IBM mainframe, Flying fish, Bush and fishy Pakistan

In Pakistan, infancy seems to have lost its innocence.  A nine month old has been booked on an attempted murder charge.  Apparently, the infant was around when his family threw bricks at the police and this, according to the police, amounted to attempted murder.  So the police took him in custody, fingerprinted him and brought him to the court.  A case of innocence lost in nonsense.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/05/world/asia/pakistani-baby-charged/index.html?hpt=hp_c5

"The IBM mainframe is celebrating its 50th anniversary.  The first System 360 mainframe was unveiled on 7 April 1964 and its arrival marked a break with all general purpose computers that came before."  The article in BBC goes on to say 

The machines have a legacy seen on many modern keyboards, he said. The "escape" was a common way to exit from a menu system on a mainframe and the "SysRq" key on some keyboards also dates from that era of monolithic computing. "If you were using a terminal-based system, 'System Request' let you interrupt what you were doing and run another job," he said. "But I'm not sure it's ever had a use in Windows."

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26886579

Former US president George Bush (the junior one) is opening an exhibition of his paintings.  From the few pictures that I have seen in the BBC site, they seem good and a few people have given their guarded appreciation.  Looking at the past, it seems unbelievable that Bush has done something that is being appreciated by others.  Apparently, there is a gem (not a very expensive one, but a gem anyway) in this rock too.  

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26890910

I have seen flying fishes during some of my journeys on water.  They are definitely not an uncommon site and if you keep looking at the water from your vessel for a few minutes, you would definitely catch the sight of a couple of them.  A TV crew in Japan has captured footage of a fish flying for 45 seconds.  It was flying parallel to a ferry that was travelling at 30 Kmph.  The article says "There are some 40 species of "flying fish" in the family known as Exocoetidae. The animals are found worldwide in warmer waters".  

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7410421.stm

Eva Braun, Kurt Cobain and dog poop

I don't see this news in many of the bigger news sites but rediff with some other not necessarily-credible-news sites claim that Hitler's wife Eva Braun's ancestry was Jewish.  Apparently, the DNA analysis of a hair taken from her hairbrush gave that result.  The article says "In the 19th century, many Ashkenazi Jews in Germany converted to Catholicism" and that Eva was a part of that group.

Twenty years ago on this day (Apr 5), Kurt Cobain said enough.

He

Went

As he was

As he could

As he wanted it to be

As in pain

As in pain

As an old enemy

Didn't take his time

Hurried up

This was his choice

Not to be late

For a rest

A news of interest from some days back "Dogs poop in alignment with Earth’s magnetic field, study finds" (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/dogs-poop-in-alignment-with-earths-magnetic-field-study-finds/).  Since then I have been observing dogs but those damned creatures don't seem to poop much.  Of the five or six cases that I have seen only one of the dogs bothered to find the magnetic field before pooping.  The rest of them pooped any which way they wanted to.  Must be a case of Indian dogs like Indian humans don't like to follow rules.

Placebos and lions

Two interesting articles today.

The first is in CNN.  It talks on placebos being effective in making our day better.   The article mentions " a 2010 survey of more than 400 docs found that a whopping 56% said they'd actually prescribed placebos to their patients".  In some manner or other the placebos seem to "solve" the patient's issues and makes him/her feel better.  What is interesting is that the placebo need not be in a medicinal form.  A study was conducted on two sets of students who were hooked onto equipment that the students thought measured the quality of sleep.  In reality, the machine did not measure the sleep quality.  In the morning, the researchers told one group of students that as per the equipment measured their quality of sleep was good.  The other group was informed the opposite.  The two group of students then went through a test.  Surprisingly, the group that thought they slept well performed better.  In this case, just the words "you slept well" were good enough and qualified as a placebo.  As the article states "Placebos seem to work in large part because they are given by authority figures".  The article then goes on to detail how we can trick ourselves and take advantage of the placebo effect.  The article is available at http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/01/health/placebo-effect/index.html?hpt=hp_mid

