Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Vitamin D, Women and Me

Vitamin D (there are 5 variants D1 to D5, but am talking in general) is something different from other Vitamins. Well, all vitamins are different from one another and that is why it is named differently..but still

From my childhood, I have seen Calcium Sandoz tablet (or its bottle). My parents never bought that for us. It wasn’t any prescription item, and there were lots of ads given by the manufacturer too.( After me became grown up, I bought a bottle and tried it. Did it help? No idea. May be or may not be). Anyway during my childhood days, milk was rationed in my home and hence I never got more than a glass of milk.

Calcium tablets used to come as calcium (carbonate) alone. Even now it comes that way also. But these days calcium plus Vitamin D combination is picking up (in my country, not talking about other countries where there is more Vitamin deficiency and hence Vit D fortified products were popular since very long time). Health drinks are also getting fortified with Vitamin D. Why?

Why coz, it helps the absorption of Calcium in our body. Calcium is mainly prescribed for women (there is ‘calcium for women’ but I am yet to see a calcium for men) and there are 'womenly' reasons. When my wife developed some knee pain, one doc even prescribed this for her. (As a tester of this family, I too took a couple of tablets !!, yes the calcium plus Vitamin D combination).

One specialty of Vitamin D is that it functions as a hormone (chemical messenger which carries signal from one cell/organ to another) too. And another specialty is that , every human skin is capable of producing it with the help of sunlight (Ultra Violet B, to be specific). Then why we need to supplement it? Its coz, we usually don’t get enough Vitamin D through food (need to eat lots of fish or mushrooms or eggs, which usually doesn’t happen). Vitamin D production in our skin depends on the color of the skin, the geographical area where we live etc and yes, in the modern era, it has a lot to do with sun block creams and lotions used by us. If one has the habit of using sun block lotion round the year, he/she will be in trouble with deficiency of Vitamin D.

What will happen if there is not enough vitamin D in our body but still we take enough calcium supplement or drink lots of milk? Unfortunately, our body will not be able to absorb it, it won’t get recognized ….it is vitamin D that signals our stomach/intestine to absorb calcium, so if there is no signal what will our body do? And body needs calcium too….so? So, body tries to breakdown our bone itself to meet the requirement. And that is a big problem, since this process weakens our bone. (See, how it is connected to osteoporosis or easy fracture…)

And that is one of the reasons it is said walking during early morning and evening (well, without a sun block lotion) is good for our health. We don’t have to bear the heat but we can produce a little Vitamin D too.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Google Talk and Multi-users

I am not a computer expert. I am not bad at it too. But some times I get computer related questions from some of my acquaintances or friends (are they really?). Since I don’t mind spending some time for them, many a times I was helpful to them. The other day I was thinking about it. Should I write a separate blog for technical matters or should I write here itself? I still am in confusion and hence this time I am writing here.

It was about gtalk and multiple ids. Many yahoo users used to use yahoo multi for this purpose. Actually, that is not an application provided by yahoo and in many cases, it had malicious codes injected in it. Is there any such application for Gtalk?

Fortunately, for Gtalk, there is no need to have a third party application, if you want to run two instances at a time. We can call the same exe file with a switch. The easy method is to create a shortcut for separate ids.

For example, if we have two google ids named myid1 and myid2, we need to create two shortcuts like this (by default, google installs to this path, it depends on how you installed, anyway, choose the right path)…

"C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe" /nomutex"

While browsing for the exe file during the process of creating the short cut, we reach till ‘googletalk.exe’ and then we need to add the switch “/nomutex”

Name one as Myid1 and the second as Myid2 (or whatever name we want). Now we have two shortcuts for the googletalk application. These two can be used at a time. Just double click, logon.

Yes, this can be called from the command prompt also, which is inconvenient.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Three Mosquitoes...

I don’t know whether any human habitat exists in this world where mosquitoes are not present. There are more than 2,700 types of mosquitoes around the world. But the most common species are Aedes, Culex and Anopheles. It is said that mosquitoes evolved about 30 million years ago. From that time they are annoying us and we humans tried many methods to ward them away. But if we look back, millions might have died (indirectly) of mosquito bites. That is, coz of diseases likes malaria and encephalitis. (With some people, mosquito bite itself becomes fatal, if they are that allergic).

