I feel greatly honored to write about a person whom I met during my long but short and wonderful trip to India.
Every individual around the world is dedicated in doing something for a purpose and tend to have great expectation (on the positive side), may it be for a good or bad cause. But one can only find a few among them who dedicate or rather sacrifice their entire life for a good cause of others (people not related to oneself).
I wanted to write this biography, because I felt it is my duty to do so. I am a normal human being surrounded by a big wall of “EMOTIONS”, because of which I am not able to go beyond the wall and see the other side of the world and I am sure most of us in the world are on the same boat.
Every religion has a designated Messenger to God. In the same way, I consider this great person as a Messenger to the world, who is beyond the wall of EMOTIONS that surrounds me.
Mother Esther, is the great person I am talking about and from whom I came to know the true meaning of dedication. Every one of us would like to help people who are in need, like Orphans, Old age, poor, diseased etc. So we tend to go to an orphanage, old age home and many other places to help them.
Mother Esther is an exception; she is one among the few who dedicated her life for the good will of others. I was curious to know about her as to what made her enter into the life of complete dedication and true sacrifice.
Mother is running an Orphanage place named “Saranalaya” in Coimbatore, India. As soon as I entered the orphanage, I was surrounded by a group of young kids and I could see tons of true love and affection in their faces. Mother received me and my mom with a warm welcome and gave us a good authentic Indian tea and some wonderful snacks.
I talked to her for a long time, which ended my curiosity but came to know a new meaning of dedication. I would like to share this with everyone.
Mother, was born in a beautiful place called Kanyakumari, southern most tip of India and a place where visitors can have a great view of sunset and sunrise. She has four siblings (brothers) and she is the only girl child in the family. A girl child going for a school during those days is a big ordeal. During her third grade, she was the class topper, but she was never recognized in her family for her studies. She had to cry to her family members for her higher studies during her young ages.
Days passed by, after lots of refusal and oppositions she somehow struggled to reach tenth grade. She was topper in her village of all the girls in her tenth grade final exam, which was a big thing during those days. Her family members felt proud of her achievements and wanted her to go for higher studies.
This made her think, that her family members wanted her to go for higher studies because she brought pride to her family. She decided not to do things for people, who don’t realize the true effort but go for pride. She always had a thought about becoming a Nun. One fine day she stepped out of her house and went in the direction of a Church to become a Nun.
From there on, she decided to live for others and not for herself. She was given posting in the Church as Nun for various social activities. Even though she was doing lots of social activities she still was not satisfied. She felt that somebody somewhere is waiting for her and is in need of her help. One fine day in a place called Coimbatore, TamilNadu she decided to go to a jail to give consultation for those who are terrorists, criminals, etc. But there was always a big opposition in her organization.
Her unstoppable thirst to help the real people who are in need made her to go against the organization. She went to the jail to meet the Superintendent of Police, which is an arduous task because an individual is not allowed into jail without prior appointments and the reason for making an appointment should be genuine. She found a picture of hers’ taken in a function along with other Sisters, Mothers and Superintendent of Police (whom she wanted to meet in the jail) who was the Chief Guest.
She went to the jail with the picture along with full faith in God. She went passed all the policemen and finally reached the destination where she wanted to be. Yes, she was in SP’s (Superintendent of Police) office. Firstly, the SP didn’t realize who she was and then she showed the picture and made him realize. She then went on to tell him the purpose of her visit. Initially, SP said it was not possible and finally she convinced him but then according to the jail rules, she needs to get an approval from an authorized person in her organization.
By God’s grace, there was a Baptist who was able to provide her the full support and approved her for doing this job. Finally after all the struggle and hurdles she is in a service of her choice. Her great faith in God made her feel and look audacious when she was walking along the jail corridor. She went into a hall filled with the most stubborn or the so called stubborn criminals. Her first session was not that good because everyone turned their heads with a great disrespect. Mother was kind enough to let it go and she realized that one day things will come her way with the help of God.
Days passed by, Mother went through all the curses and criticisms from people in jail as well as from her organization, but because of her patience she was able to overcome all those obstacles. She was able make every individual in jail listen to her and now they feel that the day is not complete if they don’t consult with Mother for few hours. She had one specific experience with a person in jail which made her take another diversion in her life.
One among those in jail was very stubborn and was never willing to attend Mother’s consultation hours. He was put in jail because he murdered an individual who criticized him for being a lower caste. He is a well educated and honored who has great respect for others. One fine day, he came to Mother and cried for a long time and he did regret for his mistakes. He talked to Mother about his kids who are helpless and that their career was in stake. Mother realized that her task is incomplete and decided to help the kids of the all the individuals who are in jail. She realized that young kids are not supposed to suffer because of the mistake of their parents.
Mother went in search of all the kids who are in need; some lived in nearby places and some in remote villages. Most of those kids were diseased; she brought them to her home, provided them with all the basic necessities and all the necessary medications to cure their diseases. Now every kid is talented in something and some kid passed their 10th and 12th grade with some excellent job opportunities.
Kids come and go, but Mother is always the same doing her duties with a great satisfaction and tremendous amount of faith in God. She goes to jail everyday for consultation, take care of their kids until they get good job opportunities and provide them all the necessary talent.
God can be realized, felt and seen through people like Mother Esther and I feel that I did see and will always see God in her forever. Thank You GOD!!!!!
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Network Drivers ....
This is an interesting article ... I am not a big time networking guy but this gave me a good understanding and above all it provided some useful information ... have fun reading it ..
http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/293/
The battle for wireless network drivers
Written by Jem Matzan
Dec 20, 2006 at 08:52 PM
BSD and Linux programmers have had a lot of success in creating drivers for new computer hardware in a timely manner, but much of their effort has been without the support of major hardware manufacturers. Intel, Marvell, Texas Instruments and Broadcom, though separate and competing entities, seem by one consent to prevent non-Microsoft operating systems from working properly with some of their most widely-used network chips. To find out more about this situation, I interviewed representatives from network chip manufacturers and programmers from free software operating systems. Their answers are below.
The problem
If you have not had any trouble with network drivers recently, you probably aren't aware of the problem that this article addresses, so here's a quick overview: The increasing need for higher network chip performance and lower cost of manufacturing has encouraged companies that create computer network chips to abstract software that was previously permanently stored on the chip. When this software is integrated with the hardware, you don't have to think about it -- it works without any extra effort, and all you need is a driver so that your operating system can interact with it. If hardware specifications are not provided, the device can be reverse-engineered to create a driver from scratch. Programmers generally do this by playing with the hardware registers until they figure out how to interact with it.
When the software is abstracted from the hardware, it changes from an invisible program stored on a memory chip into a file that must be loaded into the network chip's memory through the driver. Generally this software (no matter where it resides) is called firmware. In this case the driver does not interface with the hardware directly; it only does so through the firmware. In this scenario it is impossible to reverse-engineer the hardware because it is essentially brain-dead without its firmware -- all it knows how to do is load the firmware. Once the file is loaded into the network chip, then the hardware knows how to be a network device. Essentially the firmware is its own device-specific operating system. Programmers are unable to reverse-engineer this kind of hardware because the only registers they can play with are the ones that load the firmware; they can, however, reverse-engineer the firmware interface once it is loaded. That's still not an easy thing to do, but even if it weren't so complicated, many operating system developers don't want to write their own device firmware -- all they want to do is write a driver that can load and interface with it.
The first challenge for operating system developers is obtaining the right to distribute the firmware file, which some manufacturers will not allow without significant restriction. Firmware is not operating system-specific, so the same firmware file can be used with any OS, provided it has a driver that can interface with it. So the second challenge is creating such a driver, which requires firmware interface documentation. Not surprisingly, many of the same manufacturers that prohibit or restrict firmware distribution also won't provide interface documentation.
This problem is most prevalent with wireless network chips, but it's also creeping into the wired variety as well. Most notably, Broadcom has developed a new PCI Express 10/100/1000 LAN card that uses several discrete MIPS processors, all of which require proprietary firmware to be loaded. According to a network driver programmer I spoke with, they are employed as such: One of the processors is responsible for loading the firmware onto the other chips; one sends network packets; one receives packets; one tracks packet state to perform TCP offload assistance and various other things; one handles negotiating with the host CPU as it puts/removes packets in/out of the descriptor rings. In this case, all of the firmware fits into an 87k file, but firmware files can be considerably larger: Intel's firmware files are just under half a megabyte, and the firmware for the Alteon Networks Tigon II network controller is in the vicinity of 2MB.
Unrestricted redistribution of firmware files is satisfactory for some open source operating system projects like OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and many varieties of GNU/Linux, but others like Fedora Core and Debian demand an entirely free software environment, so redistribution of the firmware without the ability to modify and distribute the source code is prohibited. The standard response to this from the Free Software Foundation is to reverse-engineer the device and provide free firmware. So even though it is very difficult -- almost impossible -- to do it in the absence of documentation, could such firmware eventually be reverse-engineered? The development team that works on the OpenBSD operating system has a lot of experience with reverse-engineering, but both project leader Theo de Raadt and OpenBSD network driver programmer Jonathan Gray agree that such work would be impractical. Of reverse-engineering firmware and the hardware that it runs on, de Raadt told me, "We can sometimes reverse-engineer how to talk to a device... some are worse than others... but imagine reverse engineering the firmware of 300-400 devices on the market today! Behind their little ARM/MIPS buses, they are a no man's land of undocumented-ness and bugs; hundreds and hundreds of bugs created almost all by the realities of 'time-to-market pressures.'" The issue, in other words, is made worse by hastily-designed hardware that doesn't work as it should, and requires specific workarounds in the firmware and/or driver. Sometimes manufacturers provide patches or documentation for driver programmers; sometimes they don't.
So instead of lobbying for documentation to write open source firmware, de Raadt would prefer to simply have the right to freely distribute necessary proprietary firmware files with his operating system, along with correct firmware interface documentation so that a driver can be created, and information from the manufacturer regarding bug workarounds. Many network chip manufacturers stubbornly refuse to grant these requests, however. Theo de Raadt told me in an email, "Our efforts to do more wireless involves a few approaches. We reverse-engineer what we can. We borrow from other people's reverse-engineering lessons where we can, for instance, prism54.org is a Linux team, but their reverse-engineer work has resulted in knowledge which we can obviously use to write a BSD driver. And finally, we dialogue directly with vendors to get more free access to documentation, early access to hardware, or firmware distribution rights (sometimes there is just no other way). Some vendors (in particular Ralink or Realtek) will even give us hardware before it goes on sale. Some give us documentation, some give us code. But largely a lot of American vendors are still stupidly resisting giving anything. In any case, all these efforts together now mean that we have more wireless support in OpenBSD than all the Linux distributions. Maybe even combined!"
According to Jonathan Gray, the drivers that OpenBSD currently has that require firmware that vendors won't let the OpenBSD Project distribute are:
acx (4) - TI ACX100/ACX111 IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
ipw (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 IEEE 802.11b wireless network device
iwi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG/2225BG/2915ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
malo (4) - Marvell Libertas IEEE 802.11b/g
bcw (4) - Broadcom IEEE 802.11b/g (this driver is still under development and does not currently work)
wpi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g
pgt (4) - Connexant/Intersil Prism GT Full-MAC IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
uath (4) - Atheros USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g
wpi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
And the wireless devices that either do not require firmware, or that have runtime firmware that OpenBSD is allowed to distribute:
atu (4) - Atmel AT76C50x USB IEEE 802.11b wireless network device
ral (4) - Ralink Technology IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device (2nd gen 802.11 Ralink)
rum (4) - Ralink Technology USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
zyd (4) - Zydas ZD1211 USB IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network device
Intel requires that people who use its Centrino wireless firmware submit to a lengthy license agreement before downloading and using it. While the majority of end-users may just scroll down and click the "I Agree" link to get past it, the process is not quite so simple for free software operating systems, which would have to provide the same license hurdle for every one of their users, and agree not to modify any of the driver header code that Intel provides. Commercial desktop GNU/Linux distributions like SUSE, Mandriva, and Linspire already do this, or have independent distribution agreements with Intel.
When reverse-engineering works Reyk Floeter and various other OpenBSD programmers managed to write a free replacement for the proprietary Atheros hardware abstraction layer (HAL) called ar5k or "OpenHAL." The HAL isn't firmware; it is a form of abstracted device driver that actually loads into the operating system kernel through a small amount of driver code. The big difference between a HAL and a firmware is where the code resides; if it's on the device, it's firmware, and if it is loaded into the operating system's kernel, it's HAL.
ar5k works with many Atheros-based wireless cards and has been examined and recently given a clean bill of copyright health from the Software Freedom Law Center. Mysteriously, it has virtually no support from the Madwifi Project, which is the development team responsible for creating Atheros drivers for Linux-based operating systems. Madwifi continues to primarily support the proprietary Atheros HAL, though there is an old and uninformative page in the Madwifi Wiki about it. The email addresses listed for the Madwifi developers either bounce or elicit no response to requests for comments on why there is no apparent effort to use the open source HAL in Madwifi. So if it exists, it's free-as-in-rights, and it works, then why doesn't Madwifi use ar5k instead of the proprietary HAL? It may very well be pressure from Atheros that keeps ar5k out of Madwifi, but no one at Madwifi or Atheros would talk to me about it.
The manufacturers speak -- or don't
In order to find out why network chip manufacturers are so polarized in their support of free software operating systems, I made contact with company representatives at Atheros, Intel, Marvell, Atmel, Ralink, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, and Realtek. Not surprisingly, the manufacturers who shun operating system programmers also seem to be reluctant to talk to the press.
Atheros
After weeks of repeated requests and pleas for any kind of response just to verify that the PR email address works, an Atheros representative told me that she was unable to find anyone at the company who was qualified and willing to comment for this article.
Intel
Intel punted me to different people a few times, then after a short delay and a bizarre inquisition into my professional background and "intentions" in writing this article, told me that the company had nothing to say on the matter of wireless firmware distribution rights and interface documentation. Considering Intel's outstanding PR record and its general willingness to provide hardware documentation for the PCI chipsets and drive controllers that it makes, this behavior is unusual. One of the questions I asked Intel was if it felt its uncooperativeness with free software developers was in direct conflict with this presentation about the importance of participating in and supporting open source software development that Intel engineer James Ketrenos gave last summer. In it, Ketrenos says several things in favor of corporate cooperation with open source software developers, including these points:
Enable the community to do as much as possible
Only keep internal those things that the community can not contribute to (Example: Certification testing)
If you need to keep IP closed source (for example some whiz-bang algorithm), document the hardware sufficiently that the community can provide their own.
Treat the community as if they were a member of your internal team
Broadcom
The Broadcom press relations person I spoke with very much wanted to help me, but could not find anyone at Broadcom who felt qualified to comment.
Marvell
I have already written about the substandard responsiveness of Marvell's outsourced PR agency (see the bottom of the linked article).
Texas Instruments
An internal Texas Instruments press relations person was very responsive to my requests for comment at first, then punted me to an outsourced PR agency which, in turn, ignored several emails asking for information. After more than two weeks of repeated inquiries, a representative of the PR agency informed me that she was unable to find anyone at Texas Instruments who was qualified to comment on TI's policies on providing hardware documentation and firmware redistribution agreements.
Ralink Technologies
I had no trouble getting through to Ralink, where I spoke with company representative Lillian Chiu.
Ralink has been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring an NDA. Why can Ralink do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require non-disclosure agreements?
Lillian Chiu: It's our philosophy to spread the technology without border, along with high performance and low cost.
Because of Ralink's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Ralink's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Ralink sell more network products as a result?
LC: Our customers have often provided positive feedback for our best-in-class device support. We see it as a win-win situation where advanced users get more flexibility while we sell more products.
If a programmer needs to access Ralink hardware documentation, whom at Ralink should they contact?
