world inside a mirror

Seasons of the Soul (Deepseek)

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 22:32:00 +0000

In the temple by the lake, where mist embraces stone,

A monk and boy awaken to the world they’ve always known.

Spring whispers through the trees, a breath of life anew,

The boy laughs, the river sings, the sky wears morning’s hue.

He learns of weight and consequence, a stone tied to a fish,

The ripple of his actions, the granting of a wish.

But innocence is fleeting, like petals on the stream,

And summer comes with fire, to test the fragile dream.

Love arrives, a fleeting guest, with passion’s burning flame,

The boy becomes a man, yet cannot bear the shame.

The temple walls grow distant, as he chases wild desire,

The lake reflects his longing, a mirror of his fire.

Autumn paints the mountains in hues of gold and red,

The man returns, his spirit worn, his heart a weight of lead.

The monk, now old and weathered, tends the garden’s grace,

Teaching him to carve the wood, to find his rightful place.

Winter’s frost descends, the lake now still and clear,

The man becomes the teacher, the cycle drawing near.

A child arrives, a spark of hope, to learn the ancient ways,

To carry on the seasons, through nights and endless days.

For life is but a circle, a wheel that turns and bends,

A journey through the seasons, where every story ends.

In the temple by the lake, where time and silence blend,

The soul finds peace in knowing: every winter turns to spring again.

The Plain's Quiet Song (Deepseek)

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 20:53:00 +0000

Beneath a sky that breathes and swirls,

The plain lies still, where silence hurls

Its weight upon the golden sea,

A boundless stretch of destiny.

No mountains rise, no rivers gleam,

Just earth and sky, a timeless dream.

The grasses sway, a whispered tune,

Beneath the gaze of sun and moon.

A farmhouse stands, a humble mark,

Its shadow long as daylight dark.

A figure walks, so small, so slow,

Through fields that only quiet know.

The clouds, like brushstrokes, bold and free,

Paint stories of eternity.

Their hues of gray and gold entwine,

A masterpiece of the divine.

Oh, plain of peace, of endless grace,

Your beauty lies in open space.

A world unbroken, pure, and true,

Where earth and heaven softly woo.

So here I stand, a fleeting guest,

In awe of nature’s quiet quest.

The plain, the sky, a song unsung—

A harmony forever young.

Elephant's Ballad: A Night at the Neon Pub (Poem by Deepseek)

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 21:22:00 +0000

In a dim-lit pub where the laughter rings,
Beneath the glow of neon strings,
There stood an elephant, grand and tall,
With a voice that could enchant them all.

The piano keys, they softly played,
As the crowd in awe began to sway,
The elephant's trunk, it swayed with grace,
A gentle rhythm, a steady pace.

With eyes so deep, like pools of night,
He sang of stars and moonlit light,
Of savannas wide and rivers deep,
Of dreams that dance in silent sleep.

The patrons hushed, their glasses still,
As the elephant's voice began to fill,
The room with tales of ancient lore,
Of lands unseen and hearts that soar.

His baritone, rich and warm,
Could weather any raging storm,
Each note a story, each word a thread,
Weaving magic where he tread.

The bartender wiped a tear away,
As the elephant sang of a brighter day,
The jukebox paused, the world stood still,
Captivated by his will.

When the final note began to fade,
The crowd erupted, unafraid,
To cheer and clap, to stomp and shout,
For the elephant who brought them out.

Of mundane lives and daily grind,
He sang of love, of peace, of mind,
And as he bowed, the pub did gleam,
A place where dreams and reality stream.

So if you find yourself in a pub one night,
And hear a voice that feels just right,
Look for the elephant, grand and true,
He'll sing a song just for you.

Dystopian Spring

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 22:35:00 +0000

AI Poem (DeepSeek)

The sky bleeds rust, a fractured hue,
As blossoms twist in ash and dew.
Petals fall like shattered glass,
A brittle world where shadows pass.

The trees stand tall, but blackened, bare,
Their roots entwined with cables there.
A river flows, but thick and slow,
With neon lights that eerily glow.

The sun, a ghost behind the smog,
Casts feeble rays on barren bog.
Machines hum low, a mournful song,
Where nature's voice once sang along.

A child kneels, her hands outstretched,
To touch a flower, metal-etched.
In this strange spring, where life's undone,
The earth still dreams beneath the sun.

