Grade-7 School Project

Art Of Parenting - Philosophy and Parenting

If you look at some the below quotes from these eminents scientists, you might observe a pattern.

"The secret to creavity is knowing how to hide your sources."  - Albert Einstein

"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts." - Albert Einstein

"A small leak can sink a great ship." - Benjamin Franklin

"Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas." - Marie Curie

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood." - Marie Curie

"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life." - Darwin

Science and philosophy probably go hand in hand.   The discoveries/inventions made by these eminent scientists through some deep thoughts might have led to such quotes.   

One could think,  either philosophy might lead to discovery or discovery might lead to philosophy.    That is not important;  what is important is the "Featured undisturbed mind that has no leaps and bounds" and the thinking goes on and on and on.

As a parent, I was thinking if it makes sense to be a bit philosphical with our children and give them a peg of thought - may be one quote a week!   Would that be a journey to an intellectual scientific discovery ?   I don't know...may be I could give it a try.

(Un)Conventional Railway Bell

(Un)conventional Railway Bell @ Hosur Station

I was waiting for a train at Hosur Railway Station (Southern India).   The train was late (as usual!) by 35 minutes.    Just then,  I heard the automated computertized voice announcing that "Train No. XXX, abc express will be arriving on platform number YY at 6:30 pm".   This was repeated several times in 3 different languages which got the message right into everyone's brain.    Just then, I saw a old lady with an iron rod in her hand next to me.   I wasn't sure what she was upto using the rod.    After a few minutes, I heard a very strong bell poking my ears making me half deaf.    That was the magic of the old women with her iron rod hitting it strongly against an iron bar hanging next to me.   After some enquiry, I got to understand  that the bell sound was to alert the public that a train will be arriving soon.    Something which was already announced few minutes back using the public address system.    What was the need to bang the bell when the public address system was already in place ?   This is something that I could never get an answer.

Thanks to the modern system with (un)conventional wisdom!

Cigarettes+Liquors+Girls+Gamblings+Gun Shots+excess killings = Mangatha

Cigarettes+Liquors+Girls+Gamblings+Gun Shots+excess killings forms the frustrating stage of the latest 'SO CALLED HIT TAMIL MOVIE "  Mangatha.

After many months, I took my family to the movie with a lot of expectations (Well, that's what it is being projected as).   I was expecting a good come back from Ajith as it is his 50th film.  But, it was a disappointment come back!

"CIGARETTE SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH" is completely forgotten by the director.   We could hardly see Ajith without a cigarette on his mouth.   What does the director want to convey to the public?   If you want to be a HERO, SMOKE?    This is heights of stupidity on the director's part?   But, how come a great actor like Ajith can accept such roles?   Is it just for money without any reason ?   I have seen Rajini Kanth and Kamalhasan smoking in their movies, but this one has crossed the limits by all means. 

Offlate, many Tamil movies showcase consumption of liquor is religously showed in the silver screen.   Mangatha is no exception.  Thanks to the intellectual thinking of the director with Cigarettes, girls and liquour.  

I recommend the censor board to thoroughly scrutinize scene by scene and put a ban on movies where there is excess footage of smoking,  drinking and violence.  

The director has made fun of an IIT Gold Medalist.   Apart from a few gimmics such as taking control of the traffic signals and automating the lock,  the IIT graduate comes out as a joker, a fool and a pakka rowdie.   Mr. Venkat, do you understand the value of IITians and the amount of intellectuality they carry?   Do you know what it means to be an IIT Graduate?   After seeing this movie, a person who is unware of IIT, might misjudge IITians and their intellectuality.   IITias have been be-fooled in this movie.  Being an IITan, I am completely saddened by this.

There are unwanted song sequences except the first one in the movie; for example, the one in the bar after they loot the money is simply not needed.    The love affair followed by the song of one of the gangster who is the most trusworthy person of Mr. Chettiar is a sheer waste of time.

Trisha absolutely has no role to play.  Where did she disappear after 1st half of the movie?  

The concept of illegal money gambling in the name of IPL is an interesting theme, but the movie makes little sense over it.

Last but not the least,  Arjun is awesome !   Ajith is aweful !   

I could not sit thru the movie,  but for my family insisting me to stay along, I would have surely exited the movie hall after the interval.

MR. VENKAT ------- I hope to see some respite in your next venture.   Please ensure that you bring in some decensy in your movies and a good carry over message for the public.

This movie is a strict non-entertainer.    I got literally bored.   This movie is not targetted for genuine descent audience who need entertaintment.  

Desclimer :  What I have written above is purely my opinion.    As you know, views would differ from people to people depending upon their taste and mood.

Nature And God!

What would you answer if someone asks you this

Do you believe in God?
Is there something called God?

Many say "Yes" due to the fear or being alienated by their community; because our parents have taught us to say "yes" and we just echo the same. Many take the safe path by saying "May be" inorder to not harm anybody's sentiments.

Few say "No" probably due to circumstances and beliefs.

I was fluctuating between "Yes" and "May be" depending upon my mood and to whom I need to answer.   I started using more of "May be" in the recent past until the recent experience made be go back to "Yes".

I was looking at a Rose Plant in my garden and got into some deep thought around it. Rose is probably the most beautiful flower and is one of the most admired one!. God gave it beauty and also protected it with thorns. So, anyone who attempts to pluck it is sure of getting hurt if she/he is careless. However, if you further notice the plant, you may observe that the thin stem which holds the flower is not that thorny which made me feel that God created the structure purposefully as a caveat for anyone to still pluck it and use it for mankind.

This is just good enough reason for me to believe that God is there as an eternal force. Nature has not given us the 7th sense to feel and appreciate God.    

The Ubiquitous Linux Desktop !

The Linux Desktop has been around for some time now, but yet has not taken the desktop world by storm.   People still perceive it to be suitable for a techie person and not for the common man.   That is actually not true any more.    I have been using Linux desktop in form of OpenSuSE for more than 3 years now with no major glitches.   To be honest, I won't call myself too techie,  yet, the Linux Desktop is easy to install, configure and use.    As easy as the Windows Desktop.    

However, one thing that I found most of the people switch back to windows desktop is for want of Microsoft Project,   Outlook email client and MS Office.     Some people install a Windows desktop as a guest OS on a Linux host using VMWare, XEN or VirtualBox, but many of them switch back to Windows as that is an easy route.   For such users, I do have the following recommendations

a.   MS Project  :     Indeed I needed one for my day to day project tracking.  I use OpenProj http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj.   Using OpenProj,  you can import an mpp and after that you don't need MS Project at all.  It has got almost all the features that any project manager uses in MS Project.

b.   MS Office :   The best alternative is LibreOffice - http://www.libreoffice.org/.  Its free.  It has document writer,  spreadsheet (like excel)  and presentation (like powerpoint). 99% of MS Office users just use the basic features and very very very few use the advanced features.    In my  opinion, its criminal waste.   Switch to LibreOffice and you can do everything simple that you have been doing with MSOffice.  
Still, there are quite a few excel programmers who use macros heavily.   A friend of mine is brilliant in excel macro programming.    He does everything using excel using simple VBScripts.     I am not sure if all of them would work flawlessly in LibreOffice.

One alternative is to try running MSOffice on a Linux Desktop!   
Wine (Windows Emulator)  can be used to do this.    I could successfully install and run MSOffice 2007 on my OpenSuSE 11.4 desktop.   See the below (my Linux desktop screen shot)

The same way using wine, you can install and run Outlook too.   

Linux is stable, secure, powerful, reliable, free, highly customizable and yet simple to use.   I have no reason to switch over to an expensive windows desktop.