Ideagold

Parliament or People?

2011-12-02T15:45:00.001+05:30

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

– Sir Winston Churchill

A very important question being discussed in India consequent on the legendary Satyagraha of the 74 year ‘young’ Gandhian, Anna Hazare is whether the parliament has unlimited power so as to ignore questions asked by people or whether a large group of people can question the authority of a duly elected parliament. India is the largest democracy in the world and the size itself contributes to peculiar problems. The Indian democratic system has survived in spite of many challenges and the whole world will definitely look forward to its survival. All systems of government have merits and demerits. But democracy is the most preferred system of modern world.

The present tussle between Anna Hazare’s Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jan Andolan (People's movement against corruption) and the UPA government should certainly cease if the democratic system in India is to be strengthened.

Now, coming to the question of supremacy of the people and the parliament: Personally I believe that the question itself is unnecessary in a strong democracy. In India people’s participation in every thing has been misunderstood as the participation of the ruling parties. The concept of political parties came into existence only as a matter of convenience. Democratic systems of government in all parts of the world have committed many mistakes by giving too much importance to the ruling parties. We find an ocean of changes in the key positions of the executive whenever the government changes consequent on elections. This change will be drastic if the newly elected government is formed by the political parties who were in the opposition earlier. In theory we stipulate that the executive should refrain from political bias. In practice we are quite adamant to post politically biased officers in key positions so that the political interests of the ruling parties are safeguarded, often ignoring the interest of the general public.

I strongly believe that the term opposition itself is a misnomer in a true democratic setup. Why do we call the political parties and the independent MP’s/MLA’s not included in the ruling front as opposition as though they are destined to oppose every thing?

The unnecessary divide as ‘ruling’ and ‘opposition’ is, to a great extent, to entertain the common electors. Often the undesirable and corrupt practices of the political parties are justified by citing similar practices of the opposition earlier. For the common electors this is often sufficient to justify the parties towards whom they have a slight bias! ‘Divide and rule’ is a well known technique practiced by all selfish governments. As the world’s largest democracy, we have to strengthen our system by upholding our age old tradition of satya and dharma. In other words, we need to work hard to achieve a democracy populated by elected representatives who are capable of practicing truth in thought, word and deed.

A Free Software Download For You Every Day

2011-08-02T13:58:00.000+05:30

The idea of giving some thing useful free of cost to the needy is definitely a commendable one. This is exactly what is being done by the website, giveawayoftheday.com (GOTD). This website gives a software application every day free of cost to its visitors. Usually the software is available for free download for 24 hours or more. After the expiry of the download time slot, another software application is presented for free download and this process is repeated.

The software offered by GOTD is not a trial version or a limited version, but is a registered legal version. The limitation is that you can download and install it during the allowed time period only. Once installed, you have it without limitations for your personal use.

To go to the site you may click here.

To Publish Your Blogger Blog Using Your Own Custom Domain (To Transfer Your Blog from Blogspot to Your Own Domain)

2011-07-08T16:36:00.019+05:30

In my last post, ‘Publishing on Custom Domain’, I had promised to share with you the details of the very simple procedure using which I switched this blog from the blogspot sub domain (ideagold.blogspot.com) to my own custom domain (ideasgold.com). I purchased the domain from godaddy.com since I found their service very reliable and convenient. I had purchased two domains from godaddy.com earlier and was impressed about the ease with which I could manage the entire transfer process using the very convenient zone file editor they offered for entering the CNAME (Alias) record and A (Host) record.

As I mentioned in my previous post, this blog continues to be hosted by Blogger so that I need not worry about the cost of hosting and down time issues. If required, I can avail of the paid hosting service by GoDaddy or any other reliable host.

[Currently Blogger does not allow domains without www (naked domain) such as yourdomain.com. But this is taken care of in the procedure given below and so even if your visitors search for the URL http://yourdomain.com (without bothering to add the prefix www), they will be redirected to http://www.yourdomain.com, without getting any error messages. When your visitors search for your old URL at blogspot, blogger will redirect them to your new URL].

For purchasing your domain from godaddy.com, you need to go to their website (godaddy.com) and register your account. Opening this account is free and you need to pay only when you actually buy the domain! Payment through a credit card is a very convenient option but I leave it to you. You may use Paypal if you desire so.

[You may buy a domain with any other TLD (Top Level Domain) you like, such as .net, .org, .in etc.]

I am not going to give the details of the domain purchase process. It is simple and if you want to know more about it, you may try a google search for ‘domain purchase through godaddy.com. In this context you will find a useful link here. Godaddy.com will inform you (through e-mail) about discount offers for domain names which you can avail of.

Since I could not get the desired domain ideagold.com, I purchased ideasgold.com from GoDaddy.

Now, coming to the main points of this post, here are the steps I followed for the domain transfer:

(1) Login to your GoDaddy account.

Click the My Account tab in the row at the top. The picture of the relevant portion of the page you get after your login (to GoDaddy) is given below (in which I have marked where you have to click):

(2) You will get the page (showing the list of domains you own) as shown below. Click Domain Manager link in the left sidebar.