We all studied about the life cycle of a mosquito at schools. But what happens once the pupa turns into an adult mosquito? For a while it simply rests on the surface of the water to dry its body and wings and to gain some strength to its delicate legs. Then it flies away looking for blood? Not really…

The popular belief is that only male ones feed on nectar and plant fluids. But the truth is during the life time, even the females feed on it. And in reality, female can survive on nectar and plant fluids alone, if they want (or that is what most of the entomologists believe), though it is not in its nature. Then why do the female ones drink blood? (Male ones can’t even try boozing on blood coz, they don’t have the ‘surgical’ and blood sucking mechanism) What turned them into Dracula?

It is the job of the females to lay eggs. And the egg ‘manufacturing’ need protein and iron (may be some other things too but mainly protein). And that is why female ones meal on blood. So, do all female mosquitoes drink blood? There is one exemption….

Toxorhynchites mosquitoes don’t feed on blood, yes , even the females. So what do these gals do for getting protein? The strange fact is that the larvae of these mosquitoes feed on the larvae of other mosquitoes ! I don’t know whether all the larvae feed like this or the potentially female ones. So, these mosquitoes are good for us and can be used to control other mosquitoes. But why we are not using this method? There are MNCs who manufacture and make a living on mosquito repellents. That can be one reason, I don’t know, its just my personal view for the time being.


How far can they fly? It depends on the family. Some species fly only few meters here and there from their original breeding place. Most of the common ones fly only within 2 kilometers. But there are some species which can fly up to 100 kilometers. And not just that, some ‘fly’ long distance cleverly with the help of wind, by moving in the direction of the wind.

Why do we get that itching when we are bitten? When she bites, she also injects her saliva which has some ‘special’ chemicals which helps avoid clotting of blood. This is mostly some proteins and our body tries to fights it out and hence the itching and bump.

Mosquitoes use many sensing methods to locate its victim. The most common ones known to us are chemical, visual and heat sensing.

Chemical sensing means, mosquitoes can sense carbon dioxide and lactic acid that comes as a result of us exhaling. It can also sense many chemicals that are present in our sweat. Thus a sweaty person might attract more mosquitoes. It is also said that those who have O group blood are more prone to mosquito bites. This shows they can even find out that (different blood types) using some sensors. Strange, but it is observed that mosquitoes are more attracted to fat or obese people!


Since they are equipped with compound eyes, they have a good vision and it looks for people who wear darker colored cloths. Its not just about visual sensing, but it also has something to do with …

……sensing heat. Mosquitoes can sense (infrared) heat that is emitted by living animals and birds. And here we need to consider that darker colored cloths can absorb more heat and that can be one reason why mosquitoes easily target them.

And may be it is coz the females that are biting, they prefer men than women (very funny?) !!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Midnight God


Thank you God for not providing me with any bombs or a rifle. Else I would have used one yesterday night.

Its all ‘Godly’ affair. That is what gave me a sleepless night. Some religious stuff was happening in my neighborhood (not in our complex). It started at night and ended only early morning. It wasn’t just bhajans. It looked like something else, were they narrating a story of Lord Vishnu? May be it is. But whatever it is, the positives of that event had a strong negative counter part, the curse from neighbors!!. If prayer works, curse too should work. So, what is the lesson?

Even for prayer, there is a time, when you offer it loudly….. Why on earth someone need to make all this noise to worship? That too at night? These are people who don’t understand even the very basics of worshiping. One has every right to worship God as and when one need so, in their own way, but not on the cost of your neighbors’ peace of mind.

May be that neighbor has some connection with police or politicians coz, I did not see the police coming for their routine patrolling, at night.

My dear neighbor, God is available 24/7 , 365 days a year, you don’t have to wait till midnight to offer your prayers. if you feel like praying at midnight, just close your eyes (it helps) and offer your prayers silently. God can hear it very well, else He is not worth calling God…..

Google Talk Labs Edition

Usually software applications goes from Beta versions to a stable one. May be not with Gtalk. I used to check for updates for my Gtalk regularly, using the built in option. Since years, its still in beta. And Gtalk became unstable these days. It was one of the best sometime ago. Now, frequent sign-off problems, wrong online status, messages not receiving… there started many issues. Was wondering why Google is not interested in fixing this. And I was waiting for the emoticon features in Gtalk. It may be coz they were after a new Gtalk rather than releasing a patch and the result is , Google Talk, Labs Edition (?).

