What it will mean to find Earth's Twin out there

One of the most ancient and perhaps the most enduring questions that humankind has been asking since picking up the first stone and striking fire has been around the topic of who we are and what are we doing here. Is there a destiny or are we just result of random mutations through a cycle which started billions of years ago.

Related to search for our place in the universe are the questions relating to whether there are worlds out there which are earth like. At first the whole question of whether there are any extra solar planets at all was a huge problem for us. It was indeed a formidable question for our kind with our primitive equipment and the ability to squint through the fog of earth’s atmosphere and then the gaseous envelop of our solar system. Through this foggy and often obscured picture, we used to wonder if there are any other rocks circling other stars. Logic of course told us that formation of the solar system shouldn’t be unique process which happened only in our neighborhood, but our ability to experimentally and by observation prove what was common sense was limited.

Well, not any more. For quite some time, we have been able to at least deduce the existence of extra solar planets, if not see them directly. An exoplanet (or extra solar planet) is a planet orbiting a star different from the Sun (the "exo" prefix means "outside" in Greek). Up until now, one has found mainly gas giant planets, which are easier to detect than telluric planets. An exoplanet or extra solar planet is a planet that does not orbit the Sun and instead orbits a different star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf. More than 1800 exoplanets have been discovered (1849 planets in 1160 planetary systems including 471 multiple planetary systems as of 2 November 2014).

According to Observatoire de Paris - The planets of the solar system can be divided into two groups, the telluric planets and the gas giant (or "Jovian") planets. The telluric planets are spherical bodies with a crust of rock, and the gas giant planets are spheres composed of gas and ice (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). Pluto is a solid body, whose composition consists of a variety of rocks and ices. An exoplanet (or extra solar planet) is a planet orbiting a star different from the Sun (the "exo" prefix means "outside" in Greek). Up until now, one has found mainly gas giant planets, which are easier to detect than telluric planets. However, due to the increasing sensitivity of the detection methods, one already begins to observe the first planets of sizes comparable to the Earth.

So, as we can see, thousands have been discovered in the past two decades, mostly with NASA's Kepler space telescope. The first extra solar planet discovery was confirmed in 1992, although they had been predicted long before. Planets are difficult to detect directly because they are so much dimmer than the stars they orbit. The Sun is a billion (10⁹) times brighter than Jupiter and 10 billion (10¹⁰) times brighter than the Earth.

According to space.com - These worlds come in a huge variety of sizes and orbits. Some are gigantic planets hugging close to their parent stars; others are icy, some rocky. NASA and other agencies are looking for a special kind of planet: one that’s the same size as Earth, orbiting a sun-like star in the habitable zone. The habitable zone is the range of distances from a star where a planet’s temperature allows liquid water oceans, critical for life on Earth. The earliest definition of the zone was based on simple thermal equilibrium, but current calculations of the habitable zone include many other factors, including the greenhouse effect of a planet’s atmosphere. This makes the boundaries of a habitable zone "fuzzy."

There are various available methods for detection of these extra solar planets, short of visiting them with FTL ships. If one is interested in details of various methods, then please visit website of Las Cumbres Observatory.

But a more interesting question is – what would be the social impact of a finding of Earth’s Twin out there? There is a lot of interest in the study of this phenomenon across the world by both religious and political leaders – for the same obvious reasons. Most of the apprehensions border on possibility of chaos and widespread anarchy. Why? Well you have to take a deep look at how our society has been structured since the birth of formal civilization thousands of years ago.

According to Wikipedia - The cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact is the corpus of changes to terrestrial science, technology, religion, politics, and ecosystems resulting from contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. Although closely related to it, the study of the cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact is distinct from the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), which attempts to locate intelligent life as opposed to analyzing the implications of contact with that life. The potential changes from extraterrestrial contact could vary greatly in magnitude and type, based on the extraterrestrial civilization's level of technological advancement, degree of benevolence or malevolence, and level of mutual comprehension between itself and humanity. The medium, through which humanity is contacted, be it electromagnetic radiation, direct physical interaction, extraterrestrial artifact, or otherwise, may also influence the results of contact. Incorporating these factors, various systems have been created to assess the implications of extraterrestrial contact. The implications of extraterrestrial contact, particularly with a technologically superior civilization, have often been likened to the meeting of two vastly different human cultures on Earth, an historical precedent being the Columbian Exchange. Such meetings have generally led to the destruction of the civilization receiving contact (as opposed to the "contactor", which initiates contact), and therefore destruction of human civilization is a possible outcome. However, the absence of any such contact to date means such conjecture is largely speculative.

According to an article on The Conversation - Habitable exoplanets are bad news for humanity. What did not make the news, however, is that this discovery also slightly increases how much credence we give to the possibility of near-term human extinction. This is because of a concept known as the Great Filter. The author hopes for a barren Kepler-186f and argues - If Kepler-186f is teeming with intelligent life, then that would be really bad news for humanity.

As philosopher Nick Bostrom once said: - The silence of the night sky is golden … in the search for extraterrestrial life, no news is good news. It promises a potentially great future for humanity.

In my opinion, this is a way different way of approaching a monumental question of whether we are alone in the universe, or ever have been? Doomsday scenarios abound across the literature of our species. But I ask why should it always be an extinction trajectory?

Well, as it turns out – according to space.com - Announced on July 23, 2015, planet Kepler-452b is larger than Earth and orbits a star nearly identical to the sun, but older and therefore hotter. The planet's orbit is nearly the same as Earth's, and its year is about 20 days longer than Earth's. Kepler-452b is 1,400 light-years away.

John Traveler in this article - What the Discovery of Earth Sized Exoplanets Means for the Human Race – goes on to say - To find that we are not alone in the vast cosmos will undoubtedly have substantial impact on human cultural, socio-religious, and intellectual paradigms. It’s safe to predict, such a discovery might have the greatest impact on human perspectives since ancient humans first experienced the cognitive foundations of logical thought and reason.

I firmly believe that human society would be changed for the better. Of course there will be some changes which a certain section of society might not like. The strangle hold that our current political and religious organizations have upon us would be loosened a bit. We may even suffer through a period when the faith system collapses, forcing humanity to start believing in itself rather than a divine intervention and overseeing. But we will pull through. We have come a long way in the last 400 years and we have survived 200,000 years of super volcanoes, earthquakes, global climate changes, flooding of epic proportions, genetic changes, and epidemics and have achieved, well almost, a global civilization.

My hopes for humanity are high. More on this in the next post.

“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people” – Carl Sagan.

I return to my favourite theme of the Universe and all of creation. Somewhat grand with a hint of vagueness in restarting my outpouring of thoughts, the act of focusing my consciousness on the grandest stage of them of all. How did material complexity, then single-cell life, then animals and consciousness emerge from chaos? We still don’t how many universes are there? Is everything the result of a meaningless cosmic sneeze, or of an intentional First Cause?

As Robert Lanza puts it – “You’re not an object — you are your consciousness. You’re a unified being, not just your wriggling arm or foot, but part of a larger equation that includes all the colors, sensations and objects you perceive. If you divorce one side of the equation from the other you cease to exist. Indeed, experiments confirm that particles only exist with real properties if they’re observed. Until the mind sets the scaffolding of things in place, they can’t be thought of as having any real existence — neither duration nor position in space.”

As the great physicist John Wheeler said, “No phenomenon is a real phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.” That’s why in real experiments, not just the properties of matter — but space and time themselves — depend on the observer. Our consciousness isn’t just part of the equation — the equation is us (I guess).

I am greatly moved, almost emotionally, by one of Post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin's most famous paintings – “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” Our quest to understand who we are is in part a quest to understand the destiny and purpose of our origin and existence. For the forthcoming few weeks, I shall be focusing my attention on these aspects before moving on to more humdrum issues requiring focused thought.

Here are some of the places on this planet that I have visited!

• View my profile
• Create your own travel map.

Humour and Human Civilization

Humans throughout the centuries have pondered and discussed on what sets apart a group of animals and a society. In my opinion, one of the essential ingredients of any successful civilization or society is humour and its ability to laugh at itself. The more tolerant a society, better the quality of humour.

Wikipedia defines humour as – “Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humors (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), control human health and emotion”.

Erma Bombeck made the most fundamental and yet simple statement about civilization when she said - "When humour goes, there goes civilization.". Mind you, society of a kind does exist without humour, but it is not the one where ideas and the human spirit prosper and grow. Victor Borge also remarked that "Humour is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth."

