Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Viral or Bacterial?

Some doctors do not like asking questions. But I have this chronic ‘disease’ of asking questions. Thus, once, when the doctor said:

“Its viral”

I responded:

“How do you know?”

Then I realized that how irritating such a question is, for a doctor. So I explained:

“I just want to know how you doctors comes to a conclusion that its viral”

That was the time I got introduced to this doctor and now he is sooooooo used to me. So, he will be surprised if I did not ask any question during a visit.

Last Friday, I went to meet him since my son was having a cold and cough. And in the present scenario, the school authorities ask for medical certificate even for a day’s absence. The doctor said:

“It’s viral only, but no need to worry”

(What he meant was, there is no need to suspect H1N1)

“......It looks like all the viruses are on a spree… did you notice that kid waiting outside? He has chickenpox; so I asked them to leave immediately..... This is not the season for that virus”

Yes, I noticed him asking me to sit in his consulting room and going outside (to attend that kid first)

“Oh, that’s interesting…usually that comes during summer..but its OK, my son already had chickenpox when he was small” I responded

“Yes, I know”

(True, but I did not expect him to remember that. So this guy has good memory, huh !)

So, how do these docs distinguish between a viral and bacterial infection?

If it is something like chickenpox, rabies (both viral), tuberculosis, syphilis (both bacterial) etc its easy for them.But what about a cold like symptom? A cough? Sore throat? Fever?

In reality, what matters is their experience (or gut feeling) if the patient visits the doc at a very early stage. Because without doing any test, they cant simply say its viral or bacterial, in the early stage. (that is one reason why they ask ‘when did it start?’…if our complaint was a cold with nasal discharge and suffering since 10 days or so, doc might rule out virus. Usually, virus infections won’t stay for more than a week. Our body will fight it out, if it can, within that period – I am talking about common cold and seasonal flu. But a bacterial infection can be chronic/ lengthy).

How can they confirm? Testing for a virus is a costly affair (plus there are very few virology labs compared to the regular labs) so what they do is checking whether its bacterial or not, if at all they want to test (usually the docs don’t suggest a test for seasonal diseases; at least my doc). Here, what they do a culture test (means taking a sample and keeping it in nutrient medium to observe whether there is bacterial multiplication. If it is positive, they conclude that its bacterial; if negative they assume that its viral).

But sometimes a viral cold can lead to bacterial infection (depends on many factors like a person's immunity, contact with infected person or surfaces etc). I have personally experienced this. This can be noticed by the color change in the nasal discharge. That is one reason why a doc sometimes prescribe an anti-biotic for a flu or cold, even though it has no direct impact on a virus. Usually, viral infections are fought out by our body using its immunity mechanism.

How do these infections differ and what is the difference between an antibiotic and antiviral?

Though it’s a silly answer, bacterial infections are caused by bacteria and viral infections are caused by virus. But the style of their attack is very different.

Virus is not a living organism and hence we can not kill them using a drug. Virus need a living host cell for their existence. They are just a shell made up of some proteins and organic compounds (means a compound which has carbon atom). Inside the shell, there is some genetic material (eg. materials found inside a nucleus) like DNA or RNA (explaining DNA and RNA is out of scope of this particular blog). They can’t reproduce themselves and hence they hijack our cells and ‘command’ them to produce their replica (virus). Usually they use up our cell and its resources, kills it, detach from the cell and moves on. One technique used in anti-viral drug is that it interferes with this detaching process in such a way that the virus can not detach. Thus we can control them.

But a bacterium is a living cell and hence it can reproduce by division. So they can survive even in non living environment (like a cell phone or door knob) for a long time and even multiply. They produce toxins and this will damage the cells that are infected by them. Since they are living, they can be killed and that is what an antibiotic do.

