Why Am I Not Surprised?

Murali

Today is a somber day for all of us in our office. Our beloved colleague Murali passed on last Friday, and we all attended his funeral today and shared our grief with his family and close friends.

The last time I met him was in his office a couple of months ago. He was going through an aggressive treatment (chemo, radiation, and surgery) for his cancer then. As always, he welcomed me with a big smile and shiny eyes. When I inquired him about his health, in spite of all his complications, he explained to me about the panel of surgeons working on his case in New York, his recent trip there, and the anatomy of his ailment in a very casual tone and light spirit. He spoke about his body just the way he would talk about his car. Being a big time Football fan, he casually changed the topic to Virginia Tech Football team! His level of detachment and zest for life has been a true inspiration for us all. He sure "lived" his life.

I am very happy that his Kannada friends and our colleagues have provided Murali and his family excellent support after he was admitted into critical care about three weeks ago. Especially, Jim and Maureen visited him once or twice every day. Jim used to go directly to the hospital from the office, and read News Papers and Books for Murali, as he was heavily sedated. Murali's team gathered every day for a prayer for his well being. Murali's magnetism has moved our whole office. I think some people are born to make others happy and Murali is definitely one of them. I am very fortunate that I was associated with such a great person, even though it was for a short period of time. May peace be with Murali and his family.

Causes of Mass Extinctions

Leave alone the message, I thought the depiction of Pleistocene period was pretty funny!

LBJ

Enjoyed the optional holiday in observance of Lyndon B. Johnson's birthday - light traffic and quiet hallways. Here is some information I gathered on LBJ. Incidentally, his wife's name is also LBJ.

Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, was the thirty-sixth President of the United States (1963–1969). After serving a long career in the U.S. Congress, Johnson became the thirty-seventh Vice President, and in 1963, he succeeded to the presidency following President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

After leaving the presidency in 1969, Johnson went home to his ranch in Johnson City, Texas. In 1971, he published his memoirs, The Vantage Point. That year, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum opened near the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. It is the most-visited presidential library in the nation, with over a quarter million visitors per year. He donated his Texas ranch in his will to the public to form the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, with the provision that the ranch "remain a working ranch and not become a sterile relic of the past".

- Lyndon Johnson was 6 feet 3 inches (190 cm) tall and weighed about 216 pounds (98 kg), the second tallest President, behind Abraham Lincoln at 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm) tall.

- Johnson was famously frugal. Even as President, White House tapes recorded him asking a photographer to take his family portraits for free, saying he was a very poor man living on a weekly paycheck and had a very great deal of financial debt. In fact Johnson was a multimillionaire, but he still wasn't charged for the photographic portraits. The White House press corps made jokes at his expense regarding his habit of turning off all lights in the White House when the rooms were not in use. Johnson's secretary revealed years later that he would wash and reuse Styrofoam cups.

- His favorite soft drink was Fresca, which he drank constantly. Johnson had a small control box installed in the writing desk in the small personal office adjacent to the Oval Office. This control box contained two buttons, marked "Coffee" and "Fresca". Pushing one of these buttons would summon Johnson's military aide bringing the appropriate drink.

- His Secret Service codename was Volunteer.

- Johnson, while using the White House bathroom, was known to insist that others accompany him and continue to discuss official matters or take dictation. Among those who received this "privilege" was Katherine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post.

Flugtag 2007 - Austin

Tens of thousands of onlookers battled a relentless Saturday afternoon sun to watch the Red Bull Flugtag Texas, held in Austin for the first time since 2003. Engineering prowess. Bravery. Creativity. Dancing skills. The gall to throw all kinds of garbage into Lady Bird Lake.

"This is tailor-made for Austin folks, because it's so weird," said Larry Burger, who was working security at the event.

A Flugtag (German: flight day, airshow) is an event in which competitors attempt to fly in homemade flying machines. The flying machines are usually launched off a pier about 30 ft high into the sea (or suitably sized reservoir of water). Most competitors enter for the entertainment value, and the flying machines rarely fly at all. The first Flugtag took place in Austria in 1991.