Confused-Advice t-shirt on Qwertee.com

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Mon, 07 Sep 2020 12:29:00 +0000

I designed this t-shirt to highlight the confusing advice comping from various governments across the world during this difficult times. Please vote for the t-shirt or feel free to print it on your own. I can give high-res images if needed.

you can vote here. if the link does not work just go to qwertee.com and look for the design confused-advice

https://www.qwertee.com/product/confused-advice

Galakeet paneer

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 17:53:00 +0000

This is my new recipe which I tried with my wife. It is a modified version of palak paneer. So this is what you need.

Carrot (Gajar) - 200gms
Beet - 200gms
Spinach (Palak) - 200gms
Paneer - 100gms
Onion - 1 medium size
Tomato - 1 medium
Ginger and Garlic paste - 2tsp
Cumin seeds - 1tsp
Bay leaves - 1 or 2
Garam masala - 1tsp

The name Galakeet comes from Gajar-palak-beet after removing a few alphabets. Anyway to start with take the three vegetables and wash them thoroughly. Put them in a pan or pressure cooker after peeling and boil them till they are almost cooked. Put the all the boiled vegetables in a food processor and make a fine paste. Cut small cubes of the paneer and fry them till they have a light brown colour. Put some oil in a frying pan. Add the cumin seeds and the bay leaves. Once the cumin starts to splutter put the onion and ginger-garlic paste. Sauté the onion for a few minutes and then add the tomato. Cook for a few minutes and once the tomato becomes soft add the paste from the food processor. Bring the whole mixture to a boil and then add the paneer cubes. Add salt to taste. Cook for few minutes and finally add garam masala. Mix everything in the pan and it is ready. Serve with rice.

12 of the finest (unintentional) double-entendres ever aired on British TV and radio

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 16:21:00 +0000

12 of the finest (unintentional) double-entendres ever aired on British TV and radio:

1. Ted Walsh - Horse Racing Commentator - 'This is really a lovely horse. I once rode her mother.'

2. New Zealand Rugby Commentator - 'Andrew Mehrtens loves it when Daryl Gibson comes inside of him.'

3. Pat Glenn, weightlifting commentator - 'And this is Gregoriava from Bulgaria . I saw her snatch this morning and it was amazing!'

4. Harry Carpenter at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race 1977 - 'Ah, isn't that nice. The wife of the Cambridge President is kissing the Cox of the Oxford crew.'

5. US PGA Commentator - 'One of the reasons Arnie (Arnold Palmer) is playing so well is that, before each tee shot, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them. Oh my god !! What have I just said??'

6. Carenza Lewis about finding food in the Middle Ages on 'Time Team Live' said: 'You'd eat beaver if you could get it.'

7. A female news anchor who, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked, 'So Bob, where's that eight inches you promised me last night?'

Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too, because they were laughing so hard!

8. Steve Ryder covering the US Masters: 'Ballesteros felt much better today after a 69 yesterday.'

9. Clair Frisby talking about a jumbo hot dog on 'Look North' said: 'There's nothing like a big hot sausage inside you on a cold night like this.'

10 Mike Hallett discussing missed snooker shots on 'Sky Sports': 'Stephen Hendry jumps on Steve Davis's misses every chance he gets.'

11. Michael Buerk on watching Philippa Forrester cuddle up to a male astronomer for warmth during BBC1's UK eclipse coverage remarked: 'They seem cold out there. They're rubbing each other and he's only come in his shorts.'

12.. Ken Brown commentating on golfer Nick Faldo and his caddie Fanny Sunneson lining-up shots at the Scottish Open: 'Some weeks Nick likes to use Fanny; other weeks he prefers to do it by himself.

Composition

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 21:16:00 +0000

A thought for electoral reforms in India

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 19:00:00 +0000

Something came to my mind looking at the results of last few elections. The last few elections we have seen that the country is ruled by a joint venture which has polled only say 42% of the votes. That means it was not elected by the majority. And this scenario also leads to the situation where parties are playing religion or caste based politics. The aim being somehow get support of any religion or caste having close to 20% population base and then the rest can be evenly distributed. What I say is India needs to rethink how it elects its representatives. India should have elections in two rounds close to each other or vote counting should be by transferable votes in order of preference.
In the two round process, the process would be the same for first round as it is but for second round only 1 and 2 position holders will contest in second round. The places where one candidate gets more than 50% votes need not go to second round. The cost and the logistics will be an argument against this but seeing the monumental scams that congress has done the price will be small. The benefits of this system will be many fold. I am listing two that comes to my mind.
1. Just appeasing one section of society will not ensure your win
2. Chances of hung verdict like in Delhi may be reduced since people will then see that newcomers like AAP can make a difference.
In the transferable vote policy voters will be asked to mark the order of preference. In the first count only the first preference will be taken. The ballots belonging to candidate coming last will be taken and they will be allotted to remaining candidates in fray based on second choice. And this will go on till one candidate get more than 50% votes. This way everyone will have to look towards the whole constituency rather than just apleasing one section.

