worlds most developed countries.
People will point to their colonial past as the source of their wealth. But these countries did not always have these colonies. The colonies were built up with strength and resolve. It is not easy to conquer and command people halfway around the world.

These countries had similar problems as India. Problems related to oppression of poor, caste system, superstition, domination of religion and wars.

As time passed the fate of these countries diverged from that of India. We became the shoe on their foot. The diamond in their crown.

What could be the reason?
Maybe it was the lack of a global point of view?
Maybe it was something to do with looking for short term riches over the long term benefit of the people.
Maybe dictatorship and rule of kings went on for a decade longer than it was supposed to?

Maybe the politicians and industrial elite took over from the rulers of old to exploit people? But the same happened to Germany that to not once but twice.

What could it be then?
Could it then be the inability of India to control its population growth? It could certainly be a major factor. Bigger the car more powerful an engine it needs. Furthermore more passengers on board lesser is the efficiency of the engine.

Where to go from here?
Start a one child policy like China?
Or better educate people so that they understand the advantages of a small popultation?

Evidence from Kerala indicates the second option is just as good (if not better) than the first. Kerala’s population growth stands around 1.8 which is similar to that of China but a whole lot less than the National average for India.
Kerala also boasts of 99% literacy.

This means education has a clear link with population growth which in turn has a major effect on economic and civic growth of the country.

If the equation is so simple again I ask… Why not us?

The Three Laws of Thermodynamics

First Law:

The total amount of matter and energy is conserved. Even though matter might turn to energy and visa-versa the total amount is always conserved.

> Money/Wealth etc. (matter) and Effort (energy) can convert into each other. But the total amount of it remains the same. So someone expends a lot of energy to get little matter so that others can get a lot of matter by expending little energy!

Second Law:

The total amount of entropy (chaos or disorder) in the universe always increases. In other words everything must eventually age and run down. For example burning paper produces smoke which means a net increase in entropy takes place. But we never see smoke re-assembling itself into a piece of paper.

> The world is going to descend into chaos no matter what we do. So why give a damn worrying about it. Why spend energy organising things around us. Why fight chaos?

Third Law:

No refrigerator can reduce temperature to absolute zero (−273.15 °C, the lowest possible temperature).

> Absolute zero means perfection. It means at absolute zero there is no chaos there is no randomness because it is the lowest possible energy state (of zero energy). There is perfection. But we can never reach perfection as we can never reach the lowest energy state. Therefore perfection is not achievable.

How to get updated data using AJAX

A common use of AJAX is to get some data from a database and then display it on a web-page.

Also a common issue with AJAX calls is that it intercepts the request for data and tries to handle it locally. If it can’t only then is the request forwarded to the server. This is done to improve the performance of the web-page.

But this can have a serious side effect where after the first call to the server for data, subsequent requests are handled locally even though the data on the server side may have changed.

This is, most often, caused by a standard request string being used again and again.

For example if you want to fetch data from table ‘employee’ to display a list of employees then your request string (for HTTP GET) might look something like:

awebpage.jsp?table=employee&action=list

After getting the initial list of employees if any changes are made in the database they will not be reflected on the webpage even if you click the refresh button on the browser. The only way you will be able to see the ‘fresh’ data is if you reopen the page in a new browser window.

This is because every time the data listing request is sent using AJAX the XMLHttpRequest is intercepted by the browser, the request string checked and if found the same the request is responded to at the client side itself using cached data. Thus the ‘fresh’ data is never obtained from the server because it never gets the request for ‘data’.

How to solve this?

It is very simple to solve this problem. Just add a parameter with changing values to the string. For example:

awebpage.jsp?table=employee&action=list&rndparameter=10

Here the ‘rndmparameter’ parameter will have a random number assigned to it every time the request is made. This will make the request string different every time. Thus the request will be forwarded to the server and not be handled locally.

The parameter can have any name and any changing value. It need not even be random value. You could toggle a boolean variable ‘true’ and ‘false’ between subsequent requests.

Work, Love, Skills and Earth

Sigmund Freud, the famous psycho-analyst, proposed that work and love give stability and meaning to our minds. I read an interesting extension to this in Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku.

Work because it helps give us a ‘sense of responsibility and purpose, a concrete focus on our labours and dreams’ (from Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku).

Love because it puts us within ‘the fabric of society’ and ‘gives us roots’. Without it we become ‘drifters in our own land, unattached to the concerns of others’ (from Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku).

Michio Kaku proposes two other things that can give ‘stability and meaning’ to our minds.

Developing our skills for the benefit of society in general. To achieve our maximum potential. Everyone has problems but we all have certain skills which can be developed to overcome those problems.

Improve the world around us, do something for the benefit of mankind in general. Clean up our neighbourhood, help someone in need or just be kind to someone.

The Hands of Man

Today someone shared quite a remarkable thought with me so I thought I would share it with the world!

A new born baby has a clenched fist. The tightly closed fist represents the hunger for life. It represents the desire to grab the most out of this chance to be alive.

But when a person dies their hands always end up in an open and relaxed position. This highlights the fact that we cannot take ANYTHING with us. There comes a time to let go of all the things material.

A Day at the Registrar’s Office

One would think a Registrar’s Office where probably crores worth of property changes hands every day life is pretty dull and weighed down under thick dusty files. But no! Any place where big things happen (like people buying their first house or probably registering their last will) can be anything but dull. In fact it is full of stories!

One would wonder why is the place not clean and how come people who can spend lakhs to buy a property do not have civic sense to use a dustbin. Why don’t the civic authorities have common sense to put dustbins in a place visited by hundred of people a day!

There was a large group of young Army jawans there to register their wills. People who don’t have control over their destiny. I wonder how it must feel to write out your will knowing that it might be used soon.

There were photographs I took, some sad, some funny and some fascinating. There was life in all its glory. Intersection of different life-flows. All in all it was a very interesting day out at the crossroads of life.

Stone slab announcing the installation of computers at the govt. office!

🙂

Author Archives: amachwe