Of course there have been some very serious attempts at understanding humour (pun intended) and mostly it has to do with understanding the human psychology. Dr. Chaya Ostrower in this PhD study and the book – “Without humour we would all have committed suicide", has taken a serious side to the study of humour. But humour is a complex phenomenon and more often than not, it has been extremely culture context specific. There are some important questions to identifying what is funny and humorous against sterile and stressful or even plain obscene.

One might start by asking what is the purpose of humour? Why do we laugh?

According to Dr. Chaya Ostrower - Humour is a complex phenomenon. There is no general theory of humour or even an agreed definition. When we try to define exactly what counts as humour and what does not, or how humour operates, we find it quite difficult.

According to him - Humor is comprised of three components: wit, mirth, and laughter. Wit is the cognitive experience, Mirth the emotional experience, Laughter the physiological experience. We often equate laughter with humor, but there are many instances of laughter (tickling, nervousness, etc.) that clearly have little to do with humor. Similarly, there are many instances of humour that do not result in laughter (due to the mood of the appreciator, the social context, etc.). Humour is a quality of perception that enables us to experience joy even when faced with adversity. Stress is an adverse condition during which we may experience tension or fatigue, feel unpleasant emotions and sometimes develop a sense of hopelessness or futility. You cannot feel stress, angry, depressed, anxious, guilty, or resentful and experience humor at the same time. Like beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, humor is in the funny bone of the receiver of the experience.

This makes it extremely difficult to define what would constitute humour and this very quality has been often taken in various science fiction stories, such as Star Trek for instance, where both the Vulcan Spock and later the android Data, display considerable difficulties in understanding human context of humour. Different cultures have different expectations of humour so comedy shows are not always successful when transplanted into another culture.

Hence you’d find the humour of one culture totally incomprehensible to someone from another culture.

Mark Twain, a giant in American literature, in Following the Equator: A Journey around the World, said - “There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.”

There is of course a systemic view of humour, which is sort of, let’s say, non-humorous.

Philip Dorrell defines humour as – “Most people think of humour as something that exists for the sake of entertainment, or for adding spice to social occasions. But humour is an aspect of the human mind, and as such, is almost certainly part of a system for information processing. So what sort of information is being processed when we laugh at something funny?”

According to him - most humour follows a pattern like this:

First we think that something is true, based on clues given to us, But then we are presented with further evidence, which shows that we were wrong, In fact we were so wrong, that there was something wrong with the thought processes that lead to the initial conclusion.

And at the end of this process, we feel pleasure

Conveyance of Humour, though not necessarily confined to the territory of books alone, is the cornerstone of what we would recognize as a truly tolerant civilization or society. I loosely refer to society and civilization in the same context although there are people who would enjoy spending an evening differentiating between the two. The fact that humour is an essential ingredient of a successful leader and hence helping lubricate the functioning of a society was captured by Dwight D. Eisenhower when he said - "A sense of humour is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done"

Humour would be pointless if not conveyed to the masses and it is here where the role of an author or a writer becomes important. Albert Camus once said - “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” The importance of books in the development of humanity & spread of humour cannot be understated".

Barbara W. Tuchman has very aptly captured the thought - “Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”

Thus, in a sense, humour defines our identity as a species apart from the general animal kingdom and also defines our species. Without humour, we'd rather be animals herding together in vast numbers. In some parts of the world, this is still true to some extent :-)

The Socrates Triple Filter Test!

In ancient Greece , Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem.

One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, 'Do you know what I just heard about your friend?'

'Hold on a minute,' Socrates replied. 'Before telling me anything, I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test.'

'Triple filter?'

'That's right,' Socrates continued. 'Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. That's why I call it the triple filter test.'

'The first filter is TRUTH. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?'

'No,' the man said, 'actually I just heard about it and...'

'All right,' said Socrates. 'So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of GOODNESS. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?'

'No, on the contrary...'

'So,' Socrates continued, 'you want to tell me something bad about him, but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because there's one filter left: the filter of USEFULNESS. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?'

'No, not really.'

'Well,' concluded Socrates, 'if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?'

The mystery of human Mortality

Living forever is just for Hollywood. But why do humans age? We are born with a robust toolbox full of mechanisms to fight disease and injury, which we might think should arm us against stiff joints and other ailments. But as we age, the body's repair mechanisms get out of shape. In effect, our resilience to physical injury and stress declines. Theories for why people age can be divided into two categories:

1) Like other human characteristics, aging could just be a part of human genetics and is somehow beneficial.

2) In the less optimistic view, aging has no purpose and results from cellular damage that occurs over a person's lifetime.

A handful of researchers, however, think science will ultimately delay aging at least long enough to double life spans.

Wish all of you a very Happy Diwali

Diwali or Dīpāvali is a significant festival in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and an official holiday in India. Adherents of these religions celebrate Diwali as the Festival of Lights. They light diyas—cotton string wicks inserted in small clay pots filled with oil—to signify victory of good over the evil within an individual.

Diwali is the abbreviation of the Sanskrit word "Deepavali" - Deepa meaning light and Avali, meaning a row. It means a row of lights and indeed illumination forms its main attraction. It symbolises that age-old culture of India which teaches us to vanquish ignorance that subdues humanity and to drive away darkness that engulfs the light of knowledge.

Diwali, the festival of lights, even today in this modern world, projects the rich and glorious past and teaches us to uphold the true values of life.

Some pearls of wisdom

ONE. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

TWO. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

THREE. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

FOUR. When you say, 'I love you,' mean it.

FIVE. When you say, 'I'm sorry,' look the person in the eye.

SIX. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

SEVEN. Believe in love at first sight.

EIGHT. Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't have much.

NINE. Love deeply and passionately.. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.

TEN.. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

ELEVEN. Don't judge people by their relatives.

TWELVE. Talk slowly but think quickly.

THIRTEEN! .. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, 'Why do you want to know?'

FOURTEEN. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

FIFTEEN. Say 'bless you' when you hear someone sneeze.

SIXTEEN. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

SEVENTEEN. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

EIGHTEEN. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

NINETEEN. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

TWENTY. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice

TWENTY- ONE. Spend some time alone.

End of an Era – Geocities!

Last week, Yahoo finally announced the end of Geocities…

Before Twitter, before Facebook, before MySpace – heck, even before Friendster, there was a service known as GeoCities. For those who grew up on the Net in the 90s, it was about as close as you get to what we know today as social networks. It was essentially an organization of like-minded user-created homepages in different topical communities like sports, entertainment, and tech.

Back in the proverbial day, GeoCities was the place where many a modern-day internet nerd cut his or her teeth. After a spectacular dot com purchase of $3.65 billion and an equally spectacular dot com bust, its closure marks the end of one of the earliest ages of the social web.

I remember starting my first page with Geocities. Although, with the Yahoo’s focus elsewhere, it makes sense to shut down what is essentially an internet relic. Still, to those who look back with nostalgia, October 26 could well be a wistful day.

If you don’t know what Geocities is, or rather was, then here’s a wikipedia link for you!

But if you are familiar with it, it’s official end is certainly a bit nostalgic. When every thought that just by making a web page, one would get rich overnight. Was something like the completely misunderstood business of AMWAY :-)

Without a sound business model, people were thinking that just by making some loose web pages sticking together, they could make millions.

Of course there were always those enthusiasts who were doing it for the fun (like me).

GeoCities began in mid-1995 as BHI, which stood for "Beverly Hills Internet," a small Web hosting and development company in Southern California.

The company also created its own Web directory, organized thematically in six "neighborhoods." The neighborhood included "Colosseum," "Hollywood," "RodeoDrive," "SunsetStrip," "WallStreet," and "WestHollywood." In mid-1995, the company decided to offer users (thereafter known as "Homesteaders") the ability to develop free home pages within those neighborhoods. Chat, bulletin boards, and other elements of "community" were added soon after, helping foster rapid growth. On July 5, 1995 Geocities added additional cities, including "CapitolHill," "Paris," "SiliconValley," and "Tokyo." By December 1995, the company, which now had a total of 14 neighborhoods, was signing up thousands of Homesteaders a day and getting over six million monthly page views. The company decided to focus on building membership and community, and on December 15, 1995, BHI became known as GeoCities after having also been called Geopages.

Whatever said, the closure of Geocities marks the end of an era!

The New National ID or Unique Identity Card project!

There’s been so much talk of the mega project of issuing unique identification number and card to every Indian. UPA Government’s ambitious project to provide every Indian with a unique identity card. In its manifesto, the Congress had said this would be possible after the publication of the national population register in 2011. Besides addressing security concerns, the UID project will overhaul and direct the delivery mechanism for public goods and services to intended beneficiaries.