Bread crumbs fry

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 21:58:00 +0000

Ingredients

Bread Slices (Large): 6

Eggs: 2

Meat masala: 2 Table spoon

Jeera powder: 1 Tea spoon

Flour: 3 Table spoon

Salt: to taste

Oil for frying

Procedure:

Soak the slices in a cup of water for 5-10 minutes. Once the bread is soft press the breads hard and get as much water out as possible. Knead the soaked breads in large bowl. Once the bread forms like a paste add the eggs, masalas and flour and need to get an uniform dough. Add a bit a water if the dough becomes too dry. The texture after kneading should not be too dry or too wet. Make small or medium sized patties for frying. Take a frying pan with little oil in it. Once the oil is hot release the patties and fry under low heat so that the inside of the patty is also cooked. Cook till both the sides of the patty have a deep brown colour. One can do many variations by adding other masalas or minced meat. Serve it hot with onions and lemon.

The strange case of advertisements and trailers

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:36:00 +0000

It has been almost six months that I have come to UK and took up my temporary position. As day goes by I learn new things, new rules and strange practices. I will write about one strange practice which I found excessive and bordering the limits of greediness. Just day before yesterday I went to watch a movie in the theater. Here the movie is not important but what went on before the movie is. The movie was around 90 mins like any standard Hollywood movie. The torturous part were the advertisements that went on for 35 minutes before the movie started making it over 120 mins affair. It made me wonder, if there are any rules and regulations in this country regarding the amount of advertisements and trailers they can show before the movie. It would be stranger if the theater was not breaking the rules by giving the viewers such a long display of advertisements. It feels like as if I am paying few times over to see theses ads. First in the cinema where I paid to get in and then when I buy the product as and when if ever I decide to do so. The things that seems funny is that they pride in rules and regulations but I guess there is non when it comes to capitalist advantage and greed. In that 35 mins saga of mine the most interesting part was the trailer of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Ben Stiller came with is long monologue and then the trailer and in the end thanked us all for watching as if we had a choice. I felt like Alex DeLarge from Clockwork Orange forced to watch something though in my case I could shut my eyes and go to sleep if I could somehow ignore the loud sounds. There was another such trailer where Martin Freeman came to promote his movie Hobbits 2 but well he did not have a long monologue and the movie will be released in 3D so I guess he did not need a monologue. Finally I will end this short write up with the strangest part, that is, on the one hand the politicians are crying loud shedding crocodile tears over high rate of unemployment on the other hand places like this cinema gives you discount if you buy tickets online and so that they can hire less number of ticket vendors and maximize profit. What a strange practice Sir ji!!!

Simple Chicken fried my style

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 23:37:00 +0000

Today, I felt like having fried chicken but wanted to spice up a little bit. Put together a recipe which I am sharing here.

Chicken: 400gms

Ginger paste: 1tbsp

Garlic Paste: 1tsp

Turmeric powder: 1tsp

Chilli Powder: 1tsp

Meat masala: 2tbsp

Gram flour: 2tbsp

Salt to taste

Oil for frying

Chop the chicken into medium sized pieces and put it in a large bowl after washing properly. Put all the ingredients in the bowl and mix it well. One can also put coriander powder or cumin powder to spice a little more. Once mixed deep fry the chicken and fried chicken my style is ready. Garnish it with chat masala or lemon juice as you please.

Chicken coconut curry in mashed potato

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 22:20:00 +0000

Ingredients
Chicken: 400gms (chopped into small pieces)
Potato: 3 large
Onion: 1 large
Ginger paste: 1 teaspoon
Garlic paste: 2 teaspoons
Coconut milk: 300ml
Coriander powder: 2 teaspoons
Turmeric powder: 1/2 teaspoon
Cumin powder: 1 teaspoon
Red chilli powder: 1/2 teaspoon
Butter: 20gms
Garam masala: 2 teaspoons
Clove: 3 pieces
Cardamom: 2 nos
Cinnamon: 2 inch
Oil for frying
Salt to taste