Twenty-eight teams competed Saturday, mostly from Texas but some from as far away as Alberta. Their entries were limited only by their size — they could not exceed 30 feet in width and had to weigh less than 450 pounds — and the imaginations of their designers. The prizes included a piloting course and skydiving lessons.

among the entries:

(1) The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, a plane piloted by people in Margaret Thatcher and George W. Bush masks who hung an effigy of Al Gore in the center of their glider.

(2) An oversized frying pan with a team dressed like bacon and eggs

Will Wynn Will Win

Austin's Mayor Will Wynn's name is all setup for pun. I wonder if he used a slogan like "Will Wynn will win" during his mayoral election campaign:-) It is good to know that Austin continues to be one of the most beautiful and desired cities in the US for living in.

Austin Mayor Will Wynn is sporting a Prada* suit in the pages of September’s Esquire magazine. In the photo, part of a series of portraits taken at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Los Angeles in June, Wynn sports a two-button wool suit ($2,425) and silk tie ($160) by Prada and a cotton shirt ($99) by Charles Tyrwhitt.

The piece includes a short interview. “Right now, I’m quarterbacking the youngest, most-educated, safest, fastest-growing city in the U.S.,” Wynn, 45, is quoted as saying. When asked about his greatest triumph, he says: “I feel like Napoleon bulldozing medieval Paris. We have seven tower cranes up right now.”

Though I am not a big fan of city politics, from a few TV clips that I watched during channel surfing, I thought mayoral campaign would be a fun thing to watch. It was amusing to note that homeless cross-dresser Leslie Cochran won 8% of the vote and Dale Reed, a cab driver, won about 5% of the vote in 2000. And then, I enjoy the spirit of Restaurateur Marc Katz (Katz never kloses) who lost to Will Wynn in mayor elections for his continued light-hearted local TV ads "I may not be the mayor, but I am the pastrami king"!

Now, his opponents might call this Devil Wears Prada!

The Most Expensive Catch

The 21-year-old college student who grew up near Shea Stadium emerged from a mad scramble at AT&T Park on Tuesday night with a bloodied face and the city's most-prized souvenir: the ball from Barry Bonds' record 756th home run. Barry Bonds passed Hank Aaron to become Major League Baseball's new all-time home run leader when he belted No. 756 off Washington's Mike Bacsik.

By most estimates, the ball that put Bonds atop the list of all-time home run hitters with 756 would sell in the half-million dollar range on the open market or at auction.

That would instantly put Murphy in the highest tax bracket for individual income, where he would face a tax rate of about 35 percent, or about $210,000 on a $600,000 ball.

"It's an expensive catch," said John Barrie, a veteran tax lawyer with Bryan Cave LLP in New York who grew up watching the Giants play at Candlestick Park. "Once he took possession of the ball and it was his ball, it was income to him based on its value as of yesterday,"

Even if he does not sell the ball, Murphy would still owe the taxes based on a reasonable estimate of its value, according to Barrie. Capital gains taxes also could be levied in the future as the ball gains value, he said.

Ouch!

Ignorance is Bliss!

Elvira Arellano Deported

An illegal immigrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born son has been deported to Mexico, the church’s pastor said.

Elvira Arellano became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents as she defied her deportation order and spoke out from her religious sanctuary. She held a news conference last week to announce that she would finally leave the church to try to lobby U.S. lawmakers for change.

Arellano, 32, arrived in Washington state illegally in 1997. She was deported to Mexico shortly afterward, but returned and moved to Illinois in 2000, taking a job cleaning planes at O’Hare International Airport.

She was arrested in 2002 at O’Hare and convicted of working under a false Social Security number. She was to surrender to authorities last August but instead sought refuge at the church on Aug. 15, 2006.

She had not left the church property until she decided to travel by car to Los Angeles, Coleman said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed her arrest and said she was deported Sunday night through San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing.

