Archive for 2008
Was Sambhavna really abused on Bigg Boss????
Was it just me or did something controversial really took place between Raja and Sambhavna. Day 18 of Bigg Boss, aired on 4th Sep ’08 saw Sambhavna crying in the confession room. According to her Raja was not a nice person. She said, “I went to him crying, missing Rakhi and I never knew that “this” would happen. He is not a good person at all.”
What was the “this” that she was talking about? When Bigg Boss asked her that if something “nasty has taken place in the house due to eviction fear”, was there a sexual abuse undertone? Is it possible that being given the power to nominate someone, Raja tried to get nasty with Sambhavna, who don’t want to loose, looking to earn some money. At least I felt so. Sambhavna pleaded Bigg Boss not to reprimand Raja regarding this; coz then she would really be thrown out off the house.
So has Sambhavna been abused? We all know Sambhavna pleaded each and every house mate not to nominate her coz she needed some money to pay her dues (either Sanjay or Rakhi revealed it after being evicted). So is she bearing all abuse to earn few bucks? If yes then it’s nothing short of casting couch. Can this be allowed to happen or should some regulatory authority take notice and act.
Happiness Divided
Last weekend, a discussion initiated out of boredom, led to an interesting thought. Let me put forward a number of assumptions before getting into the heart and soul of it.
Assumption 1: There exists some heavenly power, call it God if you want to.
Assumption 2: The heavenly powers created the universe and in that sense our earth and subsequently human beings. And after forming us it went into the self imposed sleep mode.
Assumption 3: Unlike Oil, Water, Thorium and Diamonds; Happiness was divided equally all over the earth. i.e. Happiness per square meter = Total happiness/Total surface area of earth.
Given the assumptions, a square meter of land should have as much amount of happiness as a square meter of ocean surface. Now the total surface area of earth is about 500 million square km, with around 150 of it land and rest 350 being water.
World population today is around 6.5 billion. This ideally gives 0.02 square km area per person. Let the happiness on earth be 1 HN per square km (equally divided). HN being happiness quotient (say). It gives 0.02 HN per person. If population density is taken into consideration we are left with a drastic difference in happiness among different continents. Given the hypothesis. Just to give you some idea:
- Asia: 0.012 HN
- Africa: 0.031 HN
- Europe: 0.014 HN
- Oceania: 0.270 HN
So Down under people have more Happiness and Asia comes the last. Is it really so? Well I don’t know if happiness can be measured someday, can be quantified or not. There have been a lot of tries though. One such try that I was reading, was http://www.financialjesus.com/2008/05/27/top-10-happiest-countries/ . They consider certain parameters and list top ten happiest countries. Here are the top 10 happiest countries in decreasing order, according to the given survey.
******************HN Rank******************
- Denmark 0.008 155
- Switzerland 0.006 6
- Austria 0.010 44
- Iceland 0.333 9
- Finland 0.064 41
- Australia 0.385 7
- Sweden 0.05 49
- Canada 0.313 12
- Guatemala 0.009 152
- Luxembourg 0.006 179
Going by HN in various countries I couldn’t find a direct relation to population density. This leaves us no where and our hypothesis seems fishy.
God might have some other distribution method for sure. Maybe equally per person, but then all of us would have been equally happy, which is not the case. However hard I try, I don’t get close to the answer. Perhaps, “God has his own designs”.
Sai speaks: The pillar is shaking
“What you are going to witness today is an out and out miracle. It has happened for the first time in the history of the universe. It is earth shattering and totally phenomenal. You can catch this live and exclusive only on your most trusted news channel!”
Last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to spend a considerable time in front of the idiot box, as they call it. At college I usually follow news online, but at home its 24×7 news channels for me. Truly speaking, more often than not they turn out to be a great time pass. Last few weeks we saw the Noida murder case and the Gujjar agitation occupying the prime-time. Barring a few incidences, most of it, I felt was an example of some good journalism, if not brilliant.
Amidst all this I felt the emergence of a parallel journalism, owing to the cut-throat competition among the ever increasing number of news channels. This journalism is not shying away from running close to being yellow. One such news item caught my attention lately.
It was the most celebrated and most debated news report of “Speaking Sai Baba”. I was all the more interested in the news item as my family worships Sai Baba and I personally too, am a great fan of his preaching. A video was on air which depicted the speaking Sai. A prime time news report followed. The reporter of a leading news channel took calls, asked for reactions and discussed this miracle.
I felt a bit confused. I could easily make out, what was being aired was nothing but an animation clip, that too an amateurish effort. Well, one may argue that I am a computer engineer from IIT and it would have been a bit easy for me to distinguish between an animation and a video recording. True, but believe me, it would have taken no Bill Gates, to check the validity of the said video.