LC: Please visit Ralink Web site at www.ralinktech.com for details under /support/forums.
Atmel Inc.
Richard Bisset, product marketing director of the multimedia and communications group, offered several minutes of his time to answer some questions about wireless drivers and firmware.
Atmel has been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring an NDA. Why can Atmel do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require non-disclosure agreements?
Richard Bisset: For some things we do require non-disclosure agreements, but we are generally able to provide the API documentation and the firmware driver interface specifications for our hardware. As to why others may not be able to do this... well, our software is developed in-house, but others might out outsource their driver development to third-party companies, so they may not even have the documentation that a programmer requests.
As to why Intel might be so secretive with this information if they do have it, I can't say. Perhaps because more and more features are actually being moved from the firmware to the driver, some companies are being more guarded than others. Additionally, as the Centrino laptop processor includes wireless, it may be they don't want to give up any potential IP that could help their competition -- I don't really know for sure.
Because of Atmel's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Atmel's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Atmel sell more network products as a result?RB: Well, if you look at the success of Intel, Marvell, Broadcom, etc. -- the big players in the wireless industry -- they are successful with the OEM and peripheral markets. As the embedded markets generally require more technical support, they probably don't care much about getting another 50,000 or 100,000 units sold and can be tight with their APIs. We were late to market with our 802.11g products, so we missed the OEM opportunities, and with wireless, you've only got three real chances for success: you can be first to market with a technology, or you can have valuable and unique features that no one else has and the market wants, or you can have the lowest price. Atmel wasn't first, didn't have any new unique features, and wasn't the cheapest, either. With the PC and OEM markets being somewhat locked out, we repositioned to focus on the embedded space where the market was experiencing and predicting large growth. In the embedded market, if you don't get documentation to developers, then you both fail.
What's the big secret with device firmware, then?
RB: Firmware is generally running on the chip itself, as opposed to the host. The code is written tightly coupled to the chip it is running on and implements/enables functions that the hardware supports. Therefore, there generally is a lot of IP within the firmware. Our firmware is loaded from an external flash into internal SRAM, but more and more semiconductor manufacturers are moving firmware functions to the driver.
We usually provide driver source code, and we try to put it under the GPL if possible, so that's usually good enough if you want to write your own driver. If you want to see more than that, we generally require an NDA, or if you're an embedded customer, we provide reference platforms.
So the firmware is so secret that you have to sign an NDA to see it, but not secret enough that some stranger who works on an obscure operating system can see it with merely a signature?
RB: It is kind of a strange situation, yes, and sometimes we run into people who are reluctant to sign NDAs. It really depends on the customer and target application. We don't require an NDA to see hardware APIs, and I think that's what you're talking about with regard to documentation.
If a programmer needs to access Atmel hardware documentation, whom at Atmel should they contact?
RB: We have contact forms through our Web site where you can make requests, and they are directed to the proper person at Atmel.
Realtek Inc.
After a few emails, I made contact with Tracy Ho, a Taiwan-based representative for Realtek.
Realtek has reportedly been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Why can Realtek do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require NDAs?
Tracy Ho: For some years Realtek has been one of the largest NIC/LOM solution providers. One of the major reasons for this is that Realtek takes customer service as one of its top priorities. We aim to work with our customers as partners in a mutually cooperative environment. Our product sales and technical support teams are well-recognized by our customers and we strive to provide them with the convenience of flexibility and real-time support. One of the ways we do this is by releasing general hardware documents without requiring a NDA.
Because of Realtek's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Realtek's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Realtek sell more network products as a result?
TH: Realtek has been working very closely with various operating system providers pretty much since the company was first started, and we do consider this to be one of our competitive advantages. Over the last decade, the great expansion of networked devices throughout the home and work environment, and the use of open-source operating systems in many such devices, has definitely helped us expand market share.
If a programmer needs to access Realtek hardware documentation, whom at Realtek should they contact?
TH: For most hardware documentation, programmers can access Realtek's website. Any other questions can be directed to our technical support teams (contact information available from the "Contact Us" link on our website).
All we need to do is make sure we keep talking Some of the non-responsiveness of manufacturers may just be bad PR work, but the same companies that wouldn't talk to me have also refused to reply to free software programmers who have requested the same information. The impression I got from most of these companies (excepting Intel) was that they were not at all prepared to deal with the issues of firmware redistribution rights and hardware API documentation requests. That they have ignored free software programmers' requests is not necessarily a sign of unwillingness to participate, but perhaps a general sense of confusion as to how they are able to help. No one seems to know whom to talk to at the company, and in some cases the proper documentation may not exist -- or it may belong to yet another company that the hardware manufacturer outsourced the firmware development to.
On the other hand, it was just as difficult to contact and get comments from the Madwifi developers, and it seems that each individual wireless driver in the Linux kernel has different people working on it. Even if one of the above companies wanted to provide the appropriate materials to create free drivers and firmware, how would they know whom to contact? The irony in this story is that the heart of the problem lies in a lack of communication, but not between operating systems and network devices -- between hardware manufacturers and the software developers who are trying to support their devices.
http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/293/
The battle for wireless network drivers
Written by Jem Matzan
Dec 20, 2006 at 08:52 PM
BSD and Linux programmers have had a lot of success in creating drivers for new computer hardware in a timely manner, but much of their effort has been without the support of major hardware manufacturers. Intel, Marvell, Texas Instruments and Broadcom, though separate and competing entities, seem by one consent to prevent non-Microsoft operating systems from working properly with some of their most widely-used network chips. To find out more about this situation, I interviewed representatives from network chip manufacturers and programmers from free software operating systems. Their answers are below.
The problem
If you have not had any trouble with network drivers recently, you probably aren't aware of the problem that this article addresses, so here's a quick overview: The increasing need for higher network chip performance and lower cost of manufacturing has encouraged companies that create computer network chips to abstract software that was previously permanently stored on the chip. When this software is integrated with the hardware, you don't have to think about it -- it works without any extra effort, and all you need is a driver so that your operating system can interact with it. If hardware specifications are not provided, the device can be reverse-engineered to create a driver from scratch. Programmers generally do this by playing with the hardware registers until they figure out how to interact with it.
When the software is abstracted from the hardware, it changes from an invisible program stored on a memory chip into a file that must be loaded into the network chip's memory through the driver. Generally this software (no matter where it resides) is called firmware. In this case the driver does not interface with the hardware directly; it only does so through the firmware. In this scenario it is impossible to reverse-engineer the hardware because it is essentially brain-dead without its firmware -- all it knows how to do is load the firmware. Once the file is loaded into the network chip, then the hardware knows how to be a network device. Essentially the firmware is its own device-specific operating system. Programmers are unable to reverse-engineer this kind of hardware because the only registers they can play with are the ones that load the firmware; they can, however, reverse-engineer the firmware interface once it is loaded. That's still not an easy thing to do, but even if it weren't so complicated, many operating system developers don't want to write their own device firmware -- all they want to do is write a driver that can load and interface with it.
The first challenge for operating system developers is obtaining the right to distribute the firmware file, which some manufacturers will not allow without significant restriction. Firmware is not operating system-specific, so the same firmware file can be used with any OS, provided it has a driver that can interface with it. So the second challenge is creating such a driver, which requires firmware interface documentation. Not surprisingly, many of the same manufacturers that prohibit or restrict firmware distribution also won't provide interface documentation.
This problem is most prevalent with wireless network chips, but it's also creeping into the wired variety as well. Most notably, Broadcom has developed a new PCI Express 10/100/1000 LAN card that uses several discrete MIPS processors, all of which require proprietary firmware to be loaded. According to a network driver programmer I spoke with, they are employed as such: One of the processors is responsible for loading the firmware onto the other chips; one sends network packets; one receives packets; one tracks packet state to perform TCP offload assistance and various other things; one handles negotiating with the host CPU as it puts/removes packets in/out of the descriptor rings. In this case, all of the firmware fits into an 87k file, but firmware files can be considerably larger: Intel's firmware files are just under half a megabyte, and the firmware for the Alteon Networks Tigon II network controller is in the vicinity of 2MB.
Unrestricted redistribution of firmware files is satisfactory for some open source operating system projects like OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and many varieties of GNU/Linux, but others like Fedora Core and Debian demand an entirely free software environment, so redistribution of the firmware without the ability to modify and distribute the source code is prohibited. The standard response to this from the Free Software Foundation is to reverse-engineer the device and provide free firmware. So even though it is very difficult -- almost impossible -- to do it in the absence of documentation, could such firmware eventually be reverse-engineered? The development team that works on the OpenBSD operating system has a lot of experience with reverse-engineering, but both project leader Theo de Raadt and OpenBSD network driver programmer Jonathan Gray agree that such work would be impractical. Of reverse-engineering firmware and the hardware that it runs on, de Raadt told me, "We can sometimes reverse-engineer how to talk to a device... some are worse than others... but imagine reverse engineering the firmware of 300-400 devices on the market today! Behind their little ARM/MIPS buses, they are a no man's land of undocumented-ness and bugs; hundreds and hundreds of bugs created almost all by the realities of 'time-to-market pressures.'" The issue, in other words, is made worse by hastily-designed hardware that doesn't work as it should, and requires specific workarounds in the firmware and/or driver. Sometimes manufacturers provide patches or documentation for driver programmers; sometimes they don't.
So instead of lobbying for documentation to write open source firmware, de Raadt would prefer to simply have the right to freely distribute necessary proprietary firmware files with his operating system, along with correct firmware interface documentation so that a driver can be created, and information from the manufacturer regarding bug workarounds. Many network chip manufacturers stubbornly refuse to grant these requests, however. Theo de Raadt told me in an email, "Our efforts to do more wireless involves a few approaches. We reverse-engineer what we can. We borrow from other people's reverse-engineering lessons where we can, for instance, prism54.org is a Linux team, but their reverse-engineer work has resulted in knowledge which we can obviously use to write a BSD driver. And finally, we dialogue directly with vendors to get more free access to documentation, early access to hardware, or firmware distribution rights (sometimes there is just no other way). Some vendors (in particular Ralink or Realtek) will even give us hardware before it goes on sale. Some give us documentation, some give us code. But largely a lot of American vendors are still stupidly resisting giving anything. In any case, all these efforts together now mean that we have more wireless support in OpenBSD than all the Linux distributions. Maybe even combined!"
According to Jonathan Gray, the drivers that OpenBSD currently has that require firmware that vendors won't let the OpenBSD Project distribute are:
acx (4) - TI ACX100/ACX111 IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
ipw (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 IEEE 802.11b wireless network device
iwi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG/2225BG/2915ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
malo (4) - Marvell Libertas IEEE 802.11b/g
bcw (4) - Broadcom IEEE 802.11b/g (this driver is still under development and does not currently work)
wpi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g
pgt (4) - Connexant/Intersil Prism GT Full-MAC IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
uath (4) - Atheros USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g
wpi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
And the wireless devices that either do not require firmware, or that have runtime firmware that OpenBSD is allowed to distribute:
atu (4) - Atmel AT76C50x USB IEEE 802.11b wireless network device
ral (4) - Ralink Technology IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device (2nd gen 802.11 Ralink)
rum (4) - Ralink Technology USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
zyd (4) - Zydas ZD1211 USB IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network device
Intel requires that people who use its Centrino wireless firmware submit to a lengthy license agreement before downloading and using it. While the majority of end-users may just scroll down and click the "I Agree" link to get past it, the process is not quite so simple for free software operating systems, which would have to provide the same license hurdle for every one of their users, and agree not to modify any of the driver header code that Intel provides. Commercial desktop GNU/Linux distributions like SUSE, Mandriva, and Linspire already do this, or have independent distribution agreements with Intel.
When reverse-engineering works Reyk Floeter and various other OpenBSD programmers managed to write a free replacement for the proprietary Atheros hardware abstraction layer (HAL) called ar5k or "OpenHAL." The HAL isn't firmware; it is a form of abstracted device driver that actually loads into the operating system kernel through a small amount of driver code. The big difference between a HAL and a firmware is where the code resides; if it's on the device, it's firmware, and if it is loaded into the operating system's kernel, it's HAL.
ar5k works with many Atheros-based wireless cards and has been examined and recently given a clean bill of copyright health from the Software Freedom Law Center. Mysteriously, it has virtually no support from the Madwifi Project, which is the development team responsible for creating Atheros drivers for Linux-based operating systems. Madwifi continues to primarily support the proprietary Atheros HAL, though there is an old and uninformative page in the Madwifi Wiki about it. The email addresses listed for the Madwifi developers either bounce or elicit no response to requests for comments on why there is no apparent effort to use the open source HAL in Madwifi. So if it exists, it's free-as-in-rights, and it works, then why doesn't Madwifi use ar5k instead of the proprietary HAL? It may very well be pressure from Atheros that keeps ar5k out of Madwifi, but no one at Madwifi or Atheros would talk to me about it.
The manufacturers speak -- or don't
In order to find out why network chip manufacturers are so polarized in their support of free software operating systems, I made contact with company representatives at Atheros, Intel, Marvell, Atmel, Ralink, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, and Realtek. Not surprisingly, the manufacturers who shun operating system programmers also seem to be reluctant to talk to the press.
Atheros
After weeks of repeated requests and pleas for any kind of response just to verify that the PR email address works, an Atheros representative told me that she was unable to find anyone at the company who was qualified and willing to comment for this article.
Intel
Intel punted me to different people a few times, then after a short delay and a bizarre inquisition into my professional background and "intentions" in writing this article, told me that the company had nothing to say on the matter of wireless firmware distribution rights and interface documentation. Considering Intel's outstanding PR record and its general willingness to provide hardware documentation for the PCI chipsets and drive controllers that it makes, this behavior is unusual. One of the questions I asked Intel was if it felt its uncooperativeness with free software developers was in direct conflict with this presentation about the importance of participating in and supporting open source software development that Intel engineer James Ketrenos gave last summer. In it, Ketrenos says several things in favor of corporate cooperation with open source software developers, including these points:
Enable the community to do as much as possible
Only keep internal those things that the community can not contribute to (Example: Certification testing)
If you need to keep IP closed source (for example some whiz-bang algorithm), document the hardware sufficiently that the community can provide their own.
Treat the community as if they were a member of your internal team
Broadcom
The Broadcom press relations person I spoke with very much wanted to help me, but could not find anyone at Broadcom who felt qualified to comment.
Marvell
I have already written about the substandard responsiveness of Marvell's outsourced PR agency (see the bottom of the linked article).
Texas Instruments
An internal Texas Instruments press relations person was very responsive to my requests for comment at first, then punted me to an outsourced PR agency which, in turn, ignored several emails asking for information. After more than two weeks of repeated inquiries, a representative of the PR agency informed me that she was unable to find anyone at Texas Instruments who was qualified to comment on TI's policies on providing hardware documentation and firmware redistribution agreements.
Ralink Technologies
I had no trouble getting through to Ralink, where I spoke with company representative Lillian Chiu.
Ralink has been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring an NDA. Why can Ralink do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require non-disclosure agreements?
Lillian Chiu: It's our philosophy to spread the technology without border, along with high performance and low cost.
Because of Ralink's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Ralink's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Ralink sell more network products as a result?
LC: Our customers have often provided positive feedback for our best-in-class device support. We see it as a win-win situation where advanced users get more flexibility while we sell more products.
If a programmer needs to access Ralink hardware documentation, whom at Ralink should they contact?
LC: Please visit Ralink Web site at www.ralinktech.com for details under /support/forums.
Atmel Inc.
Richard Bisset, product marketing director of the multimedia and communications group, offered several minutes of his time to answer some questions about wireless drivers and firmware.
Atmel has been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring an NDA. Why can Atmel do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require non-disclosure agreements?
Richard Bisset: For some things we do require non-disclosure agreements, but we are generally able to provide the API documentation and the firmware driver interface specifications for our hardware. As to why others may not be able to do this... well, our software is developed in-house, but others might out outsource their driver development to third-party companies, so they may not even have the documentation that a programmer requests.
