Overtures

Yahoo prepares for a merger

Uma canção que eu amo

                               

with the zAgile Vitória team members (Lucas, Julio, Eric, Felipe, myself) and Salim (on guitar)

Mira ComoProgresa Chile!!

No.  No hay progresa todavia!

(Puede ser posible en 20 años) 

Sanjiva, Santiago, March 14, 2007

An Ode To Microsoft

"Please tell Microsoft About This Problem"

Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service Configurator has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

Google ToolbarNotifier has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

Biometric User Switcher has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

Symantec User Session has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

Adobe Photo Downloader 3.0 component has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

Intel 802.1x Server has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

<< Chorus >>

Please tell Microsoft About this problem

Please tell Microsoft About this problem

Please tell Microsoft About this problem

<<End Chorus>>

SmartWi.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

DrWatson Postmortem Debugger has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

You chose to end the nonresponsive program, Internet Explorer. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

<< Chorus >>

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

Please tell Microsoft About This Problem

<< End Chorus >>

My friends are installing Ubuntu on my Windows laptop

Please tell Microsoft ...

--PS-- I wouldn't be so inspired to write this song if this wasn't a daily occurrence. 

Me gusta Ubuntu !!!  Muchas gracias mis amigos!!!

 

AlaskaAir Unsubscribe Me!!

I don't remember signing up for any promotions by email from AlaskaAir (I never do by practice) but I still tried to unsubscribe to the newsletter from them.  Several Times.  Politely.  Impolitely.  But to no avail.  So I decided to get a bit more persistent and try their online support.  Here is that conversation.  Truly amazing.  It totally made my day:

'Please wait for a representative to respond. We are handling multiple chats, and we thank you for your patience.

Hello my name is Gary. How may I assist you?

sanjiva: I have asked to be taken off you mailing list several times. Who do I have to pay to get that done? It is frustrating, stupid and inept.

sanjiva: I think you are violating my privileges by continuing to send stuff which I have asked not to be delivered. It is 'SPAM'

Gary: May I have your full name, date of birth, mailing address, phone number, e-mail address and the Mileage Plan number?

sanjiva: are you kidding?

sanjiva: sanjivana@yahoo.com

sanjiva: I need you to get me off your mailing list, not qualify me for a home loan

sanjiva: don't make this scenario any worse or it will soon become the joke of the town (and I will guarantee it)

Gary: Your request needs to be handled over the phone. Please contact Customer Care at 1-800-654-5669 (Option 2) during the business hours of 8:00 am-5:45 pm Pacific Time, Monday through Friday, excluding Holidays. One of the representatives will be happy to assist you further.

Que Pasa?

 

In the Dec 1st issue of quepasa, one of Chile's leading publications for business and politics.

Santiago, Chile.  Dec 1, 2006

FedEggs

Online Tracking

On-time Delivery

Low Cost Shipping

Free Insurance

Go to http://www.FedEggs.com/overeasy.asp

Koyaanisqatsi

Koyaanisqatsi "Life Out of Balance; Moral Corruption and Turmoil"

Donde esta Sanjiva??

 

A dose of Sanjivani !!

"Wait'll they get a load of me!"  (so says The Joker in Batman).

But seriously, this is funny or 'pun'ny or seriously ironic, however you choose to see it.

While I pursued hairloss remedies (hmmm!, I know it is also ironic) , ther e is one that hit too close to  home:

•             

  Take one portion of coconut oil and mix with two portion of SANJIVANI and mix it properly, shake well and fill in another bottle.          

•             

  Use daily in morning or evening like plain oil and massage properly for 4-5 minutes.          

•             

  Partly infected (weak) hair follicles become healthy and strong resulting in             strong, healthy, long, silky and dense hairs.        

Ref:  http://www.boostimmunity.com/sanjivani.htm

Hmmm!

I know I have had a dose or two of 'myself' AND I know that's what's causing the hair to fall off.  So this prescription is obviously not working (at least how I interpreted it).

Maybe, SANJIVANI is not the answer, or may be I am not quite true to my namesake ayurvedic herb (I need to find an ayrvedic herb with which I can more readily identify).
 
BTW:  The site referenced above spins itself or this recipe as the Ayrvedic wonder that confounds modern science.  Heck, everything confounds modern science, but let's not make that an issue.  Those scientists have been seriously busy unifying all the theories they have come up with over the past four centuries. 

-Sanjiva, Orinda, 2/27/06

Un hiver à Orinda

J'attends le printemps :))

And then my heart with pleasure fills...

And dances with the daffodils

("I wandered lonely as a cloud", William Wordsworth, 1804)
Daffodils courtesy of 7 Sager Ct., Orinda :))

                                                                                                        

On Religion and Software

I am a software professional so its not unreasonable for me to often try to relate the world around me in software metaphors. Here is one of them.

