In pursuit of freedom

I was watching a tv show called Chef's table. One of their episode was based on Chef Francis Mallmann. He in an wonderful story teller at least in the show. He was telling a story his childhood, the inspiration of his life and cooking. The story goes like: Francis met a guy in his childhood on the way back to home from school. He used to see the guy driving with a new lady everyday while Francis walk back. One day the guy asked Francis if he wants a ride to home. Francis somehow ended-up in that guy's house. There he found two young lady completely naked enjoying the sun by a pool. The young ladies saw Francis and asked leniently if he wants anything for drink? It was very unusual or uncommon scene for a kid like Francis. The whole thing stuck in his head and that guided him rest of his life.

What did Francis see? Francis didn't see the lavish life a guy neither the naked ladies. Francis saw freedom and spend his life in pursuit of that freedom. In Francis word he saw a world where people are free and free from everything. His search for that freedom brought us today's Francis Mallmann. Francis saw something, a school boy's dream scene, but he took an entirely different idea from there "the very concept of freedom." This is how diversity works, this is the beauty of diversity in ideas. This is how ideas propagate, evolve and make us little more mature every day. 

Dark Souls

There is real beauty in Dark Souls. It reveals that life is more suffering than pleasure, more failure than success, and that even the momentary relief of achievement is wiped away by new levels of difficulty. It is also a testament to our persistence in the face of that suffering, and it offers the comfort of a community of other players all stuck in the same hellish quagmire. Those are good qualities. That is art. And you can get all of that from the first five hours of Dark Souls. The remaining 90 or so offer nothing but an increasingly nonsensical variation on that experience. - Michael Thomsen

I was researching about the game Dark souls yesterday and found somebody shared the above quote about Dark Souls. Forget about game, I was moved the view itself. "life is more suffering than pleasure, more failure than success" - I guess it was always like that, I just didn't realize it entirely. Again "momentary relief of achievement is wiped away by new levels of difficulty" sure it is. Life is surely all about that. And then "It is also a testament to our persistence in the face of that suffering," - this was too much!

MSN Messenger is shutting down

The Verge: MSN Messenger is finally shutting down after 15 years.

There is nothing new in that news. But this morning I opened verge and saw the message. I was thinking man I am getting old. This is the beginning of the end of our era. I remember my internet life begin around the same time as MSN messenger. I had numerous moments with MSN messenger. I even have MSN address that I still use. Not many people use that msn.com address. I believe Microsoft started using hotmail.com around 2001 or something like that.

I remember it was annoying many ways but it was still one of the best out there. Chatting gonna be pretty much obsolete within few years. Mobile messaging gonna take the place. That's why we see piles of messaging applications out there. Life goes on in a circle.

My first pair of Sunglasses

I never used sunglasses in my life. For some sunglasses used to give me weird headache. So, I avoided them all along. If I ever really needed one, I used to go for a cheap one and sort of used them as a disposable item. I had been in Oklahoma where we had 90 straight days in a year with temperature over 100F and hot melting sun, I grew up in Dhaka where sun shines almost 300 days a year but I never felt the need of a pair of sunglasses. I didn't even feel the necessity of a pair of sunglasses in Florida where you hardly see anybody's eyes. Life had a bigger surprise for me, I moved to Seattle where the sun almost never shines and guess what? I start using sunglasses. This summer I had to buy a pair of sunglasses because I couldn't not stand the sunlight. What a irony! You are only scared of the things, you were deprived for.

I need sunlight not sunglasses.

R.I.P Robin Williams

I don't understand this world at all. Robin Williams had depression! A comedian! Mark (my colleague) was talking to me the other day about ancient philosophers. Somehow he came to this conclusion that the only profession that is comparable to ancient philosopher is modern day comedian. I guess he is right. I was reading somewhere before that ancient philosophers were depressed. They were depressed because they knew how little they knew about everything and that used to bother them. I guess life is eerie very eerie.

North Shore, Oahu

Majestic blue water, tropical weather and spectacular scenic! No wonder Hawaii is one of the top vacation place. I think Hawaii is not a place it is a experience. If it does not lure you to think about your life one more time, you are not living, especially North Shore. Something with this North Shore, that makes you feel festive at the same time extremely philosophical. No wonder everything is philosophical here. Every word is connected to the deeper soul.