[In the figure shown I have masked the domain names other than ideasgold.com so as to minimize distraction]

(3) The page that opens up contains the new DNS Manager link as shown below. Click DNS Manager.

(4) When you click DNS Manager the Standard DNS Dashboard opens up as shown in the figure below. Now click the Edit Zone tab just below the domain you want to use as your custom domain for your blog.

(5) When you click the Edit Zone tab the Zone File Editor opens up (see the picture below) showing a table containing various records such as A (Host), CNAME (Alias), MX (Mail Exchanger) etc., as shown in the picture below. The A (Host) record is at the top and it contains just one entry (which you will change later). The CNAME (Alias) record is just below the A (Host) record and it contains many entries.

Now, you scroll down (through the CNAME records) and find out the entry, www (in the first column, under ‘Host’). The entry www will most probably be the last one in the CNAME record. You might have already found that when you bring your mouse pointer on any record, pencil icons appear in the row, one against each entry as shown in the following figure:

(6) The www entry is in the first column. You need not do any thing with that. In the same row you will find the entry @ in the second column (under ‘Points to’). Click the pencil icon against @ and type in ghs.google.com to replace @. Ensure that @ is deleted and ghs.google.com alone is the entry in its place.

[It will be a good idea to copy and paste ghs.google.com from here so that you do not commit any mistake].

Save the change by clicking the ‘Save Zone File’ tab above the table. You need not do anything with the entry ‘1 Hour’ in the 3^rd column under TTL (Time To Live).

[All DNS records have a TTL property which refers to the amount of time other DNS servers and applications are allowed to cache the record].

The picture of the relevant portion of the page after saving the change is shown below:

(7) Now you have to scroll to the top of the table of records and change the default A Name record.

Click the pencil icon against the default entry in the first column and type in your domain name without www to replace the default entry there. This is called naked domain and in my case it is ideasgold.com (and not www.ideasgold.com); but you have to enter yours.

Next click the pencil icon against the default entry (IP address numbers) in the second column under ‘Points to’ and enter 216.239.32.21 in place of the default entry there.

[It will be a good idea to copy and paste 216.239.32.21 from here so that you do not commit any mistake].

Leave the entry ‘1 Hour’ in the 3^rd column under TTL as it is. Save the changes by clicking the ‘Save Zone File’ tab above the table. The picture given below will be useful to you in making the above entries.

[You will see that the entry in the first column changes to @ when you save the zone file. Don’t worry, that’s normal].

You need to make 3 more A name entries. For this you need to click the ‘Quick Add’ button below the A name entry you already made. You will find a new row opened up with vacant spaces to accept entries in the first and second columns. Type in your domain name without www in the first column. In my case it is ideasgold.com (and not www.ideasgold.com); but you have to enter yours. Next enter 216.239.34.21 in the vacant space (under Points to) in the second column.

[It will be a good idea to copy and paste 216.239.34.21 from here so that you do not commit any mistake].

Keep the default entry ‘1 Hour’ (under TTL) in the 3^rd column unchanged. Save the zone file.

Making use of the Quick Add tab, repeat the above process to enter the remaining two more A names to point to IP addresses 216.239.36.21 and 216.239.38.21 respectively so that you get a total of four A name entries as shown in the following picture. Do not forget to save the zone file.

[In the picture I have shown how a new row is opened up on clicking the ‘Quick Add’ button. But there is no need in clicking the ‘Quick Add’ button after completing the four A name entries].

(8) Now, you have to update your blogger settings. For this login to to your Blogger account.

In the Blogger dashboard click ‘settings’. The familiar window that opens up is shown in the figure below. You can see “Switch to: Custom Domain”. Click ‘Custom Domain’.

(9) The window that opens up on clicking ‘custom domain’ is shown below. Since you have already purchased a domain from GoDaddy, you have to click ‘Switch to advanced settings’

(10) The window that opens up on clicking ‘Switch to advanced settings’ is shown below. Now type in the name of your domain with www. in the space shown. In my case it is www.ideasgold.com (and not the naked domain ideasgold.com); but you have to enter yours. Complete the word verification and click ‘SAVE SETTINGS’.

(11) In the window that opens up (shown below), you will see the announcement that you are publishing on a custom domain. Select the option for redirecting yourdomain.com to www.yourdomain.com (in my case ideasgold.com to www.ideasgold.com), by clicking the small box indicated in the following picture. Complete the word verification and click ‘SAVE SETTINGS’.

Your work is over!

View your blog and satisfy yourself that the address bar shows your custom domain. (In the case of this blog the URL has changed from http://ideagold.blogspot.com to http://www.ideasgold.com)

Please note that in some cases the switch over to your custom domain may take time, usually not more than 24 hours. So don’t panic if you experience any delay. In the case of this site no such delay was experienced.

Publishing on Custom Domain

2011-06-27T22:00:00.004+05:30

“If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.”