For some time now, I have been developing a perspective that religions across various cultures and societies have not evolved sufficiently to keep pace with societies. As a result, the abstractions (teachings or philosophies) associated with any religion have sustained because these abstractions offer more opportunities for interpretations and instantiations. Conversely, specific beliefs or practices have failed because they were associated with geographic or situation-specific contexts and have failed to migrate or transform across these contexts (across time, cultural boundaries or geographies). I am not suggesting that religion is dying anywhere but clearly it has become much more of a legacy than a constant, evolving, driving force that 'consistently and uniformly' regulates our behaviors, interactions, morality, purpose, sense of sacred (specific reference from Stuart Koffman's book--At Home In the Universe), sense of humility--in a way that was likely imagined in the minds of the originators (if that were to have happened). Moreover, I would even assert that in the modern societies, regardless of the social or cultural setting, religion has seemingly transformed more into a 'buffet' where people are choosing various aspects of it to suit their lifestyles, improvising or compromising on its 'raison d'etre'.

Of course I am making all this up since I have never come across a general definition, interpretation or purpose of religion. I am assuming that it arose in any society as a result of some very fundamental needs--and different societies seemingly recognized the same needs. However, that need or philosophy quickly became integrated with local beliefs, traditions and superstitions and gave rise to a blend of practices that have not found sustaining values over time. I am mixing up traditions and social behaviors with religion because there are no clear lines between them and there are many scenarios where these beliefs created controversies and revolutions in societies--all in the name of religion or god. The challenges to Darwin, Copernicus, Galileo and others were all because of specific beliefs and not the abstract teachings of a particular religion. They came up because of the inability of a particular religion or teaching to adapt to our learning and our growth.

So what does that have to do with software? Well, it demonstrates the same characteristics. We are neither able to build sustaining values in it nor are we ever wanting to accept that the systems that we build need to evolve or be replaced. Modern society's spiritual and intellectual growth is accelerating in much the same manner as its needs for technology but we are chronically mired by 'enterprise-class' legacy systems which outgrow their usefulness as the business practices and processes evolve. Here also, we are left with compromised functionality and vision or conversely a set of abstractions which offer value only to the intellect.

Was that a stretch? :))

Sanjiva, Orinda, Jan 13, 2006

The value of information

It seems that entrepreneurs in the west have capitalized on medical discoveries and teachings from ancient India without giving much credit to the source. That shall be no more. As a result of this 'piracy', the Indian government has undertaken a significant effort towards putting all available information in the public domain in a number of 'western' languages (English, Spanish, French and German) and Japanese. The information obviously had already been documented (in old 'textbooks") but it has existed mostly in Sanskrit, Arabic, Tamil, Persian and Hindi -- none of the languages or media pertinent for the European or US Patent Offices.

So now begins the task of putting all of this information in a database. No one will be able to call any of it their 'own' and capitalize on it. One estimate suggests that 80% of the previously awarded patents in US on medical plants originated out of these teachings.

I applaud the effort by a society and government to protect their IP. But knowledge itself has little value. We have tons of it and we are constantly creating more and more of it in all forms. I believe that productizing, packaging, marketing, selling and building successful businesses out of this knowledge comprises the remaining 99.9933% of the effort. Hopefully, the government of India will also invest in making the locals succeed in becoming successful entrepreneurs in the same way as many have become in the west out of this 'gold mine' of medical data. Why not! alternatively medicine is on an upswing.

For more, read  India hits back in 'bio-piracy' battle

Sanjiva, Orinda, Dec 9, 2005

Persistence of Schizophrenic Genes

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (November 2005) and conducted in Britain suggested that creative and unconventional thinkers tend to be more sexually successful.  The researchers extrapolated this behavior to genes that are related to schizophrenia and concluded that schizophrenia confers mating advantage in people (makes them more attractive, they have more sex and more babies, etc) and therefore allows the gene to persist in the gene pool (since the gene tends to run in families).

Hmmm!

I think it is a wild stretch.

No, I don't.  I think it explains it all and clearly too.

I know this is totally made up.

No its not.  It is so scientific. 

...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051207/hl_nm/creativity_tied_sexual_success_dc_2

Malaria, Bill Gates & a Technology Roadmap

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently donated over $250M towards research on Malaria.  The money is primarily directed at two efforts: a) development of a Malaria vaccine, and b) development of more effective drugs to treat existing infections. 

This was a significant philanthropic move by a single foundation or individual towards a disease that affects the third-world (mostly Africa) and has proven to be a challenge to control.  But more than the amount of donation or the cause, what was impressive to me is the 'Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap' and an associated global collaborative forum that resulted from this initiative.