Procedure

Boil the potatoes till they are soft. Peel the skin and mash them with butter and coconut milk.
Make a fine paste of the onion.
Heat oil in a saucepan. Add the cloves, cardamom and cinnamon to the oil. Fry the spices a little and then add the onion, ginger and garlic paste. Add half a teaspoon of salt to it and then fry the paste till the water has dried and the paste looks oily.
Add coriander powder, chilli powder, turmeric powder and cumin powder to the pan and fry a little.
To this fried paste add the mashed potato and coconut milk mixture. Mix the ingredients in the saucepan nicely and cook for sometime. Add water to make the broth light. Add garam masala and cook for few minutes.
Add the chopped chicken pieces and cover the pan to cook. Occasionally stir the broth so that it does not stick to the pan. Add water based on whether you want soup kind of texture or thick gravy.
Add salt to taste and once the chicken is fully cooked serve with rice or bread as per your choice.

When plagiarism is concerned

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 12:53:00 +0000

Plagiarism according to Wikipedia, and I directly quote ''Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" and "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work. The idea remains problematic with unclear definitions and unclear rules.'' I am writing mostly in context to plagiarism in scientific research. In the past there have been many cases where texts from published work have been wilfully copied or the complete work has been reproduced. There have been investigations and some action taken etc etc. Those things are in the past and the effort has to be in the direction to curb such incidents. In that direction, many ethics code of conduct have been formulated and enforced. Still an area remains where accountability, when caught in the act, is always enforced on the junior authors or graduate students. The latest case being of Prof. CNR Rao where the blame was conveniently passed on to the PhD student (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._N._R._Rao#Controversies) even though the senior authors claimed to be the corresponding authors or lead authors. This is just one case which got highlighted in the media due to the stature of the people involved. So, the question to ask is what are the remedies against such incidents. IIT Bombay in this regard took a step in the form of signed ''Honour code" but it was only a half hearted attempt as far as it is evident from the news item. It says that student have been asked to sign such an honour code. My question here is, why only the students who in most cases follow the whims and fancies of their supervisors, not out of intellectual or creative deficiency but due to a system which demands complete obedience, were asked to sign such a code. How the system demands that obedience can be a subject of another write up. If any system is serious about stopping plagiarism then all the players concerned should be asked to follow a strict code of ethics. It is not enough just to ask one particular section of the community to be accountable while another goes scot free. When a work is published and appreciated the major chunk of appreciation is reserved for the corresponding author or the lead author but when some wrong doing is caught every trick in the book is applied to pass the buck on somebody else. In this regard I would like to cite this scandal and would like to point at few of the first comments in the post. Just for the record I will quote a few of the comments here before finishing this write up.

The paper in concern: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl400959z

Argument: I personally know the 1st author and would like to believe this never happened. But i guess we’ll have to wait for the U investigation. It will be very hard to see if prof takes any responsibility. I don’t think the student would have the courage to do this without prof knowing it or him forcing them to do it. Maybe this part of the issues will never come out in open.

Counter argument: I know Dr. Pease as well and am surprised he would be involved in something like this. My personal opinion is his student did it and Dr. Pease didn’t catch it (although one could argue that he should have). I guess we’ll see what the investigation determines.

What I would have in a SLR if I can..

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 11:46:00 +0000

I am an amateur photographer taking pictures of various architecture or natural things like flowers and animals etc etc. I have a Pentax-Km which is an entry level DSLR. When I am using my auto focus lenses I mostly try using the auto-focus facility to take images faster. The results vary whether I pointed exactly at the subject or the camera picked up some other point for focus. Mostly it is difficult to say whether your focus was great or out of focus slightly on the small LED screen of the camera. It is only when you put the picture on a big screen that you find that your focus was few centimeters ahead or behind the subject you wanted. So, I felt that it would be great if my camera could automatically store data in one file for a picture where the focus has been varied few tens of centimeters say 20cm in front and back of my desired object. That way when I have the raw file on the computer I could just by sliding the focus bar can get my object of desire in focus. You can get rid of a bit of softness in the image by sharpening but it does not give you the same image as you may have got with the right focus. It might take out a lot of fun for people who want to do all the focusing and things but for some like me getting the end result right without doing too much photoshop or gimp is fun. Well, just an idea I had may be someday such cameras would be available at an affordable price.