However, has anybody imagined how life possibly could be under the shadow of this all knowing and super powerful card? On a lighter side, I have come across a great email from one of my friends. Sharing it here… just to give a taste of what’s to come… So Friends, Enjoy your new ID card !

Nandan Nilekani's.. ....Fully integrated ID card system for Indian citizens

Operator : "Thank you for calling Pizza Hut . May I have your..."

Customer: "Heloo, Heloo, can I order.."

Operator : "Can I have your multi purpose ID card number first, Sir?"

Customer: "It's he..., hold........ ..on..... .889861356102049 998-45-54610"

Operator : "OK... You're... Mr Singh and you're calling from 17 Jal Vayu. Your home number is 22678893, your office 25076666 and your mobile is 09869798888. Today morning you landed in India at IG International Airport. Welcome back, Sir. Which number are you calling from now Sir?"

Customer: "Home! How did you get all my phone numbers?

Operator : "We are connected to the system Sir"

Customer: "May I order your Seafood Pizza..."

Operator : "That's not a good idea Sir"

Customer: "How come?"

Operator : "According to your medical records, you have high blood pressure and even higher cholesterol level Sir"

Customer: "What?... What do you recommend then?"

Operator : "Try our Low Fat Pizza. You'll like it"

Customer: "How do you know for sure?"

Operator : "You borrowed a book entitled "Popular Dishes" from the National Library last week Sir"

Customer: "OK I give up... Give me three family size ones then, how much will that cost?"

Operator : "That should be enough for your family of 05, Sir. The total is Rs 500.00"

Customer: "Can I pay by! Credit card?"

Operator : "I'm afraid you have to pay us cash, Sir. Your credit card is over the limit and you owe your bank Rs 23,000.75 since October last year. That's not including the late payment charges on your housing loan, Sir...."

Customer: "I guess I have to run to the neighbourhood ATM and withdraw some cash before your guy arrives"

Operator : "You can't Sir. Based on the records, you've reached your daily limit on machine withdrawal today"

Customer: "Never mind just send the pizzas, I'll have the cash ready. How long is it gonna take anyway?"

Operator : "About 45 minutes Sir, but if you can't wait you can always come and collect it on your Nano Car..."

Customer: " What!" Operator : "According to the details in system, you own a Nano car,...registration number GZ-05-AB-1107. ."

Customer: " ????"

Operator : "Is there anything else Sir?"

Customer: "Nothing... By the way... Aren't you giving me that 3 free bottles of cola as advertised?"

Operator : "We normally would Sir, but based on your records you're also diabetic.... ... "

Customer: #$$^%&$@$% ^

Operator : "Better watch your language Sir.. Remember on 15th July 2009 you were convicted of using abusive language on a policeman... ?"

Customer: [Faints]

Enjoy your new ID card !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Lawyer and the Blonde

A lawyer and a blonde woman are sitting next to each other on a long flight. 

The lawyer asks if she would like to play a fun game The blonde is tired and just wants to take a nap, so she politely declines and tries to catch a few winks. 

The lawyer persists, that the game is a lot of fun. I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me only $5; You ask me one, and if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500.' 

This catches the blonde's attention; and, to keep him quiet, she agrees to play the game. The lawyer asks the first question. 

What's the distance from the earth to the moon?' The blonde doesn't say a word, reaches in to her purse, pulls out a five-dollar bill, and hands it to the lawyer. 

Now, it's the blonde's turn. She asks the lawyer, 'What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?' 

The lawyer uses his laptop, searches all references. He uses the airphone; he searches the Net and even the Library of Congress. He sends e-mails to all the smart friends he knows, all to no avail. After one hour of searching he finally gives up. 

He wakes up the blonde and hands her $500. The blonde takes the $500 and goes back to sleep. The lawyer is going nuts not knowing the answer. 

He wakes her up and asks, 'Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?' The blonde reaches into her purse, hands the lawyer $5 and goes back to sleep.

Life Changing Habits!

Most of the time we do things, say things unconsciously and then regret uttering them…

Here’s a simple method of turning your life around - Make these Breakthrough habits part of your life and positive things will begin rapidly. no warrantees though and you can’t sue since this is free advice! However, it has high degrees of certainties that if followed, in general, provides desirable results… and perhaps bring you what you’ve been missing.

Practice these Habits and watch what happens.

The First Habit

Let go of your negative feelings. Pay attention to what you’re saying, thinking and doing. Watch all the time. Stay awake to what’s happening. Be on the lookout all the time. When you see some negative thought, you stop it. When you see some negative feeling, you stop it. When you see you’re taking some negative action, you stop it.

If what you’re thinking, feeling, saying or doing is negative, end it. Stop it.

If I hand you a red-hot metal rod you drop it in a split second, right? Negative feelings, words, thoughts, actions, all those are hot metal rods. Drop them. Negative, not-liking, disapproval, negativity is burning up your life just like a red-hot fireplace metal rod burns up your hand.

Drop the negative feelings like you would drop a hot red metal rod.

Here’s the test. Is it negative? Then, it’s negative and hurting your life. Drop it.

The Second Habit

Hold in mind what you want. Hold in mind means what you keep in your mind or visualize. Hold in mind means the thoughts and feelings that occupy your mind all the time.

You get what you hold in mind. Whatever is occupying your mind, your thoughts and your feelings, is what you manifest in the material world. It’s the law of attraction.

Positive attracts positive, negative attracts negative. Love attracts love. Negative attracts more negative. Positivity is the same energy as positive, success, abundance, health, money, peace.

If you hold in mind “I can’t,” you’re right, you can’t. If you hold in mind “I don’t have it,” you’re right, you don’t have it and you aren’t going to have it. You’re holding the wrong thing in mind. You’re holding in mind what you don’t want.

Fake it until you make it. Stop thinking you don’t have it. Hold in your mind only what you want. Prove it to yourself. Make a good effort. What do you have to lose? If I’m right you get to have everything.

If I’m wrong, you’re no worse off. Here is a little hint: If it doesn’t work, it’s because your mind talked you out of doing it. Your mind talked you out of making a decision. Your mind talked you out of being determined and persistent. You (like everyone else on the planet) have spent your entire life collecting negative feelings.

Here’s another hint: You can easily see what you’re holding in your mind. Watch what you’re saying all the time. Watch what you’re thinking. And, you can see what you’re holding in your mind by paying attention to your feelings.

Now remember, this is not about affirmations. This is not about hanging signs around your house and car. This is about holding in mind what you want. You do that by dropping thoughts, words or feelings which express what you don’t want.

The Third Habit

Make a commitment to be positive and loving, in spite of what’s happening. Decide: “I’m going to be positive and loving in spite of whatever is happening.” Make that your motto.

Be positive in spite of what happens. You live your life automatically reacting with emotions you learned as small kid.

You’re not a kid anymore (at least I hope so, if you have the patience of reading this!), but you’re still doing the same thing. End the habit of automatically reacting. It’s just a decision. Something happens that seems to be negative. You react. You leave the present moment and you go off. Does that ever solve anything?

Anger, breaking into hysteria, feeling bad because someone gave you a dirty look or disagreed with you? Negative, negative behavior doesn’t do anything for you except make you more negative and non-loving.

It never solves anything. It never helps anything. Perhaps you know that. Perhaps you even agree with me, because you have experienced it yourself many, many times. But we all like to avoid a decision. However, I strongly recommend that you make a decision - I am going to be loving and positive in spite of whatever happens.

Remember the hot metal rod? Begin by letting go of the hot metal rod called negative, non-loving reactions. Try it. Prove it to yourself. Be positive and loving in spite of whatever happens, whatever is going on, whatever they’re doing or saying. Be positive and loving and watch what happens.

When you’re positive and loving in spite of whatever, you’re moving over to the side of love. Love conquers all. Love transforms. Love is the answer.

Try to be positive and loving in spite of whatever happens. Should I be saying that – “Try”? As Yoda once told Skywalker – there is no try… you either do it or don’t.

I bet, you will be one of the happiest and you will have most of the things that you want in life. Of course I am not some crazy nut telling you that be positive and think that you are going to get a million dollars tomorrow and perhaps in a month or two, you would get it. Of course not. The world, the universe does not work that way. One has to direct conscious thought and then follow up with relevant actions to get from point A to point B. what positive thinking helps with is ensuring that we do not get discouraged if the journey from point A to Point B happens to long, tiring and arduous.