I find it intriguing that a good number of illegal immigrants think that they have right to live and work in the US, without slightest remorse for violating the Laws of the United States. I think the right thing for all illegal immigrants, including the Cubans who enter the US on Wet feet, dry feet policy and Mexicans who enter the US with help from Coyotes, is to quit complaining about immigration laws, pledge their allegiance to the US, and begin assimilation.

I think the USCIS did the right thing in deporting Elvira, as she entered the US multiple times illegally, and worked with a false Social Security Number. I read somewhere that it costs around $2,000 to the US tax payers for deporting one illegal immigrant. Multiply this by 12 million!

Can't Complain About Work

An @tempt For @raction

One of the differences I noticed between the second generation Indians and their Chinese counterparts is their nomenclature. It appears that most of the Chinese parents in the US give their children American first names like Jason, Jim, and Andy. This is not the case with Indians - we stick with Indian names (which I think is good).

The following article on unconventional naming reminded me of my dad's colleague Late Dr. S.V. Joga Rao - he liked Shakespeare's literature so much that he named his son Venkata Shakespeare!

A Chinese couple seeking a distinctive name for their child settled on the e-mail ‘at’ symbol — annoying government officials grappling with an influx of unorthodox names. The unidentified couple were cited Thursday by a government official as an example of citizens bringing bizarre names into the Chinese language.

Written Chinese does not use an alphabet but is comprised of characters, sometimes making it difficult to develop words for new or foreign objects and ideas. As of last year, only 129 names accounted for 87 percent of all surnames in China, Li Yuming, vice director of the State Language Commission, said at a news conference.

The letters ‘a’ and ’t’ can be pronounced in a way that sounds like the phrase “love him” in Chinese. The father “said ‘the whole world uses it to write e-mails and, translated into Chinese, it means ‘love him,”’ Li said. Li did not say if police, who are the arbiters of names because they issue identity cards, rejected baby ‘at'.

Funny Epitaphs

Here Lies Butch
We planted him raw
He was quick on the trigger
But slow on the draw

Here lies mangled Hiriam Brown
Peered up the shaft to see
If the elevator was coming down.
It was.

Here lies an atheist
He's all dressed up
With no place to go

Indian and Pakistani Independence Day

Pakistan and India have celebrated their షష్టి పూర్తి (60th birthday) on August 14th and August 15th of 2007 respectively. Read somewhere that Lord Mountbatten arranged this way (indepenedence day, a day apart), so that he could attend independence day ceremonies in both countries (not sure if it is true). I wish both of these countries well. I felt bad about the renewed tensions in Kashmir. It shouldn't be this way.

There are fanatics on both sides of the border (more on one side than the other, depending on who we talk to). I think we, the educated in India and Pakistan should start respecting each other. Many of us agree on religious tolerance, just in theory. But when we realize that a group of narrow-minded people on the other side of the fence are hating us, we would reciprocate in kind (eye for an eye thing). If we too behave like the bad guys, what is the difference between them and us?

Among my family and Indian friends, I felt that the majority just do not like Pakistan and they see (at least deep down inside) it as an inferior country. My take on this is, it is OK to disapprove a country's choices, but "hatred" is not good for our soul. If we think that they need help to grow, why not wish them well?

Sure, I can make the biggest garland in town for Shirdi Sai Baba. But if I don't listen to what He is saying (Hindu-Muslim unity), am I really respecting Him? I don't know if He actually made specific statements to this effect, but I can't imagine Him saying "those Muslims are nuts, hate them". Of course, my criticism also applies to the majority Pakistanis who hate Hindus.

Early this year in Vizag, one of my relatives (a very nice person) said that he and his dad were jumping out of joy and cheering when Babri Masjid was being destroyed. He developed this hatred because he grew up as a minority Hindu in Hyderabad Old City, and he was discriminated and harassed in his childhood. If I were in his shoes, I probably would have reacted the same way. Some of us are fortunate and did not have to put up with this kind of humiliation. However, we manage to develop this religious hatred based on second-hand knowledge. My question is, why are we crossing this bridge before reaching it?