This initiative comes with a clear vision (to save children under five in sub-saharan Africa from Malaria-related deaths, implying that the research will only focus on p. falciparum which is the most virulent of all Malarial forms) and strategic goals (to produce a v1.0 of vaccine by 2015 which will be 50% effective against severe infections and a v2.0 of vaccine by 2025 which will be 80% effective against severe infections...)

There are a number of stakeholders involved in this effort (research institutions, pharma companies, foundations, etc.) and its 'culture' appears to be completely collaborative and result-oriented.  This is no longer knowledge for knowledge's sake.  Success will not be measured by 'winning scientific achievement awards'.

Malaria has been researched for decades, although most of the effort has been primarily an R&D pursuit by the academics.  The pharma companies have little interest in a disease which affects people in the third world that can barely afford food let alone diagnostics and treatment from these debilitating infections (of which Malaria is only one of many).  Their efforts are also hampered by a parasite that has been very elusive to the immune system by constantly altering its physical form and antigenic nature (see antigenic variations in Malarial parasite below).  The challenge to produce an effective vaccine, therefore, is enormous.

For once, a project of such significance towards saving lives has many stakeholders and drivers (and a roadmap) to ensure that the results can be measured and achieved.  I have rarely seen such an organized, goal-oriented and collaborative effort in medical research.  Its about time.  Way to go Bill!! 

-Sanjiva, Orinda, Dec 3, 2005.

http://www.forbes.com/personalfinance/philanthropy/2005/10/30/malaria-gates-philanthropy-cz_ec_1030malaria.html

http://www.malariavaccineroadmap.net/pdfs/stake_summary.pdf

http://www.brown.edu/Courses/Bio_160/Projects1999/av/malaria.html

On Intelligent Assembly

Having read some more on this debate and pursued discussions with passionate and opinionated friends and colleagues, I am coming to realize that the debate on 'Intelligent Design' must  'evolve'.  I assert that the real nature of the debate should not focus on Intelligent Design but on 'Intelligent Assembly'.  This is essentially the 'Unifying' theory that brings together 'Darwinism' (explaining lots of phenomenon, such as the presence of Cytochrome P450 across the phylum) and 'Creationism' (offering deep and enriching explaination for 'eyeballs' and watches).   It is much easier to accept the assertion that 'some' parts 'evolved' and 'others' were 'designed' and an overall assembly process occurred. 

Remarkably, these two theories come together (at least in my mind) around the same time as the unification of the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics (into a 'String' theory most of which still remains to be proven but what the heck)-- which now concludes that we are all in a two-dimensional world and experiencing 'holographic' illusions with the third-dimension interacting with quarks, gravity, time, etc. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=0002B59B-5B5C-1359-9B5C83414B7F0119)   

I love it because thinking of myself in a two-dimensional world and having holographic illusions of having been 'creatively' assembled and evolved simplies a lot for me.   

I feel Unified.

Sanjiva, Orinda, 11/11/2005

Why Do We Travel?

While in Mallorca recently, I had a chance to visit Valldemossa which boasts of (amongst other things) having hosted Frederic Chopin and George Sand during the winter of 1838-1839 (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sand). 

In a small gift shop in the town center, I picked up an English version of one of George Sand's books - "Un hiver a Majorque" (A winter in Mallorca).  The book was of interest due to the fact that both Chopin and Sand had a 'nightmarish' visit to Mallorca and this had largely influenced the tone of her book.  However, it was something other than Sand's characteristic 'French' attitude and perspectives on the trip that caught my attention.  In her introductory note,  Sand asserts "It is not so much a question of travelling as of getting away; which of us has not some pain to dull, or some yoke to cast off?"

As I had been on a journey myself, a journey that was as spontaneous and open-ended as it was without concrete objectives and one that lasted several weeks, this assertion had me thinking a lot about why I left for this trip and what I sought.  Was I getting away from something?  Did I need to cast off some yoke?

I tried to both understand the author's perspective (I am still in the midst of the book) as well as attempted to reflect on whether that assertion could be so generally applied as the author had intended. 

So, why do we travel?   I dare to think that George Sand was very much motivated by the bitterness of the experience in Mallorca.  When I think of the long lines in front of Cuevas Del Drach where people sat and waited to get in to see the spectacular stalactites and stalagmites (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanjiva/sets/1232068/) or the sunbathers on the beach in Soller (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sanjiva/54588186/in/set-1183193/), I couldn't imagine that everyone there was trying to get away, although 'getting away' is definitely one of the reasons. 

So why were they in Mallorca?

I believe they sought:

A change of pace and rhythm of daily life,

To explore and learn,

To seek isolation, focused time

To recharge,

To escape (aka get away),

To seek something that they couldn't find in their everyday environment, i.e. to seek something that would help them complete their lives.

I don't believe that they were all trying to 'get away'.

So, why do you travel?