Prove it to yourself. I always thought good luck was something mysterious that happened to people for no good reason. Now perhaps I am beginning to understand.

Atlantis… found at last!

The romance associated with the lost city, island and civilization of Atlantis refuses to die down. During my recent visit to Dubai, I got a unique opportunity to visit the hotel Atlantis famed, among other things, for its “lost chambers” which portray the story of ancient civilization of Atlantis.

The city of Atlantis is one of the most historical mysteries. Around 350 BC, Plato was the first to write about this somewhat magical island in two books. The Greek philosopher and teacher described, in great detail, the advanced technology of this ancient place before it suddenly vanished "in a day and a night" beneath the Atlantic Ocean.

There is no consensus on how to interpret the so called “myth” of Atlantis.

According to Wikipedia – Atlantis (in Greek, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, "island of Atlas") is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias.

In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".

Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by older traditions. Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration from contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 BC or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC

According to MythWeb - According to the philosopher Plato, an advanced civilization that sank beneath the waves, a legend based perhaps on Minoan Crete. The fabled island-continent derives its name from the Titan Atlas. It was said to be out beyond the western headland where the immortal giant holds up the heavens by means of a pillar on his back. Plato maintained that Atlantis was a real place, not a myth. He in turn had heard of it from certain wise men of Egypt, whose civilization spanned the era when Atlantis was said to have flourished, whereas earlier civilizations in Greece had been wiped out by natural catastrophes - or so the Egyptians said.

One of the balanced presentation of facts around Atlantis can be found on Atlantis and Paleogeography.

Others attribute Plato with saying that the sea god Poseidon (Neptune) was given Atlantis and on a hill in the middle of the island the god built his mortal wife a large home. This palace was surrounded by five rings of water and land connected only by tunnels large enough for ships to pass through. Atlantians were amazing engineers. They built palaces, temples, harbors, docks and a complicated water system - all about 12,000 years ago. Farmers grew the food on a field not much larger than Oklahoma State. Behind this massive field there where mountains touching the sky where many of the wealthy villagers lived. Plato described spectacular buildings, fountains that had both hot and cold water, stone walls covered with precious metals and huge statues made of gold (somewhat difficult to believe, but hey – anything goes in mythology!)

Another concise version about Atlantis can be found here.

A very interesting description of Plato’s Atlantis is given in - Atlantis: the Myth." Encyclopedia Mythica from Encyclopedia Mythica Online. [Accessed October 04, 2009].

My visit into the very modern version of Atlantis and its lost chambers was very different and expensive (at least from an Indian perspective).

One cannot but be amazed at the sheer audacity of what has gone into building the artificial island where the current Atlantis stand!

Dubai is an amazing marvel in itself and even more so is the series of islands – one of them being the Palm Jumeira on which “Hotel Atlantis” is located. It hasn’t been cheap, but it is definitely one example of the amazing technological advances that humanity has made in a single century!

In my next post, I will be writing more on the details of this modern age Atlantis…

Now that’s what I would call a Challenge in Life or PUNJABI confidence!

George Bush was sitting in his office wondering whom to invade next when his telephone rang.

'Hello, Mr. Bush!' a heavily accented Punjabi voice said, 'This is Gurmukh from Phagwara, District Kapurthala, Punjab .. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring the war on you!'

'Well, Gurmukh,' Bush replied, 'This is indeed important news! How big is your army'

'Right now,' said Gurmukh, after a moment's calculation, 'there is myself, my cousin Sukhdev, my next door neighbor Bhagat, and the entire kabaddi team from the gurudwara. That makes eight'

Bush paused. 'I must tell you, Gurmukh that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command.'

'Arrey O! Main kya..' said Gurmukh. 'I'll have to ring you back!'

Sure enough, the next day, Gurmukh called again.

‘Mr. Bush, it is Gurmukh, I'm calling from Phagwara STD, the war is still on! We have managed to acquire some infantry equipment!'

'And what equipment would that be, Gurmukh' Bush asked.

'Well, we have two combines, a donkey and Amrik's tractor.'

Bush sighed. 'I must tell you, Gurmukh, that I have 16,000 tanks and 14,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I've increased my army to 1-1/2 million since we last spoke.'

'Oh teri....' said Gurmukh. 'I'll have to get back to you.'

Sure enough, Gurmukh rang again the next day.

'Mr. Bush, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne....

.. We've modified Amrik's tractor by adding a couple of shotguns, sticking on some wings and the pind's generator. Four school pass boys from Malpur have joined us as well!'

Bush was silent for a minute and then cleared his throat. 'I must tell you, Gurmukh, that I have 10,000 bombers and 20,000 fighter planes. My military complex is surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile sites. And since we last spoke, I've increased my army to TWO MILLION!'

'Tera bhala hove....' said Gurmuk, 'I'll have to ring you back.'

Sure enough, Gurmukh called again the next day.

'Kiddan, Mr.Bush! I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Bush. 'Why the sudden change of heart'

'Well,' said Gurmukh, 'we've all had a long chat over a couple of lassi's, and decided there's no way we can feed two million prisoners of wars!'

NOW THAT'S CALLED PUNJABI CONFIDENCE!

THE BEST EQUATION OF MAN & WOMAN

I sincerely hope that no animal rights or for that matter woman rights groups would take this seriously… this is purely supposed to be on the lighter side of life…and to borrow (and adapt) from Khushwant Singh… with satire towards one and all J

Equation 1

Human = eat + sleep + work + enjoy

Donkey = eat + sleep

Therefore:

Human = Donkey + Work + enjoy

Therefore:

Human-enjoy = Donkey + Work

In other words,

A Human that doesn't know how to enjoy = Donkey that works.

++++++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ ++ ++

Equation 2

Man = eat + sleep + earn money

Donkey = eat + sleep

Therefore:


Man = Donkey + earn money

Therefore:

Man-earn money = Donkey

In other words

Man who doesn't earn money = Donkey

++++++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +

Equation 3

Woman= eat + sleep + spend

Donkey = eat + sleep

Therefore:

Woman = Donkey + spend

Woman - spend = Donkey

In other words,

Woman who doesn't spend = Donkey

++++++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +++++++++ +

To Conclude:

From Equation 2 and Equation 3

Man who doesn't earn money = Woman who doesn't spend

Man earns money not to let woman become a donkey!

And a woman spends not to let the man become a donkey!

So, We have:

Man + Woman = Donkey + earn money + Donkey + Spend money

Therefore from postulates 1 and 2, we can

conclude

Man + Woman = 2 Donkeys that live happily together!

Amazing Art…

I found this amazing form/ expression of art and wanted to share with you all...

This stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan. But this is no alien creation - the designs have been cleverly planted.

Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colors of rice plants have been precisely and strategically arranged and grown in the paddy fields. As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge.

A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants,
the colours created by using different varieties, in the village of Inakadate in Japan . The largest and finest work is grown in the Aomori village of Inakadate , 600 miles north of Toyko, where the tradition began in 1993. The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year the enormous pictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior, both on horseback, are visible in a pair of fields adjacent to the town hall. More than 150,000 vistors come to Inakadate, where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals. Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers plant four different varieties of rice in late May across huge swathes of paddy fields.

Napolean on horseback can be seen from the skies, created by precision planting and months of planning between villagers and farmers in Inkadate

Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife Osen appear in fields in the town of Yonezawa , Japan . And over the past few years, other villages have joined in with the plant designs. Various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan this year, including designs of deer dancers.

Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this image of Doraemon and deer dancers. The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September. The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields. From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work. Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee.

Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fields can be seen.

The different varieties of rice plant grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design of Mount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention. In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art. A year later, organisers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.

On the lighter side - Microsoft Windows in Punjabi?

Imagine if your computer starts working in Punjabi then what will happen???