Labs edition is not clear whether it is the latest version or replacement of Gtalk, but it says it is an experimental release of the Google talk client. So, once again it’s a Beta version called in a new way. It has most of the features of old Gtalk plus emoticons (but no where near the yahoo ones). When we right click, the options we get also has something new. They have incorporated Calendar and Orkut too. And overall , its looks NEW.

There is no Mac version available as of now. But can we completely replace the Gtalk with the new Labs Edition? Unfortunately the answer is NO. It is coz the Labs edition don’t support voice calling and file transfer. If somebody still use Gtalk for voice chat, they need to stick to it or keep both Gtalk and Labs edition.

To put it in a nutshell, the Labs edition looks exactly like the web based Google Talk! Only major difference is that Labs need a download and installation.

Google Labs Edition can be downloaded from :

http://www.google.com/talk/labsedition/

Looking for the old Gtalk? Get it from :

http://www.google.com/talk/

Monday, May 19, 2008

A Pizza , Weekend Troubles and a Dream...


Friday I had Pizza as lunch. Usually I don’t eat pizza replacing my main food (whatever it be for breakfast, lunch or dinner, I wont replace it with junk food). But on Friday it happened, I ate till my stomach is full. When I eat pizza, my body asks for more water, may be that is how it is with others too, yet to ask anybody outside my family. Unfortunately, I did not drink enough water. So It wasn’t a pleasant feeling . At night, I developed slight headache..

When somebody with migraine (history) don’t drink enough water, migraine calls for a party (this usually happens when our body starts drawing water from the blood and thus creating a low blood pressure). Thus I woke up with a slight headache on Saturday. I had a feverish feeling, my neck pained, I sneezed. I felt drained. I did not feel any energy. And I already was nursing a bad knee (possibly a tendon or ligament injury…if it was muscular, it won’t stay this long, after a course of pain killers and muscle relaxant) Well, what a way to start the weekend…

When your body is weak, everything (bad) comes up very fast. Its not just pizza that caused all these problems, but the weather change, bad sleeping position …. When I was sitting with all sorts of pains, my wife said,

“This is what an astrologer predicted for you after April 15…he had predicted injuries, pain and health related issues.….”

Well, I did not hear that and wasn’t aware of his prediction. I stopped listening to them. Ok, may be he is right, otherwise how come a leg-press resulted in such a bad injury? But I wasn’t much interested in the astrology stuff. My knees were strong. Every day I used to climb up and climb down 200 steps. On the day of injury also I did climb down 200 steps, before that press. And I did not forget my warm-up too.

But its true, after injury, I did not give much rest to my knee. It is difficult to rest when you are the only person who is usually running around for your family for everything. And I remember that the shoe shop from where I bought my son’s school shoe (we cant buy it from any other place, it made just for that school , yes, a business by the school ppl). It was on a high floor, may be third or fourth, and there wasn’t any lift. The steps were abnormally high. And at the end, it resulted in more knee pain. There were many such unavoidable situations during the past 10 days or so. When I look back, there were avoidable (?) situations too, like swimming and certain aspects of gym workout….. well, anyway, I did want to go for swim, but I cant. No gym too. Cant do any physical activity and cant bear light also. So, I just did my Kriya lightly (yoga stuff). That was bit relaxing.

I had no choice but to go out (in the evening) and buy something for my wife’s niece for her birthday. So, I can’t simply rest. Hence I had a strong painkiller and took a nap….

The dealer from where I bought the car gave me a call. A lady. She called me many times to know whether I received a feed back form directly from the manufacturer to comment on this dealer. She asked me to not to send the form to which I objected. Then a guy called me and said he want to talk to me in person and I said I am not interested and its up to me to rate and comment based on the service they provide. Last time I made a direct complaint to the manufacturer and it looks like it affected them someway and this time, they want to avoid such a situation. Then I called up the car insurance people and it ended as an unpleasant talk. They were very customer friendly till they receive the check. And I did not receive the policy till date.

Went for shopping (for the bday baby) and since I felt like buying something for us, I quickly left the mall. No budget Mr.Jay…

Sunday ! I switched off the alarm and decided to stay in the bed. I was intoxicated by a dream. I tried to sleep and see the remaining part of the dream. But I could not. I missed my dream.. then I thought of just stay in the dream and think about the dream I had. Then I ‘heard’ a thought

‘Don’t try to work on that dream…don’t fancy…don’t extend it… let it be a dream and let it go’

That thought was very weak. But I listened to it and I did not add anything new to that dream or anything more to happen to that dream.

