Sat. Nit. Fvr.

I survive the week, to live in the weekend !

And this weekend peaked right in the middle of the weekend- Saturday night. It all unfolded in the Ministry of Sound at Clarke Quay - neon environs, slick interiors, graffiti walls, eye-catching lighting , groovy dance floors and of course great music.

An interesting experiment i tried on myself today was to try to switch between extremes in state of the mind. It sounds strange and impossible, but i could feel it happen. The ability to control my feelings nudging it to the extremes, than letting it control me was empowering..

> I pushed myself to feel super excited while dancing, and after a while suddenly switched myself to really calm state even though engulfed by pounding techno music.

>Tried to be extremely happy and enjoying the company of friends and crowd, and then to turn off completely and feel solitude in my own personal island while standing in a sea of humanity

>Cracked jokes, injected humour and laughed hard, and soon switched to the see pathos and grappled with the seemingly pointless human existence.

I didnt worry about the Action-observation-inference of the above experiment , but it was just interesting to perform !
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Arunmozhi

I always used to try moving away from those I thought as negative people.
But all I have to learn, is to stay away from negative thoughts and opinions.
 

Pro

Pondering one day about the kind of employees who work in my office,we came up a quad-band classification to describe them -

There are some extremely professional and workaholic people,
There are some very unprofessional and lethargic people,
There are some who are just professionals,
And there are some who are just people - like me !

Use-and-throw words

Wat hapens wen you hav comited a stoopid tipografical eror, but firmlie beleiv tat acsepting mistaks howevar trivial they are,  is an humeeliating defeet to one's eegoe ?   - Invent a word like this one :

Lickled :
Being  lickled is exactly the kind of feeling/incident, when you are trying to type any word starting with 't', an involutary muscular spasm that causes your hand-eye coordination to go awry and make one depress the 'l' key instead of 't'.   its a very specific word with limited use not worth committing to ur memory !
 

Another Friday evening

This article had a definite effect on me, from the time I read it a few months ago.

Today I was wandering quite aimlessly near the mall in Tampines, half hoping to find some library there. After some uninterested browsing in the Levi's, Fila, Fox, Bum equipment showrooms I just moved on without buying a thing. Disappointed with my own botched up shopping spree, I decided to help the Singaporean economy by spending just 1 dollar to buy the irresistible curry puff of Old Chang Kee. I walked to a side wall, leaned on it and started to nibble at the puff.

Sitting on a small stool and leaning on a pillar , some 10 feet away from me was this 50 something old Chinese man with a saxophone started to produce some sounds. We were separated by a corridor where a streaming mass of pedestrians walking to and fro. The mobility of the people and stillness of this man was a strange sight indeed, and for a while was a bit distracting for me. But the man kept playing a melody and didnt seem to be bothered by the hurrying rabbits around him, and thats when I noticed he was blind.

Now as the music picked up, and the image of the player is only what i saw amidst the blurry chaos between us, and I relaxed to some soothing music to please my ears, and the puff satisfying my palette. One does get much better music in a concert in Esplanade Concert hall,but they allow you to simultaneously enjoy a hot curry puff inside!

After a couple of songs, I was ready to leave, I walked up to him, dug out all the coins i had in my pocket into his money box - probably helped him for his next meal.

Then I went to him while he was resting between 2 songs, moved close to his ears and spoke softly "very nice music Uncle..good night ! " - probably helped him for his next song, as he thanked me with a warm smile that truly belongs only to a performer of the arts.

Arunmozhigal

Law of attraction of headphone wires :
Every wire in this universe will entangle with every other wire with a force thats directly proportional to the product of the user's urgent need and presence in public and inversely proportional to the square of the time it was left unused.

The IC Designer's analogy of Child-Birth

Ever wondered how closely phases in the birth of a child follows a typical integrated chip development cycle so closely ? If you havent yet, then start now!

The relationship between designer(mom) and internal customer(dad) within the parent company is key to success of the project. Its starts with marketing presentations, feasibility studies, and project planning(courting,proposals,marriage). The designer and internal customer work closely to create the initial requirement spec(zygote).That happens only after severe brainstorming sessions to choose between millions of competing ideas, the most potent one is chosen for implementation(fertilisation process).

The quality of the final product primarily depends on the quality the initial spec (genes) and a typical SoE (System on Embryo) project duration is 38 weeks. Except in the case of identical twins or genetic clones, Intellectual Property rights are in place and there is no violation of copyrights(unique individual)

Once the top-level entity is declared and inputs outputs systems identified, the subsystems start to be declared(differentition) and individual workstations (stem cells)are assigned to start to work on development of systems like neural-network processor core(brain) , various functional macrocells(internal organ systems), analog sensors(eyes,nose,ear) and actuators(hand/legs).There is a constant need for power resources and information to fuel the growth(umblical cord thru placenta)

Project development is monitored by accrediting agencies - Doctors with ultra-sound. The system responds to external inputs like sound, light and many of its output vectors are registered by the designer. Well before the final delivery various simulations have been run (heart, organs start functioning) and actuators begin testing phase inside the womb itself(kicking and moving inside).

Project delivery is a difficult time for the designers getting very little rest/sleep during the phase. Every team concerned with the project is really tensed and praying for a good delivery on time for fully functional first silicon with minimal bugs. Tape-out occurs after all verification has been done (head-out in the case of a baby!)

Basic Operating Systems (new-born's instincts) are put in place in the ROM memory and remaining memory will be field programmable for customisation by external customers(parents,school,society). This is one of the finest examples of hardware/software codesign, and the complexity of the software increases with the maturity of the product. After the first silicon is up and running, there is huge support phase (15-20years) needed from the designers to make sure all the bugs are cleared up and the product reaches maturity(puberty) and ready for volume production(career).

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Reference:
http://www.spuc.org.uk/ethics/abortion/human-development

Punnagai Desam

Being left to play around with trio of wonderful kids, I realised that they were all spreading an infectious strain of a long extinct species in me - innocent laughter. The smiles they sprang forth were continuous, bountiful and unstoppable. All the while their parents were arguing and debating over family issues, property hassles and inheritance uncertainties.

I could only think to myself, that if only smiles were quantifiable and counted like currency, the kids would be far far richer and generous than their parents!

The old railway line

Single, deserted and largely unused
writing many letters in rotting wood

Here is one rusty metal rail for another
giving warm company to each other

Their beautiful and parallel lives
always joins hands at the horizons

And so they run to it, wishing to meet
but never'll come closer than three feet!