BBC talks about the origin of the modern lions.  One fact that is noticeable is that currently there are two groups of lions.  The first is found in Eastern and Southern Africa and other group is found in Central and West Africa, and in India.  The article goes on to detail how the two groups emerged and how one of the groups reached India.  Of course, there is sadness in the fact that many species of lions have gone extinct - "Fewer than 400 Asian lions (P. leo persica) survive, living on the Kathiawar Peninsula of India".  The article is available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/26736688

The Reader

Movies set in Germany seem to be a special pleasure to watch.  I saw one recently, which reminded me of another one I had seen some years ago.  Both these movies have poignant themes and build progressively towards a gently tearful ending.   They spend a lot of time showing activities of every day life and through this the dramatic points are driven in.  While one dealt with the life under communism in the erstwhile East Germany, the other deals with the effects of the occurrences in World War II on different people.  The former is the German movie called "The Lives of Others", which I had an opportunity to see earlier and the latter "The Reader", which I watched only recently.    

Many years ago, I had the good fortune to read the book "The Chamber" by John Grisham.  In general, I do not like Grisham's books.  I find them too fluffy and have not bothered reading any of his books for the past 15 odd years.  But "The Chamber" is very different from "The Firm" or other books of Grisham's that I am aware of.  It dealt with the topic of a man awaiting his turn at the gas chamber for a racist killing he had committed 25 years earlier.  In these 25 odd years, the man and his ideologies had changed.  One could feel that he has turned into a good person and is repenting for his past.  The way this is presented and built is very beautiful and really touched my heart.  It is a fine book on why capital punishment should not be given to anyone.  Though I really do not agree with that thought process, for a brief period my feelings turned to anti-capital punishment.  That, in my view, is a big success for the author; though the book itself was not very successful is what I understand.  The movie "The Reader" is another example wherein the viewers tend to sympathize with a wrong-doer.  Like the book, this movie brings out that it is not possible to categorize people as good or bad.  The world is full of grey and not black and white.

The movie takes place in the post world war II Germany, starting off a few years after the war and going on till the turn of the century.  It starts off with a relationship developing between a mid-teen boy and a middle aged woman.  It traverses the path followed by these two characters due to effects of the lady's past actions. To me, it brought out how a set of events have different effects on different individuals and how each of them have their reasons for their actions.  The right and wrong that someone has in judging others is not the same when judging self.  For me, it also said that we should probably think from the other person's point of view before judging him/her.  It at least gives us an idea of the other person's thinking and this might hone our own judgement.

The movie has Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes in it and that is good enough for me to watch it.  The younger version of Ralph Fiennes is acted by a young German actor called David Kross and he comes across very well too.  The film is constructed leisurely and the scenes flow into each other, which makes it like a watching a poetry.

The intent of the movie comes out from the statement that comes half way through the movie.
"Societies think they operate by something called morality but they don't.  They operate by something called law.  You are not guilty by merely working at Auschwitz; 8000 people worked there.  Precisely 19 have been convicted, 6 for murder.  To prove murder you have to prove intent.  That's the law.  The question is never was it wrong but was it legal.  And not by our laws, no - by the laws at the time."

By the beach

I was born in the city of Chennai and have lived here for many years. The city has a coast line running across its eastern side and there are many beaches that line up the coast. The beaches attract truck loads of people at around the time the sun sets. There are people walking along or sitting in groups and chatting, while others frolic in the water. Many vendors sell their fares. On the whole, it adorns a festive look almost every evening. For a long time, I have heard that the beaches are crowded at sun rise too but I usually do not have much idea about what happens that early in the morning.

Personally, I have not been a big fan of the beaches though. As odd as it seemed to many, I hated walking on the sand and wetting myself in the salty water. So whenever I heard the words "let us go to the beach", I try crawling under a bed and hiding.