I am sure the big waves are extremely philosophical as well when they are breaking into the hard rock of Oahu. You almost can hear them talking. The Hawaiian waves are nothing like I have ever seen, especially those are in North Shore, Oahu. They are almost alive. The fountain created by those waves are way more spectacular than any man made fountain including famous Bellagio fountain, Las Vegas. And the music! What can be more melodious than the song of the sea. Just sitting on the beach and listening to them can make one content. Playing with them is a whole different story.

North shore is little less developed compared to Waikiki or other beaches around. But if you sit there for a while you would know that that's the way it should. If it does not make you rethink about your life, I am sure nothing does. When I was in Sunset Beach, North Shore yesterday, I had that feeling that if I could be everything. If I were a surfer I could play with the big waves, if I were a singer I could sing with the sea. If I were a dancer I could dance with the waves. I wish I were many more things just to experience the sea. I have never felt the pain of not being any of those before in the same way I did yesterday.

I used to think I don't love sea, boy I have never seen a living sea before. This sea is so lively that you almost can talk to the waves. They know for sure what you are talking and you would know their roar as well. Life in North Shore is nothing like I could have ever imagined. North Shore is not a vacation destination, it should not be a vacation destination. It the culmination of a human philosophical inner soul where nature and soul crate resonance with each other.

ALOHA!

Real life

My next stop is Seattle, WA. I would be there for some time. This part of my life is often called real life. Like Fareed Zakaria, I also don't know why the other part is not real. The real life is not entirely new to me. I had a glimpse of it back in 06. I worked for KAZ Software Ltd for two years. I am not sure whether KAZ was like real world or not, I had enjoyed every moment of KAZ. I am still proud of KAZ. I met some brightest people there. I often think about KAZ, the more I think, the more I respect Wahid Aziz Chowdhury. I think he is the architect of such a great work place in Dhaka.

KAZ was not very famous when I started working for KAZ. I don't know whether KAZ is famous now or not. When I went to the interview I was not very sure about the company. Even when I joined KAZ, I didn't know much. I was kind of taking chance. But one thing I was sure about, I liked the people. I liked the people I met on my interview. So I was not too worried about the company. After all it is the people that make an organization.

I am going to join Amazon on May 27th. This part of my real life would be defined by Amazon. Amazon is a big name, apart from everything, I liked the people who interviewed me. I know that does not matter much for big companies like Amazon. But that matters for me. I believe I have to spent at least one third of my day with my colleagues. So, they need to be the way I want. Let's see what real life has for me.

Diversity!

This time I have witness the battle between between Android and iOS; I have heard a lot about the battle between Windows and Mac during 80's. I didn't even witness the reminiscence of the battle. My introduction to the computer was actually way after the battle, in fact way after the battle when all the mess were cleaned up. My first introduction to the computer was windows 3.1. After that when I first saw Windows 95, it was huge blow! Windows 95 was a super cool an super easy. I have grown up listening the story that the tiny piece of thing next my computer is actually invented by some other company and then Windows copied it. I don't know the truth, but I know for one thing for sure, if there was no windows, there would be no computer at my home and there would be no Chronicle of Mundane Life today.  

I don't know what Mac did at that time, but Windows did it so right that it reached every corner of this world. As I grew older I learned there is another kind of computer with linux, they are even cooler but they are hard to work with. They are for what call experts. I have played smart for quite some time in early days :P Then I learned there is another kind of computer even cooler and different from what I have seen so far. It was the revival of Mac. When I was first introduced to Mac, I was thinking it is quite similar to Linux. But they are not intended for so called experts! They are for regular people. I had the idea about how difficult it is to change the hardware in Linux system in early days. Wow! that problem does not exist for Mac at all! Superb! why because they don't support very many hardwares, they are designed for fixed set of things! Ooops! That's interesting! The whole idea of Mac is software can be hardware agnostic! Ouch! That's okay, there are still people in this world who believes Autocracy is the right government; we also see genetically coded animals roaming in this world.