Its just one ‘aaaaaachum’ but there is a wonderful script behind this story…

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Love Scam - Update

I thought I write an update on what has happened to Miss Rose. Well, Just now, I got another mail from 'her'. Remember that my reply was "Good try, but you got the wrong guy". But look at the funny reply I got:

Dearest sweetheart,

I am more than happy in your reply to my mail. how is your day;Mine is a little bit hot over here in Dakar Senegal.My condition here is terrible Its just like one staying in the prison and i hope by Gods grace i will come out here soon.i don't have any relatives now whom i can go to all our relatives ran away in the middle of the war the only person i have now is Rev. John Dada who is the pastor of the (HOPE OF GLORY CHURCH) here in the camp he has been very nice to me since i came here but i am not living with him rather i am leaving in the female hostel because here they have two hostels one for male the other for female.The Pastors Tel. number is (00221-767545166) and his e-mail address is ....(revernedjohndada77@yahoo.com), so if you call and tell him that you want to speak with me he will send for me in the hostel. my conditon here i don't have any right or privilledge to any thing be it money or whatever because it is against the law of this country.I want to go back to my studies because i only attended my first year before the traggic incident that lead to my being in this situation now took place.Please listen to this,i have my late father's statement of account and death certificate here with me which i will send to you latter,because when he was alive he deposited some amount of money in a leading bank in which he used my name as the next of kin,the amount in question is $6.5(6 Million five Hundred Thousand Dollars) So i will like you to help me transfer this money to your account and from it you can send some money for me to get my travelling documents and air ticket to come over to meet with you.I kept this secret to people here the only person that knows about it is the Revrend because he is like a father to me.So in the light of above i will like you to keep it to yourself and don't tell it to anyone for i am afraid of loosing my life and the money if people gets to know about it.Remember i am giving you all this information due to the trust i deposed on you.I like honest and understanding people,truthful and a man of vision,truth and hardworking. My favourite language is english and i speak english very fluently.Meanwhile i will like you to call me on 1 p.m that is london like i said i have alot to tell you Have a nice day and think about me.Awaiting to hear from you soonest.
Yours in love Miss Rose.

This time the attachment had another picture of hers. I thought 'hey this is a good entertainment'. I collected another picture of her from the net (just Google for 'love scam' and use common sense) and mailed back like this:

Hello Dear, You said you don’t have any relative, but don’t worry. May be you don’t know, but you have a twin sister. Her name is Miss Mabel. I am attaching her photo here. And you have another relative by name Miss Lilian. They are also ready to transfer millions of USD into my account. Let me see who is going to give me more...

This is the last blog on this topic since I am no more interested in this dirty scam..Those who are interested can proceed to: http://419.bittenus.com/

Finally, should you make a donation to me for providing this info?

THINK TWICE

419 Scam, Nigerian Bank Scam, Advance Fee Fraud, Russian Scam, Love Scam, Lottery Scam and so on

Most of us might have received at least one ‘419’ scam spam mail. The number 419 is related to some section related to Nigerian Criminal Code (said to be chapter 38, I don’t know). In practical sense, this section deals with obtaining wealth by cheating.


The typical mail tells that somebody died leaving millions of USD in a bank and asking our help to get it legally on a sharing basis (subject like might look like ‘need your assistance’). What happens we reply? They will ask us to send some money for legal consultation or to pay the attorney or something like that. This scam is also known as ‘Advance Money Scam’.


What if we send the money? Well, they will update us about the progress and ask us to send more money and this goes on and on.


The scam is said to be originated in African countries and even today most of the criminals involved in such scams are from Africa (mainly Nigeria). Recently one of them got arrested while visiting India (he successfully cheated some people here).


Another flavor is ‘Love Scam’. Here we might get a mail from our opposite sex saying they have fallen love with us. If we reply, they plan their next step accordingly. They collect our mail id mostly from social network or dating sites. Many people we add up are fakes (though they have their pics and every detail. If we do a google, we can find out some of the sample pictures they commonly use). Another version of this cheating is the ‘You have won a lottery’ mail.