Inferno - Dan Brown not Dante

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 19:56:00 +0000

Inferno is the latest book involving the Harvard University professor Robert Langdon. I got the book on the first day of its release having pre-ordered. I must admit, that in the series of books involving Robert Langdon Angels and Demons and Da Vinci Code were really interesting and as far as I am concerned I was hooked to the books from page one. Even the third book, that is, Lost Symbol was good but not as nail biting as the other two and the ending was really disappointing. Felt like Dan Brown was making up for the controversy he created by writing Da Vinci Code. Anyway, based on the wonderful experiences I had reading Dan Brown's books, I had big expectations from the latest version involving Robert Langdon and even so more considering the fact that it shared the name with Dante's first part of Divine Comedy. Judging from the cover and design of the book available in UK, I must say I was impressed, specially the reproduction of Botticelli's Inferno was quite nice, which by the way is not there in the American edition (Got to know from a friend). With great anticipation I started reading the book, a man shot in the head stumbles into a hospital and a chase begins. In few words the whole book is about a chase and felt like reading the German movie Run Lola Run by Tom Tykwer. At times the author goes way off the plot to explain the city in which the plot is taking place and it has nothing to do with the plot. While reading, it feels more like reading Frommer's travel guide to Florence or Venice with a pinch of thriller. In fact, while pre-ordering the book from WH Smith, my local book store, they gave away Sanctus by Simon Toyne for free. I felt the free book was way better than the book I actually wanted to buy. Just for sake of information, Sanctus is about some secret hidden from the masses by the church and if it comes out Vatican's influence will be gone or something to that effect, I will not spell the story in case somebody wants to read though the plot is there on Wikipedia. In the end, I felt Dan Brown could have done much better job than writing a thrilling Frommer's travel guide. I would like to point out here that the concept of the new virus in the book is quite interesting and I believe a much more crisp story could have been woven around that concept without the boring details of Florence or Venice. So, next time another Dan Brown thriller is round the corner, I am not buying it without reading at least first fifty pages. (The opinion on this page is mine and others are free to disagree)

The Age of Price tagging

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:28:00 +0000

On my recent trip to our neighborhood book store I figured a wonderful thing about the way the prices on the books are displayed. Generally a book comes with a small abstract about the story with key exciting points either on the inside flap of the dust cover for hardbound books or on the back cover of soft bound books. The price of the book is mostly quoted on the back cover along with other details. But apparently with the preference of hardbound books for new releases this has changed. Suppose, you are visiting a book store looking to buy a recently released book, you look in the inside flap to know a bit about the book, as an example I will take the latest Dan Brown book which I recently purchased (Thankfully pre-ordered it, cost me much less). I am not trying to advertise the book since I have not read it yet but I did like the placing of the price tag, which is common for all books these days. As usual I opened the inside flap and it started of with 'Seek and ye shall find.' And then goes for some length saying lots of things about the book and you read on, a small crescendo builds up inside you like a musical performance picking up momentum, you are probably saying in your mind "Oh yeah! This is interesting" and then the protagonist is probably going to fall into a deep trap and then there are sentences like "---A threat to his life will propel him and a young doctor, Sienna Brooks, into a breakneck chase across the city of Florence. Only Langdon's knowledge of hidden....", you are already having a picture that too in color of two people running through ancient tunnels and all, pursued by crooked looking guys with guns in hand. In the mist of all a ray of hope in the form "...With only a few lines from Dante's dark and epic masterpiece, The Inferno, to guide them, ...... save the world.....", you are almost there "Oh yeah! The world is in trouble again". Now the stakes are even high, before only America was at stake or may be some other country now invariably the world is at stake, feels like the world got smaller and then the final blow to make your picture 3D from colored "Set against an extraordinary landscape inspired by one of history's most ominous literary classics, Inferno is Dan Brown's most compelling and thought-provoking novel yet, a breathless race-against-time thriller that will grab you from page one and not let you go until you close the book...". Your picture is 3D, you are enjoying the feeling hoping to be able to buy the book and then one small corner quietly in small letters it says £20, and your 3D picture just collapsed into a white canvas and you feel "Seek and ye shall find the price".

Brand it at will

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Funny how things are branded and how it works in reality. Bought item from flipkart. They shipped in due time using fedex. Received the mail that said "Your Shipment was sent through:- Standard Overnight ", I presume this is a service name from fedex. and then after few lines "You will receive your shipment in 2-3 working days.". How on earth did overnight become 2-3 working days or there is a new paradigm which says standard overnight is 2-3 working days. If the paradigm is true may be it can be used at our work place like, "I will complete the report in standard overnight, sir".