But then in late 2000's the battle between smartphone OS had began. Well lot of people in early days predicted that it is gonna be another 80's war, and surely it is. But many people went far enough to declare the winner. Now in post Jobs era we see they were right, but this time it took less than five years. Interesting! I was thinking exactly what made Android so popular leaving iOS far behind? It is really hard to tell, then I was watching Malcolm Gladwell's TED lecture the other day and it struck into my head, may be there is no right thing for everyone. Why? that is big question; I guess partly because human brain develops beyond the womb and very little part of it actually comes with genetic coded! And that's why there is such a huge diversity among people in the same species. Other than human being two different samples of same species from two different parts of the world would almost behave same. But human is the only exception.

That makes me thinking if Apple makes product for anything else other than human they might actually see great success, because the design of the other animals follows the same philosophy as Apple does. They simply don't understand the beauty of diversity. I don't get it why? There is no wonder America is the greatest country in the world, it the most country in the world as. Every American brought a small piece of their own culture and ideas and together they are more robust than anything else. Diversity does not make something weak, it makes the thing robust. I feel pity when Apple claims something robust; I don't think they know what robust mean.

Tech news!

Last couple of days I have been following tech updates meticulously. I have not done that before but I am kind of amazed by learning how journalists write about technologies and tech companies. I think the entire journalism is based on hoax. People have been publishing rumors shamelessly. Insufficient research behind every article is almost impossible to miss. Many article shamelessly copies other article as well. I am not asking you to buy my words, just pick a tech word (let say "Kindle Fire") and google it. The first few search results are saying the same things and you can find the similarity in wordings as well. 

Now interestingly the things they are talking about are most likely rumor! Ooops! I don't understand how come a rumor become a news! Are we living in twenty first century? Finally, analysis! I have no idea what they were thinking when they were writing those articles. Well, no analysis is full proof but those analysis are far from perfect they are just garbage. Somehow they kind of habituated with the idea that it is okay to write hoax and garbage about technology. 

Back in 07 Google published an hoax about Toilet Internet Service Provider and one reputed Bangladeshi news paper published it in their technology column. Back then I was kind of amazed how come they published something without giving a second thought. I was thinking maybe, we are living in a developing country and where all latest technologies are not readily available; and so it is conceivable that they kind of believe whatever they heard. But when I found the same thing here in most advanced technologically developed county and I kind of get the idea that technology is beyond the reach of journalism. Please leave it alone. 

Parallelism

"These are astonishing similarities. And if we believe, as most modern students do, that the Indians' achievement was made independently, and their progress was not stimulated from overseas, then we reach a very significant conclusion. We can infer that human beings possess an innate urge to take certain definite steps toward what we called civilization. And that men also possess the innate ability, given proper environmental conditions, to put that urge into effect. In other words, we must consider that civilization is an inevitable response to laws governing the growth of culture and controlling the man-culture relationship." - Looking backward, Kidder.

Well, the idea is fascinating but equally disturbing.

Humayun Ahmed

I have been thinking about writing about Humayun Ahmed lately. Well another Humayun Ahmed post! I know the entire Bangladesh is in Humayun fever. But in my view this guy truly deserve some attention from many of us, well maybe from most of us. So I think adding one more buzz to the Humayun fever is well justified and not only that, if I don't do it, I am probably not giving enough respect where it is indeed due. Am I a Humayun Ahmed fan? Well fan is rather extreme word for me; technically I am not fan of anybody but I enjoyed reading some of his early novels.

When I heard that he passed away the first thing came into my mind is there will be no 'Himu.' There will be no 'Misir Ali' or 'Shuvro.' Really, that means when a writer leaves he basically leaves with all of his characters. So does it mean all of them also passed away? Well I don't know! Did he have intellectual right for those character? Is there any such thing? or Some other guy can start writing about Himu now? Anyway, until then all of them are gone.