– Bertrand Russell

I have been thinking of publishing this blog using my own domain. In fact I have been nurturing this idea for the past six months or so but even the posting has been very irregular due to various reasons. Yesterday I switched over to my own custom domain. So the URL of this blog has been changed from http://ideagold.blogspot.com to http://www.ideasgold.com. I couldn’t get the desired domain ideagold.com but this is alright for me! Searches for this blog using the earlier URL will be redirected to the new URL. So you won’t have any problems in accessing the posts on this blog. Even if you type the URL as http://ideasgold.com (without the www), you will be directed to this blog.

But remember the domain is ideasgold.com and not ideagold.com

I still love to use the convenient blogger platform and the free hosting facilities offered by Blogger. The use of the custom domain www.ideasgold.com may hopefully prompt me to be more regular in updating this blog. After purchasing the domain from godaddy.com, the switching to the custom domain was a very easy process, taking less than 20 minutes. I’ll write a post on this shortly.

To Remove (Disable) Navbar (Navigation Bar) from a Blogger Blog

2011-06-24T17:52:00.009+05:30

Many bloggers using the Google Blogger platform prefer to hide the Blogger navbar (navigation bar) in their blogs. You can see the horizontal navbar at the top of your blog. It contains a search box in which you can type in words or phrases (and hit the enter key) to search for in your blog. This is definitely a useful feature. But you can provide a google search box anywhere in your blog when you opt for disabling the navbar. The more important feature of the navbar is a ‘Next Blog’ button which you can click and navigate to other blogs at random. Additionally the Blogger navbar contains a ‘Share’ button, a ‘Report Abuse’ button, a ‘Create Blog’ button and a ‘Sign in’ button as shown in the following figure (which you may click to enlarge if required):

When you disable or hide the navbar, you will lose the features offered in the navbar. The main reason why many bloggers hide or disable or remove the navbar is that the blog will get a little more professional look. But if you are still using the blogspot domain for publishing your blog, there is not much to gain by way of the professional look. If you are publishing your blog using your own custom domain (such as yourblog.com instead of yourblog.blogspot.com), your blog may look more professional even if you make use of the free hosting provided by Blogger.

I have disabled the navbar in a couple of my blogs. But I can enable it at any time if I want the good features offered by the navbar. I give below the simple steps I used to hide the navbar. The method consists in pasting a short html code to hide the navbar. If you remove the pasted code the navbar will reappear. That’s all. Here are the steps:

Sign in to your Blogger account and get the ‘Dashboard’. Click on ‘Design’ button. After obtaining the Design (Layout) window, click on ‘Edit HTML’ button as shown in the following figure.

Before proceeding further, you may save a copy of the template after expanding the widget templates (as a precautionary measure).

Here is the html code you need to paste:

#navbar {height: 0px;

  visibility: hidden;

      display: none;}

Now, paste the above html code as indicated in the following two figures.

The place where you may paste the code is shown in the figure above.

The figure below shows the code pasted.

After pasting the code, click on ‘SAVE TEMPLATE’ button at the bottom. Once the changes are saved in this manner, view your blog. You will find that the navbar is hidden.

If you want to enable the navbar, simply remove the above code you added and save the changes. The navbar will reappear.

Iris Recognition Technology to Prevent Impersonation in Elections

2011-05-26T13:14:00.002+05:30

Even though all systems of government have merits and demerits, democracy is the most preferred system of modern world. The most important aspect of democracy is the provision of adult franchise which ensures that any citizen who has attained a predetermined age (18 years in India) can cast his vote in favour of a contesting candidate of his choice. The authorities responsible for conducting elections in a free and fair manner often find the problem of impersonation a very difficult one. In India, which is the world’s largest democracy, voter identity cards have been issued by the Election Commission to check the problem of bogus voters. By making the use of such identity cards mandatory in elections, the problem of impersonation has been reduced to a large extent. But the present system is not fool proof.

I’ll cite certain situations in which even the identity card is of no use in preventing impersonation. Suppose bogus voter A resembles genuine voter B. In this case A can use the identity card of B to cast the vote of B. Even if the bogus voter A does not resemble the genuine voter B, he can cast the vote of B if the polling agents in the polling station do not challenge the identity of A. This can happen either because of the carelessness on the part of the polling agent or because of the fear of the consequences, especially if the impersonation is resorted to for a party that has little regard for democratic values. The officials appointed by the election commission may not interfere in situations where no formal challenge is raised by a polling agent present in the polling station.

What I want to point out is the possibility and scope for impersonation even when the authorities responsible for the conduct of free and fair elections take great pains in doing their duty as per law to the best of their ability. It is here that technology helps them to prevent loop holes of the type I pointed out above. What I mean is the iris recognition technology to identify genuine voters and to prevent impersonation.