As to why Intel might be so secretive with this information if they do have it, I can't say. Perhaps because more and more features are actually being moved from the firmware to the driver, some companies are being more guarded than others. Additionally, as the Centrino laptop processor includes wireless, it may be they don't want to give up any potential IP that could help their competition -- I don't really know for sure.
Because of Atmel's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Atmel's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Atmel sell more network products as a result?RB: Well, if you look at the success of Intel, Marvell, Broadcom, etc. -- the big players in the wireless industry -- they are successful with the OEM and peripheral markets. As the embedded markets generally require more technical support, they probably don't care much about getting another 50,000 or 100,000 units sold and can be tight with their APIs. We were late to market with our 802.11g products, so we missed the OEM opportunities, and with wireless, you've only got three real chances for success: you can be first to market with a technology, or you can have valuable and unique features that no one else has and the market wants, or you can have the lowest price. Atmel wasn't first, didn't have any new unique features, and wasn't the cheapest, either. With the PC and OEM markets being somewhat locked out, we repositioned to focus on the embedded space where the market was experiencing and predicting large growth. In the embedded market, if you don't get documentation to developers, then you both fail.
What's the big secret with device firmware, then?
RB: Firmware is generally running on the chip itself, as opposed to the host. The code is written tightly coupled to the chip it is running on and implements/enables functions that the hardware supports. Therefore, there generally is a lot of IP within the firmware. Our firmware is loaded from an external flash into internal SRAM, but more and more semiconductor manufacturers are moving firmware functions to the driver.
We usually provide driver source code, and we try to put it under the GPL if possible, so that's usually good enough if you want to write your own driver. If you want to see more than that, we generally require an NDA, or if you're an embedded customer, we provide reference platforms.
So the firmware is so secret that you have to sign an NDA to see it, but not secret enough that some stranger who works on an obscure operating system can see it with merely a signature?
RB: It is kind of a strange situation, yes, and sometimes we run into people who are reluctant to sign NDAs. It really depends on the customer and target application. We don't require an NDA to see hardware APIs, and I think that's what you're talking about with regard to documentation.
If a programmer needs to access Atmel hardware documentation, whom at Atmel should they contact?
RB: We have contact forms through our Web site where you can make requests, and they are directed to the proper person at Atmel.
Realtek Inc.
After a few emails, I made contact with Tracy Ho, a Taiwan-based representative for Realtek.
Realtek has reportedly been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Why can Realtek do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require NDAs?
Tracy Ho: For some years Realtek has been one of the largest NIC/LOM solution providers. One of the major reasons for this is that Realtek takes customer service as one of its top priorities. We aim to work with our customers as partners in a mutually cooperative environment. Our product sales and technical support teams are well-recognized by our customers and we strive to provide them with the convenience of flexibility and real-time support. One of the ways we do this is by releasing general hardware documents without requiring a NDA.
Because of Realtek's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Realtek's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Realtek sell more network products as a result?
TH: Realtek has been working very closely with various operating system providers pretty much since the company was first started, and we do consider this to be one of our competitive advantages. Over the last decade, the great expansion of networked devices throughout the home and work environment, and the use of open-source operating systems in many such devices, has definitely helped us expand market share.
If a programmer needs to access Realtek hardware documentation, whom at Realtek should they contact?
TH: For most hardware documentation, programmers can access Realtek's website. Any other questions can be directed to our technical support teams (contact information available from the "Contact Us" link on our website).
All we need to do is make sure we keep talking Some of the non-responsiveness of manufacturers may just be bad PR work, but the same companies that wouldn't talk to me have also refused to reply to free software programmers who have requested the same information. The impression I got from most of these companies (excepting Intel) was that they were not at all prepared to deal with the issues of firmware redistribution rights and hardware API documentation requests. That they have ignored free software programmers' requests is not necessarily a sign of unwillingness to participate, but perhaps a general sense of confusion as to how they are able to help. No one seems to know whom to talk to at the company, and in some cases the proper documentation may not exist -- or it may belong to yet another company that the hardware manufacturer outsourced the firmware development to.
On the other hand, it was just as difficult to contact and get comments from the Madwifi developers, and it seems that each individual wireless driver in the Linux kernel has different people working on it. Even if one of the above companies wanted to provide the appropriate materials to create free drivers and firmware, how would they know whom to contact? The irony in this story is that the heart of the problem lies in a lack of communication, but not between operating systems and network devices -- between hardware manufacturers and the software developers who are trying to support their devices.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Physics promises wireless power
An article from BBC
The tangle of cables and plugs needed to recharge today's electronic gadgets could soon be a thing of the past.
US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players without wires.
The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.
Although the team has not built and tested a system, computer models and mathematics suggest it will work.
"There are so many autonomous devices such as cell phones and laptops that have emerged in the last few years," said Assistant Professor Marin Soljacic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the researchers behind the work.
"We started thinking, 'it would be really convenient if you didn't have to recharge these things'.
"And because we're physicists we asked, 'what kind of physical phenomenon can we use to do this wireless energy transfer?'."
How wireless energy could work
The answer the team came up with was "resonance", a phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied.
This would work in a room let's say but you could adapt it to work in a factory
Marin Soljacic
"When you have two resonant objects of the same frequency they tend to couple very strongly," Professor Soljacic told the BBC News website.
Resonance can be seen in musical instruments for example.
"When you play a tune on one, then another instrument with the same acoustic resonance will pick up that tune, it will visibly vibrate," he said.
Instead of using acoustic vibrations, the team's system exploits the resonance of electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic radiation includes radio waves, infrared and X-rays.
Typically, systems that use electromagnetic radiation, such as radio antennas, are not suitable for the efficient transfer of energy because they scatter energy in all directions, wasting large amounts of it into free space.
To overcome this problem, the team investigated a special class of "non-radiative" objects with so-called "long-lived resonances".
When energy is applied to these objects it remains bound to them, rather than escaping to space. "Tails" of energy, which can be many metres long, flicker over the surface.
"If you bring another resonant object with the same frequency close enough to these tails then it turns out that the energy can tunnel from one object to another," said Professor Soljacic.
Wireless energy transfer has been thought about for centuries
Hence, a simple copper antenna designed to have long-lived resonance could transfer energy to a laptop with its own antenna resonating at the same frequency. The computer would be truly wireless.
Any energy not diverted into a gadget or appliance is simply reabsorbed.
The systems that the team have described would be able to transfer energy over three to five metres.
"This would work in a room let's say but you could adapt it to work in a factory," he said.
"You could also scale it down to the microscopic or nanoscopic world."
Old technology
The team from MIT is not the first group to suggest wireless energy transfer.
Nineteenth-century physicist and engineer Nikola Tesla experimented with long-range wireless energy transfer, but his most ambitious attempt - the 29m high aerial known as Wardenclyffe Tower, in New York - failed when he ran out of money.
Wireless power for gadgets
Others have worked on highly directional mechanisms of energy transfer such as lasers.
However, these require an uninterrupted line of sight, and are therefore not good for powering objects around the home.
A UK company called Splashpower has also designed wireless recharging pads onto which gadget lovers can directly place their phones and MP3 players to recharge them.
The pads use electromagnetic induction to charge devices, the same process used to charge electric toothbrushes.
One of the co-founders of Splashpower, James Hay, said the MIT work was "clearly at an early stage" but "interesting for the future".
"Consumers desire a simple universal solution that frees them from the hassles of plug-in chargers and adaptors," he said.
"Wireless power technology has the potential to deliver on all of these needs."
However, Mr Hay said that transferring the power was only part of the solution.
"There are a number of other aspects that need to be addressed to ensure efficient conversion of power to a form useful to input to devices."
Professor Soljacic will present the work at the American Institute of Physics Industrial Physics Forum in San Francisco on 14 November.
The work was done in collaboration with his colleagues Aristeidis Karalis and John Joannopoulos.
HOW WIRELESS POWER COULD WORK
1) Power from mains to antenna, which is made of copper
2) Antenna resonates at a frequency of 6.4Mhz, emitting electromagnetic waves
3) 'Tails' of energy from antenna 'tunnel' up to 5m (16.4ft)
4) Electricity picked up by laptop's antenna, which must also be resonating at 6.4Mhz. Energy used to re-charge device
5) Energy not transferred to laptop re-absorbed by source antenna. People/other objects not affected as not resonating at 6.4Mhz
The tangle of cables and plugs needed to recharge today's electronic gadgets could soon be a thing of the past.
US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players without wires.
The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.
Although the team has not built and tested a system, computer models and mathematics suggest it will work.
"There are so many autonomous devices such as cell phones and laptops that have emerged in the last few years," said Assistant Professor Marin Soljacic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the researchers behind the work.
"We started thinking, 'it would be really convenient if you didn't have to recharge these things'.
"And because we're physicists we asked, 'what kind of physical phenomenon can we use to do this wireless energy transfer?'."
How wireless energy could work
The answer the team came up with was "resonance", a phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied.
This would work in a room let's say but you could adapt it to work in a factory
Marin Soljacic
"When you have two resonant objects of the same frequency they tend to couple very strongly," Professor Soljacic told the BBC News website.
Resonance can be seen in musical instruments for example.
"When you play a tune on one, then another instrument with the same acoustic resonance will pick up that tune, it will visibly vibrate," he said.
Instead of using acoustic vibrations, the team's system exploits the resonance of electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic radiation includes radio waves, infrared and X-rays.
Typically, systems that use electromagnetic radiation, such as radio antennas, are not suitable for the efficient transfer of energy because they scatter energy in all directions, wasting large amounts of it into free space.
To overcome this problem, the team investigated a special class of "non-radiative" objects with so-called "long-lived resonances".
When energy is applied to these objects it remains bound to them, rather than escaping to space. "Tails" of energy, which can be many metres long, flicker over the surface.
"If you bring another resonant object with the same frequency close enough to these tails then it turns out that the energy can tunnel from one object to another," said Professor Soljacic.
Wireless energy transfer has been thought about for centuries
Hence, a simple copper antenna designed to have long-lived resonance could transfer energy to a laptop with its own antenna resonating at the same frequency. The computer would be truly wireless.
Any energy not diverted into a gadget or appliance is simply reabsorbed.
The systems that the team have described would be able to transfer energy over three to five metres.
"This would work in a room let's say but you could adapt it to work in a factory," he said.
"You could also scale it down to the microscopic or nanoscopic world."
Old technology
The team from MIT is not the first group to suggest wireless energy transfer.
Nineteenth-century physicist and engineer Nikola Tesla experimented with long-range wireless energy transfer, but his most ambitious attempt - the 29m high aerial known as Wardenclyffe Tower, in New York - failed when he ran out of money.
Wireless power for gadgets
Others have worked on highly directional mechanisms of energy transfer such as lasers.
However, these require an uninterrupted line of sight, and are therefore not good for powering objects around the home.
A UK company called Splashpower has also designed wireless recharging pads onto which gadget lovers can directly place their phones and MP3 players to recharge them.
The pads use electromagnetic induction to charge devices, the same process used to charge electric toothbrushes.
One of the co-founders of Splashpower, James Hay, said the MIT work was "clearly at an early stage" but "interesting for the future".
"Consumers desire a simple universal solution that frees them from the hassles of plug-in chargers and adaptors," he said.
"Wireless power technology has the potential to deliver on all of these needs."
However, Mr Hay said that transferring the power was only part of the solution.
"There are a number of other aspects that need to be addressed to ensure efficient conversion of power to a form useful to input to devices."
Professor Soljacic will present the work at the American Institute of Physics Industrial Physics Forum in San Francisco on 14 November.
The work was done in collaboration with his colleagues Aristeidis Karalis and John Joannopoulos.
HOW WIRELESS POWER COULD WORK
1) Power from mains to antenna, which is made of copper
2) Antenna resonates at a frequency of 6.4Mhz, emitting electromagnetic waves
3) 'Tails' of energy from antenna 'tunnel' up to 5m (16.4ft)
4) Electricity picked up by laptop's antenna, which must also be resonating at 6.4Mhz. Energy used to re-charge device
5) Energy not transferred to laptop re-absorbed by source antenna. People/other objects not affected as not resonating at 6.4Mhz
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Indian Prime Minister speach at Cambridge University
Prime Minister's Address at the University of Cambridge Towards Inclusive Globalisation (11 October 2006)
The Chancellor The Vice Chancellor Professors, Fellows and pupils of Cambridge University My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen
I am deeply conscious of the honour that you have bestowed upon me by inviting me to deliver this lecture and by conferring on me the degree of Doctor of Law. I crave your indulgence as I begin on a personal note. I am one of the fortunate few to have been embraced by Britain's two oldest universities. Before I went to the other place by the Isis, I saw the river Cam when I came up to study for my Economics tripos at St John's. In the beginning was St.John's. The colour light blue is one of my favourites and is often seen on my head. My memories of my days in Cambridge are deep. I was taught by teachers like Nicholas Kaldor, Joan Robinson, Maurice Dobb and Professor R.C.O. Mathews. I have vivid recollections of the economist Pierro Srafa working at the Marshall Library. It was here that I became a contemporary of Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati, Mahbub-ul Haq and Rehman Sobhan - all renowned economists from South Asia who became lifelong friends. My teachers and my peers in Cambridge taught me to be open to argument and to be fearless and lucid in the expression of one's opinions. These virtues, and a relentless desire to pursue intellectual truth were inculcated in me at Cambridge. In many important ways, the University of Cambridge made me.
I am certainly not the only Indian who is thus indebted to this University. Jawaharlal Nehru was at Trinity as was his grandson, Rajiv Gandhi. Both became Prime Ministers of India. I am thus the third Prime Minister of India to have come out of Cambridge. Sarojini Naidu, known as the `Nightingale of India', played an extremely significant role in India's freedom movement and she studied at Girton. Looking beyond the arena of political leadership, there were many eminent Indians, who studied in Cambridge, and then made significant contributions to the world of science and to public life in India. In this context, I think of Jagadish Chandra Bose, who was at Christ's in the 1880s and was a pioneer in the study of radio waves and the life of plants. I think of Srinivasan Ramanujan, the master of the theory of numbers who was brought to Trinity by G.H.Hardy. I remember P.C. Mahalanobis who was at King's and then founded the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta. Homi J. Bhabha, who played a crucial role in the development of India's nuclear programme and established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai was at Gonville and Caius. M.S. Swaminathan, the man who envisioned the Green Revolution in India, was at St. Catharine's. I mention here only the very eminent but there are many others in the social sciences, in education and the bureaucracy in India who, like me, claim this university as their alma mater. The links between India and Cambridge are long and enduring.
Globalisation
When I came up to Cambridge in the mid 1950s, the Cold War had frozen the world into two blocs. India had won Independence a few years before and under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru was trying to establish its own place in a divided world. For Indians it was an era of hope, and there was great optimism about the prospect of development.
Today the world appears radically altered. The Cold War is history. A new age of freedom has harnessed to it new technologies that have transformed production and communication. The dismantling of state control has unshackled economic forces. More countries are now integrated into a global economic system in which trade and capital flow across borders with unprecedented energy. The age of freedom is also the age of economic growth. Prometheus has truly been unbound.
A very significant feature of the global economy is the integration of the emerging economies in world markets. In fact, the weight of global economic activity is gradually shifting to these emerging economies. They now account for more than two-fifths of world exports compared to a fifth twenty-five years ago.
In many parts of the developing world, especially India and China, per capita incomes are doubling or are expected to double over every decade. This will lift millions of people out of poverty. This pace of change is unprecedented, far exceeding what was witnessed during the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Freer trade and financial flows in the world as a whole are helping to contain inflation, keep interest rates low, and sustain higher levels of investment.