In my view Humayun Ahmed's greatest creation is the juxtaposition of 'what we are' and 'what we want to be'. Bengali literature after Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was revolving around 'what we are.' Humayun Ahmed was the first man who introduced 'what we wanna be' inside too many 'what we are.' His characters were very strong. Back in 90s and 00s it is hard to find a young adult who does not have little bit of Himu, who does not dream being of Misir Ali, who does not long for the pristine mind of Shuvro. It does not matter we agree or not Humayun Ahmed has an strong impact on all of our life. I am not going to explain how these small things matters Neurologically (if you are interested find Sam Harris on free will), but they do matter and they do change the course of our life.

Let me wrap up the entire thing with a little story. The story goes back in 2004. I don't remember very well but one night I was bored at my dorm room and thinking of going out for fresh air. So I get out of my room and ambling around Dhaka University campus. And after some time I found myself walking unconsciously in the pedestrian path for quite some time. I was a bit surprised when I realized I was walking for some time and I reached Biman Bondor! Apparently the story has nothing to with Humayun Ahmed, really? I have been thinking of that day for quite some time. The only reasonable explanation that hit my mind is I was Himu for that night. I wanted to be Himu knowingly, unknowingly! How come I not write anything about Humayun Ahmed. He was the man of our time, it was impossible to ignore him. 

Image courtesy Radio Foorti. A collage from a picture of Faisal Masum.

Age of Information

If you don't buy my previous argument about age of information. Here is a new one. Leonard Susskind argues that information are indestructible. He calls it -1th law of physics. If something is indestructible, no wonder this is the age of that stuff; in fact all age are age of that stuff.  Leonard Susskind backed his idea with lot of other interesting ideas. I have yet to read his book "The Black Hole War."

Age of Information

I always wondered why this era is called 'the age of information.' Still I am looking for the answer but nothing convincing emerged. I went to wiki and it says all sorts of gibberish which does not make sense to me at all. This is age of information because computers are ubiquitous, information can be transferred freely so and so. I am sorry all these sound stupid to me. Then I stumbled upon the idea this morning (partially coined by zafar). Human being has trouble living without worshiping anything and in this era guess what we worship :)

Atheist view

Sometimes atheist posses similar view as organized religions. Atheists never try to understand religions rather they somehow share similar idea as theists. The theist idea about religion is everything, every bit of it is from God and therefore is correct. So whenever theists argue with atheists they point out the scientific flaws. They imagine science in similar way. The idea is fundamentally wrong, because science does not work that way. Surprisingly atheists often take the similar narrow approach to fight against theists. If such and such of your God is not correct or something written in your holy book is not correct therefore God does not exists! Well this may work well for the sake argument but scientifically this does not prove anything, yet they claim God does not exists! funny! More importantly they never look those books as book rather they look at it the same way theists do.

End of the day those are some books and like all other books and theories they have merits and demerits. Why don't atheists see those books that way? They think they refute one verse of it and therefore they have the right to throw away the entire book. Well, that's not scientific that's religious. If that's what they wanna do, they should not bring science in their argument, they should say they just believe in no God.

The Theory of Evolution

Do I believe in evolution? It doesn't matter whether I believe in evolution or not, what matters is: it is a scientific theory. That means it passed some testify able experiments (!). Well there exists much controversy about the experiments and I am not certainly in a position to justify whether those experiments truly validate the theory or not. In a general sense I have the same faith on theory of evolution as I have for other scientific theories. Anyway, I popped up this topic not because I want to glorify it or vilify it; rather I want to introduce my observation. Although my observation is not directly connected to theory of evolution it is somehow revolving around it.

I am amazed to learn that there is no contestant theory of the theory of evolution. There exists a scientific theory unrivaled by nothing! Ooops! Something is wrong! Either nobody finds this area interesting or those who work in this area are very much consumed by the theory of evolution. If that’s not convincing enough then here is the next: the only rival idea (I don't know any right word for it, it is not even an idea) is Intelligent Design (!) which is not even science. So basically evolution is fighting against churches! Really! Seriously! I thought we are in twenty first century and still a scientific theory has to fight against churches! Wow! Something seriously went wrong! Scientific community need to have serious attention in this area. Well, I have an observation:

We are living in the age of atheism. Atheism was never been so popular before. The references of religions are almost as old as the references of human (in its current form). So the idea of religion is approximately 300K+ years old and now all of sudden modern human being is trying to throw it away! This is crazy. 300K+ years are even good enough for evolution to create human from its ancestors! Technically modern human being has evolved along with religion. If so it is not hard to imagine we are already equipped to survive in the world of religion. Now if we throw it away, we human being don't know how we gonna survive! It is our part as we are part of it. Wait-a-bit, what atheism has anything to do with the theory of relativity?