When we are in a dream, we smell, taste, feel…. Yes, I could feel my happiness during that dream. In that dream, I had an elder brother. It wasn’t an imaginary figure; he was one of my cousins. How come he plays the role of my brother? I don’t know.. I got the presence of his youngest brother too. Was he too my brother? Now I can’t remember… but the irony is thy had a sibling in-between them and I was more close to him, as a cousin and as a friend. But he was missing in the dream..So, what is there in this dream that made me happy?

There was one more person, I have never seen. I know only one person by that name (my sister’s one of the friends’ elder sister, who was a hockey player) who had nothing to do with that dream or the person in this dream. It was a girl…

Sunday too I stayed away from gym and swimming. For many days am not swimming. This neck and shoulder pain has something to do with my swimming. One day I stayed in the water (which was cold) for about 2 hours (it triggered my cervical spondylosis) and next day my neck and shoulder started cribbing. But herbal oil and heat is always a big relief….this time too

I thot of mailing a friend of mine, about my dream…but the broadband was down. Its Sunday, so, if I call up the support, what will be the response? anyway I called up.


“How long will it take to fix the problem?”
“24 hours”
“24 HOURS?
“24 WORKING hours”


Since I was talking to a government official, there is no point in shouting…so I said

“Thank you”

At odd time, I felt very sleepy and I slept for 10-15 minutes….

There was this (first) bday party of a little one (my brother in law’s daughter). We attended that and returned only at night. It was at the terrace of in-laws place.

The T20 cricket match wasn’t interesting since the players I like did not play well… so I went to bed but coz of the day time sleep, I could not sleep. May be till 12, I was awake. I listened to the street dogs barking… I wondered what reason these guys are getting every night. For one or two days, may be a dog from other territory broke the line of control. But every day? Every day they have some reason to bark bark and bark… Sometimes they just stand as a group and barks looking at some far point…. God only knows…

Whatever be the sounds around me, there was one remarkable one ….wife’s snoring…. May be she is contributing something to the nature’s orchestra…..

Sleep sleep sleep……

Friday, May 16, 2008

Jaipur Blasts


One more terrorist attack and serial blasts. Eight blasts and about 80 people got killed (more than 150 got injured). This time it was easy to find out who did this, coz the terrorist outfit named ‘Indian Mujahideen’ took the responsibility. It will be big relief for the police (!!!).


Why did they do that? As always, terrorism in India is sponsored by Pakistan but this time, I read something funny too. They said they did this to cripple tourism in Rajasthan and then most importantly, to teach Hindu India a lesson!

I am a Hindu Indian and what lesson did you teach me? May be I understood that you people are nothing but a bunch of filthy scum. If it was a bomb dropped by Pakistan, I can understand. But this is by Indians. You ate, drank, breathed in Indian soil and showed your courtesy to your mother land. What do you think? If you kill all the Hindus here Pakistan will take care of you traitors?

Look what happened to Benazir, as a latest example. Pak don’t mind killing even Muslims. It happens everyday there. Kill kill kill….

By the way, when did India became a ‘Hindu India’? How I wish it were. And what is there to teach the Hindus? In 1947, nation got divided on the basis of religion. Pakistan for Muslims and Hindustan for Hindus. Christians trusted Hindus and stood with us (till date they did not regret). A portion of Muslims also stayed in India and India did not kick them out (which eventually became a blessing for Pakistan and a permanent headache for India… not the entire Muslim community who now live in India but may be a minority. ….and yes, its not just Muslims, we do have Hindu and non Muslim traitors too) Hindustan did not want to be a Hindu nation, but it stood as a secular nation, though it had 85% of Hindus.

India welcomed all faiths. And that is why it has become the heaven for missionaries. Look at the history of this country. Ever heard of India leading a troop and capturing neighborhood and dominating them? Nope, Bharat never did that, though it was rich and powerful. India had in-depth knowledge in spirituality and religion, but did it try to impose it on others (by using force or luring the poor with money or food or cloths or job offers or overseas settlements ….any dirty thing like that)?. It didn’t even try to spread Hinduism in any manner (now its picking up, that’s a different matter). What about the Muslims live here in India? They are privileged ones than Hindus. They have reservation even in education and employment… A friend of mine got a medical seat just coz he is a Muslim not coz he is more studious than me.