In my own country, the economic reforms we initiated in the early 1990s have made our economy more competitive. Indian business is responding to new market opportunities. India's growth is underpinned by a vibrant and growing entrepreneurial class. Indian youth is keen to get into technical and scientific institutions - helping India gain salience as a knowledge based economy. Our country, I believe, is now on a growth path of 7 to 9 per cent per year, while maintaining price stability. The proportion of people living below the poverty line is declining.
Globalisation: Some Concerns
These achievements of the era of globalization should not blind us to the new anxieties that globalization has brought in its wake. The reach of globalization is yet to touch many parts of the world. Moreover, the evidence suggests that the process has not removed personal and regional income disparities. In many developing countries, growth is by-passing the rural areas. Also, in the face of stagnation in their real pay, the working classes in industrialized countries are becoming fearful of the opening of markets. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. This, coupled with the inability of the public sector to provide adequate and quality services in health and education, and cater to the needs of the poor, is causing resentment and alienation. This is nurturing divisive forces and putting pressure on the practice of democracy.
These are real and palpable concerns and they cannot be ignored. Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that we address these vital concerns by making globalisation an inclusive process. We need to work for inclusive globalisation. This calls for a new global vision.
Make Globalisation Inclusive
That vision must ensure that the gains from globalization are more widely shared. It is a matter of deep concern that the Doha Development Round of trade negotiations has reached an impasse. If trade is to be an instrument of combating poverty and spreading manufacturing capacities more evenly in the world, it is vital that barriers to the export of agricultural goods from developing countries be eliminated.
Nearly 2/3rd of the population of developing countries live in rural areas. In the developed world this falls to less than ten per cent. My appeal is that developed countries should not allow short-term national interests to prevail at the cost of promoting freer trade and combating poverty. The prosperity of so many cannot be sacrificed for protecting the interests of so few. The price of myopia is heavy on the exchequers of the developed world. The issue also has profound moral dimensions.
To convince people in poor countries about the benefits of globalization we must take a more enlightened view in liberalizing trade in services and labour intensive manufactures, in which developing countries are competitive. I see trade not only as a means to prosperity, but also as peace building. Collectively we need to devise an enlightened approach to negotiations over the reduction of harmful gas emissions, intellectual property rights in the production of life saving drugs, transfer of technologies that help to combat poverty and such issues.
Prosperity, ladies and gentlemen, is not divisible. Neither is global peace possible without the eradication of poverty. As Jawaharlal Nehru said in his address to the Canadian Parliament in 1949:
"There can be no security or real peace if vast numbers of people in various parts of the world live in poverty and misery. Nor can there be a balanced economy for the world as a whole if the underdeveloped parts continue to upset that balance and drag down even the more prosperous nations."
Terrorism and Fundamentalism - From a "Clash of Civilisations" to a "Confluence of Civilisations"
The best efforts to eradicate poverty will be defeated if our societies and nations are threatened by the spectre of terrorism and extremism. Open societies like India and Britain are more vulnerable to this threat. The very openness of our societies makes us more vulnerable. Yet we must fight terrorism without losing the openness or the rule of law that guarantees the freedom of the individual.
I believe that terrorism can be defeated only by combating fundamentalism and promoting respect for diversity. Britain, the land of John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, the cradle of common law, liberty and democracy, has a unique role to play in fighting fundamentalism. India too has its own pluralistic traditions and openness to other cultures. The legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru ordains that we remain committed to combating fundamentalism. We do not believe in a "clash of civilizations". What we believe in is enrichment of the human condition through cultural inclusiveness and a "confluence of civilizations".
Global governance
As democracies we must also stand together in making governance across the world more democratic. As a democracy we aspire to a world in which global institutions are more democratic and more representative of all the peoples of the world. The governance processes of global institutions of today - be they Bretton Woods institutions or the UN Security Council - reflect the realities of the world as it was more than half a century ago.
A more inclusive global process that carries the population of the world with it calls for a reform of these institutions, in which the developing world will have a greater voice. Not to do otherwise is to risk alienation and to render ineffectual the global system. I look to Britain, the Commonwealth and other great nations of the world to join forces in bringing about such a reordered global system.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you may well wonder why I have expressed these thoughts at this forum. Before the First World War, a young man from Allahabad came up to Trinity via Harrow. After the Second War, a simple young Indian came to St John's from an obscure university in Punjab. Cambridge University embraced both. This inclusive character of my alma mater emboldened me to speak to this august gathering about inclusive globalisation. I thank you very sincerely for your patience and your indulgence.
Thank you.
The Hindu
The Chancellor The Vice Chancellor Professors, Fellows and pupils of Cambridge University My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen
I am deeply conscious of the honour that you have bestowed upon me by inviting me to deliver this lecture and by conferring on me the degree of Doctor of Law. I crave your indulgence as I begin on a personal note. I am one of the fortunate few to have been embraced by Britain's two oldest universities. Before I went to the other place by the Isis, I saw the river Cam when I came up to study for my Economics tripos at St John's. In the beginning was St.John's. The colour light blue is one of my favourites and is often seen on my head. My memories of my days in Cambridge are deep. I was taught by teachers like Nicholas Kaldor, Joan Robinson, Maurice Dobb and Professor R.C.O. Mathews. I have vivid recollections of the economist Pierro Srafa working at the Marshall Library. It was here that I became a contemporary of Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati, Mahbub-ul Haq and Rehman Sobhan - all renowned economists from South Asia who became lifelong friends. My teachers and my peers in Cambridge taught me to be open to argument and to be fearless and lucid in the expression of one's opinions. These virtues, and a relentless desire to pursue intellectual truth were inculcated in me at Cambridge. In many important ways, the University of Cambridge made me.
I am certainly not the only Indian who is thus indebted to this University. Jawaharlal Nehru was at Trinity as was his grandson, Rajiv Gandhi. Both became Prime Ministers of India. I am thus the third Prime Minister of India to have come out of Cambridge. Sarojini Naidu, known as the `Nightingale of India', played an extremely significant role in India's freedom movement and she studied at Girton. Looking beyond the arena of political leadership, there were many eminent Indians, who studied in Cambridge, and then made significant contributions to the world of science and to public life in India. In this context, I think of Jagadish Chandra Bose, who was at Christ's in the 1880s and was a pioneer in the study of radio waves and the life of plants. I think of Srinivasan Ramanujan, the master of the theory of numbers who was brought to Trinity by G.H.Hardy. I remember P.C. Mahalanobis who was at King's and then founded the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta. Homi J. Bhabha, who played a crucial role in the development of India's nuclear programme and established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai was at Gonville and Caius. M.S. Swaminathan, the man who envisioned the Green Revolution in India, was at St. Catharine's. I mention here only the very eminent but there are many others in the social sciences, in education and the bureaucracy in India who, like me, claim this university as their alma mater. The links between India and Cambridge are long and enduring.
Globalisation
When I came up to Cambridge in the mid 1950s, the Cold War had frozen the world into two blocs. India had won Independence a few years before and under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru was trying to establish its own place in a divided world. For Indians it was an era of hope, and there was great optimism about the prospect of development.
Today the world appears radically altered. The Cold War is history. A new age of freedom has harnessed to it new technologies that have transformed production and communication. The dismantling of state control has unshackled economic forces. More countries are now integrated into a global economic system in which trade and capital flow across borders with unprecedented energy. The age of freedom is also the age of economic growth. Prometheus has truly been unbound.
A very significant feature of the global economy is the integration of the emerging economies in world markets. In fact, the weight of global economic activity is gradually shifting to these emerging economies. They now account for more than two-fifths of world exports compared to a fifth twenty-five years ago.
In many parts of the developing world, especially India and China, per capita incomes are doubling or are expected to double over every decade. This will lift millions of people out of poverty. This pace of change is unprecedented, far exceeding what was witnessed during the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Freer trade and financial flows in the world as a whole are helping to contain inflation, keep interest rates low, and sustain higher levels of investment.
In my own country, the economic reforms we initiated in the early 1990s have made our economy more competitive. Indian business is responding to new market opportunities. India's growth is underpinned by a vibrant and growing entrepreneurial class. Indian youth is keen to get into technical and scientific institutions - helping India gain salience as a knowledge based economy. Our country, I believe, is now on a growth path of 7 to 9 per cent per year, while maintaining price stability. The proportion of people living below the poverty line is declining.
Globalisation: Some Concerns
These achievements of the era of globalization should not blind us to the new anxieties that globalization has brought in its wake. The reach of globalization is yet to touch many parts of the world. Moreover, the evidence suggests that the process has not removed personal and regional income disparities. In many developing countries, growth is by-passing the rural areas. Also, in the face of stagnation in their real pay, the working classes in industrialized countries are becoming fearful of the opening of markets. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. This, coupled with the inability of the public sector to provide adequate and quality services in health and education, and cater to the needs of the poor, is causing resentment and alienation. This is nurturing divisive forces and putting pressure on the practice of democracy.
These are real and palpable concerns and they cannot be ignored. Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that we address these vital concerns by making globalisation an inclusive process. We need to work for inclusive globalisation. This calls for a new global vision.
Make Globalisation Inclusive
That vision must ensure that the gains from globalization are more widely shared. It is a matter of deep concern that the Doha Development Round of trade negotiations has reached an impasse. If trade is to be an instrument of combating poverty and spreading manufacturing capacities more evenly in the world, it is vital that barriers to the export of agricultural goods from developing countries be eliminated.
Nearly 2/3rd of the population of developing countries live in rural areas. In the developed world this falls to less than ten per cent. My appeal is that developed countries should not allow short-term national interests to prevail at the cost of promoting freer trade and combating poverty. The prosperity of so many cannot be sacrificed for protecting the interests of so few. The price of myopia is heavy on the exchequers of the developed world. The issue also has profound moral dimensions.
To convince people in poor countries about the benefits of globalization we must take a more enlightened view in liberalizing trade in services and labour intensive manufactures, in which developing countries are competitive. I see trade not only as a means to prosperity, but also as peace building. Collectively we need to devise an enlightened approach to negotiations over the reduction of harmful gas emissions, intellectual property rights in the production of life saving drugs, transfer of technologies that help to combat poverty and such issues.
Prosperity, ladies and gentlemen, is not divisible. Neither is global peace possible without the eradication of poverty. As Jawaharlal Nehru said in his address to the Canadian Parliament in 1949:
"There can be no security or real peace if vast numbers of people in various parts of the world live in poverty and misery. Nor can there be a balanced economy for the world as a whole if the underdeveloped parts continue to upset that balance and drag down even the more prosperous nations."
Terrorism and Fundamentalism - From a "Clash of Civilisations" to a "Confluence of Civilisations"
The best efforts to eradicate poverty will be defeated if our societies and nations are threatened by the spectre of terrorism and extremism. Open societies like India and Britain are more vulnerable to this threat. The very openness of our societies makes us more vulnerable. Yet we must fight terrorism without losing the openness or the rule of law that guarantees the freedom of the individual.
I believe that terrorism can be defeated only by combating fundamentalism and promoting respect for diversity. Britain, the land of John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, the cradle of common law, liberty and democracy, has a unique role to play in fighting fundamentalism. India too has its own pluralistic traditions and openness to other cultures. The legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru ordains that we remain committed to combating fundamentalism. We do not believe in a "clash of civilizations". What we believe in is enrichment of the human condition through cultural inclusiveness and a "confluence of civilizations".
Global governance
As democracies we must also stand together in making governance across the world more democratic. As a democracy we aspire to a world in which global institutions are more democratic and more representative of all the peoples of the world. The governance processes of global institutions of today - be they Bretton Woods institutions or the UN Security Council - reflect the realities of the world as it was more than half a century ago.
A more inclusive global process that carries the population of the world with it calls for a reform of these institutions, in which the developing world will have a greater voice. Not to do otherwise is to risk alienation and to render ineffectual the global system. I look to Britain, the Commonwealth and other great nations of the world to join forces in bringing about such a reordered global system.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you may well wonder why I have expressed these thoughts at this forum. Before the First World War, a young man from Allahabad came up to Trinity via Harrow. After the Second War, a simple young Indian came to St John's from an obscure university in Punjab. Cambridge University embraced both. This inclusive character of my alma mater emboldened me to speak to this august gathering about inclusive globalisation. I thank you very sincerely for your patience and your indulgence.
Thank you.
The Hindu
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
New Super Computer
Fastest supercomputer to be built
Currently, BlueGene/L is the most powerful computer in the world Computer giant IBM will build the world's most powerful supercomputer at a US government laboratory.
The machine, codenamed Roadrunner, could be four times more potent than the current fastest machine, BlueGene/L, also built by IBM. The new computer is a "hybrid" design, using both conventional supercomputer processors and the new "cell" chip designed for Sony's PlayStation 3. Roadrunner will be installed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico.
The laboratory is owned by the US Department of Energy (DOE). Eventually the machine could be used for a programme that ensures the US nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable, the DOE said in a statement.
Using supercomputers to simulate how nuclear materials age negates arguments for the resumption of underground nuclear testing.
Peak speeds
The new machine will be able to achieve "petaflop speeds," said IBM. One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second. Running at peak speed, it will be able to crunch through 1.6 thousand trillion calculations per second.
TOP FIVE SUPERCOMPUTERS
Blue Gene/L, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California. (131,072 processors)
BGW Blue Gene, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, New York (40,960 processors)
ASC Purple, Department of Energy, USA (12,208 processors)
Columbia, NASA Ames Research Center, USA (10,160 processors)
Tera-10, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA), France (8,704 processors)
Source: Top 500 Supercomputers
By comparison, BlueGene/L is capable of mere "teraflop" (trillion calculations per second) speeds.
Installed at the DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and also used for the DOE's Stockpile Stewardship Program, it has achieved 280.6 teraflops and is theoretically capable of 367 teraflops. Roadrunner should be capable of much more. It will achieve its superfast performance using a hybrid design, built with off-the-shelf components.
The computer will contain 16,000 standard processors working alongside 16,000 "cell" processors, designed for the PlayStation 3 (PS3).
Each cell chip consists of eight processors controlled by a master unit that can assign tasks to each member of the processing team. Each cell is capable of 256 billion calculations per second.
The power of the cell chip means Roadrunner needs far fewer processors than its predecessors.
Spare power
This is not the first attempt by scientists to harness the power of the cell.
In August, scientists at Stanford University in California announced plans to distribute a program that could run on gamers' PS3s. The cell processor was originally designed for Sony's PlayStation 3
The folding@home program would tap the cell's spare processing power to examine how the shape of proteins, critical to most biological functions, affect diseases such as Alzheimer's.
This distributed computing method uses each individual machine to process a small amount of data, with results fed back over the internet to a central machine where they can be viewed together.
The Stanford researchers say that 10,000 consoles running the program would give a performance equivalent to one petaflop. The team hopes eventually to enlist 100,000 machines.
Although a network of this size would in theory out-perform Roadrunner, the two systems would be used to solve different types of problem.
Computer talk
Both involve huge sets of data that are split into smaller packets to make them more manageable. On a distributed computing network these small packets can be processed independently, with results brought together at key stages of a project.
For example a PC running the SETI@home project, which examines thousands of hours of radio telescope signals for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence, processes just a small chunk of data.
inding a signal does not depend on the outcome of other PCs running the program.
However, on a supercomputer like Roadrunner, the different units must be able to "talk" with each other all of the time, which is vital for applications such as weather simulation which feature a huge number of constantly changing and interacting variables.
When Roadrunner is finished in 2008 it will cover 12,000 square feet (1,100 square metres) of floor space at Los Alamos National Laboratory IBM says it will start shipping the new supercomputer later this year.
Currently, BlueGene/L is the most powerful computer in the world Computer giant IBM will build the world's most powerful supercomputer at a US government laboratory.