I am really fortunate that I have been exposed to excellent Muslim roommates and some kind-hearted Pakistani friends. Though I am far from perfection, I feel blessed because I wasn't exposed to circumstances that instilled hatred for Muslims. However, I do realize that I probably will have a different view if I were living in Kashmir right now.

I can visualize at least a couple of my (non-Sea Sands) friends in India fuming over my radical view point in this blog post:-( If you say that I am ignorant and crazy, I would say "tell me something that I don't know!" and also "It took you this long to figure this out?!" . Finally, Augsut 15th is a good day for me as it is also the birthday of my అక్క(Ramani) and బావ (Anand). Peace out yall'.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future? - Nehru, on Indian Independence Day.

If we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor... you are free- you are free to go to your temples mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state... in due course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to Muslims- not in a religious sense for that is the personal faith of an individual- but in a political sense as citizens of one state. - Jinnah on Pakistani Independence Day.

One Nation, Under Gun

In my previous life as a consultant, I had an opportunity to travel quite a bit in rural Texas - from gas gathering stations in East Texas to Oil fields in West Texas. During these trips, I used to get fascinated by the people with fascination for guns! Gun racks in the pickup trucks is a pretty common sight in small towns. Why would some one need to carry a gun all the time? After a while, I started accepting guns as just (dangerous) toys.

While working on Zant Seep, we (I and my colleague Chris) once parked our truck in the middle of a cotton field in oil fields of West Texas, and walked about a quarter mile to a ranch house of the owner of the property, to ask him some questions. After we introduced ourselves, the owner said that he thought that we were some miscreants, and for a few minutes he was watching us through his gun scope! He was a pretty nice guy and he showed (off) his gun collection. His gun vault looked as if it belonged to barracks!

The following article in recent News Week reminded me of the above incident.

The Second Amendment tells us that 'a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'

Two hundred years later, in 1999, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimated that there are about 215 million guns in America--at least one firearm in half the households in the country. The anti-gun Brady Campaign, however, puts that number at 192 million guns, owned by 39 percent of the population. Either way, that's a lot of firepower.

Photographer Kyle Cassidy wanted to find out who these people were, what they looked like and how they lived. So he traveled 15,000 miles over the course of two years taking pictures of people with their weapons and asking them one question: 'Why do you own a gun?' His new book, 'Armed America,' is the culmination of that project. Keep clicking for Cassidy's portraits of Americans at home with their six-shooters and 12 gauges.

Demotivator

Carrots for Vegetarianism

Before talking about vegetariansim, I must say that I don't see anything wrong in eating meat. If a living thing tastes good, if you can run faster than it and catch it, I would say have fun eating it! I think killing a plant is no different than killing an animal. It is natural that carbon-based life forms depend on each other for nutrition and survival. However, I do believe that vegetarianism (or reducing our dependence on animal protein) is cheaper and is good for the planet.

In a world of $1 double cheeseburgers, it's no wonder that many people suspect that a vegetarian diet is more expensive than one that includes meat. But that's generally not true. And though it's difficult to tally the savings of illnesses or diseases avoided with a plant-based diet, the financial worth of good health is unquestionable. Vegetarianism could extend your life by several years, as well as lower your risk of heart disease, cancer and dementia. It's better for the planet, reducing water usage and global-warming gases.

A vegetarian diet uses considerably less water than a meat based diet. This is because to produce meat, water must be used in the production of feed for animals, which must be fed to the animals during their entire life. The loss of water (and energy) between trophic levels is very large. When the grains go directly to humans this inefficiency is avoided.

As an illustration, the water needed to produce a pound of wheat in the USA is 14 gallons whereas the water needed to produce a pound of beef is 441 gallons. More than half of the water use for all purposes in the USA is used for livestock production. For reasons of inefficiency similar to that of water consumption, animal protein demands far greater expenditures of fossil fuel energy — eight times as much for a comparable amount of plant protein.