-You will have commands like these on your computer:

Send = Sutto
Insert = Wich Paao
Attachement = Naal Laao
Edit = Sidda Karo
View = Waikhee Jaao
Forward = Aggay Sutto
Inbox = Undar Da Daak Khaana
Outbox = Baar Da Daak Khana
Trash = Mitti Paao
Recycle Bin = Koore Daan
Sent Items = Pheji Gayee Dak
Address Book = Patay Wali Kaapy
Reply = Phejan Walay Nu Jawab do
Reply All = Saareyaan Nu Jawab do
Delete = Daffa Karo
Download = Thallay Laao
Download All = Saary Cheezan Noon Thallay La ao
Properties = Jaidaad
Connect = Naal Milaao
Fonts = Likhaai
Accounts = Galla
Drafts = Chitheeyaan
Find = Labbo
Run = Pajjo
Setting = Kuri Nu Patao
Paste = Thook Naal Chipkaao
From = Phejan Walaa Banda
To = Door Betha Hoya Banda
Subject = Khaas Gall
Carbon Copy = Koelay Walee Naqal
Blind Carbon Copy = Anni Koelay Walee Naqal
Stationery = Pensal, Rubburd, Shaapnar
Folders = Thailay
High priority = Waddee Takleef

and finally Ctrl+Alt+Delete = Sara Syapa Mukao..
Enjoy it !

India’s uncouth road warriors and the Civil Disobedience…

India’s capital city – New Delhi, is trying to gear up towards hosting an international event– the common wealth games in October 2010. the fact that the city is nowhere near the target deadline that it had set for itself to gear up years ago is as much as a testament towards a culture of lack of initiative, corruption and just sheer laziness to live in better environs as much as it is attributable to the fact that this has become an accepted norm that the city will be in a permanent state of disarray and chaos.

The other major problem with the city is that a vast majority of “residents” of Delhi do no associate themselves with the city. There is no sense of belongingness and certainly no pride in being part of the city.

For someone, like me, who on an average spends (whenever in Delhi) up to 4-5 hours on the road per day, the state of the infrastructure, culture on road and the general disposition of “natives” borders towards insolence, impatience and just plain rudeness.

Recently Home Minister P. Chidambaram Tuesday told citizens of Delhi that they needed to change some of their bad habits if visitors to the Commonwealth Games next year are to have a good impression about the host city.

There are vehicles running without registration plates, some are crossing roads where they should not. People are not using over ground or underground passes and all in the name of saving a few steps of walking. I know that the weather is not very favorable at most times of the year in Delhi, but basic civic sense is a requirement and not a virtue. We should encourage people to change their mindset.

People come to Delhi. This is the capital and we cannot stop people. But if they come to Delhi, they themselves will have to adhere to the behavioral requirement. We must behave as a citizen of a big, good international city,’ Chidambaram said.

Easier said than done Mr. Minister!

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, whom I admire for all the work she has done for the city in the past decade, perhaps took the cue and said a campaign will soon be launched to make people in the national capital aware about the need for behavioral changes.

I wonder if this will make a huge impact. The most impressionable years in humans are the early childhood and we seem to have imparted a wrong message or no message at all during those years to people who come or reside in Delhi.

Some of the citizens are not amused, however. According to some newspaper reports - some people have (correctly) said that not just Delhi but the whole country needs a crash course in basic manners and politeness. some opine that the change should start from the government officers and politicians.

As a resident, and although this goes against political correctness, I have to fully agree. And it nowhere more evident than on the roads. The “Delhi culture” and I may be venturing into a political minefield by saying this, reflects upon our actions on the road. Not following the lane discipline, parking 6 feet away from where we want to shop (to avoid walking) and frequently blaring horns to ensure that everybody is aware that our vehicles have it, no matter how disturbing it might be to openly break rules of the road or even mere civility – all are characteristic of the denizens of this area called the NCR.

There is so much evidence of this basic lack of courtesy and manners. The other day, I was in CP with my wife, trying to obtain a seat for a couple in a popular restaurant serving south Indian cuisine. Like polite and cultured couple, we were waiting for our turn, when much to our chagrin, a south Indian family of four rushed past everyone and secured a table which had just been vacated! Everyone who was waiting was surprised and angered by this blatant display of lack of manners. Some of the foreign tourists who were standing in the queue got the wrong impression that this is perhaps the right way to doing things in India or more specifically Delhi and started rushing past everyone into the hotel floor – hunting for tables for themselves. The south Indian family who had just secured a table was grinning as if they had just won an Olympic medal. We left, much in disgust, from the restaurant and headed towards another one in the outer circle – reflecting upon how these rude denizens turn very polite and urbane the moment they step outside India. Perhaps the fines or the fear of a new country turns them “docile”. The fact remains, basic civic sense and a sense of what is proper is singularly lacking in most of the Indians. True, the whole country needs a course in basic manners.


This is the kind of civil disobedience which, I am sure, Gandhi never subscribed to.

Civil disobedience, by the way, is the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government, or of an occupying power, without resorting to physical violence. It is one of the primary tactics of nonviolent resistance. In its most nonviolent form (in India, known as ahimsa or Satyagraha) it could be said that it is compassion in the form of respectful disagreement.

The American author Henry David Thoreau pioneered the modern theory behind this practice in his 1849 essay Civil Disobedience, originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government". The driving idea behind the essay was that of self-reliance, and also how one is in morally good standing as long as one can "get off another man's back"; so one does not necessarily have to physically fight the government, but one must not support it or have it support one (if one is against it). This essay has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican-American War.

The intentions and in some cases actions of these “humans” is anything but non-violent. I admire homo-sapiens ability to follow through a good idea to the extreme no matter how much it hurts. Civil disobedience taken to extreme – with every man for himself and the rest be damned.

I use the term very carefully since to be called “people or human”, one has to qualify as at least as evolved as one of the primitive homo sapiens tribe and sometimes I really wonder if these so called “people or humans” are evolved at all. For some have managed to bypass the evolutionary stages and regressed into half-baboon and half-chimpanzee states (no offence to these species and I hope PETA and similar organizations do not take offense to this)

Most of the people in Delhi are indeed disobedient of the laws of the land and amongst the youngsters and a certain profile of people it is considered as an identity symbol. To be able to flout rules is considered as a form of bravery or style statement. Perhaps I am too mild, but I fail to see the connection between machismo and the ability to jump a red light or travel in the opposite lane when the traffic is stuck in the right one.

Delhiites will be given lessons in civic sense and etiquettes ahead of the Commonwealth Games here next year. The Delhi government is preparing to act on Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s advice to the citizens in the capital. The campaign to impart civic sense will be launched in two phases and culminate two months before the start of the Games in October 2010.

We do not react to the pollution of the Yamuna, the dumping of garbage, the scrawling on ancient monuments and the disrespect of women. It is high time to change and think of this city which is very dear to all of us,’ said Dikshit in a statement.

I certainly hope that this campaign succeeds at least for 10% of the population of Delhi. I am reminded of my own blog entry on the bad habits of Delhi - 15 Traffic Rules that Delhi Lives By...

In my next entry, I will be writing about the state of infrastructure in Delhi…

Water on Moon!

So it’s finally confirmed!

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon.

Forget that tired old image of the moon as an entirely dry locale, devoid of any moisture. A recent set of discoveries have found that not only is there water on Earth's sole satellite — but the water is everywhere

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The Moon is in synchronous rotation, which means it rotates about its axis in about the same time it takes to orbit the Earth. This result in it keeping nearly the same face turned towards the Earth at all times. The Moon used to rotate at a faster rate, but early in its history, its rotation slowed and became locked in this orientation as a result of frictional effects associated with tidal deformations caused by the Earth.

The Moon is the only celestial body on which human beings (home sapiens) have made a manned landing. While the erstwhile Soviet Union's Luna programme was the first to reach the Moon with unmanned spacecraft, the NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned missions to date, beginning with the first manned lunar mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned lunar landings between 1969 and 1972 – the first being Apollo 11 in 1969. Human exploration of the Moon temporarily ceased with the conclusion of the Apollo program, although a few robotic landers and orbiters have been sent to the Moon since that time. The U.S. has committed to return to the Moon by 2018 and I am not much impressed by the conspiracy theories indicating that the Americans never landed on moon in the first place and all these manned spaceflights have been nothing but utter hogwash…

According to Wikipedia…

The continuous bombardment of the Moon by comets and meteoroids has most likely added small amounts of water to the lunar surface. If so, sunlight would split much of this water into its constituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen, both of which would ordinarily escape into space over time, because of the Moon's weak gravity. However, because of the slightness of the axial tilt of the Moon's spin axis to the ecliptic plane—only 1.5°—some deep craters near the poles never receive direct light from the Sun and are thus in permanent shadow. Water molecules that ended up in these craters could be stable for long periods of time.

Clementine has mapped craters at the lunar south pole that are shadowed in this way, and computer simulations suggest that up to 14,000 km² might be in permanent shadow. Results from the Clementine mission bistatic radar experiment are consistent with small, frozen pockets of water close to the surface, and data from the Lunar Prospector neutron spectrometer indicate that anomalously high concentrations of hydrogen are present in the upper meter of the regolith near the Polar Regions. Estimates for the total quantity of water ice are close to one cubic kilometer.