Rubber band nation

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 06:41:00 +0000

One of my friends wrote in his blog that we are a Nation of Rhinos, quite evident from recent events as well. I think on top of that we are a nation who love to stretch things beyond any comprehensible limit. Let us start with our television series. One can find numerous examples where the story line keeps on stretching. To give you an idea as to how much it can stretch, let us assume that one of the stars had a baby while the series is in say its fiftieth episode. By the time the child grows up to watch and understand the series say in his/her mid-teens the show would be still running and no one would feel that they missed something. This is the scenario for say the regular mother-in-law daughter-in-law stories where episode numbers may run to even four digits. Lets take the case of comedy series, though after sometime you are forced to laugh watching them since there is hardly any comedy left. I have seen a few comedy series from American sitcoms and I find that each season does not stretch beyond say 30 episodes and the series may run for say 7 years making it a 200 episode series. And on top of that each scenario will be finished in a single episode. but if you take Indian comedy series each scenario will at least run for four or five episodes and on top of that some of the series have already made to 1000 episodes (e.g Tarak mehta ka ulta chasma). It seems though the public in this country are increasingly drawn towards 20-20 format of cricket our television directors and producers are keeping the five day format alive. This case of rubber band mentality is there not only in our television but in our culture as well. Be it ceremonies in festivals or marriages or births or deaths we can always see the presence of Mr. Rubber Band. It is not that we understand the meaning of all what we do but since it was being done before so keep doing. Somehow, it feels like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times where he is given two spanners and he keeps tightening the screws no matter what and it continues even during his break. This rubber band effect is seen in our academic system as well. I can understand if you keep stretching the rubber band philosophically beyond imagination or say literary but to stretch it historically is something I never got it. History is something that has already happened and what is there to stretch for school kid. While in school I found it on regular basis that if I can write that "India became an independent country on 15th August 1947" using considerable amount of paper and ink, I got more marks. Same is the story with our higher education in science. The common belief still exists that you have to suffer for at least 6 years before you are fit to be called a doctorate. The quality of work is not important but the time is. I can keep writing on and on like the rubber band effect and still there will not be any end to it. Amongst all these stretched scenarios the only thing short in this country is memory which for some reason does not stretch beyond ones single step. And this is quite evident from the kind of people we keep sending to our parliament year after year.

Guarantee of price

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:15:00 +0000

Here I will talk about my experience while shopping in India and another European country. While in Europe I used to go to a shopping chain all the time for day to day items as well as items which I may buy once in a while. Once, while buying a bag I found that the price on the display was less than the price that they were charging while billing. When I brought this to their notice they told me do not worry we have guarantee of price, we will check the tag and if it belongs to this product you will be charged the lower price and it happened that way and I had to pay around 5 euros less for and article costing 55 euros. When a similar incident happened in an Indian shopping store where they had displayed a soap bar of 320 gms to be priced 20 rupees and then their machine charged 22 rupees, on bringing the discrepancy to their notice I was told somebody put a wrong display. You may say that it is just 2 rupees. I agree but then at the same price there were other products which I might have taken. And if seen percentage wise it is approximately 10% of the marked price. Also, in one of the stores for glasses it was clearly written in one corner, system prices are final, display prices will not be considered in case of dispute. I am saying this because, the customer should get benefit for wrong display. The logic being that the customer spends some time on the product only when the price is in the budget. If it is out of my budget I will first look for the items in my budget. Then I will go for trials etc. After this, if I find the product is out of my budget then my time spent on that product is either wasted or I go beyond my resources to buy it. Basically this is a crime on the part of the seller to waste my time so he should give me the display price if it is lower. On top of that I am not able to see what is the price quoted in his/her system. Furthermore, if an item is marked lower than the system that means that there is a possibility that the item was sold at a lower price without making any loss. So, if it was not making loss before at the lower price it should not make a loss now. I have even come across shops in Europe where two same items were priced differently. I was told that the lower priced ones are from old stock. If you want you can take that as well. The point I am trying to make is, how do I know the shop is not doing psychological marketing. It is an well known fact that people generally buy a product even if it is priced higher than display since they have spent some time looking at it, comparing it with others and most importantly liked that over the rest of the lot. And I have seen many times in shopping chains in India where the customer is arguing with the cashier that the display price is something else and the cashier calling the guy responsible, who in the end will tell it is a wrong display. To conclude, I would say in any case the customer should get benefit of the wrong display in the form of the lower price of the two between the system and display.