Iris is the circular coloured (usually brown or blue) membrane behind the cornea of the eye, with a central opening (pupil) to admit light. The iris carries an astonishing amount of information that distinguishes one iris from another. The iris patterns of the left eye and the right eye of the same individual are different. No two individuals (including identical twins) have the same iris pattern and this is why the iris pattern recognition technology is unique in personal identification. The iris remains stable through out an individual’s life time from an age of about one year.

Serious work in the field of iris recognition technology was started by the mid 1980s. Today it has become a fool proof technology which is far superior to finger print recognition technology. The iris recognition system stores a digital image of the iris in an encrypted form so that the pattern is immune to frauds. The image of the iris is obtained with an iris scanner which uses harmless infra red rays so that the subject does not feel any discomfort. When an identity check is required, a digital image of the iris of the subject is obtained using the eye scanner and the coded pattern is compared with the iris pattern stored in the data base. Currently there are many iris recognition systems in use in environments requiring identity verification such as ATMs and air ports.

I was prompted to write this post here when I came across the news that the New York based company Hoyos Group has unveiled the world’s first iris scanning device available on the mass market. Hoyos claims that it is the first company to fully develop iris recognition for consumer use. The size of the device is less than that of a business card and it is available in the form of a USB drive.

In India elections to the House of People (Lok Sabha), Legislative Assemblies (of the states) and numerous bodies at the Village, Block and District levels are conducted using electronic voting machines. Identity cards with photos are issued to voters to facilitate easy identification. The voter identity cards can be dispensed with if the iris pattern codes of the voters are stored in the electronic voting machine. The iris scanning device can be used at the polling station and the voting machine can be set to accept the vote only if the iris pattern of the voter matches with the pattern stored in the data base of the voting machine. The system can be programmed to accept just one vote from a voter. This procedure will save a lot of problems at the polling station and will contribute quite significantly towards the conduct of elections in a free and fair manner. I am sure this technology will have to be used in many situations sooner or later.

You can see another post related to elections here.

Amazing Effects of Cuddling

2010-08-29T17:02:00.004+05:30

I am prompted to upload this post (after a relatively long period of silence) on finding a report today in the leading Indian news paper, The New Indian Express. The report titled ‘Mum’s cuddle brings new-born to life’ describes how an Australian mother cuddled her premature baby back to life even though doctors had told her he was dead. The unfortunate mother had given birth to premature twins after just 27 weeks of pregnancy. Her baby girl survived; but the baby boy was declared dead by the medical staff who tried hard to save him. The mother then un-wrapped him from his blanket and held him on her chest in contact with her skin. After two hours he began showing signs of life. He started breathing regularly and opened his eyes. He is now a healthy five month baby, the report says.

It is a known fact that physical skin to skin contact has a profound effect on the individuals. Hugging increases the level of oxytocin (which is sometimes called the ‘cuddle hormone’) in the body and makes you feel good. This is because of the consequent decrease in the amount of cortisol, the hormone produced by the adrenal gland, which is directly related to the amount of stress. Increased oxytocin level in the body can reduce blood pressure as well as the risk of heart diseases and other stress related complications.

The reason behind the effects of cuddling (hugging) has been a topic of much debate and research in this area is still going on. The physics behind the transmission of energy during skin to skin contact needs to be studied to put the effect to significant use. The new report titled ‘Mum’s cuddle brings new-born to life’ should certainly attract the attention of researchers in this field. In addition to medicines and prayers cuddling also may find a significant role in treating patients.

Children – Our Hope for Peace and Prosperity

2010-06-05T11:07:00.002+05:30

He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.

– Albert Einstein

Peace and prosperity for the entire mankind is a noble idea and there are many organizations working towards this end. History teaches that there have been various issues making this idea practically difficult to get implemented. Religious and political differences, geographical barriers and nationalism are some of the factors contributing to the difficulty in attaining the goal of universal peace and prosperity. With the adult population already ‘contaminated’, I don’t find much to depend on them to attain the goal. But children can definitely provide a silver lining in the cloud.

Unfortunately, children are often caught young and brainwashed in accordance with the whims and fancies of adults who control politics, religion and nationalism. The danger posed to mankind by various terrorist outfits supported by political and the so called ‘religious’ groups can be wiped out only if children are saved from their grip. This is not an easy task. The United Nations (UN) should take the initiative in formulating a strategy for freeing the children below 15 years from the grip of ‘contaminated’ adults who live with ridiculous notions on religion and politics.

A child’s brain develops at the fastest rate during the first few years of its life, right from the time it is in the mother’s womb. The mother plays a profound role in the development of the child’s personality and this points to the importance of the health care (physical as well as mental) provided to the mother, along with the child.

How children are to be trained is to be decided by a committee formed by experts appointed by the UN and the member nations should strictly follow the recommendations of the committee. All true religions are for the benefit of humanity and therefore religious practices which are beneficial for the entire mankind may be encouraged. There is a baseless belief that the advances in science and technology have shifted modern man away from religion. As Einstein once remarked, scientists are truly religious because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe. So let us have an international body under the supervision of the UN to recommend a training programme for children so that in future we will have adults who will be true world citizens desirous and capable of working for the peace and prosperity of the entire mankind.