Water ice can be mined and then split into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms by means of nuclear generators or electric power stations equipped with solar panels. The presence of usable quantities of water on the Moon is an important factor in rendering lunar habitation cost-effective, since transporting water from Earth would be prohibitively expensive. However, recent observations made with the Arecibo planetary radar suggest that some of the near-polar Clementine radar data that were previously interpreted as being indicative of water ice might instead be a result of rocks ejected from young impact craters. The question of how much water there is on the Moon has not been resolved conclusively.

Three papers appearing in the upcoming issue of Science Express outline the discovery of pervasive water found clinging to the surface of the moon. Infrared spectroscope measurements from three different space probes have detected absorptions that indicate the presence of water or hydroxyl (which is, itself, a strong indicator for the presence of water) on the lunar surface, with one model suggesting water makes up a few tenths of a percent by weight in the optical surface. This water is apparently clinging to the moon's surface, rather than being absorbed by dust.

India's own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on board the country's maiden lunar craft had discovered water on the moon, a finding confirmed by US space agency NASA's probe that was also aboard Chandrayaan-1.

India's first moon mission has achieved a historic first by discovering water on the lunar surface. This is being hailed not only as a landmark breakthrough in space science but also as a vindication of the mission itself, since the two year project got terminated after just 10 months.

Predictably - India's first lunar mission had made a "path-breaking and real discovery" by establishing the presence of water on the moon, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman Nair said. While expressing pride in the achievement, Nair added: "But the water is not in the form of sea or lake or puddle or drops. It is embedded on the surface in minerals and rocks.” Scientists confirming the presence of water on the moon are doing so on the basis of scientific findings that have been arrived at after a rigorous process of deduction and analysis and not by actually finding lakes, pools or puddles of water that we're familiar with on earth. It's hardly a vast lake, and it won't yet support that lunar agricultural colony you've been dreaming of, but it's far more water than scientists ever expected to find on the moon, and it could prove a valuable resource to future lunar visitors.

The researchers have also found that the concentration of water is higher toward the poles, lending credence to the theory that larger deposits of water exist near the poles, and researchers note that it's possible we'll continue to find wetter lunar regions in the future.

So where did all this water come from? Although meteors or comets may have periodically brought water to the moon, the prevailing theory among the three papers is that solar winds have carried hydrogen to the moon's surface, where it has bonded with the oxygen in the moon's own dust and produced water.

However, according to Mylswamy Annadurai, Chandrayaan-1 project director, the water molecules came from the Moon surface — a major revelation made possible by the Indian mission. This dispels the age-old belief and the current thinking that only other planetary bodies can be the source of water molecules on the Moon. According to ISRO scientists, this mission has changed the thinking. The new theory is that the water molecules are not from an outside source, but are being generated then and there. This is now being analyzed.

According to a space.com article - There are potentially two types of water on the moon: that brought from outside sources, such as water-bearing comets striking the surface, or that that originates on the moon.

It is really one of those moments in human history which can prove as a turning point. Finding water on the moon would be a boon to possible future lunar bases, acting as a potential source of drinking water and fuel.

The clutter in our lives

As sat quietly in my living room this afternoon, the thought occurred to me - Why would anyone want to carry around needless burdens? That's what clutter is. It drains one's energy, slows one's progress, and eats away at our limited time and space. Left unabated, it spreads all over one's life becoming emotional, mental, and physical clutter.

Have you gone through several iterations of de-cluttering, only to feel like you really didn’t make much progress? The likely reason for this is that our lives are filled with clutter, rather than us just having a few areas of clutter.

Our lives tend to accumulate clutter in every corner – on our desks, in our drawers, on our shelves at home, in our closets, in our computers, even in the activities that we do and our relationships!

We start out in life unfulfilled, with nothing, and we start acquiring stuff. At some point, we peak (the top of the curve) when we have enough. That’s the magic thing that we’re always looking for: enough.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the endowment effect.

The endowment effect (also known as divestiture aversion) is a hypothesis that people value a good or service more once their property right to it has been established. In other words, people place a higher value on objects they own than objects that they do not. In one experiment, people demanded a higher price for a coffee mug that had been given to them but put a lower price on one they did not yet own. The endowment effect was described as inconsistent with standard economic theory which asserts that a person's willingness to pay (WTP) for a good should be equal to their willingness to accept (WTA) compensation to be deprived of the good.

The effect was first theorized by Richard Thaler. It is a specific form, linked to ownership, of status quo bias. Although it differs from loss aversion, a prospect theory concept, those two biases reinforce each other in cases when the asset price has fallen compared to the owner's buying price. This bias has also a few similarities with commitment and attachment.

Loss aversion, by the way, was first proposed as an explanation for the endowment effect - the fact that people place a higher value on a good that they own than on an identical good that they do not own - by Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1990). Loss aversion and the endowment effect lead to a violation of the Coase theorem - that "the allocation of resources will be independent of the assignment of property rights when costless trades are possible"

Sigh… here I go again, getting too deep into the technicalities of what and why we clutter our lives with stuff we don’t often need or need to hang on to… we start acquiring from the day we are able to and that age is pretty low for humans…

But, of course we don’t stop acquiring. We enter the zone when we begin having more than enough, and therefore begin accumulating clutter. And most of us accumulate it all of our lives. The sad thing is, we don’t just have more stuff than we need, and we now have stuff we don’t need that demands our attention in some way: we have to maintain it, fix it, continue to make payments on it, store it,

So we start becoming less fulfilled instead of more so.

I can give numerous examples, but the most relevant one seems to be the thousands of books, some going back to my college days of over 10 years ago which I still hoard or my wife’s jewelry: enough to start a store. Closets full of clothes I haven’t worn in a long while, and so on.

Clutter is usually thought of as things we acquire or accumulate. And, when you stop and think about, the clutter goes beyond purchases: we also clutter our lives with activities that are of no real value to us – like watching serials which serve no practical purpose except to pass the time. I guess, most of us end up doing it unconsciously. The things we don't do, but should do, clutter our mind with apprehension and stress. Unwritten letters, unpaid bills, unanswered phone calls, and unattended tasks and obligations take their toll on our lives. They create a slow energy drain and are as distracting as an endless humming in our head. We can free ourselves from such needless headaches by taking the time to do whatever needs to be done. We can't do everything, but we should do the essentials

So, what do we do? We can do some de-cluttering. It seems to me, though, that what we most need to work on is our constant desire to fill our lives with more “stuff,” be that unnecessary purchases or activities that are of no value. I only suggest it as something we should be aware of and work on to the extent that we can on avoiding it or getting out of the trap that we lay for ourselves.

I don’t have any advice for you on how to do that, at least not at this time, but I did come across a good article by Chuck Gallozzi – and while there is no mystical answer to anything there, it does offer some practical advice!

Long Term Implications of Longevity on Humanity

As I sat down after my initial indignation at the callous attitude, rather to be more accurate, retarded and inefficient approach towards solving a real life problem by AMEX travel counselors, my attention drifted towards more abstract thoughts.

The idea of extremely long life has been a fascinating one. Immortality (or eternal life) is the concept of living in a physical or spiritual form for an infinite or inconceivably vast length of time. As immortality is the negation of mortality—not dying or not being subject to death—it has been a subject of fascination to humanity since at least the beginning of history.

To present day science, it is not known whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations — for example, their fragility and slow adaptability to changing environments, which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering.

However, as of 2009, we do know that natural selection has developed biological immortality in at least one species, the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula, one consequence of which is a worldwide population explosion of the organism.

According to Wikipedia - Biological immortality is the absence of a sustained increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age. A cell or organism that does not experience, or at some future point will cease, aging, is biologically immortal. However this definition of immortality was challenged in the new "Handbook of the Biology of Aging", because the increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age may be negligible at extremely old ages (late-life mortality plateau). But even though the rate of mortality ceases to increase in old age, those rates are very high.

Biologists have chosen the word immortal to designate cells that are not limited by the Hayflick limit (where cells no longer divide because of DNA damage or shortened telomeres). (Prior to the work of Leonard Hayflick there was the erroneous belief fostered by Alexis Carrel that all normal somatic cells are immortal.)

However, there is definite agreement on one fact at least - The immortality of a single cell has never been observed.

That would be the day!

