Where on earth is this place?

If You want to find out where this is, click on this link.

For those who get my posts by text, this is one you will have to see on the site. http://www.mathaifenn.blogspot.com

Comments are welcome

New Developments in IPR- Watch this space

Hi,

Here is an interesting entry. What if they claim that this software is used only to copy legally acquired dvds for backup purposes only. Can the companies still take the firm to court? Is this the same as taking a person to court for making the hammer which was used to break in? Or is it like making drugs that do not have a legitmate use?

Techtree.com India > News > Software > What Copy Protection? Get AnyDVD

The Beauty of the Fountain

The Richard Mutt Case: Looking For Marcel Duchamp's Fountain

Does art have to show beauty? What if I took a camera and went in search of UGLINESS? In the art world where BEAUTY is worshipped in its myraid forms, how would UGLINESS be recieved? What if we broke down the idols of what we call as sacred and replaced it with profane things? Would the profane then become sacred?

Here is the story of a man who took a regular toilet, put his signature on it and put it up as a work of modern art in 1912. Adding to its mystique, this singular "work of art" has gone missing and we know if today only by a number of "Replicas" that were authorised by artist. Read about it on the link above.

Why is education so outdated?

Independent Online Edition > Americas: "After 370 years, Harvard gets first female president "

The news caught my attention... THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY YEARS???!?!?! That's how long Harvard took to wake up to the fact that women are as good as men when it comes to academics? THAT's Cause for celebration? Especially when the former President talked about NATURAL DIFFERENCES that keep men ahead in the corporate rat race?

I wonder why we think of some institutes as premium institutes. Harvard Business School professors have been talking about gender sensitivity and glass ceiling to organizations and firms I am sure. Once during my research on how to improve the Business Management program at XLRI, I interviewed a professor from IIM who said " I believe that academics should be ahead of the industry, not vice-versa ".

Yet educational institutions are the ones that are MOST resistant to change. In another incident, the Dons at Oxford were pulled up for bad management of resources. WHY is it so hard for academic institutions to stay in tune with the times (let alone stay ahead)? The more venerated they are the MORE resistant to change.

There are two theories of academics...actually three. In the first one, technology as the application of science, academics is the institution where cutting edge research produces real advances for society. In the second, which takes the position that technology moves ahead faster and hence science is always trying to play catch up in codifying the developments of technology. Technology itself is driven by human needs and not scientific observations. The third one states that science and life have no direct connection, academics is a reflective science, one that tries to develop mental models of How Things Work.

I must say this piece of news moves me one more step to reconsider Roger Waters who said " We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control......Hey! Teacher leave those kids alone."

Perhaps,.... all in all I'm just another brick in the wall?

War Technology

In WAR, study the enemy. I don't know if Sun Tsu actually said that, but he OUGHT to have. Technology is Binary. They say that the company that makes Police Radars also make Radar Detectors for cars. Soon enough a new model of radar (that is not easily detectable) comes into the market and the police have to upgrade. Next step: The detector also comes into the market.

Several years ago, Ronald Reagan kicked off the Strategic Defence Initiative. The idea was to station satellites that could track down and incinerate missiles before they could reach American Soil. There was only one problem. It only worked against sophisticated advanced missiles whose trajectories could be clearly calculated. Missiles from the many developing nations were as predictable as calculating trajectories of fireworks.

And today, it happens all over again. Read below news about how Anti-missile technology is ineffective against weapons used by Iraqis.

The recent rash of crashes indicates insurgents have become smarter about anticipating American flight patterns and finding ways to use old weapons to down helicopters. Those aircraft, many of which were equipped with sophisticated antimissile technology, still can be vulnerable to more conventional weapons fired from the ground.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/08/news/copter.php

What does your playlist show about yourself?

Once, I was at Massey Univeristy, waiting to meet Prof. Andrew J Lock, the Head of the Psychology Department. I was shown into his office while he stepped out for a few minutes for some work. While I waited, I looked around at Psychology books stacked in his library. The more I waited the more I began to understand the person I was about to meet. If you choose your own library, it truly is a reflection of yourself.

If a library is a reflection of your intellectual side, what would you learn by looking at someone's music playlist or ipod? Music and entertainment is not just about the intellectual side. It is about a lot of images and a lot of feelings that get triggered off as you listen. The arts integrate yin and yang. Marketers interested in Psychographic Segmentation, and who prefer to go beyond just standardised test, may want to peek into your ipod or music selection?

The blog below is what triggered off this thought.

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/02/personality-secrets-in-your-mp3-player.php

The blog by email

Hi,

I have integrated two of my main channels of communication. One is this blog and the other is the ob1@yahoogroups.com mailing list. So if you are a member of the list, you will automatically get an email of the postings on this blog. One advantage is that you will know when the blog is updated. The other advantage is that many people cannot access the blog from their offices, unfortunately. I hope this helps. I will also continue to post things purely for the mailing list apart from the blogs.

Mathai Fenn

Of one night stands and the morning after

Ever had a wonderful evening night, and wake up wondering 'WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT"? When we were studying Psychology, Prof. George Mathew taught us a course called The Psychology of Consciousness. We used a book called "Altered States of Consciousness" by a chap called Charles Tart as one of the readings. I think it was in that book that he outlined the basic theory of States of Consciousness.