Exit Poll Result and Actual Result

2009-05-16T14:42:00.005+05:30

The results of the 2009 elections to the House of People in India, the world’s largest democracy has turned out to some extent to be in conformity with the exit poll predictions. The predictions could have been even more realistic if the number of electors considered for the exit poll were a little more significant compared to the total number of electors.

I wanted to project this fact to seriously consider the reduction of the cost of elections in countries like India where the savings in the cost could be utilized for developmental schemes. Exit polls clearly demonstrate how probability theory can be used in reducing the cost of elections as well as in simplifying the election process.

Details of this can be seen in the post dated 19^th January 2007: Role of Probability in Simplifying Elections

Here is another post that may be of interest to you: Iris Recognition Technology to Prevent Impersonation in Elections

To Speed up Your Broad Band Internet Connection including BSNL Dataone

2009-01-31T10:56:00.006+05:30

I have wasted a lot of time in trying to rectify the defects in my broad band connection, especially since my internet service provider supplies the connection through the telephone wires. On certain days it would appear that the connection is alright in the morning but after some time the tables would be turned! I would wonder whether the splitter or the router is creating the problem. The next moment I would wonder whether there is some thing wrong with my antivirus software. To make my suspicion stronger there was a ‘boot.com’ virus infection few days back, which I could repair without much delay.
Yesterday only I realized that it was the DNS server address which was the culprit. My network connection was configured (as is often the case) to obtain DNS server address automatically and the system was obtaining the DNS server address provided by the internet service provider. Unfortunately their DNS servers were often non-responsive and this was the real problem and not the telephone line or virus infection. Perhaps many of you might have experienced the same problem, without knowing what exactly the cause is.
It is here that the commendable service provided by openDNS comes to your help. You simply reconfigure your network connection to use the DNS server addresses provided by openDNS:
Preferred DNS server address: 208.67.222.222
Alternate DNS server address: 208.67.220.220
Before reconfiguring your network connection, keep a record of your earlier configuration (in case you want to revert back).
Configuring the network connection to incorporate the above openDND server addresses is quite simple:
(1) Click on ‘start’
(2) Click on ‘control panel’
(3) Double click on ‘network connections’
(4) Right click on ‘local area connection’
(5) Click on ‘properties’
(6) Select ‘internet protocol [TCP/IP]’
(7) Click on ‘properties’ button
(8) Click the radio button ‘Use the following DNS server addresses’
(9) Enter 208.67.222.222 as preferred DNS server
(10) Enter 208.67.220.220 as alternate DNS server
(11) Click OK
That’s all. If you were struggling with internet connection problems before the above configuration, you will definitely feel the improvement after incorporating the openDNS server addresses.

You may visit their site opendns.com for additional information including screen shots of configuring your local area connection. You will find the additional useful services offered by openDNS.

Garlic- The Invaluable Pearl

2008-10-20T17:52:00.008+05:30

My mother who left this world at the age of 88 about 5 years back was a very good cook. She had a special talent in preparing delicious dishes using the minimum possible ingredients in surprisingly limited time. In his famous book ‘Seven Summers’, the well known Indian writer, Mulk Raj Anand often makes references to the wonderful curries his mother used to prepare. Perhaps the dishes prepared by mothers might be the tastiest for their children! In the post world war scenario resources were very limited; but my mother used garlic in many of her ‘wonderful curries’. I believe that this single thing has contributed very much in boosting the health of the members of our ancestral family.

In ashtangahrudaya, the well known treatise on Ayurveda, garlic is described as amruth (elixir of life) on the earth. The health benefits and medicinal properties of garlic were known to the ancient Indian philosophers. Therefore it is an important ingredient in many ayurvedic preparations. Modern research has revealed that garlic has antibacterial, anti-fungal and antioxidant properties. It is found to be a natural blood thinner and has the ability to reduce blood pressure. It renders protection against cancer.

Make a google search on ‘garlic benefits’ and you will be surprised to find the volume of results you obtain.

Some of you may not like the smell of garlic. But once you realise its medicinal value you will love it. I have made it a habit to take two or three raw garlic flakes every day to get the beneficial effects of this wonder food stuff. It will be convenient to take it with your supper.

Voice Changer Software

2008-07-26T14:11:00.002+05:30

An idea which was in my mind from the time of development of modern signal processing methods was their use in voice changing. I thought of it not for the possibilities of its misuses, but for recreating the voice of favourite singers like Muhammed Rafi and Mukesh who are no more. There are good singers who are not blessed with good voice. For them good voice changing software will be of great benefit.

If a good singer with an unpleasant voice can sing in front of a microphone and the audience can hear the song reproduced by loud speakers to be in the voice of their favourite singer such as Muhammed Rafi or Mukesh, the system will be very useful.

If you search the web for voice changing software you will find many products. I don’t know whether there are products which will be suitable for the purpose I mentioned above.