The pseudo secular politicians raced to pamper other religions and throw dirt on Hinduism. How many Hindu politicians (other than BJP/Shiv Sena ones) in India dare to say they are Hindus? 1%? 2%? How many Christian and Muslim politicians dare say they belong to their religion? 100%... It is very funny, but in my State, if one proudly say one is a Hindu he/she will be labeled as communal.

Hinduism is not against any other faith or religion. You people are terribly mistaken. What is happening between India and Pakistan is nothing but politics.

So, this is not a Hindu India. Anything sells here. And you can’t teach anything to a non existing thing by blasting something and killing. By doing that, you killed fellow humans who also are the creation of God. And if you think you will be rewarded by God, its utter stupidity and nonsense.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Raffels Place Ghost (Singapore)

Today, in one of the news channels, there came a ghost story. That is a ghost being spotted in an elevator in Singapore. I think this news or hoax came earlier in other Asian countries. I could not hear what the discussion was all about, in that news channel. May be they were debating about whether its for real or fake. It was said that this is CCTV footage from a work place in Singapore. Let’s look at the video again



The latest news in connection with this video is another video in which a gentleman calling himself ‘Josh Goh’ and saying he is the Manager Corporate Services, GMP Group. In this video he says the ghost video was created by them. I don’t know the truth about both videos (though I don’t believe in that ghost video), but I personally checked with the GMP Group’s website and came to know that one person named Josh Goh exists/existed and he is/was the Manager, corporate services. Here is the what he has to say about it:

WorldWide Telescope - WWT

Everybody, who use a computer know Microsoft. Microsoft is not just a software company which develops only windows family operating system. It puts its head into many other activities including game development. Other than that, it has a research division, which most of us are not aware of. It is carrying out research on 55 areas of computing such as, speech recognition, programming tools and methodologies, language processing, operating system and networking, mathematical science and so on.( Its not a very big division. As of now, it has only 800 employees around the world (ie, US, UK ,India and China), including one branch in my city). But now, finally, Microsoft Research has become a familiar name…all coz of their new product – WorldWide Telescope or WWT..

What is WWT?


Microsoft describes it this way :

“Want to see the same images that scientists at NASA use for their research or perform your own research with those images? Or do you want to see the Earth from the same perspective that astronauts see as they descend to Earth? How about taking a 5 minute break and viewing a panorama of a different city? Install WWT and start your explorations.”

It may sound like the popular Google Earth. But it is not. It is more similar to the feature that got added to Google earth, the Google Sky. So now there is a decent competitor for Google Sky. WWT gives more viewing options, about 50. But on the other side, there is no web based one and hence we need to install the WWT application. And to run it smoothly, we need a high end computer. As per Microsoft, these are the minimum requirement for a PC:

Microsoft® XP SP2 (minimum), Windows® Vista® (recommended)
PC with Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2 gigahertz (GHz) or faster, recommended
1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM; 2 GB RAM recommended
3D accelerated card with 128 megabytes (MB) RAM; discrete graphics card with dedicated 256-MB VRAM recommended for higher performance
1 GB of available hard disk space; 10 GB recommended for off-line features and higher performance browsing
XGA (1024 x 768) or higher resolution monitor
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing and scrolling device
Microsoft® DirectX® version 9.0c and .NET Framework 2.0


WWT is also free (like Google Sky) but it says this is offered free in honor of Jim Gray, a researcher who was with Microsoft who was lost at sea, last year.

These developments in technologies is a great gift for those who really love to gaze the sky and its members… its all amazing….

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Its not Funny!



When I was a school boy I used to jump-in and jump-out of running buses. It was a common stuff during that time. Many a times, the bus might not stop at the bust stop and we might run after it, catch the handle rod and jump into the footboard. (In India, most of the government owned public transport buses still don’t have a door). This process happened once in a while till may be 15 years ago. I used to step down from running bus at a turning (where there is no stop)to make it easy to reach my office. But these are not that much risky till you actually fall or hit your head on a electric post (while travelling on a foorboard).


