Music is in everyone's dna

The DNA molecule is probably one of the most complex molecules which can be created. In fact, it contains the blueprint (or genetic instructions) of how a living organism can be constructed. It is basically an "information storage" molecule.

But there is a strange co-relation between DNA and music! In simple words, when DNA sequences are converted to music, it sounds musical :-)

There are many ways in which a DNA can be interpreted as music. Two ways in which DNA sequences which I could decipher were pretty interesting.

1. The DNA sequences (the ATCG sequences ) can be mapped to octaves and played, and it sounds musical. Some software guy has already gone ahead and has written a software for doing this. Go ahead and check out the Bio2Midi Genetic Music Translator

2. Another way a live DNA molecule could be interpreted as music was by mapping molecular vibrations into sound frequencies and getting music. Have a look at this article here : Listen to your DNA

There are some links related to "DNA and Protein Music" here.

There might be some applications of these methods like this one (which is my idea ...heheheh :-) make way for Pseudeep the bio-researcher) ...

Given a DNA music you can study the co-relation between the haromonies and distortions and maybe enhance the music and get a better DNA sequence by the process of reverse engineering!

But the creme de la creme is that "Two lawyers have patented generating music from a DNA sequence." . %^!@$#%$@

Do we owe anything to our ancestors ..

The present lies in the debt of the future, atleast in the context of the envirnoment. By using, polluting and making environment hostile for living the present and past, has in terms borrowed from the future. In that sense the present does not owe anything to the past, rather it has obligation towards the future.

This probably explains parenting in a sense. The present taking care of the future, and the future of their futre. In Asian countries the present even bears some debt to the past generation and we do fulfill our rights by taking care of them.

Some instances where we owe big time to the past are a. parenting (nothing can be fulfill this), b. freedom fighters, Human rights and social right activists (like raja ram mohan roy, Martin Luther King Jr etc). Most of the corporates owe a big deal to the future and there should be a mechanism where in they should really pay the future.

Have to watch Inconvenient Truth sometime soon.

Caught up with Uppit, Bisi Bele Bath and Transformers this weekend. Unable to decide which was the best part :-). It was an awesome saturday.

The Indian IT Industry

There is this huge baloon called the Indian IT Industry which was being inflated right from the year 2001, as soon as the word "Outsourcing" gained momentum. For the companies, it was a good thing to do to save themselves from being doomed.

As you already know, for a company, the bulk of the expenditure is salary. The giants in the Financial Software, Retail Software and Banking Software and (particularly) the Telecom Sector started their outsourcing model (some of them also gave names like Offshore-Onsite model) to reduce the company expenditures by cutting down the task force responsible for the software implementation and execution arm. These jobs were outsourced to India/China/Romania/Vietnam/Brazil etc.

Outsourcing was a definitely a success in some sorts , it did bring out a sigh of relief for the software giants like IBM, HP , Accenture and also established India as a popular outsourcing destination for these companies.

Outsourcing made the Indian Software Industry unnaturally big. But, how long will this model survive ?

As the Indian Software Industry has matured (has it?), there are a large number of problems which are plaguing the Industry. The first problem is to find the "right compensation" for a particular engineer (or "IT Professional" ). Since companies are trying to get software projects by hook or crook, the competitors are ready to pay any amount of money. The job market is so lucrative that you stumble across news like these :-
10,000 quit TCS, Infy, Wipro, Satyam in Q1 . This is in fact, not such an alarming number because in effect, it accounts to 15% annual attrition.

The Indian Software Industry still seems to focus on Engineers with expertise in C, C++ or JAVA or EJB or J2ME or some thing who can be roped in to do sub-standard maintenance. Writing Software is not just about knowing some languages or platforms or perhaps even Data Structures and Algorithms or the ability to understand a cryptic programming language syntax. It is like asking a guy who is a master of English to explain the theory of Supernova explosion. This is something which has to be drilled into both the heads of job seekers and job givers.

That is definitely important, but it is profoundly important for Indian Software Engineers to develop an understanding of the Domain and build an expertise on a particular domain. otherwise the industry won't mature. India cannot have its own killer product.

For example :-

If you are an architect of a banking software, then, based on experience, you should be able to either modify, redesign or re-engineer your solution in a new company. You should be able to lead a team of, say, 40 engineers and direct them to your solution.