What differentiates your voice from mine? Pitch (frequency) and loudness are two important characteristics of any sound, but the quality (timbre) which indicates the overtone content in the sound is much more important in making ones voice unique. If you have a voice changer software specifically developed to create your favourite singer’s voice, how nice it would be!

2007-12-24T21:46:00.002+05:30

Merry Christmas!

Microwaves, Lasers and Ultrasonics in Surgery

2007-08-04T15:13:00.002+05:30

I have often wondered that the progress in different branches of Medical Science has not been enough compared to that in physics, electronics, communications, computer science etc. Perhaps those working in the field of Medicine may have difference of opinion. I have a strong feeling that the technological progress has not been fully applied in the field of medicine. This may be due to the insufficiency of cooperation among technologists and physicians. Generally physicians are busy with their routine work and they do not get enough opportunities and time for interaction with scientists in other branches. In fact, the really talented physicians are overworked and are unable to look into even their own personal problems properly.

Surgery is the strength of Modern Medicine. Technological progress has been applied to improve surgical procedures, but I feel that the application has not been enough. From long time back itself I have nurtured an idea of using ferromagnetic particles to execute the dilation of constricted blood vessels by injecting a bunch of such particles into the blood stream, subjecting the bunch to an oscillating magnetic field (thereby dilating the blood vessel) and recovering the bunch at a suitable collection point. Medical professionals may think of the feasibility of this in collaboration with engineers and technologists.

The use of laser, microwave and ultra sound in the medical field, especially in surgery, has been steadily on the rise, but the momentum is not enough. International cooperation on a large scale by deploying experts in various fields is a very important need of the world today.

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched; they must be felt with the heart."

– Helen Keller

Atmospheric Noise Reduction in AM Radio Receivers

2007-04-22T20:02:00.002+05:30

Compared to FM radio receivers, amplitude modulation (AM) radio receivers are very much susceptible to atmospheric noise interference. This is because of the fact that atmospheric noise is amplitude modulated. Most of the man made electromagnetic interference also is amplitude modulated. The undesirable noise interference in AM radio receivers and the instability along with noise patterns in the picture on a TV receiver connected to an antenna during thunder storms is a common experience. Similar problems encountered because of nearby electrical switching circuits (as for example, automobile ignition systems) also are common.

Even though I have not done any research in this field, I think the modulation envelope of the amplitude modulated noise signal may be more or less the same over a wide range of frequencies. If that is the case, it will be possible to extract this noise signal and phase shift it through the required angle so that it has a phase shift of 180 degrees with the noise signal appearing along with the received useful signal. After amplifying this phase shifted noise signal to the required extent so as to have the same amplitude as that of the noise signal appearing along with the useful signal, they are to be superimposed so that the net noise signal is canceled. The separate noise signal may be received from the lower or upper end of the transmission band. For the medium wave band, the required noise signal can be extracted using a separate tuned circuit at a frequency around 500 kHz or 1600 kHz. The phase shifting and the controlled amplification of the separate noise signal are to be done after demodulation. The superimposition of the signals also is evidently to be done after demodulation.

With modern operational amplifiers the above tasks may be simple.

So, Attention Electronics Engineers!

Role of Probability in Simplifying Elections

2007-02-16T21:31:00.001+05:30

I have often wondered why even poor countries spend prohibitively large amount of money for conducting elections. India being the largest democracy in the world, the amount spent on elections is enormous. The election to the House of People (Lok Sabha) which is supposed to be conducted every five years incurs an expenditure of over ten thousand million rupees. In addition, there are the elections to the Legislative Assemblies (of the states) and numerous bodies at the Village, Block and District levels. Often, these democratic bodies do not live through the stipulated term (of five years in the case of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies) and mid term elections become necessary. You can very well imagine how prohibitive the cost of all these elections is.
Apart from the cost factor, how much time and energy is spent on these elections also is a matter of concern.
Probability plays a vital role in all phenomena in nature. Any Physics student knows that the electron in the hydrogen atom is normally found at a distance of almost 0.53×10^–10 metre from the nucleus. This is the most probable distance and not the exact distance. [In fact, according to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, nothing in nature can be measured with cent per cent accuracy and this uncertainty principle also plays a very important role in the very constitution of matter].
Since probability plays a crucial role in nature, it is logical to apply it in all situations, especially in cases where large numbers are involved. So why not use it in making the election process simple and economical?
Why should all electors vote in an election? If you take the case of a typical Lok Sabha (Parliament) constituency in India, with one million voters, hundred thousand or ten thousand voters picked out at random by a computer will be sufficient to determine the acceptable candidate. You can imagine the significant saving in the cost, time and energy.
If the majority of voters in a constituency support the candidate ‘A’, then the probability for the inclusion of voters supporting ‘A’ in the randomly picked voters’ group (who are thus qualified to vote) is definitely high, especially when the number involved is high. This is a basic principle in probability theory, as many of you might know.
I will call this system of election the reduced voter system. In this system of adult franchise, all those who have attained the stipulated age will be electors as usual, but only the reduced voters (randomly picked out by a computer) will be allowed to vote. There will be no restriction to anybody in the electoral roll in contesting the election as a candidate, but he will be allowed to vote only if he happens to be included among the reduced voters.
In the extreme case, when all voters are ‘equal’ (with nobody ‘more equal’), the system will become a no cost system when a computer picks out the members of parliament and the legislative assembly and may be even the President!

