Cyclical things happen in all parts of life. There are mega trends and there are minor cyclical trends within those mega trends. The frequency depends on which cycle we are referring to.
The mistake that we make is usually we may find the mega trend or micro trend that is prevailing but fail to notice the other. The events that keep happening are a combination of both these trends. So we get surprised when events happen contrary to the trend that we are observing. If we stitch together all the contrary things - we may find the other trend that we are missing.
May appear like some gyan. Most observations are :-). So feel happy to read, forget or read & think.
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Learning again the computer science & engineering stuff
Feels like breathing fresh air during a morning walk on a tree lined avenue.
From the days of my engineering almost 14 years, the computing technology has evolved to a great extent. The fundamental principle of thermodynamics that the entropy of a system keeps increasing leads to ever increasing complexity however much we try. By creating a new way of doing things or finding new thing, we add to intellectual complexity as we have one more item to consider. These new things implicitly lead to more complex systems. For that matter "ignorance is bliss" is a truism. The key to understand is that these new things essentially create new paths and hence add to combinatorial explosion. If these new things completely replaced existing ITEMS (yes, plural), then these reduce the complexity.
I don't think that happens as the technology itself accelerates to the creation of new items.
Why such a long preamble?
Because The thought that we are already in the era of parallel processing at mobile phone level hit me hard. The multicore computing systems would possibly now require almost everybody to be aware of the parallel processing (guys please forget concurrent processing). These will change computation in fundamental ways because till date all computation except in the research areas has been single core. All system software, & application software is geared towards it. The OS concepts that we learnt talked about CPU scheduling for only one processor.
The parallel processing is a whole new learning for me as I need to go back and relearn the concepts of parallel processing. I was always a big fan of very nice multithreading support in Java and loved to create multi-threaded programs. (I remember one incident - our team wrote a multi-threaded data transfer as well as processing application so well that whenever it used to run, it pushed the CPU usage to 100% and that caused crisis saying that we are hogging the CPU time without letting other applications to run - How can that happen on a preemptive multi-tasking system I couldn't fathom :-)). So I love to see what is left to be done yet at the level of applications. This definitely will need extensions to all language libraries with implementations of parallel versions of algorithms to make full use of current day desktop computers.
Similarly the need to process massive quantities of data is leading to the need of everybody to become aware of the concept of distributed computing.
I am headlong in to learning these new things so that I don't become a dinosaur. Yes, I have become pretty good at managing, but without the knowledge of current day evolving trends I would not be able to compete with the best. I always wish to compete and create best results and win.
The idea of looking at these trends which are very powerful and beautiful is exhilarating and refreshing.
From the days of my engineering almost 14 years, the computing technology has evolved to a great extent. The fundamental principle of thermodynamics that the entropy of a system keeps increasing leads to ever increasing complexity however much we try. By creating a new way of doing things or finding new thing, we add to intellectual complexity as we have one more item to consider. These new things implicitly lead to more complex systems. For that matter "ignorance is bliss" is a truism. The key to understand is that these new things essentially create new paths and hence add to combinatorial explosion. If these new things completely replaced existing ITEMS (yes, plural), then these reduce the complexity.
I don't think that happens as the technology itself accelerates to the creation of new items.
Why such a long preamble?
Because The thought that we are already in the era of parallel processing at mobile phone level hit me hard. The multicore computing systems would possibly now require almost everybody to be aware of the parallel processing (guys please forget concurrent processing). These will change computation in fundamental ways because till date all computation except in the research areas has been single core. All system software, & application software is geared towards it. The OS concepts that we learnt talked about CPU scheduling for only one processor.
The parallel processing is a whole new learning for me as I need to go back and relearn the concepts of parallel processing. I was always a big fan of very nice multithreading support in Java and loved to create multi-threaded programs. (I remember one incident - our team wrote a multi-threaded data transfer as well as processing application so well that whenever it used to run, it pushed the CPU usage to 100% and that caused crisis saying that we are hogging the CPU time without letting other applications to run - How can that happen on a preemptive multi-tasking system I couldn't fathom :-)). So I love to see what is left to be done yet at the level of applications. This definitely will need extensions to all language libraries with implementations of parallel versions of algorithms to make full use of current day desktop computers.
Similarly the need to process massive quantities of data is leading to the need of everybody to become aware of the concept of distributed computing.
I am headlong in to learning these new things so that I don't become a dinosaur. Yes, I have become pretty good at managing, but without the knowledge of current day evolving trends I would not be able to compete with the best. I always wish to compete and create best results and win.
The idea of looking at these trends which are very powerful and beautiful is exhilarating and refreshing.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Symbolism - Cobra with opened hood (No I am not brain dead yet :-))
It all began with me and my wife going in to a restaurant previous weekend when I was visiting her. There we chanced upon the Chinese predictions for the people born under the signs of various animals. For the uninitiated it is important to know that like all ancient cultures Chinese also follow a calendar based on Moon and each year is named after an animal in a predefined set of animals. The people born in these years are thought to manifest the nature ascribed to the animal.
Then, when we were through our dinner, my wife started asking why snakes are considered wise beings? I did not have a definitive answer. Today suddenly a moth fell in to the glass of milk I was drinking and died. It made me look through the symbolic meaning. While looking at that, i read about snakes open hood being used as a symbol of offense by Egyptian pharaohs. in Hindu mythology lord Vishnu sleeps on a bed formed by the curling body of 1000 hooded serpent named Adishesha. Here, snake with open hood is a symbol of security and shelter.
Suddenly it flashed to me that the opened hood of a cobra very gracefully combines both the offensive and defensive natures. It is what the rulers must do and must be like. Punish the wrong doers and protect the pious. It is what the wise people do.
Now I believe I know why snakes and among them the cobra is held in such high regard.
Then, when we were through our dinner, my wife started asking why snakes are considered wise beings? I did not have a definitive answer. Today suddenly a moth fell in to the glass of milk I was drinking and died. It made me look through the symbolic meaning. While looking at that, i read about snakes open hood being used as a symbol of offense by Egyptian pharaohs. in Hindu mythology lord Vishnu sleeps on a bed formed by the curling body of 1000 hooded serpent named Adishesha. Here, snake with open hood is a symbol of security and shelter.
Suddenly it flashed to me that the opened hood of a cobra very gracefully combines both the offensive and defensive natures. It is what the rulers must do and must be like. Punish the wrong doers and protect the pious. It is what the wise people do.
Now I believe I know why snakes and among them the cobra is held in such high regard.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Living
Life is about living happily. To live happily we need peace within our heart. This is more than enough. Let us realize this & give up on all egoistic pursuits which bring nothing but misery.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Curtains and life
I was looking at the closed curtains in my house; suddenly i realized, they don't let the outsiders see what is inside, but at the same time also prevent the light from streaming in and making the house look bright. Our lives are also like this, we may be closed and guarded with a feeling of security, but at the same time prevent the inflow of knowledge & wisdom that helps us get better.
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