Petroleum is one of the resources freed up for other usage by a vegetarian diet: Within the Pulitzer-winning book by John Robbins, "Diet for a New America," which uses data primarily sourced from the world's largest body of scientists, AAAS, Robbins explains how the petroleum used in the transportation of farm-animals, the later processing of them, and the raising and harvesting of the vast amount of crops fed to farm-animals (which is much greater than the amount of crops people would need if we were to eat the crops directly, rather than feeding them to animals, then eating the animals), adds up to greatly increase the amount of petroleum used. So, if more people adopt a vegan diet, not only is more food available, but more petroleum to deliver that food is.

Lies and Absolute Lies

A'mazing' Flow Chart

Recently, I attended part of a tele-conference (out of curiosity, as a passive participant) organized by the toxicology group in our agency. Their discussions reminded me of a guidance document these folks use for ecological considerations. Particularly, the following flow chart on page 92 explains my reason for walking out in the middle of the tele-conference, a lot better than words! Talk about cramming information into 8-inch x11-inch!

I respect these scientists who take apparently random data, quantify it, analyze the numbers, and come out with qualitative recommendations. It is just like in any other science, except that finding dose-response relation data on humans is hard to obtain; we are not expendable like guinea pigs:-(

Even though I did not understand most of what they were talking about (hence the walk out), I did like their thought processes in accounting for biases in epidemiological studies.

Theory of Relativity

Little Boy and Fat Man

Sixty two years ago on this day, the United States has dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It is amazing what kind of atrocities we (the people, en masse) are capable of committing with greater good in mind. When it comes to causing destruction with the logic "end would justify the means", there is no difference between a suicide bomber in Iraq and the President of a country causing a "rain of ruin". The result is the same - destruction.

Little Boy was the codename of the atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945 by the 12-man crew of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets of the United States Army Air Forces. It was the first atomic bomb ever used as a weapon and was dropped three days before the "Fat Man" bomb was used against Nagasaki.

The weapon was developed during the Manhattan Project during World War II. It derived its explosive power from the nuclear fissioning of enriched uranium. The Hiroshima bombing was the second man-made nuclear explosion in history (the first was the "Trinity" test), and it was the first uranium-based detonation ever. Approximately 600 milligrams of mass were converted into energy. It exploded with a destructive power equivalent to between 13 and 16 kilotons of TNT (estimates vary) and killed approximately 140,000 people including associated effects.

It is fascinating how small things that we hardly notice alter our fates dramatically (reminds me of Five people You Meet in Heaven). The primary target for Fat Man was Kokura. But cloudy skies (pilots couldn't see the target) coupled with low fuel (due to equipment failure) in Bockscar prevented pilots from bombing Kokura. So, if not for clouds in Kokura, thousands in Nagasaki would have been alive now (of course, thousands in Kokura would have been toasted).

Copa Cabana

One of my daily pleasures is, attempting to solve Jumble in the newspaper within a minute, without writing circled letters in a separate space. For most of the puzzles, I have no problem in achieving this. Though (in retrospect!) I didn't think that this one is hard, I had to write the letters (as can be seen through badly erased letters) and managed to bust the time on this. Anyway, I loved the answer.

Reading Palm's Future!

Catchy title in the newspaper coupled with my continued loyalty to Palm products and upgrades prompted me to blog this.

Once upon a time, in a simpler world before cell phones became teenage accessories and workplace necessities, a Silicon Valley startup called Palm Inc. launched a mobile revolution. Its creation of the PalmPilot, an easy-to-use hand-held computing device, meant people were no longer tethered to their PCs. It could hold addresses, phone numbers and to-do lists — all in the "palm" of your hand. More than one million were sold within 18 months.