My point is, was the channel not wrong, in not getting it tested by an expert before catering it to the viewers. Leave aside the sanctity of God that they put on hold, what sort of journalism says that any unverified news report can be telecasted? Has the thirst to go on air first and bring exclusive news grown so much that the ethics of journalism are being put to ransom.
But maybe, I am missing the point here. The said news was not for all and sundry. It was a very clever drama enacted for a large chunk of people like us who believe in Sai. We people are nothing but a viewer ship base. Our feelings and sentiments are nothing but a TRP.
Should someone not ask the channel in question, what was the revenue earned during the period the news was on air, by how much were the ad rates hiked during that particular news program and what was the jump in overall viewer ship ratings of the channel. But I know, the channel couldn’t care less and as I have said already media sell what sells.
One might argue that media is not solely to be blamed. Viewers should be responsible enough and not just blindly follow everything and anything that’s put on air. True, but then what’s the difference between an entertainment channel and news channel. Today our nation believes what’s on the news. And why not, news channels are seen today as a forum for the common man, a potent weapon against the system. This makes the need for news channels being responsible, all the more important.
Perhaps what’s there to realize is that such acts add little to the strength of the fourth pillar.
Me and My bulging bellorism
Friends, I have had it again. Why does it repeat itself over and over? It remains all well and under control when I am at college but no sooner than I am at home, it bulges out. Just like a slow poison, it starts bulging gently and before you could notice it, it’s already there full grown.
For those who didn’t get “it”, I am talking about my bulging belly. Let me get one thing very clear, I am a heavy built. You can call me from a “khata peeta khandaan”. At college I try to keep my belly under control, more often than not, successfully. But at home during holidays, I give up eventually; however hard I try.
This time round too, before coming to home, I planned out my stay very carefully. It included the usual: jogging, gym, swimming, dancing and yes a bundle of novels to finish. “This time I can and I will make the difference”, was the war cry.
Six weeks down the line, after cansters of ghee, lots of junk food, and none of the things which I took oath for, my belly is back and raring to go. Belly button is back to invisible mode, pushed between the two belly’s up against each other.
There is no need to worry though. Two weeks are still there. I have decided on a harder regime. No junk food, lots of jogging, lots of gym, lots of swimming, lots of dancing and a bigger bundle of novels. And it’s my promise to one and all, two weeks down the line I will win this fight against my belly. But during this outright war, my mom is a potential detractor, preparing one delicacy after another. If I have to win this war, I have to get her on board and make her a strong ally against my bulging bellorism.
Dreaming again 3: Friends For Sale
We had an unexpected break this Thursday. The lecture got cancelled (quite an anomaly!). Medical problem, I guess. It’s one hell of a problem in this side of the world, more so, if you are an outsider. I myself took time adjusting to the local weather, had to be medicated a couple of times. This takes me back a couple of years, when I snubbed the CMO, IITG. God! What a prig I was.
“…how to compute the probability…given the…we try to uncover the hidden part of the model…”
The nodding goes on as usual. Lata is sitting right in front of me or as they say I just came and sat right on the back of her. I tell you, I am losing charm in her overtime; her being married hasn’t helped much either. I think it’s finally over.
The Friends For Sale (FFS) application on Facebook is really making me crazy. When I meet someone new, I often find myself guessing how much he is worth.
“…we try to use optimality criterion to solve this problem as best as possible…”
Here comes champu and jj. Pucchu is not here yet. Today champu and I went to Prof. Ketaki. She is the instructor for our humanities course. It was about our presentation that is due.
“…model parameter is called the training sequence…”
Oops! Sir tried to peak into my writing.
I had one of the most satisfying talks with her. She sensed a bit of political sense in me from my mid-sem answer scripts. She talked about how not to lose sense of what we believe in and how we feel about it. “The whole world will try and take it away from you…but it’s so divine that it must be protected”. Her words are still ringing in my ears.
“…let N be the size of the code book. So we get the seq of vectors out of M diff. indexes”
Why is the attendance so low today? I can hardly count 15.
Where was I? Yes, champu. He is the sort of guy who keeps the group going. “Never let the fun die out”. Champu tried to peek into my diary. I gave him the finger.
“…to segment each of the word training sequence into stages and study the prob. Of the spectral vectors.”
God! I feel sleepy. It’s been 2 days now, I guess.
JJ and I finished working on a term paper recently. It dealt with DNA cryptography, such a novel idea. We have worked really hard on it. Hope it materializes.
It’s the purple suit and a brown hair clip today. Can’t I leave it already?
“…once the w-HMM’s recognition of an uttered unknown word is done using a solution to problem.. each word is modeled based upon the given test observation sequence…”
The FFS is engulfing like hell. I was just napping about it. God it’s great. I heard a remark about me sitting in this particular seat. I got the hint.
Champu sneezed, kido yawned while ld enjoyed the usual nap. FFS once again crossed my thoughts. Don’t call me crazy. If you think you don’t get addicted that easily, try it once.
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