Three months back it dawned upon me that I have grown old. So I decided to find out what happens in the early parts of a day. As I stay close to a beach, I walk to it and by it on the pavement (keeping a good distance from the sea and water). It is an exhilarating and depressing experience. Exhilarating due to: the rising sun and the colorful sky, the birds flying overhead, the distant sound of the waves that sneak in through the blaring sounds coming out of my head set and the cool breeze. Depressing due to: so many people running and walking faster than me. Over the days I have picked up speed and now there are moments of pride when I overtake someone only to be beaten by someone much older who seems to be exerting less energy than me. The beach is a wonderful place, I accept now, as long as the sand and the water do not come anywhere close to me. The best thing about the beach are the colors of the sky and shapes floating through it. There are sting rays flying across the sky right above the birds and people.

Fade to black

I was feeling very happy that evening.  After many miserable days and nights, I was very hopeful of it happening that night.  I had waited for a long time and many a times felt it come by.  But this evening the feeling was much stronger.  I could hear the people run around in agitation.  Some of them seemed to very close working on something with urgency.  There was a lot of shouting but with every shout my happiness increased.  Oh yes!  I was ready.  I had waited for this moment for long.  My thoughts were on what happens afterwards.  Where would I go?  What would happen to me?  I had heard a lot about it but did not know what to believe and what not to.  So I waited eagerly for it to happen.  Suddenly my happiness started reducing.  I started feeling a pain.  I did not quite understand where the pain came from.  But it was there and it increased as time went by.  Soon, I lost all remembrance of the happiness.  The pain had become unbearable and it was all over me.  I wanted to shout and scream but did not know how.  I wanted to run away but did not way where my legs were.  All that I could feel was the pain.  And then the pain stopped.

The noise of the world went away.  The need for the shout subsisted.  I had felt anything for a long time but the feeling of nothing that came by was very different.  I tried to understand what was happening.  For the first time in many days, I looked around but saw nothing.  Earlier I could hear the people around me but now I heard nothing.  I used to feel pain earlier but I did not even feel that now.  And then the nothing started fading out.

Right across the road

I slept early that night.  The heavy lunch did not let me think of dinner and the time spent out in the summer sun had made me tired.  By the time I reached my room, the pain from all across my body traveled to my head and made it pain like hell.  I did not have the energy to walk from the door to my bed. I plopped on the sofa and fell asleep even before my body hit the sofa.

I am not sure what woke me up but I became aware of a terrible thirst soon after - my throat was parched; I needed some water; I needed a lot of water; water, water, water.  I groped around, my hand hit something and it fell off the table with a loud crash.  The sound brought me back to complete wakefulness and my desperation for water increased.  I attempted to get up but slipped off the sofa and fell onto the floor.  After struggling for a minute or so, I managed to get on to my feet and went searching for the lights.  When brightness came by, I looked around but did not find water around - not in the hall, not in the bedroom and not in the kitchen.  I considered drinking water straight out of the tap but I could see germs of the size of football in the water.  I checked the watch and realized that some of the shops would be open at the time.  I got out on the road and looked at the shop across the road.  There were a few vehicles on the road and I waited to cross the road.

As I waited , I heard the sound of the cars coming by from round a bend.  I waited but nothing happened.  I could hear the car's engine at some distance but did not see the head lights of the car.  I waited for some more but only heard the sound of the car.  It did not come closer.  I waited listening and looking for the head lights to show up.  I leaned against a lamp post and waited.  I am not sure how long I stood in that pose.  But I suddenly opened my eyes and realized I had dozed off for a few moments.  I looked around and found there were no vehicles around.  The shop keeper on the opposite side was beginning to close the shop.  I called out to him and started running across the road.

There was loud sound on my right; I turned to see two lights coming in at a great speed towards me.  I froze for a moment and then ...

I was turning in the air like a leaf.

My head hurt and I could feel something wet running across my face.

The smell of iron was all around.

There were people around, looking at me with horror in their eyes.

Someone was shouting "Taxi, taxi,..."

Pain, pain, pain, ...

People had lifted me and I saw an open taxi door.

I heard my scream.

"Don't worry, you are ok".

Lights on the ceiling running past me.

The smell of medicines.

"Do you hear me?"

"Is it paining here?"

"... operation theater..."

The sights and sounds started fading.  The pain started receding.  Sleep started coming in.  Will I see a bright white light?  Will my brief life's activities run in front of my eyes?  Nothing happened; I only felt sleepier.

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