The other day, I signed up for a penpal site and the very next day, I got a mail which read:



HelloMy name is Miss Rose am 24yr old . I saw your profile today on allpenpals.com and it really acttract me alot i believe that you are the man i have been looking for to share my love; How is your health? i hope all is well with you. I believe that we can move from here ; but remember that distance;age and colour dose not matter what matters is the true love and understanding; in my next e-mail i shall include my pictuer; i been waithing for your reply mail me with this mail address (rose.frank83@yahoo.co.uk) for further introduction.Bye hopeing to hear from you soon. pLs contact me with this mail (rose.frank83@yahoo.co.uk)

I wanted to test how they respond if I reply. So, I said 'If you mean a friendship, you are welcome'. Within 6 hours, I got a reply:

(I came to know that irrespective of the reply we give, they sends same reply with one of the pic they use for this purpose)

My Dear,I am more than happy in your reply to my mail.How was your day today? .Mine a little hot over here in Dakar Senegal.My name is Miss Rose (24years) single and never married, i am from monrovia in west Africa and presently i am residing in the refugee camp here in Dakar Senegal as a result of the civil war that was fought in my country last three years.My late father Dr FRANK BENSON was the chairman managing director of(FRANK BENSON INDUSTRIAL COMPANY LTD),in MONROVIA the capital of my country,and he was also the personal advicer to the former head of state before the rebels attacked our house one early morning and killed my mother and my father in a cold blood.It was only me that is alive now and i managed to make my way to a nearby country Senegal where i am living now as a refugee.I would like to know more about you.Your likes and dislikes,your hobbies and what you are doing presently.I will tell you more about myself in my next mail.I have Attached my picture in my mail bye and have a nice day.Hopeing to hear from you soonest. Miss Rose.

(I traced the mail and it originated from Senegal; or they successfully changed the IP)



Miss Rose !!!

For which I replied:

‘Good try, but you got the wrong guy’, the result was…

The next mail was from one Ms.Gloria Pattugalan from Philippines !. This was a real surprise for me and could be a pure coincidence. I hardly think that those criminals know of my Philippine connections. But this time the mail originated from Czech Republic.


The mail reads as follows:

Hello,My name is Ms.Gloria Pattugalan, daughter of Late Judge Nathaniel Pattugalan of Philippines. My father survived an attempt murder in life on the 27th of October 2005. And was killed 19th of January 2007.Since the first attempt till date his murderers have not been identified .I am afraid of my life because i believe his death has to do with the government or politicians because my father was against corruption.After the first attempt on my father's life, he went to secure US$3 Million outside the country.I would want you to assist me retrieve this money,so that i will come to live a new life in your country.Yours sincerelyGloria Pattugalan


This time I wish to reply :


“NO NO, wait, don’t come to my country, with USD $3 million, we can buy a small private island in Philippines with nice white sand beach and then we live happily ever after…”


The first thing one should do if one gets such a mail is to mark it as Spam and ignore it. If got accidently opened, just delete the mail. Or if you want some time pass, give them some stupid reply (at your own risk since I don’t know what will happen to you if the other guy gets arrested one day and the police trace all the contacts [for police, your stupid answer could be ‘code words’])


What if somebody don’t want to ignore it but want to know more about it? One can get lots of information from here, including samples of most of the mails getting circulated:


http://www.419scam.org/

Friday, September 18, 2009

timeLess ...

Prologue:

I sent a mail to a friend of mine asking some questions (of that person’s area of expertise) and that person mailed me back telling that I can expect a mail very soon. I waited…one day, one week…it is now one month..

Another mail, another person and this time a reply came (at least) starting with ‘sorry for the belated reply’

Same day, I got one more mail (from a relative) starting with ‘sorry for the belated reply’…

Some similar non mail experiences follows…

(Yes, I know its just coincidence)

* * * * * * * *

“I want an appointment with God” I called up His secretary

“May I know who is calling?” a cute and sweet voice asked.

After verifying my credentials, I got an appointment.

“So? What do you want to ask?” He was yawning

“Why is this? Why those delays? Why didn’t they get time to reply though they wanted to ?”

“It’s a secret...”

“Tell me…..”

“Can I trust you?”

“Well, I think you can”

“They did not get time, right? They will not"

"Why?"

"Light, darkness, water, heaven, beast, man…..sorry, I forgot to create Time”

“But you are the…”

“Shhhhhhhh”

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Back to Badminton...but

Long after the ligament tear (after a break of one and a half years), I returned to badminton court to give it a try. I requested my gym coach to come with me to give some practice to observe how the knee reacts. We tossed the birdie for some time and it made me soooooooooo happy. I could not sleep that night because of the excitement.

