Perpetually Perplexed

I am easily impressable? Or is it impressionable? Particularly so, if it appears in the net. Ha! So when I stumbled upon mental hacks to make you like a jedi (I googled it up. Jedi is an academic/spiritual institution in the Star wars . Fictional), I liked it so much, I would like to share it with you. When you are talking to some one standing, observe their feet. If the feet are pointing away from you, they want to go away. If you want to feel happy, smile. Since you are smiling, your brain is fooled to thinking that you must be happy. This one works for me - chew gum or something similar when you are in situations when you will be nervous.  In a conversation, if some one is telling you incomplete fact, pause without talking for a while. They may tell the complete thing. In a meeting, if you think some one is going to attack you or take you to task, sit right next to them.  Well see, stumbling upon or spending too much time in net may not be a bad thing after all....

I did publish the app "Shataka". More about the problems later. Do you know how many day I have spent for UI? Me with my limited imaginative powers and my solo efforts and GIMP, not even photoshop? Finally I did complete the backgrounds of the app. Then I spent 3 days for designing the icon. One icon. The sizing of the icon for various sizes is done by "android asset studio". Now I am ready to publish. I even take 2 screen shots. But I am being held back by google saying I need a feature graphic for the app which must be 1024 by 500 pixels. What is this torture? What do I draw in this feature graphic? I did draw something and did publish. Turns out, the new google policy is each app must have this feature graphic. Any changes you want to make to your app, a simple one line changing description, you now have to add this graphic image. I should either hone my graphic and imaginative skills or ready to shell out thousands and graphic designers.

Nobel peace prize shared by an Indian and a Pakistani for their work on child education! Is it an irony ? Or a suggestion for Almighty that the two countries should use peace not war?

There was a non-technical talk in google io 2014. - Some thing called "Solve for X". A lady speaker Sara Menker from Africa was talking about how big data can help African farmers by making creditors lend money to farmers. One thing that stuck me during the talk is technology is really helping us all. It has made technology cheaper. Now a days every common man can have a mobile - more often smart phone, a TV, a fridge etc. Because the prices of these have been coming down year by year. Is it due to competition, or improved and viable designs, I am not sure about. But what about food? Food prices have been steadily increasing each year. Why can't technology help in this? Help in agricultural production, distribution or storage, so that food prices will come down. Hence help in bringing down inflation and poverty. Any thoughts?

How do we solve many problems our cities in general and Bangalore in particular are facing? Water, roads and traffic, electricity, crime. To name a few. The solution could be to "Bangalore" the Bangalore to make a better Bangalore. I am not trying to create a tongue twister here. According to one suggestion in newspaper, by outsourcing the city management to private companies, this city's problem might be solved to some extent.

There were two neighbors. Let us call them A and B. Sorry, we are not in algebra class. Let us call them Ramanna and Somanna. Ramanna some how prayed to God and got a boon by him that God will grant his every wish. Some how Somanna came to know about this, and he too prayed to God for many, many days, And his only request to God was "anything Ramanna gets, I should get double of". God agreed. Of course Ramanna also came to know about this and was infuriated. So if he gets rich, Somanna gets double rich. If he gets a car, Somanna will get two cars, If he gets a beautiful wife, Somanna will get two beautiful wives. Ramanna used his evil mind to find out how to harm Somanna. He prayed to God and asked him "O God, please make me blind in one eye". Why is this story relevant at this time? India and Pakistan are out to play acting like this Ramanna. It does not matter if our own soldiers die, our own civilians die in the border, We want to shell the other country...

We all would like to believe we are "ajata shatru"s.(one with no enemies) But sadly that is not true. Since childhood our aim will be to please every one. Please the parents, the teachers, siblings. So that they would call us "such a good boy/girl". But some where along the line we realize that this would harm us most. We should think of ourselves too. Even if it displeases some people. And then there comes a time in life where we see that  "raah me chhod ke saaya bhi chala jata hai" (even our shadow abandons us). We don't understand what have we done to antagonize so many people. We feel sad, upset and helpless. What we don't realize is when we feel    perceive we are hurt by others, we try to correct it by  fighting with the perpetrators.  In this process we hurt these people intentionally for their slights, many times perceived rather than real. That is how a 'shatru' is born. And the numbers keep increasing. The more we feel ...

Who says Bangalore has water scarcity? It has enough water. In fact it has more than enough water, to drown a little child who came to visit this beautiful city. It had enough water to drown an entire family few years back. P.S. In a few days everything will be forgotten. Until another life is taken away by the carelessness of the government and town planners.