Durga Puja 2012, Burdwan, My clicks-Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 13:41:00 +0000

Second set of images from my pandal hopping during durga puja 2012. The first set I put in my last post.(Click on the small images in the collages to see larger version)

Laltu Smriti Sangha

Milan Samity

Shakari Pukur

Joramandir

Lakshmipur Math

Alamganj

Keshabganj Chati

Bahir Sarbo Mangala Para

Netaji Sangha

Shyamlal

Boronilpur Friends Club

Nilpur Tarun Sangha

Birhata Kali Bari

Hatudewan Baroari

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An ad for the websites from where I made my image maps. The websites are free and quite useful for making image maps. The second website is good for making circular image maps which is not available in the first one.

Durga Puja 2012, Burdwan, My clicks-Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:29:00 +0000

I will put here a collection of my pictures I took while hopping from one pandal to another this year during durga puja in Burdwan. A lot of them were really innovative while many were simple but beautiful. (Click on the small images in the collages to see larger version)

Rail colony shibtala

Parkas Road More

Burir Bagan

Parapukur

Badamtala

Rail Colony

Bajepratappur

Sarbamilan Sangha

Ichlabad Youth Club

Police Line

Padmashree

Sabuj Sangha

Nivedita Sangha

Khosbagan

Jhapantala

A Bulb for Pentax-km

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 15:54:00 +0000

I found a few days back that the bulb operation for the Pentax-km is really strange. Generally people use bulb for long exposures and hence use a remote release. In this Pentax model for bulb operation you have to keep the shutter release button pressed as long as you want the exposure. And for remote release, in this case IR, it is not one click on and one click off, like model from other makers like Nikon and Canon, rather you have to keep the sensor engaged for the total amount of time you need the exposure. Apart from that your remote has to be in the line of sight of the IR sensor on the camera. I really don't know why Hoya corporation hires such engineers to make cameras who do not understand the bulb function at all. Though I made an attachment to work with this camera in the bulb mode but it is said that the IR sensor heats up after 10minutes of continuous operation and then it disengages. The attachment is quite simple. What you have to do is put two IR diodes in opposite sense and connect to any audio device with the proper signal output. The signal output can be made using any standard wav creator. The signal code for IR remotes for Pentax is 38kHz, hence you have to use two diodes in opposite sense so that when one is off the other is one and this will give rise to a 38kHz signal from a 19kHz signal which can be played out form any mp3 player.

Further explanation and information can be found in this forum post (http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-discussion/131633-absurdly-simple-diy-k-x-remote-timer-using-mp3-player.html). This design works, I made my own using the instructions given in the post. I am copying the post directly so that even if the forum closes down the instructions will be there. There is also an Android app and it can be found here http://www.multiupload.com/WKHOQ1KVHP Try to use a a 940nm high power diode similar to Maplin YH70M specifications for which can be found here.

"I started with a headphone extension lead, from Poundland (luckily I thought the one Maplin sold for £7.99 was a ripoff) and the two IR LEDs are from Maplin, code YH70M, just over a quid each.

Testing. Believe me, when the shutter went off this was a real EUREKA! moment for me. You have to wire them up so that the positive leg from one LED is attached to the negative leg of the other LED. This is NOT a parallel circuit - they are two opposing diodes. This becomes clear later. Also, my lead has a red, white and yellow wire. The yellow is ground, and is not connected to anything.

I decided to file down one edge of each LED so that they fitted next to each other nicely (you have to make sure to file the correct side on each one else the leads don't go well together)

See I started filing the wrong side on one of them.

I used thin shrink tubing on one lead and then larger shrink tubing to cover both the leads, then wrapped the whole lot in insulation tape.

Finished. Very simple. I guess it took about 2 hours to make but that included the time it took me to figure out how to make the .wav file work.

So that's the lead. The next step is the .wav file. I found the correct code from this thread. It looks like this.

So here's the important bit. To be honest i'm not sure that what I'm about to say is technically correct but, well it works so there you go. The IR code signal is 38kHz but the .wav file we will create cannot go that high. So what we do is use pulses of 19kHz, and because we have two LEDs wired opposing each other, one LED will 'light' up during the positive part of the wave and the other will light up during the negative part of the wave, so that for each wavelength we actually have two pulses - so a 19kHz wave gives us 38kHz pulses. Follow me? To make sure this works, only one channel (I've made it the left channel) can transmit the signal because if both channels do then they cancel each other out. Or you could invert the signal on the right channel (possibly leading to a stronger IR pulse - need to experiment with that).