A Mashing Attachment to Mixer Grinder

2006-11-14T20:25:00.001+05:30

In cooking one often finds the need for garlic-ginger paste. Garlic and ginger have high medicinal value and the importance of garlic-ginger paste in cooking cannot be over emphasized. How do you prepare garlic-ginger paste? You cannot use a table top wet grinder since the quantity of the garlic-ginger paste required is usually small, except when you require it for a big feast for hundreds of guests. Usually the paste is prepared using a small ‘chutney’ attachment available with the mixer grinder. But you cannot get the thing mashed to the consistency you would like it to have. The good old grinding stone might have been in use right from the stone age, but it is used even today in many Kerala homes to prepare garlic-ginger paste and the like. Modern house wives will not touch the hand operated grinding stone and will prefer the chutney attachment with the mixer grinder, sacrificing the consistency of the paste to some extent.
An idea that came to my mind some time back on improving the mashing capability of the chutney attachment is here: Instead of using the stainless steel blade, why not use an eccentrically rotating sphere as the rotor? The stainless steel jar inside which the rotor rotates (and which holds the things to be mashed) should be corrugated inside (or made rough) so that when the sphere rotates eccentrically within the jar, the contents get mashed to your heart’s contentment! (The rotor also can be made with a rough surface if you want). Certain high vacuum pumps have eccentrically rotating rotors. Mixer grinder manufacturers may think of cheaper alternatives to be used in their new chutney attachment. So, Attention Mixer Grinder Manufacturers!

When the Mind is Clean

2006-10-30T12:05:00.001+05:30

The concept of mind has been a subject of a lot of debate. Feelings of love, hatred, anger, sympathy and so on come from the heart, we usually say. We don’t mean the physical heart (which is just a very efficient machine for pumping blood) but a different entity called the mind. Well, where is the mind? Scientists will point to the brain, which is equipped with the operating system and many complicated software along with the marvelous hardware elements that perform unimaginably sophisticated functions.
Memory locations are extremely vital in the operation of the brain, as in the case of a computer and it is here that we humans store data which we interpret as of probably three types: desirable, harmful and good for nothing. There may be difference of opinion about the third type. I am leaving it to your own interpretation!
I have heard that when one is in the death bed, the mind becomes clean. I think the random access memory (RAM) in the brain becomes devoid of the harmful software and data and the read only memory (ROM) continues its function to the extent possible. The man in the death bed therefore behaves like a child or, may be, like the foetus in the mother’s womb. The feeling of love and concern for others is a lasting trait and nature probably is very reluctant to obliterate it from the memory locations of the brain. Probably these are part of the ‘operating system’ itself.
If you compare your life span with the cosmic standard, you will realize where you stand. If you compare your size with the cosmic standard you will realize how insignificant you are. Such thoughts will help in deleting undesirable software and data from the memory locations in your brain. You will then love others and will be loved by others.

Zeeman Effect and Metallic reflection

2006-10-08T12:29:00.002+05:30

This post is aimed at Physicists interested in fundamental research.
Zeeman effect is the splitting of spectral lines when the source of spectrum (usually a discharge tube) is placed in a magnetic field. An idea that has been in my mind for some time is to check whether you can observe Zeeman effect if you place a mirror strip (instead of the light source) in a magnetic field and direct a beam of monochromatic light towards the mirror strip.
As usual, you will require the entire set up for Zeeman effect (electromagnet, high resolution instrument such as Fabri-Perot interferometer or Lummer-Gehrcke plate, Spectrometer etc.) but instead of the spectral source you will use a mirror strip or any polished metal surface and you will observe the light reflected from it. I have certain ideas about the experiment and its consequences, but I don’t want to distract you at the moment. I don’t know whether somebody has done this type of an experiment before. I think the result of this experiment, whether positive or negative, will have an influence on our explanation of metallic reflection. I thought of mercury green line for this experiment, but a suitable laser also can be considered. So, Attention Physicists!

Why not a Floor Paint?

2006-10-02T12:50:00.001+05:30

About two decades back, ‘loose marble chips’ (mosaic) floor was very popular in Kerala. Marble slabs and ceramic tiles were also used, but they were not very popular. Marble slabs were very costly then. The cost of marble slab has come down but people prefer tiles, especially vitrified tiles, because of the convenience and the saving in time. Loose marble chips floors are being dug out and tiles of choice are being laid by most house owners who can afford the cost. I too have an inclination towards the modern tiles and it is now only a question of time for effecting the change.