I was surprised to see the way my gym coach played. About one and a half years back (that was the time I started learning badminton and it ended even before I could play 20 hours in total), I used to beat him in singles and now I am nowhere near him. He got sculptured into a fine player and I came to know that he already beat many of them who ‘taught’ him how to play.

I got chance to practice for two weekends (about 15 minutes for each session) and then the court wasn’t free for exclusive use. So, I played some double games with others. I used to tell them that I had a ligament tear and I am still struggling and hence I am unable to move fast or take net-shots by leaning forward (body weight shifts to our front leg). The result was amazing !

My opponents started targeting me. They placed the shuttle in such a way that I have to run or lean. Once I even got smashed on my eye (and I had to consult an eye doctor). Thus, some people started thinking that they lost the game because of me. Some got irritated. And yes, there were couple of them who said ‘ its OK’.

Once, a lady who was playing against me smiled when I missed couple of easy shots. I could not take it because I had to run. But her smile irritated me and so I told her:

“Don’t smile, I will hit next time”

“You hit” she responded

I missed once again and she laughed and told me

“You should play like that, OK?”

“Sure” I replied

I missed another one too and she repeated it again

“Like that, OK?”

“Yes” I said.

Though I smiled, inside me, it was kind of rage. But we lost the game. I said we will play one more game. And I this time I played madly and hardly missed any return shot. We won for 15-7. Then I smiled at her and I told her that I was playing with injury. But what was the real result?

I ended up with ice pack and rest for two days…the pain stricken back.

God, why is this world like this? Where is his answer?

The other day, there came two kids. One was 15 and another one 17. The 15 year old boy plays really well. He spent some time playing with me giving tips and correcting my mistakes. And last Sunday, I was sitting with my racket without any company. That 17 year old (he knows about my knee issue) came and asked

“You want to play badminton?”

He did not trouble me with his skills…He did not made me run..We did not play as a game and hence nobody won, nobody lost..

May be that was His answer…

Monday, September 14, 2009

Countries to Visit ...

Which country/countries I wish/wished to visit?

My wish started with Russia. From childhood, I wished to visit Moscow. That time, Russia was U.S.S.R, and was said to be one of the most powerful nations in the world. The first foreign magazine I had seen during my childhood is ‘The Soviet Union’. It was colorful and most of the time, it had some pictures of snow or people wearing winter dress. As a kid, I thought living in snow is fun.

When I grew up, I became a member of the House of Soviet Culture Library. They had a theater too where they used to screen Russian movies. I read lots of Russian literature during that time. I mostly read translations in my mother tongue and then started reading in English too. I cant recollect the name of the authors, but I can not forget Mikhail Sholokhov, Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Anton Chekov, Maxim Gorky (that building/campus was named after him – Gorky Bhavan), Fyodor Dostoyevsky etc. At some point of time, I wished to study in Russia; but I had no idea how.

Russia and U.S weren’t friends that time. There was ‘cold war’. I had heard the word ‘cold war’ during my childhood but I had no idea what exactly it is. Since my love was for Russia, I did not like the U.S. And hence I did not fancy visiting U.S.

Years passed and I became a member of ‘Trivandrum Public Library’, which was one of the oldest and the largest libraries in my city (established during 1829). They had a huge collection of books. I started reading travelogues. This made me think ‘ I wish I could visit this place… oh ! I wish I could visit that place’. Thus, Egypt, Singapore, Bali (Indonesia), Tibet, Greenland, Paris etc started coming into the list, apart from Russia. My wish to travel to the Gulf region was only for the purpose of looking for a job.

Years passed. Technology changed and internet was a revolution as far as information is concerned. I was able to get lots of info about any country. Still, travelling to a distant country was not easy. One needs lots of money and we Asians need Visa to travel to almost every other country. I always wished to have some friends from around the world. When a real Russian, that too somebody grew up in Moscow became a friend of mine, I became very happy. But when I listened to the real stories, I understood that the Russia in my dream was not real.

