Can Technical Incompetence curb freedom of speech?

Most of the bloggers in India, including me are victimised by this 'Banning of blogs'. Confusing signals sent from the govt not clearly specifying which blogs to ban and technical incompetence from the ISPs has resulted in a complete blanket ban on all blog sites. Is this the way to showcase to the world that India is such a great democracy and a technical powerhouse? When the ISPs say that they cant blog specific blogs, how did they do so now? There is little to say positive about this whole incident. It has caused outrage among many bloggers and has definitely not gone down well. I hope such acts are not repeated. After all, how will the ban be effective when the blogs can be accessed through proxy servers? Its just to say the bloggers are more cyber-savvy than the ISPs themselves!

Travails of the mind

There are many feelings which cannot be expressed in words. But i am trying to get as close to it as possible, just to get a better understanding, i meant better and not complete. When one is elated at a point of time, for no reason that the mind can resonably deduce, there comes a sudden lull; a blankness, which cannot be described , as in a TV screen which does not get any cable input and only raw noise. Its like a transition stage and it waits for a catalyst, one which satisfies the selective permeability to change the mental status from blankness only to worse and nothing else. 'Worse' may not be a good choice, but I meant a state where the mind comes out of blankness and lets the initiators of the 'unwanted' feelings enter. Some action somewhere, of someone or something , remotely known who has not been on touch and has effecively been an inert element to this mind, causes this drastic and dramatic change. The mind begins to work overtime , conjuring up images it knows it hates to see, which , might be completely improbable, but remotely possible, which is the driving force for this very generation. Thats the point when the conscious self loses control and surrenders to the automatic clockwork inside. The body and the senses are at high alert state and are extremely vulnerable to any outside acitivity. Yet , like the common cold, it cures itself faster if left undisturbed. The senses slowly return to normal and the mind gains control. Its more predictable if that mind is yours, you know what is coming next but cant stop it, at your current state, save you have conquered your self.
" Why do ask me what will I do when you already know what I would choose?? "
- Neo to the Oracle

Magic and Information

When I woke up today morning, i experienced a barrage of thoughts, entirely random but still had some common thread connecting to them. When I first decided that my blog space would have a central core theme of the travails of the human mind, I later thought that it might have been just an impulsive acton. But my intuition, which drove me to that decision proved right again today. After a hiatus, I am revisiting the theme again. The thread connecting today's thoughts was how the human mind treated magic and information. Magic is always relative to the human mind's extent of making inferences from the inputs it gets from the senses. I remember that the basic theme of the Matrix revolved around the mind. When Morpheus tells Neo, "Free your mind, and you will realize the truth" drove home the point. John Travolta in Swordfish says, " Mis-direction! What the eyes see, the ears here, the mind believes!". The first automobile was magic to those who hadnt known them before. When Sherlock Holmes says " I often feel my deductions are simple once I explain them, and so do others." MAgic is hiding the information, hiding the facts. Its magic for us because we dont know how it happened, while the magician knows how. Information is the ultimate weapon. The very form of differentiation arises through the imbalance in information dissemination. Thats why even in tamil, there is a popular saying - "Kannal paarpadhum poi, kaadhal ketpadhum poi. Theera visarippade mei!" ( What your eyes see are false, what your ears hear are false, reasearch only will lead to the truth). So before we judge and form opinions we need to go beyond our initial inputs from the senses to get the true picture. After all, how was it decided that if an unbiased coin was tossed, the head and the tail have an equal chance of apperaing? There were several attempts, and exhaustive testing and verification.

Awesome sports weekend!

June 30 and July 1st have seen some of the best matches and sporting events all packed in a span of 48 hours. The World cup had its share of nail-biting nerve racking moments. England met their nemesis yet again in penalites, Scolari and Christiano Ronaldo. What a guy, giving a wink after Ronney's sending off! Then came the biggest upset of the WOrld Cup! 5-time champions Brazil were outplayed and outclassed by a set of 11 players from France, who were considered to be one of the oldest teams in the competition and could have faced an early exit save their 2-0 win over Togo. And then cricket. India achieved a place in the history books when it won the final test in Kingston to record its first series win in the West Indies in 35 years! And wasnt Dravid the Wall brilliant! His knock were one of the best in such conditions and he himself rated them so! Next to the Championships - Wimbledon. Andre Agassi, a living legend who was one of the very few to have won all the 4 grand slams bowed out of the tournament, And who sent him packing?? Rafael Nadal. The king of clay is coming of age in the grass court and is on the right track to challenge FedEx. And finally, the king of F1 returned, with Schumi posting a flawless victory in Indianapolis! ANd he led all the way right from the first qualifying session! What a weekend!