I am Jack's Brilliance.

What is in a mind? What is it that differentiates one mind from the other. I have Artificial Neural Networks as a course this term. And they tell me it is all in the weights.

Let me elaborate. Artificial Neural Networks work like this. Inside your head are tiny little orange balls called neurons. There are a number of these things in your head, millions of them. And they are connected to each other to form a network. These connections help in "learning". What basically happens is that every new situation is an input to the network. And with each new input, the neurons "learn" the input and reconfigure themselves. This happens over time, and hence people grow wiser as they gain experience.

So, essentially, it all boils down to two things

• the way learning happens with each new input
• how much of these inputs are provided

Now my arguments goes like this. It is tempting to assume that the human learning differs from each other in the learning function used. But this may not be the truth because, if there were different learning rates and learning methods, and some were better than the other, Mr. Darwin and his theory would have ensured that the best remain while the others would die. In fact this would also mean that the child would always be more "brilliant" than the father and so on. But clearly this is not the case.

Hence the case for the other idea. That what actually differs from person to person is the inputs given. "Hold on...", you will be saying, "moron, all people live in the same world, how can each persons input be different from the others". My answer is simple. People do not live in the same world. Each person lives in his/her perception of the world. And this is what makes the difference.

Here I want to define a term - Sphere of Perception. It is that selected inputs that are filtered from the various inputs, and fed into your learning network. It in essence captures what you see the world as, and what you would like to learn from. We will understand it more as we go along. But one final clincher. Remember, how the big talk always asked you to see the truth, and gain enlightenment? Well, that proves my point. The constant struggle of man should be just for one thing. To gain enlightenment - by expanding and extending one's sphere of perception.

I have to Submit an assignment in ANN tomorrow. Doesnt seem as if I will be able to make the deadline. Lets see how it goes.

Perception IS the reality, all else is an ILLUSION.

~!nrk

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Or CatB as it is popularly known, is a mecca of thoughts.

A collection of ideas central to tommorrow. Why tommorrow? Ever heard of the third wave? If you have not, we'll postpone detailed discussion for another day. But what it essentially means is that there were two waves of development in the human past; the first wave - when man learnt to grow food. The second wave - when the industrial revolution happenned. And in the same line, todays knowledge revolution is the third wave. And this third wave is changing the fundamentals of our society.

And for me, that is the one and only commandment. Over the days, you will be treated to several of my ideas regarding it. But for now we will stick to Cathedral and the Bazaar. Why am I talking about this? Because, I have several ideas related to this, which i want to discuss.

Cathedral and Bazaar, is a juxtaposition of two means of working, especially with reference to the software industry. The Cathedral is the organized juggarnaut for software production. It is the means employed by the Microsofts, the Oracles and others of this world. Where software is atomized into a set of small, simple tasks, doable by everyone. The Bazaar is the opposite. The unorganized wave of will, driven by motives other than those of profit, moving towards an undefined goal. It is the way the Linuxs of this world are built.

Why am I talking about it?

Well, I found a gem, that for me proves a central point of CatB. Yesterday we had a talk by some seniors who had come from McKinsey. Now these people, working consultants, were talking about the informal and helpful work-culture in McKinsey. The topic of discussion was the effectiveness of the mailing list and how helpful people of McKinsey can be. To quote from memory, "These people are very very helpful. When I was new to the topic, I posted messages, asking about everything and anything, and people responded. They answered all my doubts. And just a few days back, there was a question about which I actually knew something about. So I took that extra half an hour to post a reply. It felt great. That is that work culture here at McKinsey"

That aint no work culture, that is Maslow at work. The satisfaction of having helped. The power of knowledge in the knowledge economy.

The precise idea behind the bazaar in CatB.

The Bazaar is not an accident. Long live the bazaar.
I am Jack's wannabe bazaar

~!nrk

Change

Did not have anything else to do, at least nothing that would enthuse me right now. So am getting on with my next post.

Was chatting with a friend, who had just gone to the United States, to pursue her post-grad studies. The difference between this place and that, she felt there was not in terms of the weather, or in terms of the land, or the color of the skin of the people there. What she said psyched her out the most was that on the streets there was this solemn procession of cars. Cars and more cars, moving in orderly funeral perfection. What was wrong with the scene was that there were no people to see. None at all, no open cars, no two wheelers, no pedestrians, none at all.

"Man boxed by metal", I'd said.

I am not a Luddite. Far from it, I am a programmer (by heart and mind), I revel in technology, I do system administration as a hobby. And I love it. But somehow that statement struck a raw note in me.

For what is the limit of human endurance? I dont see our genes modifying themselves, to accept this change that we see. What then is the limit of human acceptance, when man will break. When will the surroundings go beyond a certain threshold of acceptance, after which the human mind will refuse to accept of rationalize them. We talk about technological progress, and about change happening at an increasingly fast pace.

What is the limit? Who will break first? Man or Change?

Happy thoughts on this Glorious evening. The sky is overcast. and there is a gentle breeze blowing across the land, and my room lies smack in the middle of it. And there is a glorious song playing on my Cambridge SoundWorks speakers. Can life get any better?