If it were possible to have immortality in a single cell – this would naturally lead to immortality of a being – steady-state – never decaying, never dying – perpetual existence in a locked state.

Not even regeneration would be needed. Now, what would a time lord think of that idea?

The absence of aging would provide humans with biological immortality, but not invulnerability to death by physical trauma: According to 2002 statistical data, the odds of an individual being traumatically killed are once in every one thousand and seven hundred years.

Some life extensionists, such as those who practice cryonics, have the hope that humans may someday become biologically immortal. This would not be the same as literal immortality, since people are still susceptible to death through external circumstances (either deliberate or accidental).

But is immortality really desirable?

Let’s take a look at some arguments in favor of undesirability of immortality.

Physical immortality has also been imagined as a form of eternal torment, as in Mary Shelley's short story "The Mortal Immortal", the protagonist of which witnesses everyone he cares about dying around him. Jorge Luis Borges explored the idea that life gets its meaning from death in the short story "'The Immortal"; an entire society having achieved immortality, they found time becoming infinite, and so found no motivation for any action.

Here, one of the stories written by Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver’s travels). He too had basically written against immortality. Of course – everyone assumes that to live forever means to live forever in a state of youth. Swift was rather astute to point out that this may not always be the case. Immortality trapped in an old body is worse than a curse!

Humans being social animals - to really live, alone, for a long time – is quite undesirable indeed.

Ethics of immortality

The possibility of clinical immortality raises a host of medical, philosophical, and religious issues and ethical questions. These include persistent vegetative states, the nature of personality over time, technology to mimic or copy the mind or its processes, social and economic disparities created by longevity, and survival of the heat death of the universe.

The social, emotional consequences of achieving extremely long life can very really hard to imagine. We have, in our times, experienced the average human lifespan increase tremendously. Today we do not find it odd to observe and expect that an average human – not subject to disease or trauma would at least live to be beyond 75 terrestrial years. Of course the average lifespan vary by region of earth and type of human gene pool as well.

However, our social customs and society is geared very so much towards the old medieval concept of aging. The so called “middle age” has steadily shifting towards 50s and we have a chance of really observing 80s as being called the middle age factor!

But what of the world population? The social consequences of people continuing to live the way it is done today – with its associated tremendous pressure on the resources of this planet.

There are of course religious viewpoints in this very sensitive subject – but I will deliberately restrict myself from venturing in that direction.

In my view, this planet cannot afford to have extremely long lived humans with their current pattern of consumption at figures of billions. We either need to find a new habitable planet to expand to or vastly change the way we live and consume from the environment.

In my future posts, I will concentrate more on emotional and social consequences of extremely long life spans…

ACTION solves almost all the challenges in life!

Feeling depressed for some reason? I was, after almost a week "down-time" with a gastro infection which was followed up by a viral… and started searching for how to kick the depression (all those medicine…)

I found a nice set of tricks to kick the depression out… don’t know the origin of these recommendations, but they work… sort of :-)

First trick:
Get out of your head and into your feet

The body craves movement. Exercise really works. Let's not think of it as exercise though. Nothing is gnarlier to the depressed person than imagining him/herself at the gym in ill fitting sweats, panting on the stair master while svelte athletes are bopping around in all directions. As Woody Allen says, 90% of success is showing up. Once we've got our walking shoes on, once we get endorphins cooking, the doldrums have less power to penetrate.

Second trick:
Turn on music! Now!

I recommend that my clients have an arsenal of inspiring and fun music at their fingertips. I have even been known to make CD's for my clients. When we're depressed, the smallest task feels overwhelming. . If I can kick-start someone's joy, then I am thrilled.

Third trick:
Turn on the light and sit in the sun. Many of us work in windowless cubicles or offices, and wonder why we feel blue.

This time of year, if there is no sun in your world, then buy a full-spectrum light. Get one cheap on E-bay.

Fourth trick:
Hang out with 4-leggeds. (Unless of course, you're allergic)

Having an animal companion near can instantly release oxytocin, that magical hormone that we secrete when we fall in love, give birth, or are nursing. It releases a feeling of goodwill, or trust in the world. OK, so not all of all are blessed to be in love all the time, or be breast feeding, so I recommend my clients find other ways to bring on the joy chemical. Read on.

Fifth trick:
Change your thoughts. Right now.

We have around 60,000.00 thoughts per day. 87% of them are negative and are the same thoughts we had yesterday. Experiencing joy is a deliberate choice. Joy takes practice. Joy is hardcore. I use realistic affirmations, which, at times are posted all over my room. Notice I said realistic.

We must remember that affirmations don't make something happen, they make something welcome. People tell me, "I put an affirmation up on my bedroom wall, saying: “I am going to be hugely successful in the stock markets and get rich." It's been 3 months. Where is the money?" I tell them; "You have made yourself more open to making money. But have you tried doing anything in that direction? Sorry."

Sixth Trick:
Follow a joyous lifestyle. Choose joyous entertainment.
Find a class, a workout, anything that gets you in your body, preferably sweating a bit.

Seventh Trick:
Affirm joy with words.

Rudyard Kipling said "I am by calling a dealer in words. And words are by far the most powerful drug in the world". It may seem trite, but changing the way we speak can be extremely influential in changing our moods.

Eighth Trick:
Grab hold of a goal.

Make it a do-able one. Happiness and joy come from goals. We mustn't put off our lives.

Ninth Trick:
Cultivate a relationship with the divine.

We are whom our higher self wanted to experience. There is some truth to the pithy phrase: There’s no atheist in foxholes. Have a smidgens of faith and the world can be a gentler space.

Tenth Trick:
Choose joyous companions.

When we are depressed, we take our bored, sluggish selves wherever we go. We need distractions. We need company. We need intimacy. It is very important to be around authentic people. We need someone who believes in us. No nay-Sayers!

The Foundation – Seldon Plan and Project Planning & Management!

These days, my interest in readings on literature related to a profession called “project management” is leading me to some weird alleys in literary town.

Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives.

A project is a finite endeavor--having specific start and completion dates--undertaken to meet particular goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. This finite characteristic of projects stands in contrast to processes, or operations--which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often found to be quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and the adoption of separate management.

The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived project constraints. Typical constraints are scope, time and budget. The secondary—and more ambitious—challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives.

Project management has been practiced since early civilization. Until 1900 projects were generally managed by creative architects and engineers themselves, among those for example Christopher Wren (1632–1723), Thomas Telford (1757-1834) and Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859)

It has been since the 1950s, which organizations started applying systemic project management tools and techniques to complex projects. The 1950s marked the beginning of the modern Project Management era. Project management was formally recognized as a distinct discipline arising from the management discipline.

At that time, two mathematical project scheduling models were developed. The "Critical Path Method" (CPM) developed in a joint venture by both DuPont Corporation and Remington Rand Corporation for managing plant maintenance projects. And the "Program Evaluation and Review Technique" or PERT, developed by Booz-Allen & Hamilton as part of the United States Navy's (in conjunction with the Lockheed Corporation) Polaris missile submarine program; These mathematical techniques quickly spread into many private enterprises.

As I was reading through such historical notes… my mind connected with a fictional discipline of Psychohistory as expounded in the novels and stories of Isaac Asimov – in the foundation universe. The Seldon Plan is the central theme of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series of stories and novels, in which – the fictional character - Hari Seldon devised the Seldon Plan using an analytical technique he had mastered called psychohistory. His analysis worked only for large numbers of persons, working as a mob, unaware of their likely future, and gave probable paths for wider historical developments. Using this technique, Seldon deduced that it was certain the Galactic Empire was about to collapse, and usher in 30,000 years of barbarism.

The basic concept behind the plan was initially stated to be to reduce 30,000 years of Galactic barbarism, to under 1,000, and establish a Second Galactic Empire. This appears to have been the original version of the plan. Not because Seldon did not have wider aspirations, but because that was as far as it was originally worked out by Seldon himself.

Seldon obtained permission from the Emperor to start an Encyclopedia project, on a resource-poor planet towards the outer edges of the Galaxy. This project, called the 'Foundation', was to face a series of crises, each of which would force the Foundation to take a particular outcome. For example, a scarcity of metals forced the Foundation to co-operate and trade with neighbors. Each time a major crisis happened, a projection of Seldon would appear, and make comments on the situation that had just passed. After the first crises had passed, Seldon revealed the secret purpose of the Foundation was to re-create the Galactic Empire.

The Seldon Plan is statistical in nature. Future events are described as being probabilities. The variables, as discussed (see above) require a very large number of human beings, literally the population of the Galaxy, in order to reduce the ordinarily random events concerning human affairs to become amenable to statistical modeling.