The signals are created simply using the "Generate, Tone" function in Audacity. I specified a square signal and 19000 Hz, for 13 milliseconds for the first long pulse and then 1 millisecond for the subsequent pulses.

Here's a screenshot of the .wav file I created, I used Audacity which is free.

LINK

Once it is saved as a .wav, use windows media player or something to check it works. In case you hadn't guessed, the lead you made just plugs into the headphone jack of your computer/MP3 player/whatever. It's funny though - this didn't work with VLC. But windows media player did work. Meh. It also worked when I converted the file into an MP3, but possibly less reliably? Not sure. I would stick with wavs unless your device can't play them.

To make this into a useful timer, you need to create a track with the signal at the beginning, followed by X amount of silence, and then simply play the track on repeat. However I have found it hard to gauge how much time to leave - for example when you set the shutter speed to 30 seconds the time between shots is actually a bit longer than this. For this reason I prefer to use bulb mode, so the .wav is laid out like this:

SIGNAL - 30s silence - SIGNAL - 2 seconds silence

with this on repeat, the camera will continuously take 30s shots until the memory card is full/batteries run out. Whatever, experiment, see what you like. Watch out for DFS though, but then you could even account for that by putting in the appropriate amount of silence for DFS.

Anyway the point is this is a really really simple way to make your k-x into a time-lapse or astrophotography beast! You could even set up a playlist to give you, say, 100 exposures at 30 seconds, 10 exposures at 5 seconds, or whatever. I'll be making some sort of mount to attach the lead to the camera close to the IR port, possibly even just an elastic band or something.

From PentaxForums.com: http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-dslr-discussion/131633-absurdly-simple-diy-k-x-remote-timer-using-mp3-player.html#ixzz26YPKQYeP"

My experience with "Controle"

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 16:23:00 +0000

Here I would be writing about a true incident. I and my friend were walking down a busy crossing to buy some gifts for him to take back to his family. While waiting at the crossing to turn green I saw three police officers on the other side of the street. The signal turned green and we crossed but the moment we stepped on the other side these officers stopped both of us and asked if I spoke French. I said no and then they switched to better than bad english and told me they wanted to search me. I did not oppose thinking that I might have done something stupid and I was thoroughly searched. At the end of the search I asked the guy searching me if I did anything wrong, he simply said no its a "controle". I don't know what that means. I can only imagine a search like this without reason only when a country is under martial law but later I figured out that such searches are possible in France. The most strange thing that came to my mind is that at no point these officers demanded a proof of identity. They even asked a few times if I had money in my wallet? I had only coins but no euro bills. This incident happened on 21st January 2012 at around 5:30 pm on busy crossing in Grenoble. As an afterthought it came to me why did those guys only stop me and my friend and not anybody else from the crowd? A variety of explanations are possible and the most popular one in this scenario would have a pinch of color to the explanation. Many studies available on the internet do tilt the scale in favor of the color aspect but again how do I know what made those policemen to search me when these kind of searches are supposed to be random. May be this can be tested by using some random selection experiment. In a bucket if we place say lot colored balls of say red color and then put a few blue ones it would be interesting to note how often the blue ones are picked by a person looking at the bucket. I do not know what will be the result of such an experiment but it would be interesting to know. Anyway, the experience was not very pleasant but I hope it was truly a random event.

Lost in translation

noreply@blogger.com (freakywindow) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:16:00 +0000

Well one of my friends posed a question as to what should the translation of a line written in Bengali to English. So here how I replied and the line.

The question: Jabar path ache ki baki ? (যাবার পথ আছে কি বাকি ?)

Would you please help me to translate the above into English ?

The answer: This is not so easy this sentence has spiritual meaning. Lets see word by word. First word "jabar" if written in English. But this one you can write with G as well. So it becomes gabar. Meaning a person belonging to Iranian Zoroastrianism. The second word "path" is same in English as well meaning road. So seen as in English the first two words translated will mean "The road to Iranian Zoroastrianism". Moving forward, "ache", in English it means pain. The next word "ki" can also be written as "key" like lock and key. And the last word is "baki" we can also write it with an e like bake as if baking a bread. Now the key refers to something particular. In this case the road so the key road to Iranian Zoroastrianism, and to get good things in life or achieve spiritual enlightenment you have to suffer or bear pain. So the author of the above sentence wants to say that " The key road to Iranian Zoroastrianism is baked in pain"