Meanwhile, I have been thinking of the feasibility of a suitable floor paint. Why should one waste so much time and money in replacing the loose marble chips floor with one of vitrified tiles? If you have a durable coating (on the existing floor) that will give the look and neatness of floor tiles, you can save quite a lot of labour and cost. A matty finish will be practicable and sufficient. Even if the coating can last for five years, the method will definitely prove convenient. Paints similar to those used in glass painting (with suitable modifications) can be considered I think. With modern manufacturing techniques, it will not be a big problem to make this idea practicable. So, attention paint manufacturers!

Vitamin C

2006-09-18T19:41:00.005+05:30

Ever since I came to know about the beneficial effects of vitamin C as advocated by Linus Pauling, I have tried to include this vitamin in my diet. Linus Pauling was a very rare scientist who won the prestigious Nobel Prize twice, the first one (in Chemistry in 1954) for his work on the nature of chemical bonds and the second one (for peace in 1962) for his efforts to stem nuclear weapons proliferation.
I believe that a scientist of his caliber should be correct. My trust in his findings had the additional support from ayurveda, the ancient system of medicine that has been popular in India from time immemorial. In ashtangahridaya, one of the authoritative books on ayurveda, there is a chapter on rasayanas (tonics) which discusses the preparation of chyavanaprasha (chyavanprash), the famous tonic that restored the health of Chyavana Maharshi. (This preparation is very popular in India even today. In fact, its popularity is so great that you can find many companies in India manufacturing and marketing this tonic on gigantic scale). A very significant ingredient in chyavanaprasha is gooseberry which is rich in vitamin C.
Ayurveda requires that one should consume a suitable rasayana for physical and mental health. Interestingly, the converse also is true according to ayurveda: A person who has good physical and mental health might be taking some suitable rasayana!
My personal experience is that a 500mg vitamin C tablet per day in the chewable form is good for preventing the common cold and such viral diseases when the likelihood of catching such diseases is suspected. When you consume such a tablet, you will be getting a total quantity of more than 500mg since your food items will contain additional quantity of vitamin C. Since vitamin C is ascorbic acid, I never take the tablet in an empty stomach and I consume a lot of water. You can get more interesting information on vitamin C here.

A Bed with Adjustable Width

2006-09-11T21:36:00.003+05:30

An idea which came to my mind long time back was about a bed of adjustable width. Perhaps many of you might have longed for such a bed at some point of time. To be frank, I thought of it when my first baby was born.
In Kerala couples usually allow their babies to sleep with them in the same bed up to the age of one year. There might be variations, but all couples here surely might have slept in the same bed with their baby in between them. The necessity of a broader bed then is relevant, especially on account of the tropical summer coupled with the frequent electric power failure in those days. (Occasional power failure is not uncommon in Kerala even today. I thought of uploading this post some three hours back, but there was no power supply then!).
When you want to adjust the width of a bed, the main problem is the adjustment of the width of the cot (the piece of wooden furniture used for arranging the bed on it). Double cots with width 4 feet and 5 feet are common here. Whatever the width, how to make the width of the cot adjustable? You can have a wooden (or plastic) plank hinged at the side of the cot. The plank could be fitted with legs of adjustable height. These legs should be easily removable and re-attachable so that the plank can be conveniently folded down whenever required, to restore the original width of the cot. You can make it foldable upwards also so that the plank will serve as a barrier for the safety of your baby. These things are quite simple to design, once you are up to make such an adjustable cot.
Once you make such a multipurpose cot of adjustable width, you can arrange your bed on it in accordance with your requirement.
I am just giving you the idea of the bed of adjustable width. You can make your own original design and market the product. If you want any more suggestions in this regard, please let me know through your comments.
One final point at the moment: You can think of a universal attachment that can be fixed to any cot.

Introductory Remarks

2006-09-09T11:40:00.003+05:30

This blog is meant for giving useful ideas to you . You may be a scientist, a teacher, a student, an administrator, a politician, an industrialist or an ordinary citizen. But all of you will definitely like to have useful ideas. As far as possible, new ideas will be posted here. Let me have your comments on them. And don’t hesitate to make critical comments.

Attention Toilet Soap Manufacturers!

The following idea has been in my mind for quite a long time. Manufacturers of toilet soaps may see whether this idea is of use to them.
One problem with the current method of packing toilet soaps is that by the time you use half of the soap, it loses a good share of its perfume and sometimes even its shape. Why not pack it as a two-in one soap? What I mean is this:
Instead of packing the soap as a single continuous homogeneous block, you make an inner block, cover it with thin polythene and then make an outer block, covering the inner one with the outer block. Finally the outer block carrying the polythene covered block of soap inside it, is to be packed as usual. This two-in-one soap can be made with the same perfume or, you may use two different perfumes for the inner and outer blocks.
The benefit of this type of packing is that once you finish off the outer soap block within a few days, you arrive at the inner block (inside polythene cover). On tearing off the polythene cover, you have a fresh piece at your disposal (with the same perfume or a different perfume if you want).
The soap will last longer, since the waste may be reduced. I don’t know whether this last point is agreeable from a business point of view!