The machine, codenamed Roadrunner, could be four times more potent than the current fastest machine, BlueGene/L, also built by IBM. The new computer is a "hybrid" design, using both conventional supercomputer processors and the new "cell" chip designed for Sony's PlayStation 3. Roadrunner will be installed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico.
The laboratory is owned by the US Department of Energy (DOE). Eventually the machine could be used for a programme that ensures the US nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable, the DOE said in a statement.
Using supercomputers to simulate how nuclear materials age negates arguments for the resumption of underground nuclear testing.
Peak speeds
The new machine will be able to achieve "petaflop speeds," said IBM. One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second. Running at peak speed, it will be able to crunch through 1.6 thousand trillion calculations per second.
TOP FIVE SUPERCOMPUTERS
Blue Gene/L, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California. (131,072 processors)
BGW Blue Gene, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, New York (40,960 processors)
ASC Purple, Department of Energy, USA (12,208 processors)
Columbia, NASA Ames Research Center, USA (10,160 processors)
Tera-10, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA), France (8,704 processors)
Source: Top 500 Supercomputers
By comparison, BlueGene/L is capable of mere "teraflop" (trillion calculations per second) speeds.
Installed at the DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and also used for the DOE's Stockpile Stewardship Program, it has achieved 280.6 teraflops and is theoretically capable of 367 teraflops. Roadrunner should be capable of much more. It will achieve its superfast performance using a hybrid design, built with off-the-shelf components.
The computer will contain 16,000 standard processors working alongside 16,000 "cell" processors, designed for the PlayStation 3 (PS3).
Each cell chip consists of eight processors controlled by a master unit that can assign tasks to each member of the processing team. Each cell is capable of 256 billion calculations per second.
The power of the cell chip means Roadrunner needs far fewer processors than its predecessors.
Spare power
This is not the first attempt by scientists to harness the power of the cell.
In August, scientists at Stanford University in California announced plans to distribute a program that could run on gamers' PS3s. The cell processor was originally designed for Sony's PlayStation 3
The folding@home program would tap the cell's spare processing power to examine how the shape of proteins, critical to most biological functions, affect diseases such as Alzheimer's.
This distributed computing method uses each individual machine to process a small amount of data, with results fed back over the internet to a central machine where they can be viewed together.
The Stanford researchers say that 10,000 consoles running the program would give a performance equivalent to one petaflop. The team hopes eventually to enlist 100,000 machines.
Although a network of this size would in theory out-perform Roadrunner, the two systems would be used to solve different types of problem.
Computer talk
Both involve huge sets of data that are split into smaller packets to make them more manageable. On a distributed computing network these small packets can be processed independently, with results brought together at key stages of a project.
For example a PC running the SETI@home project, which examines thousands of hours of radio telescope signals for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence, processes just a small chunk of data.
inding a signal does not depend on the outcome of other PCs running the program.
However, on a supercomputer like Roadrunner, the different units must be able to "talk" with each other all of the time, which is vital for applications such as weather simulation which feature a huge number of constantly changing and interacting variables.
When Roadrunner is finished in 2008 it will cover 12,000 square feet (1,100 square metres) of floor space at Los Alamos National Laboratory IBM says it will start shipping the new supercomputer later this year.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Vande Mataram
Little tit-bits about Vande Mataram - Indian national song
The song, written by Bengali poet Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1876, was first sung at the Congress Party session in Varanasi in 1905.
Vande Mataram, which translates as "Mother, I bow to thee" or "hail to the mother", became the rallying cry for Indians fighting British colonial rule.
The song was tipped to be India's national anthem, but lost out to Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's more secular Jana Gana Mana following opposition from Muslim groups.
But Vande Mataram is still regarded highly and the song is played in parliament at the beginning and end of each session.
The song, written by Bengali poet Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in 1876, was first sung at the Congress Party session in Varanasi in 1905.
Vande Mataram, which translates as "Mother, I bow to thee" or "hail to the mother", became the rallying cry for Indians fighting British colonial rule.
The song was tipped to be India's national anthem, but lost out to Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's more secular Jana Gana Mana following opposition from Muslim groups.
But Vande Mataram is still regarded highly and the song is played in parliament at the beginning and end of each session.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
How credit card works
CREDIT GOES TO THE CARD…
In order not to carry too much of money we carry technology. No? Yes, we do. What is a credit card then, it is a sleek package of technology. No less than a computer, it is also software.
Have you ever wondered how a credit card works! Even I never pondered over it until I sat to write to you. You must have seen a black strip at the backside of your card. That’s the trump card. This black strip contains a code fed with a particular radioactive frequency and is called Bar Code. This bar code is different for different cards. When the card is swapped in the reading machine, the machine tries to adjust to the frequency of the card. If the frequency matches the money gets credited.
This is about the working of the software credit cards are made of, in very short. But, what about the software? What is this software? How are they manufactured? Let’s get to know the nitty-gritty of this wonderful form of money.
The card is a component which is feeded with a software application. This system is called ‘component based software application.’ These applications are as follows:
• Easy to install
• Flexible and scalable configuration
• Comprehensive reporting system
• Advanced security and network monitoring system
• Stand-alone, intranet and internet capable
The soft ware enables real-time processing of all phases in issuing the credit card. These cards enable manufacturers, consumers and retailers to quickly and more cost effectively creates and introduce exclusive credit transactions. The applications of the cards provide widespread backing functions for processing and managing money and cash accounts. Common software advantages are:
• Rapid deployment
• Competitive advantages
• Scalability
• Lower total cost of ownership
• Multi-currency processing
• Multilanguage support
There are further innovations being made in the software used presently. The new applications will enable noteworthy increase in operating efficiency and increase in the ability of the users exploit technological advances. The renovated products will include features like:
• Embedded localization
• Flexible pricing and payment terms
• Web graphical user
• Complex rule based authorization
• Real time processing
• Effective dating
• Unlimited hierarchies
• Embedded multilingual and multi-currency support
• Security
The software’s made are compatible with the tools developers. Every compiler includes uses support that comes directly from manufacturers and offers updates, technical support and expertise.
Software development time should now be shortened and optimized for handheld devices. Now build faster and more stable system and application software. This will support multiple operating systems. And, get the best ever performance from your applications.
There’s an any card, it is a credit card authorization program and it is also software. It possesses the ability to process credit cards. That too, if you do some publishing in the academic world. Any card is useful when most credit card software is way beyond those people’s reach that have average income, e.g. Teachers.
“Installation is easy, with a built-in modem tester and detailed instructions on how to run practice verifications to ensure proper operation. The software will dial the center and with a click of the interface transmit the customer's credit-card info,” said ZDNet site, which reviewed any card.
Though there are some commercial software programs which communicate with the processing computer, any card does not communicate with the computer which processes it. Also, this communicating software is very expensive and needs to be approved by the processing center. But, any card functions very differently.
It works in accordance with the voice or touch-tone processing. Now, what is this? It is a type of processing that chooses your low volume of cards and your wish to keep things simple. This, in turn, lowers the overall cost.
As soon as you use voice or touch-tone processing, the processing center is called. There, the processing center's computer asks you about your key-in your merchant number, the customer's card number, the expiration date and amount. It isn't easy keying in all those numbers. With Any Card you get everything set up in advance.
• Click a button, and dial the processing center.
• Click on the merchant number button, and key in the number
• Click on the credit card number button and key in the number
All this with the help of only, any card.
In order not to carry too much of money we carry technology. No? Yes, we do. What is a credit card then, it is a sleek package of technology. No less than a computer, it is also software.
Have you ever wondered how a credit card works! Even I never pondered over it until I sat to write to you. You must have seen a black strip at the backside of your card. That’s the trump card. This black strip contains a code fed with a particular radioactive frequency and is called Bar Code. This bar code is different for different cards. When the card is swapped in the reading machine, the machine tries to adjust to the frequency of the card. If the frequency matches the money gets credited.
This is about the working of the software credit cards are made of, in very short. But, what about the software? What is this software? How are they manufactured? Let’s get to know the nitty-gritty of this wonderful form of money.
The card is a component which is feeded with a software application. This system is called ‘component based software application.’ These applications are as follows:
• Easy to install
• Flexible and scalable configuration
• Comprehensive reporting system
• Advanced security and network monitoring system
• Stand-alone, intranet and internet capable
The soft ware enables real-time processing of all phases in issuing the credit card. These cards enable manufacturers, consumers and retailers to quickly and more cost effectively creates and introduce exclusive credit transactions. The applications of the cards provide widespread backing functions for processing and managing money and cash accounts. Common software advantages are:
• Rapid deployment
• Competitive advantages
• Scalability
• Lower total cost of ownership
• Multi-currency processing
• Multilanguage support
There are further innovations being made in the software used presently. The new applications will enable noteworthy increase in operating efficiency and increase in the ability of the users exploit technological advances. The renovated products will include features like:
• Embedded localization
• Flexible pricing and payment terms
• Web graphical user
• Complex rule based authorization
• Real time processing
• Effective dating
• Unlimited hierarchies
• Embedded multilingual and multi-currency support
• Security
The software’s made are compatible with the tools developers. Every compiler includes uses support that comes directly from manufacturers and offers updates, technical support and expertise.
Software development time should now be shortened and optimized for handheld devices. Now build faster and more stable system and application software. This will support multiple operating systems. And, get the best ever performance from your applications.
There’s an any card, it is a credit card authorization program and it is also software. It possesses the ability to process credit cards. That too, if you do some publishing in the academic world. Any card is useful when most credit card software is way beyond those people’s reach that have average income, e.g. Teachers.
“Installation is easy, with a built-in modem tester and detailed instructions on how to run practice verifications to ensure proper operation. The software will dial the center and with a click of the interface transmit the customer's credit-card info,” said ZDNet site, which reviewed any card.
Though there are some commercial software programs which communicate with the processing computer, any card does not communicate with the computer which processes it. Also, this communicating software is very expensive and needs to be approved by the processing center. But, any card functions very differently.
It works in accordance with the voice or touch-tone processing. Now, what is this? It is a type of processing that chooses your low volume of cards and your wish to keep things simple. This, in turn, lowers the overall cost.
As soon as you use voice or touch-tone processing, the processing center is called. There, the processing center's computer asks you about your key-in your merchant number, the customer's card number, the expiration date and amount. It isn't easy keying in all those numbers. With Any Card you get everything set up in advance.
• Click a button, and dial the processing center.
• Click on the merchant number button, and key in the number
• Click on the credit card number button and key in the number
All this with the help of only, any card.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Consume less Earth's resources -- live long and happy
People can live long, happy lives without consuming large amounts of the Earth's resources, a survey suggests.
The 178-nation "Happy Planet Index" lists the south Pacific island of Vanuatu as the happiest nation on the planet, while the UK is ranked 108th. The index is based on consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness, rather than national economic wealth measurements such as GDP.
The study was compiled by think-tank the New Economics Foundation (Nef).
Size doesn't matter One of the authors, Nef's Nic Marks, said the aim of the index was to show that well-being did not have to be linked to high levels of consumption.
'HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH'
Population: 209,000
GDP/capita: $2,900 (£1,575)
Climate: tropical
Resources: forests, fish
Economy: agriculture, tourism
Environmental issues: deforestation and clean water
Source: CIA Handbook 2006
Country profile of Vanuatu
"It is clear that no single nation listed in the index has got everything right, but it does reveal patterns that show how we might better achieve long and happy lives for all while living within our environmental means," Mr Marks said.
The small island state of Vanuatu is situated in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, and has a population of 209,000. Its economy is built around small-scale agriculture and tourism.
Latin American nations dominate the top 10 places in the index, while African and Eastern European nations fill most of the bottom 10.
Among the world's largest economies, Germany is ranked 81st, Japan 95th, while the US comes in at 150th. Retail therapy will not bring happiness, according to the studyRichard Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance, said that the index was an interesting way to tackle the issue of modern life's environmental impact.
"It reminds us that it is not good enough to be happy today if we are impoverishing future generations through global warming. "Over the last 50 years, living standards in the West have improved enormously but we have become no happier," Mr Layard told the BBC.
"This shows we should not sacrifice human relationships, which are the main source of happiness, for the sake of economic growth."
Although Vanuatu tops the happiness index, it is ranked 207th out of 233 economies when measured against Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Simon Bullock, economics co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth, which helped compile the data, said the findings showed that happiness did not have to cost the Earth.
"The UK economy hoovers up vast quantities of the world's scarce resources, yet British people are no happier than Colombians, who use far fewer," he said.
"The current crude focus on GDP is outdated, destructive and doesn't deliver a better quality of life."
Nef is calling for the adoption of a "global manifesto for a happier planet" that will list ways nations can live within their environmental limits and increase people's quality of life. The recommendations include: Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger Recognising the contribution of individuals and unpaid work Ensuring economic policies stay within environmental limitsThe index builds on a report that Nef published earlier this year that warned if annual global consumption levels matched the UK's, it would take 3.1 Earths to meet the demand
The 178-nation "Happy Planet Index" lists the south Pacific island of Vanuatu as the happiest nation on the planet, while the UK is ranked 108th. The index is based on consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness, rather than national economic wealth measurements such as GDP.
The study was compiled by think-tank the New Economics Foundation (Nef).
Size doesn't matter One of the authors, Nef's Nic Marks, said the aim of the index was to show that well-being did not have to be linked to high levels of consumption.
'HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH'
Population: 209,000
GDP/capita: $2,900 (£1,575)
Climate: tropical
Resources: forests, fish
Economy: agriculture, tourism
Environmental issues: deforestation and clean water
Source: CIA Handbook 2006
Country profile of Vanuatu
"It is clear that no single nation listed in the index has got everything right, but it does reveal patterns that show how we might better achieve long and happy lives for all while living within our environmental means," Mr Marks said.
The small island state of Vanuatu is situated in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, and has a population of 209,000. Its economy is built around small-scale agriculture and tourism.
Latin American nations dominate the top 10 places in the index, while African and Eastern European nations fill most of the bottom 10.
Among the world's largest economies, Germany is ranked 81st, Japan 95th, while the US comes in at 150th. Retail therapy will not bring happiness, according to the studyRichard Layard, director of the Well-Being Programme at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance, said that the index was an interesting way to tackle the issue of modern life's environmental impact.
"It reminds us that it is not good enough to be happy today if we are impoverishing future generations through global warming. "Over the last 50 years, living standards in the West have improved enormously but we have become no happier," Mr Layard told the BBC.
"This shows we should not sacrifice human relationships, which are the main source of happiness, for the sake of economic growth."
Although Vanuatu tops the happiness index, it is ranked 207th out of 233 economies when measured against Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Simon Bullock, economics co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth, which helped compile the data, said the findings showed that happiness did not have to cost the Earth.
"The UK economy hoovers up vast quantities of the world's scarce resources, yet British people are no happier than Colombians, who use far fewer," he said.
"The current crude focus on GDP is outdated, destructive and doesn't deliver a better quality of life."
Nef is calling for the adoption of a "global manifesto for a happier planet" that will list ways nations can live within their environmental limits and increase people's quality of life. The recommendations include: Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger Recognising the contribution of individuals and unpaid work Ensuring economic policies stay within environmental limitsThe index builds on a report that Nef published earlier this year that warned if annual global consumption levels matched the UK's, it would take 3.1 Earths to meet the demand
Technology Bite ....
An article from BBC
Scientists seek to restore sight
A diagram of the retinal prosthesis from the University of GlasgowPioneering work to tackle two common forms of blindness is being undertaken by University of Glasgow scientists.
Dr Keith Mathieson hopes an electronic optical implant will help blind people to regain their vision.
Technology similar to that found in devices like digital cameras could be in use within a decade.
Dr Mathieson said: "By implanting a device into the eye, we hope we will be able to fool the brain into believing the retina is still in working order."
The chip would assist about one million people in the UK with age-related macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa.