Along the way, Palm has changed ownership, lost its creators, won the creators back and most recently found itself looking for new ownership options. At the same time, the company that changed the mobile landscape failed to keep pace with consumers' changing taste. It was late to mobile e-mail and lost momentum to the BlackBerry. It most recently failed to anticipate the preference for slim smart-phones, continuing to sell the relatively hefty Treo.

"Palm is viewed as somewhat antiquated in the minds of consumers," said Tavis McCourt, a financial analyst with research and investing firm Morgan Keegan. So, when the Sunnyvale, Calif., company agreed last month to sell a 25 percent stake to a star-powered private equity firm that would inject money and bring in fresh talent, investors thought they might have found Prince Charming.

Elevation Partners, co-founded by U2 lead singer Bono, will infuse Palm with $325 million in cash. As part of the deal, former Apple Inc. senior vice president Jon Rubinstein will become executive chairman at Palm. Rubinstein was a key executive in creating Apple's phenomenally popular iPod digital device.

But this latest twist in the story offers no guarantees. The new team faces two immediate and daunting challenges: introducing a new thin phone and competing with the iPhone. While Palm executives say it will take years to see any new phones or gadgets from the deal, Wall Street says the company will need to move fast to catch up with the rapidly changing mobile marketplace.

By Christmas, Palm will need to introduce a thinner, sleeker version of its latest commercial success, the Palm Treo smartphone, which was introduced in 2002, analysts said.

Ethanol - Not Hale

Drivers might save a few cents a gallon filling their tanks with ethanol, but they could soon be paying more for a burger and a milkshake as a result.

Demand for corn needed to make ethanol is soaring, and so are the prices, which have more than doubled within the past year.

That's bad news for beef and dairy producers, who also depend on the grain to feed their herds. Many say that cost will eventually be passed on to consumers and will likely mean higher grocery bills later this year.

Cattle feeders and producers aren't the only ones complaining about higher corn prices. Dairy farmers also are feeling the pinch.

"As more acres go into corn, it takes out other forages," Canton dairy farmer Scott Ortiz said.

U.S. farmers who once grew forage crops like alfalfa, milo or grain sorghum are switching to corn. That means fewer forage crops to feed dairy cows, said John Cowan, executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen.

Milk prices are expected to continue to climb because of higher transportation costs and the increased corn demand.

J. Richard Fleming, the USDA's dairy market administrator in Dallas, said higher corn prices affect dairy farms in other ways, too.

"As the price of feed goes up, the higher cost of production has a tendency to decrease production of the farm," he said.

Uri Geller Xposed

While we were in Sea Sands, I was fascinated by Uri Geller's story in the book Strange Stories and Amazing Facts. I think gullibility is in Indian blood. We believe blindly in ESP etc. more readily than the folks in the west, I think.

I remember once a quack showed up as a guest at one of the kind-hearted residents at Sea Sands (this colony was filled with well-educated academicians, THEN). This snake oil salesman claimed that he spent many years in the foot hills of Himalayas, and that he found panacea. People (esp. house wives) lined up to buy his magic potion and paid up to Rs. 2,000 for ~ 100 grams of a light green colored powder.

This was long time ago when Rs. 2,000 was a lot of money for middle class people (even now, it is a good chunk of money). I estimate that this charlatan coolly made fifty grand and disappeared like in 15 days. Of course, he told the bakras that it would take a couple of weeks for this medicine to start working! I heard that Dr. Vaidyanathan of # 14 Sea Sands challenged that if the medicine works, he would quit his job - but his wife bought some davai anyway.

The following (old) video on Uri Geller reminded me of the story above. The last part of the video on psychic healers in Philippines was very well presented in the movie Man on the Moon (story of Andy Kaufman). R.E.M.'s title song for this movie is one of my favorites (see music video after following Geller's).

Though I was tempted to (out of curiosity), I had never been to a psychic or a Tarot card reader. But if I do go to a psychic, before I cough up ~$25, I would ask them to show me the annual average rate of return on on their stock portfolio!


REM Video - Man on the Moon