Not knowing swimming and daring to go to the deep zone in a pool (14 or 16 feet deep)was bit risky, which happened may be 17 years ago (yes, I drank water as a result).

Then, about 4 years back, when I was in Himachal Pradesh, I happened to travel sitting on the top of a transport bus. When the electric lines come, we need to bend down to save us. This was a surprise for me, but a common thing for the locals. So this too is not that risky.

But other than all these, once, I had stood on the parapet of a 14 floor tall building, my present apartment, to take my son’s kite which got stuck on a plumbing. A wrong step, and that could have been my last act in this life…

Monday, May 12, 2008

World's Best Culture

Which is world’s best (human) culture? Which country has it? Many people think their culture is the best. Is it true? If it is true, God might be partial, which he is not. If we look at other cultures keenly without a pre-conceived notion, we can see positives, we can learn a lot from them too. This is the case with every culture around this world.

When I think of this, there comes a scenario in my mind. God standing with a handful of ‘culture seeds’ (which we need to consider as 100%) and then he throws it and it falls everywhere.. Every country gets some seeds. Out of that seeds, many flavors come out. Even in one country, many flavors of its culture (there too one flavor might say they are the best). Thus human culture becomes 100%, only when all the cultures are clubbed together. That is, seen as one, standing away from it, coming out of our flavor, standing at a neutral position....like standing away from our planet (still sitting inside the planet)…

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Cyclone Nargis

I am not talking about the details of Cyclone Nargis. It was all there in the news, at least that is what I believe. It is said that around 22,500 - 50,000 people got killed and 41,000 are missing. So it is not a very small thing.

But what I did not like is the news paper reporting. It wasn’t the heading in my news paper, the Times of India, (which is a Bennett Coleman Co. product) it even did not appear in the front page. The cyclone news was only an inside page news. But it wasn’t the way the hurricane Katrina was reported. It was a BIG issue. What was the toll? Below 2000 death. So the lives of the people of Myanmar is cheaper than that of the Americans? And the Bush asked India to help since they are not friendly with the military administration (and then, Myanmar being closer to India). As if India won’t help otherwise!!

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

T-Shirt Episode


I happened to go through some of my tour photos. Its vacation still I appeared in formals, many a times. Why is this? Is it coz I always prefer to dress in formals? There is a sad story behind it.

Usually, I won’t keep a big budget for T-shirts every year. I like white and its variants. Thus I have/had many white and off white Shirts and T-shirts. So what?

It doesn’t matter who it is (coz we had more than one – not at a time), our maid servants always paid a special attention to spoil my T-shirts. While washing, they used to put it along with other colored cloths and my white or off white or one with white in or light colored ones….it started became colored ones. Only thing is the color was here and there !! There was one maid who was a specialist in breaking the buttons !

One incident that really hurt me was a yellow T-Shirt, which I bought from Thailand partly turning into red. I had a special attachment with that yellow T-shirt coz that was sort of traditional one in Thailand, which had the kingdom’s emblem printed on it. People of Thailand used to wear that on every Monday.

Yes, it is hard to believe. But the truth is I lost most of my T-Shirts and shirts that way (some white/off white shirts were costing more than 1000 bucks). When I moved into this new place and appointed a new maid, I thought things will change. Nope. It’s the same story again. Not just T-shirt, but many of my white vests (the one men wear inside the shirt ) too.

For my birthday, I got a couple of T-shirts as gift (from my wife). It was just a couple of months ago, that is, during February but two of them already become multicolored and hence useless. My wife told this maid many times to not to mix up white and colored ones, but every time this happens, she has some excuse. Not just me, my son got a big blow when our maid decided to change the color of his uniform even without the school’s knowledge!. Luckily, it happened almost at the end of school year and he had one uniform shirt to spare...Then I started washing his uniform till his school close for vacation.

So there no solution for this?

Since I was badly in need of T-shirts, last week, again I bought a couple and now I decided to wash it by myself since I don’t have any more T-shirt budget for 2008.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Pain

We all have personal experience of pain. Pain of different sorts. Sometimes when our feet hits on a stone…sometimes when our head bump into a wall….sometimes while cutting our nails and here comes an ouch…sometimes its headache, a stomach cramp…….it can be anything like that.