With frequent switching of domains, I'm afraid, we won't gain the domain knowledge to call yourself a true designer/engineer. We can't even dream of becoming an architect who conceptualizes and gives a life to the product.

Moreover in the Indian Software Industry, for technical people, the corporate growth ladder is very vague , unlike his counterpart who has a flair for management. We wont have many architects, if they are, then most of them are namesake guys.

But Most Software Professionals I know, get dissatisfied by /frustrated by /bored of their job in a span of 3 years. They find/invent reasons and move out.

Thats why I state this rule

At least 70% People in working Software Projects move out withing 3 years quoting some excuse (which may be valid)....They may move out to higher studies/ America/new job etc

Now the big question is :-

How long does this shift(from India Services to India Products) happen ? How long will our domination in ITeS remain ? What if all these outsourcing jobs move out to China (sob!) ?

How long will it take to have 100% Indian Product Software Companies delivering killer apps ? How long will the Sales guys try to invent ways to keep the monies circulating (instead of stagnating) ?

We do have a massive Internet muscle. We showed how patriotic we were when we wanted Taj Mahal to be the new7wonder. Now why dont we have an Indian Google or a Inaian Yahoo like baidu (the google of china....for china...by china...to china).

Time will tell...I am cross-eyed.....Let's wait and watch... And there are rumours of a 6day working week .... hahahah....

NICE

NICE is the name of the corridor project which runs between two important cities of the state : Bangalore & Mysore.

It can take off some of the burden on the existing, beautiful "Mysore Road". And the fact is that it is shorter than Mysore Road by atleast 9km.

On top of that, it is an expressway (no humps, no signals) and it is designed for safe travel at a speed of 120km/hr. That's a WOW. Because the road itself is 111km.

As of now, I know many drivers who can reach Mysore within 1.5 hours. That's more of a half an hour reduction!

On top of that, it is a toll based expressway. And it is parallel to Mysore Road.

I believe it comes near the RR-Nagar and I hope it mitigates some traffic !! I am curious where exactly it comes near RRNagar. I believe it comes 1 km from Zeedy's site.

Visit the official site of NICE and also check out the NICE Road and Mysore Raod (SH17) map

7 AM

* Is the time when I get philosophical about life, living, existence, work etc
* Envy people like Sudeep, Daniel, Haerin (both from MBA), who wake up much before 7 Am and wait for 7AM
* Contemplate seriously about Phd, with the option of taking classes in the afternoon or night
* Curse the birds chirping away to glory, and the sun shinging bright piercing my eyes
* Shrug at my helplessness of not not avoiding work
* Promise myself I will not get into a Banking jobs, some of which demands me to be present at office at 7am
* Have a home close to office, so I can sleep more and travel less
* Have enough money so I need not work
* Curse the fact that I have put blades on my face for 10 minutes and peel my skin(hairs actually) off

and at 8:30 am,things are back to normal , well almost .. :D

much ado abt nothing.

0. Warning : Read this post when you are jobless and listless. There is nothing in this post.

1. I want to write a post today, but I dont have any topics in my mind to blog about. THe fact is that I don't have anything to blog. Read all my subscribed blogs too. (Of course excluding the News and the Tech Feeds).

2. Today morning I saw a snail stuck to a stone pillar. The snail is such a boring animal, I thought, as I ate the salty hot pongal which a vada and sambar in our canteen.

3. I also saw the first few episodes Season#1 of Friends. That was a good entertainment and I look forward to finish seeing the whole DVD.

4. Meanwhile, my josh to read one book (which I shall not mention now) is slowly decreasing. I cannot appreciate some aspects of that book at all.

5. The mobile phone is a wonderful invention. But sometimes, I feel disconnectivity is essential for any animal/human.

6. I got this wonderful creative idea yesterday while coming back in the shuttle, I wanted to make a novel out of it, but it was fully diluted because of an icecream i had in cornerhouse. I forgot about my idea fully.Just imagine stopping the shuttle bus going home and having icecream. We did that.

7. The FORM-16 thing has to be done. Returns have to be filed. I keep procrastinating things to intolerably nauseating level.

8. Life in the first floor of Fac-Z has been very borring. Coffee , COffee and more coffee. Grandma caterers are no more good. Maybe the mess committee must bring "Grandpa Caterers" to end this food torture. Keep going to good hotels in kormangala every now and then.

9. Heard about this concept called Halal meat. This is inhuman to say the least. Bleeding a hen until it is dead, so that there is no more blood in its veins, it seems. At least they should give the hen a chloroform.