I got some good friends from Philippines, the U.S., Australia, Thailand and Indonesia. And naturally, I wished to visit those countries. Yes, Estonia too got added up to that list, recently. When one of my cousins got settled in Germany, Germany too got highlighted (another cousin got settled in the U.S. , about 20 years ago…now, two more cousins live there.. but U.S wasn’t on my list till I got a friend from there).

Philippines dominated my internet friends list and thus Philippines became the ‘must visit’ place and topped my list. Indonesia stood second at some point of time. Some months ago, when the ‘racism in Australia’ thing was going on, I got a chance to visit Australia. But by that time, I ended up with no friends there. Though the reason for rejecting that opportunity wasn’t lack of friends there, I was sure that having some friends would have made me consider it seriously.

Thailand became an attraction because of Lord Buddha and there too was a friend connection.

I was almost sure about Philippines visit. I made plans to travel to Philippines during the end of 2009 or early 2010. It wasn’t because Philippines became my dream country but it was because of the friends element. Through my friends (especially one) I saw many places in Philippines. I even saw some places ‘Live’ using webcam. Slowly, not just the people, but ‘the country with lakes and beaches’ too became my favorite.

But things changed over months or years. Friendships started getting scattered. People started moving away from me for this or that reasons. There is no point in getting emotional about it, I know. And it is wise to accept the realities. Thus Philippines started climbing down the ladder. Thus Hong Kong went ahead of Philippines when I planned a vacation, last time..

Now?

Every country in this world will have some good and friendly people living there, isn’t it so? I seriously considered that thought when a ‘white’ lady told me ‘ I will be the last person to consider your skin color’ in response to my ‘I am brown, just in case you want to know’.

So, now, I wish I could visit every country in this wonderful world. No country is same, though it is difficult for me to distinguish people from many Asian countries (other than Indian sub-continent). Every country is special in one way or another.

Alas! Now I feel like meeting my old buddies first and then proceed further...

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Content Filter

Which is an easy way to filter internet content to safeguard kids (for example) against porn etc?

There are some exclusive parental control software applications available for this purpose. And some internet security suites too provide such features. But we need to pay for the good ones. There are some free browser based filters too, which I think lacks flexibility.

So, is there any free and flexible application for this purpose?

I don’t know whether this is the best and you can’t filter individual words too, but still one can give OpenDNS a try.

OpenDNS is a DNS service. It is said to be fast and reliable too. (Why you need another DNS service? Sometimes our default DNS might fail to resolve addresses. For example we might have experienced a situation where our internet works but can not go to specific sites owned by yahoo, google, Microsoft etc. This could be because of DNS issue. With OpenDNS, there is no or less chance for such situations).

This is what company says about them:

“OpenDNS is the leading provider of free security and infrastructure services that make the Internet safer through integrated Web content filtering, anti-phishing and DNS. OpenDNS services enable consumers and network administrators to secure their networks from online threats, reduce costs and enforce Internet-use policies. OpenDNS is used today by millions of users and organizations around the world.”

OK, back to content filtering. OpenDNS offers a decent content filtering service. What we have to do is to route our data through their servers by changing our DNS settings. For that, all we need to do is visit

http://www.opendns.com/

and press ‘Start using OpenDNS. And Press ‘Computer’ in case what we want to configure is our computer (we can configure our mobile, router etc too). They provide very good assistance (plus they have a forum, video tutorial, support and blog too, in case we need more info). Just follow the instructions depending on your Operating System.

If we want to keep things permanent, we need to create an account (free), so that we can add our network and manage accordingly. Once it’s done, all we need to do is go to ‘Settings’ Tab and select the filtering level. It is better we use ‘Custom’ since we have the choice to decide what to filter and what not to filter. If we want to allow or block a particular site, that too is possible.
Once done, press ‘Apply’ and sign-out, its done !

But what if we are using Dynamic IP? That is, the IP that changes every time we switch off and switch on our modem? All we need to do is download a (free) Updater application provided by them and install it. This will take care of the rest by refreshing the IP address automatically.

Last, but not at all the least, READ THE PRIVACY POLICY before you use this service. Just like all other free sites, OpenDNS too collects your IP address. This too uses cookies and collects some basic information. And don’t forget to read the FAQ, when you get time.

