24 Jul 2004

Untitled

Posted by Oblivion in General | 9:43pm


Is there any job that I would not take up, no matter how much I am paid? I had been thinking about this for the last two days, and, surprisingly, I haven't found one as yet! Is there any job that I would take up, no matter how less I am paid? Yes - that of a filmmaker. But I feel I should know the answer for the first question with as much certainty. If not for anything else, at least for the sake of some interesting intellectual occupation.

Current Mood: Happy
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22 Jul 2004

Thought for the Day

Posted by Oblivion in General | 9:20pm


When a certain amount of something is useful, and the difficulty of obtaining it is diminished, instinct will usually lead an animal to excess in the new circumstances.

Current Mood: Happy
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17 Jul 2004

Love and Responsibility

Posted by Oblivion in General | 12:16am


Does love have responsibility and duty, and will it use those words? When you do something out of duty is there any love in it? In duty there is no love. The structure of duty in which the human being is caught is destroying him. So long as you are compelled to do something because it is your duty you don't love what you are doing. When there is love there is no duty and no responsibility.

Most parents unfortunately think they are responsible for their children and their sense of responsibility takes the form of telling them what they should do and what they should not do, what they should become and what they should not become. The parents want their children to have a secure position in society. What they call responsibility is part of that respectability they worship; and it seems to me that where there is respectability there is no order; they are concerned only with becoming a perfect bourgeois. When they prepare their children to fit into society they are perpetuating war, conflict and brutality. Do you call that care and love?

Such a genius is JK! Why doesn't anyone 'see' something that is so clear!? It's a paradox that will confound me for ever.



Current Mood: Happy
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13 Jul 2004

Fundamentalism

Posted by Oblivion in General | 5:42am


Mr Gardner is best known for Frames of Mind, a book published in 1983 in which he expounded the idea that the mind is not a unidimensional phenomenon whose development can be measured by a single IQ test. He proposed that we have



Current Mood: Happy
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9 Jul 2004

Moment of Bliss

Posted by Oblivion in General | 9:27pm


It was the dead of night when I decided to stop by, after five hours of uninterrupted drive, at a dhaba to have a cup of garam chai. No vehicle in sight on either side of the straight, long road. The moon was full and the sky glowed with a heavenly radiance, with stars strewn all across it at random.

We were five of us. Friends. Three of them took out the box of cigarettes and lighted their way to glory. All of us were damn tired. It was the most pleasant of breezes that filled the air. The trio arranged themselves comfortably on the rope-made cots. Rakesh, not at all quiet otherwise, became quite quiet as he sat down on the wooden bench, seeming to appreciate the beauty of the sky. And I reclined on the other wooden bench and looked up. The wonderful sky, splattered with the golden stars and that gorgoeus light of the full moon!!

That was my moment of bliss last week. What's yours?



Current Mood: Happy
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9 Jul 2004

Fundas of Good Driving

Posted by Oblivion in General | 3:49am


Recently, while an article about Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) made interesting reading, it makes me wonder if it would work beyond a threshold of traffic density, or in conditions of unorganised traffic. Traffic in most parts of the metros and the country at large, in India, does not yield to any mathematical analysis, courtesy the overtly mismatching ratio of vehicular population to the road length. Accidents are common, and traffic jams are accepted as inevitable part of the drive. With hardly any breathing space for vehicles - effectively meaning the least headway* possible -, it demands an unfailing and continuous alertness on the part of drivers.

It would be, to my mind, certainly interesting to see the recommendations of Dr Davis's computer model for such a scenario. Meanwhile, I find three factors that would, if rightly followed, help avoid jams and accidents in almost any kind of traffic -

1. Maintaining linear trajectories
2. Anticipating the speed of other objects on road accurately, and perhaps most importantly
3. A cool head
 
Anticipation seems to be the key. All animals are good at anticipating the time and distance of an approaching vehicle. The more accurate one's anticipation, the safer his drive will be. And this becomes easier if everyone maintains linear trajectories - the model followed in the speed-lane system. So, now should it start with the realisation on the part of drivers or with the authorities widening the roads and devising a more strict traffic code? The former is possible and easy. The latter involves a lot of urban re-planning and money.
 
*Headway is the gap, measured in seconds, that a driver puts between himself and the car ahead


Current Mood: Happy
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2 Jul 2004

Facts and Observations

Posted by Oblivion in General | 7:26am


A friend sent this. Funtastic!! Happy reading!

- They call our language the mother tongue because the father seldom gets to speak
 
- Regular naps prevent old age... especially, if you take them while driving.
 
- Having one child makes you a parent; having two, you are a referee.
 
- Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is husband!
 
- I believe we should all pay our tax with a smile. I tried - but they wanted cash
 
- A child's greatest period of growth is the month after you've purchased new school uniforms.
 
- Don't feel bad. A lot of people have no talent.
 
- Don't marry the person you want to live with, marry the one you cannot live without


Current Mood: Happy
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