10. Saw an eagle swooshing and picking up a rat running on the road. I thought it was a neat catch. But the rat was squeaking really loudly.

11. My newest PJ :-
What technology comes after 4G ?
Answer :- Parle G

12. I will come back with more boring stuff today.

Found : A perfect baby mammoth

There are conflicting opinions among scientists whether this could be cloned.

Some scientists have speculated about an attempt to clone a pure mammoth by fusing the nucleus of a mammoth cell with a modern elephant egg cell stripped of its own DNA.

Dr Ian Barnes of Royal Holloway, University of London, believes that, in the light of the new find, it will be possible to clone a mammoth "in my lifetime". But Dr Adrian Lister of the Natural History Museum, who was also at the Yakutsk meeting, said that the DNA would be too "shot to pieces" for this to be done easily

These creatures would be as majestic as the elephants, if they are cloned. But no idea about the habitat of the wooly mammoth.

Read about this article here.
A A perfect baby mammoth has been found in Siberia.

Topics I had in mind for blogging..

Its just half a day and I have already had so many topics in my mind to blog about..

1. Southern India.. I wrote so much about this just to loose everything cos of this stupid editor on which I am typing.. DONT hold the shift key and scroll upwards.. it deletes the contents ..
after u have reached the first character..

2. Upscale coffee shops .. in India, and why not serve local snacks .. from idli vada, bonda in south to dokhla parathas vad pavs else wehere, with capuccino, latte, filter coffee etc .. let me make some big cash and experiment these stuff sometime

3. McDs vs Sub-way, Sub-way is pure joy forever even after eating, for ppl like me, NO GUILT, good taste.. McDs always drips oil and guilt

4. Love thyself, the single most important truth in the world ..

5. Trader requires risk apettite, thats where the money is and not in research. From the past two weeks I am following a stock .. It has risen 20% in 2 weeks. Never had the guts to invest. I always found excuses to retain my money in the bank .. (though its not much)

6. Silence == 1000 confrontations !!!!!!!!!!! .. but why cant I/everyone follow it ??

back to research... oops not the Phd types ..

Concept of HIGH Heels

The concept of High Heel (also High Healing .. what I call the AOLs, ashrams, sadyoga, vinyoga, *yoga) baffles me. It is one of the most lucrative concepts in the Fashion industry.

Disclaimer :- I am not pointing fingers here please. Ladies please dont start terming me as a MCP etc etc etc

90% of women and 10% of men, or say 80% of women and 20% of men ( semi-fashion literate) wanna wear heels, as it would make them look taller. (lets not deal with the obsession about tallness here ). and sexier (in case of girls, I presume .. excuse me if this is a bias)..

Recently I observed almost every woman in my company have two pairs of shoes in the office, a high heeled one and one flats. I had recommended this idea to a dear one who witnessed immense pains in walking long distance in high heels. At that time, I felt this was an innovative idea, flats till office(preferably walking shoes) and then heels in the office environement. Well it turned out to be a bland idea.:-(

Coming to the lucrative part - High heels are designed attracitve, they look glossy and sexy, making almost every girl craving for it, at the same time it is designed to be painful. (probably on purpose, by the cartel of shoe companies). The physical design itself is the root cause of it.
With this deadly combination the consumer is constantly looking for shoes which are sexier, which will make them look sexier, but at the same time causing lesser pain (which is a like a mirage). And some feminists put the whole blame back to men, indicating men are dictating the terms here.

What triggerred this post.. A friend of my from the MBA bought 4 pairs of high-heeled shoes recently each of which costs 1000HKD+ (Rs 5000 INR) and a hand bag worth 10K HKD (50,000). Now hand-bags are a different topic altogether. I also witnessed a friend who had several wounds on her feet, which was caused due to high-heels. What's the whole purpose of paying for pain?? Adhu yeno artha ne aagolla ..
( now I know ppl will think about men and cigarettes, cars, alcohol, video games, etc etc etc)..

well everyone have their own addictions rite :)..

disclaimer:- I am not pointing fingers here please...

Why do people in the world like me don't like changes ? Change and adaptability are very essential for a good enriched life.

Most of the time I prefer to avoid a change especially in the workplace ... And sometimes prefer to live in the past than to look forward for the future. Gawd knows....Signing off ...