50 10n6 & 7|-|4nk5 f0R the small and the beautiful

~!nrk

Rain

Wow, this is a first. The second time in two days. Must be a record of sorts. Lets just see how long this goes.

Why do people hate rain? Did you ever sit on the street, watching, when it is about to rain. Did you see people scurrying about. There is a faint mixture of amusement and annoyance in the way they scurry away from water. Why?

Isn't it the same water you take bath in, everyday? What is bad with getting wet. Or is it that we are concerned about our clothes? Or that mebbe our appearance would get spoilt? Agreed that not everything we carry with everyday is water-proof. Why then do people strive to cover their heads as they run to find the closest cover? Is the head not water resistant?

Okay, I know what you are thinking of right now. That we run away from rain, because it will get us ill. Hmm, well then you ought to be ill everyday, after your bath. And more importantly, who has ever taken the pains to see if there is a relationship between getting wet in the rain and falling ill right after that?

Do you know what I think? I think it has got more to do with social engineering of the mind rather than anything else. We have been fed images of people running away from rain. We have been fed "data" telling us that one falls ill after getting wet. We suffer from a global mis-consciousness. We therefore think that we ought to run from rain, and if needed help others "realize" the same. Global mis-consciousness. Figures, doesnt it. And there seem to be more of such examples. But maybe for another day.

Do you know what tastes incredible on a hot day, when you have a parched throat. Take a earthen drinking tumbler, add the juice of two lemons in it. Put in a little mixture of condiments, add some artificial flavour. Open a bottle of aereated soda, and pressure mix the entire concoction. Taste it. Brilliant.

I know.

I am Jack's Global Mis-consciousness

~!nrk

I am Jack's Laziness, and his excuses.

I like Fight Club, not for what it says, but for what it does not say.

Fight Club is like one of those strict teachers in school. They always mean good, but always end up being taken wrongly. That is Fight Club. I normally dont bother discussion films. One reason being that it is just not worth it. Most of the movies in our part of the world end up being exponents of faces, clothes, songs, dances and other acts.. never of thought. So is the case with a majority of the movies from other parts of the world. At the most they end up being cases of incredible CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). There are few movies that end up being those that change the way you think. That provide a new means of looking at life.

I could go off into a number of tangential directions here. I could talk about movies I like, for example. Or I could talk about the differences between movies in our part of the world and other parts of the world. Or mebbe I could talk about my new habit of quoting from movies and poems. Or i could talk about Fight Club.

But this is my BLOG, and I choose to talk about what films should be.

This is a problem I have with a lot of people. The way they assign abnormal properties to various items in daily life. There are units for entertainment, there are units for learning and there are more and more units. And we tend to make them water-tight. probably because we cannot handle different facets of the same unit. We cannot accept that something that is supposed to teach can be entertaining as well. And something that is meant for entertaining can teach. That is Jack's water-tight problem. And what people fear, more than cross-listing of functions is hidden functions. We just cannot accept anything that is subtle, or hidden. Especially when another meaning is apparent. Fight Club, is a sorry victim of the same. One friend told me, "it is telling you to discover your inner self. Destroy, attack and plunder and you will discover your inner self". I felt sad. I am Jack's shaking head.

What is especially sad is the fact that all through the guy just had a smile of his face. Incredible. I mean is this just going to be a big joke. Is that how we learn?

I'll come back to Fight Club in later blogs. But for now, birds are-a-chirping and the sun are-a-rising. And I think i need to go to sleep.

I am Jacks bbye,

~!nrk

Second post

Editor's Note: The name of this blog was once Quaxzarron.

You might wonder. why the name quaxzarron.

Well it is a long story. I have this fascination for letters. and the lesser used, the more i am fascinated by the letter. And in particularly i am ga-ga over Z and Q. There is something about these two letters. I mean first of all they sound so refined. It is almost like the soft wash of the sea on the shore, or the quick retort of a duck. These sounds are so natural, as in nature... Okay, alright, it is obvious that i am making it up. Oh well anyway...

I liked these letter... and oh did i forget X. Well that is another letter i love. And i am rather pissed by all these new naming schemes that use X a lot. OS-X, XP and whatnot. well, i wanted to use all these adorable letters in a screen name of mine. Those were the days when I was relatively new to the world of the Internet. So off I went for a few hours, tossing these three letters over and over in my mind, till I realised that the combination with Q X and Z in that order was the only one that would even be decently mouthable. And hey presto! I got a brand new name.
Ofcourse similarity to Quasars and Pulsars did its candidature no harm.

Since then i have been using this as a frequent name. Especially in places where they dont accept an underscore character "_"

ciao for now,

~!nrk

First Post

Fine,

This looks like a better interface to blog. And the bar on the top looks kewl too.
I mean the color is so similar to the windows system that I use, that it almost blends with the toolbar on the top. But right clicking produces the menu of the page. *Brilliance* and hence i realise that it must be a part of the page itself.

Sometimes, well mostly, i stun myself with my own brilliance.

ciao for now,

~!nrk