Atheists reject the existence of God and fill the void with theory of evolution. Well! that's why the theory of evolution has to fight against religion not other scientific theories. Some people even use evolution to explain everything (The fabric of reality – David Deutsch). Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins seems declared war against religion. He called religions ‘enemies of reason’. The way he attacks religion remind me the sixteen century churches. I can imagine sixteen century churches surely attacked science in similar way. When did science become so hostile?

Evolution is a scientific theory like other countless scientific theories the only specialty is, it explains the creation. I am sure numerous theories would be published in future regarding the creation and some of them would even explain the creation better than evolution. Wouldn't they laugh at those who put so much emphasis on evolution? There are only two possibilities: (1) other theories exist. In that case putting too much emphasis is just slowing down the progress. (2) They don’t exist. That idea is frightening.

There exists an even greater harm. Atheists sometimes use evolution is such a way that it sounds like a religion and that’s where it creates a hole in science that welcomes things like intelligent design. Maybe intelligent design failed to enter into science in its recent attempts, but someday someone will craft it so well that it would penetrate science. I don’t know what happen then but I don’t see any good. In my view the ubiquitous use of theory of evolution only slowing down science and bringing problems like intelligent design.

Hazelwood, MO

Seems like the entire city has been being made from the scratch. It's next to impossible to find any place to stay in Hazelwood. Construction workers are everywhere, they have taken every rooms in every hotel. I have no idea what they are building but it seems like the city is being made again. I did little research and read some reviews online and interestingly found this city is always like that. All hotels and suits are always inundated by construction workers, interesting, huh!

Summer interns may have trouble finding appropriate place to live. The extended stay hotels are not up to the mark and regular apartments do not rent for short period of time. They have something what they called extended stay hotels and I haven't seen so many extended stay hotel in one small city before and their working procedure is kind of weird. This morning I went to a front desk officer and ask for the rate and she said she doesn't know the rate and their corporate office knows the rate; I called corporate office and they said they don't know the rate, local hotel know the rate and they transferred me to the local office and we (me and front desk officer) talk to each other sitting next to each other and I got the rate (oops!).

It's an haphazard city and everything looks new in this city (No wonder, so many construction workers are here and after all they are building something); and every arrangement looks temporary. I wonder does anyone live here permanently!? This city smells like new. It has one central road (Lindbergh Boulevard) and every thing is right by the Lindbergh Boulevard. 

Since plenty of people live here on temporary basis, the hotel prices are kind of unpredictable. One has to shop around to find a plausible deal and the price varies within an hour; and most importantly one should not trust any hotel manager here. They are crazy and if you travel here for extended stay they got kind of confused what value you should be offered. Because one way they get the guarantee for a long time customer on the other way they loose short time big money rent. I would not be surprised if you get a price from hotel manager and get price and then you go back to your car, came back with your stuff and that price disappear. 

People seem busier than Norman and traffic is kind of interesting. They has a extra lane for u-turn! that's kind of new for me. I haven't explored the city yet and taken any pictures. Hopefully I'll have some time after today to explore it.  

Professional research ethics training

I am attending professional research ethics training this weekend. The training is okay, it kind of remind me the old days when I joined OU. I had to attend plenty of trainings at that time. I have not been attending any training for last three years or so. So it's kind of remind me my early days at OU. My personal feeling is good about the training.

Now what they discuss! Well they were kind of trying to discuss ethical decision making process in the research. The nature of the beast suggest that there is not single right or wrong answer of these questions. All answers are equally valid under different circumstances. So, the whole point is not implanting any right or wrong into the trainees but rather focus on the problems and discuss as many different circumstances as possible to answer the question. Under that perspective I think the training is pretty successful. 