'Recognise faces'
Dr Mathieson said: "Advances in microelectronics have allowed us to develop a small device to be implanted on the retina itself. "The device would contain an imaging detector. "If light forms an image on the detector, then the result will be electrical stimulation of the retina in the shape of this image.
"The stimulated cells then send the information via the optic nerve to the brain."
The implant prototype has 100 pixels but the team hope that number will increase significantly as their work progresses.
Dr Mathieson, said: "Around 500 pixels would allow people to walk down the street and recognise faces. "Beyond where we are today it might be possible to make smart chips which have memory in them which would allow action replay and slow motion."
Dr Mathieson, from the University of Glasgow's department of physics, is working on the project with Dr James D Morrison from the neuroscience and biomedical systems department.
Scientists seek to restore sight
A diagram of the retinal prosthesis from the University of GlasgowPioneering work to tackle two common forms of blindness is being undertaken by University of Glasgow scientists.
Dr Keith Mathieson hopes an electronic optical implant will help blind people to regain their vision.
Technology similar to that found in devices like digital cameras could be in use within a decade.
Dr Mathieson said: "By implanting a device into the eye, we hope we will be able to fool the brain into believing the retina is still in working order."
The chip would assist about one million people in the UK with age-related macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa.
'Recognise faces'
Dr Mathieson said: "Advances in microelectronics have allowed us to develop a small device to be implanted on the retina itself. "The device would contain an imaging detector. "If light forms an image on the detector, then the result will be electrical stimulation of the retina in the shape of this image.
"The stimulated cells then send the information via the optic nerve to the brain."
The implant prototype has 100 pixels but the team hope that number will increase significantly as their work progresses.
Dr Mathieson, said: "Around 500 pixels would allow people to walk down the street and recognise faces. "Beyond where we are today it might be possible to make smart chips which have memory in them which would allow action replay and slow motion."
Dr Mathieson, from the University of Glasgow's department of physics, is working on the project with Dr James D Morrison from the neuroscience and biomedical systems department.
India's first war of Independence - 'Sipoy Mutiny'
When did the first mutiny against British rule take place in India?
If you accept the version of most historians and the Indian government, it was in 1857, when Indian soldiers of the British army rebelled against their colonial masters in what was known as the "sepoy mutiny" or the "first war of independence".
In fact so convinced is the Indian government of the date that it is now drawing up elaborate plans to commemorate the 150th anniversary in a grand manner next year.
But not everyone agrees that 1857 is the right date.
Overlooked
The Chief Minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi, argues that the first mutiny in fact began during the early hours of 10 July 1806.
So convinced is he that he has issued a commemorative postal stamp which depicts the first "sepoy mutiny" as happening in the fort in the town of Vellore, 130km (80 miles) from the state capital Madras.
Tipu Sultan was at the forefront of resistance to British rule That is 51 years before the better-known "sepoy mutiny" of 1857. Mr Karunanidhi's contention has much sympathy in the south of India, where historians and politicians complain that when it comes to recording Indian history, the north of the country often ignores or overlooks events in the south.
One of their greatest grievances is that south India's participation in the Indian independence struggle is neither recognised nor recorded - hence the debate over when the first "sepoy mutiny" took place.
Dress code
According to them, the Vellore revolt was the first organised uprising faced by the British involving Indian soldiers in the British army.
After the death of Tipu Sultan in 1799, the British detained his family members at the fort in Vellore.
Mr Karunanidhi says recognition of the revolt is better late than never
In 1806, the British introduced a dress code for its mostly Indian soldiers which required them to remove caste-marks, earrings and beards.
Instead the soldiers were ordered to wear newly designed turbans with leather embellishments.
Most of the Indian soldiers resented this, and by May 1806, the British authorities in Madras came to know of their simmering resentment. They identified some of those troops expressing dissent and punished them by publicly lashing some and sacking others. But the rebelling soldiers did not relent. Seized control Using the marriage of one of Tipu Sultan's daughters - scheduled on 9 July - as a pretext, they gathered at Vellore fort.
The rebellion began at Vellore fort
According to Madras-based historian S Muthiah, many of the 1,500-strong Indian garrison at the fort took part in the uprising, which began at 0300 the following morning.
More than 100 of the 350 European soldiers on garrison duty were killed, and by mid-morning the rebels had seized control of the fort.
But they made a fatal mistake. The celebrating sepoys failed to close the gates of the fort securely, and later that morning the British and Madras Cavalry - based 20 miles (32km) away in Arcot - charged through them.
A massacre ensued, with more than 350 of the rebels killed and an equal number injured before the British finally recaptured the fort.
The British suspected the Mysore princes of having instigated the rebellion and transferred them to Calcutta.
Chief Minister Karunanidhi says that after 200 years, the move by the Indian postal department to bring out commemorative stamps has at last given "due recognition" to India's "first war of independence".
If you accept the version of most historians and the Indian government, it was in 1857, when Indian soldiers of the British army rebelled against their colonial masters in what was known as the "sepoy mutiny" or the "first war of independence".
In fact so convinced is the Indian government of the date that it is now drawing up elaborate plans to commemorate the 150th anniversary in a grand manner next year.
But not everyone agrees that 1857 is the right date.
Overlooked
The Chief Minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi, argues that the first mutiny in fact began during the early hours of 10 July 1806.
So convinced is he that he has issued a commemorative postal stamp which depicts the first "sepoy mutiny" as happening in the fort in the town of Vellore, 130km (80 miles) from the state capital Madras.
Tipu Sultan was at the forefront of resistance to British rule That is 51 years before the better-known "sepoy mutiny" of 1857. Mr Karunanidhi's contention has much sympathy in the south of India, where historians and politicians complain that when it comes to recording Indian history, the north of the country often ignores or overlooks events in the south.
One of their greatest grievances is that south India's participation in the Indian independence struggle is neither recognised nor recorded - hence the debate over when the first "sepoy mutiny" took place.
Dress code
According to them, the Vellore revolt was the first organised uprising faced by the British involving Indian soldiers in the British army.
After the death of Tipu Sultan in 1799, the British detained his family members at the fort in Vellore.
Mr Karunanidhi says recognition of the revolt is better late than never
In 1806, the British introduced a dress code for its mostly Indian soldiers which required them to remove caste-marks, earrings and beards.
Instead the soldiers were ordered to wear newly designed turbans with leather embellishments.
Most of the Indian soldiers resented this, and by May 1806, the British authorities in Madras came to know of their simmering resentment. They identified some of those troops expressing dissent and punished them by publicly lashing some and sacking others. But the rebelling soldiers did not relent. Seized control Using the marriage of one of Tipu Sultan's daughters - scheduled on 9 July - as a pretext, they gathered at Vellore fort.
The rebellion began at Vellore fort
According to Madras-based historian S Muthiah, many of the 1,500-strong Indian garrison at the fort took part in the uprising, which began at 0300 the following morning.
More than 100 of the 350 European soldiers on garrison duty were killed, and by mid-morning the rebels had seized control of the fort.
But they made a fatal mistake. The celebrating sepoys failed to close the gates of the fort securely, and later that morning the British and Madras Cavalry - based 20 miles (32km) away in Arcot - charged through them.
A massacre ensued, with more than 350 of the rebels killed and an equal number injured before the British finally recaptured the fort.
The British suspected the Mysore princes of having instigated the rebellion and transferred them to Calcutta.
Chief Minister Karunanidhi says that after 200 years, the move by the Indian postal department to bring out commemorative stamps has at last given "due recognition" to India's "first war of independence".
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Microsoft opens up on file styles
An article from BBC
Office users will get more options for the way they save filesUsers could be in for less frustration as Microsoft makes flagship programs handle rival ways of saving documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
The initiative covers the Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs from the Office software suite.
The prototype of the first tool to translate between formats will be made available as a free download on 6 July. Microsoft said it started building the software tools in response to requests from government customers.
File style
Every PC user knows how careful they have to be when moving important files around because of the incompatibilities between different programs, such as word processors, that do the same job. Saving a file in a format in one program can make it difficult to open in another, without sacrificing some of the way that the information in the file is laid out or formatted
Both Microsoft and the broader technology industry have been working to remove some of these problems by standardising the ways information is saved so it appears the same when opened by different programs.
This tool promises to be a very significant development in the trend towards practical open document standards Andrew Hopkirk, National Computing Centre, UK
Before now, Microsoft and the technology world have chosen to go their own ways.
The new initiative ends some of this diversity and will make it possible for anyone using programs in the Office software suite to save files in more so-called "open" formats.
Specifically, the tools will make it possible to save and work with files using the Open Document format - a specification developed by the open source community as an alternative to the proprietary formats used by large software firms.
Microsoft has been working towards a more open way of formatting documents based around the Extensible Markup Language (XML). This helps preserve the structure of data in a document, such as a spreadsheet, so that relationships between figures are preserved as they are opened in different programs or used for other purposes.
"This tool promises to be a very significant development in the trend towards practical open document standards and, critically, customer-friendly means to move between them," said Andrew Hopkirk, director of the UK's National Computing Centre's e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) programme, in a Microsoft statement.
Some of the free tools will be add-ins for older versions of the programs in the Office suite, said Microsoft. Prototypes of the translation tools will be made available via the SourceForge website which allows anyone to participate in the software development process.
The Microsoft-led project is being carried out with three other companies - French firm Clever Age, Aztecsoft in India and Dialogika in Germany.
Office users will get more options for the way they save filesUsers could be in for less frustration as Microsoft makes flagship programs handle rival ways of saving documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
The initiative covers the Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs from the Office software suite.
The prototype of the first tool to translate between formats will be made available as a free download on 6 July. Microsoft said it started building the software tools in response to requests from government customers.
File style
Every PC user knows how careful they have to be when moving important files around because of the incompatibilities between different programs, such as word processors, that do the same job. Saving a file in a format in one program can make it difficult to open in another, without sacrificing some of the way that the information in the file is laid out or formatted
Both Microsoft and the broader technology industry have been working to remove some of these problems by standardising the ways information is saved so it appears the same when opened by different programs.
This tool promises to be a very significant development in the trend towards practical open document standards Andrew Hopkirk, National Computing Centre, UK
Before now, Microsoft and the technology world have chosen to go their own ways.
The new initiative ends some of this diversity and will make it possible for anyone using programs in the Office software suite to save files in more so-called "open" formats.
Specifically, the tools will make it possible to save and work with files using the Open Document format - a specification developed by the open source community as an alternative to the proprietary formats used by large software firms.
Microsoft has been working towards a more open way of formatting documents based around the Extensible Markup Language (XML). This helps preserve the structure of data in a document, such as a spreadsheet, so that relationships between figures are preserved as they are opened in different programs or used for other purposes.
"This tool promises to be a very significant development in the trend towards practical open document standards and, critically, customer-friendly means to move between them," said Andrew Hopkirk, director of the UK's National Computing Centre's e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) programme, in a Microsoft statement.
Some of the free tools will be add-ins for older versions of the programs in the Office suite, said Microsoft. Prototypes of the translation tools will be made available via the SourceForge website which allows anyone to participate in the software development process.
The Microsoft-led project is being carried out with three other companies - French firm Clever Age, Aztecsoft in India and Dialogika in Germany.
Monday, July 03, 2006
'HIV stigma' drives India suicide
An article from BBC
A 15-year-old Indian boy whose parents had HIV was driven to suicide by the stigma associated with the virus, police say.
Santosh Baniya died of burn injuries after setting himself on fire in the western city of Ahmedabad last week. Both his parents were diagnosed with HIV two years ago. They are among more than five million people infected with the virus in India.
Before he died the boy had expressed fears about surviving his parents.
'Mentally tormented' Investigations suggested Santosh Baniya feared being ostracised once it became public knowledge that both his parents, who were vegetable sellers, were HIV positive, police said.
More than 5m people in India have HIV"He was mentally tormented as he could not face the humiliation owing to both his parents being HIV-positive," a police spokesman told the Press Trust of India news agency.
The boy, who had three siblings, had stopped attending school regularly after his parents were diagnosed with HIV, AFP news agency reported. A United Nations report in May estimated India had overtaken South Africa as the country with most people with HIV, the virus that causes Aids. But Indian authorities dispute the UN figure of 5.7 million sufferers, saying only 5.2 million have the virus.
People with HIV and Aids in India can face discrimination, including being ostracised and denied access to schools and hospitals.
My Views
People around the world, especially in India (that includes me) should realize that young kids like Santosh Baniya die everyday. Their aims, goals, etc everything goes in vain. What harm did these kids do to this community? Is this the reward that they get for being innocent?
When we start thinking about this, the main root cause for all this is ignorance. The kid died because of his parents ignorance. There are so many kids in world who die for no harm of theirs. This is completely insane and ridiculous.
Even though one doesn't kill these kids physically but mentally they are murdered and I personally feel that everyone of us are some how or the other involved in commiting this sin. The reason why I say this is because most of the individuals are involved in their own interests which is why people who know things are not able to (or rather don't spend time) in sharing information to people who are ignorant.
We have to wake up now and try to put some assertive thoughts in innocent people or rather people who are ignorant and make them realize certain things, the way it is supposed to be.
A 15-year-old Indian boy whose parents had HIV was driven to suicide by the stigma associated with the virus, police say.
Santosh Baniya died of burn injuries after setting himself on fire in the western city of Ahmedabad last week. Both his parents were diagnosed with HIV two years ago. They are among more than five million people infected with the virus in India.
Before he died the boy had expressed fears about surviving his parents.
'Mentally tormented' Investigations suggested Santosh Baniya feared being ostracised once it became public knowledge that both his parents, who were vegetable sellers, were HIV positive, police said.
More than 5m people in India have HIV"He was mentally tormented as he could not face the humiliation owing to both his parents being HIV-positive," a police spokesman told the Press Trust of India news agency.
The boy, who had three siblings, had stopped attending school regularly after his parents were diagnosed with HIV, AFP news agency reported. A United Nations report in May estimated India had overtaken South Africa as the country with most people with HIV, the virus that causes Aids. But Indian authorities dispute the UN figure of 5.7 million sufferers, saying only 5.2 million have the virus.
People with HIV and Aids in India can face discrimination, including being ostracised and denied access to schools and hospitals.
My Views
People around the world, especially in India (that includes me) should realize that young kids like Santosh Baniya die everyday. Their aims, goals, etc everything goes in vain. What harm did these kids do to this community? Is this the reward that they get for being innocent?
When we start thinking about this, the main root cause for all this is ignorance. The kid died because of his parents ignorance. There are so many kids in world who die for no harm of theirs. This is completely insane and ridiculous.
Even though one doesn't kill these kids physically but mentally they are murdered and I personally feel that everyone of us are some how or the other involved in commiting this sin. The reason why I say this is because most of the individuals are involved in their own interests which is why people who know things are not able to (or rather don't spend time) in sharing information to people who are ignorant.
We have to wake up now and try to put some assertive thoughts in innocent people or rather people who are ignorant and make them realize certain things, the way it is supposed to be.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Rage for Money
Money, Money and Money is all what this world is about. Every individual in this world is working hard all day, all nights and all weekends just to smell the aroma of money - Rupees, Dollars, Euro, Yen and what not. There was a time when an individual was evaluated based on his charisma, talents, character and health but those days are way behind us.
In the present world of "Money and Hatred", everything is evaluated based on the wealth. Wealth is considered to be equivalent to the so called in those days charisma, talents, character and health. If an individual has wealth, he is considered to be one the most popular person in his community.
Well, frankly speaking this is what current world is all about, if a person says that he is not for money then he is considered to be "not worthy". Money is the one which brings relationships, quarrels, hatred, pleasure both mentally and physically, tears of joy and sorrow, makes a person impeccable and finally last but not the least "The Pride", for which, every human in this world is longing for.