Seldon's original address at the Decennial Convention on Trantor in 11178 G.E. was his proof, using the irreducibility theorem (or First Seldon Theorem) that the population of the people of the galaxy fell short of being a dynamic system which would be impossible to model adequately mathematically, the definition of 'just' most likely being one order of magnitude, though this is not discussed within the novels. At the time of this discovery, Seldon was not yet sure of either the scope or time constraints required to develop this discovery further.

Initially, Seldon was unable to make any headway on developing the model, as he was attempting to bring knowledge of all Galactic History, as well as considering all of the Galactic Population into modeling. Inadequate history and news reporting in the 12th millennium G.E. hindered his progress during his first year on Trantor, particularly during the period known as 'The Flight'.

After some consideration, at the end of the period of 'The Flight', Seldon realized that Trantor and its attendant worlds constituted an 'Empire in Miniature' on which he might model the past and future course of the Empire. Events in the rest of the Empire could be effectively modeled as second-order effects. Seldon often described this breakthrough as being 'the result of a turn of phrase' he encountered during The Flight.

During Seldon's lifetime, congruent points in the Plan were developed and modeled with enough accuracy to determine the critical points of inflexure that would set the Galaxy on the path of Foundation, and the Second Empire. In order to ensure that the First Foundation would be created, Seldon and the Psychohistorians of Trantor placed the Comissioner Linge Chen (then actual if not crowned Emperor) under intense scrutiny, as well as Mentalic influence in order to achieve their aims. This was a clear but vital breach in the limits of psychohistorical theory, as psychostatistics is meaningful only with planetary numbers, and not with individuals.

To me, the greatest challenge in any age would be to concoct, plan, execute and manage a plan like a Seldon plan!

To think of the challenges where the project execution cycle extends generations beyond the original planner and various disconnected “project managers” must take it to its logical conclusion.

Project Management tries to gain control over variables such as risk. Potential points of failure: Most negative risks (or potential failures) can be overcome or resolved, given enough planning capabilities, time, and resources. According to some definitions risk can also be categorized as "positive--" meaning that there is a potential opportunity, e.g., complete the project faster than expected

To properly control these variables a good project manager has a depth of knowledge and experience in these four areas (time, cost, scope, and risk), and in six other areas as well: integration, communication, human resources, quality assurance, schedule development, and procurement.

The risks to Seldon plan were great indeed. The plan came close to failure in Foundation and Empire because of the mutant called The Mule. Because the Mule had psychic powers of mind control, he did not fit the model of interactions psychohistory was based upon. The Mule could influence men at a distance, unlike Second Foundation agents, who required eye contact. The Mule was eventually lured to a remote planet to destroy the Second Foundation. However, in so doing, he left his main fleet, which was turned against him by Second Foundation agents in his absence, thus ending his rule.

Strange are the parallels that a wandering mind can draw and this one makes me wonder whether this was a vision or random neurons connecting with each in truly random ways…

The Dark Side

No, I am not going to talk about the “Dark Side” of the mythical “Force” out of Star Wars Saga… what set my mind thinking on the dark side of things is an interesting piece of article which caught my attention.

In 1998, astronomers made an astounding discovery that shook the foundations of modern physics: contrary to expectations, the expansion of our Universe is revving up. We live in a runaway Universe, where the most distant observable galaxies are racing away from us at ever increasing speeds.

But what is causing this cosmic acceleration? No one knows for certain, but whatever dark energy actually is, detailed measurements reveal that it comprises a whopping 74% of our Universe's total mass-energy budget!

As the Universe's dominant form of energy, dark energy plays a crucial role in determining how the cosmos evolves, and it will determine whether our Universe expands forever or collapses upon itself.

According to NASA’s website article on Dark Energy - Dark energy has the cosmologists scratching their heads. Observations taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and future space telescopes will be needed in order to determine the properties of dark energy.

Probing dark energy, the energy in empty space causing the expanding universe to accelerate, calls for accurately measuring how that expansion rate is increasing with time. Dark energy is thought to drive space apart.

In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to increase the rate of expansion of the universe. Dark energy is the most popular way to explain recent observations that the universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate. In the standard model of cosmology, dark energy currently accounts for 74% of the total mass-energy of the universe.

NASA has developed the Beyond Einstein Program, a series of missions designed to probe fundamental questions about dark energy, black holes, and the very early Universe.

One of the missions is the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), which will study dark energy.

Two other Beyond Einstein missions, International X-ray Observatory (IXO, formerly Con-X) and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), will provide crucial independent measurements of dark energy.

The exact nature of this dark energy is a matter of speculation. It is known to be very homogeneous, not very dense and is not known to interact through any of the fundamental forces other than gravity. Since it is not very dense — roughly 10−29 grams per cubic centimeter — it is hard to imagine experiments to detect it in the laboratory. Dark energy can only have such a profound impact on the universe, making up 74% of all energy, because it uniformly fills otherwise empty space. The two leading models are quintessence and the cosmological constant. Both models include the common characteristic that dark energy must have negative pressure.

This accelerating expansion effect is sometimes labeled "gravitational repulsion", which is a colorful but possibly confusing expression. In fact a negative pressure does not influence the gravitational interaction between masses - which remains attractive - but rather alters the overall evolution of the universe at the cosmological scale, typically resulting in the accelerating expansion of the universe despite the attraction among the masses present in the universe.

The simplest explanation for dark energy is that it is simply the "cost of having space": that is, a volume of space has some intrinsic, fundamental energy. This is the cosmological constant.

Since energy and mass are related by E = mc2, Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that it will have a gravitational effect. It is sometimes called a vacuum energy because it is the energy density of empty vacuum. In fact, most theories of particle physics predict vacuum fluctuations that would give the vacuum this sort of energy.

Some theorists think that dark energy and cosmic acceleration are a failure of general relativity on very large scales, larger than super-clusters. It is a tremendous extrapolation to think that our law of gravity, which works so well in the solar system, should work without correction on the scale of the universe. Most attempts at modifying general relativity, however, have turned out to be either equivalent to theories of quintessence, or inconsistent with observations. It is of interest to note that if the equation for gravity were to approach r instead of r2 at large, intergalactic distances, then the acceleration of the expansion of the universe becomes a mathematical artifact, negating the need for the existence of Dark Energy.

Cosmologists estimate that the acceleration began roughly 5 billion years ago. Before that, it is thought that the expansion was decelerating, due to the attractive influence of dark matter and baryons. The density of dark matter in an expanding universe decreases more quickly than dark energy, and eventually the dark energy dominates. Specifically, when the volume of the universe doubles, the density of dark matter is halved but the density of dark energy is nearly unchanged (it is exactly constant in the case of a cosmological constant).

If the acceleration continues indefinitely, the ultimate result will be that galaxies outside the local super-cluster will move beyond the cosmic horizon: they will no longer be visible, because their line-of-sight velocity becomes greater than the speed of light. This is not a violation of special relativity, and the effect cannot be used to send a signal between them. (Actually there is no way to even define "relative speed" in a curved space-time. Relative speed and velocity can only be meaningfully defined in flat space-time or in sufficiently small (infinitesimal) regions of curved space-time). Rather, it prevents any communication between them as the objects pass out of contact.

The Earth, the Milky Way and the Virgo super cluster, however, would remain virtually undisturbed while the rest of the universe recedes. In this scenario, the local super cluster would ultimately suffer heat death, just as was thought for the flat, matter-dominated universe, before measurements of cosmic acceleration.

There are some very speculative ideas about the future of the universe.

One suggests that phantom energy causes divergent expansion, which would imply that the effective force of dark energy continues growing until it dominates all other forces in the universe. Under this scenario, dark energy would ultimately tear apart all gravitationally bound structures, including galaxies and solar systems, and eventually overcome the electrical and nuclear forces to tear apart atoms themselves, ending the universe in a "Big Rip".

On the other hand, dark energy might dissipate with time, or even become attractive. Such uncertainties leave open the possibility that gravity might yet rule the day and lead to a universe that contracts in on itself in a "Big Crunch".

Some scenarios, such as the cyclic model suggest this could be the case. While these ideas are not supported by observations, they are not ruled out. Measurements of acceleration are crucial to determining the ultimate fate of the universe in big bang theory.

However, we need not get overly worried. The timescales being discussed towards the end of the universe range between 30 billion to 50 billion earth years (at least as we know them in present era).