We all don’t perceive pain in the same way. Some people get more pain out of a similar experience/injury. This has a lot to do with our emotional and psychological condition or level. This again has something to do with how we are brought up. My wife and I are best example. When I was a child, if at all I end-up in injuries or wounds, I used to hide if from my father to avoid scolding or beating. Thus bearing pain without much complaint became part of me. And the opposite is the case with my wife. She was too much pampered (there are reasons) and hence she reacts in a different way ( as if there is more pain for her….am not telling she is faking).

How does the pain mechanism work in our body? We all know that it’s mainly coz of nerves or peripheral nerves, better put, that we feel pain. Is it a very simple process?

Nerves play the role of communication channel between spinal chord and skin. At one end, that is, at the skin end, nerves have receptors which can sense pressure, tissue damage, heat, cold etc. These nerves send signals in the form of electrical impulses to the spinal chord. These signals are received at a place called dorsal horn, at the spinal chord end. Then neurotransmitters are released. I had written about neurotransmitters when I wrote about migraine. Yes, these are same category chemicals. These chemicals then activate those nerves which are responsible for sending signals to the brain.

At the brain, these signals are received by Thalamus. Then, thalamus hands over these messages to three ‘experts’, to find out what exactly it is. These three ‘experts’ are –


1. Somatosensory cortex , which can detect touch, itch, temperature, pain, muscle movement, posture, joint position, facial expression, visceral sensations (like stomach ache) etc , that is, the physical sensations on our body.

2. Frontal cortex, which handles awareness, memory, language, thought, consciousness etc.

3. Limbic system - long term memory, emotions, behavior , sexual stimulation etc, that is mainly emotions

After verifying the signals with these systems or regions, brain sends back appropriate signals (for example we touch a hot pan and here comes ‘PULL/TAKE OUT YOUR HAND IMMEDIATELY’ signal from brain). The ‘feel’ of the pain mostly depends on that signal.

This is only the basic level of understanding. All the organs I mentioned here have many other known and unknown functions too. It is also said that the signals to the spinal chord is goes through a gate mechanism. For stronger signals, the gate opens wider and sometimes if the signal is very weak, it might even gets blocked at the gate. Sometimes the signals get amplified before sending to the brain (well, when I am writing this, I don’t know why).


The brain won’t simply send out a return message, just like that. Sometimes, it asks the body, through signals to release some ‘home made’ painkillers (like endorphin). And brain also considers our ‘that-time’ or ‘at-the-time-of-the incident’ emotional level. Here I can give a personal experience.

The other day, there was heavy rain and wind. It looked like a storm. I heard the stoning sound created by the hailstones. There was thunder and lightning too. I was very hungry and was cooking something to eat. As I started eating, then rain peaked. Windows weren’t closed and hence water started entering into the rooms through windows. Then comes a call from my wife asking me get ready and come down to help her reach home, since it was very difficult for her to carry her laptop and walk. It was a crisis situation. To eat or not? To wipe out the water that came through the windows or not, change dress and go down or not…where to start, what is the priority? (wife called me on the way). I decided to close the window, and then rush down. Then I got a call from my wife again. I thought I am late and she already reached the main gate before me. In the hurry-burry , I got stung by a honey bee! It really was painful but there wasn’t any time to attend the pain. So I just removed the ‘needle’ injected by the bee and rushed out. I wasn’t much affected by the pain till I was back home … then my body said ‘hey, it really pains’ and I saw the swelling. ….so the emotion sometimes weakens the physical pain originating from a particular body part…

So, though its just we hitting our toe, it has something to do with our emotional level, psychological level, age, sex, our attitude, social and cultural background, the way we are brought up, how much we used to complain/call for help when there was pain, past pain experience etc . Based on that, different people would get different ‘feel’ or intensity for same mishap.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Bullshit Mr. President !

What is the cause for the food price hike (and crisis) around the world? The middle class Indians because they are eating more food, these days. Says who? The American president Mr. George Bush !

First of all, I am a middle class Indian and I might buy and eat whatever I want and its none of your business Mr. Bush. You might be able to fool your people by saying that but not any Indian or Chinese (coz, according to him, China also has a similar role in the world food price hike).