Money plays a vital role at the time of birth and death. As day progresses, "hatred and sin" among humans is increasing drastically for various reasons. All reasons for these hatred and sin fall under one category called "The Money". God has created every human being on this beautiful Earth for some reason and most of us don’t realize that we have a duty to perform; instead we have screened ourselves behind an illusive screen, "The Money".
Most of us are squanderers, we don’t realize that our main purpose to be on this Earth is to maintain a good kinship within our race and eradicate animosity, which does not happen in the present world. Ofcourse, there are people who are not for Money; they do help the needy both in terms of money and food. There are some excellent and inspiring people all over the world, who are not money-minded, but only a chosen few to talk about and they are countably finite. We need more people who do not value their near and dear based on Money.
We should be fortunate enough to give birth as a human, because one big difference is the sixth sense, which no other living being on this earth is gifted with. This sixth sense makes the human race as the most intelligent living being on this earth. When God has gifted us with such an extraordinary power why do we have to utilize it in the improper way?
Plenty of technological improvements happened over the past decades and it is still ameliorating further as day progresses, but the overall poverty level is marching strongly up the hill rather than falling downwards inspite of this technological progress. We are so diligent and try to expose our skills and talents to lead a life of luxury which goes hand in hand with Money. We are never satisfied with what we have and when it comes to Money - It is our insatiable thirst. The technological improvement has done nothing to alleviate the pain of the people who are beyond the poverty line.
Present world is filled with corruption, war, looting, murder and many things to say. The main reason for all these things to happen in this world is Money. People do all these crimes for their pride and survival, which requires Money. The rich people do all these crimes to maintain their Pride in the society and the poor to Survive in this society (as per present world, a person is distinguished between rich and poor based on Money).
We talk about people who are millionaires and billionaires, but we never think about people who are dying every day at some corner of the world striving for good food. We have all the time in this world to fight against each other just for a thin rectangular sheet of paper which has some value for it, but we don’t have time to think about our kinship, near and dear who are dying without proper food and shelter. The world is filled with jealous, hatred, pride and ego; this is growing everyday which destroys the man himself and the people surrounding him.
It is high time that we start thinking about our mankind rather than focusing on Money, ofcourse Money is very important in our life and every one should realize that Money is necessary for a person to survive and lead his life in the most meaningful way, it shouldn’t be used in a way that it harms our own race. We are gifted with so much power and talent with which we can do miracles in many good ways rather being a brutal thing which doesn’t have any kind of concern for anything in this world. There are people who think good for their community but that count is very minimal. Every human in this world should try to be peaceful and harmonious, if not, try not to harm others for which we should be satisfied with whatever Money we earn or get.
“More the rage for Money, more the hatred and sin”. Let us first get satisfied with whatever we have and try not to fall into the deep valley of Money because of which we will not be able to have the complete vision of the world, which is in need of our help and harmony. Let us be a human being in this world rather than being Money minded carnivorous being, which intends to destroy their own race for Money.
Let us be good to ourselves, good to others, lead a meaningful life and make every moment of our life the most useful and memorable moment, for which we need to tear apart the illusive screen “The Money” screened in front of us and see the whole world with our God given gift of kind hearted vision.
“Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one.” – Ben Franklin.
In the present world of "Money and Hatred", everything is evaluated based on the wealth. Wealth is considered to be equivalent to the so called in those days charisma, talents, character and health. If an individual has wealth, he is considered to be one the most popular person in his community.
Well, frankly speaking this is what current world is all about, if a person says that he is not for money then he is considered to be "not worthy". Money is the one which brings relationships, quarrels, hatred, pleasure both mentally and physically, tears of joy and sorrow, makes a person impeccable and finally last but not the least "The Pride", for which, every human in this world is longing for.
Money plays a vital role at the time of birth and death. As day progresses, "hatred and sin" among humans is increasing drastically for various reasons. All reasons for these hatred and sin fall under one category called "The Money". God has created every human being on this beautiful Earth for some reason and most of us don’t realize that we have a duty to perform; instead we have screened ourselves behind an illusive screen, "The Money".
Most of us are squanderers, we don’t realize that our main purpose to be on this Earth is to maintain a good kinship within our race and eradicate animosity, which does not happen in the present world. Ofcourse, there are people who are not for Money; they do help the needy both in terms of money and food. There are some excellent and inspiring people all over the world, who are not money-minded, but only a chosen few to talk about and they are countably finite. We need more people who do not value their near and dear based on Money.
We should be fortunate enough to give birth as a human, because one big difference is the sixth sense, which no other living being on this earth is gifted with. This sixth sense makes the human race as the most intelligent living being on this earth. When God has gifted us with such an extraordinary power why do we have to utilize it in the improper way?
Plenty of technological improvements happened over the past decades and it is still ameliorating further as day progresses, but the overall poverty level is marching strongly up the hill rather than falling downwards inspite of this technological progress. We are so diligent and try to expose our skills and talents to lead a life of luxury which goes hand in hand with Money. We are never satisfied with what we have and when it comes to Money - It is our insatiable thirst. The technological improvement has done nothing to alleviate the pain of the people who are beyond the poverty line.
Present world is filled with corruption, war, looting, murder and many things to say. The main reason for all these things to happen in this world is Money. People do all these crimes for their pride and survival, which requires Money. The rich people do all these crimes to maintain their Pride in the society and the poor to Survive in this society (as per present world, a person is distinguished between rich and poor based on Money).
We talk about people who are millionaires and billionaires, but we never think about people who are dying every day at some corner of the world striving for good food. We have all the time in this world to fight against each other just for a thin rectangular sheet of paper which has some value for it, but we don’t have time to think about our kinship, near and dear who are dying without proper food and shelter. The world is filled with jealous, hatred, pride and ego; this is growing everyday which destroys the man himself and the people surrounding him.
It is high time that we start thinking about our mankind rather than focusing on Money, ofcourse Money is very important in our life and every one should realize that Money is necessary for a person to survive and lead his life in the most meaningful way, it shouldn’t be used in a way that it harms our own race. We are gifted with so much power and talent with which we can do miracles in many good ways rather being a brutal thing which doesn’t have any kind of concern for anything in this world. There are people who think good for their community but that count is very minimal. Every human in this world should try to be peaceful and harmonious, if not, try not to harm others for which we should be satisfied with whatever Money we earn or get.
“More the rage for Money, more the hatred and sin”. Let us first get satisfied with whatever we have and try not to fall into the deep valley of Money because of which we will not be able to have the complete vision of the world, which is in need of our help and harmony. Let us be a human being in this world rather than being Money minded carnivorous being, which intends to destroy their own race for Money.
Let us be good to ourselves, good to others, lead a meaningful life and make every moment of our life the most useful and memorable moment, for which we need to tear apart the illusive screen “The Money” screened in front of us and see the whole world with our God given gift of kind hearted vision.
“Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one.” – Ben Franklin.
learning curve.. 06/30
It was a pretty long day ... the start of the day was pretty horrible for me, it was all because of my lethargic act ...
I went to a place without complete preparation ... and that costed me sweat and embarassment even though I mentioned in my previous "learning curve" that I should be lot prepared with 2-3 backups .... I was not ...
hmmm it is not that easy to get things in place within a day right ...
This time I was well prepared but not complete ... I didn't have 2-3 backup plans in case of primary failures ... anyways that was a good leason ... to tell something is always easy but someone will learn it only when they face it and this time I did ... from now on MAN I will freaking prepared in anything I do.
I went to a place without complete preparation ... and that costed me sweat and embarassment even though I mentioned in my previous "learning curve" that I should be lot prepared with 2-3 backups .... I was not ...
hmmm it is not that easy to get things in place within a day right ...
This time I was well prepared but not complete ... I didn't have 2-3 backup plans in case of primary failures ... anyways that was a good leason ... to tell something is always easy but someone will learn it only when they face it and this time I did ... from now on MAN I will freaking prepared in anything I do.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
learning curve .. 06/29
At the end of the day, there was something interesting that I learned
1. be more organized and make a note of everything that I do and make a list of things that needs to be done the next day. because I badly missed something which should have been done two days ... my bad anyways will correct myself.
2. Not to get too excited, this is tough on my side but will get there ...
3. I should read more to know more and share the knowledge with others ....
1. be more organized and make a note of everything that I do and make a list of things that needs to be done the next day. because I badly missed something which should have been done two days ... my bad anyways will correct myself.
2. Not to get too excited, this is tough on my side but will get there ...
3. I should read more to know more and share the knowledge with others ....
Dr. Abdul Kalaam - my all time inspiration
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalaam's speech in Hyderabad.
[OUR HONOURABLE PRESIDENT OF INDIA]
"I have three visions for India.
1. In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world havecome and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. F romAlexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese,the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us,took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any othernation. We have not conquered anyone.
2. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history andtried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect thefreedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. Ibelieve that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when westarted the war of independence. It is this freedom that we mustprotect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one willrespect us.
3. My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we havebeen a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developednation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. Wehave 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels arefalling. Our achievements are being global ly recognized today. Yet welack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developednation, self- reliant and self-assured. Isn't this incorrect?
4. I have a THIRD vision. India must stand up to the world. Because Ibelieve that, unless India stands up to the world, no one will respectus. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as amilitary power but also as an economic power. Both must gohand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three greatminds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space,Professor SatishDhawan, who succeeded him and Dr.Brahm Prakash, father of nuclearmaterial. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closelyand consider this the great opportunity of my life.
5. I see four milestones in my career:
Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be theproject director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. Theone that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role inmy life of Scientist. After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part ofIndia's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni metits mission requirements in 1994. The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership inthe recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss.The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests andproving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer adeveloping nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as anIndian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entrystructure, for which we have developed this new material. A Very lightmaterial called carbon-carbon. One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciencesvisited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so lightthat he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There werethese little girls and boys with hea vy metallic calipers weighingover three Kg. each, dragging their feet around.
He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300-gramcalipers and took them to the orthopedic center. The children didn'tbelieve their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on theirlegs, they could now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss!
6. Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India soembarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We aresuch a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but werefuse to acknowledge them.
7. Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
8. Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into aself-sustaining, self driving unit. There are millionsof suchachievementsbut our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.
9. I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. Itwas the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths hadtaken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaperhad the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years hadtransformed his desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was thisinspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details ofkillings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buriedamong other news.
10. In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Whyare we so NEGATIVE?
11. Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things?
12. We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreigntechnology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we notrealize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?
13. I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girlasked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is.
She replied: I want to live in a developed India.
For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You mustproclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highlydeveloped nation.
14. Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choiceis yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.YOU say that our laws are too old.YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke,The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach theirdestination.YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolutepits.YOU say, say and say.
15. What do YOU do about it? Take a person on his way to Singapore.Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of theairport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don'tthrow cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are asproud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs.60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway orPedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOUcomeback to the parking lot topunch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or ashopping mall irrespective of your status identity. In Singapore youdon't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public duringRamadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your headcovered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs.650) a month to, "see toit that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else." YOU wouldnot dare to speed beyond 55mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta haimain kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Takeyour two bucks and get lost."
16. YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than thegarbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand.
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates inBoston??? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respectand conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in yourown. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the momentyou touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciativecitizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?
17. Once in an interview, the famous Ex-muni cipal commissioner ofBombay, Mr.Tinaikar, had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs arewalked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over theplace," he said. "And then the same people turn around to criticizeand blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. Whatdo they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every timetheir dog feels the pressure in his bowels?
18. In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has donethe job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?" He'sright.
19. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeitall responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect thegovernment to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totallynegative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going tostop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop topick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learnthe proper use of bathrooms.
20. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of foodand toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the leastopportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to passon the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issueslike those related towomen, dowry, girl child and others, we make loud drawing roomprotestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse?"It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if Ialone forego my sons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to change thesystem?
21. What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us itconsists of our neighbors, other households, other cities, othercommunities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When itcomes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system welock ourselves along with our families in to a safe cocoon and lookinto the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean tocome along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand orwe leave the country and run away.
22. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to baskin their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecurewe run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take thenext flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand tobe rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is outto abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system.Our conscience is mortgaged to money.
23. Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for agreat deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too....I amechoing J.F.Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate toIndians.....
"ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKEINDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"
24. Lets do what India needs from us.
[OUR HONOURABLE PRESIDENT OF INDIA]
"I have three visions for India.
1. In 3000 years of our history, people from all over the world havecome and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. F romAlexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese,the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us,took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any othernation. We have not conquered anyone.
2. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history andtried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect thefreedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. Ibelieve that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when westarted the war of independence. It is this freedom that we mustprotect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one willrespect us.
3. My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we havebeen a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developednation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. Wehave 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels arefalling. Our achievements are being global ly recognized today. Yet welack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developednation, self- reliant and self-assured. Isn't this incorrect?
4. I have a THIRD vision. India must stand up to the world. Because Ibelieve that, unless India stands up to the world, no one will respectus. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as amilitary power but also as an economic power. Both must gohand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three greatminds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space,Professor SatishDhawan, who succeeded him and Dr.Brahm Prakash, father of nuclearmaterial. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closelyand consider this the great opportunity of my life.
5. I see four milestones in my career:
Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be theproject director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. Theone that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role inmy life of Scientist. After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part ofIndia's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni metits mission requirements in 1994. The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership inthe recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss.The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests andproving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer adeveloping nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as anIndian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entrystructure, for which we have developed this new material. A Very lightmaterial called carbon-carbon. One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciencesvisited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so lightthat he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There werethese little girls and boys with hea vy metallic calipers weighingover three Kg. each, dragging their feet around.
He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300-gramcalipers and took them to the orthopedic center. The children didn'tbelieve their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on theirlegs, they could now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss!
6. Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India soembarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We aresuch a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but werefuse to acknowledge them.
7. Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
8. Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into aself-sustaining, self driving unit. There are millionsof suchachievementsbut our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.
9. I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. Itwas the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths hadtaken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaperhad the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years hadtransformed his desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was thisinspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details ofkillings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buriedamong other news.
10. In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Whyare we so NEGATIVE?
11. Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things?
12. We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreigntechnology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we notrealize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?
13. I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girlasked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is.
She replied: I want to live in a developed India.
For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You mustproclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highlydeveloped nation.
14. Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choiceis yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.YOU say that our laws are too old.YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke,The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach theirdestination.YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolutepits.YOU say, say and say.
15. What do YOU do about it? Take a person on his way to Singapore.Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of theairport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don'tthrow cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are asproud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs.60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway orPedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOUcomeback to the parking lot topunch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or ashopping mall irrespective of your status identity. In Singapore youdon't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public duringRamadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your headcovered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs.650) a month to, "see toit that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else." YOU wouldnot dare to speed beyond 55mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta haimain kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Takeyour two bucks and get lost."
16. YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than thegarbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand.
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates inBoston??? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respectand conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in yourown. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the momentyou touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciativecitizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?
17. Once in an interview, the famous Ex-muni cipal commissioner ofBombay, Mr.Tinaikar, had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs arewalked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over theplace," he said. "And then the same people turn around to criticizeand blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. Whatdo they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every timetheir dog feels the pressure in his bowels?
18. In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has donethe job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?" He'sright.
19. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeitall responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect thegovernment to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totallynegative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going tostop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop topick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learnthe proper use of bathrooms.
20. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of foodand toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the leastopportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to passon the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issueslike those related towomen, dowry, girl child and others, we make loud drawing roomprotestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse?"It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if Ialone forego my sons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to change thesystem?
21. What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us itconsists of our neighbors, other households, other cities, othercommunities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When itcomes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system welock ourselves along with our families in to a safe cocoon and lookinto the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean tocome along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand orwe leave the country and run away.
22. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to baskin their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecurewe run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take thenext flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand tobe rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is outto abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system.Our conscience is mortgaged to money.
23. Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for agreat deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too....I amechoing J.F.Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate toIndians.....
"ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKEINDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"
24. Lets do what India needs from us.
Man : Emotions : Computer woow sounds interesting
This is an article from BBC
Computers 'set to read our minds'
An "emotionally aware" computer system designed to read people's minds by analysing expressions will be featured at a major London exhibition.
Visitors to the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition are being invited to help "train" the computer how to read joy, anger and other expressions.
Its designers say there are potential commercial uses, such as picking the right time to sell someone something.
But it may also help improve driver safety and help people with autism.
The computer, which is connected to a camera, locates and tracks 24 facial "feature points" such as the edge of the nose, the eyebrows and the corners of the mouth.
A total of 20 key facial movements - including a nod or shake of the head, a raise of the eyebrow or a pull on the corner of the mouth - have been identified.
Combinations of these movements, which are thought to represent underlying emotions, are then fed into software and used to detect the same facial combinations in real-life situations.
Subtle variations Peter Robinson, professor of computer technology at the University of Cambridge, said: "The system can already cope with the variation in people's facial composition; for example, if you have a round or thin face, or if you wear glasses or have a beard.
"However, there are small variations in the way people express the same emotion."
The scientists have been "training" the recognition system by using actors to make different facial expressions. They hope the exhibition will generate valuable new data to improve the programme's ability to read faces.
Professor Robinson added: "Our research could enable websites to tailor advertising or products to your mood." For example, he explained, software linked to a webcam could process a person's image, encode the correct emotional state and transmit the information to a website, which could then display products or advertising.
Dashboard aid The technology is also being developed for use in cars to improve driver safety. The team is recording the faces of volunteers in driving situations and monitoring facial movements to identify more complex expressions linked to confusion, boredom or tiredness.
"We are working with a big car company and they envision this being employed in cars within five years," Professor Robinson said, adding that a camera could be built into the dashboard.
The team is also working with colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop a wearable version of the system, to help those with conditions, such as autism and Asperger's syndrome, who have particular difficulty in reading other people's facial expressions and emotions.
The headset, which is at its first prototype stage, would interpret other people's moods and communicate those to the wearer.
The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition runs from Monday 3 July to Thursday 6 July at The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG.
Computers 'set to read our minds'
An "emotionally aware" computer system designed to read people's minds by analysing expressions will be featured at a major London exhibition.
Visitors to the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition are being invited to help "train" the computer how to read joy, anger and other expressions.
Its designers say there are potential commercial uses, such as picking the right time to sell someone something.
But it may also help improve driver safety and help people with autism.
The computer, which is connected to a camera, locates and tracks 24 facial "feature points" such as the edge of the nose, the eyebrows and the corners of the mouth.
A total of 20 key facial movements - including a nod or shake of the head, a raise of the eyebrow or a pull on the corner of the mouth - have been identified.
Combinations of these movements, which are thought to represent underlying emotions, are then fed into software and used to detect the same facial combinations in real-life situations.
Subtle variations Peter Robinson, professor of computer technology at the University of Cambridge, said: "The system can already cope with the variation in people's facial composition; for example, if you have a round or thin face, or if you wear glasses or have a beard.
"However, there are small variations in the way people express the same emotion."
The scientists have been "training" the recognition system by using actors to make different facial expressions. They hope the exhibition will generate valuable new data to improve the programme's ability to read faces.
Professor Robinson added: "Our research could enable websites to tailor advertising or products to your mood." For example, he explained, software linked to a webcam could process a person's image, encode the correct emotional state and transmit the information to a website, which could then display products or advertising.
Dashboard aid The technology is also being developed for use in cars to improve driver safety. The team is recording the faces of volunteers in driving situations and monitoring facial movements to identify more complex expressions linked to confusion, boredom or tiredness.
"We are working with a big car company and they envision this being employed in cars within five years," Professor Robinson said, adding that a camera could be built into the dashboard.
The team is also working with colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop a wearable version of the system, to help those with conditions, such as autism and Asperger's syndrome, who have particular difficulty in reading other people's facial expressions and emotions.
The headset, which is at its first prototype stage, would interpret other people's moods and communicate those to the wearer.
The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition runs from Monday 3 July to Thursday 6 July at The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
learning curve ...
Today it was really interesting coz I got to know a lot about whatz going on in my company :) not politically but technically ... because it was a day of information sharing within our team which was pretty interesting ....
Even though I didn't give any presentation for the day, I was really impressed with all the presenters they did their best to give the best out of 'em applauds to all ...
I learned three things at the end of the day
1. When you give a presentation - be humorous
2. Be thoroughly prepared ... always have 2-3 backup plans even if the primary and secondary plans is a debacle
3. Have lots of pictures in your presentation so that people know what you are talking.
Well even though I have done many presentations in my career, I still have tough time in making others laugh because I am not good at that, anyways I will get there one day ...
Even though I didn't give any presentation for the day, I was really impressed with all the presenters they did their best to give the best out of 'em applauds to all ...
I learned three things at the end of the day
1. When you give a presentation - be humorous
2. Be thoroughly prepared ... always have 2-3 backup plans even if the primary and secondary plans is a debacle
3. Have lots of pictures in your presentation so that people know what you are talking.
Well even though I have done many presentations in my career, I still have tough time in making others laugh because I am not good at that, anyways I will get there one day ...
Krishnamurti: On War
My friend directed me to read this article it is very impressive, kudos to my buddy Faisal oh by the way he is my colleague at work ... anyways letz get to the article ...
Questioner: How can we solve our present political chaos and the crisis in the world? Is there anything an individual can do to stop the impending war?
Krishnamurti: War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday life, is it not?War is merely an outward expression of our inward state, an enlargement of our daily action. It is more spectacular, more bloody, more destructive, but it is the collective result of our individual activities. Therefore, you and I are responsible for war and what can we do to stop it? Obviously the ever-impending war cannot be stopped by you and me, because it is already in movement; it is already taking place, though at present chiefly on the psychological level. As it is already in movement, it cannot be stopped- the issues are too many, too great, and are already committed. But you and I, seeing that the house is on fire, can understand the causes of that fire, can go away from it and build in a new place with different materials that are not combustible, that will not produce other wars. That is all that we can do. You and I can see what creates wars, and if we are interested in stopping wars, then we can begin to transform ourselves, who are the causes of war.
An American lady came to see me a couple of years ago, during the war. She said she had lost her son in Italy and that she had another son aged sixteen whom she wanted to save; so we talked the thing over. I suggested to her that to save her son she had to cease to be an American; she had to cease to be greedy, cease piling up wealth, seeking power, domination, and be morally simple – not merely simple in clothes, in outward things, but simple in her thoughts and feelings, in her relationships. She said,” That is too much. You are asking far too much. I cannot do it, because circumstances are too powerful for me to alter.” Therefore she was responsible for the destruction of her son.
Circumstances can be controlled by us, because we have created the circumstances. Society is the product of relationship, society changes; merely to rely on legislation, on compulsion, for the transformation of outward society, while remaining inwardly corrupt, while continuing inwardly to seek power, position, domination, is to destroy the outward, however carefully and scientifically built. That which is inward is always overcoming the outward.
What causes war – religious, political or economic? Obviously belief, either in nationalism, in an ideology, or in a particular dogma. If we had no belief but goodwill, love and consideration between us, then there would be no wars. But we are fed on beliefs, ideas and dogmas and therefore we breed discontent. The present crisis is of an exceptional nature and we as human beings must either pursue the path of constant conflict and continuous wars, which are the result of our everyday action, or else see the causes of war and turn our back upon them.
Obviously what causes war is the desire for power, position, prestige, money; also the disease called nationalism, the worship of a flag; and the disease of organized religion, the worship of a dogma. All these are the causes of war; if you as an individual belong to any of the organized religions, if you are greedy for power, if you are envious, you are bound to produce a society which will result in destruction. So again it depends upon you and not on the leaders – not on so-called statesmen and all the rest of them. It depends upon you and me but we do not seem to realize that. If once we really felt the responsibility of our own actions, how quickly we could bring to an end all these wars, this appalling misery! But you see, we are indifferent. We have three meals a day, we have our jobs, we have our bank account, big or little, and we say, “For God’s sake, don’t disturb us, leave us alone”. The higher up we are, the more we want security, permanency, tranquility, the more we want to be left alone, to maintain things fixed as they are; but they cannot be maintained as they are, because there is nothing to maintain. Everything is disintegrating. We do not want to face these things, we do not want to face the fact that you and I are responsible for wars. You and I may talk about peace, have conferences, sit round a table and discuss, but inwardly, psychologically, we want power, position, we are bound by beliefs, by dogmas, for which we are willing to die and destroy each other. Do you think such men, you and I, can have peace in the world? To have peace, we must be peaceful; to live peacefully means not to create antagonism. Peace is not an ideal. To me, an ideal is merely an escape, an avoidance of what is, a contradiction of what is. An ideal prevents direct action upon what is - which we will go into presently, in another talk. [not on this website] But to have peace, we will have to love, we will have to begin, not to live an ideal life, but to see things as they are and act upon them, transform them. As long as each one of us is seeking psychological security, the physiological security we need – food, clothing and shelter – is destroyed. We are seeking psychological security, which does not exist; and we seek it, if we can, through power, through position, through titles, names – all of which is destroying physical security. This is an obvious fact, if you look at it.
To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states – greed, envy, ill-will and possessiveness. To put an end to sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be a psychological revolution and few of us are willing to face that. We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations and so on and on; but we will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our stupid lives. To rely on others is utterly futile; others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation which will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.To put an end to outward war, you must begin to put an end to war in yourself. Some of you will nod your heads and say, “ I agree”, and go outside and do exactly the same as you have been doing for the last ten or twenty years. Your agreement is merely verbal and has no significance, for the world miseries and wars are not going to be stopped by your casual assent. They will be stopped only when you realize the danger, when you realize your responsibility, when you do not leave it to somebody else. If you realize the suffering, if you see the urgency of immediate action and do not postpone, then you will transform yourself; peace will come only when you yourself are peaceful, when you yourself are at peace with your neighbour.
Questioner: Why do men fight?
Krisnamurti: why do young boys fight? You sometimes fight with your brother, or other boys here, don’t you? Why? You fight over a toy. Perhaps another boy has taken your ball, or your book and therefore you fight. Grown-up people fight for exactly the same reason, only their toys are position, wealth and power. If you want power and I also want power, we fight, and that is why nations go to war. It is as simple as that, only philosophers, politicians, and the so-called religious people complicate it. You know, it is a great art to have an abundance of knowledge and experience-to know the richness of life, the beauty of existence, the struggles, the miseries, the laughter, the tears- and yet keep your mind very simple; and you can have a simple mind only when you know how to love.
Questioner: How can we solve our present political chaos and the crisis in the world? Is there anything an individual can do to stop the impending war?
Krishnamurti: War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday life, is it not?War is merely an outward expression of our inward state, an enlargement of our daily action. It is more spectacular, more bloody, more destructive, but it is the collective result of our individual activities. Therefore, you and I are responsible for war and what can we do to stop it? Obviously the ever-impending war cannot be stopped by you and me, because it is already in movement; it is already taking place, though at present chiefly on the psychological level. As it is already in movement, it cannot be stopped- the issues are too many, too great, and are already committed. But you and I, seeing that the house is on fire, can understand the causes of that fire, can go away from it and build in a new place with different materials that are not combustible, that will not produce other wars. That is all that we can do. You and I can see what creates wars, and if we are interested in stopping wars, then we can begin to transform ourselves, who are the causes of war.
An American lady came to see me a couple of years ago, during the war. She said she had lost her son in Italy and that she had another son aged sixteen whom she wanted to save; so we talked the thing over. I suggested to her that to save her son she had to cease to be an American; she had to cease to be greedy, cease piling up wealth, seeking power, domination, and be morally simple – not merely simple in clothes, in outward things, but simple in her thoughts and feelings, in her relationships. She said,” That is too much. You are asking far too much. I cannot do it, because circumstances are too powerful for me to alter.” Therefore she was responsible for the destruction of her son.
Circumstances can be controlled by us, because we have created the circumstances. Society is the product of relationship, society changes; merely to rely on legislation, on compulsion, for the transformation of outward society, while remaining inwardly corrupt, while continuing inwardly to seek power, position, domination, is to destroy the outward, however carefully and scientifically built. That which is inward is always overcoming the outward.
What causes war – religious, political or economic? Obviously belief, either in nationalism, in an ideology, or in a particular dogma. If we had no belief but goodwill, love and consideration between us, then there would be no wars. But we are fed on beliefs, ideas and dogmas and therefore we breed discontent. The present crisis is of an exceptional nature and we as human beings must either pursue the path of constant conflict and continuous wars, which are the result of our everyday action, or else see the causes of war and turn our back upon them.
Obviously what causes war is the desire for power, position, prestige, money; also the disease called nationalism, the worship of a flag; and the disease of organized religion, the worship of a dogma. All these are the causes of war; if you as an individual belong to any of the organized religions, if you are greedy for power, if you are envious, you are bound to produce a society which will result in destruction. So again it depends upon you and not on the leaders – not on so-called statesmen and all the rest of them. It depends upon you and me but we do not seem to realize that. If once we really felt the responsibility of our own actions, how quickly we could bring to an end all these wars, this appalling misery! But you see, we are indifferent. We have three meals a day, we have our jobs, we have our bank account, big or little, and we say, “For God’s sake, don’t disturb us, leave us alone”. The higher up we are, the more we want security, permanency, tranquility, the more we want to be left alone, to maintain things fixed as they are; but they cannot be maintained as they are, because there is nothing to maintain. Everything is disintegrating. We do not want to face these things, we do not want to face the fact that you and I are responsible for wars. You and I may talk about peace, have conferences, sit round a table and discuss, but inwardly, psychologically, we want power, position, we are bound by beliefs, by dogmas, for which we are willing to die and destroy each other. Do you think such men, you and I, can have peace in the world? To have peace, we must be peaceful; to live peacefully means not to create antagonism. Peace is not an ideal. To me, an ideal is merely an escape, an avoidance of what is, a contradiction of what is. An ideal prevents direct action upon what is - which we will go into presently, in another talk. [not on this website] But to have peace, we will have to love, we will have to begin, not to live an ideal life, but to see things as they are and act upon them, transform them. As long as each one of us is seeking psychological security, the physiological security we need – food, clothing and shelter – is destroyed. We are seeking psychological security, which does not exist; and we seek it, if we can, through power, through position, through titles, names – all of which is destroying physical security. This is an obvious fact, if you look at it.
To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states – greed, envy, ill-will and possessiveness. To put an end to sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be a psychological revolution and few of us are willing to face that. We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations and so on and on; but we will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our stupid lives. To rely on others is utterly futile; others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation which will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.To put an end to outward war, you must begin to put an end to war in yourself. Some of you will nod your heads and say, “ I agree”, and go outside and do exactly the same as you have been doing for the last ten or twenty years. Your agreement is merely verbal and has no significance, for the world miseries and wars are not going to be stopped by your casual assent. They will be stopped only when you realize the danger, when you realize your responsibility, when you do not leave it to somebody else. If you realize the suffering, if you see the urgency of immediate action and do not postpone, then you will transform yourself; peace will come only when you yourself are peaceful, when you yourself are at peace with your neighbour.
Questioner: Why do men fight?
Krisnamurti: why do young boys fight? You sometimes fight with your brother, or other boys here, don’t you? Why? You fight over a toy. Perhaps another boy has taken your ball, or your book and therefore you fight. Grown-up people fight for exactly the same reason, only their toys are position, wealth and power. If you want power and I also want power, we fight, and that is why nations go to war. It is as simple as that, only philosophers, politicians, and the so-called religious people complicate it. You know, it is a great art to have an abundance of knowledge and experience-to know the richness of life, the beauty of existence, the struggles, the miseries, the laughter, the tears- and yet keep your mind very simple; and you can have a simple mind only when you know how to love.
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