Some fun/game applications available with some social networking sites get our consent (when we start using it) even to use the entire content we have with our profile including the photos we upload. So, make it a habit to read the Privacy policy when you are availing any service over internet, irrespective of what it is.

Note:

DNS- Domain Name System. Every site we visit has some numerical address like our street and door number. This is the Internet Protocol Address or IP address. (Here, protocol means a set of standardized communication rules using which data can be sent from one computer to another over internet). It is a difficult task to remember long numbers for every site and hence there is this Name resolving system. For example, when we type http://www.google.com in the browser’s address bar, our DNS server (all of us have one, provided by our Internet Service Provider) translates it into 74.125.19.103 (I think so; it can be a different number for you). If you want to find the IP address of any particular site, do the following, for windows users:

Press Start – Run

You will get a command window. Here, type:

Ping www.google.com (I mean the name of any site you want to check)

Then connection will be established and you can see a message like:

‘pinging www.google.com [74.125.19.103] …

The number we see in brackets is the IP address.

Type ‘exit’ without quotes to come out of the window

Friday, September 04, 2009

Satan ... Satan worship or In Satan's Good Books...

Over 5-7 years ago, there was this free MSN chat rooms. I personally was involved in a particular room, as a co-moderator, for sometime but I used to visit many other rooms related to religion, spirituality, science and computers. I still have many interesting memories of that ‘olden’ time.

Once I was in one atheism room. I was just observing what is happening there. Then suddenly somebody entered the room and said this (following is not verbatim):

“Repent, you sinners, even now it’s not too late”

Then some people who were in the room responded to it in different ways. I found it interesting and amusing. So I too participated in it, supporting the atheists, for fun and to observe.

Me: “Sinners? whom do you call sinners?”

“All of you”

Me: “Well, now you are in this room, and I understand that you are a believer. What if there are others like you?”

“I mean the atheist ones”

Me: “why should they repent?”

“Else they will not get eternal life.”

Me: “oh yeah?”

“Are you teasing me?

Me: “no, I am not..can I ask you something?”

“Sure”

Me: “after our death we will go either to hell or heaven, right? And where can we find Satan?”

“Yes, you are right…you can find Satan in the hell, of course”

Me: “and what will happen to the ‘sinners’?

“On the judgment day, they will be sent to hell”

Me: “you said hell is Satan’s place. What authority your God has to send somebody to hell? What if the hell authorities reject it? Or are God and Satan friends?”

“You are questioning God and his powers..you have to pay for that”

Me: “really? Will they accept credit card?”

“I really pity on you…God will punish you”

Me: “Sometime back I too did some ‘scripture’ reading. I believe in myself and not in your God. I believe in some socialistic principles and I do good to people. So, there is a possibility of me going to heaven. But I think I better worship Satan, if what you say is right. You said after death we will go either to hell or heaven. So I will be safe either way. If I land in heaven, its fine, I will enjoy it. But if I go to hell, since I worship Satan, he will reward me. so, that also is fine for me. And on a second thought, if God can send somebody to hell, then Satan can send somebody to heaven too, right? What if he sends me to heaven? ….so, which one is the better bet, worshiping God or worshiping Satan?

That person called me many names (swear words) and left the room :(

(NB: This is not my personal belief on God/Satan. I was doing a discussion for 'academic' purpose)

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Happy Onam..

Today is Tiruvonam (second day of Onam). The most important festival for the people of my native State. I had a feast at my in-laws' place. It was a good day..Wishing everyone out there a very happy and prosperous Onam...

Why did I..?

Sometime back, I had a ‘clash’ with a Known Psychologist from the U.S. over one of my blogs. Later, I posted an apology. After reading those blog series, a friend of mine reacted:

“Why did you say apology?, You were telling the truth.”

Whereas my wife’s reaction was:

“She insulted you. I don’t like her”

So, why did I…..?

It has three main reasons:

I too understand mind/people, though I don’t have a trailing PhD in Psychology after my name.

I wanted to avoid enmity; and more importantly,

I wanted to observe and study…