India is the only country in the world where vegetarians are born. India still has got lots of vegetarian population. And hence, milk is one of the ‘most nutritious’ food for many of them. What is average consumption of liquid milk by an Indian and an American? 36 kg and 78 kg respectively, per year. And Americans eat lots of other milk products too. What about meat? The US is the largest consumer of meat in the world (though China and India are more populous than them). Each Indian consumes only 178 kg of grains per year where as the Americans eat 1046 kg. The annual consumption of vegetable oil per Indian is 11kg and its 41kg for the Americans. Name anything, the Americans eat more than an Indian. It looks like they live to eat and we eat to live.

According to Bush, the middle class Indians now has got more buying power (that is, India’s economy grew …and at a better rate than the US under Bush’s regime (where he is facing recession) , he is now trying to find out an excuse to cover up this shame) and hence India’s agricultural products are not exported (that too may be at a cheap rate to the US!) since there is domestic demand.

So, what you want us from us, Uncle Sam? Don’t eat and feed you? Don’t dress and dress you? Only you and those who accept your slavery win and rest of the world lose, always? High hopes. Price hike is there in India too. The price of vegetable got rocketed this summer since huge quantity of crops got damaged due to unexpected summer rains. Many people are starving here in India. Many farmers committed suicide…

What is one main cause for the price hike of commodities around the world? It is the hike of petroleum. That is, the cost of production and transportation went up. And what is one major reason for it? Bush and his Iraq war. He and his people simply burnt tones and tones of petroleum. Everyone knows that he was after petroleum and personal war when he was fighting with Iraq, and it wasn’t any holy war. It wasn’t any act of humanity.

What did the Americans do with their crops? Last year, they used one third of their corn production to make bio-fuel and not to feed the hungry. That too when the UN’s special rapporteur’s view on right to food was ‘taking a criminal path’ when it is using food crops to make bio-fuel.

Was he a success as a president? Who says yes? And what is the cost to protect this man? I don’t know, but it will come millions of dollars per year (salary itself comes to 566,000 USD pa.). After doing all the dirty things in the Iraq and Vietnam, he says ‘ we are an unbelievably companionate nation’ … yes Mr. president, as you said , its unbelievable. We all know your true nature and power hunger. Only you have the right to enjoy everything. You have the first right to eat. Only you can make nukes. You can always loot other countries and take what you want. Only you have the right to declare war on any country you want if they don’t supply something to you. You think you rule this entire world.

If the president of the US thinks he and his people are the elite class citizens in the world, he is wrong. He sounds like a Hitler in a new avatar. Your nation is spending millions to sell your religion and culture. If you have real faith in that God you sell, understand that HE did not create any superior or inferior human. If you become a big consumer State, don’t blame other nations and don’t ask to supply everything you want at cost price or at loss to protect your interests.

Finally, if somebody ask me to comment on the US president’s latest finding, is this – BULLSHIT !

(NB. I have American friends. Many of my relatives live there. I have respect for that country and its people. No offence meant to America or it people in general. But I want to strongly disagree with Uncle Sam and his international policies especially that have something to do with my country. When I say 'Americans' it mean the government, not citizens)

Thursday, May 01, 2008

ISRO, Me and Satellites


There was this domination in satellite launching by Europe, Russia and the US. But India now became a strong competitor by launching 10 satellites in a single stretch. On 28th of April, the Polar satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) – C9, carried two Indian satellites and 8 others for the international customers (built by Canada, Japan, Germany, Denmark, and Netherlands). So far, India launched sixteen satellites for international customers. Hats off to ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization).





(photo courtesy ISRO)


The rocket was launched from Sriharikota. When I hear that name, the first incident that comes into my mind is of me sitting in my office about 12 years ago and my boss’s brother entering the office in a hurry. He looked tired. He was coming from Sriharikota , after a rocket launch. He was working with ISRO as a scientist. His wife was working with me and I was her right hand man in computers. I said

“congrats” and in reply he said “thanks”… His wife immediately went with him (to home) handling over all her jobs to me.

We had a good relationship, me and my boss’s this brother. Not just he, when I was working with that firm, I got acquainted with many scientists from ISRO. And I learnt many computer related things and tips from many of them. (Later on, when we needed a proprietary software, one of them developed it for us ..well, it wasn’t free ..and he wrote that in Borland C). This happened coz, we had lots of clients from ISRO and most of them happened to be scientists.

Those days are gone…. But since I had some ‘special’ connection with ISRO, I have a special proud in ISRO’s success and I wish them all the best for their Moon Mission, the Chandrayaan-1…