To take an example, its the difference from Dream and Wakefulness. We experience things differently in dreams. While it may have a very logical explanation, once we wake up, we rub our eyes and can't imagine why we were so afraid. Prof. Krishna Prasad Sridhar, in his class in clinical psychology, talked to us about people like Stansilav Grof who used Pschyedelics like LSD for therapy. Here is a quote from an interview conducted by Grof. The speaker is Dr. Albert Hoffman, the person who invented LSD.

Hofmann: During this trip home on the bicycle - it was about four
kilometers - I had the feeling that I could not move from the spot. I was
cycling, cycling, but the time seemed to stand still. In my report afterward, I
mentioned this trip on the bicycle to show that LSD affected the experience of
time, as an example of the distortion of the sense of time. Then the bicycle
trip became a characteristic aspect of the LSD discovery. As we arrived home, I
was in a very, very bad condition. It was such a strange reality, such a strange
new universe which I had entered, that I believed I had now become insane. I
asked my assistant to call the doctor. When the doctor arrived, I told him that
I was dying. I had the feeling that my body had absolutely no feeling any more.
He tested me and shook his head, because everything was
OK.

Then, my condition became worse and worse. When I was lying on my couch, I had the feeling that I had already died. I believed, I had a sense that I was out of my body. It was a terrifying experience! The doctor did not give me anything, but I drank a lot of milk, as an unspecific detoxicant. After about six hours, the experience of the outer world started to change. I had the feeling of coming back from a very strange land, home to our everyday reality.

And it was a very, very happy feeling and a very beautiful experience. After some time, with my eyes closed, I began to enjoy this wonderful play of colors and forms, which it really was a pleasure to observe. Then I went to sleep and the next day I was fine. I felt quite fresh, like a newborn. It was an April day and I went out
into the garden. It had been raining during the night. I had the feeling that I
saw the earth and the beauty of nature as it had been when it was created, at
the first day of creation. It was a beautiful experience! I was reborn, seeing
nature in quite a new light.

From: Stanislav Grof interviews Dr. Albert HofmannEsalen Institute, Big Sur, California, 1984

Prof. Sridhar went on to say that Drugs can be quite deceptive. He told us a story. One day some youngsters decided to experiment with drugs. During his "trip" one of them had an amazing discovery. It was so amazing that he was afraid that he wouldn't remember it the morning after. So he wrote it down and locked it safely in his drawer. The next day he was excited and went straight to the drawer to look at his amazing discovery (he didn't remember what it was). With hands trembling in anticipation, he opened the carefully folded piece of paper to read "The distance from my bed to the bathroom door is 12 feet."! Our prof. went on to say how the emotional "highs" of an altered state of consciousness may come from trivial things and have no long term significance. Nothing carries over from the night before. Nothing to take away for life. I wonder if Jim Morrison would agree.

Btw, if you have come this far... you deserve a break. Here is a piece from an interview with Dr. Grof the speaker is Dr. Stansilav Grof.

DR: When you were growing up in Czechoslovakia, what first led you to pursue medicine, and in particular psychiatry?

Stan Grof: It was a very interesting thing. I never dreamt of becoming either a psychoanalyst or a physician, and I spent much of my later childhood and adolescence very, very involved and interested in art, and particularly in animated movies. Walt Disney was my great hero. Just before I graduated from high school, I had an interview to start working in the film studios in Prague. At that time, a friend lent me Freud's Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis. I read it in basically one sitting, and it had a powerful impact. Within a couple of days, I decided that psychoanalysis was so interesting that I sacrificed my original plan for a career in animated movies. I decided to enroll in medical school. It was almost like a conversion experience.

Back to Last Night...

So what was last night about? The question comes back to haunt me this morning (thank goodness it didn't interfere with the actual experience). I read what I wrote on my blog. LOVE???!?!?!?! I check my phone call register for more clues to yesterday. Other than my wife, there are other women on the list. Uh Oh.. But wait... there are also men. What connects all the names on the list? They are all people who have either enjoyed my terrace or I know have enjoyed similar experiences. I go back to my blog from last night. Maybe love is not about wanting to own or possess another person? Maybe it is not gender specific? Maybe its a deeper need to share our experiences? Is that why authors write? Is that why I write my blog? Am I in love with YOU right now?

Whats this thing called love?

Sitting on the terrace, a slight chill and a breeze in the air. The subdued lights of the city lighting up the sky... the twinkling lights of an airplane far away as it comes into land. Soft music playing in my ear, thanks to Radio Indigo playing on my mobile phone. I switch to Kenny Rogers, mp3 and sit on my reclinging chair all alone. The drink slowly going down...... I can feel my body relaxing.

I send an sms to my wife (downstairs) asking her to come up and join me for a NICE evening. She comes up briefly and then says...its too cold, despite the wool shawl covering her. I reach out and hold her close. She leaves, politely saying its too cold for her on the terrace. She looked shocked at my suggestion that we sleep on the terrace, with the stars and the moon above us!

Why is it that we have this desire to share what is beautiful to us? I obviously LOVED the experience of being on the terrace, watching the planes coming down to land, listening to music. Why can't I enjoy it by myself? Why can't I recognize that what is beautiful to me is NOT what is beautiful for another person?