Sanjiva, Orinda, 11/11/2005

My Genetic Journey

After a much anticipated wait of nearly five months, the results are finally in on my "genetic journey" -- or the journey my ancestors took.   This particular study, sponsored by The National Geographic, analyzes specific markers in the DNA and maps them to existing database of various lineages and migrations that have occurred in the past 60,000 years, originating in Africa.

I wanted to share the analysis of my DNA and other related data that I found quite interesting and curious:

• My lineage can be traced back to the "Eurasian Adam" who lived in Africa around 60,000 to 80,000 years ago.  His descendents migrated out of Africa on to the middle east and beyond towards Europe and Central Asia, taking both the east and west routes.  (Note: This was the only lineage known to survive beyond Africa.)
• There are two lines that trace more explicitly to India.  One directly from Africa to the southern part of the Indian peninsula and onwards to Burma and beyond.  The other through the Arabian peninsula and Iran.  Curiously, my lineage maps to a different one that migrated to central Asia and Siberia.  These people were also the eventual settlers of the New World (crossing the ancient land bridge of Beringia that connected Asia with North America).

With respect to the timelines, the migration of the descendents of Eurasian Adam related to the lineage to which my DNA mapped most conclusively progressed as follows:

• To North Africa and the Middle East 45,000 years ago
• To Central Asia and India around 40,000 years ago (This is the root of most of the Northern Hemisphere, i.e. most North Americans, East Asians, Europeans and Indians). 
• To Siberia and the North Americas some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago

I was both excited and disappointed by the results.  I expected much more precision than a lineage that dates back to 15,000 years ago (although not necessarily a zip code).  I am also quite surprised that my DNA maps more to the lineage that migrated to Siberia (marker M242) than to others (such as marker M9) that are much more explicitly connected to India (although they have common origins).  I would venture to guess that the reasons for this are potentially 1) a mistake in the analysis of the results, 2) lack of sufficient or conclusive data in my DNA markers, perhaps resulting from dilution, or 3) some migrations that occurred from Siberian peninsula towards India in the past 20,000 years that are not well known in this context.

In any case, I think this study is quite useful and valuable for the sake of Science as well as our learning.  The timing is also appropriate and critical since the gene pools are getting ever so diluted with the mixing of races that soon we will not be able to follow such clear paths to our ancestory.

I also believe that the clarity and precision of data and analysis will improve significantly as more people participate in this study and more data is collected.  To this end, the price of the kit ($100) is a significant barrier.  Still, I encourage all those who appreciate the value of this learning to participate in the study, if you can and share in the excitement of knowing a lot more about our roots.

-Sanjiva, Oct 28, 2005

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic

PS -- I have ordered additional kits to do the same analysis for my parents in the hope of discovering a consistency in the results. 

Finally, during the course of the DNA analysis, I was told that the initial results were inconclusive and further analysis was needed.  This further supports my theory that in our case, the DNA is likely too diluted relative to the data that is currently available for this research.

On Intelligent Design

A few years ago I came across an abstract in Scientific American that described the discovery of a few additional steps (Post Transcriptional editing of m-RNA) that occur during protein synthesis that lead to the generation of two different functional proteins from a single gene in two different cell types in the human body.  This brief and seemingly innocuous study shook some very fundamental beliefs that I had up until that point -- primarily that one gene encodes one protein.  Over the years, Molecular Genetics has attempted to corroborate the evolutionary theory proposed by Darwin through discoveries such as Cytochrome p-450 in cells across various species.  But this one was difficult for me to grasp in the context of Evolution.  As an engineer, I know a 'hack' when I see one and this one looked like a hack.   However, as I started to question what I long believed as a student of Science and began to wonder whether we weren't in a lab and part of an elaborate experiment in the universe (friends told me to read The Hitchhiker's Guide series), I still stayed away from the often political and religious Creationist vs Darwinism debates.

That is until now.  There have been a number of recent articles and debates on Intelligent Design vs Evolution with the assertion that the theories related to Evolution cannot satisfactorily explain a lot of phenomenon and that we need to reconsider the possibility of Intelligent Design that has led to life.  When I think about it, even in the context of Darwinism, what we previously accepted as supporting arguments for the theory can easily be questioned and at times the theory seems like a house of cards. 

While I have not recently explored the politics and agendas behind the Intelligent Design supporters, conceptually I am in support of it -- at least to the point of ensuring that students understand that Darwinian theories are simply that with little that can be proven and there is much outside of it that cannot be explained by those theories. 

Having studied symbiotic and parasitic relationships between species, I also do not believe that all such 'design' is intelligent since at times it does not seem to work all that well.  But that is another debate.

 

Prof Speaks at 'Intelligent Design' Trial <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051017/ap_on_re_us/evolution_debate>

Intelligent Design

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design>