Personally I don't believe anything called ethics but I do believe in social responsibilities. Probably social responsibility is the reason I am not going to street and doing whatever I feel like doing. I believe making a better society is part of my responsibilities: it is the same responsibility that make people take care of their children. Think of a situation where you take good care of your children but then at the end you send them to hell. 

So I think if you take good care of your kids, I think you should take good care of your society because society is the place where they are gonna be within couple of years.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is not in the initial product list of Google. I mean the Google bar that hosts a list of google products. I don't know about other people I used to used it a lot and now they remove it from the list. is this a flop product? I kind of like it. I used to use it every day. I wish they would not dis-continue google scholar anytime soon. Now-a-days the way they started dis-continuing their products, I would not be surprised if they discontinue all of their products except google+. Users already did the job for Google in case of google+ :)

গাছগুলো!

আচ্ছা! গাছগুলো ঠায় দাড়িয়ে আছে এই তুষার ঝড়ে! ওদের কি কষ্ট হয় না? হয় হয়ত! আচ্ছা আমি যদি গাছ হতাম, মজাই হইত, ঠায় দাড়িয়ে থাকতাম! আমার হয়ত সবই থাকত, আবার কিছুই না। গাছগুলোর দিকে তাকালে হিংসা হয়, কোন বিকার নাই। আচ্ছা, চাইলে কি আমি বিকার বিহীন একজন মানুষ হতে পারব? মনে হয় না, আমার অনেক চাওয়া, আমি অনেক লোভী একটা মানুষ, আমি কোনদিনও গাছ হতে পারব না। আমি কোনদিনও ভাল মানুষ হতে পারলাম না।

আচ্ছা, গাছগুলো কি মানুষ হতে চায় কখনও? মনে হয় না, ওদের তো লোভ নাই, ওরা কেন ওন্যের মত হতে চাইবে, ওরাতো সব চাওয়া কে জয় করতে শিখে গেছে। আচ্ছা ওরা কি আমার দিকে তাকাই হাসে? কি জানি হাসে হয়ত, আমার মত ছোটলোক দেখলে নিশ্চই ওরা খুব মজা পায়। কিংবা কে জানে, ওদের হয়ত কোন কিছুতেই বিকার নাই।

আচ্ছা গাছগুলো কি নিঃসঙ্গ? ওরাতো কখনও কথা বলে না, ওদের মন খারাপ হয় না, মন খারাপ হলে কি করে ওরা? ওদের নিশ্চই মন ভাল হয়, সে কি রং তাদের হেমন্তে, এত রং যে কই পায়! আমার কেবলই হিংসা হয়। আচ্ছা আমি মানুষ না হয়ে গাছ হলে কি এমন ক্ষতি হত এই মানব সভ্যতার? একটা ছোটলোকই তো ভীড়ে যেত গাছেদের দলে, গাছেরা নিশ্চই বিরাট বিপদে পড়ে যেত। কিছুই হওয়া হল না, একটা অস্তিত্বহীন মানুষ হয়ে জীবন পার করে দিচ্ছি। মাঝে মাঝে ভাবতে ভালই লাগে, আমার মত মানুষদের হারাতে হয় না, এরা সব সময়ই হারিয়েই থাকে।

OUCS

OUCS has moved to their new Building, they called it Devon Energy Hall. So I got a new office space in the new building. The structure is kind of weird; instead of having couple of small labs now they have a big lab and all the GAs are now going to sit there. It's kind of interesting. It more look like a corporate office than lab. The reason they put it this way: they say it will increase the interaction between the students. I think they are probably right, I have met lot of students in last two days those I have never seen before. But what I like most is its window! We did not have any window in our previous office space now the road side wall is made of glass in lieu of opaque materials. So we all have a wonderful view! Cool!

The most interesting thing I have learned in last two days is politics! Something remains same no matter where you go. It's not comfortable to see the people you respect are fight for silly things. Is little bit of extra space so important! It is really hard to tell. People are killing each other for the space; compare to that, this politics is nothing. But still it hurts. I just realized how far people can go for so silly reasons. Probably, this is why God created human being on earth so that he can enjoy these silly things. I guess these are the times when God grins! This world is really not enough to satisfy the greed of a single human being!