Taj Mahal is a new 7 wonder

When this email about voting the Taj Mahal into the new "7 world wonders" came back in 2005/06 I thought it was some kind of an elaborate idea used by a website to just increase the number of hits. Sometimes even the BBC uses this kind of online voting to elect superstars of the milennium just to increase website hits and sensationalize something.

Later, sometime in 2006 I also visited the new 7 world wonder website. Just to see if the website already exists. This was because of a jingoistic spam email which declared something like this :-

"Shame on Indians, everyone is voting but our Taj is far behind...Vote for Taj Mahal in the new7wonders.com website and help it make into the new 7 world... Jai India!!"

Later, I checked out the website. The only thing which caught my eye was :-

The New 7 Wonders of the World were announced during the Official Declaration ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007 - 07.07.07.

07-07-07 was a neat idea and it was pretty far away (in 2006). I also thought they had organized an event for it. Good.

Somewhere during early July, I began rj's asking people to login and vote and convincing people that your vote counts. And then Media Coverage in CNN-IBN and NDTV and then, the Leaders asking people to sms/vote. Woah...This was a little too much.

Not just in India, governments and prime ministers across the world are urged people to vote their own country!!!

But I wondered what was the motivation of the organization ( The New7Wonders Foundation) , which organized an event in Lisbon calling many famous personalities across the globe to announce the wonders.

The New7Wonders Foundation, which is the body behind the New7Wonders campaign, has the express aim of documenting, maintaining, restoring and reconstructing world heritage under the motto: "OUR HERITAGE IS OUR FUTURE."

The Foundation was created in 2001 by Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber, with a mission to protect humankind's heritage across the globe. The initial stages of the New7Wonders campaign were financed by Weber himself, aided by a small number of committed N7W Members.

Okay, now I think it is a very persistent and good cause. Excellent sense of event anagement. I would like to say the same in the case of the Global event "Live Earth Concerts". Tune in to the Live Earth Concerts on Radio Indigo or see it Live! on VH1.For the cause of Live Earth, just visit this link.

Hilarious

This joke began doing rounds because of a punctuation error (comma) in a popular dictionary. I can't stop laughing.

A panda walks into a restaurant, sits down, and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich, pulls out a gun, and shoots the waiter dead. As the panda stands up to go, the manager shouts, "Hey! Where are you going? You just shot my waiter, and you didn't even pay for your sandwich!"

"Hey, man, I'm a PANDA!" the panda shouts back. "Look it up!"

The manager opens his dictionary and reads:

Panda: A tree-dwelling marsupial of Asian origin, characterized by distinct black and white coloring. Eats, shoots and leaves.

Profession

Each person is entrusted with a role and responsibility to the society. But more often, we always find that some jobs which are very valuable (which can be compared in terms of intrinsic value) but are sometimes thankless (in terms of recognition).

For example :-
1. Consider Clint Eastwood, a film actor.
2. Consider C.A.R.Hoare or Djikstra, a mathematician and a computer scientist.
3. Consider an unknown NGO teacher who goes into the depths of Africa to distribute food.

C.A.R.Hoare has invented quicksort because of which many sorting programs may have become efficient. Djikstra has done so many things in the field of computer Science.But nobody bothers whether they are dead or alive (Okay some of their own folk do bother). But it is such a difficult task to do!!!! Who appreciates that ?

Why is it like that ?

Somebody can shoot to instant fame just because of one of their work of art. Some guys write one best seller and they are already millionaires. But there is no such concept called "instant fame" for many jobs in science/tech etc.Some jobs may have so much value which may be disproportionately unrewarding.

A serious of thoughts are going on in my head after I read this quote by Warren Buffet :-

I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I've earned. If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil... I work in a market system that happens to reward what I do very well - disproportionately well. Mike Tyson, too. If you can knock a guy out in 10 seconds and earn $10 million for it, this world will pay a lot for that. If you can bat .360, this world will pay a lot for that. If you're a marvelous teacher, this world won't pay a lot for it. If you are a terrific nurse, this world will not pay a lot for it. Now, am I going to try to come up with some comparable worth system that somehow (re)distributes that? No, I don't think you can do that. But I do think that when you're treated enormously well by this market system, where in effect the market system showers the ability to buy goods and services on you because of some peculiar talent - maybe your adenoids are a certain way, so you can sing and everybody will pay you enormous sums to be on television or whatever -I think society has a big claim on that.

Today's Headlines on Rediff and my opinion

• Will Musharraf declare emergency in Pakistan?•

Hasnt Pakistan always been in some kind of emergency..?? atleast once in a decade

UK terror plot: Indian doctor could be innocent•

Explore Pak Newspapers for their views :)

Is this the Indian doctor held for UK terror plot?•

No .. you will link his roots to Pak some how


Pak: Explosion rocks Lal Masjid; 10 killed

Truly sad, the way we blame ISI, Pak papers blame RAW for this incident

Pix• Kraft, Danone deal excludes India

And China ?? what about the drink controversy, Kraft intrested only in biscuits ??

Top 25 MFs• Japanese majors to invest $10 bn Quiz•

Ignore , Ignore , Ignore...

Champion Mauresmo shocked Images•

Images not good.. Mauresmo, tell me who watches wimbeldon for Mauresmo ;-).. or venus or serena.. Its the age of russians

Sania Mirza-Shahar Peer in 3rd round

this is an achievement indeed ..

Add on your views.. it should be fun..

This is getting ridiculous

I understand that Apple Iphone is a very good gadget and it looks good and all that. But why do people go crazy and queue up to buy a mobile phone. Is it really THAT good.

Look at the headlines :-

Techies pull apart iPhone; shares of parts-makers rise [1]
Up to 700,000 iPhones have sold [2]
Most buyers like new iPhones [3]
Of course after shelling out so much money, you always will tell my decision is the best one on the planet to justify your action
Apple's iPhone isn't perfect, but it's worthy of the hype [4]
iWait : Some experts advise iPhone buyers to wait [5]

And a quick review stolen from a news site :-

5 things I like
1 - Terrific widescreen iPod and clever Cover Flow feature.
2 - Smart sensors that change the orientation of the screen from landscape to portrait mode
3 - Gorgeous 3.5-inch multi-touch screen does exceptional job displaying pictures, Internet, maps, e-mail etc.
4 - Flicking through contacts and pictures, pinching to make pix and the Web larger, and tapping on the intelligent virtual keyboard is fun (once you get the hang of it).
5 - Phone is easy to dial despite lack of physical keypad. Visual voicemail.

5 things I'd like to see
1 - Faster "3G" or "third generation" data network
2 - Removable battery
3 - Greater storage (through storage slot)
4 - Extra features including GPS, IM, voice calling, Adobe Flash , and using your own music library for ringtones.
5 - Lower price


This is mega-hype. This is something like a Rajni movie. Now as I type this sentence I realise many people (including me) succumb to the mega hype and I may probably end up buying it.

But it really makes me wonder. Sometimes you just want to be different when you want to buy a new phone.

Nokia N95 looked and was something REALLY fabulous. I loved it. But come on, Rs.40K is too damn expensive. You can buy a bike for 40K.

But yeno artha aagolla...Smart phone is a tertiary need for mankind (atleast in 2008).

Off-beat cinemas

I have watched a few very good comedies in the past few weeks/months. These cinemas prove as to why you can make good movies without much expense and stop betting on big stars (Jhoom bara bar Jhoom). A treand set by Nagesh Kukunoor this is becoming a mainsteam ??

This is an alernative market, which can have substantial returns considering the amount of money invested. And can inspire the likes of sudeep :). I heard Shivaji, had a budget of 80 crores. I am not sure anyone apart from Rajinikanth (with his hysteric fan followers) can affford to breakeven such a budget. (even Baba couldnt rite ??). The tickets of Shivaji were too exhorbitnat in Hong Kong ..:(. looking forward for the DVD .. :d ..

back to the list of movies .. You can catch all these on either
irani-chai.com or videoduniya.com..

not in order of any preference...

Bheja Fry - absolutely hilarious.. one man show .. cheers to Vinay Thakoor
Khosla ka Ghosla - anupam kher, bomman irani .. rock in this struggle of a middle-class delhiite in the hands of real-estate mafia .. the Software engineer here is a reflection of us :)
The Angrez -- The hydrebadi Urdu ..mann its just amazing..not very polished by script .. I stil love this movie..
Hyderabadi Nawabs - From 'The Angrez' team. They have improved a lot in flim-making here
Ek Chalis ki Last Local - I am so glad Abhay Deol is not following the path of his elders'
Chennai 60028 - for those who can understand tamil and love gully cricket

these are just a few and there are a numerous of them... just keep your eyes open wide and clear..

signing offf from Chinki land..
cheers
gd